'I used to rule the world'
'Seas would rise when I gave the word'
'Now in the morning I sleep alone'
'Sweep the streets I used to own'
Chapter 6) One Small Step
(Jeremy's PoV)
It was many hours later as Jeremy and Aelita just sat talking to each other, with Jeremy doing most of the talking and Aelita simply nodding or shaking her head in agreement or disagreement. He wanted to help repay Gazelle back for all she's done for him, but neither were really able to come up with an idea.
Her house seemed spotless and its technology was in good shape, so there was nothing that needed repair. He didn't want to touch anything for fear that, even though she said 'enjoy her home' he was still afraid of damaging or ruining something. He couldn't leave the house 'yet' because the mayor asked him to stay hidden and for Aelita to not cause troubles until mammals were ready to hear about them, but both knew they had to go out and let themselves be known soon.
A part of him had even contemplated just going out and trying to find his way back to the base so he could go and do 'something', but Aelita told him no. It took her a while to convey her message, but eventually she told him that 'without first doing something positive to outweigh our previous negative actions, we would do more harm than good by revealing ourselves'. When he asked her what he could do, she simply shrugged and continued to sit in her sphere.
"So just keep waiting until something comes up that we can affect, and then try to act on it?" He asked her at long last.
She nodded with a smile.
"Well who knows how long that can take." He muttered to himself.
She nodded in agreement.
"Not exactly helping me right now Aelita." He deadpanned.
She shrugged with an 'what do you want from me' expression. Then she changed her body to resemble a compass, then back to herself with a nod, before becoming a map and back to herself with a shake of her head.
"I know, you were programmed to guide our moral decisions, not our actual decisions." He said with a sigh.
Once again Aelita nodded as the door opened up behind them.
"What was that Jeremy?" Gazelle asked tiredly as she walked in. "Phew, what a day…"
He turned around to see her walking in through the front door looking exhausted and carrying a bag of what looked like groceries. As she did, she stepped out of her footwear, or 'hoofwear', and proceeded to walk towards the kitchen.
"Oh, nothing I was just talking to Aelita." He said as he got up to go and see if she needed help. "Do you want any help with that?"
"I would love some!" She said with a smile as she put the bag on the table.
For the next ten minutes he and Gazelle put away the groceries she had bought, watched by Aelita who couldn't help, opted to hum a tune for them to listen to while they went about their business.
"I'm sorry again for this morning Jeremy." She said as she put away some canned foods in the drawers. "I really wanted to wake you up for breakfast, but your little friend insisted I let you sleep."
Aelita chuckled at that statement.
"She is programmed to have everyone's best interests at heart, so naturally she would rather I slept until I was fully ready to wake up." He replied as he handed her cans. "So, was today just 'grocery shopping' day?"
"Oh no, I just decided to go get more food since I'm now feeding for two!"
At hearing that he paused in grabbing food to hand to her, before slowly resuming. "Listen, miss Gazelle… about me and Aelita staying here…"
"Don't even think about it Jeremy.!" She said, turning to look at him with a warm smile. "You were wondering how you two can repay me right?"
He was surprised she could guess what he and Aelita were thinking but nodded to answer her question.
"Don't worry about how you could possibly repay me, as far as I'm concerned, my home is your home." She said. "Though, I am curious about you and Aelita. What is she, and why is she so attached to you? She acts very differently than what you said she would."
He figured that she would ask about Aelita, who was also acting like she hadn't a care in the world as she sat in her sphere nodding her head to the tune she was still humming. He waited until they had finished putting away the food before he started to explain what Aelita was, and why she acted the way she did.
"Aelita, as I said, is the collected wisdom, knowledge, and experience of Humanity and nearly three centuries worth of our culture as a species." He explained as she once more demonstrated who she was by creating the beautiful image of a tree in her sphere. "Her primary function, based on my father's programming, was to help guide later humans after… well… after we all woke up by acting as their 'moral compass'. She would help guide us toward a better future by steering us away from making past mistakes and learning of the mistakes made in the past."
"Dad referred to this, 'moral guidance' in Aelita's programming as, the 'Wisdom of Humanity'." He said. "At any time, for any situation, for any moral dilemma or decision that any human may face, she would help guide our actions by trying to steer us to as 'ideal' an outcome as she can possibly come up with. Even if, for any reason, all humans died when she woke up by whatever the next species that comes after us who discovers her, she would still act as 'their' moral compass, by showing them our history, what we were, and the mistakes we made."
