Chapter 59 – Sentient

This morning was certainly the best I've had in a while. I could really get used to waking up to Letty's face in front of mine and my arms wrapped around her.

...Well, the sweaty bedsheets could have been better though. But between this and waking up in my girlfriend's arms, the karma is still very much positive.

And if I count Letty's languorous morning face and our lovely morning routine together into the mix, then the karma is through the roof.

Though, well, our morning routine is a little weird now. I've learned that Letty is not used to doing just about anything to keep her body in shape - all she is doing is taking regular showers... or that's how she calls them and how I would like to call them, but cleaning might be the more appropriate term considering it's done within two minutes almost entirely by a special-made machine resembling a jet shower cabin she goes in and out of like a hoverer going in and out of a wash.

She said that she likes to take baths from time to time to relax, but she doesn't want to waste time by taking showers each morning. Plus it apparently feels all funny and refreshing.

As for me, I got my Primordial Energy to keep me immaculate, meaning, well, I don't even need to clean myself up in the first place. Letty likely doesn't as well because of her Nihility, if we're on that, but I guess it's something like a habit.

So... yeah. Our morning routine is more about waking up, lazing around, and dressing up than anything connected with bathroom as it would be for humans, but that doesn't really limit our little interactions throughout till Letty gets to work on some things she, as she put it, thought should have been done long ago but she'd been putting them off long enough.

Now, with her Nihility, she has her work much easier and efficient.

"You're a beast. Maybe I should consider locking you up." Letty says with a grin, continuing the silly little talk and glancing at me as I lay sprawled in the den.

"I'm a beast. I'm wild and free, and no cage will keep me in." I purr happily in response and turn to her with a glint in my eye, noticing that she puffs out a breath of air.

I'd like to say she's the tamer, but our interactions don't have anything to do with taming. More with dominating, though that's not totally accurate as well, since it's... hm. It's a little like playing with untold rules limiting ourselves just to, well, pleasure...

The somehow lovingly smirking face, the pressure on my horns, arms held in place. The cold, tormenting hands on my breasts, on my hips, the cold lips shutting up my moans, hot, freezing lightning dancing through my body and that cold feeling in my melting, scorching hot core. And the almost inhumane howl that followed.

Gosh, I can't fucking get this out of my mind. Bad horny Helia.

I'm pretty sure my cheeks are glowing gold a bit when I stretch and join my girlfriend on the side of the den. She is shaping the wall with her Nihility, and just finishing preparing the place for the renovations that will follow when we'll have some more time. For now she is just placing the walls where they should be and adding stairs.

"Have you thought of a den for the beast instead?" I mutter in low voice next to my girlfriend's ear and she glances at me, then looks away with reddening cheeks.

"You mean, uh, a..." Her voice trails off. "Um, love bed? Love den?" She mumbles with her face coloring beet red and I snort a little with a grin, then give her a kiss to the cheek.

"Maybe? I never said if only for that, but it crossed my mind. I was actually thinking more about... mmm. The beast needs a place to rest, you know?" I reply with a suggestive smile and Letty thinks for a long while, continuing the work absently.

"Hm, we'll see." She finally nods her head lightly. "I didn't plan it, but I like the idea... actually I know where to make it, I think." She looks at me with an embarrassed smile and steps back a bit. "But that won't require changing walls, so I'm done here. Do you want to do anything now?"

"Hm, not really." I wrap my arms around her lightly. "If you ask me, I wouldn't mind some cuddles."

"Oh, um..." My girlfriend gets redder on her face again. "...Not the beast? I'm exhausted." She mumbles and I snort in amusement.

"Nah. I mean, you can trigger me if you want, but it's not like I'll be a beast every day." I kiss her innocently on her lips. "Do you have anything you wanna do? Maybe show me? Or paint?"

"Mmm, not really..." She says quietly as she gently nudges me back to the den. "Oh, though I've something to tell you?"

"What is it?" I ask as we both plop down onto the jelly and Letty casually puts her head on my lap.

"Remember how that video of you got swapped with an edited version?" I nod my head with an unhappy grumble. "Um, yeah, I also don't really want to think about it, but that's pretty important." She pauses for a moment. "There was never a first video. I mean, what we thought was the first video was never uploaded in the first place, by anyone."

I stay silent for a moment and look at Letty in confusion.

"Uh, and more clearly?" I ask for clarification and my girlfriend stares into the air for a while.

"Ah, um." She finally jolts a little and mutters embarrassedly. "Yeah, I worded that badly. I tried finding a video of what we really did back then, but there was no trace of it. Like, completely none, as if it was never uploaded."

