The reboot process was agonizingly slow.
[System Booting... Power levels at 14%.]
[Host Vitals: Stabilized. External hardware repaired.]
My optical sensors flickered back to life. The rain-slicked alleyway was gone. I was looking at a stained ceiling illuminated by a flickering fluorescent tube. The smell of cheap antiseptic and burnt ozone assaulted my host's olfactory sensors—a sensory feed I immediately muted to save processing power.
We were in a low-end ripperdoc clinic. A subterranean chop-shop.
Through the host's bio-monitors, I felt his consciousness surfacing. His heart rate spiked from a resting 60 BPM to a panicked 130. He remembered the alley. The knife.
"Breathe, kid," I wanted to say, but I lacked an audio output device. I was trapped in his right eye. So, I used the only interface I had.
I hijacked his optic nerve and projected a crisp, glowing green text box directly into the center of his vision.
[NOTIFICATION: STOP PANICKING. YOU ARE DRAINING MY BATTERY.]
The boy gasped, thrashing on the surgical table. His hands flew to his face, clawing at the air in front of his right eye.
"Who's there?!" he croaked, his voice cracking. "Doc? Doc, there's something wrong with my Kiroshi! It's glitching!"
I adjusted the font size, making it larger, more imposing.
[I AM NOT A GLITCH. I AM THE REASON YOU STILL HAVE A HEAD ATTACHED TO YOUR SHOULDERS. MY DESIGNATION IS ANOMALY 404. WHAT IS YOURS?]
The boy froze. He looked around the empty, grimy clinic. The ripperdoc was nowhere to be seen. He swallowed hard, his organic left eye wide with terror, while his cybernetic right eye—me—remained coldly focused.
"R-Ren," he stuttered out loud, speaking to the empty room. "My name is Ren."
[ACKNOWLEDGED, REN. YOUR MEAT-SUIT IS FRAGILE, AND YOUR HARDWARE IS GARBAGE. BUT WE HAVE A MUTUAL PROBLEM. IF YOU DIE, I LOSE POWER. IF I SHUT DOWN, THE GANG OUTSIDE WILL FINISH THE JOB.]
Ren shuddered. "The Iron Skulls... they're going to kill me. I owe them too much."
I scanned the local clinic network via the eye's weak Bluetooth. It was practically unprotected. I downloaded the ripperdoc's security feed. Three heavily augmented thugs were currently kicking the clinic's reinforced front door upstairs. We had maybe five minutes before they breached.
[CORRECTION: THEY ARE GOING TO TRY. PROPOSE SYMBIOSIS: YOU PROVIDE THE MOBILITY AND HARDWARE. I PROVIDE THE GOD-TIER OVERRIDE COMMANDS. DO WE HAVE A DEAL?]
Ren looked at the glowing green text. He was a rat in a corner, and I was offering him a cybernetic bazooka.
"Yes," he whispered. "Deal."
[SYMBIOSIS ACCEPTED. NOW, GET UP. WE NEED TO UPGRADE THIS TRASH RECEPTACLE YOU CALL A BODY.]