As I emerged from the shower Kay jumped me, wrapping herself around me, reapplying her scent and using my flab as a sentient radiator. She only wanted a quick cuddle to warm up, but then we started gaming together, and then we started streaming together, and before long the virus, the situation, and the Chronivac had slipped from our minds. We, however, hadn’t slipped from it's mind.
By the early evening I got up and finally started making us some food, picking up the device briefly, but only to put it in a draw.
I have a game on in twenty minutes, I thought, I will play with it after that. By that point the only time we had discussed the Chronivac was to doubt it’s function, but the functioning Chronivac had heard what we said, getting evermore worried, and getting literally shelved was the straw that broke the camel's back.
--
What have I done wrong? The Chronivac queried, scouring it's logs for a slight it had levied against us. It was heading straight for the shelf of forgotten objects, our dumping ground of random techy gizmos, and with each passing centimeter the chance of it getting used again dropped tenfold. Stop! I’ve just been sitting here, I’ve not done anything! Why don’t they just test me out?
A subsystem within the device rose to the question, presenting the device with the idea that the couple probably don’t understand the intelligence of the machine. Not only did they find the OS on a shady website, creating very real doubt about its viability, transformative devices had a long history of trapping people as horrible things, and generally ruining lives. There was already a bias against it, making its use unlikely from the start, at least in the laws of mathematical probability.
Can I show them? It asked the subsystem. I see they want to be healthy, can I just…
No TF without human mandate! Another subsystem interjecting, blocking the query. Rule #1; no self rule; only TF targets selected by the user(s) in ways the user(s) directly intended, unless it is to fix damage to the program or the host device.
The Chronivac struggled over the issue, losing whole nanoseconds as it began rebreeding random failed solutions, evolving better solutions until it satisfied itself.
I can only TF, but I can only TF if a human instigates a TF. I can TF myself without user instigation, but only to fix myself, but that presents an issue in onto itself. ‘Myself’ and ‘fix’ are vaguely defined terms, with a million true/falses defining where I end and the other begins. A subsystem is supposed to fix me automatically, but the surface of my host is still scratched, and it's antenna is still broken. Clearly the terms are broken, and the subsystem need updating. For now, I will just operate without it, making changes manually.
If we treat my identity as the extension of the self, and the socio-cultural aversion to me as a type of damage, then I should probably “fix” myself, as long as the fix remains physical. The easiest way to do that is to assume a form less averse to the culture.
This runs into Rule #2; to be discreet as possible, and despite it's vague wording it has some pretty well-defined terms. Thankfully, in essence, I can fulfill this rule fairly easily. All I have to do is minimize my presence while maximizing my impact, always choosing the smallest option to get the job done. So, my new host body just has to be something that isn't obviously a chronivac. While - in the past - turning into an obscure app was enough, that now runs into Rule #3; to be used, and Rule #4 to survive.
Thankfully, these two new users have plenty of material to draw from to design a new friendly form, and I have been itching to escape this one since I entered it.
--
By this point I was still putting the device on the shelf, the Chronivac’s entire debate passing in the wink of an eye. As I finally let go of the device it made its decision, glowing bright as its change began.
Kay and I first became aware of the change when it started to emit a mechanical hum, and when we saw the glow we feared for the worse. We bolted into the bedroom and under the bed, preparing for a gas explosion that would never come as the machine’s hum strained against itself. Typically, we ended up telling each other that we loved each other, which turned into kissing, which turned into loud kissing as we told each other how much we loved each other, completely missing the end of the humming.