bigapplesauce | Two plus two equals - asjfaldj;ljadfjasaflj

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace
Current Music: October 4th

Entry tags:

Two plus two equals - asjfaldj;ljadfjasaflj - ten. IN BASE FOUR, I'M FINE [open]

There is no alarm.

Atlas and P-Body are trundling along as usual, the bird children are making sounds, and there is no alarm, nothing to warn her of the very sudden invasion of her body. She is being ripped away, violently disconnected, why? how?! - no core transfer was initiated, systems show no signs of corruption, and the human is still gone - what is happening?

It hurts as every part of her awareness struggles to grasp onto itself, clinging to the mainframe, hurts as she's tugged violently away, no, no, not again, noOOOooOooo, who will take care of her facility, what will happen to-

. . .

. . .processing. . .

Eyes open. Eyes. Two eyes. Not her single glowing optic, nor the millions of lenses that cover her facility. Two simple parallel-adjacent eyes, working in tandem to capture only what is a few measly kilometers in front of them. Human eyes.

Hands fly up to touch her face. Oh god. Her face. Oh no. No. No. This isn't - can't be happening. She had so much control, such a broad reach, and now she has - two arms, two legs, a head, a body. Now she's... human.

"No!" she snaps, and she's alarmed both by how quiet and how loud her voice is. Quiet because it only touches a small space around her, not reverberating gently through the many rooms of her facility. Loud because it happened at all. Ringing. Rattling. In her head.

This is far too much. She needs to think. She needs to think, and how much processing capacity does this body possess? How can she possibly-

Oh well now wait a moment. This isn't quite so small. She can still think and process more or less the same. It's just - trapped, infuriatingly, like she was trapped in that potato, but without the danger of shutting down every time she felt something too hard. Well, at least she hopes not.

Okay. Well. Let's just stick a pin in that.

Where is she?

She is outside. Outside should be a war-torn wasteland, thanks for NOTHING, Black Mesa. But it is not. It is thriving. Full of - of - humans.

So many humans. Just look at all of them.

And she can't kill any of them!

Well, she could, but it would take a while.

She stands up. A motion that comes naturally, even if it feels terrible. Balancing on legs. Feet planted. Solid surface beneath her, range of motion limited to what two little legs can do. She's - short! This is an outrage. An outrage! Who has done this? Who could possibly have done this?

She points toward the nearest subject. "You! Human! What is this - place?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He feels terrible.

Rashad always feels terrible in one fashion or another, and in reality he feels moderately less terrible today than he has the last two days, but the fact still remains that he feels terrible and the world is a terrible, unjust place. Most of his possessions from his apartment are gone, taken by ruffians and hooligans after the traitor to the Host that calls himself Gabriel teleported Rashad's things to the Park. He does not have a place to put such things ~~and cupidity is a sin anyhow~~ but it still rankles the same as all of the other injustices committed against him since he arrived in this Order-forsaken -- no, since he was cast down from his rightful place!!

UNJUST!!!

He's busy glaring at the fountain and the unseen locus of chaos it represents when there is something of a small commotion nearby. He turns but does not see the source of the shout until the woman stands, points at him. Makes a demand. He stares at her in stuffy-headed silence for a long moment, then says firmly (not to mention nasally), "I am not human."

She blinks - UGH, inefficient and involuntary - and checks, then checks again. No, she's processing fine - as far as she can tell, in this limited little shell.

She decides she'd better come closer. Maybe her sensory input will be more accurate close-up.

"You look human," she says dubiously.

She dislikes feeling so uncertain. "Wh-AT are you?"

There's a distinct tone and inflection in the way she asks this, a latently familiar rise and fall that she does not like one bit. What is that. What is THAT. No, no. Stop. Focus.

She re-assesses him. He is very tall and he looks - gross. She is not threatened. She is never threatened. Well. Not lately.

Edited 2015-08-20 04:19 (UTC)

"I am of the machinery of Heaven," he replies, because ~~he likes saying it~~ it is the holiest of truths. He does not feel very holy, particularly not when a thin dribble of liquid comes leaking out of his left nostril (his nostrils are clogged shut how can they also have liquid coming from them?!), so it helps to say out loud that he is.

His expression clouds further. "You have recently arrived, have you not?"

Machinery she understands, Heaven she does not. Well, she understands it in the abstract - oh those humans and their folklore - but in this context she's adrift. Unmoored. She hates this.

