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[victormakesart]

Victor's sent her boyfriend off to a spa planet, which means that today is a working day, just like the day before was, and the day before that. She's sectioned off a small corner of the Nexus as her workspace, and while she's not using a blowtorch anymore, she was a moment or so ago, if you judge by the blowtorch set off to the side and the

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[chiron_survivor]

Adia is in the Nexus, looking a little grimy, for lack of a better word. Like maybe she's been camping, and not the fun kind of camping that has s'mores and songs around the fire.

She's dressed warmly, and absently unravels a lilac-colored scarf, the only bit of color in her otherwise drab outfit. She gives Victor a friendly smile, wondering when the other woman will notice her in between all the rocking out.

Then she sees the metal arm on the table, and her smile falters.

[victormakesart]

She definitely notices, and she even scrambles up to stand, smiling at her brilliantly. Not only can she start on a project that she's been waiting ages to start on, she can see her buddies!

"Hey, it's so great to see you, what's been going on?" Then: "What's, uh. What's wrong?"

When she gets closer, Adia will be able to see that she's in short-sleeves (and, consequently, why she wants to cover herself). She chose a relatively quiet part of the Nexus, so she thought it was a good spot to get a little bolder.

[chiron_survivor]

Adia's gaze lingers on the robotic arm, but she silently tells herself not to jump to conclusions. Victor is an artist, she could have created that arm for any number of reasons. Yet there's something in its articulated joints that seems familiar, and keeps a small gnaw of worry in her stomach.

"It's good to see you too, Victor," She replies, smile returning. "Um. A lot has been going on lately, actually. We're living on a planet now. Not Earth, though. Looks like you've been pretty busy making something."

[victormakesart]

"Hey, that's great that you all found a planet! Is it any good?" She begins to look a little sheepish, because even in the Nexus there are people who might think she's doing something terribly immoral by making a sentient individual. "Yeah, building a person, which, I know, some folks find kinda weird, but I've done it before. With clay, then metal, then I helped a little bit with buildin' Athena, and now there's going to be him."

[chiron_survivor]

"It's... habitable." Her look gives away her mixed feelings about the planet. "We're still trying to get things organized. But we're safe, at least. The planet has an atmosphere that interferes with the cylons' DRADIS system."

It is only because it is Victor (and because she has the decency to look sheepish) that Adia does not recoil in disgust, but there is a flash of fear and incredulity that flashes in her eyes. "You're... you're building a sentient robot?" She doesn't ask, but the question Why? might as well be floating in a bubble over the woman's head.

((Sorry I dropped the thread. ;_; Thanksgiving happened.))

[victormakesart]

"I've helped build a couple in the past." Victor is starting to get the idea that something isn't right, and she bites down on her lower lip. She has this look of concern that fills up her whole entire face in the same way that a blush would. "They're just like humans, really, but without the squishy bits. No risk of sickness, no worry that their organ systems might not work right, if something goes wrong with the child all I have to do is get tools and fix the problem, I... there's something wrong, isn't there? Did I do something wrong?"

((It's totally okay!))

[chiron_survivor]

Adia looks over at the robotic arm again and lets out a shaky breath. "No. You didn't do anything wrong. I mean. I don't know. It's not my place to judge." She plays with the end of her scarf and tries to swallow back the fear. "I-- the humans in my universe haven't had a good experience with them. Sentient robots." A loose thread on the scarf gets a bitter tug. "Especially the ones 'just like' humans."

[victormakesart]

She wets her lips, then it dawns on her and there's the brightest look of panic, blazing up like a flare. "Shoot, I'm sorry. That's... that's some sorta hive-mind situation, yeah?" Evil robots usually are. "These guys are individuals, programmed by themselves, and... I promise you, they're completely different than the ones in your 'verse. Completely and totally. I-I, man, I'm sorry."

[chiron_survivor]

Adia smiles wanly. She can tell Victor is trying to reassure her the best she can. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn't even bother to listen. "They were hive-mind, when they first attacked. Then they left and... and when they came back, some of them looked just like us." She looks at Victor intently. She needs the other woman to understand. "We made them, Victor. The humans made them and gave them sentience and didn't think twice about it. And then they left and came back and they hate us so muchShe cuts herself off and looks down, fighting back tears. Fear, shame, loss, and even some anger pass over her face. She wipes at her eyes, smudging a bit of the dirt on her face. "But you're... it's different with you. This will be your child, yes? You'll love it and... and you'll treat it right. You won't mass produce it and treat it like crap. And... it'll know it's a robot, right? I mean, it'll know what it is, physically. It won't... it won't find out one day and

[victormakesart]

She looks back to her, equally intent, completely sympathetic. She reaches out, touches her shoulder with the amount of care she'd touch a stovetop that might be still sort of hot, ready to yank her hand back if she flinches. "I'm so sorry."

