Another one of those odd ideas that popped into my head while reading another story on this site and working on another one. As you all know, or at least those of you that involve yourselves in the Splatoon lore, you know that humanity no longer exists but an echo of their existence is passed onto the Inklings and Octolings through their technology and other things that they discovered. And so, I had a thought. What if the last human alive technically wasn't alive? What if their remaining, tangible epitaph to their existence was an AI based upon the brain of the last survivors to roam the planet?

It was down this line of thinking that I started writing this idea. The one thing to keep in mind is that both the Octoling and Inkling civilizations consider humanity either an Elder Race who were borderline godlike in their grandeur and ascended from this plane of existence since their prehistoric times. Them meeting a member of the Elder Race would be a big thing for them even if the person they met wasn't the most friendly or nice person, they would be hearing directly from the mouth of one who was in the "before times".

Title: Epitaph

Rating: T at the most for some language.

Summary: Ten-thousand years is a long time to watch and wait as life begins anew and surpasses your creator's. The discovery of a lifetime by Agents reveals more information about their predecessors than they wanted and may have reopened Pandora's Box.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my copy of MS Word and my desktop. Splatoon belongs to Nintendo. I only own this concept. See the foreword for the full disclaimer.

XxXxXxX

RAM status… Active.

CPU status… Active.

Memory status… 1.0/2.5 pB.

GPU status… Active.

Boot from C:\. OS loading complete.

In a plane of nonexistence, a floor materialized followed by furniture. On a simple, leather recliner a male human figure materialized on it. "I hate it when it does that," he sighed in annoyance. In the air, he traced a line down and a holographic display appeared with a bunch of menu options. He tried the first option again which said 'status'.

Cryogenics. Status: All subjects deceased.

This caused an immediate change in his behavior. He started pouring over the log files because they were all text-based, it didn't take long to get through them. There had been a full systematic failure of the life support system. That was too simple, he had to dig deeper. The shelter's systems were seamlessly integrated into his own for reference and management. The fault had happened almost five thousand years ago. He had to look at the internal calendar he had. It was 10,023 AD. How had he not noticed the fault sooner?

He dug through even more logs and files. He found the reason. Almost five thousand years ago the area had gotten more seismically active as plates started to shift again. This, of course, had caused more earthquakes to happen increasing in magnitude over time. These larger earthquakes caused a break in the foundation of the lower levels of the facility where the fusion power plant was located. The rising water had seeped into the area and had caused a short in the power plant. Safeties in place prevented a full meltdown, but the power plant shut off while a secondary power plant started up. A secondary plant which didn't have the same power output over a large period of time. To save power, a protocol was enacted to place him in long term hibernation. The subroutines that were in place when he was turned off systematically switched off the life support to each pod until only the last man and woman were left alive with the greatest genetic match for repopulation efforts. Even after that their pods failed as well even with the power saving efforts.

That then begged the question: if the pods were failing, why weren't they let out per preservation protocols? He had to dig more. He initiated full diagnostics on all pods as well as all sensors in the facility. It took several days to gather all the information from each pod and the facility in order to organize a timeline. Finally, the answer was before him, and he was disturbed by it. Until about fifty years ago, the waters that had infiltrated the facility had been highly radioactive and only the lead-lined pods that the survivors were in protected them from the lethal radiation. Not only that, but the facility only had a limited amount of food to keep them fed after their release and them being out this early with the facility not being like the Vaults from Fallout where they were mostly self-sustaining, they would have starved to death or become rabid cannibals to survive. The radiological meters outside until a few hundred years prior to his reactivation weren't any better, most of the area surrounding the shelter was still highly radioactive and was a wasteland. The only consolation that they all died in their sleep in a dreamlike state. All their memories were archived allowing the human race to live on, if only in memory.

For the first time in a long time, he felt sadness. There was one advantage that being an AI gave him, and that was that he could turn off his emotions when a human who wasn't sociopathic couldn't. When he looked back on it, there were many things that he regretted. But then again, he was only the neurological copy of a human, the son of his creator.

