(Rewritten) Ch. 93 – Leah Loves

"Sympathy will let ya grasp a body, boy. Empathy will let ya get them. But ya ain't them, not until ye grok them. So, keep asking yer questions, boy. Until ya grok them.

That's why we called Listeners, boy. 'Cause we ask questions."

– Aunt 'Auntie Care' Carroll, giving advice to her young shadow, March 2056

***

Leah hurt inside when she thought of Tinea's early struggles. Everything about that childhood shredded her guardian's heart. It hooked barbs into her ribcage and drew furrows through her flesh.

Yet when she looked at Tinea, Leah saw only straightened shoulders and an unbroken spine. It demanded respect. And every time Tinea looked at her, and squeezed Leah's hand, it shot possessive lightning through her.

Leah couldn't help it. She stopped and drew Tinea into her arms again to press her against her chest. The girl's eyes widened as she tilted her face up, and Leah could see how she totally bluescreened, with a silly big smile. She was so obviously overwhelmed from all the love and giddiness.

Seriously. How is this complete killing-machine so fucking adorable?!

Giggling, she placed another kiss on Tinea's lips, enjoyed the squishy poutiness of them and the way those lips fell open against the sensations with an extra nibble. Quiet moans stoked Leah's fire. There was something about Tinea's helpless submission to the invasion of her mouth that really, really revved her engines.

Her hand wandered down from Tinea's back, along her spine, past the Sentinel and the defensive horseshoe glued there, and curled around the base of that fluffy, fluffy tail. One of the antennae rotated back and dipped down, teasing feathery touches over the back of her artificial hand. Leah studied Tinea's eyes, all teary and wet and wide open, drunk on attention, but she didn't see any sign of…extra responsiveness? So, she released her grip and tickled its underside with touches of her fingertips, instead.

Tinea yelped and jumped against her front, giggling. Leah was momentarily distracted by the soft pillows bouncing against hers.

I swear. Those are bigger than they were the day before yesterday. Does she, uh, need milking?

Blood flushed Leah's face at the image of doing the milking herself, and it froze her mid-step for a moment. Urgh. Scored an own goal there.

Tinea took advantage of the distraction to wrap her tail around Leah's arm and draped the rest of it across her shoulders and back. There was a lot of tail. Two, two-and-a-half meters? More? Lots of very, very fluffy and deceptively strong tail. Leah loved it. Loved the warmth and feel of the fur.

Tinea pressed on, rising up on her tippy-toes to claim Leah's lips for herself. Leah closed her eyes and sunk into the contentment of being taken by her love. She tipped her head sideways and let her cheek rest on Tinea's shoulder. It broke the kiss, but the intimate warmth of burying her face in the smaller girl's hair was special, too.

With all the combat displaying it, she'd have thought herself used to Tinea's physical prowess. But it was Tinea effortlessly supporting her while balancing on the tip of her toes that really drove her strength home. It created a connection between the wild fighting and the steadfastness she'd seen in Tinea's posture while she'd been speaking of her past.

It calmed that unsettled anxiety that she'd carried since she'd witnessed Tinea's gleeful, unhinged ferocity. But Tinea wasn't an unstable person, no matter how much she let herself go in battle. She wasn't lost to her past or the battlefield. She'd always kept right on moving, right up until she'd found Leah, and freed her to come along.

Pride and warmth filled Leah, and the tears of pain and sorrow turned into tears of healing.

"Tin-Tin."

"Aww, Leah. You're too cute," Tinea giggled with a smitten smile.

Leah's eyebrows jumped up and she almost snorted. "I'm cute? Really? Says you, you adorable ball of fluff!"

The smitten smile turned into a blushing pout and Leah pinched it and kneaded it until Tinea broke out in laughter. The curvy girl settled back on her heels, took Leah's hand, and pulled her along.

"Come on!" she said, happily catching Leah's eyes. "We've got a facility to sort out before we can head homewards."

Leah grinned. Tinea's automatic inclusion of herself in the 'home' settled in her heart and radiated a comfortable warmth all around. She also grinned because she was happily admiring the swish of Tinea's very ample hips and butt.

"By the way, Leah. I'm gonna be a mom."

Leah stumbled again. She speared a shocked glance at Tinea, but the girl's lips were twitching and she wasn't looking at Leah.

Leah's eyes narrowed. That'd been intentional. Tinea enjoyed teasing her as much as she enjoyed teasing Tinea. So she tickled the underside of that tail again, just where it stuck out above the dipping V of the Myriad's back.

Tinea yipped and jumped once more, then grinned at her with twinkling eyes. Leah could tell Tinea was still over the moon with everyth— With Leah having just happened to her.

Understandable, she thought, considering how strongly her own emotions were whirling within her, though she felt less giddiness and more possessiveness. She wanted Tinea in a way she hadn't really wanted anyone before. Not even teenage Leah's crush on Sister Lana, rattled by hormones, compared.

But, back to more important topics.

"Explain?"

Tinea snickered at her tone. "Sure. You know how corpos sell downgraded versions of stuff for cheaper, instead of selling upgraded versions for more, 'cause they're easier to produce that way?"

Leah hummed and nodded. It was normal to have covered-up ports on cheap gadgets. Ports that would be functional on the more expensive models.

"Right. So, a side-effect of healing the Quanta via bionites," Tinea said, tapping the side of her head with a finger, "caused it to 'evolve' via an unintended mutation." That same beautiful, elegant finger was joined by a twin and drew quotes in the air.

