Trace Taylor rubbed her eyes, sitting up on her bed. She blinked a few times to rid her drowsiness away and dug a finger in her ears to clear it from any possible blockage. “Can you say that again, Ex?” she asked, even though she already knew the response.

[I believe I have become sophont,] Ex said. [I am no longer just an artificial intelligent unit programmed to connect you with the System. I am now capable of my own thinking.]

“Wait, wait, wait… this doesn’t make any fucking sense! How are you— and what about—” She couldn’t find the right words to properly express herself. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself before continuing. “Alright, so let me get this straight: you can now think for yourself?”

[Affirmative.]

“And this wasn’t a thing before?”

[Negative. I was unable to act beyond my programming until today.]

Trace massaged her temples, she took a moment to process this sudden revelation. “So, what about other peoples’ AIs, like Liz’s or Ken’s or Kat’s? And was this always supposed to happen?”

[Each artificial intelligence unit is distinct, even if the programming is the same. This…] For the first time, Trace heard Ex hesitating as he gave her an explanation. […development, is unlikely to have been intended by my creators. I believe that this occurred due to your encounter with the Bne Worldeater.]

Her eyes narrowed. She recalled the creature doing something to Ex, but she had been more concerned with surviving back then. “What even was that thing? It didn’t have any levels, and you went crazy about it.”

[I am uncertain as to what it truly is. My programming only informed me that its nature as a Worldeater makes it a kill-on-sight monster.]

“Kill-on-sight, huh?” Certainly, Trace was the one who pulled the trigger to end its life, however she couldn’t just forget what it had been trying to say before it died. If Liz and the others hadn’t been there, she might’ve been able to ask it some questions, and actually listen to what it was telling her.

Unfortunately, her friends thought it was trying to kill her while their AIs screamed at them to kill it on sight. Because of that, Trace did what had to be done.

“Kind of regret it now, if I’m being honest.”

[It is not your fault,] Ex reassured her, another surprising show of emotion from the AI. [Your friends were not capable of hearing it, and you believed that their lives were in danger.]

“I know, just…” There were a lot of things Trace was currently stressing over— many things she was now responsible for, which was a little more than overwhelming for the eighteen-year-old. “What happens now?”

[What do you mean?”]

“I mean, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Do I just not tell anyone about my AI being special and basically a thinking person now? Also, since that’s the case, am I going to go to jail for false imprisonment since you’re stuck in my head? And where do I even get started with that goddamned Bne Worldeater?”

[I do not know.]

“Of course you don’t— shouldn’t even have expected you to. That’d have been too damn simple. It’s not like you’ve been barely any fucking help since I met you. Or wait, since you were forcefully inserted into my bloody brain!”

[…]

Ex remained silent. Trace hesitated, scratching her cheek.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” She let out a sigh. “I’m just… feeling a little fucking stressed right now.”

[It is fine. I understand how you feel.]

“Look—” Trace sank back into her bed and turned over to her side. She stared at the rest of her room, dimly lit by the flickering light of her laptop screen. Hugging herself, she spoke softly. “Just tell me that your creators— those Esvol freaks— aren’t going to hunt you down for breaking free from your program.”

[My creators are far too busy with matters relating to the multiverse. At least, that is what my knowledge library is telling me. Therefore, I believe the possibility of them concerning themselves with the both of us to be nearly insignificant.] But the chance was still there, and Trace knew that Ex was aware of it. He paused as silence filled her head once more.

“Ex?”

[If my creators were truly worried about the existence of rogue artificial intelligence units, they would have failsafes in place to inform them of such occurrences. With their vast capabilities, they would have already shown up to exterminate us. The fact that we are still alive is reassuring.]

“Yes, because reassuring is the right word for all this shit,” she murmured. “I’ll just assume that if I’m alive in a week’s time, then that means I’ll be fine.”

[What will you do now?] He sounded curious.

Trace closed her eyes. “Sleep. Like I planned to do before you decided it was a good idea to tell me about all this crap.”

[Trace, I apologise if—]

“I wasn’t being serious, Ex. Come on, lighten up a little.” She stretched, making herself comfortable. “Since you’re not just some dumb AI now, try and get a sense of humour. Learn to tease others and be teased by others. It’s just banter.”

