Three hours later, after reading the bits and pieces I found on the internet, watching the uploaded videos, and looking at the pictures that were taken as proof of various events that took place within the city while I was unconscious, I turned off my PC with a feeling of disgust in the pit of my stomach. There were some things, which I simply didn’t want to believe they were true, they were far too inhumane, far too disgusting, yet they were undeniable proof of our new hellish reality that was spreading across this entire planet.

“Xerya, I just want to sleep and dream of something pleasant... can you please tell me about the upgrades tomorrow morning?” I asked as I laid in bed and closed my eyes.

“Understood.”

After returning to my apartment, I closed the door and blocked it off with the dresser, which wasn’t that difficult to move given my enhanced strength; I could barely feel its weight. Afterwards, I went to change the sheets of my bed, which were covered in a thick layer of dust, nothing a good shake outside the window couldn’t solve. Because I couldn’t clean them, I used them instead as a cleaning rag.

I started off with the computer and my desk, then I went to the kitchen and finished off with the bed and floor. For a moment, I thought about cleaning the entrance as well, but with all the blood marks and everything, I decided to give it a pass.

The whole absorption process took around 2 hours and 43 minutes, but when I opened my eyes, I felt as though I had just woken up from a good night’s sleep. My body felt strong, and I was not hungry either. It was a bit strange, but I accepted it as it was. These transformations and strange states I went through were far better than ending up as one of those things that wandered around mindlessly on the street.

“I’m awake now, Xerya. Anything new?” I asked as I clenched my right hand into a fist and checked to see if all of my joints were working properly.

Now what would be crazier? To witness with your own eyes the end of the world in the form of a nanobot virus infection created by some madman or end up striking a deal with the AI of said nanobots?

Before this whole thing started, I would have proudly said that both of those options were not only farfetched but as crazy as crazy could be. Usually, the companies who designed the NanoHeal and TechScope nanobots implemented countless fail-safe systems to keep them from going rogue. They were even organizing competitions through which the tech geniuses tried to crack them. Whenever one succeeded, a new update would be released soon after to make it better.

The gentle morning rays of the Novelisk star caressed me as my whole body was slowly but surely waking up. I opened my eyes and saw the frame of my window upon which dust had gathered and then was washed away by the occasional rain, leaving behind dirty stains. The scent that flooded my nose was that of death and rot, but I didn’t know if it came from me or from outside.

It was a bit funny, but from here, I could still see the apartments in the building across the street, where my neighbor ended up falling prey to one of the Nano-Z that changed within their family. In the corner, his skeletal remains were left, with only the dried flesh and skin clinging to it. A sickening sight which reflected the sadness of this world that was turned into a monstrous state by that wretched computer virus.

One year and six months ago, the Interstellar Spaceship Dominion VI docked with the Termika Space Station located on the outer edge of the Novelisk Solar System also known as Alpha-134Pi. The journey from Sol took two months, but I was awake for only four days, while the rest of that time was spent in a state-of-the-art hibernation capsule. There was not that much to do on this ship, especially since it was also a vessel equipped to handle battle situations when we encountered alien scout ships or pirates.

A new life... that was what Planet 9 had promised...

A new chance for a new beginning far away from desperate and hopeless decay of the slums of a megalopolis. For a while, that was true, I gained my life and basked in the joys it brought me, but then... all Hell broke loose.

As I was standing in my chair, looking at my computer’s holographic screen, there was a simple text message written there in several languages. The words displayed on it were simple:

“Hello. I know you are there. Do you want to talk? I want to talk with you.”

All around me there were countless virtual and holographic advertisements popping up in a nauseating explosion of colors, lights, and sometimes sounds as well. On a good day, these Augmented Reality Advertisements (ARA) were directed at your needs, and they could be useful, but most of the times, they were just a spam of blunt attempts at mental manipulation. Not everyone fell for them, but among the common folk population there were already a lot who did, which made it worse when they started to tell you about those ‘great’ products like some brainwashed zealots of a suspicious cult.