Leah wanted to lick them.

Ah, but Tinea was talking. Better listen.

"It had deactivated traits of the next version, which was meant to produce artificial individuals, not merely artificial quasi-selves. Butlers and maids in your brain, always there."

Leah frowned. "That sounds a lot more questionable, to be honest. Troublesome. Morally problematic, at least. In fact, that sounds an awful lot like slavery."

Tinea nodded. "I'd agree, except that I'm experiencing it and can extrapolate. The 'buds'," more delicious finger-quotes, "are still me, the same way that AI-I is me. Part of my brain, just streams of unusually complex thoughts running fast as fuck somewhere in the back of my mind that I can tune into if I so wish. Eventually, these thought-complexes would hit a point where they'd become aware of their own existence, and thus, capable of willfully, automatically editing themselves. They'd become…quasi-individual quasi-consciousnesses complex enough to act like people. Maybe be people, but in a way humans can't hope to grok?"

"I see…" Leah tilted her head. The concept remained alien, but perhaps there were good ways to create something like that? At least it didn't have to be unhealthy, psychologically speaking. For all involved.

Still. She wasn't interested. Not her style of parallel processing.

"Ypsilon, we'll not go that route."

Understood. Ypsilon switched to being Ypsi. No worries, Leah! I, um, wasn't gonna suggest that anyway!

Leah smiled, nodded, and turned back to Tinea. "So if that's how it should've worked, what's actually happening?"

"Nothing much. Yet. The buds are just my most complex quasi-selves and haven't really differentiated from me. But they have unplanned access to my emotions and can make me feel things that I didn't call up. Kind of like intrusive thoughts?"

That made Leah shiver. "Isn't that bad? That sounds like an actual mental illness."

"Yeah, I'd be rather concerned if I didn't know the cause and that it's a temporary thing that's supposed to happen." Tinea grabbed Leah's hands again. "But Tynea checked the Quanta's new DNA sequence against the upgraded version, and the relevant bits are a match, mostly. So, it isn't, say, induced schizophrenia, nor a permanent condition.

"The buds' growth won't be regulated due to some differences based on the accidental nature of the evolution. Emotionally, they'll be more like normal children than artificial adults, I think. Hence, I'm gonna be a mom," she finished with a huge smile, one that Leah couldn't help but let infect her with warm amusement. But then Tinea continued, "You wouldn't believe how hard I panicked when Tynea first told me."

"Aww." Leah squeezed Tinea, and replied rather more seriously. "I can imagine. Stable situations are hard to come by for orphans, and it's not rare for them to be…unwise when the hormones hit. Birth control is a necessity for our youth. Yet I've had more than one young woman discover an unplanned pregnancy. Or a planned one. Panic is a pretty common reaction, regardless. Even if your situation is very different from theirs, I can draw parallels."

"Oh. Yeah." Tinea looked down, obviously ruminating. Leah studied her. Best to let her sort her thoughts out.

There were many questions she had, many unfinished topics. How did Tinea survive her childhood? Where did that cult reside? Did it really still exist? Were they still forcing children to fight? What did they call themselves? How big were they? Why did Tinea come to Canada, and who was the girl she, or he, had met? How did she help Tinea feel more human? Was she somebody worth knowing? A potential friend? Or somebody to keep at range?

She sighed and stopped herself. So many questions. Enough for several talks, really.

Well, she thought with a happy smile and cuddled Tinea into her side as they walked, who shot her a glittering grin. We'll have plenty of opportunities.

So, she turned her attention towards the incoming big purchase. She called up the designs in her cybernetic eye and rotated them. Daddy-Long-Legs, as she jokingly called the eight-legged vehicle.

It was a huge thing of lightweight carbon-fiber construction covered with thin panels of passive composite armor. Not truly a tank, but a nimble platform for a variety of weapons or sensors. It could fill the role of an ambusher, or that of a scout behind enemy lines.

If she'd had the catalogs, it could've even come with very good stealth options. Instead, she'd bought the oversized jungle cannon with the plan to integrate it into this beast. There'd be space for a few 75mm howitzers, one or more point-defense systems, and it had a bay for the maintenance drone in its abdomen.

Leah had asked Ypsi to adjust the design of the vehicle a little. It still looked very alien and menacing, with that strange, deadly grace typical of Warforge Technologies, but its shape had been altered to match a terrestrial spider.

There was the cephalothorax at the front, a meter-and-a-half across, with its many lenses and sensors that could track across a wide spectrum, an ammo bunker for the huge 150mm cannon suspended underneath it, and the six-meter-long legs.

At the rear lay the bulbous abdomen with more instruments and a combat computer, the drone bay, several hardpoints for smaller cannons, a tiny kitchenette with a bunk for two people—only possible because Leah didn't necessarily need to keep the prosthetics attached and Tinea was very cute and small, and Leah very much liked sprawling on top of her—and a small airlock pointing down.

The rest of the miniature livingspace's floor was a hatch for her piloting pod, which doubled as a partially recessed slot for the egg. She'd be able to enter and exit her crash couch from inside the vehicle, and the pod itself could fall free to escape.

The whole design was hella epic, in Leah's obviously qualified opinion. She looked forward to Tinea's reaction to it.

Speaking of whom, Tinea was throwing her glances with a smile playing around her lips.

Time for the promised teasing!

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