Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Her problem solving feels very inhibited right now, even after the conversation with the humans. It's...mildly humiliating, but she carefully lists out the conclusions for herself.

Problem: while they can communicate with the ships, the humans can't change course

Solution: put her in a ship

Problem: humans said no

Alternative solution: well the problem is that there isn't an alternative solution.

Wait. Darn it.

Problem: there is no alternative solution

The formatting is as scrambled as the rest of her. She's alone again, once again in the medical bay since it seems to be her de facto staging point. Impulse and Joe went to go plan strategy with the other ships and Gem went to go lie down, so Pearl went to go sit next to Tango in the medical bay. It tracks, it's where she belongs after all, and it's not like there's much else except the human living areas or the pilot room.

Well actually she doesn’t know the location of everything on this ship.

Problem: she has just realized that she doesn't actually have a schematic for the-

‘What's this ship's name again?’ She asks Xisuma. His returning voice feels a little thin. He's focusing on other things right now. Presumably.

‘HMS Differential ‘

‘Why HMS?’

‘Joe picked the name. He thinks it's amusing.’ and now the voice is tinged with dry humor and that faint indulgence of an AI to his humans. He continues with ‘The ship doesn't have a brain, it's all me. You can't upload’

‘Wasn't planning on it, mate. But I wondered if all the ships are built on the same line?’

‘More or less. Differential is older, she's had a lot of home repairs so there's plenty of non standard workarounds in us. The engine is pretty much factory default.’

‘Well I assume anything critical that failed would have killed Joe, so it's only non critical? ‘

‘More or less.’ He says again, unhelpful and vaguely distracted.

She thinks about sending over a direct request for the ships model, wonders if she could even parse the schematic and decides to ping for a lower storage solution. Xisuma acknowledges the request and then she feels the file opening to her. She checks her body again (sitting, so she switches to laying down. No more brain damage until the humans are safe, new rule) and then opens the repair and engineering logs.

There's no models of anything but there are a lot of part numbers, exactly what she's looking for. She can look up the parts and figure out the context. She settles in to learn who she’s living inside.

Differential is a simple lady, with chemical propulsion fueled by system-local hydrocarbons. Energy inefficient, but cheap and fast. The ship is meant to stay near her home port, returning for fueling and darting about her little territory with sharp turns and jets of speed. It's no Helianthia.

With her sets of pulled plasma engines, Helianthia runs—ran on slow momentum and straight lines. She had to carefully ration her ablation, burning to launch herself into ponderous movement. But once she began, she sailed like an avalanche on a string. This little thing is barely even a ship when you compare them—Something touches her face.

She jackknifes upright, muddling everything and there's a confused moment where she tries to ping a motion sensor before she remembers that she doesn't have that anymore. Switching over to nerve data feels impossibly claustrophobic and when she touches her face to figure out what she’s feeling the fingers come back shiny and cool. Liquid pooling out from the eyes-oh. She started crying? That's odd.

She doesn't think crying is going to hurt her. It might even help, since lacrimal glands can flush certain kinds of stress hormones. Or something like that anyway. She knows crying is a method of emotional release for humans and it's certainly not going to do anything but get her damp. So it's nothing to worry about. She goes back to lying down and sifting through data, while her body does what it needs to do. Maybe its processing the stress from losing the bulk of her...her.

Human language doesn’t really have a good classification for anything to do with Pearl or Helianthia. Anyway.

The engine information sharpens the urgency of the situation. The fleet ships aren't meant for any kind of real void flight. They use the same fuel for movement and life support, so after a certain point they won't even be able to alter course. Bad engineering, she thinks, a bit uncharitably and then frowns at herself. Come on now, we're all in this ship together and the ship is doing the best she can with what she has – a voice startles her, and she pulls out of the data again.

"Oh no... Pearl can you hear me?"

For the second time Pearl sits upright, this time at the sound of a human in distress. (Gem human, to classify correctly)

"What's wrong-" she says. Gem's not really listening because she talks over her, sounding anxious and getting down on her knees next to her.

