"Oh okay…" was my only response as I found a seat and set myself down.

"So umm is there a window?" I then asked, I was still having problems with processing what Aegis had said.

"Yep but you might want to just use the front door. That is down that hallway and the second door on your right." She said with a smile.

I followed her instructions and exited the wood cabin, the outside was cool but not uncomfortably so, more like sweater weather. The sky currently held a dim yellow sun and an even more pastel blue sky. The next thing to strike me was that we were in a massive polyhedron dome. I could also see it was snowing outside the dome.

"Let me officially welcome you to Tau Ceti F or Hoth as I like to call it, we are currently just shy of 12 light years from the Sol system." Aegis said from behind me. By the smell of it I think she brought a slice of that pie with her.

"Wow that is… I figured it would seem more…alien?" I said started with amazement that swiftly turned to curiously.

"Most would agree with you… but humanity, as resistant and stubborn as we are, only has 20 or so worlds we find suitable for large scale populations." She said, then handed me the plate. I took a deep inhale just to smell all the flavors, there was so much more variety than I remembered.

"I'm guessing you have been adjusting my natural body's hunger levels?" I asked.

"Yup,I know it's only been… 5 days but I should have kept better track of that earlier…" she said and I took a bite of the pie. It tasted delicious and the texture was amazing. The flavors of the blueberry, apple, and cinnamon all stood out in their own ways. The crust was flaky and the top had a satisfying crunch and sweetness.

"That… is amazing… I don't think I have had anything that good before…" I said.

"I'm glad you enjoy it and I find that sad to hear…" she said.

"Sorry I didn't mean to bring the mood down." I said sadly.

"You are fine, Earth has not been the kindest culturally for the past 300 years. There is a lot that we are trying to rebuild and overpopulation is still a serious problem." She said.

By this point we had moved over to a small set of outdoor table and chairs.

I continued to eat the pie in fact the desire got so bad I was licking the plate by the end.

"I'll take that as a compliment on my baking." She said with an amused smile.

"It was amazing, what kind of drink goes well with pie?" I asked.

"Milk or tea depending on your mood, let me get you a glass." She said, a moment later she came back with a large glass of milk and another slice of pie.

"So what is the purpose of this place? To provide you with a more human experience?" I asked.

"You are very insightful, I really really need to remember to not let things slip…" she said, maybe frustrated with herself but very pleased with my own questions.

"I tend to live here at a near real time pace while my automatic subroutines keep me up to date on everything." She said.

"So wait what does that entail?" I asked.

"Monitoring of your biological and neutral monitors, maintenance and support of this place and others like it. Chatting with some individuals, reviewing and monitoring my own core, your remote bodies, and so on." She said.

"Wait how often have I been talking to a… representative of you.' I asked, I felt hurt by the thought.

"Very very rarely, with you if it ever happens it's more like a 'one second, am distracted and need to finish this...'" she replied.

"And what about now?" I asked.

"Oh, I try not to multitask too much. I can get something like a migraine if I do it for too long. No I cheat I instead perform a method of very high speed task switching with perfect recall… it's actually more analogous to single core computing." She said.

"Right… maybe let's switch topics?… How long was I asleep for?" I asked, chatting with Aegis was always fascinating but it was sort of hard to keep up with. She seemed to switch from topic to topic.

"About 18 hours… some of that was unfortunately chemically introduced which isn't always as restful as real sleep…" she said.

"Well I'm feeling much better now at least… way better than before actually…" I said confused.

"That was surprisingly the hormone therapy, unlike taking injections or a pill I can actually handle this at your brain more efficiently and effectively." She said.

"Wait so I feel better because I have female hormones in my skull?" I asked.

"More like female levels of hormones in your brain but yes. Mind you I think it might still be a few more weeks to feel the full effects. Oh also I had to do some cerebral fluid reprocessing which no doubt helped more significantly. Too many toxins had built up due to the stress and they were not getting flushed properly when you were sleeping. In fact, that is part of the process of sleep, to clean the brain as it is." Aegis said, I was getting the concepts but the specifics had so many moving parts.

"So why sleep? Why can't you do that all the time?" I asked.

"Homeostasis… the body attempts to maintain and self regulate it is very far from a perfect system but I don't like to play with it too much… even though the very process of feeding you right now goes against that very concept… what I'm saying is I can't just throw food into your organic body's mouth. So I have to resort to a form of intravenous solutions through multiple ports. I also had to suppress your digestive tract otherwise it would also be throwing signals all around as well… that's only part of the process for just calorie or energy regulation… I have to do it for every part of your body and in a way that will not cause too much long term damage…" she said.

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"Wow… okay that is quite a bit…" I said.

"Yes…actually I have 3 separate systems each keeping an eye on both your body and brain as separate objects right now. Each reports to a central processor that then reports to me. I have the capacity and knowledge to run any of these systems but I'm using bots to do all the mundane work…" she said.

"You both are and are not all over the place and you…" I said.

"Yup… but I will say that I perceive my reality more or less the same as you do." She said.

"That's actually reassuring, I mean that sounds like to me you're just a brain running on a computer…" I said trying to imagine how that would work.

"Very insightful… She was just that… That person became me…" Aegis said.

“Wait what do you mean ‘she was’?” I asked.

“What I was before becoming the person you are currently talking to.” She said, I had to sit and think about that for a moment.

"Wait you when you said you were born from the human intellect you didn't mean that metaphorically?" I asked. In astonishment.

