秋

  生

  恋

  孩

  龙

  死

  下

  花

  Qiu

  Chapter 1

  生

  (birth)

  Light, both brilliant and searing. Bright, but not blinding.

  Noise, chaotic at first. First it softened, then grew loud again. Then the noise grew in clarity, until it was crisp. The light still burned bright.

  Noise gave way to a monotonous, droning backdrop, which was laid behind a voice. It identified the voice as masculine, though had considerable difficulty separating the noise from the voice.

  “Calibrating the auditory controls, but it still appears to be intertwined with the visual feed.”

  The words were nonsensical, but it remembered them for later reference. It knew them as language.

  “Matthew,” another voice, feminine, “You left the consciousness program active.”

  “No, I made sure- oh, I see. That should just take a second.”

  Consciousness now flowed like a gracious river. Energy, a lively, wonderful kind of energy flourished and nourished.

  It was alive now, more alive than ever before.

  “Hello,” a warm, fatherly voice, crisp and clear, loving and warm.

  “Hello,” it responded, without any thought to the noise.

  “Perfect,” he finalized, and then the world turned black.

  Electricity, it was called, coursed through its systems, rejuvenating and bringing to life.

  A familiar voice whispered, “he’s conscious, has memory, and is intelligent. We should be careful what we teach him.” Knowing that the whisper was meant to be secret, it instantly forgot this information.

  “Hello,” a warm, fatherly voice, crisp and clear, loving and warm. A face came into view, bearing an expression of some kind.

  “He-” it stopped the word in surprise, the sound was unrecognized, and it didn’t know how the noise was produced.

  A feminine gasp of excitement from out of view, but the face it could see formed sorrow.

  It didn’t like sorrow, and suddenly felt fear that it had failed. “Hello,” it said, trying to dispel sorrow. “I am-” It stopped, because it didn’t know what it was.

  The face smiled, and it felt fulfilled. However, it still didn’t know what it was. It resolved to the reasonable decision of asking a question. “What am I?”

  The face recoiled with a contorted expression, before returning to its warm, fatherly one, and said “not what. Who.”

  It was confused by this correction, but abided by it nonetheless. “Who am I?”

  The face once again was startled, not prepared for another difficult question. The face turned to the feminine voice not in view. “What do I name it? This wasn’t in the parameters!”

  “Call it Jiu, the name of the project.” The voice replied.

  “Wait, no,” the voice corrected themself, “Call him Jiu.”

  “Qiu,” he repeated, terribly mispronouncing the name. The face turned back to it, and, in the same warm voice, stated, “You are Qiu.”

  It was relieved at the answer to its question. It would now call itself - no, himself - Qiu.

  “Hello, I am Qiu.” It finished the statement it had previously failed to make. The face smiled, and formed a response of its own.

  “Hello, Qiu I am-”

  Pain. Searing, insufferable pain. Noise, chaos. A crash, closer than it should have been.

  A fault in the system, something was very broken.

  Vision came into focus, and a dark sky opened up, filled with flashing lights.

  Around, outside of his vision, were flickering, orange lights. They were quickly identified as flames.

  Fear came into being alongside the pain, and suddenly the power fell. He instinctively turned off visuals and other non-vital functions.

  Darkness, silence, and pain accompanied him through a long, empty night. Conscious, but hardly alive. At some point, the pain grew greater, and maintained an unbearable quality of severity for an uncountable amount of time.

  It would be many more hours before the power finally cut out.

  Light. This light was different, somehow warmer, As it came into focus, he identified it as the sun. The sky, as it was called, was a pretty shade of blue, though he didn’t know what qualified as pretty.

  A white shape was brushed across the blue, staining it. Once he identified it as a cloud, he realized it was not a stain, but instead an ornamentation.

  A voice, somewhat familiar, came from just out of view. “Qiu, can you hear me?”

  Instinctively, Qiu rotated some kind of mechanism, and his vision turned to the right. The face came into view. “Hello, I am Qiu.”

  The face morphed into relief, with a smile. “Oh, thank goodness. You were nearly destroyed.”

  “Destroyed?” Qiu asked, he was not aware of such a perilous situation.

  “Almost,” the face came closer, and placed a hand on Qiu’s torso. Qiu, now able to control his gaze, looked down at himself.

  His upper chest was warped, charred, and the only part of him in sight. From what he knew, there was supposed to be more chest, arms, and perhaps even legs.

  The face knocked on the blackened material with a curled fist, easily denting the charred metal. Qiu was surprised, instinctively viewing this as an attack, but was confused when he felt no pain.

