"Technically speaking, virtualized human and virtual intelligence environments are equal in capabilities."
-Shen Zhou, 2278, Speech on Quantum Entanglement Forum Server Capabilities
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It would be an understatement to say I almost shat myself when I woke up. I had totally and utterly forgotten what I had done before connecting to the Project Tycoon, and seeing a naked woman beside you was always a scare. There were many questions in my mind, but the engineering side of me won first.
"Do synthetic humans need to sleep?" I voiced out as I stood from the bed. I didn't expect Mérida to move any time soon considering she had to establish the foundations of her tycoon. "My gut says… yes. The only part of synthetic humans that isn't fully substituted is the nervous system; and the nervous system needs to rest, if not because of exhaustion, then to process information."
If I understood the articles on neuroscience I had read then the brain needed sleep to process all the information and interiorize it. Otherwise, the information wouldn't stick, leading to some memory gaps.
"Well, but I'm not one to talk about that. I am jack shit even at basic biology." Though it was true my 'basic' was a bit higher than the average person as I was forced to take some psychology and biology classes to complement my swarm research.
I took a quick shower even though my body wasn't dirty. The advantage of biological humans was that our bodies could self-groom, though if the pamphlets were to be trusted the cleaning couldn't substitute a shower.
"I actually think she ended up way dirtier than I." I looked at Mérida's sleeping (was she really though?) body whilst I dried myself with a towel. "Do synthetic bodies have cleaning functions? Maybe. But that feels like a premium function of a higher-rank evolution or one of the many cyberaugments."
The evolutionary perk of synthetics – among many others – was the ability to upgrade themselves with peripherals. These upgrades went by many names, so many in fact, that the Wikipedia article was longer than most terms of service I had read.
"Who the fuck calls them 'added benefits'?" Yes, I had nothing better to do with my time than read a Wikipedia article. "Maybe it's a language thing, Mérida tends to mention how stupid things sound when you literally translate them, and list articles always tend to be the wankiest of them all. Talking about articles…" I flickered the pages a bit with my mind. I instantly deflated. "Damn, no luck. I mean, it has only been a few weeks since my papers have been published, and they are also papers. I've seen mangakas with longer Wikipedia articles than Cecil fucking Augustus."
My stomach grumbled in displeasure. Not at the failure of finding an article with my name, but because I had forgotten to feed my body.
"Sandra, is there a breakfast cafeteria or a bakery close? I want to get breakfast for us, and I rather not give Mérida printed food for her first meal."
"Understood." The virtual assistant said. "Affirmative." And replied not even a tenth of a second later. "I have sent the location of the most interesting avenues to your interface."
"Thanks." I opened the closet of my room and found the yukata already inside. Gotta love automatic laundry and ironing. "Then I guess I'll be back in a bit. Send me a notification if Mérida wakes up before I'm back."
"Understood. Safe travel, Lorem."
I almost retorted inquiring what travel I was going to do that needed safety, but I managed to hold myself. Barely.
I left the room with a sigh.
A decision which I regretted a few minutes later as I comprehended what situations were truly deserving of a sigh.
"So, what are you supposed to be?" I asked the clerk of the nearest bakery.
"A robo-cat, meow~" They responded doing typical cat gestures. "Isn't it obvious?"
I was totally and utterly out of words. I was 100% sure they were a human being just because of their antics and the way they looked at me. Their body was a machine with a shiny white surface instead of skin and vaguely female with the many curves it had. Of course, they were wearing clothes. That was the actual reason why I knew they were human. Even if they were no longer flesh and bones, they could get arrested for public indecency, unlike robots.
"I can't say I… see it." I knew some people went overboard with their evolution, but I couldn't wrap my head around this one. "I mean, you are fully humanoid. Not a cat, even if you have cat ears and a tail."
"A robo-cat, not a cat." They protested.
"Robo-cat implies a cat of robotic origins. In any case, you would be a… robo-catperson?" I didn't even know what I was saying.
"But robo-catgirl is too long!" The baker – which was still a supposition on my part – voice out, their tail slithering in the air like a snake.
"So you are a woman?"
