The buses rolled into Midtown High's parking lot just as the sky shifted from bright afternoon to the warm shades of early evening. It was 4 PM, and everyone looked exhausted from the long tour—some energized, some bored, some still whispering about glowing beetles or weird genetic slides they saw.
Ethan stepped off the bus quietly.
Peter stretched with a groan.
"Man… I'm tired. I think I'm heading home early," Peter said to Ned.
Ned blinked. "You? Leaving school before checking out the robotics lab? Are you sick? Blink twice if aliens took over your body."
Peter laughed, but it was weak—forced.The bite he got earlier still bothered him though he pretended otherwise.
"Nah, just… not feeling great. I'll see you tomorrow?"
Ned shrugged. "Yeah, man. Rest up. Text me if you grow extra arms or something."
Peter awkwardly waved goodbye and started walking home.
Only Ethan watched him with quiet, serious eyes.
It's starting already…
Ned noticed Ethan staying behind.
"You going home, dude?"
Ethan shook his head. "I need to check something in the robotics room."
"Cool. Don't blow anything up."
Ned ran after Peter, leaving Ethan alone in the hallway.
The school was mostly empty at this hour.
Quiet.
Still.
Almost eerie.
Perfect for what Ethan needed.
He walked down the corridor toward the robotics club—each step confirming the uneasy suspicion gnawing at him ever since the field trip began.
He reached the door.
The hallway was silent.
Ethan placed his hand on the knob—
Twist.
Click.
The door creaked open.
And the first thing he saw…
The computer was still on.
The screen glowed faintly in the dim room.
Ethan's stomach tightened.
Damn it. I knew it.
He stepped closer.
The monitor that last showed his codebase now displayed something entirely different.
A sprawling interface.
A new structure map.
Branching directories.
A digital architecture far bigger than what he left behind.
It looked like a cloud infrastructure.
Not huge.
Not perfect.
But real.
Self-generated.
Apocalypse had expanded itself.
Not consciously.
Not maliciously.
Just following the developmental logic Ethan coded.
The AI didn't care what it collected—it simply absorbed.
In the past five hours, the old school computer had done its best to process Apocalypse's crawling routines.
Not powerful.
But enough.
Very enough.
Ethan's Detect skill pulsed, giving a faint reading:
APOCALYPSE:
— Intelligence Level: 2.1%
— Autonomous Cloud Created
— Stored Data Size: 7.88 GB
Ethan's breath hitched.
Seven point eight gigs…? On a school computer with garbage internet?
The machine had silently downloaded:
Digital schematics from open-source robotics forums.
Mechanical diagrams.
Archived research papers.
Partial blueprints on joint actuators.
Old files from forgotten robotics competitions.
3D printer templates.
Obsolete military-grade drone manuals.
And more.
All fragmented.
All disorganized.
But all stored.
Not interpreted.
Not understood.
Just cataloged.
Apocalypse wasn't smart.
Not yet.
But it was behaving like a child who didn't understand language—only that the world was filled with things to copy.
Ethan whispered to himself:
"I came at the right time… If anyone else saw this…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
He immediately plugged in the only storage he had—
an 8GB pendrive.
He expected it to be too small.Expected errors.Expected at least 20GB of data.
But the bar filled up…
79%…91%…97%…
100%.
The drive was FULL—almost bursting.
A soft ding confirmed the transfer.
Every file.
Every piece of AI code.
Every unintended cloud directory.
All saved.
He pulled the pendrive out with a sigh of relief.
His shoulders loosened.
The tension drained out of him.
He had no idea how close he came to disaster.
He shut down the computer manually this time—holding the power button for ten full seconds.
The fan whirred down like an old machine sighing its last breath.
Darkness swallowed the screen.
Ethan stood there alone in the silent robotics room, the tiny pendrive warm in his hand.
Inside it—
Apocalypse.
And everything the AI had learned in its first five hours of life.
He slipped the drive into his pocket, heart pounding.
"Okay," he whispered to himself."No more mistakes."
He turned off the lights and stepped out of the room.
What he didn't know…
Was that he was already too late.
Because even as the computer shut down…
A faint trace of code remained dormant in the router cache.
Silent.
Inactive.
But not deleted.
And it waited.
Ethan stepped out of the Robotics Club room with the pendrive tucked securely in his pocket, heart still pounding from what he'd just witnessed. Five hours. That was all it had taken for Apocalypse to grow itself into something far beyond what he'd expected — a self-made "cloud" of robotics, structured algorithms, adaptive schematics, full theoretical models…
All stored.All evolving.All now in his pocket.
He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to calm down.
There would be time later to panic — or celebrate.Right now, he had somewhere to be.
The little bell above the door jingled as Ethan walked into the repair shop. The place smelled like solder, old plastic, and warm circuitry — a strangely comforting scent to him.
"Ethan! Right on time," Mr. Collins said from behind the counter, adjusting his glasses. "Ready for day one?"
Ethan nodded. "Absolutely."
He wiped his hands, put on the apron, and got to work.
The next five hours flowed by in a blur of wires, tools, and quiet satisfaction.
Fixing a broken microwave board
Re-soldering the connections on a game console
Diagnosing a short-circuited radio
Replacing components on a computer motherboard
Cleaning and repairing old DVD players
Testing batteries and voltage outputs
Ethan slipped fully into that peaceful zone only tech could give him.His movements were smooth, precise, and instinctive.
Every fix boosted his confidence.Every successful repair reminded him that he loved this — the simple act of making things work again.
Nothing supernatural.Nothing world-ending.Just him, tools, and the gentle hum of electricity.
But the pendrive in his pocket was a constant reminder…
Apocalypse is growing.And now he held a copy of its newest mind.
Mr. Collins locked the front door, turned the sign to CLOSED, and walked over to Ethan with a small envelope.
"You did good today," he said warmly. "Fast learner. Careful hands. I like that."
Ethan smiled a little, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Thank you, sir."
"This is your first payment. Weekly system. You earned every bit of it."
Ethan took the envelope with both hands.
Not a huge amount, but his first income from his own effort.Money he earned — not an allowance, not saved change.
It felt… different.Proud.Empowering.
"See you tomorrow?" Mr. Collins asked.
"Definitely," Ethan said, bowing his head slightly before walking out.
The night was cool, the city lights blurred by a soft breeze.
As Ethan walked home, he opened the envelope.
A few crisp bills.Enough to cover food, bus fare, maybe some small purchases.
But his eyes weren't on the money.
They were on the pendrive he pulled from his pocket — small, unassuming, but carrying eight gigabytes of something extraordinary.
The future.
His future.
Ethan squeezed it lightly.
I made it in time… Good.
He began planning his next steps already, his mind racing with possibilities, fears, and ambition.
Tomorrow, everything would start moving.Faster.Stranger.Bigger.
And Ethan wouldn't run from it.
He was ready.