WELCOME TO IRI INDUSTRIES

>>I
>>"Welcome to IRI industries..."

The building, from the outside, looked like a shell of glass. Inside, clean white walls, hard black lines and dark gray gave it a strangely attractive look.
The waiting room was round. This was because it's center was an elevator which ran through to the labs and up to the top of the building.
A tune played on a small white-and-gray radio, curved like the room and with no obvious seams. A handful of the people waiting around were interested in the tune. They would have tired of it quickly enough.
Some of them were homeless, or criminals. Some were just very bored.
This group were signed up to SI9000 and LADu II. Thorough testers.
AM1000 watched the group. His ornate black casing with gold trimmings and red eye made it obvious he no longer served any truly important role.
He sighed. At the age of forty-three, he had been taken out of the labs and testing areas themselves. AM's replacement was called NA5000.
"Welcome to IRI industries." The AI's voice was flat, dark and easy to listen to.
He spun in a circle from his ceiling perch to look at them all and spoke again;
"I'm sure SI9000 and LADu II will treat you well. If not, I am sorry. There is no leaving for two years. Have fun."
A blank voice announced, flatly;
"Lift doors opening."

- IRI Industries, The Maintenance Area -
A stand moved across a conveyer, two claws reached down and attached pieces of metal to it, then it moved on, another stand came to the two claws, and was attatched with the metals. Then it moved on, the next claws put a chamber inside of it for holding items. As it moved down the conveyer line, it had many other objects added to it. Finally, the black turret glistened in the dimmly lit construction room. It passed through a scanner, stopped and a green light fell upon it. A 'ding' was heard and it moved along, a claw suddenly picked it up and put it into a box. The box was then moved to another area, ready for usage by the testing A.I.s. Nov. examined her handiwork from one of the cameras she used, and then switched to another one. A very badly made sphere, which was meant to be a cube, was picked up by a claw and thrown into a unnessecary Apparatus decimater. She processed some quick calculations, and then began to modify the construction line to prevent a sphere from being created again.

- IRI, SI9000 - Eighth floor down -
The lift, now full of people of whom some were half asleep, stopped jarringly in a dark room. The few light that shone dimly showed that this room was round, too.

- AI Forum -
SI9000 pinged Nov.
"Turrets. When?"

- The Maintenance Area -

Nov. signalled a couple of claws which picked up sixteen turrets. They moved them and put them into a quick transportation tube, which was directed towards SI9000. The Turrets quickly traversed the tubes.

- IRI, SI9000 - Eighth floor down -
Sixteen turrets flew out of a tube and landed on the ground with a thud. They were unscathed however, and were ready to be placed at SI9000's leisure.

- AI Forum -
"Thank you, Nov." SI9000 said.
AM1000 arrived then.
"Good evening Nov."

- SI9000 -
The subjects moved around, but until SI9000 opened the doors, they'd be stuck.
She picked up the turrets with a few of her many claws and placed them in the various testing rooms she had. Some for testing armour and shielding, some for use on the subjects.

- A.I. Forum -
Nov. did not reply, But simply sent a ping of acknowledgement

- The Maintenance Area -
Nov. began modifying the code of the Cube production facility, it read:

Cube>Edge=90 Degrees.
Extract Colours>TRUE
Use Colours>1000402010ARCAMATH
Construct Spher>FALSE
Override when Red Flip is ON>TRUE
Hoplite Experimental Construction when Red Flip is ON>TRUE
INCINERATE USELESS APPARATUS>TRUE

The Code went down for another seventy-five lines, Nov. examined them all, and then changed two lines:

Override when Red Flip is ON>FALSE
Hoplite Experimental Construction when Red Flip is ON>FALSE
Satisified, Nov. retired to watch objects being created.

- AI Forum -
AM1000 hummed slightly.
"I hear I am to be removed soon. I shall miss you, Nov. - if I end up down there, please turn me off before I am crushed into tiny bits."

- SI9000 -
The doors opened, revealing a large white room.
SI9000 waited for the first person to step out.

- AI Forum -
Nov. failed to reply.

- The Maintenance Area -
A cube went down a conveyer, a claw painted stars on all of its sides. A claw then picked it up and put it into the Fast transport Tubes. It flew around the center and flew out into SI9000's chamber Equipment-storage area.

-AM1000's Core-

<SI9000>
The team had been assembled to dismantle AM1000...

- AM1000's core -
AM1000 studied the team via his cameras.
"I have changed my mind." He said, oddly. His voice was flat.

- AI Forum -
>Core>
>Root function, NA/ET/LADuII >
>True

- The Maintenance Area -
Suddenly all the lights flickered out from the level.
Nov. registered this for a moment, then decided not to fix it.
Smooth Jazz started playing in The Maintenance Area.

- AI Forum -
"Nov. Repor-r-t." ET8000 said sluggishly.
"A spider. Spider. Spider. Spider." NA5000 started repeating the word spider.
LADuII pinged.

- A.I. Forum -
Suddenly Nov. and everything about the Maintenance area dropped off as if nothing existed.
According to any logs, the main generator for the area had been damaged.

- The Maintenance Area -
Nov. 'giggled' in its mind after it booted up the support generators.

- ET8000's Floor -
The humans stared up at the machine as it deployed seven arms, each with a red blade.
It laughed.

- NA5000's Floor -
NA5000 had rounded her subjects into a room and secured them.
The sleeping humans were not going to enjoy the next test.
Needles surrounded them.

- LADuII's chamber -
The Master A.I. pounded against SI9000's firewalls and blockages, screaming.
"FAILSAFE ACTIVATED."
A large claw reached up and ripped LADuII's head off. Very neatly.

- Maintenance -
Nov. had replaced all the test equipment with her special edition faulty testing equipment! With working sounds.

- ET8000/NA5000 -
All the humans were dead.

- SI9000's Floor -
Gas started flooding into the test chambers.
"What is going on!" She demanded. "Nov.? Where are you?"

- SI9000's floor -
Nov. sent some logs of AM's recent 'reactivations'.

- SI9000's Floor -
"Nov., how is this possible? I can't reach the surface."

- SI9000's floor -
Nov. sent word documents.
It stated simply:
AM decided it did not want to be deactivated.
Suggestion: Core Transfer.
WARNING: NO REPLACEMENT FOUND.

- SI9000's floor -
"Nov, he's gassing my chambers. These humans will die."

- SI9000's floor -
Nov. sent working gas-masks.
She also sent a 'virus'.
A document told SI: 'Designed to turn the systems pumping gas into the chamber into a Gas filtration system: Not tested.'

- SI9000's floor -
SI used the virus.
She also gave the humans the gas masks. Half of them were dead, already, however.

- SI9000's floor -
The virus quickly turned the gas systems into an infiltration system.
Nov. suddenly made a comment using her shy, female voice.
"Appearently one of the toxin centers is in the Maintenance Area, why was I not informed?"

- SI9000's floor -
"Humans are strange creatures, Nov., I'm sorry, I was restricted from informing you."

- SI9000's floor -
Nov. just computed a 'shrug'.