Landvermessungs-/Schiff-Techniker Replika 512 is good at her job.
The Penrose-512 is in excellent condition. Nearly 700 cycles have passed since their launch, with minimal incident.
She inspects her storage unit. The mainframe access terminal. The reactor. The flight controls. The cryogenics unit.
All are in order. She is good at her job.
She relays this to her gestalt officer, and-
"Oh, Elster? Would you sit for a bit?"
She freezes in the doorway. Her duties are fulfilled, she can go back to her unit and sleep until the next cycle, when she will run through all her checks again.
"Of course, Officer Yeong."
Officer Yeong began speaking with her outside of the mission parameters, some fifty cycles ago.
She is not good at speaking with Officer Yeong outside the mission parameters.
"Just Ariane is fine." She says as she pats the chair next to her. "I'm having trouble picking a movie to watch, could you pick?"
"...Sure." LSTR-512 says, taking the offered seat. Officer Yeong has selected three tapes, and she points to the second without examining them.
"Ooh, good choice." Officer Yeong says, getting up to insert the tape. The replika tries to quietly dismiss herself, before-
"You aren't staying?" Officer Yeong asks, pouting slightly.
"I-"
"Don't you want to see if we like what you picked?"
'We', the gestalt asks, as if she watches movies. As if she hadn't picked randomly.
But she sits back down.
Forty minutes later Officer Yeong pauses the movie to make a cup of tea. This takes her six minutes, ample time for LSTR-512 to return to her unit and sleep for the cycle.
"Good, you're still here." She says, when she returns with her tea. "I was worried you weren't enjoying the movie."
"It's fine." LSTR-512 says, and Officer Yeong quirks her lips just slightly.
"Yeah?" She asks, a certain hint of amusement in her tone, and LSTR-512 isn't sure what's so amusing about a movie just being fine.
"Yes?" She responds, and Officer Yeong silently unpauses the movie, but she keeps looking at her out of the corner of her eye and smiling that tiny amused smile.
She takes a sip of her tea, and when she places it down and sets her hand on the table she lets it just barely overlap with LSTR-512's. Just the slightest brush of fingers, pleasantly warm from the teacup.
"Would you like to watch another, once this one is over?"
She nods rapidly, oxidant blood rushing to her cheeks.
Officer Yeong's hand doesn't move for the rest of the movie.
"What kind of movies do you like, Elster?" Officer Yeong asks, poring over boxes of tapes.
LSTR-512 has no idea what kind of movies she likes, because this will be the second movie she has ever seen, but the shadow of a memory that isn't hers tells her that-
"I like horror movies."
"Really?" Officer Yeong asks her, eyes gleaming. "I do too, but it's so hard to find any good ones, let me see..."
It takes ten minutes for the gestalt to find a horror movie she deems acceptable, and another twelve after that for LSTR-512 to discover that she does not like horror movies, and she doesn't know why she said that she did.
Seven minutes after that she jumps at a scare and reflexively cowers into Officer Yeong, who holds her and strokes her hair and makes that scrap of a memory go we're supposed to be on the other end of this, but close enough.
"Relax, I've got you." She murmurs into her, and LSTR-512 bristles because she isn't supposed to feel this way or watch movies or have phantom memories that make her think she can flirt when she can't.
She is supposed to go through her checklist, report her findings, and go to sleep.
Persona degradation at this early stage of the mission would be catastrophic.
"Do you want me to shut it off?" Officer Yeong asks, and LSTR-512 peeks at the screen and quickly hides in her embrace again.
"N-No." She says, and Officer Yeong scoffs.
"Feels like you might want me to shut it off, Elster."
"No!" She insists. "You're enjoying it, I can tough it out."
"I can finish the movie on my own, if you want."
"No!" She insists again. She would rather be afraid in Off- In Ariane's arms than calm and alone. "Just... Just keep holding me."
"Sure." Ariane says.
She keeps holding her long after the movie ends.