She'd been years, her and so many, many others, being 'deprogrammed'. Her entire life she had lived with hate. She had lived with the idea that violence was a GOOD thing. That these aliens were brutal monsters. That Pure Humans were the only true life in this universe and the rest were filth. It had taken a long, long, time for her and the rest to learn, to understand, and to accept the reality of the world.
From this prompt. @internutter/challenge-02554-f364-learning-to-see -- Lessons
[AN: Once more, blessings upon you for providing the link to the reference story. You have saved me many an hour trawling through my own database. May you never get a parking ticket]
She had been there for months before she trusted the bed. The aliens in the blue livesuits never hurt her. They obeyed her wishes even when those wishes were paradoxical, only ever asking which of her paradoxes she preferred. Pure food and pure water was bland as hell. Bathing to her specifications in pure water wasn't as nice as a bubble bath or a hot shower, but it was pure. So pure that she couldn't taste it.
She expected Them to be violent. They were not. All the violence came from her. Lashing out at Them, lashing out at her environment, swearing and screaming and hitting anything in range including herself. When she hurt herself, they coated her in an absorbent jelly that still let her breathe and move, but did not allow her to cause herself pain.
In the end, it was... boring. She was bored enough to argue points with Brikiefec and Medic S'karr. They would only let her cook if she promised not to harm herself. It was pointless trying to punch any of Them, as their livesuits were some spongy nonsense that didn't let the aliens come to harm. She could not actually hurt anything. If she successfully destroyed anything, it was replaced before she woke up again.
And she was still fifteen percent alien, according to her tests. She didn't know how it happened, and she was allowed to ask her fellow TFT members. Lack of communication access was against Their own rules. The best they could come up with was that the aliens had somehow faked the results. But also... everyone testing themselves on their own test came up with percentages of alien DNA impossibly in their makeup.
It was quite the upset. Theories abounded, including how pure the food they were already growing might be, how insidious the seed of alien DNA may have become, and what They might be doing to corrupt the genes of anyone attempting to maintain Human purity. Worse still was the news that random selections of known-polluted Humans and even some aliens passed their purity tests with flying colours.
The entirety of TFT was in an uproar.
Tam attempted logic. If this is true, then that follows. If alien DNA could be added into a Human by any means at any time, then the efforts of the TFT were pointless. If aliens could pass the Human Purity Test, then it followed that the test was insufficient for properly defining Humans. If they had no evidence for the exact point that alien corruption entered their DNA, then there was little to check against. For all they knew, the entirety of Humanity's history on Earth could have been some ancient race's experiment allowed to go to seed.
Which, in turn, lead to the next chain of logic - if all of Humanity was an alien experiment... who or what would have been messing around with Deathworlders in the first place and why?
By then, Tam was experimenting with foods and drinks not from Earth. She was certified impure, so what was the point of maintaining purity of her ingestion? She started watching entertainments from other worlds.
Tam got caught up in All My Daughters, but some things cannot be helped. It was that window that allowed her to see aliens as more than a threat to her way of life.
It was then that They allowed her to grow crops that she knew, rather than the pure foods from an era before horticulture changed them for Humanity's benefit.
Two months after that, as Tam was taking her first steps into learning tolerant language choices, she had a question. "Is that fluff all over you toxic or... friendly?"
Brikiefec noted her genuine wonder as they had noted everything. "I am told I am non-toxic," they said. "I could let you feel, if you promise to be careful."
It had been over a year since she'd even tried to punch anything. Nevertheless, she understood the damage a Deathworlder could unintentionally do. "I'll be as gentle as I can, I swear."
Brikiefec opened up their livesuit, offering a fluffy arm.
He was as soft as chicken down.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / helenfield]
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