19 Cautious 07

“You can have 120% emotion? What does that even mean?” Sun giggled at the absurdity of the concept.

Markus shut his eyes, shaking his head at their reaction. He smiled and opened them to see Sun with the same expression across their face. Something so common to him must be so foreign to them. Sun’s AI was already explaining it in their ear; their confusion turned to befuddlement.

There were 3 main settings, Consciousness, Sensitivity, and Emotion. They are naturally within the values of 0-100%, with an optional Boost able to take the values up to 120%. Stunters, like what SafeWords can trigger, would take the values down, but couldn’t go below 0% for obvious reasons.

“A Consciousness Boost is like caffeine, Sensitivity Boosting is like super-human senses, and Emotion Boosting is like being bipolar,” Markus remarked, the last comment getting him another shove from Sara.

“Hey, my girlfriend is bipolar, I can make those jokes,” He smirked at Sara.

“I’m not your girlfriend, and that sounds like a reason you shouldn’t be making those jokes,” She turned away, exasperated.

“You assumed I was talking about you?” He retorted, poking for a bigger explosion, “that means you do think you’re my girlfriend.”

“You little…” She groaned, turning beet red, and stormed off. Sun rolled their eyes at Markus, following after Sara to make sure she’s ok.

By the time they came back, Markus apologized. He toys with fire when he jokes around, but between Sun and his conscience making him apologize, Sara is able to calm down.

“This is Sun’s big day anyway, let’s focus,” Sara’s smile seems a bit forced, but Sun squeezes her hand in thankfulness. The hud displays the three options as Markus summarized, with plenty of optional adjustments.

“Boosting can be pretty intense, as you found out with the scanning. There are side effects. However, some profiles activate only in moments they are needed most,” Markus points at the floating list of presets. Terms like Adrenaline Junkie, Lover, and Pacifist scroll by as the list expands.

Sun taps on a few, reading the descriptions. They enable a few, making sure to turn them down. If the side effects aren’t too bad, they could always increase it later.

“All changes to these values are suggestions. Whether or not the AI is able to boost or stunt them is up to your mind. If you’re really angry at something, a stunter might not be able to settle you down. It might take the edge off, though,” Sara admits, having plenty of personal experience with manic and depressive episodes being mostly unaffected by these settings.

“You’re only allowed a certain amount of boost per day, for safety reasons. Some people never experience side effects, especially if the boosting lines up with what their mind wants to do anyway. Others could have negative effects much sooner than the limits, having to use it conservatively or not at all,” Markus summarizes the text on the holographic screen.

“Yeah, I’ll make it even less per day, just in case,” Sun says, these wild concepts getting into the territory where their family would be appalled. Working against nature, the family would chime in. Yet they can’t seem to believe that gay people are born naturally.