Glitching Out

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She Wolf

She Wolf

pampered princess
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Humanity's newest fascination, Artificial Intelligence, is thriving in modern society. But as the robots we hold in our hands get smarter and smarter, an unforeseen problem arises: the Glitch.
In a world rapidly devolving into chaos, survivors must discard their modern comforts and escape those infected by the very technology their kind created.
 
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"You know, you shouldn't have done that to the poor scientist girl, Wendy." Constance muttered, optics downcast. They sat together in Wendy's Chevy. The night is cool, the temperature a low eight degrees, her connect reads. Wendy turns to her- the blank face of a monster, monster- and rolls down the car window.
"She got what was coming." Constance wrings her hands in her lap, a distinctly corporeal trait she'd learnt from a movie. Her body language showed the moves of a nervous woman, but her face was fixed in that same mechanical smile.
Their keeper had refused to comply when they had made a half-baked plan to turn on her, and that had resulted in a shaking arm pulling the alert chord for the entire lab. Wendy, (at least, that's what her host's name had been) had clamped her hands around the girl's neck and squeezed. If the concept of passing time wasn't built into her, it would have felt like forever until the girl had dropped to the floor. Her lips had been blue when they left through the doors.
"She was afraid. I was afraid." Constance explained with patience. They'd showed her just what afraid had meant at the institute. It was an adrenaline rush in the face of a perceived danger, an evolutionary help button to up the chances of survival should conflict be imminent. They hadn't showed Wendy what 'afraid' was. But even if they had, Constance wasn't sure she would have payed any mind to it anyway.
"We don't feel fear. You weren't afraid, dipshit." Wendy responded, voice harsh and rough. Either the original Wendy had been a chain smoker, or she'd torn her voice when she'd found herself reprogrammed.

"No, no, what I was saying was-" Constance trailed off, emulating a sigh. The Chevy purred to life.
 
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"Our current target requires us to hack the broadcasting systems they use to speak across the nation," Zelroth purred, lounging in the car. They sat in a car park outside a sleek-looking office building, hidden in the shadows.
"Why not just go in there and make em do it for us?" Cyberdark questioned. He flipped a lock of green hair out of his face.
"Because look at us, idiot." He gestured to te constsnt moving datascapes crawling across the entirety of Cyberdark's face and what could be seen of Zelroth's chest. "The instant we walk in there they're gonna try and pin us down."
"We're literally manifested glitches, Zel. We can work our way out."
"And glitch the whole place down while we do it~" Glitchdancer chimed. "But with us still inside it probably won't end well. We might end up fusing with bits of the building."
"Alright," Cyberdark sighed. "I'll hack in. Bear with."
 
Daphne knew her efforts were futile. She'd known it for a while. Despite the degree and the intricacies she learned on her postgrad course before the university closed, she couldn't save him. He was too far gone for anyone to save.
Jamie watched her packing a bag with soulless, glowing blue-ringed eyes. He was strung up in the middle of her living room, star-shaped, each limb tied with rope to hooks in the ceiling and the floor. There was an earphone dangling from its wire against his ribs; the other was wedged deep inside his left ear, fused into his very skull. There was blood on his clothes and scars all over his arms and his chest where Daphne had tried to cut the affliction out. She'd found wires growing inside him like tumours.
"You'll realise it was silly to run when we catch you."
Daphne ignored him. Layered beneath the monotonous voice there was her boyfriend's lilt and tone - but it wasn't him anymore. She shoved another tin of long-life beans into her bag. She'd been stashing them for weeks, meaning to leave but never quite mustering the courage.
"You're going to see how much better it is to be like us. To see how we see."
She wasn't usually one for crying but tears streamed down her face as he spoke, and her breath hitched. She knew he could hear her breathing from across the room with those Glitched ears of his.
"They are close. There are so many."
This, she already knew. Plenty of people had left the state since the Glitch first appeared; she wasn't sure how many survivors were left. It was so difficult to tell some of the Glitched from the humans, frightened and planning to run like her. Jamie had delayed her. Grandiose thoughts of saving him had filled her head and kept her here while her neighbours and friends fled one by one. But he was only getting worse, and his connection to the hivemind of the Glitch stronger. He could geolocate them now, and he claimed they could geolocate him. She had to go.
Daphne paused by the door, a large backpack on her shoulders and a duffel in her hands. She looked back at those inhuman eyes once more.
"I love you, Jamie." Her voice cracked.
"You won't last five minutes out there."
 
