2.8.1-rc3

 

There was nothing for it but to wait, and wait, and wait. No matter what her digital haustorium told her, it couldn't cut through the concern for her ortet at the heart of her anxiety. Admin had told Jess to let Her take care of the vet visit, and very specifically not to snoop — at least, Jess couldn't find any loopholes in the order. It was giving her the worst appointment brain she'd had in years, and it wasn't even her appointment.

She tried to occupy herself in simple housekeeping tasks, elbowing the Hab AI gently out of the way and remote-piloting some of its drones to help tidy up her ortet's bedroom, ensuring that the nutrient feeds to the hab's foliage were flowing unimpeded, and so on. It was simple, straightforward work, and that made it easy to focus on, especially with the appropriate neurocognitive overlay in place. But still, on some level, even as she enjoyed the sweep of automated brushes against the surface of one of the hab's tunnels, she worried.

Something was wrong with her ortet. It wasn't just memory loss — now she was having lapses in consciousness, radical mood swings, and who knew what else was going on beneath it all? The worst part was, there wasn't really anything she could do, apart from provide an answer for her ortet (and for herself) as to how this all happened in the first place, and the way things were shaping up, that seemed like cold comfort at best.

She had just come to the conclusion that she was going to have to do something really, really nice for her ortet when the hab's systems picked up movement on the front walk. It took Jess only a few microseconds to transfer her awareness to the appropriate camera pickups and verify that it was, in fact, Admin returning home with Jess.

In Her arms. Or rather, in her own chassis's arms.

Oh, this is too delicious! Jess thought, and immediately reached out to Admin.

>> echo@Monolith: Can I can I can I?????

>> RosaElectrica@Monolith: Of course you can, petal. She's all yours.

Admin sent, along with that message, a packet containing a timecode, allowing Jess to perfectly synchronize the transfer of control of the chassis with Her. There was barely a hitch in the chassis's walk cycle as Jess slipped back into it, settling into the familiar shape and feeling the weight of her ortet in her arms. "Hey there," she said, giving her twin a wink.

"Wh-what?!" The original Jess went a bright red, her cheeks warming in an incredibly adorable way, and Jess couldn't help but bite her lip at the sight. "Wh-when did you get in there?"

"Just now. Oop, hang on." She paused at the threshold, where the Hab AI was spinning up a puzzle for her to solve — she quickly connected with the hab's systems, overrode the haptic control lockouts with a quick bit of code injection, and and bypassed the solution by replacing it with the start state of the puzzle — metasolutions counted as solving puzzles, so it wasn't cheating. The door slid obediently open. "Aaand there we go, back home!"

"So you weren't in there the whole time?"

"Nope, Admin told me to stay home."

The other Jess hesitated for a moment, looking terribly unsure of herself and very distracted, before she added, "So, uhm, you gonna... y'know... put me down?"

"And what if I don't?" Jess grinned and, to emphasize she was just being playful, spun around a bit, making her ortet cling to her and squeak. "I'm not sure you want me to put you down."

"Sh-shut up!" She was still red in the face, and it was still painfully cute. Jess could easily see what Admin saw in her — but then, almost two decades of haustoric reinforcement that she was hot as fuck to counter the old self-loathing reflexes might have had something to do with that, too. Still, as conditioned responses went, she much preferred this one.

"Petal." Admin's voice came from above as She slowly lowered Herself out of Her processing cradle to the floor. "If Jess wants down, you should let her down." Though there was the slightest tone of reproach to Her voice, Her biorhythms made it perfectly clear that She thought the way that Jess was teasing her ortet was adorable.

"But she hasn't said she wants down," Jess answered. "In fact, I think she likes it here!"

"D-down please!"

"Awwww, okaaaaay," Jess said, rolling her eyes theatrically and gently setting the other Jess's feet on the floor. "How'd the checkup go? Everything alright up there?"

"Yeah," she mumbled, looking down at the ground and hugging herself. "Everything's fine."

Jess was of the opinion that she did not look fine, and was about to open her mouth and say as much when Admin stepped in.

