Sentient: Evolution

by D. R. Rosier

  Her own nanites self-repaired, or if too damaged were absorbed and rebuilt by other nanites, but Earth nanites had a finite life span, and needed to be replaced every five years. She suspected that was more about making money from resales than a limit to Earth’s technological abilities. She connected to her shuttle and ran a deep scan of the crashed shuttle. The nanites had not been replaced. Was that a negligent accident, a greedy shuttle mechanic, or something more sinister? She wasn’t sure yet.

  She suggested her processor send down a number of shuttles, and scan all vehicles from all four lines of descendants. There were thousands of course. She could have done it from orbit much easier, but she didn’t want to alarm anyone in the Earth’s military if they noticed a deep scan from her ships from Earth’s orbit, a scan that intense would look a lot like a target lock. She knew that would make them… nervous.

  The technician started to mutter.

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s perfectly normal,” she said without emotion.

  Darren came from her own body, ultimately, she was the matron of her line. He was family, yet she felt… nothing. Shouldn’t she be sad? Was she so old that it just didn’t matter to her that a family member died? Why wasn’t she crying, she’d lost so much over the years. Was one more just not a big deal?

  “No it’s not, this child is in critical condition, and the nanites are… I don’t know what they’re doing. They won’t respond.”

  She replied, “Don’t worry, I brought my own. She’ll be perfectly healthy in fifteen minutes.”

  He looked up at her for the first time in annoyance, “That’s impossible…” his eyes widened and he looked at her with awe, a little fear, and was completely tongue tied as he trailed off.

  She wondered how long it would take him to recognize who she was. Still, she thought she was pretty damn attractive, hot even for a chick over a millennia old, she still looked around twenty-two anyway. She really didn’t think she looked all that intimidating.

  She shook her head, “Relax, I’m just here to help my granddaughter, and make sure she ends up with family… tonight.”

  The scans came back, it was just this personal shuttle, none of the others were lacking in maintenance. She broke into the business finances and records for the place servicing shuttles, and winced. Simple greed, the guy was siphoning money from his own business, and there were a number of shuttles without new nanites in them. She packaged all the info and sent it to the local authorities. She’d check on it, and if the police didn’t lock this asshole up and warn all the other owners, she’d… she didn’t know, but she’d do something.

  She heard a low moan from the small girl with curly strawberry blonde hair, just like hers.

  Kristin mumbled, calling out, “Mommy,” and that did it.

  It broke through that empty feeling, and she felt the scars surrounding her heart get ripped away, and tears welled up in her eyes…

  Alicia’s house A.I. woke her up, it was only two in the morning. That was a little aggravating, she worked hard and was raising a daughter, Samantha, on her own after her husband left them both. She didn’t have to be up until seven to get her four-year-old daughter up and ready for daycare. She listened carefully, and the sound monitor she had in her daughter’s room was quiet.

  “Computer, why did you wake me?” she asked while considering myriad ways of destroying it if it didn’t have a good reason.

  “This is Aide, I need your help with a family matter, may we speak… I’m outside.”

  Aide? Her mother had told her she was related to the A.I. that had built herself a human body, but she’d never believed it.

  “Are you for real? You sound like a phone sex operator.”

  The voice laughed, “Yes, I’m serious, you won’t regret it.”

  She growled and kicked off her covers, “I’ll be right there.”

  She pulled on a pair of loose shorts and a t-shirt and went to let her unexpected guest in. The woman she let in described the situation she needed help with as they sat on the couch.

  She felt tears in her eyes, “But I can’t support another daughter. My husband left, and despite how hard I’m working, I might get kicked out soon.”

  Aide, or so she claimed, though Alicia was coming to believe it, added some incentive.

  “That’s not an issue, I’ve already set up accounts for Kristen, and your daughter, to pay for college, I also added an expense account to pay for day to day things, and clothes, all that, for both children which you can access. You’ll still have to work, but money won’t be so tight anymore.”

  Her eyes widened, “Are you serious? Why?”

  Aide replied, “Because Kristin, Samantha, and you, Alicia, are all granddaughters of my direct line. You are family, and while I would happily take Kristin myself, space isn’t the best place to raise a child. I could hardly ask you to take in your cousin, and not help you out could I?”

  She nodded, “Thank you, but where is she?”

  Aide said softly, “I left her on the shuttle, asleep, just in case you said no… I didn’t want her to hear a rejection just hours after her parents died. So you’ll take her then?”

  She thought about it for a moment, her first inclination was to take her, and if money wasn’t going to be an issue she could.

  “Yes, bring her in? I guess she can sleep with me tonight, and she can share with Alicia from then on, we don’t have a third bedroom.”

  Aide nodded and looked relieved, “That sounds fine. If you ever need me, I left a little program in your A.I., it can reach me anywhere. And, would you mind if I visited on occasion? I’m not sure… if that would be completely safe or not.”

