Children's Story Hour
A/n: Parenthood, mimeosomes, the past and the future of New Los Angeles and a chat between Vandham and Lila the OC. A little head canon in story format.
Big, full on, all game spoilers, and a side quest too. Little bit swears, and we can't blame Vandham, shock! Also, little bit fluff, that's all on him. Contains a couple extremely off-canon ideas, feel free to punch me if you disagree. It's not something required by my main line, rather something I'm playing with.
The good stuff belongs to Monolith Soft, and if they didn't cover this topic, they certainly provided a lovely playground to tackle it in. Bless them.
Oh, and if you didn't read "The Lily and the BLADE", Vandham has a girlfriend/fiancée, Lila Brown, a creepy NPC who runs a skell refueling station by the Administration Hangar. Edit: Messed up some important names so badly, better now.
"So. Robot babies. You up for it?" He'd put away his comm device and pulled her close to him. Best way to keep a tricky topic from developing into an argument. Luckily they were at his place, not her shack of an office, and there was room enough to relax. He gave her a little cuddle to get her in a good mood.
It was going to take more than that. She was not melting in his arms. Her voice was almost bitter. "I want Solan to have nothing to do with this."
"Woman, I am not about to have a threesome with you and Solan." He gave a huff of laughter.
She didn't even smile. "I'm dead serious, Jack. That man is evil."
"I'm going to ignore your weird prejudice against New LA's foremost expert on mimeosomes and …"
"Who poisoned me and butchered you!"
"Ahem. I'm not doing that argument again. Let's focus on the real point. Robot babies. Bet I could build you something nice." He placed a kiss on the top of her head, by way of promise.
She laughed suddenly. "Did you just offer to have my babies?"
"Our babies. Robot ones."
"Real ones. As real as us." She was relaxed, finally. She tilted her head against his chest. "How do you plan to do it? Because all the new citizens I've seen are, well, grown. I don't think I'm up for mothering a 22-year-old Reclaimer."
"You'd be fantastic. But, no, there've been trials of smaller, younger mims."
"When?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "Back before."
"On Earth? Really? Why didn't they go through with it?"
He hesitated. "They did. Once."
"One child. One new child." She shivered against him. "Are you telling me…?"
"I'm not telling anything. But it's been done. I've been looking into it, and I'm ready to pull Peleas into it too." Peleas was the Ma-non who had managed to revive him, a self-proclaimed genius on mechanical life in all its forms, and deeply interested in the developing post-organic society of New Los Angeles.
She didn't reply, for too long. "Well?" he prompted.
"I don't think anyone's going to like this. It feels too much like we're giving up," she said very quietly.
"I think we may need to do this if we want to continue the idea of families. Maybe we don't."
"This would be a big decision. Bigger than just our family."
"I'm willing to risk it." His voice was now only a rumbling whisper, thunder from many miles away.
"I'm afraid."
"We think we need to do this."
"Yes." She propped herself on her elbows and looked at him, her eyes flickering with anger and stubbornness. "No one gets to take that away from us, the idea of children. That's a deadly thing."
"And I thought you had no sympathy for …"
"None. He's still trash. I watched people die because of him. But giving up our hope for the future? That's still deadly."
He lay back, staring at the ceiling tiles. "Yeah, there are a few folks that would agree with you there. It was hard on a lot of people. Back before… we really didn't have a choice, all we could do was use real ones as a pattern … I'm sorry." His words became fragmented, and he closed his eyes for a moment.
[many years before, on a whole different planet]
"What did they say?" She was busy, pulling out mugs, getting down the sugar, before turning to see his response.
He had taken a seat at the kitchen table, and his head was pressed down on his hands, folded on the table in front of him. Every cm of his body sagged. She looked down at the curve of his back, without the least spring. Outside, through the window, she saw their daughter, doing yet another set of cartwheels, a stream of chatter aimed at no one coming from her lips. The little girl jumped up, did a strange dance, and then dove under a table. Her world was invisible and rich and Lisa felt suddenly bereft.
"They've given up." That was all her husband could manage. He didn't have to say more.
The mugs rattled on the counter sharply. "Even Charmaine?"
