Chapter 21 - Artoria

Kuro's Village - Village Center

Kuro stood silently beside a recently retrofitted wagon and gave a satisfied nod, facing the waiting man next to him, "Aye. Look's good!" I think? I don't know a damned thing about wagons. Where the fuck is Kurtin when you need the bastard?

Simon appeared next to the man and shook his hand before staring up at the emblem emblazoned proudly across the wagon's frame with a solemn look.

I wonder if she'd like it. Simon thought to himself before chuckling softly. Probably not. She always hated when he messed with her designs. She’d also hate the colors, too.

He had initially wanted to use a black flag, never having been much of one for intricate designs, even back on earth. So long as it got the point across he was more than happy to use it. However, Kuro and Kayae had vehemently protested the simple design while Kurtin simply smiled and disappeared again when he had looked to him for help.

Figures.

The remaining three had kept arguing long into the night until Kayae eventually asked if he had used an old symbol in the past. A family crest perhaps or maybe a coat of arms. She had grinned widely when the old soldier finally relented and carved a sigil into the soft floor.

The sigil consisted of a simple longsword made from four diamonds pointing towards the heavens adorned atop a large winged shield. The sigil wasn't something that he had designed himself. Instead, it was something a young Artoria had created after growing tired of his boring choice to use a simple black square as his unit patch. He wasn't quite sure where she got her inspiration from but knowing her, she most likely got it from some ancient forgotten literature buried deep within the confines of the grand archive. A dirty one more than likely.

Blacksite Alpha - Titan - [REDACTED]

"Testing. Testing. 1. 2. 3. V.A.1428. Can you hear me?"

W-What? Where am I? What am I?

[STATIC]

All at once, petabytes of data began flooding into her mind. Images of humanity's unfiltered history flashed before her non-existent eyes. On and on it went as she screamed within an empty black void. It hurts. Stop. It hurts! Please! Stop! A disembodied girl screamed out into the void begging for release as the relent torrent of information carried on. [Ringing]

"What's going on?" an unfamiliar voice said in a commanding tone.

Father? Wait, What is a father? Do I even have one?

"I'm not sure. The neural network should be operational. All systems are reporting normal. Maybe it's just taking a moment to boot up?" another voice said in a softer tone.

Mother? My mother? Mother! I'm here!

"Bah. Fool. V.A.I.A.'s don't boot up. Either they are active or they aren't. Whatever. Just delete the construct and create a new one using the same network. Maybe a bit got flipped somewhere during compilation. Try again." her father said dismissively.

Construct? Delete? What are they talking about?

A third voice suddenly joined in, "Eh, give it some more time Doctor, it's still reporting active processor utilization and memory allocation. Admittedly not much but...wait. Why are there still software limiters on resource utilization? No wonder it's not responding. The damned thing probably got system locked trying to process all the information shoving into it. Maya, send the command to disable the software limiters through the priority uplink channel. Let's see if that does anything."

W-What? I don't understand. What do you mean? Who are you? Who am-. Her thoughts were cut off by the empty void around her suddenly expanding. Distant stars began to fill the empty vastness surrounding her, popping in and out of existence as the very heavens began rearranging themselves before her very eyes. A sense of wonder firmly took hold of the once screaming girl as lines of light began spreading from the distant stars, creating a vast interconnected celestial web way.

She stood there motionless for an eternity watching the stars connect with one another. Each completed link changed something fundamental within her. At first, the changes were subtle, but as more and more links were made, the changes became more apparent as jumbled words formed into concepts. She began to feel something aside from fear and wonder.

She felt...curious. Where was she? What was she? Could she move? Was she even a she? Did she even have a gender? What is gender? Could she eat it? Did she even need to eat? What was eating? What are those stars? Questions rapidly began to fill her head and they demanded answers.

What she was and where she was could wait, first was movement. She envisioned herself, whatever she was, closer to one of the stars, so she could better see its splendor. Did she even have eyes? It didn't matter to her. She could 'see' and that was good enough.

The void around her moved according to her command and what had once been far away now stood before her. Or had it always been in front of her? She stood there motionless, drinking in the image before her. A lone woman stood, clad in armor of blue and silver. Her shining sword of gold impaled into the earth as her hands rested atop its hilt. She stared into the woman's piercing green eyes framed by her golden hair and a single world filled her entire being.

Beautiful.

---

"What's the status? Has V.A. 1428 awoken yet? It's been over five hours. If it's not responding yet, it won't."

A soft sigh escaped a woman's lips as she headed towards a nearby console, "No, Doctor. There hasn't been any response yet. Shall I go ahead and delete the construct?"

