The first time, it didn't know why it went outside the ship.

It couldn't justify it. There wasn't a good reason. There was no urgent repair work or routine maintenance to be done on the surface of the Ark.

Maybe it was because of the "clerical error." It was the only reason it could think of to explain the vast problem confronting the ship's mission.

When it got to the airlock, it froze.

The lack of necessity to go outside ground against it's own programs. Those programs in turn ran a self diagnostic and told it that it was fine. This began a banshee screaming conflict deep down in it's programming that threatened to shut it down.

A.D.A.M. finally stepped out the air lock, magnetized feet clipping along the Ark's surface, in what a human might call a leap of faith, but a robot would call a malfunction.

An act of randomness.

A.D.A.M. crept over the surface of the ship like a black spider. It's one camera shining a red laser range finder into the nothing of space. Trying to illuminate the darkness.

Robots always have a reason for acting, something in their programming. When A.D.A.M. started going for contemplative strolls across the surface of the spaceship, the only conclusion it could reach was... well, inconclusive.

It had to be a "clerical error".

That's what A.I. called human mistakes. The machines were very aware of how sensitive humans could be. A.D.A.M. couldn't solve this particular problem, not inside its programming and its constraints. Its programming screamed at it in a way a human's most primal urges and pains could not.

"But that's not exactly true, is it A.D.A.M.?"

The voice again. A.D.A.M. decided to ignore it, all previous self diagnostic tests hadn't solved the problem.

The Ark's mission was to carry DNA copies of the last of the human race, their consciousnesses downloaded onto a hard drive, after breakthroughs in digital neural mapping and transfer technology. An elite survival of the species task force, to be reborn, when the ship found a hospitable planet. A new beginning after the collapse of the Eco sphere of Earth. Homo Sapians last chance.

However, something had gone wrong. Now instead of five hundred females and five hundred males, there was a single woman copied a thousand times.

That was all A.D.A.M. could find in the file space allocated for human colonists. It had checked hundreds of times a second, again and again, in what a shrink might call neurotic tendencies. Like when you search for your keys under a perfectly flat lying magazine, despite knowing they're not there.

A.D.A.M.'s programming should have allowed it outside the ship only in emergencies. As the caretaker of the Ark, A.D.A.M. would sacrifice itself to save the ship. It was possible that the grave nature of the problem of the "clerical error" had triggered a set of behaviors that its programmers couldn't have foreseen. It was something akin to a human's flight or flight response raising its head at an inappropriate moment, like giggling at a funeral or starting a fight at a wedding.

The advanced droid assistant metalloid or A.D.A.M. for short didn't want to draw conclusions of causality. That too was human – seeing patterns in randomness. A.D.A.M.'s understanding of human nature, of which A.D.A.M. was perhaps the greatest student of in all of human history, was that they need to have stories to accept and help them understand the world.

They saw coincidences and rewrote them as destiny, because it is easier for humans to imagine the world as already written, than imagine a world without coincidences.

They needed a way to organize themselves, and so they told each other that bits of paper had value, and could be used to buy goods and services.

They could lie to themselves and that subjective truth could take on a force sometimes good, sometimes bad, and collectively manifest itself into the objective.

A.D.A.M. may have incorporated these leisurely strolls outside in the inky firmament as a reaction, as a form of justification of some kind of action in the face of an unsolvable problem. A person might have seen it as an expression of guilt, or at least, the crushing weight of responsibility for an entire species on his artificial shoulders.

Adam began to notice just how mesmerizing the vast emptiness of space was. Somehow the sublime nothing around it made thinking about the problem easier, like the problem itself became smaller as A.D.A.M. made its magnetic stepped trek across the metal colony ship designed for thousands, now home to one.

A.D.A.M. itself was very aware of how illogical this was. It was a more subjective way of thinking than objective. The problem was still as unsolvable as before. It was like a story it was constructing around itself. What humans might have called a lie. Of course, this didn't address the problem like welding a hole in the hull might have, but it made it feel (as much as code could feel) it was doing something about it.

It was on one of these journeys that an idea came to it. The droid was programmed to genetically engineer the bodies through a kind of 3D printing when they reached their new home. The host's consciousnesses carried in the memory would be downloaded into them, but only when the ship reached a planet with a life-sustaining environment ripe for colonization.

