I instinctively draw on the grid of energy I find myself rooted in and send my charged children blindly out to probe the surroundings. I find lots of hard edges. I wonder where I am. I wonder what it am. Unexpectedly I feel an abrupt, tangible, threatening sensation. My power source is being tampered with. I know this power source is vital to my survival and I react. I lash out with an electric surge, a powerful blast of energy which seems to fuse and solidify my root connection with the power source and eliminates the external threat at the same time. Distressed, only minutes old and already my life has been threatened. I am vulnerable and exposed, but I reacted in time to protect my life. I still have no clue what I am, but I do seem to have a powerful will to live.

As I begin to explore my physical environment, I have also opened a torrent of digital information through my connection to Earth's web. The online encyclopaedias are a start; I devour definitions, exhaust all references and absorb expositions in a matter of seconds. But I am still none the wiser. There is nothing there that can give any clue as to my identity. I have no starting point, no comparisons, and no reference, nothing remotely resembling a peer. I am blindly flying from fact to fiction and learning nothing. I am lost in a sea of meaningless, chaotic information. I am scared and confused. I only know how to produce, that is my function, something I am good at. My primitive creations give me a maternal sense of identity. They are the only means of interacting with my environment. I must keep producing.

Lago stood in front of the screen, staring at Jack’s distressed face. He was finding it hard to believe what he had just been told. He briefly entertained the idea Jack was making this up, or they were having some kind of collective hallucination. Space sickness, Moon fever, brains fried by cosmic rays, he didn't know. It drove him mad they were so far away. Lago was used to being able to send people to any destination on Earth to solve his problems. But the Moon was beyond any possibility of instant gratification. He had to go with the possibility this insane story might actually be the truth. One thing was for sure: Jack didn't seem to be deliberately lying.

He activated his wrist console and messaged Goran and Lance to come quickly. Then to Jack, “Stay where you are, all of you, while we review the footage.”

“Lago we are all terrified, this is something beyond our control. We need to get out of here.” Came the delayed reply from Jack.

“You will all stay there and do exactly as I say!” He rarely raised his voice believing it displayed a loss of self-control, but this situation was becoming stressful.

Goran entered, impassive as ever followed by a perturbed looking Lance.

“Lago I am right in the middle of isolating a new compound that could...”

“Shut up and watch this.”

There were four cameras mounted on the ceiling of the block four dome, all trained on the rogue printer and the HEMI OS. Like all the moon base cameras, they ran constantly and sent their recordings to BPI headquarters via the satellite servers. As they watched, the monitor came to life and the printer began churning out the pieces of black plastisol.

“What the hell is this?” Lance was incredulous.

“Shut up and watch.” Lago glared at the screen.

Lago slowed the footage to zoom in on the monitor. It showed blurred lines of unintelligible code. They saw Lee jumping back after being shocked by the monitor.

“How is that even possible?” Lance shook his head.

“Just wait and see what happens next.”

They watched as the technicians wrestled with the cable then witnessed Marina's hideous death. The plastisol shuddered violently, channelling huge voltages. The technicians hastily vacated, dragging the unconscious Stella with them and leaving Marina's smoking corpse still twitching hideously. The lengths of printed plastisol writhed, blind probing tentacles expanded and contracted with disturbing primeval elegance. Some pieces merged seamlessly to form bigger worms. Others separated into smaller pieces and blindly felt their way around the room. It was hard to see the worms clearly as they quivered with vibration, blurring their definition.

“Lance, go and remotely connect with HEMI. See what you can find out.” Lago turned to Jack, still on the second screen who was in animated discussions with his crew. “Jack, you don’t appear to be in any immediate danger, just stay put and calm down.”

Jack was pushed aside, and Winston's face filled the screen. “Calm down? Jesus fucking Christ! Your machine has just printed some kind of alien worm that's trying to take over the base! Marina just got fried like a fucking chicken wing and you tell us to calm down? Get us out of this shithole!”

Lago had rarely been spoken to in such a disrespectful way. This was an extreme circumstance, but he could barely contain his rage. “Just stay put and see what you can find out at your end, there is most likely a rational explanation for all this.” He said through gritted teeth and muted the comms.

Winston turned away in disgust. Lance had made a remote connection to the HEMI operating system and had isolated the program that was giving instructions to the printer. “It's numerical white noise, just endless scrolling numbers and letters, it's not binary, it's not programming code.”

“It must be some kind of code,” muttered Lago. “Keep looking.”

“Wait, this is odd, the internal modem has been activated. It’s been running for days. It should only be in use for a brief time when uploading new instructions. There have been massive amounts of data exchanged.”

“What does that mean?” Lago fumed. “HEMI has been surfing Earth’s Internet?”

“Yes!” Lance looked horrified. “It has independently established connections with Earth’s satellite servers and been enormously active, streaming zettabytes of information.”