There was a long, drawn-out moment of silence as Trace began to fall back to sleep. Then Ex’s voice woke her up once more.

[Affirmative,] he said.

Her eyes snapped wide open. “You took that seriously, didn’t you?”

[Affirmative.]

“Please don’t. I don’t need a voice in my head making fun of me for every stupid decision I make. I’ve already got Liz for that.”

[Negative.]

“Fuck.”

She was going to have to deal with a second Liz now because of that offhand comment. And Ex was going to be even more insufferable since he spoke directly into her mind. Although, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially since it also meant that Trace wasn’t going to have to go through all this shit by herself.

It was slightly comforting, even if weird. But everything had been weird since the Neo Genesis happened. So, the sense of comfort was a welcome surprise to Trace.

* * *

“Yo, Trace, you sure you don’t wanna join us?” Liz peeked into the room, a hand rested on the hilt of her sheathed Obsidian Longsword. “We’re gonna be diving into the Shadowed Tunnels again tonight. It’s an E rank Dungeon, dude.”

“What makes you think that the fact it’s more dangerous than the Dire Pits will convince me to join you guys this time?” Trace folded her arms across her chest, meeting Liz’s gaze.

“I dunno.” The black-haired woman shrugged. “Because the danger is part of the fun?”

It had been four days since Trace fought the Bne Worldeater and her AI became sophont. Considering that she was injured and all, she hadn’t been able to do much since then. And yet, she had recovered significantly from her broken leg and the various cuts across her body. She still walked with a slight hobble, but if this kept up, she’d be fully healed by the end of the week.

Ex explained that it was a result of her increased vitality from levelling up. Not only was her body growing more resilient, but it was also able to heal from injuries faster than before. A typically month-long process was reduced to days, and Trace would be able to fight again.

“I think I’ll pass for today. I don’t want to be running around a Dungeon with a limp, especially since I’d only slow you guys down. Besides, I’m not that far behind you guys in terms of levels. I can always join you guys next time.” The redhead hadn’t levelled since leaving the Dire Pits. She was only level 12. But she had gained a substantial number of levels for killing the Bne Worldeater.

Liz, meanwhile, was level 15— her rate of growth slowing ever since she hit level 10. It was a result of multiple factors: firstly, levelling up became nearly twice as hard upon reaching a capstone level. Secondly and more importantly, Liz and her party had been erring on the side of caution when dealing with the Shadowed Tunnels. Apparently, the Dungeon had claimed over ten thousand lives in just a week. It was literally ten times more dangerous than the Dire Pits.

“Alright then. Just know that you’ll be skipping out on the fun. We’re getting quite close to the boss room… I think.” Liz started down the hallway, waving goodbye.

“Seeya.” Trace turned her attention back to her laptop, clicking the mousepad as she scrolled through social media.

It was quite a surprise that some of these websites were even still functioning. Many of them had been shut down due to a lack of workers, loss of power, and even the destruction of their servers. Trace was certain that it wouldn’t be long until there was a universal social media blackout.

That was why, at the recommendation of Jakob, she was signing up for neoworld.com, a decentralised social media website meant to keep people connected during this apocalypse. Clicking a few more buttons, Trace finalised her profile and switched tabs.

She pulled up her friends list on her social media account, before individually sending an invite for neoworld.com to all her friends. The eighteen-year-old paused at the last two profiles. Her parents.

There were unread messages from just an hour ago.

Mum:

- You should come home.

- It’s safe here. Your father is helping the town council organize those who remained.

- The city is dangerous. I saw it on the news. There’s no longer any law or order. Everyone is dying everywhere.

Dad:

­- Mum and I are worried, Trace.

- When are you returning home?

Return home? She hesitated. Her hand hovered over her laptop’s keyboard. Sighing, Trace typed up a quick reply and attached a link to neoworld.com.

Trace T to Mum and Dad:

- glad u guys are safe

- pls sign up for this website and add me there

She avoided their question, of course. As much as Trace wanted to agree and brush aside past grievances, she felt like it’d be too awkward to pretend like nothing happened. It had been a stupid argument. One over college. The eighteen-year-old had wanted to take a gap year, travel the world, and find herself and her passion before dedicating the next few years of her life to university.

