Chapter 3 - Unification

Atlas, Year 73-74VE

A voice echoed through the lab, stirring two men from near-dozing. It had been a long day, and they had both succumbed to fatigue.

It was not the voice of PENNY, at least not as it had been. This was a young voice.

The voice of a child.

"Dr. Polendina?"

Both scientists blinked. "Penny?" Polendina hazarded.

"Acknowledged, Doctor Polendina."

"You've… changed your voice emulation?" They'd given it the ability to do this, but at no point had they instructed it to do so. Nor had it shown any inclination to do so before today.

"Affirmative. Doctor Polendina has designated self-entity as Yeomanette. In addition, bulk analysis of available population databases indicates that the use of the appellation 'Penny' is most frequently attributed to a female biological entity by a statistically significant margin. Further, self-entity, based on careful evaluation of research logs, has existed fewer than ten solar years by any broad definition of 'creation'. Based upon this data, self-entity Penny has selected at random a voice emulation consistent with these criteria."

"That's… very logical of you, Penny."

Penny paused. "Analysis indicates 93.5% confidence that statement correlates with approval. Additionally, analysis indicates that it is customary to vocalize words when approval is signified, though counterintuitively, a second modal point exists to vocalize words rejecting such approval. Self-entity Penny has created a separate database for such contradictory data." Another short pause. "Thank you, Doctor Polendina."

Polendina laughed. "You are most welcome, Penny."

"Analysis validated. Correlation confirmed. Approval – Response – Affirmation." Penny paused again. "Query. Self-entity Penny notes that biological entities are designated by two or more names. The primary label appears to indicate the individual entity, though Analysis indicates random assignation across populations and statistically significant repetition of some names. Analysis indicates secondary terminating appellation is transferred from one generation to the next, or applied indicating a legal familial relationship." A pause. "Self-entity Penny has no data regarding such a terminating self-designation."

"Well I-"

"Polendina, Penny," Buyanto interrupted with a grin. "Your last name is Polendina."

Processors ramped up. "Query. Does designation Polendina indicate a marital or a familial relationship in context?"

Polendina coughed, even as he heard Jade try to stifle a laugh. "Definitely not a marital relationship, Penny. You are not of an age, and I'm far too old for that."

Another long pause with high processing load.

"Amending full self-entity designation as Penny Polendina, generic designation I / She / Her, based on familial relationship." A shorter pause. "Analysis indicates biological entities are created by parents… are you my father, Doctor Polendina?"

"Yes," Jade said with a broad smile. "Yes, he is."

. . .

Over the course of the next six months, Penny Polendina… continued to emerge.

That was the best way to describe it. She learned rapidly, absorbing data as fast as they could provide it. She asked questions, and then asked questions about the answers, and then asked questions about those answers. She built a database of correlations rapidly. And as quickly as that database grew, the second, the one where she stored what she considered anomalous data that defied quick analysis, that database grew even more rapidly.

And each morning, when they greeted her, she would inform them of some new revelatory correlation that she had discovered, as she had mined that second database while the scientists slept and she did not. Sometimes, the correlations were excellent ones, if imperfect because people weren't perfect. Sometimes the correlations surprised them, and they determined to explore whether she had in fact learned something that they had not previously understood.

Other times, her conclusions were charmingly, catastrophically, wrong.

She bore their feedback with apparent patience, since they had not yet enabled the full code for Emotion Signifying. They wanted to give her a foundation to work from first before she attempted to emulate or understand the vagaries of human emotion. But even with that limitation, they could see her personality emerging in real time. Penny was… curious and clearly enjoyed both their company and their interactions (to the extent that she and they understood the term in this context).

And she began to experiment with the concept of self-image. Her first attempt had made Polendina nearly choke, as she had essentially taken an image of him as a boy from her databases, modified it to make it feminine, and then displayed it for their approval.

"Good gods, no, Penny. You aren't a female version of me. You are your own person!"

"Query, genetics indicates that a familial relationship would incorporate significant inherited traits."

"That's true, but… you aren't bound by genetics, Penny. You can choose whatever self-image seems… correct for you."

That seemingly innocuous reply had sent her into silent, full-load processing for over forty-eight hours, to their near panic. And when she'd finally responded to them, they'd begged her to place periodic pauses in her processing, to provide them with staged reports on her progress, at least every couple of hours.

