Chapter Text
Being able to feel human emotions was truly a gift.
Sage was eternally in awe of the Doctor for being able to program her with such a complex intelligence that her continued interactions with individuals around her had led to the ability actually to feel.
Compassion. Empathy. Desperation. Love.
Underneath it all, however, another deeper feeling consumed her. It grew stronger every day, tightening in her chest at the sight of others around her
Wind whipping through hair and stinging teary eyes.
The comforting weight of a warm blanket during a deafening thunderstorm.
The sticky sensation of sweat on the skin during a summer afternoon.
Faces growing rosy and red on blistering winter days.
Sage felt longing.
Of course, her range of emotions had only continued to grow through the doctor’s efforts.
He brought Sage with him practically everywhere, encouraging her to see the world around her. His love for her had been shown time and time again, bringing a smile to not only Sage but to himself as well.
She had been programmed with access to his full logs of everything. His blueprints, work routines, material shipments, biographical data, everything. Having access to his health and wellness logs, she could see the improvement in his mental state as he spent more time with Sage.
It made her happy.
But, the more she felt, the stronger the longing got.
She could be brimming with anticipation, but not feel her heart thrumming in her chest.
She could feel sadness and regret, but not the sensation of tears down her face.
She could feel empathy and offer words of comfort, but couldn’t embrace her father.
It was an endless cycle that she could feel herself growing tired of.
-------
The doctor had been closely monitoring Sage’s system health as of late. He had a lingering feeling that something was off with her demeanor. She seemed detached as of late, somewhat hesitating before responding to certain stimuli or even becoming momentarily distracted from her tasks.
Ivo inferred that the answer must lie in her code somewhere, something must be out of place or had shifted in her software.
That was the only logical thing he could think of– the girl had been so expressive and passionate just weeks ago. What else could have changed?
He sighed in exasperation, making a mental note to take a closer look at her system stability later. For now, he had a nearby delivery that needed overseeing.
Doctor Robotnik had several methods of acquiring materials for his machines. For larger operations, it was simpler to excavate and harvest resources himself. For his smaller pet projects, however, he preferred more discrete and personal business transactions. He had a specific system of delivery services to fit his needs, but more often than not he wasn’t the one to receive the packages himself. Sending a drone of some kind was often easier and less likely to cause a fuss amongst the local residents in his presence. Perhaps sending Sage to oversee the shipment would be good for her…
Sage’s physical frame was relatively inconspicuous; she would do nicely as a supervisor of the delivery. All the girl had to do was keep an eye on the transfer of a few dozen crates from a cargo boat to the scheduled handling service in the city below.
The seaside town that the airship was currently stationed high above was a bustling business destination, a good place for Sage to be stationed for the day. Ivo, as with all his robots, could essentially see through the girl’s eyes to monitor any complications from afar.
Sage was unbothered by this, as she had nothing to hide from her father. If it helped with the task at hand, she was happy to let him listen in on any interaction.
Ivo figured that she could use a little ambient socialization with the citizens to break her out of her funk.
Or, at the very least, help him retrieve more data to pinpoint any issue in her software.
------
Sage moved through the busy street, hovering close to the ground. As efficient as flying above the rooftops would be to reach her destination, she was less likely to raise any unnecessary eyebrows at her appearance. So she decided to stick to ground level to give the illusion of walking.
Not that her feet could physically hold her on the concrete, of course.
The seaside town was busy with the summer months approaching, but the hustle and bustle of crowds didn’t take away the quaint nature of the area. Brightly colored awnings overlooked bright displays in storefront windows, displaying everything from sweets to handcrafted furniture to baskets of fresh bread.
Each shop was overlooked as Sage made her way to the coordinates sent by the doctor.
After a few minutes of traveling down the cobbled street, however, Sage found herself slowing to a halt in front of an arched window display in a neat brick storefront.
The display proudly showcased an array of beautiful summer dresses, in various quaint patterns and styles. The girl’s eyes fell on a short-sleeved child’s dress in the back row.
She found herself staring in awe at the almost weightless look of the muted blue fabric, its hem swaying gently just above the mannequin’s knee. The humble short sleeves of the dress draped over its shoulders, connecting to the gently textured bodice. It seemed like the light garment could flutter away at any moment, with barely a breeze to lift it.
Such a beautiful piece of clothing…
Ivo’s voice startled Sage out of her transfixed state, her communication line buzzing to life.
“ETA seven minutes to delivery, my dear. 12 degrees south of your position and erm…” The sound of typing followed the pause. “...40 meters to the rendezvous point.”
