trans_9 | Morning Exercise (open)

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Morning Exercise (open)

Anwei was jumping around the Hub - literally. With firm strokes of her arms and legs, she leaped from tentacle-base to tentacle-base, circling the vast room. Her hair fluttered wildly around her head in the anti-grav field, and she was sweating a little with the exertion.

She'd kept up a running commentary to Stacy about what she was doing in the back of her throat – the same way she used to talk to Horanckk. When Stacy suggested she try the Sensoriums for exercise, though, she demurred. The idea of rooms that could take things out of her mind and make them real made her shiver.

After three complete circuits of the Hub, she came to a halt and consulted her omnicom, which had been filming the whole time. Carefully, she marked the tunnels that were never entered by passers-by, the tentacles that hung limp rather than undulating. Someday, maybe soon, she would want to see if she could get into those unused tunnels, and see what might be in there. But for now, she rolled up her denim shirt and tied it to a tentacle with some blue string (making extra certain that all the pockets were sealed), marked out a large triangle on the wall with that same string, and began something that looked like dancing.

It was not dancing. It was drill for free-fall unarmed combat. Her arms and legs moved in long coordinated scything motions, her fingers grabbing and clawing at imaginary opponents (she was not grabbing with her toes because of the binding material of her plantsuit). In her ears she remembered her drill instructor bellowing as it criticized every falter and hesitation. She deliberately did not think of her first dance instructor and his tiny, cutting whip.

When she drifted out into the flow of traffic, she used her tie-line to move back against the wall and start again. It would be pretty obvious to anyone watching that she was doing some sort of structured exercise.

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Alex bit at his lip, which was starting to dry out again from being constantly abused as such. "Th-that w-would be nice. I-I'm sure sh-she'd f-feel better about that, b-but we n-need ta make sure the r-right bits of h-her gets fixed s-so the n-nicer personality i-is still the d-dominant." It would be a nightmare if the jailer overrode the other half of her.

She was pretty sensitive to lip-biting; her own teeth were sharp enough that if she didn't do it very carefully she'd draw blood. "Wish I could offer you some Chapstick. Great stuff, Chapstick. I don't seem to have been brought here with any though."

"What we need to do," Anwei laced her fingers together at the back of her neck and bowed her head backwards, staring up at Stacy's tentacled ceiling, "what we need to do is help her personality to strengthen and to move apart - to separate - at the same time. So that each part feels that it isn't being threatened by the other part getting stronger. The nastier bits can go do nasty things - there are places for such AI's, or confine her to one Sensorium and let her play with dolls in there - and Stacy can go where she pleases."

Alex rubbed the back of his leg with his shoelaces, thinking about what Anwei was saying. Clearly she had a lot more experience than he did when it came to dealing with sentient AIs. He knew plenty about their development and learning techniques, but he was as bad with AI personality as he was with human ones.

He smiled thankfully when she offered Chapstick, but instead of saying anything about that or about that particular bit of Stacy he asked, "d-do you think y-you c-could help me? W-with Stacy I mean?"

"Id be happy to give you any advice I can," she said. "The problem will be...well, I mentioned my best friend, the AI? He and I were very close, and he knows a lot more about AI's than I do obviously. So there are things that I never learned by heart, because he was always there, remembering for me." She felt a tiny pinch of pain inside, and willed it away. That was just her wishing very, very hard for Horanckk to be here, right now. "But I'll help in any way I can, Alex. Stacy's good is good for all of us, now."

Alex smiled. "Th-thanks. I-I did a l-lot of AI w-work in my h-home world. I loved c-creating game AIs, and I i-integrated them i-in my s-security hardware. I c-combined them with l-loops that would t-turn an attacker on themselves t-ta c-create one o-of the m-most d-difficult to c-crack software systems, b-but I've n-never once w-worked with a s-sentient AI. I-I'm sure anything you c-could help with will be wonderful." He bit his lip noticing the flicker of a shadow, and gently put his hand on her shoulder.

"I-I'm s-sure your f-friend would be g-glad to know he w-was helping in a w-way too."

She nodded. "I see why Tracy brought you here. That sort of skillset is invaluable. In fact, it makes me wonder if she brought you here for war...or for herself. It would be - interesting to see how much control she has over who is pulled out of their reality by the Divine Threads, or however it works."