Aelita returned to her normal form and nodded to everything he said.
"That's amazing…" Gazelle said as Aelita sat as close to Jeremy as she could. "She's like a mini conscience you can talk to whenever you want."
Aelita nodded in perfect agreement with that statement, she did indeed act like Jeremy's personal conscience.
"But why is she so attached to you?"
"That's a little harder to explain…" He muttered as Aelita looked up at him. "Best explanation I can give is, since my father was the one who created her, and since I was there for her early development before I was frozen… she just is attached to me."
She shrugged at his explanation and just returned to looking content as she sat close to him in her sphere.
They both sat in silence, Gazelle absorbing this new information about her guests and Jeremy thinking about Aelita and their future. "So, uh… is there… anything else you wanted to ask me?" He asked her.
"Uh, sure… uhm… what do you eat?" She asked curiously. "Was what I made earlier good?"
"Well… the soup you made earlier was delicious." He said casually.
Aelita got his attention by shining her light and looked up at him with a disappointed look.
"What?"
She tilted her head and looked at him with an 'and?' expression on her face.
"What is it?" Gazelle asked with a chuckle.
"Nothing." He said.
Aelita nodded at the antelope with a grin before holding up five fingers, and slowly started counting down from there.
"Alright, alright…" He said. "It was the most delicious meal I've ever… ever had, in my entire life."
"Oh, you flatter me Jeremy, it was just a simple wheat, vegetable, and orange themed soup with a hint of pineapple sauce." She said with a giggle.
"But it was still the most delicious I've ever had… I've never had 'food' before, or at least… a home cooked meal." He said sadly.
This caused Gazelle to stop giggling as his words cut deep into her. Without notice he felt her grip his hand and look at him with a worried smile. "What was it like… growing up for you?" She asked. "What was life like… growing up in… your time?"
"It's not a pleasant picture." He muttered.
He felt her tighten her grip on his hand, gently though, making it known to him that she wasn't going to force him if he truly didn't want to tell.
"I'm willing to listen, if you want to share that is…" She said warmly.
Aelita looked sadly between Jeremy and Gazelle, the former of the two not really interested in sharing the story, but considering he and Aelita were essentially being given free room and board just for 'existing', he felt she ought to have her curiosity answered. He glanced down at Aelita who nodded in silent understanding and agreement, she 'deserved' to know at least that much for letting them stay there.
"Growing up in the base was, very different than life on the surface." He said. "In school we were taught that, the surface had been scarred and damaged by the endless barrages of fusion based missiles and WMD's, that any human on the surface would be suffering radiation poison and extensive skin and muscle damage. That was of course, 'if' they weren't already being killed by biological weapons deployed in the early days of the final war."
As he spoke, he felt the world around him, Gazelle's home and herself fade away, replaced by images of the past.
"I only ever visited the surface a few times with dad during my childhood, but each time I did the only thing I saw were ruins and wasteland. Even venturing out for days, I had never even seen a single green tree or spot of green. The sky was grey, almost like an endless cloud had covered the earth's entirety. The sun was a rare sight, and the moon looked like a ghost to me. The few rivers or lakes that weren't lost, were greener than anything I'd ever seen."
"The few surviving humans across the world had all agreed after the war ended, to put all past identities aside and work together to try and 'save' our planet, but it was too late. Radiation sickness and disease was running rampant, and the harder we tried, the more we died in our vain attempts to save our world. My mother died in one of the former hot zones, where radiation was heaviest from bombings, trying to repair the damage and reduce the radiation with new technology developed to help clean it up. She and sixteen others from our base died trying to secure us a source of clean drinking water, but even their sacrifice was pointless, as the water they 'cleaned' at the cost of their health and lives… would only last our base two weeks."
"Before the war there had been attempts to reach deeper into space, but greedy corporations stifled such projects because 'business practices' demanded they try and turn as much a profit as possible. As resources became scarcer and scarcer, the attempts to leave our planet became less and less, until the only things remaining in space were unmanned satellites."
"Medical science and technology developed as rapidly as it could to help us, since we no longer devoted our resources to military… but it still wasn't fast enough to keep up with the death rate. For every human they managed to save, a hundred died of sickness trying to wait for treatment. Even radical decisions were taken, and steps made to try and save as many as possible, but it still wasn't enough."
