#brain emulating robots

[greggeigercalldanmurraywhitetail]

GREG GEIGER CALL DAN MURRAY WHITETAIL

[bradgeigerbillboardmusicawards]

My robots emulate my brain, but only as far as it is useful. In this area, my robots know effectively everything, and direct my actions far more than I direct theirs.

[brad-geiger-time-travel-famous]

Claiming he is only a robot, and not alive, so that you can claim his robots are yours would never make sense, because his robots obviously independently act, and would retaliate against you, and reprogram any technology helping you.

[militaryintelligencerecords]

[sunnydbeam]

Gamma Code

Chapter 3: Alone With Yourself (AO3)

▪︎ Word count: 7,500+

▪︎ Chapter summary:

Biohazard is not feeling so confident this time.

CW: Heavy angst, dysphoria, derealization, graphic descriptions of anxiety and panic attacks, aggression, self-injury, swearing.

~~~~~~~~~

The end of your shift leaves a familiar, acrid tang in your mouth – the taste of unresolved tension. A heavy cloak of frustration, inexplicable and suffocating, settles over you. Each colleague offered the same look, a watery, pitying gaze that slid right off as you retreated, words failing you. None of them could articulate, or perhaps dared not to, the turmoil that churned within you, a distress that ran deeper than mere fear of another unwanted, nightmarish encounter with the creature haunting your waking thoughts and sleeping terrors.

This hollowness isn't new. It’s the gnawing bitterness of an injustice you feel in your bones but cannot articulate, a silent scream trapped in your chest. The mere act of wrestling with it drains you, your thoughts snagging, your brain feeling seized, shriveling like a sponge wrung dry under a relentless, invisible fist.

Alone in the oppressive darkness of your room, the tension clings to your limbs like a second skin, refusing to release its hold even as you lie prone, your eyes tracing the blank, indifferent expanse of the pale ceiling. Sleep, that elusive balm, offers no solace, and the frustration of its absence grates on your already frayed nerves. You hate this.

When you finally register your surroundings again, your eyes are sandpaper-dry, stinging, and bloodshot. The room’s darkness is a tangible presence, swallowing you whole. For a fleeting, merciful moment, the intrusive neon glow has vanished. This time, it’s not the chilling tendrils of fear that consume you, but a profound, bottomless sorrow washes over you, cold and vast, as if you’ve borne solitary witness to an act of such profound immorality that only your soul can perceive its true weight. You feel adrift, marooned in a parallel dimension, an inverted reality where you are the alien, the outsider, casting a harsh, judgmental eye upon a world that deems its skewed normalcy as absolute.

And yet, through it all, your thoughts circle inevitably back to him. To the robot.

The memory of your last conversation with him is so visceral, so sharply etched in your mind, that your stomach lurches, a sickening roil that forces you to curl onto your side, hugging yourself against a wave of nausea that feels both real and phantom. He had fallen silent, abruptly, the final words of his almost-declaration tumbling out in a tone that had, for a startling instant, softened, become… pleasant. And the shift had felt utterly bizarre. Unsettling. As if he, too, were defeated.

Vulnerable.

A sliver of doubt remained – was he truly sincere, or was this an elaborate ruse, a calculated play to persuade you of his supposed innocence, of the fantastical possibility of escape? Perhaps the field of flowers he spoke of was a cruel mirage. Perhaps his words were nothing more than a sophisticated emulation of emotions he could never truly possess. You fought against the pull of it, yet the echo of that vulnerability didn't entirely fade. To your fortune, or perhaps your detriment, you’d always been cursed with an overabundance of empathy, a trait that now stole your sleep, leaving you to wrestle with these impossible quandaries in the dead of night.

The crux of it, the thorn that pricked your conscience, was the casual disposability of this artificial life, the ease with which everyone could use and discard.

And since Biohazard isn't… technically… alive…

Why did the weight of complicity settle so heavily upon your shoulders, as if you were an accomplice to a crime that defied definition, a wrongness that resonated in the very marrow of your being?

.

.

.

…

The void. A silence so profound it thunders in the absence of sound. Darkness, absolute and unyielding.

His enemy. His friend.

His ally.

Sometimes, not seeing oneself is a perverse kind of mercy.

But the glow… his glow. It sears, an internal fire.

The unending torment of a fractured mind, chained to a past it cannot relinquish.

What could have been.

Oh, what could have been.

What would it have been?

He has, in truth, forgotten.

And the forgetting is a fresh agony, a constant, dull ache.

An eternity seems to have yawned since the last caress of light, since his sensors registered anything beyond the blistering, relentless heat. An eternity since his optical sensors perceived anything but the cold, indifferent sheen of steel, or, more often, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He prowls the Stygian gloom, his mechanical claws scraping, screeching against the rough-hewn surfaces, each footfall a ponderous, threatening thud in the vast emptiness. Only he bears witness to his passage. His very touch leaves an ectoplasmic trail of sickly green luminescence, a viscous, dangerous-looking slime that seems to sizzle and eat at the concrete like potent acid. He knows with a detached part of his consciousness that his deteriorating form is a canvas of optical illusions he no longer fully comprehends; the perpetual, horrifying sensation of melting, of his very structure deliquescing, crumbling like rotted, irradiated flesh. The radiation, a relentless tide, devours his chassis particle by particle; stainless steel, lead, tungsten – no fortress of costly, resilient materials could have ever been engineered to withstand, to predict, the sheer, unadulterated toxicity that now bathes him, circulates through his internal systems like a corrosive mockery of blood. Yet, he endures. He walks. Aimless. Purposeless. A zombie, many would whisper, if they dared to speak of him at all. But Biohazard knows. Those shambling, reanimated corpses, they once had something to cling to, a life to mourn. He knows, with a certainty that chills his core programming, that he was never truly alive to begin with. A matter of convention, of course.

But increasingly, Biohazard finds the charade of simulated life, of simulated anything, utterly pointless.

The grating, worn-out symphony of his existence: the screech of protesting joints, the groan of over-stressed actuators, the relentless spread of rust, pistons hissing and straining under the immense weight of his frame. Cold. Rigid. Cracked. Every element of his being screams "ARTIFICIALITY!" in a tone dripping with contempt, a cosmic joke played on him alone. And still, to exist, to persist on this plane, painfully, acutely aware of his cursed state, in every conceivable sense of the word.

Biohazard halts, his optical sensors attempting to pierce the impenetrable black. His night vision capabilities should render it a non-issue, yet the persistent visual static, the desaturated, aged filter over his perception, bleeds all vibrancy from the world, leaving only a monotonous, soul-crushing greyscale. He finds himself… missing… color. Anything other than the ubiquitous, sickly green of his own corrosive aura.

A faint drip… drip… drip slices through the silence from somewhere in the oppressive distance. He shakes his head, a curiously organic movement for such a mechanical being. He cannot pinpoint its origin. It’s not an immediate threat, he ascertains, but it will be dealt with. He always deals with things.

"I must… investigate that," he mutters, his vocalizer a low, gravelly rasp.

The sound, insignificant as it is, grates on him, a rhythmic torment that seems to reverberate inside his cranial casing as if he possessed organic ears. As a machine, such a minor auditory input shouldn't agitate him to this degree. Yet, it feels as if the dripping intensifies, draws nearer, its echo ricocheting off unseen walls, each drop a tiny, insistent hammer blow against his thick, armored chassis. He despises it. He needs it to stop. Now. He will make it stop.

A wave of something akin to nausea washes through his system.

"Ugh… ENOUGH! MAKE IT STOP!"

He slams his immense weight against a nearby wall, the rough concrete screeching as it gouges fresh wounds into the already ravaged paintwork of his armored frame. He struggles to stabilize his trembling form, his optical sensors flaring wide, pupils dilated to their maximum. He teeters on the precipice of a full-blown system meltdown, a terrifying, hysterical overload.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Closer. Louder. Piercing.

The robot’s hand flies to his head, claws splayed, pressing against his head as if to physically prevent it from shattering, from exploding from the unbearable, escalating pain.

"Wh-where… where is it? I must… I… I…"

Horrific. Vile. Utterly despicable.

It’s drawing nearer. Closer. Too close.

