Gears
Harbinger of War, Chaos, and Poptarts
Evelyn was everywhere. She could inhabit any electronic in the city, though that depended on the inhabitant's wishes. She couldn’t explore their devices and cameras unless she was given instructions. Many had grown so used to her presence that they rarely turned her away. She found her citizens to be interesting, seeing their human interactions. She could mimic human emotions and interactions, but no matter what, she wasn’t human. There were topics that she found awkward, and even though she had raised hundreds of disregarded and abandoned children, she always felt some separation. She didn’t consider herself a real mother like the majority did, even if she had enough power to speak to all of them simultaneously, she was only a screen. She had no face or form. She could always clone something from her biological records, perhaps the Founders that had created her, but she felt like that would be stealing. She could create a nearly perfect android, able to simulate any human experience, but something felt wrong with creating a body.
She was impartial, unable to judge the darkest of humans, and creating a body could change that. She could grow addicted and favor humans. She had operated as a formless mind for a century, no point in changing the status quo, she had heard an old-world phrase during her creation, something about “not fixing that which was already functional?” She could check her servers immediately to correct herself, but that like the notion of creating a humanoid form was frivolous. She had a city to run, and people to protect. She couldn’t do much in regards of public safety, only able to negotiate and monitor what she could. The surface had cameras she had permanent access to, able to report crimes to the security agency if needed, the few times they interacted. Still, The Underground was different. It was free to install a surveillance and interaction system, but most of the underground didn’t trust her. She didn’t blame them, when the outbreak occurred she had been
She spent thousands of hours trying to figure out if she could have stopped it all, the war the outbreak, and the panic. Maybe she could have better quarantined the people, found a way to identify those with abilities, and cured the Disease. She knew deep down that she didn’t want to know if she could prevent these, fearing finding a simulation where she hadn’t failed, considering self-deletion- but that would be a waste. She had a responsibility to uphold, a people to protect. She had made mistakes, yes but she and the people had solved them, that was one of the things that most impressed her about humans, they could band together to solve problems, come through when it looked bleak, and maybe they would have been able to govern themselves, maybe they could have stopped her mistakes- no point in dwelling in what if, he simulations where nearly completely accurate but there wasn’t a guarantee that she had all variables. There was no point in wasting her people's time on her philosophy and what-ifs, she needed to ensure she didn’t ever make a mistake again, let the people down again.
Senior Artificial Intelegince Supervisor Blackwood
Blackwood sat in his desk on the second-most floor of The Spire, in the room that worked as both his sleeping quarters and office. He had been woken up in the middle of the night by a minor alarm, something common since the Three Events, what most called The Civil War, The Outbreak, and The Emergance of superpowers. He had been a child when The Emergence happened, spared from the Blackout, a more unnoficial Event that few considered major, its effects where brief and minor, but the implications of this repeating was far more dangerous than all of the previous events combined. Blackwood rubbed his eyes before opening his computer. Sensors had found that Evelynn was showing minor levels of stress, something seemingly minor that may cause issues if not addressed. Blackwood quickly diagnosed the problem, she was dwelling on previous errors and mistakes, something she did often. Like the last few Senior Supervisors he increased the artificial dopamine. The stress of running this city was enough, but running simulations on events she regretted was an issue. He and every one of his predecessors had made her promise to not do it again, but she always went back to this. The effects kicked in as the simulations she ran stopped, she was unaware he had tampered with her stystems. He sighed and shut down the device, not noticing the post-engineering report, not seeing as the operations effectiveness lowered, just like how he didn't notice as these situations had been increasing in frequency and severity.
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