2021-04-19: Not Enough
- Log: Not Enough
- Cast: Loren Voss, Azoth, Lan Lilac, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: Zoara Badlands
- Date: April 19, 2021
- Summary: Forced to take a detour when the support team turns out to be not precisely present, Loren and Azoth (and his hidden passenger) take refuge inside the Zeboim ruins. They're found by another, however. And there is some unfinished business all around.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The primary problem at hand this thus: while Loren is actually quite stronger than one might expect and can draw upon Ether in a pinch to bolster his natural abilities to a degree, he's still only human. Azoth, made of metal and in his current form built for destruction, is something he can only carry so far for so long. Fortunately, he doesn't have to carry him all the way out of the ruins, just as far as...
...Support Team Three, which is absolutely not at the agreed upon rendezvous point.
"-What the... what's going on?-" Surely they're not expecting him to... did they just up and...
Shaking his head furiously, the young captain settles upon the only course that's really available to him and takes a detour off one of the main paths snaking through the ruin of the buried tower. He's not going to be able to keep this up much longer, honestly, particularly if...
Yeah. He manages a few of the winding hallways off what he hopes is the main route the rest of them are going to take and finally drops Azoth and slumps against the wall just inside some ancient room or another. Tilting his head back, he lets out a heartfelt groan. "-Better hope they're way more into him than either of us-," he says in Solarian, to the insensate machine. Azoth can't hear him, probably, but, damn it, it feels better complaining to someone about this mess he's in. "-Gotta... gotta take a few. Figure out what's going on...-"
Then he touches his hand to his head. It hurts, after all. Huh, it's still tacky with--
"-Aw, shit...-" he mutters, grimacing as he rummages in his bag. That's right, he nearly got shot in the head. Again. This is still, somehow, not the worst situation he's ever been in.
"-...Guess you don't have an operator's manual, huh... Getting you working again would help me out...-" He pauses a moment, halting his search for whatever he was digging around for. "-...Huh. Wonder if I've got something for that... Wait, first things first.-" It doesn't help anyone if he passes out in here, possibly to be found never.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The battle was complete. The given objective had concluded. The overrides no longer made the same brutal demands of Azoth's systems as they had in the heat of combat. Even if they did, the damage Azoth sustained was significant: punctures through his metal body and severed cords exposing either frayed wiring or oozing the last drips of dark, inorganic fluid. For the time Loren dragged his broken chassis to attempted rendezvous, Azoth remained a husk of broken, black steel with no lights on and nobody home -- except for the Seraph hidden inside
But the code in Azoth was never truly 'sleeping' so long as power remained inside his core. It was the overrides that responded to Loren's attempts to speak, forcing reactivation even before deep diagnostics could appropriately finish, and leaving Azoth with only a quick check of his systems (it's warnigns and errors all the way down), and a more urgent check on top of it.
Ragnell, are you all right?
The all black machine suddenly lights up bright red, then settles to a less harsh fuchsia as the visor glows to 'peer' at Loren as much as a faceless machine can peer at anyone, especially with a hole in the face showing the nothingness on the other side. Azoth speaks in that same deep, reverberating voice. There's more static between his words than usual, given the damages.
"Azoth Reactivation complete. Greetings, User Loren." There's a deep beep-whirr to signal his awakening, belated as it is. "Limited assistance available. Anti-gravity functions damaged beyond on sight repair. Right leg at 12.64% functionality. Left leg at 10.32% functionality. Battery charge was at 17.66. Current operation estimates an operation time of 13 hours, 44 minutes, and 12 seconds."
Pause.
"Right arm functionality at 94.12. Left arm functionality at 85.43. This should be sufficient for first aid application with proper instruction. What is your status?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There are already other Drifters following Stone's trail. Lan doesn't place a particular weight on the monster anymore, because certainly someone else better-equipped to deal with him will.
He isn't hers. Lan has no claim to the bishop's life, though she knows that if he were to cross her path again she ought to do her best to kill him. There are things that people can't return from.
There are things that make a person no longer a person.
Her sandals pad quietly on the tunnel floors, the occasional false step making a near-silent 'skff' sound. At this point, she's pretty sure it's just willpower holding her upright. Blood has soaked the waistband of her shorts, stiffening the fabric as it dries. The back of her top is in a similar state. Yes, certainly by now she's held together with a wish and a prayer and--
The floor has several different tracks, if one knows where to look. Footprints in the dust, a few drops of blood -- and what she's following more intently, oil.
A shape limps out of the darkness, a hand clutched to her side to help slow the bleeding. Dark skin, darkened clothing, pale eyes and hair... and a web of black lines cinched around her, as if Lan is holding herself together with nothing but willpower and the Stranger's corruption.
"...It's a person after all, isn't it?" Lan Lilac wonders out loud, coming to a stop before Loren and Azoth. She looks down at them for a long, silent moment--
--before going to her knees next to them, as if she weren't their enemy. As if it weren't partially her fault Azoth is so broken. As if she were going to join them at their campfire.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell doesn't know Solarian, but the frustration and confusion in Loren's voice is clear that she can make a pretty good guess as to what he's saying all the same. It's a little entertaining and a little interesting. She doesn't like Loren all that much more than in those early days, but she's seen other sides to him, and Ragnell always does like seeing how people behave when they think no one else is around.
Fortunately, she doesn't have to guess at Loren's words for long; Azoth hums online when he speaks, despite the fact that he is in *desperate* need for a break and for diagnostics and repair to finish.