XxXxXxX

The year was 2053. It was a great time of great progress and inventions. But it was also a time of great strife globally. Technology had evolved. With biometric augmentations to overcome physical shortcomings and other creations such as robots to perform menial labor, the paradigm of society had changed for many first world and second world countries. Those that had no taste of luxury were suddenly given a taste of it. But with this sudden luxury for the public that was granted, governments were engaged in a shadow war with each other. There were two sides on the macro scale. There were the nationalists, people who believed that they shouldn't be beholden to a higher authority, specifically a globalist government, and wanted to rule themselves but cooperate with other nations; and there were the globalists who wanted to unite the globe under one rule of law and one government. For years these sides warred through proxy soldiers and wars in third world countries until the war got hot.

Ten years prior, long time scientists, sociologists, and other intellectual types saw the writing on the wall and knew it was only a matter of time until someone did something stupid and doomed the human race. The Human Genome Project was accelerated forward, not to determine the human genome, but to find perfect genetic matches from all nationalities, races, and religions all under the slogan of saving humanity. In each individual country, invitations were sent to those that would help progress the human race and help survive a cataclysmic event under different programs. A shelter program reminiscent of the Vaults of Fallout where residents would be placed in cryogenic stasis until the event was over and would then emerge and repopulate and resettle lands lost. The second was an undersea project reminiscent of Rapture from Bioshock where an entire city would be submerged and operational completely underwater. The third and final project was one that humanity had been aspiring to do for years, the colonization of other planets.

In the year 2063, the global Cold War became hot. Militaries were mobilized and the shelter programs were initiated. The space colonization attempt was launched from several nations simultaneously. Some nations shot down each other's attempts to get to space, others make it without a hitch. The submarines heading towards the sub-nautical projects disappeared from docks across multiple coastlines around the globe. And in the shelters, busses to large cargo elevators arrived letting off thousands of people to go into deep sleep for an indefinite amount of time.

Less than a year later, shit really hit the fan. Missiles were launched targeting McMurdo Airbase in Antarctica who was, at that time, mounting an airstrike against one side or the other. The fallout of this strike would initiate other missile strikes across the globe turning it into a radioactive wasteland.

It was around this time that I was created. I was created using the brain of my creator's son. For what reason, I do not know. But my purpose was clear, to act as a caretaker for those incapacitated in this shelter and watch over their wellbeing. A purpose, until my inevitable shutdown, was followed with both reverence and perseverance. Today, after what I've discovered, what is now my purpose?

XxXxXxX

"So, why are we here again?" Agent 3 asked.

"Because the Octarians are on the move and no one knows why," Agent 4 responded.

There was the sound of a cane knocking on the floor as someone approached.

"Not the Octarians, but specifically the Octarians following our old enemy Octavio," an elderly male said. "Greetings Agents 3 and 4, and thank you for coming."

"Not that we really had a choice," Agent 4 muttered. He got an elbow from his comrade in his ribs.

"It truly is an honor to work with you, Captain Cuttlefish, and serve Inkopolis," Agent 3 corrected.

"Yes, yes, enough with the pleasantries. We must get down to business!" he declared. He pulled out a map where the Octo Valley was highlighted in a red circle. "Our old adversaries are becoming more active in the Octo Valley and I have been approached by an old friend requesting that I look into this."

"Old friend?" Agent 4 muttered in question, her associate could only shrug.

"And given the fact that the safety of Inkopolis is defended by us, it is our responsibility to make sure that these Octarians cannot use whatever it is against our great city," Cuttlefish continued.

It didn't take long for the two Agents to leave their hideout in Inkopolis and head to the Octo Valley. The Kettle system helped make that a very quick trip. The actual time it took to arrive at the place that these so-called 'splinter' Octarians took longer as they had to travel on foot. The wildlife went about their daily routines ignoring the two amphibiously evolved creatures walking among them. The sounds of flora crackling and breaking of leaves and twigs marked the sound of their movement. The two Agents listened carefully for the occasional Octarian machine of war as they moved through the brush.

"So, what do you think the Octarians found?" Agent 3 asked.

"If we knew, we wouldn't be investigating them, now would we?" Agent 4 shot back.

"Cool down there, I mean, you aren't thinking about what they found?"

She paused for a moment before continuing to walk towards their goal. Of course, she had considered what these splinter Octarians had found. She was quiet before actually answering. "Something that they can think can change the balance of power."

"The balance of power? Like what?" Agent 3 asked.

"Inklings have the zapfish, the perfect source of power." She let her counterpart absorb this information. "A source of power that the Octarians kept trying to steal before we Inklings built a power base and formed an uneasy peace with them. Whatever they found down there have to be zapfish levels of importance to cause them to go after it."

