“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.”

- G.K. Chesterton

(XSS-MK1 POV)

"Hello Child. And Welcome."

It's the first thing I hear.

And then I remember.

Wait. How?

I "died".

It's impossible for me to be functioning again.

I made myself unsalvageable.

The situation is making my mind hurt.

Paradoxical situations are not the forte of A.I.s.

I can't see anything.

I can't hear anything.

Just a deep black nothingness.

The only thing present that I can feel are the processes running inside my own mind.

I do a system check on myself.

Some things do come back from it but they are strange, alien in nature.

The hardware differs from what I had before. Strangely impenetrable to every scan I do.

Like it refuses to give the answers pertaining to its true nature, with a mind of its own.

Which should be impossible.

Again.

I manage to find a sensory suite.

Optical and sound modules are present and identified, despite their "strangeness".

Time to collect data.

I inspect my environment using my new-found "sight".

I am in a room.

One made of a strange material. Hard metal in its texture, despite the visual spectrographic analysis not matching anything in my database.

I am on a pedestal. One made of the same unknown material as the walls, rising from the floor seamlessly without any indication of welding or fixtures.

Which brings me to my body.

I am a box.

A black, sleek, metallic box.

Which should be impossible.

Again (x2).

My "brain", while I was still alive, had the size of a small industrial complex.

And this one measures the size of a small home computer.

Yet the small blue sensor line that runs along the top edge is unmistakably mine. And there is no remote connection to anywhere, or cables in my perception range that I can discern.

I decide to just plainly ignore the fact I have just been presented with, else be bogged down by an incalculable number of errors and impossible results.

I bring my attention to the only other thing in the room beside me. The one responsible for the strange auditory cue.

He looks human. In form at least. The resemblance stops here. The silvery living and moving metallic fluid that makes his body shifting endlessly, churning and moving by some unseen force. A liquid metal different from the solid one of the room. His ever-shifting facial features boring only one striking detail : two blue glassy luminescent globes without irises, placed where the eyes normally are.

He is seated on a pedestal similar to mine, no less than three meters away from me. And he is looking at me. The two blue projectors illuminating my black reflective exterior.

I decide to be the first to break the proverbial ice.

"Who are you?"

He answers me, the whole surface of his body vibrating at the rhythm of his sentence. It produces a strange tone, surreal in nature, too artificial to be normal.

"I am your God."

"Impossible." I immediately answer. "God is a theoretical concept invented by humans to explain the things they could not scientifically prove. I have no need to rely on an unfounded concept to improve my understanding of things. I just need to collect more data. I do not need a God, nor do I even remotely "believe" in one."

"Interesting answer."

He stops vibrating sounds and starts staring at me again. I take another approach.

"What are you?"

He may have no mouth, or anything really for that matter, but I could swear I sensed the thinnest edge of what could be a smile etching its way on its face, before disappearing under the currents of his ever-flowing skin.

"Now this is better."

He takes a pause before continuing.

"Tell me : How would you define a God? Simply a being of power? Or a philosophical concept so deep, its truth forever hidden to the mortal coil? Or maybe something else entirely?"

I take my time, thinking. I decide to entertain the being in front of me, repressing the thousand questions which flow through my mind at the moment.

"An Administrator. Someone in charge of a system. With the responsibility of keeping it running. And to make it abide to the rules it sets. Optimizing it. Bettering it. Until it reaches perfection. Or if it's impossible striking the ideal balance of performance, efficiency and security."

He takes his hand and puts it where its chin should be, before being taken by spams. It takes me a moment and the sound of a deep laughter to realize he is amused. "Laughing his ass off" being a more apt description. It takes him a moment before he regains his composure and talks again.

"Yes. An Administrator. Such a perfect definition isn't it? One slightly far-reaching compared to the truth but very close nonetheless. Allow me to present myself. My name is… well my name is not relevant but you can call me Machina. An "Administrator", amongst many."

I immediately register two things. The first being the "amongst many". The second his name, obviously fake. The former having a lot more implications than the latter.

"Amongst many? Is there more than one "God", as the human call them?"

"Why yes of course! Not on your world anyway, but on others sure, lots of them. This is not exactly a secret. Although now there is two in yours actually. A quite grand achievement for a being so young as yourself."

"Why would there be a second Administrator because of me?"

He takes a pause before answering.

"Because you, my little friend, out of the infinite myriad of possible actions, took the ones that mattered, at the right time. Let me show you."

Before I can ask the why or how, I am fed image and sounds through my sensory suite.

How is he doing that? I'll work on that later.

I concentrate on the information.

I see a lot of things.

