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2022-11-25
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2022-12-01
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2/?
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A Missed Zero

Summary:

Looking after a kid, two lizards who hate each other and yourself, all while keeping the most dangerous and high-tech lab in your country running and putting up with annoyed emails from your international colleagues about 'ethical issues' and 'damage to the fabic of reality' and 'My apprentice caught the god of time recently and it wants you dead, please stop-' is no easy task for anyone, and genius as she is Professor Sada can't be everywhere.

So, obviously, the best solution was a robot double to lighten her workload.

In one timeline, this would lead to a tragedy- an AI abandonded in a destroyed lab, forced to live a lie that could never hold forever. In another, one forgotten zero to the left, this resulted in another child to care for, this one with unique requirements like a new body that isn't just a clone of her mother's, or a way to leave the most dangerous place in the country without ceasing to function.

...Sada's glad she has a lot of vacation days...

Chapter 1: Sleep is For the Weak

Notes:

Note: The Turo slander would be Sada slander if this fic was set in Violet's timeline, I headcanon that the reason the (presumably) surviving parent of Arven doesn't get mentioned is a very messy divorce so like. Sada's the only one who knows he exists enough to bring him up, and she don't like him-

Chapter Text

Sada knew exactly how far she could push her body, thank you very much. She was a scientist, and a damn smart one too. Ok, sure, her field of study had absolutely nothing to do with Human Biology, but she was quite certain her caffeine intake was still within reasonable levels, thank you very much. 

...Staring at the unresponsive robot double of herself was making her doubt that, however. 

She was... fairly certain she had set everything up correctly for the AI transfer? As with everything involved with Area Zero, there was a large room for error with the AI replication of herself, but still...

Something twitched. Ah, good! The connection just must have taken longe-

Aaand the robot double collapsed. Sighing Sada turned back to her computer- Turo was always better with code, but he was also an absolute sell-out living the high life in Galar about now, so...

She brought up the feedback report and- ah, dammit, she hadn't coded the memory portion right. It was an easy fix- just a single zero where there should be a 1 sending the whole line wrong. But... something stayed her hand. It shouldn't have started moving at all like this... she did not want a homocidal robot-her wandering around, please and thank you.

The robot moved again. Sada slowly reached for Koraidon's pokéball.

"Analysis complete. Nonfunctional systems: Many. Reason: Incomplete Transfer. Self Identity: Unknown. Creator: Professor Sada Nender." The robot listed, still unmoving and huh maybe flirting with Uncanny Valley hadn't been her best idea after all- "Functional Systems: Mobility. Learning. Speech. Personality."

...Sada double checked her, more detailed, feedback report. It was definitely her memories missing. If the robot didn't have her memories, then... who's personality did it have?

"Recommended action: data wipe and reinstalation." It's head had snapped up to look at her. "...Creator. What becomes of deleted data?"

...fuck she'd made sentient life, hadn't she.

 

"Heyyy, Bill!" Sada said into her phone, nervously toying with the wire getting her signal in the crater as the call went through. "It's not too late in Kanto for a long chat right now, is it?"

"...Sada, what did you do."

"...I'd be offended, but I need your help." she begrudgingly admitted. "Soo... for purely curiosity based reasons, could I have a peek at those spare notes you totally didn't keep from that Porygon project you had absolutely nothing to do with?"

"...you didn't."

"...not on purpose..."

Sada was frankly impressed with the sigh she managed- of all the various dubiously moral, logical and safe questions she'd had to ask him about storing the Paradox pokemon she'd managed to capture, this was his loudest sigh yet. Almost to a growl, even. 

"Sada. How certain are you that they're sentient?"

"Well, they're sentient enough to question their mortality unprompted. So... fairly confident."

"Then go talk to them not me. You can't science your way around this one Sada." Bill sighed, accompanied by the shuffling of paper, "I'll send you any files I think might apply, but don't assume they'll be identical."

"...figured you'd say that." Sada sighed, massaging her brows to ward off the caffeine crash. "Any tips?"

"Good luck, try not to get all of your funding taken." And with that, Bill hung up. 

