Interlude - A Path not Taken

--Drake? PoV--

Drake Heisenberg was bored with his life; he just graduated university with a major in Engineering and was now working for a big car company. While the pay was good and the working hours acceptable, he wanted to do more with his life.

Drake was born in a small city in the south of his country. His parents died some years back in a supposed train accident but Drake suspected, that the ``accident`` was planned by the government to assassinate some influential people that were bothering them.

Now he lived alone in his parents’ house and felt sorry for himself, that he wasn´t living a more interesting life. Right now he was on his way home and because he had to work overtime, it was already after 21:00.

When he was on a road in the countryside, only 15 minutes away from home, he was blinded by a Bright light and was hearing a faint rumbling, which was gradually growing louder.

Soon the rumbling became as loud as a plain flying by. As Drake looked out of the car window he saw a bright shining object in the sky coming closer and closer.

The next thing Drake new was when the car was hit by a shock wave as the object hit the street in front of him; he was pierced by fragments of asphalt and glass.

As Drake was fading into unconsciousness he thought to himself: ``Well I wanted a more interesting life so here it is. I can see it in the newspapers: Man killed by Meteorite!``

When Drake woke up, he was still in his ruined car.

``I can feel myself loosing blood by the second; at least I want to see wat killed me``

With these thoughts Drake crawled out of his car and to the large crater in front of it. As he peeked into the crater lying on the edge of it, he saw a suspiciously glowing sphere in the middle of it.

The sphere was cracked in various places and a strange gas was leaking out of the cracks.

His curiosity peaked Drake crawled closer to the sphere. When he was only one meter away, he was surprised, that the strange gas was floating his way and soon enveloping him.

Drake could feel the strange gas entering his body through his pores and Wounds. Soon there was no more Gas leaking out of the Sphere and the glow of it slowly faded.

Just before Drake was losing his consciousness a second time he was attacked by an overwhelming pain and stared in shock as his wounds began to close.

``01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101 00111111``

(AN: I didn´t Just randomly tip that try out a binary code translator. Here is a link for the lazy people: http://www.thematrixer.com/binary.php)

``Huh? What was that?``

`` 01001111 01101000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100111 01101111 01110100 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110 00100000 01001100 01101111 01100001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01010100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101100 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110``

´´What, why do I hear Binary code in my head?``

``01001001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01101100 01101001 01111010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00101110 00101110 Can you understand me now?``

``Hehehe the voice in my head asks me if I can understand her Hehehe``

``Master I can detect a fluctuation in your emotional environment! You need to calm down.``

``Hey voice, what are you? Are you an alien? Or am I just crazy? Are you real?``

``I am an AI and that thing you see before you is my Core. As you can see it is heavily damaged I have little data left, except that I can heal you with the Nanites in your Body I currently reside in. Because of their limited Processing power my processing capabilities are down to 0,0000000000013% of their normal level.``

Just as Drake wanted to ask another question, the sphere began to shine brightly again and, what Drake presumed was a hologram appeared. To his surprise, it showed himself in strange futuristical clothing and heavily wounded.

[Hello me of another dimension if you see this, it means you have bonded with the Ai of this core. Due to lack of time I could not pinpoint the exact location to transport it to so forgive me any form of inconvenience. …2 minutes to self-destruct… I am almost out of time IT is fighting its way down here… Listen to me the memory core of the AI has every technology that was invented in the 1500 years of the Empires existence and a record of its history. I beg you. You must stop IT from spreading to other Dimensions and recreate the Empire!]

The hologram flickered and a beautiful green skinned woman with some kind of rifle was flung through the recording. Drake watched with horror as countless robotic figures flooded the room and started to tear her apart.

The Drake in the Hologram looked horrified and before he was ripped apart too, his last words where:

[Beware LEGION!!!]

With his last sentence the hologram shone brightly and vanished.

``AI what was that?´´

´´I don’t know, like I said my memory core was destroyed.``

``It sounded like there was very important information on it saved, Great! And whatever these things in the Hologram where they could come here. AI sort the information contained in my memories about the incident and … shit I can hear sirens, probably the police or the military. I have to somehow destroy all evidence if my involvement.``

``Master I can help with that, just touch my core and your vehicle``

``Ok AI. Ah I have to Name you later I don’t want to call you AI all the time``

As Drake touched the sphere, It was somehow absorbed by his hand. Then he moved over to his car and touched it. It too was absorbed by him. As he looked in the direction he heard the sirens, he could see the lights of some Police cars and several Army trucks.

Drake began to run in the direction of his home and was inhumanly fast. He had to ask AI later about it. He came to his home and fell into his bed as he was. Just after several seconds he fell into a deep sleep.