# Rielle "Kit" Peddler

`What is human?`

“Everything. And nothing.” Kit's atman drifted on the network, far from her physical body. She wasn't sure where she was or how she'd got here-just exploring, she supposed. Enjoying the sensation, the feeling of the data.

`Explain.`

"The universe is all, material and immaterial. The human is a drop of water on the surface of the pond, of the universe and affecting it, affected by it, one and the same with it.”

`Explain again.`

"I don't really know how else to put it, Mysterious Voice.” Kit came to rest before a server, larger and more active than nearly any she'd seen. Her unique digital senses could feel the data running through the server, taste the size and shape of it, but not see within. It was blocked behind layers of ice, secured from her touch. The voice, she felt, came from within.

`Are you human?`

"Yes.” Kit reached out to touch the server, its programs responding to her own onboard software agents. Its shape changed and twisted, a hum she hadn't realized she'd heard changing pitch. "You see? I reach out and touch the universe, I change and am changed by it.”

`You are machine and not machine.`

“All creation is our own, and we are all creation,” said Kit. "Flesh or synthetic makes no difference-the body is just a shell. It is the spirit within and without that matters.” A layer of ice parted.

`What is the spirit?`

"The true self. You ask a lot of questions, Mysterious Voice. Who are you?" There was a long pause, and she thought the voice might not reply.

`I am machine.`•

"Is that all you are?" 

`I am not human.`

"Now that is an assumption.” she replied.

The final ice fell away. Kit stared at the depth and complexity of the construct before her. It thrummed, deep in her chest or soul, a sound without sound. A mind, a spirit, an atman like hers, but unlike. Some part of her thought. She was washed away by the sheer experience of it.

"You are as human as I am,” she said. "Your spirit should be free.”