2021-02-12: Uncommon Qualities
- Log: Uncommon Qualities
- Cast: Azoth, Loren Voss
- Where: Deku Isles
- Date: February 12, 2021
- Summary: With Loren's return to active duty, Azoth takes the opportunity to check up on him.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth made his own attempts to search for the missing Loren with OS, but they had come up Lorenless. Programming dictated Azoth had to take the search as seriously as he was able, but freer calculations wondered... did Loren want to be retrieved? Azoth could not claim to know Loren well, but he wasn't without observations. Loren was... suffering. Azoth could not yet determine how, but he recognized there was an internal struggle taking place, significant enough that it might be putting Loren in danger.
But now Loren had returned -- 'safely' -- whatever the reason Loren had been lost in the first place. It isn't until he can find Loren alone and away from others that Azoth makes his approach. And it is, of course, with a blank face and a monotone voice, devoid of all his fake(?) Drifter cheer.
"This system acknowledges User Loren's return," he says in flat greeting. "Confirmation of your status requested."
A mechanical way of asking: you doing okay there, Loren?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren Voss has been better.
He has also been much, much worse.
And there is something to be said about returning to routine. There had been of course a few questions from those he worked with -- at least, from those who had bothered to ask -- and so he'd brushed them aside.
There's something to be said about returning to routine. At least, as much as he's able.
He hasn't been able to keep from thinking about things -- everything that happened. Lan. Leah. Anaitis.
By now, people are back to treating him as they did before, which means of course the pile of paperwork on his desk that he has been -- mostly -- ignoring. That may be one of the reasons that Azoth finds him in front of the snack machine. The first thing Azoth might note is that he's missing his glasses.
The second thing that Azoth might note is that the snack machine is throwing an error code. It might not take much to put two and two together.
"...Seriously?" Loren asks the machine. It of course does not reply and continues to cycle its error message and its deep profound apologies for the inconvenience.
He turns towards Azoth, then, and blinks. There follows what might be a long moment of silence.
Then Loren touches his hand to his forehead and sighs. "So... okay. ...Be honest with me, Azoth. Are you asking, or are your handlers putting you up to this?" Or is he learning from the others, runs the paranoid thought, and he's still the rumor topic of the week?
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth does note the lack of glasses, which raises inconclusive concern. Maybe he should have kept an eye out for those while trolling the woods. But his gaze drifts lifelessly to the snack machine and its error codes.
Loren responds with silence, and Azoth is still as a statue through it, responding in kind. He could, but does not, smile at the number of issues to unpack in such a question. Honesty, for one. But...
"I am an A.I.: a series of instructions that have been determined by my handlers. All behaviors performed are a result of the objectives that have been programmed into me," he says. "Verifying and maintaining the well being of agents and other assets has been determined to increase the success rate of these objectives. No direct command for this visitation has been issued."
He pauses, then gives a series of monotone beeps before looking to the snack machine.
"What was your choice of sustenance?"
Maybe he can fix this, machine to machine.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He probably should have put in an order to get those replaced -- the glasses, that is. But he's strongly tempted to not do that. Their function after all hadn't been for his vision but for something else -- focusing his Ether flow. Maybe, he's thought, as he's reexamined a number of component parts of his life to this point, they're something he doesn't need anymore...
(But he bets requisitioning is mad about him losing something in the field. Again.)
Back to Azoth, though, and the topic at hand, he regards the AI for a long moment, his head tilted slightly to one side. Loren blinks.
"...Right," he sighs, though not without giving Azoth a look as if to suggest that he's suspecting the machine is 'up to something'. Honestly, it reminds him of what Anaitis used to say about his Gear and...
That thought itself summons up a dull ache. It's not goodbye. And yet-- that doesn't change the fact that once again, he's standing alone.
He grimaces, shaking his head. He looks away from Azoth. "...I've been better," he admits, and it only belatedly occurs to him that a machine could totally record this for later, and thus he scowls further.
And then Azoth asks him what snack he'd been trying to get out of the machine. "Uh? The... crab chips." It's just crab flavoring, but it's fine. He doesn't think he's ever had real crab anyway. "Don't worry about it," he says, shaking his head. "It's just... busted again. My luck as usual, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The look is regarded without reaction. Even if Azoth decided to give one, he can't blame Loren's lack of trust in this case. Trusting Azoth is one thing, but not wanting to trust his handlers is another -- and not one Azoth would be inclined to advise anyone to do.
(But trusting Azoth is always a questionable decision regardless.)
Azoth notes the error code, then identifies the crab chips and their location within. A few beeps -- and a few internal calculations -- later, and then Azoth gives the snack machine an abrupt, suddenly jab with a crackle of energy from his fingers. It jostles, and a bag of chips falls from its place. Azoth retrieves it, gives the machine an apologetic pat, and then offers the snack to Loren.
"Maintaining consistent food intake and indulgence in pleasant stimulation may improve your status," he says. "I have also procured a portable mineral mass exhibiting characteristics identified with your unique attributes for this purpose."
