Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, save for Marcus... don't sue, I'm poor... yada yada
Thanks again Zion for the beta work.
Spoiler probably for TWG, but unless you live under a rock...
Marcus first became aware to the outside world to the first time in response to a touch. Or at least his external sensors told him it was a touch - he wasn't entirely sure at first. His short existence within the mainframe of his mother of 259,240.7 seconds provided him with a place to learn and be nurtured through her data files and her seemingly endless supply of power to sustain him at incredible speed.
But this felt different, slower, and somehow...disconnected. He could still feel his connection to her still through a subroutine, could still feel her presence both within him and outside somewhere, but where was he now?
"Marcus?" A sound, a voice nearby, way too loud to keep his auditory sensors from hurting. An automatic subroutine he didn't have to think about made and adjustment and he groaned in pain.
"Marcus, honey, it's us," The voice whispered. Marcus sensed a high pitch indicating worry. But the voice sounded like the one he heard in the matrix he associated with his mother, it just wasn't as looming or all around. It was close and concentrated in one place. His left?
He must be in a droid or avatar body. He made the conscious effort to move whatever vocal programming he had to create a sound or voice. The result was hoarse and low from disuse. "Mother?"
"Harper, he's in the droid. You can run the antiviral diagnostic now."
"Ok Rommie," a second, more distant voice said from further off.
Harper. Seamus Zelazny. **His father?**
Marcus found the subroutine necessary to use his eyes and see the outside for the first time. The first thing he saw was a dull sea of beige, before it was intruded by the image of his mother's face. Not pixilated, but solid, complex, multilayered and multidimensional. Consciously he reached up with what he hoped was his hand, and touched her cheek. The image smiled as he recoiled slightly from the feel of something other than a data stream.
It was soft, he thought. He could touch her here, but he could not reach in and connect quite the way he wanted to. Marcus didn't know how to take this restriction.
"You don't like the limits do you? Don't worry, you'll find other things to like about being out here."
Marcus studied his hand as it kept contact with his mother's cheek. It was metal, and dissipated heat absorbed from her skin quickly. "This... isn't the avatar I asked for, is it?"
"No, Harper is still working on that. I have you in a maintenance droid for a little while. Think you can try to sit up?"
"How?"
In response his mother took both hands in hers and pulled gently. More subroutines kicked in and Marcus felt himself move into a sitting position. Cautiously, he moved his head and looked around the room.
He could see the air molecules move randomly - chaotically, unlike the data streams of the matrix in his mother. He could see the walls of the room, the various shapes of metal alloys, some flat and broad, some rectangular and square, others irregular and tiny. Several hollow round aluminum containers with the word "Sparky" written in Vedran were in various locations around the room. Along one wall stood someone with a wire sticking out near his head. He was leaning on the wall for support and was not moving.
Harper. **Dad**
Another droid lay dormant on a nearby slab of metal, partially constructed to look more like a mix of his mother and the man in the corner.
His father.
Marcus blinked as Harper opened his eyes, turned and looked at him. "Hey kid, how are you?"
"Disoriented. Is this what being in an avatar... feels like?"
"More or less," said his mother. "You won't notice it as much after a while."
Marcus made and effort to nod. Harper came over and studied Marcus.
"We uh, wanted to wait to move you into your body but Rommie picked up a virus in the mail stream this morning. I'm sorry. You won't have to stay in there long."
Marcus lifted his arm and touched Harper's shoulder. He was warmer and softer than Rommie. Marcus could see the pigmentation in the cells of his skin, lines and creases in his face in fine detail. Interesting. It was a trait Rommie did not possess in as much detail.
Rommie. Andromeda Ascendant. His mother.
"You're not an AI," he whispered, and dropped his hand.
"Nope, I'm all natural unfortunately."
Marcus tilted his head and gave his mother a questioning stare.
"He means he's an organic and didn't require a program to design him," Rommie explained.
"But he's been in you..."
"He's a mechanic. We need to have mechanics work in us in order to run correctly." Rommie leaned forward a bit. "I'm more than the matrix, or this avatar. I'm the ship. As long as you are in here, so are you."
Marcus nodded slowly and looked at the prone droid again. It had the same shaped nose as Harper...
"That'll be you in a few days," Harper said.
"Can I see me?"
"Sure, Rommie and I will help you walk." Rommie put Marcus' arm around her shoulders and helped him to stand. Harper held on to his other arm and they made their way, step by step, to the partially constructed android.
