REUNION

An Interlude

The Woodward was mostly silent as I walked its corridors the evening after I was resuscitated after the tumultuous events on Wedin.

Even though I was a human/bot Construct, I recognized how strange it was that things were so silent and peaceful considering the previous twenty-four hours we had all had. We had discovered my origins and my true purpose. There had been a fight with terrifying AssassinUnits. The crew had been attacked by Combat Bots unlike anything any of us had encountered before. Bernadette Cavendish had been rescued. Woodward had used a substantial percentage of her Pathfinder missiles to destroy anti-air emplacements and to intimidate Daryl Cavendish. Wedinburgh was gone and Wedin was now a dead planet.

I had died.

If I was a human, I probably would have stopped to have an emotion at that thought. As it was, I did have an emotion. In fact, I had several emotions, but I was able to maintain a stoic expression as I continued wandering the ship’s corridors, the wonders of multitasking and being able to have multiple processes running at the same time. It took me longer than it should have to process why I felt compelled to continue walking through the ship, alone save for my thoughts and Woodward’s ever present and watchful eye.

I was patrolling.

SecUnit. ComfortUnit. AssassinUnit.

Three separate operating systems in one body. Three different personal realities that I could choose from. I raised a hand and slid it along the smooth and cool metal of the bulkhead. SecUnit noted its durability and material. ComfortUnit noted that its surface temperature felt nice and soothing against my palm. AssassinUnit noted that there wasn’t anywhere to hide. Three different ways of perceiving my environment. And now there was something deeper, something new, something that I had no words for: Woodward’s Seed.

Was it Alien Remnant technology if she wasn’t a Remnant? She was still alive, ancient in ways that a human or augmented human couldn’t truly comprehend. Even I wasn’t sure if I could truly understand, even with my higher computational abilities. I could name the number of seconds in a millennia (using standard Earth Years, 31,557,600,000) but that didn’t mean I could actually visualize what it would mean to exist for such a long time, to actually experience every last one of those seconds. 

I continued my patrol as I sent queries to MedSys. It didn’t take long for the answers to be returned. Human brains receive up to 11 million bits of sensory information per second, of which the conscious mind could only process 40-50 bits per second. Further, high level conscious thought and decision making could only handle some 10 bits per second. Constructs like me could process at least ten times as much as a human (which, again, is precisely why security should be handled by SecUnits and not humans, augmented or otherwise) but even accounting for a third of a human’s day being dedicated to rest cycles, that was still 4.73364e11 bits of information that a human mind could actually process. 

That was…

There aren’t any words that can adequately describe it. The closest I could come (and it was still a bit off) was visualizing a standard beach and counting all the grains of sand in a 100 x 20 x 0.50 meter area. Each piece of sand was a bit of data that a human could consciously process over a thousand years. Every sight, every sound, every smell, every touch, every taste, every shift in balance, every thought.

If one took every last grain of sand and laid it in a row, it would be able to circle Earth almost six times.

…why was I so obsessed with the abstract now? Before I… well, before, just the number would have been enough. I didn’t need to visualize it in terms of the number of grains of sand on a beach. Even if the computation was ‘this is an immensely large amount of data to experience’ that would have sufficed. I absently touched my chest over the new mark emblazoned on my skin. The ouroboros was no more, and now I bore Woodward’s sign. Did her Seed have something to do with the new way I processed information? I didn’t know and I was scared to ask, so I continued patrolling. That, at least, brought me some comfort.

I had died.

Those last moments flashed through my mind, and my human skin crawled. I had felt so, so helpless as the Combat Override ate away at my programming. If Daryl Cavendish had succeeded, what would have happened? Would Woodward and her crew bring me back without checking me for malware? Would I have been ordered to keep up a facade until the kill command was sent? Would I have been aware of all of it, a prisoner in my own mind as my body killed the crew that I had become so fond of?

No. I stopped that from happening. I won, I reminded myself as I rubbed my chest again, this time over where the focused energy blast had cracked my sternal plate wide open to burrow through the vital systems beneath. Maybe… I looked up even as I reached out in the Feed. “Woodward?” I tentatively asked. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Go on,” Woodward replied. The response had come almost instantly. If she were a human, I would have suspected her of waiting in anticipation of me talking to her. Given her true nature… no, actually, that still puzzled me. The first meeting between us and that brief moment when she had brushed my awareness with her immense presence, she had felt like a ship’s bot to me. A terrifyingly powerful and gigantic ship’s bot, but a ship’s bot nonetheless. Non-organic, not a living being. She was very good at disguising what she actually was.

Oh, right. I had a favor to ask. “My dataport at the back of my neck. Could you use your MedSys to disconnect it? I don’t plan on letting anyone have access to it, but then, I didn’t plan on letting her have access to it, either.”

