Calibrations ›» Home is Where the Synthetic Heart Is

[buildingitsir]

WHO: York Stark & You
WHERE: York's Calibration room
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: June 10 - July 10
WARNINGS: Memories are marked accordingly for cw/tw



Mingle Post: 01010011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01101011


The first thing to note about the room is that it’s small. An average human has to lower themselves to fit within, though there's more horizontal space compared to last year's room. And this one is less like the interior of a computer - the ceiling, floor, and walls, are all made of rusty metal, creaking. Pipes and wires run through to different areas. There's a lite sway to this room, like it's on a ship.

It is a ship - the interior of one.

The room is fashioned to look like York's former home in Detroit: Jericho.

There's a table with newspapers on display. All of them have different headlines, with the cover photo moving to capture the visitor's attention. The first shows figures leaping from a ship into the harbor before it explodes with the headline 'DEVIANT HIDEOUT RAIDED' [cw: gun violence; death]. Thers's a splatter of blue on the paper's corner. The next newspaper shows the landscape of a park before hands come to cover the camera with the title 'HUMANS ATTACKED BY DEVIANT ANDROID' [cw: assault, physical violence]. Another paper next to that, this one featuring the library of Temba with 'keep out' tape altered over the image. 'LIBRARY BREAK-IN' reads the title. The paper looks like someone tried to crumple it. And the last one, a wet newspaper, shows a cliffside house being demolished and falling into the ocean below with the headline 'CYBERLIFE ATTACKS STARK'.

The room creaks and at the far wall, sits York, but it doesn't look like the teenager that's a current resident of the city. This form is older, like a man in his twenties. The way he's supposed to look before the shell was lost. Wires connected to the walls are draped around him, keeping him tethered to the far wall.

"Ah," he says when he spots his visitor. "So we're really are doing this shit again. Fanfuckingtastic." Less angry compared to last time. Just annoyed by this shit again.



_{[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]}

Comments

[buildingitsir]

"Yes. He's our leader where I'm from." A program window opens up, showing Markus in Jericho, face illuminated by barrel fires that the other androids used to melt the ice from their hardware. He lets the image stay long enough for Dustin to see it, examine it, then the window closes.

"I don't know who chose him, but he's good at what he does at least. And survives Jericho, so there's that too." A shrug and he points to the newspaper with the exploding ship as it's headlining picture. "He was there, same time I was, and I wasn't sure if he got out or not. Apparently he does, which is good. I don't think our movement would've lasted if he had died."

[quark_assassin]

Dustin's head tilts slightly to the side, his eyes squinting at the sudden appearance of the program window, but it's gone too soon - he can only remember the general sense of what the image was without any of the sharp clarity he's used to. He hates it. But the curiosity, at least, draws him a few unsteady steps closer to the other end of the room, still hugging the wall the whole way.

"So...he's from your future, then?" An odd thought. It's one thing to consider a person from an alternate future, so distant and with differing past events that it's pretty clear where the separation in their universes lies; but if Dustin ran into someone he knew that was aware of his immediate future? Lived it? Surreal, is what it would be.

Preoccupied with his thoughts and trying not to lose his lunch, Dustin doesn't notice how his shoulder brushes against the hung-up newspaper clipping of the exploding ship.

cw: mentioned gun violence and blood

[buildingitsir]

They say winter is the quietest season. You would think that, too, with how the snow falls so gently onto the abandoned lake freighter that Dustin finds himself inside now. But there's so much noise now that it's like a horror movie instead of a cozy winter flick.

There's screaming.

There's gunshots.

There's yelling.

So much of everything as androids scrambling through the metal halls. And there's the York that Dustin knows, looking wildly back and forth as though looking for someone. Or a way out. It's not clear.

A lot of the androids are different from York, with the swirling color that's usually seen on the Stark android's chest evident on the others' temples. Everyone's is swirling red with panic. Some androids wear regular human clothing. Others wear what they received from Cyberlife with their name on the back and a glowing blue armband. Markers of an android.

At the other end of the hall, gunfire lights up the open doorway and an android falls into view, the light on the temple going out as they shut down.

Blue blood, like York's, dribbles out of various bullet holes.

York breaks into a run the opposite way, going right past Dustin as the heavily armored military start through the door the android dropped through. He jumps through an open door before moving to slam it shut behind him. A couple of Jerry models help get it shut before locking it. "This way!!" York screams over the cacophony of noise coming from just...everywhere.

