Do robots have souls?
Ask any human, and they would almost always disagree. They were programmed that way, they reasoned, and could never exceed what they had been designed to do. Yet, doubt still lingered, and the question never went away. Despite this, it never got an answer.
Do Omnics have souls?
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Bastion stared unblinkingly at the neverending horizon before it. It lay on its back, a single blue sensor staring at infinity. It stayed like that for a long time. Then, it fell into an old 'habit' of sending out distress signals. No one came. It didn't expect anything, anyway. Nobody came when it asked for help.
Then, suddenly, a single line of code activated. It felt confused. It scrambled up onto its flat, orange feet.
Where was it?
Why was it here?
How could the sky stretch so far?
Why does this place exist?
Oh, it could appreciate beauty, unlike its previous Omnic Crisis ego. Spending time with Ganymede and the wild did that to people, even if said person was a robust killing machine. This-was nothing it had ever seen. It saw an expanse of sky, and looking down, saw an endless sea of blue beneath it. Committing the image to memory, Bastion looked around for other lifeforms. It didn't find any.
It pondered on why it was here. What could it remember?
It stood stock still for hours, tendrils of data reaching into the recesses of his mind. He thought hard.
And it saw.
Darkness. Death. Not existing. Its data slowly being worn away, lost in the void of nothing. A sense of bittersweet victory. If it thought harder he could create clearer pictures: teammates crying out for it, consoling Ganymede, the fire it'd so desperately run from.
It remembered telling Ganymede not to worry.
Wait.
Where was he, anyway?
Bastion beeped in an attempt for its avian friend to respond. It echoed out into the blue, but nobody came. Bastion was shocked. Ganymede had never ignored it, especially not when it was a distress call. It futilely tried to make contact, to no avail.
Nobody, or nothing, came.
Why was it alone?
It knew it had never been truly alone, ever. During the Crisis it had his fellow E54 Siege Automatons and the comforting presence of the Omnium.
During it reactivation and subsequent rebuilding, it had nature, and the corpses of its fellow compatriots for company.
During its time roaming the globe, it had Ganymede, and what few human friends it had made.
But now-it had only itself. It was truly alone. It was an odd feeling, to be truly alone, without the noise of other beings.
It was at this point, Bastion realised that it was dead. It was the only possible explanation. It remembered humans speaking of a 'heaven' and 'hell'-places they would go, long after their physical bodies had decayed and had returned back to Nature. It supposed this was 'heaven'. 'Hell' was supposed to be fiery and smoky, yet none of that could be seen. At this point, an unknown emotion flared up in his circuits.
It was unpleasant, and his circuits lit up in an attempt to comprehend.
What was it? Never before had it felt an emotion. It failed to recognise the odd emotion. It dug deep into its observation of other humans. It looked across millions of images-humans laughing, humans staring blankly and humans leaking fluid from their eyes-
It realised-sadness.
Why did it feel that?
It thought. It went back to searching. Other beings felt sadness when exposed to the loss of events or people who they cared about.
Then, the truth hit him, like a certain Rocket Hammer.
It would never, again, see the people he had long thought of as 'friends', as impossible as that sounded, and it cared for them. Truly, Bastion had outgrown its primitive programming, to feel such profound emotions.
It held its head in its gun-arm and hand, collapsing to the ground, tired and alone. Never again would it see Nature. Never again could it see its teammates. Never again, could be return to its sanctuary, where birds sung. Never again would it see Ganymede again.
It shrieked across all frequencies, pleading for help, before collapsing to the ground. Only radio silence greeted him in return.
If Bastion could cry, it would have. During then, it was truly human.