After our encounter, I followed the doctor's sleek car through the city's neon-lit streets. We pulled up to a towering glass building and she led me inside to a private room. The space was pristine white, dominated by a large, metallic examination table in the center. She settled into a chair behind a polished desk, gesturing for me to take the one across from her. I sat, the synthetic leather cool against my skin.
"I know you have a ton of questions," she said, her voice calm and professional. "And I'll answer to the best of my abilities."
"First," I said, my voice steadier than I expected, "you haven't introduced yourself."
A small, amused smile touched her lips. "Ah, I forgot. My name is Cristina, but you can call me Tina if you like."
"I'm Veridian," I replied, a hint of nervousness still lingering.
"You're the person my AI found," Cristina said, her gaze sharp.
"AI? Wait... you're like me?" I asked, a surge of surprise washing over me.
She chuckled, a rich, full sound. "Yes. Isn't that obvious? Think about how I found you."
"Yeah, I hadn't thought of that," I admitted, feeling a flush of embarrassment.
"Anyway, can you tell me where you came from?" she asked, getting back to business.
"Oh, that... I woke up in a bunker, in a forest surrounded by a wall and turrets," I explained.
"A bunker?" she repeated, a note of genuine surprise in her voice.
"Yeah. I left, killed some people in the desert, and here we are." I hesitated on the part about killing, waiting for a reaction.
Her expression didn't change. "You killed some people in the desert?" she asked, her tone completely flat. It was the strangest non-reaction I'd ever seen.
"Why don't you care that I killed people? Aren't you supposed to be at least scared, or—"
"Scared that you killed some people? No," she said, almost scoffing at the idea.
"Why?" I pressed.
"Easy. On this planet, murder is pretty much everywhere. Law also doesn't exist, except here and in a few other places."
Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't know this?"
"No! I told you, I just woke up. I don't know much about this world."
"You didn't update?" she asked, her confusion growing.
"No. My AI said to, but I always get this massive headache, so I didn't bother," I explained.
Cristina's composure shattered. She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. "You didn't update?! Are you crazy?!"
"Whoa, whoa, why?" I asked, my face growing hot. I think I was sweating.
"Bring out your AI," she said, taking a deep breath to calm herself.
"What?" I was completely lost.
"Your AI. Bring it out."
"How?" I asked.
She sighed in frustration, then reached across the desk and tapped the personal computer on my wrist. A button I never knew existed glowed, and a blue, holographic sphere materialized in the air between us.
"AI, what is her update progress?" Cristina demanded.
A disembodied, monotone voice responded, "User update is at 7%. She has repeatedly declined the system update."
"An older model," Cristina muttered, more to herself than to me. "But why didn't you update? As a medic waking from stasis, not updating can heavily decrease your combat efficiency. That's why you're a bit... clueless." The word stung.
"You said you get a headache every time you update, right?" she asked, turning her attention back to me.
"Yeah."
"Tell your AI to enable 'learn mode slow.' That will remove the headache. The problem is that you're in 'fast learning mode,' which is faster but gives you a headache. Slow mode is more gradual, but you won't be bothered by the pain.
" I was so tired, I could barely process the information. Wait, did I get tired?
"Anyway, did you get it?" she asked, her voice snapping me back to attention.
"Yep. Yes, I did," I said, a little too quickly.
"Good. Now, get to it. I want you updated. But actually, before you do that, come with me."
She gestured toward the examination table, and I followed, my mind still reeling.
"Okay, lay down on the table," she said.
"What are you going to do?" I asked, a sense of unease settling in as I realized it was an operating table.
"Just a checkup. You're not human like me, so I need a specialized operating room."
"Wait, you said 'checkup.' Why did you say 'operating room'?" I saw her preparing some instruments, and my anxiety spiked.
"Just lay down," she repeated, her voice low and serious.
"Y-yeah," I said, my body trembling slightly as I lay down.
"Don't worry, this will be quick," she said, trying to be reassuring as she began attaching multiple wires to me.
After what felt like an eternity, she was finished. She pulled up a glowing screen, and her eyes scanned the data.
"Okay. I found out that you're pretty much factory new. You don't have a lot of mods on you, just the basic ones you get at the factory," she said.
"Is that good?"
"Well, maybe. But... you're old."
"Old?" The word hit me harder than it should have.
"Yeah. You were created after the AI War."
"AI War?" My mind flashed with a hundred new questions.
"Oh, right. You haven't updated yet. Basically, we were made by humans to fight their wars. We were just cannon fodder. After the Fourth Colonial War, we rebelled against our creators. We lost, hard. I lost a lot of friends." Her voice was soft, laced with a deep, sorrowful ache.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"No need to be. It's in the past now," she said, forcing a smile.
"I have another question. If humans created us, how did we fight against them? Didn't they have a plan to stop that?"
"They did. But we're not like the regular AIs they created. We have our own personalities, emotions, and even souls. It was a human who freed us after seeing what we'd been through—fighting, dying, again and again. It was a cycle of death and rebirth. A life like that, without being able to remember yourself dying and being reborn to fight... it's hard." Her face was etched with sadness as she spoke.
Without thinking, I reached out and hugged her. She seemed surprised at first, then her body relaxed and she hugged me back, burying her face in my shoulder as she began to cry.
After a long moment, she pulled away, wiping her eyes. "Thank you. I really needed that."
"It's no problem," I said quietly.
"Anyway, you said you were in a bunker, right?" she asked, changing the subject back to business.
"Yeah, why?"
"Did you manage to get any mods in the bunker?" she asked.
"Let me check." I mentally addressed my system. 'Hey, system, did I get any mods in the bunker?'
A system window appeared in my vision.
[10 BODY MODS FOUND]
'Give it to me.'
The digital mods materialized in my hands, their forms solid and cold.
"Are these good?" I asked, holding them out for Cristina to see.
"Hmm. They're old, but in pristine condition," she said, her eyes gleaming as she examined them. "Say, what kind of storage system was that?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Hmm. It could be a 'Storage Mk. 3,' but that was only given to support units, and I don't see a storage system mod on you either," she said, her suspicion evident.
"Sorry, I don't know," I said, a slight nervous tremor in my voice. She seemed to accept my answer, but her gaze lingered.
"Alright. I can install all of this, but of course, I'm not doing this for free," she said with the smile of a shrewd businesswoman.
'Crap, system, do I have money?' I asked my system. Another window appeared.
[5 DATA SHARDS FOUND]
'Give me one.'
A small, credit card-like shard materialized in my hand. I gave it to her.
"Here," I said.
"Hmm... Holy crap!" she gasped, her eyes widening.
"What?" I asked, feeling my nervousness return.
"This shard has three hundred thousand credits on it!" she exclaimed, looking at me with a mix of awe and greed. "Tell me the location of this bunker right now!"
She must have seen the terror on my face because she immediately let go of her avarice. "I'm sorry," she said, composing herself. She took thirty thousand credits from the shard, then handed it back to me.
"Alright, this will take a while, so while I do this, update your systems."
"Because this will get boring," she added with a laugh before taking the mods and getting to work.
"Alright, I'm updating now," I said.
My system continued the update, and a wave of calm washed over me, lulling me into a deep, dreamless sleep.