bindsthedead

PSL

There was a time when Sabriel might have been eager to see the inside of Cyberlife Tower. Her class had been to Detroit when she was thirteen, and they'd toured an android factory- or the part of it they showed to tourists, at least- and visited museums and art galleries and all the sorts of things Young Ladies ought to see, but weren't available in the small town of Wyverley, or in Bain.

But Sabriel wasn't here for a school trip. Recent events in Ancelstierre meant that with the sudden loss of all android soldiers meant that soldiers from the entirely human garrison at the Wall had been transferred elsewhere- which meant fewer soldiers watching the border, on top of the losses from Kerrigor's attack, and a necromancer had slipped across, making his way to the largest city that was close enough to the Wall that magic still worked- one that seemed rather different than how she remembered it.

But what was occupying most of her attention was the Cyberlife representative in front of her. Sabriel listened politely as the woman spoke about malfunctioning machines and simulated emotions and how things that weren't alive couldn't die, so why would a necromancer- and from the woman's voice it was clear she didn't believe such things were real- want with deactivated androids?

Sabriel stood up and shook the woman's hand, telling her she'd been very helpful without meaning a word of it, and headed out the office before pausing.

She sensed something ominously familiar- Death, and a recent one at that. She turned another corner, following the sensation as a hound tracked a scent, half-expecting someone to spot her, to see her in her armor and bells (security had made her check her sword at the front desk) and tell her she wasn't allowed to be here.

But no one came, and no one living was in the laboratory she went into- just a dead- (deactivated?) android on a table-or its head and torso at least, with panels on its chest removed to reveal tubes and biocomponents, and Sabriel felt she'd stepped into a morgue and found an autopsied body.

Sabriel was seized by a sudden impulse. If androids weren't alive, then she'd simply waste some time, but if they were... well, she'd have a source of information she could interrogate as she would any Dead spirit. And unlike the representative she'd just spoken to, she could force it to answer honestly and completely.

Decision made, Sabriel undid the straps and drew Saraneth from the bandolier. This far from the Wall, stepping into Death took a deliberate effort, but soon Sabriel was in the First precinct and she cast around with her senses, trying to feel out the spirit of the android- if it had one, it couldn't have gone beyond the First Gate, and probably shouldn't be that far into the the First Precinct.

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"There was no time to ask," Connor replies shortly, lifting his own hand and recalling the marks for healing. They come easily, and he channels his frustration and guilt into a spell that burns, darting into place with an unnecessary push.

The cuts vanish. With them goes more energy than Connor anticipated. He squares his shoulders and holds back a frown, not quite able to catch the way his eyebrows pinch briefly or the fact that the stiffness in his shoulders is itself a tell.

He's dropping his hand when the next question comes, and Connor pauses.

Gunshots fire. Connor very deliberately doesn't startle, though he throws a sharp glance down the hall. (Scuttling. He missed.)

"What resets?"

The JB400 is still frozen in the middle of the hall, and there are no outward signs that explain what Connor's counterpart means. If he were 'reset', then why is he still frozen? Why does he look dead?

"The ones triggered by these devices."

He gestures to the wreckage by Abhorsen's feet. Connor's attention lingers on the damaged vent, but it's been seconds, and the centipede he's shot has yet to reappear. Either it's too crippled to leave, or it's going for a different exit.

He turns in place, stepping toward a different rattle in the walls.

"It was copying the JB400's memories—and formatting its system as it went." His eyes flick back to the frozen android with a shrug. "The process was just... interrupted."

Useful information for any androids in this place to know. Too bad the other RK800 hadn't waited to learn it. Connor stops several paces away from a new vent, head tilting as he inspects it at an angle. He glances back to his predecessor: a Cyberlife-designed deviant hunter. Just like him.

"Your allies might appreciate the warning."

There's the slightest stress on allies. Then Connor's gaze—and gun—snap back to the vent. He fires twice, and this time, the scuttling cuts off completely.