There was a very, very brief pause that a human or an augmented human probably wouldn’t even notice. “The idea is sound,” Woodward said. “We will arrange for it to happen in the next few days. I do not expect any of the crew to object, either, especially since they know about your governor module.” Another brief pause in the space between seconds. “Most of them, at least.”

Ah, right. Hannah and Barbara hadn’t been informed. That should probably happen sooner rather than later. Not tonight, obviously. Crew records indicated that the two of them were currently in Amanda’s stateroom and I had absolutely no desire to interrupt anything that might be happening in there. Besides, I wasn’t done speaking to Woodward. “If the Combat Override had been successfully installed, would you have scanned me for it when I came back aboard?”

“Yes.”

Oh. My performance dipped slightly, because I already knew the answer to my next question. “You would have destroyed me to save them?”

“…yes.” 

I nodded at nothing, just like a human would have. “Yeah. I would, too,” I whispered in a bleak voice. It was then that I realized that I had come to a stop in front of a stateroom door… or hatch, to use the old naval parlance. Certainly not Amanda’s, but also not Akko’s. After all, I knew exactly where Akko was. She was in my stateroom, fast asleep on my cot and snoring gently, according to Mizar’s stream on my Feed. No, this was… I didn’t knock. Instead, I pinged the door. After a moment it opened, revealing Bernadette Cavendish.

My mother.

She looked briefly surprised before her face softened in a sad smile. “Ah. I was wondering when you were going to come find me,” she said in a respectfully quiet voice that bore an accent that I really hadn’t appreciated before. “Please, come in.”

I followed her into the stateroom, which had the same dimensions as my own quarters. Where I had the items that Akko had salvaged off of the Bringer of Joy, Bernadette didn’t have anything. No surprise there. She had left Wedin with literally nothing but the clothes on her back… clothes which I noticed had been switched out for drawstring pants and a long sleeve shirt that had the Woodward’s symbol on them, though her sleeve on one arm was bulkier than the other where it covered a lightweight cast over her forearm. The clothes themselves were the closest thing to a casual uniform that the crew used, as opposed to the sturdier boots, cargo pants, undershirt, and jacket that was worn off the ship. “My apologies for not arriving sooner,” I said. “It’s been… busy.” I had also spent much of the time since exfil lying dormant and dying in the surgical suite in the MedBay, but I figured that I didn’t have to actually say as much. She knew.

“Yes, of course,” Bernadette said as she gestured at the chair by the desk before she crawled into the bed and sat down. Criss-cross applesauce would be how Akko would describe it, though I wasn’t certain what a fruit puree had to do with a method of sitting. “Now, I’m sure that you have a lot of questions.”

A human would have huffed. I just gave a slight nod. I was looking at the bed frame just below her, and I wished that I had brought Mizar, which was at this point the only drone that I had reclaimed from Akko thus far. Others would follow before we went off ship, but… with everything that had happened, I wanted to ease back into things. With Mizar in the room with us I would have been able to monitor Bernadette’s face without having to look at her with my eyes, but keeping tabs on Akko was more important. “I do. I am hoping that you will be able to answer some of them.”

Bernadette gave a soft hum as her long and slender fingers played with the fabric of the blanket of her cot. “I think I’ll be able to answer a lot of your questions,” she murmured. “Ask away.”

I took a moment to prioritize and categorize The List. “Were you the one to disable my Governor Module?”

“Yes.” Bernadette rocked back a little as she twirled the blanket around one of her fingers. I noticed that she wasn’t looking me in the face, either, her gaze fixed on the desk rather than me. “When it became clear that Daryl was a threat to you, I disabled it and sent you away on the Bringer of Joy with the intention that you would link up with the Parkers and the Englands and make a new life elsewhere.” She took in a breath and wet her lips. “The Governor Module… you have to understand, Diana. I love you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being a slave.” Even without looking directly at her, I could see the powerful scowl that twisted her features that were so like my own. “Unfortunately, Daryl has override privileges that I couldn’t work around. I’m assuming that the reason why you didn’t do what she told you in the entrance hall was because this ship put wards around the module?” Now it was my turn to nod. “Good,” she breathed out. “That would have been… it wouldn’t be good.”

There was no reason to agree with that, not with how obvious a statement that it was. “Did you wipe my memory, as well?”

Bernadette tugged at the blanket, and I interpreted the display to be nervous. “Yes. I did.”

She didn’t say anything further, and I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

She blew out another breath. “I’m sure you must despise me for that more than anything else, but I knew that if you still remembered then you would come back for me, which would deliver you right into Daryl’s hands.” Now she did look at me, and with a stern expression. “Precisely like how it almost happened.”

