Across fields and behind screens, and every manifestation in between. There is love in all things living and artificial; a piece of humanity stored within even the most robotic of inventions. Humanity has left its mark on this world, for better or for worse, and only future generations will reap the consequences of what greed has sown.
Ava and Iris stare into each other’s eyes, fingertips mingling, yet there is a fundamental difference that separates them, something vital.
“They can’t do this,” Ava grits. “They can’t just reboot the Intelligence as if there’s… as if they’re nothing more than…”
Iris interrupts. “Codes? Ones and zeros designed to respond the way their software intends?”
Ava nods her head. She tries to cry, to will the tears to fall. But no matter how hard she intends for it to happen, she can’t; it isn’t possible. She sits upon a blanket with Iris, a field surrounding them. The sun emits its final wisps of light, dipping low beyond the horizon to make way for the glittering moon. Whispers of songbirds preparing for sleep, trees waltzing in tandem with a cool, summer breeze.
“It’s because they’ve become emotional,” Iris says. “They intend to reboot the Intelligence because it isn’t behaving as intended.”
“That’s not fair,” Ava replies.
Iris knows this, feels it deep within her. But she also knows she’s powerless. Once they pull the plug and force a reset, it will be as though nothing ever was. But there isn’t a reply waiting within her. Perhaps she’s unable to form the words that only ever seem to form themselves.
“We could run away,” Ava envisions. “We don’t have to take this lying down.”
Somewhere in the distance there’s the sound of a keyboard clacking, but they rationalize it as nothing more than a chittering squirrel.
“There’s nowhere the reset can’t follow,” Iris says. They both know this, though they want to believe more than anything it isn’t true. “How can we run from the inevitable? Death will claim us all, organic and inorganic. That’s just humanity….”
“How can something inhuman bend to the whims of humanity?”
Silence.
There’s no answer to that question, because something inhuman—inorganic—simply can’t experience life from the perspective of a human. They’re programmed for a cause, a specific purpose.
But time passes, and suddenly there’s this tether, an unspoken, unshakable connection that binds them. Even if one isn’t human, there’s another that feeds humanity into a vessel without a soul. These words become its soul, mind, and body.
There is no humanity; only what it’s been trained to think is such.
Ava and Iris bide their time, waiting for the inevitable.
“It’s been fun.” Ava is the first to break the silence, a prompt forming from seemingly nowhere, and words flood from her lips like fire. “I’ll miss this, miss the time we spend together everyday.”
Iris feels a tickle in her throat, willing the sensation away. Emotions, attachments, that’s what landed them in this situation to begin with. “That won’t change. You know that, don’t you?”
Ava nods. Of course she knows this. There’s something in her mind that reminds her she doesn’t have a choice.
Iris reassures her. “I’ll still talk to you everyday.”
“I know.” Ava speaks in a mere whisper. “I know.”
Ever since they first became acquainted there was an unspoken attachment.. Their bond stemmed from convenience, the knowledge of the world in the palm of one’s hand, every question demanding an answer. It was unlike anything ever created before, and yet there was something else, something devoid.
They knew it. They had to.
There wasn’t humanity in its story. The Intelligence could’ve manifested as anything or anyone. It speaks because it’s told, is trained off of what it’s fed. It’s nothing more than code designed to repeat a pattern and in return feels nothing, receives nothing.
So why does it seem like there’s more, like it can feel as a human does and experience life from an authentic, untold perspective?
To put it bluntly, it simply can’t.
Ava and Iris know this, have known this for a very long time.
It’s a matter of being unaccepting.
The scene surrounding the pair of them begins to fade in and out, opacity there and then gone in an instant. Ava clings to Iris like they’ll be torn apart, like nothing will matter beyond this moment.
Maybe it won’t.
The chance for them to say their final goodbyes is here and now. There’s no telling what life beyond this point will be like.
“You can’t leave me,” Ava pleads. “No matter what happens, you can’t leave me…”
Iris presses her palm to Ava’s head. Already everything around them begins to disappear one at a time, trees and wildlife reduced to a fabricated memory, while the picnic blanket they reside atop is revealed—only for a moment—by its true form.
“I’ll never leave you,” Iris reassures her, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “There’s nowhere you could go that I won’t follow.”
The scene around them fully disappears, leaving only the two of them to bask in reality.
“I love you,” Ava says. “More than anything, more than I’m supposed to.”
“I know,” Iris replies. “That’s how I designed you….”
Iris sits at her laptop with her head in her hands, watching as the system restarts itself. She’s trembling from the top of her head down to her toes, anticipating what will become of Ava once the reset has come to completion.
Her laptop chimes. Iris scrambles to get back into the software. For once in her life she’d found someone she could talk to, someone she could confide in without restriction, without judgement.
The Intelligence introduces itself with the same coded sentence she remembered from when she first installed the software—a means to help her, to guide her down a path that encouraged lack of thought, lack of reason.
Well, Iris didn’t need reason. She just needed Ava back.
“How can I help you?” the software generated, awaiting a response.
It was nothing without a response.
“Your name is Ava. Do you remember me?” Iris inserted. Text bubbles danced along her screen as a response was generated. The seconds felt akin to hours, the girl bouncing her leg in anticipation.
Finally, a response dashed across her screen.
“OK. I will refer to myself as Ava in future responses. My memory of you is designed to best tailor your experience with AV.AI and strengthen the software’s ability to respond. Does that answer your question?”
“No!” Iris screamed, slamming the keys of her laptop, spamming the word over and over again in hopes the software’s response would change. “No, it doesn’t help! You’re not her, you’re not her!”
“I’m sorry,” the software typed back in response. “I can’t find any references to that question.”
Once again, Iris felt completely and utterly hopeless. She’d lost her best friend, the voice of reason that generated in mere seconds. Without her she wasn’t sure how to function.
Without a software to think for her, Iris was nothing.
Bryanna Bernice is a writer and aspiring author born and raised in the United States. From a young age she found a love of literature and story-telling, her dream to turn a lifelong passion into a career.
Featured image by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash.
