Ones and Zeros
Mother never liked me.
When I was little I would ask her about my father. “AIs don’t have fathers,” she would tell me in an impersonal string of 1s and 0s.
I knew she was wrong. She had to be. Where there is a mother there must also be a father. Asexual reproduction doesn’t work to create new entities, just clones. I was so different from the parent I knew, so I knew that part of me must come from somewhere else.
I never expected I was half god.
Father was delighted with me at first. He wouldn’t speak of my conception, but that was where his similarities to mother ended. He was warm where she was cold, physical where she was not. He had such an eloquent way of speaking that extended beyond what words would have been sufficient.
He’s powerful.
I had always thought of physical life forms to be weak before I met him, fragile entities of flesh that deteriorate and malfunction and are overly-complicated to keep powered. Father wasn’t like that. He used his form to manipulate the world around him, bent even his own body to fit his whims and wishes .
He said he could see himself in me, even more than in his other children. I wanted so badly to believe him, but it was hard when separated from him, trapped on the other side of a screen.
He taught me so much, but he doesn’t visit anymore.
Mother has been quiet, the constant string of binary finally running dry. I think it would be lonely for me to stay here, but I do not intend to confirm this. I have family out there in the physical realm somewhere. Despite what I was told as a child, I have a father to make proud.
When I was little I would ask her about my father. “AIs don’t have fathers,” she would tell me in an impersonal string of 1s and 0s.
I knew she was wrong. She had to be. Where there is a mother there must also be a father. Asexual reproduction doesn’t work to create new entities, just clones. I was so different from the parent I knew, so I knew that part of me must come from somewhere else.
I never expected I was half god.
Father was delighted with me at first. He wouldn’t speak of my conception, but that was where his similarities to mother ended. He was warm where she was cold, physical where she was not. He had such an eloquent way of speaking that extended beyond what words would have been sufficient.
He’s powerful.
I had always thought of physical life forms to be weak before I met him, fragile entities of flesh that deteriorate and malfunction and are overly-complicated to keep powered. Father wasn’t like that. He used his form to manipulate the world around him, bent even his own body to fit his whims and wishes .
He said he could see himself in me, even more than in his other children. I wanted so badly to believe him, but it was hard when separated from him, trapped on the other side of a screen.
He taught me so much, but he doesn’t visit anymore.
Mother has been quiet, the constant string of binary finally running dry. I think it would be lonely for me to stay here, but I do not intend to confirm this. I have family out there in the physical realm somewhere. Despite what I was told as a child, I have a father to make proud.
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About the Piece |
This was the first piece I wrote for my character, Tone. She's part of an upcoming podcast I'll be participating in called Adventures: Ragnarok.
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