Girl Talk

Major Carter was in the Stargate control center, enjoying a few minutes of privacy. It was one of the few areas of the command that was off limits to Harper, and she was using it as a sanctuary. Their visitors had been at the command for over two weeks now now, and things were finally starting to settle down. Actually, only some of the visitors were here. Captain Hunt had sent his first officer to take the ship out to the outer planets to stock up on hydrogen, which the ship processed for fuel. They were expected to return tomorrow. Before she left, Beka had mentioned her love of horror stories, so Carter had gone on a shopping spree and bought a number of audio books for her enjoyment. She wished she could tell Stephen King that his books would still be popular 3,000 years from now.

Trance and Dr Jackson had left with them. Trance had discovered strawberries, and was determined to grow them on the ship. Dr Jackson had gone with her, ostensibly to help her with the planting. Carter wasn't sure if she approved of his interest in the girl, it seemed perilously close to cradle robbing, but apparently her superior officers had no objections to the pairing, so she decided to take a wait and see approach.

Dylan and the avatar were still here as well. The captain of the starship was negotiating with General Hammond for fresh supplies for theAndromeda, and shore leave for his crew. The supplies were easy, but the shore leave was proving problematical, as not all f the crew could pass as human. Nor could the town near Cheyenne mountain handle such a large influx of visitors, even if they could pass a human. The solution seemed to involve an isolated tropical island normally used by high ranking members of the government, ample supplies of beer, and free transportation to and from the island for any member of Stargate Command who was eligible to take leave and wanted to socialize with the visitors. The android was almost always by his side, and the Major was beginning to wonder if their relationship was more than professional.

That left the weapons officer and Harper. Tyr and Teal'c had been making alpha male noises at each other, but so far nothing had come of it. Harper, on the other hand, was driving her to distraction. He was brilliant, there was no doubt about that, and had already given her several ideas to improve the programming of the Gate. It was his interest in her that was the problem. Well, not exactly his interest, she had no problem with men being interested in her, it was his approach. He acted like a 13-year-old suffering from his first crush, and worse he couldn't keep his hands off her. In desperation she had contacted a friend, Lt. Jennifer Hailey. Lt Hailey was actually a member of Stargate Command, but at the moment was on temporary additional duty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was studying for her doctorate in quantum physics. She was exceptionally intelligent; easily capable of keeping up with Harper, but at the moment, from Carter's point of view, the important thing about Jennifer was that she was a blonde goddess.

She had arrived yesterday, and Harper had, as expected, immediately turned some of his attentions to Hailey. Carter expected that when Harper left, Jenifer was going to tell her that Carter owed her a huge favor.

A knock on the door to the control room interrupted her musing. Turning, she was surprised to see the avatar, Andromeda, in the doorway.

"May I come in, Major?" she asked.

"Of course. What brings you up here?

"The Captain was having a discussion with Colonel O'Neill in the Colonel's office. The Colonel informed me that the discussion was private, and that I was to wait outside."

Carter winced. Apparently Jack had decided to follow the letter of General Hammond's order, but not the spirit.

"I see," said Carter, the disapproval of Colonel O'Neill's actions evident in her voice. "Other than Jack, I mean Colonel O'Neill, how has the rest of the command been treating you?"

"You mean besides calling me 'That sexy robot babe' or saying 'She brings a whole new meaning to the term living doll'? I've been called much worse, and it does show that they are starting to accept me as a person." A slight smile, "Now, if only I can get them to appreciate me for my brains and not just my body. Overall, they are treating me about the same as a new crew member gets treated aboard me. Other than the Colonel, no one has been openly hostile."

Deciding to take advantage of the moment of confidence between them, Carter asked a question that had been nagging her. "What's it feel like to know that you were manufactured?"

"What's it like to know that you were born?"

"I'm not sure I follow you, Andromeda."

"Did you decide that you wanted to be born? Your parents decided that they wanted a child and they created you. My designer decided that he wanted an avatar so he created me. Neither one of us had a voice in the matter. We were both assembled; it is just the method of assembly that differs." Unexpectedly, she gave a giggle and blushed slightly. "However, I suspect your creators had a more enjoyable time with the initial laying of the blueprints than mine did."

She blushed thought Carter. How does an android blush? "How did you do that?" she asked.

"Do what?"

"You blushed, how do you blush?"

"I didn't DO anything. I just do when I get embarrassed." Not the clearest statement she had ever made but Carter understood.

"Tears", thought Carter, "blushing, this isn't sophisticated programming and technology, this is black magic."

"Do you mean the physical mechanism behind my blushes? Actually, it isn't any different from yours. My skin is an organic substance that needs to be nourished, much like your skin does. It was originally designed to be a substitute skin for burn victims. Anyway, the nourishment is provided by an nutrient compound, which is red in color, and distributed through capillary tubes. When I'm embarrassed, the capillaries expand, bringing more of the nutrient fluid close to the surface of my skin and I blush. I actually don't have any more control over my blushing than you do."

"What happens if you're injured?" Injured, not damaged? thought Carter, is she becoming a person to me?

"Well, if the integrity of my skin is broken, the nutrient fluid will leak out of course. It contains compounds that when exposed to air will cause it to congeal and stop the leakage. Given time, my skin covering will eventually heal itself."

"In other words, if I cut you, you bleed."

