3 Insidious Innocence

Cradled in the arms of the droid maid, Cynthia closed her eyes, let her limbs go limp, and pretended to sleep, hoping to imitate the behaviours of a baby.

Luckily enough, it would seem that the droid did not seem to notice any discrepancies with her behaviour. Although Cynthia knew that a droid which ran on programmed logics and rationality could never match the intuition of a human, Cynthia predicated that at least for now, she should be off the hook.

As such, Cynthia used this moment to contemplate her current situation and how 'she' came to be.

Judging from her inability to use her voice and the lack of control she had over her limbs, Cynthia guessed that this baby body had to be no more than one year old.

That conclusion would make a lot of sense.

That while the 'Cynthia' that was cradled in the arms of the droid was the same in terms of the physical body, in terms of both spirit and mind, it was anything but.

However, as a one year old, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to notice a 'change' in the person since they have no real past history to compare the new person too. In essence there is no 'new Cynthia' since there was no 'old Cynthia' in the first place. A fact that this 'Cynthia' was more than glad to exploit.

That would also explain how 'Cynthia' was able to rest control of this body from the original soul.

What happened to the original, 'real' Cynthia?

The 'new' Cynthia couldn't care less.

If she had to guess, the original soul was probably 'dead' in the most vague sense of the term.

Left to wander about that infinite void of nothingness as this 'Cynthia' once did.

Although she didn't know how she did it, after her first 'death' she was somehow able to not only persist through her immense psionic will but even forcefully take over a new youthful body.

This was due in part to the fact that the psionic restrainer which once restricted her past body's psionic will could no longer effect her post death due to being limited to only the physical realm.

As Cynthia continued to contemplate to herself, her memories of what the 'afterlife' was like soon flooded back into her mind, sending shivers down her baby spine.

Her fear of dying, combined with her tremendous psionic will and some sort of divine luck somehow allowed 'her' to find this new body and eventually steal control of said body from the original 'soul.'

If this was a body that was instead inhabited by a thirty year old soul for example, Cynthia doubted if her diminished soul from a dead body could ever hope to overtake the body of a rejuvenated, developed soul instead of a young, developing soul of a one year old.

Even if the invading soul was somehow able to overwhelm the original veteran soul, it would be nearly impossible to keep up a facade that the usurper of the body was still the same person to the original person's friends and family.

This sequence of events was truly a stroke of luck.

All the influencing variables and factors.

Each and every one of them.

Was exactly what Cynthia needed to successfully 'reincarnate' in this brand new body.

Everything literally fell perfectly into place.

Of course, all of this was all just a theory based on Cynthia's observations and whatever evidence she had to work with.

She could be either entirely correct or absolutely wrong.

Either way, whether she was actually right or not, this did nothing to change or even influence her current situation.

She was still in possession of a weak, still developing, one year old body with no idea as to her future fate.

She didn't even know who the parents of this body are or if she was even safe to begin with.

But most importantly, she no longer had that same body she that she once possessed.

She didn't care that this body was not the same gender as her past one.

What she truly cared about was the fact that she would essentially have to start over from square one.

While Cynthia felt that her tremendous psionic power still remained, that psionic power meant nothing if her current body can't handle the psionic pressure.

As the first ever human being to be born with such a high latent psionic potential that they had to create a new class, the 'S-class' specifically for her past self, she was thus a psionic prodigy in her first youth and thus her 'talents' were of course exploited.

However, the youth of her original life was also filled to the brim of close calls where her own psionic powers which could obliterate virtually anything in its path, also in an ironic twist nearly destroyed her own original body in the process.

As such, she had to overcome that obstacle.

The end result of overcoming said obstacle speaks for itself. In the peak of her past life, her past body was a trained and conditioned powerhouse which could seamlessly channel the psionic power that was beyond most people's imagination.

A powerhouse that was the result of endless hours of rigorous training.

And now she would essentially have start all over and endure that hellish training regimen once again.

It really was such a waste.

Such a waste for such a powerful body which was supplemented with the most powerful psionic force known to the history of man to die in such a pathetic and unceremonious manner.

For her chance to reveal her latent untapped potential to be stolen away in such a cheap and deceitful manner.

