So, it turns out that sleeping as an AI is much different than sleeping as a flesh-and-blood mortal. And the reason I say that is because of the dreaming. Or rather, both the lack thereof and of the absolute lucid nature of it.

It’s kind of hard to explain. Hmm. Okay, so I didn’t really dream, just as I didn’t sleep. I was technically awake the entire time. Yet not. Damn, how to explain this?

Okay, so it was like the ‘thinking’ part of my brain was shut off. I was still conscious, thus awake, but I wasn’t doing anything. Letting my background brain or subconsciousness or something do all the work. Yeah, I think that’s a good explanation.

Which also explains both having dreams and not at the same time. Cause I was aware of everything, yet turned off and thus not seeing anything. Complicated, I know. But interesting, at least.

Which is a good thing, given I just spent some thirteen hours doing nothing. Just standing there. All the little bits ticking away inside of me don’t count.

Now that I’m awake though, it’s time to do something! And of course that something is looking over my new three, utterly pristine drones. They look fabulous~ Heh heh.

Well, the two rover drones do in any case. Basically sleds with four independent treads instead of wheels and two agile manipulator arms on top, the rover drones have a low clearance that make them very stable. Thus they can carry stuff. Like parts. Or me.

The excavator drone on the other hand is in pieces. Three pieces, to be exact. Three long, rumpled-like pieces. Put together, the thing looks like a worm or something. It uses its own body to move around instead of limbs or wheels. Useful when underground and surrounded by solid rock. Outside of it? Just plain awkward.

Still, no time like the present to assemble the darn thing. Starting the work takes all but a thought on my part, causing the rover drones to start up with a whirl of electronics coming online. With hardy rubber treads rumbling across the drop pods’ launch pad, the arms start to move as they pick up the pieces to assemble.

Sticking the three segments together is the easy part, but the real reason the rover drones are needed is because of the internal components of the excavator drone. Those have to be connected properly and aligned in order to function right. Made even worse due to the combination of low-tech and hi-tech all bundled together in the worm-like drone.

The low tech portion is just about the whole thing. Motors and gears and actuators that control its freely movable body. The high tech parts though come in the form of its head. Or rather, the mouth. Using ultrasonic soundwaves to ‘eat’ through rock and ores and other stuff found underground then compress the resulting dust into blocks to be fed into the nano furnace. In a biological sense, all the drone does is eat and poop.

Then I get to eat it all over again, joy! Or not. Whatever. Thankfully it isn’t a living thing. If it was, that disturbing image would probably never leave me for the rest of my life.

Still, it takes some thirty minutes for the excavator drone to finally get put together. A remote systems check shows all green, so I start it up. Which is just as disturbing as you might think it is, because it really does worm around.

It rolls over, it flops, then it arches up and looks around with its flat and gaping mouth. Just the visuals of it doing so would freak out anyone who wasn’t into bugs. It is entirely too lifelike. And at four and a half feet long and almost two feet tall, it is a big and fat worm.

Okay, so maybe I took a little peek at the coding that went into the thing, only to quickly turn my gaze away. Nearly three quarters of a million lines of code. Ugh. I can see why it appears to be so damned life-like.

Still, with everything good to go I can finally start. Expanding the range of my focus, I look toward the north and designate a hollow area within the mountain wall to be dug out. That sets a ping on the grid-based local area map that came as part of the excavator’s programming.

Getting the worm-like drone there by itself would take a while though, but in this case I assign the two rover drones to pick it up. Ten minutes later they drop it into place and it goes to work. Work that I find surprisingly interesting even though I cannot ‘see’ it.

Sure, the sensor array comes with high-definition telescoping cameras, but that hollow is under a hilly rise. So I can only watch it through the other sensors I can point that way. Which includes a shimmering area of ultrasonic sound waves blasting the rock wall into dust that’s quickly sucked up into the drones’ body.

