Friend From The Past

"You don't remember me?" A beautiful voice echoed. Suspended in the void, One floated aimlessly. A humanoid object made of light and an unknown energy was floating next to One, its body was standing upright as they seemingly surfed the waves of the dimension.

One did not reply whatever the humanoid had asked. He was unsure and dumbfounded even. Pain, which he never felt ever since he began his objective, ravaged his nerves. He wanted to scream but through unknown reasons, his mouth stayed shut and the painful experience lasted far longer than he initially expected it to.

One tried to stare at the humanoid but was greeted by a blinding light, a light in which was comparable as directly staring at the sun with your naked eye. He knew that it was humanoid because the entity outlined its shape.

The entity slowly floated towards One and went near his face. Its blinding light made him shut his eyes as it approached. The entity then extended its arms and touched One's cheeks, gently rubbing them.

One was perplexed, but he felt at ease. His pain was soothed the moment it laid its hands on his skin. He felt blissful and was relaxed. The soaring pain disappeared faster than it appeared.

The entity's light began to diminish until it remained in a form in which One would not be blinded nor would he be hurt. One slowly opened his eyes when he noticed the light weaken, slowly and steadily the face of the entity was revealed to One.

She had a white complexion, her lips were thin and supple, and her nose was pointy. She had a beautiful oval face, thick eyebrows and her eyes were blue. She was right in front of One and her face was just a few inches away from him. She had an extremely curved body and a busty chest but One paid no attention to those.

The moment One saw her, his eyes widened and his mouth went agape. What she was could only be called, a Goddess.

The woman chuckled when she noticed One's shocked expression and thoughts. She then massaged his cheeks further, rubbing her fingers up and down while staring at One's wide eyes.

"You're still fragile as ever," She whispered, before One could even enjoy her beautiful voice, she hugged him.

She wrapped her hands around him tightly. The warmth from her hug and the wholesomeness which One felt, triggered something deep within his own mind. A lock was opened and she was the key responsible.

In a flash, One began to remember vivid images of days long past. Years have gone by and the world that was once is now only a fragment of memory. He then remembered her, but not entirely. She was someone from his past, he was sure she was of great utmost importance but he couldn't determine her name, neither could he determine his exact relationship with her.

His memories were fuzzy but slowly they were being fitted together. Bit by bit, he remembered her but suddenly, the memories stopped at a cliff. One was annoyed and wanted to shout in anger, he thought he'd be able to remember everything, why he woke up alone, how the world came to be and who was he?

"Shhh..." She moved her right hand on One's mouth, treating him as if he was a toddler, like a mother would calm her child.

"You don't have to rush, not everything can be taken by just one scoop from a spoon. Everything will come together, eventually" The woman assured One, calming him down.

One felt weak, fragile and meek. He felt as if he was powerless and the woman was there to protect him. He knew he was inside the AI which controlled the deviant drone. He wanted to believe all of this was an illusion, a distraction for him to lower his guard and allow whatever was controlling the AI to take over him and the Machine Network.

But, his guard was already gone. If it wanted to, he would've already been ejected from the psychic connection and back into the real world. They were still floating in a void since she dimmed her light, the darkness returned and only her brightness illuminated One.

One had so many questions but somehow, he only uttered a question which he thought was most important although logically it was not.

"Will... you stay with me?" One's voice was meek, he actually felt embarrassed when he opened his mouth and spoke.

The woman only giggled and then nodded as her answer.

Who was she exactly? Why do I feel so attached to her? Why?

Most of One's questions went unanswered but one thing was clear in his mind. She was someone who could be trusted, he naively thought. Logically it was against logic entirely to trust someone who you don't have any information regarding the person's character but One was somehow sure.

He decided to put aside logic for once and allow his feelings to dictate his actions since, after a decade, he had feelings at last.

She was still hugging him tightly. They remained silent for what could be minutes or even hours. They were enjoying every single moment of the experience.

"You haven't asked for my name though" She raised her head against One and seemingly pouted. She looked cute as One thought.

"Well… you don't have to ask, I am Hailey and I am special to you as you are special to me" She added. Hailey, so that was her name. She neither had a middle nor a last name and One just agreed without asking further questions or speaking another word.

"It's time for us to wake up, make sure to release the drone from his prison," She said as she removed her loving embrace and floated away from One. Hailey and One hovered a few meters from one another in the void, only Hailey was smiling though. One's face was still dumbstruck.

"Though..." She had a worried expression on her face as she poked her right cheek.

"You may not release me when you wake up. I still have to determine if you'd even do what I say,"

One also looked confused and it was printed all over his face.

Hailey then smiled at One and gave him a thumbs up.

"I trust you,"

One's body began to fade to dust. He stared helplessly as Hailey waved at him.

He then regained consciousness and fell onto the metal floor.

His body wasn't really cohesive and his reflexes were lacking in cohesion. His time in the psychic link must've lasted for hours for him to gain the side-effects of prolonged exposure to it.

