(Rewritten) Ch. 24 – A Smile Worth Seeing

"You know, humans really are visual creatures. Like, two thirds of the brain is involved with the eyes. Lots of that also does other stuff, sure, but if something requires so much brain space, then it's gotta be real important, right?

Makes you wonder how people so easily miss stuff, even when they're looking right at it."

– Road Rash to his Twitch chat while shopping for a new foot, February 2054

***

"Okay, let's see what we can do. I guess you don't have many points, seeing your condition?"

Leah shook her head, then waggled it. Nodded a moment later.

"Leah has only nine points. She bought a flare which we launched, and it's currently floating way up in the air. Any Vanguard looking for us will hopefully see it and come help faster!"

"That's good. Very helpful. Very few points, too, but at least you have enough to survive with. I've got seventy-nine, and another hundred and twenty as an emergency stash for medicals and ammunition. I'd count your situation as an emergency, but we should probably still keep enough to respond to dangers."

Leah nodded at that.

"So. You need arms and legs, healing of your voice box and tongue, and new eyes. Anything else?"

Nod. Waggle.

It took a moment, but Ypsi chimed in again.

"Leah has no augs, currently. They were burned out!"

"Okay, augs, too." I tilted my head and thought a bit.

"We don't have enough points for everything right now."

After I looked down at Leah and stroked her along the spine, she reluctantly nodded.

"What do you want most, immediately?"

Leah waggled her head, shook it several times, waggled more, then nodded.

"Voice, one eye, tongue, either one arm or an aug depending on things, then the legs for moving, then the second eye!", came Ypsilon's voice.

Hmm. The voice should be easy, that just required nanites. The tongue probably too, though I remembered Tynea saying something about mass being needed to add stuff if I hadn't shrunk during my transformation. Would that matter here?

The eye…maybe something from my Class II catalog? Or the class I modifications, if the better stuff was too expensive.

Arm or aug… Wait!

"Oh, I almost forgot! I have a medical body sleeve that I used when my own legs were trashed. It's like an exoskeleton. Tynea, can it resize itself to fit Leah?"

Indeed it can. It cost two hundred points. It better be able to, for that price. Leah reacted to Tynea's voice, looked up and waggled her head like was trying to say hello, and Tynea picked up on it. Hello Leah, I'm Tynea, Tinea's companion AI. Nice to meet you. Leah smiled and nodded. Then she tilted her head at me and breathed a toneless giggle.

I didn't have to guess too hard. "Yeah," I said smiling, "we have almost the same name. I picked mine not long ago and largely because of that similarity. But not only. It's a bit of a story. I'll tell you later, okay?"

Leah nodded again.

"Okay, so Sgt. Stabby can replace your limbs for a little bit, until you're fully intact again. It's got a sturdy exoskeleton and artificial muscles, but they're only as strong as the average human. It connects to your spine and feeds you a sort of fake feedback. A bit strange, but it worked well enough for me once I'd gotten used to compensating. Sound good?"

Leah nodded twice, then again.

"I've got a Class II organic prosthetics catalog and can probably provide something for the eye. Or wait, maybe another temporary replacement while we use the points for irreplaceable stuff! Tynea, could you, like, share what I see with her? So she can use my eyes for now."

That is possible, within limits. Leah currently has no augs and as such she lacks a display and audio. Ypsilon and I can bend those rules a little, and are already doing so to transmit my voice to her. But only because it's inconsequential right now—if you fought something, we would have to stop. The point-token system exists for a reason. Until then, the difference of whether you share my answers with Leah, or I do so myself, is academic.

"Oh, so if she did have augs, she could see through my eyes without those limitations?"

Certainly, so long as they have some form of connection to her visual nerves, or a display for her eyes.

Leah waggled her head, and I once again waited while she went through her sequence of bobbing, shaking and nodding through a conversation with her AI, until Ypsi shared the result with me. Leah says the aug is the most important right now. She can use a text app instead of her voice until she's healed!

"That sounds like it might work, but maybe we can fix her voice for cheap anyway? Tynea, what would we need for her tongue and her voicebox? Could those regenerative nanites for twenty ponts handle both?"

