[Story]Shadowrunning.

[Dartz]

Probably adding far too much cruft to this....

Trying to prevent a 'what happened to the mouse' effect with Jana.... and keep what Jet tells her inline with Jet's feelings in the steelyard story. Some of what Jet says comes courtesy of suggestions from Logan Darklighter. I wish there was a better word for general decency, empathy and being an all-round nice person thing than 'humanity'... You don't have to be human to have 'humanity'.

Installing the patch wasn’t hard. kextunload, followed by kextload, a deep breath and kextstat to check to see if it loaded properly. She sprung out her wings, listening in on all the radio chatter going on around her for a few moments followed by a quick radar scan of the room.

Dense objects and hard edges gave bright returns amidst the noise coming off the walls and furniture. She could close her eyes and still see where she was going.

She scanned through a few channels, listening in on different programs for a few moments before moving on. It was comforting to have it back online, even as she retracted her wings and dropped her reception ability back to normal.

Getting it back made her realised just how much she’d missed having it there. It made her feel oddly complete. The dirty violated module was deleted, and Jet felt clean and pure again.

She gave her blades a thin coating of oil before placing them back in their case, placing the case under her desk. She cleaned her face up while checking in on the others. 2 of the Engels were out at the Watchtower, Gant was taking a training course on Atalante. Make sure everyone’s got the patch, then spread it out to a few contacts.

While waiting for a few responses, she started going through Roland Foster’s biography. Nothing especially noteworthy over the last couple of years, just quietly plugging away for Sirius. Nobody special. No listed biomods. Just moved into a new apartment in one of Helium’s more upmarket Towers. Somehow managed to get himself a Mig-25 dirtside and launch. First fen. A few notable accomplishments back before the Fenspace convention really existed...including some early pre-Islandcon interwave stuff, but nothing since. One hit wonder really.

But damn he’d been around a long time, why’d he go bad now?

7 years doing the same thing, it might just be sheer ennui and boredom.

Jet could empathise with at lest. She took the troubleshooters job to keep the variety in her life. Another example of how much she’d changed. Had things been different and certain mistakes not been made, maybe she could’ve been the one stuck in a rut.

There was a knock on her door.

“Its Me Jana,”, a digital message announced.

“Yeah,” she called out, sitting herself upright.

The door opened, Jana stepping in carefully, “You wanted to see me?”

Jet nodded, putting on a warm smile. “Yeah. Come in. You can sit on the couch, just put the gear on the floor or something,”

Jana looked around for a few moments, realising that this was the first time she’d ever actually been inside Jet’s office. It was just as disorganised and messy as she’d expected, something which made her feel comfortable. It was a very human place. She sat herself on the couch, hearing it creak beneath her weight. It was metal-framed.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing today,” said Jet, with a deliberate softness in her voice.

“A little better,” Jana answered.

“Good.” The Engel leader waited a moment. “Better how?”

Jana shrugged, “I spent most of the morning with Acht, training. We started talking, about how I felt “ She gave Jet a guilty smile, “I ask her how she kept her identity, being just a copy of Alita,”

Jet looked surprised, “You’re still alive,”

Jana rubbed at her shoulder. “She told me she wasn’t just a copy. Then she kicked my ass.” She forced a laugh. “It.... didn’t hurt as much. Daisuke patched me up,”

She just radiated discomfort, pulling at her arm.

“She ripped your arm off?”

Jana nodded once. “It didn’t hurt.” Not like it was supposed to. “It was....annoying She picked me up, and picked up the arm, some of the power lines were sparking.... I could feel it. She looked at me and asked me if I was still Jana Hall.”

“And,” Jet pressed.

“Well,.... yeah. She said What made me Jana Hall,” she paused. “I couldn’t answer her. She just did that lip pursing thing all the AR’s do and said that ‘I know I’m Acht. I know I’m a different person and not just a copy. We start the same, but from the first millisecond we become different people. And I know what makes me different from my sisters, what makes me Acht, and not just an Alita Replica. So she asked me again what made me Jana?”

“Sounds like Acht alright”

The AR’s might’ve scored low on AI intelligence tests, but sometimes they could be far sharper than even the ‘supposedly super-intelligent AI’s. Then again, most of those tests where biased towards AI rationality... how ironic. The AR’s just didn’t have the processor cycles to run through full complex decisions based on utility and advantage.... so they cheated.