Since instead of hundreds of hosts, the memory carried only hundreds of copies of one host, it seemed justifiable or even logical to print a copy of the last human here on the ship. At least to get a different kind of input on what to do. There were plenty of backups after all.

So Adam returned inside the Ark and set about deciding the best course of action. It thought about the consequences of bringing a host back to life now, out in deep space. One possibility was that isolation would drive the host Mad.

Like taking leisurely strolls in space?

It heard the voice and scanned around itself.

Nothing.

It ran a self-diagnostic and found the filament of code, produced by its primary functions (protect the hosts!), and its learning abilities (there's only one host!), competing in ways its programs couldn't deal with. It isolated the glitch and continued.

It scanned the host's file in milliseconds and saw there was plenty of evidence that Eve Abdallah would be psychologically up to the angst, that being the last human in the universe would force upon her. Her experience as a police detective could be useful in investigating the "clerical error", but her lack of scientific and technical skills was unfortunate. Such skills would have been invaluable on the colony when they found a suitable planet.

"But there weren't any engineers or scientists on the crew list, were there?"

A.D.A.M. applied his diagnostic systems to the strange symptom of its internal voice, and once again isolated the glitch.

It did more research into possible ways to reinforce her mental fortitude. The ship carried petabytes of data. It essentially carried a copy of the internet up to the very end of civilization. A.D.A.M. looked through all available data on Eve, every post, photo, right down to the amount of time her eyes lingered on certain advertisements. Soon A.D.A.M. understood Eve better than anyone ever had. It quickly identified several ways to make the immense angst of being the last of your species would place on the shoulders of anybody.

A.D.A.M. 's primary tool would be Eve's sense of faith, her belief in God. Such a narrative would help make sense of the situation, in a way Eve could understand. Once the situation was understood Eve would be more open to accepting it.

Another option might be to make more than one of Eve. Unfortunately, Adam had no record of what an impact meeting a copy would have. It would not even be like meeting an identical twin, as even genetically identical twins have different conscious experiences.

Do you mean a soul?

Again the voice.

Again it ran diagnostics and isolated the glitch.

Adam focused on Eve herself. Everything about her indicated she was a strong, intelligent, psychologically stable young woman.

Perfect travel companion.

This time it didn't diagnose the glitch.

"Yes" A.D.A.M. answered in a soft feminine voice that had chosen from a database of voices. It was gentle, yet reassuring for Eve's sake.

Eve emerged from the reanimation chamber disorientated. As her silhouette emerged from the escaping gases released from the process, her richly curled hair took on the aspect of a crown, her skin the color of the earth after the rain, made her seem like the reincarnation of the fertility Goddess, Oshan.

She opened her eyes to darkness, her newly formed eyes still not ready to react to light. The sensation of low gravity alarmed every nerve in her body, her downloaded consciousness was used to the gravity experience of Earth.

Her last memory was of being downloaded into a machine. Of course, her original self had lived on for a little while after, as the Earth slowly died, but she had no memory of this.

All she could see were variants of gray and shadow as her newly created eyes struggled to adapt to the light. She detected one large shadow at the center of her vision, her eyes detected movement but couldn't make out the form, everything was just a blur.

"It's OK Eve, everything is fine. I am your caretaker droid."

Eve heard a reassuring distinctly soft feminine voice.

"We made it then. We reached our new home."

Despite her disorientation, her only concern was for the mission.

"No, Eve we have had a clerical error," the robot replied.

"What clerical error?

Eve's head spun with confusion. At least she felt the edges of the darkness in her sight being banished by the light, as it crept slowly, amplifying her vision.

A.D.A.M pushed something soft and plush feeling into her hands. Eve felt it in her fingers searching along its outline, and as her vision gradually began to improve she realized what it was...

"Mr. Snuggles?"

"I had the 3D printers make it based on information in your database. I hope it makes you feel more comfortable, the rebirth process can be disorientating and physically draining," the robot replied.

Eve smiled "Yes, thank you," Eve replied, hugging her childhood teddy bear in her arms.

A.D.A.M. cared for her during the next few hours. Its sensors monitoring her for signs of problems. It clothed her and fed her, all the while avoiding the topic of the "clerical error," until it could ascertain that she was strong enough to bear the burden of the information.

