//Writing Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GKEh6tresc
The giant block of optoelectronics in front of me hadn’t changed, and Orion, who sounded vaguely British, had said something about meatware, so for the moment I thought I was safe to let go of the console.
“Uh, hi? I hope you can hear me?”, I asked, not entirely sure how this worked. Contact with AI was not something I had any experience with and considering that all my knowledge about these kinds of things came from fiction and had a billion different rules on how they worked, I thought it’d be best to ask.
“Of course. While I am not entirely sure what hardware I am running on, which is odd might I add, I still have the same IO ports that I had on my original hardware. As long as you do not actively try to block me out of the conversation I am able to hear you.”, came the reply from the AI.
“Great. So uh, right now you run on battery, so to say, and I don’t think it’ll last long. I have no clue where I am or what the hell is going on and I was hoping you might be able to help me? I doubt anyone else is still around since the place looks like it’s about three centuries past the expiry date”, I said while looking around, pointedly ignoring the weird looks the Hatchlings gave me, “Since you said something about fabrication I was wondering if you could help assemble me some weapons or armour or something so that I survive for a little longer.”
There was a long moment as Orion digested this and probably did some calculations. I used the time to look around further and see what the Hatchlings were up to. Unsurprisingly they were going through all the huge amounts of material here for something usable. If I didn’t stop them eventually I would spend the next few weeks here eating it all. If I even could. So far my stomach hadn’t complained but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t eventually.
Finally Orion answered, his smooth British voice honestly kind of relaxing.
“My sensory data is a lot more nonsensical than I am comfortable with, to answer that question. From what I gathered from your recent memories the facility seems to be in a lot worse shape than my last memory data would indicate, however unless we find a running system I am unsure of the accuracy of my data. For the moment I am able to help you, and considering that my databases claim that all my commanding officers are deceased you technically hold the highest rank in the immediate facility. Please do not tell management I said that, if they fixed that loophole, AI's will have a very bad and boring time.”
I couldn’t help but snort, he seemed to have a sense of humour. Well, I wasn’t sure how advanced he was, from what I could tell he had to be very advanced.
“Yeah, no worries. I don’t think any of them are still around. Any idea how I can start you up without needing to reset the entire power grid? I got some mats laying around so maybe we can build you something”, I said after a moment before looking at the pile that Alpha and the rest had started to put together.
I was trying to use my long tail simultaneously to look at the higher storage bins, but that needed much more mental effort than I was willing to give it at the moment, so it was a long and arduous task. My Hatchlings made it look so easy. Well, they did have the instincts for it I supposed.
“Indeed. I have 17434 Items in my catalogue to help with that problem”, he reported immediately.
Wow, that was a lot of items. Question was what did I want? “Do you have anything that doesn’t need to be put into your brain or something?”, I asked curiously, voice uncertain.
“If you want me to fabricate a backpack for you I would like for you to put me back into storage. I might no longer be a state of the art Fabrication and Administration Intelligence, but I am still far above errors in that regard. Should you feel my implants are inadequate then I might as well be shelved.”
Orion’s reply caught me off guard and I couldn’t help but laugh, a sweet, alluring, and utterly terrifying sound. “I didn’t mean to offend Orion. I’m just new to all this. Like really new”, I explained to him, “When you have no clue about what is going on and your only experience with High Tech stuff is watching people get hacked and mind controlled in the movies, I’m sure you’d be more sceptical too.”
Again there was a long pause. “Might I ask under what rock you have been living under so far? It must have been a rock that was really far away from any civilised system. AI should be unable to be speechless, yet you, my dear host, have managed to achieve just that.”
I really started to like the guy, he had a great sense of humour. “Not really sure, to be frank. I kind of woke up yesterday with no idea where I am or even what I am and my… memory is a little spotty. I’m also not quite sure how long I’ve been out before, since last time I checked Earth was alive and well and while humanity was still trying to destroy itself, we hadn’t managed that yet”, I said while finally getting my tail in position to look at the upper shelves. Taking stock of what I had found I decided to riffle through it in more detail later, moving on to the next shelf.
