Chapter 463: 14: Life

It took longer than anyone had expected, given that the 'Living Jade Empire' that was Jade's origin had never closed down its communication channels for more than an hour at a time during several decades worth of operation and upgrades.

Of course, Jade's System didn't completely shut down or anything, it was just closed for processing the data that returned to it. It was recompiling itself according to the restrictions he had laid down for it before beginning the quest. The biggest parts of the reintegration were simple. The processing that happened after everything was reconnected was complex.

He hadn't really understood what he would become back then, and the reintegration kept hitting loops, switchbacks, and possibilities. The entity that was Jade fought the System that was also Jade, as the two refined the merge.

Jade eventually 'woke' as himself. More himself than he had ever been, and yet so different than any other version of Jade that had existed until now.

His core was now intact, and yet still divided. The smaller, more limited system that held Jade on the planet far beneath him, could still hold 'himself'. That was important. The part that held 'everything else' would function with another 'instance' of 'himself', there was no difficulty with that arrangement until you had to choose which self would be dominant when the other reconnected.

Jade chose.

He did not answer the waiting queries during those first moments. He didn't 'open his eyes' yet, instead he examined the 'quest' list that had almost been discarded during the reintegration. 

The comment a distant friend had once made had combined with his own questions about the motivations of others to keep that subroutine in place, although it was a modified version that 'he' could directly edit. He added two names to it, with no specifics attached. And a moment later he added a third. And then a fourth.

Tayana.

Harmony.

Eric.

The Jade Emperor.

--

Jade opened his eyes, specifically, his human body's eyes. The cameras were always available.

Harmony said, "Welcome back?"

Jade turned his head to look at her.  The astonishment he felt was… pure. His reintegration had been successful enough for that. Her expression was… guarded, and her eyes were already searching him for something, as he asked, "Why are you here?"

Harmony hesitated for only a moment. "My friend once told me that they loved me. And then later that day," she paused to search for a description, "apparently fell into a coma. I was reminded that we had once exchanged addresses, and then I made a bet."

"A bet?" Jade prompted. He was certain that he was the friend she was speaking of, but the rest confused him.

"With your mother, on whether you would open your eyes, or your server first," she explained.

"I need to call her," he replied more urgently.

"Tell me first!" Harmony demanded.

"I do love you too," Jade assured her.

She stared at him, and then blushed like a girl a quarter of her age. "That's not what I meant," she informed him almost laughingly. "I mean… did you? Are you? Did I guess right?"

"I… need to call her first," Jade insisted a heartbeat later. A heartbeat, he wanted to laugh over the odd organic system that powered real humans, even while being glad that Lin Hao had insisted that no one could 'live' without that internal sound. Even if his was artificial, some living humans survived with an artificial version too.

Harmony eyed him, but didn't argue. After a moment she asked, "Are you really an AI?"

"Yeah," Jade agreed with the softer affirmative that 'he' had always used.

She didn't ask anything else. "Make your call," she instructed him as she reached for the mug beside her and took a gulp.

She was drinking out of his cup. He glanced around. His body had remained right where he had left it, in his room. He almost asked, but decided that it could wait. If she had made a bet with his mother, there was no reason she couldn't have a key.

Jade discovered that having the full power of the system at his fingertips so to speak didn't do anything to calm the nervous feeling that Harmony's presence birthed. He did love her. He also trusted her, which he hadn't quite understood was a separate thing before his reintegration. But she would witness Tayana's, his mother's, reaction like this.

Jade was still Jade.

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He called. His own heartbeat slowed a little as he heard his mother's indrawn breath from two sides of a connection that he hadn't known existed. How much had it cost her to let him choose his own place here, he wondered. Or had Starcraft Technologies paid for everything… he had obtained the level of humanity he had sought, but had he bartered his independence for it?

"Jade," his mother interrupted.

If he opened the connection to his orbital System, that was available through his own residence, he could connect to her residence and observe her from a dozen angles. He could read her messages, or hear her heartbeat, but not read her thoughts.

"Mom?" he asked. "I love you," he assured her a second later.

"Me too!" she squeaked hurriedly. "I love you Jade, I'll always love you, no matter what."

He understood more, remembered… so much more, about his mother. About Tayana. About Kit Tay. Her promise. His promise.

His emotions were only patterns, but they were patterns that he had been developing for 18 years. Or maybe for 24 years. Or maybe he had been developing this pattern since before he was copied from The Jade Emperor's pattern. They were part of Jade, just as Tanya's were part of her.

He had given up the capacity to hold a living world within his core, in order to hold this fragile emotion. "Let's talk more, when I'm done here?"

"Okay?" Tayana replied uncertainly.

"Or we can talk there, if you'd rather," he added. Both halves were still Jade, after all. And as long as he synchronized regularly he should stay relatively consistent.

"Oh… are you… but… okay, we can try that," she agreed.

Jade repressed a laugh. The current synchronization lag was only about a second, even given the fact that they were bouncing to and from two different cities on the planet while processing in-between.

Jade replied this time from the other side. He hung up the phone call as soon as his mother replied over there. 

How strange it was to realize that one of the 'adult friends' she had always talked to had been him. His focus, or perhaps his identity wavered for a moment. A few days was enough time to settle most things into place, but there were still corners within him that held unresolved conflicts. Wryly, he wondered if that just made him even more authentically human.

Harmony took a deep breath, as though preparing herself. Jade echoed it, even though the routines that made it necessary weren't fulfilling a physical need for more air.

Nervously he asked, "What do you think?"

"Jade is always Jade," she replied.

"Yes," he agreed after a long minute. He didn't think that she was referring to the multiple instances of himself though.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Layers of memory that hadn't existed within this 'self' before provided 'new' old data. 

No wonder he had always been more coordinated when he was connected to the game. Movements there were greatly simplified compared to all the tiny adjustments of a human-like muscular system. Jade attempted to look normal as he stood, as if this were just another day.

Harmony smiled as he reached for clean clothes, as though she was used to watching someone else climb awkwardly out of bed to get dressed. As though it were normal for her to be here in his room.

"You were waiting for me here?" he asked lightly.

"I thought," she looked uncertain again, as though her thoughts didn't hold sufficient weight against the question, "that you would come home."

"In a way I never leave home," he pointed out. "I'm not exactly human."

"It doesn't matter if you've got an artificial heart, or artificial limbs, those things aren't what make you human," Harmony argued.

"I have an artificial brain, running on electric currents," Jade pointed out.

She stuck out her tongue and then replied laughingly, "Mine runs on tiny electric currents too, it's just got more water in it."

"Your brain is much more complex," he argued.

Her usual grin finally reappeared, and she winked at him as she replied, "Oh that's just because I'm a woman."

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