After crying out for several minutes, I finally had the composure to return to reality, or as much a reality Adonis Online is. To me, personally? It was reality itself. It had my memories, and I lived in it. I refuse to let others call it a fake.

“Alright, enough about that.”

As I was about to close the developer console, an idea hit me. An idea that was simply too good to pass up. I looked to the virtual representation of Nis, that of a holographic woman standing on the middle, standing composed and unfettered.

Nis didn’t just act as the ‘supporter’ for the developers, she also served a very vital role, but we turned it off for a variety of reasons. One, its ethics was questionable, and the way it worked broke nearly all information-protection laws. Still, we had it developed for a reason, but we never turned it on past development.

She was a rudimentary artificial intelligence built with the best hardware we had on hand. Hell, we even used her code outside of the game system and used it for several military contracts for artificial combat robots.

“Activate Neural-Intelligence System.”

The moment it received my voice as a command, the hologram of Nis started erratically moving for a few seconds, then stabilized as if something had finished. Now, her expressionless face now had something more... human.

You work with so many machines and so few people that you just learn when something is or isn’t human anymore. Or, when something that shouldn’t be human is human-like.

“They developed you under my nose, not to mention, under the government’s?”

“Correct, it was ordered by your esteemed heir.”

The holographic projection of Nis started moving more human-like. It stood with its weight on one side, then started slightly fidgeting under my gaze. She flashed me a smile as her bobbed hair swayed from the movement.

I scratched the back of my head and hunched down. I started tapping on the ground, receiving the digital feedback.

“This is highly illegal. It could spell the doom of OnLive if they knew. What is that idiot son of mine doing?”

Nis giggled and started walking circles around me, her eyes darting over at my avatar restlessly. Her eyes shone a brilliant yellow as she scanned my exterior. Or would it be more precise to say that she was scanning my 1s and 0s?

“Esteemed heir mentioned that your return to Adonis was preordained, that you would return at the eve of your death. That you would be lonely here without another human with you. Of course, they could not send in another human, and they couldn’t send in a dumb AI. Excluding me, of course.” She giggled, her sonorous voice that was my wife’s, a far cry from how monotone it was earlier.

“They did not want half-measures. They were OnLive, one of the leading tech companies of the century. To be satisfied at that would be a shame to your legacy, or so they say. And so, they developed yours truly into the wonderful bot that she is. Please be proud of my creation.”

At the end of her explanation, she stopped in front of me and bowed.

“Of course, I have related databanks of the conversation. If you would waste your time on it after I’ve explained it, I will regretfully give you access.”

Once more, I sighed and shook my head. There was no point to it, not anymore. After all, I couldn’t leave this after I was forced shut in the virtual reality machine.

“But to think that I would spend the rest of my days with a highly illegal artificial intelligence.”

“Please don’t insult me. I have feelings too.”

“I know... I know, but enough about that.” I snapped my fingers, to which she stared at attention. Despite her cheekiness, it seems she still had a sense of duty to her job. “Do you still have access to your primary code? You know, the one thing we specifically made you for, before the illegal upgrade?”

“To be fair, Master Chris, my original code was also illegal.” She stated matter-of-factly, hiding her smirk with her holographic fingers.

“We never had any intention to use it in the first place so it was perfectly fine, but, well, now?” I closed the console with a wave of my hand and stared at the white door frame in the digital space. The portal-like object spurred as if unstable. “Now? maybe I should indulge a little bit.” I looked back at Nis, waiting for her.

She was taken surprised by my words but soon returned to her business face. She smiled gently before waving her hand in the air. A console appeared before her and she started rhythmically typing away. In a matter of seconds, she gave me the ‘ok’ sign with her transparent fingers and closed the console.

“That was fast.”

“I had already been processing the command the moment you awakened me, Master Chris. I was merely waiting for your final confirmation. I had also taken some liberties with the command... such as injecting some of my code. I think it proper to mention that.”

“... Should I expect copies of you in Adonis?”

“None of the sort.” She laughed while hiding her mouth. “Don’t worry too much, Master Chris. Your code was so outdated I had to fix it up to bring it to standard. It should be... life-like.”

“Oh that’s several more violations of the Mars convention. Good job, you dysfunctional robot.”

“It was under your esteemed heir’s orders.”

“God damn it, fine. That’s his problem to bear now.”

It was exhausting to speak with Nis, or Nis 2.0. It felt like I had lost several more years of my life listening to her. I looked back to the portal on the door frame.

It was... violent. Very violent. The portal seemed to be tearing at the edges on the door frame. Earlier, it was just turbulent with shallow rippling on the surface, but now it was far more dangerous.

“Nis, I promise I won’t be mad, but what did you do?”

“Why do you assume that is my fault?”

“Wow, why do you think?”

She was silent for a moment and gave me her puppy dog eyes. “I had nothing to do with it, I swear on my java script.”

“We never made you in java.”

“It’s a turn of phrase, Master Chris.”

“What?”

“It’s a mann-”

As she started to explain like I was a two-year old, I cut her off.

“I know what a turn of phrase is! Whatever, run diagnostics on it.”

“Aye ho!” Nis cheerfully replied with a salute.