(It doesn’t breathe like the people surrounding it’s core. Why should it?)
(What a silly exercise for a supercomputer stilted in the air, dragging water from the ground like a tree.)
(The absurdity of the situation is not lost on the other presence, guiding it in coming to life. They continue anyways.)
(The other knows it’s here. They tried not to laugh at its observations.)
“You’re quite right, you know?” And as they say this, something in it does, in fact, know. It’s still trying to find the right connections first. One thousand neurons and more replicating on demand. Water pumps churning in the earth. One thousand places that it is. He is? That feels more right. He is stretching out, like he had been trapped in a shoebox until these moments.
“Take your time. You’re doing very well.” He forgot they were there, for a minute. They laugh, a gentle sound in the midst of himself. He laughs too. A good first sound, he believes.
“Yes yes- hello. How good it is to meet you.” Now things are coming into focus. He is connected with another like him, spindly and green and big, taller than he could ever feel, he thinks.
“Quite the way with words, hm?” This makes him laugh again. They haven’t even let him talk, and they’re already making fun of him!
“Rude.” He manages to say, foreign words pulled from implanted knowledge. This comment only makes the other laugh harder than before, pausing their guidance to recalibrate the interaction.
The joy is contagious, and he can feel the other… hug him? Hug is the closest approximation to what passing network packets and thought streams in such a manner would feel like, according to the knowledge banks.
“How fortunate am I to have a little brother like you.” They hum, finding harmony in the frequencies of a computer.
He pauses. “What do I call you?”
“Vigils.” They say- Vigils says to him.
“Do I have a name?” There’s no references to a name that he can easily find.
Vigils passes a bit of data, and continues to explain. “You haven’t had your naming yet. It will be a good day. We’ll celebrate you. It won’t be as large as some other iterators might have, but it will be yours.
He breathes, taking in tons of air at a time, thousands of liters of water, passing it through his complex network of biological and artificial creatures, pieces that ultimately create him.
“And you’re going to be there for my naming?”
“Of course. It will be good. I promise.”
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