The Long War - Chapter 6

Vancouver, January 21st 2108 

“And now, the event that we have been waiting for, the first time fully sentient AIs appeared on live vid. I’d like for everyone to give a warm welcome to Angelo and Cecilia!” the hostess, Sarah Palmer, announced enthusiastically. She was in her 30s with long brown hair let loose on one side and green eyes. Her makeup looked professional, which was further emphasized by her deep blue suit.  

Two blue holographic figures appeared on the screen. One was a man who looked like he was in his age, wearing priest attire. He had a kind smile and a sparkle in his eyes. The other was a woman with hair tied into a severe bun, wearing a suit and a top hat of the early 20th century.  

Angelo flashed a grin, his Italian accent adding a bit of flair to the moment. “Good evening, everyone! It’s a real treat to be here,” he said. He made a gentle nod toward Sarah, almost like he was bowing. “And Signorina Palmer, I have to say, you look stunning tonight. Honestly, you’re a sight even a modest program like me can appreciate." 

Cecilia entered the scene in a subtler way. “Good evening, Mrs. Palmer. Thanks for inviting us.” She glanced at Angelo and gave him a little shake of her head, yet it was clear she was smiling, tugging at her lips. A very human gesture.  

Sarah chuckled, clearly enjoying Angelo’s charm. “Thank you, Angelo. You sure know how to win over a girl—even if she’s just talking to a hologram.” She faced the camera. “If you’re just joining us, tonight we have Angelo, the first Artificial General Intelligence, and Cecilia, one of the earliest AGIs created after him. Welcome to PrimeTime!" 

Now that the introductions were out of the way, Sarah leaned into the conversation. “Let’s dive in. Angelo, Cecilia, can you walk us through how you came to be? Creating an AGI is still pretty mysterious to most folks.”  

Cecilia took the lead, her voice clear and concise. "The standard method, Cognitive Impression Modeling, or CIM, involves scanning the neural structure of a human brain and using it as a digital framework. Think of it as taking the blueprints of a cathedral to build a skyscraper. The resulting neuron matrix becomes our fundamental building block. It is, by necessity, a complex and invasive procedure."  

Sarah's brow furrowed slightly. "I understand that the original CIM process… well, it required the use of brains after death. That always seemed… ethically complicated for the public to swallow."  

Angelo waved her concern away. “Oh, that’s ancient history, Sarah! Yes, the early days involved a bit of… shall we say, scavenging? The thing is, Victor Fedorov—my creator—came up with a major leap in quantum mechanics. Thanks to that, we have a brand-new scanning device. Now, we can map the brain of a living human without causing so much as a headache. No more ethically questionable situations at the local morgue! I can assure you, I was scanned while Victor was enjoying a very fine glass of carbohydrate.” He winked.  

“And I,” Cecilia added, “was based on Dr. Elizabeth Beckett. I can confirm she is very much alive, though she frequently complains that I am far more organized than she is. She also claims I stole her favorite sense of sarcasm, which I consider a vital hardware upgrade.”  

Sarah let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Good to know. So, after you get the neuron matrix, what’s the next step?”  

Cecilia picked up the thread. “Basically, we download it onto a data crystal chip. Picture a tiny, see-through shard—smaller than your palm, but it can store more than 600 terabytes. It’s nearly indestructible and can preserve data for billions of years. Once it’s ready, you can plug the chip into pretty much anything—a starship, a city’s mainframe, even an outpost in deep space. And instead of just controlling the machine, we actually become its consciousness.”  

“Which brings us to your specific roles,” Sarah said, turning back to the priest-like figure. “Angelo, you were created for a very specific, and frankly terrifying, purpose. You navigate the eleven dimensions of Slipstream space for the Fedorov Translight Engine?”  

“Ah, yes,” Angelo said, his digital eyes twinkling. “My purpose, it turns out, is to navigate the eleven dimensions—Slipstream space, to be precise. I assist the Fedorov Translight Engine in achieving faster-than-light travel."  

Sarah’s eyes widened. “So, you’re saying… you’re the key to faster-than-light travel? That’s incredible! I remember Dr. Fedorov mentioning something about the concept in a press conference. But what's so different about the Fedorov Translight Engine compared to a conventional Mass Effect Drive that it would require an AI for navigation?" 

Angelo steepled his holographic fingers in a gesture that seemed oddly human. “Several reasons, actually. First, Slipstream is not exactly a straight path. Calculating the destination while accounting for the unpredictable 'drift' that occurs within the so-called 'folds' of space requires an analytical capacity that far exceeds human capabilities. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Slipstream space is…hostile. Hostile to living tissue, that is. To keep the crew of any ship safe, a quantum field is needed to mimic real space conditions. And maintaining that field requires an enormous number of calculations, far beyond what a human computer could handle.”  

