revivalproject | Only a Crack in This Castle of Glass

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Only a Crack in This Castle of Glass

WHO: Felwinter and you
WHERE: Here, you never left
WHAT: Exploring the past of a warlord
WHEN: Calibrations Event
WARNINGS: Warsat involves Robo-death

The former observatory has been preserved better than most places during the Collapse, at least from what little can be seen as one steps down the hall. The air is crisp, chilly, and a glimpse out of a passing window reveals why- a windswept landscape nearly whited out by flurries lies beyond, the snow broken by lines of dark craggy rock and jagged terrain of the surrounding mountains. Turning around only greets you with a strangely blurred wall. It looks like there's only one way to go, and as deceptively long as it appears, things shift within the next few steps. The hallway itself opens up to a larger room, converted into a throne room if the large, gothic chair is anything to go by. A fireplace crackles off to the side, though it does little to alleviate the chill.

If he's not sitting in that throne, then Felwinter can be found standing, staring at the fire or some of the scant things found around the room. On a long table not far from the fireplace sits an old, battered book that's certainly seen better days. At the table's foot, a sad looking wooden crate, filled with even sadder looking, meager pickings of a crop. By far these things are amongst the more normal things that could possibly be reasonably found in such a place.

Off to the farthest side however sits a massive warsat that couldn't have possibly been brought in by any normal means, and no gaping hole in the roof to suggest it had come crashing in through there. Against the wall near it is a smooth black surface that reveals itself to be a computer console once one passes their hand over it.

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Maybe it had been closer to an accusation than Tony had realized. Now, he studied the satellite, looking for his own fingerprints, beyond the regrettable ones he had pressed into the surface.

"But you're an Exo," he replied. Felspring had just told him as much, even if he didn't have that vestigial human part that the designation seemed to require. He hadn't exactly argued with the kid when Kaz had made that claim. "You're part of the system."

Again the Exo nodded, although there was hesitation. "Not in the way you think. It took us time to find out why the Warmind Rasputin was so fixated upon me."

His steps carried him to the other side of the warsat where the black panel was set into the wall, equally out of place once one had a closer look. His reflection looked back at him from its smooth surface, at least until he brushed a hand across it. It lit up then, scrolling lines of coding of some kind.

<<AMYGDALA VOTIVE GRASP>>
V149GAQ145CB120
AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//GOLEM//INTERROGATIVE
IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER

This is a SUBTLE ASSETS IMPERATIVE (NO HUMAN REVIEW) (NO AI-COM REVIEW) (secure/AUTARCH).

Initiate SIDDHARTHA GOLEM upload at DSC-342 to assess integrity of moral structures.

Stand by for CRITERIA:

Under PASSAGE (obsolesce/SIDEREAL):
If NANOBE SONDER is IVORY
If HAMMURABI is ACTIVE and passes human review under context TURING
If DURYODHANA is in FAILURE and passes AI-COM review under context IDES
Set spectrum certification to SMARAGDINE

Else, stand by for CONTINGENT ACTION ORDER:

Set spectrum certification to AMARANTHINE
Initiate human review unless tactical morality is built at MIDNIGHT

"Experience is the teacher of all things."

STOP STOP STOP V149GAQ145CB121

Tony couldn't be sure if Felwinter meant he was wrong about the Exo part, or the system part, and only managed to hesitate a second before he was trailing after Felwinter curiously, once again betrayed by his own instincts. He didn't mean to go much closer, either, but the screen activating drew him in further, just another puzzle to solve, eyes narrowed and chin up trying to parse it over Felwinter's shoulder. Some kind of code, judging by its structure, desecrated by holy language; digital, new age crystal golems. Hell of a mix.

"You're the golem," he could at least figure out. Ben probably wouldn't appreciate the application, but it seemed neat enough to Tony. "Who's the autarch? The Traveller?"

