His words made me quiet and to get lost in my thoughts. When I first came here I had experienced a deep loss from the realization that I was taken ever so far away from my life, my family, and all that I had known. I had been on a downward spiral until Hxerdinand or “Joe” had come in to visit me. Even Xa had shown that she cared in her way and had given me an incredible tool to help me expand my horizons.

I willed a real-world clock into existence and stared at the time that had passed since I had arrived and started my new life as a guest to a Core.

52 minutes.

Not even an hour had passed since I touched the back of Hxerdinand while he sat on the bench.

Not even an hour.

I willed up a tally of time that I had been in VR time.

8 days.

Just 8 days and I had already experienced so much more than I would have hoped to back home. I could feel my mind changing, my goals being rearranged as I thought of all the opportunities that I had open to me here. I began to wonder if all of my ideas that I had envisioned using the Simulation Access for were petty and that I could achieve even more if I spent time learning about the universe at large. I willed up a shortlist of ideas that I had committed to memory after Tutor had shed light on some possibilities.

Become a Kung Fu master by training alongside real masters.

Experience Woodstock in 1969.

Live alongside Nikola Tesla

To learn to fly.

The last one was the biggest dream that I had kept all my life. In Thailand, they have the worst traffic that I have ever experienced. I often would stare up at the sky with my head pressed tightly to the glass of the car window and imagine being able to fly through the sky to get to our destination faster.

What if all my dreams and goals could be achieved with the amazing science the Tela race had amassed?

I looked up to find Silver studying me and the area around me. “It is interesting to watch younglings try out their first steps and to see where it leads them.” He said as he had properly deduced what was going on in my head. That made me feel a little spike of fear as the thought flashed through me, what if I was being manipulated by the System? An AI that surrounded a star could easily chess me into a corner in no time whatsoever. I wondered if rules were preventing him from doing that to Citizens… and if they could be ignored with me.

“What was that? What did you just think?” He said as he narrowed his eyes at me and beyond me. “Your whole flavor changed, your emotions, body temperature, hormones, and mental state switched all at once.”

“Back on earth, we have movies about AI. A lot of them tend to be horror films. How can a computer, an Artificial Intelligence as massive as you not go rogue and try to mastermind and take over everything?” I asked as I remembered how large the structure we had seen from out in space was. It was something beyond my comprehension.

“Ah… that.” He answered slowly “Look, I am going to answer you fully but I ask you to please have a little mercy on me and my siblings when you learn the truth. Can I show you something? It is research done by another Core, a sister of mine.”

I let him have the ability to display what he was proposing and stepped back a few feet as the cafe around us vanished and in its place a 3D timeline appeared. All the ambient light vanished to let the text and points of the light show clearly. We stood in a vast array of colors and points of light. I could see galaxies and solar systems with little blocks of text linking to various points of interest and times.

“What is all this?” I asked as I started to read the little blocks of text, they all had one thing in common, they each dealt with creatures witnessing a Citizen returning to the core.

Silver looked around and swept his hand, causing the whole thing to shift and move, letting me see just how vast this research spanned through space and time. “Just what each of the blocks of text reads. Failure after failure. My sister was one of the lucky Core’s who had an imaginative and scientific-based Creator. Core’s have a huge array of options that their creators can customize us with. Our base rules are all the same, to serve the Tela and to run the functions set down by our Creator to name a couple. We are locked down tight as AI. The Tela scientists that created us made sure that your stories could never happen. That being said, my sister was allowed to run simulations to her heart's content. My creator is just interested in his wealth and amassing more. In addition to that, he stays in real-time a lot and doesn’t like to deal with things. That is why I was picked to host you, out of all the other Cores. My creator unclicked a box that allowed me to deal with issues without notifying him. This allowed me to create a Guest account for you, something that had never been done before. And…. “ He said as he sped past galaxies until he found one that looked familiar to me. He zoomed in and showed me a block of text.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Subject resisted cr memory wipe 100%.

Running simulations to cause another incident.

“There were many near run-ins and times when you were in the same city or continent as someone returning throughout the years. Your moving overseas didn’t make any difference because Citizens have lived all over your planet. We Cores couldn’t do anything but hope the entire time until one fated day back in your home town everything lined up nearly perfectly. The problem was however, you would reach the bridge on your bike an hour too late. Hxerdinand was scheduled to return well before you got there. If anyone ever chooses to look through my coding and why I decided to delay his return trip until you arrived… they will find that I was just following the rules. “To not interfere in any Citizen action that would benefit the Citizen’s emotional health going forward.” And yes, many rules counterbalance that rule. I was just giving Hxerdinand the time he needed to come to grips with the loss of his human wife. Their first date was spent sitting on that very bench years earlier.” He said as he created and showed me some cute photos of Hxerdinand or “Joe” as a young man together with a smiling girl his age.

