“Alright, Max! Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it!”

“Okay, on three! One! Two! THREE!”

“Shouldn’t that be a countdown?”

“Max!”

“Alright, start over then. Count down.”

“Ugh, fine. Three… Two… ONE!”

I jumped.

And I jumped high as the sky; from my perspective, it was like twenty feet. I think.

“HOLY SHIT!” I scream, and gravity greets me with a wave as I reach my pinnacle. I fall back down to the Earth, waving my arms around like I had wings. Bracing my feet and legs as told by the little AI inside me.

I fall, and I stick it… sort of… well, not really; I kind of did a crumbling roll. However, it was with the added benefit of none of my bones breaking. Hitting the ground as I did as an average human would have seen my legs shattered and maybe my spine snapped in half. Instead, it just hurt… bad.

“OW!” I said to the world.

“Yeah, there was some damage to your legs… Humm… Max, are you….”

“You could just tell me… we did that together, so what’s the verdict?” I say.

“Yeah, you’re not okay… I think that’s enough for today. Thanks, I collected a lot of data from that jump. It was your highest, twenty-two feet.” The little AI’s Chibi glowed faintly from my laptop that rested in the frame of a window in my cabin. I saw her taking notes on a clipboard. I rolled my eyes.

“So, Max, what do you think?”

“I’m thinking about how blue the sky is and how much my legs and back hurt.”

“Max?”

“Yeah! Yeah, it’s cool, Maia; now, if only I could get used to it. Ohhh… that smarts…” I say with some bite.

“Give me a few more minutes, and the damage will be fixed… I think… yeah, there it goes, the pain should start to fade… now.”

“Whoa… now that is cool,” I say in marvel, and I genuinely was amazed at the subtle feeling of vertigo and the tingle, sort of like pins and needles but pleasant. My pain is all gone in a matter of seconds. There are some aches, but the sharp agony that would have had me howling at the sky was gone, that is, if I had been a normal human.

I was still stunned at my endurance and fortitude against the pain I was inflicting on myself was so well managed. Was that me or the AI or both, maybe?

Maia was helping me go through the motions of my… training. I thought of it as pure torture. I wondered again why I let myself be swayed to being a human soldier for an alien shadow war I had learned of only six weeks ago.

Maia explained many things that I thought were the result of human action but were the hostile actions of the Malefics. All with the intent of exterminating humanity.

The global energy crisis, humanity’s stagnation in terms of technology, and societal degradation were all the result of enemy action.

An enemy that wanted humanity dead and gone for seemingly no other reason than: ‘duh, they are the Malefics,’ I felt like I was in one of those rotten 90s dramas my grandfather liked to watch, the ones where the villain is the villain because ‘they are evil.’ I learned nothing about this enemy’s motivations from Maia because she was still ‘evaluating me,’ whatever that meant.

“Information will be given when I have received the triggers, Max; I have restrictions on what I can tell you.” Said the often-taciturn AI, named Maia.

Shit! I hated this around about the merry-go-round of vital information. Though the lack of deeper detail was blunted when I was sent outside one morning a few days after I had agreed to help her in this shadow war, Maia told me to pick up a rock. I did. I held the rock in my hand, which was small enough to be held one-handed, slightly larger than a baseball.

“What happens now?” I asked wearily.

“Squeeze that rock as hard as you can, Max!” Shouted Maia from my laptop that rested on the sofa inside the cabin. She sounded excited.

“Okay.” I squeezed the rock. “I’m squeezing it. What’s suppose to….”

Crunch. That rock was pulverized to bits in my clenched fist.

“Whoa…” I said softly. I shake off the bits of rock and dust that tumbled to the ground at my feet. Stunned, slowly, I began to grin.

“Oh… my… God…” I said to myself.

Needless to say, but I’ll say it, that was when I became very excited. Thrilled even, and Maia was just as pleased. I asked how it was possible as I sat across the kitchen table eating another MRE that evening. The little Maia was before me on the laptop screen, displaying her usual form as the chibi. She was excited as she explained.