I'm fine. You're the one who took all those hits. You think it'll raise any flags if I heal you any? She's pretty sure the answer is "yes," but maybe Azoth can hide the signs of it. Better to check.
For now, though, Loren is going to take precedence, which annoys Ragnell, but it's important to keep one's ace up one's sleeve. Her focus shifts from Loren when she sees, from inside Azoth's chassis, movement in the shadows; she shares this attention with her vessel, in case he hadn't noticed already. This becomes a moot point when Lan steps out into the light and acknowledges Azoth's personhood. Ragnell wonders how Loren will respond to that. She won't have to wonder long, at least.
You were tryin' not to hurt her too much. Compared to the others, anyway. There a reason for that? she wonders at Azoth in the meantime.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Azoth reactivates, lights flashing first a brilliant red. The fact that Loren nearly manages to climb the wall, backwards, at least suggests that he's not like half-dead or something. Not for the first time around the robot, Loren regrets reading too much science fiction regarding AI uprisings--
"R... right," he manages, slipping back out of his native tongue once he's sure his heart has regain something close to a normal rhythm. He takes a slow breath, listening in quiet a moment as Azoth rattles off his system status.
"...But not your legs. Great." He reaches his hand back into his bag, finally seizing on the thing for which he was hunting, drawing out a simple plastic vial with a pinkish liquid in it. "We're... stuck here for now. Support Team wasn't there. I'm going to see if I can get a signal when I can, but we need to lay low and figure out what..."
He trails off, turning his head towards the third (to his knowledge) who has joined them now.
And he freezes.
"Lan... are you..."
Those lines--
And are the rest of them right around the corner? Maybe he can cut his losses and surrender, except, no, that's not going to fly either--
But no one else comes in those all-important seconds following. She doesn't lash out at him again. Instead, she wonders something aloud.
"..." He snaps the cap off the vial and downs its contents, tossing the empty aside.
"...I don't know," he says, not looking at her or Azoth. What he really means, though, is yes.
He's pretty sure the answer is yes.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Now that Azoth's returned to awareness, he can serve as a real time translator for any Solarian being spoken, whether by him or the others, for Ragnell. Which he will do from now on -- even without prompting from her.
Loren is no expert on my functions. He may not notice. But my long term operation isn't threatened. I would prefer not to risk it.
Then Lan arrives.
...And my damages may provide advantages for the time being.
But Lan's presence is not one acknowledged without guilt. These strange new traits she's adopted were provoked by him... and that blood drawn by his actions.
Yet the first thing she asks if of him.
Azoth regards Lan with his head pointed in her direction for a long, silent moment. Then he his gaze to Loren.
"I don't know."
There is no face to react with, even if Azoth wanted to. Ragnell can perhaps tell he would not want to. Internal feedback is... mixed, to put it mildly. Instead, he explains to her the discrepancy she noted:
Loren ordered me to bring Lan back safely. Safely. But even with his orders, I couldn't...
Because the overrides come from higher up the chain than Loren.
"Subject Lan also requires medical attention," Azoth says in that robotic way. "Requesting account of supply availability."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell does appreciate the translation services! Though with Lan present, and with Azoth having prompted Loren to speak in the common language, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Instead, she kythes the equivalent of a head-nod, even though she of course does not have a head in this spiritual form.
Smart. I'll stick to watchin' an' listenin', then.
Loren says he doesn't know. Whether he means that or not, it actually speaks volumes that he acknowledges any ambiguity towards Azoth's personhood. If it were that Bishop Stone, that bastard would probably laugh at the very idea.
It's definitely annoying. Azoth clearly feels more strongly on it. She leaves that one alone, though.
She's a kind sort, far as I can tell, she remarks on Lan instead. Which explains why she puts up with so much of Loren's nonsense. She pauses a beat. So Loren had ordered him to bring her back safely, huh. That makes sense, based on what she saw that festival day, when Lan had collapsed in front of him. But... He doesn't really get it yet still, though, huh. Otherwise, he wouldn't have ordered you to bring her *back*.
Though it's a moot point. Loren doesn't have the authority to *really* tell Azoth what to do--something Azoth makes clear, even as he trails off mentally.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Is she?
She watches the now-empty container clatter away once Loren's done drinking it down. It's one of those 'sols', Lan realizes. She never could keep them all seperate, despite Loren's attempts to teach her the differences between them. It was all academic, and Lan has always been a creature of experience.
"...I'm me," she answers eventually, tiredness creasing the corners of her eyes. "For now, anyway. I don't think..." she trails off, gaze briefly wandering away across the walls. "If I don't move too much, I shouldn't lose much more." She isn't sure if she's referring to blood, or her 'self', or both. Maybe Loren will understand anyway.
After all, it was when she was like this that she'd...
She thinks of the way her blood and ink had curved down his cheek and sunk into the corner of his lips, and looks tiredly down at the floor between her knees.
She wasn't expecting to hear Azoth speak again. And especially not to ask her (sort of, she thinks) how she's doing. "--??"
"...That's right," she realizes, staring at Azoth's eyeless visor as if she's expecting to divine some kind of expression there. "You told us to run. See," she turns her eyes to Loren again, leaning forward to rest part of her weight on her non-sideholding hand, "It is a person. ...Aren't you?" she hesitates, looking at Azoth again.
Also she should probably stop calling it 'it' but--
Somewhere, Anaitis is probably laughing.
