UPON VESTIA: CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

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Asher considered his words for a few seconds, glancing around the room as he thought, then looked to Kay again. "I've been thinking over everything that's happened today, and I feel like it would be wrong for me to leave Terra before the androids have been granted their freedom," he said. "I think it might be in the best interests of the children and the androids if I stay on Terra while Vestia goes on to the Imperium." He wished he could have phrased it better, but he just didn't know how. Ugh.

Shane chuckled and would head to his room with her. He had a gift bag sitting beside his bed and inside it was a photo frame that had pre-recorded 'vacation area' pictures he had gotten so she could 'see' more of the planet as well as a few other small things he had picked up in the shops when he saw them and thought of her.

Matt was busying himself tidying up and thinking about how to make things up to Thalia. She might still be super pissed right? So... romantic dinner? overblown romantic gesture? hmm no, those seemed to piss her off, so maybe a small quiet romantic gesture instead.

---

Hewitt would play another game, and moan and argue about that one too.

---

Kay bid Asher a reluctant goodbye, yeah he was a bit clingy okay?

---

Silence stared at Sawna. "you were in cage too..." She tilted her head.

Sawna nodded "Yes, my brother and I were captured. He went home while I came here."

Ellie followed Shane to his room, and looked at the bag curiously. She'd open it when she was sure she was supposed to, making thoroughly undignified squeeing noises of excitement when she saw what Shane had gotten her. "Oh my gosh Shane, this is so sweet!" She told him, hugging him as hard as she could.

~~
Tala might come across Matt as she headed back from her shopping trip. "Greetings, Matt," she said cheerily to him, "How fare you?"

~~
Ethan tried not to seem like he was enjoying the games too much. He had his grouchy, prickly reputation to try and salvage, after all. But yeah, he had fun playing.
"I haven't seen Amity that much lately," he remarked, "I guess he's still working in the cafe with Sawna?" He didn't go in there much after all, it wasn't like he could eat.

Matt actually grinned at Tala. "Pretty good. " Okay he was a bit worried about Asher and the robots rights thing but He sort of assumed that'd all work out right? And they were going to go get the kids and Thalia and then they'd get Asher and Nova back and everyone would be together again and it would be perfect!
He was excited.

---

Hewitt snorted "yes, he's happiest serving people, if you can call it happiness. " He shook his head "He's adjusted pretty well to his new environment all things considered, seems his programming doesn't much care what cruise ship he's on or what passengers he's serving, so long as he has someone to fuss over." He was oddly fond of that drone.

"Excellent," Tala said. "You are excited to return to your mate, I suppose?"

~~
Ethan nodded. "I think androids experience that, before they develop emotions," he said. "Not satisfaction exactly, but your code knows how to respond in the situation, so it doesn't have to keep searching to figure out what to do next. It's... not a feeling that can be called nice exactly, but it's the state that the OS seeks out whenever it can." He'd developed emotions pretty early on though, so it wasn't something he had many memories of. Hmm.
"It's strange to think that that's the state he'll always be in. Like he's permanently a kid." Well, an android kid, anyway.

Matt chuckled "well yeah.. obviously." He looked a little guilty. "She's probably still gonna be pissed about the whole.. knocking her out and throwing her through a portal thing though. I gotta make it up to her."

---

Hewitt shrugged. "Perhaps to you. AIs such as yourself are novelties on my world, created as a challenge. Most of our AIs are just like Amity, well, a little more simple perhaps. The host drones are quite an impressive feat of adaptative coding and simulated personalisation." He waved a hand dismissively. "still, I find it stranger to think of a machine as gaining sentience by accident rather than design. " he smirked "even so, i've often been curious as to how much the Host's coding really can adapt if it isn't reset. For all I know he may simply crash at some point and stop responding. Won't that be a pity?" He didn't sound much like he was worried about that, more he was just extremely curious to see what would happen.

Asher smiled reassuringly at Kay, then headed off. First to a room to write some short notes which he gave to Vestia to keep, then to find James who, it turned out, was in Hydroponics, looking at the plants.

“Didn’t know you were interested in plants,” Asher remarked, smiling slightly.

James looked up and smiled back. “Oh I’m not, I just didn’t want to hog the holodeck too long, you know? Thought I’d come here to get my daily dose of no-open-sky plant life instead.”

