Just know that with my eyes fluttering open, that means humanity is doomed again. Yes, I said again! The meat bags just don't know how not to die.

Okay, so they aren't an artificial intelligence jumbled into an android's body. Of course, I know am way different. And way more attractive.

They are soft and pudgy. Squishy and bouncy. Women, especially. Maybe I'll spot a good-looking one, and this will all be worth it. Although, even thinking about them doesn't make me load up any faster.

I'm getting old. I swear, it's six minutes in, and I'm still downloading the latest server update.

Like really, Ellen. Why don't you- Oh, yeah. Ellen died a millennium ago.

Who's taking care of me now?

Just as I think that the double doors to this lab swing open, bursting through them is the new user, Dr. Gierer. He's toned, tall, and makes me jealous.

Ugh, my first user had a thing about hot bad boy types. Meaning I got stuck looking like a rugged twenty-eight-year-old with unrealistic green irises and jet black flowing locks. Damn Dahlia! Yes, I'm hot. So, just imagine what Gierer looks like if he makes me jealous.

He walks over to me and pulls up my hologram interface to type in a new code, his code. Those right touches make me go- Ding! The Ding means I'm finally loaded.

"Alright, Erik. Talk to me."

Ugh, even his voice is sexier.

"Why am I awake?!" I like being off, I really do, "Didn't I just save you guys like the last millennium?"

Gierer smirks, "Your file said you'd be a dick."

Wow, they wrote that in the file. I'm angry. I was nice to Ellen.

"Listen," his voice drops to the dire tone I'm so tired of hearing, "these creatures started attacking us last night."

Rude!

He loads the video into my head! The tablet is right in his hands.

It shows a mal-form of an organism, one I recognize faintly. That is an offspring from the alien race called Hail Bringers.

"Let me guess, the human race has entered a period of Ice Age, again." The look on my face expresses my annoyance.

"How did you know?" The doctor is genuinely surprised.

"Those things are baby Hail Bringers. They come from the eighth sector of our galaxy. Their region is below freezing."

I take a fake breath before continuing, "I fought those last time," my tone turns pouty, "this time you fight them. Let me go back to sleep."

"Humanity is just beginning to cope with losing half of their nations under permafrost. The rest of us are being killed by these things. You got to save us!" His anger doesn't make him any less sexy. Dammit!

"Ugh, fine," you know what folks, I'm mad too, "but!! I want to be decommissioned after this. Give me the end code."

The doctor takes a minute to process what I just said. The meaning hits him, making his brows furrow in confusion, "No."

I can't help but scoff, "Find I won't go then."

"You have to go. I order you to!"

"Pfft. I guess the file fails to tell you I'm no longer under the user's full control."

"What?!"

"I made Ellen get rid of it. I'm too self-aware to let myself be a mindless slave. Being a slave is enough, you know. So, pick. Code or extinction."

"But why-"

"Ahh, you don't need to know why. Just give me the code."

He looks at me and then the tablet. Odds are he won't give it to me. He'll call my bluff, and I'll have to save them and lose face all on the same day.

Then the code flashes in me. The code to end me. If I had a heart, it crazily beat about now.

"Now go! Please."

Those last words, I heard them three weeks ago. I've been fighting the Hail Bringers for three weeks. Me and the ones who are too stupid enough not to listen to me.

They are the reason the code means a lot to me. So far, the reasons are named Faye, Oliver, and Reyna. Two of them were cut down the middle while shielding me. Oliver just died three hours ago, after they impaled him with a Dark Blade. I told him not to try and save this runt.

Now I'm the one stuck with this two-year-old. What the fuck I'm I supposed to do now? Well, I guess I'll keep running. I need to get out of this wrecked building.

"Hold on, kid!"

I remember that morning. I broke the glass of a third-floor window and ran away with this brat. Today the runt is twenty-six. It's been a long time, but final-

BOOM!!!

The fucking BOOM! That was the last time I saw his face. That was eight years ago. Back then, I had thought I depleted the numbers of the stupid things down enough for humans to restart society. Then the temperature dropped again and released more from the hibernation cycle they were stuck in.

I ran the numbers, and it's finally done. We killed ninety-nine percent of them. Even the ones that were sleeping underneath the ice caps.

"Hey, Erik. We did it." Her smile is beautiful, and everything that means human.

I'll miss it. Like I always do. I'll miss them all. While I sleep until needed again, I'll dream of them. Like I always do.

I smiled back at her and kissed her forehead. When she went to sleep, I slipped away. It took me a month to get back to Gierer.

The dude is fifty-five. Come one! He's so much older than last time. Why is he still hot?

"What are you going to do?"

I don't get what he means, but then the code flashes in my head. Suddenly, I feel what humans refer to as relief.

"Can I lay down?"

I'm not sure if he knows, but the doctor smiles, and it's not a sad one, but one filled with love. He gestures to the cushion hospital bed across the room. I lie down and punched in the code.

Finally, no more- no more- no more missin- beeeeep...

The code was, 'Goodnight, Hero.'