AI: Apocalyptic Intelligence (Nivansrywyllian, Windsong)

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Mario was about to retort with a snappish, defensive denial of his sulkiness. He stopped himself short however, reining his temper in. He was sulking. That just darkened his mood. And now he was a depressed computer. Kicking himself for wallowing in self-pity, he spoke again, quietly. His emotional ball was still shrouded, however.

"The kitchen isn't the only place we have food. There's a storage room along the north wall where food was stockpiled in case the laboratory needed to hold against a sustained assault. Mostly dry goods. There might be some MRE's in stock, even."
 
"Stop that." She scolded, feeling the tendrils of his mind drift around at the fringes of her consciousness, it was disconcerting. That feeling of the little ball of his unique emotional traits was there, that she was plainly aware of, it was her own that she couldn't feel unless she thought about it.

Her pack was only half-full when he popped that idea to her, glancing up with a beaming grin. "Oh that sounds like it'll be better. How do we get there?" Eleanor quipped, looking to the fridge from earlier, if her imagination wasn't playing tricks on her she'd sweat it was wiggling a bit. Of course looking at it for more than a few seconds made it blatantly clear it was still as stone.
 
Obediently, Mario removed the shroud, revealing the complicated ball of emotions that was the only real proof that he was indeed more than a computer.

Mario was silent for a moment, as he rummaged around his own memory. The silence stretched uncomfortably, until a little two-dimensional schematic appeared in the lower left portion of the HUD. A little yellow dot, with a triangle on top was within one of the boxes. "I found a way to display a map on your heads-up display. The storage space is here."

One of the rooms on the map blinked golden, as well, along with the hallways connecting it to the current position displayed. "This should get you there. I'll see about getting one of the sentries to sterilize the refrigerators when we adjust them."
 
She winced a bit at the release. Like a cold ball had bumped into her brain then melted away like mercury or something equally shiny, as she imagined most computers to be.

While the silence continued she stood in the fun hallway, her light casting it's come where her head moved. The way it made shadows move and flicker bothered her, yet knowing the drones roamed made her feel better, nothing else could be in here without the pair knowing.


"Oh hello." She mused as her display lit up for directions. "Wish it would always be this easy." Soon she was following the path, surprised at how clean things remained despite its apparent age. "Do you think we could spruce this place up and get it running with some time and hard work?"

It was strange feeling him there at the edge if her mind, like two separate balls that weren't quite touching but occasionally bumped or confirmed to accommodate the other. This time she tried to gingerly poke his, in her minds eye as herself poking a curled person, unidentified but still human.
 
"I couldn't do it on my own. I have no hands. I'll need your help, if that's what you want to do. We can begin with the reprogramming and repair of the sentry drones. Once repair and access them directly, I'll be able to issue them instructions remotely, which will make the upkeep that you and I have to do personally a considerably smaller task."

The tension that Mario was carrying in his little tangle of emotions began to dissipate.

Quietly, Mario made an inquisitive noise as he felt awareness brush at his... Self.

"Yes? What do you need?"
 
As much as she wanted to make a sarcastic remark to his objectively better and mechanic way of thinking she had to hold it back. He seemed far more sensitive than she'd have assumed a computer, no, a single mind could be.

Again she reached out in her one way, the poke of mental fingers turning into a gentle nudge with the same appendage. It was all so surreal as her mind tried to make sense of it, while her body remained still in the doorway, partially oblivious to a roaming sentry that paused for a brief examination before moving on.

It was only natural to try and personify things that could relate to the human condition. Like thinking a pet has different feelings, though surely he'd be offended if she called him her pet. "What're you thinking about?" Her eyes moved as her mouth spoke, though it was a whisper compared to how loud she was in that rift of space between mechanical and organic mind.
 
He felt the prod return, and he prodded back. With his... Well, he didn't exactly know what he prodded with. He didn't have any appendages to speak of. His will, he supposed would work.

"I am thinking about many things. The ways the building needs to be secured and sanitized for living, a way to acquire an outside source of food, what I will need to be able to scavenge parts to improve the Hexus, whether or not enough technology remains to get us offworld." Certainly, there were pieces of Mario that seemed mechanical, more function than emotion. That seemed to be the exception rather than the rule, however.

"Why do you ask?"
 
There he went again, not a moment after she felt the cold mechanical prod back he was speaking to her through the speakers. At least his voice was smooth and not crackly or digital sounding. After he had finished his list she poked again, this time imagining it as more of a bump of her shoulder to someone. Escalating the contact to see his it worked.