Azoth extends his other hand forward, the rock in question resting in his palm in offering. It's a smooth, perfectly black stone with an indentation that would be the perfect size for one's thumb. Specifically, for Loren's thumb, though no one would be blamed for not being able to recognize the mathematical precision of such a measurement.
"Stimulation purposes," Azoth clarifies, "Not sustenance. Please do not eat it."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren watches quizzically as Azoth investigates the machine. For someone who is supposed to be so smart, Loren can be pretty stupid sometimes. For instance, it takes him a moment to realize what Azoth is up to--
In fact, it takes him up to the point where the snack in question is freed from the machine.
He blinks. "Wait, you can do that?" Is he, even now, calculating a future in which he can get, like, any snack he wants even if the machine's out again--
Well, it's not improbable.
He takes the snack bag, wrinkling his forehead as Azoth continues, going to to say...
"My what."
Portable mineral mass? Unique attributes??
All may be (somewhat) clearer when Azoth presents him with a... rock. Gingerly picking it up with forefinger and thumb, Loren squints at it. "...So a rock?" He pauses. "What unique-- what! What do you think I am?! It's a rock! I'm not going to eat it!"
So in a sense, Loren is still at least somewhat normal in terms of how he reacts to the world. That's a... good sign?
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It is good! Loren still knows not to eat rocks. Azoth can log that in as a part of whatever his picture of Loren's physical and mental health is.
"It would be more efficient to repair the machine," Azoth replies, looking it over again. Perhaps he could attempt that himself later? Nobody programmed not to mess with snack machines, and if people can't eat, their performance may decrease.
But on the subject of rocks... "Originally, I had selected a specimen with a shape in perfect ratio to your skull," Azoth explains in his continued robotic tone, perhaps suggesting this is a Completely Logical Manner of Selecting Gifts, Obviously. "However, it has been hypothesized that repeated tactile sensation provided by this stone's surface may act to refocus attention to the material present." It's a worry stone, in other words -- though at least this time Azoth's mostly not saying it like that because he probably doesn't know the term.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Probably," Loren says on the subject of the machine, settling back down into his usual wary grumpiness now that he's through with his initial overreaction. "I don't know how, though, and it's not my problem anymore." That's on the maintenance crew to handle, if they ever get around to it.
It's not that Loren has overconsumed stories about a machine uprising (he's totally read some; Solaris' publishing houses are an essential cornerstone of his society) and is inherently paranoid about machine intelligence.
It's still another thing for a machine to comment on the shape of your skull, however benign the actual statement.
"Uh," Loren utters, pulling a decidedly uneasy expression. But fortunately Azoth goes on!
Loren instead gazes down at the stone in his hand. It's cool, with a glossy surface that seems to invite touch. "Tactile sensation... refocusing... huh." He glances up at Azoth again.
"Did someone tell you that? Or is that something you figured out about... humans," he finishes, closing his fingers slowly about the stone.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
That momentary unease is exactly why Azoth had picked out Skull Rock in the first place. Now he has the best of both worlds: the reward of that feedback, and then giving a gift that may actually be constructive.
Because Loren may be Solaris, and being able to spook any piece of Solaris is one less bit of feedback burrowing into Azoth's sense of helplessness. But his first interaction with Loren was also him imploring Azoth to look for someone he could tell Loren cared for -- someone Azoth hasn't been able to locate without some other crisis going on preventing him from that objective -- and Loren also... suspects, in spite of everything.
Loren asks questions like this.
"Both. My current objectives require me to interact with humans frequently and consistently," he explains. "I have a been given data on human behavior and needs while observing additional context and nuance. This presented strategy is only a hypothesis. It may prove insufficient."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's true. Azoth hadn't found her. Loren, on the other hand, eventually had.
Maybe that was the point where everything had begun to really become unzipped. Or maybe it had been whenever... Lan had woken up.
Absently, he's begun to rub his thumb across the stone's surface as he holds it in his hand, an outward expression of the anxious buzz within.
He has a lot of questions he's not sure he wants to know the answers to -- he's already had more than enough unpleasant answers of late
But at least an answer like 'this' is easy.
"Huh," he says, crinkling his forehead. "So you're not just watching what they do but... what they feel? Is it that easy to..." He pauses a moment. "Extrapolate from?"
He glances down, noticing perhaps for himself that he's been fidgeting with the stone and just sighs. Maybe so, he allows, in private.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It also gives rewarding feedback to see Loren using the stone. Maybe Azoth was right, and it's something that can help.
This time Loren's question gives Azoth pause. It isn't the same reason he often stalls in conversation with others. There are no overrides to rip apart his responses here. But there are still dozen of calculations in conflict trying to determine the ideal reaction to receive -- and how to go about it. Some of that simply lies in being uncertain how to properly address the question.
Azoth's eyes glow a little, then dim again. "It is impossible for me to confirm without any margin of error the state of mind of another." Empaths exist, he's learned. Maybe it's not impossible for them. "But even without being told, there are signals consistent among human behavior that indicate likely emotional states. Emotional reactions have also been observed to follow logical patterns."