The AR’s were combat droids, and in combat sometimes it was better to make a wrong decision and run with the consequences, than make no decision at all. The testing tended to penalise wrong answers far more than late or non-answers. Not knowing this... the AR’s always tried to answer. Which meant they got it wrong more often.

And Jet had great fun making them even more wrong.

“What made me Jana before I had that accident? Was I any less Jana now that she had pulled my arm completely off?” She sighed, looking at the floor “I said, no. So she said, so why should replacing both arms, or both legs.... or a torso. If an arms makes no difference, or a leg, adding any number of zeroes is still zero,” She stopped, thinking about it for a moment. Jet just sat back, waiting for her to keep going.

“I...” Jana paused again, holding her hand out in front. “It makes sense rationally. But.... I don’t feel it. I know it’s true, I know I’m me.... but I can’t shake the feeling. They were inside my head”, she pointed to her ear, “First replacing parts of my brain, then...got inside my mind. I’m...supposed to be me, but....” she swallowed a little, trying to think it through. “It just feels wrong. I think...”

She stopped, looking up at Jet for a moment, then at her own arm, flashing a set of vents at herself.

“When did you stop being whoever you were, and become Jet Jaguar? When did you know? What did that feel like?”

Jet looked like she’d sat on a live sparkplug.

“I didn’t,” Jet answered, looking down at the Jet figure on her desk, “I picked this name off the top of my head to answer an air traffic controller, so they wouldn’t know who I really was.” She looked strangely ashamed. “I just grew into the name, for want of a better phrase. Why, is that how you think you feel?”

“Maybe...” Jana answered quietly. “Maybe not. I feel better than yesterday,” she forced a smile, “I saw my arm torn off and Acht was right, I wasn’t any less Jana that with it. But... I was less human, and Jana is human?”

“You don’t feel human anymore?”

“No,” Jana confirmed.

Jet made a note of it in Jana’s file. “That’s good,” she said.

Jana looked confused.“But... I thought...”

Jet’s smiled warmed up, “It’s important for you to understand that you really aren’t human anymore.” She leaned forward again, resting herself on her desk. “You’ve gone beyond humanity and become something different, You see...”

Jet paused to collect her thoughts for a moment.

“This isn’t Cyberpunk 2020. Cybernetics don’t eat your soul,” She hated referencing that site, but sometimes it said things better. “That’s just something game designers made up to keep munchkins from going crazy. Your self isn’t harmed by this,” she knocked against her own body. “You don’t have to be human to be a person. Your body doesn’t determine who you are, it’s just a shell that lets you do stuff and experience things, and lets the world do stuff with you.”

“So whats make me me then?” Jana asked, looking hopefully at Jet.

“I’m not really a philosopher,” Jet demurred. Jana’s expression was insistent, however. “Well,” Jet looked at her terminal screen for a moment. “Your actions determine your existence. What you do, what people do to you...what you enjoy doing, what you hate. What did you enjoy doing six months ago?”

“Stardancing,” Jana answered quickly.

“And,” Jet pushed.

“I liked performing. I like being in front of a crowd and listening to them cheer. I liked the smell of pancake breakfast in the morning. I liked... the view out the window from my home on Central.” She paused, realising something, “I know where this is going to go... you’re going to say that I still like all those things, and so on... so I’m still the same person,”

Jet gave a gallic shrug. ”It’s cliché but true. But it’s important to understand that being human isn’t needed to be Jana. Human is just a label for type of body really. You don’t have to be human to be a person. The very....” wordhunt “...essence of who you are is still there. Your body can be whatever you want it to be....”

“It’s easy to understand that rationally. A different thing to feel it,”

“The feeling is something that just takes time,” Jet reassured her. “It helps if you do things that you enjoy, or things that you associate with yourself. Things that make you feel complete... like what you said yesterday.”

Jana was quiet, turning it over in her mind. Take a deep breath to heave a sigh. Feel how alien and wrong it is. It’s okay to feel not-human, she told herself... because your not. Look down at the intakes on the sides of her legs.... and it just feels completely and utterly wrong. She curled her toes up, then spun the turbine on it’s starter motor for a second, feeling it wind up inside her leg. It was just a gentle torque on her knee.

Jet look startled for a moment, wondering just what she was doing.