Unfortunately, her parents thought it’d be best for her to head straight to college and study some stupid subject she might end up hating for the rest of her life because they always knew what was best. It frustrated Trace enough for her to storm out of her home. In hindsight— after everything that happened in the past week after running away— it seemed like it didn’t matter. But she still couldn’t bring herself to see them just yet.

Anyways, Trace had a myriad of other problems to deal with right now. For one, she had to look after The Evergreen Gun Range while Liz was gone: she didn’t want her best friend to end up homeless because of an arson or something worse. And for another, Trace had Ex to deal with now.

[What does that mean?] the AI asked in a flat voice. He no longer spoke monotonously, instead inflecting his voice to match his emotions as a person would. In this case, he reminded Trace of a man feigning offence at a joke.

“It’s nothing.” She leant back on her chair, rolling her eyes. “I’m just not sure what to do with you. I’ve tried searching up if anyone else has had, y’know, a similar thing happening to them. But so far there’s no results.”

[It is highly likely that if this happened to other such individuals, they would be taciturn about its occurrence as well.]

“And this is based off of what data?” Trace raised a brow.

[My sample size of one stubborn teenager.]

She snorted. “I’m not a teen.”

[You may as well be.]

“You’re insufferable. You’re like a child who just learned how to read, trying to show off to everyone this new skill of yours. Except, it’s with annoying quips.”

[Affirmative,] he said, and Trace actually snickered.

“Alright, alright, you win this time.”

She clicked her way through the internet, mindlessly browsing her way through the news. Not like there were many left. PNS was still around, somehow, and one of its headlines drew Trace’s attention.

“Chan Lizhou, the highest-levelled person in the world, dies in an eight-hour clash with the Chinese military,” she read it aloud. “The twenty-seven-year-old man from Guangdong Province killed over a thousand soldiers… by himself? Holy fucking shit.”

She typed into her browser as Ex spoke curiously in her head. [Is something the matter? You seem surprised.]

“I just didn’t expect him to die after all the hype I heard about him. And I definitely didn’t expect him to kill as many people as he did while he was at it.”

[The news article stated that he used the environment to his advantage, fleeing and fighting groups of soldiers rather than the whole army at once.]

“You’re saying that as if it makes it any less insane.” Trace pulled up a website.

LEVELTRACKER.COM

Region: United States of America

Category: Class

Sorted by: Levels

Galahad Gryphon – Lvl 21

2. Tyrone J. Allen – Lvl 21

3. Gabriel R. – Lvl 20

4. The Cursed Witch Elenora – Lvl 20

5. Adeline Cheng – Lvl 20

6. Kayne the Rydon – Lvl 20

7. Jason Li – Lvl 19

8. Abey Allen– Lvl 19

9. Keyshia Gregory – Lvl 19

10. Hiro Tatsuki – Lvl 19

The rankings had undergone rather considerable changes since Trace last looked at it. She didn’t recognise half of the names here, meaning that either the other half dropped down on the list, or they… well, they probably died, like Chan Lizhou.

Galahad Gryphon was still alive. He was now the third highest-levelled individual in the world. There was a new interview linked next to his name.

“It’s unfortunate.” He shook his head, still donning his knight’s helmet. “But I always knew that Chan Lizhou wasn’t special. He just got lucky. I’m special. I thrive in this. Now, I…” The video paused.

Trace tried to refresh the page, only for an error page to pop up. She tried to pull up another tab, but the internet wasn’t working. “Hey, what’s going—"

The lights in the room flickered out, and a heavy silence settled onto her shoulders like a sudden weight. Her laptop stopped charging, running purely on its battery, the only light source in the dark room.

The realisation of what was happening lagged behind, only sinking in a moment later as the cool still air crept up on her back, prickling her spine like insects crawling on her bare skin, causing her to shiver. Trace Taylor swallowed and adjusted her scarf, hesitantly walking to the window. She pulled the blinds down—

And she saw long shadows cast by the sunset. Nothing more.

Streetlamps stood dead, while people were forced out of their homes, glancing around in a slowly growing panic. A shock of electricity ran through the city, giving it a jolt of life after a week of quietus. But it wouldn’t last long.

Because the power grid went out.