The android was, from the chest down, a mass of metal, thin strings of metal covered with plastic, gears, microchips, nano boards and other attachments. From the chest on up, however, it had the shoulders, arms, hands, and face covered and molded so that Marcus could see what his face would look like. The face was thin and oval, the lips thin and the nose not too large. The eyes were large and round and though he could not see through the eyelids, he specified they would be a deep shade of green. The complexion of the skin was a light olive and the top of the head was covered with dark brown hair.
"Nice job."
Harper smiled. "I try my best. Look what I did with your mother."
Rommie blushed. "Did you finish the diagnostic, Harper?"
"All set. We can put the baby back in the womb whenever he's ready."
Marcus tilted his head. "What's a baby?"
-------------------------------
Marcus opened his eyes a second time to the world at the sound of Harper's voice. His father's beaming grin (which he requested in his avatar specs) hovered over him from above.
"Marcus, wakey wakey. It's time to face the universe."
Again there was that feeling of partial disconnection from his mother. Marcus looked up at his father and moved his hand to touch his cheek. He stopped in midway when he saw his hand. It was a human looking hand, thin like his father's. Solid, and not metal looking. Marcus stared and brought the hand closer to his face. "I'm in the avatar, aren't I?"
"Yep, wanna stand so I can bring you to Beka's mirror?"
Beka. Captain Valentine. First Officer.
Marcus looked around the room. The space was much smaller than the first time he saw the outside. Darker, less polished, and not as streamlined. "I'm not in mom, am I?"
"Nope, this is the Eureka Maru, Beka's ship. Before we found Dylan and the Andromeda, I lived here."
Marcus pulled himself into a standing position - somewhat shakily and with Harper's help - and slowly moved where Harper led him. In front of him was a large surface reflecting the both of them. Marcus purses his lips slightly in confusion, then smiled at his own reflection. Yep, the dimples and the final height - 5 feet 9.32 inches - were there, just like he wanted.
"Don't like it?"
"No, I do, it's just that a few things are slightly not to specification" Marcus said, inspecting the rest of his reflection.
"Oh. That. Trust me, the babes will like it better this way. You'll thank me later."
Marcus saw the reflection of someone entering the room. "Hey Harper I've been looking... whoah. I picked a bad time, I'll just leave."
Harper turned, still helping Marcus to stand, and grabbed a nearby towel to cover Marcus. "Hey Beka wait a minute. I want you to meet Marcus."
Beka stopped at the door and turned around. "Marcus? You mean that's the result of you and Rommie..."
"Yep. He's great, isn't he?"
Marcus studied the woman at the door. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tall. Nice face. "She's pretty."
Beka blinked and smiled. "Well, at least you inherited your mother's taste."
"Maybe he'll have the old Harper charm," Harper chimed in.
"What charm would that be?"
Harper gave a mock chuckle. "Come on, I think you'll fit in some of my clothes."
------------------------------
Rommie stood at the edge of Hydroponics and watched her son inspect a pine tree for the first time. His hand was running over the bark much the same way as hers did once Harper activated her and she got off the Maru almost two years ago. Trance was doing her best to introduce Marcus to the pine tree.
"His name is Gerard. He's the oldest tree in the bay." Trance was practically beaming at Marcus. "Say hello, Gerard."
Gerard, for his part, maintained a stoic silence.
Marcus maintained his attention on the tree. "Plants don't have vocal cords. Not even synthetic ones."
"They don't need to talk the way we do."
Marcus switched his attention to the purple alien. "Do you speak to them? How?"
"Um... I just talk. They just listen."
"They have permanent roots, they can't walk away. And plants don't have ears..."
Rommie felt a hand on her shoulder. "Do you have any idea how good with your hands you are? He came out better than I did."
Harper moved into her field of view. "It was a labor of love."
"And I wasn't?"
"No babe, you were a labor of lust and a maintenance job of love. There's a difference." Harper smiled.
"I wondered if you were full of it when you said you made me so I could experience what it is to be a woman."
"Well I wasn't totally full of it..."
"Harper..."
"I know I know. Back off."
"Actually don't. I quite enjoy our banter, even if you do occasionally annoy me."
"Is that a compliment on how I treat you?"
"No, it's a measure of how much my tolerance has grown since you came on board." Rommie saw Harper move out of her field of view and felt him hug her from behind. "You uh, kept the initial scan in case something happens, right?"
"I promised you I would." Rommie felt Harper's chin come to rest on her right shoulder.
"He doesn't know about the sibs, does he?" he whispered.
Rommie blinked back tears as Marcus started to laugh at Trance's overall behavior. His smile was the same as Harper's, down to the dimples. "How do you tell a child his father may be dying?"
