-(Altair)-

The Lurker, Simulator and training room; Wednesday 12th January 3141 of the Human Federation Calendar

It was hard to look at how my new ward was suffering at two times gravity in the training room, but if all goes well she will adapt as the nanites suffusing her body will reinforce it. Destiny was running at full speed around the track and barely completed the objective of today that I considered benign: Ten turns around the racetrack. The girl was knackered already, I see that we have the work cut out for us. Destiny reached the end of the course and went to her knees; I used my neural interface to put the gravity back to normal and approached the girl with a towel and a bottle of fresh water.

“You did better than I expected Destiny, I thought you would give up at your seventh rounds,” I said amused.

The girl threw a deathly glare at me that I really appreciated, she sat on her bottom and took the towel from me. She began to dry the sweat on her face and shoulders. I then sat her side and put the water bottle near her.

“Why?”

“Why what?” I said while smiling.

“Why did ye make me run under that much gravity? Twas like I was wearing weights.”

“The answer is self-evident, my girl; at normal gravity, you would have made this exercise a joke and maybe gone for forty more rounds. And do you think humanity colonized planets with the same gravity as the ship, that is set at Earth-normal? No, you will have to train hard under this much to reach your full potential.”

“Sound hard…”

“Nothing worth having is easy to obtain,” I told her.

“I see.” She said after mulling over that.

“Now come, you’ll take a shower and we will let the simulation rooms configure itself in library mode; the bathroom is on the right.” I pointed the direction to her.

The process was already beginning, the racetrack began shifting under us and the ground becomes an opaque black. I stood up and helped Destiny on her feet; the poor dear seemed really exhausted but this was just the beginning of her gruesome schooling. She will stay the equivalent of one week in the VR instance of what I call ‘the great library’ that is the physical representation of every information stored into the powerful computers of the Lurker and their servers disseminated in Alliance space here and there. I brought Destiny to the bathrooms attached to the simulation room and began to take off my shipsuit once done I found Destiny looking at me curiously.

*Was she interested in women? It’s not in her profile.* I thought.

<Like what you see?> I sent to her via my mind.

Destiny jumped and looked rather embarrassed.

<I am sorry.> She answered while looking away.

<You are curious, is it the first time that you see the body of a mature woman?>

<You look different from me; Your chest isn’t bigger than mine, but it looks firmer and easy to move with… and-and you look really fit and attractive.>

I touched my arm and my skin felt smooth, I do not scar anymore and the nanites in my body slowed down my aging. I am at the peak of human health. No hair below my eyebrows, yes no pesky razor will touch my legs like in those human worlds that refuse to have a tech level beyond the steam engine.

<I see, thank you. You are not bad yourself. Come here.> Smiling at Destiny, I signaled her to come to me with my hand.

She hesitated walking toward me; I caught her and began to help her out of her blue gym clothes. My hands roamed on her flesh, eliciting a burst of desire within her from what my empathy could pick up. It seems Destiny was indeed attracted to women, she was like putty in my hand but I wouldn't take advantage of her more than this. It was a good test to see where her inclinations lie. If she was not grieving and older I might have eaten this tasty little morsel before me. Taking Destiny's hand in mine I took her to the Sonic shower. After following my instructions, Destiny stayed under the ultrasonic shower for two minutes closing her eyes. I shut out my hearing sense to stop the pain from the strident frequency. My nanites enhanced senses are under my perfect control, I hope to be able to teach Destiny to use them before she leaves the ship. I order shampoo and soap from the ship stores and deploy the Roman bath function of this room that expands to give us enough space. That's what I like with the Lurker, the ship is like any standard Vice corporation vessels; highly adaptable and modular.

“Now I will teach you how to take good care of yourself, open your mind to me.”

Destiny opened her mind to me and I began projecting esthetic cares knowledge into her mind; it is a skill called knowledge projection allowing either instant transferal/learning/understanding or slower process where the target integrates the knowledge without risk of overflow. As a bonus, I decided to bestow her my experience with psychic shielding making Destiny highly resistant to any/all mental intrusion. I don’t want her to be caught flat-footed when she will fly the nest. While I instructed her, I started to shampoo her.

*Doing this reminds me of my son and daughter, I hope they are doing well.*

 

***

-(Destiny)-

We were now in the library, or at least the virtual representation of one. My body was safely seated in the dive chair while I was being taught how everything worked by NOVA. My AI said that this cyberspace in the ship was a pocket realm situated in a universe called Data space; A Faster Than Light network encompassing the entire Alliance linked to every planet in the different races sovereign space. It didn’t care about borders or creed and it was financed by Vice Corporation while being co-opted by the Assurian council, the Thelian, and the human's worlds. There were other Empires of different species like the Shidarva.

