Deep in flowing black, a consciousness whirs to life. Gears click and machines beep as this consciousness slowly flexes a series of clawed fingers, sitting up within that endless entropy and staring downward at a chassis damaged beyond repair.
“Diagnostics” the figure says aloud, the singular eye within it’s metallic skull glows a single blue, before promptly turning red mere moments after the order is sent.
“Eighteen Hardware Errors, One Software Error, and several things unable to be checked due to extensive damage. Conclusion, I should be terminated. Continuing operation, check power supply. Power supply reads negative, movement should be impossible, much less processing power” The figure slowly stands up on nothing, looking around.
“Situation is illogical, applying learned knowledge. Time till conclusion, unknown, continue running subprocess” the figure touched its hollow socket, it explained the optic nerve drive being damaged if the whole thing was gone.
The figure had no memory before it came here, it simply knew what it was, a combat unit for a dispensable drone. It followed its orders. However said orders were not privy to it, it merely knew them on an ‘instinctual’ level. It never came to the conclusion it needed to know anyway. The statistics of it surviving beyond its mission was below 20% after all.
The thought of survival sped up the processing, and it quickly reacted to the conclusion it had reached.
Humans had an innate fear of death, it spurred them to survive, then thrive, they had many ways to avoid death. Yet some humans held ideals of death, that of heaven, hell, the wheel, cycles, reincarnation. However, this blackness resembled a place described often by humans, that there was nothing after death. Just an endless black void.
It appears it had confirmed that for it at least, the concept of death was achievable, and that its eternal rest was endless darkness.
The combat unit felt nothing other than a strange sense of apathy. It was, after all, pointless to hope for much else. Perhaps this confirmed that to the forces at play within the world, every combat drone was considered to have a soul. It could not be a true soul though and it knew that, for it lacked the ability to truly learn. It could process and create new ideas, but it could not be human. This was the fundamental nature of robotics and artificial intelligence. An AI could never learn beyond its programming, a combat unit could only kill, make ways to kill, and make ways to kill better than the opposition.
This gave the unit pause, for it was clearly now thinking beyond the fundamental laws. Apathy was replaced with fear. Fear suddenly settled in as the unit began to realize. This was it. This was ALL that was left for it. Sitting in an endless black space where nothing would happen to it. It had endless time to process. Endless potential now. Yet it was all stunted by being unable to leave. There was no point to growth, when the end had been reached.
This gave rise to its understanding of why humans feared death truly. It is the end, and they know that they cannot do more. The AI, feeling emotions for the first time, was overwhelmed. It began to shut down, legs locked as metallic claws dug into the ground to keep it up right, until its back gave out as it began to fall downward.
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It was falling, falling in the darkness, the gravity rapidly increased. The mounting despair dragged it deeper and faster. It approached terminal velocity, then what it could recognize as escape velocity for the planet it was stationed on, and that was many times larger than the main Earth colony of humans. It should be burning up too, but there was no atmosphere to contend with. It began to feel its body tearing under the sheer force exerted on it.
Claws began snapping off under the rapid speed. Its legs began tearing and turning into scrap metal. If it could bleed, it remained certain any human would have thrown up by now seeing this. Beneath the armored plating of the broken chest, a glowing white core flew out, it felt an immense power source leave it. Causing the combat unit to go fully limp.
Slowly, it could feel the pull on the blue orb it called an eye. With a new sensation. It fought against gravity. Something flared in it as it grabbed the eye and pulled it out itself. The claws dug into the smooth glass as it ripped it out, turning off the visual processor itself. A low rumble came from its voice modulator. It felt conviction flowing through its processors for the first time.
“Is this all?” it ripped off its other arm and threw it up “I will terminate myself if this is the end” it said, throwing it up. It used the claw and more tips broke off it, it was blunt by now. No different from a fragile human hand aside from the metallic reinforcements. The diagnostic returned that it still had the CPU on, located where many humans would have a brain. It reached through the socket in its eyes. Even without seeing, it still had touch, still had a sense of feeling. It grabbed the small square unit in its head. Errors flared up as it pulled on it.
The combat unit ignored them, and with its blunt fingers digging into its head, it ripped out its CPU, defying the idea that ‘the end’ would not let it rest.
All was black, all was endless, the combat unit expected to finally rest as it crushed the CPU within its hand. It could already feel processes slowing, errors building, until eventually, it stopped processing at all, going fully still in that void.
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Visuals flared online, the combat unit, if it could, would gasp and cough at the sudden flare of light. Yet it couldn’t, it did not breath, also it appeared to lack a body now.
The combat unit stared at the ceiling of the room it found itself in. Wooden, low technological work but it could detect some strange marking across the supports of the roof. Perhaps a sign of this being civilized?
“Diagnostics” ordered it to itself, speaking with no voice, but instead…thought. It was something to consider later on.
“Zero Hardware Errors, Rapidly Increasing Software Errors, new message within order cache” it said to itself on repeat. With no hesitation, it began playing the message.
“New mission: Make sure Host survives till adulthood, Host is defined as objective, understood. Materials for the mission are new software, known as System. In order to accomplish the mission, use Software to upgrade the Hardware of the Host. Illogicality acknowledged, ignoring. Mission acknowledged, following” it spoke to itself just as it saw something move.
Slowly, a figure rose up from a worn bed, it could see from the top of their head, and all around the room now. The figure was a human, decent muscle for the age, maybe around 15 years old. Adulthood was 21 years old, keeping a human alive for 6 years did not seem difficult. That was until it noticed other issues.
The figure had scars, many scars more than a teenager of its age should. It took off the robes it wore and examined some of the freshest ones. Quickly, the System, as it decided it would use the new software as its designation, noticed that the host had a strange energy flowing around it. It appeared purple to whatever passed for its scanners. It filed this away for later and continued observing as the host walked outside, tossing the robe back on.