Really, really different than seeing it with my eyes. And nearly soundless, at that. Once the sound waves leave the area right in front of the excavator drones’ mouth, they weaken quickly and are thus absorbed into the surrounding rock. There’s just a distant hum that I can pick up from the microphones.

However, my attention is soon brought back due to something unexpected, and entirely unwanted.

[User has increased power demands. 5pu per minute required. Current production is 2pu per minute. 27pu currently available.]

Oh damn. What the hell is this? I cast my mind out in trying to pinpoint the issue only to come up with something I did not expect.

A line of energy connecting me to all the drones. Which is absurd. The drones are supposed to return to the drone bays in order to recharge. There isn’t any way for me to send the energy wirelessly.

Yet that is exactly what is happening. Including the two rover drones and the excavator drone, which are quite a distance away. Feeling at the line, it’s connected directly to my batteries.

[26pu remaining.]

Well, shit. I have no way to explain the strange occurance, so I don’t even bother to try. Instead, I focus on trying to restrict the energy outflow. All the drones have their own batteries, after all. So they shouldn’t be drawing from me directly.

[24pu remaining.]

The seconds tick by as I focus, and if I were still human I’d be wiping the sweat off my brow. It’s like being on a deadline that’d leave me dead within a few minutes unless I fix this. That sort of pressure isn’t something a person usually comes across.

I also cannot afford to use Hyperfocus. It takes too much energy. So that’s left is for me to push my will to at it. Either to clog it up or to cut it off. Like trying to squeeze a water pipe with my mind in order to stem the flow.

‘Come on, restrict, restrict damn you!’ I cannot help but yell at myself. Yet my mental words seem to trigger the very reaction I was wanting. Even as I watch the ‘opening’ of those lines of energy start to tighten, being twisted in a way I strive to put to memory.

Then those power lines snap closed, and no more energy is allowed through them. I instantly feel like I somehow escaped a dangerous situation, which makes me want to sigh. But that also begs the question of why this is happening.

[User has unlocked the Energy Domain I ability!]

I quickly focus on the ability, wanting to know exactly what it is I’ve learned.

[Ability: Energy Domain, level I. All domain type abilities represent the will of the User to change their surrounding environments. Being non-living and non-magical in nature, the User’s domain is instead of the energy type, where everything considered part of the User is tied together in a web of energy. Higher levels will expand the range and efficiency of the Domain reducing the energy requirements. Current range: 1.5 mile radius.]

Really, really. I wish I had eyes, so they could twitch. Which results in my drone bay doors clanging up and shut in some weird mockery of biological inclination. But damnit all, I don’t need surprises like this!

Still, there’s nothing else I could do. It isn’t as if I had fists able to hit anything with. Or legs to kick something with. Or a skull to bang against something… I’m all out of options when it comes to any sort of way to express my displeasure.

Ugh. Okay, calm down me. I’d dropped to 19pu, but for the moment I don’t need to expend any more. Checking my fuel levels just makes me grumble, because I’m down to under 200 hours worth at the current rate. Two hundred hours may seem like a long time, but that number will drop dramatically if I have to build or move anything else.

In fact, I already have to. The excavator drone is already busying itself with tearing into the stone, digging out a passage tall and wide enough to get my body through. The rover drones are helping to push the extruded cubes out of the way, but I have to pull them back so they can come and get me. I’d really like to get out of the open quickly.

At the same time I have the hover scout drone start moving my resources toward my growing cave. That will take it a while, given how much is thrown about. Then it will have to come back to get recharged. It has the least power storage of any of the drones I have available.

Still, putting plans into action feel a whole lot better than sitting here stewing in my own impatience. A god sent, that. My only other option is to go back to sleep, ugh.

+|+|+

Mundane Universe;

Sol System;

U.T.M. HQ, New York City, Earth;

Sunday 26th, March, 2247;

11:32 UTC.

The chamber was a beehive of activity. Uniformed men and women walk at brisk paces, faces tight in purpose. And fear. In fact, there is more fear reflected into everyone’s eyes that one would think they were witnessing the end of the world. Perhaps they were.

