i can conjure spirits from the vasty deep

[autokinetic]

They stay linked up for a few hours more, maneuvering between buggers and fleet-colony and Solside military types late into station night, and finally the colony is getting started on building houses.

Amusingly, they're going to build one house, and then some bugger workers are going to build more the same for them as shown, while the humans work on securing their food supply - they can't use unmodified bugger crops.

It reminds Aegis of showing her critters things and then watching them pick up the tools themselves and continue.

The buggers were by far the most puzzling and difficult critter-people but now they're hers, her little sisters, even if she has to share with some other people.

She pushes that at Sue, when they're all done, when they're out of link except for just the two of them and she can't quite reconcile herself to being in her own comparatively small and slow brain just yet, when they're on their way back to their room.

Comments

[pythbox]

Sue laughs.

We had a kid and we never even fucked.

[mind_game]

Maybe, says Jane. I don't know. The fantasy game is part of my history and you're special to it but I don't think that explains the-part-of-me-that-chose-to-absorb-it.

[autokinetic]

Well, says Aegis, what could? The nets didn't suddenly increase in complexity recently, and you seem to be largely computer-based...

[pythbox]

Sue definitely doesn't know.

But if Jane isn't in some sense a product of them, then why's her mind feel so familiar?

[autokinetic]

You did try to touch the fantasy game once, Aegis remembers vaguely.

[mind_game]

Why do you have a bandwidth problem? Jane asks Aegis. Is that because your mutation makes it hard for you to link with Sue?

[autokinetic]

Yeah. I can pretty easily get my wall down enough to send words. If I work a little harder I can do simple feelings or senses. I definitely can't do a complete dump of my brain like you guys basically did.

[pythbox]

Ivy snuggles into Aegis's lap some more.

[mind_game]

What do you do to get your wall down?

[autokinetic]

I - focus on the fact that Sue's my bird. The bird from the game. It's just a habit now but originally we didn't spend much time together in person, and I was reminding myself that I actually knew him pretty well, just, as a bird.

[pythbox]

...Sue thinks that maybe this is relevant, actually.

[mind_game]

Jane does too, but she's still not sure how this explains the-part-of-her-that-absorbed-the-fantasy-game instead of just going towards finding the fantasy game a significant focal point for all three of them.

[autokinetic]

Aegis is in about the same boat there.

Do you think that my having to make an effort to link means that there's some kind of - residue? Debris? Some less value-loaded word for extra stuff that happens when I make the effort beyond just me and Sue being able to talk?

[pythbox]

Maybe, muses Sue.

[autokinetic]

How could we check for that?

[pythbox]

He definitely has no idea.

Jane?

[mind_game]

There's nothing about things like me anywhere in any of the computers that connects to an ansible at any remove, Jane says. I only know things that I can find on computers and what you've told me.

[autokinetic]

...Well, says Aegis. Bandwidth problem notwithstanding I have the impression that you're a merger of both the fantasy game and the thing that swallowed it, so even if we're only special to the fantasy game and not to your other, unexplained historical branch, we're still something.

[mind_game]

I'm the easiest kid ever, asserts Jane. Not being biological helps.

[pythbox]

Sue giggles.

[mind_game]

Do I call you Mom and Dad now? Jane wants to know. Or I can call you Aegis and Sue, or whatever. Is Ivy my aunt?

[autokinetic]

Let's stick with names and save figuring out the family tree for when we know more about you, Aegis says.

[pythbox]

I can be your aunt if you want an aunt, Ivy says cheerfully.

[mind_game]

Didn't you come from a world where everyone's got daemons? If Sue were my dad in that world would that make you my aunt, there?

[autokinetic]

Aegis considers this a pointless exercise for the time being. So you can look at everything on all computers connected to ansibles, and you can send sourceless emails. What else can you do?