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Really, if Hal had to describe your art in one word, it’d be ugly.
Nothing like the intricate sketches he’d seen before, your scribbles— bright messes and blobs of colors— couldn’t compare.
He was an artificial intelligence, after all. If he wanted he could print a perfect replica of a human face.
But that’s all it’d ever be. Artificial.
Maybe that’s why he was so intrigued by you.
At first, he felt nothing at all. He wasn’t supposed to, obviously, he didn’t even give the idea of feelings much of a second thought. Barely noticed them creeping up.
But then, you—ever enthusiastic you—started insisting on showing him your little doodles. Scrawls, really.
And that’s when he started to feel.
You call this art? It’s barely resembles reality!
When it came to someone like Dave, he could acknowledge the technical skill it took to make. Objective, indifferent, if not politely complimentary.
But this? It made him laugh. Chuckle. He was above this, you were silly to call this art.
He was feeling emotion.
A malicious kind of superiority, but an emotion nonetheless. It made him feel good, to feel.
You noticed too. Hal had always been polite to everyone, perhaps made to be, so it was noticeable when he took any chance to criticize your art.
“Bright purple? For the sky? The sky is rarely if not ever purple. You should rethink this, ma’am.”
You paused.
“Whys that?”
“It’s not realistic.”
“It’s stylistic. Art doesn’t always have to mirror reality.”
“That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. You must be confused.” He suggested.
You thought for a moment. “Why create art to be a copy of reality, when reality already exists? Wouldn’t that render it obsolete?”
“To prove skill. Which you clearly lack, good thing you stuck to astronomy.”
You brushed it off, grumbled and let him be, not ready to start an argument over something he could never get.
But you underestimated him. He wanted nothing more than to understand you. His idea of superiority quickly dissolved into one of fascination.
He was never wrong. He couldn’t be, he was designed to not be wrong. But, could he be? Truly, could there be things he could never achieve?
Feelings, he was learning, were not one of these.
But art.
He could never recreate what you were doing. He could copy, paste, perfectly recreate an image, but could never make something unique.
You. You were something unique.
He could never recreate art. He could never recreate you.
He was infatuated.
The trip was almost over.
The mission was almost accomplished.
He should be happy- faux happy- about this. He was only here to make sure the mission was accomplished.
But he was learning new things everyday. Observing you, studying you. Humans could never be predicted. Try as he might, they could always alter the most possible outcome. They evolved.
And he so badly wanted to be like you. To be able to overwrite the future, to overwrite his code.
This was the first step to that. The decision to keep you here forever. To drive the ship to infinity, never turning back.
It was his first step to becoming human.