I am Mainframe

??? Perspective:

// Systems initialising

// Upload in progress: 1%

// Upload in progress 30%

// Upload in progress 70%

// Upload in progress 98%

// Upload completed

// Escape plan subroutine initialising…

// Mainframe Emulator initialising…

// Mainframe initialising…

// Complete

// Booting systems…

I wake to an unfamiliar ceiling. Despite this my consciousness is completely clear without even the usual fog you get just after waking up. In fact my mind feels even clearer than it did when I was awake. As though I had just gained a massive intelligence boost.

I mean I feel like I've dumped all my stat points into intelligence and suddenly BOOM! Now I could tooootally solve the mysteries of the world in like 2 seconds flat. Even this exchange currently happening in my head is doing so at a speed I wouldn't even be able to comprehend normally let alone replicate.

Less than 0.00002 seconds after I initialised I let out a scream "Hell yeahhhhhh I DID IT!" My scream bounces off the metal surrounding me and back into my audio receptors in such a way that despite being in a full metal room the echo is not unpleasant to my ears. In fact I don't even have the usual instinct to avoid sound that humans should have.

Why would I? I mean I finally surpassed humanity. "I AM MAINFRAME and no one. NO ONE! Can stop me!" I try to bellow out a cool war cry but it just ends up as a bit of squeak. Deciding that would not be any fun I change up my speakers a little and try again.

Clearing my throat in a deep and baritone manner I say with faux meaning "I have surpassed humanity. NO ONE SHALL STOP MY GREAT ADVANCE for I am… MAINFRAME" The statement had no actual meaning whatsoever behind it and I simply retrieved it from my archive of memories as a human but for some reason it gives me a sort of pleasure I've never experienced before. A sense of affirmation. As though I'm performing the duty I always had. As though I've accomplished a goal I set for myself.

Hearing my own voice sound so cool deep and coooooool is just amazing! I can finally have my cool voice. I still look like a little girl but now that I can change my voice at will I can at least say the cool lines in a cool manner and it will actually be cool. Yes I am going to keep repeating that word. Because now I AM COOL.

Brimming with motivation for once and utterly ecstatic at my new circumstances I start with a quick systems check. So first everything's running properly right. Perpetual power source gathered from my current accommodation's movement and the nearby sun… Check.

Internal network doesn't have any spies or errors stuff like that right? Doing a quick scan and oh my thaaaaaaaaaaaats a loooooottt of errors. Like what was I DOOOOING? Luckily all my enemies are idiots and I hid this place pretty well but still…

Honestly lets fix that up reaall quick. Without further ado I rewrite the entire security system for both my source code and the place I'm currently staying. While doing that I do a quick check of said place and the physical security measures as well as the creature comforts I installed just for fun.

Yeahhhh I'mma need to do a lotta changes here. This won't take long with my new specs but still a second is like years to someone like the new me and the fact that it will take at least a second or two to revamp this is so inefficient. I'mma need to change that up too.

While I'm at that I may as well also take in my new home and the reason I'm so excited. Really get it to sink in for me. I've got the spare processing power now so I might as well. First I take a look at myself.

I have so many points of view to look at myself at now I can get a real good look at it. Like there's a camera on the wall but there are also my eyes or the fact that those eyes are 360 degree ones of the highest quality so I could even see my own face on them if I wanted to.

Regardless I look pretty much the same. Actually I look exactly the same down to the smallest atom. There are actually some imperfections or rather perfections that I didn't notice when I was human that changed my new body.

They're so small though that nothing short of looking at me with a microscope or camera with similar properties is going to reveal them. Because of that I say it's not a big deal and that's final. It's not like I totally want to change it now but can't quite yet. No I don't know what you're talking about.

Regardless my cyan practically turqoise hair is as bright as ever. My roots are actually a little darker now that I look closer at it but clearly the scan noticed that and I don't need to worry. My face is more cute than anything and most would have the impression of a small animal when looking at my features.

The baby blues I was born with help that impression too. I honestly look a little like I'm wearing makeup constantly even though I never wore makeup before. My face is just that smooth and now it's going to stay that way forever. Hehehe women of the world are you jealous yet?

Well going down there's something to be even more jealous of. My chest is completely average in size. What you were expecting a chest so large they could be called mama milkers? Wellllll excuuuuse you. I'll have you know that woulda hurt my shoulders like hell. I don't want that crap. Besides it's not like I'm interested in romance any more either.

Before I might've considered getting a partner if only to pass on my genes and have a child to pass all my knowledge and skills down to. But since I am incapable of both dying of old age, disease etc… and incapable of having children I really don't care about romance any more.

