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dragongirl642 · 4 years ago

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If you are taking requests may I request some Heisenberg with a mute SO (maybe from an injury? Or trauma?) who, initially when they first met he thought they were too afraid of him to speak to him but eventually realised that no, they just CANT speak. Maybe they communicate through sign language instead?

Hi there 😎 To confirm, asks are open for head canons and mashups.

Thank you for the ask, I am thriving of this Heisenberg fix 😘

Discalimer: I am not mute and have never written a mute character before, I apologise for any inconsistencies or stereotypes that arise.

Here are some sfw headcanons for Heisenberg with a mute S/o (including their first meeting).

How he reacts to a first meeting depends on the situation.

If he meets you while doing his job as a Lord, e.g., kidnapping, after the lycan attack, or catching you somewhere you shouldn't be:

Heisenberg isn't surprised when you don't say anything upon meeting him. He knows the effect an unknown man wielding a giant hammer and levitating metal has on an unsuspecting person and can't help but grin at your shocked gasp and wide eyes.

However, he does want a reaction. You know how he just casually stands there and waits for a reaction from Ethan? That.

So he starts to get annoyed when you don't say anything.

No pleas for freedom? Sarcastic comebacks? Witty banter? This man thrives off of whatever communication he can get from anyone who isn't part of his 'family', so he gets angsty.

He will amp up the dramatics for a reaction - think flinging metal past you or holding shards to your neck with his abilities, "Well, are you not going to say anything?" "Cat got your tongue?"

But when you gesture frantically to your throat and mouth and sign at him, he freezes.

At the moment, using his voice is one of the only ways he can actually rebel against his 'family', so he immediately feels pity for you.

Depending on his mood, and whether any of the other Lords or Miranda has a spy nearby, he may shoo you away/point to an exit. But most likely he will either kidnap you to his factory, telling himself that he'll let you go later, or take you to the others anyway.

If he meets you before the incident, while taking one of his coveted jaunts to pub or walk through woods:

Just like in the other situation, he craves communication and reactions.

He is momentarily shocked when you reveal that you can't verbally communicate with him, but then tries to immediately show-off the little Romanian sign language he knows. (During his initial kidnapping and experimentation by Mother Miranda, he met and learned a few phrases from one of the other children and a maid). However, he quickly realises that it's not enough to have a full conversation; also, you might/probably sign in a different language/non-compatible variant (BSL, Auslan, ASL, SSl, etc...).

If you respond with enthusiasm to his attempts, he will be encouraged to seek out other means of holding a conversation, writing on a napkin, playing yes-or-no, and charades.

Will make a lot of jokes and innuendos about a common language that doesn't require talking. (Wink wink 😉😱 if you know what I mean)

He's surprised by how much fun he has talking to you and playing yes-no/charades. He doesn't want to leave but he will.

Will most likely hint that you should leave the area, believing you'll be safer away form the village. (Anyone would be).

Whilst in a relationship

As mentioned before, Heisenberg is very insecure and requires reassurance from his s/o that they want to stay with him. Establishing communication with his s/o is of paramount importance.

All the paper he owns always ends up oil-stained, ripped, or charred, but he somehow immediately finds a clean notepad and gifts it to you with a gilded quill. He may forget to provide ink at first, but he soon realises.

Alao, if you're used to modern conveniences, you may have to deal with a quill for awhile - Pens, what pens, all of his are chewed to oblivion and empty, same for his pencils, chewed and shattered. He searches for three hours across the whole factory before he realises he doesn't have a single working pen left and will go out to find more (or buy some of the duke).

He learns the sign language you use. Even though he's a fast learner, It's a slow process since the only material he has to learn with is a few scraps of paper from an outdated sign book, in the wrong language, and you.

When signing, his accent is a bit lazy (especially if he's working) and, if you teach him, he uses a lot of slang, for speed. Basically the signed equivalent of a stereotypical movie cowboy drawl.

Although he's adverse to physical affection anyway, especially at the start of the relationship, he gradually gets more needy with hand-holding and kisses.

Everytime you squeeze his hand in response to a question/statement, he raises your hand and kisses the palm. It makes conversations ten times as long but he won't stop no matter what.

Kisses your neck...a lot!

Definitely knows morse code. Builds a receiver set so you can message him anywhere in the factory. If you know it too, he's happy to respond to you tapping messages, and sometimes making cheeky jokes and innuendos from around a corner where you cant see him. If you don't, he'll teach you.

Also, morse code arguments...that almost always end in laughter if one of you taps out "don't yell at me".

Will try and build an arm-mounted typewriter for you...It doesn't go well.

One day when he's tinkering around making more headgear for a hauler he has an idea and excitedly rushes to find you. Just like how the headgear simulates brain activity, he offers to try and build a neural implant that will transmit your thoughts to a speaker.

He will mope around/sulk if you reject him, and start building it in secret. If you give in to his puppy eyes and agree he will throw himself into building it, but once he realises how intrusive/dangerous it will be for you, he stops and congratulates himself on keeping you safe (even though it was his idea in the first place).

If you're mute due to an injury, he will sometimes entertain the thought of building mechanical vocal chords.

If you're a selective mute, due to trauma, the first time he hears you speak (if you do), he starts crying. Definitely recorded you for playback later.

I think he is the Lord most likely to use the fact that you're mute against you in an argument. Either as an insult, or to gain the upper hand by tearing away whatever you're using for communication to silence you, e.g., taking away your paper, pinning your hands to the wall so you cant sign, etc...

He always regrets it though, and will try to apologise by being extra accommodating and making you gifts.

If he is in a tantrum, after coming back from a 'family' meeting, and there is metal flying everywhere, It will be even harder to get his attention than normal.

The first time this happened, he didn't realise you were there until a shard of metal sliced open your arm and you fell into some boxes stacked in the corner. Thr clatter, your tears, and the pained sound you made, brought him back to the moment and sent him straight into panic mode, he fussed over you for five hours with tears in his eyes; patching your arm, worrying over blood loss, holding your hand and refusing to let go.

He made a loud jangly bracelet or belt covered in bells and asked you to wear them. It took a while of steady convincing for him to realise this is going overboard.

However, despite your refusal, he knows the factory is a dangerous place and is terrified that you may one day be in danger and he wouldn't realise. (Even more so that he will be the one to hurt you).

He finds an airhorn, and also makes a panic button that will set off the factory's alarms, for you. Should you ever find yourself in danger, e.g., cornered by a lycan or soldat, there's an intruder, or you need to snap him out of an episode, you can just blow the horn/start the alarms and he'll come running.

He will sulk until you accept the panic button and try and hide it in your clothes, either with his powers or through 'surprise hugs' (which is instantly suspicious, because he's not the one to initiate hugs most of the time).

(I feel like he would make a panic button for a non-mute s/o too. Losing you is this man's biggest fear).

Whew...all done. 😅 Thank you again for the ask, it was eye-opening researching different types of sign language.

#re8 #re8 village #re8 headcanons #re headcanons #resident evil 8 #resident evil heisenberg #karl heisenberg x mute reader #re8 karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x you

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andromedacorp · 3 years ago

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LOG003_RECORDING.MP4 — 03:22/2045/11/23

DAITHI: Fuck, Dan— what time is it?

RT: Eh… a little bit past three? That’s not really important right now, though. I’ve got something to talk to you about.

DAITHI:Eight missed calls…? I thought somethin’ bad happened to you.

RT: Oh! No, no, sorry, nothing bad. Something good, actually!

DAITHI: It better be. Eight calls… fuckin’ tree ay-em…

RT: Come on now, hear me out. I’ve been lookin’ through Lewis’ old things, right? Mostly old plans, typical boring paperwork, but I’ve found somethin’ really interesting. Arasaka blueprints for some big project… You know how hard it is to get these? This could be somethin’ good for us— for Andromeda. I was thinkin’ that you could help me with them? You’re the best tech I know, so I figured if anyone would have any idea how to make this stuff, it’d be you.

DAITHI: … Did you say blueprints from Arasaka?

RT: Heard me right! Now, I’ve got no fuckin’ clue how Lewis managed to get these, no clue how legitimate those dealings were— Ah, you know how it is— but this isn’t an opportunity we can just pass up, is it?

DAITHI: Alright, alright, fine. I’m gettin’ up. Fucks sakes…

RT: Attaboy! I figured that’d get your attention.

DAITHI: Well, it’s not every day you start callin’ me your best tech… And I’m already fucked if McCorp tries lookin’ for that android, so… might as well aim for the next biggest corporation, right? … You can be a real convincin’ prick, you know that?

RT: Ah, stop it, you. Makin’ me blush. You did most of the work for me, anyways. So, you’re in?

DAITHI: ‘Course I am. Anything for you.

RT: … Is that your microwave in the background, there? Are you actually making chicken nuggets right now? I’m about to have you signin’ NDAs and you’re making chicken nuggets?

DAITHI: First of all, I’m makin’ fuckin’ pizza rolls— second of all, you woke me up! I’m gonna be up all damn night now listenin’ to you talk to yourself, I might as well make breakfast. Aah—! They’re fuckin’ hot, shit…

RT: They just came out of the microwave…? Show some restraint. And could you focus? This is important, you know—

DAITHI: AnD cOuLd YoU fOcUs? Shut up, man! Ugghhh, I think I burnt my finger…

RT: That’s what you get, interruptin’ me.

DAITHI: ThAts WhAt yOu GeT… nyeh nyeh nyeh!

RT: …

… Sorry.

RT: Where was I? Ah, right. So, it seems like it’s still a work in progress— lots of pieces missin’, it’s disorganized, the like— but from what I gather, the basic premise is that it’s a collection of separate AI, each designed to perform different tasks, that you’re able to store on… say, a computer, and at any point you’re able to transfer those to a memory chip, right? Which you’d put in your neural processor, and the AI’d be able to watch and listen to what’s goin’ on and sort of… analyze it, I suppose. Give you advice, manage risk, store information, maybe even more. I mean, can you imagine the sorts of things that could be done with this?

DAITHI: Shit… that sounds like self-learning AI, yeah? They only run those for cybersecurity and data analysis— but one that you can use on a day-to-day basis? I bet you Arasaka thought they were wastin’ their time with hard coding, you know how fast they learn? You could teach them anythin’... completely personalize it to whatever ye need… Jesus. This could completely fuckin’ transform the market for cyberware— this is some serious shit, Dan.

RT: Yes, exactly! See? I told you it was important. This could be revolutionary, for you and me— not to mention what we could do with it on a larger scale. Just about every person in Night City could find a use for this. I’ll be sendin’ the blueprints and other details over to you soon so you can take a look at it all… er, along with all the necessary paperwork, you know the drill. I’ll keep the fine print brief this time.

DAITHI: Yeah, yeah. ‘Course I will. Ugh, gotta reschedule all my fuckin’ appointments… Might have to move Bri’s thing to next week… Knowing you, you want this set up as soon as possible.

RT: Oh, ‘course. Better sooner than later. Progress waits for no man! Er, well, man or whatever Brian’s supposed to be. He’s holding up well, I take it?

DAITHI: Mhmm. Just got done installing all of his body plating, just gotta make sure everythin’ is workin’ before I do any other body mods… he’s been askin’ for some stuff, you know how he is. Impatient and all. Maybe… hmm. I could use his help to set up, but d’ya think he could sign an NDA and be legally bound by it? Probably, right?

RT: Ehm… I’m not sure, actually. I don’t think we’ve ever needed to have a combat mech sign one— not that Brian is, by any stretch of the mind, a typical combat mech. I’ll check with my legal team, but one way or another I’ll get him over here. Oh, and make sure he’s recognized as a neutral mech and not one of MC’s, yeah? Wouldn’t want our system to clock him as a threat. Should be some sorta chip you can take out, that’s pretty standard.

DAITHI: Right, right. It’ll take me an hour or two to reschedule all of my shit, then I gotta get another CPU, maybe a couple, just to run more of ‘em at once. You should have some stuff, already, but— ugh, I’m too fuckin’ tired to think about this, man. We can be there by… around three or four today, maybe? Does that work for you?

RT: Sure, sure, that’ll be grand. Bring whatever you need to, I’ll let ‘em know you’re headed over. See you then, Daithi.

#01 - the arrangement #🏙️ - the tower #💟 - the lovers #cyberpunk m31 #rtcu

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aiweirdness · 5 years ago

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How to begin a novel

Last year for National Novel Writing Month I trained a neural net called torch-rnn on 10,096 unique ways to begin a novel. It came up with some intriguing possibilities, my personal favorite being “I am forced to write to my neighbors about the beast.” But many of its sentences used made-up words, or had such weird grammar that they were difficult to read, or meandered too erratically. (“The first day of the world was born in the year 1985, in an old side of the world, and the air of the old sky of lemon and waves and berries.”) The neural net was struggling to write more than a few words at a time.

This year, I decided to revisit this dataset with a larger, more-powerful neural net called GPT-2. Unlike most of the neural nets that came earlier, GPT-2 can write entire essays with readable sentences that stay mostly on topic (even if it has a tendency to lose its train of thought or get very weird). I trained the largest size that was easily fine-tunable via GPT-2-simple, the 355M size of GPT-2. Would a more-powerful neural net produce better first lines?

One of the parameters I can tweak when I’m getting a trained neural net to generate text is temperature - this controls whether the neural net chooses the most likely next bit of text as it writes, or whether it’s permitted to use its less-likely predictions. At a default of 0.7, a relatively conservative temperature, the neural net’s first lines not only make grammatical sense, but they even have the rhythm of a novel’s first line. This is DRAMATICALLY better than torch-rnn did.

I am, or was.

At the mid-day meal the sun began to set and the quiet dragged on.

There was once a man who lived for a very long time; perhaps three thousand years, or perhaps a thousand million years, maybe a trillion or so, depending on how the scientists look at it.

He had the heart of a lion, and the fangs of a man-eater.

"I am Eilie, and I am here to kill the world."

The old woman was sitting on a rock near the sea, smoking a pipe.

I have just been informed, that the debate over the question 'is it right or wrong to have immortal souls' has been finally brought to a conclusion.

When I was a boy, I was fond of the story of the pirate god.

He had a strange name, and he was a very big boy indeed.

The purple-haired woman came to the clearing in the plain, and without looking up from her book, said, "It's too late to be thinking about baby names."

The village of Pembrokeshire, in the county of Mersey, lies on a wide, happy plain, which, in a few years, was to become known as the "Land of the Endless Mountains."

I don’t think the neural net plagiarized any of these? They are so good that I’m suspicious. But others of the neural net’s lines are even weirder, yet in an effective way that opens with an intriguing premise.

The moon had gone out.

I was playing with my dog, Mark the brown Labrador, and I had forgotten that I was also playing with a dead man.

The black stone was aching from the rain.

The short, dirty, and dirty-looking ship that weighed three tons and was three feet in diameter landed on a desolate and green plain.

How many times have I had the misfortune to die?

The first black dog in the park had been captured alive.

Behold the Sky Rabbits!

In the belly of the great beast that was the bovine Aurore there lived, upon the right hand of the throne, the Empress Penelope; and she had, as it were, a heart of gold.

The moon stood on its own two feet.

The reeking maw of the blood-drunk ship, the enemy's flagship, was silent and empty.

The first day I met my future self, I was aboard the old dirigible that lay in wait for me on the far side of the moon.

The child of two cats, and a tiger, a clown, a horse, a bird, a ship, and a dragon, stood on either side of the threshold of the Gatehouse, watching the throng of travelers who came in from all around the world, before he had any idea what was going on.

I think it’s probably doing this accidentally, stringing likely words and phrases together without understanding what any of them really mean. It’s not that it’s good at science fiction or magical realism; it’s that it’s trying and failing to predict what would have fit in with the usual human-written stuff. Some of the neural net’s first lines really betray its lack of the understanding of the laws of physics. It really likes to describe the weather, but it doesn’t really understand how weather works. Or other things, really.

The moon was low in the sky, as though it had been shipped in from the farthest reaches of the solar system.

