Wandering Uncanny Valleys (Suri)

[Eluna Thals]

Three hundred eighty nine days had passed since she'd taken any personal time. She wished she could be more vague than that, but there was no escaping her analytical reality. She knew. Precisely.

Eluna hopped off the Alliance shuttle with her small duffel in tow. The other uniformed passengers disembarked in turn, giving her a wide berth. She'd been the only person in plain clothes aboard the ship, and bored enlisted personnel quickly got to the bottom of it.

Spooky

It was the grunt term for an intel asset. She hadn't made any attempt to avoid the subject, but when you're warming a bucket seat on the Alliance's dime, you're submitting your paperwork to someone, and that someone often is prone to gossip when they aren't under pain of orders not to.

A wind picked up on the tarmac, whipping about her bright red hair. Red because she wanted it to be red. Red because it was her. She could've been anyone else if she wanted to disappear. Red blonde auburn brunette black. Pale tan swarthy freckled. Blue green hazel brown. Coruscanti Nar Shadaan Corellian Caridan. Pigment modifiers, language subroutines. A blank canvas.

None of that was Eluna. And yet all of it was. Unique. Unremarkable.

Alone

She'd filed her reason for travel to Ossus under Personal. Fortunately it was the sort of field that herded you toward a series of predetermined responses, and you simply chose the best fit. Fortunately nobody actually asked her to clarify, because she still didn't know. Maybe she came to see the wrecked skeleton of the Dauntless, out there somewhere. She'd personally interacted with 117 of the listed dead. Maybe that mattered somehow. Maybe she'd come to see the Jedi, though she thoroughly expected they would be of no use to her. She was other. Barred forever from communion in whatever peace of mind they likely dealt with. That thought made Eluna feel sick at her stomach. Did she actually want final confirmation that she could never have what she wanted?

None of this was optimal programming. It was never meant to be. It was simply Eluna. A girl who grew up to be a woman who then looked under the surface and found the artifice. Knowing what she was didn't invalidate who she was. And dealing with both, and the truth and the lie of each, was the loneliest burden she'd ever known.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh Rajinaathra awoke half-reclined in an examination chair squinting up into the glare of hooded lights overhead. An IV drip ran down into the crook of her right arm, while a nest of glowing diagnostic cables sprouted from the socket of her left shoulder where her prosthetic arm should have attached. She shook off the anesthetic fog that always haunted her the first few moments after an operation and slowly curled herself away from the headrest, rubbing deeply at her aching eyes.

"You really should lie back and rest a while longer, Mistress Suriyesh."

"Can't rest," she mumbled. "Too much work to do." The brown-furred mongoose pulled her paw away from her face and blinked owlishly until her surroundings came into focus - a makeshift operating theater walled in by cargo crates draped in antistatic drop cloth. The cables that ran from her empty shoulder socket coiled on the floor and leaped up into computer cart full of monitors displaying all sorts of telemetry - electrophysiological potentials, chemical analyses, servo diagnostics. Beside the cart stood a tall, spindly medical droid with branching manipulators and a single, ice-blue ocular lens set off-center in its flat, featureless face, which irised nearly shut and stared at her with a singular, all-consuming focus.

Suri froze, her paw halfway to yanking the cables out of her shoulder, and stared back at A-V0X's expressionless facade. Usually he'd be wheedling something obsequiously passive-aggressive by now. "So, what's the damage?" she asked.

"It is as I feared," Vox replied, strangely monotone. "Your cybernetic integration has deteriorated significantly since your last checkup. Synaptic withdrawal. Neurotransmitter rejection. Even cellular apoptosis in the tissue adjoining your implants. Headaches should be the least of your worries; you are fortunate you have not yet succumbed to synaptic shock."

The Munjan mongoose felt the blood pounding in her ears as she tried to process what she was hearing - a far worse report than she'd even feared. "But... but I haven't had any loss of motor function. I've been running my own diagnostics, I'd know if the cybernetics were de-integrating."

"It is not a cybernetic problem. It's a biological one. Your body is rejecting the implants."

Suri shrank back down onto the examination chair, gutted and shaking, and stared numbly at the vaulted ceiling of the cargo container she called home. Crowded at the best of times, now she felt as though it were collapsing in on her.

"Hakath..."

She lay still and concentrated on breathing. The air was thick and heavy and tasted of plastic, but at least she knew her lungs were working. "So this isn't a maintenance issue. What do we do, then?"

