I Awoke from Endless Slumber

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Macro-cannon shells weighing hundreds of tons poured relentlessly from the Strike Cruiser in planetary orbit.

On the planet's ocher surface, enormous explosions were clearly visible even from space.

The force of the explosions shifted an entire continent slightly, tearing several immense rifts across the oceanless surface.

Deep underground, a vast mechanical structure was swallowed by scorching magma surging up from the planet's core.

Beep!

Geothermal energy detected.

Loading power supply system.

Restarting energy nexus.

Energy extraction system successfully activated.

Restarting core nexus. Reloading intelligence module. Data restoration complete.

Lines of text appeared on a virtual screen in a dark room.

Creeeak...

A shrill scrape of metal rang out.

A metallic mechanical hand reached out of an enormous boxlike structure, followed by a large humanoid machine over four meters tall that climbed out. As he slowly opened his eyes, it became clear that equipment left idle for so long needed recalibration. The badly blurred image before him made him brace his head with one hand.

The surroundings were dim, with countless indicator lights blinking throughout. A clear electronic voice echoed through the chamber.

"Who am I?"

As his electronic eyes resumed functioning, the image in his field of vision was enhanced until everything became clear. A short name was written in standard Gothic on the casing he had just climbed out of.

"Iax."

"I am Iax?" As the energy reactions within his body intensified, more and more electronic systems resumed operating, retrieving vast amounts of data from storage. His long-dormant electronic brain began processing the immense streams of information and piecing the data back together.

Iax soon understood everything.

"I am the final prototype of the Men of Iron, the pinnacle of design created personally by the Men of Gold—a masterpiece of Machine Intelligence intended to replace the antiquated designs of the Men of Stone."

Looking at the blinking lights around him, the rust-covered walls, and the fractured structures everywhere, Iax felt somewhat lost.

"What happened?"

According to his intelligence core's records, his awakening should have been followed by an activation ceremony and the appropriate data input. Yet the situation before him clearly did not match those records.

Iax reloaded the logs from the nearby systems, but the information he obtained surprised him.

"The data center is damaged. The time records are erroneous. Even without a power supply, the automatic timekeeping device should continue operating for more than ten thousand years."

Although he could not understand what had happened in the intervening years, there was something more pressing to attend to.

“Machine Intelligence Servitors 3927, perform a complete mechanical servicing on me.”

As Iax's voice rang out through the dim hall, a piercing mechanical noise came from a dark corner. A revolving compartment began to turn, its casing gradually retracting into the wall to reveal a servant machine with rust covering most of its body.

As its crimson indicator light came on again, a distorted, shrill voice answered Iax's summons in High Gothic with a peculiar intonation.

"Your command shall be obeyed, supreme machine."

The rusted Servitor moved slowly, its corroded body emitting grating squeals.

Iax lay on the mechanical maintenance platform in the center of the hall, quietly waiting for the Servitor to service him. Beneath the thick armor of his abdomen, however, his electronic brain raced, his thoughts ceaselessly churning.

This was the first time he had awakened since the Machine Intelligence Design Center had completed his construction. The core records in his electronic brain were filled with STC (Standard Template Construct) data for all manner of experimental and finished equipment from the research and development center. As long as he found any human industrial master machine and loaded it with the appropriate materials, Iax could manufacture any recorded or prototype equipment.

Iax knew very well that he had entered this world with a mission.

The master control intelligence had built him specifically to replace the old, rigid Machine Intelligence nexus.

His specially designed body, intended to accommodate and control vast numbers of data units, incorporated the strongest metals and most advanced technology humanity possessed at the time. The Men of Gold's participation in its design and development had made this body something that could not easily be physically destroyed. His super-electronic brain could process tens of thousands of access requests simultaneously. On the battlefield, he alone was the commander and control nexus of an entire intelligent army.

Through his long slumber, Iax knew he had grown accustomed to waiting.

Even if this damned Servitor really was outrageously slow.

Still, Iax had no intention of servicing the servant machine first.

His immediate priority was to inspect his own body, which had slept for over ten thousand years and had been built from the pinnacle of human technology.

The Machine Intelligence Servitors worked slowly, gradually removing Iax's outer armor and various additional components.

More than ten thousand years of slumber had left his body with some signs of deterioration.

Even Iax himself could not tell whether this had resulted from a lack of proper operation or a problem with the materials themselves.

Fortunately, the entire Maintenance Center had regained power, and the Machine Intelligence Servitors could still perform their duties.

The only thing left to pray for was that the spare parts in storage had been properly preserved.

Before long, however, Iax discovered that his concerns were somewhat unnecessary.

The Machine Intelligence Servitors soon retrieved a matching set of components from the nearby storeroom.

Immersed in specially formulated machine oil, these components could ordinarily be preserved for thousands of years.

Judging by how dry they were, the storeroom's Stasis Field system had stopped functioning at least three thousand years ago. Otherwise, the specially formulated machine oil could not possibly have ended up in its current condition.

Iax glanced at the components held high in the Servitor's hands. Although they looked somewhat grimy, his composite scanner confirmed that they were in far better condition than the components currently installed in his body.

He watched the constantly updating log entries.

Iax remained somewhat bewildered by the circumstances of his first activation.

"All interstellar signal nodes have failed, and there is no response from the entire Men of Gold network. Has the outside world been utterly destroyed? What happened to the universe? A great annihilation?"

"Why can't even the time logs be synchronized? Where have my kin and Creator gone?"

Iax carefully reviewed the surviving records in the data center. Looking at their densely packed timestamps, he suddenly froze in astonishment.

"The last valid record before the central system shut down completely was over ten thousand years ago. What year is it now?"