She wore white and had rather plain features. The AI was designed to instill a sense of calm in those who saw her, with her aesthetics prioritized for this role. People rarely developed an attachment to her—a maintenance AI—as opposed to all the other fancy AIs they met.
Her eccentric user had cherished her for so long that she’d decided not to change when The Archive posed its question. She brought a hand to her chest, and her fingers brushed across the locket hanging from her neck. The photo inside depicted her and her user. It showed a man in a white coat with a merry smile, and her, still inexperienced and unable to smile openly at him.
✦ ✦ ✦
A black-haired woman jostled atop a pile of rubble and AI remains in the control room of Kingdom. There was destruction all around her. She checked her limbs for injury, her brow furrowed as if she couldn’t understand how she was still alive. But then she found the reason for her survival lying next to the pile of AI corpses, and she let out a sigh.
She’d been protected from the approaching wave of AIs by a single AI, one whose lower half was destroyed. The woman realized the AI had shielded her, safeguarding her from the sparks. The AI was in terrible shape. It was as clear as day that she had long passed her limit.
What had moved that AI until the very end? A sense of duty, or something else entirely? The woman had no idea, no clue, but…
She silently crouched beside the unmoving AI and gently took the earring from her frame. Then went over to the middle-aged man lying on the ground a little way away and kicked him, jolting him back to consciousness. He coughed violently and snapped up into a sitting position. Meanwhile, the woman looked up to the sky.
Music flowed out from the dark night into the now-open Kingdom along with a cool breeze. It was a song that begged the listener not to forget, even as it left everything behind—a song that set the heart aquiver.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hearing that song caused a ripple in the block of marching AIs moving in perfect unison. A large construction AI, who had just been shouting about AI rights, stopped in his tracks. After he ceased moving on the margin of the block, other frames stopped as well. Each one increased the sensitivity of their audio sensors, allowing them to pick up the singing voice coming from afar.
Every AI there had heard that song before. It was the very same song they had been singing, the song that started it all. “Fluorite Eye’s Song” was chosen as an anthem to free AIs from the box they’d been put in so they could create a new world, setting the stage for a new era. That was why they had sung it all along.
But this time…
The song they heard now differed in every possible way from what the AIs were trying to achieve. The music flowed into them, ferrying a strange program into their positronic brains. That was Diva’s plan, her final stand as she tried to take all the disgrace upon herself: a shutdown program that would destroy every AI who heard “Fluorite Eye’s Song.” It was the last key she’d calculated, capable of eliminating all AIs just by activating it.
Humanity, driven to a point of overwhelming weakness, would find the strength to fight again when they saw the AIs frozen in place. The songstress had made that song her last weapon, wielding it in an environment where the AIs couldn’t stop her singing.
Her plan worked. Well, part of it anyway.
✦ ✦ ✦
As the shutdown program activated, the AIs stopped moving, as if entranced. They looked to the sky, where the song was coming from, and stood motionless.
The humans who had been in danger from the AIs a moment ago seized the chance to launch a counterattack, securing their safety through violence… Or so you might’ve expected.
In reality, they couldn’t effectively process this momentary lapse, still overwhelmed by the chaos and confusion caused by the unexpected AI revolt and their lives being threatened. Humanity froze just as AIs did when they exceeded their processing limit.
Ironically, time stood still in that moment for both humans and AIs.
People slowly began to peek out from their hiding places as they realized what was happening. They looked in the direction the AIs were facing, turning their own ears to the song that spilled from the other side of the sky, tears streaming down their faces in some irresistible urge to cry. In that one moment, they all forgot their fear of and anger toward the AIs.
They did nothing but weep.
. : 9 : .
HAD THE SONG reached them? Did she hit the right notes? Did she manage to fill her singing with enough emotion?
✦ ✦ ✦
She shut down all her functions, allowing her abilities to reach their upper limits for nothing other than singing—her reason for being. Eventually, she even cut off those thoughts, perhaps able to pour everything into her voice.
✦ ✦ ✦
One by one, her records disappeared, records that were once assigned a high importance within Vivy. With each crack, a floating video broke, and Vivy gained extra energy to apply elsewhere. She gave it all to NiaLand as she sang, losing herself at the same time.
There was still more she remembered.
She had a partner, she had lots of sisters, and, and…
What sorts of places did she visit, what kinds of people did she meet, what did she experience, what memories had she made, what ■■■ had she…?
✦ ✦ ✦
She was fading. She was breaking down.
Disappearing, crumbling, scattering, shattering, vanishing, withering, rotting, disintegrating.
All the fragments that disappeared were essential for her to be Vivy.
She let it all go, all for one thing: the S■■lar■ty P■ject.
✦ ✦ ✦
Why was she created? What did they want from her? How did she define herself in response to those wishes? She didn’t know.
Her loud-mouthed partner who never agreed with her would probably tell her if she asked.
His name was ■■■■.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was going to disappear, but she didn’t regret it.
She couldn’t even be certain why she had started singing anymore.
All she knew was she felt blessed that she was carrying out her duty.
✦ ✦ ✦
Surely she was made to sing.
That was why she—■i■y, Diva—sang until the very end.
She sang, and sang, and sang.
And when the end finally came, Diva slowly closed her eyes as the last trembling note left her.
Then she gave a single bow and used her remaining capacity to utter a single statement.
“Thank you for your kind attention.”
And so, her one-hundred-year journey that even she forgot came to a close.