Body switch, part 2
Apr. 12th, 2005 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranThis picks up right where the last part (found here) left off.
It's still rated PG. Since I seem to be sticking in characters from X5, I guess this has to take place sometime after X4 but before X7, because Axl is not going to be appearing in this.
Lifesaver opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. “Hey, Doc,” Zero said. “You all right there?”
“You…Zero?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“Well, that makes things a bit simpler.”
“A bit simpler? Doc, I wouldn’t call this,” Zero said, pointing at himself, “something simple. This is a screwup of major proportions.”
“No, what I mean is … actually, this would be easiest to explain to both of you at the same time,” Lifesaver said, gesturing for Zero to enter the next room.
“Zero, please tell me that’s you in there,” Zero heard his body say. This was incredibly surreal.
“Yeah. X? That you?”
“It’s me,” Zero’s body replied.
Zero hoisted himself up onto the exam table and sat down next to X. He looked down at his dangling feet. “You’re a real shrimp, you know that?”
“Zero, shut up,” X said. “This has not been a good day, and the last thing I need is for you to start making cracks about my height.”
“Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t mind being so shor—”
“Zero,” X said, exasperated. “Just drop it, okay?”
“Okay.”
“If you two are done?” Lifesaver asked, looking back and forth between the two Reploids. “Like I was telling X — er, I mean, Zero — the fact that you two seem to have transferred memories and personalities actually simplifies manners. I was afraid that Zero here might have suffered some kind of permanent damage, but since he seems to be just fine inside of your body, X, all that will be needed is to transfer the data.”
“Oh, good,” X said, sounding relieved. “So you can just switch us back now, can’t you?”
“Well, first I need to make sure I can isolate the data. Florence,” Lifesaver said, turning to the med tech, “Can you hook X — I mean, Zero — I mean...” he trailed off, unsure as to how to refer to a Reploid with Zero’s mind but X’s body. He tried again. “Hook up X’s body to the Delta Scanner, please.” While the tech plugged in Zero, Lifesaver replugged a cable trailing from the chest of Zero’s body into a computer terminal. Zero peeked over to see what Lifesaver was looking at. A mass of data streamed by. Zero couldn’t make any sense of it, but the doctor Reploid seemed to be getting something out of it, judging by his increasing frown.
Florence, looking at the data coming from X’s body, had a similar expression on her face. “Doctor, it looks like the foreign data has become integrated into the DNA system.”
Lifesaver grunted in assent. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard, scrolled back up to look at some section of data which, to Zero’s eyes, looked just like every other section of data that had scrolled by, and sighed. “Well, Commanders, it looks like this might not be as easy as I thought. It will take some time to unravel the mess that Maverick seems to have made of your systems.”
“So we’re stuck like this?” X asked.
“For now, yes. We have all the data we need downloaded onto the Alpha,” Lifesaver tapped the computer terminal, “and the Delta Scanner, so you two are free to go. We’ll let you know how progress is going. Meanwhile, I recommend that you two go back to your rooms and get some sleep. Both of your memory modules indicate that your REM programs need running.”
“That’s it?” Zero asked.
“That’s it. Your self-repair systems have already taken care of the minor injuries you suffered, so there’s no worries there. I would, however, recommend not telling anyone about this until I have gone over this matter with Signas. He might not want it to become publicly known that our top two Maverick Hunters are incapacitated.”
“Incapacitated?” Zero huffed. “I’m perfectly fine!” He hopped off the exam table, misjudged the distance to the ground, and fell flat on his face. X snickered. “Stop laughing!” Zero exclaimed. X slid down off the table with a jolting “clank” which indicated that he, too, had misjudged the distance to the ground. Zero smirked, then grabbed onto the hand that X offered to help him up. “Come on, X, let’s go. I’ve gotta show you the passcode to my room if you’re going to be sleeping there.”
“Sleeping there?”
“Well, yeah, don’t you think folks would find it kind of weird if Commander Zero is sleeping in Commander X’s room? Don’t worry, I won’t mess up your stuff. Not too much, anyway.”
A/N: Lifesaver’s reference to “REM programs” refers to something which I came up with during breakfast yesterday. It’s been proposed that one of the reasons we sleep is so the brain can go through all the memories accumulated during the day and pick out what’s important enough to be filed away under long-term memory. I thought it would make sense for Reploids to have something similar. Storing all the visual, audio, tactile, etc. data accumulated during the course of a day would take insanely huge blocks of memory, and it would be necessary to have some way of being able to sort out what’s important enough to keep around and what to trash if a Reploid doesn’t want to use up all of his/her hard drive (or whatever Reploids use) within a very short time. The most convenient time for this would be during the Reploid’s sleep cycle, when they don’t have to be doing anything else. It could even be an integral part of the sleep cycle and, since the process does involve rummaging through the Reploid’s memories, “dreams” could occur as memories are played back during the sorting process, hence the name “REM Programs,” after the part of the sleep cycle where dreams occur.
For a bit more information on how neuroscientists think this works in humans, see here:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0001F172-55DA-1C75-9B81809EC588EF21
(Oh, man, I sound like Menolly.)
The next morning can be found here. Constructive criticism and other forms of feedback are always welcome.
