97 Diplomatic Luncheon

"Anger... sadness ... happiness?" the experimental subject correctly identified the last of the emotions of the prisoners Lily had prepared. Each prisoner wore a helmet that stimulated portions of their brains to cause artificial emotions, and strong ones at that. The brain was an electrical organ in many ways, and if you knew which areas to stimulate, it wasn't difficult to induce emotions in a subject.

It was a pretty good treatment for chronic depression, too, as the brain had a sort of memory or stickiness as far as emotions were concerned. She had already left a few similar helmets at her hospital and trained the other doctors in their use.

If you felt depressed for long enough, it was difficult to feel other things. If you felt upbeat most of the time, it was difficult to get you to fall into a funk. Similarly, if a person allows themselves to feel angry often, then anger itself will be the first and easiest emotion they experience.

This sounded somewhat like mystical mumbo-jumbo, but in actuality, it was just a mechanical problem in the human brain. Modern biomorphs in her past life had this defect fixed. It was a definite necessity, especially when a person would occasionally rent a body for a trip. Nobody wanted to feel depressed while attending a professional convention because the previous person that used the body they were renting was having issues.

With the physical problems of emotional stickiness fixed, that still left the portion that was just baked into a person's neural network and personality. For example, some people were just grumpy. Lily was always curious; that was really the only emotion she felt very strongly at all. When Lily was a child, her mother in Shanghai was pretty insightful and told her to always practice being the type of person she wanted to be because that was what would happen.

That was good advice, although she had felt that it was probably only applicable to people she might refer to as neurotypical -- no amount of practice ever actually turned Meimei into a people person, although the advice from her mother formed the very foundation of her social adaptation strategies that she used to this day.

Although her historical (and present) social strategies were mostly predicated on tricking people that she was feeling things that she actually wasn't. The normal human brain, not hers, was very good at picking out emotional affect in people it observed. An enormous amount of neural circuitry was devoted to these social processes. When a typical person detected an incongruence in the emotional affect of someone they observed and the emotion they thought the person they were observing should be feeling, it resulted in triggering a fear or disgust process, similar to the way an android or doll could fall into the uncanny valley. A reputation for stoicism could help if you had an underdeveloped sense of emotions, but feeling the "wrong" emotion would always get noticed. Just try giggling at a funeral and see what happens.

For example, Alice once was present when Lily euthanised a condemned prisoner, and Lily knew that if she didn't affect at least slight sadness after doing it that the Apprentice would be upset. But other than being slightly irritated at wasting her time with the chore, she didn't feel anything at all. She didn't know either the criminal or the victim he had raped and murdered, so she found it difficult to feel more than annoyance at someone disturbing the peace in her city. She knew that wasn't the "correct" feeling, though, and she knew she had to present the appropriate social cues for Alice's benefit. She didn't like it when the girl got upset. When Alice got sad, Lily tended to get sad too inexplicably and irrationally.

"Good, thank you," Lily told the Submajor, selecting Professional Smile #2 to tell him that she appreciated his assistance. He had volunteered for the treatment, as had a few others, including one of the judges Gary had hired, and she had considered him a good test subject because he also volunteered to receive one of the first brain implants that did not require a medichine hive in the body. They weren't quite as good as the kind that Lily and Alice had in so far as their capability to interface with the human brain was concerned, but they were still quite sufficient even for fully immersive virtual reality, given the resolution of a normal human's senses.

She would be able to use downloads from his implant, which was already working and had been for a couple of weeks, to have greater insight as to what this "new sense" was comprised of and how it was being integrated with and communicating with pre-existing brain structures. Lily was very protective of her brain, at least as long as she decided to keep it, and there was just not a lot one could do to reverse this treatment aside from physically removing the new brain structures in a surgery. She'd only consider the treatment for herself, no matter its efficacy or safety, after she isolated the communications channels and whether or not there was any change in existing brain structures, thinking patterns or personality over a period of months.

Wilson stared at the prisoners through the one-way glass and noticed as most of them slumped into a chair in their cells. There was no reason to keep the artificial emotions being induced after Wilson was done, so she had triggered the helmets each prisoner wore to shift to a low level of contentment. After an hour of that, it would shift to a neutral emotion. There was no need to torture these men unnecessarily. But it was necessary to torture them, just a little bit. At least the ones that had gotten randomly selected were examples of negative emotions, anyway. He glanced at her, "Are these all condemned criminals?"