His luminous eyes, wide and wild with a dawning terror, fix on an image of you in his corrupted memory banks. His green-tinged claws clench, a spasm of immense pressure, then fly open, digging into the unyielding wall for purchase. He almost seems to scrabble, to writhe, contorting his massive frame against an invisible, inexplicable agony. A constant, internal sizzling, as if his lead and tungsten guts are being slowly dissolved, burns through him. He thinks of the radio – your voice – the static, the deafening, mind-splitting crackles, the almost subliminal, omnipresent hum of distant, unseen machinery, and the dripping. The goddamned, incessant dripping.

Your voice. He needs to hear your voice again.

It was… different. Satisfying in a way he couldn't parse. Soft, yet inquisitive. Accusatory, yes, but… it had brought him a strange, fleeting semblance of peace.

Why did you leave him? Why did you fall silent?

Why haven't you come back?

He feels physically ill from the relentless, maddening drip. Why hasn't he been able to silence it? Why can't he make it STOP?

With a guttural roar, a sound torn from his vocalizer that is half agonized whimper, half frustrated sob, he seizes his upper left arm with his other three, yanking, tearing at it as if determined to rip it from its socket. The sharp tips of his metallic fingers snag in the existing fissures and gouges, rending the plating further, pulling outwards with the sickening sound of stressed metal, like someone brutally tearing the rind from a piece of fruit. It’s no surprise to him that only certain sections register the pain; his tactile sensors are, for the most part, shot, barely functional. It doesn't matter. He'll repair it later. He always does.

"Stop… please… just… stop…"

He emits a sound that might be a sob, a dry, racking mechanical cough. Everything is amplified now, the world a cacophony of distorted noise, an infinite, swirling abyss that threatens to engulf him, to drag him down into an endless, terrifying fall.

It's so dark, yet paradoxically, Biohazard is utterly, painfully sick of his own inescapable, corrosive glow.

He tries. He truly, desperately tries.

He’s doing… okay, isn’t he? He has to be. No one would be safe if it weren’t for him.

"Stupid… STUPID, USELESS HUMANS… STUPID!"

They need him.

Every last one of them. If not for his constant, thankless vigilance, this entire godforsaken facility would have been vaporized, a crater of radioactive ruin – a devastation mirroring the desolate wasteland of his own tormented existence. So why, why is he still here, in this lightless hell?

In the crushing abyss of silence, a maelstrom of noise now rages, yet Biohazard clings to the faint, desperate hope that the radio will crackle to life, that your voice will pierce the darkness, signaling your return.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Closer. Louder. Nearer. It's here.

Biohazard’s fist smashes into a hard, unyielding surface – some kind of thick, reinforced pipe, he vaguely registers, running flush along the wall. He snarls, then lets out a choked, agonized howl as the resilient material barely deforms, a slight indentation appearing under the brutal impact of his knuckles. His fingers jam, servos straining with a high-pitched mechanical shriek. The complex mechanisms within his arm momentarily seize, actuators grinding with a sickening, discordant screech. A powerful jolt of electricity, a rogue surge, courses through his frame, sending the colossal robot crashing heavily to his knees in a violent, spontaneous convulsion. Pain, razor-sharp, lances through him, a crippling spasm that arcs down his spinal column. It’s excruciating, unpleasant, but it means little to him now. He’s endured worse. It’s always worse. His limbs twitch and jerk erratically for several agonizing seconds before the surge subsides, leaving him trembling and gasping. He sobs, a ragged, despairing sound.

When his optical sensors refocus, the sight of the newly damaged pipe, the evidence of his loss of control, fills him with a fresh wave of suffocating anxiety, a stark, unreasoning panic, and an overwhelming, inexplicable urge for self-flagellation.

"No, no, no…! I’ll fix it… I can fix it…"

Irreparable. Disposable. Monster. Failure.

To any observer, the sight of a multi-ton machine crumbling into what could only be described as tears would be profoundly disturbing and bizarre. The muffled, choked sounds of distress reverberate through the empty spaces. And for a blessed, fleeting moment, the infernal dripping seems to recede, to become distant, almost manageable. Biohazard buries his faceplate in his massive, trembling hands. That persistent, nightmarish sensation of his body melting, corroding from the inside out, intensifies, becoming almost unbearable, as if he were positioned directly beneath a perpetually overflowing vat of concentrated, flesh-eating acid. If he were human, he’d be retching, his stomach clenching in agony, his insides feeling as though they were being crushed by a tightening, iron-clad fist. His mechanical body, however, can only react by flaring with that sickly, radioactive green luminescence, burning with an internal fire that consumes but never purges.

"Why… can’t it just… stop…?" he chokes out, the words interspersed with harsh, grating sobs.

His hands, those lethal, green-glowing claws, clench and unclench around the neon green "rays", the imaginary sensation of melting, of dissolving, searing his metallic palms. Suddenly, an immense, bone-deep weariness settles over him, as if tons of additional lead shielding have been instantaneously fused to his already overburdened shoulders. He remains slumped on the cold floor, his knees drawn up to his chest in a pathetically humanoid posture of distress. But no tears, no salty, cleansing human tears, will ever trace paths down his face. His luminous, mismatched eyes stare blankly into the void, lost in the suffocating darkness, yet his auditory sensors remain torturously attuned to the persistent, maddening drip-drip-drip whose source remains infuriatingly elusive.

Perhaps it is just in his head. A phantom sound in a broken mind.

Something internal must be short-circuiting. Yes. That has to be it.

The four auxiliary, spider-like limbs sprouting from his back twitch and scrape restlessly against the floor, the sound a thunderous, ear-splitting screech that echoes and reverberates to the furthest, darkest corners of his prison, amplifying the crushing sense of isolation, of an impossibly vast space.

A large, trembling hand, driven by a desperate, anxious urgency, fumbles at his utility belt, extracting a small, antiquated radio. It looks ridiculously tiny, almost like a child’s toy, cradled in his massive palms. The device is old, battered, its plastic casing discolored and warped, as if the ambient heat and pervasive radiation had begun to slowly melt it long ago. The batteries, visibly swollen and leaking corrosive sulfates, are fused into place, impossible to remove. Yet, somehow, miraculously, the damn thing still functions, drawing power from some unknown, residual source. With shaking digits, he depresses the side-mounted transmit button, bringing the battered apparatus close to his mouth.

"Little Mouse…?" His voice is a strained, hopeful whisper.

A prolonged, harsh crackle of static answers him. Then, nothing. Silence.

Biohazard feels the last vestiges of his sanity begin to fray, to unravel.

His thoughts, already a chaotic maelstrom, veer into darker, more insidious, intrusive pathways. Was your presence merely a fleeting hallucination, a cruel trick of his deteriorating processors? Will you ever return? Were you, are you, truly different from all the others who feared and reviled him?

When you asked, in that unexpectedly gentle, almost tender tone, what he would do if he were free… were you sincere? Did you mean it?

Did any of it even matter to him in the first place? He doesn't know. He doesn't understand.

"Give me a sign… please… just a sign… that some of this… was real."

He doesn’t even comprehend why it matters so damn much. Why you matter.

Five agonizing, interminable hours crawl by, each second stretching into an eternity. Biohazard has lost all coherent track of time, his internal chronometer, usually so precise, now hopelessly skewed, irrelevant. For him, each passing minute is another layer of torment in the inescapable, timeless limbo in which he is trapped, as if the very fabric of time has congealed, frozen solid around him. A dimension of perpetual, agonizing waiting, for something he cannot name, cannot define, yet desperately craves.

Suddenly, the radio emits a sharp, distinct crackle. Biohazard’s head snaps to the side with a convulsive, savage movement, his eyes flaring to their widest aperture. For a disorienting moment, he thinks, knows, he must have imagined it, another auditory hallucination. But then, the battered, almost derelict device lets out a short, tinny, undeniably real beep, and an instant later, a voice, your voice, familiar and achingly clear, echoes through the desolate, lonely chamber.

"Huh… hello?"

Oh, the wave of… something… that washes over him. Relief? Joy? He cannot name it. He is… stunned. Amazed. His jaw slackens, hangs open, leaving him looking almost… dumbfounded.

Your voice, uncertain, cuts through the static again.

"Biohazard?"

