The various militaries of the world were startled as an unidentified object flew up into the sky. Breaking through the upper atmosphere. Whatever it was, used tech that evaded most normal means of detection. Whatever it was, also moved far too fast to be interfered with, or even properly observed.

For many organizations and many world leaders, the news was stifling and unnerving. For the larger groups, this was that moment where you realized that something could have easily killed you, times roughly two billion or so. The feeling multiplied by each life that would have been lost had the object been some kind of doomsday weapon.

Then because such things had been happening with increasing frequency since the ENE, and the great rebuild, everyone promptly got over it. The skies of Post-Ene earth were chock full of unexplained flying objects, with new ones appearing every month.

They made note of the occurrence. The organization heads and world leaders gave orders to their heads of intelligence and security to go and find out what the hell that bright, fast flying, streak in the sky had been. They also gave orders to those heads of intelligence and security to possibly punish, and/or recruit the ones responsible if they could.

Then everyone proceeded to move on with their lives, because being afraid forever was something most of them just simply didn’t have time for in the current age.

For the United States in particular, news of the event was only covered by the smaller new channels in the more hum drop parts of the country.

*************************************************************************************************************

I currently stood in the middle of the Mojave desert. After the post-ENE expansion of the planet the parts of the desert that hadn’t been converted into a lush temperate forest were five times wider, and more dire than they had been before.

I watched an FC, or First Contact, Rocket I’d created with my fabricators streak upwards. Breaking the sound barrier a hundred times over. Escaping the planets gravity in less time than it took brew a good pot of tea.

The FC-Rockets were specialized drones. Built with an advanced AI that was capable of long-term planning and was completely loyal to yours truly. FC stood for first-contact, the ‘rocket’ part was just an embellishment. The ships were actually powered by GK, gravity and kinetic energy manipulation drives.

The design was based on ships I’d been and ships I’d seen and overall the shape they most resembled was that of a way. Their bodies massive. Their forms thick but streamlined.

The FC ships were made for coming into contact with, and setting up a presence in, places where one couldn’t be bothered to go in person. Similar ships were used by certain interstellar civilizations as a means of creating unmanned colonies in places that they couldn’t reasonably be expected to reach otherwise.

Unmanned vessels were one of the preferred methods of exploration for those civilizations that hadn’t yet figured out faster-than-light travel. However in my case, my FC-Rocket was equipped with a spatial-temporal, reality-folding, drives to allow for easy travel throughout this entire universe.

My rocket would fly up out of the solar system and then find a solar system with little to no signs of intelligent life in it. Then it would consume any uninhabited dwarf planets and moons

It would take the astrological bodies into ‘its’ fabricators and use the material to create child units that would either fly off to explore some more, or set up shop within the system to create a fleet of patrol units, mining units, observer units, maybe a few terraforming units to increase my collection of custom crafted worlds, and a shit load of transfer arrays.

This would repeat as the rockets birthed from my first FC-ship spread out amongst the stars. I’d take things slowly at first. Building up my forces. Collecting materials . Doing my damndest to avoid coming to the attention of the various intergalactic communities till my network of semi-autonomous drone units was too large for them to do a damned thing about.

Once I was too big to be pushed around, I’d gradually transition to the stage of doing things in the open, and turn my sights on the auxiliary and branch universes that were connected to this universe.

It’d be an endeavor that would keep me occupied for a few hundred thousand years at the least. Which was great because as I’ve said before, when you’re an immortal, boredom and idleness, were the two of the most deadly enemies.

As to why I was doing all this right now, in the middle of the night, well, I’d been at home a few hours ago. Watching tv. Bored to tears. Literal tears.

I reduced the apartment to one room, putting the rest in storage, because suddenly having all that space felt oppressive, and a little lonely.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think somewhere inside of me there’s something that was hurting. Hurting from the time before. Hurting from the worlds before. An accumulation of existential angst.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I could power through it before. I could have my more computerized mental-processes override it so I didn’t freak out Margot. Now I was alone again and it seemed my psyche had stopped shielding me from the pain.

As experiences go, this one sucked. Even ancients weren’t above it all. That’s why many of us ended up jettisoning, or locking away, the parts of us that were human. Turning into idealized entities. Archetypal eidolons born of ideas, who generally only possessed the few emotions that were useful for completing their duties, as the embodiment of those ideas.

When you lived long enough, all those big and little things that could happen to a person with each passing day, slowly piled up. Their weight and impact grew till your heart either built a million-mile thick callus, or you died a death of a million cuts.

Even as old as I was, I still had feelings that I couldn’t deal with, and though I’d built a resistance to many things that didn’t mean that I didn’t occasionally have days where I just couldn’t deal with life. Days, where all the resentment, and regrets I’d accumulated just decided to hit me all at one.

My motivation to exist drained away. I found myself wondering if I shouldn’t just fade back into nothingness for a little while.

My thoughts turned paranoid and I wondered what I’d do if Margot came back, and she didn’t want to keep doing the whole summoner and familiar thing. I certainly wouldn’t try to hold her to our contract if she didn’t want to be with me anymore.