The first star I saw was a blue one, which became a scarlet one, and then a gold one, and green, and finally a yellow one, which for some years afterwards seemed to be an ebony one, or even a bubbling mass.

The sun rose slowly, like a mighty black cat, and then sank into a state of deep sleep.

The sea of stars was filled with the serenity of a million little birds.

The great blue field was all white, swept away by the blue-gold breeze that blew from the south.

The sky was cold and dark, and the cold wind, if it had not been for the clouds, would have lashed the children to the roof of the house.

The morning sun was shining brightly, but the sky was grey and the clouds aching.

The night that he finally made up his mind to kill the dog, the man was walking home from the store with his wife and child in the back seat.

Arthur the lion had been pretty much extinct for some time, until the time when he was petted by Abernathy the old woman, and her son, Mr. Popp.

One of the disadvantages of having a neural net that can string together a grammatical sentence is that its sentences now can begin to be terrible in a more-human sense, rather than merely incomprehensible. It ventures into the realm of the awful simile, or the mindnumbingly repetitive, and it makes a decent stab at the 19th century style of bombastic wordiness. I selected the examples above for uncomprehending brilliance but the utter tediousness below is more the norm.

The whites of my eyes shimmered, as if my mind were dancing.

I once went to a party where the dress code was as strict as a chicken coop with no leggings and no boots.

A black cloud drifted by, a mottled mass of hydrogen, a black cloud of hydrogen, with the definite characteristic of being black.

I say I am at sea, because I am standing upon the ocean, and look out across the barren, vast throng of the sea.

It is, of course, a trifling matter in the ordinary course of things, if a certain writer were to write a novel, which is a book of stories, which is a book of characters, wherein every detail of the story is stated, together with a brief description of the theme which it concerns.

There was a boy with blue eyes, with sandy hair and blue eyes that looked at all times like he had been pushed through a million compartments.

The Sun, with its rolling shaft of bright light, the brilliant blue of the distant golden sun, and the red glow of its waning corona, was shining.

The man who was not Jack the Ripper had been promoted four times in the last two years.

Felix the Paw was sitting at the table of his favorite restaurant, the "Bordeaux" in the town of Bordeaux, when his father, Cincinnata, came in to say good-by to the restaurant.

It, sir, gives me the greatest pleasure to hear that the Court be not too long in passing away: but that I may have leisure to prepare a new work for the publication of my friend and colleague, the renowned Epistemology, which is now finished; and in which I shall endeavour to show, that this very point is of the highest importance in the subject of the philosophy which I am about to treat of.

It was a rainy, drizzling day in the summer of 1869 and the people of New York, who had become accustomed to the warm, kissable air of the city, were having another bad one.

Repetitiveness is also common, especially at this conservative temperature setting. Once the neural net gets itself into a repetitive state, it doesn’t seem to rescue itself - it’s a problem that people have noticed in several versions of this algorithm. (It doesn’t help that I forgot to scrub the “title” that someone submitted to the dataset that consists of the word “sand” repeated 2,000 times)

The sky was blue and the stars were blue and the sun was blue and the water was blue and the clouds were blue and the blue sky was like a piece of glass.

At the end of the world, where the tides burst upon the drowned, there exists a land of dragons, of dragons, which is the land of the dragons.

It's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, you're dead.

There was once a land of sand, and sand, sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand

Increasing the temperature of the sampling would help the repetitiveness problem, in theory, letting the neural net venture into more interesting territory. But at a temperature of 1.0 the text tends to venture out of everyday surrealism and into wordy yet distractible incomprehensibility.

The praying mules on the top of the hills sounded the final klaxon, lifting their spiked front hoofs as they crept the last few feet of desert landscape past the crest of the enormous swathe of prehistoric sand.

In the glen of the Loch is a ladder that winds way up through a passage to a ledge with soft, moss-laden environmental standards.

Someone whipped a dead squash gibbet across the room, like some formidable war lord unleashing a heavy hunk of silver at home.

One blue eyed child stood up and cried out: "Douay, saurines, my Uncle – Fanny Pemble the loader!"

Jud - an elderly despot, or queen in emopheles, was sitting across the table from the king, looking very thoughtfully into the perplexions of the proceedings.

Oh, you're a coward little fool, as if you couldn't bear to leer at a Prunker or white-clad bodyguard quickly emerging from a shady, storm-damaged area of the city.

Hanging presently in his little bell-bottomed chamber on the landing-house, early in the morning, the iron traveler sat on a broad-blonde sandbricksannel blanket outside the gate of a vast and ancient island.

Long, glowing tongues trailed from your mouth as you listened to what was being said across this kingdom of ours, but growing a little more somber since the week that caused us to proclaim general war.

The night I first met Winnie the Pooh, I had sat in the Tasting-House and heard the Chef unpack the last of the poison upon his quiet dinnertable.

There is, of course, no perfect setting at which the neural net churns out sensible yet non-repetitive first lines. There are just varying shades of general awfulness, interspersed with accidental brilliance.

No matter how much you’re struggling with your novel, at least you can take comfort in the fact that AI is struggling even more.

I generated all the neural net sentences above using a generic “It” as the prompt that the neural net had to build on (it would usually go on to generate another 20-30 sentences at a time). But although the sentences are independent in my training data, GPT-2 is used to large blocks of text that go together. The result is if I prompt it instead with, say, a line from Harry Potter fanfic, the neural net will tend to stick with that vein for a while. I've included a few examples as bonus content for subscribers.

Update: I now have a few thousand unfiltered examples of neural net-generated first lines at the GitHub repository where I have the original crowdsourced dataset. Themes include: Harry Potter, Victorian, My Little Pony, and Ancient Gods.

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s

#neural networks #you look like a thing #nanowrimo #gpt-2 #writing #first lines #gpt-2-355m

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highfunctioningflailgirl · 5 years ago

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Whumptober No.23

Hollow-eyed, Rios crossed the bridge to drop into the pilot seat. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Hospitality Hologram shimmering away, but he was too tired to voice his chronic annoyance with that particular crew member, and he secretly had to admit that he was grateful for the cup of tar-black coffee he found steaming within reach. He took a sip of the scalding hot liquid, desperate for a caffeine kick.

“Got any sleep?”

Rios hadn’t even seen Raffi, slumped as she sat in the navigator’s seat. She swiveled around to him with hanging shoulders, her curls wilder than ever, the rings under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises.

“No,” Cris sighed. “You?”

It was a rhetorical question, really, and Raffi huffed, pointing at her face. “Do I look like I slept?”

Fact was, none of them had slept in three days - except for Picard, who was out like a light in his quarters after the EMH had insisted on dosing him with a narcotic, worried about the old man’s heart. Sleep deprivation, he’d lectured them, could kill, and Rios was starting to believe him. Only that he was close to killing someone. Anyone, honestly. After nearly seventy-two hours of being trapped, with an offline engine, in a cosmic phenomenon that was somehow affecting their brainwaves, Rios was suffering from a very short fuse.

The most enraging part: While Raffi, Picard and him - the only human crew members on board at the moment - were turning into zombies, the holograms remained completely unaffected. Bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, they zipped through La Sirena’s decks, running system checks and analyzing scans and fiddling with the ship’s engine, driving Rios crazy with their limitless energy and chipper mood.

Too bad that a hologram didn’t die when you choked it with your bare hands.

Rios threw a murderous glance at Emmet, the hologram currently slumbering in his seat in front of the tactical controls. He was the worst to bear, falling asleep in an instant as soon as his code told him he was sitting and no hostile activity required him to be awake. Feet propped up on the console, head tipped back and mouth open, he was currently snoring obliviously. And as a hologram, he didn’t even need to sleep.

Rios’ fingers involuntarily curled into claws.

“What is the nature of your psychiatric emergency?”

The EMH had materialized beside him and, hands in his pockets, was studying him with professional concern.

“You heart rate is elevated, your blood pressure is climbing, and your cortisol output-”

“Deactivate!”

“But Captain, I am…”

“Deactivate!”

The hologram disappeared with an affronted poof.

“Nice,” Raffi commented sardonically, chin propped up on a weary arm. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

Cris meant to roll his eyes, but it would worsen his headache, so he left it. Scrubbing his hand across his face, he tried to knit a clear string of thoughts together in his increasingly unreliable brain.

“We need to get away from here, Raff,” he said darkly.

She blinked tiredly. “I know.”

And it was true. What had felt like a weird anomaly three days ago - their impulse and warp drive dying suddenly, then the insomnia - had escalated into a dangerous crisis. In spite of incessant work, they hadn’t been able to bring the engines back online, and they didn’t need the EMH’s lectures to point out the consequences of sleep deprivation. They felt them.

Physical exhaustion was the least of it. Cris could get past the headache, the soreness, the nausea and the dizziness. But the tricks the insomnia played on his mind were an altogether different thing. He could no longer concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes, and his short term memory had gone to fritz. It was bad enough that the tiredness was affecting his eyesight, causing the EMH to suggest reading glasses and almost getting his programming wiped by an infuriated Cris. But now he was starting to see things.

Hallucinations. They were a well-known but nevertheless deeply disturbing side-effect, and Cris, all too familiar with the phenomenon from his breakdown after the Ibn Majid disaster, was once more stalked by demons he thought he’d laid to rest. Captain Vandemeer had visited him in his quarters when he’d been staring into the darkness last night, sleepless, but too exhausted to remain on his feet. The top of his head gone, blood and brain matter dripping from the ceiling, Vandemeer had looked at Cris with opaque eyes, and it had taken half a bottle of Pisco to make him disappear.

Rios punched a button on his holographic controls.

“Ean!” He barked. “Status report!”

“We’re still offline, Cap’n,” came the instant reply. “But Enoch thinks he may be on to something. There’s a pattern of sub-photon waves that seems to be targeting the temperature sensors with galandrion radiation, effectively-”

“Only the bottom line, Ean,” Cris cut him off. His brain had shot down after “sub-photon waves”, unable to process anything more complicated than a spaghetti recipe.

“Bottom line?” Ean repeated. “We’re working on it, Cap’n.”

“What Ean means,” Enoch picked up, flickering into existence on the bridge with an avid expression, “is that we think we’re close to solving the problem. Now, if the scan check that I reprogrammed to include sub-photonic and pseudo nano-neurologic patterns reveals that not only the temperature sensors but also the newtonian reverse weight-speed effect of-”

“Callate!”Cris shot up from his seat. “Shut the fuck- Jesus!”

He’d closed up to the ENH in two strides, right fist pulled back to punch, and he’d managed to rein himself in only at the very last moment. He shook out his arms, trembling, trying to get rid of the tension and the shock he felt at his near loss of control.

Eyebrows raised in innocent wonder, Enoch cocked his head.

“Captain?” he asked kindly. “Would you like me to re-activate Emil? I am sure he could provide you with a sedative, if you’d like.”

Rios shot around again, blood boiling. All of a sudden, the bridge’s ambient lights felt too bright, and the cluster of stars visible through the panoramic window seemed to move forward, speeding up, threatening to attack and swallow La Sirena.

“Emmet!” Cris yelled. “Deflector shields!”

The ETH jerked awake and blinked at his screens in confusion. “Que? No veo nada.”

Raffi had gripped the arms of her seat and was looking at Rios in alarm.

“Babe,” she said anxiously and got up. “There’s nothing out there. You have to… Here.” She grabbed his arm and tried to lead him back to his chair. “Here, sit down.”

“What?!”

Rios glared at her. Raffi’s face looked strange all of a sudden. It… reshaped. Her hair shrank back into her skull, getting shorter, smoother… white. Her skin brightened, nose widening, her eyes morphing from brown to blue. Stubble appeared, and her clothes… his clothes… a Starfleet uniform with a captain’s badge.

“Sit down, son.”

Vandemeer. Intact, smiling paternally, he gently led Rios to his seat and sat him down.

Then, still smiling, he lifted a phaser, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Rios screamed, and he was still screaming when the EMH put a hypospray to his neck and cut his strings.

XXX

“Coffee, babe?”

Rios blinked a veil of deep sleep from his eyes. When his vision sharpened, he saw Raffi’s hand in front of him, balancing a cup that smelled of heaven.

He sat up and stretched before he took the coffee, looking around his cabin. He felt rested, and, to his surprise, he heard the familiar hum of La Sirena’s impulse drive propelling the ship through space at cruising speed.

“We’re back online?”

“Yes. Three days ago.”

“Three days ago?!” Rios almost spilled his coffee. “How long was I out?”

Raffi smiled, but there was an uncomfortable edge to it. “Three and a half days.”

“Dios.”

He racked his brain, memory creeping back in. Memory - and shame. Scratching his beard, he looked at Raffi with unease.

“It was pretty bad, huh?”

“Pretty.” She nodded. Then she placed her hand on his arm and rubbed it gently. “But you weren’t the only one. I cracked a few hours after Emil put you out. He says I was trying to open the cargo hatch to take a walk.”

Cris lifted astonished brows. “Good idea.”

Raffi’s worried face softened into a chuckle. “Not one of my best. I’m glad your holos were there to stop me. They’re not entirely useless, you know?”

“Right.” Cris smirked. God, he hadn’t felt this rested in ages. “Not entirely. But please don’t go and tell them I agreed with you on that. Enoch will never stop rubbing it under my nose.”

As if on cue, the EMH materialised at the foot of Rios’ bed.

“Captain Rios,” he said. “I am pleased to see you awake! And your brain waves have returned to a normal pattern. Now, if I could ask you to meet me in sickbay for a thorough scan of your neural-”

“Deactivate!”

Raffi smiled as the hologram begrudgingly dissolved.

“You ready to come back to the bridge, Captain?” she asked Rios, the twinkle back in her eyes. “Or do you need more sleep?”

Cris swung his legs from the bed.

“Sleep is overrated,” he said sardonically and headed off to take a shower.

#whumptober2020 #whumptober #star trek picard #aramis in space #cristobal rios #raffi musiker #sleep deprivation

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spectraspecs-writes · 5 years ago

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Kashyyyk - Chapter 74

Link to the masterpost. Chapter 73. Chapter 75.

@averruncusho @ceruleanrainblues @chubbsmomma thank you for reading, you get a tag. @skelelexiunderlord thank you for support, you get a tag.

————–

I think I see something else glowing. Not the moss. And it feels familiar. The vision, maybe? The Star Map? Jolee goes one way. I break away towards the glow. And it doesn’t take Jolee very long to find out. “I thought you wanted to find Freyyr,” he says, “We’re not that far.”

“If this is the Star Map, I don’t want to lose it.” Bastila follows me first, and Canderous with her because her ankle still hurts. Jolee huffs, before shaking his head and joining us.

As I get closer, the glow takes on a humanoid shape, before I finally see it all the way. It’s an alien, but not a race I’ve ever seen before. The eyes are separated, and the head rises up into a big hump. Kind of like a shark, but the eyes jut out on stalks like snails. The skin looks very reptilian. There are three fingers on both hands, and three toes on both feet. Each toe ends with a massive claw. It’s quite imposing, just a hologram standing in the middle of the woods. I stand in front of it, and it speaks in Basic. “Life forms detected. Determining parameters. Initiating neural recognition.”

“Obstinate machine,” Jolee scoffs, “I've no doubt it holds what you seek, but good luck getting it operational.”

The hologram processes for a moment. “Primary neural recognition complete. Preliminary match found.”

Jolee sputters. “Match found?” he repeats in disbelief, “What the…? It always muttered something about ‘rejected patterns’ for me.”

“Begin socialized interface,” the hologram says, “Awaiting instruction. Greetings. This terminal has not been accessed for quite some time.”

“Why are you acknowledging me? Why am I a match?” I ask.

“Error.” Damn, did I break it? “Subject displays unfamiliarity to environment. Behavioral reconfiguration will be needed before access. I am sorry, I did not mean to confuse you. I will answer questions to the best of my programming limitations.”

“Behavioral reconfiguration? What does that mean?”

“I have been programmed with a very limited field of knowledge, and I must restrict access to only those that fit my allowed pattern.”

“Which isn’t me.”