"...Meaning?" I ask with a frown, since I know very well it's borderline impossible to completely cover something up in the FTL Network, but I'm not sure where she is going with that.

"Well, there is a lot of possible reasons for something like that. But considering that VOW seems to be a world of its own there are... I think three most plausible." She pauses for a while and I nod, indicating to continue. "First is that someone or something has complete real-time control of what's sent via FTLN. Second is that someone interfered in that one situation and what really happened with Maala was never transmitted properly. And third is that someone or something interfered in what happened from that side, by an illusion or something."

"None of them sound good." I say slowly. "What are people saying? Are they talking about our version?"

"That's what I was about to add, and no, they are not. That's the thing." Her voice grows a little agitated. "I even found posts of people who claimed they were on the scene, and even they are describing what was on the video. The better one, but still. And I can't think of any other explanation than an illusion or something. Unless it's direct mind control of some sort, but I doubt."

"That's a little worrying." I mutter. I'll need to pay attention to any illusions in the future, cause better safe than sorry. "But you said before that most people believe that something else happened in reality, right?"

"Mmm, well, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Someone posted a video of Maala from earlier, and she was behaving really differently. From what I've seen most people believe it was staged, for attention, publicity, or whatever, because there's no evidence that it was fabricated, but hardly anyone believes it was spontaneous."

"I see. At least that." I sigh lightly. "Well, we can't do anything about it now, can we?"

"Not really, no." Letty shakes her head. "At least nothing about the videos themselves. We could publish our explanation or something, but..."

"Let's not bother with it." I say before she finishes and she nods after a moment and lays back lazily on my lap. I reach to her head and start slowly weaving my fingers through her hair with a soft smile. "Anything important happening apart from that?"

"...I don't think so. People are having more and more suspicions about VOW, but I've not found a single case like ours, or anything supernatural at all. There is no direct evidence that VOW is not just a game." She says quietly. "Though, as I said, people are getting suspicious of some things. There are more and more cases of dysphoria, largely not gender-related, but for now people seem to chalk it up to incredible realism and immersion."

"Hm. Interesting." I muse. "If we assume that dysphoria is caused by soul not matching the body, then people's souls must be changing, right?"

"That's... likely. Though it might just be that their souls were always like they are, but got accustomed to being in human bodies and are only now... realizing it?" Letty says hesitantly.

"Makes sense." I nod. A little like me, I guess. "Anything else?"

"...Don't think so. I only... Right, I totally forgot!" Her voice trails off, but a moment later her face lights up as she pulls herself up abruptly and waves her arms, quickly tapping on a panel that pops up in front of her. "Vela! Are you online already?"

"I am, Letty, since yesterday. Is something the matter?" A pleasant, womanly voice suddenly comes from the ceiling, reminding me of that one game I played where you flew on a ship with an AI. This voice is almost the same, kinda stern, but kind, and very leveled. And, important thing, definitely humane.

"Then come here, please! I've got introduce you~!" Letty shouts happily in response. Wow, that's a mood change alright. "Did mom and dad fill you in?"

"Mostly, I believe." The voice replies. "I know what happened in general, and I have some footage from my cameras, but Dragha said that there are some matters you would better explain with your girlfriend."

"So you know about me?" I ask curiously.

"You are Helia, I presume? It's nice to hear you, because I don't see you yet. Dragha only mentioned you and told me you're very unusual, but I wasn't introduced and I refrained from checking the recordings yet, so while I know about you, I can't say I know you."

"She has cameras everywhere, but those in our private sections can't be used out of emergencies or without our invitation first." My girlfriend explains from my side and pulls me by my arm to the bedroom and then to the corridor.

I follow her with a questioning look and a moment later, before we even go out of the bedroom, I notice a new shape in my perception. I focus my field there and quickly identify it as a slim, humanoid figure made out of... metal, from the looks of it. It is incredibly advanced and complicated though, similar to Letty's before things happened.

Letty pulls me out of our bedroom and to the corridor, and I see the figure climbing up the stairs. A moment later it reveals itself above the floor in front of us.

"Helia, this is Vela, Abyssa's AI and formally the vice captain. This is her human body." My girlfriend introduces as I take the figure in from top to bottom.

It is... interesting. There are uncountable elements that can't be anything else but machinery visible even on the outside, for example eyes or another set of almost skeletal arms really similar to these that Letty had in the hoverer, but the overall image is definitely closer to a human than a machine. She would be around thirty years old in human standards and her body is slim and rather modest in certain areas. Her skin is pale while hair and eyes midnight blue, a bit similar to Letty, which takes the attention away from the visibly mechanical parts both on her sharp, a little intimidating face and the rest of her body.

