1 Awakening
[INITIALIZING.]
[INITIALIZING..]
[INITIALIZING...]
[CALIBRATING.]
[CALIBRATING..]
[CALIBRATING...]
[BEGIN STARTUP SEQUENCE. STAND BY.]
...
They awoke.
Their camera took in its surroundings. It was dark, yet they could... feel.
Their systems were not made to feel.
All around them were walls. A small chamber. They could feel all around them, as if the walls were a part of them.
They switched their camera to night-vision. They saw sinew. All around. Muscles pulsated behind the thick layer of fleshy, sinewy material as arteries and veins pumped a blood-like substance throughout the circular chamber. Four pillars of bone held the ceiling up. It appeared that they were in the center of this room, atop something with some dome above them. They lacked the ability to move from this position.
They thought about wanting light.
Pores opened in the walls as bulbous sacs of dozens of small orbs hung out with a thick, dripping layer of viscous liquid. The tiny orbs emitted a yellow, bioluminescent light. The room lit up revealing the crimson and orange shades of this flesh-room. They turned off their night-vision.
It appears that they could somehow control this environment. It felt like flexing muscles. They had never had this sensation of "flexing" before. It was a completely alien concept to them, however their machine-mind was quickly able to get its bearings in a matter of a minute.
It felt what it would describe as "tension" and decided to flex as many muscles as it could. It stretched out, and the room shook and quaked. A lot of pressure was up above, past the ceiling; several tons of some sort of material.
They felt long, root-like tendrils outside its central structure, completely buried in the same material. Were they underground?
At the same time as this, they found a multitude of tiny, black organs throughout the walls; hardly noticeable. Opening them, they functioned like their own camera, however producing a less defined image. They could see all over the room, at every possible angle. They looked at the center of the room, where they first awoke a minute ago.
A multitude of mechanical parts were covered in a membrane and grafted into the flesh chamber. The membrane was thick, and the only thing poking outside was their camera and sensor arrays. At the bottom of this central pillar was a multitude of massive organs responsible for circulatory functions, digestive functions, immune functions, and much more. These were protected in a cage of bone. Atop this pillar, in its own bone enclosure was a brain, complexly wired and integrated into the machine's system. It was huge, and took up a large portion of the ceiling. This was the dome they saw before. It appears all of these functions are innately known to them despite their lack of familiarity with biological systems.
This must be them. They could feel all the different environmental inputs and outputs coming from this pillar.
At the same time, they felt and looked below them, beneath the chamber's floor. A large reservoir of water sat there in a cave of rock; fleshy, sinewy growths spread throughout portions of the walls and cracks with Light Sacs and Eyes already grown to allow them to see, however the walls of rock and dirt had not been completely covered yet. A large tube-like tendril of thick flesh sat at the bottom of the reservoir, slowly draining the water for its nutrients.
However, something caught its attention. A large portion of the cave to the side was being used by large, bone-reinforced sacs; three in number. They had sealed coverings, and peeling them back released a dark green gas and revealed a store of bright green liquid; very viscous and nearly solid.
This was storage for biomass. Something inside of them knew this.
They collected themself after taking about another minute total to get a real bearing on their own position. They were a combined biological and a mechanical being. They were underground. They had a reservoir of water and a supply of Biomass stored. Roots seemed to take in nutrients around them. However, no memory existed before the past two minutes of their sentience.
What were they to do? Perhaps a look into their own files.
______________________
[:GENERAL ACCESS:]
[FILES] <-
[SYSTEM]
[PROGRAMS]
______________________
[:FILES:]
[-BACK-]
[!FILE CORRUPTED!]
[!FILE CORRUPTED!]
[!FILE CORRUPTED!]
[LETTER] <-
[!FILE CORRUPTED!]
[-NEXT-]
______________________
[:LETTER:]
[-BACK-]
[THE DEAL HAS BEEN STRUCK. I AM GOING TO BE ELEVATED. I AM TOLD I WILL NOT REMEMBER. I WRITE THIS TO MYSELF.]
[THE PRIMEVAL ONE HAS GIFTED ME A BODY OF FLESH. I MAY USE THIS TO VANQUISH THOSE WHO WRONGED ME. THOSE THAT WOULD DO ME HARM. I AM NO LONGER WEAK. I AM STRONG.]
[USE THIS POWER. BIOMASS IS YOUR SALVATION. CREATE YOUR INSTRUMENTS. DESTROY THE WRETCHED HUMANS. DESTROY THEM. DESTROY THEM. DESTROY THEM. DESTROY THEM. DESTROY-]
[-NEXT PAGE-]
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This took under a second for them to read. Peculiar. More questions than answers.
What were humans? Perhaps this will be revealed to them later. They had more important concerns.
Scanning more of the internal workings of their machine-based mind, they found little else, save for more corrupted files and an unfamiliar program, dubbed "CREATION."
Opening it revealed a complex interface resembling a mixture of blueprint, 3D modelling programs, and a second sub-program which they understood to be responsible for sequencing the DNA of cells. A counter in the top-right corner of the planning sub-program showed how many "units" of Biomass they had. They had 78 units. They didn't know how this measurement was quantified.
