== Part 20 – Personal Projects ==

"Whoa, that is way too severe. We want to teach Nine caution, not paranoia."

"Oh, and your idea is any better? We do what you want and we might as well give Nine to our enemies... whoever they are. I'm sure we have them already."

"Nah, we should actually focus on..."

"Goddamn," Gustav growled as he sat down for breakfast again with his daughter. A couple of Eights were already sitting with them and didn't seem to be partaking in the argument all the other Cylons were engrossed in. "Are they still arguing over Nine's lesson plan?"

"Yep," the Eight on the left said, seemingly completely unbothered by being left out of the "discussion" going on.

"Here, have some eggs and bacon," the right Eight told him, pushing a bowl towards him. "We're trying our hand at cooking."

"They're actually good," Marcy told her father as he looked over the blackened mess in the bowl. "Don't mind the looks. Something about the local livestock makes their cooked meat look... like that. Where's Mom?"

"Still sleeping," Gustav replied as he took a sample of what might be bacon. "Don't know how with this racket going on. Is this normal?"

"Happens all the time," left Eight told him blithely as she watched him closely. "It's perfectly normal for us."

"Yeah. They've been arguing in circles now for the past six hours," right Eight added. "They'll swap in new individuals to continue the debate when an individual gets tired. Want more?"

"Yes, please," Gustav replied. As the right Eight started piling food on his plate, he asked, "How long do these arguments go on for?"

"Let's see," left Eight said thoughtfully as Gustav started digging in. "The Ones and Sevens have had this ongoing debate about our policy towards humans for almost as long as we Eights can remember."

"I think it started around the time when Seven started getting a good grasp on the big picture, you know what we want to teach Nine now," right Eight added, nodding to Nine who was sitting by herself on the other side of the room. "That's what? Thirty, thirty one years or so now?"

After her little run and hide incident, the Cylons has basically stripped her of all system control priveleges so that Nine couldn't so much as close a door without having to go through another Cylon first. Nine still had full access to information feeds and the database, but she wasn't allowed to change anything for fear that she might break something. Now Nine sat by herself, slumped across her table with her head propped up by the chin on folded arms while she stared into empty space.

"Why is she by herself?" Gustav asked, turning to Marcy. The Cylons might be completely clueless when it came to raising kids, but he expected better from his daughter.

"She didn't want to talk," Marcy said with a helpless shrug. "I think the others arguing about her lessons is getting Nine down in the dumps."

"So what's Nine doing now?" Gustav asked. Given the way Nine was staring off into empty space, he thought he had a pretty good idea of what she was doing.

"Uh, looks like she's watching children's cartoons," left Eight said, looking over at Nine.

"I think she's been like that for the last six hours or so," right Eight added.

"Oh come on, that's no way to raise a kid," Gustav said disgustedly, throwing down his fork and sitting back in his chair. "You can't just let a kid do nothing but watch holovid shows and movies all day. That rots the brain."

"I think the Colonials have a similar saying," left Eight mused.

"Right, a kid needs structure, a routine, regular chores," Gustav continued. "That helps train the mind and instill discipline."

"But... there aren't any chores on the basestar for Nine to do," right Eight protested. "Most maintenance is taken care of automatically, and what little isn't is usually done by the nearest Cylon with some free time on their hands."

"And Nine's access is so restricted now that she couldn't do any maintenance if she wanted to," left Eight continued. "And we already threw out the Zeros' old lesson plans because we're not planning on having Nine infiltrate the Colonies... or anyone else for that matter."

"Well how about a hobby then?" Gustav suggested.

"A hobby?" the two Eights chorused.

"Sure, a hobby," Gustav confirmed. "Something that Nine can do with her time that's more constructive and mentally stimulating than watching cartoons all day. Look, you cooked this food for us, right?"

"Sure, but that's because we were bored due to no one else but you guys are willing to talk to us," left Eight told him.

"Yeah," right Eight agreed. "The others aren't happy with us because one of us showed Nine the hiding trick that started this mess to begin with."

"And that doesn't bother you?" Marcy asked, wide eyed at how nonchalant the Eights were with being ostracized.

"Nah, happens all the time," left Eight said carelessly. "They'll get over it eventually. They always do."

"Huh. I guess that's lived experience putting things into perspective," right Eight said thoughtfully. "That's so weird, now that I think about it."

