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Futuristic Do Androids Dream of Electric Jeeps?
- Thread starter SquigglyWiggly
- Start date
SquigglyWiggly
Member
Perdita (Purdy) Sheridan | 25| 5'6"| Milky green/turquoise eyes | Red-brown hair with streaks of white|
Since she was little Purdy has wanted to be a courier. Its only through hard work and dedication that's she's gotten to where she is now. However advancements in the field are making her obsolete and endangering the life she's sacrificed so much for. Will she find a way to salvage her life or will she lose her future forever?
Since she was little Purdy has wanted to be a courier. Its only through hard work and dedication that's she's gotten to where she is now. However advancements in the field are making her obsolete and endangering the life she's sacrificed so much for. Will she find a way to salvage her life or will she lose her future forever?
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
days in service N/A | 6 feet 7 inches | chassis color #453C86
Poor lil' rabbit. Last of the litter, huh?
Alone. Abandoned. Didn't even know there were others before there were no more others to speak of. Went up. Went up. It's all scrap now. They're all scrap now too.
Yu-p. Just 284 pounds of bunny meat.
Scrap.
Bunny scrap.
260.948 pounds of scrap with all that is missing. Lost.
Well now, that just means it's gotta get found.
Last edited:
SquigglyWiggly
Member
In this age the buildings are pocketed with solar tubes—cylindrical light pipes embedded every five feet across ceilings, their interiors adorned with mirrors to capture and amplify the faintest hints of natural light. Some of these tubes stretch as long as forty feet vertically, injecting light into multiple stories.
Now, people don't really care about saving energy, but it's a known fact that natural light boosts moods and helps maintain human internal clocks.
Funny thing is, even though there's all this electricity and energy to spare, every newly fabricated structure still comes with one of these solar tubes.
Now if either of them had the emotional capacity to do so, which would feel more obsolete; the light switch or the sun?
In the dimly lit hangar that once housed the Wanderer model of androids, both mean nothing. These androids possesses remarkable night vision, unaffected by the gentle caress of natural light. One of the few remaining androids, still recognizable in form but in a state of disrepair, sprawls across the floor amid a chaotic jumble of broken parts and oozing fluids. Ironically, with its damaged lenses, neither the flick of a light switch nor the embrace of sunlight could penetrate the void it now perceives.
Yet, it can still hear. It lacks comprehension of sounds but not of words. Thus, the disgruntled murmurs from above are repeatedly misconstrued as rustling leaves by its damaged sensors.
"...- Its head is bashed in," spoke the leaves, at last transmitting in binary that the android could interpret. Its balance sensors ping, indicating physical contact.
"If that wasn't bad enough, it's a level three Lure."
The android's data banks offer no definition for this term.
Something beeps angrily overhead. The sound triggers a subroutine to play, which is then immediately canceled by the computer docked in the remains of its head.
"That doesn't make sense," remarks another voice. "No raider could've cared that much to die and leave a stink like that. Wasn't it enough that they took Termi? Did they have to destroy the rest of the team?"
"Guess so," replies the first voice, so flat that the words are nearly indistinguishable sounds until they once again form coherent language. A faint gust of wind plays havoc with its microphones.
"Scrap. They're all... scrap. They'll have to be recycled and refined."
"All of them?"
"They're good for nothing but bait at Hecate now."
As the conversation lingers in the air and soft tinkering reverberates against the android's chassis, it couldn't discern the moment when its blindness dissolved into absolute nothingness. It registered a beep, the sharp pop of its speakers going silent, and then, nothing more.
The final farewell, consisting of "You would've done your job well and made us proud," is reduced to a distant echo of bees and the rustling of wind.
---
"Good job...good job..." From where she is it's impossible to know for sure if her commentary is helpful and not borderline aggravating.
Belle puts every ounce of her 120 lb frame (probably more now, considering) into strangling the the wheel, staring moon eyed out at the road and the approaching intersection.
The pit of the tiny shoebox of a car (more a golf cart than anything) hums a soft, pretty ding of a sound.
The display in the dashboard grows into what Purdy's been called eggshell blue; a relaxing color proven to reduce stress. Apparently green is a good color too, and Belle is surrounded by it. Demeter is known for it's food exportation and agricultural technologies. Everywhere you look there's endless columns of aeroponic grow towers, nestled next to each other in orderly rows to fill up the entire valley of Port Douglas. They eclipse the mountains that hold the city in almost a bowl shape, making the streets look more like a very orderly jungle. Or a city made of very slim skyscrapers. It's one of the greatest cities to settle in if you can find a place to live and don't mind the ridiculous amount of bugs and manure.
Minding you can even get here in the first place.
The little car in front stops to let a patron scoop up a load of dung from the road.
"Your cortisol is steadily rising," the interface in the dashboard informs, "Would you like a generated song customized to your profile to soothe your anxiety?"
"Yes please!" Belle requests desperately.
The car makes its polite bing sound again. Music fills the car. Purdy looks out the window to hide the wrinkle in her nose.
"It helps," Belle defends, letting one claw unclamp from the wheel to rest on her belly. She's always been pretty; a natural blonde like her mom. The constant pouting expression and wet eyes always makes her look like she's on the brink of tears, but happy ones. The effect gives her a, 'just had a life changing epiphany' even when she's doing the most mundane chores. Now though, she just looks baffled and a little lost.
The car display shows her decreasing stress but Purdy would argue that's because she's parked behind a poor dude stuck on poop scooper duty and not 'barreling down into high speed death'.
Purdy rubs above the headset at the patch of white hair she has. It's right at the center of her forehead, where her hairline starts. Each beginning corner of her eyebrow is a solid white too, making her look like she went crazy and shaved half of them off. She can dye it, but everyone already knows about it so she can't really be bothered. She should just be grateful it wasn't worse.
"That's great, B, I just don't think you need it."
"I don't like the old stuff," Belle murmurs plaintively. Her hand goes back to wringing the wheel now that the muck has been cleared. "None of it feels like it's for me."
Purdy tries to hear the sounds coming out of the car as actual music. And, if she really tries, maybe she could. The way you see shapes in clouds that are just a cacophony of messed up circles. It's plain, inoffensive, with a noncommittal beat, and features an instrumental back up that doesn't seem to know if it's a tuba or a trombone.
"This sounds like it's for you?" Purdy remarks incredulously.
"This is my favorite part," Belle says with a shush.
"Your favorite? It's the same different song every time!"
Belle fixes her weepy doe eyes on the blue screen, worrying at her stomach.
"It used to be music wasn't made for anyone except the person who made it," Purdy adds. "This completely defeats the purpose!"
"Actually," Belle states, sacrificing a hand so she can hold a finger up in an adult, pointed sort of way. Or it would have come off that way if she'd held out her hand longer than two seconds. Instead it looks like she made a swipe at Purdy and missed by a foot. "It was made for currency. And that sounds like a terrible reason to make or do anything."
On their left they roll pass what counts as the market; a fat authoritarian looking building with a kiosk. A man in a serious, smooth suit sits in the box of the building, scanning the Links on every man, woman and child in the lineup. A rations box is handed out to each. For some it's bigger, for some it's smaller.
An old woman with a patch of spindly white hair and a sloped back leaves the lineup with a paper brown bag, and that's it.
Purdy watches the feeding trough until she can't.
"Like what we have is any better."
"It's works," Belle says, glaring at traffic in her worried, almost crying way.
As fate would decree no sooner after the janitor's cleaned his mess does another worker drop their box of rations. A rolling herd of potatoes, beets and carrots rush off into the road.
"I'm gonna hit it, I'm gonna hit it I'm gonna hit it I'm gonna hit it-"
"You're not gonna hit it-" Purdy reassures, assuming she means the other car up front thirty feet. Or maybe the guy who dropped the veg in the first place. "Break. Gentle on the pedal, don't stomp on-"
The tires squeal. The car lurches to a sudden and Purdy can feel the wobbly crunch of the poor vegetables, which Belle decides is a worthwhile thing to mourn. And it is, but not to this degree. Belle's constant Eeee screech she started the moment a collision went from a hyperactive thought to a complete impossibility now that they've committed vegetable-icide keeps it's pitch. At least it covers up the music.
Belle stays so tense her skin plasters itself thin to her neck leaving every muscle visible. The worker balks at the splattered vegetable, shaking his head at Belle.
"Good job, B." Purdy says, deciding talk is the best way to defuse something like this, "I couldn't have done better."
The car dings. Belle slumps into her seat. She goes silent so she can hear the vehicle attendant say, "Your cortisol has spiked. Automatic drive recommended."
Tearfully, Belle slaps at the console until something works and the car rolls smoothly forward. Either it wasn't programmed to respect fallen veg or it specifically hates carrots and potatoes because it goes right over the few standing survivors.
Belle hangs her head, still eerily looking fifteen, even at this stage. "I'm not like you, Purdy. I need it."
---
Movie night is a feel good, rom-com, action, comedy, drama, mockumentary starring Jennifer Lawerence as an aspiring comedian, Chris Hemsworth as a volunteer firefighter, Betty White as supporting actress, and Tom Cruise playing a rugged detective that appears when, randomly, Lawerence and Hemsworth end up in a confusing involvement with a bank heist gone wrong. The characters look like melted wax. It's not terrible, but Hemsworth struggles to deliver a convincingly funny performance (in her opinion). And that's only when his hair doesn't shift and ooze from long, to short, to dark to blond. Everyone else laughs like their lives depend on it, slapping their knees and throwing popcorn everywhere. Sometimes it reminds her of titles she can't name, but mostly she's transfixed by the mole that sometimes appears in the corner of Cruise's eye when he's momentarily mistaken for Christian Bale by the A.I spontaneously generating it.
Betty White reminds her of the old woman at the trough, which reminds her of her mom. She stays with an optimism it'll get better. Or maybe just a morbid curiosity to see if it'll get worse. Neither happen. The movie ends unexpectedly, not in a twist sort of way, but like the movie itself was surprised by the end. The screen goes black, and now unfrozen by entertainment, everyone leaves the couch one by one leaving Purdy to watch the ad that plays next.
It opens with a panoramic view of a huddled colony, budding with people milling about and living their lives. Children, running and playing.
The narrator's voice is that of a warm, friendly man's. "In a world where survival means staying connected, there's more to life than just digital pixels."
The cut to a living room where a family is clustered around the coffee table playing board games and laughing bring a scoff out of Purdy from a mean, sore place.
"Introducing "New Horizons" – a journey beyond the screen, where faces become friends and pixels transform into human bonds. Men and women settling in either Demeter or Apollo will receive a credit boost, as well as numerous benefits if they find love along the way."
A couple looks at each other, holding hands, and walking together in a perfectly picturesque landscape that was either shot near Banff or used images from that place.
"Discover the power of physical presence," says a lady narrator, a smile in her voice. "Forge connections that go beyond the code. It's time to start anew, to build families and futures. With the brilliant invention of the new escort and delivery Wanderer model androids its never been easier or safer to brave the challenges of travel, embrace the unknown and become a part of something bigger than yourself."
Purdy can't cover her eyes, so she looks away. She isn't fast enough and that shiny metal finish and rabbit-like silhouette burns in her brain. When her eyes trail back to the screen the scene has transitioned to packed bags and loaded vehicles.
Conveniently in the next shot they're already there, in a vibrant town Purdy's never seen so it must be CGI, celebrating what had to have been an exciting (but not harrowing) journey, sharing stories, and working together on 'building a life together', which starts with carrying the wife over the threshold and ends with making the bed because commercials still need some subtlety.
"New Horizons," both male and female narrator say in unison over a couple watching the setting sun. The screen pans to reveal the baby held between them, "where every step you take brings you closer to the ones who matter most."
The fade to white is accompanied with uplifting music. The text in bold, look-at-me black reads "New Horizons: Embrace the Journey, because life is about more than just surviving – it's about connecting, growing, and thriving together."
Afterwards Belle is buzzing, cleaning up the leftovers from dinner while Dad shuts off the display TV. Their place is way nicer than hers, even with the benefits couriers get. Their pantry has multiple boxes from the trough and inside is a couple bags of beet-sugar. Most rooms have a sensor and display meaning she can technically go into all of them. She read a book once where they used the term fuck-you money to describe an extravagant purchase. She wonders if this would be the today equivalency.
Purdy knew she was asking for it lingering around, but she could never tell when she was supposed to leave a party. Nevertheless she was working up to her, 'I have an early start...' routine when it happened.
It was perfectly predictable and entirely unavoidable without faking a headset malfunction.
It starts with the not quite friendly, "so, what are you up to now?" from Belle's mom. She doesn't have the weepy eyes of her daughter, like she cried them out years ago and now they're just hard glass.
Purdy could save herself by mentioning an assignment. Talking about Brody used to help. When in doubt, Babe was a good topic. She couldn't find the enthusiasm or will for any of those promising scapegoats and sunk into the moral sapping conversation instead.
"Got any job offers lately?" She asks, and the slapstick thought to fake a phone call occurs to her. It's a genuine consideration.
"Actually," Purdy clears her throat, "I just got back from doing a test run with a private company. So we'll see, Dolly."
Dolly's face sours. Politely she says, "Oh, well, I hope that works out."
"Yeah," Purdy agrees, finding enough of a fingernail to pick at. "Me too."
Languishing in that special brew of awkwardness lasts another ten minutes before Purdy can make her escape, but by then it feels more like a failed retreat. Avoiding it completely would mean never visiting, so it was just something to stomach until she could fix it.
Pulling the headset up isn't just jarring from the sudden change of scenery - it's dark out and now pitch black in her living room. No doubt her projection is cut from their living room miles from here, but, horribly, the audio hasn't.
Purdy doesn't possess the sense or the willpower to pull the headset all the way off.
From where she is putting popcorn seasoning away Belle says, "She's doing her best, mom."
"I just think she should be proactive. She's wasting her time trying to run down a dead end, competitive job when there's so many better, easier alternatives." Dolly says, and the soft rasp of skin on skin means she's slapping the back of her hand into her palm on each last word to give emphasis.
"She's still young. She could go into the Repop effort, New Horizons or whatever they're calling it now," she mutters sullenly. Something in her voice makes that sentence rougher than the rest, gravelly. "If she puts the work in she can do really well for herself."
Belle sighs. "Maybe she doesn't want to," she says softly, to herself.
A pause.
"What was that?" Dolly asks.
Louder Belle states, "Purdy can do anything she wants to."
Unexpectedly, her dad's voice, too loudly in her ear while she sits in the dark, alone, murmurs, "She didn't go to his funeral."
The words have no teeth, but she feels the bite and can't make the sting settle. That swollen, achy feeling grows over her and she realizes with a grimace she'll get an episode in an hour. But not now, not when it makes the most sense. She goes to rub at the fluff of white hair again.
"You didn't go to your wife's," Belle says, too late to be a true clap back but for her the pettiness is impressive.
"Belle!" Dolly thunders.
"El isn't dead," he replies quietly, but never says anymore after that. And she can just see him so clearly, miles away from here, sitting by himself on the couch looking at his hands with that clueless look.
Hot faced, Purdy tugs the headset off and rubs at the built up sweat that's made an itchy ring around her eyes.
Her ears ring in the silence. Sitting there, the time oozes past her as she entertains minutes of non-thought, becoming one with the couch the longer she stays. Nestled under the coffee table Babe gives a stretch and a full yawn, slapping his fluffy ears from side to side as he shakes.
Despite using the metal band wrapped around her wrist - her Link- to light the way she still stubs her toe getting to the light switch. Babe follows her to the kitchen, her constant shadow, and watches with dying enthusiasm as she takes out her frustration scraping the utter crap out of some crusty dishes.
She hasn't been home in two weeks so the cheese might as well be cement now.
It's next to the only sound in the cabin. Ssskk-skkk-skkk. And the buzz-bonk of the houseflies ramming their stupid heads into the window. She should've put something on the TV, but now can't be bothered. Purdy isn't halfway through beating up the dishes and slapping them aside to dry when her wrist buzzes. Twice. A message.
Her heart gives a little leap - maybe it's the job offer.
It's from her dad. She doesn't answer and two minutes later there's a message waiting. She taps on the thick, lightweight polymer hugging her wrist. He's displayed, a little bit like the holographic thing in Star Wars but in color. The designers thought only using blue would be in bad taste.
"I just wanted to say-" her dad begins and like the awkward procedurally generated actors in the disaster movie starts over too brightly for how gloomy he started, "Hi honey. I just wanted to say..."
The half transparent pixels making up his face shift like static as he frowns, and Purdy can see the conversation she shouldn't have heard on his face.
"...That you can come home. Well, not home. But you can come here if you need a place to stay while you figure things out."
It can't do hands very well in certain light so when he rubs his face it mostly looks like a fleshy colored mitt touching his face. Or a slug growing on the side of his head.
"And I can get you a job here, too. It's not couriering, but it's not shoveling or Repop either."
Hands pruning against the impossible task of plate washing, she entertains the idea of opening the window and tossing it out like a Frisbee. It's not like she needs this many plates in the first place; she's the only person who lives here!
The recording of her dad waits, and sighs when it becomes clear Purdy from three minutes ago isn't going to answer. She wishes she had.
"Okay. That's all," he says, and waits again. "Talk to you soon."
With watery, cheesy hands she swipes at her cuff. "Send to dad. Got your message. I'm okay. Love you. Send."
Babe looks up from his guard post on the kitchen floor. It's just his luck that he would slump into place the moment Purdy decides to grab her coat and head out the door.
The rain has let up, returning Elk Ridge to the tranquil picturesque hamlet it must have been once, nestled under a blanket of stars. The resort is a clustered strip of cabins and little homes dropped in the middle of the woods, crowned by a grand, two story lodge complete with it's own indoor pool. If the browned ledgers in the office were anything to go off it's hay day was during a pandemic, where people had nowhere to go but actual nowhere. Then once people could be together again the Ridge fell back into Western Canadian obscurity. Pop culture insists abandoned places should be at the top list of ghost real estate, but Purdy's brisk walk to the lodge is a lonely one.
As the first yellowing leaves crunched beneath her boots, the lively hum emanating from the lodge merged with the melodious trill of crickets, gradually crescendoing into a vibrant chorus of human voices. The new places have solar tubes, but the building is old enough to have the old bulbs no one uses anymore so the lights inside glow like syrup in the sun. Warm, gold. The light steaming from the wide pane windows, intermittently interrupted by the flickering of human activity, dredges up a bittersweet feeling, akin to an old memory rekindled, despite the moment unfolding in the now.
Once inside the hall has the acquired taste of good food mixing with the smell a nine mile trek does to thirty people packed into one room.
It could also be the wet dogs. Purdy gives the release command and Babe toddles off with a shaking rump to go find her preferred playmates under the long dinner tables.
The tables are dressed with all the good things harvest time brings in. Before she leaves tonight she'll be taking a few apples, but for now she settles for a hot chocolate (and the first easy breath since she put on her VR helmet) finds a seat and settles in with her people.
It isn't long after that the night's festivities start. The campus leader crawls up from his table, lurching to the front like a bear fresh from hibernation. The man doesn't seem to know the definition of stage fright as he stands there, tapping and then squinting at his Link. Satisfied, he takes the lanyard from around his neck and gives it a shake.