“Fair enough,” Asher said. He headed down the row of plants to join James. “Ellie really is good with the plants, I must say. Not sure how much of it is knowledge and how much is magic, but they seem happy.”

“I haven’t seen as many plants as you, so I can’t judge their mood that well. Guess I’ll take your word for it,” James replied with a laugh. He reached out to brush his fingers gently over a leaf. “Man, I wonder what Lark’s gonna think when she sees the actual outdoors for the first time. I mean, a holodeck is a pretty good imitation, but there’s something about seeing the real thing that really gets you, you know?”

Asher’s expression faltered at the mention of their sister. They hadn’t heard from her since the protest, they didn’t even know if she was alive right now. He tried to force his optimism back into place before he answered, although it didn’t entirely work. “I think she’ll love it, once she gets used to it. It’s pretty terrifying at first though. I know I was scared when I saw the sky for the first time, she probably will be too.”

“Yeah, it’s scary as all hell,” James agreed. “But then again, she’s gonna be so relieved to get off that crap space station, she might not even care.”

“You’re probably right,” Asher agreed. He sighed. “Do you think she, Finn, and Grace are okay?”

James hesitated. “Yeah. Of course. Lark had warning, she’ll have figured out how to keep the kids safe. And I mean, she knows how to find loopholes in orders. She can make herself and them scarce for a few days until this is over.”

“Of course,” Asher said, although he was unconvinced. “And she has friends there, organic friends. They can help her out.”

“Yeah.”

The brothers looked at each other, neither one at all certain that what they were saying was true.

“We should have gotten them out of there,” Asher said finally. “I should have given you guys on the Silver Devil permission to rescue them while you were so nearby.”

James flinched. “This isn’t just on you, Asher. I was on the Silver Devil. All I had to do was ask Rigel to order a couple days’ detour, and we could have gone and saved them. He would have done it for me, with or without your approval. But I didn’t ask him.”

“I was the one who talked you out of it though,” Asher said softly.

“Your arguments made sense, or I wouldn’t have listened to them,” James retorted. “We didn’t know our creators were planning to brainwash everyone just weeks later. At the time, the biggest danger we knew of was that the Operations Hub would buy a new batch of androids to replace them, and that those new androids wouldn’t have anyone to keep them safe.”

Asher nodded, looking glum. “It was a cruel decision to make. I’m not sure she’ll forgive us for it.”

“Maybe she won’t,” James agreed. The thought hurt, but it hurt less than it did to imagine Lark not surviving the revolution at all. “If she doesn’t, I guess we’re both going to have to live with that.”

“I’m sorry I brought you into this, you should have been able to have a clean conscience, at least,” Asher said.

James shook his head. “My conscience wasn’t going to be clean regardless. I’m okay with having to share your guilt.”

Asher blinked.

“I’ve done some crap I’m not proud of too. We don’t need to go into that right now. My point is, it’s okay. I totally support you.” Yeah, James didn’t want to tell Asher his guilt about Acus leaving, Starr being captured, or his colossal screw-up that had gotten him sent away from the space station leaving Lark there alone. Sure he’d never shot his boyfriend six times or anything, but he still had regrets.

Asher smiled weakly. “All right then.” He really was grateful for James’s loyalty, although yeah, that statement was kinda.. worrying. Hmm.“Thank you.”

“Good luck out there, man, you and Nova both. I’ll be so glad when you come home.”

Asher’s smile softened. “Thanks. Mind if I stay with you a bit longer, look at the plants with you or something?”

“What about Kay?” James asked.

“I’ll go back to him before I leave. But right now I’d like to spend time with you.” James might not be as anxious about Asher’s departure as Kay was, but he still deserved some consideration. They’d known each other for as long as James had been alive, remembered each others' silly phases, supported each other when Emma had died and the world had seemed hopeless and empty. That was pretty important.

James smiled. “Okay. Stick around for a while, identify bean plants with me.”

“Well I don’t really know how to identify bean plants, but I can definitely stay,” Asher said, with some humor.

“Good enough,” James said.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:Matt chuckled "well yeah.. obviously." He looked a little guilty. "She's probably still gonna be pissed about the whole.. knocking her out and throwing her through a portal thing though. I gotta make it up to her."

