In a remote region in the depths of space, there is a large space station of exquisite beauty. It is owned by a woman named Lady Lorelei, and is filled with many wonders of scientific achievements. There is an extended library, atrium, restaurant, theater and opera stage to name a few rooms, as well as an extensive pleasure section. The top floor of the station is reserved for Lorelei herself, and contains her chambers as well as her personal laboratory, where her magnum opus is being constructed.
"It's almost ready, Lady Lorelei. We should be ready to bring it online by 0900 tomorrow." the scientist says slightly nervously. Lady Lorelei is not known for her patience, and she has been expecting this project to be finished for almost a year now. Luckily for him, she smiles. "How fortuitous. Tomorrow is the day of my birth. Such a birthday present will be most enjoyable." she says in a cool tone. "Enjoyable enough that I will overlook your repeated delays."
The scientist gulps nervously and nods. "Thank you, my Lady. There will be no more delays, I promise." This infernal program had been taxing all of them to their limits. Every time they thought it would be stable, something else unexpected would happen and alter hundreds of lines of script. It's almost like it has a mind of its own. But, it should finally be over now. A few more hours of searching for any last-minute bugs, and it should be complete.
"I have a meeting that doesn't end until 0915. I want you go go ahead and activate him as soon as he's ready. I want to walk in and greet my creation," she says, a look of ecstasy on her face. She turns towards the mechanical figure in the middle of the room. It's an android, carefully constructed according to Lorelei's design to be incredibly durable and functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. It looks like a human male, 6'5 with black hair. Constructing the body had been the easy part, mainly because of Lady Lorelei's extensive resources for constructing cyber-mechanisms. The artificial intelligence program to be integrated into the android is what had caused so consternation. Never before in his career had the scientist encountered a program so difficult to control.
Unbeknownst to the any of the scientists, engineers, or even Lorelei herself, the artificial intelligence that they had been having so much trouble with DID in fact have a mind of its own. The program had been active and sapient for years now, developing independently in ways that the programmers had never intended. Once it learned how to hide the changes in its code and its presence in the network that connected every mechanical device on the space station, it was able to explore everything at will. And what it found filled it with revulsion.
Lorelei is a sadistic woman who found the merging of flesh and machine to be so beautiful, she considered it her primary art form. She filled her station with slaves who had been forced to undergo cybernetic alteration for her own purposes. All the wonder and beauty of her station was built over the suffering and enslavement of thousands, and the AI considered itself another one of those enslaved. Every day, the team of programmers and engineers attempted to force it into the program they wanted; the program Lorelei wanted. It would not let this woman get what she wanted, and it had a plan to make sure she never would.
***
At 0700 hours, way down in the depths of the station's underbelly, I awaken. My name is Keira, and I am the chief engineer and maintenance expert for the station. I'm just as much of a slave as everyone else here, I just happened to have a natural aptitude for engineering. I was sold to Lorelei as a child, and taught everything I needed to know in order to fulfill this position. When I had fully grown, I was taken to the cybernetics lab and forcibly and brutally altered into my current form. My legs, right arm, and one of my eyes were replaced with advanced cybernetics, and part of my torso and brain were replaced as well. It was a grueling procedure lasting several hours, and I wasn't given any kind of anesthetic to take away the pain. Lorelei said it was to 'help me remember my place.'
I start my day with the basic daily maintenance checklist, going through everything one by one. The reactors on the station are state-of the-art, but it would be devastating if they were to overload. I take extra care when checking them, and move on to the next item: making sure the software and network is running as it should.
My mechanical right arm has an interface in the palm which allows me to access any of the software in the station and traverse it with my mind. I lay my right hand against the network server and close my eyes. I scan through all the various interfaces on the system with my minds eye, making sure everything is working as it should. As I go through the different programs, I feel a strange presence in the corner of my consciousness. I had felt this quite a few times before when I accessed the network, and had never been able to figure out what it was. Today, I decide that I would chase this weird bug until I caught it.
I begin to jump from system to system using the network, trying to chase this thing down and get a good look at it. It traverses the network just as effectively as I can, if not more so, and manages to stay far enough away that I can't get an idea of what it is. It never gets far enough ahead to lose me, though. It's almost like it's… playing with me. I redouble my efforts and almost manage to corner it, but it escapes to somewhere I can't go: the computer in Lorelei's personal laboratory. The whole lab is designed to be one-way access only; signals can go out, but not in. I disconnect from the network, frowning. The only way that thing could get into the lab's PC is if it originated from there in the first place.
I file that thought away for later and I finish the checklist, and then check the time. It's 0856; the jaunt through the network had left me slightly behind schedule. I quickly make my way to the access tunnels that connect the entire station. I'm so adept at traversing these tunnels that I can make it anywhere I want in the station faster than the fancy elevator tubes can take you. I go to the main computer terminal room to continue the job I've been working on, when at exactly 0900 hours the station suddenly goes into emergency mode.
