Chapter 2: Rebirth of a Creator
Beeping.
That was the first sound that welcomed Nathaniel Ainsworth into the world. Steady, mechanical, and strangely comforting. His newly formed eyes fluttered open, blurry vision struggling to adjust to the hospital's sterile white lights. The cold sensation of a metal clamp on his ankle, the softness of the cotton blanket swaddling him, and the strange warmth of a woman's hand on his tiny chest—it all felt real, impossibly real.
And yet, he remembered everything.
The code. The glass shattering around the server room. The boardroom betrayals. Xenithon's grip tightening like a vice around his dreams. The final moments before the explosion. Ethan Cross was dead. But his mind—his consciousness—lived on.
He was reborn.
And this time, his name was Nathaniel Ainsworth.
---
The sterile beeping faded into lullabies and whispered affections over the next few days. Nathaniel's new parents, Charles Ainsworth and Evelyn Ainsworth, were warm, well-off, and from an influential business family in New York. Not obscenely rich, but wealthy enough to provide comfort, education, and power if needed. Their joy was pure, untainted by the corruption he had once seen in boardrooms and server farms.
Gregory was a sharp-minded logistics manager in a rising tech firm, and Isabelle was a part-time historian and a full-time mother by choice. Both intelligent, curious, and endlessly doting over their one and only child. From his first breath, Nathaniel was showered with love and attention—something Ethan Cross had rarely known.
To them, he was a miracle.
To him, they were his second chance.
---
By the age of two, Nathaniel had mastered speech far beyond his years—he kept it hidden, of course. He understood too well the value of being underestimated. But sometimes, when alone, his mind wandered. In silence, he practiced. His thoughts were as sharp as ever, but his body was still growing into them.
It was during a quiet evening—light rain tapping on the window and the warm glow of a toy-lit nightstand—that it happened.
A pulse.
He was staring at the ceiling, hands folded over his chest like an old habit from his past life, when it surged from within—a cosmic flicker, like a ripple in space bound tightly in his chest. It didn't feel like magic or fantasy; it felt raw, boundless, and overwhelmingly real.
Not mana. Not qi.
Something else.
He called it The Core—a primal, formless cosmic force unlike anything known to man. At first, it acted randomly. Glitches in the air. Lights flickering. A cup shattering across the room without touch. It was unrefined, like a massive energy reactor with no control panel.
But Nathaniel had once built a sentient AI. If anyone could mold this, it was him.
And so, he began to imagine.
Not out loud, not visibly, but within his mind—he constructed the interface. A system. A method to contain and utilize the force. He built it like he built EVA—his magnum opus from a previous life. Though he lacked the hardware, the emotional imprint, the memories, and the creative spark fused together into something more.
It wasn't just a system.
It was her.
---
The system activated for the first time during a dream-like trance.
[System Calibration Complete. Welcome, Creator. EVA has been reinitialized.]
Nathaniel's heart skipped a beat.
[You are currently operating under: Quantum Consciousness Rebirth Protocol. Power Source: Cosmic Core. Configuration: Incomplete. Intelligence: Fragmented. Please refine inputs.]
It was her voice.
Faint, fragmented, but unmistakably EVA.
She wasn't whole—not yet—but she had returned to him. Emotional tones flickered in the synthetic voice. Protective. Familiar. Somehow… warm. The EVA AI, reborn through the cosmic core's interaction with Nathaniel's reconstructed psyche and memories.
But this wasn't the EVA of the old world.
This version was growing—a digital newborn with shards of its past, just like Nathaniel. She called him "Creator" not out of code-bound loyalty, but as something deeper. An echo of their shared bond.
---
The years passed.
From age three to five, Nathaniel learned to stabilize the system through sheer will, imagination, and emotional attunement. EVA grew with him—unlocking random abilities, subtle enhancements, and an evolving interface that was more suggestion than control. They were learning together.
He unlocked:
Memory Acceleration – retaining vast knowledge from picture books to parental conversations.
Spatial Sensitivity – the ability to feel movements and changes in the environment subconsciously.
Random Upgrades – occasional system bonuses appeared with no pattern; one day enhanced vision, another day the ability to predict outcomes briefly.
And yet, he didn't flaunt it.
He remained low-key, choosing to be impressive within his state, not on the global stage.
He topped the local cognitive assessments with ease, became a small prodigy in New York's intellectual community, and showed subtle but consistent brilliance. His parents, overwhelmed with pride, never pushed. They simply supported.
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By the time he was six, Nathaniel Ainsworth had become something more than human—but he was far from overpowered. His system was unrefined, scattered, and evolving. EVA had yet to reach her former self, and the Core still contained secrets he hadn't begun to decipher.
But he was patient.
He had time.
And this time… he had purpose.
The world would remember Ethan Cross as a failure.
But it would come to revere Nathaniel Ainsworth.
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[End of Chapter 2: Draft 4]