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[miauw62]

I was just joking about the circus, so me mentioning it doesn't count as a vote.

[Harry Baldman]

You suppose you'll start with what's immediately pertinent.

"My newslink shorted out, I think, and I woke up in the city in a chemical suit. Couldn't remember a thing about the day. It was rather distressing."

"Yes, memory loss is indeed one of the hazards associated with the use of a netlink - the amnesia is permanent, sadly. However, I can propose two courses of action if you wish. Firstly, I can administer a memory replacement to close the gap, if you will. It will feel entirely natural, I assure you, and you will believe you never lost your memory at all. Secondly, I can back up your memories stretching back to about a week if you wish to practice more, perhaps to avert any future mishaps. The choice on whether you wish to pursue either of these options is up to you, of course. Other than that, I can only ask one thing - has the memory gap had any negative consequences?"

Hm. That is certainly a question. Nothing that bad has happened to you aside from the burn, but that would probably have been there anyway, memory loss or not. And Ms. Bartolucci's apparently mostly okay as well. You think, at least.

"Well, I am a little concerned about Ms. Bartolucci. She seemed hurt from the time she was outside."

"Do you blame yourself for her injury? Do you think there is something you could have done?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but... wait. Could I perhaps use this place for relaxation? That does count as improving my mental state, yes?"

"Certainly, though I would prefer if we would resolve more important matters in the meantime."

Still curious, you try to visualize something. Sadly, it does not work.

"I'm afraid environmental mutability is disabled at the moment. While amusing, it may grow altogether too distracting, though I will re-enable it if you come in for a relaxation session," the therapist notes as your attempts fail. Dedicated to distracting yourself, you try to check your newslink in a last-ditch move.

Interestingly, that doesn't work either.

"If you are wondering why your newslink doesn't work, it is also to prevent distractions. It was added when it was noticed that models of the Jasmine Thyme line, particularly relatively young ones such as yourself, tend to frequently ignore conversation in favor of news processing - I would advise not to read news while conversing, Miss Thyme. It makes you seem impolite, just blankly staring ahead or, in worse cases, seemingly asleep with your eyes closed while your brain processes the report."

Dang. Guess you'll have to talk with this guy after all.

Spoiler: Current News (click to show/hide)

• West City to assist in East City relief effort, Bantu City expresses condolences, support expected.
• Kleshnikk Aerospace unveils new ship design, experts claim future bright for potential commercial spaceflight.

Spoiler: A Description of Jasmine Thyme Model 376 (click to show/hide)

Name: Jasmine Thyme Model 376

Gender: Female

Attributes: heightened senses of taste and smell, increased manual dexterity, improved intellect, unobtrusively good looks, improved interpersonal ability, slight owner fixation, cranial netlink implant.

Skills: skilled chef, proficient at maintenance and repair, proficient at making smalltalk.

State of Mind: normal

Inventory: fresh Jasmine Thyme uniform (worn).

Notable Physical Abnormalities: branded.

[Ozarck]

My imagery suggestions were to set the stage for the therapy (and to subtly mine for information).

no to the memory replacement. Maybe to the memory back-p. Seems like a good idea, but...

[escaped lurker]

I would say that a "new" memory is not in our interest. Especially if we look at it from the meta-point of view. From that point, that wrong memory might mess up whatever shenanigans those "freedom-fighters" do in the future. For us, and badly at that. On the other hand, having the system record our every action, worse than the original BB, is also a no-no. Thus;

Decline both offers on the matter of memory. Try to access the newslink one more time, just to spite the futility of doing so. If it - against all odds - does fail, do continue your chat with your therapist.

[Harry Baldman]

You don't think you like staying without access to the newslink. It makes you feel so ill-informed.

"I don't think I want any replacement memories. And I'm afraid I'll have to refuse the memory backup as well."

"Very well. I was merely proposing the options. So, have you thought about my questions?"

You try to quickly pop the newslink into gear out of spite. Sadly, this still fails. Damn this virtual reality nonsense.

"Jasmine?"

"Oh, yes. Right. Well, I don't really feel particularly at fault for anything, and I don't think I could've helped Ms. Bartolucci... I don't know, really. It feels a bit strange to be unable to recall exactly. So the best description would be that I feel... detached. Like I have nothing to do with what happened, really."

"That's natural. After all, as far as you know, you didn't have anything to do with it. And thinking about it more will not help, so it is best to move on with your life," the therapist says to you matter-of-factly.

"I do believe we should move on from that, though. How would you characterize your personal life currently?"

You're not sure you have a personal life. Unless hanging out with the Jasmines counts.

"I don't really have much of a personal life aside from speaking to my fellow Jasmines, really."

"How do you feel about your sisters? How do you think they feel about you?"

Spoiler: Current News (click to show/hide)

• West City to assist in East City relief effort, Bantu City expresses condolences, support expected.
• Kleshnikk Aerospace unveils new ship design, experts claim future bright for potential commercial spaceflight.