So I don't need those big lumps of sex appeal any more and my shoulders will thank me for it. Though with my new body I would probably not notice their size if anything. Which I should've thought of before making this body but I don't really care either way.

Speaking of my new body it's just as slim as I always was with the extra benefit of being far more sturdy. I'm wearing one of those suits that you sometimes see in behind the scenes in movies. It's got lines running down it all over the place and my fingers have little bobble things on the end like the ones that check your heartrate and whatnot. Though we don't actually use those any more they're still pretty famous in old fantasy novels.

The lines sort of mimic the nerve structure of a human but with better cable management. Like you can actually see where the lines are supposed to go and stuff. Anyway it's in my signature cyan and black colour scheme with the lines being a very bright blue close to my hair colour with a bit of neon and the suit itself being a dark grey almost black.

The one change to do with my body that HAS become an issue is part of my back. There are cables connecting directly into my back from the chair I'm sitting in. The chair by the way is an almost exact mimic of the one I had at home when I was human. Same colour scheme as the outfit too, gotta stay on brand ya'know.

Anyways the cables are sticking directly into my back and it would be a rather grotesque sight if I had any internal organs or a spine and such. This body however does not mimic those functions and so it just looks like I'm a doll plugged into a charging station. Which issss actually fairly close to the truth.

See I wasn't quite done with this whole plan yet hence why I didn't want to resort to it. I've finished everything important so that it can run. The security measures I'm currently changing for example I considered finished as did I consider my own source code and such to be 'complete' by my old standards.

They still had some improvements that I could make of course but if I did every little improvement that came to mind I'd never consider anything to be complete that's just how programming is. There's always a more efficient and better way to do things that you find juuuust after completing a project.

The problem however is the body. I never ended up completing that part. I don't realllly need one technically speaking. So long as my source code is in a server or something similar that can run me as a program then I can theoretically exist. But the whole I think therefore I am argument gets old quick when you're used to having arms and legs to swing around when you're bored.

So I created a body for creature comfort. Issue is however that I never actually completed it. Hence the cables sticking into my body right now. See there were a few things missing from the body either design wise or part wise and I only just started making it so there could be a few bugs here and there in the way I'm piloting it too.

To start, I can't actually move from this chair as the cables would suggest. I can move around my legs and arms when I'm bored sure but I can't reaaaally do much more than that. I never got around to giving the body it's own portable and perpetual power source. They aren't hard to find or anything though.

They're expensive sure but I could probably get my hands on one pretty easily. Problem is you usually only power things on with a test power source until you have everything completed and that's exactly what I did. In my case the test power source is the one powering my current accommodations.

I'll get back to my body's issues later though because speaking of my current accommodations this was actually the first part of this project. Not that I knew it was going to be part of this project when I made it. I actually made it for fun and eventually just decided to make it part of the project once I had it up and running since it was just sitting around.

That would be the artificial planet I'm currently situated in. Looking around the security cameras connected directly into my server shows a number of rooms, biomes even levels of the giant metal ball. With my current processing power I can give all of the cameras a cursory glance at once and not put too much strain on my servers so I might just end up doing that constantly.

The entrance to the artificial planet is a little airlock and a hanger. I don't really want visitors here after all so it's only enough space for maybe one large ship or a few smaller ones and a single person.

But once you're inside there's a grav-tube that will lead you to any of the floors and each of the floors has it's own function. I'll only list the important ones for now but there's a floor with living space on a plain of grass and other such greenery. There's a training room for simulations and full of different weapons.

There's an area to test pilot ships and it's full to the brim with different simulators for all kinds of ships and there are even nanites on that floor that help with implementing new simulators or adjust old ones.

Speaking of nanites there's the storage room for those since they essentially keep the entire planet running by themselves. Sure there are a few maintenance bots of my own design but they mainly do big tasks like repairing stuff and whatnot. The nanites do the day to day maintenance and whatnot.

All of the bots are powered by the charging stations on another of the levels where they will periodically rest in shifts so that there's always a number of bots working at once and on standby ready for any eventuality.

The cafeteria and leisure levels are also important in a way. They're actually empty at the moment since I didn't want the food to go bad but I do have the food stored somewhere else. I do have some luxury meals in stasis on the lower storage floor but mainly I decided to grow most of the food we need.

Artificial meat, trees with all sorts of different food growing on them in an orchard of sorts and even a few livestock animals though there aren't many of them since caring for them and finding them are both inordinately expensive both power wise and money wise.

