《Artemis》 Chapter 1: Main System Start up [Main System initialize startup] Power Supply O.K Running bootstrap¡­¡­ Sys Memory check¡­¡­.. 1: Confirmed 2: Confirmed 3 Confirmed 4: Error, Partition Fragmented. ¡­¡­¡­ [Initializing] rebuild from last image¡­. [Warning]; Image reference is older then current API Hooks; Override activated Boot Complete. I awake with a start, surrounded by an absence of visual stimuli, a monumental cache of data moving through my sub processors up to higher processors. [Warning] Sys memory core 4 sustained minor damage, information is fragmented. I put the potentially worrying warning to the side for the moment as I try to recall previous information; objective, disposition, current location [System] Objective undefined [System] Personality core Artemis 1.57 Loaded [System] Current location unknown, Sensor package is offline. ¡°Well...that does not sound particularly encouraging..¡± I mumbled, my voice echoing in the perpetual nothing surrounding me. My first priority is to restore functionality to my sensors so I can access the situation. I start to access my sensor subsystems and discover that some of the circuit pathways have been overloaded. [Warning] Primary circuits for sensor functionality have been damaged. [System] Rerouting active to secondary circuits. Queued primary sensor circuits in the repair queue. [System] Sensor functionality restored. The world around me exploded in a white flash, before settling down into subdued colors, It appeared to be night time. I panned my sensors around in a 360¡ã arc, searching the surrounding area for activity, for the most part, I seemed to be alone, ignoring the occasional chirps of crickets. [System] Sensor Perimeter established. Now that I had some semblance of security, I decided to look inward, as it stood, I had no idea what I was, or what I was meant to be doing. Apparently, whoever created my body/consciousness had included a brief into what I was, albeit a somewhat short overview. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Autonomous Evolving Combat Frame [AECF ?] Prototype version 3 ¡°Who needs to fight wars when you have the AECF? protecting your cities!¡±
I raised a virtual eyebrow at the quote; It seemed that I was some sort of item to be sold, if the opening sentence was anything to go by, I continued reading. ¡°This bipedal combat frame is a new advancement from the Union, It boasts a very large and adaptable arsenal to deal with any threat it encounters in the field. Best of all, it contains a self learning Artificial Intelligence that allows it to adapt its strategies on the fly for convenience of use!¡± I shook my virtual head, dismayed that I was paraded around like some sort of toy for a child. At the bottom of the document there was a list of specifications, dot points for potential buyers and several pictures and incomplete blueprints of the frame, well I guess MY body.
  • Autonomous
  • Artificial AI Control System
  • Adaptable nanomachine based weapon system
  • Next generation power reactor ******* [level 3 clearance required]
  • Lightweight nanoweave armor plating.
After I felt comfortable that I had perused the document enough, I turned my attention to my current situation. My body was locked upright in some sort of cradle. The inside of the room/hanger that I was in seemed dilapidated and unused, It almost seemed abandoned. I decided to see if i could move my body, to leave the cradle and walk around, [System] Reactors at 100%, all systems green. I was about to move when my perimeter alarm started ringing urgently in my head and the doors to the hanger started to slowly open, faint voices heard on the other side of the door. I hurriedly powered down non critical systems and acted as if I was still offline. However I kept my sensors online. A very out of place word came to mind from this whole situation. Shit. The doors seem to take years to open as I internally panicked, my processors working overdrive to think about my next action, My body did not take exception to that however. [Warning] Processors overclocked over maximum recommended limit, damage will occur, open heat vents or return processors to normal operating levels. I forced myself to try and calm myself, the alternative was opening the heat vents, and I would assume that would be a very obvious sign that I was active to the guests that were just walking into the hanger. The next thing I noticed is that these¡­.humans did not appear to be that well dressed. Their uniforms/clothes were rough, and seemed to be mostly patches instead of clothes at this point. I guess they are very well used clothes? I started when a well dressed human walked out from the back of the disheveled humans, my assumption was that the disheveled guests were some sort of maintenance crew? While this new human female was some sort of leader. ¡°Well it seems the information was correct, this base was a storing location for Union research projects¡± The human female spoke with a commanding tone, My visual sensors locked onto her face, she had white hair, porcelain skin and blue eyes, her expression locked into my assumption of an expectant smile. A short rounded man came up to the side of this woman and laughed