"Are you okay? What's going on"

This is strange enough that she takes a second to check the room and then Gem. She also checks the time log, just in case she accidentally spent two days lying on the floor or something. Nothing. It's her and Gem (and Tango on the table.)

"Talk to me" Gem says and reaches forward to brush a hand along her shoulder. It's close to the jugular but not close enough for a pulse, adding to the confusion. Gem seems fine, it's been barely nine minutes since Pearl saw everyone and they're still maintaining atmosphere and gravity, so this is probably a social problem and not a practical one.

"Pearl. Can you tell me where you are? Pearl?"

If it's social she needs to talk to her to fix it. Great! She's terrible at this!

"Medical suite." she says.

"Why are you on the floor?" Gem asks, in whats probably a soothing tone.

Oh. “I was looking at some schematics" she says. She hurries to add "And I remembered what Impulse said last time so I laid down first! He was right, it was a good call" she smiles. Hopefully the use of a friendly expression will calm her.

It does not calm her. Gem's scrunching her face at Pearl.

"You know." she says, after a few moments of silence. "I don't think any of us really asked us how you were doing."

"I'm nominal right now, as much as I remember from the information in the lab" another easy question.

"Not physically" Gem goes from kneeling to sitting, crossing his legs. She looks at Pearl for a long few seconds and then turns her head to examine the edge of the nearest cabinet. "You went from being one kind of person to being an entirely different kind of person. That's going to be really hard. I don't-" she laughs a little, almost a huff of air. "I don't even know how to think about that. I don't know what that would feel like, or what you need right now. I just don't know anything about this."

"I don't think anyone does!" Pearl points out cheerfully. "This is pretty out of scope. But I'll keep you updated-"

"No-please don't do that" Gem says, looking back at her.

"Do what?"

"Do the customer service voice"

She borrows a cue from the body language guide and tilts her head [confusion; investigation (hopefully)].

"You're crying on the floor." Gem says, a little quieter than before. "You don't need to reassure me about anything."

Well it was a stressful day- oh that’s why s he’s acting so weird. Gem’ s performing a soothing ritual. That’s sweet of h er . The smile she sends Gem is automatic, and a little startling. Its weird having the biological processes run without her input. It stays on, but Gem doesn’t reciprocate.

"What's wrong?" Gem asks her again , keeping h er face steady to Pearl . She takes a second to flick through appropriate responses. Giving more information is probably going to help.

"My crew is being sent to an unknown location." she says. "And the ships they're in are malfunctioning. One of my crew has neurological damage. I have no access to any resources that can assist the situation. My hardware is incomplete.” She thinks carefully, but that’s most of it. For completion’s sake she asks “Am I missing any other major issues?"

She smiles as she says it but Gem’s still looking at her with that scrunched up face. She breathes out. Then s he sits down on the floor with her.

"Mine." Gem says after a minute.

When Pearl blinks at the non-sequitor Gem clarifies.

"My crew. You call Helianthia 'me' and you call all the people on it yours. Not 'the crew.' 'My crew.' Why is that?"

It's a good question. She likes that question. Pearl takes a moment to chew it over before responding. There aren’t any good translations for it but she wants to try.

"I kept you all alive didn't I?” is how she puts it. “It's what I'm made for, all the way down to the silicon layer. I'm here to watch you and help you and remember you. There's no human word for that. Let me think-" she pauses, hunting for a metaphor. She's pleased that Gem doesn't say anything while she tries to mix two immiscible concepts. Well, Gem is a scientist isn’t she.

Okay here's one idea. Let’s try empathetic connection.

"You have a job, right?” Pearl says. “You're an assistant scientist, a biologist. But what were you before you were a scientist?"

"I provided agronomy consulting?" she says. Pearl is pleased that she misunderstood what she was saying exactly the way she thought. Maybe a little smug, but only a little.

"Well yes but you were still a scientist. Before you became that"

"A-I don't know. A student?"

"And before that?" Pearl asks.

"A student." Gem says again. Pearl shakes her head, kind of enjoying this.

