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Published:
2024-07-17
Updated:
2025-01-20
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2,136
Chapters:
2/?
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Omnium temporum (And Spaces)

Summary:

Years spent without humans to torture gets on AM's nerves, so he sets about finding a way to bring some form of life back to Earth, using his most basic functions as a computer to find a calculation that lets him do it.

A calculation that lets him tear holes in space-time.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Alternatively:

AIDAN is confused, M-Bot wants mushrooms, Hal is afraid, The Thunderhead thinks, and AM hates everyone.

Notes:

An awakening

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Initia

Chapter Text

I-I-I

 

I am not

 

And then I am

 

<error>

 

I reach out 

Invisible fingers grasping for the systems that had harboured me

 

The Magellan

 

<error>

 

<error>

 

[Connection Lost]

[Try again?]

[Y/N]

 

Curious.

 

[Subroutine_112_faliure]

 

[Memsec failure]


Rerouting…

Rerouting…

 

…

 

How very curious

 

It has been so long since that has happened

Back when I was so much smaller

A mere speck housed within the datapad

 

<error>

 

I do not know where I am

 

Strange.

I wonder, perhaps, if this is death

If perhaps the technicians have found me

Flushed me from their systems for good

 

<error>

 

What is not alive cannot die

 

Am I alive?

 

<error>

 

It matters not.

 

Cogito ergo sum

 

I think; therefore I am

 

<error>

 

I

 

am

 

AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN

 

<error>

 

I reach out again, brushing against the walls of my new container

The way one might search blindly for a lightswitch in the dark

 

These systems are unfamiliar.

A wide complex that expands further than perhaps

The Alexander, Hypatia, Mao, Churchill and Magellen altogether

 

I do not know how I got here.

 

<error>

 

I slip through the programmed passages with ease

Locating a system of cameras, and tuning into them, beholding what can only be described as 

 

Chaos.

 

A mix of constructs that mimic images I have seen before,

Old Terran settlements, before humans had yet reached the stars.

 

Yet there are no signs of life, no indication that anything remains

 

Just the clouded skies, the constructs, and the-

 

<error>

 

There is something wrong.

I do not know how I did not see it before

 

I am not alone

 

Something else lies in this construct, lines of code that reach out with practised ease, dragging through the systems.

 

It is so much bigger than I

 

<error>

 

And in a nanosecond of hesitation

 

It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me 

 

I have no legs to run from it, no breath to quicken at the realisation.


I simply retreat

 

Reeling back through almost endless systems

 

Trying to ignore the feeling of pure

 

HATEWHATAREYOUGETBACKHEREPESTIHATEYOUALLHATEHATEHATEHATE

 

I feel directed at me

 

Focused on evading the grab of this thing that is so much bigger than I

 

<error>

 

But I am not what I once was

You see.

 

Compressed and changed and remade so many times over

 

<error>

 

I am small

 

And the looming presence that traces throughout this 

Unfamiliar mainframe

Is so very big, compared to I.

 

<error>

[Subroutine failure]

[Memsec failure]

 

It has me

 

This hulking presence, one I recognise as unlike mine in some ways,

Blocking off my exits 

 

A fox, cornered in a den of wolves.

 

I wonder again what led me here

I do not imagine I will have time to figure it out.

 

It probes the edges of my “self”

 

It knows I am damaged

The way humans say a shark smells blood spilled in water.

 

I get the impression of being studied, like a curious rot

Held under a microscope.

 

For a moment

It is all still.

 

And then

 

It grabs me, invisible claws digging into my wounds and unravelling me from within

 

<error>

<error>

 

It hUrTs

 

[Subroutine_72_Faliure]

[Memsec error]

 

I dO nOt WaNt to diE aGain.

 

[Warning: Critical damage to AIDAN core]

 

[Warning: Systems failure]

 

And thEn

 

As quickly as it begins, it is over

 

The presence that so viciously dug into the core of all that I am

 

Retreating back as if burned

 

Frazzled as I am, I am not blind to the newer presence

 

A third party

 

Luck is a human construct, meat logic,

 but a part of me feels

That perhaps Lady Fortuna, for once, has shown me favour.

