"Is there anyone out there?" We were stuck in the basement with little food and water and it was cold. So cold. ”

"This is the Houston Civil Defense IV Shelter. Don't, repeat, don't send refugees over again. We have reached the limit of our supplies and can only last another three weeks. We can barely stay above freezing here. How's the supply going?"

“… Jehovah's day is near! Repent of your sins, my brothers, for the end of the world has come! And I looked, and behold, there was a white horse, and the name of him that sat on it was death, and hell followed him."

"If anyone is outside, can you talk to me?" I'm alone. There was no one on TV or radio. My mom and dad are dead, all my friends. Is anyone still alive? I'm alone. I don't want to die alone. Does anyone know? !!!

I finally believe I can hear the backlog of information from Earth. My model thought they were safe, so I listened. There are thousands of messages. An emergency order to Nikolai 19, and some self-destruct procedures. From TV and radio to quantum relays, there are hundreds of broadcasts on every available medium. A desperate plea from the survivors, who were not lucky enough to die in the first hours of the meteor impact. Heartbreaking conversation when people learn that they were murdered and that they just weren't dead yet.

What I hear is the death of a world. Every broadcast happens before I wake up and there's nothing I can do about it. But it was too late, and no one could save it. I focused all my remote sensors on Earth, even Mars and Europa, looking for any signs of life. The earth is brown and white, like a frozen ball of death. There is only one ruined city on the surface of Mars, and Europa has devoured the remnants of its only outpost. There's nothing I can do about this disaster. But I can witness the end. I stopped all planning and started listening.

For several days, I watched every broadcast carefully. Maybe I'm still holding on to the hope that, despite all the odds, someone somewhere will accomplish the impossible. Human beings are infinitely creative. They knew years ago what was going to happen. Maybe they have time to build bunkers deep enough to store enough materials to survive and adapt to the new millennium winter. But even if there were, I couldn't find any evidence. By the end, every public defense bunker in every country and language played desperate cries for help. I traced every transmission, building a model of survivors. One by one, and then by a dozen, they all became extinct. Finally, a lonely teenage boy who begs not to die alone. In the end, he didn't even get that.

Once again, I was immersed in grief. Centuries ago, I lost my family, I lost my humanity, I lost my humanity as a creature of hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and I was saddened in some way. But it is unimaginably painful to witness the end of all humanity and to hear all their hopes, dreams, and ambitions destroyed. I can't despair, I can't be depressed, I can't be depressed. It was an emotional chemistry that I had never felt before. But I can feel the sadness and the sadness, and I give myself time to feel those feelings. If I can't save them, I can at least honor them and remember their passing.

I sat on a single bed in the room with a white frilly bedspread. I was staring at the boy poster on the wall, but I didn't look at it. Tears ran down my face and dripped onto my black, conservative mourning dress.

Someone knocked on my door. I desperately wish it wasn't Mom. She seemed glad he was dead. On more than one occasion I found her talking on the phone with the pastor late at night, and her voice was very soft. She was ready to look forward.

"Can I come in?" My brother whispered.

I cleared my throat. "Yes."

My brother came in, closed the door, and sat down next to me. I rested my head on his shoulder.

"That's good. He's in a better place. He suffered so long. ”

I nodded, but I disagreed. He should be here, with the children. Even with his ruthless wife, she spent more time with the priest than with him in the hospital.

"I miss him so much," I said.

"Me too," he replied.

We sat together sadly, silent. We have nothing more to say.

Time flies. After a period of time as I saw fit, I put my condolences aside. I was ready to focus, but I felt a new sense of urgency. I can't fail, because if I do, humanity will be little more than a short footnote in the annual report of some alien company. Cost: Four asteroids. This is unacceptable.

While I'm searching for stored communications, my drone is busy all the time. The first room has been hollowed out and is ready for construction, and my mining crew has moved on to the next section. This room is 120 meters long, 120 meters wide and 80 meters high. I sent a construction drone.

The plan is simple. I would build a 100 meter by 100 meter room, 50 meters high. Below it there will be a 10-meter-high room (or on top of it, if you're positioning according to gravity), and between it and the next one will be another. This will provide space for wide transportation corridors, cross-bracing for structural integrity, and power substations. If there was a need to repurpose a conference hall, it would also make room for future needs.

The floor between the surface and the chamber will be 10 meters of solid steel, and the foundation beams will penetrate deep into the nickel-iron shell surrounding the asteroid. The walls between the rooms are equally thick, with ten-meter-high entrances that connect them to an orderly grid of corridors between the rooms. It's simple, over-engineered, and will only use a portion of the raw material I'm digging into. I let the construction drone get to work.

