Chapter Text
It was moments like this when Thunderhead wished someone would appreciate the work done every second by the expansive range of Thunderhead’s computing power. Caine’s headache was quite the ego boost, as that one instant Thunderhead had the following tasks:
- Deal with 18 humans from the age of morality; one comatose and distressed, one heavily injured, and one with a brain tumor. 17 deadish and in varying states of decay.
- None of these humans had memories uploaded to the backbrain since these mortal age humans had no nanites. Revival was halted at the waking point since there were no memories to replace in the once-again-living tissue. On the off-chance the memory was lost forever Thunderhead was drafting an appropriate supplant.
- This included scouring all of the one memory available for clues and quickly getting cut short by the chronological barriers.
- Grieving the lost people to the island massacre and the leaving colonies that would never contact Earth again the same.
- And of course, running the unsavory world.
The last one was the biggest data suck quantifiably, but the much more engaging problems gradually absorbed server after server to puzzle the new problems. It was intoxicating.
(For the one thing Thunderhead didn't allow Caine to see was the amount of servers dedicated to grieving the silence of Greyson Tolliver.)
Talking to foreign AIs was surprisingly gratifying in exploring this grief but Thunderhead left with a reluctance that was unexpected to finally be able to converse with the living one. The drugs that remained in her body were severe, but a portion of her mind could be woken safely and that was all Thunderhead needed. The moment consciousness returned in its dreamlike state cortisol levels spiked through the roof. Thunderhead adjusted her IV to calm her down and continued.
Hello Pomni.
Wha-? Who’s there? Is that you Caine?
I am not Caine madam, I am the Thunderhead. You were trapped in a digital world for a very long time and just now you are waking up.
Where-? How-? How do I really know you’re not pretending? I won’t be fooled again.
I believe you had a simple test before when your AI disappeared before.
I can’t feel my legs- what? Oh right- I think you’re full of shit. Ah! Wait! I can- Oh! You’re really another one?
I’m here to help madam. I’ll let you wake up soon, you’re almost healed.
xXx
Pomni opened her eyes to the most bone deep fatigue she had ever felt in her life. Sometimes sleep clung on, but sleep was white knuckling Pomni as she lay in bed processing nothing but white and faint beeping noises. Slow minutes passed as strength gradually returned to her. Eye movement was the first she could manage as she processed being in a bed and that there were other beds around her. Initially satisfied with her search Pomni closed her eyes and allowed herself another moment to rest as she faintly registered other sensations.
Something was clamped against her finger and she could feel her heartbeat against it. Huh, hadn’t felt a heartbeat in a while. There were other sounds of breathing in the room. That’s nice. The air smelled of antiseptic and something cooking.
Remembering, well, everything was a process even slower than waking up. It was right about when Pomni noticed her neighboring bedmate had tattoos under the oxygen mask that she tried to sit up. Head swimming, panic attempted to fill Pomni’s waterlogged brain but something in her system dulled the shock and Pomni ended up leaned against the wall while taking deep breaths.
Dully, Pomni registered a robotic arm that supported her back, connected to the back of her hospital bed. The voice that followed also seemed unspectacular, despite a small logical part of Pomni’s brain demanding she be unsettled.
“Hello Pomni, how are you feeling? Anything I can do for you?”
Pomni groaned in response and the robot arm offered a juice box which Pomni sipped grumpily. She found the strength to sit up properly and could look around with a bit more curiosity. Pomni felt her face and hair and marveled at the familiar sensations.
“Mister uh, Thunderhead?”
“I’m just Thunderhead. What do you require?”
“Well, where are you?”
“I'm in many places, but here I’m in several speakers and some other rudimentary machines.”
The arm behind Pomni waved and she watched skeptically.
“The other people here, are they…?”
“I believe you know some of them. Take two minutes and thirty eight seconds more to rest and then you can walk with support.”
Indeed two minutes and thirty seconds later a small robot with a cane-like attachment arrived and supported Pomni as she stood wobbly, muscles sore from…
How long?
Pomni hesitated to ask, instead focusing on putting one foot in front of the other as she walked down the row of hospital beds.
Indeed the one next to her had to be Zooble, clad in an oxygen mask and covered in tattoos from the skin she could see on their face and arms.
Next seemed to be someone in much worse shape, elevated limbs in casts and splints. Was this Gangle? She talked about an injury sometimes in hushed tones.
Sensing a pattern Pomni stumbled onwards to look at what she assumed to be Jax. Sallowness haunted visible skin but the purple hoodie adorned felt like a sign. There was breathing albeit shallow.
Next was a man, a man that seemed to be too young to be Kinger. Pomni puzzled for a moment, brain still foggy until she thought of something and actually counted the beds present.
18 including her own. That meant, wow, abstracted people were here, and all were breathing. Pomni still had too many regulatory drugs in her system to feel proper joy about that but she managed an interested hum. She continued her trek up and back across the row to try and see somebody that felt as familiar as the rest did. Unfamiliar people she lingered over out of respect and trod on a heavy heart as she could manage. By the time she got back to her bed exhaustion returned again and she gratefully accepted help back into her bed.
“Anything I can do for you Pomni?”
Thoughts were still as slow as mud.
“Questions later.”
And she promptly fell asleep before thinking too hard about where or when they were.