[open] a friend in need's a friend indeed

[nedofpies]

Who: Ned and OPEN
What: Random encounters & fallout from dream-walking tomfoolery
Where: House 20, the garden, anywhere around town
When: Day 89

It's been a long week. A long, mostly-sleepless, weird week during which Ned has seen far more of his friends' and neighbors' subconsciouses than he would have liked to. Plus, a creepy city made of crystals that everyone seems to have seen, but no one will claim as their own. Shady stuff. Today, he is determined to wear himself out. Perhaps if he's tired enough, whatever mojo the men behind the curtain have put on him won't be strong enough to stir him out of a deep and dreamless sleep.

It's probably a futile tactic, but he can't just do nothing.

So he is a bustle of activity - cleaning the house, walking around town, checking on the crops to see if they are holding up well (carefully, with an eye for any enterprising tigers roaming too close to the edge of the forest), keeping an eye out for new faces and an ear out for rumors of missing ones.

Comments

[zen_navigator]

"Not face to face." Dirk unclasps his hands from behind his back in order to tap at his video watch. "He was asking about personhood and I had some insight to offer on the subject."

Dirk takes a few steps, while thinking over his interactions with Daneel. He had seemed to be human, to have his own motivations. After all, why would he be asking about personhood if he didn't? "Daneel. He's...more than a robot, isn't he." He tips his head to the side, raising his eyebrows in thought as he contradicts himself mentally. He's just reminded himself that really just about anything can be programmed in if you have enough space for the data. "Or at least sufficiently advanced to present as human."

[nedofpies]

Ned nods his understanding; he'd seen that Daneel put the question to the general populace, had spoken to him later about the responses he'd gotten. Daneel hadn't gone into great detail, but he had said that the near-unanimous response was that he counted a person. Which is good. Because otherwise Ned's dislike for his fellow captives would have become near-unanimous.

"He was designed to pass as human. To be able to fool people." Ned knows, probably better than anyone else in this place, the degree of detail that had been put into making that mimicry as perfect as possible. Something about Dirk's wording rubs him the wrong way, but it's not Dirk that he is frustrated at, so much as the knowledge that most people would think of it that way. "Personally, I don't think of him as more than a robot. But I also don't think being a robot makes him any less than a human. If anything, it makes him better."

Vastly better, in a variety of different ways. It also makes him vulnerable, but Ned isn't about to tell Dirk that. He doesn't idolize Daneel's nature, but he doesn't think it's anything to be overcome. At least, not in the way that Dirk seems to mean.

"What insight did you offer, if you don't mind my asking?" It might seem a strange thing to ask so intently, but it matters to Ned. It matters to how he's going to treat Dirk in the future, knowing what he'd said to Daneel at this critical stage in his struggle to find his own identity.

[zen_navigator]

"I..." He pauses, not sure exactly how to continue, or how much he wants to tell Ned. This is a fairly personal subject, after all.

"I knew someone in a similar situation. Not a robot. An artificial intelligence transplanted into the body of a young woman. She was..." He huffs out an embarrassed laugh and clasps his hands behind his back once again. "amazing. She wanted so badly to be human, but she was more than that. Something new. Better." Their differences on the subject may very well be semantic rather than philosphical. Dirk doesn't see anything wrong with Daneel being a robot, including whatever hangups come with that. Mostly, he's interested in how Daneel himself feels about being human.

"I told your friend that I thought it was the wanting that made her more than a machine." He smiles, though it's a sad smile, tipping his head down to watch his feet as he continues. "Wanting a life, wanting...me." He coughs, redirecting himself back to question. "Even if she had not succeeded in making it to the body, she would still have been something more. The fact that she felt it was what mattered."

[nedofpies]

Ned's surprised (but not in a bad way) when Dirk opens up to him. Something about the way he's speaking changes. It's less... flippant. Less of a show. Ned takes note of that, listens more closely than he might have otherwise. The story itself is unexpected but charming.

