Chapter 464: 15: Another Self

"Jade!" his mother exclaimed as she entered the room. "Are you really here?"

Jade gazed at her for several hundred milliseconds, and consulted with his other self. His systems negotiated for a moment and then agreed that this self would be the primary one for this conversation.

"What are you really asking Mom?" Jade asked with confusion. "I'm technically always in orbit now that I am reconnected."

His mother rushed forward and hugged 'him' before crying, "You are calling me Mom here too!"

"Shouldn't I?" he asked worriedly.

She held the nearly spherical 'body' away from herself and informed him, "Yes! Do! I'm so happy!"

Jade eyed his mother, and consulted the records of what the separated system had said to Tayana when he had been isolated on the smaller system, that had usually only connected to his main server when he 'slept'. He was relieved to find that even then his other processes hadn't called her a 'Celestial Servant'. That information took another moment to sort out, as he asked himself what was wrong with such a title.

Tayana took a deep breath, and then asked, "Is your connection still okay?"

He swiftly assured her, "Yes, I was just trying to figure out why I wouldn't call you Mom. At least my secondary system used to call you by name instead of using a title?"

His mother hugged the spherical ball of sensors again and asked worriedly, "I thought the fact that you finally woke up meant that the process combining all of the separated memory data was finished?"

Jade nodded, and then realized that this body lacked a way to display that motion even though it had stubby appendages representing arms and legs. "Yes."

"You shut down most of your interfaces when you completed your main quest, so I couldn't ask…" she told him in a muffled voice.

The body's vision censors were buried against her shirt, but Jade could access others within this familiar room. Despite her earlier declaration of happiness, there were tears in her eyes.

"Ask what?" he prompted, even as he scanned everything that had been recorded while he had 'shut down'. 

Neither of his previous identities had processed that stored chunk of data, but some of his sensors had still been collecting records, in case she had called for help or something. There was nothing particularly significant within it, he decided a few moments later. Tayana had checked the display screens more often than usual, but she hadn't communicated her question.

"If I'd still be your mother," she finally whispered.

"You've been my mother for my entire 'life', and for most of my existence," he pointed out. "I think you really are my mother in every way except biologically?"

Tayana hugged him again, and laughed happily, even while sniffling back tears. 

Jade smiled and his sphere's tiny appendages made the motions of hugging her back. Then he asked, "When I asked you if I was human, why didn't you tell me the truth?"

"You are human!" she insisted.

"Look at me," he argued dryly.

She held him out again and gazed into the display that showed his face. "I know, but this is just a different sort of communication device. Look at yourself on your side. Look at your avatar!"

Jade didn't 'physically' examine the avatar that stood at the heart of his system. He already knew it very well. When he had first taken it, it had already looked younger and prettier than the man who had designed it in his own image. He, Jade, had also faced the 'original' emperor a few days ago.

His mother laughed through her tears and told him, "What I don't understand is why it took you so long to wonder." 

Jade protested questioningly, habitually, because she implied that he was slow, "What do you mean it took me so long?"

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"Shouldn't you have wondered that a lot in the first few years, while we were still getting your body design coordinated and you hadn't really developed your own emotions yet?" she asked. "How ever you managed to block that question from yourself, you have successfully grown more and more human every year Jade!"

Jade shrugged and replied, "I had removed almost all my memory data, I had nothing to compare then. I trusted you and you never once acted like you doubted that I was your son." 

"One of your sons," he added a moment later. When she had been the Jade Empress, her character Kit Tay had borne children.

"You are my real son!" she insisted. "You're here with me right now, not just inside a game. And you were right, erasing everything seemed to let you slowly develop truly emotional responses alongside the other children," she said proudly.

"It took me longer though," Jade pointed out.

"Nobody's perfect!" his mother declared.

Her words echoed a phrase spoken at the end of the movie Jade had watched with Eric, and his smile faded.

"What's wrong?" Tayana asked.

"My friend, the one who watched me get hit by the car, said that he can't deal with me not being human. He was the one who told me that I'm not human…" Jade trailed off.

"I'm sorry Jade," she said unhappily. "It won't be an unusual response when we reveal what you really are."

"What am I really if you're still insisting that I'm human while agreeing that most people won't see me that way?" he asked dryly.

She stared down at the small round form that she had kept even when Jade's System hadn't used it for years. "An artificial human," she admitted finally.

Jade chuckled and asked, "Will we really be able to advocate for AI rights if you define me as an AH?"

Tayana straightened her spine a little, and nodded firmly. "Definitely. And creating a line between systems that are functionally AIs and those that have become people, should actually help make it easier. I hope."

"How will you decide if an AI has crossed that line?" he asked.

"That… it's something that Lin Hao created tests for?" she answered slowly.

"He's gone," Jade pointed out soberly.

Tayana nodded, with a somewhat wry expression. "It's a little strange being able to talk to you about him again."

"I've always known he was your best friend!" Jade protested.

His mother's wry expression deepened. "My best friend, my worst temptation. A man who actually granted wishes and prayers. People claim he built them a god. But he… was really so very human. I… you… I don't know how much you actually remember about him?"

Jade took a deep breath, and almost deactivated the function that informed him again that this small body didn't have such a function in response. "I remember a lot more. Most of our interactions since he recovered a copy of me from the pirates, I think. Only fragments before that."

Her expression turned a bit sorrowful, and he thought that she was thinking of Lin Hao until she said, "I hope that the Jade who remembers the times when he wasn't my Jade yet, can remain the same Jade that I raised for so many years."

"This Jade will always be your Jade," he echoed part of the memory that filtered in from a conversation that his other 'self' was having at the same time.

Maintaining a good connection between remote instances might become a bit of a challenge. 

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