A sense of self

Elsewhere on the ship, at the same time as Dustin was talking to Aricia, Defia closed the door to her own quarters with care and glanced at her latest art work. Behind it, the table was covered in almost-finished pieces; beautiful and nearly photographic reproductions of things she had seen. The current image on the easel showed a tiny Lievira child holding out a flower, capturing the moment she had received a gift from one of the locals before their departure. Defia had preserved the flower - it now hung in a suspended animation chamber on the desk. She wasn’t sure why she’d gone to such lengths to keep it - it had just seemed the correct thing to do.

She… didn’t worry about what she was planning for today. She lacked the emotion. But she did run a diagnostic scan in the event that there was some system corruption due to her continued integration with the biological cluster - crew - of the ship. The results, like the past seventeen times she had run it since they had arrived at the Lieviran planet were conclusively negative. All systems were functioning fine, and she was ready for the next stage of her ongoing biological compatibility project.

“Statement. All systems are functional, deactivation circuit is prepared and set for fifteen seconds after initiation, full system purge of contaminants primed to function immediately on compatibility deactivation.” She said, largely to herself, then picked up the recorder that Rye had loaned her - without the Rabyth asking why or what she had needed it for, the Fractal noted with interest. Setting the device carefully to capture the bed, she activated it before sitting on the edge of her largely unused sleeping space. “Statement. Unit Defia external record data entry seven. I am maintaining this log in the event of catastrophic memory failure caused by unforeseen issues with the experiment protocols. My construction of the biological analogue routes is now ninety-nine point five three eight six percent complete, within acceptable parameters for testing.”

She paused, planning out her next steps before continuing “current experiment involving synthetic reproduction of hormonal cocktail present in the majority of female-bodied crew-members. Pathways for uptake and neuron adjustment based on chemical flow have been finalized. Intent of experiment - feel emotions. Emotional activation will be for fifteen seconds, followed by a full system purge of the biological analogues for further analysis and refinement.”

Reaching the end of the plan, she tilted her head to one side. “Statement. Activating analogue-synthesis… now. Analogues detected. No significant changes detec… Addendum, core temperature rising… negative, core temperature is stable, perception of core temperature is rising. I…” Her red eyes suddenly opened very wide. “Statement…” she panted, pupils expanding and contracting rapidly as she rubbed her legs together, the friction somehow helping as sensations washed over her like a tidal wave. “I… I… I…” her body seized, before slumping back; between her legs her artificial sex was pulsing so hard electricity arced from it to the frame of her bed.

Fifteen seconds after activation her body jerked upright, eyes snapping back into focus as a clear liquid dripped from one hand into a container placed by the bed for precisely that purpose. “Statement.” She said shakily, wiping her mouth where she’d drooled during the ordeal with her free hand. “Current levels of hormones significantly too high. Core process was overwhelmed with lower systems demanding the creation of additional units, nerve-cluster sensitivity in lower torso did not actively increase but reported efficiency raised by six hundred percent. Addendum. I need to speak with Bleu to find out how biological units handle their hormones without spending all day attempting to engage in additional unit production.”

It took the rogue Fractal some time to get all of her systems back in working order, even without the artificial hormones messing with her perception; as soon as she could stand, she made her way down towards the medbay in search of the Queri medic. Bleu was busy reviewing Aricia’s latest scans as Defia entered; seeing the look in the Fractal woman’s eyes she cleared her screen and leaned forward in her chair.

Defia didn’t wait for a polite greeting, instead launching straight into her request. “Statement. Attempted hormonal simulations overwhelmed multiple fail-safes. Request additional information or support with ongoing personal project.” Bleu raised an eyebrow as the Fractal began laying out her experiments to date, as well as her long term goals - a body that could fully match those of her biological crewmates. Given the fixation on hormones and nerve endings, the slime woman eventually raised a hand to interrupt.

“Why?” She paused, debating how to phrase the matter before continuing. “What I mean is, why do you want to be able to have your processes linked to hormonal analogues?” Defia looked at her blankly for a moment, before the Fractal replied. “Statement. I am… unsure. I wish to be able to experience emotion for the purpose of creating art. The strongest emotion on display on board the vessel amongst the senior crew is lust, followed by anger and joy. Internal simulations indicate that anger would be dangerous to use as an initial test-bed for emotional response. Research into biological life resulted in a conclusion that joy was hard to artificially generate consistently for testing purposes. Thus, lust remains as the most viable choice. Addendum. There are multiple units with varying degrees of lust to compare myself to.”