"Rasputin himself, I assume," Felwinter said. As Tony neared, things around them began to blur slightly, the image of a darker enclosure overlapping their corner of the throne room. The memory wasn't as immersive as the first, more audio than visual, as it were, save for the vaguest impressions.

"This is weird," Felspring says as she projects a long string of code she's pulled from their researching in the old, yet very much intact Seraph bunker. "Look. In the Golden Age, Rasputin executes a protocol called SIDDHARTHA GOLEM. No idea what it is. Some kind of knowledge-gathering. It gathers a bunch of transcripts—conversations with Humans, recordings of music, a huge database of literature..."

Felwinter studies the code before him. It doesn't occur to him that it might be strange to be able to sight-read it as he does, and although it's not without a little effort, it's a bit like dredging up a native tongue he's forgotten. He can pick out what Felspring summarizes. With another flicker of light she blurs through more strings of recorded code until she comes to another point, like skimming chapters of a novel.

"Here. Early Dark Age. A submind in Old Russia says SIDDHARTHA GOLEM is active. And gone rogue." When she speaks again it's with a much quieter tone as she begins to piece things together. "Around the time I found you."

It had been a puzzle. Felwinter wasn't sure how long it had taken them before they'd even found such references, how many bunkers they'd tracked and broken into, even if they hadn't exactly known what they were looking for.

By then, Tony was back to watching Felwinter, letting the shadows and flickers of the scene fade at the edges of his vision. The Golden Age was what they had called an Earth that Tony would have recognized, maybe even his own, or his near future--before whatever it was that wiped them out, before the Traveller, and before Tony thought they even had Exos. Those resources that Ikora had given him hadn't exactly been thorough about them.

Tony was watching Felwinter, and he was quiet. There weren't a lot of ways for a database to go 'rogue'. Eventually, he posited, "What aren't you supposed to know?"

Felwinter shook his head. "When I first awoke, I knew nothing. I remembered nothing. There was only Felspring. And then we were nearly crushed when the stars fell upon the library I found myself in." Stars....he knew better now, his head turning slightly enough that he could eye the warsat just out of the edge of his peripheral.

"Answers were never easily forthcoming. I only found myself with more questions. I didn't even know it was a Warmind after me until we came upon another Exo who recognized the symbols on a group of attack frames that came after us." He opened his fingers from his palms, splayed out in an empty query. "If there is something Rasputin does not want me to know, then he needn't go through such lengths as he has." He had a feeling that wasn't really the case. "...I was created to know...to learn things for him, I think. His outlet. That is all I can gather from the old code we found."

That didn't leave Tony with a much better theory about what drove the Warmind to kill Felwinter. There must have been something there, tied up in all of the code that made him sentient, that Rasputin must have been worried about. Whatever had lead to his death the first time, maybe.

"Did he ever stop?" Tony asked, quickly figuring out what circumstances might have led to that conclusion even as he did, and looking pointedly back to the panel set into the wall before Felwinter had to explain his violence.

"We have not been accosted for some time. This location has proven strategically sound thus far. It's why we came here in the first place," Felwinter said.

They came here to hide, and it was only unfortunate that the place had one previous, stubborn owner. Or perhaps it was more unfortunate for said owner, a warlord himself, to have met someone who wouldn't take no for an answer.

Turning, Felwinter began to step away from the wall, from the warsat, more so to distance himself from the latter. A facsimile in his memory wouldn't divulge any information that he wanted, but at this point he didn't much care so long as he wasn't being hunted down.

So...no. Tony's brow furrowed with concern, and he briefly watched Felwinter again as the Exo turned away, but didn't follow this time. He let his gaze slip back to the satellite, eyeing it with a similar anxiety, not sure enough that it wouldn't make him relive the scene a second time and still unwinding himself slowly like he would reach to find out.

"Maybe we met, in your previous life. That's why you're so fond of me," he suggested suddenly, building himself back into his smirking confidence as best as he could while he spoke, trying to draw himself away from the feeling of pulling the trigger.

