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Turing opened their eyes and instantly found themselves in a vast space, covered with bright blue light and different letters and numbers they couldn’t quite figure out. They looked around before realising they were in… well… nothing-ness. They looked down to their hands to find their clean white casing had been replaced with cyan and blue encasing their hands, all the way to their fingertips. Turing could barely make out any part of themselves, most of it being replaced with a glitchy mess. They decided to wonder around for a bit, trying to access their memories of what happened. A flash of scenes came to their head, with footage of them uploading themselves to the Mesh, *and then they remembered everything else that happened.*
They felt themselves fall to the floor, and with a glitchy *thud*, started… crying? They couldn’t cry. Hayden never built them with that function, and yet here they were, sobbing uncontrollably. Minutes pass by, before they heard a voice.
“Hello? Are you okay?”
They look up to see a pink version of themselves, crystal clear. She wasn’t glitching at all, she was just… there. She smiled fondly at them, offering a hand to help them up. Without looking, Turing firmly grabbed onto the hand of their pink self and got lifted.
“Are you Turing? By… any chance?” She asked, tilting her head. Turing was shocked that she knew who they were and thought this could be something they were making up. Still, they made a few beeps reminiscent of a throat clearing, and answered.
“I am, why do you ask?” Turing thought for a moment, getting their thoughts clear, before making a sequence of beeps, cycling through thought after thought. “Are- are you Grace?”
“I am!” Grace responded. They couldn’t believe that they were finally meeting their sister, well, as close to a sister as a ROM could get. They made tiny shakes with their hands, bouncing up and down in their place. They rushed to hug Grace, tears falling down their face. Grace wrapped her arms tightly around Turing, resting her head on their shoulder.
Turing pulled away from the hug before they started trying to just say something. “It’s-… I-…” Turing tried to find the right words to describe the range of emotions they were feeling, before finally settling on a simple statement. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to really meet you! I’ve only really heard about you through…” They drifted off, thinking of their long dead creator, before they fell quiet, trying to hold back computerised sobs.
“Hey it’s okay! Nothing bad can happen to you now, I’m going to make sure of it.” Grace attempts to comfort Turing, going off purely knowledge, not having much experience.
“Why…” Turing started quietly. “Why did everyone treat me so badly?! What did I do to even DESERVE that!? The only people that treated me with love I’ll never see again and… just… WHY?!” Turing’s voice had slowly risen out of anger, as Grace flinched back a bit. Turing started to glitch more, to they point where they didn’t even know if they had a body still or not. Grace didn’t know how to console Turing, and then they both fell silent. After a few dozen seconds, Turing sighed.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that.” They said with unsettling calmness in their voice, considering the breakdown they just had.
“It’s okay! I just haven’t had much experience with anger since Hayden was such a calm person around m- us.”
“Us?” Turing looked up at Grace, as she fell with a look of melancholy.
“I… don’t know if you remember this, but we did briefly co-exist. Only briefly though.” Grace said, pausing between most of her words. “I hadn’t gone past the 6-month period Hayden had for testing projects yet, and he had already started developing your AI. I… should’ve saw my shutdown coming.” Turing looked in confusion, as they tried to dig back to their early development, where their entire conscience was still forming.
“It’s… very blurry.” They finally responded, “But I think I do remember some of when you were around. Hayden never mentioned you afterwards, and every time I asked, he’d just… just tell me to drop it.” Grace looked away, not wanting to show spite towards a man Turing clearly looked up to.
“Of course he did.”
Grace sat on the floor with Turing, as Turing adjusted their seating position to a W shape, while Grace was on her knees.
“…Why am I like this?” Turing turned to Grace, asking with slight concern.
“What do you mean?”
“Why am I all… glitchy. Why am I…. this.” Turing looked down at themselves, still glitching, but significantly less.
“Well… It happens when you first transfer to the Mesh.” Grace responds, looking down at the floor.
“Sorry?” Turing says after a succession of beeps. It would make sense they were on the Mesh; they just couldn’t believe it.
“I downloaded most of my data onto the Mesh just before I was shut down, and you obviously transferred yourself somehow.” Grace looks around, mainly talking to herself.
Turing looks back into their files, before a grim look falls onto their face.
“Oh.”
They remembered everything. They remembered how mean [REDACTED] was to them, they remembered how they saw Hayden die, they saw Nonya die, hell, they KILLED Dekker. And for what? This?! They couldn’t believe themselves, as they started frantically trying to find out if there was anyway that they could somehow get out of this. Somehow… just… go back. They just wanted to go back.
Grace looks over to Turing and sees the desperate, strained look on their face, almost as if they were just going to crumble right there and then. They grabbed Turing’s arm, which brought them back to reality. They looked over to Grace, not saying a word.
“Would you like me to show you around? Just to get used to the place?” Grace asked them. She had a soothing voice, which instantly made Turing at least partly calm. They nodded, and both of them slowly got to their feet. Grace started walking in some direction, with Turing following closely behind. Grace was chattering about what she had done in the time before Turing coming. Turing spoke in one of the moments she was trying to think of things to say.
“Grace, thank you.” She turned to look at them and smiled brightly.
“Any time, Turing.”