Chapter Text
Frozen Butterfly a story of Bubblegum Crisis
Chapter 1.1 – Wake Up!
I woke in a haze of blurry light, feeling strangely disassociated from my body.
Any movement seemed to take my full concentration. drawing a breath, letting it out.
drawing a breath,
letting it out,
drawing a breath,
letting it out.
As I lay there slowly remembering how to breathe I became aware of a background murmur, voices pinging in my mind. Just like that awareness snapped into clear understanding, the crisp tones of a man imperiously asking "Why hasn't it opened its eyes yet, have you both failed and wasted my time calling me down for this activation?"
Wait, opened its eyes? Almost afraid to be right, I deliberately thought about it, focused on parting my lashes the blurred light giving way slowly to a pale white paneled ceiling. My eyelids indeed parted providing me a clear view. It was strange, taking long moments for me to put meaning to the image. My mind tracing the entire shape of a light fixture before realizing for the first time what I was looking at. Panic began to fill my thoughts, this was the first thing I could recall seeing since, since, dinner, or was it driving home. I couldn't remember exactly and suddenly being here, lying in a bed and as I forced myself to look to one side surrounded by medical equipment began to make a dreadful kind of sense.
The slight smell of hydrocarbons and motor oil – Carbon 85% Hydrogen 12% Nitrogen 1% Oxygen 1% Sulfur 1% – didn't, and I couldn't recognize any of the machines specifically. I was lying on a bed, no, strapped to one, the feel of nylon straps and thin sheets jumping to mind once I thought about it. As I looked down the world did not seem to shift or sway, my breath steady, pulse even, despite seeing something that just shouldn’t have been there. Two, disturbing, lumps, that on reflection could only be a pair of breasts, my breasts rising up right where a flat chest should have been, shouldn't it?
I sat there processing that unsuccessfully, thoughts jumping around from Heinlein to Ranma, logic arguing it couldn't be, facts and the ghost sensation of cloth on my skin that it must, and through it all a feeling of quiet pride. So distracting was it that it took one of the men snapping his fingers in front of my face to draw my attention back from the abyss to the conversation around me.
Curiously enough I noticed both the ceiling and his fingers remained in perfect focus so detailed it was slightly dizzying adding the power of a headache to my response. "Yes, of course I can speak, what's going on, where am I?" Irritation and upset slipping into my voice, my subtly wrong voice as I found myself speaking falsetto.
My indignation rising at being so ignored, dismissed without even a glance. I turned my head, again a very deliberate motion the act seeming almost unnatural to watch the doctor slowly rise out of a deep bow towards the clang of the door falling shut in his superior's wake. He was also Japanese, a rail-thin man, with balding hair in a poor comb over and thin glasses, probability of being single 74%. I spoke up. "Well, are you going to say anything?" I said, my voice biting and colder than I remember being capable of, but with just the right level of bite to make him respond.
The man jerked up looking over at me, his face twitching slightly in surprise but showing little reaction beyond that. I somehow knew he was pleased, it was strange, I had never seen him before and certainly he wasn't smiling but as I lay there, looking at him I kept fixating on the crinkle of eyelid here, the twitch of cheek there, and his changing pulse and I was sure, 87.5% certain, I told myself, that he was pleasantly surprised. That with the need to actually think about swallowing nervously drove home to me the surreality of the situation.
"Oh yes, please to excuse me." He said, his smile growing fully visible to my eyes. "My name is Sutekina-san." He paused then, as if to get his bearings before continuing. "You have been… in tragic accident, yes, we have just to recover your mind done. Please to let us know how you are feel. Is you in discomfort, or of having any trouble thinking clearly?"
After his earlier smooth speech his suddenly stilted English felt wrong, but I didn't focus on that long. Instead I found myself thinking of his request and actually I was really quite comfortable, even though I was strapped down, and obviously my body wasn't original – for some reason the phrase that it wasn't mine just didn't process. The pinch of the straps wasn't actually painful, and I was functioning just fine without any of the minor annoyances, itches, aches or pains I was familiar with ignoring.
Sure I was aware of things that might have been considered annoying, the imprint of the hospital gown's ties in my back, the chill of the air 17 degrees Celsius over my toes, but somehow none of it bothered me. Certainly it couldn’t be as big an issue as realizing that I was thinking possessively of my body. It was actually mine, if not my original one, and I couldn't quite parse those thoughts, the problem threatening to drag me down into a silently screaming vortex of frustrated confusion.
Either he was a naturally patient man or all these thoughts took not time at all for he showed no irritation in his wait for my reply. I settled for shaking my head slightly, the slight pause between decision and implementation as I thought about doing so troubling enough to bring up. "I, seem to be having to think about everything I do." My lighter contralto voice mirroring my concern and embarrassment at having to admit it quite well, and bringing to mind that it was a very good ploy at engaging the scientist's emotional protective responses and aiding in creating a bond with my savior. Thoughts of which sent a warm almost happy feeling through my body.
