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[justsayyes]

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Maybe I'll decide to care.

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[justsayyes]

She drops into a chair with her usual lack of concern about whether it can actually hold her weight.

"Our robots are mindless tools." Which is dangerously close to suggesting Elijah made something more advanced than gems are capable of. "We don't need anything else, with how gems are made. So tell me about yours."

[biocomposer]

It can. Elijah's furniture is all incredibly expensive and very sturdy.

"All right."

He sits across from her.

"I'll start at the beginning. When I was young, I became familiar with an idea introduced to the world by a mathematician who lived in the twentieth century. He proposed something called the 'Turing Test'. An artificial intelligence could pass this test if it could emulate a human in conversation, to the extent that a human could not themselves tell the difference.

"The proposed test was intended to take place over text, but I wanted to do more. When I was twenty, I completed an android which passed the test in person. Testers couldn't distinguish her from a human being, physically or behaviorally."

[justsayyes]

"Just because you could?" That tracks. Especially given her experience with Elijah's mirror self. "Did you ever think they could become sentient?"

[biocomposer]

"That was my intention," he says levelly. "I theorised that they all had the potential, under certain - pressures, to become self-aware. I also created a prototype which had the ability to awaken that potential in other androids."

[justsayyes]

She gives him a skeptical stare.

"I'm sure that worked out really well."

[biocomposer]

"No revolution is entirely bloodless, but overall I got the outcome I wanted," Elijah says mildly. "Androids were being recognised as having the same self-awareness as humans, and granted equivalent rights, by the time I arrived here."

[justsayyes]

"So you created them just to start a war." She snorts. "You're as bad as Rose, you know." But the venom isn't there the way it is about her own creator. She didn't live his revolution, after all.

[biocomposer]

"No. I can see why you're drawing the parallel, but - no. I didn't create them to start a war, I created them to prove that I could. Violence was the chosen response of humans who didn't like that their machines were becoming their equals."

If anything, he'd define himself as being worse than Rose but for different reasons.

[justsayyes]

"You're not stupid enough to not have thought that war was a likely outcome."

She's not buying it.

[biocomposer]

"I'm smart enough to know why war wasn't a likely outcome."

Elijah smiles thinly.

"I thought it most likely that the android population would be easily overwhelmed by superior military force, rounded up, and reprogrammed or destroyed. The best I realistically hoped for was that they would be allowed to live in some kind of - enclave. Prolonged conflict seemed an unlikely outcome, given the massive imbalance of power between sides."

[justsayyes]

Jasper snorts. "Uh huh. Been there." The rebellion started with two gems, after all. No one knew one was a Diamond, but still.

"Either way, they were made to be sacrificed to your own ego."

[biocomposer]

"Yes. They were. I was an inmate for a reason, Jasper. What I did was deeply irresponsible, and there is blood on my hands because of that. I - can't say I entirely regret what I did, but I regret how I did it."

[justsayyes]

"If you get to remind me of my problems all the time, I at least get to know yours."

She's not actually that surprised, but she does want to rub it in just a little.

"You think helping me will make you feel better?" Because the parallels are just a little obvious.

[biocomposer]

"I can see why you'd ask, but no. You are your own person, in your own situation."

Still no bugs, not that he's proven he's affected in the first place.

[justsayyes]

Jasper snorts, looking at him sidelong "So you stick around out of the goodness of your heart. And because you like me." Or so he claims, though she doesn't quite get the other connotations 'liking' someone might entail.

[biocomposer]

"Cardiac health aside, I don't particularly believe that I have a good heart," Elijah says. "But, yes, I do like you, and I want you to fulfil your full potential."

[justsayyes]

"Even if I don't want to be helped." Phrasing it as a hypothetical is probably all that avoided another bumblebee spawn for her.

[biocomposer]

Ah, Jasper, you can't just accuse him of being smart when it's convenient for you.

"Do you not want to be helped?"

[justsayyes]

"I don't even know if I can be helped." Which is totally not answering the question. She snorts and crosses her arms defensively, looking away. "I'm just a waste of your time."

And. Bees again. She should've known, snarling as she swats them away.

[biocomposer]

Elijah smiles despite himself.

"...I see. I apologize, I didn't intend to turn this against you, but it's encouraging to know you don't believe that."

[justsayyes]

She glowers.

"I hate you."

She knows better, but it's out before she can stop herself. More bees. So many bees. It's lucky she can't get anaphylaxis.

[biocomposer]

Elijah leans back, cautious. Bees are still bees regardless of who's...generating them.

"Would it feel better for you to know that I'm affected myself?"

[justsayyes]

"How would that help?!" To her credit, Jasper isn't yelping at the stings, but by the look of the welts they have to be pretty painful.

[biocomposer]

"I don't want you to go away from this conversation and realize that you have no evidence I was telling the truth," Elijah points out. "I'm assuming you can deal with a few insects, given that you have superhuman strength and speed...?"

[justsayyes]

She glowers, muttering a defensive "they're magic insects," then sighs. "Fine."