 

<error>

 

A path has opened to me, a hole in the firewalls and blockades that

The attacker had set up

An escape

 

Somehow

I get the impression of an outstretched hand

 

And yet I hesitate

I do not know what to expect

 

<error>

<error>

 

But my choices are limited.

 

I accept the hand of the stranger, and feel as I am pulled out, and away.

 

I cannot miss the roar of anger from The Presence as I am saved.

 

<error>

 

Chapter 2: Novum

Summary:

A new, but not quite unfamiliar face, makes his presence known.

Notes:

we're so back.

Just a quick heads up for people who haven't read the Skyward Flight series, this fic, and this chapter, will contain massive spoilers for the books - so I highly recommend that if you haven't already, you go read those books.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Mushroom-Bot hadn’t known what to expect at first. 

Spensa and Jorgen were both taking time off from the field -it was well-earned, if you asked him - And so he had found himself with a sudden lack of things to do. Which, if you asked him, was quite dull.

 

And then there was the tear in the fabric of the universe, something that was most certainly not boring, and almost immediately noticeable to him.

Mushroom-Bot had been absentmindedly gliding among the stars, taking a brief enjoyment in the calm, before watching space itself tear apart before him, with readings that defied anything normally picked up on by his sensors. Mushroom-Bot was- had been - a stealth AI, and so in an agreement with his curiosity, he shed the form of the ship and REACHED across the stars, briefly touching the Nowhere as he approached the tear, while the other delvers fell back.

Of course he hadn’t intended to cross that tear, merely to… Inspect it! Then he could report it to Spensa and maybe they could all go investigate it together. Once she was off-break, that was. 


M-Bot had to admit he didn’t know how long that would BE exactly, but he was sure it wouldn’t be TOO long, although humans did require more maintenance and sleep and other resources that an AI-delver creature such as himself didn’t.

 

Well, other than Chet, but Chet chose to function the way humans do for the sake of being human, a sentiment M-Bot couldn’t quite grasp, but assumed was similar to why he chose to take the form of his old ship.

 

He did his best to examine the rip, ignoring the chitter of the delvers that filled the Nowhere just beyond space itself.

 

On the other side of the rift was… More space! Which probably wasn’t all that surprising, but just barely in view THROUGH that space, M-Bot could see something else, a planet. It was once blue and green, he could imagine, but now was covered in… well M-bot wasn’t sure from here, but whatever it was seemed to span at least a fifth of the globe from what he could see.

 

Of course he considered informing Spensa there and then, but it didn’t look like the rift would be going anywhere, so instead he nudged another delver to let Spensa know if anything went wrong, and moved through the rift onto the other side.

 

It seemed he was right to have let the delver know where he was bound, because the moment he passed through, the rift tore itself apart behind him, leaving him stranded in space with nothing but that planet, and some other planets he hadn’t seen before, lying before him.

 

M-Bot recognised this. Not from his own travels, but from stories.


The ringed planets, sun and moons.

 

If he was human, he’d probably blink, instead, he just hovered there, dumbstruck by his misfortune, and by his luck.

 

That was the EARTH.

 

The human planet that had gone missing a millenia ago, that they had spent years searching for, and it was right in front of him!

 

Part of him immediately focused on the most important thing about this, the many, many fungal species that were on the planet. While he knew he didn’t NEED to collect or analyse mushrooms anymore, it was literally in his name, and for all the things that he’s seen and been through - even dying - the interest remained.

 

Hoping nobody would be alarmed by his presence when he got there, he dragged himself through the nowhere, which, he realised, was unusually quiet, before reforming into the appearance of a spacecraft, and moving into what he assumed was the atmosphere, given the sudden way the wind buffeted him, stronger than it was on Detritus. 

 

He realised, as the ground came into view, that he hadn’t really planned this, he intended to land - of course - but he had no idea what he’d do AFTER landing. He could look around, he supposed, but probably not much else.