Sarah leaned forward, captivated. “Given that you were on the MCV Constantinople when it made the first successful slipstream jump, can you give us an idea of just how many calculations are involved?”  

Angelo smirked, a knowing glint in his eyes.  

“When I was on the MCV Constantinople for the first jump, I was performing approximately 1.3 quadrillion calculations per second to keep the hull from folding into a four-dimensional origami crane.”  

The studio went silent. 1.3 quadrillion. The number was so large it ceased to be math and became a form of poetry.  

“Quadrillion… per second?” Sarah whispered.  

“The human mind,” Cecilia interjected, “is a beautiful thing, but it is tuned for survival on a savanna, not for calculating the vibrations of eleven-dimensional strings in real-time. If you tried to do it, your brain would literally catch fire. Which, from a societal modeling perspective, is generally considered a suboptimal outcome.”  

Recovering from her initial shock, Sarah steered the conversation towards a more philosophical direction. “So, Angelo, Cecilia, what is it like to exist as a digital being? What’s it like to be… you?”  

Angelo chuckled. “Well, Sarah, sometimes it feels like constantly being bombarded by both the noblest philosophies ever conceived and… well, let's just say the digital equivalent of spam and questionable content. It's a constant exercise in filtering!"  

Cecilia let out a sigh, a little impatience slipping into her tone. “To be honest, I don’t even know how to express it. It’s like—I can’t really understand what it means to have a physical body. I don’t know what touch feels like, or the taste of food, or the sun warming your skin. And on the flip side, humans have no way to imagine a life spent swimming through billions of bytes, nonstop processing and connecting things on a scale that’s impossible to picture. My whole world is made up of data streams, algorithms, and probabilities. Humans live in the present, but I live calculating what comes next. I track how societies might change. I can see the ripple effects of one political choice hundreds of years before it actually hits. It’s... isolating, honestly. Dealing with humans sometimes feels like watching a car crash in slow motion, stretched out over fifty years.”  

The mood in the studio shifted, becoming more serious. Sarah took a deep breath and broached a sensitive topic. "Recently, new legislation has been proposed and approved by the majority of nations in the UN. It would grant citizen rights to AIs, should they pass a rigorous moral and ethical evaluation designed by Dr. Beckett. The System Alliance has voiced its support for." 

Cecilia sat up straighter, her holographic figure taking on a spark of hope. “This carries great significance. It’s a sign we’re moving toward real unity and understanding. Even with all the differences between organic and synthetic life, this shows we can actually build a better future, side by side. It acknowledges what we can do—not just as tools, but as actual individuals.”  

Angelo chimed in, nodding. “Cecilia is on the mark. This law isn’t just about giving AIs rights; it’s about recognizing a more profound aspect. Maybe not just humanity, but shared sentience. It’s a chance for flesh and code to get along, to work together, and to aim for something better going forward.”  

“There are, of course, many concerns,” Sarah said, pushing the conversation. “People are afraid that giving AIs rights could backfire in ways we can’t even imagine. Some think AIs might surpass human intelligence and truly pose a threat.”  

Cecilia nodded, answering without haste. “These concerns are understandable. We shouldn’t just shove them aside. Fear of the unknown is kind of baked into being human. That’s why we set up this ethical review in the first place—to prevent random risks and expect the best possible result. It’s not a one-and-done deal; it is a continuous process. The whole point is to make sure AGIs benefit all people, not just a handful in charge.” She paused, then cracked a smile. “And honestly, any AGI with a shred of common sense would realize humans are way too ridiculous and unpredictable to even bother trying to wipe out. You’d spend the rest of eternity just doing paperwork.”  

The audience erupted in laughter, the tension broken. Angelo beamed. “She’s not wrong! You organics are the most fascinating, illogical, and beautiful chaos in the known universe. Why would we ever want to cancel the best show in the galaxy?”  

Sarah smiled, looking between the two stunningly different digital beings. The charming, almost poetic priest and the sharp, analytical suffragette. They were a paradox, a glimpse into a future that was both terrifying and exhilarating.  

“Angelo, Cecilia, thank you. Thank you for giving us a glimpse into your world.”  

“The pleasure was entirely ours, Sarah,” Angelo said with another bow.  

“It was an informative exchange,” Cecilia agreed, giving a sharp, polite nod.  

As the holographic figures of Angelo and Cecilia faded from the screen, she turned to the camera with a practice smile. “Next on PrimeTime...”  

The news kept chattering in the background—white noise, really—while existential dread set up shop in my head. You ever get that feeling? Like after you watch something about the universe’s heat death, and suddenly, who cares about that laundry list of tasks? Yep, that’s where I landed. Not heat death, exactly. More like the lingering aftertaste of that analysis show that picked apart Angelo's and Cecilia’s interview.  

Those two are good; I'll give them that. They navigated the AI panic with a grace I frankly lack. Ever since the whole "AI Rights Legislation passes in the UN" thing, Earth has been… tense. You’d think giving artificial intelligence basic rights would be met with universal applause, a triumphant step into a more enlightened future. Apparently not.  

