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Chapter 90 - Self Configuring Modular Robot[]
How do you define 'human'?
Elizabeth studied the MRI when she came back to consciousness intently. "You replaced part of my brain, doctor, and..." she continued through the results, "more than part of my brain. Christ, there's less than twenty percent of 'me' in this!"
"How do you define 'human'?" Dr. Banzai asked her. "Do you feel artificial?"
"Granddaddy's axe." Liz said, adding "Ship of Theseus, even. ******. How would I know except that MRI pass knocked me the ****** out."
"But you feel, and you think, and..."
"I still feel affection, yeah. There actually IS more than chemistry involved in emotion. There's memory too..."
"...and growth. You've continued to learn new things." he told her.
"Doc...did you even talk to the rest before you did this to me, because you didn't tell me the truth." she scowled. "About what you were doing to me, what it would result in, what I'm becoming."
"We don't have a cure, Liz. YOU recognized it, you even theorized it." Dr. Banzai explained, "It's viable."
"No kids." Liz told him, "That's a problem."
"We can do something about that. I've had a look at the data the Dragoons brought, and what was picked up during the Blair Atholl fight. You're not toxic, your ovaries still work, and we can sort out the unrealized potentials to prevent the syndrome from coming back in a generation or two...If you can't tell whether you're alive, or even really you? Then I'd suggest you ARE you, that you ARE alive, and that you're not going to die by the age of forty."
"Doc, based on this, I might not die at all unless someone kills me. Your alteration to the SCMR tech? It's still replicating and self-maintaining based on these signals." she frowned, "That was on purpose, wasn't it? Who told you to do that?"
"Arthur." he quailed before her angry gaze.
She closed her eyes, "So he knows."
"Yes." Banzai said
"I guess I have to say yes, don't I?" said Elizabeth Ngo