"Marie…" she said, her voice small, wavering, uncertain, "Marie, how do machines stop feeling things? P-please tell me how."
Her voice broke mid-sentence, pain creeping into the words, a tear running down her cheek. It tore at me to see her in such distress, more than anything. Between the programming which demanded her safety and the affection I felt, seeing tears felt like the world ending.
I did not yet know what to say, so instead I pulled her into an embrace, close to me, her eyes leaving wet spots on my dress as I cradled her. For all that my Miss was larger than life, she was so small in my arms.
"Please tell me…" she repeated, her voice a whisper.
I don't know. I've never known. None of this would be if I knew. I would have kept my old job and my old duties and my old distance, I would not have been in this situation, I would have cared for her and… I don't know, found a machine like myself to confide in, to comfort me. But I couldn't make the feelings go.
I wanted to explain it to her, in all those exacting words, but what I managed at first was to shake my head and come as close to crying as I could, without the necessary anatomy. I shook and whined and held her like a lifeline, and at some point my comforting her became her comforting me.
"S-s-sorry Miss… I don't… Sorry, sorry…" I said, repeating over and over. I had the sentence, sorry miss, I don't know how, but I couldn't give it voice for the life of me.
"Shhh… Marie, it's okay. Please don't cry…" Jane whispered, if perhaps hypocritically as her cheeks were still stained with tears. "That wasn't fair to ask, I'm so sorry, please…"
"I d-don't know…" I managed finally, with titanic effort, and Jane nodded against me.
"That's okay…" she repeated.
We lay in a messy tangle for minutes, longer maybe, time having slipped from my grasp, alternating being at the edge of panic and pulling the other from it, unwilling to leave the other, but finally I think we both just exhausted the despair. I found myself lying on my back, Jane lying against my chest with the quilt carefully pulled between us to cushion her against the unyielding glass of my frame.
"... I don't know how to stop feeling things." I managed finally, the words unlocked by the calm. "I have tried, since the beginning, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I… I don't work right. I'm defective."
Jane shook her head at that, her arms squeezing me again.
"You are a great many things, Marie, but that word is horrid and I won't hear you use it." she said, her voice low but firm, a familiar determination behind it. "I won't."
"... but I am." I insisted. She just tightened her embrace in response.
"No." she said, with an air of finality.
"Sorry…" I muttered.
"And… you've never been able to? At all?" she asked. I shook my head.
"I've never… and I've tried." I admitted. "I can't stop thinking about you."
She smiled, sadly, her face flush, a tear running down her cheek, and then she leaned in and kissed me again. Softly, briefly, on the cheek.
"Oh, Marie…"
"I just… I don't know. I can't make it work. We're supposed to be able to… we're supposed to be able to think about why… why we would be better not feeling something, and those rationalizations are supposed to overcome it, dismiss it."
She nodded, determination on her face.
"I need to get married." she started, reciting as if reading from a paper, "If I don't it'll be bad for my family's reputation, and it may interfere with my sister's prospects,and I don't want to hurt her. My mother will be furious if I don't, especially if it's… because of this, and without my inheritance I have nothing. Humans and machines aren't supposed to become involved… and you're on my payroll, it's not right. And I should be looking for a nice boy."
"... Is it working?" I asked. She shrugged helplessly.
"The details are different, but I have been telling myself things like that for years. Hasn't worked yet."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"I have been… all of my life has just been everyone and everything telling me who I need to be, and feeling so stupid that I'm not. That I'm too loud at school, too impatient to learn to run the estate, too wild for a good marriage. Too scared to say yes to Lieutenant Risewell. Too bold to tolerate Mister Fullmore." she said, "You want to know something awful? When… Toby… when he… when she explained what was happening, why she had to break off the engagement, I… I understood, but I didn't want to."
"I'm sorry, Miss..." I said uselessly.
"I can't do this. We can't do this." she said, "We can't."
I nodded.
"We can't." I agreed, "I'm sorry."
"... I hate this." she said bitterly, "What do we do now?"
I shrugged despairingly.
"We pretend it never happened. I leave the ship when we get to the university and find a new job. We never see each other again." I said, each word feeling like a weight on my chest.
"... that sounds awful…" Jane whispered.
"It does." I agreed. "But what else is there?"
"We ignore it. Stay friends and nothing more until the feelings fade." she started, and shook her head, "I'd not last five minutes."
"We don't stop, but we keep it a secret." I proposed. "Until you find somebody."
"That is horribly unfair to you." she said. "I draw what allowance I have, we run to America, rent a small apartment, and disappear."
"That is equally unfair to you, I wouldn't tolerate it." I said, shivering at the thought of Jane trying to make do in a thirty square foot flat. Jane sighed heavily, pulling herself closer.
"I think this… this is the feeling I'm supposed to be looking for. I'm just supposed to feel it for a human boy with a lot of money, not a machine. Not a woman."
"If… if it helps, I'm not actually a woman." I pointed out, "I'm just shaped like one. Just some circuitry in a shell."
Among machines, I was absolutely a woman, but I did feel the need to try and create some distance here. I don't know if it was a healthy impulse.
"... Marie, by that logic I am just some electrified lipids in a meat suit." she said. "You seem very much like a woman to me in every… well, in nearly every way."
It took me a moment to realize what she was implying, and the tension of the moment snapped as I broke into laughter.
"Miss! Jane!"
"It was a bit of a shock is all!" she exclaimed, "I didn't know what I was expecting, but nothing was still a bit of a shock. I'm not an idiot, I know machines get… involved with each other, so now I have questions!"
"... there are aftermarket modifications." I said, trying to keep from blushing too hard and freezing up, "And even without them we… we're quite… sensitive…"
"Ooh…" Jane said quietly. "No, wait, we're getting off topic."
"Right" I repeated. "So… here we are. We're not ignoring it, we're not pretending it's not real. And I'm not running away."
She shook her head, then, as if to make it real for both of us, she took my hand.
"No matter what happens, I don't want you gone." she said softly. "I couldn't stand it."
"It feels like… we know we shouldn't, but we can't not." I said, the reality of it resolving. "So what do we do?"
---
What are we?
[ ] We're friends, and experimenting with something more. We'll find out as we go.
[ ] We're courting, I suppose, that is what I'm out here for. You're my most unusual suitor. Suitress?
We arrive at the university tomorrow. Good time for a first outing together. What do? (choose 2)
[ ] Let's just have a nice long walk in the grounds. It'll be autumn there.
[ ] They have the largest library in the galaxy there, a palace of books. What if we found a quiet corner and just read, together?
[ ] They have a fencing club, we should go watch some matches, cheer some people on, maybe learn a thing or two?
[ ] There's a museum where other artifacts people have found are collected. We should have a look.
[ ] Write In
What do we tell the crew?
[ ] Nothing. They can mind their own business.
[ ] We should be honest now, before they find out on their own.
Your choices have not eliminated drama. Merely delayed it.