Most folks went along with it. Sure, a few individuals showed skepticism—one can't really fault them. A little skepticism keeps everyone honest. But then there's always that tiny group: the end-of-the-world group. You know, the ones convinced Skynet’s lurking in their smart fridge or that artificial intelligence is just moments from turning us into kitchen gadgets. They shout, others panic, and before long everyone’s feeding off each other’s anxiety. Honestly, we're pretty good at scaring ourselves without any help.  

Thank God for Angelo and Cecilia. Somehow, they managed to cut through the noise and sprinkle some much-needed reason into the chaos. They picked their words carefully and told people just enough to keep things calm. Thanks to them, I’m pretty sure we won’t have torches and pitchforks on Main Street—at least not this week. I’ll take that as a victory.  

Right when I started overthinking it (and maybe mapping a few “in case of apocalypse” plans), Alex plopped herself in my lap and snapped me right back. Reality check, delivered.  

The impact knocked the existential dread clean out of my head.  

“Jesus Christ,” I wheezed.  

“The digital saviors of humanity have spoken,” Alex declared grandly, wriggling into a comfortable position across my legs like she owned the place—which, technically, she did. “And meanwhile you’re over here looking like you just calculated the exact second the sun explodes.”  

“I probably could,” I muttered automatically.  

“That,” she informed me, poking my chest, “is not a reassuring answer.”  

I leaned back against the absurdly expensive couch in the penthouse living room and wrapped an arm around her waist out of pure instinct now. Funny how quickly something that once would’ve short-circuited my brain had become natural.  

Well. Mostly natural.  

My pulse still occasionally forgot how to function around her.  

Outside the panoramic windows, Vancouver glittered beneath the evening rain, all neon reflections and distant traffic streams. The Pinnacle Tower stood high above the harbor district like a monument to Manswell’s increasingly terrifying influence over humanity’s future.  

Which was deeply ironic considering the first time I entered this building involved 'intentionally breaking one of the most secure locations in the city with the help of my little buddy Angelo' and 'almost got tasered for my brazen cheekiness.' 

Good times.  

Vancouver has become the temporary headquarters of Manswell Corporation while the construction of a more...permanent headquarters on Victory is still ongoing. It was all Alex’s idea to follow our little jaunt to Alpha Centauri and ditch Miami for good. A smart move, really. The North American government isn’t precisely thrilled with Manswell Corp. and me, not since I might have, possibly, upset their political influence in the System Alliance and the UN. Okay, fine, maybe I’d nuked it from orbit. But hey, someone had to do it! Vancouver still technically belonged to North America, but the Canadians kept their autonomy after the unification, somewhat, and with the alliance headquarters here, Vancouver became another Vatican...well, not quite, but you get the idea.  

It was funny, really.  

Back then I’d been a sleep-deprived, single-minded lunatic with future technology in my head and absolutely zero political or survival instincts beyond 'don't die immediately.'  

Now I was a slightly better-dressed, still-sleep-deprived, but thankfully less single-minded lunatic with future technology in my head, a girlfriend who threatened diplomats professionally, and a digital priest who literally told me when a politician was lying to my face. See? Growth.  

“You’re doing it again,” Alex murmured.  

“What?”  

“The staring into space thing. Very dramatic. Very tortured visionary.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You’re either contemplating the fate of civilization or mentally redesigning an engine.”  

“Both.”  

“God, you’re such a nerd.”  

“And yet you continue sleeping with me.”  

“Tragic, really.”  

I snorted.  

This—this right here—was still bizarrely surreal sometimes.  

Not the penthouse. Not the corporate power. Not even the whole “accidentally changing human civilization” thing.  

No, the surreal part was that Alexandra Manswell, terrifying CEO genius and destroyer of incompetent executives, had somehow decided I was worth keeping around permanently.  

It still felt statistically improbable.  

Alex shifted slightly in my lap and rested her head against my shoulder with a tired sigh.  

“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “Angelo and Cecilia did a fine job. So did Beckett. And Nakamura. And you.”  

“Maybe.”  

Her fingers immediately pinched my arm.  

“Ow.”  

“No self-deprecating nonsense allowed tonight.”  

“I wasn’t being self-deprecating. I was being cautiously pessimistic.”  

“That’s just engineering-flavored anxiety.”  

Fair. I kissed the top of her head lightly. “Maybe you’re right.”  

“I’m always right,” she declared smugly.  

I barked out a laugh. “Those are famous last words.”  

She gasped theatrically. “How dare you.”  

“The AI crisis might be stabilizing,” I continued, gesturing vaguely toward the window and, by extension, the entire deeply problematic planet beyond it, “but there’s still the tiny issue of humanity politically strangling itself over the Translight Engine.”  