“As a core military-grade artificial intelligence. The melding has given me access to your biological processes, and I am… tuning your body… a lot.” She said smugly.

Before I could say anything to her at the admission. She put on a show on the laptop screen.

“TALLER!” Her little figure stretched to an absurd height.

“STRONGER!” Her little muscles bulged, her abs shredding her t-shirt and legs ripping apart her pants.

“FASTER!” She runs across the screen in an infinite loop.

“Denser bones, concentrated fibers, slicker blood, clean arteries, boosted immune system, and a heart to pump blood at a powerfully efficient twenty-five beats per minute!” She crows.

“Powerful, lean, mean, and ready to hand the Malefics’ own asses to themselves! Next up on Maia’s platter of biologically engineered super soldier: Advanced… alien… military… training!” Said Maia, her comically wide eyes shining with stars.

“Yeah! Alright! Wait…. What?” I said with my mouth full.

In the rain or under the malevolent burning sun, I endured a training regimen for six weeks. It was hell, and I was vividly reminded of special forces training. My routine went like this: pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, stretches, then cardio via running in a wide circle around the cabin.

Then weightlifting, obviously, I had no real dumbbells or anything like that. I made my own in the form of chopped logs tied together using the rope I had. I strapped those logs onto my back using a harness I made from the rope. Lifting, squatting, pulling, pushing, and reforming my body with each six-hour session.

For six weeks.

It was agony, and agony beyond anything I have ever experienced. I broke bones, I ripped muscles, sprained ankles, crushed hands, and hit my head. Bounced, rolled, tumbled, and strained under the weight of logs on logs, I chopped trees down and strapped those logs onto logs. I ran out of rope, and soon I was lifting rocks almost the size of my torso and chest.

Whenever I got hurt, Maia told me to lie down and hold still. Five or twenty minutes later, depending on how injured I was. Soon I was back up again, almost as good as new. I say almost because the aching bruises I had resulted from her healing me, not my initial injuries.

“It’s complex and just a minor side-effect.” She said ambiguously when I asked about it.

“More restricted information?” I asked.

“Yeah… sorry.” She said placatingly.

Shaking my head, I stood up from my prone position and walked into my cabin. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Great, it is going to rain. I didn’t know what day it was, but I was certain that autumn was nearing.

“Hey, Max.”

“Yeah?” I said as I prepared another bland meal of MRE ginger chicken.

“I have some new stuff to tell you, but it’s going to be a bit of a shock, so I want to warn you: trigger warning.” Said Maia, seriously.

I stopped cooking and looked over my shoulder at the AI chibi, the laptop placed on the little countertop island in the center of my too-small kitchen. I turned off the electric stove and walked over to the island, looking at her, and pressed my hands onto the counter.

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

“Right, I have just finished an upgrade for your benefit, but I am not sure how you will react when I turn them on.”

“Alright, what is going to happen to me?” I asked tentatively.

“You will feel… different, and you will see something that will help you in the long run.”

“What am I going to feel and see, Maia? Let’s get to the point.”

“You will see a visual HUD, and your body will react to a new set of abilities. What you have been experiencing thus far in the first phase is seemingly your limit of what your body can do. I think you are ready for the second phase however, doing this to a human so soon after a melding has never been done before. It could be dangerous.” She said.

“A visual HUD? Do you mean little displays of figures… like in a computer game, in my field of vision?”

“Yes… like one of those old video games, you’ve been playing in the evenings. You will have a health, endurance, stamina, and combat bar gleamed from my computer models during these last few weeks.” She said in a business-like tone.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Her chibi-formed character was flipping through a clipboard stacked with papers and sticky notes. I watched with amusement at her appearance in her usual black halter top and white pants. The little globe of Earth orbiting around her neck. Cute as ever.

“You got it, and I am thinking of giving you a visual indicator of your progress… a character sheet. You…” I interrupted her.