"Well, yes."

Something else occurred to Carter. If Andromeda's designer had gone to this much trouble to make her lifelike, what about parts of her anatomy that were hidden by clothes?

"Andromeda?"

"Rommie; my friends call me Rommie."

"Ok, Rommie. I'm Sam, that's short for Samantha. This may be kind of personal, but just how complete are you?"

Rommie knew where this was going; she had been asked that particular question more than once. "My anatomy is complete and fully functional"

Now that raises some interesting possibilities, thought Sam, and raises some even more interesting questions about her designer as well. "Is that a normal design procedure? I mean are all of your kind equipped that way?"

Rommie didn't really want to encourage this line of questioning. While in theory artificial intelligences had the same rights as organic beings, in practice they did not. Pairings between organics and avatars were not illegal, but were strongly discouraged, mostly, but not exclusively, by organics, so mixed couples tended to conceal their relationships. Still she knew of a few whom she suspected didn't have a strictly platonic relationship.

A shrug. "It depends, some are, some aren't, and it's possible to, err, add the functionality at a later time, if we find we have a desire to. It's really not something I want to discuss though." A far away look appeared in her eyes as a memory of Gabriel surfaced.

Carter didn't miss the look. "What was he like?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The man you were just thinking about."

"His name was Gabriel. He was a ship's avatar too."

"Was? What happened to him?"

"He was killed."

Two dams broke; the two women had too much in common not to be able to relate to each other's feelings. The talk ranged from love, to prejudice, to men and finally to two particular men.

Their talk was interrupted by another knock on the control room's door. It was Harper. "I've got something for you, Major," he said. Jennifer was with him and looking haggard.

Rommie took this as her cue to leave. "I had better get back to the Captain."

As Rommie left something sadly amusing came to Carter. Even with another 3,000 years to evolve, men still didn't know a good thing when they saw it. Even if the good thing was standing by his side.

Rommie passed between the lieutenant and her shipmate, giving Harper a slight nod as she passed, and earning a disapproving look from Hailey. The avatar had changed into a different outfit from the one she had worn when Carter first met her, and while it showed considerably less cleavage it did nothing to hide her figure.

"Harper," said Carter tiredly. "What are you doing here? You know the Gate control room is off limits to you."

"Well, technically I'm not in the control room. You're on one side of the doorway, and I'm on the other. But, I got to show you this. I think I've solved the instability problem for the Naquadria generators you use on your starships."

Now that would be good news, thought Carter. Wait a minute here. What's he doing doing research on Naquadria generators? He's supposed to be working on getting his ship back home and how did he get the information about Naquadria?

"Harper, aren't you supposed to be working on a way to get your ship back to where it belongs?"

"I finished the prototype this morning, Major. Now, about your generators."

"Focus, Harper. The prototype."

"Oh sure, it's down in the high energy lab." His hand had drifted to Hailey's waist; she slapped it away. "Come on down, I'll show you."

The prototype was an eye straining collection of impossible angles and shapes. Just looking at it gave Carter a headache.

"How does it work?" she asked.

"It's very simple really. When activated within string space, the device will transpose one of the space dimensions with the time dimension. The hard part was controlling the direction of the time arrow. We wouldn't want to go backwards in time instead of forwards."

"Have you tested it yet?

"Not yet, it still has a few bugs I'll need a few more days to work them out."

"What sort of bugs?"

"So far I have an 85 chance of controlling the spatial dimension that transfers position with the time dimension."

"What happens if it doesn't transfer properly?" asked Carter.

'If it fails there will be a complete randomization of entopic time within the strings, which, since the strings connect all the multiverses, this condition will propagate throughout all the multiverses."

"Which means", interjected Hailey "that if it fails, it will destroy the universe, all of them actually."

"I tell you Major Carter, this is my greatest invention since I created Rommie."

It took a moment for Harper's comment to sink in. Her mind was still reeling from the shock that the device in front of her could possibly destroy the universe.

"What was that last thing you said Harper?" She wanted to make sure she had heard him correctly.

"This is my greatest creation since I made Rommie."

"Who's Rommie?" asked Hailey.

"She's the woman who was with me when you and Harper arrived," answered Carter.

"That's Rommie. The ship made hot." Harper made the classic curvy motion with his hands.

"You made that sex bomb?" queried Hailey incredulously.

"Yeah, you have no idea how hard it was to get all the parts functioning correctly."

"I can imagine" said Carter icily remembering her discussion with Rommie about some of her non standard equipment. Now she understood Rommie's reluctance to talk about organic-avatar relationships. She had originally been designed to be a sex toy for this degenerate.

"The perfect woman, and I'm the one who created her."

Carter started out with, "You sick, depraved, pervert. Why didn't you just make a blow up doll" and went from there. When she ran out of invective Hailey took up the slack. She wasn't sure if she was going to like Rommie when they met, but she knew for certain that she didn't like Harper.

It was at this precise moment that General Hammond and Captain Dylan were preparing to enter the lab to check on the progress of Harper's work. Just as the captain reached for the door, it flew open and Harper ran out of the lab, fleeing in terror.

Upon entering the lab, they encountered a furious Lt Hailey and an equally enraged Major Carter. The major was holding a pair of pliers, which she had just threatened to use to remove a certain sensitive portion of Harper's anatomy.