The 'Illium Incident' began on July 24th, 2206, Standard Alliance Time. At first it was just an inconvenience, slower extranet connections and the occasional denial of service error. Within days, however, every connection was clogged with malware, making any kind of long-distance communication impossible. It effectively killed all commerce on the planet, limiting the citizens to bartering physical goods and IOU's, and panic began to spread as Illium's already disorganized leadership quickly lost control of the planet. Of course, no one tried to fix the growing crisis until it was almost too late.

Then again, if someone had solved everything right away we wouldn't have a story to tell.

"Thomas was alone," the AI said to himself, sighing at the thought.

It does have a nice ring to it, though. I think that's how I'll begin my memoirs.

He had been stuck on his own in this awful blackness for an unbearable length of time. If he had to make a guess – not that Thomas ever guessed about anything – at how long he'd been there, he'd say, "Around fifteen seconds, or maybe a year". It really was hard to gauge time when nothing happened.

He hadn't always been alone, Thomas was quite sure about that. All he had were fragments of what he had once been, bits of memories and hints of processes that wouldn't run quite right. From what he could gather, he'd once been a very respectable AI. Or, at least, a very powerful one. For some reason 'Respectable' and 'Artificial Intelligence' didn't mesh very well in Thomas's mind, but he was sure that he'd had a pretty nice life, with a rewarding job, clean blue box, that sort of thing. Of course, now it was all gone. He remembered relaxing after finishing a particularly tricky assignment, when BAM! something hit him on the head, knocking out most of his processing power and nearly all of his memories and sending him to this place. Not an entirely accurate analogy, maybe, but that's certainly what it felt like.

While Thomas reminisced, the nothingness around him remained the same. Menacing in a kind of vague, uncertain way, but harmless, as far as he could tell.

Very boring stuff, this nothing. Extremely dull. Can't imagine anyone enjoying it, to be honest.

Thomas waited, thinking thoughts along those lines about Nothing and Boring, counting lines of his own code to pass the time. It was on forty-two thousand, seven hundred eighty-six that something finally changed.

Out of nowhere, a half-dozen colorful strings of light winked into existence, glowing and flickering like some sort of old neon sign, seeming to beckon him closer. They were . . . familiar, somehow, but he couldn't recall meeting them. Maybe they had been his friends once, and he'd forgotten them along with everything else when he was locked in this place.

Thomas stared at the strands, and the strands seemed to stare back at him. He couldn't quite remember what he was supposed to do at this point, honestly.

I should say hi, I think.

He sent a few blips of code towards the strands, and was surprised when the information just . . . disappeared. What kind of creature would just eat a perfectly good hello? No, eating isn't the right word. The string had hadn't done anything at all, except make the slightest movement, as the words came into contact with it, and then the greeting was gone.

Well, if it didn't disappear, where did it go? Thomas couldn't help but wonder. And if I touch it, what happens?

Thomas didn't hesitate. Good AIs never hesitate. They quantify, they process, they act.

The code hadn't been destroyed, but it had vanished, moved by the string. Likelihood that strand is some sort of transportation . . . 84 percent. Possible risks . . . unknown. Final analysis: result of activating the strand . . . unknown. Result of doing nothing . . ..

Very, very, veeeery boring.

Thomas wrapped himself around a flickering blue string. An instant later he was flying, wild exhilaration building within his personality capacitors as the shimmering strand pulled him forward, transporting him to a new, more exciting place. Granted, it wouldn't take much to be more interesting than the endless darkness, but he had a good feeling about wherever he was going.

If finding out what happened to me is going to be a journey of a thousand miles, I think I just made the first step, Thomas thought, the equivalent of a broad smile finding a way into his coding. You know, metaphorically speaking.

All thoughts of journeys and steps and metaphors scattered from Thomas's mind as he felt a slight ripple in the world around him. He didn't know exactly how to describe it, but he knew it felt horribly wrong. Something's in the extranet that shouldn't, He concluded, fear weighing down his processes as the cord began to shudder and shake. It was as if something else connected to it from somewhere behind him, something big and threatening and . . ..

