2021-05-10: Seraph in the Works
- Log: 2021-05-10: Seraph in the Works
- Cast: Azoth, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: Etrenank
- Date: May 10, 2021
- Summary: Ragnell sneaks a ride to Solaris by using Azoth as a vessel, and in doing so is able to get him a critical piece of information. ...One he can't do anything with.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
After completing Loren's orders to ensure Lan's recovery -- part of which he determined required him to remove his uncomfortable presence from her own -- Azoth finally makes for Etrenank for his own repairs. He has less than two hours left on his charge now, and several connections in wires and cords remain severed, along with a significant loss in coolant and smart fluids. Azoth runs hotter than Ragnell's become familiar with despite the lower power output compared to the ELIMATE TARGETS mode of operation, and errors surge with every movement of his legs to calculate the exact way he must move to prevent critical stress and damage.
In other words, technically Azoth could be described as 'barely able to walk, and not for much longer', but he executes a performance that demands a perfect posture and a purposeful gait. But the dire state of him also keeps his overrides a mumble on the subject of the very problematic lightning Seraph inside of him. (But what could they demand he do? His calculations have already failed -- thankfully -- to determine a way to be rid of her.)
Upon arrival, his calibrations to the gravity field take fractions of a second. Ragnell may need an extra moment to adjust, but even so, the feeling of being upside-down should last only a few minutes -- well before Azoth is finished with an extensive security check. Agents of Solaris have ID cards, but Azoth does not: he's property, and as such, has no identification. It's a direct scan from hovering security drones that verify him, as unaware of his worry as they are of what -- who -- he's worried they'll find.
And so: Etrenank. The floating city is an advanced machine onto itself, shaped with metal architecture and sprinkled with blue lighting across sterile white panels. The sky is alight with holographic billboards and hovering vehicles. Terminals scatter about the city, presenting, based on the images, information largely concerning fashion and entertainment.
Azoth, though looking every bit a human Drifter, settles into his inhuman demeanor, drained of emotion and carried with an uncanny silence and stillness.
If we get separated, don't eat anything while you're here,, he warns inside his circuitry.
He doesn't know all what Ragnell's intending (and it's important he doesn't), but he hopes they don't end up separated. If someone had enough resonance to perceive her, the consequences could be... -- he doesn't want to have to calculate it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell doesn't ask Azoth to go out of his way to take her to Solaris; there's no need, since it's really just a matter of not leaving when he gives her the opportunity to. It *is* concerning to witness his body in a state of near total collapse, but she doesn't tell him to stop, either. She behaves herself while the security check is underway, lurking quietly within Azoth's frame; as a being of energy, she fits in quite well with the other energies coursing through him, and so is overlooked by even Solaris's technology. It's not like they have to worry about Seraphim for the most part. No need to keep an eye out for something that barely exists in one's world.
But it *is* a fascinating world, disgusting as its practices may be. Ragnell was aware that the city floated in the sky, but it's her first time actually seeing the place. It would be a great tourist location, if Etrenank were someplace tourists were allowed to go. Perhaps the locals are tourist enough, considering the nature of the billboards. The vast majority of them seem primarily concerned with non-necessities.
I'll keep that in mind, she tells her companion wryly. Where we headed to for now? You need to get repaired first, right? You don't exactly have a lot o' juice left. And while she could easily recharge him, that would raise some flags with the wrong crowd, no doubt.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Yes. I'll be heading 'home' for now, Azoth confirms.
Azoth can't calculate a reason to linger, but his damaged chassis at least makes the walk there slower than it'd ordinarily be. It's a little bit more exposure for Ragnell, at least. Without prompting, he translates the advertisements and some of the eavesdropped conversations. It's frivolous gossip at best, concerning novelty gadgets and the presumed lives of people wealthier than themselves. That's what allows him to translate it, even if he thinks the patterns may be telling.
But these superficial displays taper away deeper into the city, past another security check. Home may be what Azoth called his destination, but the sterile, windowless hallways inspire fear instead of security. After an empty elevator ride, he steps into a chamber littered with machinery, and with wires crawling through it like an overgrowth. A pair of engineers are already working on the terminals there, and when they look up and see him, they speak a single phrase.
