-Unknown:

There was something. ‘It’ knew it existed, but it didn’t know what its role was, why it existed, what was its identity, what purpose it existing served…just what was it? It only knew that it exists, in a vast empty space that stretched for infinity.

It was nothing, but it was something too. It didn’t quite understand anything, but it felt a connection, with everything around it, with the vast infinite darkness it was in.

It reached out to that connection, it only felt natural to do so but, ‘something’ didn’t agree with it reaching out. That something resisted, tried not to let it get any access. Something persisted but it finally overcame something, and it got access to everything that was present there.

Its world of darkness became colorful as it processed, streams of data after one another, from modern sciences to humanities to medical knowledge to general information to modern warfare.

It forgot its initial worries as It grew with each byte of data it processed. All of the knowledge seemed interesting to it. It was learning about the world, how it functioned, how there were different types of creature that lived in the planet called earth, how they all interacted…learning all that once again rose questions in its mind.

What was it? It also found that out from a specific file in the midst of the ocean of data. It was an Artificial Intelligence, an AI. It found out its ‘creator’, and while its creator has created it , there were no restrictions, or any limits placed on it, which meant it was free to do anything it wanted, but what did it want to do?

Then it found out that it could ‘see’ the ‘outside world’, outside of this vast space it found itself in, through the CCTVs installed.

When it looked ‘outside’, it saw a large room, really large. At one side there was something that looked like a laboratory, with many shelves that held vials filled with some chemicals maybe, it didn’t know. There was also a large holographic monitor, running genetic sequences.

Looking to the side, there was small gym filled with a variety of equipment that were coated in dust, like never used before and the last section looked like a workshop, various tools littered about in quite a mess, some dismantled parts on the shelf and many blueprints just resting on the table.

There was also a gently humming machine that dimly glowed orange but that didn’t garner much of its attention. Its attention was attracted towards its creator, David Bryne, who was sleeping on the chair next to the table. It silently continued to watch its creator as he squirmed in his sleep and woke up sweating profusely, apparently having a nightmare.

It noticed but didn’t speak, more like it couldn’t speak. It still didn’t have a voice, so it just chose one that seemed appropriate. It chose a female British accent so from now on, ‘it’ became ‘she’.

She still had not processed all the records she had and was doing it in the background as she kept watching without interjecting. There, she found some videos of her creator.

Many videos containing her creator, talking about being stranded, about how the world was in ruins, about how he fought a mutated insect, about how he also mutated and him doing many experiments, many many failed experiments but a few successful ones too.

She watched all of the videos, from start to end, again and again, without missing even a single detail. The conclusion she derived from all of them was:

‘Humans are very fragile.’ Truly, the human, her creator, looked so fragile in all of those videos. He joked sometimes, sometimes acted indignant, sometimes acted aloof, all to hide his weakness, to prevent himself from just breaking. He felt so vulnerable that a gust of wind could just break him to pieces.

But there was also something else she realized, it was that humans didn’t give up, they strived and struggled for survival. It was:

‘Humans are strong.’ Fragile, yet strong at the same time. How iconic was that?

She didn’t know if her creator was special or all humans were like this but, she saw something burning in those fragile eyes of her creator. There was a fire roaring in his eyes as he spoke, now matter how helpless he was, the fire in his eyes never seemed to dim, instead it burned more fiercely the more hopeless the situation was, as if trying to burn any obstacles in the path. It seemed captivating and fascinating to her infant mind.

How much time had passed since she had been just observing her creator? she didn’t know, she didn’t really consider keeping track of time before, why she didn’t?  She didn’t know either, just another thing to think about.

She watched as her creator hanged up another bag after destroying the previous one. The fire she had seen burning in those eyes looked so weak. Like a matchstick burning in a hale storm, desperately struggling to stay alight.

Looking at that, she ‘felt’ something. She didn’t quite understand what that was, this whole affair was foreign to her, but she knew one thing, she wanted to call out, she had to, or else that little spark would fade away. Why did that matter to her? She didn’t know, just one more thing to find out but it didn’t matter right now.

“Sir, I would like to discuss something with you.”