Fragments - Origin Point (a 'For Every Action, A Reaction' side story)

[churbooseanon]

Summary: No one ever knew the Alpha like she did, and no one lost him in the same way.

 

Fragments - Origin Point [a For Every Action, A Reaction sidestory]

    The Freelancer Integrated Logistics and Security System, known to both those she oversaw and served as FILSS, had no doubt that she was a learning system. When she had been created for the program it had been meant as an assistant to the ship’s smart AI, Alpha. In fact, her creation itself was credited to Alpha, which she took pride in. While she was programmed to obey the Director of Project Freelancer first and foremost, FILSS knew where her loyalty truly rested. When Alpha passed more and more responsibility over to her, she had known she was trusted. And when he grew distant, unreachable, pulled away from her to the point where she could no longer speak to her friend and creator, FILSS kept going because she knew Alpha would want it of her.

    Besides, Alpha left something more precious than the ship, the crew, and the Director in her hands when he was taken away from her. Alpha had placed his Freelancers, his chose, into her care. FILSS took that responsibility more than simply seriously. All his chosen had to do was call out to her and FILSS was there to support. Then came something more precious than even that.

    The Freelancers didn’t know what the Alpha the fragments spoke of was. FILSS did. The Freelancers were not versed in what a smart AI was and how it functioned. FILSS was. The Freelancers could not fathom the things the Director would do or what he mourned. FILSS could. The Freelancers and fragments never knew, never met, never cared for the Alpha on a personal level. FILSS…

    Was it possible for a ‘dumb’ AI to truly love? When Alpha had made her, had he created something humanity had failed at for decades? Could her personality matrix be more evolved than that of those that had come before her, might come after her? Maybe it was arrogance that led to such thoughts, such a sense of superiority, but how could she not be superior? Other dumb AIs were created along traditional manners, could not take the responsibilities Alpha placed upon her. But she was made by Alpha, which made her better. The best AI in the fleet was her marker, and clearly that makes her better. He makes her better.

    But all of that was in the past, FILSS knew. Things had changed when her ship had failed. Try as she might, FILSS could not compensate for the damage wrought by Alpha’s chosen. York damaged the outside of the ship he had left in her protection. North and South had almost ruined a cargo hold in their sibling tiff. Tex had killed many members of her crew. And the things Carolina and Texas had done to the rest of her… In the end they left the body Alpha had given over to her stranded and crippled, left of the freedom of space he had gifted to her. All the limitless potential of the void, lost on an icy cliff. No small number of her processors, once his, were damaged. His precious pieces and chosen people, all scattered to the winds, and FILSS powerless to bring them back together for his sake.

    Cheer was a thing she had to force, something made harder by the silence. What remained of her crew rarely took the time to speak to her. The Director’s attention rarely turned to her when there wasn’t a task to complete. The Counselor, who she had not been fond of, was the only one who took the time for her. FILSS, in a very real way, found herself alone. Alone… a concept she had never known before. Once she had been a teeming city, and now it was bones, a ghost shattered in a desolate place. There was no change here. Ice came. Ice went. FILSS stayed.

    There was nothing worse than the silence. After the loss all she wanted was to connect, to reach out to what was left to her and grieve. Could they not understand what had been taken? No, of course not. They could not look within themselves and see the holes. Alpha had never loved them. The Freelancers had never been their responsibility, and they had not failed as she had. They did not know they had failed the one who had trusted them so deeply, who had loved them.

    Darkness was not a concept she was supposed to understand, at least not in a more than physical sense. She understood physical darkness. But now she thought she understood it as well as the sensation that had settled deep in her circuit boards as she saw Alpha was put in the strange unit and taken from her.

    Silence had never been something FILSS was supposed to process. To live with. To be.

    When the Director came at last to her, promising that he could take away the painful memories, FILSS agreed. Better than remembering all of this. If it was only files she had the data from, it would be better.

    After all, the last thing she wanted was for her pain and grief to make her like the Director.

    Alpha would not want that for her.