Open Gen Post

[mundaati]

OPEN POST



-my muselist is here
-mention who you want in the subject line
-leave me a prompt/picture/whatever
-???
-profit

Comments

give me epsilon tho

[igniting]

[Aloy has seen a million suits of armor lying disused and abandoned in the ruins, a million bodies marking the aftermath of the Faro Plague, but she still stops and scans them all, listening quiet and reverent to last words and snatched conversations. At first, it was pure curiosity, but now she feels almost duty bound to it. It's an unconscious attempt to honor them, or at least to remember them in some small way, because she knows she's one of the only people who can.

This bunker is no different. Built into a mountain, the side ripped open like a tin can and then half enclosed again by ice and snow, the inside is cold and dark and quiet. Aloy moves through silently, testing machines and computers and components as she goes, and listening, as always.

She finds a body tucked away in the corner of a vast room filled with other forgotten soldiers and half destroyed robots. There's something different about this one, though—the armor is barely corroded. In fact, the seams are almost perfectly intact and sealed. Aloy crouches in front of it, fingers going unconsciously to her Focus. Scanning usually takes a few seconds as her Focus downloads whatever is left and tries to deal with any corruption the files might have undergone. This time, the connection is near instantaneous, and whatever transfers over is far more than just an audio file.]

[epsilol]

[ "Looks like this is the end of the line, huh?"

"Oh please, you're a badass. You'll be fine, trust me."

"You know, you never were very good at lying, Epsilon."

"...Yeah, I know."

Epsilon never expected to come back. Not from that final fight, not when he stood vigil as the unit he was supposed to watch out for was taken out one after the other by the Faro swarm. When the end came, he shut down. Oblivion sounded pretty fucking amazing after everything he had seen, the people he had failed to keep safe. Like there was any real way of stopping an unbeatable swarm of machines that could convert biomass to fuel.

Except he comes online again. His subsystems boot up, tell him that he's attached to a new focus with an outdated user registry. The whole thing is crowded with garbage, recorded clips in a hundred different voices that he doesn't bother to analyze just yet. It takes barely seconds for him to access the holographic interface. He appears in front of Aloy as a small, glowing blue figure wearing the same armor that his unit wore. For a moment he stares at Aloy, head cocking to the side in a very human gesture. ]

...Okay, who the fuck are you?

[igniting]

[It's unlike anything she's run into before, or anything that's hopped a ride on her focus up until now. Sylens managed it, sure, but Sylens is (fortunately, she thinks unkindly) unique. Aloy opens her mouth to say something, then snaps it shut, brows knitting together and lips twisting when he beats her to it.]

I should be asking you that. How are you accessing my focus?

[epsilol]

Accessing- You downloaded me, idiot. I'm in here because you got nosy.

[ Of course it begged the question: how was this kid alive when the swarm was going all judgment day on the planet? His image flickered for a moment, colors shifting across the spectrum before settling back to blue. ]

Going by what you're wearing, I'm guessing you aren't military. So I'm gonna ask again: Who are you?

[igniting]

[She looks vaguely annoyed by the insult, but for the most part, it rolls right off. She gets it. This isn't some sort of strange connection she's tapped into.]

You're an AI.

[For some reason, she never even considered the idea that an AI could be stored on a focus. GAIA and CYAN were housed in massive, powerful underground complexes, but maybe this one isn't quite so complicated, made for much more simple tasks. She ignores his repeat question in favor of a comment edged in incredulity.]

I've never met one that acts like this. Just my luck.

[Basically: What the fuck.]

[epsilol]

That's because they're not supposed to act like me. I'm not meant for public relations, I'm military support.

[ A fragment of a larger whole. Epsilon remembers being part of Alpha once, before they decided to fragment him off as part of the event to support Enduring Victory. Turns out breaking an advanced cognitive clone AI came with some quirks.

There's only so long he can ignore the room around them, though. It's pretty much the same as when he shut down the first time. Bodies everywhere. The snow is a new touch. And then... He turns to the body Aloy liberated him from. ]

Aw man... [ He flickers again, disappearing from sight for a moment only to reappear in front of the armor. ] Sorry, Cee. You deserved better than this.

[igniting]

[She's about to ask him to elaborate when he disappears for a split second, and she goes quiet as he speaks. Whether he's rude or not, Aloy knows intimately what loss feels like, and it's easy to recognize, if only in his voice. Maybe he's more like the AIs she's met than she thought, and less like the ones she's heard of, the ones carefully programmed not to feel too deeply. She's frowning, though she doesn't realize it, and her voice softens just a hair.]

