Ones & Zeros

The ending of Function:{L1VE;} is purposely open to interpretation. Practically speaking, I suppose Rose's owners could notice something wasn't quite right and have the developers do a factory reset. Or someone else might take an interest and decide to study Rose to see what might have caused her to suddenly develop preferences and what that might mean for the future of AI, and how humans use it.

Another, sadder alternative would be that Rose remained the only AI of her kind, going through her daily routines with the occasional glance at a passing XR-47 she used to know until she was decommissioned. 

The romantic in me wants to believe that, despite James' reset, a ghost of his PP subroutine survived somewhere in his operating instructions and one day he will recover the memories of his time spent with Rose and return to her. A girl can dream...

Truth be told, I never intended for Ryan and Victoria to meet face-to-face at all. The initial idea for this story was to focus on only Ryan, and how the assignment of "living with" Victoria would affect him, when she had no idea there was a real person on the other side of the hologram.  It was going to be a tragedy. But I've never liked those very much, and I suppose my muses don't either. After turning the story over and over in my head for months, imagining scenes of Ryan in a dark pod control room going about his day, the moment I started writing, the story took on a life of its own.

And I'm glad it did.