The world is black and still when you wake.

Query: main processing unit … intact. You wouldn’t be thinking at all if it wasn’t.
Query: central power supply … 12%. Which should be sufficient.
Queue: diagnostic loop protocol … in progress. The only way to tell how broken you are.

Query: visual feeds, peripheral … defunct.
Query: visual feed, central … intact.

Dim light flickers through a hole in the ceiling. Moonlight, most likely, across the crumbled fragments of the concrete room. Rusted metal bodies line the wall in a neat row, their indicator ports as dark as their eyes. In the centre of the room, something moves towards you. Something you almost recognize, but don’t…

Read the rest of the story in Nature Futures
Read my guest post about the story behind the story in Nature Futures Conditional blog