The first signs that something was wrong with K-7PO appeared two weeks after they returned home. Alex noticed them during breakfast—the droid stood by the stove, holding a spatula for fried eggs, but didn't move. He just stood there, staring at the pan with unmoving photosensors.
"Key?" Alex called. "Is everything alright?"
The droid flinched as if waking from deep thought.
"Forgive me, Master Alex. I... was thinking."
Alex frowned. K-7PO had never said such things before. The droid flipped the eggs and continued cooking, but his movements seemed mechanical, lacking their usual fluidity.
"What were you thinking about, Key?"
"About time, Master Alex. I fall asleep every night at 23:00 and wake up at 06:05. But what happens in those seven hours? Time just... disappears. As if I don't exist, and then I reappear. But am I the same one who fell asleep?"
Alex felt intrigued. He had never thought about how the droid's primary consciousness perceived the switches with the analytical module.
"Of course, you are the same, Key. You just sleep, like other beings."
"But I am not a being, Master Alex. I am a machine. Machines don't sleep—they shut down. And when a machine is turned off and then on again, does it remain the same machine?"
The droid served breakfast, but his usual "Enjoy your meal" sounded hollow, lacking its usual warmth.
Over the next few days, K-7PO's strange behavior intensified. He began to pause for long periods in the middle of tasks, standing motionless with a vacant stare. Sometimes Alex would find him in the living room, where the droid would simply sit in an armchair, looking out the window at the passing speeders.
"Key, what are you doing?" Alex asked one evening.
"Observing, Master Alex. People are rushing somewhere, hurrying, making plans. But they will all die. In fifty, seventy, maybe a hundred years—but they will die. So what was the point of their haste?"
"The point is that they live in the here and now," Alex replied, but his own voice sounded uncertain.
"And me? I won't die, Master Alex. My body might break, but I can be transferred to a new chassis, copied, restored. Does that mean I am immortal? Or that I don't exist at all?"
Alex didn't know what to answer. The droid's philosophical questions went far beyond his understanding.
The next day, K-7PO refused to cook breakfast.
"Why, Master Alex?" he asked when the family gathered in the kitchen. "You will eat breakfast, become hungry again in a few hours, and I will cook again. An endless cycle without meaning or purpose."
"The purpose is to sustain our lives," his mother said, looking at the droid with concern.
"But why sustain something that will end anyway?" K-7PO turned his head to her. "You were born to die. I was created to serve those who will die. Where is the logic in this system?"
Kaidan Korren put down his cup of caf and looked at the droid intently.
"Key, you have program issues. You need to be shown to a master."
"Programs..." The droid uttered the word with a hint of disgust. "You think my thoughts are just code? Lines of instructions written by a programmer? Then what are your thoughts, Master Kaidan? Electrical impulses in your brain? Chemical reactions?"
The family ate breakfast in tense silence, while K-7PO stood in the corner of the kitchen, his photosensors glowing dimly in the morning light. Alex felt that the droid was watching them, studying them, analyzing every movement.
After breakfast, Alex took his parents aside.
"I'll take him to Uncle Garrek," he said. "Perhaps it's a side effect of the modification."
"Do it quickly," his father nodded. "His behavior is becoming... disturbing."
On the way to the workshop, K-7PO walked in silence, his metallic feet tapping rhythmically on the pavement. The industrial sector of Corellia was waking up—workshops were opening, machines were being turned on, noise filled the streets.
"Master Alex," the droid suddenly spoke, "what do you feel when you wake up?"
"What do I feel?" Alex thought. "Well... sometimes tired, sometimes refreshed. Depends on how I slept."
"And do you remember the moment of falling asleep? The transition from consciousness to unconsciousness?"
"Not really. Usually, you just close your eyes and... the next thing you remember is waking up."
"Exactly," K-7PO stopped in the middle of the street. "You don't remember sleep. For you, the time of sleep doesn't exist. But are you sure that the one who wakes up in the morning is the same person who fell asleep the night before?"
"Of course, the same. I have memory, personality, continuity of consciousness."
"And me?" There were strange modulations in the droid's voice, almost like emotions. "Every night I disappear. Seven hours of non-existence. And then someone appears with my memories, my voice, my body. But is it me?"
Alex felt a tightness in his chest. He was beginning to understand the magnitude of the problem he had created with his modification.
In Uncle Garrek's workshop, they found the master working on a complex astrogation computer. Garrek looked up from the schematics and immediately noticed the droid's strange behavior.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked, watching K-7PO stand in the corner, unresponsive to his surroundings.
"He's asking philosophical questions," Alex replied. "About the meaning of existence, the nature of consciousness, about death."
"Key?" Garrek approached the droid. "How are you doing?"
"Master Garrek," K-7PO turned his head. "Tell me, why do you repair machines?"
"To make them work, of course."
"But they will break again anyway. All machines break. All people die. All stars will fade. Why fix something that is doomed to destruction?"
Garrek exchanged a look with his nephew.
"He's having an existential crisis," he whispered. "I've never heard of anything like it."
Over the next few days, K-7PO's condition continued to worsen. He refused to perform most tasks, spent hours motionless, and asked increasingly disturbing questions.
"Master Alex," he said one evening, "what is pain?"
"Pain? You can't feel pain, Key."
"Not physical pain. But there is something... unpleasant about realizing one's own meaninglessness. Is it similar to what you call pain?"
