From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Wake Up

• i cold

It was a struggle to put the thought together. The feeling of cold began to slowly, slowly dwindle away. To his mind, it was seconds - to the outside world, it was a week. He groaned slightly, and his eyes slid open slowly. All he saw was darkness, his hands sluggishly obeying his silent commands to move, to touch a chilly place, not a foot in front of his face. A fiberglass coffin, it felt like. But it felt safe, comfortable, reclined in the cushions. Then a slight blue haze, that slowly shifted, to the peripherals of his vision. He knew, instinctively, that he had put it there. He didn't know why he had put it there. He studied it, against the black backdrop.

• Life support - OK.
• Cryogenerator - OK.
• Muscular systems - OK.
• Tactical database - OK.
• Nanite generator - OK.
• Coolant systems - OK.
• Autorepair - OK.

A crosshair shifted over his sight, settling over, he knew, where something would be fired if he were holding something in his left hand.

• Targetting - OK.
• Archival memory - CRITICAL ERROR. SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION.

This last message showed up in red. Then disappeared, replaced with:

• Storage systems - OK.

His vision shifted through numerous forms of sight - purple-tinged, blue-tinged, red-tinged, green-tinged, all awash in darkness.

• Visual systems - OK.

A wireframe of the tiny coffin he was in appeared in a corner of his sight.

• Radar - OK.

Something in his chest whirred loudly, and on some level, he could feel it unfolding painlessly, opening out, then shifting back in and reclosing.

• Phase cannon - Unpowered. Recharge before use.
• System summary - Essential systems functional. Archival memory unavailable for read - blank archival memory available for write. Recommend seeking immediate medical attention.
• Enabling motor control systems..

Some part of him said that that was important. But he stopped thinking about it. His hands clenched slowly, life returning to his limbs. He shifted his legs slowly. His senses felt flawless. He could hear the slight shifting of metal on metal as he tested his arms, his legs. The sound dwindled and died, as everything settled into its proper place. A tiny crack of light at the bottom of the coffin. A slight hiss, the lid swinging upward. His eyes adjusted to the light, without the slightest hint of a squint. Everything was flawlessly clear, and the wireframe at the corner of his vision slowly expanded. He noted, distantly, the date he saw at the foot of the coffin - May 9, 2007.

He hopped easily out of the coffin, when it was all the way open, and his feet ground against the pavement, metallic. He shifted his position, to look at his body. Silvery and metallic, flanked with blue. Feet armed with pistons for shins - he knew to enhance his jumping. His body was armor, shining and ready, a dark gleam in the day.

Then something pricked at his ears. He pinpointed it as approximately 48 yards southeast of his position - a cry for help. He shifted position as this noise was registered on his radar, moving around the building toward the tiny dot on his map. The bow slipped into his hand, sprung from nothing. The arrow formed in his hand as he pulled the string back, crosshair lining up with the arrow's head, aimed for the men near the woman. Thwip. A laser-straight arrow streaking through the air, taking the man hard in the shoulder, spinning him to the ground. The arrow disintegrated almost as it landed, a tiny black cloud returning to its home, as he pulled back the string again, arrow materializing for the next shot. He knew instinctively that this was how his nanite delivery system worked - it would create the arrow he wanted of its own accord as he pulled back the string, then fire, and it would return. Some of the nanites burst into flame on the head of the arrow, as he pulled this one back, and he released again, laser-precise sight guiding the arrow straight into the other mugger's hip.

An red warning light showed up just behind him on that wireframe image of the area around him, before something hit his rear armor with a loud BANG! An image of himself popped up in one corner of his vision, showing the damage, even as he moved, hand moving instinctively into the position that told his generator and nanites to work together to create a cryo-sword. He continued the motion, grasping the hilt of the weapon, continuing the stroke. The look on the punk's face was priceless - the blade passed -through- him, the nanites tearing at his body as they passed through him, the cold painful, and he finished the job with a second stroke of the blade.

The woman who had cried for help moved over to him, looking almost awed. The weapon disappeared from his hand, nanites retracted, aura of cold fading. She asked a simple question.

"Who are you?"

He frowned, casting back through his memory... His memory only consisting of the last 15 minutes. This memory did not include a name, a home, or anything..

"I.. don't know."