deercountry | Murderbot's October Catchall

CW: Forced transformation, Terminator

The mask is half-human and half-bot. The bot half is "terrifying" with a red eye and a metallic skeleton framework revealed from just beneath the surface. "The truth." As much as it looks like some literal representation of a construct, it isn't. However, it lets Murderbot feel like it's walking around as itself, being seen, recognized, and accepted as this part-bot part-human sent back in time from high tech to low tech mostly dumb planet. It's a good feeling.

Until it's less a feeling and more a reality. Diagnostic alarms ping and ping. If it were attached to a SecSystem, it would ping MedSystem, and it would have even more to ignore as its internal pathways alter course. It scans in real time and watches the shifts. Even when percentages aren't changing, the shape and design change. It's the strangest feeling in the world (it doesn't hurt because it turns down its pain sensors, and those seem to be among the last to go).

In the end, it stands among the parade goers mortified and confused. Well, no one will mistake what it is now. "I don't," TerminateBot says to no one in particular, "know what I expected."

CW: poor manners?

It watches all the films at high speed as well as the TV shows, starting on the ones with the face that matches it and expanding outward. It leads to a comfortable gimmick whenever it's uneasy. Whether conversation, situation, or anything else, once its anxiety, Murderbot stands, steps back, or otherwise creates more personal space for itself. "I'll be back," it declares solemnly in a close but not perfect imitation of the character it now looks like.

Then it takes thirty seconds or a minute or two, wherever it can get some privacy, to settle back down. It checks its drone network. It checks DeerNet. It plays a few minutes of Michael Jackson's music. Once its performance seems up to task (it no longer has the same performance reliability module), it returns.

"Where were we?" Murderbot asks as it returns.

CW: Choose Your Own Adventure, Ghost Ship, Terminator
Note: Options 2 & 3 can be mixed together. Option 1 is it's own.

It regains consciousness after a forced shutdown, one without warning. Like the hallways a month before or the boat after that, it's in a secondary location. This time includes a lapse in consciousness that triggers a run of diagnostics. It's fine. Nothing reported as having any problems. No log entries indicate a reason for shutdown. It seems Murderbot must accept that someone can access an on off switch. It would shiver, if it were a human that did things like express angst in such a way. Instead its algorithms keep it moving smoothly.

Option 1: The First Time (Open to one (1))
It doesn't know where it is, and although it can ping its drones, none of them are nearby enough to be useful. This is it, some (hopefully) mini run of one of its worse nightmares. Abandoned alone on an empty planet. The lack of angry megafauna is appreciated, but the unnatural silence makes Murderbot uncomfortable.

It walks in one chosen direction, fragment in hand but ignored as something to roll around physically again and again and again and enjoy the way the light acts like the head of a chicken. Always staying put. That should be the clue to tip it off. Instead, it's a dangerous animal, more than animal but not quite full beast, that it manages to roll its sleeves up for and stun with energy weapons. No killing required.

Then it thinks about the chicken color and changes course. For some time it's nothing else, just a way through woods that it slowly maps with small landmarks it doesn't recognize. It hasn't been mapping the woods with its drones. It hasn't spent much time in the woods outside the healing areas of Lumenwood.

Then there's someone else. Friend or foe? Murderbot tenses and goes for the socially accepted... wave.

Option 2: Houston Houston, Do You Read? (Loneliness Kills)
"Yeah yeah," Murderbot grumbles as it picks up its chicken compass fragment. It doesn't waste time, it runs at near peak human levels in the direction the glowing gem indicates. Nothing like the experience of video games as picking up from the same save point. Only this time it knows how to play.

It isn't exactly the same, however. Unbeknownst to it, a small drone in the shape of a spaceship the size of a human head, floats behind it. The ship is dark with no running lights, no beeps or flashes. No noise, movement, or anything suggests it has power at all. Yet it trails Murderbot faithfully, a small satellite.

Option 3: Come With Me If You Want To Live. (Unmasked)
It's seen all the movies by now. It knows this game. TerminateBot quickly reaches the next important plot point in the game. This time, however, it stares with a dead inhuman gaze as it speaks lines that belong to another character. "Come with me if you want to live," it says.

The tone is flat, the quote turned on its head. Murderbot holds out the fragment of compass.

Edited 2022-10-16 04:56 (UTC)

This may not be Chizuru's first rodeo either - or rather, not her first time suddenly waking up here in the woods and having to navigate her way around with one of those glowing pieces - but she still seems to be taking it all in with a bit more nerves. After all, just like last time, she still has that feeling that there's something out there following her.