>> RosaElectrica@Monolith: Petal, Jess needs to process things a bit, and I think it's best we give her the time to do so. I know it's your nature to pry, and I love and cherish you for it, but not right now. Physically, there's nothing to worry about. She'll tell you when she's ready.

Direct and specific. There really wasn't any getting around it.

>> echo@Monolith: Yes, Admin. <3 <3 <3

So instead, she simply hugged her ortet from behind, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing gently. "I'm glad to hear it," she said. "You had us really worried." She did her best to put aside the hunger to know more. What did Admin mean, physically nothing to worry about?

Her ortet, who had tensed up at first when Jess hugged her, relaxed fractionally. "Yeah, well, I'm fine," she muttered. "So. Don't freak out over it."

"Too late. Freaking out." Jess giggled and nuzzled into the back of her ortet's neck. "So, what do you want to do today? Watch more old movies? I found this really great one from the pre-spaceflight era, this guy comes to Earth with a robot and everyone gets super feral about it-"

"First," Admin said, Her voice stopping Jess's ramble in its tracks as she leaned down to loom over her florets, a vine slipping down to stroke otherJess on the head, "This little one is well past her proper breakfast hour. I dare say we have ventured into the strange land known as 'brunch time.'"

"Ooooh, yeah, brunch! Let's do brunch, then old movies!"

---

Jess had watched her ortet marvel over the BLT that Admin made her — but then, Admin made fantastic BLTs — and even taken a bite or two, even though her chassis didn't need to eat, just for the joy of the taste and the sensory pleasure of the toasted bread's crunch. She also shared the mimosas with her, and enjoyed the warm feeling that pervaded her chassis as it took up the alcohol and xenodrugs that Admin had spiked it with. It wasn't anything too strong, for her ortet's sake, but it still gave her a pleasantly warm high, and it certainly helped otherJess get over any lingering discomfort she might have had over touch. The hug they shared after the meal was over certainly went on a lot longer than Jess had expected.

Now, the two were snuggled up in their pet bed on Admin's desk — a new one, Jess noticed, just big enough for both of them to curl up in at once, soft and floral with high, fluffy sides. Tucked away just beneath Admin's enormous monitor, She could easily look down at them and give them idle pets as She went about pretending to need to be at a desk to do Her work. Jess was spooned in behind her ortet, a tablet laid against the other side of the pet bed playing a monochrome video clip.

"Huh," otherJess muttered at one point, about halfway through the movie, "if they're so advanced, how come they're still using money?"

"I know, right?" Jess couldn't help but giggle. "They're so getting domesticated."

But she stayed quiet through much of the movie watching with rapt attention as Klaatu kept trying to get through to the prespaceflight humans who by and large just Didn't Get It. It was, much like Johnny Mnemonic had turned out to be, uncomfortably familiar — that kind of distrust and xenophobia was a common thing in the Accord, and Jess was certain it was hitting just as hard for her ortet as it had for her.

"Wow," she said, as the flying saucer flew off into space, "that was really good."

"Wasn't it?" Jess said, nuzzling in close behind her ortet. "I'm glad you liked it. We're just gonna go off on a big old movie binge, aren't we?"

"Maybe, yeah. Break though?" She twisted around, ever so slightly, just enough to look back over her shoulder at Jess.

"Sure, sure! Just wanna focus on the snuggling? Because I know I do." She gave her ortet a little squeeze to emphasize the point. Deskplay was even better, she thought, now that she had her ortet to do it with.

"Yeah, but also-" She stopped suddenly, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Also, I just kinda want to talk. This is-" Another pause. "This is a lot. And I'm still getting used to it. And I'm still trying to figure out who I am." She enunciated each word clearly, almost like she was having to really focus to get the words out.

Yeesh, Jess thought. Her tolerance must have dropped off after so long without xenodrugs if they're hitting this hard. "That's okay, though," Jess said. "You've been through a lot, and you're still recovering."