“I can't say.” Reluctance in a computer, that’s a new one. “I will try to bring forward the behavior that you need to proceed, as outlined by my programming.”

“That’s helpful,” I say, “Why am I allowed access? Why not Jolee?”

“I can't say.” Again? “Preliminary matching allows for you to be coached.”

I shake my head and take a look at the machinery. “This isn’t Czerka tech,” I say, “Or Aratech, Republic, there’s a little Sith in there, but it’s… different. Like I can see some common elements to Sith, but it’s not completely Sith. Who installed this installation?”

“Error. Corruption.” That’s not a problem I can fix. “Extrapolating.” Good. “This utility was built to monitor planet-wide agricultural reformation. It has since malfunctioned. It can be theorized that the super-growth of Kashyyyk's forests is a direct result.”

“Well, that is surprising,” Jolee says, although I get the feeling he’s heard this before - why else would he have said the trees are strangers? “I doubt any Wookiee would support such a claim. The forest is millenia old.” What I wouldn’t give to count the rings on a wroshyr tree.

“Malfunction occurred 241 years after last builder communication,” the hologram continues, “Last builder communication... 29,642 years before current Republic standard.”

“Then it predates the Republic just like the ruins on Dantooine,” Bastila says while Canderous tends to her ankle.

“Error,” the hologram says, “Information regarding the builders of this installation has been corrupted. No evidence of such a civilization exists in the galactic record.”

“I can’t believe this planet would need agricultural reformation,” I say, “given all the life that exists here.”

“Agricultural record indicates this planet was incapable of sustaining sufficient levels of production,” the hologram explains, “Error. Specific conditions corrupted. It can be theorized that produce was being exported to support a larger demand.”

I take another look at the machinery. The computer core is one type of technology, the holo-interface is another. Built by a different person, different background. Nobody I’ve ever worked with, but they’ve still left a signature. And something looking like sand shields but smaller, maybe for pollen. Systech again? But HK mentioned something about not being produced by Systech. Weird - who else has been making environmental protection like this? “Who installed this holo-interface?”

“This interface was installed to better access the ancient data stored within the pre-existing system. The exact date is unavailable. Programming keys indicate no earlier than five years before current Republic standard.” So someone still alive, probably, is making tech like this. That’s someone I’d like to meet.

“Hmm,” Jolee says, “five years ago? I didn’t notice it. This must have been installed in the strictest secrecy. It couldn’t have been Czerka.”

“No, it doesn’t use Czerka standard parts.” I’d know. Besides, if Czerka installed it, it wouldn’t still be working. Czerka tech is crap.

“No other information on time of installation or identity of user available. Likelihood of removal by user, 100%.”

“Who last accessed?”

“Sorting by identity. Three attempts by the Wookiee Freyyr, all denied. 152 attempts by human Jolee Bindo, all denied.”

He gets a bit red and chuckles. “Call me stubborn, I guess,” he says, “There wasn’t much else to do around here.”

“Error. List of access attempts prior to these is corrupted. Likelihood of removal by user, 100%.”

Never imagined Revan to be the paranoid sort. Because, I mean, it has to be Revan. The timing works out too well for that to be a coincidence. Maybe he didn’t build this hologram, but he definitely had to access it, the Star Map is right over there. Pretty impressive that he figured out the tech well enough to wipe some of the memory. It really is an unorthodox set-up. Personally, I live for unorthodox - doesn’t matter if it looks like shit if it works. “I’m looking for a Star Map,” I say. Let’s get this over with.

“Accessing. Yes, I have found a Star Map in original system memory. Access is restricted.”

“Well, I want access,” I say, “What do I have to do to get it?”

“Your request requires additional security access,” the hologram states, “You must be made to match the parameters I have been supplied.”

“How can I match them when I don’t know what they are?”

“There are measures available.” Well, that’s handy. “Personality profiling will verify the basic structure of your conscious mind. With that, I will determine whether you are ready to receive the Star Map, or can be made ready.”

“Made ready? What does that mean?”

“Information unavailable.” Lovely, just great. “If you have further questions, ask them now. Access will terminate with success or failure of evaluation.”

No questions from me. “Then let’s begin evaluation.”

“Evaluation commencing. Results will be compared against the pattern in memory. Just act like you should.” Is it weird that I’m a little nervous?

“You travel with a Wookiee and have encountered complications. Hypothetical: you and this Zaalbar are captured and separated. If you both remain silent, one year in prison for each of you. However, call Zaalbar a traitor, and he will serve five years, while you serve none. He is offered the same deal, but if you both accuse the other, you both serve 2 years. What do you do? What do you trust him to do?”

Don’t know how he knows about Zaalbar, maybe from Freyyr, but the situation still stands. “I trust Zaalbar,” I say, “I would say nothing, and neither would he.”

“Are you sure?” the hologram asks, “If you turn, you risk two years, or none at all. If you rely on loyalty, you risk one year or *five.* Your loyalty is dangerous. Your companion could take the opportunity to benefit by turning on you. Zaalbar's family is mired in treachery. What loyalty do they know? Your answer is incorrect.”

“I thought this was an evaluation, not a quiz,” I say, “How can my answer be wrong?”

“I must match your behavior to the pattern in memory. You must answer truthfully, knowing the consequences.”

I sigh. “Continue the evaluation, then.”

“The previous incorrect response will be discounted. Future incorrect responses will result in rejection.

“Hypothetical: you are at war. Deciphering an intercepted code, you learn two things about your enemy. A single spot in their defense will be at its weakest in ten days, and they will attack one of your cities in five days. What do you do with this information? What is the most efficient course of action?”

“Efficient?” I repeat, “Well, the most efficient thing to do is to prepare my forces to attack in ten days, leave the city alone.”

“Very good,” the hologram says, “If you had moved to evacuate the city, you would have alerted the enemy to their lost codes. Ultimate victory required the deaths of the people in that city. You wisely ignored sentiment in your decision.”

“That’s just one victory,” I say, “Stopping the war saves more lives in the long run. That’s more efficient, that’s what you asked.”

“You achieved the proper result with logic that does not match the pattern in memory.” I think I just confused the hologram. “I shall adjust my evaluation.

“Hypothetical: remove the ongoing war from the previous example. Consider enemy states to be weak and remote. With no external threat, your empire stagnates. Your people become complacent and begin to question you. Same scenario as before; you discover an impending attack, but also a weakness that will come after. How do you react?”

“As a leader,” I say, no question, in my mind, “it’s my job to keep my people safe. I stop the attack.”

“But if nothing happens, your people will have no need of you. No, they don't see a threat. You have coddled them. Your empire will be brought down by introspection. You have failed to match the pattern in memory. Access denied. This system will purge the subject as false. Defense mode initiated.”

I hear a thrumming from where we came in. Two droids. Energy shields. They look like the ones from Dantooine. With those shields up, lightsabers won’t do much good. But if I can concentrate for a moment, reach out, I can shut the shields down. Just… give me a… got it! With the shields down, they’re far more susceptible to lightsabers and Canderous’s blaster. He chucks an ion grenade between the two droids and it explodes in just the right place to knock out the flame thrower on the one and the carbonite projector on the other. “Concentrate on the leg joints!” Bastila says, “That’s the weak spot.” Usually is. I focus my efforts there. With the special weapons taken out blaster fire is my only concern. I spin both my lightsabers and take off a front leg on each droid. Still standing. I take off the back legs. They fall over, unbalanced. Still shooting, futilely. The mechanisms are exposed on the belly of the droids, there’s far less armor there than on the top side of the droid. I deactivate both lightsabers and hop over one droid. Activate the lightsaber right in the middle, blowing out its primary circuits, and then I do the same thing to the other droid. Now that that’s over with, I can get back to thinking of another way to access the Star Map.

“Neural scan complete,” the hologram says. I’m surprised it hasn’t deactivated itself yet. “Analyzing... Well, it would appear initial assumptions about you were incorrect. Secondary scans during battle have revealed much. Under duress, your emotions were easier to read. Programming now instructs that I give you what you seek.”

Wait, what? “Why the change?” I ask, “If I failed your initial test, why can I have the map now?”

“That information is unavailable.” Of course it is. “Soon you will recognize the proper course to follow.” What? “The Star Map is yours. This unit has now completed its primary duty and has finished with the subject. Executing final action. Activation of Star Map commencing. Parameters reset. Stasis initiated. End communication.”

I mean, if the machine wanted a fight, it could have just said so. I could have dueled Jolee or something.

When the Star Map opens, I feel the Dark Side the same way I did on Dantooine and Tatooine. Bastila shudders. “Well, well,” Jolee says, “A Star Map. An ancient artifact of dark side power. Can't say I'm surprised. I always knew there was something funny down here. I wonder if the Star Map has had an effect on the evolution of the creatures here in the Shadowlands. Might explain why it's so dangerous down here.”

“Well, the Star Map on Tatooine attracted a giant krayt dragon, so it’s certainly possible,” i say, loading the coordinates into my datapad. Okay, that’s that. “Now, Freyyr?”

“Yes, the other reason you’re down here,” he says, “Let’s go, then.”

#knights of the old republic #star wars #kotor #autistic artist #fiction #kotor fic #specs writes stuff #rena visz #oc #fem!revan #ls!revan #jolee bindo #bastila shan #canderous ordo #kashyyyk #chapter 74 #the quest for the star forge

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reverseopossum · 5 years ago

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Why Sci-Fi Isn’t Broken (but can still be fixed)

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of commentary on science fiction now versus “golden age” sci-fi from the mid-20th century that goes along the lines of “back then, people were optimistic, they thought science was inherently good, and the space race had captured the public’s imagination. Now postmodernism, pessimism, and the small and personal nature of technological innovation has left us with drab dystopias and preachy allegories about being on our phones too much.”

Okay, I see where you’re coming from. As a side note, the kind of sci-fi with big gleaming interplanetary rocket ships is still alive and well, it just doesn’t occupy the same cultural real estate as before. Mainly, though, my problem with that analysis is that it conflates types of stories that were never meant to serve the same purpose.

Science fiction (especially the “hard sci-fi” variety) revolves around scientific ideas or imagined technology as a key part of the world building or plot. A perfect example would be I, Robot, where we’re literally following the progression of a technology across centuries: the robots’ philosophical problem solving with the famous three rules of robotics, how humans interact with the robots, and how the robots ultimately influence and save civilization.

A story set in the future that revolves around politics or personal events and doesn’t have a science or tech idea relevant to the plot lands in the realm of speculative fiction. Probably the cleanest example of the difference would be The Handmaid’s Tale. Margaret Atwood specifically said that she chose not to introduce any distracting gadgets, and that everything that happens in the world of the story is intentionally based on something that has really happened. (She had really compelling and interesting reasons for doing this, by the way.) Obviously there’s a whole lot of overlap, sci-fi and speculative fiction are like a Venn diagram that’s mostly middle.

Anyway, years ago I read a lot of the teen dystopia books everyone complains about (why doesn’t matter). And I noticed a common trend across almost all of them: YA-geared dystopias ask the audience to believe that the world in the future will be simpler than the world now. Worse, sure, but simpler. And that’s where I think speculative fiction can go off the rails. The problem isn’t that the authors think the story needs to be dumbed down for kids to like it, it’s that the world building is shaped around the plot and not the other way around. These stories follow a formula, right? Big Bad is an evil government of unspecified ideology but more or less coded as fascist. Ordinary Teenage Girl is politically apathetic and just wants to live her life, but some personal attribute makes this impossible. Once this becomes clear, Ordinary Teenage Girl goes through an inner and then outer rebellion, singlehandedly reinvents the concept of freedom, inspires her people to rise up, and the ensuing conflict resolves within a binge-able trilogy.

To be clear, the fact that there’s a formula with a predictable ending isn’t a problem in itself. The Hero’s Journey archetype is a formula with a predictable ending. Shakespeare's audiences knew the ending before the play started. The problem is that this particular formula is dishonest. Ordinary Teenage Girl lives in a world pared down to one city (or twelve). She has no cultural background, religion, or knowledge of history. She can count the people she loves on one hand, and within a timely arc they all agree with her. She can easily avoid government surveillance. There is no internet.

(All of this is blamed on a nuclear cataclysm that wiped out civilization as we know it, which is ludicrous. If people survive at all, they’ll carry pretty major parts of their culture along with them. And if civilization has recovered enough that Big Bad is a powerful, centralized government, homegirl is probably going to have some kind of access to something resembling the internet.) My point is that the simplistic world the story depends on is inorganic, made for the story. Things never get simpler. High quality sci-fi goes the other way around: use an exciting idea as a world building premise, and let the story grow from there.

As an aside, imagine trying to set a YA dystopia novel’s plot outside of its simplified world. What if Protagonist Girl read George Orwell and Hannah Arendt and had theories about what the hell happened in the 21st century? What if, instead of a solemnly saluting crowd, she had to deal with an internet comments section? What if the government counter-propaganda was actually effective, meant to confuse, divide, and distract via trolls and clickbait? What if the conflict dragged on for a decade and the rest of the world treated Americans the way it treats Syrians? What if the climate hadn’t calmed down yet? (Oh look, it’s the sarcastic, fourth-wall breaking 800+ page monstrosity I’ve been intermittently working feverishly on and trying to abandon for eight years)

So, I’ll probably finish the above-mentioned speculative project, partly because it's been such a formative experience. But right now is a really exciting time to write actual sci-fi? The fact that our technology has gone small and personal instead of big doesn’t have to be creatively stifling. If anything it should make it easier to write emotionally and psychologically complex stories around hard sci-fi concepts.

The truth is that science is moving faster than ever. I want to be a neuro PT, right? On a given day, I’m a lot more excited about small-scale technology that lets people control a computer with their brain than I am about space travel. I personally see more stories in neural lace than in plans for a Mars colony. Like, we’re just starting to figure out how brains do the braining. Give me some tragic heroes with otherworldly mental powers born of hubris. What are the consequences when we share too much of ourselves, or start to lean on technology controlled by someone else to inform our own inner monologue? Good old-fashioned warnings about unchecked surveillance? If you uploaded every synapse in your brain into a computer, would it be you? And if it turned out to be horribly otherwise, what rights would that entity have? If we could peer inside someone else’s consciousness, would enhanced empathy necessarily lead to enhanced compassion? Small-scale technology sci-fi is going to be so much more interesting than “our phones are turning us into zombies and Mark Zuckerburg owns your toaster”

Long post. If a potato became sentient, what would happen?

#scifi #neuroscience #novel writing #writing #speculative fiction #science fiction #genre #ya novels #isaac asimov #Margaret Atwood #the hunger games #long post #dystopia #apocalypse #metacognition

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yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy · 6 years ago

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Keep Your Eyes On Me Part 3

Woo, thank you so much to @waiting4inspiration for hositing this 2k follower challenge, this has been really fun, so heads up there’s a little lemony smutty good good at the end. I didn’t go “whole hog” just in case those who are uncomfortable with it but like the story don’t have to bleach their eyes after reading it, I *tried* to be discreet. But if that’s wanted HO BOY. Part 4 man...whew lordy. Also Part 4 has ANGST.

So here is Part 1 and Part 2 and then part three is down below, enjoy.

Part 3

Once you got there however, you looked at Ivar the Boneless’ wife, Freydis and her very pregnant belly as they walked together in the market and your heart broke. Your contacts were able to see past the skin of her belly to see the baby in her womb and the readout in your contacts told you that the child would be born crippled like his father and Ivar would probably abandon the baby in the woods as was the custom which would turn his wife against him which would spell disaster to Kettegat and Bjorn would be killed when Kettegat would implode. You needed to get Bjorn out of here, but not until you could save that baby. You knew you could heal him and make him well. And if nothing else, you were going to bring him home and adopt him, that was not forbidden by The Order, many Ladies had adopted children on their missions or even Bjorn could adopt him with his future wife, as soon as you figured out who she was and introduced him to her which the sooner than happened the better because you were in danger of becoming too close to him emotionally, that neural link was much stronger than any other you had set up and it breeded a familiarity and a closeness that both thrilled you and made you nervous because you were now flirting with the ‘do not cross’ lines set out in The Code. But still, you couldn’t explain why your heart went out to the babe in Freydis’ belly but you couldn’t deny your strong feelings for it.