“It might be okay not to be human,” Jana said, carefully choosing her words. “But, can I still lose my....um.... humanity?”

It took Jet a few moments to figure out.

“You mean decency, common empathy and just being a Good Person type thing?”

In fairness, Jet had no idea what word to use for it other than ‘humanity’ either. Jana just nodded.

“Cybernetics doesn’t take that away either.” Answered Jet. “You can trust me on that too. And the things that will... they affect squishies just as easily. I’ve seen plenty of ordinary humans without a shred of humanity in them.” she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. It was something that had the weight of experience behind it. She decided not to go into details, preferring to let those experiences fade back into the backround.

“It’s good that you’re worried about that too,” This was something Jet had saved, she couldn’t remember from exactly where.... it might’ve been from an old fic, but it had always struck her as rather profound. “Let me try an analogy. You know what the difference is between a truly good, religious person and a fanatic is?”

Jana shook her head.

“The fanatic will never - CAN never - question himself. Their faith is brittle and cannot stand up to scrutiny. The good person will admit to themselves doubts, and work through them. Sometimes the doubt remains, but it doesn't cripple their belief. It's the same with us. The surest way to know if you still have your humanity is to be able to doubt whether you do." She paused to let her thoughts catch up. “It shows that being a good, decent person is still important to you. So long as that matters, you won’t lose it. It’s when it stops mattering that you have the problem,”

Jana was still looking at her feet, spinning her engine up. She took another breath....another reminder of what she was.

“There are things I’m going to miss too.” Jana said. “And I guess, if I were to magically get my old self back, there’re things I’d miss about this body too.”

“Me too,” Jet assured. “We’ve all gone through this.”

Jana focused on the floor. Do things you enjoy, do things you associate with yourself. Where had she been going when that bloody idiot crashed into her? Bang and darkness.... She shook off that memory.

“Jet...” she started. “I’m going to Jeanne’s Dance this year,” she stated with firm conviction and a stare in her eyes that might almost have been channeling Alita’s determination. “I’m going to enter using Panzer Kunst,” she grinned. “It’s got an austere beauty to it.”

Jet looked perplexed for a moment, working through the idea. “That’s.... that’s actually a good idea. It’ll fit with your training.” It was perfect... she didn’t have to change her planning or scheduling any more, while a direct goal would be good for Jana to work towards.

It was still going to take her time to work through, and Jet wondered if she’d be ready for Zenith. She started to twirl a few strands of hair through her fingers, mulling it over. Doing it without ripping clumps out took a surprising amount of concentration.

“So, how are you feeling?” Jet repeated her question from earlier.

“Better,” Jana saw no reason to change her answer. She sure wasn’t over it, not within an asses roar of being over it. She didn’t feel comfortable... even breathing still felt wrong, never mind the thermal glow everything seemed to have.

She could trace the underfloor heating, if she wanted to. She could still look in a mirror and see an alien face, even though her friends recognised her immediately. It still felt wrong on so many levels that someone had been inside her mind.

But....

Take a deep breath. Close her eyes. Open them again.

It did seem... surmountable. With time and effort.... it would pass. She could believe that at least. Jet looked at her, then checked her own notes.

“One last thing,” the Engel leader said, “I’m going to be away on duty for a while. The others’ll still be here to help. If you really need me, message me... but It’ll be a while before I can answer,”

“Yeah,” Jana replied. “I’ll try with Acht, she offered to help me if I need it,” Jet raised an eyebrow. Jana grinned a little. “I guess, I must’ve impressed her.,”

Jet wasn’t sure whether Jana was proud of whatever’d impressed Acht, or ashamed. She figured it must’ve been equal parts both, and set a reminder to ask Acht what exactly happened. Impressing the AR’s was hard...

The meeting came to and end with a promise from Jet to check up on Jana at the end of the week, and a promise from Jana to keep working.

A few more little administrative loose ends needed to be tied up. She started idly spooling her engines over as she worked, just taking care of a few last things before she left for Marsbase Sara.

She was already formulating her own mission plan.

Step one: Quick surveillance of Foster’s apartment. Note anyone going in/out. Laser bug it. See if theres a way to gain into his computer remotely. If not, see if there’s a way in.

Step two: Depends on step one.

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Like most troubleshooters, Jet had long since learned how to really get things done within OGJ. The secret was known by those who knew it as ‘Haruhi Snacks’.

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?