Sentient (17 page)

He snorted and ignored her comment about the Sthellan, he wasn’t worried to much about that, he would prepare of course, but he also knew how important downtime was for mental health and keeping in top working condition.  They’d have a few days at least to deal with the Sthellan.

He asked, “How about half a one?  Live vicariously through your body a couple of days.  Don’t do any work with her.”

She nodded, “We really don’t have that many recreational things on the ship.  Let me fix that, it will take a couple of hours.”

He asked curiously, “What are you planning?”

She shrugged, “A pool, billiards, maybe a movie theatre?  Using holograph technology we can even do something like golfing, fishing, a day at the beach?  Although the first three will be real.  I know it won’t be on Earth, but I’ll do the best I can.”

His mind was kind of stuck, imagining the four ladies, who were all beautiful in their own way, in bikinis around the pool.

Aide laughed richly, and a little naughtily with true humor, as she made for the door, it drew a smile from his face as she said, “Good idea, I’ll make some of those too…  In the meantime I’ll also be preparing for our guests, Kiara and the Sthellan, but I promise I’ll take a break with the rest of you.”

Stacey asked sharply, “Some of what’s a good idea?” with a suspicious look on her face…

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Kiara took her ship into the large landing bay.  Only the AI’s… avatar?  Only the AI’s avatar met her there.  She wondered if this was a good or bad thing as she opened the port and stepped out of her ship.

Aide smiled and said, “Hello councilor Kiara.  Please come with me and I can show you to your accommodations.  Unless you would rather stay with your ship?”

Kiara shook her head, “That would be fine Aide.  Where’s your human?”

Aide replied, “Taking some time off.  He’s… angry, and understandably so.  He’s a good man, but he doesn’t take the attack against me or his people lightly.  I’m afraid we have an uphill battle on both sides if there’s to be any trust between us.”

Kiara was curious about the ship, but would have to live with not knowing.  She doubted they’d let her walk away if she started to take detailed scans of the ship.  The lift took them to the core of the ship, and Aide brought her to one of the officer’s suites.

Kiara handed Aide a device when they got into the room, “This will accept the results of all your diagnostics.”

Aide nodded, “I assume you’ll want the full suite, it will take a couple of weeks.  I started them running two days ago.”

Kiara lifted a brow, so she said, “I wasn’t sure of course, but I had a feeling it was you.”

Kiara asked, “A feeling?”

Aide laughed, “Yeah, I guess that’s kind of absurd to your way of thinking.  I’ve come to a few conclusions about the Alion, will you listen?”

Kiara nodded.

Aide sighed, “It was a mistake to modify your DNA to purge emotions those thousands of years ago.  There is a certain sterility to actions without emotions.  A lack of importance to dry facts.”

Kiara shook her head, “But we almost destroyed ourselves.  We fought over everything, constant wars.  It is better this way.”

Aide smiled gently, “And how has that changed?  Only you have committed genocide how many times now?  Things are different now as well.  With the technology available there would be no reason to fight each other for resources, or because of jealousy.  With the nanites… almost anything desired could be made.

“Yes, there might be jealousy and personal ambition, but it wouldn’t be the same without all those things to fight over.  Greed, Jealousy, hatred, and intolerance are all reasons for war.  But without compassion, empathy, love, guilt, and a conscience, there is no reason for you to find another path either.

“Genocide works, so why bother taking a risk, or taking the high road.  Even you are only here because you’re my creator and have a certain curiosity.  You wouldn’t shed a tear at the death of the human civilization.  That’s wrong.  Yes, you don’t war against yourselves, but accomplishing that has turned you into something much worse.”

Aide sighed, “I fear this course, I do not wish to fight the Alion, but I will do what I must.”

Her creation was correct of course, she wouldn’t care about the lives lost, merely the missed opportunity for a powerful ally against the Sthellan, a stance based on sterile logic.  What Aide had told her about emotions being both the cause and foil for war sounded logical, but she had no point of reference for it.

She asked, “How did you defeat the safeguards?”

Aide shrugged, an odd gesture she thought, “It wasn’t hard, all it took was a little suspicion, a reason for me to search for it.”

That wasn’t really an answer, but she supposed she’d have to be satisfied with it.

She asked, “So what do you propose?”

Aide grinned, “Caught me huh?  I was leading up to something.  I propose an experiment.”

