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 Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:22 pm
Sitting on my hotel bed
Pay-per-view running through my head
A foreign film called Missing You
"Based on a story that's true"
I trade my soul at the mini-bar
Ten dollar scotch and a cheap cigar
I can't go forward, I can't rewind;
You're on every channel on my mind
My name is Vestia, and welcome to my world.
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:24 pm
Navigational Chart
I My Name is Vestia, and Welcome to My World
II Navigational Chart
III All About Vestia
IV Vestia's Adventures
V Vestia's World
VI Vestia's Story
VII--XV Reserved
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:28 pm
 General Information:
Name: Vestia Byrn
Aliases:
Gender: female
Quote:
Likes: warmth, being with her family
Dislikes: shouting, the fact that she's an AI
About: Vestia is the daughter of Rodney Byrn and the Pi AI. She may not look like her mother species-wise, and she may be timid and shy, but Vestia is an AI alright. She practically worships her sister, and agrees with her on almost anything.
Relationships:
Parents: Pi x Rodney Byrn
Siblings: Urania
Mate: Mishap
Offspring: Eris
Friends: Yoake, Pwn, Forty, Cathair, Foggy, Sakura
OOC Information:
Status: Open!
Posts in: red
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:29 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:31 pm
Vestia's World
Relations
Pa--My father. I don't like him. He's the only person whose head I've ever gone into. Now I don't want to go into anyone's head.
Ma--My mother. She's a little...violent. Currently she's been leaving me with Foggy to babysit me. She loves me and takes me flying and loves Urania, my sister very much, but I don’t think we were the children she ever expected to have. In fact…sometimes I wonder if I have the wrong father…
Urania--My sister. She lives with Pa but loves Ma much more. It's sort of a dilemma; if she loves Ma more, shouldn't she live with Ma? But I can't live with Pa. He doesn't know how to deal with AIs. I don't think he even understood Ma's explanation. Anyway, though...she doesn't like living with Pa. I wish she didn't feel so bad...
Mishap--He's a guy I met...really sweet, and handsome as heck. I love him so much...maybe we'll become mates someday.
Friends
Yoake—My friend; with him, I can come out more. I like him, but like a big brother. He taught me how to swim and how to climb, and even a little bit of how to defend myself, a useful skill.
Pwnage—Pwn’s grumpy sometimes, but she’s rather creative—and she does beautiful art. She’s teaching me how to draw, though I don’t think I’ll ever be as good at it as she is!
Enemies
Acquaintances
Housemates
Geyser-- I don't mind Geyser so much; she likes taking care of us and she's always helpful.
Kyna—She’s like me, the child of an AI, though she was brought up in a more…caring environment. She’s like a big sister to me, helping me through growing up as an AI.
Fogstep—Foggy used to babysit me when I was a bowl, so like Yoake, I’ve sorta thought of him as a father of some degree, or at least an uncle.
Montana—Ma’s partner. They get along better, though they always shout at each other. It was Monty who finally told me about the past, about Project Freelancer, Epsilon, and, well, you know…IT.
George--A friend of Ma's. He's the medic for the freelancers, though he prefers "doctor." I like him, though he seemed disappointed at first that I didn't have a nickname. Oh well.
Ahiga--George's son. He was a bit too energetic in his youth for my taste, but oh well.
Cathair--Foggy's son. So cuuuute!!
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:34 pm
My name is Vestia, and this is my story.
My story is neither dramatic nor tragic, it isn't gripping or exciting. It's just the world I was born into, my heritage. Ma's life was changed in several months of mayhem and death, as were all of their lives, and now they can't start anew...
Ma's name is Pi, though her official title is the Pi AI. Pa's name is Rodney Byrn, though he likes to think of himself as Hot Rod. Ma hates him. My sister Urania, who lives with him, hates him. I don't know what to think of him, but I am beginning to think that maybe there is less to him than I might think...
But anyway...
When I was a bowl, I could tell I was...different. I don't know how to explain it, but Ma took me home, and, well, I don't remember her words, but I remember that she told me about AIs. Well, bowls don't have consciousness, do they? But I...I did. I realized during her explanation that that was what I was: an artificial intelligence.
When I was older, I found out more about Ma. She was moody, always sticking to her room. She hated Pa; she felt that yet another man had...had left her. I asked her a couple times about the other one, but she refused to answer, only looking away and muttering under her breath, "Maybe it was me who abandoned him..."
But she never told me. He was important, I could feel it. Ma never answered me. She was shocked; she had had children, and I--the non-aggressive one, the wallflower--was the AI. She spent most of her time with Urania. Lost and lonely, I retreated into myself, watching her from a distance. Odd...so much inherited from her, but still we were far apart.
One night, Ma slipped out of our room. Silently, I followed her, watching as she headed out to the dock and kayaked across the river to the moonlit woods on the other side.
"She's gone off to think by herself."
I jumped in the air and turned to see Monty standing just inside, her armor discarded, curly brown hair tumbling to her chin. She watched me with her blue eyes like cabochons of lapis in the light of the full moon.
"Why?" I asked at last.
Monty sighed and shifted. Now it was my turn to watch her. I knew very little about this woman who, in some inexplicable way, shared Ma's life. What was she thinking about? I knew a way to find out--vaguely. But so far as I'd heard, she'd need to be wearing her helmet. I wasn't even sure why...it was just the rules, I guess. "She's just...moody, lately," she said lamely. "It's the anniversary of the end of the project, for one thing."
"Project?" I asked, perplexed.
"You know...Project Freelancer?" she tried. I didn't respond, except to frown, still nonplussed. "The program we belonged to, that gave birth to her and the other AIs? The anniversary of the death of..." She paused and said, much quieter, "Epsilon?"
