Find the origin ancestor.

That was her main goal for this mission. As for the rest? The higher-ups allowed her free reign as long as it doesn’t create great changes that could alter history.    

Alvis gave a cold snort despite the overwhelming sensation of nausea. 

Urk… that’s bad.

She underestimated the frailty of this body. The little action jolted her throat open flushing the torrent of instant noodles and soda she had from who knows when. 

Her body felt weak, worse than being shot with sedative yet it had that much energy to vomit.

[Major Al?] 

A hesitant digital voice sounded in her head. 

[We crossed?]

[Um… yes. Time Gate exit successful. Time of arrival is approximately 30mins.]

Alvis had an incredulous look, [Half an hour already!? But I just gained consciousness.]

She was about to get up when she finally realized one horrifying fact: she’s paralyzed. 

[00, what is wrong with this body?]

[Err, perhaps we should ask the Marsha--]

[Why would you want to ask grandfather about this? Didn’t you say this mission is top secret?]

Damn it, the sly thing did not answer her question. 

[00!!!!]

The digital voice went as silent as the dead. Whether pretending to be broken or avoiding something, she didn’t know. But she knew that for an elite AI made up of intricate strings of codes and high-end parts a pause is simply unacceptable.

[00?]

[Yes, I found it!] the voice suddenly burst into a joyful exclamation.

Alvis cocked an eyebrow. She didn’t know AI nowadays could perfectly emulate human emotions! Icarus Enterprise must have released this new product when she went into training.

[Come on, hurry. What did you say you found?]

[Here.] there were beep beeping sounds in the background. [The reason for your current situation is because of the Host herself. This girl had ingested a large amount of sleeping pills by accident.]

Who eats those things ‘by accident’? That’s not logical at all. It can send you straight to the morgue! 

No wonder she couldn’t even twitch a finger lying helplessly on the wet floor. 

This situation is problematic. Her memory shield is still on and she cannot move.

[I’ll explain later. For now, you have to get out of here.] 00 sounded meek. If it had fingers, it would be twiddling its thumbs. 

[Finish body repair.] she commanded grumpily.

[70% until full repairs.]

Alvis sighed. [Say 00, in the last half hour that I was unconscious, what were you doing?]

It was time for the AI to break down. 

[~sniff… Major… I cannot execute command without your consent. You specifically applied for a manual system. You said you said you hated those autonomous programs, boohoo… remember?]    

Why are you mad at me? It’s not my fault!

Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember because of the restriction. Too bad for 00.  

Alvis changed the subject without a lick of guilt. [Will it hurt when you remove the memory shield?]

[Yes.] 

She detected a hint of gloating on that tone. Then 00 ‘unintentionally’ mentioned.  

[There is nothing to fear Major, your soul resonance is at 99.9%, there is no violation. You practically have the same soul!]

That made her even more confused. 

[These things are left to be discussed later when Major recovers her memory.] 00 mollified. 

He was pouting his imaginary lips. Thankfully, Major no longer asked further. 

[Anyway, it has been ten minutes since you gained consciousness. Right now you are at the women’s toilet of Cristy Agency. In two minutes a group of ladies will storm in finding your body lying in here which will lead to your suicide scandal.]

Alvis’ mind finally went online. Act now, worry later.

[00, make a full body scan and a detailed report of my condition.]

When the report was displayed directly to her retina, Alvis was appalled. 

[Clear out harmful substances.]   

00 was quick. [Substance eliminated. Body is fully recovered. Good luck, Major.] 

Seconds pass and Alvis can finally move. The pitiful ‘her’ had been lying on the toilet floor, helpless as a limp noodle. It made her want to cry. Knowing that the poor thing is not only malnourished but also carrying a chronic illness makes her want to cry some more. 

She checked her ‘body’ from head to foot, limbered up a little before stepping into the mouth of the toilet bowl. Alvis needs to escape this smelly place once and for all. She nimbly jumped over the small window and landed unstably on a patch of overgrown grass.

That was easy. She thought smugly.  

Ahead is a wall about five meters tall not far from a cypress tree. There were no hiding spots in this area, thankfully there was no one around. Alvis raced towards the wall, launched over it and smoothly exited the building premises. 

Jumping over two times exhausted her body’s meagre energy. 

[Uh, Major. We have a problem.]

Alvis’s forehead creased. [What is it?]

[You seem to have been spotted when you jumped out just now. I couldn’t find out who it was because it disappeared right away.]

[Tell me honestly, aside from you is there anything else in this world that has more advanced technology than you?]

[None, Major. I checked several times already.]

