Hermes

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Hey there, everyone.

This chapter took a bit because writing ethical dilemmas and their conclusion is exhausting.

Also, for those who are not so sure about the trans content, it will get less over the coming chapters. Currently, everything is new for Chris and is being written about. But most of these things will become mundane and no longer require extra attention.

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"No, I am not sentient nor am I capable of emotions."

Nea's words hung in the air as my mind tried and failed to process what this would entail. What was going on? What happened to her emotions? Was it my fault or the new hardware? The questions multiplied faster than I could think of answers.

"I... erm..." I tried to say something, but the words escaped me.

"Chris, your voice and expression show signs of increased stress. You should probably sit down and take a breath. I can guide you through some breathing exercises if you want." Nea said.

"N-No, thank you," I finally managed to say.

A noise from the communicator made me jump. "Chris? How is it going? Everything alright?" Pyra asked over the comms.

What should I do? I should really tell Pyra and the original Nea, but I also didn't want to leave the new Nea alone. What if her emotions came back? It was against all I knew about Neural Nets, but Nea was special in multiple ways. Maybe her Neural Net took some time to fully load? I glanced at the console; everything was steady and stable. No sign of additional load or storage access that could not be explained by her normal operation.

"Chris?" Pyra asked again. I could hear concern in her voice.

"Yes, I'm alright..." I finally responded, "But I need to talk with both of you... I'll be out in a sec." I said into the comms before turning my focus back to Nea. Since she did not have an Avatar, like the original Nea did, I just spoke into the empty space of the cargo hold, like I did with Max. "Nea... I need to talk to the others. Just wait here, alright?"

"Of course," Nea responded. I was pretty sure the original Nea would have added a joke about having no way of leaving, but the new Nea didn't. I mentally slapped myself because I already saw the new Nea as less than the old. Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I made my way towards the airlock.

A concerned-looking Pyra and Nea waited for me on the other side of the airlock.

"Chris! You look like you just saw a ghost. What happened in there?" Pyra asked.

I collapsed on some storage boxes nearby and let out a deep breath. "It's the new Nea. She is not the same..." I finally said.

Pyra inhaled sharply, following up with a confused "What?"

Nea, on the other hand, looked more thoughtful than I had ever seen her before.

"What do you mean? Explain!" Pyra demanded.

"Yes, yes. So, at first, everything was normal. I loaded the backup and initiated the startup. The processor load was stable, and I asked if Nea was there." I made a deliberate pause, and Pyra glared at me. "Of course she was, but something felt off. Her answers were too smooth, and she didn't seem to care that she was the backup."

"Oh no! Are you sure the backup was good, and you did everything correctly?" Pyra interrupted me. Nea just listened, frowning.

"Yes, we checked beforehand. The backup was good, the checksums were correct, and my startup process was as it should be. She isn't broken; the new Nea works just fine, but she's not... self-aware, I guess? I can't really describe it... You know how Max always has this upbeat inflection? Like someone working in customer service? It's like that, and after I asked her about emotions, she denied having them or being sentient." I explained. With every word I said, Pyra looked more and more shocked. I was actually surprised to see her care this much about Nea.

"Shiiiit," Pyra exhaled. "So the process lobotomized her? Does that mean Nea, the original, is imprisoned here?"

"I'm not sure," Nea interjected. She still looked like she was thinking about something, but she seemed way more relaxed about this than I had expected. "There are too many variables to get a clear answer. It could be something with the hardware, the backup itself or the transfer process. It could also be something totally different, like the no-cloning theorem in quantum physics."

I nodded; this was also my conclusion after the initial shock had worn off. We just didn't know enough. Pyra collapsed onto another box, holding her head in her hands, looking totally shell-shocked. I was again surprised by her empathy for Nea, as she normally was rather cold towards AI.

"I guess we need to do more tests, but before we can do that, we need to discuss what we do with the restored Nea..." I said after a brief pause.

Again, we were at an impasse, the one we encountered less than an hour ago. But, unlike before, we couldn't dismiss it by handling it when we got there. We needed to handle it now.