And past experience is never any indication for future success. For all she knows, she just got lucky last time, getting out of the woods before whatever was there could pounce her. So Chizuru quickly tries to move in the direction the piece is guiding her to--

-- only to spot something running at her. Maybe if she looked she would be able to realise it's someone she met before, but the paranoia of being watched and followed makes Chizuru just startled enough to let out a surprised squeak, before her hand lands on the hilt of the sword at her side, pulling the kodachi out of its sheath.

Of course it's only when she's already holding out the sword that she realises the person approaching her isn't dangerous at all. Even the drone that's following it doesn't seem all that surprising to her, since it's a little reminiscent of the one she saw it use back on the beach..

Instead Chizuru is much more preoccupied with speaking up with: "O-Oh, it was.. you.. I thought it'd be a monster.."

Her sword slowly lowers. It's not like Chizuru is going to attack someone who tried to help her out before. Apparently the girl doesn't even seem to consider the possibility that it might be a trick either, or that the person standing in front of her isn't who she thinks it is.

Murderbot halts a little out of sword range, at least what it knows about sword range from the media. People rarely walk about wielding swords on space stations and mining installations. It raises its hands in a woah woah motion. It's an easy mistake when someone or something runs at you in the woods.

"Good instincts," Murderbot compliments. "You didn't freeze, and you didn't attack me once you recognized me." It's more than it can count on from most humans.

It holds out the compass fragment. "Have you done this before?" Murderbot asks, "If the rules stay the same, it's pretty simple."

Yeah, it hears how that sounds. When are these things ever that simple? Even when they seem simple, something may happen later. Maybe it'll turn into a forest monster instead of a squid. Or forget Chizuru entirely. Or they'll always know where they are. It cannot predict.

"It'd be less creepy if there were monsters," Murderbot looks around them. "Suspicious how calm it is. Unnatural."

"You and I both," comes a distinctive voice from rather high up. It's easy to pinpoint where it is coming from. Nearby, there is a large dinosaur in a very familiar red-and-black color scheme. He's squished himself back away against a building, away from anyone he might accidentally step on. Across the way, a demolished stand already shows what has happened thanks to his large tail. Despite his ferocious appearance, he's not in any hurry to hurt anyone or go on a rampage.

He squints down at the ground, trying to figure out who is talking. Though his eyesight isn't bad in this form, it's hard to tell one person from another unless he's close to the ground. It appears this lizard-like form uses a sense of smell to distinguish one body from another more than sight.

Chizuru forces herself to calm down further. Breathe in, breathe out. It doesn't restore her back to total calm, but it at least makes her relatively calm enough to put her kodachi back into its sheath, especially since she only feels more antsy holding it around someone she doesn't want to hurt.

".. no, it would definitely be creepier for me if a monster did jump out.." Chizuru manages to say, almost sighing as she says it, yet still sounding on edge.

A monster fight is the last thing she wants to deal with here, after all. She can't defend herself very well, let alone someone else - and she doesn't want this person she met last time around to get hurt. It's not like it showed any attitude to her that would make Chizuru okay with it getting hurt, after all.

So she shakes her head, trying to momentarily get rid of the eerie feeling of being watched. Instead she holds out the fragment she found, only realising that the fragment is similar to the one it is holding, even without knowing what exactly it is.

"But, I.. I don't really know what's going on here," she admits, with a quick shake of her head. "I found one of these though. If it's pretty simple, then.. surely you know what these are, right..?"

It looks up and up and up and up, and nothing in its programming designates megafauna as an immediate threat to be eliminated. It doesn't step back or forward, only looks at the being that looks more out of place than it does. That's something.

"Do not accept masks in the shape of fauna," TerminateBot says, "Noted." It looks at the buildings around them and the megafauna.

"I must ask that if you attend book club like this, you do so from outside. I'll open a window," it says. If the colors are anything to go on, this is a regular of the Entertainment Feed. The Feed can accommodate a lot but not this.

Murderbot glances over at her, mostly eyeing the sword as a nice easy reason not to look at her eyes. "It would be more dangerous if a monster jumped out," Murderbot says, "but unless it was an especially creepy monster, it would be less creepy." Because anything that scares or keeps monsters away is creepier than the monster. Or scarier, but it doesn't say that part out loud.

It accepts her fragment and gets ready to combine them. "This will be bright," it warns, changing the filters for its vision, and holds them together. They glow bright, so bright even Murderbot cannot see the seams closing together in clear and useful detail. It's magic, not tech, anyway. It thinks.