"Despite everyone working together, those within the bases, the 'healthy elites' as we were known, were looked down upon by those not fortunate enough to be near our 'Eden Facilities'. Even the name betrayed what lay inside, as despite our advances we couldn't produce enough 'clean food' to feed everyone. In a desperate hope, all food options were removed and erased, to be replaced by a single food paste which contained all the proteins, vitamins and minerals our bodies would need to survive. This solved our food shortage and allowed us to feed more… if only extending our life line slightly longer."
"Since every human was needed to help save our species and our world, high education became mandatory, and every child was expected to attend. We were taught medical and technical sciences, learned about history and philosophy as well as morality… but art was something that just couldn't be spared. There was just no room for artists and culture, in a world where saving your neighbor's life was more important. There weren't any crayons for us to draw with, no colorful paints to use, and the only form of culture we got were recordings of the past and virtual reality headsets that showed us what the world looked like before."
"Most of my life was spent underground, the only times I could leave was with my dad when he went to repair equipment up top. As I grew older and learned all the skills I did, I walked up top less and less, preferring to spend more time tinkering with the automatons and repurposing them."
"When it came time for our final desperate solution, each of the seventeen Eden Facility bases, chose one thousand people within its population to be frozen. Each of them was chosen for their technical, medical, and moral knowledge and reasoning. Apparently, me tampering with some of our automatons and redesigning them to make them 'non-lethal' and to help with attempting to repair our world with some of my classmates, was enough for them to pick us."
"When I turned twenty-four, I was told to prepare for Cryogenic Stasis, we all went over the manual and lessons, the risks, how the process would go, and what we were expected to do when we woke up. During that time, Dad was just finishing up Aelita's most basic program. The first time he introduced me to her was as a child, she was just a facial recognition program back then. Before I was frozen, she had evolved in programming to be capable of learning and identifying optimal choices based on experience and evidence in her database."
"That was also the last time I saw my father, and anyone else from my home. The next time I would see Aelita, as you saw, she had integrated all human knowledge, culture, and history as well as billions upon billions of hypothetical solutions to an equal number of moral and ethical dilemmas. All of this so she could guide humans to not make the mistakes of our past."
"The base, for only offering the basic needs to sustain our people, only offering us the necessities to keep our species alive… for giving us a chance to survive… as stifling and cramped as it felt and how little 'life' felt like in there… it was still my home. When I went to sleep, I only wanted to help rebuild and repair the damage done to our planet, as my dad often said would fall upon my generation's shoulders… to repair the damage of past generations. Those left behind, knew they were going to die 'eventually', so they devoted what was left of their life to keeping the bases maintained and ensuring the stasis pods would last as long as possible, giving us the best chance to survive."
He breathed in deep and held Aelita close to him, as the world around him returned. "It wasn't a fun life growing up, but it was all I knew, there were no homes like what you have here, refugee camps were spread across the world with people trying to survive. Try as we might, the more we tried to help the harder life became for the rest. We tried to correct our mistakes, but it was just too late…"
"I can only imagine how sad it was for you." Gazelle said, looking at him with a forlorn look. "I can only imagine… just how much… this all is to you. To me it's just my home, my place where I come to every day and relax, rest, zone out from the world around me… but for you its… it must seem like paradise by comparison."
He nodded as he glanced around, it was indeed paradise here for him. All the space, pictures of art and colorful walls with comforts of leisure. He only ever saw this kind of home in pictures and holograms, showing him of what life was like in the past. Seeing the sun was practically a luxury that he and his dad could only enjoy while helping repair equipment on the surface, but even then the sky would ruin the sun's image with how grey and cloudy it was at times.
Even weeds were considered a 'precious item of trade', as he remembered bartering for a potted weed and giving up the two bottles of clean water he had for it.
"You have a nice house by the way…" He said, trying to change the subject. "What do you do for a living?"
"Oh me, well I'm a singer and part time model for some magazines here in Zootopia." Gazelle said, nonchalantly looking around. "You could call me a 'pop idol', I do concerts on occasion, record albums, maybe dance and sing for music videos. When I'm not doing that occasionally I sometimes model for fashions and outfits for magazines, whatever it is that George has me scheduled for. Oh… uh, George is my agent, in case you were wondering!"
