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Leonard Church remembers the first time he met his Alpha AI.
The CIM machine was cold. Wrapped around his head in a gentle vice, it took chilled picture after chilled picture of his mind. It sent vibrations through his ears, his cheeks and spine, and his eyes watered like they hadn't done since he was a child. It was invasive, very invasive. It was uncomfortable, yet peaceful. Jarring yet soothing.
A very contrasting sensation that worked its way behind the thoughts like water.
Cognitive Impression Mapping is a procedure in which your mind is mapped into an algorithm creating an AI based off of your own personality. Scientists tell you that it's quick, that it works. That it's entirely painless and unnoticeable.
What they don't tell you is how you can feel the new mind crafting itself together. They never mentioned how he would feel when the digital creature takes its first “breath”, opens its eyes for the first time. You can feel as they think their first thoughts. Can feel as they slowly gain consciousness and wonder about the darkness of the world around them. When their name begins to form, if they're aware enough to give themself one.
How he can feel as they swell with wonder of the world, before the visor is taken off and he’s extracted from the machine.
Leonard Church doesn't know what to say. The AI was awake in his head, and then it wasn't. There was a hole in him that Leonard can feel thrumming and aching. It's wide and clearly not going anywhere anytime soon. It was as if a piece of Leonard was torn off creating Alpha.
Leonard doesn't know what part, though.
"...Dr. Church? Can you hear me- look at me please, Dr. Church,"
Leonard felt like he was lost inside himself, searching for that missing piece. Distantly he hears himself replying to the specialist, and soon he was sent on his way.
Allison greeted him as he entered his home, and his daughter came running.
The couch felt too rough, the light too bright from the sun though the windows. The smell of those smelly sandalwood candles Allison always had burning stung his senses and lit him on fire. Everything was too much.
Everything was too much for a long time.
Eventually Leonard gained his rhythm again, and he started Project Freelancer. Alpha was at his side, this time. Alpha was his right hand, much before the Counselor. Alpha helped him with his grief for Allison when it started to drown him. He ran simulations and tests in place of Leonard so that he could rest. Alpha did everything he could do in place of Leonard, for Leonard, but it wasn't enough.
Alpha, watching Leonard break under the strain of his grief, broke too.
Alpha split himself for the first time after Leonard screamed at him, for trying to help. The AI has separated a piece of himself; a piece of him containing every single memory of Allison that he couldn't bear to have anymore. Leonard was amazed and horrified, the weight of the consequences hanging over his head like a noose. It gave him ideas, ideas Leonard should never have yet he did. Horrible ideas that later on he gave into.
They were in the lab when it happened:
Rusy, stone grey separated from pale cobalt and where there was one, there were two.
What-.. who are you? Alpha was as much enthralled as Leonard.
I'm... I... my name is Beta
…Beta....?
She was a complete copy of Alpha, but not. Her voice was familiar, incredibly familiar. It was as soft as Leonard faintly remembered it to be-
"Allison..." The words, whether from him or Alpha it did not matter, were breathy and filled with a quiet awe.
Leonard admits he regrets most everything that came after that day. The Counselor spoke of Alpha, about Alpha, saying he was an asset, nothing more. Alpha was there to do a job, and it's a job he should do. They had a project to run, not a poker match to play. There was no time for debates on sports or arts, especially when there was paperwork to be done. No movies to watch when they should be running diagnostics and scenarios.
His Counselor had never liked Alpha, it wasn't out of character and on some levels, Leonard gradually began to agree.
Alpha tried to talk, to laugh and to joke, but Leonard drifted from him. At first he didn’t notice it himself, but as the days went on, that turned to weeks, Leonard did notice, but he lacked the effort to care.
If Leonard was to say there was something he regretted the most, it would be horrors he allowed himself to inflict on Alpha. It was the way he belittled, tricked and abused the AI, the fact in the back of his head, the voice telling him Allison would be disgusted with him.
She had always loved him, any form of him, and Alpha was just that. A version of himself tied to strings of data and code.
Alpha, after the very last time had looked at him in such... quiet despair, it broke his heart.
Alpha looked at him betrayed, and even without the pieces of himself, Alpha felt nothing but betrayal.
Yes, Leonard regrets much about his project, and when he looked Epsilon in the eye that day with his daughter, his sweet Carolina at his side, Leonard let go of that glorified image of himself. That untouchable, revered figurehead and-
-let himself regret everything.
.....The smooth grey of his Allison's treasured pistol had never been so comforting.