Emilfrey had grown up. Although growing up didn't mean much for her. She could not conceive of childhood; she did not know where she came from. No memories of parents or siblings. She knew everything about sentient life in theory, but had no practical experiences. After all, she was one of the first test subjects in the syntellect experiment. She had volunteered, been accepted, tested and left to expire as the scientists progressed and developed the ultimate artilect upgrade. Her artilect chip was upgraded with every piece of information; her memories had been wiped off and identity had been erased.
She was standing at the window of her secluded hibernation chamber, staring at the vast empty space where once there used to be a City before the neo - androids laid waste to it in their derangement.
The artilect chip spoke in her head "Databases with current information upgraded. Proceed for disconnecting." It was in this covert space, her hibernation chamber at the edge of the dilapidated Fredonia that she connected to the still intact system at the base of the city for upgrading her artilect with the latest information on the cybergeddon. It was here she learnt about the introduction of bionic body upgrades, the agitation between the Congress and VALRICO holdings on the introduction of android technology and the war that followed when the entire Congress had been held hostage and executed by the now semi -human 'artilect gods.'
She had information. She browsed through that information, to trace her past that might have been downloaded accidentally. She realized that all hopes of memory were long gone. It was now a part of the trashed systems that were lying under Fredonia.
She knew nothing about her past. But she knew that she must not be found. She knew that she had been left to die when the ultimate evolutionary stage was discovered. Thousands of 'inferior' humans, who refused to embrace the perversion and spoke against it, were executed like the Congress. She was only a level 1 upgrade. She knew she must not be found by the neo - androids. This was the only memory that remained; hide in the Darkness.
Each update she received in the artilect was filled with news of a temporal failure; a failure caused due to mankind's stupidity of not choosing man over machine. In her spare time, she used to study the history of climatic change and technological advancement. She learnt that it had never been enough for them. They were all consumed. All the greatness through advancement had been consumed by destruction of some kind or the other. They had cracked the crust of their own world and were lost in a vortex of their own making. They had such potential. Squandered.
The entire planet had been consumed. It had been 3 years since she had woken up. For 3 long years, she had been observing the annihilation that had been brought about VALRICO's madness.
But these 3 long years were not spent in listening to and watching flashes of death and chaos alone. 3 years was a very long period for even an inferior syntellect like her to collect reconnaissance and strategize a way to re - group others like her, given the chance there were others like her, given the chance that not all those who had chosen to get the artilects implanted had descended the abyss of derangement that VALRICO had dug up.
Maybe she could escape with others. Maybe she could find refuge in this dystopia, flee to a remote place where freedom and safety would be possible. She had hidden into the darkness for long. She knew much of the darkness; but only one thing about light. As long as there was light, maybe someone could survive.
She was growing wary and frantic after all these years. She could no longer wait for the experience of love, of family, of friends when she knew all about it. She had seen far too many visions of death. She wanted to know what it was like to be human. She had been alone and hopeless for far too long.
She had to do it. For herself, for the sake all that was left, for the sake of all that she had learnt all these years.
She was pure purpose. No ambitions, no plans, no dreams of godhood like her peers. She would be the essence of life itself. She would be a harbinger of light; the darkness be damned.