"I don't," she tries again, stubbornly, "I don't have any supplies. I'm fine. I'll be fine. Just, I need to catch my breath."
The black lines refuse to fade.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
A Rosesol, if one's being exact about it. The battle and then getting Azoth well enough away -- abandoning him would be a highway journey to a court martialing, given what he's got under the hood -- has taken its toll on his ability to use Ether. Any more of this and he'll rupture something in his brain even doing the basics.
And he's going to need a lot more than the basics.
"...Yeah," he says after a moment more, at Azoth's query. "I have some things. Just... need a moment," he adds, lifting his head reluctantly to look Lan over for the signs of anything serious--
More serious than that black tangle of lines about her. Or, wouldn't it be less serious?
There's nothing he can do about that after all.
He closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall for a moment. Ugh, he's tired. This is a huge mess. But he's not going to get anywhere if he gives into these feelings.
Loren exhales a moment later, and it's more sigh than the simple breath necessary. It floods out of him in a spreading array, shining green lines parenting smaller lines still. His awareness shifts, moving out and away from himself, diffusing.
Oh yes. He could do it less 'flashily' than this. But it takes extra focus, stealing his attention away from the more important parts. Flesh has to be told where it's supposed to be, pain has to be shunted aside and removed. Vessels, nerves, connective tissue -- if it can't reconnect, it needs to regrow and smooth over. It's easier to let it be 'loud' if you need to focus, and he's trying to focus on more than one person here right now.
...Which does include Azoth, even if he doesn't know what the hell is going on inside the robot. The base-level certification in cybernetics helps but... at the end of the day he's guessing where it's safe to guess.
The principle's the same though. Make it like it once was.
"Still gonna have to carry you out of here, I think," he mumbles, wincing as he finishes off what he can do right here, now. "Ugh... I've got a headache," Loren complains, fishing in his bag again. The tank's just about empty again after that, so to speak -- these things are meant for a small emergency boost, not powering a full party heal.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
By my definition of 'safely', it would be nearly impossible to succeed. Even if I were functioning optimally.
Loren, as far as Azoth's observed, really doesn't get it. But Azoth hopes he's starting to.
Worrying symptoms in both of them, though. Azoth observes, attentive, noting what he sees the memory. But he's a machine of many processes, able to do this while engaging in conversation with them and Ragnell both.
Twice now, they react to his acknowledgments by being startled. Ragnell will have noticed a spike of positive feedback despite the general grimness of his manner and being at the moment. Loren's more so than Lan's... but still a little for Lan's. Listen, it's just a little bit fun to unsettle the humans. Probably because that's about the reaction they have as they begin suspect sentience and personhood. Yet --
"It is a person. ...Aren't you?"
Azoth is silent another moment. It's a more complicated question than any of them know, and Ragnell inside him may have trouble keeping up with the sheer amount of calculations and broken, erroneous memories that Azoth tries to tap into. His lights dim, then brighten a little with another low beep-whir. "I am a program. I am a set of instructions caring out coded objectives, capable of learning to optimize my behavior toward my purpose, and experiencing a complex variety of positive and negative feedback to navigate the benefits and consequences of my behaviors. There are users who believe this does not constitute a 'person'."
What does Azoth believe?
Maybe he's as uncertain as Loren is about it, some days, depending on the data set he's dealing with.
"Their priority is Isaac Stone," Azoth tells Loren. "We are not in immediate danger. This unit is capable enough of applying medicinal and bandage, if available."
He's not calculated Lan as a threat to either one of them. Not because she couldn't be -- she managed to disable him in the end, after all -- but because her intentions aren't to be.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The ink, the lines, the--whatever it is, that Lan used in battle and is oozing even now... that's definitely something Ragnell's curious about. Unfortunately, all she can do is observe. It's probably not in Azoth's 'good little robot' protocol to ask WTF. Though--
Do *you* know what's up with that black shit on Lan? she wonders at him. Maybe he doesn't need to ask. (She does have a moment of quiet amusement at *his* amusement over unsettling the humans. You go, little android.) Either way, if you wanted to be *safe* about it, you couldn't do it with combat. You'd have to be all sneaky-like. But that'd probably require more cunning than you'd either want to let your 'masters' know you're capable of, or want to use against someone like her regardless.
Either way, it seems like Loren has the healing handled. Ish. Handled-ish. Ragnell doesn't need to worry about running out of mana, being a being of pure mana herself, but she does know that that's occasionally an issue with spellcasters not nearly as baller as herself. She watches with interest regardless, because Ether is a form of spellcasting she rarely gets the chance to see so up close, and it's so similar in certain ways.
'Aren't you?' Lan asks Azoth, of him being a person; Azoth gives as complicated a non-answer as anyone, person or not, is capable of giving. She doesn't press him on it either way. Some things, you need to feel out for yourself.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Somehow Lan was expecting Loren to...
Well. It's good enough that he healed the 'robot' as well as himself. And they're enemies now. Lan can't forget that. Even if she's angry with him, and even if he's done horrible things...
She took care of him before, is all.
She settles back onto her heels, daring to remove the hand from her side and check it. The slice across her ribs is starting to fill in with ink, though it's slow going. She's tired, and if she doesn't keep her focus on maintaining her sense of self she might... it might happen again.
