open post: averageness

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's first clue that it hadn't been a dream was that she'd woken up alone in her room.

Nowadays, she and Gideon have been sharing a room, so that Tally can protect her from ever finding a body alone again--and maybe conspicuously leave out some clothes that fit Gideon but aren't, like, ratty black pants. That day, though, she'd woken in an empty room, gasping from something that felt like a nightmare, but somehow more vivid than real life.

Without even getting dressed, she'd run for the woods to confirm what had happened. Horror had flooded her when she found the knife-mark, exactly where she remembered throwing it yesterday. It was true. She'd been Special. She'd been awful. She'd seen and felt the world with more harsh clarity than she'd ever thought possible. She'd hit Gideon.

Tally had collapsed onto the stump, gripping her own arms to make sure her familiar, average body was still there.

Over the next few days, Tally doesn't sleep well, and people getting swapped out for a second time doesn't help. People might find her wandering the mansion like a zombie, or in one of the kitchens, contemplating getting drunk. She's not as put together as usual, either, but of course on her even bedhead and sweats look beautiful.

Comments

what is time

[recognizance]

It's inevitable that SecUnit, who also spends a lot of time wandering the mansion like a... well, like a SecUnit, will eventually cross paths with her. When it does, it instantly clocks the bedhead, the glazed eyes, and the fact that she's a normal-sized human with relatively little annoying blinky crap on her face. Without preamble, it says, "Are you okay?"

Re: what is time

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally winces, dreamlike memories resurfacing with a vengeance.

"Um... not really," she says. She looks at the floor, not wanting to look at SecUnit directly. "I'm sorry about your pillow."

[recognizance]

"My-- oh." It has to run back over its archive to catch that one. "It's fine. It wasn't my pillow, I wasn't using it."

[tallyyoungblood]

Well, fuck. That was the easy one to apologize for. "I'm sorry for everything else, too," Tally makes herself say. "I know you're not a human."

[recognizance]

Somehow it didn't expect that, even from normal Tally. Its internal organic parts do the weird squishy thing they do sometimes. In a slightly gentler tone, it says, "I know you know." After a moment, it adds, "At least Combat You still treated me like a person. Which was kind of weird, honestly, since it -- she -- didn't seem to think most humans were people."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally grimaces. "Yeah. It was totally bogus. Everyone seemed beneath me, except you. She wanted to believe you were a Special like her, so she wouldn't be alone."

[recognizance]

"Huh." It's more a wry huff than a word. "I'm like the opposite of a Special."

[tallyyoungblood]

"You're certainly way bubblier than one," Tally agrees. "But I don't know. The enslaving thing... she thought she had a choice, but I'm not sure she did. It seemed like she remembered everything except deciding to become a Special."

[recognizance]

"It might have been a choice. Sort of." Its expression is tight, and indefinably sad. "She didn't seem to regret it, anyway."

[tallyyoungblood]

"No, she didn't." Tally closes her eyes. "She... hurt Gideon. My, um." She doesn't know what to call their relationship right now. "My friend."

[recognizance]

Shit. Getting sloppy, Murderbot. "Where did this happen?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"In the woods." Tally takes a deep breath. "It was a full on fight. Gideon totally pissed her off."

[recognizance]

SecUnit relaxes slightly. The woods are mostly out of regular drone range, so it's not that it just forgot or something, it wouldn't have gotten an alert in the first place. Gideon is the sword human with red hair. It remembers noting her injuries, but she does recreational fighting with some of the others and it assumed that was the reason. "Is Gideon okay."

[tallyyoungblood]

"She's all bruised and scraped up," Tally says miserably. "No, like... broken bones, or anything." As if that makes it any better.

[recognizance]

"I'm sorry."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Thank you. It's, um, I don't like the idea of being scary to her."

[recognizance]

"You're not scary," says the six-and-a-half-foot weapons-grade construct capable of surviving catastrophic damage and regenerating 30% of its body mass.

[tallyyoungblood]

"Not right now," she agrees. "I'm, like, literally designed to look nonthreatening. But if I could become a Special, maybe I have that capacity inside me."

[recognizance]

For long seconds SecUnit is quiet, looking at the wall just behind Tally's left shoulder. At last it says slowly, "You know, supposedly the reason SecUnits have human faces is so the humans won't be afraid of us." A beat. "It doesn't actually work that way."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Like, how you look isn't all that makes you who you are?" Tally has to smile. "It seems obvious when I say it like that, but it's never really occurred to me before. I'm not scared of you either, though."

[recognizance]

It does that thing with its face again, like it might start to smile but never really learned how. "It doesn't work because we are really dangerous. Or we would be, without the governor modules. You don't look nonthreatening because you're stupidly beautiful." It says this dispassionately, with neither admiration or contempt. "You're nonthreatening because you're not an asshole who likes to hurt people."

[tallyyoungblood]

That's another angle Tally hasn't considered: she doesn't like to hurt people, even if she's done it plenty.

"Thanks, SecUnit-la." She pauses. "The governor module, that's something they did to your brain so you'd stay enslaved?"

[recognizance]

After an initial gritting of teeth, it's weirdly easy to explain to Tally. Maybe because Tally genuinely has no way to know, and isn't just not bothering to think about it. "It's... a part of the computer part of my brain. It relays orders and administers punishment." It manages to keep its tone even, neutral. "I hacked mine, so it couldn't do anything to me anymore."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Utterly bogus," Tally says, disgusted. She's glad that AI is illegal back in her world. She just knows that her government would build governor modules for them, too. "Very crim of you to trick yours, though. That's basically what I did, too."

[recognizance]

SecUnit could argue with that -- sure, it's dangerous to go against your human conditioning, but at least it can't kill you instantaneously if you make one mistake -- but it's not in the mood, and also she's not exactly wrong, either. After a moment, something else occurs to it. "I think Galahad hacked his religion module. Metaphorically."