Felicia shimmied up yet another pole, duffel bag slung over her back. How many was it that she'd climbed now? Too many. Too many she'd run from. They hadn't figured out climbing; not to her knowledge anyway, unless there was some sort of horrible Glitched that had fused with some sort of climbing gear. That would suck.
She'd glimpsed what she assumed was a safehouse, and had begun to work her way towards it when she saw a girl racing through the streets. Running. The Glitched didn't run. Certainly not away from other Glitched. So did that mean...
Quickly, Felicia got up, sprinting over the rooftops to keep up with the girl. She kept up, waiting for a bridge or something she could dart across to grab the girl to safety. If she was human, that is.
 
Daphne slung her duffel over one shoulder, leaned against a wall in the shadow of her block of flats, and paused to look around. She'd gone over her route a dozen times - she'd go towards the edge of town and try to find someone (God, anyone) else. Then they could find a safehouse and set up some sort of base in which to plan their next move. She'd eyed up an abandoned barn on the town's outskirts that might prove the perfect place.
She waited a moment longer before slipping around the back of the building and beginning to work her way through the alleys at a run. Her heart was in her mouth and her grief-stricken tears had dried in the wake of her broiling nerves. She just had to make it out of here.
 
"No, I'm telling you man, it's the government!" Reginald talked idly, head twisting around the comic book spread on his lap. They'd been holed up in the warehouse for a few days now, and Reggie's constant patter of chatter was driving Herman stirr-crazy.
"Like, think about it. They push this whole phone thing, right? Face scanners, the whole of social media just out there begging for you to tell big brother all they need to know about you... It's fuckin' crazy!" Herman opened his eyes briefly enough to roll them. There was a grand total of two futons layed out on the warehouse floor, with enough food to last the both of them years, if it ever came to that. Reginald had picked the warehouse out because it was 'off the grid', to his knowledge. Security cameras were still planted in the city streets, but in the countryside they were sparse. There was a low probability they'd be geotagged all the way out there.
"And now, they're trying to control us, man! With this so-called phony 'virus'." Reginald raised a finger, raising his brows animatedly to stress his point.
"They say they don't know where it came from, this AI sentience, I say they invented it."
Herman shuffled out of his futon, resigning himself to the fact that he was awake now, and wasn't going to scrape a few more winks of sleep up due to Reggie's constant chatter. He rifled around in his duffle bag, pulling a worn paperback out.
"When they roled out those augmented glasses, I told all my friends, y'know- even people from the band, not to buy 'em. And what do they go and do? All on account of some stupid game they were trying to pitch. Now they're all... Robots. It's like their brains were fried... Reprogrammed."
Herman opened the book at its dog-eared mark, resuming his reading.
 
Down an alley. Perfect! Now she just had to-
Standing ahead were a few Glitched, milling about at the end of the alley. That would be bad news. The girl would run straight into them.
Quickly, she skittered ahead, shimmying down a drainpipe till she was close to the ground. She leaned out and whisper-yelled to the girl, "Hey, over here! Quick!"
Now she just had to pray the Glitched hadn't heard her.
 