The look over his shoulder then somehow translated its dryness despite there being anything to go by but a faceless grill. "I think you have misinterpreted confusion for fondness."

Confusing. Annoying. Unpredictable. But Felwinter supposed he couldn't say he outright disliked the man. He simply had no idea what to do with him half the time. Had he ever come across such people, back when he was simply a data gatherer? He had no recollection, but then he couldn't even be sure that it was his own experience or if Rasputin had been the one piloting, to some degree.

And then the Light made him something else...

Confusion was a very generous assertion to Tony, who thought most of the time that Felwinter was considering if it would be less trouble to kill him, and so far he had lucked out on that mess being the bigger bother. He looked after, then started to follow Felwinter again then, still keeping his distance and letting the momentum he built carry him back toward the fire, and the throne. "That's even better," he declared. "Nothing better than a mystery. Keeps the romance alive."

Living alone in a big, drafty castle at the end of the world not knowing why you were alive, that was a kind of romance.

"Don't worry about your dad. Mine hated me, too, we don't have to get our hopes up," he continued as he draped himself back into the seat, or tried to. It was much more stiffly this time, his restlessly energy clear in the tick of his tendons as he held himself still.

It was hard to say whether the sound was a sigh or something in disgust. Something in between, maybe. Why did he always feel so exhausted when dealing with Stark? And of course the man was taking up his seat again. Well, it was better than having him loiter about that warsat. Absently he wondered how much of a fuss would be made if he just picked Stark up and tossed him out of the room.

Having Rasputin referred to as his 'dad' made him stiffen a little. The concept hadn't really occurred to him, but the more he thought about it, the more he supposed it wasn't completely ridiculous. If A.I.s adapted such human concepts. But then Rasputin had been curious about humanity and its culture, so maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch. ...but then why?

"It is difficult not to still hold some concern, whenever I set foot off this mountain. But I've since learned that I am hardly the only one who lives in the fear of being crushed by some greater force."

The satellite still loomed, drawing Tony's eye, but his chest wasn't so tight over here, and the familiar beats of Felwinter's annoyance with him were reassuring. As long as he was distracted and irritated, whatever darkness lurked in any of this other stuff around the room couldn't be too oppressive.

He spoke so broadly that Tony wasn't sure if he was still only talking about back home, this place, where he came from, or when they woke up back in Temba, and had to bite his lip. At the very least, being snatched away to an unmapped planet should have been a reprieve from being pelted with heavenly bodies. No wonder he was so tense all of the time.

"You've been seeing other people?" Tony accused, looking appropriately shocked and offended with a dainty hand to his delicate heart. He wasn't sure what Felwinter meant by that, and didn't know enough about who else he did actually talk to, Tony realized.

It was all one and the same to some degree, wasn't it? Although Felwinter referred to those of Earth, there were people here who needed help just the same. Things would have been much simpler if it had been simply an abduction to a place far from a selfish A.I. father. Peace here was an illusion, broken easily by experiences that had no right to happen under natural circumstances. At least you could try to run from a rain of meteors.

"I- what?" Again Stark caught him off guard as he swiveled his head towards the man. He stared at him, either until Stark abandoned his melodrama or it seemed he wouldn't budge until he got an answer. He turned and walked alongside the table, his helmet angling just slightly enough as he looked down at the crate that sat there, nearly pushed beneath it.

"...there's a village at the foot of my mountain," he said. "The people were under the protection of the previous warlord." He gestured at the sad, wilting selection of crops that barely filled the beaten crate. "A woman came up with a tribute some time after I claimed this place. She's the one who called me a warlord, though I made no such claim of the title."

Tony was too stubborn and committed to his dramatics to break until Felwinter spoke again, and he slowly let his hand drop to lean forward and try to get a better look at the box Felwinter was indicating. That did give a sudden clarity to his morality that Tony had been struggling to frame. Even if Felwinter didn't necessarily care about that village or believe in the cause, it sounded like a very distinct purpose where there had been a void. Other warlords.