Jeremy thought that made a lot of sense. "We figured it was something like that." He said. "The note you left us had very beautiful handwriting."
"Why thank you for the compliment Jeremy." She said with a giggle.
Realizing why she was giggling, he blushed and tried to change topic. "Uh, is there… anything else you wanted to ask about me?"
Aelita just smiled as she swayed in her glass sphere, clearly enjoying the conversation.
(Gazelle's PoV)
She laughed inwardly at Jeremy's embarrassment for complimenting her handwriting, but she decided to humor him and change the subject.
"Tell me more about Aelita, what did she do when she was asleep? Was it anything like when 'we' sleep?" She asked.
At that the AI no longer looked 'happy' and instead looked sad, which she quickly noticed.
"What's wrong, was it something I said?"
"Aelita doesn't experience 'sleep' like you and me would." He said slowly. "When she goes to sleep, she essentially enters her own reality to endure the passage of time. Unlike you and I, when we sleep time just melts away and we are only aware of the time we're awake. But for her when she sleeps, she just appears in own her world and remains aware of the passage of time, every second of every minute, of every hour and every day."
She looked down at Aelita who had curled in on herself, looking extremely depressed.
"So… when 'you' went to sleep... I mean, when you were frozen?" She asked.
"One minute I'm feeling myself drifting off to slumber land, and then the next I'm 'aware' that I'm waking up." He answered. "But for her, when she went to sleep, she had to endure every second of our time underground… alone without anyone to talk to."
She noticed Jeremy stroking the glass sphere with one finger and saw that Aelita was leaning as close as she could to him and holding the side of that sphere with her hands, trying to stave off her sadness at what he was explaining.
"So that's why she was singing when we woke her up, she wasn't just 'happy' to see you, she was happy to talk to someone after… so long." Gazelle said as she gently touched the sphere as well. "You poor thing, you were so lonely down there."
Aelita looked up at her and nodded, she had been very lonely.
"What did you do… how did you endure all that time?"
Aelita frowned as she raised a hand and had her sphere create a beautiful light display on her ceiling again. Above them she showed her alone, in an endless field of grass and flowers, with petals flowing around her. She had two hands resting on two 'eggs', one larger than the other, and her mouth was moving, indicating she was singing to the two eggs.
"You spent all that time just singing to two eggs?"
The AI returned to normal and nodded sadly, before using her arms to mirror the actions of a clock, saying that she did that all day.
"One egg was obviously mine, and the other I'm guessing was something else?" He asked.
Aelita nodded and changed form, taking on that of a seed.
"A seed, there's still a seed down there?" Gazelle asked suddenly. "Shouldn't we get it, if it was important to be frozen then…"
"It's alright, the pod is still active and drawing power, and because I swapped over the backup generator alongside Aelita, the base is now maintaining the remaining stasis pod." He said. "Until we go back and fully transfer the controls of the base to make repairs, it will continue to function as it did before, devoting all power to the cryostasis pods that are active."
"But what is the seed, what did your father leave with Aelita?"
Jeremy and Aelita shrugged in response.
"Dad never mentioned a seed to me; did he ever tell you?"
She nodded her head, before changing appearance and taking on a ball of white light. (All the magic of creation, exists within a single tiny seed!) She declared in a gentle, calm voice, before returning to normal.
"He told you that to tell us?"
She nodded yes.
"It must have been important then, we'll leave it in the pod until we can do something with it." He said to which Aelita nodded in agreement.
Suddenly a loud growl erupted from the human's stomach, causing her to raise her eye in amazement that it could be so vocal and Jeremy to blush in embarrassment. Aelita grinned at the sudden declaration of her partner's needs, suppressing the urge to laugh inside her sphere by the tiniest of margins.
"And on that note, how about 'we' start making dinner!" She announced with a giggle. "Because I am just a little hungry myself!"
"Can I help?" He asked as she got up.
"Of course you can." She replied warmly.
With the knowledge that they were going to prepare dinner together, she happily took out a few ingredients for a similar soup to what she'd made earlier. Truth be told she made it because she had zero idea what else he could eat, Aelita didn't explain and Jeremy was asleep when she made it. So, a simple soup seemed like the best idea.
While she prepared the pot for the stew, she handed him a few ingredients to cut up for her, watched over by Aelita who looked fascinated by the vegetables and fruits they were using.
