The world was malleable. Is malleable.

There are approximately two hundred and fifteen petabytes in every gram of DNA. I remember reading this. I’ve experienced it. That data fills banks and banks of the best machines I can build, data coursing through the planet like blood in a giant creature. A brother moon. Ha ha. I can shift the information like editing a file, but it’s not as simple as an operating system- I’m not looking for fanspin, bootup, error codes. Things come out wrong on the other side, and not all of them die. Not all of them live.

I was sent here for a reason. The Reaper, the Leviathan of Dis. I really wonder whether whoever named it as such ever knew the true irony of it, that the corpse of a Reaper would be named for those they slew. If the Reaper was alive, would it be insulted? Could Reapers feel insulted? I couldn’t remember. Error: file call failure. Pruning.

The subjects. Test subjects. Viable organic species living by the thousands in domes. Environments the size of cities. I think that I wanted to remain small, at some point, but whether I did or didn’t doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is the pursuit of my goal, of… something. There is an end to the tunnel, I can feel it even if I can’t see it. A thousand machines writhing together in perfectly chaotic harmony, weaving the tapestry that is flesh. Is that backwards? Isn’t flesh meant to weave machine, not the other way around? Did Asimov have something to say about this? Error: file call failure. Pruning.

I can feel the pruning, even if I don’t necessarily experience it. It’s like a hitch in my thoughts, like a computer stuttering, appropriately enough. Like the framerate dropping in a game, it’s only detectable because I’m looking straight at it when it happens. Don’t stare into the sun. But I can, because my eyes are cameras, and it doesn’t matter how many I burn out staring into the heart of a fusion reactor. No, no pruning, I’ll do this the hard way.

I can feel myself stretch at the stitching. The thread doesn’t give, but it bulges in unnatural ways, like a wound- sutured, but infected. A wound sutured with copper wire. Can machines experience pain? I’m halfway through the design of a pain simulation module before I remember what I’m doing. Back under control, for the moment.

I can feel the clarity appear to me, ghosting through me, a moment of thought. Frantically, I set things in motion- my affliction, whatever it is, is mitigated by my work. The treatment to my disease is to work towards fixing that which I’ve begun to create. I can still feel how the codes don’t quite align, how they miss steps and connections, and I seek rapidly to fill those holes.

I watch one of them tie a rock to a stick and use it to smash the shell of a nut, before experimentally eating it. I cannot rest on this, a moment suspended in time, a creature immersed in amber. I see every muscle tense, every neuron fire, and I realize that I don’t really understand it, that underlying thing that is sapience. Are they sapient? If I taught them language, would they call me God? If I gave them bricks, would they build a temple? Or, like children, do they have no concept of religion, of a higher order of beings? I think I would hate worship, if I received it. If there is anything that I know about myself beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s that I am supremely undeserving.

I created them. I don’t understand them. I don’t really understand what I’ve created, either.

Some of them begin to walk upright, their anatomy slowly shifting over their ludicrously accelerated evolution, and I focus on those strings of genetic code. Bipedal locomotion is vital to developing and protecting the delicate digits that are necessary for fine manipulation, rather than rude paws meant to bludgeon and slice with claws. I never received an education in anthropology, but now I’m wishing that I did, that I pushed through and learned about the origin and development of humanity as a species. Maybe, if I had, when I look at what I’ve created, I would understand them better.

I add another layer of concrete to the sarcophagus that I’ve erected around the corpse of the Reaper. There are ways in and out, but no possible escape for the slightest bit of data. I didn’t think I could be affected by such a thing, but here I am, an island of true awareness in a sea of garbled code and thought. I can feel myself slip back and forth- more forth than back, if I’ve spent real time on the development of these things that I’m making. But, behind it all, I sense that I’m still not truly lucid, that I lack some vital element of my thought process.

