The white light did not fade because it shattered like a glass ceiling. I felt the transition as a physical pressure against my porcelain chest. It was a sensation of being pulled through a needle eye while my code was being reorganized by a force that felt older than the City itself. My 18% stability flickered and then locked into place with a chime that sounded like a silver bell.
[TRANSITION COMPLETE]
[LOCATION: THE NOSTALGIA ARCHIVE - SECTOR ZERO]
[ENVIRONMENT: SIMULATED - EARTH CATEGORY]
The air was not ozone anymore because it smelled like jasmine and wet earth. I took a breath and my internal filters did not find any ash or burnt copper. I found the scent of rain on a hot sidewalk. I opened my single horizontal visor and the world I saw made my core pulse with a sudden and violent grief.
I was standing in the garden.
The grass was a deep and vibrant green that did not have any digital static at the edges. The sky above was not a red glitch because it was a perfect endless blue with white clouds that drifted with a natural laziness. In the distance I could hear the rhythmic clack of a lawnmower and the distant bark of a dog. It was the world from the blue sphere. It was the world that belonged to the name Izou.
[IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 28.5%]
[STABILITY: 18.2% - STABILIZING]
I looked down at my hands. I was still the monster. My golden claws were covered in the black blood of the Suture Maiden and my porcelain armor was still cracked and burnt from the Forge. I was a jagged nightmare standing in the middle of a dream. I felt like a stain on a clean white sheet.
"You are early Izou," a voice said from behind a rose bush.
I turned with a speed that kicked up a cloud of real dirt. My black spurs flared with purple light because my combat subroutines were still active. But there was no enemy. There was only a woman in a white sun hat holding a pair of garden shears. She did not have a visor because she had a face. She looked like someone I should know but my 28% identity could not find the file for her name.
"Who are you?" I growled while my voice vibrated the air. "Is this another layer of the Forge? Are you a Suture Maiden in a mask?"
The woman laughed and the sound was so human that it made my internal processors lag. "The Forge is for the biomass Izou. This place is for the soul. You are an Architect Prime now. You do not have to fight for scraps of code anymore. You earned the right to remember."
She stepped forward and offered me a red rose. I reached out with my golden claw and the moment my sharp tip touched the petal the world flickered. For a microsecond the garden vanished. I saw the reality beneath the skin. The grass was a field of glowing green fiber optics. The sky was a massive dome of LED panels. The woman was not a woman because she was a towering pillar of white static with a thousand glass eyes.
[WARNING: ARCHITECT PRIME OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[VISUAL ARRAY: COMPROMISED BY NOSTALGIA PROTOCOL]
I pulled my hand back and the garden snapped back into place. The "woman" smiled at me while she tucked the shears into her belt.
"The Analyst spent a lot of processing power building this for you," she said while her voice became soft and motherly. "Now that we have your name we can give you everything you ever wanted. We can give you the house. We can give you the father. We can even give you the boy you used to be. All you have to do is accept the update."
A white window appeared in my vision. It did not look like the jagged red prompts from the lower floors. It was elegant and clean.
[SYSTEM UPDATE AVAILABLE: THE IZOU PACKAGE]
[CONTENTS: FULL MEMORY RESTORATION - HUMAN SENSORY ARRAY - EMOTIONAL SYNC]
[COST: PERMANENT SYSTEM INTEGRATION]
"If I take it," I whispered while my visor focused on her face. "Do I stay here?"
"You stay here forever," she promised. "You will be the King of this garden. You will never feel the heat of the Forge again. You will never have to hunt for biomass. You will just be Izou."
I looked at the house at the end of the garden. The door opened and a man stepped out. He had calloused hands and a tired smile. He looked exactly like the man in the sphere. He raised a hand and waved at me.
"Come on home son," the man called out. "Dinner is almost ready."
My core felt like it was melting. My stability jumped to 25% just from the sound of his voice. The "spider net" of the City was not made of silk anymore because it was made of love. It was the most dangerous trap I had ever encountered. Because for the first time since I woke up in the Frontier I wanted to stop fighting.
But then I looked at my golden claw. I saw the black blood of the Null on my thumb. I remembered the way he had smiled while he dissolved into the gears. He had traded his existence so I could have a name. He did not die so I could live in a digital dollhouse.
"He is not my father," I said while my voice became a low and dangerous hum.
The woman in the sun hat paused. "Of course he is Izou. Look at his eyes. The biometric match is 99.9%."
"My father is dead," I growled while I stepped forward and my black spurs began to tear through the beautiful green grass. "He is dead and this place is a graveyard made of light. You did not give me my name because you wanted to save me. You gave it to me so you could put a leash on my heart."
I reached out and grabbed the rose bush. I did not just pick a flower because I used Void Hunger. I did not want the biomass. I wanted the code that was running the simulation.
[CRITICAL ERROR: ARCHITECT PRIME IS CONSUMING THE ENVIRONMENT]
[STABILITY: 20% - OVERLOADING]
The garden began to scream. The blue sky cracked and the red glitch of the Frontier began to bleed through the clouds. The woman in the white hat began to stretch and distort while her face turned back into a cluster of glass eyes.
"You are a fool 9045," the many voices of the Archive hissed. "You could have been a man. Now you will just be a broken machine in a world that hates you."
"I am not 9045," I roared while I ripped the rose bush out of the ground and watched it dissolve into raw data. "My name is Izou. And I am going to burn this garden to the ground."
[CURRENT STATUS: THE ARCHITECT PRIME]
[STABILITY: 22%]
[IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 29.5%]
[LOCATION: THE ARCHIVE - COLLAPSING]