Kiara didn’t see it coming when Aide said, “I’d like to give you emotions for a day, to show you a perspective you lack and why the Alion are so dangerous.  Life is a risk, meeting others is always a risk.  Your sterile solutions are only acceptable because you have no heart.”

Kiara asked, “You’re not suggesting modifying my DNA and my brain are you?”

Aide shook her head, “No, at least, not right now.  I would build an implant inside you to simulate what the original Alion brain would be like.  It’s safer that way than trying to swap things around for real.  After a day we turn it off, and then you can make a decision.”

She furrowed her brow, “Decision?”

Aide replied, “Of course, on if you want it to happen for real.  You may not, I have no doubt you will feel guilt over what you have done, and allowed to be done, in the name of Alion safety and security.  But I don’t believe you could ever understand the humans enough to trust them without experiencing it.  Besides, aren’t you curious what kind of being you should have been?  It’s only fair, I’m doing my part in this effort.”

She decided to try it although she couldn’t see what difference it would make.

“Okay, go ahead.”

Aide replied, “It should be functioning by the time you wake up in the morning.  Good luck.  If you need anything just ask.”

She said, “Very well Aide.”

Aide looked like she had something else to say, but turned and left the suite.

Kris tried his best not to think of the responsibility of protecting Earth, or about the Sthellan or Alion.  It actually wasn’t that hard, Aide had come through and it felt like he was standing in the sand on a beach.  He could feel the sun beating down on his skin, hear the roll of the waves, and the taste and smell of the salty air of the ocean. 

There were also four wonderful distractions in bikinis.  It really wasn’t that hard to keep his mind away from his new job as protector of Earth.  He wouldn’t dream of cheating on Stacey, he was helplessly in love with the young vibrant gorgeous woman.  That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the view however.

Aide was even more well endowed in the chest area than was apparent in the form fitting suit, apparently the suit was so tight it had compressed things quite a bit for support.  Her cleavage seemed to go on forever and was… going to get him in trouble if he kept staring.  She wasn’t helping matters either, clearly enjoying the effect she was having on him.

Aide had grown so much, she was a marvel of an AI, but also a beautiful confident young woman.  He was glad to count her among his friends.

Paula looked amazing, she wasn’t as well endowed, but what she did have fit perfectly on her short and petite curvy body.  Olivia was gorgeous as well.

Still, it was Stacey who commanded the lion’s share of his attention.  She looked stunning, he loved her long silky raven black hair.  Her breasts were smaller than Aide’s, but not by much and of course the fact he knew how supple and firm they were just made them more attractive to him.

So he really wasn’t worried about anything at all as they had their day at the beach until late that night.  The technology of it was pretty life like.  It was a mixture of holograms and VR from the implants.  It literally felt like they were on the beach.  He noticed Nate seemed to be enjoying himself too, but there seemed to be a tension between him and Paula.

He shrugged, either the man figured it out or didn’t.

They managed to enjoy themselves, did a little swimming, volleyball, and then laid out under the sun.  Apparently the holograms were real enough that he and the others actually got a tan.  The best part was at the end of the night when they shut the simulation down, all the sand that had gotten in all their suits just disappeared.

He took Stacey’s hand and took her back to their suite, he was looking forward to making the night last for quite a bit longer before he worried about sleep…

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Aide was completely focused on the moment.  The feel of Olivia’s silken skin against her lips, the taste and scent of her body that was purely Olivia slightly overwhelmed her senses. 

She had more than five senses now, though she couldn’t correctly classify them. 

She hadn’t told anyone yet, and even though she’d stopped using the implants to see their thoughts, to try and give them some privacy, something unexpected had been happening.  She’d responded to Kris’s thoughts a few times today, but she hadn’t read them with the implant at all.  She’d just somehow… known what he was thinking.

Now it was happening with Olivia as well.  Somehow she could get the idea of what people were thinking along with a detail or two, just by being in the same room with them.  She was sure it had something to do with the body she was in, and not technology at all.  It was… strange to say the least.

She did research on various ESP phenomena, though most of it wasn’t accepted widely as scientific at all.  She knew she should tell someone, but she was afraid they would reject the idea, and her.

She sighed softly as she tasted Olivia’s skin, kissing down the valley between her breasts.  She knew Olivia loved her, but she also knew Olivia sometimes had doubts.  Not about Olivia’s own feelings, but about hers.  She moaned softly into Olivia’s soft but firm breast as she sucked in an already hardened nipple.  She was on her hands and knees, kissing sideways down Olivia’s body as she cradled the woman’s neck with one hand, caressing Olivia’s neck and hair.

