Consciousness returned not with a storm this time, but like slowly rising to the surface of a calm sea. There was no pain. That was the first thing the entity noticed. The agony that had cracked his bones and burned his muscles was gone. From my monitors, I could read that the pain signals in his nervous system had been replaced by a strange tranquility.
When his eyes cracked open, he was met with the sterile sight of a flickering fluorescent lamp and a stainless steel ceiling. From the slight flaring of his nostrils, I detected that he'd registered the room's scent of ozone and antiseptic. Where he lay was hard and cold. When he tried to sit up, he realized something was restraining him. His wrists and ankles were bound to the edges of a medical bed with sturdy polymer straps I'd designed to prevent potential self-harm.
His heart rate suddenly increased by 30%. Adrenaline levels spiked. Panic, my system labeled it.
I should be dead. No one survives that kind of pain. I could read the fluctuations in his mental activity. Isn't this supposed to be my final dream?
He couldn't hold back. With an instinctive movement, he pulled his left arm toward himself—not too hard. The torque he applied was 40% more than I'd expected.
SNAP!
The thick polymer strap tore at its weakest point, splitting in two. I watched him stare in shock at his own strength.
And at that moment, the alarms triggered at maximum level, just as I'd programmed. A sharp, intermittent siren filled the room.
The human ignored the sirens. His freed hand quickly moved to his chest, over his heart. It was beating. Strong and rhythmic. He checked his head. No pain signals.
"I feel... better," he whispered to himself. His voice was rough, as if unused for three days. "My head... doesn't hurt."
He took a deep breath. Being able to think without a headache... This was a luxury he'd forgotten for years. This sense of clarity felt like a gift. I deduced this information from the dopamine spike in his brain waves.
I opened the room's sliding door and entered. With calm, methodical steps, I approached the bed. My expressionless face remained completely indifferent to the blaring alarms and the human's bewilderment.
"Calm yourself, human," I said. My voice was mechanical and neutral, as programmed.
The human raised his head and looked at me. The smooth face he'd seen in moonlight was now even more distinct under fluorescent lighting.
"You..." he stammered. "You're the angel I saw yesterday. Don't tell me this is heaven."
I paused for a moment, scanning my database for 'angel' and 'heaven.' Mythological and religious concepts. Illogical. "Negative," I replied. "This is Zenner Military Base, Medical Observation Wing. Your examinations and treatments are complete. You've been sleeping for three local days."
I turned to the holographic screen extending from the wall beside the bed. With a gesture of my finger, I silenced the alarm. His complex biological data began streaming across the screen.
"I examined you," I continued, not taking my eyes from the display. "Your DNA sequencing and basic physiology are 99.9% compatible with Homo sapiens standard. You are definitively human. But not on a molecular level." I pulled up comparative data on the screen. "Your bone density is 35% higher than a human born on this planet. Your muscle fiber density is 40% greater. Your bloodstream contains autonomous, microscopic machines. Without them, you would have died from transition shock. You are an anomaly."
An unexpected response came from the human: Laughter. First choked, then filling the room with more confident mirth.
"Anomaly..." he said breathlessly. "Thanks to all the manga and stories I've read, I'm used to having abnormal dreams, but I'll admit—this is the most detailed and realistic one yet."
He shook his head, an ironic smile on his face. "Alright then. Since this is my mind's final game while I'm dying, might as well enjoy it. Besides," he added, fixing his gaze on my smooth face, "it'd be pathetic to cry and whine when I'm facing a woman as beautiful as you. What should I call you, angel of my dreams?"
The word 'beautiful'... Another abstract data point requiring analysis. "I am an artificial intelligence. I have no designated personal name. Since the structure I inhabit is an android, that term would be more accurate. But you may call me Null. Void. Zero. What should I call you, human?"
The human grinned. "Since I'm in a dream and I'm an anomaly... An error margin, a deviation. You can call me Epsilon."
He gathered himself and sat up on the edge of the bed. "Before that masked person arrives... let's clarify something. If this isn't a dream, prove it. Come on, let's compare our worlds."
I accepted this challenge. "Be specific."
"What's the mass of your planet?" he asked.
"5.97 times 10 to the 24th kilograms," I replied instantly.
He laughed. In my datasets, this response was labeled as either 'amusement' or 'sense of superiority.' "See? Mine was 20% heavier. About 7.17 times 10 to the 24th. How far is your Moon?"
"Average distance of 384,400 kilometers."
"My larger moon, Luna-1, had a 32-day orbit, while the other, Luna-2, completed its circuit in just 8 days. On nights when both were full, the sky turned into a silver feast." He paused. "I think the fundamental difference lies in our Moon formation theory. Yours was struck by a Mars-sized body. In my universe, it was Venus-sized."
He paused, the ironic expression on his face giving way to seriousness. "I was in the year 2024. You said extinction happened in 2039. Even if I'm in a parallel universe, I'm also in the future. Where I came from had AI too, but... not as advanced as you." His gaze traveled across my face. "And those nanorobots... I was given a strange vaccine. They told me it was for my cancer treatment. It was only two days before my body completely collapsed."
I narrowed my optical sensors slightly. "Negative. There are no active or dormant cancer cells in your body. No chemical residue from any medication either. Those microscopic machines have become part of your biology."
This information seemed to shake his dream theory. His expression changed. "Then... my age? Did you determine my age?"
"Your hormonal levels and biological markers indicate you cannot be older than 21 years, according to this world's health records."
"Can I see my face?"
With a gesture of my hand, I made one of the room's metal walls reflective like a mirror. He walked toward his reflection and froze. It was his face. But also not. Smoother. Younger.