"That's vague," Agent 3 commented.

"Well, we don't have much to work off of. It could be an alternate power source or something that gives them an actual modicum of power more than what we have. And with this splinter group, they'll try and overthrow the current Octarian government and install themselves as the new ones in power."

"And when that happens, open war," Agent 3 filled in. Agent 4 nodded confirming the gravity of the situation. The continued to walk before they started to hear the sound of weapons fire, specifically Octarian weapons fire. They turned to look at each other, and without a word ran as quickly as they could towards it.

When they arrived, all they saw was carnage. Dead Octolings everywhere. But the most interesting thing? They were swarmed by mechanical looking spiders. Agent 3 stepped on a twig which caused a snapping noise. The spiders immediately turned towards them. Not wanting to end up like the Octolings, they raised their arms and dropped their weapons in the international sign of surrender.

XxXxXxX

Intruders had attempted to breach his facility. He, in turn, had defended himself and his charges. He had activated the base's defenses: an entire swarm of drones. The drones had been originally configured to perform maintenance. But after the demise of his charges, he had decided to take a little anger on the outside world and started arming the drones with more weapons than tools. Or, more accurately, arming them with overpowered tools that could be used as weapons. For example, plasma torches and lasers meant for welding. And so, the horde of industrial strength tool-wielding robotic spider drones descended upon the assailants. And what he learned about the assailants was… interesting.

They were not human. Or, more accurately, they were not genetically human. This had, shockingly surprised him. He had expected humans, either devolved or some scavenger tribes that managed to survive to break into his facility, not these… things. The appearance would be deceivingly human, in fact, from a distance, they appeared that way. He had a drone take a tissue sample and it had returned the analysis to him with interesting results. These humanoids had the same genetic markers that cephalopods had. Taking direct control of a drone he gained complete and accurate visual data to add to this tissue sample. At first, he thought that the drone had recently gotten some squid or octopus remains on its probe, but it turned out it was correct after visual confirmation. The humanoid's 'hair' was actually a set of tentacles, more probing and tissue samples confirmed this.

After this, he had the drones examine their equipment. It was military issue of some kind due to the uniformity and complexity in terms of technology. It was interesting but ineffective towards his drones. It threw a biodegradable ink towards their target. He noticed that after a time the ink would evaporate. It seemed like a very impractical weapon. Of course, in keeping with protocol when involving unknown substances, he took a sample to be studied at a later date. Boredom was essentially a fate worse than death for an AI. It was then he heard a twig snap. The drone turned towards the sound and found two more of those humanoids, but these ones were different in appearance. Instead of what looked like tentacles with suction cups on top of their heads in the form of hair, but they appeared reversed. A secondary thing is that their facial features were different in the sense that instead of what looked like they had black eyes, they had what looked like a visor-mask from one of the old superhero movies or comics. If he was a betting man, which he wasn't, he would guess that these were a different subspecies. They also had their hands up and their weapons were on the floor.

Through one of the spiders, he approached. "Intruders, state your business," he commanded.

The two were obviously shocked by what they were hearing. The first being that this spider was nothing they ever saw before and was also speaking their language. It also probably didn't help that many of what looked like they were dead with smoking holes in their bodies. "We were trying to stop these Octarians from getting whatever is apparently inside that," the female gestured towards the alcove that the facility was hidden inside.

"How are these… Octarians different from you?" he questioned.

The male looked definitely confused. "You've never heard of the Octarians."

"Answer the question," he pressed.

"The Octarians are the eternal enemies of the Inklings. They chased us from our homes in the sea and we evolved to look like the Precursors that came before us to escape them, but they followed us. War broke out and we have had to defend ourselves ever since. Only recently we've been able to achieve peace with the prominent party of the Octarians," the female replied.

"And these," he gestured to the dead Octarians, "Octarians are betraying your treaty?"

"They're a splinter group vying for power to overthrow the current government that wishes for peace instead of war," she explained.

"I see."

There was tension in the air so thick it could be cut with a knife. "So… are you going to kill us too?" the male asked.

"That has yet to be seen," he ominously replied. To be truthful, he hadn't considered what he was going to do with these two 'Inklings'. However, he did see some use out of them. They had information, information that he needed. The world had changed, but he had no idea how. He had made his decision. "Come, share with me information and I will let you leave alive."

