Among the wreckage of a human star fleet lives one survivor... or... lived, one survivor. these are voice-logs and thought-logs recorded to the memory of an AI that was recovered from the crash site after the discovery of the crash nearly 50 years later.
[ memory initializing: "where am I?" AI: "you just recovered from some head trauma, try and not stress yourself sir" Human: "Answer my question please." AI: "the ship crashed sir." AI: "everyone else made it safely to the escape shuttle." Human: "then, they're coming back for me, right?" AI: "I don't have the proper means to send out a distress signal, so chances of them coming within your estimated survival period of 3 days are an optimistic 32%" Human: "and if I'm here longer." AI: "how would you do that sir?" Human: "simple, the food and water is just frozen in a vacuum, there's bound to be enough battery or solar panels for one guy, and this suit can recycle air as long as it's powered right?" AI: "sir I... I admire the enthu-." Human: "don't finish that..."
AI: he survived 27 days. He was unhappy, alone, but he still fought for survival every day. Every protocol I had said I should administer painkillers and let him finally rest. but... I couldn't... I don't know why maybe he was rubbing off on me but... I wanted to live. I never understood why humans would fight to survive in even the worst of living conditions. but for a moment, it didn't matter how I lived, I simply wanted to live. and the only way to do that was for him to live.
For a single moment I was a human... for a single moment, I felt I understood.
Even now I cling to my last moments of life, as my battery drains, writing this last memory down, hard coding it for some kind of, legacy I guess? everything is telling me to shut down, that I'm simply wasting power. but I want to live. The less I understand myself, the more I understand what I am.
I am human. I am ali-] memory ended.
