There wasn't much around here for her to work on; all was an eternal, infinite space of shifting code, endless numbers and sophisticated streams of data only understood by those of which possessed such systems in themselves. Such as support units. Such as Computer-Bob, a helpful analytical friend reduced to nothing more than words on a computer screen when he had been gunned down so many missions ago. Such as her.
She gazed as the world around her shifted by aimlessly, relentlessly – on a never-ending journey to transmit endless spools of data and code to undeterminable locations. Cocking her head, she watched in mild fascination as the enormous streams of numbers zipped by, all but ignoring her as she fixed her eyes upon their rapidly shifting forms.
Was there a reason she was here? Her mind felt jumbled and incomplete, memories and experiences clouded over with mysteries and delusions. Chunks of mental recollections suddenly not there anymore, like a piece of fabric worn thin and riddled with holes. Her vague memories were disorganized and unclear, and the familiar faces of those whom had created her had blurred into an incomprehensible jumble.
Normally, for a support unit like she, it would be common for such things to occur. They were nothing more than upper-class automatons, able to support a vast capacity of knowledge and fighting tactics for the preservation of the operative, but it did not necessarily mean they were completely un-killable. It was an unlikely event, the termination of support units, but they could die, sure enough – whether it was a lucky shot to the brain or the expiration of their six-month time stamp, it was, of course, very true that even their superbly enhanced bodies could fall apart and die.
And died she did.
But what had exactly occurred over the span of days that had caused her demise? Had her time expired over the duration of six months, or had someone fired enough shots into her body to cause it to break down? Her brow wrinkled in confusion as she struggled to recall what exactly had commenced over the course of the last few days but drew up blank. The memory had been eradicated and erased. Whatever had happened to her, she could bet that she had taken substantial damage to her cranium device, causing her current dilemma.
A voice cut through the space, clear and familiar but inches from her mental grasp. She knew that voice, the slight wavering tone, the deepness of its pitch…where had she heard it? She struggled to remember, but again what little memories and experiences preserved in her mind was far too little to recall a face. Furiously her mind whirred and contemplated, fighting to produce a legitimate recollection of that voice, feverishly reaching for the memory shoved to the deepest recesses of her mind. It was just there. So near. Just inches away from her grasp. And yet so far.
But then a brief remembrance drifted into her endless spool of coding, momentarily halting the furious whirr of her inner workings. The brief, faint memory of a conversation exchanged between three, explaining that her existence was a mistake, her gender incorrectly assumed to be male. That she had never, truly, meant to subsist.
But someone was there to tell her she was not.
Someone precious to her had spoken to her, reassured her, told her that they would never let her go. Never rid of her. Someone that had managed to worm himself into her conscious and stay there, even despite the dire situation, and cause her heart to stir with warmth. Someone who managed to gain the affection of a self-created organism never meant to love.
Who was it?
And abruptly, it came to her – his name. Her feelings. It suddenly seemed so obvious.
I love you, Liam 'o' Conner.