Anwei put her fingertips to his hand on her shoulder. "Oh, he is always a help, even when he isn't here. I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for him. And I have to remember that he was multi-instanced, many copies of himself spread between multiple ships in multiple dimensions. So I can - I will find him. He is out there. And if I can't find him, I am certain that he will find me."

Alex smiled, both at the idea that he might have been taken to help Stacy rather than help fight and that he had managed to not jump at her touch. It helped that it was only a small one, but it was still a large improvement.

"Y-you seem c-close ta him. I-I'm sure that y-you'll find him e-eventually. H-he might even b-be asleep s-somewhere in S-Stacy's c-code. I-it's also n-nice to think that S-Stacy might n-not have brought me h-here expecting me t-ta fight."

"I intend to scour Tracy's code - in the cleaning way, not in the painful rasping way," (although she might be up for some rasping eventually) "until I either confirm that he is there, or that Tracy's codebase is a safe stable environment that he can move himself into without hesitation."

"And for every soldier on the field, there are three or five or twenty sentients off the field: moving supplies, calculating usage, getting transit approvals and just holding peoples' hands when they are scared. The big people with shiny weapons get all the attention, but without the back-end support they'd be like a knife without a hilt: all edge and no way to move it. I think all your fighting will be in here," and she tapped her own forehead.

Alex pulled his laptop a bit closer again, smiling with a hint of pride. "I-I've always l-left the m-more up front th-things to Mikel a-an' Loretta, I guess..." But he was the one that got them in, and that made sure the cameras didn't catch the two when they didn't want to be caught.

"I-I've never been g-good with limelight a-anyway."

"I've sometimes felt that the limelight just makes it easier for people to shoot at you," she replied wryly.

"So, are any of your friends here - besides Alice? Your Mikel or Loretta?"

Alex frowned a bit and shook his head, looking down. "N-no. I h-haven't s-seen any of them y-yet." Right now, he would even hug Amanda if he saw her. They had never gotten along, but he had an understanding with her, that she didn't want to be as mean as she came off sometimes. Just a familiar old face would be welcomed.

"Well, maybe they're down in the pods." She quickly riffled through her own memories, and realized that - well, besides Horanckk, there really weren't a lot of people she was pining to see. And there were a number of people that she was not pining for. But that probably wasn't normal for a lot of people. "I guess that you - that we - will have to keep waiting."

"I h-hope so. I-it was h-hard without them a-at first. B-but the D-Doctor an' K-Katara h-helped me g-get along a lot." He would have been lost if they hadn't reached out to him. He had made great strides emotionally since he got here. He had slowly realized that at home he had stagnated. He and his friends were more focused on the causes of the problem and stopping them from hurting others to realize that they actually could work on their own problems. That there was a chance to heal. Then again, being away from his father was also doing wonders. As long as he didn't come into the picture, or someone like him, he would probably continue growing.

"Yes, I can tell already I'm going to need all the help I can get." She was very, very used to having the support structure of a large intergalactic mercenary fleet to work with, not to mention Horanckk. "But since so many people here have gone through the same thing, I feel pretty sure that I can get it."

"Is the Doctor the same one as Doctor Henderson - the one who's helping you with your medical issues?"

Alex shook his head. "Doctor Henderson's S-Sam. The Doctor is... The D-Doctor. That's his a-actual name."

She might not have a whole mercenary fleet, but the ship was pretty close, if less cohesive. "Th-there's a lot of p-people willing ta h-help."

Anwei was used to people who had different names based on how old they were, what they were wearing, or their fertility cycles - in a strange way she was more prepared than some for a place where people wore masks and assumed other identities.

"I hope I can help back. No matter what, it does seem that Stacy has saved me - saved us - from certain death. I certainly owe her for that. And helping her passengers is helping her as well."

Alex really wouldn't know how to handle explaining the Doctor's name any more than he had, so it was probably fortunate for him that Anwei was familiar with such a thing.

"I-I'm sure you'll be able t-ta find something. A-an' I'm sure you'll be w-welcome with open arms in Engineering. I-if you'd like I c-could show you the way?"

"Thanks, Alex. I'd appreciate that." With a quick whisper to Stacy, Anwei was lifted up to the wall, where she retrieved her string and her denim shirt. She dropped toes-first to land beside him, her shirt fluttering from her hand like a flag.

"Lead the way!"

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Morning Exercise (open)

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I think we're getting close to ending this thread

OK, I'll see you soon