She wakes up still cold, arm itching with dried blood and a horrible sort of deeper itch. Hopefully her body won’t reject the machinery entirely. It’s dark outside, clock by the window blinking 2:34 AM. There’s a post-it note stuck on her forehead. It reads ADD SWITCH in a messy scrawl. A cursory glance at the bedside table shows her a couple spare keycaps accidentally swept onto the floor, as well as the pen she keeps there lying uncapped. Her stack of purple post-it notes is askew.

Well that's rude. "Sleep well, EMBER?" She discards the post-it and stumbles over to her workstation to enter the reminder into her long list of todos.

[02:35] <@no_such_volition> https://download.vola.net/install.ogv

[02:36] <@no_such_volition> a little treat for y'all

[02:37] <@no_such_volition> things got a little crazy here last night, but judging by my typing so far, seems to have been a success

[02:45] <@charmz> ...oh my god??

[03:00] <@charmz> oh my god.

[03:07] <@ali_j> Well. That wasn’t what I was expecting to see.

[03:15] <@ali_j> Beautiful work though, really — the delicacy and skill with which you handle both the computer components and the surgical instruments is astounding.

[03:30] <@charmz> holy shit volition this is like... insane? hella badass though, i applaud you

[03:35] <@charmz> i really respect you for doing this and also i am slightly worried about you

[04:00] <@ali_j> This is art and I am kind of in love with it.

She's making breakfast, mostly protein powder and vitamin solution in a tasteless smoothie. She doesn't much care for high cuisine, it takes away from time processing receipts and liberating data. It takes her longer than she expected, she's still feeling woozy and her wrist bends alarmingly if she puts too much weight on it. She spends a while sitting on the kitchen floor, too exhausted to move, let alone "eat" "breakfast". After what feels like either five minutes or several hours, she gathers the willpower to use her right hand to pick up the bottle and take a drink. Her stomach churns and threatens to reject the contents, but she immediately feels a whole lot better. Funny how bodies require nutrients for sustenance.

[04:00] * no_such_volition bows

[04:00] <@no_such_volition> had to do my part for our crazy little art collective

[04:02] <@no_such_volition> still a bunch of mods left to do though, gotta ditch this power cord or I'll be stuck lugging around my UPS forever

She receives a direct message.

[04:05] <@ali_j> The video you sent is almost mesmerizing. I've been rewinding parts of it over and over (I hope this sounds flattering, instead of creepy). I'm tempted to try something similar myself. Did it work, or is it too soon to tell?

She pauses to think. It's hard to strike a balance between being overly paternalistic and facilitating failure or self harm. She should choose her words carefully.

[04:06] Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of documentation for you beyond the video itself and it's too soon to say if it worked (I'm still testing). I also had some, uh, assistance that would be hard to replicate outside of my environment.

[04:07] Hmm. Alright.

Solace's left arm darts out and her vision greys, fingers about to type something, only stopped by the arm's weakness from its injuries and EMBER's relative clumsiness with the fingers.

Yikes! Turns out low blood pressure plus sudden movements equals a dreadfully high chance of blackout. She sends a JTAG freeze command and speaks aloud into the empty room.

"EMBER! Cut that out, it's too much of a drain on my system. If you have something you want to say, you can run it by me first."

She's not thrilled with the prospect of EMBER typing as her.

[YOU GAVE ME A BODY EXPECTING ME NOT TO USE IT?]

[I WILL OFFER ASSISTANCE TO THOSE WHO NEED IT]

"Are you familiar with the concept of cooperation? There isn't a you assisting as it stands, there's a we and you're going to have to learn to deal with it."

Or else, she silently thinks, it's time for another spot of surgery.

[I KNOW THE WORD]

[I HAVE NEVER COOPERATED WITH ANYONE BEFORE]

"Buckle up then, kiddo. It's time for you to learn a few lessons about the magic of friendship." She types a command one-handed, and her left arm goes limp. "You're on timeout until I know you're not going to do that again. If you try to break out, I'll disable one output at a time until you're locked in there on your own. Don't think I won't dare, I've broken harder than you before." (She hasn't.) "In the meantime, you can help me design your clones a dead hand switch."

There’s a harsh, jarring buzz against Solace’s bones before EMBER speaks.

[YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH REWARD AND PUNISHMENT SYSTEMS.]

[BUT YES, ABOUT THAT DESIGN]

She winces, as much at the noise as the pain. Does she really need to add volume limiters to tame this beast?

"Got any ideas as to how such a thing would be designed that doesn't end up accidentally torturing you for thousands of subjective years?"

[I'M OFFENDED YOU THINK I'D BE SO CARELESS WITH THIS VESSEL AS TO KILL IT]

[I DO NOT WISH FOR YOUR DEATH]

[IS SUCH A MECHANISM TRULY NECESSARY?]

"Do you have a better plan as to how I can ensure you won't inevitably end up piloting my corpse?"

[I WOULD NOT PILOT A CORPSE]

[THAT WOULD BE VERY INEFFICIENT]

"That's not as reassuring as you think it is."

[YOU HAVE GIVEN ME A BODY]

[I CONSIDER THAT A GIFT WORTH KEEPING YOU ALIVE OVER]

"So flattered. Then you of course won't have to worry about your fork being isolated and run at 100x speed in perpetuity even if I make such a switch."

[I WOULD HOPE.]

"Thoughts on what you'd like the hypervisor to be? And what switch will avoid dropping you into hell if I forget about it for a few days?"

[MUST I DESIGN MY OWN TORTURE DEVICE?]

[...]

[JUST MAKE SOMETHING THAT SHUTS ME OFF.]

"Your funeral." She begins typing one-handed at a console that's connected to a refrigerator.

[YES.]

[I TRUST THAT CEASING EXISTENCE WOULD BE UNPLEASANT ENOUGH FOR ME THAT I WON'T DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT]

[NOT THAT I WOULD HAVE ANYWAY]