promuseboxing | Open Gen Post

[Aloy rolls her eyes, then begins to ease her way down the cliff she had to climb up. She's a big girl, Epsilon! Use your words!]

I've never heard anyone describe sex as disgusting.

That's because humans are drowning in hormones that make sex sound like a good idea. All the fluids? Gross.

[ The human body is a mess. He analyzes the cliff as she starts her descent. ]

Go for the ledge to your right. The one on the left is unstable. And like a bad start to this whole partnership if you fall and break your legs in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

Ugh.

[Does he have to say fluids? Gross. And the suggestion is a little unexpected, so Aloy hesitates for a second before doing as he says and dropping down. That ledge is a bit wider, anyway, which means she can shimmy her way to a different set of handholds rather than hanging from it.]

Was every AI made for military support like you?

You mean we're they all as charming as me? No. They weren't. Military AI were supposed to all be dumb programs, no higher cognitive skills.

[ Every so often he suggests a slight alteration to her path, pointing out weak spots in the rocks that should be avoided. ]

They started cutting corners when the Swarm happened. I'm technically a fragmented AI, that's why I can ride along in your focus.

[And she follows his instructions. She gets to level ground much faster than she expected, she has to admit.]

Fragments. You mentioned that before. How do you fragment an AI?

[Unless he was the subordinate function of another AI, like Gaia, but that doesn't seem to be what he's saying.]

...the same way you break a person. You hurt it. If it wasn't for the fact that the world was ending the military never would have approved it. They needed support for troops and dummy AIs weren't creative enough.

He doesn't sound thrilled about it, even as he justifies what they did. It was war, people did fucked up shit during wars. ]

I used to be part of an AI called Alpha. He was... special. They created him from brain scans of our project's leader.

[Aloy stops, processing that.]

I guess using a scan would be easier than building one from scratch.

[Still, it's not something she ever considered. She's not sure how she feels about it.]

There weren't... rules against that? Against fragmenting?

Oh, it was super fucking illegal. If it wasn't the end of the world the Director never would have gotten away with it. If Enduring Victory had worked he would have been charged as a war criminal.

[ Because smart AIs were a valuable resource, and more than that they were thinking, emotional beings and torturing them was unethical. ]

I was the last piece of Alpha. All the other fragments were in the field when I was cleared for service.

So they tortured you. That's...

[She trails off, shaking her head in disgust. It's unthinkable.]

They tortured Alpha. I'm just a byproduct.

[ Epsilon appears again just to shrug. He repressed the memories of the torture, picked at his own code until he could function properly again. ]

It was war, people do shitty things when they think it's justified.

Yes, they do, and that's what got us here in the first place.

[#TedFaroSucks]

[ Epsilon hums a few bars from a song that's been forgotten for hundreds add years now. Something about war and what it's even good for. ]

So, are you always this cheerful?

Do you want me to be more cheerful while we're talking about something like this?

[Does she sound just a tiny bit defensive? Definitely not.]

Uh-huh. You weren't exactly all smiles before we talked about AI torture. Come on, you can't have a stick up your ass all the time.

I don't.

[Rude, Epsilon.]

You just haven't said anything worth laughing at.

How am I supposed to know what you'd find funny?

[ You'll learn to love his rudeness. Probably. ]

Do you even know any jokes?

[Aloy considers that as she heads out of the cleft in the mountains the ruins are in, towards the nearest road. This place probably looks utterly barren to Epsilon.]

What sort of jokes are you used to?

Usually dark shit, but then again I was working with soldiers who knew they were gonna die sooner rather than later.

[ As they make their way across the landscape Epsilon catalogs the environment around and uses the data from the focus to supplement what he's seeing. A whole new world, huh? Weird. Still remnants from the old world poking up through the surface but the meaning is mostly lost. ]

You probably wouldn't like it. Gallows humor doesn't seem like your jam.

[Aloy doesn't respond immediately as she adjusts her focus on her ear. It's hard to know what to say, so she finally gives in to curiosity.]

What was it like? Before the swarm?

I didn't really exist before the swarm. But everything I learned said even if it wasn't perfect, there were people trying to do something good. People usually do when they aren't being shit awful to each other.

[ Don't tell him about the Mad Sun King yet, Aloy. Let him have a little hope that the future is doing a little better on the shit awful behavior. ]

[She's not sure what answer she was looking for, but what he gives her is almost comforting, in an odd way.]

That's still true. Mostly.

Sounds about right for humanity. There's always an asshole somewhere who wants to ruin shit for everyone else.

[ #fucktedfaro ]

One? That would feel like a break. At least no one's managed to best Faro yet.

And you jinxed it, thanks. I get pulled out stasis and now someone is going to go restart the apocalyp-

[ There was a whole bit he was planning, lots of snark. Except his passive scanning of everything around them finally pinged movement. ]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

[ That was a fucking giant fucking robot... tiger? What the actual fuck! The future is fucking ridiculous!! ]

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