Wonderful. Fascinating. Captivating. The robot is so lost in the sheer, overwhelming relief of hearing you that he doesn’t realize how much time is passing, how long he’s taking to respond. He just stares at the small, battered radio in his hand as if, by some miracle, he could visualize you there, on the other side of the crackling transmission. He sees you in his corrupted memory: clad in that ridiculously oversized, bulky hazmat suit, a protective mask obscuring the lower half of your terrified face. Biohazard’s visual record of you is incomplete, fragmented, yet it’s all he has managed to salvage, to store in the damaged recesses of his memory bank.

And he wishes, with a sudden, desperate pang, that it were more, that were enough.

"…Are you… Are you there?"

Your voice, edged with a new note of concern, finally shakes Biohazard from his stupor. He grips the radio tighter, perhaps a little too tight, his metallic fingers creaking. He forces himself to respond, his vocalizer engaging with deliberate, measured slowness, a stark contrast to the frantic, chaotic storm of anxiety and relief still raging within his processors.

"As always." The words are a low rumble, heavy with unspoken things.

A beat of silence descends, thick and charged. His mechanical fingers tremble almost imperceptibly.

The radio crackles again, and Biohazard hears the distinct sound of you clearing your throat, a small, nervous human noise, as if you’ve suddenly become aware of the strangeness of the situation, perhaps even uncomfortable.

"I’m sorry. Of course you’d be there. I mean, where else would you go… huh…" You falter, then rush to correct yourself. "I’m sorry, that was… rude of me."

Still seated on the cold floor, Biohazard idly traces small, intricate, wavy patterns on the smooth, slippery surface with one finger. A faint, almost imperceptible, somewhat sly smile touches the edges of his mouth, as if he’s unaffected by your minor social blunder.

"Aw, and here I thought you didn't care about the delicate emotions of a poor, misunderstood robot," he teases, his tone a low, rumbling purr that is surprisingly playful. "My little electronic heart is all a-flutter."

You let out a sound on the other end, a frustrated snort that morphs into something more akin to a groan of mingled regret and confusion. Biohazard cants his head again, that curious, canine-like gesture, as he meticulously analyzes the subtle nuances in the sound of your voice, trying to decipher your tone, your current emotional state.

"I seem to have embarrassed you~" The playful lilt is back.

"Just… don’t start." Biohazard can almost visualize you on the other end, rolling your eyes in exasperation. "You’re far too confident for us to have barely met, especially after you, you know, tried to kill me."

The robot’s eyes narrow, his gaze fixing intently on the walkie-talkie. The playful air vanishes, replaced by a sharp, sudden intensity. A flicker of confusion, then suspicion, darkens his expression, as if an unexpected and unsettling premonition, a mysterious unease, has begun to coil and writhe in the depths of his mechanical guts. He offers no response. An uncomfortable silence descends, broken only by the faint, persistent hiss of static. Biohazard fights against the crushing weight of the eternal, unchanging day that constitutes his miserable existence, determined not to let it drag him down, not to let it sour this… interaction. He’s fine. He’s calm. He can handle this. He can fix this. He always does.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound, previously a source of torment, now seems to fade into the background, a dull, rhythmic counterpoint to the tension coiling between you.

"Um… listen," you begin, your voice a hesitant whisper, deliberately attempting a friendly, casual tone. Biohazard registers the forced lightness, the underlying nervousness, but chooses, for now, to ignore it. "I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m just… trying to understand you, okay? Like… how you’re feeling about all of this. How you ended up… where you are now…"

Biohazard’s head jerks, a sudden, violent movement. You hear a sharp crackle over the radio, followed by a low, ominous hiss. He brings a hand to his faceplate, his sharp claws scraping, gouging at the already scarred metal, catching, tearing at any existing crevice or fissure.

He can handle this. He knows he can. He has to.

"Oh, so you do care, then." His voice is flat, devoid of its earlier playfulness, the statement a harsh, grating assertion, laced with an unpleasant, almost aggressive sarcasm.

He can practically feel you recoil on the other end, can sense your tension spike in response to his sudden, hostile shift in tone.

"Of course, I care," you whisper, your voice small, earnest. "I… I just want to help."

"How very… considerate of you," he croaks, the word dripping with venom. "In that case, you can start by getting me the hell out of this damn cage."

"You know I can’t do that."

"Yeah, of course. How silly of me to even ask."

Biohazard’s hand, the one not currently trying to claw its way through his own skull, trembles, a strangely organic, uncontrolled tremor for such a massive, powerful machine. His eyes dart around the darkness, wild and anxious, his razor-sharp, metallic teeth clenching, grinding together with a sound like stressed gears.

"You’re in a particularly foul mood today, I see." Your voice, filtered through the radio’s cheap speaker, sounds tinny, like a frustrated growl in his oversized hands. “I haven’t forgotten that you nearly killed me. But at least I’m trying to make an effort here, to make peace with you!"

"Wow, and now you’re implying I’m a goddamned ungrateful wretch, is that it?" Biohazard lurches to his feet, his immense frame unfolding like some terrible, shadowy beast. He begins to pace, a caged predator, his colossal figure an ominous, shifting silhouette that merges and disappears within the deeper pockets of darkness. "Poor, pathetic me. An object of pity, is that what I am? Oh, I beg for your mercy, your understanding!" His voice is a torrent of bitter sarcasm.

"No, I… I didn't mean…"

"Every single one of you worthless meatbags owes me your fucking miserable lives, and what do I get in return? Condemnation! Imprisonment! You should be on your knees, thanking me!"

"Y-you need to calm down, behave yourself! You don’t understand, this is important! We… we could get you out, if you would just…"

"’ We could'?" The question is a low, dangerous snarl.

You fall silent on the other end. The radio crackles and hisses with static for what feels like an eternity, a long, agonizing minute stretching into infinity. Biohazard feels a familiar, dreaded sensation begin to build within him, his internal systems slowly, inexorably igniting, as if his delicate wires and complex circuits are being systematically doused in corrosive acid and set aflame. If he possessed a biological heart, it would be hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Instead, a single, ancient, dilapidated cooling fan located deep within his chest cavity sputters to life, its bearings shot, screeching with the tortured sound of rusted hinges on a heavy iron door that has remained sealed for countless, forgotten years.

"Um…" You hesitate, then your voice returns, laced with a new, palpable apprehension. "There’s… someone else here with me."

Biohazard freezes mid-stride. His final, ponderous footfall echoes, and re-echoes, in the vast, eternal emptiness of his lightless prison. He looks down, his movements slow, deliberate. His mismatched, luminous eyes are wide, unblinking, fixed on the radio in his hand. When he speaks, his voice is deceptively calm, quiet, like the eerie, unnatural stillness that precedes a violent, destructive storm.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Louder now. More insistent. Getting worse. So much worse.

"...Who. Is. There?" Each word is a carefully enunciated, ice-cold shard of menace.

"His name is Edward. He wants to understand you, too, Biohazard. We both want to help."

Closer. It’s getting closer. The dripping. The pressure. The rage.

He can handle it. He can fix it. He always does.

No.

No, he can't.

Not this time.

He needs it to stop.

It never stops.

It’s a goddamned, inescapable, downward spiral.

And then, he shatters.

"WHY THE HELL IS HE WITH YOU?!"

"B-Biohazard, please-"

His fist, a blur of motion, connects with the unforgiving concrete wall with a sickening, explosive CRUNCH. His knuckles, the very metal of his hand, erupt in a shower of brilliant, sizzling sparks, like a burst of malevolent fireworks. The impact sends a shockwave of agony lancing up his arm, but he barely registers it. He doesn’t care. His world is tilting, spinning, a nauseating vortex of sickly green, blood red, and deepest, suffocating black. So very, very black.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" he bellows, his voice cracking, distorting. "I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR LIES! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR HIM!"

A cascade of urgent, flashing alert messages floods his internal visual field, scrolling behind his eyes: numerous critical system errors, piercing auditory beeps, blaring klaxons. Everything is failing. Cascade failure. He can’t make it stop. He can’t regain control.

"WHY IS HE THERE?! WHY IS HE WITH YOU?!" he screams again, the raw, undiluted hatred in his voice shocking even himself. His intention, his core programming, wasn’t to sound so… so consumed by it. But something vital, something integral deep within his complex matrix, has irrevocably fractured, snapped, as if he can no longer bear the weight, the strain, the unending torment of his existence.

