System Programmer Chapter 29: Filth

Catherine suddenly felt the body she was embracing disappear. Joshua had vanished from sight and most likely returned to his soul world. Up until a few seconds ago, he had been profoundly apologizing to her while crying, although she wasn't sure why.

"Catherine, leave me alone for a moment, please," he told her mentally.

"Fine, just tell me if you need anything," she answered.

"OK..."

"Also, don't worry. I won't mention what happened to the rest."

"...Thank you."

Luna's record allowed him to remember what had happened, however, that didn't make him feel any better. There was one word to describe how he felt right now: 'filthy'. As soon as he entered his world, he created a bathroom. He entered it and locked the door, he didn't want Catherine to see him like this. There was a big bathtub inside the place. The bath was full but the drain wasn't plugged, instead, there were a few faucets constantly adding new water to it. He made his clothes vanish and jumped in the water. After a few seconds, the water started to darken.

"I'm so d.a.m.n filthy..." he thought.

The dirty water was constantly replaced by clean one but that didn't seem to matter, the water inside the tub looked disgusting. Unsurprisingly, Joshua made some soap appear and started to rub his whole body with it. No matter how much he scrubbed, dark liquid kept filling the place. He scratched his skin so hard he was starting to bleed in a few places and the same dark liquid came out instead of blood. Feeling he wasn't making any progress, he made a bottle of liquid soap appear and drank it all in one go. That still wasn't enough, so he drank one bottle after the other. And yet after all this, he still felt disgusted with himself. He made a scalpel appear and cut open the area around his belly. Filthy black liquid poured out of the wound as Joshua tore his skin apart. He took the soap again and rubbed his insides with it. Still not satisfied, he repeated the process all over. After doing so for nearly half an hour, he finally calmed down.

Obviously, what just happened was just a mental image. If a living person tried to reproduce the scene of madness that had just occurred, they would most likely perish. Even for Joshua, it had hurt a lot, mainly because he so desired. When he finally came out of the bathroom, he looked normal. Well, let's say normal for Joshua. He was dressed in his usual scholar outfit and started to take a walk around his soul world, repeating the events in his head over and over.

What exactly caused Joshua to enter such a state? I'm sure every last one of you has at least once experienced what is usually referred to as 'dark thoughts'. Most of those are usually pa.s.sing, but some of them are thoughts you'd rather not have, however, you somehow can't get rid of them. Talking to someone may help in such cases although usually people dare not share those with others. There is one thing they do then, they bury those thoughts deep inside them, and hope they don't come out too often.

You may have noticed that when he slashed his so-called daughter, a similar dark liquid as the one he tried to wash off so desperately came out of her. Furthermore, Joshua tasted the liquid and wasn't surprised at all.

Now, please recall what Joshua thought of himself back on Earth. When he felt rejected by the world, he considered himself a piece of another machine than the necessary to function in society. He thought that he was 'defective by design'.

There is one other thing he thought, he believed it was a parent's duty to correctly educate their child to be able to function properly. In that regards, he always felt his parents had failed him. However, there was one conclusion to draw from all this: someone defective like him should never be allowed to have children.

There was only one thing about himself Joshua had faith in, it was his own intelligence. After much consideration, he had decided that it would be criminal for him to ever have a child. Willingly giving birth to someone he knew would be defective like him was an act of pure cruelty. That was also one of the main reasons he never looked for a partner. His task as a human was to use his intelligence to help humanity forward while never reproducing, that was clear as day. The whole concept probably sounds ludicrous to all of you, but Joshua believed it from the bottom of his heart. It had made him suffer in the past and that's why he had buried it very deep inside him.

Knowing this, you may start to understand how Joshua felt upon seeing that little girl run up to him and call him 'Daddy'. It instantly broke the illusion for him, since the concept of him ever having a child was utterly absurd. Upon seeing her, he tried to call Luna, but nothing happened. Of course, Delila wasn't aware of Luna's existence and hadn't incorporated it in the dream. This was all the proof Joshua needed, and he destroyed that thing in front of him without hesitation. The fact filth came out of it just reaffirmed his suspicions. A monstrosity like this couldn't be allowed to exist. Unknowingly, while Delila was trying to seduce him with a perfect world, she had probably shown him the cruelest vision in his entire existence.

Now regarding Delila, he had completely lost it. Luckily, this never happened back on Earth or he would most likely have ended up in jail. He thought about the phrases he told her.

"How dare you do this to me?"

"How dare you suggest I could ever have a child?"

"How dare you defile Catherine like this?"

"How dare you…"

"How dare you…"

"How dare you…"

All of those sounded high and mighty in retrospect, he had really blurted nonsense at her. Luckily, Catherine hadn't heard those.

After walking for a while, Joshua had calmed down a bit. He started to focus on the positive things. The source of their recent trouble had been eliminated. He had to sc.r.a.p his plan to interrogate her, but they could now inspect the whole facility freely. Surely, they would learn something new! He took a deep breath and appeared outside, next to Catherine.

The rest of the party had arrived in the meantime. Eric and Cynthia were slightly bruised, Catherine was busy healing them.

"Is everyone all right? What happened to you people?"

"You were right about an alarm going off, we were attacked as soon as we pa.s.sed the front door," Catherine answered.

"Yeah, we got rid of the guards while Lady Catherine came to your rescue," Cynthia added.

"I see. What kind of guards were they?"

"Rune-powered constructs, a bit like your robots."

"Great, I need to take a look at them. Well, there is a lot to look at in here."

He saw that in the corner of the room Delila's corpse had been covered by a drape. Maybe she had runes inside her body. He had never done an autopsy before but there was a first to everything.

He was about to leave when Catherine talked to him mentally.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"...I'd rather not."

"She was the one messing with your mind right?"

"Indeed, with her gone, we don't have to worry about it anymore."

"...I'll let you off the hook for now, but if you ever feel like talking, my door is open."

"Thanks, sweetheart!" he answered.

Joshua apologized to her silently. He wished he could share it all with Catherine but… he had worked hard to build a relation of trust with her. If he told her all what he had felt and why he had gotten so angry… she would think badly of him, and that's something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

He could never thank Catherine enough to have given him the opportunity to boost his knowledge. Seeing this whole lab open to him, he felt joy for the first time in a while. They would probably stay here for some time so since Luna couldn't scan the whole area at once, he examined each room individually.

Luckily, humans aren't only filled with dark thoughts. They may also bury more hopeful ones inside of them. Take Joshua, for example, he has claimed several times now his goal was to see mankind evolve. That's indeed the case and is an interesting goal in itself, but buried deep inside him lies the origin of that goal, something he has probably forgotten himself. Joshua was a man of science, he believed that every problem had an answer. If an issue cannot be solved currently, research must be performed to find a solution. Now, Joshua had unconsciously linked that thought to his own situation.

"If mankind keeps progressing, maybe someday I'll discover a way to fix myself."

This is, of course, a naive thought, but as he saw room after room in the laboratory, his heart was slowly filling itself with hope.