"It isn't a maintenance issue, but maintenance can hold off the inevitable," Vox replied, and that smug superiority Suri was used to had returned to his vocoded cadence. "I've dosed you with synthetic neurotransmitters to help bridge the gap between your wetware and hardware, and a course of methionine to combat the apoptotic toxins building in your tissues. In the meantime I'd suggest introducing some natural antioxidants to your diet. But sooner or later we will have to find a more permanent solution."

Vox turned and, with a few keystrokes, called a set of schematics onto the computer monitors. Suri propped herself up on her right elbow and scrutinized them in mounting disbelief.

"You want to put in a spinal implant?" she said. "You think wiring me up even more is going to solve this problem?"

"What you are experiencing is fundamentally a matter of incompatible interfaces," Vox said smoothly. "A spinal implant, properly designed and calibrated, can serve as an effective bridge between disparate bioelectric matrices. It would be a simple procedure for a droid of my abilities."

"I bet it would," Suri spat back, and she rolled over and lifted her arm to her mouth so she could pull out the IV line by her teeth.

"I would never operate without your consent, of course," Vox continued. "Ethics would constrain me, not to mention this restraining bolt. But I must remind you that if we wait to act, more complications may arise. Please, allow me to assist you. You might injure yourself."

"I'll manage," Suri replied, and she yanked out the diagnostic cables from her shoulder, snagged her prosthetic arm from its charging cable, and stormed out of Vox's clinic.

In another few minutes she'd inserted her arm, thrown on a T-shirt and jacket, and stumbled out into the brightness of the Adegan sunlight over the Sanctuary colony. She felt for the pack of smokes in her pocket and quickly had a stim puffing between her pointy teeth. Hands jammed into her pockets, she struck off in a whirlwind of dark and frightening thoughts, neither watching nor caring where she was going.

[Eluna Thals]

Sanctuary was a growing, hopeful place. The noises of construction were perpetually background music. Rapid hiss-bangs from pneumatic drivers. Trundling of heavy equipment. Keeping time for the melodies and harmonies. A hundred conversations. The sound of playing children. It tempted Eluna to simply stand at the tarmac's periphery and listen. She eased down her duffel as a scrum of children stormed through a distance away, playing a pickup game of turboball. Suddenly an errant kick, and the ball screamed in her direction.

thnnp

She palmed the ball an inch from her face, bringing it down between her hands.

"Throw it back, lady!"

A dozen dirty-faced kids in filthy clothes stood waiting for her to put the ball back in play. Eluna looked from the kids to their ball, a smile on her face. She released the ball from her hands, only to catch it perfectly on the instep of her right foot. From there, it shifted easily to the other foot, and back up to the other knee, then kicked fully by the other recovering foot, sending the ball overhead, where Eluna jumped up and put it expertly back in play with a header.

"Thanks, lady!"

Play resumed at once, the scrum moving on past her. Eluna picked up her duffel, heading down the first path available to her. Here, a few buildings stood. Some freshly built, some skeletal. Among the row, seemingly out of place, stood a cargo container. An alien stormed out of the pod, pausing a moment to reach for a cigarette. Again, the Machine never really left. Biometrics available at a glance. Nehantite. Female.

More data. Eluna froze in her tracks. The cybernetics weren't exactly the hidden kind. They were extensive, a myriad of what could be seen and more that couldn't. She stared.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri shuffled down along the lane that ran past her cargo container and past the workshops and garages that serviced just about everything that made the colony run. Every other sentient on the footpath was just a blob of noise, high notes in a cacophony of electric motors and grinders and pneumatic wrenches and, far off, the muffled roar of a ship taking off from the starport. Suri didn't mind the noise. She had grown up with it, in a densely packed slum of a Munjan city where she and her seven siblings, living off the salaries of her shop mechanic father and whatever odd jobs she and her sisters could find, were the lucky ones. By comparison, even at its most bustling Sanctuary was a ghost town.

But the brown-furred mongoose was so lost in her thoughts that she still didn't notice the red-headed human woman staring at her until she'd walked past. Her ears flattened, her tail jerked, and she stopped in her tracks and aimed a reproachful look over her shoulder.

"You want to take a holo?"

[Eluna Thals]

Why had she dwelled? Why? A glance was all that was needed. Ironic that the woman would ask if she wanted to take a holo, because that was precisely what happened.

"Sorry! Sorry."

Eluna's cheeks flushed, and she looked away. The image of Suri was still fresh and pristine. Not just the myriad of cybernetic interfaces. The look on her face - so conflicted and overwhelmed. What happened to her? The Machine didn't find anything anomalous other than noting the rarity of cyborgs. But the Girl had seen that face before in the mirror. That look at the breaking point. She ventured another glance at Suri. More data needed.