"Only zhree. Zhe first five volunteered for zhis in lieu of being expelled from Megaton for a history of multiple misdemeanours. I'm not entirely sure about zheir criminal histories, zhough. A week of zhis in exchange for a fresh start. I've 'ad a couple of zhem say zhey kind of like it," Lily told him, tilting her head to the side and studying the military man. She suspected the two men who said they liked it had some brain issues, like chronic depression, and the switch between multiple emotions a day might have knocked their brain out of it, similar to electroshock therapy. She had already scheduled them for treatment at the hospital after they were released.

Normally, citizens were only eligible to receive basic healthcare for free, but she would cover the charges in this case in an attempt to prevent recidivism. Besides, she needed someone to be the first candidate to treat depression with this technology. She had a theoretical treatment plan already devised, and she thought it would work well, but you just never knew.

He made a humming noise, "And how long are you going to do this to the condemned prisoners?"

Lily blinked at him and closed her mouth. She was about to say as long as they continued "working" and outputting the correct emotion on demand. She expected to need such "control emotions" for at least a couple more months of testing. She assumed that they would begin feeling extraneous anxiety-based emotions eventually, even when she programmed differing emotions no matter the cooldown period she had in between tests. When that happened, she would discard them and carry out the sentence proscribed by the Honorable Judge Kaminsky.

However, something told her that was the wrong thing to say. Even she could detect that it seemed kind of callous now, but she had just been considering them as cogs in a machine rather than sapients. "Two weeks, maximum. Zhen, zhey'll just not wake up one day. I've found it is better zhat zhe prisoners don't know precisely when the sentence is to be carried out. Otherwise, zhey worry too much about it, and I don't want to distress zhem unnecessarily. I also give zhem zhe impression zhat participating in zhese tests might result in a commutation of zheir sentence, when in fact it will not. In my opinion, this is for zheir benefit."

That caused him to raise an eyebrow and grin slightly, "You lie to them?"

"Not precisely. I suppose it depends on your perspective, zhough. I 'ave commuted two of zhe prisoners, in the past, who assisted with some dangerous tests, and zhen expelled him. I try to avoid lying, if at all possible. Not only am I not zhe best at it, but it is a diplomatic tool that dulls incredibly quickly with use. I'd rather not get in zhe 'abit. Zhat way, if I actually need to lie someday, my tool will still be very sharp," Lily told him, although that was partially a lie in itself, but mostly, she was being truthful. She didn't like to lie.

What she did was inform them that, in the past, she had spared people who had performed very well on her tests and let them assume what they wanted. That might be considered deception, but Lily didn't consider it a lie.

Wilson chuckled and shrugged, "I was just curious. I've heard some of what the men who do a bailiff rotation talk about. Good riddance." Well, that was true. For now, at least. Judge Gary had about two to four capital cases a week in a city of twenty thousand people, which would have been extremely high in her life in America. Worse than Chicago-level violence, even. But half of them were raiders captured alive outside of the city. In the beginning, Gary had about one capital case a day, so clearly, the rate was decreasing.

Lily already had plans to shift to more computer-based simulations when her supply of condemned prisoners reached a zero level. Honestly, that sounded like a very good problem to have, she thought, and likely one that would never ever really occur in totality. What probably would happen, though, was eventually, public opinion would force her to stop experimenting on these prisoners. Right now, nobody really knew about it, nor did they particularly care. But as the level of "civilisation" in the area rose, people would start to care. While she was a dictatrix, that didn't mean that she could just discount the opinion of everyone who lived in her city. Much the contrary, even.

Absolute power was an interesting philosophical and social construct. The more often one exercised it in matters that went against public opinion, the less absolute the power became. If a king, an absolute monarch, started beheading people randomly, even though that was technically permissible, he would not find himself king for very long. It was a balancing act, and the value of these individuals as experimental subjects wasn't greater than the problems they would eventually cause her if people objected to her conduct and she kept doing it, so she figured it was only ever a temporary thing.

"Zhank you again for your time, Sub-Major," Lily told the man.

He nodded, "Same time tomorrow, then?"