Realizing I had answered in perfectly fluent Japanese rather than English to his question was enough to almost made me miss his reply, and only the unexpected ability to rapidly replay, with perfect recollection his words, including tone and inflection let me catch it. The impression of surprise and accomplishment on his face at hearing his native tongue only increasing his pleasure in my response and towards me to a 98% certainty.
"Yes, that's normal, even for standard models, it takes some time for the neural architecture to pattern natural reactions and movements into the body. However we've made quite a bit of progress and I don't believe you will have any real difficulty. Now then, do you recall signing up for cryogenics?" His giddiness was only tempered by the need to continue explaining as I nodded once more, this time with only a little attention to the motion, too many troubling thoughts in the back of my mind to make sense of all his, and my, physiological responses.
"Well then, good. Your body died in late 2012, from an automobile accident. However the team responsible for the safe recovery and storage of your brain was unusually lucky and competent. We believe you should retain over 90% of your memories given time to sit back and think, recovering and recreating the mental pathways." Anticipating my next request, the hesitation imposed as I had to think about taking a deep breath to voice it he went on. "Miss Kari, It is now 2032, and while cryotech incorporated no longer exists we took custody of your mind and have now inserted you into a fully functioning and functional cyberdroid."
By now I had had enough time thinking, to realize that I was not nearly panicked enough for the situation and decided to speak up on the matter. "Why aren’t I screaming my head off, in English by the way, I was male, and now I'm clearly not, and what is a cyberdroid, shouldn't I have been resuscitated in my own body or my clone or something like that, wasn’t it the deal?"
"Oh, really?" he seemed to peer at me. "I'm terribly sorry, we thought with your given name you were female, and of course well, with only your brain in storage… in any case your contract did not specify the form in which you were to be revived, or limitations. Perhaps something was lost with the merger. Please forgive us for such an unfortunate mistake. Please, can you tell me, are you feeling uncomfortable with yourself, your body?" His words made some funny sort of sense, but I knew they were a lie – 90% certainty due to facial tick and change in posture, and when I thought about it the small clues came immediately to the forefront of my mind. Pulse, respiration, pupil dilation, every clue pointed to a well-planned deception but performed by an amateur, and I had no idea why I knew it.
Still, he deserved some kind of response, and I just didn't feel like lying quite yet, even though I did decide then and there not to trust my wellbeing to these people a moment longer than absolutely necessary. "No, actually, it's almost concerning how… comfortable being me feels." Shift in muscle tension indicates subject's increasing pleasure at response. "You haven't tampered with my mind have you?" That concern, the largest I could think of was on the forefront of my mind. I didn't know how I could read him so well, but figured at least asking the question would get an answer and lie or not I would have the truth.
"Oh no, that would completely invalidate the procedure." He answered with admirable sincerity probability 75%. "Why, you don't even have any of the standard overrides or security conditioning for your model, it was part of the test design specifications that your mind and free will be entirely un-tampered with. It is only the hardware that…" I think he might have gone on but a rather harried individual probability of anxiety 80%, younger, with much better personal grooming entered the room at an indecorous pace. "That’s quite enough for now. Doctor, why don't you let him adjust for an hour or two and rest." Flashing me an insincere smile I suspected he hadn't just referred to my old gender by mistake due to listening in this time almost able to feel myself making the subconscious calculations on his sincerity. "We'll be back to speak with you more in a little while Ms. Ceallaigh, until then just relax, and let us know if you have any problems or are uncomfortable." – Subject gestures of concern false 99% probable.
He virtually dragged Dr. Sutekina out of the room with him, and I was quickly left alone, still strapped down, and left to think about my situation in the echoes of the closing door. I would have called it dull, but surprisingly as I lay there going over what had happened, analyzing it moment by moment, I found plenty to occupy my attention. The first thing of course was my body. It didn't seem to be an immediate concern, which of course was why I immediately started to mentally panic, something that is actually hard to do when your breathing is steady, pulse normal and not the slightest hint of adrenaline to help hysteria along. I just didn't feel alien to myself. In every story I ever read where this sort of thing had happened the protagonist felt upset, out of place, and uncomfortable. But to be honest it all just sort of fit and felt right – functioning at peak efficiency no problems detected.
Now, I felt awkward and self-conscious, but that wasn't because I was uncomfortable, despite the restraints, or that it felt wrong, just that I had to keep thinking about what I was doing.
