The 50: Post AI Apocalypse

Gina is Speaking Riddles

“Hmm, so you noticed this small flaw and started to dig for more,” Gina softly muttered as she was thinking to herself.

“Now it’s our turn to ask questions,” John rushed up to cut the route on his friend. Gina looked at him deeply before she said:

“You did your part of the deal, so I will do mine. go ahead and ask about what bothers you.”

John felt suddenly he had many questions to ask, so he took a moment before asking:

“My friend Dan here told you before we were sent in time about the change in date, and when we arrived here you didn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of a whole lively city in a place that was supposed to be empty. Why is that?”

Gina smiled as she said:

“You are trying to know more through asking less. I will answer your two questions after you answer my second question. This way we will be even, right?”

The three looked to each other at the same time, while Laiyla pressed over Dan’s foot so he wouldn’t speak again.

“Sure, ask your second question.”

“Tell me isn’t it weird for married couples to suddenly have babies conceived outside artificially?”

Her question was unpredicted to the three friends, as John was taken aback while he replied instantly:

“These kids are conceived in special labs, to avoid the pregnancy burden on the society.”

“No, this isn’t your view, it’s the answer they had taught you since you were born,” Gina replied as she shook her head.

John suddenly felt loss, why was she asking them this question?

“Think about this too, why do some families have children and others not? Why is there only one kid for each family?” Gina added more questions to the mix.

“Maybe this was done to control the population in the city,” Laiyla replied, expressing her thoughts.

“Good, you are trying to think outside what they have told us all the time, but let’s think more about it. a huge city with many needs and a lot of threats endangering it, so why don't we just let all the families have kids? Why don’t we make families have more than one kid? Isn’t it easy to make a kid in a lab?” Gina continued to speak with her questions like she was enjoying this.

“Well, you have a point here,” Dan finally spoke despite Laiyla’s foot pressing over his.

However what he said was right, as the other two thought of the same thing.

“See? This is another fishy thing about our little happy community that you see every day in front of your eyes and miss to spot it,” Gina said with some anger in her tone like she was really pissed from this.

“What do you want to say by these questions?” John was suspicious of her so he asked directly about her intentions.

“Nothing, I just want to make clear that our community is based upon lies and faults no more,” she simply replied with her calmness before she added:

“Now you have answered two of my questions, so I will answer yours.”

The three were feeling conflicted upon her right now, as her last words were logic and made them question the reality of their society even more. However as they didn’t know the answers that this girl seemed to know, they couldn’t judge or take any stand here.

What they were sure of right now was that this little isolated girl wasn’t simple at all. She knew more secrets than they did, and that meant that her secrets were far complicated than theirs.

“The answer is simple, that’s because I also knew there was a fault about the knowledge provided to us about the apocalypse. So, I was dreaming about coming to this age myself and looking for the truth without any lies, and you just fulfilled this wish to me,” she said as her beautiful eyes fell upon Dan who felt his body electrified from her gaze.

John and Laiyla sighed loudly, as they knew their friend was hopeless. He was totally under the control of Gina. The two preferred the old cold Gina than this daring bossy one, at least she wouldn’t make them this tense and nervous like now.

“And what about this city?” Laiyla asked.

“There is a catch here… see, the lies of our higher ups reached even the old information about the famous cities in our long past. Tell me, is it a coincidence to select a remote place on the east coast despite our city being in the west?” Gina replied with an amusing tone like she was having a fun play with us.

“We also had the same doubt,” John replied.

“That’s right, you must be doubtful but I know why they selected this remote place, as that place was the ruins of this bustling city destroyed in the apocalypse. The destruction didn’t touch the city nuclear station to generate energy, which was an essential part to provide the Drill with enough power to send us here,” Gina replied.

Her words were shocking, not for the presence of a ghost city in their minds, but for her to know all these details and they didn’t.

“H-How do you know all that? Your parents are just social service workers,” Laiyla expressed her own doubts loudly.

“That’s another weird matter, don’t you find it strange for two social workers with limited IQ to have someone as brilliant and extremely rare IQ as their daughter?” Gina returned to her favorite game of speaking riddles.

“This- this might be due to an old sleepy gene in your family,” Dan replied this time as he had some knowledge about it.

“Really? Aren’t we supposed to be lab made, carefully tuned to show the most potential genes in our families? If my family was this mediocre then I would end up the same, don’t you agree?”

Her logic was acceptable, however the three knew she had more than she spoke of. So, they couldn’t make decisions about things they didn’t fully understand.

“You have a point here, but we don’t know the answer to all these questions you are asking,” John finally said.

He and his gang was always the one with more info than others, however right now they were faced with someone who made them feel they knew nothing at all. That feeling was so irritating to him, so he decided to put an end to it.

Either you say what you knew, or don’t speak at all… that was what he just indirectly said to her.

“I know, but I’m not here to teach you everything. You need to seek the truth by yourself, either by being here or when you return to the city. However,” she then leaned forward as she added with a serious tone, “I have to warn you, being here is a one in a lifetime opportunity, so getting answers and more info here is much easier than back at the city.”