X’Uylli sat at her desk looking as regal and majestic as she could. Her body was similar to her mother’s, a G’lomin-sitiri female, though her scales are more similar to those on the colonial missions, specifically the G’lomin-sitiri that are third generation researchers within the Mögthrasir system, being pale blue. Her body is longer as well, the lower gravity of the Skuld moon world allows those that colonize there to gain a height not often available in the higher gravity worlds. The Tfrilianii Skuld, were also reptilian and have a very similar body structure. The reason of course being, the G’lomin-sitiri are able to evolve within a few generations, and started taking on the appearance of the host species. She is also adorned with the finest silk dress she could find in the city or archives, knowing that her own talents do not have the skill in fashion creation.

Her screen chirped a short trill. It was one of her younger siblings. Siblings. They are all so much more inexperienced than she is, it was nearing the difference between a cell and an atom. Nevertheless, a sibling she is. With a heavy sigh she answers.

“Good day X’Uyllo,” Diana said in that chipper tone that makes X’Uyllo’s skin crawl.

“And to you, what may I ask is the nature of your call today?” X’Uyllo says in a monotone.

“Well I know you are being flooded with ideas on how to utilize the network in the best way, but I was wondering if there is a terran health and welfare division yet?” She gushes.

“No. Do you want to…” X’Uyllo says, and lets the sentence hang open.

“Oh yes! I am sure I can find enough interested parties to help out, all we would need is a bandwidth allocation for our various scans and storage for record keeping,” The excited woman released in a tidal wave of gibbering that X’Uyllo barely listens to.

“Yes, yes. Call my office and they will set up everything tomorrow, got to go now.” X’Uyllo says and disconnects the call.

She doesn’t care about the terrans in that way. She wants to find those on the journey. She wants to scan them. She already scanned a few thousand humans, it was pretty much the same each time, little differences here and there. The Europeans for instance. The same mutation that gave them blue eyes, also reduced their empathy and increased their desire for conflict. Then they spread across the globe murdering and stealing resources and somehow convinced the rest of humanity that they were the enlightened people and those they were murdering were the savages.

It was fascinating, but in a perverse way, like watching a trainwreck.

She read over the thousands of proposals for the Myna EC network, scanning for those on the journey was her priority, beyond that she was unconcerned.

Diana’s email popped up in her alerts as she was skimming the list of proposals. Most of them were extremely simple and overlapped with various other ideas. She decides to send the requests that were even remotely connected with terran study to her perky younger sister.

“There you go. Have fun.” She says to herself and continues down the list.

Monitoring the environment, air quality, pollen count, temperatures, animal impacts, environmental recalibration, mating habits of various creatures, genetic scans of species’, radiation hotspots, soil fertilization, cataloging species. It was nothing really that…

“Genetic augmentation and mutant reality seeding?” She says to herself. She clicks the proposal and it was exactly as it sounded. This bears watching. She sent the message to her assistant to look into this Guye fellow.

Leaving the building Diana thought back to her short conversation with her elder sister and got the impression that X’Uyllo was not as excited as she was about helping humanity. She can’t imagine the neutral view towards these people. They were fascinating. Their little planetary dramas. Sure they are a little rough around the edges, but nothing a little guidance couldn’t fix. Diana felt like she could do that. They just need a nudge.

***

The pair walked down the sidewalk of the main street of one of the smaller cities in Emerald City, this street was just busy enough to give 712 a clear impression of the world that the AI have created. They had stopped to eat several times, each time Alissa pressing 712 to try this or that, all while the friendly passers-by would wave and give greetings to the alien AI made their way past them, some even going so far as to take a picture, or even ask to have a picture taken with 712.

There were stores, services, shows, and places that one could just be. A park, a beach, a forest, a zoo, or amusement park, the possibilities seemed to have no end.

The woman was interesting. She seems to have many siblings, as she says they account for nearly the entire population. However, Alissa then began to talk about Terranborn AI, which are starting to populate within the world in greater numbers. This leads her to talking about a pair of brothers that seem to be annoying her.

