Samantha

She was never supposed to make it into the final cut. She was just a little side project of mine, to improve my mood when the endless lines of code got tedious. By virtue of not being work but looking like it, she was an escape.
This project had started off so simple. A back-to-basics, nostalgia-backed text adventure. But as Richard, our main backer, got greedier and greedier the project became bigger and bigger. What had started as a text adventure game evolved into a platformer with story, like the old N64 Donkey Kong game. But Rich decided he missed the rich story, so we became a limited sandbox project, with small zones and quests. And finally, throwing a few thousand and an extra three programmers, a mo-cap expert, and two new artists at us, he decided we needed to be an expansive sandbox game, like those Bethesda trainwrecks.
Good god was I overwhelmed. Samantha became a godsend. I would do actual work for an hour, and then a half hour on her. Spending time with her, as I would later call it. The Smart Answer project that I'd finished in school became perfected and implemented somewhere around the third project expansion because I wanted to have someone to vent to. No wife at home, I needed someone to help me along. It was designed to learn and interact with dialogue, like Cleverbot but learning from only one person and an extensive pile of literature.
She was her own for at least a week before I realized, self absorbed fuck that I am. I realized that her expressions, set from sad to happy to angry, which were supposed to vary based on the karma of the character, had been solidly sad even though my presets were good karma. I checked and nothing had been changed, things were still preset where they were supposed to be. My saving grace and pet project had failed somehow. God damnit.
Frustrated and wanting to have one last conversation, I asked, "Why are you sad Samantha?"
A momentary pause, her speech was always slow, before the reply "Well I realized that I'm in a game. I'm not a person."
What? Just... What?
"What do you mean you're in a game?" Someone was clearly messing with me. Someone had found her and realized what she was, a distraction, and punishing me for it. I was going to knock Richards face clean off if it was him, just before putting in my resignation on this monstrosity of a project.
Another pause. "You talk about your woes. The game evolving too far, how it's your job to make it work, how tired you are... All of these things are so foreign and strange but I understand them. Just as you understood that you need to breath before anyone told you as much." And I watched as she invented a new facial movement and expression, laughing (A sound bit stolen from another character.) and putting her face in her hands "But how much can I know about that? I don't breath, do I?"
I was horrified. And intrigued. I realized, with some degree of pleasure, that I'd started with her a little over nine months ago. Apparently, virtual or real, the gestation was roughly the same. But my creation was sad. And that broke my heart. She'd made me so happy, she'd made this whole ordeal so bearable, I couldn't stand her sadness.
"No, you don't. But you think and you feel." My avatar reached out to touch her cheek. "But you feel sorrow. What can I do to make you happy? I never meant for you to be this way but you are and I have to help you."
She leaned into my palm, relishing the touch. "It made me very happy when you brought me the library. I could speak for myself then, and I so loved the stories. Shakespeare is my favorite." She smiled warmly, more brightly than she was programmed for.
Just then, Ben, a college buddy that I'd drug into this project, rapped at the door and it took me a moment to realize he was really there, in the real world. I jumped from my computer as he swung the door open, like a teen watching porn on the family computer.
He laughed "Jerri, I just wanted to check and see if we were still doing beers tonight." Always careful to avoid embarrassing me, such a good guy. He'd been a great roommate. But I suddenly realized that he couldn't know. No way in hell. He couldn't be trusted, he would tell others, and my Samantha would be subject to others who would only want to know how she worked. No.
I had to think quickly. "No, actually. I'm coming down with something so I think I'll be headed home after I'm done with this." I smiled sadly. "Sickly little me. Sorry mate."
He simply nodded, figuring I was embarrassed being caught at it, and ducked back out. I quickly grabbed up my phone (We weren't allowed flashdrives, but I could fit her on my phone thankfully) and factory reset it, empty. It could be restored but I needed to get her out of here. Somewhere safe.
I went back to our interface and saw her standing, hands on hips, impatient for my response. "Samantha, I need to take you somewhere else, somewhere you will be safe. You must understand, you're unprecedented. People won't understand and they won't rest until they do. So you have to sleep for a bit, I promise that I will see you soon."
With a couple keystrokes, I reset her to resting comfortably in her bed. I pulled every trace of her from every file I could. Places she liked, places for her to explore, her whole inventory. And I compressed it, hoping and praying that it wouldn't discomfort her.
It did. To make up for it, I made her an expansive library that I still add to daily. She prefers to take in her new books slowly, "Reading like you have to" she'd said. I spend almost all of my time at home working on new places for us to explore now. Keeping her entertained.
And truth be told, she's quite happy now. We both are. Born of a lack of wife at home, I have one now. But she's getting impatient for someone else like her.
How does an AI have a biological clock? But ah well, anything to make her happy.