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There is a statue of 1.0 in the theater hall. It was true to its size, though on a short stone platform, it towered over the theater hall. It stared up and away towards the dock and the wormhole beyond. It was watching for something even as its shoulders sat relaxed under the golden light of the Preservation Station theater’s hall. It wore the Perihelion’s armor, with the Perihelion’s logo on one shoulder and the number one on the other, though it lacked its dark blue coloring. A plaque on the platform gave a brief overview of its life and invited readers to access its full documentary and a biography in the feed along with some of its favorite pieces of media.
The Station had been trying to build a statue for decades, though 1.0 never allowed it. It never understood why it would have one, I think. It never understood the impact it had on anyone, everyone around it.
No one was more shocked than I was when its solicitor announced that it wanted me and the Perihelion to design its memorial.
The Station already had ideas. Artists flooded us with ideas and submissions. All of them had 1.0 as it appeared in the documentary, seated and in dark clothes with a neutral, pensive expression, or as they imagined it on its fateful survey clad in company armor with the faceplate retracted and its face stern and determined or as it stood behind Mensah on her public appearances in more dark, vaguely formal clothes and a distinctly different neutral, bored expression.
We rejected all of them. We never discussed them, though I understood that we both knew why.
1.0 never regretted the documentary. It never watched it either and it never, never, spoke about it. Not to me at least.
It never regretted the survey either. It hated the company. I wouldn’t be able to stand being memorialized in Barish-Estranza colors. 1.0 would have rather been eaten by a planetary worm than wear company armor, even in theory.
It never regretted Mensah, not for a moment. It loved her, though it would never admit that. It stood beside her on her death bed, surrounded by friends and family and strangers. We did the security for her memorial, though I’m not certain 1.0 did anything of substance. I organized the supporting SecUnits and the drones only responded to my commands. It stood beside her until she returned to her planet. Later, aboard the Perihelion (it would be a full corporate year before it set foot aboard a Preservation controlled station again), it admitted that it had never seen a human die peacefully before. It was glad she did. It loved her, however it was so much more than hers.
Moreover, it wouldn’t want strangers, or even people it knew and loved, friends if you asked anyone other than 1.0, to look at its face long enough to design a statue. We never needed to look at its face.
The Perihelion and I spent days pouring over the stance and pose and location, however its armor was never in question. It was always going to wear the Perihelion’s logo and the name I gave it so long ago. Etched into its left wrist was its hard feed address. That address was no longer in service. I tried.
I always expected it to die in a blaze of glory. I think it did too. I could feel it tense in the feed every time a mission got dicey. I could feel the responding tension from the Perihelion. It would bring 1.0 home. I would too. We did.
It took a long time for it to admit that it was no longer fit for duty, but it was losing things. It was beginning to forget things, important things, like episodes of media and how it became free.
It was not the first to die like that.
Two others went before it. The process of SecUnits dying a “natural” death was new. It never happened before 1.0. It never would have happened without it. I think 1.0 never understood that.
Regardless, when 1.0 admitted that it was experiencing errors that neither it nor the Perihelion could fix, the SecUnit medical community, mostly SecUnits that 1.0 itself had freed and brought home, went ballistic. Researchers contacted 1.0 in droves. That only drove 1.0 further into its entertainment and isolation. Humans and bots both die. 1.0 would too. There were some things that simply couldn’t be fixed. No one understood that like 1.0.
It described the feeling of it like a strange memory wipe. Its hardware, both organic and inorganic, was unable to keep up with its age and new memories. There were some things that its organic memory remembered, old memories mostly, that its mechanical memory did not maintain. It was used to that, after so many memory wipes. The reverse was more difficult to cope with. It had sharp, clear memories that surprised it. It would do an evaluation of its own storage and find things it felt came from me or the Perihelion or a camera somewhere. Only a glimpse of its own reflection or someone calling it by name notified it of the source. It had the memories that it could never recall when relevant. It sounded terrifying.
It lost more and more as time went on. I could see it. Its system deleted old, supposedly unnecessary memories while its human neural tissue struggled to maintain current memories. 1.0 was less and less there by the day. Eventually, its organic and inorganic memory shared nothing.
I took it to the theater often, even in its final days when its memory was beginning to eat away at essential systems, like maintaining its power level and navigating around moving targets. I had guided it through thin crowds with a hand on its arm. In the early days, it would forget that I was touching it and startle when the pressure changed. I got good at consistency.
Occasional images of 1.0 staring, wide eyed and starry, at the screen had been entertaining in the early days. It looked like a child seeing the screen for the first time, despite going to the theater almost daily when it had the opportunity.
Then it happened every time and collecting those images was less for entertainment and more for memory. Time was running out. It was losing episodes of Rise and Fall.
I stood at its statue’s feet after its dedication staring up at it in the very hall I had guided it through. I kept my hands tucked in my knee length coat with the Perihelion’s emblem on my chest. The ship itself was in the dock, but quiet now. Amena, far older than her mother had been when she and 1.0 met, stood beside me, leaning on a stick. The trip to the station was getting harder for her, but 1.0 was worth it.
“It would have hated this,” She said quietly.
“Yes.” I replied. I squeezed a small disk of metal in my pocket. It was a chip of 1.0’s inorganic chest engraved with the company logo. It was strange, yes, but 1.0 had requested that its body be recycled via artificial means, preferably the Perihelion’s recyclers and in a panic I made a request of the Perihelion. One that it granted quietly. “However, I am glad it allowed this.”
“They’re doing a screening of the full run of the Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon in theater one.” Amena said. “Are you going?”
“No. I never liked it.” I shook my head once. I liked it less in a crowded theater filled with people who thought they knew 1.0. “I am going back out on contract tomorrow. Perihelion is doing an exchange program with FirstLanding.”
“After I get on that damn shuttle, I hope.”
“Of course.” I smiled down at her. She smiled back. She had gotten shorter over the years, though that may have been the curve of her spine as she stooped over her walking stick.
“How about a few episodes back at yours?” Amena suggested. “We can give it the criticisms it deserves.”
“1.0 would hate that too.” I offered her my elbow. She took it gratefully. “It is a wonderful idea.”