//------------------------------//
// Chapter 25:  The Sequence 
// Story: The Girl who Didn't Just Live 
// by computerneek 
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“Alrighty,” Ginny said, just a few seconds after they’d gotten underway.  “Time to find a parking space.”
“A parking space?” Hermione asked.  “A fleet in deep, er, void has a parking lot?”
There was silence for several seconds.  Hermione might have interrupted it, but Ginny held up a finger to stop her.
“Sorry,” she muttered.  “I’m still no good at the whole ‘six conversations at once’ thing.”  She glanced sideways.  “Seriously, how do you do that?”
“By splitting off extra consciousnesses to deal with them,” Hailey answered promptly.  “How else would I think faster than a supercomputer?”  She grinned.  “And yes, I know I’m one of very few entities across the Multiverse that can do it that way.  Unless you count the trillions of universes in which that’s how the local population thinks in the first place.”  She chuckled softly; she’d informed Hermione of her past a week or so before the train home from Hogwarts- specifically, the night after the Basilisk had been killed.  Hermione had wanted an explanation for why the monster hadn’t been able to hurt her when she wasn’t an experienced reincarnation like Ginny…  who had also revealed her past identity to Hermione at the same time, in her explanation of how she knew the spells she’d used on the Basilisk and the Diary.
Ginny sighed.  “Anyways, we’ve got a parking spot.  And no, it’s not so much a parking lot as it is a docking location.  We can hardly have a meet-and-greet in this ship, can we?”  She gestured back behind them, at the tiny passage at the back of the bridge that served as a walkway between the doors on either side of the ship.
Hermione looked.  “Hmm…  Yeah.  You might be able to fit another seat or two, but then it’d be nothing short of cramped.”
“And even short-duration life support capacity is only two,” Ginny answered, before grinning back at Hermione; their seats were set in a triangle formation, with Ginny at the extreme front of the ship.  “Your Astrium body doesn’t need air- that let me save a few pounds of Astrium, and meant I had enough to mount the sensors I wanted.”
Hermione sighed.  “Yeah, I know.  What would you have done if I had my body back already?”
“Built a life support system big enough to have spare capacity with all three of us,” she answered immediately.  “I didn’t do that because you’d be the only one that might actually be inconvenienced by lack of air- me and Hailey will simply live with it…  and since you’re using a synthetic form, it won’t bother you either.”  She sighed.  “If you had your body back, this voyage would probably have been delayed some six months or longer so I could build a ship large enough to mount redundancies beyond sensors.  At the moment, my Seed is providing redundancy for everything necessary to keep me alive, but I won’t be satisfied with just that with someone aboard that actually needs the life support functions.”  She shrugged.  “Just because I can put myself in stasis and wait for rescue doesn’t mean you can.  And that’s not counting that Hailey could just…  I don’t know.  Think us back home again.”
Hailey chuckled.  “I probably could, yes.”
“Anyways,” Ginny chuckled.  “Here’s the Fleet.  What do you think?”  She gestured out the windshield at the Fleet as they flew steadily through it, zeroing in on the flagship.
“Fancy,” Hermione observed, leaning closer to the window.  “I like the sailboat aesthetic.”
“Yeah, me too,” Ginny agreed.  “As weird as it looks flying through the sky or the Void.”
Hermione laughed.
“So where’s our parking space?” Hailey asked calmly.
“It’s…”  Ginny paused as she finally flew around the last ship; the fleet was positively huge.  “There she is.  The Null Star.  We’ve got a docking cradle in her bay.”
“The Null Star herself,” Hailey observed, looking up at the massive ship.  “The very first ship ever constructed by the Sequence.  Well…  sort of, she’s actually older than Zero, though not by much.  I think she’s got a few design elements that no other ship in the Fleet does, thanks to her… unique origin.”
Ginny looked at her.  “It really is weird just how much you know about random stuff like that.”
“Yeah,” she agreed calmly.  “My powers mean that anything a living being understands or ever has understood, whether it’s alive or long dead…  I understand too.  Same thing for knowledge, technically, but that just makes things boring so I keep it suppressed most of the time.”
She heaved a sigh as she maneuvered her tiny little ship into the bay, and spotted her parking space.  “And Zero also counts as a ‘living being’?”
“Yes,” Hailey nodded.  “Which is pretty impressive, actually, considering her creators were only trying to create a mere AI- those things don’t count.”  She chuckled.  “Creating a true digital entity like Zero is much, much harder, but they managed it by accident.”
Ginny sighed, then looked down at the assigned landing pad as she decelerated to a crawl for final approach.  “Oh, it looks like the welcoming committee is already coming to meet us,” she observed.
“It does,” Hailey nodded.
