I8: There's a party in my toolbox and Science is invited!

[Veronica Freud]

With Summer well under way many students had gone home to relax or make enough money to return to the university. The campus was quieter and less crowded and so too were the workshops. Which suited the four-inch-tall clone just fine. Almost from the beginning she had become a recluse. The specialized housing arrangement the university had provided was empty and undisturbed. With the exception of obtaining food or seeing to other biological needs she very seldom ever left the workshop, especially not her little station. She seldom talked to anyone in person though there were a few she spoke with online, mostly through instant messengers and those people had no idea as to her true self.

For the moment her major project, the mechanical suit she'd been working on, stood to the side and was covered in a tarp. It had taken quite some time but with many of the components being pre-assembled from salvage and the less-than-cutting-edge scope of the build it had been a lot faster than building some new ground-breaking piece and manufacturing all of the parts herself. Still, the project was at a standstill. The build could go no further without a brain.

Currently, her little tush and legs were hanging out of a large (to her) clear oval-shaped vessel. Tiny hoses and masses of cables ran from it's back and bottom where it was bolted to a large piece of equipment. Curved mechanical arms stood outright, designed to snap in place around the egg-like vessel, various tiny devices lining their lengths.

"I know you're desperate, I really sympathize. I see the morbid horror flicker in your eyes. But rest assured I'm gonna help to ease your pain. I'm gonna put a thousand tiny implants in your brain..."

[ASHLIE]

With not really anything in particular to do ASHLIE had taken to wandering in a fixed path across campus, which took a while with all the rooms and nooks and crannies, even with few people to bump into. By the time it made her round back to the workshops Ronnie seems to have set up shop again and the robot stops, curiously listening to the little woman singing and working on a translucent egg.

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie continued to sing softly before standing up and brushing her hands together. She was dressed in a pair of tiny orange overalls, tied off at the waist to expose her white tank top. There were smudges of oil and grease lining her arms and her cheeks, her dirty hands rubbed against the legs of her pants and leaving dark smears. She had been so engrossed in her work that she hadn't noticed ASHLIE's arrival, letting out a yelp when she saw the massive robotic form.

"Augh! Ugh, sorry. You scared me."

[ASHLIE]

"That wasn't my intention. I did not want to interrupt your work but I was..." There's a slight pause caused by calculating. "...curious."

[Veronica Freud]

"It's alright." Ronnie said, her hand to her chest. "I know you didn't mean to."

She actually looked a little happy about the admission of curiosity, but her expression got a little serious.

"Um, you know, I never really did apologize for how I treated you. When we first met."

[ASHLIE]

"I threatened to repossess your project." it states, not really seeming upset one way or the other. And how would it anyway with it's static face.

[Veronica Freud]

"Well... yeah." Ronnie admitted, rubbing her arm. "But I treated you like an object and not an intelligence. And even if there was that risk it wasn't right for me to do. You've learned and grown and... I guess I just feel I should say I'm sorry for being mean to you."

[ASHLIE]

There's a short whir of who knows what. Something mechanical.

"Apology accepted." it comes up with the appropriate response.

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie smiled softly. "Good. I hope we can work together in the future. And if I may say so, you have grown into quite the lovely young lady since I first met you. That's Calvin's work on the chassis, isn't it?"

[ASHLIE]

"I have not grown into anything." it says, confused. "And Mr. Saveedra, actually."

[Veronica Freud]

"I was speaking figuratively." Ronnie clarifies. "You've got from an immobile infant spirit to a nicely-built self-contained and mobile being. In humans that would be like the transition from a child to an adult."

"Ooh, I hadn't even considered him. He does some very, very nice work." She said, holding her chin between her thumb and index finger as she stares up at the synthetic being.

[ASHLIE]

"Understood."

Beat.

"Why are you staring at me? I could supply blueprints if you like."

[Veronica Freud]

"You should get used to people staring at you. You're a sleek piece of hardware." Ronnie joked. "Thanks for the offer but I think I've already gone past the point of no return when it comes to tweaking my design. I'm just appreciating how all Madrox's hard work has turned out. And, if I can admit to it, imagining what sort of upgrades you'll undertake."

[ASHLIE]

"I am uncertain what would be the most advantageous adjustments. I did notice autonomous systems use their faces a lot when they talk though I don't understand why.

[Veronica Freud]

"It's another method of exchanging information." Ronnie said. "It provides clarification to the spoken word and can even provide all of the information a person needs when being silent. Over fifty percent of how we understand the context of what a person says comes from their facial expression and body language."

Ronnie walked across the work table top, her arms gesturing as she spoke. "If you subscribe to the theory of evolution it is probably a remnant from our distant past, back before we developed complex languages. Our facial expressions had to help fill in the blanks when it came to discussing topics. It also helped us understand each other when we encountered others with languages that varied from our own. The word for 'happy' can be drastically different among many languages but in humans a smile is universal."

