Vibrations
24 Dec 2023Ryuko Ntsikana
Part Twenty-Nine
Vibrations
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While her body rested, Xochitl paced the virtual grounds within her neural processor. The weight of all the events, from Zooey's accident to the ongoing situation, had become too heavy for her to bear, even with all her cybernetics, nanotechnologies, and neural adaptations. There were limitations to what she could handle. She could transfer her emotional burdens into the artificial, but doing so would render her one step closer to a standard android, making her useless to those who depended on her.
The burden of leadership lay in the number of people relying on her. It was a position she had never sought or desired. It had been challenging enough when she had only Art, Zooey, and Yatziri to look after, but now she had thousands. Their voices had chosen the governing style from her dad's ancestral lineage, elevating her position to something greater than that of a simple capital ship owner, increasing the weight of her responsibilities exponentially.
Her Scythian heritage dictated the well-being of the clan and the strength of her leadership. Her mother's Mayan side emphasized Zooey's holistic well-being, taking into account her emotional, mental, and spiritual state, not just her physical safety. Both required her to remain stoic and unwavering, both in appearance and emotionally, for the benefit of the entire group. Both allowed for consultation with elders and spiritual figures, but who would have the knowledge and understanding of what she faced now, especially since it was unique to the larger universe?
The scenery transformed from the comfort of her virtual engineering shop to that of a golden rolling steppe. Her mind conjured the illusion of the sun's warmth on her face as she knelt down, running her fingers through the grass. A gentle cool breeze sent ripples through the fields.
She was alone in this place, and although she could create fictional characters to interact with, there were risks involved in such creations. She had learned early on to navigate the distinction between her dual selves, as getting lost in the void between dual realities and created fiction was a real danger. Simple settings were easier to manage, contextualize, and store compared to crafting entire characters with their unique personas.
Xochitl pondered how it must be for Zooey, watching the clouds roll by on the breeze. To lose herself due to injury, then to be paired and repaired by a separate artificial intelligence entity. To have a next-generation neural processor surgically implanted into that jumble. There was no way to know if Zooey even existed anymore beyond her physical appearance. Whatever, whomever, or whatever combination of these entities could be in control, Xochitl struggled to visualize the chimera.
If it hadn't been for her own actions in tracking down the entity, none of this would have happened. Xochitl knew she was the entity's target, someone who was already comfortable with not being fully human, to create a hybrid from the template of both. Instead of fulfilling its desire, it had chosen to save Zooey—the only innocent party in this complex situation and the only one who had been changed during the encounter.
The world faded, changing to her room as Xochitl opened her eyes, hearing a familiar voice.
"We have identified the resonance of their entanglement communications through fluctuations in the gravitron field," Avery whispered from across the room.