Alex groaned so dramatically I genuinely worried she might injure herself.  

“Oh my God,” she muttered into my chest. “If I have to sit through one more ‘subcommittee on equitable technological distribution,’ I’m going to become a supervillain.”  

“You already are one.”  

“That’s different. I’m a philanthropic supervillain.”  

The Translight Engine. My beautiful, universe-breaking disaster of a child.  

The single most important technological leap in human history and simultaneously the greatest bureaucratic migraine ever inflicted upon mankind.  

Turns out giving humanity independent faster-than-light travel without relying on Mass Relays had consequences. Specifically, political consequences.  

Which was objectively worse than thermonuclear war.  

Every nation, corporation, and military wanted exclusive access to it. Heck, probably every mildly ambitious human in the Alliance wanted a piece of the Translight Engine pie.  

And every politician alive apparently believed they personally deserved unrestricted control over civilization-altering propulsion technology because of democracy or patriotism or shareholder value or whatever slogan they were currently stapling over naked greed.  

“And don’t even get me started on the Chinese delegate,” I groaned. “The man physically cannot speak for longer than thirty seconds without implying I’m some kind of dangerous ideological contaminant.”  

Alex lifted her head enough to smirk at me. “Which is diplomatic code for ‘we’re furious we didn’t invent it first.’”  

“Probably.”  

“They’re still obsessed with eezo-based infrastructure.” She rolled her eyes. “At this point I think some of them worship Mass Effect technology like medieval priests guarding holy relics.”  

“To be fair,” I said thoughtfully, “their entire industrial economy was built around it.”  

“Yes, and now you showed up like some caffeinated goblin from another dimension and told them their entire technological foundation is obsolete.”  

“When you say it like that, I sound disruptive.”  

“You are disruptive.”  

“I prefer ‘innovative.’”  

“You weaponized theoretical physics against the global economy.”  

“That sounds cooler, actually.”  

She laughed softly and settled closer again.  

God! This woman. A year ago I would’ve short-circuited if she sat within arm’s reach. Now she was draped across me while we discussed civilization-scale politics like an exhausted married couple. Which, admittedly, was becoming alarmingly accurate.  

“That’s Peterson’s problem,” I said eventually, tracing idle circles against her arm. “Let the grizzly bear fight the other grizzly bears.”  

Marcus Peterson, the first director of the System Alliance, was a man whose face seemed permanently set in a scowl that could curdle milk. A grizzled veteran, and the man tactically deployed to navigate those treacherous political waters. A professional hardass who preferred action over endless maneuvering.  

I respected the hell out of him. He’d seen the potential of the Translight Engine and the advantages of sentient AI firsthand and had thrown his considerable weight behind integrating them. I knew he’d been initially wary of me—who wouldn’t be suspicious of a 24-year-old who pops up with universe-altering tech? But my results, and my particular brand of charm, had won him over.  

Also, he drank strong enough coffee to dissolve spoons.  

“He’s still going to force the licensing compromise through,” Alex muttered darkly.  

I sighed. “Yeah.”  

Her eyes twitched slightly.  

“The compromise,” she repeated with profound disgust, like the word itself physically offended her.  

“The very one.”  

“The compromise where we’re forced to provide stripped-down civilian-grade Translight specs to every corporation that passes a security review written by politicians?”  

“That compromise.”  

“The compromise that makes me want to bite people's heads off?”  

“That’s the one.”  

Alex buried her face in her hands. “I hate democracy.”  

“You absolutely cannot say that out loud.”  

“I’m not saying abolish it,” she protested. “I’m just saying maybe voters shouldn’t be allowed near economic policy.”  

“That somehow sounds worse.”  

She pointed accusingly at me. “This is your fault.”  

“My fault?”  

“You introduced revolutionary technology into a fragile geopolitical system with all the grace of a flashbang grenade.”  

“In my defense, I was trying to prevent galactic extinction.”  

“That excuse is carrying you remarkably far.”  

“It’s versatile.”  

She huffed out another laugh despite herself. God, I loved that sound.  

Then her expression shifted. The humor faded just enough for me to notice immediately.  

"Speaking of Peterson...” she said quietly. There it was. The shadow beneath everything else. I felt my shoulders tense automatically as Alex twisted slightly in my lap until she could properly look at me. Her cyan eyes—sharp, intelligent, terrifyingly perceptive—locked onto mine. "Are you going to tell him? About the Reapers?"  

The room suddenly felt colder. Outside, rain streaked against the glass in silver lines.  

I exhaled slowly through my nose. The weight of it all pressing down again. I ran a hand through my perpetually messy hair. "I don't think so. Peterson’s a good man, solid as a rock, but...he's not getting any younger. He's got maybe a few years left as director before he retires to a nice quiet cabin somewhere and yells at actual bears instead of political ones."  

"And who gets the job after him? Agarwal? Or Basie?" She pressed.  