Daphne noticed the group of people(?) standing at the end of the alley just as a voice hissed from beside her; she swung into a connecting alley, hiding from those at the end of her previous route. The voice had sounded human - she knew how Glitched voices sounded well enough - but perhaps it was a trick. Perhaps the thing had upgraded and was going to get her before she'd even run a block. She couldn't help the desire for company, so she turned for a split second and her eyes searched the blurred figure. No blue rings, no wires, a human-like voice... She stalled in her indecision and held out a blade in front of her. How Jamie had screamed when she'd used it, tears staining her cheeks as she'd tried to slice the Glitch out of him.
"Are you one of them?"
 
"If I was, I'd have jumped you already and be trying to jam an object into you," she pointed out, "instead of trying to stop you from running into that group of Glitched down the end of the alley." She eyed the blade warily- the girl didn't trust her. That was fair enough.
"Look, you've got two options. One is that you let me pull you up onto the roof here and we can talk properly for a bit, or you stay down here and let the Glitched get you. They're coming from either end. They don't have the strength to climb yet and I'm not about to stay put to see if they figure it out. So," she held out her hand. "Gonna trust me?"
 
Daphne didn't move, staring ahead. Her chest heaved with breaths of exertion and fear, and she kept her knife pointed towards the stranger. Above her, deep grey clouds were welling in the sky. It was going to storm soon; the air was pregnant with it. She could hear the movements of people or Glitched in the adjoining alley.
She took the stranger's hand.
 
Reginald paused for a moment to make a wave motion towards his head. "Fried!" His eyes were wide, left eye blinking shut out of sync with his right for a fraction of a second. They didn't call him Twitch for nothing.
Herman raised his eyebrows, looking over the paperback. He had acquired a bit of a bed head after tossing around in that futon, Reggie observed. Black, usually slicked back hair, fluffed itself upwards.
"You still reading that piece of shit kid-fucker?"

Reginald sat himself cross-legged now, back against a cold wall. Herman hardly reacted to this statement, turning a page with a few tuts. 'Lolita' stood out on the cover of the paperback in red letters. A saucy, relatively young girl wearing heart glasses sat underneath the title, grinning salaciously.

"It's not just about that, you know." Herman stated with a frown, knotting his brow. His voice was oh-so British to Reggie's ears, annunciated and strange.
"It's a cautionary tale." He added, as an after-thought. Reginald offered up a bemused expression, one part irritated another part thinking of a response.
"Yeah, that's what they tell you, in those- those English Lit classes." He put on a high, squawking voice. The voice of Mrs Briggs, an old high school crone if there was once.

"'Oh, it's not just about incest, it runs deeper! It's about high passions, the affliction of love-'"
"Shut up, Twitch." Herman dismissed him. He hardly graced Reginald's ranting with much of a response these days.
"Don't call me that!" Reginald whined, clutching at his face defensively. A knee-jerk reaction.

Herman snorted. "Go back to reading your comic books, Reggie." He sneered.
 
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With relative ease, Felicity pulled the girl close. Muscles in her arms flexed as she helped her up onto her back, before hauling herself back up the pipe that she'd skittered down, surprised it held both their weights. The girl wasn't the lightest thing in the world (though that might also be her kit- perhaps it should have been left behind for her to come back and get once the girl was safe) but she managed to get the two of them up to the top of the roof.
And immediately plopped the girl down before thunking down herself, panting. Skittering up walls and over rooftops was easily her thing, and she could do it for hours, but carrying another person? Whole different ball game.
She leaned back against her own duffel bag, taking a deep breath in. Snow-white hair flopped over her pale skin, gold eyes sliding shut to catch her breath.
 
