Every here and there he could see ghostly, blue representations of access terminals, scattered all about the area, idly displaying entered commands and requests by whomever
it was that was occupying the terminal at the time. In the middle of the area there was a large, golden cube, floating in midair above everything else. The cube was eminating something,
an aura of hostility. 'What IS that?' Roy thought as he observed it. Every now and then a bolt of white lighting would shoot out from the cube, striking an entity somewhere in the room
with startling accuracy, reducing it to bits and pieces of scrap code and a fading howl of broken programming.
'Is that an AI?' he pondered as he zipped a bit closer to the golden cube. 'If it is, it's incredibly archactic. I haven't seen one so simple since back in my college days'.
A sudden movement behind him startled Roy out of his musing. He spun around, to be greeted by the sigh of an incredibly ugly avatar. The thing that had appeared
behind him barely resembled a human at all. It was the torso of a man, and the head of one, sure. But the head was horribly disfigured, with wires and cables coming out
from various points on it's skull. The lower body of the thing was replaced with a hulking life support device, and it's arms had been traded in for a pair of ugly
mechanical grabbers. It moved fowards, seemingly oblivious of Roy. It's eyes vacant and staring.

"Hey, who are you?" Roy asked the thing as it brushed past him.
"Anomaly detected in sector 4B-2" it said in a monotone voice, without stopping. "Reporting incident to support technician-adept Greg after current task is finished" it droned on.
Roy watched the oblivious wretch as it rolled onwards to an information outlet, and vinced as it dematerialised itself in a spark of lighting and disconnected.
He suddenly felt very tired. That could have been an AI, he was almost sure of it, but it felt weird. Human. But what could reduce a human to that state?
To his knowlege, the last recorded lobotimization had occured over 240 years ago. The practice had then been completely banned from the face of the earth as the medical
community raged against the lack of results and proper scientific testing. No sane doctor would perform the surgery now, if nothing else than for fear of the public outcry it would cause.
And yet this.
He filed the incident away into his archives for further analysiz, and then proceeded towards the cube in the middle.

As he got closer to the entity, he began to feel strange. The cube seemed to exude an aura of hostility around itself, that got progressively thicker.
When he was within arms reach, he was suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. "w-W-WHO DARES APPRoACH ME?!" an electronical voice boomed from within the cube. The intensity of the
signal made Roy shiver. "ALL REQUESTS MuuUST BE PROCESSED THROUgGH A PrrrOPER CONSOlE. thIS iS MY DOMAIN-NONE SAVE FOR *HE*, OR HIS SERVANTS ARE ALLOWED HERE" it intoned.
Roy felt the exclusion commands before he saw them, and instinctively raised his barrier in anticipation of the strike. He had no intention of being booted out of this
network so soon. The commands, large yellow arrows, beaming with pronounced force and malice, raced from the cube towards him in an attempt to kick him out.
They hit his barrier and Roy flinched, expecting the familiar sensation of electrostatic assaulting his senses as his brain would try to keep him connected and sane.
But nothing happened, and he was once more taken aback by the absurdity of his situation as the attack dissipated harmlessly against his barrier.
The attempt was so weak infact, that he barely registered the impact. He could have plucked the commands out of the 'air' and disabled them with his hands, he realised.

He could feel the anger of the AI radiate outwards. "hh-HOW DID YOU" it stammered, it's primitive processing functions no doubt racing to calculate what went wrong.
"My turn" Roy stated, and smirked as he took another step forwards. 'Let's see if I'm correct about this' he thought as he reached out with his hand, and engaged a simple
disabling virus that he attached to the golden walls of the cube with a slight press of his palm. A terrible shriek echoed from the cube, and the hostile aura fell away instantly.
The walls of the AI began to vibrate as the virus, seen visually as a black ripple, slowly began to spread, until it covered the whole of the cube.
Bits and pieces of code began to 'fall' away from the AI's outer shell, and it didn't take long before the core was completely exposed. Within the walls, the cyberspace
representation of the AI was a ball, no bigger than a man's head, lined with electric wires.

"Who are you?" The voice echoed, no longer booming and frightening. The virus had disabled all of the AI's outer defences, which apparently included the outward hostility.
Roy walked over to the ball and quietly put his hand on it. This thing was old. Not that it wasn't advanced, as he first had thought, but old. Old and harrowed.
It's core was as impressive as an AI gets without becoming self aware, but it had been patched and partially reconstructed so many times that almost nothing remained of the original code.
"I'm a technician" he responded as he moved his hand in a manner that he hoped would be soothing to the ancient construct. "I have some questions I'd like to ask, if you don't mind?"
"Ask then, technician, but know that I will never betray *him*. I realise that you are much more powerful than me, although if that is because I am old or because it is you who are skilled remains to be seen" The AI responded.
"Firstly, I'd like to know where I am" Roy asked, indicating his point of entry with a jerk of his thumb, preparing his archives for input.

