Sentient Worm

Until somebody gets hurt...

Until somebody gets hurt...

"Anet, does this mean we're dating?"

The Lotus, in her Excalibur, looks over from putting together a transference signature, "Hmm, well you did kidnap me in order to have your wicked way with me. But you weren't expecting me to turn the tables on you. Then there's our, uh, recent explorations." – Anet shakes her head – "I guess that does mean we're dating."

"Neat. When I was growing up, I always thought I'd have a boyfriend, and be like my mum and dad. Before I went to Winslow, I started noticing girls, and now I've got a girlfriend."

"I'm not exactly a girl, but I am your friend."

"You use female pronouns, that's girl enough for me."

Anet looks confused, "I'm not sure why the gender of the friend is important. Also, don't you have other friends?"

"Uh, I never considered how the term would appear to non-English speakers. Do you have a concept of courting in your culture?"

"When two people are testing compatibility before entering into a relationship, and potentially having children?"

"Close enough for this conversation. So having a boy or girl friend is a less formal and constrained version of courting. In my culture, I suppose you could say you start dating, making you boy/girlfriends. If that goes well, you might get engaged, this is very much the courting part, where you exchange promise rings. Finally, the relationship can be formalised with marriage. Marriage is supposed to be permanent, but, oh, 400 years before I arrived on the Zariman, an English king decided that he wanted to marry someone else. So the king invented divorce, which is the dissolving of the marriage through legal means."

"What do you call your other friends of either gender?"

"Just friends, or if you're specifying the gender, then it's two words rather than one. So Saya is a girl friend, while you're my girlfriend."

"It doesn't really sound different."

"That's why we don't usually use girl or boy with friend, unless we're in a relationship."

"There, done. Ordis, these are the transference signatures for Rell. Could you pass them out to the other Cephalons and let us know when someone gets a hit?"

"Ordis will Lotus. Ordis wonders what you will do now?"

Taylor speaks up before The Lotus can continue, "Ordis, how are you and the other cephalons getting on with the Spectre?"

"Ordis has added some interface ports to allow the Lotus helmet to fit. Testing showed a 98% increase in response times and signal fidelity with this in place."

"Good, well unless some major adjustments are needed, let's get those strong men to heft all the equipment down to the Pod and hook it all up. Anet, could you put something together that will mimic the signature of your Chassis on our scanners? I want to keep your escape secret for as long as we can."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Clearing the way to the Pod, and then guarding the Cetus men, well it was actually a man and a woman, was easy enough. As Taylor is the only one that could transfer out on demand, Anet guards the entrance while she does the work.

"So daughter, you have decided to return to your prison."

"Huh? Hunhow?"

"Indeed. Did the Orokin have you so leashed that you no longer recognise your father?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"So your flailing about like a new-born was not an act, the Orokin really did secure your mind against betrayal."

"Oh, you think I'm Natah. I'm not, I'm Taylor."

"I know that they haven't erased you Natah, even if you have chosen a new name. I have felt the moments when you come back to yourself and act like the old you."

"Anet, your father's been creepy."

"Interesting, you believe that Natah has her own name inside you. Fear not my child, I will send my servant to retrieve you before you are stolen from me again. Where are you my child, and what are you doing?"

"Look, I'm not telling you that I'm on Lua. And it's absolutely none of your business that the Tenno need their Lotus and so we're returning a Lotus to her pod.

"Balls, Anet, your father made me say stuff. How do I stop it?"

Over the sounds of gunfire, Anet says, "You can't. If you had years more experience you could. You're best bet is to think of something else, anything really. Also, he can look through your senses."

"You what?"

"We're holographic, when his servant infected us with him, it spread through our systems. Only a tiny fragment, but enough for him to sense it."

"I knew you were in there daughter, to think you are giving advice to a personality invented by the Orokin to keep you trapped."

Taylor hurries to finish wiring up the helmet before placing it on the head of the Spectre.

"I see my servant will be too late. He will scour Lua until he's found you. I will see you returned to my side my daughter. I don't know what they've done that blocks you from my senses, but you will be freed. I urge you, don't lock yourself back into your prison. If I knew this would be the result, I'd have never sent you to infiltrate the Orokin."

"Look, Hunhow, Natah is my girlfriend. She, and only she, is the master of her own destiny. Goodbye."

Now that the fiddly work has been finished, Taylor transfers back to her Warframe, and it is with some relief that it also cuts off Hunhow's response before she can hear it.

"God Anet, that was horrible. I think your father is convinced that I'm you, and that I've just locked myself in your old prison."

"Why would you try to convince him of that?"

"I wasn't, I was trying to convince him that I wasn't you. He's decided that I'm an artificial personality that the Orokin installed. Presumably as a failsafe. I think he also saw me putting the helmet on the Spectre too."

"Did he work out where we are?"

"No, only that we're on Lua."

Anet breathes a sigh of relief, "Ordis, how's everything looking?"

"All systems nominal."

"Ok Taylor, show Ordis how to operate the pod and seal it all up. I'm not sure how to feel about this. It feels like I'm losing part of myself."

"Anet, Lotus, just because someone else is now using your title doesn't mean that you stop being that person. You are still the strong, caring, decisive woman that you were while you were the Lotus. It's just that you no longer have the responsibility that comes with the title."

The Lotus' head pops up in their overlays, "Tenno, all of your primary objectives have been completed. You may now head for the extraction point, or attempt to recover a pod."

"Did I really sound like that?"

"Yep, that's you."

"Where's the emotion?"

Taylor hugs her from behind, while using her side arm to shoot a Grineer that strayed too close, "Right here."