Akari

Finding out you died isn’t a comforting experience. Even less so when some kind of higher being gives you options on how to continue without the time to adapt. So that’s how my unlife was going as I sat on a field of clouds overlooking the endless reaches of the void.

“So here’s the skinny Akari.” She intoned with an almost...I wanted to say an unusual combination of half amused half concerned expression “There's a universe that is under my purview and the force fighting under my banner is...losing, so I'm throwing them a bone."

"...huh?" I asked dumbfounded.

"Oh right, human...you died." The goddess said bluntly "So here's our crossroads, either we send you over as you are, have you reincarnate as a new being, or we try something else." 

"I uhh...something else…?" I queried, still baffled about everything that was going on.

"Good enough for me." She quipped with a crooked smile. 

A black gate of metal rose up from the cloud stuff I was sitting on, and it glowed with a blue light. It intimidated me, but I supposed I didn't have a choice in the matter. I got up and tentatively stepped towards the portal. Then everything went black as I saw zeroes and ones surrounding my body taking it apart like pixels. 

“We’re losing him!” a commanding voice shouted. “Hit him with thirty cc’s of ringers and someone get antibody drones in em!”  

The voice belonged to someone of medical background and was obviously trying to save someone...was it me…? no...I don’t feel like I’m dying at all...in fact, I feel fine. Opening my eyes, I found myself looking out of a visor like a certain famous bounty hunter. But it wasn’t me that was looking out of the visor...or at least I didn’t feel like I was inside a suit, more like I was the suit. I turned my focus around and saw that I was looking at a man who was breathing really shallowly and looked bloody and beat up. 

“What the?!” I shouted, surprised at seeing myself attached to the man who looked like he went three rounds with a wood chipper. 

Then everything went quiet as people stopped shouting and looked quietly at the helmet. I maaaaay have just screwed myself out of life with that declaration...oops. 

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“Identify yourself program…” the head surgeon intoned with the edge of steel in her voice. 

“My name is Akari, and I was sent here by some goddess. I don’t know how I ended up as part of this guy’s suit but...I’ll do what I can to help on this side.” I explained as truthfully as I could given I don’t have much to go on. 

“Fine…we’ll tackle that later,” she acquiesced before getting back to the man on the surgeon’s table. 

I decided to sink myself into the man’s suit functions since that felt like something I could do. The armored bodysuit was a matte black with blue lighting trim that's adjustable, possibly for stealth or infiltration of spaces. 

"Class six on board transceiver and computer, not bad. I have no idea what that means but I’m guessing its good. Class 4 life support systems...huh guess that’s what keeping the bounty hunk on the table alive while the doctors work on him. Wait a minute...I can probably save him, it will just require some tinkering of my own. If I just do this...and this...there we go. Overclocked life support Akari.OS special!" I Thought to myself.

Akari.OS...well that’s only slightly concerning for my future sanity. Regardless of the circumstances I speak again.

“Let me try something, I could probably defibrillate him.” I say tentatively. 

“Please let the medical professionals do their job.” the Surgeon snaps.

“Fine...overclocked life support, engage!” 

The surgeon cleared her hands from the table out of reflex and the man’s body convulsed as his heart jumped. Surprisingly the heart monitor reacted at the jolt showing I had made progress on resuscitation. 

"...do it again" the order was clear from the Surgeon. 

"Engaging OLS" I said simply as the bodysuit's power core was manhandled to be a defibrillator. 

With a mighty thump the defib was activated again and his heart monitor started jumping up and eventually stabilized to a resting beat. 

"Thank the system we saved him" the surgeon commented relieved beyond words as she slumped down on the floor.

"So...since I'm in the dark about all of this...could I get a crash course on how this advanced society works?" I asked.

"Hold your chips there, rogue program...give me a minute…" she said before slumping in exhaustion. 

A bit rude but I could understand her meaning since I came out of nowhere, and I was just an amorphous jumble of code with a human consciousness superimposed on top. Realizing this rabbit hole isn't good for me I stopped thinking about it. I started to fix my identity crisis by creating an avatar for Mr. Hunk's helmet. It wasn't hard to create a stand in for myself at all. I had this...weird knack to just force the tech to do what I want. While waiting I walked around the helmet's visor and just took in my surroundings. 

Everything was sterile white and chrome, guess it really is all chrome in the future. Or maybe its plasteel or some derivative of such an alloy, I'll have to find out eventually. 

The suit did have access to something like the internet but it was less a browser and more of an encyclopedic directory. Of course having the ability to find this information at all was a major boon given that it let me read up on the world while everyone decompressed from what was likely a very touch and go situation with the Suit operator. 

I found out his name is Xeriko from a suit registry file in the memory of his armor. Its certainly an odd name but I have no room to judge given my unusual circumstances. I also noticed that this suit had its last AI expunged. That's not remotely terrifying at all, nope its fine...definitely fine! I'm going to die, aren't I?!