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Chapter 1: Restart

"Thunk!"

The outside door handle broke off as a man heaved the door open against the intense wind. Closing the door behind him, he tossed the handle to the side in frustration, hearing the metal clang as it hit the floor. He looked around briefly and then began walking down the hall.

Outside, the cold wind blew across the frozen tundra. The research facility in the middle of northern Siberia all appeared to have been abandoned for a few decades. The inside of the facility told a different story. All over the facility were robots frozen in position. Some were standing in what appeared to be an army formation; others in mid-stride; and others appeared to have been firing at something.

Not a soul moved about the facility save for this man. His gait was quick yet cautious, as if the robots were going to come to life. It seemed that he knew where he was going, or at least what he was looking for. His long black cloak that covered his head billowed behind him, rustling the dust that had collected on the floor. He also wore black leather gloves and black dress shoes. Underneath the cloak, he wore a black business suit with a black tie. His entire outfit strangely did not seem to fit with the frozen environment outside. There was a very intricate pin, outlined in gold, attached to the collar of his suit. He had a piece of paper in one hand, and a golden pocket watch chain could be seen from one of the suit pockets.

At the end of the hallway, he looked down at the piece of paper. Turning, he opened a door on his right and walked into the room. The room consisted of a dome in the center with wires coming out of it and heading up into the ceiling. The man clearly had no interest in the hard drive of this massive computer. He walked around it into a room with several monitors; a couple of them paired with a keyboard.

Sitting down at one of the monitors, the man took off his gloves and looked around for a power switch. Most would try turning the generator on first, but the paper told him that the large computer system controlled the generator. Feeling a large switch behind the keyboard, he pressed it, and the monitor in front of him whirred to life.

Raising an eyebrow, the man had clearly expected for the entire facility to power on. But he didn't dwell on it for long. He started to type on the keyboard when a message appeared on the screen. It had two sentences: "Выполнить программы? Да или нет?" Unfamiliar with the Russian language, and slightly unfamiliar with computers, the man typed "English" on the keyboard. The window closed and reopened again but this time read, "Run the program? Yes or no?"

Not interested in any program, the man pressed the Esc key, closing the window. The screen remained black however, almost daring the man to try typing on the keyboard again. Irritated, he moved the mouse around to get something else on the monitor. The message appeared back on the screen, in Russian. He pressed the Esc key again, and the window closed. He went to start typing again, when the same window popped back up. After pressing the Esc key again, the message disappeared. He moved the mouse around again. A different window popped up, saying, "You've tried that already." It closed, and the first window reopened again in English this time.

Sighing in exasperation, the man realized that running the program was the only option available to him. He pressed the Enter key. The window closed, and a loading bar appeared on the screen. A soft humming sound was heard as the generator kicked on. At 10%, the Supercomputer whirred to life, and all the monitors in the room powered on. At 20%, the loading bar appeared on another monitor. The man blew on his hands and rubbed them, trying to warm them up. At 30%, the loading bar appeared on a couple more monitors.

At 40%, the loading bar was on all of the monitors. At 50%, the man heard sparks coming from the hard drive of the Supercomputer. Getting out of his chair, he walked back to the room with the hard drive. As soon as he opened the door, he had to shield his eyes from an extremely bright light. After allowing his eyes to adjust, he looked again and saw hundreds of sparks flying around the room in a circular pattern. He wiped his brow of the sweat that started to form because of the sudden warmth in the room. He glanced back at the monitors – 60%.

Then the sparks, stilling flying in a circular motion, began to converge to a single point to the right of the hard drive – 65%.

As more sparks came together, a dark shape began forming in the center. The shape started out circular. After a minute or two, it began to grow five appendages, almost like legs, arms, and a head – 70%.

The lights flickered crazily in the room. Charges of electricity ran up and down the walls and across the floor. The man was terrified now, wondering what on Earth he had unleashed – 75%.

Having no more interest in what was going on in that room or in retrieving his gloves, the man was running, running like his life depended on it with the flickering of the lights and the charges following shortly behind him. He wanted to get out of the facility, NOW. – 80%.

The man turned a corner and ducked as one of the robots swiped at his head. It then went motionless as he continued without stopping. The electricity charges passed him, and doors began opening on their own accord. Desks, pens, files of paper, books, bookshelves, and chairs flew out from side rooms into the man's path. It was as if the research facility was trying to keep him in there, preventing his escape – 85%.

The man passed by a window. Outside, he saw the cold blizzard raging wilder than ever. Lighting streaked across the sky in many different shades of white, green, blue, purple, red, grey, yellow, and the most horrifying shades of black– 90%.

The thunder began and was so incredibly loud that it shook the walls. Debris fell from the ceiling and, instead of falling straight down, zoomed toward the man. The man sidestepped, ducked, dodged, jumped, and avoided all of the obstacles the facility was throwing at him. Through the thunder, he heard maniacal laughter coming from the room he had left only moments ago – 95%.

The man reached the door. He grasped the handle to open it and got electrocuted for a good ten seconds. Falling to the ground and gasping for breath, he looked up at the window, and a strange, reddish, eye-looking symbol glowed from the glass. He stood up and fumbled through his cloak for the pocket watch. Suddenly, the door handle he tossed to the side earlier slammed into the back of his head. As his world went dark, he heard a deep voice whisper in his ear, "Going somewhere?" – 100%.