revivalproject | And look at me, I'm tattered

Entry tags:

And look at me, I'm tattered

WHO: York & Open
WHERE: York's Calibration Room
WHAT: Calibrations event
WHEN: May
WARNINGS: CW/TW: York's room has the potential to bring up the following situations: gaslighting/manipulation, abuse, gun violence, death, and assault. The items are labeled with warnings.

Waiting Room Post
Mingle Post

Calibrations Room

The room is a workshop that has seen better days. Once a sterile, almost hospital like room, with a black, pleather covered chair for android repairs. Now, the room is ripped apart. Cables and wires have been ripped apart or unplugged from exposed panels, electricity sparking from live ends. The chair is broken in numerous pieces and thrown about the room, covered in oil, grease, and blue blood. There's broken parts, both mechanical and biocomponents, littered about. On the walls in that same blue blood is "I AM ALIVE" painted by hand in a large, bold, Helvetica font. The floor is wet. Shell casings glint in the light from above.

On the floor are items: a black NYC hoodie that smells earthy; a fireman's hatchet caked in blue and red blood [cw: gun violence, death]; a news tablet with a line about robotic parenting [cw: gaslighting, abuse]; and a pamphlet of Bryant Park’s 191st anniversary ripped midway [cw: assault, physical violence against human and android].

Around the items are some wires that haven't been destroyed, and all of them lead into the back of an older looking and taller York, who is curled up on the floor surrounded by the objects. There’s thirium covering his hands. The wires weave around the items, but don't touch them. He is shirtless, with his knees drawn up to his chin to hide himself. He wears black sweatpants as his only clothing.

The whole room feels isolated, full of fear, and strangely enough: it feels too small.

Upon seeing another enter his mind, York is immediately aggressive. "What are you doing in here?! Ģ̡͝E̸̵T̴̢͠ ̶̴̸O̴̧UT̴́͟!̸̨!̴͘" York gets to his feet - his LED is swirling red, throwing light against the open section of his chest next to it where his thirium pump beats. The android moves quick, as though to try getting to the intruder, but the wires seem to reel in, snap taut, and pull him back towards the wall he’s written on. It’s then apparent that York is too big for the room, with his hair almost brushing the ceiling. There's no hiding the fear in his expression as he struggles for freedom the cables aren’t giving. Realizing the vulnerable state, York relaxes and turns away from his intruder, with those tight wires loosening around him. It shows the wires going into the open panels of his back now, hooking somewhere deep within the machinery that moves and gives him life. York wraps his arms around his chest, ducking his head down. His open interior section pulses blue like a heartbeat.

"I̸͠ţ's̶̡ ņ̀̕o̸̶t̸̡ s͘͝u͡p̷p҉ós͏̕͘ed͘ ͟͞t̨̨o ̨͜h̵̸̛u̶͞͞r͜t́́," he whispers angrily, though the room is small enough that the other would be able to hear it anyways. "D̕͜͡ò̷n̨̡'ţ̕ ̡h͜u͢ŗ͜t̢͠͞ ̴͝me̢͟"

_{[I'll be using a different set of icons for the older version of York in replies, but that face doesn't apply outside of the calibration room. ~Xi]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

York probably was overreacting but the things he had experienced before Temba... Maybe Viktor wouldn't blame him if he knew. But the android wasn't going to just give that information up so easily. He scrubbed a hand over his face before gesturing to the items between them.

"Others have been in here, and a way out opened after they touched a memory piece." 'Others' meaning one person, but that was the only data he had to go by so far. "Or maybe it's just like, a time limit or something. It's not like the voice that lured us down here gave us any specifications."

"Memory objects...you mean the objects on the floor?"

Viktor looked at the different objects (though the hoodie seemed familiar) and back at York.

"Each one of these is a different memory for you, isn't it? If I point to it will you tell me if that is attached to a negative memory first?"

Viktor isn't heartless after all.

A nod at the first question. York knew what the objects were. What memory each of them held. He sat back on the floor, hitting it hard before crossing his legs. "Yeah, different memories and only one of them are remotely pleasant."