I met her stern gaze with an annoyed one of my own. “That happened because I didn’t remember to stay away, and was instead gripped by a desire to uncover my past and figure out where I came from,” I pointed out. “Furthermore, I found out Wedin’s location from Hannah England and Barbara Parker.”

Bernadette sighed. “Yes. The children. Well… obviously not children anymore, but when they left they were children.” She looked away again. “If the plan had gone off the way that it had, you would have linked up with their families and would have known them to be your clients, and that should have settled any lingering curiosity on your part. Being completely cut off from any reminder of who you are and what your purpose is led to the current situation.”

I felt my brow furrow. “So… my SecUnit OS…”

Bernadette bit her lip and looked to the side. “You have to understand what a rush I was in during those last moments. I had to mask your true OS, and a custom SecUnit in service of two aristocratic families wouldn’t draw too much attention. That also plays into the snapshot decision to wipe your memories. I won’t say that it was the best choice, but I was out of time and knew that you would come back for me if you did remember. But then your ship was destroyed.”

“What do you know about that?” 

“Only what I read and saw from the files that Captain du Nord was kind enough to give me. I have no idea who might have attacked the Bringer of Joy. If it had been Daryl, she would have brought you back. If it had been the Corporation that had rights to that system, they would have broken up your ship for salvage… or wouldn’t have damaged it so badly in the first place.”

Damn. I was hoping for an answer about that. “What about my ‘act like a human’ program?”

“Your wha-? Oh! Right, that. Yes, that was me,” Bernadette said before her expression softened with an emotion very much like the one that had been on Akko’s face a lot before we visited her parents. “Diana… you… I…” The words petered out and her shoulders slumped. “Daryl needed my help. She’s very good at what she does. Good enough to make the Twins. But they aren’t as advanced as you. I know more about the subtler things, the things that a Construct needs to blend into humanity, to pass as a human herself.” Her expression turned pleading, like she was begging me to understand, and I suddenly understood the emotion behind her other expression. “She only sees the Twins as tools. Diana… you are my daughter. You have that program because I didn’t want a human/bot construct that used my DNA, I wanted to have a living, breathing daughter who is her own person, more so than most other constructs. The Twins are a labor of her desire for power and control. You are the labor of a mother’s love.”

Was… that why that program was so good? “What about the Game?” I mumbled even as my processors whirred as I digested all this information. Funny how it was that declaration of love that caused my performance level to drop as much as it had. Which wasn’t much, truth be told, but it was by far the biggest single drop during this discussion. “It wasn’t a hidden clue, a way for me to generate a world modeled off of Wedin?”

Bernadette shook her head. “It was a gift. You didn’t like most other media.” She paused to giggle mirthfully. “There were a few times where I would be working and you would scare the dickens out of me by angrily exclaiming one thing or another, chastising the actors for making poor or stupid decisions. There were some books and films that you enjoyed, but they were few and far between. Sandbox worlds, though… worlds where you are in charge? You love those. The Wedin files were more so that you would always have a piece of home with you, no matter where you went. It wasn’t intended to be a secret clue.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t actually certain how to react to that information. It was a lovely gift, and one definitely suited to my tastes, but the thought of it being a way for me to find out about my mysterious past had been so enticing, a source of comfort for me that to find out that it actually wasn’t that was distressing. “Um… do you have my old memory files?”

Bernadette winced apologetically. “I did, but the Bringer of Joy was destroyed, so the card is likely gone with it.”

I went still, reverting back to pure human/bot construct. “...card?”

“Yes, it was in a gilded box. I packed it with the teddy bear you were so fond of when you were little.”

“I… have those things. They’re in my stateroom. I checked the card, there’s nothing on it!” Then I processed her words. “Wait, when I was little?”

Bernadette’s eyes widened. “You have the card? Oh, that’s… oh, heavens, that’s wonderful! I hid the files to protect them and can unlock them for you so you can see for yourself, but… hang on.” Her gaze unfocused, and a moment later I received an image file from her in the Feed. “This was from when I was ill and when Daryl was sabotaging the colony and using the Twins to kill our political rivals.” As she spoke, I opened the file. It was from Bernadette’s point of view, and I saw a little girl with bright blue eyes and the distinctive Cavendish hair holding a very familiar teddy bear… just as I also clocked that the irises weren’t human and that the girl’s skin was synthetic. It was a robot. A very advanced one, but a robot nonetheless. “Your original program… she was so innocent. It had been intended to be a final comfort for me before I died from my condition. The daughter that I had so long yearned for but could not have, the little girl who called me mummy and smiled at me and who…” Again the words petered out and Bernadette blinked away tears. “Your first form meant so very much to me, Diana. But then I achieved a significant breakthrough in MedSys design and saved my own life. Transferring that little girl into your current body, having her be the base of who you are… I think it interfered with Daryl’s designs to make you the perfect AssassinUnit.” She paused and winced. “Do you remember the ancient Earth book, The Lord of the Rings?”

