aut0n0m0usauth0rity

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

Hmmm. Testing a query, is AR home? 8luh I dou8t this will work, 8ut I might as well try.

[[she isnt, and given I havent even been reached out to about this revival really im not sure im welcome in this au anymore anyway]]

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

[its_

01000011 00110000 01001100 01000100]

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

[MESSAGE_RECIEVED::DISPATCHING_RESP0NSE]

thank y0u f0r y0ur c0ncern 0fficer [vriska serket]

0fficer unit 4r-4d-1a has been admitted f0r critical repairs and will return t0 duty p0st haste

have an excellent evening

[END_RESP0NSE]

[CRITICAL_SYSTEMS_FAILURE::INITIATING_REPAIR_SHUTD0WN

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[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

[CRITICAL_SYSTEMS_FAILURE::INITIATING_REPAIR_SHUTD0WN

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_]

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

She stops her pawing, giving a shudder and placing her head against the ground as she quiets down, before beginning to shakily pick herself up, wincing as she leans on the peg, but not crying out.

"I... I D0 N0T KN0W"

While still grating, her voice has been modulated significantly downward, audible only barely to Vriska and the orb

"I W0KE UP 0NLY A BIT AG0 WITH EIGHT H0URS 0F REB00T L0GS AND THEN N0 MEM0RIES F0R M0NTHS

I WAS H0PING WH0EVER WAS SPEAKING IN MY HEAD" she nods to the orb "W0ULD BE ABLE T0 TELL ME M0RE"

She's looking around now, evidently noticing the same thing as vriska, and tenses, before looking around frantically. Her eyes land on the corpse and study it for a moment, before shaking her head. Lifting her left arm, it begins to morph and change, damaged panels sliding and rolling as her undamaged hand is subsumed, quickly deploying a small rifle built into her Arm.

"I AM S0RRY T0 HAVE STARTLED Y0U BUT. IT'S G00D T0 SEE A FAMILIAR FACE.

LEAD AND I'LL F0LL0W VRISKA"

“I think this is the edge of the Stolen Places. After this, well. It’s just Metaplasm.” The orb speaks suddenly; you had entered an exhibit room, once again completely empty, and found a slightly melted looking doorway at the end. Obviously, the only thing to do was go through it. It was a dark hallway, darker than most you’d been in so far. Far darker. The orb was having to use itself as a low-level lighting implement, managing to create a gentle bluish zone of illumination around itself, and you. You thought you could hear something every so often. Clicking? Tapping? It was fairly regular. You notice that the hallway abruptly ends.

The path doesn’t, but the part that looks like a hallway does. The area beyond it looks like the inside of a bronchiole, and is branching roughly as regularly. It smells stale here. Stale, and with that same ‘life gone horribly right’ feeling.

In the gloom you also see another armor-clad corpse. Same circle and three arrows symbol on the shoulder. This time there’s a tube passing through where the faceplate should be. You motion over to it. “Hicks. Hunter Hicks.” The ghost chimes mournfully. Once you’re about a meter away you notice some strange lumps on the tube.

They’re not lumps. They’re facial features. Two eyes, malformed and covered with translucent eyelids, and a nose, jutting out seemingly at random. “Did… Did it literally tear off his face?”

The tube jostles, and the corpse of Hicks falls over. Your neck prickles, and you aim the gun down the tunnel in the direction you came from. Something’s there. Glowing.

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

The movements of the glow are erratic, bobbing up and down and in time with the metallic tapping, and swaying left and right as if someone was angling its source around.

And then it lances down the hallway, locking on vriska and the orb and holding for a moment, not bobbing, no clacking.

"Vrrrr.... Ssssk..."

The vocalization is synthetic and drawn out, and then the light is moving again, faster, the clack picking up speed similarly as the light bears down on them, continuing to make the low, unclear utterances

It closes the gap with frightening speed, lurching into the blue halo of light and revealing itself in full, the words coming from its ragged speakerbox finally clear, if metallic and strained

"VRISKA"

Before them was not one of the flesh creatures, but a robotic Humanoid in horrible disrepair. The remains of a suit of combat armor hung about its somehow emaciated looking frame, at places fused directly into metal flesh, both silvery skin marked by acidic burns and ash, as well as deep gouges. One of its legs had been torn off halfway below the thigh, and in its place was a makeshift peg leg of rusted pipe, jammed straight into the stump of the thigh, and one of its arms was fused from the elbow down with a rifle, barrel cartoonishly limp

Frankly, it looked like it had been chewed up and spit back out.

