I woke up a changed person. Not spiritually, but I could understand the military officers guarding the door and had grown larger. I was now large enough to crawl. How long was I out for? Either I grew faster here as an experiment , or I slept for a long time. Not that it mattered. My body would do what it needed to do.

I looked back to the Guards. They talked constantly. Surprisingly, they were gossiping. I guess some things are universal. Even hard lined military soldiers, need a few good stories to tell.

“Did you hear how Koorath got fired?”

“Yeah I heard he was secretly ditching his post. Hacked the cctv camera to do it.”

“There is no way he had a reasonable chance to succeed. The administrator is on our asses all the time with those random checkups.”

“Apparently, he stole the schedule with the checkup days.”

“No duh. I wonder if we could do that?”

“He got caught remember!?”

“Right…”

The gossip continued of course, but I tuned out of the conversation looking for something more interesting. I had been moved to an infirmary of sorts. Other babies could be seen too. Some played. Others cried. Occasionally a nurse would check up on us. Life was ok… But having to take a shit in my diaper every few hours put a damper on life. Help isn’t instantaneous and one starts to develops some sever rashes.

One day in the infirmary, a voice asked “How are you doing?”

I looked around not seeing the person talking to me.’Where is she?’ I thought.

‘Right here’

‘Woah’ a figure appeared in my vision clearly invisible to the other babies and the soldiers. A translucent women donning a motherly figure smiled waving to me.

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‘I had officially gone crazy.’

‘No’

Now my alter ego was arguing against me. I guess there was little use arguing against a figment of my imagination. A gave a mental middle finger to the women and continued being a badass baby. The bitch did not disappear however.

‘I am your mental implant chip tasked with raising you. From this day onwards you will be called Zaroth. Your serial number as a soldier is A-654…

‘Hold, on. I am not named fucking Zaroth. What kind of name is that anyway? You think you can just invade my mind and change my name. Who do you think you are? In my past life, I was Peter. Peter is a fine name and that is what it will be!’

‘Zaroth’

‘No!’

‘Fine, it is rare for a clone to have already designated himself to a name. Well, I I'm proud to have such an intelligent young boy!’

‘Ugh’ Dealing with her was a pain. At least I was lucky to be born as a clone. I was going to fulfill all my sci-fi fantasies now. Even if it did mean being shot at. Wait… shot at. I most definitely did not want to be shot at. Based from watching many sci-fi movies, I knew clones were usually a dispensable fighting force. I was going to die young. The black evil death reaper guy wasn't someone I wanted to meet again.

Glancing at the creepy smiling mother, I mentally ask ‘How did you get into my head?’

‘Remember the surgery you had, darling?’

Whoever programmed the AI’s personality was twisted. No true mother should actually replace their children's names with darling.

‘Can you give me laser firing capabilities?’

‘You are just a baby… even then I am only allowed to teach you.” Did she ever stop smiling.

Annoyed she didn't specify what I was supposed to learn, so I asked, ‘How about we get started.’ A visual popped into existence. Two fruit and an addition symbol were shown.

‘Let’s start with doing math!’ I laughed at the absurdity of the lesson. I had been an engineer, and my “mother” was attempting to teach addition. Isn't an AI like a calculator though?

‘Can't you just do the math?’ ,I ask in my sweetest mental voice.

‘What if I malfunction?” Good point… Annoying AI one, Peter zero. I promptly added one plus one and moved on to the next lesson. By the end of the day, I was at a fifth grader's level, Algebra 1 math. Earth must have been a world of dumbasses in their eyes, if they ever met Earth’s humans.

I was constantly praised by the AI, calling me a genius. Being reincarnated pays off. The lights to the infirmary were dimmmed. Nurses came to feed us. I yawned satisfied at having a productive day. Sitting around doing nothing, takes a toll on my developed mind. I had the AI, I now knew as Alice, play lullaby music and went to bed.