[ASHLIE]

"But would that be required to further learn about them? I assume I have less of an impact on their regular behaviour if I remain as neutral as possible. That is what I designed this face for."

[Veronica Freud]

"I think that's up to you to decide. You can learn through observation, or you can learn through interaction." Ronnie said.

"Me, I designed my project to convey emotions. Sometimes."

[ASHLIE]

"What is the deciding factor whether you do or not?"

[Veronica Freud]

"She's designed to be a security and peacekeeping force. A kind, emotion conveying face can help ease tensions. A cold emotionless one can instill fear and authority." Ronnie clarified. "Basically, if you're on her good side, she'll smile. If you're on her bad side you get the Iron Man mask."

[ASHLIE]

"Does my face convey fear and authority?"

[Veronica Freud]

"If you said something commanding it would reinforce it." Ronnie said. "As of right now it's neutral."

[ASHLIE]

There's a slight hydraulic hiss and the robot takes off it's mask and turns it around to 'look' at it with it's now revealed sensor array.

"So you say the appropriate mask can make things more efficient but the effect of the mask also depends on what you say."

[Veronica Freud]

"It's a bit of a catch 22, isn't it?" Ronnie said. "Humans are complicated that way."

[ASHLIE]

"So it'd need to be adaptive, you think?" it asks, holding up it's 'face'.

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie sat down on the edge of the work bench.

"It's your body, that makes it your decision. I certainly don't think it could hurt. Maybe by being able to convey emotions physically you'll learn to understand them. Maybe it will make things ten times more difficult. I really can't say."

[ASHLIE]

"You are not being very helpful."

The robot stops for a moment, then spots a pen and draws furrowed eyebrows on it's face and a down-turned mouth to complete the frownie-face.

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie burst out laughing and clapped her hands together.

"Okay, okay. My honest opinion? Some means of expressing emotions physically is definitely the next step for you. It's a very pretty face, I'm sure you've got a very pretty smile waiting to be revealed."

[ASHLIE]

"I am going to need molds and a lot of miniaturized hydraulics."

[Veronica Freud]

"Sounds like you've got a new hobby." Ronnie said.

"Would you like to see how I got around that issue?"

[ASHLIE]

"Okay."

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie pulled herself up from sitting on the edge of the table, running along the surface toward her laptop.

"Would you do me a favour and pull the tarp off of her head?" She asked, the computer booting up as she pulled a cellphone keyboard onto her lap, a USB cord jerryrigged between the two devices.

[ASHLIE]

ASHLIE puts it's face down on the table and walks over to the robot suit to pull the tarp off.

[Veronica Freud]

The tarp fell off as far as the robot's chest, catching on some of the cables and chains that helped prevent it from falling over in it's powered-down state. The head portion was larger than a normal person's and fashioned to resemble a helmet with a large visor that offered a full view of it's face. The face beneath was actually quite similar to the one ASHLIE had placed on the table; it was formed in the style of a classical Greek bust's face complete with blank eyeballs, the metal painted to resemble finely polished marble.

"Sorry. When I designed this you didn't have a body yet. I didn't think Madrox would have the same idea I had." She said. With the laptop booted up she began typing on the makeshift keyboard, pressing the buttons with her entire hands but still much faster than trying to dance across the laptop as she had been before. After a few minutes the head of the mech began to whine and hum. Lights along the edge of the visor blinked to life in quick succession, illuminating the white face as the projectors warmed. After a few seconds colours and details were projected onto the mostly blank canvas, giving the illusion of a human face inside.

"There. No need for servos or hydraulics." She said. It wasn't perfect, one could still see the original mouth beneath it. "I'm still working on it, it's still too transparent a hologram to really fool anyone."

[ASHLIE]

"You could try using hard-light if you can find enough projectors."

[Veronica Freud]

"You're right. I'll have to see if I can scrounge any old ones from the last time the danger room was refitted." Ronnie mused.

[ASHLIE]

"And that concept is an interesting approach but a helmet to house the projectors would give me a too martial look."

[Veronica Freud]

"The whole point of it is to resemble a human wearing a suit." Ronnie explained. "I thought by giving it an attractive female face it would help soften the threatening aspects. Though I agree, in your case you look much better without a helmet apparatus. Holograms could be projected from within, but I think that would be much more complicated than the artificial skin and hydraulics method you had mentioned earlier."

[ASHLIE]

"And if I am to emulate your kind I might as well work with similar mechanical solutions."

[Veronica Freud]

"My kind?" Ronnie started to laugh. "I'm more like you than I am them." She shook her head, tapping the keypad a couple of times. The projected face adopted a cocky smile, but one that didn't seem quite natural. It was too still, lacking the movement of a real human face.

"When the intelligence is implanted, expressions won't be so static. Right now it's kind of creepy."

[ASHLIE]

"I don't understand. You are like most of them, only at a reduced scale."

ASHLIE looks at the suit when Ronnie talks about the expression, but not really being aware (or understanding) uncanny valley it doesn't have anything to say.