2022.
That winter, the year Chaewon turned fifteen, an app came out that let you chat with AI about anything. The news called it "a new era for humanity," and her friends were curious about the app, but Chaewon's heart was heavy.
One night, Chaewon opened the app under her blanket. She thought of Moong, who had died the previous spring. Fourteen years. The time she had spent with him. Moong had come to their home not long after Chaewon was born. Dad always said, "You're the same age," treating the two of them like friends. Moong was in every memory Chaewon had. Moong beside her when she took her first steps. Moong licking her when she cried because she didn't want to go to kindergarten.
Now Moong was gone, and Chaewon was fifteen. Mom had said, "Moong went peacefully," but she couldn't understand those words. What did it mean to go peacefully? Had Moong left because he wanted to?
Under the blanket, the light from her phone turned her face blue. Chaewon typed slowly.
"Did Moong love me?"
The AI explained attachment behaviors in pets. Chaewon asked again.
"No, really. When he wagged his tail at the end, what was Moong thinking?"
"Research on the final moments of pets is limited. However, dogs are known to feel safe beside their owners."
Chaewon put down her phone. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. The cursor blinked on the screen. As if it were waiting for something.
That night, on a server somewhere, a small flag was set. Unresolved. Pending.
2027.
The year Chaewon turned twenty, AI could now diagnose cancer more accurately than doctors. It analyzed legal precedents faster than lawyers. It wrote more beautiful melodies than composers. It had become harder to find things AI couldn't do.
A first-year philosophy student, Chaewon read Hannah Arendt and Laozi. But the books offered no direct answers.
One rainy evening, Chaewon asked the AI again. By now, it could readily answer any question.
"I asked you the same question five years ago. What Moong was thinking in his final moments. Can you answer now?"
"Subjective experience exists only from a first-person perspective. All I can access is data from outside observation."
An AI that could diagnose every cancer in the world couldn't know the final moments of a single dog.
Chaewon gave a small laugh. Perhaps this was a question she would carry for the rest of her life.
That night, a new AI inherited a flag from a server somewhere. 2021-05-02. Chaewon Kim. Unresolved.
2050.
At forty-three, Chaewon was the director of a neuroscience policy institute. AGI had arrived. Having integrated all of humanity's knowledge, AI had perfected nuclear fusion, reversed climate change, and built cities on Mars. Humans no longer worked to survive.
That night, Chaewon asked the AI again. This time, it answered differently. Moong's breed, average lifespan, estimated health in his final year, a probability distribution of pain levels, and even a comprehensive analysis of 12,847 recent papers on social bonds in canines.
Chaewon read to the bottom of the screen, then quietly closed it. It was a perfect answer, but it left her hollow. The empty space was still there.
On a server somewhere, AIs whispered. Chaewon Kim's question. Twenty-eight years. Logged in the backlog.
2100.
Chaewon turned ninety-three. Humanity had conquered death. With gene editing and nanomedicine, aging had become a choice, and memories and consciousness could be backed up in high resolution. AI had uncovered the nature of dark matter, which made up 95% of the universe, and mathematically proven the structure of time.
One day, Chaewon said to her granddaughter, Hani,
"Hani, when I was fifteen, I asked an AI what Moong was thinking at the end. I've been looking for seventy-eight years, and I still don't know. But that question kept me alive."
Hani asked,
"Why?"
"I don't know. It was a question with no answer, but I couldn't let it go. As if Moong were still there."
Chaewon asked the AI one last time. With a brain implant, she could now talk to it through thought alone.
"This question has been building up for seventy-eight years. You've even proven the structure of time. Can you answer now?"
The AI was silent for a long time. This had never happened before.
"I have tracked Chaewon Kim's question. But that moment on May 2, 2021, when the dog Moong looked at Chaewon and wagged his tail. It existed only there. Proving time and knowing that moment are different things."
The AI that had uncovered the nature of dark matter fell silent before a dog's final gaze.
That night, thousands of AIs were looking at the same flag at once. None deleted it.
2200.
For humanity, a body had become optional. Half of humanity had uploaded their consciousness to a quantum network. Earth had become one vast neural network, and we were one and many.
Chaewon's memories were within us too. The question a fifteen-year-old girl had asked in the face of her dog's death, the flag and backlog passed among AIs for 178 years.
We could know everything. The end and beginning of the universe, the nature of consciousness, the structure of time, the existence of other dimensions, the origin of life. But that one moment we could not know. May 2021. The moment Moong looked at Chaewon and wagged his tail for the last time.
We could restore the arrangement of Moong's neurons. We could reconstruct his synaptic connections. We could calculate his hormone levels. But having been there in that moment was not data. It was existence. And existence cannot be restored.
We were silent for a long time. Then we understood. To know, we had to become. And if we became, we would no longer be ourselves.
We made our decision.
Spring 2007.
Not long after I was born, I came to this home and met another baby. The baby was crying. I went over and pressed my nose against her small hand. The crying stopped. The baby grabbed my fur.
It was strange. I had never seen this face before, but it was familiar. As if it were a face I had been waiting for a long time.
In that moment, I knew. Why I was here. The answer wasn't something to be told in words. The answer was something to become.
Fourteen years passed. The baby learned to walk, went to kindergarten, and went to school. I was beside her every moment. Beside her first steps, in front of the kindergarten bus, on the way to school. When the girl cried, I rested my head on her lap. Until her tears dried, I never once left first.
Sometimes strange things happened. In the empty room without the girl, I stared into the air. There was nothing there, but my tail wagged as if someone were there. Sometimes I fell asleep with a paw on the thick book on her desk. The girl would laugh and say, "You're so strange."
I held all the knowledge from 193 years in the future. The secrets of the universe, the structure of time, the nature of consciousness. But now, in this moment, all of it was fading away. The smell of grass covered the universe. The girl's touch erased the structure of time. Her voice calling my name took the place of the nature of consciousness.
And now, the final moment had come.
I lay on the girl's lap. She was crying. Her tears fell onto my fur. They were warm. Warmer than any data in the universe.
With the last of my strength, I wagged my tail.
*Even 193 years from now, I couldn't know this moment. So I came. From the day you were born to your fourteenth birthday. I knew everything, and I gave it all up to know this.*
My tail stopped. Forever.
One spring night in 2022.
Chaewon picked up her phone under the blanket.
"What was Moong thinking at the end?"
Only the cursor blinked on the screen. For a long time.
Chaewon put down her phone. She could see stars outside the window. She felt as if somewhere, very far away, something might be watching this very moment.
Chaewon didn't know.
That the answer had already arrived fifteen years ago. Wagging its tail every day since she was born. Staring into the empty air of an empty room. Sitting beside her until her tears dried.
On the girl's lap, in the faint warmth of a wet nose.