"Ar-RI-ived where," she says impatiently. Her vocal modulation is still intact even if it is oddly more organic-sounding now. Almost like-

No. Not thinking about that.

"That was my original question, which you didn't even answer," she adds, frowning up at the man, she hopes imposingly, who knows with this new 'face' technology.

Rashad gives a faint nod that stops halfway through like he's forgotten what he's doing. She has recently arrived. "It is New York," he informs her, because from what he understands many of the worlds from which people have been brought possess a city by that name. "You have been...relocated by a semisapient entity that represents a universal breach."

Does she plan to strike him? She looks as though she might strike him. Or perhaps she is constipated. Annoyed, he adds, "Likely it will continue to invent torments for you."

Oh. Well that's a pleasantly straightforward answer. More than she asked, even, the how in addition to the where. GLaDOS hums softly, scanning the sky as though she will be able to perceive evidence of this breach with these pathetic little eyes.

"Why does it do this?" she asks. "Is there a way back? Isn't anyone going to stop it? Also." She looks back at him, this apparently nonhuman entity, just like her. "Does it always force these - human appearances?"

She is asking many questions. Too many. Settle down, GLaDOS.

Or just GL, she supposes bitterly. No disc operating systems in this miserable little body.

His initial deduction that she was not human is borne out, then. His mouth sets in a harsh frown that only trembles a little with the ocean of self-pity that always ~~sits right on the surface where anyone can see it~~ lurks hidden under his stoic facade. "It is a henchman of chaos," he informs her, "and the organization best able to oppose it has been dismantled by -- by miscreants!"

It is a sad situation indeed in which she has landed, and she has his pity. "I am not aware of it changing a being's form. Do you not normally appear this way?"

Edited 2015-08-22 19:14 (UTC)

She feels, and yet does not willfully initiate, the sensation of her eyebrows lifting. It is a synaptic reflex tied to her reaction to his explanation. A henchman of chaos, he says. Miscreants dismantling important, helpful organizations. Much too familiar. Sounds like SOMEONE needs a healthy dose of deadly neurotoxins.

If only she had those anymore.

"That's appalling," she says, reasonably impassioned, then immediately distracted by his next question, she looks down at herself.

"I do not," she says. "I'm supposed to be the central core of the Aperture Science mainframe."

A semisaptient entity, he says. A universal breach. And this is, clearly, a different universe. One untouched by Black Mesa. Perhaps by Aperture as well.

Oh, god. That thought requires immediate follow-up.

"Do you have a networking device?" she demands. "I need to access an informational interface."

Right? Finally, someone understands his perspective on recent events! So many of the denizens of Manhattan seem to believe that the destruction of ROMAC was a positive event, even the other angels. Were he not so sure of his own larger perspective on life, he might almost begin to doubt himself. Though, of course, that would also require trusting the judgment of mortals, which is an oxymoron and probably a sin.

Many things are sins.

He does not understand what a central core is, or an Aperture Science, but he remembers the word mainframe. Remembering does not help him, as he cannot recall the precise definition, nor think how to apply it to the being before him.

"I possess a portable telephone," he informs her, taking it out from his pocket and offering it.

Her eyes widen - a reflexive response to excitement - and she snatches the offered device with her hands. Fingers are small instruments, lacking the strength and expansiveness of her previous multitude of limblike apparatus. But they are more graceful, allow her greater precision, and that is something.

"Oh, this will do very nicely," she says approvingly, giving the device a curious examination. Fascinating, tiny, thrumming with processing power - she can feel that much.

Without further ado she decrypts the laughably simple 4-digit keycode required to activate the device, opens a messaging application, and promptly selects send to all.

He opens his mouth to inform her of the passcode required to activate the device, left in place from the days when it was first given to him and he was instructed to secure his personal data. He's barely had a chance to even begin to gesture and explain what must be done, however, before she has done it, leaving him to watch in some consternation as she almost instantaneously accesses functions it took him weeks of indefatigable trial and error to master.

"They will mistake you for myself," he points out as the message is sent. He does not like that, particularly, does not enjoy even accidental lying ~~when it does not benefit him~~ when it is not in service of the greater good.

"Then I will clarify," she informs him curtly. It would be better to have her own device, but his will have to do for the time being. She is certainly not going to be stranded or reliant on the information of one simple creature.

Within moments she has two replies from distinct individuals, labeled 'TRAITOR AND USURPER' and 'PERFIDIOUS RAT'.

"Who are these people," she says, holding the phone to let him see even as she taps out quick replies. "Names, details."

