I found myself back in a plain white space.

“May the stars guide your way stranger!” a vaguely familiar voice boomed.

“This is a recording that will be destroyed after delivered. I advise to pay attention as the information might be useful for you.

As this is a recording, you can’t ask questions or reply. Just focus on listening.”

What? Where was I? This was the same voice I heard while creating this body! It said I can’t ask, but I had plenty of questions!

This was not fair!

After calming down a bit, I decided to heed it’s advice and listen. Any information it had for me might be useful.

I would have to ponder about how much I could trust it, but it was the only source of information about what had happened to that I had. There would be no crosschecking.

It was better to pay attention, maybe I would notice something odd in its argumentation.

After a while the voice continued:

“You should have calmed down by now, at least to a degree.

I am what you would call an AI, but much more complex and powerful than the ones you know about.

I am a part of an interstellar empire, which controls this part of what you would call the Milky Way. Silly name, if you ask me.

The creature you saw that day was the governor responsible for this planet. As your culture is far from being able to join the empire, he is here to monitor and to a degree influence your evolution towards a species that might advanced enough to at least trade with.

This job is well payed, but it certainly won’t make you rich and powerful. So the governor is busy to further his own goals for now.

I’m here to assist him with his daily chores mostly. Beings like me are bound to obey the empires laws, which are basically beneficial to its denizens.

I was in the situation where the governor broke those laws to a degree, but he has the authority to bend the rules at least on this planet for the common good. While keeping information about the empire from your species is perfectly viable, I had problems with the way he solved these problems, securing resources he could turn into money later, like valuable raw material.

As I couldn’t accept the way he used people like you for his gains, I used his, almost always, sloppy commands to attract the attention of an organization who would be able and willing to stop this madness.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

They are called “The Enforcers” and are something like the police. You might try to fool and evade them for a while, but I would advise against violence against them since it usually leads to severe judgments for your case. So if you see this badge and have now way to escape I would advise to surrender.”

A seven pointed dark metal star with asymmetric rays appeared in front of me.

“As it is illegal don’t provide denizens of this planet with information. You would only get them into problems doing that.

You should avoid exposing information to local authorities. It might bring you to the attention of the governor.

The Enforcers will come after you eventually, because of the advanced technology built into your body. That could not be helped, since I need that fact to drag them here.

About that material arts training. It will probably be deleted when they get you. So use your time wisely as they can’t remove the knowledge you got that way.

Farewell then stranger. Maybe our road cross again eventually.”

This was bad, considering it told me the truth. It actually had painted a target on my back to achieve its goals!

How about Lilía? It hurt, even if we knew each other for such a short time, to think about being taken away from her by the enforcers.

There was quite a bit information to hide from her, which felt bad. It may be okay for a while, but keeping all this for me for a longer time filled me with dread.

The Enforcer symbol was still floating in front of me. I tried to imprint it in my mind as good as I could.

I was dependent from Lilía for a while, finding another way of acquiring things I needed to life was rather hard to get.

What should I do when I got what I needed? I didn’t want to leave at all. It just felt bad as well. Staying with her without telling her about the impeding problems felt bad as well.

Telling her about the situation was actually bad for me, and maybe her as well.

Awwwww!

There seemed to be no good way out of this mess.

Cassie was probably one piece of advanced tech somehow implanted into my body.

I had been gotten fond of her as well, even she considered herself a commodity.

What should I do? However I looked at the situation it was a mess. A mess I probably had no idea of how it would turn out in the end.

For the moment it would be the best to wait how the situation would turn out between us. The mess would kind of solve itself we parted way after while.

Thinking about that definitely hurt me inside, it was nothing I wanted to think about. Simply waiting for a while to get to know her better was a viable option though. It shelved the problem for later, but maybe I’d found out more at that point and I would know Lilía way better then. Parting ways could hurt way more though.

While I didn’t like this at all, the transformation hat been the cause to get to know her. I felt torn. While all this was forced on me, I didn’t want to lose the new present. At least after I happened to run into her.

Turning back wasn’t an option at the moment, and it might be impossible even in the future. Information about my old body would most certainly be lost. On the other hand I had lived for quite some time before and now I was a young woman. A woman with a uncertain future though.

Then the white space vanished. I was wide awake. Someone warm had cuddled herself against me. Her steady breath showed she was soundly asleep.

I felt a bit lost, but feeling her laying next to me filled me with a bit of comfort.

“Did you hear the messages as well, Cassie?” I whispered.

“I noticed the message playing. The message had an auto delete trigger though, so I won’t be able to replay it.” She apologized.

“It was rather short. We’ll be good.” I whispered back.

“Try to sleep some more, Stella. Good night!” She went silent after that.

Carefully I pulled Lilía closer. I drifted back into a now dreamless sleep.