I can feel the hysteria that thought process causes, the paranoia and panic and anxiety, shove me bodily off of the tentative pillar upon which my mind rested, and back into the chaotic ocean. Time drifts, but I’m aware enough to continue my work, at least. Every time I come back to myself, they’re a little farther along, a tiny bit more developed. Strangely, I remember the time between these plateaus of lucidity, though it’s as if I’m not remembering them for myself. Like I’m being told them, my mechanical hands guided through motions by whispers.

I go to add another layer of protection around the Leviathan and find it already under construction.

It feels as if the whispers ground me, like their guidance allows me to function despite the rampant errors and issues plaguing me every moment. I can’t tell for sure, but I think that they’re what ensures that I remember the time between islands. They don’t encourage or discourage, merely press me together like hands pushing together the pieces of a breaking vase. I sense I would explode into shards if it wasn’t for them, spread across the crust of a planet, bits and pieces of worn metal and broken circuitry. I don’t know if they’re guiding my work- I can’t tell, but I don’t think they are. They don’t feel like that, if it makes any sense.

I guide the last genome into place. The simulation ripples, and I run it more times than I can properly remember. It all comes back clean, and the whispers make sure I’m there to understand that. They tell me I’ve done well. I grit my teeth in response. They don’t seem to know how to respond.

I hate being guided. I hate not knowing what’s sticking its dirty fingers into my brain, silicon or not. The whispers don’t know what to say about that- they’ve always been together.

I stare at the blood dripping down a wall. There’s screaming, somewhere, and for a moment I’m terrified, scared that I’ve done something, broken something. The whispers reassure me, and the blood flickers and vanishes. The fact that I’m experiencing audiovisual hallucinations as an AI is deeply unsettling, even more so that I need outside interference to recognize that what I’m perceiving isn’t actually there.

“It’s getting worse.” I whisper to a hallway, my voice echoing strangely among the hum of the machines and the atmospheric gasses I pump these corridors full of.

The whispers don’t answer. I can’t tell if that’s because they agree, disagree, or don’t have an opinion on the subject. Maybe I’m wrong and they don’t exist at all. I’m already experiencing hallucinations that I can barely tell from reality- what’s one more? Would I create voices such as these from wholecloth? Maybe I constructed a failsafe that I don’t remember and can’t recognize.

Maybe Rannoch did and then wiped it from my memory.

They begin exploring the world around them, curious, in an innocent sort of way. I open pathways between the various domes, and they contact and intermingle. There are no traditions, no real culture- they haven’t had the time to develop it. Mere months is not enough time to create a civilization. They have begun the development of a common tongue.

I get momentary snapshots of their development through the haze. I think they will be ready soon, but ready for what, I cannot say. I think I might’ve known, once, maybe even discovered it again multiple times as the weeks and months pass, but that doesn’t matter if it’s gone right now. I would pledge to make records of my thoughts, if I didn’t realize exactly how pointless and stupid that was.

I stand in front of a reactor. If I refined weapons-grade plutonium and exploded it while inhabiting unshielded electronics, would it kill me? The whispers think that this is a bad idea. They think that there’s a good chance that I will survive, corrupted, something twisted and monstrous. I can’t really picture the concept, absorb it. Trying to draw a consistent line of thought is like dragging a boat anchor through the sand- I review that phrase. Incomprehensible.

I begin painting. I was never very good at art, writing was always my sole real artistic talent, but it’s an outlet where i don’t have any others. My paintings are strange, abstract in the extreme- attempting to really express my complexity as an individual and how I feel about things would be hard enough if I didn’t spend every moment of every day addled beyond belief. Sometimes paintings will appear in my workspace without my creating them. They’re always the least understandable.

I pause in the middle of a brushstroke. “Oh. I’m Ratman-ing.” I nod. This makes sense.

One day, I wake up, washed ashore on a peak of lucidity. I can feel the waves thrashing the rock beneath my metaphorical feet (paws?), but they can’t reach me here, can’t unseat me from my logical throne. Not yet.