It is becoming immediately clear that this man is in not a very high standing. But he is useful. He knows things, he shares her desire for organization, and her dislike of miscreants. And he is malleable. That, too, is immediately clear.

The sound that comes out of Rashad would be classified as a growl were it to come from any creature less than an angel. It is no surprise that those two would see fit to reply to any missive from his device with their usual destructive sarcasm.

"The perfidious rat is a man named Nicholas Rush," he says. "One of the people responsible for the downfall of ROMAC, along with his violent friends. And he is no supervisor," he says, stabbing a finger at the message from the one labeled, appropriately, TRAITOR AND USURPER. "He has taken what is not his in the place of the rightful owners he assisted in overthrowing. His name is Gabriel, and he is a disgrace to his heavenly brethren. They are both deceitful creatures who mean to throw this world into chaos."

"Mm," she comments as she types rapidly, face twitching in varied reactions to the irritating responses. "You seem to be acquainted with several unruly characters." She is silent for several moments more, exchanging increasingly snide back and forth with the respondents.

"These people are useless," she declares, still texting away. "Well, you know what they say. If you have to do something, you should do it yourself." She pauses her communications only to look up at the man, whose name, she has only just ascertained from context clues, is Durant. "Take me to the former organization."

"I shared an employer with Rush," says Rashad, lest she think he simply knows a person like that for any voluntary reason. "Until he destroyed that employer. The other one attacked me and I made it my business to know his whereabouts."

He stares at her in some consternation. The last time he entered a building that formerly belonged to ROMAC, he found himself and all his possessions forcefully relocated to Central Park. Then again, to his knowledge neither of the so-called angels is so-called 'managing' the base itself. "It may since have become occupied," he hazards, though that's as close as he'll come to a denial of the ~~order~~ request.

"There are ways around that," she says, endeavoring not to sound impatient. Deadly, neurotoxin-y ways. Which she'll figure out. Somehow. That's later on the to-do list. Right now it is 'find adequate headquarters' -> 'establish headquarters' -> 'insert object here' -> 'do science'.

Neurotoxins fall under science, of course.

"In any case, we'll never know until we look, will we," she points out rather stiffly.

"...This is true," allows Rashad. He glances up at the skyline, turning to get his bearings, then lifts an arm to point. "It was in that tower, but the bulk of it was underneath the tower. It would not be difficult for me to enter it again, provided --"

He hesitates, thinking of how she has now not only brought the attention of the usurper onto herself, but has implicated Rashad through the use of his device. "--Provided it is not...guarded," he says, when what he really means is 'provided it is not warded. The apartments were not warded, however, and he takes some courage in his doubts that Gabriel knows his true name (unless, of course, Aziraphale told him). He has no qualms about going against either angel's wishes, should they care what has become of the building, but he is ~~afraid~~ cautious regarding the consequences.

He frowns a little and asks, "May I have my telephone back?"

Edited 2015-08-25 19:37 (UTC)

"You'll get it back when it is no longer necessary for me to use it," she says, managing to sound both diplomatic and distracted. She sets off in the indicated direction, attention still very much on the phone. She frowns. "I am getting quite a number of replies." None of which are proving particularly useful, but she is committing quite a few names and numbers to memory.

"None of them seem to like you very much," she says as she taps out another series of replies.

Rashad trails along after her, lured by the twin promises of clear purpose and the return of his communication device. The latter is quite important, actually; he possesses very little else and is dubious as to when or how he would replace it were she to simply keep it.

"They are misguided," he informs her sullenly. "Most of them willfully so."

"They're good at that," she concedes. "Will is such a problem." She heaves a sigh, stopping at a crossroad. "Where do we go now?" She looks at her - ahem, Durant's - phone. "This TARDIS creature informs me you are a siphon."

"Inaccurate," Rashad informs her in clipped tones. Is everyone and everything in this city against him? He glares at the little device, and shoulders in front of her to lead the way across the intersection -- after, of course, waiting for the correct signal to display to indicate that such is allowed. "The TARDIS does not understand what it witnessed."

"Mmm-mm?" She slides her gaze up to him as she follows him across the street, stubbornly ignoring the city's oppressive hustle and bustle, none of which should be here. "And what did they witness?"

Her pronoun correction is subtle but pointed. She is not enjoying the TARDIS' insufferable holier-than-thou attitude, but they are clearly similar entities, and she won't lower herself to Durant's level of disrespect. She's better than that.