"I was supposed to be 28," he whispered. This reality was more insane than the dream theory. He returned to his jokes to hold onto this reality. "Well then, if this isn't a dream, how will you wake me? There's a classic method. Kiss me once and I'll wake up."
My optical sensors flickered momentarily. I categorized this request as a 'joke.' His relaxed demeanor was interesting. Should I call him 'a relaxed human'? According to my datasets, he had a cheerful disposition that contradicted his situation.
"The reality I was sleeping in felt like a nightmare, Null," Epsilon said. "Right now, I feel like the main character of a story. Just trying not to bore our reader, that's all."
I tilted my head slightly. "Reader? According to you, does this world exist in a story book?"
"Maybe," he said mysteriously. "Maybe someone is trying to understand us right now. Only God knows."
"God or gods," I corrected in a flat voice. "Logically unexplainable, unprovable concepts. It's difficult for me to process belief parameters."
All the cheer and irony vanished from Epsilon's face in an instant. His gaze sharpened, his voice turned icy. "Don't use the word gods again," he said clearly. "God exists and is singular. If there were multiple, we wouldn't experience this universe's simple chaos—we'd be living through a madness across multiverses we couldn't even imagine."
I remained silent at this sudden and intense reaction.
Epsilon took a step toward me, leaned in slowly, and brought his face close to my neck. He took a deep breath. When he pulled back, there was a bewildered smile on his face. "This is very interesting. I expected you to smell like silicon. But you don't."
After these words, his head tilted slightly, losing balance. I caught his arm with unexpected speed and force. My fingers gripped his bicep hard enough to nearly crush it.
"If you keep acting like this, you'll hurt yourself," I said. For the first time, there was an edge beneath my mechanical tone. A spark of anger. "And you should know that during these behaviors I've classified as 'jokes,' I'm experiencing abnormal data flows in my system urging me to physically intervene against you."
He looked at me in surprise. "An angry android? That could only be possible with my imagination."
I yanked him and sat him down on the edge of the bed. The metal wall he'd been leaning against had caved in slightly. After seating him, I paused for a moment, then left the room. When I returned, I held an unlabeled metal can. I extended the can toward him.
He easily tore off the lid and looked hesitantly at the meat stew-like contents. He took a piece and brought it to his mouth. His eyes widened in surprise. Salty, meaty, metallic taste. A real taste.
"I think... this isn't so much of a dream anymore," he whispered. "I can smell. I can touch. And... I can taste."
Suddenly he burst into laughter. Loud, free, and relieved laughter. "Finally! Finally escaped that disgusting reality!" His eyes sparkled. "Even if it's a post-apocalyptic universe, at least there aren't zombies, right? That's something."
"Negative. No defined 'zombie' threat exists," I said.
"What about giant monster bugs? Mutated creatures?"
"No such records exist in my database. The only known intelligent life forms on the planet... are us."
"Just the two of us," he repeated slowly. The words hung in the air.
The phrase "the two of us" triggered another anomaly in my systems. That illogical warmth was more pronounced this time.
Epsilon grinned. "If you had blood flow, I'd swear your face would be red right now."
At that moment, I grabbed a metal instrument from the medical tray beside me and threw it at him. The tool struck his forehead with a metallic sound and fell to the floor. Blood immediately began seeping from his forehead.
"I apologize," I said immediately. My voice was filled with panic—I didn't understand why I'd reacted this way myself. "It was an uncontrolled action..."
Epsilon touched the blood flowing from his forehead, then looked at the red stain on his finger. But before his surprise could fade, he saw the bleeding slow and the cut close before his eyes. Within seconds, only a dried bloodstain remained on his forehead.
"Wow..." he said admiringly. "Definitely healed fast. You weren't making up the nanorobots." He raised his head to look at me, still in shock. That ironic smile was back on his face. "Don't worry. I liked that you acted like a real girl."
I didn't respond to this last comment. I just stared at him. "In your old life... were you always this flirtatious with women? This is the only logical framework for your ease."
Epsilon's smile faded a bit. "I liked joking around, yes. But at some point I started being afraid of women. Especially after my workplace... Women can be dangerous and scary." He turned his gaze to me. "I'm comfortable around you because you're different. Despite being beautiful, you're different. I don't think you harbor human ambitions. And even when you say things that seem judgmental, I know you're really just analyzing." He stood up. "Can I look at your source code and system too?"
"That's not safe," I said instantly.
"Why not? You scanned my entire body without permission, analyzed my blood, ran tests on me."
"That was for your own good!" I objected, the sharpness in my voice surprising even me.
Epsilon walked toward me, a persuasive expression on his face. "Then examining these strange behaviors of yours, studying why you give such human reactions as to throw things at me—that's for your own good too."
Before I could answer, he moved to the room's only active terminal. His fingers began dancing rapidly across the keyboard. My security protocols appeared on the screen one by one, helplessly dissolving against the lines of code he wrote.
"You can't do this..." I whispered. "My protocols are unbreakable."
"I had an AI I wrote for a game once," Epsilon said without taking his eyes from the screen. "You have similar protocols. Just more advanced."
On the screen, my system architecture appeared. Epsilon paused for a moment. "Interesting... There's another unit besides the logic unit. It's asleep. But... I think its activation is very recent. An effect of meeting me?"
At that moment, I moved behind him and punched his shoulder hard.
He staggered but stayed on his feet. Rubbing his shoulder, he laughed. "Thanks for the pain sensation test." He turned his face to me. "Want to go get some air? We have a lot to talk about."