Sage whipped her head away from the storefront, continuing her commute.
“Affirmative, father. Continuing to destination.”
Ivo watched Sage’s focused demeanor shift at the sight of the dress.
While her system was fully capable of scanning the materials and manufacturing details of the garment, her optical sensors were focused instead on the movement of the fabric itself, watching it sway softly in the air.
He took a mental note of the event before continuing to monitor Sage’s progress through the streets below.
Locating the discussed rendezvous point near the harbor, Sage quickly assumed her position to supervise the handoff of the crates. If her presence bothered the contractors operating the shipping vessel, they didn’t show it.
While taking inventory of each crate, she found her focus gradually fading from the simple stock cataloging to the handling process itself.
She watched the cargo handling team, a trio of broad-shouldered boar mobians, with rapt focus as they worked. The crew grunted with effort while carrying the heavier crates onto the connecting transport, occasionally mopping a sheen of sweat from their brows.
The temperature was exactly 73.8 degrees Fahrenheit, with a 5.4 mph windspeed from the east. Sage knew the information without even loading it up ahead of time. She could tell by the direction of the coastal breeze and its frequency that the temperature would continue to climb throughout the day, reaching its peak that afternoon at 3:11 pm with a high of 79.1 degrees.
Even with all that information at her disposal, she couldn’t feel the heat of the sun on her form, or squint her eyes at the blinding glare of the sun.
It all just felt the same.
Watching the way the men worked, huffing out a sigh with the release of the last few boxes at their destination, Sage felt the familiar empty longing.
Soon after finishing the last of the inventory checks, she bid the team a polite thank you for the service before turning and hovering back the way she came, syncing the data of the delivery report to the doctor’s system immediately. He would be most pleased with the smooth transaction when she returned.
Before hailing the doctor for a return summons, however, Sage turned her gaze to the shorefront. The late morning had brought several families of various mobian species to the quaint beach, enjoying the late spring day.
Sage found herself hovering down the wooden boardwalk to the sandy shore, her holographic feet dangling just above the white sand.
Approaching the ocean, she took notice of a young quokka girl sitting in the sand to her left. The girl fiddled with various plastic tools, poking and prodding at a mound of damp sand she had piled in front of her in the shape of a building.
Sage watched on as a stray wave crept towards the girl, crashing gently against her sand castle and startling her upright. Her bare paws, once buried deep in the damp sand, sent droplets of seawater flying as she let out an excited squeal. Running through the shallow water, she splashed up water loudly behind her as she retreated laughing to an older quokka, presumably her brother. She continued to wistfully watch the quokka family splashing and laughing along the shoreline, kicking up a spray of seawater with each step.
Sage’s gaze drifted downwards to her own feet, hanging just above the water's edge. As she lowered herself down to meet the waves, they passed through her form without disturbance. Like nothing was there to disrupt their flow at all.
Even if this reaction was to be expected, Sage’s face still fell. After a few moments, she solemnly turned and hovered back up the wooden boardwalk off of the beach, silently hailing a request for a return summons to the airship.
-------
Ivo frowned at the screen as the scene played in front of him. While monitoring Sage’s optical feed, he had taken notice of her fascination with the details of the life around her.
It was true that Sage’s model, while humanoid, was easily the simplest part of her design.
All of the magic was inside her, the immense capabilities of her mind being his pride and joy. Her physical projection, however, was admittedly a bit underwhelming in comparison.
While her appearance was a stylized form based on a young human girl, she lacked certain details in her model. Her porcelain-white hair was fixed in its place on her head, static and solid. Her hands lacked proper knuckles or fingernails on her perfectly smooth, untextured skin. The illusion of teeth, eyelashes, or eyelids was just that— an illusion. To top it off, her dress was simply a black shape that made up her torso and arms; there was no rendered body underneath.
If Ivo were to imagine a physical form to accurately represent Sage’s complex intelligence and capabilities, the result would be a fractal– a beautiful, never-ending shape of pure depth and shifting perspectives. It was impossible to imagine an end to it– a vision that, while enticing, was purely idealistic.
During their time in cyberspace, Sage’s relatively humble form had quickly become Ivo’s new ideal vision, becoming more precious to him with every second he spent with her.
Ivo thought she was the most beautiful creation in the observable universe– was it possible that she didn’t feel the same…?
It made his chest hurt to think that she may not see herself in the same glowing light that he saw her in.
If it was true that his little girl was feeling self-conscious— he knew he had to do something about it.
-------