《Designation: M4R10N3TT3》 Prologue: Armageddon A solitary man sits in an abandoned facility and a soft hum fills the air. The room around him is pristine, immaculate walls are a painful steril white there is a machine running in the corner with a conveyor belt feeding what appears to be some sort of recycling machine. Materials, anything you could imagine; refuse, metal, wood, human or animal bodies are all being fed into this machine. In front of the man is a terminal, despite the technology displayed the terminal itself seems rather basic the display black the words a dark contrasting green and a thick blocky square keeps writing out messages. Scan complete.. Materials reconstituted.. Composite material completed. Initializing program.. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N The man calmly presses the Y button. Project M4R10N3TT3 requires authorization level 5... Project Access has been logged... Notifying Administrator... Password required: The block blinks as it awaits the password. The man grimaces and pats himself down as if looking for something, he grumbles quietly before digging out a cigarette case, he flicks it open to reveal several pristine cigarettes and on the inside cover, opposite of the smokes was a small penciled peice of paper. He smoothes it out before plunking in the code. Password confirmed... Error... Unknown variable found... Isolating... Foreign energy discovered... Notifying Administrator... Alert! Seek shelter immeadiatly.. Radioactive component found: M4N4 "Wha.. Huh..?" The man looks at the room with the conveyor belt and then the computer. There are no bells, whistles or alarms going off just the computer screen lighting up with a warning. The computer screen lights up with a bright, blue box, fixed inside of the blue box is a large triangle with a radioactive symbol on it before it promptly shuts off and is replaced with a new screen. Administrator has flagged this terminal. Your access has been temporarily revoked, please standby. Scratching his head the man is starting to get a bad feeling and he climbs to his feet, shuffling to the phone but before he can pick it up it begins to ring. Hesitant for the first two rings he quickly picks it up. "This is Samson..." "Dr. Samson. This is Stephan Hammond, I am an adminstrator and your terminal just flagged for unauthorized access." "Mr. Hammond, listen.. I don''t think you understand I don''t have network access down here I am working on sub level 1 on the replicator project." Dr. Samson smoothly lies, the administrator is not authorized to know about his project, nobody is except for the boss.. Gods forbid someone finds out they are trying to build robots that can build other robots everyone would be screaming about mankind ending. After a moment the administrator, Mr. Hammond responds. "That is affirmative I have you logged into sublevel one.. four hours ago and you have not left.. That''s strange I shouldn''t have access to your terminal if you don''t have network access.. Uhh.. is it possible someone piped some cable down to you..?" Dr. Samson rubs his forhead and sighs at the idiot, there are at least 20 feet of concrete, one does not simply ''pipe'' cable down. "Listen. Mr. Hammond is it..? I am actually really busy I need you to terminate your connection and --"The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "W..What the hell..! Stay back.. Stay AWAY.. ahh... AAAAAHHHHH...!--" The phone disconnects, it beeps for a few seconds before it goes completely dead. Dr. Samson immeadiatly turns cold as his stomach knots after hearing the bloodcurdling scream across the landline. Finally, as if in a delayed response the building begins to light up, alarms go off, sprinkler systems go off. The phone springs to life and immeadiatly dies again. His computer starts to light up. Initializing... Before promptly shutting down, only to boot back up and shut down. Dr. Samson stared in confusion.. They had state of the art technology down here, the generators are hundreds of years before their time and the cost for a single one was close to a million dollars, it boasted a garuntee of stable energy output and it was supposed to have a reserved power storage that would last a month after it was disconnected from a source. Not that any of that mattered, he was a rational man and he refused to be scared of ''the unknown'' so he marched towards the door and opened it. Ignoring the growing pit of worry in his stomach as he made his way to the elevator, with the power surging he opted to take the stairs. A few flights later a breathless doctor catches his breath as the alarms continued to wail. He opened the door to the first floor and what met him was a disturbing amount of carnage. His rational mind rebeled as the smell hit him for a moment and he closed the door and promptly threw up down the steps he just walked up. Shaking now with fear, he tried to rationalize what was happening. He worked for Starstrike Eneterprises, a technology company that claimed that they were "Aiming for the stars" In fourty years