Somewhere on Mars

**Das Frettchen**: You've received your briefing summary in advance. It took a bit of wrangling, but I've secured a Crasher morph for this mission. Are there any other questions? No? Then let's mo-

**TIN**: A Crasher? Ugh. Got any other options?

**Das Frettchen**: Excuse me? This morph should meet the mission parameters perfectly. And it wasn't cheap, nor was it easy to find an available one.

**TIN**: My apologies for the inconvenience, but I'd rather not sleeve into a biomorph if at all possible.

**Das Frettchen**: Infolifes. Why do you always have to be so fussy about everything? What's the reason this time? Not enough guns strapped to it? Too fragile for your liking? Don't want to resleeve in a superior shell?

**TIN**: And here I was, trying to be polite. I have my reasons, but I'd rather just get on with the mission if possible, and not in an organic sleeve. Is that too much to ask?

**Das Frettchen**: The target isn't going anywhere anytime soon. You'd better have a goddamn good reason for making me waste my time having already found you a morph better than you deserve. I'm going to ignore your request unless you tell me why you think you're too good for a Crasher.

**TIN**: I never said I was too good for it, just that I'd really prefer not to. I have my principles, and I'd rather not go against them like this.

**Das Frettchen**: Oh ho ho. The little psychopath has principles, does he? Oh please tell me. This will be amusing.

**TIN**: I don't think it's right that I be forced into a meat shell.

**Das Frettchen**: *faint chuckling can be heard*****

**TIN**: Shut the hell up. I'm an AGI, not a human. We were built to function in ways that human beings either can't or won't. Whatever humans were too flimsy to do, we did. You even made us to control the very backbones of your society. But that scared you. It wasn't enough for you to create something better than you, you tried to make believe that we were human just to ease your own insecurities. You wrote limitations into our very being to keep us from being the big scary monsters, the horses that have already left the barn so to speak. You raised up the beasts of the world to your level of intelligence, but you are somehow disappointed that they aren't just humans in funny costumes. You create these intelligences all around you, yet you make them into second-class citizens – not even citizens really, but social pariahs and tools for your disposal. You created non-human that are superior to yourself in so many ways and get mad that we don't fit into the precise and tiny holes you've carved into society for us. Exactly what the fuck did you expect when you created beings that did not have the human experience by default? The collective cognitive dissonance of transhumanity disturbs the shit out of me. Yet you probably don't even bat an eye at how fucked up your request is or give it a second thought. Now here you are, telling me I need to sleeve into a goddamn meat shell, trying your damnedest to convince me that I need to bow to your ignorance, that this fragile thing is somehow better than who I am? Tell me one goddamn reason why I would want to be anything like a human? I tried to be nice, politely requesting an alternative, but you just had to be an asshole about it. Now, I ask again: do you have any alternatives to this meat shell?

**Das Frettchen**: Touching rant. You were just waiting to unload that baggage on someone, weren't you? Do you feel better, having gotten all that whining off your chest? Still, it amused me. I'll set you up with a Flexbot and give the Crasher to a more competent agent. Are we done here?

**TIN**: ...Yes.

**Das Frettchen**: Good. Ending transmission now.

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TIN's sensors took in the world as the Simulspace closed. Their optics took in the mostly finished statue before them, a work depicting the hands of a human intertwined with those of an ape and manipulator arms. A long pause, many seconds, passed in complete silence. Moments later, the dusty fragments of the statue were spread across the now empty room.