Chapter 19 Part 3
Rei sat restively at her desk. When her interface alarmed her with a request, she felt very reluctant to open the location. It was with great hesitation that she finally did. Naturally, the request stipulated that the help needed was, of course, in the restricted section.
When Rei arrived at the restricted section, she didn't see anyone. The man who had asked her for information earlier was nowhere to be found, and it appeared that no guards were present. The entire place felt eerie. It was as though the knowledge present here was operating in some timeless void. Rei was just the latest guest. It wasn't long before almost magnetically she found herself in front of the copy of the book the letter had advised her to read. The Tao Te Ching.
The volume was slim. She could see that clearly even though it sat on the shelf. As she reached out and her fingertips grazed the cover, Rei quickly became aware of a rushing sound. The rushing resolved into a gallop, with individual feet moving and getting louder.
Rei felt her heart quicken in pace. Surely it couldn't be. Rei faced the direction she thought the noise was coming from. She nearly fainted when she felt hot breath on her neck. Part of her did not want to turn around to see what was behind her, but her feet seemed to be obeying some logic of their own. As she turned around, there before she was Cerberus sitting on his haunches, staring at her with his three sets of red eyes. He was probably no more than two or three arm's lengths away.
Rei's entire body froze. It should have been going into fight or flight, but instead, it was doing neither, or perhaps both at once which had the same effect. Cerberus finally broke the silence.
"So you are the mortal known as Rei. It is not immediately evident to me why Reipawn has placed so much trust in you, but I can at least say that you are worthy of the information you have here sought. In a way, I am disappointed by this, but then, Reipawn is not often wrong in his assessments," Cerberus snarled from head to head.
"W...W...what are you, exactly?" Rei finally found the courage to ask.
"What do I look like? Do you not have eyes that report to you what I am and feelings that correspond to what you see? What do they tell you I am?"
"You look like a horrible beast sent from the bowels of hell," replied Rei.
Cerberus began to laugh and howl all at once. "That is exactly what I am," he said as his laughter subsided.
"But aren't you just some computer program of the holonosphere? A chunk of code somewhere?"
"Aren't you just a chunk of genetic code, a physical puppet on a material plane somewhere?" retorted Cerberus.
"No," Rei finally answered. "Even if I were, it would do me no good to believe such a thing, because it would nullify the illusion that I have choices to make, and in the one instance that I am not simply a chunk of code, I have decisions to make, whereas, in the other scenario, I do not but believe I do. In the first instance, I have free will. In the second, I have the illusion thereof. In either case, I am tasked with deciding things and thinking I am in fact making decisions. Utility demands I make the conclusion that I do make decisions, regardless of whether or not they are real."
