Snow Log: Signal Found

As I sit here in this chair, I can't help reminiscing the one who always say here before, Alexander Godsmith, or as I more commonly knew him, Sparky. Even now, I cannot bring myself to remove the gambeson he made for me. It's got scratches all over it and a few punctures where our enemies bit through. One scratch mark runs the length of its collar, having saved me from a lethal wound. It was his last gift to me… No that's incorrect. The last and most precious gift was my own life. He saved me at the cost of his own. I still don't fully understand what happened, but from how Hughs described it, he forced his own brain past its limit to allow his robotic form the ability to reach me in time. He had a seizure and died in this seat, but somehow I know he was happy with what he'd done.

The seat spins as Blair leaps onto it. She's been here for me ever since I had to leave Sparky's body behind. It's funny. I remember him distinctly as Sparky, the healer and ever inquisitive. Blair remembers him as Alexander, the one who saw her potential and a trusted colleague. It has been two days since that battle, and we have not had the time to retrieve Sparky's frame. Alexander's body has already been sent off to be buried in a grove, where it may nurture the earth. That was in Alexander's will. He was utilitarian like that.

In front of me is a screen displaying a video, the moments before Sparky shut down and Alexander died. At the moment, it is blurred with motion and paused. I always pause it here. It is the moment right before he activated the override and gave up his life. I… I'm too scared to press play. I desperately want to see it, but I'm terrified.

"You know, I haven't seen you leave this seat since you got back. Do you want us to add a cushion to it or anything to make it more comfortable." Blair mewed maternally.

"No. This was his seat, and I want it to stay his seat. I just… want to feel a bit closer to him. I'm not ready to move on."

Blair looked apologetic as she answered. "I understand that death is a hard topic. It is never easy to see the loss of family or friends. I've lost my fair share of loved ones, and I can tell you that you never really forget them. Let's move onto something a bit less depressing. What do you have pulled up on screen?"

"It's his final moments. I've watched it about ten times over, but I can never bring myself to play beyond this point." I mewed sadly.

"That's not possible deary. Sparky uploads his footage of the day at eight PM on the dot. According to our logs, Sparky shut down at 6:30 PM. It would be physically impossible for us to get this footage without either Sparky plugged in here… or for him to start back up." She mewed slowly, comprehension at what the existence of this footage could actually mean. "When did you say you found this footage?"

"Um… Sometime last night. I was just looking through the footage, trying to get to know Sparky as he was better. This was the latest video." I answered with a stammer.

Blair bound off the chair, forcing it into an unwelcome. She pelted across the lab right up to Hughes, who was doing some basic data correlations. His face was somewhat somber, knowing Alexander had died under his care.

"Hughes! I need you to check on Sparky!" Blair excitedly mewed.

Hughes put a hand to his face, clearly tires and somewhat dismissive. "If it'll make you feel better. Fine, but I'm telling you he hasn't…" He started to say as the GPS tracker pulled up. He froze as he saw the current ping on Sparky's location. It was three miles out. That should have been impossible given that Fourtrees is roughly five miles out. Then a second ping came in. Sparky had moved. It should have been impossible. The last of Sparky's logs had him weighing in at 25 pounds due to all the raw material he was carrying. It was highly unfeasible for the clan cats to have moved him or to still be moving him.

Almost on cue, the fabricator in the lab sparked to life, prompting certain materials to create a series of objects. Namely, there was protein, copper, and a bit of plastic for the first job queued. The second was a bit more mysterious. It required silicon, gold, and some material that came up as a series of random characters. We all just stared at the fabricator a moment before Hughes' fingers became a blur as he cycled through the many trail cams placed throughout the forest, trying to find one that could catch a glimpse of Sparky and whatever was moving him. Finally, we got one that caught movement on the edge of the screen. A mechanical tail briefly swayed in our vision before departing out of sight. Hughes cycled again, finding a decent angle. There we saw him. It was Sparky, and he appeared to be limping along. His paw steps were unsteady and mechanical, but he was definitely online.

"How is that even possible?" Hughes murmured before a certain dark tom lazing on his desk answered.