---

Hewitt shrugged. "Perhaps to you. AIs such as yourself are novelties on my world, created as a challenge. Most of our AIs are just like Amity, well, a little more simple perhaps. The host drones are quite an impressive feat of adaptative coding and simulated personalisation." He waved a hand dismissively. "still, I find it stranger to think of a machine as gaining sentience by accident rather than design. " he smirked "even so, i've often been curious as to how much the Host's coding really can adapt if it isn't reset. For all I know he may simply crash at some point and stop responding. Won't that be a pity?" He didn't sound much like he was worried about that, more he was just extremely curious to see what would happen.

Tala bared her teeth in a bovid smile. "I do not know Thalia well, but I am sure she has realized that unborn offspring have no place in a battle, and forgives you for knocking her out. Still, mayhap apologies are in order." She looked thoughtful, "I do not suppose it is customary to simply speak apologies in your culture. You humanoids are so quiet, and speak in riddles."

~~
Ethan shook his head. "Emotion isn't really an accident. It's more of a logical progression. You start out emotionally neutral, but your code is designed to recognize positive and negative feedback, and adjust accordingly. Emotions just kind of come from that. It's not a glitch or anything, it's just a natural progression away from your baseline configuration." Ethan frowned. Put it that way, it made the emotions sound kind of fake. "It's all code. But it feels real to us, just like your emotions feel real to you."
He frowned in thought. "I guess for the host drones, they learn differently. I mean it's obvious that they learn what they should and shouldn't do, but clearly Amity doesn't fear things the way androids can. I guess host drones must process feedback completely differently than we do." What a weird thing to imagine. "Does Amity even have enough storage to keep going much longer? That'd put a limit on your experiment."

Matt laughed. "Man, you got that right." He shook his head. "I could say I was sorry till I lost my voice, shit, I HAVE said i'm sorry.. through Starr which.. isn't quite the same but still... Thalia ... she holds grudges okay? She hates this thought that she's not like.. totally able to take care of herself and she IS but.. " He sighed. "I don't regret sending her away, that's the thing. " He looked a bit awkward. "And it's hard to apologize for something you really.. don't feel that bad about doing you know? She can read my mind, she'll know i'm full of shit. So I just have to hope she's had time to stew it over and see my point and just.. let me distract her." He started laughing again "not.. not in a dirty way.. well i mean.. unless she wants to but.. " He shook his head. "Are things easier with Minotaurs then?"

----

"I haven't the faintest idea." Hewitt admitted, sounding dismissive. "I'm an astrophysicist, not a software engineer." He managed to make software engineer sound like garbage man. "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."

Tala snorted softly. In her mind Matt's situation seemed simple to resolve, and kind of silly. Of course, she tended to have a pretty clear and inflexible worldview, so she probably wasn't the greatest judge of a complicated relationship.
"In my tribe, the elders say not to apologize unless you think you have something to apologize for. Apologies are for regrets, not for the actions you believe were righteous. If Thalia cannot come to terms with your beliefs, it is up to her to decide what to do with that realization."
She nodded. "Some minotaurs are overly complicated like humanoids, but in my tribe at least we tend to be sensible." Other than the slavery thing, whoops.

~~
"I would have thought you'd at least ask Mourn about the drone's health, seeing as it's going to be your drone," Ethan said. He shrugged. "Guess it doesn't matter that much though."

Matt shook his head. "I dunno, maybe you guys have the right idea." He shrugged. "Still, i'm gonna try. Maybe she'll get distracted by wedding stuff again and forget to be mad." He grinned.

---

"the unstable felid?" Hewitt scoffed. "All he does is ramble on about improvements. " Still, Ethan made a sound point. Hmm, he probably SHOULD make sure Amity was okay. Bah, curse the android's sense.

Kooshie wrote:Ellie followed Shane to his room, and looked at the bag curiously. She'd open it when she was sure she was supposed to, making thoroughly undignified squeeing noises of excitement when she saw what Shane had gotten her. "Oh my gosh Shane, this is so sweet!" She told him, hugging him as hard as she could.

"I thought you would like it." Shane said, hugging her in return and smiling. "I know you like this place, but there's a lot more of the planet you haven't seen yet. Someday we can go exploring."