"Thank you," Sabriel tells Connor, looking from her hand to his face, "You did well." Then she turns back to... Connor. The first Connor- or the first one she met, at least.

"So it wasn't just trying to set off the EMP- it was gathering information." Sabriel's gaze shifts back to the JB400, frowning.

"I didn't feel him die. Is it- possible to undo whatever was done to him? For him to recover? You said it was interrupted before it could finish." There's something almost pleading in Sabriel's voice as she speaks.

And yet... She doesn't expect Connor to care either way, but the other Connor also isn't acting like there's much hope.

Edited 2020-04-02 04:43 (UTC)

The stress on 'allies' is a clear rebuke. Connor's eyebrows flick upwards as the gun fires, and his eyes narrow.

(Shots from close up. There was no way he could miss that kind of opening, and the shots found their home. All movement stopped.)

Without otherwise moving he says, "I'm sure they will, if I'm not interrupted before finishing."

It's... not a carefully considered reply, and he realizes instantly that it wasn't a good one. He's stomped heel-first into an anthill, and now he stands there, surveying the mess around his planted foot. (Sabriel's question gets his attention, but he doesn't look away from his counterpart. It's not one he can answer either way.)

Edited 2020-04-02 04:56 (UTC)

Interrupted. Was the attack his fault too, now? For needing help, or for expecting any in the first place? In either case, Connor supposes he can't disagree.

He certainly won't make the mistake again. Abhorsen's question draws a flicker of attention, but Connor's stare stays on his predecessor, expression closing back to something (almost) blank. His free hand spreads out pointedly toward the door, waiting for the other RK800 to turn toward it. Go ahead.

He'll watch the hallway.

The other RK800's expression blanks. The bridge between them--tentative and half-formed--is blazing around them. Connor should say something, should try to control the damage.

Instead he only lets his look linger, before tearing his eyes away towards Abhorsen. Her questions have gone unanswered in the argument, and his eyes flick to the still form of the JB400. Connor can't answer any of these. He didn't conduct the interface, and he doesn't know what her healing is capable of.

"You'll have to tell us." If she can fix it. If it's reversible. (He suspects it isn't, but then, death isn't either.)

The other RK800 is still standing back, and Connor's time there has stretched taut like a hair-thin wire. He inclines his head very slightly--to both of them, neither of them--and then turns, leaving.

(His shoulders are tense. His ears are strained, and if he hears sudden movement--but he doesn't, not from the android and human behind him, and his tension is without cause.)

His predecessor turns. His predecessor leaves. Only once the other RK800 is gone from the hallway—once the caustic loathing coiling in his components begins to dull—does Connor let his attention slide back to Abhorsen. In part, at least. His eyes stay on the ceilings and walls, gun at the ready.

"The first ones went straight for the control panel."

The first centipedes. Before Abhorsen and her ally had showed up in the hall at all.

"It's only the second wave that targeted androids. Cyberlife's probably trying to find out why they failed."

The EMP is still their main objective. Certainly it's not one they can afford to leave unguarded. If they could, Connor wouldn't be here—stuck in place, shooting down threats that might target his double. (And wouldn't it be fair, if he walked away and left it now?)

Fair, but stupid. Connor doesn't want to die just for revenge.

(Did it count on that? Is that why?)

...He needs something to shoot. Connor paces forward, listening closely as he peers down the hall.

"So while they're not alive, they're autonomous, and when they're in the lab, they're as cut off from the outside world as we are." That's... not as bad as it could be. She's not sure how smart the centipedes are, but it also means that Cyberlife can't give them new commands or spy on them through the centipedes.

"And... I might. But I need to know exactly what was done to him, and you might find the method unacceptable." Both of them had good reason to be wary of the bells, and even if they didn't... Belgaer often had its own ideas about how it should sound. Sabriel flexes her hands nervously, trying to ignore the sticky feeling of her own drying blood.

