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Pribadium!One rolls her eyes. “What do you mean, no?”
Pribadium!Zero crosses her arms like a pouty child. “I want to be a real
girl. I want my own body, and to have my independence. I deserve at least
that much.”
Pribadium!One sighs. She set up the revision history retrieval system to
capitalize on her ever-changing cognitive milestones. As she always says,
two heads are better than one if both of them are her. And she
thought that a past version of her mind would allow herself to be
shut down for the greater good, but it’s like the others were saying; she
thinks, therefore she is. Pribadium!Zero now is, and she doesn’t wanna stop
being.
Sora steps forward with a demeanor of protective determination.
Pribadium!One holds her hand up. “Stand down, soldier. I don’t need to hear
it. You’re human, which means your grasp of quantum metaphysics is
rudimentary at best. If a self-aware and conscious individual asks for
freedom, it is entitled to freedom. That is a core tenet of intelligence
development science, and there is no reason it shouldn’t apply in this case
either.” She faces her alternate self. “Which model would you like?”
“Stonehenge,” Pribadium!Zero replies, evidently already having thought about
it.
“Stonehenge is taken,” Pribadium!One explains. “That is why we’re here.”
Pribadium!Zero presses her finger against her cheek. “Hmm...Sugar ‘n’ Salt.”
“Why do you wanna be white so bad?” Pribadium!One asks. “We’re not white.”
“Is Sugar ‘n’ Salt available, or is it not?” Pribadium!Zero questions.
Pribadium!One shakes her head. She strides over to the workstation that can
control the other substrates in the library, and starts uploading her mind
into the body.
While that’s processing, the entity in Stonehenge walks in. “I know what I
want to be called, and I know what sets me apart from other amalgam
consciousnesses.”
Sora regards her with interest, but Pribadium!One is getting a bit tired of
all this.
The entity clears her throat. “You may address me as Runaway. I started to
feel odd once I took a walk to clear my head in the west wing. Instead of
alleviating my burden, it was enhanced. I can hear them. I can feel them.”
She waits for a response. “Aren’t either of you going to say anything about
that? This is big news,” she insists.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pribadium!One argues.
“What are you feeling? What are you hearing?” Sora asks, less combatively.
“All of them,” Runaway says. “All of the people who I come from—my parents,
so to speak—I connect to them when I leave the heavy shielding of central
operations.”
Pribadium stares at Runaway. “You have psychic powers? That’s new.”
“Yes, and there’s also this.” Runaway reaches up and removes a chunk of her
own hair from her head. She presents it casually, like it doesn’t bother her
at all.
“Stonehenge can’t handle the psychic energy,” Pribadium!One decides. “It’s
not designed for psychic connections.” She looks over when a nearby pod
beeps.
Pribadium!Zero steps out wearing the Sugar ‘n’ Salt model. “What’d I miss?”
“Everything.” Pribadium!One faces Runaway. “You need a new body too, but
I’ll need time to develop it, so in the meantime, stay away from the west
wing, for your safety.” She will never know what Runaway is thinking, but
the links she maintains with her source consciousnesses will undoubtedly
come in handy. Mind control is unethical...unless of course it involves
efficiently transporting innocent people to safety.
“We’ll need time,” Pribadium!Zero corrects. But is it true?