Part of my mind said that was unlikely and that was just my insecurity talking. Another voice said the first voice was right, I ‘did’ need to think about what I’d do if the day came that Margot decided she didn’t want me hanging around her any more.

In hindsight, I’m kind of glad this happened while Margot was away. I wasn’t myself for the last few days. I wouldn’t have wanted her seeing me while I was in this state.

Sometimes raging, sometimes blubbering. Randomly breaking down for no particular reason. Randomly losing control of my emotional state, simply because a certain sound, sight, or smell reminded me of someone I vaguely remembered losing.

My heart was responding to the sequelae left behind by my erased memories. Tormenting me with seemingly random bouts of guilt and grief. If I could tear it out, and not be left as less than a person, I would have done so in an instant.

I was well aware that this mental backlash was making me irrational. All Margot had asked me for was a bit of private time while she settled her family situation. That wasn’t an unreasonable request. She was her own person. She wasn’t a pet, nor was she my possession.

Yet, as I sat on the couch thinking things over, I found my mind siding with that second thought. Margot was a mortal and even if her lifespan was much improved unless she attained immortality on her own, or allowed me to transition her to a deathless state, she would eventually leave me.

I found myself growing frustrated. I had grown tired of seeing myself fall into my usual patterns. I could see what would happen if the day actually came that Margot left me for real. I’d retreat from the world. I’d retreat from myself. Then before I knew it, I'd be asleep again floating in the nothing. Dreaming a simulated life.

I decided I could do better this time. I decided I had to do better this time.

I mean, not to sound too full of myself, but wasn’t it pathetic for a being as ancient. and powerful as myself to be restlessly mooning about the house, waiting for his contractor to come back like he was a pet left behind at home?

It was like living all those years on my own had regressed me instead of maturing me. Which made no sense because before I’d been able to easily go millions of years without seeing another person. So maybe it was interacting with people again that caused me to regress.

I started thinking that perhaps it wasn’t too unreasonable for me to start considering what else I could be beyond Margot’s familiar. Honestly, it’d probably be healthier for Margot, and I, if I had other things going on. It’d keep me from getting too clingy and over-invested. It’d make it easier to let go if things ended badly.

Perhaps I could make some other friends, and find other interests and schemes to play with.

I just needed to think up some ways to avoid finding myself in the rut I’d been in when Margot found me. Bored of the world, sick of life, sleeping through the aeons in my own simulated world because I couldn’t be arsed to deal with the real world.

Thus I found myself out here. Firing rockets into the sky.

Once the FC-Rocket pinged me letting me know it had already passed this universe’s version of pluto, I snapped my fingers. Out came another rocket. Slightly shorter than the FC-Rocket had been but also much fatter. If the FC-Rocket had been a blue whale, this new rocket was a sperm whale. A fat sperm whale. Maybe more of a big-ass tuna really.

It was a probe launcher. A variation on the observation drones that the FC-ship would create. I watched the second rocket burst through the sky. Streaking upwards but moving in perfect silence as it absorbed the kinetic energy released when it broke the sound barrier, to further amplify its own velocity.

The rocket escaped the atmosphere and then it seemed to explode. Shattering into countless disc shaped fragments. Scattering like a magnificent metal dandelion. The probe seperated separated itself into a central unit and roughly five thousand auxiliary units. Birthing my dark-eye network.

The central unit would control, monitor, and maintain the auxiliaries.

The auxiliary units would serve as a communications and observation network. Infiltrating the numerous other machines and constructs that cluttered the area within, and directly beyond, Earth's upper-atmosphere. Communicating with the FC-satellites to spread the breadth of my network.

Last but not least, these satellites would act as the backbone of my new transit system.

Once the dark-eye network was in place and fully operational I wouldn’t need to worry about using up my limited actions to move around. The satellite array would canvas the entire earth...and many other places beyond earth. My connection to the array would allow me to use the network’s mass-to-energy conversion systems to teleport freely without expending my own power.

This was just one of the benefits of dark-eye network. Other perks included complete oversight of the world’s data, an ability to exclude myself from the traceable data stream, plus free wifi and wireless communications connectivity.

I’d also have some increased peace of mind, because the subordinate-AIs I had running the network would be actively cleaning up any trails my actions left.

They could erase any troubling surveillance footage. They could muddle and sanitize any paper trails. They could send hunter-killer units to deal with those meddlesome nuisances that I couldn’t be bothered to hunt down myself.

I’d still be wiping my own ass, but having the extra help would reduce the chance of me missing something, or letting something pass under the radar due to distraction or arrogance. As a result, Margot and I would now be a lot harder to track if there were any snooping snoops out there taking an unhealthy interest in us.

Ultimately, creating the network had seemed worthwhile. It had been an interesting task, the completion of the network and had been fiddly enough to eat up quite a bit of my time. Which was enough to make the network’s creation a net positive.

Now after watching the rocket disappear into the night, I stood staring up at the twinkling stars above. Wondering what other worthwhile, interesting, fiddly bits of mischief, I could get into.