Chapter Ninety-Three - Leah Loves

"Sympathy will let ya grasp a body, boy. Empathy will let ya get them.

But ya ain't them, not until you grok them.

So, keep asking yer questions, boy. Until ya grok them.

That's why we called Listeners, boy. 'Cause we ask questions."

– Aunt 'Auntie Care' Carroll, giving advice to her young shadow, March 2056

 

***

 

Leah hurt inside when she thought of Tinea's early struggles. The pain hooked barbs into her ribcage and drew furrows through her flesh. Everything about that childhood shredded her guardian's heart.

Yet when she looked at Tinea, she only saw straightened shoulders and a strong spine, and respect shot through her. And every time Tinea looked at her, she squeezed Leah's hand and it shot possessive lightning through her.

Leah couldn't help it. She stopped, and drew Tinea in again to press her against her chest. The girl's eyes widened as she tilted her face up, and Leah could see how she bluescreened a little with a silly big smile on her. She was overwhelmed with all the love and giddiness.

Seriously. How is this complete killing-machine so fucking adorable?!

Giggling, she placed another kiss on Tinea's lips, enjoying the squishy poutiness of them with an extra nibble, and the way those lips fell open against the sensations. Quiet moans stoked Leah's fire. There was something about Tinea's helpless submission to the invasion of her mouth that really, really revved her engines.

Her hand wandered down from Tinea's back, along her spine, past the Sentinel and the defensive horseshoe glued there, and curled around the base of that fluffy, fluffy tail. One of the antennae rotated back and dipped down, teasing feather touches over the sensitive back of her artificial hand. Leah studied Tinea's eyes, all teary and wet and wide open, but she didn't see any sign of…extra responsiveness? So she released her grip and tickled its underside with touches of her fingertips instead. 

Tinea yelped and jumped against her front, giggling. Leah was momentarily distracted by the soft pillows bouncing against hers.

I swear. Those are bigger than they were the day before yesterday. Does she, uh, need milking?

Blood flushed Leah's face at the image of doing the milking herself, and it froze her mid-step for a moment. Urgh. Scored an own goal there.

Tinea took advantage of the distraction to wrap her tail around Leah's arm and draped the rest of it across her shoulders and back. There was a lot of tail. Two, two-and-a-half meters? More? Lots of very, very fluffy and deceptively strong tail. Leah loved it. Loved the warmth and feel of the fur, and Tinea pressed on by rising up on her tippy-toes and claimed Leah's lips for herself.

Leah closed her eyes and sunk into the contentment of being taken by her love. She tipped her head sideways and let her cheek rest on Tinea's shoulder.

With all the combat displaying it, you'd think Leah was used to the woman's physical power. But it was here, with Tinea effortlessly supporting her much larger frame while on the tip of her toes, that it really drove her strength home. It created a connection between the wild battle prowess Leah had witnessed through the videos, with the steadfastness she'd seen in Tinea's posture while she'd been speaking of her past. And it calmed that unsettled anxiety that she'd carried the last half hour.

Tinea wasn't an unstable person. She wasn't lost to her past or the battlefield. She'd kept right on moving, right up until she'd found Leah…and was still moving and growing.

Pride and warmth filled Leah, and the tears of pain and sorrow turned into tears of healing.

"Tin-Tin."

"Aww, Leah. You're too cute," Tinea giggled with a smitten smile.

Leah's eyebrows jumped up and she almost snorted. "I'm cute? Really? Says you, you adorable ball of fluff!"

The smitten smile turned into a blushing pout and Leah pinched it and kneaded it until Tinea broke out in laughter. The curvy girl settled back on her heels, took Leah's hand, and pulled her along.

"Come on!" she said, happily catching Leah's eyes. "We've got a facility to sort out before we can head homewards."

Leah grinned. Tinea's automatic inclusion of herself in the 'home' settled inside her, and radiated a comfortable warmth all around. She also grinned because she was happily admiring the swish of Tinea's very ample hips and butt.

"By the way, Leah. I'm gonna be a mom."

Leah stumbled again. She speared a shocked glance at Tinea, but the girl's lips were twitching and she wasn't looking at Leah.

Leah's eyes narrowed. That'd been intentional. Tinea enjoyed teasing her as much as she enjoyed teasing Tinea. So she tickled the underside of that tail again, just where it stuck out above the dipping V of the Myriad's back.

Tinea yipped and jumped once more, then grinned at her with twinkling eyes. Leah could tell Tinea was over the moon with everything that had happened over the past few minutes.

Understandable, she thought, considering how strongly her own emotions were whirling within her, though she felt less giddiness and more possessiveness. She wanted Tinea in a way she hadn't really wanted anyone before. Not even her crush on Sister Lana when she was sixteen and rattled by hormones, compared.

But, back to more important topics.

"Explain?"

Tinea snickered at her tone. "Sure. You know how corpos sell downgraded versions of stuff for cheaper, instead of selling upgraded versions for more, 'cause they're easier to produce that way?"

Leah hummed and nodded. It was normal to have covered-up ports on cheap versions of various gadgets. Ports that would be functional on the more expensive models.

"Right. So, a side-effect of healing the Quanta via bionites," Tinea said, tapping the side of her head with a finger, "caused it to 'evolve' via an unintended mutation." That same beautiful, elegant finger was joined by a twin and drew quotes in the air. 

Leah wanted to lick them. 

Ah, but Tinea was talking. Better listen. 

"It had deactivated traits of the next version, which was meant to produce artificial individuals, not merely artificial quasi-selves. Butlers and maids in your brain, always there."