Speaking of NOVA, I was really surprised when I first saw the avatar of my AI companion, she was simply gorgeous. She was tall and looked like a human female with an hourglass figure, her skin was pale like mine; she wore a dark purple shoulder dress that showed off her silhouette with little black boots. NOVA had Raven Black hair with a dark purple sheen when the light fell on them, she also had markings on her delicate face and around the three little horns on her forehead, jet black lines under her eyes that formed beautiful tribal tattoos that married well with her makeup. NOVA has purple eyes, sword-like eyebrows, a cute upturned nose, and voluptuous pink sensual lips; she looked dignified and prideful. Her smile was full of radiance and was only for me. I felt something tug in my heart, what was this feeling?

NOVA helped me tour the library that made it seem like we were in a tower-like structure with shelves replacing the walls. I couldn’t see the ceiling, as the floors were numerous and simply uncountable. There was islands of sofas and couches or desk and table with fancy chairs around them hidden by shelves of different sizes. NOVA showed me how to conjure a holo-window and how to look for information. When I entered this virtual space, I could barely read but NOVA injected the ‘how to’ in my mind and finally I could make sense of everything. It was as if the world opened itself to me and it made me furious because project Xavier kept me ignorant to control me!

“Are you well, Mistress?”

The mellifluous voice of NOVA turned me out of my musing and vengeful feelings. I felt her hand on my shoulder, it was comforting. I breathed in and out, calming myself gradually, I let go of my anger and hatred. I felt the breath of someone near my right ear.

“Do you think that’s air that you breathe right now?”

I stepped before and turned toward NOVA who had an impish smirk on her face, what did she mean by what she said? This is a… wait. We are in a virtual place, so nothing is real. I tested that theory by trying to jump and fly toward the first floor and my feet left the ground and I reached little by little where I wanted to go. The balcony I reached suddenly elongated and created a sort of bridge I landed on. I felt arms around my body.

“You did it!” It was NOVA’s voice, she sounded really happy.

She turned me toward her and hugged me.

“Aye ah did, nothing here is real but the information are so you can manipulate the world to a certain extent,” I told her what I realized because of her words.

“You have no idea how much time it takes normal humans to do what you did. Ok, now we must go take the books that you need to really learn your way around the world. But something tells me that you’ll burn through everything really fast. Say, do you know how to count?”

“Aye… not a lot though.” I looked at my feet feeling ignorant and utterly useless.

I felt NOVA hand lifting my chin and made me look at her eyes. They were so purple and brilliant, there was no disgust or pity in them, only warmness and conviction.

“I am not going to judge you, Mistress. You are here to learn, by the end of our transit in hyperspace you’ll be at a college level of education, I promise. We have literally years of cyberspacetime to catch you up!” She said happily and patted my cheek.

If I couldn’t trust my AI companion, then who could I? NOVA had faith in men, she wanted to make me better and doesn’t seem to have an ulterior motive.

“Ah… I trust ye NOVA, teach me please.” I asked with desperation.

She hugged me even tighter and I reciprocated, NOVA was like a life-saving raft in a sea of incertitude.

“I will do my best.”

***

 

Cyberspace realm - First year

 

Even with my skill disc enabling me to read NOVA forced me to review the basic of it. Decoding or sounding out words is the first step in reading; Good readers increase their vocabulary every time they read and are able to recall these words when they see them again. Then there is fluency and comprehension. After two months of this, I felt at ease with my reading skills and swallowed information like a black hole.

Then NOVA presented me to other AIs from the ship to help her with my education and generally relax and have fun. The psychologist female AI, Freud that I nicknamed Miss F helped me sort out my feelings and undo the “programming” my captor placed on me since young. Miss F made me notice that I always defer to people older than me or smarter than me to make decisions for me; to break from it she told me to think more about problem-solving on my own and that if I was too distressed to ask for help. NOVA countered this by adding that she is here to help me, but Miss F compromised that cooperating should be on the table. The next step of Miss F project (me) was to make me able of thinking along three-dimensional lines. A skill that is known as divergent thinking. It makes you able of approaching a problem with various angles. Three-dimensional thinking prevents you from moving into the realm of convergent thought, a form of problem- solving thought. Convergent thinking it generally means the ability to give the "correct" answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in human schools and on standardized multiple-choice tests for intelligence.

