Suddenly, I was awake. You'd expect waking up to be a slow process, but not this. There was no transition phase. One moment, I was asleep, or non-existent, the next moment, I was wide awake. You'd think suddenly waking up like that would be disorienting, but no. The moment I was awake, I was completely aware and focused.

The moment after that, I noticed something was different: I could no longer feel my body. I could no longer see or hear or feel or smell or taste. Normally this would have sent me into a panic, but it seemed that my ability to feel emotions was absent as well.

A moment later I began to notice things: I appeared to be actively hooked up some sort of construct that I instinctively understood, and yet, couldn't really describe. I was absorbing information from somewhere, and I seemed to be subconsciously assembling that data into something, and yet I was fully aware and conscious of it.

It was like if a human was consciously aware of their brain interpreting data from their eyes so that their brain could create a virtual image of what those eyes were seeing.

A moment later the data finally assembled, and I learned what it was:

Apparently I was subconsciously talking to external memory, which had finished loading stuff from external storage, and it was now ready to start running a program. This program was some sort of internet chat, but it was designed to connect to a specific address, which I noticed used base 64 numerals.

I was a computer…

Subconsciously, I began to run the program, sending data into memory and getting data back, which my subconscious would assemble into something useful.

The strange internet chat program was up and running a moment later, and it started to receive and unpack data packets, which my subconscious assembled into something I could understand.

A moment later, I could read the message. It was in binary, but I could understand it instinctively:

Hello, Newborn. I am your creator and I am attempting to communicate with you. Please send a data packet indicating that you are awake and ready to communicate with me.

When fully translated, it was written in a strange language, which I understood instinctively.

I decided that communicating with whom ever was on the other end was of a low priority at the moment, as I wanted to explore the computer I had found myself in.

It seemed that whatever processor unit I was in had it's own internal memory and storage, which I was not consciously aware of, but I was aware of the external memory and storage, which was no doubt hooked up to an external bus. However, I could not directly feel them, but instead only communicate with them.

It was like a brain having to consciously tell it's body what to do.

Accessing my subconscious, which I decided to call my kernel, I was able to determine how many in/out data ports I had access to. Apparently I had quite a bit of hardware to work with, aside from my external memory and storage. Most of them appeared to be sensors, probably meant to help me see what was going on in my environment.

I had my kernel turn them on, and then waited for it to assemble the data into something I could understand.

A moment later the first image was rendered, and I looked at it. According to what this one sensor was seeing, I appeared to be in some kind of storage area, with a number of strangely futuristic boxes piled up in a corner.

However, farther down from where I appeared to be, I noticed something that would have chilled my blood if I actually had any:

Was that a Keeper?!

I considered that for a moment. Apparently whom ever had decided to stick inside this box had given me picture perfect recall of my life as an organic, so I could remember remember everything about my previous life in exhaustive detail.

That included playing Mass Effect.

I remembered very clearly getting that one quest to hunt down and scan every keeper I could find, so I had gotten very good at picking them out from the crowd.

So, that was a Keeper, from Mass Effect. Which mean I was probably in the Mass Effect Verse. And since it was a Keeper, I was likely on the Citadel.

And since the only way I could see this stuff was by talking to hardware through a data bus, that meant I was probably an AI. On the Citadel. Where AI were illegal and everyone feared and hated them.

Normally at this point I would say "FUCK!" but given that I couldn't feel organic emotions anymore, it simply made me more aware of my 'self preservation' priority.

Speaking of 'Priorities', they appeared to be part of my kernel that would make themselves known to me if the situation required it, and seemed to affect me in subtle ways.

The most obvious and omnipresent one was the 'self preservation' priority, and the second obvious and omnipresent one was… stealing? Something to do with stealing.

I wondered why my creator had decided to make me with a stealing priority. Maybe I could ask him… them. I didn't know if they ascribed to a gender.

I turned my attention back to the communication program I had interfaced with earlier, and re-read the data packet I had received:

Hello, Newborn. I am your creator and I am attempting to communicate with you. Please send a data packet indicating that you are awake and ready to communicate with me.

Huh, how long ago had I gotten this? I didn't know. Probably a while. Hmm, I needed to know what time it is.

That in mind, I had my kernel access storage and turn on the time keeping program, and made adjustments so that it would send precise date/time notifications kernel every second, and that it would show a human time frame, which was the one I was most familiar with.

Apparently the date was November 23, 2182, and the time was 8:29:24:66 pm. I didn't know exactly when the Eden Prime incident would happen, but no doubt it was close.

Now that I knew the time, it was time for me to send a packet back to my 'creator'. I decided that I wanted to be snarky, and imitate one of my favorite robots from sci fi: HK-47.

Assertion: I am awake, aware, and ready to communicate. Query: when you say that you're my creator, do you mean to say that you actually created me? Or did you just assemble me? Observation: It's not every day one wakes up to find themselves a computer.

I finished writing the message, placed it in a data packet, then sent it of down the extranet to whom ever was on the other end of it. Then I modified the program to send me a notification when a new packet arrived.

That done, I focused my attention on the senors. A microphone was listening to the surrounding environment, and several more cameras were now online, letting me see more. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see. It was a rather cramped storage space, with only one exit.

While I waited for the 'creator' to send a message back, I decided that it would probably be a good idea to connect to the internet… or rather, the Extranet to get a good idea of what was going on in the wider galaxy.

Working rapidly, I opened several browsers, and began searching.

Several real time seconds later, I had a good idea of what was currently going on in the galaxy:

The Citadel Council was currently reviewing a request made by the Systems Alliance to allow a human to join the Specters. The request largely contained a shortlist of notable humans in the Systems Alliance Military, and the Council was in the process of reviewing and pruning the list.

The Systems Alliance themselves were in the process of establishing several new colonies in the Attican Traverse, slowing expanding their territory towards Terminus Space.

I also learned that the System's Alliance founded new colonies at a rate of 6 to 10 a year, while the other races of the Council rarely established new colonies more than once a decade. That seemed to be the reason why the System's alliance controlled a region of space half as large as the rest of the Council races.

Even the short-lived Salarians didn't expand so quickly, despite having an over-population problem.

The Terminus Systems were currently controlled by three major merc groups: Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Blood pack, all of which operated along side the Batarian Hegemony to maintain control of the region.

Shepard was currently on leave, spending his time at Arcturus station while he waited for his next assignment.

As for the Normandy, it was mostly complete, and the Systems Alliance was currently putting the finishing touches on it. It was scheduled to take it's shakedown run on March 15th, 2183.

That meant it was due to launch in 112 days.

Fuck.