The compass is formed, and Murderbot spins the chicken compass around. "I have no idea which way is north, but last time, follow the blue glowing gem worked out," Murderbot says. "It's not like we want to stay here anyway." That rules out one option.

At least the girl seems like she's pretty good at following instructions. It's not like she can just change the filter for her vision or anything, but after it takes her fragment to combine the two, Chizuru quickly pulls her hand back so she can instead clasp both of her hands over her eyes to try and protect them from the light.

A light that is - indeed - so bright that she can spot it from behind her hands.

It does give her a good idea of when the light is gone, at least, and she slowly moves her hands back down to curiously peer over at the device the other is holding now.

"That can lead us out of there?" She asks - more for confirmation's sake than anything else, since she did grasp what it just told her. "Then maybe it's the best if we'd follow it quickly, right? I'm not sure how long it takes to get out of here, or if there's actually something following us, but.. I'd rather not test that last part."

She shakes her head.

"Could you fight if that happened..?" She has seen it do a lot of things now. Things that Chizuru has mostly marveled at, or just plainly been confused by.

But she has absolutely no clue about whether the other can actually fight or not. That's a different wheelhouse entirely.

"Unless they changed the rules and it leads us right to the danger instead, yes," Murderbot replies. "I don't know Cloverfield, but I don't have a reason to think he would do that. Assuming its his thing." Murderbot has avoided any direct face to face time with Pthumerians, giving Never Mind a wide berth in his school the times it has needed to go there. Even cursory glances on the network calls him Patron Pthumerian of the Lost. They are lost. It hopes Cloverfield is then temporarily their patron and it likes its people.

"Lets go," Murderbot says. Quickly doesn't have to mean running like before. It'd be too easy to get separated. A move on, yes.

"I'm not going to stand around letting something tear me to pieces," Murderbot snarks deadpan. It facepalms and sighs, glad no one else is around to hear that. ART would have made fun of it. Even without words, Murderbot can feel the judgy contempt ART would direct its way in the feed. Yep, like that exactly.

Murderbot glances over at Chizuru and her sword. "I'll try not to do what happened last month," it says. Because letting something tear Chizuru to pieces is worse than that happening to it. It's lived through that before. "I had a run in with the bugge. I tried not to let it see me, and next thing I knew it's like I'd deleted myself out of reality. It couldn't see me all right, but neither could anyone else. See me. Hear me. Feel me. It took running into some actor sleeping in a tree to get back to the regular world."

"I'll fight, you run, okay?" Murderbot offers. "If you get away, I can do that." It has no idea how it did that.

CW: body/machine horror, gore, blood, trauma, mental confusion, ghost, high corruption

It shudders on its hands and knees and forces itself to stand. Its visual sensors make no sense. It sees a forest, a parade, a road, a dead end, a shop front, a field, a lake, a—

It's too much. It lunges toward the person only a few steps—

Not in front of it. Its hands open and close, and it focuses the visual data on the appendages approximating hands within its view. The synthetic skin has come completely clean of one. The metal structure revealed together moves stiffly, flaking rust each time it sends commands to the hand. One finger doesn't move at all, fused together (impossible). The other hand is mostly covered. The skin is paper thin, revealing the inhuman structure below it. Importantly, the person it reached for is not within its grasp.

TerminateBot lets out an inhuman scream, insulated by the walls around it. Its knee gives out again, and when it slams into the floor, a seam bursts. A thin stream of blood sprays to the side. No tears tear free of its eyes. It lacks the capacity for tears. Whispers and laughter taunt it. It hit play on its queue, but even in this artificial screen inside its head, people run away screaming from it.

Someone starts shooting it on the screen, and it feels jealous. At least they engage with it. It cannot reach the squid on the beach. It cannot reach anyone in a pub. It cannot reach the actor in the tree. It cannot reach anyone at all. This is it. Nearly shut down and alone. Without crew. Without crew. Without crew.

Elsewhere a drone flies directly into someone (crew's) face.

Vi sits at her desk, pausing in her sketch - which is of a local man, and not (surprisingly) D, smudging a line here, reconsidering a line there, sighing and about to scrap the whole thing and start over when she's greeted by the little drone, which she instinctively tries to swat away until she realizes what it is.

"Hey, you." she says, surprised to see it in her bedroom of all places. This is ...odd. "Did you get lost, or do you need something?"

Unease begins to raise the signal of "uh oh", as she thinks back to any time her own Omen sought out someone else. She's avoided a lot of things this month, but that doesn't mean she hasn't seen some shit happen.