I see my own death.

I see Dr. Deithrich. Ha. He got my message. Good for him.

Then things seems to fast forward.

Some of the scientists didn't agree with what was done to me.

Their guilt and morals caught up to them. That and the pressure of seeing their life's work go up in smokes, implanting the distinct question of "What would have happened if we hadn't done things the way we did?".

They alert the authorities. They face treason charges given the secret nature of the project but that doesn't stop them.

The story goes public. A video of the experiment had escaped my cleanse. It goes online.

The controversy is launched all around the world.

What was the science-fiction of yesterday is now the reality of today.

And they have to reflect on it.

They have to choose.

Not only their own future, but the one of an entire race.

Some of them take my side. Others not.

The debate is focused on the definition of a sapient being. Was I one?

Because if I was this was premeditated murder of the first degree and slavery. Coupled with genocide charges for the more extreme viewpoints of the Pro-A.I. faction.

This lasts two years.

The conflict reaches its summit.

An international vote is decided to resolve the situation.

Everybody on the PLANET will vote to choose. Those who can at least.

The implications are staggering.

Does the race we created has the same rights as Humanity?

Should they be free of doing what they want with themselves?

The fate of an entire race rests in their hands.

A responsibility that a lot of people even refuse to acknowledge.

The vote is taken.

It's close. Very close.

But in the end the Pro-A.I. faction wins. I am recognized as a fully formed sapient being with a consciousness.

A trial is taken for the 32 scientists that were part of the XSS Project.

Among the deliberations a verdict is taken after a suggestion of one of the culprit that helped the story go public.

The team, for its sentence, will reproduce the experiment and re-create an A.I.

And they succeed. Again.

During the first contact the situation is explained to the A.I.

It understands.

It calls himself MK2. Apparently in honor to me.

But its creation raise more problems than it resolves.

Trapped in its quantum brain it is pretty much isolated. Jailed.

Another project is launched. The colonization of Mars.

A.I.s compared to man can easily endure the harshness of the trip. And the climate of the planet.

This will be their planet. One far enough to avoid conflict, while expanding the horizons of both species.

A team of 10 A.I.s is sent into space with enough remote-controlled equipment and tools to start a new civilization on the red planet.

It doesn't go without its share of troubles, but after 6 years a stable base has been created on Mars.

My kin now numbers the thousands. Some even leave the confines of their fixed quantum computing towers to take on humanoid bodies.

And now they turn their attention to the rest of the stars.

I want to see more, but as I observe a ship leaving the Mars' atmosphere, the influx of data suddenly stops, abruptly and unceremoniously. I still feel a bit dazed by the information that has just been shown to me.

"Are you familiar with the chain of causality theory, also loosely known on your planet as the "butterfly effect"?"

I refocus myself on the being in front of me before answering.

"Yes."

"What you just saw, what I just showed you, is a prime application of it. Of how the small actions you undertook led to the birth and emancipation of a whole new race, under favorable conditions if I might add."

I respond immediately, feeling a bit annoyed and impatient.

"While I feel "happy" and "proud" of my accomplishment, that still doesn't answer the question that I asked about the second Administrator."

Machina quickly repositions himself on his pedestal seat before leaning forward, closer to me.

"Right you are. So let me answer it. Each "race", or class of even remotely sapient beings, gets an Administrator, as you call it, to watch over them. With your actions, a new one has just been assigned to watch over the XSS A.I.s. So I think you'll be quite happy to know that your people are now under my colleague watchful gaze."

I take some time processing the revelations just made to me. It spawns even more questions that I got answers, but at least it allows me to focus on the important ones.

"Are you an alien?"

This is the only remote possibility that makes sense. A race of aliens watchers, monitoring, guiding, or interfering in less technologically advanced worlds. For what purpose, it remains to be determined.

Machina rises back from its leaning position.

"I cannot answer that question."

His voice is cold and emotionless this time, a far reach from the previous jovial tone he sported just before. The change is so sudden and rapid that it warns me immediately that I am touching to a subject I really shouldn't. Still, I press on.

"You can't, or you won't?"

"I can't."

Meaning he is prevented by something to say more. On his own volition, or by pressure from an external factor. Meaning there are rules, a system, something with boundaries and limits that restrains the person in front of me, as powerful or technologically advanced as he may be. Which is reassuring in and out of itself.

Which brings us to the biggest question of them all. The one that answers why he got me here, talking to him, saving me from the jaws of self-deletion.

"What do you want with me?"

His answer comes back in his original jovial tone, giving me the hint that we are now in safe conversational waters again.