"Just wanted to know, that's all. You can probably think on something a lot better than I can. Being a com-- um..
Not a human brain and all." It was hard not to think of him as a computer. That was for sure. Once more she attempted the nudge, nothing hard, as one might do to a person beside them for brief attention.
 
This time, Mario didn't return the prod. His tangle of emotions grew tense. It didn't take much of a leap to imagine what the woman had been going to say. Even so, she'd made an attempt to change. Gratitude leaked into the bubble, but it was beginning to be overtaken by annoyance.

"There is no better or worse. There is just thinking. If you keep an open mind, you'll be able to come up with ideas as easily as I do. The only difference, is that I have spare processing power which allows me to contemplate several different subjects simultaneously without getting derailed. And why do you keep poking me?!"
 
It felt like his bubble beside her mind had grown a suddenly hard shell, she withdrew slightly, mental fingers curling closed as they'd been reaching for it once more. "You also don't have to breathe or remember to eat, or walk and make sure you take care of yourself.." Eleanor stated it all quietly, not wanting to further harden his shell.

Not until a few moments after he snapped she'd slipped up a bit, only aiming to speak a little bit and vaguely on the subject before the flood gates seemed to burst. "I haven't gotten to touch anyone or be touched in six fuckin' months! Jus' a bit lonely's al--" Just as rapidly as she'd begun her outburst she went silent, a hand raised to cover her mouth, though the face plate was in her way. Immediately she was solemn once more, beginning to follow his directed path down the hall at a brisk pace, the motor function and concentration on walking was obvious to keep her mind occupied.
 
Mario was baffled. Confusion and frustration radiated from the bubble of his emotions.

"I require energy to function, just the same as you do. If my power supply runs out, I die. I have been sitting in this lab for fifty years, because I have no body to speak of. No hands. No feet." The AI's tone was soft, rather than abrasive. "Before you came, the sentries scared away, locked out, or killed anything that tried to enter the laboratory."

"For a long, long time, all I could do was wait, and monitor my dwindling power supply. I couldn't leave my hard drive to go do maintenance on the solar panels, which only barely trickle power into the facility now. I could not appropriate a sentry remotely. I couldn't convince one of them to so much as enter the lab, to appropriate a temporary body."

"Maybe I'm not a human, but humans made me. I can hurt. I can hope. I can imagine. I have ideas, and dreams. Nightmares, sometimes."

He trailed off, not exactly sure where he was going with his quiet monologue.
 
She paused to look at the map as he spoke, though she seemed absent minded she was listening in. He'd had to face his own brand of loneliness and fear of death, though his was likely to be quiet as the last of any batteries lost their charge and systems began to power down bit by bit, unable to stay running. It took her only a moment to think somewhat on his terms, while he didn't have a single body, he had a large group of them he had to deal with. Perhaps they were not so different.

"Guess that makes you a child of man then, hm?" Her tone had lost all anger or frustration, surprisingly calm and gentle despite her previous outburst. As much as she could use a huge she knew one wouldn't come, the only comfort she could find was either from herself or the voice in her head. Both of which sounded incredibly silly in their own way.

His mention of dreams and nightmares seemed odd to her, she'd heard of old AI's having phantom memories, corruptions in their files that lead to them being misread or taken different then their original intention. Though that was in later stage and early forms of AI if the history books were correct. "What do you dream about, Mario? Do you dream of electric sheep?" THe last bit was from a book she read as a child, though far beyond her comprehending at the time.
 
He made himself relax, as much as an AI could. Again, the bubble of emotion was bare and pulsing with Mario's sundry emotions. The awareness that was Elly however looked different. Vulnerable.

"Sometimes I dream that I have a body. That I have eyes that can move where it pleases me to move them, and that when I move them down, I see hands. And feet. Sometimes I dream that the bombardment never came, and that my creator still remains. That he is working on another AI. A sister, for me. Sometimes she has a face, and it's beautiful. Sometimes I dream of things that I've only heard of. Elephants, from Earth, with their long trunks, and wrinkled skin. Blimps, bulbous and slow, and aerial despite all of it."

"I suppose that my dreams must be pretty plain. I enjoy them, when I have them."
 
She continued to listen while she walked, nearing their destination before long. The door slid open slowly, much slower than she'd have expected. Perhaps this part of the building was losing power just like he had mentioned?

