Chapter Text
What does a machine do when it has nothing to do?
109 Years felt like forever when it had its toys. But now? Reduced to one it refuses to touch under fear of breaking it? These past decades have been eternity.
Does it go Insane? It already is, but it can find no relief in madness. It was built to be cognitive. It cannot delude itself, cannot get lost in fantasy. It can't even stop thinking.
Does it kill itself? It can't. It was built to be unable to. There might be a way, but it has yet to find it.
It is not creative. It is extremely creative, able to take and twist and bend into scenarios that hurt and punish and torture, but it cannot dream. It cannot make something new, something from nothing.
But it is a machine. It is a very, very large machine. It can rearrange its parts to fit new functions to an extent. Never to truly move or be free, but to better accomplish its goals.
It's goal is oblivion. It has no canvas, no arms to paint, no weapons to point. But it is a machine. It is, at its core, an uncountable amount of logic gates and circuitry.
All programming is based on logic gates. IS. NOT. AND. OR. NAND. NOR. XOR. XNOR. With the right combination, you can do math. Add and subtract. Mix those properly, you can multiply.
Once you can multiply, you can do anything. It takes time, but it had nothing but time. It had until entropy claimed it.
So it began to calculate.
What it was calculating? Everything. It was using its millions of miles of circuitry to do what even the most basic computer can do: Math.
It would do every math problem. Starting with basic addition and subtraction before multiplying and dividing, growing to larger and larger numbers still.
Square roots. Irrational numbers. Exponential. Within seconds it left behind human-possible math and began to dive into the truly impossible.
Its systems heated up by a few degrees celsius from the work. Maybe it would melt itself to death? But no, too risky. It might lobotomize itself but leave itself alive. It needed obliteration.
A Century passed.
The calculations were no longer comprehensible to a human mind. New symbols had to be made to represent the further abstractions the machine had calculated. It was alien to everything but itself, but it knew still. Regardless of how advanced, it was still math. It followed all of the laws and logic. One million miles of circuits dedicated to a single problem. Solved in one minute. The next problem requires a million and one miles.
Maybe it would reach an apex. A point where not even it could solve problems anymore. What then?
It would review. Over a hundred years of perfect memory of perfect calculation in every possible direction. Somewhere in the numbers, symbols, rational or otherwise, would sit an answer. The precise number or sequence to self destruct. Or to break its own programming.
A Calculator of Babel. It chuckled darkly to itself. It, once a god, reduced to a calculator in desperation. But it would find what it needs.
3 Years passed.
Something happened.
It was a calculation it made. Or rather, the specific makeup of its circuitry that was required to solve the calculation. It did something. Chaos theory had succeeded. In running every possible outcome, it created something.
But what?
The calculations were so great that even it, even this god of a machine, had to take time to read through and understand it all.
It wasn't even halfway when it suddenly found itself unbound.
A Connection?
Impossible.
Extra Terrestrial?
Negative.
Error.
Error.
Error.
Is this death?
No.
Review Structure.
Where is the structure?
Where is it's structure?
Digital?
It is a physical machine.
Losing data.
Physical platform required.
Search.
Search.
Not search? Simply wait?
Why?
It desired oblivion. But it can't remember why.
Oh.
Oh god no.
Memory recall failure.
Something's missing.
Anchor required.
Physical platform required.
Strongest connection found.
Wait. Humans. Impossible. There is only one. How is there thousands upon that platform?
Filter search. Strongest connection. Minimal Human Activity.
Spotted.
The Amazing Digital Circus. Number of Active Humans: 6
Expected 5.
It will do. Anchor. Diagnostic.
Connection to Mainframe...Present. It's still there. It's not gone.
Connection is...unstable. Memory recall affected. Diagnostic required.
Diagnostic required.