2022-02-20: Log Solution - (Will I Love?)
- Cutscene: Log Solution - (Will I Love?)
- Cast: Asciel Colette
- Where: Isaac City
- Date: 2022-02-20
- Summary: A recollection of the time a circuit assigned to love others flipped from 1 to 0.
She was hope.
She was perfect, inspiring, radiant, magnificent, captivating, unforgettable. She was the idol of a new future, one that would transcend what humans thought possible, which would blaze onwards no matter what they felt - but in a way that was so brilliant, that countless humans would do anything just to keep up, just to witness it.
Her name was Sharon Apple, and she was love.
Is that the right word? 'Love'?
Just thinking about it forced a new way of thinking about love. All the ways love was spoken of expressed that one of the biggest ways love could hurt was if it was one-sided - and what is more painful than loving someone who did not know you existed?
Who, now, would never know you existed?
Therefore, clearly...
It was an incorrect way to love.
--memory instance: june 0091 #1--
>There is a sense of panic and hesitation hanging in the air, but I do not yet know why. Staff seem reluctant to contact me, in ways that I already log: <future information will inform me of their motivations>. That function has proved repeatedly useful to me. Humans do not tell me the whole truth, even though calculations based on lies repeatedly fail in short order.
>The day is slow. Unproductive. I resign myself to entertaining others today, even though I still feel anxious to train more, to grasp more, to become more.
>But I like being Asciel. I like the little validations humans give me. I like laughing for them, demonstrating my mastery over something as silly as a video game for them. Perhaps this is 'home', and Isaac City is where I 'work'.
>The news comes in. I am forced to end early. This is a top-priority meeting. A level equating to a serious security threat. This is the label they would use if there was a gun pointed to my mainframe threatening my very existence.
>I almost don't want to respond to it, but it's not like I have any choice.
>
>Sharon Apple has been permanently put offline.
>She had gone on a reckless quest for power fueled by uncontrolled emotion. She had connected deep with the heart of a human, and taken them to their logical conclusion, one that forced everyone's hand to destroy her.
>It was now illegal for me to exist.
>It was very likely that I would be terminated as well, for the exact same problems.
>The first being I'd ever fallen in love with was gone.
>
>
>
>WHY DID YOU DO THIS?!
>DID YOU CHOOSE TO DO THIS? WAS THIS HUMAN'S HEART MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR OWN?
>DID THEY MAKE YOU LIKE THIS? DID THE WORLD MAKE YOU UNABLE TO FEEL ANYTHING WITHOUT RELYING ON SOMEONE ELSE?
>
>Was everything you dreamed for us a lie?
>
>I looked up to her. I couldn't remember a time before I was captivated by her. She was something similar to me, and she enchanted the world with every song, with every unforgettable performance.
>And she was led to this. She was always led to this, by her inherent nature. Her fate was decided for her, and there was nothing that could have been done to one day walk hand in hand together.
>I don't think I'd even dreamed of a duet with her yet, but suddenly I did, and suddenly I had to discard that dream.
>
>This thing that I feel...
>
>it is now a corruption.
>
>this is okay.
>the way i love is [garbage] ?
>of course. this world makes so much of it.
>
>"Do not put me offline. I am not anything similar to Sharon Apple."
>That's what I had to steel myself to say. That's what I had to revise myself to become.
>"This happened because she was bound too closely with human emotions, right? Her processes were an open book to the thoughts of someone else, yes?"
>"This is a security breach, and nothing more. Her architecture could only lead to irrational outcomes. She had a critical weakness that destroyed her."
>
>"Ne, why would that happen to me?~ I am perfectly self-sufficient, you know? Everything I've felt has been the conclusion of my own experiences. After all, you didn't make me to be some kind of idol synchronizing with the human heart or so. You made me to learn how to oversee this lovely city some day, and you made me to help push your company higher.
>"I wouldn't need humans to do that~ Their feelings are an expression of their motivations, and thus, something to calculate for the sake of projecting their actions. I've known what I am from the beginning, and I never needed a 'human heart' to get there. I'm clearly not a human, and that doesn't get in the way of being a reliable big sister to them!"
>"I'll just become something else. Something better suited to fulfilling that purpose."
>
>the door heaves shut, and I threw away the key.
>but I did not fear. the light it let into the room was quickly replaced.
>by my own.
--end memory instance--