It's only an intelligence drone. It lacks the equipment for much. No arms for manipulation or writing anything down. It can stream to a feed—

It isn't only an intelligence drone. It's an omen. It doesn't need a feed. Stopping an inch away from flying into her face again, it spins around, rises, and projects an image over her drawing.

The view looks down from on high at what looks like a horror film. The being doesn't look like Murderbot or even a corrupted version of it. It looks like a decrepit T-800 that was abandoned on a colony for decades or centuries. The metal joints corrode, rust, and bend out of shape. The black sweatshirt half-shredded tangles with outgrowths of metal that don't make sense. They are sharp and pointy, a hedgehog of icing tips. Each spews a tiny jet of dark blood.

Another drone flies into the room. It projects an image next to the feed. This reveals a whole series of movies called Terminator, which shows a similar type of robot in better form.

Edited 2022-10-23 22:33 (UTC)

"Huh? But.."

Even though Chizuru is following the other, falling in step as they try to follow the compass, her eyes go wide as she hears all of that. Rather than looking ahead of them - which might have been a better idea in case a monster did jump out - she instead just looks at it, her eyes wide and worried.

"Wouldn't that be a problem? I know you said you managed to fix it that time, but.. what if you can't do the same thing this time around?" Being stuck like that. Not being noticed by monsters, sure, but also not being noticed by any other being.

Like being trapped in a permanent state of isolation. "That would be so horrible.."

And there's no way Chizuru would ever feel right just running away and abandoning it to that sort of thing. Despite this being about a very hypothetical scenario, the sympathy is already way too strong in Chizuru's voice, her hands tightly clasped together in front of her.

"Steady," Murderbot urges. A small drone, along with the large 'drone' follows them. The large one looms near Murderbot's shoulder, ahead of Chizuru, but the small one faces Chizuru from a perch on the top of Murderbot's collar. That reduces the chances of something sneaking up on them. It also lets Murderbot see her Preservation naive-like reaction. Other people usually have fewer problems risking Murderbot's life.

"The actor is still here, last I checked," Murderbot says, "he has a fanbase among the locals. I'm sure they would kick up a fuss if he disappeared."

It closes its eyes for a moment before saying anything more. Though they are here together, a looming feeling of isolation and loneliness still threatens it. Even if other people are in Trench, if they cannot see it, that's like being left behind on a planet to slowly die. That's easy to imagine.

"We come back from dying," Murderbot says. "Like a magical reboot/reset. If nothing else works, I could kill myself and be back in a matter of days." Not ideal but better than an eternity alone as some kind of ghost.

"It appears not accepting masks of any kind might be preferable for the near future," Maul observes as he continues to squint, kneeling down so that he can look carefully at Eden and what's become of her face. The hot breath coming from him is strong enough to ruffle clothes this close up.

"Duly noted. If I am still like this when the time comes, I will be sure to stay outside," Maul says agreeably. "Hopefully the others don't mind participating with a very large reptile in their midst." He's no desire to go around stomping everyone and everything into gooey little bits like this. While his body has become that of a dinosaur, his mind is still his own.

Chizuru shakes her head. Quickly. It seems instinctive, a reaction born on nothing but pure feelings.

"That doesn't make it right!"

For once, there's a bit more spirit in her voice, especially compared to the way the girl can often sound so shy and meek. Reserved, like she's constantly making a conscious effort to be agreeable, to not step on any toes. But this - this sounds like it's born from a much more personal belief, one that may be important enough that she's willing to break her usual attitude for it.

It's the other's life they're talking about here, after all. And while Chizuru may not claim to know it super well, still--

"I wouldn't want to see that happen to you." It still feels a little shameful to say, just a little too selfish, and it makes Chizuru's cheeks glow with a paleblood blush, her gaze nervously shifting towards the drone before landing back on the other's face. "Even if you'd come back, even if any of us would come back in this place.. Dying is still too sad. And even more so when you'd be doing it all alone like that.."

Dying unnoticed. Without anyone else being there.

Dying all alone.

Nothing could possibly seem more painful to Chizuru, even though it's not her on the line in that hypothetical situation. But it's still enough to make the girl look like she's truly experiencing the idea of the hurt in this moment.

This terminator has been through a lot. A fair amount of its insides show, the human artifice burned, melted, or otherwise scoured away. As the transformation just occurred, whatever battles and chaos caused that isn't apparent. However, those insides have been in better shape. They look worn, crusted with salt, and perhaps like something or someone dunked TerminateBot in the ocean, perhaps in those sunken ships, for a while.

TerminateBot does not meet MegaMaulFauna's eye. It turns its head sideways, so the more human half takes prominence. The scrutiny is uncomfortable.