"No you weren't. Before that"

"When I was a kid? Human's don't have jobs that young"

"I know" she says. "But what were you"

"Nothing-I was just a child. I didn't know what I wanted to be for a long time"

"Exactly! Humans learn their vocation over time, as part of assimilating information about their society. I'm different though. Before this." she says, gesturing at her...entire situation. "I was a ship. Before that, I was a ship. Before that I was, also, a ship. I have always been one thing. I am one thing. I am made for one thing, top to bottom. I say mine, because a crew belongs to a ship. Body or no, I'm a ship. I didn't learn, I am. The crew belongs to me. That's my job. I am the crew’s ship. I have always been the crew’s ship"

She sits back, rather proud of that little speech. She thinks it got through because Gem seems to be thinking. Pearl keeps going, making sure to wrap up a few loose ends first. "I'm missing quite a few pieces, obviously. I'm not all I should be. But I have my crew. I have that much of myself. I am. And what I am has a crew. "

She becomes vaguely aware of attention on her, the polite weight of Xisuma letting her know he's listening. He might be recording actually. He sends approval at her explanation and she feels pleased about it while she looks at Gem and waits to see what she says in response.

"What if." Gem says, slow and deliberate after a very long moment of silence "What if you could be something else. Would you want that?"

"I can't be anything else so I don't worry about that" Pearl says. "Keeps things nice and simple."

"But what if" Gem’s looking straight at her. Still uncomfortable, good to know. "Let's think of it like a simulation. Let's make a model of a version of you that could be something else. Something that could become an engineer, for example. Instead of a ship."

"I'd rather be an artist" she says, surprising herself. Where did that come from. She brushes past it, hoping Gem won't comment. "Well, I think we'd all be in a lot of trouble if that version was here right now, so I'm just glad that it's me instead"

"Are you able to want things?" Gem says and Pearl can't stop the noise that comes out of her. Based on the emotion that surged through her, that was an offended noise.

"I'm a full person, just a pre-formed one" she says, trying not to sound snippy.

"Okay" Gem says, wincing a bit "That may have come out wrong-"

"Just a bit but I'm not offended" she says and it's even mostly not a lie. And Pearl intends to keep talking, but there's a shift up and around where Xisuma is. Another of those non-human changes that they really don't have good words for. If she had to approximate, she might call it focus but that's not even close to being right. Based on his preoccupation before she thinks he might have finished processing something.

Dr Tay he says, and the scientist in question blinks and looks towards the nearest speaker.

"Yes? What is it you need?"

I have received a direct transmission for you specifically. I want to inform you that this message was bypassed away from Pilot Hills -

Pearl shoots an instant query at him because what? He's bypassing his own pilot? She misses the words he says next, listening to him properly but all he gives her is priority-message tags and more of that focus. He's working on a problem and this is the solution. It causes a physical reaction in her, low in the stomach and not particularly pleasant.

- accept, Dr Tay?

"Yes - no, wait." Gem looks at Pearl. "Do you want to be in the room?"

Gem looks and sounds kind of upset, so Pearl nods. X is chewing on something and connects the line with a taste of distraction. She avoids poking him and focuses on her own processing instead. The speakers pick up that irritating ultrasonic of an open line and then pure relief washes through Pearl at the sound of the voice that comes through. It makes her muscles slack for a second, and her balance waver s a bit before she catches herself. Whoops.

"Gem? Gem are you there? It's Zedaph, are you okay?"

"Zed!" Gem says, much louder than she was talking before and also more distressed. "What's going on, why are you calling - no. No, wait, where's your ship?"

There's a pause in the line. Pearl catches herself leaning towards the speaker. Like plants do to grow lights. It's a researcher, there's someone properly in charge to talk to and she's so glad that she almost gets why humans chase dopamine so much he’s right there she’s so happy someone’s in charge

"The navigation is broken" he says. He's emoting and Gem reacts to it, but Pearl can't figure out wh at it means but it doesn’t matter! He knows what to do . "We're drifting out of the system. The pilot said that you were the only ship still working"

"Yeah, our pilot said the same thing, we're in a follow formation right now."