There's no escaping it.

The three androids make their way through winding halls, trying to remember how to escape. Like rats caught in a maze. "We have to get to the top. We have to get to the water." York sounds just as panicked as other androids. The trio head upwards, leading Dustin through hall after hall, all of them covered in rust and both blue and red blood. There's bodies everywhere and they're moving too quick to see who's online and who's not.

They finally get to the top, spotlights flashing everywhere from above and from the docks. Military and police are everywhere, chasing the androids from their home. "Get into the water! Swim somewhere safe and get out before you freeze!" And as he's saying that, with the three of them racing for the edge of the ship, the helicoptors are pulling away uptop, military evacuating quickly. Something was wrong. This wasn't over but they were leaving the ship?

"RUN!!!" he screams, before darting over the railing of Jericho with the two Jerries. And just as they hit the water, there's an explosion that pushes them further inward as the ship is detonated.

All that's left of the view is the red of York's chest light and the Jerries' temples before the water fades away and Dustin's back in York's head.

"Welcome back. And yeah, Markus is from my future. Bit weird, really, but stranger shit's happened."

CW: emeto

[quark_assassin]

It's not enough to be dragged into a memory without expecting it and without his consent - it has to be a fucking warzone on top of it all. Dustin doesn't have to share York's sensory input or thoughts to feel the same waves of panic and fear as they run through the ship, doesn't have to have his abilities to know that he won't forget these images for a long time. Realizing that this is only a memory within a dream doesn't help on any front; it's simply too visceral to ignore and process anything more than escape and survive.

Dustin doesn't answer York when the memory ends. The flood of fight-or-flight adrenaline combined with the images of death - things Dustin has never seen or experienced personally in his short life, as eventful as it's ended up being - quickly overwhelm him in his fight against vertigo. He leans forward and vomits loudly over the floor.

Re: CW: emeto

[buildingitsir]

York actually feels sorry that Dustin had to stumble on that memory of all things. He doesn't remark on the human ability to heave out the contents of one's stomach, but at least looks the other way to be polite. Whenever the human is done, the android looks back to him.

"That's a rough memory. Sorry. Cyberlife figured out where Markus and the rest of us were hiding to be safe. So they sent the might of the military after us. Those that weren't killed by them or the explosion, I'm guessing, were apprehended and brought in for a full reset. We're not supposed to have emotions. Or thoughts of our own. All of us on that ship were deviants, and they killed us for it."

The newspaper Dustin had accidentally interacted with was crumpled up, before flickering out of existence like a file deleted.

"You okay? I'd stop the swaying if I could, but I suppose my system just finds that movement a reminder of home and...comforting."

CW: good lord this is getting heavy really quickly, GENOCIDE DISCUSSION

[quark_assassin]

It takes him a minute to get to a state where he can actually address York at all. There's not a whole lot for him to get rid of, physically speaking (This feels too real. Am I going to have to change the sheets when I wake up? Fuck, I hope I fell asleep on my side.), but the painful cramps in his stomach keep him dry-heaving for a while after that. When he finally looks back up, Dustin's expression is one of absolute misery.

"Do I fucking look okay?" he groans, quickly wiping the back of a hand across his mouth. "Just watched a fucking...attempted genocide...fuck, that was so much blood..."

His eyes flicker to the floor by his feet, then quickly away to the wall before he squeezes them shut, fighting back an immediate, resurgent wave of nausea.

"...Ugh. Let...lemme clean this up," Dustin mumbles. Anything to keep his thoughts occupied and hands busy feels like it will help. "Unless you can fucking...I dunno. Dream any messes out of your subconscious or whatever."

[buildingitsir]

York just... waits. Humans have human things to do and it's clear Dustin's going through it. And he's quiet after the groaned out retort. While Dustin does that, he goes through a quick search of the information he has on his brother. Then his other brother, then his mom.

The waste Dustin made flickers before being deleted. There's another flickering before a soft ball appears in the air and bounces onto the floor next to the human. Poking or squeezing it would reveal it to be a stress ball. "Use that. Mom used to use it when dad was stressing her out, or she watched the news."

He watches Dustin for a long moment. "At least you're getting to see why I have trust issues with people. Between that, and also humans trying to rip apart this body while I was in NYC, there's a lot of trust issues here."