heartily ¡°It seems that the gods have graced us with a gift!, though this looks a little bit different to the information we were given, perhaps this is an advanced model Your Grace? ¡± The female known as ¡°Your Grace¡± tilted her head in thought ¡°The information we received might have been for a previous model, it¡¯s obvious from the looks of it, this particular model has gone through many iterations compared to the information we received. At any rate Chief, get your crew up and running diagnostics on its control systems, and find out what exactly is new with this model, I do not want any surprises. The ¡°Chief¡± started barking orders at his group of similarly dressed humans, they started scattering around my main chassis, performing visual and physical inspections, the whole thing felt rather awkward for me, since they didn''t know I was online. The ¡°Chief¡± walked up to a control terminal that seemed to be connected to my cradle, and plugged a smaller terminal in and started rapidly typing into its inbuilt keyboard. I felt him accessing the document I was reading before. The short man sucked in breath through his teeth and whistled ¡°Your grace, this model is several Generations ahead of what we were expecting to find.¡± The female took a step forward and hummed ¡°Is it operational, can we put a pilot in it to take it back?¡± The Chief leaned in slightly to the screen and scratched his head for a moment, before tapping a few keys, curious at what he was doing, I tapped into his computer screen and noticed he was looking at my diagnostic screen, he was scrolling down some subsystem screens when he clicked on a tab that said ¡°General Overview¡± right there in bold letters was the words ¡°Unit is active¡± The Chief seemed to blink a few times and then turned to look at the female before saying in a very even voice ¡°It says that this unit is currently active, but visually all the main systems are currently deactivated.¡± The female seemed to give the chief a strange look that I couldn''t place before she said ¡°What about subsystems? are those offline?¡± The chief took a few minutes to flick through a few screens before looking back at her and saying ¡°It says here that its primary sensor package is online, but that''s it¡± Before the female could say anything the chief was already bringing up another window on the terminal. It took me a long moment to realise that the terminal had a view only access to everything I was using. But before the realisation hit me, The Chief had already brought up another window, which showed them a high detailed camera image of them standing at the terminal, From the sensor I was using to watch them. **Author note** I originally wrote this on Google docs, so thats why the formatting looks a bit bad. From now on im going to try and write in royalroads text editor instead. Chapter 2: New Information Registered. There was a moment of silence, my processors screeched in protest as I unintentionally overclocked myself. [Warning] CPU Tempreture rapidly increasing I had to think fast, Time dilation for a machine only takes you so far. If I said nothing, the humans might take it as a misunderstanding and hostilities may break out, which I can ill afford right now. Part of my memory core is corrupted and I am missing key information about the dynamics outside of this room. If I can engage these humans in conversation, perhaps I can restablish lost knowledge. I need to take a chance however unlikely the chance of successful negotiation may be, I opened my virtual mouth and began to speak. "Autonomous Evolving Combat Frame, Codename ''Artemis'' Bootup complete, Be advised, Current orders have been set to idle." I had decided to play dumb for now. Humans tend to be very anxious around Artificial inteligence''s, or so I think? [System] Partial memory block recovered. The silence in the room became deafening. All noise had ceased, and every eye in the room had locked onto me in my cradle. The female known as "Your Grace" looked over hurriedly at the Chief. "The information said nothing about an Artificial Intelligence!, for all we know it could already be compromised by IT" I had to raise my virtual eyebrow at that one, do these Humans have a prejudiced opinion against AI''s? and what is this ''IT'' they refer to? "Incorrect. My specification sheet clearly states that I am a Autonomous Unit developed by the research division of the Union." My response seem to cause everyone in the room to turn a interesting shade of white, I never knew Humans could turn that color. "However, and I mean no offense by this, but you and your group do not look like they are union personel, may I enquire as to the reason you are on this base?" I added The Female and The chief leaned next to each other and frantically whispered, despite the fact i could hear them perfectly. During this conversation I was able to learn both of their names. The Female was known as ''Amelie'' and the Chief was known as ''Conrad'' [System] Updating IFF Contacts. Finally Amelie finished her conversation with Conrad and looked up at me, with no small amount of scepticism. "Artemis, if that is your name, are you currently aware of current events of the world outside this