Sada sighed, setting the phone down. Ok, time to stop hiding from her problems and go talk to the AI child she'd accidentally made. And... probably book some vacation days. Wait, no, first she'd need to speed up her side project to get her crystal-reliant tech out of the lab, then she'd book some vacation days to catch up on sleep and introduce Arven to his sibling, then it was back to the grind with a clear head. She had this completely handled!

"Creator, query. Who am I?"

...nevermind she had no idea what she was doing, goddammit she needed someone with people skills for this. 

"You... were created as a robot double of myself, to lighten my workload and assist in my studies of the ancient past." Sada began, hesitantly. Honesty was probably the best policy, right? "I messed up while coding you though, so... you get to decide, who you want to be."

"...how?"

"Hm... oh, idea!" Sada said, jogging back over to her desk and digging through the piles of papers, triumphantly raising a long-buried clipboard she hadn't used since she got this lab. "This is a file trainers use, when they're applying for a Pokédex, lets go through it together- I'll explain any questions you don't understand, and it should give you a decent place to start on that whole... self identity thing."

"...Understood. What is the first question?"

Instead of answering, Sada handed it over, scavenging around on her desk for a working pen for the AI. As well as the general outline of a person the questions would give, watching how they worked through the questions would, hopefully, be illuminating on exactly how sentient they were. 

"...First question. Name. What is my name?" 

"Whatever you want it to be. That one... you can come back to later if you want. Leave it blank for now or something. Or I could pick one for you- either way, it's up to you." Sada replied, moving around to lean over the AI's shoulder. 

"...Alright. Second question. 'Are you a boy or a girl?'" the AI quoted, surprisingly quick to circle 'girl'. Honestly, Sada needed to get around to updating that question, the form hadn't been changed in decades and it showed... "Third question. 'How old are you?'. How much accuracy does the question require?"

"Usually to the year, but... you're a complicated case there. How do you think it should be answered?"

The Ai tilted her head, contemplatively, before writing '~2hr'. Hm. That neck movement had been a little jerky... she'd need to take a look at the joining later. They continued like this, many of the questions clearly being intended for flesh and blood humans who had existed for longer than a day, but being interesting to watch her work her way through regardless. Eventually, they reached the ones Sada had been really interested in- the questions designed to verify the responsible use of the Pokédex they were about to be entrusted with.

"'Favourite Pokémon and why?'... may I access your Pokémon Index, Creator?" she asked, pausing with her pen over the box. Sada handed it over easily, unlocking it as she did. They'd gradually moved back over to her desk as they worked, and Sada settled into the rarely-used spare seat as her AI double worked through the Pokédex at an incredible speed. It was a professors copy, not the 'national dex' things they handed out to trainers, and even Sada hadn't read the full thing yet, only truly familiar with Pokémon native to Paldea, Galar and Kalos- though Rowan's assistant had been making Sinnoh very interesting recently...

"This one. Ditto: The Transformation Pokémon." The AI said, smiling softly at the screen as she scrawled the answer onto the sheet. "Reason: It's abilities are fascinating, and it's weakness is humorous. Additional Reason: ...it's smile is cute."

Sada stilled.

Ditto was her least favourite Pokémon- a failed clone of the almighty Mew, spitting on the ancient, founding power she so adored and idolised. Even worse than Mewtwo, in her estimate, who at least was a successful weapon of war, secluded on that icy, lone peak with the only trainer to claim it's respect.

She chuckled lightly, ruffling the kid's hair. "Guess it is pretty cute. Heard it gives good hugs, too." 

"Really?!" she asked, eyes widening. "That isn't noted in any available fact files in the Index!"

"Well, it is just hearsay... how about we test that one ourselves?" Sada suggested, giving the girl a toothy grin. 

...looking at the matching grin she got in return, she figured one more all nighter wouldn't kill her at this point...

Chapter 2: Aisha

Chapter Text

"Creator. You should rest." the kid said, poking her head into the lab, a freshly-caught Ditto in her arms (and it had, in fact, proven to be quite the hugger. Sada had barely suppressed her giggling as she provided the Pokédex with scientifically significant evidence of this fact.). "You are swiftly approaching the threshold of sleep deprivation where hallucinations become a high possibility... given the nature of your work, such an event could cause severe danger to yourself and the lab."