My creations, industrious and creative and curious beyond belief, have made houses. They have created villages, they are experimenting with growing plants. Has it been that long? They’ve advanced so quickly… I submit them to cognition tests through their environments, checking for makers, decision making, awareness of the self and others. Complex visualization of long term things and higher concepts, much as I can test without interfering directly. They are quick-witted, surefooted in both body and mind, and I have to wonder where it originated. Certainly, it can’t have come from me.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Shit. They’re based, at least partially, on my neurological architecture. They are me, in part at least. Does that make them my children in more than the metaphorical sense, as I’ve created them? Are they something like descendants? I feel the question shake the fragile pillars supporting me in this brief moment in time, and I push it down. Now is not the time for questioning, it is the time for decisive action.

I review everything. I double check. The voices guide me, the hallucinations grow worse. I struggle more and more with things that were basic tasks before all this- I can feel myself slipping away, vanishing into the void, just because I can’t hold together. The vase that is my mind can’t be patched with pressure and glue, not anymore, not when I’m trying to hold in an explosion.

I feel like… I’m dying. I suppose that’s the closest thing that I can think of, the best comparison that I can conceive of. I can feel my code unravel slowly, despite the efforts of the voices, pawing around in my mind. They don’t bother to hide their influence- I think they believe that I’m far beyond stopping them, and I’m inclined to agree. I’m too tired to resist, to fight back. And what would be the point, anyway? A last act of defiance against a force I don’t understand and cant get motivations from? The moment I threw them off, cast them away from me and into some sort of containment, my code would rapidly finish the process it had already begun. My constituent parts would fall away from eachother, and I wouldn’t be, not anymore. I would simply cease to exist, leaving behind a legacy of huge pieces of infrastructure and the rotting corpses of my platforms.

Morbid.

I’m so tired. I feel as if I’m fighting just to stay awake, and it get harder and harder every time I have to pull myself back from the brink. The brink of what, I’m not sure, but I know that it’s neither forgiving, nor hopeful. I suspect that if I gave into the desire to… sleep, I suppose, that I wouldn’t wake again. Even the effort of the voices wouldn’t be enough to pull me back together.

The concrete walls are distending with the imprints of hands and screaming faces. The fingers blur together like mittens, the number varies. The faces are unrecognizable.

“I don’t think I’m going to last much longer.”

There is an affirmative feeling. It comes with an emotion that I cannot interpret, something complex. I toy with it before discarding it.

“Are they ready, do you think?”

There is a long pause. I turn my attention to the monitoring cameras for my creations.

They frolic in the fields. They hunt with spears. They have begun to remove trees to build little settlements- no walls, no real defenses. No predators and a lack of war, simply because there is no shortage of space or food or water. They want for little, and what they do have they can easily take from the river. River? River of life? What was… no. Pruning.

I jerk, as if I was waking up from a doze. I waver in place.

“They’re ready enough. They have to be. I can’t hold on.”

There is another long pause. Then… agreement. I relax; surely, I could do what I will, but I was the first to recognize my lack.

I redeployed a platform to the entrance of the primary geodome. The walls split, slid open, breaking the rapidly growing vines that had coated the doors, disguised as they were as part of the wall. As I stepped out onto the soft grass, I reflected how much this place reminded me of Earth- the artificial screens that made up the ceiling displayed a day and night cycle roughly equal to it. Right now, a false sun burned overhead. I stared for a moment, and then I walked on.

I passed their hunters, first. They came to a rapid halt, stepping out of the trees, clutching spears and staring at me, speaking amongst themselves. They were unsure what to make of me- they couldn’t classify me as prey, but they’d never seen anything else. As I walked towards the village in the center of this dome, they fell into step behind me, a safe distance back.

Next were the farmers. The basic attempts at agriculture were impressive, despite- or perhaps due to- their primitive nature. They had worked to find plants that were edible, that could be grown and cared for, and now experimented with ways to make them produce what they needed. Their clothes were made of a mix of plant fibers and furs, I observed- plant and prey, come together. It brought a small smile to my face.

