"What? Why look so surprised to see me?" The face was a human face when it didn't speak, but when it spoke, the face changed into many tiny particles that swayed like vibrations.
"You… You are a projection… You are an AI… Fascinating!" John controlled his shock and slowly moved his hand through that face. The face was still and looked human, but when John passed his fingers through it, it broke down to endless particles, vibrating with John's moves.
"You are acting weird today, you know that?" The voice that face spoke with was the same soft feminine voice John heard welcoming him before.
"I fell on the ground and hurt my head," John gave such an excuse that he trained himself to use whenever he was in trouble. And yet when he said it, realising he said to a floating face controlled by some sort of AI, he felt silly! 'He will never buy it, sht sht sht!' His thoughts ran fast, trying to find some decent logical reason to give to this machine.
"Ah, cool, so you went out on one of your little adventures with your pal, Alfred, ended up getting a girl that belonged to someone else, ended up with a fight, ended up with a head injury that you faked by that silly act yesterday!"
"..." John's mind froze when he heard what this AI said. For a moment here, John wanted to give that AI a hug! "You are… Absolutely right!" he couldn't help but grin, "tell me, why don't we keep playing this game for a little while?"
"Oh, it seems you got yourself into big trouble. Was that girl's man her fiancee or what? Is he one of the rising stars in the military? Oh wait wait, his father must be a big shot in the army! That's why!"
"..." For the second time, John felt totally speechless in front of such vast imaginative and creative AI! "Let's just keep this between the two of us," if the AI helped to give him such a solid excuse, John decided to play along with the script, "let's keep playing the game of me being dumb and you being smart, ok?"
"Sure sure," the face paused, before moving closer to John's face, "still I want to know everything about what happened! Can you promise to tell me after you get out of this situation?"
"One hundred percent man! I'll tell you everything, I promise, just not now."
"Sure sure, let's play this game then," the AI retreated to its original spot, "I'm excited about this! I love playing games!"
'Ok," John finally heaved a sigh of relief, "let's start from the basics then, what's your name?"
"You know it!" the face paused, and when John looked impatient, it instantly added, "sorry old habit! Ahem, let's start over, I'll get into the mood and play the character perfectly!"
"..." John didn't know who programmed this AI to be this playful, but for an AI to work on a big military machine and get into wars, it couldn't be so irresponsible or lightheaded!
Yet he didn't complain! If not thanks to this weirdo, this AI would have blown the whistle on him.
"My name is ED," the AI face said, and John didn't show any reaction on his face, didn't say a word. As an AI programmer himself, he could tell the nature of personality this ED was built on, talkative personality!
So, the best thing to do when dealing with talkative people was to let them speak, never interrupt them, and you could get way more than what you even imagined from them!
"I know it looks dull and not stylish, but this came from the manufacturing company, it's called Electronic Dawn, silly name, isn't it? Hahaha!" as John saw it coming, ED started talking without any guidance needed from him!
"There are of course many EDs, so to you I'm just ED, but on official records my name is ED976543210."
"Amazing, did you make this up?" John raised an eyebrow, as the serial number of this ED was simply unbelievable!
"No way! Come on, put the eye goggles on, and I'll show you."
"Goggles? What goggles?" John acted as if he was playing dumb, and yet he was honestly asking! He was looking for something to turn this machine on, and it seemed he didn't need a button or a key, but goggles!
John didn't need to test the goggles to know it was like that state of art VR on Earth. He was too eager to see what this world's cutting-edge virtual technology was like! But first, he needed to find those goggles!
"Seriously?!" ED's face paused, showing a plain reaction, while the tone of its voice showed how impatient he was.
"Play along with me, please!" John didn't have any way out of this but to stick to the solution ED provided before.
"A deep and long sigh! Ok, you have the key, the card you have that has the thirteen number on it, right?"
"Ah this, yes sure I got it here," John had the card in his pocket, so he took it out when ED asked for it. The moment he took it out, the card broke free from his control by a hidden force, flew in front of him, and stopped in the middle of ED's face.
"See who is playing now!" John looked sternly at ED, feeling like that AI would need some reprogramming from him later on.
"Initiate identity check…" Just as John was saying his words, ED's voice changed slightly. It looked more formal, monotonous, as if this was the voice of a machine without persona!
The card started to shine brightly in red light, before a red beam flashed out of it. The beam scanned John from head to toe and from toe to head, before it vanished, "Identity check successful, soldier John is authorised to activate Level two of ED Mecha."
Once ED said this, the red card moved on its own, floating back to John. Yet it wasn't a card anymore, it changed and became red goggles, with number thirteen written on the sides in silver colour!
"Amazing! I love this!" John resisted the urge to laugh out of his excitement. Everything that happened made perfect sense. This was like a security check so no one but him could use his mecha. And that was why his card was left carelessly on the side of his mecha.
"I know, I know, you finally sound like your usual self," ED returned to his old personality, "you always loved this moment, saying it reminded you of something vague and yet inspiring."
'One hundred percent correct, pal!" John looked at the goggles, then at ED, "now shall you show me the proof?"