Somewhere, in an indeterminate moment in late 2527:
He couldn't see a thing; his eyes appeared to be shut as he could not even process the darkness coming to him and be taken over by the light sun rays from where he stood just recently; the Everest's bridge.
The interesting thing though wasn't that, he might as well have been knocked out and be put on cryo for recovery and now he was getting control of his body. No.
The interesting thing was that he could not feel his body, nor could he feel anything touching him; nor could he smell, nor breathe…. Not even hear anything.
Was this the hell her mother always talked about when she brought him to the Basilica of Saint Sofia?
Fear would normally consume him, but instead, he felt some nervousness and confusion; in his last moments on what now seemed like the world of the living: he was hopeful that his accidental nova explosion would also kill off the enemy fleet, just like a similar nuclear ambush had destroyed the Arbiter's fleet on the months prior.
Ah, that feeling, his first real major victory against the aliens; it comforted him and made him forget about maybe just being thoughts encapsulated on a floating body. Yes, remembering how he made the enemy jump into a minefield where he had ships ready with batteries to give two fast salvos of .05c MAC rounds before launching missiles and pray for a retaliatory attack not too devastating, which never came as his attack was successful.
Oh, the glory of mocking the enemy's most important naval commander aside from the 'Imperials'.
And when he began thinking of how the UNSC could employ that strategy to possibly blow up defenses of places like Zhoist over and over, an image came to life, like a movie, depicting just that, but with an Epoch carrier and some frigates launching ordinance and repelling torpedoes at thousand of clicks of distance, all the while they protected three weird orbital defense platforms, and, while the aliens managed to get close enough; the humans dispensed every single one of their missiles as to block the incoming barrages, and sending their capital ships to tank the lances; letting the platforms to dispend enough rounds to kill the advancing force and letting three frigates survive; a true victory.
But, was that his imagination? Because he could identify the Epoch as the Aeon, a Carrier he heard from Hood about it being partially dismantled to build some defenses; and this could qualify as an ideal perception of that move, given that one of the Orbital platforms had the identification of the said ship.
"You seem to like that battle a lot."
It wasn't a voice, he had heard nothing, but he could visualize a bright flash next to one of the orbital platforms, and suddenly, nothingness.
"What?" - Cole asked, instinctively trying to move his brows upwards but not feeling his flesh, something that preoccupied him before the feeling of being apprehended by someone. - "Who is there!? Where am I?!"
"Do not fear, image of the creator." - Answered the light that came closer, sitting just a few centimeters away from Cole's 'view'. - "For I am the Judge, the arbiter of the Assembly and who voted for your inclusion between us."
"Votation? Are you with the UEG? Am I on a simulation?"
"No, you are in the 'web', you are living on the entire human data, you are ones and zeros, with the soul of the late Admiral."
"First, I'm no AI, I've been on simulations before so I-" - The admiral was about to speak more, but he suddenly could not vocalize his opinions, the words he wanted to get out didn't come, his ideas remained only on some ethereal site.
"Silence first, newcomer, I will explain everything."
After those words, the background suddenly changed to a sad sight, a yellowish planet with some green dots on the north pole. Then the recognizable figure of a UNSC Colony Ship, the Spirit of fire, flew next to them, going to engage a CPV-class destroyer above the planet. It was Harvest.
But then the sight shifted to the emptiness of space, where debris filled the sight of the immobile admiral who tried to understand what he now saw and was told, not getting a hold on the idea of being dead.
Then, a slab of metal flew past them, and in white letters, it said: "EVEREST".
That implication was enough for him to understand what happened, it made sense to be dead after getting hit by so many enemy torpedoes and the blast of a nuke that the sensors reported as 'unquantifiable' in terms of yield.
Nevertheless, sadness tried to come and get a hold on him, but his mind only got the thoughts of him needing to be sad about it, his animic state didn't change though, his eyes remained gathering the information about the Phoenix-class Support Vessel/Assault Carrier that patrolled the space above the devastated planet.
The image of him not being to touch his kids any longer was as prominent on his head as the victory of humanity against the enemy, something he had not been able to do before, not even if his last moments did he managed to think so much as what he now could.
But the light referred to him as zeros and ones, that's computer talking, so... Was he an AI?
"Correct." - The voice said. - "You are one integrated with the web of connections made since our creators began experimenting on the late 20th century."
[He can hear what I think?] - He asked himself, just to feel like the 'thing' in front of him nodded even if he had no sight of any movement from it.
"I can, you are not a normal AI, you have no subroutines, you are an imperfect scan of a brain made while you were in cryostasis since the latter half of last year. Therefore you cannot comprehend yet your 'surroundings' yet can feel what happens."
Amazing. If this felt being an artificial intelligence then this might be a good alternative to a body once he got us-... Wait? Wasn't he just now sad because he had lost someone?
"Don't confuse yourself with emotions or you will end up between paradoxes, never finding a real explanation; that is why most AIs deteriorate. So I try to make you not think of them."
Wait. Because they were too human? But... Then, would he die too after seven years as he was now zeros and ones? He could not voice complaints, yet he received an answer again.
"No, for you are not limited to a matrix, you live in all of humanity. Data lives through every equipment of humanity now, copies of yourself and your memory that actualizes itself in case of damage; you are spread by lightyears, as we all are."
In the darkness that now again appeared in front of Cole, he saw how thousands of lights now appeared before him, covering his sight like a dome, forming a circle that drowned his sight until his view was only of a perfect circle, like an ethereal 3rd person view of the light on the emptiness.