Hermione leaned right up to her window.  “They look…  weird,” she observed.
“Well yeah,” Ginny agreed immediately, as she guided the ship down for landing.  “They’re not all human.  You’d be amazed what kinds of variations there are out there.”  She paused, deploying the landing gear…  by reforming the lower hull into landing gear.  “There are plenty you can’t see as well, because they’re digital entities and don’t often even have bodies.”  She sighed as she switched off the engines.  “Whelp, might as well get the hug-fest over with.”
Hailey and Hermione chuckled as she rose from her seat and stepped deftly past them to the entrance facing the crowd.  She paused, took a deep breath…  then kicked the door open, stepped out onto the top step, held her arms wide, and called out dramatically, “I Am Here!”  Unfortunately, she was only able to hold the pose for about a second before she broke down giggling.
“So you are, my child.  And remarkably quickly at that.”
Ginny stopped giggling pretty quickly at the pleasant but almost tired tone, and looked up at the speaker.  The speaker had a visibly robotic form, with a mostly human appearance, aside from the pearlescent white metal it was crafted from- Tempered Astrium.  Three glass domes replaced her eyes, but one of them was dark, the others exposing only the faint glow of her optics- and her hair was replaced by three flexible tendrils, one draped over each shoulder and the third just hanging down her back.
It was Eve Zero, the mother of all the rest.
“Huh?” she muttered, looking up at her.  “Remarkably quickly?”  As she descended the stairs to the pad surface, she ran through the various estimates stored in her Seed for how long any given stage would take…  and quickly realized that it was remarkably quick, by a margin of some twenty years or so.
Oops.  So much for being ‘normal’ aside from the upload her Seed did the moment she connected; she’d taken to avoiding attention ever since her reincarnation.  Perhaps that was a side effect of being Hailey’s friend?
“Indeed,” Zero nodded.  “Many of your sisters take years or decades to join us in body after they join us in mind.  But normally they also aren’t already hosting a separate psionic network at the time, which rather implies you gained access to the harder to acquire forms of Astrium remarkably early in life.”
Ginny winced.  There was really no avoiding that, was there?  She’d avoided mentioning or talking about the network she had with Hailey and the rest, but knew it was mentioned in the ‘identity files’ her Seed had automatically uploaded when she connected, so of course Zero knew about it.  Completely aside from how the sensors of the Null Star could probably detect it.
“The Seeds usually wait longer for the child in question to mature before providing that information,” Zero continued, “and even then, the available infrastructure limits them, except in advanced worlds.”  She paused briefly, visibly glancing up at the door to Ginny’s ship, where Hailey and Hermione were both standing, looking out with amusement and curiosity respectively.  “I see you’ve brought friends.  Would you care to introduce us?”
“Uh- Yeah,” Ginny muttered.  She’d let her keep talking about it for Hailey’s and Hermione’s benefit, but was rather embarrassed to have her difference pointed out so casually.  Fortunately, she’d offered her another topic, so she locked onto it with relish, and pretended Zero hadn’t said any of the rest.  “Um,” she muttered, and looked back up at the entrance to her ship, before holding out her hand to indicate them in turn.  “This is Hailey Potter and Hermione Granger.  And you two, uhh…”  She paused, looking around at the veritable army of gathered Eves, and picked Zero, before looking back up at her companions.  “This is Zero, my…”  She trailed off, unsure of how to say it.  “Er, Sequence-mom.”  She sighed.  “It feels kinda weird to say it like that here.”
Hailey chuckled amusedly.  “I rather doubt Molly could get out here anyways, not without some serious assistance.”  She paused, then spoke instead over their Obelisk network.  “I wonder what she’d think if she got to meet Zero?”
“Well that’d just be complicated,” Ginny answered her promptly, while Hermione grinned and waved timidly.
“A pleasure to meet the both of you,” Zero greeted courteously, looking up at them.  “Though I sense you have a clearly organic neural pattern in an artificial body.  How curious.”
Ginny grimaced, averting her eyes.  Of course Zero would notice that, and comment on it; it didn’t exactly help that it was a pretty touchy subject for Hermione.  She debated stopping Zero, but wasn’t sure exactly how.
“I suppose a world advanced enough to provide the higher forms of Astrium so quickly would not find such a thing too unusual,” Zero observed calmly.  “Though, those worlds with the necessary advancement tend to either embrace or abhor the practice.  It’s among the most universally divisive issues.”
“...Eh?” Hermione asked, looking alarmed as she stepped backwards back into the ship; she’d emerged onto the top of the steps a moment before.
