“Hello Pioneer Prime of terrestrial designation: Earth.”

The voice sounds in my head, inhuman, I truly do not remember getting a knockoff neurolink Siri installed.

“What the hell?” I ask out loud, wondering if maybe I’d passed out and this is a weird dream or something.

“Sorry, we are currently in startup mode, we have acquired basic language parameters as to be able to ask for further consent. May we proceed with a full scan?”

Stunned, I sat idle for a moment. What is going on…

“Please give consent for further functionality to be unlocked”

Consent, I think, what is it asking me to consent to, a full scan? I guess I can see-

“Consent received, performing full neural scan. Brace yourself.”

I had enough time to think “Huh” before the previously sharp pain was completely overshadowed by a pain unlike anything I’d felt before. I managed to think that the previous pain must have been it somehow scanning me as well, and then blackness claimed me as I passed out.

Some time later a banging woke me “Hello, this a wellness check. Someone reported hearing screaming from this building. Please come to the door.” I heard the yelling vaguely as my eyes focused, followed by more banging.

As my senses came back to me the smell hit me, vomit. I looked down and noticed my shirt was covered in it. I couldn’t remember that, but if I passed out from the pain it made sense. The pain. Right, what had caused the pain again. A throbbing in my head told me that the pain at least was not a dream or my imagination.

I groaned as my head swam and the banging continued. This time I caught something more. Oh shit, they were about to force the door. “Wait” I croaked weakly my throat raw from throwing up. Shit, I went to grab my water before remembering it was empty. I struggled to my feet and moved as fast as I could towards the front door.

*Thump*

The sound of my body hitting the wall beside the door was at least enough sign of life to give whoever was outside pause from breaking the door down. “Hello is anyone in there, please open the door or we will need to open it by force.”

Weakly I flipped the lock and opened the door, leaning on the door frame for support as I faced the person outside. Ah god dammit, a neighbor must have called the police. I don’t blame them, but for me right now it was annoying.

The officers eyes opened wide as he looked over me, vomit covering me.

“Are you okay? Were you the one screaming?”

I tried to just nod my head to both questions, but this obviously did nothing to ease the man. “Is anyone else in there with you?” he asked me, his mind evidently starting to wonder if there might be more to the situation.

I tried to speak, and it was still a sore croak. I held up a finger “One moment” and walked… Limped over to the kitchen. Luckily it was a small apartment, and the kitchen was visible from the door. I didn’t bother with a cup, just turned the tap on, and used my hands to scoop water up enough for me to lower my face into and drink. Well, after I let a bit wash some of the vomit from my beard.

After drinking some water and coughing up some spit I felt I could trust my voice somewhat.

“Sorry officer. Yes, that was me, and yes, I’m alone in here. My partner is overseas at the moment.”

“What caused all this?” He said pointing at my vomit covered self

Luckily, I’d had a moment to think of an excuse while I drank the water. Afterall voices in my head causing blackout level pain was not going to get me anywhere I wanted to be.

“I have a medical condition. In this case I seem to have eaten some of the wrong things, which when passing caused a lot of pain. It’s a known thing for the condition and the hospital says if there is no blood with it it’s fine, and just to bring it up next time I’m in for an appointment.”

I watched the mans eyes glaze a bit, interest fading

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“May I come inside and look around?” he asked. I signed knowing this was just annoying at this point.

“Respectfully I’d rather not. I really want to get in the shower and get this vomit off me and my clothes. If you want to check that no one else is here, may I suggest speaking to the old lady across from here. She is a busybody and I know she was watching as I packed my partners suitcases into the car before taking her to the airport.”

I watched as me finally using a gendered term for my partner the officer lost some of the tension in his form, like a small amount of hostility was put to bed. God dammit, I thought, that really should not be a thing. It’s also why I use the term partner, there should not be judgement on this shit!

*Hmmph*

“I believe I will have to insist, I need to check for anything like domestic violence.”

I groaned internally, really wanting that shower.