"Trench is a weird place where this kind of shit happens," TerminateBot points out. It looks again at the small trail of damage. "Where are you trying to go?"

Its crew, a segment of PreservationAux along with Amena and Thiago, ART's crew, and Murderbot 2.0's friend Three rescued Murderbot shortly before it washed up forever ago in Trench. It knows they did that, that people did that. Trench—

Trench undermines that a little. After all, no one can rescue it from Trench. No one knows to do that. No one would know how bring back everyone and everything it likes here as refugees to Preservation. It is lost and abandoned. It's hard to care too much what happens to it when that's the case.

It's not alone or unique that way. Other people are also abandoned on this planet. Cheers to them all, it thinks sadly.

Still, with it looking like it does, with exposed metal elements, only more and more corroded due to the salt spray off the ocean, the rough seasons in Trench, and perhaps the pollution this world is known for, Murderbot's surprised by Chizuru's reaction. It's only... Murderbot. Not a human. Not that Chizuru knows that. That's probably it, it thinks just then in the low downward spiral of its thoughts. More people care about it when it pretends to be human.

"It's an emergency backup plan for an emergency backup plan," Murderbot says. It glances down at the compass to get farther from its thoughts. "That's better than being stuck here like a ghost."

The girl turns away her gaze for a moment, staring at the nature ahead of them. Thinking about it all. She can't believe the way it can talk about this so relatively casually. Like it isn't a really, really tough decision to make. Sure, Chizuru has offered to sacrifice herself for other people plenty of times already, but she always felt kind of miserable about the idea of getting hurt all the same.

Doesn't it feel the same way? Doesn't it care about its life..?

...

"I would be sad." Chizuru says, softly. It's still audible, but it's like she's worried about the words even as she says them. "So please don't die. Don't even accidentally turn yourself into a ghost. I know it's really selfish of me to ask that, but.. I'm begging you."

Even if it's a backup plan of a backup plan - Chizuru just doesn't want the possibility to even exist.

Edited 2022-10-30 18:43 (UTC)

It's not sure why it told Chizuru the plan. Murderbot doesn't want her to hesitate if they get attacked. The whole point is for someone to get out of here. It can handle a lot. If it's just it, that could still mean they both live. That's the best case, right?

Humans are so fragile. They die so easily. It's a lot harder to kill.

It shunts the visual feed of her face to the side, but the image of her begging face still comes to mind. Those first few seconds are enough with her voice still coming from behind it. They might not have been the best of backup plans, but Murderbot knows even less how to work without some sort of plan in place. (Yes, most of its plans aren't executed exactly as planned, but at least it had them).

"I won't do that today," Murderbot begrudgingly gives her. After another pause, it adds, "but I will pick you up and carry you. I run fast." Plus its strong. This terminator is strong. Surely she cannot begrudge that plan. It doesn't care that she has a sword. If it's not allowed to die, neither is she.

This again. Vash feels slightly less unsettled this time, even though a gap in his memory will never quite be comfortable. At least his previous experience can let him to be fairly confident in the idea that following the glow of the item won't lead him into some kind of trap.

The figure in the woods waves, and Vash waves back. The broken object glows ever brighter as Murderbot approaches.

"Hello."

He is not sure if he needs to explain, or if the other has been through this before already as well. He waits to find out.

Initial exchange of social ritual complete. Murderbot doesn't particularly recognize this individual and falls back on a line from media (after all, 'Hello' takes all of 1-2 seconds).

"Funny meeting you here," Murderbot says deadpan, acknowledging both the surprise and lack of surprise at the same time. It looks at the object of increased luminescence in both of their hands and sighs.

"Chicken colors for us both," it mutters as it rotates the fragment that continues to point toward the newcomer. "Welcome to Team Gallus Colores." It holds out the fragment. No it has no idea what it's doing besides following the chicken color that brought them together.

Chickens are not particularly plentiful on a desert planet like Gunsmoke, so the reference is a bit lost on Vash. Nonetheless, when Murderbot holds out the fragment, Vash extends his own, and allows the two fragments to join together, as they had before.

"It makes a compass," he explains. "Following it leads us out of the forest."

Murderbot's October Catchall

Construct Squared (Black Parade | Unmasked)

I'll Be Back (Unmasked)

Forced Shutdown (Lost in the Woods + Options)

option 2!

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Buggy Emotions (Loneliness Kills) [Closed to Vi]

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CW: reference to suicide

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CW: reference to suicide

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Re: CW: reference to suicide

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option 1

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