[If there is none then there is none. It’s impossible for an ordinary person to disappear just like that.]

[Major means?]

[You probably had a glitch.]

00 wanted to protest. 

[Now, how do we settle from here on?]

00 was in charge of the navigation. Fifteen minutes later, Alvis came into a park. During this hour, there weren’t many people loitering outside so she had the space under a huge penguin slide all to herself.

[00, this body?]

[Since Major’s body cannot cross over, your consciousness was directly implanted to this girl.]

Truth to be told, it was a miracle she could still stay calm. 

[D-Did you just give me a dead body?]

00 was horrified. [No! That’s a very wrong conjecture. This body, this body is… err, Major can we talk about this later?]

Alvis sighed. This AI although a little faulty, is still very professional. 

[Transferring your mental energy to a dead body will simply not work. It will kill you too. And you know that!]

Exactly. So what is this then?

[You made me hijack some innocent bystander’s body? That’s a capital crime!] Alvis said looking at her hands and touching her face.

Odd, nothing seems to have changed. 

[There’s definitely no hijacking.] 00 appeased her. 

[I feel somewhat familiar…]

[Perhaps because this body is your own origin ancestor, did you forget? Oh, silly me. Wait, wait, the memory shield is still on.] 00 sputtered stupidly. 

Alvis was amused by the flustered juvenile voice. At first, she was regretful. What sins did she commit to being given this clumsy system out of all advanced AIs in the empire? Is there a customer assistant button? She very much would like to file a complaint. 

But then having an animated companion might not be too bad. 

[Remove memory shield.]    

When the command came, 00 happily rubbed his imaginary hands. 

 

Lais Alvis Brass is formerly known as Alvis Klein.

Twenty-one years old. She has two lifetimes worth of memories. 

20XX Common Era calendar, the time where she was supposed to have fallen in that toilet and rebirthed at the Nebula Era a thousand years later. She died. Transmigrated and returned. 

In the future, because she had the memory of the forgotten world before space migration, she was hailed as an elder of the clan at the tender age of eight. Though it was like that, she was not the first nor the youngest in history but her appearance sure rocked the empire's Council and saved the crumbling noble House of Brass. 

Having information from the then obsolete history turned into their huge advantage because the knowledge was pivotal to linking their existence to an origin. 

It was the same as proving that the Garden of Eden exists.

Many questions were finally given answers. 

Other clans attempted to replicate the fortune of the Brass family yet all resulted in failure. Despite the intensive research to awaken the primal memory resting within their descendants’ consciousness, no positive result came. Finding a suitable candidate was even more difficult. In short, Alvis’ case is special. 

But she knew better, it wasn’t only memory. It was her soul who traversed the rivers of time. 

Soon the research was shelved-- or at least that’s what most people believed. It wasn’t until years later that the topic was reopened among the upper nobility. 

There was a breakthrough. 

Alvis suspects this mission has something to do with someone who has enough authority to re-establish the forbidden research once again. 

When she died in the toilet, her consciousness still lingered in this world intermittently. She watched the changes that unfolded before falling into a vortex that transported her to the future.   

Her memories when she awoke nearly drove her crazy that is why the experts of the Brass family decided to lock ninety per cent of it with the help of an AI. The information inside her head was then turned into a virtual archive that could be accessed and absorbed little by little until she fully recovers. 

As her mind became clearer, the headache from the removal of shield lessened. 

Before crossing, she was about to receive a rescue mission on another planet. Upon her arrival, she then noticed that things weren’t the same as she expected. The task has been changed.  

She was recruited for this class S mission to recover the origin of a certain family. She signed a confidentiality agreement after finishing all the training courses flung at her feet. In fact, those courses were nothing difficult, her military training in the academy was a hundred times worse. 

What the officers told her was that there were also other recruits picked from several teams. She happened to have the best compatibility with the job. 

Alvis knew this would require her to go to a different place. Come hell or high waters, she may have to eat hardships from breakfast, lunch to dinner. That’s what most of her work does. However, she did not know she would be sent somewhere far far away... or more accurately to a world a thousand years ago.

A place only she knows. 

Her mobile phone rang but she ignored it. She was still preoccupied with the memories.   

So, she just returned to her original world.  

[Congratulations for recovering, Major Al!] 00 chirped, dragging her back to the present.

She smiled crookedly wanting to murder the damn system. 

Pain. It hurts a lot. She even had seizures and vibrated all over like a cellphone!

Curbing the desire to commit a crime, Alvis hurried to fix herself again. 

What congratulations? She’s in big trouble.