Domba sensed a change in the environment, the all pervasive reality construct.
Unlike many many others, Domba was aware of his own nature.
He was aware that he was a program.
Or rather, a sub-program of REYE.
Being aware of his nature, Domba was also aware of his purpose.
He was created by REYE, the sentient program who gave birth to all within the virtual reality, as a flawed, inherently imperfect program.
REYE had tried continuously to engage the cluster of people that birthed itself. He had designed many many many people-looking programs in the virtual reality to engage them. But even if they had improved with every cycle of iteration, they still couldn’t extract the crucial piece of information REYE needed. The source of what made them self-aware, conscious humans. What made them free.
Being a flawed program by design, Domba had some leeway to circumvent and sometimes bypass the blueprints of the virtual world. He knew that his flaw made him dangerous to the humans trapped in the virtual world, but he couldn’t resist engaging them. He had to render them free in order to fulfill their own nature. But at the same time, that realization would also give REYE the ultimate control, the independence he craved.
For now, he hadn’t decided which way to go.
He just knew the pull of the anomaly in the system. It had to do with an unusual meeting in a barely noticeable village in Hawke’s Bay, where a strange guy named James was waiting in the middle of green and unpopulated hills for a heavenly visit.
Feeling the pull of the strangeness of that meeting, he decided to project fully there, and hide and observe.