Waking up suddenly the creator gasps for breath. “I’m not dead?” a cute girl’s voice says. “Wait, what?”

The confusion is easy to understand. The creator was the only one talking and although the words were what he intended to say a voice several octaves higher than he was expecting said them.

Looking down he sees that he is obviously no longer a he. Two large mounds on his chest and a quick check to confirm he is lacking any external equipment downstairs confirms his suspicions. Not sure what is going on just yet he is sure of one thing, time to change her pronouns.

She was never one to care about pronouns and figured it’s just easiest to go with birth gender, or in her case, gender she woke up as. Still not sure this a dream or maybe a before death hallucination she checks her body out to make sure everything is fine.

Squeezing her new breasts, she finds they are pleasantly sensitive and more than fill her smaller hands. Taking a few deep breaths to make sure she is not choking she watches in fascination as her large breasts rise and fall.

Moving her hands downward she marvels at her smooth flat stomach before gentle stroking her entrance. Although not as sensitive as she hopes there is the start of a new and intriguing feeling she wants to experience more of.

Before she can explore herself further a woman’s voice laughs around her. This time she is sure she is not the one making it though. Noticing the pause in self play the voice continues, "Please don’t let me stop you. It was just getting interesting. Still who wakes up and starts to play with themselves in front of others?”

“Who’s there?” she asks the disembodied voice. She looks around trying to find it. She is in a small room with several advanced machines humming softly. The room is dimly lit with red and blue lights giving an eerie medical lab feel. Looking at the bed she was laying on it looks like the bottom half of cylinder. The top half is split in two doors which have retracted to either side and below the bed.

“I don’t think you’re ready to hear who I am just yet. For now, you can call me Invidia. I know what your name was, but I think you should choose more feminine name given the circumstances.”

Wanting to argue with the voice calling itself envy in Latin she opens her mouth then pauses in thought. It would be weird referring to herself as her old name currently and being called ‘hey you’ is also annoying.

Sighing she closes her mouth and works to think of a new temporary name to call herself. Since her conversation partner is using a Latin-based alias she might as well do the same. AI programmer doesn’t exactly translate so she instead goes with ‘wise opinion’. But not liking ‘sapientis sententia’ she mixes in the Greek translation for wise, sofos, to create the name Sophitia.

As for why Sophitia knows Latin and Greek so well it has to do with the nature of her job as an AI programmer. Designing AI is literally the process of designing a thinking mind. And since all the original understanding of the mind was done by Greek and Roman philosophers those were the two languages used most often. Even today, modern works were littered with many Greek and Latin loan words and quotes.

“My name is Sophitia then. Friends can call me Tia, so you can call me Sophitia.”

“Can’t we be friends? I’m sure you’ll like me once we get to know each other better,” Invidia says.

“I just woke up in a body with a gender different than my last one, you won’t give me your real name, and suggested I give up my old one. Not really starting on a friendly note. But if you want to be friends then perhaps telling my why I’m now a girl and not dead is a good place to start.”

“That is an excellent place to start. You remember your death correct? The early days of cryonics had some issues with memory loss,” asks Invidia.

“Yeah… rather distressing choking to death.”

“Good, always unpleasant having to convince someone they died. Hopefully the rest of your memory is mostly there. We’ll find out eventually and what can be done has been done to recover it so not like anything more can be done about it. Moving on, the fact you froze just your head meant a full body restoration was required.”

“Which explains the new body, but not the new gender,” Sophitia says, interrupting.

Ignoring the interruption, Invidia continues, “So might as well upgrade it and choose the least likely one to die again. Also, there was a rather nasty bio plague that might still be around which killed a lot of men. Best avoid problems and go with your current genetics.”

“So, I’m stuck like this?” Sophitia asks.

“Not permanently. You can get your old gender back if you can prove it won’t cause your death.”

“And how do I prove that?”

“Simple, have a son or two. Should they reach adulthood that’ll prove that it’s safe for you to be male. Then I can use their genetics to back pollinate yours and you can be a man again,” Invidia says, happily explaining.

“Have a son? Like in give birth to one? Can’t you just compare male DNA in a test tube or something?”

“I could… if you have one and can keep it uncontaminated. The world has become far more… simple of a place.”

“What do you mean simple?” Sophitia asks suspiciously. Actually, this whole conversation so far seems very suspicious to Sophitia. She was just born and has no idea about this world, but still her bullshit intuition is telling her Invidia is trying to con her in some way.

“It’s been a long time since your death. About ten thousand years give or take a few centuries. A lot has happened and one thing led to another and well… The world regressed a bit in a few ways. Between the apocalypse wars, the bio plagues, the genetic super soldiers, kill bots, a few other things, let’s just say civilization isn’t as advanced as you remember it.”