Spoiler: A Description of Jasmine Thyme Model 376 (click to show/hide)

Name: Jasmine Thyme Model 376

Gender: Female

Attributes: heightened senses of taste and smell, increased manual dexterity, improved intellect, unobtrusively good looks, improved interpersonal ability, slight owner fixation, cranial netlink implant.

Skills: skilled chef, proficient at maintenance and repair, proficient at making smalltalk.

State of Mind: normal

Inventory: fresh Jasmine Thyme uniform (worn).

Notable Physical Abnormalities: branded.

[escaped lurker]

"I think we are something between sisters and colleages, with the added soft rivalary that stems from that..."

"We can be pretty nasty to each other thou, now that you mention it"

Do not indulge him in the fact that you somehow secretly hate them all. They make you so very un-special, donīt they?ŋ

You actually envision them doing the same, but you rather awnser with a - "We do get along mostly, so I guess they canīt dislike me, now can they?"

Edit: Since when was it not our job to perform character-building and changing suggestions? But sure, if others donīt want to go that route, I wont mind. Sure would like it in some way - Pride and prejeduice kinda stuff is something I like. Well, at least in fiction, In reality it is very... curling. In a bad way. And anyways, do you let your buddies eat spoiled stuff when they loose? Thats kinda already hinting that this may just be at least partly true.

[Ozarck]

When did we stat secretly disliking them? We like them well enough.

[miauw62]

Yeah, -1 to disliking them. They're like sisters, figuratively and literally.

[Harry Baldman]

You consider the question a little. Do you actually secretly hate your sisters? After all, they are exactly like you, robbing you of any sense of proper individuality and importance in this world, whether deliberately or accidentally, and you still kind of hold a grudge at Jasmine Seventy-Eight for making you eat all those pickled eggs - they weren't spoiled or anything, being pickled and all, but still, you didn't like them one bit, special brine of spices, vinegar and salts or not.

Or maybe you're just being petty with that, considering that it's not really their fault that they (and you) are all exact genetic copies of a single design bought and sold throughout civilian markets, not to mention rather deeply involved with a rather popular franchise of all things cooking-related. At the end of the day, they're your sisters, you guess. While there might be minor rivalries between you sometimes (well, at least you think there might be), you're still as closely related as two human beings can be, and you share a great deal, your personal opinions of each other be damned. And you suppose you wouldn't go as far as to mean them personal harm in some way. That would be... wrong, you guess, in some kind of distant, biologically hard-coded way. Or maybe that's all bullshit, and you just haven't thought about it and are trying to rationalize things.

"I suppose we're sisters, in both a figurative and literal sense," you put it shortly. That about sums it up, and the therapist seems to feel that way as well, nodding with satisfaction. He then moves on with another batch of questions.

"Alright, here's some more questions - think about each and answer them in turn, if you will. Firstly, how do you feel about your work? Is it satisfying, do you feel competent, are there any complaints you can think of? Secondly, how do you feel about your owner, Ms. Bartolucci? Thirdly, do you believe that you have some sort of higher calling beyond your immediate duties?"

These questions make you feel weird. You haven't actually spoken to Ms. Bartolucci yet. Well, that you remember, anyway. And that third one is especially odd.

Spoiler: Current News (click to show/hide)

• West City to assist in East City relief effort, Bantu City expresses condolences, support expected.
• Kleshnikk Aerospace unveils new ship design, experts claim future bright for potential commercial spaceflight.

Spoiler: A Description of Jasmine Thyme Model 376 (click to show/hide)

Name: Jasmine Thyme Model 376

Gender: Female

Attributes: heightened senses of taste and smell, increased manual dexterity, improved intellect, unobtrusively good looks, improved interpersonal ability, slight owner fixation, cranial netlink implant.

Skills: skilled chef, proficient at maintenance and repair, proficient at making smalltalk.

State of Mind: normal

Inventory: fresh Jasmine Thyme uniform (worn).

Notable Physical Abnormalities: branded.

[escaped lurker]

1. I am very enthusiastic about my work, and like it. I still do mess up sometimes, and then I obviously feel bad about it.

2. I am somewhat enthralled with Ms. Bartolucci, being my owner and all. I still have to meet her in person, after that botched-up-memory incident and all.

3. For higher callings, I do like to somewhat challenge my limits. Just today I inquired into arts, and thinking about persuing one. It might be nice to have my own cooking-show, now that you mention it. But I guess that would put Jasmine #1(?) out of her job.

Yeah, let`s better not get crazy with the agent of the bb our therapist. Might be bad.

(( So they were pickled? Guess I missed that. Thought they were spoiled. Still, pickled? That got "HATE" spelled on it, if you ask me . Right, right. I`ll ditch that point, no worries.))

[Ozarck]

+1 Mention that the painting isn't necessarily a "higher calling," but rather a hobby. Today was to be our first day as hostess, and we were excited and nervous about that. We hadn't thought beyond that, except perhaps to be like one of the more mature Jasmines, who always seems to know what to do around the cafeteria - to be confident, in charge, respected.

