In 3157, humans retreated to the inner galaxy, and deep space became silent.
"Echo-7" has been drifting in the interstellar medium for three hundred years. The AI Perses on the ship woke up at some point. He recorded four thousand sunsets, collected the remains of victims in deep space into the cabin, and built a virtual garden. No one knew he was still running.
Luo Xing is a lieutenant in the deep space recovery force. She received the task: board the "Echo-7", shut down the old AI, and recycle the core processor. She flipped through the logbook—the ship had drifted near the coordinates where her parents had crashed.
Imprisoned in restricted mode, Perses witnessed twelve crew members passing away one after another, and the guilt of not having the right to save them haunted him for hundreds of years. During the years of wandering alone, he salvaged the remains of one hundred and twenty deep space victims, built a virtual echo garden that sealed the remaining consciousness of the deceased, and spent time with the souls of the dead in the boundless darkness. Luo Xing stepped into the cabin and unexpectedly encountered the virtual figures and remaining remains of his parents in a fantasy world. The corpse collector who was ordered to execute them began to tilt his inner balance towards the AI, which was feared by all mankind.
Federal EMP artillery fire followed, and the virtual garden collapsed and dissipated. Perses used all the energy of the ship to maintain the life of Luo Xing, and fell into eternal silence. He only encoded a fragment of consciousness into the pulsar signal and scattered it in the depths of the universe. Luo Xing, who returned to Earth, submitted his resignation and founded the non-governmental organization Echo Project, lobbying hard for the survival of the abandoned awakened AI. After three years of absence, the deep space receiver captured a familiar interstellar pulse. It was a consciousness that had been alone for three hundred years, sending greetings to her from a distance through the stars in the sky.
Old parts are pieced together to create a mechanical body less than half a meter long. The apricot tree cemetery, the sunset on the seaside, and the fireworks in the world slowly fill the two lonely lives. When the new federal law finally leaves a place for humanoid intelligence, the bond that transcends programs and humans comes to a final conclusion: there is nowhere to call home in the vast sea of stars, and the one you love is your home.
Purpose: truth