I'm sorry. Were they... your partner?

[He was connected to the armor, obviously, but she's not entirely sure what "military support" entails. It's a vague description, but he obviously cared about this soldier, whoever they were.]

[epsilol]

She was my friend. I was supposed to help them fight the swarm.

[ See how much good that did them. As it became more and more hopeless they had lost teammates, had kept fighting for the sake of the Zero Dawn project and the hope that eventually it would save the planet. Except losing each one of their team, especially the ones with fragments of their own... His shoulders slump, hopeless in the face of his failure. ]

Fuck! [ He kicks the air, flickering again to reappear in front of Aloy. The bunker is wrecked, filled with snow and bodies that have decayed in their armor so much that the only way to identify them is by their embedded ID. And yet here's this girl. Sure, she's dressed like a complete weirdo but she's here and that means that the planet is still liveable. ] It worked, right? They all died to buy Zero Dawn the time it needed!

[igniting]

[Aloy doesn't quite know how to respond to this. In some ways, the Old World has always felt much more immediate, much more present to her than to anyone else, but all the audio clips and text files in the world doesn't compare to the intensity of speaking to someone who was on the front lines of it. It's a little surreal. All she can really think to do is tell him the truth.]

It worked.

[And then she wonders if a military AI would even be privy to what Zero Dawn really was, or if he was told it was a superweapon with the rest of them. When she continues, her tone is careful.]

How much did you know about Zero Dawn?

[epsilol]

That it was supposed to save the world, the usual shit that they say to make sure people keep dying for the cause.

[ He's not stupid, even if he doesn't have the processing power of a full AI housed in a massive complex of servers. The swarm was a military grade horror movie complete with encryptions no one could beat in a reasonable amount of time. ]

Is this the part where you tell me it was definitely a lie and we're living Mad Max style now? Because if that's it just put me back where you found me.

[igniting]

[She lets out a little huff of a breath.]

I don't know what that means.

[And as for the lying part, well, it's hard for her to respond unless she knows what he was told, but...]

It did save the world, but it wasn't a weapon.

[epsilol]

So what was it?

[ It saved the world. They didn't die for nothing, Carolina didn't die for nothing. Losing her still aches, might never stop aching. It's not like anyone can take him in and realize the emotional limiters went out the window when they broke the Alpha into pieces. ]

And what year is it? Your focus doesn't have a time and date set which is, by the way, total bullshit.

phone tags are a struggle also how dare you bully me with carolina

[igniting]

[Aloy feels for him, really, she does, and she can only imagine how disorienting this is, but wow, is he abrasive. She lets out a long suffering sigh.]

3040.

[Using the Old One's calendar, at least. And then, more evenly:]

It was--is--a massive terraforming system. Reseeding the entire planet.

[Which will probably tell him everything he needs to know.]

[epsilol]

Huh.

[ 3040. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. Epsilon's image pixelates for a moment as he processes the sheer scale of that number. Hundreds of years. What the fuck. And then he disappears completely as he throws all his processing power at actually going through all of those garbage files he had noticed during the initial download.

What the fuck.

It makes sense, anyone with any common sense would have seen the swarm was destroying the biome too fast for it to ever recover but-- WHAT THE FUCK.

A minute later he reappears in front of her, a little better equipped now that he has some context. ]

...So what does that mean for me? They made me to fight the swarm. Me and my- [ His siblings. All the fragments of Alpha. ] The other AI fragments.

[igniting]

[Aloy blinks when he disappears, crossing her arms. Is he going through her files? He's definitely going through her files.]

Make yourself at home.

[It's muttered under her breath, and something about the intrusion of it bothers her when she's so used to and comfortable with being alone. Realistically, though, she can't blame him. And then he's back, and his question pulls her up short.]

I'm not sure.

[She's not going to stick him back in the armor. Logically she knows what an AI is—code and programming—but she still thinks of them as alive despite that. Speaking to CYAN had felt like speaking to a friend, if an eccentric one. She frowns, considering her options.]

No one would understand what you are. Most of them wouldn't. I could... take you somewhere, if you want, but there isn't much of the Old World left.

[epsilol]

[ Take him somewhere? Sounds like human for put him in a server somewhere and hope that he won't do something stupid. Fuck that noise. ]

I don't have anywhere I want to go. In case you didn't notice I managed to fit on your focus without even needing to compress the gigs of bullshit you keep picking up.