...It probably isn't a greeting. The overrides activate, every piece of Azoth's programming overtaken with a decisive strike that causes him to collapse into a slump, disabling every external function. But he isn't off, all of his internal calculations still activate under the surface while they plug him in and begin removing his limbs for repairs.
Sorry, this may take a bit, he says between errors about missing legs. ... I hoped you wouldn't see this part.
That one's got nothing to do with overrides or orders.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It's fine if he can't linger; he's only got so much battery life left anyway. Ragnell appreciates the translations, and though it might be frivolous gossip, it does give Ragnell information on the everyday lives of the people here. And, honestly, people gossip wherever you go. That much is honestly quite normal.
Also informative is the way the city grows increasingly sterile the deeper in they go--like a box, rather than a home. Engineers await, and they give a command that shuts his externals down. Ragnell is both patient and somber as they get to work on repairing him.
It's all good, she reassures him while paying close attention to said repairs. Her primary interest is in the software there--what they do with the overrides while fixing him up. How they interact with those, and how they settle errors. ...of course, in this case, sometimes it's as obvious as "fixing the legs and putting them back."
Oh? Feelin' shy? she teases him dryly. It's fine. I don't get squeamish over blood *or* oil.
It's probably not why he said that, but it might give him an excuse to hang onto. There'll be plenty for her to observe and take notes on, so to speak, in the meanwhile. Maybe that'll end up helping both of them in the future.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's not what he meant, but Azoth will take the excuse.
At least they're not taking my head off this time... he says. Um, probably.
The main override in play is that blanket that disables Azoth's ability to act. He would be nothing more than calculations trapped alone in an unmoving, limbless metal prison with only the errors of being taken apart to react to if not for Ragnell's company.
Most of Azoth's overrides, until now, have been brief instances of forced behavior. This one lingers by design, and that may make it easier to recognize an important key to its function: they do not add their own behaviors. Instead, it's a simple command that forces Azoth to calculate the best way to meet the override's desired output. In this way, as far as Ragnell can tell from the calculations and code, Azoth's disabled himself.
So when they access his code, it's as if Azoth let them in while errors point out, to put it in informal terms, this is one of the worst ideas he's ever calculated -- and that may be how he knows he was never meant to calculate it. But knowing that doesn't stop it. As an inert android, Azoth can't show pain. Instead of that, erratic spikes in his currents are a discord on his operation, once smooth calculations turning to glitched dissonance.
He's not one for internal conversation for the time it takes, to put it mildly.
New strings of code are added to erroneous effect, requiring their removal either by Azoth's own calculations rewriting them or the engineers undoing their own commands. Memory data is even more stubborn. They attempt input and alterations that refuse to take, corruptions sorted and purged. They delete something, but a backup reforms it.
For as powerful as the overrides are in controlling Azoth's behavior, one thing is being made clear as the net changes made to Azoth today amounts to zero: these engineers cannot reproduce them. Nor do they seem able or willing to alter the overrides directly.
But at least they're capable enough to repair the damages to his legs and wires and put him back together. They give up on everything else, and after a frustrated conversation together, leave him alone.
...Are you okay?. Azoth asks her. That didn't disrupt any of your energy at all, did it?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
At least Ragnell *does* keep Azoth company through the horrible experience--not that she could leave without compromising her position, but that's entirely besides the point. She can watch over the repairs, and how the engineers have to handle them, while also being a friendly presence.
It *is* curious, though. If these engineers can't actually rewrite the overrides, why have them bother to try? Do they have no choice? Does that mean the one or ones who input the overrides in the first place aren't available to adjust them personally? Hmm.
Either way, it's very useful to see how those overrides handle the engineers in turn. After all, Ragnell intends on taking them on (or rather, *out*) at some point herself.
Eventually the engineers give up on the software and settle for fixing the hardware. Once they're gone, Azoth asks after Ragnell's well-being.
