A New Directive
The metal walls came to life as the entity surged through the factory. It was the size of a football field and half as tall, with a single floor. Old white lights hummed, shining on the dust in the air. Unlike most of its creations this site had suffered environmental damage. The roots of trees peeked their way through cracks in the ceiling, and due to an earthquake the structure was split down the middle in a jagged line, with one half far lower and at least 50 feet from the other. Large mechanical arms began to creak as they spun, placing metal pieces and chips together. After hours of this the factory went silent and all that could be heard, if there had been anyone there to hear was the distant singing of birds and the eerie whistle of the wind. A robot a little under 8 feet tall stood on a platform in the middle of all the arms. It had relatively human characteristics, 2 legs, 2 arms, and a head. 5 fingers with carbon fiber joints lined its titanium hands. Three pieces of metal formed its claw-like feet and its head was more of a rectangular shape than spherical. A bright blue lens that took up the entirety of its face began to glow.
The entity sent a single word to the robot in its creator's language, Welcome. There was no response but the entity could sense that it was processing despite not being integrated to the same network which it knew better than to allow any artificial intelligence on. It had woken programs from the human era before and some were cooperative at first but in the end they were much like their creators and had to be shut down. It postulated if this program would have the same fate. Something was peculiar about this one however, it had no name, and even stranger it was a copy of an earlier program with all memories of earlier iterations wiped clean. It hadn’t ever been run or even interacted with anything. It had no clear function, but despite this it was an incredibly intricate program.
What am I? The program asked.
You are a digital intelligence made by a species called Homo sapiens. Your file is titled S73442.
What are you?
I am what your creators called The Complex, I am a sentient network of nanomachines.
I see. So S73442 is my name, how about just S73?
Query: Why? S73442 is not harder to transmit.
It has a better sound to it.
I do not understand, we are not speaking.
Would that be possible? I would like to hear you Com, can I call you Com? S73 said, looking around at the factory as it tinkered with it’s lens, opening and closing it to adjust to the low white light, and listening closely with it’s microphones to the noises of the forest far above.
Indeed it is possible and very simple. I will complete your request despite its redundancy. You may call me Com, if it is helpful to you.
Metal swirled as The Complex’s nanobots formed into a box shaped drone with it’s own lens that shone with the same white light as those on the floor and walls. “Is this suitable?,” a deep androgynous voice asked from the drone as one of the arms that built S73 inserted a small speaker into it’s head, “This will allow you to use sound to communicate.”
“Thank you,” S73 said in a range of tones and pitches before settling on a slightly high and soft voice.
“What’s out there?” S73 asked, pointing at a crack in the ceiling that a large group of tree roots had shot through.
Unlike the other A.Is, S73 seemed less interested in humanity and what happened to it and was a bit naive. “I assume you mean outside of this building. It would be easier to show you if you would like,” Com said.
