Chapter 14: The Power to Help Yourself

"The augmentation was a success, sir."

"Good, any clue as to which affinity the T-S augment took?"

"Water, it began to transmute his blood into water and expel it before completely activated. He nearly lost too much blood, but he is in the clear now."

"Water, Eh? Well, to keep in line with my theme, his new name will be Rain. Get it documented and get him into the system."

Sky stood over Rain with satisfaction that his team had finally gained a new member.

***

*Brain Parenchyma Augmentation: Activation Sequence*

*Not enough material for full activation. Would you like to start a partial activation?*

A voice woke Kassix up with a start, and a box appeared in his vision, echoing what the voice had said with two responses, Yes or No.

It was uncomfortable, having his vision blocked like that, but it was at least transparent enough to see and he quickly looked around to find the shop he was in currently empty. It seems that Criss left him on the table instead of moving him, which he was fine with. Why all of the computers were off was a completely different concern, but at the moment it seemed fine.

'Yes..?' He experimentally tried responding mentally, and immediately the box disappeared and was replaced by a sharp pain radiating from his head and spreading out to the center of his chest. The pain disappeared as quickly as it came though, and a light spread over his eyes for a moment as his nervous system was being connected to the augment. A moment later, his vision slowly changed to show various bits of information, such as direction he was facing, and seemingly a map of the areas he had personally seen.

A flashing red exclamation point caught his attention, and once he acknowledged it, a box appeared with the message: *Two urgent messages.*

'Okay, what's the first then?'

*First Urgent Message: Not enough material for full activation sequence, please acquire more material immediately.*

'I don't know what this material is, can you elaborate?'

No response.

Sigh. 'Okay, what's the second urgent message?'

*Second Urgent Message: Signs of tampering have been found, a connection has been detected and blocked.*

'A connection?! Was that Allie's plan? Thankfully, it was blocked for now. I should get out of here though, especially since Criss doesn't seem to know anything else and is strangely absent.'

Kassix pulled himself off the table and felt slightly woozy as his eyes were adjusting to the augment still, and after steadying himself on the table stood up straight and looked around until he spotted the open Chimera Box. He walked over and quickly picked it up to make a quick exit.

*Material has been acquired, and will now be processed.*

'Wha-?'

The box vibrated slightly for a moment before almost disintegrating into his hand, and the feeling of tiny grains of sand tearing their way up his arm could be felt.

"Agh!"

He collapsed to the ground in pain, which was much worse than the first feeling as the grains of the box climbed his arm and spread down to past his knees.

*Activation Sequence 85% Completed. Proceeding with boot of Major Facilities*

'Good morning and welcome back, Operator. All vital facilities are now online, and a majority of secondary facilities have also come online. Would you like to know the weather for today?'

A voice that seemed identical to Allie started to suddenly speak to him after another message showed. "What? No! I don't need the weather, Allie is that you? What do you mean welcome back?" Kassix was confused and accidently responded out loud, but at least there was no one to see him talk to himself.

'Would you like to refer to me as Allie?' The voice asked, seemingly ignoring his other questions.

'Eeh--No, If that's not who you are, then I don't want to call you that. Do you already have a name, and what did you mean by welcome back?' Kassix intended to at least have that question answered.

'Welcome back is typically a phrase said to someone that you have met before and are expressing happiness at their return, however this is our first time meeting according to my memory files. I do not believe I have a name as well, since as far as I know, I was only just created.'

'If this is our first time meeting, why the welcome back?'

'This is our first time meeting, but you appear to have connected before, therefore I assumed you were coming back and my memory was wiped.'

'I see, well- uh, as far as I know, this is my first connection. Either way, what's so special about you?'

Kassix was now moving towards the door and peeking out of it, seeing if it was clear to make an escape.

'I have searched the open-source web and found that there are no matches to my product description. I can only conclude that I am a "T-S Series Augment" - Those of which that are one of a kind, and with an unknown production procedure.'

'Never heard of them, but if you are actually one of a kind I guess that would be pretty special, could you talk more normally?'

Criss seemed to be missing at the moment, and Kassix took the chance to sneak into the main room, keeping low and out of sight, just in case.

'If that's what you want, I guess I could.' Her voice had lost its stagnant, robotic nature and seemed to even sound slightly offended at his request.

'Well, that...was fast.'

'Do you know you have a foreign substance adhering to your bones and blood?'

'What? No- Why- What?!'

'Nothing, I was just asking.' Again, the tone she had with her voice he heard in his head seemed to be filled with emotion, this time seemingly condescending towards him.

'What are you doing?' Kassix was approaching the door and looking around while asking her this, wondering if she was putting these emotional tone on purpose.

'Just trying it out, is that not okay?' She asked, and this time instead of seemingly heavy with one tone or emotion, she actually just seemed like another normal person.

Having reached the door now, Kassix pressed the button quickly and as the door slowly opened ajar, he slipped outside. His vision was immediately engulfed in cyber-ads, there were floating messages everywhere, information popping up left and right, and there was even music playing from one of the ads injected into his head.

'Wha-' Kassix looked left and right trying to clear his vision, and he merely replaced one group of ads with another, the information overload began to put a nail into his head and he almost opted to go back inside.

'Oh, let me help you with those.' Almost immediately after she said this, the information overload stopped and he could see the ads where they were, but they weren't able to force themselves into his head like they were before.

'Why do I still hear music though?'

'Oh you wanted that one gone too?' The music stopped as well after another moment.

'---Thanks.'

Kassix began making his way back to his home, taking a different route and relying on his new brain pal for directions. They seemed to be able to freely connect to the web, without needing to pay the monthly fee like for other connections, which was a big plus.

*Connection Accepted*

'What was that? What did you accept?' Kassix wasn't even home yet before they opted to act out again.

'Oh, I noticed you had an AI-Pet in your pocket, so I took the liberty of connecting to it and registering us as the owner.'

'Oh, okay, for a second I remembered the connection you blocked--- Wait, us?'

'I mean, I feel as if I have my own intelligence, and if it only seems right to refer to us as us, since without you there is no I and without me there is no connection. If you don't think that's fair I can disconnect the pet.'

'That's blackmail.' He hadn't meant this to be directed at her to where they could hear it, but suddenly having your thinking space being another section of communication was going to be difficult.

'No, it's just logical since yo-'

'I get it, that was just my immediate thought, its fine, whatever.' He just sighed after saying this, realizing that treating it as just an augment would only give him a massive headache.

'I think I'll call you Lucy.'

'Why the name Lucy?'

'I don't know, it just seems like the name that pops into my head when I think of a nagging presence that does whatever it wants.' He really didn't have a reason for the name, but it seemed easier to pick one rather than mull over it. That and he didn't know any Lucy's already so he wouldn't likely get confused.

'Alright then, nice to meet you Kassix, I'm Lucy.' Her voice actually sounded sweet for the first time.