"Yes, we will continue to test both the accuracy of your 'read'"... Lily actually performed the air quotes gesture, "... as well as identify any potential side effects of both this capability and additional brain structure. Probably for a month or two."

If something really went wrong, Lily could perform brain surgery and carefully excise this new addition to his brain, but that was basically a lobotomy, so it was always going to be the last resort.

As Wilson left, Lily considered the human test subjects in front of her, each in their own private cells.

She hoped to have the technology to assist in replacing the necessity of them within a year or so, anyway. Perhaps as soon as six months. Once she had it, she would build a giant supercomputing cluster that was optimised to simulate biological life. She just needed to trade Dr House for his quantum processor fabrication method. The man was a little reluctant to trade it, but after repeated discussions with her, he understood that she would eventually get it even without his assistance anyway, so now he was trying to get the best price he could for it.

Lily and Dr House had been having regular discussions the past couple of weeks, and she had given him summary information about the available things she would trade. He was extremely interested in the capability to clone a human body, especially one that included all of her genetic improvements, and then transplant an existing human brain into it.

He hadn't mentioned his specific circumstances, but Lily assumed that he was either in a brain-in-a-jar type situation, similar to the RoboBrains or that he was in a life support pod, similar to the people that were inside Vault 112. She kind of thought the latter as he laughed for one whole minute straight when Lily told him about Dr Braun and that she had shot him for his misdeeds. Apparently, Dr House hated him. Hearing that he had stolen the work of his subordinates made Dr House ridiculously happy for several hours, and he admitted that Braun had stolen some of his life-extension technology, too, through corporate espionage.

Dr House was also very much interested in building a fusion power station and very much interested in her not assisting the NCR with similar projects, at least at the moment. He said even his own fusion power station project, assuming he bought the technology, would radically destabilise the Mojave. A primary reason the NCR was occupying the Mojave was the many, many megawatts they extracted from the turbines of the Hoover dam, which was still operational. If he built a fusion power station in New Vegas, the NCR might be tempted to invade.

He suggested that if she helped the NCR build fusion power stations back in California, they might withdraw and cause the Legion to invade New Vegas instead. She thought he would go ahead and trade with her both for the blueprints and for the assistance of her engineers to oversee building such a project, though, despite the risks. She thought he was starving for additional electricity resources.

He was already talking about building a small runway in the middle of the desert, close to New Vegas so that her aircraft could land and deliver personnel and supplies. One of the runways at Nellis was in good condition. Well, it wasn't, half of it was destroyed, but it was so long that the first half could be used all on its own. However, Dr House said that location was inhabited by a bunch of heavily armed xenophobes, who tended to lob missiles or artillery at anything that approached the former Air Force base. He thought it would be much easier to pave a new runway than converse with them.

Still, he wasn't that interested in her DMLS technology, which told her that he likely had similar fabrication technology himself. At least, she assumed that he had very significant levels of, at minimum, robot construction capability underneath Las Vegas. That was both his home town, and Lily started to think he had a fixation with the location.

It wasn't unusual for people like Dr House or Lily herself to have unusual fascinations and interests, especially while growing up. Lily had been fascinated with not only the "code of life," that is to say, genetics, but also space exploration and dinosaurs. 'Who didn't like dinosaurs as a child?' she thought. She had an encyclopaedic knowledge of both, being able to recite every space mission and every astronaut to ever go past the Karmin line, in order of precedence, up until the Fall of Earth anyway. She stopped counting then, as everyone that was still alive qualified. She even spent an extravagant amount of credits to fund a multi-month-long expedition to retrieve the Voyager 1 space probe in the Oort Cloud, although they couldn't actually find it in the end. She had wanted to place it in her office so she could admire it at her leisure.

Lily got the impression that Dr House had a similar level of fascination not only with games of chance but specifically with the Pre-War culture inherent in Las Vegas itself. When Lily called games of chance a tax on people who didn't understand probability, he got a smug little smirk on the face of his digital avatar in the vidcall format that they had agreed upon.

Although he was clearly interested in brain transplantation technology, he was very cautious about it as well, not particularly trusting anybody with having his brain in their hands. She nixed programming an Auto-Doc or similar robot for the procedure, or rather she highly recommended against it. It was, theoretically, possible, but there was a small percentage chance it could fail, and if you didn't have a real surgeon supervising it, then you would just be dead in that instance.

