beta d̶e̶s̶p̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶z̶e̶n̶i̶t̶h̶s (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nobetawedielike) wrote2023-05-06 12:33 pm
nobetawedielike) wrote2023-05-06 12:33 pm!snek: memories
[beepbeep]
nobetawedielike) wrote2023-05-06 12:33 pm
[escape] - frightening
[recapture] - frightening
Re: [recapture] - frightening
[She creates a holographic image of a Sunwing and sends it to Aloy. She smiles and accepts the “message.” Suddenly the hatch above explodes and three Zeniths fly in.]
Gerard: Well hello, redundant copy. You've cost us quite a lot of time.
[Aloy awkwardly draws the bowstring, but she’s thrown away by the laser shot. She seems to have suffered enough damage and can't get up. Varl takes out his bow.]
Gerard: Erik - get Beta. And squash that bug while you're at it.
[Varl shoots at a device hanging from the ceiling and it crushes Erik, though it doesn't stop him for long. Varl takes out his spear.]
Varl: Get behind me.
[Varl and Erik fight for a while without any success at Varl’s side.]
Gerard: Come on. Quit screwing around.
[Erik grabs Varl by the neck.]
Erik: Now we're having fun, right?
[He stabs Varl with the blade on his arm.]
Aloy: No!
Beta: Aloy!
[Erik grabs Beta. Aloy aims at Beta to kill her but in the end is unable to do so.]
[mansion] - painful
Re: [mansion] - painful
The smiles of your holo-tutors are stiff and inhuman, a facsimile of the real thing coded into a program a millennia old. There is no one like you, flesh and blood and human, and there never has been.
Maybe that's why you don't question Tilda finally presents herself to you, or the suddenness of it. The challenge of finding a way to access the data channel is a rush enough; the first experience you've ever had that wasn't a part of your training program. But it's nothing compared to the first time you see her smiling back at you. Here, she is data, but she is real. She moves with the ease and fluidity your holo-tutors lack, regal and powerful all at once. The mansion she projects for you is more alive than anything you've ever seen. The breeze on your face isn't real, nor is the warmth of the sunlight, but it's the closest thing you've ever felt to either. You almost want to cry at the loss when she firmly draws you away; it takes a full ten minutes.
But that's when you get the first true praise you've ever experienced, and something in your chest feels like it's going to explode. Your temporary shutdown on the systems maintaining the security for your quarters had been an arduous task, one born of frustration, and the punishment had been severe. In this moment, as Tilda talks about ingenuity and determination, it was worth it.
The meetings become frequent, away from the oppressive eyes of your security programs. If they'd look, if they bothered to care, they'd only see you studying and working day after day. A tool locked away in a small box.
But the mansion is a paradise, and you drink up every word Tilda says like she's a god.
It's paintings, mostly. She really likes talking at length about different paintings and other 'priceless artifacts' she left behind on Earth 1000 years ago. It's all objects, art pieces she was able to obtain with what appeared to be an obscene amount of money. With it comes conversations you've never dreamed of having before. Art, philosophy, psychology - At first, you can't get enough. You want to know everything she'll tell you, curled up at the side of the armchair she lounges in to gaze out the window. Her praise of becomes infrequent as time goes on, but that just makes you vie for it all the harder.
But eventually, you find your attention shifting to the media portal she allows you to access. The paintings were interesting, but only for so long. You can only hear the same history so many times before it grows boring. Like your training module, they're meant to educate, and drum information into you.
The shows, though, never get old. There are so many - Sports, funny videos, millennia-old series likely lost to time. You find one about a family, and for a while, you're happier than you can ever remember being. You have no family, no mother or father or sisters, but you can live vicariously through the trials of the Reeves family.
She's the first person to ever speak to you, and maybe that's why you don't see the way she's been watching you from the moment you met. The way she measures you in every conversation. You catch it, occasionally, the displeased curve of her mouth sending you scrambling with anxiety but no idea what it is you could have done. In your studies, you excel. Elisabet Sobeck was a genius and a prodigy, and you are no different. But here, in the realm of human communication, you flounder.
With time, Tilda seems to grow more and more disinterested in you. Your conversations, and thus her visits, grow shorter.
The last day she visits is the longest she ever stays with you. She doesn't offer the media portal. She doesn't offer conversation.
You're losing her and you are helpless to figure out why. She expects something from you, but you've no idea what. She will not tell you, just frowns in that regal manner of hers. Disappointment and something else settles hard and cold in her eyes.
When she leaves, the usual goodbye is absent. A small, pained part of you isn't surprised when the data channel fails to open the next day.
It only takes two days. Two, out of 186 daily visits, for it to hit you. It takes two more until you stop acting out enough that your neuro-link ceases disassociating you for hours on end, throat raw from the intensity of your screams and sobs when you finally come back into your own body.
You stop fighting back, after that. The shutdowns, the sabotage, the attempts to bend the code of your virtual world to your will even a little-- There's no point. Entertainment, freedom, and conversation - Those are reserved for people. And you're not a person.
You're just a tool, forgotten until you're needed.
[thwarted defiance] - painful
[inferior copy] - painful
no subject
Beta: The extinction signal that woke HADES. You didn't send it. Nemesis did.
Tilda van der Meer: Finally you understand. And when that failed it launched from Sirius to finish the job itself. Which is why we must flee to a random planet circling a random star - somewhere it can never find us.
Aloy: With GAIA. So you can build yourself a new world.
Tilda van der Meer: That's the plan. Even now. Earth is finished, Aloy. Nemesis will scour it of life to deny its creators a viable home. But Elisabet's dream won't die. You'll come with me to the stars. And with GAIA, we'll create a new world, together, where that monstrosity can never find us.
Aloy: What? No.
Tilda van der Meer: I loved Elisabet more than you could ever know. And I let her stay behind to die with the rest of humanity - a mistake I have regretted for a thousand years. Now, she stands before me again. Not some inferior copy… (Beta lowers her head) …but her best possible self. So I'm not asking - you're coming with me. It may seem harsh now, but you'll forgive me in a few centuries.
Aloy: You can't force me, Tilda. Your shield is gone.
Tilda van der Meer: I have something better. Specter Prime - to me!
[the sky above] - joyful
[HEPH recaptured] - joyful
no subject
Aloy: Make sure it stays there. I'm heading back.
Beta: (via Focus) And then we can start the merge!
Aloy: Because of you, Beta. I'm glad you came along. And you, Varl. We couldn't have done any of this without you.
Varl: (via Focus) Right back at you, Aloy.
[Aloy reunites with her friends. “GEMINI” quest completed!]
Beta: (via Focus) Aloy! The bypass is done. The core is stable. HEPHAESTUS is one hundred percent contained.
Aloy: Then we'd better get started with the merge.
Beta: It's all set up. GAIA, establish the link, please.
GAIA: Done.
[GAIA releases a stream of violent energy from her mainframe and directs it to the core containing HEPHAESTUS.]
Beta: Okay. To complete the merge, we need to excise HEPHAESTUS's malicious code. Carefully.
[Beta and Aloy begin to operate the holographic interface simultaneously. Aloy repeats after Beta.]
Beta: Aloy, look.
[She creates a holographic image (a dove or an angel or something, can't make it out) and sends it to Aloy. She smiles and accepts the “message.” ]