Chapter Seventy-Seven (Nakteti) (2/2)
The humans had also informed her that her race had undergone genetic alteration. The human researchers had asked for permission and less than two days later she was being informed that her, and all her surviving crew members, had been genetically tampered with.
She had been asked why and although she had told the humans that she did not know, she suspected.
Only one group benefited from her people being genetically altered.
The Civilized Species.
If they had reached inside her, reached inside her parents, and changed them, what else had they done? They looked silly, fussy, and seemed incompetent.
But were they really?
She hadn't realized she was shaking or making sounds of distress until she felt herself lifted up, set on Major Carnight's leg, and hugged firmly. The pressure eased her stress until she could finally breath normally.
”Let's get you back to the hotel. I think you've had about enough sight-seeing for the day,” Major Carnight stated.
Nakteti just nodded.
She held Major Carnight's hand with both of hers as they walked across the street and into the hotel. She was proud of herself. She had gone all the way across the street and halfway down the block on her first excursion.
Twice little immature humans tried to hug her. Both times their parents stopped them and the children cried in emotional distress. She had felt the joy her appearance had caused in their little spirits, and felt that their emotional pain at not being able to hug her was genuine.
A human will push you face first through a crysteel window and then turn around and want to give your litter mates unconditional love, she thought to herself as the elevator moved up to the luxury suite. All based on perceived threat.
She was quiet when they entered the suite, letting thoughts run through her mind.
While Major Carnight was speaking to his superiors on his datalink, she used her's differently in the privacy of her own room.
She moved in front of the mirrors, removed her pants and shirt, sash, belt, shoes, and gloves, and took pictures of herself naked, careful to get herself from every angle. She then took pictures of her clothing, making sure to get the front, back, and sides, then dressed carefully and took pictures again after combing her fur.
She moved over to the eVR terminal and loaded up a few programs that she found for free. She converted the nude pictures of herself to eVR, then airbrushed away her nipples and genitals, removed her vestigial climbing claws, and then converted it to a weighted wire-frame model as well as a texture overlay.
Then she scanned in her clothing, making the attachment points quickly and easily. The software was eager to the help, the limited VI in the program almost anticipating what she wanted to do. She made some color changes to the shirts and pants, a few pattern changes to her sash and belt, shoes and gloves. Added different color eyes and different fur patterns and colors.
Some of them she made bright and silly.
She then used another program to convert the wireframe to a construction template and then uploaded the dressed one to her room's replicator.
It took only a few minutes for the replicator to ping and the shield to raise. The fur was too sticky and unpleasant, almost greasy feeling, so she tried again.
She had to look up a tutorial of a smiling human explaining how to make realistic feeling kittykitty hair for a purrboi or a goodboi, and she followed along, weighting her own hair in the model.
It only took three more attempts before it felt perfect.
She programmed it to say a few things, the most important was 'I love you' when hugged. She enabled it to toddle along with a small child, holding hands, and downloaded the freeware response pack for caretaker and companion animatronics, tweaked it according to the tutorial video performed by a human sized blue and white fox, and then ran off one of the replicator.
It was perfect.
She ensured the creators of the freeware programs she had downloaded would get a 'tip' from each sale and uploaded it to SolNet, offering it for the same price as most animatronic child nurturing companions. She offered it in over two dozen styles, all based on crew members who had died in the PreCursor attack, including a custom 'assign your own colors' and put it for sale along with additional clothing packs.
Then she took images of her poor Sweet, both how it had originally looked and then how it had arrived, made models of them, then, on the advice of the VI, had made the replicator versions a kind of 'do it yourself' model as well as model ones.
She uploaded that too.
Done, she wandered into the main suite and saw that it was almost dark.
She had spent the afternoon working and had enjoyed it.
Which was weird. Her genetic test had shown she was a leader at heart, genetically programmed to command others.
Yet she had felt contentment while she had worked. Imagining the expressions on children's faces when the replicator printed it out for them to hold. She had made sure that her animatronic self was firm to hold and warm with a beating heart for children to hear.
She had even used allergen neutral and immunocompromised safe materials.
She had even gone through her database of where she had been, had found the two children who had wanted to hug her, and the one on the shuttle, and sent their parents free copies with her Captain's compliments.
Feeling slightly confused that she would feel such contentment just crafting copies of herself she sat on the big couch and slowly ate her dinner, a wonderful concoction called a 'nacho bowl' that contained ground beef and vegetables and wonderful crunchy bread.
There was a pinging and Major Carnight turned to her and raised an eyebrow.
”Did you make a stuffy of yourself and upload it to the SolNet market?” he asked.
”Yes. I thought your children may enjoy it,” she said.
He shook his head. ”Well, congratulations on being the number one downloaded template for the last two hours,” he laughed. ”You have people as far away as the Clone Worlds downloading copies of you to make stuffies of. At least you followed the VI's advice and trademarked yourself.”
Nakteti shrugged. ”If it brings people enjoyment, I am content.”
Major Carnight shook his head. ”Do you remember how you were worried about paying for the repairs to your ship?” he asked.
”Yes. I still worry, but perhaps I will be able to mitigate the price somewhat for my people,” Nakteti said.
”Um, you might want to come over here where I can embrace you,” Major Carnight said.
Curious, she moved over and sat on her human's lap, leaning back as he put his arms around her. Once again she was struck at how reassuringly solid and warm he was. ”All right, while this is very pleasant and I enjoy it very much, why?”
”Check your bank account balance,” he said.
Sighing, knowing she'd only see the small amount that Terra had transferred compared to the amount she knew she'd need to fix The Sweet, she opened her bank account.
She immediately began to shudder, hyperventilating in panic. Major Carnight hugged her firmly as she stared at the number.
She had sold over 2.8 billion versions of the 'stuffy' and nearly 11 million models of The Sweet.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Wow. That's a long download queue
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLD
Same here. Wow. Everyone wants it.
------NOTHING FOLLOWS------
CLONE WORLDS
Oh, this is bullshit. The servers are overloaded.
----NOTHING FOLLOWS------
RIGELLIAN COMPACT
OH MY GOD IT'S SO SOFT AND FLUFFY AND SAYS IT LOVES YOU WHEN YOU HUG IT!
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----