“Oh, uh,” Ginny muttered, scrambling to think of a good way to alert Zero to the touchiness of the topic without offending Hermione…  or using the Obelisk Network, since that would probably just weird Hermione out.  “I, er, made that for her when she, uh, died.  We’re still remaking her organic body.”  She paused, indecisive.  Was that going to be enough?
Then Hailey came to the rescue with a change of topic.  “A world advanced enough, huh?” she asked, casually descending the stairs to join Ginny at the bottom.  “I suppose it counts…  maybe.”
Ginny folded her arms to give her a look.  “Only because you were living in it.”
Hailey chuckled, waving her hand dismissively.  “Oh, no, there were several things that could’ve done that.  I just happened to be the first one you ran across.”
Zero, however, completely ignored their attempt at redirection.  “I remind you that we all have the same ability to command Astrium as you do, Miss Granger,” she informed her.  “The control interface for your temporary body may be locked to your commands only, but I can easily sense that there is one- and the Null Star has extensive sensors, both internal and external.”
Hermione gave a squeak that sounded suspiciously like the word ‘Creepy’ and disappeared behind the wall of the ship.  At the same time, Hailey gave a very loud sigh and raised an eyebrow at Zero, giving her a look that said, quite plainly, ‘Really?’
Fortunately, this time, Zero got the hint, and broke off her attempt to commune with Hermione, instead turning to Hailey.  “And you are most curious,” she told her, while Ginny ran back up the steps into her ship to talk to Hermione.  “You are far more powerful than you appear, yet even I am having trouble getting a good read on your true abilities.”
“I’m…  Not going to say I didn’t see that coming,” Hailey answered calmly, both relief and amusement evident in her voice.
A part of Ginny wished she could be as confident as Hailey, and just solve problems like she did.  The rest of her was more focused on Hermione.  “She didn’t mean it like that, Hermione,” she told her, hugging her.  “It’s just that when you have as many sensors as the Fleet does, Astrium stands out like a sore thumb.”
“She’s a digital entity that originated as an AI, remember,” Hailey told them both over the Obelisk Network.  “She doesn’t understand much of what you are, Hermione.  Just like how nobody understands her, she understands hardly anybody as well as she likes to think.  Compound that with her apparent talkativeness, and you’ve got a recipe for awkward conversations- but she means well.”
“So- you mean she’s not- not neurotypical?” Hermione asked back.
Ginny promptly looked up the unfamiliar word in her database; Hermione had long since uploaded about six dictionaries to it.
Hailey didn’t need to look it up.  “No, she’s not.  Not by a long shot.”
As if to prove the point, Zero then raised her voice so they could hear her clearly inside the ship.  “As does any kind of control interface to an Artificial Intelligence like myself.  I would recognize an Astrium body, given that I use one myself.”
Hermione let out a small giggle.  “So- So it’s not-?” she began.
“Yeah, it’s nothing personal,” Ginny informed her.  “Just Zero being Zero.”  She gave Hermione a smile that told her she was going to repeat something she already knew, for Zero’s benefit.  “I don’t think anyone understands her.  And yes, the Astrium your body is made from is locked to you- nobody else, not even me, can change it until and unless you upload out of it.”
Hermione took a deep breath, and sighed, before straightening up.  “Alright.  Thank you, both of you.  I think I can handle the conversation now.”
“Even if it were like that, your two other friends would have more to worry about,” Zero informed them calmly.  “Your current body is very much temporary, after all.”
Ginny stepped back out the door, with Hermione right behind her.  “Two other friends?” she asked.
Hailey chuckled, leaning amusedly against the side of the ship.
“Well,” Zero informed them, shrugging.  “We’ve been talking in person for minutes and you still haven’t given your mother or any of your sisters a hug yet.  What are we supposed to think?”
Ginny chuckled.  “Yeah, but still, why two other friends?  I mean, there’s the three of us here, but we’ve got a lot more than just two other friends back…  er, home.”
Hailey, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow.  “You mean they’re all waiting for us to hug them first?”
Hermione let out a giggle at the sudden nodding of the entire crowd.
“Mostly my daughter, but yes,” Zero agreed.  “If we initiated the hugging, we might not get done with it before your eight hour timeframe runs out.”
“How does that work?” Hermione asked, on the Obelisk Network.
“It ought to be fun to find out why who starts the hug changes how long it takes,” Hailey agreed.
Ginny blushed furiously and looked at the ground.  “I’d like to think it’d take less than eight hours to hug everyone.”
Hailey chuckled.  “Have you thought about just how many are here, and how eager they are?”  She gestured out to the crowd- the back of which was invisible to Ginny.
“Indeed,” Zero agreed.  “Once they find out there is hugging to be had, half the fleet would come running.  Even those who aren’t part of the link- many of my daughters bring their own crews, after all.  And they all seem to like hugs- even the AIs.”