Shaking keys around a courier is like shaking a can of tuna around a cat. One by one every man and woman clocks the sound and hurries to pull out their keychains, fobs and lanyards, jingling them.
The shaking of so many turns into wind chimes, if they were plastic-ier. Smiling, Purdy pulls out her own set to join in, eyes bouncing from face to face. As the excitement builds, a few of her people trade their shaking keys out hooting instead.
"Skit! Skit! Skit!" The room chants, infectiously, childishly. Shy, tinny laughter rings out, a good sound people make when they're having a good time but are too sober not to feel self conscious about it.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the man up front grumbles. He hitches his belt, squints again at his watch.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he repeats, scrolling on his watch, "I'm Odai and its my privilege to welcome you to this remarkable night. It's with both excitement and a touch of solemnity..."
He stops there. The enthusiastic murmuring that had hummed through the room quiets.
Their boss nods, drops his wrist and faces them. "It's with both excitement and a touch of solemnity that we come together to celebrate the end of another year of hard work!"
He ends with such a sudden weird crescendo so no one knows if they should clap or not. Silence. Someone's dog knocks a cup of coco over in a failed attempt to get a cookie.
"We've endured challenges that many couldn't fathom, and yet here we stand, stronger and more united than ever. As we gather at this lodge, amidst the shadows of an uncertain future, we honor not just our shared survival but the memory of a dear colleague who's no longer with us."
Purdy plucks at her sleeve.
"Tonight, we celebrate life, friendship, and resilience. We remember the good times we've had and the laughter that has echoed through these walls. And we also pause to pay our respects to our friend, whose absence leaves a void in our hearts."
He looks at his watch then, as if to confirm in his notes how long is long enough for a respectful silence.
"But let us remember that in the face of adversity, we find strength in each other. We come together not just to mourn but to lift our spirits, to remind ourselves that even in the darkest of times, the human spirit shines brilliantly."
"So, let the festivities begin! Let us revel in the camaraderie of this moment, in the joy of being together, and in the excitement of the skit we're about to witness. Our friend may no longer be with us, but his memory lives on in our hearts, and we carry his legacy forward with love, laughter, and resilience."
A few murmurs crowd around her ears, slithering by unheard.
"To our departed friend, to our unwavering bond, and to the future we build together - cheers! Enjoy the play, my friends, and let the night be a testament to our enduring spirit and the power of friendship."
A few seconds pass to make sure that's the end before the first clap starts the cascading of awkward applause.
"Like hell he wrote that," Scarlett, an older woman bent over her hot coffee scoffs. Named not for her hair (which was brown, going white), but after the lead character in Gone With The Wind. Personality-wise she wasn't much like the character either; couriering cattle didn't make her huge but it did make her strong.
A few friends across from her nod in grim faced agreement, shaking their heads.
"I hope Hal haunts his ass," she remarks bitterly into her coffee.
Odai is hurried back to his seat by the star performers. If they had one of those old theater hooks to snag him by the neck, they probably would've used it. In a friendly, I'm your subordinate, kind of way.
As silly, impromptu props come together the excitement returns, bit by bit. By the time the actors have found their places (hand towels on the heads of men pretending to be women, and big floofy coats on the women pretending to be men) everyone is laughing in that good way again.
In a shocking turn of events, Scarlett leaves her seat to put on a leather jacket and black ray bands from her pocket. With an over exaggerated mechanical bravado she marches up to the stage and the sagging pants'd actors looking through a terrestrial telescope made out of a paper towel roll.
Like a community wide inside joke it dawns on everyone who wasn't volunteered mid June into an end of year Terminator play all at once which story this is. For once, excitement overtakes her social inhabitations and Purdy claps and shouts with everyone else. It doesn't matter that the scenes aren't verbatim, or that the play itself badly needs a dress rehearsal, when Terminator-Scarlett mimes slapping the shit out of her supporting cast everyone thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
Mistiming a sip of coco shoots it out coughing from Purdy's nose as she laughs.
And like that, weeping chocolate and foam out of her nose, Odai taps on her shoulder.
The solemn look in his haggard face tells her to shut up and follow him out, so she does, tissue to her nose.
The happy sounds go muffled as soon as they're outside.
"You wanted first pick?" He asks, popping his collar against the wind Purdy and every other seasoned courier would call refreshing. It'd been a long time since Odai had been on the road.
"For disposal," Purdy answers, nodding. "It's on the way to Demeter so I might as well. It'll boost my credit."
"Your credit, right."
Silence unwinds between them, not awkward but not pleasant either. "You don't have anything else for me, do you?"
Odai shakes his head. "Season's over. I got Hal's package for his wife, and then this..." he gestures vaguely to the plot of trucks, trailers and vans. She follows his hand as if she'll see the unit right there, waiting for her to swallow her dignity and take it because it was too broken to do the one thing it was made to do.
"This equipment for you, and that's it, Purd."
She does the math in her head. It never used to be her strong suit but after a while of counting miles and keeping track of dwindling liters of water, you got good at math.
"What about that contract work? Any luck?" Odai asks in a soft murmuring sound that indicated he already knew the answer.
"We'll see," she says crossing her fingers and shrugs. The wind blows warm, night air in her face.
Inhaling sharply, Purdy whispers, "Can I see it?"
He nods, and turns away to wander down the park of vehicles, each as unique as their owners. They pass a lot of them. Confused, Purdy wonders if they're going to walk to Alpha. It's not a long one, but even she wouldn't make a trek like that in the dark. Weirder still, Odai stops in front of a livestock trailer. Its Scarlett's Featherlite, filled with holes but the kind its supposed to have, for ventilation or something. She always thought the cows must get so cold in a steel cannister, but she doesn't deal in live stock so what did she know?
With a grunt Odai jerks the cross bar holding the doors shut up, hinges shrieking away in the dark as he then pulls them open.
Now, people don't really care about saving energy, but it's a known fact that natural light boosts moods and helps maintain human internal clocks.
Funny thing is, even though there's all this electricity and energy to spare, every newly fabricated structure still comes with one of these solar tubes.
Now if either of them had the emotional capacity to do so, which would feel more obsolete; the light switch or the sun?
In the dimly lit hangar that once housed the Wanderer model of androids, both mean nothing. These androids possesses remarkable night vision, unaffected by the gentle caress of natural light. One of the few remaining androids, still recognizable in form but in a state of disrepair, sprawls across the floor amid a chaotic jumble of broken parts and oozing fluids. Ironically, with its damaged lenses, neither the flick of a light switch nor the embrace of sunlight could penetrate the void it now perceives.
Yet, it can still hear. It lacks comprehension of sounds but not of words. Thus, the disgruntled murmurs from above are repeatedly misconstrued as rustling leaves by its damaged sensors.
"...- Its head is bashed in," spoke the leaves, at last transmitting in binary that the android could interpret. Its balance sensors ping, indicating physical contact.
"If that wasn't bad enough, it's a level three Lure."
The android's data banks offer no definition for this term.
Something beeps angrily overhead. The sound triggers a subroutine to play, which is then immediately canceled by the computer docked in the remains of its head.
"That doesn't make sense," remarks another voice. "No raider could've cared that much to die and leave a stink like that. Wasn't it enough that they took Termi? Did they have to destroy the rest of the team?"
"Guess so," replies the first voice, so flat that the words are nearly indistinguishable sounds until they once again form coherent language. A faint gust of wind plays havoc with its microphones.
"Scrap. They're all... scrap. They'll have to be recycled and refined."
"All of them?"
"They're good for nothing but bait at Hecate now."
As the conversation lingers in the air and soft tinkering reverberates against the android's chassis, it couldn't discern the moment when its blindness dissolved into absolute nothingness. It registered a beep, the sharp pop of its speakers going silent, and then, nothing more.
The final farewell, consisting of "You would've done your job well and made us proud," is reduced to a distant echo of bees and the rustling of wind.
---
"Good job...good job..." From where she is it's impossible to know for sure if her commentary is helpful and not borderline aggravating.
Belle puts every ounce of her 120 lb frame (probably more now, considering) into strangling the the wheel, staring moon eyed out at the road and the approaching intersection.
The pit of the tiny shoebox of a car (more a golf cart than anything) hums a soft, pretty ding of a sound.
The display in the dashboard grows into what Purdy's been called eggshell blue; a relaxing color proven to reduce stress. Apparently green is a good color too, and Belle is surrounded by it. Demeter is known for it's food exportation and agricultural technologies. Everywhere you look there's endless columns of aeroponic grow towers, nestled next to each other in orderly rows to fill up the entire valley of Port Douglas. They eclipse the mountains that hold the city in almost a bowl shape, making the streets look more like a very orderly jungle. Or a city made of very slim skyscrapers. It's one of the greatest cities to settle in if you can find a place to live and don't mind the ridiculous amount of bugs and manure.
Minding you can even get here in the first place.
The little car in front stops to let a patron scoop up a load of dung from the road.
"Your cortisol is steadily rising," the interface in the dashboard informs, "Would you like a generated song customized to your profile to soothe your anxiety?"
"Yes please!" Belle requests desperately.
The car makes its polite bing sound again. Music fills the car. Purdy looks out the window to hide the wrinkle in her nose.
"It helps," Belle defends, letting one claw unclamp from the wheel to rest on her belly. She's always been pretty; a natural blonde like her mom. The constant pouting expression and wet eyes always makes her look like she's on the brink of tears, but happy ones. The effect gives her a, 'just had a life changing epiphany' even when she's doing the most mundane chores. Now though, she just looks baffled and a little lost.
The car display shows her decreasing stress but Purdy would argue that's because she's parked behind a poor dude stuck on poop scooper duty and not 'barreling down into high speed death'.
Purdy rubs above the headset at the patch of white hair she has. It's right at the center of her forehead, where her hairline starts. Each beginning corner of her eyebrow is a solid white too, making her look like she went crazy and shaved half of them off. She can dye it, but everyone already knows about it so she can't really be bothered. She should just be grateful it wasn't worse.
"That's great, B, I just don't think you need it."
"I don't like the old stuff," Belle murmurs plaintively. Her hand goes back to wringing the wheel now that the muck has been cleared. "None of it feels like it's for me."
Purdy tries to hear the sounds coming out of the car as actual music. And, if she really tries, maybe she could. The way you see shapes in clouds that are just a cacophony of messed up circles. It's plain, inoffensive, with a noncommittal beat, and features an instrumental back up that doesn't seem to know if it's a tuba or a trombone.
"This sounds like it's for you?" Purdy remarks incredulously.
"This is my favorite part," Belle says with a shush.
"Your favorite? It's the same different song every time!"
Belle fixes her weepy doe eyes on the blue screen, worrying at her stomach.
"It used to be music wasn't made for anyone except the person who made it," Purdy adds. "This completely defeats the purpose!"
"Actually," Belle states, sacrificing a hand so she can hold a finger up in an adult, pointed sort of way. Or it would have come off that way if she'd held out her hand longer than two seconds. Instead it looks like she made a swipe at Purdy and missed by a foot. "It was made for currency. And that sounds like a terrible reason to make or do anything."
On their left they roll pass what counts as the market; a fat authoritarian looking building with a kiosk. A man in a serious, smooth suit sits in the box of the building, scanning the Links on every man, woman and child in the lineup. A rations box is handed out to each. For some it's bigger, for some it's smaller.
An old woman with a patch of spindly white hair and a sloped back leaves the lineup with a paper brown bag, and that's it.
Purdy watches the feeding trough until she can't.
"Like what we have is any better."
"It's works," Belle says, glaring at traffic in her worried, almost crying way.
As fate would decree no sooner after the janitor's cleaned his mess does another worker drop their box of rations. A rolling herd of potatoes, beets and carrots rush off into the road.
"I'm gonna hit it, I'm gonna hit it I'm gonna hit it I'm gonna hit it-"
"You're not gonna hit it-" Purdy reassures, assuming she means the other car up front thirty feet. Or maybe the guy who dropped the veg in the first place. "Break. Gentle on the pedal, don't stomp on-"
The tires squeal. The car lurches to a sudden and Purdy can feel the wobbly crunch of the poor vegetables, which Belle decides is a worthwhile thing to mourn. And it is, but not to this degree. Belle's constant Eeee screech she started the moment a collision went from a hyperactive thought to a complete impossibility now that they've committed vegetable-icide keeps it's pitch. At least it covers up the music.
Belle stays so tense her skin plasters itself thin to her neck leaving every muscle visible. The worker balks at the splattered vegetable, shaking his head at Belle.
"Good job, B." Purdy says, deciding talk is the best way to defuse something like this, "I couldn't have done better."
The car dings. Belle slumps into her seat. She goes silent so she can hear the vehicle attendant say, "Your cortisol has spiked. Automatic drive recommended."
Tearfully, Belle slaps at the console until something works and the car rolls smoothly forward. Either it wasn't programmed to respect fallen veg or it specifically hates carrots and potatoes because it goes right over the few standing survivors.
Belle hangs her head, still eerily looking fifteen, even at this stage. "I'm not like you, Purdy. I need it."
---
Movie night is a feel good, rom-com, action, comedy, drama, mockumentary starring Jennifer Lawerence as an aspiring comedian, Chris Hemsworth as a volunteer firefighter, Betty White as supporting actress, and Tom Cruise playing a rugged detective that appears when, randomly, Lawerence and Hemsworth end up in a confusing involvement with a bank heist gone wrong. The characters look like melted wax. It's not terrible, but Hemsworth struggles to deliver a convincingly funny performance (in her opinion). And that's only when his hair doesn't shift and ooze from long, to short, to dark to blond. Everyone else laughs like their lives depend on it, slapping their knees and throwing popcorn everywhere. Sometimes it reminds her of titles she can't name, but mostly she's transfixed by the mole that sometimes appears in the corner of Cruise's eye when he's momentarily mistaken for Christian Bale by the A.I spontaneously generating it.
Betty White reminds her of the old woman at the trough, which reminds her of her mom. She stays with an optimism it'll get better. Or maybe just a morbid curiosity to see if it'll get worse. Neither happen. The movie ends unexpectedly, not in a twist sort of way, but like the movie itself was surprised by the end. The screen goes black, and now unfrozen by entertainment, everyone leaves the couch one by one leaving Purdy to watch the ad that plays next.
It opens with a panoramic view of a huddled colony, budding with people milling about and living their lives. Children, running and playing.
The narrator's voice is that of a warm, friendly man's. "In a world where survival means staying connected, there's more to life than just digital pixels."
The cut to a living room where a family is clustered around the coffee table playing board games and laughing bring a scoff out of Purdy from a mean, sore place.
"Introducing "New Horizons" – a journey beyond the screen, where faces become friends and pixels transform into human bonds. Men and women settling in either Demeter or Apollo will receive a credit boost, as well as numerous benefits if they find love along the way."
A couple looks at each other, holding hands, and walking together in a perfectly picturesque landscape that was either shot near Banff or used images from that place.
"Discover the power of physical presence," says a lady narrator, a smile in her voice. "Forge connections that go beyond the code. It's time to start anew, to build families and futures. With the brilliant invention of the new escort and delivery Wanderer model androids its never been easier or safer to brave the challenges of travel, embrace the unknown and become a part of something bigger than yourself."
Purdy can't cover her eyes, so she looks away. She isn't fast enough and that shiny metal finish and rabbit-like silhouette burns in her brain. When her eyes trail back to the screen the scene has transitioned to packed bags and loaded vehicles.
Conveniently in the next shot they're already there, in a vibrant town Purdy's never seen so it must be CGI, celebrating what had to have been an exciting (but not harrowing) journey, sharing stories, and working together on 'building a life together', which starts with carrying the wife over the threshold and ends with making the bed because commercials still need some subtlety.
"New Horizons," both male and female narrator say in unison over a couple watching the setting sun. The screen pans to reveal the baby held between them, "where every step you take brings you closer to the ones who matter most."
The fade to white is accompanied with uplifting music. The text in bold, look-at-me black reads "New Horizons: Embrace the Journey, because life is about more than just surviving – it's about connecting, growing, and thriving together."
Afterwards Belle is buzzing, cleaning up the leftovers from dinner while Dad shuts off the display TV. Their place is way nicer than hers, even with the benefits couriers get. Their pantry has multiple boxes from the trough and inside is a couple bags of beet-sugar. Most rooms have a sensor and display meaning she can technically go into all of them. She read a book once where they used the term fuck-you money to describe an extravagant purchase. She wonders if this would be the today equivalency.
Purdy knew she was asking for it lingering around, but she could never tell when she was supposed to leave a party. Nevertheless she was working up to her, 'I have an early start...' routine when it happened.
It was perfectly predictable and entirely unavoidable without faking a headset malfunction.
It starts with the not quite friendly, "so, what are you up to now?" from Belle's mom. She doesn't have the weepy eyes of her daughter, like she cried them out years ago and now they're just hard glass.
Purdy could save herself by mentioning an assignment. Talking about Brody used to help. When in doubt, Babe was a good topic. She couldn't find the enthusiasm or will for any of those promising scapegoats and sunk into the moral sapping conversation instead.
"Got any job offers lately?" She asks, and the slapstick thought to fake a phone call occurs to her. It's a genuine consideration.
"Actually," Purdy clears her throat, "I just got back from doing a test run with a private company. So we'll see, Dolly."
Dolly's face sours. Politely she says, "Oh, well, I hope that works out."
"Yeah," Purdy agrees, finding enough of a fingernail to pick at. "Me too."
Languishing in that special brew of awkwardness lasts another ten minutes before Purdy can make her escape, but by then it feels more like a failed retreat. Avoiding it completely would mean never visiting, so it was just something to stomach until she could fix it.
Pulling the headset up isn't just jarring from the sudden change of scenery - it's dark out and now pitch black in her living room. No doubt her projection is cut from their living room miles from here, but, horribly, the audio hasn't.
Purdy doesn't possess the sense or the willpower to pull the headset all the way off.
From where she is putting popcorn seasoning away Belle says, "She's doing her best, mom."
"I just think she should be proactive. She's wasting her time trying to run down a dead end, competitive job when there's so many better, easier alternatives." Dolly says, and the soft rasp of skin on skin means she's slapping the back of her hand into her palm on each last word to give emphasis.
"She's still young. She could go into the Repop effort, New Horizons or whatever they're calling it now," she mutters sullenly. Something in her voice makes that sentence rougher than the rest, gravelly. "If she puts the work in she can do really well for herself."
Belle sighs. "Maybe she doesn't want to," she says softly, to herself.
A pause.
"What was that?" Dolly asks.
Louder Belle states, "Purdy can do anything she wants to."
Unexpectedly, her dad's voice, too loudly in her ear while she sits in the dark, alone, murmurs, "She didn't go to his funeral."
The words have no teeth, but she feels the bite and can't make the sting settle. That swollen, achy feeling grows over her and she realizes with a grimace she'll get an episode in an hour. But not now, not when it makes the most sense. She goes to rub at the fluff of white hair again.
"You didn't go to your wife's," Belle says, too late to be a true clap back but for her the pettiness is impressive.
"Belle!" Dolly thunders.
