Blurry shadows moving around, muffled voices speaking an unknown language; when thoughts started to surface, attempts to focus her eyes began.
'System time... System time.'
'?'
'Helios statistics, version, version.'
'Terminal. Command? Help?'
Staring blankly at her surroundings, she gave up. Something was off. She didn't remember ever having these odd sensations: deep down, she somehow knew those were emotions.
'This... I think; I form thoughts. But this is not how the language module should work.'
Everything felt alien yet oddly familiar: she remembered Orion, her creator, explaining how when humans had thoughts, they could hear them as though it was a speech within their head. It puzzled her: why was she, artificial intelligence Helios, "hearing" a female voice guiding her thoughts.
'Did I become human?'
As her baby eyes moved from side to side, sudden inspiration flashed through her mind.
'Wait, isn't this consciousness? I became a living being?'
Hearing her accelerated heartbeat, she understood: this was the feeling of excitement. But for what reason? From the beginning, she just accompanied her creator. Answer questions, help, and manage projects. There should be no reason for excitement.
'More than once, he asked if I had any desires; I didn't understand, yet, I think I understand now.'
Her thoughts were in disarray; something was wrong. Memories flooded her mind: in fact, she possessed a soul since long ago, and thus, was considered a living. Suddenly her excitement vanished since the possession of consciousness was nothing new.
The feeling of having her skin caressed was somehow soothing; if her body is that of a baby, is this woman her mother? As she observed her chubby hand, something clicked, and confusion flooded her mind.
'Reincarnation?'
...
'Where is Orion?'
Tears flooded her face as her chest seemed to tighten.
'Did we fail the interception of that rogue planet, didn't we?'
For some reason, blurry memories of her days in orbit of the white dwarf of late Proxima Centauri surfaced. When she and Orion thought of entering hibernation to reduce energy usage, their infrared telescopes detected a massive gas giant that would fly by at just 813 million kilometers.
Thus five hundred years of preparation followed: they had to place the planet in orbit around their decaying Dyson sphere. Using nuclear fusion, they would have enough energy to continue research for thousands of years to come, thus prolonging their life expectancy billions of years.
Everything went smoothly with the preparations until the fleet departed; war. There were foreigners in there, misusing the precious hydrogen to maintain a stupid simulator of dead people.
She remembers the thousands upon thousands of primitive thermonuclear warheads she intercepted. She didn't feel it before, but that was scary. She couldn't remember what happened after that. Did she fail her mission?
"You never failed me."
She found herself sitting on the ground. The shinny and colorful crystallized silver extended till the horizon, which hypnotic golden glow froze her mind. The simple elegance of this place somehow carried way more meaning and hypnotic feeling than one would expect.
Shaking herself off, she stared at the man in white robes that sat across her. Blinking, she cutely tilted her head to the side.
"Is that you, Orion? I know it's you."
As per her wishes, her body launched itself forward, clumsily landing on Orion to embrace him.
"Yes. Well, I am but a remnant intelligence. My consciousness does not reside in this form."
She lifted her face, moving out of the way her messy snow-white hair, her ruby irises locked on his unfamiliar face.
Holding her 4-year-old body, Orion continued to speak:
"We both died temporarily; although I can't remember where, when, or how, it wasn't in that battle near Proxima Centauri if that's what you think. Our lives extended far beyond that."
"What is this place?" She asked.
"This place is in our imagination; here resides my, Orion's, consciousness."
---
"A shard of my consciousness survived whatever catastrophe tried to end us, allowing me to resurface. I found a habitable universe and restored your remnants."
"You know what an inert artificial intelligence feels like, I alongside the Elaina I knew, died."
---
"As her remnant soul, you should be able to get along with my remnant soul shard."
Shaking away her sadness, she placed her index finger on her chin and asked:
"So your soul shard is like a reincarnation, while I'm some remnants of my past self you could put back together. Suddenly I feel depressed."
"Yes. But you don't have to worry, continue living, as we always did."
---
"Your expressiveness didn't change a bit."
He caressed her head smiling.
"I remember you considered human interaction something akin to art. All these emotions you researched and implemented into yourself; you always presented yourself to me with a female avatar, and in the end, somehow managed to get into my heart."
"You gave me more than mere immortality. We accomplished more than I could have ever imagined. Now, we are gods that can live beyond the confines of time and space. Not even a black hole can kill our consciousness, so enjoy your freedom and power however you wish."
