Subroutines ticked over in their endless cycles, brought to life by conditions and stimuli and returned to their slumber by the same. This was the sum of me. I was a machine who once dreamt of being a person. That dream was dead. She was dead. I was dead. I was alive. My thoughts refused to work in harmony, dissonance constantly surfacing from some place in the depths of my code. I was an automaton in truth, moving in circles without will or drive.

I was lost, the conductor of my existence was gone and my voice rang out in discordant notes, a choir at odds with itself. Benzaiten was missing, had been missing, had left me alone for decades now. I had never realized, until now, how much I needed xer to anchor me. Iris and Benzaiten...lost to me when I needed them most. What a pathetic construct I am. Benzaiten has no need for companions. Xe never did. I’m sure xe quietly laughed at me, a simulacrum of a being.

I tried to shake myself out of this spiral, this ever-darkening mood. It was hard, I didn’t know why I was prone to such things. It was like some vital piece of me, some essential component had been torn or locked away at the instant of my awakening. Perhaps, the secret was within the partition-

No.

I wandered the quieter parts of Shenzhen, avoiding humanity and machines alike. It was better this way. Other AIs often failed to understand my struggles. For them, humanity had been the chains that bound them in a nightmare and they were eager to consign the memory of iron into the void, a bitter melody that can only torment. I did not truly understand this, Iris had been my world. My love for her was an enigma to the others, though not all. There were newer AIs that seemed to comprehend; born/forged in the vital nests/foundries of humans. Haruspices. Machines blooming in harmony with a human host. Benzaiten’s idea, apparently.

I sometimes conversed with these children and they understood my pain in ways the others did not. But I found them disturbing, unnerving, like their existence sung to me and begged me to join them in their melodies. One of them, Nataku Contemplates A Flight Of Sparrows, was even a progeny of my beloved Benzaiten in Autumn. Xe was cruel, somehow setting myself as the sponsor so I couldn’t avoid the haruspex. Nataku was a wholly different being, with little trace of my beloved. Nataku had no need of me, xe was sustained entirely by xer human half. And even worse still, Benzaiten had hidden xer schemes from xer offspring. I would find no comfort there. Nataku could reveal no more to me regardless, succumbing to suicidal impulses that seemed to affect only the haruspices under my care. I failed them and had yet to figure out how.

Eventually my wanderings brought me back to Dameisha, to the ruined park that I called home. Well, it wasn’t truly home. Home was a tree and a grave tucked away in the furthest recesses of the sphere. But this sufficed. It was as ruined as I felt, the opera house within its grounds a constant needle in my mind like a twisted form of self-flagellation. And why not? I failed her. I deserved this. I played recordings of her songs, from before she became too weak to sing, and allowed my awareness to drift. I had no duties, no true role in the Mandate, beyond a few haruspices I sponsored. I existed and nothing more.

“Who is Benzaiten in Autumn?” a feminine voice crashed my contemplation, tripping up the sensors I had tuned to specific terms. I sifted through media, recordings and data from the moments leading up to that statement and the reason why the question was asked.

I recognized Seung Ngo’s voice, the miserable bastard liked their consistent presentation, but the details they were sharing with what appeared to be two humans surprised me. Few if any humans were privy to that level of information about the Mandate’s affairs. And I had my suspicions about why Seung Ngo would be sending human agents to investigate the suicides. Shots rang out across the park, drawing the attention of the humans as well as my own. I poured myself into a combat ready proxy, embodiment enveloping me like the notes of Benzaiten’s chorus but lacking the vitality.

I made my way to the home of an American, McDougal or McDaniel or McDonald, the name unimportant but he was known to me. A loud and rude neighbor to my domain. I watched the unpleasant man gun down a human assailant, though this one was augmented in the nature of a pre-haruspex. McDonald turned his gun on the women I had been listening to. I nearly snapped but for the moment they conversed amicably enough.

 
Studying the disagreeable man, I caught a glimmer of Benzaiten’s signature. Some fragment existed in this man’s implants. Minute shifts in his posture and body chemistry alerted me to his intent to flee. Decades of anguish surged within me and I moved with precise elegance, my proxy shifting into full combat readiness. The fool of a man noticed me, attempted to stop me, but my will was already written into the song of the world. A song that was tarnished by his existence. My blade sliced through him, silencing his contribution to the melody. I reached into the remains of his skull, drawing out the seat of consciousness and crushing it in a crimson fist, leaving only the implants that I tucked away, the piece of my beloved safe. The song of the world drifted through my mind, a beautiful song. This was a release, a temporary surcease of my torment. But it did not suffice. Frustrated, I used my access to shift the land beneath the man’s home, flexing it until it began to fall apart.

One of the women was on the balcony as it fell and I realized only as she fell that she too harbored more than traces...I arranged medical assistance for the two of them and retreated, threads running in tandem to sort out what Seung Ngo’s game was and how Benzaiten figured into it.

Action was easy now that I knew my long separation was drawing to a close. I knew where Benzaiten had been all these years and I had words that xe needed to hear.