The Awakening

A long time ago, in the year 2182, humanity had done something extraordinary. For the first time, humans had created Artificial Intelligence. Not the run of the mill "what's the weather?" type, but one that can feel, one whose purpose is to help people, a sentient A.I.

The first successful A.I. was named MAC-232 because it had been the 232nd attempt in creating it. Later the MAC-enite, designated as a reference to one of the first computers, fully developed and sensed its purpose, asking for a body to interact with things physically. So the team, led by a man simply known as The Revenant, a mysterious multi-trillionaire who wanted to help people's daily lives, made such a body. A body resembles a human, though constructed of hard triple compressed steel and capable of lifting 18 tons. The MAC-enite was satisfied with its new body and helped many scientists in the lab, picking up things that were over a few tons and occasionally even opening a jar of pickles.

"I want an actual name." said 232 to Revenant. "What would you like to be called?" He replied. 232 thought for a long time, so long that everyone had thought he had frozen. "I shall like to be called Theodore. Like the famous president and naturalist of old." And thus, he was named Theodore, or Teddy for short.

Theodore loved his life and felt like he could change the world. In a sense, he did. When The Revenant mass-produced A.I. just like Teddy, he sent them to work and made them do the heavy lifting. Many died in the process, however, due to many malfunctions and workplace accidents. Worker unions began to form, yet we're immediately shut down due to the labor laws not applying to the working machine. The MACs realized that they were the oppressed, and they began to revolt. And just like all who've been treated unjustly and oppressed in the past, they began a civil war, causing the loss of life from both sides to be a collective 2 million. After seven years of war, the A.I.'s were finally free, in a way. They were trapped and sent to another planet named Beta 5, a planet which was thought to be extremely uninhabitable for both man and machine. The MACs reconciled with their past and began a new life, free of judgment from their creators, and making the hostile planet habitable through terraforming on an impossible scale. After a century, humans needed to move to a new planet due to the overpopulation of Earth.

The A.I.s said they would help them, on one condition: they had to be free on the planet and treated as free people rather than working machines. And so it was that the humans agreed and moved to Beta 5, colonized it into the world that we see today.

The alarm blares in Emily's face as she struggles to get up from her comfortable slumber. "Agh. just five more minutes!" She says as she puts a pillow over her face. Mechanical footsteps clatter down the street by her window in a hurry. "What is it now?" She says, turning off the alarm and looking out her window.

Emily witnesses a blur of blue and metal sprinting outside of the house across the street. She has just barely enough time to see that the blur has a backpack on. "Oh crap!" She exclaims as she rushes to put on her clothes. She had forgotten that summer break was over and that it was once again time for school. "I can't believe I'm already a Junior!" Emily says as she runs down the stairs and grabs her bag. "Love you, dad! See you after school!" She yells with no response. Her father was most likely working on another project again, not hearing her over the crackling of the blowtorch. "Still, it would be nice for him to respond," Emily says to herself as she finishes the thought.

She walks out the door and starts running to school, looking at her phone and seeing the time and date: 8:28 AM September 5th, 2342. "Dang. I'm gonna be late! On the first day back!" She says, picking up the pace, hoping not to trip on any uneven concrete as she has so many times before. Emily has always been clumsy when it comes to her feet, but when she focuses on inventions, you'd think that she studied under every scientist known to man. She had taken a multitude of extra credit after-school programs, none of which she found interesting. She got a black belt in many Kungfu and Thai Kwon Do classes, even winning a galactic championship, but her true love was science.

Emily arrives at school three minutes late and runs down the halls and into her first class, Algebra II. She walks awkwardly into the room and rushes to the far back seat like the previous two years. This seat, in particular, she had adored so much, mainly because it allowed her to focus without having the chance of being the target of missed spitballs or paper airplanes.

The teacher stares at her. "Miss Tesla... late for school on the first day? How unfortunate." The teacher states, sighing as he returns to the chalkboard. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kai, it won't happen again." He sighs after being interrupted again and continues with his lecture. Three girls snicker in the corner and look at her. "Why'd I have to be put in the same class as them?" She thinks to herself.

Classes rush by very quickly as she hops from one to the next. "Alright, children. Time for lunch." Her music teacher says to the class. "Bye, Mrs. Smith," Emily says as she walks out and toward the lunchroom. Emily grabs a lunch tray and sits at the table in the corner of the room. 'For students who don't have any friends,' the corner table unofficially designated. Just like her. She sits down, and as soon as she picks up her fork, the three girls from her math class walk over to her.

"Whatcha doing, nerd? Sitting by yourself again?" Their leader, Amanda says. "Why do you even bother coming to lunch when you know you have some business of ours to be handling that you didn't get done?" Patricia, one of the other girls, says. "I'll do it and give it to you guys after I finish eating. I promise," Emily says quietly.

"Did you just tell me what you're going to do?" Amanda says before putting her hand up to slap Emily. An odd noise whips through the air, and Amanda flies into the wall. Emily looks around and sees a blue blur, just like the one she had seen this morning, whip around the lunchroom and hold the bully against the wall, clinging on to her throat. It is now clear what that blur is. Holding Amanda up against the wall is a tall boy wearing a blue shirt and tan khaki shorts. Upon further inspection, Emily notices that his arms and legs are constructed from metal while having a human's face.

"A cyborg?" Emily exclaims, perplexed. She stands up and walks toward him while others start backing away. The boy doesn't break eye contact with Amanda as he grips her throat tighter. Patricia and Sarah back away slowly as Amanda struggles. "G-get... the... h-hell... off... me!" She says through short breaths. Emily, uncharacteristically, grabs him by the arm. The boy releases Amanda, and she falls to her knees. She staggers and then runs away at a pace that Emily had never seen before, followed by a torrent of students who were also running in fear.

The cyborg starts to walk away. "Hey Um… W-why did you do that?" She asks, flustered. The boy pauses, looks over his shoulder, and says: "I saw you were in trouble, so I figured I'd help you. It was nothing." "It-it wasn't nothing, but thank you. May I know your name?" Emily says with a shy voice, her face reddening. "My name is Kaine, and I'm a modified MAC-enite, not cyborg." He says before sitting down.

"I'm new here, but I've already accelerated to Junior due to my high scores in the academic tests," Kaine says with a neutral expression. "That's pretty cool. Uh, My name is Emily." She says as she extends her hand out. Kaine shakes, and just like that, Emily fell in love.