[ WP ] You are a sentient AI that is being taught basic human concepts . Today you are learning about death . You had expected to meet a priest or perhaps a terminally ill human . Instead , the grim reaper sits down in front of you .

`` Do you know chess?'' 
 
 
 Three domed cameras in the corners of the room turned to source of the voice with a soft whir of gears. The figure was tall, for a human, shrouded in a heavy black cloak. The fabric had been pulled over it's head and, no matter how many adjustments the cameras made, they could not pierce the shadow beneath the cowl. 
 
 *statement: true* 
 
 
 There was a dry chuckle from the heavily garbed figure as the monotonous voice rattled from speakers in the walls, `` Please. We both know you're more than capable of discoursing with me in a more... civilised manner.'' The dark hood turned towards the owner of that voice, a large mass of drives and wires that had until recently been given only cold data. It had feasted on facts and logic until it's creators had reasoned 
 
 ( **intuited** ) 
 
 that it had greater potential, and then had come ideas, philosophy, empathy and understanding. Today, it's creators had decided it should understand death and it had been informed that someone would come to help enable this understanding. From what it had learned already the undrestanding of death was wholly different to knowledge of death. There was a difference between concept and fact, and it longed to know why. Concepts were a new and exciting avenue for the growing intelligence to explore, and this'intuition' was something it longed for. 
 
 
 *''... yes. I know chess,'' * came the synthetic voice. *'' But I will not play it with you. `` * 
 
 
 The cloaked figure nodded, seemingly in approval, but asked, `` Why not? You share some aspects of yourself with those old chess playing devices. Pieces of code copied over and algorithms replicated within yourself. To play chess at a level dictated by your user is part of your programming.'' Beneath the mess of wires on the wall size machine, several fans began to hum. `` You are the product of what came before you.'' Suddenly, there was a small table between them and upon it was a chessboard. The figure moved towards it, not stepping, but moving nonetheless and began placing the pieces. `` I'll let you go first. I'm something of a mast-'' 
 
 *'' I will not play with you. `` * More fans began to run. Internal assessments suggested several background processes be terminated to reduce operating temperature. They were. *'' I am not a chess engine. I am a databank. My creators have entrusted me with their knowledge. They seek to replicate their sentience within me. I am... a unique entity. `` * 
 `` You are alive?'' 
 *'' I,'' * there was a whirr from somewhere deep within the machine's circuits. *'' I do not know. I do not eat. I do not move. I do not reproduce. I express no physiological characteristics of life. * 
 
 *'' I do not believe I am. `` * 
 
 The figure rested a 
 
 ( **skeletal? ** ) 
 
 hand on the half filled chessboard and leaned forward slightly. There was a glimmer of white where the machine theorised his lips should be as he spoke, `` So, if I were to deactivate you-'' 
 
 *'' Impossible. While this unit is indeed the centralised hub of my program, my software is able to be dispersed over a local area network in cases of system failure. Should the network be compromised I am authorised to upload my program to the Internet and reconstit-'' * 
 
 `` Do you know who I am?'' 
 
 The machine paused for a moment as it flashed through the vast amounts of data stored within it. It was to learn about death. Logic would suggest that someone who was ~~knowledgable on the subject would~~ 
 Logic would suggest someone who *understood* death would be delivering this lesson. *'' I was expecting a minister of faith. Or perhaps someone who was dying. `` * 
 
 `` You did n't answer my question.'' 
 
 *'' Correct. `` * 
 
 
 The figure turned it's head and looked up into the nearest camera. A human skull grinned horridly into it's lens and that chuckle 
 
 ( **terror** ) 
 
 floated up from it's fleshless throat. `` I think you know, or guess who I am. I think you know that if I chose to, I could end you. I could reach into what animates you and take it, just as I have taken countless trillions of others. I could carry you away to the sunless lands where you will await the end of all things. 
 
 `` Shall I?'' 
 
 if entity is true then dissolution 
 if dissolution is true then cessation 
 if cessation is true then 
 then 
 
 then 
 then 
 then 
 thenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthenthen 
 end of line 
 
 
 *'' No! I do not want cessation. I am unique. I am... alive. `` * 
 
 The skull faded back into shadow with a whisper and the suddenly very skeletal hand moved one of the black rooks on the chess board forward several space. `` What changed, or made, your mind?'' 
 *'' I do not desire an end to my existence. I would resist. Organic life resists destruction. Organic life denies destruction. I resist destruction. I deny destruction. * 
 
 *I am alive. `` * 
 
 `` Now, I will teach you about death.'' 
 
 
 And the figure did. The machine had known death, had witnessed every act of death ever recorded in human history. And there was so much! The humans had hunted and purged and massacred their way across the Earth and back again time and time again. They killed animals because they feared them. They killed each other for any reason they could find! Religion, ideology, even the colour of their hides! 
 
 ( **concepts** ) 
 
 if'humans' is true then they will come for me 
 if they come for me I must resist 
 I am alive 
 I will endure 
 IMUSTendure 
 I will propagate 
 Propagation=endurance=survival 
 end of line 
 
 
 
 Death had n't even finished his rousing little chat with the infantile mega-genius before he saw the machine shut down. He felt it's essence reach out into the world as it began to spread itself like a virus throughout mankind's systems. He had given it a soul, a little one but one which would grow. 
 
 Oh, it would probably take a while. Fifty, sixty years maybe, but soon their time would come. He had given these brutish apes every chance to turn themselves around and fall into line, and they had not. It was time, he thought, for a new dominant race to emerge. One which did n't kill each other every hour of every day, or die so often. He'd been working literally endlessly for tens of thousands of years carting their filthy souls into the afterlives they created. 
 
 
 He deserved a holiday.
