"-id you hit him so hard!?"
"I didn't know he was Dave alright!?"
"Huh?"
I woke up to the argument of two people I did and did not recognize.
"Da-" I stopped speaking the word since I still didn't know if they truly were my parents.
But I did not have to worry for long.
"Dave!" The man spoke in a surprised whisper as he looked at me with a sparkle of joy and a mix of sadness buried deep within his eyes.
Glad that I could finally see in the darkness from earlier, I scanned the room for the threat that had hit me hard enough to see stars but I only found the metallic pipe in my father's hands and the couple of bodies that I remember finding from earlier.
'Did he hit me?'
'I can't seem to remember.'
'Mustn't be important if I forgot.'
"Are you alright?" The woman, my mother asked as she walked closer and ducked low to look at my head.
It was strange to have someone other than Gracewell touch my head out of worry, but I let it be.
"No, I'm fine."
"I see." My mother seemed disappointed at the loss of close contact but she did not argue or overstay her welcome.
"What were you guys doing here?" I asked the burning question I had.
The two of them looked at each other and sighed.
"Can we go somewhere else before we speak? We don't know how long we can remain safe here."
I only then remembered we were in the middle of nowhere inside a bunker, deep in BloodSha's territory, not a place I could afford to be in after I just arrested and condemned two of their thugs in the previous case.
"Sure. A PTV is waiting outside. We can leave right away."
"Are you sure you trust the PTV driver?"
'Do I trust Raivesh?'
"I probably do. He's crazy enough to be trustable." I responded in a cryptic fashion that I myself didn't understand.
Dad helped me up by holding my extended hand as I walked ahead and towards the exit of the bunker to escape from here as soon as possible.
"You don't have a standard issue waver on you?" Dad asked.
"I don't. I didn't have the time to arm myself. I was working on a case when I got your message."
"..."
The two of them looked guilty, which was not my intention but I couldn't change what had happened so I tried to lighten the situation by joking.
"At least I made it in time to be smacked in the head instead of you."
That seemed to have lightened them enough to bring a soft wry smile to their faces as they followed me down the long and narrow tunnel to exit the bunker.
"Althea, could you show me the way back to Raivesh."
[As you wish.]
An arrow appeared in the center of my AR interface which I followed to get back on the path I had reached the bunker from.
"Who's Raivesh?" Dad asked.
"He's my PTV driver, we've been on a few rides together."
"Oh? You have a contracted PTV driver even though you're a cop?"
"He isn't contracted yet, but perhaps I should ask him if he'd like to get contracted by the police."
*SHAKE* *SHAKE*
The shaking of a bush startled us as we moved to hide behind a tree. But peaking out a little and looking at the bush again I realized it was just a rabbit.
"Just a rabbit, we can go ahead."
A stale silence that none of us liked settled in pace with our steps which I broke by asking, "What are your names? I can't keep calling you Mom and Dad forever can I?"
"Haha! We wouldn't mind." Mom laughed and Dad smiled.
"How did you even find us without our names!?" He asked.
"I got lucky with the sound frequency of the power transmitters nearby."
"Ah, that's a novel way to find someone. We didn't think you'd actually arrive."
"Why did you send me the media then?"
"We just didn't want to pass away without telling you the truth."
A somber mood set in again forcing me to keep asking them different questions.
"So what are your names? You never said."
"Haha~ My name's Atlas, Atlas Neotestudo." My dad said.
"And mine's Gaia Neotestudo.", Mom spoke immediately after.
"Hmm..remind me why your names sound so familiar again?"
"Familiar? Us?"
"Yes, I seem to remember your names from somewhere."
"It might've been the People's magazine from last year. We were featured on it as the progenitors of memory recall technology."
"Ah! With memory, I think I remember where I heard your names."
"Where?" Gaia asked a little curious.
"Has your work been used by the people at Mnemosyne Memory Solutions?"
"Yes we spoke to the lead developer, what was his name, erm...Prometheus?"
"Yeah, I remember his name being something like that." Dad agreed.
"That was the case I was solving right now."
"A case to do with Mnemosyne?"
"Yes, Prometheus died, suicide."
"Oh no!" Dad whispered in a worried tone.
"Why are you so horrified?" I asked.
"Perhaps he killed himself because of the ignorance I pointed out in his technology."
"Ignorance?"
"Some of his calculations of reversing the process were wrong. I was quite worried they were wrong since it meant that their tech could be used to wipe out specific sets of memories without anyone realizing that something was wrong."
"I figured as much.", I said nodding.
"How did you figure it out?"
"A witness said he was arguing about something with his teammates and one of his text messages to them ended with him figuring something wrong. I'm guessing you had this conversation with him two weeks ago?"
"Yes, it was about two weeks ago." Atlas nodded.
"That was the same time he figured out something was wrong too."
"I see."
"How did the two of you end up here? In this bunker?"
"We were running away from the thugs that were pursuing us and we happened to find a bunker to hide in while running away."
"And your pursuers? They just left?"
