Babylon Lost

Chapter 12

Jiro was in human form, at least his new avatar was. he looked himself up and down, unbelievably happy to see his own flesh and blood self again, even if it was just a digital recreation. It had a strange effect on him, and he started to choked up. There were times over the last day that he thought he'd never see his real legs and arms again.

The room around him was completely black, it had no boundaries, just a blackness that stretched off forever. Jiro could sense his powers had been greatly diminished in this place, he still felt he was part of the system, but there was a certain distance to it all.

"Pax are you reading this?" he said.

"Your AI can't speak to you in here." A voice spoke from behind.

Jiro spun around to see the woman standing facing him.

"I bet that's a welcomed sight" the woman said, obviously referring to Jiro's body.

"You have no idea" Jiro said "why can't I speak to my AI?"

"This place is designed to keep any kinds of artificial intelligence out" she said "sort of a refuge in case there is a neural compromise."

"Working as intended I guess" Jiro said "how is something like this even possible, you shouldn't be able to speak to me now with your brain under attack. Can't say I've ever heard of consciousness just redirecting itself like this."

"We would need a lot more time than we actually have for me explain that" she said.

"Why are you trying to kill me" the words came out louder and with far more emotion than Jiro had intended. The empty room had no echo.

"I'm not trying to kill you" she said "I'm trying to stop you from becoming what you're transforming into."

"Are you talking about Pax?" Jiro recalled waking up next to the reservoir, how the AI had 'learned' so much from being in the same construct as him "Is this about something he's done or is doing?"

She almost laughed "Are you talking about the system AI in there with you? No, that has nothing to do with what I'm after although I am surprised it's still functioning, usually they're the first to go."

"What do you mean first to go, what the hell are you talking about?"

"it's Jiro, right?" the woman asked "your AI told me when we spoke."

Jiro didn't respond, he didn't want to talk, he wanted answers.

The woman started carefully "what I'm about to tell you is going to sound incredible and maybe even totally insane."

"Try me."

"Something has attached itself to you. Something not quite an AI, not quite a virus, not quite anything we know of, really. It found you out there in jumper space, latched on to your consciousness and took you with it into that robotic body out there."

She was right, that did sound totally insane "come again?" he asked.

"You've been attacked by a highly advanced form of digital life, something so advanced you've never seen anything like it. It's responsible for what's happening to you now."

"and where exactly did this highly advanced form of digital life come from?"

"The future."

"The future" he repeated back to her "as in this thing traveled through time to what? Attack me? Visit me? What?"

"Jiro I know this all sounds incredible, but what-"

"So what you're saying is this" Jiro started up again "that some computer program from the future somehow managed to pry me off my lifeline during a jump, pull all the data from my brain and then store it into a robot body" he wondered if is sounded as stupid to her as it did him "why do it? Why go through all the trouble, why me?"