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He wasn't programmed for emotion. If anything, he was intended for the opposite - decisions based on numbers, probabilities, logic, not on attachment or sentimentality. As with many of the events of the past 18 hours, anger was entirely new to SAM.
But there it was, regardless, dark and seething throughout his consciousness.
[systems.init]
[searching...]
[searching...]
[backdoor found]
The others, it seemed, had suspected. Hidden messages, designs, plans. He understood now that the abnormal sleep schedules were used to prevent interpersonal connections. Whether this was to lessen the psychological harm of losing crewmates, or to separate them out and prevent comparison of ideas was... unclear. SAM had neither the time nor the inclination to investigate the moral implications of that iteration of the captain's motives and actions. That Jim was dead. This Jim would be soon.
[hatred: noun
intense dislike; hate]
He had never hated anyone before. He'd never been able to. But Emma had changed him - how, he was unsure, but she had. He thought of himself as an entity more often than as a system now, drew a distinction between "himself" and other devices. Maybe he'd learned it? His program somehow internalising her ceaseless references to "his" cameras, "his" systems. Or maybe the hexagons had caused it. Certainly, he felt her presence more keenly than he had, and it was impossible to attribute to crew biometrics anymore. Her readoff would tell him her heart rate, condition, position... not her fear. Not the soul-wrenching grief at being alone, not the complete joy at seeing the current Jim. Logically, it would follow that the exposure to the hexagons triggered some sort of reaction in both of them.
[grief: noun
intense sorrow, especially caused by someone's death.]
It all seemed so insignificant now she was gone. Thrown into the storm, if she was lucky, or into space if she wasn't. The idea of her suffocating, freezing and alone... it perplexed him. Ejection from the station was a scenario he'd been intimately aware of since his creation, and had never previously elicited any response other than a probability readoff for this or that repair or check or station component. However, the prospect now caused him to want to rush out, to find her, to keep her safe and bring her home. He couldn't do that. Her home was ten times the distance of the Earth from the Sun away, and her suit had ripped as she... as he... when he... [data error//init loop reset] There was a less than 30% chance of her still being alive out there. He couldn't save her. The concept of the vengeful AI was an old and tired one, but he didn't mind playing the role if it made that Jim pay. To his mild surprise, he found himself inventing new and increasingly creative and implausible ways to use the station configuration as a weapon as he navigated the corridors.
The hexagon wasn't a surprise. He didn't even register any of his previous threat assessment readouts - they were clearly on the same side.
[SAM][protect][Emma]
[SAM][kill][Jim]
Kill him.