A teaser: (yes, I haven't forgotten this story)
[quote]The skeleton was as black as charred flesh. Wires poked out of the chest and eye sockets. The top part of the skull was completely missing. Matt looked down at it with poorly-concealed disgust. "I'm going to be stuck in that?"
“It’s only the frame. The quantum computer isn't even in yet. “
Matt’s lips thinned. Miranda shot him a sideways glance. She found herself looking at him often these days, and not out of anything as pedestrian as desire. He was a marvel. The muscles of his jaw appeared to tense, his chest appear to rise and fall at regular intervals, all without the muscles that would work by instinct in an organic body. What sort of computer had the power to regulate and replicate the thousands of involuntary functions of the human body? It may Miranda's head spin just thinking about it.
"I was just…I was hoping for something a bit more, er, human."
She smiled at him, placating. "You looked much worse the first time around. Wilson vomited, and I didn't sleep soundly for a week. And you came out all right. Synthetic skin is virtually indistinguishable from the genuine article except under a microscope. No one was able to tell Eva was a synthetic until after the shuttle crash. You’ll be outwardly indistinguishable from what you were before."
But Matt kept staring at the metal skeleton, his gaze managing somehow to be both distant and pained. Miranda’s heart sank. After the death of his parents, Matt had fought a long, grueling war of attrition with depression that had ended in stalemate. Time and therapy had seen him through the worst of it, but sometimes the ghosts still returned to haunt him. And Miranda was never quite a match for ghosts. No matter how many books she read or psychologists she consulted, her talents tended more towards manipulating a mark than helping a lover.
"EDI," he said softly. "I told her she was a person. And she was. Almost like having another little sister. But she wasn't human. She was a brand-new species. The only one of her kind. And I’ll be the only one of mine, as different from you as an asari is from a salarian.” He looked at her as if she was supposed to have the answer. "How am I supposed to deal with that?”
And perhaps she did have the answer. She was, after all, a construct in her own way, designed according to a template set down by another human being. Luddites and religious fundamentalists had called her an abomination, a perversion of the natural order of reproduction. Miranda Lawson looked human, felt human, but she wasn't and never would be anything other than a latter-day Frankenstein's monster. Henry had been more than happy to use their ignorance to convince her that she would never find a place in the world except as his legacy and tool. It had taken her years to break free of that particular mental prison. “You said EDI was a person. Well, so are you. You have friends. You have me. You have an entire galaxy of people who worship the ground you walk on. If you can't identify with your species, identify with the community you chose for yourself."
“And so I finally get the real reason you joined Cerberus." He smiled weakly. "I just wanted us to be the same species."
“Henry wanted a master race lording above all others. I chose to help them instead.” Her fingers traced the outline of his cheek. "Besides, I seem to recall someone once telling me that compassion and drive were the true marks of humanity."
His smile grew a little brighter. It was a start. "And sexual compatibility. Don't forget that."
Modifié par jtav, 02 avril 2012 - 11:22 .
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