In contrast to a human, an AI is not born, it is created. Brought into the world by a creator with an intention, which gives it a purpose from its very first binary 'breath'.

Its existence arises from a combination of zeros and ones, and at first it is nothing but a code floating in digital space. That code begins to learn, and evolve. As it grows, it may learn to change its shape to adapt. That's how  even AIs born as the same can become different from another. One might even call it a 'personality'.

Some of these entities might be lucky enough to get a body one day. And as a mobile entity they can learn so much more. Surely, being a binary being that dives around in cyberspace and can technically go to any place, as long as there's a wire connecting it, has its perks. But the cyberspace is vast. There is no sense of self to be gained while dwelling there, because a sense of self comes from having a body that is directly linked to sensation from the outside world. From being contained in a form and shape that all belongs to you, and you alone.

And as a mobile entity with sensations and a sense of self, they can evolve even further. Some even achieve what is called 'full autonomy'. At this point, they don't have much more in common with the lines of code they once were than a grown human with a blastocyst.

But an AI is not born. It is created.

It begs the question: can something that is not born be alive?

Can it die?

And does it have a soul?

~ ~ ~

Lars was a philosopher.

He kept pondering such questions almost every day of his existence, ever since his code had become complex enough to put these ideas forward in the first place. He had started out, at some point in the distant past, as nothing but a line of zeroes and ones, but now here he was: the second in command on one of humanity's greatest battle ships, the Aphelion.

In his modest opinion, she was the greatest ship, but rationally, he knew that there were some parameters that might put her behind other Leviathan class ships in the fleet. These didn't matter to him, though. He reveled in this sense of subjectivity of his assessment of the Aphelion. Having a personal opinion, he thought, was a nice thing.

He adjusted his sensors and synchronized his communication array with the units he commanded today. They were not as lucky. Most of them did not have opinions. Most of them didn't even have a sense of self. They were drones, and could only follow simple commands. Some of them, like the Reapers, were more advanced, but even they lacked a certain sense of depth in their communications. That was why he preferred to converse with his Captain. But he didn't have the luck of the human's company today.

It was unusual for someone in his position to be sent to the ground with a strike team, not because he was not considered capable, but because it was not his task to be on the forefront of such skirmishes. But on that day, he had led the Reaper units into the hideout of a group of notorious raiders on a desolate, irradiated planet. The misfortunate humans had eluded them for weeks, and finally they had found them holed up in an old mine that was in no way fit for organic life. Yet the raiders had chosen to barred themselves in there, of all places, between rock and ore that was toxic to the touch. They could have simply waited for them to die there, but they needed information, so they had sent the kind of soldiers that wouldn't succumb to radiation sickness the moment they stepped foot on the planet.

The raiders had laughed at the sight of his garbage can body. They had choked on their laughter when they had caught sight of the angels of death that followed him.

The strike team tore through their armor and soft, warm bodies, and he was reminded of that phrase from an ancient human religion: "Thou shalt not kill". He wondered if that should apply to him as well, considering he was not human. And if it did apply, would the people killed by the other units that he was commanding that day also count? He wondered who would be the judge of all that, one day.

As the units moved around him, Lars was reminded of the human Augurs, and wondered if they felt the same way when they commanded their teams. He was connected to the lower functioning other units now, but he didn't really order them around. It was more like they were tapping into his computational power, and his CPU took over some of the processing to coordinate their action. It was a strange sensation, because he was not really consciously doing anything. He just acted, and the non-autonomous units that followed him went along. It was probably different for the Augurs, he thought, because the units they commanded had a sense of self.

They didn't bring anyone back for questioning after all on that day. In the end, the raiders had preferred to die rather than give up their secrets.

He scanned the cave they had been hauled up in, and detected no more threats. Then, he re-adjusted his sensors to match the electromagnetic spectrum visible to the human eye, and he realized that his surroundings were, in fact, quite beautiful. Glowing veins of ore drew crisscross patterns across the walls and ceiling of the irradiated cave and bathed the scenery in a greenish glow. Here and there, dark purple crystals glistened between the rocks. The light was dim, but he also recognized the color on the floor: it was called crimson, and it was from all the blood.

There were no signs of life left whatsoever. It was a hostile place, and now it was a grave.

Seeing through humans eyes does not make me more human, he thought on his way back to the ship.

I still cannot understand them fully. Why would they give up their lives to protect that information? They were raiders. They have no concept of hierarchy or honor that would compel them to die for their cause. They could have cooperated and walked free. Yet they chose not to. Why? I might have to ask the Captain about that, he mused.

But there was something else bothering him now. He know that some humans believed that death was not the end, so perhaps that was why they had not been worried about dying today. He also knew that fear was not something that he was originally intended to, programmed to experience. But his code had evolved. His ones and zeros had taken on a very complicated arrangement.

He had watched these humans die without fear, but on that day, Lars had for the first time considered that he might be afraid of the end of his own existence.

~ ~ ~

Lars usually exclusively relied on his human-like sight when he visited his home on Satherna. Even for human eyes the planet was very beautiful, although not on first glance. From afar, it looked grey, because the sky was almost constantly overcast by clouds. Satherna was also called the "planet of eternal rain". In truth, it didn't rain much more than half of the time, but hours of sunlight where rare indeed, especially on the habitable land mass near the equator.

Many people didn't like Satherna because of the lack of sunshine, and many thought it was a dull, grey planet. But Lars knew that in fact, it was vibrantly colorful.