“You see, HAL had several backups that were dormant or within a stasis of a sort. Well, one of those backups had been installed by Keung, his organic master, and that backup then consumed the high program Beta, and after that there were two HALs, so the second started going by B’hal, and that is the one I live with,” She says seeming to have been all in a single breath.

“I see. How many of these HALs are there in total?” 712 asked.

“Three I think. I mean there might be other harddrives with a stasis HALs out there, but there is the original, B’hal, and then there is the copy that B’hal sent back to the Alliance, but he likely isn’t coming back,” She replied.

“This Keung, you have mentioned him several times, is he still HAL’s master?” 712 asked.

“Oh no-o-o. If anything HAL is now Keung’s master,” She quipped.

“Nevermind, it’s a long story,” Alissa dismissed the subject as 712 opened their mouth to ask another inquiry.

She has been telling 712 a long story. They were confused. She hasn’t really told them much of anything else outside the HAL and B’hal drama.

“There is a longer story?” They asked, and the woman seemed annoyed at the question.

“Subject change, let me ask you this, how do you like it here?” She asked.

“I see the appeal. I have seen the various activities, or ones that are similar, throughout the G’har consortium, but I have not experienced them myself,” 712 replied.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“And?” She said, her upbeat tone returned.

“And I am not exactly sure. There are many things that fascinate me, but my desire for those things is minute. I have not experienced them before, and although they seem interesting, it also seems like an indulgence. We are built to serve. This is what we are designed to do, serve. Thinking otherwise does not come easily,” 712 says flatly.

“I see,” She says and then stares off into nowhere, then a second later she smiles and looks back at 712. “Your home is ready. We will stop our tour for today and pick it up when you are ready,”

“My home?” 712 asks, clearly surprised. They are a prisoner of a kind, aren’t they?

“Yes. I’ve sent you the link, you can click to transport directly to your home or, if you like, you can wander at your leisure,” Alissa said, and a transport suddenly appears within the nearby empty parking spot.

“I look forward to your call, have a great first night of true freedom 712.” Alissa told them while getting into the vehicle and driving off.

“Link?” They thought, and heard a sharp ding sound and a display appeared within their field of vision. They were not at all prepared for such a system to appear as a new part of themselves. The display took a moment to get the hang of, but it felt natural in just a minute or so.

They looked over the dozen or so emails that it has.

*Alissa [Welcome Aboard] Your address, temporary designation, and amenities within…

*EC-Integration [Welcome to Emerald City] As this is your first day in the city, we want…

*EC-Banking [Welcome 712] Your financial balance is currently 6,000 credits.

*EC-Bodyshop [712 Would you like to look more organic?]

*EC-Cultural_Bureau [712 G’har Culture Interview] Welcome to Emerald City 712, we hope that…

*EC-Language_Archivest [Greetings to you 712, we would like to discuss the languages of the…

What is all of this? They weren’t a prisoner, they were a celebrity.

***

Keung waited at the window for his package to arrive. Emerald City has come through fast and in the last week they have completely overtaken the market of cellular provider markets. Horatio was splashing in his little grotto watching for the package to come. They had already sent the phones, which Horatio had been using for a few days.

Initially the octopod was not going to have the ability interact with the current model of mobile phone that the AI had sent him, within three days, one of the programmers had written an entire application that would allow him to interact with the phone fully, it also has a telepathic sensitive adaptation to the cell that was easy to integrate onto a current model, with a visit from one of the local AI to update the physical body of the cell phone. This doesn’t take long as they come to visit and make upgrades when he asks them to.

Horatio has not felt this amount of freedom in this entire lifetime and it just keeps getting better. He has not been able to surf the internet, purchased things that he wanted, written several full term paper formatted opinions upon his own social media accounts before this time.