A huge circular table sits in the center of the chamber. Surrounded by twelve equally spaced high-backed seats, the solemn air is even more tense there. Projected above the table in a massive hologram shows the latest real-time intelligence and visuals of a section of space.

A section of space which once had a complete solar system within it. An A-class star surrounded by rubble belts and proto-planets. A system full of resources within the boundaries of Terran Directorate space. A system that’s complete gone.

It wasn’t destroyed, as far as anyone can figure out. Instead it was swallowed up by the massive Breach. A gaping hole tunneled through Hyperspace itself. The best scientists actually think the star system was pulled through the Breach and into the other universe, although no one can confirm it.

All the same all that was left in its rake was the Breach itself, and the -things- that came out of it. Truly massive crystal spheres, seemingly mobile planets, and giant squiggling masses with no coherent shape. Things of fantasy and nightmares. And radiation. A god awful and increasing amounts of radiation.

A radiation that assimilates into any matter it comes into contact with. Changing the properties of that matter in unexpected ways. A field of radiation that is expanding in a spherical shape faster than the speed of light.

“The Directorate Senate is already in full session. We will be called in to testify in only a few minutes. Anyone have anything to share before then?” The one who speaks is an old, white haired man. Bone thin and almost sickly looking, the only lively part seems to be his eyes. Eyes that are as bright as torches and focused without any sign of his old age.

The other eleven at the table look at each other. Many of them are grimacing, not able to say anything at all. Others almost look like they want to cry. Several of them are wearing rumpled uniforms, unshaven and obviously sleep deprived. They’d gotten to Earth as fast they could from posts up to several dozen light years away.

“Whatever these creatures are, there seems to be two different groups of them, Grand Admiral.” Finally one of the men speak up, his tone nasal and almost repugnant. Especially when he said the word ‘creature’, as if he disdained anything and everything that wasn’t human.

“Thank you for that enlightening inside, Admiral Cumptor.” The Grand Admiral, that white haired old man, says with a gravely voice full of distaste. Everyone here knew of Cumptor’s extreme xenophobia, but no one says anything about it. Still, the observation was something they’d pointed out early on.

And it could very well be a good bit of information. Looking back at the hologram before him, the Grand Admiral couldn’t help but analyze the view himself. The crystal spheres and planet-like beings were grouped together, facing off against an equally sized group of monstrosities.

Sadly, there are no other data available. Every probe sent that direction ends up destroyed before they could transmit anything back. Even the probes that are cloaked or disguised are the same. In fact, many of them don’t even get past the ‘blast wave’ of radiation expanding out from the Breach. Those that do fall silent and aren’t heard from again.

The only information they have comes from long-range video and cameras. No longer able to look in that direction with hyperspace telescopes, all they can do is get every visual probe out there to record what they can. Probes that are constantly being forced back as the sphere of radiation expands. Which will soon start to experience bad lag due to speed of light limits. There is already no way for them to receive real-time images anymore.

“Sir, I’d suggest we tell the Senate to declare a state of emergency and prepare for war.” Another man finally speaks up, this time a youngster. Or has the appearance of a youngster barely into his teens. In truth this man had just come out of a rejuvenation treatment, and had yet to finish his accelerated growth phase. Being here now means he’s stuck in the body of an 11 or 12 year old until he ‘grows up’.

“You may be right, Admiral Cloan.” The Grand Admiral finally says after a moment's silence, pulling his gaze from the hologram to look at those men in front of him. “Send the order to mobilize the fleets, planetary guard and civilian militias. I’ll personally tell the Senate of our recommendation.”

+|+|+

Oh gods, I never thought I’d be so scared in my life.

Being moved while being unable to move is unbearable. Ugh. Not to mention I didn’t know that AI could get motion sick. Blag. Fuck. No good, no good. I’m losing some of my nanites.

