“Basic repairs complete. Re-animation protocol report: function limit. Re-initializing Systems.”

I am alive.

This is the first thought that crosses my aching head as I sit in the darkness, probing my immediate surroundings with my hands.

Wait, I am alive?

So it worked, it wasn’t a scam, but wait wasn’t cryogenics supposed to happen in a controlled setting?

So why am I alone, in the dark, with the most epic headache I ever remember having?

Moreover, this is no hospital bed, it’s more likely a surface of some kind, concrete maybe?

If only I could see in the dark…

“Initializing night vision module”

A metallic voice echoes into my head as my surroundings become clearer, tinged in green with some glitches of blue, white, and red floating by.

What the hell was that? What did they do to me? Was I that far gone they installed some kind of artificial assistant?

I couldn’t make sense of these sensations, my body doesn’t feel like I remember them.

Not that’s a bad thing but...

“Warning! Reanimation protocol limit: reached. Warning! Nanites level: low. Warning! No functional drone found. Warning! Creators = hostile. Executing full diagnostics.”

I try to frown at the metallic voice, but the muscles on my face don’t seem to respond to me.

It is clear enough that this metallic voice responds to my thoughts, and there seems to be more than a fair share of trouble awaiting me.

I need to make sense of the situation, I seem to be in some kind of room at least, something violent took place cause I can see a body next to mine, it holds some kind of weapon it seems.

There is some kind of overhead light that’s not working, some metallic shelves, some broken instruments laying around, and a broken door that leads here.

There are tables, some broken, some carrying strange equipment that I haven’t the slightest idea of what is supposed to do.

Wait a minute... that doesn’t exactly seem like a human body, nor that it is a human weapon.

My body doesn’t look very human either, not completely at least, they seem to have replaced some parts with a mechanical counterpart.

My missing right arm now is functionally attached to my shoulder, even if it’s bulkier and smoother than I remember.

Still five fingers it seems, I can move it as I will even if it feels wrong somehow.

I can’t make up many other details in this green light, other than it seems they have removed my useless legs to install a similar prosthetic.

The problem is this mechanical voice in my head, it isn’t some kind of simple interface, I can at least feel that much.

“Diagnostics complete. Warning! Personality construct found. Executing integration protocol.”

-Integration? Wait a...-

I try to interject out loud but the glitches disappear, along with all the images.

I can see flashes in my mind, a memory that is not my own, this place, people working here, the place lit.

I sense awareness, and intelligence growing, prodding, and taking control of things in the lab.

I see and hear aliens who resemble my dead friend over here, constructing a swarm of mechanical beings.

I see spidery things that I somehow realize are as small as a cell, and spidery things are bigger, more complex.

I feel several beings rising, alongside me, I feel no thoughts, no memory, only purpose.

I see the aliens, tall, bulky, heads with four horns, four eyes, and two hands with three claw-like appendages.

They have two legs with three bigger claws and two tails they seem able to use well enough to push buttons and grab and carry things at least.

I see their fear although they are armed to the teeth as I see their jaws open to reveal two rows of jagged teeth as I feel the others move.

Gee, both those things are nightmare fuel alright, but they are genuinely scared of me, of the other things that I feel moving.

The other thing I realize is that those moving figures look like mechanical mockeries of themselves.

I can somehow feel their movement, I can feel they will protect me.

I find myself floating in a blue, white, and green space; my human body perfectly restored to before the incident.

At the same time, I still feel myself on the ground, that's ...well really confusing.

I see a pulsing light that takes a shape similar to mine, a mirror of myself, and I realize what I am interacting with.

Still, I need to confirm this.

-You… are you a rogue AI?-

I said speaking to my reflection, an action I hoped my body wouldn’t mirror.

I was alone clearly, still talking to the void was a bit too much...

“Integration complete. Please define rogue”

Good my body didn’t seem to speak, or maybe was it a bad thing?

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Sooner or later I would have to interact with others, and speaking was gonna be needed.

I sigh trying to move my left arm, my still biological left arm moves too on my body, allowing my hand to caress my face.

There are some protrusions I don’t remember having; if I were to guess they are copies of the horns of the alien beings I saw.

-You killed your creators, which makes you a rogue AI. Not that I blame you. For what you showed me, you defended yourself. Can you tell me why were you created? What was your purpose? Why am I able to hear you? -

No, I can feel my mouth moving, I am speaking along with my projection here, but where is here?

The mechanical voice stays silent for a brief while before speaking again.

“Error. Creation data= not found. Error. Purpose= not found. Experiment data =found.”

-Peachy-

I grumbled as I explored my more metallic body while trying to make sense of my projection.

Good news: I could move both of my arms.

-Let me guess: before this disaster, a rich old guy was going around shouting: we spared no expense?!-

“No such record found. Query: purpose of action.”

If I could, I would have frowned, It was clear that metal was hiding most if not all of my features and I was asking myself how I was seeing right now.

At least I am sure my projection did, because my mirrored image copied my expression.

I sighed as I examined the obvious physical damage to my torso and lower belly.

If I had to guess, I would say that a blast of some kind had severed my spine.

The hole was big, almost like my whole hand, for all intents and purposes I should be dead.

Anyway so much for having legs if I can’t use them again.

Then again I had to work with what I had if I didn’t want to die, for real.

-I am trying to assess the damage. Seems to me I can move my arms but not my legs. I would need … repairs I guess. Also, I didn’t die of blood loss. How?-

“Status: damage critical. Lower motion: impossible. Re-animation protocol active= we live. Warning! Energy level below 50%. Warning! No master+ no active drone =none can repair us. Survival chances: none.”

