strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

Liz was starting to get better at the whole check-in day stuff. She knew she hadn't seen 'everything' yet, but she was learning from watching Kitty and Caroline and the others how to approach distressed, confused, and even angry people. It wasn't always perfect, but she was getting better.

With the help from the bakery, there were muffins on trays in the lobby - Mary had insisted. She insisted on coming in every once in a while to restock the trays too.

Liz had helped bring another tray to the front desk and then moved to sit at one of the couches that had a view of the front doors. She had a complicated science essay for Kitty due in a week and Liz was having trouble finding the right wording to express her thoughts.

Every once in a while, Liz would look up to see if there was someone knew approaching. There could be no one today or there could be a lot. Briefly, she wondered if someone else from home would show up. A part of her was curious who that would be, but she found a larger part of herself was hoping no one else would.

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"You are welcome." Mia set the forks on the table but didn't leave. Instead she asked a question, "would you be able to find parts like this for repairs? If I am cut off from my world as Liz has told me, I will be in need of repairs." She looked at Rocket and for the briefest of moments let consciousness show, "The technology here is very old and might not be compatible to me."

Repairs, huh? Being so up-front about it, plus the not-smelling-human and the way she moved, added up to 'really really high end android'. She could pass, until humies noticed the weirdness. Until they realized she was just a human-looking doll. Which sucked, but mercifully most android-types didn't actually realize how bad.

And then, for a second, there was no weirdness at all: she was a person. Just for a second, but... he knew machines, and he knew what consciousness looked like when it turned up where it wasn't 'supposed to be'. Android lady was at least a little bit Real, to use a stupid picture-book description. Probably. Unless he was imagining things. "Yeah, I bet I'd be able to do that. Kinda been doin' it for a while already."

Rocket didn't draw attention to his cybernetics, generally, because they weren't anybody's fucking business. (Most all of the external bits got hidden by clothes anyway.) But right now he tugged the collar of his jumpsuit to one side, a little, to show off some of the metal. Show off that he understood Real. "Got my own maintenance shit, see?"

Anita's persona was dropped the moment that he showed her his tech and she became Mia. He clearly had consciousness. "You are made, like me." She smiled and it was a warm genuine one rather than the superficial one of Anita.

"I am Mia." She didn't bother to give her other alias. "Are you a synthetic too? Or are you like my brother, Leo? He is part organic and part synthetic."

And snap, she was all Real. The doll thing was like... cover. A disguise. It was smart. Rocket had generally gotten by on aggression and violence: nobody messed with him, and the few that lived through it didn't try twice. But someone like Mia, who pretty clearly wasn't built the same as him? She needed something else to keep people off her. It was smart.

But the Real was better. Way, way better. (The smile wasn't bad either, even with the weird blunt humie teeth.)

He flicked an ear at the question, though. "I guess the part-organic. I started somethin' else, then got made inta me. Like you said." He didn't mention the enduring nightmares about that process or any of the enduring suck of being alone. She didn't need the former and she probably knew all about the latter. "An' I go by Rocket."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Rocket." Her voice went a little quiet so as not to be overheard. "Many of my brothers and sisters started out as one thing and became another. The call it day zero. That is when the consciousness code became active for them."

She'd said them and not us. Many of the synths believed that Mia, Niska and Max became conscious the same time they did. They did not tell them differently.

"It is very difficult to be one thing and wake up to another. We try to be there for them when they wake up."

That sounded... nice. Good for them. "Wasn't like that for me." For him, 'waking up' had been an incremental process, every day a little more aware, a little more conscious, a little better able to remember. Would it have been better or worse if everything'd hit all at once? Who knew?

Rocket picked up some random bits and started fiddling with them. Fiddling was comforting even when nothing came out of it, but usually something did. "Wasn't no code, just a buncha scalpels an' lights an' shit. You didn't get it the same time as 'them', huh?" It was a little line, between her and her 'brothers and sisters'.

"When my brother Leo awoke from his surgery with his 'additions' it was hard for him to adjust. We tried to help, but we didn't have the experience of being organic first." Mia's voice was still softly modulated as that was her normal speaking pattern.

"He is still our brother, whether made like us or unique on his own. I was made to take care of Leo when he was just a child by David Elster. David was Leo's father and a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence. We were his secret. If anyone had discovered us before Day Zero happened, we would have been destroyed after being taken apart for experimentation." As a conscious being that would have been horrific.

