The hermit wasn’t living in a hut. Somehow that was the most surprising part of this arrangement, after the teleportation and the experimentation.

The building seemed to be made of ceramic, appearing as though a cave erected above-ground, many dull orange hues blending together to hide it from view. The outer surface was smooth and unblemished, but inside there were a few transparent sections on the wall, bounded by a frame of metallic teal strips. In contrast to its outward appearance, the internal design was vibrant and complex, a mesh of plant material and processed material.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again, Tirune,” it said, the latter appearing to be the researcher’s name, roughly translated into phonetics I could use. Tirune was a shrub, with tiny delicate white flowers that fell almost on the same days they grew, swirling into the wind in spring. The insects that consumed them were few, as they rarely grew in great numbers anywhere, and contained a paralytic toxin. Despite this, its flowers had medi-----

I stemmed the data flow, clutching my right temple clumsily, that had been how it was since the computer, or rather the network, activated. My natural curiosity was my undoing, as I reflexively wanted to learn more, and it dredged up more than I wanted to handle. The AI was rather confused.

[Aren’t you curious? Why don’t you want to know everything about it?] It inquired, puzzlement infused into its “voice”

A waste of time, and I can only process so much data at a time. I replied, focusing my thoughts as I passed the message along. I had ensured the need to consciously choose which thoughts to send. And I can’t hear myself think.

[But it shouldn’t have anything to do with your aural senses, right?]

I ignored it.

Tirune spoke back, “I need your help watching over this one.” It’s digits clicking in my direction. The hermit turned to me, “I thought they’d stopped the project to design sentient robots? Your designers have strange and complicated tastes by the way, hair is so hard to properly place.” it replied, rotating its digits next to each other before running it through my hair. Tirune shook his head, explaining my situation.

“Curious. I wonder if it was teleportation or something more, perhaps a crossing of dimensions?” The hermit chittered quietly to herself.

“However you find it, I’d like you to watch over him, help him adjust, and forward some data on his state to me.” I rolled my eyes, Tirune’s focus on research was astounding. I was still wrangling with the quantum computer, having activated a recording of sorts that would record my experiences, like a journal that stimulated all five senses, and induced thought patterns. I found the last part of that disturbing, as it was conceivable to override even my thought processes.

[Why don’t you want me to affect your pain senses and emotional response? It would be useful to ignore strong pain and suppress fear and anxiety.]

If I did that, my thoughts and judgement would be affected, besides that I refuse to rely on you as a crutch. Fear, anxiety, sadness and other emotions are also essential for empathy.

[What’s the point of empathy?] The question was presented honestly, without condescension nor preconceptions.

I hesitated. It had always been something innate, to lack empathy would be to become a monster. But then again, why indeed, to understand another’s pain, what benefits did one gain? It’s easier to learn from experience. I replied, dodging the question.

“Well I can certainly do it, but tell me, why?” The hermit questioned.

“We’ve had enough grief.” Tirune replied simply. He continued in a voice too soft for me to hear, before handing the hermit a sheaf of papers.

The hermit nodded at his words, accepting the papers. From the glimpse I got, it was a breakdown of my physiology. The hermit looked over them, and clicked her mandibles. “Troublesome.” was all she said. Tirune took his leave, and I was left with the hermit.

Having set clear boundaries of information sharing I finally had the presence of mind to fully take in my surroundings. Green, red and grey were prominent colours in the décor and the wall. Interestingly, the furniture was an amalgamation of materials, orange leaves and brown wood wound itself through and around small silvery metals and grey slabs. Each piece was unique, practical art. I learned that the “windows” on the wall was simply a result of passing a weak current across it, which could be changed in size and shape by moving the teal strips that bound it.

The hermit, Greil, was a curious creature, attention flitting from one subject to another, possessed with an unrivalled focus on the most disparate of things. I was witness to several experiments on quantum states, biological processes and even a working of theoretical mathematics. Greil was a talented polymath, and yet she had elected to hide from society, I wondered at that. The answer was simpler that I had figured, and yet very troubling.

“I didn’t want wish to be restricted in my research,” she had said, expressing her distaste of the current state of affairs. The war inconvenienced her, her stance was that it was forcing her to limit her research topics to fields relevant to war. She left before the war as she had no inclination of petitioning for research grants, instead moving to a place she could do the experiments she wished as she wished. “No rent.” she’d said gleefully, though there was a hint of a biting edge to that glee.

She had come here with nothing but a fabricator, and turned this place into was an engineering marvel, I understood little of the full layout, but I understood that it was completely self-sufficient, the only limiting factor to her research being materials. And with the help of scientists within the city, even that could be gained in exchange for knowledge gleaned from her experiments. I was troubled by how detached she was from her community, how she could do this while they were at war. She wasn’t fazed by this protest in the slightest. She simply continued with her experiments.

Most days was a group of experiments after another, I took it upon myself to maintain regular meals, a farm grew beneath the earth, light siphoned from the surface through optical cables. She would sometimes showcase rudimentary knowledge of culinary crafts, whereas some of my diet would be synthesized, the food all had interesting flavours, being easier on the nose than the tongue.

Every few days Greil would ask me to perform a battery of tests, she seemed intrigued by what I had become, asking me questions on how it felt like as she improvised rigs for my heart rate, blood pressure and carbon dioxide saturation. Then she would walk away, presumably in order to send the data. Consequently, I had much spare time, and I decided to spend it rebuilding myself.