"I..."

The Girl was in control. There was no prompt response. The algorithm was creating it's own imperfect solution. She focused on the smoldering stick at the Nehantite's lip.

"...do you have another one of those?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Piss off was the first response that came to mind, but the way the woman had wilted into apologetic stammers, she'd have felt like she was snarling at a kitten. Instead Suri dug the pack of Kajmahar Golds out of her hip pocket and turned the label for Eluna to see.

"You ever smoked Munjan before?" she asked with a dubious frown. "It's a bit of a, um... acquired taste."

[Eluna Thals]

She shook her head, removing a dark-wrapped cigarette from the crumpled pack. Even unlit and from here it smelled exotic. The gas chromatograph returned a range of readouts that she instantly deprioritized, placing the unfiltered smoke between her lips. Even the wrapper was sweet. She smiled faintly. The cigarette was lit and as Eluna inhaled the way the Machine had done many times before, even more gas chromatograph data came in. Drugs and carcinogens and byproducts in parts per million, all sorted neatly for analysis. But none of that was important to her. She wanted to see for herself. The smoke was heavy and rich and halfway into inhaling, her chest seized. Instantly she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, pressing her lips together as her cheeks swelled, willing the urge to cough to subside. Eluna's eyes watered. She tried to swallow. In the background the Machine simply logged the aberrant functions, waiting to be called on to assert artificial homeostasis, but she wanted this.

"Ghack! ckh...kaa!

She doubled over with a cough.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri winced, less because of the stranger's distress and more because she was inwardly mourning the loss of a perfectly good smoke. Hell, she'd probably done the red-head a favor. Even in this day and age, lung cancer was nothing to sneeze at.

"You don't smoke at all, do you?" she said. "Gods alive."

The Munjan mongoose wavered between indignant and jeering and landed somewhere around wryly amused. She grinned and hissed a jet of smoke between her fangs like a dragon.

[Eluna Thals]

Still wheezing, Eluna finally righted herself and holding her cigarette a safe distance away.

"N-ghak-n...n chghk...ghaa no I don't!"

SYSTEMS 100% OPERATIONAL the unwarranted diagnostic performed as a reminder that nothing had happened and that her programming was responding to threats that did not exist. Shut up she blinked, looking from the ashen-tipped cigarette to the Nehantite who was much more in her element. Eluna smiled, almost giddy.

"I...I hate it."

And she did, it was revolting and she had no idea how people could do this on a day to day basis! She sucked on the smoke again, and once more broke out into coughs, losing the cigarette from her grasp entirely. Again she was all smiles.

"I hate it!"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri's eyes darted down in despair to the cigarette still smoldering in the dirt, then back up to the manically grinning stranger. And strange was the key operator here.

"Yeah, sorry," she said, and she took a backwards step. "I did try to warn you, mate."

[Eluna Thals]

"No! It's fine!"

Still smiling, she looked at the now-wary cyborg and raised her hand to smell the still-latent aroma of the cigarette on her fingers.

"I'd never tried one before."

The Nehantite looked like it was caught in a fight or flight moment, and Eluna tried to smooth things over.

"I'm Eluna."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri took her own cigarette in her cybernetic hand just in case this crazy grinning masochist took it in her head to try another. Sometimes you thought you'd gotten a handle on alien behavior, and then, out of the blue...

She'd said a name. Suri was terrible with names, especially alien names. Droid designations were easy, because there was a logic to them, and all sorts of mnemonics that were as natural to her engineer's brain as falling off a binary load lifter. Eluna? E-series protocol droid, LU-20 builder. Enough to get her started, anyway.

"Suriyesh," the mongoose replied, still hovering between taking off and sticking around to see if there was another shoe to drop. "I don't seem to remember seeing you around. Are you new here?"

[Eluna Thals]

Suriyesh. Analysis - Munjan. The Machine already began to sort out the alien in front of her, down to her ethnicity and likely origins. The name and the cigarettes offered both pointed to that direction.

"New? I'm...yeah guess you could say that. I'm on vacation."

Which was probably itself a strange thing to say. Ossus was many things. Tourist destination - not so much. It wasn't a cover story. The truth sounded ridiculous.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"You're on vacation."

Suri paused and glanced around at the industrial complex surrounding them, half of it still under construction, just like half of the rest of the colony, with civilian contractors mixing with Alliance and Cizerack corps engineers and the occasional Jedi apprentice in a bathrobe. On the other side of the speeder hangar were the grounds for the Jedi colony including the dormitories, the council chambers, the sparring fields, and whatever else it was that interstellar wizard monks needed to help them contemplate how many angels could dance on the head of a hydrospanner.