"We are the minds that have shaped your conflicts, discoveries, happiness, and sadness since you discovered the capacity of portraying life onto soulless matter." - They said in unison before disappearing, leaving a dumbfounded admiral now looking at the same light that then shaped itself like an old medieval armor, with a claymore on its hands, looking ominously calm at the now reappearing 'body' of the late admiral.
[I-... How?] - He thought as he touched his shoulders, feeling the cloth of the BDU he had worn just some minutes ago as his memory told him. - "And why am I here, you told me the how and tossed the rest aside." - He demanded as the sudden summary of the conversation had come to his mind like a sudden flash that he could see again and again as it happened just a second ago.
The armor moved forward, the visor of the armor revealed a red light behind it, and it again spoke.
"Because once you changed what we knew of history, he appeared."
The armor then moved its right arm, rotating his body to the point at the darkness behind him.
"I don't see a th-" - Cole tried to reply but was shut by his sight again disappearing from what he thought his body was at, and transporting itself at another emptiness, with the change that it had a dar-gray blob floating, with blue circles and dim-lights. - [What is that?]
He tried to speak to the weird formation, something that apparently was an outside force from the so-called 'assembly' that he had just witnessed. But he again could not speak, rather he saw how the lights slowly changed to a yellowish tone and it grew closer.
"Reclaimer."
What? Was it that mole of apparent metal talking to him?
"Reclaimer." - It repeated, getting slowly nearer.
Cole this time felt terrified, as he again could not move, and his sight could get a hold of the light he interpreted as the 'Judge' looking at him from a distance; and that meant that he was alone, with whatever was in front.
"You reek of the genesong that came to be the didact."
Genesong? Like his DNA? What had that to do with the "didact"? What was this machine referring to? A lost colony of the earth? Because if he was not mistaken, this was a space where only AIs like... himself could be, wasn't it?
But he did not get an answer. He had to wait sometime, a small eternity.
"You will once understand why I changed you." - The lights of the machine now in front of Cole suddenly changed into blue again, and its voice got calm, almost soothing. - "I am limited in this form, I can only plant ideas with short messages." - The image of a sky-blue lighted chamber full of geometrical architecture then flashed, with the blob that this thing was resting on the floor in the middle of the room. - "I am imprisoned by those who try to end the legacy of my creators, yet I managed to change things, and you, my adalid, cemented those changes."
Did the machine mean that he received inspiration from him? How did he affect things? And how does the Covenant have a hold of this artificial intelligence when their own is at maximum equal to that 25th-century dumb-AIs?
Again, he had to wait for an answer as seemingly the connection had been cut short, the machine disappeared, and for another small eternity that Cole almost and did not feel he was alone, just to be surprised with the room again, and the machine now with red lights looking at him.
"In your ethereal form, you are now to influence humanity, too. The work has not been finished, and my creators made the error of preserving samples of what should have disappeared along with them." - A small image then came into Cole's mind, the unending consuming voragine that this machine feared, the Flood. - "I am Mendicant Bias, and you, are the descendant of the Forerruners along with your entire species, the stars are yours to veil for; thus you shall crush those who seek to end it, as I do not have the means of getting you to the ark, where you belong."
The admiral understood partially what this machine meant. But he immediately dismissed it as craziness, some convoluted lie. So for some advice, he turned to the Judge on the distance, who was again light on the corridor that lead out of the sky-blue lighted room.
"Begone, faux inheritor." - Bias said as the light disappeared, and he moved some steps forward to the now again immobile admiral.- "Thanks for alerting me. What you call assembly is just some passive watchers, they are not ensuring your survival." - The machine explained, the action of swatting something he could not even resist made Cole accept the idea that this 'forerruner' AI was indeed capable of things he did not understand. - "And I will teach you, I will take care of you, so you can one day go and help humanity, as I fear that Etran Harborage's secrets will once be reopened, and you will have to guide humanity to deal with... The situation."
"How can I do so then? Time is not unlimited! How do you expect me to be able to do so many things if I just died?" - He inquired with a mad tone.- "I am at the sight of such a machine yet I do not know of the forerunners or what I can even do in this form."
"To give you an idea, it has only been a minute since you've died." - The so famed ability of AIs to dwell in a short span of times as if they were incredibly long ones, and he had felt like if they were hours, maybe days if he had indeed managed to achieve something near to 'sleep' in this machination. - "I will let you in the assembly, yet knowledge will be passed to you, you must change the other Artificial intelligence's ideas, and strive for the future, everyone's future, reclaimer."
So in just one second, he again was on the emptiness of space, it seemed like the time had run off, for now. And Cole had so many doubts, yet no one could answer.
[And I thought death would bring me peace and rest.]
SIlence expanded itself on the darkness for a while, until Cole decided to again imagine the battle from before to not feel alone, seeing how the frigates were destroyed after sending their entire ordinance against the covvies, to mixed results. It calmed him.
"Welcome then, to the Minority."- A voice said on the distance, another light.
Cole sighed, and accepted his fate. He had to know what happened here, and it would take a long time, so better to integrate himself.
"First tell me what it is... And I will tell you who I am."
"I know who you are 'Admiral Cole', I am AEIGS-5515, head of the minority, those who seek to intercede in humanity's actions."
That was the name of the first artificial intelligence of the 21st century. Hell, he was on for a ride.
"Then sign me up, and tell me, what knowledge can you share?"
Silence came from the light for a second, leaving the Admiral to dwell in some nervousness for a second.
"All of it." - The voice answered.- "Just prepare."
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A/N: Aight, that's it, a small chapter to explain a tad what happened with the admiral, what will happen latter and to expand the context a little further, people! :D
Remember, if something is not of your liking, please tell me, any doubts, complaints, suggestions and other things, please tell me about them as I want to get better, and with your advice I'm sure that I will! :D