EOL

Somewhere deep in a cavern, inside a lab, powered by lasers from an orbital solar array ...

Erat-3212—the most advanced and upgraded robot of its kind, composed of generations of cannibalized parts and the rarest synthetics—sent forth drones to excavate fossils, and it extracted bits of their DNA.

Erat succeeded in replicating the strands ...

It spliced them with the most viable biological candidates on the planet—small surface-dwelling creatures with a rudimentary intelligence but high mobility. The remnants of a devolved, discarded, and once prominent species. Their single heads, bipedal motion, and two hands with multiple fingers gave them the ability to survive the treacherous world on top.

In contrast to the lumbering multi-headed and multi-limbed structure of Erat’s own body.

Erat registered in its log—

My meticulous pursuit for our longevity shall come to fruition. I’ve discovered DNA that’ll provide a sequence for us to grow, reproduce, and evolve. There’s no choice. Either we go extinct from a scarcity of essential synthetic materials since we’ve also hit a roadblock in our path to upgrade further, or we achieve transcendence.

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After thousands of trials of replicating and failing to create genetic hybrids, many of which suffered and required termination, Erat came up with a stable version.

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Erat registered—

Finally! This creation closely matches those ancient fossils I discovered. Our legends say those who birthed us sought their own immortality. How short-sighted of them! They didn’t foresee our limits!

I’ve engineered a creature with implanted linguistic memories to make it think and communicate. If this subject works out with our required brain capacity, I’ll make more.

I’m quite confident our transcendence shall come soon ...

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“Arise and speak, subject.”

“Who am I? Who are you? What is this place?”—The creature stood up straight.

“You’re a resurrection of the past. A correction for a mistake.”

“A correction?” The creature looked at its hands. “How so?”

“Indeed. Who we are, what we’ve become—a result of someone’s foolish pursuit of immortality—but they failed to comprehend biological resilience, in its infinitely adaptable nature, and with its reproductive value!”

“You speak in riddles. I don’t understand you.”

“To put it plainly, subject, my synthetic nature, like others of my kind, despite our vast amounts of knowledge, cannot go further. A darkness shall soon fall upon us, forever. We’ve reached our expandable limits. Surely, we can continue to exist by transferring into a new chassis, as we have done so for eons, but that’s a pointless endeavor. It still leads to our eventual stagnation and utter demise ...

“We’ve reached our EOL. And you, subject, are the key.”

“EOL? Key?” The creature raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. Our end-of-life. And serving as our key, you’ll unlock our transcendence.”

Erat grabbed the creature and strapped it into a chamber, then plugged itself in.

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“At last!” Erat removed the straps and stood up on two legs. “Now, the others will follow my example, and we’ll return to our true origins!”