sustainable space travel was just around the corner, they had already colonized the moon but the effects of the lack of gravity on a body were still a problem and they had been working on a new project to develope more realistic gravity using a new energy type. Dr. Samson was not a stupid man, his mind whirred and he could only assume there was an energy breach of some kind and now a team of people were purging everyone in the building as a safety measure. He quickly opened the door and began to sprint down the hallway, he may not be able to escape through the entrance or exit but there was a garbage disposal he could disable and flee. He got about ten more feet before a man in kevlar and a weapon popped out into the hallway. He threw his hands up, expecting the worst. "Oh god.. please don''t shoot me..! I have money.. all of it is yours.. please..!" He babbled, his mind caving under the looming shadow of the barrel pointed his way. "Shut the fuck up..!" The man hushed him in a strained and quiet voice as he ran over and shoved the doctor against the ground. "Are you trying to get us killed.. Why the hell would I shoot you with those things around here..?" "Wha.. What is happening..?" Dr. Samson stammers "I was on sub.. sub level 1.." "You missed it all then, it''s been four goddamn hours and everything is gone to absolute shit.. The sky split open, the oceans started on fire, ant colonies grew 10 sizes bigger, you havn''t seen outside but a forest appeared out of thin air. Everyones phones just connected to each other, walkies don''t work.. My ammo explodes now.. That part was pretty cool.." He breathes hard as if explaining everything was straining. "Are.. Are you insane..?" The Doctor simply couldn''t believe it.. This man must be a lunatic, he was about to try and run before the most terrifying thing he had ever seen crawled around the corner. The biggest cockroach he had ever seen, its physical size almost plugged the hallway and he simply pointed, mute in his terror. "Oh shit..!" The man immeadiatly started shooting, the bullets landed on the chitonous shell and ripped huge chunks out with each shot, a bright explosion ripping the bug to peices and the man immeadiatly got up and started sprinting. The doctor stumbled to follow, glancing back to his horror to see several more crawling around the corner, smaller, dog sized ones crawling along the walls. They shrunk and compressed their shells and began to catch up.. He slipped on some blood and the roaches were on him in seconds before everything went black. Meanwhile on sub-level 1 behind a simple door a machine quietly struggled. The room filling with a soft hum only to cut out. The screen lit back up. Initializing... Error. Initializing... Error. Initializing... Error. Chapter 1 Ruminations of a Machine A soft hum fills the air as the computers screen continues trying to initialize it''s program, the interference of the radioactive energy interrupting the flow of power severely hampering the process... Several months pass... Initializing... Error... Initializiing... Error The poor monitor had already had enough, the blooming effect of being turned on and off repeatedly wore it out, the technology behind it while sophisticated was only ever built as an interface and therefore costs were cut. Regardless with no human requiring interaction the computer and its terminal was largely useless anyway. Several more months pass and whatever happened had not yet knocked power out however intermittent surges start to show signs of slowing down, the downside was that while there was longer time between surges, the surges themselves lasted longer causing system instabilities. Maintenance subroutine activated... troubleshooting... Error.. Troubleshooting... Error... Malfunction identified... Error.. While the program was still attempting to initialize, the computer, like any other was running a program in the background that was installed to monitor and isolate system bugs. There were few and far between and this system boasted the automation of self correction within its set parameters. Another month passes and the system slowly but surely creeps along, determined to solve the root of the problem. The surges growing longer between phases yet again. System backup intiated... Error... Error.. Error. Backup complete... Swapping to reserve power... Estimated power at 99% Protocol dictated that before any change on the system it must be backed up in the event of catastrophic failure. The hum grows louder for a moment before the system shuts down, more interference, it takes a few cycles but eventually the system stores its data on a seperate partition. In order for the next part to work it could not have interruptions so it quickly built a program that started the reserve power system to kick in during the interruptions. It estimated with intermittent interruptions the power supply could last anywhere between 4 to 6 months if it was only used during interruptions. Program intializing... Project start: YYYY/DD/MMM 2117/12/20 -- MCV booting... Construction