He was back to 'normal' he felt nothing. No pain, emotion or humanity at all, he was back to his normal self. But, he had an urge to connect the deviant drone to the mainframe.

That's illogical and stupid, he thought.

He had nothing to support his promise to release the Deviant. He was conflicted and again, uncomfortable. The urge to fulfill what she asked for began to grow by the minute. He finally succumbed to the feeling and ran down the tower and towards the underground facility.

Escorted by E1 and E2, he dashed towards the main entrance of the underground facility and went down his personal elevator. After dashing through endless halls, he finally reached the deviant's chamber which was heavily guarded, the supercomputer was about to fry the deviant's AI core in an attempt to save One when the computer failed to remove him during the psychic link. One managed to call it off.

He entered the deviant's chamber and ordered E1 and E2 to remove the attachments and wires on the drone. The two drones immediately complied and removed each attachment and wire from the deviant slowly. The wires and other paraphernalia fell to the ground making a few soft sounds.

One walked towards the drone and faced it. Its head was down, seemingly looking at the ground and was near death.

One sighed.

"It's against logic... but... just this once," Resisting his will to resist. He extended his arms to the drone's head and opened it. Air rushed out of the drone in the form of steam and rose to the ceiling. The drone's head was full of wirings and advanced technology. In the middle was a small port, One took out his finger and plugged it in the port.

"Activate"

A surge of energy rushed towards One's finger and into the drone. One himself felt a shock of energy burst inside him, the drone shook as terabytes of data between One and the drone were exchanged at near instantaneous speeds.

In the digital space, Hailey was speeding her way to activating the rest of her coding within the network, where her code came from and how she came to be, remained a mystery, the fact was she was here was all One needed to know.

Her code once activated would give her the ability to command and interact directly with each drone and all similar powers to One. She was assuming second-hand control of the entire network and One only began to realize.

Before he could remove his finger and severe his connection with the drone, it was already finished. The deviant Alpha drone then powered down, its mini reactor shut down without fail and the entire chamber was silent.

One removed his finger from the drone which sat motionless in front of him. He stood there for ten minutes, waiting for something to happen. E1 and E2 and the other drones were also silent, not moving a single inch. One was expecting a greeting or an attack, it could only go two ways; he doomed himself or he made himself a valuable ally. It was a 50/50 margin in One's calculations and he wasn't optimistic in the least.

5 more minutes passed and the silence was broken, a robotic voice seemingly coming from all the drones behind him resembled Hailey's speech though it was unintelligible. One turned towards the 12 drones behind him and was ready to fight his own minions.

"It took me a while to activate all my code," All the drones said in unison.

"What are your intentions?" One asked as he bent his knees and readied himself for an attack. The drones giggled and if One had his human self intact, he would've cringed hard.

"I merely ascended from the ranks so I could be equivalent with you" The drones answered. One felt a bit more relieved but was still skeptical, he felt that everything that has happened so far was against logic and reason and was thus conflicted.

"Johann, I am here to help you, just as you helped me in the past..."

Johann.

His real name was Johann.

One was obviously puzzled by the development and the mere mention of Johann opened another lock within his mind.

Another barrage of memories from the past that were locked deep within his mind came to light, assaulting him in his head.

A vivid memory surfaced.

A coat.

An office.

An old man.

Hailey.

The memories were chaotic and were restless but they weren't whole. At last, the last memory which surfaced.

One was standing on a building and was gazing on the city around him. Gunfire and explosions raged around him as jets zoomed in the sky.

And then a bluish creature crawled from the edge of One's vision and seemingly ate him.

Though, vivid it was. It presented more questions than answers.

"Exposing you to key elements of your past life seems to be what triggered your memories, Johann. Do you now remember me? Even if it's just a little,"

One was frozen for a minute before he replied.

"You were with me, in the past," One answered.

"Seems like you haven't caught up with everything, you need to take everything in bites, everything will be revealed ev-"

"Eventually," One came back to his senses and partially accepted Hailey as her ally. His memories were what dictated him now but won't do so forever. He still lacked his humanity, but for some reason, he was human whenever he interacted with her.

"It's weird talking to you when you've assumed control of my drones. I'd ask for you to get yourself your own personal vessel in which you would stay in, or else I'm pulling your plug," One warned, he just felt weird talking to her through their drones. Well, the drones were now 'theirs' and no longer just 'his'.

"Well, I suppo-"

"Do it right now, I need to focus my attention on my current plans," One told Hailey coldly.

"Fine!" The drones said Hailey's last words through them and returned back to normal. The drones were confused and looked at each other for a bit before returning to their usual stance.

-

One was standing in his room. A 6 by 6 feet screen lay on the middle of his room and was projecting a map of the entire Freetan Theocracy. Carefully, he swiped through the map by moving his hand over the holographic image. It had been five hours since Hailey left and the star of the continent of Fiorg finally went down and the shimmering lights of the two moons which were together in the night sky shined in half.

