chapter 4 |
but just then the robot incident had left us a bit shaken
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and quite a bit turned on
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i kept making "robot buddies", but kept them dumb-ish, below the critical synaptic threshold
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and lydia's research was deeper than ever.
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for her birthday, i made her a robot pet UFO
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i think she liked it
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a lot. it followed her constantly!
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her birthday gift to me was kind of harder to explain...
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it was kind of a combination anomaly/holo of the two of us
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it's unique, in a strict use of that word. i'm not sure you could make it anywhere besides the anomaly obverse!
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during minibreaks, she showed me how to enjoy the planetside... nature stuff i'd never really looked at
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at these times, i was happiest.
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as far as i can tell, so was she.
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but nothing gold can stay
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she got her orders. assignment at tylon academy. the big leagues!
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we took one last trip to the city
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at the sodashop, we had a talk
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"i don't know, jake... maybe it's the difference between you and everyone else."
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"...the astronaut thing is so temporary for them..."
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now, we still write and holo sometimes. she hasn't found anyone new.
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so there's still a little hope. not a ton.
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she left, but deployments in the federation are funny things, and the anomaly still has some unplumbed depths.
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i'll say this, i learned more from lydia than all the other lab-scouts put together.
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