Bleu sighed; she couldn’t fault the woman’s logic, weird as it was. “Alright. But really, you tried this on your own? Without any real input from me or the others? This is gonna need a whole team to get right… Here, plug yourself in to this tablet and download a breakdown of what you’ve done so far, I’m going to call a few of the other ladies to help out.”

As Defia did her best to translate her internal processes, results and findings into a primitive enough format that the tablet could understand them, Bleu pulled up ship-wide comms on her terminal and pinged a number of the others. “While we wait for them to get here, we should discuss your long term hopes. Do you want to be able to turn your emotions on and off at will?” She said, the medic working to query and catalogue Defia’s hopes and dreams as she typed.

Of the summoned women, Emely arrived first, bounding into the room like a whirlwind. “Defia wants to have emotions?” She asked, grabbing one of the tablets that Bleu had transferred Defia’s data onto and scanning it rapidly. “Not sure how much help I’ll be, but I’m here if you need me bubbles.”

Defia stood in her default idle position, moving her chest a carefully calibrated amount to not freak out the others in the room. Bleu had previously indicated that she didn’t care, and would quite regularly forget to breathe herself when it was just the two of them - but with Emely present it was important to maintain a state outside of what the fox girl had once described as “creepy robot valley”. It didn’t take much additional processing to do - but she was still glad when Rye and Trea’k walked in and the project could really get underway.

“Ya want my input?” Rye said after the group had been discussing things for a while. “What ya need to do is stop trying to do a one-to-one model from the start. Humans, Rabyth, Velca, we’re all built the way you’re trying to simulate - but we get years, very messy years at that to get used to how our bodies function. Dunno what it’s like for you Vex’ess, Trea’k?”

The insect woman inclined her head as she replied, hands resting on her abdomen. “I cannot speak for the hybrid children of envoys, but within a hive, until our first evolution it is quite messy, yes. The evolution provides us with the genetic memory of our new form, but part of the time we spend in our cocoon is to integrate that memory with our own.”

Rye grinned and turned back to Defia. “So, ya see, what ya gotta do is build up to it like we learn to do. Start real small - so small ya can barely notice it, and then ramp up gradually.” She tapped her finger on the diagrams Defia had provided. “Also, don’t fully flood your central processing cluster. Bubbles will tell ya, we don’t have all our hormones at max levels all of the time all over our brains, blood movement and stuff keeps it turning, right?”

Bleu nodded thoughtfully. “In most organic life, yes - hormones are a balancing act. Your initial design is also missing a few other hormones from the mix that I’d expect to see - there’s no cortisol production for example. I think you are both overloading your systems as Rye says, and also not loading them enough at the same time.”

The team continued their discussions on and off for most of the rest of the day, only calling a halt when Emely pointed out that it was nearly time for them to get to the ready room for the evening meal with Dustin, and those members of the senior staff not present. As she stood to lead the way there, the Feliax woman turned to look at Defia with a friendly smile. “Do you want us to tell sir about this? It’s kind of private, isn’t it?”

Defia paused, her eyes flickering as she considered. “Statement. I… The correct course of action is to inform the prime unit of adjustments to the cluster but… I do not wish to inform him yet. Query-request - is my prioritization of privacy in error?” The others shook their heads, Rye going so far as to pat the Fractal gently on the back.

“Ya got every right to want to be private about this stuff, Defia. For what it’s worth, Dusty’ll probably understand - he was understanding with me and Emmz and our weirdness, not to mention the rest of us.” Trea’k and Bleu smiled at that, nodding along as the bunny girl continued “but it’s your own body and mind that ya have us helping to mess with. As long as it doesn’t risk you or the ship, it’s cool.”

Defia stood stock still for a moment, processing the other woman’s insight before nodding, largely to herself. “Statement. I lack the emotions to feel appreciation - however, I have a eighty-seven point three percent prediction that I should feel appreciation for all your support in this endeavour. Addendum. I do not calculate my chance of success alone after the previous experimental failures to be higher than twenty-four percent; your assistance will have a significant contribution to my achieving the desired outcome.” As the Fractal fell silent, the others looked at one another, before Emely giggled. “Lesson one for once we’ve got you emotions” the Feliax said, one of her sly grins flickering momentarily across her face. “You can just say ‘thanks’ without it being an essay.”