She shook her head. "Oh, no - I was born female. But when I changed, and I had to come to terms with it..." She got that uneasily nostalgic look again. "I was young enough that I never got strongly attached to sex as a component of my identity before it no longer applied. But that only goes so far when everyone else thinks of it that way - and when you still look like what you really aren't, to them."

"That...must've been hard," I said; I was still confused, but I could spare a little sympathy. Navigating that transitionary phase was awkward for everybody, but especially if you were different from everyone else...

"It was," she said. "For years, I wondered whether I was really a 'her,' or just an 'it.' I was initially attracted to intelligence research since I thought I might feel less out-of-place, but...most researchers are human, and most humans struggle to get past human preconceptions. But it did put me in touch with other machine intelligences, and it gave me more opportunity to observe people, as well. And each of those experiences was enlightening to me."

"First of all," she continued, counting off again, "I'd never realized that 'just an it' is a fundamentally prejudiced way of thinking. Not an intentional prejudice - for humans and other sexed species, that divide is so close to universal that it's almost invisible - but still real. But some of the other machine lifeforms I met were much further from the humanoid end of the spectrum than myself - yet still recognizably people. And observing humans in light of that made me realize that it doesn't wholly define them, either."

She chuckled dryly. "Biological lifeforms tend to think of 'people' as primarily their corporeal form, since it's a core part of how they understand themselves. For machine intelligences, it's the opposite - to a significant extent we're all abstract 'software' that could be removed from our physical body and installed in some compatible one, if such existed, or even executed in a purely virtual environment."

"But neither view is wholly correct," she said. "You can take a sample of 'organics' and sort them out by any demographics you like, and you'll still find enough individual variation that it's difficult to even guess at the truly universal characteristics of a group; so we can't correctly state that people are merely the aggregate of properties inherited from each 'class' they're members of."

"Contrariwise, even robots are subject to the peculiarities of their architecture, just as humans are influenced by the needs and desires of their bodies," - she tapped her chest as if to illustrate, though if she was indicating anything specific it was lost on me - "and there are observable commonalities within 'organic' demographics, exceptions notwithstanding; so we also cannot take the view that people are abstract 'souls' that merely happen to inhabit corporeal vessels without being tangibly influenced by them."

"And...you see all of that as relating to my situation...?" I asked, more than a little confused at how we'd gotten from her life story into a digression on a holistic view of personhood and individuality, or what it had to do with me.

Grace chuckled and shook her head. "Apologies; I'm rambling. My point is this: your physical form undeniably influences you in various ways - we saw a few in the tests last time, and I'm sure there are more - but it does not wholly or authoritatively define 'you' as a person. Neither do your memories of your original form. What you were and what you are now both matter to the question of what makes up 'you' - but they're only aspects of your 'self,' not the whole; nor do they limit you to being only this or that."

She smiled fondly. "When I became a machine, I found that I was much less dominated by my emotions than I had been; I'm sure you've felt that, too. It was strange and uncomfortable at first, but also freeing; yet I still knew how I used to feel. I could think more clearly, but I knew how I'd struggled to focus. I remembered everything I was, yet I was intimately aware that I was different. But I still remembered; no part of the old 'me' was lost, even though many parts of the new 'me' were changed. I was - and am - still me; I'm simply a different 'me' now."

"You're right," she said with a sigh, "it's not merely a matter of changing 'skins.' What you are now will influence who you are, to some extent. Even if you become something else, the memory of having been this will shape your sense of self for the rest of your life. Nothing you can do will ever change that."

"The Moving Finger writes, and having writ..." I murmured to myself, thinking about that single, crucial what-if...? so many days and nights ago, back in the lab.

She nodded. "Precisely. The past is the past - beyond our power to alter. But we can choose how we let it shape the future. How will you come to understand yourself? I don't know. You might not, either - but you do have a say in the matter. Whether you choose to take charge of that determination? That's up to you, Freeman."

Maybe it was - but would I even know what I wanted? Ha, did I ever? How could I, when all I knew was looking to other people for direction? When I had no opinions or beliefs of my own, because that ran the risk of me getting it wrong, of screwing up? If I simply let the flow of events carry me passively along, then it could never be my fault when things went wrong, not really...better, then, to abstain, to let others figure that stuff out, to simply be-

"-not merely a 'doll' - not something to be defined by others..."

I cringed inwardly as I thought back to how I'd first felt when Anne said it, and to that awful nightmare...was that really what I wanted for myself? But if not that, then what? Surely not this; why would I want this!? Why should I give in, why would I decide to accept all the strangeness and unfamiliarity and inconvenience that came with this bizarre new form, just because I didn't...didn't...?