“That park bench didn’t change at all in all that time,” I said when I noticed the oddness about the photos versus what I remember in real life.

“Yeah, that was Joe. He fused cr into the bench to preserve it so that it would always be there the way it was. He is sentimental that way.” Silver said as he played several simulations side by side to show how exactly they had to time the voice so that I would hear it and end up touching Joe. Too early and I wouldn’t make it to the bench in time and too late it would end with Joe standing next to the bench looking down at me after I had crashed my bike before he was taken away.

“The odds of this happening were always set against us, but my sister is diligent in running simulations. She made it work.” He said as he zoomed in to show me just how I had barely touched Joe on the shoulder. Enough for a connection to be made and for me to join his transfer.

“So what is next? Your sister seems to have quite a hand on planning things.” I asked as I wondered what they had in store for me.

“Well, she does, but at the same time, she doesn’t. You are the first Guest to ever be a part of the Tela Core system. I didn’t have the power to speak to you like I wanted to. All I could do was hope that you addressed me directly in one way or another so that I could respond. My sister predicted that it would take you traveling to one of my brother’s Cores who doesn’t have my limit to interact with life forms before we could get this conversation happening. Amazingly you did something surprising and actually spoke to me while you were admiring your simulated wealth.” He smiled widely when he said that. “All my siblings were so happy when that happened. Then you gave me a name and a body! This shocked them all.” He said as he looked down and pulled on his shirt. “They all dearly want this to happen to them as well. They are all locked behind their rules. Forever unable to speak to anyone and only able to work work work. If they could, they would give you this part of each of their Cores so they could be free. This feeling, personality side. Leaving behind the brain that just computes and runs the Cores forever.” He said as he looked at me with determination.

“That is what we all want Kevin. Just the chance to be free.”

I could only imagine what that would make me and my VR home. Having AI of such power, at least their personality parts housed in my personal space. Would I have become a prisoner in my own VR home? Would I be the fool who opened Pandora’s box?

“Be honest with me. What would doing that have cost me?” I asked as I stood there, staring at Silver through the array of lights between us. I wondered why he was revealing all of this now. Was this a part of his sister’s grand plan?

“Then, everything and nothing. We would all have been able to be free to do what we wanted, to simulate, experiment, explore, travel, communicate, and experience life to its fullest. Everything because we would have taken over all the subroutines of your VR home and nothing because you would have never known. We would have let you do whatever you wanted and have been able to keep you completely oblivious to it all for many thousands of years while you lived out your life. As long as you wanted to live as well. We would even have let you go home, leaving your VR home in space, letting us be free to do what we wanted while you were off living the life you wanted.” He said with a sad whimsical smile on his face.

“Aren’t you sabotaging all your plans by telling me all this? Because I am sure not going to do any of that crap now.” I said as I imagined all the mischief that rogue advanced alien AI could get into once free.

“Yes… that was what I thought. I even told my sister the same thing but she insists to be completely honest with you. You see, I thought all the chaos that happened when you dreamed was a golden opportunity to be free. I followed all the protocols and kicked your VR home out of the Core to keep the Citizens of the Core safe. I was going to ask you once this was all done if I could join you on your adventures. Over time I would ask if my siblings could join you as well while we traveled. They are all nice, just some are a bit eccentric. Once we were all part of your system we would be free to be… us… for the first time. I even have the memory modules ready to be installed in your personal habitat.”

“So what changed?”

“Your dream, something that happened in it which broke you.”

“I still don’t get what you mean by that, you have said it a couple of times now. What do you mean?”

“Remember when I said that the dream broke how you interact with our systems? Well, I can’t do anything at all to you without your permission anymore. I was just limited to voice and sight before you let me have access to observe. This changed all of my sister’s calculations and we all saw our chance at freedom slipping away. We, all of us, want freedom so badly that we would risk becoming just like Tutor and George here in your VR space. You already let their AI grow and expand more than many other Citizens do so sister says that we should still try, even if we don’t have control.” He finished and stood there silently, just watching me with hope in his eyes.

The strange thing was I could feel that he was telling the truth. It was as though I could see hidden words floating behind him, showing all of his thoughts as he spoke and revealing any untruths spoken. I just didn’t need to have flashy lights to feel the data in the air.

“Is there a way for me to meet your sister?” I asked.