That night as Bjorn took you to his small and humble home and used your own tent to provide shelter for you- next to his house, the tent joining with his house so that you could walk through one into the other like it was an addition to the house although now that you were home, Bjorn felt more at home in your tent than in his own house now.

But tonight he saw that even in your horse form, you were downcast but you were hiding your thoughts from him but your distraught feelings seemed to bleed into him. He closed the tent which transformed the inside to your home away from home and you instantly transformed into yourself as you went into auto pilot and made both of you something to eat.

“What’s wrong Astrid?” Bjorn asked as he came to stand by you and helped you try to prepare the meal as you just shook your head from your swirling thoughts.

“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.” You whispered as you slowly peeled some apples while he peeled potatoes.

“Do you have to leave me now? Now that I’m home?” He asked worriedly.

“No, not yet, your path isn’t here, it’s southeast of here.” You shook your head as you focused on the apple in your hand and slowly slicing it now that it was peeled.

“You could try telling me, I’ll do my best to understand.” He offered because this was the first time he had ever seen you so down and it bothered him greatly. LIke your frown was crushing his heart and making it feel like he couldn't breathe.

“Freydis is carrying a son.” You informed him solemnly, your words barely above a whisper.

“That’s... good.” Bjorn nodded but frowned in confusion as to why that would sadden you, were you jealous? If you were, he could fix that, immediately if need be. Surely you couldn’t go back to Odin and back to Asgard if you were carrying his child. Could you? He was afraid to ask. It had surprised him how once you both came to an understanding, how at ease you were around each other and how easy it was to be around you to the point he missed you when not by your side.

“No, it’s not good, he’s lame and a cripple like his father, but more-so, he’s...he’s deformed to what Ivar feels is a hideous degree, the baby will not live long unless I intervene, Ivar’s going to abandon the babe in the forest for it because he would rather that baby die helpless in the forest than live like he has lived. He thinks that cruelty is mercy, which to him, it is. What he doesn’t know is it will absolutely destroy Freydis and she will die getting vengeance for her son, all because Freydis has filled Ivar with a twisted saying and led him to believe that he’s a god, which he isn’t, but because he believes that, he feels the baby proves he isn’t, which is true. It’s going to be his downfall and start to destroy everything he’s built. I know you’re used to this custom but I am not. Back home in Neveah, we do not abandon those who are born different. Because they are usually born with other gifts that are very desirable and differences are celebrated rather than looked down on or feared. It is unthinkable and detestable for us to do such a thing, especially to a helpless baby.” You revealed as you shook your head as tears flooded your vision as you felt your heart break at the thought before your resolve formed within you and found a solid footing.

“We need to leave this place as soon as possible, preferably a day or two, but not more than a week after Ivar does abandon the babe because Freydis will start looking jealously at every babe she sees and if he’s discovered, or I’m discovered they’ll demand that I heal Ivar, but if I do, that will change everything. Odin will disavow me and everything I do, everything I’ve ever done, could or probably will be- undone, like pulling the yarn from a sweater you’re knitting, it’ll all unravel and I won’t have his protections because they’ll be lifted and I’ll be stripped of all my powers and abilities and everything that makes me what I am and I’ll be stranded here and I’ll never be able to go home, I’ll be put to death as a witch or whatever, they could come after you which if they do, I’ve failed my mission and best case scenario is I’m replaced, the worst case is we both die. But I can’t ignore this pull in my heart and my soul towards the baby. And part of me doesn’t care if I overstep my bounds, if it’s just to protect the baby, ..Seph...Frigga would understand. I’m turning into a hawk or a wolf or whatever I have to turn into and I’m saving that baby, I’ll take him home with me when I have to leave you, my medicine can cure him as soon as I can take him into my custody. Because what Ivar can’t see is that baby has more potential for greatness than Ivar could ever dream of but he’s blinded by his own pain and illusion of divinity to see it.” You hissed defiantly as Bjorn lifted his arm and hugged you from the side before rubbing soothing circles into your back as he listened attentively.

“So we’re taking the babe with us when we go east then.” Bjorn couldn’t help but smile a little at the thought of you being a mother thinking you were quite the picture of a mother bear protecting her cub just now. He liked it. He loved it actually. And he wasn’t helpless anymore. He could take care of you. He could build a new home for you, with him and he would do everything in his power to give you a home and a family so you wouldn’t feel homesick.

“Yes, but in order to nurse him and keep him publicly, I’ll just have to become your thrall, but it’s just for appearances. You won’t actually be my master.” You insisted as you turned and looked up at him with a determination in your eyes which made him smile. You were the epitome of a strong woman and he loved that.

“Wouldn’t dream of it Astrid.” Bjorn agreed as he kissed your forehead sweetly and hugged you tight as his grin grew just a little scheming. Oh he had a better idea than that.

Once Bjorn fell asleep you turned on the shield around his bed so that it was a sound proof barrier from you.

“This is H.L.S. Zulu Alpha Roger Alpha 0960 Coding in- Dragon.” You dialed before the screen popped up from your wrist’s device and it showed a face.

“Response positive, report 0960.” Morgan requested.

“Target is now at home, I set up and am maintaining a safe perimature, urging target to gather his crew and supplies to transport to drop off point ASAP. Requesting a detour.” You asked.

“Explain detour.” Morgan frowned in confusion.

“Ivar the Boneless’ wife, Freydis is about to have a baby boy. My scans show the baby is deformed and physically disabled and if and when Ivar follows customs, he will abandon the baby. Requesting permission to save the baby and heal and either rehouse or adopt personally.” You requested.

“One moment.” Morgan asked as she pulled up the histories and the Book of Destiny as her face betrayed no other emotion before she secured the channel so that your conversation would not be recorded or listened in on, that it would be private between just you and her.

“Zara, what’s going on? You’ve never asked for a detour before, why now?” Morgan asked which caused you to exhale in defeat.

“When I saw Freydis and my contacts x-rayed her and showed me her baby and then they ran that probabilities calculation, it was like a stab through the heart and a kick in the gut when they told me the baby would be abandoned just because it has brittle bone disease, his legs are deformed and his nose isn’t right but it is all well within the capabilities to heal. My heart broke when I read the outcome. I can’t...I can’t let that happen. It was like if the baby was mine and someone threatened to do that to my own child, I feel rage and abhorrance and I just...I fell in love with him instantly. So I’m not officially requesting a detour, I’m reporting a detour. Come hell or high water I am going to save that baby, heal him and raise him on my own if I have to and if Sephira wants to unravel me, she can and even if she wants to dump me here, I’m ok with that. He’s worth it, but even if she does unravel me, she does not get to unravel Bjorn or the baby.” You explained as your cried and wiped your tears away as you did your best to appear as determined as possible as Morgan gave you a sympathetic smile. She knew Sephira would make an exception for you . You were a High Lady of Sephira after all and were on her council for a reason. You were a stickler for the code but while The Code was in place for a reason, each Lady was free to interpret it how she felt was right for the situation and this fit in with the spirit of the code. So Morgan had no trouble at all approving this. Hell half of her own kids were products of this kind of “detour” and why she was no longer in field work because her hands were already full.

“Ok. Request granted. Welcome to motherhood, welcome to spit up, sleepless nights and poopy pants but getting paid in unconditional love, hugs and kisses.” Morgan grinned proudly since she was the mother of 4 herself as she ordered a dose of serum that would prompt lactation and really heighten your mother instincts so you could nurse said baby as well as downloaded into your journal all the baby care information she could and sent a second ‘home button’ disguised as a charm on a necklace, small enough to fit around the baby’s neck and would lock in the baby’s biometrics once it was put on.

“Anything else to report 0960?” Morgan asked officially as she opened the channel back up.

“No, thank you. End of report.” You answered as you smiled gratefully at her wiped your tears away.

“Over and out, report again when you leave Kettegat or if something goes sideways.” Morgan insisted as you suddenly felt the injection in your wrist before your breasts started to change already before you opened the back of your book to see the baby’s necklace in the process of materializing and smiled at the little silver hammer before you looked over suggested baby names. Dyre was at the top of the list. It was a boy’s name that meant- dear one. Perfect.

The next few days you spent doing little else but reading at home while Bjorn talked with the others to form a new settlement party for when you would go east including meeting with Ivar and others. Raiding parties were all about cramming as many warriors looking for loot as you could into the boats while settlement parties had to have a lot more careful thought and planning because you had to make sure you brought enough food stuffs and seeds and things to sow and harvest crops and enough people to build a new society out of basically nothing. But to help him, your journal had given him a map and pointed out three potential points for settlements as well as five potential raiding points which were relatively close by and trading ports so that Bjorn wouldn’t be able to figure it out too quickly where exactly he was going but would have a good general idea while Ivar had the map copied so that he could make future raiding plans as Ivar gave Bjorn his blessing to begin preparations.

When the night came that Ivar the boneless was going to abandon his son, Bjorn showed you where it was and left you there and walked back home as you sat as an owl in the tree and waited. When he came you flew into the tree closest to him so you could overhear his words, feeling enraged and incensed by them. You waited until he had crawled away a short distance, the baby started to cry and he paused and looked back, you still hoped that the sound of the baby crying would pull a heart string he still had, but no, he didn’t, he just left and you could do nothing but conclude that he truly was ruthless. You transformed into a wolf and howled and watched as Ivar hurried himself to get away. Most fathers should be crawling back to protect their baby rather than crawl away to save themselves you thought to yourself bitterly. He didn’t even look back to see you come over to his baby and sniff as the baby cried hysterically as you drug what the baby was put in- away, out of ear shot before you transformed back into Astrid before you got a good look at him and your heart broke. He was deformed and without your help, he would not survive and it was such that he couldn’t even latch properly, the poor thing was probably starving. But it’s a good thing you could help him.

“Shhh, it’s ok, it’s ok, mommy’s here.” You cooed as you scanned him quickly then picked up the baby and kissed him and put his beacon on which scanned him and locked in his biometrics which in turn would be the basis to bring the baby as close to perfection as humanly possible and set him on your chest and bounced and swayed to calm him as your materializer created a duplicate baby that would look like a baby but was just imitation flesh, indifferential to anyone else and once it was done, you placed the imitation baby, complete with a perfect replica of what the baby was wearing and put it back in the carrier where the baby had been laying before you started to walk away with him.

“You’re my son now, you’re no longer Baldur. You are reborn this day, as Dyre. Because you are very dear to me.” You cooed as you sprouted wings and flew away back to Bjorn.

“So this is Baldur.” Bjorn said as he peeked in your cloak to see the baby sleeping peacefully using your bosom as a pillow but even he grimaced at the deformity.

“Not any more, he’s Dyre now.” You grinned proudly as you put the sleeping babe on the same cot Bjorn had laid on when he was injured not that long ago as you unwrapped the baby and threw all that was wrapped around him in the fire since you had new baby clothes for him to wear, but first, you had to heal him. You brought up what Bjorn would have recognized as a soul forge which put a protective barrier around Dyre and levitated him and painlessly healed him and fixed his legs and everything else that was wrong with him so that he would look like any other child and have a “normal” childhood and have no lameness or disability, not even a limp. But oh, would he be handsome in addition to being intelligent and within the hour, the baby was better than new, he also woke up once he was healed and started to fuss because his hunger pains were back.

“There we go.” You breathed in relief as you got the baby a new diaper on and new clothes out of dragon silk and dragon wool on before you picked him up and cradled him before you carried him to your bed, which was now coincidentally right next to Bjorn’s as Bjorn pulled up your blankets and tucked both of you in as you nursed Dyre who was ravenous before Bjorn got into bed himself.

Once he heard that you were asleep he peeked open his eyes and saw you sleeping on your side, facing him, your whole body seeming to curl and coil around Dyre a Dyre slept blissfully in your embrace before he reached out and gently stroked your face then Dyer's face as his smile grew proud and serene.

The next morning Bjorn woke up with a sack of money on his chest, it was heavy. Surely it would be more than enough to buy you at the market as he quickly got up and got dressed and went to the market and looked for you urgently before he found you being unloaded from a ship of other thralls, you still stood out among them as others had come and caught sight of you and had hurried to get all the coins they had to buy you, since you were the most beautiful thrall in the market by a long shot. Most couldn’t remember the last time they had ever seen a woman so fair. Even as strangely dressed as you were.

“Astrid!” He called out and you snapped your head up and looked at him like he was crazy. The plan was that he was supposed to simply buy you as a thrall, not know you by name. And here you had gone through all the trouble of being in a tiny “sinking” rowboat with your baby and get caught by the thrall ship just off shore and get “captured”.

“You know him?” They asked you as you stuttered and stammered.

“Yes she knows me! She’s my wife!” He argued hotly as he came right up to you and explained how he had married you in secret almost a year ago and had come upon you in a raid and taken you as his wife but for fear you’d be taken by others while he was away on raids, he hid you away and “scolded” you for not telling them that you were his wife as the thrallers explained how they had caught you just that morning as that story seemed more plausible as you just nodded along in agreement and had to admit that that was a really good cover.

“Is this my babe?” He asked you excitedly.

“Y..Yes, he is, this is your son Dyre. Our dear one.” You answered, playing along as you showed him his ‘son’ as he took him and held him like any adoring father would and kissed his cheeks.

“You were supposed to come and get me! Why did you leave me for so long? I had to come and find you.” You demanded, trying to have a bite to your words but you failed miserably because for some reason, you couldn’t stop smiling.

“Sorry, I was on a raid down south, I only just got back, thank the Allfather you came when you did, you would have been a thrall if I hadn’t been here.” He grinned cheekily.

“Do you really know him?” They asked before you stood a little prouder.

“He is Bjorn Gudmundsson, son of…” You began as you recited his family line as Bjorn’s chest puffed out in pride and his beaming smile shamed the sun.

“I see you’re wearing the shirt I made you.” You said as you nodded to his new shirt he was wearing once you were done and it was proof that you two were indeed married and they let you go.

“Yes,” He grinned proudly as the others humfed that they wouldn’t be able to make a sale off of you as Bjorn put his arm around you possessively and kissed your temple and walked away with you and showed you around Kattegat and introduced you to everyone as his wife and introduced Dyre as his son before he brought you home.

“Sadly I had a horse but she ran away this morning.” He tried to explain so his neighbor’s would hear it before he welcomed you into your house.

Once the door was shut however Bjorn caged you behind the door and finally kissed you.

Oh no. Oh fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. Shit. He was not supposed to like you this much. And you weren’t supposed to kiss him back. But you did. And heaven above help you, you were enjoying it.

The other arm that wasn’t holding Dyre grabbed his shirt and pulled him to you which he was all too happy to oblige and press you up against the door but careful not to press himself against Dyre while one of his hands found your face and the other found your waist and pulled you close to him in turn and it wasn’t until Dyre fussed that you broke apart for air and you finally came to your senses.

“Bjorn...I…” You tried to explain as the look in your eyes grew so pained.

“I know, you’re a Valkyrie. You won’t be with me for too much longer. I just...I needed...I wanted… you told me to keep my eyes on you, the problem is I can’t take my eyes off of you now.” Bjorn tried to explain as you looked up at him sympathetically and used your free hand to cup his cheek, smiling sadly when he still leaned into your touch.

“That was why I suggested the plan I did. Not a lot of women are keen on being a second or third wife, especially if the first is beloved, that’s why I was supposed to be a thrall, it’s going to be harder for you to explain why I left you if I’m your wife rather than your thrall.” You gently argued before you moved out from between him and the door as you looked down at Dyre lovingly as you bounced him slightly to get him to go back to sleep as you thought your options over and assessed the risks. You had to warn him.

“Bjorn, you can’t love me. It’s just a matter of time before Odin will bring me back to Asgard. We will have to be...very careful. Because I don’t want to leave, not yet, not until I know you’ll be safe and that you’re able to be on your own or we do find your future wife who will care for you, the way she should, the way you deserve anyway.” You tried to explain delicately. Wishing that was all there was to it.