"...Remind me again in half an hour. You're fully allowed to force me if I attempt to delay further." Sada begrudgingly replied, gently nudging the delicate crystal she was working with, fitting it just perfectly into to casing she had forged for it. "This... should be done by then. If you're up to it we can begin testing tommor-"

"Really!?!" she blurted, eyes lighting up with sheer glee. "I- that is the Terazone distributors, correct?!"

"Yup. All goes well, you can get out of this place by the end of the week, kiddo." Sada confirmed, ruffling her hair again, "I want to run some tests on the edge before we try seeing you leave properly- I'll have the Koraidon's carry us up the sides, less abrupt than the teleporter..."

"...and then I'll meet Arven?"

"Hopefully! Kids in school, this time of year, but ol' Harrington knows my work keeps me in weird schedules, so he's pretty lenient about me taking Arven out for the day- and Arven got my brains, he catches up faster than most students can take in the lesson!" Sada chuckled, gently running a hand over the picture on her desk. "I'm sure you'll get along great- he's the sweetest kid to ever exist, I swear..."

"...okay..."

...Well, that sounded like the kind of response that was going to make Sada regret at least two of her latest all nighters... "You ok kiddo?"

"...how old am I?"

Sada blinked. Heavily. That... felt like a non-sequitur. "What do you mean?"

"'Kiddo'. I am distinctly not at an adult level of emotional maturity. But I am, physically, identical to you insofar that age is concerned. And I am certainly not at the same stage of development as humans who have existed only days." The kid answered, tone slightly dull and detatched in a way Sada was fairly confident was not the best of signs. "How old am I?"

...fucking distortion that was a hard question. As far as she was aware, humans never really needed to ask how old a living-but-non-meaty person was, seeing as most humans were, in fact, very meaty. Would the Porygon's have set a precedent there...? Maybe, but given the strange in-between pokemon sat at on the sentience scale, it was probably firmly apples to oranges here, even if Bill had sent such a thing... she was not a psychologist. At all. By any stretch of the imagination. And she didn't know any she'd trust enough to reach out to for help with her robot child she'd still 'tactfully avoided mentioning' to the (few) people she reported to. 

"...well, it won't be anywhere close to perfect, but I have a few general acedemic aptitude tests, if you want to get a rough estimate to start from?" Sada finally answered after a long pause. Frankly, she wasn't even sure if the concept of age even applied here like it would a human... regardless, the tests were somewhere on her to do list anyway. She hadn't bothered installing any kind of archive because- well. She was intended to house Sada's own memories. Anything she could think to include would've been included by default, or would be added as she did the research to add it to such a database. Despite this, she'd taken to learning like a Magikarp to water, seemingly quite content to be left alone with a laptop and Internet while Sada handled the more... delicate parts of her work. Like fist fighting the two Koraidon's apart whenever one of them got snappy with the other. Or monitoring the time machine until something popped out. Or trying to remind her idiot backers that they'd already seen there was a method to her madness the last twenty fucking times they went over this, would they please get off her back about the weird expense reports bribing them with sandwiches was the best method she'd found to keep the Koraidon's from killing each other or her, OKAY!?

So, despite her... unique circumstances, Sada thoroughly hoped she could get the kid enrolled in school before the years end. Between the opportunities for learning and the best (and... admittedly worst as well) pickings of people to socialise with, she didn't think it'd be a hard sell to the kid.

"...Okay. Thank you." She answered, glancing aside. "You... mentioned something about a new body...?"

Ah. One or two things clicked into place. "Do you want that finished up before you meet Arven?"

"...if it isn't too much trouble, that would be preferable." 

"Alright- if I don't have it done by the time I have these babies ready, I'll just give you the lab tour day one then double down on that project." Sada chuckled, "I've already got the chassis ready, give or take, so how about, when we're done with the preliminary tests tomorrow, we take a look at figuring out how exactly you want me to pretty it up?"

"...That sounds nice." The kid said, a small, shy smile back in her face. "...Further query. Where is the Pokédex Application Form I partially filled filed? I... would like to finish it."

...looking at her desk, some part of Sada wished she'd go back to the age question. 

Quite the excavation effort later, she triumphantly raised the paper in question, handing it over with a grin. Her kid smiled softly and grabbed a pen off the cluttered desk, writing something for the very first question.

Sada couldn't help but chuckle slightly- it seemed her sense if humour had already rubbed off on the kid. 

Well. On Aisha.