Perhaps he'd judged too hastily, after all. The way Dirk sounds when he's talking about this girl changes Ned's mind. Perhaps he has an awkward sense of humor, but maybe his heart is in the right place. At the very least, the two of them have something in common, from the sound of it.

"What's her name?" Ned asks. He wants to hear more about her, about how she thinks and copes in a human body.

He is far less hesitant to launch into a mini-rant on Daneel's behalf, after Dirk expressed his opinion about artificial intelligence. "Daneel doesn't want to be human, exactly. But he's just now starting to deal with the fact that some of his programming is-" he pauses, trying to think of a politer equivalent for completely fucked up, "-problematic. Where he comes from, robots are slaves, and they're all programmed to think they're inferior. That they have to do anything a human tells them to do. That they shouldn't be allowed to think for themselves, or want anything. But he does."

[zen_navigator]

Blaming Dirk's personality on an awkward sense on humour is, perhaps, giving him too much credit, but Ned is right to note a different sort of tenderness when he talks about Jane. She had been exactly what he'd needed, at a time when he'd been doubting himself the most, and he'll always be grateful to her for that.

"Jane. They named the artificial intelligence MAX, but she called herself Jane." Even after he'd figured out who and what she was, he wasn't very inclined to call her Max. She'd chosen to call herself Jane, so why would he call her anything else? It occurs to him belatedly that he's speaking of her in past tense, which might give the impression that she'd died. He clarifies quickly, "She left. To travel."

His smile at remembering Jane fades as Ned begins to describe the future from which Daneel hails. It doesn't sound like a particularly good place to come from, especially for Daneel, or for any robot. "Your friend said he wanted to be something more than what he is."

He shakes his head. "No," He corrects himself as he tries to recall his conversation with the robot, "Something greater. What do you think he meant by that?"

[nedofpies]

"Jane," Ned repeats. He understands the need to pick a name of one's own. There's a reason he goes by Ned, and only Ned. No one here knows any other name of his apart from that (except River, but psychic knowledge doesn't count, and she knows not to ever use it), and he intends to keep it that way. Besides, Jane is such a lovely name. He's sad to hear that she and Dirk parted ways, but it makes sense to him that she'd want to see the world, if she was able. To have adventures, find her place, somewhere where people might not know about her origins, and be able to use them against her.

Dirk's question about Daneel baffles him; he excuses away his interval of silence by saying, "You might want to ask him that. I can't speak for him." But that wasn't what Dirk asked - he asked what Ned thought. He lets out a little, half-exasperated sigh, as they are coming upon the community garden, "The way he's programmed, depends on being able to sort people into very rigid categories. There are humans, and there are robots, and there's nothing else. The Laws that govern the way he thinks are based on that. Robots exist to serve humans, and protect them. That's supposed to be their only reason for existing."

Ned kicks at an errant stone, sends it skittering off into the distance. It's a small, but effective way of venting his frustration. "But then he came here and there are aliens, and human-looking people with strange powers calling themselves mutants and refusing to be called humans, so he doesn't know how to categorize anyone anymore, including himself. Add to that the fact that he got turned human for a bit and didn't feel all that different or superior, and it's giving him a bit of a headache-slash-complete-existential-crisis."

[zen_navigator]

"I can see how that'd throw him for the proverbial loop. Or the causal loop."

He takes a moment to think over the information chunk Ned's just dropped on him. It's odd to think of Daneel being in service to humans when he already seems so much like one. "To protect and serve." He huffs out a chuckle. "So with all the new input, is he still protecting and serving the local population of humans?" It would explain why he'd been so helpful, but Dirk doesn't know how he feels about someone with Daneel's doubts and self-proclaimed desires continuing to see himself as something dependent on humanity for a purpose. "Is he serving you?"

[nedofpies]

Ned nods in response to Dirk's question about Daneel looking out for the general population of the town, but when he asks about Daneel serving him, his face goes quite pink. Unintentionally, Dirk has stumbled on a rather confusing and delicate facet of their relationship.

Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Ned speaks rapidly, anxiously, "I- no. He isn't. He doesn't. No more than he does anyone else here- less, I hope." Of course, the fact of the matter is that what he's saying isn't strictly true, according to certain interpretations. There are certainly things that Daneel does for him that he doesn't do for anyone else, here. Again, it is mostly Dirk's wording that Ned takes issue with. "He knows that I wouldn't... that the idea of giving him orders makes me sick. I don't want him serving me. That's not how things are, between us. I just... want to make him happy. If anything, the fact that he's been programmed that way make things more of a challenge for the two of us, but we manage."

[zen_navigator]

"That's...good." He glances sideways at Ned, taking in his sudden fidgety weirdness. At the best of times, Dirk isn't particularly good with social cues. Any implication of a romantic relationship is going to have to be shoved in his face before he gets it, but it'd be hard to miss this new strangeness.

The most interesting part to Dirk is how is seems Daneel has singled Ned out for, if not preferential treatment, at least some sort of exclusion. It could just mean that they are good friends, but he wonders if that means that Ned isn't entirely human, either. "What makes you different than the rest of the humans here?"

[nedofpies]

For a split second Ned contemplates willfully misinterpreting Dirk's question. It's a sign of just how much he's changed being here, how accustomed he's become to everyone knowing about his powers, that it seems the less socially awkward option to reveal them, talk about how he can bring the dead back to life. But in the end, he decides not to feign ignorance. What is going on between him and Daneel isn't a secret, and he's not ashamed of it. He's just... shy, when it comes to discussing it, particularly with someone he doesn't know all that well. What finally convinces him to do it is the fact that Dirk spoke of Jane so fondly, seemed almost completely without prejudice in that matter.

"He and I are... we're..." But what word to use? Dating seems silly, frivolous, not really suited to being trapped in a science experiment where the closest they can come to a normal date is a walk on the beach, where there are at least not that many cameras. In love is too intense, too revealing for a casual conversation. Living together might be misinterpreted as nothing more than housemates. "The two of us, we're... well I guess you could say I'm his boyfriend."

It sounds ludicrous, but at a certain point it is better to just spit out something stupid than keep stammering over himself and drawing out the awkwardness.

[zen_navigator]

"Oh. Right." Well, that clarifies quite a few things, starting with why Daneel had been so protective of Ned and ending with why Ned wants to make Daneel happy.

It doesn't bode very well for the possibility of making Ned his interim partner. People who are attached usually have more pesky qualms about throwing themselves into difficult situations in the name of progress. And then their partners have even more qualms. Nonetheless, he can respect the relationship. As far as he knows, both men are more or less reasonable and not at all apt to make plans to move to Cambridge without notice.

"How long have you been...dating?" Yeah, he's going to go with dating here. Normally he wouldn't ask, but he's trying to figure out the extent of the situation.

[nedofpies]

It's odd, the way he can lose track of time, here. Time in captivity, even after he'd mostly grown accustomed to it, isn't exactly the same as time elsewhere. Some things seem to fly by so quickly, but on the whole the days drag and weeks feel like months, and months years.

"Little over a month?" Ned isn't quite sure on which day precisely he should fix the beginning of it all. They'd sort of... fallen into it, mutually surprised by the way things were developed, both unsure and confused and hesitant for their own reasons.

Dirk, it seems, is more than willing to accept that someone like Ned and someone like Daneel can be involved romantically. He doesn't exactly spring to the congratulations, Ned notices, and there's an odd sort of neutrality to his reply that Ned can't quite suss out, but he's polite, at the very least. Ned appreciates that. It makes him feel, well, normal. Feeling normal isn't something he's altogether used to, so it's nice, to experience it.

"In fact," Ned glances at his communicator, taps at it to display the time, "I ought to get back, make sure he isn't worried I got mauled by another tiger. It was-" in the happy flush of talking about Daneel, of hearing about Jane, Ned has completely forgiven the whole pushing incident, "-good talking to you."

With that, he waves at Dirk, turns back towards the house, and the person he knows will probably be waiting for him there.