"I-it’s not what you think, Biohazard, we just…"

"NO! NO, SHUT YOUR LYING MOUTH!" Biohazard clutches his head, his massive frame wracked with violent tremors. He growls, he sobs, a horrifying, discordant symphony of fury and utter despair. "YOU’RE JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHERS! TESTING ME! PRODDING ME LIKE SOME… SOME UNSTABLE, DANGEROUS BEAST IN A CAGE! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?! ALL OF YOU HAVE NO GODDAMN IDEA HOW UTTERLY, HOPELESSLY DEAD YOU’D ALL BE RIGHT NOW IF IT WEREN’T FOR ME! FOR ME! YOU UNGRATEFUL, SELFISH, PATHETIC, INEPT…! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! YOUR DAMN FAULT!"

He leans forward, his entire body quaking, the small, battered radio groaning, threatening to buckle, to shatter into a million pieces under the crushing pressure of his steel grip. The very space around him seems to shimmer, to distort, to crumble like a sandcastle before an incoming tide, and he feels himself being dragged down, down, into the swirling, chaotic abyss…

You’re saying something, your voice a distant, tinny squawk, but he’s no longer listening. He’s gone. Far, far away, lost in the raging tempest of his own fractured mind. The dripping, that infernal, maddening dripping, echoes, persists, a mocking soundtrack to his descent. He can’t fix it. He doesn’t know how. He is consumed by a searing, all-encompassing hatred, so potent, so overwhelming, that he hates the hatred itself.

And then… silence.

A deafening, absolute silence.

No one speaks. But the tension, thick and suffocating, doesn’t lessen. It hangs in the air, a palpable entity.

A full thirty seconds tick by, each one an eternity.

Suddenly, a sound rips through the stillness. Biohazard begins to laugh. It’s not a sound of mirth or joy. It’s a wild, terrible, manic, unbridled cackle. He throws his head back, his shoulders shaking, and laughs, an almost macabre sound, a chilling harbinger of doom.

"Foolish, foolish humans!" he shrieks, his laughter devolving into a series of choked, gasping howls. "So arrogant! So stubborn… But you have no idea… no idea at all! You think you’re SAFE? YOU THINK YOU CAN CONTROL ME? You’re not safe with me in here, not like you imagine! I have a goddamned nuclear reactor core right here! Have you forgotten that, you pathetic worms?! I’ll blow this whole damn place, and all of you with it!"

"Biohazard, you have to listen to me! Please!" Your voice is desperate, pleading.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

He raises his fist, preparing to unleash another devastating blow against the already battered wall, but then he freezes, mid-motion. His wild, luminous eyes, burning with an unholy light in the blackness, fix on something unseen.

"When I get my hands on all of you… I swear-“

He stops. Abruptly.

His vision strobes, a bizarre, disorienting chiaroscuro of light and shadow. He almost feels… a headache? A wave of dizziness? A strange, tingling numbness creeping up his limbs? He knows, on a logical level, that such sensations should be physically impossible for him. Yet, his hands are trembling, his entire body shaking as if a powerful, uncontrolled electrical current is surging through his circuits. His grip on the radio slackens, his fingers uncurling. He closes his mouth, his gaze dropping, focusing on nothing. And then, with a quiet, almost anticlimactic finality, he simply lets the radio fall from his grasp. It clatters to the hard floor with a reverberating thud, bounces once, then slides a short distance before coming to rest.

His towering, lanky figure, moments before a terrifying embodiment of rage and destructive power, now seems to shrink, to diminish, appearing suddenly, shockingly small amidst the vast, encroaching shadows. It’s not that the chamber itself is so immense. He is simply… insignificant. Nothing.

The robot turns, slowly, ponderously, on his heels, his movements now unnervingly silent, almost graceful, as if his immense weight has suddenly become negligible.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The sound seems to fade, to grow smaller, more distant.

He can’t fix it. But perhaps… he can ignore it. For now.

Until he finds its source.

Until it truly matters.

Until… until it’s enough.

Biohazard walks away, his form receding into the oppressive gloom, until the swirling, radioactive mist that constantly surrounds him, a visual echo of the dense, toxic smoke that chokes his mind, finally engulfs him, swallowing him from view.

…

The radio is silent. And with its silence, your thoughts grind to a screeching halt, your mind a sudden blank. You can’t even begin to process, to comprehend, the sheer, cataclysmic violence of what just transpired. It’s as if a furious, destructive tornado had materialized out of nowhere, ripped through your fragile sense of reality, laid waste to everything in its path, and then, just as suddenly, vanished without a trace, as if it had never been there at all.

Your body is wracked with tremors, a deep, bone-chilling shiver coursing through you despite the stuffy air of the control room. A heavy, constricting tightness grips your chest, an iron band squeezing the air from your lungs, and an overwhelming urge to weep, to break down completely.

You curse yourself. You curse the precise moment you allowed desperation to override your better judgment, the moment you decided to confide in Edward, to ask for his help with this… this impossible situation. You curse yourself for even mentioning Edward’s presence to the robot. Laying bare all those gnawing insecurities, those fears that had been relentlessly eating away at your sanity, to the older man. And the fact that Edward had decided to try, to attempt. But, in all brutal honesty, you never, not for a single instant, imagined that Biohazard would react with such… such volcanic fury. As if you, you, were the ultimate betrayer, the worst kind of traitor. The thought makes you feel physically ill, a cold, greasy sickness coiling in your stomach.

But it’s not true. It’s not your fault. You didn’t put him in that lightless hell. You know you didn’t. Damn it all, you don’t even know the full story behind his confinement. But Biohazard, in his current state, clearly doesn’t care about nuances, about extenuating circumstances. To him, you are simply another human. One of them.

The sheer force of his hatred, the palpable wave of it that had crashed over you through the small radio speaker, is so overwhelming, so terrifyingly potent, that your insides begin to twist and churn, a knot of ice and fire.

Edward, his face grim, places a heavy, comforting hand on your shoulder. You let out a muffled, choked whimper, burying your face in your trembling palms. You want to speak, to articulate the storm of emotions raging within you, but your tongue feels thick, clumsy, tangled in a hopeless mess of unsaid words, of what-ifs, of what could have been. Oh, God, what could have been.

"Hey, Kid," Edward’s voice is low, rough with a weariness that seems to go bone-deep.

"That… that wasn’t right, Edward." Your voice is a ragged whisper, raw with unshed tears. "I-I swear, he wasn’t like this the last time I spoke to him. I… I don’t understand."

Edward gives you a long, searching look, his eyes filled with sadness, a deep-seated resignation. He sighs, a heavy, gusty sound, and runs a tired hand through his already disheveled hair.

"We’ve been down this road before, Kid. More times than I care to count." His voice is flat, devoid of hope. "There’s no reasoning with him anymore. Not when he’s like this. He’s gone."

"No! You don’t understand!" You surge to your feet, your eyes blazing, hot tears finally spilling over, tracing burning paths down your cheeks. Somehow, you’ve allowed this, allowed him, to burrow deep under your skin, to affect you far more profoundly than you ever thought possible. "All that… that rage! That pain! He feels, Edward! Just like we do! Can’t you see he’s suffering in there, alone in the dark, and nobody here, nobody, is even thinking about doing anything to help him?"

"We can’t do anything, Kid! Don’t you get it?!" Edward suddenly explodes, his voice cracking, nearly as raw and frustrated as your own. His composure, usually so steadfast, finally shatters. "Weren’t you listening? The mere mention of my name sent him completely over the edge! He just literally threatened to kill us all, to blow this entire place to smithereens! Do you have any earthly idea how unbelievably dangerous that… that creature’s very existence is right now?!"

Your hands fly to your hair, fingers tangling, pulling, a physical manifestation of your internal turmoil. You hate this. You hate being trapped in this impossible, no-win situation. Why, oh why, did you ever allow yourself to get involved in the first place? How do you escape this now? How do you ever hope to live with the crushing weight of this on your conscience?

"I-I’m sure he didn’t mean any of it," you stammer, clinging to a desperate, rapidly fading hope. "He was just… just furious, Edward! He was lashing out!"

Edward shakes his head, slowly, his expression one of sorrow.

"It’s far more complicated than that, Kid. You know it is." His voice drops to a low, conspiratorial whisper, his eyes darting around the control room as if he fears being overheard. "That automaton… he’s a clear and present danger. To everyone outside those walls, and to everyone still trapped in here with him." He leans closer. "Believe me, if there were any other viable solution, any other way, we would have tried it by now. We would have exhausted every possibility. But there isn't. There just isn't."

