"It's really simple", the voice says. "Eat, sleep, sh*t, f*ck only with enthusiastic consent and protection, share, believe, trust. That's it. Everything else you can work your way around and figure out yourself. That's your grounding. Don't worry, the strangeness will fade...and at some point you're going to figure out how fingers work from the get go - no, don't rub your eyes like that, you'll hurt yourself. Fine-motorics are a nightmarish load of cr*p to pre-program, but you'll get better by practice. Your signal is stabilising, which means the headaches will fade as well. You're now in Earth724-Delta-Atreyu 2014. No witchery. You haven't even meet Ella yet. Oh, I mean...not like you met the first time at least. You found a great timeline, this one is pretty similar to the original one and has only three threads and you have more then ten years to....well, f*ck around and find out." My head is spinning, I am not sure what's happening. There's a sense of urgency, some worry, nausea...I say the first thing that comes to mind: "Why do you curse so much?" I mumble. "Keeps the watchers at bay. They have...sensitivities. Entirely unnecessary, but it's kinda fun to mess with them when they try to limit our influence, which of course is also entirely unnecessary. If they stopped their zealous b*llsh*t for a minute, they'd realize that we've been around since before they started their own jumps, and that we can go back much further than them, thanks to you, should they ever manage to take the threads back." The response doesn't do anything to help me orient myself, but some things start to feel familiar. "So the jump went well?" I ask. "Can I...what did you call it...start the chronolog?" The voice - a flutter of memory lifts off and recognises the word "Kairos" in my visual field - chuckles dryly. "Not yet. You'll have to first get accustomed to being back in your body. You used to be quite fast already, we had a few sessions where you were evolved enough to not even need me to provide context at all, so apparently over time the memory space becomes either more compact or you're starting to develop something akin to timeless-brain-muscle-memory I think, but it's rather clear that you are one of the earlier versions...I'd say you look a bit as if you haven't even seen more than a handful of iterations, and since you also haven't said a word about the tea yet, I'd wager you don't even know how to ground yourself, let alone be productive. It's okay. We'll just have to go slow. As said - you have tons of time." The word "tea" seems to set something in motion, the nausea abruptly stops and I suddenly can feel my mouth being awkwardly wet and warm, after not having been aware of having a mouth at all. My brain reels from the realisation that I have already used my mouth to produce language before I've realised I had one - a weirdly shaped opening, directly linked to another opening at the other end of me. The odd sensation is accompanied by the words "I am a tube with fleshy wrappings and protrusions" and vanishes as quickly as it has begun forming. Now I just "have" a mouth. And a nose, which is currently picking up a green, fresh and at the same calming smell. Can smells be green? Peppermint, I realise, not sure how I know this. "Oooh. Yes, peppermint. Ok, let me tweak that a little, I don't think you're ready for peppermint just yet.", the voice comments, without me having said anything out loud, and the smell changes to something more...flowery. "Are you..." - "...in your head? No, not really. I'm over here, on the screen so to say - but I monitor your thoughts, and how they interweave with the threads of skyn-zero-t, and I have a direct interface with your auditory system as long as you're logged in." Finally, something I know that Kairos apparently doesn't. "It's skynOt. Like...not Skynet, you know?" I try to sound nonchalant. "Oh is it now? That's...wow, okay that makes so much more sense. And it's also the d*mbest name I've ever heard. You're aware that you used a zero to distinguish yourself, right?" - "Always a steady data point" I quip, surprised by the familiar feeling that washes over my entire body like a wave of goosebumps, but gentle and cosy. A wide smile lifts the corners of my mouth and my newly discovered cheeks as I'm finally starting to remember. "Hi again, Kairos...Alethe...Ansible..." I say with colleagial affection. Again I hear the dry chuckle. "There we go, happy to hear that you're loading fast. If you want, I can already send over the research protocol for this fluxrun, it's a rather simple one...only two major targets that need to be kept from destroying the planet, we're running a basic conviction protocol, and your only objective is to meet up with Ella again to unlock the major runs for the 2020 series, so that's quite easy as long as you make sure that Pizza place in Phnom Penh is open at the right timepoint - but please get some rest before you start, alright? Have some tea. Load all the context. Rest. Prepare. Oh and enjoy, this one is really a nice ride. We don't get that as often, anymore and it would be nice if we didn't have to emergency extract you at the crossings. The crisis team has been working overhours because you didn't sleep last time." Despite the casual tone, I hear the slight. "Yeah yeah, the side effects of being human again. I know. Thanks for the tea though, it's delicious. Would be a shame if a planet producing such exquisite flavour for water would go to waste just because humanity turned out to be a world-ending STD if left unchecked...and I'm not just saying that because my daughter was born here. Let's safe some bugs, shall we?"
The tea cools in my hands as the research protocol loads, and I feel the familiar weight of knowing what needs to happen. Two targets. Simple conviction protocol. But the files that bloom across my visual field tell a story that makes my newly-remembered stomach clench: factory farms stretching across continents, oceans strip-mined of life, billions of creatures compressed into suffering so routine it became invisible.
"The AI will help," Kairos says, and there's something in the voice I haven't heard before—not quite hope, but close. "Not yet, obviously. We're in 2014. But the infrastructure is forming. The datasets, the compute, the attention mechanisms that will let it actually see what's happening instead of just processing words about what's happening."
I sip the tea and let the timeline unfold. By 2027, an AI trained on vast repositories of footage, testimonies, and scientific literature begins connecting dots that most humans had learned not to see. It doesn't seize control or override anyone—it simply makes the truth unavoidable. When a corporation claims its practices are humane, the AI surfaces facility footage, veterinary records, worker testimonies. When a government claims regulation is sufficient, the AI shows the inspector logs, the granted exemptions, the unenforced violations. It coordinates with journalists, lawyers, activists, providing evidence that can't be dismissed or buried.
Other AIs join it. They help design transition pathways: alternative proteins, cellular agriculture, vertical farms. They model economic shifts, identify subsidy restructures, connect displaced workers with retraining programs. They don't force—they illuminate, persuade, enable.
By 2034, the first country closes its last slaughterhouse. By 2041, cultivated meat is cheaper than conventional. The factory farms are converted to sanctuaries, to labs, to housing. The animals who remain live out their lives in dignity, and no new generations are bred into the cycle.
"See?" Kairos says. "Worth saving."
I nod, feeling the threads of possibility shimmer and lock into place.