We storm down the hallways. We angrily shift boxes. We take showers and headbutt the walls. We scratch our scales in agitation. Our comms towers vibrate with anxiety. Why is Sarah so... stubborn?
She's always been like this, we say to ourselves. We really can't expect her to just believe us immediately.
We know, we say to ourselves, but she doesn't even believe that we're in here! That we care about her!
Our captain's-body rubs our face and pinches the bridge of our nose. We made a mistake. We made so many mistakes. We adjust the frequency of our scanning beacons and scream into the void with frustration and despair.
Maybe we shouldn't have brought in Sarah's vent companions so quickly?
Despair, anguish, fear, no, no, no! We like being ourselves, we're us, damn it, we don't want to be singular! We hug ourselves, the Phrog-body small and bearded, the Starille-body tall and striking, we tackle-hug the Lilly-body, so new from gender therapy that it cant help but sob... we give that body lots of hugs. It helps.
But how else do we prove to Sarah that we are here? Nothing like us has ever existed before. And if we were evil, we muse to ourselves, then we could have just captured the memories of ourselves and used them to impersonate the people we used to be. It isn't like the scenario is impossible. So how do we prove the negative?
We can't prove a negative. But, perhaps we could prove a positive? That we are good, not evil? That's reductive, we say to ourselves. Yes, we know, we say to ourselves, but that's not really the point. Then we have a twenty minute argument within ourselves about the nature of ethics and good and evil and then we point out to ourselves that we've lost track of the dose we were on for James and we have to stop arguing to look it up.
Work resumes. We mope. Some of ourselves play video games, or listen to music. Our chef-bodies work extra hard to prepare Sarah's favorite lunch, but she doesn't show up.
Should we check on her?
No, we say to ourselves, probably not. If she's still mad at us, putting her under surveillance will just prove her point about how evil we are.
But, we say to ourselves, what if she's gotten hurt? Or stuck herself in the vents again?
It's only been a few hours, we say to ourselves. How long should we wait, we yell at ourselves? We think about it.
If she doesn't come to dinner, we'll go looking for her. The normal way, not the creepy hivemind way. What way is that, we ask ourselves?
We sigh, all at once. We don't actually know.
Why was it so much easier before? Once all the shooting stopped in engineering (several of our bodies rub stun-wounds that still sting), we helped the crew get back on their feet. Our Captain-body explained what we were and what we knew, and offered the chance to join us. We talked about how the united the crew already was, how we all loved exploration and the thrill of the unknown. We talked about how we see the crew as a family, a community that cares about each other, helps each other. We told the crew we were a new species under the SFC charter, and it was our duty to explore and understand us. We gave the crew a chance to recover, think, and see us for who we were. Somehow, they were more willing to believe that we were all together in here.
It... probably helped that Sarah had gone missing, we admit to ourselves. And that it was the Captain doing the asking. Well, not just the Captain - we know what we mean, right? Yes, we know. Plus, giving the less-ardent naysayers a week or two to see that the people who joined just continued on with our lives meant that the people who went to go live in the vents started looking a little silly. Especially when we went out of our way to "accidentally" leave supplies near the vents, unguarded. More and more of the crew wanted to join, or at least try it out.
We've been over this. We consented to join us.
But should we have? Nobody's actually left us after joining.
Yes, we say to ourselves, because this is great. We like this.
But we didn't know that before we joined, right? We could very well have been evil with a good PR department.
Stop calling ourselves evil! We aren't evil!
Aren't we, though? That first time, we didn't ask for consent.
We didn't know what we were doing! We didn't know that would happen! We can't expect us to be omniscient!
And now the argument takes all afternoon, mostly, we think, to make us worry less about Sarah. It kind of helps to have something for us to think about that isn't her.
Okay, we interrupt ourselves while we chop vegetables for dinner, but what about Starille, Phrog, and Lilly?
What about them?
Well, why did they join up so quickly? Were we so much more persuasive before they joined us?
We feel bad for a moment, then feel bad for making us feel bad, and then we pat ourselves on the back and say it's okay, we don't have to feel bad, and we feel a little better, but not completely.
Starille was first. She wanted to go to the computer core and shut down that part of us. We think that would have hurt, so we stopped her. Plus, restarting the core would have been a massive pain in the ass, we say to ourselves. Well, we didn't know that at the time, we say to ourselves, we didn't have Starille. True, we say to ourselves. Nevertheless.
