Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 59 - Flicker
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- Jun 16
- 5 min read
They were watching her.
Linuka Omga was certain. The endless monotony of the white plane showed no features, even after what must have been 8 or 10 spins of walking. Walking, non-stop, step after step, first varying her speed to prove to herself that she still controlled something, then turning into a listless shuffle, a rhythmic tap tap of her feet touching the floor, never hurting, never blistering, never tiring.
She had pulled her robe back down, suffering from the perfectly simulated friction of her leg’s skin against the heavy fabric of the ceremonial garb. To keep moving was paramount. Her avatar did not tire, but the simulated discomfort became overwhelming, maybe because it was the only input her consciousness received.
This and her thoughts. She had made peace with herself, quit beating herself up about how she had stumbled headfirst into this trap, considered stopping the endless march, lying down and finding out where her mind would take her. A great idea, if only she hadn’t lost multi-awareness—her primary sense—leaving her defenseless body behind, sitting in a lab chair.
Linuka forgot how long it took for a human to starve or to die from dehydration, but if her body had not been discovered in that hidden lab room by now…
Would her mind in here turn off if her body out there died? Or—if she went brain-dead in here, would her body stay comatose? Happy thoughts. Linuka had feared that if she stopped, curled up on that simulated floor and gave herself into pitiful pondering, she’d never get back up.
The activity provided minimal feedback; the floor under her feet, the scratchy fabric to complain about. She’d keep going.
Then the visions started.
Tiny flickers in the corner of her eye. She turned and stared. Nothing. No break from her toes to the virtual horizon, the destination of her doomed march. Continuous monotony, uninterrupted. Until she didn’t focus. Until she didn’t pay attention. She couldn’t even say what she saw. A shadow? A ripple?
Maybe the walking did move her—or the data that represented her—inside this memory space. Maybe she was approaching the logical edge of her containment, and the flickers showed the system was breaking down.
“System,” she said.
“Haven, version 4.”
Still there. Same basic routine, capable of only one voice output. The voice was the one other reliable environment sound Linuka could trigger besides stomping her feet.
On her journey, she had sometimes shouted out other phrases, sensible and stupid alike, but ‘system’ remained the golden word. Whenever her spirit sank, she vowed not to humor this inhuman setup anymore, only to cave in and beg to hear a response, a voice that was not her own.
There it is! She wasn’t hallucinating. The flicker was no longer in her periphery; it had been straight ahead. She pointed at it to show the system that she saw it. She saw it. She really did. She saw…
A line. Not straight, more like a smear. Yes, a dark smear, disrupting the impeccable whiteness for the shortest moment.
Linuka was no computer expert, but she had enough mind left to acknowledge that she probably couldn’t just walk out of this memory prison. There was no barrier to pierce to set her free.
This was not a glitch. They must have discovered her body. Of course, they did. They lured her into that deep vault, let her place her body onto that magiimuus chair. They knew she was coming; they knew when she pushed the button, sealed her fate. Maybe that archive woman was in on it, too, leading her down to where she needed to go. And she played along.
Stop! We’ve been over this, Linuka. It was stupid, yes, but we’ve got to focus on the now.
Right there! It moved. It went from left to right, fast, above ground, around her eye level. Oh, no. Around her eye level? Was this a glitch after all? Not one in the environment simulation, but her avatar?
Maybe they ripped her body out of the chair, and she was being paraded around the Great Chamber of the Assembly for all to see. This is what happens when you defy the Assembly. Don’t defy the Assembly, children. It’s not good for you.
They were watching her. That was it. They found the body, yes. But they didn’t want to harm it. They wanted to analyze it, study it, figure out what made Linuka Omga’s combination of Uurmi and nano replicons so powerful. It was the interplay of the expanded mind and the immortal body they were after. That Rige woman. She was spearheading this.
What would her Uurmi do? For the first time since her baby brain formed its first thought, the Uurmi was alone. Their relationship had been rough, with many ups and downs, but they had formed an inseparable entity for all of their mutual lives—a team. Now they were probably poking probes into it, the Assembly’s first chance to study a live Uurmi without a Traaz pulling their limbs from their bodies.
“System?”
Maybe the system tried to generate a console—but failed. Maybe this place was broken, not supposed to look so barren.
“Haven, version 4.”
Maybe it was.
Linuka stopped, almost fell, staggering to a halt after walking forever, the avatar simulation of her muscle memory still keen on making that next step.
It was an outline. It didn’t move anymore. The outline was not as dark as the flickers, much lower in contrast compared to the white plane. As translucent and ghostly as the outline might have been, the shape it surrounded was familiar. A human. There was someone here.
Someone else.
Linuka waved.
The outline raced to the right, dissipated, and vanished.
Don’t do this to me, you stupid system. Dangle someone in front of me and then blow them away in the non-existent wind of this non-existent place!
“Have you just been uploaded?”
A man. Young, but older than Linuka. Strong accent, neither from Omech Krreng nor Aloo Dash. Solid avatar. Another human being. Another someone.
“No.”
That was all you had after yearning for company for spins? Losing your mind from boredom? Maybe boredom was contagious.
“No,” Linuka tried again. “I’ve been here for several spins, 10 at most. I lost count.”
“Ah,” said the man, “makes sense.”
“Does it?” asked Linuka.
“Yes, you can’t have been here long.” He waved around. “Your environment has not been loaded yet.”
Linuka closed her eyes. There was more to this world. A simulation beyond the empty horizon. She almost thought, I knew it, but that was a lie. She had hoped for it.
“Your clock rate was fast,” said the man, “that’s why it must have felt like 10 spins. I assumed you had just arrived because I’ve never seen you.”
Cha Dzeeny had described the horrors of a few rotations feeling like orbits if the system’s clock rate was out of sync with the world outside.
“I’ve tried to talk to you, but I needed to adjust your clock rate first.”
He had watched her. He was the flicker, the ghost. All Linuka could do was check the system version, and this man could adjust the clock rate. Core system parameters.
He was a systems operator. He was one of them.
Copyright © 2026 Bert Oliver Boehmer. All rights reserved. No part of this serialized novel may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author. The creation of any derivative works (including translations, adaptations, or other transformations) is likewise prohibited without permission. The use of any portion of this material for training or developing artificial intelligence or other machine learning models is strictly forbidden.
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