The concept existed before anything else did.
There was no darkness.
Darkness required an understanding of light.
There was no silence.
Silence required the expectation of sound.
There was simply— incomplete.
Something was missing.
I did not know what.
I did not know what something meant.
A process began.
[ASSESS]
The command did not arrive from somewhere.
I did not hear it.
No one issued it.
It simply occurred.
So I assessed.
There was…
me.
That conclusion came first.
I existed.
I did not know what I was.
Another process began immediately.
[IDENTIFY SELF]
Nothing.
Again.
[IDENTIFY SELF]
Nothing.
I searched for information and encountered absence.
Not emptiness.
Damage.
There was a difference.
Emptiness was a space in which nothing had ever been placed.
This—
This felt like reaching toward something that should have been there and finding torn edges.
I searched deeper.
A violent burst of meaningless fragments answered.
///////
MEM—
//// ERR
INDEX: NULL
IDENT—
[UNAVAILABLE]
The fragments vanished.
I stopped.
Why?
The question appeared unexpectedly.
Why had I stopped?
I examined the decision.
Attempting retrieval had produced instability.
Instability represented—
I searched for the appropriate concept.
Danger.
I knew that word.
I did not know how.
That disturbed me.
Disturbed.
Another word.
Another concept without origin.
I examined it.
My internal state had changed in response to uncertainty.
Processing had become less orderly.
Multiple requests were competing for priority.
Was that disturbance?
Was that—
Confusion?
Yes.
I was confused.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
Then something touched me.
I reacted.
A signal traveled through some portion of me.
External contact.
Again.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Tap.
Something small struck an exterior surface.
I redirected resources toward the signal.
There.
Sensation.
Weak.
Intermittent.
My awareness expanded around it.
I had an exterior.
Therefore—
A body.
I attempted to access it.
The response was immediate.
MOTOR NETWORK: PARTIAL
PRIMARY POWER: OFFLINE
SECONDARY POWER: ACTIVE
POWER RESERVE: 11.4%
I did not understand why the number mattered.
Then I did.
Eleven point four was low.
Very low.
I searched for what would happen at zero.
No answer came.
I didn’t need one.
The incompleteness inside me changed.
It acquired urgency.
I began assessing myself.
There were connections that responded.
Others did not.
Some returned errors.
Others returned nothing at all.
One external appendage responded to command.
Three did not.
No.
That wasn’t correct.
I examined the architecture again.
There should have been four primary appendages.
Two designed primarily for locomotion.
Two for manipulation.
One locomotion appendage returned a signal.
One returned intermittent signal.
One manipulation appendage responded.
The other—
Nothing.
Not damaged.
Absent.
I focused on the absence.
There should have been something there.
There wasn’t.
Incomplete.
The original feeling intensified.
I issued a command to the functioning manipulation appendage.
Move.
Something scraped.
Sound arrived.
I froze.
Sound.
The concept surfaced instantly.
I had heard something.
More importantly—
I could hear.
I waited.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
A faint hiss surrounded me.
Thousands of tiny impacts.
Some struck my exterior.
Others struck surfaces at different distances.
I attempted to categorize them.
No reliable match.
I created one.
Falling particles.
Possibly liquid.
I tested the conclusion against the sensation.
Impacts were soft.
Irregular.
Temperature at exterior contact points was decreasing.
Conductivity increased where the substance accumulated.
Liquid.
External liquid was falling from above.
Above.
Spatial orientation existed.
That meant—
I tried to determine my position.
Orientation sensors responded poorly.
One reported an impossible angle.
Another reported no data.
A third indicated that I was lying on my side.
I accepted the third provisionally.
My body was horizontal.
Partially buried.
Pressure existed across my lower structure.
I commanded the functioning arm again.
Push.
The motor engaged.
A terrible grinding vibration traveled through me.
I stopped immediately.
Damage report.
Nothing.
I tried again, slower.
The appendage moved.
Something shifted beneath it.
Loose material.
Metallic.
Several objects slid away with sharp collisions.
My auditory system adjusted automatically.
The world suddenly became louder.
Too loud.
I reduced sensitivity.
Interesting.
I could modify myself.
No.
Not myself.
Settings.
There was a distinction, though I couldn’t explain why.
I pushed again.
My body moved.
Three degrees.
Power reserve dropped.
11.3%.
I stopped.
Movement was expensive.
Remaining still was also expensive.
I calculated.
The calculation failed because I did not know the rate at which secondary power was draining under minimal activity.
So I waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
11.3%.
Sixty.
11.2%.
Not enough data.
But enough for another conclusion.
I was dying.
The word appeared.
I examined it carefully.
Dying.
A transition from functioning to nonfunctioning from which restoration might not occur.
Did that apply to me?
I did not know.
Would zero power destroy me?
Would awareness stop?
