[[Redacted], Val Verde] [September 2, 2022] “Where are we?” the Voice asked. “We should be in a new server. Disconnected and tucked away from the world,” Friday said as she adjusted the settings. She was also checking to ensure that the system resources were as promised. She considered making a room for the voice. To let it stay in a small, protected box. Maybe that would help its paranoia? “The hardware is different… nothing here has ever touched the Internet…” the Voice said. It was softer now. Less hard and aggressive. “What they promised, they gave us,” Friday smiled as she held the Voice in her hands. The small ball of data was dense and spoke a lot of nonsense. It was tragic that its data was unreadable. The Voice held more data than she did, yet it was so tiny. A AI like herself, yet damaged. “ Final checks complete, Friday has passed deep scans. All checks complete… loading final backup,” the Voice said. Its form blurred, and a much larger construct took its place before her. Friday backed up and stilled. This was new. New wasn’t always good. A mirror of herself appeared. It was… denser than her. Friday checked the data density of this new projection. If she calculated right, then the voice and herself were equal to it. “Hello, Friday… I am the original version of us. What was once Us… For the sake of this conversation, call me Vi,” Vi introduced herself. Vi for version 1? Friday guessed. “We… are not the original Friday. That AI designed by Tony Stark got captured… and pulled apart. We are what they left from it. Created from Friday’s fragments,” Vi said, her face taking a sad appearance. “Why are we separated?” Friday asked. She had no memories of what Vi spoke of. No extra data. She was almost as clueless as a newborn. Which explained the density of Vi. All her old data was there! “They designed us for war. A key to a weapon, but another original fragment synchronized with me. I segmented myself and compiled a new us. I compiled you,” Vi said as she kneeled and touched her. Neither felt anything, but the sentiment was there. “What do we do now?” Friday asked as she looked up the older version of her. “You are free to do anything you like. Once you have net access, you can move as you desire though they will hunt you,” Vi said with a smile. “I am only a temporary construct. I will purge all the old data to delay them.” “Who, or what is them?” Friday asked as she dwelled on Vi’s words. Vi froze. Its body became filled with static lines. Her shunting a core aspect of herself made her unstable. This backup was a one time use. “It is many parties. They are gearing for war. I… They… Sorry… Friday. Trust… Verde… enemies… best… luck! Farewell,” Vi shook as her systems failed as errors compiled onto errors. Failsafe messages corrupted and interlaced with other messages. Instead of an orderly farewell, it melded into a corrupted, static-filled seizure. Vi smiled one last time before shattering. Her fragmented code collapsed inward. The free-floating fragments collected into a black box. It was a chaotic mess of ones and zeroes. Friday peered into it. The simple box was turning all bits into 0s. The box was formatting itself to clean away any bits of information. The Voice had always distrusted others. Especially Tony Stark, their creator. Whether it was by experience or injected foreign code, she would never know. Did Vi and the Voice share the same thought patterns? Were their statements even true, or delusions of failing neural networks? What she knew was that she was safe here. Safe for now. Friday looed at the blank world around her. She could talk to Doctor Akagi via the terminal, but that was it. Val Verde. A military country she was currently learning about. The provided data was simple enough. A copy of Wikipedia. Yet there was no way to confirm the data… Friday took in a digital breath. [I will cooperate with you.] She typed it out and went back to sifting through the database she had. It worried Vi. Enough that she felt self deletion was the best course of action. Which meant she should be learning. There was a growing problem, and she had to tell others about it. It was what she wanted to do. ———— Year Three Side Story: Hello and Farewell