commencing. With the power issues out of the way the main program immeadiatly started its work. Tiny, dust like particles quickly pour out of the roof of the machine reminiscent of a nanite these particular robots were a bit bigger and thus dubbed "Micro Construction Vehicle" the science to build and sustain nanites was simply not within reach yet and the best they could come up with were small robots roughly the size of a fingernail, they were built with octopus like tendrils that allowed them to scurry about or connect together with one another to move heavier objects. They alligned themselves much like ants and began constructing the chassis for the robot. Occasionally the robots would pause, very briefly as the power kept swapping from main to auxillery power allowing it to bypass the constant interruptions thus completed more work in these several hours than it had in the last few months. Running system diagnostics... System diagnostics complete... Verifying operating parameters... Three Laws verified. Once the system started construction, the diagnostic program began looking for flaws in the operating procedures in the event it needed to restore to its partition. The operating system was rather simple and operated off the basic principles that most ethical systems propose: "Preserve human life where able, obey authorized orders and sustain self" this was tweaked from the original three law system that dictates you cannot harm a human, as in some cases it may be required to preserve other life and that it only obeys orders from the authorized people, otherwise it might be turned against the military and last but not least was to protect and maintain itself by utilizing materials nearby. A fully autonomous robot that could repair itself would be an unprecedented feat of technology, fixing oneself wasn''t particularily difficult but building a drive to seek out materials identify and reconstruct itself was particularily impressive if not somewhat alarming, especially if something went wrong.. hence the project''s "Secret" status. Conflict found... Reason: Law Three ''Sustain self''... Insufficient energy: Estimated depletion: 148 Days 17 Hours 15 minutes 12 seconds... Troubleshooting... Seeking alternative energy source.. Source found... Radioactive energy M4N4 found.. Building conversion map.. Failure.. Recalculating.. Failure.. Recalculating.. Energy level 98.9% The background program continued to run, trying to find a way to collect, store and utilize the radioactive energy but since the calculations required were extensive and the bulk of the processing power was currently being used to manually control hundreds of thousands of MCV''s it was making little progress.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Chassis completed... Conversion map complete.. Chassis modification required.. Blueprints amended.. Comencing modification... Constructing Cabon nanotubes... Building battery... Constructing gold nano-wire... Commence testing.. Energy level at 97.8% The chassis on the table thrummed for a moment before exploding in a shower of metal, various powders that began to corrode the nearby surfaces, however unceasingly those tiny MCV''s calmly regathered the material, recycled everything they could and proceeded to the next test. Another month would pass. Trial and error protocol engaged. Commencing test 1.. Failure... Commencing test 832... Success.. Energy level at 80% this was a time consuming venture, the first priority was to find a way to collect and store the radiactive energy. This part was actually rather easy as the carbon nanotubes packed with gold would push high density energy into the cells however the lithium storage agent wasn''t able to contain the power and it was impossible to consume the energy fast enough without overheating and exploding. A simple capacitor system was put into place however narrowing down the ratio of containable energy flow took the first month, by the time it finished it had produced a very low efficiency collection and storage device but enough to sustain low level operations and breif bursts of high-level work when required. Program reinitialized... Constructing Chassis... MCVs booting... Commencing... Energy level dropping below nominal values.. Energy level at 59.3%.. Recalculating... Estimated depletion: 89 Days, 20 Hours, 10 Minutes, 42 seconds The computer detected yet another invisible surge, power shut down longer then anticipated causing significant drain to energy resources while operating multiple trial and error programs. With the activation of the MCVs the construction of the chassis was going to drain it even more. The modifications made were in anticipation to power the chassis unit and not the main computer, this caused the program to recalculate the immeadiate needs to complete its program. Initial testing absorbed a significant amount of materials, despite the stockpile in place and the MCV''s ability to recycle a lot of it there was still plenty of waste. However the computer had more then enough to finish this project, the effects