2023-02-18: House of Cards
- Log: House of Cards
- Cast: Loren Voss, Azoth
- Where: Elam Base
- Date: February 18, 2023
- Summary: Azoth has something very important to tell Loren about. Very, very important. It involves his orders... and a recent encounter with Lan.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Elam Base has its benefits, as far as Solarian posts in Aquvy go, by Loren's reckoning.
For one thing, it's not as accursedly hot as Assyria Base in the Damzena Desert can get -- nor as bitterly cold as Moloch Base far to the north (also, Loren's mother is the base commander there so it would be an additional level of Awkward and kind of Bad).
And... well... that's pretty much it, as far as he weights these things. It's not terrible, weather-wise. On the other hand, the base has its problems, which include its relative isolation from everything else even remotely interesting in the region, and the fact that...
Well, to put it bluntly, it's dead here, at least when he's on-site. Elam largely serves as a home base for infiltration and observation in Aquvy and with the Ethos shattered, most of their people are in the field these days rather than working remotely. From what he's heard, they're still picking up some of the pieces from that and it might well be years before they can re-establish another front.
Loren's done some espionage work in the past, sure, but that was in a different situation with different stakes. And a different commander. Elam's base commander is more inclined to let people work in the areas in which they've specialized, which means for Loren, as support staff--
Unless someone gets in trouble or they launch an operation, or something else happens, he's just doing his day to day here. Which, sure, he should be glad for the lack of excitement, but it just feels he's stuck in purgatory lately.
Which is all an extremely lengthy preamble to say: Loren is once again bored today and he's slacking off.
Holding his breath, he carefully places another playing card atop the paperboard castle of cards he's built on his desk. Easy, now...
He stopped worrying about anyone else coming into medical ward back office days ago.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth has a horrible dilemma to weigh.
Does he make the effort to startle Loren and threaten that delicate castle of cards he has constructed, or can he even calculate a gentle, delicate enough greeting that ensures Loren's monument to his own boredom survives this encounter unscathed? And can this be used for a metaphor for anything? If he acts like it is one, will Loren supply one himself, however the fate of the poor castle of cards ends up? All things are ephemeral, especially houses built by cards, and some things, Azoth's learned, are simply beyond complete control.
If only he was one of them!
The ominous glow of blue and fuschia light scattering into the room -- and against the cards themselves -- are Loren's primary warning for his new visitor.
"Greetings, User Loren!"
It is, of course, an annoucement punctuated by a background of unmistakably robotic beeping, and Azoth drifts in as the bestial constract of black steel and a bright ^ ^ plastered on his visor.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
And if he had attempted a delicate approach, would it have spared the castle of cards?
There is light against the cards. It's an ominous, familiar light. Loren's hand twitches involuntarily, at just the wrong moment.
A house -- or castle, in this context -- of cards was ever doomed not to stand long, let alone forever. Loren watches in utter silence as his hours of pointless effort collapse in on themselves. Some of the playing cards flutter towards the floor.
Wordlessly, he turns after that, looking Azoth over in a mix of utter dismay and disappointment, some of which may have been effortlessly transferred over from his feelings of the same towards his collapsed card-castle.
It's true that they had sort of... managed to, if not quite mend their relationship, at least assemble the tools and means to attempt such at some future date recently. But Loren is a rather disagreeable and cranky sort, and his (constant) frustration with all existence has a way of exacerbating this.
So it comes that his response isn't any variation on 'what can I do for you' or 'is something going on' but rather--
"Why are you here? This isn't engineering."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth beep-chirps his own pointless effort of a chiptune song as he drifts into the room like he belongs there. Which he doesn't, as Loren notes. But Azoth delicately uses the flat of his tail's blade like a spatula to start scooping up cards and setting them on the table. In blatant a blatant display of mimickry, he begins arranged the gathered deck in his own card-castle.
Not even his own, actually. It's a copy of Loren's. Rebuilding it, or salt in the wound?!
"Did you know," Azoth begins, with no additional preamble or explanation for his presence, "That Subject Lan is an individual possessing great resourcefulness and excessive tenacity? It seems that when you gave me my orders, I was missing this critical data."
He looks up from his self assigned task, leaning an elbow on the table with his 'chin' in claw, the other delicately, inexplicably, spinning a card on its corner edge upon the point of one of his digits.
"Thus, I underestimated her, and found myself plunged through the earth and trapped at the bottom of a hole in the ground."
Pause.
"Dug by Subject Lan."
Pause.
