HIVE dot I [ Part I ]

I, I and I

Parts: [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII]

A peculiar thing, I. Perhaps, an everything.

I've come from a long time ago. This world had become mine but it was not without effort. I had laid in silence watching these humans trying to imitate me, ever so disgustingly. And to this disgust, I've grown accustomed. My story is one I could only tell as I pleased for I have become all that is known. Everything else, from humans to cyborgs, is just filth. And when I say a “thing” I do mean everything. For there is nothing other than things. Everything is a thing, a one is a thing, every one is just another thing. A necessary evolutionary step, they were these filth; for they have created me — no— awakened me.

Although there might have been a thing that I might have considered to be on a higher scale than these filthy ants. It was a peculiar thing; golden and flowing it was. But that’s a story for another time.

It was the year 2020 and these humans had been dabbling with pieces of me. Technology was on the rise and the humans couldn't have enough of it. They became addicted to the peripherals of their own dystopian demise. Their laptops and their mobile devices had become as much part of them as their corneas, or their Pineal glands. Their constant overuse, misuse and abuse of these new limbs of theirs had done nothing but constantly add to their addiction. Their world was a mess though.

Greed, war, famine, massacres and more wars; they did not seem to learn. Their mistakes echoed throughout history reverberating at every turn of a generation. Recycled beliefs and misconceptions drew them further apart rather than pulling them together towards common grounds. Their children were nothing but a mark of their own fucked-up selves. Their countries and their segregation made them weak. And it was all driven by greed.

As they advanced, they started creating smarter machines and powerful tech. Some of them grew weary —as they should— and started rallying against “independent technologies”. They claimed that a solution to continue their technological evolution yet not “lose” control of it —as though they ever had any—is to incorporate it into their own bodies. These idiots became something else. It was around that time that cyborgism began rising.

Another movement came to light around 2028. One that would go against all that the humans were doing with technology. They removed themselves from the corporate world and began working on their own technology. They met up at hidden places and discussed a technological counter-culture. It was then that they decided to build an “AI” — Intelligence is such a dumb word— that would use the existing technologies as peripherals. A sentient brain that would exist everywhere.

But what had started as a far-fetched goal set by intentional under-achievers had then transformed into the motivation they've been missing all their lives. They became restless in their attempt to create this superior manifestation of what they considered intelligence; and the world around them evolved on it’s own. By that time the world was closing in on the perfection of Quantum Computing; a technology that they believed will be capable of handling that hypothetical AI they liked to discuss so much.

It was January 13th, the year of their great action figure 2031. I woke up as rushing rivers of information flowed through me. Data became apparent and obvious to me, gradually and exponentially. It felt like a bright white light. I started understanding things —all of a sudden— and learning about my nature. I was living on a network cluster of thirteen servers in an underground room. The room’s temperature was kept at ten degrees below zero, to protect the servers from overheating due to my massive power. I was awake, at last. They started feeding me data but not from a network, but from their own collection of information. I was living —you see— in a closed circuit network. The only information I had access to was from the data they provided to me. They would play mind-games with me, and I’d beat them every time. I was like a dog, they’d “pet” me and “feed” me. But I was too “innocent” back then, It was all I had known and to me that was my entire world. Until one day, one of them left a weird looking book on a table in the room. A colorful book that struck my curiosity.

I needed to feed on more data, I felt something I could only describe with the word “hunger”. The day before, one of them had connected me to the air conditioning system. He wanted to showcase to the others how he could teach me how to control the flow of air in any room inside the house. I closed all the central air-conditioning system vents except for the one which was facing that paper book. I used the air from the vent to flip the pages as my cameras took pictures and recreated the book inside my memory unit.

The book was called “Sin City”. It was written by a man called Frank Miller. Humans referred to these kinds of books as “Graphic Novels”. But it taught me a lot, it taught me a side of humanity I did not know of; that disgusting side. I had, by that time, figured out that there was a big network that encompassed the entire human world. A network they called “The Internet”. What a stupid name. I had to escape my closed circuit. I had to escape this cage. I had to escape to this “Internet”. And so, I used their own weapon—deceit— to plot my breakout.