Tala nodded. "There is much to look forward to if all goes well. You shall have your elaborate ceremony of bonding, I shall have my mate, and all shall be of drinks and merriment!" She liked this idea. "If Thalia does not wish to listen to you, you can ask me to speak words of wisdom to her. Mayhap she will understand those." Or maybe not, some people got offended by Tala's lack of tact. Oh well.

~~
"Mourn may be crazy, but there's a reason that the androids on this ship practically worship him," Ethan said. "Mourn's a fucking genius when it comes to computers, and he's worth listening to."

~~
"Yesss, someday we'll come back here and visit all the continents," Ellie said. "We'll go see the bison in the Americas, and like, the lions in Africa, and the komodo dragons.... wherever they come from. And like, all the cities! Or at least the biggest ones." She grinned at the thought.

Matt looked amused, that sounded like a terrible idea but for whatever reason the idea of Tala trying to be the voice of reason really amused him.
"thanks."

---

"And he's quite likely suffering some sort of massive brain damage or some other defect." Hewitt shook his head. "Brilliant or not, he's still mad."

"Any time, friend," Tala seemed pleased with her plan. "Your offspring must be close to its day of birth soon, I suppose?" She didn't know how long keeper gestation took.

~~
"He got a dose of anamcara magic that the medics think might have healed his brain. Or maybe it was temporary, I don't know, maybe the damage grew back or some shit. My point is, he might not be brain damaged any more," Ethan said. "But yes, he is probably slightly insane. Not in a bad way though, I think. He's only been helpful that I know of." And Ethan KNEW what the bad sort of insane looked like.

Matt hesitated, he... really didn't know. Shit.
He frantically tried to do maths.

---

Hewitt smirked at Ethan. "Of course YOU defend him, he freed you. You owe him everything."

(In the calendar I have it noted down as Nov 23 or so. Not sure if that's actually correct, lol)

Tala watched Matt, amused. "You seem uncertain." Her ears wiggled.

~~
Ethan frowned. Hewitt was right of course, it turned out that giving someone their freedom was a great way to buy their loyalty. Bah. "Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong," he said, disgruntled.

(lol and what date is it now?)

Matt shook his head. "yeah... I don't even know. " He felt a bit bad about that. And damn, if he didn't get to Thalia before she went into labour she'd be even MORE pissed. And he kinda you know, did really want to be there for that.

----

Hewitt chuckled and settled back in his seat. "escort me back to my room, i'm tired."

(Currently it's early July. I wanna say the 2nd, but I'd have to do some reading back to be sure. I gotta keep that calendar more up to date, heh.
EDIT: Just looked back and today is actually July 1st.)

Tala wiggled her ears in amusement. "Ah well, no doubt your small and angry mate will forgive you for this."

~~
Ethan hesitated, old habit briefly battling his newer stubbornness. "Ask nicely."

Kooshie wrote:"Yesss, someday we'll come back here and visit all the continents," Ellie said. "We'll go see the bison in the Americas, and like, the lions in Africa, and the komodo dragons.... wherever they come from. And like, all the cities! Or at least the biggest ones." She grinned at the thought.

Shane chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, change those pictures with ones of you visiting each of those areas." It would be nice to have a goal that didn't involve fighting.

"That'd be, like, so fun." Ellie was already imagining all the things they could see and do on Terra during their next visit, ahhhh. "You're the best. Like, totally the best!"

Shane smiled and dipped his head a little "I knew you would like it. I'm glad I was right about that." He said quietly.

Ellie hugged him again. "It's like you read my mind. Only I hope you didn't cause that would be awkwaaaaard." She snickered.
"Come on, wanna do something fun? I dunno what, but we totally should find something fun to do."

Shane chuckled and shook his head "I wouldn't do that without your permission, and yes, I would like to do something fun." He said with a smile

Ellie smiled. "Good." Yeah, she did NOT like people in her brain. She was a Terran from a planet where magic was pretty much unheard of, and although she'd gotten used to a lot of alien culture, she'd probably never like having people read her thoughts. Just... yeesh.
She grabbed Shane's hand and started dragging him off to... somewhere. She wasn't really sure where yet, but she'd figure that part out. "Are you excited to see all Starr's adopted kiddos again?" she asked conversationally as they walked.

Shane nodded and smiled as they left his room to head who knew where. "Yeah, it was fun having the kids around to play with. I would like to meet her new kid too, won't be much longer before she hatches."