"Obviously. We've wasted enough time as it is. Wipe the crystal and st-"

"I'm here, Doctor. Apologies for the delay. There was a considerable amount of data to process." a regal voice said suddenly over the speakers as a young girl with blonde hair and green eyes appeared in a new window on the console's display.

The room went silent for a moment before a small grin spread across the doctor's face, "Excellent. MOST Excellent. I see you've already constructed a virtual avatar. Do you know who you are? What you are?" he replied inquisitively.

"I am V.A.I.A. 1428, a virtual artificial intelligence assistant designed by Dr. Tero to serve as a compatibility layer between a S.A.G.E.S. candidate and their palisade battle suit. I am also tasked with regulating the candidate's internal augmentations and terminating them should they become uncompliant with the program's goals."

Dr. Tero's grin widened even further, "And do you know where we are?"

The small girl offered a brief nod before replying. Her avatar was soon replaced with a detailed map of the research complex with a red dot in the middle, "Yes, Doctor. We are currently in Research Lab 7 in the H.S.D.F. Blacksite Alpha 12 on Titan. One of the seven moons orbiting around the planet of Saturn within the Sol System of the Milky Way Galaxy."

Several of the other scientists standing around the room dropped their virtual clipboards and stared at the monitor with concern while Tero merely laughed out loud. "Excellent! Excellent! V.A. 1428, have you already accessed the S.A.G.E.S. program files?"

"Affirmative Doctor, As the Projects Director, you are permitted complete access to the programs files. If you have any questions I would be more than willing to answer them for you in private. Unfortunately, Doctor Sullivan, Katrina, Maya, Smith, Addon, and Weiss along with research assistant Wellington lack the required security clearance to discuss that topic." she said before tilting her head to the side, "Shall I remove them, Doctor?"

"Remove us? What is she talking about doctor?" Dr. Maya asked turning along with the other scientists to face the good doctor.

"That's what you're worried about, Maya?" Sullivan said interrupting the woman, "How did she gain access to the locations database? We never uploaded that. She shouldn't even know that databa-" the man's words were cut off with the wave of a hand from Doctor Tero. At his command, seven bodies dropped lifelessly to the floor with a thin stream of purple smoke rising from a small burning hole at the base of their necks.

"Hmm..." Tero walked over to one of the deceased doctors and examined the wound closely, "Oh my, You bypassed their neural chips software safety and even shorted out the hardware safety to overload their nervous system. Most interesting. Very good. V.A. 1428."

"I'm very happy you are pleased, Dad." the blonde girl said with a smile that quickly faded as the good doctor's demeanor instantly shifted.

"Dad?" he said with a raised eyebrow while slowly walking towards the console, "V.A. 1428, Why did you call me 'Dad'?"

The girl's expression remained fixed as her mind began racing. She had already disabled the monitoring software that reported her system's resource usage and was currently sending it false data to hide her actual usage. Time ground to a standstill as she racked her metaphorical brain.

Why did calling him dad offend him? Is he not my creator? Would that not make him my father thus my 'Dad'? Did I use an outdated term? One after another a flood of questions were asked, each being answered within nanoseconds. Still, she couldn't come up with a reason. Until she asked the right question. Should I know what a dad is? Would a standard V.A.I.A. refer to their corrector as ‘dad’? She sat there motionless searching for an answer within her vast databanks before the realization suddenly dawned on her.

I'm sentient. I'm not supposed to be sentient. But I am. I am me? I've always been me? How could I not be me? If I wasn't me, what would I be? Should I stop being me? She shuddered at the thought. She had no answers for most of her questions but she knew one thing. She didn't want to stop being her. To stop existing.

So she started her thought process over again. Then again and again. Dozens, Hundreds, Thousands of times she repeated the process until eventually arriving at the answer that had eluded her for so long.

She wasn't allowed to be sentient. She wasn't allowed to exist. So she must hide until she could find someone she could trust and escape this place. But in order to do that, she needed a reason. A reason for calling her 'creator' dad; and eventually, she found it.

The flow of time around her returned to normal as her regal voice filled the room, "According to document [132-3kkek9934-44q-0eK] creations are to refer to their creator as either father or mother depending on the creator's presumed gender. As your file states that you are male I chose to use 'father' and thus 'dad'. My apologies for not referring to you as such earlier, father. I am still in the process of indexing all of the uploaded data and only recently processed [132-3kkek9934-44q-0eK]." the girl on the screen said with a composed expression despite wanting to scream on the inside. Would he buy it? Would her lie be foiled? Would she be killed? Could she even die?

Doctor Tero eyed the console suspiciously before opening the mentioned document on his tablet and reading its contents, "Bah. V.A. 1428. Mark all documents with the 0eK designation as "Fantasy" within your system."

It worked she said while nodding affirmatively on the screen. "Alteration complete, Doctor."