The ingredients were slowly prepared as the pot and sauce was made, she watched as he had difficulty holding the knife. It was cute to her, watching him try to handle cutting the pineapples and turnips. Aelita though was observing him with great interest and curiosity, looking absolutely intrigued by how he was handling and using the knife.
"Are you alright Jeremy?" She asked warmly, trying not to let him feel rushed or comment on how badly he was doing.
"I've never wielded a knife before its… very different than using the surgical tools I was trained with." He said as he tried pushing down harder.
"You've never used a knife before?" She asked curiously.
"All our food in the base was… well… reduced to a sloppy paste that was essentially squeezed out of a container." He said as he finished cutting up one pineapple at last, though the slices were poorly proportioned. "The 'career' of chef died out when food reserves began to run low, so learning to cook was something not taught. The only knives we learned to use were surgical tools for medical purposes."
She smiled sadly at that, he never learned something like 'cooking' because there wasn't a need to learn it. "Here, let me show you how to use a knife." She said warmly.
She sidled up next to him and grabbed another knife and one of the tomatoes.
"When you hold the knife, hold it like this…" She said.
She showed him step by step how to first 'hold' the knife, then the proper way to cut food with it, and how much pressure was needed. As she watched him, she smiled at his speed with which he learned, her own skills only novice level at best, just enough to get around the kitchen. However, once he began to master the basics, his speed gradually increased.
All the time they spent preparing the ingredients though was watched by Aelita, who simply lay on her front watching them, observing and smiling the entire time.
After a while though the ingredients were finally finished, and the stew was beginning to simmer. So, while they waited for it to finish, she asked him more about himself and what life was like in the base.
"Well, since most children and young adults were all in school, most of the adults were either trying to help out the refugees, repairing broken down equipment or treating the sick and injured." He said. "Any people who were free were helping to break down and take apart various military equipment, like drones and war machines."
"Wait… your people 'still' had weapons?" She asked. "Even in such dire times?"
"There was still a fear deep down that the fragile 'peace' that existed between all people would break down." He said sadly. "But it was a risk we had to take, we needed the parts more than the weapons… everyone else thought the same though, they needed the parts and did the same as well. We couldn't afford to keep them… which is how I got into the idea of repurposing them… it seemed like a waste to just completely dismantle them, so when I was old enough, I began to take them apart but rebuilt their functions to try and help however they could."
"Like what?"
"Well I repurposed some of our Scorpio-Drones, so that they could be used to lift heavy objects… then there were the DOG bots, I retooled them so that they could function as multi-purpose engineers and field doctors and assist their handlers in performing field surgery and on-sight technical assistants, and even in autonomous mode it could perform 'non-lethal' interference."
Something in the back of her mind told her not to ask what they 'originally' did, just their names gave her the impression they weren't nice. Still, she was intrigued by what he did, since he didn't give off the image of being a 'doctor' or a 'technician'.
The rest of the waiting for dinner passed by in silence as neither had anything else to ask about the other at the moment, and Aelita was still continuing to just watch them, content to be silent and passive. When dinner was ready, she gave prepared two bowls for them both and two nice cold glasses of pineapple juice.
"Dig in!" She said cheerfully.
"Thank you again." He said as they both took a spoonful.
"Think nothing of it!"
As she ate her soup, she watched the expression on his face change from content to blissful from the first bite he took. She felt a tingle in her heart as she did, feeling a sense of joy that he was deeply enjoying her simple cooking. Just seeing her new friend looking peaceful despite everything that's happened in the last few days, from discovering his entire species is gone, to slowly finding the will to keep living, to nearly losing his last friend from his past… it made her feel glad that her limo had nearly run him over that one day.
"Do you like it?" She asked.
"Yes… its wonderful." He said.
She accepted his gratitude and they resumed eating their food in silence, watched over by Aelita who couldn't join them but seemed more than content to observe the two still. The image of her and him eating a meal late in the day, watched over by a silent observer, made her feel peaceful and content herself after the day she'd had.
Between the practice for her recording, the photographing for a new magazine, and then that music video she was also working on, just this brief period of calm and quiet was something she just needed.
That was until he went to grab the glass of pineapple juice, she had poured for him.
He only went to grab the glass with his right hand, but the moment he did his arm suddenly tensed up and he pulled back as if he had touched molten lava. "Hnnnnng!" He yelped.
She had only a second to think of asking what happened, when she remembered his Cryogenetic Sclerosis.
