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Quinn felt mildly confused about Kira. The woman had hurt him deeply. He respected her obvious pride, and once they’d reached an easy truce, he started feeling a bit more at ease. He felt terrified of letting people in. People either left him, by choice or force, or betrayed him. Underneath the layers of rough Irish accent and sarcasm was just a lonely kid who’d been hurt so often he hid himself underneath a layer of surly anger just to keep people away.
He wouldn’t admit it, but he wanted a friend. So when Kira had laughed at his attempt at being polite, it had felt like a betrayal. His natural response was to curl in on himself, covering himself in spikes, to keep everyone at bay. Yet here remained that woman, against all odds, getting through his spikes and, well... he wasn’t actually sure if she felt sorry for what she did. Nor could he even guess what she was trying to do now. So the next note she got from him was simple and to the point. One word, with punctuation, “Why?”
He did not get one back at lunch, but when dinner came around, he found a sheet of paper tucked up under a bar of chocolate. “The Vicar taught me that there is always more than meets the eye to everyone. I think there’s more to you, too.”
He didn’t reply, besides his normal thank you, for several long days. He could think on several things at once, but he pushed off his thoughts about her choosing to keep her intentions unknown. Then, one evening, her communicator clicked on, and Watson and Kira both found themselves on the line.
“I’m sending a few sets of rough schematics for a drone body. This one will have a quantum computer core capable of housing Watson’s entire consciousness if required, but it can also be piloted as a primary body. Let me know which one you would like, and what features you want me to include.
The line clicked dead and both of them received an alert that of a rather large data package being transferred. Quinn included a variety of options. Simply put it was essentially a build your own body kit. He included options for polymer skin with haptic feedback. This gave Watson the option of having a full human android shell. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, getting his body back, but it would mean he could feel and act like a man again.
He found a full cake with his dinner which Kira had attempted to ice with the words ‘thank you’. Kira’s attempt to present a clear message shown in the smudges of icing smeared across the top. Quinn could guess just how many times she had erased the words and began again.
It won her quite a few points. Mostly because one of his few fond memories was a lab assistant sneaking a slice in on his “birthday.” The nice young woman had been a lab assistant, and she’d been celebrating her own. Quinn had asked about the colorful birthday hat she’d been wearing and she’d explained birthdays to him. When he’d informed her he did not have one, she left, got him a piece of cake, and told him he could share hers.
The cake had tasted good, but the display of humanity had kept the memory.
She’d been terminated once they analyzed his stool and found abnormal sugar levels.
People with more power than the singular kind soul took what humanity was freely given away.
When he uncovered a note inviting him to an actual meal, he simply didn’t respond. Two days later, Kira’s communicator dinged again. This time there were no words, just an alphanumeric string which he knew she could deduce was the new access code for the door of the Callistar. Going into the station would be too much for him, but he was willing to let her come back into the ship.
KIRA
This is an entire build.
Watson turned off his emoting. His voice lacked the normal inflection he usually attempted to relay- that all A.I.’s relayed in order to make their voice more personable. Kira knew he did so when he didn’t want to display how he felt.
The schematics were splashed across the display. The program presented the framework for building an entire android form, as if one were selecting character features from an old human style video game. It made it incredibly simple for Kira, but it was not her decision what he looked like.
“But not flesh and blood.”
It’s close. Better even, less destructible, more capable.
The emotionless nature in the way he said that made her shiver. Had he really been a part of the system that long? He didn’t have eyes in her quarters, so he couldn’t see her shake. He constantly tracked her vitals. As he did, everyone on the crew could see some synaptic feedback to reconfirm their status. But other than knowing their general location because of his tracking, he could not see her shrug, or nod, or several other more finite movements.
Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, she flipped through some options, waving her hand at some configurations for the computer to stow them for consideration. Mainly standard looks that were put together by the algorithm. She paused on one that looked akin to Morgan. Was that on purpose? The two hadn’t met each other, but he’d probably had access to his file. Her file as well, no matter how much it lacked.
“These look so real.”
This isn’t new technology, just expensive. I saw them on Praetoria. No one could tell a difference unless they ripped off an arm.
“I thought most of the higher class preferred clones?”
Some prefer these. They keep the consciousness in a small disk that they insert into the spine. It is heavily protected, and almost impossible to destroy. Therefore, it is safer and has less risk of mental degradation.
A tightness blossomed. Life was meant to be lived and felt. A program simulating life made her nervous. Pinpointing the exact reason was impossible. Beneath all those gears and mechanizations was a consciousness, but how much existed from the original?
It will be like flesh and blood still and operate the same.
Watson took advantage of the silence. Kira looked up at the ceiling, tossing a small ball into the void, allowing it to rise and fall. The sound of the ball smacking her hand carrying.
Kira…?
“Hmm?”
Say something. Please.