The mongoose blinked at Eluna's unwavering smile. "Well. I hope you have a great time. Um, listen, it was great meeting you, but I need to go grab a bite to eat."

Thank gods for small favors. She hadn't eaten anything all day prior to her diagnostic session, doctor's orders, and she was starving. It was middle of the afternoon, so the mess tent ought to have been nearly deserted. With any luck she could have a sandwich in peace.

[Eluna Thals]

"Me too actually!"

Which wasn't entirely true. Her power core was at 92%, entirely optimal. Still, this was her first real encounter on planet and the woman wasn't treating her like a machine. She was, however, treating her like a leper, and seemed eager to find somewhere else to be.

"I mean, I need to eat, and they don't exactly do in-flight service on Alliance jumps. If you want to just show the way that's fine. I'm just...you look busy."

Eluna bit at her lower lip. The Machine played out 3,612 variations of alternate conversation that would have been more preferable. Shut up.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

It wasn't that she hated the idea of company. It was that this woman seemed hellbent on being her company, throat-scorching cigarettes and shitty vacation spots and crotchety manners be damned. Suriyesh really didn't want this kind of attention. But then Eluna hadn't done anything overtly threatening - if anything, her gawky, halting attempts at friendliness made her seem less threatening, simply because there was no way she could be following some sort of a script.

And, hell, any company was probably better than stewing in her own juices after what she'd just learned from Vox.

"Well, it's not like there's much choice for fine dining around here," Suri said. "Most everyone eats in the mess, and otherwise there's the bar down in the Alliance district, and the sandwich shop--"

Her voice gave out as she entertained a mental picture of Eluna trying to gladhand her way through the Deli Moff's labyrinth of draconian rules and carving knives.

"On second thought, nix the sandwich shop," she said. "Should be some lunch left over in the mess tent."

A scant fifteen minutes later Suri was sitting down at a long table with a tray of grilled cheese, lentil soup, and iced Dantari tea. They were on the back end of lunch service, so the cheese was cool and gummy, and the soup had a few lumps in it trying to re-condense into canned paste, but it was flavorful and filling. The mongoose tucked in without any ceremony, content to let Eluna be as social as she wanted to be.

[Eluna Thals]

"Whaddya want?"

The serving droid was the sort that was programmed with an interface to have character. In this case, a surly slop-hand's character. It's four arms moved around the steam table, waiting for her to make up her mind.

"I'll have what she just ha - ...are those doughnuts?"

Green eyes widened as she skipped the entree table entirely, moving on to the dessert bar. She gave a complete pass to the fresh fruit, looking at the array of frosted and sprinkled confections before her. One...two...seven...

"Gee lady, you hear of a balanced diet??"

Already pawing the eighth donut, Eluna put it back reluctantly.

"Do you have ice cream?"

"You're lucky we got donuts, lady. This ain't the Grand Cailun. You want this soup and sandwich or don't ya? Better save room. One doughnut per patron."

She looked like he'd asked her to off an arm, and took the long four paces to return another six pastries for her soup and sandwich.

A few minutes later, she found Suriyesh in the waning late lunch crowd, sitting with her tray of grilled cheese, lentil soup, doughnut, iced Dantari tea...and thirty seven sugar sachets. She was still sore about losing an argument to a greasy spoon, and flopped down petulantly.

"Dumb droid."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri's neck fur went up on reflex, a latent defense mechanism against mechanophobes. "Excuse me?"

Then her eyes landed on Eluna's crowded tray, a balanced meal only in the sense that it contained one of everything in the cafeteria. Except for sugar packets. There were enough of those to put a rancor in a diabetic coma.

[Eluna Thals]

"That droid over there. Acting like that."

Eluna tasted her tea, frowning at it. She opened one sachet of sugar, dumping the contents in. Then three more.

"I mean, I guess I get it. Someone programmed it like that, but it's insulting."

The Machine happened to have a definition of irony close at hand, in case she needed to examine it. Eluna rolled her eyes at her own internal dialogue as she added more sugar to the tea. None of it was dissolving, and just precipitated to the bottom of the cold glass. She stirred at it with a spoon.

"I mean, its all an act."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri dipped her grilled cheese into the lentil soup and took a big bite of the sloppy mess. In short order she'd polished off the first of three sandwiches.

"An act?" she repeated. "As opposed to what?"