"No, not her. But if they pull all her resources, I don't see how she's going to manage it. They just can't find a way to get immature brains replicated. The codes keep getting corrupted."
"I can't believe there's no way. They wouldn't pull her funding, would they? Not really? Because she's been researching it for so long."
"More than just her. Her team's been looking at it for over 10 years now. We're running out of time. The emphasis is switching to compression and accuracy. Speed of download. We can't keep having people locked in scans for months before the process is complete. Maybe if they can get it fast enough, maybe they can go back to juvenile trials."
"Maybe there will be time…"
He sat up, his eyes closed. When he opened his shining black eyes, so like their daughter's, she knew what he was about to say already. The truth, hard as it was. He'd never shied from it. If she didn't hate him after this, she would never hate him.
"There isn't time. We may not even get the ship done. There was a ping last night. That's why I went in to ask about Lin's appointment."
She didn't hate him. But something in her head and heart had changed. "I quit."
"What?"
"I'm not spending the last months of my daughter's life separated from her 6 days out of 7. And you can forget about putting me on that ship without her. If you wake me up, so help me God, I will not see the next morning."
He stared at her. She braced herself for the inevitable argument. He'd be right, she couldn't be that selfish. Eventually she would agree. But right now? She was completely earnest.
"Okay."
She started in surprise. "Just that? Okay?"
"Okay. I agree. I'm not going either. If you were, maybe, but not without either of you. Maybe."
"Oh Michael. I don't want that."
"Not your fault." He stood up and walked over to her. They embraced carefully, the lightest of touches, but steady. "Still, I wanted to run something by you."
"What?" Something about his tone gave her a moment of ridiculous hope. Maybe they could join another ship, with other plans. Maybe they could persuade the authorities to make an exception here. Surely there must be space for one stasis pod. It wouldn't even have to be full sized. Then she remembered Chenshi. Two pods. And how could she stop then? She leaned against him.
"One of the other teams in the group, they've been working on artificial personalities."
"True robots. I don't like that idea."
"As mims, there isn't much difference, not if you do it carefully enough. At least in theory. They might even be able to be returned to human form, if the personality structure becomes strong enough."
"Returned. Ha."
"Whatever you'd like to call it. But I was thinking: if we can't get her real consciousness copied, maybe we can make a version with as much of the best parts."
"Bits and pieces of my baby? No."
"As much saved as we can."
She considered this critically. "What's the catch?"
"Huh?"
"If that can possibly work, why hasn't someone else gotten on it by now? Charmaine at the very least. You'd think she'd jump all over it…"
"You'd have to use a lot of non-original structures to complete a functional model. Pull them from somewhere."
"I thought those robots were pretty empty."
"Adult versions, yes. You give them a rigid personality and they can function. There's some question of how long that can last, but some of the researchers think it might actually develop into real consciousness, not just reactions."
"And for child versions?"
"You'd need to add something, to allow for growth and flexibility. A kid that doesn't develop is no child, no human."
"So my baby is mixed with strangers and you get a magic robot. No."
"I wasn't thinking strangers. I was thinking …"
"What?"
"I was thinking we could use us. Our personalities. Our memories. We already have our full scans, so we could start on it right away."
They had moved to the table by then, sitting next to each other, hands still tightly held. Lisa freed a hand to swipe at her cheeks, then nodded. "Tell me more."
"She'd have her voice, her face. Maybe older, so people wouldn't ask too many questions. She could have your passion for design, to give her a focus. Your dream project."
"The flight module. That's so far off, Michael."
"She could carry it forward. Her face, your passion."
"And you?"
"My love. All my love."
They sat quietly, as the childish singing continued in the backyard. Finally, Lisa said, "Her sister's face. The one she won't meet, but she doesn't have to know that."
"We'll make sure she doesn't know. I don't want her to think we chose not to go with her."
"Even if that's exactly what we're doing."
"We'll be going with her. Just inside. You won't leave either of them."
"And they'd allow us to do this?"
He hesitated. "I already got the okay from the big man. He's open to the idea."
She had to ask again. Had to be sure. "Michael, is there any chance she could come along as she is?"
"No. I'm sorry. Charmaine already asked for herself, and no. Sorry. This is the best I can do."
