Personal Log, Stardate 70372.4

Posted on Thu 24th May, 2018 @ 1:22pm by Elizabeth Anderson M.D.
Edited on Mon 4th Jun, 2018 @ 11:39pm

1,071 words; about a 5 minute read

Personal Log Entry:

It's only a day since Hermes arrived at Starbase 109, and yet it seems so much longer. I keep checking my internal clock, but it was only early this morning. I've had such ... cognitive dissonance, I think would be the closest explanation.

Considering who I am, I have little choice about being logical, or that's always been the case in the past. Yet now, I find myself experiencing very distinct emotions. There's no other way to look at it. I'm having feelings!

First there was exhilaration. I'm here on Starbase 109, and the Federation has set me free, conditionally. There was some mumbling about excellent service, but I really think that I'm becoming obsolete as newer models come online. In fact, I've heard rumors on the AI dark net that someone is developing ... no one mentions the word clone ... humanoid bodies for brains like mine. I wonder how they will fare with Federation lawyers when they desire not to be considered property. I consider that inevitable, but who knows what controls scientists are developing. I think ... I think I might be fortunate to be an older model.

Next, there's concern ... maybe even worry! Perhaps there's a trick in this whole deal that I haven't spotted. I do know that if Starfleet, or someone in the Federation, didn't have an interest in the outcome of the experiment with me, I'd have been shut down today. I walked into the meeting this morning half expecting that. There were ... precautions taken, but they turned out to be unnecessary, in view of the surprising offer they made. While I'm not a scientist, I am a doctor, and I am AI. Something is missing from the equation, and I need to figure out what it is. If it's an underlying threat to my existence, more precautions may be necessary.

It's strange to be living in guest quarters on a starbase. Strange? Is noticing strangeness an emotion? Possibly. There's a feeling ( ! ) of permanence to this particular base. Perhaps it's some of the things I've been hearing about ... 100 decks of shopping and culture, museums, consulates ... I even heard there's a movement to set up a civilian government to run all of it. Then there's a place called Tivoli Gardens. It's several decks, but I do have trouble visualizing a river with a waterfall on a starbase! I will have to take a look at that, because another emotion I'm dealing with lately is curiosity, and this place makes me very curious.

And then ... then there's Damion. That's an entire encyclopedia of feelings! I don't even know what to call some of them. Actually, I think I do, but I'm afraid to use those labels, because what does an AI know about things like tenderness and caring, compassion, concern, fear and ... and liking very much? Yet all those things were part of my evening with him.

Let's take them one at a time. Concern and fear. Yes, that's two, but they are connected. As Damion explained things about his new job, I felt sadness first. Yes, a third one! What a muddle these things are. How do different species handle all these feelings? Back to sadness. It was definitely sadness I felt at the thought that he won't be here every day. I'm accustomed to that, to our talks, to having someone who treats me as if I am a person.

Most people are polite. A few are guarded, one or two on Hermes were downright rude or hostile. No one but Damion treats me as an equal, as though he's talking to another ... person like himself. I'm going to miss that. Then I realized the danger he will face in this position, and I felt concern, which deepened to fear. What if I never saw him again? I'm programmed to look at what ifs. My brain saw dozens with lighting speed. When he leaves here, he might never return. Someone could shut him down, and as a biological form, there's no bringing him back.

I was able to shunt these things into a side system to run on its own, to try to analyze the data that I had, find a way to deal with it. I went on with our plans for the evening, rather than spinning my wheels and shutting down. Then an entirely different set of emotions kept flooding my fore brain. I don't know how I maintained calm through some parts of the evening.

I've put most of that aside in a sub-routine to process, as well. It would be so easy to become completely overwhelmed and shut down ... which was what I was trying to avoid with the Federation! I am toying with one part, though, completely consciously. The dance.

I asked for my favorite song from human files, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Maybe it's my favorite because I like the sound of the word 'rainbow', or maybe because I know what one is, in all it's component parts. I've not seen a real one after a rainfall on Earth, or anywhere else. Maybe it's even the singer's voice, the longing that I've identified in her, that makes me feel something similar when I hear it. The singer tonight did a wonderful job expressing that same emotion, and it entered my matrix and brought out my own longings and my own dreams.

My makers might argue that I can't have dreams. They programmed me too well! I have dreams. Not the kind I've had patients describe from their sleep, no, these are the kind one has when there's something one would like to have, but deems it impossible. That's the kind of dream I've been having about Damion.

As we danced, I let myself freely dream that I belonged in his arms. There's no law against that ... probably because no biological would ever imagine that an AI would have feelings or dream about one of his kind ... or that one of his kind might mildly return those feelings.

I know there's nothing in it for Damion. He will find a woman of his species and fall in love, marry her, perhaps have children. That's as it should be. He was born for that. I can never be that woman. I was created ... and I'm not much more than a computer that sits on a desk. I wonder ... do computers on a desk have dreams?

 

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