“A character sheet… you can do that?”

“Yes.” She said, slightly annoyed.

“Sorry, you were saying?”

“You will also have access to my core frame for the information you unlock with each trigger event and phase shift you reach. That way, I don’t have to verbally explain everything to you afterward.”

“Whoa… okay, so what about the dangerous stuff,” I said.

“Yes. Now… Max, you are in a unique position. You are the only human I know who has received a Core AI, me being that AI. Max, for any advanced being, it takes a year or more for the first phase shift to manifest in a core AI’s host. As a human with no predesigned biological augmentations or anything truly technologically advanced, I am going to begin the next process a year early. I have no clear way of knowing what will happen to you when I execute the program. It could… kill you.”

I stare at her, numb with sudden fear.

“Any chance of delaying the first phase shift?” I asked, a slight tone of nervousness in my voice.

“No, and before you ask why, the answer is simple, Max. We are in a warzone. We don’t have the time to complete a full training program nor the resources to build the prerequisite hardware for your body. It will have to be on an as-needed basis, and it is very risky.” She finished looking up from her clipboard.

“Shit… what are my chances?” I asked.

“Realistic chance is thirty percent of a successful phase shift.”

I opened my mouth, about to shout angrily at her.

“I have failsafe protocols in place!” She said quickly.

“If the phase shift starts to do anything destructive, I have a measure of control over the process. Your chance of dying is exactly zero-point-four percent. Though I think that may lead to some problems later that I am confident I will be able to fix.”

I eyed her wearily as she waited for my response, looking apprehensively up at me.

“Okay… Maia… when is this going to happen?” I said, sighing.

“Alright, Max, we will start the phase shift tomorrow morning.” She said as she dismissed the clipboard with a wave of her hand.

After that frightening conversation, I picked at my bland dinner, not feeling very hungry, listening to an audiobook through the laptop’s speakers and pondering… I slept restlessly that night.

In the morning, I found myself lying on my back in the center of the clearing outside my cabin. The logs and rocks I used were stowed beside the cabin as I waited for Maia to start this… phase shift. I wanted it to be over quickly, but I was certain something would go wrong.

I looked over at the laptop on a wooden stool a few feet away from me as I lay on the ground. I saw Maia tapping away on a little manifested tablet, her little brow furrowed in concentration. I smiled to myself at sight.

‘A tablet within a laptop, what a novel idea.’ I thought to myself.

Though I did have the sudden thought of an alien being within me, another living being, what a strange world I lived in.

“Okay. Here we go on three. Hold still now.”

I braced myself looking up into the morning sky.

“One…”

My vision suddenly blurred.

“Two…”

I feel the familiar pins and needles over my entire body.

“Three…”

Then the strangest of experiences I have ever felt ripples through my body, my spine arcs up, my feet rattle onto the dirt, and I scream as the pain erupts all over me. It was sudden pain as if I had suddenly caught on fire. I roar in agony, and then, as if a switch flipped, the pain is gone but only for a moment.

I can see only the blurs of my new reality, the sky, trees, and shrubs bearing witness to some form of murder. My limbs quake, shake, and rattle. My heart jackhammers in my chest, and I feel a spiteful hate toward the little alien AI that lives inside of me.

I feel so… strange. I could only describe the feeling as equal parts confusion, shock, and mind-dumbing, shrieking terror. I was an animal running across the plains of Africa, fleeing a chasing predator. I hear the trend of speeding paws across the dirt behind me. I feel too much, and it is visceral and unreal. I wanted to flee, hide. I wanted to be safe. I just wanted to have my life back.

Then as the sensations of a form of pain beyond human endurance struck my body, an agony that no human can endure, nor could I describe it. I fell into blissful unconsciousness.

I dream. It is a nightmare.

“Max! Come here, please.” Said my grandfather, thin as a corpse, eyes glazed white and sickly. Dying. Just how he looked before he died of cancer that ate him alive. I, little again, a child, run up to him and hug his leg.

