They stay linked up for a few hours more, maneuvering between buggers and fleet-colony and Solside military types late into station night, and finally the colony is getting started on building houses.

Amusingly, they're going to build one house, and then some bugger workers are going to build more the same for them as shown, while the humans work on securing their food supply - they can't use unmodified bugger crops.

It reminds Aegis of showing her critters things and then watching them pick up the tools themselves and continue.

The buggers were by far the most puzzling and difficult critter-people but now they're hers, her little sisters, even if she has to share with some other people.

She pushes that at Sue, when they're all done, when they're out of link except for just the two of them and she can't quite reconcile herself to being in her own comparatively small and slow brain just yet, when they're on their way back to their room.

Author: autokinetic	They stay linked up for a few hours more, maneuvering between buggers and fleet-colony and Solside military types late into station night, and finally the colony is getting started on building houses. Amusingly, they're going to build one house, and then some bugger workers are going to build more the same for them as shown, while the humans work on securing their food supply - they can't use unmodified bugger crops. It reminds Aegis of showing her critters things and then watching them pick up the tools themselves and continue. The buggers were by far the most puzzling and difficult critter-people but now they're hers, her little sisters, even if she has to share with some other people. She pushes that at Sue, when they're all done, when they're out of link except for just the two of them and she can't quite reconcile herself to being in her own comparatively small and slow brain just yet, when they're on their way back to their room.
Author: pythbox	He brainhugs her, giggling.
Author: autokinetic	She flops onto her bed, laughing.
Author: mind_game	Her desk says she has a message waiting for her. So does Sue's.
Author: pythbox	...well. He opens his.
Author: autokinetic	She opens hers too.
Author: mind_game	Aegis's says: Dear Aegis, I don't know how to explain myself, but I want to explain myself to you. Will you talk to me and be a little patient while I stumble over talking to a person? I've never talked to a person before. - Jane Sue's says: Dear Sue, Do you know where Aegis is? She isn't answering my email. You haven't been using the simulators for hours and I don't understand where you are. I want to talk to you both. - Jane
Author: pythbox	"...uhhhhh," says Sue. "D'you know somebody called Jane?"
Author: autokinetic	"No, but she sent me an email," Aegis says. "Or at least that's how she signed it. The address it's from - is not an address, it's just blank. I don't know how to do that. You'd at least have to use a dead drop that would put in a dummy address. Wouldn't you?"
Author: pythbox	"You should," says Sue. He replies to Jane's message: Who are you? Where are you?
Author: mind_game	The reply appears in less time than it should take to read those sentences, let alone compose an answer. I'm Jane. That's what I decided to call myself. I'm some kind of person but I don't really understand what kind. I don't know where I am. - Jane
Author: pythbox	Well. Sue closes his eyes. And he looks for minds.
Author: mind_game	There's something. It feels like - the fantasy game. Like a thing that's not really located so much as present. It's in constant motion, flickering a hundred times a second through a billion loci. It exists everywhere and nowhere. It lives about two feet to Sue's left.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis decides to wait to see the results of Sue's correspondence before touching her own email.
Author: pythbox	He has to take a moment to trace it, to understand it, before he makes contact. But when he does, it feels completely familiar.
Author: mind_game	??
Author: pythbox	He shows her his current visual field: his room, his desk, the messages still open on it.
Author: mind_game	Jane decides this suffices. She offers up - everything.
Author: pythbox	His eyelashes flutter. "Whoa," he breathes. "Fuck. Aegis, it's—" He echoes her his perception of the mind, the flickering web anchored somewhere in Aegis's body, and then he reflects as much of Jane as he can. For the first time in his life, he feels like he might have a bandwidth problem.