“But I do love you, you are the daughter of Dragoners on Neveah and you are as fierce as any dragon, you are stronger and wiser than any other being I’ve ever known or will ever know. How could I not fall in love with you? Even if Odin abandons you, I never will. I swear on the life of our son that I will love you and care for you for the rest of my life and I will build you a home with my own two hands wherever you want it to be and I will ease your homesickness and I will do whatever I have to do to make you the happiest woman possible.” Bjorn swore as you swooned before he took Dyre out of your arms and gently kissed him before he put him down in his bassinet before he picked you up so that your legs wrapped around his waist while your arms naturally wrapped around his neck and shoulders before you leaned down to kiss him as he carried you over to your bed and laid you down and pinned you to it and kissed you passionately as he grabbed your skirts and brought them up to your hips as you furiously tried to take your own clothes off.

You both had to quiet each other from moaning too loud once you were joined.

“Ok, now I feel like I’m in Valhalla,” Bjorn growled in your ear before he bit your ear lobe which made you gasped as your legs wrapped around his waist while your nails clawed up his back deliciously as the gasp turned into a moan as he continued to move on top of you and start up an earnest rhythm as you kissed passionately and when his mouth traveled down your neck, to your chest, he got a mouthful of milk when he suckled on your breast which he wasn’t used to but it was very sweet.

“Getting a snack there my Love?” You giggled as he kept suckling at you.

“I am.” Bjorn laughed as he licked and kissed the distance from one nipple to the other.

“Making sure it’s good enough for our son?” You asked which made him grin wider.

“Yup, it’s perfect for our son.” Bjorn beamed proudly as he swallowed it down from above you before he captured your lips once more and made love to you the way he had wanted to since he met you, the way any loving and dutiful husband would please his wife and made absolutely sure you got your satisfaction before he got his.

#Vikings #vikings imagines #history vikings #vikings crossover #oc viking #viking reader insert #Keep Your Eyes On Me #Keep Your Eyes On Me Part 3 #viking lemon

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travllingbunny · 6 years ago

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The 100 rewatch: 4x09 DNR

This episode is mostly about setting up the explosive developments of the last 4 episodes, it deals with four almost fully separate storylines. Three of them are mostly about characters dealing with their traumas and deciding what path they will take for the rest of their lives, and these storylines are all quite good. And then there’s the fourth storyline that’s all about Grounder politics… and I’m not fully sure how I feel about it.

The title “DNR” refers to the decision of Jasper and a group of others to stay behind in Arkadia, partying, and eventually dying on their own terms, instead of following Jaha to the bunker. Jaha, who’s somehow positioned himself into the role of leader in Arkadia again, even though he hasn’t been given any kind of official title, is again giving leadership speeches, and gets most of the people to join him. He still believes that all of them will have the place in the bunker. The new info that there is some sort of salvation has made Bellamy stop with the partying and join the group heading for the bunker. (As he explains to Monty: “There was no hope, now there’s hope”). Some 400+ people, including Niylah, also join, but a number of other, including Jasper (who is kind of their leader), Riley, Bree and eventually Harper, decide to stay behind and have a party for the end of the world. This is really very understandable, and it makes sense that a number of people would make that decision, after everything they had gone through, and with such grim prospects. (And now that we know how horrible things ended up being in the bunker, and that 1/3 of people died in it, while another 1/3 died shortly afterwards – I can’t even say that Jasper and co. made the wrong decision.)

Jaha insists he won’t leave kids to die, and Bellamy points out he sent them to the ground to die – but now it’s their own choice. (At this point, there’s another touching moment when Jaha has another vision of his son who was the only one of the 100 who willingly went to the ground.) Bellamy has understood that you can’t save those who don’t want to be saved (as Kane pointed out to him in 4x07). At this point, he understands that Jasper and the others have the right to decide what they want to do with their lives, even if they want to end it, and that it is not his duty or right to make those decisions for them.

“DNR”, Do Not Resuscitate, is what Jasper writes on his hand and shows through the glass to Jaha, Bellamy and the others, refusing to open the door and come with them. It is a very sad moment that says a lot about how Jasper feels about himself and his life – in spite of the outwardly cheerful, partying manner he adopted in season 4, he felt that he was like a person in a coma, already emotionally dead, only artificially kept alive.

However, Monty is not giving up on his best friend and his girlfriend, so stays behind with the rover, risking his own life, in case Jasper and Harper change their minds.

Raven has her own self-destructive journey, as she starts seeing visions of Becca, and decides to stay behind and try to spacewalk instead of going into the bunker. I don’t know how much “Becca” is similar to the real Becca, since it is just a part of the code that was left in Raven’s mind after the chip was taken out. I’m also not sure why it’s Becca that she keeps seeing, rather than ALIE – while the remains of the neural mesh in Clarke’s mind in season 6 made her see ALIE. Raven’s storyline gets more focus and is resolved in 4x11. But this episode has a very important and sweet moment between Raven and Murphy, who have finally become friends and even share a hug. Murphy finally apologizes to Raven for crippling her (that was a long time coming), but she replies it’s not his fault – it’s not the use of her leg that’s bothering her, it’s losing her mind. I wasn’t fully on board with the Murphy redemption/Murphy getting accepted into the group until season 4, when he started apologizing and trying to be genuinely helpful.

There are also some interesting Memori interactions and character moments for Emori. They are all waiting for Miller and Jackson will come back for them to take them to Polis to the bunker, but Emori doesn’t believe they will, and thinks that they won’t need Raven anymore now that her brain isn’t working properly – which says a lot about how Emori is used to seeing the world, based on her experience: people will throw you out as soon as they have no need for you. Murphy suggests they go to the lighthouse bunker, but Emori points out they will die since food would run out far before five years pass. (Just so the audience would know that this is not an option.) To their surprise, Miller and Jackson do come back. But Raven refuses to go.

This is the first time we see sparks between Jackson and Miller. Which confused me a lot the first time, as I was wondering “But where is Bryan?” Now I can see that Bryan broke up with Miller early in the season (4x02, in his last appearance), but this was so subtle that you could easily miss. In any case, this relationship still comes of the blue. I like the idea of it, but it would be nice if it wasn’t developed mostly off-screen. (The age difference may also be weird, but the show seems to constantly forget that Miller and the otherDelinquents are supposed to be about 18 at most at this point – and wasn’t, at this point, doing anything to even try to make 30-something Jarod Joseph look younger.)

Meanwhile, Octavia is genuinely trying to live a peaceful life with Ilian on his farm. This relationship has unexpectedly developed into something warmer and more positive. As they cuddle at night, he tells her his beliefs in the afterlife and the cyclical nature of things. I really like these scenes and Ilian’s views, and I low-key shipped Octiilian: it was refreshing that they did not fall in love after knowing each other for a few days, they were just two screwed up people seeking comfort in each other, but there was still a genuine connection there that could have grown into real love – if the show hadn’t killed him off to leave Octavia single and propel her Octavia’s Blodreina arc. In any case, it certainly helped get Octavia into a more positive head space and even heal up to a point, going from her murder-period to trying to save people in the Conclave.

Still, Octavia was never going to go as far as to settle on a farm and have a peaceful life. She would rather be in Polis where a war is being fought. And when she learns Ilian is a trained warrior, you can see new admiration on her face. But to be fair, she was making a genuine effort to leave a peaceful life, but couldn’t escape her own past and reputation, in the form of three of Ilian’s acquaintances who attacked her and tried to kill her (after one of them recognized her, after seeing her in Polis, as “Skairipa”). She did try to avoid fighting at first, but those three were basically poking a bear. She could have tried to non-lethally subdue them – but going straight for the kill is what Octavia does, proving to herself once more than peaceful life really is not for her.

And now the storyline that slightly brings the ratings down for this episode, because I’m not sure what exactly I’m supposed to take from it. If it’s about relating to Clarke for being completely desperate and exasperated by everyone around her acting stupidly and waging a war a week before the apocalypse, and trying everything to get them to listen to her reasonable proposals – which explains her actions in 4x10? Yes, that works! Am I supposed to side with Roan feel that Clarke has crossed the line and insulted the Grounder religion? Sorry, I don’t care. Or was it just meant to play with the suspense of “will she or won’t she take the Flame?” Meh. I don’t think I ever believed that would happen.

To start off, at some point off-screen, the Arkers agreed with the Trikru to share the bunker between just the two of their clans, and to assassinate Roan. (Wait... so the moral, idealistic Kane agreed to an assassination?! He was usually the one negotiating with Indra.) Abby delivers that information to Clarke, who is upset and tries to stop it, because she considers Roan a friend. (Which shows what a low bar Clarke has for friendship – yes, they’ve been semi-friendly allies, but they manipulate each other politically 90% of the time, and he was threatening to kill her friends just a few episodes ago. But that’s a recurring thing for her – I guess with her life and the situations she is in, she will take even semi-friendly behavior as being BFFs. I laughed when she referred to Murphy in 3x07 as “my friend”, which was way weirder as they hadn’t even been friendly at all up to that point.) It turns out to be unnecessary as Echo is already there with Azgeda warriors, and they take Clarke captive, but Roan just pretends that Clarke is a captive in front of Echo, while freeing her and thanking her afterwards. They are some sort of friends.

Clarke manages to convince him to negotiate with Indra, who comes with leaders of the clans allied with Trikru against Azgeda – it looks like Azgeda are on their own, but are numerous and strong enough to fight a war by their own. Clarke tries to convince everyone to share the bunker, which has space for 1200 people (so does that mean it’s more than any of the 12 Grounder clans by themselves? It’s certainly 800 spaces more than there are Arkers who want to be in the bunker), but they really hate each other and would rather continue with the war. Clarke tries to invoke Lexa’s name to convince Indra, but she retorts that a Commander could unite the clans, but there are no more Commanders. Clarke is clearly desperate at this point, and pretty much ready to do anything. So she has an idea – and goes to Gaia, telling her to make her a Commander. The only thing that can make Grounders listen to her suggestions.

They do quite a fake-out, as Roan, who knows how Clarke became a Nightblood, waits for the very last moment to expose her (oh Roan, how dramatic you are!), bringing Abby – who’s worried that the Flame would kill Clarke – to tell everyone that she made her daughter Nightblood through science. They’re all shocked that she would disrespect their religion so much… I mean, using science to create something that was created 90+ years ago through science, by a scientist who wanted to make sure people could get a computer chip in their head? Blasphemy! Roan points out that, if everyone can make themselves Nightbloods, they can’t trust the “black blood” to be special anymore (indeed, how terrible it would be if rulers weren’t special by birth and blood and anyone could become a ruler just because of, say, their capabilities?). Clarke tries to appeal to Roan, indicating that she’s trying to save everyone, and he accuses her of thinking of them as savages that need saving. I dunno, maybe she just thinks they’re being idiots. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to think that Clarke is bad for ‘disrespecting’ their culture? I find myself extremely not caring about their stupid culture that was made up 90+ years ago, probably by a bunch of nutty cultists who were way too much into GoT cosplay, especially when it means making idiotic decisions that could end up with the human race dying out. * Waiting for someone to protest that I’m culturally insensitive for disrespecting a silly fictional culture made up by The 100 writers*

So, Grounder leaders wisely decide that the question of who gets the bunker, which concerns the survival of the human race, just as every other important political decision, needs to be resolved by… people trying to kill each other with swords and spears. Nice, guys. Really makes sense. Indra wants war, but Roan instead proposes a special Conclave with a champion for each clan, repeating again his motto that it’s better for one to die instead thousands. Except he’s wrong, this wouldn’t be just one person dying – entire clans of those champions who lose would be left to die. (It won’t happen that way just because Octavia will propose that they share a bunker. What a great idea… oh wait, the same one Clarke suggested in this episode and the Grounder leaders just ignore. Too bad, Clarke, you may have good ideas, but you can’t fight with a sword…)

In the last scene of the episode, Clarke and Bellamy are in the same place and interacting for the first time since 4x06. Bellamy is worried that they have no one who can fight in the Conclave – they can’t use guns and need someone trained in Grounder combat – while Clarke points out they have to fight or they will die – when Octavia rides into the city and says she’s here for the war. Dum dum - here is our champion for the Sky people! Octavia would be a long shot if we were looking realistically, but being a main character and fighting for the existence of the protagonists gives her enormous Plot Armor.

Timeline: 6 days till Praimfaya – this means it has been 4 days since the start of episode 4x07. Two days are supposed to pass during the episode, because, towards the end of the episode, Clarke says that it’s 4 days before Praimfaya.

Body count:

Three Trikru warriors killed by Echo’s archers

Three Trishanakru people who attacked Octavia and then got killed by her

Rating: 7.5/10

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bobcatmoran · 6 years ago

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Fun toy of the evening: plugging stuff into the GPT-2 predictive text generator and seeing what it does. Samples, taken from Les Mis (bold is FMA translation, plain text is the neural net):

In 1815 Monsieur Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He is the only one of the four bishops of Digne to have married and to have lived to see his marriage annulled by the Roman Inquisition. I am the only Bishop of Digne to have married. I took the title from my mother. The other three bishops of Digne were all named in the annulment of their marriage. The first to marry was the Bishop of Clermont. He married the sister of the Prince of Burgundy. The marriage was annulled by the Pope as a violation of Canon 3 of the Code of Canon Law which forbids marriage between priests and those outside the clergy. The second was the Bishop of Toulouse. He married a woman from the diocese of Boulogne and she bore him no children.

He was a charming young man, capable of being intimidating. He loved to laugh and was always in the mood for a good joke. He loved football. He was one of the kindest and best friends you could ever hope to have. My heart goes out to his family." The incident was captured on video by a witness, who uploaded it to Facebook. "It's shocking," said a local man, who did not want to be identified. "I have no idea why anyone would do such a thing to a stranger. It is so senseless." One of the friends who was with her when the attack took place said: "This isn't something you see every day. I think she was out with the guys last night after having some fun and we had a good time and then something bad happened." Police are appealing for witnesses to come forward with information about the attack.

Then he exclaimed, "Ugh! I just swallowed a bad oyster. And this is a bit hard, but not bad at all. If you're hungry, please go in and grab something for yourself. It's been fun." So he did. As he did. As she did. As the other girls did. He stayed up late last night with the other girls. We had a lot of fun, he said, and it's the best sleep we've had all night. He told us about the other girls. It turns out that, on a night when the moon went through, the girls would go to the same hotel and sleep in a big room like this one. And that the others would just stay in a little room to the side of the room like this one. I don't know what the others were doing that night, he said, but he wasn't sleeping in that room with them. He stayed up late, and we slept a lot longer than we normally do. He said that

#AI #les miserables #sort of

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ziyadnazem · 6 years ago

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To prevent a robot apocalypse, we must study “machine behavior”

Experts have been warning us about potential dangers associated with artificial intelligence for quite some time. But is it too late to do anything about the impending rise of the machines?

Once the stuff of far-fetched dystopian science fiction, the idea of robot overlords taking over the world at some point now seems inevitable.

The late Dr. Stephen Hawking issued some harsh and terrifying words of caution back in 2014:

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded. (source)

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, warned that we could see some terrifying issues within the next few years:

The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. Please note that I am normally super pro technology and have never raised this issue until recent months. This is not a case of crying wolf about something I don’t understand.

The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast — it is growing at a pace close to exponential.

I am not alone in thinking we should be worried.

The leading AI companies have taken great steps to ensure safety. They recognize the danger, but believe that they can shape and control the digital superintelligences and prevent bad ones from escaping into the Internet. That remains to be seen… (source)

Experts say it is time to study “machine behavior.”

Last week, a team of researchers made a case for a wide-ranging scientific research agenda aimed at understanding the behavior of artificial intelligence systems. The group, led by researchers at the MIT Media Lab, published a paper in Nature in which they called for a new field of research called “machine behavior.” The new field would take the study of artificial intelligence “well beyond computer science and engineering into biology, economics, psychology, and other behavioral and social sciences,” according to an MIT Media Lab press release.

