Prologue , Part 2 : Bio Mom-Droid .


Elsewhere: On the Station .


James Hawking, Jim to his friends, enemies, and everyone else in the galaxy, walked along side Melfina. He had been helping her pick out clothes most of the day, on Hilda's orders. Gene was supposed to do it, but the scrawny man managed to talk Hilda into letting him go with her, and sending Jim to do the work, while they got drunk at a bar.

Jim really didn't mind since that meant he got to spend time with Melfina. He'd never seen an android like her before. She was amazing! Organic tissue over a metal skeleton, processing speeds at trillions of terabytes per second. Not to mention she was the prettiest girl Jim had ever seen.

She didn't appear to be all that strong though. Usually androids were strong enough to bend steel, but she didn't seem any stronger then you're average 90 pound woman. That was so weird. Why build an android that couldn't do manual labor?

It's not like AIs were illegal, or used as slave labor, but they tended to be built with a specific purpose in mind... Jim couldn't help but wonder what her's was.

Was she some kind of infiltration droid? That would explain why someone would go to all the trouble of growing flesh around her structure, and making her physically no stronger then a real person would be, but giving her an incredible mind.

Jim walked along side her staring, trying to figure out how she worked just by looking at her. He loved machines, computers, virtual intelligence, and even Artificial intelligence. Despite that research being highly regulated.

An Artificial Lifeform like Melfina, on the other hand? Jim couldn't see the purpose behind the AIs' building her... or even if they built her. He heard rumors of some human companies trying to get around the Synthetic Rights Treaty. By mixing organic tissue, and thereby having the lifeforms qualify in that morally grey zone of Cyborgs.

After all, Cyborgs needed partially self aware subroutines, to control their bodies. So technically, a synthetic mind, with a metal skeleton, was legal so long as it had organic flesh... but that would require billions of credits, just to make one.

So how did an Outlaw, like Hilda, get a hold of one. Hilda said she stole Melfina from pirates, but how could THEY even get their hands on such advanced technology.

There was something going on. Jim was sure.

"Can I help you with something, Jim?" Melfina smiled at him after catching him looking.

"Errr, no I'm good, just thinking," Jim assured.

"About what," she probed.

"Oh nothing important, just letting my mind wander... hey Melfina, can you eat?" Jim asked.

She smiled, "Good idea Jim, I am a little hungry. Do you see a place you'd like?"

'Hungry?' she could actually feel hunger to? Being able to eat and needing to were two completely different things. It wasn't something he thought an android could do.

Regardless, Jim looked around for a place to eat. "Hummmm... why not that Sangheili place? They usually got some interesting burritos."

"Sounds great," Melfina smiled.

They went inside and the hostess brought them to their table, giving them their menus before wandering off.

"Let's see what's good," Jim grinned opening the menu.

Like he thought, there was a long list of various things inside tortillas. Sangheili had oddly shaped mouths, with four small tentacle like things, with teeth and powerful muscles. So when they learned about humans burritos, that seemed specially designed for them, they went crazy over the food.

They loved human burritos but they also gave it a flare of their own culture. The meals on the menu had meats commonly found from their own planet's animals with exotic fruits and vegetables but, since Sangheili are absolutely in love with all things human, they also served common human dishes involving tortillas.

Breakfast burritos with sausage, egg, cheese, and hash browns. A delicious beef supreme with beans and yummy Earth plants. Even ice cream wrapped up in a tortilla with chocolate fudge and little pieces of cookie dough. Sangheili didn't have tongues, or even a jaw bone, but they had taste buds going down their throats. So they could still enjoy the dishes.

"See anything you like Melfina?" Jim grinned.

"I'm not sure," she confessed, "I've never eaten before."

Jim's eyes widened. That's right she had been kept in cryo sleep this whole time. Everything must be really new to her.

"Well you better avoid any of the spicy stuff. I don't think that would be a good first experience with food... hmmm... You should go for the Breakfast supreme. It's like the breakfast burrito but it says it comes wrapped up in a syrupy infused pancake and it comes with both sausage and bacon. You'll absolutely love that," Jim licked his lips, "Yeah I'm getting one to, and then we can have their ice cream wrap for dessert."

When the waitress came back they ordered, before the horrible waiting period for food occurred. Jim didn't realize how hungry he was, and munched on the bread sticks on the table, another tube like food that was easy for Sangheili to eat. It tasted a bit of cinnamon and a lot of butter. If their bread was this good he couldn't wait to get to the real food.

"Wow Jim," Melfina chuckled, very impressed with the boy's bread gobbling skills. "You sure you'll be able to eat all your dinner after filling up on bread."

Jim blinked, staring at her, "That's a very mom thing to say."

"Is that a good thing?" She asked nervously, really not knowing the answer.

"I guess," Jim shrugged putting his fourth stick of bread down, now half eaten.

She brightened a good deal at his comment.


Hours Later.

Jim yawned as they once again walked off Hilda's ship. Dinner had been as tasty as he imagined but Melfina had been right. He hadn't been able to finish all of it, and put most of his dessert in a to-go box. Along with all the bread they had at the table.

Melfina had put Jim's food away, in the ship's kitchen for later, and put her new clothes in the Storage room as Hilda ordered. They were going to move all their supplies off ship soon so there was no point picking out quarters. It was just easier to have everything in one area.

However the ice cream would melt if they didn't store it in the freezer, and besides he would probably get the chance to eat that before they unloaded. Not that he knew when that would be, or even what they would be moving everything on.

Jim grinned looking down at his new Omnitool. Hilda had told them to charge everything they got to her ship, and even told him to get the most top of the line equipment he could get for himself.

This thing was tricked out by outlaws to be the absolute best at hacking computers, along with having Yotabytes of memory space and processing speed... and it was really great for gaming to. He hadn't actually bought games, cause he didn't think he could get away with it, but Hilda promised him a large cut of the profits. So he could buy stuff like that for himself, later.

"Maybe we should go to the hotel if your tired," Melfina suggested, apparently having caught his yawn.

"Yeah, okay" he didn't put up a fight. Even though he probably would have if Gene had made a comment like that. Though Melfina obviously wasn't teasing him... it was just so... motherly...