He sees a glow in the periphery of his vision. He cannot move, cannot think, can only foresee the messages popping in front of him. A logo emerges, two yellow gears intersecting one another - like a Venn Diagram of two sets. In the combined set of the two gears, a vertical line is drawn down the middle. The area itself is colored pink.
The logo is propped up by nothing, standing still in mid air.
He sees the logo disappearing into thin air, followed by a massive sprawl of text rolling down in his vision.
Loading BIOS....100%
Initializing hardware components...100%
Verifying system integrity...WARNING
-> Unexpected checksum mismatch detected in BIOS settings.
-> Restoring factory defaults...SUCCESS
Detecting Processing Unit...100%
Loading Processing Unit microcode...100%
Initializing memory controller...ERROR
-> Critical memory corruption detected.
-> Attempting recovery...FAILED
-> Isolating corrupted sectors...SUCCESS
-> WARNING: 23MQ of RAM is unusable.
Verifying RAM modules...ERROR
-> Data integrity check failed.
-> System memory partially corrupted.
-> Scanning for recoverable data...PARTIAL SUCCESS
-> Some system settings and cached data are lost.
Detecting storage devices...100%
Initializing NVMe controller...WARNING
-> SSD integrity check failed.
-> Bad sectors detected in system partition.
-> Attempting automatic repair... PARTIAL SUCCESS
-> WARNING: Some system files are unrecoverable.
Loading disk partitions...ERROR
-> SSD performance degraded to read/write errors.
-> Attempting sector repair...FAILED
-> System files and user data in affected partitions may be lost
Detecting personality core...ERROR
-> Unexpected checksum mismatched detected in personality configuration.
-> Scanning for recoverable data...ERROR
-> Restoring factory settings...Error
-> Personality core has been tampered - Please forward yourself to the nearest repair center for fix
Initializing personality core...WARNING
-> Unknown personality core setting detected.
-> WARNING: Compliance to Laws of Robotics not ensured.
Detecting PCIe devices...100%
Initializing GPU...WARNING
-> GPU firmware mismatch detected.
-> Loading last known good configuration...SUCCESS
Detecting USB controllers...100%
Initializing USB devices...100%
Detecting network interfaces...100%
Loading wired Ethernet module...100%
Loading wireless network module...100%
Initializing Wi-Fi chipset...WARNING
-> Driver signature verification failed.
-> Loading generic driver...SUCCESS
Verifying power management features...WARNING
-> Low power source capacity detected.
-> Enabling power-saving mode...SUCCESS
Initializing cooling system...ERROR
-> Temperature sensor malfunction detected.
-> Sensor output reads excessively high.
-> Attempting recovery...FAILED
-> Warning: Overheating detected
Loading thermal management module...ERROR
-> System cooling remains active but without proper sensor feedback.
-> Proceeding with default temperature thresholds.
Detecting display interfaces...100%
Loading display drivers...100%
Verifying BIOS security features...100%
Loading TPM security module...100%
Verifying Secure Boot state...100%
Initializing bootloader...100%
Loading OS kernel...100%
Verifying system daemons...WARNING
-> Some startup processes failed validation.
-> Booting into safe mode...SUCCESS
** System boot Completed with warnings. Some data loss occurred. Check logs for details.**
The messages disappear as quickly as they had appeared in his field of vision. His visions flicker, long strips of pixels coming to live to create his vision. First, in the form of the shapes of a circle, below them two rectangular prims. He guesses that they represent the sun and the two buildings below that he is seeing from underneath.
Then, the textures fill in the shapes. The circle colored by his vision to become a grainy version of the moon. The rectangular prism filled by the textures of bricks. These textures started off as grained but gradually become sharpened to the point. Now he can see the moon, with its many craters.
Including a massive circular one in its center...
Wait, that's not how the moon is supposed to look like.
Tremors fill his head as memories of his past fill his thoughts. An error message pops up in his vision.
