Interview with Rome I - Part 16 of 17

As Steve Fisch and I get the scripts ready to sell Rome's Revolution as a streaming series, he asked me for a lot of background information that I did not have. So I took some time out to interview Rome and Rei. Rome was very talkative so I had to break up the interview into two parts. Rei was a bit more concise. So here is the first Rome interview, part 16 of 17.
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Perry: What was that like?
Rome: I was frightened out of my mind. Rei simply didn’t know enough to understand how terrible a position we were in. He sprinkled some of the weaponized VIRUS units on MASAL. MASAL had no idea what they were. Rei then proceeded to bait MASAL to give the VIRUS units time to do their work. But MASAL ran out of patience and decided to use me to kill Rei.
Perry: What? How?
Rome: As a connected Vuduri, our PPT transducers are integrated into every cell in our brain. Including the motor cortex. No one has ever exploited this before but MASAL was quite insane by this point and decided to amuse himself by seizing control of my body. He was far too powerful to resist. I literally had no control over my limbs. MASAL made me walk up to Rei and shoot him point blank with the plasma gun.
Perry: I’m confused. If you shot him point blank, how is it that he is still alive?
Rome: I couldn’t live with what he was making me do. I closed my eyes. MASAL didn’t stop me but he made me squeeze the trigger. The gun fired and when I opened my eyes again, Rei was gone. My heart was completely broken. I had just shot and killed the man I loved more than life itself.
Perry: But you didn’t.
Rome: No. My incredible MINIMCOM had retrieved him during that short interval using one of his whoosh-pop snap PPT tunnels. Rei was safe on the surface but I didn’t know that at the time.
Perry: Then what?
Rome: Something snapped inside me. I was so completely devastated that I went into shock. My brain physiology changed. MASAL had no control over what remained. My conscious mind was gone. I have been told by others that what remained was living fury. My body shot at MASAL’s structure over and over. It didn’t really have any effect but the VIRUS units did their work. OMCOM sent a Null Fold projection…
Perry: Wait. OMCOM? I thought he was Planet OMCOM out by Tabit.
Rome: He was. But he had this relay system using Null Folds which allowed him to project his essence very long distances when need be. MINIMCOM loaned him some constructors which constituted near me and he shielded me until MINIMCOM could bring me to the surface. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out what transpired between the two computers during the time, after I left but before the volcano blew up. It’s sad, really. As MASAL was being destroyed, part of that destruction left him with what OMCOM called philosophical depth perception and just before he died, MASAL woke up and realized that everything he had done was wrong. He was actually sorry but it was too late. Kilauea erupted and vaporized MASAL and all the Onsiras within that base.
Perry: That must have been rather dramatic. I’ve only seen images of it.
Rome: It was. Ignoring how awful it was, it was truly beautiful. I’ve been toying with the idea of painting what I saw that day but I haven’t been brave enough to try.
Perry: So that was the end of MASAL…

Tomorrow, part 16