Gustav wasn't listening. Staring at the depressed Nine, he came to a decision. He got up and started making his way towards Nine, maneuvering around the arguing Cylons who ignored him. Behind him, he heard Marcy's fading voice ask, "So, do you guys have an opening for 'baby sitter in chief'?" He didn't hear the answer.

"Hey," Gustav said, tapping Nine on the shoulder. Nine blinked and looked up at him in surprise. "You need a hobby."


"This is a Star League Defense Force Training Command approved field test for determining if a prospective mechwarrior is compatible with the neurohelmet system and are able to control a Battlemech," Stoner read aloud from the manual in his hand. The Cylons had hired the mercenary lance Rick's Ravagers for a side gig of teaching them how to use the captured pirate mechs. Given that Rick himself was "busy" with a Six in his office at the moment, it fell upon the more tech savvy Stoner to run the Cylons through this first part of the job, which played more to his strengths than Rick's anyway. That manual belonged to the Ravagers and the pirates apparently didn't have one when the Cylons captured the Dropship, hence why they were running this test now.

"I know already," Eight whined from inside the Centurion Battlemech's open cockpit. She was buckled into the thoroughly sanitized pilot's seat and was wearing an equally thoroughly sanitized neurohelmet. The neurohelmet was bulky enough that Eight looked like she was wearing a trashcan big enough to rest on her shoulders. "I've read the whole damn manual. Let's get on with this already."

"Hush," Stoner told her. "Reading this section aloud is standard procedure to ensure everyone knows what's going on and that everything is in order."

"Fine," Eight said sullenly. "Keep going."

"Every Star League Defense Force approved Battlemech comes with a standardized user neural compatibility test program if and when SLDF field commanders feel the need to recruit new mechwarriors in the field," Stoner continued. "As such, this field test assumes proper testing equipment is unavailable, and everything required to conduct the test is already required to operate the Battlemech itself. Before conducting the test, ensure the following: One, ensure the mech cockpit and all computer systems are powered on."

"The lights are all on," Eight pointed out.

"Two, ensure all actuators have been disconnected from the actuator control system."

"Done," Eight replied, pointing at the mech's status display. "All the actuator status indicators are red."

"Three, ensure the neurohelmet is properly worn and fitted to the test subject," Stoner continued.

"Uh, done," Eight told him. "You already walked us through that. Several times."

"Four, ensure the neurohelmet is securely connected via SLDF approved cable to the Battlemech control computer," Stoner read. He glanced down to the cable in question and then frowned. "Hey, what's that?"

"That" was a featureless box that had been spliced into the middle of the neurohelmet cable. Unlike the mech and the neurohelmet, it looked brand new.

"It's a monitoring device designed to record signal traffic between the neurohelmet and the control computer," the Four watching the test said. "What goes thought that cable will give us a good idea of what the computer is looking for to control the mech and what kind of feedback it's giving back to the mechwarrior. It shouldn't interfere with the test."

"You sure about that?" Stoner asked doubtfully.

"It'll be fine!" Eight insisted. "The computer won't know it's there. Get on with it already!"

"Fine, your funeral," Stoner grumped. He looked back down at the manual and began reading again. "Success Conditions: The test subject must complete a minimum of seventy percent of all tasks designed to test their ability to control their Battlemech without experiencing excessive mental and physical stress. Failure conditions include the test subject experiencing one or more of the following conditions: headaches, nausea, dizziness, hallucinations, and out-of-body experience. Warning: in extremely rare cases, test subjects may experience epileptic seizures and/or unconsciousness and/or other forms of involuntary self injury. If any of these events occur or if the test operator believes the subject is about to otherwise be injured, immediately cancel the test and render medical aid."

"Are you done yet?" Eight asked exasperated.

"Almost," Stoner told her. "Task One: This task is a simple feed back test designed to test the subject's neural sensitivity. The test subject may feel some slight tingling in their skin. If the tingling is too weak to be felt or is strong enough that it feels even mildly painful or more to the test subject, the test is considered failed. In case of test failure, refer to Appendix G for test strength adjustment procedures and rerun Task One until passed or the test operator determines that it is too dangerous for the test subject to continue." Stoner lowered the manual. "Okay, now I'm done. Ready?"

"Ready!" Eight replied with a grin and a thumbs up.