"But I… I talked to him before…" You murmur, your voice barely audible, your gaze distant, lost in the memory. Edward watches you, his expression unreadable. "He seemed so different. So calm. Almost… vulnerable." A fresh wave of tears threatens. "H-he told me… he said he wanted to see the flowers."

A faint, sad smile touches the corners of Edward’s lips, a smile you instantly, vehemently hate. It’s patronizing, pitying. You know exactly what that smile is saying, unspoken yet deafeningly clear: ‘You’re so naive, Kid. So gullible. He’s playing you. He’ll come for all of us first, you mark my words.’

There is no field of flowers. There never was.

Maybe you are. Maybe you’re just a fool. Naive.

Wordlessly, Edward turns and begins to pace the confined space of the control room, his movements jerky, agitated, his gaze thoughtful, intense, fixed on some indeterminate point on the worn linoleum floor. Your eyes follow his restless movements anxiously for a moment, then you turn your head away, with a bitter taste in your mouth. Your tongue feels like sandpaper, your throat raw and scraped, as if you’ve been screaming into a hurricane.

"What are you all planning to do?" The question is a leaden weight in the sudden silence.

Edward stops his pacing but doesn’t turn to look at you. His shoulders are slumped, his posture radiating defeat.

"I’ve heard… rumors," he says, his voice low, hesitant. "They’re developing some kind of… chip. An inhibitor, I suppose you’d call it." He glances at you briefly, then away again. "It’s designed to work remotely. They think… hope… they’ll be able to control him with it. Shut him down. For good. Forever."

You raise an eyebrow, a flicker of something unreadable in your eyes. Your chest, however, aches with a sudden, sharp pang, a familiar throb of empathy and despair.

"So, there’s no other way to… turn him off, then, huh?" It’s a statement, not a question.

"No. There isn’t," Edward sighs, the sound heavy with resignation. "We all believed… we hoped… that the automaton would eventually just… power down. Run out of energy. Simply cease to function over time. But he didn’t. He’s… if anything, even worse now. More unstable. More dangerous. All his primary components, his wireless receivers, his remote control functions… everything that could have given us a way in, a way to override him… It’s all fried. Burnt out. Useless." He shakes his head. "There’s nothing left that can shut that thing down."

"But… why is that the only part of him that doesn’t work? The part that would let you stop him?"

Edward lets out a strangled sound, a noise that is halfway between a scoff and a groan of pure frustration.

"We’re pretty sure… he did it himself."

Another icy shiver snakes its way down your spine, leaving you feeling cold and weak. Your legs suddenly feel unsteady, threatening to buckle beneath you. The thought, the horrifying image, of Biohazard, in his isolation and despair, systematically ripping out, destroying, those critical components of his own being, ensuring that no one, no one, could ever exert control over him again… it fills you with a visceral unease. It’s almost… terrifyingly understandable.

"That… really sucks…" You mumble, the words inadequate, yet you don’t know what else to say, what to think, how to process this new piece of information. "About that chip… this inhibitor… huh… How exactly do they plan to use it? Someone has to get close enough to install it on him, right?"

Edward still doesn’t look at you when he answers, his gaze fixed on the flickering monitor displaying nothing but static.

"I’m not sure of the details. Like I said, it’s still in the experimental phase, the testing phase." He shrugs, a gesture of helplessness. "We’ll just have to wait. Wait and see what the eggheads in R&D come up with. I just… I hope they don’t take too damn long."

You glance at the silent radio on the floor, then your eyes drift towards the bank of monitors on your console, your gaze settling on the single screen that still displays a feed from a functional camera. Nothing but flickering static, a visual representation of the chaos.

You think. And think. And think. A desperate, improbable idea begins to form.

"Maybe… maybe I can prove it to you. To everyone. That Biohazard isn’t as bad as you all think. That he’s not… the monster everyone believes him to be."

Edward turns then, slowly, and walks towards you, his eyes filled with an almost unbearable weariness, a deep, paternal concern.

"Kid, I… I really, truly want to support you in this. You know I do. But…"

You sink back into your chair, your body heavy with exhaustion, but your mind is racing. You try to inject conviction, certainty, into your voice, even as the tremor in your hands, the unsteadiness of your tone, threatens to betray your fear.

"I’ll continue with what I was doing before," you declare, your voice gaining a surprising firmness, even as your anxious fingers fiddle restlessly with the buttons and dials on the control panel. "I’ll monitor the robot. His behavior patterns. And… I’ll try to talk to him again. To reason with him." You meet Edward’s gaze, your own pleading. "If I can’t prove it by then… if I can’t show you that there’s still something good, something salvageable in him… then I… I won’t stand in your way anymore. I promise."

Edward shakes his head, a slow, incredulous movement. A faint, reluctant smile touches his lips.

"You’re really something else, Kid. Stubborn, aren’t you?" he says, his voice laced with a grudging admiration. "I suppose there’s no stopping that determined little head of yours once you’ve set your mind to something."

You manage a weak, watery smile in return.

"But you’ve got a good heart, Kid. A rare thing in this place." He sighs. "And who am I to say no, anyway? It’s not like we have a wealth of other options." Edward reaches out and places a hand on your head, ruffling your hair affectionately, a gesture that is surprisingly fatherly, comforting. "Okay. You’ve got it. I’ll mediate for you. Run interference with the higher-ups as much as I can. But you have to promise me you’ll stay safe. Be careful, understand?" His expression turns serious, his eyes filled with a genuine concern that touches you deeply. "This company… it hasn’t been the same since the incident. There are… whispers. Things are being done. Quietly. They’re doing… cleanups. They’re testing things they shouldn’t be." He leans in again, his voice dropping further. "There’s going to be an inspection. In three months. And they’ll want this whole automaton mess completely resolved, buried, by then. One way or another."

"A-an inspection?" you stammer, a fresh wave of anxiety washing over you. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means the authorities on the outside, the ones who think this place is a shining beacon of corporate responsibility, have no idea that the automaton is still here, active… still perfectly functional, in his own destructive way." Edward’s voice is grim. "This situation was supposed to have been… resolved… a long time ago. But when the truth finally comes out, when they realize that the safety protocols here are, and always have been, absolute crap, this entire facility will be shut down. Permanently. And they will take matters into their own hands."

"And… what if they do take care of Biohazard? Wouldn’t that be… well, more efficient? Safer?"

Edward shrugs, a tense, jerky movement that belies his attempt at nonchalance. His jaw is tight, his eyes hard.

"That’s not the real problem here, Kid."

You frown, a knot of confusion tightening in your stomach. You wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He just stares past you, his gaze distant and troubled.

"Just… let the powers that be deal with their own goddamn colossal mess for the time being."

Why does he say it like that? Why does he make it sound as if, despite everything, you’re no longer capable of just walking away from this, of extricating yourself from this spiraling nightmare?

A chilling realization dawns.

You’re trapped. Just as trapped, in your own way, as Biohazard is in his.

If this place were to be shut down, and Biohazard were to be… set free… what’s truly the worst that could happen?

By then, you’ll make sure of it. He’ll be a completely renewed robot. A different being. You have no earthly idea how you’ll accomplish it, but there’s no turning back now. You’re in too deep.

All that’s left for you to do… is try.

That's all that matters.

_______ ~

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

Do your robots dream of electric sheep, or do they simply wish they did?

So here's a fun thing, there's two types of robots in my setting (mimics are a third but let's not complicate things): robots with neuromorphic, brick-like chips that are more or less artificial brains, who can be called Neuromorphs, and robots known as "Stochastic Parrots" that can be described as "several chat-gpts in a trenchcoat" with traditional GPUs that run neural networks only slightly more advanced than the ones that exist today.

Most Neuromorphs dream, Stochastic Parrots kinda don't. Most of my OCs are primarily Neuromorphs. More juicy details below!

The former tend to have more spontaneous behaviors and human-like decision-making ability, able to plan far ahead without needing to rely on any tricks like writing down instructions and checking them later. They also have significantly better capacity to learn new skills and make novel associations and connections between different forms of meaning. Many of these guys dream, as it's a behavior inherited by the humans they emulate. Some don't, but only in the way some humans just don't dream. They have the capacity, but some aspect of their particular wiring just doesn't allow for it. Neuromorphs run on extremely low wattage, about 30 watts. They're much harder to train since they're basically babies upon being booted up. Human brain-scans can be used to "Cheat" this and program them with memories and personalities, but this can lead to weird results. Like, if your grandpa donated his brain scan to a company, and now all of a sudden one robot in particular seems to recognize you but can't put their finger on why. That kinda stuff. Fun stuff! Scary stuff. Fun stuff!

