The root of all

The shiny, silver liquid was floating weightless in the tank. Ripples along its surface reflected light across the room in a million colors.

Finally, the Nanobot Build And Repair system is ready.

He injected the fluid into his arm. He was a middle aged man, quite muscular, but the long hours in the lab had taken their toll on him. He was balding, his vision corrected by the smart glasses he designed to aid himself in his quest. He had become obsessed by the dream of eternal life. Immortality. And all the opportunities that gift would give him. But he had learned the hard way that teenage dreams do not come magically true by themselves. He could only count on his own mind and his alone. He was lucky, his mind was quite remarkable by itself, and in time, he designed a multitude of tools to help him pursue his life goal.

If I succeed, it's worth it, a whole life dedicated to this, but the rewards… are too great to ignore. I cast aside that thought. It was distracting. I must focus, I thought.

Perhaps this was the most advanced piece of technology mankind had ever achieved. But it certainly wasn't my most impressive feat. I knew quite well that it would have taken too much time to do all the work alone. But I've never been the trusting type. Humans are selfish. They cannot be trusted. They want all for themselves. I knew I could fix this, in due time. Time, a precious luxury I didn't have much of. I managed to buy a WW2 bunker from and old fart that passed away. The guy had retrofitted it to withstand a modern day all-out nuclear apocalypse. Smart, dare I say. Too bad he passed away, too bad for him, of course. And why all these thoughts were swirling in my mind, vision became blurred.

I knew the nanites needed a "full reboot" of the system. They basically had to take over the brain, a thing that cannot happen while it is still functioning. So, I needed to sleep. Of course I couldn't sleep with all this going on, but fortunately, programming the nanobots to help me fall asleep was trivial compared to creating them. So I laid down, sipping my whiskey, and slid into Morpheus' arms.

Wakey wakey. A voice inside my head.

Had I succeeded?

The voice, I thought I recognised it. In fact, it was my voice. Good morning Mark.

"Good morning to you, Mark" - "So artificial intelligence systems integration seems to be a success"

Indeed it is, start systems check?

"Sure, let's see if it worked" I was nervous. If this was a failure, there was a chance I'd never get to try again. I worked so hard for this, this had to be a success. I couldn't allow for this to fail. I took all the necessary precautions to ensure the success. The nanites had to take over the central nervous system while I was asleep, then start replicating using the organic materials in my body. Let's just hope they don't start eating away my body.

Then it occurred to me that I could just control them with my mind. In fact, they were my mind, and I had complete control over them. I had to get used to this, in fact it was completely different that being a thinking organic brain. I could feel each one of the billions of tiny nanomachines that were now forming my new improved nervous system. I could tell them what to do. And I had my very own self-aware artificial intelligence with me.