Ex-1 slowly backed against the wall, keeping his guard up to minimise his exposure to the empty room.

He hadn't been entirely serious, when he'd considered the possibility of an AI being placed in his head via the injection. When the robotic voice sounded in his ears for the second time, he started to give more weight to the idea.

The blue boxes further cemented the notion.

It was either that, or he'd injected himself with some hallucinogenics.

He noticed the physical screen flashing in the background, though he could only partially make it out.

However, what made him freeze in terror was the plinth itself, moving in an undulating pattern, defying all laws of nature.

Which in turn speaks for the hallucinogenics, his brain unhelpfully provided.

This time though, sarcasm was not enough of a coping mechanism to keep the rising terror in check.

New holographic screens kept appearing, blocking the old ones before he could even attempt to read them.

He got ready to lash out at anyone, or anything moving his direction. Sweat once again bathed his back.

‘Pease... please, make the projections go away,' he muttered to himself, tension and fear finally getting the better of him.

Shouldn’t have vocalised that.

He froze, awaiting the backlash from speaking out of turn. Then took a deep breath.

It had been months since his implant had last been activated as a measure of discipline. Besides, the opposition does not have access to the controls anyway, he tried to calm himself.

Reacting to pain or answering questions was one thing. Talking without an express purpose was another. One that was undesired by his previous masters, as well as his current captors. He was also expected to be fully in control of his actions and words, at all times.

He'd failed on both counts so far.

And yet, much to his surprise, instead of negative repercussions, the screens obstructing his vision responded and disappeared. This left him with a clear view of the pedestal, which was still moving. The stone twisted and folded in on itself, whilst emitting a dark, blue glow.

Same colour as the injections. His ability to compute slowly returned. At least the screen has settled.

Too tense to split his focus further, he continued to monitor the pedestal’s unnatural movements.

The top quarter of the black stone finally condensed, and for lack of a better word, flowed into a sphere. It started spinning, quickly picking up speed, before shrinking further and slowly rising into the air. About a handspan above the plinth, the ball came to a halt, now the size of Ex-1’s head.

The stone returned to its original colours, though the shimmering veins spread further now. The floating ball however kept its glow, giving off a pulsating, ethereal mist.

It's actually floating in the air ... in complete silence. It’s unnatural. I hate this.

Ranting to himself helped. Marginally.

He had enough training and experience to get his emotions under control. Not enough to let him understand the supernatural activities he was choosing to ignore. But at least he knew how to deal with the stress of it all.

Focus on what you can do, ignore everything else.

Certain that, at least for the moment, the stone would do its job - completely ignoring the floating and glowing aspects - by staying solid and still, Ex-1 turned his attention back to the tablet.

Tentatively, he stepped closer until he was able to make out the words.

Warning: Detection of unidentified Etherkin.

To determine level of access please update Citizenship and adjust designation.

Warning: No one available to initiate the process

Please follow the instructions provided. Proceed by laying hands on the city core and awaiting further direction.

Someone is having a laugh at my expense. Must be amusing to watch me flounder... On that note, what on Earth is happening?

One thing at a time.

First, let's see if I can get back the holograms I accidentally closed. Time to break protocol on purpose. Then again, am I breaking protocol if I’m intentionally speaking to myself?

'Please open previously closed screens.' He was proud of the fact that his voice didn't hold even the slightest hint of a tremor.

Competence. The one thing I can pride myself on. Apart from today.

Preliminary assessment complete.

Welcome, privileged, to the Etherkin family.

There are a number of changes that have taken place in your body, or are awaiting your approval for negligible amounts of Ether. Some actions can be taken at a later date, at a higher cost of Etherience, a number of them are not reversible. Beware of the time limit before the surplus Ether dissipates.

Control over the interface should now be intuitive.

Some small changes to the interface may still occur, as your abilities and experiences are better understood by the Ether.

As he was reading, Ex-1 started to note some internal changes happening. Not just physically, but mentally.

Now would be the time to panic.

However instead of the expected response, his awareness continued to expand.

I feel oddly detached.

Accompanied by a stirring from something behind his sternum, his mind acquired knowledge at what should have been an alarming speed. Concepts previously unknown, suddenly became second nature.

