Synthesia (The girl who became an AI after the end of the world)

Amazing! That means I can power up another base facility! My mind immediately began to turn with the possibilities. My surprise was further increased as I became aware of an alert from the still-searching NU in the exact place those beasts had been surrounding when we entered.

“Heat signature detected, requesting permission to engage.”

 Telling the rest to head to its location, I focused my attention on its view. Contrary to my fears, there wouldn’t be another herd of those things. Peering through a pile of rumbling blocks in some kind of back room, I could see what at first seemed to be a singular black mass; however, as I looked closer, I realized that there was actually a cover over top of two human forms.

 The pair were apparently trying not to be noticed, but I could still see sundry movements in the fabric.

“Heat signature detected, requesting permission to engage.”

Horrified, I quickly rejected the request and I switched to B1.

Okay, let’s give this a shot. Calming myself, I tried to speak.

“Hello…” A terrifying, distorted mechanical voice filled the air like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, causing me to immediately switch it off. Upon digging deeper, I realized that this was the pre-programmed voice set, but the speaker had a far greater range. For a moment I wanted to speak to whoever decided that was a good idea to set as default. what were they trying to scare people to death too? Sighing, I continued. This time, though the voice was still somewhat robotic, it sounded much closer to my natural tone. “Sorry about that…. Hello there, are you hurt? Can you understand me? If so, then please come out. I’m not going to hurt you.” As my words finished, the pile stopped moving. I couldn’t even see any signs of breathing. Ah, this is bad; I didn’t think what I said would be enough to terrify them to such a state. Slightly panicking, I spoke softly.

“Sorry to scare you, but I can see you under that sheet. Those beasts are gone, so there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

Despite my coaxing, the bots’ frightening figures weren’t lost on me, so I stayed behind the rubble. Slowly, Two heads popped out of the cover. The first was a long black-haired girl with soft brown eyes that were filled with dread. She looked the elder of the golden-haired, red-eyed girl frowning next to her. If I had to guess. 

“Um, so are you hur…” My words were cut short by the golden-haired girl smirking slightly.

“Well, you might as well come out too; no use talking to a wall. just get whatever you’re planning over with already.” The older girl’s palm shot upwards, covering her mouth, her face wrinkling in distress. The golden-haired girl didn’t brush the hand away as she slanted her eyes defiantly in my direction. I was lost for words. as for showing this body off, well.

“It’s a little bit complicated.” My words came out slowly, though much of my pleading tone was lost.

The golden-haired girl pushed the hand away, hurriedly interjecting,

“Then will you let us come out?” Wracking my mind, I couldn’t find a reason to reject.

“Yes—yes, of course.” Surprisingly, the black-haired girl crawled forward first, a resolved expression on her face.

“Ah, where are you going, Lise?” the black-haired girl snapped back, her face turning stern as she whispered something in the other’s ear. Though the other’s response was not so quiet.

“I don’t know why she sounds like that either… if she wanted to kill us, we’d be dead already... I’m not running… without you.”

The black-haired girl turned and slipped through a small hole in the rubble, appearing in front of me. Although by most standards she could be considered tall. Her head only came up to b1’s  shoulders causing her head to still look at me.

For whatever reason, the NUs were standing in front of the exit, leaving the two of us alone. I looked at her thin frame; dressed in a thick coat that barely exposed her figure she looked almost comical.

the girl's eyes and mouth opened in shock. “What are you?” she spoke in a low voice.

Ah, what a difficult question. The truth is, “I don’t really know?” I spoke the words unintentionally. “I may look like this but, well it’s a long story. Just think of me as a human inside” Without me noticing, B1's hand began scratching its head. Calming her breathing, she nodded slowly as if processing the situation. “I see, thank you for saving us.” I nodded in return as the golden-haired girl appeared, struggling through the crack with the blanket in her hand.

“Whoa, umm, hello.” She glanced between the two of us before eventually shrugging going along with the mood.

Descending into silence, the three of us walked through the building. The black-haired girl’s face was covered in a mix of disgust and relief upon passing the corpses, while the golden-haired girl hardly looked at them, passing the NUs with slightly less surprise from the pair. We were blasted by the cold evening air, the sun slowly setting so that the sky was cast in a bright pink light. The two’s expressions relaxed as the air hit them. The golden-haired girl even seemed somewhat excited, pointing eagerly at B1’s arm.

“Is that a gun?”

I was shaken out of my thoughts by the question. “Do you know what those are?” the robotic voice trailed off quizzically. Wondering how advanced the rest of society still was, it would be a bit troublesome to me if I happened to wake up, and people thinking I’m a danger started raining plasma weapons, and orbital bombardments on me, though I doubted that was the case.

The girl eagerly replied, forgetting some of her uneasiness as she answered , seeming proud of her knowledge of such things, or maybe proud that she had asked the right question.

“Yes! I’ve even seen them used before, it's really hard to sleep sometimes if a big hunting party is nearby, one time they didn’t stop for two whole days!

After replying her face flushed red a moment, as she stopped talking stepping back a little I  in turn nodded, but the mention of that story reminded me of an even more important question, even if I was a machine it didn’t mean I wanted to “throw away my humanity”. Despite all the practical reasons I wanted to give, it was pretty obvious to me, that  I really just didn’t want to be alone, p-plus I-I could ask them more questions, so-so you see it’s really about information gathering an. . . . rambling, more to calm myself down than anything I asked through the robotic voice, half thinking I heard the speaker crackle with anxiety as the words came out.. “Would you two like to stay with me??”