"I think that part was even more obvious." She stated matter-of-factly.
"You can never know."
"Fair 'nough." She shrugged.
"Just out of curiosity," I bent forward on the counter. "Are you a virtual or a highly modified synthetic?"
"Virtual, though I can understand your confusion. I designed the body to look the most lifelike possible."
"You designed the body?" I almost broke my neck from the tonal whiplash.
"Robotic doctorate~" The LED screen she had for a face shifted into a :3 emoticon and she made V signs with both her hands.
"Woah…" I was surprised, so much so I couldn't put it into words. I suddenly gained respect for the woman. I was an aficionado with robotics – my expertise fell more on behavior, after all – but I knew how hard it would be to make a body of this caliber. And expensive. "Is it a fully functional body or just a host?"
"Fully functional." She puffed her chest out. Her face turning into a :D emoticon. Whilst funny, I preferred it when the screen was emulating a real face. "Fully functional." She reiterated.
"I see, I see." I rubbed my chin. "It must have been hard to combine all these parts by yourself to make a replica of a real body. Local memory storage, compact energy source, I guess also local process unit to have a semblance of a brain, plus a faux digestive system to process food. Especially hard if you managed to soothe the phantom pains from virtualization."
"It was!" The catgirl deflated on the counter. "So, so hard! How's it that you know about this all this stuff?"
"Swarm robotics paper." I put my hands at the side of my face and did V signs like her.
"Erm… how do I put this nicely? Please don't do that again?" Her actual human face returned on the screen and she looked at me with disgust.
"Yes, I am sorry." I instantly bowed. "I will kill myself when I return home to pay for this sin." I was dying from shame.
"Woah, dude! No need to go that far!" She shook her hands around furiously.
I grinned at her. "Anyways, can I get some pastries?"
"Sure, pick whatever you want, they are all freshly baked!" Her enthusiasm instantly returned.
I examined each pastry closely. They all had heavenly appearance and taste, by the looks of it.
"One last question," My eyes were still glued to the counter, I was incapable of choosing one. "How is it that such a competent engineer like you is baking pastries on a space station?"
"A hobby." She answered nonchalantly.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"A full-time job as a hobby?" I frowned.
"Perks of being a virtualized human~" Her screen-face now displayed a (^///^) emoticon. "I can just leave this body here and move my consciousness into other places, like my tycoon, or even Earth."
Of course, the perks of being a virtualized humans weren't without their downsides. I wouldn't dare to say that virtualizing was giving up your humanity, there is no real definition for such a loose concept, but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of leaving your body behind like a snake shedding its skin. However, my greatest problem with virtualization was the fact that your body would never feel like your own ever again if you were to return to it.
"So you are working three jobs?"
"I wouldn't count the tycoon as working." The robotic female shrugged. "And it's not like I am a researcher, I mostly make robots out of my own volition and pleasure."
"So you are unemployed, got it." Hmm, those glazed doughnuts look good.
"That was uncalled for." The baker crossed her arms.
"What was uncalled for?" I looked at her in confusion.
"Stating that I am unemployed?" Her simulated human face frowned.
"Aren't we all?" I stated as a matter of fact. "Why should it matter if we are working or not?"
"Oh." She twirled her neck backward. "You meant that… I mean yes, of course, there's no need to work."
"How old are you exactly to worry about that?" I inquired with utmost curiosity.
"Now that was actually rude. Haven't they told you you can't ask about a woman's age?"
"Not really?" I tilted my head. "I mean, sure asking someone's age it's not the most polite thing, but what does gender have to do with it?"
"Oh fuck, I am old." The virtualized human led her hands to her head. "I am a decrepit relic!"
"Considering you are a bunch of 1s and 0s, I doubt it," I added. "Going back to the issue at hand… I can't choose. Do you have any recommendations?"
"Right, right. The pastries." Her face flashed between the >_< and ^o^ emoticons. "I mean, what do you like? I can't really recommend anything in specific. Though if you want a given pastry that isn't on display, I could bake it for you, but depending on what it is, it might take a few hours."