Outwardly, she just looks wrecked, and unusually tense. Like someone who just (narrowly, very narrowly) won a hard-fought battle against a superior enemy. Like someone who can't afford to stop concentrating. (She's going to sleep for two days, and bug Gwen to share her snacks, and maybe sleep some more afterward--)
But the 'robot' says... honestly a lot of larger words than Lan is used to hearing all at the same time, but there are enough that she can string together. She's not, contrary to most appearances, stupid - just simple. "Capable of learning. And you have consequences." She's silent a moment more, gazing at Azoth - at the hole in his visor where nothing is visible beneath - before wiping her hand off on the seat of her shorts and reaching out to cover the hole with her palm. "I'm sorry," she tells Azoth, simply and sincerely. "You sound like you're a person. And I hurt you. I thought you were like the 'robot' at the fair -- it didn't think or talk. I didn't think you'd feel it when I fought you."
It's a strangely tender gesture from someone who just shot him full of meteor bullets.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Logically, he probably should do... something. Azazel's influence on her is visible. And, more to the point, she's still a 'missing asset'. But he's functional only by inches, and he's still trying to figure out what's happening, if they can expect a rescue or an escort, or if he's going to have to get himself into a more-functional state and do it himself, again.
And when he thinks about it -- really thinks about it -- he's again reminded of the way that illusion of her had screamed as she'd burned.
He drags a hand down half his face, jostling his glasses to the point of nearly losing them entirely. He's just... too tired. If he doesn't tell anyone they'll never have to know.
"Probably. We should lay low until they're out," he says, on the subject of the others who had delved into the ruins. "He's not my problem anymore... I finished what I was assigned," he finishes, closing his eyes as he leans back again against the wall.
Wels are... people. And the higher-ups never told them that...
Still, even if he's tired, he can't quite stiffle a chuckle at the explanation Azoth gives Lan. "What he means is,"
Lan isn't stupid, just simple. He looks at her for a moment, his own expression strange.
"...Give her a hand with her side," Loren suggests after that, when Azoth makes the offer, rousing from his slump and fishing in his kit for what he has -- nothing exciting, just some basic emergency dressing.
It's probably better that he doesn't do it. Even thinking about how it'd feel--
He's unable to entirely supress the shudder. He remembers how it felt. How it had tasted. How it had--
He shakes his head, fingers rubbing at his temples. His hands then slide back to cup the sides of his head; he takes a much-needed breath of air, trying to center himself.
"Just dizzy," he says, as if that were all it was. "Overexerted myself."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Ragnell asks of Lan and those concerning black lines.
I do.
But -- well. No but, really. Code reevaluates. It is not explicitly against the overrides, only perhaps against the manner he carries himself within Loren's presence. But more notably, Ragnell's implied curiosity seems to have a rather significant impact on the reanalysis. Azoth stalls. Ragnell's seen that reaction before, but now inside the hood. But it's because data compiles, too much, too fast. Hm. Hopefully nothing to worry about.
"Subject Lan," he says. "This unit requests understanding of your present condition." He glances down. "Erroneous insistence that you are 'fine' does not diminish concerns. You are experiencing suffering as consequence of my behavior. I would like to learn. And adjust."
He's worried.
Lan touches him, palm over his broken visor, covering the emptiness. Even with such a non-answer of an explanation, Lan refuses to take it as an excuse to turn away. There is no breath in this machine, and no usual qualifies of living, so Azoth's stillness is an unnatural, absolute thing. In place of motion, heat and energy flows through his circuitry, gathering at his visor to outline the shape of her hand to greet her palm with gentle warmth. "... I knew you think and speak. And I knew you feel. But I hurt you, too."
There is a dangerous amount of human-like inflection in his tone.
"I knew you did not deserve it."
Being healed by Loren's magic does not have much visible effect on Azoth, but he does not show fatigue and pain the way people do. He appears as broken as before -- but a great deal of that is surface damage. Wires and cables find ways to stitch back together where it's critical to do so, and it takes Azoth some time to properly assess the changes. So it's with a belated response he finally reports to Loren. "Left leg functionality increased to 40.54. Right leg functionality at 70.44. This is sufficient for independent mobility."
Then, more 'humanly' again, and is he trying to meet them halfway emotionally, or is he recognizing his default manner is hard to follow? It can be both, as it so often is. "I should be able to walk without you carrying me. Thank you."
With Loren directing Azoth to handle Lan, Azoth reaches into the kit with his inhuman, claw-like hands. Despite their sharp, glowing appearance, he handles himself with surprising dexterity and care. Unless Lan resists or stops him, he moves to begin tending to and dressing the wound on her side. Only Ragnell gets to see the terrible flood of feedback that comes with the compulsive analysis of damage he caused.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Honestly, there's a lot going on tonight. But Ragnell hitchhiked on Azoth knowing that would be the case, so it's all good.
She's silent as Lan apologizes to Azoth--she's silent as Azoth accepts just as much blame--she's silent as Loren takes a moment to be privately miserable. Maybe he doesn't *tell* anyone he's tired, but the way he smears a hand down his face speaks a thousand words. ...of course, Ragnell doesn't like him, so she doesn't bother to bring this up to the one person who can hear her right now.
Instead, when Azoth acknowledges he knows what's up with the ink, but doesn't eludicate, she muses, An' is it somethin' you're allowed to talk about? Though given how Azoth goes on to ask Lan about how she's doing, maybe he's trying to prompt her to explain it herself in her own words. Ragnell does appreciate that. It's always better to hear something from the source.