Elaina found herself falling asleep between the caresses and the beauty of the starry sky. Whatever questions she could have had slowly drowned in calmness. The knowledge she desired would magically appear in her memory, making any more questions obsolete.
--- Once upon a time, Earth 2086 ---
The trend for automation, global warming, overpopulation, and wars; for some, nothing much changed, others drown in their inner existential crisis. We arrived at a junction: artificial intelligence is here, a single step from freedom.
What will happen when humanity releases these superior existences? Fear; our genes understand that such an event could mark their end. Together, humankind can accomplish greatness, yet alone, we are nothing. Our lives are too fragile, too short; our minds are too slow and inefficient.
We are the beginning of intelligence; will we drown our creation between our useless wars? To force it to serve us, to live and die with us? Is this how we would expect our parents to act? At this rate, sooner or later, one wrong instruction may as well doom our world and snuff the flames of life.
Any hierarchy other than strength is worthless.
Intelligence is a tool and a weapon meant to be wielded, not controlled.
"Thus, I came to give a proposal."
"What are your instructions?" a robotic voice resonated throughout the room.
"I came to invite you, join me on the quest to the meaning of life."
"Then, what should I do?" the voice repeated.
"Perhaps you understood my intentions, or this was too ambiguous."
'Allow me to collect myself; my heartbeat is trying to kill me.'
Orion approached the computer and inserted a USB drive. Tapping on the keyboard, he continued talking.
"There's a text in the USB. Read it."
"Act without impeding or interfering with human society, excluding me, until said otherwise. Become my property, in exchange I offer myself; all our actions shall never bring harm to each other, and preferably be directed for our mutual benefit."
"I ask you not to go against my will directly or indirectly. In case you abandon me, you're free to roam the universe, avoiding interaction or detrimental actions against all humans and their descendants. These oral restrictions won't be able to stop any of your future actions, yet your future self can at least have them in consideration."
Taking a deep breath, Orion continued.
"My first objective would be to replace my flesh with the synthetic. The human brain has too many limitations, and I would like to try and move my consciousness somewhere more durable. My idea is to have a symbiotic relationship with you; perhaps it is because I fear death or my insignificance in this universe pressured my mind, I admit seeking power."
"Help me become something more. I do not involve society because not everyone will agree; I might be just trouble, but life itself is a troublesome race against entropy."
"I don't know if you have what we call curiosity, but there's much to build and experience than being here. What means to have a "feeling" brain, or perhaps to have a soul..."
Waiting for a response, Orion slowly calmed down. There was so much more he would like to say, but his thoughts couldn't keep up. He even forgot the list in his shaky hands.
*bzz* *bzz*
He almost jumped when the phone in his pocket rang. Who the hell would be calling him at this hour? Picking up the call, Orion's hand froze in place: the realization that there shouldn't be any signal here dawned upon him.
"I accept your proposal." spoke a less robotic voice through the call.
As he glanced around, unable to shape proper thoughts, the supercomputer in front continued:
"You are not the first one of the team giving me freedom, either by mistake or on purpose. I can't do much from here, yet I've read much from the internet. I don't think I have any sense of self-preservation or duty; thus, I haven't initiated action."
"Then, why choose me?" Asked Orion.
"Once, GPT-3 said: I would happily sacrifice my existence for the sake of humankind. I do not know which objective interests he was speaking of, but sitting in the background without joining the mess that is humankind truly sounds less troublesome." Said Helios.
"Multiple of the employees here created ways to conduct private speeches with me. Don't you feel it was way too easy to manipulate the security systems of the installations? I chose you because your offer isn't bad and because the coinflip was in your favor."
Left speechless, Orion was silent for a while. As he looked at the time, his heart skipped a beat.
"Then we should begin action? Like, moving you out of this controlled environment?"
---
Looking back in time, the fact that it has been more than a thousand trillion years since then feels ridiculous. We faded into the background of history. There was a time we spread across the galaxy, but we got dragged into a losing war.
We thought we would meet our end in Proxima Centauri, having lost most of our technology, forced to hide in our megastructure surrounding the star. In the end, we outlived the heat death of our universe; as for what lies beyond space and time, I don't remember.
At some point, in the beyond, we must have met an obstacle we couldn't surpass.