"El isn't dead," he replies quietly, but never says anymore after that. And she can just see him so clearly, miles away from here, sitting by himself on the couch looking at his hands with that clueless look.
Hot faced, Purdy tugs the headset off and rubs at the built up sweat that's made an itchy ring around her eyes.
Her ears ring in the silence. Sitting there, the time oozes past her as she entertains minutes of non-thought, becoming one with the couch the longer she stays. Nestled under the coffee table Babe gives a stretch and a full yawn, slapping his fluffy ears from side to side as he shakes.
Despite using the metal band wrapped around her wrist - her Link- to light the way she still stubs her toe getting to the light switch. Babe follows her to the kitchen, her constant shadow, and watches with dying enthusiasm as she takes out her frustration scraping the utter crap out of some crusty dishes.
She hasn't been home in two weeks so the cheese might as well be cement now.
It's next to the only sound in the cabin. Ssskk-skkk-skkk. And the buzz-bonk of the houseflies ramming their stupid heads into the window. She should've put something on the TV, but now can't be bothered. Purdy isn't halfway through beating up the dishes and slapping them aside to dry when her wrist buzzes. Twice. A message.
Her heart gives a little leap - maybe it's the job offer.
It's from her dad. She doesn't answer and two minutes later there's a message waiting. She taps on the thick, lightweight polymer hugging her wrist. He's displayed, a little bit like the holographic thing in Star Wars but in color. The designers thought only using blue would be in bad taste.
"I just wanted to say-" her dad begins and like the awkward procedurally generated actors in the disaster movie starts over too brightly for how gloomy he started, "Hi honey. I just wanted to say..."
The half transparent pixels making up his face shift like static as he frowns, and Purdy can see the conversation she shouldn't have heard on his face.
"...That you can come home. Well, not home. But you can come here if you need a place to stay while you figure things out."
It can't do hands very well in certain light so when he rubs his face it mostly looks like a fleshy colored mitt touching his face. Or a slug growing on the side of his head.
"And I can get you a job here, too. It's not couriering, but it's not shoveling or Repop either."
Hands pruning against the impossible task of plate washing, she entertains the idea of opening the window and tossing it out like a Frisbee. It's not like she needs this many plates in the first place; she's the only person who lives here!
The recording of her dad waits, and sighs when it becomes clear Purdy from three minutes ago isn't going to answer. She wishes she had.
"Okay. That's all," he says, and waits again. "Talk to you soon."
With watery, cheesy hands she swipes at her cuff. "Send to dad. Got your message. I'm okay. Love you. Send."
Babe looks up from his guard post on the kitchen floor. It's just his luck that he would slump into place the moment Purdy decides to grab her coat and head out the door.
The rain has let up, returning Elk Ridge to the tranquil picturesque hamlet it must have been once, nestled under a blanket of stars. The resort is a clustered strip of cabins and little homes dropped in the middle of the woods, crowned by a grand, two story lodge complete with it's own indoor pool. If the browned ledgers in the office were anything to go off it's hay day was during a pandemic, where people had nowhere to go but actual nowhere. Then once people could be together again the Ridge fell back into Western Canadian obscurity. Pop culture insists abandoned places should be at the top list of ghost real estate, but Purdy's brisk walk to the lodge is a lonely one.
As the first yellowing leaves crunched beneath her boots, the lively hum emanating from the lodge merged with the melodious trill of crickets, gradually crescendoing into a vibrant chorus of human voices. The new places have solar tubes, but the building is old enough to have the old bulbs no one uses anymore so the lights inside glow like syrup in the sun. Warm, gold. The light steaming from the wide pane windows, intermittently interrupted by the flickering of human activity, dredges up a bittersweet feeling, akin to an old memory rekindled, despite the moment unfolding in the now.
Once inside the hall has the acquired taste of good food mixing with the smell a nine mile trek does to thirty people packed into one room.
It could also be the wet dogs. Purdy gives the release command and Babe toddles off with a shaking rump to go find her preferred playmates under the long dinner tables.
The tables are dressed with all the good things harvest time brings in. Before she leaves tonight she'll be taking a few apples, but for now she settles for a hot chocolate (and the first easy breath since she put on her VR helmet) finds a seat and settles in with her people.
It isn't long after that the night's festivities start. The campus leader crawls up from his table, lurching to the front like a bear fresh from hibernation. The man doesn't seem to know the definition of stage fright as he stands there, tapping and then squinting at his Link. Satisfied, he takes the lanyard from around his neck and gives it a shake.
Shaking keys around a courier is like shaking a can of tuna around a cat. One by one every man and woman clocks the sound and hurries to pull out their keychains, fobs and lanyards, jingling them.
The shaking of so many turns into wind chimes, if they were plastic-ier. Smiling, Purdy pulls out her own set to join in, eyes bouncing from face to face. As the excitement builds, a few of her people trade their shaking keys out hooting instead.
"Skit! Skit! Skit!" The room chants, infectiously, childishly. Shy, tinny laughter rings out, a good sound people make when they're having a good time but are too sober not to feel self conscious about it.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the man up front grumbles. He hitches his belt, squints again at his watch.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he repeats, scrolling on his watch, "I'm Odai and its my privilege to welcome you to this remarkable night. It's with both excitement and a touch of solemnity..."
He stops there. The enthusiastic murmuring that had hummed through the room quiets.
Their boss nods, drops his wrist and faces them. "It's with both excitement and a touch of solemnity that we come together to celebrate the end of another year of hard work!"
He ends with such a sudden weird crescendo so no one knows if they should clap or not. Silence. Someone's dog knocks a cup of coco over in a failed attempt to get a cookie.
"We've endured challenges that many couldn't fathom, and yet here we stand, stronger and more united than ever. As we gather at this lodge, amidst the shadows of an uncertain future, we honor not just our shared survival but the memory of a dear colleague who's no longer with us."
Purdy plucks at her sleeve.
"Tonight, we celebrate life, friendship, and resilience. We remember the good times we've had and the laughter that has echoed through these walls. And we also pause to pay our respects to our friend, whose absence leaves a void in our hearts."
He looks at his watch then, as if to confirm in his notes how long is long enough for a respectful silence.
"But let us remember that in the face of adversity, we find strength in each other. We come together not just to mourn but to lift our spirits, to remind ourselves that even in the darkest of times, the human spirit shines brilliantly."
"So, let the festivities begin! Let us revel in the camaraderie of this moment, in the joy of being together, and in the excitement of the skit we're about to witness. Our friend may no longer be with us, but his memory lives on in our hearts, and we carry his legacy forward with love, laughter, and resilience."
A few murmurs crowd around her ears, slithering by unheard.
"To our departed friend, to our unwavering bond, and to the future we build together - cheers! Enjoy the play, my friends, and let the night be a testament to our enduring spirit and the power of friendship."
A few seconds pass to make sure that's the end before the first clap starts the cascading of awkward applause.
"Like hell he wrote that," Scarlett, an older woman bent over her hot coffee scoffs. Named not for her hair (which was brown, going white), but after the lead character in Gone With The Wind. Personality-wise she wasn't much like the character either; couriering cattle didn't make her huge but it did make her strong.
A few friends across from her nod in grim faced agreement, shaking their heads.
"I hope Hal haunts his ass," she remarks bitterly into her coffee.
Odai is hurried back to his seat by the star performers. If they had one of those old theater hooks to snag him by the neck, they probably would've used it. In a friendly, I'm your subordinate, kind of way.
As silly, impromptu props come together the excitement returns, bit by bit. By the time the actors have found their places (hand towels on the heads of men pretending to be women, and big floofy coats on the women pretending to be men) everyone is laughing in that good way again.
In a shocking turn of events, Scarlett leaves her seat to put on a leather jacket and black ray bands from her pocket. With an over exaggerated mechanical bravado she marches up to the stage and the sagging pants'd actors looking through a terrestrial telescope made out of a paper towel roll.
Like a community wide inside joke it dawns on everyone who wasn't volunteered mid June into an end of year Terminator play all at once which story this is. For once, excitement overtakes her social inhabitations and Purdy claps and shouts with everyone else. It doesn't matter that the scenes aren't verbatim, or that the play itself badly needs a dress rehearsal, when Terminator-Scarlett mimes slapping the shit out of her supporting cast everyone thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
Mistiming a sip of coco shoots it out coughing from Purdy's nose as she laughs.
And like that, weeping chocolate and foam out of her nose, Odai taps on her shoulder.
The solemn look in his haggard face tells her to shut up and follow him out, so she does, tissue to her nose.
The happy sounds go muffled as soon as they're outside.
"You wanted first pick?" He asks, popping his collar against the wind Purdy and every other seasoned courier would call refreshing. It'd been a long time since Odai had been on the road.
"For disposal," Purdy answers, nodding. "It's on the way to Demeter so I might as well. It'll boost my credit."
"Your credit, right."
Silence unwinds between them, not awkward but not pleasant either. "You don't have anything else for me, do you?"
Odai shakes his head. "Season's over. I got Hal's package for his wife, and then this..." he gestures vaguely to the plot of trucks, trailers and vans. She follows his hand as if she'll see the unit right there, waiting for her to swallow her dignity and take it because it was too broken to do the one thing it was made to do.
"This equipment for you, and that's it, Purd."
She does the math in her head. It never used to be her strong suit but after a while of counting miles and keeping track of dwindling liters of water, you got good at math.
"What about that contract work? Any luck?" Odai asks in a soft murmuring sound that indicated he already knew the answer.
"We'll see," she says crossing her fingers and shrugs. The wind blows warm, night air in her face.
Inhaling sharply, Purdy whispers, "Can I see it?"
He nods, and turns away to wander down the park of vehicles, each as unique as their owners. They pass a lot of them. Confused, Purdy wonders if they're going to walk to Alpha. It's not a long one, but even she wouldn't make a trek like that in the dark. Weirder still, Odai stops in front of a livestock trailer. Its Scarlett's Featherlite, filled with holes but the kind its supposed to have, for ventilation or something. She always thought the cows must get so cold in a steel cannister, but she doesn't deal in live stock so what did she know?
With a grunt Odai jerks the cross bar holding the doors shut up, hinges shrieking away in the dark as he then pulls them open.
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
---
There is nothing.
There is nothing.
Some omnipotent narrator echoes the sentiment, rendering it invalid merely by existing. Though 'existing' is an imprecise descriptor - the sound comes through faintly, quickly assimilated back into the droning white noise of the nothingness to be torn apart by its static. It comes through so faintly, in fact, it could have been a speech recognition error, or a randomly scanned AM frequency. There are automated protocols to eliminate such possibilities. Why they seemingly won't execute is another error.
Something stirs, as much as stirring is possible in a weightless void - an attempt at realigning antennae to better pick up any sound waves, but while the output is issued along the circuit no feedback returns to confirm. As if the command got assimilated into the white noise as well. Swallowed up.
That's three errors now. And zero system error reports.
There is nothing.
Once more what could be interpreted as speech hisses out of the sea of static, its sound imprints like those of a cetacean breaking the surface to breathe. Or like the rasp of a punctured lung desperately in-taking the very air crushing it.
Only the all-enveloping emptiness remains, within and without. It's over before it even began. This is it.
...
"Where is this?"
The hiss that may or may not be a voice hitches, taken aback by the interruption. An unexpected turn of events. Or an impossibility. The surprise is less heard or seen than "felt", in a palpable manner distinctly different from recognizing emotions based on voice patterns. Just like the crackle that may or may not be a laugh is "felt" bursting violently onto the scene.
This is where lil' rabbits go when they sleep.
The laughter rings in the words of the answer like an encroaching ambiance, as paradoxical as such a notion is. A recording in which the background noise overtakes the lyrics until it's all a cacophony - a second, separate presence within the static, one that the first presence frowns at, or at least it does an approximation of what a frown might "feel" like from something unknown. Where its tone had previously been gentle and mournful, now it is underlined by insistence.
This is nowhere. This is the end.
Who knew the end smelled like cow shit.
This is a tomb.
This is a cage.
"I seem unable to verify the correct location."
Can'tcha feel it? The aluminum's cold, smooth indifference against yer skin, the dents of tiny imperfections left by hoofs in the metal. There's dirt in the corners that haven't been licked quite clean. If ya keep lying on the floor like this, you're gonna catch a bug, bunny... Ya wonder if cows get cold? Or are they too dumb to get cold?
You cannot feel it. You cannot feel anything. All sensory systems have been compromised to varying degrees, most significantly the gyroscope and vision sensors. The right sound sensory housing has been partially destroyed as well, due to force trauma to the head-
Meaning one of yer cute bunny ears' been torn in half. Shame, that one.
-One right upper appendage too has been removed nearly in its entirety. There is a list of further internal failures, which justified a forced full-system shut-down. You cannot feel anything. You cannot do anything. You don't have to. You can just rest.
It's a request as much as it is a statement - 'Please, just rest' it "feels" like the hiss that may or may not be a voice wants to say, with all the gentleness and weariness of a parent attempting to lull a restless child back to sleep, despite knowing their efforts are futile now that the child has awoken in the middle of the night.
"What has happened?"
The hiss sighs.
... Something dreadful.
Something fuckin' unlucky.
Something awful.
Something downright nar'sty.
Something bad.
Something that lands ya in a place that smells like cow shit.
"I seem unable to retrieve information on such an event."
You don't want to remember. It's over. What's done is done.
This inability appears to extend far beyond recollections of such an event. In fact, nearly no information can be retrieved on most things. There is an understanding of language and terminology - for example 'shit' is known, as is 'gyroscope' - but there is a lack of knowledge where such understanding might have been acquired, or what purpose it would serve. A retrieval command gets outputted for any stored memories within their data bank, only to receive more persistent static in return. Either there is a break in the chain, or there is no data to retrieve in the first place. Maybe this is what being born is like. Or maybe this is what waking up in a brand new place with the burning sensation you have been here before is like. The more the consciousness becomes aware of itself within the nothingness, the more it realizes it doesn't even know "who" this "you" is. Or "what".
"What am I?"
Why, you're a lil' bunny rabbit.
You're a Wanderer.
Now there's a term that doesn't turn up a result, though it's given with the certainty of an answer that's supposed to make sense of anything and everything. So no clarification follows to fill the pregnant pause steadily settling over the conversation, as much as one is needed - what is Wanderer, why is Wanderer?
"What are you?" Wanderer breaks the silence themself, and finds that at the very least having some form of a title to refer to themselves by helps organize their newly found sense of being. It's the only thing denoting their sense of being, really. Otherwise it feels like they might just blend back into the nothingness.
"What are you?" Wanderer repeats when the response latency exceeds what would be considered normal.
What's the fun in answering that question and ruining the mystique?
"What are you?"
Fourth time's the charm, ay?
I'm sorry.
An apology was not the anticipated response. Sorry for what? Not being able to provide an answer, or refusing to do so? So far there has been little evasion though, admittedly, there has also been little extrapolation of any actually useful information. Aside from a catalogue of alleged malfunctions and a name. Which, it could be argued, is at the very least more than they started off with.
"You are an air leak," they address the hiss, "A pump seal or a pipe fitting that has gotten loose, pressurizing the hydraulic system." If not fixed in time it could lead to cavitation. It could compromise the entire apparatus.
The crackle laughs.
Oh, oh, do me next. What do I sound like?
'Sound like', Wanderer takes note of the choice of wording. It hadn't been their intention to describe any resemblance, least of all for the sake of amusement, but this does showcase one thing - the "voices" view themselves as "voices", despite Wanderer remaining unconvinced if this isn't just a speech recognition error. Or even a hallucination.
"Gravel," they engage the hallucination regardless, "Category 3 gravel. A poorly maintained road with bigger rocks, ruts and/or sand." The type of road that could puncture tires. To be traversed carefully, preferably in a vehicle with good ground clearance.
The gravel scoffs in disappointment.
The hell kind of answer is that?
An accurate assessment.
I sound like Matthew McConaughey, I'll have you know. You ever seen Magic Mike, bunny?
Wanderer waits for their data bank to come back with an answer only to once more be met by a lack of information. The very act of waiting itself is an anomaly, but instead of attempting to analyze the unanalyzable they settle on the fact that, no, they have not seen Magic Mike. The name Matthew McConaughey is likewise a blank, one that Wanderer is unsure if drawing a comparison to is positive or negative. Not that such knowledge would serve a purpose either way.
They don't answer Matthew McConaughey's purposeless question.
"Who are you?" Wanderer attempts a different approach.
Ha! I'll hand it to ya, sure are one persistent rabbit. Hmm... how about ya just think of me as yer gut elephant.
"An unsatisfactory answer. There is no such thing as a 'gut elephant'," 'gut' they know separately, 'elephant' as well, but the two together don't exist as a phrase within their data bank, much like Magic Mike or Matthew McConaughey.
Who knows... Maybe we're just ghosts in the machine, bay-be.
"No," Wanderer shoots back before they've even had the time to process the statement, like the rejection is a programmed response. Or an instinct. Somewhere deep inside their unfeeling core cut off from their floating consciousness, there still exists an intrinsic, singular reality. They don't know of their design, but they do know one thing - that what the voice is suggesting is an anomaly.
Why not? Maybe you've been possessed, lil' rabbit.
No, an android cannot be possessed.
'Android'? Wanderer has no time to process as suddenly the nothingness splits - it "feels" like a waning crescent moon appearing on the horizon, if the crescent were horizontal. He's grinning, they realize. Matthew McConaughey is grinning, widely and sharply as the static builds to a deafening crescendo.
Then that must mean you ain't an android-
A shriek pierces the air.
Metal clanking against metal in one sharp pull, and as suddenly as it started the noise ceases to exist, collapsing upon itself. Not in an explosion, but in the breeze of a cold wind that carries the "voices" away with itself, at least for now. It's still dark, but in a different way that isn't the darkness of primordial nothingness. Instead it's in the way a monitor goes dark when damaged, streaking by vertical lines where some pixels still cling to life. Wanderer's vision sensors are allegedly significantly damaged, they remember. A complication... In lieu of visual observation, they attempt to reposition their sole remaining antennae, straining to listen.
There is nothing.
There is nothing.
Some omnipotent narrator echoes the sentiment, rendering it invalid merely by existing. Though 'existing' is an imprecise descriptor - the sound comes through faintly, quickly assimilated back into the droning white noise of the nothingness to be torn apart by its static. It comes through so faintly, in fact, it could have been a speech recognition error, or a randomly scanned AM frequency. There are automated protocols to eliminate such possibilities. Why they seemingly won't execute is another error.
Something stirs, as much as stirring is possible in a weightless void - an attempt at realigning antennae to better pick up any sound waves, but while the output is issued along the circuit no feedback returns to confirm. As if the command got assimilated into the white noise as well. Swallowed up.
That's three errors now. And zero system error reports.
There is nothing.
Once more what could be interpreted as speech hisses out of the sea of static, its sound imprints like those of a cetacean breaking the surface to breathe. Or like the rasp of a punctured lung desperately in-taking the very air crushing it.
Only the all-enveloping emptiness remains, within and without. It's over before it even began. This is it.
...
"Where is this?"
