A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody-Chapter 249: Is this woman okay?

A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody-Chapter 249: Is this woman okay?

The most important question that Ale could think at the moment was just that, what the deal was with this woman? She wasn't particularly normal, granted, most people ignored to some degree Alexa's shenanigans, but even then that couldn't explain why this woman acted as such.
Whenever someone came close to even pointing out Alexa's weird behavior, they all came up with excuses on their own. Ale had been wondering what the deal was with that. It helped them, both her personally and Alexa of course, so she didn't mind it that much.
But as of this, she needed to find as much information as possible. So she really was looking forward to this answer; this woman seemed to be more research-focused from what she had been able to see. So perhaps she would answer this?
"Care you elaborate on the question?" Vivian Kellet instead asked that.
Ale couldn't help but sigh at the question, was it that hard?
"You seem to be oodly focused on research, compared to Alexanders dubious motivation and Miriam Eversoul more humanitarian approach, you are more of a mistery in this." Ale elaborated as asked, "So I am asking you what is your deal in this. What do you seek to acquire from this."
"I am merely assisting Miriam," Vivian Kellet answered after thinking for a few extra seconds, "This also seems to advance my own research, so I don't mind working with you on this."
Advance her research? Was she using the data she got from Alexa's lab results on something? Ale had seen the data too, and there wasn't anything that interesting there. It was the average standard data from a five-year-old girl.
The interesting and outside-the-norm data had come from Ale's own lab results, if she was to guess. Since she was the one with the most extensive set of bodily modifications, but at best, they had gotten a scan of her current setup.
Nothing too valuable or useful for them, unless they could interact with the AI Cores as well as Ale could, but she somehow doubted that was possible. Ale's own ability to do so came from Alexa after all; without the framework set up by Alexa's Consciousness Stream, that would be impossible to achieve.
"What do you mean?" Ale decided to ask instead of continuing thinking about it, "How does this further down your research?"
"My research seeks to fix some issues, personal issues." Vivian Kellet answered, "To elaborate further, since you don't seem to react in the same way other people to that statement. I wish to fix an issue with my personality."
Hah?
"To be precise, I wish to fix an issue that impedes me from socializing in a normal and common way with the people around me." Vivian Kellet continued saying weird bullshit, "I am too perfect for this world."
"I beg your pardon?" Ale couldn't help but utter the question, "You are... perfect? Are you sure?"
Ale was aware that her standards to beauty were somewhat out of order, that couldn't be helped, not after being exposed to Alexa and Alexandra, how could one remain normal if you shared body with both the cutest and most beautiful people around?
"Yes," Vivian Kellet answered, "I have tested that several times, people can't behave as normal with me around, they stumble their words, give me things they should not and in general they fold to my whims at the barest mention."
... That wasn't normal.
"That is not a normal behavior, so my research is trying to assert why this happens and how to fix it." Vivian Kellet continued her speech, "I seek to find the way to create the perfect human body, be it to normalize my own body to normal or to fix whatever is causing this, perhaps even to create a vaccine for the people I work with."
... So she wanted the know-how of what Alexa's body was? Surely... Alexanders already had that right? Hadn't he shared it with Vivian Kellet?
"As someone once said, a healthy soul resides in a healthy body and a healthy mind." Vivian Kellet continued speaking unaware of Ale's internal monologue and questions, "I wish to use your own experiences with multiple minds within one body to create the perfect framework for a healthy mind."
Something told Ale that what Ale and Alexa had wasn't healthy, from the normal human point of view anyway.
"So you are using me as a test subject?" Ale asked as she thought about it more deeply, this woman wanted a healthy mind and her decision had been to pick up Alexa as a way to sample that? "I will not accept any complaint about it."
That would not work as she was expecting, no way it worked.
"That matters not," Vivian Kellet said back, "What I expect to get from this is experimental data, is it meaningless to know if it will work or not beforehand, for the experiment in itself is what I desire."
That... was not what she said before was it?
"So you think that whatever is causing that effect on others... Can be fixed or you believe that the answer to find a cure can be found within the data you got from me?" Ale asked confused, that was quite the logical leap wasn't it?
"Yes," Vivian Kellet said answering, "While you were unconscious besides checking your vitals and body make we also checked your digital footprint to see how you behave socially and what kind of past you had."
Ale hadn't seen evidence of that, granted she hadn't checked if they peeked at her past or not, since that wasn't that much of an issue... Or so she had thought, who would even think of checking that.
"Miriam wasn't worried about that, and was more focused on your body." Vivian Kellet pointed and brought out a tablet with a blue screen, showing the contents, "Evidence of people behaving and making logical leaps around you."
