Chapter 1: Reboot
POV: Thomas Carter
The ceiling is wrong.
That's the first thought that cuts through the fog of sleep, sharp and immediate. Tom's eyes snap open, pupils dilating in unfamiliar light filtering through blinds he doesn't own. The surface beneath him isn't his worn mattress with the broken spring that digs into his ribs—it's firm, expensive, foreign.
Wrong ceiling. Wrong room. Wrong everything.
His body jackknifes upright, heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The apartment around him breathes with alien silence. Clean walls painted in neutral beige instead of his landlord's peeling blue. Furniture that looks like it belongs in a catalog rather than salvaged from Craigslist. A desk with an expensive laptop, its screen dark and waiting.
"What the hell..."
The words scrape out of his throat, hoarse and disbelieving. His hands shake as he presses palms against his temples, trying to squeeze out the wrongness. The last thing he remembers—Christ, the last thing he remembers is falling asleep on his couch, laptop overheating on his chest, Person of Interest's finale credits rolling for the dozenth time. John Reese's voice echoing through cheap speakers: "We're all just code."
But this isn't his apartment. This isn't his life.
Tom lurches to his feet, legs unsteady, and stumbles toward the window. The glass is cold against his palm as he presses close, and the view beyond makes his stomach lurch. New York City spreads out below him—not the sanitized version from movies, but the real thing. Gritty. Alive. The skyline is wrong, though, missing buildings that should be there, showing others that should be gone.
His phone. Where's his phone?
He spins, searching, and finds an iPhone on the nightstand. Not his Android with the cracked screen and dying battery, but something sleek and new. His thumb swipes across the lock screen, and the date makes his blood freeze.
November 15, 2011.
"No. No, no, no."
But the news confirms it. Obama's face stares back at him from a breaking news alert about healthcare legislation. Technology looks subtly different—older, clunkier, like stepping back in time. No mentions of Trump, no COVID, no social media scandals that should be dominating headlines.
Tom's legs give out, dumping him onto the bed that isn't his. His hands won't stop shaking as he picks up a wallet from the dresser, fingers fumbling with leather that smells new. The driver's license inside shows his face, but the name makes reality tilt sideways.
Thomas Carter. Address in Manhattan. Born 1986.
He knows this name. Remembers this name. But he also remembers being someone else entirely—a different life, different choices, different world. The memories exist side by side like double-exposed photographs, neither quite canceling out the other.
Thomas Carter: IT consultant, NYU graduate, orphaned young, built a quiet life of routine and competence.
Tom: unemployed college dropout, Person of Interest obsessive, fell asleep watching his favorite show and woke up somewhere impossible.
Both memories feel real. Both men seem to exist in the same skull, fighting for dominance over a reality that makes no sense.
His fingers trace the ID's surface, searching for some sign it's fake. But the weight feels right, the texture perfect. When he checks the laptop, he finds work emails addressed to Thomas Carter, performance reviews praising his database management skills, photos of him at office parties with people he remembers but has never met.
"This is insane. I'm insane. I'm having some kind of breakdown."
But the New York beyond the window doesn't care about his sanity. Car horns blare in patterns he recognizes from countless episodes. Street layouts match maps he's studied like sacred texts. This is the New York of Person of Interest—not filmed on sets in California, but real, breathing, dangerous.
Which means Harold Finch exists here. John Reese exists. The Machine exists, watching from shadows he's only dreamed of entering.
And somewhere in this city, an artificial super-intelligence is learning to see, to think, to judge. To save.
Tom's breath comes in short, sharp bursts as the implications crash over him like waves. If this is real—if somehow, impossibly, he's been transplanted into his favorite fictional universe—then everything he knows about the future could be used to help. To save lives. To prevent tragedies he's watched unfold on screen.
But how? How does someone prove they're from another reality without sounding completely insane? How does he find Team Machine when they don't know he exists?
The apartment feels smaller now, pressing in around him like a coffin. He needs air, needs space, needs to move before his thoughts consume him entirely. But as he stands to pace, text suddenly flickers across his vision like a computer interface overlaid on reality.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED. HOST: THOMAS CARTER. STATUS: OPERATIONAL]
Tom yelps, spinning in a complete circle, hands clawing at his eyes. But there's nothing there—no glasses, no contact lenses, no screens. Just words floating in his field of vision like the most advanced heads-up display ever conceived.
"What the hell—"
A voice speaks inside his skull, calm and artificial, cutting through his panic with surgical precision.
"Greetings, Host. I am your integrated support system. You may designate me with a preferred nomenclature."
Tom stumbles backward, his spine hitting the wall hard enough to rattle picture frames. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, brain struggling to process the impossible.
"What the hell are you?"