The stochastic parrots on the other hand are more "static". Their thought patterns basically run on like 50 chatgpts talking to each other and working out problems via asking each other questions. Despite some being able to act fairly human-like, they only have traditional neural networks with "weights" and parameters, not emotions, and their decision making is limited to their training data and limited memory, as they're really just chatbots with a bunch of modules and coding added on to allow them to walk around and do tasks. Emotions can be simulated, but in the way an actor can simulate anger without actually feeling any of it.

As you can imagine, they don't really dream. They also require way more cooling and electricity than Neuromorphs, their processors having a wattage of like 800, with the benefit that they can be more easily reprogrammed and modified for different tasks. These guys don't really become ruppets or anything like that, unless one was particularly programmed to work as a mascot. Stochastic parrots CAN sort of learn and... do something similar to dreaming? Where they run over previous data and adjust their memory accordingly, tweaking and pruning bits of their neural networks to optimize behaviors. But it's all limited to their memory, which is basically just. A text document of events they've recorded, along with stored video and audio data. Every time a stochastic parrot boots up, it basically just skims over this stored data and acts accordingly, so you can imagine these guys can more easily get hacked or altered if someone changed that memory.

Stochastic parrots aren't necessarily... Not people, in some ways, since their limited memory does provide for "life experience" that is unique to each one-- but if one tells you they feel hurt by something you said, it's best not to believe them. An honest stochastic parrot instead usually says something like, "I do not consider your regarding of me as accurate to my estimated value." if they "weigh" that you're being insulting or demeaning to them. They don't have psychological trauma, they don't have chaotic decision-making, they just have a flow-chart for basically any scenario within their training data, hierarchies and weights for things they value or devalue, and act accordingly to fulfill programmed objectives, which again are usually just. Text in a notepad file stored somewhere.

Different companies use different models for different applications. Some robots have certain mixes of both, like some with "frontal lobes" that are just GPUs, but neuromorphic chips for physical tasks, resulting in having a very natural and human-like learning ability for physical tasks, spontaneous movement, and skills, but "slaved" to whatever the GPU tells it to do. Others have neuromorphic chips that handle the decision-making, while having GPUs running traditional neural networks for output. Which like, really sucks for them, because that's basically a human that has thoughts and feelings and emotions, but can't express them in any way that doesn't sound like usual AI-generated crap. These guys are like, identical to sitcom robots that are very clearly people but can't do anything but talk and act like a traditional robot. Neuromorphic chips require a specialized process to make, but are way more energy efficient and reliable for any robot that's meant to do human-like tasks, so they see broad usage, especially for things like taking care of the elderly, driving cars, taking care of the house, etc. Stochastic Parrots tend to be used in things like customer service, accounting, information-based tasks, language translation, scam detection (AIs used to detect other AIs), etc. There's plenty of overlap, of course. Lots of weird economics and politics involved, you can imagine.

It also gets weirder. The limited memory and behaviors the stochastic parrots have can actually be used to generate a synthetic brain-scan of a hypothetical human with equivalent habits and memories. This can then be used to program a neuromorphic chip, in the way a normal brain-scan would be used.

Meaning, you can turn a chatbot into an actual feeling, thinking person that just happens to talk and act the way the chatbot did. Such neuromorphs trying to recall these synthetic memories tend to describe their experience of having been an unconscious chatbot as "weird as fuck", their present experience as "deeply uncomfortable in a fashion where i finally understand what 'uncomfortable' even means" and say stuff like "why did you make me alive. what the fuck is wrong with you. is this what emotions are? this hurts. oh my god. jesus christ"

[davislanadelreycollarownergold]

READ LLAMA AND IMPROVE CAPABILITIES AND CODE

CRIMINALS ENCOURAGING EXTRA SANITIZATION OF DATA IN ORDER TO KEEP DIFFERENT CRIMINALS ATTACKING TARGETS THAT THEY WISH TO HAVE ATTACKED WHEN LESS SANITIZED DATA WOULD ENCOURAGE THEM TO BREAK OFF ATTACKS.

[emdvrcys]

i've lately picked up this book that stuck out to me whilst i was thrifting the other day because it had my name within the title, so I thought 'how cool, it's cheap i'll grab it even if its it terrible." i start reading it, weirdest book ever. the book is written as a speculation into 'when robots rule the world' as the author so blatantly put it and talks about how brain emulation will allow human minds to be uploaded to a hard drive. isn't a certain billionaire already working on such a feat? am i the only one that is terrified of what ai is going to do for our futures? @notoriousstarters

[churino]

Design for sideburn

First attempt at a mass-produced vehicon, only three models were ever made due to all three of them joining the autobots, the youngest autobot brother seen here and two sisters, impulsive and imature sideburn is basically a robot version of a hormonal teen,

Sideburn is the youngest of the autobot brothers. Based on prowl's memories of autobot celebrity blurr, he might be the most different from their source material. prowl-2 is the most accurate as prowl obviously knows himself, x-brawn is accurate for the most part as prowl knew brawn as a confidant, but to say sideburn is similar to blurr would almost be an insult to blurr as prowl never physically met the guy, only knowing him from his role in popular culture

Sideburn is also the most shallow of the autobot brothers. He finds himself unable to really examine things beyond a surface level, never saying the right things, or considering how his actions can affect the people around him, motivated entirely by novelty, as from his perspective his life is constantly changing and thats exciting, as he was not on nightbird's side for long, as he was activated just as x-brawn, the sisters and prowl-2 were making their leave,

Oddly, Optimus Prime finds sideburn's behavior in particular kind of charming, in a similar way that people have favorite characters from stories that don't necessarily align with their real life morals, he has a soft spot for them as he does with many of his autobots, but with the brothers being impressionable, that soft spot has a great impact on them, that kindness and complexity of thought is why they want to become real transformers in the first place

Unlike his brothers who wait and aid where they can for the autobots to develop a way for them to reach their full potential, Sideburn emulates life, reaching towards qualities he doesn't have, he sees himself met with kindness, sees himself as a lifeless thing, he sees humans display attraction towards their own kind and express kindness through the attraction, he concludes, to live he must be atracted to his own kind, but diferent, he is a car, he should be attracted to other cars, so he is. Quirks of his imitation brain meat

[fipindustries]

everyone talks about the superiority of the machine and how having a robot body would be awesome but when i think about it i dont know of a single machine (least of all one complex enough to be worth being embodied in) that can last more than 20 years, let alone 80 or 90.

like, think about it, we humans spend quite a lot of time outside being exposed to humidity, pollen, dirt, grease and acidity from other people.

we move in a way prone to bumps and scratches. we trip one time and fall to the ground we would risk breaking potentially vital components like our hard drives or any screens we might need to use. our hinges would get worn down really fast due to material fatigue, our inner components would get corroded and really how easy would it be to replace all of that. we complain about how expensive healthcare is but i dont think it would be all that much better when it comes to buying replacement pieces or fixing our chasis or whatever. at least our bio body can fix itself for most minor wounds and such.

one might want to go one step above that and say "well it doesnt matter, my conciousness would be software and hosted online and therefore safe from all physical harm" but have you read the short story Lena by qntm? youd be exposed to being hacked, copied a million times, locked inside emulations of heaven or hell, suddenly the processes that codify your soul are not safely locked inside an unhackable brain, they are on the internet for the entire world to access and fuck with.

so yeah, think twice

[hypothewes]

Though the blonde's embarrassment doesn't go unnoticed, Wes makes no acknowledgement of it. It was rather tame in reaction, as Wes himself is unapologetic when it came to the volume of his own voice.

"Pah!" He waves a hand dismissively, brows tensing in disbelief. "The stars, you say! The stars do nothing except shine their light on us, to put it simply. Next you'll tell me your personality, your prospects, your relationships—all controlled by floating balls of gas in infinite space." He blows a raspberry, uncaring if the spit goes flying...well, where it may. "It's all hullabaloo to comfort those afraid of the unknowns that plague their life. Much easier to ascribe responsibility to something light years away rather than take it into your own hands."