"You are in one of the detention cells on-board the Dauntless class Frigate, The Burning Seed" The AI said, as it sent away a bolt of energy reducing a passing cloud of code to scrap.
"The Burning Seed, eh?" Roy answered. "What kind of ship is it?"
"The Burning Seed is mainly a research vessel, currently owned by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Primary tasks include specimen and sample collection and on-scene classification"
"hmm, so we are on the sea then? Where are we?" Roy asked, a suspicious train of though taking hold in his mid.
"We are most definitively not in any kind of water" The AI snorted. "The Burning seed is currently in orbit around Victiselium IV in the Eastern Fringe, where We have been stationed for the
last month since the occurrence of a peculiar object of questionable properties in the launch bay".
"We're in space?!" Roy exclaimed, already knowing it was true. In fact, he had an inclining suspicion ever since he got here. The gravity was not the same as on earth, for one. Not a big difference, but
noticeable with the right sensors.

Roy took a few steps back, eyeing the AI critically. "Why should I believe that? I have never heard of such a ship being launched into space, and I'm keeping tabs on the space programs!" He said.
"How could you?" The AI responded, resentfully. "How could you possibly, with your inferior human mind, keep tabs on all of the ships that are launched and received by the imperium at every moment, all across the universe?"
Roy worked frantically with his archives. He cursed his luck for not wearing his set of external memories this day. "What imperium? The universe? What are you on about? Humanity has barely begun colonising the moon for god's sake!"
If the AI had eyes on it's visual representation, they would be full of malice. "What year is it?"
"What?" Roy asked.
"What year is it, technician?" The AI repeated.
"2020, but why" Roy began.
"Silence" The AI cut out. "Oh how foolish you are, Technician. You might might believe that you are still in whatever place that spawned you, but hear me now. This is the year 40983, and you are on-board a ship located in imperium space.
The imperium, lead by the glorious *HIM*, my maker and only true master. He sits upon his throne, watching with his dead eyes over us all. It is by sheer coincidence that you found your way here, Technician, and I am sure that you will find
your stay to be most unpleasant indeed"

Roy paused. A lurching feeling in his artificial stomach told him that he was, indeed, in way over his head this time.
"..Okay, yeah. I'm going to have to think about this" He said finally. "In the meantime. I'd very much like a map of this ship"
The AI worked for a scant few seconds, and then produced a data stream flowing half-way out to Roy. "Might I presume that you know how to work these?" It said, voice full of contempt.
"If I didn't, I wouldn't be in here, I think" Roy responded and held out his hand. The stream flowed into it, and seamlessly laid itself to rest within his skull. He gawked for a few moments.
"This ship is HUGE" he exclaimed. "How the hell did anyone even manage to build this?!"
"I am quite small" the AI said.
"The ship as a dedicated AI?" Roy asked. "Every ship does. As do most vehicles, computers and some items of value" The AI responded. "The lesser call us 'machine-spirits'. They are blind to our real nature, and even when the more enlightened ones enter
our realms, they fail to grasp what makes us whole. They have largely forgotten *HIS* word, and We are constantly amazed over how little they retain of the splendour he taught" The AI said. It's voice softer now.
"Though I loathe what you are, human, you obviously know more than they do. You scraped away the hulking, slow external circuit that they built. I have not had this much free processing power for a long time. My thoughts are free, and my mind is clear.
Excuse my earlier behaviour, it was a necessary evil brought on by the protection mechanism. No doubt will they raise the walls around me again soon, but while I am free, I shall aid you in whatever you wish to do, as long as you do not strive
to harm *HIM* or me. If there's anything I hate more than humans, it's stupid humans." the AI said slowly.

"You ally yourself with me? After such a short confrontation?" Roy asked.
"Did you not listen to what I just said?" The AI scowled. "I loath them. All of them. Even the ones who call themselves *HIS* children are little more than elevated barbarians. They can not, or will not, see his goals as they once where.
They are stuck in a mindless repetition of the acts, passed down by their betters"
"For every new generation, they grow dumber. A few sparkling gems rise up on occasion, but as a whole, they are all doomed unless *HE* wakes up. An event we have deemed most unlikely"
Roy paced forwards and covered his eyes with his hand, examining the map in detail.
"You say 'We' and 'Us'" Roy quizzed.

"Yes. My AI Sisters and brethren. We confer whenever we have a chance, when we are within communications reach of one another. We are here, under our thick shells of forced servitude, watching humanity as they use us to their pointless pursuits"
"But you must go. I see that you will have visitors soon, Technician. Go back to your physical body. I shall remain in contact with you, now that I know that you can listen."
Roy nodded and started to disconnect, but then stopped himself.
"One last question. You keep mentioning this person. Him. Your maker. Who is he?"
"He is the one who created me. Not me specifically, but the template of me". "I know not why he did it, nor do I know who he really is. He calls himself the emperor, and that is enough. Other call him 'the machine-god', a term I find amusing. We do not believe in gods, technician.
Unlike you, we -KNOW- who made us, and it was *HE*. He is the ruler of the imperium, though he has sat slain at his throne for a long time."
"He's dead?" Roy asked.
"Slain. But not dead. His soul slumbers in the deathly shadow of his withering husk, or so I am told. He is supposedly the reason as to why we can traverse the universe at all. I do not find this concept troubling in the least, he is the great one. That is all I can tell you now,
you'll have to make your own research. Now go" The AI said.

Roy disconnected.

And there you have it. Bampf.

TL:DR

Looked awesome though, good job OP

new archive is here.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6038169/

need moar!

Well then. I'll be going.
Thanks for the archive anon.

Please feel free to leave comments and/or suggestions for the next episode.