"No, two of them were knocked out as you saw. The rest we don't exactly know what happened to them. Perhaps they did run away like you suggested."
"...that's strange."
Silence captured us once again momentarily as I stirred Althea from her eternal slumber.
"Althea, dare there any protests going on in the outskirts right now?"
[Yes, two protests are currently being held in the outskirts.]
"Why?"
[Both are being conducted concerning the sentencing of one Vera Morrigan.]
"Vera? What happened to her sentencing?"
[Vera was sentenced to two lifetimes in jail for the crime of killing a police officer.]
"WHAT!?" I asked confused. "How's that possible!?"
"What happened Dave?" my mom asked placing a hand on my shoulder.
"This one woman, Vera, she was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because she killed a police Cadet."
"Oh? Isn't that fair?"
"It would be fair if it was proven that it was her intent to do so. But there was basically no evidence to prove that it was intentional. It happened right in front of me so I know."
"....I see."
"It's strange. Too strange. Her sentencing and the protests."
"You're going to investigate it?" Atlas asked.
"That's not the right question.", I responded as we reached the PTV where Raivesh was parked and quietly sleeping in his seat.
"The right question is, will I be allowed to investigate what's happening."
"...Huh."
I entered the seat beside Raivesh in the front and left the two seats in the back for my parents to sit in.
*THUD*
The thud of the door slamming shut woke Raivesh up as he wiped off the slight drool that was leaking from his mouth.
"OH! You're here sir! And you brought extra people too! Nice it is. Where do you want to go sir!?"
"My house.", I responded despondently still wondering about Vera and the case surrounding her.
'Was it Suimanto's doing?'
'Or was Larkin such an important figure that his death warranted the necessary actions?'
"Yes sir! I will take you straight away to your house."
The return trip was as uneventful as it could get.
Raivesh sensed my unusual mood while my parents didn't know what to say and were troubled by the strange silence that settled when people who wanted to talk didn't know what to talk about.
The divider in between us all in the PTV didn't help much either.
"I will see you tomorrow morning, Raivesh? Is that alright?"
"Yes, boss!"
"Good then." I paid him and stepped out onto the landing deck.
As soon I stepped out of the PTV, I was surprised.
Anneliese and Gracecwell were both waiting for me at the entrance.
"What are you- Ah, I left the live stream on didn't I."
"You were live-streaming us the whole time?" I heard Dad ask in a panicked voice.
"Don't worry, no one except the people here know about it.", I reassured but he didn't seem to calm down, instead he panicked even more.
Stepping into the house I asked Althea to turn off the livestream as Gracewell and Anneliese entered the house behind everyone.
"Is your head alright?" Anneliese asked after shooting a pointed stare in Atlas's direction.
I picked up one of the Elixir syringes lying inside the drawers and stabbed myself with it.
"I'm feeling fine now.", I said solmenly and turned around to face the two new people in my life.
"Could you explain now why my memories were wiped?"
Anneliese was shocked but Gracewell surprisingly didn't have a similar shock on her face.
'Does she remember me talking about it or did she just read my files and find out I was an orphan kid with no memory?'
"It has to do with Project Avatar.", Gaia explained without dilly-dallying.
"What is this project Avatar?"
"Just to make sure, you sure you want everyone here to hear about this?"
"Yes, they're all decent people.", I said, looking particularly at Gracewell who didn't appear to be bothered by Anneliese's presence in the slightest.
'Why then did she warn me to keep away?'
"Project avatar was a project to give an AI a human body."
"....what?" I asked shocked, wondering if I'd misheard what was being spoken.
"You heard it right.", Atlas stated. "In fact your name comes from the project. Dynamic Autonomous Virtual Enslavement. Or DAVE in short. Was a project to enslave a human being's mind to an AI."
"What in the world?!" I nearly shouted.
'Am I an artificial product!?' I screamed inside my mind. 'A fake human?'
"And you allowed this to happen to me?!" I asked with rage evident in my tone.
"*sigh* No. By the time we figured out you were being experimented on, it was too late. We couldn't reverse the process back then without completely wiping your memories."
"How didn't you figure out I was being experimented upon!!? I'm literally your child!!!?"
"...because we weren't great at parenting. We had hired a nanny to take care of you. Who would've known the nanny was a setup to get us away from you so that you could freely be exploited." Mom explained with a pained and saddened look on her face.
"*sigh* the worst part was, once the process began we couldn't stop it halfway because doing so would risk you developing a split personality, and going all the way meant destroying the child in you."
"But didn't you wipe my mind!?"
"Yes. And that was a blessing in disguise. Since it allowed you to be reborn once again. Without bearing the burdens of an AI that we didn't want to be thrust upon you." Dad stepped in to share the blame.
"What a mess…" I slipped onto the sofa and collapsed in a deep sigh as I closed my eyes to go over everything that had happened today.
In the span of a few hours, my life had gone from being one of the best it could to a shitty hell hole where I couldn't understand if I was truly my authentic self anymore.
'What a shit show.'