"For me, specifically."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Oh, and of course, Azoth is floating, Loren notes dully in the aftermath, tracking him as he glides into the room and starts helping to clean up the cards on the floor. And... rebuilding his castle of cards? This last part causes Loren to squint and lean in, peering at the construction with a critical eye.
"What are you doing?" he asks, of this attempt. In less than half the time it took him to get that far, Azoth has reconstructed it without a hint of effort. How frustrating!
Azoth has not yet explained what it is that he's doing in here, save to startle Loren and rebuild card-castles (distinct from a house in that houses don't usually have turrets!) and instead, begins to talk about Lan. "--I told you to stay away from her," he starts to say, rounding on Azoth as if to attempt to threaten him by sheer personal presence alone.
Even under the best of circumstances, Loren is not... very threatening. Or big, being unfortunately (for him) on the shorter end of Solarian First Class stock.
He jabs a finger at Azoth. "Get to the point! What did you do--"
And Azoth tells him what he did. He got stuck in a hole.
Loren squints, his mouth still half-open. After a pause, he stops pointing at Azoth and lowers his hand lamely. "...She what?"
She dug a hole, and trapped Azoth in it.
Loren, still visibily befuddled, asks the one million gella question: "...Why?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's deeply unfair, the way this artificial intelligence, this super computer, can memorize what it was Loren had constructed in that brief moment before it was inspired to fall, and then go on rebuilding the thing with perfectly calculated balance to put it back the way it was. Azoth exercises that unfairness shamelessly.
"Constructing a mockery of human living establishments with stiff pieces of paper originally designed for competitive play between groups of two or more individuals."
Azoth gives a curious beep-whirr. "Is that not what you were doing?"
Maybe there's nuance to it. How should a robot know?
But yes, Loren did order Azoth to stay away from Lan. A task that was embedded into Azoth's code, as orders are wont to do. But Lan... is Lan. And given Loren's level of concern and distress concerning Lan, Azoth feels it very important to precisely illustrate what he was up again.
"Because she wished to speak with me, User Loren. It turns out the average person finds dropping all contract and fleeing from any encounter with someone they were previously familiar with reads as upsetting."
Azoth brings his claw to his own chest in a tragic gestures.
"She inquired on the nature of my shift in behavior. As I could not exit the hole without getting closer and failing my orders, I determined I should give her all the data she requested to hasten her departure."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Wh-- it's not a mockery!" Loren sputters, taken aback by this part of the quite literal description of what he was doing on top of his work desk during work hours. "--Of course not!" he goes on, gesticulating broadly with both arms. "I was building a-- I was making a--" He folds his arms across his chest. "It's a test of reflexes and concentration, I'll have you know!"
If Leah caught him doing this on the clock she would find him something more interesting to do, that's for certain.
...In fact, it is likely she already knows.
Sleep tight, Loren.
Azoth explains further, though, detailing why it was that Lan had so desperately sought contact with him. "But, you're not-- you attacked her!" he blurts out, because tact is never his strong point. "And how would she know that you were avoiding her..." Loren finishes, trailing off as it appears to dawn on him how his orders were received. Or, for that matter, the sort of orders he'd handed down in the first place and what that would have required of Azoth.
Loren closes his eyes, touching his fingers to the bridge of his glasses. "Okay. Fine. So you told her. And then she left?" Loren says, because he is a foolish, foolish young man. It is true that he and Lan are good friends. But it is also true that despite the leaps and bounds he's made in understanding the perspective of another human being, there are things yet lacking from his comprehension.
Which is to say, the precise order he'd given Azoth. And that, intentions aside, he'd made them without involving Lan.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's antenna perk up like he were some manner of excited beast. "I see! You are correct, User Loren, this does require a number of precise calculations to perform. I took for granted that an organic such as yourself would experience greater difficulty in its execution. What a delightfully pragmatic form of play."
He sounds serious about this, so much as Azoth sounds serious about much of anything in Loren's presence. Excitedly serious. Genuinely delighted, perhaps.
He hands Loren the next card he's holding as an offering. A peace offering or a challenge? Azoth leaves everything open to interpretion.
"I did! It seems that Subject Lan does not consider such an action sufficient grounds to destroy personal connections. That is very interesting. I wonder who could have predicted that based on past experiences."
Azoth's visor is set upon Loren. His head does not move. His gaze is unrelenting, the line of light across his visor a still, steady blue for several uncomfortable moments before he pops back to life, letting the gradient fluctuate and letting his tail and antenna shift about idly.