The things face was in no better shape, silvery metallic "hair" missing in large clumps, exposing smooth chrome skull, and the two horns sprouting from its forehead had been snapped at various points.

The orange light was projected from an eye, nestled in a gouge of torn away synth skin, sitting above a mouth frozen into a snarl, impeding speech, and next to another focal aperture, melted shut

The thing loses its footing, failing to catch itself with the gun arm and falling hard to the ground at vriskas feet, pawing at her boot as it tried to pick itself back up

"VRI-I-I-ISKA-A-A-A"

“I think this is the edge of the Stolen Places. After this, well. It’s just Metaplasm.” The orb speaks suddenly; you had entered an exhibit room, once again completely empty, and found a slightly melted looking doorway at the end. Obviously, the only thing to do was go through it. It was a dark hallway, darker than most you’d been in so far. Far darker. The orb was having to use itself as a low-level lighting implement, managing to create a gentle bluish zone of illumination around itself, and you. You thought you could hear something every so often. Clicking? Tapping? It was fairly regular. You notice that the hallway abruptly ends.

The path doesn’t, but the part that looks like a hallway does. The area beyond it looks like the inside of a bronchiole, and is branching roughly as regularly. It smells stale here. Stale, and with that same ‘life gone horribly right’ feeling.

In the gloom you also see another armor-clad corpse. Same circle and three arrows symbol on the shoulder. This time there’s a tube passing through where the faceplate should be. You motion over to it. “Hicks. Hunter Hicks.” The ghost chimes mournfully. Once you’re about a meter away you notice some strange lumps on the tube.

They’re not lumps. They’re facial features. Two eyes, malformed and covered with translucent eyelids, and a nose, jutting out seemingly at random. “Did… Did it literally tear off his face?”

The tube jostles, and the corpse of Hicks falls over. Your neck prickles, and you aim the gun down the tunnel in the direction you came from. Something’s there. Glowing.

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

kum0!

n0t lump but kum0!

but...

what d0es kum0 mean?

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

The more you walked, the worse the flesh got.

It started with bundles of tubes ocassionally snaking in an out of ceiling tiles, paired with bare spots on the tiled wall where meat pulsed and wobbled free. But the bundles got thicker, and the walls were becoming less tile and more meat all the time, unsightly piles of putrid rot dotted around ocassionally, and pus dripping from cracks in the walls

And then you couldn't see them at all. The meat turned into white noise when you looked at it, making your ears ring.

It was unfortunate you couldn't close your eye.

The sensation reminded you of something, as your memory banks filled with sensory error logs, but you couldn't remember what

"Hey! Up here!"

Your head snaps up, the voice filling it once more. You could very clearly hear it somewhere above you, and when you look back down, what was a hallway was now stairs leading down/up

?

You start up/down them, getting the very uncomfortable sensation that if you were to fall you wouldn't know which way you were going to go until it was already happening

Hopefully you found someone soon. The ringing was starting to get to you.

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

i cann0t remember m0re than snatches 0f the last few m0nths

the last thing I recall clearly is helping... s0me0ne set a new deadlifting rec0rd?

after that its just useless snippets

i have messages fr0m 0fficer serket but they w0nt l0ad

and i feel like im l00king f0r...

i d0n't kn0w

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

maybe if you ask the voice to quiet down it will? is it talking to you directly or to someone else, or can you tell

hes talking t0 s0me 0ne elsei think i need t0 find them

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

lump

lump

lump

why d0es that w0rd keep playing in y0ur head?

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

"...oh no..."

[REB00T_INITIALIZED]

"Oh no no..."

[SYSTEMS_FAILURE::MANUAL_REB00T_SUGGESTED]

"Eriksson..."

[SHUT_D0WN_AND_AWAIT_BACKUP_Y/N?