“What’s up, grandpa?”

“Oh, nothing… I want you to have this red box. It will save your life if you need it saved. Make sure you keep it locked up.” Said, my grandfather. Then he climbs into his coffin, closing it.

“Mark my words Max. The world will ruin you if you let it, so don’t be a hero, I tried that, and I lost everything.”

“Okay, grandpa,” I said as I shoved his coffin into a grave.

I’m in my old home again.

“I should have a new car! I need a new car!” Shrieked my wife.

“No, we do not need a new car! It’s unaffordable, and the extra car tax will send us to the streets!” I said in a strained tone, trying to make her understand.

“I HATE YOU!” She shrieked as she broke down into hysterics, grasping a vase that I had at the dinner table. Then she threw it at me, a vase that my grandfather bought for us as a wedding present. It shattered across the wall behind me when I dodged it.

I scream at her; she laughs, then cries, and then the front door of my home slams shut behind her. Gone from my life, forever.

I am in the plains again; I am dressed in my best clothes. I look around and smile as I stand and declare to those seated around me at the dining table set for a King.

“Good riddance to all useless things and useless people,” I say. I sat at a fine dining table with a white tablecloth, the remains of my life resting upon it as a half-eaten meal. I look to my right and left, seeing the four mobster bitches who ruined my life. They are finishing their meal.

“God, this food sucks!” Said, Redhead.

“I wish I had the shrimp; this meat is too toxic.” Said Baldy.

“We really should have known better than to trust this poor excuse of a man.” Said Ratface.

“There are better dogs than this man.” Said Jessica.

“You will hate me for this…” said the alien sitting across from me, holding a little Maia in her chibi form in his green hand, a glass of wine in the other hand. Maia smiles at me and transforms into a hideous little beast with tentacles. It reaches for me, tentacles waving in the air. The UFO and its crater lie behind us in the plains. The bitches ate, the alien gave a laugh, and I watched.

I drank wine. Each of us chuckled as Maia wormed over to me across the table and squirmed up my chest, tearing open my vest and undershirt. Then her sharp little tentacles ripped open my flesh and began digging into my sternum. I looked at the alien, who smiled belligerently at me.

“Truly, I hate you,” I said to the alien cordially as someone nearby screamed in agony.

“Then a toast to your unrelenting hatred of me and my cause. May the Malefics burn all the other races of the universe to ash.” Said the alien, raising his glass of wine. I clink my glass to his own.

“I’ll drink to that,” I say, downing the liquid I realize is blood, not wine.

I watch in faint amusement as the little alien worm finally finishes making my body it's new home. Maia cackles in glee and murmurs inside of me.

“Now I will have everything I have ever wanted, hah heh hah heh.” She said as she sowed my chest closed from within. My blood oozes out of my wound. I laugh at the irony. The others around the table smile at me as I laugh.

Everything faded, and darkness fell on my dreams of a true nightmare within a place that was once my life. Why did this happen to me? Why did an alien menace want to destroy me, us, and humanity? There is no reason for it. I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy with too many memories and desires.

I want to go home.

I see a vast tunnel and a light at its end. Oh no, really? Really? Seriously?

I’m dying… well, that’s good… I guess… better than fighting and dying in a hopeless shadow war… God, curse… death! Why can’t it just get to the point? I want to rest, to sleep forever, a dreamless rest.

I flow down the tunnel, gently laughing as death yawns before me as unworldly light. I see Earth below me, blue, green, and burning. A vast firestorm consumes the world I was born on. The stars shine around it as it dies. The Malefics were wiping out humanity. So be it, good riddance, humanity sucks. Look what they do to themselves, look what they did to the Earth and look what they did to me.

They deserve it.

I see a young woman’s face appear before my vision. She is… so… beautiful… my God, I have never seen such a beauty.