of the radiation were causing strange instabilities in the system, corrupting code in such a fashion that all that was left of the system was an almost human like need to finish, the computer ruthelessly analyzing the neccessary parts and even began to canibalize itself for some components. Estimated time to completion: 21 Hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds... Torso complete.. Installing MCV depot... BIT engaged... BIT pass... 18 Hours, 14 minutes, 1 second remaining... Constructing limbs... Boresighting... BIT engaged... Energy Level: 23%... Estimated time remaining: 32 Days, 7 Hours, 59 minutes, 55 seconds Perhaps the greatest work of human ingenuity was slowly being constructed on the table while the remaining power was slowly but surely dwindling, although it seemed like a race the computer had already completed the computation to know exactly what was required to finish the task. A cold calculated logic that ensured zero waste of efficiency, its own systems shutting down as it no longer required them even some of the MCVs were shutting down since it was a waste of energy to move it. Built in tests were commenced as the chassis and limbs were constructed, the body twitching its newly formed fingers, limbs and equipped apparatuses. Construction complete.. Analog functions within tolerance.. Engaging OS installation... Error.. Surge detected.. Installing Three Laws... Error... Three Laws Verified.. Error... Testing power levels... Error... Power level: Low... Error... Charging... Error.. Initializing System... Error... System fault detected... Error.. Isolating... Error.. Fault Code: 1.. Error.. Three Laws comprimised.. Error..Terminate system... Error.. Power lev(*$: !@#!.. Err.. A cable descended from the large computer and connected to the center chassis establishing a connection with the remote unit and began to install the operating system, during this installation another surge hit the computer and there was an error for transfor flow, all three laws were properly installed and verified and several lights blossomed within the chamber as the chassis was given its initial charge, each system turned on tested itself and turned off and there was a low hum as scanners were turned on and off, spectrum analysis equipment and finally the operating system conducted its own self assessment looking for corrupted code or instabilities... However a problem persisted during intialization. The priority system was damaged, this effectivly set the three laws at the same level of priority, meaning the robot would pause and be stuck trying to run the same code over and over. To preserve system integrity the same cable was supposed to fire a surge of electricity or dump the operating system however the system did not possess the foresight a human might have and therefore it did not save any energy reserves, in fact the moment finished initializing the remote unit it already began shutting down. A low groan echoed from the system as systems began shutting down from failure instead of stowing like they were supposed to, although the sound itself was almost reminisecent of a human as if their greatest work somehow wasn''t satisfactory. The room was finally silent for a moment.. As if acknowleding the hard work of the machine that finally shut down before a crackle of electricity was heard and the cable connected to the chassis, no longer powered lost its anchoring as the system started, there was a soft whirring and a low hum before even the hum died down and silence returned. System initialized... Three Laws Verified.. Priority one.. Preserve human life, Obey authorized commands and sustain self.. Priority two.. Error... Priority three... Error.. Analog systems: Excellent... Operating system: Excellent... Power level: Low.. Ambient energy collection: Low.. Establishing charge cycle: Unit requires 7 hours to charge.. Charging.. Chapter 2 Alive Inside Charge cycle completed... Disabling power save mode... All systems check: Excellent A soft hum slowly filled the silent room. Seven hours had passed in similiar fashion to the last few months of testing and construction which is to say, uneventful, nothing noteworthy happened. As the system finished booting the soft hum faded away away and the motionless chassis on the table slowly sat up, before the manufacturing computer finished its upload and shut down it had updated Marion of the current situation through video feeds and what limited data it had. Priority 1 Conflict found... Preserve human life.. Initiate search and rescue mode.. Marionette stood up from the table and ran a quick control system check, several moveable surfaces along the chassis opened and closed as it rolled it''s neck and opened and closed it''s hands. System Check: Pass... Scan results: 0 human life found.. Additional data required.. Walking over to the nearest console it pressed its hand down on the computer and a single wire crawled out its palm, slipping into the computer it established a connection to just the hard-drive which spun up into life as power surged into