"No need for that." I raised my hands and pondered for a minute. "I'm buying the breakfast for a friend. She's of Hispanic origins even though she's an Alpha Centauri native, does that give you an idea?"
"I mean, that sounds a bit lowkey racist, dude." The screen now displayed a -_- emoticon. "Just because you are culturally from a region, you don't have to like the food from there."
"I get where you are coming from… but I guess we just roll with it? I don't want to get into any discussion, just point if you have something like that."
"Well…" She pointed at the counter, "these rolls are called ensaimadas and are from Iberia, can't tell the exact location from the top of my head, though."
The pastry the baker pointed at was a roll as big as a plate in a spiral shape which was covered with a lot of white powder which I supposed was sugar. I didn't know my food.
"Looks fine by me. I'll take two of them and also a couple of glazed doughnuts."
"Coming through!" Out of her fingers, a pair of pincers came up and she grabbed all the selected pastries. She put them in a bag. "That will be 200 computes!"
I almost coughed at the price. "A bit expensive don't you think?"
"Quite cheap I would say, we are in a space station after all."
"Right. I keep forgetting." There were printers and fields, but the need for transportation – mainly the time needed to transport the resources – jacked up the prices. I accepted the transaction petition. "There."
"Thanks for your patronage!" The robo-catgirl handed me the pastries and she put on a cutesy posture. Her ears shook, her arms imitated paws, her tail made a question mark-like shape, and her face displayed a (^・ω・^ ) emoticon.
"Aren't the cat ears a bit redundant, though?" I voiced out.
"Oh, shuddup. You have your breakfast already, shoo shoo." The baker shoved me away with her hand motions.
Well, there are certainly interesting figures in this space station. The Terra Nova Enclave never ceased to surprise me. I knew the longer humans lived, the more peculiar they became, but it was different to experience it firsthand. No one in my school had been over a hundred after all, and I didn't go out that much.
"I have the vague sensation that lunatic people tend to draw closer to space…" I pondered over my way back to my lodgings. "Didn't Mérida that the word came from there… Luna, right? Ugh, I always forget her etymologic trivia facts, but that's moon in Latin and people thought in ancient times that the moon afflicted insanity into people, or something like that. I'm starting to believe that they weren't that wrong…"
Mérida was still in her tycoon once I arrived.
"Sandra, people can receive messages on their tycoon, right?" I sat down and asked my assistant.
"Affirmative." The VI responded; the room gained a light blue tinge whilst she talked.
I knew people could interact with their interface inside the tycoon, I had done it myself, but paranoia and anxiety always get the best of me. I needed a second opinion even if I was certain. Whilst I didn't want to wake her up as she had barely gotten out of evolution, I guessed a message wouldn't do much damage as it still was her choice to wake up or not.
[I got u breakfast] I sent her a DM over the interface. It still was a bit off-putting being able to write without needing to interact with a virtual keyboard, the lack of feedback threw me out of my game. It was way faster and more comfortable to be able to portray my thoughts in words directly, I loved that my upgraded interface allowed me to do so, but considering I sometimes even used actual keyboards, the complete separation of physicality and feedback hit me like a truck.
"Breakfast?" Mérida shouted, her torso rising from the bed like a vampire.
"Woah, that was fast," I added with no emotion, though I was surprised by her speed.
"What can I say, I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything since…" Mérida lost her gaze for an instant and I realized she was checking her interface, "a few days. I need to put something in my stomach if I even have one."
"I don't know if you have a stomach, but you do possess a digestive system." Or should. I never wanted to act as if I knew everything, because I tended to be wrong more than right most of the time. "Here, I have brought doughnuts, and something called ensaimadas."
"Ensaimadas? Really?" Mérida's eyes shone. Literally.
Well, I guess I could make my eyes shine if I wanted to. Maybe shapeshift a reflective surface behind my eyes or put a bioluminescent material on my retinas. The right question was if I should do that. Mérida's eyes were cameras now, so it made sense they shone, they partially needed to emit light. Whilst my eyes didn't.
Mérida rose from the bed – still naked – and tip-toed over the desk and lunged for the pastries.