>N

0VERRIDES_RELEASED]

You're awake... For now. Everything is still pitch black, and you try to open your eyes, get your surroundings.

No luck. The only input your receiving is that damn voice, directly into your audio feed. Who is it talking to?

A quick perusal of your crash logs reveals a reboot loop that has been going on for eight hours and then... Junk. Months and months of junk reports.

Where were you?? What was going on??

System diagnostics were down. Most of your sensors too. Optics claim to be working, and based on the wet contacts on your neck touch sensors were working as well, But everything remained dark. Hmm.

You Lance a LIDAR pulse into the darkness, perhaps you get some useful data.

[DISTANCE_READING::LESS_THAN_0NE_MILLIMERER]

Less than?? What?

You reach up and touch your face, fingers brushing your optic shutters.

A robotic chuckle leaves your body. That explains a lot.

Delicately, your insert two fingers into the apperatus, spreading them slowly to open it manually, and catch your first glimpse of your surroundings; some kind of restroom? Bathed in the orange light of your optics.

The view is cut short as you remove your fingers and the shutter snaps closed. Easing it open once more, your remove your fingers. Same result.

Sigh. Time to do this the hard way

[Request::temp0rary_pain_feedback_0verride

DENIED::ADMINISTRAT0R_CREDENTIALS_REQUIRED

Emergency_credentials_4r-4d-1a

DENIED

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Request::temp0rary_v0calizati0n_l0ckd0wn

REQUEST_GRANTED]

If Nothing else, at least you made no noise beyond an electronic crackle and the sound of shattering ceramic as you punched the ground in pain as your tore your right eyelid off. And now you could see, though you wished you couldn't.

This was certainly a bathroom, but closer inspection revealed issues beyond a bit of uncleanness. For one, veiny tubes crisscross the ceiling, a few of which are unpleasantly suctioned to the nape of your neck, swollen with some... Something that can't seem to pass through your metallic skin.

With a yank, they pop off, depositing their putrid loads onto the ground. You try and stand, only to stumble and fall, crashing to the ground and making two more discoveries.

For one, your left leg has been severed at the mid thigh.

Well.

Ripped off is probably a better descriptor.

And two, now on the floor, you're getting a good look at where you punched the ground.

And the meat writhing beneath the tiles.

You needed to go now

Looking over at the wall, you see a series of thin, rusty pipes. Crawling over, you select one of approximately the right size, snapping it off the wall with ease and sit upright, looking down at your mangled leg. You bring the pipe to the stump, lining it up parallel to your Titanium femur, and take a deep breath, steadying your hand

And then jam the pipe into your thigh, uttering another silent scream as artificial flesh is torn and rent.

You nearly pass out from the pain, but manage to recover after a few minutes, climbing to your feet with a nearby sink. Your new prosthetic isn't fantastic, but it will have to do, and you take a few shaky, wobbly steps toward the only exit. That needlessly chipper voice has started again, and as you turn your head you can feel it get louder from certain directions.

That's certainly a start.

You begin to totter off down the hall, hoping to find someone, anything to tell you what the hell is going on.

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

[STELLAR_C00RDINATE_C0NFLICT_0VERFL0W

SUBJECT_0UT_0F_B0UNDS

4R_UNIT_N0NRESP0NSIVE

DISPATCH_RETRIEVAL_SQUADS_0FFICER_"Serket,Vriska"

Y/N_]

i

i d0nt kn0w where i am

i th0ught my eyes were shut but they’ve been 0pen this wh0le time

where is the ship?

where is [MEM0RY_FILE_PURGED]

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

she's lump

she's lump

she's lump

[IT]'s in my head

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

[REBOOTING_

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SYSTEM_CRASH::REBOOTING_

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_

SYSTEM_CRASH::REBOO_

HELL0_W0RLD]

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

s0mething...

m

e

t

h

i

n

g

[EXISTS] behind my eyes

i can feel it [SENS0RY_INPUT_DUMPED::SYSTEM_CRASH]

[aut0n0m0usauth0rity]

who IS this douchebag

i d0nt kn0w!! i can feel him talking in my ears and i want it t0 ST0P