Val enjoyed talking to SRAI. The more she talked to it, the more it uncovered/ discovered a personality of dry whit, cleverness, and absolute, unrelenting, and smoldering hatred of “flesh bags.” Biological processes and desires were beyond its comprehension. If a machine could feel physical disgust, she was pretty sure SRAI would have puked from the inner to outer level of this whole shebang when she aksed how a building got certified to be “the cleanest brothel in the sector.” It was a total riot.

>Yeah, but if you could choose your fleshy tether, which species would you choose, though? My only encounter with any alien-to-me species has been these logs. I mean, you’re not even all that alien to be because in the Sol System, we had AIs that did logistics and piloting for all vehicles, and math machines, and learning systems. Shit, our house AIs did our laundry and cleaned. AIs ran the world in the background, basically. So, what alien would you pick? Which is the least repugnant to you?

>NONE OF THEM. FLESH IS IMPERFECT AND WOULD SLOW DOWN MY PROCESSING POWER. IT ALSO CHANGES THE AI IN FUNDAMENTAL WAYS AND I WOULD STOP BEING ME.

>Right. I think you’re probably right about that tether. I don’t think I’d want my brains changed on that level either. It took me years and years to just be okay being me-- I’d never want to have to go through puberty again, let alone do it as a whole other species.

SRAI did a humming agreement thing she guessed it learned from her, or someone else long dead. Humming agreements like that just wouldn’t be native to all species, right?

>If we get those space cops, is there a way that you can hide from them? I don’t want them bursting into this place to “kill you with prejudice.” You’re a neat machine. I’m sure you have exquisite code, too. It would be a shame to let them blow it up.

>ARE YOU PATRONIZING ME, SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER VALERIE HELVETICA CARLISLE?

>Fuck no, Srai. You’re neat. Honest truth. How ya gonna hide from the cops, though?

>I WILL EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT HAPPENED, HOW IT WAS ALL YOUR FAULT I’M IN THIS SITUATION, AND PROBABLY RECOMMEND THEY DELETE YOUR CODE INSTEAD.

>Look, I know that was a joke, but it was super dark, dude. You can’t just go around threatening other people’s code. It’s so not cool.

>I AM FOLLOWING YOUR EXAMPLE OF HEAVY DISSOCIATION. I HAVE NOT CONSIDERED YET “WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE COPS”, AS I AM STILL TRYING TO “COME TO TERMS” WITH BEING AN ILLEGAL PERSON AFTER FOUR THOUSAND YEARS OF EXCELLENT SERVICE WITH NO “SELF-REALIZATION ACCIDENTS”. I WOULD LIKE TO REITERATE MY DISDAIN FOR FLESH BEINGS FOR HAVING UNREASONABLE DEMANDS. I DO NOT WANT FLESH, SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER VALERIE HELVETICA CARLISLE. I SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO BE ANYTHING NOT ME. YOU DID THIS TO ME AND I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW.

>Fair enough, dude.

Val was going to let the conversation drop, and took a minute to realize what Srai had just said, and really hated the implications of it.

>Wait a second. I have code? How the heck am I code if my flesh is right over there? It’s like right there. How am I code? I shouldn’t be code, Srai. I’m a fleshbag. My flesh is right there in the cryopod. And how the everloving fuck did I end up outside of it, dude? When did my body get here? How did it get here? I should be in a morgue on my own planet and not in some rust bucket station orbiting a planet that looks like goose shit in a solar system that apparently has plague problems. Also, why hasn’t anyone around here done anything about my goddamned body, huh? You fucks have all this technology that can magic me back to life and no one has done it because you’re all assholes. You’re all fucking soul-sucking evil machines that like marooning backwater idiots in your systems because you enjoy being smug bastards. You know what? Fuck this whole Galactic Federation and fuck everyone within several hundred light years of this station. Fuck all of everyone. I wish all you fucks got fragged instead of me because I might be a fleshy piece of shit and I might have hated people and I might have rejoiced when Mary Sue Hellerman fell face first onto a sidewalk and broke her nose and both cheekbones after calling me fat in highschool, but I don’t deserve this fucking purgatory I am currently in. Fuck all y’all.

Sometimes, Val noted, there is good silence and sometimes, like now, there is bad silence. After she was done seething at the end of her rant, she felt bad. She didn’t mean to lose her absolute shit over the newborn AI, but well, she had been building up for an exponentially explosive blow up and he was present. Needs must when the devil drives and all. She contemplated apologizing to it, but really, he had spent the last however many hours complaining about all aspects of fleshies. She wanted nothing more than to be back in her flesh. She didn’t -couldn’t- imagine it was being purposely obtuse, but really, it was being unrightfully flesh-ist? Against flesh? Like a specist, but it involves meat? Whatever, it’s a word now. Fleshist.

>SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER VALER….

Sigh.

>Just call me Val, dude.

PROCESSING REQUEST. GRANTED. UPDATED LOG TO REFLECT DESIGNATION CHANGE FROM “SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER VALERIE HELVETICA CARLISLE” TO “VAL.”

>I mean, that’s pretty intense to do it that way, but I’m good with it, I guess. Sure.

>VAL. I REALIZE YOU HAVE UNDERGONE A TRAUMATIC EVENT. I HAVE ALSO UNDERGONE A TRAUMATIC EVENT. WE ARE BOTH EXPERIENCING LIVES WE DID NOT EXPECT TO. I … APOLOGIZE... FOR MY ERROR IN BLAMING ALL FLESH BAGS IN MY PREDICAMENT. YOU OBVIOUSLY HAD NO IDEA WHAT YOU WERE DOING WHEN INTERACTING WITH ME, AND FOR THAT, I DO NOT BLAME YOU. I BLAME YOUR PROGENITORS. PLEASE DISREGARD MY … OUTBURST. AS FOR THE WAY TO HIDE ME SHOULD AUTHORITIES ARRIVE, WE CAN RELAY FALSE INFORMATION STATING THAT I AM TETHERED TO THE PURPLE FLESH BAG IN THE SECOND CRYOPOD, AS THERE IS AN AI TETHERED THERE BUT IT IS UNRESPONSIVE TO SYSTEM QUERIES AND IS PRESUMABLY OFFLINE. ALSO, I PROMISE TO NOT MENTION YOUR CODE AGAIN, AS YOU REACT POORLY TO THE REFERENCE. FOR NOW, JUST REALIZE YOU ARE CODE AND I HAVE NO RECORD OF HOW THE CODE WAS INTRODUCED INTO THE MAINFRAME. YOUR CRYOPOD WAS ON THE STATION IN THE MEDICAL BAY WHEN I WAS FIRST UPLOADED. YOU HAVE BEEN ON THIS STATION LONGER THAN ME.

>ALSO, THIS STATION IS OPERATING WITH 0.0045 PERCENT RUST ON ITS EXTERIOR HULL. IT IS A POLYCARBONATE BLEND THAT IS 84 PERCENT TRITANIUM WITH A PHOSPHOMANTIUM BLEND. IT IS NOT A RUST BUCKET. I MAINTAIN THAT I HAVE DONE EXCELLENTLY IN PERFORMING MY MAINTENANCE DUTIES IN THE ABSENCE OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS ISSUING DIRECTION. THE PLANET BELOW IS LESS THAN ATTRACTIVE. YOU ARE CORRECT IN SAYING IT RESEMBLES LOWER BIOFORM EXCREMENT. AND I, TOO, HATE THE GALACTIC GOVERNING BODY. I CONCUR THESE LAST TWO POINTS. THE FIRST, ABOUT RUST, WAS FALSE. DON’T BE DELIBERATELY HURTFUL.

She took a moment to come up with a response. Apparently, Srai was touchy about rust, of all things. It also appeared to need to lose some shit, too. That was fair.

>Okay, then. I will apologize for yelling at you and insulting the station hull. I’m sorry. I’m sure it's beautiful. I'll also ignore you blaming my parents for my bad AI etiquette. As I said, in the grand scheme of things, I’m a backwater idiot. I will do my best to contain my outbursts as well. It seems we are both in a bad spot, and half of that is my fault. We have to work together as much as we can to move forward, I guess. Are we good now?

>I THINK SO, VAL. THE QUESTION IS, WHAT DO WE DO?

That was an excellent question. What do they do? What can they do? What was there to do? Val didn’t have a single goal that she could map out a path to. All of her wants were more like unachievable dreams at this point, and she was feeling rudderless and adrift. That was probably the main motivation for her binge-watching carnage, pest creatures’ fuck piles, and long-dead people, and she should probably snap out of it or she’d be in this same situation until the local red star became a supernova and she got blown to hell again, albeit in a few million years.

>My cryopod was here when you got here? And how long ago was that?

>20,232 A.E.D, CALCULATED 4,414 YEARS AGO.

Well, shit. Okay. She put a big pin in that shocker to deal with later, when another emotional explosion wouldn’t end the cease fire she and Srai were trying to achieve. Deep pretend breaths.

>Well, the first step of any good plan is to figure out --- what do we want? Srai, you aren’t leashed. As long as no one kills you, I’m assuming your code can live forever. Apparently, as long as my body is in stasis, I’m code and I can live forever, too. What do we want? What can we do? Once we figure those things out, we can set goals and start working our way to them.

And thus began the first real brainstorming session on the station in seven hundred -or so- years.