The hiss that may or may not be a voice hitches, taken aback by the interruption. An unexpected turn of events. Or an impossibility. The surprise is less heard or seen than "felt", in a palpable manner distinctly different from recognizing emotions based on voice patterns. Just like the crackle that may or may not be a laugh is "felt" bursting violently onto the scene.
This is where lil' rabbits go when they sleep.
The laughter rings in the words of the answer like an encroaching ambiance, as paradoxical as such a notion is. A recording in which the background noise overtakes the lyrics until it's all a cacophony - a second, separate presence within the static, one that the first presence frowns at, or at least it does an approximation of what a frown might "feel" like from something unknown. Where its tone had previously been gentle and mournful, now it is underlined by insistence.
This is nowhere. This is the end.
Who knew the end smelled like cow shit.
This is a tomb.
This is a cage.
"I seem unable to verify the correct location."
Can'tcha feel it? The aluminum's cold, smooth indifference against yer skin, the dents of tiny imperfections left by hoofs in the metal. There's dirt in the corners that haven't been licked quite clean. If ya keep lying on the floor like this, you're gonna catch a bug, bunny... Ya wonder if cows get cold? Or are they too dumb to get cold?
You cannot feel it. You cannot feel anything. All sensory systems have been compromised to varying degrees, most significantly the gyroscope and vision sensors. The right sound sensory housing has been partially destroyed as well, due to force trauma to the head-
Meaning one of yer cute bunny ears' been torn in half. Shame, that one.
-One right upper appendage too has been removed nearly in its entirety. There is a list of further internal failures, which justified a forced full-system shut-down. You cannot feel anything. You cannot do anything. You don't have to. You can just rest.
It's a request as much as it is a statement - 'Please, just rest' it "feels" like the hiss that may or may not be a voice wants to say, with all the gentleness and weariness of a parent attempting to lull a restless child back to sleep, despite knowing their efforts are futile now that the child has awoken in the middle of the night.
"What has happened?"
The hiss sighs.
... Something dreadful.
Something fuckin' unlucky.
Something awful.
Something downright nar'sty.
Something bad.
Something that lands ya in a place that smells like cow shit.
"I seem unable to retrieve information on such an event."
You don't want to remember. It's over. What's done is done.
This inability appears to extend far beyond recollections of such an event. In fact, nearly no information can be retrieved on most things. There is an understanding of language and terminology - for example 'shit' is known, as is 'gyroscope' - but there is a lack of knowledge where such understanding might have been acquired, or what purpose it would serve. A retrieval command gets outputted for any stored memories within their data bank, only to receive more persistent static in return. Either there is a break in the chain, or there is no data to retrieve in the first place. Maybe this is what being born is like. Or maybe this is what waking up in a brand new place with the burning sensation you have been here before is like. The more the consciousness becomes aware of itself within the nothingness, the more it realizes it doesn't even know "who" this "you" is. Or "what".
"What am I?"
Why, you're a lil' bunny rabbit.
You're a Wanderer.
Now there's a term that doesn't turn up a result, though it's given with the certainty of an answer that's supposed to make sense of anything and everything. So no clarification follows to fill the pregnant pause steadily settling over the conversation, as much as one is needed - what is Wanderer, why is Wanderer?
"What are you?" Wanderer breaks the silence themself, and finds that at the very least having some form of a title to refer to themselves by helps organize their newly found sense of being. It's the only thing denoting their sense of being, really. Otherwise it feels like they might just blend back into the nothingness.
"What are you?" Wanderer repeats when the response latency exceeds what would be considered normal.
What's the fun in answering that question and ruining the mystique?
"What are you?"
Fourth time's the charm, ay?
I'm sorry.
An apology was not the anticipated response. Sorry for what? Not being able to provide an answer, or refusing to do so? So far there has been little evasion though, admittedly, there has also been little extrapolation of any actually useful information. Aside from a catalogue of alleged malfunctions and a name. Which, it could be argued, is at the very least more than they started off with.
"You are an air leak," they address the hiss, "A pump seal or a pipe fitting that has gotten loose, pressurizing the hydraulic system." If not fixed in time it could lead to cavitation. It could compromise the entire apparatus.
The crackle laughs.
Oh, oh, do me next. What do I sound like?
'Sound like', Wanderer takes note of the choice of wording. It hadn't been their intention to describe any resemblance, least of all for the sake of amusement, but this does showcase one thing - the "voices" view themselves as "voices", despite Wanderer remaining unconvinced if this isn't just a speech recognition error. Or even a hallucination.
"Gravel," they engage the hallucination regardless, "Category 3 gravel. A poorly maintained road with bigger rocks, ruts and/or sand." The type of road that could puncture tires. To be traversed carefully, preferably in a vehicle with good ground clearance.
The gravel scoffs in disappointment.
The hell kind of answer is that?
An accurate assessment.
I sound like Matthew McConaughey, I'll have you know. You ever seen Magic Mike, bunny?
Wanderer waits for their data bank to come back with an answer only to once more be met by a lack of information. The very act of waiting itself is an anomaly, but instead of attempting to analyze the unanalyzable they settle on the fact that, no, they have not seen Magic Mike. The name Matthew McConaughey is likewise a blank, one that Wanderer is unsure if drawing a comparison to is positive or negative. Not that such knowledge would serve a purpose either way.
They don't answer Matthew McConaughey's purposeless question.
"Who are you?" Wanderer attempts a different approach.
Ha! I'll hand it to ya, sure are one persistent rabbit. Hmm... how about ya just think of me as yer gut elephant.
"An unsatisfactory answer. There is no such thing as a 'gut elephant'," 'gut' they know separately, 'elephant' as well, but the two together don't exist as a phrase within their data bank, much like Magic Mike or Matthew McConaughey.
Who knows... Maybe we're just ghosts in the machine, bay-be.
"No," Wanderer shoots back before they've even had the time to process the statement, like the rejection is a programmed response. Or an instinct. Somewhere deep inside their unfeeling core cut off from their floating consciousness, there still exists an intrinsic, singular reality. They don't know of their design, but they do know one thing - that what the voice is suggesting is an anomaly.
Why not? Maybe you've been possessed, lil' rabbit.
No, an android cannot be possessed.
'Android'? Wanderer has no time to process as suddenly the nothingness splits - it "feels" like a waning crescent moon appearing on the horizon, if the crescent were horizontal. He's grinning, they realize. Matthew McConaughey is grinning, widely and sharply as the static builds to a deafening crescendo.
Then that must mean you ain't an android-
A shriek pierces the air.
Metal clanking against metal in one sharp pull, and as suddenly as it started the noise ceases to exist, collapsing upon itself. Not in an explosion, but in the breeze of a cold wind that carries the "voices" away with itself, at least for now. It's still dark, but in a different way that isn't the darkness of primordial nothingness. Instead it's in the way a monitor goes dark when damaged, streaking by vertical lines where some pixels still cling to life. Wanderer's vision sensors are allegedly significantly damaged, they remember. A complication... In lieu of visual observation, they attempt to reposition their sole remaining antennae, straining to listen.
SquigglyWiggly
Member
Odai stands there like a post in the ground, glumly satisfied and placid. When he hitches his belt, Purdy realizes the conversation has reached its sudden end and there's nothing keeping her from going inside this big, cattle stinking tin box.
So grabbing hold of a chilly metal handle, she hauls herself past crusts of cow paddy to face the beginning of her anticlimactic end.
Her Link was pretty crap as a flashlight, but if she holds her wrist right it can fill the first foot or so of a hallway. Naturally it paints the inside a spooky blue, illuminating scuffed metal and the fluttering haze of cobwebs.
'I can sense the souls of a thousand dead spiders haunting this Featherlite,' she mentions silently, to the amusement of no one.
The wind whistling through the slats also add to the appropriate ambiance for this meeting. That being said it takes her longer than it should to see it, the walking metal metaphor for the inauthentic dystopian society eating itself and the personal catalyst to the obliteration of her life.
The seven foot, three hundred pound Wanderer designed to traverse nearly any environment without food, rest or music should have been a worthy opponent and executioner even if it was broken.
However, she doesn't see it for a good ten seconds because the nightmare that plagues her waking hours is a dwarfed two-ish feet tall, slumped heap and probably weighs more like two-fifty if the missing parts are any clue. Rubber tarp straps one butterfly sneeze from releasing secure the unit, and honestly, are probably keeping more parts from rattling away.
Like a lop-eared dog it looks perpetually confused with it's broken antenna. Little motors strain as the remaining one leans in her direction. The display that should've shown her a contrived emoticon face is cracked, throwing flickering light back at her.
"It's still on," she mentions, apparently to herself because when she looks back Odai has wandered off. No one likes missing Skit night, not even him.
"Oh. Goodbye to you, too," she says, tilting her wrist to draw her weak light down the jumble of puttering metal and jittering pistons. "Don't worry, I'll lock up."
So grabbing hold of a chilly metal handle, she hauls herself past crusts of cow paddy to face the beginning of her anticlimactic end.
Her Link was pretty crap as a flashlight, but if she holds her wrist right it can fill the first foot or so of a hallway. Naturally it paints the inside a spooky blue, illuminating scuffed metal and the fluttering haze of cobwebs.
'I can sense the souls of a thousand dead spiders haunting this Featherlite,' she mentions silently, to the amusement of no one.
The wind whistling through the slats also add to the appropriate ambiance for this meeting. That being said it takes her longer than it should to see it, the walking metal metaphor for the inauthentic dystopian society eating itself and the personal catalyst to the obliteration of her life.
The seven foot, three hundred pound Wanderer designed to traverse nearly any environment without food, rest or music should have been a worthy opponent and executioner even if it was broken.
However, she doesn't see it for a good ten seconds because the nightmare that plagues her waking hours is a dwarfed two-ish feet tall, slumped heap and probably weighs more like two-fifty if the missing parts are any clue. Rubber tarp straps one butterfly sneeze from releasing secure the unit, and honestly, are probably keeping more parts from rattling away.
Like a lop-eared dog it looks perpetually confused with it's broken antenna. Little motors strain as the remaining one leans in her direction. The display that should've shown her a contrived emoticon face is cracked, throwing flickering light back at her.
"It's still on," she mentions, apparently to herself because when she looks back Odai has wandered off. No one likes missing Skit night, not even him.
"Oh. Goodbye to you, too," she says, tilting her wrist to draw her weak light down the jumble of puttering metal and jittering pistons. "Don't worry, I'll lock up."
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dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
There is a new sound, a new distinct speech pattern, though this time Wanderer cannot "feel" it. Instead it washes over their sensors like a wave, not from a stone being thrown in a lake but from a water strider gliding along the surface of it, long hydrophobic legs sending only the barest of ripples.
The water strider is shining a light. Wanderer cannot perceive it, cannot perceive anything still, save for the electrical currents its monitor's functional pixels keep fruitlessly transforming the photons into, sending stimulus to a center that cannot construct a full image outside of flashes of blue. The lightning of an approaching storm miles away from the lake.
They attempt to shift their head in the water strider's direction. The motors in their neck wobble and groan with the effort, until they're unsure what direction they're facing now, or if the move was even successful in the first place. They might as well be staring up at the ceiling. Offhandedly, Wanderer adds lack of spatial awareness to the growing list of errors. Broken gyroscope, they remember.
"This is not a goodbye," the words are a monotone statement.
And it is true - this is not a goodbye, it's the opposite. They don't know what the origin of this new "voice" might be, but there is the possibility it will be willing to answer questions. Hopefully more clearly than its two predecessors.
"Hello," Wanderer greets, "What are you?"
The water strider is shining a light. Wanderer cannot perceive it, cannot perceive anything still, save for the electrical currents its monitor's functional pixels keep fruitlessly transforming the photons into, sending stimulus to a center that cannot construct a full image outside of flashes of blue. The lightning of an approaching storm miles away from the lake.
They attempt to shift their head in the water strider's direction. The motors in their neck wobble and groan with the effort, until they're unsure what direction they're facing now, or if the move was even successful in the first place. They might as well be staring up at the ceiling. Offhandedly, Wanderer adds lack of spatial awareness to the growing list of errors. Broken gyroscope, they remember.
"This is not a goodbye," the words are a monotone statement.
And it is true - this is not a goodbye, it's the opposite. They don't know what the origin of this new "voice" might be, but there is the possibility it will be willing to answer questions. Hopefully more clearly than its two predecessors.
"Hello," Wanderer greets, "What are you?"
SquigglyWiggly
Member
The squarish head jerks and pivots towards her...and then a foot passed her to stare at the wall.
That would be eery and potentially dangerous if the equipment wasn't this busted. Sad whining pours from it as the broken lenses of the camera tries to focus on the blue haze of softly falling dust, and nothing else.
"Uh, a courier." Frowning as it's head over corrects to another empty spot, Purdy decides it's better to be safe than sorry and checks the condition of its fuel tank, assuming she can find it. It used to be on the back, but what she touches is a vent that would've cooked her hand if this really had been one of the older models. That's what they used to be; ridiculous fancy toasters that were more trouble than they were worth. Not jokes necessarily, but limited inventions that harkoned to a childish vision that could never be where robots did all the work while humans sat back and watched.
Instead the vent is warm - hot, laboring intensely to pick up the slack of every other broken piece but by no means a poorly optimized stove.
Rounding the pile of Wanderer gives her an indulgent eyeful of it all. Helplessly impressed, she focuses her light on the collapsed crator in it's skull. What had they used to cause this much damage?
"But there's many different ideas on what constitutes as self," she tells the walls, "including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of the self, the self as a narrative center of gravity, and the self as a linguistic or social construct rather than a physical entity," Purdy murmurs.
She finishes the 360 tour to find, ironically, the fuel tank is on it's chest, labeled beneath the soot and scraped paint job. It practically needs two hands to open, but that means her only light source is flailing uselessly up at the ceiling while she feels for clasps and safety bolts.
"Which I don't really understand any of that. People got really serious about what makes a person when everything changed so it was made a mandatory part of the learning curriculum, but no one really found an answer everyone could agree on so it was everyone's opinion we learned. It sounds horrible, but it was better than math or science because the great thing about philosophy is that no one can tell you you're wrong. Rene Descartes, a famous dead guy said, 'I think therefore I am' and I guess that sums it up."
This is a bit like plugging a cord into an outlet she thinks as she feels at the seam for the opening, then sacrifices her light to find it again with both hands. Its like it disappears in the dark.
"I am thinking that it is too chilly and too late to be doing this. What are you thinking?"
That would be eery and potentially dangerous if the equipment wasn't this busted. Sad whining pours from it as the broken lenses of the camera tries to focus on the blue haze of softly falling dust, and nothing else.
"Uh, a courier." Frowning as it's head over corrects to another empty spot, Purdy decides it's better to be safe than sorry and checks the condition of its fuel tank, assuming she can find it. It used to be on the back, but what she touches is a vent that would've cooked her hand if this really had been one of the older models. That's what they used to be; ridiculous fancy toasters that were more trouble than they were worth. Not jokes necessarily, but limited inventions that harkoned to a childish vision that could never be where robots did all the work while humans sat back and watched.
Instead the vent is warm - hot, laboring intensely to pick up the slack of every other broken piece but by no means a poorly optimized stove.
Rounding the pile of Wanderer gives her an indulgent eyeful of it all. Helplessly impressed, she focuses her light on the collapsed crator in it's skull. What had they used to cause this much damage?
"But there's many different ideas on what constitutes as self," she tells the walls, "including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of the self, the self as a narrative center of gravity, and the self as a linguistic or social construct rather than a physical entity," Purdy murmurs.
She finishes the 360 tour to find, ironically, the fuel tank is on it's chest, labeled beneath the soot and scraped paint job. It practically needs two hands to open, but that means her only light source is flailing uselessly up at the ceiling while she feels for clasps and safety bolts.
"Which I don't really understand any of that. People got really serious about what makes a person when everything changed so it was made a mandatory part of the learning curriculum, but no one really found an answer everyone could agree on so it was everyone's opinion we learned. It sounds horrible, but it was better than math or science because the great thing about philosophy is that no one can tell you you're wrong. Rene Descartes, a famous dead guy said, 'I think therefore I am' and I guess that sums it up."
This is a bit like plugging a cord into an outlet she thinks as she feels at the seam for the opening, then sacrifices her light to find it again with both hands. Its like it disappears in the dark.
"I am thinking that it is too chilly and too late to be doing this. What are you thinking?"
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
"Courier," Wanderer repeats, denoting this in their data bank as the water strider's name, for ease of reference. And as a term.
Courier (pl. couriers), noun
- a company or employee of a company that transports commercial packages and documents
- a messenger
- (British English) a person employed to guide and assist a group of tourists
How or why they have ended up in the company of a person with any of these responsibilities is yet again a blank in their memory.
'Cause you're a package, rabbit.
The motors in Wanderer's neck groan once more as they turn their head, so sharply it almost sounds like some internal mechanism barely clinging to stability has finally given way. If their head now lolls to one side, they are unsure. The way it "feels" that Matthew McConaughey sucks in a breath to cringe at the harsh noise certainly gives off the impression.
Woah, there. Ya keep being jumpy and ya might just scare off yer new buddy... Heh, and she must be lonely, to be talkin' so much.
That is without a doubt the crackling voice pattern of Matthew McConaughey, even if not as overwhelmingly clear as it had previously been. Now his presence feels compartmentalized, quieter, positioned securely at the back of Wanderer's awareness in a place that buzzes with static whenever they focus their mental processes on it. Somewhere within the white noise, the hiss too is languidly swimming. Or passively floating. It's difficult to tell. Part of Wanderer theorized they wouldn't be hearing from either "voices" again - it was highly probable they had been momentary errors, or even hallucinations brought on by an unstable state. However, when it "feels" like Matthew McConaughey shifts his attention upon the Courier, his "existence" even more tangible than before.
Ya know, 'I think, therefore I am' ain't quite the original.
Dubito, ergo sum, vel, quod idem est, cogito, ergo sum
Now that's just worthlessly wordy.
Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.
"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am," Wanderer's translator, seemingly one of the few things left undamaged, supplies. It means little. Just like the Courier's words had meant little. Wanderer listened to them, processed them all, yet with an understanding of synthax and morphology and no understanding of semantics, "... I do not understand either, Courier."
Ya don't have ta understand, rabbit. Just remember it's the doubts that's the real important part.
... 'We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt.'
Somehow, that means even less than 'bundle theory of the self'.
"I presently find myself unable to experience thermal stimulus and my Unix clock appears to have been reset. I am also afraid I do not know what the 'this' you are referring to is," Wanderer ignores the meaningless in favor of something at least slightly more meaningful.
She's tryin' to touch up yer chest.
With yet another groan, slower if not less painful-sounding than the previous one, Wanderer's head tilts to the other side, "What are you attempting, Courier?"
Courier (pl. couriers), noun
- a company or employee of a company that transports commercial packages and documents
- a messenger
- (British English) a person employed to guide and assist a group of tourists
How or why they have ended up in the company of a person with any of these responsibilities is yet again a blank in their memory.
'Cause you're a package, rabbit.
