songsapphire

V sat by the river in Pacifica, a river so badly polluted by industrial waste that it barely qualified as water, and cried her heart out.

She cried so miserably that even the river god who had been soaking in acid rain for years — a flickering red wild AI hologram — was moved.

The river god rose from the surface of the green, bubbling water, holding two different data terminals in his hands.

“Young mercenary,” he said, pointing to the terminal on the left, “is this the So Mi you lost? The one who went to the Moon and found freedom?”

Then he pointed to the terminal on the right.

“Or is it this So Mi? The one taken away by the NUSA?”

V looked at the river god with reddened eyes.

“Neither. The So Mi I lost was one who didn’t have to keep running, didn’t have to keep lying, could truly resonate with me, and could survive together with me.”

The red light on the river god’s hologram flickered a few times. Moved, he took a deep breath.

“You are an honest and deeply loyal mercenary. Since you reject both a distant, illusory freedom and a cruel, compromised reality, then so be it. I shall give you both So Mis.”

The river god brought his hands together.

The light from the two data terminals instantly intertwined, bursting into a dazzling blue-red glow. Then, from the surface of the water, two living, breathing figures emerged.

One was So Mi after her cybernetic modifications.

The other was the relic So Mi who existed only in memory.

The river god slowly sank back into the bubbling waste water, leaving behind one blessing that echoed in the air for a long time.