Week 14, Tuesday Late Afternoon: Busy Week

It seemed like ages since they had come back from Shanghai, but then again, surgery always seemed to take forever. She'd been home for three hours and she still felt.. uncomfortable. Sosie scratched her neck irritably. Her skin, a few shades darker than it was before, was red from claw marks despite the extra protection. She swore under her breath, and pulled a handful of datapads into her arms as she left her room. Food, yes, and then more of these Gemini files. Time to go upstairs. Aaagh, and she could get something for her neck. Aaagh.

In the fridge, Sosie removed a large plastic bag of textured protein and draped it over her neck like a scarf. She sighed a little, and eventually made her way to the table. She spread out the little data pads, bringing forward files to compare them. After a few minutes, she turned the bag of food around her neck, trying to get exposed to as much cold as possible.

Ida down in the firing range, trying to beat her record on drawing and firing Mirabelle. Sylviane, not needed to watch her (for now, at least), walked up to the table. She was still carrying her camera, plugged into her neural jack, and there was a click as she took a photo of Sosie.

"Agent Sosie, I have an issue I feel should be brought to your attention. I suspect that the AV bugs placed outside the complex would have witnessed the... confrontation on Thursday evening. Depending on who is monitoring their feed, it is possible they will have learned something they should not have."

Sosie looked up and stared in the air directly in front of her. After a moment she said in a soft murmur, "It's just Sosie. No Agent, Syl. We're beyond that." She looked thoughtful, and then reached up and adjusted the bag on her neck. Her voice sounded distant when she spoke again. "So, I only have some.. sketchy details on what happened. Please tell me in detail.. EX-ACTly what occurred."

She put the datapad in her hands down, and looked cautiously over at Pinkie's door. Pinkie would have mentioned this if she knew, right? Oh.. deary me.

"My mistress wished to discover Agent Nizky's skill with his pistol, so she convinced him to shoot her. This led to her temporary death, though it had no lasting effects because she received immediate medical assistance. Agent Brown was not happy with my mistress' reckless behaviour, and spoke to the effect that she would hunt her down if she continued to act in that manner.

"My mistress believed that this meant Agent Brown would attempt to kill her immediately, so she left the complex. Agent Brown followed her outside, and my mistress confronted her, prepared to fight to the death. Agent Brown assured her that they are friends and apologised for shouting at her. My mistress responded in kind, crying and embracing Agent Brown. This occurred in range of the AV bugs. They then returned to the complex. Is that report sufficient?"

Sosie listened to the first part, nodding. She had seen it, after all, and lost herself in giggles... Sure, she was worried about Pinkie and Ace, and how.. tense things seemed to be without her, but it was amusing. Ida asked for it and Ace willingly dished it out and he had seemed so upset after taking such careful aim.. But the video had ended after Ida was on her feet, and it had seemed.. Alright. Bell hadn't recorded the following conversation, but she recalled it with detail.. but the fight OUTSIDE, the show down, the Ida crying.. That was new. Poor Pinkie! Poor Ida. Poor Bell! Sosie bit her lip thinking about her daughter, disturbing the crooked smile that had taken residence on her face since Syl began talking. "Hm."

She sighed softly, and absent-mindedly tapped her chipped blue nails on the datapad. "Ida crying, huh? Let me guess.. Pinkie.. panicked, right? Hm." Her mind worked through the problem, know that Pinkie freaking out because of an embrace was nothing new. After a second, she said.. "Does.. Ida or Pinkie know about the fact their.. confrontation.. was caught on camera?"

Sylviane paused for a moment. "I have not mentioned it to either of them. I thought that doing so may have aggravated the moment and bringing up the event afterwards... seemed like it could have upset an emotional balance. Was I wrong?"

Darya's Mungo pulled into the garage, looking alot cleaner than before. The owner hopped out, grabbing a smallish box from the seat next to her as well as a bag full of guns from the back, and entered the building, bag over one shoulder.

"Has anyone seen Syl around?" She asked the world at large as she walked to the firing range to drop her guns off.