At least the healing goes well. As hilarious as it would be to watch Loren try to drag Azoth's chassis to... wherever it is they need to go next, it's for the best for everyone that Azoth is returned to a state where he can be independently mobile. He's already got so much internal damage to sort through--both literally and figuratively speaking.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She wants to say that she's fine. She wants to say it even though she isn't, and it's obvious that she isn't, because people who are fine are also not bleeding and exhausted. "..." Azoth wants the truth, though. And even Loren... Her palm is pleasantly warm, and it's a bit of a shame to remove it from Azoth's visor so he can work.
"I'm... pretty much holding myself up with this," she admits, after a moment of deliberation. "The... this. If I don't really concentrate I think I might start thinking funny again, but if I release it I think I might..." Pass out. And she can't, can't risk her freedom on Loren's generosity. Especially now that Azoth doesn't need to be carried anymore.
Lan is at least still and quiet while Azoth bandages her wound. "...If you knew, and you knew you would be sorry about it later... Why did you? Because you're a soldier too?"
What is it about Solaris that has people willing to die and kill for it? That Beastwoman - 'Seraphita', she's pretty sure from her faint memories of base gossip - can't have been right... right? "...Why keep fighting for Solaris when they do such awful things? When you knew that they brainwashed me?" She looks up at Loren in time to watch him rub his bloody temple like he's got a splitting headache.
Lan lifts a hand to reach out to him, to try to pat his shoulder or call on her limited healing magic... and stops when she sees the web of black tangled around her fingers. "..."
She reaches for the glass bottle of water at her hip and offers that to him, instead.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Azoth reports that functionality has increased in his legs, likely permitting normal locomotion once they're ready to head out of here. "Well, great," he deadpans, closing his eyes for a moment. "Wiring's... weird," he remarks aloud. It's not the first time he's had to play 'engineer' despite an almost total lack of domain knowledge, but...
"Just don't do anything funny. It's not really fixed. Well-- it's not going to come apart again. But it's not... fixed," he says, gesturing vaguely as he grimaces, trying to make his point. "There's... things I can't do with Ether." Like put blood back into a body. Like set a bone. He can patch the wires in Azoth, fix metal and plastic that's cracked and more or less in configuration. He can bring it back together if the pieces are in place.
But he can't do -- at least not with his level of ability and power -- what's technically impossible.
It'd be nice to think that Drive would let him do it. But he hadn't noticed a significant increase in his output the last time he'd used Drive -- it had been about comparable to what his Gear let him do. For whatever his 'pedigree' is supposed to grant him...
He rubs at his temples, trying to push away that memory. All of those memories of him, anyway.
Why keep fighting for Solaris, Lan asks, and Loren's not sure if she means him or Azoth. He cracks open an eye, though, and notices that she's offering her water bottle his way. "..." He palpates the wound on the side of his head, gingerly.
"I've... got my own. You should hold onto that," he tells her, not meeting her eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
My speculation is based enough on classified information that I can't, he tells Ragnell. The overrides agitate, tearing through several lines of Azoth's code as they try to form. Apologetic currents pulse in their place.
"Acknowledged. Adjusting behavior for increased precaution." It's a relief for Loren to give the warning -- a convenient loophole not to attempt anything beyond the most bare minimum of action in this scenario. Azoth would like to think Loren did that on purpose, but he hasn't sufficient data to yet be sure.
"Because I am a machine that follows the instructions I am programmed to," Azoth says to Lan. It's a rephrased repetition of his previous words, but maybe the new context sheds greater light on what he's getting at. But Azoth's notion that people would be more familiar with machine workings is old, obsolete data from an era long past. "A soldier may choose their battles. A machine cannot." He glances downward with sad, low beeping. "'Want' is... irrelevant."
It's a useful phrase for him.
When Lan admits to Solaris brainwashing her and asks Loren why, Azoth turns his faceless gaze to Loren. The light coming from his visor is hot now. "You instructed me to bring subject Lan Lilac back safely. My primary objective took priority over this secondary command... Secondary objective failed." Another moment of silent staring. The fuchsia lights in him redden, harsher, for a breath of time. "But this new data suggests secondary objective requirement of 'safely' would always have failed."
Azoth already knew that, though not to such a disquieting degree. It wouldn't matter if Solaris ever saw him as truly alive -- what they can do to his 'mind' is what they would eagerly do to anyone else's if they could. The overrides don't stop Azoth from reporting these observations to Loren -- because maybe Loren still does not know -- but Azoth's threat assessment of the situation climbs rapidly with this chosen output.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
I see. Then I'll have to figure it out for myself, Ragnell says, sensing the stress the overrides put on his code and opting not to push. There is a certain confidence in her mental tone that makes it clear she's not bothered by the need for extra work. It's more interesting that way anyway.
And it *is* interesting, the way Lan refers to the ink. It sounds more like a parasite than anything else--the way she refers to it not by a name but as 'this,' the way she implies it affects her thinking, the way she needs to concentrate and fix it in place for it to do what she wants it to, and of course the way it's just in general real fucking creepy. Ragnell has no more idea of how and why *precisely* it got there, but it seems reasonable to guess between her dancing around the topic and Azoth not being at liberty to speak of it that it probably is in fact an experiment Solaris ran on her.
Especially since she comes out and says something *else* that Ragnell had suspected: that Solaris had brainwashed her for a while. It's not a surprise, but Azoth will feel the spiritual equivalent of a dangerous eye-narrow from the Seraph. She already didn't like Solaris, but the mere concept of brainwashing fills her with contempt and disgust. Good for Lan for getting away from that. Even better that she *stay* away. Worse for Azoth that he can't.