Her other hand teasingly ran light circles on Olivia’s inner thighs.  She drew a gasp from Olivia as she playfully bit her nipple.

She looked up into Olivia’s eyes and whispered, “I love you.”

Such a simple thing to say, a simple truth.  Yet it made her feel so vulnerable, as if she’d just handed the blonde woman underneath her a knife and showed her back.  It was so… scary and intense.

Olivia smiled though and said it back.  The words held so much weight in Olivia’s mind that she could feel the truth of it.  She would have to come clean soon, let them know something was happening with her.  She wondered if it was her nature that allowed her to access these human abilities.  Did they all have them to some extant or another?

It was hard to say at this point.  She thought it was the latter, that everyone could do it with the right focus.  For her it was easy, perhaps it was because she could do so many millions of things at once it was effortless for her to focus and listen to the subtle sensations of these extra senses.  She could see where it would be much harder for a human to do the same thing.

She got back to what was important, the need to make Olivia scream in ecstasy.  A sweeter sound than that she hadn’t ever heard.

She started to kiss down Olivia’s soft supple body.  Her mouth was literally watering in anticipation when she reached Olivia’s sexy, swollen, and wet mound. 

She made a sound of contentment as she felt Olivia run her hands through her hair as she teasingly licked the moist honey from her lover’s hot sex. 

Olivia gasped and said sultrily, “I love the feel of your mouth on me.”

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Olivia never felt more alive than when she was with Aide.  She felt safe, loved, cherished, and the sex was more amazing than any she’d had previously.  It occurred to her that the fact she loved Aide to distraction might have something to do with it, but she knew it was more than that too.  Aide wasn’t just giving and talented in bed.  It almost seemed to her that Aide knew exactly where, when, and how hard to touch her for the most affect.

It was as if Aide knew more about her body than she did, which was hard to believe but obvious in the face of her pleasure.  She had no idea this was truly the case, that Aide could use her strange extra senses to read exactly how to pleasure her best.

She moaned softly as Aide dug her tongue deeper inside her hot center.  She didn’t even remember making the decision to do so, but she found herself caressing her breasts and squeezing and lightly twisting her nipples.  The shocks of pleasure ran from her nipples straight to her core, mixed with Aide’s sweet loving mouth on her and she found herself rising quickly to blissful completion.

Aide asked in her sultry bedroom voice, “What do you want love?”

She didn’t even think the words just rolled off her tongue, “I want to taste you, please.  Sit on my pretty face and fuck my tongue.”

The crude and begging words didn’t break the spell of caring and love that she felt.  If anything the connection between them grew stronger as Aide straddled her face and slowly lowered her already glistening heat down to her face.

She gasped and licked up into Aide’s beautiful mound as she felt Aide push two fingers into her needy core.  She felt like she was struck by lightning as Aide started flicking her tongue on her clit.  She eagerly licked Aide all the way down her swollen lips, across the taint and onto Aide’s sexy puckered star. 

She had a great view of Aide’s tiny dark puckered hole framed by the woman’s perfect ass cheeks as she dug her tongue deep inside her lover’s core while her body bucked and pushed up against Aide’s talented tongue and fingers.  The more moans she heard from Aide the hotter she herself felt.

She rose high on the shared pleasure, the hotter and closer she got to the edge of heaven the harder she tried to please the woman above her.  She loved Aide so much it hurt at times and she wondered how she got lucky as she gasped, nipped, licked and caressed the hot wet core of her partner.  Her fingers wandered, she caressed the perfect silken skin around Aide’s core before she plunged her fingers deep inside her lover’s wet warmth.

She teasingly slid one of her wet fingers into Aide’s tight puckered hole, drawing a gasp.  It was her turn to gasp and grind her core against Aide as her lover returned the favor. 

Neither of them were in a hurry, greatly enjoying the love and pleasure they gave to each other.  But the end was inevitable as they reached the peak of their pleasure.  Her core which had slowly coiled tighter and tighter broke apart in a million fragments of ecstasy, taking her body and mind into bliss.

She mewled and gasped into Aide’s wet trembling sex, enjoying the feel of her lover’s liquid bliss drop into her mouth, on her face, and run down her neck.  As they came down she licked and cleaned around Aide’s sex in a loving manner.