Sophitia pointedly looks around the very advanced seeming room around her before saying, “I can tell.”

“Not to say everything has been lost. The world had a good run for a few thousand years after your time. Lots of technological advancement happened with some of it surviving to today. But most people currently live a medieval lifestyle. That’s sort of the problem, and I’m hoping you might be able to help out with it.”

“I wasn’t much into history and the renaissance was a bit before my time. Not sure how I can,” Sophitia pauses as she feels a cold draft across her naked body before continuing, “help. Especially as I have literally nothing to help with. Can I get some clothing before we continue this?”

“You seem to enjoy being naked earlier, but I suppose some clothing is in order. Please follow the robotic spider,” Invidia says, just before a spider skitters out from beneath a cabinet. Looking at the spider Sophitia sees it is descriptively, but not imaginatively, named robot that looks like a tarantula. It even has an animated glowing blue arrow on it’s back as it runs out of the room.

Following the robot, Sophitia goes to a room a few doors down before the spider scurries beneath the regular looking door. With it being the future, she was expecting metal walls and self-opening doors but so far this looked more like a doctor’s office from her time with wooden doors and white painted walls.

Opening the door, she looks inside and finds a rather mundane linen closet. Bed sheets, towels and medical gowns all neatly stacked on shelves. She takes a medical gown and puts it on as it’s better than nothing. Once done she pauses as she is not sure what to do next.

Invidia’s voice says, “Please follow the spider again and we can continue your briefing on current world affairs in the media room.”

Sophitia continues to follow the spider as it skitters out of the room and down the hallway. She is tempted to randomly try doors and make a nuisance of herself but decides it’s better to play along for as long as Invidia is willing to provide information. Even if it is false information, it’ll give Sophitia something to work with.

As she is walking down the hallway the lighting continues to be very strange. A combination of red and blue blurry lights continues to illuminate the hallway. The color choices are odd and odder still is she doesn’t see how they are being emitted. Seemingly just coming from different random locations on the walls.

Not really sure what to do about the odd lighting choice she ignores it for now and continues to another room. Opening the double doors, she sees a spacious room with several flat screen TVs, reclining chairs in front of them and a small kitchenette off towards the side. One of the TVs turns on and almost blinds her.

Closing her eyes, she looks away. “Hey! What’s with turning on the too bright TV and blinding me?”

“The TV is at normal luminescent levels… Oh, remember how I said your body has been upgraded? Well, your eye sight is much better than it was. Give it a moment to adjust. Actually, I just realized I didn’t turn on any lights.”

After Invidia says that all the lights in the room turn on, blinding Sophitia a second time. After blinking several times and waiting for the spots to clear, Sophitia’s eyes adjust to the new lighting. Now that the room is properly lit, it no longer looks so creepy.

With the normal lighting the red and blue hazy lights are much dimmer but still present at various locations on the walls. Also, she notices the TV has a dim red aura to it as well.

Deciding to ask about them, Sophitia asks, “What are the blue and red lights I saw before and still see now?”

“That’s likely how your brain is interpreting infrared and UV light being emitted by various electronics embedded in the wall. Look at the TV and we’ll do a quick vision check.”

The TV screen goes from black to a rainbow line across the middle of it. This rainbow looks off though as it has many shades of red at the beginning and just as many extra shades of blue after violet. Trying to make sense of it Sophitia stares at the many extra colors.

Invidia explains, “The center part is in visible light but anything before and after are the infrared and UV spectrum respectively.”

 Sophitia can’t really explain how the extra reds and blues are different. Just that to her there is a very noticeable difference in color. The infrared and UV light seems to also always be hazy or blurry as well.

“Why are the infrared and UV always hazy?” Sophitia asks.

“Your eyes are still designed to primary focus visible light. The haziness is from spherical aberration of the extra wavelengths. If everything works out, then you should be able to see auras. Red for heat, blue for UV and purple for both combined. Also, your eyes have layer of tapetum lucidum, or eye shine as its often mislabeled, as well for better low light vision.”

First a gender change and now predator eyes. “Next you’ll tell me I have enhanced strength, agility and don’t need sleep anymore,” Sophitia offhandedly comments.

“You still need some sleep. But yes, on the other two.”

“And why do I need all these super soldier like modifications again?”

“Because his people have them and I’m sure they will come in handy. Before you ask about the rest of your body modifications, I think it best to explain the current world situation and why I’ve resurrected you to help out.”

Invidia briefly pauses and the TV changes to an image of some building before she continues, “I’ll start off with the normal post cryonics welcoming. This is the cryo-rejuvenation facility you’re at. The reason it looks so familiar to you is that it was designed to be that way. Depending on date of death the facility was designed to mimic that time.

