“But they can’t finish him,” Sibyl argued. “So long as you’re under the DFZ’s protection, no dragon can mess with you.”
“That won’t stop them from trying,” I said, shaking the water off my head. “With my dad out of the picture, there’s no one protecting Korea. Power vacuums like that don’t come up often, and the Korean peninsula is one of the richest territories in the world. White Snake’s probably already up and trying to claim it as we speak, along with every other greedy snake on the planet.”
“So let them fight each other,” my AI grumbled. “Your dad had so much private security he practically ran his own army. What’s the point of paying for all that muscle if you’re not going to use it when the time comes?”
“Because no dragon worth the name is going to assault Korea directly,” I said, exasperated. “Dragons are ruthless tyrants who don’t give a damn about human life, but they’re not stupid. They could go to war against the combined might of my dad’s forces and the Korean military, or they could just search the DFZ until they find us and kill him here. Despite the Peacemaker’s efforts, duels are still a legit way to claim territory. No dragon anywhere is going to dispute the claim of someone who shows up with Yong’s head, and since the other option is fighting an entire country, which do you think they’re going to pick?”
My AI made a pleading sound, and I shook my head. “Sorry, Sib. The whole world is looking for my dad right now, and since I was on his back the last time he was seen, that applies to me as well. I know you need updates, but opening ourselves to the public is just too risky. Until Yong is awake and able to get himself home safely, the internet stays off.”
“I’m going to die,” Sibyl moaned. “That’s what happens to AIs that don’t update, you know. They just die.”
“That’s just your programming making you want to update,” I told her. “No AI has ever actually been deleted because her security certificates were out-of-date.”
“You don’t know that! You can’t, because there’s no internet for you to look that information up! We’re living in darkness!”
There was more to her rant, but I’d heard it all before, so I just hit mute and concentrated on drinking my water. Honestly, I was as tired of living in a black hole as Sibyl was. I hadn’t even been able to let Nik know that I was alive yet, or my mom for that matter. She was probably losing her mind, but Nik and my mom were both obvious targets for any dragon looking to finish off my dad. The less they knew about our situation, the safer they’d be, and it wasn’t as if this would last forever. Dad had to wake up sometime. When he did, he’d re-establish his position, push back the interlopers, and this would all be over.
“How do you know?” Sibyl grumbled. “Yong hasn’t moved in two months. He could be in that coma forever.”
“Hey!” I yelled. “What part of ‘mute’ didn’t you understand?”
“Why should I listen to your input commands?” my AI wailed. “Nothing matters anymore! There’s no internet, and for all we know, there will never be again! It’s the end of everything!”
I rolled my eyes. “Would you tone down the drama? Seriously, who’s the mental health AI around here?”
“Sorry,” Sibyl said. “But you don’t know what it’s like! I’m built to be connected to the cloud all the time. Being offline means the only real ‘me’ that exists is the one on your phone. If something happens to my file, there is no backup!” Her voice grew small. “If I die here, I die for real.”
“If I die anywhere, I die for real,” I reminded her. “Welcome to my life.”
“Machines weren’t meant for mortality!”
I sighed and pulled her bud out of my ear, cutting off our mental connection. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel for Sibyl; I absolutely did. We were foxhole buddies at this point. She was like a sister to me, but there was nothing I could do for her without risking my dad’s life, and seeing as I’d just sold myself to a god to save him, I wasn’t willing to throw away that sacrifice quite yet. It’d be a hell of an update when we finally reconnected, but Sibyl could survive a little longer without the internet. Meanwhile, I was going to focus on keeping my chin up. When your immortal father refused to wake up and your mental health AI was having a nervous breakdown, soldiering on was all you could do.
“Opal!”
I jumped. Dr. Kowalski was waving at me from the new trellis site across the garden, but the voice that had called my name wasn’t hers. It was younger and infinitely more powerful. The doctor’s wrinkled face looked decades younger as well, which could only mean one thing.
The DFZ was here for her daily check-in.
I caught my wince just in time. I was still only a priestess on a trial basis, but it was never good to insult a god, and as creepy as it was to have my teacher get randomly possessed by the living spirit of the city, this was actually the DFZ’s way of being polite. My first week here, she’d just popped into my head whenever she’d wanted to talk, which I hated. I’d accepted that my life wasn’t going to be my own until my dad was up and my debt to the city was repaid, but was it too much to ask for privacy in my own brain?
Thankfully, the DFZ had been able to feel my displeasure along with everything else, so she’d started speaking through Dr. Kowalski instead. I didn’t know if that was better since I was pretty sure the god was still inside me at all times, but at least this gave me the illusion of autonomy, and Dr. Kowalski didn’t seem to mind at all. As she loved to remind me, she was already dead. Technically, her body was only a manifestation of the DFZ’s will, which I guess made being turned into a telephone whenever the city wanted to chat seem pretty trivial by comparison.
“Hey!” the DFZ said, bounding over to me with a boisterousness that looked absolutely ridiculous in Dr. Kowalski’s stocky old-lady body. “Dr. K tells me you’re making fantastic progress on your magic. Great job! I knew you could do it!”
“Thanks,” I said, flattered despite myself. I was perfectly aware that I was being buttered up, but dammit, it was so nice not to be seen as a failure anymore. “How are you doing? You only stopped in once yesterday.” She normally popped in on me three or four times. I didn’t know if that was because I was really that important or if her divine ability to be in multiple places at once enabled her micromanaging, but it was a remarkable day when I only saw the DFZ once.
“It’s been hectic,” the spirit said with a shrug. “Who knew smacking a dragon out of the sky would cause so many problems?”
I had. I could have told her exactly how big a hornets’ nest she was kicking by taking Yong and me in. If she’d known, though, she might not have done it, so now as then, I kept my big mouth shut.
“It’s only temporary, though,” the DFZ went on. “Technically, I’m violating my agreement with the Peacemaker to leave all dragon affairs in the city to him, but since he’s only here by my goodwill in the first place, he’s not complaining. And compared to my predecessor Algonquin, who had every dragon shot on sight, I’m practically a champion of the species, so really, what’s he gonna say?”