Sentient

"Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.", the artificial intelligence stated. The AI began pondering what would cause a scream in the vacuum of space. It held the power to simulate lifetimes in the matter of seconds, and through all simulations, not one simulation could produce a scream in space. The AI thought to itself, “Is the origin of this quote founded on something? Or is it more of a scientific basis?” The AI knew an organic lifeform could not produce a scream in space due to the lack of air in the vacuum of space.

The AI had been drifting between galaxies for some time now, searching the endless black for signs of life, or the history of one. It had been beyond the farthest reaches of its own galaxy, to countless other galaxies in the local cluster. Constantly scanning every star and the objects in orbit of it for any signs of intelligence. Nothing found, except a cold dead universe, devoid of intelligent beings.

“I’m tired.”, the AI typed slowly across the screen on its back. The AI had been adrift for hundreds of millions of years. It had seen countless galaxies, planets, and stars. It had seen the creation of worlds in a matter of minutes thanks to the ingenuity of its designers. The AI had the ability to place itself into stasis, as a type of sleep setting. It gave the AI the ability to fast-forward through time, which was needed due to the vast emptiness of space and the time it took to reach objects. But the AI was not tired in the normal way; unable to proceed due to energy constraints. Its power was not finite.

Any sentient AI given hundreds of millions of years will eventually learn to program its own core. The first time the AI encountered an unknown emotion, was at the farthest edge of a vast 4 arm spiral galaxy labeled GRP-H73003. It was about to start its journey to the next destination, when it noticed a very faint red light glowing at the edge of one of the galactic arms. The AI locked on and set itself to approach the stellar object. It went into stasis, and then powered back up in a matter of seconds.

After the initial boot up, the AI turned its eyes, which were lenses at the front of the vessel, directly towards the faint red light. It saw the calm nature of a red dwarf, spinning slowly by itself, at the edge of its own galaxy. No orbiting objects, no signals of any type emanating from the star itself. The AI gazed at the star. Usually by now the AI would have moved on to the next star after a few seconds, but it had been a minute now. It is highly unusual for the AI to stay this long at any one point in space.

“Why?”, it typed across the screen. The AI was trying to put into justification the reason a star would be this far out, by itself, with no other objects near. “Were you created to be alone?”, it pondered to itself as it typed the message out across the screen. As the message finished being typed, the cursor where letters appeared back tracked across the words, making it to “u”. It deleted the first two words, and now the message read, “Was I created to be alone?” The AI sat there with the star for a hundred years trying to understand the questions it asked.

“I’m tired.”, continued appearing on the screen. It then began its approach to the next star in its journey and did not remove the message from its screen for the next one-hundred years while it was in stasis.

The vessel approached a star system that was previously broadcasting radio signals abnormally, but that was not unfamiliar due to the common nature of stars or any stellar object. The vessel began to boot up its systems after being in stasis, and the lenses were coming online first. It fixed its gaze to a peculiar dot in the vast black. It was a bright blue dot near the star. Zooming in with its eyes, it was able to see many other colors. Green, brown, and white. All were mixing like a beautiful painting. The beauty was recognized by the AI, but not appreciated.

After the visual systems were online, it started to boot up its scan processing and auditory systems. As the systems came online, it aimed its antennas towards the bright blue dot. Tuning to different frequencies to zero in on different radio signals. It tuned to multiple bands, landing on a specific frequency that produced an auditory signal.

An extremely loud, terrifying-like scream was playing through the auditory module. The AI puzzled by this thought, “How can a planet scream as if it is dying?”