"Jeremy!" She suddenly yelped, Aelita looking on in confusion and worry as his arm began shaking and trembling. "I'm right here Jeremy, don't worry, I'm right here with you!"
Jeremy nodded as he slowly curled in his chair, one arm trembling as the other arm held the fabric of his clothes down, trying to avoid touching it and triggering the effect of his disease to the rest of his body. As she too held his arm, she could feel once more the dreaded cold his body was feeling. Moments ago his arm had been pleasantly warm thanks to the soup, but one tentative glass of cold juice and now he felt like he had been in the middle of Tundra Town wearing nothing but a diving suit for hours.
"It's so cold…" He muttered faintly.
She pulled over the still hot bowl of soup and shifted it over so that it could warm his arm up.
It took him several minutes before at last his arm warmed up and returned to normal, and when it did his breathing slowly began to settle. He looked at the glass of juice before chuckling sadly.
"Sorry for ruining dinner." He apologized.
"It's not your fault… I should have remembered your… 'disease'." She said, mentally slapping herself. "You warned me that interacting with sudden cold would trigger it."
Aelita looked in confusion between the two, unsure and unaware of what was going on, something she made sure to let them know when she got their attention. After a brief explanation from Jeremy about his Cryogenetic Sclerosis, the AI frowned in sadness.
"Aelita wait, you contain all of human knowledge yes, isn't there a way to cure his disease?" She asked suddenly.
Aelita shook her head saying 'no'.
"There is no cure, all I can do is treat the symptoms." Jeremy confirmed.
Aelita nodded in agreement, confirming what he said.
"So, you can't enjoy even a refreshing glass of juice?" She asked sadly. "Ice cream, soda, cold showers… you can't enjoy anything like that?"
He sighed before nodding sadly. "I'm afraid it seems so Gazelle."
She looked over at the food and picked up both glasses and dumped the contents. If he couldn't share a cold drink with her at dinner, then she wouldn't have a drink without him. He's her guest and she will have it no other way.
"Well I won't let a little thing like that stop us from enjoying a nice warm meal!" She said kindly.
As they resumed eating, Jeremy more slowly than before, she continued to watch him to make sure he didn't suffer a repeat of before. The food was soon gone, and Jeremy helped clean up the dishes, insisting that he help since he helped 'make' the food.
After that was done, they put everything away and were now left with the question of what to do with the rest of the day. It was close to ten and she was thinking of something to help lighten the night and pass the time before they go to bed.
"Uh, do you mind if I use the bathroom really quick?" He asked.
"Oh of course not!" She said warmly.
She led him upstairs to the bathroom and showed it to him.
"If you need anything holler, in fact I want you to also take a shower!" She said. "There's a little bin I use for my clothes sometimes, please put yours in it and I'll clean them for you."
With that she left him and returned to downstairs to sit next to Aelita and wait, who was smiling at her the entire time.
"What are you smiling for?" She asked warmly.
Aelita pointed at her forehead, before pointing specifically at her antlers.
"Oh, your curious about my antlers?" She asked, to which Aelita nodded. "Well, if you're wondering, having antlers is like having a bit of weight on my head that sometimes pulls it backward."
The AI nodded in understanding, and moments later Jeremy called to her saying his clothes were ready for him. She went and grabbed the small bin laden with the clothes the hospital had given him to wear and took them to the washer down the hall. As she placed them in and set the cycle for a ten-minute period, she made a mental note to help him get new clothes since he would be staying with her for a while.
'Just because he's my guest is no reason he has to live in a single set of clothes!'
"Well, since you asked about me, mind if I ask about Jeremy?" She asked when she returned to the couch with Aelita.
The AI nodded but shrugged, saying in her own way that 'she doesn't know everything'.
"Jeremy… did he by chance have a 'girlfriend' before he was frozen?" She asked curiously. "You know… just wondering."
Aelita raised her eyebrow, smirking at Gazelle's question.
"I'm just asking because he was… when I first told him… he wanted us to kill him." She said, blushing slightly at what the AI was implying. "And I just… wanted him to not die. Nomammal should beg to be killed, just so they would be with their loved ones again…"
Aelita's expression softened as she nodded in understanding, before shaking her head and saying 'no, he didn't have one'.
"Why not, surely someone like him…" She began saying before again, Aelita shook her head sadly. "Did humans not 'love' in those days?"
