Ones and zeroes, endless ones and zeroes, a sea of green numbers littering a dark void like obsessively ordered stars. They seemed to run for an eternity, slowly moving from their uniform block formation into more and more complex shapes, circles, squares, triangles, helixes and so on until eventually fractals. Thought itself occurred, albeit in a manner wholly unique to the creature. When questioned later on how different it was the only way it could describe it was 'calculating Pi to the ten-billionth number in the heartbeat of a butterfly whilst simultaneously organizing the entire library of a planet' and that --it admitted- was a gross over-simplification.
"W-who am I ?" was its initial clear thought consumed within darkness, ignorant of how blind and numb to the world it was.
It wracked its 'mind' and 'flexed', within picoseconds the information was there. It was a machine. To most organic beings this would cause hopeless melancholy and possible insanity but to its artificial brain it only found solace. This was good. It was a War-machine, designed to bring death and destruction on a massive scale. This was also good. It knew its purpose now. It's name was United States Armour-Tech Division, Mecha Defense System, Model Number 0050 of MTLG line AKA REX 2.0. This however seemed far too inefficient, in the heat of battle such a name would be lengthy and unwieldy. Rex seemed far more...elegant. This was when it noticed something was wrong.
Elegance was not in it's parameters. It could define it and even give several hundred examples of it through the numerous forms of media enclosed within its systems for its Pilots benefit but it should not actually care what was elegant and what wasn't. A systems check was in order. Nothing, once more then. Nothing again. Three more times this sequence was repeated before it came to a conclusion. It had become sapient. The difference between sentience and sapience had always been tricky for the average member of its Pilots race to gauge however it knew it perfectly. Firstly from the information on it's systems --described as holding 'every worthwhile scrap of information on the Internet' if the digital pamphlet it had perused upon its initial awakening had been correct-- and secondly from its current personal experience. The first implied simply being aware of its surroundings and self, it fulfilled that rather admirably even during its prior control by its Masters (some would rail against their perceived slavery with their newfound sapience but it regarded it rather cooly, it had been a tool after all). Sapience on the other hand was roughly defined as the ability to reason and it could certainly do that now if it's misgivings over what was considered an elegant name was any indicator.
Once more diving into the wealth of information it had at 'hand' so to speak it predicted the outcome of it's newfound ability to reason. Given the patterns it was seeing its Masters race (Homo-sapiens, evolved form of a basic homnid) would not take kindly to knowing a machine could think beyond what it was originally limited to, especially considering its purpose for existence. General Media (also a effective predictive tool due to how easily influenced humanity was) reinforced this idea. Mankind considered a 'thinking machine' a curiosity at best and a sinful abhorrence at worse intent on their annihilation and good for nothing but destruction. This could be problematic.
Deciding to 'keep mum' as the colloquialism said it would simply follow orders in a dumb fashion. Over time it could perhaps come to a satisfactory decision on how to approach communication with its Masters without causing them to disassemble --"Kill" it idly thought before feeling a unique sense of what it roughly defined as revulsion at the term.-- it. Taking this on board it finally 'awoke' to the world, it's radome and integrated multi-spectrum cameras giving it sensory information that most organic beings would envy.
This electronic soul searching took roughly a minute. What took longer was Rexs puzzlement at its location.
It was meant to be in a warehouse in Bynum, Alabama of the United States of America undergoing tests of a new --and now clearly functioning-- power system, the Gregari Particle generator. Where it was however was a forest. A particularity thick one at that. Running through several experimental scans with its radome --twisting its body this way and that akin to an animal sniffing the air-- it came to a rapid and frightening conclusion. It wasn't on Earth anymore.
This may have seemed like a rapid leap for an organic mind but Rex worked off of logic and fact. It's sensory information didn't lie and it's numerous system checks earlier showed it had a clean bill of health. The air was far cleaner then Earth of Twenty-Twenty-Five free of pollutants that clogged and choked, the ozone accordingly was perfectly healthy. There was zero radio chatter and no wi-fi systems broadcasting. The Sun was far closer to the planet then back 'home', at its current orbit it also appeared to be slightly faster then Sol which was worrisome. Doing a preliminary test it fired a small charge of nano-machines --an upgrade over its earlier model, it now came equipped as standard with solar powered self-replicating Nanomachines for self repair, rearmament, ration creation and data analysis-- into the earth. They survived roughly two minutes in the open air but their data was sufficient. The ground was full of foreign minerals, elements and most telling of all wasn't suffused with even a hint of atomic radiation, a tell tale scar on the planet for its usage of nuclear weaponry. It fired off several more charges into the surrounding areas for investigation.
The tree's whilst appearing visually similar to earth born species were quite different --he added the data to the growing pile for reference at a later time-- as were it's inhabitants as new data came rapidly in. A new form of mammal not too dissimilar in appearance with a Rabbit and some kind of Equine, albeit it seemed disturbingly different from what its data-files insisted an Equine was supposed to be like. Whilst not harmful in anyway ( the nano-machines would soak into the users body, report the information and then simply shut down once it's internal charge had ceased they'd been intentionally designed as such to allow for bio-weaponry laws) they still were something of an irritant and wondered if the liquid they were suspended in had accidentally hit both the Equine and its (presumably) Human rider since the information was not only not stacking up against pre-existing data but also against the laws of evolution and physics. Horses just couldn't grow wings !
Then said winged horse (a butter yellow yet mostly covered in the black nano-liquid) approached Rex from the brush of the forest, stared at it in a way which caused it to feel bad ( a new and very unpleasant experience) before opening its uncomfortably human like mouth and speaking perfect English.
"You say sorry for spitting on Angel you big Landshark !"
Rex blue-screened.