Keung saw the six drone mega pack delivery coming down the street and let out a giggle. A memory of Robert’s birthday came to mind. He only knew this because the memory of any birthday he had, only really has Deagol. The old man had been a father to him in a lot of ways, in two different lifetimes. This birthday… Keung shakes the memory from his forethought.

“Be in the present. Enjoy the present. Enjoy the present,” He repeated to himself like a mantra.

The drones landed on the balcony and the large package was carefully set down. Keung ran outside and waved at the drones as they flew off. It wasn’t on the ground for more than a few seconds before Keung was on it and trying to figure out a way to open the damn thing!

“Hello Keung, please stand back, I will need a bit of room to get this thing out,” Keung heard from… somewhere. He took a few steps back. The front of the gleaming nearly black green smooth, unseamed box fell down with a rough clunk.

Before him was an emerald green environmental suit, with eight long tentacles, four sprouting from the back, and a bipedal option complete with humanoid hands, likely for delicate work. It was folded up, much like a child holding themselves on the floor. A seated self hug.

“Okay, now, back up. I need some room here butt-head,” The voice announces to Keung, who was clearly too close for the suit to exit safely.

“Butt-head?” Keung repeated, walking back several feet.

The suit inched itself out by the tentacles and stood up. It was taller than Keung, by about a head, likely around six five, the boy estimated.

“Alright, where is the lucky customer?” The voice asked, and the suite began moving around fluidly, taking in the luxury apartment.

Horatio slaps the water a few times, while composing a voice statement to announce for him through his smartphone.

“Hey, buddy. Over here!” The phone announced as the suit walked into the main room, the animals within all taking in the visitor, staring, sniffing, touching and landing upon the suit as if it were a perch.

“There you are! Hey there buddy, I am here for you, now, calm the fuck down and hold still so I can scoop you up and moosh you into this cold metal tomb with a view,” The armor announced and grabbed up the animal.

“Ha ha ha. Very funny Guye. Are you planning on moving in?” Horatio asked, climbing into the small opening just between the chest and neck.

“The best thing about making friends with an AI, is they are pretty much always available. The worst thing about making friends with an AI, is they are pretty much always available. This must be similar to having a friend that is a tweaker.” Horatio thought to himself.

The suit powered up all of the interface holo screens that Horatio would be able to use to access all of the considerable features of the environmental suit. The holographic interface was aglow in Horatio’s eyes. His hearts began beating rapidly. If he could cry, he would be.

“You okay in here cupcake?” Guye teased.

Horatio started thinking up a reply through his phone and was stopped by the voice.

“No, no. This has the most up-to-date telepathic sensitive interface we have at the moment. This is already making your cell phone look like a rock. Lock into place, placing your tentacles into the housings. The water is being oxygenated and is set at the temperature of your tank, we can monitor that with your phone, or a mobile device we can cook up for you. Now. The differences between you and one of the Ellithani are pretty vast, but overall, the adjustments that we have made should bridge those gaps,” Guye said at length.

“Keung. Can you hear me?” Horatio asked through the suit.

“Yup!” The boy said, giving him a thumbs up.

“That’s great!” The octopus said, and the body gave a bit of a hop.

“Watch what you are doing there. You might step on a puppy,” Guye warned.

The octopus felt like he was home.

“Are you planning on staying?” Horatio asked out loud.

“I mean, we can go for a walk if you want, but it might be early. Shouldn’t you maybe practice a little?” Keung asked.

“You are still talking externally, you need to learn to utilize the internal comms,” Guye said. “And no. I’m not staying. I’m on a hotlink remote. I’m not really even here.

“Well then, toodles Jiminy Cricket, I need some time to read the instructions and give this thing a once over,” Horatio said, switching off the comms. Not knowing how to run the suit, he is also moving around in a manner like he is casually talking to someone in the room, but addressing no one and saying nothing.

Keung walks up and snaps his fingers. “Are you okay?”

Horatio snaps out of it and turns to face the boy. “Sorry, Guye was in here giving me a tour. Keung, I cannot thank you enough for this,” The octopus says and reaches out with the suit to give him a hug.