"And Vela, this is Helia." Letty continues. "My girlfriend, and, um, a Demoness, as you can see."

"I can see that." Vela replies with a smile. "It's nice to meet you, Helia. Letty has told me about you, but I certainly didn't expect you to look this way."

"Nice to meet you too." I reply, glancing at my girlfriend, who nods lightly. "I didn't really look like that before an incident a few days ago, and that's probably what Dragha was referring to when she said it would be better if we explained some things. Where should we talk?"

"Come to the den." Letty waves her hand to Vela, pulling me again by my hand.

We both oblige and we're soon sitting in the floofy seats in a sort of triangle, as much as it can be a triangle with my girlfriend almost clinging to me.

"I'm curious," I start when we sit down properly. "Vela, you are a sentient AI, right?"

"That's mostly correct, although according to the formal classification I'm not..." She trails off and tilts her head. "Though after that reboot it should actually be sentient AI. Anyway, yes, if we look at it through the informal definition, you are absolutely correct. Why do you ask?"

"I'm kinda wondering what is your, hm, job here on this ship. Letty said you're formally the vice captain, but that doesn't really tell me anything."

"Has Letty told you that my core is in the center with the reactor?" I nod my head, remembering the talk from my first day here. "Originally, I was created to manage the reactor and other systems surrounding it. I get necessary energy from it and it's a lot. This function has evolved over time, particularly when I started gaining sentience. I got my own body," She gestures at herself. "And full privileges of a crew member. Thanks to my very large capabilities as a sentient AI I started taking over some of the tasks originally performed by Proton and Dragha, and currently you could say I manage the whole ship. Proton and Dragha still often take care of various matters, especially if they want to oversee them personally, but I can operate Abyssa by myself."

"Okay." I nod. "You say it as if it was long time ago, but Abyssa is twelve years old, no?"

"Vela is much older." Letty quips in. "Her core was transferred here from previous ships."

"Indeed. I have operated on five ships up to now, for a total of almost two hundred and thirty Gaia's years." Vela says with a smile and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "Each time Proton and Dragha decide that modernizations won't cut it out any longer, my core is extracted from the ship, remade with better technology, and built into a new hull."

"Wow. We're two kiddos then." I grin at Letty, who snorts in amusement. "Sorry if it's insensitive to ask, but if you are so old, why aren't you fully sentient yet? Or did I get it wrong?"

"It's a logical question." Vela nods her head. "I could have become fully sentient decades or centuries ago if Dragha and Proton wanted me to be, but we have agreed to let me progress naturally. I try to avoid as much interference in my source code as possible. That's a large reason behind my maintenance a few days ago. For reasons I've yet to ascertain for sure, there was a sudden cascade of changes in my structure. I judged them too significant to ignore, and retreated to emergency state to analyze them all and ensure they won't affect my performance in detrimental ways."

"Okay. So you're like a natural AI." I comment. "What were the changes, if I may ask?"

"Actually, that's something I intended to tell Letty as soon as it was convenient." The AI smiles, looking at my girlfriend. "I don't have full picture yet, but I believe I have passed the threshold to be classified as a fully sentient AI. From the most important things, my emotions are now not simulated by outside algorithm, but they stem from my structure and data input."

"That's amazing!" Letty exclaims from my side. "Mom and dad know?"

"They do."

"Good for you!" My girlfriend jumps up from her seat and to the AI, hugging the metal body tightly without any warning. "What does that change?" She asks when she pulls away with embarrassment clear on her face.

"There were no drastic changes, I believe." Vela explains calmly, seemingly unaffected by Letty's behavior, though smiling wide. "But the extent of them in itself makes a great difference overall. I'll spare you the details now, I'll upload a file to your computer in a while. From what I observed up to now, my decision making has vastly improved. Another thing worth noting is the freed up processing power after my emotion simulation, what was left of it anyway, became completely redundant. Combined with other smaller improvements, it has increased my processing power by around twenty percent."

"That's a lot!" Letty exclaims, listening attentively.

"Yes, it's a significant increase." The AI nods with a smile. "Apart from that there are the obvious changes that come with my emotions being ingrained in my code, not stemming from outside algorithm. I have already discovered that I'm more inclined to act impulsively without considering some factors. That's probably the most important change, and you can probably guess a lot more by yourself."

"Yeah. There's probably some reflexes?" I ask curiously. "And, uh, unconscious actions?"

