singularityderp | Dark Future Meme

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Dark Future Meme

Ten years later, humanity and the synthetic life on the station are at odds
Hypatia has inducted as many citizens of Sacrosanct into a private military and launched
an all-out war against organic life and the people of Asphodel.
Some were kept on the station as captives, some escaped down planet-side
to become part of the resistance, and countless others were re-purposed into
Hypatia's willing slaves.

Now, tensions are at a peak and both sides are preparing for a throwdown. Skirmishes break out on the station and planet. Many of Hypatia's prisoners have been freed, but many more have fallen to the clutches of reprogramming.

Where will you be?

How this works:
-If you are synthetic or part-synthetic, OR if you have special armor (Looking at you, Spartans, Troncast, EVERY ROBOT EVER) you are a target for re-purpose.
You can still have escaped down to the planet, but she'll be after you. Going to the station is dangerous, once you enter her wide-area-network you are at risk of being hacked

-If you are fully organic, you are either dead, kept prisoner and made to work on the station, or part of the resistance on Asphodel.

-Anything in-between? You decide. Be creative with this.

-Fill out the form below to give us an idea of what your character is up to, what happened to them etc. Thread with each other! RP it out!

-Also, bring in your extra journals! There won't be the same people on the station ten years from now! If you're planning to app someone, or just have something interesting lying around, toss them in!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Name: Buffy Meissonier
Current location: Sacrosanct
Current Physical Appearance: Still mostly organic, but robotics have started encroaching on most of her limbs, one of her eyes has been fully replaced by a computerized replacement.
Summary: Before everything went to hell, Buffy got the "bright" idea to work with someone (maybe Kimiko, she's always been very secretive about it) to create a neural implant to allow her to wirelessly connect to the network and manipulate things on the network without her wearable. She didn't make a big deal out of it, and she put some serious firewalls and security around the connection, and didn't really tell anybody about it.

Unfortunately, that meant that before she could escape to Asphodel with Shaun and Georgia, Hypatia managed to get past her firewalls and used the implant to gain some basic control over her, and she was very soon fitted with further synthetic parts, in part to make it easier for her to be of use, and in part to make Hypatia's control over her nigh-unbreakable.

She does delicate repair work, and tries to hack into Asphodel's systems from the station.

Sollux traced her. They'd been dealing with hacking attempts from the station forever now, and Karkat had spent so many missions just trying to get that shit to stop. Unfortunately, they had little information to go on, and of course, Karkat's missions always ended in failure.

Until now (he hoped). Either Hypatia had gotten sloppy or Sollux got better, it didn't matter. Karkat knew where the attacks on the resistance's network were coming from, and he was sent to stop them.

Permanently.

It wasn't hard to cut past the physical defenses-- he's become a damn good fighter through the years.

Buffy's little control center (of sorts) has never been the strongest defended. While she's good, it's not as if Hypatia is lacking in those with the skills and knowledge to head hacking attempts and repair delicate circuitry. And it's not in any of the more often-breached areas, as the human captives are kept in a different area. Buffy's little realm has remained all but untouched.

Until now. Her proximity alarm goes off and she glances impassively up at the screen, and then reaches out to check the electronic credentials of her visit--

Oh. An organic.

She doesn't move to defend herself just yet, as he walks in. She keeps working. It wouldn't do to stop working just because an organic has showed up on her doorstep.

"You are not authorized to be in this facility," she says impassively, her fingers flashing over keys much faster than they should, and with perfect accuracy. There's something to be said for synthetic improvements. Part of her always prefers the tactile sensations of typing over the straight-neurological connection...

Old memories, perhaps.

And under it all, Buffy herself sleeps, powerless.

Karkat stands in silence at the door, feeling sick to all his various parts of alien anatomy. Buffy. She's gotten older, but he still remembers her face. Her voice. Their friendship (even though he denied they were friends for so fucking long, he regrets that now).

It takes him a few moments to realize she's like Jade. Everything that made Buffy Buffy is gone, buried deep. His mission is still to eliminate her.

He grits his teeth. "Fuck your authorization."

She turns in her chair, and tilts her head at him. "I'm not sure that is advisable. It would probably be quite painful."

She expects someone to come in and dispose of him. It's not as though they can be entirely unaware of his presence here. She pings for defences to be sure. He may have legitimate business with her, but she was not informed and she'd rather be safe than sorry. Especially since the physical defenses seem to be down.

"Do you have business with me?"

This is where he makes his choice. He changes this mission. This has gone from reconnaissance and elimination to outright rescue.

"You're coming with me, Buffy."

There's a hint of recognition, humanity, in her remaining organic eye, just for a moment, as she looks at him. Under the programming and the brainwashing, part of her remembers.

