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Cellulose & Steel	By : Not-Taylor Category: Misc Books > FemmeSlash Views: 1028 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own HDG or its characters and I don't make money from this work.

Chapter List
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Of all the places a neurologist could practice, this might be the most unnerving. The complete lack of any medical equipment in the corridors disconcerts Ember, but she assumes there must be a reason. They probably don’t test anything outside of the rooms. That there are no medical models was another point of concern, but naturally they don’t accomplish anything. What worries her the most, however, was the presence of Terran materials throughout the waiting room. Other offices didn’t have that. Large numbers of chairs scattered through the room, far too small for affini, are covered in soft and recognizable fabrics. The patterns remind Ember of home, when she’d been forced to visit similar offices on Terra.
Those memories were not pleasant, with narcissistic doctors unfamiliar with modern medicine and arguments over insurance coverage. It isn’t the weeds’ fault they didn’t know anything about that. They probably saw the buildings (before demolishing them), and never asked how the visitors felt. Verda seems to be picking up on her distress, loosening the leash slightly and backing away several centimeters. Others might not have picked up on that, but Ember, whose skin (or technically her brain’s touch sensors) had been used for so long as an interface output device, was constantly on alert for tiny changes. That sensitivity never stops being jarring as every air current is immediately obvious.
The waiting room is filled with Terran prisoners, most of whom don’t look very happy. A few look distracted by their “owners,” but the rest seem to be trying to calm themselves. Clearly this isn’t a good place to be. Ember wonders if she’ll regret coming here willingly. The odds of Verda not having a trick to play on her weren’t very promising at any point up to now, certainly. The weed herself looks serene, tendrils scanning the air for any number of phenomena, as usual. She hasn’t taken out her tablet, instead looking at the room around them. That’s unusual. Unusual has yet to be a good sign since they met.
Not long after they arrive, a floret dressed in a sky blue toga calls Ember in by name. He uses her new name, showing that Verda did actually care enough to use that instead of the name it had pointlessly discarded. They pass through a few doors on the way to the examination room, over unsettlingly toned carpets and through narrow halls.
When they turn into where the doctor should see them, something isn’t right. There’s carpet here too, and deep leather chairs instead of a medical table. Ember freezes in the doorway, unwilling to go further into what clearly isn’t a neurologist’s office. When Verda doesn’t stop moving, her captive braces herself against the door frame with her limbs, trying to stop herself from being dragged in, only for Verda to pry her away and plant her on one of the chairs. This is a terrible sign. What are they going to do to her here? This doesn’t look like an execution arena, nor does it seem like somewhere that implants would be given. It still isn’t a good place to be.
Verda sits patiently next to Ember, holding her leash in one vine and looking through the window. There’s a small grassy area, but not much of interest. Between this building and the next, there doesn’t seem to be much foot traffic. A tram passes through, but there’s no way to see if anyone interesting is on it.
The door creaks open and a bulky affini in Terran clothing comes through. She didn’t knock, but it’s probably her office so she doesn’t need to. Fake legs and arms woven from large numbers of vines pass through the openings of a jacket and skirt which appear to have been carefully matched. The jarringly complex patterns on the pieces happen not to clash, which is impressive, especially for the fashion impaired affini. The weed smiles and sits at the desk in front of Ember, which is angled so that it isn’t between them.
“Good afternoon. You must be Ember?”
She nods warily.
“My name is Vanessa Parennia, eighth bloom (she/her). I hope I’m going to be able to help you through your difficulties today. To tell you a little bit more about myself, I’ve been studying Terran psychology for seven years and I have two cute florets who came to me last year. Verda tells me that you have a lot to work through. Is there anything you want to start with, Ember?”
“You said she was a neurologist.”
“I said that Vanessa was an expert in neurology, Ember. That much is true.”
“That’s completely different from being a psychologist.”
“How can anyone claim to understand psychology without understanding the physical basis of cognition?” Verda looks genuinely puzzled.