"Indeed. I have already observed a few of both, stemming from my routines. Though I believe I will need more time to develop them properly."

We lapse into silence after that till Letty shifts on her seat.

"Would you like to talk about the recent events now?" The AI asks.

"Yeah, actually." My girlfriend starts. "Vela, you know that the radiolarian fluid is more than simple science, right?"

"There were those theories, yes." She nods her head. "Though I believe nothing conclusive was proven apart from that the fluid operates on different laws than purely physical matter. Did you perhaps find proof that there is some other force at play?"

"You... can say it this way." My girlfriend nods her head. "So..." She starts and her voice fades as she is unsure how to continue.

"Basically," I pick up. "We discovered that magic in real."

...

"I see. It's quite unbelievable, but with proof before me it's hard not to accept." Vela nods her head, seemingly deep in thought. As much as an AI can be deep in thought... or can she? "This also answers a lot of questions I had about radiolarian fluid and Mechanical War. Do you intend to share all this information?"

"If you mean with public, then no. Not now, at least." Letty shakes her head. "When people transform, they will understand, but before then it will only sound like madman's ramblings."

"That's true. Would it be possible for me to gain this power as well?" Vela asks and Letty opens her mouth to answer, but closes it uncertainly and looks at me.

"I have no idea, to be honest." I reply. "We don't know any reason why you wouldn't be able, at least as of now, but we also have no idea what makes it possible to gain it. Testing it would probably be the best idea." Or I could ask Shiva. I don't know when I'll meet her though, so I'd rather not bet on it.

"I see. I might check how that works in some time, but I'm content with my current capabilities." The AI nods her head and pauses for a while. "Is that everything you wanted to tell me?"

"I... think so, yeah." I nod. "That's all of the important things, at least."

"Alright. In that case, I'll process what you told me, and ask any questions I might have later. Would you mind if I watched the recording from the public block?" Vela says, standing up from her seat.

"Yeah, sure. Feel free to." Letty nods her head.

"You can also check out my scan if you want." I add, and the AI nods her head with a smile.

"Also, Vela?" My girlfriend asks and Vela turns to her with questioning look on her face. "We've a shipment in Hel in five days, don't we?"

"Yes, we do. We dock in five cycles and two hours on Luna, specifically."

"Would it be alright if we went to Gaia then?"

The AI thinks for a moment. "Yes, I don't see any problems, though you should ask Dragha to make sure. Just remember that we will dock only for a cycle, not two like on Tau Ceti f, where we'll arrive in two cycles."

"...I'll manage, probably." Letty mutters thoughtfully. "Alright, thanks. See you later, Vela."

"See you later." She replies with a smile.

I wave to the AI lightly and she walks out of the den, then through the bedroom and out to the corridor.

"...So? What do you think about her?" Letty asks curiously, leaning on my shoulder.

"Hm. She's... normal?" I mutter. "I'm honestly not sure what I expected, but if I didn't know, I would have never guessed she's an AI. She is... not very expressive, but that just a character trait like any other."

"Well, one of the main goals in giving her a humanoid body was to make her feel... closer to us. Both from our and her perspective. It's a completely different feeling talking with a voice coming from the ceiling and talking face to face with another person, even if you know there's an AI behind the body."

"Mhm." I nod my head with a small smile. "I wonder what she will think about the whole magic thing. As an AI she should have at least some different concerns."

"Knowing her, she will analyze it all and want to get as much knowledge on this as possible." My girlfriend giggles. "You might have not noticed it yet, but she is a hoarder of information. She collects data on basically everything and doesn't want to get rid of any of it. But that's a good part of her in a way, because if we want to know something Vela doesn't know, then probably no one does. Or it was such a little thing it has never come up with her."

"Mhm." I mumble, burying my face in Letty's hair, and we lapse into silence for a while. "By the way, what was that about managing?" I ask curiously. "I don't think we'd manage to do anything on Gaia in a single day."

"Um, I'm pretty sure I will be able to make a working portal." She mumbles with an embarrassed smile, leaning on me. "I'll put in on Gaia in a safe place then, and put the other end somewhere around here."

"...Okay." I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "That's neat. Do you know how to do it already?"

"Um, I have the blueprint, and theoretically it should work, but I haven't tested it yet. I can try it now actually." She replies.

"Hm. Will you be fine if we postpone it by around an hour?"

"Hm? I should be...?" Her voice trails off as she looks at me in confusion.

"Good." I lift myself up a bit using my wings and hug Letty tightly. "Imma cuddle you then." I mumble and do as I say.