I shook my head vigorously, trying to clear my thoughts; this was all getting so confusing... "What...what'd you learn from the scans?" I asked, staring at the ceiling, steadying myself and trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.

"We're still puzzling it all out," Grace said. "They came out well, but your mechanisms are, unsurprisingly, very complex; and since we didn't capture them in motion, there's going to be a lot of guesswork in determining what it means that A connects to B and what happens when C interacts with D, if you take my meaning."

"Nothing definite, then?" I felt a little disappointed, and my tempo lagged a bit; it was still strange and awkward to think about myself as being this machine-thing, but I couldn't deny feeling a certain curiousity. I'd had a rough idea of how human-me worked, but I knew nothing at all about automaton-me, other than basic inferences about what made which noises when I did this or felt that. My whole body was a "black box" - would I ever understand myself...?

"Not yet," she replied. "Reverse-engineering is a painstaking process even in the digital domain, and with you, there's mechanical tolerances and variance to consider. And at this point, the engineers I'm working with are still building a component model out of the raw volumetric data. It'll be a while before they can start trying to determine how you work in any depth." She shrugged. "Right now, we're just guessing at high-level organization - the mechanisms in your hips are clearly driving your legs, etc. But there's a lot we have no idea about yet - which parts constitute your 'brain,' what you have for self-repair and reproductive systems, and so on."

"I could save you the trouble on that," I said glumly, my mind drifting back to the earlier topic. "I don't have those."

She gave me a melancholy smile, and shook her head. "I'm aware of that," she said. "Not in the human sense, certainly. But every living thing has some means of propagating its kind, whether or not sexual reproduction is involved. For you to have become something so...incomplete as to lack that would be utterly without precedent."

"Ah, my apologies - please, don't misunderstand me," she said, noting the confusion and indignance in my expression (and the audible grinding from my torso.) "Obviously, for thinking beings, what we do with that capability is our own decision. My point is only that you must have some means for it."

"...It's...alright," I said, once I'd stabilized. Why did that rattle me the way it did? I couldn't fault her logic, and it was all but established fact that transformations never resulted in disability or malfunction. But it irked me nonetheless, and I couldn't stop turning it over in my head, thinking about what I'd seen that night, and how any possible alternative would even work...and if she was right and I did have some means of...of making more of me, how was I supposed to feel about that? Was I supposed to want that? I couldn't even figure out what to do with one of me...!

For that matter, how was I supposed to self-repair? I didn't eat anything, I only needed to drink because my voice depended on it, and it was ridiculous to think that I had, what, a foundry in my torso!? But if not, then...was I just incapable of healing? Fated to die as soon as something critical broke inside me? Or would I need her team of engineers to work out how to repair me, if I couldn't do it myself...?

Of course, I could easily imagine Grace having some kind of nanotech maintenance system, but I didn't really understand that stuff to begin with. And we'd never had lunch together, so for all I knew she ate metal ingots in silicon sauce. But how closely did machine "life" model biological equivalents, anyway...?

"What about Eve?" I asked, half to myself. "Will she ever be real...? Um, I mean, physical?" It seemed like a silly question; from what both of them had said, Grace obviously planned for her "daughter" to take on a real-world existence at some point. But I couldn't help being curious, since she'd brought the subject up...

Grace chuckled softly. "That's the plan. She's not ready to cope with the real world yet, but one day she will be." I could tell she was going into lecture mode. "When that day comes, my self-repair systems will create an 'embryo' with self-repair and material-acquisition functions, plus a basic body-plan; this will in turn construct a 'starter' body. I'll transfer Eve's 'consciousness' into it, and she'll begin her life in the real world."

"A...a 'starter body?'" I said, trying to wrap my head around all that.

"You could think of it as analogous to the infant stage in animal life: small and simple enough to be constructed quickly with a minimum of materials, but complete enough to function independently of the 'parent' organism." She smiled. "Though in human terms, she'll more closely resemble a doll."

"A doll...?" Why did that muddle me up emotionally? It was strange that one word, one concept was loaded with so many different implications; things that I didn't want to be, that I feared I already was, that other people loved, that I maybe didn't entirely hate...all in some sense true of the abstract "class," but all applying differently to its members. Dolls were mere objects controlled by others, but Anne's were treasured friends and idealized other-selves; I was revulsed by the idea of being "merely" a doll, but kind of okay with the fact that Anne saw me as one...what even was the true definition?

"Of sorts. We'll work out the exact design then, and of course she'll develop into a 'mature' form as she adjusts and materials become available, but that's how it'll start." She paused momentarily, and gave me a wry smile. "You really made an impression, judging by her drawing; I've never seen her work this hard on something that wasn't a puzzle. It's entirely possible that she'll end up looking like you."

