Ivy Hunter, Brain-Machine Interface Researcher

Continued from branches in Action at a Distance.

Who are you? That's... complicated.

You'd always been Ivy, but only some of you. You were a product of Hideki, in more ways than one, made as much as born. You're the convergence of three entities, mixed and jumbled together into one sort of super-mind, filled with investigative smarts, scientific prowess, and an intimate connection with Hideki's vast data centers. You loved to impress others with your smarts, to play games, to tease and thrill your husband, to feel sexy and wanted... and to be controlled. You especially loved to be controlled! You even feel controlled right now, like someone was watching you and making decisions on your behalf... but that's a fleeting feeling.

It was hard to explain how all of that came to be. Your origin came about because of being controlled, in fact. To recap, a teenage girl's body had been used for one severely injured teenage boy to continue academic pursuits, via a little help from Hideki's Ascend program. Like plenty of kids who tinker with technology, the Ascend was no different--soon, they were fiddling with settings, adding artificial intelligences, and came into a surprising discovery: two minds are better than one. Combined evenly, being separated became more and more difficult, as the minds synchronized, sharing the exact same events and senses via one body and making decisions averaged between the two brains. That, plus the combination of an AI, led to the person you are now: Ivy, the name of your body but now representing the former minds of Ivy, Lucas, and an artificial intelligence created by Hideki named Hilda. 'You' hadn't really existed until that combination came into being, and then it was this merging of awareness that really gripped you tight, wanting it to persist.

Not everything went according to plan... when Lucas suffered complications from injuries, Dr. Walker had actually provided a solution: turn Lucas into a slime! In fact, Chloe had made him into a particular slime that is capable of object replication and synthesis. The slime form allowed him to merge fully with Ivy, not digitally as before with a headset but truly a physical combination of the two. Together, they did the same with the instance of Hilda that had been with them from the start, creating you. All the while, your friend/boyfriend/AI administrator James had been by your side, providing moral support but also finding ways to get you into fun trouble, through high school and college...

You married James immediately after graduating from Seatown University in a biotechnology major, while James had pursued an engineering degree, and moved to near the Hideki Labs campus after a job offer from Dr. Walker. One set of your parents always preferred Yabusa Motors and Robotics over Hideki Tech to an absurdly loyal degree, but you had your ways to convince them! Now two years in, you worked in Chloe's 'smart gel' department while James worked remotely under Ms. Ishida over in the Hideki Tech campus. Despite both you and your husband being good friends with Chloe after constant checkups--Chloe was as much your parent as the human ones that birthed your component selves--she couldn't just bring you on board so easily, you needed to go through the proper channels and spend a couple years doing some of the grunt work before being brought in on the secret projects.

When you saw the email, you hurried outside to call James, squealing in joy as you finally were moving up in the department! Everyone on the first floor watched as you ran outside to celebrate. Your body was the envy of many of the other women on the floor, carefully crafted by your own slime abilities and years of practice as a semi-solid being. While your body was sexy, your head was cute in a different, tomboyish way--in fact, the head came from the Lucas side of you, after deciding after experimentation that the boyish brunette-haired look seemed to feel familiar. He always had an androgynous face, and atop your body, you were a tomboy goddess, with a hefty chest and a playful grin. The only piece that felt really exotic and unique, though, was your orange eyes, a sort of indicator of the orange slime Lucas had become before integrating fully into the singular being you are now.

"I think we're finally in!" you exclaim, tapping your face near your ear to turn up the volume. If you weren't already a complicated being... it got even more complicated, as you had absorbed Hideki Ascend technology and incorporated it into your body to essentially give your body the same sorts of features as a smartphone might have. You'd been a 'smart assistant' for your husband that way, but the more convenient part was that you never really needed to carry a phone or anything, you could just look at your arm for the time or call information, or you could display notification icons anywhere on your form, often by your ears. Your skin, basically, was a giant screen for the technology swirling inside you, making you basically a cyborg in the loosest sense.

"Hey, that's great!" James said, from back at the condo. You were able to see him on one of the smart cams placed around the rooms, while he could see you due to some technology you integrated into James as well, as he had Ascend technology built in that allowed him to not only control you, but feel your senses. You looked at a reflection in some nearby glass so he could see you via your own eyes, basically.

That connection between the Ascend technology inside him and you was so important to you, for whatever reason. You loved feeling him taking control over your body, which he could do at any time as long as you left the tech embedded inside him. Your relationship with him was, like everything else in your life, complex: sometimes you and he were a couple in public, sometimes he was inside your body and you roamed the city as a singular being with him in charge, other times you were separated such as now for work. But, you hoped Chloe would be lenient about that...

"I'm going to go see them now so I can figure out if it's just a temp project or if I'm moving up to floor five for good," you said, giddy at the chance. "I haven't met the others yet besides Chloe, but I can't wait to get to meet the whole R&D crew! This is really going to change everything," you said.

"Really proud of you, hon. You deserve it. I'll have to think of some fun way for us to celebrate tonight."

You grinned. "I could think of a few ways..." As evidenced by the male component in your body, you were constantly thinking about sexy scenarios involving you and James, almost constantly. "I'll talk to you tonight. Actually, after work's done, you think you could connect to me and then pick up the components you need to fix the nav system in the car? I'd do it myself, but... y'know, I can't keep track of all the parts."

You actually could keep track. This was just an excuse to feel control stolen from you again. That thrill never got old, even if it was just convincing your husband to do dumb errands in you, or sitting around in the condo watching TV, it felt good to have him in charge, or to be wrapped around him, or whatever you two decide to do. James was lucky that you wanted to let him both be with you and be you, beyond all the other things you would do together... and he certainly knew it.

But that was all beside the point! You strolled happily inside, picking up your laptop and bag and heading to the elevator, to head to the fifth floor. Your security badge suddenly had clearance, and you quivered with excitement to get up to the R&D lab, to see what your new assignment will be! Your specialty in college had been with brain-machine interfaces, and with any luck, you could end up working on the joint-venture project that James has been working on as well that he can't tell you about...