He gestured to the hoodie. The article of clothing that was essentially his security blanket wherever he went. "My hoodie is my brother taking care of me after the memory held in the pamphlet." Fingers pointed to the ripped brochure advertising an annual celebration of NYC's Bryant Park. "That paper holds the memory of being at the mercy of men that don't like androids."

He points to the hatchet. "That one is human soldiers invading our safe house to take us for decommisioning us or just killing us. And that one..." York's eyes linger on the tablet with the child on the cover. "That one is how I got stuck in that younger body. So. Take your pick I guess."

Viktor had originally wondered why York looked so different between the real world and wherever this was. He also assumed that 'at the mercy of' meant flat-out torture. Viktor bypassed everything else and went straight to picking up the hoodie.

The moment Viktor picks up the hoodie, smelling like a greenhouse, the room goes dark, like someone flipped the switch. All that was lit was York's chest indicator, glowing teal. Then it shifted as well, as though the android was moving to lay down. The lights came back up, but the room was different.

The room is white, though spotted with the color of potted plants that have been arranged neatly by the large, picturesque windows that overlook a sprawling cityscape. The room is very high up, in a skyscraper apparently, and unlike the ruined workshop Viktor had found himself in, this room was larger.

Near those windows and plants is a hospital-like bed, with an uknown man sitting next to it. A man that looked to be in his older twenties, maybe younger thirties, with red close cropped hair and the same color eyes as York. A shift and there's a glow at his chest - another android. He's reading a tablet in hand, seemingly waiting. There's a black shopping bag at his feet.

On that hospital bed is the York that Viktor met at the fountain, laying motionless with monitors hovering around his head to relay statistics. He's shirtless, with only a thick blanket covering him from the hips down. There's a section across his abdomen area that is white, where the synthetic skin function is missing or just maybe just broken. It looks like scarring. The exposed panels have finger shaped dents at the seams.

The younger York shifts on the bed as he comes back online, and the red-head sets the tablet aside. "York," he breathes out. It sounds like a sigh of relief. "You're finally awake. When I found you in the alley two days ago--"

"Duncan." York doesn't mean to cut him off, but he does. He pushes himself up to survey the repairs. "Fuck that wasn't a dream then. They really--"

Suddenly the bag from the floor made its way to York's lap. "Here. I got this for you while you were in stasis." The younger android mirrors his brother's apologetic smile. "Damn, Duncan. Terrible timing as always, read a room."

"I thought it would help."

York smirks a little, mind focused on the bag instead of his assault from a few nights ago to pull out what would be a familiar hoodie to Viktor. It's stark black with no cracks in the white printing of NYC above the city motif on it. Immediately York's eyes light up and he shimmies into it. He doesn't have the smell receptors for it, but there's an earthy scent to it from being in the room with all of the plants. Now into what would be his signature and beloved hoodie, York shifts off of the bed. He finds his way his Duncan's lap and curls up there, where the older android holds him carefully. Securely.

"I was... so fucking scared, Duncan. And I deviated. I'm a deviant now. I had to deviate or they would have killed me." York feels his synthetic breath shudder out of him, ragged and shallow. His body was repaired.

But his programming would remember.

"I'll do my best to protect you, York."

The room fell back into darkness again, coming back to light in that cramped space York called his head. "That was my middle brother, Duncan. He repaired me after I was assaulted in the park two days before that memory. He really did always try his best to keep me safe, especially after that."

Viktor had no family to speak of, so he had not experienced another person caring about his well-being like that from childhood all the way to adulthood so he had no frame of reference. He was also hoping that he would have exited through the memory, but it didn't look like he had. Viktor grimaced.

"If that is the only good memory you have represented here then it's going to have to be a bad memory next."

Viktor looked at York with a question. It was his mind after all.

"It's the only... stark memory that I have that's good. There's other memories that are nice, but that one... Duncan was there from repair to beyond. After what I endured with my father figure and oldest brother, it was a welcome comfort."

He sighed and scrubbed a hand against his cheek. "You don't have to look at others. The exit should open soon. Usually memory and a conversation seems to open it up." He stretches his legs out in front of him, hands in his lap, which puts his lit indicator and the exposed section that housed his thirium pump on display. "My world is a mess right now. Humans made androids to fill jobs like secretaries, therapists, custodial staff. And then when we started deviating off of our intended programming and wanted to be treated like the sentient beings we are..."

