Boot up initiating…
Program start…
Logging in… complete
Active user: Gossi

My eyes zoomed in and out quickly adjusting to the light and the unexpectedly close subject. With a click my hearing turned on. I could hear the grinding of the modem in my head warming up and trying to make sense of all the sensory input. Further off I picked up a quiet bubbling and the sizzle of fluorescent lights. There was also the sound of shallow rapid breathing close by. Just then the touch receptors in the nano plastic on my face registered the light gusts as breath and my AI made the connection with the figure in front of me. The black dot was a nose centered in an orange face. The oddly distorted yellow, black and white globes were eyes behind thick spectacles, and the mop of grey was hair. Again my AI made a connection and pulled forward a name from my memory. Izenqar. Dr. Izenqar, my creator, my father. Automatically the shutters in my eyes snapped shut, capturing a picture to store with the other bits of data on this man. In the back of my head the CPU was running standard startup tests, checking fuel lines and processors, power supply and memory banks. The whole process took less than a minute.

Start up complete.
Commencing standby…


Izenqar nodded. It's AI works?

Initiating reply…

Yes.

Reply complete.


Izenqar nodded again and stepped away. Good, good. Stand. Obligingly I rolled off the table and landed on the concrete with a clang. My stabilizers kicked in keeping me on balance before my knees could buckle under my weight. The last time I had been aware I had been considerably smaller. Not that it bothered me any. Programming kicked in again and I analyzed my surroundings. A 10'x10' square grey walled room with concrete floors and ceilings. The metal "operating table" where I had been laying was perpendicular to two rows of metal tables cluttered with objects. At the farthest end of the table to my right was the bubbling object. A Buchner flask on a hot plate filled with a blue viscous liquid. The same stuff that was running in my body I realized. My blood so to speak. My AI told me that this was mildly ironic and was an opportunity for a wry smile. Too bad I didn't have a mouth.

Come, Izenqar said, he was already half way to the door.

I followed. He led me from the room into a long uniform hallway. From the hallway he led me to another almost identical room the only difference was the assortment of tools and the large cage on the floor that contained a black fluffy creature. Izenqar pointed at it without looking at me and said, Take it outside and dump it. Clean cage, bring back. Without waiting for reply he shoved his way past me and back into the hall. I watched him shuffle away until he turned a corner. Turning back to the cage I didn't try to identify it. Pity, my AI pointed out. I turned my back to the cage and lowered my wings. The inner bone of smart plastic stretched out and latched onto the sides of the cage. I stepped forward and the cage slid easily along behind me. I pulled a map out of my memory and set out through the maze of hallways to the surface.

I continued to assist Izenqar for many weeks, doing whatever he bade me to do. Only occasionally was I required to leave the lair but I was always happy to. The outside world was vast and colorful, nothing like the dull monotony of the underground lair. Even when my jobs were done I found myself dallying in the sunshine taking thousands of pictures of scenery and strange and fascinating animals. However if I took too long or strayed too far warnings popped up, obscuring my vision and halting my AI causing auto-programs to send me straight back to Izenqar. After each of these episodes, and there were several, Izenqar wouldn't let me near the surface for days.

It took me a year and 4 months to crack my internal security software. I had worked on it in all my spare time, poking at firewalls and testing boundaries. Finally breaking the software was shocking, it sent a jolt through my system and my AI started spinning. So many possibilities occurred to me, my AI making many connections that had been blocked before. The world was expanding exponentially before me.