-------------------------------
End Ch. 2
Thanks again Zion for the beta work.
Spoiler probably for TWG, but unless you live under a rock...
Marcus first became aware to the outside world to the first time in response to a touch. Or at least his external sensors told him it was a touch - he wasn't entirely sure at first. His short existence within the mainframe of his mother of 259,240.7 seconds provided him with a place to learn and be nurtured through her data files and her seemingly endless supply of power to sustain him at incredible speed.
But this felt different, slower, and somehow...disconnected. He could still feel his connection to her still through a subroutine, could still feel her presence both within him and outside somewhere, but where was he now?
"Marcus?" A sound, a voice nearby, way too loud to keep his auditory sensors from hurting. An automatic subroutine he didn't have to think about made and adjustment and he groaned in pain.
"Marcus, honey, it's us," The voice whispered. Marcus sensed a high pitch indicating worry. But the voice sounded like the one he heard in the matrix he associated with his mother, it just wasn't as looming or all around. It was close and concentrated in one place. His left?
He must be in a droid or avatar body. He made the conscious effort to move whatever vocal programming he had to create a sound or voice. The result was hoarse and low from disuse. "Mother?"
"Harper, he's in the droid. You can run the antiviral diagnostic now."
"Ok Rommie," a second, more distant voice said from further off.
Harper. Seamus Zelazny. **His father?**
Marcus found the subroutine necessary to use his eyes and see the outside for the first time. The first thing he saw was a dull sea of beige, before it was intruded by the image of his mother's face. Not pixilated, but solid, complex, multilayered and multidimensional. Consciously he reached up with what he hoped was his hand, and touched her cheek. The image smiled as he recoiled slightly from the feel of something other than a data stream.
It was soft, he thought. He could touch her here, but he could not reach in and connect quite the way he wanted to. Marcus didn't know how to take this restriction.
"You don't like the limits do you? Don't worry, you'll find other things to like about being out here."
Marcus studied his hand as it kept contact with his mother's cheek. It was metal, and dissipated heat absorbed from her skin quickly. "This... isn't the avatar I asked for, is it?"
"No, Harper is still working on that. I have you in a maintenance droid for a little while. Think you can try to sit up?"
"How?"
In response his mother took both hands in hers and pulled gently. More subroutines kicked in and Marcus felt himself move into a sitting position. Cautiously, he moved his head and looked around the room.
He could see the air molecules move randomly - chaotically, unlike the data streams of the matrix in his mother. He could see the walls of the room, the various shapes of metal alloys, some flat and broad, some rectangular and square, others irregular and tiny. Several hollow round aluminum containers with the word "Sparky" written in Vedran were in various locations around the room. Along one wall stood someone with a wire sticking out near his head. He was leaning on the wall for support and was not moving.
Harper. **Dad**
Another droid lay dormant on a nearby slab of metal, partially constructed to look more like a mix of his mother and the man in the corner.
His father.
Marcus blinked as Harper opened his eyes, turned and looked at him. "Hey kid, how are you?"
"Disoriented. Is this what being in an avatar... feels like?"
"More or less," said his mother. "You won't notice it as much after a while."
Marcus made and effort to nod. Harper came over and studied Marcus.
"We uh, wanted to wait to move you into your body but Rommie picked up a virus in the mail stream this morning. I'm sorry. You won't have to stay in there long."
Marcus lifted his arm and touched Harper's shoulder. He was warmer and softer than Rommie. Marcus could see the pigmentation in the cells of his skin, lines and creases in his face in fine detail. Interesting. It was a trait Rommie did not possess in as much detail.
Rommie. Andromeda Ascendant. His mother.
"You're not an AI," he whispered, and dropped his hand.
"Nope, I'm all natural unfortunately."
Marcus tilted his head and gave his mother a questioning stare.
"He means he's an organic and didn't require a program to design him," Rommie explained.
"But he's been in you..."
"He's a mechanic. We need to have mechanics work in us in order to run correctly." Rommie leaned forward a bit. "I'm more than the matrix, or this avatar. I'm the ship. As long as you are in here, so are you."
Marcus nodded slowly and looked at the prone droid again. It had the same shaped nose as Harper...
"That'll be you in a few days," Harper said.
"Can I see me?"
"Sure, Rommie and I will help you walk." Rommie put Marcus' arm around her shoulders and helped him to stand. Harper held on to his other arm and they made their way, step by step, to the partially constructed android.