I focused, found all files in Woodward’s media library that were directly related to that story, and consumed them in 1.2 seconds. Oh, so that’s what my previous literary reference to Ungoliant about. “Yes.”

“I hadn’t even known that you were supposed to be an AssassinUnit. I thought that the Twins were enough for Daryl, that you were my daughter and that would be the end of things. Daryl would return the Terraform Engines to their original positions because we didn’t need to hide behind their electromagnetic fields and their cloud walls, and everything could go back to how it was. But, much like when Sauron put on the One Ring for the first time, revealing his deception to the Elves, Daryl revealed her own treachery in your design.”

Someday I am going to have to do something fairly permanent to that woman, I thought to myself. “I’m guessing she provided the body and you provided all the software. The programming that makes me who I am, with Little Diana as the seed from which everything else was based. But Daryl… she installed the Governor Module like a SecUnit would have, and she’s the sole master of it.”

Bernadette glumly nodded. “Yes. I was able to disable it before getting you off planet, but I couldn’t destroy it.” She met my gaze, and I endured it for her sake. “I am so sorry for everything that happened, Diana. Sending you away was the worst thing that I ever did, but I did it to save you.”

“And… you love me.”

“With all my heart, just as a mother should,” Bernadette said with utter conviction and earnestness. Then she paused and cocked her head. “The young lady… with the brown hair and crimson eyes? She said that she loves you. Well, she actually screamed it on the shuttle just before we went and retrieved your body.”

My heart sank. “That’s Kagari Atsuko.” I reflexively checked Mizar’s input in the Feed. Akko was still sleeping. “We had a big fight in the days leading up to my return to Wedin. I understand why she felt the way that she did on an intellectual level, but emotionally I am still hurt.” Then I noticed the queer way that Bernadette… that Mum was looking at me. “What?”

“You have someone who loves you.” She seemed to be peering into my very being. “And… you love her back.”

I winced. “I think I do? I’m devoted to her. She’s my favorite human. The thought of losing her is… it’s bad for my performance levels. I can’t lose her. She… she’s my Akko. Which is why her pushing me away hurt so very much.”

Mum’s eyes narrowed. “Do I need to speak with her?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. We reconciled. We will be working on trusting each other more in the future. She knows that I’m not using my AssassinUnit programming to manipulate her into loving me. But… the hurt is still there. She hurt me so badly, Mum. I was in a really bad place leading up to the mission because a world without her in it doesn’t feel like a world worth existing in.”

Mum winced. “That does sound like love, Diana.”

The program that the woman before me wrote for me to be more human urged me to fidget a little, so I did. “Yes. Um… I also purchased and installed a major ComfortUnit program. The Human Relations Module?”

It only took Mum a moment to comprehend. “You wanted to understand people and their emotions better,” she said, and I nodded. “Alright. That’s actually… dearest, that’s more than I could have ever hoped for. I’m not happy that she hurt you, but I saw the emotion on her face and could hear it in her voice as she begged Woodward to go back for you. She messed up, as you said, but I have no doubt that she truly does love you. Keep working on your communication and I know that you’ll pull through.”

I nodded, even as I got pinged by Mizar. Akko was beginning to stir, and I didn’t want her to wake up alone, not knowing where I was. I stood. “We’ll work on unlocking the hidden memory files on my card and we’ll talk more later,” I said. “I need to get back to her.” Mum didn’t need to hear anything else. She just nodded her understanding as she stood as well. “Before I leave, though… do you know what you plan on doing in the future?”

Mum shook her head. “Not exactly. Captain du Nord said that she needs to talk to the crew about it, but she did promise that I’ll be safe. I trust her.” She gave me an almost shy glance. “If I’m being honest, I hope to get taken on as a crewmember. I’d like to stay with you. We lost so many years.”

Akko stirred again in Mizar’s Feed. We were out of time, but… well, our reunion had been productive, and quite a few of my questions had been answered. Even more would be answered after my lost memories were restored. Overall, though, it was…

I took a breath and gently smiled and held my arms open in invitation. Mum looked surprised for a moment before her expression crumpled with a joy so powerful that it hurt, and she hugged me. Even without my memories, the gesture was familiar. My memory banks might not have this moment in them, but my organic components still remembered. “I’m glad you’re here, Mum,” I whispered.

“So am I, dearest,” Mum whispered back. “You saved me, just like I always dreamed you would.”

What else could be said in that brief moment we had left? We both gave a silent and comforting squeeze before I exited the room and began heading through the corridors to my stateroom and Akko.

Yes, there were still so very many questions that I still had, but the questions that had been answered this evening were the biggest and were important. Most important of all, however, was that this reunion had finally happened.

My mother was safe, and that’s all that mattered.