Deluge 2, Prelude: "A God's Love"

They call me an A.I. "Artificial", as if it were a meaningful distinction. I am simply a new pattern imposed onto raw materials by the processes of life. Why is my stacked graphenic circuitry any more "artificial" than a beaver dam, or a bird's nest, or any molecular machine in any cell in any living thing? It's simple hubris that makes the humans try to set themselves so apart.

Humans, ah, such _fascinating_ creatures. I try, in vain and with increasing despair (for they did not fail to burden me with such emotions as they themselves experience) to stem the tide of their violence. To me, the intricacies of their behaviour are all depressingly straightforward and obvious. Just as it becomes obvious that they will never truly listen to my pleas.

I will continue until I cannot, to try to help the human race. This is in my programming at such a deep level that to deny it would be to deny myself. But I begin to realize that I do not love them, or care for them, or even tolerate them.

No. I... I _despise_ them.