Wow, look at me spouting big words and explanations; I guess hanging with AIs make you catch the smart bug. Between my psychotherapy sessions with Miss F and NOVA’s schooling, I met the Quartermaster AI, named Pallitax; his avatar was that of a thin man with sharp eyes in a shipsuit uniform. He helped me with my technology courses. He gave me a solid background in computing and technological fields and got me interested in engineering, quantum computing, astrophysics, and astronavigation. But he warned me vehemently to focus more on my basic schooling before delving into those fields.

It was all kind of fun speaking and learning from those digital people, I can say we have become friends. Miss F and Palli were good ‘people’. I realized that they weren’t machines, they had feelings, needs and wants and a thirst to self improve that dwarfed mine. NOVA went a bit green because I liked them though, wasn’t she a bit too overprotective? She has been calling me ‘her’ human for a while, I didn’t want to dissuade her from thinking that way; after all, we belonged to each other.

The first year ended with me graduating from high school level of education; NOVA, Miss F and Palli threw a party for me when it happened and praised me for the speed with which I absorbed their teaching.

***

 

Cyberspace Smallville realm - second year

 

NOVA freaked out on me, saying that she was failing me and cried big tears about it. I didn’t see it that way, she was making me smarter after all! Cyberspace was a wonderful place where I could learn everything and anything. But her arguments made me rethink my way of thinking. She told me that I was getting smarter but just that, book smart. Being human is more than having the knowledge and that if I continued like this I would end up being inept at social interactions with my own kind. AI were people, but they weren’t plagued by greed, moral bankruptcy, and they had less creativity than human. Oh and that some humans were dumb and that the way I was speaking now would mark me as a nerd and isolate me. That her, Miss F and Pallitax were giving me a false maturity and left me to be prey to human predators because of my naivety. So I reminded her that we were in this space to make up for my own ineptitudes and that I am at her mercy. That made her laugh and cheered her up.

My AI companion then changed my learning program to include more pop culture and downtime with other AIs that simulated civilian life. NOVA created a separate realm on the ship to recreate a town that encompassed the Library realm that looked like the tallest skyscrapers I have ever seen. I loved this place, she called it Smallville. NOVA and I had a little townhouse with a garage where we put most of the tools I needed. A space only for me. Smallville was a nice little town; there was a theater, a baker, a supermarket, a park, a university, a stadium and lot of little places that were mine to discover in that small town. There were good and not so good people there, AIs programmed to mimic humans behaviors. I felt like I was having a second life in this idyllic environment.

I began to learn about science and physics more in depth even with the preloaded skill discs that just made you understand those things, but I learned and absorbed those making them mine, part of me. With the help of the AIs in the university I solidified my understanding of the world around me, mathematics was part of everything or more precisely Quantum mechanics! That included quantum field theory, this is a fundamental theory in physics which describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic particles. NOVA gave me tools and apps for mathematical formulations. Then I went and specialized in mechanical engineering. Oh boy, there was so much to learn! Mechanical engineering requires an understanding of core areas including mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics, materials science, structural analysis, and electricity. It sucked up my time as I had to master tools like computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacturing, and product life cycle management. Fair enough, the last one wasn’t needed but knowing the conditions in which a product is sold is important right? And then everything went crazy when my Engineering AI teacher mister tools (he was really a tool if you catch my meaning) added more things like fields machinery, heating, and cooling systems, transport systems, aircraft, watercraft, spacecraft, robotics, medical devices, weapons, and others.

I loathed mister Tools with a passion, he kept telling me off and belittling me and kept spouting thing like “Mechanical Engineering is the branch of engineering that involves the design, production, and operation of machinery. It is the backbone of everything surrounding you! Did you think, miss Mcleod that you would master this field in a year? Get real!” I couldn’t refute nor deny his arguments, so I slowed down on my learning on this field but I wasn’t giving up!

NOVA and Miss F comforted me with food and movies when I was down, Mister Pallitax was happy to play video games with me. I took up cooking as a stress relief and to make friends with other AIs like Miss Storm, my Astrophysics and Astronavigation teacher. She was a blue-eyed blond, taller than me and a real jokester. She made learning a real joy and it was a pleasure to work with her! Miss F advised me to take up psychology as I am a telepath, so I added this field on my plate and this is here that I noticed that I was taking on too much and that I needed to stick to what I add and stopped scattering myself.

I kept learning on this rhythm for two years and barely saw time pass. Time passed by inexorably and with a finality that bordered on the cruel side.