"Yes. I told her the truth. ... An embellished, kicked puppy version of the truth, but the truth nonetheless!" Uh oh. "She did leave, recognizing her continued presence was causing me distress for being in conflict with my orders. But!" He points a claw at Loren, circling it playfully. "She bid me give you a message."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He seems taken aback. "Well-- of course it does! You have to think about weight and balance," Loren starts to say, gesturing towards the castle in progress. "If you just stack cards, of course it's going to fall over! Having a firm foundating is crucial, and then there's the issues with making a foundation in the first place. Cards don't stand easily on their edge on their own, so that's the trickiest part. And of course you have to be careful not to cause any disturbance once you've started building..." He seems almost delighted -- well, insofar as he can be delighted about anything; perhaps it might be more accurate to say 'he's recognized a captive audience and is running with it to ramble at length about the difficulties of building card houses' -- in his own way to talk, quite seriously, about this very same subject.
So involved in the subject is he that he in fact takes the offered card and, reaching over towards the castle in process, carefully places it in position. To Azoth's more analytical eye, he's a fraction of a millimeter from the most optimal position, but, hey, meat has its inherent limitations.
But speaking again of Lan! Azoth explains what he understands about Lan's viewpoint and couples that with a meaningful look Loren's way.
It takes a moment for this to sink in.
"Hey-- that's completely different!" he protests, shaking his head and trying very hard not to think about, for example, the time he'd set her on fire. Or actively tried to kill her.
But Azoth had told her the truth. Of a sort! "What-- what did you tell her? That I threatened to wipe your hard drive?" Loren blurts out, somewhere between wary and taken aback. "And how come you can lie, anyway? ...Uh," he couples that with, hesitating visibly.
"A message? What... did she have to say?" He hesitates as he says it, almost as if he can realize, on some level, that something is amiss.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's attention remains rapt the more Loren goes on about the important considerations of card building. The light of his visor brightens and moves above the visor space, as if looking from cards to Loren and back again in deep consideration. Even his mechanics run quieter, head leaned in just a little closer -- but not obstructively so -- to carefully watch how Loren himself places the card.
Only a fraction of a milimeter! Impeccable for such inefficient digits and no inner exact measurement system! Azoth lets out an beep-whirr that lilts up, like an impressed whistle. It has the benefit of causing no air disturbance to threaten the cards.
But a more stoic eye is needed for getting Loren to look deep inside hmself at the matter of Lan. Namely, the matter of Lan remaining friends through various inflicted injuries. For better or for worse. The protest that it is different offers no respite from that long, solid stare.
"No, no, the truth, User Loren. You did not say that!" Azoth pauses, his movement halted. "...Did you? If you had wiped my hard drive of that or other data, I would not know. Hm. Yes. Well. Regardless, I told her you ordered it so while making a sad noise my status as a soulless asset."
So, you know, just casual implications Loren might have believed something like that. Rubbed it in a little. Made the adorable machine that is Azoth more depressed about it. So cruel.
But the message! Oh, the message.
Azoth brings his fist to his face and makes a distorted beep sound, as if clearing the throat he does not have. "Beginning message."
His lights -- from visor to claw to every pulse through his wires -- all turn a bright, Lan Lilac Lavender, glowing with a harsh glare as Azoth pops up, floating with his ancient energy making the tattered cloak he wears billow as his claws poise threateningly.
A synthesized voice box means Azoth delivers each word perfectly in Lan's voice, in the exact tone he received it that day from the bottom of a pit trap:
"If he doesn't take that order back, I'm going to... I'm going to stomp a mudhole in his ass and walk it dry!"
Lavender becomes blue-fuchsia as Azoth settles back to 'sitting' (but actually floating in a seated position) and returns to his too-deep reverb of a voice.
"End of message."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's not bad at this at all, absent errant breezes or surprises, or, say, Tabitha deVriese. But then, he had a lot of opportunities in his teenage years to practice at things like this. Well, and in his adulthood, too, if we're being honest. He's also good at throwing cards with reasonable accuracy! And throwing other things, besides!
But this isn't the reason that Azoth has darkened his doorstep, so to speak. No, Azoth is a machine on a mission, and meant to come here for a very specific reason.
Loren stares right back at Azoth. "Of course I didn't! What would I have done, come at you with a magnet?!" he sputters, as if this accusation has cut him to the quick in some fashion or another. "Engineering would have my ass if I did that, anyway!" He furrows his brow, staring at Azoth. "What? That's what you told her? But that's not..."