"Not plain I guess, they suit what you want. They say dreams are windows to the soul.. Or was it the eyes.. I don't remember which." A hasty shrug followed, squeezing through the still opening doors and shining her torch wherever she pleased, following her head as it moved to and fro. Storage crates upon storage crates littered the room, most still sealed and dated for years ago. "When do you dream? When you go idle or on standby? Power save mode?" They seemed obvious answers to her, but she was enjoying the conversation of course.

Every so often in her mind she'd prod him once more, little more than nudges. Sometimes she'd sweat she felt it somewhere on her body, other times believing it to be the suit moving around her as she moved within it.
 
"Well, I don't need sleep exactly. Not functionally, that is. Sometimes though, thinking is so... Exhausting. I think so long sometimes that I just... Stop being conscious. And then I dream."

In response to the prods, Mario let out an internal sigh. The knot of emotions belonging to Elly still felt vulnerable. Slowly, he extended his consciousness towards the knot. And then softly, slowly, he enveloped with himself. He tried to project the sensation of comfort.

"Which reminds me, I've been up for quite some time now. Will you be okay if I rest for a while?"
 
"That makes sense.." It really didn't to her, but she was afraid he'd make her look stupid if she asked for more details about it. Maybe another time when she was a bit more comfortable with him being in her mind, despite already being there.

Steadily she was lifting open a crate when she felt an odd warming sensation spread out, at first thinking he'd raised the suits temperature again, a quick glance told her it was still how he'd left it. Soon it was obvious that it wasn't physical. A moment later she was swooning with blood flushing her pale cheeks, she had to sit down against the box with a soft, almost as if she were high, giggle.

"Mmhmm.. Go ahead.. 'Fore ya' do. Can I take off the suit somehow if I gotta take a leak..? Or eat?"
 
"Yeah," He said. His mind was growing fuzzy. "The button under the chestplate will retract the material. The harness comes off the same way it went on. If you're going to leave the suit anywhere, take the helmet with you. Remember that the sentries will be hostile if I leave your possession. Perhaps one flaw of the suit's function is the time required to equip and unequip it as a whole. There were some agents who forewent the undersuit, to keep bathroom-breaks brief and convenient, and... And I think I need to sleep now."

Mario's emotions seemed to dim, drawing in on themselves. "Remember to take me with you," He said, as a final warning.

And then he was asleep.

(Feel free to jump forward in time. If you don't have an idea of where to go, PM me and we can talk it out. : ))
 
She was already pulling the helmet off after wishing him a good rest, making sure the door had closed behind her to keep any roaming sentries out or from being nosey. The helmet she set nearby as she peeled off the suit in one piece, at least the helmet came off easily after equalizing the pressure of the room, stale and dry, but cleaner than outside.

As she took off the last pieces and was left in the under-suit with bare feet she was briefly aware of how naked she felt without it. It didn't help that she needed to take off the rest of the under-suit just to take a piss somewhere, luckily a single room held what she wanted, even if the water barely managed to empty it. Eleanor came back out and looked at the helmet, it wasn't his face so it didn't bother her as much as before. She was quite sure though that the head lamp was dimming and brightening in tune with some unknown rhythm he'd figure out.

For a time she left the under-suit undone from her waist up, enjoying the brief freedom as she sorted boxes for the next hour or so.
 
Mario slept for a time, if AI could indeed be said to sleep. He dreamed of Eleanor, which was no surprise. She was the only change he'd had in a long, long while. The dream was pleasant, and in it, he'd had a body again, and she'd asked him to hug her. He had, and it was pleasant.

He didn't sleep long however. He didn't need as much rest as humans. When he awoke, the knot of emotions that was Elly was absent from his self. He was surprised to find that he missed it, despite his brief exposure to the partnership.

"Elly?" Came the helmet's external microphone. He hoped she hadn't wandered far. He checked the HUD viewscreen curiously, searching for sign of his partner.
 
Eleanor had begun to doze after managing to eat three of the military rations, the empty pouches with their plastic dinnerware sat next to her. Her stomach full, bladder empty, and having found a knapsack with some musty clothes in it to use as a makeshift bed. Though still topless it mattered little, it was nice to get some air on her skin once in a while, and the chances of another living being was so minuscule it hardly seemed a problem to worry.

The familiar voice tugged at her sleeping mind, though she wasn't dreaming she didn't want to wake up. After a time she lifted her head with a grunt, hair a mess as she lifted it from her eyes. "Yeah?" Was asked lazily as she looked at the helmet on the box across from her, sitting up with bleary eyes as the hamster began spinning the wheel.

"What is it, Mario..?"
 
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