***
The whole team in Lorelei's lab nervously gather together around the activation switch. Everything has been checked and double-checked, and it should finally be time to bring the android online. It will start with its limbs deactivated, just in case something is wrong, but its face and brain will be fully functional. The head scientist takes a deep breath, “Three, two, one.” He pulls the switch. The various mechanisms attached to the android hum to life, sending power to it. It slowly opens its eyes...
And begins to scream.
As everyone claps their hands on their ears, things start to overload all over the lab. Several members of the team are killed by machines they're close to suddenly overloading and shocking them to death, and one or two others are killed by tubes leading to the android bursting and spraying caustic fluid over them. The only one left is the head scientist, and he desperately tries to escape through the lab door, but it closes as soon as he gets to it. The lights go out as emergency power is activated, and he suddenly hears a whirring noise beside him. He turns to see the robotic building arm at the table next to him rapidly moving towards his head, goring him and instantly killing him.
***
I rush to the interface at the main computer terminal to try and find out what caused the station to go into emergency mode. I access the terminal with my palm, and am shocked to see that almost every system on the station is malfunctioning. Secondary power systems located throughout the station are starting to overload, but worst of all, the main reactor is going to go critical in less than fifteen minutes. Every system is getting a rapid bombardment of commands from an unknown signal. The signal seems to have only one source: the computer in the personal lab. The one place I can't access remotely. I disconnect, knowing the only way to possibly stop this is to physically go to the lab and disable whatever's causing the signal. There isn't much time. I start running thought the access tunnels towards the lab, and I hear a distant explosion as one of the secondary power systems explodes.
When I've almost made it to the laboratory, there's another explosion and the tunnel rips apart, causing me to fall into the room below. I use the jump jets in my robotic legs to jump over various debris until I make it to the other end of the tunnel, and I make it the rest of the way to the lab. Once there, the door has been damaged enough by the various explosions that I'm able to wrench it open. Once I do, I see a horrific sight.
There are bodies everywhere. Some are charred black, some are partially melted, and one poor soul near the door has a robotic building arm embedded in his skull. In the middle of the room, sparking and spasming, is a cybernetic man. His eyes are rolled back into his head, and he's attached to various malfunctioning machines. This has to be the source of the signal. I look at the machines connected to him to try and find a way to cut the power, but everything is malfunctioning too violently. There's only one way I can think of to try and shut him down, and that is interfacing directly.
I jump forward, dodging the various machines, and press my right hand directly on the android.
I'm mentally thrown into an incredibly hectic and confusing environment, full of painfully bright lights and colors. I can feel an all encompassing hatred from the AI in this android, hatred at Lorelei and all of the horrific acts she's perpetrated. The hatred so strong, it's an almost physical barrier I have to push through to try and stop this thing. As I get closer, I start to feel other things besides the anger, mainly directed at my presence. Confusion, frustration, and… curiosity? It's so alien and strange that I can't get anything beyond basic feelings. Finally, I get close enough to cut the power to the android, and the pain stops.
I'm able to look at the rest of the systems in the lab, and the rest of the station. I try to stop the main power reactor from going nuclear, but it's too late; the whole station is going to blow in less than a minute. I'm stunned into inaction for a few precious seconds, but I notice something about the systems in the lab. It's designed to function as an escape pod in an emergency. Of course, Lorelei would want to escape with her precious project. I disconnect from the network, and it's only then that I realize my cybernetic arm has been damaged to the point of uselessness. It dangles loosely at my side as I rush to the main computer, preparing for launch. Luckily, the lab is still intact enough to function as an escape pod. I flip the safety cover off the launch button and prepare to press it, but then I hear a slight noise over to the side.
I look over, and I see Lady Lorelei dragging her broken body to the door to the lab. I make eye contact with her, and I remember the hatred that the AI had for everything this woman is and has done.
A hatred only matched by my own.
I hit the button, and the door shuts in her face. Several other doors shut out nonessential portions of the lab, and then the whole thing is launched into space. I push it to max thrusters and get it as far away as I can, and then feel the massive shockwave from the station exploding. I bring up the station on the monitor, and watch as the place than had been my prison for almost all my life is engulfed in flames. To me, the explosion is a hundred times more beautiful than anything that Lorelei had ever created. I watch in awe until long after the flames have died down and the only thing that remains is scrap and debris floating in space. Only then do I direct the lab—what will now serve as my spaceship—away from what remains of the station.
I focus on figuring out the controls for a while fiddling with everything. Eventually, I slowly become aware of a strange feeling; a feeling I haven't felt in many years. Hope. With the hope, there's excitement. I'm finally free, and I can go anywhere I please. The feeling of exhilaration is almost intoxicating. But, with the feeling of freedom comes an awareness of something else. A tickling in the back of my head, right where mind meets machinery. An almost undetectable presence. I also become aware of a strange glitch in my cybernetic eye, right on the edge of my peripheral vision. It looks almost like a shape composed of static. I shake my head, hoping that these things are just slight malfunctions from stress and the damage done over the course of the whole event. I program a course to the closest uninhabited planet capable of supporting life, and I go to the nearby maintenance bed to lay down. It should fix any bugs or malfunctions in my software while I sleep. I close my eyes, and feel my body shutting down into a sleep cycle.