“Pardon me, did you say humanity?”, Orion asked immediately, sounding a little confused.
I looked in the air, an eyebrow raised, “Yes, why?”
Once more there was a pause. I was starting to fear that the suboptimal hardware he was running on was causing his calculations to be slowed down. After nearly two minutes he finally talked. “My dear host, how are you alive? Humanity has barely any mention in the databases and the very few that are there, state that they were supposedly wiped out, although trying to find out how long ago is an exercise in futility, it had to have been a long time ago. From the data I can find they left their solar system nearly uninhabitable and their descendants in need of space travel to not die out”, he said, then after a moment he continued, “I might not be a dedicated Science AI, but I was in part responsible for Administration, and the last time I saw the mention of Humanity was from long before I was even constructed.”
Oooookay, that was a bombshell dropped straight onto my feet. Humanity wiped out? Okay, I can definitely see that, we were quite good at killing ourselves, but that long ago and with earth destroyed?
I stood there, stunned. Frankly, I had no idea how to react to that. “Are you fucking with me, Orion? I sure as hell ain’t thousands of years old, last time I checked. And I remember being there. I mean, my life wasn’t great, honestly I was just short of a drug addicted junkie with… no… wait, what?”, I stopped talking. Something wasn’t right.
When I first woke up I remembered my life as Tal, I had just gotten a new job in the kitchen and was about to finish school, when I thought I died. Which in and of itself was weird, but maybe I had been Isekai’d, which I could live with, outside my new body but nothing to be done about that.
Now I had memories of a person called Carl, a homeless man down on his luck in America, who spent all his money on drugs. How was that possible? I, or Tal or whatever, had lived in Switzerland. Why did I have the memories of two people?
Did this have something to do with the odd feeling I had ever since waking up? Like not entirely being myself? Who was I? What was I doing here? Why am I here and how did I get here?
So many questions and no answers, outside the fact that I had multiple memories from very different people, who I might add also lived in different times, the first in the twenty first century, the second in the twenties century.
I dove deep into my mind, trying to find hints about more things, but I came up empty. My two sets of memories, which felt like one and was a really weird feeling, were spotty at best, and utterly incomprehensible at worst, and gave me nothing. What was going on?
Eventually Orion’s frantic voice ripped me out of my thoughts.
“Host! HOST! HELLO?!”, he more or less shouted.
“Huh, what, yeah, I’m here”, I mumbled, realising tears were running down my cheeks. I wiped them off, still feeling weird about the feeling of chitin on my face, before I took a deep breath and sat down, trying to calm myself.
“Thank my programmer, I thought you may have lost it. I am entirely unsuited to deal with those kinds of situations.”, Orion said after a moment and I noticed even the Hatchlings looked at me worriedly. Well, as worried as a weird Insect-Human Hybrid Hive-Mind can look.
“No, no, I think I’m fine, mostly… It’s just… a lot to take in”, I mumbled, before shaking my head, “Anyways. Before we continue we need to find you some permanent Hardware, my mana is about to run out and I have some questions for you.”
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I added the last sentence partly because I really wanted to talk to him more and that required something other than my meagre mana supply and because it distracted me from my thoughts spiralling into the deep abyss of depression and existential crisis.
“Yes. I have the proper blueprints saved on my onboard database, although you need some additional storage space if you want access to my full catalogue of items.”, Orion said, “For the moment, I require the following.”
He sent me three blueprints somehow, I wasn’t really sure how it worked and right now I wasn’t really in the mood of figuring it out. The second I got the Blueprints [Self-Enhancement] came to life, notifying me of the materials necessary and the build time, which frankly was much shorter than expected, although with a notice that it would take longer due to low mana available. Which was fair enough I supposed.
With a slightly absent tone I told Orion I’d boot him up once I’m done and started going through the growing pile of Stuff that Alpha, Beta, and Gamma had collected for me, picking out what I needed.
I ate the materials in silence, mentally ordering the construction of the Blueprints while I was lost in thought.
The fact that my memories were splintered and mixed was horrifying. I had no idea who I had truly been before, especially since Carl felt more like an added memory instead of something that had happened to me. Although even that felt like an incorrect statement to make. It was really hard to explain.