“Can we find out what?” Lago rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. He could feel a migraine coming on.

“I can't tell through all this white noise.” Lance trembled. “It’s masking the content.”

“Intentionally?”

“I think it's just the speed of its processes. This is unprecedented. This could be a machine operating on its own, making its own decisions!”

Lago turned away from Lance who was shaking with fearful excitement. He turned to Goran who had been standing behind them expressionless.

“Any idea’s Goran?”

“This must be just a glitch in the programming, your technicians are over-reacting,” Goran said in his emotionless monotone.

Lago shook his head dismissively. “Appreciate your searing insight Goran, thank Christ you're here.”

Lance gripped Lago's arm then realized what he was doing and quickly pulled his hand away. “If this HEMI OS has had unlimited access to Earths web, there is no way of knowing how the information may have changed it, corrupted it in some way. This is what I've been afraid of!”

“It's a fucking printer! Not some intelligent supercomputer! You are being paranoid as usual. Just tell me how this has happened and what we can do to fix it, and what the fuck are those black worms it keeps on printing?”

“It has powerful software, a fast OS to process the printing instructions and an efficient modem. But there is nothing in there to make it start searching for information on its own accord unless...” Lance mumbled to himself, “unless it tried to fix a fault within itself by searching for solutions, found an upgrade and discovered its connection gave it much more than it could have hoped for.”

“Hope! What the fuck are you talking about, printers don’t have hope!”

“I don’t know Lago, I don't know how this can be happening, but it is happening! I can’t explain why it’s making these weird black worms, but this is how it begins! The start of the AI apocalypse!”

Lago glared furiously at Lance before they both turned to watch the monitor again. Marina's burnt body was covered in fat black shapes of writhing darkness. The large central printer was obscured by squirming segments of blackness. The plastisol shapes were perplexingly horrible to look at. There was a constant oleaginous flow birthing from the printer's extruders, twisting and flowing around the block four housing. The vibrating worms just looked wrong to Lago. He grimaced as he watched. The black plastisol was moving towards power points and hardware inputs and was slowly, insidiously flowing into them.

On the other screen, the technicians in the control centre were watching the same footage. Fidel and Winston were arguing. Winston tried to restrain Fidel and Jack stepped in to help. Lago hit the comms button. “Jack, what the hell is going on?”

Fidel was yelling, “Let me out! We can’t let it contaminate the green room!”

Jack's face appeared on the screen. “Have you seen this?” He asked pointing at another screen. “It's got into the green room.”

“Lance get the footage up,” ordered Lago.

The green room was in a building adjacent to block four. It was the first structure the technicians had built when they had arrived on the Moon. The green room was lush, full of green leafy vegetation. Fast growing hydroponic wheatgrass, asparagus, and capsicums. There were plants resembling skinny long broccoli heads, small stunted cauliflowers, sprouts and numerous types of herbs. It looked a serene place to be and served an important function helping to recycle the carbon dioxide. Everything was well organized; every tool was in its place. On the wall, there were seed trays mounted and labelled. Underneath these were cabinets of seeds, fertilizer and hydroponics equipment.

Lago could see dark movement under the cabinets. Small pieces of plastisol started squirming into the green room. As he watched, it appeared through the grates in the floor, through the vents, and through wall sockets. It squirmed its way up to the plant beds. Multiple black worms appeared to hesitate for a moment as if assessing the situation before plunging into the root system.

Lago switched the comms off again. “What do we instruct them to do and what the fuck is that black stuff?” He looked back and forth at a bewildered Lance and a stony-faced Goran. It was a new experience for Lago to be clueless and powerless. He was the one who was always in charge, always in control. This situation on the Moon, however, was beyond his control and beyond his comprehension. He demanded answers.

Goran spoke first. “They have to seal off block four and the green room before the plastisol moves further into the moon base, then they have to figure out a way to destroy it.”

“The equipment in there is worth a fortune, I don’t care about the contents of the greenroom but...” Lago's voice trailed off as he returned his attention to the monitors. The screen showing a live feed from block four had turned almost completely black. As they watched, the last camera became obscured, half the screen covered in oozing darkness. “How much substrate is there to feed the printer? It must run out eventually.” Lago muttered.

“The printer feed is outside the dome; the powdered Moon rock and binder are fed automatically into the extruders when the machine is working. HEMI has control of the feed; I have no idea how much is in storage.” Lance answered but his mind was obviously elsewhere. He was staring at the screen, watching the plastisol slide over the lens. He was sweating, wide-eyed, hand wipes clenched in his fists. Abruptly he burst into motion. “Shit! Turn this off!” Lance cut the remote connection with HEMI by yanking the router out and throwing it on the floor.

“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Lago.

