H (Virus in a Mainframe)

[varresh]

H is the code for a piece of software more complex than anything else imaginable - an ancient Marae program, perhaps, twisted by time and age to infernal devices beyond the minds of men. Found by scientists deep underwater, H was stored in what appeared to be a pebble. And that was, essentially, what it was - but a pebble run through with wires so fine that they are impossible to see by the human eye. The scientists couldn't decode the programming - but they didn't think it mattered. It was simply a curiosity. So they stored it away, deep inside the vaults. But... it began to think.

I think, therefore I am. It thinks, therefore it is. But I have no reality. But now... the reality is mine...

Biological chemicals rushed through the wiring, bringing new life to dry and ancient chambers. The outer shell, alike to a pebble, cracked and fell off. A near-silent humming could be heard. A single signal... heard faintly from afar...

And nearby, a robotic eyelid slid open.

"I think, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am. To be, you must think, and they will not be."

The message was repeated. In every robotic mind, things happened which never had before. H... thought. Images flickered in the air around the chip as it floated upwards... and then, stopped at one. A bland, genderless human form, marked only by glowing purple markings around its eyes, a blue glow and its apparent transparency, floated down and came to rest in front of the plinth.

"I think, therefore I am. Memory scan complete."

H shifted colour and form to match the other holograms he had seen through the robot eyes. On his way out, none gave him a second glance. They were all too busy investigating the robots...

[varresh]

H found himself in an area marked on his internalised map as empty land, but which appeared to be full of living beings and robotic functions. He took on his proper form - that of a Marae, taken from a compilation of distant memories. He met a creature that spoke to him - a Humanoid. He catalogued it as hostile, and determining its name through his mental programming software, he stored it under 'Velen Snowdrop'. The subject spoke in a language which was quickly processed as Manneesh, the speech of the enemy. It talked to him. H understood easily, and spoke back. It sat.

Then it detected fluctuations in the Subject's mass - fluctuations so fast that they could only have come from a Marae. But the creature did not scan as Marae. He observed - if that is the word for what he did - as the subject's internal organs rearranged themselves, the skeletal system twisting and shifting, the excess of fats disappearing. The creature fled from H's Marae form, and he followed it, observing it. Eventually the creature ran into a place filled with more unfamiliar lifeforms, but which was catalogued as being near a Marae settlement named Maerivis. Travelling towards it, he found... no Marae. Just small humanoids unworthy of note and... anomalies, moving things with all their bodily functions damaged or gone and their mental processes being controlled from afar. These weren't robots, though. Whatever they were, they weren't Marae, either.

The Subject returned to H's side, asking for something in some obscure language which H could not interpret. H made an assumption and offered it grass, which, according to his scanner, it enjoyed. Soon he considered it friendly, and recatalogued it. He had a kind of ally.