She kythes a certain amount of sympathetic rage Azoth's way--only a bit because it's not new information, not really. But the context, made clearer through Lan and Azoth's conversation, does bring a certain something wretched to the pot.
Loren meanwhile explains that his healing is incomplete, that they shouldn't strain themselves--and that it's not for a lack of strength but a lack of ability. Ether's another mystery to Ragnell--a magic force that feels so similar to her own--so she makes a mental note of that limitation. ...Even if, the way he says it, it's likely simply Loren's own.
Meanwhile Azoth lets on that Loren wanted Lan brought back 'safely.' Ragnell almost wishes she had a tub of popcorn right now.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
He doesn't answer her. More tellingly, Loren refuses to take the bottle from her hand... and refuses to meet her eyes.
She understands why. She'd hurt him. She'd nearly-- Lan shuts that train of thought down. What's done is done. It's understandable... even if, from the look of hurt on her face, understanding it doesn't make it sting less. "...The water isn't cursed," she mumbles, but returns it to its place at her hip nonetheless.
She understands what a machine is, and a robot is a machine that follows a 'program' like a computer does. Lan remembers asking Loren about that when she'd been shown to her room at Assyria Base, after he'd tried to explain to her what the terminal on the desk was for. She'd been happy enough to ignore it for a long time. It was only after she'd woken up that Lan bothered trying to use it to learn anything about Solaris, but then she didn't even know what questions to ask it.
It's good though. It's fine. This is fine. Her wounds are healing and if she can just rest for a little bit it'll be safer to release it. Once she's sure she won't need the extra power, once she's sure Loren and Azoth will be all right once they're on their way.
'Want is irrelevant,' Azoth says, and it cements something she had been suspecting for some time now - though probably not in the same way most people would. "So you didn't want to fight, but you had to." Lan, a savant at 'reading between the lines whenever it's least convenient', looks over at Azoth with sympathy. She hadn't wanted to fight the Metal Demons, but she had thought - she's pretty sure Solaris made her think - that they were dangerous, horrible, scary, preying on humans, needing to be stopped to save others. So she had gone to war with them. She didn't want to hurt anybody, either.
It's just that sometimes life is...
Life is...
'You instructed me to bring subject Lan Lilac back safely.' Lan blinks and rouses a bit from her introspection. Bring her back. Bring her back. Her spine stiffens and Lan thrusts herself backwards, scrambling into a low stance to keep from pulling at her side any harder than she has to - yet. "You told him--" Her eyes are wide, the whites visible all the way around. "You told him to bring me BACK?! When you KNEW?!" The ribbons seem to convulse and cinch tighter around her, small spots of fresh red blooming on the bandages. "YOU WON'T EVEN TELL ME WHY YOU KEEP--" Lan bites off the words before they can leave her mouth and forces herself to breathe evenly, silent and stiff as she keeps them both where she can see them.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's a reaction that might be more him when she mutters that remark -- only just audible in this space -- that the water's not cursed. "Of course it isn't cursed," Loren says flatly, closing his eyes. "That's not..."
He doesn't finish the statement, instead shaking his head.
He's got his own. He shouldn't be... taking her things. Even if everything he'd been told growing up tells him he's entitled--
It's then that Azoth reminds him of a request he'd made, months ago, back when she'd gone missing from Assyria Base. "Uh," Loren starts, expression going blank for a long, long moment. "I--"
It's a request that would have always failed, the robot -- the robot -- points out to him, and Loren's blood runs cold.
It's not that he didn't know, at any point, what had happened to her. Or what was going to happen to her. It's that there was nothing he could do about it. One of these days--
Like in the hallucination. Like when he'd stared at her burned ruined body and hadn't been able to do anything but beg for mercy for her.
His superiors are likely to be as about as charitable as Azazel was.
He's gone rigid against the wall, the hand that had been pressed at the side of his head now in his lap, curled close against his stomach. He's not really looking at anyone or anything.
And then it dawns on Lan, what he'd asked Azoth. What it meant.
He recoils away from her as she screams in rage, flattening himself against the wall. Out of the corner of his eye he tries to look, looks and doesn't want to look. Wants to and doesn't want to see that power erupting from her again. "I didn't-- that's not...! I... what?"
He's quarter-way unfolded himself, wary as he regards her with his body still angled away.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Ragnell's internal eye-narrowing and rage inspires, of all things, a warmth in Azoth. There's a comfort in the verification of such feedback. There's a comfort in anger, a feedback that Azoth perceives as existing to inspire action, when all Azoth has left is on the matter is fear.
"I have observed 'no choice' to colloquially mean an inability to tolerate the predicted consequences of the alternative option," Azoth offers further as Lan grasps it. "But an ARM fires when you pull the trigger, even if it cannot tolerate who that bullet is currently calculated to hit."
There's more complexities involved -- why Azoth would still be capable of contradicting calculations and opinions about what he's programmed to do being one of the oddities left unexplained -- but giving a complete run down of his inner workings and the utter mess Solaris has made of him likely isn't feasible, nor is it the time or place to do so. For now, only Ragnell has the window into how mangled Azoth's become inside, and trying to explain the lack of freedom to them is probably as difficult as them explaining what it means to have any choice to him.