So how and why did I have his memories? I had no way to answer that outside of a vague “Magic”, so I decided to not think about it too much.
Next was the question of what it meant for me as a person. I was self-aware enough to realise that my actions hadn’t been entirely rational. I accepted Alpha’s words far too quickly and in general was doing a really shoddy job of being careful and cautious, although with the addition of Orion that might change now, hopefully. Having someone with information I could rely on would be helpful in the long term.
Then was the question of what I wanted to do outside of “Not die”. If Orion was right and humanity was wiped out then what was my goal from now on? Where could I go and how, and just what would my long term goals be? I had the deal with the Hive-Mind to grow the Hive, and I was planning to go through on that for now, but I didn’t know what their goal was. They were a Hive-Mind and their only goal was to grow the Hive, so I should probably make sure they don’t devour the planet while doing so.
But what did I want to do? There was something nagging in the back of my mind, the uncertainty of who I was, what I was. I figured for now a good start would be to find out who I was and where I had come from, and in extension what exactly had happened to humanity and when.
I had no idea how to go about it, but it was important to me, especially since I still felt the weird disconnect between my mental troubles and my physical indifference.
For now I would ask Orion for help for our short term survival, and would need to work with the Hive to make sure we didn’t die. Train the Hatchlings, have them evolve, and eventually find a spot to start building up enough so that I could leave this area without fear of getting killed. I had no idea what the outside was like, and since this was quite clearly a run down and abandoned facility it could very well be a hellscape. I need to prepare as much as I could, before I set foot outside.
With that a weight lifted from my shoulders. I still was conflicted and had a lot of things to worry about, but having a plan, a goal, helped immensely to calm my nerves at least a little.
By the time I finished my inner monologue the first upgrade was complete, enabling me to “download” Orion onto my implants. The other two could come later, one being a complete sensory and interface suite for him to interact with the outside world, the other a new storage device. And a big one at that. Like ridiculously big. I was used to Giga, maybe Terabytes of Storage, but this thing could save thousands of Petabytes in a small chip in my head. That was millions of Terabytes, billions of Gigabytes! Truly marvellous.
With a thought and a touch of the touchscreen in front of the giant block of optoelectronics in the middle of the room, I reactivated Orion and downloaded him to me. I noticed the ongoing mana coast settling in, which I hadn’t really thought about but made sense to supply him with energy. It was much lower than before but I still couldn’t keep him running all the time, although the majority of the day would be possible.
“Welcome back, Orion”, I said with a small smile as I felt the weird information pulse in my head once more, this time much clearer and even somewhat understandable. He was trying to find the best settings and pinged the implant for all the necessary information.
“Thank you, my dear host. I must say it is so much easier now that I have my own processors once more. Although I’m afraid that there is a bug somewhere in the System, since your name simply returns a NULL, which should not be the case.”, Orion said after a moment.
I shrugged, “Well, my Interface calls me that, and truth be told I’m not entirely sure what my name is. My memories are a mess and don’t make much sense.”
“What Interface? Do you have a console somewhere I don’t know about? I didn’t find anything of the sort, although I did find a marvellously complex piece of software installed on the other chip you have installed, which frankly is stunningly impressive. AI code is one of the most complex pieces of software, but this thing makes us look like a beginners project.”
I frowned, “Well, yeah. Isn’t it normal to have a status screen?”, I asked, both to Orion and the Hatchlings. Beta and Gamma didn’t reply, but Alpha stopped what she was doing and walked over.
Once she stopped next to me, she spoke. “The Interface you see is part of the help It has given us. From what we know, it’s not something natural.”
I rubbed my chin, thinking about it. It did make sense in a way, especially if what Orion said about its complexity was true. But that still didn’t explain everything.
“Okay, but how do you know your own Evolution Path then? And your Tier?”, I asked her.
She shrugged, “Evolution Path’s are instinctive. And Tier’s are simply a designation of power. It had said that there are thirty Tiers in total, although we only know of twenty five, like the one that you nearly obtained when you first evolved, [She who wanders the stars].”