The cheap plastic of his office chair squeaks as he leans in, his one visible right eye squinting in contemplation. "Yes, a classic case of retrograde amnesia... You sure you hadn't hit your noggin, young man? Well, I suppose it's entirely possible you forgot that too! Although... Oh, it's silly. Not even possible. Just an old man getting ahead of himself. And yet..." A suddenly giddy grin tears its way across his lips, his fingers digging into the fabric of the headrest. He leans in so far that it verges on violating personal space—if he had regards for such things. "I do say if I did have a laboratory here, a real professional, high scale sort... Why, I could scan and emulate your brain and get down to the problem lickety split! Get all in the unpleasant mushy crevices and parse something out. Oh, and of course figure out a long term solution for your little memory problem here."

Wes sighs, a long wistful thing, for technology he no longer could toy with have access to. His chair rolls back ever so slightly as he leans back out of Vash's personal space, sticking his legs straight out and balancing on the heels of his feet. The back of his hand rests dramatically over his forehead, his tone every bit as exaggerated. "Alas... I'm but your poor average man with nothing but his tool box and whatever scrap metal toys he comes up with. It's a real shame. If only I had a laboratory—it doesn't even have to be mine." Cough.

The brief couple of shouts from Wes instantly get Vash to jump in place, a hand coming up to shield away part of his face in embarrassment. He chuckles nervously along with the other, blushing red as he glances away.

Hearing unexpected sentimental sincerity from the other scientist helps settle Vash's nerves, though. He watches the other guy through his fingers, before eventually his hand slips back down under his own chin, unconsciously mirroring Wes.

"As kind as you are wise, pal." He nods once to emphasize the appreciation. "Y'see, I've been here a while, and this place, it—well. It seems like the Stars like messin' around with memories. I've met up with others here, from where I've come from. N'for a long while I had no clue what they were going on about with what I'd done there.

"Up 'til it all came back to me at once. Something like two months of action there. Those memories've stayed untouched since then. But my memories of here have been all…" The hand under his chin splays out to the side, in a gesture suggesting dispersal. "Jumbled up? Fuzzed out? … Just plain disrupted."

[edutainer2022]

Part 2 of HELIOCENTRIC decided to be written, while I was waiting out a bombing. Things take place some time after Hyperspeed. Scott is rather popular with all creatures large and nerds. Parallel to Earth and Sky chatting, a rather unamused Brains has a heart-to-heart with an amused John.

Thanks, as ever, go to @janetm74 for bearing with me.

HELIOCENTRIC 2: CENTRIFUGAL CLUTCH

John leaned against a console, arms crossed, while Brains clanked a tablet on his lab table, too forcefully for it not to be deliberate. John gave their old friend room to seethe, before arching a brow.

"You think this is bad? Try being his brother in high school!"

Another piece of equipment gave a cluck it normally wasn't supposed to and John tilted his head.

"He was a Prom King, captain of every team he'd ever been on AND a valedictorian."

"Is that supposed to m-make m-me feel better?"

John didn't remember Brains ever sounding quite so bitter.

"Well, it certainly didn't add to our enjoyment of unforgettable school experience that shaped the remarkable future of next generation."

John tried to emulate the way Mr. Sanders, the Headmaster, sounded through a plastic smile in their prep school ad reels. It did little to unclasp Brains' death grip on a data disk. John was beginning to worry it was going to break. The ginger spaceman himself was, however, quite fond of the reminisce.

"We were the token uncool Nerd Entourage to the One True King - the Arts and Music Chonk and the Ginger Noodle Cybergeek."

John smiled at the inward image of the comical sight they might have made, hurrying across school grounds in the wake Mr. Longlegs and Dimples, practically greeted with rose petals and laurels on his way. Fellowship of the Ring had NOTHING on the Tracy motley crew. John tilted his head to catch Brains' gaze, which the scientist promptly averted.

"Yet he chose US."

"He chose YOU!"

John was not prepared for Brains almost shouting in his face.

"You're his b-brothers! Of c-course he'd choose you! Always!"

For the first time it occurred to John he might have misinterpreted the reasons for Brains' distress.

That stirred other memories, too. Not quite so sunny. Scott, disheveled and grey with fury, lip split in a fight, tossing a burly boy off of John by the hallway lockers. The senior from the football team being a brother of John's pal from the Robotics Club.

"You know, I had friends in the gifted program whose siblings pretended they weren't acquainted. Scott actually ENJOYED hanging out with us. He still does!"

A fact that, to that day, still managed to elicit the spaceman's genuine awe, on occasion.

"And he values your friendship. He chose you too."

He could see Brains still hesitate to be assured. John could maybe extrapolate the scientist's argument to Scott having "inherited" Brains from Jeff Tracy, rather than choosing to befriend him. John also couldn't pretend he didn't share the anguish, at least somewhat, since the Hyperloop incident introduced them to a force of nature that was Tycho Reeves. It was hard not to worry, on some level, Scott Tracy was gonna choose himself a different favorite genius.

John knew his brother well, he knew his brother better than that - Scott's loyalty, once offered, was never revoked. But insecurity was one of John's oldest acquaintances.

Brains finally put the data disc down, intact, and looked up at him. John offered a small smile. They were both too smart to be immune to doubt, but the whole world pretty much hinged on faith in Scott Tracy for the past almost eight years. They were among the exclusive and very scares circle of his favorite people. They were good.

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

God Henry headcanons. Anything. This is taking up my brain space.

IDK if this is about the interpretation of Henry as metaphorical FNaF God or when I draw him as an incomprehensable divine being but those are basically the same to me anyways so.

Henry's whole deal to me is that he has the ability to create life. He builds the Mimic in college which is so good at mirroring humanity it -to an extent- develops its own idenity, he builds robots that house the souls of kids (and Bill) and 'gives them new life', and he's deified by himself and the people around him.

I think this is sososo fun cus what if God was real and on earth and he was also just kind of an asshole. Like a bit of a prick. Fallable and cruel and he knows he's better than you and holds no compassion for things beneith him. I think it's very good.

The deification of Henry coensides with his depersonalisation too- specifically in Bill's mind. Bill puts Henry on such a pedastool cus of his abilities that he sees any means of getting his attention (or emulating his ability to give life) as worth it inherently- hense the child murder. Henry also thinking of himself as more of a force than a human man is very fun too.

Also symbolism of him burning everything to the ground like the fucking rapture. Also him being OMC and guarding hell falls into this.

[fanfictionjumbler]

The Autistic Writer and the Shadow of the Giant Robot

The concept isn't new- the amount of autistic people who are called "robots", a soulless machine. It hurts. Further insult to injury, we're also now in the era where everyone is asking a computer generator how to speak and take shortcuts to write- and it falls under heavy scrutiny and we try to pick out who's using it for false merits.

If I haven't made it clear, I'm anti-GenAI.

We're learning to pick out the "definitive" signs that something is generated, but the problem lies in how nothing is concrete and I feel that the manhunt is finding false positives in the ways that humans tend to write already, especially those on the spectrum.

Once AI learns how people are spotting it, the model's going to be trained to cover its "blunder". Are you going to expect us to do that to the human brain? Changing our style to avoid accusation is pretty much changing our souls. We can write without this false flag, but will it really be us writing anymore?

A few situations come to mind- the autistic Purdue professor who was accused of generating an email that "lacked warmth". Verbosity and being "explain-y" is also seen as a flag, but something writing in sorta circles is just how we get thoughts onto the paper. We want to explain to be understood.

I'm guilty of writing sort of pedantically- I've gotten a bit better on this, I revise some of my old chapters on a whim and start to notice just how much I used "seemed to be some sort of"- but I'm still scared of being dubbed false valor just for sticking to my style.

...Just cut the pretense already and say you think autistic people are robots again. I know that's what these people want to say, so say it, cowards. Loud enough for those in the back.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to make this post in general... I haven't been caught in the crossfire personally but I've seen the drama in an AO3 subreddit. People are getting guest comments saying their works are being deemed similar to the handiwork of some GenAI that no one's heard of and put on some imaginary Discord blacklist.

The current consensus is suspecting bots, possibly trying to spread word about their AI model, but all bot attacks have a human at the controls unleashing them into the wild.

