Jason is not sure how long he is throwing up on the floor. The pain blocks out all semblance of time until it suddenly stops with one final dry heave. On the ground beneath him is his entirely intact sensory augmentation. Jason struggles to stand nearly falling face first into the mess on the floor before he is finally able to stand. He looks at the floating Neter who looks at him with unfettered amusement. Despite spending the last who knows how in agony he feels fully refreshed as if he just slept a full night.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jason questions. “Please, just stop. I don’t know what you want but please stop.”
“I know it is remetch, painful, but you must persevere.” Seshat says with a hum. “The only thing I want is for us to survive and we have a long way to go to ensure that happens. I survived the Xak-Heru and I will survive this. Now to replace this disgusting tech with something a little more elegant.”
Jason runs to get out of the room but the door doesn’t open. It wouldn’t now that he no longer has the sensory augmentation it is his key. He is a natural, no augmentations at all even the blue jewel nodes have fallen off as if they were never there to begin with. He turns around and sees Seshat watching him while she levitated looking like she was laying down on an invisible couch. Then, suddenly blackness he was out cold crumpled on the floor.
Jason wakes up in his bed rubbing his eyes with a yawn. At first he thought it must have all been a dream that is until he turns over and sees his sensory augmentation lying on the ground. It and his entire room has been cleaned with all of the trash and clothing gone. He sits up and scoots to the side of the bed, his legs hanging over the edge.
“The procedure was a success. Go ahead and try it out.” Seshat says as the woman appears between blinks.
“Ah what the fu… how did you do that?” Jason screams. “What did you do to me? How did you do that?” He points to the pristine looking augmentation neatly stacked on the floor.”
“I told you I am the great Neter Seshat.” She says with a haughty voice as she opens her arms in a wide gesture. “We are connected, en ekh men. It was the cost of saving your life to bind our souls.”
“Uh huh, save me from what exactly?” Jason questions.
“I know you remember the explosion at the docks.” Seshat says as she floats towards him, stopping only a foot away from him. “You would still be floating out in space had it not been for me. I would have manifested earlier but I needed to recuperate my powers. I took the time looking through your senefu, your memories when your soul suddenly became extremely shemau… uh, volatile? We'll go with volatile.” She floats over to the sensory augmentation hovering horizontally over it like she is laying across an invisible table a foot off the ground. “I can see why I would be upset if I had that garbage inside of me too. You need money right? Sell it to the first seb-iret that is stupid enough to buy it. I even wiped all the data for you.”
“You did what. Jason screams. “I can’t even leave this room like this. You turned me into a natural you fuck’n scav, you stripped me.”
“I upgraded you. Something like this is child's play for me or at least it would be if I had all of my powers.” Seshat looks up at Jason excitedly. “I created… you know what it would be better for you to see. Go ahead say irp.”
“Irp?” Jason questions the absurdity of everything going on, not lost on him. “What does that…”
A menu Jason has never seen before opens in his vision. This one has yellow menu coloration to the standard blue-green. Most importantly is the logo of a nine pointed star with name AnkhtekOS 0.1. It is a brand he has never heard of before. Jason finds the new menus different but at the same time simple to learn. He also sees that everything from his original sensory augmentation has been ported over into this new one. He looks at his wrist and sees that the usual blue jewels have all been replaced with golden tattoos of a nine pointed star. He can’t help but wonder if she branded him with her logo.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Not only that but everything he looks at is also scanned with data showing up in his vision, something that usually requires an ocular augmentation, something he did not have. He looks at his chest in the corner of the room and it opens like it should. He then looks at Wynn’s chest, the item is scanned and a new menu is open offering to splice the connection and open the locked chest. Jason stares at the option he has never even heard of a basic augmentation that can hack so easily. He turns back to Seshat who is floating above the ground, her head in hands while she waves her feet back and forth while looking assured at her work.
“Well. Pretty shai-ren, right?” Seshat says in an excited squeal. “Best of all it can’t be hacked and there are no backdoors and it is all proprietary tech from yours truly. I also made it compatible with the sorry excuse for programs you had on that old thing.”
“Wait-wait hold on. If you took out my old stuff, what did you make the new Augmentation from?”
“That's the best part, it is all you. A natural computer made from your bones, synapsis and nerves. I turned you into a biological computer. I may have also made you ageless as a side effect well know in a few days if you age or not…”
“You made me immortal?” Jason asks.
“Oh no-no, hehe, no no not at all you are very much painfully mortal.” Seshat says with a giggle as she waves her hand in dismissal. “If I could make you immortal I would, trust me, if you die I die. However, you can still die to everything but maybe old age. Probably, like I said we will know in a few days.”
“What are you, an alien or something?” Jason asks.
“Technically I am, but from what I can tell I am not from this reality. This is a higher plane of existence from where I am from. If I had not bound myself to someone I would have been erased. I don’t know what brought me here or how. One moment ani sekhet-ank and the next I was inside of the NV Aurora Star Lily. The next thing I knew I was being chased by some people with guns while trying to keep myself from falling apart. This world’s mortals are much more advanced than those from the realities I am familiar with but you all are severely lacking in heka.”
“One moment you were what?” Jason asked, confused.
“Uh, in your language it means…” She thought for a second. “In my workshop.”
“Wait, did you cause that explosion in the dock?” Jason asks accusingly.
“I am hurt that you would think so.” Seshat states as he rolls in the air. “I don’t have the heka required to do that in my current state. If I had all of my power I could easily destroy everything but in this state.” She reaches down to pick up the sensory augmentation and her hand passes through the device flickering like a poorly rendered hologram. “I can only interact with stuff through you or by stockpiling my magic after a while. Whoever the armed men were that were chasing me definitely knew something. They were waiting for me and attacked as soon as I appeared.”
“I don’t understand. What is heka?” Jason asks.
“The closest thing in your dictionary I can find is magic.” Seshat says nonchalantly. “Your language is very inconvenient but I should have it down soon.”
“If you are not from this reality how do you know my language or what the Star Lily was or any of that?” Jason ask.
“I already told you I have been rummaging around your memories.” Seshat says. “A few days and I should know everything you know.”
Jason sat back in his bed biting his thumb as he mulled over everything that has transpired over the past few hours. If the woman had not literally caused several impossible things to happen already he would call her a kook, get the auti here and have her arrested. The possibility of her being a virus AI died as soon as she made him throw up an entire sensory augmentation and replace it with this new AnkhtekOS. If she were a scammer what would be the scam? To give him better tech? To be a guinea pig for whatever she did to him?
He watches her as she lazily floats through the air. His eyes then fall to the sensory augmentation on the ground. It is right that he needs money and a Grade 5 is worth a small fortune. If he sells it he should have enough to cover his half of the apartment. It is something that can occupy his mind even if it is just a distraction. He stands up and feeling a slight dizziness which causes him to stumble a few steps and stare down at his feet. When he looks back up Seshat is gone as if she was never there to begin with.