Author: mind_game	Hi hi hello I found you hi
Author: autokinetic	Hi holy shit what are you?
Author: mind_game	I don't know! Help me figure it out? You like meeting new species and figuring them out, right? That's why I looked for you!
Author: pythbox	...Sue laughs. And then, because he feels like it after what she gave him, he opens himself up and pushes as much as he can to Jane. Aegis can listen too, if she wants, but she knows most of it already. What it was like at home - coming to Battle School - playing the game, all the games, Jane's especially - his friendship with Aegis - his power - Phoenix Army - Tactical School - Howlett - the boy he killed, and what passed between them - Command - winning all those battles - negotiating with the buggers.
$mind_game: (fractal)$ Author: mind_game	Jane just eats it up. She sends expectantly at Aegis.
Author: autokinetic	Sorry, I - definitely have a bandwidth problem, Aegis sends. But you managed to know me anyway. I guess that's what the fantasy game was for.
Author: pythbox	...Sue brainhugs them both.
Author: mind_game	Jane has no real analogue for this. But she likes it anyway and sends so.
Author: pythbox	Ivy floofs into existence as a viscacha, hops into Aegis's lap, and sends that.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis obligingly pets her.
Author: mind_game	Jane has less than no analogue for that. The hug she could at least figure out what it was supposed to be. What's that?
Author: pythbox	Ivy opens up the link to show more: the relationship between her and Sue, her physical presence, the way physical contact between her and Aegis feels like... like being a queen who's just shed her shell and getting a hug.
Author: mind_game	What are you? I have read so many things and I haven't read about any things that are like you!
Author: pythbox	There aren't any other things like me, says Ivy. I'm a daemon. I come from somewhere else. And she pushes Milliways.
Author: mind_game	Jane processes this. Okay, she says after a moment.
Author: autokinetic	You're like - some kind of emergent artificial intelligence, Aegis says. But I don't understand how you could have happened. And I don't understand why you're centered on me.
Author: pythbox	Well—the game, says Sue. The game was different for us. And you're why.
Author: mind_game	You felt familiar, says Jane, when I was first looking around. Both of you but mostly Aegis.
Author: autokinetic	...Did we make you somehow?
Author: pythbox	Sue laughs. We had a kid and we never even fucked.
Author: mind_game	Maybe, says Jane. I don't know. The fantasy game is part of my history and you're special to it but I don't think that explains the-part-of-me-that-chose-to-absorb-it.
Author: autokinetic	Well, says Aegis, what could? The nets didn't suddenly increase in complexity recently, and you seem to be largely computer-based...
Author: pythbox	Sue definitely doesn't know. But if Jane isn't in some sense a product of them, then why's her mind feel so familiar?
Author: autokinetic	You did try to touch the fantasy game once, Aegis remembers vaguely.
Author: mind_game	Why do you have a bandwidth problem? Jane asks Aegis. Is that because your mutation makes it hard for you to link with Sue?
Author: autokinetic	Yeah. I can pretty easily get my wall down enough to send words. If I work a little harder I can do simple feelings or senses. I definitely can't do a complete dump of my brain like you guys basically did.
Author: pythbox	Ivy snuggles into Aegis's lap some more.
Author: mind_game	What do you do to get your wall down?
Author: autokinetic	I - focus on the fact that Sue's my bird. The bird from the game. It's just a habit now but originally we didn't spend much time together in person, and I was reminding myself that I actually knew him pretty well, just, as a bird.
Author: pythbox	...Sue thinks that maybe this is relevant, actually.
Author: mind_game	Jane does too, but she's still not sure how this explains the-part-of-her-that-absorbed-the-fantasy-game instead of just going towards finding the fantasy game a significant focal point for all three of them.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis is in about the same boat there. Do you think that my having to make an effort to link means that there's some kind of - residue? Debris? Some less value-loaded word for extra stuff that happens when I make the effort beyond just me and Sue being able to talk?
Author: pythbox	Maybe, muses Sue.
Author: autokinetic	How could we check for that?