It was truly a grievous tragedy.

Soon, a sudden revelation came into Cynthia's mind.

Even if she were to once again regain the level of power she once had in her past, what is there to stop her from once again meeting the same fate as her past life did?

If she were to die again, who knows if she will once again be lucky enough to find another nearby young body to usurp.

Within moments, the fear of the possibility of death filled the entirety of Cynthia's mind.

After all, it didn't matter how much she trained or strengthened her human body, the faults of the flesh will still persist no matter what she does.

Even as a powerful psionic, she still was and will always be, a pathetic puny human.

The flesh and bone of a human body was just to frail for Cynthia's liking.

And not only that but a human body was also rather high maintenance as well.

It required a constant source of supplements and energy in the form of food and water as well as always requiring oxygen to carry out its everyday functions. The latter of which was what caused Cynthia's first ever death.

Although the 'frailty' of blood and bone can be mostly counteracted with cybernetics and advanced exosuits, that did not change the nature of her body. There also still existed multiple stratagems and counters that could counteract the cybernetic upgrades and protection of the exosuits to get to the squishy organs of a human.

Not to mention how much it would cost for said cybernetics and exosuits.

In other words, the flesh was simply just too weak for what it actually costs.

For a short moment, Cynthia opened her eyes only to see the Droid that was cradling her come back into her view.

A droid made of condensed neo-steel, strong enough to allow the aforementioned droid to withstand forces which would had killed any human, even when encased in a protective exosuit.

A droid which required no oxygen, nor the consistent need for food and water. Instead, a power source, any power source even one that was generated by psionic powers was all that they needed to function.

A smile started to form on Cynthia's baby body as a single idea manifested itself in her mind.

If the flesh was too weak for her liking, then all she would need to do was transcend said flesh.

And the solution was standing right in front of her.

...

With a bit of a nervous look on her face,Mary returned to her rather spacious office after she had checked on Cynthia.

Although the maid droid sent an emergency report to Mary that Cynthia's bio and health levels suddenly dropped without any cause nor reason, when Mary reached and found the two, Cynthia's bio levels had also inexplicably returned to normal.

In fact, she looked even better than ever.

As the chief maid who took care of everything within 'Eden' the personal spacecraft and mansion of the CEO of 'StarrCorp;' Adam Starr, Mary was very close with and knew a lot about Adam's daughter Cynthia Starr.

Because of this, Mary was actually a little surprised to find Cynthia sleeping peacefully instead of throwing another one of her usual tantrums.

Of course, Mary didn't complain.

What would have typically happened was that the maid droid or droids failed to calm down Cynthia, resorting to them having to resign her to Mary who never failed in her attempts to calm Cynthia down.

It was a literal example of how the programming of droids can never possibly replicate a 'mother's love.'

"Do you wish to inform Mr Starr about this incident ma'am?"

Soon, the robotic voice of one of Mary's subordinate maid droids interrupted her thoughts.

With a wave of her hand, Mary denied the droid's suggestion almost as soon as she heard it.

"No, this incident has already solved itself and from I can see, it was only a minor incident in the first place. Perhaps the maid droid may have malfunctioned for a short moment. Besides, I believe that Mr Starr already has a lot of troubles to work through, there isn't any need for us to add to his already long list of troubles."

It was at moments like these that explain why humans were still employed in place of droids. The latter just did not have the same thought process and 'heart' that most normal humans had. If it had not been for Mary's intervention, this specific droid would have sent the message to Mr. Starr, possibly risking the future of his company.

As someone who grew to be particularly close with her boss, Mary was aware of her boss's philanthropistic tendencies and she did not wish to see Mr. Starr unnecessarily worry over the safety of his daughter when his mind needed to be focused on his work.

As long as Cynthia remained within the soft and caring hands of Mary, the latter was sure that the former would always remain safe from any and all sorts of trouble.

After all, Mary was the chief maid of Eden not just because of her skills in domestic governance and management but she had other skills as well.

For starters, she was a gifted psionic, and as a gifted psionic, Mary was sure that even in times of great peril, she could protect Cynthia from anything that wished to harm her.

Little did she know that just a few moments earlier, she already failed in keeping Cynthia 'alive.'