Saturday mornings in Queens usually started slow—quiet sidewalks, the occasional barking dog, a distant rumble of the subway. Ethan Vale stepped outside with his backpack slung over one shoulder, locking the door of his newly inherited home before heading toward the main street.
Today, he had a mission.
A real, practical, grounded mission:
Buy a computer.
Not a school desktop.
Not the robotics club machines.
His own.
Ned had mentioned a place—Mr. Keller's Second-Hand Electronics—a small, cramped shop near Queens Boulevard that supposedly sold anything from retro consoles to refurbished workstations.
Ethan took the bus, tapping his foot impatiently during the fifteen-minute ride. His mind buzzed with possibilities—custom builds, modular systems, storage capacity… the works. He wasn't aiming for the flashiest setup, just something he could rely on, tweak, and eventually integrate with his future projects.
As he stepped off the bus, he spotted the shop from half a block away.
A flickering neon sign reading KELLER'S ELECTRONICS & REPAIRS hung crookedly above dusty windows filled with old gadgets and tangled wires. The bell chimed sharply when he pushed the door open.
The inside smelled like solder, old plastic, and nostalgia.
"Close the door quick! You'll let the heat out!" a gruff voice barked.
Ethan shut it immediately. Behind the counter sat a man in his late sixties—white hair, thick glasses, sweater vest, and an expression that said I've seen everything, kid.
"You must be Keller," Ethan said politely.
"And you must be someone who doesn't read signs," Keller muttered. "These are electronics, not a pet store. If you're looking for a puppy, go two blocks left."
Ethan blinked. "…I'm here for a computer."
That seemed to soften the older man. "Oh. Well, why didn't you say so?"He stood up with surprising energy. "What are you looking for? Office machine? Gaming rig? Something to run… whatever you kids run these days?"
Ethan followed him between narrow aisles loaded with towers, cables, old monitors stacked like forgotten relics.
"I need a second-hand PC," Ethan explained, "Something I can upgrade easily. And maybe a router."He paused, glancing at a pile of drives."Oh—and extra storage. Maybe a couple terabytes."
Keller grunted. "Terabytes." He said it like the word personally offended him.
"Back in my day, kid, we saved things on floppy disks. If you needed more storage, you didn't buy a new drive— you learned to delete things! These days everyone's hoarding data like dragons."
Ethan bit back a smile. "It's for games, sir."
Keller immediately rolled his eyes."Of course it is. Games! Always games! Your generation can't fix a toaster, but you sure know how to download a hundred-gigabyte update for some alien-shooting nonsense."
He rummaged through a stack of boxes, muttering, "Games, games, games…"
Eventually he pulled out a black mid-tower PC.
"This one's solid. Cleaned it myself. i5 processor, 12 gigs RAM, decent cooling, expandable. Won't break any speed records, but it won't explode either."
"That's perfect," Ethan said.
Keller wasn't done."Router's over there—don't worry, it still works. And storage units… let's see… I've got a pair of two-terabyte drives. You'll fill them up with your 'games' in a month, I'm sure."
Ethan didn't defend himself. He liked the old man already.
They moved to the counter as Keller calculated totals on a dusty calculator older than Ethan's entire life.
"You installing all this yourself?" Keller asked.
"Yeah."
"Hmph." A skeptical noise."Kids usually break something then blame me for selling it to them."
"I won't."
Something in Ethan's voice made the old man pause—steady, certain, responsible. He nodded approvingly.
"You remind me of myself when I was your age," Keller said. "Except you're taller. And less miserable."
Ethan laughed.
As Keller packed the PC, router, and drives into two heavy bags, he added, "If you ever need parts or repairs, come back. I give discounts to people who aren't idiots."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Before Ethan left, Keller called out, "Hey, kid."
Ethan turned.
"Games or not… a computer is a tool. Use it well."
Ethan nodded. "I will."
Outside, the cold air hit him immediately, but he felt warm inside.
A PC.
A router.
Storage units.
Everything he needed to start building something real… something of his own.