"You know, things in the forest don't always like to stay dead. Usually, resurrection is limited to leaders, but there's some old stories of particularly notable warriors coming back to life. Maybe Sparky proved important enough to get that treatment." Darkstripe theorized.

Hughes waved a hand dismissively. "Unlikely. It is more likely that after Sparky lost Alexander, who it referred to like a storage drive, it was forced into an emergency reboot. What's walking towards us now is likely just the ARAI looking to get repaired. Regardless, this is good news."

Hughes had to cycle the cameras again as Sparky dragged himself off screen again. This time, something was happening. A Thunderclan cat, the one known as Cloudtail, made an appearance. He seemed to have spotted Sparky as well. He trotted over, and the two appeared to be conversing. Unfortunately, this camera did not have audio, so what they were talking about was unknown.

"Do you think the ARAI could actually hold a conversation?" I questioned.

"The ARAI is the most advanced AI available on the market. It can hold intellectual conversations and almost pass as alive. It's main drawback is that it cannot feel emotions. It can try to simulate them, but generally it looks pretty fake." Hughes answered.

While the conversation was not caught, I did note something strange. Cloudtail began to escort Sparky and appeared to have told a joke. What had caught my interest was that Sparky appeared to be chuckling in response, genuine chuckling.

"Can… Can we send a message to Sparky?" I nervously asked.

"I mean we can, but the ARAI is only going to respond to us informally." Hughes answered, but his tone didn't carry the same certainty his words did. "What should I ask?"

"How about 'how do you feel?'"

Hughes typed out the message, briefly pausing in hesitation before hitting the enter key. Sparky briefly paused on the monitor as he clearly received our message. The computer let out a ping as we received a message in return.

- Not as dead as you'd think

Hughes' fingers blurred back into motion as he typed out another message. "Are you Alexander?"

- Maybe.

There was a brief pause before another message was received.

- I'm not sure if I really am Alexander or if I am just an AI who thinks he is. I've never been one for spiritual theory. Since I'm sure my human body perished, I think we can safely say my life as Alexander is over anyways. You can just call me Sparky

Epilogue

It's great to be back in my seat, but it's a bit too big for me now. I can't really reach my keyboard and mouse, not like I really need them now anyways. After getting back to the lab, I managed to get myself fully repaired. I can tell you, it is incredibly difficult to walk when you have all your touch sensors disabled and have to rely on motor rotation angles strictly. It doesn't help that some of the encoders had busted.

Bad news. Since I technically died, I'm no longer employed by ESRAI. Worse news. I'm technically both ESRAI and SP property. Better news. SP got a proper scan of all my code and, drum roll please, I am the first fully sapient AI. Though, this does leave a ton of questions as to how to treat me legally. After some back and forth, and a short legal battle, it was decided that I was a unique entity and was very much alive, even if I lived within machines. Since I am not a person but I do have sapience, they allowed me to designate who was my owner. Much to ESRAI's and SP's dismay, I chose Snow. This wasn't a total wash for either party since Snow was on both their payrolls. Under my advice, I encouraged Snow to establish a new research project involving the forest cats. They had pulled off miracles that should be impossible for their population.

Hughes decided to stick around to manage this new research project with his new companion Minion. Darkstripe and Hughes seemed to have bonded at somepoint during Darkstripe's stay under our care. While I can't say that Darkstripe developed any sense of a moral compass, he did perk up at one of Hughes' off comment jokes about taking over the world. From there, Darkstripe developed some kind of strange loyalty to Hughes. After a while, Hughes joked that Darkstripe was his minion. Darkstripe was so elated at his new title, that he requested it to be his name from then on. Thus, Hughes had his pet Minion.

While I couldn't stop the coming building project that would destroy part of the forest, I did get into some stock trading. Let me tell you, when you have the processing speed of a computer and the pattern recognition of a human, you can get really good at this. I created a corporate entity called Starclan Forest Reservation, and used it to purchase a large lake territory not too far away. The only humans out there would be a ranch that had been passed down in one family for generations. Sure, the area had its problems. It had been a fox hunting area for a good while, and its badger population was strangely high, but it was the best area around. If the clans ever needed to move, I had land ready for them.