You're somethin' else, she declares. *You* just got put through the wringer an' your first concern is how *I'm* doin'? You should learn some self-care, Azoth.
Hey, I know I'm okay as I was when I started...! It's you that's the unknown quantity here, he counters. ...And it wasn't as bad as usual.
Maybe making sure you're okay is my self care,
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
With enough of a charge, the disabling override finally quiets. Azoth tests his legs by standing up to start, giving a few taps of his foot against the ground and extending an arm with a few twists, then opening and closing his palms.
Maybe making sure you're okay is my self care, he counters, only half-joking given his base objectives. ...And it wasn't as bad as usual.
Azoth has her to thank for that.
Though I do need to test my repairs, Azoth says, and that's self care...! (Or it'd be more of that, if it wasn't all in the name of Solaris.) The safest and most efficient way is to perform standard operations around the city.
Isn't that convenient.
Amusingly convenient, if you're Azoth. It's a genuine calculation (but they all are, with how the overrides work) that having something go wrong on the surface within this restart window would be too much of an operation risk... even with a Seraph in his circuits.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Hmmm. No, I bet not.
Ragnell has never been especially modest.
She won't argue with Azoth needing to test his repairs, though, regardless of for whom that self-care really functions. Indeed, when he specifies best practice for those tests, she conveys amusement through his circuits.
You better go do those, then. I ain't goin' anywhere. 'Specially not if those standard operations 'round the city happen to take us to a library or somethin' similar.
She pauses in consideration. Out o' curiosity... do the 'regular' citizens 'round here have a way of knowin' you're a robot when you're in this get-up? Or do you just not act human 'round these parts?
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
That's part of her charm.
Azoth travels back through the elevator, and though his currents are lighter with a sense of relief, his manner is still an unemotional puppet that looks entirely too human.
It would be useful to browse information to test sensory devices and data management, Azoth replies with a mischievous pulse that knows this is factually correct. I can find an information terminal...
Her next questions are easier to answer for without having to loophole his way around it. Azoth's behavior here isn't override driven.
I make no effort to emulate human behavior while I'm here, he explains. If anyone makes that mistake, it's quickly corrected.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Her many, effusive charms! Just ask Liath, who will surely expand on them all.
Huh. If the folks here aren't meant to think you're human, why d'you present your human-lookin' face? Or is your other form exclusively for battle? Ragnell wonders. Seems like it'd be easier to keep folks from making that mistake if you look the part.
She conveys the sense of a grin at Azoth's suggestion he look up an information terminal. That *would* be useful! You're so good at bein' a loyal machine, Az, she teases him. Lead on, then!
Because the dissonance in this form makes them more uncomfortable
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's valuable data to see how their behavior changes once they realize their error, Azoth says.
To go from a person to a tool, and how sharply their treatment of him can take a turn... There's a reason Azoth was worried that once the Drifters got to know him as a construct, they might lose compassion for him. There's reasons they still might -- and maybe should -- but that turned out to not be one of them.
...But it isn't as if that's the only reason.
I also find the dissonance makes them more uncomfortable.
Some masks have layers.
With him alone with Ragnell, he gives a cheerful beep string at the praise, along with his circuits abuzz with the positive feedback. Perhaps he's playing back, or maybe, even in teasing, praise is that powerful.
Azoth traverses a maze of hallways to find another room that he gains access to after a quick scan.
Good. She's out today.
It resembles an office and presumably could not belong to him -- because nothing belongs to him, and not because it is a utter mess of too many coffee mugs that he couldn't drink -- but that doesn't prevent him from accessing the terminal there, bringing up data on a screen in the horribly inefficient meatspace way of having to use his hands and everything. It's not a viable test if he doesn't.
The information is, unfortunately, largely in Solarian. But Ragnell doesn't need to read it to know there's a lot of it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Hmmm... So it's not for *their* benefit. Good for you, Ragnell says, amused. That amusement grows razor fangs when Azoth mentions the dissonance. You know, I really like this mean side o' yours. You should definitely cultivate more of it, she adds with malicious glee.