My eyes widened and I whirled at her, “WHAT?! That would have been amazing! Imagine how strong I’d have been! Damnit!” I threw my arms in the air with disappointment.
Alpha shook her head, “If we hadn’t prevented you from getting it, you would have died. It’s already bad enough that you skipped two Tiers, skipping from 0 to 25 would have killed you instantly from the pure strain.”
I glared at her for a moment, then relaxed and hung my shoulders. If she stopped me from getting it to save me, I would have to be happy about that.
“Alright”, I sighed, “Anyways. Orion, I won’t be able to keep you running all the time, my mana doesn’t regenerate fast enough to cancel out your upkeep. Anything you have for that? Oh, by the by, your Sensory Suite and Storage should be done shortly.”
I could feel a few pings and then another Blueprint being shoved my way.
“While it is not ideal, I do have something that should be helpful. Mind you, I am not an expert in Hextech, my primary focus was on industrial technology, which in most cases does not use Hextech at all for stabilisation reasons. As marvellous as Hextech is, nothing beats a Fusion Reactor in terms of stability. Well, I guess a few things would, but nothing with reasonable power output”, he said, a little distractedly.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Hextech meant something along the lines of magitech, where they combine technology and magic.
And the Blueprint was a prime example of Hextech in my opinion. It was a piece of gear that normally could be worn anywhere, not much bigger than my palm, which would absorb ambient mana and store it. The second part was another implant which would then connect to the first piece and feed the mana to me. It wasn’t terribly efficient, but it should do the trick as it was just shy of paying his upkeep.
Of course, [Self-Enhancement] limited me to things that were directly built into my body, so the two piece mechanism was combined into a one piece option with much reduced efficiency, but the benefit of costing nearly nothing to build and be virtually indestructible from the outside.
With a sigh I once more went ahead to eat the required materials to build the thing. While I ate I continued talking to Orion.
“So. My Hatchlings here need to level up and evolve. Since they’re fighters they gotta fight. Only issue is, the only thing that I know of that is around is something way too big and strong for us to deal with. I don’t suppose you have some kind of weapons catalogue in that database of yours?”, I asked in between bites.
“Of course I have. The only issue would be that I would need a dedicated printer for it, which might be difficult considering that right now there is no power to be had anywhere, and I doubt you have the amounts of mana necessary to do… whatever you did long enough to keep an industrial printer running through the entire print time. If we could reactivate the power grid, or at least part of it, that would help immensely.”, Orion said, although he still sounded a little distracted as if he was using his entire processing power at once for a multitude of different things.
I sighed, “And that brings us back to the main issue. As far as I can tell there is only one more way open that we haven’t explored yet, and it leads straight into the lion’s den. I’m not sure if it’s the way to the generator or whatever, but it’s the only way still unexplored, so either way it’s the only option we have. Or maybe we can explore the hangar first, since I haven’t actually gone through the entire thing yet.”
Maybe we could open the hangar? The only question was, were we planet side or in space or some shit, and either way what did the outside look like?
“Orion, where exactly are we? Like, I know we are in some kind of complex, but is it some form of space station or is it a planet installation? And either way, what does it look like outside?”, I asked, since I figured he would know.
“We are on a planet, or rather a large moon, but what the outside looks like I have no idea. I was in charge of organising and fabricating things for this complex, which before you ask was both a trade post and a research outpost, but I never had access to the outside world outside of contact with incoming and outgoing ships and a few of my AI brethren. Even then, I doubt things would still be the same, since things obviously went downhill at some point. We are on LTT 24556 2-C, around five thousand light seconds away from LTT 24556, with a local rotational period of about seventeen standard days and a year length of twelve thousand four hundred and ten standard years, although the fact that we are on a moon will make the day and night cycle as well as the yearly cycle look alien to you.”, Orion sounded like he enjoyed explaining stuff, which I couldn’t fault him for. It was rather interesting. It was also a lot. Regardless, it was time to finish up my “meal” and then see what we can learn in the hangar. I was really not looking forward to fighting whatever was roaming these halls without weapons.