"And if your prediction is wrong?" The doctor took a few seconds to respond, sweat slowly dripping down his forehead, "If I'm wrong, then experiment failed. I never expected the experiment would succeed to this extent, however, I certainly hope that I failed this time." The doctor wiped his forehead with his fatigues.
The man in the suit turned toward me and approached with a curious expression on his face. "How can we confirm your suspicions, Doctor?" The man said as he stared into my eyes, refusing to look away. He seemed to study my eyes and my eyes alone, as if nothing else in the world existed. I couldn't look away either, as if his gaze was an electromagnet and I was a solid block of iron.
"Well, we could put him under and have him go through a Mental Break, however if he is as dangerous as I predict, that could lead to an explosion capable of wiping this system off the face of the stellar map. Our only other option would be to complete the conversion process, grant him the rest of his humanity, and keep him here for further testing," The man finally took his studious eyes off of me and turned to Dr. Thorne with a smirk barely noticeable.
"We'll go with the ladder. I don't detect any hostility from him, he's probably just confused right now."
"But the Council will never appro-"
"I will handle the Council. I have a few favors to call in, we'll get the votes we need. You focus on the conversion. He will need to be as human as possible when the Council demands his presence. They'll want to meet the first sentient AI capable of emotion and feeling," The man walked to Dr. Thorne and put his hand on his shoulder as he walked out of the room.
"I know all of this must be confusing, and I hope we're not scaring you. I will explain everything after I am able to have more than a one-way conversation with you. For now, I will give you a shot of anesthetic. You'll be out for at least two days. When you wake up, you'll have a mouth and nose like us. You'll be able to speak, smell, and breathe."
Dr. Thorne took one of the anesthetic syringes out of the box I had noticed earlier and walked toward me.
"Please lay back and relax," Dr. Thorne told me, as I realized I was gripping the sheets of the hospital bed hard enough to stretch the fabric. I did as he requested, not that I could escape if I wanted to.
As the needle entered my skin, I flinched a little at the pain.
"Foreign substance detected, analyzing... analysis complete. Anesthetic injected. Probability of being malicious... 15%... leaving decision to expunge substance to host module," The same voice that analyzed the language sounded in my head. "I don't think there is any reason the doctor would harm me. I'll see how this plays out." I wasn't intending on answering the voice, but my thoughts were apparently read as I heard a beeping that I instinctively perceived as a disarming tone.
After a few more minutes, I felt my eye lids get heavier and heavier as I drifted off into sleep.
I was surprised to see not darkness, but a pure white. I looked up to see more white, but I looked down and saw my own legs standing on a ground of white as well.
"So my physical form is manifested in my dreams? Interesting," I tried to imagine a couch appearing in the white, but nothing happened. A house then? Nothing. "That's strange, if this isn't a lucid dream then what is it? It doesn't feel like a dream."
I started walking in a random direction. As I walked, I noticed something even more strange. It seemed that the longer I walked, the harder it became to continue to move forward. It was like I was walking through maple syrup or glue. I would have stopped walking, but a voice in my head screamed at me to continue forward.
When the resistance was becoming almost impossible to walk through, I heard a loud crack, as if someone had just broken a handful of spaghetti noodles and amplified the noise through a megaphone.
I feel the resistance disappear almost instantly, as I begin to fall. I fell for at least ten minutes before I landed softly on what appeared to be a wooden platform. I looked around at my surroundings. All around me seemed to be space. Nothing but space. The beautiful sight of trillions of small lights in the distance, distant galaxies lighting up the darkness like a floodlight.
I was mesmerized, it truly was a beautiful sight. I lied down on the wooden platform and looked up to see a small star about half the size of our sun beaming down on me. Oddly, I didn't feel any heat or danger coming from the massive ball of burning gas. I felt more comforted, almost empowered.
"Cosmic Energy Core found, proceeding to integrate with body. Any discomfort during the integration process is normal," the robotic voice scared the hell out of me, more scary however, was that the star seemed to begin moving towards me, or maybe I was moving towards the star. As I got closer to the star, I began feeling my chest grow tighter and tighter.
"Host module is advised to reach out towards the star, do not worry, the star cannot harm the host during the integration process," the voice once again interrupted my state of panic. Not knowing what else to do, I reached out towards the star. To my surprise, the star started to grow smaller and smaller, until the star was small enough for me to hold in my hand. It was about the size of a baseball.
"Celestial condensing stage complete, proceeding to cosmic energy conversion."
The star rose out of my hand and moved steadily towards my chest. My chest felt like it was being heated by a stream of warm water as the star began to slowly dissolve into beams. These beams appeared to pierce my chest, but I felt no pain. It was pleasant.
The process continued for around 30 minutes. When the star was gone, I heard the robotic voice in my head once more. "Cosmic energy conversion complete, energy levels at three percent. 99.8% of cosmic energy was used to create the celestial core. Host module is advised to convert more celestial bodies in order to improve the celestial core's stability, energy efficiency, and storage density," My mind was racing trying to figure out what all this meant. Was this really just a dream? What the hell is going on?
As I was struggling to comprehend what was happening, the space around me started cracking. There was no sound, yet cracks began to steadily appear in the space around me, falling apart like a broken vase. In a minute, I was back in the white room.
"Host module is regaining consciousness. Returning Host celestial body to the Host module," the robotic voice appeared in my head again as I opened my eyes.
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