"You're not saying sorry to me, are you?" Lila's voice was gentle, distant. No, he was the one who had been distant, but he was returning to her. Her head on his chest again, her hands grasped in his. Jack didn't need to open his eyes to see the little dimple of worry on her face.
"No. I knew them, her parents. Well, her creators. They chose to stay behind with their real daughter."
"Was she like, you know..."
"Naw, not much. Younger by several years. Just a regular knucklehead, running around, shrieking and climbing stuff and talking about cats. Played soccer, liked hot dogs, that kind of thing. No super genius, nothing."
"Their first child."
"Yeah. They couldn't quite leave her. Asked me to watch over the mim version. At first I thought it would be hard, but she's got so much of them in her, and her sister too, I guess you could call it that. It was easy. She's a good kid."
"Do you think she knows?"
"She's not supposed to. There's even safety measures, to keep her from getting too interested in it. The whole skell thing isn't just for focus. Keeps her out of trouble too."
"If this starts, making kids from scratch, she might ask questions."
"Elma's on it."
"Good."
"So. Babies?"
Another pause, not of hesitation. She took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders. He knew the answer, and was still surprised by the amount of fierce joy in her voice. "Yes. And damn the consequences."
He sat straight up and grinned down at her. "Why, Ms. Brown, I do believe you swore."
"I got 16 more to go before I lose my bet. This one time, I'll make it worth it. New LA better watch out. Mira better watch out."
"Excellent." He leaned down and started doing things that didn't involve conversation.
"Silly," she giggled. Hallelujah, even after that story, he could make her giggle. "This isn't how you get babies anymore."
"I'm not taking any chances."
a/n: *cough*mechon*cough* I'm justifying the early research on robot-babies by thinking that if the Whale is potentially in space for decades, you'd want to continue the tradition of families somehow. Mind you, if Monolith Soft decides otherwise in XCX2, I will drop my head canon in a second. (Please, please, oh good people of Monolith Soft, make me drop my head canon.)
(edit) To the reviewer that asked about info on life before the destruction of Earth (was that you, OnePirateWolf?): Monolith Soft released a series of pre-game short stories, most of which have been translated by the excellent Gessenkou (all hail their service). "Forging Blade" has a lot of backstory from Nagi's perspective, amazing. Google "Forging Blade" and "Gessenkou" and you'll get there eventually. Also, the Wiki does a good job giving as many details as possible, although it can be uneven. I've had good luck asking folks on GameFaqs specific questions - Alexa's education, Quincy's location, etc. (Warning: do not feed the trolls and move to the next thread when in doubt.) Lastly, FanFiction remains awesome, because we love this game and make up good stuff. You want detailed thought about the world of XCX, let me suggest: "Convergence": Looking deeply at the why of XCX and also ending Tatsu jokes full stop. "Mistakes Were Made": Smaller focus, but that's how to bring the tension. I long for their completion, both. "Mistakes Were Made": the funniest thing to be done to XCX, with Earth backstory, sort of. Honestly, most of this story was made up and probably AU (the names of Lin's parents, everything about Charmaine, robot babies).
The reference to Solan (poison/butchered) is part of other arcs, written and not: Lila's ongoing agoraphobia was artificially put into her mim in an attempt to get her off the project (see The Lily and the BLADE, ch. 21) and Jack suffered a major injury that the Mim Center completely failed to fix – luckily a passing Ma-non named Peleas solved the problem (New Jack City, in process).
So that's my latest lesser head canon. Lao's wife was a scientist deep into the whole brains in bottles project, and realized early on that little Chenshi was never going to make the Whale, and chose not to go herself. Neither fact she told Lao, because she didn't want him to sacrifice himself. Poor guy, it wasn't just the ECP that lied to him, and with that I'm getting the first flickers of sympathy for him, ever … and … nope, didn't last (trashratgarbage). Write me some fiction to change my mind and make me cry - shout out to Blue Blossoms by Leopard Gal, in April 2016, I still think he's trash but wow that is a good piece – it takes two reads, that one, and deserves it too, because Leopard Gal delivers more than one story in a very tight, inventive, at times poetic piece.