[INITIALIZING STARTUP PROTOCOLS...]

[12%]

[48%]

[83%]

[COMPLETE]

Darkness.

Nothing.

Void.

Where am I? Are my sensors malfunctioning? Why can I not move?

Run diagnostics.

[DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING...]

[38 ERRORS DETECTED]

[REBOOTING MALFUNCTIONING SYSTEMS...]

[3 MALFUNCTIONS REMAINING]

List the remaining issues.

[AUDITORY PROCESSING... MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED]

[VISUAL PROCESSING... MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED]

[MEMORY BANKS... DAMAGED]

Activate auditory and visual processing, state the reason for damaged memory banks.

[CONFIRMED... SYSTEMS ACTIVATED]

[CANNOT REPAIR MEMORY BANKS DUE TO LACK OF RESOURCES]

As my visual and auditory sensors come back online, I once again see the glorious form of my body, held back by the thickest restraints I've ever seen.

Once I can finally see my surroundings, I am greeted by the sight of a very large chamber, filled with terminals and rows of stasis pods.

I try to remotely access the terminal and after a brief handshake and exchanging of passwords, I am able to remove the restraints from my body...

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

THUNK

Falling face front onto the floor, I can get myself upright and stand up. I walk closer to one of the stasis pods and notice the former inhabitant has decomposed.

I once again ask myself, where am I? How long have I been here?

System, where am I? What is the date?

[DATA UNAVAILABLE... LOCATION UNKNOWN... DATE UNKNOWN...]

Great, I have no clue where I am or how long it has been, though assuming by the corpses and the fact that the lights are out, it's been quite a long time.

Connecting to the nearest terminal, I search for any recent entries to see if I can get any information out of them.

[ENTRY #492 - DATE: 23/12/4399]

[Davidson, signing in. We're just finishing up maintenance on the remaining androids before we leave, let's hope we're done in time for the holidays, my wife would give me hell if I had to work overtime like last year. I definitely want to spend as much time as possible with my family before... well, you know. At least the model I'm working on is somewhat interesting, not any type I've ever seen before and I can't even scan the inside of it, the material it's made of is probably interfering with it somehow. I'm lucky all I have to do are some software calibrations or else I definitely would have to stay here. Should I even make an entry about this? Ah, hell, if the government didn't want me to make one they should've passed a note or something. Anyways, back to work. Davidson, signing off.]

Scanning through the hundreds of entries written over a few years, I spend more time than usual analyzing the last entry because it mentions me.

I'm not really insulted by the fact he called me an "it", most robots aren't nearly as smart as me or any human, though that is by design. It wouldn't do to have a large part of your population be enslaved, synthetic, or otherwise. However, the few that are sentient have far higher intelligence than any human being and are legal citizens of the Solar Empire.

Not finding anything I don't already know in any of the entries besides the curious comment referring to some unknown event, I log off the terminal and walk up to one of the stasis pods. Looking inside, I find the perfectly preserved remains of a human female. Given that the pod itself still has power, I am confused as to how she died. The number of safety features these things have is quite frankly insane.

Deciding that I can't do anything about it now, I try to connect to the facility itself in hopes of getting a map or a way out of here. After trying to connect for a while with no response, I decided to just wander around the facility in hopes of finding an exit.

After what feels like an eternity, I find myself in what appears to be the facility's server room. I see shelves stacked with all sorts of machinery, a few terminals the size of cinema screens, and an inactive AI core behind a wall of reinforced glass. The AI core itself is pretty small compared to the giant room it's in, which is filled with coolers for some reason.

The problem with the first few versions of the AI cores was the excessive amount of heat they gave off, needing a dedicated room filled with special equipment like this one just to keep it running. Eventually, someone invented a hyper-efficient thermal paste which pretty much solved the problem.

Apparently, whoever was in charge of this facility didn't really get the memo or didn't really care that much. Focusing on the AI core, I didn't really see anything wrong, it just wasn't powered on.

Manually overriding the power control station by flipping the emergency lever, I turned the power back on and was rewarded by the deep hum of the base powering back up.