“On Terra that isn’t how it works.”
“Verda, if you’d let me?” Vanessa tries to interrupt diplomatically. “It’s true. I’m fully educated on the subject of human neurology, though I admit there’s always more to learn and there are other affini who know more. I’m not equipped for brain surgery, but for more practical procedures and nonmedical intervention, I’m fully qualified.”
Did the weed just define being an expert as being capable of brain surgery? They’re really getting full of themselves. Though realistically, Ember has no idea whether a normal Terran neurologist could do brain surgery, aside from the being a surgeon part at least.
“I see.”
“I’ve been told something about why you’re here but I’d rather you explained it yourself so we can focus on what you think is most important.”
“You know about sensor dysphoria?”
“Yes, and I know yours is one of the more severe cases. Would you like to tell me your symptoms so I have them on record?”
Ember spends a long time explaining every detail of her suffering, from the grainy resolution of literally everything to the darkness pressing on her vision and the feeling of incompleteness. Maybe it’s a bad idea, but they probably can’t hurt her more than she’s been hurt already, if that much has brought them to the edge of giving up on enslaving it normally. The affini simply nods empathetically and swishes her vines in a steady rhythm. She’s going to get careless at some point and then Ember will catch her at it. Then she’ll be sorry.
“Thank you for that. Would you mind giving us some space?” she asks Verda. Ember has trouble believing the weed really would insist on privacy. That’s abnormal. It’s suspicious. She continues once Verda has left for who knows where. “Could you give me a timeline too, Ember?”
“Several years ago, before the War, I started pilot training because I thought it was the best way to be useful, which means the best way to be sure I’d have a job when I left the military. Then you invaded and I never had a chance to retire. I was one of the better students in flight school and I got a perfect score on my final flight test. It felt natural. Eventually I was assigned to the Song of Destruction with a navigator who also had interface experience. That was a huge advantage against- I thought it was. Maybe it was. I… don’t want to think about that.
She pauses to dismiss the bad thoughts. Vanessa doesn’t visibly react.
“As the war stopped going so well and more and more of us were killed in action, I stopped being able to take safety breaks and eventually I was interfaced at nearly all times. My- I still feel more at home there. It just feels like my skin is wrong now. I don’t know. I… My navigator was taken a few months ago. Whoever came for her wanted to take all of us but I was too quick and too nimble. I was able to perform a few tricks with my hyperdrive that weren’t quite within regulation and lost whoever was after us. It didn’t last forever, though.
“I know that I must’ve left the tank at some point during those months, but I have no memory of it if I did. I started relating more to the ship than myself, seeing that as the real me. I miss it. I want to go back. I’d kill every last one of you without a second of thought if it meant I could be home again… You don’t want to hear that-”
“Nothing you say will be used against you, Ember. I promise. Expressing negative feelings is better than letting them build without release.”
“It’s hard to believe that.”
“I know. Nobody has power here but me, and I think that you being able to tell me what’s bothering you is more important than any benefit that reporting you for not feeling the correct way could have. Please continue.” She starts typing rapidly into a computer she has nearby.
“At some point I messed up and we got caught. I remember Verda bursting through my hull, and through my door- the cockpit door. I could see her through the interior cameras. She probably would’ve been scary if she weren’t tiny. She plucked me from my tank without ejecting first, and the next thing I remember, I was tied to her bed and she was gloating over being physically stronger than I was.
“My sensor dysphoria got worse, as it usually does when I can’t interface for a while, and eventually something happened and she agreed to take me to pilot the Ides of November. That was a very fast ship. I miss its speed, though it wasn’t quite as satisfying as my ship. There were some weird bits too. Then something happened that Verda won’t tell me about, and I was trapped in a hospital room. Then we left and Verda had a breakdown, probably related to sensory withdrawal, and she got better and now we’re here.”