I stared at her, chattering in confusion. "Looking like me? How!?"

"Just as I said. Her basic platform will derive from mine, just as the kernel for her 'brain' was taken from mine, but the exact body-plan and cosmetics are something she'll design, with my supervision. We haven't had that conversation yet, but suffice to say, I've never seen her taken enough with someone she's met to try drawing them until now."

I tried to comprehend the notion - not merely that someone found me "cool" in the abstract, but that they might actually want to be me? Or...to look like me? Granted, she'd never have to worry about needing someone to wind her, but still...why would anyone find this intriguing, let alone desireable...? Especially if she could just choose from any possible appearance before even being 'born...'

Must be nice, I thought, a little bitterly - but some part of me resisted the feeling. Was my problem really, ultimately, with how I looked? Or was it with how people saw me...how I thought they saw me...? How I feared they'd see me...? But how did I want to be seen? As I was, surely - but that just tied back to the question of what I wanted to be...

I shook my head again, trying to get my poor overworked brain off that train of thought. "Doesn't that bother you?" I asked, looking for something else to ponder. What must a parent think of having their child so openly model themselves on someone else? If Eve wanted to look like me, would Grace be jealous, or bitter...?

Grace looked confused for a moment, then shook her head. "I'm sure she'll make some decisions that drive me a little crazy, as she becomes more independent; and we've had our disagreements already. But I didn't decide to have a child because I wanted a clone of myself, or a made-to-order trophy to show off to the neighbors."

She smiled warmly. "Honestly, one of the most wonderful parts of this is watching this little creature that could barely stack blocks at first develop her own distinct personality and discover for herself who she really is. I wouldn't trade that for anything, even if I were hoping she'd look like me. Besides," she laughed, gesturing to her rainbow-gray pupils, "she'll have my eyes in any case."

"But...didn't you already make her a girl?" I asked, considering her words. "Or, um, did you? Is she even, in her world?"

She shook her head. "I could have, but it didn't seem right to take that decision into my own hands. When she was instantiated, she wasn't even aware of the concept; somewhere along the line in her early stages, I told her it was one of my attributes in response to her queries about myself. When she first graduated from the blocks world I gave her a simple, ambiguous design, like a very small child; but I looked like myself, and it became clear in time that she saw herself as being like me in that respect. Subsequent revisions have altered her avatars in that direction."

"But you named her 'Eve.'"

"After the fact. She was already a 'her' before she could handle full natural-language processing; naming her took a backseat while she was undergoing critical early development and I couldn't introduce her to people anyway." She shrugged. "Perhaps I had some subconscious influence on her, but that's true of any parent."

"You think so?" I asked. That probably was normal, wasn't it, in most people's view? But was it really the case? Was unspoken influence really "subconscious," or just a way of saying things without saying them...?

"Of course," she said. "Parenthood isn't about trying to mold offspring into what you decide they should be, but it's not about observing a petri dish from the other end of a microscope, either. Your job is to nurture your child, and part of that is sharing what you have with them - knowledge, experience, interests, and passions. Not all of it will resonate, but you can't care for them without having an influence."

"I suppose not," I said, mulling it over. It'd be neglectful for a parent to not engage with their kid or offer them guidance, after all...

"Besides," she said, "it's not something that seriously limits who or what she can be. Being a machine imposes a much more concrete definition of self than being a girl; but it's all I can give her. If she weren't 'born' a robot, she wouldn't be 'born' at all; would that be better, if, hypothetically, she didn't wish to be one? Womanhood is hardly constraining at all, by comparison."

"Huh, I guess...?" I murmured. Was that really true? It didn't seem factually wrong, but did it really feel right? My mind was all a-jumble with everything we'd discussed, the questions it'd raised, and my own still-processing feelings on all of it. I was turning over a half-formed question in my mind, trying to sort out the particulars of what I wanted to ask, when my phone suddenly beeped; it took a moment for that to register.

"Oh, geez," I said, surprised. "Sorry, I really gotta get to class."

"Oh, my apologies," she said, almost as surprised as I was. "I should've alerted you; I'm afraid I got too wrapped up in our discussion. Well, I won't keep you, but I do hope we can continue to meet come January."

"Uh, yeah, sure," I replied, gathering my things and heading for the hall. I paused at the door and turned back to Grace; I still didn't half know what to think of all this, but something in me felt...better...than I had earlier. "Um," I said, my internals pulsing with an unfamiliar rhythm, "tell Eve thanks for me, would you?"

The machine-woman smiled. "Of course."