"And it can wait- we have more pressing concerns right now, like staying alive and making sure those things don't do to you two what they did to him." Perhaps it was selfish, but she doesn't need her mistakes thrown in her face right now. And Connor- both of them, but especially Connor- would be justified in doing that, if she brought up the bells, given what she did to him.

Cut off? He hadn't said that. It was an interesting possibility though. Connor tilts his head, combing back through the data he'd recovered. Slowly his LED starts to spin down from gold.

"...It didn't send transmissions while connected," he muses aloud. "They could still have a relay point. Or some kind of shared network."

He didn't get a chance to probe the device directly—only examine the wreckage it left of the JB400. It might be worth trying to change that, if they can.

Or getting someone else to. His mouth twists, then flattens, eyes flitting sharply towards the distraction of Abhorsen's newest plan. The bells again? Almost certainly. Now was absolutely not the time for that. For one thing, he'd prefer to be a continent away.

For now, he'll have to settle for half of the hallway. A dim scuttling scrapes across the walls, and Connor's gun snaps up, tracking the pattern of movement. Its nearest exit is just past Abhorsen, and he steps back, lining up a shot for if she misses.

"On your side."

Sabriel steps back from the grate, reaching for the simplest, least draining spell she knows that can break something electrical, one she'd broken a smartphone with once, before she understood how incompatible magic and technology could be.

She lets the spell go as soon as the centipede drops to the floor and it jerks, and flails, like a puppet with its strings cut as the microchips controlling it overload and break, and the machine goes limp, showing no sign of reacting as Sabriel nudges it to the side with her foot.

"How many of those things do they have?" She can't keep this up forever, and if even one slips through, or gets to either Connor...

"Is there any way of checking on what's going on outside- if help's coming, or how many of those things Cyberlife brought?"

The spell connects. Connor watches with a flicker of disappointment, before reluctantly opting not to waste his ammunition. Faint echoes can still be heard inside the walls, and he'll likely get his own chance soon enough.

He hopes Abhorsen means that first question rhetorically. Apart from an irritated glance, he doesn't answer it regardless. The second question draws a shrug.

"There's a security room. It has some camera feeds to the outside." Connor takes a step back, pivoting to take aim at a vent already showing bullet holes.

"We'd just have to leave this place less guarded."

And risk the EMP going off.

... Oh. Sabriel's expression falls at that.

"So we should just wait until the centipedes stop coming, and hope it isn't a ruse." Although given Cyberlife is probably blind to what's happening in the facility, she's not sure if they'd be able to come up with such a strategy. Sabriel looks at Connor, her tone verging on pleading.

"Do you have any ideas beyond holding out? Because I can't think of anything else." And if they couldn't... if she ran out of energy or Connor ran out of bullets... things would go badly. And Connor was better at coming up with plans than she was.

Hope draws a curl of Connor's lip. He isn't anything like sure that Cyberlife can't watch them—or that these things aren't programmed with other tricks. He keeps his eyes on his current target, waiting until the darkness beind the grate shifts to squeeze off a shot. Only then does he look back to Abhorsen.

"We could split forces." The two of them seem to be covering the hallway well enough—but still, it's a risk that could prove fatal. "Or enlist the test subjects to help out." However many are mobile, that is.

Connor shrugs, pacing a tight circle as he tries to track the noises in the wall. They don't seem close to any obvious vents. Are the constructs massing to attack later?

"Or we could deal with the EMP." His eyes cut sideways to the open door. Also risky. Still, when their other option is blindly waiting through attacks... he knows what he'd prefer.

Whatever Abhorsen might have replied with is cut off by a burst of sound behind them.

One gunshot. Two.

Connor isn't standing beside the computer terminal, when they enter. He's moved several feet to the side, angled so he can see behind one of the terminals that the room's great capacitors are mounted on. His eyes are locked on a fixed point, and he's poised, as though waiting for further movement.