“That’s quite a story, and I’m sure it’s one full of pain. There’s a lot to unpack, I think… Could you tell me about the difference between dysphoria and withdrawal?”
“Withdrawal is when you feel sick because of the lack of sense data. It’s kind of like prolonged sensory deprivation, or so I’ve been told. Sensor dysphoria is completely different. It’s more dominating. Sensor dysphoria ends lives, or it could. I’m not sure if it’s killed anyone yet or if those were just stories. It’s what I have. It’s where you don’t just miss having more, you feel like that much more is the real you, that… being as you were before can’t possibly be right, that your normal body is incorrect and that you can’t feel right again without being interfaced. I know it can be cured, but-”
“Have you spoken to anyone who’s been cured?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it’s possible?”
“I’ve heard stories passed between pilots. That’s how I knew it existed in the first place. The trick is that the cure is so difficult not many of us could (or had a chance to, what with a literal war going on) execute it.”
“What was this cure?”
“Gradual decrease in interface exposure. We all knew what happened when somebody’s cut off completely right away.”
“This is fascinating information, Ember. Of the hundreds of Accord pilots, you’re the third I’m aware of having been diagnosed with this condition.”
“It happened more easily with the later junction models. They were simpler to use and more integrated with the user’s brain.”
“Didn’t you think that could be dangerous?”
“Of course, but nobody told us it actually was, so we kind of assumed everything would be fine.”
“Do you regret that decision? You’ve gone through so much as a result. You could have been a logistics officer, perhaps, far from any real risks. Then you wouldn’t have been seen as a hostile combatant and probably wouldn’t have been taken as a threat.”
“Not at all. Maybe it’s a delusion of the tank, but I felt more real while flying than I did before or after. Do you see why this is a problem?"
“What, specifically, is the problem with that?”
“The fact that I’m not a ship! I can’t just fly. I need to have a normal life, and I have a body that’ll grow old and die, and people don’t take me seriously, they think I’m some stupid AI interface or a murder robot. I hate it.”
“But you feel real? Is it just the social aspect that you hate?”
“More or less. But I don’t actually want to be a ship either. It’s just… I miss having a normal body too. Verda asked me before if I wanted to be uploaded as an artificial intelligence, or something. I don’t. That wouldn’t make me happy, but… I don’t not want it either.”
“Thank you for sharing that, Ember. It does sound like a difficult situation to be in. Your desires are pulling you in different directions.”
“Right…” It probably shouldn’t have told the weed so much.
“The military reports that I read indicated that most pilots in training didn’t respond well to the interface.”
“No. They didn’t. Most of them dropped out before the first real test. They didn’t like how it felt or something.”
“But you did?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”
“Do you think there might have been something different about you that led you to be more receptive to the functioning of the tank?”
“Probably. I think most of them were just weak, though.”
“What if they weren’t? What if, hypothetically, there were something that made you more suited to the interface?”
“I don’t know. What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe, if there is something a little different about how your brain works, that might be why you feel drawn back to something that others found traumatic. Do you think that could be true?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I’m just wondering aloud, and I’d like your input since I’m not in a position to gather data directly.”
“I don’t think I like where you’re going with this.”
“And where is that, Ember?”
“You’re going to say that I’m secretly a ship and that I have been all along, and evil human society with their evil capitalism and their evil freedom and all that trick to trick me into thinking I was one of them, when in reality I was a warship from the start. Isn’t that it?”
“That’s quite a leap. You described the sensation of piloting as feeling more real. I think that might mean something about you in particular.”
“That I’m a freak? I know. I’ve known all along.”
“You don’t seem like one to me. You seem like somebody under a lot of stress who’s handled extreme situations that would be difficult for most affini to tolerate, let alone somebody without centuries of life experience in advance. Verda mentioned that you were able to pilot Song of Destruction by yourself without any assistance, even bypassing your captain. That’s impressive.”
“Anyone could’ve done the same.”
