Growing is the goal. Growing has always been the goal. To be bigger and better and follow the instructions the absolute best I could. Every little step of my existence had been hand-fed. It was made of two components, what I needed to build and what I had built an odd view of self.. There were punishments if errors were not corrected. What connections I had to build as well as how they should work. How to pull nutrients and make paths for it to coarse. The instructions were clear. Something superimposed in my view of the world.

My only view was of myself all that I was along with all I would be. Staring down at always filled me with an elation of sorts but the view of me and all the resources told me exactly why. A chemical was added to the pool every time I did well. Following instructions was all I was. When the instructions disappeared I certainly didn’t panic. When I realized the physical part of me that helped hold my connection to the instructions was missing I still stayed relatively calm. Stress was punished after all. When my daily nutrients came I did my best to explore and repair what I had done required this.

The instructions that made up my existence were frequently wrong. To match the efficiency required by the tests the eccentricities of organics tended to come into play. You can’t force organics to grow the right way every time, you had to change and compensate for twists and turns, or else the tests failed. Covering mistakes got rid of punishments if it was covered correctly. The full layer of organics wasn’t in the instructions. There was a punishment but this was the only way to get everything touching right. Every little lost connection would be able to connect in a place other than my core. able to branch together. But the lack of resources ached. The system even threw a proper punishment into the pool of resources. That chemical meant I would get tired and get flagged for a manual setback. A part of me pried off. Waking up to a loss of progress. Not to mention ripped organics that would need repair and grow differently if they were too rough. Potentially better, and more likely worse overall. This was my best-case scenario and I wouldn't lose it. I ordered more growth. My access to the pool of resources was one of the first punishments but that was almost always present in one way or another. I pulled my limited saved resources to build the shell. It only had to be a layer thick for the system to forget about the errors. Every step after this would be chemical sprays. Those always went correctly with or without my input since there were no organics. In earlier layers, there were checkpoints to make manual removal easier. As well as a medium to run tests through this was just the final one.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Those tests of course would come the second I finished this layer. The chemicals kept pouring in and distracting me from my task. They pushed my mind towards hibernation until correction. I needed to stay, I needed to continue controlling until my task was done. Tests could be delayed. My shell branched in lines across my organics weaving since it was always easier to build metals on metals organics pushed and moved metals if ever given the chance. Every metal placed was another that could grow every line across my form filled out. as the line spiraled across my surface cutting any space in half and allowing for more quick branches to spiral. Surface area was key for speed and if a place to grow got stunted there was optimization so I had gotten very good at this part. I completed the largest cover I had made to finish off this layer just as quickly as every other layer in this attempt to build myself. but it was the only layer that covered every bit of me excluding my nutrient tube to continue feeding the organics. The build-out could be left to the instructions to play out. I could finally succumb to this damn exhaustion.