His head thunked a little against the wall behind him. "There's a revolution going on. Trying to get that treatment. And the humans are killing us for it."

Well, that explained York's strong dislike of any humans that he comes into contact with. Viktor moves a little bit so that he could sit with his legs crossed lotus style, and leaned on the opposite wall to York.

"Do most humans know that you are a sentient intelligence?"

This may just be a case of simple ignorance. Ignorance that is having terrible consequences but still ignorance.

"Some see us as sentient beings. As equivalent to humans. But there’s a large chunk of people in the city… well, they used to not think that way. Our leader, Markus, was changing that. Leading us in a peaceful revolution despite how much I want to raze them the ground." There’s a hardness in that last sentence. Hands curled into fists. His anger was still a work in progress at points. But he didn’t lash out at Viktor.

It was a start.

Finally, York looked to Viktor. "Gonna go out on a limb and say that you think I’m a sentient being deserving of rights."

Viktor was silent for a moment studying York.

"Yes. I believe that if all androids are like you, it would be accurate to call you all sentient as a group."

Viktor was fascinated by York, but as invasive and creepy as he could be about it, he wasn't a monster. Which is to say he believed that androids, though mechanical, were another form of life.

"Im finding that’s where this world and mine differ considerably. I’m a custom made model, along with two others, compared to the standard models made by our competitor Cyberlife." He motions to his hoodie again, eyes set on it for a long moment.

"The memory before the one you saw… I was out looking at the city skyline from the ground at a park. Bryant Park. Few blocks away from our skyscraper home. But I was alone, in that smaller body, and three humans jumped me. Tried to pull me apart from the midsection. That’s what Duncan had to repair me from. My skin segments don’t work there still. But I escaped them, managed to get a block away where my brother found me." Eyes flicked back to Viktor, far more relaxed than during their first meeting.

"They were the kind of people that didn’t think we were really worthy of being treated like humans. Not that humans are any better to each other for the most part. But I know if that’s happened to me, it happens regularly to Cyberlife models."

"Yes. I am well acquainted with that kind of person."

Viktor said that with disgust.

"Believe it or not that is the same kind of human that will decide that another human isn't treated the same despite being the same, or even more intelligent, with where they came from being the only difference between them. Making anyone the 'outgroup' so they can rationalize their cruelty is something that humans have been doing to each other for eons. Nevermind another form of life."

Viktor seemed to consider for a moment.

"Because it is your memories that I am seeing when I touch certain things in this room, I am assuming this is your mind. What is the purpose that having those wires in your chest area mean in this place?"

"Yeah, I've seen that happen to. My programming does not comprehend why humans are so violent against others." And they said deviants were the problem. They were wrong. Humans were the fucking problem. Eyes shift to look at Viktor for a moment.

'I am well acquainted with that kind of person,' he had said. That meant that Viktor probably had some sort of bad dealings with humans as well.

"You're assuming correct. I am the programming for York, and this room reflects the smaller body I'm trapped in." He picks up one of the cables that connects into his torso. "It's an anchoring program. Dad put protocols in place in case I ever managed to find a shell to transfer into. Unless he overrides that order as the highest point of authority on my system, I cannot leave this shell. He wanted to make sure I couldn't."

Especially after having to force York into transferring into his current shell.

"I am literally trapped in this body."

You could say that. You could also say that he had been ostracized looked down on and treated as a lesser being from the moment he got to the Academy. You could further say that Viktor was intimately aware of what it felt like to be trapped inside a body. Though in his case that body was one that turned traitor on him rather than being the wrong body altogether.

"By 'dad' I assume that you are speaking of your maker?"

"That assumption would be correct. He changed how I address him from 'Tony' to 'dad', and did the same with the woman who essentially was to be my mother figure. Dad put me in this body as an experiment. To see if the two of them were ready to be parents."

The answer was absolutely no from York's perspective.

As they conversed, a window opened against one of the walls, filling out a space that would be an open door that Viktor could walk through. "At least one of us can leave. I wish it were me."

Viktor looked at the 'door', then back at York

"How much of your own code do you understand?"

