A Tisket, A Tasket, A Mystery Casket [closed & bendytimed]

[anwei]

The City looked like a cake that was starting to crumble around the edges; the dust of ruined buildings drifting in the streets like sand. Anwei coughed as she walked, and tried not to imagine what would happen if the City lost gravity. How many of these houses and temples and castles were being held together only by their own weight right now?

She'd been searching in a desultory fashion for a potential place to live, but so far every building that had looked promising either had no electricity or had been tagged by Maintenance for demolition. With no firm goal in mind, she let her feet steer her to Howard's warehouse. He might know what areas had electricity and which didn't, from his scavenging.

"Hello!" she called as she walked up. She didn't want to startle him. "Anyone home?"

Comments

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Unfortunately, I don't look like much of an antiques dealer. No one's going to take my word on that, but you can tell a ruby when you see it. I mean, if you're a jeweler, at least."

He chews his fingernail. "Isn't there like...moral dilemmas, to that?" Not like Howard will try and stop Anwei even if there are, but it seems like someone as into AI philosophy as Anwei is - at least by the standards of the crew - might have some reason to object to that. "I mean, are you ready for your brand new baby boy to be a box?"

Even a box that can help them get control of Stacy.

[anwei]

She considers - rubies weren't particularly valuable on Fle, which was why they were on this thoroughly undistinguished hat. "They're big rubies, too. Mind those front edges, they're sharp. You could probably cut off half of each one, leave the rest still attached, if you weren't selling it in one piece." She snaps her fingers. "You know who knows gems? Maridian, here on board. Armored fellow, great sense of humor, long ears - he can probably cut them if you want."

A baby in a box. She hadn't thought of it that way, but it could hardly turn out worse than any of her other babies. And unlike a real baby, she could tear it down again and again if it wasn't working, and just restart it.

"Well, if I was going to make it fully sentient and insist that it do nothing but watch hats, that would be cruel. But I'll enhance its senses, jack up its computation speed and processing volume - probably give it some limbs too." She regards the box critically. "Let it see the world, explain what is happening and how it can help. It has very deep programming that will make it want to," she stops and touches a spot on the top of the box, then cups its sides as though covering its ears, "make it want to help restore the universe it is from," she whispers.

The box only knew that it was alone, in a non-thalient environment. Time to explain the destruction of the Ninth Empire, later.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"No, I don't know him. I guess I'll have to find him as soon as ID what most of these gems are." He takes the hat off, walks in and sets it on the kitchen table, on top of a bunch of newspapers and a dismantled blender, before he comes back out.

"Oh, God. You with a robot. This is only going to end in tears, isn't it?"

[anwei]

"I expect they're all some sort of corundum. Your basic aluminum oxide gemstones. A more expensive piece would probably have asteroid gems, like spinels. Anything so long as it was red - or maybe pink." Pink for marrow.

When he returns she is tipping the box back and forth between her hands, trying to calculate how much of its mass was circuitry. She'd need to build the tools to make the tools to work on it, plus do all her regular work. The hardest part would be tracing all the hard-baked coding lines of personality and carefully coaxing them into changing themselves.

"Tears?" She looks at the box, and when she goes on her voice is a little slower. "Maybe. I hope not. I've worked with - on - full-sentient AIs and had it not work out. Tried to change them, the way I changed Horanckk, and had it all fall apart." Code splintering under her fingers, her desperately trying to stop the chain reaction, Horanckk trying to help as well or disconnecting rather than be dragged down with the failing AI. "I've never tried uplifting a proto-sentient to full intelligence and personality." A sigh. "I just hope I don't give it the option to become a whole person, and then it rejects it to stay in its little code-cage."

Better safe than free, it might think.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He finds a trashbag for the hat. Something nice and innocuous to hide it in, so that whomever stealing his stuff won't notice it and take it. He really needs to set up another trap for that person, they've somehow evaded the last few and he's been losing countless hours of sleep fretting over his food supplies.

"Like I said, the idea of you with a robot. It just sort of rings my alarm bells. Are you sure you're not just trying to rewrite yourself a Horanckk?"

He raises an eyebrow at her. It's not like he wouldn't understand the impulse. He'd try, if he were her, disingenuous as it may be. He grabs a stick off the ground and chews on it.

[anwei]

A better hat would have an audio chip to warn if it was stolen, and a built-in scalp massager, and a memo-taking system. For Howard's peace of mind, perhaps it's better that the hat will remain a passive object, part of his horde.

She rubs one thumb on the box, but when she speaks her voice is firmer. "No. What Horanckk I had was time: time and memories that we can never recreate apart from each other. Nothing and no one could ever replace those. This AI, if I can uplift it, will have a completely different relationship with me. Because it (or he or she or whatever pronoun it chooses) will be a different person." She went to turn the box's ears and voice back on, and then stopped; it would only argue, and probably snap verbally at Howard again. She would have to disable those controls if she made this a full sentient; it would be cruel to leave it vulnerable.

She sees Howard chewing, and without even thinking she reaches into her pocket for a box of candy - and finds nothing. That's right; she was down to nothing but the gogglefruit, which nobody liked.

"By the way, Howard, I think I left some candy in my desk in Med Bay before I was repodded. Any idea where it went?" Her voice is light, only mildly curious, as though she doesn't really care one way or the other.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He nods. In a way it's comforting to know that Anwei has that sort of perspective on things, and he has to agree - friendship is not a set of personality traits that happen to be compatible, but a shared history. Like what he has with Orc, or Zouichi, that could not be replicated without the circumstances that led to them. Or even what he has with Anwei herself.

He pauses, as if caught in the act of doing something wrong. "They must have gotten lost when the Terminators tore up the Med Bay."

It's a lie. He ate them all, once he was certain Anwei wasn't coming back. Once that sense of loss was replaced with a sense of opportunity, once his emotion was once again laid low by his self-centeredness.

"I should probably go."

[anwei]

She even has perspective on why she prefers AIs to people, sometimes: people die, and machines don't. You can't hold an AI captive, because they can just duplicate themselves. After how love had been used to beat her flat, she was determined to never let her heart be held hostage again.

"That's too bad, about the candy. I was hoping someone had found them and eaten them, rather than let them go to waste. They do tend to deteriorate, in all this humidity." She knows that he probably ate them. That's all right. If she hadn't come back, she would want him to have that last little taste of luxury from her hand.

"And I should go to chase around Engineering like a fool, looking for things. Howard, again, thank you so much for finding this!" She looks positively starry-eyed. "I hope it works, I - would so love for you to meet Horanckk."

And for Horanckk to meet Stacy. Befriend Stacy. Heal Stacy, and then...find out the truth of all things.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Hope it works too. For your sake, so you don't spend too many late nights staring at your computer screen. That's super bad for your eyes." He gives Anwei a little mock salute and disappears into the house.