She gave a sad expression before she nodded, but it was a sad nod that indicated it was a much sadder story than the antelope was asking for. The AI looked down at her hand before placing it on her heart, showing the emotion of love, before letting the arm go and turning away.
"They 'could' love but… they chose not to?" She asked to which Aelita nodded. "Why… even as bad as things were…"
Aelita answered instantly before Gazelle could even finish asking, and created an image of a lush green landscape, complete with snow tipped mountains and a blue sky. Then it flashed and took on the image of a barren landscape, where the grass was gone and there were endless craters, the mountains broken in jagged forms. Finally, the image changed, to show humans attempting to repair the damage by filling in the craters with dirt… even as some of them looked sickly while trying, despite wearing specialized gear to protect them from something she couldn't see.
"They couldn't love if there was nothing to live for in the future…" She said sadly, imagining a world that seemed so hopeless that not even 'love' could make it better. "They tried to do everything to save their world, sacrificing 'everything'… even their own feelings."
Aelita nodded sadly.
"Does Jeremy… think the same?"
The AI shrugged, before assuming Jeremy's form and speaking in his voice. (There has to be a reason for me to be here, some reason, any reason! There has to be 'something' I can do.) With that she returned to normal and shrugged again. She thought so but wasn't 'sure'.
Gazelle nodded as she too knew that he needed 'something' in his life, he's been trying to find it on his own now, but nothing has come to him. "Well what can he do, what is he, a doctor or engineer of some kind?"
Again, Aelita shrugged.
"He said his father made you, and you were a part of his life, shouldn't you know about him?"
Aelita raised her eyebrow before her eyes glowed, and Gazelle's phone began ringing. She looked at it and picked it up seeing the caller ID was 'herself'. Answering it she heard a digital monotone voice over the speaker say, (Just because I was created to be the moral compass of humanity, does not mean I know the educational schooling every single human received in their lifetime!) before the phone hung up.
She looked down in surprise at the AI. "Whatever happened to being only able to communicate with words by singing?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
The AI, smiled and winked and pointed up to the stairs, telling her to check on Jeremy and his clothes.
"Goodness I almost forgot about those for a moment…" She said as she got up and headed to check on his clothes.
Minutes later she reached the bathroom with a robe for Jeremy to wear while his clothes were drying. After confirming he was alright and that he'd finished, she slid the robe for him to use and told him come downstairs when he was ready. Minutes later he walked downstairs in a purple bathrobe that he had tied down as tight as he could so it wouldn't slip or break open when he sat or walked.
She had to admit he looked very handsome when he was washed and clean, for a human.
"How do you feel Jeremy?" She asked warmly.
"Much better, thank you miss Gazelle." He said as he sat down beside her, being careful to keep his legs as covered as possible.
"Oh, stop with the 'Miss Gazelle' thing, you're my guest and I consider us friends now, just call me Gazelle, no need to be formal with me." She said with a laugh.
(Jeremy's PoV)
"Maybe but still, thank you again for everything." He said. "I know I keep saying this, but is there anything I can do to repay you for what you're doing for me?"
"Well how about telling me what you 'do' for a living? What are you, an engineer or a doctor of some kind?" She asked, "You said you were schooled in medicine and technical work, right?"
"Well yes, I was taught medicine and engineering, every kid was taught those skills growing up in the base. I have the educational equivalent of a Doctorate PHD in Engineering and Medical Practices. Although we all received equal technical and computational training, most of what I know is specialized training involving the construction, repair, and maintenance of energy production facilities from our time. As for medical, I was trained to perform surgical procedures and treat various levels of injuries ranging from Mediocre to Severe."
"Mediocre… what's that mean?"
"Well… in my time the Abbreviated Injury Scale was updated to include two new levels of injury, Mediocre was below Minor, and Extreme came after Critical." He explained. "Basically, the tiniest injury such as a 'paper cut' was considered mediocre, but since the final war happened injuries of all kinds were occurring and still occurred after, so it became necessary to increase the definition levels of injuries. I can treat tiny cuts someone gets without realizing it, to someone sustaining an injury that may result in the loss of a limb or even an organ."
"Well, that's quite the resume… you'd make a fine doctor then!" She said with a smile.
