Re: Hannah & Jeremiah; Jester's Court
Hannah hadn't thought of a real after. She was caught up in now. She was caught up in the reality that she could be scrapped, reprogrammed, and that she had no control over her own fate at all. She wanted an after, but for her an after required freedom, and she hadn't figured that out yet. Now that she had been relocated to a whole new company, one she knew nothing about and didn't understand, she was even more concerned. She'd been to the AI park, and she knew the little respect CARNEM had for artificial life, and they had so many AIs that she wasn't nearly as important to them as she'd been to Tethys. Yes, she was the only successful AI of her type, but the second they managed to replicate her she would be the same as all those AIs in the parks, the ones having their memories and pride taken from them over and over and every single day.
But right now, here, in this park of shades and improbable miracles, she was allowing herself to dream about after. Standing in this castle, looking down at the transparent kingdom beneath them, she let herself pretend, and it felt nice and warm and golden.
She smiled, pulling back from the kiss and asking him what their people would think, and she glanced out and back again, cornflower blue fixed on his face and her lips in a soft smile. She leaned against him, because it felt nice to do so. It felt nice to be looked at like he was looking at her, and she wondered if this was what romance novels felt like. She always, always wondered what other people felt, and she always measured her own ability to feel and found herself lacking, but she liked how his fingers felt in hers when he took her hand, and that counted for something, didn't it? "How am I supposed to help you write an after?" she asked, curious and that usual tip of ear to shoulder. "I don't know how to write. But I can come up with things. I can dream things up, I think, if you can write them down." She could, she thought. She could help, and it would be fun to imagine an after. "You have to tell me where we're starting," she added.