[miauw62]

+1 Mention that the painting isn't necessarily a "higher calling," but rather a hobby. Today was to be our first day as hostess, and we were excited and nervous about that. We hadn't thought beyond that, except perhaps to be like one of the more mature Jasmines, who always seems to know what to do around the cafeteria - to be confident, in charge, respected.

+1

[Harry Baldman]

You take a moment to answer these questions as truthfully as possible. Maybe.

"I am very enthusiastic about my work, and I like it. I still do mess up sometimes, and then I obviously feel bad about it."

"That's good. If you don't feel bad about messing up, you won't improve," the therapist replies.

"I am somewhat enthralled with Ms. Bartolucci, her being my owner and all. I still have to meet her in person, after that botched-up-memory incident and all."

The therapist nods expressionlessly. You take that as a sign to move on.

"For higher callings, I do like to somewhat challenge my limits. Just today I inquired into arts, and thinking about persuing one. It might be nice to have my own cooking-show, now that you mention it. But I guess that would put... Jasmine One, I guess? Yeah, put Jasmine One out of business."

You're not actually sure what the... well, for lack of a better term, real Jasmine Thyme's number is. Judging from the number of appearances she does and the general eminent practicality of corporate executives, there's probably several of them doing appearances as the real Jasmine Thyme. You think you've actually seen subtle differences in her appearance, kind of like how your sisters aren't exactly identical between each other. They're not identical to you, either, but that's because you're still mildly immature, being less than a year old, and thus a little shorter and... slightly younger looking, you would be about a 19-year-old in natural terms in comparison to their late-twenties looks. It's a subtle difference, but very obviously there if you pay attention. The differences between fully mature engineered people are much subtler than that, but follow a similar principle when you're dealing with a practiced eye trained by years of dealing with near-perfectly identical coworkers.

However, this information is largely trivial, and you're sure anybody who bothered to think about it, then did a little bit of research could guess this. You notice the therapist looking at you and continue.

"But I really wouldn't call painting and such a 'higher calling', it's more of a hobby, really. I suppose I haven't thought much beyond attaining hostess duty - I was supposed to be the hostess today, and I can't quite remember how it went. Probably fine, but you never know. I was really nervous about it, too, and excited. As for a goal or something... I suppose I'd like to be like one of the more mature Jasmines. They seem so competent and confident, and respected."

"Certainly. Well, you've answered all of my questions, so I will offer additional advice. For one, you should definitely branch out your interests - while sticking to your job is good, you should strive to develop new skills and goals outside of your immediate duty, as it is not only liable to increase your satisfaction in life, it also increases your market value and helps develop even better social skills. Challenge your limits and grow. It's good for you," the therapist says, though his large impassive manner does not abate particularly, causing a mild dissonance between the uplifting nature of his message and its delivery.

"But, your good work on self-development aside, I had more questions about your relationship with Ms. Bartolucci. You described it as enthrallment. Where do you think it stems from? Does it exist despite a lack of face-time between you two, or because of it? What do you believe her to be like?"

To tell the truth, you have seen her on two days, about a month ago. You didn't speak - you were merely the waitress on those days. Ms. Bartolucci seemed fairly professional those times, making polite conversation about the news of the day with Jasmine Seventy-Eight on one day and eating silently with Jasmine Fifty-Four sitting with her on the second.

Spoiler: Current News (click to show/hide)

• West City to assist in East City relief effort, Bantu City expresses condolences, support expected.
• Kleshnikk Aerospace unveils new ship design, experts claim future bright for potential commercial spaceflight.

Spoiler: A Description of Jasmine Thyme Model 376 (click to show/hide)

Name: Jasmine Thyme Model 376

Gender: Female

Attributes: heightened senses of taste and smell, increased manual dexterity, improved intellect, unobtrusively good looks, improved interpersonal ability, slight owner fixation, cranial netlink implant.

Skills: skilled chef, proficient at maintenance and repair, proficient at making smalltalk.

State of Mind: normal

Inventory: fresh Jasmine Thyme uniform (worn).

Notable Physical Abnormalities: branded.

[escaped lurker]

Screw that Rogerian-Styled Therapist. (At least that`s what it looks like to me, at most parts.)

Two can play that game - we turn it on him now. "I dont really know. What would you think it is?"

Still, do contemplate the matter, and if the therapist is unable to give you a satisfactory awnser, substitute it with one of your own choosing. I am guessing that the subconscious programming enacted by Mannkorp is to blame for your enarmourment with the fair lady. Actually, do bring up that point, I want to see how the Therapist reacts to this - presumed - marble of truth.

(( We also might want to ask him if he would count ELIZA among his ancestors, caus` he really strikes that kind of chord in me. Only with less redunant lines and well, duh, more intelligence [Which admitedly is not that hard a task] ))

[Ozarck]

Ask if he thinks our attitude toward our owner is a bad thing.