Andrea rested the positronic brain in both hands, turning it over slowly as though some hidden marking might reveal itself if she looked from the right angle. It never did. The casing remained as featureless as when Mrs. Everest had first placed it on her desk, offering no clues beyond the uncomfortable certainty that this was, in all likelihood, the single most valuable object she had ever held. She had spent entirely too long trying to reduce the decision before her into an engineering problem.

A weapons platform had obvious appeal. BlackSun was searching. Whoever possessed the remaining Hecatoncheires would almost certainly be willing to kill for them, and there was undeniable comfort in the idea of giving Rooster every possible advantage at defending itself before it ever opened its eyes. But the more Andrea examined that line of reasoning, the less she liked where it ended. A body built around violence inevitably encouraged violent solutions. It did not matter how intelligent Rooster proved to be; the tools available to someone inevitably shaped the way they approached the world. Give someone a sword and they would, sooner or later, begin looking for things to cut.

Mrs. Everest's attendants had been the next obvious comparison. If Orange and the others truly were something close enough to make no practical difference to being Hecatoncheires themselves, then Magnolia had already demonstrated one possible philosophy. Build companions. Elegant, capable women whose talents existed to anticipate needs before they were spoken aloud, allowing one of the most powerful people alive to spend her attention on matters only she could address. Andrea understood the appeal. After the week she'd endured, she understood it rather well.

It still wasn't what she wanted.

Paradisia was already going to become the wall between Andrea and the rest of the world. That position had been filled by someone Andrea trusted precisely because she wasn't another immaculate corporate construct. Building Rooster into another secretary, another attendant, or another perfectly poised woman waiting patiently for instructions felt less like a gift and more like assigning someone a profession before they'd even had the opportunity to decide whether they wanted one.

She caught herself smiling. A gift. That was the thought she'd been missing. Andrea had spent the better part of an hour trying to determine the objectively correct answer, as though there existed some ideal chassis that would interfere with Rooster's development less than the others. It was nonsense. Every body carried assumptions. Every body encouraged certain experiences while discouraging others. Even an ordinary human form wasn't neutral. A gifted athlete understood the world differently from someone born frail. Beauty opened doors that would remain closed to others. Height changed how people spoke to you. Strength changed how confidently you moved through a crowd. There was no escaping that.

At least Andrea would have the luxury to choose.

She exhaled quietly before opening Lhotse's manufacturing catalogue. Thousands of templates scrolled effortlessly past her eyes; industrial frames, military chassis, labour units, diplomatic models, executive assistants, pleasure dolls, entertainment platforms, biomorphic shells so expensive they bordered on sculpture. She ignored them all and opened a blank design.

"Let's not overcomplicate this." She murmured to herself.

The body would be female. Andrea didn't bother inventing some elaborate professional justification for it. She simply preferred women. If she was going to spend countless hours in Rooster's company, she saw no reason to pretend otherwise. Beyond that, she found herself making surprisingly modest decisions. Human proportions. Neither especially tall nor physically imposing. Attractive without drifting into the artificial perfection favoured by corporate advertising. Slight asymmetries left untouched. Synthetic hair that would continue to grow. Skin capable of bruising, despite layers of sub-dermal armour plating beneath, capable of rapid healing and changing with time. A face that people remembered because it was pleasant to look at rather than because it seemed impossibly flawless.

Then came the engineering. Andrea had no intention of making Rooster fragile.

Beneath the outwardly ordinary appearance, the chassis would represent everything Lhotse's engineers could accomplish without announcing itself. Reinforced synthetic musculature. Reaction times no human nervous system could hope to match. Balance bordering on impossible. Durability that would allow her to survive accidents, gunfire and environments that would kill an ordinary person. Enhanced sensory arrays concealed so completely that they would only become apparent when Rooster chose to use them.

Andrea wanted to give her capabilities. Not weapons. Andrea deliberately left the weapons catalogue unopened. If Rooster eventually decided she wanted to carry a firearm, she could. If circumstances demanded heavier equipment, Andrea could authorise it later. Those would be choices. Andrea refused to make violence part of Rooster's identity before she'd even spoken her first word.

Finally she reached the behavioural architecture. Default personality overlays. Occupational predispositions. Corporate loyalty conditioning. Obedience hierarchies. Andrea stared at the list for several long moments before highlighting the entire section and deleting it.

"No." The word escaped her before she'd consciously decided to say it. "If there's already someone in there..." She said softly, her eyes drifting back to the anonymous positronic brain resting upon the desk, "...then I'd rather meet her than replace her."

The completed specifications remained on the display for a long while before Andrea finally reviewed them from top to bottom. They were hardly perfect. Inevitably, they reflected her own tastes, her own priorities and her own assumptions about what constituted a good life. Perhaps that was unavoidable. Mrs. Everest had once given Andrea an opportunity without telling her who she ought to become. This, Andrea decided, was simply her attempt to do the same for Rooster.