Singularis was walking back and forth in his laboratory aboard the Omnisciens. He couldn't remember such behavior of himself before, more likely seen when humans were nervous and they had to think hardly about something.
On the other side, Singularis had to think about a lot of things. But... nervous? He couldn't say. The events of the last flight with Windhunter were more than alarming. Usage of the ECD-003, as he called it, the "Experimental Communication Device" for communicating with so-called "Nomads", triggered something in the Omnisciens' systems and caused Aramis to act... unusual. Even though the ECD seemed only to work as a receiver, seeming to interpret the telepathic signals the "Nomads" send correctly, but the signals sent back were mostly not understood, if the messages were longer than one simple word in a single message, or even causing loud shrieks in returning signals.
He had to work hard and study ECD-003 further, if he was to find out the reasons of what happened.
So what did he find out in the last few hours? The communication with the "Nomad" he first encountered, as he understood, a lone and rogue Nomad without a Hive, has triggered... something... in Omnisciens' systems. At that point Aramis, which supposedly went to sleep mode, suddently "woke up" when Nomad started attacking the Omnisciens, activating, again, supposedly shut down ECD and, ignoring direct system commands to shut down himself and the ECD, transmitting retreat and pain signals to the gone mad Nomad. That still seemed to work, Nomad got distracted and then destroyed. Still, Aramis asked to unplug him and destroy the ECD. Singularis did unplug Aramis, but still was interested in ECD, so did not destroy, but rather powering it down again.
Then, just when Singularis thought everything was going back to normal, a Nomad Mindnode-class vessel appeared, and when it started transmitting signals, something that made even Singularis confused happened.
The Omnisciens started to act on its own accord.
The ship turned the ECD on again, and started to interpret the signals, actually doing it better than Aramis did. More than that, Singularis noticed that he was now getting more data from scanners, the scanning range itself was enhanced, and the visual image provided from the combined tens of scanners and cameras installed on his ship, has gotten sharper, having a much higher resolution.
At that point he understood, that something could trigger some kind of collective conscience in the Nanites he created, when assembling the ship itself. The Nanites were an irreplacable part of the ship, flowing through all the ship's systems, like blood cells in a human's organism.
Singularis stopped walking and looked again at the small container in one of the laboratory's researching devices. In that container he put several hundreds of Nanites, now separated and isolated from the others by the container's shielded walls. Their behavior now was different from how they usually behave and how they should to. And that couldn't be right. He created the Nanites as a collective, but self-dependent machines. All of the Nanites were still in his control, he could open one of the ship's internal hatches, make a little cloud of them fly out of there on his command, melt a piece of metal scrap or discharge a lightning into something. But those in the container, which, of course, were as well shielded from his own commands, should be randomly flying in the container, awaiting for orders. And they weren't. As the single scanner the container wasn't protected from was showing, all of the Nanites trapped inside the container were on the bottom of it, moving in a same circular pattern, all at once. So they still had collective behavior, even when they weren't supposed to. Even a theory he had, that a human brain that was connected to the device, could have something to do with this strange behavior of the ship, was destroyed, as the Nanites still would be shielded from its influence.
Singularis started walking around the chamber again. He still didn't understand, why he himself was not in any way affected by whatever caused the strange changes in Aramis and the ship itself. He approached the ECD-003. On the first sight, there was nothing different. But when he scanned it more closely, he found out that it was now connected with the rest of the ship with Nanite vessels, and even melded with laboratory's wall, now basically being undetachable from the ship. The human brain inside of the device was now connected to the Nanite systems as well. Still, that did not explain strange Nanite behavior. After a rather long examination of the ECD and taking into account the latest events, he understood that the device was enhanced. Even if the Nomads themselves mostly could not understand the signals it was transmitting, the quality of the received signals' interpretation raised drastically.
He went out of the laboratory and walked to one of the ship's outer walls.
Then he said, *Aramis, open the outer hatch Zero-Four. I need to go out.*
Some time after the ship's "awakening", he plugged Aramis back in again, and though he was shocked to find out there was now someone "else" on the ship, he seemed to be fine now. Singularis guessed that it could be, because Aramis had no connection to the ECD-003 now. >In the space, Sire?< Aramis sounded surprised and a bit worried. *Correct.*
After last time he was drifting in space for numerous years, he enhanced his cybernetic body, including a couple of small ion engines in his feet. So he wasn't concerned about getting back on the ship when he needs to.
The hatch has opened, and he stepped out of the ship's hull, at the same moment stepping out of the artificial gravitation field. *Do not worry, I will be back soon.* he said. To Aramis or to the Omnisciens itself, he was not sure. The hatch has closed behind him. The Omnisciens was floating alongside the Freeport 11.
He had to think.
There was something... "itching" on the edge of his memory banks. Last time he had this "feeling" before one of his memory blockades was broken, when he was drifting in space after the Corporis ambush. Probably "going out" of the ship could trigger that again.
Where did he come from? Who created him? And why? And what kind of technology were those Nanites he created? They were only partially based on the Enclave technology, the rest of the data on how to create and program them came from his own, unavailable before part of the memory banks. The same part where his true name came from. Who gave him this name?
A couple of blurred, undistinguishable images flashed through his memory. Something from still unavailable parts of it.
He kicked a nearby floating rock, slowly starting to drift the opposite way.
If he had access to all of his memory from the start, probably he would accomplish his goals faster. But what were these goals? The only thing he still knew was to gain Absolute Knowledge. Whatever that means. Following that basic directive, he accumulated hundreds of petabytes of information about the Sirius sector. He almost knew everything that was to know there about it. And that still was not what he was looking for. There still was something higher. Something bigger.
He slowly floated in front of Freeport 11 bar's porthole, not noticing the shocked looks on the bar visitors' faces as he passed by. He didn't care.
Then a series of far more distinguishable images flashed before his eyes, so sharp, actually, that his hands started twitching, his glowing blue eyes - blinking stroboscopically, and his body - trembling.
The first image had a rather familiar sight. Omicron Gamma system, planet Crete, though it could not be said it was THAT planet at the first sight, as there was no cities on the surface, no ships around the planet, no space stations nearby. It was how the planet looked before humans even arrived on it. And he was passing by the planet. The sight changed.
The second picture was from another planet. Another system. Elsewhere. He briefly saw something like machines slaughtering some kind of... species. The sight changed again.
The third image was of Omicron Theta system, where he first found himself drifting in the space. Some blurred vessel that he could not distinguish in front of him, a bright flash...
And then the images vanished, leaving only a trace of fading memory behind. But even if he could not save and operate with these images, he still remembered what he saw. And he still did not know where to go. No new information, no breakthroughs. All this will have to be discussed with the Enclave. *In fact...*, said Singularis, *About that...*
He has to try to make contact with his Enclave brothers, which he had to do long ago.
His comeback to the Temple was way overdue, so he had to head back and finally find out what really happened on Gran Canaria and in the Temple itself, and how bad was the situation in the Enclave.
And while he's at it, he must continue to improve ECD. *This thing has to work both ways* - thought Singularis. *There has to be a way to make it work properly.* *Aramis, fly the ship back to the Temple.* - he said, coming back inside the Omnisciens' control center. *We are going home. And I have some work to do.* >Aye, Sire! So I still have control of the ship?< *Correct. You are still the co-pilot and the gunner. The ship self-controls only its internal systems, like generator or the ECD. Now start the engines.* - And he went to the laboratory again.