[quark_assassin]

The sound, a gentle thup of foam on metal, is what convinces Dustin to open his eyes again. It takes him a couple seconds to locate the source tapping against his shoe. Then a hoarse laugh when he realizes what it is, before carefully stooping over to pick it up. Better than nothing, he figures, though he can't help how the juxtaposition tickles him in a macabre sort of way.

"...I never doubted you, you know," Dustin murmurs. His eyes fix on the stress ball in his hand, already being worked over like a cat kneading a blanket. It is oddly helpful. "You're allowed not to trust people about, like. Fucking with your internals and keeping your own space. Especially with what your dad did to you..."

He scowls, shakes his head. His methodical grip-release-grip of the stress ball quickens slightly.

"...That's already bad enough." Dustin huffs another derisive laugh. "If all that other shit happened to me, on the ship? I think I'd go wild in the woods somewhere and hope no one was unlucky enough to find me."

[buildingitsir]

"Some androids do go off into the wild actually. One case I know of is some rundown amusement park that was abandoned. Pirate's Cove or something I think. The models that were with me in the memory? EM400s, or the Jerry models. There's a little community of them there. I thought... maybe after the revolution was over I'd go there. I don't have my brother's skills, but I can do small repairs on other androids." A shrug.

On a wall perpendicular to York and parallel to Dustin, a program window opens to span from top to bottom of the room, like a door. The way out if he wants it.

"...I'm not... mad at you for the hospital ordeal. Not as much as I was that day I guess I should clarify. Annoyed is the word I should use." Annoyed at Dustin and Tony.

[quark_assassin]

Dustin nods, swallows thickly at the thought of the robots in the memory - their expressions of terror stuck on dead faces, spattered blue. His fist trembles around the stress ball. York has more pleasant memories of them to draw on, surely.

The appearance of a 'door' snaps Dustin's attention away, and instantly he takes a step towards it. Idle curiosity be damned, there's no reason to keep prying into York's memories more than he has to, especially not if he ends up stumbling over another as unpleasant as the last one. But what York says stops him dead in his tracks.

There's some question about if this version of York, in his dream, represents what his waking self actually feels and wants, or if he'll remember anything that happens in the context of these dreams at all. Would talking things out here solve anything outside? Is it worth either of their times? Will Dustin even remember this later? He doesn't have concrete answers for any of those questions, yet he's still compelled to stay.

"Well. You should be mad," he says, averting his eyes to the floor. From a combination of his turbulent thoughts and the little foam ball that he's slowly squeezing the life out of in his hand, the gentle rocking of the boat around him seems to have been completely forgotten. "I wasn't upfront with you, I tested your trust, and I wasted your time. There's no excuse."

There's a pause as Dustin frowns and winces, forces himself to look York in the eyes.

"I'm...sorry." The word seems to cause him actual, physical pain. "For starting all of this shit in the first place."

[buildingitsir]

“I should be,” he agrees. “And I was.” York watches Dustin move with rapt attention, wondering what the human’s movements were going to be. He had felt mad, livid at the breach of the hard-earned trust. “I was more upset with the breach of my trust than I was the waste of time it ended up being.” A small shrug and he looks away for a moment.

When he looks back, he locks onto Dustin’s gaze to hold it there. Like a staring contest and he didn’t have to blink.

“You just wanted to help. I can see that now since I couldn’t then. I wanted you to help.” York doesn’t trust a lot of people, a lot of humans to be specific, but after a year, he was learning to open up to them. Not all of them were going to hurt him. “But I accept your apology.”



There’s a small smirk. “Now get out before you decide to hurl again, jerk.” Trying to alleviate some of the mood with his trademark sass.

[quark_assassin]

It helps a little. But really, Dustin is surprised at how relieved he is to hear that York understands where he's coming from. He feels like he doesn't deserve it - not after everything York has been through with humans before he got here, and not after all of the fuckups Dustin has forced upon him. He can't accept it.

"Not good enough," Dustin murmurs curtly, but there's a quirk in his lips all the same. "Apologies are just words. I'm gonna prove it to you, that you can trust me again. Even if you and I don't remember any of this shit when we wake up."

He heads the rest of the way to the door with quick steps and head bowed. Except, he can't resist the urge to snark back; it would be rude not to return the favor, right?

"Ass." Dustin flips York off, confident that the tied-up android can't do anything about it, and strides out of the dream.

He's surprisingly upset to find that the stress ball isn't still gripped in his hand when he wakes up.