"I am advanced nanotechnology from 847 years in your relative future, integrated with your neural pathways. I provide tactical, physical, and computational assistance."
The words drop into his mind with crystalline clarity, each syllable precisely articulated. Tom slides down the wall until he's sitting on the floor, staring at nothing, everything, the space between atoms where impossible things live.
"This is real," he whispers, voice cracking. "This is actually real."
"Correct. What designation do you prefer?"
A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep in his chest—hysterical, manic, edged with terror and wonder in equal measure.
"How about Nano? Short, simple, terrifying."
"Designation accepted. I am now 'Nano.' How may I assist you?"
Tom sits in stunned silence, processing the casual efficiency with which his life has become science fiction. An AI in his brain. Nanobots in his bloodstream. Technology from centuries in the future, somehow embedded in his nervous system without his knowledge or consent.
And yet, beneath the terror, excitement builds like pressure in a shaken bottle. If he has an AI assistant—if he has capabilities beyond normal human limits—then maybe he can do more than just survive in this world. Maybe he can thrive. Maybe he can help the people he's watched suffer on screens for years.
"Nano," he whispers, testing the name, "tell me about this cover identity."
Time to learn what kind of man Thomas Carter is supposed to be.
The apartment reveals its secrets slowly, methodically, like a crime scene being processed. Tom moves through each room with Nano's guidance, cataloging details that paint a picture of a life he's supposed to have lived.
The laptop yields work emails spanning months, performance reviews praising his attention to detail, calendar entries showing a routine life of modest ambition. Bank statements reveal a middle-class salary, nothing extravagant but comfortable enough. Credit history stretching back seven years, student loans from NYU, a life built in careful, documented increments.
"Your cover identity is comprehensive," Nano observes as Tom scrolls through employment records. "Social security number, credit history, employment record extending back seven years, educational transcripts from NYU. Whoever placed you here was thorough."
Tom's fingers still on the keyboard. "Someone placed me? Who?"
"Unknown. My own origins and integration with you occurred simultaneously with your arrival. I have no memory of creators' identity, only mission parameters."
"Which are?"
"Protect host. Assist host. Observe designated entity."
Tom's heart rate spikes. "Entity?"
"Affirmative. There is an advanced computational presence in this city. Extremely sophisticated. I am designed to interface with it."
The pieces click together with terrifying clarity. Tom's hands shake as he grips the laptop's edge, knuckles white against black plastic.
"The Machine. You're talking about The Machine."
But even as he says it, questions multiply like cancer cells. Who has the technology to transport someone between realities? Who has the resources to create an identity this complete, this flawless? And why choose him—a unemployed dropout whose greatest accomplishment was memorizing every episode of a television show?
The photo on the desk catches his eye again: Tom laughing with coworkers at what looks like an office party. Their faces are familiar in the way that implanted memories can make strangers feel like old friends. He knows their names, their quirks, their coffee orders. But he's never met them, never shared those moments that feel as real as any memory from his original life.
"This is impossible," he whispers.
"Improbable. Not impossible. You exist. Therefore, it has occurred."
Tom almost laughs at the AI's logic, but the sound dies in his throat as he looks out the window again. The city pulses with life beyond the glass—millions of people living their lives, unaware that somewhere among them, a man who shouldn't exist is trying to make sense of a reality that shouldn't be possible.
But if he's truly here—if this is his life now—then he has choices to make. He can hide, can live the quiet existence of Thomas Carter, IT consultant, and pretend none of this ever happened. Or he can find Harold Finch and John Reese and try to help them save the world.
The answer comes without hesitation.
Tom stands at the window, palm pressed against cold glass, looking out at a New York City that exists in the gap between fiction and reality. Somewhere in this urban labyrinth, Harold Finch is building his operation. John Reese is drinking himself into oblivion, waiting for someone to give his life meaning. Root is still Samantha Groves, brilliant and wounded and planning her revenge against a world that failed her.
And The Machine—God, The Machine is watching, learning, growing into the artificial conscience of a surveillance state.
"Nano," he whispers, breath fogging the glass, "if I'm stuck here... I'm going to help them. All of them."
[ACKNOWLEDGED. RECOMMEND CAUTION. THIS WORLD IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN YOUR TELEVISION PROGRAM SUGGESTED.]
Tom laughs, the sound sharp and slightly manic in the apartment's silence. "Yeah. I'm starting to figure that out."
But danger has never stopped the people he's watched save lives for five seasons. And if he's going to be trapped in a world where artificial intelligences judge the value of human souls, he's going to make damn sure he's on the side of the angels.
Even if those angels happen to be a paranoid billionaire and a broken soldier with nothing left to lose.
The city sprawls before him, infinite and impossible, waiting.
Time to become someone worth watching.
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