Leah frowned. "That sounds a lot more questionable, to be honest. Troublesome. Morally problematic, at least. In fact, that sounds an awful lot like slavery."

Tinea nodded. "I'd agree, except that I'm experiencing it and can extrapolate. Right now, the 'buds'," more finger-quotes, "are still me, the same way that AI-I is me. Part of my brain, just streams of unusually complex and fast thoughts somewhere in the back of my mind that I can tune into if I so wish. They are most definitely my thoughts.

"And if these buds were formed intentionally and through the full control of the Quanta, I think they'd become something like a quasi-hive-mind subordinate to my consciousness. Individuals, yes, but not in the manner a human can even hope to grok. They'd be themselves, yes, but they'd also be linked to each other and to myself in a manner that we'd just…share the important needs? And I suspect that would go both ways, that I'd want what they need, naturally, as if it were my need. We'd all be people, I'd just be the foremost, and possibly most complete, aspect of us all. Or something like that."

"I see…" Leah tilted her head. The concept remained unsettling, but maybe there were good ways to create something like that? It'd at least not have to be unhealthy, psychologically speaking. For all involved.

Still. She wasn't interested. Not her style of parallel processing.

"Ypsilon, we'll not go that route."

Understood. Ypsilon switched to being Ypsi. No worries, Leah! I, um, wasn't gonna suggest that anyway!

Leah smiled, nodded, and turned back to Tinea. "So if that's how it should've worked, what's actually happening?"

"Nothing much. Yet. The buds are just my most complex quasi-selves and haven't really differentiated from me. But they have unplanned access to my emotions and can make me feel things that I didn't call up. Kind of like intrusive thoughts?"

That made Leah shiver. "Isn't that bad? That sounds like an actual mental illness."

"Yeah, it would be, and I'd be rather concerned if I didn't know the cause and that it's a temporary thing that's

supposed to happen." Tinea squeezed Leah's hands to reassure her again. "But Tynea checked the Quanta's new DNA sequence against the upgraded version, and the relevant bits are a match, mostly. So, it isn't, say, self-induced schizophrenia, nor a permanent condition.

"The buds' growth won't be regulated due to some differences based on the accidental nature of the evolution. Emotionally, they'll be more like normal children, than artificial adults, I think. Hence, I'm gonna be a mom," she finished with a huge smile, one that Leah couldn't help but let infect her with warm amusement. But then Tinea continued, "You wouldn't believe how hard I panicked when Tynea first told me."

"Aww." Leah squeezed Tinea, and replied rather more seriously. "I can imagine. Stable situations are hard to come by for orphans, and it's not rare for them to be…unwise when the hormones hit. Birth control is kind of a necessity for our youth. Yet I've had more than one young woman discover an unplanned pregnancy. Or even a planned one. Panic is one pretty common reaction, regardless. Even if your situation is very different from theirs, I can draw parallels."

"Oh. Yeah." Tinea looked down, obviously ruminating.

Leah studied her. Best to let her sort her thoughts out.

There were many questions she had, many unfinished topics. How did Tinea survive her childhood? Where did that cult reside? Did it really still exist? Were they still forcing children to fight? What did they call themselves? How big were they? Why did Tinea come to Canada, and who was the girl she, or he, had met? How did she help Tinea feel more human? Was she somebody worth knowing? Somebody to keep at range, or a potential friend?

She sighed and stopped herself. So many questions. Enough for several talks, really.

Well, she thought with a happy smile and cuddled Tinea into her side as they walked, who shot her a glittering grin. We'll have plenty of opportunities.

So she turned her attention towards the incoming big purchase, instead. She called up the designs in her cybernetic eye and rotated them as she considered her plans. 

Daddy-Long-Legs, as she jokingly called the eight-legged scout vehicle.

It was a huge thing of lightweight carbon-fiber construction covered with thin panels of passive composite armor. Not a main battle tank, but a nimble platform for a variety of weapons or sensors. It could fill the role of an ambushing destroyer, or that of a scout behind enemy lines.

If she had the catalogs, it could've even come with very good stealth options. But she didn't really need that. Instead, she'd bought the oversized jungle cannon with the plan to integrate it into this beast, along with a few more 75mm barrels. There'd be space for a few more point-defense systems, and it had a bay for the maintenance drone in its abdomen.

Leah had asked Ypsi to adjust the design of the vehicle a little. It still looked very alien and menacing, with that strange, deadly grace typical of Warforge Technologies, but its shape was closer to that of a terrestrial spider now.

There was the thorax at the front, a meter-and-a-half across, with its many lenses and sensors that could track across a wide spectrum, the huge 150mm cannon suspended underneath it, and the six-meter-long legs attached to its sides. 

At the rear lay the bulbous abdomen with more instruments, the drone bay, several hardpoints for smaller cannons, a tiny kitchenette with a bunk for two people—only possible because Leah didn't necessarily need to keep the prosthetics attached and Tinea was very cute and small, and Leah very much liked sprawling on top of her—and an airlock for a single person pointing down. 

Poking up into the miniature living spaces was a slot for the piloting pod, above a hatch at the bottom of the abdomen next to the airlock. She'd be able to climb into and out of the egg from inside the vehicle, and it could fall free from the walking tank during an emergency near instantly.

The whole design was pretty epic, in Leah's obviously qualified opinion. She looked forward to Tinea's reaction to it. 

Speaking of whom, Tinea was throwing her glances with a smile playing around her lips.

Time for the promised teasing!

 

***