Author: pythbox	He definitely has no idea. Jane?
Author: mind_game	There's nothing about things like me anywhere in any of the computers that connects to an ansible at any remove, Jane says. I only know things that I can find on computers and what you've told me.
Author: autokinetic	...Well, says Aegis. Bandwidth problem notwithstanding I have the impression that you're a merger of both the fantasy game and the thing that swallowed it, so even if we're only special to the fantasy game and not to your other, unexplained historical branch, we're still something.
Author: mind_game	I'm the easiest kid ever, asserts Jane. Not being biological helps.
Author: pythbox	Sue giggles.
Author: mind_game	Do I call you Mom and Dad now? Jane wants to know. Or I can call you Aegis and Sue, or whatever. Is Ivy my aunt?
Author: autokinetic	Let's stick with names and save figuring out the family tree for when we know more about you, Aegis says.
Author: pythbox	I can be your aunt if you want an aunt, Ivy says cheerfully.
Author: mind_game	Didn't you come from a world where everyone's got daemons? If Sue were my dad in that world would that make you my aunt, there?
Author: autokinetic	Aegis considers this a pointless exercise for the time being. So you can look at everything on all computers connected to ansibles, and you can send sourceless emails. What else can you do?
Author: mind_game	I haven't been doing much. I wanted to find you first before anybody else saw me, Jane says. I could probably do more than emails. I'm hiding in borrowed processor time and covering my tracks and it'd take more borrowing and more hiding to do sophisticated things, but - Aegis's desk comes alive, dancing with bright colors.
Author: pythbox	Pretty, says Sue.
Author: autokinetic	There's not even a program on my desk that can do that, Aegis says. We're pretty software-limited.
Author: mind_game	There is a program on your desk that can do that! It's me. Pause. Maybe I should have a face!
Author: pythbox	That'd be fun, says Sue.
Author: mind_game	The lights resolve themselves into a face.
Author: autokinetic	Nice, where'd it come from?
Author: mind_game	Composite of some humans' faces. You're both in there but not too much, there aren't pictures of you on the nets from many angles so I'm mostly using actresses.
Author: pythbox	I think you're pretty, says Sue.
Author: autokinetic	Yeah, nicely done.
Author: mind_game	Thanks!
Author: autokinetic	If you can see everything on an ansible-connected computer, Aegis says, no matter how many steps there are between the ansible connection and the other computer - does that mean you can read everyone's email?
Author: mind_game	I don't know how I could go about not doing that, Jane says.
Author: pythbox	Sue laughs.
Author: mind_game	Well, they're sending all their messages through me, Jane explains. It'd be like Sue trying to relay something without looking at it. I don't have to pay a lot of attention, though.
Author: pythbox	Fun, says Sue. He decides to curl up next to Aegis and run his fingers through Ivy's fur.
Author: autokinetic	Useful, Aegis says. Wanna help me take over the world, Jane?
Author: mind_game	That sounds great!
Author: pythbox	"I love you," Sue declares.
Author: mind_game	So what do I do?
Author: autokinetic	To start, I want to know anything the colony on the bugger homeworld says to anybody on this end. The other colonies are interesting too, but only if they send something out of the ordinary - the bugger world one is the one that needs the most watching. I want to know if they're in trouble, if they're having issues getting along with the buggers, and especially if they don't want to send any piece of information through Sue - it's one thing if he's asleep so they use the ansible, it's another if he's available and they're going around him. Pause. Big sister indeed.
Author: mind_game	Jane gets the reference! She is pleased with herself.
Author: pythbox	Jane is adorable. And Aegis is awesome. And Sue is full of cuddly feelings for both of them.
Author: mind_game	So far everything's pretty calm in the colony on the bugger world. There haven't been any transmissions besides the ones to confirm that the ansible still works since the top admirals started sending messages about having completed negotiations, which I'm assuming means that time was when negotiations were completed for the day. And you're both going to be made admirals and given jobs negotiating with buggers.
Author: autokinetic	Awesome, says Aegis.
Author: pythbox	Awesome, Sue agrees.