“No. The ones you have are basic auditory translators. They take the input and run it through the matrix, allowing you to understand all languages known to the Lathar.”
“And allow us to speak in Latharian, right?”
The AI chuckled. “No, it’s not that simple. You are still speaking Terran, but the other person’s translation matrix allows them to understand you. There’s no rewiring of your brain to install the new languages.”
“Is that what you’re doing to Jay?”
The AI fritzed out and reappeared on the other side of the bed. With his skull in a clamp to stop him from moving, Jay could only watch her in his peripheral vision. It was freaky the way she appeared and disappeared. She’d done it once to him when he was getting out of the shower. He’d about jumped out of his skin and, to his eternal embarrassment, actually screamed. Then Keris had run the other AI off, a static blast of noise telling him the two had been in the middle of a blazing row as Keris stomped out.
“Yes and no. He’s been trying to learn to read Latharian, which… well, with the way humans evolved, it appears that some of you have lost the ability to assimilate languages. Possibly due to genetic damage or drift.”
“Oh? That’s a thing?”
“Uh-huh.” Miisan leaned down to study the progress of the operation. Jay had no idea why. The “eyes” of her holographic avatar couldn’t be any better than the ones on the drill in his fucking head.
He took a breath to calm down as she shot him a look. He couldn’t see it. He just knew she was looking at him. The feeling was like spiders crawling over his skin. He concentrated on that.
“Jay here has lost the ability, so I’m installing a different version of the matrix. Once in place, it will unpack and rewire the language center of his brain.”
Gracie made a small sound of surprise and wonder. “It can do that? So what will he be able to do?”
“If it goes well, he’ll be able to not only speak in any of the Latharian languages but also read and write in them as well. Natively. So when he speaks, he’ll be speaking Latharian rather than Terran to be translated.”
There was a silence, and then Gracie asked the question on the tip of his tongue.
“And if it doesn’t go well?”
Miisan stood and shrugged. “He’ll talk utter gibberish for the rest of his life.”
His eyes widened, panic rolling through him. She hadn’t told him that before the procedure.
Then the AI chuckled, a rare smile curving her lips.
“That was a joke. If it doesn’t work, no rewiring will occur and nothing will change.”
He closed his eyes, a sigh of relief escaping him. When he got out of here, he was having a word with that damn AI about not making jokes while he was strapped up to a machine drilling into his skull. It was like joking about getting a blowjob from a piranha.
He ignored the two women chatting as Miisan completed the procedure, instead falling into his memories. Keris had been in the printer for a week, and he missed her like crazy, which sounded insane. She was an AI… like part of the ship or something. At least, that’s what everyone kept telling him. They said she wasn’t a person. She was just a machine. A self-aware machine, yes, but not a person. His instincts said they were wrong. She was a person... with thoughts and feelings.
He’d seen that for himself. Seen the upset and anguish when he’d threatened Nyek for being a dick, and her programming had forced her to pull a gun on him. She’d been so distraught that she’d nearly killed him, she’d ordered him to decommission her. Shut her down so she couldn’t hurt anyone.
He’d told her to shut the fuck up, and that it was all Nyek’s fault, which it was. The stuck-up paladin had had it in for Keris since he’d met her. Only the fact that she was the Champion’s “daughter” had stopped him from refusing her a place on their mission.
And if he had… she would never have been here to discover the body printer. He’d seen the little sparkles of hope in her face lights when she’d seen it and realized there was a possibility she could be “real.” Several times since she’d rescued him, typically late at night when he was half asleep, she’d asked him what it felt like to be a real person. To be biological. He’d always claimed not to remember their conversations, but he did. And he remembered the wistful note in her voice.
She wanted to be real, so badly. He was sure of it. So much so that she’d risk long-abandoned technology to make the jump.
“Okay, all done,” Miisan announced as the operating arm withdrew and the discs of the bed slowed down. The clamps around Jay’s head relaxed and folded away as feeling returned. “You might have a slight headache over the next few hours but nothing that an analgesic shot won’t cure.”
“Thank you,” he said as he sat up, blinking against the lights in the expansive medbay. He’d seen the inside of this room far too much for his liking recently. Reaching a hand up, he paused before he rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the AI.
She nodded. “All closed, you can touch. Just don’t go banging your head against anything for a while or you might dislodge the matrix before it unpacks.”
“What happens then?” Gracie chuckled. “It hits his movement centers and he starts dancing the funky chicken? No… wait, that’s his normal dancing.”
“Bitch,” he chortled, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Wanker,” she threw back good-naturedly and then looked at Miisan. “Is that it? Is he okay to go?”
“He is,” the AI smiled.
“Good. Thanks, Doc.” Jay hauled himself off the bed and made a beeline for the door. After this, he needed a stiff drink, an all over body massage and a lie down.
One out of three wasn’t bad…
The world came back in a wet rush, bright lights, and a hard floor.
“Owwww!”
The complaint was forced from Keris’s lips as she tumbled out of the tube and sprawled over cold metal. By the goddess, it had worked. She had a real body. For a moment she lay there, fighting to process the onslaught of sensation. There was just so much of it. She was aware of every single part of her body, all at the same time, right from the cold, hard floor to the sound of her eyeballs moving in her skull.
A whimper forced past her lips as she curled up into a small ball, trying to get away from it all. Her hip screamed where she’d hit the floor, the air over her naked, wet skin making her shiver as something clenched deep inside her torso section. She’d wanted a body, wanted to be real, but she hadn’t expected this. How did they focus with all this going on?
Lying still, she tried to clear her mind and push all the input from her new body to the back. It had been simple when she had a mechanical body, she could simply ignore those responses or switch them off. Not in this body though. Its responses were sluggish and she couldn’t find an off switch. But… the longer she lay there, the duller the demands got until they were little more than a buzz at the back of her mind.
Blinking, she tried to bring her sensors online, only to remember she didn’t have any. Not anymore.
Draanth. She couldn’t see anything. The lights blinded her, and nothing was in focus. Automatically she tried to send a calibration order and… nothing. Right. What the trall did biologicals do to bring their senses online?