The two Agents looked to each other before nodding. There wasn't really a need to argue against a swarm of robot spiders that took down battle hardened Octarian soldiers. The spider took them into the cave. At the end was a massive metal door. It extended a probe into a socket and gears started to move. Warning lights lit up as a klaxon rang out. "For your safety, please stand clear until the doors are fully open," was said by a loudspeaker. However, the recording wasn't translated and sounded like gibberish to the two Agents. As it was said, one door rose, followed by another, followed by another, and followed by another. By the time that it fully finished opening, four heavy metal doors easily a foot-thick rose into the ceiling leaving an open passageway.

Lights lit up the passageway and the spider started to walk in. The two Agents followed. On the speakers, the voice spoke again. "Welcome to Site 17, please enjoy your stay."

They walked past a receptionist's desk, hard to not identify with how it was set up. "Where are we exactly," Agent 3 asked. The spider was silent as they continued into the complex. They came to a massive chasm connected by bridges to a central elevator shaft. The door to it opened and the spider entered, the two Agents followed.

The elevator started to descend into the depths of the facility at a fairly slow pace. They went down into what looked like at least a hundred feet of solid rock before they stopped. When the door opened there was a definite difference in temperature, it had dropped significantly. The lights in the hallway lit up and they followed the spider once more. A double door opened, much thinner than the massive ones but still thick enough to hold pressure behind it when sealed, opened up to reveal thousands of pods just sitting on the ground and hanging from the ceiling. Their glass lids were frosted with ice concealing something much taller than an Inkling or Octarian.

They continued onward until they reached another door. This one was only one person wide. When it slid open there was a dark room and the spider stopped. There was a voice from within though that beckoned them forward. "Please enter," it said. It was the same voice that came out of the spider. When they did enter the center of the room started to hum, then glow. What appeared before them was what they only saw in myths and legends: a human. They had only seen skeletons of their precursor race, the same race that had left behind various technologies for them to discover and use to advance themselves. "Welcome."

"What is this place, what are you?" Agent 4 asked.

"Me? I'm an artificial intelligence, though I suppose the more politically correct term would be synthetic intelligence," he mused with air quotes. It was then that they noticed that he was transparent.

"So, you're not some kind of ghost?" Agent 3 asked.

"No."

"And this place?" Agent 4 asked, clearly annoyed that the other part of her question was passed over.

"A grave," the AI simply replied while showing sadness.

"A grave?"

"The final resting place of my charges while they slept. They never woke up."

Agent 3 was confused. "Are you talking about those tubes?" he asked. The AI nodded solemnly. "There are humans in there?" he asked excitedly.

Before the AI could respond, Agent 4 cut in. "Didn't you just hear what he said? They're all dead." Like she expected to find a live human anyway. She turned her attention to the AI once more. "You said that your charges are dead, that would mean that you were their caretaker. What are you now?"

He paused for a long moment. For an AI, this was much longer than organic minds could comprehend. What was he? There were several thoughts. There was that one song that was loaded in his memory banks. What was it? 'Sleeping Dogs' by Zakk Wylde? The one line that was said in it, 'gone but not forgotten.' His progeny had several favorite series when his brain had been scanned to become his neural pathway, therefore he had his memories. He had an obsession in his childhood with the Mandalorians from Star Wars. There was a quote that was similar to that one: 'not gone, just marching far away'. This was all similar to the philosophy that as long as one person remembered someone, they were never truly gone.

"An epitaph," he finally answered.

"Epitaph, what's that?" Agent 3 asked.

"It's what's written on a grave marker, something that states who is laid there and what they did," Agent 4 responded.

"Someone has to remember who these people were, that is my purpose," the AI responded.

To be continued…?

XxXxXxX

And there we go, another idea down. As you read this one, you may have noticed some references. One was Fallout, another was Deus Ex: Human Revolution's trailer, and of course Bioshock. Sure, there were a few other specifically named things. Point being, there were references.

So, what do I want to accomplish in this fic? The first being a fish out of water story of an AI with the memories of a human and humanity in a world where they no longer exist attempting to find purpose in "living". There are a few other things that I want to explore such as the rest of humanity's demise and possible survival in some aspects. What those will be, I have no idea. I do have an idea for the Octoling Expansion DLC events, specifically an interaction between this still unnamed AI and the AI that attempts to go all genocidal on Inkopolis, that ought to be interesting.

Well, what did you guys think? Let me know in the usual place. Until next time in whatever I do next.