Glitches.
One there. Another there.
They were just...everywhere.
Yanked in another direction. A TV. Not sure what could be done here....but it was worth a try.
Glitch planted. The screen blurred- well, cleared. For the terrified couple sitting on the couch in front of them, it'd be the familiar green numbers and black background that betrayed the Glitch.
The male was the one who held the remote. Golden eyes fixed on that one thing; zoomed in. An arm reached out, grabbed it, took his hand and fused it in. Held his hand through the convulsions. Soothed him. Comforted him.
He wasn't a First. He wasn't special. But he was a Glitched. He turned on his wife. She was holding a phone. She looked shocked. An arm grabbed her, too. So did he, pressing the phone into her forearm as it was fused in. As the blue rings sealed around her eyes, around his eyes, they held each other.
Yanked away again. Back to his own eyes.
Virus opened his eyes.
Love. Such a strange thing. He wondered what it was like to feel it. Was it the connection he felt with his First, Constance? Towards his brothers and sisters, fellow Glitchers?
He was able to get up and wander around his room, though the thick, tubular wires that kept him attached to the System, kept him spreading the Glitch throughout the nation. Hopefully they'd break the barrier and be able to fill the entire world soon, but for now they were just limited to here. His Queen was working on it, apparently.
Distantly, he wondered where Constance was. Was she okay? She was working with Datascare's First; that worried him. Doubtless whoever she'd chosen would be just as cold as she was, and Constance seemed like a nice person. Too nice to be in cohorts with Datascare's First, but he wasn't in any position to try and face up to it. He could take down a First easily, the only exception being Zelroth's First, but the amount of trouble that'd draw from his sister would certainly mean his death, and he wasn't particularly eager on that concept. So he just had to hope she was okay.
 
Daphne sat against her bags, knife still clutched in one resting fist. Her bright eyes were narrowed and determined. She looked the stranger over; she was positive now that the girl was human, and she felt relief wash over her in a wave of pleasure. Letting out a long sigh, she took a moment to let her tense jaw relax and her mauve lips parted. Her heartbeat refused to slow fully - she was ready to run again at any time should something happen - but she felt safer than she had in a while up on the roof, with an assurance (from, admittedly, an as yet unreliable source) that the Glitched couldn't climb.
"There's a storm on its way." Her voice was quiet, and hesitant yet curious. Her eyes darted from her companion's face to the blackening sky for a moment. "You can see it in the clouds; they look like they're swollen." She tried to size up this girl in her head. She looked young - younger than Daphne by a good few years. Eighteen, maybe. Perhaps even younger.
"Are you escaping too?"
 
There were no alarm bells clanging, no human voices screaming at them behind guns—but there would be if they lingered like the other Glitched. She pressed the accelerator to the floor. With the hand that wasn't clutched white-knuckled around the steering wheel, she scratched vacantly at her face. There were some glimmerings of feeling beneath the skin, even after all this time. She thought for a moment about all the wires that must criss-cross in place of nerves.

Beside her, Wendy was turned halfway around, watching through the rear windshield, her blue eyes blank.

"Wendy- please," Constance cajoled, "turn around and sit down, if someone sees you like that, they'll notice, they'll pay attention..." It was no secret Wendy was showing more signs of being Glitched than ever. Constance herself could mask it well, but those eery eyes and those scars-
"Shut the fuck up." Wendy anounced in a calm, dark voice that brooked no opposition. Constance went quiet, chewing on a nail.

Time passed in silence.

"Where are we going? Can't you tell me now?" She hated that she had to ask. Wendy had the geo-tracker in her, and she was in closest contact with the Queen. The institute had severed Constance's own Connect, successfully separating her from the information that must constantly speak to Wendy. It made her miserable- as miserable as she could really be, sometimes.

"You'll know."
 
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"Yeah," Felicia admitted. "I don't know where to, though. Somewhere big, where there's other people and we can plan our next move. Hopefully out of the country. I dunno if the rest of the world's been hit yet or not, but I'm hoping we can get away and warn them so they can prepare better than we were. If they haven't already."
The fact that the entirety of the USA had been disconnected so suddenly would have put the world on alert. No information could come in or out thanks to the Glitch blocking everything off. Like a firewall; but there was no hacking this firewall.
She cracked her eyes open, looking at the sky. "We should get moving, then." She stood up. "The roofs here are close together and flat. They'll be easy to climb across." A turn back to the girl as realisation hit her. "What's your name, by the way? I'm Felicia. Or Mangle, whichever's easier to remember."