Video clips of people misinterpreting the evidence around Alexa, Ale, and Alexandra. Evidence of how people took the most convenient answer to Alexa.
"... So you people did notice it after all," Ale said nodding, she had noticed it. The people here? Vivian Kellet and Miriam Eversoul hadn't jumped to the wrong conclusions; instead, they had analyzed the data and sought the correct answer.
The same could be said about Alexanders and Sapphire too actually, the blonde man had accurately found out about Alexa's escape on the first day, him alone, not anyone else.
Ale wasn't sure if someone else could do the same with the same data; no one else had said anything about Alexa's escape after all, and even the smartest people she knew had come to the wrong conclusions.
Vulcanus assumed that all was because of Alexander's machinations. [Elder] thought it was because of planning or something like that, even [Eleanore], who had most of the data of the people around Alexa, also came to the wrong conclusion after all.
"Unlike the people around you," Vivian Kellet confirmed Ale's suspicion, "Most of the people near Alexa had enough data to come to the right conclusion, but from our data mining, no one did. One such example is Gabriel Light."
Vivian Kellet then clicked on the image and pulled out the data that [The Fallen Angel] had acquired during his travel to the facility that Ale had explored.
"He got the full curated data," Vivian Kellet said as she showed the data once again, this time Ale took her time to browse it slowly, the data... was not what Ale remembered leaving behind, or seeing before.
This time there was more data here, fake experiments about stuff that they had allegedly done to Alexa, Ale grimaced at the video files and the experimental logs.
The data was mostly correct-looking.
"Is this real?" Ale couldn't help but ask.
The data was fake of course, at least from the point of view that this was Alexa, it was not. They had not such a past... or so Ale thought anyway. All she knew about Alexa was that they came to be when P4 created the body that Alexa inhabits, when they moved their main AI Core and kickstarted the brain...
That was the point in which Alexa came to be... at least from Ale's point of view. It was at that point that they had become aware of the Consciousness Stream at least, meaning that was their first moment of awareness.
They did evolve the personality over the couple hours after that event of course, moving away from the mechanical attitude of P4 to Alexa's shenanigans.
But the point remained, Alexa had came to be after that point, then a couple hours later had been the birth of Ale and Alexandra, one after the other. Or at least the body configurations that Ale and Alexandra came to wear and use.
Their bodies had been made, the knowledge that different brain configuration interfaced differently with their body and the decisions to create dedicated Consciousness Stream Strands for each of those body configurations...
Perhaps it was a movement of self-defense and self-awareness, an attempt to prevent the fragmentation from the body dysphoria?
Ale knew not.
"As real as we can see, but there is no actual way of knowing if the experiment really happened." Vivian Kellet answered, "We know the data looks legit at the very least, but the experiments themselves we have no way of knowing if they did happen in such a way or not."
"... So the data of those experiments are real, but you don't know if the actual experiment showed here happened?" Ale asked confused, "How does that work?"
"The results are legit," Vivian Kellet said, pointing at the results, "But the evidence could be curated for all we know, there is no proof of this data being related to this person here, nor do we have a way of knowing for sure that said person is you."
...
Ale knew it wasn't them of course, she had the full record of all the experiments done to P4, they weren't better compared to this of course, but only from the point of view that these experiments were done in a human and what they did to P4 was to a machine.
At least from a [Human] point of view.
"Tell me then Ale Saitnsworths," Vivian Kellet said turning to Ale, "Are the experiments true?"
"... I don't know." Ale answered truthfully, "The data seems to indicate they are true, at the very least the experiments done in this data are similar enough to what the video files show."
Of that Ale was sure, meaning that the experiments had been done, had they been done to Alexa? Probably not, then did Alexanders truly have a sister at some point?
That would mean his actual sister had been experimented... And no normal human could survive that type of experimentation, Ale didn't think they could, and should they survive... What remained would not be human...
Could it be that the actual [Core] used in Alexa's creation... Nay, the [Core] used to create P4... Had that come from Alexanders actual sister?
Ale hoped not, because that would mean that Alexa truly was Alexanders twin sister. And that was something Ale could not, or wasn't sure what to think about.
"Gabriel Light came to an interesting theory from this data, or well. I assume he came with an interesting theory anyway." Vivian Kellet said turning to Ale, "This data claims that the true nature of your Core is that of a Doppelganger and not a Shapeshifter as you claim to be."
Ale had seen that too yes, that was a more interesting answer to be sure, the description that Ale had found about them could indeed explain some of the things that Alexa did, or well, they [Core] did.
The way they acquired the data to their change of form could indeed be explained with the peculiarities found within the myth of Doppelgangers, like how it didn't matter the actual genetic data acquired from the samples, they transformed into the actual form with clothes and whatnot.
