I had been offered a chance. A chance to live despite my age and the ravages that time had taken on my body. Digi-verse had perfected a technique that allowed you to upload your mind, to enter a game-like world and become immortal.
And I was taking that chance.
I hadn't been prepared for vertigo as the process began. The effect of a partial dive, being in two different realms, the physical and the digital at the same time was nauseating. A blue liquid, Digi-verse's proprietary innovation, was used to accelerate electrical stimulus. It allowed the AI to map and code the electrical pathways of my nervous system. This ability to make a digital reproduction of the electrical synapses of the body was the breakthrough that allowed the company to upload a mind into the machine.
The electrical currents were enhanced, the blue fluid acting as a conduit so that it became possible to translate the information directly into binary code. It was this code that stores your potential, that creates the Avatar your uploaded persona would be based on. There was some theory-crafting involved, numbers that you would never see that related to intelligence, health, and potential. But the direct correlation between reality and virtual was proven to exist.
The process needed those few moments when you were a part of both realities to provide and determine the foundation for who you will be, and how you will start. How you grow or evolve will depend on the World you are uploaded to, and the effort you put into growth.
The technician or nurse had explained this, her effort to keep me calm and focused wasted. She hadn't introduced herself, so I had no idea what function she served. What I did know was that Counselor Givens, the woman that had been assigned my case had guaranteed I would survive the process and be reborn.
Reborn dozen, thousand, hundreds of thousands of times. Using time dilation, this first digital character would die sometime in the future. Only to be reborn again and again.
Each death would allow me to enter a different world, worlds beyond imagination. There were even Worlds and paradigms that allowed for character creation where death wasn't really a concern. I might be reborn as a Celestial being, for example. But, if and when I did die, my information would be processed by a protocol AI that allowed me to begin character creation again, the life and choices I made during each life helping to create a new avatar and re-enter the world I had lived in, or move on to another world.
The only caveat was that whatever world I was first uploaded into, the laws and framework of that world becomes the standard for every future itineration. Each of the worlds linked and governed by rules very similar to this first character creation process. This meant if I started in a world of magic, I would never incarnate into a futuristic world of hard science.
During the 'reincarnation' process, I would be able to speak with the Over-arching AI, Genesis the AI that monitors all worlds, and any changes to my psychological or intellectual indexes would allow me and the AI to fine-tune the new avatar. My experiences would allow me a more nuanced build, something more suitable to the experiences I had lived.
I had been warned about taking too long while creating a new character between death, time would continue to flow. This was done so the process of rebirth or respawning would not impede the progression and evolution of the world or its people. Time would not stand still, and at the increased time dilation the AI's labor under, the time between lives could be extensive.
I could choose to re-spawn in the same world I had died in, but hundreds or thousands of years might have passed while I was making that decision. Any people I might have known would have long evolved, grown, or died themselves. Civilizations may have been toppled, species faced wars and invasions, technology progressed, and extinction-level events occurred.
The importance I played in the development of the world was in my hands. The counselor had explained that I could choose to live a sedentary ordinary life. I could live a life of ignorance, unobtrusive of the world around you, quietly enjoying the simple pleasures. Or I could choose to influence the way the world develops. Become a leader. A great magic-user, a powerful cultivator, or a brilliant scientist.
Or I could embrace the dark and become a villain. Anything I could imagine was possible.
The vertigo that I had been feeling increased, the sense of being in two places at once jarring. I was about to start panicking when a voice broke through my fears and calmed me down.
"Jayden. You have begun your dive into VR. We are starting the calibration process. The vertigo you have been feeling will pass now and your senses will be blocked until we complete the process.
"We are going to ask you a series of questions. They may make no sense, and you may not know the answer, just try your best. If you don't know, imagine or guess. Your memories and imaginations will allow us to better understand what world you would be most suited for, and where to place you.
"The questions may seem disjointed and have no real relevance, but we have been learned the validity of this methodology, we have been able to refine the process and achieve superior results from the feedback, successful digital processing increases exponentially the more effort you put into this stage.