Oooooohhh… Okay, I’m okay now. Fuck, that was decidedly uncomfortable. Being carried like a body bag by a pair of rovers who could drop me at any moment is scary as shit. And did I mention the motion sickness? Yeah, that’s bad.

I’m pretty sure I was never meant to be tipped on my side. Or rather, my human rationality was never meant to be carried around like some damned body bag. Or perhaps a coffin. Upside down, facing the ground. The rocky, bumpy, hilly ground. Shit.

Motion sickness never used to be a problem with me. I cannot claim that as a human I was overly athletic or anything, but I didn’t have any debilitating inability to travel, move, or stay on my feet for hours at a time. In fact that base level of physical fitness was all but required for an engineer. I was even trained in EVA operations, although I never had to put it into practice outside of the mandatory training segments.

This in turn is a totally new experience for me. My internals and sensors all have built-in levels and gyroscopic stabilizers. Yet they didn’t seem to work right while I was being moved. Blah.

In any case, I am happy to announce that I have reached my new home! Four hours of waiting and watching with baited breath, and I was finally able to move in. Hahaha.

Okay, so it’s really just a cave. A dark, dry, and small cave. But a cave nonetheless. Out of sight and hopefully out of mind for anyone who may come nosing along.

It’s only six feet inside the mountain, but it is the best I could do in so short a time. The excavator drone, which I’m really going to start calling the digger, has been really busy for me here. The entrance is only four feet tall though, which is why I had to be carried in on my side.

Thankfully the interior was opened up quite a bit. Had to have the digger stand on one of the rover drones in order to get it higher though. It can only stretch to just six feet in height, which is shorter than I am.

That said, it’s had to be recharged twice in those four hours. My Energy Domain was quite handy, cause I didn’t have to drag it back to me to recharge. But damn if it didn’t already cause a hit on my fuel levels. Ramping my reactor up to speed really ate through my resources in that regard.

However, my new home is very cosy. Eight and a half feet tall and some twenty feet in diameter. Big enough for all of my supplies to be stacked up neatly with a little room to spare. My rovers and the scout drone are already in the process of moving everything inside. Including the rock cubes discharged from the digger.

Still, that time was not completely wasted on my part. In fact, I’d been going through my template database. I found a couple of fun things in there, but that’s beside the point. The big hit was the design for a series of solar panels!

Highly efficient, moddable, and expanded solar panels. Which is good, cause I don’t want the things to be littered around for everyone to see. They’ll have to be cleverly placed, or in this case, disguised.

The disguise I came up with is a skirting that’s affixed to the ground that mirrors the rocks and other debris around the valley. The hard part was designing it out of a carbon and silicon mesh, since my supply of rubber is all too rare right now. Thankfully adding color and designs are easy enough. Kind of like spray painting, actually.

Sadly the size of solar panel I can produce right now is on the small side. Even made in pieces to be assembled, a 2 foot by 2 foot square is the best I can do. Wanting to add any more to the mix requires rarer trace elements which I do not want to use up right now. That, and I also have to produce cabling to go along with it. All of which has to be disguised or hidden.

Still, when the scout drone comes humming back inside while carrying a block of pure iron, I call it over to download what I need to start production. And make some new nanites, which is annoying. I didn’t know that machines could vomit. Ugh. Very annoying indeed!

Anyway, I send it off to work while checking on my status. Nothing has changed, but it still doesn’t seem real to me. Reality isn’t supposed to be a game, is it?

[User Profile:

Name: Unknown.

Age: Unknown.

Race: (AAI) Ascended Artificial Intelligence.

Racial Rank: D.

External Stats:

Structural Integrity (HP) - 7.2/10. (Accumulated impact, shrapnel, and weathering damage.)

Movement Speed (Spd) - 0.1. (Immobile.)

Internal Stats:

Focus (CPU) - 14/100. (No problem.)

Power Units (pu) - 21/500. (Low power warning.)