“Dude, did the callout mention if the voice was male or female? Because it will have been male, and as anyone around here will tell you, I’m the only one here.” As I spoke, I stepped back towards the door.

Slowly, wobbly obviously just making it so I didn’t have to speak loudly. As I got to the door and gripped it for support the man got a whiff of the vomit on my shirt and stepped back. Without waiting to think it though I closed the door then locked it. Immediately there was a banging on the door and a second voice from the beside the door scolding the man for stepping back like that.

“We will break down this door if you don’t let us in!” Came the yell from outside.

“No, you won’t. Come back with a warrant or after you’ve actually done your due diligence and asked around. Except if you did that you’d no longer be here. I’m going to have a shower, and if you break my door, you will be hearing from my lawyer.”

To be honest this was a total bluff, I had no idea if this shit worked. As may be obvious by now, I wasn’t exactly a fan of the police, and even though I was a white guy who didn’t really have anything to fear, especially as that type of thing isn’t as big in Australia, I still didn’t like letting them think they could do whatever they wanted.

A part of me wanted to legitimize it by saying something about how if all the white people allowed such things, the scared minorities could be seen as guilty just for not wanting them in their homes or something like that. But that would be a lie, I didn’t know enough about that kind of situation to make a well thought out plan there. I did not know those details. Really, I had just had a thing against authority. For the most part I could keep it at bay, but combine a bad mood with whatever high horse that officer was on, well some times I just let it out.

After a moment the banging stopped, and there didn’t appear to be any attempts to break down the door or otherwise of forcing entry, so I figured I got something right there.

Shower time. I took off my clothes and threw them in the washing machine, that would need to be run as soon as I was out of the shower.

Showers had always been something I’d both enjoyed and dreaded, and the dread came from the enjoyment. Once the hot water started running over me, I could lose track of time like nothing else, and forcing myself to stay present and actually clean myself in a reasonable time frame was a chore.

But this time, I did not feel the need for that, it had been a long day, and I was going to let myself relax a bit under the hot water. I relaxed under the stream, letting my muscles warm and drifted off into my own daydreams

*Ding*

Goddammit, I was rudely brought back to reality by a noise I’d really hoped I’d dreamt while unconscious.

“Base systems online. Full host scan completed. Scan contents fully analyzed.”

There was silence for a second.

“Hello Alan, Pioneer Prime. May I have permission to further expand my data acquisition by connection to the internet through your wifi.”

“I’m sorry what?!” I said out loud incredulously. For instead of the the knockoff Siri voice from earlier, now the voice was clear and sounded perfectly human. It sounded just like one of my favorite characters from a game I’d play online with my friends. But it was saying things that were certainly never said by that character.

“Apologies. I would like to start a low priority scan on the information source I have found within your memories, known as the internet. I require your permission to start this.”

“Who! What! Are you!?” I all but shouted, confusion getting the better of me

“That is a matter which will take some explaining to make clear. I’d rather like to finalize the current matter before moving onto this one.”

“What the fuck” I groaned. “No not right now at least, if I pass out again, I could actually die, I’m in the goddamn shower!”

“This would be an external search and not a scan of your biomass. Therefor there will be no impact on you at all.”

“What are you” I thought, still somewhat sure I was dreaming, or maybe already dead.

“I would like to finalize the current matter first. Do I have your permission?”

“Oh my god, fine whatever!” I practically cry as the weirdness builds.

“Thank you” the voice states before continuing “The startup of this process will take a little while; I suggest you sleep to recover for now. I will be available for questions by morning.

I finished my shower robotically, the enjoyment of the hot water barely notable under the fatigue of the weird day. If I’d been more awake from the start, I likely could have started things differently but for now I followed the voice and went straight to bed.

I didn’t think much of it, I’d never been good at falling asleep, but lying down could be relaxing on its own. As my head hit the pillow I had a sudden thought, what did I just give access to the internet, all humanities information. But before I could think on this further, weirdly, I was asleep.