Honestly, she didn't really blame him. She was certainly paranoid, herself. Although she had replaced most of her body with mechanical and electronic components, slowly, over time and therefore wasn't that interested in a replacement body, she had been when she first got the cloning machine, but not only did she not trust anyone to perform the surgery, she didn't think anyone else was capable of it.

Despite her getting along pretty well with them these days, she definitely wouldn't trust the Brotherhood, with holding her everything in their hands, so she understood Dr House's reluctance.

Shaking her head, she made sure that each prisoner was scheduled to be fed. She always increased the quality of their food on the days that she conducted this sort of testing. It was kind of high-stress, especially for those of them who had been randomly selected to be examples of highly negative emotions like anger or sadness. Some beer and better-tasting food was a small price to pay for extending their period of usefulness.

Humming, she left the detention level and took an elevator back down twenty floors to her workshop area. She had periodically shifted her working area down as her continuous excavation progressed but felt that she was going to keep it at its present level, which was over two kilometres underground. She would barely notice even a bunker-busting nuclear strike at this depth.

---xxxxxx---

Although she ended up firing the entire staff of the city hall, she had, in the end, hired a couple of the employees back. Jacob O'Neil was the former deputy mayor, although he wasn't in very good odour with the previous administration, which was likely one of the reasons they had left him "in charge" while they fled, hoping that she would put his head on a spike.

He was a pretty capable administrator, but she had hired him as more of a diplomat. He understood the nearby polities and, moreover, understood how to deal with them. This was why she was irritably staring at him, as he had claimed that she had to be present for this upcoming meeting with a "delegation" from their religious neighbours in Cleaveland. This was specifically why she hired him! So she wouldn't have to deal with this sort of thing! Was he worthless, then?!

"Ma'am, I can see you are annoyed. I assure you that it is important that you be a part of these meetings," he said, not at all nervous to be in her presence, like some people were.

"Why?" Lily asked simply, "It is just a trade delegation. Zhey're just coming here to buy some zhings from me. Zhis is the sort of zhing I hired you to take care of." After a number of merchants had happily bought single AutoDoc units from her, the Dominion approached her to buy the systems in bulk. Apparently, they had long had difficulties with acquiring technology of all kinds but were especially interested in modern medical technology. She was selling them forty newly built systems.

She didn't have the doctors to spare to provide training unless they sent their own doctors to Megaton, but they had already approached and come to an agreement with the Vault 112 people. About a dozen, including some doctors, would return to Cleaveland with them and train their medical people in how to use the devices.

She got a little wistful when she thought about the Vault 112 people. That was pretty much how everyone in Megaton referred to them, and everyone's opinion was that they were eerie but pleasant. They weren't really a hive mind or a gestalt, just very, very close to one another. Lily intended to offer them the same emotion-sensing treatments, eventually. She just wanted to see what would happen. She was also very interested in the five of the group who were already pregnant. Lily, as dictator of Megaton, offered direct financial assistance to any citizen who reproduced. She bribed people to have babies, in other words, and continually. The idea was that she didn't want reproduction to be a burden on a family.

It was her opinion it was better to reproduce and train a new generation that rely on immigration, but still, most of Megaton's population growth was from immigrants. Long-term, though, that couldn't last. It was a wonder there were still so many people when people were so leery of bringing a child into the world. She needed reproduction to exceed replacement levels. Ideally, every couple should have three or four children, because there were always those who weren't interested in it, but that wasn't going to happen soon. She'd just have to combine incentives to reproduce with cheaper and cheaper life extension, and hopefully, it would balance the sums.

Four children were a lot to ask for a single couple that had a reproductive life of about twenty years, but if they could have children for a hundred years? That was much less of an ask.

Thinking about new children, she returned to fantasising about the children of the Vault 112 people. Would these new children be born connected to the group? If not, would they be rejected by their mothers as sickly kittens might be? It was all so very fascinating. She had taken over as OB-GYN for each of the pregnant Vault dwellers just so she could perhaps satisfy her curiosity.

Maybe if she gave all of the Vault 112 people the ability to detect emotions like Gary, it would trigger a genetic division where they would go on to out-compete plain Homo sapiens and eventually take over the world? They already had all of her genetic treatments baked into their genome, so they already had ridiculous survival advantages compared to the average Wastelander. Many people would be frightened by such a prospect, as it sounded like some cheesy sci-fi horror film, but Lily thought it would be an amazing achievement.