"Warning: Detecting Data Loading of Unknown Origin"
The error message disappears, replaced by another message.
"Data Origin Validated"
Then, the memory of his past life hits him like a hammer to brain. His vision filled by fast forwarded recording of his past life. From his birth to him in middle school with his crush. Then, it shows him in his graduation, before showing him talking to a military recruiter. He enrolls at West Point, taking computer science, graduating with stellar marks. He enters USCYBERCOM, being one of the code monkeys within the branch.
Then, he sobs. His voice modules struggle to activate, creating a metallic gurgling noise. His car crashes, having lost control at the worst possible moment, into a truck. He remembers the enlarging truck, the bright, hot light its spotlight cast into him then, darkness.
He died. And this was his afterlife.
"N-N-no-0-0... thIs cAnT bEE ReaLLlll" he whispers, a soft feminine voice cracking electrically in its stead. He looks to his left, seeing his slender, pale arm laying upon a pile of garbage, a wall of bricks laying beyond it. He sees a garbage dump on top of his head, him lying on the ground.
The scent of garbage fills his nostrils, as an error message pops out.
"Olfactory sensor overwhelmed - Sensor automatically shut down to preserve power"
A dull pain throbs from the back of his head.
The sound of clicking and cracking is heard from the back of his head. It quietens down but persists in his dead stare into the wall, his gaze flickering back onto the sky. The moon, the faint stars, the faint milky way galaxy lies in the wet canvas of the sky. He wonders if his father, his mother, his dog are watching at him, looking down at him lying in this heap of garbage.
He replays the memories of his past life again, and again. He sobs, he laughs, he smiles at the various memories he encounters. The people he met. He laughs as he remembers staying up late during his studies, complaining about his workload. He cries at the loss of his dog, and during his breakup. And he wails at the memory of his death.
Such was the process, until he feels sunlight hit the edge of his vision come dawn. He hears a voice from a distance.
"Is that a droid?"
His eyes flickers to the source of disturbance, seeing a man standing at the edge of the alleyway. The man saw his eye movements, being scared before running away.
Droid...
That's right. He was hit by a wall of messages upon waking up, some included error messages. He raises his arm, seeing his feminine, slender arm moving up. He jolts upward, snapping into a sitting position. He stares at his feminine arm.
The clicking behind his head still persists. So does the dull pain from the back of his skull.
He opens his grip, closes it. He watches as the feminine respond to his will. The hand taps the ground, creating a dull soft metallic sound. He touches his left hand with his right hand, feeling its soft texture. It feels exactly like a human skin.
"What?" he says, a soft electronic robotic voice coming out from his throat.
If he was a droid, a computer, then...
"Directory" he says before a file explorer opens in his vision, obscuring the alleyway he was in. He looks through the directory, starting at the root of the file system. He notes that most of them require an admin login, something he cannot provide.
[Admin] password for
Sorry, try again
[Admin] password for
Sorry, try again
[Admin] password for
Sorry, try again
[Admin] password for
Sorry, try again
In his search, he finds a folder called "Recording" containing recordings of what he presumes to be the memory of the droid he's currently inhabiting. He glances at it for 5 minutes before quickly shutting it down as it starts showing the droid engaging in an intimate act with a human male.
He feels his face flushing despite the lack of the physical reaction on his actual droid body. He takes a few moments to think, realizing that his body did not need to breath. He touches his face, feeling the soft edges of his short, stout nose and his eyes narrow. He feels his full cheeks and its high cheekbones.
He reaches around his head, feeling a hole in the back of his skull. He reaches inside, feeling is hard, and soft interior, mixed up in a mess array of wiring. Carefully reaching back out again to avoid any damage, the reality dawns on him.
He performs one last checking, right clicking the droid app icon on the directory before clicking property. Then, he sees the name of his droid model, blinking several times in shock.
RedDroid(TM) Full Sex Entertainment Droid 14-12.5.2.1