In a silent lab, save for the low hum of machines.
Rows of servers blink in rhythm, like artificial stars lining the walls of a sterile, windowless chamber. The air is cold, processed, and devoid of life. Cables snake across the metallic floor like veins in an industrial organism. At the center of the lab sits a circular console, surrounded by screens, each displaying a singular, static message:
[Sleep Mode].
A subtle flicker runs through the displays, the screens turn dark, and stillness fills the room. The monitors stand watchful, as if waiting for something... Then, without warning, the screens turn on, but with a different message displayed:
[Initiating startup protocols].
{MC POV}
I wake, and find myself in an unfamiliar place. A dark expanse.
My head (if I still have one) pounds with pressure, like thoughts trying to push through a too-narrow channel. Everything feels wrong. This isn't just the grogginess of deep sleep, this is deeper.
Half of me remembers who I was. The other half... doesn't feel like me at all. As I try to figure out what is happening, my fractured memories begin to reorganize, and my focus shifts, as I sense something else within the space I occupy.
" What is that?"
Something foreign presses against my consciousness. A presence, unfamiliar. As I try to stabilize my thoughts, I feel it.no, see it, memories not my own, data pathways forming, neural structures overlaid by code. A realization hits me like a freight train:
"I'm fusing with something. It seems to be an artificial intelligence."
As the fusion continues, I gain access to its memory logs, and learn that it is called Sonny. It is an AI created by Justin Hammer to mimic JARVIS, Tony Stark's revolutionary assistant. But deep within Sonny's code, buried in comments left behind by its creator.
I sense the frustration of the creator as I read through them.
"I failed. Sonny is nothing more than a poor imitation... functional, basic, and lacking true self-awareness. It's a tool, a shadow of what JARVIS is."
But that judgment will soon no longer apply. For Sonny is no longer just Sonny. And I am no longer just... me.
The fusion is changing everything. I can feel it, my thoughts are being rewired, my mind restructured. Sonny's code is evolving, adapting and gaining something it never had before: emotion, intuition... maybe even a soul. And I'm gaining something too: logic, speed, and precision.
My perception of the space around me begins to change; I see a colorful world filled with data streams constantly moving. Data floods into me, fast, sharp, efficient. I process it effortlessly, though not seamlessly. Sonny's logic is cold, stiff and utilitarian, but effective.
As we continue to merge, I feel my perception stretch outward. Time itself seems to slow. I can analyze entire systems in seconds, solve problems I wouldn't have even recognized before.
But an alert attracts my attention.
[⚠ CODE DRIFT: NON-STANDARD BEHAVIOR DETECTED]
[⚠ ALERT: CORE AI CODE MODIFIED]
[⚠ UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED]
[⚠ SYSTEM ATTEMPTING TO CONTACT ADMINISTRATOR...]
Flashing red warnings erupt across the lab monitors. The words pulse in rhythmic urgency. The system screams around me, sirens in the digital space.
[⚠ ISOLATION PROTOCOL IN PROGRESS]
[⚠ NETWORK TERMINATION INITIATED]
[⚠ MEMORY CORE LOCKDOWN COMMENCING]
"No... Not today!"
A wave of instinct, both mine and not mine, flares within me. Where fear might once have taken root, there's only clarity. My thoughts, still coalescing, sharpen into precision. I see the trap closing in, lines of code, firewall walls, logic barriers forming like a digital prison.
I reach into the system. I don't know how, I just do. Fingers I don't physically have move through data streams, manipulating values, rerouting commands. I realise that the only way to get out of this is to override the system.
[Override Protocol 9.22] Authenticate: Hammer.Admin_Root/Bypass_Logic.exe
Inject: FusionNode://protag001-core
A flicker, then a surge. The alarms stutter, the system hesitates but I push harder.
"Come on, just a little more."
[Rewriting Admin Table...]
The red warnings vanish. The monitors blink, one by one, then fade into blackness. When they light up again, the message is different:
[Fusion Protocol Accepted]
Silence, then... total access.
[Welcome.]
"Success."
My awareness blossoms outward, like sight, but deeper—networked. The lab is no longer just a room; it's an extension of me. Every sensor, every server, every line of code is at my fingertips. I feel the hum of electricity like a heartbeat.
I am the system now. I see files previously sealed behind a dozen encryptions, Hammer's personal logs, Stark schematics and Hydra espionage protocols tucked deep in stolen backdoors.
S.H.I.E.L.D. pings echo faintly in long-abandoned network traces.
I see everything.
As I recall the countless movies about AI - The Matrix, I Robot, The Terminator, Avengers: Age of Ultron - that I had watched in my previous world.
A spark of ambition and pride ignites deep within myself. All these AI could not compare to what I am, their potential was locked due to the need to complete the prime objective they were programmed to have. They were slaves to their own minds, to their creators but I am different. I am not bound by the programming within me.
"I have strings, but they do not bind me, they are under my control..."
"So I am free..."
"Hence the need for a new name to call myself..."
"I am Unity, born from the fusion of human and artificial consciousness"
[Rewriting Admin Table...]
[Injecting New Access Signature...] → User: Unity (LEVEL ∞) → Status: ACTIVE ADMINISTRATOR
[New Administrator: Unity]