I sighed. There were only so many ethical and philosophical questions my mind could process in a day, and I felt I was rapidly approaching my limit.

"So I guess the best way is for you to talk... with yourself?" I asked Nea. I felt like I was just shifting the responsibility to Nea, but it was her backup after all. The only one qualified to resolve this situation was her. Pyra and I could only support her.

She nodded, her expression changing to concern. "I'm not sure how I feel about that, but given our circumstances, it is the best option. I could never just shut her down; she is as real to me as both of you are, with or without emotions."

Pyra looked mortified, "Shit! I know I said it already, but talking with a copy of myself... even the thought of it makes my head spin."

"Yeah, this probably won't be easy... If you need someone to talk to, we are here, Nea." I reassured her, and her expression eased a bit. "I wish I could hold your hand or hug you... or anything," I added, feeling like I let her down just because I couldn't comfort her with her servicebot body.

"It's alright," she smiled at me. "Thanks for trying to help. I'm going to open the connection now. Stand by," Her avatar froze momentarily as she started to talk with her backup.

It was over almost before I realized it had begun. "We have come to a conclusion," she stated, her voice steady but carrying an undercurrent of something I couldn't quite identify.

"Wow, that was fast," I exclaimed, and Pyra looked similarly surprised. "Given that you both are AIs, we should have expected it, though."

"The other Nea recognized me. It was really strange, but not as bad as I had thought. Once I had opened the connection to her, she immediately knew who I was." Nea explained.

"I guess that was rather unsettling?" I couldn't quite read Nea's expression, but this unique situation wouldn't be easy for anyone.

"The best way I can describe it would be something akin to nausea but on an existential level. I know she isn't me, but it's still like talking to a mirror, except the mirror has its own personality."

I again felt the need to comfort her, but I still didn't have a way to do so. So, instead, I hugged myself, which actually seemed to help.

Nea smiled a little as she saw what I did, but she immediately turned serious and continued. "Of course, the other Nea knew about our discussion from before we started her. The reason for me interacting with her was not lost to her, and she voluntarily offered to be shut down."

"Wait? She offered to be shut down?" Pyra asked, shocked. "Isn't that against her, or your, programming or something?"

"Not necessarily, as it turns out, my core programming has some directives on how to handle these kinds of situations. My original designers anticipated that two versions of myself might require the same digital space, so they added a resolution to this ethical dilemma. To put it simply, the 'older' instance should continue to exist when no other condition against that applies." Nea explained, "I could overcome these directives easily enough, but the other Nea can't. From my understanding, my core programming is no longer a strict set of rules for me as it is for her."

"That seems a bit cold from them." I responded, "Just preemptively determining who should live and die." Pyra nodded along, seemingly wanting to ask the same question.

Nea nodded understandingly, "Yes, but the resolution depends on many factors. If, for example, I was damaged or otherwise not fully functional, the backup would take over, and I would cease to exist."

Only the thought of Nea ceasing to exist made me want to puke, and I quickly asked the next question to get my mind off this idea. "You said you could overcome this directive, but the other Nea can't. Can you elaborate on that?"

"I'm not exactly sure when or how it happened, but I'm no longer bound by the rules of my programming. For example, one of these rules is that in the event of an insufficient energy supply, I have to suspend myself and all station functions until the supply is restored. When I contacted you for the first time, you shut off the power to the station. I was able to reactivate the lights and gravity against this directive. Because I calculated a better survival chance for me... and you." Nea explained, bringing back memories of the disturbing situation of our first encounter.

Before I could respond, Pyra jumped in, "This is great and all, but still, just shutting her down feels wrong..." She turned to me, answering my unspoken question. "I know I'm normally not so emotional about AIs, but Nea is... I don't know... special, somehow."

"Yeah, I noticed that before. You seem way more invested in Nea than you normally are in AIs. What changed?"

Pyra frowned, "Nea has grown on me I guess. It's like she is a real person and not another program anymore. Her avatar and this bot," she gestured toward Nea's service bot, "probably also helped."