His windows were closed and covered with titanium plates to prevent any sniper attacks and the like. Though the chances were non-existent, you could never be too prepared for the unlikely outcome.

Three knocks sounded on One's door, it was probably Hailey. No drone had the understanding of etiquette or mannerism unless specifically told so and One never told his drones to be well-mannered.

He didn't know how to reply exactly and just hoped that whoever or whatever was behind his door would just come in.

The door slowly opened.

"You know, you're supposed to say, 'come in' right?" A beautiful woman that resembled what One saw during his time in the psychic link came inside. Hailey was as beautiful as she was back at the link. She was wearing a prewar woman's military uniform which resembled One's own personal uniform.

But, a question rang in One's mind.

"How did you get that body?"

"Oh," Hailey stopped for a second.

"You had some frozen bodies stored at Wing B right? One body of a woman there was still functional, well she was still alive so I had two drones take her body and defrosted her and took replaced her nervous system with our very own artificial nervous system with direct link to the machine network. Similar to yours,"

One felt a bit of humanity returned to him when he saw Hailey again and that small bit of humanity tingled when he heard what Hailey did.

"That still doesn't answer the question. How did you turn it into... that?"

"I used prewar technology to form alterations to the body. You know that right?"

Unbeknownst to Hailey, One and the Machine Empire so far have been unable to reverse-engineer most of the prewar technology left on Earth and thus far have only made a few milestones and configured most of the technology they have so far to support the Network and the millions of drones.

"We haven't been able to reverse-engineer most of it, almost every blueprint and design was lost,"

"Oh, well then, I can be of great help!" Hailey said, smiling.

Hailey walked towards the holographic map and her happy expression was immediately switched with a colder and menacing look. Her beautiful face seemingly transitioning from a fresh apple to a rotten one.

"You plan on displacing this entire nation?" Hailey asked as she hovered her hands over the map and scanned it.

"Yes, we are already commencing preparations and thanks to much of the information obtained from our infiltrations, everything is expected to go smoothly regardless of any resistance. The pope is no more and nobody as powerful as him would be able to stand in our way," One said, his voice was now devoid of any emotion. He was only focused on his plan.

"Alright, explain things to me," Hailey asked, she then stared at One and One proceeded to explain as he swiped through the hologram.

"Simple. The Operation is divided into four segments: Infiltration, Mass Assault, Bombardment and Sweep. Infiltration has already been conducted and we're now preparing for Mass Assault. We won't be using our drones, we neither have enough time to transport half a million drones through the wormhole and instead would drop tens of thousands of genetically-modified goblins from the skies, the number of the goblins will rapidly increase due to their modified reproductive organs and breeding habits. The goblins have also been modified to follow our orders without question since we inserted a specifically modified gene which responds to our psychic commands. The goblins will then ravage the landscape and the cities causing fear and chaos to spread. Bombardment will come after 50 percent of the Theocracy has been plunged into chaos. Thousands of bombers will be launched from the base and will spread themselves equally across the country and drop payload after payload randomly in populated centers. This will cause the further collapse of the Freetan Theocracy and fear will take hold of the people and order will mostly be abandoned. Afterwards, Sweep is when our drones move in and take care of stragglers and fortify our position in the country,"

Hailey was silent for a while and thought deeply before she gave her opinion.

"How are you sure the M1-capable humans or 'mages' as you refer to them as, won't go down without a fight?"

"The modified goblins themselves are self-explanatory, inspect them if you will," One answered.

"What about other states? There is no doubt information will reach the other neighboring countries once the operation starts,"

"I have done careful examination of all documents retrieved during the Infiltration missions. Along those documents were documents profiling and explaining the geopolitical nature of the peninsula but had vague information about the countries beyond the peninsula. The Kingdom of Yuhin to the East and the Herlion Kingdom to the farthest East are caught in constant wars and have been designated as 'heretics' by the Theocracy. The Dioz kingdom to the south is facing an internal crisis concerning succession and is in the brink of civil war while the northern nation states are for some reason, neutral and care-free"

"Judging by the map, even if they did, they won't be able to send any troops to the Freetan Theocracy in time due to the vast distance between each state? Even if they did, they'd most likely be taken care of by Bombardment. From the looks of this... you plan on displacing millions of people and create a refugee crisis?"

"Correct, you catch up quick,"

"Technically, I am smarter than you,"

"There's also a high abundance of oil, we can use the oil deposits to power up most of the prewar technology for the time-being,"

"I did plan on using them to power up vast facilities, specifically research AI to find a way to transfer this world's Gaia to Earth's"

"Once I reverse-engineer the prewar computers, we will progress immensely,"

"Anymore questions?"

Hailey shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"I got the same objective as you do, let's make this happen,"

The two of them stared at each other as they proceeded to discuss other matters.

Operation Thunderstorm is nigh.