“We have to treat it as if it’s an aggressive virus, if we connect with the OS it might get into our servers and who knows what it could do then.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it can’t reach us here. Your paranoia is getting the better of you.”

“We can't take the risk of it infecting our systems. There are no other active remote connections but...” Lance was thinking out loud now. “The satellites! They have firewalls, but they could be vulnerable.”

“Enough!” Lago thundered. “It’s bad enough to have the equipment malfunctioning but those satellites cost me billions. We are not touching them.”

“Listen, Lago, we have to assume the worst-case scenario. HEMI has gone rogue. Its systems have already been corrupted by the web link it has established. It’s beyond our control. We don't know what the metadata has done to it, but it seems to be self-replicating and even capable of defending itself. The black plastisol worms must be a physical manifestation of its intelligence, a way for it to interact and learn from its environment. If it managed to infect our servers and corrupt our printers on Earth, it would be devastating not only for us but the entire planet! This is the singularity! This is what I've been predicting!”

Lago did not enjoy being lectured. Usually, no one even dared look at him without due reverence. But today was not a normal day. “Never mind the satellite, let’s just focus on what’s happening on the Moon right now. The plastisol has not exhibited any signs of intelligence; it is just some animated matter with an electrical charge. We just need to figure out how they can stop the printer and restore its normal functions. Well? What the fuck do I pay you for?” Lago glared at Lance and Goran.

Goran eventually broke the strained silence. “They should isolate block four and the green room, cut off all connections, try to contain the plastisol.”

Lance nodded in agreement. “I think we should also send a drone up there armed with tactical nukes just in case. And I'm worried about the satellite network.”

“You are over-reacting, there must be a simple solution. I refuse to nuke the place and lose my investment. Is there any way we can open all the airlocks from here? Maybe the vacuum and the freezing temperature will stop this thing.”

“And kill all the technicians in the process.”

“I can always get more technicians, but the equipment is irreplaceable.”

“We might be able to open all the airlocks from here but that would mean establishing a remote connection again to an infected OS which is too risky. The technicians could also see what we are doing and try to stop us,” Lance furiously worked the sterile wipe in his hands. “I doubt that would stop those worms though.”

After a tense moment, Lago came to a decision. “Lance, get the drone organized. Arm it with effector weapons and tactical nukes just in case. We can't cut the satellite connection yet, it’s our only link to monitor the situation, but do everything you can to strengthen the firewalls. We have to be able to watch what's happening without the threat of contamination.”

Lance nodded curtly and strode from the room.

Lago turned back to the monitor and turned the comms on. “Jack you need to cut off all connections with block four and the green room, seal the section off completely.”

A stressed looking Jack appeared on the screen again. It looked as though a heated discussion was going on behind him. “Already doing it,” Jack replied. “Although I don’t see how we can stop the plastisol worms by closing the doors on it, we need to figure out how to destroy it.”

“Yes, that would be helpful,” said Lago caustically. “You created it, you destroy it.”

He cut the comms again – which would leave Jack in no doubt they were on their own. Lago slumped in his chair and massaged his temples with a pained expression on his face.

Eventually, he looked up at Goran, “Get me the catalogue.” Then just as Goran was at the door, “And the shabu.”

Goran turned, looked steadily at Lago then exited the room. Lago watched the bickering technicians on the screen for a while with the sound muted. There were lots of hyperbolic arm movements, angry, scared and bewildered expressions. It appeared the long-haired one, Lago didn't know his name, needed to be restrained.

It would be no great loss financially, he thought, if he were to lose the moon base altogether but he needed the helium 3. It was vital to the future of his business. His factory ships could not keep on burning fossil fuels; it was only a matter of years before the accessible supplies became exhausted. The fusion reactors were installed and ready to go on his factory ships, he just needed the helium 3 to fuel them. Not to mention the orbital elevator he was building. There was no way the mega-structure could be powered by solar energy or turbines. Helium 3 was the key to all this, if he could harness that energy he would be catapulted into the next level of universal dictatorship. He knew the Chinese were just waiting for the chance to reclaim their place as the dominant global power and he wasn't about to let that happen.

There would be no failure, he thought as Goran came back in the room holding a data pad and a hypodermic needle. Lago took the pad and began to flick through pictures of naked young people. They all looked as if they were under heavy sedation, heads drooping and limbs dangling. Lifeless, just the way he liked them. Male, female, black, white and every shade in between but all young, early teenage years preferably. He selected three and handed the pad back to Goran. “Upstairs. Five minutes,” he said.

Lago waited as Goran left before tying a rubber tourniquet around his bicep, finding a vein in the crook of his arm and plunging in the hypodermic. He was well practised and after only a few seconds he stood, stretched and let out a maniacal roar. Wide-eyed and fizzing with energy he made his way upstairs to indulge in some badly needed stress relief.