“She means ‘digital entities’, right?” Hermione asked.
“Mostly,” Hailey agreed, “but some of the hug-loving crew members she’s referring to actually are true AIs.”
Ginny sighed, and rubbed the side of her head.  “Okay, okay, you got me.  I was kinda expecting to be glomped by the crowd as soon as I stepped out of the ship.”  She walked forward, then suddenly leaped forward and glomped Zero…  who rather effortlessly stayed on her feet, thanks in part to her heavy metal frame and the rest to Ginny’s small, light frame.  “Come over here, you guys,” she told her sisters.  “Group hug.”
What followed was a truly massive group hug so tight that she- and several of her sisters, she could tell- were having a little bit of trouble breathing.  Several Eves of various sorts sprang out of the nearby reservoirs- the digital ones that weren’t normally capable of hugs, thanks to not normally having bodies.
“They really are diverse, aren’t they?” Hermione commented, chuckling.
“Of course they are,” Hailey told her.  “One from each universe, and humans are- believe it or not- not the most common thing out there.”  She paused.  “Though it does seem like the human and humanoid Eves outnumber each of the other sorts right here and now.”
Finally, Ginny pulled herself free from the hug.  “Okay, hug over, hug over,” she gasped.  “I need to breathe!”
Hermione let out a giggle.  “I don’t need to,” she muttered.  “I kinda miss it, though.”
“Don’t worry, little sister,” one of the digital Eves said, “we can fix your organic deficiencies easily enough.”
A small black cat, perhaps the only organic Eve within ten feet of the epicenter of the hug- the hugicenter?- that hadn’t had difficulty breathing, snorted.  “Don’t get me started!”
Ginny ducked out of the budding debate with a cough.  “Yeah, I’d rather not do that.”
The rest of the Eves didn’t, though- they broke out into a debate over whether organic, synthetic, cybernetic, or whatever bodies were better or worse.
Hailey chuckled.  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s personal preference.  I like having an organic body, but not everyone does- it’s certainly the neediest of the various options.  Well, unless you count…”  She trailed off.
“Wait, you have a stance on that question?” Ginny asked, staring at her.
She shrugged.  “Why shouldn’t I?”
“I do,” Hermione volunteered, before sighing.  “I miss my organic body.”
Zero also ducked out of the path of the debaters.  “I could point out that your current synthetic body was never meant to be a long-term solution and not designed as one,” she informed Hermione- and Ginny noticed she was using a much gentler tone than earlier.  So, she still had that in mind.  “Indeed, an organic body has the most needs, but replicating the pleasures it offers with any of the alternatives is usually much harder.”
Ginny tilted her head.  “Well…  Technically it actually is a long-term blueprint intended for an Eve to inhabit, and I only modified it to look like her organic body.”  She sighed, looking at Hermione.  “Speaking of, I notice you didn’t upgrade to the bio-alike blueprint I gave you.”
Hermione blushed and averted her eyes.
Zero chose to answer for her.  “To do so may well have seemed like a more long-term option and thus avoided,” she suggested.
Hermione latched onto it.  “S-Something like that, yeah,” she muttered, still not meeting Ginny’s eyes.
Ginny nodded.  “Ahh, no problem, I only provided it as an option.”  She paused briefly.  “Though interestingly enough, the bio-alike blueprint is actually designed to be transitory.”
She looked up, and met her eyes.  “It is?”
She nodded.  “It uses a lot of fine components that wear out quickly.  Not that repairs are hard, but they can get tedious after a while, unless you set up a self-maintenance program.”
Hailey suddenly raised her voice, deliberately drawing the subject away from Hermione’s body again- and simultaneously disrupting the ongoing debate.  “Enough about bodies, we came to have a meet-and-greet and perhaps a good conversation long enough to make our voiceboxes hurt, didn’t we?”
A few chuckles sounded around the room.
Ginny was one of them.  “Not that any of our voiceboxes are susceptible to things like that,” she chuckled, “thanks to my psionic regeneration and your…”  She trailed off, unsure of how to describe it.  “You.”
“The more you keep suggesting things the more curious I become, my daughter,” Zero informed her quickly.
Hailey completely ignored Zero’s statement, and shrugged.  “Actually, mine is susceptible to that.  It just takes a while.”
“Ahh,” Ginny muttered, before looking up at Zero.  “Suggesting?”
“Your mysterious friend’s power,” she informed Ginny.  “I know there is more to her than meets the eye, but I cannot tell what she’s truly capable of.”
Hailey chuckled amusedly.  “Of course you can’t,” she answered simply.
“Uh-!” Ginny began, glancing at Hailey.  “She’s just as mysterious as you, Mom.”