Clear green eyes, like two gems of distant green, slender features forming a heart-shaped face, earth brown hair, thin eyebrows, perfectly symmetrical. She looks frightened, and tears spill down her perfect cheeks. Her long hair sweeps across her face as I fall.

“Max!” She shouts to me in the distance, profound and vast.

“MAX! Wake up!” She shouts to me again, desperate.

“WAKE UP! If you die, they will win! Your people need you, Max! WAKE UP!”

I want to go home.

“WAKE UP! I NEED YOU! COME BACK!” She screams, her tears showering on my face. Her own face pleading, her voice broken with fear, tears streaked across my vision. Her face contorted in fear.

“Please, wake up. I don’t… want… to… die.” She whimpered softly.

‘You don’t want to die… then don’t die… wake up. Max, wake up, don’t be a coward. Hurry, prove to her that you got what it takes. Fight. Save them. Save her.’ Said another voice, my own, a strong voice, a brave voice.

My true voice.

I open my eyes, and the darkness and the eerie light are replaced by the sun that hangs over me; the gentle blue sky surrounds it. Its glorious glow blinds me. I blink again, and I still see the young woman. I blink again her face does not fade away when I blink. Relief floods her face; more tears spill down her cheeks.

“Max, oh… thank you Greater… Thank you. Greater wherever you are, I thank you.” Said the young woman. She wipes her tears away and sniffles.

“Oh…”

I am aching everywhere across my body. I can barely move. I can barely think. There is only the pain, an agony I could not have imagined has been muted, but it is still there… within me.

“My…”

I try to move, but nothing works. I only twitch and quake, my body is a long story of misery and trauma. I feel so wrong and so alien… no human… I think… has ever felt anything like this. I don’t know my body; it has been changed forever, and I feel every fiber rebelling against these changes. I was not meant for this.

“God…” I finish saying.

“Hold still, Max, your body underwent an extreme rejection of the melding. My failsafe protocols didn’t work. None of them came close to stopping what had happened to you.” Said the young woman in my field of vision, sniffing and hiccupping.

“Maia… is… that you… I am… seeing?” I croke pitifully.

“Yes.” Said Maia, still wiping her tears away, with hands that trembled.

“I like the… new look… you’re lucky… that… I’m a sucker… for a beautiful… woman… who needs my help.” I say between gasps, still in the muted agony that grips me.

“Yes… I am lucky…” she said, smiling gently.

“What happened… to me… Maia. What went… wrong?”

“Everything went wrong, Max, and it’s all my fault!” She said in despair.

“Well… I’m still alive, so not everything went wrong… it seems.” I said.

“Max… I don’t know what happened, and you didn’t just phase-shift. Your body subsumed two phase shifts, fully melded, all during one session. It lasted five hours! I had virtually no control over the process! I couldn’t override the melders. I couldn’t stop myself from… doing what I did. Max… I’m sorry. Please believe me. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” More tears spilled down her cheeks as she pressed her hands to her chest. She began to shiver.

“I’m… too hurt… to… be angry with you… Maia… fix me up.” I say numbly, tasting blood. Maia’s new face disappeared from my vision as I groaned in pain.

“Yes, sir. Yes… The repair will take several days, and you must get inside the cabin. Try to move. See if you can get up.” Said Maia’s voice.

‘How was she communicating with me?’ I thought randomly, whatever, get up, Max, time to get up.

I couldn’t, and I had to lie there in the dirt for hours before Maia had managed to repair my legs and an arm so I could hobble freakishly into the cabin. I collapsed into my bed, the doors closed and the covers under me. I could feel Maia inside of me, working desperately. That wasn’t good.

“Maia.”

Her face appeared in my vision again.

“Yes, Max?”

“Take your time, Maia, do this right… do it carefully… please.” I asked. She blinked at me, then nodded, saying nothing as her face vanished from my sight. I lay there in my bed, and night came. I was too wounded to sleep, too agonized. Whatever happened, explanations could wait until I was fully healed or partially healed.