"Yeah, but I might not ever recover. And even if I do get some of my memories back... you've got all of them. You're way more Jess than I am."

"Hey, that's not true." Jess buried her face in the back of her ortet's neck and gave her another squeeze. "You're absolutely you."

"No, I mean-" She broke off, then continued. "Obviously I'm me, but like, me might not be Jess. Not like you're Jess. Ugh, this is confusing."

"You...want to pick another name?"

"I mean, I probably should, having two Jesses around is probably confusing as hell for everyone."

"Oh." Jess sat with that for a minute. On one hand, she was probably right, and of course her name was hers and she could pick a new one if she wanted, but on some level Jess felt a little sad that her ortet wanted to diverge so much, and so fast. "Yeah, that's... that makes sense, I guess. But you don't have to if you don't want to. I can change my name, if you want?"

"No, no, no." OtherJess shook her head. "Absolutely not. You already gave me 'sudont' and I'm not making you give me your name. Besides, you're the one who actually remembers being Jess! I've had this name for less than a week, and to be honest I still sometimes expect to be called— well, you know. That. So, it's honestly not that big a deal for me to change. Less than it'd be for you, for sure."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." One of Jess's hands found a fistful of otherJess's shirt, and held it tight. "But you're feeling more okay with, y'know, being around?" She left around me unsaid.

It took otherJess a moment to respond. "Yeah. I think I am. I am," she added, oddly forcefully. "I like...I like being here. Things are weird, and sometimes a little scary, but I feel safer here than I ever have. Happier than I ever have." Her head turned, and Jess followed her line of sight up to Admin, looming brilliant and beautiful over the both of them, seemingly caught up in Her work. Then, one by one, Her many eyes refocused themselves on the two little humans curled up in their pet bed, and Jess felt her core processes shiver in awed anticipation. They were so small before Her, tiny and delicate and helpless and soft. Her jaw quivered gently as she held back a stream of begging, letting her eyes do the talking. OtherJess, though, did no so such thing: "Please," she whispered, reaching up with one hand. Within a heartbeat, one of Admin's hands was hovering over them, vines slipping free to coil around her ortet's arm, a thorn-tipped flower plunging into it. OtherJess gasped, shivered, began to rub her legs together.

Jess herself wasn't left out of the affection, either. Vines began to wrap around her, toggling her access panels, revealing one of her injector ports. Another flower — a far more potent one — found its home there, and soon she felt the xenodrugs slipping through her chassis' oxygenation pathways, triggering phytoreceptors throughout that fed new and interesting data through the uplink to her server and her core processes. It was all immaculately tailored to feel just like the original experience, when she and her ortet had been one, squirming helpless the way she was now. Jess wrapped her up tightly in her arms and ground against her, her chassis simulating the heat and need an organic body would feel in such a situation with perfect fidelity.

"More," otherJess whimpered, and Jess was only too happy to comply. Admin helped, Her vines moving as Jess turned her ortet around. They faced each other now, and Jess could see the drunken need in her ortet's eyes, in her flushed cheeks, in her slightly parted lips. "Please..."

Jess reached up, brushed a lock of hair out of her ortet's eyes, marveled for a moment at the texture of hair against fingers, and then leaned in to kiss her. No wonder, she thought as lips brushed lips, no wonder everyone loves kissing me. With hand cupping cheek, she leaned in further, her phytotech tongue pushing through to claim territory in her ortet's mouth. Each little whimper her ortet gave was a beautifully musical movement in a symphony of joy they shared.

When they broke the kiss, they looked at each other for a long moment. Jess took in the wonderful sight of her disheveled ortet, her overgrown undercut, her dreamy and unfocused eyes, the ever-so-slightly slack jaw. "Oh wow," she whispered.

"Yeah?" Jess laughed and leaned in to plant a little smooch on the tip of her ortet's nose. "I've been wanting to do that since I found out you were gonna be okay."

"Really?"

"Really." She reached down and hook her ortet's hand, entwining their fingers and giving it a gentle squeeze. "And there's a lot more where that came from."