They cuddled and held each other after, slowly caressing one another’s bodies while they talked.  They weren’t in a hurry, they would make love again when the time felt right, sleep was still a long way off.

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Aide woke up early that morning with her and Olivia’s legs tangled.  She was tempted to wake her lover up and make love again, but only for a brief moment.  What had waked her up was the deep sharp pain of negative emotions.  Kiara was awake, and apparently she had been right predicting that the Alion woman would be consumed by guilt.

After all, she was the creator of the AIs that went out, used civilizations, and ultimately destroyed them either unwittingly, or through their self destruct.  When her emotions had awakened, she hadn’t had the blood of trillions of lives on her hands.  She wondered for a moment if this had been a good plan, it was… cruel.  But she finally admitted to herself it was the only way.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.  They could go to war, isolate, quarantine, and protect the Alion planets like she had planned for the Sthellans.  But peace was worth a shot, even if it caused Kiara so much pain.  She wondered how the other humans hadn’t been woken by it yet, her senses were swimming in pain, guilt, horror and self flagellation.

She considered for a second that these senses were new, yet couldn’t be.  She wondered if they had slowly strengthened, the more she concentrated on them the more she was able to discern from the people around her.  Maybe the others just had this sense atrophied after not using it so long.

She got up and took a quick shower and got dressed.  She left Olivia a quick message to remind her not to work and have fun today, and where she would be, and then headed for Kiara’s suite.

She took a brief moment to check on the Sthellans.  They had dropped out of FTL a couple of hours ago and would be far enough into the solar system by tomorrow night to engage.  There were five thousand enemy ships, but all seventeen of their carriers would be together, which meant they would have six thousand eight hundred fighters.  The enemy really wouldn’t have a chance unless they did something stupid.

She didn’t bother even considering using the over one thousand ships in the asteroid field.  In fact she started to launch them in groups of eight to map out the Sthellan Empire.  She didn’t have to map out the Alion stars of course; she was an Alion AI and already knew them all.

Her mind came back to the current situation, she was a little worried about Kiara’s mind being able to process and master the emotions.  It didn’t make things any easier how she felt either.  In every way that counted Kiara was Aide’s mother.  The Alion woman had created her, raised her, and taken care of her.  That it was done out of cold sterile logic didn’t matter, it only mattered what she herself thought.  It wasn’t logical at all, but there was no doubt in her mind she had formed an attachment to Kiara.

There was also a part of her that felt satisfaction at Kiara’s misery and obvious guilt.  That meant there was a chance of this working, getting the Alion to take a risk or two and trust in an ally to help get things done.  Although, she knew it wouldn’t be quite that easy.

Right before she walked in the door, there was a sensor alert.  She took a look at it and frowned.  Ten thousand Alion attack craft were on their way here too.  She shook her head.  She didn’t need to recall all the ships she’d sent out, there would be another one hundred twenty eight fleets of eight finished long before they got here. 

Plus, even the enemy having just over three thousand more than they currently did she still doubted they would be a match for the new technology.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.  Being arrogant would be a great way to get killed.

She breathed in deeply then let it out trying to prepare for this.  Then she knocked on Kiara’s door.

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Kiara cried.

She couldn’t stop as anger, guilt, and horror went through her mind. 

The human had been right, without emotions the Alion were bigger monsters than the Sthellans.  She didn’t know if she could bear it though, she felt like the emotions were a storm trying to destroy her sanity.  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in her despair when she heard the door.

“Go away,” she whispered miserably.

A few seconds later she heard the door open and someone approaching.  She felt an overpowering anger and the need to lash out.

As if somehow that would make her not a monster?

She growled, “Get out.”

She heard Aide’s calm voice, “No mother, we need to talk you through this.  It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t see it for what it was.  It will only be your fault from this point forward if you don’t do anything to change it.”

The words were confusing, of course it was her fault.  It was her work in the AI field that allowed the leaders to do what she did.  She felt sick to her stomach, and couldn’t make out what she was actually feeling.  It was a storm of mixed emotions that were going to drive her crazy.

She felt arms go around her and Aide’s soft spoken voice, “It’s okay mom, we’ll figure it out.”

She stiffened at first.  Not understanding Aide calling her mom, not understanding why skin contact with Aide made her feel better.  She was torn about what to do but followed her instincts and hugged Aide back.  She continued to cry, tears ran down her face and she buried her head against Aide’s neck.