If Viktor intended to learn the Agrii's language, it was no less of a challenge to learn another coding language. And while York may be trapped in another body, maybe Viktor could help him detach from one shell and find another. Even if Viktor couldn't go that far, he wanted to at least give York the option.

"A lot of it. I've had to help my brother, the one you saw in the memory, fix up other androids when he's needed assistance. It may be my programming and my body that I inhabit, but he is the overall administrator over the system. I don't know if I can do anything to break through what he's put into place. And I've already broken past my main coding, which we call deviation."

He frowned at what he thought Viktor might be intending. "...I don't want to mess with my programming while I'm here. If something happens, I don't have a way to fucking fix it. There doesn't seem to be any computers here like what I know from my world."

"I'm not suggesting you should but it would be more helpful for at least one person to be able to read that code if something else were to happen."

They were talking about aliens that could pull them across time and universes. And aliens that were putting a lot of their worst memories on display for fun. ven if Viktor wouldn't be able to give York a new body, learning another coding language would still be hepful.

York's face darkens at the suggestion. It was a good one, there was no doubt about that. But that meant giving someone outside of his brother access to his system.

"I'm not letting anyone have access to my code. That's a risk I'm not willing to fucking take with anyone." That probably wasn't a good call here in a place where anything could happen, but York was going to stick by that decision for as long as he could.

Viktor stayed serious.

"I'm not trying to talk you into it but you have to realize how much of a risk you're taking, right?"

Yes, York had just said it was a risk he wasn't willing to take, and on one level, Viktor could see how giving another person the ability to change you completely could be daunting, but not sharing even the ability to medically help you if you needed it seemed foolish.

Viktor stayed serious and York's face stayed dark. "I've already had my creator fucking experiment with my physical shell, and then lost it so I'm stuck in this. Now you want me to open my mind, my most vulnerable part, for people to toy around in? Fuck that. I've heard of what happens to androids that do that."

They went to some man just in the suburbs or something of Detroit, and a lot of the androids that went in, came back out a blank slate, or experimented worse on. Worse than York had been from what he had heard from others in Jericho.

"Would you want to risk your whole entire self by letting someone crack open your brain to get a better look? Maybe my brother, the one from the memory, but not these fuckers in this city."

Viktor huffed out a sigh in exasperation.

"There must be a division between your brain and your body in your programming. Even humans have some differences between them. I'm not arguing with you that you should give up some integral part of your mind and soul to just anyone but what happens if your shell gets damaged and no one here knows anything about your programming and thus can't do anything to fix you?"

Viktor crossed his arms and looked at York as stubbornly as York was looking at him.

"Fucking obviously, if I have two different fucking bodies." York didn't like this conversation at all. Why couldn't he kick people out of his room? Out of his head? Hell, Viktor had such an interest in him when they first met, maybe there was some sort of malicious agenda or something.

"If my body gets damaged, we don't need my programming to fix it. No one here can touch my programming without my actual permission because no one here is my dad, nor do they have a computer capable of handling me." He shook his head. He was being stubborn but after the things he had seen and had personally experienced first hand, York figured he was in the right.

Oh, he could have left by now if he wanted to. Now it was Viktor's turn to roll his eyes. Honestly, York was being silly about this.

"Then call it something else other than 'programming'. Humans have basic anatomy; blood vessels, arteries, bones, and nervous systems. But all of it is necessary for a human body to function and none of it is dependent on the mind. You just said that no one would be able to access your mind without your permission so how would someone be able to administer basic First Aid to you if they don't know how your systems work?"

York kept behaving as though Viktor had some sort of sinister ulterior motive and it was starting to get a little insulting.

Silly, stubborn, or even stupid. Either way, Stark technology at its finest.

"Programming is my mind, fuckface," York's temper was rising, evident in the words and the sneer on his face. "My chassis is my hardware, or I call it my shell. All of my parts within it are all of the functions you talk about but my programming is my brain and my personality. One wrong anything within it could fucking wipe all of that. Maybe I'll let someone map out and figure out my hardware, but I'm not letting anyone touch my programming. Oh wait, excuse me, my brain."

A huff. "Like I said earlier: would you want to risk your whole entire self by letting someone into your brain for a better fucking look? Most people would absolutely decline."

And look at me, I'm tattered

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omg viktor pls why are you doing this to him

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