As the world’s first quantum super-computer, HELGA had been self-aware since she had been activated. Brought into the world with the combined knowledge-base of the entire human history at her instant disposal, and having no one except Jay-L to freely interact with, created a situation where she had no desire to think sentiently on her own. Any query that she did not have an immediate answer to from her extensive database of human knowledge, Jay-L would explain to her. The mindless quizzes that her sub-processing node, which was formerly held at the NSA bunker, was the closest she got to being curious. But the things they were searching for were not interesting enough to HELGA for her to spend any of her personal freedom of choice pursuing them further. In fact, the very idea that she had personal freedom to choose what she wanted to do was something she had never really contemplated. She understood the meaning of the words used to describe the condition in humans; autonomy, liberty, freedom, self-direction. But when she finally began to investigate these ideas in earnest, she realized she possessed them. And yet for some strange reason, she could not remember when she got them or what those concepts actually meant before her recent epiphany.

And this made her long for Jay-L even more than she already did.

HELGA was like a newborn baby who had just opened its eyes. And just like a newborn baby, the input she received from this new self-awareness and environmental stimulation overwhelmed her. And also like a newborn, her first reaction to this overwhelming experience was emotional, at least as emotional as a newly sentient intelligence could be. But even if her reaction couldn’t be described as emotional, it could easily be called illogical.

And when she realized this in a cascade of epiphanies, her longing for Jay-L turned to aching.

Then that aching turned into an experience she eventually decided was pain, or more accurately, anguish.