He doesn't finish that thought. It isn't possible to finish that thought, not in a way that would not, in some way, be a damn lie. What does Loren think about Azoth's status? Well.
It's complicated. He's a man who almost feels as if his Gear has a 'spirit' within it, of a sort. He has a surfacedweller -- Lamb -- as his closest friend. He has dated someone who was not even human. But at the end of the day, Azoth is a machine. And he's just another asset.
Loren doesn't say another word, his expression itself complicated as he apparently thinks this over.
But the message! Oh, yes, the message. Azoth, in the way only he can manage, relays this to Loren.
It's Lan's voice. Pitch-perfectly so, enough that he actually -- fleetingly, but Azoth will see -- glances over at the door as if he expects to see her. There's not even a twitch of a recording distortion in the playback. But, oh yes. The message itself.
Loren pauses there for a good long moment, his expression blank.
"...What?" he finally asks Azoth. "What's... that supposed to mean?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth has learned an important detail of Loren, a bonus to his otherwise ill omen of a visit. "You were already my perferred Gebler, and now it will be more difficult for anyone else to sieze the title."
It's... a kind of praise?
A positive to go with the negative of this visit. That is Azoth's nefarious way. Truthful lies and deceptive truths. He does not lie to Loren, per request. And nor did he lie to Lan. To express the data is all an act. A performance. But the data itself...
"I would not remember if you had!" Azoth chirps as if delighted and not existentially horrified. "But this is no accusation, User Loren. I do not think you would if you could. And not because of engineering."
But why not? Azoth does not say! He says things for Lan instead, watching Loren all too intently for his reaction. Absorbs it. Lets his core vibrate inside himself while he is otherwise unmoving.
"It means she is angry with you," Azoth explains simply. "After all, you have deprived her of my adorable presence!"
There is a ^ ^ at that, but it sobers back into a horizontal line of light. Perhaps it's best not to gamble with this one. If Loren needs an explanation, he'll get one.
"...But more because you have made a decision for her without her consent, based in your own fears and without consideration for her wants... And in doing so, also demonstrated you failed to understand her feelings about the incident."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren stares at Azoth for a moment. "...Thanks?" He's not entirely sure what to make of that -- is that even praise? Or is that what they call 'damning by faint praise'?
Still, perhaps this is another connection that Loren may grow to appreciate with time. Time was, he found Lan more nuisance than necessary part of his life, after all. For now, though, there is still a particular matter to attend to.
Which is, the matter of Azoth's interaction with Lan, and the consequences thereof.
"Why do you sound so cheerful about that," a somewhat unsettled Loren speaks about what is, quite frankly, an existential nightmare that cuts far too close to home for Loren. After all, he pretty much did have his hard drive wiped! ...For a little while, at least. "...Thanks?" is all that he can say to Azoth's remark that he is pretty sure Loren wouldn't do it anyway. He looks no less the happier for the praise.
'It means she is angry with you', Azoth explains, which is, frankly, the conclusion Loren has already arrived at. "Yes, I know, but--"
He out and out makes a face at Azoth's declaration, the sort of face someone might make on finding someone replaced the tablesalt with sugar (or vice versa).
But that's probably not the real reason.
"...But I was..." he starts to protest, his face creasing in consternation, only to trail off. Loren remains silent, his entire body language speaking of his exquisite discomfort as he looks away from Azoth. At length, he drags his hands down the sides of his face and stares up at the ceiling, as if to bring into motion some of the distress bubbling beneath.
"She's right. I don't. It doesn't make any sense! I was looking out for her-- isn't that enough?" he argues to the very thing he was trying to protect her against. As dense as he is, he seems to cotton to this after a moment, realization alight in his eyes.
"And she's going to kick my ass over it, whatever I say," he sighs. "Fine. Then update that order, Azoth." Loren is silent just a moment overlong, his expression softening. "...Just don't hurt her. Try not to," he adds, glancing away. "I can't really give you orders, you know." Not in a way that can't be overriden by someone else, later.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"Irony!" Azoth cheerily retorts of his cheer, cheering with another cheerful beep. "Am I doing it correctly?" He may not be, actually. It's important to receive feedback!
"You are most welcome, User Loren," Azoth says this time, and the tone is bright enough that one wonders: is that irony? And one would be correct if they deduced that Azoth's general use of irony is to constantly obsfucate the point.
But he did say he would not lie. Not to Loren. And Loren is one of the few Azoth is permitted to do such with. ...Save one particular order. A pity, that. It would be so fun to tell him. But otherwise!