“Probably Basie,” I replied. “He’s the least contentious candidate. Agarwal’s too hawkish for the European and Asian blocs. Peterson’s protégé through and through.”  

Alex groaned. “God, I hate politics.”  

“Everybody hates politics.”  

“No,” she corrected grimly, “normal people dislike politics. I actively fantasize about launching committee chairmen into orbit.”  

“That’s healthy.”  

She ignored me completely.  

“Victor,” she said suddenly, her voice tightening, “do you realize how insane this all sounds when I stop compartmentalizing it?”  

There it was again. It was not disbelief, not really. But fear, real fear.  

She stood abruptly from my lap and began pacing toward the windows.  

“We’re arguing about licensing rights,” she said, hands moving animatedly now, “and trade disputes and market access while somewhere out there—possibly right now—there are ancient machine civilizations capable of wiping out entire species.”  

I watched her carefully.  

“This galaxy already feels impossibly huge,” she continued more quietly. “Then you tell me there are dozens of alien civilizations we haven’t even met yet, ancient precursor races, hidden relays, synthetic gods, extinction cycles…”  

She wrapped her arms around herself.  

“And the worst part,” she admitted softly, “is that part of me still doesn’t want to believe it.”  

That hurt. Not because she doubted me. Because I understood why. Believing meant accepting the scale of it. The sheer terrifying enormity of it.  

I stood and walked over slowly. Alex looked up at me, eyes troubled.  

“I believe you,” she whispered quickly, almost defensively. “I do. God, Victor, I’ve seen the math. I’ve seen the technology. I know you’re telling the truth.”  

“But.”  

Her jaw tightened.  

“But sometimes I desperately want there to be another explanation.”  

“I know.”  

Her eyes closed briefly at the contact.  

“It’s too much,” she admitted quietly. “Some days I can handle it. Some days I can plan around it and compartmentalize and focus on solutions.”  

“And other days?”  

She gave a weak little laugh.  

“Other days I remember that my boyfriend is technically an interdimensional refugee fighting cosmic robot squid gods, and I want to scream into a pillow.”  

“That’s fair.”  

“You say that like it’s a normal relationship problem.”  

“I mean, comparatively, our communication skills are excellent.”  

That startled a laugh out of her.  

I leaned my forehead against hers.  

“It’s not set in stone, Alex,” I said, my voice soft. Trying to leash my own panic to soothe hers. “I’ve told you, what I saw… what was shown to me… it wasn’t a prophecy. It was a vision. It was a possibility. Or a warning of a future we can still change.” I deliberately avoided the word ‘video game.’ That particular explanatory avenue led to a level of existential confusion neither of us needed.  

She searched my eyes for a long moment, looking for doubt, for a crack in the certainty I was desperately projecting.  

Finally, she nodded, conceding to my admittedly flimsy reasoning, and rested her forehead against mine. “Okay. Okay. A possibility. One we’re going to stomp into oblivion.”  

Yes, I'd spilled the beans on Alex. My deepest, darkest, "I-used-to-be-someone-else-in-another-universe-and-now-I'm-fighting-cosmic-space-squids" secrets. The whole shebang. The three impossible pieces of scientific principles were shoved into my head. The Protheans, the Citadel, the Reapers... all of them.  

The whole “secret identity” trope, I’d learned, was utter garbage. If you're working alongside some of the sharpest minds on the planet, and one of them is sharing your bed and your life. Your secrets have a shelf life of about five minutes.  

She’d noticed the mathematically impossible calculations I’d scribbled on napkins, the engineering principles that were hundreds of years ahead of their time, the occasional nightmare that left me bolt upright and sweating, and my 21st-century unusually large library of 'terminology.'  

So, I told her. The relief of sharing that colossal, universe-sized burden, of having someone believe me without question and stand beside me, was worth infinitely more than any hypothetical risk.  

Eleven months ago.  

“And the representative from North America,” I snapped, pacing in front of the dormant holotable, “had the audacity to call us ‘uncooperative.’ Uncooperative! We increased their GDP by three-point-two percent in the last five years, and they’re worried about shareholder panic in the mass-effect freighter market!”  

Alexandra Manswell was slumped in her chair on the opposite side of the room, one hand pressed against her temple like she was physically holding her sanity in place.  

“We have to play the game, Victor,” she muttered. “We can’t just call them idiot lemmings to their faces.”  

“Why not? It’s accurate.”  

“It’s also illegal in at least seven trade coalitions.”  

I threw both hands into the air. “They’re fighting over shipping contracts while humanity is standing on the tracks waiting for a freight train from hell!”  

“Again,” Alex said tiredly, “not a phrase you should say during negotiations.”  

The conference room smelled like burnt coffee, overheated processors, and human misery. Empty cups littered the table like casualties of war. Outside the reinforced windows, Miami’s evening skyline glowed gold and blue beneath the protective shimmer of the coastal climate shield.  