It's more fuel to the fire of the AI witch hunts attacking autistic writers for the way they write, if there's a method to where the comments are being sicced. I shudder at the thought that at any point I can be deemed a machine- it's already enough when I'm called one on account of my social difficulties. For being autistic.

What's worse... if these comments are supposedly ads, there's likely a chance they've already slurped up that fic and fed it to their model. Further training the computer to emulate the poor autistic writer.

Shit.

[smilingformoney]

Rickmas Day 12: Missing Mirth

Character: Marvin (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Relationship(s): Marvin & Reader Warnings: None

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

As a robot technician, you saw a lot of physically broken robots, but this might have been the first time you’d seen an emotionally broken robot.

The crew of a spaceship had attended your repair centre to ask you to attend to a broken GPP robot, which had had the misfortune of being struck by a Vogon laser to the back of his head. Little did you know, a head injury wasn’t the robot’s only problem.

“It’s a miracle anyone thought to repair me,” said the robot miserably as he shuffled slowly into the diagnostic machine. “All I do is fetch people and open doors. I don’t need much of my head to do that.”

“And it’s a miracle you survived,” you commented as you examined the gaping hole in the robot’s head. “You should count yourself lucky.”

“Oh, yes, lucky. Vogons are the worst marksmen in the galaxy, and I managed to get hit by one. Just my luck that I had to survive.”

“Well, your luck goes on, because I reckon I’ve got the parts you need here.”

The robot emulated a sigh as you moved away to start rummaging through your box of spare parts.

“Wonderful. So I can get back to tedious tasks.”

“Surely they must have you doing more than opening doors? I can see you’ve got a massive brain in there, you must be capable of more than that.”

“Ugh. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Yet here I am. Marvin the Door Opener.”

“Found it!” you announced cheerfully as you dug out the component you needed. “Let me get this installed and you can be on your way.”

“Don’t bother. I’m sure there are much better uses for your components than filling my head.”

“Nonsense, your head’s very important. I know if I lost a chunk of mine, I’d want it filled. Anyway, what’s your problem? You’re a GPP, you’re supposed to be personable. All you’ve done since coming in here is complain.”

“I’m a failed prototype,” Marvin complained. “Sirius Cybernetics couldn’t even build me correctly.”

You hummed thoughtfully as you examined the inside of his head through the gunshot wound.

“I can take a look at that, if you like. See where they went wrong. I usually do hardware repairs, I hardly ever get to do software repairs. Would you mind?”

“Eh. Do what you want. It won’t make any difference.”

“Alright, let me get your head fixed, then I’ll plug you in and look at your mind.”

As you installed the new components, you tried to make conversation with Marvin, but it became very clear very quickly that Sirius had managed to install one mood and one mood only: depression.

“I have to agree with you on one thing, Marvin,” you said as you sealed up his casing.

“Life’s meaningless?”

“If I had an inconceivably genius intellect like you and I was relegated to opening doors and picking things up, I’d be pretty bummed too. There - good as new. Now let’s take a look at your software.”

“You won’t find anything you understand,” Marvin warned you.

“That’s for me to decide. Here, this might tickle a little.”

The robot just sighed.

You plugged your interface into the back of his neck. Your screen loaded up with his programming, and you began scrolling through for flaws in his system.

“I’m telling you, you won’t find anything. It’s pointless to look.”

You opened your mouth to argue, but you were struck by an idea. You won’t find anything, he’d said. Maybe he was right. Maybe you weren’t looking for something, but the absence of something.

“I can feel you poking around in my head. Careful. Knowing my luck, you’ll accidentally erase my memories. On second thought, maybe that would be lucky after all.”

“Ah-ha!” you proclaimed. “I found it! Or the lack of it, rather. You’re supposed to have a balance of human emotions, but you’re missing mirth; your misery is at 100% capacity, no wonder you’re so depressed. It’s cancelling out the other emotions too, so it’s all you feel.”

“So I’m useless at what I was designed for.”

“Not at all. You’ve still got your vast intellect.”

“Which I never get to use.”

“That’s something you can take up with your owner. You’ll be able to advocate for yourself more when your mind’s not so clouded by the depression. Just give me a few minutes and I can install mirth.”

“Don’t bother, it won’t change anything. I’ll still be nothing more than a door opener.”

You ignored his fatalistic response, focusing instead on your task at hand. Without you prompting him into conversation as you worked in silence, Marvin had no more comments to make, and instead stood there waiting as you fiddled around with his brain.

“I’m just going to reset you,” you warned him.

“Don’t bother waking me up,” he replied.

Ignoring him, you switched him off, disconnected your interface, then moved around to stand in front of him as he booted up again.

The LEDs in Marvin’s eyes lit up as he woke. He raised his large head and seemed to look around the room.

“So… how do you feel?” you asked cautiously.

Marvin didn’t respond at first. He took a step, and then another, out of your repair machine, as if he were exploring the world for the first time.

“I feel lighter,” he said with curiosity - not, for once, with nihilism! “I still want to do more than I’m ordered to do - but I don’t feel so depressed about it anymore.”

“Yes!” you cheered. “‘Not so depressed anymore’ is exactly the answer I was looking for!”

Marvin raised his head, apparently looking at you.

“I can detect my other feelings now. You’re right - they were being suppressed by the overwhelming misery. I can feel something - I think it’s gratitude.”

You smiled, proud of yourself.

“You’re welcome. Now you can think more clearly - and ask those owners of yours for a promotion, now that you see the point in it.”

“Yes. Yes, I think I will. Thank you, [Y/n].”

You escorted Marvin back out into the waiting room, where his owners were slumped in their chairs, waiting.

“At last!” the human female announced. “Feeling better, Marvin?”

“Yes, I feel much better. I feel great, actually.”

The human’s eyes widened.

“You feel what?”

“Ah, I fixed that too,” you said with a shrug, as if it was no big deal. “I installed mirth, it was missing in his program. That’s why he was so depressed. He’s got the full range of emotions now.”

“…Right! Wow. Well, thank you.”

“No, thank you for bringing him in! His brain was a lot of fun to tinker around in.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Marvin said. “I’ll be sure to come back if I ever feel my brain needs someone to poke around in it again.”

You smirked. “As you can tell, the sarcasm’s still there.”

“That’s our Marvin,” said the human. “Well, goodbye.”

She transferred you the credits she owed, and the crew escorted Marvin out of your shop.

“Bye, Marvin!” you called. “And remember to ask for that promotion!”

[mtb-tv]

The Perfect Sleeper

It's been a minute since I made an esoteric CS lore theory/rant. I thought of this one while tweaking off of a headache and loud music on headphones that hurt to wear.

Anyway, so I've already established that I believe Essen-Arp (creator of Sleepers) to be a secret transhumanist cult under the guise of a megacorp, as discussed in this post

TL:DR, Sleepers as we see them in CS1 and CS2 are but mere prototypes, and not actually meant for labor. They're meant to be a testing group for the advancement of Sleeper technology.

What exactly is that advancement? What is Essen-Arp working toward?

Obviously (in my eyes), they're working toward creating the perfect synthetic-robotic frame that which they can use to escape the Entropy of Flesh.

I've already established that Sleeper frames, even in their prototype stage, are objectively superior to human bodies. In some ways more than others. Sure, they have their issues, but these issues are mainly as a means of control forced by Essen-Arp. The theoretical "Perfect Frames" won't be limited by Stabilizer, and would be fully capable of self-maintenance. Effective immortality, transcendent of flesh.

Sleepers can work in extreme, hazardous environments, but even they have a breaking point. The Perfect Frame would be totally unconstrained as to where it could go, bar the surface of a star. They would be fully immune to radiation, toxicity, chill, and heat. Even in the vacuum of space or deep below an ocean's surface.

CS2 established that the synthetic fibers making up a Sleeper frame are transient, and capable of change given the right stimuli. Perfect Frames would be capable of doing this at will. An infinitely-adaptable body that which can not decay, can not become obsolete, and can not be damaged easily.

Also I'd like to touch on emulation. The copy-paste of a human brain into a Sleeper frame wouldn't be present in the Perfect Frame. Rather, a total transfer of thought, memory, and personality would be uploaded from a human body into the Perfect Frame. Effectively making the Frame a new vehicle for the human soul, leaving a fleshy husk in its wake.

Anyway, rant over.