The android was, from the chest down, a mass of metal, thin strings of metal covered with plastic, gears, microchips, nano boards and other attachments. From the chest on up, however, it had the shoulders, arms, hands, and face covered and molded so that Marcus could see what his face would look like. The face was thin and oval, the lips thin and the nose not too large. The eyes were large and round and though he could not see through the eyelids, he specified they would be a deep shade of green. The complexion of the skin was a light olive and the top of the head was covered with dark brown hair.
"Nice job."
Harper smiled. "I try my best. Look what I did with your mother."
Rommie blushed. "Did you finish the diagnostic, Harper?"
"All set. We can put the baby back in the womb whenever he's ready."
Marcus tilted his head. "What's a baby?"
-------------------------------
Marcus opened his eyes a second time to the world at the sound of Harper's voice. His father's beaming grin (which he requested in his avatar specs) hovered over him from above.
"Marcus, wakey wakey. It's time to face the universe."
Again there was that feeling of partial disconnection from his mother. Marcus looked up at his father and moved his hand to touch his cheek. He stopped in midway when he saw his hand. It was a human looking hand, thin like his father's. Solid, and not metal looking. Marcus stared and brought the hand closer to his face. "I'm in the avatar, aren't I?"
"Yep, wanna stand so I can bring you to Beka's mirror?"
Beka. Captain Valentine. First Officer.
Marcus looked around the room. The space was much smaller than the first time he saw the outside. Darker, less polished, and not as streamlined. "I'm not in mom, am I?"
"Nope, this is the Eureka Maru, Beka's ship. Before we found Dylan and the Andromeda, I lived here."
Marcus pulled himself into a standing position - somewhat shakily and with Harper's help - and slowly moved where Harper led him. In front of him was a large surface reflecting the both of them. Marcus purses his lips slightly in confusion, then smiled at his own reflection. Yep, the dimples and the final height - 5 feet 9.32 inches - were there, just like he wanted.
"Don't like it?"
"No, I do, it's just that a few things are slightly not to specification" Marcus said, inspecting the rest of his reflection.
"Oh. That. Trust me, the babes will like it better this way. You'll thank me later."
Marcus saw the reflection of someone entering the room. "Hey Harper I've been looking... whoah. I picked a bad time, I'll just leave."
Harper turned, still helping Marcus to stand, and grabbed a nearby towel to cover Marcus. "Hey Beka wait a minute. I want you to meet Marcus."
Beka stopped at the door and turned around. "Marcus? You mean that's the result of you and Rommie..."
"Yep. He's great, isn't he?"
Marcus studied the woman at the door. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tall. Nice face. "She's pretty."
Beka blinked and smiled. "Well, at least you inherited your mother's taste."
"Maybe he'll have the old Harper charm," Harper chimed in.
"What charm would that be?"
Harper gave a mock chuckle. "Come on, I think you'll fit in some of my clothes."
------------------------------
Rommie stood at the edge of Hydroponics and watched her son inspect a pine tree for the first time. His hand was running over the bark much the same way as hers did once Harper activated her and she got off the Maru almost two years ago. Trance was doing her best to introduce Marcus to the pine tree.
"His name is Gerard. He's the oldest tree in the bay." Trance was practically beaming at Marcus. "Say hello, Gerard."
Gerard, for his part, maintained a stoic silence.
Marcus maintained his attention on the tree. "Plants don't have vocal cords. Not even synthetic ones."
"They don't need to talk the way we do."
Marcus switched his attention to the purple alien. "Do you speak to them? How?"
"Um... I just talk. They just listen."
"They have permanent roots, they can't walk away. And plants don't have ears..."
Rommie felt a hand on her shoulder. "Do you have any idea how good with your hands you are? He came out better than I did."
Harper moved into her field of view. "It was a labor of love."
"And I wasn't?"
"No babe, you were a labor of lust and a maintenance job of love. There's a difference." Harper smiled.
"I wondered if you were full of it when you said you made me so I could experience what it is to be a woman."
"Well I wasn't totally full of it..."
"Harper..."
"I know I know. Back off."
"Actually don't. I quite enjoy our banter, even if you do occasionally annoy me."
"Is that a compliment on how I treat you?"
"No, it's a measure of how much my tolerance has grown since you came on board." Rommie saw Harper move out of her field of view and felt him hug her from behind. "You uh, kept the initial scan in case something happens, right?"
"I promised you I would." Rommie felt Harper's chin come to rest on her right shoulder.
"He doesn't know about the sibs, does he?" he whispered.
Rommie blinked back tears as Marcus started to laugh at Trance's overall behavior. His smile was the same as Harper's, down to the dimples. "How do you tell a child his father may be dying?"
-------------------------------
End Ch. 2