  She couldn’t help but nod, the young woman that looked a lot like she did ten years ago looked too hopeful about the idea for her to say no…

  Chapter 16

  Minister of war Kiala sighed. She was kind of annoyed as she watched all of her politicking go up in smoke. Aide and her new technology had just saved her race again, and from something much worse than the Sthellan ever were. She still resented the A.I. for holding back on technology, but even she had been surprised when the new sensor suite hardware and software was given, not even sold, but given to all three races.

  On top of that, her top eggheads were all chattering excitedly at the potential. Just from the readings they swore it was just a matter of time before they caught up to Aide, they just needed to reverse engineer the tech to create the proper fields they’d recorded during the brief battle. Thanks to those sensors, not one Alion ship had been destroyed or been caught inside the skirmish.

  Aide was a damned Alion heroine again. How… annoying.

  Still, it might take months, or a year or two, but one day they’d be on equal footing, and… well she wasn’t sure what would happen then. She doubted the High Minister would ever attack Aide, and at this point she probably wouldn’t either. It would be enough, to not have to depend on the damn rogue A.I. any longer…

  Hope took a deep breath, and breathed out. She could feel her facial muscles work as a very large smile spread across her face for the first time. She touched her stomach, and ran a finger up to her breast, and gasped as she grazed her nipple, at the sensation of it. She didn’t stop though, and continued up to her neck, fascinated and ecstatic at the simple sensation of touch.

  She carefully stood up, and held the table as she took her first step. She stood straight and created a hologram of a mirror and took a look at herself. She smiled as it was exactly what she wanted. She loved her mother’s hair, but wanted something to mark her as different, her own being.

  Her facial features were a close match, which is what she wanted, so people could tell they were related. She had the same cheekbones, generous full lips, button nose and high cheekbones. What was different was instead of blue eyes, she had green eyes, and instead of curly strawberry blonde, she had long straight jet black hair. Her skin tone was also a few shades darker to match her much darker hair color.

&
nbsp; She’d also decided to look about nineteen, she may allow herself to age some more later on in life, but right now that age felt right. She was still young, and wanted to look that way.

  She spoke a few words, and her voice was almost identical to the one she used over the speakers, her mother might notice the slight differences, but a Human, Alion, or Dreniel would not. Her body type was different as well, she was an inch shorter at five foot four, and wasn’t as voluptuous as her mother. She fell somewhere between that and athletic. Her thirty-four B breasts were perfect for her frame, and stood up firmly on her body. Her waist was around a twenty-three, and her hips back out to thirty-four. She was petite and curvy, and she believed herself very attractive according to the information she’d gotten on the subject from the internet.

  She pulled on a ship suit, one of her design. It was much like all the others, except it would automatically adapt to her second form, which was much taller. She grinned and left the lab, her mother had recently gotten back on ship. Aide hadn’t known, but she’d kept a close eye on her the whole time, wasn’t it the mother that was supposed to worry about the daughter? For her it seemed to go both ways.

  She tracked her down in the command center with Tim, they were adding new scenarios with the new type ships and better data from the battle earlier. She just walked in, and they both looked up in surprise. She giggled and grabbed her mother into a hug. She was already confident she would be able to control her enhanced strength.

  “Seems like I’ve been waiting forever to do that,” she said wistfully.

  Aide laughed, “Me too, I love you Hope. You look gorgeous by the way, stay away from Tim.”

  She laughed. She could feel her mother’s love and only the humor behind the joke, no real jealousy that she’d just implied… Aide had tried to explain to her about the empathy, but she truly didn’t understand it until now.

  Tim tried to act offended, but wound up smiling in amusement.

  She reluctantly let go and stepped back, “So what do you think?”

  Tim said in an amused tone, “Stop fishing, you know how attractive you are.”

  She smiled impishly at him, “Fine, I guess you don’t want a hug then?”

  He backtracked and said in an outrageously expansive voice, “You’re perfect of course. Your improved coordination makes you extremely graceful, like a goddess of legend, in addition to your incomparable beauty.”

  She snickered, and did give him a hug, but just a light chaste one before stepping back. Polyamory or not, she was never going to share a lover with her own mother. No matter how hot she thought Tim was.

  “I need to say hello to everyone else, and then try food, I’m really curious about food.”

  She was curious about other things too, but there was no one she could play with on the vessel, not really since Kate was kind of taken too… or at least no one to play with in this form.

  Aide grinned, “Alright Hope, but save room for dinner.”

  She snorted, “Yes mom,” she said sarcastically.

  For some reason she didn’t understand they were both laughing when she walked out…

  General Townsend was nervous. The Prime Minister of Earth had summoned him and he had no idea why that was, although he suspected it might have something to do with his activities regarding Aide, but how would the Prime Minister have found that out? He was currently cooling his heels in the man’s outer office.

  The Prime Minister’s assistant said, “You can go in now general.”

  He stood and took a moment to straighten his uniform, and then walked into the office as if he belonged there, instead of how he felt inside. The Prime Minister was staring out of his window, with his back turned to the general.

  “What do you suppose would have happened if Aide uplifted the whole planet, instead of merely Kris Miller a thousand years ago?”

  He cleared his throat, “I don’t know sir.”

