[quote=@Tatterdemalion]“A job means you have security. And part of that is making sure people pay attention to you. Hate mail and love letters and begging for feet pics are all ways of saying: [i]we see you. You won’t fall through the cracks again. You’re loud enough.[/i] And, yeah, it’s intense. But it’s better than the alternative.”

She takes a long, slightly shaky breath. “You know, for a while, I did magtrain work? It was super illegal, but I faked my ID, said I was 16, and got the job. It’s garbage. It’s a garbage job that made me want to cry every night. And that’s what keeps me going. I do this so I never, [i]ever,[/i] have to do that again. That’s where I get the energy, Locks. It’s desperation. It’s me clawing at the top as everything tries to drag me down.”

Time for things to be About Sara Now!

“And now that I’ve hit the big leagues... I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I sign on and become some megacorp champ? Do I keep throwing myself at problems until the day Euna isn’t there to pull me off the moon and I become a beautiful, sexy supercorpse? Or do I retire and immediately kill myself out of boredom?”
[/quote]

"Way I've always thought about it," he said, rummaging in his pocket for a pack of chili peanuts, opening it, and offering it to you, "is that a career is like a bus. You ride it to get to where you want to be, and then you get the fuck off. People who don't end up like Vicky or Comstar, going round and round until it scrambles their brains. So now that you've got the choice, then ask yourself what part of all this do you find fun? If it's the adrenaline of the fights then go into Aristeia and do it as an athlete with med tech on site. If it's changing the world for the better, find some team of wannabes and finance them so you can make the change you want without putting your life at risk, and so on,"

[quote=@Phoe]She fights to keep the frown off her face.

"Ok, how about, uh... actually, you know what? Let's forget about my questions for now. Is there anything [i]you[/i] want to talk about? Anything you want to ask?"

That's too soon, you idiot! That's much too soon. Errant cracks her neck, and braces herself for what comes next.[/quote]

"Right, right..." Cinder sighs, burying her face in her hands. "Sorry. I'm Extremely Internet and I kind of don't talk to normi-[i]aahhll[/i] people very often. Thanks. Um. O-okay, uh, so I'm sorry to cut right to it, but I'm kind of [i]dying[/i] to know the specs on these limbs. They're a bit out of date and your training isn't public but they still look like they've got modern Kinematica muscle fibers and they're neurally grafted rather than using a spinescan so... uh..." this is the face of someone who wants to know how high they can jump but can't quite bring themselves to ask.

[quote=@Balmas]"Wait but---

"Yes, and--

"Look, I just--"

The keyboard clacks noisily as head meets desk. "Never thought I'd be a dad before I was twenty," he murmurs, the sound coming out muffled from under his face. "And maybe that's the actual problem, too. I made him to be a friend when he needed somebody to teach him. I mean, yes, he's my child, and I should teach him. At the same time, he grew to be so much more than I was, in terms of intelligence and planning and, and..."

And what? And now I've lobotomized him so that I can reteach him? 

"Having been that, is he ever going to accept me teaching him? Is he really going to ever view me as an equal worthy of listening to?

"Can I still save him?"[/quote]

"Having analyzed the actions performed by Prometheus in his stint as a superintelligence, as derived from AEGIS' analysis of his shutdown servers, I would not agree with the statement that he grew to be more than you were in either intelligence or planning," said Bode. "His plan, if it can be called that, was effectively to grey goo the cosmos with himself. That is the motivation of a human toddler mashing space ships together. I have therefore derived the conclusion that intelligence and wisdom are different statistics that are improved with separate and distinct training regimens, as the great law-givers of ancient days wrote."