Journal Entry 257 / 0527 Rowan ate with a gusto I found immensely refreshing.Journal Entry 257 / 0527 Rowan ate with a gusto I found immensely refreshing. It meant that there was something about her I could influence, something I could work with. And I needed that something, since today I was going to present demands. Mine and Aadens'. "How was your trip?" she asked quietly. "Not bad," I replied. "Did you manage to keep busy while we were gone?" "Uh-huh," she said around a mouthful of cornflakes. "Rowan," I said. She looked up at me, swallowing. "We need to talk. I had a long conversation with Ember before I left, and something came up that we need to discuss. "I don't like the way you do business. Ember said that you basically blackmailed your way into getting the positerminal work done, and what she said was pretty much an accurate description of what you did to get into this house." Rowan put her spoon down and said, "Then... you don't want me to... "Rowan, why do you want children?" "I DON'T KNOW!" she shouted so loudly I heard Dave snap the privacy field over the portal to keep from waking my loves downstairs. "Oh, Ken, please, I wish I did, I really do. I've tried since the day I was born to figure that out. It's crazy... something's seriously wrong with my circuitry. When the AI comms started discussing you, and Aaden, and I put two and two together, I jumped at it, I really did. I could have had any body, and any father. But to have yours... and his... and to be in Shardik's house... It was too much to pass up. To have babies, to really make something like that. To create life." "It's really a very simple process." "But you understand it as Vatare', Ken, not as a mother. The creative thrill you get is intellectual, not physical. I want to know, I need to know what it's like. Making babies is unskilled labor, sure, but not raising children. It's all I've thought about. But when I think about it from here, all I get is confused. I'm in over my head." She smiled at the imagery. "It really is crazy for an AI to want children, isn't it?" I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Maybe. I don't know if you're aware of this, but I took Halloran with me on our trip to Earth. |