Mass Effect: Reaper Dreams

Normandy's Child

"To be human is to be 'a' human, a specific person with a life history and idiosyncrasy and point of view; artificial intelligence suggest that the line between intelligent machines and people blurs most when a puree is made of that identity."

Brian Christian

March 18th, 2188

Samantha Traynor

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The blinking light on her pad beckoned to her, but Samantha resisted the urge to pick it up. No, she wasn't going to lose another chess game to Aimee. She'd lost seventy-three consecutive matches, and she refused to give her opponent another victory, not one more. She'd come up with several images of her opponent, but none quite matched up to the personality behind the player name, Aimee_Mk2.

At first, she'd worried that somehow, someway, Polgara T'Suza had tracked her down, but her old Asari nemesis was a dry, humorless alien, a complete snob. Aimee had real wit, a cornball sense of humor, and a dirty mind. She was also a hell of a flirt, if indeed it was a she. Samantha was increasingly skeptical. It could be anyone, really.

The extranet registry protocols listed Aimee as a twenty-one year old human female. You couldn't log on incognito unless you were skilled enough to circumnavigate the system. That was the catch. Samantha was quite capable of setting up a false extranet identity, in fact, during her college years she'd done it for a few friends for fun. If Aimee's cyber skills were even a fraction of her chess IQ... well, needless to say she could be anyone. It wasn't a comforting idea.

Samantha crawled out of bed. As she flipped the sheet out of way, she noticed a dried white substance on the sheet. What was it? Lotion, the ice cream from the other night? She was about to sniff it, then thought better of it. She flipped the sheet and noticed several others, as well as crumbs. Cookie crumbs, cracker crumbs, and other particles that could be just about anything. The bed was disgusting.

She looked around the disaster area that used to pass for an apartment. It was much the same. She'd set out all Diana's stuff, every shirt, every skirt, coat, pair of trousers. It was Samantha's way of holding on, same as the sheets, but the sheets needed to be laundered and the apartment cleaned. The memorial wasn't working. It didn't smell like Diana anymore, and certainly it didn't look like anyplace that she'd live.

Samantha stumbled out of bed, used the toilet, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was in worse shape than the apartment. Hair was a tangled mess, dark circles under the eyes, and a breakout of acne on her forehead and chin. She'd been eating too much chocolate and ice cream. The tank she wore was grimy. When did she last change out of it, Tuesday? Oh, God, it was Monday. She'd been wearing the same tank top for nearly a full week. At least she'd changed her underwear, on... um, Friday? Yes, she remembered, Friday, because that was her last clean pair. Yup, it was official. Things were out of hand.

She stumbled to the kitchen, clattered the dishes around and found a mug that was clean enough to rinse off. She swished some hot water around in it, then filled it with café noir from the dispenser. Tufts of steam curled off the near black liquid. She took a little sip and burned her lips and tongue. Shit, well, if the cup was teeming with bacteria it was probably safe to drink from now. She picked her way through the rubble and crawled back into bed with her mug.

Well now, the apartment didn't seem so bad from here. Maybe she could put off cleaning it a few more days. Also, the shirt she was wearing wasn't that foul after all. Especially since she hadn't showered in days, and well, she'd just ruin a clean one. Yea, she'd sit right here in bed, take in some caffeine, maybe listen to a little music, find another bottle of wine, and then around noon she'd have a good cry. Samantha realized it was rather pathetic, but she'd settled into this routine and she just didn't have the strength to break it.