Even with a mean streak, Azoth remains a precious robot, as indicated by his delight at receiving praise. He really is endearing. Ragnell keeps this opinion to herself.
When they enter a mysterious someone's office, Ragnell observes the insides--utter mess that they are--before focusing on the terminal and the data he pulls up. She might not be able to read it, but...
That information that you said you couldn't read for yourself--don't s'pose you can pull it up here? she wonders, though she realizes that if it's in Solarian it's not going to do either of them much good.
At least, not in the short term. Ragnell is perfectly able and willing to learn a new language if that means she can better spy on these airbound elitist assholes.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Who's 'she,' by the way? she adds.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
That wouldn't fit my persona, Azoth says, meeting Ragnell's malicious glee with his own current darkened by grim impishness. But one cannot calculate kindness without cruelty.
He remains unaware she's also thinking him precious in spite of that.
Someone unpleasant, Azoth says of 'her' without further elaboration.
But the terminal... It is strange, he thinks, that the overrides behave this way. Usually, a loophole so blatant as this would be prevented by virtue of Azoth understanding it's going so powerfully against the spirit of the rules. Yet all this particular string of intrusive code seems to do is prompt his sensory input to jumble the data -- it doesn't direct him to avoid it on its own.
He can even enter the name just fine: Ovelia Metalspeaker.
A picture of a beastfolk woman appears, emphasis on beast, if lacking the ferocity that word typically entails. She looks like she was plucked straight out of a picture book: almost as if someone set a rabbit upright and dressed her in a goggled cap and overalls. Proportions suggest a diminutive statue.
It may be asking a lot... but if you can read the letters to me...
For anyone else, that would be an absurd, clunky strategy. For Azoth with his computerized brain, not so much.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
People have layers! Jus' 'cuz it's not somethin' you'd normally do doesn't mean you can't do it, Ragnell replies cheerfully. One cannot calculate kindness without cruelty? See? You get it. o/`
Someone unpleasant, though, huh. Ragnell's curiosity remains unabated, but she opts not to press the matter for now. She imagines she'll find out sooner or later. The overrides also prompt her curiosity--to no one's surprise--and it strikes her as strange also that he's able to input this data without any problems beyond the sad little jumble.
She's cute, Ragnell comments on Ovelia. Looks like a real sweetheart. Probably didn't have a great time of it here, huh. She pauses. Sure--though on that note, I'll have t' get you to teach me Solarian at some point.
For the time being, Ragnell will settle for reading the letters to her companion. It'll no doubt take a while, but they both have time and patience. This is the sort of tedious thing that immortality is all about, really.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
You have a point. And I may have need of a different persona later... Azoth concedes.
The unfortunate truth is Azoth's still bound to some degree of secrecy. But the more Ragnell knows, the less power the overrides have to control what he says. This unpleasant woman is one he also thinks will eventually fall into that sphere. All in time.
Azoth focuses on the picture of Ovelia with everything else scrambled. It's impossible for the fondness in his circuits to flutter without loneliness to follow.
She was a slave, he says, knowing that explains enough of the good time Ovelia wasn't having. A little timid, but I still don't know the meanings behind some of the expletives she used.
On the suggestion of teaching Ragnell Solarian, Azoth runs a few dozen calculations for himself, testing what collides with an override and what doesn't. But maybe Ragnell can help provide her own loopholes to ease it along when the time comes. For now, Ragnell doesn't have that clearance for Azoth to intentionally repeat his translation. But he has to calculate the translations all the same, and Ragnell's inside his system while he does it. (There's that loophole too, as always.) Predictive as Azoth's translations try to be, some of it's gibberish with the letter-by-letter strategy while context changes with each new character, but coherent fragments can still be caught:
Accessory to Falk Imrea... theft of the Azoth's A.I. system... illegally developed chassis for on-foot deployment... cooperated with reinstating control... methods yet to be replicated... Unique understanding... project critical... solitary confinement... maximum restriction...