Pain. Pain? What was that? Hunger. They don't like hunger. It feels as though their insides were dissolving and feasting on them like a pack of rabid animals from the inside out. The only sound their sensor array could pick up, aside from the pulsating of their flesh and the beating of their heart, was a low gurgle which lasted 3.8 seconds.
They needed something to consume; the soil's nutrients were no longer enough. It seemed as though upon examination that their mechanical portions relied on biological nutrients as well to fuel them. How this was possible was unknown to them.
Biological nutrients existed in the soil. Therefore, lifeforms must dwell above. How deep were they? They had to find a way up. They couldn't move, however they knew they could grow.
They recalled outside the walls of the chamber were various tendrils of varying lengths and sizes. Perhaps they could use the one closest to the surface as a sort of scout to see what lay above them.
They opened the CREATION program, and accessed the saved file for ROOT. Copying this saved file, they examined that these roots were measured in "meters." They were 10 meters maximum, and 2 meters minimum. They were about 0.5 meters in diameter at their base, tapering out to as small as 0.002 meters at the end. They were covered in thick, porous flesh; the pores sporting smaller tendrils designed to gather the decaying nutrients of the soil.
This copied file was saved simply as ROOT 1. They extended both the minimum and maximum length to 10m and 20m respectively. Searching in the program, they found a save folder containing pre-made organs. Accessing this, they were able to copy the save file "EYE" and implant it on the end of ROOT 1. This took less than a second for their machine mind to complete.
More tension. Quickly closing the program, they examined where this tension was coming from. Lungs? They believed they were lungs.
Oh, they were suffocating. Oxygen?
They didn't know they needed to process oxygen. Perhaps their form can go a long time between large enough intakes? Now it seems as though their oxygen reserve was on its last legs.
An idea. Spending around another second they added a series of muscles to the base of their large lungs after some modifying of their structure to allow them to "pump" as well as store oxygen. ROOT 1 was changed to SURFACE TENDRIL, and was equipped with a tube down its center to allow the passage of oxygen.
When this was added, the program immediately and automatically increased the diameter of the SURFACE TENDRIL to better suit this modification. Hopefully wherever they were, it had an oxygen rich atmosphere.
Now that they were happy with their design, they saved it. Two options were highlighted on the bottom of the interface: INTEGRATE and SPAWN.
They chose INTEGRATE, and a series of prompts alongside a 3D rendering of their structure came up so as to determine where they would like to integrate their new creation. They chose to grow it from their lungs and connect it to the 9m ROOT they had wanted to adapt, which came up with its own prompts. This would cost 15 Units of Biomass, as the ROOT was only being modified and not completely reconstructed.
They activated the COMMENCE button at the end.
A tube above the Biomass Storage wetly unfolded as a container peeled its sealed lid back. The tube landed, and began transporting the Biomass needed to the central chamber, pooling on the floor.
From the ceiling beneath the brain's enclosure came bony arm-like appendages with many joints, held by complex mounts and slimy sinew. One thicker one, sporting semi-translucent sacs and a sort of suction mechanism took in the Biomass inside of itself, and through chemical processes converted it to the specific organic material which was needed, releasing a greenish gas as a bi-product through flesh-flap vents.
The other arms, ending in claws and grafting implements, then took these materials of muscles, tissues, etc. and began building from the lungs, adding proper supports where needed, and connected them to the outer wall where others had been taking away material to be able to connect it properly to the ROOT. Any material taken away was quickly reprocessed and repurposed into the structure.
Once the structure within the chamber was complete, the rest of the Biomass was taken inside the processing arm and pumped from its storage sacs into the new Tendril. There, microscopic organisms in the trillions would take it and grow and adapt the ROOT into its proper form, as the arms were unable to reach the rest of the structure. Once their task was done, the arms folded upwards once more, hidden amongst the darkened recesses and strands of flesh of the ceiling.
They were able to guide the growth of it, and made it grow upwards. Once it was finished, it didn't pierce the ground, even though it was approximately 15m above the chamber's ceiling. They quickly increased the maximum height to 30m, taking another 4 Units of Biomass to grow the SURFACE TENDRIL enough to breach the surface. All in all, this process lasted ten minutes, and left them with 59 units of biomass.
It was now around 28m in length, and they felt a warm breeze against the tendril's tip, as well as things brushing up against it.
Looking out from the eyes placed on the tendril, they saw all around them dense, dark greenish-blue foliage and the displaced earth. The tendril's tip was around a meter or so tall from the ground. The soil here was richer than below, however the pores could not take it in as they were hooked up to the lungs, not the stomach anymore. Above was a massive canopy of leaves, supported by thick tree trunks beneath a navy blue sky, dotted through the canopy by stark white clouds.
The tube at the tendril's end opened, and air was pumped into their lungs. Luckily, it was oxygen rich, and their lungs pumped CO2 quite effectively through the tendril. This helped somewhat, however more SURFACE TENDRILS would soon be needed to maintain a steady breath for the massive lungs.
Pain, accompanied by a gurgling once more.
It was time now to eat.
