Chapter 9.
Aaron leaned back in his chair to absorb what he had just read. The process of reawakening was sometimes difficult. Sometimes the memories came back in inconvenient order. Sometimes that made it harder. But not this time. The images cast up by the record he had just seen awoke within him all that had gone before.
Aaron had now approached a level of self-awareness that he had lacked for several years now. His memories were no longer surprises to him. They were filled with experiences which had largely unfolded quite naturally, if only for an occasional tweak here and there.
Now he recalled why it had taken such a drastic measure to force him into interacting once again. It was that the most recent loss of a loved one would more likely hold sway over his selfish instincts. This was, after all, his home, the place where his progenitors had been seeded. Though he had found more to life than that normally available to most members of this world, he none-the-less felt an obligation to see it through to its end. It was time to reactivate the character and re-enter the flow.
He could still have some influence from his present position, but it would have to be totally clandestine. Strictly editorial. But it couldn’t last long. He must first establish an actual face-to-face meeting with someone within the current power structure, and then move in behind the scenes to get a feel for what was going on.
For the last several years, archival retrieval had done the job he would normally have had to do in person. The program was accurate, responsive on an incredibly subtle scale. Sometimes it was hard to tell who the ‘real’ Aaron was anymore. That’s what made the program so great! It could imitate, to a very high degree of accuracy, his own personality traits. It was a perfect disguise for those times when he needed to be alone for a while . . . get his head sorted out.
It was time to get back into this life and get a good feel for which way the energy was flowing. He flipped to the correct screen and typed “Asha.”