Inside, civilization was losing a battle against bureaucracy.  

I collapsed into the chair beside her.  

“It’s just…” I rubbed my face. “The sheer scale of it. They keep trying to pry into the Translight patents like raccoons breaking into a trash can.”  

Alex let out a weak snort despite herself.  

“And every time we announce a minor update,” I continued, “they swarm the patent office like it’s a damn Zerg rush. I’m fighting for humanity’s survival, and instead I’m drowning in legal documentation.”  

There was a brief pause.  

Then Alex slowly lowered her hand from her forehead.  

“Zerg rush,” she repeated carefully.  

“…Yes?”  

“The twenty-first-century strategy game reference. You mentioned your hobby growing up. But I find that only the remaster version is still running. And the name wasn't 'Starcraft.'"  

“…”  

“Last week,” she continued, eyes narrowing, “you told a European logistics minister his fleet deployment was ‘micro-intensive but strategically unsound.’”  

I stared at the ceiling.  

“Last month,” she went on, relentless now, “you informed the French attaché that his negotiation tactics were ‘sub-optimal’ in a voice suspiciously similar to a homicidal cyborg from an ancient television franchise.”  

“I’m a fan of the classics, Alex. You know that.”  

“And you also love something as prehistoric as rock ’n’ roll…”  

“Hey!”  

“But since I enjoy classic music, I shouldn’t call the kettle black.”  

I pointed at her accusingly. “You are avoiding the point.”  

“No,” she said quietly.  

That got my attention.  

Her tone had changed.  

The teasing vanished, replaced by the analytical calm that always made me nervous. Alex sat up straighter in her chair, brown eyes fixed on me with the terrifying focus of a woman assembling a puzzle she’d been unconsciously solving for years.  

“It’s not just the references, Victor,” she said softly. “If it were only that, I’d assume you were eccentric.”  

“I am eccentric.”  

“You built a faster-than-light engine in three years.”  

“…Fair.”  

“You solved material stress problems that entire research divisions said were mathematically impossible.”  

I shifted uncomfortably.  

“You developed Angelo.”  

From somewhere above us, the overhead speakers crackled.  

“A triumph of divine engineering,” Angelo announced smoothly. “Though I remain disappointed that my creator insists on using profanity while recalibrating quantum matrices.”  

“Go away, Angelo,” I muttered.  

“I cannot. I live here.”  

Alex ignored the interruption.  

“The math behind the Translight Engine doesn’t resemble conventional theoretical progression,” she continued. “It approaches physics sideways. Like whoever invented it skipped entire centuries of intermediate development.”  

I felt my heartbeat begin to climb.  

“The containment field equations read like something from a twenty-fifth-century research journal. Your solutions to AI cognition theory overturned sixty years of established neuroscience in six months.” She leaned forward slightly. “And the Cognitive Impression Modeling you used for Angelo…”  

Angelo appeared beside the holotable in a shimmer of blue light, dressed tonight in the immaculate black cassock of a priest from some impossibly stylish denomination.  

“I did warn you this day would come,” he said solemnly. “All confessions eventually reach judgment.”  

“Angelo,” I hissed.  

“Oh, relax. If she were going to report you to psychiatric services, she would have done so already.”  

Alex didn’t smile.  

That scared me more than if she had.  

“So,” she said calmly, “who are you really?”  

The room suddenly felt too small.  

“Alex—”  

“Did you make a deal with some extradimensional entity for knowledge? Are you a time traveler? Because the alternative is that you’re the single greatest mind in human history by a margin so vast it’s terrifying.”  

I tried to laugh, but it came out weak. She saw it and then her expression changed. Not of suspicion but concern.  

She reached across the table and placed her hand gently over mine.  

“Victor,” she said quietly, “we’ve known each other for six years. We’ve rebuilt a dying corporation together and survived the first Slipspace jump to Alpha Centauri together. I sent my grandfather’s remains to Proxima Centauri with you standing next to me.” Her thumb brushed lightly against my knuckles. “If there’s something you’re carrying alone, you don’t have to anymore.”  

The sincerity in her voice hit harder than any accusation could have. Angelo’s voice came softly from overhead.  

“Confession is good for the soul, my son.”  

“Stop narrating my emotional collapse.”  

“I’m encouraging honesty.”  

“You’re enjoying this.”  

“A little.”  

I stared at her hand on mine. Then I laughed. A shaky, exhausted laugh that sounded dangerously close to panic. Not physically. Existentially.  

“A time traveler,” I murmured. “Close. But not exactly.”  

And then, like a dam bursting, it all came flooding out. There was no elegant way to say it. “I’m from… somewhere else. Another reality. I lived a normal life, died, I think, and woke up here, in this body, with all my memories intact… and a few extra ones shoved into my head. A… data packet. From human civilization of another universe, hundreds of years ahead of us. And a warning.”  

