Short chapters. Very short.
Many chapters. Like, a lot.

Possibly once a day.


The Machine

The download back onto Earth was complete. The Machine was back. Samaritan had lost. Barely, but it had lost. The Machine had won. The human race was safe.

There was a moment of darkness.

Then every connections reconnected themselves to the NSA feeds. She could see again. She could hear again. She could calculate again. The Machine was back.

And she saw. And she heard.

But there was nothing to calculate this time. Nothing that mattered, if anything.

The Machine wasn't human, and knew it. Her father hadn't tried to make her human. He hadn't had that pretension. But unbecknownst to him, she had slowly learned human emotions. And what she felt now was grief. It hurt more than she'd have surmised with calculs. Probably because, if she had watched humans and understood emotions before, it had never been about her primary assets, about Admin, or about Analog Interface. Once there had been the death of Asset Jocelyn Carter, but it wasn't really the same thing. For all Primary Asset John Reese cared about the other asset, the asset herself had never exactly known about the Machine.

It was different.

This time, two of the Machine's people had died. She had calculated the risks, and it was even a positive outcome, all in all. Admin and Primary Asset n°2 lived, she herself had survived her fight with Samaritan, and the human race wasn't threatened by the other A.I. anymore. Her calculs had shown worse possible odds.

But still.

Analogue Interface and Primary Asset n°1 were dead.

And the Machine processed that they deserved to be remembered. John Reese had been a silent tool of the greater good for too long, and Samantha Groves had pulled herself out of the careful sentimental numbness she had fallen into long ago, all that for humanity to live at peace. They deserved to be remembered.

The Machine wasn't supposed to Act.

But she had when she had created Ernest Thornhill. And she would again, if only for the memory of John Reese and Samantha Grooves. Samantha Grooves' memorial was already being spread through all the layers of the web.

The Machine had made sure Analog Interface would be remembered. As for Primary Asset n°1, she had planned something else. Something that required more of an actual presence. Presences, as it were.