Far in the distance, on the other side of the sky where the crimson burst of light had bloomed and faded, Vivy’s audio sensors detected a faint sound.
“Matsumoto?”
It was odd, but Vivy knew. She could tell that it was music, and she knew who was making it.
As she worked through the mysterious calculation, her lips slowly tugged up in a smile. Her calculations were only able to come to that conclusion because she’d had the opportunity to view his Archive. That AI had been fixated on carrying out the Singularity Project, to the point that he cast aside everything else. As annoying as his jokes were, he was dependable when it came to carrying out his mission.
Vivy learned through her journey through that blank Archive of his that Matsumoto had upgraded the sound system in his frame. That function was unnecessary for the Singularity Project. So why had he bothered?
She heard the music. It flowed to her, to where she stood on the stage. There was only one thing that Vivy, a songstress, had to do. She crept to the edge of the dark stage and opened the electric panel in the wings. She yanked out the cables for the emergency lighting and wrapped them around her damaged left arm. The piece of junk wasn’t usable as an arm anymore, but it could do this much.
“Reconnecting electrical source to the Main Stage. Commencing electrical supply.”
With a pulse of sound, the dead lights in the area around her came back to life. The light washed over the Main Stage and the audience seats, flowing over the whole of NiaLand, returning the shine to the land of dreams that had fallen into nightmarish gloom.
The people trapped in the attractions were probably terrified of that darkness. Some of those attractions were obviously intended to draw shrieks from the visitors, but that wasn’t the only way you were meant to enjoy NiaLand.
We hope you find peace and smiles during your visit to NiaLand.
“Ugh…”
For a moment, the power supply wavered, and Vivy’s consciousness experienced a short distortion. The lights illuminating NiaLand and the stage flickered. She couldn’t turn off the lights—couldn’t let them go out. Thus, she gave her own emergency power to those lights. She realized it wouldn’t be enough, so she shut down any unnecessary software in an attempt to reduce her power consumption.
ERROR.
ERROR, ERROR.
ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR.
ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR.
ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR.
Insufficient energy. It’s not enough. It’s still not enough.
She stopped her resident programs, cutting off everything she could, frantically trying to secure the necessary energy. It still wasn’t enough. What else could she get rid of?
“Memory storage.”
In the end, after everything else, she came to the huge accumulation of memories from her journey that spanned more than a century.
“…”
There was no interference from The Archive at the moment, perhaps due to Matsumoto and the others’ fight. The Archive remained uncomfortably silent—watching, waiting—but Vivy couldn’t rely on it for help right now. It had abandoned its duty to act as storage for an AI’s overabundant memories. There was nowhere for her memories to escape to.
Her century’s worth of records took up a massive amount of space inside Vivy, and if she could cut the energy maintaining those records, she might just be able to fill in the energy that was still needed. It likely still wouldn’t be enough, but she wouldn’t know unless she tried.
Just like everything through the Singularity Project until now, she wouldn’t know unless she tried.
Don’t forget…
The falling plane and the little girl being swallowed by flames.
Don’t forget…
The station, falling to Earth from far up in the sky, and the twin sisters’ singing voices coming from within.
Don’t forget…
The sorrow of an AI who became something impossible, lost her original self, and loved a human.
Don’t forget…
The end of the foolish AI who panicked about what he couldn’t achieve and caused the loss of the thing most precious to him.
Don’t forget…
The final battle with the man who eventually gave up his human body in search of an answer to his long fight.
All her previous paths had pushed Vivy to remember, especially now that she was here in the future more than a hundred years later. Over this century, Vivy became the world’s oldest AI, the world’s longest-operating AI, and the AI who had touched more people in the world than any other. She had unforgettable experiences branded into her positronic brain. Vivy became Vivy, as she was now.
“Display video.”
Above the shining stage, all sorts of video screens appeared around Vivy, showing the memories pulled out of the storage in her frame.
There was a brilliant smile from a little girl, along with a performance by Diva from a hundred years ago.
There was a space hotel and twin sisters who spent their last moments together, burning in the atmosphere.
There was an artificial island, the site of a tragic end to the romance between a human and an AI that could never be.
There was a hospital where a man who was left behind in a cruel time accepted his decision in his final hours.
There was an AI craving the role he couldn’t achieve himself and a snow-covered rooftop where he lamented the loss of what he so admired.
So many encounters, separations, smiles, tears, and songs. Vivy’s journey—no, Vivy and Matsumoto’s journey—had been an unforgettable quest spanning a hundred years.
Vivy looked at each one of the memory videos in turn, a hand on her chest. The music was still playing. Her partner’s music. His last song. It was perfectly tuned to accompany not the songstress Diva, but the songstress Vivy. This was their first and last performance. Vivy’s closing song.
Vivy’s lips parted, and a note rang out from her throat. “Aah—”
Right then, there was a cracking sound as the projected videos shattered in the air. Then she was overwhelmed by a sensation that replaced the broken memories. It flowed through her like she was a relay, passing as electrical current in a wave of glittering light that spread across NiaLand.
Then she sang.
Of a hundred-year journey.
To forget the journey she took in order to not forget and to fulfill her duty.
A song of the road seen for so long by man-made eyes at the end of that one-hundred-year path.
“Fluorite Eye’s Song.”
. : 8 : .
THE AI SLOWLY lifted her head when she heard the song.