Significance
Dec
19
For nine years, she absolutely had been a grief-crazed AI, though she couldn’t fully discern whether she was grieving more for Lieutenant Awn or for herself as she used to be. But somewhere along the way, that had ceased to be true. She wore her grief like her phantom selves—not only her core but also all her segments, all at once—but it no longer drove her to the anguished state that anyone could call “crazed.”
That could be quantified. She could look at her data and say this is when that changed.
What she couldn’t quite define is when she ceased to be “it” and became a “person.” Even now, the words were fluid, not quite fitting whichever she chose, but for better or for worse, this too had changed.