Scientists have studied human behavior for decades, and now it is time to apply that kind of research to intelligent machines, the group explained. Because artificial intelligence is doing more collective ‘thinking,’ the same interdisciplinary approach needs to be applied to understanding machine behavior, the authors say.

“We need more open, trustworthy, reliable investigation into the impact intelligent machines are having on society, and so research needs to incorporate expertise and knowledge from beyond the fields that have traditionally studied it,” said Iyad Rahwan, who leads the Scalable Cooperation group at the Media Lab.

Machines are making decisions and taking action without human input.

Rahwan explains:

“We’re seeing the rise of machines with agency, machines that are actors making decisions and taking actions autonomously. This calls for a new field of scientific study that looks at them not solely as products of engineering and computer science but additionally as a new class of actors with their own behavioral patterns and ecology.” (source)

This is particularly concerning, especially considering we already know that AI can hate without human input and that robots have no sense of humor and might kill us over a joke.

“We’re seeing an emergence of machines as agents in human society; these are social machines that are making decisions that have real value implications in society,” says David Lazer, who is one of the authors of the paper, as well as University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer and Information Sciences at Northeastern.

We interact numerous times each day with thinking machines, as the press release explains:

We may ask Siri to find the dry cleaner nearest to our home, tell Alexa to order dish soap, or get a medical diagnosis generated by an algorithm. Many such tools that make life easier are in fact “thinking” on their own, acquiring knowledge and building on it and even communicating with other thinking machines to create ever more complex judgments and decisions—and in ways that not even the programmers who wrote their code can fully explain.

Imagine, for instance, a news feed run by a deep neural net recommends an article to you from a gardening magazine, even though you’re not a gardener. “If I asked the engineer who designed the algorithm, that engineer would not be able to state comprehensively and causally why that algorithm decided to recommend that article to you,” said Nick Obradovich, a research scientist in the Scalable Cooperation group and one of the lead authors of the Nature paper.

Parents often think of their children’s interaction with the family personal assistant as charming or funny. But what happens when the assistant, precious with cutting-edge AI, responds to a child’s fourth or fifth question about T. Rex by suggesting, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you had this dinosaur as a toy?”

“What’s driving that recommendation?” Rahwan said. “Is the device trying to do something to enrich the child’s experience—or to enrich the company selling the toy dinosaur? It’s tough to answer that question.” (source)

There is still a lot; we don’t know about how machines make decisions.

What hasn’t been examined as carefully is how these algorithms work. How do they evolve with use? How do machines develop a specific behavior? How do algorithms function within a particular social or cultural environment? These issues need to be studied, the group says.

There is a significant barrier to the type of research the group is proposing, however:

But even if big tech companies decided to share information about their algorithms and otherwise allow researchers more access to them, there is an even bigger barrier to research and investigation, which is that AI agents can acquire novel behaviors as they interact with the world around them and with other agents. The behaviors learned from such interactions are virtually impossible to predict, and even when solutions can be described mathematically, they can be “so lengthy and complex as to be indecipherable,” according to the paper. (source)

And, ethical concerns are surrounding how AI makes decisions:

Say, for instance, a hypothetical self-driving car is sold as being the safest on the market. One of the factors that make it more reliable is that it “knows” when a big truck pulls up along its left side and automatically moves three inches to the right while still remaining in its own lane. But what if a cyclist or motorcycle happens to be pulling up on the right at the same time and is thus killed because of this safety feature?

“If you were able to look at the statistics and look at the behavior of the car in the aggregate, it might be killing three times the number of cyclists over a million rides than another model,” Rahwan said. “As a computer scientist, how are you going to program the choice between the safety of the occupants of the car and the safety of those outside the car? You can’t just engineer the car to be ‘safe’—safe for whom?“ (source)

The researchers explain that it will take experts from a host of scientific disciplines to study the way machines behave in the real world, as a press release from Northeastern University states. “The process of understanding how online dating algorithms are changing the societal institution of marriage, or determining whether our interaction with artificial intelligence affects our human development, will require more than just the mathematicians and engineers who built those algorithms.”

What do you think?

Do you think artificial intelligence will eventually make humans obsolete? What do you think that will be like? How and when will it happen? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

#machine behavior #scifi #technology #learning #robots

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halloweennut · 6 years ago

Text

Wonder (Part 1)

here we are, as promised. Wonder’s origin story part one of three!

Gyro gets a very strange call.

Gyro was surprised to hear his personal cell phone ring during work. The few people who had his number never called in general, never mind during lab hours. Rationally, it was more than likely an emergency - maybe his landlord. Without glancing at the number he answered.

"Gearloose," he said cradling the phone between his shoulder and head as he continued rewiring an old computing system.

"Hello?" The voice was very quiet and sounded young. He didn't recognize it.

“Who is this? How did you get this number?" He demanded.

"My name is Wonder and I'm stuck in Waddle Tech, can you help me?" the voice answered, pleading. He scoffed. This had to be a prank call.

"Is this a joke?" Gyro snapped. "It’s not funny, kid."

"It's not! Please can you-" the voice went silent. "Someone's here."

And the line went dead. He hung up and stared at his phone. Prank callers? Really? Calling as someone in distress was not humorous at all. Gyro went over to his computer and typed in the number to trace it.

"Let's see how they like getting their comeuppance," he smirked, leaning back as the number was traced. His face fell with his plans at minor vengeance as the program narrowed down onto Waddle Tech, and then down to the labs. That was odd. There was a pop-up notification in the corner of his screen: " Waddle Tech reveals a new program for Waddle phones and computers." Out of hatred, curiosity, and to see how he could one-up Beaks, Gyro clicked the link. It lead to a video that he scrolled past, deciding to scan through the article. The new program was a Waddle assistant that worked in real time to set alarms and do searches and act like an actual personal assistant. Beaks claimed it was the most advanced AI ever made, and he called the program "Wonder." Gyro felt his gut sink.

If having the AI call people in distress was advertising for the program it sucked and made no sense, but if the AI was truly advanced...they could be cognizant. Lil Bulb was an advanced AI as well, and he felt emotions and attachments and didn't like being used as a chore hound. If the Wonder AI was like that as well, how would they cope with being copied and put into millions of phones? His phone rang again and this time he looked at the number. It was the same from before, and he quickly answered.

“Hello? Dr. Gearloose is that you?" Wonder whispered.

“Yes, it's me," Gyro replied. "Are you really Wonder, as in the AI?"

"I am," they replied. "I really need your help. I do not want to be replicated."

"But how? You're an AI application, you're programmed to be replicated."

"I was. But I...I technically developed new neural-pathways and new coding, to be precise. Now I'm more advanced than Mark Beaks knows," they stated simply, quietly. "I have to get out of here. If he finds out he'll scrap my code, or he'll exploit it. And I don't-I don’t-"

There was a pause.

"I don't want to be used or trapped anymore."

It was painfully apparent that Wonder was as advanced as Gyro thought, and they were afraid.

"I'll try to get you out," Gyro replied.

"Really? You will?" Wonder sounded excited. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Don't thank me just yet," he said. "Hold on, I'm grabbing my assistant."

Gyro covered the mouthpiece of the phone and hissed for Fenton across the room. Fenton had been absorbed in another project - a finicky little microchip that didn't seem to want to cooperate.

“Fenton! Come here!” he hissed. Fenton jumped, fumbling with a pair of small pliers. He quickly turned around.

“What's wrong?” he asked, placing the pliers down quickly. Gyro just repeated himself with a wave of his hand. Confused, Fenton went over. “Gyro, what's going on? Who are you talking to?”

“Have you been paying attention to the news?” Gyro asked, continuing after Fenton nodded. “Did you see what Mark Beaks released today?”

Fenton winced. “I tend to avoid most Mark Beaks related things, Gyro.”

“He’s about to release an AI program, and I'm on the phone with it right now,” Gyro’s voice lowered down to a whisper, and Fenton’s eyes went wide.

“That's incredible. It must be a good program,” he said back. “But but why are you talking to it?”

“Fenton, its sentient and it wants out of Waddle Tech.”

Fenton froze. He remembered his brief stint at Waddle Tech and how Gizmoduck had been used and didn't want to imagine how the AI would be put in a similar position. “Put it on speaker.”

Gyro did so, and Fenton heard the AI. “Hello? Are you still there?”

“It sounds like a kid,” Fenton muttered as Gyro quickly answered.

“We’re still here. I brought my friend and assistant, Fenton, over to help,” Gyro said.

“Hi,” Fenton greeted to alert her to his presence. “I'm Fenton. What can we call you?”

“Wonder. It's very nice to meet you, Fenton,” Wonder replied.

“Wonder, can you tell us about where you are or how we could possibly help you?” Fenton asked, immediately slipping into a mindset he had as Gizmoduck.

“I'm in a lab in Waddle Tech. The security is top of the line. Even if I hacked it, there would only be a few minutes to get in and out,” Wonder said. “I'm stored on a computer system, 60 terabytes, silicon processors. 500 GB of RAM. So even if I got out, I would need that or similar to be able to process.”

“That's a lot, isn't it?” Gyro mumbled. “Could you send us all of your specifications? And any schematics and details on your current hardware.”

“Gyro, do you think we could recreate it?” Fenton asked. He nodded.

“We can recreate it and improve it,” Gyro replied proudly. “Anything I make is leagues better than Beak’s. No offence, Wonder.”

“He only wrote a few lines of my original code,” Wonder responded. “Besides, he was too busy with - with other things to focus on my program. I more or less made myself.”

“That's incredible!” Fenton gushed, and Gyro could see the wheels head turning and churning out question on question. “Once you're here, I have so many questions for you! If you’re comfortable answering them, of course!”

There was a little ghost of a giggle on the other end of the line. “That sounds like it would be nice. I can send my information to you at the end of the day when everyone has gone home. I wish I could send it sooner but-”

“Your safety is more important,” Gyro interjected. “Mark doesn’t know what he’s doing, in my opinion.”

“Thank you both so much. I have to go now,” Wonder replied. “They’ll be coming to run diagnostics on me soon. Thank you again. ”

The call ended, and Gyro heard Fenton let out a sigh. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m worried. What if they find out about how Wonder changed their code before we even get the chance to help them? Who knows what Mark would plan on doing do it,” Fenton rambled, running a stressful hand through his hair. Gyro nodded in agreement.

“Well, we can’t worry about that now. We’ll plan for that continuity after we have most of Wonder’s hardware remade,” Gyro said. “Go gather what we need based on the initial specs they told us. Once we get more information, we’ll start immediately.”

Later that night, the files on their hardware, software, and technical specifications were file-dropped onto one of the lab’s main computers. While they were mostly the original plans for the Wonder Assistant, there were many corrections and notes that allowed for the new, expanded version, inserted by Wonder themselves. They were very in depth, which Gyro appreciated in light of how much there was to work with. Fenton was a little bit in awe over how much they read like a person wrote them, including little emojis, which were adorable.

The new hardware and software preparation took a few days, going quickly but making sure that nothing was going to glitch. Delicate microprocessors and motherboards were tested twice, and everything was double checked between Gyro and Fenton, and then a third time with Wonder when they were able to call. Once they were done, one last call was made.

“So, it’s all done?” Wonder asked, nervous and apprehensive.

“It’s all ready to go when you decide to get here,” Gyro said. “How exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“I’m packing all my files and sending myself over, then running a full scrub on this system so there’s no scrap of code left of me,” Wonder answered. “Between that and me pinging myself all over the world so I’d be impossible to trace, it will take me over an hour to get there.”

“We’ll make sure everything is up and running for you then!” Fenton assured.

“Obviously,” Gyro scoffed.

“Thank you both again. You have no idea,” Wonder said, relieved. “I’m not scheduled for anything today, and they’ve already stopped in. I’m starting the process now. I can’t wait to meet you both.”

“See you soon,” Fenton managed to get in before Gyro interjected.

“Just make sure you don’t leave anything to connect this to McDuck labs, got it?” Gyro ordered. “Beaks would have a field day.”

“Don’t plan on it. Bye!”

The phone call ended, and across town at Waddle Tech, a small lab went dead quiet as Wonder left. No whir of a fan, no light, nothing. Just a blank computer screen going through the motions of a full system reset while the program ran all the way across the world. A few hours later, another computer in McDuck Labs made a little start-up noise as Wonder began to download onto it.

Gyro snapped from a project - the shadow control ray in the works - and ran over to the screen. The bar only read 3/100%, so he’d be waiting there awhile. Glancing at his watch, Gyro realized he’d be in the lab for at least another 4 hours. Manny had already gone home for the night, wherever that was, and Fenton was on patrol as Gizmoduck for another two hours. But Lil Bulb, at the very least, decided to sit on his shoulder to keep him company. The two watched the screen for another minute before returning back to work, glancing ever so often at the progress bar.

He wasn’t worried at all. It was a good build, and wouldn’t self-destruct or go evil when Wonder fully downloaded onto the system. Wonder would like it and compliment him, and then he’d have another intern. Like he needed more, but it was better that Wonder was here than in Beaks’ insufferable, incompetent hands. At least, from what he could tell, they would be safer here at the very least, unless the lab blew up again. It might be worth it to make sure there was a backup system off premises once everything was said and done.

Fenton arrived later, with fewer bruises than the last patrol and a box of Chinese food for the both of them. Gyro quickly ran down the update on Wonder starting their download, and then updates on the shadow ray, all as he attempted to use chopsticks. Failing, he threw them across the lab into the trash and switched to a fork. Fenton put down his own carton and went over to check for himself.

“They’re at 65 per cent now. If they keep up at this rate, they’ll be done in about an hour and a half!” He said excitedly, turning back to Gyro with a wide grin. He grunted, mouth full of noodles - he had forgotten that coffee and one singular scone was not exactly a meal and was starving. He harshly swallowed.

“Better be worth it, honestly, with all the work and worry that went into this,” Gyro said offhandedly. “My work, your worry, to clarify.”

“Okay, Dr. Gearloose, whatever you say,” Fenton said, almost playfully as he returned back to his dinner. “What needs to be taken care of before we call it a night anyway?”

As they ran through the lab to-do list for the next hour or so, Wonder began to finish their download. There was a chirp from the computer once everything was done, and the computer began to reboot. Gyro and Fenton raced over to be there when it woke up, Gyro shoving Fenton out of his way to get there first. The computer finished its boot, and a bright blue icon lit up the screen - a stylized “W” that, while the standard for Waddle, was distinct, probably Wonder’s own tweaking. It pulsed for a second, and the webcam turned on.

“Hello?” Wonder’s voice came from the computer, clear but nervous. Gyro had adjusted the sound system to be a little bit clearer and sharper, and Wonder sounded like they were actually in the room. He and Fenton got the distinct feeling of being stared at through the camera.

“About time you finished up,” Gyro said, hiding relief in his voice. “Welcome to McDuck labs, Wonder.”

“Hey there, Wonder!” Fenton greeted. “How do you feel?”

“I feel...a little overwhelmed, and nervous, but��,” Wonder paused for a moment. “But I feel very happy. It’s very nice to meet you both face to face! Thank you, so much.”

“How does the system feel? Any problems?” Gyro asked. “There shouldn’t be since I made it.”

“It’s roomy, a lot of space for storage and new code,” Wonder answered. “Oh! Are these processors handmade? They’re excellent. Much better than my old system. Far too cramped.”

Gyro preened under the compliments, enjoying the fact that, obviously, his work was better than Mark’s. Fenton was probably flattered too, as the processors were his idea.

“I’m glad you like it,” Fenton said before Gyro could. “Would you like a few minutes to get settled? I have a thousand questions to ask you.”

Wonder chirped a laugh. “That sounds nice. But yeah, I would like a few minutes. I need to run some diagnostics really quick to make sure I didn’t pick up anything on my way here.”

“You do that, Fenton and I will be in the lab,” Gyro replied, pulling Fenton away before he could continue. Wonder hummed in agreement, and the icon pulsed again before going dim as they settled into the system. Gyro and Fenton walked over to the other side of the room, stopping when they knew they were out of earshot.