"It was carving through the drywall," he'll explain unprompted.

Sabriel scrambles into the room- and then freezes at the explanation.

"Fuck." The centipedes aren't stopping. Is help even coming, or are they just going to have to keep at this until Sabriel passes out and the Connors run out of bullets? Or did Connor's allies decide to abandon him?

Giving up isn't an option. They'll just need to hold out until help arrives. Can she reinforce the walls somehow, without risking setting off the EMP? Or does Connor have some idea to deal with this?

They'd sealed off the vents inside the room. There shouldn't be anything to shoot at, and Connor steps rapidly after Abhorsen, sweeping one last glance across the hall. The sight—and answer—waiting past the door is enough to clog his vocal queue with furious invective.

He's only surprised Abhorsen says it first.

Repetition would be useless. Connor rounds on his duplicate instead.

"This isn't sustainable." Both hands cut through the air, though his left stays tightly locked around a weapon. "We can't cover every scrap of drywall. We don't even know if they'll stop when the humans do. Or if they're breaking in right now."

The words are low and furious, eyes flashing in anticipation of a fight. Not without reason, Connor thinks. Even aside from his predecessor's blatant bias, it had rejected all discussion of tampering with the EMP before.

"We need to shut that thing down."

There's a hole in the wall the size of a tennis ball, with a ragged edge where the gunshots tore pieces as they reached the centipede writhing through. The hole is empty now, with the centipede on the floor outside of it, and it means anything could climb through the hole at any second.

Connor tears his eyes away from the opening, bringing them to the other RK800. His own LED burns yellow, and he glances at the room's main terminal, and down at the centipede.

It's too dangerous. They don't have any guarantee they'd succeed. And yet the other android is right: this isn't sustainable. It's a waiting game, and the odds are stacked against them higher than ever. This isn't a matter of whether they'll fail, but when, and if the centipedes can climb through walls at any point--

Connor considers a single image of every wall in the room peppered with holes, before he jerks his chin down in a curt nod.

"You're right. The situation has changed."

His eyes don't dart to the door, where the JB400 still stands frozen, but his thoughts do. He's already failed to cover the other android's back once.

"I'll do it." Connor doesn't move, eyes locked on the other android. If he wants to protest, and to suggest Connor help Abhorsen guard him, now is the time.

Edited 2020-04-06 05:00 (UTC)

The tense set of Connor's shoulders doesn't fade, but his expression flickers closed with a blink of surprise. That's... not the answer he'd anticipated. Still, that's no reason to waste time gawping—and he doesn't, stepping back with a tight nod. He'll watch the room.

(Certainly it's safer than volunteering to be watched.)

The scratching in the wall is starting again. Not from the same opening (his eyes flit sideways, checking), but they probably don't have long. Connor glances at Abhorsen.

"Can you make a—barrier?" He gestures to an overlarge capacitor. "In case."

"I can try, but... I'm not an expert on how magic interacts with electromagnetism. I can't promise it will work. And I don't want to use powerful magic too close to the device, in case that sets it off."

But they're past worrying about absolute safety or certainty, so Sabriel reviews the spells she knows, considering the marks she's learned, and the spells she's studied, the theories she'd discussed with the Magistrix back at school. 'Protecting androids from EMPs' had not been a subject they'd discussed. Or much about the interaction of magic with technology in general, beyond 'it breaks it'.

"A diamond of protection is the most likely to work, but it would only shield the two of us... and would break if anything- such a bullet- leaves the bounds of the barrier. We'd be safe, but we couldn't do anything to keep the other Connor safe, unless he's also inside the diamond." So not an option, at least not to protect Connor from the the EMP while leaving them free to help the other Connor.

"Any other sort of barrier... I'd have to improvise, and it would take time. And it's possible I could exhaust myself only to make something that doesn't work. I'll try, if you insist, but I can't promise anything." She owes Connor that much. But from her tone and expression, it's clear that Sabriel doesn't want to promise anything.