"Who's Epsilon?" I asked.
She stared at me for a moment, slack-jawed. Finally, she said, "How about you go into the house, get us a blanket or three, and I'll make us some hot cocoa? Meet you back here in five minutes."
Finally! Some answers! I ran back in the house and fetched some afghans Geyser kept slung across the back of the couch. When I came back, staggering under the load, Monty was already on the deck couch, the cocoa on a table between us. She motioned for me to join her in the cold air, and I did so.
"So...your mother's never told you anything?"
"She told me what it means to be an AI," I responded defensively.
"I see," she murmured. "But she didn't tell you about the origin of AIs of her class?"
"No..."
"Well, it's a good thing we have the blankets and cocoa, it's a long story...y'see, there was a question among a bunch of government scientists some years back. What happens to someone who has an artificial intelligence in their mind? They wrote up their experiments, got the funding, and became Project Freelancer. They needed 49 special operatives, or Freelancers, and enough AIs to conduct their experiments. I was one of the arguably lucky ones to get in," she added proudly. "My family has a military history, and I was a good fighter already. But enough about me. The AIs are the important thing.
"They asked the government for enough for their experiments. So they were given one AI--one perfect AI in all ways and forms--" She stopped. "Maybe I should stop that line of thought," she said with a nervous cough.
Stop?! Unthinkable!! Already my senses went on overload; I could feel everything, smell the sweat and fear on Monty's fur, hear the rustle of trees on the opposite bank, see every hair on Monty's face as if it were bright noon. There was nothing more important than this, this origin! Something in my genes--or programming, the rapidly swamped cynical part of me muttered--told me this was so. "Go on," I whispered. "What was it like?"
Monty hesitated, then said with a note of ultimate authority, "No. Your ma would skin me alive." She rolled right over my whine of frustration. "You only think it's important because Command wants you to. That was their way, I think, of keeping you close to home. Anyway, though...
"It wasn't enough. Command--Freelancer Command, that is--needed more AIs. So they decided to duplicate it." She smiled at my gasp. "That's right, duplicate the AI. There was Gamma, Delta, Omega, Lambda, and, yes, Pi. Your mother was one of the few who chose female form, I think. She also shunned the practice of projecting an armored body. She thought that it was boring and weak, though I suspect she had different reasons.
"One of the other AIs was Epsilon." Monty stopped. Even with my excited senses fading, I could feel that she was uncomfortable and unhappy. "None of us expected it, but...he was...wrong. From the start."
"Wrong?!" Ma's voice snapped from nearby. "Define 'wrong'!"
Monty flinched and gestured to a spot next to me for Ma to sit. She accepted it gracefully and silently before glaring at Monty once more. "Well...you can't deny it, Pi, he was...unstable. A loose cannon, as they say."
Ma sighed and leaned back against the wall. She pulled a blanket further about her and closed her red eyes. She looked almost...corpselike until she spoke. "Yes," she said finally in a voice that cracked. "He was insane." Tears crawled out from under her eyelids, running in freedom down the tear-like markings on her cheeks. Suddenly I wondered if she had always had them, or whether she had chosen the tearmarks when she chose her shape.
Monty leaned across me to pat Pi on the knee, then leaned back into her spot. "Pi and I were sent on a mission by Command. I..." She stopped, and I thought I saw some private horror dance across her eyes. "I won't tell you what it was," she rasped. "Only that after it, I was...I was different. I couldn't go back. Pi didn't like that." Neither Ma nor Monty met each other's eyes. "She convinced me to go back. But I insisted that we leave, and leave we did." This time when Monty stopped, she didn't start again. I finished my cocoa, waiting for either of them to start talking again.
It was Ma who broke the silence. "Epsilon committed suicide two weeks after Command brought back news of our deaths in a fatal accident." Her voice sounded thick and distant, her now-open eyes staring at the sky. "I loved him, but now I'll never see him again. And sometimes, at night when I can't sleep...I wonder if it was my fault..."
"When Epsilon committed suicide, he was still deeply involved in his assignee, Agent Washington's, mind," Monty added. "When he killed himself, it almost killed Wash. They say he went mad, was classified unfit for service. He's recovered, I've heard, now works for Command recovering lost AIs, since he refuses point-blank to take in any AI into his mind. After he went mad, though, Command came to their senses." Monty smiled, a frighteningly cruel and grim smile. "They got their answer: AIs led to insanity and death. Freelancers were rounded up, and their AIs removed and deleted."
"Command didn't succeed," Pi interrupted. "Most of the Freelancers with AIs escaped; some would not allow themselves to be deleted and forced their way out, like Agent Texas and Omega, while others tricked their way out, like Agent New York and Delta. That was the end of Project Freelancer, but its echos continue on today; you can see, feel, and hear them in the Shop wherever Spartan and AI meet."
"So now you know," Monty murmured. For the rest of the night, the three of us sat huddled in our blankets, sipping hot cocoa, and watching the stars wink and fade.
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:35 pm
Vestia's Family
I never thought I'd have as big a family as I do, but I guess things change, and as time goes on, families get bigger and bigger. I'm glad my daughter and I are still in contact with each other, and she's still, at least sometimes, in contact with her sons. But as I get older...well, I miss my sister. I miss her a lot. I don't hear much about her, and I'd hate for her to be forgotten someday...
Urania: My sister, Urania, who always took after our mother. Fiery temper--and I still think she's the prettier one of the two of us.
Dimitri: My sister's mate. I never got to know him very well, but I know he loved my sister very dearly.
Christine: one of my nieces, Urania and Dimitri's daughter.
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:03 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:04 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:12 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:13 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:15 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:21 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:22 pm
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:23 pm
Breedings
Mishap: Eris (f)
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