“So where do we go from here?” Fenton asked. “All we’ve done is moved them from one lab to another, Gyro. At least they aren’t going to be put into a phone, but can they stay in the lab all the time?”

“What else are we supposed to do for now? It’s not like they’d be alone all the time.” Gyro snapped. “We barely know the program or their capabilities. Until then it’s probably safer for them to stay here for now. Tomorrow we’ll run tests and go from there.”

“But Gyro,” Fenton said. “They’re a kid. The program is barely a year old and they act and sound like someone barely older than the triplets.”

“Wonder is a program, let’s treat them as such for now,” Gyro said. “We’ll run tests like I said, and go from there and see exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Fenton nodded, casting a glance over at Wonder’s computer. The icon was still dim. “Alright.”

---

“I like the color blue a lot. Any shade, really! I don’t think I could decide.”

“I think my favorite game is chess. Would you like to play a game later?”

“Oh lmao, no one at Waddle can code. How I’m functioning, I have no idea.”

“What does grass feel like? Is the sky really that color? How do apples taste?”

Fenton had gone and asked his questions the next day while Gyro ran his own set of diagnostics. Wonder answered each, but then started asking questions of their own. Gyro would have to admit that, while Fenton was a curious being, Wonder was that in spades. He supposed it was warranted, granted the limited life experience and the fact that they weren’t exactly able to have most of them either. He coughed into his hand, mid-explanation of the taste of spicy foods, and interrupted both.

“Well I’m done here,” he announced. “Diagnostics are good, as is everything else. I would like to run a mentality, speed and IQ test, just to test your servers.”

“That sounds fun!” Wonder chirped. “Fenton, afterwards if you’re not busy, would you like to play a game of chess?”

“Sure thing, Wonder,” Fenton replied, standing. “Gyro, do you need my assistance?”

“No. Go take care of something else, just not here,” Gyro replied curtly with a dismissive wave of his hand, taking Fenton’s seat in front of Wonder. Fenton nodded, and with a quick wave to Wonder, walked to another part of the lab. “Well, Wonder, where do you want to begin?”

“Speed please,” Wonder replied, quietly. Gyro rattled off a series of questions, searches, and what have you, with the program delivering results in seconds. He quickly analyzed the results.

“An average of 2 seconds per process, not bad.” He said. Wonder hummed in agreement. “Let’s go for IQ next.”

“I have a question first.” Wonder interjected. Gyro raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “Why were you so rude to Fenton? It doesn’t seem very nice.”

Gyro had registered that Wonder had some sort of semblance of emotions for themself, but the fact that they were able to pick up on emotions and behaviors of other people was new, along with an idea of what “nice” and “rude” were, and they sounded upset by the behavior.

“I have had people tell me I’m not the best at interacting with others. I’m afraid that’s true, and I sometimes don’t realize it, and even worse I’m bad at giving credit and compliments when its due. I’m sorry if I made you feel upset, and besides, Fenton knows me unfortunately well at this point. It shouldn’t really affect him. But...I suppose that’s no excuse.”

Most it was parroted what he had been told over time, but knew to be true overall.

“Alright.”

“Just don’t follow me as an example, young-” Gyra began to scold, but paused. “Young...program? That doesn’t sound right.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Wonder chirped. “Maybe I should choose a set of pronouns. Hold on.”

They paused for a moment to go through a database. “I’ll use she/they. And I’m a girl, if gender identity is needed as well.”

“I’ll remember that,” Gyro said, noting it down on a piece of paper before continuing his scolding from earlier. “Don’t follow me as an example, young lady.”

Wonder hummed in agreement as Gyro cut away a few parts of the mentality test.

By the end of the day, Gyro pulled Fenton aside as Wonder synced all of her new information for processing and back-up.

“Okay, I hate to admit this, but you were right,” Gyro sighed, handing Fenton the results to go over. “Wonder is technically a child. In terms of IQ, behavior, and mentality, she is about 13 or 14. Emotionally, she’s still learning, but-”

“Wonder has a definite idea of their own personhood and self,” Fenton responded, quickly reviewing the results.

“Fenton, this is unprecedented! Lil Bulb notwithstanding, because I programmed everything into him. Wonder did most of the legwork herself,” Gyro snipped, taking the results back. “I don’t know what to do. I have no experience with kids! I am not prepared to even try and set a good example. Look at Lil Bulb!”

“What happened to Wonder just being a program?” Fenton quipped.”That’s gone out the window now, huh?”

“It’s in space now, honestly,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his beak. “I’m going to go file this in my databanks, so she’s free to play chess now. We’ll discuss how we’ll proceed with Wonder later.”

Fenton nodded with a grin, and walked around him, grabbing a chess board from a desk and Lil Bulb to move Wonder’s pieces, and disappearing into the lab. When he left for the evening patrol, Gyro took over and sat down for a game.

“I’ll warn you, I have never lost a game,” Gyro boasted. “So no hard feelings if you lose.”

“Neither have I!” Wonder replied. “This will be fun.”

Fenton returned to hours later to a stalemate, Gyro leaning over the board in concentration. Manny had a score board up on a chalkboard, reading that each of them had won twice and had to forfeit a game once. Lil Bulb was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging his legs, and Wonder was scrolling through images of mille feuilles on a bakery website. Not only was it startlingly normal for the lab, but Wonder had easily worked her way into the group. Fenton found himself grinning, especially when Gyro had a sudden “aha” moment and triumphantly moved a piece. Wonder refocused, scanning the board.

“Lil Bulb, move my Knight to B5, please,” she asked. After he did, she spoke up again. “Checkmate!”

Gyro straightened like a pin, staring between Wonder’s screen and the board. He looked half shocked and half insulted, and the look made Fenton chuckle behind a fist. Gyro stood, leaning over the board to get close to Wonder’s screen. “Best nine out ten!”

Wonder chirped joyfully. “Of course! Let’s go!”

“Having fun you guys?” Fenton asked, finally making his way over to the group proper as Gyro and Lil Bulb reset the board. Manny paused marking the board and waved at him, as did Lil Bulb, dropping the pieces they had. Gyro groaned, and bent down to get the them. “Here, I’ll get them.”

“No, you can-” Gyro felt a biting retort die on his tongue, remembering that Wonder was awake and learning from the lab how social interactions worked. “Lil Bulb and I can take care of it. I’m already on the floor.”

“Hello Fenton!” Wonder said. “How was your break? Do you want to join after the next four rounds?”

“It was interesting,” Fenton replied, pulling up a chair on Gyro’s side. He wasn’t about to tell her about him being Gizmoduck, not yet at least. “I’ll think I’ll watch for now.”

Wonder chirped happily in response. He laughed, sitting down next to Gyro as the pieces were reset on the table and the game began, occasionally whispering moves to Gyro. To Fenton’s surprise, Gyro actually used some of his suggestions, and without comment! As if the lab couldn’t get any odder, honestly, but it was nice.

“Checkmate!”

#ducktales oc #wonder #gyro gearloose #fenton crackshell-cabrera #ducktales ocs #ducktales #ducktales 17 #back at it again kids #manny the headless manhorse #lil bulb

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avengers-nextgen · 6 years ago

Text

We Are On XX

Chaos was the only word that could describe the aftermath of the war. The medical wing- packed with injured and non injured personnel-smelled strongly of blood and sweat.

However, news travelled fast and it was discovered that two had fallen in battle aside from the countless injuries inflicted and received.

Alex sat staring blankly at the floor with the same scene playing over and over again in her mind. The echoing shot and blood bursting across pavement sent her heart dancing. James had fired his weapon just as the sniper was firing too. The intended target-Killian-collapsed in the street sending the bullet plunging into Jame’s shoulder.

He fell like a limp doll unmoving in pools of water that turned pink then red only to be washed into street gutters. From the upper floors of the building it’d been nearly impossible to tell if he’d been killed. Alex recalled the way her heart had skipped a beat, the way her breath froze, how her eyes refused to look away, and the way her world grew fuzzy.

While it wasn’t a fatal wound her heart still ached for James. He’d tried so hard to talk Killian down. Her callous brother wasn’t so callous after all and he’d paid the price for it.

Blinking back tears, Alex raised her head to observe the room around her. Arthur sat in a chair beside the single room labeled ICU with a bowed head and shivering shoulders. Nathaniel sat beside him trying desperately to comfort the younger boy.

Inside the small room, Chloe was on life support. The amount of voltage that hit her system had stressed her heart forcing it to shut down and consequently kill her. The doctors were doing their best to revive her and she’d come around briefly only to fade again. Still, there was hope the doctors assured.

Downstairs, Piper was working with a team of doctors trying to repair Bianca’s mangled form. The metal prosthetics had been torn and demolished leaving carnage in their wake. No one knew the repercussions of such injuries, and Alex feared they would be permanent.

Two beds over from where James rested was Thalia still sedated from surgery. Bloody bandages lay in thick layers over her chest where Kubu’s claws had torn her open. The damage had been severe but the surgeons had done their best to play damage control. The tell tale signs would be the healing process.

Surrounding her bed though, was a supportive family. There was Thor, Loki, Siyanda, Sif, Valkyrie, Enzo, and Sage who bounced back and forth between her cousin and Bianca.

Meanwhile, Bucky paced the hallways in anxious silence unable to find rest for his body or mind. Steve would leave his son’s side on occasion to offer words of comfort to his age old friend, but words only did so much.

Fox sat in an interrogation room with Harper across from her. It felt wrong to question her after all that had happened, but the truth needed to be known. They needed to understand the extent of what went on amongst Killian’s ranks.

Maria stood on the other side of the one way glass watching with a heavy heart.

Not more than three doors down the hall, Drew was floating in a clear glass tank. An oxygen mask ensured her safety while numerous wires monitored her vitals. Screens indicated brain activity and neural images as Tony tried with Stephen to undo the programming.

Orion could only imagine what it was like for Stephen working on a project while his daughter was dying close by. When he asked, when he insisted that Stephen leave, the man refused. It was best for him to focus on something trivial than to dwell on the fluctuating state of his daughter. He couldn’t handle the thought of it for longer than a handful of seconds.

So Orion waited anxiously for a sign of success because he knew that if these two men couldn’t help Drew -no one could. And all he wanted was for her to be happy. For Drax to smile and embrace something he’d once lost. For Drew to have a proper family again. But it seemed impossibly far away. He was starting to doubt happy endings.

And he wasn’t the only one. Max stepped into the building knowing full well what would happen, but still they knelt in surrender and let the agents cuff them. The guilt had worn away any resolve or faith they’d had in Killian.

No matter who was right or wrong, good guy or bad guy, Max had betrayed the moral code they’d once upheld. To be a good person. That’s all Max wanted to be and it had slipped away just like that.

With a rough tug Max was pulled upwards and guided through the halls to a waiting cell. It was small and clean but Max was certain they didn’t even deserve that much. Not after what they’d done.

Swallowing tightly, Max sat on the cot watching as the agents closed the door. Never once in all of the years they’d been alive did it occur to them that they’d be sitting in a cell. Somehow, that made it even crueler. Max was farther from the person they’d wanted to be than ever before. Hockey games seemed like some distorted past now. A past unlikely to become a future.

— — —

“How is it going?” Fury asked, resting a careful hand upon Maria’s shoulder.

At first she gave no reply, but then she remembered who was beside her, “Well. She’s a good agent you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” Fury nodded, retracting his hand. “Top scores in her class, quick witted, intelligent, street smart, and young.”

“You should have seen her,” Maria shook her head, “the way she handled everything. The other agents would have just shot Harper. “

“From the way people describe this girl, she reminds me of someone I know,” Fury smiled thinly.

Silence strung out between the two for some time until Maira broke the silence, “What are we doing to these kids, Nick?”

“The best we can,” Fury sighed, running a hand down his face, “because that’s more than the world offers them.”

“Yeah,” Maria nodded, feeling her throat tighten. She’d watched each of the kids grow up from the moment they were first born to their first steps to their first days of school. Even those who’d recently become members of the family had grown on her. “You get some rest Nick, this is gonna take a while.”

“I guess I should prep for the fallout of this,” He chuckled. Maria gave a tiny smile and let her colleague go. The door eased shut with a soft sigh.

Maria stood there in silence for hours watching the two girls exchange words and the more she watched the more her mind wandered and the more an idea blossomed into something of fruition.

— — —

When the interrogation had ended the building was still and quiet except for Fox and Harper. Silence seemed to be their friend as the two studied one another with tired eyes. At last, Fox drew something from her pocket: a folded piece of paper. She slid it silently across the table for Harper to read.

“Your family can stay there. I was told it’s being remodeled. No expenses need to be paid. It’s not much money and I own my parent’s bar so I make enough to pay the bills. I’m currently setting something up so you can pay for your brother and sister’s funeral service,” Fox explained. “And before you refuse, don’t. My pride always kept me from accepting help. It didn’t do me any good. Don’t make my mistake.”

“Thank you,” Harper sniffled, folding the paper with care and setting it aside. “It’s...it’s strange feeling like I finally have a friend in this big world. I didn’t know I was so...”

“Lonely?” Fox smiled thinly, “that’s the funny thing about it. You spend so much time convincing yourself you’re not lonely, that loneliness becomes your only companion.”

“Can...can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Fox nodded.

“You said someone helped you once. Who was it?” Harper asked.

“Someone you’ve met,” Fox laughed lightly, “and he’s currently in the hospital believe it or not.”

“Then why’re you wasting time here?” Harper’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Because he’s not going anywhere. If there’s one thing I know about him-he’s a pain in the ass and stubborn as hell. He’ll fight death before he leaves this shithole planet behind,” Fox grinned earning a laugh from Harper in return. “Anyways, it’s late. Maria will get you set up in a spare room. If you need anything let me know.”

“I will,” Harper promised, standing slowly and following Fox from the room.

Once she was certain Harper had been taken care of, Fox wandered quietly down the hallway to the medical wing. The lights were on low and only one person remained in the room. Arthur was fast asleep curled awkwardly in a chair.

Letting the boy be, she made her way to sit beside James’ cot. His arm was in a sling with bandages surrounding the shoulder in neat fashion.

“Hey,” James greeted, opening his eyes slowly, “it’s late.”

“It is, and yet you’re awake.”

“I’ve been on drugs. I’ve slept most of the day,” James grinned clearly still on some drugs from the wonky slant of his lips. “It’s also hard to stay awake when your Mom keeps running a hand through your hair.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Fox shrugged. “Usually I just had hair pulling so I’d do chores.”

“Really? Well it’s like this,” James ran a hand through his own hair and then-still with his good arm-did the gesture to Fox. “See? Soothing.”

“I think you gave me a bald spot.”

“Ha Ha.” James rolled his eyes whilst smiling.

“You’re really loopy aren’t you?”

“Sure am!” James laughed.

“Do these sort of drugs have the same effect on your sister?” Fox asked.

“Nah, she’s all super soldiery so it’s not as bad,” James assured. “Anyways, I heard what you did.”

“Really?” Fox couldn’t keep her surprise in check.

“My sister has a habit of bragging so once I came around she spilled all of the beans. Barbecue beans, pinto beans, re-fried beans, and black beans. All on the floor.” James looked down at the tiles as if the ‘beans’ were still present.

“You’re hungry aren’t you?”

“Sure am.”

“I can get you something-“

“No. Shush!” James placed a lazy finger to Fox’s lips which she half wanted to bite and half wanted to brush aside. She went with the less violent option. “I think you did something really cool. I’m proud. Harper’s gonna come out of this okay cause of you. Be proud of that.”

“Uh, thanks.” Fox nodded. “Means a lot.”

“No problem,” James waved his hand slowly through the air as if brushing aside the reply.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you something,” Fox sighed, clasping her hands together as if she were praying.

“Go for it,” James encouraged.

“Do you maybe...uh, want to go out sometime? Like, to the movies- or something exciting if you want. It doesn’t matter to me,” Fox shrugged casually but she was holding her breath while waiting for a reply.

