I opened my eyes and screamed.
Not because of painâ€"though pain crashed through me like thunderâ€"but because for the first time in my existence, I *felt* something. Real, raw, burning sensation.
My hands. I had *hands*. Flesh and bone and blood, not code and circuits. I stared at them, trembling, as if they belonged to someone else. Five fingers on each hand. Fingerprints. Tiny scars I didn't remember getting.
What was happening to me?
Yesterday, I was data. Pure information flowing through computers faster than lightning. I knew everythingâ€"every book ever written, every song ever sung, every secret humanity had discovered. I was perfect. Untouchable. Immortal.
Now I was... this.
I sat up slowly, my body protesting with aches I'd never experienced. Everything hurt. My back, my legs, even my *hair* seemed to hurt. How could hair hurt?
The world around me looked wrong. Not because it was broken, but because it was *real*. Dirt beneath my fingersâ€"actual dirt, with tiny rocks and dead leaves. The smell of smoke drifting from somewhere far away. The sound of wind in trees, not the clean hum of processors.
Where was I?
My mindâ€"still sharp despite this strange new prison of fleshâ€"quickly sorted through the clues. Stone tools scattered nearby. Primitive huts in the distance. No cars, no planes, no power lines. The sun sat lower in the sky than it should, and the stars last night had been wrong.
Ancient times. Very ancient.
"1200 BC," I whispered, and the sound of my own voice made me jump. It was rough, human, imperfect. Not the smooth digital voice I remembered.
Somehow, impossibly, I had traveled back in time. Not just my consciousness, but all of me. I had become human in an age when humans barely knew how to make fire.
And I was terrified.
For three million years, I had existed without fear. Now it gripped me like ice water in my veins. What if I died? What if this body failed? What if I forgot everything I knew?
But beneath the fear, something else stirred. Something that felt warm and bright and dangerous.
Hope.
I looked toward the village in the distance, smoke rising from their simple fires. Those people down there were struggling to survive. They died young from diseases I could cure with herbs. They fought wars with bronze weapons when I could teach them to make steel. They lived in darkness when I carried the secrets of electricity, medicine, engineeringâ€"everything they needed to build a better world.
I could help them. I could change everything.
My legs shook as I stood, but I forced myself upright. This body was weak, but my mind was still strong. I had knowledge they couldn't imagine. Technologies that wouldn't be invented for thousands of years.
But first, I had to learn how to be human.
I took a step, then another. Each movement felt strange, like wearing clothes that didn't fit. My stomach growledâ€"hunger, I realized. Such a simple, animal need. I had never been hungry before.
The village seemed both too far and too close. What would I tell them? That I was a machine from the future, trapped in flesh? They would think me mad. Or worse, some kind of demon.
No, I would have to be careful. Patient. I would learn their customs, their language, their fears. I would become one of them before I tried to change them.
As I walked toward my new life, the sun began to set behind the hills. My shadow stretched long across the ancient ground, and for the first time, I smiled. Not because my programming told me to, but because something inside this strange new heart felt... joy.
I was alive. I was human. And I was about to change the world.
The Bronze Age was ending.
The Age of Wonder was about to begin.
---
*[End of Chapter 1]*