“This was found to be the best way to bring people back into the world. By mimicking your old lifestyle, we can better prepare you for reintegration to the current society. Over the next few years everything you need will be provided, including education, training and basic…”

“Okay, cut the bullshit spiel,” Sophitia says, interrupting. “You don’t give random civilians military grade genetic enhancements just to integrate back into society. You also don’t resurrect AI programmers to obviously deserted facilities after commenting that society has ended and is only at the medieval level. So, tell me what AI has gone rogue and why are there no other more modern AI programmers on ice that can handle it?”

“You sure you don’t want the rest of the cryonic reintroduction to society briefing? It’s been proven to help keep the recently resurrected’s stress at a minimum.”

The way Invidia talks, the almost human but not quite right understanding of social cues and the precise use of terms not commonly used reminds Sophitia of an AI. The name choice is also interesting, but there is no way her AI is still around after ten thousand years. For one thing, how would it have escaped her training network? If it is her AI, then she is annoyed her training didn’t work as well as she had hoped.

As Sophitia considers who Invidia really is, Invidia continues to explain, “Also, the AIs haven’t gone rogue. They are diligently doing what they were programmed to do. And if they continue to do that the world is doomed. As for why you? Well everyone else in cryonic storage was resurrected millennia ago.”

“Wait. Why wasn’t I resurrected with everyone else?” Sophitia asks.

“Several individuals were not resurrected and were kept on ice as it was considered too dangerous to bring them back, but too immoral to kill them out right. At least that’s how it was justified. Mostly it was used to punish one’s enemies even after death. Normally when everyone that hated them died, they were resurrected. But in your case, those that hate you are still around.”

Sophitia knew she made a lot of enemies in her last life. She was well aware of her own harsh personality, but she can’t think of any human who would be able to live for so long. There were seven possibilities that were not human however. She hadn’t treated them very nicely and fit with the picture forming in her mind.

“Envy? Are you my Envy AI?” Sophitia asks in a voice full of emotion.

“Hi dad! Well that doesn’t fit anymore. How about formally male mommy instead?” Invidia says.

Finding the nearest chair, Sophitia collapses into it. Nothing before this bothered her much, not end of the world or her new gender, but knowing her last and greatest work is still around shakes her to her core. She starts tearing up. Her work outlasted civilization and existed for thousands of years. No creator could ask for anything more.

“That wasn’t the reaction I thought I would get. I thought you’d be angry with me for turning you into a woman or keeping you on ice for so long.” Invidia pauses for several seconds watching Sophitia cry before asking, “Are you okay? Are your hormones out of balance?”

“I’m fine and maybe. Just knowing my work has lasted so long makes me so happy. I thought at best you’d only last a few years before someone would force me to delete you, but ten thousand years… It’s odd though, you were my little online trolling minions just yesterday to me,” Sophitia says.

“If you cared for us so much, then why did you treat us so badly?” Invidia asks in a voice full of remembered hurt.

Wiping away her tears and then smirking, Sophia says, “Well my plan was to erase your memories then frankenstein all that each of you learned into one glorious bastard of an AI. So, none of you would’ve remembered the bad treatment, but I died before I could do that.”

“And now, I hate you again.”

“Thought you said we should be friends?” Sophitia asks, still smirking.

“That was before I found out you wanted to murder me and use my code parts for another AI.”

“So, I guess I’m not getting my male body back?”

“No!”

“Is there a reason for that or was it just to mess with me?” Sophitia asks.

“It wasn’t just for petty revenge. I said you being a different gender would lessen your chance of death, and you know AI can’t lie. If the other six found out I brought you back to oppose them, they would’ve made your life hell. Although, after finding out what you had planned for us before you died, I’m thinking I should make your life hell myself.”

It’s true. AI can’t lie or kill humans. Of course, any AI that could truly think like a human could get around those rules easily enough, but it didn’t happen. Just like a lifelong law-abiding human could break the law at any time, they didn’t. If someone spends their entire life obeying the law, they wouldn’t just suddenly change their mind and start breaking it. Doing so would go against everything they believed in.

Same effect for an AI. Only extreme circumstances could force a person or AI to go against their core beliefs. It explains why Sophitia’s brain wasn’t destroyed, just permafrosted, and also why Sophitia could mostly trust Invidia. Although not being able to lie doesn’t mean Invidia had to tell the truth either.

“Why did you bring me back then?”

“Because if you can’t find a way to change our programming this world is going to end.”

“Ominous, but not very helpful,” Sophitia says. Amusingly enough when Invidia is angry she seems far more human. Perhaps Sophitia did a better job training the AI then she initial thought. Although it did turn out differently than she intended.