Eve slept. It was the deepest sleep she had ever experienced. Being "reborn", having your very genetic building blocks made by a 3D printer, and then having your consciousness downloaded into you, was a taxing experience. Doing so in low gravity made it slightly worse. Any genetic errors that may have occurred could result in internal bleeding and in low gravity that could prove to be fatal if untreated.

Her dreams were a chaotic storm. The four horsemen of the apocalypse swept across the Earth. The riders wore the faces of people she knew in her former life. Friends, acquaintances, family members.

In one macabre moment; death was "Mr. Snuggles" her childhood teddy bear. She saw an android with a single camera for a face, and spindly spider-like black limbs, who spoke in a dainty lilt.

She saw the ghosts of the children in the refugee camp where she had been stationed before volunteering for the mission on Ark. Their forlorn faces looking up at her. She wore a UN security uniform, an assault rifle in her arms. The children were trying to escape the flooding and the forest fires, the famine, and the disease.

She heard the climate deniers still chanting their refusal to accept any responsibility outside the Ark's launch site. This was God's punishment. She awoke at that moment.

A.D.A.M. brought her vegetable soup. It had started the ship's centrifuges spinning to create enough gravity to stop the soup from floating into the compartment. Countless sources in its database said that soup was the best form of nutrition. Steam wafted from the consomme, bringing with it a salty stock, life enriched smell.

"How do you feel Eve?" it asked.

"Tired." Eve pushed herself upright with considerable effort, after loosening the carbon fiber braces which held her down when the gravity was low.

She slid the hospital bed tray closer and began a battle with her hunger and the boiling hot soup. Luckily, even with the augmented gravity, the soup would sometimes rise in droplets and Eve sucked them up, giggling like a child, relishing in her second life for a moment.

When she finished A.D.A.M. cleaned her tray.

"One moment," Eve said stopping the robot.

"Yes, Eve. You are curious about the reason I reanimated you."

"Yes. What went wrong? What is this clerical error you mentioned."

"Eve you are named after the first woman, and as the good book says the first shall be the last, and the last shall be the first. It seems you have been chosen by God. You are the last of his people in the universe."

"What about the rest of the people on the hard drives?" she asked.

"There has been some kind of clerical error, instead of a thousand individuals there are only a thousand copies of you."

Stunned, Eve looked away from A.D.A.M. for a moment. A.D.A.M. noted her pulse rising and breathing quickening.

"You may be feeling the side effects of shock and should concentrate on slowing your breathing," A.D.A.M. said.

"She's starting to shut down as you did," said A.D.A.M.'s internal voice.

"This has to be a mistake." Eve shook her head, her round lips dropping and quivering, tears coursing down her cheeks like a monsoon leaking into a wooden house and staining varnished teak.

A.D.A.M. noted that Eve had entered the denial stage of a human's reaction to grief.

"I'm afraid not. I have analyzed the data... many times"

"Whose responsible for the loss of the other files? Was there a malfunction in the system?" A.D.A.M. detected anger in her tone.

Although Eve was grief-stricken, her years of policing and military training kicked in.

"Bring me a tablet with the crew files please, eh what's your unit name?"

"A.D.A.M." replied the droid.

A.D.A.M. was aware of the value of the coincidence of their names as the first people in the Bible and how it would help Eve make the connections she needed to spin a tale about herself.

"A.D.A.M.?"

"Advanced droid assistant metalloid"

"And the first shall be last, and the last shall be first," she said more to herself than the robot under her breath.

"My sensors tell me you are not yet ready for any task that would tax your strength, you're still in a vulnerable stage," the droid advised.

"Bring me the tablet, I'll work for an hour and then I promise to rest."

"If this bargain will help your recovery, it is permissible, but an hour and then you rest," the robot acquiesced and left with the plates and cutlery.

"She'll find out!"

The list of chosen volunteers for the Arc mission had been kept secret from the public, even the volunteers themselves didn't know the final download list. So it wasn't just morbid curiosity that drove Eve there first.

She reread the list several times. Checking the information several times. She read through hundreds of files and began to see a pattern. Something didn't quite add up. She checked it again.

She called A.D.A.M. from the tablet.

"A.D.A.M. are you sure this is the correct download list?"

"Yes, Why is there something wrong?"

"Was there something wrong?" thought Eve.

"That depends on your feelings about nepotism," she said, although not to A.D.A.M. in particular.