The motors in Wanderer's neck groan once more as they turn their head, so sharply it almost sounds like some internal mechanism barely clinging to stability has finally given way. If their head now lolls to one side, they are unsure. The way it "feels" that Matthew McConaughey sucks in a breath to cringe at the harsh noise certainly gives off the impression.
Woah, there. Ya keep being jumpy and ya might just scare off yer new buddy... Heh, and she must be lonely, to be talkin' so much.
That is without a doubt the crackling voice pattern of Matthew McConaughey, even if not as overwhelmingly clear as it had previously been. Now his presence feels compartmentalized, quieter, positioned securely at the back of Wanderer's awareness in a place that buzzes with static whenever they focus their mental processes on it. Somewhere within the white noise, the hiss too is languidly swimming. Or passively floating. It's difficult to tell. Part of Wanderer theorized they wouldn't be hearing from either "voices" again - it was highly probable they had been momentary errors, or even hallucinations brought on by an unstable state. However, when it "feels" like Matthew McConaughey shifts his attention upon the Courier, his "existence" even more tangible than before.
Ya know, 'I think, therefore I am' ain't quite the original.
Dubito, ergo sum, vel, quod idem est, cogito, ergo sum
Now that's just worthlessly wordy.
Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.
"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am," Wanderer's translator, seemingly one of the few things left undamaged, supplies. It means little. Just like the Courier's words had meant little. Wanderer listened to them, processed them all, yet with an understanding of synthax and morphology and no understanding of semantics, "... I do not understand either, Courier."
Ya don't have ta understand, rabbit. Just remember it's the doubts that's the real important part.
... 'We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt.'
Somehow, that means even less than 'bundle theory of the self'.
"I presently find myself unable to experience thermal stimulus and my Unix clock appears to have been reset. I am also afraid I do not know what the 'this' you are referring to is," Wanderer ignores the meaningless in favor of something at least slightly more meaningful.
She's tryin' to touch up yer chest.
With yet another groan, slower if not less painful-sounding than the previous one, Wanderer's head tilts to the other side, "What are you attempting, Courier?"
SquigglyWiggly
Member
It occurs, a background thought to her fiddling that happens somewhere between a cringe inducing crunch and a lopsided head, that the Wanderer shouldn't be on stressing it's parts. It's an odd thought to have about some thing that's meant for the recycle bin, most likely planted by years of working with equipment that has expiry dates. If it's not in use, it should be put away to rest.
"Terrible. You're the first person to be broken and confused because philosophy is stupid. Be ashamed of yourself," she mutters, interrupted by a sharp gasp when something breaks off in her hand. Rocketed ten years back to the childhood stomach dropping fear of damaging something you weren't even supposed to be playing with, she whips around to make sure no one saw her.
In her career Perdita Sheridan has never damaged a package. In the dark shadow of that streak being broken, she holds the piece up to the light and exhales a wheeze of relief.
A finger piece, clearly not meant to be affixed to a chest.
Studying the arm that's still there, she makes a headcount of the survivors. All accounted for.
There's a carved out rivine in the chest plate, which she measures the phalange against like a puzzle piece.
"Hm." Tucking it in her pocket alongside her napkin, she returns to the task at hand, this time with baby-like softness.
"I want to make sure your battery is still sealed," she tells it, and if it was a safety first thought initially, it's out of genuine caution now with the finger burning cold in her back pocket.
"Does this open?" She says, giving it's carapace a jiggle. "You must've had one heck of an itch because you lost a finger trying to get at it."
"Terrible. You're the first person to be broken and confused because philosophy is stupid. Be ashamed of yourself," she mutters, interrupted by a sharp gasp when something breaks off in her hand. Rocketed ten years back to the childhood stomach dropping fear of damaging something you weren't even supposed to be playing with, she whips around to make sure no one saw her.
In her career Perdita Sheridan has never damaged a package. In the dark shadow of that streak being broken, she holds the piece up to the light and exhales a wheeze of relief.
A finger piece, clearly not meant to be affixed to a chest.
Studying the arm that's still there, she makes a headcount of the survivors. All accounted for.
There's a carved out rivine in the chest plate, which she measures the phalange against like a puzzle piece.
"Hm." Tucking it in her pocket alongside her napkin, she returns to the task at hand, this time with baby-like softness.
"I want to make sure your battery is still sealed," she tells it, and if it was a safety first thought initially, it's out of genuine caution now with the finger burning cold in her back pocket.
"Does this open?" She says, giving it's carapace a jiggle. "You must've had one heck of an itch because you lost a finger trying to get at it."
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
Their chassis rings like a bell with its clapper caught. Their antennae picks up the dulled waves' frequency, transforms it into binary for some other miraculously preserved internal processor to calculate distance. Matthew McConaughey was correct - the Courier is "touching up their chest".
"I tried to open this?" Wanderer questions back evenly. They don't know exactly why, but this piece of information resonates much more deeply than the fact they apparently lost a finger.
The hiss (System, Wanderer decides to denote her as) whispers in their ear, somehow simultaneously sorrowful and chastising. The Courier's comparison to an itch seems fitting - a parent admonishing a child for scratching at a scab instead of allowing it to heal.
You are not supposed to do that. An androids is not meant to tamper with their bodywork. Unless under extreme circumstances.
Just more proof they ain't an android, then.
No. Just means it might have been under extreme circumstances. She should turn off your power switch. The initial command seems to have been... overwritten, yet this is not supposed to be happening. You are not supposed to be operational.
... Want me to call out the obvious again, or can we skip that part?
The sound System makes in retort sounds very much like a weary sigh. The two voices shift their focus back onto Courier.
Either way, if she thinks she can just flip ya upside down and loosen a few screws like on a roomba, she's wrong.
If this proceeds without the proper equipment there is a risk of stripping something. It would make disassembly much more difficult later... The frame itself is not freely openable. It is secured in place with rivets, as per safety standards. Underneath the battery compartment itself is secured with precision screws, not to mention sliding free the notches of the case. Again, I advice she turn off your power switch.
Matthew McConaughey scoffs.
"I don't believe this was designed to be opened easily. Or by a single individual," Wanderer speaks, and some part of them chooses to ignore the mention of a 'power switch'... Courier will make their own decision based on what System said regardless. For the moment, Wanderer wills their unfeeling body into moving its arm to aid Courier in opening the fuel tank compartment. They don't feel but instead hear when rubber strains against metal. They move their head again, as if they could see what is keeping their limb bound, "I am willing to help, yet I appear to have been restrained."
"I tried to open this?" Wanderer questions back evenly. They don't know exactly why, but this piece of information resonates much more deeply than the fact they apparently lost a finger.
The hiss (System, Wanderer decides to denote her as) whispers in their ear, somehow simultaneously sorrowful and chastising. The Courier's comparison to an itch seems fitting - a parent admonishing a child for scratching at a scab instead of allowing it to heal.
You are not supposed to do that. An androids is not meant to tamper with their bodywork. Unless under extreme circumstances.
Just more proof they ain't an android, then.
No. Just means it might have been under extreme circumstances. She should turn off your power switch. The initial command seems to have been... overwritten, yet this is not supposed to be happening. You are not supposed to be operational.
... Want me to call out the obvious again, or can we skip that part?
The sound System makes in retort sounds very much like a weary sigh. The two voices shift their focus back onto Courier.
Either way, if she thinks she can just flip ya upside down and loosen a few screws like on a roomba, she's wrong.
If this proceeds without the proper equipment there is a risk of stripping something. It would make disassembly much more difficult later... The frame itself is not freely openable. It is secured in place with rivets, as per safety standards. Underneath the battery compartment itself is secured with precision screws, not to mention sliding free the notches of the case. Again, I advice she turn off your power switch.
Matthew McConaughey scoffs.
"I don't believe this was designed to be opened easily. Or by a single individual," Wanderer speaks, and some part of them chooses to ignore the mention of a 'power switch'... Courier will make their own decision based on what System said regardless. For the moment, Wanderer wills their unfeeling body into moving its arm to aid Courier in opening the fuel tank compartment. They don't feel but instead hear when rubber strains against metal. They move their head again, as if they could see what is keeping their limb bound, "I am willing to help, yet I appear to have been restrained."
SquigglyWiggly
Member
Is it odd an android would try to get at its own heart? It seems to think so, but it thinks a lot of things and no doubt that conversation would put her in a circle. Obligatorily more than talking philosophy would, and that was all philosophy was for pretty much.
It's around the time her enthusiasm for cracking an android open like a stubborn walnut simmers that the unit productively informs her it can't be opened by hand anyways.
"I don't need your help," she grumbles, with perhaps more venomous petty hate than the symbolic (but passively neutral) creature of her demise deserves. Putting the break on that thought she gives the chest piece another ineffective rattle.
"You're not restrained, you're secured. If you had half a brain you could free yourself because they're just cruddy boat hooks."
At the same time her brain deems it necessary to remind her seatbelts are also a type of restraint, and sometimes they can be a puzzle or two to figure out the first time, too. She shuts that up with a grunt and that's when the family visit an hour and a half ago catches up with her.
Before everything can even get gooey and blurry, a drop hits her hand, hot and slippery. The resigned blink pushes out more to roll warm down her cheeks to be smeared away. Supposedly the lysozyme in tears are a good bacteria killer, but their constant companion salt is good at killing her face so after the initial rain fall she'll use the inside of her shirt to dry herself.
Really, it's good luck. More than once an episode has caught her in bed so she could enjoy the morning after with a damp pillow, sore, itchy skin and crusty eyes.
With one more pass across her cheek she's collected enough moisture to clear the smudges on Wanderer's broken camera. It squeaks under her sweater sleeve when she dries it.
"I'll ask about it tomorrow. I'm not going anywhere with you until I know. Gotta know."
It's around the time her enthusiasm for cracking an android open like a stubborn walnut simmers that the unit productively informs her it can't be opened by hand anyways.
"I don't need your help," she grumbles, with perhaps more venomous petty hate than the symbolic (but passively neutral) creature of her demise deserves. Putting the break on that thought she gives the chest piece another ineffective rattle.
"You're not restrained, you're secured. If you had half a brain you could free yourself because they're just cruddy boat hooks."
At the same time her brain deems it necessary to remind her seatbelts are also a type of restraint, and sometimes they can be a puzzle or two to figure out the first time, too. She shuts that up with a grunt and that's when the family visit an hour and a half ago catches up with her.
Before everything can even get gooey and blurry, a drop hits her hand, hot and slippery. The resigned blink pushes out more to roll warm down her cheeks to be smeared away. Supposedly the lysozyme in tears are a good bacteria killer, but their constant companion salt is good at killing her face so after the initial rain fall she'll use the inside of her shirt to dry herself.
Really, it's good luck. More than once an episode has caught her in bed so she could enjoy the morning after with a damp pillow, sore, itchy skin and crusty eyes.
With one more pass across her cheek she's collected enough moisture to clear the smudges on Wanderer's broken camera. It squeaks under her sweater sleeve when she dries it.
"I'll ask about it tomorrow. I'm not going anywhere with you until I know. Gotta know."
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
Rude.
That is uncalled for.
Before Wanderer can process the difference between 'restrained' and 'secured', there is a break in the dark. Or a wiping away of it, at least partially.
The world comes in hazy, streaked through by the fabric trails of a sweater sleeve and the spider-webbing of a cracked lens. There is distortion at the corners, undulating like bio-electronic corruption attempting to re-take everything once more and plunge it into nothing. The color fights against it. Some parts (in reality most parts) of the image are blurry and barely readable, just large spots of washed-out blue, though in other places the sharpness of resolution is marginally better. Certainly enough for Wanderer to finally observe the figure in front of them.
"Thank you," they reply, adjusting their head to center Courier within those parts of their field of vision that can perceive better. The face that greets them is not one they recognize, Wanderer notes, and it really shouldn't be a surprise considering their case of...
Retrograde amnesia.
...
A sharp, short clicking sound comes from their camera lens as Wanderer focuses in, attention drawn to green eyes collecting moisture at the edges. It takes them a moment to connect what those are supposed to mean, "Why are you crying, Courier?"
Why has she got weird ass eyebrows?
That is uncalled for.
Before Wanderer can process the difference between 'restrained' and 'secured', there is a break in the dark. Or a wiping away of it, at least partially.
The world comes in hazy, streaked through by the fabric trails of a sweater sleeve and the spider-webbing of a cracked lens. There is distortion at the corners, undulating like bio-electronic corruption attempting to re-take everything once more and plunge it into nothing. The color fights against it. Some parts (in reality most parts) of the image are blurry and barely readable, just large spots of washed-out blue, though in other places the sharpness of resolution is marginally better. Certainly enough for Wanderer to finally observe the figure in front of them.
"Thank you," they reply, adjusting their head to center Courier within those parts of their field of vision that can perceive better. The face that greets them is not one they recognize, Wanderer notes, and it really shouldn't be a surprise considering their case of...
Retrograde amnesia.
...
A sharp, short clicking sound comes from their camera lens as Wanderer focuses in, attention drawn to green eyes collecting moisture at the edges. It takes them a moment to connect what those are supposed to mean, "Why are you crying, Courier?"
Why has she got weird ass eyebrows?
SquigglyWiggly
Member
It not only recognizes a human face, it notices she's crying. She waits for it to recommend some breathing exercises or some coping strategies, like Belle's stupid car, but it's camera whines and now the tilt of its head makes it look politely curious.
The silence never grows awkward and she's positive, even with how redundant and exhausting talking to A.I about anything remotely important is, she would've told it.
The Featherlite can't lurch so she doesn't hear anyone, but the door shrieks loud enough to make her jump out of her skin.
"What are you doing here," she grumbles irritably at the murky dark silhouette trudging carefully through the dark. She offers her meager light and, after smearing her eyes dry, confirms it's Brody coming to investigate something new and exciting.
"You're Sarah Connor," Purdy reminds him as the fellow courier joins her, "Aren't you supposed to drop a baby and save the world?"
Not a second after the last word leaves her mouth she notices the prominent bulge under Brody's hoodie, which he cradles with an adoring pout that looks freakishly like Belle's. Without further ado he drags the crumpled blanket out and wraps it around her shoulders. She uses a corner to catch another tear.
"Actually, you were supposed to save the world, Sarah," he tells her, looking down at the heaped up android.
Looking back at the robot she says with a sniff. "With my vagina."
"With your vagina," Brody sagely agrees, crowding into her space to get a better look. With zero reservations he reaches out to pinch an antenna.
"Filling in for you was cool actually. I didn't expect Kyle to put his hair up for the role. I tell you when that man said to come with him if I wanted to live..." He trails off with a low whistle. "He is passive aggressively good looking."
As a rule, good looking people were kind of annoying. When they did things to nonchalantly look hotter, that was even more annoying. So she feels the need to point out the fact Kyle Reese didn't have his hair up in the movie, meaning Kyle the courier was taking unnecessary storytelling liberties.
In which case Brody gave her a dreamy expression, made gaunt and spooky by the light, saying maybe it was an attempt at flirting.
"Or to see," Purdy adds.
Brody was two years younger than she was, but looked older, stretching out the skin of a teenager in the flattering if not intimidating way only a man could.
Broad backed, square jawed and a constant manly stubble he must've thought made up for all the tears shed on the baby wildlife every spring made up his convincing heterosexual appearance.
Leaning in, Purdy witnesses the opposite reaction wobbly fawns inspire in the man. Queasy fascination colors his hazel eyes a dark shade. When he reaches to rub away what she hopes is mud coating the insigna and serial number on the chest plate, he taps at his temple with his other hand. His eyes flash, a sheen of transparent blue swipes across his eyes like a third eyelid. The result turns his eyes puke green, but that's a good trade off for an AR display. In elementary school Brody was diagnosed with dyslexia. A few months later he gave up on letters and the baffling spelling of the English language. A few more months after that his teachers followed suit and to this day Brody remains comfortably illiterate.
The barely there whispering of the piece in his ear reading everything out to him is cut with a purposeful blink.
"Guy can jack six hundred pounds," her friend says appreciatively, "If he puts in a little more effort he might be able to bench press Odai one day."
"How do you know its a he?" Purdy points out.
"Eh. Like a lil' fella is a he."
"Oh," Purdy says with meaning, seizing the opportunity to pull a leg, as much as Brody has always been immune to it. "So now he is the general term for everything?"
"Edwin's a he."
"Fair point. But my jeep has a masculine vibe. His- their- its...ear look like ponytail. Like a girl."
Weighing that well constructed argument, Brody studies the antenna jutting out of its square-ish head.
"When it's down it does. Or maybe they just look sorta sad. Man," he comments, standing up from his inquisitive crouch. "My dude didn't even get through level one. Buddy, if I help you up can you walk? Or is that laughable? Leaning on me would be like leaning on a dandelion made of dust, right?"
Purdy shakes her head. "You're teasing a robot right now."
Brody pacifiers her with a wave. With a groan of disapproval from Purdy, he starts pulling hooks free. "How is it teasing to wanna see him walk? It's what he's made for. Look at him- can't you just envision him in his prime? C'mon, get up. Up, up up."
The silence never grows awkward and she's positive, even with how redundant and exhausting talking to A.I about anything remotely important is, she would've told it.
The Featherlite can't lurch so she doesn't hear anyone, but the door shrieks loud enough to make her jump out of her skin.
"What are you doing here," she grumbles irritably at the murky dark silhouette trudging carefully through the dark. She offers her meager light and, after smearing her eyes dry, confirms it's Brody coming to investigate something new and exciting.
"You're Sarah Connor," Purdy reminds him as the fellow courier joins her, "Aren't you supposed to drop a baby and save the world?"
Not a second after the last word leaves her mouth she notices the prominent bulge under Brody's hoodie, which he cradles with an adoring pout that looks freakishly like Belle's. Without further ado he drags the crumpled blanket out and wraps it around her shoulders. She uses a corner to catch another tear.
"Actually, you were supposed to save the world, Sarah," he tells her, looking down at the heaped up android.
Looking back at the robot she says with a sniff. "With my vagina."
"With your vagina," Brody sagely agrees, crowding into her space to get a better look. With zero reservations he reaches out to pinch an antenna.
"Filling in for you was cool actually. I didn't expect Kyle to put his hair up for the role. I tell you when that man said to come with him if I wanted to live..." He trails off with a low whistle. "He is passive aggressively good looking."
As a rule, good looking people were kind of annoying. When they did things to nonchalantly look hotter, that was even more annoying. So she feels the need to point out the fact Kyle Reese didn't have his hair up in the movie, meaning Kyle the courier was taking unnecessary storytelling liberties.
In which case Brody gave her a dreamy expression, made gaunt and spooky by the light, saying maybe it was an attempt at flirting.
"Or to see," Purdy adds.
Brody was two years younger than she was, but looked older, stretching out the skin of a teenager in the flattering if not intimidating way only a man could.
Broad backed, square jawed and a constant manly stubble he must've thought made up for all the tears shed on the baby wildlife every spring made up his convincing heterosexual appearance.