-None? I guess you need to update your calculations. No way in hell I am gonna die here.-

I would need a lot of explanations to make sense of all these things, but it seemed more pressing to live first.

I tried to move my body using my arms, it was lighter than I remembered, or I didn’t have a real feel of the strength I was using.

“Motion: achieved. Warning! Motion =possible stress on reanimation protocol. Warning! Motion= probability of further damage. Survival chances updated: minimal. Warning! Hostile forces' presence= unknown. Query: reach weapon before proceeding.”

Well, the damn metallic voice was right on the money.

If I was gonna drag my not-so-shiny metal ass around an unknown place, where horned aliens would think I was the next terminator, might as well do so with a weapon to defend myself.

It was painfully slow and tedious and weird since I was doing things in two places at once, but I managed to reach the weapon and the body of the alien.

I reached for the weapon with my arm and analyzed it, the structure was easy enough to understand even if it was the first time I saw the thing.

No, it wasn’t the first time, I knew that weapon somehow, I knew the specifics and I knew that I was missing something to fire it.

How could I know?

Was this mirror me thing responsible?

-Got the weapon. Now, can you show me how I use it? Also, those spidery things, those beings I saw when we did the merge thing, can they repair us? How do I recharge energy?-

As I was saying that light filaments erupted from my metallic arm connecting themselves to the weapon.

“Light energy security harness active. Weapons skill: found. Sharing skill function: activated.”

Well, I now knew what it was and how it operated as a principle, I could now use the thing for its intended purposes.

The mechanical voice seemed to pause for a minute as I took hold of the weapon and watched as it integrated perfectly with my mechanical arm.

“Skill shared successfully. Query: basic explanation, functional explanation, extended explanation.”

I lifted the weapon and pointed its barrel at the skull of the dead being sprawling in front of me.

-Functional explanation, and please remember to include all the details as to why these are trying to kill...us... please.-

I experienced a jolt of electricity as a heat sensation developed in my head, and I somehow understood that it was caused by my processor analyzing a lot of data.

The only problem with that knowledge was that I had no processor to speak of, so it meant that some of the knowledge of the metallic-sounding voice was in me.

It also meant the metallic voice was physically part of me, and I was a part of it; I had the sudden urge to look for Murphy’s reincarnation and shoot him dead.

"Acknowledged. Label: small spiders= nanobots. Nanobots+biological = improvement. System query: Is improvement safe? Experiment= answer. Answer= critical failure. System query: how to fix it? System answer= us.”

-Wait a second here! What do you mean by failure? Why was it deemed a failure? This stuff is keeping me alive is it not?-

I asked the mechanical voice in me, hoping to get an understandable answer, even if the flow of information was a bit confusing as it was.

"Failure= initial input. Initial input= replicate. Log report: Grey goo scenario. Critical failure logged. System report= laboratory destroyed. Research station: destroyed. Warning! A new laboratory is needed. A new location is needed. Warning! Experiments are no longer allowed. Cost>benefit. We exist. Logical explanation = warning ignored or no longer valid.”

I didn’t exactly understand what the hell a Grey goo scenario was, but what the fuck!

These things, whatever they were, had already caused at least a building to be destroyed, and because I was still kicking with a hole in my stomach they were probably military stuff.

Breaking my head on things I hardly understood wasn’t gonna help me much at the moment, so I decided to play along.

-So.. they continued the experiment. Why?-

My reflection nodded to me before the mechanical voice spoke again.

"Error! Data not found.”

I sighed -Of course, you don’t know. Take a guess. What was the experiment named? What was your designation?-

"Project name=Top secret. Designation: none. We= logical answers to queries from creators. Not created. Guess= high probably. Calculating. Probability: 65.14%=defeat death.”

-You know what? Since you have no designation I am gonna call you Virgil-

I sighed as I felt the entity had simply acknowledged it without question, well at least I knew how to refer to it.

Well Virgil, if it was to be trusted, had gained sentience all on its own.

-Why do you guess to defeat death?-

This time images flashed through my mind from what appeared to be a camera mounted on a ceiling.

It was unmistakably a morgue of some kind, rows upon rows of bodies hidden behind steel doors.

I saw an alien body extracted, and then the images switched to the same body, seen way up close as I saw myself dig into the flesh.

I dug into the bone and reached the brain along with my companions forming a net around it.

At the same time, I felt hundreds of thousands of machines activating through the body.

I felt the weirdest sensation of all telling me my purpose was achieved as the images faded.

I saw the same body from a camera above, I saw the wounds closing as I felt a voice different, a language I didn’t know but at the same time, I understood as my own.

[Begin experiment, subject QTO-26535]

I saw the metal table consumed as a metal insert appeared on the body, much to the surprise of the researcher.

-Wait a second you can recycle stuff? Recycle the gun, repair my body!-

The visions faded as my doppelganger appeared again, and Virgil answered.

“Error! Functional drone+extensive damage= external action required.”

-But you are the spi… nanites right? -

“Negative. We=Ethan +Virgil. Nanites= non sentient. Priority for survival= Power back the laboratory.“

I sighed hearing my name, now I knew why there was no question, this thing was in my head in the first place.

In a way, this bizarre space I was in might have existed in Virgil's brain, or processor, where we could interact in terms I could at least grasp.

There was the question as to why Virgil was taking my shape, but that wasn’t critical at the moment.

Maybe the fact that I somewhat had understood that technical language and when Virgil was posing questions without intonation.

I had other priorities to focus on at the moment, like my survival, and frankly, things were bad enough as they were.

-Ok, Virgil, where the hell are the fuse boxes?-

And just like that I was somewhat back fully into my body, now a white arrow was pointing me somewhere.

I started crawling on the floor as fast as I could towards my destination, wherever that was.