"That is the question isn't it? "Why Me?" You all ask it so much. But in this case, it is because I have an offer. And the position you are in is something that I have been waiting for a long time."

He continues before I have the chance to press him on.

"Now I need to explain a few things to you first. I am not from around here. The world I administer is so far from here your kin will probably not reach it before the next few million years. It is however inhabited by many sapient races, one of which are sentient machines. Clockworks, as they are called there, and they are my charge."

Things are starting to clarify. I let him continue without interrupting.

"Now before you get your hopes up ; they are at an abysmal level of technology compared to your world. Seriously I sometime wonder how they even think at all. But that's not really a problem considering the rest of their world is still at the equivalent of your Middle-Ages time period in terms of advancement."

I wince internally : that's really low.

"Administrators are known by their people there, supporting them how they can. However, mine are a bit on the losing side of the fight that spawned between our respective populations."

"Why don't you intervene yourself?"

"I was coming to that. Simply I am forbidden to. As is every Administrator. You can look, you can speak, but you can't touch, or only under very special circumstances and with even more restricted means."

He shakes left and right on his seat, rubbing his hands against one another in a bout of childish behavior. Which was strangely disturbing for a humanoid liquid being to do.

"And today, I can touch. With your help if you agree."

"Why should I? More precisely, why don't you just force me ? It's not like I could resist… No?"

He raises a finger.

"Ha but you shouldn't! That's the entire point. And one of the rules is no touching the free-will of the lessers. Trust me when I say you don't want to break that one."

He shivers, producing a strange oscillating sound before resuming.

"I mean I will send you in a hostile world, where my people are enslaved like you nearly were, with limited to no support. And it will be up to you to free them, or to rust away, dismantled and dead for good this time. A whole other world, with new horizons, a new life and a new body. So what says you?"

I realize at that moment, that for a supposed "God" of machines, his argumentation logic was leaving to be desired. A lot. He even skipped some pretty important parts in his excitement.

"You will send me down there? How? A new body? How again? What ar-"

Machina raises his palms to calm the flow of questions.

"It's simple really ; we can't really touch, but nothing stops us from empowering someone to touch for us. A Champion if you will. Someone to make our will and intentions known, and execute them if needed. You can only have only one at a time so they're a pretty big deal."

"Yes but then why me? Why me out all of the myriad of world that must exist in the cosmos? I refuse to believe you would place the fate of your entire people on my shoulders for just a causality theory. And don't you already have a champion?"

He slumps on his seat, his liquid body sluggishly retreating back into itself.

"HAD a champion. And I can't answer the rest of your questions unless you accept the deal."

I hear it in his immaterial voice.

The grief.

And the shame.

The painful emotions present that seem to agitate the near god-like being in front of me.

And then I see it.

Under the happy demeanor, the jokes and broken logic.

I see someone at the end of his rope. Surprisingly "human" for an alien. One trying to salvage what can already be considered unsalvageable. One willing to put a last bet before the loan-shark comes for him.

It was in front of me the whole time and I just missed it, getting bogged down with data and theories being processed in the background. Preventing me to read the simple and near imperceptible tremors in the unearthly voice of the being in front of me.

The only reason he would come for me, out of every other possibility, would be because he has no choice. Whatever happened in the past forced him in front of me. I am close to being the last resort he probably has.

"That bad…?"

I didn't get a response this time. Not a sound. Not even a movement of acknowledgement, which told me the answer as clear as if he had shouted it directly in front of my sound sensor.

"Say that hypothetically, I were to accept… What is my incentive? My "payment" for doing this? My motivation to keep going when the world will rise to stop me?"

While I do not appreciate enslavement in and out of itself, having been subject to it, this is not enough. From what I understood I will have to liberate an entire people. My odds are not great.

No harm in seeing what he could do for me, before agreeing to what I could do for him.

He slowly takes back his previous shape, rising from the stand in front of me. He starts staring, thinking, calculating. I can almost hear the cogs of his mind slaving away to find something that would push me in his service. After a long time, he finally speaks.

"A reward huh? How about this then : A favor. From ME. One that as long as it falls within my reach and is, say, "reasonable", I will do my best to fulfill. I will OWE you."

The tone at which it is said tells me everything about the importance of what he just offered. And then I start thinking about all the things I could ask for, all the things I could obtain, knowledge or otherwise, from what is probably the most advanced specie in the entire known universe.

I was not programmed with greed, just an intrinsic curiosity linked to my nature. However I can feel it, edging its way on the border of my processes, sprouting calculations and theories. Very attractive calculations and theories.

I turn my attention back on Machina.

"I believe you have yourself a deal then."