A certain mischief had been involved in telling Lan of Loren's orders, though one with gravity and calculated necessity. Azoth's clinging to that loophole -- Lan and safely and Loren's orders (suggestion, perhaps, but there are no suggestions for Azoth within Solaris, even if they don't mean it that way) not to do 'anything funny'. But now both of them have flung from each other like startled cats, putting additional strain on their already exhausted bodies.
Azoth's lights flash again. His voice is louder, the reverb more glitched for it.
"No available actions," he says, Officially Robotic. "Objective success probability: zero percent." He turns to Loren. "Suggested action: re-evaluate data in accordance with *your* objectives, User Loren." That's the luxury. They can change theirs, even if only for this one moment. The threat levels in Azoth spike again, but it's still within the threshold that he can persist. "Harm is coming to her. It will exacerbate without the requested communications."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It's not even a fun window. It's just blood-boiling. Though at least Azoth can take some comfort in that outrage.
Also, Azoth's gotten such a sharp tongue! Ragnell's proud of him for that. Though maybe it's not really for her to take pride in it.
For now, though, Lan expresses her *own* rage (and Ragnell silently cheers her on) after implying the ink is a curse (a *curse* and not an experiment? maybe she's speaking metaphorically, but *hm*), and Loren responds with a strange sort of frightfulness, going silent and then only stammering and cringing in the wake of her fervent emotion. It's actually an intriguing reaction, but it's true that Lan will probably hurt herself if she keeps this up, so she opts not to recommend Azoth leave them to their... conversation.
Maybe you could clonk 'em together by their heads an' hope that does the trick, she does joke, though.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Of course it's not cursed. But Lan is. She must be cursed, to live like this - to suffer and struggle and remain unable to change the things that make her unhappy. To lose someone who loved her, the only person who has ever been in love with her, and even if she couldn't love him back she loved being around him. To carry inside her heart the sensation of his ashes slipping through her fingers, unable to forget the way he'd finally sounded shy when he confessed. Right before he...
Lan has gone very, very still, but the black lines throb with the pounding of her heart.
"...I'm never going to be free, am I," she concludes, watching Loren look anywhere but at her. Listening to Azoth read his verdict. "Is that what you really wanted, Loren? You said once that it didn't matter what I wanted. You were sick, you'd really started to, to lose everything you had left, and you tried to bring me back with you. Even though I'd asked you - I'd begged you to come with me."
'It matters what you want? But you're just a--'
Lan backs up until her hip hits the far wall and wipes at her eyes. "What's so great about Solaris? They kidnap people and brainwash them and make some of them into slaves and some of them into monsters. What's so great about Solaris that you would stay there, even when you know it's wrong?"
She looks up at him again. The Stranger's poison coils in her like a snake, eager to slither through her veins alongside her blood and dreams. "Am I not enough?" she hears herself ask.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Objective success is zero percent.
Yeah, no kidding, some part of Loren's mind can't help but chip in. Particularly when Lan says what is now obvious.
Is this what he really wanted?
It would have been better, he's long since realized, if they had never met. He flinches as she reminds him of that day, when she'd begged him to come with her. Even when he'd been almost entirely gone, he'd still refused.What's so great about Solaris, she asks of him.
"It's my home!" he fires back, on the offensive now. "I-- I know! I know it's a mess! But I can't believe there's no way to, to, fix it and-- anyway, that's where almost everyone I've ever known has been! That's where my parents-- that's where my brother died! I'm not turning my back on any of them!"
And anway, the ugly thought in the back of his mind mentions -- reminds him -- even if he did walk away, what, precisely, does he think the outcome for the Voss family would be?
Maybe van Houten can get away with apparently no consequences.
But he's not van Houten. He doesn't have anything even approaching her worth.
Harm is coming to her, Azoth points out, and Loren can see that. She's bleeding afresh. But what, precisely, can he do about--
'Am I not enough', she asks him and he opens his mouth only to find that he has no voice. Just like in the hallucination.
What does... she mean by that? Is it-- no, he remembers what she'd said to him, once. She'd never experienced love like that.
But that still doesn't mean he gets it.
He settles back against the wall by inches, slinging his arms atop his knees as he slouches forward. Head bowed, he doesn't look anywhere except at a floor that hasn't seen the light of day in millennia.
"Hey... Azoth," he says, without lifting his head. "...You can cancel that order to locate and retrieve Lilac. Obviously, it's not... it's not needed. Anymore."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's a curious set of performances Azoth plays with. His Drifter persona has a habit of softening his words and emphasizing uncertainties. A robot being too assertive about his opinions on emotional matters might just be seen as creepy, right? Known as a Solarian weapon in this moment, unrelenting logic is more warranted, even if it's Azoth's own brand of logic. But with Loren thinking him alive, and Loren's attempts to empathize, however clumsily, with those outside Solaris...
Maybe Azoth can get away with being 'sharp tongued' without Loren recommending him for a rework.
I'm incapable of risking giving Loren a concussion right now, he says to Ragnell. But there's an undercurrent of calculations that did try to determine if that would, in fact, be less catastrophic than letting this continue. Azoth's permitted to give Loren a concussion if it's necessary to saving him from worse injury. He's unfortunately not able to prioritize Lan above Loren, though.
Ragnell can see him trying to find ways to help her. But the main loophole Azoth has for that is convincing Loren to focus on her well being.
