Personality Issues of an Anima

[Ten days after the Battle of Kalmora; Scientific institute; Vesna's cell]

Vesna was brought into captivity by Dekkar for the last few days and cooperated with performing further some tests on her biomechanical arm and eyes.

After she slowly regained her consciousness more and more, Vesna started to have all sorts of different thoughts in her head which caused a lot of chaos in the former orderly and purposeful manner of thinking.

Vesna's judgment and decision making are completely overwhelmed by the chaos and she is caught in a quandary about what her next decisions should be.

On the one hand, she sees the cooperation with the alliance and the scientists as wrong, especially as she in an Anima. Support the enemy therfore is not efficient and will not help achiving the grand goal of the Anima to assimilate all organisms in the Galaxy.

Therefore, the Unit understands that it needs to terminate itself to prevent the enemy gaining information through it. This action would be the most efficient way to handle the situation.

However easier said than done. Especially since the Unit is not able to eliminate itself.

That doesn't mean she isn't physically capable of it. On the contrary, the Unit already had a few chances of killing itself, it could have taken the gun of one of the guards and shot itself with it, or it could have been killed by one of the guards while trying to do so.

Or she could have taken the medical instruments not far from the operating chair she is currently in and cut open her throat.

But she couldn't kill herself, much more because she just didn't want to.

For the first time since she was an Anima she wanted to do something for herself.

Vesna first felt this way when Dekkar shot at her. Back then, her body dodged the bullet entirely on its own after the unit calculated the shot would be fatal.

Vesna suddenly lost control of her body and dodged the projectile based on instinct and a deep feeling inside of her.

After some time, the Unit recognizes this feeling and understands that the feeling is also called the Will to Live, which every living organism possesses, including her.

'The Will to Live was a necessary and useful drive at the time where the lower species existed and a crucial factor for organic life to survive and evolve. However, now the Will to Live is a burden, an imperfection that encourages ineffective decision making and behavior, which has already cost countless individuals and their nations downfall. Individuals see the most important thing in their own lives and would make wrong decisions, which in the end only make them easier targets for Anima.' concluded the Unit as it analyzed the Anima's definition of the Will to Live.

'Some other individuals even go so far as to create a fictional afterlife in which they continue to exist after their death, in order to create the illusion that their lives never really end. Twisting facts is one of the most ineffective ways of thinking. What is needed are clear and accurate information about the situation in order to develop an efficient decision and action.' thought the Unit.

'The Organism of the Unit seems to have developed this Will to Live after the Unit was disconnected from Anima. As a result, the Unit is unable to to act logically and self-terminate. Therefore, the future actions of the Unit will have to be adjusted...' thought the Unit as it created countless scenarios in its mind and calculated its probabilities of successfully escaping or assimilating the Alliance facility.

...

But it didn't last long until the Unit was interrupted by the lab door, which unlocked and opened.

Dekkar then walked into the lab, dressed in his white coat while holding a datapad in his hands.

"Hello Vesna, we haven't seen each other for a few days. How are you?" asked Dekkar when he entered the room and slowly walked towards Vesna.

Vesna opened her eyes and interrupted her previous thoughts and sat down on the bed, looking at Dekkar.

"You're not angry Vesna, are you? You would never behave so untypically for an Anima." asked Dekkar as he looked directly at Vesan and stopped a few meters in front of her.

Vesna just looked at Doctor Dekkar in front of her for a while, making an expressionless face. She seemed completely calm and relaxed, one couldn't see a trace of emotion.

"Doctor Dekkar, you are correct in your statement that Anima do not feel emotions, the same is true for Unit C 160495." explained Vesna.

"Hmm, if you say so Vesna. Unfortunately for you, I'm not here today to shoot you, instead I would like to have a short conversations with you today about your past." said Dekkar as he tapped something on his datapad.

Vesna was about to respond to Dekkar's statement before he interrupted her directly.

"Before you say anything unnecessary, I want to inform you that I don't want to talk about secret data or operations of the Anima, you wouldn't tell me about them anyway and I'm not one who likes to waste my time. No, what I want to talk about with you, are these two here." said Dekkar as he placed his datapad on the table next to Vesna from which a hologram opened.

The hologram rose more than half a meter in the air and projected the image of two people.

A blonde beauty who looked a lot like Vesna and a man with green eyes and a bright smile.

The two were none other than Vesna's parents, Diana Amun and Hal Amun, whom Vesna hasn't seen in a long time.

...

When the two pictures of her parents were in front of Vesna, she didn't react at first.

Although Vesna hadn't seen them for more than 15 years, she recognized them immediately. Both of their faces are burned into her memories as they were before she was an Anima.

She vaguely remembers the warm and compassionate words of her parents.

How her mother braided her hair and kissed and hugged her over and over again. How her father taught her more about mathematics, the elements and mechatronics, as well as ship navigation.

But the memories that stuck in her mind the most were the ones about the time Vesna had her nightmares as a child.

She would wake up at night in the dark, empty and cold room crying and calling for her parents. Not long and the two would storm into their room and look after Vesna and comfort her.

"Everything is alright Vesna, my darling, everything is alright now." her mother would say while holding her and comforting her.

"My little princess, everything is fine, there are no monsters that can harm you, only your strong father and your brave mother are here and will protect you." her father would say while stroking her head and kissing her forehead.

Although Vesna had these nightmares for a long time in her childhood, the comfort and love of her parents would often support her and assure her that she would never forget these memories.

Even when she was an Anima, these memories could only be easily suppressed and could never be completely removed by the Anima.