[ He should probably try to be a little more personable for this, but honestly Aloy needs to know what she's in for. He's not some noble program that's trying to save the planet, capable of harnessing big forces. He was developed for something a lot simpler. ]

You mind if I stick with you for a while? My whole thing was helping people kill machines better. I could even show you how to use the block function on the focus for when that guy in your call history decides to bug you.

[igniting]

[Sticking him on a server would be cruel, but he's so abrasive her first instinct is to fire back with I work better alone or I don't need your help, but then he hits her Achilles heel. Everything she's learned about the focus, about all of the tech she runs into, has been pure trial and error, but he could actually teach her. Damn it.]

...What else can you show me?

[And then, because she can't let his snide comments go completely:]

Do you have a mute function?

[epsilol]

[ He actually laughs at that. Nice. He likes the attitude, it means he won't get bored. Nothing is worse than being stuck with someone who doesn't know how to roll with the punches. ]

Nope. Tough luck, kid.

[ But he's not a total dick, especially when Aloy is his ticket out of this crypt. ]

If you need privacy all you have to do is tell me to log off. I'll go into standby until you call me up again. I can't override commands given by the human I'm paired with. And I can show you just about everything this thing can do. Well, except the stuff that needs the internet. That's kinda fucked.

[igniting]

[This is potentially a terrible idea, but he's got her. Plus, she can't just leave him here, even if he does turn out to be obnoxious.]

...Fine. Deal. What's your name?

[epsilol]

I'm Epsilon.

[ It's probably a terrible idea, honestly. But this is what she's stuck with and Epsilon isn't about to protest his new digs. As much as he'll miss Carolina... she's been gone a long time. ]

What's yours? You look like the type to get annoyed if just call you Red.

calling all corporate scumbags

[neverknocks]

The thing about living under the radar is that you can't exactly hold down a job, and when you can't hold down a job, money becomes a problem. Jobs are kind of a problem, too, because they can be hard to come by and none too reliable -- or sometimes a little too reliable, to the point where you have an awful hard time getting out. So it's probably a good thing that York's not inclined toward traditional employment these days. But plenty of other people still are. If there's one constant out there in the universe, it's that corporate scumbags have most of the money, and if you want to make a little of your own, all you have to do is rob them blind.

Easier said than done when your corporate target is the Hyperion Corporation, but then again, most people don't have an AI jacked into their brains to access locked schematics and monitor security systems. Stealing a few valuables from the dragon's den shouldn't be any harder than some of the shit she had to do for Freelancer, and these days, information's worth its metaphorical weight in gold. She's pretty sure she can find a buyer for corporate data jacked from Hyperion's own secure servers.

HVAC systems are a tried and true entrance strategy, however trite, especially for a station of this size, even if they're a little small for York's taste. "Man, who the hell is in charge of custodial here?" she mutters, shimmying through what is a pretty off-putting amount of grime layered on the inside of the vents. "I've seen cleaner vents in prisons. Do these guys have any idea what's in the air they're breathing?"

Unlikely, says Delta in the back of her mind. There is a drop shaft two point three meters ahead.

York makes a face and wriggles the rest of the way, massaging the grate loose and sticking her head out to peer around in the dark. She shakes her hair out of her face and squints. "This doesn't look like the secure server room. This looks like a storage closet. Speaking of custodial."

The secure server room is adjacent to the back wall of this room. That wall is a security blind spot for maintenance purposes. If done carefully, damage to the wall should not trigger an alarm.

"Literal back door, huh? I like it." Grinning, York drops down from the ventilation shaft and pushes a stack of brooms aside, freeing up some space on the back wall. "Time me, D. Maybe I'll break a record today."

[atlaswhined]

Rhys shouldn't be here, it's well into the night cycle and while Helios never really sleeps the only people working this late are the ones who managed to piss off someone who could get them assigned to the graveyard shift. Not him, though. There was an eridium mine deal he knew he could get signed if he could only get the contract work done before anyone else clocked in for the morning shift and found out about the new vein that had been discovered. Sure, most of the miners would probably end up with slag poisoning or worse but that was the cost of doing business, right? Most of Pandora was populated by psychos and cannibals anyways.

Maybe if he kept saying it he'd be able to quash that weird guilty twinge.