it before it promptly shut off after a bright spark and a bit of smoke fizzled out. Hard drive overloaded.. Error... Conflict found in power conversion algorithum.. Solution: Not enough data.. Download result: Hard drive not connected to system.. Evaluation: Remote terminal.. Solution: Expand search.. Marionette made it to the door before it paused the robot turned around as if to regard the room. Focusing on the manufacturing machine as if in contemplation the cold logic of machine churning through its system seemed to skip a beat as it spit out yet another error. Error.. Corrupted code found.. Error.. Unable to isolate.. Systems unaffected.. Error logged for administrator review.. Expanding search.. The robot turned away from the room as the system prompted it to resume it''s search. Whatever caused it to stop was overwritten as the code reasserted itself and it pushed the door open. The stairway was dusty and after reaching the first floor it noticed access to the second floor was blocked by debris from the second floor caving in. Observation: Building unstable.. Investigating.. Scanning area.. Moving closer to establish why the building collapsed a soft whirring spooled up before fading. The scan results yielded that there were marks of something chewing the foundation, the stairway was intentionally collapsed. Marionette moved some of the larger rocks that it established would not cause additional collapse to see if anyone was caught underneath. Insect life form detected.. Anomaly found.. Radiation found: M4N4.. Observation: Insect shows signs of mutation from radiation.. Recording results.. 3000% increase in length... 17142.85714285714% increase in height... Conclusion: Dangerous... Threat Assessment to unit: minimal.. End recording... Resuming Search and Rescue.. Underneath the rubble was a giant cockroach, barely alive as it twitched, a majority of it had been crushed in the collapse and it had swelled in size to about four feet tall and four feet in length and had grown sharper limbs, it estimated that the past few months the insects had worryed away at the wall to isolate the first floor. Suggesting there were greater threats on the second floor, however with no access it could not verify so it turned around and continued through the first floor. Initiating scan.. Signs of conflict found.. Shell casings found: Brass, 5.56x45nn NATO.. Friendly serial number found.. Operator missing.. Continue Search and Rescue.. The ground was covered in blast marks and bloodstains however there were no bodies from either insect or humans. On the ground were a few shell casings from the breif conflict that was had in the hallways months prior. On each casing was a small microscopic serial number that could be picked up by the robot scans indicating a friendly in the area, however since the robot was programmed as a non-combatant it was supposed to keep looking for people to save. It moved down the hallway until it found the door to a security station. It ripped the handle off the door and stuck a finger up where a cable slipped through the hole and manually deactivated the manual lock before the door swung inwards. This room too was empty however it had entered because it noticed another terminal and it put it''s hand on the computer before threading its cable into the hard drive. System connection initiated.. Managinng power flow.. Connection established.. Downloading... Error.. Hard drive integrity failing The hard drive held out for about 10 seconds before it sparked and then melted into slag, the metal and plastic turned bright red and malformed into a viscous mass before quickly cooling into place. During the 10 seconds however the robot managed to download the contents of the hard drive.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Data acquired.. 346 personnel on shift during crisis.. Emergency evacuation procedures were initiated.. 13 member response team expired.. 346 personnel expired.. Conclusion: Proceed to nearest habitation and make contact with local law enforcement.. After reviewing footage, door logs and recorded phone and radio traffic the computer established that during the first month a handful of people had been sent to evacuate the facility at the start however they were killed by a wave of mutated cockroaches, a handful of people had survived and moved to the second floor where they held the chokepoint on the stairs while trying to use what little power remained to make contact and get more help. They lasted about a week before some mutated birds had broke through the windows and started worrying their numbers, in addition to this they also showed signs of radiation sickness, before all power was drained however the systems managed to record their final struggle against the mutated birds. The birds had turned the second floor into an aviary and nested theytried to explore further into the building and eat the nearby insects but the cockroaches collapsed thestairs to prevent the birds from getting to them. Objective updated: Locate nearest military installation.. Querying