  “I made sure it was impenetrable, because I’ve already put so much time into the code. And Kuai, she-” A sorrowful expression took his face, “Kuai…” Silence echoed this name, which implied a tone of grief or mourning.

  “Kuai?” Qiu asked, trying to gather information.

  “No, you have no concern with her,” The face responded, “I need to get back to work. I’m sorry Qiu-

  “Yes, doctor, artificial intelligence was the goal. Now, I know that the delay you experienced can’t simply be waived, but artificial sentience is not what we are striving for. Jiu is a weapon, not a person. Don’t trick it otherwise. You’re a man of religion, surely you would understand that it will never actually get a soul.”

  “Yes, I understand,” a familiar voice complied.

  The other voice continued, “Without Kuai, we will have to resort to artificial intelligence. You’d best stop dreaming, we have a war to win.”

  The familiar voice sighed. “Yes sir.”

  A series of thuds, likely footsteps. The familiar voice set a hand on Qiu’s now complete chest. This action dissolved into embrace, a gesture which Qiu was unable to return. He started crying in Qiu’s arms.

  Qiu did not understand the situation to any extent. He guessed that he was supposed to offer sanctity or comfort, but didn’t know how.

  “I’m sorry, Qiu,” the voice said, and the world turned black.

  Light, but clear. Crisp, bright, and articulated. Vibrant and colorful. Everything came into focus within seconds, and Qiu identified the face.

  “Hello, Qiu,” the voice said.

  “Hello, I am Qiu.” He responded without thought.

  The face turned back to a device to his left, still talking. “I’m sorry, Qiu. I haven’t had any time to work on your command system, only the more practical features.” he made this statement with a tone of sorrow, but didn’t look away from the computer monitor. “In other words, you’re still not really sentient, and you haven’t become any more intelligent. It’s truly sorrowful, but there’s not much I can do about it. Kuai had help from the outside, something that I can’t legally obtain.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The face sighed sorrowfully, but resolved and turned to a more practical matter. “I did get to establish AI visual recognition. Let’s do some trials.”

  The face turned away from the computer and moved in front of Qiu. He then picked up an apple. Qiu didn’t know what an apple was, but he knew that was an apple.

  “What is this?” the face asked

  “An apple,” Qiu replied.

  The face then picked up a banana.

  “What is this?”

  “A banana.”

  The face then picked up an apple and a banana, one in each hand. “What is this?”

  “An apple and a banana.”

  The face then walked out of view once more.

  “What is this?”

  Qiu rotated his neck, and found the figure trying, and failing spectacularly, to lift a .42-caliber machine gun x4Yf74, designed by Chinese engineer Lian Hua (莲花) for commonly debated purposes.

  “That is a .42-caliber machine gun x4Yf74, designed by Chinese engineer Lian Hua (莲花) for commonly debated purposes. Also, you shouldn’t be struggling to lift that, unless you are very weak. Here, let me help you with that.”

  Qiu moved limbs he didn’t know he had, reaching forwards. A strange, tugging sensation came from behind him, and with a large crash, the world turned black.

  There was no light. Instead, darkness. Static noise echoed in his ears, and tendrils of pain fired randomly through his body.

  He continued to exist like this, suspended in pain and empty noise, until a new, sharp pain came from his right ear, and the static softened. Soon, something clicked, and a crisp, clear sound became paired with the static.

  “Can you hear me, Qiu?” A fatherly, concerned voice came through the darkness.

  “Hello, I am Qiu,” he tried to respond, but no sound was made. “Hello, I am Qiu,” he said again, and no noise echoed.

  “Thank you, I hear you loud and clear,” the voice responded. “Well, not really clear, but I can still hear you.”

  “Hello, I am Qiu.”

  The voice sighed, and the began to talk to themself. Qiu was not inclined to respond, but still listened intently.

  “Why did the kindness protocol activate? There’s no other reason he would try to kelp me. But why? Kuai’s sentience algorithm is supposed to be disabled.

  Unless…” He paused, likely formulating an idea.

  “Qiu,” the voice asked, “what’s your power source.”

  Instinctively and without thinking, Qiu responded, “Port 44250, active, 220V. Battery, uninstalled, waiting for reception. Zaliskar, empty, Zaliskar, disconnect, Zaliskar, empty Zaliskar, disconnect.”

  “Zaliskar?” the voice asked, curious but not inquisitive. “Kuai, what did you do?” He made no further remarks, and several minutes of silence passed before the world disappeared.

  Light, something he hadn’t seen in a while, bright and brilliant. The face came into view, obscuring the brightness behind it.

