Network Text

[buildingitsir]

^{[ooc note/warning: potential for spoilers for stranger things in the comments]}

what the everliving fuck was THAT bullshit that happened over there?
i went to sh'ka for a few days and you guys open portals to hell
or something?
first girls that claw throats open
now that

you guys done burning shit down over there or what?
aka is it safe to go back?

Comments

[text]

[in_extremis]

Yeah, sorry it took so long. Won't happen again.

Are you okay?

[text]

[buildingitsir]

you better be sorry
sheesh
wait was this even your fault?

i'm fine
my issues were all before this thankfully
went to sh'ka to have a change of scenery
just in the nick of time apparently

[in_extremis]

I'm working out the details. I'll have a better apology later. I don't know.

I'm having a hard time believing that you're issue-free now. Is that all you needed, a vacation? My girlfriends usually call me on the road at least once.

[buildingitsir]

apology accepted
you don't seem like the type to do this shit on purpose

no i'll always have issues
moreso than usual now because of some
uh
super strong girl?
met here where the glownies are kept
figured if she was still in the city
she wouldn't find me in sh'ka after reeve and richie fixed me up

[in_extremis]

I guess we don't know each other that well.

You're not the only one that's had a run in with her. Do you think someone finally caught up with her? Unless you had a really bad first impression of Omega, I don't think your girl is on the list.

[buildingitsir]

on accident?
maybe
on purpose?
seems less likely

not omega
i've seen her around and she doesn't fit the descrip
dark skin black hair bright eyes
she was being really fucking weird
like, invasive kinda weird so i called her a bitch
and she did pretty significant damage to my jaw and throat area
that was fun
one of richie's shirts is ruined now from my thirium

[in_extremis]

Demon-doors were not an intended outcome, that's true. Just something I should have anticipated better.

As concerned as I am for Richie's wardrobe, we've got to zero in on why you thought you should call a girl a bitch. Do you want to tell me about it while I check your face?

[buildingitsir]

what were you trying to do then if demondoors weren't the desired outcome?

you can if you want
reeve got me patched up as best we can
i'm not bleeding anymore so i'm calling it a win
also she was really fucking weirding me out
being really invasive and stuff with her questions
and she just would not let up

[in_extremis]

Get us out of here.

There's a thing I do when I'm under a lot of pressure and feel like someone is trying to get one over on me. I lie. Works like a charm.

[buildingitsir]

fair
not gonna be mad at that

i'm not good at lying
it's surprisingly not in my programming
and it never got it when i deviated
i'll call that a bug and not a feature then
though i didn't lie to her and just kept skirting around the truth

[in_extremis]

Girls prefer being lied to over being called a bitch. Tell her something she wants to hear, you get out of there with your face intact. We should work on that.

Or maybe we should talk about why you didn't want to tell the truth.

[buildingitsir]

'there's something wrong with you' she told me
so i told her there wasn't anything wrong aside from some scars
but then she pressed to see them
i don't let people see them
she was fucking menacing
kept pressing to see them or why i was 'wrong'
kinda snowballed from there
like
off of a cliff

[in_extremis]

Maybe there's something a little wrong with all of us. I haven't figured out the pattern yet. Have you?

[buildingitsir]

there doesn't seem to be a pattern with mine
or at least from the standpoint of
'why was i attacked'
two times just existing
this most recent time for calling someone a name
something definitely wrong with her if the first thing that comes to mind is to try and rip someone apart for the name
also threw me into a wall
this place just has the best people

[in_extremis]

Who else is beating you up? I thought the ear was an accident. Don't tell me you lied about lying.

[buildingitsir]

no i'm not fucking lying
the ear was an accident
here in the city
my other shit is stuff from home
stuff from nyc
one person here has seen what's happened for that
during that calibrations bullshit

[in_extremis]

'From home' is not 'this place'. I'm not arguing with you about what happened before you got here, that's way too long ago for either of us to start debating the minutiae. I hate both of those things. But if you want to get into minutiae, we can go over what might be definitely wrong with someone with unreasonably violent impulses. Maybe she was onto something.

[buildingitsir]

oh my god
no i don't want to get into all that
i feel like you and my middle brother would have a field day talking about me tho
the demonportals turn you into an android shrink or something?

[in_extremis]

You're the one that brought it up. Maybe she scrambled your brains.

[buildingitsir]

if she scrambled my brains
i wouldn't be talking to you right now
if
when i guess
it's safe to take the train again
i'll come back to temba

[in_extremis]

I don't know if I'm supposed to take that as an insult.

[buildingitsir]

what?
i'm not being insulting right now
you can usually tell because i'm not swearing
if she scrambled my brains
i wouldn't be talking to anyone right now
not just you

i want to go back to temba when the demonportals are closed
i don't want to get mauled trying to get from the station to the hotel

[in_extremis]

Are you particularly susceptible to brain scrambling? I thought that was your whole deal, you swear at people because you've already been scrambled.

I am reasonably confident that the demonportals are closed. I can't find any more, anyway. If you get mauled, it will only be by Omega.

[buildingitsir]

you and i are talking about two different scramblings i guess
the scrambling you're thinking of is deviation
jumping the tracks from programming only
to simulating emotions and expressing them
the scrambling i'm talking about is probably more along the lines of like
virus and malware and shit that will actually hurt me

i have a feeling i'd really have to upset omega for her to maul me
i'd probably deserve that one

[in_extremis]

That's the only change, the thing that makes you public enemy?

When we went to this planet a while back, the place was miraculous, the whole thing was a city, every surface covered then built up endlessly into the atmosphere. Most of that work was done by droids, like BD-1--you've met, right? They're all a little like him, designed with a specific purpose, but with personalities, with feelings. That was a feature. I don't think it was because it made them more relatable. I think it was because it made them easier to control. A personality that's been beaten down into demoralization is more suggestible than a bot with complex programming.

On Earth--my Earth--a synthetic that could experience emotions is the miracle. A thousand huge brains have made it their life's work since we had the concept of automation. Most of the time, it was already there, we just didn't know how to recognize it.