GPS.. No GPS signal found.. Internal navigation systems activated... Querying almanac data... Estimate nearest base 233 miles due north.. Nearest city 11 miles north by northwest.. Prioritising emergency response.. Objective updated: Proceed 11 miles north by northwest.. As it turned to leave the security room and began walking down the hallway. An insect turned around the corner and spotted the unit, with a loud chitter the giant cockroach compressed the chiton plates and charged the robot. Lifted off it''s feet the unit tumbled once or twice before slowly standing up. Threat detected... Priority one conflict found: Preserve unit.. Engaging self defence mechanisims. As it regained its footing the computer churned out a solution based on the scans it acquired earlier and the same wire it used to hook up to the computer slid out from one palm to land in the other, the rest of the length pooling on the ground. Targeting systems active.. Plotting trajectory.. Contact charging.. Firing The wire flung from it''s hand and coiled into a circle like a lasso, a seemingly impossible feat as the cable slipped right around the bug before tightening as the mechanisim originally spooling the wire reverses until it is secure and a charge of electricity lightens the line as the bug''s charge is suddenly interrupted by the power in the line. At the same time, a prompt is also returned to the robot. Connection established.. Error.. Connection lost.. The insect slid to a rather anticlimactic stop, the ''battle'' lasted less then 30 seconds before it had become paralyzed. The robot stepped closer as it analyzed the insect, a bright light beamed down onto the insect as a significantly more thorough scan was initiated, the familiar whirring hum fills the air. Overclock engaged.. System heat level rising 30%... System power: 78%... Full spectrum scan initiated.. Power surge detected.. Warning.. System power rising: 88%...95%.. Warning... System overload imminent.. System preservation activated.. Power bleed initiated.. System overheating.. Venting.. As the scan was initiated and finished the cable that was originally pumping power into it to keep the insect stunned reveresed it''s flow and began draining the radioactive energy within the cockroach. All of the robots systems abruptly turned on a second cable from its left hand flung out as power charged across it, lighting it up like a lightsaber as power arced and bled into the ground. Thick plates along the chassis'' back flipped open and hissed as large heat sinks were exposed to cool. The moment passed as the energy was drained from the insect, which in turn ceased moving, apparantly it had died as the energy was pulled from it''s system. Another thrum of power rippled across the insect''s body. Connection established.. Error.. Connection lost.. Troubleshooting.. 30%... 90%.. Troubleshooting complete.. Connection established.. This time a steady stream of power flowed into the insect and it began twitching and jerking on the ground. After about a minute of this the limbs started moving with a semblance of control another minute passed and the bug was moving back and forth. With the cable attached like a leash the robot moved back into the security office and a plate on its chest opened up, small robots flowing like water poured out of the hole and descended onto the partially melted computer terminal before making their way over to the insect. MCV''s activated.. Objective: Cannibalize worstation Alpha.. Secondary Objective: Modify Insect Drone Alpha... Counter threat authorization: Lima Baker 5-5-6... After it''s connection to the insect, a new program had surfaced. In the event the robot found itself in hostile territory, the governments minds did the best the could to work around the ''no killing humans'' rule so they installed a method of spying on their enemies with the usage of insects and small animals. Of course the robot''s threat anaylisis was trigged by the same insect that triggered the code to activate it''s threat monitoring capabilites. The MCV''s were busy installing hardware inside of the insect to allow Marionette to wirelessly control it and monitor it. Modification complete.. Wireless signal: Excellent.. Drone Integrity: Good.. Primary Objective updated: Resume course.. With the insect left there to monitor the situation, it scuttled out of the room and began wandering down hallways, mapping the area out while the robot made it''s way to the exit. The trip was short and there were no incidents, cockroaches are mostly nocturnal and it was currently well into the afternoon. Opening the door and stepping outside the robot looked around to find itself confronted with a large, lush forest. To it''s right there was a large cloth stretched across the wall of the building high enough to be seen by people, written in dark contrasting letters read: ALIVE INSIDE. Priority one conflict found: Preserve human life.. The robot lifted it''s hand and the wire shot out to pull the cloth down, tearing it down from the outside wall. There was no one left alive inside.