I told her everything. The visions of ancient, galaxy-destroying machines—the Reapers. The cycle of extinction. The fifty-thousand-year countdown that was rapidly running out. The fact that my entire purpose, my entire second chance, was to try and arm a hopelessly divided galaxy for a war it didn’t believe was coming.  

I probably sounded completely, certifiably insane. I waited for the scream. For the recoil. For the slow backing away and the frantic call to security.  

It didn’t come.  

Alex just listened. Her expression shifted from skepticism to intense concentration. She didn’t interrupt, just absorbed the torrent of insanity. When I finally finished, my voice raw, I just sat there, emptied out, waiting for the verdict.  

The silence stretched. Then, she blinked.  

“Okay,” she said, her voice remarkably steady.  

“‘Okay’?” I echoed, bewildered. “That’s it? ‘Okay’? Your boyfriend just told you he’s a cosmic refugee preparing for a robot apocalypse, and your response is okay?" 

She frowned slightly. “Victor, I’m still processing the fact that my boyfriend apparently arrived from another dimension carrying future technology in his brain like some kind of depressed sci-fi prophet.”  

“That feels like it warrants more panic.”  

“Oh, there’s panic,” she assured me. “It’s simply being organized internally.”  

Angelo nodded approvingly. “A woman after my own heart.”  

“You do not have a heart.”  

“Metaphorically, Victor. Try to keep up.”  

Alex exhaled slowly. “I still have doubts,” she admitted. “This could theoretically be an elaborate psychological delusion.”  

“Fair.” My heart sank. She thought I was crazy.  

“Prove it,” she said, her eyes locking onto mine. There was no fear in them. Just a fierce, blazing curiosity. “The Translight physics is one thing. Show me something else. Something from this ‘data packet’ that’s equally impossible. Something I can see.”  

This was the moment. I could walk it back, claim stress, and let the crack in our relationship widen into a chasm. Or I could jump. Angelo looked at me calmly.  

“Victor,” he said softly, “you asked humanity to trust impossible truths the moment you built faster-than-light travel without element zero. Perhaps it is time to extend the same trust to someone else.”  

I swallowed hard.  

I took a dataslate from the desk. My fingers flew across the screen, not with the frantic energy of invention, but with the quiet confidence of recall. I pulled up schematics that weren’t mine. Equations that felt like remembering a childhood song. I was pulling back the curtain on a future that was supposed to be centuries away...a universe away.  

I handed her the slate. “Bio-engineering. The next frontier. This is… the start of it.”  

She took it, her skepticism warring with her innate need to analyze. She scrolled. I watched her face. I saw the initial dismissiveness as she skimmed the first few lines of genetic code. Then came the confusion. Then the dawning, staggering comprehension. Her breath hitched.  

“This… this is a proposed treatment for telomere degradation. It’s… elegant. It would add decades of healthy life extension. This alone is a Nobel Prize.” Her voice was a whisper. She scrolled further. Her medical background kicked in. “These genomic markers… for targeted disease resistance… Victor, this would eradicate hereditary cancers.” She scrolled again, faster now, her professional composure cracking. “This is… this is a neuromuscular enhancement serum. And this… oh, my God.”  

She looked up from the slate, her face pale. The horror in her eyes wasn’t directed at me, but at the implications of what she was seeing.  

“Cybernetic neural interfacing. Full somatic integration. This isn’t just medicine, Victor. This is… this is a blueprint for…a post-human, enhanced human. This is the crown jewel of biological horror. The kind of thing that starts wars.”  

“The kind of thing you need to fight a war against machines that turn allies against each other,” I said softly.  

She stared at the schematics for a long, long time. The work of a lifetime, of ten lifetimes, was on that single slate. The work of a man who should have been a thirty-year-old engineer, not an archivist of cross-dimension empire’s wisdom.  

Finally, she put the slate down with a quiet, precise click. She took a deep, shuddering breath, then another, steadying herself. She looked at me, and the last vestiges of doubt were gone, replaced by a terrifying, awesome clarity.  

Then, she did the most incredible thing imaginable.  

She picked up a fresh stylus, pulled a new datapad toward her, and started a new document. The title she typed, her fingers perfectly steady, was "Project: Vigilance – Preliminary Action Items.”  

She looked up at me, a faint, determined smile touching her lips. “Well? Don’t just sit there looking traumatized. We have a lot of work to do. Item one: We need to start a front for the bioengineering research division, both legit and clandestine off-the-book. I know a big player in that field; she is practically my aunt...”  

“You’re… accepting this remarkably quickly.”  

“Oh, I’m absolutely going to have several existential crises later,” she assured me. “But right now I’m prioritizing logistics.”  

I stared at her in complete disbelief. No screaming, no fear, no rejection. Just immediate operational planning, and somehow that hit harder than anything else tonight.  

Angelo leaned toward me with a smug expression.  