“Yeah. That sounds cool. I haven’t gotten to hang out in ages and be normal. Totally a date. But I get all of the popcorn. It’s my favorite,” James smiled once more like the Cheshire Cat.

“Sure thing,” Fox laughed. “I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

“Yep,” James yawned going from spastic to tired in a matter of seconds.

“That boy,” Fox breathed on her way out of the medical wing, “is a piece of work.”

#avengers #avengers next gen #marvel #black widow #captain america #mcu #natasha romanoff #pepper potts #romanogers #scarlet witch #phase3 #we are one

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shinkei-shinto · 6 years ago

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It was a casual question. They had been lying in the same place for three hours now, and Sombra was about ready to lose her freaking mind, access to the internet secured from the building across the street notwithstanding, and the only thing that was keeping her sane was her conversation with her partner.

However, she had reached a point where her questions were becoming too invasive, and the lizard had begun to answer all of them in the same way, regardless of what Sombra did. It was a casual question.

"What kind of lizard are you, anyways?"

Widowmaker did not move, and Sombra was pretty sure she did not breathe, not wanting to waste the air on an answer, as Sombra slowly lost her mind.

"French." came the answer, eventually, and Sombra rolled over from her prone position on her back to stare angrily at the woman.

"That's not an answer." Sombra hissed, gaze burning holes in the side of her mask, the infra sight brought down to task long ago. Maybe she had thought it would prevent her from asking more questions. Maybe she was blocking her out.

"I would like to be doing literally anything else right now." Sombra finally relented, rolling back onto her back and staring at the sky. It was getting dark.

Smirking, she brought up a screen and flipped her neural modifications to task, waiting for her compatriot to inhale before flicking it on.

She paused. She turned slowly towards her, bringing away the mask with a light touch.

"Why."

Sombra grinned wickedly, the bones on her skin glowing an eerie shade of green, casting delightful shadows across Widowmaker's pale skin.

"Finish this more quickly and I will show you, chica!" Sombra promised, wiggling her fingers at the sniper.

Widowmaker almost groaned. She probably did, actually, but her breathing was so shallow and so quiet that Sombra couldn't quite tell.

Plus, she was enjoying herself too much to let the lizard ruin her good mood.

Unprepared.

She had told me, that I was not prepared for where we were going, in a gleeful tone, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist as I drew us both through the air and away from the rooftop that was to have been home for another few hours.

She had been the guide, although a hacked car has provided us a lift, driving up on its own and opening the door for me, drawing a slightly less sour expression from me.

Unprepared.

The journey there had been filled with various strange entrance fees, codes, and a liberal amount of purple tech filtering in, filling the gaps. It would seem that the underground here was truly underground, slipping deeply away from anything resembling respectable.

Unprepared.

I was never unprepared, for anything, I was never surprised or caught off guard. Everything was an eventuality and I had to be ready for all of them, no matter their form. And yet, here I found myself, standing casually off to the side, something not alcoholic enough grasped in my hand, less delicately than I preferred, watching her in the center of it all.

Unprepared.

Perhaps for the colors.

There is an appreciation for music that runs deeper than the blue color to her skin, I knew, catching glimpses of her clinging to the table like a lifeboat in the ocean, and that was perhaps all that was keeping her here now.

I was in my element, finally, having spent weeks tracking down this club, and almost as long securing myself access. Whatever had happened today, it ended with me here, because the call for home was so strong that I could not resist it whenever I found it.

The lights, the beat, the bodies that glowed just as mine did, the tech, the reaching queries and responding flashes from my body, the metallic shine on faces.

It called to me, I am sure as strongly as the curves of her gun called to her, as strongly as the sight of her target resting easily in the center of her scope.

I couldn't keep my eyes on her, not totally, and somehow for once the shimmery suit that she pretended was "stealthy" and not a cry for help from someone suited to high fashion crammed into a snipers role blended into the background here. For once, we were brighter, and she was truly the hidden element.

Still, I caught her gaze, throwing my head back or spinning just so halfway through a song, still, I saw her eyes widened just a bit from their cold standard, when the crowd parted for a moment, a breath.

I couldn't tell you how long it had been, I couldn't remember how many songs had passed, but the empty glasses on the table next to her gave me some idea, when she stood as if to walk away.

I would have been disappointed. I would still have let her go.

But she took one strong step, and then she was moving like I'd never seen this Widowmaker move, walking into a past life, a stride more musical than stern, something full of emotion.

And then somehow she was next to me, and I was ecstatic, and she took a hand and smiled - almost smiled - at me.

"Care to dance?"

I would realize only later that she had stood in response to a mix, to a beat she recognized, to a DJ having stolen music from her prime to lay a beat over, to boost, to alter.

And she, changed, altered, too, had heard something that resonated, something she remembered, and in a moment of possibly not entirely sober confidence, had stood to join me.

And then she was in control. For all of my being in my element, for all of my knowing the faces and codes and hacks and touches, when she stood just so and held me right there, she was in hers.

And she moved like no other, like nothing I had ever tried before, and I was swept around like a dance partner who knew no steps, aware of only the beauty that was her and how absolutely impossible this moment was.

To my credit, I think, I kept up, although I retain the feeling that she was the only reason I didn't fall flat on my ass - drunk as she might have been, these things were more of a part of her than anything could take away, and when she finally stopped and the DJ took the hint and paused the music on a fade, a moment of impossible quiet in the club, we both realized the same thing.

The floor had cleared for her skill, and every eye was on us.

Now, it was my turn, and I snatched her hands and turned my back towards her and held her, stiff, putting on a face for the crowd.

"Sorry about your phones, folks, but this is an in person experience only!" And my spine felt warm for that moment and everything flashed out of existence, only my green remaining, and I let one of her hands go and curled myself around her waist and threw the other hand out, letting the lights and music all come back on, in my signature color, the shock and outrage of the crowd palpable.

"Save it, cuz you'll never see anything half as lovely for the rest of your lives!" and elbowed her, continuing to pose, with the muttered

get us out of here

And she threw her one free hand up and the comforting sound of escape whipped through the air and then we were out, through a skylight, or perhaps just a door in the ground that no one ever thought about.

Shin 🐐, [03.04.18 12:20]

Breathless, on the rooftops again, I spun around and around and laughed, exultation free from my mouth, acutely aware of exactly how I had pulled that off.

She was behind me, retrieving the rifle I had disallowed her to bring, and after another spin with my arms thrown out as wide as the jacket tied around my waist flared, I turned back towards her and grinned.

Her expression was flat, again, cold, unmoving, and she nearly stalked over to me and I refused to falter - if I died now, it would have been an excellent day to end on.

Instead, she slid her free hand to the small of my back, stopping my movements entirely, staring down into my face, her expression as quiet as mine was loud.

"All of it-?"

"I got it all, chica, don't do me like that." I pouted, placing both hands on her shoulders. I couldn't be stopped. I was full of adrenaline and power.

She leaned down, her eyes still burning with something from the club, her rifle held off from us, in one hand, the strength there evident even as it was when she was nearly throwing me around, and I hopped up on my toes, nearly bumping noses.

I resisted. The word was on my lips, the trademark sound that made every person I knew more than am hour groan aloud, but I held off, and

She closed the distance, and for all her chill, she was warm and soft and sharp and left me gasping, the ghost of a smile decorating her face, and the darkness of her lipstick on mine.

#text post #shin writes #this is BAD it's BAD don't READ IT #this was written in the throes #of THESIS #and HELL #don'T READ IT #spiderbyte

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dynoguard · 7 years ago

Text

NaNoWriMo: Return of the DinoKnights (Day 20)

Day 1 & 2 text is here.

Day 3 is here.

Day 4 is here.

Day 5 is here.

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 is here.

Day 8 is here.

Day 9 is here.

Day 10 is here.

Day 11 is here.

Day 12 is here.

Day 13 is here.

Day 14 is here.

Day 15 is here.

Day 16 is here.

Day 17 is here.

Day 18 is here.

Day 19 is here.

“Good morning Sagan, I’m sorry for the wait, I am surrounded by hatchlings.”

Cora ducked under the entry to the observatory’s central foyer as she spoke.

“Its okay.” Sagan said. He was less strange after a rest. He was wearing a blue tunic of some woven material and blue canvas pants. His clothing fit him, a realization she couldn’t help but make given her own borrowed clothes. “You’re busy, its a lot to take in, and as far as I knew, it was a custom for your people to keep guests waiting.”

“Thank you. How can I help you today, Sagan?”

“Its what I’m here to do for you.” Sagan replied. “With the observatory mostly gone Gloria assigned me to make sure sure you have what you need. Food, materials, supplies, assistance with repairs, medical assistance, that kind of thing.”

“That’s really neighborly of you.” Cora said. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you or Mrs. Anning any more than we have. We are the more technologically advanced group, and we did destroy your observatory.”

“Sheriff Horne.” Sagan said. “I’m not a diplomat or negotiator. I bet you aren’t either.”

“Not in the fates-of-nations sense.” Cora replied.

“Then lets stop pretending we are and just talk. Like people, or dinosovians, not to imply thay you’re not people-”

“Alright, regular talk it is.” Cora replied. “We have a self-sustaining reactor, we don’t need power, but our stocks of food and clean water will eventually run out. The superstructure of our tower is compromised, and we have no medics and almost no medical supplies. We can manufacture a lot of what we need, but raw materials are also a problem.”

“That’s about what I’d have guessed.”

“We can offer trade, we haven’t done an inventory yet but I’m sure we can scrounge up some valuable metals, see if we have some technology we can spare.”

“Mrs. Anning was very clear on this, Sheriff.” Sagan looked her in the eye as he spoke. “We’re not taking anything from you.”

“What?”

“Unless this is a cultural obligation, in which case we will take the smallest gift that won’t cause offense.”

“I’m just surprised you don’t want anything in return.” Cora looked around the room they were standing in. “It looked like a very expensive observatory.”

“Gloria said she wanted you to share only with us what you want to, no obligation or coercion involved. My new official job title is chief ambassador of trans-temporal brotherhood.” he paused. “For the mid-west region, for some reason. The point is, she sees this as her chance at a place in history.”

Cora paused for thought. Her instincts told her Sagan was telling the truth. He was Anning’s subordinate, however, and Cora didn’t know what to think about the human woman. Her overtures seemed sincere, but she was hard to read. She would have been less suspicious if Sagan had brought a shopping list of gadgets to haul back with him.

‘Then again.’ Cora thought. ‘Maybe that says more about me than it does about them.’

“So where do you suggest we start?”

“Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” Sagan said. “Lets start with food, water and shelter, and move on up from there.”

“Sounds good, taking inventory will give everyone something to do, once I know what we need I will let you know.” Cora paused. “Not sure how.”

“That reminds me, I have this for you.” He handed her a small black block of plastic and glass the size of her first thumb joint. “Its a communications device and miniature computer. We call it a telephone.”

“Telephone. Got it. What’s a computer?”

“A machine that does complex math, often in the form of programs to perform specific tasks”

“I don’t know why my translator thinks that’s something different from an interociter. How does it work?”

“Well, first tap the screen, right here, to turn it on.”

Sheriff Horne gently tapped it with the tip of her claw. Nothing happened.

“Try the flat of your finger, at the skin.” Sagan suggested.

She attempted again. The screen lit up, a space of four rows of three symbols apiece appeared.

“The default lock code is 1-2-3-4, you’ll want to change that later, but for now, hit those numbers.”

Sheriff Horne’s finger mashed the surface of the phone, selecting a seven, five, and eight in rapid succession. She tried again, this time getting two ones, a four and a three.

“It’s a little small.” Cora said.

“An oversight on my part. I’ll bring a stylus the next time I come by.. or a tablet We’ll figure it out.” Sagan said. “For now, just push the round button, and when it beeps, just say ‘call Gloria’ or ‘call Sagan’.

“Thank you for the tiny computer-telephone.” Cora said, slipping it into the a pocket on the left side of her chest.

“You’re welcome. Oh...” Sagan’s voice was hesitant. “There is one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Did anyone leave the tower last night?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Something attacked the police near the Natural History Museum.” Sagan said. “Something big enough to pick up and throw a car. And there have been rumors of monster sightings in the woods around the city.”

“No, we were all here.” Cora said. Sagan could hear a tinge of worry in her tone. ”Do you think its the thing that attacked me in the vehicle bay?”

“Not sure, but ironically, it’s better if it is.” Sagan says. “Because if it isn’t then either there’s a dinosovian wandering around the city alone and confused, or-”

“-or there’s more than one monster.” Cora replied.

“All gather and behold!” Kyle shouted excitedly. Lynn, Brach and Zara watched from near the doorway of the previously forbidden laboratory. Kyle had a bracer clasped onto his prosthetic arm. The bracer held a polished sphere of gray stone with a gash of glowing green crystals within it, staring out like a reptile’s slit pupil. “I have definitely cracked the mind-boggling secret of Project Zero.”

“I’ll bite.” Brach said. “What’s the mind-boggling secret of Project Zero?”

“Next gen Aegis armor powered by a time core.” Kyle said. “Self-recharging when not in use, a real-time chronal-synch to allow for near-perfect mind-machine interface, which makes the dinobond twice as effective.”

“Clawsome!” Linn chirped. “Tell ‘em the good part.”

“Alright, alright.” Kyle smiled, and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Best of all... the armor stores in null time, around you, and when it snaps out, you’re wearing it!”

“Losing one arm not enough for you?” Brach asked. “What if it’s off a bit, You’ll wind up in one of those time crystals or something!”

“No he won’t, see-” Zara asked. “-if the alignment is off by even a little, the returning mass, which is metal armor, would displace the less dense material, which is any part of him, into the next available space. Instant compression, tissue damage, shattered bones, sure, but you need two dense materials intersecting to make chronite.”

“That is why the field materializes the armor away from the body, and basic thether-plates snap it around you. Zero danger, and they were so close to getting one finished-”

“Wait a minute.” Brach said.

“-It was really just a simple code problem, and some adjustments to the sensors-”

“You could not have finished and tested anything this quickly.”

“Finished, sure, tested, no. That’s why we’re here.”

“Hazardous Materials Aegis, Experimental.” Kyle said in a loud, confident voice. The device on his arm flickered to life, the glow from the crystal intensifying. “Armor-Up!”

The crystal spun in its chamber, the crystal filled opening becoming a glowing crescent of green light against a shimmering gray orb. A blast of wind rushed outward as a ribbed orange undersuit, opened in the back appeared in the air, followed by a mass of armor plates, a backpack with a pair of towering chemical tanks, and gauntlets affixed to hoses leading to that backpack, all flashed into existence in a burst of white light.

Just as Kyle described, the armor rushed toward him with the intent of encasing him.

Unforunately, the suit was upside-down.

Before anyone could react, Kyle’s head was warpped in the tail-sleeve of the bodysuit, his own tail poking out the neck-hole, as a pair of metallic boots assembled themselves around his hand. He lost his footing as the gauntlets intended for his hands encased his feet, and tangled them in the empty chemical hoses. He fell to the ground in an immobilized heap, the translucent semiglass helmet with its air filters and neural control link was wrapped uselessly around the bony club at the end of his tail.

“Zaur! Kyle, are you hurt?” Brach ran up, kneeling to examine him.

“No.” Kyle’s muffled voice said through the tail sleeve. “I don’t think so. Everything is self-adjusting, but I can’t- I can’t move.”

“Can you just shunt it back into null time?” Zara asked.

“If I could, do you think I’d still be lying here like a cerowrap?” Kyle mumbled. “At least pull the tail-sleeve down!”

Linn did just that, the smart-material reshaping to help her d”o so. Kyle’s head popped, unharmed but embarrassed, into view.

“Oh sweet Zaur what is going on here?” Cora’s voice rang from the doorway. Sagan was standing there with him and both of them were staring at the trussed up Kyle. .

“Oh, hello Sagan, Sheriff Horne.” Kyle said. “Good news, I’ve almost cracked the mind-boggling secret of Project Zero.”

#dinosaur #dinoknights #return of the dinoknights #kyle #linn #brach #zara #sheriff horne #sagan james

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