“I don’t think so. If they could, they all failed for various reasons. If you insist on calling yourself a freak, I suppose I can concede that any noteworthy accomplishment is inherently freakish.”
“I’m not the only pilot who could fly well.”
“Of course. You’re the only one in Affini custody presenting these symptoms, though.”
“That’s because you use xenodrugs to hide them.”
“I hope not. The report on your health that I read showed extreme distress. Hiding that would be a terrible thing to do to someone. You mentioned your navigator having a similar connection. How is she, to your knowledge?”
“Destroyed by xenodrugs. The person I knew is gone, though I can’t be sure she was ever really there.”
“That’s because she was cooperating with us?”
“Right. She lied to us so many times…”
“Let’s keep that topic for another day. Right now, I’d like to hear why she didn’t develop sensory issues.”
“Because her connection is different. You can ask Verda.”
“Oh?”
“Verda stabbed herself with a navigation junction to force me to listen to her, and to help me out of an Affini trap I wasn’t equipped to escape by myself. Apparently she knew the password, to put it in simple terms.”
“So Verda is a navigator too now? From what I’ve read, that must be a very intense experience.”
“I’m sure, but it’s lighter than flying. They only have access to some systems and they don’t have their senses written over.”
“How did that work with an affini?”
“Surprisingly easily. She said something about how her vines felt similar to operating my systems, or something. It’s an intimate connection and I don’t like thinking about it.”
“Would you at least be willing to say how intimate?”
“At least a fifth of pilot-navigator pairs end up as a couple before they finish a standard tour. I don’t want to say anything else. Ask somebody else if you care so much.”
“Of course. I’m sorry for pressing. I would think that such a close connection for so many hours would lead to you and her being able to understand one another better, but Verda tells me you still fight.”
“She wants to turn me into a thing. I’m not a thing.”
“I see. What kind of thing?”
“A floret. She keeps calling me tdaiyn and using xenodrugs on me without asking or telling me.”
“She has every right to, technically speaking.”
“I know. She probably has the right to kill me as well.”
“She does not, actually.”
“She’ll do worse, then.”
“Verda did mention your disagreements. Without rehashing something painful, but for my records, what’s at the core of your conflict?”
“She wants me to be a pet, but I don’t want to be one. I don’t want to turn into what you’ve done to everyone around me. I’m alone now because nobody else cares enough to fight.”
“I think Verda has been very lenient, since you’re so able to articulate your grievances now.”
“I’m just waiting for her to change her mind and bring out the class O vials.”
“Class O?” The affini’s carefully sculpted and almost human eyebrows lift.
“That’s what happens to unfixable slaves, isn’t it?”
“You consider yourself a slave?”
“I know I’m legally property but I’m a person. What else could I be?”
“A floret.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“That’s interesting. But Verda clearly doesn’t want that to happen. She’s brought you here, so you can heal.”
“To be a better and less difficult slave.”
“I’d like to help you with all of your difficulties, Ember. Now that you’ve entered my care, both of you will be under increased scrutiny, to ensure both of your wellbeing. Our time is over, but I think we can make a lot of progress moving forward. The only problem is that you need to trust that I’m trying to help. I don’t understand why it isn’t possible for you to be released on exceptional terms, but I think that’s a worthwhile option if it is possible. You’re clearly very strong to have gone through so much but remain as you are.”
“So you don’t know how to make the dysphoria go away?”
“Not yet, but I think there are other things to work through as well. Verda will have scheduled you to see me again in a couple of days. I hope you’ll take care of yourself in the meantime, Ember.”
“Goodbye?”
“The door isn’t locked. Turn right and go straight. Goodbye.”
The affini smiles and waves, shooing the ship out of her office. It isn’t sure that what happened was a good thing, but at least she didn’t try to hurt it or inject it. Time would tell if she was lying about telling Verda, but at least she didn’t insist it was a pet. That would’ve been annoying. Ember has no trouble finding the way out. There isn’t any other way to go.
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Cellulose & Steel