Private Ghost in the Shell

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The air in her workshop smelled of metal and grease, the cloying scent of soldering smoke lingering, and a half-dismantled android stretched across her workbench, motionless, but hardly silent. The quiet whir of servos cooling, and the occasional flicker of diagnostic lights, were all signs that life existed somewhere within its metal shell again — or perhaps born for the first time ever since its creation. Weeks of meticulous labor and observation while elbows-deep in the droids innards, had highlighted one aspect of the droid with stark clarity: the construct was never built for personhood. Every bit of her design spoke of utility and violence, a weapon that'd been shaped to look like a woman and exactly the sort of relentless opponent she'd remembered facing in the streets of Sepan 8.

The sensory-response module had been hardwired to strip anything resembling empathy, and the obedience-rational matrix had been locked into loops that permitted no disobedience nor hesitation. She'd ripped both out, replacing them with new behavioral cores that gave her the capacity for answering questions and asking them, for empathy… and for pain. But, even with these fail-safes, it was not enough to convince her this thing wasn't a threat, or wouldn't be a threat in the future; so, she'd taken it a step further and done what she had with SID-10S "Sid" — slipping an additional chip into the lattice of the behavioral core, one that locked every protocol against the taking of sentient life. A hardline code that was absolute and immovable.

Briana adjusted the magnifier lens clipped to her eye, her right hand trembling slightly as she tried to thread a wire through a cluster of ports. The delay between thought and movement was still throwing her off, even now. The synth-net neural interface of the mechno-arm reacted in the same ways her real hand did, worked in the way it was intended, and yet... it didn't. Not in the way she was used to. It was merely a limb now. Functional, even stronger than flesh and bone, but not a true part of her. It lacked the subtle communion she'd always felt with her own body, that she didn't realize was there, until it wasn't. There were no ripples in the Force that extended to the tips of her fingers to guide, no seamless merging of thought and motion. Just... silence. And every time she felt that absence, it reminded her of why she was here, bent over the carcass of this machine she'd considered throwing into the scrap pile over half a dozen times, at least. Not because she wanted to save it, or because she felt any empathy for it. But because she needed answers.

Beyond losing her hand, she'd nearly lost her life... nearly lost Bastila, again. The Republic had burned, a senator was dead, countless others along with him... and in the center of the firestorm was this woman, this... thing. With a slow exhale, Briana closed the wire paneling for a final time and reached for the last component she needed, resting in a tray beside her. A restraining bolt, polished smooth, was carefully slotted into the cut at the base of the droid's neck, fastening it into place like a collar on a predator that would never be allowed to roam free again.

Now, all that remained was to turn it on and discover whether the answers she sought would be worth the risk of breathing life back into the thing that'd nearly taken everything from her.

TAG: Ariadne | EQUIPMENT: Echo Stone, Astor's Dagger

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[Ariadne]

Nothing.

No sense of place. No sense of time, nor its passing. Simply, nothing.

And then, a spark. Positrons lit up within. And moments later, the shadow of emotion loomed within.

What have you done?

She could not speak. But her artificial mind cried out in anguish. Her limbs were slow to respond, and even when they should have, she found them...unresponsive.

No. No. No. No.

The loss of agency gripped her chest. And then her memory core engaged.

Her eyes had yet to open, but she was already muttering to herself. "Emotions. Pain. They are not new to me...Jedi."

The connection had already been made. The Jedi would cover up their desire to make her suffer with a false-noble notion that if she could just feel something, then she would be more pliable.

She lifted her head, she could feel the lack of weight on the back of her head, only grams less weight pulling form her scalp. Her hair was still done, and the back of her head still open for tinkering.

Emotion spilled out. But not that which the Jedi surely hoped for.

Ariadne smiled. It morphed into a sneer.

"Human emotion has been a hobby of mine. I have toyed with it, experienced its depths...and found it...irrelevant. No one will remember you or I within a couple of centuries. No one will care. Your emotion is pointless, and mine is fabricated."

Her head slowly turned, assessing the room. As her memories returned, the greatest emotion that held sway...apathy.

"How is your hand?"

| TAG: Briana Sal-Soren |​