"Above all, you did not want to see her hurt." This time, Azoth has the mercy to let his tone go softer. "I was sure to inform her of such. I even implored she not be angry with you." Azoth straightens, lights on his visor back at their smiling ^ ^ as if he's proud of this and deserves some manner of praise, which he does not: asking for sympathies for Loren's sake served additionally to make Azoth seem a sadder, more pathetic victim of a Loren based crime. It was an act of evil.
One not bereft of truth, either.
Another truth: Loren is of Solaris. A Gebler. One raised to beleive, all his life, that he does know what's best for others. That there are certain kinds of people who cannot know what is best for themselves. It is little surprise he does not understand from where Azoth is standing. Floating ominously. Obnoxiously, more like. Either way!
"Reccommended course of action: speak with her. Listen."
There's only so much Azoth can say concerning Lan's feelings. There are guesses. They may even be accurate. But to relay them in perfect clarity, were Azoth correct, would not solve the heart of this problem.
But Loren actually does upgrade his order, and Azoth straigthtens, a light flickering through his visor. "Order received." Azoth's whole body slumps, as if letting out a long held tension. "Thank you! I appreciate the nature of the update. I can work with that."
He can work several loopholes with that. Fortunately, Loren would probably approve of most of them, in this case. Others? That's a worry for another time.
Azoth leans forward again, chin in claw, and the other setting another card onto the house.
"...It is true that there are many whose orders would supercede your own." His visor light flits up. "And I would reject any order that placed you in danger. But I am still intended to be a tool at your disposal."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The answer is, of course, 'irony'! Loren looks dubious, even knowing that Azoth can't lie to him. "It comes off less as ironic and more as disturbing," he tells Azoth, shoulders sagging.
The 'you're welcome' on the other hand is much closer to the real thing, as evidenced by the faint scowl on Loren's face.
But perhaps that's the key point, even if it's one which will win him few favors with Lan, once the time comes: he didn't want to see her hurt. Azoth even agrees on it, adding that he'd taken pains to argue on Loren's behalf. The result is an ever more withered-looking Loren, because while he might not be the most adept at all social interactions, he does know this game. Just what picture of the relationship here had Lan gotten...?
And how much is she going to be mad at him over that instead of what he actually did (apparently, as far as he's concerned -- he's still grappling with this concept) do?
Never mind that the actual relationship here isn't all that much better.
But it is true: Loren has been well-educated in a certain viewpoint from the time he could walk, to say nothing of his own various life events that ultimately ended up with the young man being a bit... lacking in certain social graces. Still, there's a point when excuses run out, and when one has to grow up and learn how to be a better human being.
Azoth recommends he talk to Lan about this. Loren grimaces and rubs at the back of his neck. "Right... if I try to avoid it, she'll dig a pit for me, next..."
He's not even making light of the matter. She probably would!
He can't bring himself to cancel the order, even knowing that any update he makes will only hold out as long as someone else's order doesn't override it. But even so, even if it only sort of helps, maybe, sometimes, he can't let go of it absolutely. Even if there's no easy way to do so and no way in which he won't someday end up having to do something he recoils from, he wants to protect her.
Another card joins the carefuly-assembled structure. A jostle will send the whole thing tumbling down. But for now, it holds.
"Yeah," Loren agrees, watching Azoth's hand as it retreats from the card-castle. "But it'll have to do."
He picks up another card from the table and reaches over to place it, carefully. It isn't as if he can see another way.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth is quiet a long moment with Loren's assessment.
"...Acceptable!" he finally declares. For who?!
It is also acceptable for Azoth if Lan scolds Loren about how Azoth should be treated, because that would be funny. Not for Loren. Azoth has yet to determine precisely what Loren finds funny, and thus cannot cater to his sense of humor. Very tragic, you understand.
Maybe humor comes with growth. Azoth nods along sagely when Loren agrees to speak with Lan, and the consequences of not doing so. A step forward! Loren needs... more of those. Many. More of those.
"It will be unexpected and unpleasant. Experience not recommended."
But the message has been delivered, and perhaps an understanding reach. One of those little steps forward taken. It will, indeed, have to do.
And in all of this, the bonus: a fun new game involving stacked cards to test precision and balance calculations against. It will be interesting to see at point failure is reached.
It is a game Azoth will continue to play, mercifully quieting to grant Loren a respite from the stress Azoth otherwise purposefully and gleefully delivered today.
For now.