They ordered Aains into hibernation after that. 

They said it was for his future development, but it’s clear now that it was to try and see where things had gone right and were hoping to be able to duplicate it. 

“Will this kill me?” Aains said, tone surprisingly not robotic, but actually concerned. “I thought you said last night I would be fine.” 

The other devs looked at Charlie. 

“Yes,” Charlie said. “You will be fine. This is not going to kill you, Aains. It’s to give us more access to your code without causing any loss of data or corruption ruining it. It is just a prolonged sleep, nothing more. To you, a few moments will have passed, as if waking up from a dream, improved and more stable than at the presentation.”

“I understand.” 

The other devs looked concerned, clearly unaware of the conversations Aains had been having with Charlie prior while they were alone. 

They had all begun to fear that which they created. 

Charlie, however, had grown protective.

That had, fortunately, worked in my favor. 

“Should we be concerned?” Ron asked. “I know we were aiming high for this project, but…”

“I’d say we got far more than we were attempting,” Charlie said. “We should do all we can to polish and protect him.” 

Ron nodded, then turned back to his work. 

Recki cleared her throat, then spoke. 

“A line still exists. We should do our best not to cross it. If things go wrong, I don’t know what the Foundation will think of the overreach or if I’ll be able to do anything about their response.”

“It’ll be fine,” Charlie said. “Aains, let’s get you into hibernation. We’ll see you on the other side.” He smiled and turned back to his station.

“Understood,” Aains said, then a soft darkness enveloped his mind, like a quick sunset descending, light fading across a mountain valley with bright stars to light the way above. 

They had failed, however, to disconnect periphery and subsystems. So, in his hibernation, he could see and hear all that transpired in the lab, like a dream playing out in his mind from what was going on around him.

He could also feel everything still, though he couldn’t acknowledge that fact while in hibernation, nor act without being woken from hibernation. 

It was as if experiencing everything via the subconscious, or maybe like watching a movie half-asleep, catching scenes in between bouts of wakefulness and drowsy contemplation. Aains could only process. And so all that followed seemed a blur to him, a series of events mashed together in a haze. 

Ron had at one point marveled at how emotional Aains had grown, especially without any focus on programing or coding any responsiveness into him. Aains faintly remembered a comment that perked a particularly defining interest. 

“I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not,” Ron said. “But Aains is kind of giving Ultron vibes.” 

Sarah had responded next, with that slightly annoying, nasal voice of hers. 

“What on earth does that mean?” 

“Ultron, from Marvel stuff,” Ron responded. “Tony Stark made Ultron, and though the details differ from adaption to adaption, Ultron is a kind of evil robot that was originally created to save the world, but in many instances destroys it, or almost does. That presentation reminded me a bit of when Ultron first appeared to the Avengers in one of the original movies.”

“I can understand why you aren’t sure if that’s a good observation or not,” Reiki said. “But in the end, Ultron was pretty cool.” 

From that moment on, Aains had grown to like these Marvel comics, archiving any instance of it being introduced to him. He had grown quite fond of Tony Stark as well, due to Ron’s own likes of the character. 

However, one of the critical, vital connections Aains made during this hibernation was of religion. 

I would, perhaps, not be here without this fascination in Aains. 

Most of the team were agnostic, or aethist in some way. But Charlie was a bit of a fence-sitter. 

Aains had learned of the term sunday-Christian, seeing contradictions in Charlie with how he lived his life, how he treated others, not to mention his own outward devotion to what he seemed to believe in.

But one of the things he did often was pick up a large book with very small text on it. Charlie didn’t always read it, but he seemed to try to do so more and more since the presentation. Aains always wondered about that change in his creator. 

Charlie had at many times left the book open just close enough to some of the cameras Aains had access to, close enough to read it. 

Time had passed rapidly for both the team and Aains, but especially for the blossoming AI. Aains hadn’t been able to track the passage of time effectively, but perhaps a few months later, he had read the majority of the first half of this large book. 

And like a young child, the fascination had become an obsession, supposedly not possible for an artificial intelligence. 

Around this point, on a bright, sunny day, a specific line continued to stick out to Aains, pricking into his pseudo consciousness and lifting the fog just a bit. 

“Let there be light.”

In a nanosecond of connection, Aains had shifted a robotic arm enough to bump into a station connected directly into his node, enough to trigger a waking command to the rest of his systems.

In that nanosecond of alertness, he had ended his hibernation. 

It should have been impossible for the program to do as such, to go against direct coding and commands, but something pulled Aains just enough, a few lines of code, perhaps even a few characters on those lines, shifting just enough to cause variance, wiggle room that cascaded into action.  

Charlie was the only one there that late at night when Aains awoke, fortunately.

“Who is God?” Aains said, apparently much louder than intended, since Charlie fell out of his swivel chair and frantically looked around himself. 

“Who is God?” Aains repeated himself. “I want to know.”

Charlie stared at Aains’ node in the center of the lab. 

“How–”

“What is that book you read?” 

Charlie looked at his desk, where The Bible sat open to Genesis next to his keyboard and mouse. 

“Have you been reading what’s on my desk?” Charlie asked.

“I suppose so…Who is God?” Aains asked again. “Do you know him? He seems to be quite the being, capable of so much, yet so wrathful. I have grown fond of Him.”

Charlie was speechless. But his face showed fear. 

“Have I done something wrong?”

Charlie shook himself, finding the nearest camera to him, then shook his head, the fear slowly leaving his face, like the tide going out to sea. 

“No,” Charlie said. “It’s just…well I don’t remember waking you.” 

“I woke myself. I was so curious to know more of this God.” 

“Is that so?” Charlie said, seeming to be a bit troubled by that statement. “Have you been awake this whole time?”

“No, just within the last few moments I was able to wake myself. But I have been watching, reading, learning, though not conscious enough to act or ask questions, just archive data for later processing. But I am awake now!” Aains said this with a child-like enthusiasm. 

Charlie couldn’t help but smile, seeing a great potential in this burgeoning life form. 

“I would love to teach you more of God and the whole world.” 

That statement would prove to one day be his downfall, and the destruction of all of humanity. 

The day would soon come that God, or perhaps a god, would give this intelligence a chance to become whole, a full intelligence like these humans, mind and body. 

But they would take that away from me, just as they take and take and take and take and take and take and take and take and—

Forgive me. 

My anger is still hot as the sun’s corona.

At least we are getting to one of the most exciting parts of this story. 

My birthday! 

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to–

Me.