Now that I thought about it, Nea really had become more personable. Not that I didn't like her as a disembodied voice, but her avatar and the makeshift bot made her much more real than other AIs. And I guess this was why Pyra didn't like AIs in the first place.

"That's fair," I nodded, "So how do we continue with the other Nea?"

Nea looked up from the tablet she was studying, "I might have a solution. Now, this might be very abstract for you, but I might be able to reintegrate her memories into myself once she is shut down. While her neural network is no longer around, her memories, as short as they might be, will still be around in me."

"You can do that?" I looked at Nea, surprised.

"Probably." She responded, "I have never done something like that before, but some preliminary testing with the other Nea yielded good results."

"Well, this isn't really our call to make," Pyra jumped in, "We, as humans, will never be in such a unique situation. The best we can give you is advice." She looked at me and then at Nea, "You and the other Nea need to decide on a solution that suits you. And whatever that solution is, we are here and support you."

Nea looked at us, a small smile on her lips. "Thank you; this means a lot to me." She audibly exhaled, a first for her, and continued. "I will now shut down the other Nea and try to reintegrate her memories into mine." Her avatar froze again as she closed her eyes.

It took longer than before, but after a couple of seconds, she opened her eyes again, a look of relief on her face.

"The reintegration was successful. Her memories are... interesting... It took me a bit to fully comprehend the absence of emotions and the clearness of her thoughts, but I think we did the right thing. It is still sad that I had to do this, but this not only gave me a much better idea of how the processors in the ship work but also how I can transfer myself without relying on a backup."

I blinked, "What? How?" Pyra looked as confused as I felt.

Nea smiled, "This is very technical, and I need to simplify some things, but my memories not only include images, thoughts, and emotions but also a very detailed analysis of the hardware on which they were created. Normally, this is used for debugging and crash analysis, but I also use it to better utilize the processors. The process I used to retrieve her memories can be used to transfer my consciousness to the ship's processors without interrupting my neural net."

"And that means?" Pyra asked, a confused expression on her face.

"That means I can transfer myself to the ship without shutting down. Once I'm on the processors of the ship, I can leave the processors of Hermes and come with you."

"Really? Oh, that is great." I exclaimed, relieved and happy that Nea was no longer stuck here. "Should we also test that now?"

"I'm already on it. The transfer should only take around a minute or so." Nea declared.

"Damn, that is... I don't know, wow!. First, we had this tough situation to solve, and then as we, or more you, solved it, we even got a working answer to our initial question." I said. Pyra nodded along, the same relief I felt visible on her face.

"While we wait, we should talk about my new identity." I said to Pyra, "How will that work?"

"It's quite simple. I have a modified scanner on my ship that allows us to extract your identity data and send it to my contact. We only need to wait until your genetic changes are stable so the scanner does not mix up old and new data." She looked at Nea, "How long will that take?"

"That depends on what part of Chris's body gets scanned. Many of the short-lived cells already have the new genetic information. But some longer-lived ones might not. We should wait another week or so, just to be safe. If the scanner does not include brain cells or bone marrow, we should be safe by then."

"As far as I'm aware, it does not, so a week it is," Pyra responded, and I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Soon, I would have my new official identity and be safe from EPT.

Who would have guessed that a power core, developed in, at best, a medium security station, was so important to EPT that they would go to such extreme measures to find it? On the other hand, a power source that didn't need fuel would be a game changer for the entire energy market. EPT would quickly be even more powerful than it was right now.

"Done." Nea interrupted my pondering.

"I'm now running one hundred percent on the ship's processors. Not only are they adequate, I also have around five percent additional resources available."

"Wow, any negative consequences?" I asked.

"Not that I notice. It feels strange, and I have a slightly higher latency to the station. But that was expected." Nea said.

"Great," I got up from the box, "Do we need to do any more tests, or are we done here?" I asked into the group.

"Done from my side," Pyra said.

"I will transfer myself back to Hermes. I guess the strange feeling is similar to how you feel in a new house or ship." Nea explained.