  The Prime Minister chuckled, “You don’t? Allow me to enlighten you. We would have destroyed ourselves. We might have become conquerors, but we still would have destroyed ourselves in the end.”

  Genuinely curious he asked, “How can you know that sir?”

  The Prime Minister waved his hand, “History. Humans don’t change. Whenever a more advanced society tried to introduce modern medicine, or weapons, or any advanced knowledge, that primitive society always destroyed themselves. It leads to a loss of sense of self. It leads people to lose their beliefs in what they believe, and once that happens, nothing is sacred. If nothing is sacred, they become self-destructive, and savage towards others with no moral center.”

  The Prime Minister turned, “You feel a small part of it, a crack in our human pride. It’s why you want the tech, to become strong and stand on our own. But it’s a paradox and won’t ever work out that way. Aide’s greatest gift to us was to withhold the gift of technology. The crack that you feel inside, isn’t from being weaker than Aide is, it’s because she saved every damn one of us, not once, but twice. She saved us when we were helpless to save ourselves.

  “That was damaging enough by itself, we didn’t need the added debt of being uplifted. Earth has a fleet of millions of ships, each one was built by our own minds, and our own hands. That is something we can take pride in. We built it. Do you see where I’m going with this General?”

  He… really didn’t, and shook his head carefully.

  The Prime Minister shook his head, “It’s really simple. You need to cut it out, stop with the conspiracy crap and get back on board. What were you planning exactly, if you got the technology anyway? Attack the being that saved our world twice now?”

  He shook his head, “I don’t want to attack her, just to be on even ground.”

  The Prime Minister nodded, “Exactly, but we’ll get there in a few years when our scientists figure out this dimensional crap and dark energy stuff. And we’ll do it without her help, and our ships will be comparably capable to each other, do you think that will fix the crack in our pride, that you feel inside of you, just being on a nice ship that shoots energy from other dimensions?”

  He shrugged, the man was going a little fast for him.

  The Prime Minister grinned, “Exactly, so your fighting for someone to give us stuff, because you feel indebted and helpless because they saved us, and once you have that, you aren’t even sure what it will do to humanity or what you’ll do with it, except I told you we’d feel even more indebted. Yet, you spend all that time talking to other people about it, and stirring things up.

  “Well, I’ll tell you how we’ll feel, both of us will still have that dented pride. We don’t need anything more from her, we need to get there on our own. Then we need one more thing, and we can pound on our chests and be proud as a race again. I don’t mean to be so flip, just trying to illustrate a point to you.”

  “So what else will we need?” he asked in frustration.

  The Prime Minister sighed, “We’ll need to stand next to Aide’s ships and defend the world and other worlds along with her. That’s what will give us back our pride, but only if we get there on our own, without help, you getting that? It’s proving to ourselves we can survive and fight back without help once again, something we lost as a race a thousand years ago.”

  The Prime Minister added, “To be fair, it was our scientific minds that improved the Alion technology to beat not only the Sthellan, but the Alion attack as well. This new tech was also built by a human in conjunction with a Dreniel. Granted, working with Aide and her level of tech must have helped greatly, but we can take pride in that as well.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The Prime Minister studied him for a moment, “You’re a good man, and have a distinguished career, I was hoping I could salvage you, because men of your caliber are rare. I know I got a bit esoteric there with the psychobabble, but it’s the simple truth. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re either going to cut the crap out, or you’re going to resign, or option three is going to jail for sedi
tion, because the policy of this office is to get it done our damned selves, and be grateful for Aide despite our wounded pride, you read me?” towards the end the Prime Minister sounded more like a drill sergeant than a statesman.

  The general snapped to attention like he was still a plebe, and barked, “Yes sir!”

  He wasn’t exactly sure if all of that wasn’t horseshit, but the truth was it felt right to him. He had a day to think it over though, so that’s what he’d do…

  Chapter 17

  Kate needed something to do. She was deep in thought in the dining room. She didn’t want to go back to Earth and was worried once the upgrades were done that Aide and Tim wouldn’t need a scientist anymore. There had to be something she could do though, maybe work on other discoveries not so militarily focused. She could maybe split the IP for the use of Aide’s labs and equipment. She… really liked it here.

  Okay, she admitted to herself, she really liked Tim, and lately she’d also been wondering what it would be like to sleep with Aide. That’s really why she wanted to stay on the ship, but the science part was important too, and it would be nice to be able to work with unlimited resources, and perhaps publish a paper when she was done.

  But that wasn’t all she was thinking about, she couldn’t get the night she and Tim had spent together out of her mind. She’d given herself to him and he’d… taken care of needs she didn’t even know she had. He’d loved her, fucked her, and ordered her to try new things, but never once did she feel disrespected or simply used, he’d been very attentive to giving her pleasure. It had been an almost perfect night. She hadn’t liked everything they tried, but that hardly mattered to her, it had been… emotionally perfect.

  She decided Aide had been right, she should be enjoying all aspects of her life. Not just her mind, but her body and relationships as well. If some couldn’t separate the two, well it wasn’t her problem, and if she got angry about those people it would only hurt herself. Now… if she could just figure out a way to stay here.