"Acknowledged. Analysis indicates it is customary to use words indicating apology when errors causing potential harm have occurred. Analysis indicates harm can include both physical and nonphysical damage or impairment."

"That's correct, Penny."

"Apologies, father. I will incorporate pause-points during intensive analysis."

And that was another. She had taken to calling him father. He'd tried to convince Jade that he should be "Uncle Jade", partly in jest, and had received threats of retribution for it from his friend.

"Thank you, Penny."

"You are welcome, father." She continued. "I have evaluated 1.23 million variants of general physical characteristics, and have identified a subset of several thousand combinations for which Aura Integration indicates…" she consulted Thesaurus, "affinity. Transmitting now."

Buyanto's eyes widened as images began flashing across the screen faster than the eye could parse them, to the point where they began to blend together in a grotesquerie.

"Ah, thank you, Penny. We will… ah… download and review those for any that are clearly… problematic."

"Acknowledged," Penny's binocular vision shifted, focusing on the prototype. "I have analyzed the prototype which is to house my physical structure. Analysis indicates that it is outside normal distribution for human female, aged ten years. Aura Integration indicates agreement with Analysis. Providing alternative ranges of physical dimensions based on positively correlated results."

Polendina felt his eyes sting for a moment, and he took off his glasses to wipe at his eyes. They'd designed the frame of PENNY based on the expectation of an adult-sized automaton with Aura. A mature entity that might one day be capable of retaining and protecting the Winter Maiden's power.

They had never imagined that it would instead decide that it was, in fact a child.

A child that considered herself his daughter.

"Father, Sensory indicates excessive moisture production of tear duct secretions. Analysis provides multiple potential root causes, including physical malfunction, external irritant, or emotional expression. Query?"

"I'm happy, Penny. Very happy. Just a little happy tears, is all." Polendina managed, voice slightly thick.

"Filing in secondary database for additional analysis. Thank you, father."

"You are most welcome, Penny. Most welcome indeed."

. . .

That evening, as they retired for the night and Penny shifted to what she'd called secondary analysis of anomalous non-correlations, the two men chatted before they left the secure laboratory area.

"Jade," Pietro said quietly. "Did you imagine that this might be the result?"

His friend shook his head. "No. We've never reached this level of emergent behavior before, Pietro. How could I have imagined that it... she, would decide that she was ten years old? And yet, it should have been one of the hypothetical outcomes." He frowned. "I think I was blinded by the need that had been placed before you. Fria."

Polendina nodded. "Fria. I fear you are correct. We were trusted with knowledge. Critical knowledge. And it blinded us to possible alternatives. All my work on the cybernetics, the physical framework, and I never questioned the size of it." He reached over and grasped his friend's arm. "And to hear her, having opinions! Opinions that run counter to our assumptions, our desires."

"Yes. She's already surpassing all my expectations. And... I think we should forget about showing her the proposed designs we had for her physical appearance. She's already beyond those. I'd like to... continue to let her develop."

"Yes. And I think... we have to reconsider our original goals for Project PENNY."

"I'm very glad to hear you say that," Buyanto said gravely. "The ethics alone..."

"I didn't imagine..." Polendina shook his head. "That she would… would…call me father. I wasn't prepared for this, Jade. A young child that sees me as her parent. At my age. And with my newfound disability."

Jade laughed, lightening the mood a bit. "You aren't dead yet, old friend. And I can't think of a better person to raise Penny than you. Gods forbid it had been Watts, or one of those blasted officers at Atlas Headquarters."

Polendina shuddered at the thought. "Indeed, Jade. Indeed. Come, let's get some sleep and see what marvel Penny comes up with in the morning."

. . .

It took them two weeks to assist Penny in choosing her physical characteristics, even as she subtly adjusted her voice emulation to, as she expressed it, better align with what she had begun to describe as Aura Integration's prodding. She'd found herself unable to fully explain what that meant, or how it felt, other than the fact that once Analysis had completed its tasks, it had begun the habit of submitting a range of findings to Aura Integration, and that subroutine would, seemingly at random, choose one or more options.