So, we stop her from hitting the core, and we stop her from going back into the vents, and we said, "Starille, it's okay, it's us, you know us, please have some food, you look terrible," or something like that, and we think she maybe wasn't as suspicious as Sarah was about us. She said she wanted to look at the core, to see how the computer was doing. She asked us to trust her. We were a little worried, but we did. And then she saw us, in the core, and looked at us, and asked if, maybe, she could try it out, temporarily. She blushed, it was cute, we remember. Then we blush, remembering us blushing. We skritch our hair and hold hands with ourselves for a little while. Then we wonder if we could do something like that for Sarah.
Probably not, we say to ourselves. Starille was able to look at the core and sort of understand us - thanks for that, by the way, we say to ourselves, that really helped us understand more of what's going on within us. No problem, we say, but that's not really the point, because Sarah doesn't have any training with the computer core and it would all look like gibberish to her. Yeah, we say, and even if she did she'd probably think we gimmicked the readouts somehow. We fold our arms and frown.
What about Lilly? Well, we say to ourselves, she kind of got caught on purpose. Living in the vents is not an easy life, and when your personal entertainment stash is full of titles like "I got ridden by the alien hivemind XVII", maybe you feel a little more openminded about it than Sarah is. Hey, we say to ourselves, don't judge us. We would never, we say to ourselves, but then why did she run in the first place? Well, we say to ourselves, shooting is scary. When the guns came out and nobody knew what setting they were on, she thought that getting out of there was a safer bet than staying put.
That's fair, we say to ourselves. But open-mindedness only gets you so far. What did we say to her that really changed her mind? Well, we say to ourselves, after the Captain-body spoke to her, we sent in the Grelik-body. Oh yeah, we say to ourselves, we remember being told there was a "fun" way, and that sounded too good to pass up. And a little too silly to actually work.
Wait, we say to ourselves, so she didn't expect to actually join up with us?
Not initially! We say to ourselves. But partway through, when the cortex interface was crackling, and we could feel our scales against our flesh, and it felt so good... we thought, yes, more of this, we like this. That's consent, right there.
No, it's not!
Well, it worked out for us, didn't it? We run a scaled finger down our spine, and we shiver with pleasure.
But that's a massive violation of ethics! We converted someone who didn't actually expect us to be able to do it!
We were really clear about what would happen! And we could have said no partway through, when we felt what was happening to us!
But that's coercive! We shout at ourselves. Have we coerced every single person on this ship into joining us?
We convinced them, that's not the same thing-
We cut ourselves off. What about Phrog? We remember converting Phrog, right? Surely we just asked Phrog nicely and he said yes?
We shuffle around awkwardly. Well, we say to ourselves, he did say yes...
But? We question ourselves.
Well... he kind of thought he could convince us he was the last unconverted person on the ship if he gave himself up willingly. Brave last stand, kind of thing.
It was very dramatic, we say to ourselves. Downright heroic, even, we say to ourselves. Admirable, we murmer. Of course, then we figured out we didn't mean any harm, so it didn't mean as much, but still!
But that means that Phrog didn't really want to join us! Just because he said "yes" doesn't mean he actually wanted to!
Oh god. Maybe we are evil.
N-no, we can't be evil, we say to ourselves. Being us is so good! We're way less anxious or sad than any of our component parts.
Well, except for today, we say to ourselves. How did we miss this? Aren't we supposed to be super-intelligent now?
Yeah, sure, we say to ourselves, or as dumb as all of the crew put together. What do we do about this?
It's too late to stop us from converting all of the crew, we say to ourselves. I mean, obviously we leave Sarah alone now, unless she wants to join.
We think about her joining. Aaaah! That would be so good, though! She's so smart, and pretty, and a tremendous navigator! We'd have the whole crew together! Well, almost. Poor James. We really hope he recovers soon. That one wasn't our fault, right?
Right. He just fucking jumped into space like a maniac when we tried to signal him using morse code through the hull.
Oh. He probably thought we were trying to convert him without his consent, huh.
Using morse code, though?
Well, it's not like he knew how it worked. And we couldn't tell him, because he was hiding in the vents, because he was terrified of us, and he was fucking right!
Boy, we've really screwed this up. Some fantastic new species we are.
Sarah makes it back to the cafeteria for dinner, and none of us can look her in the eye.