"The first question. What is your earliest memory? Think back. Try to remember everything you can. Not only your age and what you were doing but try to remember even the smallest detail. The weather, how you felt, any emotions you may have been having, even something as minute as a buzzing insect that may have distracted you during this memory."
My first memory?
I was young. Maybe three I think. I was outside. The sun was shining. It was summer. The heat didn't bother me, I was barely aware of the concepts of hot or cold. I was running. We, my mother, grandmother, sister, and I, lived in a run-down apartment building, located in a neighborhood that catered to the poor. We lived in an upper floor apartment. The building had been built at the bottom of a small depression, so the second floor was only accessible from a wooden bridge that stretched from a balcony to the public sidewalk.
I was fearless and happy in that moment. Running for the sheer joy. My Gammy, my grandmother, was walking behind me carrying a bag of groceries. I was excited I'd gotten to go shopping with her, and happy because she'd bought cookies. I was running to share the good news with my younger sister.
As I remembered the scene, the blackness began to disperse. The sun shining, the apartment forming, the wooden bridge. The details of the memory made whole and as they populated the memory, it reminded me of more. The feeling of hunger. The need to use the restroom. The smell of summer flowers, cut grass, and decaying garbage. Slowly the memory solidified until all my senses were engaged. The rough-hewn railing, the uneven planks under my feet. Sight, sounds, smells, touch. All stimuli enhanced until a perfect memory was created.
"Please recite the alphabet followed by the multiplication table up to 9 * 9."
The alphabet was easy enough. Even at 105 I still remembered that song that all children sang. The multiplication table was more problematic. I managed it, but I actually had to stop and figure out some of the solutions. I guess it's true if you don't use it you lose it. And I'd been relying on calculators and AI for math solutions for decades.
"What do the colors blue, yellow, green, and red taste like?"
I had never suffered from synesthesia, so the question surprised me at first. What did blue taste like? My first instinct was to think blueberries, but that wasn't quite right. When I thought of blue, I thought of the ocean, of the sky, blue would have that taste. The spray of sea and salt, the hint of ozone, and spring showers. Yellow would taste of honey and lemons, the perfect chilled glass of iced lemonade. Green, more earthy, cucumbers steeped in water. And red. Red would be fiery heat, chili peppers, and ginger, an Asian and Mexican blend of flavor profiles.
"Which do you think more important, duty or honor?"
Why was it necessary to choose one over the other? Duty and honor should be an amalgam. My sense of duty should be tempered by those values I consider honorable. Performing my duty well was an honorable pursuit.
"What are you most proud of?"
Family. Although my children and grandchildren had long abandoned me to my fate, I was still proud of the men and women they had become. Their visits had tapered off gradually until they stopped completely, but that didn't change how I felt about them. I still poured over social media accounts parsing for any hint or tidbit of news about each of them. I admit my actions verged on stalkerish and creepy at times. But I would know my family, even if they no longer wanted to know me.
"What do you most regret not accomplishing during your life?"
I didn't really regret not accomplishing anything. What I regretted was the lack of time. The time my husband and I had together before his death. The time I could hold my children close. The time lost to loneliness.
"Cats or Dogs?"
"What is your favorite food?"
"If your mother and father were both about to die and you could save only one, who would you save?"
"Which of your siblings is the best looking? The smartest?"
"Who was your first sexual experience with?"
The questions continued in that vein. No real rhyme or reason to any of them I understood. At least the questions that asked me to remember a long walk, swimming, or exercising, seemed to have some point to them. Muscle memory was stored as questions that addressed my physical capabilities progressed.
"Almost done Jayden, just a few more simple questions about your education and work history and we'll move to phase 2 of digitization."
Machines that had been silent to that point activated, the database of knowledge updated, the process complete, and the last binary transference uploaded.
Finally.
Jayden Mitchell was pronounced dead.
And Jay Myche, a young woman about to step upon the path of cultivation, was born.