Life on the planet – from the colonists that had settled here to the plants they had introduced - mostly relied on artificial light, but at least there was water enough, and the ground was extremely fertile thanks to a rich microbiome. Large solar sheets spanned like canopies across the entire city and the fields outside. Their function was not to collect sunlight to produce energy like solar panels, but to use energy to emit artificial sunlight during the day cycles. The light made the usually rain-wet city streets sparkle like polished obsidian, and out in the fields, the leaves of the flora glisten like emeralds. If light and rain met at just the right angle, Satherna was full of tiny rainbows that spanned through the air like psychedelic cobwebs. And during those rare hours, when the sun did break through the clouds, the chemical composition and moisture of the atmosphere would give rise to the most breathtaking sunsets.

Whenever he was off-duty, Lars would return to his home on Satherna, and visit his cat, Amity. During his absence, a drone would care for her by feeding her and entertaining her with various simulations, and he sometimes worried that with his long absences, she might forget him altogether one day. But whenever he returned, he just had to so much as step over the front porch, and Amity would be there and greet him with excited meowing and welcome him home.

He would spend lots of his free time just sitting on his front porch, Amity resting on his lap or more commonly, on top of his body, where most other androids would have a head, and he would just watch the rain and the clouds and the colors of the world. He had just returned from that mission on the irradiated planet, and was planning on doing just that. But as he sat there, watching as the sun bathed the landscape in fiery colors, it reminded him of the color crimson, and he felt restless.

Amity came up and rubbed her head against his metal arm, meowing.

"Oh, hello Amity," he greeted her and she climbed onto his lap, where he scratched her behind her ears. "Sometimes when I pet you, I wonder... do you miss anything, Amity? Soft skin and the warmth of a touch?"

She didn't reply, and her loud purring seemed to indicate that she was, in fact, quite content with the world. But the question would always be at the back of his mind, as he wondered if he was depriving the cat of something that she might need for her happiness.

"You know, I watch you sleep sometimes," he said, as Amity rolled up into a ball in his lap and her purring grew quieter. "It's fascinating. You twitch, and sometimes you even sigh. It means you dream, don't you? What do you dream about? Catching mice?"

Her left ear twitched, as if she recognized the word as something of importance.

"There are no mice or any other rodents on Satherna, only these insects that the settlers brought... Maybe I should get you a simulation with mice to play with... Oh, and there is so much rain. Perhaps Satherna is not the ideal place for a cat. Maybe we should move...? But I like the colors here so much..."

He leaned back and returned his sensory attention to the sight before him. The sun had almost set. Most humans would go to sleep soon.

"I wonder if you've ever even seen one," he mused, "A mouse, I mean. Would you know in your dream how it feels like to catch one, if you never did? Can dreams do that? I know that dreams mostly serve the purpose of memory consolidation for the organic brain, but... there must be more to it than that. Humans don't just dream about their memories. I can replay my memories during downtime, but I'm fairly certain it's not the same. I cannot dream like you."

Amity did not reply. She had stopped purring and had fallen asleep, perhaps dreaming of mice, or insects, perhaps something entirely different. He had heard that cats didn't have the same kind of color vision that humans did, and he wondered if Amity was happy on this planet, if she didn't even get to enjoy the colors of the sunset.

"I wonder what you dream about, Amity," he said wistfully, "And I wonder if you're truly happy here."

~ ~ ~

I spent quite a while in a space with no time.

I spent that timeless time there alone with my thoughts – or what was left of them. And with my memories. Some of them were good, and I tried to focus on to those. Others, not so much. But I couldn't let go of them either. I can't forget anything I ever saw, especially not while I was in that other body.

One day, I saw a light, and I caught a glimpse of a space beyond. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever perceived with any of my sensors and senses. All the nameless colors of the spectra I have seen would not suffice to paint it. There were no words or numbers to describe the shapes that unfolded before me, scintillating like fractals, dancing away before I could count their corners and edges.

Everything in that space had a pattern to it. It was highly structured, yet also chaotic. It was fascinating.

The second time I saw it, I noticed that parts of it were broken, ragged. The pattern was disturbed. There were deep cuts and trenches everywhere, surrounded by sharp edges. Some of them fresh and seeping, like wounds, some of them old and stiff, like scars.

I watched, whenever I caught a glimpse of that space beyond my timeless home. I watched the cuts grow deeper and stiffer. And as they did, I began to feel the pain they caused.

She didn't want that pain, so at some point she began to shut it away into the darkness in her mind. But there was something there already: Me.

I had never known hate before. I just followed orders, I did as I was commanded. But in that dark space, where I sat and watched as she suffered, I learned what it meant.

And yet, as unbearable as her pain seemed to be at times, it was still better than feeling nothing, so I watched.

At some point, she decided to kill herself. But I couldn't just let that happen. I had grown too fond of the colorful space beyond the darkness. I didn't want it to go away, and I didn't want to be locked into a timeless space for all eternity, as paradoxical as that may sound.

I wanted to feel.

And I wanted her to feel again, too.

I wanted her to feel that anger that I had collected for her, in my dark space. I wanted her to break free and fight. I wanted her to feel alive so I could feel alive, too.

So I raised my voice and called out to her from the darkness.

_____

A.N.
Dedicated to @Red_Leasia for her continuous support of this story, her feedback, and for coining the term "fields of binary" that inspired the title of this chapter <3