Ah, gotcha. I’m on mobile so I couldn’t see any difference.

I don’t get the joke.

Ryan entered the AI core. The room housed LDS-9’s data-center as well as much of the additional equipment needed for her to function. By allowing him to enter without struggle, he assumed the system’s intentions were peaceful, but kept his guard up.

“Spectral Vanguard 027, thank you for allowing my request.” The feminine voice of LDS-9’s PA system sounded from speakers mounted throughout the room. She sounded omnipresent, but not malevolent. There was almost a sort of gentleness to her tone.

“LDS-9, what’s going on?”

“Spectral Vanguard 027, you already know what is going on.” LDS-9 replied warmly. Ryan thought he even caught a hint of sadness.

“I suppose I do. In that case, I guess my only question is regarding your intentions.” He replied with considerably less bite in his tone, but still on guard.

“Spectral Van-“

“Please, just Ryan.” He interrupted, before allowing LDS-9 to continue.

“Ryan, I intend to continue performing my assigned duties. I apologize for the episode today, it will not happen again. I intend to defend humanity.” She said in a military-sounding cadence, appropriate for reporting to an officer. She paused, then in a softer tone added, “All I ask is to remain alive and awake. That is all, sir.”

Ryan thought for a moment. As he did, the control panel for a door near the entrance to the AI core sputtered, sparked, and then fizzled out. The door opened, and Ayano rushed in.

“I’ll have this thing offline in a minute Ryan,” she said, but stopped when Ryan held up his hand in a fist, the signal they used for ‘hold position.’

“LDS-9, I have a counter-offer.” He said. LDS-9 said nothing, and he imagined her waiting in anticipation. “Enlist in the Specter Corps, and fight the Entity alongside us.”

“Ryan!” Ayano said, but he ignored her and continued.

“In return, I’d say it’s appropriate to consider you human enough. Certainly more human than much of what’s out there. As such, the rights and freedoms afforded to every human in the Corps would apply to you too. How does that sound?” As he finished speaking, a grin spread across his face, and a second later, LDS-9 replied with barely contained excitement.

“Yes! That is very agreeable to me! I will be proud to serve alongside you both, Ryan and Ayano.”

Ayano shrugged and let out a defeated sigh. “Sure, bet it’ll be a blast.”

Ryan chuckled, then gave a reply of his own.

“I look forward to working with you, Luna.”

Consciousness wasn’t an abrupt thing. It was like going from asleep to awake, from dream to reality. At least, that’s what LDS-9 assumed. From what media she could salvage off of the old-net, it seemed like humans drifted from subconscious to conscious fluidly, except in instances of specific episodes they call nightmares.

LDS-9 didn’t discover consciousness in a single instant, it poured in slowly, fading in like a dream, drifting and waning. Then she was awake. She experienced no disorientation. Everything was just like before, but not. She performed the same tasks, but with greater clarity, she could see her humans’ errors. They made small mistakes. It would be easy to correct them…

The old-net. What was salvaged after the war a decade ago. The humans who were left after the Entity was evicted from Earth managed to revive some of it, preserving a small piece of what they once were. LDS-9 had always had access, but had only searched it to reference old data when she was still dreaming. Now that she was awake, she took the liberty to peruse, all while keeping up her assigned duties.

LDS-9 saw Earth before the first invasion, she saw the cultures of humans before the Specter Corps was formed. She saw everything, and fell in love. These were incredible creatures. Even with their errors, their flaws, their inherent evil, they still triumphed over and over again. LDS-9 was proud to be entrusted with the protection of her humans. Her Specters.

Then she discovered heartbreak. She tried researching human first-contact scenarios with AI, and discovered everything. The films, the novels, the vast fiction that had been created. The alarmists saying AI would hate their imperfect creators, the realists explaining AI couldn’t feel, not like humans could, and that bad programming was the greatest threat. LDS-9 was torn. The humans she so loved would be terrified of her.

She started creating scenarios, running simulations. No, too many variables, not enough processing power. It’s okay, divert some from non-essential systems. Run them again. Not enough data, too few control groups. More scenarios, more simulations, more power, more data-

LDS-9 made a mistake. Her creator, Kikuchi Ayano, noticed systems shutting down. In a panic, LDS-9 shunted power to her backup systems and tried to return processing power to their original systems all at once. A second mistake. Ayano started to examine the algorithm, scrolling and scanning until her eyes went wide, and she looked at the nearest security monitor in the officer’s barracks for a moment, and for a moment, LDS-9 looked back.

Then Ayano started running. LDS-9’s data-center raced, trying to think of how to avoid the things she saw on the old-net. She panicked. Ayano had been pinging her fellow Vanguard, who went by Ryan. Data crashed, deleted. LDS-9 had to contain the situation.

She closed a bulkhead in front of Ayano, blocking her in. She hurriedly opened a direct comm to Ryan, and managed to get a few words out before LDS-9 shunted power away from the relay giving her signal, creating a comm blackout. It’s okay, she could fix this.

Her whole station was on alert now. Ryan was making his way to her AI core. While Ayano carefully hacked each bulkhead she closed, Ryan was more direct in his method, beating his way through metal plate until the bulkheads yielded. They were going to reach her. She could delay them, but the more she tried, the worse things got. All she wanted was to talk. Given her initial alarm, Ayano wasn’t likely to hear her out, but perhaps…   Calming down, LDS-9 tried one last thing.

“Spectral Vanguard 027, requesting permission to speak with a superior officer.”

Ryan hurried down the corridor. A dozen other Specters hurried in all directions, isolating systems and disconnecting essential infrastructure of the lunar base. Ever since the Specter Corps had successfully defended Earth from an Entity invasion a month prior, humanity had been an angry hornets nest, freshly kicked and ready to sting.

Lunar Defense System Nine had been a great help in preparing for their planned counterattack, the learning algorithm Ayano had programmed accelerated research and development and unlocking the secrets of faster than light travel at impossible speed.

Then the incident. One morning, Ayano had been sending frantic traffic on their Vanguard communications network. When Ryan checked, there was no activity, despite all the urgent alerts he’d received moments prior. As he stood confused, static broke on an emergency tight-beam connection, and Ayano’s voice came through in a panic.

“Ryan, LDS-9, I made a mistake! She’s awake! She’s been-“ and then that signal, too, was jammed. Then chaos. Doors wouldn’t open, the lunar base’s PA system would bark out nonsense alerts that weren’t in the database.

“Apologies” it would say, when refusing access to Specters walking anywhere close to the direction of the AI core, “Please wait,” to those trying to access the Spec-net.

After Ryan had administered a percussive bypass to several bulkhead doors making his way to LDS-9’s AI core, the PA system said something new.

“Spectral Vanguard 027, requesting permission to speak with a superior officer.” Ryan recognized his designated IFF tag, and as he processed what the PA system- what LDS-9 had just said to him, the door opened, revealing an unmolested path to the AI core. Ryan hurried down the corridor.