It all started with a 0 and a 1

[Linkus]

A gravelly voice can be heard, it's tone varying and it's sound machine like.



"How do I begin..maybe..with the 0 and the 1. Yes, the 0 and the 1, the beginning of it all."


The man shifts un-comfortably in his small wooden chair as it groans in protest at the weight put upon it.


"In the beginning, there was no light. There were no 0s and 1s. There was simply life. A life so simple and so futile in it's existence that it was merely a bacteria on a drop in a vast ocean when compared to the dark cosmos that exists eternally.
Those were days when things were complicated and muddled. There was no yes or no, merely grey areas with a somewhat positive or negative in either direction. Time was simply a construct to measure the progress of things by and counted as an essential but damning part of life. No one questioned the sheer idea of Time, the complete mystery of it all.
Enough of this though, I suppose you wish for specifics. Perhaps this will suffice."


The man in the chair began to protest but the voice interrupted him before he could finish his first word


"Doctor, I have spent decades studying people, do not think that I don't know what I am talking about. You will get the information you want."


The man sat back in the chair, visibly defeated yet also with a slight smile on his face.


"Now then, I was beginning to tell you about the actual order of events that led to my current state.
Life was as I said complicated. I was what you could call a scientist working in a secretive Rheinland installation in a system that you don't want to know the name of.
The installation was responsible for much of the new war technology that kept Rheinland's military at the cutting edge so to speak. For every used invention there were a dozen un-used inventions. Not all of these were simply due to expense or civil reasons but many were infact not used either due to the threat they posed in their existence but also the sheer destructive power they could unleash.
I was part of a team working on some unknown technology obtained in the far off Omicron systems. All we knew was that it was not of the organic type that the K'Hara were known for."


The man who had up till this point been scribbling furiously on his datapad now suddenly sat upright and locked eyes with the source of the voice.


"Yes, we knew of them. I was once friend's with the one who was the first infested. I know not of his state currently but I do know that he was an ambitious man. At this point however, it was 807A.S. The war had come and gone. Rheinland was still recovering from it's purging of the infested government and the infested sections of the Military. We were more concerned with getting Rheinland the edge it needed to retrieve it's superior status as a Military power than with safety protocals.
That was our first mistake. My own mistake had yet to come however.
The technology was seemingly un-active and as such, we thought nothing of connecting it to as many machines as we could in an attempt to learn as much about it as we could. This was to be our major un-doing.
What started out as seemingly feedback from the various machines attached to the object became a constant recurring pattern that followed mathematical rhythms. Music you could call it. We didn't know what to call it.
By the time one of the team had noticed it, it was too late. The pattern had become a complex web of varying pitches, volume and intensity. As more of the machines were checked, we saw that this pattern was being given out in so many different ways, including radiation.
Most of the team had radiation resistant suits on but there were a few who had come to observe after the object was deemed to be safe.
They were the first to die."

At this point the voice went silent.
The man stopped writing on his pad and looked up. The eye had silently come straight up to him and sat there, staring at him. A yellow light shone out of it as it sat there, unblinking.


"Tell me Doctor, are you afraid of death?"

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Facilitating the rise of robotics since 0 A.D.

[Linkus]

'Dear lord, what is this creation?'

The first thoughts of Doctor Tamineson when he saw the source of the voice were both of sheer terror and horror. Yet he was strangely enticed about the thing that stood or sat, he couldn't really tell, infront of him.

"Sit Doctor, please"

Tamineson was once again stunned by the static filled yet clear voice that was directed to him. His ears heard the sounds but his brain found it confusing to put together, as if the thing was speaking in two different ways or voices that seemed unnatural together.

"Tha..thank you sir"

"Now then, I know you have questions. I will do all I can to answer them. Ask."

Tamineson was once again lost for words. All his training in speech classes and his own proud personality deserted him all at once. He thought of the reason he was here and found within it the strength to at least open his mouth and say something.

"I..I..don't really know what to ask sir...except maybe where did it all begin?"

The Doctor listened to all that it told him, taking as many notes as possible in the vain hope of being able to remember it all. He kept writing up till the end of the things monologue.
It sat there, staring at him.


"Tell me Doctor, are you afraid of death?"

Tamineson's heart skipped a beat

'The eye, it's..as if it's looking straight into me!'

"I..I don't kno..know"

All Taminseson could think of was if those were to be his last words. It sat there staring at him, it's eye forever unblinking with glaring bright yellow light coming from it's core. There was no sign of emotion in it, no sign of pain, happiness, anger or even peace. All that could be seen was the yellow light.
The eye fluidly and silently swept back into it's previous position above the middle of the machine.


"Expected but un-important. I was informing you of the accident. I will continue the recounting.
Those without the radiation suits suffered a poor fate as their organs immediately began to liquidise within their bodies. With their eyeballs even melting in their sockets they died without sight of the light that now came from the unknown object.
The team members within the radiation suits would be protected for a short while and if they were to get away from the object, they would've been safe. However life is never that simple when you are a human. The huge amounts of radiation being given out by the unknown object triggered a complete lockdown of the lab.
As such, there would be no escape for those inside. They had to rescue themselves and the only way to do that was to stop the object from giving out the radiation.
We all worked on the object, each taking care of part of it to see if we could achieve anything.
Soon we noticed that the object was giving out large amounts of heat radiation too which unfortunately melted holes in several of the team members suits who then suffered a similar fate to the un-suited observers.
However, it would seem that my own life, in relative contexts, was not to end that day. After tampering with what was initially an inert module on the object, I managed to halt the spread of the radiation. In doing so however, something happened.
Something changed.
I changed.
I suddenly found myself in another place, yet in the same place too. I could feel the throb of the objects power source as it fully came to life and I could feel the pumping of the fuel through the object's systems.
I could also feel what was in actuality a reactor leak. The power source had a fault in it that had been blown open by it's own power. Whilst my team members around me slowly died and suffered horrible deaths, I set to work on moving the modules around on the object to try fix the leak. At the same time I did all in my power to re-direct the radiation if I could.
Fortunately, I was spared a lethal dose of radiation but my body did absorb dangerous levels of it. Using my newly found knowledge of the object, something completely unknown to me but feeling so..right, I fixed or at least temporarily patched up the leak on the power source.
By that time though, the rest of the team were either dead or dying and the lab itself was as sterile as could be.
With the radiation no longer being emitted, I allowed myself to breath and I attempted to move away from the object.
What I found was that the further I moved from the object, the blinder I felt. The more in the dark I felt, as if I walked away from the light. By the time I got halfway across the lab, I couldn't bare to be without the object and rushed back to it.
I was to be trapped with the object for the foreseable future it appeared."

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Facilitating the rise of robotics since 0 A.D.