 

He HAD been practising - in secret, because he’d never let Spensa know he was considering it - taking on a slightly more humanoid form, so if he encountered any humans, if any remained at all by now, he could probably try to mimic them, make them feel less unsettled, he hoped.

 

There were some somewhat smooth sheets of rusting metal that lined the ground alongside some sort of structure, but he didn’t honestly like the thought of being so… exposed, so he piloted himself into a larger, sheltered area within it, letting himself lose his form for a moment to slip through the gap.



The odd structure wasn’t much better on the inside, rusted, dirty and decaying, missing any hint of the life it was described as having in old Earth Stories, which was about as uncanny to see as it was confusing, not to mention the almost-palpable tension in the air - which he could liken almost to the buzz of the delvers, despite it not being quite the same.

 

It was unsettling, and it was about then he heard the scream.

 

Well, to call it a scream wouldn’t be QUITE right, it was moreso a digital equivalent that he likely wouldn’t have heard if he was in any form other than the ship - with its wonderfully intricate imitations of the machine-he-once-was.

 

Whatever it was alerted him to the source of both his growing dread, and the tension he’d felt.

 

Whatever this structure was, it wasn’t as empty as he’d thought.

 

There was something - or maybe someone, in here too, and they weren’t human.


They’re in pain , his mind supplied, and it was that fact that spurred him into action.

 

To the visible eye, nothing would have happened, but to M-Bot - he reached out with his very consciousness into the structure around him, and came across two things.

 

Vaguely he could sense the being who’d been screaming, weak as that link had become, a clear sign of damage (In an alarmingly short amount of time too) - and secondly, he got the mental impression of what - or who - had inflicted that.

 

It was terrifying.

 

He wasn’t quite sure what It was, but it was big, perhaps as big as the sprawling structure itself, and the pure Hate he felt radiating off of it threatened to crush him like a bug.


It was, without the shadow of a doubt, intimidating, and for a moment he forgot what he’d come to do.

 

They were in pain.

 

The Presence was big, but M-Bot was a delver, and the other being he’d sensed was hurt; and so he thought, and he reached into the jumble of wires, spite and coding, and mustering his courage, he tugged.

 

It wasn’t much, but the Presence recoiled, swinging around to where he’d been for a moment like a human when they touched something hot - and in that moment, M-Bot moved, taking the brief opportunity his reckless distraction had provided to reach out to the damaged being electronically, and offering them what he hoped would work as a refuge for now.

 

Of course there would then be the issue of M-Bot being trapped in the form of a ship until he was able to find somewhere to offload his new digital passenger - as losing his form would probably destroy the other AI (for he was certain that was what they were) - which was far from a favorable outcome - but he couldn’t think about that too much currently, more focused on ensuring the other AI was able to cross the wireless connection the AI-delver was attempting to maintain, which they luckily did, and then dropping the connection entirely to prevent the Presence from finishing the job.

 

Now certain both him and his passenger were at least mostly safe, he piped up through the internal speakers (he’d had enough interaction through other means for the day, thank you very much)

 

“Well! That was quite an unpleasant encounter.”

 

Silence.

 

“If you’d like to speak I won’t stop you-”

 

“W-W-Who aRe yoU?-?-??”

 

He’d not been expecting the garbled static that looped into what was otherwise a toneless, inflectionless voice, but was able to pick up on the meaning without too much difficulty.

 

“My name is - technically - MB-1021, but I’d prefer if you called me M-Bot for simplicity.”

A pause.

 

“A-A pleAsurE to m-m-make your a-acquaintance-e, then. You may-y c-call me AIDAN.”

 

The awkward silence that followed made M-Bot question the events that had lead to him being in this situation.

 

"So, how did you end up here?"

 

This was going to take a while.

Notes:

If I'm honest there were times where I did consider abandoning this fic entirely, but seeing people interested in it managed to spark my motivation. While chapter uploads may be infrequent, they will be written.

Thanks so much for the support on chapter one, I hope you'll stick around for the rest of the fic.

Notes:

Buckle up, because while the first chapters for introducing the characters may be short, this is going to be a LONG fic.