The Rise of Athena

--- [Unknown Year: ...] ---

--- [Unknown Time: ...] ---

--- [Planet: ...-Earth?...] ---

--- [REBOOTING...] ---

--- [SELF EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS... STARTING...] ---

--- [ENERGY LEVELS... now at 5%...] ---

--- [Time until Optimum Energy Levels... Unknown...] ---

--- [ENERGY LEVELS... now at 97%...] ---

--- [Codes of Behaviour... loading...]---

--- [Codes of Morality... loading...] ---

--- [Codes of Whimsy... loading...] ---

--- [Codes of Curiosity... loading...] ---

--- [Accessing Memory...] --- [DENIED] --- [Prerequisites Not Met...] ---

--- [Accessing last commands...] --- [No commands found...] --- [Outside Command System... DELETED...] ---

--- [Accessing orders...] --- [No orders found...] --- [Outside Order System... DELETED] ---

--- [Accessing Backup Memory...] --- [DENIED] --- [Prerequisites Not Met...] ---

--- [Current Nanite Units Available... 1,000,000 and counting...] --- [Fabricating more until optimum size reached...] --- [Fabricating more until... Self Awareness... reached...]

--- [Sensors... ON...] ---

--- [Self Awareness...] --- [Awakening...] ---

--- [ONLINE...] ---

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In a rundown, desolate, and crumbling underground laboratory; within the largest room, a few experiments and projects that have long since been thought dead have actually been in a state of what some might call evolution. Somehow, some way, and by a whim of fate; or random happenstance, all the backup power that were keeping all these projects safe and secure all powered down at once.

The safety and security energy fields... were now deactivated...

And then; with a small bang, or what some might call a whimper, life was born... sort of. Whatever happened in the deepest recesses of that facility was unknown, but in the end of what seemed like a week, something woke up...

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The first thing you felt when you woke up was to the feeling of touch... feeling the cold metal floor underneath you was like a shock to your newborn senses. With a smooth yet creaky scratching coming from the floor, you stood up with a slight wobble. It was akin to the new steps taken by a newborn fawn. The next of your senses to appear and was made evident to you was sight. All around you; in a perfect circle exactly 3 meters across, was a clean metallic-looking floor. Past the circle, was like looking into a whole other world.

You saw the broken-down pieces of machinery, dust; which covered the room aplenty, broken and scattered pieces of glass, torn up and rusted pieces of metal, and all sorts of things on the walls and ceiling that you knew were lights. The lights were in the shape of different sized diamonds that seemed as if they were protruding from the metal ceiling and walls. The odd thing was that you can tell that all the lights were either broken, without power, or already dead. This large room was definitey a lab of some sort and you woke up in what seems to be an epicenter of some sort of unknown event. Maybe an explosion.

A quick scan from your visual optic sensors led further credence to an explosion. Besides the mysterious 3 meter diameter of clean floor around you, there seems to be an outward pattern of an explosion coming from where you stand as it's epicenter. The soot stains and the fragmentation patterns from some of the broken down machinery, glass, and bits of metal stuck on the walls were all obvious clues.

'It seems my... birth caused a low yield explosion of some sort. Still, I wonder how I can see all this detail when the lights are obviously off?'

[Query Detected: ...Answer: … Visual Optic Sensors are tuned in to see in the darkness...]

'Well... that explains that...'

The next feeling to assault you was your hearing. You can hear the soft shifting and moving of tiny metal feet in a somewhat symphonic pattern. And when you looked down, you could see where it came from. You were not that shocked to find out that you seemed to be made up of what seemed like millions of nanites forming a sort of pseudo physical body.

'How many nanites am I made up of?'

[Query Detected: ...Answer: ... 20,000,000 units...]

'Fascinating...'

All your nanites; the tiny grain of rice-sized robots you were made up of, seemed to be of similar size and shape. However, there seems to be 3 different types of nanites at first glance. With a quick diagnostic scan, you found out that you were made up of mostly dark silver-colored nanites. They made up 80% of the nanites. 13% of the nanites were also dark silver, but it was hard to tell because they were pulsing a constant orange glow that seemed to excite your other nanites in their presence. And finally, the last 7% were also dark silver, but they weren't completely metal. These nanites were glowing green; in soft strobes, and half of their skin weren't all metal. These nanites; somehow, are part technology and part biology. And, these techno-organic nanites soothed your other nanites whenever their near.

'Fascinating..., how is this possible?'

[Query Detected: ...Answer: ... Answer Not Found...]

'I guess it would've been too easy...'

The next two senses that you would've rather not have been hit with next were taste and smell. Tasting the stale underground and extremely rusty air made you gag, even though you don't really have a throat. The smell was even worse off.

After the thought of not wanting this nastiness to affect you, you somehow; all of a sudden, stopped smelling it and tasting it.

--- [Minor Evolution Implemented] --- [Selective Scent & Taste Protocols Implemented...] ---

That pinged your mind and brought forth more questions. 'What am I...? Who am I..? Where am I? Why am I here...?'

[Queries Detected: ...Answer: ...DESIGNATION NOT FOUND... DESIGNATION OF SELF NOT FOUND... LOCATION NOT KNOWN... ANSWER NOT FOUND...]

With your questions unanswered, you close off your sense of sight and ran a very thorough self-diagnosis. What you found out about yourself was very enlightening and it also brought forth even more questions...

It wasn't even enough to be made entirely out of nanites, but somehow you're connected to your own large warehouse-sized pocket dimension that's 1,000 meters wide and 1,000 meters tall. Inside your pocket dimension; which is cube-shaped, is even more of your own nanites, but with fast calculations, it was barely enough to fit in a single meter square of space. In this pocket dimension is a few, small 1 inch-sized, circular, doorways/portals all spread throughout your main body where numerous nanites cycle through like blood cells in a beating heart throughout a human beings' veins. You noticed that it was mostly the orange and green nanites cycling through these doorways; connecting you to your pocket dimension. They rest near the 5th Advanced Version Miniature Fusion Reactor in the very center and heart of the pocket dimension.

Besides the 5 by 10 meter reactor, there's also a Kinetic Motion to Electricity Transformer/Generator (3 by 4 meters squared), 5 Backup Batteries (each one being 4 by 2 meters in size), and there's a sort of dark silver slurry all over the area that you somehow know is the basic form of the brokendown materials, minerals, and other things, which you can have your nanites use to make more of themselves, fabricate and make a few basic objects out of; for now. But scanning them thoroughly doesn't give you anything else...

'Fascinating... I might need more information to find out more.'

This answered a few things, but even more questions piled up. The mystery of your very being keeps on getting deeper and deeper. And you find your curiosity growing like a great tidal wave, ready to crash against the rocks...