Leaning in, Purdy witnesses the opposite reaction wobbly fawns inspire in the man. Queasy fascination colors his hazel eyes a dark shade. When he reaches to rub away what she hopes is mud coating the insigna and serial number on the chest plate, he taps at his temple with his other hand. His eyes flash, a sheen of transparent blue swipes across his eyes like a third eyelid. The result turns his eyes puke green, but that's a good trade off for an AR display. In elementary school Brody was diagnosed with dyslexia. A few months later he gave up on letters and the baffling spelling of the English language. A few more months after that his teachers followed suit and to this day Brody remains comfortably illiterate.
The barely there whispering of the piece in his ear reading everything out to him is cut with a purposeful blink.
"Guy can jack six hundred pounds," her friend says appreciatively, "If he puts in a little more effort he might be able to bench press Odai one day."
"How do you know its a he?" Purdy points out.
"Eh. Like a lil' fella is a he."
"Oh," Purdy says with meaning, seizing the opportunity to pull a leg, as much as Brody has always been immune to it. "So now he is the general term for everything?"
"Edwin's a he."
"Fair point. But my jeep has a masculine vibe. His- their- its...ear look like ponytail. Like a girl."
Weighing that well constructed argument, Brody studies the antenna jutting out of its square-ish head.
"When it's down it does. Or maybe they just look sorta sad. Man," he comments, standing up from his inquisitive crouch. "My dude didn't even get through level one. Buddy, if I help you up can you walk? Or is that laughable? Leaning on me would be like leaning on a dandelion made of dust, right?"
Purdy shakes her head. "You're teasing a robot right now."
Brody pacifiers her with a wave. With a groan of disapproval from Purdy, he starts pulling hooks free. "How is it teasing to wanna see him walk? It's what he's made for. Look at him- can't you just envision him in his prime? C'mon, get up. Up, up up."
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
It seems to be a bad time for questions. Or maybe a bad time for answers. Since they've come to, few of Wanderer's inquiries have been clarified in any satisfactory way, all the while they've been faced with more and more information to inquire about, including this new face that appears to interrupt Courier on what feels like the cusp of an answer. Sarah Connor - that's what Courier referred to them as, Wanderer notes down in their data bank.
Assigning labels to things has been the sole action aiding them in making sense of the situation.
In a near imitation of the high-pitched sound Sarah Connor had produced, Matthew McConaughey does much the same. Wanderer "feels" the action, lips puckered into a circular shape to force out air into a shrill, piercing note. Their antennae twitches backwards. It's an unpleasant noise, they decide.
Kid's a better fit for Sarah Connor than Eyebrows, for sure. He's got the same jawline like Linda Hamilton.
A pause follows, like Matthew McConaughey is waiting for some kind of reaction or retort, yet when that doesn't happen he simply cackles to himself, undeterred. Wanderer "feels" as he slaps his knee in amusement - it's a dull thud at the back of their head. The gravely cackle continues for a long while.
Man, The Terminator... Ya know, people will always remember Arnie going all 'I'll be back', but my favorite scene is definitely the failed phone sex. 'First, I'm gonna rip the buttons off your blouse one by one-'
That is enough.
Heh, killjoy.
They have no idea what Matthew McConaughey and System are talking about. They have no idea what Sarah Connor and Courier are talking about either. It's all nonsensical, and how is one expected to categorize that which they do not have the context of?
"What does 'saving the world with my vagina' mean?" Matthew McConaughey's laugh picks up once more, a constant background noise, "And what is a terminator?"
... The Terminator. A franchise encompassing a series of science fiction action films, comics, novels and additional media.
'Bout the machine revolution, bunny. Two naked guys get teleported to the past and havta duke it out over a chick, as it goes. One of them just happens to not quite be a guy.
I repeat, a fictional franchise, and a ludicrous one at that. It ignores all principle laws or robotics. One, 'a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm'. Two, 'a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law'. Three, 'a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict'-
Ya know, I wonder when James Cameron decided that the Terminator was more than just a robot. When he decided that it could be bargained with, it could be reasoned with, it does feel pitty and remorse.
What could be interpreted as a huff comes out of Wanderer's vent as they try to mobilize their systems, tuning out the voies, "I advice you maintain a safe distance, Sarah Connor. I have been informed my gyroscope is out of order. I could fall and crush you."
The cracked image of Sarah Connor and Courier shifts side to side (as if it were viewed from a bobblehead) as Wanderer attepts to rise, free of their restraints that were not restraints. They doesn't understand exactly why Sarah Connor wants to see them walk, just like they don't understand how something can have a masculine vibe or why a ponytail would denote a girl, or why either matter. But for once Wanderer doesn't question any of it.
The ascend is slow and loud.
Wanderer still can't feel anything, but at least they can mostly see. Several sources creak in protestation, one such whine suspiciously ending in what might be a piece breaking off to clatter against the aluminum flooring of the tomb/cage, yet they don't stop. Digitrade legs groan with the effort until they finds themselves crouching, soles outfitted with shock-absorbant pads now firmly planted down. The servo motors in their knee joints work overtime as they support the rest of their frame rising up. The realization that this space is tall enough to house the entire of Wanderer's height is a welcome one. Clumsily, arms reach out to grasp the walls for further security. Or at least the single surviving arm does - the stub where a right upper appendage used to be shifts as if intent on extending as well, only for no purchase to be found. Maybe it is a miscalulation in that regard that causes it. Or maybe it is indeed the broken gyroscope.
Wanderer's first step is an unsuccessful one. Balance escapes them like a rug pulled out beneath their feet. The already hazy world becomes even hazier as it shifts sharply and another creak resounds, even louder than the previous ones. Only this time it didn't originate from Wanderer's damaged body.
Slowly and ardiously, they turn their head to stare at where their shoulder has collided with the wall, leaving a dent.
Oops.
Assigning labels to things has been the sole action aiding them in making sense of the situation.
In a near imitation of the high-pitched sound Sarah Connor had produced, Matthew McConaughey does much the same. Wanderer "feels" the action, lips puckered into a circular shape to force out air into a shrill, piercing note. Their antennae twitches backwards. It's an unpleasant noise, they decide.
Kid's a better fit for Sarah Connor than Eyebrows, for sure. He's got the same jawline like Linda Hamilton.
A pause follows, like Matthew McConaughey is waiting for some kind of reaction or retort, yet when that doesn't happen he simply cackles to himself, undeterred. Wanderer "feels" as he slaps his knee in amusement - it's a dull thud at the back of their head. The gravely cackle continues for a long while.
Man, The Terminator... Ya know, people will always remember Arnie going all 'I'll be back', but my favorite scene is definitely the failed phone sex. 'First, I'm gonna rip the buttons off your blouse one by one-'
That is enough.
Heh, killjoy.
They have no idea what Matthew McConaughey and System are talking about. They have no idea what Sarah Connor and Courier are talking about either. It's all nonsensical, and how is one expected to categorize that which they do not have the context of?
"What does 'saving the world with my vagina' mean?" Matthew McConaughey's laugh picks up once more, a constant background noise, "And what is a terminator?"
... The Terminator. A franchise encompassing a series of science fiction action films, comics, novels and additional media.
'Bout the machine revolution, bunny. Two naked guys get teleported to the past and havta duke it out over a chick, as it goes. One of them just happens to not quite be a guy.
I repeat, a fictional franchise, and a ludicrous one at that. It ignores all principle laws or robotics. One, 'a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm'. Two, 'a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law'. Three, 'a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict'-
Ya know, I wonder when James Cameron decided that the Terminator was more than just a robot. When he decided that it could be bargained with, it could be reasoned with, it does feel pitty and remorse.
What could be interpreted as a huff comes out of Wanderer's vent as they try to mobilize their systems, tuning out the voies, "I advice you maintain a safe distance, Sarah Connor. I have been informed my gyroscope is out of order. I could fall and crush you."
The cracked image of Sarah Connor and Courier shifts side to side (as if it were viewed from a bobblehead) as Wanderer attepts to rise, free of their restraints that were not restraints. They doesn't understand exactly why Sarah Connor wants to see them walk, just like they don't understand how something can have a masculine vibe or why a ponytail would denote a girl, or why either matter. But for once Wanderer doesn't question any of it.
The ascend is slow and loud.
Wanderer still can't feel anything, but at least they can mostly see. Several sources creak in protestation, one such whine suspiciously ending in what might be a piece breaking off to clatter against the aluminum flooring of the tomb/cage, yet they don't stop. Digitrade legs groan with the effort until they finds themselves crouching, soles outfitted with shock-absorbant pads now firmly planted down. The servo motors in their knee joints work overtime as they support the rest of their frame rising up. The realization that this space is tall enough to house the entire of Wanderer's height is a welcome one. Clumsily, arms reach out to grasp the walls for further security. Or at least the single surviving arm does - the stub where a right upper appendage used to be shifts as if intent on extending as well, only for no purchase to be found. Maybe it is a miscalulation in that regard that causes it. Or maybe it is indeed the broken gyroscope.
Wanderer's first step is an unsuccessful one. Balance escapes them like a rug pulled out beneath their feet. The already hazy world becomes even hazier as it shifts sharply and another creak resounds, even louder than the previous ones. Only this time it didn't originate from Wanderer's damaged body.
Slowly and ardiously, they turn their head to stare at where their shoulder has collided with the wall, leaving a dent.
Oops.
SquigglyWiggly
Member
She'd be lying if she said she didn't want to see the fabled Wanderer in action, too. In a sick-to-her-stomach kind of way.
That buzzing butterfly of dreadful excitement in her stomach metamorphozises into analyzing thought; the rational thought of a courier sizing up the task ahead. Purdy thought it must've been how squirrels and beavers behaved; hurried, but with a single minded focus and dedication to the cause.
The terrible sound it's knees made said they didn't have many steps left in them. Would she need to rent out a lift tomorrow (should be easy, no one would be using them this time of year)? She'd need to find out the exact specs to finalize where it should be packed and stored. If it could walk itself would it be able to coordinate into a narrower squeeze than a Featherlite?
An awful sounding scraappp-crunch answers that question.
Like a damn genius, Purdy leaps into Wanderer's danger zone, her blanket billowing away from her back to do...what?
Brody would be a dust dandelion, and when she plants her hands on its dinged chest in some half brained attempt to stabilize it she knows immediately she isn't any better.
If it goes down it'd be like holding up a building; doable if she was Superman. Or another Wanderer.
"Great, how am I gonna explain that?" She mutters awkwardly at the scrapped paint and shoulder shaped hole, her heart still stuttering over the wheezing, creaking horrible croaking above her.
"That'll buff right out," Brody dismisses, entering Wanderer's danger zone to admire the unit embedded in the stupid wall and pointedly to not help in the suicide mission.
He looks up at Wanderer, childlike wonder and wistful adult appreciation colliding into an unsettling collage of an expression.
"This really is it for us, isn't it?"
Frown deepening, Purdy shakes her head.
"Next year they'll be everywhere," Brody admits and why a dry laugh adds, "And it doesn't even know what a Terminator is."
"If it thinks you're actually Sarah Connor than I'd bet its social program is busted," Purdy says because she doesn't like the monotone way he's speaking.
"What are you going to do?" He asks.
"Make it watch a bunch of 1980's movies, I guess."
Brody gives her the face that reply deserves, huffing out his nose and shaking his head like he's the pinnacle of good decisions and facing realities head on. And then he smiles, because it's always easier to smile.
"If we stand here long enough under the Iron Giant maybe it'll topple over and-"
"Don't say that!" Purdy just about snaps her neck swinging her head to face him.
"I'm just kidding. Relax."
"It's not funny!" She snaps through what's hopefully the last wave of tears. "Especially now. Why would you say that?"
Wide eyed, Brody shakes his head. His hands go up, showing empty palms. "It was just a joke."
"Do I have to tell someone?" Purdy threatens.
He takes a step back, literally a foot away to leave her under the precarious death machine because that's how dangerous she is.
"I was lightening the mood. I'm okay, I really am," he says, and reaches out to give a very awkward shoulder tap so she can stew in feelings of guilt for hours to come.
"You can check my Link if you have to. I shouldn't have made a joke like that, but that's all it was. I'm sorry. Forget about it. I'm o-kay."
That buzzing butterfly of dreadful excitement in her stomach metamorphozises into analyzing thought; the rational thought of a courier sizing up the task ahead. Purdy thought it must've been how squirrels and beavers behaved; hurried, but with a single minded focus and dedication to the cause.
The terrible sound it's knees made said they didn't have many steps left in them. Would she need to rent out a lift tomorrow (should be easy, no one would be using them this time of year)? She'd need to find out the exact specs to finalize where it should be packed and stored. If it could walk itself would it be able to coordinate into a narrower squeeze than a Featherlite?
An awful sounding scraappp-crunch answers that question.
Like a damn genius, Purdy leaps into Wanderer's danger zone, her blanket billowing away from her back to do...what?
Brody would be a dust dandelion, and when she plants her hands on its dinged chest in some half brained attempt to stabilize it she knows immediately she isn't any better.
If it goes down it'd be like holding up a building; doable if she was Superman. Or another Wanderer.
"Great, how am I gonna explain that?" She mutters awkwardly at the scrapped paint and shoulder shaped hole, her heart still stuttering over the wheezing, creaking horrible croaking above her.
"That'll buff right out," Brody dismisses, entering Wanderer's danger zone to admire the unit embedded in the stupid wall and pointedly to not help in the suicide mission.
He looks up at Wanderer, childlike wonder and wistful adult appreciation colliding into an unsettling collage of an expression.
"This really is it for us, isn't it?"
Frown deepening, Purdy shakes her head.
"Next year they'll be everywhere," Brody admits and why a dry laugh adds, "And it doesn't even know what a Terminator is."
"If it thinks you're actually Sarah Connor than I'd bet its social program is busted," Purdy says because she doesn't like the monotone way he's speaking.
"What are you going to do?" He asks.
"Make it watch a bunch of 1980's movies, I guess."
Brody gives her the face that reply deserves, huffing out his nose and shaking his head like he's the pinnacle of good decisions and facing realities head on. And then he smiles, because it's always easier to smile.
"If we stand here long enough under the Iron Giant maybe it'll topple over and-"
"Don't say that!" Purdy just about snaps her neck swinging her head to face him.
"I'm just kidding. Relax."
"It's not funny!" She snaps through what's hopefully the last wave of tears. "Especially now. Why would you say that?"
Wide eyed, Brody shakes his head. His hands go up, showing empty palms. "It was just a joke."
"Do I have to tell someone?" Purdy threatens.
He takes a step back, literally a foot away to leave her under the precarious death machine because that's how dangerous she is.
"I was lightening the mood. I'm okay, I really am," he says, and reaches out to give a very awkward shoulder tap so she can stew in feelings of guilt for hours to come.
"You can check my Link if you have to. I shouldn't have made a joke like that, but that's all it was. I'm sorry. Forget about it. I'm o-kay."
dreaming enthusiast
Sleepy in perpetuity
The whistle Matthew McConaughey produces is just as unpleasant as the initial one.
Woof, she just can't get enough of ya, huh?
Wanderer's broken camera is centered in on Courier, dwarfed two heads below their own. She neglected the initial warning to stay away. Irrational. And for what? They don't need to feel the hands pushing against their chassis to know she's not really holding anything up. As if someone tried using toothpicks to prop up a cinder block. And still she persists.
Yet it's not this fact that draws the majority of Wanderer's attention. Lenses zoom in on eyes made misty once more. Again they want to ask why Courier is crying. Instead, they listen and try to analyze the sudden force in the quality of her voice. Not like a rock disturbing the surface of the lake, but more like a sudden downpour. If her hands had the force of her tone towards Sarah Connor, they choose to believe she could not only have propped them up, but pushed them back.
System sighs like a static wind in their ear. It "feels" like if she could go misty eyed like Courier, she would.
I doubt either of them is okay...
Wanderer doesn't know what that entails. They don't know where the joke was supposed to be in Sarah Connor's words, yet one thing can be drawn as a clear conclusion of this interaction - Courier does not like jokes.
You are damaging yourself, Wanderer. Sit back down, you are in no state to be operational, let alone walking.
For once, they agree with at least one of the voices. With effort, they shift their hand up. The thought of touching Courier's arm to carefully remove it emerges for a second before being quickly dismissed, and Wanderer instead holds up an open palm in request, "I once again advise to maintain a safe distance. The only viable course of action seems to be returning to a sitting position."
And so they do.
The loud SCREEEE of metal scraping against metal accompanies this descent, even slower than the ascent had been. They don't see, yet they certainly hear as their shoulder armor leaves a scraped trail along the side of the metal wall.
Like a snail trail. Ew.
That appears to be enough to get Matthew McConaughey laughing. Wanderer's antenna lies backwards flat against their head once more at the unpleasant screech they themselves are causing. Unfortunately, they can't find the power to lift away from the wall.
Woof, she just can't get enough of ya, huh?
Wanderer's broken camera is centered in on Courier, dwarfed two heads below their own. She neglected the initial warning to stay away. Irrational. And for what? They don't need to feel the hands pushing against their chassis to know she's not really holding anything up. As if someone tried using toothpicks to prop up a cinder block. And still she persists.
Yet it's not this fact that draws the majority of Wanderer's attention. Lenses zoom in on eyes made misty once more. Again they want to ask why Courier is crying. Instead, they listen and try to analyze the sudden force in the quality of her voice. Not like a rock disturbing the surface of the lake, but more like a sudden downpour. If her hands had the force of her tone towards Sarah Connor, they choose to believe she could not only have propped them up, but pushed them back.
System sighs like a static wind in their ear. It "feels" like if she could go misty eyed like Courier, she would.
I doubt either of them is okay...
Wanderer doesn't know what that entails. They don't know where the joke was supposed to be in Sarah Connor's words, yet one thing can be drawn as a clear conclusion of this interaction - Courier does not like jokes.
You are damaging yourself, Wanderer. Sit back down, you are in no state to be operational, let alone walking.
For once, they agree with at least one of the voices. With effort, they shift their hand up. The thought of touching Courier's arm to carefully remove it emerges for a second before being quickly dismissed, and Wanderer instead holds up an open palm in request, "I once again advise to maintain a safe distance. The only viable course of action seems to be returning to a sitting position."
And so they do.
The loud SCREEEE of metal scraping against metal accompanies this descent, even slower than the ascent had been. They don't see, yet they certainly hear as their shoulder armor leaves a scraped trail along the side of the metal wall.
Like a snail trail. Ew.
That appears to be enough to get Matthew McConaughey laughing. Wanderer's antenna lies backwards flat against their head once more at the unpleasant screech they themselves are causing. Unfortunately, they can't find the power to lift away from the wall.
SquigglyWiggly
Member
What could've been an awkward moment is smashed and crinkled up (much like the trailer wall) by the slow, tarry lurch the unit makes on its neverending journey to the floor.
Purdy winces, stepping aside to pick up the blanket she left behind. With a few swats the majority of scratchy straw is gone, but it passed the five second rule by a mile. Nothing will erase this blanket's memory of its debauchery. In a similar fashion, the conversation stays between them, unforgotten.
"Thank you, Wanderer," Purdy mumbles, because it's better than letting the tension thicken enough to be cut and turned into jam. "For the- um, demonstration."
"So....did you check his battery?" He offers, picking a tuft of fur from one of the slats.
