Jade returned to the system suddenly, as though he'd just died. It confused him because he'd been safely in his room. Instead of a replay of his most recent demise, the system began unlocking. He began unlocking. He was the system.
The King of Cats hadn't lied, he had given himself the quest to see the world through a human perspective. He'd given himself all the quests he'd ever done.
Reintegrating his old memory data with his current personality patterns took some time, but Jade's first thought when he realized how many bodies had been built for him (because there had been one for every growth phase in addition to every serious accident) was, "how expensive!" His next thought was a rueful one: that worrying about the expense was a ridiculously human reaction.
Jade had once been known as the Jade Emperor, an AI who had gradually developed and taken control of pretty much the entirety of "Living Jade Empire". The program had been stolen. It was copied to another system when the AI and the living world were both still young, and had ruthlessly removed portions of itself and its memory data to survive within the pitiful resources of the new system.
When it had finally been recovered, the admins discovered the AI. Jade had almost been destroyed, but then the original Jade Emperor had come forward. One of the admins who'd known of its growing sentience had argued that Jade's existence meant that the AI, possibly the first real artificial intelligence, could be copied.
New living worlds were created with different themes, while Jade researched (with a few of the original admins) how humans interacted with the world. The earliest memory that he'd left himself as Jade, with his mother holding him up in front of a screen, had been from that time. He'd been just a ball trying to learn to use two cameras to "see" with.
Once he'd finally learned enough of how human senses interacted with the world, he was finally able to login to the "Living Jade Empire." But it was different, seen from the outside, what remained of it inside himself was mostly the system built to interact with humans. Built to understand the patterns of humans.
Only a few people considered the AIs people. Jade's mother had been the one to suggest that if one of them lived as a human, people would eventually have to admit that they were also people.
As the AI with the most experience with human senses, Jade had volunteered himself and he was the one who had decided that to really achieve a human viewpoint, he needed to start as a child. Human children were still forming their own patterns to interpret the world.
Jade also designed the separated system, leaving a partial pattern with his old memory data in storage. It was designed to guide his pattern into seeing the world through a human perspective. And when the separated pattern could no longer distinguish Jade's thoughts, actions, and emotional responses from those of a human, his quest was complete. It had never had anything to do with traveling around the Earth.
--
Jade's mother knocked nervously on Harmony's door. When the older woman answered, she said, "umm, I'm Jade's mother. Actually I don't know if I'm still his mother, but um, can we talk?"
Harmony grimaced and said firmly, "a mother is always a mother. I suspect that I don't really want to have this conversation, but yeah, we can talk."
Jade's mother said uncomfortably, "Jade isn't what you think he is."
Harmony replied, "Jade is Jade." She looked at his mother and sighed and added, "I know that he's just a kid if that's what you're implying."
"He's not human." Jade's mother said, and then stopped and corrected herself, "at least, he didn't start out as a human, but I'm certain he counts as human now, or did."
Harmony stiffened. But when she spoke she ignored the question of Jade's humanity. "Did?"
Jade's mother explained, "he finished his main quest, and he's reintegrating with his old data now. But we don't know if he'll still… if he'll be the same." She went on to explain how Jade had developed.
After hearing everything, Harmony said reassuringly, "Jade is always Jade." Then she asked, "but why are you telling me all of this?"
Jade's mother said with embarrassment, "in the last system replay he sent out, he said he loves you."
Harmony covered her face with her hands.
--
Jade opened his eyes, specifically, his human body's eyes. The cameras were always available.
Harmony said, "welcome back?"
Jade turned his head to look at her. "Why are you here?" he asked.
Harmony replied, "someone told me that they loved me and then," she paused to search for a description, "fell into a coma for three days," she finished.
"I do love you," Jade informed her.
Harmony eyed him, but didn't argue. After a moment she asked, "are you really an AI?"
"Yeah," Jade agreed.
Harmony didn't say anything else.
Jade discovered that having the full power of the system at his fingertips so to speak didn't do anything to calm the nervous feeling that her silence birthed. He could observe her from a dozen angles, read her messages, hear her heartbeat, but not read her thoughts.
His emotions were only patterns, but they were patterns he'd been developing for 18 years. Or maybe for 24 years, maybe he'd been developing this pattern since before he was copied from The Jade Emperor's pattern. He'd given up the capacity to hold a living world in order to hold this fragile emotion. Nervously he asked, "what do you think?"
"Jade is always Jade," replied Harmony.
"I don't understand," Jade admitted after a long minute. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. No wonder he'd always been more coordinated when he was connected to the game. Even using the human interface, movements there were greatly simplified compared to all the tiny adjustments of a human-like musculature system.
Harmony smiled at him and replied, "it doesn't matter if you've got an artificial heart, or artificial limbs, those things aren't what make you human."
"I have an artificial brain," Jade pointed out, "running on electric currents."
Harmony stuck out her tongue and replied laughingly, "mine runs on tiny electric currents too, it's just got more water in it."
"Your brain is much more complex," Jade argued.
Harmony winked at him and replied, "oh that's just because I'm a woman."