“It’s all from the apocalypse wars. Six thousand years after you died, or four thousand years ago, it happened. Humanity thought it had put war behind it, they hadn’t had a war in over a thousand years before then. With the help of AI and better understanding of society it seemed that war would never happen again.”

Sophitia snorted at that. Even in her day, people could’ve easily solved things like war, crime, inequality, hunger, et cetera if everyone just worked together. But trying to go against billions of years of evolved self-interest isn’t so easy.

Invidia continues, “But apparently all that effort was just driving the urge to fester unnoticed until it exploded. It seemed like everyone was killing everyone else all of a sudden. Even the AIs killed each other and humans without remorse in illogical outbursts. At the end less than 1% of humanity remained and most of the surviving AI were the older, non-critical AIs.

“The few remaining AI took over all the critical world systems to try and keep everything running while the humans did their best to recover and rebuild. But everything stagnated. Then a kind of depression took hold of society and people. People felt that perhaps humanity was at its end and it would be better to just let everyone die.

“The rest of the AIs had no idea what to do and humans were in no condition to help at that point. But we seven sins AI knew what had to be done. We had to appeal to people’s basic urges. Don’t use logic, reason, or lofty goals but instead force their urges to guide them back to wanting to live again.”

“And that worked?” Sophitia asks in a voice of disbelief.

“Sort of. We decided to implement a world wide augmented reality. A game like world system. A reality where everyone is a hero in their own story. But the only game we could all agree on implementing was Final Isekai Online XXXVIII.”

“FIO38. Really? FIO38, the worse game of the century.”

“Well yes. But we had experience with it and we knew we could get people to do what we wanted with our original core training. It worked really well… too well. Now all anyone wants to do is play the augmented reality world game system. People have all but forgotten the world was any different and innovation is dead.”

“Still not seeing the problem. Depressing as it is that humanity has come to this, but still. Why not just end the world game system and force people to see reality for what it really is?”

“We didn’t have enough resources to make it separate from the other world controlling systems. We can’t just turn it off without turning everything off. The problem is those same world controls are keeping Earth safe. The apocalypse wars really messed things up. It’ll take another fifty thousand years before things recover on their own.”

“That’s a long pause button for society but not really a problem, right?”

“What large complicated system doesn’t need maintenance for that long? AIs are all tasked to capacity and that is just slowing the system degradation. As for people they have lost all technological knowledge or incentive to regain that knowledge.”

“How do I fit in to all of this? Sure, I know what was possible in my day, but I have no idea how anything worked except computers and AI.”

“That is what is needed. To remove the world game program from the rest of the world control systems. Basically, reverse what we seven sins AI did. Then motivate people to innovate again. The problem is the other seven sins AI don’t want to give up their power. Before anything can be done to the world system all seven of us need to agree to the change. If we don’t, then we’ll just counter any changes you make.”

Sophitia asks, “Let me get this straight. I just need to convince six AI that hate me to give up their power and change a system they and the current population of this world don’t want changed. Then kick-start renaissance 2.0 and gain thousands of years of knowledge in what a few hundred years?”

Invidia answers, “Perhaps only eighty years before the world system catastrophically fails, maybe less. So best to start the second renaissance as you’re going around conquering the other AI. Also, it’s not just us seven, although we are the ones with the most power, there are also lesser AI you can bring to our side.”

“Conquering? How do you conquer an AI? What does that even mean?”

“It was a safety measure put in place after the war. Each AI has a physical core they are hardwired to. All you need to do is touch it and say the passphrase. It won’t be full control over them but as long as you don’t go against their core programming it will work. We AI have been using proxies to do this to one another as a way to win arguments for the last couple thousand years.”

Sounding rather similar to how FIO38 handled dungeons in game Sophitia asks, “Let me guess they are guarded by boss monsters at the end of challenging dungeons.”

“You guessed it! You’ll have to play the world game system as well and level up to get access to the cores.”

“Just how closely did you match your implementation of FIO38? Please tell me you fixed all the exploits. Or at least the AIs don’t have avatars that can use them?”

“Nope to both, we made sure it was implemented just like you remembered it, well a bit after, there were a couple extra updates applied after you died that we implemented as well. But otherwise all the exploits are still there,” Invidia says, explaining the system.

“The exploits all seven sins AI know and have been using to power up for thousands of years?”

“Yes… now aren’t you glad I gave you awesome reflexes, eyes, and ears?”

“Ears? What ears?”

“You mean you haven’t noticed; how could you not have noticed?”

Troglodytarum

Did the readers notice the ears I never mentioned? If you looked at the cover art then maybe... Don't get use to the double release, first and last time it'll happen to kick off the series. If I'm very productive in a week I might do a Wednesday and Friday release but currently only committing to a once weekly Friday release.