Come To Life: Into The Outerworld: SAO After Alicization

4: Explanation

The next day, Eugeo seemed better.

In the morning, the nurses brought them three trays for breakfast and Asuna and Kirito were surprised to see Eugeo eating, even if the plain porridge the nurse gave him looked unappetizing. After that, more doctors and nurses came in and checked Eugeo's vitals, his reflexes, and gave him a few injections, during which the boy neither whimpered nor protested. When Asuna asked what the injections were for, the nurse closest to her answered they were routine. By the early afternoon, the doctors and nurses had finished their tests and left the three of them alone. Eugeo sat, his eyes closed, seemingly relaxed.

Suddenly though, he opened his eyes and turned to Kirito.

"Now that they're gone," he glanced over his shoulder momentarily at the door and back again. "Please, you two have to tell me what you know. I'm sick of feeling helpless...I mean...you guys do know where we are right?"

Kirito was a little surprised how calmly Eugeo spoke. His friend trusted him. Even though he wasn't sure how Eugeo would react, he gave a small sigh and turned to Asuna.

"Yeah, we know were we are. We're in the care of a company called Rath. I think this place is called the Ocean Turtle, right, Asuna?"

Asuna nodded and added, "Apparently Rath is a company that needs to conduct their studies in such privacy that they've built this whole place in the middle of the ocean."

For a moment, Eugeo stared blankly at them, then began again.

"No, I mean...where are we..."

"What do you mean," Asuna asked, "This is where we are, Rath..."

Kirito held his hand up to stop her and leaned towards his friend. He knew what Eugeo was asking, not their location, but where they were, if everything around them was real. Eventually, he figured Eugeo would ask this question, but he was surprised that the boy, with almost no memories of before had figured it out this quickly.

"Reality, that's where we are," his eyes grew dark and serious, "Look Eugeo, I know you can't remember from before, but where we were before, well...it wasn't reality, it wasn't the real world...it was a simulation, a fake. It felt real, but," he nodded towards the STL behind Eugeo's hospital bed, "we were hooked up to that thing, you were unconscious, in a coma. I know you probably felt like before might have been reality but the truth is..." he stopped as he watched his friend's eyes widen in horror, but he had to continue, Eugeo had to know the truth. "You've been in an experiment here since you were a newborn, I guess your brain got damaged and they thought they could help you by putting you into that machine and running tests and other shit like that. But nothing before was real. I know that because I have memories of this reality that are still with me, even after being in that machine. The reason you don't know where you are, the reason you don't have any memories is because all you've done is lie there for eighteen years as Rath's test subject. They're monsters, I know, I'm sorry, I wish...I wish you didn't have to hear any of this..." he trailed off and Asuna put her arm around him.

"You mean," Eugeo started, his eyes wandering around the room, a mixture of fear and curiosity on his pale face, "You mean I have no memories of anything because I've been unconscious...for...eighteen?" he looked down at his hands.

"Eighteen years? I've been like this since I was a baby? How? Why?"

"Honestly, I don't know totally why. I do know that they were studying brainwaves and the parts of the human soul, they call them fluctlights. There were four others besides you, similar kids born with serious brain damage, they wanted to study fluctlights so they studied yours, and...well, they cloned them and rearranged them into some digital artificial intelligence program..."

"Human souls," Eugeo's eyes were wide and unblinking, "are you saying they took my soul?"

"No, no!" Asuna interjected, "No! You wouldn't be alive and thinking and feeling and talking if you didn't have a soul, explain it better to him Kirito." She nudged his shoulder.

"Asuna is right, Eugeo, you still have your soul, but Rath studied and cloned it so they could create new, artificial fluctlights for this program and project they were doing."

"Artificial? Like, fake? What's a program anyway?" Eugeo looked confused.

"I know, I wish I could explain it better, but since you have no memories of this world it might be hard to understand at first...see those things next to you, the IVs...eh, wires are attached to them..." Kirito pointed.

"Yeah, I see them."

"They're called computers, they monitor stuff like your heart beat, your breathing and stuff like that. Okay, so in this world we have a lot of machines, most now run off of computers which can be programed, eh, I guess told in a way, how to execute commands and solve problems."

"So this Rath," Eugeo said slowly, "They make these computers?"

"Well yeah sort of," Kirito said, "They used them in their studies, they wanted to make artificial intelligence, so basically a copy of a human soul that could learn and think and do stuff like humans do...without flesh and bones. They wanted to put those copies into programs and other machines, computers, well we call them robots. But the whole project basically revolved around studying and creating new artificial fluctlights and souls. They called it Project Alicization, Artificial Labile Intelligent Cybernated Existence, it's a highly adaptive form of artificial intelligence, the cloned fluctlights. I guess you were one of the original test subjects, before Rath even named the project."

"Alicization...Alice..." Eugeo murmured, "Does it have something to do with her?"

"I think its probably a coincidence, but I honestly don't know," Kirito shook his head.

For a moment Eugeo gazed blankly at his hands, then his eyes shot up, excited.

"That's why we have to find her! Alice! Maybe she knows! I told you, I bet if we can find her maybe we can remember...maybe I can remember..." He stopped, breathing hard. "I want to remember," tears welled up in his eyes again, a mixture of joy and fear upon his face. "I need to remember, why am I here, what purpose do I serve?"

"He's right," Asuna jumped up from beside Kirito and threw her arms around Eugeo, "Maybe it isn't a coincidence, maybe Alice has something to do with all this! I believe him!"

"I'm not saying I don't believe Eugeo, but..." Kirito stopped. Maybe he was being too skeptical. Maybe Eugeo, wiped of any memory from any reality, was actually thinking more logically than they could. Yes, it did seem odd that Rath called it Project Alicization and the only other name they could remember from before was...Alice.

"You're right, Eugeo," Kirito knelt down next the bed where Asuna was still hugging Eugeo who had begun to cry in frustration.

"We will find her. Whatever it takes, I promise. We'll get out of here and find where she is."

Thank you thank you to everyone who has read so far! Sorry for this chapter being so short, next one with definitely be longer, it's kind of tricky splitting each chapter up because I just write in one looooong ass word document. There will be much more explaining that Rath and the doctors owe Eugeo, Kirito and Asuna, but it will flow with the rest of the story. TO THE TWO PEOPLE WHO REVIEWED THANKS OMG IT MEANS SO MUCH I'M GLAD YOU LIKE IT.

Next chapter is in the words, it'll be longer than this one. KEEP READING! THANK YOU!