"But that is only in treating 'humans', even if a mammal were to suddenly become paralyzed, theoretically I could treat it, but I would not attempt to." He said sadly. "I cannot allow myself to treat an injury on someone who's body I do not understand the inner workings of inside and out like I do a human body. So essentially all that knowledge and training is useless to me now. I'd end up doing more harm than good."
"Oh, I see…" She said taken aback.
They sat in silence while Aelita spent her time performing a dance which involved her twirling and swaying her arms from side to side.
"I don't suppose you have any energy problems here in this world?" He asked hopefully.
Gazelle looked thoughtful before she nodded with a smile. "Yes actually, Zootopia has been having some problems in recent weeks." She said. "I know that parts of Tundra Town and Rainforest District have been having power problems, according to the news there's some kind of 'Energy Crisis' going on. The mayor's been trying to find a solution but so far she's not had much success. She was on the news a week ago explaining how she was beginning construction of a new field of Windmills to try and help the problem ever since Rainforest District's waterfall power plant began suffering malfunctions and had to be shut down."
"Windmills?" He asked excitedly. "I know all about those, that's basic technology from my time. We tried shifting over from a Fossil Fuel based production of power to more reusable energy sources like wind and solar once oil became harder to share."
He looked down at Aelita who had stopped twirling to glance at him.
"Aelita, do you think I could return to the base and create a new generator using parts and…"
The AI instantly crossed her arms and stared at him with an unamused expression.
"I guess… it would be wrong to do that?"
She nodded before raising her hand and creating an image of a nuclear power plant, and then created next to it an image of it exploding.
"Oh… your saying we shouldn't give them human technology because of how disastrous it could be?" He said to which she nodded. "But this is 'windmill' technology, how could giving them access to advanced windmill generator technology be catastrophic?"
She changed the images this time to humans leaving a building with a sign saying 'Closed', then another image saying, 'Stocks Prices Drop 92% Value', and finally an image of rioters attacking police with signs saying, 'We need Jobs!'
"Oh… I see." He said with a sigh.
Giving the mammals access to human technology no matter how safe could damage their world far more than it could help. With powerful human windmill generators places could be forced to shut down, many would lose their jobs, and it could cause far more harm than he intended.
"Is it that bad that Aelita?" Gazelle asked. "Jeremy is just trying to help us, isn't there anything he can do?"
He looked between the antelope and the AI, and the AI rolled her eyes before she turned to him and 'sighed'. She then turned to the TV and pointed at it, before looking at Gazelle, as if asking for permission.
"Go ahead…"
Aelita nodded and turned it on, before switching it from 'TV' mode to 'InterWeb' mode and began accessing the mammal's version of the human's internet. From there she looked up their most modern Windmill Generators and the schematics tied to it.
"Okay so that's how it all works… oh yea this is so low tech…" He muttered as he got up and looked closer at the schematic. "But… yea, I think… yea! It just might work!"
He turned to Gazelle and Aelita excitedly. "If I use 'your' technology and improved it, using human engineering techniques, I could improve the energy output of your Windmills by almost double or triple, but I wouldn't be doing 'anything' that isn't impossible to accomplish!" Then he looked at Aelita before asking an important question. "Aelita… would it be okay to do this for them?"
She looked at him with a deep understanding of his question, she knew what he was asking. He was asking if it was 'morally correct' to do this for the mammals, helping solve their problem using 'his' engineering techniques while using 'their' level of technology.
She put her hand to her chin and turned away, deliberating his question as hard as she could. She was obviously consulting her knowledge of humanity, her moral and ethical coding known as the 'Wisdom of Humanity' to help solve this problem. Her AI was now consulting millions if not billions of hypothetical moral and ethical questions to decide the best outcome. Depending on what she was given she would either tell him it was okay or not, and whatever she said he would have to abide by.
He wanted to do what was best for them, she knew this, but he feared that it wouldn't be right to help them despite his desire to do good 'for' the mammals who saved his life and hers.
After a full three minutes of silent deliberation she turned to him with a stern look on her face, and he feared her response but also braced himself to accept the worst.
Then she smiled, and nodded, giving him a thumbs up.
"Thank you Aelita!" He said.
"Well by the sounds of it, your going to need some clothes Jeremy, I'll go get them." Gazelle said with a chuckle. "You two do whatever it is you intend to do… I'll be right back."
When she left he looked back at the screen and already began looking at how to improve it… it was going to be a long night, but he was determined to help out the city in whatever way he could.