I'm afraid not. They're good at rearranging matter inside your body and accelerate the healing of injuries, but they can't create mass from nothing. They should be able to handle Leah's cut vocal strings, but I'd require a medical scanner to say for sure. The tongue and eyes require additional mass to heal, and the eyes in particular are rather complex. Even the body itself does not know how to regenerate those. So you'd either need more expensive specialized medical nanites, Class II general medical nanites, prosthetics—or the bionites your body is producing. Those are more advanced than the Class I regenerative nanites. They'll heal all of the above injuries, especially if they are provided with plenty of mass in the form of regular nutrition. Which your body also produces.

"Oh! Of course! Uh. How do I…get them out of myself to give her?" Leah curiously tilted her head at me.

Your breasts have a natural function for that, Tinea.

"Yeah, but…um. Ah! Do you have a pump?" I blushed again, and her grin made me think Leah heard my embarrassment in my voice, even if she maybe didn't exactly know what I was talking about. Or, well. The way her lips were kinking into a smirk she was trying to hide, kinda made me think she knew exactly what I was talking about. It appeared she was a rather bright girl who needed very few clues to put one and one together.

A pause.

… I'm afraid we have a gap in our catalogs there. I was able to find some things regarding motherhood, but they're mostly things like hormones, medications, or implants and modifications. I have noted the…lack of tools and sent a complaint for review. Oh. It appears I am not the first AI to do so in the last two weeks. Perhaps this will make a difference. Eventually.

You could, I suppose, attempt to design one, register the blueprint with me, and then buy it from me?

"I don't even know how they work. Which means prototyping. Which means research and development costs. Which means…no."

I see. Squirt some into a buck—, I mean, a cup?

"Urgh."

Leah breathed laughter at my tone and nipped my collar bone again, raising her brow at me like a question.

Sighing, I dragged a hand down my face and realized that pumping the stuff would somehow be even more weird. There was something about being proactive about it that'd make me feel like I was preparing food for an actual baby. Nope.

The squirting-it-into-a-container-to-be-drunk option felt even less appropriate.

"Um. So, we don't have a lot of points. I may have a way of providing you with free healing. But, uh…it wasn't meant for adults."

Leah tilted her head some more, wiggled her eyebrows at me again.

"It, um, well. It was meant for any babies I might have some day. Or you know, for my own body to absorb if I get injured. Not for…you know."

Between my embarrassment and totally concise explanation, Leah finally found her confirmation. And smirked even harder.

Then she started moving, and before I really had time to react, she pinched one of my nipples with her teeth while grinning up at me, and waggled her eyebrows.

My whole body jerked with a surprised "Nnn?!" at the sudden tingle through my breast. Then I twitched again when my mental tab received a new ping.

Desperate for distraction and trying to carefully dislodge a very adventurous Leah without hurting myself, I checked the ping…and it was a prompt to engage the right reactions to enable breastfeeding.

"Leah!"

She finally twigged on, raised her head, suppressed the grin, and waited for me to continue.

"I can and will provide you with the bionites, but let's not make it awkward, please? This is all extremely new to me in a way you can't appreciate, until I tell you more about myself, okay? So, just…don't mess around. Please?"

Leah nodded, breathed out. Then put her forehead down against me.

"Are you apologizing?" I asked in a softer voice. She nodded again and stayed that way.

"That's okay. As long as you get it," I said as I hugged her again and resumed my slow stroking of her spine, sharing warmth with her, and conveniently keeping the puppies away from sniffing in certain places.

I let the ping activate its function, and guided Leah to the other, less sensitive, nipple as it hardened up and began to secrete what I assumed was the bionites-nutrient soup the augmented lobules produced.

She latched on far more gently, and sucked after a breath or two, then suddenly went stiff and tilted her head up at me again as she raised her brows.

"Feel like a sort of electrically charged tingle?" She nodded and I continued, "that's the bionites. Just keep going. You'll be fine. Tynea, how long does it take until what organs heal?"

Her voice box should recover very quickly, likely less than a minute. I would assume the damage is not extensive or she would have had trouble breathing with a swollen throat. Her tongue will take an hour or so, and each eye may take a day due to the involved complexity. The limbs would need quite a bit longer and far more food, so I've set the bionites to ignore those as she can use the Sleeve as a temporary replacement.