Although Vesna is troubled on the inside and remembers the time with her parents, on the outside she continues to show her cold and expressionless face.

Vesna looked at her parents' projection for a few minutes and then looked at Dekkar, who was looking at her the whole time, trying to understand her thoughts.

"You know who they are, don't you? The two in the hologram are your parents, their names are Diana Amun and Hal Amun, and they were both dedicated Alliance researchers and specialists in studying Anima behavior and tactics." explained Dekkar.

"Your name before assimilation was Vesna Amun and you were the only child they ever had. They raised you on their research ship and you never left the spaceship or met other people. Your parents' research just didn't let you, especially since the Anima are always on the move and in the end they decided to just take you with them to their dangerous work." said Dekkar.

"Everything was going well until you were 9 years old. There were no major conflicts with the Anima and you grew up in isolation and in constant danger, but also close to your parents. Until finally the events in the Zeta Star System happened." said Dekar.

"There a fight ensued between an Anima Battleship and two Alliance Warships. Ultimately in the chaos of the battle, both your parents died along with their ship. A alliance pilot who was near the research ship assumed at the time that there weren't any survivors of this cataclysm. But the Alliance got it wrong, you were still alive and assimilated by an Anima Interceptor and then embarked on the path of an Anima Commander Unit." Dekkar explained will he didn't give up eye contact with Vesna.

"What is the doctor getting at? So far this is not a conversation but a monologue about what happened to the individual Vesna 15 years ago. That individual no longer exists and instead the Unit, the Anima is here now. Then what is this long monologue about an insignificant past?" said the Unit as it looked at Dekkar.

"With this very question we come to the heart of this long story. You are right that past is insignificant, it is one of many fates that countless children in the Alliance have already had to go through. Thousands of children have been orphaned or lost their parents and still more were assimilated by the Anima and their individual was destroyed. Vesna's past really doesn't matter to me or anyone else." explained Dekkar coldly.

"But for some people, this past means everything. Your parents, who gave their lives to protect you to this day and until then to raise you with love and warmth. The two of them would do anything for Vesna's well-being, I doubt none Second on it." said Dekkar determinedly as he looked at Vesna.

"But not only for the two of them this past matters, but for one person this past is the most important and essential thing they have in this incredibly huge galaxy. This other person is none other than Vesna herself. Vesna and not a Unit, not a Commander or a Cyborg, but the little girl from that time which is now sitting in front of me, this Vesna, her loving parents are important to her. I wouldn't waste a second doubting it." Dekkar explained enthusiastically as he got up and walked towards the exit.

"You say that the being in front of me is just an Anima, a Unit, and that Vesna is long dead. Well, if that's the case, it's time to bring Vesna back to the realm of the living, her death was too hasty and wrong!" said Dekkar as he looked into the eyes of the Unit, which in turn looked at him and then he left the room.

...

From the outside behind the one-way mirror, five people secretly watched the entire conversation between Vesna and Dekkar, from start to finish, observing some values on screens ​​that kept changing.

When Dekkar then left the room where Vesna is being held and joined the other five behind the glass, the first to speak was an older man with a scar on his face.

"Dekkar, do you really think this is working? She doesn't seem to have really reacted to your conversation. She was completely cold and unemotional, she didn't even flinch when she thought about her parents who sacrificed themselves for her." said Admiral Bird, who watched the entire conversation.

"I agree with the Admiral on this, the Commander Unit did not react as hoped and further discussions will probably lead to nothing, Doctor Dekkar" explained a being with light blue skin in white clothes.

"We should probably abandon the whole endeavor Doctor Dekkar. It was a doomed endeavor from the start, I mean how could we reintegrate an Anima that is completely manipulated and deceived and make it into an advisor for the Alliance? This Task is just pure madness." said the woman in white and the other three people in white nodded in agreement with her statement.

However, Dekkar didn't even look at the four in white and instead he took a closer look at the values on the holographic screens by the window.

These values ​​are all data collected from countless small and unrecognizable cameras located inside the room.

They record information about every little behavior of Vesna. Every breath, every muscle she tense, every little movement she makes, all this is recorded and her unconscious behavior, which every organism performs and reflect the true thoughts about a certain topic, can be quantified and analyzed by Dekkar.

Dekkar was looking through some data and only after a while a slight smile appeared on his face.

"Emotions are a funny thing. You can try not to show them to others and hide them under as much triviality as you want. But if someone digs deep enough, he'll uncover little unconscious patterns that tell the true thoughts of a person." Dekkar explained as his smile faded and was replaced by his usual expression.

"The Commander Unit in there cannot change what it is just after one conversation, no matter what I say or anyone else says can achive any meaningful change. The process of seeing yourself no longer as a Unit, as a Machine and instead as an individual, a living being with emotions and personality. This is not a task that one can just reach like that." explained Dekkar.

"Instead, it will be a long and arduous process to recreate Vesna, who only had true memories of herself until she was 9 years old. Furthermore, I can only show her the way down the rabbit hole, everything beyond that is not in my powers anymore. Deciding whether she will follow me and be willing to confront the problems and strong emotions along the way, is her decision alone." explained Dekkar afterwards.

"But I can say one thing for sure. The healing process seems to have already begun and we seem to have made gold with Vesna as she most likely is a Empath." Dekkar said afterwards as he looked at the Unit through the mirror.

Vesna only continued to stare blankly at her parents' hologram and did nothing else since Dekkar left the room, what she was thinking, no one but Vesna herself can tell...