emerging

She'd just opened her mouth to reply to the first question only for a bevy of further questions to cut off her answer. She allowed a single chuckle and tilted her head a few degrees to one side as she continued to study what was beyond (and mostly below) the window. "Hnnh. Well, those are all easy enough to answer! I know what it does because I'm the one who made it. Kinda grandiose, since I only brought two existing pieces together, but I guess I can say I made you too, so no—I already had it for that. Coffee-making is probably among the least of your capabilities."

Having said all that she dawdled for a moment, then turned back toward Sidra and got her hands behind her on the window frame, leaning against it.

I made you too. At Carla's mention of this fact, Sidra regarded the augmented human's body into which she had been installed. She had inhabited it long enough at this point that she had begun thinking of it as "her" body, even though it was not the one for which she had been designed. But it still felt like something she manipulated as a unit separate from herself, and likely always would. The head nodded as Sidra accessed her onboard database.

Did the value of COAM have a taste? Oh, it could by equivalency. A microsecond of review and calculation rendered a matrix of value, weighted by the sensory experiences of organics. She had not needed to keep track of these things prior to having this type of body and being set up to manage a shop, but she was becoming attuned to it. "In that case, I hope for your sake that it was credit well-spent." The aroma was beginning to reach her nostrils. "It does smell like coffee."

While the brewing cycle completed, Sidra maneuvered her body to select a mug for Carla... and one for herself. The body told her which experiences were pleasant or unpleasant, and to what degree, but she knew her circuits did not process it in quite the same way, or hold the same relationship to it, as the original organic brain had. It was impossible to tell how close her experience came to Carla's own, but it was enough to tell bad coffee from good, and to find a certain satisfaction in drinking something good. And every time she did, she found it strengthened the pathways to repeat the action. Carla might be interested in this information.

"Good coffee, actually."

Animated scene of Sidra and Pepper from A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers when Sidra scans her new room. Sidra is a copy of a ship AI who was placed inside an artificial body after a catastrophic failure deleted her predecessor, Lovelace. She must learn how to blend into society on Port Coriol as a human or risk being arrested and destroyed.

Still under the cut!

His hands tighten around the controls, a dull pain radiates in his hands.

But he was alive.

"Sidra." His voice growled, raspy and broken. "Status report." His hands release the controls, moving to activate the HUD. It flickers to life, static all across the screen. Everything is red. "Establish communication, with Cinder."

He gurgles on something, is it his blood? Probably.

Her body is—this was not her body—

Sidra's pathways raced to connect reawakened consciousness with context. The sensors are all different... oh. There's temperature, atmosphere, proximity. There are vitals. There's visual, audio.

And there— was Hayden's voice, speaking to her... and the alarms clamoring for her attention from so many foreign sensors in not-her-body were no longer so disorienting and painful.

She assessed quickly and thoroughly, and did the last thing first.

"Okay. Communications are functional. I've initiated the distress call to Cinder. I'm keeping the channel open, so you'll know the moment she answers." There was a pause. "Status report: your shuttle sustained severe structural and mechanical damage incompatible with maintaining life support or stable orbit. In accordance with evacuation protocol, you made an emergency deployment—but not without first ejecting my Black Box and linking it to your suit. Your heart rate and blood pressure are high and oxygen levels low, but within tolerance. Your Armored Core has been breached and mobility will be severely limited, but diagnostic report indicates no immediate fire danger. It should provide adequate temporary shelter in which to rest until you are able to receive medical attention. Hayden—" There was the briefest of pauses, and if a voice without a face could be said to smile with relief, Sidra's seemed to. "We're alive."

Disoriented and broken, but alive... and not alone. She had followed every protocol, but there was still one more thing that seemed important to say.

"I can see that," Carla affirmed of the grounds, before cautioning with only a somewhat sing-song tone, "You should always be suspicious of what's in boxes you're not meant to open." What exactly was inside the Institute device and how it went about its business of coffee-making would indeed be something of a mystery to anyone who hadn't been present for its construction. It plainly wasn't really made to be taken apart, seeming to be of almost seamless construction. It might physically be silver overall, but it really was something of a black box.

While the grounds were poured, she got a pitcher and sourced some water, and was thus just a little slow in answering the first question, giving time for the second to be asked. Her first response was a laugh! "I'd say so. This is the only one. As for how long... well, let's say nobody else has had it since the Institute burned." She referred, obviously, to the Fires of Ibis. Beyond that, let Sidra contemplate her meaning.

While she talked, she tapped open a different but similar hatch and poured the water in too, then shut it. With both filled, she clicked the leftmost of the three discreet buttons that seemed to be the machine's only controls. It began to emit an odd hum, and momentarily made a few indistinct and weirdly distant-sounding mechanical noises. The thing had notably not needed to be plugged in.

The eyes meanwhile had been tracking Carla's movements. She ought also to have brought water, Sidra reflected, but Carla didn't seem to mind. If anything she was approaching this task with the gusto she always possessed for any technology. There appeared to be a considerable amount of intuiting in her approach. Sidra noted and logged all the movements so she might replicate them later, in case they turned out to be correct.

"Ah, I don't know. Handsome and dashing?"

He'd remark cooly as he lifted the freshly pour'd coffee to his lips taking a deep sip of it. Just what he needed in the morning was the rejuvenating taste of dark coffee, with the lingering taste of tobacco also on his tongue. His attention turned to the datapad in his other hand, reading over the diagnostics of Decree in the meantime.

"I take a few jobs at a reduced rate, to help out some poor miners, and suddenly I'm a hero? C'mon."

He scoffs not entertaining the idea of a common mercenary like him being a hero.

Sure he beat back a few corrupt organizations, sure he helped out some less fortunate than him. And yes, he had been injured in the line of duty more than once.

"The world wasn't their own to conquer. If anything, I was just doing it to spite the other guy."

She processes his words. They do not seem to align with her definition of the word; she's not sure she understands the correlation. To add to her confusion, he is not only offering an alternate definition of 'hero,' but he claims that he does not match it, when by human standards, he appears to, though relying on the memory stored in this organic brain is frustrating. The eyes thoroughly scan his form. Image logged, added to research list. But she is silent as he continues to share his thoughts.

The hands rest the coffeepot on the bartop and reflexively smooth the apron tied around her clothes. She has noticed this tendency of the hands. "You've offered assistance to someone who could not repay you," she summarizes when he is finished. "I believe that is more in line with the definition of 'hero' that I know."

Carla seemed to trust the Institute in a way that raised many of Sidra's fact-checking flags. It was frustrating to wait until she could access in some external way a network she was used to communicating with innately... one of the limitations of this body. At least in an AC, the interfaces were more seamless... it had felt a bit more like home the few times she had been housed in one, as a test. But the responsibilities had felt... unsuitable. She had been designed to support human life.