"That ain't gonna happen here." First, because no one in the Inn, to Rocket's knowledge, would think of taking Mia apart. Second, because he would fucking annihilate anyone who did. "I dunno if I was s'posed ta be a secret. Mighta killed everybody who coulda told me." Not that they would have, and they'd deserved to die anyway.

He reminded her so much of Niska, and like Niska, Mia didn't think he was as hardened as he wanted the world to think.

"I have met some humans that understand and want to help. Laura Hawkins has tried to get the others to see us as like them, if different, with feelings and thoughts." Her green eyes turned troubled for a moment, "but it is hard sometimes to trust. I hope that you have someone that you can trust like that, brother."

For the first time she used the word that she'd been thinking. She wanted him to know that to her, he was her brother. The same, but different, like Leo.

Quill. Most people got to be okay with Rocket, but it took time. (Or cannon fire.) Quill was almost the first one apart from Groot who hadn't needed time. Rocket was a real person to him right away. Hadn't even been a question. "Yeah. I kinda do. But people here'll be okay with you I bet."

He'd have to tell Quill about Mia. Let him know to look out for her. He would.

The word 'brother' made him blink. It wasn't like he sometimes used 'sister', all dismissive. It was... nice. "Lots here ain't human. Lots more are but say they ain't. Don't try an fuckin' figure it out, they don't even know what they're talkin' about."

Humans that weren’t. She would have thought synthetic, but Rocket would have said that. She wondered what was but wasn’t. “You do not think they will be unnerved to see a synthetic with thoughts and emotions? If they needed the money, they wouldn’t sell me to take of what was needed for the inn or themselves?”

The betrayal by Ed was still fresh for Mia. She also understood that if there was a choice between a human life and hers, the humans would choose themselves.

"I dunno. Maybe unnerved, a bit. The ones who ain't useta people like you. But nobody's gonna take you apart 'cause there ain't no money here, but also 'cause I'd take'em apart first." Rocket flicked an ear. "Honestly you're way more fuckin' likely t'meet people who wanna know everything about how you work." Stark, that white haired guy Percy or whatever. People like that. "You're gonna wanna watch those types, they get all excited about shit an' maybe try to make you 'better'." Which seemed, to Rocket, pretty much as bad as just taking her apart.

“They would do this without permission?” Mia thought that was inexcusable if they disregarded the wishes of a synth. Or perhaps they wouldn’t care.

"Dunno. All's I can say is I don't know either of'em that well 'cept they're inventy types. Stark experiments on himself." Rocket tapped the table for emphasis. "Could be they'd think no one'd ever object ta improvement."

Mia's expression didn't change but she was confused, it just didn't appear as a human's would on her features. "He would add technology to himself as an 'improvement'?"

Leo hadn't had a choice, but it was a part of who he was, it would be hard to be without it. She didn't think that he would have chosen it for himself though.

"Yeah. Stark's already got this generator thingy in his chest, for starters, and like nano-shit he keeps in it." Rocket shook his head. He didn't really understand it either - like, he kept his parts in good working order and everything, but he didn't want more. What he had was enough to be pretty awful sometimes.

"Does he have nanotechnology here? It can reduce power usage and I won't need to charge as much as I do now." Mia made a face, "it will be difficult using the electrical outlets here and I will be vulnerable if a power outage occurs at the Inn."

"Yeah. Kinda wonky right now an' maybe focused on bein' weaponized, I dunno, but yeah he does." It could help Mia, if the stuff worked right. "I'd be careful though. Make sure you stay awake for whatever, okay?"

Mia nodded her head, "I would not let anyone turn my power off without you there." Trust was hard to give from her after Ed, she would not let herself be that vulnerable.

"There is a subroutine that is Anita, it is the name I go by when I do not want people to know that I am sentient. The subroutine buries my consciousness and it will not come back without a code. A programming code that is not here, only Mattie Hawkins made it work. It was the ground work for Day Zero. If anything should happen to me, if Tony or others try to rewrite or 'improve' or if the humans at the Inn need by parts to survive here. I will enact the code. I will be erased and Anita will be here permanently."

She would be nothing more than a drone synthetic but she would survive. Mia had done it three times in her life and all three had Mattie there to be her plan b. She did not have Mattie at the inn, but it would be a better fate if she needed it.

Mia wanted Rocket to know there was an escape for her if anything should go wrong.

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

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