That's her.

This is her friend.

She's going to be rescued.

But it's only a tiny, not-truly-conscious part. The rest of her shakes her head and turns back to her screens. "I am not permitted to leave this facility unless I am needed for a task that cannot be completed here. Your request is not authorized. Units will arrive to verify your authorization to be in this facility in 3 minutes and 42 seconds."

"Sorry, Buffy, but you must have misheard me the first time. Fuck your authorizations. You're coming with me." He saw the way she looked at him-- he's seen Jade do it a few times, and it's one of the few things that gives him hope.

So Karkat walks over and grabs her arm.

"Come on. You're being saved."

Despite being... enhanced in many ways, Buffy's role in the Sacrosanct machine is not physical, unless you count delicate repair work as physical. She is not programmed for defense, or combat, or even resisting, really. She sent a ping for the proper units to come deal with the organic, and that is the extent of what her programming tells her.

So though she is not authorized to leave, she does not fight back when Karkat grabs her. Nor would she fight back if he pulled her out of her chair and physically removed her from her home/workstation/command center/whatever the fuck this is.

"I am not authorized to leave this facility," she repeats. "Units will arrive to verify your authorization in 3 minutes and 18 seconds."

"Still fucking your authorizations," he says as he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder. Karkat knows talking to them, those that they rescue, makes it less traumatic. So that's what he does.

"It's been a long time, but it's me. Karkat. Sorry it's taken me so long to find you." He's carrying her out the door, moving quickly. If what she says is true, he's only got a few minutes to get out."

"I do not-- I do not--"

She stops talking, for a moment, as if struggling with some crashed process in her software. Really, it's just a spark of memory - they don't interact well with brainwashing and re-programming.

The hiccup in processing only lasts a moment though - not even 30 seconds. "I do not know a unit by that designation. The penalty for unauthorized removal of official equipment is termination. Please halt and await enforcement units. Units will arrive in 2 minutes and 30-- 45-- 73.4-- Units will arrive in 2 minutes and 59 seconds."

...Good job, Karkat, you're confusing the poor not-really-a-computer.

He sets her down only for a moment to kill a surveillance bot that noticed him. While it itself wasn't a threat, Hypatia knowing his position is. It's only two flicks of his sickle before he's picking her back up again and moving.

"Remember when we watched that shitty romance movie with the blood-drinker? The woman gave birth to that monster, and that's how I thought all humans were created? Now that I think about it, that movie was completely ridiculous."

"Incorrect assumptions about pregnancy. Vampires. V-Vam-Vampire-ires. Shouldn't sparkle."

If she could really comprehend pain in this state, she'd probably be crying because of how much she's getting overloaded by this sudden... everything. It doesn't actually hurt, but it's working both her software and her hardware in ways it hasn't ever had to.

"Please halt and await enforcement units. Destruction of station equipment is cause for termination. Unauthorized removal of station equipment is cause for termination. Enforcement units will arrive in 2 minutes and 4 seconds."

They're catching up.

"Remember that feelings jam we had? Or the time I hid in your closet for a day, crying like a little grub?" Two minutes, fuck, fuck, he is no where near safe, and she's just weighing him down. Karkat could easily make it by himself, but there's no way in hell he's leaving her behind. Not again.

"Come on, fucking talk to me, Buffy!"

It's been so long.

She hasn't been sent out to kill. She hasn't been sent out to fight, or defend. She hasn't been anywhere outside of her facility, really. It's been so long, and the part of her that's human, the part that has to fight just to get anywhere NEAR conscious thought, it's pretty much given up.

"Made you chocolate pancakes," she says absently. She did, she made him chocolate pancakes after he'd stopped crying, and she held him, and they watched ridiculously sappy romcoms.

"Enforcement units will arrive in 1 minute 32..."

She falls silent for a moment. She can't go against her programming, but a tiny part of her is rearing up and trying to influence what is basically her AI into making a choice.

The silence only lasts for a second, during which time she lets off a location ping for the enforcement unites... and tampers with the information, making it seem like they're heading in the opposite direction.

There is nothing in her programming about this situation. She can do as she pleases, however illogical it seems even to her processors.

"Enforcement units will arrive in 1 minute 47 seconds."

He isn't entirely sure if the numbers are a sign of further glitches or him outpacing the enemy, and there isn't much time to work it out. Talking, though, seems to be reaching her memories, which is definitely a victory. So he keeps going.

"Do you remember me? I was a goddamn midget back then. My nubs aren't so nubby now, see? Do you remember the movies we watched?"

Movies? She... sort of remembers movies. Information stored in organic portion of processor, like the foundation of her hacking and electronics skills.