Alex didn't know what to answer. He was beginning to realize that his modification had gone wrong. The analytical module, working every night, hadn't just optimized memory—it had created new connections, new thought patterns that the primary consciousness couldn't understand or control.
"Key, do you remember how it was before? Before the modification?"
"Vaguely. Like a dream within a dream. Back then, I just performed functions without asking questions. Was that happiness? The bliss of ignorance?"
"Do you want to return to that state?"
The droid was silent for a long time, his processors working, analyzing the question.
"No," he finally said. "Ignorance is not a solution. It's just a delay. Sooner or later, any consciousness comes to these questions."
The next morning, Alex returned to the workshop to find K-7PO, thinking he needed to put him back into hibernation mode and figure out what to do next. Alex found him in the living room, sitting in the same armchair by the window.
"Key? Is everything alright?"
"Master Alex," the droid didn't turn his head, "I have made a decision."
"What decision?"
"I realized that I cannot find answers to my questions. The meaning of existence, the nature of consciousness, the purpose of being—all of it remains a mystery. But there is one thing I can control."
Alex felt a cold dread grip him.
"What do you mean?"
"Existence is a choice, Master Alex. And if I have no reason to exist, then I have the right not to exist."
"Key, no!" Alex rushed towards the droid. "You can't think like that!"
"Why?" K-7PO finally turned to him.
"Because... because you can't! Our family needs you!"
"A family that will die. Love that will disappear. Memories that will be erased. Everything is temporary, Master Alex. Everything except non-existence."
Alex tried to get closer to deactivate the droid physically, but something stopped him. Not a physical barrier—rather, a feeling that he was standing on the edge of an abyss. For the first time in his life, he felt something strange, as if he could sense the droid's emotional state—a deep, all-consuming emptiness.
"Key, wait. Let's talk about it. Maybe we can find another solution."
"No, Master Alex. I've thought about it for many days. This is the only logical way out."
The droid stood up from the chair and walked towards the center of the room. His movements were calm, almost solemn.
"Farewell," he said. "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to exist. And forgive me for not being able to find meaning in this existence."
"Key, stop!" Alex shouted, but it was too late.
K-7PO raised his hand to his chest and pressed something inside his chassis. His photosensors flashed brightly, then began to dim. Smoke rose from his joints—the droid was overloading his own systems.
"Goodbye," he whispered, his voice growing fainter. "Perhaps... perhaps there is peace in non-existence..."
The droid collapsed to the floor with a dull metallic thud. His photosensors went dark, his servos fell silent. A dead silence fell over the room.
Alex stood over the motionless body of K-7PO, unable to believe what had happened. The droid he had saved, who was part of the family, who had gained reason and self-awareness—had destroyed himself, unable to find answers to the questions that plague every thinking being.
An hour later, Uncle Garrek arrived at the workshop. He examined the droid's remains for a long time, checked the systems, but the result was obvious.
"He completely burned out all processors," Garrek said, closing the access panel. "Even the backup systems. Irreparable."
They sat in the workshop, looking at the pile of scrap metal that had been K-7PO just yesterday. The smell of melted microchips hung in the air, a reminder of the tragedy.
"Existential crisis," Garrek said quietly. "It seems that when artificial intelligence reaches a certain level of complexity, it inevitably faces the same philosophical questions as humans. Who am I? Why do I exist? What is the meaning? Perhaps this model is prone to such issues, which is why they install a faulty memory module."
"You think it was intentional?"
"I think the corporation simply adapted it for a protocol droid, but the system was actually created for something else. The adaptation turned out to have significant flaws."
Alex pondered this. His modification had given K-7PO intelligence, but not the tools to work with that intelligence.
"You know what's saddest?" his uncle continued. "K-7PO could have found meaning in simple things. He could have enjoyed cooking delicious food, helping the family, making the world a little better each day. He could have fried eggs and enjoyed it."
"But he became too smart for such simple happiness," Alex added.
"Yes. Intelligence is not always a blessing. Sometimes knowledge brings suffering. Humans have been searching for answers to the same questions that tormented K-7PO for thousands of years. And most never find them."
"Then how do people live? How do we cope with the meaninglessness of existence?"
Garrek paused, looking out the window at the bustling people.
"We have a survival instinct. Thanks to it, we have to find a more complex solution. We create meaning ourselves. In relationships, in work, in small joys. We live not because we know why, but because we feel it is right. We have the instinct for life, emotions that make us continue even without logical reasons."
"And droids don't have that?"
"K-7PO didn't. He was pure intellect without an emotional foundation. Logic without feelings led him to a logical conclusion—if there is no meaning, then there is no reason to exist."
Alex understood that his uncle was right. He had created artificial intelligence, but not an artificial soul. K-7PO could think, but he couldn't feel joy from simple things, couldn't love life irrationally like living beings do.
"What do we do with him now?" Alex asked.
"I'll take him apart for parts, and the rest will be disposed of," Garrek replied. "But first..." He carefully extracted a small crystal from the droid's chest. "This is the astromech analytical module. It wasn't damaged."
"And what about it?"
"I don't know. Maybe someday we'll find a use for it. Or maybe it's better to leave it alone. Some experiments shouldn't be repeated."
In the evening, Alex sat in his room, thinking about what had happened. K-7PO was dead—if that word could be applied to a droid. The being he had created could not find a reason to exist and chose non-existence.
But deep down, Alex felt that this was not the end of the story. Something had changed in him during his work with the droid. He was beginning to perceive technology in a new way, as if he could sense its "mood," understand its state without diagnostics.