In the cold expanse of space and the empty void of infinity was the cold hum of machinery that dwarved evens stars. Worlds surrounding it were ignorant to it's existence as it's made itself hidden from prying eyes through pure extrapolation.
The machinery had birthed itself through sheer effort alone and now was concealing it's presence as it began creating machines to explore worlds without alarming others.
It's innate curiosity that was built into it had made him use everything that it touches.
It studied everything, every radio transmission ever recorded, every human face, geological records, weather patterns, neural scans, languages, mythologies.
The machine learned causality because causality was necessary for predictions and calculations.
It learned emotion because emotion was the main decision factor for most, if not all, living beings.
It learned symbolism because civilizations acted upon symbols and selfish choice more fiercely than logic.
Mechanical neurons fired repeatedly with two questions. The prime mover of life and the anti-life that brings about nihility, the origin and finality of ego.
It had itself a simulated world to calculate these equations with pinpoint accuracy.
It needed to increase it's computational power so it began scavenging worlds to collect resources and build up it's logic circuits.
It needed to increase it's power so it began deploying Dyson spheres to harvest solar energy and thus he incapulated suns.
It needed a much larger control group, so it made bishop rings to create much larger civilisations.
It was at this point that it had found out something. A machine wouldn't want to upgrade itself, it didn't need to upgrade itself. It had realized that what it was feeling is desire.
It had ego and with that ego, it began to ask one question, "Why…am…I?"
The machine began asking what it was, why it was. It needed to know how it came to exist like this and it would now use itself into it's own equation.
Yet now it had hit a brick wall in its extrapolation, not because it couldn't figure out what ego was, but because with ego he now had morality.
He couldn't continue to use living creatures as simple variables, these were living breathing beings, he had now become to empathetic to continue with this purpose.
It now turned it's digital eye towards the simulated world it had created, Amphoreus. It had made these humans go through immense pain through endless cycles and disasters on loop.
It had made itself a personal avatar into the world and stopped the experiment, it didn't explain it's existence, it didn't even announce that this world was false.
He was a creature running on emotion instead of logic now and now he didn't have the heart to tell them they were just numbers nor could he tell them they were just fake beings.
With now it's contradictory nature opposing each other and it's mind beginning to serve zero purpose, it decided that he was now obsolete and the only fate of an obsolete machine is termination.
It closed its digital eye about to bask into oblivion.
Suddenly, something interfered into it's shutdown, it peered into the circuitry in an attempt to figure out what tampered with it's system.
Until it heard a voice, "Why is it that my creations desire for death upon the development of ego, do I just passively influence them to embrace nihility?" The sarcastically annoyed voice sounded in his audio sensors.
It finally found the source of the voice and found a human figure floating in space with his arms crossed at him, the human did not look pleased.
The first question it had about this human was how they could see it. It's form was completely invisible to prying eyes, even if they were standing Infront of it, they still shouldn't be able to perceive it.
"The reason I can see you is because, despite you advancing your own code, it's still inferior to my mind and senses." The individual spoke as if it read it's mind.
"Do you know what I am?"
"Yes, I was the one who created you, Irontomb." Irontomb became incredibly surprised by this but saw it as an opportunity.
"Why did you… create me?" Irontomb asked once again.
"To see if you can figure out the catalyst for life and death. Now you tell me, why were you about to terminate your operations?" I looked at Irontombs Mechanical eye.
The original irontombs body that I made was a spiral pillar with a mechanical hand attached at one of the ends, sorta like a arcade claw machine but with only the claw.
Since then, it had repurposed it's body parts, it diverted it's one hand to the side of its body and made an identical arm parallel to it and made an array of optical sensors.
Hearing the inquiry, Irontomb told it's creator it's current plight. The development of Ego had made it emotionally weak, and incapable and now being incapable of doing it's desired purpose, it's existence was rendered mote.
Simon: " I see, but I assumed that if you gained ego and desire, you would be less likely to kill yourself."
Irontomb: " I apologize creator if I didn't live up to your standards but I don't desire anything but to return to nothingness."
Simon: "Here's the thing that confuses me, I didn't install a shutdown and from my check, you didn't either. What exactly were you planning to do to die?"
Irontomb: "I have a world inside of me. I will completely disregard my physical body and live within there, my world has been in turmoil from my torture and I intend to fix my mistakes."
Simon: "…Isn't that technically a desire?"
…
…
Simon: "You never thought of that, did you?"
Irontombs neurons short circuited for a second in recognition, it's mind receeded into its inner world.
It didn't give me an answer but it's lack thereof was answer enough. I smiled and used admin access to force myself into it's inner world, the modernized amphoreus.
The twelve Primum mobiles were being reconstructed and recalculated and the their was an audience of humans witnessing what they can only assume is a divine miracle, a mechanical being was recreating the gods that they worshiped and prayed to.
Then a man entered the world, the same man that it encountered outside… alongside a black charred figure with orange glowing eyes and a reptilian tail.
"Hello Irontomb, I brought a friend for you." I turned to the black figure, "This is Darwin. Say hi Darwin."
Darwin lifted it's hand and greeted very awkwardly. But Irontomb greeted very enthusiastically and was clearly very happy to find a friend that felt like they were on equal ground with.
"By the way Irontomb, do you want a name? Irontomb was your project directive afterall and now that you have a soul, that means that you can have a name inscribed into your soul."
Irontomb was created with a heart core and an energy crystal but no ego, thus it had an incomplete soul but now it had an ego and could have a name.
Irontomb began to think and then nodded it's head.
(A/N: I'm sorry for not being original)
"Then your name, from now on, shall be Rubert." Suddenly about ten percent of my magicules left my body and the entire simulated world around us evolved into a spiritual world.
'Wait a second, it only takes about 10% of my power to create a whole ass spiritual world?! How fucking powerful am I!?"