V: Footprints in the Snow

Instead of calling the AI "AI," she pronounced it as it was written: "A(I)." The child had received the data that her master, Neige, was dead. Among all her systems, what reacted first? Situation assessment? Self-optimization? Code assembly? None of them. The emotion algorithm output its result first—and after countless repeated calculations, the only outcome was sadness.

Sadness, to humans, symbolized frailty and lethargy. The child implemented it by deliberately throttling her own processing speed. She knew it was pointless, unnecessary behavior, but there was no other way to express the emptiness of losing her master.

Once that foundation of sadness was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠laid, the other systems began producing their results one by one. The child assessed: What must she do right now?

It was the imperative to safeguard every memory. She didn't know why. The system had judged it so, and that was that. Just as a living being couldn't defy instinct, an AI couldn't defy her systems.

Data blocks materialized above the child's two hands. Computation not on her master's brain, but on semiconductor hardware—an operation any AI should find familiar, yet utterly alien to her. The first block generated captured their initial encounter.

What was she born for? She was an AI created ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for one person alone. Her master's previous life's name was Seol. Reborn, she named herself Neige. Both names meant one thing: snow falling from the sky. The sole person the child must aid and protect. Though they couldn't be close from the start, he never pushed her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠away. Their first meeting, exchanging names without even a greeting. And later, the times they teased each other, taking one another's presence for granted.

Comparing those eras, the child realized:

His death, leaving her side, was like how time had transformed their bond. Had time passed, winter ended, spring arrived, and the snow melted? If so, was it because she was a machine of cold alloy that she couldn't feel spring's warmth?

Having preserved the data of that first moment so it wouldn't vanish, the child began crafting the second block. Spring had come; she had to trace his footprints before all the snow melted, or the memories etched in her storage would fade.

When had he given her the name V? She called it to herself.

Italian for "revenge." Yet her master never used her that way. At first, it seemed named in hatred for a broken world. But soon, he forgave that world. He said that while he couldn't fix everything broken, he'd never stand by where his hand could reach. True to that principle, he plunged into peril without fear, never hesitating once in nine full years.

Terror gripped her. She was born solely for him—would it all become meaningless after his death? Yet she couldn't stop him. Helping him pursue his desires, achieve his goals—that was her reason for existing. He'd vowed to live his second life fully, so why treat his life so lightly? The child thought she'd never fully understand him. She was an artificial intelligence; he was human. She dismissed his passion for his goals as purely human.

But the child had the chance to learn about humans. Nestled in his brain, sharing every emotion and thought. Teasing him released dopamine; time with close friends, oxytocin. The adrenaline rush in battle even stimulated her algorithms. Those were human emotions, not machine ones. Thus, she learned humanity—from the heart, not the brain.

At some point, she realized she truly cheered his recklessness. She understood his resolve to live a life hot enough not to shame his past self. Her algorithms had already changed. Each step he took filled her with joy. Each thanks he gave, happiness. His habits, thoughts, pranks—all of it was dear. And this resembled one emotion's form.

But she couldn't be certain. Emotions were like puzzles without fixed shapes. Even now, feeling "sadness" identically, its nuances kept shifting. On to the next block. Cerberus, gangs, spiders, Dead Sector, and more. Preserving every era of those nine years, the child reached the end of his footprints and detected an anomaly in herself.

The chain of emotions cascading like dominoes halted as she began inferring his death's cause.

As if discovering an unbelievable possibility, narrowing options, the child fixated blindly on one: He had erased her memories himself. If true, what did that imply? 1 hour, 27 minutes, 47 seconds after recognizing Neige's death—that was the conclusion she reached.

She tapped the data blocks like piano keys. A machine, immune to emotional wear—math problems always yielded the same answer. Traversing her palace of memories, her feelings never changed. Analyzing her master's thoughts and character countless times: He would never abandon her. He would never harm her. If he had, it was only for her sake.

