Space Odyssey: Spectre

Chapter 96 - 96: What's in a name?

"What do you think about Aria?" Jace asked as he spun in a circle. He was still in the torture simulations. They were about halfway through their twenty hour long joint session. After the first ten days inside of the simulation, while only ten hours passed outside of the simulation, he had run out of things to teach Nina. At this point he had talked about all of his experiences as a torturer, the tactics police interrogators used back in his home world. Even everything he had found while re

The man roughly struggled to pull open Jace's jaw. Jace had to hold back from laughing as this commercial struggle to even open Jace's mouth commenced.

[Hey Jace, I am bored. What are you up to?] Jace flinched in surprise when he heard Salem's voice in his mind. Interrupting his chain of thought, giving the hooded man a chance to wrestle open Jace's mouth.

{Shit.} He cursed immediately as the hooded man went to pull out one of his teeth with the pliers. {Sorry, I am currently having a few teeth extracted forcefully.} Jace instantly responded, when he could feel the worry because of his response. {Actually do you remember Nina Diaz?}

[That is the S-Rank compatibility person that had her voice box removed right? If I recall her entire squad and most of the people on her ship were killed or captured. Is she having issues with this training session? Ow, there goes another nail.] Salem answered as her feelings of the pain were transmitted to him.

{Yes she is the one with trama regarding torture and capture. They matched me up with her to help her adjust and to slow me down for a bit. I think they are also actively modifying the simulations. Specifically to prevent me from breaking them.} Jace told her as the hooded man went to remove another of his teeth. It was less the pain of having his teeth removed that was bothering him and more of the taste of the man's hand. An unfortunate side effect of having the man shove his hands into Jace's mouth was having them rub on his hand against his tongue. {This is disgusting, what simulation are you on?}

[I am in the jungle simulation where the barbarian humans are torturing you. I think I liked the underwater bunker simulation the best. It was a great view while we were being interrogated.]

{Which one? There are two. The ones with the views of sharks or the views of coral?} Jace asked as another of his teeth were pulled out. Now that his mouth was filling with blood the lingering taste of the hooded man's hand was disappearing.

[There is one with coral? Cool! I thought there were going to be seven simulations but it seems like they might really have a bunch of them.] Salem pointed out in surprise.

{Actually a lot of them are just being recycled with the settings and characters being changed. You can notice the disruptions in the edges of our vision if you look for them.} Jace explained then thought of something. {Hey, maybe you can help me come up with a name for the tiger. Any ideas?}

[You mean that fluffy white tiger with green stripes? Well tell me a bit about it. Does the tiger behave a certain way? Does she fight a lot or like doing something a lot?] Salem was all in on this new distraction. As long as she did not focus on the fact that her fingernails were being yanked out of her hands.

{Umm… She is a curious creature. She is constantly moving around to investigate new things as she follows me around. But her species can also evolve and will change over time from what Solisa tells me.} Jace explained absentmindedly shrugging in the simulation.

[Curiosity and evolution. Hmm… I suppose Cho could work. It would describe her perfectly.] There were a few minutes of silence between their thoughts while Jace pushed forward his own curiosity while Salem was lost in her own sea of thoughts. [It is a name in the language they use in the Oda Empire. If I recall it was originally called Japanese which was where most of the Oda culture originated from.]

{So what does Cho mean in this language?} He was not that familiar with the Oda Empire or its culture. It was never really a focus or came up during any of the time he was doing research on the various subjects he was interested in.

[Cho means butterfly. Butterflies are constantly flitting around looking at everything. They are also evolutionary creatures that go from a caterpillar to a cocoon then from a cocoon to a beautiful butterfly.] Salem explained catching the amusement from Jace's mind. [What's so funny?]

Jace thought of the image of him wrapped up in chains and hanging from the ceiling. {I am in a cocoon of my own at the moment. So I just thought it was amusing. I will try the name with the tiger the next time I am out of the simulation.}

[Sounds good tell me how it goes. I think they are about to give an opening to escape. Bye!] Salem's presence in his mind dispersed as she became focused on the reality around her.

Jace similarly came back to his own reality to see the noble frowning at him, "What the hell are you smiling about?" The noble asked.

Jace smiled at him before suddenly swinging forward and headbutting the noble in the face. There was a loud crack as the noble's head snapped back before he fell onto the ground in a heap.