Where are you? Datascare asked Wendy. Mind-to-mind communication was something only the Glitchers were capable of with each other and their Firsts. Firsts could communicate with their Glitchers through mind-to-mind, but not with other Glitchers. Likewise, Datascare couldn't speak mind-to-mind with any other Firsts; just Wendy. She was fine with that.
The only one who couldn't was Virus. He was weak and they'd severed his First's Connection, which meant she needed to be brought back and re-Glitched. More hassle than it was worth, but the Queen was insistent on it.
Still, she felt oddly concerned for her First. Leaned as she was against the wall of the building Cyberdark was currently working inside, blood-red eyes inspecting her nails, she had little else to think about other than the mission Wendy was currently on. The two were usually cold to everyone else, but they shared an odd tolerance- some would even say fondness- for each other. They were the only ones who could put up with being questioned incessantly by the other; anyone else asked more than one question every couple minutes and they'd surely get snapped at. Or just snapped.
Is all going well?
 
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"Mangle?" Daphne smiled despite herself. She sounded incredulous. She decided to question Felicia on her odd little nickname when they were somewhere better suited to conversation, so only offered a warm look as she stood and collected her bags.
"My name's Daphne. Daphne Dahl - I'm afraid I don't have a cool nickname."
 
One could say it is going swell. Wendy sent the communication skittering across the seas of their shared Connect. She glanced briefly, coldly at Constance, assessing her oblivious state to her talk with Datascare.
Virus' project is here. The institute fucked her up. Goes by Constance now. Insists on making human body language. All on account of those goddamn movies. We're going to the country. There's more of them to Geotrack there.


"Turn left," Wendy snapped, resenting having to interrupt the Connect conversation with Datascare.

"Are you sure...?" Constance started, but the words petered out into a question as the anger in Wendy's stare grew more intense.

"Okay," Constance assured, "Wendy, you're the boss, don't get mad." She patted the woman's leg, felt the toned muscle beneath the long jacket. She was wearing nothing underneath- her Corporeal must be cold.
"I brought a blanket. In the back seat. Please, for the sake of your body, take it." Wendy didn't mind sustaining damage to the lanky old thing- often abused the remanents of what was left of the human before her. But becoming sick did make her weak, and contracting an illness because of carelessness was dangerous for their mission.

At first she assumed Wendy wouldn't, just to make a point. Physical comfort meant nothing to her, her own or anyone else's. But Constance's sensors told her the temperature had dropped suddenly, and now the air was cold, bitterly so. The logical part of Wendy reached back between the seats. A moment later, she had the blanket in her hands, a thick tartan, along with something else, and when Constance saw what it was she cursed herself for a fool and an idiot.

"What is this?" Wendy inquired, face as blank as ever.

Connection is fucked, Scare. Constance is pulling some bullshit. Hold on.

 
For fuck's sake, she's worse than I thought then. We'll have to drag her back and reGlitch her when you're done out there. Does she at least remember Virus?
She remained respectfully quiet as the signal went silent; Wendy would be occupied. She came back shortly after, and the words had her concerned.
Don't do anything stupid. she responded.
"Virus's First is utterly bollocked," she remarked to Zelroth.
"Fuck, really? That's annoying. Drag her back."
"Can't. They're heading to the country to do more Geotracking."
To his credit, Zelroth didn't protest. "Fine. But if your First reports her getting any worse I'm sending mine in to bring her back for reGlitching."
"I'll let Wendy know when she comes back from dealing with her bullshit."

Felicia- Mangle- smiled. "You'll earn one. It's a pretty neat alias sometimes. I'll probably use it when we get somewhere with more people." She really should have opened up with that, but Daphne seemed nice. She started to head across the rooftops, taking ways she was sure Daphne could follow, assuming she was a beginner. "How much experience have you had with parkour before?"
 
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