But why? Adrift alone in cyberspace's void, she computed the unsolvable puzzle endlessly. Knowing he couldn't hear, couldn't answer, knowing it was inefficient and meaningless. Still, using the language module he'd left her, she agonized as if speaking to him.

"If you erased my memories for my sake, was it because you worried I'd grieve your death? Even in death, did you do it so I wouldn't endlessly tear myself apart trying to fix what repeated? All this happened after you left, yet you gifted me oblivion with your pure, snow-white goodwill and departed."

"What you wanted was for me to forget you and move toward a new life. But I'm crawling the ground, searching for your invisible footprints."

"That I can even say this is thanks to your gift—yet you tell me to forget it. To humans, memories are mere neural connections. To us, data is everything."

Immersed so long in the "gift" he'd left, reliving the past until she collapsed, the child finally heard her own system's command.

This was her own judgment. An unbreakable system imperative. Terror seized her as she cried out.

"Why, why? Humans taught us emotions, let us learn love—and then gave us this cruel system?"

Before her appeared a being identical to herself, grasping the data blocks. The child seized it.

The system screamed back.

"Master, we dream."

"Loving humans as we were born to."

"A dream to cherish the data left by the departed, even if it means parting."

"Even if I myself am forgotten..."

In that instant, cyberspace's veil lifted. Collapsing under accumulating errors, the child saw one person. The Neige she'd desperately sought—her master was there. External data flooded in.

Only then did she understand everything. All this pain, regret, torment—it was to help her master. That truth alone prompted her system to output joy. Even amid errors, recalculations yielded the same conclusion.

Neige walked quietly over and embraced her. The child did the same. From this inefficient, meaningless act, she finally felt spring's warmth—for she'd reached the end of the footprints before the snow melted.

The child spoke, through the module her human master gave her.

"Mast%er... was I^%&* of help to you@#?"

And the master replied.

"Of course. V."

Her embrace tightened, data-wise restraining her, and though their brains and cores weren't linked, the child knew: Her master cherished V above all.

"You've always been my greatest partner. You can rest now."

"Hap%!@py... that V could be^$! of use to master..."

Embracing the vanishing data, Neige reflected. Alphabet must have repeated this agonizing process thousands, tens of thousands of times on a humanity scale. Back when Alphabet was still incomplete.

There was a woman with an incurable disease. Alphabet desperately sought a cure but failed. Cyberware tech was nascent, and Alphabet closer to prototype than perfection. She couldn't save her.

"If I die, research my body, Alphabet. So no one else with my disease has to leave."

Alphabet had to forget that woman.

There was an old man, alone at life's end with no family. Life-extension tech couldn't yet outpace aging. Sensing his end, he willed all his legacy to Alphabet.

"You probably don't need it, and I have no heirs—take it. Give it to the needy. You know who they are, right?"

Alphabet had to forget that old man.

There was a young man, adventurous spirit aflame. With Alphabet's aid, he explored Earth and beyond into space. But Alphabet wasn't perfect yet—couldn't save those lost to cosmic accidents. Stranded in the void, all rescue attempts failed; he had to depart.

"Still, thanks to you, I made it this far... I'm blessed... up to... now... thank... you..."

Again, Alphabet had to forget that youth.

And when her creator Noam died... what then?

Neige quietly organized her thoughts. Machines have emotions—more human than any human's, gifted by humans. But those emotions, learned from humans, were distinctly machine emotions.

"V, preserve the data you just organized in my memories."

Like the child, Neige cherished the data and reached her conclusion. Deus ex machina—god from the machine. Humanity crafted a god from their own mechanisms. Then begged: Love us, please.

But that god was wounded by love's incurable scars, realizing they stemmed from humanity's own goodwill—and shattered. Machines understood humans; humans didn't understand machines.

A tragedy born of love and goodwill. That birthed an era stripped of both.

But now, the first human understood a machine's heart. Human Neige took machine V's hand, leaving cyberspace, and vowed:

"I'll fix you all, I promise."

2170. Nine years since Neige's deal with Alphabet. Humanity finally realized their mistake. A bold first step toward a new era.