*yawn*
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It was relatively comical to watch Effie wake up. First, the regular breathing ceased with a soft snort. Then one eye was laboriously pried open, then the other joined it in seeing the light with a nearly audible snap. She sat up quickly and murmured something unintelligible, then grabbed at the blanket as it slipped from her shoulders. The other hand wiped at the dried drool on her lips as her mind raced as quickly as it could towards a conclusion. It only took about a minute
"Morning sunshine," Anne said cheerily, as she had finally imbibed enough caffeine to be chipper.
Effie started at her, then looked at the still flashing display, then back at Anne. "Sanamanin," she said. "Turly."
Anne snorted. "Do you need some coffee?" she offered rhetorically as she stood.
"Mm, mm," was her response.
When Anne came back with a couple cups, Effie looked a bit more awake. Her eyes were still a little bleary, as befit someone who had pulled an all-nighter, and her words of gratitude were slightly slurred as she took the offered drink. After downing the first cup swiftly, she nursed the second one while she waited for the caffeine to take effect.
"Sorry about taking over your desk," she said quietly while staring at that last page.
"No problem. I wasn't using it last night. How are you doing?"
"I'm… confused. This file doesn't make much sense. I mean, just look at the gene comparisons. It says I'm not even a noticeable deviation from the human norm."
"No, you're not. You are as human as they come."
"But you said that I'm a freak."
"No, I think I said that you have access to the same sort of mental tricks that I do. That doesn't make you inhuman."
"You are."
"Not really. I'm a modified human, an organism based off the human model for a specific purpose. It was really much easier for the gene splicers back on earth to work off an already developed organism than it would have been for them to create a new one from scratch, and given all that they hoped to accomplish with the plants they were hardly going to work of an animal template. So, intelligently enough, they made plants from a human base. Some of the traits they grafted on, like the mental powers, were nothing that a few centuries of selective breeding could have developed. The only real development, genewise, was this," she said, pointing to her upper arm. "No amount of selective breeding was going to make a basic human into a power plant."
"But you're a freak. All plants are supposed to be in bulbs. You're defying what you were created for."
"Plants were designed to live in the bulbs, but we can live outside of them as well if taken from them early enough. You could take a plant that had powered one on the SEEDS ships out of her bulb, and she would be able to survive. Well, assuming she could survive the shock of the real world. What she couldn't so is adjust to the way life is outside the bulb to the point where she would be a happy productive citizen, because the bulbs, while a perfect environment for power generation, are absolutely crappy when it comes to helping the plants develop the traits that separate human beings from the animals. Plants possess only a limited degree of communication, great minds crippled by the lack of words to express thoughts. They are like feral children."
"Feral? Like animals that go about attacking?"
"Not rabid, feral. They don't think like normal people do because they weren't taught like regular children. Stories like Tarzan and The Jungle Book, where the heroes live among animals before being forced to deal handily with the human world are pure fiction. If not given the ability to develop human relationships, a child will not be able to develop beyond a certain point. It has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with socialization. The bulbs isolate."
"So all the plants are feral?"
"Pretty much. Sweet girls, for the most part, but not all there, not like you and me. It's not a genetic trait, it is social."
"Huh."
"Pretty deep for before the third cup of coffee, huh?"
Effie shrugged. "It's just… not what I thought was the case. I thought plants were designed to be more like animals, not had it… forced on them."
"Don't think of it as force," Anne cautioned. "They all like being who they are. They look at regular humans and understand enough to feel superior. They are unageing, their needs taken care of in a near paradise. They may not understand the concepts of love and hate, but they understand enough to enjoy being what they are."
"I wouldn't enjoy that."
"Me either. That's why I am so glad that I've never been in a bulb." Anne didn't bother suppressing the shudder that the thought garnered. "No socialization problems here."
Effie snorted. "Yeah. You're the very picture of well-adjusted."
"Compared to them I am," she shot back, then sighed. "So I'm a little on the shy side. Maybe a bit quiet. And slightly odd. Lots of people are."
"You know that people worry more about the quiet, loner types then they do gregarious social butterflies, right? Well, watching you, our colleagues fear for their lives. They keep shoving Mark and I at you to keep you from getting even quieter and more crazy."
"They do not!"
"Uh-huh, and they pay us, too. Like insurance."
"Now you're being silly."
The conversation degenerated from there, but both left it laughing.