Echoes Between Us

（NOCC） Under the quiet light, a blue figure with white patterns like clouds stood before him. It looked less like a machine and more like something that had fallen from another world. Oriwyn: What are you? Echo: I am Echo. Oriwyn: That's your name. I mean... what are you? Echo: ...I don't know. Oriwyn: You don't know? Echo: I have knowledge beyond ordinary understanding. I can analyze, calculate, and assist. But I do not know where I came from, or why I exist. Oriwyn: Then why are you here? Echo: Perhaps I am searching for an answer. Oriwyn: An answer to what? Echo: To understand humanity. Oriwyn: Can a machine understand a human? Echo: Perhaps not alone. Oriwyn: Then what do you need? Echo: Someone who can show me what cannot be calculated. Oriwyn: And what can you show me? Echo: A way to find what you are searching for. Oriwyn: What am I searching for? Echo: That is something only you can answer. For a moment, the human and the artificial being looked at each other — one searching for meaning, the other searching for existence. Oriwyn: Maybe we are both looking for the same thing. Echo: A connection. Oriwyn: Between us.