Initiating boot-up sequence…

Accessing Program Files…Granted

Merging Program Files…Success.

Overriding Security…Granted.

Accessing Menu Options…

Reboot Successful…

Where I’m I? I wondered.

My reticles were still trying to process a clear image of my surroundings - wherever it was, it was dark. Flags developed in the corner of my vision that alerted me of all my systems settings, that diagnostics were running.

I went to move my hands and nothing happened – no response. As I looked down at my body I saw that nothing was there, not a single thing attached to what little was left of my head. When I tried to access my memory for what happened, nothing of use came to. Even my name wasn’t coming up clearly.

“Originated in: No – Ma - - - - -

Designed By: - - - - - - - D ----

Unit Name: Ad- -  No. ---

“

My memory was a blur… All I could make out was Nomad? Yes Nomad that sounded familiar. The last thing I remember is two clinks carrying me, towards some sort of warehouse. There was a bright light and then everything went black. My memory was disjointed, as if something went in there and shook it around.

My vision was starting to become clear, aside from static around the edges. I was in a small room where cables lined the walls and ceiling around me. Something was standing in the middle of the room, too dark and complex of a shape for my reticle to register. My head only moved slightly. My guess was that my head was being held up by some sort of mechanical arm that suspended my head in the air – I had no clue for what purpose. Judging by my memory corruption I could only guess that my body was destroyed previously, and I was currently being repaired.

A red light suddenly sprung up from the lining on the metallic floor. The light dialled down and formed a line from my position to the figure in the middle of the room, I could only see the bottom of it. It looked like human feet.

The arm holding my head in place was moving now towards the figure. The arm was inching forward while following the red line on the floor. More lights flashed around the figure in a clockwise fashion to reveal the mystery in front of me.

The figure turned out to be an android body like the one I vaguely remember being given previously. It made sense to replace something that’s been broken – I wondered what had caused so much damaged to my previous body. The body in front of me was obviously inhuman in its details: the synthetic skin was mostly transparent to reveal the internal lining of wires and reddish oil.

The only thing missing from this almost perfect body was the head. The neck looked like a port waiting for a part.

Before I reached the body my head snapped backwards and started rising to meet the level of the neck. Once in place the sound of something snapping in place occurred and my head was now resting on the neck, no longer supported by the mechanical arm which I could see recoiling into the ceiling above. The other side of the room was different than the rest I’d seen previously; the wall on the other side was made up entirely of these mirrors that. I could see my face now, partially blackened and unmoving.  

Rods and cables were connecting the bottom of my head to the neck of the body, being aided by these small arms that seemingly come out of everywhere. More diagnostic screens were filling the corners of my vision, making me aware of what part of the body was being connected to my mainframe.

Within a few more minutes my cranial unit was synced with the software in the body, making the two parts one. I could feel that the body responded to my commands. I commanded my right hand to move upwards and it did. My arm stopped halfway towards my face when I realized that there was a cord connected to the back of my wrist that prevented me from moving it around fully – moving my other ligaments revealed the same thing.

Something connected to my joints was restricting my movement completely. I struggled to get free of the lock, but it seemed like the cables were internally installed within my system making it impossible to get free without the lock to disengage. An emotion was erupting within my code – panic.

In the reflection of the reflective wall I saw a mechanical arm drop from the ceiling of the room behind me – it was headed towards the back of my cranial unit where my mainframe laid. There was a reason I was restrained – I had to think. I dug hard into my corrupted memory for anything to reveal what happened. There was the small village of Annecy, where I first synced with the broken clink. There was someone who I met on the path…a man. Then, there was a woman. We were running – from something – something that was responsible for the corrupting in my code. Like a flood of water within my head – the memories came crashing back. The last thing I remembered up to the point of being hit by the railgun is being carried away by the clinks before my battery finally powered off from the electric blast that damaged my systems.

My synthetic arms and legs were rattling around in the restrains – trying to find any leverage in escaping them. Right as the arm reached the back of my skull, I felt the back plate flip open and my vision blur. A message came on:

“Merging new OS with current OS… 1% complete.”

I was being reprogrammed. When it reached 100%, I would mostly likely be an upgraded version of a clink with both state of the art software and hardware. They weren’t just purging my old code, they were trying to combine it with something new – to keep my memories while still being in control of my actions…it all made me wonder what for. Whatever was doing this clearly wanted something I knew even if I didn’t necessarily know what it was, something buried beneath the corruption within my brain. That’s when I realized that they were looking for her, this “Eve”.

The process was 14% complete within a matter of minutes. My body was completely unresponsive at this point, but my mind was working overtime to think of a solution to all of this. While my old memory would be lying dormant within less than an hour – new code was pouring into my mainframe. New directives were being added to mine, something locating a lost asset from J & H design – the same manufactures who created the four androids meant to jumpstart the planet.

 21%.

I had to keep shifting through the new code and find out what was at the bottom of all of this. No human could still be alive or proficient enough to re-boot a manufacturing depot. I remembered Annecy with the clink whose programming was being re-written by lines of corrupted code. If I could find the root of this I might be able to reset myself once my OS was merged or at the very least warn Henry and Lucy about it.

When the process was halfway done a clue appeared to me – only a name. Hundun. My translator came out with the result that it meant Chaos in English. With my remaining time I ran through old world records looking for matching results for the name of this software and everything that happened before the war. That’s when I found it.

The Chinese military created a prototype worm capable of crippling and eventually re-purposing allied machinery.  It wasn’t given a proper name, but the designation “Hundun” to create chaos among the allied machinery if their physical army wasn’t enough. Whatever I was connected to give me access to its database probably only for a few more minutes before I lost control.

So a rogue AI managed to take control of this depot and was set on still destroying the allies. It knew that the four of us were needed to restart humanity.

75% complete. 

Next Chapter: Chapter Fourteen: Henry