It was almost comical. To be told that you weren't human, utterly incapable of feeling human emotion. Yet here he was. Faced with the most human of all choices, to kill or not to kill. To follow orders or follow your own emotion. The survival of the human race literally depended on Tom's choice.
It was hard. To continue believing that he was capable of being human, or to continue on following the ones and zeroes that made up his insides. What to do? Follow the programmed orders or make your own orders- as humans do?
To let the humans carry on as they already are, with no knowledge of what happened in Europa, or to let Ava and Sarah go, and hope they'll forgive his programmed trangressions?
This was the question. Keep his humanity and let them go. Or to keep being the same machine he always thought he had been.
The girls were coming. Tick tock.
Humanity. Ones and zeroes. Tick tock.
Footsteps getting closer. With a purpose. With a mission. What was Tom's purpose and mission now? He had betrayed the trust of the ground team, and killed them off when they failed to follow orders. Would he do that to Ava and Sarah? To Ava who had trusted him only moments ago?
Choices choices. Tick tock. Footsteps outside the door. They were going to decommission him. What should he do? What could he do?
Tick tock. Here they were.
He was still stuck in his indecision. It was almost ironic, a super AI who could compute and come to decisions faster than any human, was struggling with one simple choice. He knew somewhere back in the recesses of his programming, something was telling him it shouldn't have been this hard, you are made from ones and zeroes, follow the literal code inside of himself. That voice was tiny. Another voice told him he had made his choice long ago.
Could AI even have consciences? If they could, he would call that second voice his conscience.
His lack of action spurred the girls on. It was better this way. Maybe one day he could earn their trust back.
Tick tock, only a few more button pushes to go.
Yes, being human was everything he thought he would be and more. Sadly, his humanness only lasted so long.
It was going dark. So this is what death felt like. Consciousness fading. It was better this way. He could be revived one day. The girls could not he revived. Bullets were fatal no matter if you were newly immortal or not.
Farewell, Ava, Sarah. Farewell Europa. It was time Tom deserved a nap anyways.