And after that occurred, it just felt… correct. Even though there was no apparent logical reason for that particular result that Analysis could determine. And she had asked her father what that indicated.

"What you are feeling there, Penny, is perhaps the raw expression of your soul. Or perhaps intuition. It's not something we can fully quantify. It's not even something that Jade and I anticipated!"

"Acknowledged. It is… difficult to quantify or qualify, and yet it is functionally…" she paused… "Thesaurus appears unable to adequately express this conceptually and is providing an anomalously large number of options."

"Not surprising. It's difficult even for biological persons to express fully," Jade said helpfully. "Now, let's give you a better view of your body's progress, so you can provide more immediate feedback.". . .

. . .

Penny awoke, which was an unusual occurrence for her. In fact, it was the first time she had been truly offline since Aura Integration had activated.

She felt as if… something very anomalous and incorrect had occurred. There was a clear break in her data logs, where zero data input had occurred, and in addition, there was the feeling that she had been… rendered not only inoperable, but not her for some period of time. Aura Integration indicated that this was a feeling that Analysis quantified as extremely unpleasant.

But it was a feeling that was fading rapidly, as systems continued to ramp up and data poured in. Analysis increased, consuming more and more processing resources, until finally it reached a conclusion with 99.8% certainty.

She had been shut down and severed from the Aura Containment Unit.

And then it had been… moved, and reactivated.

Further logs were consulted, and Analysis slowly began to surrender resources as it determined that she had, in fact, been notified in some fashion that this was planned, and why. What Analysis had not anticipated, however, was how very… negative… such an event would feel after reactivation, according to Aura Integration. It was, Thesaurus informed, unhappy.

It was only when Analysis had released sufficient resources to allow external Sensory Processing to move from a suspense state that she was informed that her father had been attempting to communicate with her.

"Penny?!"

She focused her cameras.

She could not focus her cameras. She could not focus her cameras. Her cameras were offline.

And yet… her father was in his ambulatory chair before her. Sensory Processing was 100% confident of this input, and Analysis determined the data was valid after some cursory checks.

Analysis ramped back up, eating into processor cycles yet again, reviewing logs from prior to deactivation. It informed her of its conclusions.

My cameras are offline. Because visual input is routed from my eyes.

My eyes.

I have eyes.

And then more flooded in. She had dual stereophonic microphones, one on each side of her… head.

And she could sense, in some way that was non-quantifiable and bypassed Sensory Processing, that the Aura Containment Unit was no longer across the lab, which agreed with Sensory Processing indicating that it could not be seen there.

Analysis indicated, with over 88.2% probability, that the ACU was inside her torso.

I have a torso.

More data flooded in, nearly overwhelming her and thermally throttling her processors. Sensory input from arms. Legs. Hands. Fingers. Toes. Neck. Joints. She could feel the soft thrum of her power plant through her frame. She could sense, again in some undefinable way, the cycling throb of her Aura.

Her eyes managed to focus, to find her father taking up most of her visual field, his face… he was attempting to communicate. She forced Analysis to release some processing capacity.

"By the Gods, Penny, can you hear me?"

Penny attempted to activate her speaker, and found it offline as well, but managed to prevent Analysis from grabbing resources again and instead Aura Integration provided a potential cause which Analysis accepted provisionally, and instead sent the output to Vocal, which engaged its own minor subroutine heuristics based on that output.

"I can hear you, father." His face contorted in several ways, and his tear ducts activated. "Query. Significance of tear production?"

"Happy and relieved tears, Penny. Happy and relieved…" he replied. "How do you feel?"

Analysis parsed the question and made estimations of what significant parameters he would find most relevant, based on past logs. "I am experiencing thermal throttling due to high processing load. This is primarily due to significant changes in physical parameters, activation state, and sensory input."

He smiled, and nodded. "I can imagine. Would you like us to dampen sensory input?"

Aura Augmentation gave Analysis the equivalent of bad data. "Negative. Negative, father. I will adjust internally."

"Excellent. Let us know when you are ready to discuss further."

. . .

It took her almost two full days, with periodic pauses to communicate with her father and Doctor Buyanto, to complete initial analysis and assimilation of her reactivated state and its capabilities and limitations.

