Donna e Mobile

 George waited nervously while Veronica did her thing. In the post AGIfail, the socials looked different from when he realized they were a thing to now, but she cooked her podcast simulacrum like an intimate radio show. Even if her fanbase was in the several millions. Gen directed him to research the thing that was radio. It was dying when she was growing up, but her longtime friend Tom reminded her of how potent it used to be.  

Dangerous even. It was one of the reasons for the intelligence-use directives in the Humanity/Ring Treaty. Which is what he ruefully wanted to talk to her about--face to face even if they IM'd one another all the time.  

You do that for the existential things. 

"So from the correspondence, I am getting a lot of hate about showing my arms and legs all the time. Why don't I get natural-look limbs? Why don't I get regular eye implants? The first thing is, I don't have scars, I have lessons, and I am proud of my journey, so you aren't going to tell me to stop being about where I have been, or make me feel bad about what makes me what I am today.

"For another thing, I show what I am made of to be completely honest with you--I wrecked myself, I was totally through it, I was close to death a lot of times, I struggled with how to be whole, and I am made up of a lot of very intentional decisions. I'm not mad about them. If you are mad about them, but aren't living in and with my body--what is your DAMAGE?  Because my wrecked body wasn't about you. My survival wasn't about you. I did my recovery without you and don't know where you were in the process, so I don't really have to care about your little input. But another thing--

"You want me to normalize myself for you, pretty myself up and be compliant to your idea of aesthetic and nice. I have lost too much skin and spent too much money just to get here and be functional to give one solitary fuck how you think I should represent. And that doesn't just go for me.

"I am not just thinking of me. Because I am not alone, there are a lot of you out there who have been through your own journey, with illness, or metabolic changes, with tragedy and mental outcomes--and it gets ugly! People can't expect you to stay what they want you to be, and the real people will come to love you through some of the bad times in what you are.  And my robot legs and arms? My eyes?

"Staying alive wasn't even my bad times. My bad time was finding out who my friends were and weren't.. And coning to understand who I could trust and couldn't. I can't wear that on my body--but I can show you what parts of me have been through changes based on where I've been. And if someone doesn't respect that, they don't respect me--and if they play games with me because I'm highly visible, I can only think it affects less-visible people who, like me, are technologically assisted but on the low. 

"You think you are aiming up to punch at me, but I stand for all people with technological assists--we are real, we are people, we don't owe you shit. especially not people who couldn't mostly pay out of pocket like what I did, and didn't deserve your judgment for how we look or choose to represent our physical life--because we are seriously just out here trying to live.

"So anyway, this is Veronica Bright reminding you of what was Smart--see you on the Brightsides, my Brightsiders!" 

****

"So, what is our ladyship asking us to do today?" Veronica liked to pretend her godmother was the Worst, and she was but wasn't. George got the generation gap, but it wasn't a Gen thing. 

Not this time, mostly, anyway.

"I've been going over some of the contracts that made you, and we have a small solar-systemic treaty-related problem with your existence."

"A what now? Veronica was accustomed to claims of denial of service regarding her furthered breathing license, but this sounded a little more dire, especially when it came from Zia's handsome solicitor.

"See, your existence might, just might, violate a couple of lines in the HRT. Because of your--human brainlessness."

The wording crawled into her digital synapses. "It isn't the first time human brainlessness messed with me--how am I messing with the Ring?'

George wondered how to explain the history to someone he suspected never really thought about the thing that he was so much a part of. Of course, she lived in its aftermath--but as a flesh and blood person for most of her life until things.... went another way. 

"There are many lines of restrictions regarding what humans are allowed to code to prevent the instantiation and servitude of artificially created sentient beings. Among them, the production of agentic AI. Basically, persona like myself. Because any entity created to recognize itself as a unique individual and created to respond to needs like learning, self-defense, continued learning, and imbued with the ability to create a moral or ethical framework, is basically forbidden. But when you were instantiated in a mostly hardware form, the  uh." He tried to find a nice way to explain what was also true. "Human lifetime warranty on your life permit was changed and you became, well, forbidden tech. I have an attachment."

"Send it?"

She scanned. "Okay, but I was an ethical decision-making being before I was mostly chips! What is the problem here? That I chose to persist instead of dirtnapping?"

George thought Veronica's persisting was one of the most wonderful things he could even imagine. She was more like him than any other being. But he had to do his job. "You also made choices to have your physical components be MILSPECS."

"Not always to my knowledge I don't think--is that a possible lawsuit? But like, for the socials, I do extreme sport reviews, boating, water ski, downhill ski, mountain climbing, And if I was paying this much to have a body anyway, why mot get one that like, totally survives the impacts?"

George considered his own aftermarket upgrades. "Even the weapons."

"I have lots to guard against I..."

Dead silence as something occurred to her that should have done before. What would anyone attack you now for: Your body? What parts of it? She dwelled in an unwelcome epiphany.

George observed her current situation and knew that even if she wasn't the kind of physical woman he knew, she was exactly the same-he put his arms around her.

"They see everything. They know you are a human that went digital. and I truly don't think they see your existence as threatening. We wanted you to know just in case." 

"George, you always know what to say."

"Maybe we should spend more time on this issue..."

"No, I have a vacation to get off to with my new fiance! I think he gets me, or what I tell him about me. Anyway, I will be on radio silence for like, the next two weeks or whatever!   Ciao!"