There was no reason why they could imitate or create the clothing their samples wore after all, that was not within their genetic code, and yet Ale and Alexa could do such, and no one had thought to question that.
"So I am not an actual Shapeshifter but someone who wields the power of a shapeshifter." Ale said nodding, it was... a better explanation for sure, it was still wrong, that didn't explain how Ale could transform part of her body into mechanical devices, or how she could interface with technology. "That does explain a few things for sure."
"The other aspects of your powerset can be explained as side effects from the human experimentation that you allegedly suffered." Vivian Kellet said pulling out data files and images of the woman who looked like them, yet was different, it wasn't quite how Alexandra looked, nor how Ale looked.
And more than certainly, they did not look like how Alexa did.
But that woman did have different type of weapons stuck and grafted onto her body, a few images had a type of weapon similar to the [Arm-mament], another image had a gun directly grafted into her shoulders, it wasn't quite how Ale created her rifle into her arm, but it was similar enough.
"Yeah..." Ale said nodding as she grimaced from a few of the images, she was not going to pull out a spinning chainsaw from her arms, no matter how awesome and cool it looked, that looked like it hurt as hell.
Though she knew that she was able to turn out her pain nerves, but still... Actually... Could she do something like that with swords? That shouldn't hurt as much as what the image showed...
No, don't get distracted Ale! At the moment there are other stuff you need to discuss! The blueprints about chainsaws and swords coming out from within our body can be left for later!
"So, with that out of the way." Ale said coughing into her balled fist to distract Vivian Kellet from the stars that totally didn't show into her eyes when the image of the blonde woman with chainsaw coming from her arms was shown, "What is that you wish to get out of us, in a practical sense. Are you expecting something of us? Alexa is not the most... smart, so if you want actual data you will need to deal with me. And I can't come out for long while I am dealing with this weird [Core Power] effect that Melissandra Singh left on me."
That was important, whatever it was that weird effect, they would need to use the technology of the Saintsworths to counteract it, meaning while it wasn't purged, she would have a hard time limiting it.
So unless they could get Alexanders to purge the ambient mana from where Ale was...
"This is not a viable outcome, to fully purge the mana from an area has many demerits, more so in a research area." Vivian Kellet stated plainly, "To use you as a viable test subject we would need to get funding an a dedicated area where there are no risks or problems with purging the ambient mana, that would require too much effort to be fully viable."
So...
"Meaning you want nothing?" Ale asked flabergasted, "Nothing at all?"
"No," Vivian Kellet said shaking her head, "What I require can be acquired with casual conversations from time to time, also the footage acquired from your interactions be as your current form or Alexa is enough."
That... then what the heck was she doing here?
"Seeing you interact with Miriam is more than enough to achieve my desires," Vivian Kellet stated once again plainly, "I require nothing else, I am only entertaining you because Miriam requires additional time to ambush Alexanders and because she wants to calm her own nerves, as the decisions she needs to take are important to her."
"What decisions are those?" Ale asked, "And why did she need extra time to ambush Alexanders?"
"That is for her to share with you," Vivian Kellet answered as she shook her head in denial to Ale's question, "As for the ambush, like we said before. Never trust a Saintsworths, no matter what they say or what they promise you."
Yeah... they had said that several times.
"Fine," Ale said sighing in defeat, this woman was weird, "If that is all, you can leave."
Ale dismissed the woman, and just as she stood up, Ale thought of something.
"Say... can I have a strand of hair?" Ale asked without thinking, "Or well, a sample of you to be precise, if my power is indeed not of a shapeshifter but of a Doppelganger I would need to test how little or how much I need, wouldn't I?"
Vivian Kellet's gaze was leveled at Ale, and Ale couldn't help but shudder, to be glared... or well, looked at with such cold eyes was something new to her after all.
"I refuse." The blue-haired woman stated, that was something Ale hadn't expected, or well, something she should have expected to be precise, normal people did react like that when asked something like this after all. "But I will see about getting samples for you at a later date, I would advise you against acquiring samples of me or Miriam without our consent, as that could be seen as a breach of trust."
... Ale figured as much.
"Okay." Ale said nodding, "I just wanted to ask, you can send Miriam Eversoul if she is done with Alexanders."
And like that, the second talk ended, this one wasn't as long, or felt as long as the one she had with Alexanders, and yet, it left her more tired. At least only one more was left, and then Ale would need to make long plans...
How the hell was she supposed to get Alexa back to Columbus Ohio if she wasn't able to remain in the outside world for long periods of time?
That was the question here.

Chapter 249: Is this woman okay?