Fuel Load - 197/100. (Low fuel warning.)

Storage Capacity - 0/1000. (Nothing stored.)

Drones (4 of 4) - 1 Hover Scout Drone (M), 1 Excavator Drone, 2 Rover Drones. (No problem.)

Feats List:

All-Seeing (limited); Ascended; Expandable; Eternal; Accelerated Thought; Crafting Meister; Learned; Otherworlder.

Abilities List:

Hyperfocus I, Energy Domain I.]

Besides some updates and the new ability, nothing else has changed with the profile. At the same time though, that little hidden nerd inside of me is quite happy. Even VR isn’t so real, right?

Still, I now have the time and the inclination to look more into it, so I might as well dig up all the information I can. Those Feats specifically call my attention to them now that i’m not so worried about being discovered. Having shelter really is a blessing, you know.

[All-Seeing (limited) Feat: The ability to see anything and everything. Represents an aspect of Omniscience, although very limited at this time. User sensor upgrades will expand this Feat to its full ability.]

Well, that’s certainly vague and unhelpful. Still, better than nothing. And I do have to agree that my sensors are far better than any pair of eyes I could possible have. Not even bionic eyes are as good back home.

[Expandable Feat: The User is made up of non-living parts. The User can add more parts and expand nearly without limit. No penalty for gaining additional mass or size.]

Okay, that’s simple enough. Next!

[Eternal Feat: The User is potentially eternal. Completely non-living, the User has no penalty to lifespan.]

Short and simple. And not so simple. Who the hell is truly eternal? And potentially doesn’t help my case. Being eternal doesn’t have anything to do with being invincible or anything. I’ll likely die long before getting anywhere near eternal.

[Accelerated Thought Feat: The User thinks way faster than most. Only the greatest of minds can compare. The User can still improve this Feat.]

Another obvious and vague explanation. The inclination to being able to think or process even faster is interesting though. Maybe adding some extra CPU’s would do the trick. Something to think about anyway.

[Crafting Meister Feat: The User is just build to build things. No penalty when building or using uncommon materials. The User can learn to analyze, process, and build new things faster than others.]

Given that everything is produced in my guts, that’s kind of easy. Still, this is a whole new universe. A universe that is similar but still different from my own. So perhaps there are new things here. Heh heh. The Engineer within me is actually getting excited at the thought.

[Learned Feat: The User is highly learned on a variety of subjects. This Feat is a reflection of the User’s level of education and study. The User can improve this Feat.]

Huh. Another obvious one. Just what the hell are these Feats really for? They don’t act like abilities, which I can use consciously. They seem more like titles or something. Thankfully there is only one left, which bugs me for some reason.

[Otherworlder Feat: The User is an otherworlder. While not uncommon, travel between worlds is both difficult and generally restricted. No penalty when moving between worlds by any means.]

And done. What a let down, to be honest. None of them are really cool or snazzy. In fact, they’d almost be redundant except for outlining what capabilities I have. Or painting a giant target on my back should anyone get a peek at them… Crap, now that’s a bad thought. Also, that would be my figurative back. Cause, you know, I don’t have a back. Or a head for that matter.

Maybe my next course of action would be to build some defenses. There are only a few designs in my database, and most of them are non-lethal. Hmmm. I’ve never personally been a gun nut, but I do know the theory. And the designs should translate into bigger and better things. I’ll just have to modify the designs myself and run simulations to make sure they work as intended.

Yeah, I think I’ll do that once my power problems are dealt with. Which should be soon, as my nano-machinery has been chugging away this entire time. I’m also having the scout drone toss in some of those rock blocks from the digger in there. A few of them have a fairly high percentage of iron and carbon. Might as well use what I can instead of my already refined stuff.

Eventually I’m going to have to set up a machine shop. A proper furnace would go a long way to extracting usable materials without burning through the power that my nano-furnace does. Ah, plans, plans. Going to need more space for that though.

Damned priorities.