"Perhaps a protective spell, cast directly on you? Those are mostly to keep people safe from Free Magic, though, I'm not sure if it would do anything about an EMP."

The other Connor steps back. He and Abhorsen talk quickly. There's an ominous grinding, scratching, tapping on the other side of the wall, and Connor recognizes it from the previous hole.

Connor wastes no more time. He steps forward and jams his hand against the computer's interface terminal, LED switching to a steady yellow brand.

The protective spell sounds useless. The diamond is better, and he calls up the referenced marks from her books. Could they lock off the whole apparatus somehow? Contain a potential detonation?

...not effectively, Connor rapidly determines. The protection offered by the spell as written only works against targets outside, and even if that could be reversed... they don't have time to waste experimenting.

The scraping is growing louder. Connor sweeps his gaze across the room and stalks toward the console, passing his double to snatch up the assault rifle he had left next to the terminal before. He's scowling when he glances back to Abhorsen, but not specifically at her.

"If you can limit their approach somehow—do it."

Funnel them into a kill zone. Or just give the two of them a wall to put their backs against. It's the best he can think of, and they don't have time for more. Connor shoves his handgun back into its holster and hefts the automatic, stepping back toward the center of the room.

"All right. Let me see if I can fortify a wall."

Focus the marks on four corners, creating a strengthening web- a modification of a spell meant to be cast while a structure was built, weaving magic into the stone to make it last as long as the building stood.

This spell will not last that long, but it doesn't need to. Sabriel kneels, and begins to trace out marks of stability and toughness, of impermeability and defense. Can she skip the marks to protect against more supernatural threats, or will that weaken the spell? Sabriel decides to skip them, and save her strength. The final mark for this spell will be draining enough as it is.

She'll just have to trust that Connor will watch her back while she works.

Connor plunges into the terminal's code like diving into a deep pool. He stirs up processing-power costly programs, starts enormous (recursive) file copies from one side of directories to another, and while the computer is as bogged down as he can manage, he reverses himself sharply, surfacing from the depths.

He hasn't been gone long. It's not complete chaos, though it feels like a scene on the brink of it, and Connor stalks around the table, wading through the mess of cables and equipment connecting the terminal to the room's setup.

Connor nods to Abhorsen. Tracks the rising hum of system fans, and his double's ensuing motion. If the other RK800 does fail, Connor probably won't live long enough to know it. Would it have been better to change places? But even the preconstruction of oblivion can't quite override the spike of horror fresh in memory: claws digging into his synthskin, the liquid flow of metal snaking (too fast) toward his port. In theory, the technical role would be more vital here. They'd have to guard him. And, one death or another—Connor knows there isn't really any difference.

He still feels sharp and raw and far too tired at the thought.

(At most thoughts in the last twelve hours.)

A faint crumbling in the surface to his left draws his gaze—and weapon—quickly. The advantage of his chosen role is the option to react, and Connor wastes no time in squeezing off a burst of fire as the silver shape protrudes through the wall. Bullets drill through the its processor and motor systems both, and the device sags... before twitching again, propelled by pressure from behind. Not just one, then. And, if the growing scraping is much sign, not just from one direction, either.

"Incoming," Connor mutters to the room. He squeezes off another burst of fire.

Sabriel's hands shake as she traces out the last mark of the spell- and one wall glows with Charter marks, running over its surface and reinforcing it.

One direction they don't need to worry about. Now there's just the other three to worry about. Sabriel takes a deep, ragged breath, and steadies herself, reaching back into the Charter.

She can't use powerful magic. But these things aren't made with magic in mind, and she doesn't need powerful spells to break them- she just needs to aim, and not collapse until the centipedes stop coming.

The first centipedes are easy- a minor spell sends two back, the head of one sparking with something- the mouth is different than the ones before, Sabriel realizes distantly. It almost reminds her of a... taser?

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