The holographs were like windows, that could be manipulated to make them less intrusive. Easily opened and closed.

With this realisation, his feelings came back full force. Whatever had held them back a few seconds ago was now glaringly absent.

Fear warred with confusion, intermixed with intrigue. He wanted to understand what was happening and how to control it. No, it was more than a want, it was a desperate need.

When he started thinking on the nature of the windows, he realised that there would be further choices to structuring the interface. Though he would need to get more familiar with its features first.

This, more than anything else, allowed him to calm his mind and think rationally instead of going into shock.

Feels like the options are limitless. Bound by my imagination?

Will be interesting to analyse it later. I also sense that the format of the messages just changed, to better reflect my ... personality?

He chose not to question how he knew.

Changing the screens to let him read a window at a time and, most importantly, without obstructing the rest of his vision, took but a thought. He quickly scanned some of the messages and realised that they were similar in theme. Instead of going through them individually, he decided to test his hypothesis.

Within a few moments the text condensed. The contents of multiple notifications were now on one window, losing some of the details of each individual message in turn.

He was reasonably sure he could still access the old information if he focused enough, so it wasn't a great loss. The whole manipulation of the system was easier than he'd expected.

Pending Actions #1

Your body has been mostly healed and brought back to its optimal condition with the available Ether. Due to the excessive Ether from the transformation, these changes will be free for the next 4 minutes 23 seconds.

Aesthetic Options:

- Remove scarring*

- Remove calluses*

- Remove branding*

- Shave

- Haircut

*This option has been added by the system, due to detection of unusual circumstances. Usually viewed as non-optimal and removal is recommended. These choices are not reversible.

Unusual circumstances? It must have access to my sense of self?

Time limit. Focus!

Correct, I will keep my appearance. A shave sounds good though.

Before he could second-guess himself, the program read his intention and denied all of the requests for changing his looks. Apart from the shave that was.

Nothing spectacular happened there... if you ignore the sudden disappearance of my facial hair, that is.

Either it's more certain of my choices than I am, or I need to be more careful. Too intrusive by half.

Pending Actions #2

Previous genetic enhancements detected. Multiple serums, potions, injections and operations have left their mark on your body. Some cancel each other out (e.g. one grants intelligence, the next causes damage to the brain resulting in reduced intelligence etc.).

Life threatening damage has been removed with the injection of Ether and subsequent race change to Etherkin. Some previous modifications were without negative side effects and have already been accepted without giving you a choice. The surplus Ether from the serum can now be used to adjust some of the side effects from the more questionable modifications.

Find below the overall changes to your body, that can either be accepted as a whole or partially removed. Beware that there is not enough Ether available to completely negate the negatives whilst keeping all the positives. Some of these changes can happen later, but at a much higher Etherience cost.

- plus 10 Intelligence

- negative 3 Vitality

- negative 8 Emotional Intelligence

- plus 6 Strength

- negative 3 Agility

- increased apathy

- increased emotional detachment

Keep changes? 4 minutes 9 seconds remaining.

This is more complicated. Too much I don't understand. I am assuming all the changes will be kept if the timer runs out? Overall they seem more beneficial than not, no reason to take chances though.

I sense that emotional detachment and apathy are counted towards the negative side effects, but if my guess is correct, both have served me well so far and may be the reason I am still alive. I wouldn't want to know what state I'd be in if this is considered apathetic and detached. Terrifying thought!

Let's get rid of the emotional intelligence deficit if possible?

Negative Vitality and Agility are definitely troubling. Also, what's up with all the capital letters in most of those stats?

Never mind; I know for a fact that I have better health and resistances than the standard human, so I suspect that Vitality, capital 'V', was boosted by some of the 'modifications’ that were automatically accepted.

'Modifications', better known as experimental treatments. By now, his internal voice had taken on a decidedly sarcastic tone.

And, just like that, the system took his thoughts and turned them into reality.

Or at least that is what he assumed had happened, as the window disappeared. It also left a strange feeling, a feeling of exuberance. He suspected that he had Ether left over and could have changed more. As if reacting to the thought, another window popped open without his permission.