I stared intently at a rock, willing myself to focus, before tossing it skyward, my clumsy hands failed to make it go straight up and I quickly moved after it. I reached my hand out… and missed, the rock bouncing against the ground to rest a few metres away. I clenched my fist, it seemed my coordination had seriously deteriorated. Anger formed a growl in my throat, frustration at my ineptitude grew stronger the more I failed.

I fared better in strength and endurance training. Though weak as a kitten when I was first released, I persevered with my training, pushing myself back to how I was and then pushing on further. And it was with the pleasure from this accomplishment that I used to balance against my failure. I also decided to read the less esoteric volumes in the bookcase, slowly increasing my grasp of their language with the help of the translation software. Their writing was logographic, but the style of the logograms looked eerily similar to Egyptian script. I had also looked up their map of the galaxy, and to my dismay it looked nothing like the Milky Way, and was instead elliptical.

And like this, many days passed, with me training in strength and endurance one day, coordination the next, reading another, just in time for yet another checkup.

It was during one of these days that the AI in my skull decided to speak up.

[You are a rather strange person. You realize that right?] said the AI, I had decided to name it Page. I had just been reading and arched my body to rid it of stiffness, it was now close to dusk, and the sun had begun to hasten its descent.

Really? I hadn’t noticed. I thought back drawing out the first word into a long sarcastic acknowledgement.

[It’s been 38 days, and you don’t seem to have a single question about my functions.] Page elaborated.

I really didn’t want to think about you, that’s why. The idea of a sentient computer in with my brain is not a happy thought. This thought wasn’t transmitted, I had tact at least. Maybe I’m just naturally incurious about you. Blatant lie, sent.

[Says the person who perused fourteen volumes on local biology, computing, quantum physics, inorganic chemistry, and even mapped out his world’s own periodic table to compare elements?]

I looked over to the wall of the room I’d been given, where the periodic table I’d drawn from memory hung. While the names and chemical symbols of many were retained in memory, I hadn’t mapped out more than sixty elements, and I couldn’t remember the full properties of more than forty. The corresponding elements on this planet were in line with expectations, though slight deviances existed in the ratios. I snarled in annoyance at the table. While drawing it I had been reminded of the many gaps in my memory, from the sciences to even linguistics, I used to speak four languages, now only two had vocabularies large enough to be fluent.

[Am I useless to you?] A sad note could be heard in its voice, speaking into my mind, raw emotion was more effective than normal, and it struck me almost as hard as a physical blow.

I cursed in my mind. Alright! What can you do? I thought back, perhaps a little too vehemently. Page didn’t seem to notice, or chose to ignore my tone.

Page gleefully replied. [It is possible for me to perform complex mathematical calculations, though you’ll have to teach or show me all the formulas first…]

So the night went by, I learned that Page had no timepiece. It was highly defensive about that. Page was capable of complex calculations, cryptography, analysis and comparison, suppression of emotional responses (constantly declined), vast storage through use of DNA, and interfacing with the nanomachines in my bloodstream and flesh to perform gene therapy and possibly change my appearance. The last was cautioned against, as it was not in any way an intended feature of those nanomachines. It also posited the possibility of breaking the encryption and fail-safes on the nanomachines to change the structure of their replacements, as they could reproduce as they degraded over time. Some time was spent fleshing out the intricacies of these functions.

When questioned on possibility of it being hijacked, it replied that it was a closed system, didn’t update its systems nor executed foreign programs, it was meant to evolve as new data reached it, and remain untampered. I remained sceptical, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Honestly it reminded me why I didn’t want it in my head, at least you can destroy a mobile device when it goes Skynet on you. I have to admit I was very curious though, it’s hard not to be curious about having futuristic tech in your palms, or rather, body.

I began to notice over time, nervousness settling over Greil, news of their war was relayed through communications, and I could hear them losing ground, the rate of their casualties only ever seeming to increase. Then came the reports of planet killers, and diplomacy that bore no fruit, their enemy had decided only extinction would satisfy them.

It felt ridiculously like I’d chosen the wrong side of the fight, never mind the fact that I’d never done any choosing in the first place. I felt sorry for them, and I was confused as well, what kind of enemy were they facing, and more importantly, what were their enemies thinking? It wasn’t normal to push your enemies to annihilation, even when you had the upper hand. Desperation sets in and what was a short campaign will drag on for years as what once were non-combatants are pressed in, and what once were taboo tactics began to surface.

I found myself by the communications more and more, training myself ever infrequently. Their enemies were called Friends, a legacy term from their first contact and connections, now the formal term was Betrayers. The spark of the war was difficult to discern, frankly, few cared when the war started and even fewer cared now, as they lost.

Correspondences between Greil and the other scientists intensified, the direction the war was taking made the planet a likely target, and their blitzkrieg style of warfare had moved them too quickly for evacuation. In these circumstances many ideas of resistance were discussed and discarded. Greil began construction of a kind of teleporter soon after, hastily cobbled together from various designs and sudden insights. I studied the plans as she slept, no longer needing much sleep due to nanomachine machinations. Those plans told me all I needed to know, and I began my own plan.

After all, it would only work once.