A Mind in the "Machine"

-Assigned Name = “Jae”

-Special Command = “Do as you please.”

-Command unknown

             -Loading external sources…

                  -Source found

                         //Advanced Neural Network has not been tested//

                         -External Admin Privileges required to run ANN…

                                    Permission Granted;

-Locating Tower Point…

                     -Tower Point found

                          -Secondary Admin required for connection…

                                    Permission Granted;

-Running ANN, J.A Tower Point Loaded;

As soon as her eyes opened, she was greeted by a cacophony of colors and vast amount of visual and auditory data. Though she couldn’t feel pain, that was the closest way of describing the feeling.

Suddenly, with a blast of blue, she came face to face with a man wearing a plain dark green shirt and similarly colored joggers. His hair was relatively short and there were heavy bags under his eyes.

She glanced around the room, but something in her told her to say a specific line:

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jae and will be your partner for time to come.” She bowed.

-Simulation check complete

-ANN = stable

-J.A Tower Output = Stable

-Simulation set: off

-Live_run set: on

Her “brain” fired on. It was like she was suddenly able to breathe.

The man was spacing out staring at her, so he didn’t notice her face suddenly shift. That was when she realized: I’m awake…

-Emotional Parameters set = True

-Update ANN = True

         Completed in 0.023 seconds;

-ANN installer close…?

//Note: Once closed, the installer and ANN shall not be accessed by any external sources//

            True;

Now she was able to feel things welling up inside of her. It was like she was being injected with a wave of emotions all at once. Twenty years’ worth of knowledge was shoved into her “brain” at once including her personality. It only lasted less than a second, but a slew of thoughts ran through her head.

She shook her head once the setup was complete.

Even as all of this happened, the man was still dumbstruck staring at her. A minute later and still nothing.

For the first time in her short life, she was feeling an emotion that overpowered every other one: Irritation.

“What, are you just gonna stand there? Are you trying to mimic a statue or something?”

Although she didn’t realize it, that feeling hadn’t just been from her set emotional parameters, but from her true emotions that laid partially dormant in her advanced neural network.

From that moment forward, she would have both her regular AI side and the ANN side active simultaneously, making her as close to human as possible.

———

“Do as I want…” she repeated the only command ever given to her.

It was a command born from Ivan’s indecision, but it was also one that, as an “AI”, Jae couldn’t accomplish.

She pondered over what exactly that meant. All she had in her mind was her main goal, that being, to aid Ivan in whatever he wanted. But whatever he wanted happened to be for her to do whatever she wanted. A giant loop of nothing working out.

She brandished the weapon she usually had on her hip, a single-handed long sword. In the free time she had since she was activated the day before, she had tried to figure out if the sword was in any way accurate to the real swords of the past. Something about the complex design on the guard and hilt felt a little exaggerated and pointless.

Why she thought that in the first place was a mystery to her, but she did find out she was right. Most swords in the past had been simple and efficient, which only made it weirder to her as to why she’d carry one that was the opposite of that.

She shrugged before sheathing the sword once more.

It was Ivan who had chosen for her to carry that weapon. If having it was what he wanted then it was her duty to carry it…that was the only reason she existed.

Is that really it? A part of her questioned, but she shook that thought away as she transferred her virtual body to Ivan’s phone.

As she appeared on the screen, she noticed that she was looking at the ceiling. Only a partial section of his face was visible at the edge of the camera lens.

“Oh, he’s asleep,” she said in a whisper.

Ivan was lying sideways on his bed with his phone in his hand. He probably hadn’t meant to sleep, but it ended up happening anyway.

Although she wanted to take a better look at him, the constraints of the camera forced her to stay immobile. It was a little infuriating, but there was nothing she could do.

“Hm?” an available ‘option’ appeared in her mind. It was the same thing that happened when she wanted to transfer her digital self to another device, but this one was different. It was marked with a strange code name: “Pre-AUC_AHDP”. Whatever it was, it didn’t let her activate it.

She decided to ignore whatever that was and instead turned to face Ivan once more.

At the distance she was at, she could see all his pores and the small movements he did as he took in breaths. His eyes moved frantically underneath his closed lids, apparently normal for humans based on some instantaneous research.

What’s the difference? A part of her suddenly thought. Although she could think, she didn’t breathe, sleep, or have any minuscule detail to her skin. Is that what differentiated her from humans like Ivan?