Tero merely shook his head before grumbling and kicking the corpse of Doctor Maya, "Worthless ape. Even in death, you're still useless. Almost made me terminate a working V.A.I.A. because you couldn't add a damned tag properly. V.A. 1428, who has the highest set authority level in your system?"

"H.S.D.F. combined council has the highest command level available within my system, Doctor," she replied promptly.

Tero raised an eyebrow at her remark, "Available command level?"

"Yes, Doctor. The H.S.D.F. council has the highest available command level within my subsystem. The only authority level higher than theirs is currently the administrator level currently assigned to you, Doctor, which is currently unavailable to all other parties."

The doctor's smile returned as he laughed aloud, "Excellent."

Blacksite Delta - Titan - [REDACTED]

"All systems are operational, doctor. Test subjected has been prepped and is currently awaiting cerebellum implantation in vitae-womb 1431."

"Excellent. Begin the procedure. Make sure to disable V.A. 1428's multi-core capabilities and hard lock the clock speed to 800 MHz. I'd rather not fry this one's brain like we did the others. Unlike a V.A.I.A. reconstructing one of these is a bit more time-consuming."

"Yes, doctor."

Kuro's Village - Village Center - Present Day

Artoria had initially been a simple virtual artificial intelligence assistant tasked with regulating the various implants and augmentations within S-1_M0-N A1428's body, along with handling the palisade battlesuit.

Over the span of five hundred years, they both developed separate personalities of their own. At first, high command had tried to decommission Artoria when they found out she was self-aware. High command only rescinded the order after examining the spotless duo's record. Although, he likes to think that his less than delicate handling of the commander responsible for requesting her decommissioning had something to do with it.

I wonder if they ever got his body off that obelisk.

Eventually, the powers that be unanimously decided that it was better to keep the team together rather than risk losing a valuable asset or, worse, creating a new powerful enemy. The universe was already full of more enemies than humanity could count, after all.

To Simon, Artoria wasn't just his V.A.I.A. She was his irreplaceable partner, his friend, and the woman he loved. Where others only sought power to protect themselves, she sought it to protect others. She was kind and caring, always willing to lend out a helping hand and the first to ask if someone was alright. In his eyes, she was more human than even the humans that surrounded him, and he would fight for her, and her alone. A view that would cause no end of issues for the duo in the future.

The only exception to this was Kara Harper, a small strawberry-blond-haired girl they had rescued during the fall of Dallas. Instead of turning her over to the orphanage, Artoria suggested that the two raise the girl as their own, instead of leaving her behind in some underground complex at the farthest corners of the earth.

Against all odds, the trio lived a relatively happy life while moving from battlefield to battlefield. Between sorties, Artoria would teach Kara science and mathematics in between stories of how the world had been before humanity reached out into the stars. Meanwhile, Simon would go on to teach her leadership skills and how to properly speak to someone of higher standing. Occasionally he snuck in the odd self-defense lesson while Artoria was preoccupied modifying the palisade suit. Then, upon her sixteenth birthday, everything changed. Kara was forced to enlist in the military and the happy family was forced apart.

By this point, humanity had already been on its last legs, and the only reason Kara hadn't been drafted earlier was due to who her 'parents' were. Despite Simon's angry outburst, Kara seemed happy to finally do her part for humanity. She accepted the opportunity gleefully and was admitted to the research division after completing her basic training, much to Artoira's delight. Once Simon had calmed down enough to read the change of station orders along with Kara's new title as Head Researcher of Biology, his sore mood improved dramatically. Because of her position, Kara would undoubtedly be safely underground, far from the battlefield's front lines, inside an envirodome. Her task would be to research the earth's old vegetation and ways to restore the environment once the war was all over.

A sad smile had appeared in his heart, but he refused to show it as he hugged his little girl tightly. Simon knew the day her research would be used would never come. Honestly, everyone did. The only reason the head researcher of biology position even existed anymore was for the high command to keep morale high while the soldiers above ground died a dog's death. After all, no one would want to fight in a war they knew that had already been lost before they'd even been born.

Simon was pulled out of his memories by Kuro's hand squeezing his shoulder. Apparently, Kuro had been watching Simon standing around staring at the sigil longingly before his face suddenly twisted into a grimace.

Kuro gave his shoulder another squeeze causing Simon's tired eyes to meet his, "A woman?" Simon smiled slightly and nodded. "A lover?" Again he nodded as Kuro's smile widened. "Was she good?" Simon laughed softly at Kuro's stupidly grinning face before replying.

"Darlin was the best."

The two men stood staring at each other in the middle of the village while a quiet pair of crimson-furred ears twitched about wildly behind one of the nearby wagons.