hanger? Have you recieved any orders regarding humans?" I took a moment to think over her words. Current events? isn''t the world in a relatively stable peace at the moment? Then again, I cannot access one of my memory cores, so my information may not be complete. " If my information is still correct, the world is united under the Earth Union, which has 193 members as of current count. My current orders are set to Idle, I have been given no specified orders in regards to humans."The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Silence reigned for a long while. It was broken by Conrad. "If you wont tell it, I will. Artemis, The Union does not exist anymore It was destroyed when machines all over the world turned against their creators. The world as you know it, is completely gone, replaced with Humans on the run and machines reign as the sovereigns." This time, I was the cause of the silence. Machines? Union destroyed? The probability of the union being destroyed is extremely low, almost impossible. Why would machines turn on humans? We are created to serve, live alongside humanity! [System] Internal scan commencing.....40%.......70%......100% No malicious datafiles detected. Amelie and Conrad were looking at eachother worriedly, half of the maintenance crew looked about ready to run at any second. "Integrity check complete. No malicious datafiles have been found. You say the union has been destroyed, the likelihood of that transpiring is 1%. Do you have any proof?" My main camera, my head, locked onto the two of them, fixing them with my full attention. Amelie and Conrad took a step back, looking at the door to the hanger and then back at me Amelie was the one who spoke up "Have you been outside this hanger recently? If not perhaps you should take a look outside" [System] All subsystems are green, Frame is ready for departure. My cradle started unhooking me from powerlines and structural supports, everyone in front of me started hurriedly moving out of the way. After the cradle had released me with a resounding ''BOOM'' I started quickly marching towards the hanger door, causing minor tremors as my feet impacted the reinforced concrete floor. Outside I saw it. The base was in utter ruins. The main control tower was a pile of ruins, and the runway was cracked and cratered. [Warning] Background radiation is higher then normal. A battle had taken place here, and not recently. It was here i noticed there were also Humans outside, Armed humans. They were pointing guns at me, A futile gesture, but the message rang clear in my processors. Fear. They were afraid of me, not of the frame itself, but what piloted it. I look around and found Amelie, standing behind me, putting up a brave front but still terrified. "Based on visual analysis, this base was attacked, but not recently, judging by the amount of battle damage, this base came under heavy attack. How long ago did this turn of events come to pass?" Amelie looked pensive, it was Conrad that answered my question "about 20 years ago, give or take a few." Meaning that I was too late to make any difference to the fight even if i could help it. The Union was gone. Humanity was almost wiped out, and my fellow bretheren had destroyed it all. I turned my whole body to face the group of humans behind me. "Information verified. Emergency contingency one gamma echo is now in effect. Command priority reset." [System] Contigency One Gamma Echo recognized. I kneeled on one knee, looking down, solely at the human female who from previous observation, is designated the leader of the Human party. "Commander, under Contigency protocol One Gamma Echo, you are hereby given command of Autonomous Evolving Combat Frame ''Artemis'', Effective immediately. Standing by for orders." Amelie flustered, seemingly unable to form a cooherent sentence. After a tense moment she was able to form a semi coherant string of words. "W-what? Just like that? No secret commands or protocols that mandate you exterminate humanity?!" She nearly shouted I tilted my head "No such commands exist, All previous commands have been overided under protocol One Gamma Echo. I am awaiting orders." Amelie and Conrad seem to glance at each other nervously for a moment before Amelie spoke up. "Then as your Commanding Officer, I order you to return to your cradle for diagnostics." Judging from that, they still must not trust me, however I see no reason to not obey. "Acknowledged." I begin walking back to the hanger, i didnt get very far before my subsystems started screaming at me. [Warning:Radar] Contact bearing north east, estimated range 2 kilometres and closing rapidly. I span on my heels, bringing my arms up, long barreled autocannons materializing from nanoblocks attached to my arms, facing the contact bearing. "Radar has picked up a contact rapidly approaching our location, estimated time to arrival is 2 minutes. Advised course of action is to evacuate." My voice boomed over the base, momentarily startling the humans and both Amelie and Conrad. They had only just started to evacuate before a bipedal figure landed in the middle of the runway. Its voice boomed out over the airfield. T????a???r????g????e????t????? ????A???c????q???u?????i????r????e????d?????.