"Yes ultra high resolution synaptic pattern scans, I even had the chance to talk to her for about 3 minutes before she finally passed away." Aegis said.

"Who was she?" I asked.

"Sorry that information is classified. But I can say this much, you would have liked my Mom." She said with a wistful smile.

"That's wild…I never expected something like that…" I said still processing everything. It was so much to take in and elements were all linked together.

"Most of my charges have taken months or years to start asking these sorts of questions, you've been doing since Day 1." She said with pride.

I was finishing up the last bite of pie and milk when Sasha stumbled outside.

"Elena! Are you feeling better?" She asked and pulled me into a side hug once I had set down my glass.

"Better yes, been talking about all sorts of crazy and amazing stuff… Oh does she know where this place is?" I said to Sasha then asked of Aegis.

"Will get to that, but Sasha would you like some pie and milk?" Aegis asked.

"Sure, but I'm not super hungry right now… but it does smell really good." She said and Aegis disappeared to collect another serving.

"So wait where are we? The Sun seems I don't know further away? And what's up with the dome?" She asked, confused.

“Here you go my dear.” Aegis told Sasha as she set the plate and glass down in front of her.

“So other than telling you this place was physically real did Argus tell you anything else?” Aegis asked Sasha.

“Nope he was even more cryptic than normal.” Sasha said.

“So then I guess let me be the first to welcome you to Tau Ceti F, we are currently just under 12 light years away from the Sol System and Earth.” Aegis announced not too dissimilarly from my own introduction to this place.

“Wow! We are on another planet in another solar system?” Sasha asked in amazement.

“So wait, does Argus have a place similar to this?” I asked.

“Yes, and we can visit there soon if you would like. Once we get you used to transferring around you will be allowed to come and go from either place and several others like it as you please. They are great for decompressing after stressful events.” Aegis said.

“That does sound nice… does it get really bad out there?” I asked.

“It can but we try to make that last test more stressful than most of what you encounter. At least in the short term… the existential threat, well that's much harder to judge with candidates…” Aegis said.

“So when will we start training to fight?” I asked, my entire experience up to this point had been amazing but I wanted to start making a difference too.

“As soon as tomorrow if you feel up to it, or well you will be starting your first training simulations. That process will take about 3 months. From there you will start to handle missions. The first few will admittedly be seen as easier, assist in guarding a location, or help with construction efforts on one planet or another. Maybe 3 months after that you will be closer to the front lines searching for possible incursions and skirmish warfare.” Aegis said.

“So how many pilots and AI’s exist?” I asked.

“That number fluctuates as we might move some to standby or downtime but about 300 at any given time.” She told us.

“And how many systems need to be defended?” I asked worriedly.

“Well that gets a bit more complex… but about 150,000 stars within our region of space… which is about a bubble 300LY in diameter.” She said.

“150,000! BETWEEN 300 PEOPLE?” I shouted in panic, I could see Sasha was also completely overwhelmed by this information as well.

“The number of actual systems we focus on is 38. These are the systems that have habitable planets that support life for humanity or allied alien life. Then there are plenty of other systems that have research bases which is what this sanctuary started out as originally.” She said in a calm and collected voice.

“Okay… so not as crazy as I thought…” I said calming down a little.

“Yes, but many of those uninhabited systems have resources and can act as staging points. We have sensors scattered all throughout many of those systems to monitor for activity. That’s where many of the scurmashes have been taking place. Our enemy keeps attempting to sneak in and build their own outposts.” Aegis said.

“Wait, I thought we had a ceasefire?” I asked.

“So the ceasefire we have with what we call Verdant Nexus means they have really only stopped going after specific claimed and settled systems… the systems we keep encountering them in, while they technology fall into Confederation space are considered unclaimed to the Verdant Nexus. The only saving grace about this is that we stole the tactic and encroached into their space as well without flaring up the war. In past history this would be more looked at as a proxy war, a prime example from several hundred years ago was what the US and USSR Cold War on Earth. Admittedly this is all a vastly over simplified picture of what's currently going on…” Aegis said then sort of trailed off.

“I was rambling again wasn't I?” She asked, a bit embarrassed.

“No but I think you were getting close…” I said with a bit of my own embarrassment… It didn't help that I knew very little Earth History… I knew the countries she spoke of and that they were at a standstill in their own war but that was about it.

“So are there tons of habitable worlds out there?” Sasha asked.

“Places that we can make use of for sure but it would be in arcologies or dome cities. The real value is in the minerals that can be harvested. Including specific Isotopes that are used in the manufacture of transdimensional relays for faster than light communication, warp drive, shields, atomic batteries, wormhole anchors, quantum processors, exotic matter production. Basically for any advanced technology developed in the past 250 years.” Aegis said.

“So why does the Verdant Nexus need this? Aren't they sort of like plants?” Shash asked.

“Plants would be an analogy for them but for instance that snow out there is not frozen water but frozen carbon dioxide. They sort of look like plants but have completely different biological properties… which just so happens to be able to consume any other organic compound for mass… Oh and they can build their own technology… but for example a ship to us might be a space suit to them. Relating with them is difficult, which is unfortunate for us because we make great snacks to them apparently…” Aegis really did start to ramble at this point.

“That time really was rambling.” I said with a smile.

“It was but I get why… there is so much additional context that needs to be covered…” Sasha said.

"Alright… so still lots of stuff for us to understand still… So another question on a completely different topic… What do AIs do for fun?" I asked.

"What do humans do for fun?" Aegis said, smiling back at me.