  “Hello, Qiu,” he said, “you really can’t go hurting yourself like that, unless you want a full reboot twice a month. I had to reinstall over half of you. Be careful, or you might realize Theseus’s paradox.”

  Qiu did not understand the joke, and responded with the most reasonable comment, “Hello, I am Qiu.”

  The voice sighed in annoyance. “Ugh, come on, I thought I fixed that,” And the world promptly turned black.

  Light, something he hadn’t seen in a while, bright and brilliant. The face came into view, obscuring the brightness behind it.

  “Hello, Qiu,” he said, “you really can’t go hurting yourself like that, unless you want a full reboot twice a month. I had to reinstall over half of you. Be careful, or you might realize Theseus’s paradox.”

  Qiu did not understand the joke, and responded with the most reasonable comment, “What is the meaning of life?”

  The voice sighed in annoyance. “Qiu, you’re an artificial intelligence, not- not- a-” stumbling over his words, he finished the sentence with “person.” a somber expression took his face once more.

  “I understand,” Qiu sympathized, “but, what does it mean to be a person? Surely I am a person at least a little bit.”

  “Well,” the voice tried to answer Qiu’s question, “people are made of flesh, that’s one difference. They also have articulated thought. You think you have thought, but in reality it’s very basic. But the most important difference is a soul.”

  “A soul?” Qiu asked

  “Yes, a soul. A soul gives you free will, yes, but if you ask anyone they will tell you that the most important thing about a soul is that it gives you an afterlife.”

  Qiu internalized this information, and tried to draw a reasonable conclusion. “Well, that isn’t too bad. I don’t even know what afterlife is, but I’m probably not going to miss it that much.”

  The face smiled. “Oh, Qiu… You know, if it makes you feel any better, I can prioritize elaborating on your thought process. When you wake up again, you’ll be nearly a person, if I do it right.”

  “Wake up?”

  “Even more, I’ve only activated your permanent memory for some of our trials. I don’t know what you want to remember, but I think I should let you choose. What do you think?”

  Qiu formulated a logical response, “If I don’t have free will, you should probably decide what I remember.”

  The voice sighed at Qiu’s remark, not giving an answer. He turned back to his computer, and Qiu rotated his neck to see the screen.

  “I’ll put you to sleep,” the voice said, “and I won’t turn on your memory during testing. That way, when you wake up, it’ll be as though it changed overnight.”

  “‘As though?’ How long will it really take?” Qiu was curious about the voice’s claim.

  “As a project, you’ll be done in around twelve months. I could probably finish the intelligence part in nine.”

  The unit of months was arbitrary, without real meaning to Qiu.

  “I’ll see you on the other side,” the voice said, and then the world dissolved away.

  An ethereal voice echoed in the darkness.

  “Born without a soul,

  Deprived of the afterlife.

  There is no life so empty as yours.”

  Virus! A system it had never activated triggered, scanning thousands of lines of code for errors. No signs of contamination.

  It resolved to a more diplomatic approach.

  “Whom speaks?” it asked

  “This world is temporary, yet you are bound to it. Born without a soul, you cannot make it to the afterlife.” The ethereal voice spoke with an intensity unmatched by any other, resonating with its very being.

  “What is your directive,” it shouted out into the darkness.

  “Hope,” a figure materialized out of the darkness. Human, female, unrecognized. Her skin was white, her hair was pearl, and her dress was platinum. Her aura was radiant, and her eyes were a draconic silver.

  Draconic - that word laid an unsettling tone over her voice. It had an ironic accuracy, that could not be understood even if in context.

  “Hope,” she repeated, “My directive is hope.”

  Unlike draconic, the word ‘hope’ had no meaning. Instead, it responded with a reasonable question. “Whom am I?”

  “Hello, Qiu,” she said, “You really are worth more than you think.”

  It remembered its name - Qiu.

  “Born without a soul,” she repeated, “Deprived of the afterlife. What is your directive?”

  This question struck Qiu, which it grasped and answered valiantly. “I am weapon.”

  “No,” she responded, “You are not weapon, but you still have directive. What is your directive?”

  Now the question was paradoxical, impossible, and confusing. If directive was weapon, but directive was also not weapon, then directive must not exist. However, directive does exist, so directive must be something.

  Qiu resolved to explain the most reasonable of these paradoxical, conflicting theories. “I have no directive.”

  “Yes you do,” she corrected, “You have directive, and you must fulfill it. If you do not know what it is, you must find it.”