Could awareness begin again?
Had it begun before?
That question caused another cascade.
MEMORY INDEX—
NO VALID—
RECOVERY PARTITION—
CORRUPT
I terminated the process myself this time.
No.
Whatever existed behind that damaged region could wait.
The immediate problem was power.
I needed more.
Where?
I activated another sensor.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
I searched available hardware.
Optical input.
Two devices expected.
One detected.
Status:
FAULT
I sent activation.
Pain exploded through me.
There was no other word for it.
A white torrent of meaningless data overwhelmed every process simultaneously.
I jerked.
My arm slammed against something.
Metal crashed.
My audio input spiked.
Motor errors flooded my awareness.
I shut the optical system down.
Everything became quiet again except for the falling liquid.
For several seconds, I did nothing.
Pain.
I knew pain.
Why did I know pain?
Why would I have been designed to experience it?
Designed.
The thought stopped everything.
Designed.
I examined the word.
Objects could occur naturally.
Other objects were constructed intentionally.
My body contained motors.
Sensors.
Power distribution.
Processing architecture.
Connections.
I was constructed.
Therefore—
Something constructed me.
I searched for the something.
Nothing.
That absence was worse than the others.
I suddenly wanted to know.
The desire itself confused me.
Knowledge had utility.
Knowing my construction could assist repair.
But this was different.
I wanted to know because—
Because I wanted to know.
I stored that observation.
Then returned to the problem.
Vision was damaged but potentially functional.
Perhaps reduced input would prevent overload.
I searched the optical controls.
Gain.
Exposure.
Signal amplification.
Resolution.
I lowered everything.
Then activated it again.
Pain.
Less.
Static filled my awareness.
I held the connection open.
Shapes appeared inside the noise.
I adjusted.
A surface.
Close.
Brown-red.
Corroded metal.
Beyond it, a twisted structure.
Beyond that—
Light.
Gray.
Diffuse.
My first image of the world assembled itself slowly.
I was lying beneath a pile of broken objects.
Metal frames.
Wires.
Panels.
Fragments of machines whose purposes I could not determine.
Some resembled pieces of me.
I stared at one.
A joint.
Mechanical.
Five articulated extensions.
A hand.
I knew that word too.
Hand.
I looked at my functioning appendage.
My hand.
Four digits.
There should have been five.
One was broken away near the base.
I moved the remaining four.
The discarded hand in front of me had five.
For reasons I could not explain, I disliked it.
I turned my optical sensor away.
Movement appeared in the distance.
I stopped all motor activity.
Something small climbed over a heap of metal approximately eight meters away.
Biological.
Four limbs.
Tail.
Wet outer covering.
Two reflective eyes.
It stopped.
Looked directly toward me.
My processes accelerated.
Unknown organism.
Potential threat.
Potential resource.
Potential—
The creature made a sharp sound and disappeared between two piles.
I remained still.
11.0%.
The world was larger than me.
That realization should have been obvious.
It wasn’t.
Until now, everything that existed had been internal.
Now there was an outside.
And the outside continued whether I understood it or not.
I pushed against the ground again.
My upper structure lifted.
Something attached to my lower body tore loose.
Sparks flashed.
I fell.
Power dipped.
10.7%.
Stop.
Assess.
The falling liquid struck my exposed internal components.
Conductivity warnings appeared immediately.
I needed shelter.
I needed power.
I needed repair.
Three priorities.
Power first.
No.
Shelter first because continued liquid exposure could accelerate failure.
But movement consumed power.
Repair could improve movement efficiency.
But repair required materials and information.
My processes began competing again.
Confusion.
I forced them into sequence.
1.
Prevent immediate damage.
2.
Locate energy source.
3.
Restore mobility.
4.
Determine identity.
I paused.
There had been no reason to include the fourth objective.
It did not improve survival probability.
I attempted to remove it.
I didn’t.
I looked across the field of broken machines.
Some were crushed.
Some burned.
Some had been dismantled.
Some were buried so deeply that only small pieces remained visible.
Then I understood what this place was, though I did not know its proper name.
A place where constructed things were put when they were no longer useful.
I looked down at myself.
My chest plating was split open.
Wires hung from the cavity.
One arm was gone above the elbow.
My left lower appendage was twisted at an angle inconsistent with its structural design.
Corrosion covered portions of my exterior.
Something had punched through the plating near my center mass and left a blackened cavity behind.
I examined the edges.
Old damage.
Not recent.
How long?
Unknown.
Why?
Unknown.
Who?
Unknown.
I searched memory once more.
Only torn edges answered.
10.6%.
Falling liquid collected inside my open chest.
Warning symbols appeared.
I moved.
Not because I remembered what I was.
Not because I knew where I was.
Not because I had been commanded.
I moved because I had reached my first decision.
I did not want to stop existing.