hotmtlnovel Chapter 66: The Ghost
Chapter 66: The Ghost
chapter 66: the ghost
while waiting for the confessions to end, sun jack took a moment to examine the murals on the church walls. then, he spotted someone familiar—the baby father had rescued from the graffiti gang.
the child wobbled out from a distant corner, flailing its mechanical limbs. just as sun jack moved to help after it fell, a figure dressed as a nun picked the child up. when the nun turned, sun jack was startled—it was a robot nun.
the steel-bodied nun held the child, whose arms and legs were prosthetics, and walked past a mural depicting the madonna nursing a child in a gothic cathedral. sun jack, intrigued, followed them. behind the church was an orphanage where about a dozen robotic nuns were caring for children of various ages.
from their sluggish movements and repurposed appearances, sun jack deduced these nuns were reconfigured from discarded sexbots. their ai wasn’t advanced, but they were enough to barely keep the orphanage running.
“father’s really trying his best,” sun jack muttered, taking in the scene.
“jack! look! the bald one’s out,” tapai suddenly exclaimed. sun jack turned to see king kong sneaking out of the confessional. instead of leaving, king kong approached a dusty electronic terminal in the corner.
he clasped his hands together in prayer, chanting, “amitabha.” the screen displayed: payment of 5@ received. 50 redemption coupons purchased successfully.
then, a golden halo appeared above king kong’s virtual image, along with two pairs of angelic wings. as celestial music played, the angelic king kong floated upward on the screen. finally, a thumb emerged from the top of the screen with a “good job!” caption.
sun jack, ready to confront king kong, froze mid-step, too baffled to continue. instead, he redirected his focus toward father, letting the matter slide.
“father, did you find anything? has someone been digging into my information?” he asked urgently.
“take this and plug it into your system. it will prevent tracking or eavesdropping. what i’m about to say would be a disaster if bcpd intercepted it.” father handed him a chip.
sun jack inserted the chip into his external system port. almost immediately, error messages and glitch static filled his interface. if he hadn’t trusted father, he might have thought his system had been infected with a virus.
“are you putting on a show?” tapai asked, raising an eyebrow.
flustered, sun jack sat back down, his face flushed. “what is this thing? some kind of prank link?” he muttered, glaring at the floating digital ghost.
if father hadn’t given him the lead, he would’ve dismissed it as a sick joke. something felt off, so he reopened the link—but the scene remained unchanged.
“what’s going on?” frustrated, sun jack addressed the ghost directly, “hello? can you hear me?”
the ghost floated silently in midair, unresponsive, like a static image.
“what are you seeing? send me the link. i’ll check,” tapai offered. sun jack forwarded it. a few moments later, tapai exclaimed, “what the f***!” and leapt from his subway seat.
“sun jack, you son of a—!”
“what is it? what happened?” a bewildered aa asked.
instead of replying, tapai forwarded the link to aa. seconds later, her piercing scream echoed through the subway car. the other passengers recoiled, giving the trio a wide berth as they exchanged incredulous looks.
“you jerk!” aa yelled, punching tapai in embarrassment, though she hurt her own hand more than him.
“blame your boss! he sent it to me first,” tapai retorted.
“enough playing around. help me figure this out,” sun jack interrupted. “father said this link would lead to a memory expert who can—”
before he could finish, he noticed something strange. the ghost’s lifeless eyes were now locked on him. this wasn’t just a dynamic image—it was alive.