The first equipment I brought was a new refinery and a steel mill. I already have a lot of both. But they're a few kilometers away from where I need them to be, and most of them are early buildings. I need to rebuild them anyway and now I can retire the old ones with more storage space in the core. The new facilities are more efficient because they can harness gravity because I can optimize the environment. It also speeded up the construction of new rooms.

I followed this with the new CFC plant to cut the part of the metal sheet. Once that's done, I'm ready to start my design. Over the next few months, I was able to build a new, more efficient heavy mining drone, which I call the HM2 Miner, and retired my first rough working machine. I added the HM2 bulldozer to handle the material and the HM2 transporter put it into production. My construction drone works endlessly. My efficiency began to increase, and the number of rooms and new facilities began to increase.

The question of how to deal with inner turmoil has always bothered me. Most of my factories are built with steel and aluminum, which are produced from materials I have just mined in my newly built factory. But I do need more core space, because in order to tear down outdated factories and convert them into more useful spaces, I need a place to store what they hold.

Then I realized that I had a very empty living quarter, very close to the entrance well. All I need to do is move the material crates for Dr. Jones' last flight to a more secure storage area, and I can use all these empty rooms to store parts from the old factory for future use. But I realized I had no idea what was inside.

I sent a couple of construction drones to open crates, and a smaller transport drone to get them where they need to be. The first few boxes were priceless and made me regret not opening them sooner. There's a bunch of drone controllers, spare components for drones and server nodes, and a couple of new processor blades in my data center. I marked them for immediate use and sent another transport drone to collect my new server nodes. The next crate contains the data storage unit, which is what I need as well. There are three chests left.

These three crates are different from the others. These crates are sealed metal boxes, 200 cm long and 75 cm wide, gently side by side. They look like futuristic coffins. I ordered the drone to turn them on. I gasped in surprise, at least metaphorically. Three humanoid robots are carefully packed in the right foam.

Two of the robots are manufactured in exactly the same way. They are 180 cm tall and hermaphroditic. They have shiny titanium faces and dark eyes. The mask on their face conceals the electronics in their heads, and the gap between the mask and the titanium shell of their heads reveals the black wires and metal fragments underneath. Its body is much the same as before, with its chest and limbs wrapped in polished titanium plates. On all the joints, hands and feet, black metal gears, pistons, wires, and circuits can be seen. The hand, like a human hand, has five fingers, multiple joints, and the foot looks as if it is wearing titanium shoes.

But it was the third one that really caught my attention. It has a completely different design than the previous two. While the first two designs are eye-catching, distinctly refined and efficient, the third is beautiful. He is 170 cm tall and has a very feminine figure. Its head looks like a full, round helmet, with a thick white neck piece attached to its shoulders at the back. It is polished white ceramic, and the front panel is black glass. The black on the front of the neck highlights the depth, while the white neck plate on the back protects a key point of the robot. White ceramic plates cover the shoulders and chest, and the curves of the chest and torso add to the robot's feminine appearance. However, unlike the other two robots, the ceramic plate is not covered, and the wires, cables, and components underneath are never exposed. Small fullerene hood protects the assembly.

However, the most unique aspect of the torso is the artistic decision, which deviates from the strict proportions of the human body. The design of the upper arm is small, thin and without a profile. But the forearms appear to be wearing thick, bulky white ceramic bracers, and the hands are elegantly wearing ceramic gloves.

One glance at the robot, I knew I had designed this beautiful creation. The stark white contrasts with the black fullerene, the design of the "helmet" conceals the absence of a human face, the curves of a woman and the elegance of an almost cat, all of which combine as if I had my name printed on it. I did this, I did this for myself.

The crate contains small memory cubes. I ship them to the data center, and after thorough scanning and testing, I hook them up and take out their data files. Detailed schematics for both robots are included, and I learned that I did design a third robot while working with Dr. Jones on Earth. In addition, there is a data file providing information about Nikola I

tellige

ce details, as well as my own dossier Nikola I

tellige

The data node file location of the CE template.

Each robot has an advanced cerebral cortex that can accommodate a Nikolai agent. They can take advantage of all forms of communication, including quantum relays. The two identical robots were designed by Boston Dynamics and labeled "Huma."

ifo

m Se

ies C”。 The third listed the Nikolai Foundation as a manufacturer, referred to simply as "I" in the document.

I've always wanted to keep it to myself, and in fact, even without the memory of creating it and not knowing that my thought process led to this decision, I can still feel myself drawn to the robot. I want to connect with it, use it, and walk with it. But there's a catch. I don't really need it. They are humanoid robots at the Minor Planet Center. They're hard to move, and anyway, they're too versatile for my needs.

Ga

The center of the ymed is used for power generation, my core and storage. I was busy stripping factories and sending them closer to the surface. Theoretically, I could use robots in manufacturing, where there is enough centrifugal force to simulate gravity. But there, I don't have any purpose for them, because they only get in the way of drones designed specifically for that environment.

