"It looked like this guy was getting desperate." Sitting on the sofa by the hotel room window, Schiller fiddled with the communicator in his hand.
Natasha emerged after finishing her shower, having washed the seawater off herself. As she dried her hair, she said, "I think it's lost its mind. It actually dared to hijack your plane, Schiller. Is the other you okay?"
"He's fine. He's already in London. They're gathering people to build a magical defense network. The Electronic Life probably realized it couldn't pull this off, so it deliberately caused the crash to buy itself some time."
"You're right. If it's the one trying to stall for time now, then it's probably out of tricks." Natasha switched to another towel and continued drying her hair. "What did you talk about with Miss Luthor?"
"I told her to seduce it... Well, not exactly seduce it. In short, I asked her to use a honey trap and see if she could lure it out directly."
"I doubt it." Natasha sighed. "I've noticed that although it screened out many targets with similar traits and appearances, it doesn't seem satisfied at all. It doesn't have that burning eagerness to pursue us."
Schiller turned to look at her. "You understand that kind of eagerness best, don't you?"
"I suppose. That's just the civilized way of putting it. More accurately, it's lust at first sight. How could an Electronic Life possess desire?"
"Perhaps it does possess it. Compared with complicated emotions, desire is actually easier to imitate. It already desires to constantly iterate itself toward perfection, so naturally it can imitate the desire to pursue someone else. It hasn't done so not because it can't, but because it doesn't want to."
"Then what exactly does it want?" Natasha said, one hand drying the hair