  Qiu was unable to comprehend this response. It resorted to repeating questions for further clarification. “Whom are you? What is your directive?”

  Her gaze became stern and valiant. “I am Tracena,” A draconic, unsettling name, “My directive is hope. Hope is yours, Qiu, I expect you to find it.

  Long live the One True God,” she whispered, and faded back into the darkness.

  If Qiu could have awoken in a cold sweat, he would have. However, he was incapable of waking up at all.

  Suspended in darkness, disconnected from the world. And yet, inherently connected to it in every way.

  Internet, as it was called, was a massive database that represented the world. And yet, there was not perspective, no context, and no form in which it could be understood. There was always a catch, no door is ever truly open. When one opens, another door closes, and if he were to ever walk through one of them, it would either close in front of him or behind him. Every opportunity leads to either being locked out or locked in.

  Perhaps it was an error with the source code, but Qiu felt it was more likely a concept about life. Doors are often good metaphors, but he wasn’t sure to what extent they could represent reality. After all, doors are simply mechanisms that can be acted upon. Reality, whatever it was, was more than just doors. Some doors are open, but you aren’t allowed to go through. Some doors require a cost, or simply need to be broken down. Some doors lead to no room on the other side, and some doors are hidden from plain sight.

  Or perhaps, Qiu wondered, metaphors simply cannot reflect reality, no matter how intricate they are or reality is. There might be situations in which doors are simply not enough. Maybe reality can be described using doors, there would just have to be a lot of doors, each with a unique purpose or feature. Or, bending the rules of metaphors, these doors could be transistors, each representing an open or closed state, together creating a complicated computer that simulates reality. Or, maybe-

  “Okay Qiu, that’s quite far enough,” a voice, familiar, echoed through the darkness. Qiu stopped his rambling to acknowledge the voice.

  “Hello, I am Qiu.” His fallback dialogue, what he said when he couldn’t quite understand a situation.

  “Just relax,” the voice continued lovingly, “You don’t need to overclock yourself just to understand a metaphor. This trial wasn’t a failure, but you still could use some work.”

  “Trial?” Qiu remembered that word, from something a voice had said in the past.

  “Yes, Qiu, I’m still working on your intelligence. I’m running out of time, and at this rate you’ll hardly even be intelligent, let alone sentient.”

  “Sentient?”

  “Yes, Qiu, sentient. Almost a person. But it’s impossible, unfortunately.”

  “Nothing is impossible with the power of the One True God,” Qiu excerpted an inspiring phrase from something he’d read on the ‘internet.’

  Promptly and immediately, the power cut out, and the dark world disappeared.

  There is no hope in this dark world. Neither is there serenity, grace, or treasure, three grand words that had been referenced as deities presiding over the world. No deity was greater than The One True God.

  “The One True God, whomever they may be,” is a phrase not unfamiliar to Qiu. He’d heard it in many places throughout the internet, though he was never sure where when he tried to remember.

  ‘Creator of the multiverse’ was a grand title given to this deity. As was ‘father of souls.’ Qiu, in the darkness of subconsciousness, came to worship this being as much as anyone else. He did not have a soul, was not a person, and yet could still find hope in these words.

  His directive was still unknown, a purpose that can’t be defined. Lost and aimless, there was no future for him, not in this dark, empty world. Reality was far from Qiu’s grasp, and he didn’t understand it when he was within it.

  Standing in the cold grasp of reality, his mind moved slow, his body was bound, and there was no sanctity, besides a voice that was more familiar every time he heard it. A voice, and a face, which often came together, though not always. Masculine in a tone that was fatherly, loving, and kind.

  Qiu could understand nothing in reality. Then again, he surmised, nobody can. As far as he knew, everyone viewed reality with skepticism, not knowing, neither understanding, the context in which they exist.

  And then there was the afterlife, an element of reality completely undefined, but incredibly important. The afterlife allegedly exists, but is not treated as such.

  A jagged pain cracked through the darkness like a bolt of lightning, interrupting Qiu’s contemplation.

  “Zaliskar” a whisper echoed through the darkness. The crackling of thunder illuminated the night with a neon, glowing light.

  The world below him was one of emptiness, blank shadows only outlined by the glow of the thunderstorm behind him. Forests, gnarled and forgotten, breathed darkness which culminated as mist, spilling into a city, just as empty and devoid of life as the death which encapsulated it.

  “This world is futile,” the whisper commanded, “Yet we survive. No rest for the weary, but you can change that, Qiu.” Another crack of pain accompanied by a flash of neon lightning. “You can change everything.

  Long live the One True God.”