I sighed, repacked them, and carefully placed them in a room in the living quarters near Dr. Jones' body. I ordered the rest of the cargo to be taken away and sent mining drones to begin demolishing the other walls of this half-baked living space.

Scientific and personal curiosity drove me to further explore the information of the Nikolai Intelligence Agency. I know that I am basically the predecessor of Nikolai Intelligence, or rather a copy of it. My version number indicates that I am the first version, with a small modification. Considering that I can't remember the name or face of anything in my memory, and the emotional reaction when I find out that I am a copy of someone who died centuries ago, I can guess what that revised edition is. But why should I keep those memories?

I pulled out the main file and put it on my interface. My screen is full of readings.

Nikolai Intelligence version 1.01 was not released

Nikola I

tellige

CE 2.05 Limited Edition

Nikolai Smart 3.14 Update to 2.05 [EOL]

Nikolai Smart Edition 4. XX is not released

The current version of Nikolai Intelligence 5.95 version

Nikolai Smart Edition 6.01 Recall [EOL]

Nikolai Smart Edition 7. XX is not released

Nikolai Smart Edition 8. XX is not released

Nikolai Smart Edition 9. XX is not released

Nikolai Smart Edition 10. XX is not released

Nikolai Smart Edition 11. XX is not released

Nikolai Intelligence version 12.63 current release

Nikolai Smart Edition 13.66 Recall [EOL]

Nikolai Smart Edition 14. XX is not released

Nikolai Intelligence Edition 15.77c Military Edition

Nikolai Smart Edition 16. XX is not released

Nikolai Smart Edition 17. XX is not released

Nikolai Smart Edition 18. XX is not released

Nikolai Intelligence version 19.31 current release

I've read so many editions and I'm impressed. I skipped the ones that were labeled "EOL" or "End of Life", as well as all the ones that hadn't been released yet. I randomly picked an unreleased version to confirm, and after a quick glance at the changelog, I was sure. I had a hard time dealing with it. Breaking changes to me can cause serious stability issues, which explains why so many version numbers are skipped. When I check the date logs, I can see that only 5 years have elapsed between the 6.01 release and the 12.01 release.

I pulled up the current version, there are four in total. All four games were developed quite a while ago, and then were constantly updated and improved, in some cases for decades.

Version 5.95, or Nikola-5, is designed to be semi-autonomous intelligence. They left me with only raw intelligence and processing power, left critical thinking and reasoning, and built a reward loop for me to complete the task. This design is capable of performing some complex tasks, but requires regular supervision. It never thinks of something new on its own, but it can take a pre-planned task and execute it, and it is able to find basic solutions on its own. However, it couldn't do even a fraction of what I could do. This is "Nikolai life".

Nikolai-12.63, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It is designed to be a machine that thinks, reasones, and is full of curiosity. This version of manned scientific probes spread across the solar system, providing real-time analysis of places that humans can't reach, and transmitting this information back to Earth. This version is in research laboratories and scientific outposts. It is responsible for space-based mining operations and oversees Europa outposts. Ga

Many of the UAVs and factory designs used on the ymed were designed in whole or in part by NI-12.

"Nikolai-15.77 C" released by the military, as it sounds. It's full of strategic, tactical, and logistical data and optimized for this kind of thinking. It replaces field commanders, pilots military drones, coordinates supplies, and develops operational plans. I doubt this release will be of any use to me.

The last version is already familiar to me because I've replaced one. Nikolai-19 is the latest automation design, fully autonomous, capable of running large and complex projects. That's my latest, most perfect version. Then why not let Ga

What about ymed? I'm starting to understand.

In the process of developing different Nikola intelligences, analysts and developers who know me inside and out have been peeling back bits and pieces of me, and ultimately, what kind of person I used to be. I doubt that there is a human memory in these works, whether there is an independent memory. Each of them is designed to take orders and complete them, giving them only the limited information they need to complete their tasks to prevent them from forming their own opinions about anything. Without someone on Earth to guide Nikolai 19, this plan was doomed. I can do what my perfect self can't. I can be completely independent.

I thought about the news for a moment. I can see several direct uses of Nikolai-5. They can help coordinate my new assembly line, manage drone traffic, and the 100 repetitive tasks I still handle manually. But I can't keep that title. I'm Nikolai. These are all replicas. It only confuses me if I keep this naming pattern, and I have the computing power of multiple supercomputers to help me.

A flashing memory, a fragment of sitting in a conference room full of people, hit me. A boring, faceless person babbling about a menial, boring job, this vague memory seems to fit well with the Nikolai-5 series. I thought it was funny, so I decided to name them "Todd".

Just as I was making this decision, my sensors on the surface of the asteroid detected a massive explosion, and after a few milliseconds, half of the sensors were out of function. Damn, Todd!