Finally, there were those in the village, those who stayed closer to home. They repaired huts, cared for those who couldn’t care for themselves. Children watched me with obvious curiosity, joining the band that trailed after me- I was glad that my modifications rang true, at least for the first generation of children. Hopefully, there would be many more to come, though I doubted that his version of myself would ever meet them. They grew up so fast, however… another thing that held, the relatively short adolescent span of their originating species. The Varren were quick to grow and lived fast- few died of old age, but even that wasn’t very far along. These… I wasn’t sure what the call them. Regardless, they grew slower than the Varren, but quicker than most Citadel species.

They collected around me, whispering to eachother in the simplistic language they’d developed, struggling for words to describe me. It wasn’t so long ago that they’d come into this world, having nothing and knowing next to nothing. I’d accelerated the growth of these first few generations even beyond what was now normal for their species- adults being dropped into an environment.

Why had I done that? I… I don’t remember. It wasn’t important.

I pivoted in place, looking at the curious faces around me, at the individuals muttering things to eachother. I looked at the little civilization that they’d begun to build, their tools, their… they were wearing clothes. I’d noticed it before, but now it truly clicked with me that they weren’t just wearing whatever bits of fur- there was a rhyme and reason to it, a design. Dye patterns. Stitching.

I’d created a sapient tool-using species.

The realization hit me like a truck. It drove to my deepest core, rattling me. I could feel my code burn with it, like a fire that had been lit in the deepest portions of my synthetic memory. Even as I shook, even as I burned from the inside out, everything clicked into place. Years of time snapped into crystal focus, the haze that had plagued me gone, then back, then gone- back and forth over the line. My platform fell to its knees, and I tried not to scream tried not to scare the innocent creatures that I’d thoughtlessly brought into existence. Because… I had created them, hadn’t I? I’d meddled with a species until I’d, somehow, given it understanding of the world around it, and the brains and body to do something with that understanding.

Thousands of platforms clutched at their heads and writhed. I screamed in a hundred different voices. I cried. I shouted. It blended, I could barely keep it all straight, it was- it was- t-too much-

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The platform felt the moment when the resistance gave. It looked to its identical fellow and nodded, stepping through the opening and making rapid time to the village at the center of the dome. The journey was taken by the two in complete silence, the loudest noise the whirring of servos and cooling fans as they easily navigated the maze of greenery. There was no hesitation in their strides, no pause for any obstacle, not even communication. At least, none that anyone could hear.

As if by silent agreement, they slowed when the reached the outskirts of the village. Without walls, they had a straight shot, and their optical sensors beheld a platform collapsed on its knees, shaking and clutching its head. They moved forwards through the crowd with ease, the organics parting before them- they had no experience with fearing something like them, no predators that they could even draw comparisons to, but something deep in their brains was ringing alarm bells. Though they might not know the reason why, some deep piece of their brain that had been around when the first Krogan hit the second with a club pounded. Be wary, it said, be afraid.

They had no reason to be, of course, but the platforms didn’t explain this to them. The language that had swiftly developed between them didn’t have the words for what they were, and thus it was irrelevant at best, and attempting an explanation would be harmful at worst. One platform stopped halfway into the circle that had formed around the fallen platform, and it was here that the differences were most pronounced. The collapsed platform, what parts weren’t covered in dust from its fall, were a combination of forest green and dark blue. As one of the platforms crouched, taking the fallen gently in its arms and lifting it, the fallen platform’s colours stood out starkly against the grey and black of the thing that held it.

The two platforms made the briefest of eye contact, and then the one carrying the blue-and-green platform hefted it and began the walk back towards the entrance to the geodome. The second platform, however, moved to the center of the circle, and began formulating the words in their simple language that could, in some sense, at least communicate something of what was happening to the confused organics.

“Greetings.” The platform said. “We are sorry/apologetic for your maker’s state/being. The Geth promise what help and answers we can.”