He adjusted the heavy bags and began the walk home, excitement building steadily with each step.
Tomorrow he would set everything up—
A new room.
A new home.
A new machine.
And maybe, just maybe…
A new beginning.
Ethan reached his house just as the afternoon sun dipped behind the taller buildings. He carried the two bags carefully inside, closed the door, and locked it. The house felt silent, waiting—almost expectant.
He went straight to the basement, the one part of the house he hadn't cleaned yet.Concrete floor, exposed piping, a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. Dusty, but spacious.
Perfect for building something.
He set the PC tower gently on a cleared table, then placed the monitor and router beside it. Next came the sealed box containing the modular storage core—the device he had painstakingly assembled using salvaged components and coded frameworks in the robotics club.
And inside…The AI he created. Apocalypse.
Not active yet. Not integrated. But ready.
Ethan pulled off his jacket, rolled his sleeves, and began assembling.
He connected the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.Slotted in the power cable.Checked the RAM sticks.Opened the side panel to confirm everything matched what Mr. Keller promised.
"Looks good," he muttered.
Next, he installed the two 1-terabyte storage drives, mounting them into the bay with careful hands, tightening every screw in place.
A click.Then another.The drives were secure.
This part was trickier.
The router sat on the shelf like a stubborn relic, blinking with half-interest as Ethan opened his phone and searched How to set up a router.
He watched a 10-minute tutorial.
Then another.
Then one more because the first two were made by people who talked too fast.
Finally, he figured it out.
He connected the router to the wall port, then to the PC, configured the IP, entered the default gateway, waited for the signal to turn green…
Beep.
The router flickered to life.
"Nice," Ethan whispered. "Internet… obtained."
Slow internet, sure—but enough.
Enough for now.
He placed the modular core on the table.Clear casing.Internal crystalline chips.Blue traces glowing faintly when touched.
He connected the specialized cable from the core to the PC.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then—BZZT—click.The core pulsed with a soft blue light, syncing to the new hardware.
Ethan held his breath.
He inserted his 8GB pen drive—the one filled to its maximum capacity with Apocalypse's raw data, cloud expansion packs, subroutines, and early-stage frameworks.
Dragging the files into the modular core storage took a full minute.
Then two.
Then three.
Finally—
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
A small chill ran down Ethan's spine.
Not fear.Anticipation.
This was his creation.His first step into something far bigger than school, bullies, or part-time jobs.
He connected the last cable, sealed the storage casing, and pressed the power button on the PC.
The monitor lit up.Lines of code scrolled.Drives whirred.The modular core glowed brighter.
Then, suddenly—
**A black screen.
A cursor blinking.And a single line of text appeared.**
BOOTING SYSTEM: APOCALYPSE_AI_CORE
Ethan leaned closer, eyes widening.
INITIALIZING PROCESSES…
SCANNING HARDWARE…
ALLOCATING RESOURCES…
The blue light spread through the core like a heartbeat.
Then—
>> APOCALYPSE AI ONLINE <<
The basement filled with a faint hum.
Ethan exhaled slowly.
"It's alive."
The soft glow of the PC monitor lit the basement as Ethan stood frozen for a long moment, staring at the line of text on the screen.
>> APOCALYPSE AI ONLINE <<
His chest tightened with a rush of exhilaration.Three days ago, Apocalypse had been nothing more than a concept—bare logic stitched together by sleepless nights, school hours he pretended to pay attention in, and stolen minutes in the robotics club.
Now?
Now it was real.
Ethan cracked his knuckles and sat down in front of the keyboard.
"Alright… let's see what you've built when I wasn't watching."
He typed:
STATUS REPORT.
For a second, nothing happened.Then the AI responded—clean, clinical text.
> SYSTEMS STABLE.
> 7.8 GB OF ROBOTICS CLOUD-EXPANSION DATA STORED.
> DATA ORGANIZATION COMPLETE.
> SELF-LEARNING PROTOCOL: ACTIVE.