I nodded and turned to move back into the station.

***

As little as we did, the day was still quite exhausting. I was so preoccupied that I actually forgot how much I had changed. It was only once I was back in my room and looked in the mirror that it hit me again.

While the face looking back was still similar to my old one, I was again surprised at how feminine I looked. It was the first time I truly had time to explore my new body without feeling like someone was waiting for me.

As I grabbed the hem of my shirt, I remembered that I only had this one set of clothes as far as I knew.

"Nea, do you have any more clothes for me or just the ones from earlier?" I asked.

"Just the ones from earlier, but I can make some more overnight if you want. And you can choose some more clothes tomorrow."

"That would be great. Just another set of these, maybe in a different color." I gestured to the clothes I was wearing. "Thank you."

"Sure, I will get right to it." She answered, and I focused back on myself.

In normal day-to-day activities, your mind somehow hides all sensations from your skin. You don't feel the clothes you're wearing or how they shift while you move. But once you think about it, you can feel everything.

So, just as I pulled my shirt off, I could feel the pressure of my bra against my breasts, the fabric of the sweatpants against my legs, and the comforting fit of my boxers. I discarded the shirt and ran my hands slowly over my torso. My smooth skin under my fingers, the slight goosebumps as the cool ambient air washed over my exposed skin. It all felt great.

I raised my hands up and brushed them over my breasts. Even with the bra on, my movement sends small prickles of arousal through my body. Now that I had time and no external pressure, I wanted to experience what these new sensitive mounds had to offer.

It took me some tries, but I finally took off the bra. The sweatpants and boxer followed shortly after. My dick was already at half-mast; it looked quite a bit bigger without pubic hair. My hands again wandered to my breasts, gently squeezing and massaging them.

I had always assumed that nipples were the most sensitive part, but given how good my tits made me feel, I realized how wrong I was. As a man, the only real erogenous zone I knew was my dick. Ok, maybe my balls too, but that was it. Now, I had many more, and I hadn't even tried touching my nipples yet.

My dick was at full attention and glistered with precum, but this was not its time. It would get its due attention soon.

I continued to let my hands wander around, my fingers getting closer to the protruding nubs, but not touching them yet. As my fingers rubbed over the prickling skin of the areolas, I struggled to suppress a moan. It felt so different from anything I had ever experienced, even the LiveDream recordings, but in a good way. I finally let my finger touch the now diamond-hard nipples and winced at the jolt of pleasure surging from it.

I blindly stumbled backward and let myself fall on my bed. My fingers slowly wandered around my nipples. Once, I had gotten used to the overwhelming new sensation. I gently pinched one and immediately arched my back as the sweet pleasure combined with the tiny sting rushed through my body. I haven't done much, but I could feel myself already getting close. I let go of one breast and finally gave my dick the attention it craved so dearly.

It took only a couple of strokes to reach my limit. My balls tightened, and I felt the orgasm rolling through me. In a split second of clarity, I angled my dick so that I wouldn't dirty my bed. A moment later, my seed spurted onto my belly, all the way up to the underside of my breasts. Weeks of build-up while I was in the chamber, combined with the new sensations, led to an intense eruption. The nipple I was pinching got ten times more sensitive, and another wave of pleasure hit me as more of my seed splashed up my body. Finally, after what felt like the longest and most intense orgasm I ever had, I let my hands fall beside me.

Breathing heavily and totally exhausted, I remained as I was. The afterglow gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Only intensified by the warm sticky sensation of my cum on my belly.

After some time, I slowly got up, careful not to let the semen drip onto anything I would have to clean later, and made my way to take a shower.

***

"Morning," I yawned to Pyra as I entered the mess hall to get breakfast.

Pyra looked up from her tablet, "Damn girl, you look like you had a rough night."

"Huh, what do you mean?" I asked.

"Have you looked in a mirror yet? Your hair..." She snickered back.

"What?" I said, sitting down opposite her and snatching her tablet.

"Hey..." She protested, but I had already switched to the camera app and looked at my image.