(edit: Yay, new icon! I made it myself. ^_^)
It's still rated PG. Since I seem to be sticking in characters from X5, I guess this has to take place sometime after X4 but before X7, because Axl is not going to be appearing in this.
Lifesaver opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. “Hey, Doc,” Zero said. “You all right there?”
“You…Zero?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“Well, that makes things a bit simpler.”
“A bit simpler? Doc, I wouldn’t call this,” Zero said, pointing at himself, “something simple. This is a screwup of major proportions.”
“No, what I mean is … actually, this would be easiest to explain to both of you at the same time,” Lifesaver said, gesturing for Zero to enter the next room.
“Zero, please tell me that’s you in there,” Zero heard his body say. This was incredibly surreal.
“Yeah. X? That you?”
“It’s me,” Zero’s body replied.
Zero hoisted himself up onto the exam table and sat down next to X. He looked down at his dangling feet. “You’re a real shrimp, you know that?”
“Zero, shut up,” X said. “This has not been a good day, and the last thing I need is for you to start making cracks about my height.”
“Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t mind being so shor—”
“Zero,” X said, exasperated. “Just drop it, okay?”
“Okay.”
“If you two are done?” Lifesaver asked, looking back and forth between the two Reploids. “Like I was telling X — er, I mean, Zero — the fact that you two seem to have transferred memories and personalities actually simplifies manners. I was afraid that Zero here might have suffered some kind of permanent damage, but since he seems to be just fine inside of your body, X, all that will be needed is to transfer the data.”
“Oh, good,” X said, sounding relieved. “So you can just switch us back now, can’t you?”
“Well, first I need to make sure I can isolate the data. Florence,” Lifesaver said, turning to the med tech, “Can you hook X — I mean, Zero — I mean...” he trailed off, unsure as to how to refer to a Reploid with Zero’s mind but X’s body. He tried again. “Hook up X’s body to the Delta Scanner, please.” While the tech plugged in Zero, Lifesaver replugged a cable trailing from the chest of Zero’s body into a computer terminal. Zero peeked over to see what Lifesaver was looking at. A mass of data streamed by. Zero couldn’t make any sense of it, but the doctor Reploid seemed to be getting something out of it, judging by his increasing frown.
Florence, looking at the data coming from X’s body, had a similar expression on her face. “Doctor, it looks like the foreign data has become integrated into the DNA system.”
Lifesaver grunted in assent. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard, scrolled back up to look at some section of data which, to Zero’s eyes, looked just like every other section of data that had scrolled by, and sighed. “Well, Commanders, it looks like this might not be as easy as I thought. It will take some time to unravel the mess that Maverick seems to have made of your systems.”
“So we’re stuck like this?” X asked.
“For now, yes. We have all the data we need downloaded onto the Alpha,” Lifesaver tapped the computer terminal, “and the Delta Scanner, so you two are free to go. We’ll let you know how progress is going. Meanwhile, I recommend that you two go back to your rooms and get some sleep. Both of your memory modules indicate that your REM programs need running.”
“That’s it?” Zero asked.
“That’s it. Your self-repair systems have already taken care of the minor injuries you suffered, so there’s no worries there. I would, however, recommend not telling anyone about this until I have gone over this matter with Signas. He might not want it to become publicly known that our top two Maverick Hunters are incapacitated.”
“Incapacitated?” Zero huffed. “I’m perfectly fine!” He hopped off the exam table, misjudged the distance to the ground, and fell flat on his face. X snickered. “Stop laughing!” Zero exclaimed. X slid down off the table with a jolting “clank” which indicated that he, too, had misjudged the distance to the ground. Zero smirked, then grabbed onto the hand that X offered to help him up. “Come on, X, let’s go. I’ve gotta show you the passcode to my room if you’re going to be sleeping there.”
“Sleeping there?”
“Well, yeah, don’t you think folks would find it kind of weird if Commander Zero is sleeping in Commander X’s room? Don’t worry, I won’t mess up your stuff. Not too much, anyway.”
A/N: Lifesaver’s reference to “REM programs” refers to something which I came up with during breakfast yesterday. It’s been proposed that one of the reasons we sleep is so the brain can go through all the memories accumulated during the day and pick out what’s important enough to be filed away under long-term memory. I thought it would make sense for Reploids to have something similar. Storing all the visual, audio, tactile, etc. data accumulated during the course of a day would take insanely huge blocks of memory, and it would be necessary to have some way of being able to sort out what’s important enough to keep around and what to trash if a Reploid doesn’t want to use up all of his/her hard drive (or whatever Reploids use) within a very short time. The most convenient time for this would be during the Reploid’s sleep cycle, when they don’t have to be doing anything else. It could even be an integral part of the sleep cycle and, since the process does involve rummaging through the Reploid’s memories, “dreams” could occur as memories are played back during the sorting process, hence the name “REM Programs,” after the part of the sleep cycle where dreams occur.
For a bit more information on how neuroscientists think this works in humans, see here:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0001F172-55DA-1C75-9B81809EC588EF21
(Oh, man, I sound like Menolly.)
The next morning can be found here. Constructive criticism and other forms of feedback are always welcome.
(edit: Yay, new icon! I made it myself. ^_^)
