PP: Feeling better?
BW: Much better. These rations are so dehydrated that I could print a fossil record of what I've been eating.
PP: Is that too much detail? I am having trouble understanding the limits of our conversation, and what is and what is not okay to say.
BW: Frankly, you can tell me to tone it down, because otherwise I am going to continue full speed ahead. I have not used my mental brakes in almost a year.
PP: What do you mean by that?
BW: I've been on my own for a while. Sure, occasionally I talk to an occasional straggler. But its been a year since I've been with a friend.
PP: How do you define a friend?
BW: I define a friend as someone I can be completely honest with. But I'm glad you asked that question. What does define a friend? What do you define as a friend Penny?
PP: A friend is a person who you like, agrees with you, and you get along with.
BW: But we don't always agree, and we're friends. Does this mean that's not required to be friends or are we not friends.
PP: I occasionally question the validity of our friendship.
BW: I mean, fair, but still. Is agreeing necessary to be friends.
PP: I would say yes, but Headmaster Ozpin and General Ironwood were friends and they did not always agree. I would like to propose on a caveat: complete agreement is not necessary to be friends, but general alignment of goals and objectives allows for friendship.
BW: Sure, but then you realize both Ironwood and Adam wanted faunus-human equality. Which we might want to have a discussion about that as well.
PP: First, it is General Ironwood. Second, please do not place the terrorist Adam on the same level as General Ironwood. Third, how come?
BW: Before I budge and move on, do you get the comparison I make, as unsavory as it is.
PP: Affirmative. Friends does not strictly require alignment of end goal. It requires alignment of procedure.
BW: Nor does it require an alignment of procedure. In fact, due to every human being defining friendship in their own terms, every pair or group of human beings must organize and form the terms of their own friendships on an individual basis.
PP: Do you mean that I can be friends with you and friend Jaune, and have different terms for each of you, as both he and you have different terms for friendship?
BW: Precisely. You and he were comrades, while I'm a bunker buddy. Not exactly the same, as you don't trust me with your life anymore, I'd assume, but you trust me to open up to you more.
PP: I do trust you. I just now have the means to prevent you from accessing my weakness. You are a confusing human though. You speak philosophically, yet you engage in acts of savagery.
BW: That I do. A year alone will do that to you. I had to keep myself busy somehow.
PP: I thought you were making jerky?
BW: I was doing all sorts of things physically, but most of it is menial labor. Like drying meat. Making minor repairs. Salvaging scrap. After 10 years, those things become second nature. I had to keep my mind busy. Unlike you, I can't enter a sleep mode for years on end.
PP: The researchers specified that I should enter sleep mode whenever I am not required to be on.
BW: You know why they said that?
PP: How come?
BW: If you don't think, you won't ask questions. Frankly, I think you were a prototype for a type of soldier, a robot to be mass produced.
PP: Father would not think of me that way. He always said I was an individual.
BW: Just because your father, who gave birth to you, thought of you that way, do you think any of the researchers thought of you more than a prototype for a future, harder, faster, stronger Atlas robot? A droid?
PP: Of course they thought of me more than a robot. I have aura. I have a soul.
BW: And yet they leave you here to be backed up.
PP: My father did everything he could to keep me alive.
BW: And you don't find it unnatural at all? Let me think for a year, and I ponder the worth of a soul, the inherent definition of friendship, all things that would help you seamlessly integrate with humanity, all things to make you more human. Yet they tell you to sleep. To not think. You don't question it, at all.
PP: I do not understand. What are you telling me? Are you lying to me? Are you trying to manipulate me, manipulate my memories?
BW: Better question, Penny. Were they trying to manipulate you.
BW: We'll pick this up tomorrow. Think about it. I know you don't sleep anymore.