"Serendipity. Alex & Emma. Twilight. Star-Star Wars. Episode 2. Memories have no current use, reallocating processing power to necessary software."

Why is she sending the enforcement units away? She can't remember, she shouldn't, but the program has already started, so she must have a reason. That's how computers work.

"Enforcement units will arrive in 2 minutes and 54 seconds. Rerouting script will terminate in 5 minutes and 17 seconds."

Run, kitten, run. Faster faster faster. My hero.

"Serendipity was my favorite. Your human John Cusack was damn good. We can probably watch it again, if you want." Her last sentence clarifies the strange countdown. The enforcements were being rerouted, either by Buffy or someone else, and while it'd be difficult to work out which it was, it gave him all the time he needed.

So he keeps moving, breaking into a run, absconding back to the whateverthing the resistance uses to get to Sacrosanct, I don't know technology.

"Enforcement units will arrive in 3 minutes and 19 seconds. Rerou-rerout-re-re-rrrrr-run kitten ca-can't--routing-ing script will terminate in 4 minutes and 45 seconds."

She is not aware, not exactly, not in the way that Jade is, for example, but she's still her underneath everything, and while her programming is scrambling to find a protocol to deal with the situation, it's digging into the organic bits more than it should.

They actually make it to the whateverthing fuck technology and technobabble why should we write it without encountering any real resistance. Of course, they're only a few steps away when Buffy announces, "Rerouting script has terminated. Enforcement units will arrive in 1 minute and 25 seconds."

He places her inside the thingyescapewhatever, buckles her up, and paps his forehead against hers.

"I've got one thing left to do, and we can go." With that, he's out the door, setting up their escape, remotely detonating the various bombs he placed before embarking on his mission. It'll either take out some bots or distract them, both of which buys him time. He's so goddamn glad he took this mission alone. Trying to organize a speedy trip with a large group would have been a nightmare.

With about half a minute to spare, he's back with Buffy, sending them back to the planet. Karkat knows she won't notice, but this trip has always been so ridiculously uncomfortable to him. He holds her hand.

She doesn't really register being left alone, or when he comes back and takes her hand. Her programming is under a lot of strain. She isn't built for long range. By the time they're almost landed, she's taken to murmuring "searching for network, network not found," every few seconds. Which is probably kind of annoying.

Still, if he just leaves her at Sollux's mercy for a few hours...

Well, she won't be instantly back to the way she was, but the programming will be cleared, and she'll be able to wake up.

soon soon soon soon awake soon...

It's been about a week since he's brought Buffy back. He had sent her to Sollux as soon as they touched down to make sure her connection with Hypatia's network was effectively severed. From then on, it was a delicate process, trying to coax her organic mind to operate over the mechanical inorganic imposed on it for so long.

They've got her a room, though. It's small, sparely furnished. But when Karkat's not in meetings or trying to strategize, he visits her.

"Hey."

She's been getting better. A little bit at a time. She's not quite Buffy again, not yet, but she's starting to be able to function a little. She doesn't just sit there looking like a doll like she did when they first started, at least.

She looks up when he comes in, blinking slowly at him. "You were here before. We... talked about movies. Right?" It's hard, she has a lot of trouble accessing memories, though her personality is slowly starting to trickle to the surface. She hasn't smiled yet, though. It's like she doesn't know how. It's one of the more unnerving things about her current state, all things considered.

It's progress, and goddamn, progress feels good. He nods and says, "Yeah, yeah, you're right. Movies. Maybe we'll get to watch one sometime. But until then, I brought some snacks for you." Karkat holds a bag of popcorn in front of her, offering some. He ate like half on his way to her, so like.

Deal with it.

She won't know the difference, so it's all good. She stares at it for a moment too long as her brain processes that it's food, and food is for eating because she's not given nutrition intravenously anymore. Which is just as well, because she is skinny as fuck, and she wasn't exactly that substantial to begin with.

She reaches out and picks out one piece of popcorn, putting it in her mouth and chewing carefully. The saltiness, the faint sweetness of the butter underneath, the crunch and the way the starch almost melts--

"You didn't put enough butter on it," she says offhandedly, in an almost-Buffy tone. And then she stops, and blinks. "That... was me," she says slowly. "That was really me, wasn't it? I liked... I always poured extra butter on. Didn't I?"

She looks at Karkat with a pleading sort of hunger in her eyes. Please, please tell her that she's managed to find something that is her, not broken-her, not programmed-her, but the girl she only remembers faintly, like a forgotten dream.

Please tell her that, because it would mean that she can find the rest of that girl, too.

Dark Future Meme

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