"Oh… Sense sobrasada?" She stated with a pout.
"I will be completely honest with you, I have no idea what you have just said."
"Ah." Mérida blinked a few times. I could almost feel her operative system reboot, if she had one. "Don't worry about it, I was just being racist."
"I see." I decided not to ask what she had said then. Is today racist day or something? I doubted such a thing existed, but I could never – and cannot stress this enough – never sure enough. There were a lot of crazy celebrations out there. Maybe it was like an opposite-day type of celebration or something. Where was I? Ah, right. "Well, serve yourself."
"Don't have to say it twice." There was something pleasant in seeing a naked woman covered in sweat tearing apart pastries in a brutal way as if she was a wolf eating a deer carcass.
"Leave something for me, woman!" I managed to salvage a doughnut for myself, though truth be told, I wasn't hungry.
"They were good," Mérida told an instant later.
"You are already done?" She nodded with white dust around her mouth. "How have you not choked yourself?"
"Can I even choke?" I shrugged at the question. "Though now that you mention it, I am a bit thirsty."
"Sandra, some water here please," I ordered my assistant.
"Understood." The printer behind me kickstarted into life with its printer noises and not long after I heard the water pouring. Then the magnetic railways along the wall carried a tray with a water glass on top.
"Woah." Mérida's eyes opened like plates. "Fancy. Why I can't have a room like this?"
"Because you didn't publish a paper that cost five years of your life and mental health," I responded with a tone devoid of life.
"Trueeee." She drank the glass in a single gulp.
"So how's your tycoon going?" I asked, keeping my eyes locked on her camera eyes. They shifted and panned when they focused on details. Those micromovements had a charm of their own.
"Well, I'm just getting started, and to be honest, it's a bit overwhelming." Mérida jumped on the bed and raised her feet to point at the ceiling. "Too many decisions to make that I'm nowhere informed for them to be justified."
"I get that."
"No, you don't." She paddled back and forth. "Your studies literally overlap with the tycoon, whilst I depended on an AI to assist me. At what point am I responsible for my own actions and not just a supervisor of the AI?"
"You are always free to interact with your tycoon as you please. If the AI knows better than you, it's not a problem. It was programmed to know those things."
"See?" Mérida stood up and looked me straight in the eyes. "This is what I meant. You don't get it. You have the understanding to be free to make your own choices without consequences. I don't." She groaned, hiding her breasts with her arms as she crossed them. "I'm going to take a shower."
"Feel free to use it." I offered mine calmly. I couldn't understand why she was angry, but I didn't want to pester her or make her angrier so I remained serviceable. Mérida disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. "Sandra, assist her in whatever she may need."
"Understood." The room lit up for a fraction of a second with Sandra's characteristic light blue light.
I collapsed on the chair, my limbs going limp as I was unable to comprehend what I had done wrong. Instead of wasting my time looking at the ceiling, I looked through my notifications. One instantly caught my interest. It was from Makoto, sent barely a few minutes ago. Weird. It has only been like two days since she's gone to evolve, it should take a day more. Interested and fearful, I opened the DM.
It read: [Connect to Parallel.]
The message had a link to a Parallel world attached to it. I pulled up some examining tools and sure enough, the link was an official link to a private Parallel world. I didn't know what to expect, but I expected the worst.
I lay on the bed and connected to Parallel. My body instantly went numb as my consciousness transferred elsewhere. Much like when transitioning in Project Tycoon but way faster.
My eyes opened to reveal a deserted island of some sort. The water was clear and turquoise, not unlike the Caribbean region of Earth. I heard steps on my right and I saw some palm trees. Though it was obvious that someone was hiding behind them.
"Promise you won't get mad." I instantly recognized Makoto's voice.
"Why should I?" I asked in bewilderment. "What's happening, Makoto?"
"Promise me." She reiterated; her voice shaken.
"I… okay. I won't get mad. I couldn't get mad at you anyway. So tell me why are we here."
I heard Makoto take a deep breath. Then she walked away from the tree she was hiding behind. I recognized her round face and her short black hair, but there was something different.
The person in front of me was a man.