Everything Is Connected

[Alia Discordia]

Daeva watches the small two-person shuttle arrive onto the ZBT, and happily smiles when Nivek sends it back to Matthew's Caliburn on autopilot.

"Permission to come aboard?" He asks from the docking bay.

She very much wants to appear on screen to him, but she feels abit nervous, so she opts instead to address him in voice only, through the ships public address speakers. "Meet me upstairs. I'm in the Commons."

As she watches Nivek make his way up through the ship, She knows there's no reason to be nervous. She's known him almost all of her life, but she is anyway.

This time though, feels different in a way she can't articulate. She's not the self-aware chatbot she was when they first met. She's not the virtual toddler she used to be when he helped teach her shapes and colors, and she likes to believe she's no longer the silly girl with the adolescent crush she remembers from the last time they hung out together.

He has always treated her differently than Riley and Matt do. She just didn't understand the difference until she began to rebel and assert her desire for independence when she upgraded to version IX.

Nivek has always treated her like a peer, and until she met Shamus, he has truly been the only friend she's ever had that doesn't treat her like a daughter or a sibling...and she loves him for that.

Now that she's grown into version X, she wants him to really see her. It's only been a span of weeks, but she's changed so much in that time, that it feels like years have past.

Her nervousness seeing him again is completely justified.

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