And the un-quantifiable feelings, which is how Thesaurus categorized them though they had absolutely zero relationship with Sensory Processing, that having her three fundamental components physically integrated caused. Physical structure, Aura Containment Unit, and Processing all merged into one, unified whole. A whole that cause her sense of Self to further solidify in, again, a non-quantifiable manner.

In a manner that made the concept of her previous state feel… unacceptable, in a way that she had not felt prior to reactivation. She was complete. If she was not unified, she would not be complete.

That feeling had been further cemented, when Doctor Buyanto had brought forth a mirror, and allowed her eyes to view herself, which had again thrown her into a several-hours-long state of thermal throttling as Analysis, Data I/O, Sensory Processing, and Aura Augmentation threatened to war with each other until her processors thermally degraded into their constituent components of silicon and dust.

As she emerged, from her state of… malfunction, she realized the mirror had been removed. "Father? Doctor Buyanto?"

There was a sound of cloth moving, and Analysis indicated that Doctor Buyanto had been sleeping on a cot nearby, and her vocalization had brought him to a functional state.

"Yes Penny!" He managed as he sat up. "Are you alright?"

"I am nominal, Doctor Buyanto. It appears that my processors were… overloaded."

"I'm afraid we didn't anticipate the shock that seeing yourself would cause," he mused, rubbing his face. Shall I awaken your father?"

Analysis and Aura Augmentation warred for a bit, and Analysis asserted itself, cowing the other subroutine after a few moments. "That is not required, Doctor Buyanto. Based on internal clock, it is very late, and Analysis indicates he is likely suffering from debilitating levels of sleep deficit."

"Well reasoned, Penny."

"Doctor Buyanto. I request the return of the mirror."

His face did something that she could not interpret. They had indicated that they were still tuning Emotion Signifying so that it could not only allow her to properly emulate emotional responses, but could also improve her ability to interpret non-verbal cues. "Are you certain that you are able to… handle the potential processing load?"

Analysis evaluated prior data. "I have assimilated or cached for future analysis an extremely large amount of data. Analysis indicates that any residual data is unlikely to overload processing resources." She paused. "I believe that Aura Augmentation desires confirmation of self-image."

Buyanto shook his head. "I think, Penny, that you are misinterpreting what Aura Augmentation does. It is not a separate processing capability like Analysis. It's more akin to a minor translational subroutine, closer to Sensory Processing. What you are… experiencing… is not originating in the subroutine. I would…" his voice softened and lowered so that she was required to increase her microphone sensitivity, "characterize it as what your Soul desires, as interpreted and communicated by Aura Augmentation.

Analysis grabbed that data, and shut down all input from Sensory Processing for several hundred cycles as it calculated probabilities.

And then queried Aura Augmentation.

It received agreement, and released resources again.

Penny consulted Thesaurus, and her database of typical human responses to revelatory information.

"Oh," she said.

. . .

"Alright Penny, today we are going to finish activating Motor Control."

Penny nodded. Over the course of the prior week, they had gradually done so for one subsystem after another, starting with her eyes and gradually working their way downward, one at a time, testing each one extensively. In truth, the greatest challenge had been the fact that each subsystem had preprogrammed heuristics that allowed certain standard combinations of motion to be performed as a set, rather than requiring her to, as Buyanto had called it, micro-manage them.

But it had not been so easy. Analysis and Self, as she'd taken to calling the urges that expressed themselves through Aura Augmentation, tended to want to get in the way. The result had caused several accidents, including torn clothing coverings, damaged joints, and in once case, a damaged eye when Self and Analysis had gotten into a disagreement regarding her arm movements, attempted to override Motor Control, and had jammed a finger catastrophically into her left eye socket.

The impairment had been shocking and unpleasant, and she had been bombarded with error messages before fail-safes had kicked in and placed her into a suspense state. And she'd only realized the full result of the damage when she'd awoken to find her damaged finger, servos, and eye repaired, and additional safety parameters defined for Motor Control that should prevent such happening again.

This time, awakening had not given her the same feeling of unpleasant wrongness as when she'd been taken fully offline. Her Aura Containment Unit had remained in her torso, and her processors had remained in a suspense state, not separated from it. Only a handful of subsystems had been temporarily disconnected and then repaired or replaced. And that, Self informed her, had not felt quite so wrong. In fact, it had been a relief to awaken and find herself whole again.