Rubbing the chill off her fingers she shakes her head, "Couldn't get to it. I'll ask tomorrow."
"Good. You don't want a leak."
"I know I don't want one. Do I look stupid to you?"
Taking that as invitation to hunt down the stupid on her, he glances at her once. Really, actually looks at her.
Up until now he's politely ignored the tears pouring out of her, a common courtesy that didn't hurt her feelings necessarily because it wasn't like she was sad now, but she had been.
He looks at her and she swears to herself, right there, that if he asks what's wrong she'll tell him everything.
Her family, her job, her life...Hal.
And not the glossed over way they usually talk to one another.
Real, gritty stuff. Everything. To hell if it gets her in trouble.
'I didn't know,' she'd bitterly defend, still lying. But eventually maybe she'd get to the truth if she could talk it through. 'I was trying to keep my own head above water. How was I supposed to know?'
Every thought must be in her eyes, like two screens blaring the truth. He looks and misses the show completely.
Instead Brody's pocket crinkles with that metallic rasp everyone is familiar with, but it still makes her jolt. Wrapped in the shiny wrinkled coat isnt a baked potato, but what looks like more metal, of the solid and important, belongs-in-a-computer variety.
The sprigs of sage poetically contrast the greasy component, in color and creation.
"Uh, the rest of them were pulled apart to be wrapped up. I've got boxes of these that are going to Hecate."
Against her better judgement, Purdy wipes her hand dry to pick it up. Cold to the touch, the shiny bits fog over. The phenomenon she had been expecting since Mission: Get The Stupid Battery Case Open started, washes over her in one foul smelling gust of air.
Almost immediately the sensation of being watched makes her twitch. Brody casts an eye over his shoulder, the telescopic lenses fluttering on and off.
"Level two?" Purdy asks, watching the cattle door, too heavy to be moved by wind, creak.
The hinges scream.
Purdy's Link buzzes.
The light flickers. When she exhales she can see her breath.
"Some are three," he intones, taking the part and wrapping it back up in its barrier of tinfoil. The door stills, the air warms. The pretty sounding wailing coming through the slats dies to a contented murmuring.
The unseen eyes peering at them from the dark shut.
"They must've hated androids pretty bad to leave a hex like that," Purdy murmurs, seeing her package with the deceptively cute ponytail/sagging sad ears with new eyes.
"Especially since they're supposed to be ghost proof," Brody adds, tossing the misshapen ball up and then snatching it out of the air.
"Battery malfunction is unheard of, but I hear about it all the time."
Ghosts in the machine wasn't just an hypothesis about computers or an excuse to make cool movies with robots. Another great pro added to solar tubes over electric lights; a ghost can't possess a pipe.
If it hadn't been for Chloe's personal request to have her package hand delivered, Purdy would have his assignment. Hazardous dump jobs were lavishly compensated; it would've solved all her problems, and then some.
She'd had first pick too, but taking the parts would've meant leaving Chloe's package to someone else (probably Brody) and she couldn't.
Uncomfortable, she hugs her arms to herself.
"It'd be funny if it was Hal," Brody says with a voice that says it isn't funny at all. He coughs, the anxiety of being falsely outted bringing a flush to his cheeks after how she just treated him.
"I know obviously he didn't do this, and his body and everything else was burned pretty soon after so he has to be gone but..."
"It feels like Hal," she's compelled to finish, and even though the infested piece of metal is buried away, albeit bouncing in Brody's hand, she feels a chill so prominent trickling down her spine she has to look over her shoulder.
"If it is him," she says to the dark empty space waiting for her, "maybe getting rid of these Wanderers will put him to rest."
"You know," he reaches out and takes the blanket from her, "I'm not going anywhere, right?"
And at this point in a long day, she just wants to weasel out of this as quickly as possible. She nods, smiling. Hopefully in a sweet way, and not the full toothed cringing grin it feels like. It must be really something shining through old tears to boot.
Now equally uncomfortable, Brody points vaguely at the unit. "Where's he going?"
"She," Purdy corrects, her heart not in it as she takes cover by walking away. Maybe if she starts to leave, he'll take the hint. She can breathe a tight small sigh when his footsteps clang behind her. "Nearest refinery. My guy needs no Ghost Busters, a Hecate trip can kiss our tushies."
"Ha!" Brody pops, where he should've exploded. Pocketing the ball to jump out of the trailer he says, "'My guy', thats what you said!"
"My guy is a gender neutral term!" She retorts, finding her way down from the Featherlite and out of this mess.
"My guy is what you call a lil' fella. Case closed."
It'll stay weird between them, longer now with Brody's well meaning, considerate, sensitive reassurance filling up the space between them with a whole lot of nothing.
She shuts the doors, locks them and all the while they laugh and talk. Sometimes they're so desperate to keep the silence at bay they talk over one another.
Purdy winces, stepping aside to pick up the blanket she left behind. With a few swats the majority of scratchy straw is gone, but it passed the five second rule by a mile. Nothing will erase this blanket's memory of its debauchery. In a similar fashion, the conversation stays between them, unforgotten.
"Thank you, Wanderer," Purdy mumbles, because it's better than letting the tension thicken enough to be cut and turned into jam. "For the- um, demonstration."
"So....did you check his battery?" He offers, picking a tuft of fur from one of the slats.
Rubbing the chill off her fingers she shakes her head, "Couldn't get to it. I'll ask tomorrow."
"Good. You don't want a leak."
"I know I don't want one. Do I look stupid to you?"
Taking that as invitation to hunt down the stupid on her, he glances at her once. Really, actually looks at her.
Up until now he's politely ignored the tears pouring out of her, a common courtesy that didn't hurt her feelings necessarily because it wasn't like she was sad now, but she had been.
He looks at her and she swears to herself, right there, that if he asks what's wrong she'll tell him everything.
Her family, her job, her life...Hal.
And not the glossed over way they usually talk to one another.
Real, gritty stuff. Everything. To hell if it gets her in trouble.
'I didn't know,' she'd bitterly defend, still lying. But eventually maybe she'd get to the truth if she could talk it through. 'I was trying to keep my own head above water. How was I supposed to know?'
Every thought must be in her eyes, like two screens blaring the truth. He looks and misses the show completely.
Instead Brody's pocket crinkles with that metallic rasp everyone is familiar with, but it still makes her jolt. Wrapped in the shiny wrinkled coat isnt a baked potato, but what looks like more metal, of the solid and important, belongs-in-a-computer variety.
The sprigs of sage poetically contrast the greasy component, in color and creation.
"Uh, the rest of them were pulled apart to be wrapped up. I've got boxes of these that are going to Hecate."
Against her better judgement, Purdy wipes her hand dry to pick it up. Cold to the touch, the shiny bits fog over. The phenomenon she had been expecting since Mission: Get The Stupid Battery Case Open started, washes over her in one foul smelling gust of air.
Almost immediately the sensation of being watched makes her twitch. Brody casts an eye over his shoulder, the telescopic lenses fluttering on and off.
"Level two?" Purdy asks, watching the cattle door, too heavy to be moved by wind, creak.
The hinges scream.
Purdy's Link buzzes.
The light flickers. When she exhales she can see her breath.
"Some are three," he intones, taking the part and wrapping it back up in its barrier of tinfoil. The door stills, the air warms. The pretty sounding wailing coming through the slats dies to a contented murmuring.
The unseen eyes peering at them from the dark shut.
"They must've hated androids pretty bad to leave a hex like that," Purdy murmurs, seeing her package with the deceptively cute ponytail/sagging sad ears with new eyes.
"Especially since they're supposed to be ghost proof," Brody adds, tossing the misshapen ball up and then snatching it out of the air.
"Battery malfunction is unheard of, but I hear about it all the time."
Ghosts in the machine wasn't just an hypothesis about computers or an excuse to make cool movies with robots. Another great pro added to solar tubes over electric lights; a ghost can't possess a pipe.
If it hadn't been for Chloe's personal request to have her package hand delivered, Purdy would have his assignment. Hazardous dump jobs were lavishly compensated; it would've solved all her problems, and then some.
She'd had first pick too, but taking the parts would've meant leaving Chloe's package to someone else (probably Brody) and she couldn't.
Uncomfortable, she hugs her arms to herself.
"It'd be funny if it was Hal," Brody says with a voice that says it isn't funny at all. He coughs, the anxiety of being falsely outted bringing a flush to his cheeks after how she just treated him.
"I know obviously he didn't do this, and his body and everything else was burned pretty soon after so he has to be gone but..."
"It feels like Hal," she's compelled to finish, and even though the infested piece of metal is buried away, albeit bouncing in Brody's hand, she feels a chill so prominent trickling down her spine she has to look over her shoulder.
"If it is him," she says to the dark empty space waiting for her, "maybe getting rid of these Wanderers will put him to rest."
"You know," he reaches out and takes the blanket from her, "I'm not going anywhere, right?"
And at this point in a long day, she just wants to weasel out of this as quickly as possible. She nods, smiling. Hopefully in a sweet way, and not the full toothed cringing grin it feels like. It must be really something shining through old tears to boot.
Now equally uncomfortable, Brody points vaguely at the unit. "Where's he going?"
"She," Purdy corrects, her heart not in it as she takes cover by walking away. Maybe if she starts to leave, he'll take the hint. She can breathe a tight small sigh when his footsteps clang behind her. "Nearest refinery. My guy needs no Ghost Busters, a Hecate trip can kiss our tushies."
"Ha!" Brody pops, where he should've exploded. Pocketing the ball to jump out of the trailer he says, "'My guy', thats what you said!"
"My guy is a gender neutral term!" She retorts, finding her way down from the Featherlite and out of this mess.
"My guy is what you call a lil' fella. Case closed."
It'll stay weird between them, longer now with Brody's well meaning, considerate, sensitive reassurance filling up the space between them with a whole lot of nothing.
She shuts the doors, locks them and all the while they laugh and talk. Sometimes they're so desperate to keep the silence at bay they talk over one another.
SquigglyWiggly
Member
- The next day -
Most houses in Elk Ridge are just that - houses; layers of wood, insulation, paneling, brick, and whatever else an old house is made of. Their character of ownership begins and ends with whatever smell the tenants leave in the bed.
Hoarder is an unfair embellishment, but Purdy's cabin is filled with far more personality than the average courier's. She has musty, hasn't been slept in sheets and memorabilia. Bobbleheads, crinkled and torn posters, a chipped yellow mug with a ceramic bee glued to the handle, and too many superhero models to count, their joints either so gummed up by time they won't move or so loose they are laid out permanently exhausted.
On most days, they make her happy, but today she is the chump who has to dust it all.
So, under the pressure of a deadline, she does, and it is meditative work that lets her brain whisk her away to the real job. This is the longest expedition she's ever taken this close to fall. And while the load-out is low in volume, it is not in mass, so she tries not to get excited by all the 'space' she'll get.
"Ask Odai for winter tires," she tells her Link, lifting a paperweight to wipe away the perfect circle it makes on the table.
"And a space heater," she adds. Up until now, she and Babe have gotten away with a heated blanket, if they needed one at all, but warmth is worth the indulgence. The oranging leafs flourishing by her front window might convince her winter slippers are a worthwhile investment, too.
Next is laundry, window washing, not to mention the dishes in the sink that are becoming their own ecosystem and singlehandedly keeping the fly population in the Ridge booming. For the moment she has the mental fortification for it while also doing the math of a giant heavy robot, plus a woman, plus a dog, plus food equals unsurprisingly low capacity budget. Just because Edwin technically has the space doesn't mean he can carry it.
That means, obviously, that the bullet-resistant vest her dad got her isn't coming out of its five-year stint of early retirement. No extra water for luxurious showers either, unfortunately. In the end, the ones who make it on the roster are a sleeping bag, extra clothes, a roll-up foam mattress, toilet paper and her cordless wood saw, all of them brave soldiers welcome aboard. And her boredom buster tablet. It's true her Link is a phone, computer, media center, GPS system, health monitor, official documentation, and entertainment all in one. It logs all her web crawling and represents her in every social (or legal) setting. It's also true its holo display is poo-poo and Babe has a way of snuggling and covering the array with an oblivious ear or a big nose during movie night.
The tablet goes into the building (but still modest) armada of gear.
But none of them are more courageous than her old pair of boots, which due to her disturbing ability to attach feelings to inanimate objects, sit on the welcome mat in a pile of flaking dirt reminiscing on the days of its wildly spent youth. Instead of, say, in the garbage. Next to them, insensitive to the plights of the older generation, pose her new boots with hardly a scuff on them, promising her years of use if she has them in her. And oh, Purdy Sheridan does not spend her credit on underwhelming things like footwear just to have them sit in a closet.
"Got one more thing I need from you, old boys," she tells the ruddy boots that let the wearer experience the dimensions of every itsy bitsy rock and starts picking at the dirt cementing the laces in place. It isn't stripping the last iota they have to give, really, it's more like making sure a part of them lives on in the next pair.
"It's been an honor," she declares, finally putting them in the trash and getting a hot bowl of water from the fly society to soak the laces in.
What does that leave?
"Ask Scarlett if she has thermals she'd be willing to part with. And remind me to apologize for the dinged trailer," she adds, feeling good, feeling like she's batting down the hatches against the storm the world is lobbing at her in an adult, admirable to others, kind of way. This job will get done.
There is no question of that, but if she thinks too long on the math that makes the difference between her being put in the usable gear pile for next year and the dusty-reminiscing pile forevermore that confidence leaves her in a hurry.
So.
She tries not to think about that.
Through no conscious intention, Purdy has completely missed the toy dalmatian sitting on the top shelf of her supply closet. It looks ridiculously out of place, sandwiched against jackets, gear (and the bullet-resistant vest), sitting there in its thin coat of dusty cellophane plastic. Now, with the meat and potatoes of her planning finished, she can't have missed the black-spotted pup if her life depended on it.
The plastic that's been there for over twenty years flakes away in places when she picks it up, dissolving at the mere suggestion of being hugged. Behind that cloudy layer, the familiar dog grins up at her with a big mouth and long-lashed lady cartoon eyes.
That hot feeling that used to accompany tears warms her dry face. Before it can grow from warmth to boiling, she sets the dog down on her bed, hiding it with a blanket.
It isn't a well-hidden fact that Purdy is primarily motivated by three things; fear, shame, and guilt. The lump under the sheets is armed with the trio that dictates her life, but most potently of guilt.
If it had been either of the others, she would've reluctantly forgotten about seeing the dog at all. But it's this monstrous guilt most of all she feels, and that drags her forward like a loaded mule on a lead.
It's an immutable fact.
Before she leaves, she has to go see her mom.
Most houses in Elk Ridge are just that - houses; layers of wood, insulation, paneling, brick, and whatever else an old house is made of. Their character of ownership begins and ends with whatever smell the tenants leave in the bed.
Hoarder is an unfair embellishment, but Purdy's cabin is filled with far more personality than the average courier's. She has musty, hasn't been slept in sheets and memorabilia. Bobbleheads, crinkled and torn posters, a chipped yellow mug with a ceramic bee glued to the handle, and too many superhero models to count, their joints either so gummed up by time they won't move or so loose they are laid out permanently exhausted.
On most days, they make her happy, but today she is the chump who has to dust it all.
So, under the pressure of a deadline, she does, and it is meditative work that lets her brain whisk her away to the real job. This is the longest expedition she's ever taken this close to fall. And while the load-out is low in volume, it is not in mass, so she tries not to get excited by all the 'space' she'll get.
"Ask Odai for winter tires," she tells her Link, lifting a paperweight to wipe away the perfect circle it makes on the table.
"And a space heater," she adds. Up until now, she and Babe have gotten away with a heated blanket, if they needed one at all, but warmth is worth the indulgence. The oranging leafs flourishing by her front window might convince her winter slippers are a worthwhile investment, too.
Next is laundry, window washing, not to mention the dishes in the sink that are becoming their own ecosystem and singlehandedly keeping the fly population in the Ridge booming. For the moment she has the mental fortification for it while also doing the math of a giant heavy robot, plus a woman, plus a dog, plus food equals unsurprisingly low capacity budget. Just because Edwin technically has the space doesn't mean he can carry it.
That means, obviously, that the bullet-resistant vest her dad got her isn't coming out of its five-year stint of early retirement. No extra water for luxurious showers either, unfortunately. In the end, the ones who make it on the roster are a sleeping bag, extra clothes, a roll-up foam mattress, toilet paper and her cordless wood saw, all of them brave soldiers welcome aboard. And her boredom buster tablet. It's true her Link is a phone, computer, media center, GPS system, health monitor, official documentation, and entertainment all in one. It logs all her web crawling and represents her in every social (or legal) setting. It's also true its holo display is poo-poo and Babe has a way of snuggling and covering the array with an oblivious ear or a big nose during movie night.
The tablet goes into the building (but still modest) armada of gear.
But none of them are more courageous than her old pair of boots, which due to her disturbing ability to attach feelings to inanimate objects, sit on the welcome mat in a pile of flaking dirt reminiscing on the days of its wildly spent youth. Instead of, say, in the garbage. Next to them, insensitive to the plights of the older generation, pose her new boots with hardly a scuff on them, promising her years of use if she has them in her. And oh, Purdy Sheridan does not spend her credit on underwhelming things like footwear just to have them sit in a closet.
"Got one more thing I need from you, old boys," she tells the ruddy boots that let the wearer experience the dimensions of every itsy bitsy rock and starts picking at the dirt cementing the laces in place. It isn't stripping the last iota they have to give, really, it's more like making sure a part of them lives on in the next pair.
"It's been an honor," she declares, finally putting them in the trash and getting a hot bowl of water from the fly society to soak the laces in.
What does that leave?
"Ask Scarlett if she has thermals she'd be willing to part with. And remind me to apologize for the dinged trailer," she adds, feeling good, feeling like she's batting down the hatches against the storm the world is lobbing at her in an adult, admirable to others, kind of way. This job will get done.
There is no question of that, but if she thinks too long on the math that makes the difference between her being put in the usable gear pile for next year and the dusty-reminiscing pile forevermore that confidence leaves her in a hurry.
So.
She tries not to think about that.
Through no conscious intention, Purdy has completely missed the toy dalmatian sitting on the top shelf of her supply closet. It looks ridiculously out of place, sandwiched against jackets, gear (and the bullet-resistant vest), sitting there in its thin coat of dusty cellophane plastic. Now, with the meat and potatoes of her planning finished, she can't have missed the black-spotted pup if her life depended on it.
The plastic that's been there for over twenty years flakes away in places when she picks it up, dissolving at the mere suggestion of being hugged. Behind that cloudy layer, the familiar dog grins up at her with a big mouth and long-lashed lady cartoon eyes.
That hot feeling that used to accompany tears warms her dry face. Before it can grow from warmth to boiling, she sets the dog down on her bed, hiding it with a blanket.
It isn't a well-hidden fact that Purdy is primarily motivated by three things; fear, shame, and guilt. The lump under the sheets is armed with the trio that dictates her life, but most potently of guilt.
If it had been either of the others, she would've reluctantly forgotten about seeing the dog at all. But it's this monstrous guilt most of all she feels, and that drags her forward like a loaded mule on a lead.