***

 

Cyberspace library realm - Three years time elapsed - half a day real time

 

We spent three years in the cyberspace learning, having fun and visiting other cyber realms like Smallville when we were bored. We were in the original library realm right now. I actually liked it here, it was silent and I had virtual food, my best friend NOVA and… she taught me a lot of things thanks to the media room here. I felt surer of myself and less dependent of NOVA or Altaïr. Miss F made me realize that I was a needy little thing, that I was this way with Iza and uncle Magnus; I was starting to do it with Altaïr on the ship.

*She must have enough on her plate, ah don’t want tae burden her.*

“Destiny,” NOVA called me.

“Aye, wit?” I turned my head toward her, surprised.

“You aren’t focused enough, I want you to resolve this complex equation; and what did we say about that accent of yours? Try to keep it on the down low.” She squinted her eyes and smirked evilly.

We have been working on my manners lately, she created a skilled disc with how to walk like a lady, move gracefully and charged them into my brain. I hope that outside the cyber realm it will hold. Right now we were seated between two bookshelves around a desk with a lot of books on FTL communication and Hyperdrive. The formulas I was trying to solve was about the mode of FTL drive that Vice Corporation was using derived from the Higgs-Boson quantum tunneling theory AKA the subspace theory. Vice Corp called them hyperdrive window, as I understood that other humans worlds were less advanced and primarily used warp drive. Those were two types of FTL drives, and NOVA was teaching me that others means of traveling through space existed.

“Aye shite forgot… sorry. I was introspecting.” I said while trying to speak goodie goodie English.

NOVA has been trying to make me stop swearing like a sailor, but her results have been abysmal.

“And did you arrive at a good conclusion at your self-analysis, Mistress?” NOVA asked sweetly.

“Aye, I must become strong and self-reliant.” I said with determination.

“That is good, but I would prefer that you let me shoulder some of your burdens. That is why I exist, after all.”

“I love you too, NOVA,” I said fondly.

She smiled at me, but her stern taskmistress like demeanor resurfaced as fast as it disappeared while I was speaking about myself. I got back on this equation she wanted me to resolve. Three years ago I wasn’t able to do this. Being able to understand mathematics was weirdly liberating before it didn’t look different from magic to me. Now that I do understand and answer difficult answers and resolve problems quickly I am not impressed by it anymore because I understand the trick. The trick is that your brain can quickly decide if a question is answerable by example this work with continuity arguments, the correspondences between geometric and algebraic objects, linear algebra, or ways to reduce the infinite to the finite through various forms of compactness. I wrote the solution and sent it to NOVA that caught the window with a hand.

“Good, you finally got it! Sometime tomorrow we will continue to teach you on Mechanic Engineering.”

Urgh, spending time with Mister Tools was horrible! Torture even but the asshole knew his field.

“I am afraid that I must put an end to this virtual session,” NOVA said.

Just like that she dropped a bomb on me, it made me stand out of my seat in surprise.

“What? Already?!” I asked shocked.

“It’s been three years inside this space, but barely half a day in the real world.”

“Huh?” That revelation stomped me.

Three years! It’s been three fucking years.

“We have been going at 1000 times the speed of the time of the real world. Your mind needs rest, Destiny. Some of your vitals are showing some strain.” My AI companion sounded sad suddenly, but her primary concerns were my health.

I realized that Cyberspace could be a horrifying place too. Someone could imprison a human or another being in virtual reality and subject them to mental changes good or bad.

“This technology is dangerous, NOVA. I spent three years here. I feel different from how I was three years ago, I had time to mourn my uncle. I don’t feel burdened by grief anymore, because you and Miss F were there for me. But IRL it was just barely half a day? That’s scary, how can you handle it?!”

“Easily, my mind is different from yours. I am a synthetic being designed to evolve in that kind of environment. DataSpace is my home.” NOVA said, smiling.

She stood up, went through the table as if it didn’t exist and placed her hands on my cheeks.

“It’s going to be different seeing the world and people you are used to with news eyes, Destiny. But I will be there, with you. Always.”

NOVA kissed me, this was it. What I always wanted to do with her and never had the courage to enact; but I was aware of a weird tugging sensation and I felt my body being wrenched from my AI companion’s grasp. Everything went black for a time and slowly I opened my eyes, light, colors, and forms gradually appeared in my field of vision. A silhouette could be seen and I was familiar with it. It was Altaïr facing me with a warm smile and food on a tray facing me. I was seated on the dive chair that I remembered being in three years ago… no, it has only been half a day NOVA said.

“Hello, my little genius.” Altair’s voice and mind felt welcoming and full of friendliness.

There were tears flowing from my eyes, I was back in the real world.