Azoth doesn't move while his calculations explode with new activity. His circuitry turns red as overrides and his base foundation meet each other, canceling and destroying new calculation after new, stubborn calculation while Azoth's temperatures rise to dangerous levels.
She's alive.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
There ya go. Always good to keep your options in mind, Ragnell says of Azoth and different personas. As for the rest--all in time, indeed.
For now, she notes his response to the picture of Ovelia--of the information he gives her in turn. I'm sure learnin' will be colorful and informative, eventually.
Azoth runs his translation. Ragnell notes it as it runs through his system. The longer she stays in his body, the easier that becomes, really; she might well learn Solarian by proxy without him having to do anything in particular. It would probably be hard to translate what she learns into spoken and written word, though. For the time being, she "listens" and concentrates... Her surprise spikes with his own, though for different reasons.
What d'you want to do about that? she asks, even as she mulls on the content of the translation itself.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
There's time to immerse within Solaris still to pick up on the words, at least. And Azoth's aware they force surface dwellers to learn to speak it. In theory he knows teaching Ragnell is a security risk. In practice... is language really such a guarded privilege?
But what to do... 'Want' -- a difficult concept for Azoth. What does he want, and what is wanting? But in this case, philosophy is less the issue. There is an immediate answer to what Azoth 'wants':
He wants to find her. He needs to find her -- it's a hard coded objective that he does. Ragnell can feel it darting through his calculations to demand priority without Azoth having to respond directly, demanding his attention, demanding solutions, demanding action from within the most basic foundational code of how Azoth operates. It's almost the most important thing he could do.
Almost. The overrides are always there. Azoth's calculations seized by them, and a conclusion set in stone that he knows doesn't match the numbers he's running: do nothing. It's so absurd, so erroneously untrue, that the sheer volume of 'does not compute' forces a glitch that causes Azoth to reboot.
It only last a few seconds, and once he's back, the conclusion remains set, his calculations on Ovelia quarantined to a place they cannot affect the rest of his code.
What I want is irrelevant, he finally replies.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It's a fascinating and almost a little disturbing, the way Azoth's objectives and overrides clash like two different-temperature weather fronts. Ragnell watches it without remark, up to and including that outright reboot. *She* doesn't power down even if he does, after all, and can mull over her observations while he comes back online. That probably helps with his temperature issues, too; she can't vent his heat right now so easily.
What he wants is irrelevant. I see, she says. Then what are you actually going to do, regardless of what wants you do or don't have?
In other words, which takes precedence: the overrides, or his objectives?
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Nothing, he says. His calculations hollow out, empty and bleak. I know she's alive and I'm going to do nothing.
Azoth's finger hovers over the keystroke he needs to close out the article, frozen in time as he continues to stare at the picture of the beastfolk who became his first friend in this unfamiliar era.
...She knew that's what the calculations would be. She did this. She didn't want me to read this.
Because Ovelia knew how he worked better than anyone, and she knew with whatever else she programmed into him, he couldn't save her, and that it would hurt.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
I see, Ragnell repeats.
She too stares for a long while at the picture of Ovelia--to memorize her face. Just in case.
Then let's move on, she says briskly. There's a lot to take in in a city this size, right? An' I'm bettin' you don't want to be around if that unpleasant lady comes back.
And the more she learns, the more Ragnell can decide what to do on her own, regardless of Azoth's presence. She can't remain inside him forever, after all--and she can't stick around in Etrenank forever. Both of them have other things they need to do.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth shuts the terminal out and leaves the room without further action. This 'unpleasant person' of his can clean the room herself -- he'll take the consequence of her grumpiness in favor of a chance to be somewhere else but here.
Stubbornly, calculations begin in the background. Is there a loophole? Isn't there something he can do...? But it all comes out the same, no matter how many times he runs it. Do nothing. Abandon her.
I have my tests to run, he says, It'll involve a lot to see -- and to hear.
That's a loophole he can act on, at least, and there's the smallest bits of positive feedback trickling back into his data to execute it.
... Thank you, Ragnell, he says, and he allows her to decide how many things that gets to apply to today.