"Okay, good news. You should be able to make sounds very soon, actually. But your tongue is going to take at least an hour. I assume due to the mass involved in reconstructing it, Tynea?"

Yes, there is only so much milk you are producing over time, after all, and you will need to eat to recover that which you pass on.

"Ah, understood. Leah, this form of healing will be a little…slow. For biological reasons." She nodded her understanding, and kept going.

"After your tongue, one of your eyes will begin to regenerate. Is that okay?" Leah raised her right stump, and did her best to point at her less recently injured, right-side eye.

"Is that the eye you want first?"

Nod.

I will take care of it.

"Okay, thank you. Tynea's going to set it up. You'll probably be able to see again by tomorrow night. We're holding off on your limbs right now, because they'd be a major investment in time and mass, and you can use the Body Sleeve for now, okay?"

She nodded again, but indicated her head with the stump.

"The aug?" Nod.

"Right. So, I've got nearly two hundred points. Is that enough for something worthwhile, Tynea?"

If we combine your point totals, you would actually slightly exceed two hundred points. There are indeed worthwhile options that would open up at two hundred.

"Wait, we can combine points?" Leah perked up.

Yes. While you can't directly exchange points, it is entirely possible to not only share the costs, but also catalogs. If Leah has a catalog of interest, she would be able to buy her preferred augmentation with points sponsored by you.

Tynea must've shared that with both of us, because that had Leah nodding quickly.

"Oh, that's pretty cool. Leah, I take it you already know what you want?" Another nod.

She tilted her head back down, waggled, and nodded a bunch, then turned towards me.

Ypsilon's voice chimed, and cheerily said, "Leah wants to purchase a model from her Class I Warforge Technologies! It costs two hundred and five points. It's a cybernetic eye with above average aug-gear! And it can even play sound through bone-induction! Though the sound isn't very high quality that way. But It would replace both her old cybernetic eye and the augs that were burned out in one item!"

"Sounds good. And that was quite precious. I wonder what your personality says about Leah, Ypsi?" I said as I looked at Leah with a teasing smile on my lips and in my voice. She pouted. She was also cute. Very cute. I cleared my throat and Leah grinned again, in that knowing, sly way.

"Thank you! Leah has to tell you herself though. It'd be a big no-no to give away her secrets like that!"

"Fair enough. We can introduce ourselves in just a bit, Leah." She tilted her head and nodded, kissed my collar bone, and went back to drinking.

"Okay. We'll have, what, three points left after that purchase? That's just enough for either a cheap grenade, a magazine, or some food and drink. Basically, we'll not do anything until tomorrow at least."

Leah nodded again, then once more.

"Alright. Let's do it. If you would, Ypsi?"

"Here you go, Tinea! Thank you for helping Leah! You're a nice person!"

"You're welcome," I giggled, "both of you."

Purchased:

Total cost: 205Remaining points: 3

A small box appeared right next to me, automatically popped open, and I saw the prosthetic eye with a little spray bottle next to it.

The bottle contains a nanite solution. Spray it into whichever orbit the eye will be placed, then press the eye itself into it next.

"Okay, I've got your new eye, Leah. Which side do you want it?"

She lifted her left stump immediately, on the side with the fresh scabs. I took the bottle and with a warning, carefully sprayed down the eye hole. Leah twitched for a moment, but otherwise held still.

Next, I took the new eyeball. It was both pretty and intimidating. Black, with long elegant and graceful golden lines printed all around it, it had a slitted cat's pupil at the front that glowed a misty white, with actual white vapor wafting from it, and occasionally seemed to flicker with golden flames that shaped themselves like a death's head.

"Warforged, huh? It sure looks…scary-vibey. Both beautiful and elegant, but also dangerous."

Leah nodded, smiled, then pointed at her head. I took the hint and squeezed the cyber-eye into the orbit. I had to use quite a bit more force than I was comfortable with, but it didn't seem to hurt Leah. I guess the spray numbed the area, or something?

It finally popped in, and I only had to wait a moment until it rotated slightly, centered on me, and focused.

Leah smiled brilliantly at me, and I couldn't help but return it.

***