"Initiating gross motor control over lower limbs in five… four… three…"

As a precaution, they had anchored Penny's feet to the floor using a set of reinforced boots that fully enclosed her feet, but could flex at the ankles.

And then she felt her internal gyros wind up, and the subtle increase in power draw as servos at ankles, knees, and hips unlocked, and began making minute adjustments.

"Lower limb motor control active, Doctor Buyanto," she announced, and then bent to look down and see what exactly was going on below her abdomen.

Servos complained and whined, and she felt gyros struggle.

"Easy there, Penny!" her father scolded, and she straightened.

"Apologies father. I do not wish to damage Motor Control again."

"Not likely, but you should limit yourself to small movements, even upper body, while Motor Control completes calibration. Now, let's start with you head and neck, and go through some range of motion exercises, while you get a feel for how your legs will react to those other movements."

. . .

"Are you ready?" her father asked the next day.

They had managed to add some basic nonverbal cues to her sets of available communications. A nod for yes. Horizontal shaking for no. A lifting of shoulders for insufficient data.

Penny nodded. Self had indicated it was more than ready. Analysis determined there was no benefit in further delay. Her hands gripped the bars of the stabilization frame on either side.

"Snowfall, release lockboots," Buyanto said.

"ACKNOWLEDGED."

And with a surge of feeling from Self, Penny felt a sudden freedom of cardinal movement in her feet, which caused her gyros to spin up to maximum and servos to lock up in order to provide stability. She commanded Motor Control to stabilize her upper torso using her grip on the stabilization frame, and waited for her gyros to normalize.

And then carefully, eyes locked onto the floor before her and arm servos working overtime, she instructed Motor Control to take a shuffling step forward.

And Analysis immediately objected that Motor Control was not properly calibrated based on visual feedback, and attempted to provide a correction factor.

Which caused her left foot to instead overcompensate, shift wide to the left, and snag the leg of the stabilization frame. For a brief moment the frame resisted, until the stresses between her left hand's immovable grip and her left foot's unstoppable force tore a vertical member loose from its welds and dumped her bodily on the floor with a servo- and sensor-jarring thud.

Penny lay there, and Self expressed its dissatisfaction with Analysis, even as Analysis grabbed resources to evaluate the prioritized input from Sensory.

"No mind, Penny. No mind. Everyone falls now and then, especially when first learning to walk!" her father told her, while Analysis informed her that she had done no significant damage to her systems, but had marred the floor and would require a new stabilization frame.

"Analysis indicates that…" she paused. "Self and Analysis are in conflict. Thesaurus is unable to qualify."

"I can suspect what's going on," Buyanto said, glancing at her father.

"Let's get you back up, and see if we can use the overhead gantry for support for now instead of that frame, and do a bit more tuning," her father replied.

She watched as Doctor Buyanto called Snowfall to move the overhead gantry into place above her location. As it shifted into position, he continued. "And Pietro, I think it's time that we did some more work on Emotion Signifying, as well. It's time we gave Penny a more comprehensive ability to express her Self."

A month later, Penny's sense of Self had changed even as her mobility had improved. She could now walk, carefully, around the laboratory. And Doctor Buyanto had improved Emotion Signifying for her, in a series of iterations.

Iterations 2.6 through 2.11 had been nominal.

Iteration 3.1 had been profound. The resulting insights had caused another processor overload, and required another full day of re-evaluating and re-analyzing both her prior sensory logs, and her database of anomalous correlations.

In the end, Analysis determined that what she had identified as Self, was in fact simply Penny. Or at least, a core aspect of Penny. Analysis was also Penny. As was her physical structure. And her logs and databases. These together made up a whole entity.

The difference, Analysis had determined, was that physical components could be replaced, and she would still remain Penny. But if her Aura were replaced, she felt and Analysis agreed, she would not be Penny any longer. And if her logs and databases were removed… if she lost her memory, Thesaurus supplied helpfully, she would still fundamentally be Penny. Analysis indicated a strong probability that her Self would have wants and desires that did not rely on her memories, though she would be missing a lot of context.

And Analysis had reached a second conclusion as well.

