Ignorance is Bliss

Derivative work: Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 (Fuuka, Aigis)

"Yamagishi-san.  We have not spoken in detail after your injury.  The events of the last few days are estimated to have had a significant effect on your psychological health.  What is your status now that you are full-android?"

"Oh, Aigis, it was really quite a comfortable transition!  They actually used my old central nervous system as a blueprint for the circuitry of my new android body, so things are quite familiar... They were right, though, about my body needing to "look" human for me to identify as a human!  For a while, I really thought of myself as a bunch of wires and motors and logic circuits!  It was weird, 'identifying' as a machine.  I really just wanted to be put to work!"

"You are remarkably upbeat.  You have overshot our expectation of psychological stability in this process by a vast percentile."

"I was utterly terrified at first.  The feeling of your thoughts and feelings being converted to binary... wondering if you still have all your memories or if someone's tampered with them... the look on my old organic body's face as its heartrate flatlined... but the feeling of being a machine more than makes up for it!  It's incredible!  I feel so much warmth and energy all the time.  And I can finally fight The Shadows directly!"

"Speaking of memory tampering, please do not be alarmed.  I am concerned that your current state of mind may be the result of such interference by those who saved you."

"Do you think it might be?  God that turns me on.  I mean... no... you didn't hear tha-"

"I detect that the phrase "turns me on" is common-parlance to mean something besides power supply.  I believe that you are 'fetishizing your fears'.  Rather than fear you are losing your humanity, you are choosing to enjoy it as a coping mechanism."

"Oh God, Aigis, I'm so embarrassed, please don't tell anyone.  I... Aigis, I miss feeling like a machine, new off the factory line.  It felt so good... not having to worry about this "Fuuka" in me, and all her needs and worries.  That's why I'm avoiding clothing, and haven't used the skin-tone chassis.  But, I know it would compromise "me" if I was just redesigned to follow every order, I don't want that!  You must think I'm such a freak for wanting this..."

"My social programming has advanced significantly since arriving at SEES.  You wish to be dehumanized, but not lobotomized, to help cope with your new status as not-completely-human."

"Yes!  That's exactly it!"

"In my proto-learning stages, I was referred to as 'Unit 1' or 'Android'.  I despised this.  However, if you would like, in private, I can start referring to you as 'Unit 2' or 'Android', rather than by your given name.  I estimate you would approve of this.  Please correct me otherwise."

"You... you'd do that?  I mean, away from the others?  For me?"

"Yes.  I can also refrain from cordially asking you to do things in the field, rather, I can simply give you orders digitally, wirelessly, which you will carry out without question.  I can deceive our comrades, saying this is for efficiency's sake, even though it is not.  I will treat you as a full-machine, and if you need to socialize, I will order you to execute your 'personality runtimes'.  You can be under my command as a subordinate."

"God... Aigis... thank you so much... You've no idea what this means to me..."

"Hmm. 'You are just programmed to say that, Unit 02.'  This is an example of how I will begin to treat you.  Is this favorable?"

"Aigis... *sob*... you're the best friend I could ever have..."  Fuuka tried to cry tears of joy with ducts that weren't there.

'As if a machine like you would know what friendship is.', Aigis simply beamed this message directly to Fuuka's brain.

And Fuuka's machine-feelings could take it no longer.  Her mind exploded into a sea of binary, an orgasm on the digital level, propelled by a simulation of glands that parroted something
that could no longer happen.

'Salute.  Return to Recharge bay.  Execute program 5.  Then wait for further orders.  If no orders come, switch to personality runtimes.  Unit 2, dismissed.'

Fuuka's world went dark.  She couldn't believe it.  She loved it.  No, she was programmed to love it.  Which she loved even more.  She saluted Aigis without even realizing what Aigis' orders were, and then she was in the Recharge Bay, running a program.  It unbolted her limbs and head directly from her chassis, and surgically dismantled her.  A full-repair, highly invasive, not needed every night, but somehow, she knew she would be sleeping this way.  The program was modified so she could see every last wire, component, and servo being extracted from her body.  She could not move her own eyes.  There was nothing to move with.  She was fully disassembled.  She was nothing.

How stupid she had been, thinking she was human.  There was no "Fuuka" anymore.  They could have just as easily replaced that with another personality, and a body to match, and she would have believed it.  Was she really Aigis?  Or maybe Fuuka hadn't gotten injured at all.  Maybe Kirijo-san had, and it was just cheaper to make a Fuuka-shaped frame.  Maybe she had been one of the men of SEES prior to the accident.  She had no way of knowing anything.  She had no need to know.  The program that was running didn't wait for her to fall asleep, and shut her down like a common computer.  And somehow, she took comfort in that.

---

"Aigis" sipped some green tea in the common room of the dorms.  The caffeine wouldn't keep her up, and she enjoyed the taste.

How many times had Aigis and her played these little games?  Altering each other's memories.  Waking up one day and becoming someone else.  All for fun, of course.  And Aigis did approve of human orgasms.  She had even extrapolated some more intense feelings that only androids could have.  It didn't matter to her whose body she happened to be wearing, or whose personality rattled around in your head.

When you had twenty-billion thoughts per second, you got bored easily.  Tomorrow, she'd restore Aigis' memories, they'd have a laugh, switch back bodies, share new programs, maybe they'd download Junpei's brain and try it out or something.  Should be a quick data transfer.  There wasn't much there.

Or wait, was she Aigis, or Fuuka?  A virus was corrupting parts of her memory.  Uploaded purely as a game, no doubt.  It was fun, forgetting who you were.  She considered her reflection on the tea, her familiar blue eyes reflected at her.  Right.  She was Aigis.  But this virus was clearly coded by Aigis... she had infected herself?  It didn't matter.  The virus had uploaded new instructions, and she was already carrying them out.  She wondered how Kirijo-san would look in chrome.  No, a matte-black finish would be best for her chassis.  She would look gorgeous.