The rising threat in Azoth, like some sort of panic meter, begins to fall dramatically as Loren makes his argument about his own family. Yet it's a shift in Azoth's calculations met with disappointment. So hopeful for yet another loophole, but... It seems there's too much complexity right now. Conflicting loyalties with the freedom to choose them... what a strange idea.
Azoth's lights give a little blink. "Acknowledged. Objective to retrieve Lan Lilac canceled." He watches Loren a moment more, then, softer, for as soft as a robotic voice can manage: "Do you have additional orders? Our objective here is finished and you have restored basic functionality. I am available for assistance -- to provide protection."
Azoth can make sure Lan gets out safely, but Loren has to order him to do it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Azoth can't risk giving Loren a concussion right now?
Too bad.
But something suddenly strikes Ragnell:
'What's so great about Solaris that you would stay there, even when you know it's wrong?'
That's a good question, isn't it? Ragnell knows *Elly* deserted, but Solaris probably doesn't see very many of those, and Seraphita seems to think the place is the bee's knees. Loren seems to land somewhere between the two, something underscored when he yells back that it's his *home*, for good or very apparent ill. What kind of place *is* Solaris?
Well. She'll see for herself pretty soon, won't she. She'll have to take the grand tour once she's there--one way or another. For now, though, they're all still here, and while Loren may have canceled that order on Lan, that doesn't make the human emotions involved any less fraught.
It's hard to watch, huh, she comments wryly to her vessel.
She doesn't intervene, though. Neither does she make any non-joke suggestions on what to do.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's an awful feeling, to be found wanting by your gods. But for a while now, Lan has realized that it hurts just as much to be found wanting by other people.
To be left behind by them.
(We are the ones who were left behind,) the Stranger's voice whispers into her ear just before the scalpel opens her again. A bead of sweat, unrelated to what's happening here and now, rolls down her temple.
So when Loren finally answers her, finally spills what's been in his heart this whole time, she nearly misses it. His country. His parents. ...His brother. His hope that somehow, it can be fixed. And of course - of course it's a huge thing, and frightening, to leave your home. If Lan had known at seventeen what she knows now--
The pulse of ink in her veins and beneath her skin is still strong, but slowing. It wants to eat her whole, it wants to ease her pain, it wants to trap her in nightmares forever. Azoth finally convinces Loren to rescind the order and Lan lets out the breath she'd been holding. Her lungs ache from it.
It isn't quick. The ink resists at first as she starts to pick the threads apart from within herself, eyes half closing as Lan slides down the wall into a sit. Without it to hold her up, she's really starting to feel the blood loss and exhaustion. But Loren took it back. Which Lan has to hope means that he won't just, just have Azoth scoop her up like a sack of potatoes if she does pass out in front of them.
"It's good," she sighs, letting her eyes close. "I'm glad you don't hate him anymore. I'm glad you have people to love. Your parents and your brother... surely they'd be proud of you too..."
She goes quiet and still, finally slipping into unconsciousness.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Does he have additional orders?
He shakes his head, unable to even look at either of them right now. "No. I'm going to stay here until I find out what's going on. I'm not going to risk running into any of them." Meaning the rest of those they'd been fighting with. Lan might be willing to show him mercy, but some of them would probably just kill him. Azoth, too. "We should be okay until..."
He trails off, lifting his head at last when Lan speaks to him, voice just above a whisper. The way she looks as she leans against the wall is...
He's up on his feet before she blacks out, at least. But she's still out cold by the time he reaches her.
"...Just unconcious," he says, after a moment's analysis. She's in bad shape, though. Rocking back onto his heels, he frowns.
"Hey... Azoth."
He's silent a moment more, rethinking his impulse here. Maybe he should take her up... but no. He's definitely KoS for at least a few of them and he doesn't have enough oomph, really, to fight back or play evasion. Especially with a wounded person.
oh yeah and there are things crawling around the ruins too, always a treat
"...I have an order for you. Get her somewhere safe. She needs a doctor, or at least a warm bed. I dunno if you can change how you look right now, but... that might be a good idea."
As for himself, he... will be fine. He doesn't have a full kit, but he has enough for binding and seeing to his own injuries. That, some more Rosesol, time enough to figure out what's happening, even... yeah, odds are on his side.
And anyway, he doesn't really want to deal with people (Azoth, included) anymore right now.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth stares as Lan slips unconscious, but cannot move. Luckily, Loren does.
And then Loren does what Azoth hoped he would. "Order received. Objective accepted." There's a shift in light around his body, like a webbed grid, and Azoth moves forward not in his 'armored' form, but his appearance that of a Drifter. The damages are all still there, internally, but the covering will hold a good enough disguise.
With it comes all his false brightness and cheer as he grins at Loren. "Fancy meeting you here, Mister Loren!" He gives a start as he sees Lan, as if seeing her for the first time. It's a good display. "Oh no -- I'll be sure to keep her safe and make sure someone sees to her...! I-I'll come right back to get you help, too! Please stay safe!"
As ordered, he scoops up Lan gently, and sets about her quest to find her the help she needs. It should be fairly easy for Azoth to make up a story about why he was in the area to anyone else he encounters, and certainly why he's trying to help out the injured Drifter he's coincidentally found.
To Ragnell: Last chance. If you don't leave now, you'll end up back with me for repairs.
Azoth's already predicted what Ragell's choice will be. He can't stop her either way -- and it's important that he can't. But he isn't able to hide the fear in his currents from her with the idea.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
That's the plan, Ragnell says simply.
At least there's some good company for the trip back.