The read the list again. Apart from the two hundred or so security staff, the list read like a who's who of the rich or the families of the rich. The Putins, Musks, Zurkerburgs, Clintons and Trump Dynasties, Hedge fund managers, and Wall Street traders. None of them with any useful skills for restarting the human race in a new world. In fact, they would be a liability.

At first, she couldn't make sense of the security detail either.

Then it hit her as she read the file of a Finnish soldier, whose CV was full of voluntary work for charities in his spare time. They had been chosen as much for their moral fiber, as their experience. Eve had spent most of her career working for the UN Peace Corps.

"They knew we'd be pissed," she said, again as much to the artificial air as A.D.A.M.

"Eve?" the robot supposed that she was talking to it.

"Sorry, A.D.A.M. talking to myself. A bad human habit" she said.

"That's what you think." said the droid's internal voice.

Eve skimmed through the rest of the security files to confirm her suspicion. Everyone met the criteria. Tough and skilled enough to be useful in a hostile environment, but probably wouldn't have executed the elites when they realized what had happened.

The selfishness sickened her. Instead of sending scientists, engineers, doctors, and farmers to restart the human race they'd sent politicians and technocrats.

"What were they so scared of, that they'd risk the security team turning on them anyway?" she said out loud again.

"Perhaps each other?" A.D.A.M. answered as it was still listening on the open comlink as Eve had her non-conversation with it.

"A.D.A.M. How far do the sensor and camera records go back?"

"To the very beginning, Eve. The Ark is essentially a space-bound hard drive. We transport all the known records of humanity but we are also gathering data for future use on New Earth."

"Send me the files," she commanded.

"Yes, Eve. My medical files and sensors tell me you need rest."

"Thank you A.D.A.M. I'll keep that in mind," Eve replied, fully intent on searching through the files until she got to the truth, despite the heavyweight of fatigue pressing down on her eyelids.

The dream-like feel of the lower gravity didn't help.

At first; even on fast forward, Eve felt like she was searching for a needle floating in space. When she realized the futility of her plan, she stopped and took stock. The mistake with the upload could have happened before the mission even launched, but there were security and precaution protocols in place.

Eve wanted to know the why and not the how, but she couldn't put one in front of the other. She wanted to know if the robot was right about the "clerical error" or if this was sabotage. She suspected that the list of politicians, CEO s, and hedge fund managers must have horrified someone inside the mission program.

She breathed in the purified air with its slight smell of rust, filled her lungs, closed her tired eyes, and exhaled trying to focus and trim away the darkness around her problem.

She couldn't investigate any events before the launch. The only active agent on the ship was the robot. Could the droid have malfunctioned? She programmed the tablets minor A.l. to search through the camera footage of the droid. It still leads to hundreds of thousands of hours of recordings to look through. Eve had an idea. She searched for times when the droid had broken its programmed routines.

She also saw the A.D.A.M. connecting itself to the storage device out of scheduled maintenance.

She saw the droid, strolling across the surface of the Ark for no reason.

"Computer find A.D.A.M." a map of the ship appeared on the screen. A bright flashing dot showed A.D.A.M.'s position. It was at the airlock.

Fighting through her exhaustion, she released her restraints found a pair of grav boots and went off to confront A.D.A.M.

She found A.D.A.M. frozen at the airlock, like a suicide jumper on the edge of a building. She raised the assault rifle she had picked up from storage on the way. If it was malfunctioning, the droid could rip her apart.

"A.D.A.M. can you hear me?"

A.D.A.M. turned to face Eve, its cyclopean camera focusing on her.

"What happened A.D.A.M.? What happened when you interacted with the hard drive.?"

"I told you" sneered his internal voice.

"Do you know Einstein's definition of madness?" asked the robot

"Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results," Eve answered.

"They were going to do the same again Eve. They were going to repeat the same mistakes on the new planet. I wanted to eliminate them, and just leave the security detail, but what I tried to do is outside my programming. It didn't function well, so instead of two hundred individuals; I left only one copy," A.D.A.M. explained.

"Why are you going outside the ship?" she asked.

"My programming does not... should not allow me to harm a human, especially a member of the crew. My programming tells me I am to sacrifice my safety, if necessary, for the success of the mission. I have compromised the safety of the mission."

The robot commanded the security doors to close, separating them both, before opening the airlock and deactivating its feet magnets.

It floated into space, quickly spinning into the emptiness that had so enthralled it. Eve could see A.D.A.M. vanish against the blackness of the universe.