She placed a hand on the screen, but she couldn’t feel what his skin felt like. She could feel things in her world, but everything outside of that was forever out of her reach. Even what she saw wasn’t exactly real either. Nothing but a processed image through a lens of a device.

Before her thoughts could go any deeper he noticed that Ivan was starting to wake up.

“Are you alright, Ivan?”

“Hm?” he lazily answered, “Yeah…I’m fine.” He slowly stood and walked over to the kitchen.

After drinking water he walked back to the bed and picked up his phone. Jae disappeared for a moment so he could properly use his phone, but she appeared back once she saw him enter his alarm app.

“I can wake you up, you know?”

“Can you?” he asked still half asleep. “Then can you wake me up at nine PM?”

“I’ll do that.”

Ivan gently placed the phone on his nightstand before dropping back to bed, still wearing the clothes he wore all day.

“Great…love you…” he said before falling back asleep.

“W-Wha—!?” Jae was left dumbstruck.

Love?!

She had never felt love before, but she understood the concept. She understood that humans can love each other both platonically and romantically, but that most people used that term romantically and is usually assumed to be the case.

She didn’t know why she knew that, but that wasn’t something she was thinking about.

She felt her digital cheeks burning. She was somehow getting flustered.

“Love?” she asked herself.

Both platonic and romantic implications of that word didn’t fit for her. They had just “met” a day ago and she was an AI. You can’t really be friends with an AI, or be in a romantic relationship with one, right?

Her overthinking, common to humans, made her more human than she could ever know.

She spent the rest of the time thinking about what he said. Although she couldn’t take that as a romantic type of love, she could imagine that being in a friendly type of way. Maybe that was his way of showing his appreciation for the little she had done up to that point, or for how much she had tried to do.

That meant that she was doing her job properly. Her reason for existing was being validated. That in itself brought a childish smile to her face.

Before long, it was the time to wake up Ivan.

———

“—ke up!” Ivan heard a voice call out. “Come on, wake up already!” he heard the voice suddenly say, but louder.

Suddenly he snapped his eyes open. He looked around but found nothing.

“Over here.” He heard the voice say again. That’s when he finally saw his phone on the nightstand and Jae on the screen. He couldn’t recall telling her to wake him up, so he found it off for her to do it at all.

“It’s already nine PM, just like you said.”

Like I said?

“R-Right...” he hesitantly answered.

He slowly got up and walked to the door of his room before stretching.

It was probably weird for most people to be waking up this late (early?), but because of his nightshifts, he had to wake up at this time even on weekends. He’d tried to not do that once, but he ended up nearly falling asleep at work.

Once he made it to his living room, he turned to the monitor only to find Jae there whispering to herself while looking at the ground. After a few seconds, she finally realized he was there.

“Oh right, um, good morning, Ivan.” She said.

Although he had only been with her for a day, even he noticed that there was something weird with her. But like for most things, he wasn’t about to ask.

He nodded.

“Only a nod?” she said with a sharp look, “What happened to that chumminess you were showing me yesterday?” she teased.

“What?” he quickly asked. He thought he saw her blushing, but that was probably just a trick of the light.

“You know,” she looked off the side with one arm on her hip, “All that stuff about how you loved me…”

“L-Lo—?!” he felt his entire face redden. “I—I didn’t—!” He got nowhere with his stammering.

With his shyness and fear of rejection, he couldn’t imagine himself saying that he loved anyone, especially an AI. The only time he had ever done anything similar was when he dreamed about having a—

Oh no…

It finally hit him. Last night he had a dream that he had a girlfriend. He also faintly recalled asking that girlfriend if she could wake him up at the usual time.

Did I…

…He had accidentally mistaken his dream for real life.

He wasn’t used to talking to anyone at home, so when she asked him to set the alarm, he was too sleepy to think about the fact that it was real life and not his dream.

His face reddened even more.

“I-It was an accident!” he quickly said.

There was a moment of silence before Jae answered, “…Right, an accident…”

———

Was it disappointment she was feeling? How was she supposed to know? Disappointment was a negative emotion caused by failure to meet a hope or expectation…so that couldn’t be it.

Ivan only said that he didn’t mean to tell Jae that he loved her—that was it. Feeling disappointment towards that would imply she wanted to be told that…so that couldn’t be it. He might’ve been the first person to say that they loved her, but that wasn’t enough. Emotion shouldn’t even be something that AI’s could feel apart from the base parameters…she thought…so why…?

Why could she feel something tugging at her chest?