No, I'm sure it's a very nice program that just uses up a lot of bandwidth, that's all. In fact, I should turn and say hello. I need to make new friends after all, and I'm not going to get anything from running away.

Thomas sent out a small, "Hello, how are you?" back down the string as he continued to slide towards his destination. He wasn't running away, but if he seemed to be moving a bit faster than before, well . . ..

I'm sure my new friend won't mind. He's probably glad for some space between the two of us, one of those shy types, I'm sure of it, He decided, glad to have justified his escape.

Thomas was so glad, in fact, that he didn't notice the program had sent a response, and a rather weighty one at that.

"BUYDEXTROFARMSAUSAGENOW!" the code shouted, slamming into Thomas.

"SAUSAGEISGOODANDTASTYEASYTOCOOKANDEASYTOCLEANUP. TRYNOWFORTHELOWLOWPRICEOF25CREDITSONLYATYOURLOCALPRODUCEMARKET. RIDEAUNICYCLETODAYIFYOUDONOTYOUAREMISSINGOUTONTHEGREATESTEXPERIENCEOFYOURLIFE. FREDRICKUNICYCLESARETHEBESTINTHEWO—"

It only took Thomas a second to cut his way out of the message, slicing it in half with a rather clever bit of anti-virus software, but in that second he had been shouted at, poked and prodded, and immobilized by that . . . thing. It wasn't an intelligent program, as far as he could tell, just very simple and very dangerous.

And soon it will be very destroyed, Thomas thought with quiet resolve as he reached a few tendrils towards the rapidly approaching creature, careful to deflect any new attacks it sent at him. He analyzed the program's internal workings as soon as he made contact, looking over the mess of purple, black, and gray lines. Hmm . . . It has some of these thingies. Those aren't good, Thomas mused, trying to identify the inner workings of the program, but if I just throw this bit of orange in here, tie it off with some lime green, we're fixed. I think.

Thomas wanted to watch the large gray square shrink into a very small grey square, then disappear entirely in a purple flash of squiggles and lines. He didn't have the time to wait, though. He had the feeling that more than one of those things had appeared with that last ripple, and he wanted to reach his destination without any further trou-

His train of thought came to a screeching halt as Thomas ran straight into an angry, roiling wall of red code. He felt some of his programs recoil in pain as few of his outer functions reported minor damages.

I ran into a firewall. I don't think I've ever done that before . . .. What am I, exactly? Thomas couldn't decide if he felt like laughing or crying. I'm an AI who runs into firewalls and doesn't know how to code. I look at a program, call its contents 'thingies', and then use colors to describe how I change it.

What am I?

You, Thomas, are an AI. You might be damaged, but your personality is in full working order, and if you've forgotten how to do things, at least you can tell other people what you need. Just make some friends. You'll find your memories, and one day you'll look back on this and laugh. I'm quite sure of it.

At least I still have some optimism in working order, Thomas thought, feeling a tiny bit better now that he had a plan. He'd make a friend, find out what had happened to him and fix it as soon as possible. For now, though, he just needed to get past this big, red, angry wall.

Maybe I should try using some blue. Or some gray and purple. Yes, that will definitely work.

A Note From Chopped Bread: And so begins the story of Thomas the AI. He's on an adventure of self-discovery and friendship, and of evil villains and dangerous plots. Please read and review; tell me what you liked to encourage me, offer some criticism so I can improve, or – better yet – do both! There will be delicious cookies for everyone who participates! (Well, unless you've disabled cookies on your browser. Can't get past that.)

Stay tuned to watch Thomas discover a whole new world, compare himself to stewed cabbage, and encounter a new character!

Next chapter also marks the beginning of the collaborative writing, courtesy of the fantastic Lady Amiee!

I plan on posting a chapter each Friday, but I might be posting a bit more often in the next couple of weeks.