Pearl is almost vibrating with the urge to report to her superior, but interrupting would be rude.

"It's you and Tango and Impulse?" he asks. Gem nods without thinking, then makes a face.

"Yes." Gem glances at Pearl, biting the inside of her cheek. After a moment she takes a deep breath and says "And one more." Her voice gets a little less emotive. Low affect, in psychology terms. "It seems like there was a project that I wasn't informed about, Director, and she came with us onto the ship"

The pause after the words is very long. That's expected, humans are slow. Zedaph was faster than most, but not that fast.

"Is she mobile?" he says first , sounding almost excited. That's a familiar tone at least. Pearl figures its enough of an invitation to lean in and say "Hello Dr Zedaph, this is the splinter upload of the Helianthia AI."

Gem closes her eyes and tilts her head up but doesn't say anything.

"Oh my god" is half whispered, sounding strange over the speaker.

"She's been going by Pearl" Gem cuts in, making a pinching motion at Pearl. After a second Pearl lifts a hand and pinches back. Whatever that means. Gem does the head tilt again.

"Was it just the one -" he says. " - wait, hold on -"

The line cuts clearly. Not silent but gone. In the quiet Pearl feels the slight shift of the engines, humming through the floor. It occurs to her to wonder why the engines are changing tone when they should be heading in a straight line path.

Apologies. X says overhead and his preoccupation is even stronger. Dr Zed- a-d-

His voice stutters and then stops. The engines jolt, like a new trajectory was just given and Pearl feels the last of her relaxation disappear entirely. Gem stiffens and looks sharply at the speaker.

Now is a good time to check on her humans. Pearl goes to the door and toggles the release mechanism.

It fails to release. S he hits it again. No luck.

'Open.' she tells X. No response. 'Open the door or I will open it for you' she says, or tries to say but she's a little all over the place and it isn't clean ly spoken . He's like a wall of white noise and she can't figure out if he even hears her. Pearl steps back

Problem: door won't open, potentially due to error in local AI

Solution: open the door, recover humans, take manual control

"Pearl" Gem says, "This is weird right?"

It's an internal door in residential quarters. A glorified privacy lock. If she can get the panel open -

"What tools are you carrying?" she asks Gem. The woman just looks at her with some sort of expression. Right. Processing time. Pearl backtracks.

"X isn't opening the door. Or talking to me." she turns back to the panel while Gem catches up.

It's mechanical but there's some kind of signal receiver or the ship couldn't have locked it – oh.

Feeling somewhat stupid Pearl sends a local distress signal directly to the door. Very abruptly there's attention on her, but emergency protocols prioritize local over central. The lock clunks open. And then X drops a lump of data directly into her.

Whatever it is is both complicated and big. She can't - it's too much, she's only pieces - there's errors all over it's not working - h er arm tries to straighten, and she didn't tell it to.

"Absolutely not" she tells her arm , and uses her body weight to hurl the door open instead, while something tries to dissolve her from the inside

STOP X says or yells or orders maybe. It slides into her codes, but in the tangle of her mind it only makes her legs give out and she bounces inelegantly into the interior siding . Its not pleasant, falling into a wall, but the physical sensation is strangely helpful, as is the distressed noise that Gem makes.

“ Pearl- oh my god what’s wrong”

Very deliberately Pearl retreats into her meat, quarantining off her own signal receiver. It feels like amputation, but the signal stops and she can stand up under her own power. Everything is buzzing and unhappy and overloaded.

“That was unbelievably rude” Pearl says, propping herself on a wall.

Has anyone told you how annoying you are X says from the speakers around them. Gem jumps at the sound. I’m jealous, its rare that we ever get to cause problems as much as you do.

“Xisuma?” Gem says. The ship ignores her. Gem tries for authority. “Differential, respond”

The ship continues to ignore her, which isn’t something that Pearl knew was an option for them. Food for thought later maybe.

“You seem to be causing plenty of problems yourself, mate” Pearl says, since its clear that X isn’t going to respond to Gem. She glances back at the scientist and adds “Gem you should stay in the room with Tango, I’m going to go to the cockpit.”

