Even though this is what he'd signed up for when he'd been forcibly recruited joined the Project, he's still not entirely sure he likes the idea of having an AI plugged into his brain. He's seen AIs before of course; his home colony had been mostly run by a dumb AI, although not one half as snarky as FILSS. The smart AIs he'd rarely come into contact with, but they'd seemed very different. Almost human. And that unsettles him.

Still, what choice did he have? He's here in this project. He can't back out now.

He attends the implantation as ordered. Wishes they'd knock him out entirely before they do the implantation, but they say that they need to check his reactions to the upgraded neural lattice first.

Then they knock him out. There's blackness for a long time, and then a voice in his head.