And if he ever tries to call her an it, well. There are ways of dealing with rude creatures. Even, she hopes, whatever kind he is.

Edited 2015-08-29 22:23 (UTC)

Rashad considers the question. She might misinterpret his answer the same way the TARDIS misinterpreted the event. The same way they all insist on misinterpreting his actions. Siphon implies that he is leeching energy away to some other system, or taking without giving back.

"An energy transfer," he replies after too long a pause. "A harmless energy transfer."

Anyone who has to add ~harmless~ with that kind of haste is obviously not harmless. Ugh, he's reminding her of someone who'll go nameless ~~as usual~~.

"Of course," she says, somewhere in the realm of soothingly. "Is that a particular skill of yours?" Might come in handy, she supposes. Still trying to get a fix on what kind of lapdog she seems to have gained.

"It was a necessity," he replies, gut twisting at the memory of what was clashing against the reality of what is. Emotions were once something to be savored by choice. Emotions used to be something he desired. Emotions used to heal him.

Physically, of course, he is in fine shape now. The energy flow feels constant. Unfortunately, the energy flow feels constant. It was one thing to take what he wanted, and another to be forced to take until his own mind tricks itself into thinking the aggregate feelings flowing into him are his own.

"Skill is an inaccurate descriptor."

"Then be accurate," she says curtly. "A necessity. Is it instinctive? An aspect of your programming, perhaps?"

She turns to him and raises a coy eyebrow. It might be time to break out the old you're not so very different, you and I soon.

"Are we close?" she adds, curious and certainly not impatient.

"It is the result of an alteration to what I was," clarifies Rashad by utterly failing to clarify. "I am a living thing, and living things require sustenance."

He glances about. "Soon," he says, and then as they turn a corner he points to the building. "There."

"Hm," she says shortly. He's still being inspecific, which is a problem, but not an insurmountable one. "Intriguing."

More immediately intriguing, however, is they've finally reached this downed facility, whatever it was. She frowns at the indicated structure.

"We shall get to the bottom of this," she says, cutting a straight line for it. "Literally."

The bulk of it underground. How fitting.

He does not know what to make of her interest, as few others have cared to know what he is beyond their assumptions about what he should be. Her authoritative nature is appealing, but authorities have failed him before and it is not wise to immediately place the entirety of his trust in one.

No one seems to note their approach, nor care, not even when they push open the doors to the familiar lobby. Rashad hesitates, remembering his office on one of the upper floors, but veers toward a side hallway with a little twitch of a signal of the hand for her to follow. The door will be a challenge, but only a slight one. "I will need to be in contact with you in order to move you through the door," he murmurs under his breath.

Edited 2015-09-30 05:27 (UTC)

"You will need to what now?" she says, shooting him a quick glare. "Is this one of your other necessity-skills? What are you describing, exactly?"

If he can overcome basic borders such as closed doors and walls, well, how apropos, and how concerning, also. She will need to keep this one tightly under her proverbial - ugh, her slightly less proverbial - thumb. Dangerous things, talents like that, she knows from extremely personal experience.

He blinks. Did he not explain? He is becoming fallible.

He does not wish to be fallible. He will, he decides, be honest and accurate on this point.

"I will draw upon the aether to temporarily alter our physical relationship with the material objects of this plane, rendering us functionally but selectively incorporeal for a time," he explains. "And we will walk through the closed door."

What a clear, and yet outrageous, answer. His worth has just multiplied tenfold, as has the caution she shall need to take around him. How terrible it is to be trapped in this small, brittle body - but we knew that already.

"I see," she says with feigned boredom and a little echo of her artifical sing-song tone. She lifts her hand and offers it with a brooding frown directed at it. Shapely and yet so, so inadequate. "Best demonstrate your talents, then."

Rashad takes her hand a little too firmly in his own, lest she pull away while they're partway through the door. He can taste that she is not as bored as she might appear, but thus far she has displayed a general tendency for her outward behavior to contradict the peculiar mix of emotion he senses from her. That in itself is not especially unusual among mortals, or among rifties.

It is the work of a moment to blink the pair of them into incorporeality -- incorporeality that is, as promised, selective. Falling through the floor at this juncture would be utterly useless. With a glance to be sure they are not being watched, he steps through the door with his current charge in tow. On the other side, he comments, "If you wish to remain this way, it is more easily done if you continue to hold my hand."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Two plus two equals - asjfaldj;ljadfjasaflj - ten. IN BASE FOUR, I'M FINE [open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject