Garret could only watch and glare as the demon child took a place at his table. That was because, despite his dislike of others, his temperament, general foul mood, inebriation and lack of standards, he knew that there was always a line to draw. It was more his pride than anything; pride that despite his reputation there were depths he wouldn't plunge. A pride that he wouldn't give up for anything, but a pride that was also keeping him glued to his seat when he'd much rather be somewhere that would excuse him from answering the child's questions.

Yes, that was why he could only click his tongue as the pale-haired demon ordered a drink mirroring his own, and why he'd already prepared an answer to the boy's previous question.
"Just forget about it." He said, half sighing, in an attempt to drop the matter.
It was clear that this demon was strangely maladjusted to this kind of society, which made it all the stranger that he was here. Still, Garret would not be swayed by the strangeness. Whether the child had realized or not, it was a clash of wills. Garret would stay in the fight until the kid left or his sanity ran dry, and in the interest of maintaining it, he'd take another sip.

He took the mug to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of the bitter liquid, before setting back down on the table.
"It's alcohol, kid." Garret slurred, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "And just what are you doing here anyway? A little tyke like you shouldn't be drinkin' things you ain't supposed to."

@vide

Kaite regarded Nez's brief explanation with a flick of an ear and a chuckle backing an otherwise soft, "Ehn I am not exactly a rabbit." Then going about demolishing the stew in as elegant of a fashion as hardly a napkin was used, lest any go to waste, the chimera found himself in the presence of an interview taking place. Already about as out of place as he could be, and having been offered a seat, he merely stayed put and observed, partially wishing his eye had recording potential. Understandably, such features were left out.

Conversation, one-sided at a time as it was, tilted in the direction of technology. At first, Kaite imagined the three were discussing tech augments similar to his eye, and with that understanding, the two women seemed extensively fitted with everything down to an artificial mind and memory bank. Roughly in this instant, Kaite paused from eating, the word 'android' being thrown around quite a bit and in ways that made sense in upsetting ways.
Paranoia seeped into Kaite's psyche, continuing eating at a considerably more reserved pace as not to seem unnatural...potentially defeating the point of the display; a testament to how the knowledge of androids shook him if it broke the charade.

It was just a word, 'android', robots given a more humanoid appearance. Maybe a sophisticated AI would be added, capable of fooling anyone around them into thinking they were as real as the fake skin the living metal skeleton wore.
The monolithic 'Monitor-Seekers' of the Triganavia labs were at least honest in their design; towering, sharp-angled, armored black boxes from which came only claws, syringes and hollow encouragement. They were even capable of conversation, for what it was worth.

We all knew what they were for...

Colour Kaite skeptical of the trickery at hand when it came to these 'androids'. As far as he knew, machines were made for a purpose, not to seek one. It's when you allow inanimate objects to decide what 'future' should be that the nightmare walks beyond walls.

Kaite was snapped back to his senses of sorts upon biting into the small chocolate bar, having been locked in the motion of eating while lost in though. While the loss of time was certainly worrying, the edged bitterness of the chocolate lulled him back into reality. His new reality ...one where...I dunno...machines understood smiles and handed out small dark bars of sweetness. I was free and this new world was...pretty nice, actually. Well, as long as I amass more of those coins and such.

Kaite seemed dazed, having already managed his way through the chocolate and beginning to fold the wrapper up, absent mindedly.

Before she had rambled on with her long words, Kaïte answered her “I’m not exactly human” sentence with her own version of it, replacing the word ‘human’ with ‘rabbit’. Kaïte didn’t really elaborate on that and just began eating his stew. She couldn’t blame him for that, she herself hadn’t elaborated on her situation. Not yet at least.

Having answered Effie’s questions, she just realised how long she had spoken, and how many words she had just to explain something which was near impossible to explain in the first place. She felt a little embarrassed and at these times she didn’t have all those pesky human feelings. She was immensely grateful for it, but some of them got annoying, like embarrassment. Luckily no one seemed to notice. Effie was off writing down everything - which even Alya couldn’t figure out what they meant -, Katie was still busy eating his food and the waitress probably just listened to Effie’s continues enthusiastic questions. Looking at the pages Effie had before her, she quickly began scanning the words. Her eyes caught onto the question “What is human?”. Ironically that was the ultimate human question. Asking what they were. Due to Alya being part android part human, she too had these existential kind of questions from time to time, but she could perfectly answer what a human was. In her mind a ‘human’ could be classified as an organic creature with bones, a nervous system and a brain that controls the actions of a human. She knew that was not the meaning of the question, but in her defence, the question did not specify what answer it was looking for. It was funny, Alya thought, that Effie, with her cybernetic parts, was much like a philosopher. Someone who made sense of the world around them by coming up with theories about the human mind. Imagine that, an android philosopher. The hard part about philosophy was that there were no right or wrong answers. No equation you can simply solve by knowing what to do. In fact, knowledge had nothing to do with philosophy, at least not in Alya’s book.


Suddenly, some interesting words caught Alya’s attention and she immediately looked up towards Effie. When the woman mentioned Ardella - so that was her name -, she wasn’t paying much attention. She was still solely focussed on what Effie wrote down, but when she mentioned sentience, the only thing she could keep her eyes on was the waitress, Ardella. She had wondered if the waitress possessed sentience for a little while now, and the waiting was killing her. It wasn’t even that important, it was just that Alya wanted to know. She was curious. Curious to hear the answer and curious how she herself would react to whatever answer Ardella would say.



Before the woman could, however, Effie continued. She asked such difficult questions, Alya thought. Even with all of her computing power and knowledge. These questions were quite personal and Alya had quite a hard time with them. She felt herself getting a little bit tired due to it. Her mind was constantly grinding it’s gears - which were in fact not literal gears contrary to popular belief - to figure out the answer even though there really wasn’t one. Is this what philosophy felt like? Because if it was, Alya didn’t enjoy it. It felt trying. She still wanted to answer the question as a kindness to Effie, but struggled with finding the right words. Instead she opted to wait for Ardella’s answer, wanting to hear if she could add a little onto her words, or just to simply agree with Ardella to save herself the trouble of answering. 
She listened closely to the waitress her words. ‘So she is sentient.’ thought Alya. It made her feel surprisingly comfortable, but at the same time made her feel conflicted. She felt comforted that Ardella was acting on her own experiences and emotions, rather than just being controlled. The conflicted part came from how others treated androids the likes of Ardella. They treated them like lifeless blobs who had no right and no saying. That their words dit not matter. Alya was no activist of any kind, but it angered her that no one really realised what sentience meant. Alya briefly glanced back to Effie and her notes. Maybe she could make people realise that there were things like augmented sentience, or actual sentience put inside an android shell. Alya still didn’t know in which category she would be classified, but it hardly mattered. She felt alive and in control of her own thoughts and body. She also knew that contemplating the question would be useless since she didn’t know the answer, so she simply settled on the assumption that she was truly sentient.


When she heard her name, Alya quickly looked up. This time it was Ardella who caught her attention. She briefly smiled and waved her off, saying something along the lines of ’No worries’. She herself spoke a lot too earlier, and even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t blame Ardella for ‘overshadowing’, as she put it. Looking back to Effie, she didn’t really know what to say, even with Ardella having answered the question first. “Logically I can sense changes in the atmosphere and calculate the weather. It’s not one hundred percent accurate, but nine out of ten times I’m right.” She began, not wanting to create an awkward silence. “As for your other questions, I wouldn’t know. I can answer any logical question you have. The ones with one, maybe two, definitive answers. Other ones I have trouble with. So I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can really help you with that.” She said honestly. In the end she decided to just tell the truth, admitting she couldn’t really answer them. She could try, but seeing as her previous attempt didn’t go so well, she decided not to answer the question.

As the other two returned to their seats, so did Zeke. He clasped his hands around his cup of coffee to warm them, but it had gone cold. Listening to Alex's explanation, he took a sip; however, about halfway through, he had to put his drink down.

River water in the spring? Sticky oil and freezing cold? Zeke had to actively resist laughing. These descriptors had subjective connotations - were they supposed to imply a definitive disparity? There was no such thing as good or evil, light or dark, purity or corruption. There was only a fluctuating state of being, a superposition of extremes. Alex clearly had no idea what he was saying, and it didn't help his case that he was rambling.

"Where did you go to school?" Zeke wondered. His biscotti was almost completely dissolved. "I've never been trained formally."

Alex took a deep breath and then exhaled. "I think I said it, but I went to school at Aosta City Institution of Higher Learning and Practical Skills in Duiland, long name I know, we just called it Aosta University. Though, this." he said, quickly making a small orb of green energy in his hand by cupping his hand down and pulling it up. "This is something I learned from Rutan. My father taught me. There is a lot of steps and rituals you have to go through in order to attune yourself to the energy. My father always described it as becoming a "living conduit of energy"."

He said as though he was very proud of both of those things, though there was some dissonance in his voice, as his tone seemed to change slightly when he switched between the two subjects.

“... My own experience, my own emotions, and my own thoughts."

The idea was so utterly fascinating to Effie who jotted down the android’s words efficiently. She immediately had the desire to speak with Ardella’s creators however she kept that want to herself. Emotions, wants, desires. Effie wondered what really drove these feelings in human beings. If it was so easily replicated in cybernetic life, how special was human kind anyways? It was a humbly thought. And what of animals? She had the split second urge to ask the creature sitting across from them that nibbled away on its stew. However it seemed a little too rude, she made a note to try and slip it in later a little more subtly.

”How very interesting.” Effie stopped writing and looked up at Ardella. The robot even seemed more conscious then others Effie had come across, although that had mostly been lower tier androids whose functions were much more specific. Ardella offered the floor to Nez and eagerly Effie turned her attention to her other interviewee. The two beings were so different, yet in many ways the same. Effie felt quite lucky that she was able to chat with them both at once to contrast their different abilities. She stopped writing for a moment to listen to what Nez had to say, which was essentially she was more computerized then Ardella. Her system didn’t allow for the morality that Ardella’s seemed to. ”There is no need to apologize, you have helped quite significantly. Both of you have!” She finished writing a few closing remarks in her notebook, her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she scribbled a potential title for her essay and underlined it three times.

THE HUMAN POTENTIAL

”This was amazing, I want to thank you both so much! I’d like to make a few more notes, draw up some potential hypotheses and maybe have another interview in a few weeks time?” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice as she closed her notebook and carefully slid it into her bag. Her brain was buzzing with that intoxicating and exciting feeling of having information and goals. The conversation this evening had gotten the cogs in her mind, the figurative ones that is, rolling and she was happy to finally feel like herself again. Even if she was miles away from home, alone and pretty much naive of the entire world. Looking around the table she felt more comfortable than she had since the last time she had talked with Professor Oblos.

Grabbing for her drink she took a long drink and grinned at the table, perhaps it wasn’t just knowledge that her mind was fuzzy with. ”And perhaps next time you would like to chat, Kaite? If you feel comfortable enough sharing your story with me?”