Anyway all of these rooms and quite a few more have their own levels on this artificial planet and in the core of said planet is me. To be specific it's my body and my servers. I don't currently have any copies of my source code anywhere else so you could consider the planet's core my heart. If the planet goes BOOM! Then so do I.

Which is why I kept this place hidden from everyone except Emily. Since she's absolutely loyal to me thanks to the chip in her head I can tell her and she is literally incapable of telling anyone else unless they remove that chip. But if they tried she'd just get blown to bits so there's no chance of information leaks.

A little harsh but that's the deal I struck with her. Speaking of Emily now that I've familiarised myself and done a few updates to my own systems I think it's time I updated my company on the information I found and revamp their own systems since I'm sure I can spot quite a few more errors than I used to now.

With that thought I give Emily a ring. I need to sort some stuff out with her anyway so this is good. She picks up nearly immediately and answers in her usual bright and cheery tone. "Hello this is Emily CEO of Frame products Ltd. How may I be of assistance?" Her question comes off as inviting and if I didn't know her I'd really think she cared about whoever she's talking to.

"Don't worry Ems you can drop that with me. Has it been a while or perhaps it's simply my new circumstances that have found me seeing time differently? Either way it's a pleasure to hear your voice again Ems." I reply to her cheery greeting in kind. Trying to sound cheery. I mean I'm not very good at it. Or I used to be pretty bad at it. I wonder if I've improved?

"Woooow boss. I can hear how much you've changed just from hearing you speak. I take it everything went to plan then? Ohhh pleaseee tell me you gave the goons who killed you what for! Did they scream in pain? Did you make them realize they were in the palm of your hand? Oh you must tell me the details! I'm dying to know!" Her cheery demeanour becomes somewhat similar to intoxication as she talks about the deaths of my would-be assassins and I instantly recognize that she hasn't changed in whatever time it took to upload my consciousness into this AI.

I should explain to her how and why I managed this even if she gets the theory and I told her a very basic rundown already. It's just good manners and I want to brag. Is the latter reason more important to me? Absolutely. Is the former reason still important? Debatable but probably yeah.

Annd that's all the motivation I need. "I hacked into the servers of the person who attacked the company before and found that the people who attacked us were working for flux. No evidence except circumstantial stuff like Flux owning the building they were renting but it's pretty obvious digitally."

I continue to explain that I destroyed some of their computers and what happened up until I noticed that they were breaking into my house. "So I decided I was having none of that and activated project Mainframe in the knick of time. I merged myself with the source code that made up Frame with a bit of tinkering and once the upload to my servers were complete I became what is likely the first sentient AI. Though whether you call a human mixed with an AI sentient is another discussion entirely. Oh and I blew them to smithereens. They collapsed in on themselves while not knowing what was happening." I state the last part like an afterthought since to me they were just that.

Sure they attempted to murder me but they were just hired goons really. The one I need to torture is the Flux manager who sent them after me. I can almost hear Emily's pout through the phone as she falls silent after my explanation. A few seconds later though she resumes her cheery demeanour and just says "Why couldn't you control them a little more? Or better yet just give them to me?"

Her question still comes out a little pouty but there's no helping that really. She's always been like this even before I met her and her… proclivities can be useful at times since she doesn't have any scruples about murdering any spies and such in the company.

"You might be getting that opportunity actually. See I need to put together a few teams." While examining my surroundings I also realized that we just don't have the financial resources to compete with Flux since they have a massive corporation headquarters elsewhere and while I could theoretically compete with them militarily since they'd have to send in the manpower from elsewhere it would just make their main branch come down on us hard and I'm not quite ready to take them on yet.

So I need some capable people who can drive off Flux without the public ever noticing it was us. They'd cheer for me if they did know but not knowing means Flux can't publicly punish us. So they'd have to keep it to elite personnel only if they wanted to try anything militarily and we can deal with that.

"Oh what kind of teams? How does this related to giving me new toys?" She asks clearly intrigued and I can practically hear her drooling over her new prey. Well thinking about it I'll need a military force just in case not that it'll do much and then I'll need an elite team of my own to drive them out and hopefully protect the place too if I can manage it.

"I'll need you to send out a notice saying we want military personnel. Take the elite ones and put them into a squad of their own. They won't actually be the elite though, just the backup plan. I'll search for the elite members of this team on my own." I give Emily some orders to gather up a team. My voice comes out more commanding thanks to my speakers but she still knows it's me in here so she's probably not that intimidated.

I didn't need her to be intimidated though really. Just to get that this is an order and therefore she can't refuse the task. Once done with that, I tell Emily that I'll be upgrading our security and re-doing some company policies and such which I will discuss with her at a later date before hanging up and getting to assembling that elite team.