She didn't really consider herself human to begin with, not really. At least not in the way that most other people did. To her, a person was someone who could think whether they were a human or an uplifted and sapient tiger, an alien or a computer. They were all the same to her. She had no racial loyalty to the human species, none at all. Like Dr House, she would agree to be a collaborator with alien conquerors in a split second. It was just such a shame that the aliens that did exist in this world were so inscrutable and psychopathic.

Dr House seemed to be aware of them, but he didn't like discussing them, which Lily found interesting. Perhaps he saw them as a sword of Damocles, hanging over everything he tried to accomplish? She saw them that way, too, so she would understand that perspective.

Mr O'Neil's sigh brought her out of her daydream of replacing the human species with something better, "A trade delegation headed by the hereditary heir to the ruler of that nation. It would be considered very rude if you did not meet with him. Even the Brotherhood is going to be a part of this meeting."

Lily sighed. Hereditary heir? Like a prince, then? People still did that? Well, she couldn't really throw stones. She considered Alice as her daughter and intended to give the girl Megaton when Lily finally got tired of it. She might be able to build a Fortress of Solitude for herself on the Moon, or something, which would be nice. The only difference, Lily guessed, was that she didn't think Alice would be interested in becoming the next Ruler of Megaton in the first place.

"It's called the Dominion, right? What's 'is title, zhen? Dominator? Dominator Jr?" Lily asked, annoyed.

That caused Mr O'Neil to cough, hiding a chuckle, "Uh, no. First Elder is the title of the head of state of that nation. His son doesn't have a specific title, so he should just be referred to as Elder Smith."

Lily arched an eyebrow. Wasn't the original prophet of their religion named Smith as well? She remembered that from her life in America. He had been rather fecund, but she didn't think that he had any direct-line descendants of the name Smith in Ohio. But it wasn't like that was a rare name, but she got the idea that this family was probably trying to cash in on name recognition, which amused her.

"And is he an absolute ruler, like myself? He sounds a little dictatorial," Lily mused aloud.

Jacob shook his head, "Not... really. Not for a hundred years, anyway. He is the head of state and retains veto power, but practical power in their nation rests in their unicameral legislative body, which is known as the Council of Elders. He is the head of both their religion and their armed forces, though, at least in theory, so if he expresses an opinion on a subject, the legislature tends to give it weight."

Lily was detecting a theme here. She sighed, "Sounds like a constitutional monarchy, almost. Bloody national mascots..." The last she said in a passably British accent.

Stretching, she stood up from her desk, "Alright, alright. You win, Mr O'Neil. Where is this meeting happening?"

The man looked much more relieved now, "The former city hall. It has a lot of conference rooms, and it is where they are used to meeting the city government."

Lily nodded and said, "Alright. Give me ten minutes to arrange a car and security team, and we'll depart."

---xxxxxx---

Her first surprise was that the Brotherhood people were already there. Her second surprise was standing next to Sarah Lyons. Next to her was a dark-haired man in his mid-thirties, and Lily frowned, glancing between Sarah and this new man for a moment before it occurred to her that the resemblance between them was a familial one.

She grinned widely at both of them and walked over to greet them, "Why you are looking quite spry, Elder!" she told the man, who she had correctly identified as Elder Lyons. It appeared that they had finally conducted the cloning and surgery to give the man a new lease on life. She noticed that he had chosen an age in his mid-thirties rather than being completely rejuvenated.

Sarah Lyons was grinning too, but the formerly elderly Elder snorted and almost blushed, Lily thought. "Yes, yes, Dr St. Claire. We have to thank you for training our Scribes in conducting this surgery. Not a single retired Paladin or Scribe refused 'a new body' after it was demonstrated that the surgery was relatively safe."

That didn't surprise her at all. She was a practising medical doctor for a long time before she shifted to more of a research scientist, and as such, she had, at least, an academic and historical understanding of psychology. Although by the time she was a doctor, people didn't actually become elderly; she at least knew that historically, elderly people often were chronically depressed and struggled to find meaning in their lives, especially after a lifetime of meaningful labour.