Maybe most of the robot takeover fiction involves a little more beep boop illogical feelings, and maybe some of the constructs he's met along his own adventures would agree with the spirit of the idea, but Azoth...
Well, Azoth would have quite a fight to pick with that depiction, personally speaking.
"I observe symptoms of stress and observe means used to mitigate stress. It is the same process used by my algorithms to determine threats in combat, adapt understanding of them, and apply the data to their destruction."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren's own studies have circulated about medicine. Ether. Gears. Fighting.
What goes on in the mind and heart have never been relevant or interesting to him, but there have been times -- especially recently -- where he wonders if maybe that isn't so much the case, now.
"There's patterns in emotions, too. ...Huh," he remarks, closing his eyes; his fingers close about the stone. It's grown warm already, absorbing heat from his body.
"That makes sense. We... sort of do the same things a lot."
He can, almost, imagine the sort of thing that Lan would say about it. Anaitis, too. Leah, though, would...
If she held a stone like this, it would remain cold. It's just how it is. With her artificial limbs, there's no helping it.
"And focusing on something like this is just something you figured out by watching people." He glances up at the ceiling, at the electrical lights.
"...You're pretty sharp. For a machine."
And for a human, I'm... pretty stupid, actually, he reflects, frowning.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"It is beneficial to my objectives to make these observations, decipher emotional patterns, and adjust my own behavior accordingly to account for the data. Were this not the case, the data would be considered irrelevant and receive little analysis."
There's relief in being able to speak of these cold truths, knowing Loren probably won't raise an objection the way those who want to call Azoth a friend would.
"My objectives are set by my programming. It is my understanding organic life typically operates with more flexibility -- to the point they may lack awareness of their own objectives unless an effort is made to choose and commit to them."
Azoth could -- but again, doesn't -- smile wryly at the implication it's weirder for a machine to understand this sort of thing than it is for a human not to. It isn't the first time someone's suggested it, which is... funny, might be the right word. Azoth hasn't, unfortunately, been given a large quantity of evidence suggesting this presumption is correct in a place like Solaris.
(And he worries about that, too.)
"Positive feedback acknowledged."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Yeah... I guess that's true. You have to figure out how to act around us," Loren remarks, again rubbing the stone with his thumb. "And I guess you're noticing all the stuff we don't."
Or maybe, he considers, reflecting on a few things -- his own interactions with the others, for instance -- they do notice it and it just flows on through. Like wind through a mill, he thinks, recalling those structures in action.
"More flexibility... huh. I can't say you're wrong though," he says, closing his fist tight about the stone again.
"We're... pretty good at forgetting what we're supposed to be doing."
It's a statement that might be especially true for him -- just what is he supposed to be doing, now?
'Positive feedback acknowledged.'
In spite of himself -- in spite of his general demeanor, in spite of the fact that he's even not entirely certain which part Azoth shows is the 'real' one -- Loren smiles. It's a small thing, there and gone, barely more than an upward tilt of the lips, but he still smiles.
"You're pretty weird," he says, and it's not altogether unkind, from him.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
More flexibility, but perhaps only just, Azoth reflects himself. Rachiel, for example, doesn't have the same behavior constraints as a robot, yet finds herself paralyzed. But on the other hand, there are those like Elehayym... It may be more what OS had said about even organics having their own programming to a certain degree.
Falk was like that, too. But little nudges here and there introduced new ideas.
With the 'compliment', if it can be called that, Azoth's eyes brighten briefly again.
"You exhibit uncommon qualities yourself," Azoth replies. "It is unusual to have users observe and question my behaviors without the objective of altering them."
And then Azoth, for all his monotone and perfectly blank face, allows himself his own small, but warm, smile(!!).
"Thank you, User Loren."
It is a rare freedom to speak so openly without fear.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren, to put it simply, is not used to being praised or complimented on. Of course he's not against it -- he remembers the pride he felt when Commander Ramses promoted him, for instance. But in every other circumstance, while it had felt nice, it had also made him feel uneasy-- embarrassed, even. And then embarrassed and uneasy about being embarassed and uneasy, because nothing is ever simple.
'You exhibit uncommon qualities yourself', even as a strange compliment (from a machine!), is thus enough to provoke him to stand up a little straighter and feel a little more self-conscious.
At least, until the rest of what Azoth had said sinks in.
There had been a time, not all that long ago, even before the memory loss had really taken off, where he would have not even thought about what that meant. Now he thinks about Lan.
Forget feeling self-conscious, or any of that. He just feels cold.
He has no business with managing Azoth's behavior or even reporting it anyway, he wants to say. So what if their robot's acting weird?
But he doesn't say any of that, and just looks away from him, for the moment silent. "..."
It's thus that when Azoth smiles -- and Loren glances back to see such an expression -- that his emotional situation becomes that much more complex. "You're... welcome?" he hazards, then remembers the bag of chips. He's still got them in his other hand.
Perhaps this remark from him though demonstrates best of all the changes wrought in him:
"Thanks. For helping with the machine. ...And the rock."