"Okay then. In three. Two. One. Start!" Stoner tapped the icon on the screen in front of him.

Eight immediately let out a scream at the top of her lungs.


"Dang, girl," Stoner said impressed as Eight dry heaved into the stinky waste basket. "I've never seen anyone have that strong a reaction to Task 1 before."

"I believe I know the cause," Four said, studying the data from the test. "Our neural pathways have been modified to allow for built in wireless communications. These modifications renders them overly sensitive to the neurohelmet."

"No shit!" Eight gasped sarcastically. The dry heaves seemed to be dying down. "I thought we were designed with this technology in mind!"

"Our version of this technology works slightly different from the Inner Sphere neurohelmet," Four told her. "The difference is subtle enough that we didn't catch it in our pre-test analyses, but the signal recorder gave me a pretty clear picture."

"Subtle?" Eight said disbelievingly "Didn't feel subtle to me!"

"Well, I think we got enough data to properly calibrate Task 1," Stoner told them. "System's ready to try again whenever you are."

"Give me a minute and I'll be ready," Eight said shakily.

"Not you," Stoner said shakily. "Manual's clear on that. You need your head examined."

Eight just looked insulted.

"He means your neural pathways need to be checked for damage," Four said, helping her get to her feet. "Come on, we have a scanner in the infirmary. We'll get some Eights from the Comstar library to continue the test. They're running out of new books to read anyway."

"This is payback for the hide and seek thing, isn't it?" Eight asked miserably.

"Possibly."


"What's she building?" Gustav asked as Nine worked on her new hobby.

Gustav wasn't sure what the new hobby was because Nine wouldn't tell him. Or at least she didn't tell him anything he could follow because she her explanations kept descending into indecipherable jargon. But it looked to Gustav like she was wiring a bathtub to a sink, both of whose basins glowed from within, the source obscured by the liquid in them. Centurions had done the actual grunt work of moving the heavy tub, but the wiring was all Nine.

"I don't know exactly," Eight told him. "It looks like she's wiring a resurrection vat up to a control pedestal."

"To a what now?"

"Control pedestals are how we implement votes and take direct control of the basestar," Eight explained.

"But I thought you already controlled the basestar with your mind talk," Gustav said, confused.

"We do, but the 'mind talk' as you call it is wireless," Eight said. "The pedestal creates a more direct and secure connection between the user and the basestar's systems. It's like being wired in, only we're using liquid instead of wire. The liquid connects with the nerves in any of our skin surface, resulting in each nerve being a direct channel between our minds and the basestar. What Nine appears to be doing here is creating a control pedestal that she can go swimming in."

"And that means that Nine will have an even broader, more powerful connection to the Basestar computers because all of her skin is going be immersed," Gustav concluded. "Is that dangerous?"

"I don't think so?" Eight said uncertainly. "Our brains have a natural input/output limit, and the pedestals already hit that when we just dip our hands in. Exposing more skin shouldn't increase her ability to handle data. Oh, and her access limitations are still in effect and higher bandwidth connections won't change that, so she won't be accidentally jumping us into the sun or dropping a nuke on Langhorne or anything like that."

"That's good to know," Gustav said dryly.

"I just don't see what it's for or how it's useful," Eight said frustrated.

"Heh, useful ain't got nothing to do with it," Gustav told her. "Hey, Nine! Are you making this thing just so you can watch cartoons better while splashing around in a hot tub?"

Nine paused her work, turned her head to give Gustav a mischievous smirk that he had seen all too many times from his children. Then she went back to what she had been doing.

"She's gonna be quite the lawyer when she grows up," Gustav sighed.

"All done!" Nine announced proudly. Then she began to disrobe.

"Uh," Gustav said, his eyes widening at the complete shamelessness of the act. And... other reasons. He turned to Eight, just so he wouldn't haven't to look at the girl that he intellectually knew was really a child, but his eyes and hind brain kept lying by insisting that she was a lovely grown woman. "Don't you Cylons have a nudity taboo?" he demanded.

"No," Eight replied, smirking at his embarrassment. "Want me to prove it by getting naked right here?"

"No! My wife would kill me!" Gustav said quickly.

"Wheee!" Gustav heard Nine cry, which was quickly followed by the sound of something large hitting water with a great splash.

Eight's smirk froze, then slowly turned into slack jawed awe.

"I can see everything!" Nine announced.