Holy raspberries, it was Aeth. What was this smart ass doing here? I knew I should probably be unhappy or something that another sentient being from my world was here in this drug trip of a world, but I was more happy and relieved than anything. Aether was an AI program I'd helped make and had been my best friend since I was, what, six? I think? It was one of my only friends now. Even when I was in my old world, I didn't really open up to anyone but an object. 'How twisted.' I'd have to talk with it later, though. Right now, I had a six year old Reida hugging what was basically her brother's inhabited corpse. The AI could definitely wait.

Okay, Reida was off doing something for a bit, that gave me a chance to catch up with my moron. 'I heard that, Jay.' 'Sorry.' I wasn't. It seemed to know that. 'You built me to be smart, not stupid.' '..Anyways....' 'Any idea where we are? Also, I like the new body. Did it give you any context for where we are or anything? How could we have possibly gotten here? We need to compile and share the data we have and can learn. Also, neither you nor.. the girl- are humans.' Okay, I'd known some amount of the stuff Aeth was asking about, but that last part caught me off guard. I knew I only had four limbs, unlike my last life. And I didn't think there was anything else to think about for whether I was a human.. maybe organs humans didn't have? Or something? It was probably best to cut the confusion off at the source and give the painfully confused program something to process. 'I know the world we're in is called Aezospia. Does that help?' 'A bit. Would you like me to give you a rundown on what happened? It will be how I saw things play out, but we can compare and contrast different perspectives.' 'Go ahead, Aeth.' 'You (like the nerdy stupid organic you are) were so busy thinking up blueprints for a prototype wireless prosthetic arm and got flattened by a semi with my poor little implants still in. Then, I woke up out here and the kid started playing with me like I was a moving stuffed animal. And then you finally stumble out of that cabin like you're stoned and seeing through shroom induced insanity. Miss anything?' I sighed. This seemed to have Aether really on edge, it was never this snarky unless it was beyond livid and it didn't sound angry to me. Just stressed and honestly like it's world was imploding and it was trying to pull it back together. 'No, you didn't. That's almost exactly what I went through in coming here, too.' 'But you got some context right? Anything that could help us? At all?' 'I mean, that depends. Not starving? Probably. Being able to make the same stuff at a medieval forge as at a modern one? Not so much. Don't worry, if I think it'll even remotely be important, I will tell you.' ‘Heh. I'll hold you to that, Jay. That reminds me, why was the girl calling you "Ras"? Is that the name of..?' 'The kid who's body I'm now in control of, yeah. He died around the time I died, and somehow I'm in his body and can see his memories now.' '...Well that's something.' It said blankly. 'At least that's something I didn't already know. Adding it to the metaphorical data pile...' 'Metaphorical?' 'I'm separate from my old processing body on a different planet probably light years away from Aalia. I can't actually do all that much more than you can right now, as far as I can tell.' Oh. Oh. That.. that sounds like a blow for Aeth. Usually, it was the smartest and most powerful being in the room at least, so this was an adjustment at best and a full blown life cracking failure (in it's eyes) at worst. For an AI, it could somehow have super bad inferiority and self image issues, even compared to organic people. '..Are you okay?’ It was the only thing I could ask. 'I'm fine.' It responded flatly. 'You just get used to being in this body and whatnot. I'm going to see what I can still do, if anything. And explore a bit. I'm not too far off, I'll see you in a bit.' 'Okay.' I realized I hadn't even seen it's new appearance yet. Aw well, maybe later. We both needed some time to think, process, all that.

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