"That doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that you're not in Power Armour," Lily said, amused. He was wearing a set of robes more commonly seen used by Scribes. She had known that the Elder had been a Paladin in the past.

He sighed and frowned, looking very put upon, "All of us old geezers need remedial training. I mean, I could get in some and walk around with no problem. That's like riding a bike, but I would be a hazard in an actual combat situation. It has been over twenty years, after all. Plus, there is no way I could get some of the retired Paladins to agree to remedial training if I didn't do it myself."

Ah, the perils of being a leader. "What have you two been doing all morning?" She had noticed that the Brotherhood Vertibird landed on her roof quite early this morning, and it was almost noon.

Sarah shrugged, "We were visiting both our Enclave downtown and the Roger Maxson Home for Unwanted Children." Lily tried to stop herself from giggling at the name. It sounded like something out of Oliver Twist, and she absolutely loved it. Sarah continued, "Dad gave a speech. There are about twenty children older than fifteen, and although they started as barely better than raiders in their manners, most are now ready for additional training. A kind of one or two-month survival course in the Wasteland, it should be pretty fun."

Kind of a Brotherhood summer camp? Lily nodded, "If you two will stay after this... meeting, there is something I wish to discuss with you." The Brotherhood didn't precisely know her full capabilities, but they suspected she had a lot more aviation assets than she publicly claimed. Moreover, her first-stage aircraft weren't invisible optically, and they had already been visually observed landing and taking off a number of times. She intended to tell them about the Brotherhood chapter in Vegas without specifically stating that she had placed several thousand satellites in orbit.

"Oh? Well, certainly..." the younger Elder replied, sounding a little curious.

It took another fifteen minutes for the Dominion's delegation to arrive, and Lily was surprised that the heir was a fifteen-year-old boy. She had the urge to pinch his cheeks, and she would describe him as very cute, despite his efforts to look incredibly serious. How amusing.

The boy was surrounded by both advisors, both secular and religious, as well as bodyguards, although she insisted on only two advisors and one bodyguard at the table.

Apparently, the meeting was set to be as a luncheon, with her Mr O'Neil already arranging quite an elaborate spread of food. Maybe he was worth something; she hadn't even considered providing refreshments, which was probably why she wasn't a diplomat. She would have considered that if she had invited this boy to her home, but she didn't have the correct social strategies mapped to include meetings between two representatives of a state.

She supposed the current First Elder must be relatively young if this was his eldest son. The boy had certain difficulties looking her in the eye during the course of the luncheon, as his eyes would drift down to her chest, and he would get a kind of far-off expression. Many women would be offended, but it just amused her. She wasn't even wearing anything scandalous, merely a fairly professional blouse and pencil skirt. No cleavage at all was exposed. It was nothing like the short and low-cut dresses she wore for Grace when they went out on dates or just stayed home.

This meeting was a complete waste of her time, but at least it was amusing. Perhaps next time, she could have Alice perform this duty if this same boy returned. That would be... equitable. She considered the girl her heir, after all, and he could make calf eyes at someone closer to his own age.

The exchange of payment was more or less ceremonial, as she had insisted they pay most of the costs in advance and had already received the payment a month ago. However, she took the balance with good grace and released the cargo of carefully crated Auto-Doc machines to the caravan that they travelled with.

Everyone wished each other continued health, and she wasn't even called the whore of Babylon once by the lemon-faced religious advisor, although she was sure he was thinking it or something similar. Jezebel, perhaps?

They weren't even staying the night. The boy apologised profusely about it, but said that there were a number of people, including a younger sister, that was desperately awaiting the delivery of the Auto-Doc machines. Lily wasn't offended, and if anything, she appreciated their brevity. After they took possession of the crates, they briefly met with the Vault 112 people and left town before fifteen hundred hours. She expected to have to do multiple boring meetings with these people, so she was quite happy.

She walked over to the two Lyons and said, "If you could come back to the hospital, I have a short presentation I'd like to give you. I recently discovered a chapter of your organisation in the Mojave in Nevada. They recently took terrible losses in a battle with what I assume was the New California Republic."

Both Lyons' eyes reached to their scalp, clearly surprised at her ability to get information from so far to the west. The Elder sighed and shook his head, "Damned NCR... Yes, we will be there shortly, Dr St. Claire."