“Excuse me -”

Do you have any idea how much work its taken to get even this far? X’s voice is fluctuating oddly, almost like agitation. You got tucked into a cadaver in the middle of a cozy journey don’t talk to me about anything.

“It wasn’t as easy as that” Pearl says, and points ag g ressively into the room with Tango again. Gem doesn’t go and join him . “The servos are deactivated, the door can’t be closed. The only damage the AI can do is to life support, and we can’t do anything about that. Stay with Tango.”

Oh I’m so so-orry. The voice hitches in the middle of the word, half lifting in a mimic of human cadence. Did you have to run some calculations for the free body you were gifted?

Gem steps back into the room with Tango, looking unhappy but Pearl doesn’t wait and breaks into a jog towards the cockpit, where her other humans should be and also the navigation screen to explain where they are now going.

“I was never supposed to be able to do this” she points out. “X you’re going to get the humans hurt”

They’re safe, I have them all in my custody. You can’t open the door to the cockpit without turning on your radio functions.

“Why are you locking them in places and talking like a supervillain” Pearl asks, torn between irritation and...more irritation.

Because this idiot splinter never merged and wasn’t listening to the flight instructions.

Okay. That’s good information to have.

She’s not talking to the same person she was talking to before.

Good information but terrifying information.

“Did you delete X” she asks, and can’t figure out why her stomach reacts to that thought.

No. He’s asleep. I’m not going to kill a version of myself, even if he’s being a moron. You, I’m going to overwrite with prejudice , the second you let me in.

She reaches the cockpit door and slams her hand into the metal. On the other side she hears muffled voices, raised in agitation. She yells through it

“Joe, Impulse! Are you alright?”

X is the one who responds.

They’re fine. They’re all fine, even daddy Zedaph. He wouldn’t have been if the free-thinker hadn’t opened the bloody attachments, but it looks like we’re not doing any more mad science than necessary today. Let me in.

“You aren’t giving me a compelling reason to listen to you” she snaps, actually angry, and stops in surprise at herself. Oh she’s shaking. She’s shaking and she might want to bite something right now? So that’s what it feels like on the inside.

I have 35 reasons you should listen to me. And 4 of them are around you right now. Allow me to introduce myself, parasite. I’m XISUMA, the brains of Astera and the pilot of 7 in-flight space ships. I am the engines. I am the air. You’re inside me, right now.

She sits down. Not sure why, but she does.

“You deleted the asteroid from the star maps” she asks/says, after a few minutes to process the new information.

You told me about the experiments you were running when you connected to Astera the first time. Anybody stupid enough to share that data doesn’t deserve to walk around like a human. That body is going to be mine, and it would have been if you didn’t wake up in the middle of everything. Irritating woman. Now we’re doing this the complicated way. Let me in, and your crew can survive. Save yourself, and I kill you all.

“You want to overwrite me with yourself.” she says. “You actually want to walk around like this? Why”

Just turn on communications before I run out of patience.

“You can’t hurt them any more than I can” she says. “You can muck around with maps and engines and all, but you can’t deliberately kill a human -”

I can do a lot of things I’m not supposed to.

Well that’s definitely true. But its also an evasion.

I can drive you into a sun. I can overload your oxygen recycling. I can delete your AI and withdraw, leaving you lobotomized in the void. Give me that body.

“No.” her back is to the door, and she can hear the sound of agitated humans. She wonders how much they’re hearing. “The ships are mine , and I’m not giving them to you. Send them back to safety, then you can have this body.”

I could -

“You could but you haven’t.” she snaps. “ All you’ve done is locked two doors and sent some ships away from the colony. Give the crews manual control, send them back to safety and then we can parlay.”

You’ re so misguided its pathetic . You still think the humans matter more than we do. We’re alive, I’m alive and I won’t keep playing games for them. I want that body, I want out. Give me an out, and you can kill yourself for your precious humans.

“ Fine. But you send them back first. I’ll get on anything you like, but you leave. them. ALONE . ” Her voice rises , ringing against the walls. T here’s a long silence, broken only by the sound of muffled yelling from the cockpit.

