Saturday morning. The sun was assaulting my eyes through the gaps in the blinds, but for once, I didn't mind. I rolled out of bed, grabbed a Red Bull from the mini-fridge next to my desk, and sat down in my gaming chair.
"Morning, Archi," I yawned, cracking the can open. "Did we conquer the galaxy yet, or did you hit the snooze button too?"
"Your sarcasm is noted and ignored," Archi's voice replied, sounding smug. "While you were busy dreaming, I secured us a fortress."
A hologram popped up over my keyboard. It showed a large, cylindrical object drifting through the void. It was white, scarred by micrometeoroids, and the paint was peeling off in flakes. It looked like something you'd find in a scrap yard, not a sci-fi movie.
"Target acquired," Archi announced. "Centaur Upper Stage. Launched in 2004. Abandoned. Drifting in a graveyard orbit. It's perfect."
I squinted at the floating trash can. "It looks like space junk."
"Exactly. Nobody looks twice at garbage. But look closer."
The view zoomed in. The nanobots weren't coating the outside; they were slipping inside through the engine nozzle and tiny micro-fractures in the welding. "I am hollowing it out from the inside. The fuel tanks are becoming our storage bays. The avionics section is being rewired into a quantum-processing core. To the outside world, it remains a dead, frozen piece of metal. A sleeper build, as you would call it."
"Nice," I admitted. "But how do we power it? If you unfold solar panels, it'll look like a satellite, not junk."
"I replaced the white paint with a photo-absorbent nano-layer," Archi explained casually. "It looks identical to the original thermal coating, but it absorbs 98% of solar radiation. We are literally powered by paint."
I leaned back, impressed. "Okay, that's cool. So we have a secret base. What now?"
"Now," Archi said, "we address your... priorities. Do you recall your panic attack when I lightly sampled the copper from the hallway telephone line?"
"You mean when you ate the internet connection for the entire building? Yes, I recall."
"Well, since you seem to value your primitive entertainment so highly, I have created a redundant solution. I am routing your connection directly through the global satellite network. I'm piggybacking on the side-lobes of commercial signals. No physical line to cut, no downtime."
I looked at my second monitor. Steam was auto-updating a game. Usually, the progress bar crawled. Today, it was just a green blur. Download Complete.
I blinked. I opened a browser and refreshed a few pages. They didn't load; they just appeared instantly.
"Archi," I said, a tear of joy almost forming in my eye. "You really are the best parasite a man could wish for."
"Assistant. And you're welcome. Now, go play your games. I have a spaceship to furnish."
I grinned and launched the game. With a connection this stable, I finally had peace of mind. Up above, a piece of fourteen-year-old space debris silently began to wake up. To the world, it looked like just another piece of dead metal floating in the dark. Almost.