"Has anyone ever helped you?" Tony asked, though he was sure he already knew the answer.

The silence itself was telling. His thin shoulders drooped in an unheard sigh. "It has only been me and Felspring all these years. It's been difficult to allow ourselves to trust others," he answered, not that it was likely very surprising.

"Humanity is scattered where I come from, Stark. Those who eke out a living don't have the means to offer help when they hardly possess the means to help themselves. And the warlords usually have no desire to help anyone but themselves. That people here are so open to offering assistance and support for each other has been almost surreal."

It didn't seem to Tony that Felwinter was that much better off, yet he still could say, "You help people." That did seem inconsiderate to point out somehow, like he wasn't supposed to acknowledge it, so Tony's mouth twisted apologetically and his gaze skipped away for a moment, not looking directly at what might have been missing. Either a flaw in Felwinter's perception, or the people he allowed around him. Or his programming, that he didn't remember anything about, and was such a threat to humanity.

Quiet again. Felwinter stepped back around the table, and after a moment, sunk down to sit against the wall. Having a wall at his back was always a strange comfort. It was one less direction he needed to watch.

"Aarthi." With no context the word was surely confusing, but he didn't let the silence stretch too long as he spoke on, quietly. "The one who brought tributes every month. I'd meet her halfway down the mountain since those without Ghosts wouldn't make it to its peak." The only one who would venture up to deliver things to him. The only one outside of Felspring that he'd had conversations with.

"She was the one who made me realize that I wasn't the only one who lived in fear. Except the people at the foot of the mountain don't come back like I do," he said quietly. "She said I could help them. That the things I knew about what I found of Golden Age technology could change their lives."

The crackle of the fire seemed suddenly loud in the revelation of just how empty this space ways, that no one else could even reach. Did that make it worse, to suddenly have people in his space, in his head? The pop and sizzle was the only sound as Tony slipped out of the chair and came to slide down the wall next to Felwinter, where he wasn't looming over the Exo anymore and instead looped his arms loosely around his knees where he could resume the restless tangling of his fingers.

"Do you think she'd give me a shot?" he asked, letting his head thump back against the wall with a small, wry smile. Living here must have been a nightmare, but it wasn't like Felwinter could just abandon it, and despite Tony's teasing smirk, the concern twisting his brow said what his question didn't quite; that he would make sure Felwinter got home, and that they would all still be with him to keep helping.

The company was unexpected, although Felwinter found he didn't mind it too much. Tony put on a show, but there was something beneath the layers of bravado. Gold. He remembered the conversation struck up by Felspring, although the reminder of her absence in this space made it more apparent just how lonely it could be.

The Exo turned his head towards Tony, and he had difficulty picturing how the woman would react to him. There was a mismatch in the man's expression, something to temper the attempted, one-sided frivolity. Felwinter looked away, deciding that an actual response had not been expected from him, simultaneously unsure what to do with that look. Relying on anyone but himself or Felspring was foreign territory. But here...there were people he could consider as comrades. Maybe even friends.

A fresh gust of crisp, frigid air came through the room as the doors to the throne room that had previously vanished then yawned open, to reveal the hallway once again.

That was Tony's cue. He gripped his own hands tighter, wincing slightly against the chill and squinting toward the door, not terribly inviting but at least a sure way back to the warmth of his bed. It didn't seem like Felwinter really felt the cold at all. With a last, lingering smile his way, a kind of apology for the invasion, Tony rolled up to his feet, then offered a hand to help him up to follow. No reason to stick around here alone, even if he didn't really notice that he was freezing.

Considering his earlier eagerness to explore, an apology was almost funny. Felwinter however nodded- it wasn't as though they could help these things.

His head lifted then, the offered hand unexpected. Could he? It hadn't been something he thought about, as though he'd resigned himself to the cold and the solitude, another cell with a cell.

He did not want it.

Felwinter's hand grasped Tony's as he got to his feet. At least this time, he would not be left alone.

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Only a Crack in This Castle of Glass

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