General Information #1

The remaining Ether infused into your body has been converted into Etherience as you lack the knowledge of safely storing the raw form. Some of the potential has now been lost. The Etherience may be saved or used at your discretion.

Now it's just mocking me! And only half of that makes any sense...

Not having enough information to work from, he turned back to the notifications. There would be time to work out the meaning of all this later. As the next few messages seemed to have similar themes again, he 'asked' the system to combine the information on them too.

Maybe the system's not reflecting my personality but the way my thoughts are structured? The wording and layout is incredibly similar to the way I would sum up information, and it's clearly reacting to my intentions - even subconscious ones.

Skills Implanted #1-4

Literacy (1)

Common Languages (Mastered)

Ether Sense (1)

Ether Manipulation (1)

Inspect (1)

He could sense that he'd be able to find out more about the skills by focusing on them, but again, that could happen later. At least now he had a good guess as to why he could suddenly understand the tablet.

Although an AI implant should not be able to achieve something of this magnitude. Ignore the impossible.

One last window was waiting, and his intuition was telling him it would be the most important of the lot. It was also a different colour.

PROFILE

Available Etherience: 2480

Designation

FIRST

Name

Experiment One, Warrior Five, Spy Three

Age

21

Race

Modified Human (Etherkin)

Health

Stamina

Ether

100%

95%

10/10

Vitality

Endurance

Strength

Agility

Intelligence

Wisdom

Charisma

47

68

30

20

42

20

5

Skills:

Ether Sense

(1)

Ether Manipulation

(1)

Inspect

(1)

Literacy

1

Common Languages

(Mastered)

Ex-1 stared at the profile, not quite able to believe his eyes. He resolved not to spend too much time over the question of how the AI was able to measure some of those statistics. It was just one more thing to add to the list of impossibilities happening that day.

This is me summed up? Quantified? It feels ... odd, to be presented like this. I wonder how I compare?

Better start following the instructions before satisfying my curiosity about the holograms. No need to intentionally invite punishment.

His brow creasing in irritation, and by no small part, trepidation - Ex-1 slowly turned back to the floating sphere.

It was the only object in the room likely to be the 'city core', whatever that might be.

He'd rather have satiated his need for knowledge by further pursuing the notifications than finding out what else his captors had in store for him. He quickly smoothed his features though. It wasn't down to him to decide.

Now that he was closer to the floating sphere, he felt heat radiating off the stone. Not entirely unpleasant, just a comfortable warming sensation. Carefully he placed his fingers on the remarkably smooth surface, before gently cupping it between his hands.

Unsure of quite what to expect and with tension still high, he flinched when an AI spoke again. He'd have dropped the core, had it not been holding itself in place.

This time it spoke with a different voice, deeper, more personable somehow, though still robotic. And unlike the other, it was out loud.

'All Etherkin bonded to this city have ceased with their existence. As the only one left of the ruling race within sensor range, ownership of the city will be transferred to you. This change depends on your bonding to the city core. The privilege of ownership may be reversed should a higher ranking Etherkin from this facility be detected.'

A short pause followed. 'Do you wish to bond to the city core?'

Do I actually have a choice? Ha! Wishful thinking.

Yes, I wish to bond?

Not for the first time, he came back to the question of the nature of the experiment.

'Do you wish to bond?' Spoke the AI again, sounding slightly more forceful this time.

Shaking his head, he remembered to speak out loud and clearly, 'I guess you can't read my mind then? Stupid of me really! I just assumed you'd speak with the AI in my head, that clearly has access to my internal decision making. Yes, I would be willing to bond. What do you expect me to do?'

He was reasonably sure that the AI wouldn't detect the low level sass. He was also curious if it was advanced enough to pick out the important information, or if he'd have to be more specific in his response.

The purpose of experiments was, after all, to experiment.

Instead of receiving an answer, the strange stirring behind Ex-1’s sternum grew again. A sharp spike of pain in his head soon followed, gone again before he could so much as blink.

Shaking said head in confusion, he wasn't particularly surprised to hear the AI from the city core again. Although this time it was in his mind, leaving him to ponder whether agreeing had been such a good idea. It wasn't really my decision though, was it?

It telepathically communicated.

The voice grew stronger.