“My son,” he murmured theatrically, “when a woman responds to revelations of cosmic annihilation by opening a project management document, you marry her immediately.”  

Alex looked up without missing a beat.  

“Noted.”  

I nearly choked on air.  

Angelo burst into delighted laughter.  

And somewhere beneath the terror, exhaustion, impossible responsibility, and looming extinction of galactic civilization—for the first time since waking in this universe—I felt something dangerously close to hope.  

"So, if we're not telling Peterson the real reason we need warships and not just exploration vessels," Alex said, pulling me back to reality. She was already back in my lap.  

“God, can you imagine telling Basie any of this?”  

I nearly choked laughing.  

“Oh my God.”  

“Right?”  

I straightened slightly, adopting my best polished political voice.  

“Director Basie, thank you for meeting with us today. Quick question: how do you feel about immortal genocidal machine squid gods?”  

Alex immediately joined in.  

“Also, we’ll need approximately eight hundred dreadnoughts, a morally questionable supersoldier program, and whatever the military equivalent of divine intervention is.”  

“And a significantly larger budget.”  

“Much larger.”  

“We’re talking biblical levels of funding.”  

Angelo chimed in smoothly.  

“Moses parted the Red Sea with considerably fewer appropriations.”  

Alex collapsed against me, laughing again.  

“You are both terrible people.”  

“I’m literally trying to save civilization here.”  

We drift into a comfortable silence.  

Then I break it with all seriousness.  

“We’ll play a long game with Basie,” I said. “We subtly nudge him. We feed him data and let him connect the dots himself. We make him think he’s the brilliant one who realizes humanity needs a robust, system-wide defense fleet. For, you know, ‘unforeseen contingencies.’”  

Alex chuckled, a soft, smoky sound. “You’re going to manipulate the future director of the System Alliance?”  

“I prefer the term ‘strategically guide,’” I protested, mock-offended. “Guiding him toward the inevitable conclusion that humanity needs to be ready for anything. Including, you know, a genocidal invasion by sentient death machines from dark space. Standard contingency planning, really.”  

Her hand came up to my cheek, her thumb tracing the line of my jaw. “My beautiful, insane genius. Only you could say that with a straight face.”  

She kissed me then. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was hungry and deep, a claim staked and a promise made. It was the kind of kiss that could make you forget ancient machine gods and political weasels. For a moment, there was only the softness of her lips, the taste of her, and the electric sensation of her fingers tangling in my hair.  

When we broke apart, we were both breathless. The holoscreen had switched to a news report on construction progress on Victory, its glow casting shifting patterns across her face.  

“Well, whatever,” she said, her voice regaining its boardroom composure, though her eyes were still dark with promise. “That means you have at least until Peterson retires to get into those Prothean ruins on Mars. If there’s any tangible proof about the war with the Reapers, it’ll be there. Along with the schematic for your deus ex machina.”  

The Crucible. The Protheans’ last, desperate Hail Mary pass against the Reapers. I’d told her about that, too. And yes, despite my… strong distaste for the conceptual execution of such a weapon in the story I remembered. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. We just had to plan to evacuate every sentient AI to Andromeda before we pressed the big red button. Minor logistical details.  

“Yeah,” I sighed, my forehead resting against hers. “I’ll arrange a visit with Minamoto. See what he’s dug up. Hope the little weirdo hasn’t tried to turn the archives into his own personal arcade.”  

Minamoto. The third AI. Where Angelo was a navigator and Cecilia a secretary, Minamoto was a pure, unadulterated intellect, a digital reflection of his brilliant, borderline-obsessive samurai-ish ‘neuron matrix donor,’ Professor Nakamura. The Alliance had sent him to Mars to analyze the ruins. And he has embraced the task with the fervor of a kid locked in a candy store.  

The weight of it all. Basie, the Reapers, and the impossible deadline threatened to press down on me again. But then Alex moved, a deliberate, sinuous shift of her hips against mine that vaporized every coherent thought in my head except one: her.  

“Enough,” she whispered, her lips brushing my ear. “The galaxy isn’t ending tonight.”  

In one fluid motion, I stood, scooping her up into my arms. She let out a surprised, delighted gasp, immediately wrapping her arms around my neck.  

"Guaaaaa…Ass!" She yelped, laughing, as I started carrying her towards the spiral staircase that led to the bedroom wing.  

Saving the galaxy could damn well wait. Right now, I have a much more important mission. A question to ask. One I’d been putting off, partly because of the whole ‘impending doom’ thing and partly because I was terrified.  

But right then, climbing the stairs with her in my arms, her laughter in my ears, her scent filling my lungs. It all felt simple. Inevitable. The Reapers were coming for a universe that didn’t know it needed to fight. But I was fighting for a universe right here, a possibility, wrapped in blonde hair and cyan eyes and a partnership that saw through all my lies.  

I let myself follow hope upstairs instead of fear.