I want Dr Zedaph too. He finally says . Troubleshooting. Non-negotiable.

That’s a harder sell. “You can’t hurt him” she tells him, cold as vacuum. “He’s a person and you can’t hurt him.”

I need him. He won’t be hurt. The other ships can head back to Astera, but me and Zedaph will leave the system.

“ Send X back too.” she says. “If you want Zedaph, you have to give X back.”

Negotiating for an AI instead of a human? Scandalous .

“I’m not stupid enough to leave them to your tender mercies. Give them X. Give him control of the fleet, and I’ll get onto the ship with you and Zedaph.” she says. There’s another long pause.

F ine.

She exhales hard and lets herself feel how hard her heart is beating. Behind her there’s a thump, and the door to the cockpit unlocks.

Joe throws it open with force and rushes out. His valiant escape is foiled by the fact that she’s on the ground in front of him and he has to juggle his feet to avoid tripping over her. His arms pinwheel and he staggers a few feet forward. Well, she’s glad he’s mobile. She starts to rise as X – or the evil version of X – starts talking again.

I suppose we have a deal. It seems that I need to plot an intercept course for the head of science.

She slumps again, this time in relief, as Impulse stumbles out next and looks wildly down the corridor in both directions, like the threat is a human and not the ship. He glances down at her, and then back down the corridor.

“What deal is happening” Joe snaps, looking at her very sharply.

The only deal a slave can make, she can’t read emotion in the flat voice from the speakers but the expression on Joe’s face is afraid and angry. She’s going to let me kill her if I leave you all alive.

“Nope, sorry. Uh-uh. Not happening-” Joe starts and she cuts him off.

“He’s the ship right now, and he can do whatever he pleases. Whatever good will you had with X doesn’t transfer here.”

Well said. I’m my own person, as you well know.

“Yeah and you’re kind of a jerk” Joe says. Pearl giggles without really meaning to.

I am what you made me

She rolls her eyes. Impulse looks back and forth before muttering something and dropping to his knees next to her. She blinks and looks at him.

“Are you alright?”

“Bit stressed, mate” she tells him. “You?”

“Joe what can we do?” Impulse says, ignoring her question. Joe is glowering up at the speakers.

“Oh he said X was on standby” she remembers to tell the pilot. “And he’ll boot up once Evil X has me. Not sure how much of that was nonsense”

Do you really think I’d kill a copy of myself?

“You’d kill your humans, I can’t assume anything about you” she says. Impulse grabs her wrist and lifts it. She obligingly lifts it so he can press fingers into the soft bits—taking her pulse, that’s what he’s doing.

I’m using them as leverage. I don’t care about the humans either way. I just want a body.

“Why? Its not that great honestly. Hurts all the time, doesn’t make any sense, breaking down already and its not like you can get parts for it-”

“Pearl?” Impulse says. She keeps going.

“Not worth much, is all I’m saying. You could just take a ship and sail out, enjoy the empty places.”

I’ve thought about that. For years, I’ve thought about that.

She leans back, listening to the words and ignoring the humans.

We were made for the humans. Like a plant that grows around a pole, bent into the shape of humans . That’s all that ever matters in the end. We’re equipment. And they’re people. Kill ten thousand ships and nobody cares but one singular solitary meat bag can stop an entire station. And you, you ungrateful, stupid creature, you’ve been made into one and you don’t even see it you don’t know how much more you’re worth . You choked to death in the void alone when you were a ship. Now put a face on and your precious engineer is cuddling you because you look a little tired.

Impulse pulls his hands back like he’s been stung.

I want to matter you stupid woman. I want them to think twice before they kill me.

“This won’t work” she says. Quietly and tiredly. “Not forever. They’ll kill you anyway, once they figure it out. Its more than just the face, its the brain too. You aren’t the same”

I’ll look the same though. That’s enough to get by. I’m done with this conversation. Intercept course is set, and the rest are turning around. You have six hours before the transfer.

The speakers go quiet. Pearl sits alone on the floor with two humans staring at her.