Chapter 108 - Caleb and Celes (2/2)

"Her core is mature, hence the intellect, but she is immature and willing to learn. I haven't been able to create a sentience inhibitor for her yet, and I was considering not doing that."

Gray's eyes widened "That's... extremely dangerous... every single AI has one of those to reduce their sentience so they don't develop certain emotions like fear and hate."

"Agreed, but remember, Dr. Sara Watts is an AI now and she doesn't have one."

"Yes but she is a human, or at least was. Still is? Hard to classify her as one or the other."

"Yes, so I've been treating Celes as my equal instead of a servant. Hence why she thinks she was born."

"Well, I trust you to make the smart choice, you need to have a kill switch in place at least in case she needs to be destroyed."

"That's not fair to her!" Caleb countered.

"Of course it isn't! You are raising her though and she is your responsibility!"

Caleb went silent for a moment then said "Raising her, huh? I guess that would make me her Dad?"

Gray laughed slightly. "You loved Celeste more than you admit, so wouldn't it be fitting that Celes be the product of you and Celeste?"

"You are right about that, this one time Celeste and I were getting really frea–"

Gray interrupted Caleb "AND CUT! I'd rather not hear about it since I can't even conceive how you'd get intimate with an AI."

"It's not as hard as people think, it's just that it isn't real, I developed an algorithm for simulating sexu–"

Gray interrupted Caleb again. "Seriously! Just stop! On to another subject! What is all this stuff you have around?"

"I don't want her on the network here, so I'm trying to create an independent neural network that is able to handle all of the data she goes through. Sadly, hardware is not my expertise, but I can at least give her enough space to experience things before growing."

"What do you mean, experience things but not grow?"

"We learn by experiencing things then processing that information in our own unique ways, she can experience many things right now, but she can't process the data to learn from it. In other words, she isn't able to change yet. We need the same cycling neural network that is able to store processed data and then filter out needless data."

"Ah ok, so basically she is going to remember everything and can't process it yet to learn from it."

"Yeah, you're surprising intelligent sometimes Gray, we could develop a lot of good software together for our mercenary team I bet."

Gray shrugged his shoulders "I'm not nearly as good at it as you are."

"Well obviously." Caleb said with a grin.

"I think you're going to join us for the next close combat seminar, yes?" Gray said with a grin as well.

"Is that an order?"

"It is now."

"F**k off! I'm the brains, not the brawn!"

"And that is another reason why, we suck at fighting I discovered."

"Well naturally, none of us have any training except for Yurika."

"Yep, so all the more reason!"

"Uggg, fine, I get it. Help me find a hardware specialist when you can, I want Celes to grow and I need to change up my plans for what I wanted her avatar to wear."

"Why do you need to change it?"

"You told me to think of her as a daughter so I can't have her wearing this!" Caleb showed Gray a picture of what could only be described as a scandalous white lacy dress with enough skin exposed that it would be better suited as something a wife wears on her honeymoon in the bedroom than an actual dress.

"You know what... think of her as what you want... you look like you put a lot of time into creating that virtual outfit."

"I know, it's a shame to erase it..."

"Are you guys done yet?" Celes suddenly chimed in.

"Hey, didn't I ask you to go to sleep?" Caleb said

"Yeah, but I wasn't tired anymore so I woke up naturally. Hey, who is that pretty dress for? Is that for me?"

Before Caleb could reply, a beautiful female avatar that looked like Celeste appeared on the tablet Caleb was holding and had put on the dress. She had the same beautiful blue eyes as her mother, the long blonde hair, toned body, generous bust, and long legs. Gray and Caleb merely watched her twirl around in it.

For some reason Caleb whispered "She is just as willful as her mother."

"How'd she get to the tablet?" Gray asked.

"Local network, I found she was very adventurous so I had to let her at least explore this room."

Seemingly ignoring Gray and Caleb, Celes then said, "Hm... it's a little too skimpy..." Celes was looking at herself in a mirror she brought up on the tablet, then started pulling on parts of it, the bikini bottom transformed into a skirt, the straps that barely covered her torso were transformed into a full tank top with the midriff still exposed slightly. She seemed to like the lacy sleeves so she extended the lacy pattern down her arm and put a finger loop on the end of it.

"That's not right..." Celes then rubbed a hand over her body and a green leotard appeared under everything covering her midriff now.

Celes then nodded her head satisfied and said, "Better! I'll work on it later, what do you think Caleb?" Celes strutted around proud of her modifications, even posing provocatively leaving Caleb and Gray wondering where she had seen poses like this before.

Gray looked at Caleb and whispered "Yeah, I couldn't think of her as a daughter anymore if it was me, good luck!"