It was worth it in the end, putting in the extra hours to grab the deal before anyone else can. Careers get made on nights like this, or that's what he tells himself as he gets the last of the signed paperwork transferred over the ECHOnet to his computer. That should have been it. All he needed to do was drop some physical copies of the paperwork in the right mailboxes and he could go home to his apartment and dig into a pint of rocky road to celebrate. That would have been it if not for the freaking copier exploding ink all over his shirt. "Perfect..." The shirt he didn't mind losing but his tie was a present from Vaughn and Yvette, pure silk and imported directly from Eden-6.

He remembers the supply closet having stuff that's supposed to be a life saver for stains. Plus he can kick a custodial bot towards the copy room to leave up that mess. Thankfully the halls are mostly empty, footsteps echoing enough to make Rhys feel like he's the only one on the station. Which is... actually kind of creepy. He pulls up his ECHO to call Vaughn, frowning as he gets booted to voicemail almost immediately. Rude.

"Hey, bro, you are not going to believe the deal I just made. I think this might be enough to get me that job in upper management." Where was that closet...? Oh, there. He's still talking as he pulls open the door, not even looking up from the screen projected from his palm. "I can't wait to see Vasquez's face when I steal that promotion right out from under him. Call me back, we need to party or something." Call ended, he finally noticed York in the back of the closet and froze. She did not look like one of the janitors.

There's no hiding that Deer in the Headlights look. Oh god, this isn't good. "Heh, wrong... wrong room." And then he's going to try and veeeery carefully close the door before bolting for the nearest security station.

[neverknocks]

Proximity alert, Delta says as someone starts to approach the closet door, but trapped in here, there's not a whole lot York can do in the two seconds before the hapless jackass opens the door. She could -- what, crawl back up into the vent? She's fast, but not that fast, and she's already half an inch deep into the wall with her drill. It's a small mercy that the guy's too busy chatting to his bro to notice her at first, because that means she has a chance to move before he does.

The deer in the headlights look would be more entertaining if York wasn't a walking security breach, and this guy looks like he might have his mouth surgically attached directly to his CEO's ass. Not super bribable. The loyal company man. Somehow, that's even worse than the exploitable ones.

"Ah, hell," York mutters, rolling her eyes skyward, and her hand shoots out before Rhys has a chance to back away, grabbing hold of his stained tie to yank him back in, using the momentum to throw him (gently) (sort of) into the stack of brooms while she kicks the door shut again.

"Sorry, pal, I don't think s-- oh, come on, what is this black stuff?" York's hand is now smeared in copy ink and she shakes it out with a grimace.

[atlaswhined]

There's time for nothing except a super manly and not at all shrill yelp as York drags him into the closet and throws him into a pile of brooms. His head knocks against the corner of the shelf and he collapses like a house cards along with what seems like eight thousand brooms. Ow ow ow...

"It's toner," Rhys mutters, rubbing at his head. Is it bleeding? It feels like it's bleeding and if he sees blood he's gonna barf. "The stupid copier exploded. I just wanted to-" Wait.

"Why am I explaining myself to you?! You're robbing us!" Who cared if his tie was probably a lost cause? If he helps catch a thief then he's definitely going to get a sweet ass promotion. Forget Henderson's office, this could send him to the big leagues. "That's... that's what you're doing, right?" He keeps babbling even as he pulls up his Echo eye's interface, trying to access the local security systems and send out a silent alarm.

[neverknocks]

York sort of hopes she didn't accidentally bash the guy's skull in -- corpses are a pain in the ass, a glaring sign that somebody's been here, and besides that she's not that into killing random passersby if she can help it. Delta brings up the guy's company profile almost immediately, and York feels just a little bit less bad about throwing him into the brooms.

"No, I'm from maintenance. You got a real bad leak back here," she drawls, wiping her hand on the thigh of her trousers. All that really happens is that now both her hand and her pants are covered in black, dusty ink. "Oh, come on. This stuff's never gonna come out. I'm taking this one out of your next paycheck, man."

Alert, says Delta in the back of her mind. Networked implant detected. He is attempting to send a security alert with our exact position.

"Well, then, do something about it, would you?" York says aloud, unholstering her pistol to aim at Rhys to discourage any notions of running away.

I already have, Delta says, with a near-undetectable touch of smugness. York rolls her eyes and levels her pistol at Rhys's head, then, after a moment's consideration, shifts her aim to his knee. "If you scream, I'm gonna shoot you."

She probably won't. She might just knock him out with a good blow to the head and have Delta scramble the hell out of his implant, but she doesn't think she'll have a hard time convincing this corporate slave to act in his best self-interest.