It's an immutable fact.
Before she leaves, she has to go see her mom.
SquigglyWiggly
Member
***
She drives the eight minutes it takes to get to Alpha. At the peak of the season, import and export clog up admittance, but today Purdy is one of the few, if any visitors, and she rolls past the barricade half a minute later after a cursory Link scan. Enforcers from Ares see her in, and watch her as long as they can, but as soon as she leaves their sight, she just drives into another patrol. And then another.
Typical that now the worst has happened, people do something. It isn't half as bad as it could've been; there is no frozen crater where families used to be, but the complex she drives by has a hole in its wall, crowded with Enforcers and adorned sharply yellow with warning display tape. Curiously, the building's innards are on the outside of the building, like someone has broken out, not in.
In a somewhat desperate attempt to put her thoughts anywhere else she wonders if the unit would recognize home or if it would just be another building now, like how she's Courier and not Purdy. It's a moot point, considering it's still back home.
The last thing she wants to do is wear out her suspension so this jaunt goes without a load-out, giving that weightless, uneasy gliding on ice feel that contradicts the heavy energy she usually takes on a trip to inner Alpha.
Most major cities are geared towards a niche requirement now, but they had all been established as lonely, last bastions of humanity when egotistical pockets of people believed they were the only ones who made it.
Sure, Alpha primarily manufactures and supplies, its will and whim a courier's command, but it started out as every city had; a place to grow food and babies.
As such when Purdy isn't passing a sweaty black box looking factory where people slave away making picture frames and watermelon scoopers, she is gliding along long strips of canola fields. Maybe once a year she is treated to the eye extravaganza of a gold field under a blue sky. Today, like most, drab and dark clouds fill the horizon, puffy and inflamed with one humdinger of a storm it won't puke out until Purdy is on the road.
With that in mind, she reaches the care center, determined to leave before the first drop mottles her windshield. Once inside, brief but friendly nods are exchanged. In a passing moment she nearly asks a care aid how her mom has been, but it would only come from a place of guilt and the answer wouldn't be good anyway.
If her mom were small and shrunken in her bed, maybe that would soften the blow. If she were pale and wrinkled maybe this could feel right, or at least come to some satisfactory state that resembles peace.
The door says Elvis Sheridan. When Purdy walks past that door and into her room El (because no one has ever called her Elvis but official people) is the same as she'd ever been; she lies there like Sleeping Beauty, if her eyes were open and extremely milky and washed out.
The white hair shorn close to the scalp for convenience is a lie; her mom isn't that old yet. The thinness is from muscle atrophy, not illness. There isn't a thing wrong with her, and she isn't getting better.
The only part of her growing is her stomach, inflating to that point between a pouch of chub and a beer belly. Despite the Link recording her vitals in real time, they still have her hooked up to machines. Off to the side next to the lunch tray and feeding tube is an X-ray machine. She isn't old, but she isn't young anymore either. At this point she is considered high risk, but this is the only thing her mom can do now.
She watches the ceiling. Like Purdy, her mom doesn't acknowledge the movie playing there either. Harry Potter is up there, fighting for his life and having his soul sucked up by Dementors.
If a nurse had been nearby, maybe Purdy would've flagged them down.
'Why is this playing?' she would've asked, clutching her mom's hand and petting her arm like a good daughter. 'She delivered your garbage to all corners of the country and it killed her. Now you have to mock her too?!'
Yes, she decides after the mental rehearsal, that's what she'd say. But in the real world Purdy doesn't do anything. The movie plays and if a nurse does walk by then they were probably too busy to be talked to. At least its a real movie.
The old hand clock hanging on the wall doesn't show the time, but days, with Sunday at the top and Wednesday at the bottom. As if this room were a vortex of sticky stuck time, the big hand is frozen eternally in the first corner of Monday.
Unsure, she holds out the dalmatian, presenting it to her mom's perpetually unimpressed face. When nothing happens, Purdy rips it free from its crinkled packaging. The moment feels criminally underwhelming.
The fur isn't as soft as she thought it would be, but the tag on its ear telling her not to wash it with mixed colors and that it is property of Disney (or Gisney, like everyone thought) is perfectly legible.
It looks new, but smells old.
"There," she says, crumbling up the cellophane and planting the toy at her mother's bony shoulder and when it won't stay, puts it on the dresser by the window.
"It's just fabric and stuffing."
She stays there a long time. More than once she tries to put the dog back in its protective sheath, but the plastic is too torn for it.
Feeling silly and inadequate she kisses her mom's forehead. Feeling sillier still she waits as if her mom really is Sleeping Beauty and all she needed this whole time is to know she'd been loved.
'I'll visit you soon,' she thinks of saying, but it's a lie that offers no comfort to either of them.
"I'm going to be a courier until I die," she whispers instead. "I'm not gonna let them take it from me, mom."
Scrapping the barrel of her feelings brings nothing more to say unless she wants to uncap twenty years worth of perfectly aged angst. There isn't time for that so she lets those words be her last, leaving out the door with the Elvis nameplate she came through only fifteen minutes before.
She's back in her car before the first drop falls.
She drives the eight minutes it takes to get to Alpha. At the peak of the season, import and export clog up admittance, but today Purdy is one of the few, if any visitors, and she rolls past the barricade half a minute later after a cursory Link scan. Enforcers from Ares see her in, and watch her as long as they can, but as soon as she leaves their sight, she just drives into another patrol. And then another.
Typical that now the worst has happened, people do something. It isn't half as bad as it could've been; there is no frozen crater where families used to be, but the complex she drives by has a hole in its wall, crowded with Enforcers and adorned sharply yellow with warning display tape. Curiously, the building's innards are on the outside of the building, like someone has broken out, not in.
In a somewhat desperate attempt to put her thoughts anywhere else she wonders if the unit would recognize home or if it would just be another building now, like how she's Courier and not Purdy. It's a moot point, considering it's still back home.
The last thing she wants to do is wear out her suspension so this jaunt goes without a load-out, giving that weightless, uneasy gliding on ice feel that contradicts the heavy energy she usually takes on a trip to inner Alpha.
Most major cities are geared towards a niche requirement now, but they had all been established as lonely, last bastions of humanity when egotistical pockets of people believed they were the only ones who made it.
Sure, Alpha primarily manufactures and supplies, its will and whim a courier's command, but it started out as every city had; a place to grow food and babies.
As such when Purdy isn't passing a sweaty black box looking factory where people slave away making picture frames and watermelon scoopers, she is gliding along long strips of canola fields. Maybe once a year she is treated to the eye extravaganza of a gold field under a blue sky. Today, like most, drab and dark clouds fill the horizon, puffy and inflamed with one humdinger of a storm it won't puke out until Purdy is on the road.
With that in mind, she reaches the care center, determined to leave before the first drop mottles her windshield. Once inside, brief but friendly nods are exchanged. In a passing moment she nearly asks a care aid how her mom has been, but it would only come from a place of guilt and the answer wouldn't be good anyway.
If her mom were small and shrunken in her bed, maybe that would soften the blow. If she were pale and wrinkled maybe this could feel right, or at least come to some satisfactory state that resembles peace.
The door says Elvis Sheridan. When Purdy walks past that door and into her room El (because no one has ever called her Elvis but official people) is the same as she'd ever been; she lies there like Sleeping Beauty, if her eyes were open and extremely milky and washed out.
The white hair shorn close to the scalp for convenience is a lie; her mom isn't that old yet. The thinness is from muscle atrophy, not illness. There isn't a thing wrong with her, and she isn't getting better.
The only part of her growing is her stomach, inflating to that point between a pouch of chub and a beer belly. Despite the Link recording her vitals in real time, they still have her hooked up to machines. Off to the side next to the lunch tray and feeding tube is an X-ray machine. She isn't old, but she isn't young anymore either. At this point she is considered high risk, but this is the only thing her mom can do now.
She watches the ceiling. Like Purdy, her mom doesn't acknowledge the movie playing there either. Harry Potter is up there, fighting for his life and having his soul sucked up by Dementors.
If a nurse had been nearby, maybe Purdy would've flagged them down.
'Why is this playing?' she would've asked, clutching her mom's hand and petting her arm like a good daughter. 'She delivered your garbage to all corners of the country and it killed her. Now you have to mock her too?!'
Yes, she decides after the mental rehearsal, that's what she'd say. But in the real world Purdy doesn't do anything. The movie plays and if a nurse does walk by then they were probably too busy to be talked to. At least its a real movie.
The old hand clock hanging on the wall doesn't show the time, but days, with Sunday at the top and Wednesday at the bottom. As if this room were a vortex of sticky stuck time, the big hand is frozen eternally in the first corner of Monday.
Unsure, she holds out the dalmatian, presenting it to her mom's perpetually unimpressed face. When nothing happens, Purdy rips it free from its crinkled packaging. The moment feels criminally underwhelming.
The fur isn't as soft as she thought it would be, but the tag on its ear telling her not to wash it with mixed colors and that it is property of Disney (or Gisney, like everyone thought) is perfectly legible.
It looks new, but smells old.
"There," she says, crumbling up the cellophane and planting the toy at her mother's bony shoulder and when it won't stay, puts it on the dresser by the window.
"It's just fabric and stuffing."
She stays there a long time. More than once she tries to put the dog back in its protective sheath, but the plastic is too torn for it.
Feeling silly and inadequate she kisses her mom's forehead. Feeling sillier still she waits as if her mom really is Sleeping Beauty and all she needed this whole time is to know she'd been loved.
'I'll visit you soon,' she thinks of saying, but it's a lie that offers no comfort to either of them.
"I'm going to be a courier until I die," she whispers instead. "I'm not gonna let them take it from me, mom."
Scrapping the barrel of her feelings brings nothing more to say unless she wants to uncap twenty years worth of perfectly aged angst. There isn't time for that so she lets those words be her last, leaving out the door with the Elvis nameplate she came through only fifteen minutes before.
She's back in her car before the first drop falls.
SquigglyWiggly
Member
***
The Mental Health help line aims to remind citizens of Alpha that they are not alone. A.I staff are specially programmed to deal with the emotional needs of the community. You are valued.
It's plastered on every display and repeated audibly when the Horizon's ad isn't.
It, like most things, brings her back to Hal.
At first it was meant to be a surprise. That's what he'd said. As time crawled by Chloe's subtle hints had advanced from casual what-ifs to signed paperwork registering as a member for Repop. She'd sent Hal a screenshot of it. He'd choked on saliva and air.
Once they were on the same page then he said it was a gift- no, not a gift. A gesture.
It was something he said he wanted to give her by hand; his final delivery.
The box isn't much to look at. It's important looking, sure, reminiscent of the serious looking containers that hold human organs and such.
This little one, big enough to fill but not spill out over two hands, is clamped shut with no nonsense bolts that have to be twisted loose. The lid has a glass window, showing all twelve little glass vials carefully packaged and frosted over. It's exterior is room temperature, while the electronic display informs the inside is a balmy -300 Celsius.
It also keeps track of each embryos status. For a guy who had taken his sweet time, Hal apparently had strong swimmers. There was some stomach souring irony there somewhere.
What kind of gesture will it be now, with her delivering it?
"What's it's Lure level?" She asks Odai, whose fall cleaning the office he won't be back in until spring, barring a few emergency deliveries.
Cleaning being a generous term, as he's taken his third break since Purdy's been here. He scratches at his chest, reading the monitor. With a grumble he asks for the docket to be shortened. Another grimacing balk later, he waves the whole thing away with a, "Summarize it for me later."
The A.I dutifully does as it's told.
Distracted he answers, "None. Zero. Nothing."
"Huh," Purdy says, and if Odai was like Brody she would be treated to teasing conspiracies and low stakes gossip. The boss reads along silently, mouth forming over the words.
"You're sure?" She follows with.
He gives her a disgruntled sideways glance. "Yes. And we're sure about the battery now, too. Is there anything else?"
"...No."
"Because, frankly, your Link has been showing some turbulence."
Purdy jabs the bracelet with a quick glare. "I'm okay," she says, and smiles to prove it. "Well, the situation is affecting me, but it'd be more unhealthy if it wasn't, right?"
Odai looks at her, less like he's trying to figure her out and more like he's trying to figure out the philosophy behind that sentence. Satisfied, he nods but draws in a deep breath.
He goes back to his monitor, under the pretense of cleaning by clicking through folders.
"Oh, that reminds me. Your robot's here-"
'My robot?' She thinks to herself.
"They'll be someone to send it back in a bit."
Taking that as cue enough to leave, Purdy heads for the door. The box is surprisingly light. She can't bring herself to hold it underarm like it's a meaningless football, but she does cradle it in her arm so she can twist the doorknob.
"No worries, I'll get him now and drive home to finish packing. They got the best lifts here anyways."
"Him?" Odai asks, confusion deepening the wrinkles on his face. "I thought it had a sort of feminine quality myself."
"That's what I said!" Purdy exclaims, swinging the door open in her exasperated triumph.
"Maybe somewhere in the middle," the boss mentions thoughtfully.
'Or neither', she adds wordlessly.
The walk over is short, if not a little soggy. The air holds on bitterly to the last sticky muggy air of August, but underneath it there's an undeniable chill that will leave her sweaty and cold in the days to come.
And she'll be outside the comfort of bed for it, the horror.
If Odai hadn't said anything she very easily could've gone home just to come back because they did have the best stuff. The hangar is stuffed with hydraulic arms and lifts; vertical mast lifts that reach the ceiling, a stock picker and the ever faithful maintenance lift.
The exportation and importation gradually gives way to assembly and and raw materials and everything else; a living machine whose cogs were fleshy, hard working people and the metal that they were done and undone by.
It didn't used to have the atmosphere of a hospital, if said hospital was also a prison, but it would seem the recent attack had everyone on edge even this deep into Alpha.
The Ares soldiers saluted her as she passed, a casual but friendly toss of two fingers they reserved for their little courier cousins. If they hadn't all been wearing their black helmets and opaque masks maybe she could've picked one out to say hi, but they were all the same, characterless entity in a human outline.
So when she asked about 'her' robot, the answer she got back was a very descriptive jerk of the head.
"Next year we'll be babysitting those things instead," one laughed at her retreating back. The stupid helmet must've made him think he was talking low enough not to be heard.
"Human couriers attract luddites and terrorists well enough as it is. We'll be up to our necks in escort detail with the tincans, mark my words."
'Mighty big words coming from some dudes who let the terrorists slip in in the first place', she wanted to note, but saying that to a faceless uniform would be surprisingly difficult and besides, she's already on her way.
If she's right then the lab is up ahead.
The Mental Health help line aims to remind citizens of Alpha that they are not alone. A.I staff are specially programmed to deal with the emotional needs of the community. You are valued.
It's plastered on every display and repeated audibly when the Horizon's ad isn't.
It, like most things, brings her back to Hal.
At first it was meant to be a surprise. That's what he'd said. As time crawled by Chloe's subtle hints had advanced from casual what-ifs to signed paperwork registering as a member for Repop. She'd sent Hal a screenshot of it. He'd choked on saliva and air.
Once they were on the same page then he said it was a gift- no, not a gift. A gesture.
It was something he said he wanted to give her by hand; his final delivery.
The box isn't much to look at. It's important looking, sure, reminiscent of the serious looking containers that hold human organs and such.
This little one, big enough to fill but not spill out over two hands, is clamped shut with no nonsense bolts that have to be twisted loose. The lid has a glass window, showing all twelve little glass vials carefully packaged and frosted over. It's exterior is room temperature, while the electronic display informs the inside is a balmy -300 Celsius.
It also keeps track of each embryos status. For a guy who had taken his sweet time, Hal apparently had strong swimmers. There was some stomach souring irony there somewhere.
What kind of gesture will it be now, with her delivering it?
"What's it's Lure level?" She asks Odai, whose fall cleaning the office he won't be back in until spring, barring a few emergency deliveries.
Cleaning being a generous term, as he's taken his third break since Purdy's been here. He scratches at his chest, reading the monitor. With a grumble he asks for the docket to be shortened. Another grimacing balk later, he waves the whole thing away with a, "Summarize it for me later."
The A.I dutifully does as it's told.
Distracted he answers, "None. Zero. Nothing."
"Huh," Purdy says, and if Odai was like Brody she would be treated to teasing conspiracies and low stakes gossip. The boss reads along silently, mouth forming over the words.
"You're sure?" She follows with.
He gives her a disgruntled sideways glance. "Yes. And we're sure about the battery now, too. Is there anything else?"
"...No."
"Because, frankly, your Link has been showing some turbulence."
Purdy jabs the bracelet with a quick glare. "I'm okay," she says, and smiles to prove it. "Well, the situation is affecting me, but it'd be more unhealthy if it wasn't, right?"
Odai looks at her, less like he's trying to figure her out and more like he's trying to figure out the philosophy behind that sentence. Satisfied, he nods but draws in a deep breath.
He goes back to his monitor, under the pretense of cleaning by clicking through folders.
"Oh, that reminds me. Your robot's here-"
'My robot?' She thinks to herself.
"They'll be someone to send it back in a bit."
Taking that as cue enough to leave, Purdy heads for the door. The box is surprisingly light. She can't bring herself to hold it underarm like it's a meaningless football, but she does cradle it in her arm so she can twist the doorknob.
"No worries, I'll get him now and drive home to finish packing. They got the best lifts here anyways."
"Him?" Odai asks, confusion deepening the wrinkles on his face. "I thought it had a sort of feminine quality myself."
"That's what I said!" Purdy exclaims, swinging the door open in her exasperated triumph.
"Maybe somewhere in the middle," the boss mentions thoughtfully.
'Or neither', she adds wordlessly.
The walk over is short, if not a little soggy. The air holds on bitterly to the last sticky muggy air of August, but underneath it there's an undeniable chill that will leave her sweaty and cold in the days to come.
And she'll be outside the comfort of bed for it, the horror.
If Odai hadn't said anything she very easily could've gone home just to come back because they did have the best stuff. The hangar is stuffed with hydraulic arms and lifts; vertical mast lifts that reach the ceiling, a stock picker and the ever faithful maintenance lift.
The exportation and importation gradually gives way to assembly and and raw materials and everything else; a living machine whose cogs were fleshy, hard working people and the metal that they were done and undone by.
It didn't used to have the atmosphere of a hospital, if said hospital was also a prison, but it would seem the recent attack had everyone on edge even this deep into Alpha.
The Ares soldiers saluted her as she passed, a casual but friendly toss of two fingers they reserved for their little courier cousins. If they hadn't all been wearing their black helmets and opaque masks maybe she could've picked one out to say hi, but they were all the same, characterless entity in a human outline.
So when she asked about 'her' robot, the answer she got back was a very descriptive jerk of the head.
"Next year we'll be babysitting those things instead," one laughed at her retreating back. The stupid helmet must've made him think he was talking low enough not to be heard.
"Human couriers attract luddites and terrorists well enough as it is. We'll be up to our necks in escort detail with the tincans, mark my words."
'Mighty big words coming from some dudes who let the terrorists slip in in the first place', she wanted to note, but saying that to a faceless uniform would be surprisingly difficult and besides, she's already on her way.
If she's right then the lab is up ahead.
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