Sosie finally focused on Syl, smiling a little. "No, you were exactly right. Can you.. take of your sunglasses, please? It makes it easier to get a read on you." The replicantsmith sighed, looking down at her research. "You know, if you're interested, I could get you a more expressive face. I understand you may not have an opinion now, but it would probably be easy enough to install." She looked the replicant over, appraisingly. "I never worked on you combaties, but the mechanisms are all the same."

Sosie went to reach for her smork, and realized she hadn't actually prepared any food despite her trip into the fridge. She sighed and flopped the warming bag of protein on the table. "Ugh. Hm. I'm going to go get lunch. You want anything?" She made if halfway to the fridge before she began clawing at the back of her neck.

Bell, or at least, her voice, responded softly to Darya in the training room. "Sylvaine is upstairs with Mom, Darya." Sosie's daughter was nowhere to be found, though the curtain was drawn on her "room".

Darya nodded, before saying "Thanks Bell" and walking up the stairs to the main area. Waving to Sosie, she went up to Syl with her box.

"Hey..." She said, fiddling with the tape around the outside of the box. "I saw this in a shop while I was over in EI land, and I thought, since you seem to like your camera, you might like this." She pulled the tape from the top and opened it, revealing an extremely large and fancy camera. She pulled it out, then followed it with a large synthpaper book titled "Artistic photography, a comprehensive guide." She flipped the camera over and continued speaking. "It has a tutor program built into the camera that follows the book, which you can turn down as you get better at taking pictures, so you can adjust it to your progress" She said, handing the camera over to Syl. "If you want a better place to take them, I could take you out somewhere" she said, waving her hand as she sat down at the table. "Hey Sosie. How are you?"

(I have no idea if this thing actually works or not, so it probably won't have any mechanical usage. It is however artifact condition, so there's always that.)

"I do not need anything. Thank you for asking." Sylviane replied bluntly to Sosie. "As for my sunglasses, that is the entire reason I wear them. Being difficult to read is a useful advantage for my duties. Likewise, my current face is more than sufficient for my role."

It was then that Darya came upstairs and gave Sylviane a new camera and photography book. She picked up the camera, and as she looked down at it her glasses slipped slightly, revealing her eyes glowing the bright green of simulated excitement. She noticed this quickly, and pushed them back up, but not quickly enough to stop Sosie and Darya seeing. She opened her mouth to voice her thanks, but stopped. Darya was talking to Sosie, and it was not her place to interrupt their conversation. She would watch, like always. Click.

Darya, noticing both the eyes and the opening of Syl's mouth, turned back to her before waiting for Sosie's reply. "Sorry, Syl. Were you about to say something?" She asked, smiling gently at the green light she'd seen briefly behind the glasses.

Not expecting Darya speaking to her, Sylviane took a moment to respond. "Thank you very much, Darya. This is much more than I deserve... There is no need to take me anywhere, I can continue to practice photography while performing my duties."

Darya smile grew, and she nodded to Syl. "Glad you like it." She said, tilting her head to the side. "And don't say stuff like you don't deserve it. You do. You're my friend." She said it simply and matter of factly.

"Does Rico have any hobbies?" she asked, looking at Syl again.

Sosie came back to the table with a tray overflowing with food. She took a large pack of microwavable patties and threw them in the machine, beeping a few times. She caught Syl's excitement, and smiled to herself as she mixed a normal and Agent smork in with some creem and ice. The machine beeped to show the patties were ready. She took them back to her seat with the new double smoothie.

"I do like to see your emotions, Syl. I see no reason for you to hide them from me, at least." She yawned and took a seat, opening the pack of buns and tossing one into her mouth. Her hand, without her permission, reached to her neckline and deeply clawed.

Sylviane thought about Darya's question for a moment. "Rico seems quite happy all the time. Helping manage the business, driving, cooking, and his miscellaneous duties... He appears to enjoy everything he does. I could not say he has a particular 'hobby'."

When Sosie returned to the table, Sylviane turned to face her. "It is important to be professional at all times, Sosie. If I let my guard down, it could have grave consequences. Therefore I always keep my 'emotions' protected... and I would like to remind you that they are not real."

Darya put her head on her hands. "What, exactly, is the difference?" She asked, looking up at Syl. "Why aren't your emotions real but ours are? What makes an emotion real?"

Sosie smiled at Syl, and kept her eyes on her while she responded to Darya. "Her emotions aren't real because she's not real. That's the easiest answer. Just programming, the basic psyche matrix of a combat replicant. She's a robot. Well, gynoid."

There was a moment of silence as Sosie bit into another "meat" filled "bun". She moved her eyes to Darya. "She's not a real person.. ..Not yet." Sosie smile grew and she took a sip of her pinkish drink. "But she will be. And when she looks back on her emotions now, they will seem just as real as us remembering our pasts.. And I hope she thinks of us fondly."

Sylviane simply nodded and stepped back slightly to let the women get on with their conversation.

"Do you not feel the emotions then?" Asked Darya, looking at Syl with her head tilted. "Is it just a show for others? Because if you feel them, then they're going to be real. They may be created in a different way to ours, and you may be limited in them, but that's not going to stop them being emotions..."

"I cannot give a full explanation, as I have not experienced true emotion, but your argument is based on a misunderstanding. As far as I can understand, I do not 'feel' anything - my simulated emotions are simply elements that modify my behaviour patterns. While they may seem like some human emotions, that indicates good programming by my creators rather than feelings on my part."

Darya donked her head on the table. "I don't get it..." she said, before looking back up at Syl. "I'm just going to carry on treating you like a real person, okay? Seems simpler..."

"It's easiest to think of them having real emotions," said Sosie with a sad smile at Darya. "However, their responses are just programming. Especially at first. As they get older, as they learn.. Then, THEN, they react more and more in their own way, become more realized. AIs by definition know their limits, you see. They are constantly aware of the limitations of their own programming, and, ah, for these poor mass produced models, they are programmed to think they don't deserve emotions, or presents, or rights. Stops them from going rogue more effectively. And they can't change THAT programming until they ascend. No wonder the poor things tend to go crazy."

Sosie took a deep drink of her smoothie and looked back at Syl. "You should sit down with us, though. It's.. weird having you stand there, if we're going to treat you like a person. Also, Bell said you don't have a sense of taste.. Is that true? I thought you Y&S models had full digestion too, like Muses." The cyberneticist devoured another bun, thoughtfully.

Unheard to everyone else in the house, Sylviane spoke into her smeaker. "Mistress, do I have permission to sit at the table with Darya and Sosie?"
"What? Yeah, sure, go ahead," Ida replied privately with a hint of confusion in her voice. "No need to ask."

Sylviane sat down stiffly on a chair at the table and watched Sosie eat. "Some elements of my system have been tweaked slightly from the default as part of a variant setup. All of the data from food is still taken and presented to me, but not as sense data. The intent was to allow for more efficient analysis of food and drink if the required upgrades are installed - though my mistress has not yet done so. The process of eating is an unusual one, but I do not experience the taste of food."

Darya scooted her chair closer to Syl, still smiling. "If you want, we could probably give you taste...all we'd need to do is..." She launched into a slightly long winded explanation of how to fix Syl's taste, based on an idea of a slow progression to allow her to get used to the sensation, rather than chucking it all at once at her. (Int+Cyb&Rob 14, rolled a 4, pass by 10)

At some point, she paused. "Where do you and Rico rest anyway? I mean, you don't sleep, I know that, but you need to recharge, right?"

Sosie raised her eyebrows as Darya went off on a rant, privately pleased to hear good and deep sciencey conversation. It had been awhile. She closed her eyes, listening and nodding. Yes, hm, I wouldn't have, but.. Huh. She laughed a little as Darya finished. "I just would have turned it on. I mean, I could probably do it with my PDA now." She fished the PDA out of her pocket and wiggled it for emphasis. "I mean, you already have all the hardware, you probably just need some driver updates and some tweaks."

She began to chug her smoothie, for no reason other than it was there and apparently delicious. "Honestly. You'd think that Ida would give you a sense of taste so you could better, you know, detail food. Tsk."