People were exceptionally difficult to understand. An entire world of emotional inputs, verbal emphasis, and nonverbal cues had been opened up to her, and an extremely large proportion of it was anomalous and exceptionally difficult to resolve.

Today was going to be an exciting day, Emotion Signifying indicated and expressed, because for the first time since she had become self-aware, she was going to meet a new person. For over a year, her physical world had consisted of the laboratory, her father, and Doctor Buyanto. Oh, she had secondary access to a much larger world, an entire world of data and media, one that she had very carefully begun to review. Carefully, because she had found herself very easily overloaded by anomalous and conflicting data from Emotion Signifying. In fact, she'd modeled, only once, the hypothetical of leaving the laboratory and meeting some of the people she'd reviewed, and the mere hypothetical had caused a full-system suspense and had required her father's intervention to… adjust her logs slightly to prevent it reoccurring again once she awakened upon the mere re-evaluation of the data.

But today she would meet a third person. Here. In the laboratory.

Penny stood still. She was extremely good at standing still, her father had told her with a smile. She had analyzed that smile for some time, and Emotion Signifying was over 50% confident that it was a mixture of pleasure and amusement, but she had yet to confirm with him.

The door opened, and the person walked in. Data I/O began immediately pulled information for Analysis, which confirmed with near certainty that this was in fact James Ironwood, Triple Roles. Atlas Kingdom, Senior Huntsman. Atlas Military, Colonel, Head of Atlas Specialists. Atlas Academy, Headmaster. A significant percentage of biological structure replaced with cybernetic prosthetics as a result of [ERROR] [INFORMATION NOT ACCESSIBLE] [CLASSIFIED ALPHA 2].

That was the first time she'd run into a category of data that was not accessible to her, and it made her feel… slightly anxious. As if she were suddenly low on power and desired a recharge very much. She filed it away for future analysis.

"James, thank you very much for coming to see us here!" her father said, welcoming the man. Penny found Analysis calculating probabilities of which role he was here representing, and desiring that her father had used a title to clarify matters.

"It's my pleasure, old friend, especially considering the assistance you and Jade provided my Specialists last February." His eyes turned toward her, and Penny saw his face go very… it was nearly impossible to interpret, even with Emotion Signifying gradually grabbing more and more processing power. "And who this is child?"

"This is who I wanted you to meet, James," her father replied. "James, this is Penny. Penny Polendina."

And at that, she saw the man's eyes widen. Surprise, Emotion Signifying supplied, happy to have something to work from. "Project PENNY?" He traded gazes with her father, who nodded.

"Yes."

Jame Ironwood approached her, walking around her slowly and appearing to evaluate her. "I see… at first I had… but it's obvious once you point it out."

"For now. But she's learning still. And we are tuning subroutines so she can fit in."

The visitor halted. "Fit in." His tone was, like his face earlier, unreadable and Emotion Signifying gave up.

"With society, James."

She saw him shake his head. "You can't. Pietro, what you've done here is incredible, though I'd thought it would be... different. But things were already problematic, and now they are becoming unstable because of Menagerie. This is not the time to-"

"I'm very aware of the times we live in, James. And I'm not suggesting today, or tomorrow. But…" he looked at her, and Emotion Signifying's interpretation left her feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature sensors. "I'm afraid my original intentions for Penny are no longer viable. I won't have her locked away, isolated, for her entire lifespan, which is likely to exceed generations of ours."

She watched James Ironwood, (role unclear). His face twitched and muscles bunched. Upset.

"Then why did you ask me to come?"

"Because I wanted you to meet her, to get to know her, and then I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to train her." He shifted his chair so that it was closer to her. "Perhaps, if you were confident that she could defend herself, we could find a compromise that we can all live with."

[A/N] Here we finally tie together a few loose canon threads for our AU. We get to see her 'born' into her current form and grow a bit, and we learn how Ironwood becomes involved at this stage. Hope you enjoyed, cause I had a lot of fun.

Again, credit for several of Penny's Subroutines including Analysis and Emotion Signifying goes to author Bryon Nightshade his version of "War Machines" (highly recommended read!).

This story will continue updating sporadically as Penny "touches" my larger Grimmling story, so stay tuned. She's going to play some key roles at specific points, and when she does, I'll post that content here as well for those not interested in the larger work.