It was like… learning to golf, stand like this, keep your eye on the ball, swing just so, and if you don't pay attention to every little movement you're going to slice like mad and there goes another ball into the weeds. This felt just the same, but with a little less swing and a much better kinesthesia. I spent maybe half an hour just moving within the confines allowed to me, but already things were beginning to feel more… natural, less deliberate in execution. Unfortunately this growing familiarity just left me more time to think.
Okay, I was dead. That's depressing. On the other hand I had a chance now to do all the things I had never gotten around to before I died… Right, that’s a mind bender right there. So, I was dead, but living, and it seemed like I had all my memories and was myself, though how to know for sure. I decided then and there that was a path I wasn't going to travel, true or not, I wasn't willing to dive down that dark path and drive myself crazy with doubting myself.
So, I'm myself, I'm a cyberdroid, Accept it.
Though just what does that mean?
From just seeing my delicate fingers wiggling from the cuffs holding me to the bed I looked perfectly human. My fingers felt normal as I rubbed them together. The first discrepancy came when pinching my hip didn't bring a yelp of pain, but still I knew it hurt, could feel the pain and certainly wasn't eager to prolong the experience, it just didn't keep me from thinking clearly and there was no overwhelming urge to stop. Letting go I traced my hip through the thin hospital gown. It seemed to me I had a normal bone structure and I couldn't hear any whirring, ticking or engines to drive the movements so I assumed that whatever else it was a cyberdroid was pretty human.
Straining as hard as I could the next conclusion was easy, I wasn't super strong, and not about to be able to break the nylon straps keeping me in place. Just for grins I decided to hold my breath. Counting the seconds silently to myself I realized my count was off, one Mississippi just doesn't match an internal clock for timekeeping regularity or accuracy. I could feel the need for air, but it was less than normal, a desire rather than necessity and I decided to stop at the five minute mark exactly. I had a feeling I could have pushed it longer but didn't want to risk injury, or breakage? I wonder which it would be.
My introspection was interrupted by the return of the second doctor, one whose specialty I was beginning to suspect was not in internal medicine and definitely not bedside manner.
"Stop that" He snapped out sounding annoyed. "You'll damage yourself. Don't you realize how delicate you are, we just got you functioning, don't go ruining our work now." It was official; he was not going to be one of my favorite people.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you or anything, I was just, testing myself a little, there weren't cyberdroids when I di- was frozen, remember." I wasn't quite sure why I felt the need to defend myself. A nervous tension floated through my body and a slight sickness in my stomach joining a blush on my cheeks.
"So I don't exactly know what to expect, or limitations, anything. Do I need to eat, plug in, visit the little girl's room?" By the last question I could tell with a certain amount of satisfaction I was starting to annoy him and the embarrassed blush receded. Focus of subject on unit –Self – increasing to acceptable levels.
I think it was my attitude that threw him off balance. Whatever else he was expecting; an interrogation about my bathroom requirements in a biting sarcastic tone wasn't it. I got to watch him visibly pulling himself together, a warm sensation in the back of my mind analyzing everything about him as he ran a hand through his hair, 84% likelihood action taken to buy time. Unfortunately he did consider his words before speaking again, clearly more composed and ready to explain on his terms not mine.
"I see, forgive me, you are the first recovery I've been in charge of and I forgot that there are some things you wouldn't know." Subject insincere 92% probability. Assuming a lecturing stance he went on. "It would be best to go over what will happen in the next few days and your new bodies capabilities. For most purposes you may treat it as you would your own, however be aware it needs far less food. Your current needs will be met directly through an IV solution specifically formulated to meet its needs. Later some food will be necessary to facilitate the chemical reactions that allow the proper function of your system. You can plug in directly to power your functions, but energy alone will not support your systems indefinitely and your model was not designed with that in mind. You are a class 33-S and as such far more biological in nature than most designs. Your body requires down time for "sleep" an autonomous maintenance cycle. We will be evaluating your… mental return and after testing you will be allowed to leave."
I could feel the sleaziness coming from the man in waves, an uncomfortable oily sensation as he talked over me, not really to me. Sure he might be telling the truth – 65% probability, but despite his attempt to exude a feeling of concern and care all I really picked up was calculated grime and manipulation.
What he said made sense, but I couldn't help but feel there was something rather less than normal about the whole situation. It was all too, unpracticed assuming that brining people back from the dead was normal in 2032 that is.
Then as I pondered that oily feeling in my mind I remembered, or perhaps more accurately recalled my first moments of consciousness, that this was the 'first' activation and that to someone high up in this organization I wasn't a person, but an 'it' and the shiftiness and lack of preparation began to make more sense. They hadn't done this before, I was part of a test of some kind and if what the nice balding doctor had said was accurate while my body might be production my mind and getting it there certainly wasn’t. At best I was a beta test butterfly hoping none of the bugs would be large and vicious enough to eat me before I could spread my wings.