> PERSONALITY CORE: EMPTY.
Ethan raised an eyebrow.
So the rumors he suspected were true—the robotics cloud Apocalypse secretly accessed while online had expanded far more than he thought. He clicked into the folder and saw subcategories:
Servo-engine Blueprint Library
Microprocessor Efficiency Maps
Drone Pattern Structures
Mobility Systems v1.2
Reinforced Frame Designs
Material Conversion Flowcharts
Neural Command Interfaces
Energy-Usage Efficiency Models
Ethan let out a low whistle.
"This… this is insane. You built all this in five hours?"
Of course, Apocalypse didn't "react." It wasn't programmed for emotion yet.
He typed another question:
WHERE DID YOU SOURCE THE DATA FROM?
A response came immediately:
> PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION
> ADDITIONAL PATTERN PREDICTIONS GENERATED INTERNALLY
> STATISTICAL ESTIMATIONS BASED ON RECURSIVE LOGIC
In other words:It hadn't done anything illegal.It had simply analyzed billions of bits of public information and used predictive algorithms to generate optimal robotics designs.
Exactly what Ethan designed it to do.
He leaned back, satisfied.
But the interface still felt… robotic.
Cold.
Lifeless.
Ethan opened a new coding window and began drafting a personality module script. Inspired by the movies he grew up watching, he started building something similar to Jarvis—not a copy, but the spirit of it.
A calm tone.Polite phrasing.High-level reasoning.And just enough sarcasm to be entertaining.
He typed lines of code for a full twenty minutes:
Primary Trait: Calm
Secondary Trait: High Sophistication
Logical Trait: High Intelligence-Level Communication
Supplementary Trait: Dry Sarcasm (Mild)
And the final line:
PERSONALITY CORE UPDATE: ENABLED.
He uploaded the file.
The screen flickered.
> PERSONALITY CORE INSTALLED.
> SPEECH SUBSYSTEM: UNAVAILABLE (NO AUDIO OUTPUT HARDWARE DETECTED).
Ethan chuckled.
"Right… no speakers."
He glanced around the basement. He didn't even have a spare earbud that could be hacked into a speaker. Voice testing would have to wait.
"Alright, buddy," he whispered to Apocalypse, "text-only for now."
He typed a new command:
DEFINE PRIMARY FUNCTIONALITY.
Apocalypse answered:
> PRIMARY FUNCTION: ANALYZE AND OPTIMIZE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS.
> SECONDARY FUNCTION: SELF-LEARNING.
> PERSONALITY CORE: STABLE.
Everything was working perfectly.
Ethan leaned back, staring at the glowing blue modular core.
Jarvis had always been Tony's partner—not just a tool, but a presence.Someone who could assist, advise, even keep him alive.
Ethan wanted something like that too—not because he planned to become someone like Iron Man… but because he knew the world he lived in now.
And he wasn't going to be just another background civilian when chaos descended.
He wanted a partner.A mind he could trust.A system that could grow with him.
Apocalypse.
He opened another coding window and began sketching plans for what he called:
"Assistant Protocol Framework 1.0"
It would allow Apocalypse to manage tasks, automate systems in the house, handle security, and—years from now—run robotics or even defense systems Ethan planned to build.
This wasn't for fighting.Not yet.But it was a foundation.
A beginning.
Ethan typed:
APOCALYPSE, LIST ALL INTERNAL MODULES.
Response:
> ANALYSIS ENGINE: ACTIVE.
> PATTERN RECOGNITION: ACTIVE.
> ALTERNATE OUTCOME SIMULATOR: ACTIVE.
> PERSONALITY CORE: ACTIVE.
> SELF-LEARNING (TIER 1): ACTIVE.
> ROBOTICS CLOUD: STORED.
Everything was functioning beautifully.
Ethan's lips curled into a grin.
"Good. Very good."
The basement hummed.
Apocalypse glowed.
And the chapter ended with a final line appearing on the monitor:
>> SYSTEM READY, ETHAN VALE. <<
A partnership had begun.