"It's completely different, I promise. Athena, one of my little girls? She's a 'bot, too. And she's growing up with Anya as her sister, my beautiful baby girls. And they'll know what they are, but they'll also know that they're so loved. That they might be made of metal and not flesh, but they're people." A brief pause where she tries to swallow down the lump in her throat. "Gosh, Adia... I'm sorry. I had no idea."

[chiron_survivor]

Adia doesn't flinch, but she seems to slouch a little at the touch, like she's done something wrong. "It's not your fault," she says quietly, aware of how tired and cliched those words sound. "It just... seems like a mistake. Not what you're doing," she adds hurriedly, even though a tiny part of her, the part that is irrationally terrified, thinks it could be, "But... building robots that can think for themselves and then treating them as horribly as people did. It's the curse of Prometheus."

She blinks at this information, a strange ghost of a smile passing over her face, something morbidly funny, only to her. Then she looks up, serious. She wants to say she understands, that she knows Victor will be good to them. Instead, she stammers, "I loved one of them. He was... he meant everything to me. I didn't know he was a cylon. Neither did he, not until the end." It feels like a confession, a burden and a release all at once.

[victormakesart]

"I can't imagine." She really can't even process treating something poorly, much less her own creation, much less her own creation that she spent years lovingly designing.

And then at her admission there's the sort of wince that she tries to bury, but it still shines through, like the glow of light through a very dirty window. "I'm so, so sorry, I had no idea." She opens her mouth, closes it again, rather guppy-like, feeling a soft spiral of uselessness through her belly like what-can-I-say-to-even-begin-to-help. Then she just starts talking, and lets the words do what words do. "That's a terrible thing to have to go through. And your universe sounds... pardon this, it's not a comment on you, but it sounds really scary. It's gotta be hard to trust anything or anyone. Thank you for talkin' with me about this, I know it has to take a lot of guts."

There's a part of her that's fascinated at the idea of a robot that's so humanish that it doesn't know it isn't. The sort of programming that would take... but she isn't interested

[chiron_survivor]

"They weren't seen as sentient," Adia explains softly. "I don't even think they were, at first. They were seen as machines. Like cars, or... or toasters." She says the word disdainfully, as if it were a slur.

It's both strange and comforting to have someone react with such deep sympathy as Victor is. When everyone on your ship has more or less been through the same trauma, this sort of expression of emotion just doesn't happen. It remains unspoken, a dark scar on the heart that nobody bothers to explain. She laughs, very softly, and replies, "It is scary, yes. And hard to trust others. But it's... getting better. More stable."

As if sensing the other woman's unspoken thoughts, she adds, "Cylons... the ones that look like humans. They look like humans on the inside, too. Made of flesh and bone." She shakes her head quickly. "I don't know how it works, they made themselves look human. The... my friend. Caspar. They gave him false memories. That's why he thought he was human."

[victormakesart]

"That sounds like a group of people engaging in inappropriate activities." She means a clusterf... well, you get the idea, surely.

"I mean, it sounds like the perfect storm of what's exactly not s'posed to happen. One of those days where everything goes wrong, except on a gigantic scale." She worries her lip, gives her shoulder a very gentle squeeze. "Part of the, the reason that 'bots appeal to me is that they're clean. There's so much that can go wrong, with biology. I like a system that's ordered. I like bein' able to look at something and say, 'I know how this works, and I can fix this.' And there's somethin' to be said for building, and seeing something beautiful and alive come up and... I promise, I'm not gonna do anything bad."

[chiron_survivor]

It pleases Adia, on some level, that Victor would never be interested in cylons. Far too dirty and squishy, just like humans. "I know you won't," Adia says, hanging her head a little, suddenly feeling rather foolish. "Of course I know you won't. I... I try to come to the Nexus with different expectations, y'know? But sometimes fear gets the best of me. I'm sorry."

[victormakesart]

She drops her hand, ducks her head, eyebrows contracting in. "Oh, Adia... you don't ever have to feel weird about feelin' upset on something. You have every right. Fear like that... it's instinct. I just want you to know, and feel comfortable around me. You know?"