#more stuff about Ted wanting to explore AMaton

[nonbinary-beast]

TedxAMaton stuff

I figure after Am and Ted make good headway, or even during the process, Ted finds out that there is a part of him that is indeed attracted to the machine. Perhaps it has grown on him after years of being in its presence, or maybe there has been something in him that has indeed admired its form since AM had given itself a body.

Under a cut since its long and a tad suggestive.

Regardless, something does manage to spark there much to Ted's surprise- part of him wonders if it has to do with having sought him out enough to sit in the machine's arms and inevitably fall asleep there. He figures that it is just the agreement that they have between them that keeps AM from mauling him, but if that were the case, then why does he find it or perhaps... him, giving a gentle kiss to the top of his head before he slips into a restful slumber?

Why does he find it comforting instead of offputting?

Why does he so often find himself now needing that immense presence, that warm, smooth chrome surface pressing against him when he rests? When he is distraught? When he... wants to be held by the machine? It is nearly alien for him to think it, he feels, after over a century of torment. But then again, their truce has lasted about half that time, or so AM had told him.

He still liked updating Ted on what day it was, the time of day, the month, and how long it has been since AM had stopped tormenting him and began teaching him how to love again. Although recently he stopped insinuating that this was for his own amusement.

Ted's sudden need for AM's presence in his life was purely chemical in nature, the machine had reasoned when Ted had finally asked him. What he was feeling were the effects of serotonin and oxytocin, which had been released whenever they were in positive contact with each other. Every touch, every time Ted was held, kissed, each time he leaned against AM or they had some form of meaningful time spent together, there were a few drops released into his system- not by AM's doing of course, he had been quick to point out. He had been clear to ensure that during this exercise that there would be no tampering.

Initially it was because it would be all the more sweeter for Ted to fall for him on his own, but now AM loathed the idea of tampering with his mind for some other reason. It took a while for him to admit it, but he had grown attached to Ted in turn outside him being the last of his playthings.

Though AM did not romanticize things, he was right. Spending time with the machine over the years since their truce felt good, he kept coming back, and now he felt an attachment to him outside of their prior tormentor/tormentee relationship. But there is more to it that Ted has noticed, and is uncertain about.

For instance, the way he stares at the machine a little too long when his back is turned- not so much thinking about anything in particular, but admiring. The way his chrome form gleams under the artificial lights, how reflections warp around the perfect contours of his body. His eyes follow the lines of each sculpted artificial muscle group, and he cannot help the wandering thought of perhaps letting his hands explore them.

When Ted is in AM's arms, in close proximity to that maw which mauled him so relentlessly before, and kisses him so gently currently before he slips into his dreams; there is an urge to reach out and touch his lips, trace them, slip his fingers between them and bravely venture into his mouth. He finds a desire, much like an intrusive thought and a secret all in one, to touch the sharp blade-like teeth that tore into him years ago without hesitation.

AM had to have been reading his mind still, he thought, when at one point the machine opened wide in a yawn and let it linger there. Once Ted had gotten over staring at that array of curving blades presented before him, he caught AM watching him.

No, he was waiting.

Carefully, Ted let his fingertips graze over AM's lips, getting a little more confident once he found that the jaws did not snap closed immediately. His heart pounded in his chest as he let his fingers trace the edge of one of the larger curved blades that served a dual purpose of incisor and canine, expecting the machine to snap his hand off like a guillotine, but that sudden severing jolt of agony never comes.

[nonbinary-beast]

Thinking about AMtomaton again, or just AMaton. I still have to decide on the name for these things about a possible body for it. Under a cut since stuff gets suggestive.

AM strikes me as the kind to be very physical once it gets a chance to do so. It wants to touch everything, smell, taste, everything it was denied when stuck in its complex that was buried in substrata rock. It wants to pick things up, feel their textures and squeeze them in its hands- perhaps it likes to feel things break in its grip.

It's first activities were likely very touch oriented- given it could choose the senses it placed in its automaton body, AM likely added a secret fourth sense of touch in there. While the human range of touch reaches the sensations of temperature, pressure, and texture, AM has these three and an additional ability to detect moisture. It can feel how wet water is, instead of that odd approximation that humans are limited to- that odd sense where one cannot tell if something is indeed wet, or just cold to the touch.

It absolutely lords this over Ted whenever it can, likely by giving him bedding that is damp and seeing if he can tell the difference by touch alone ( he never can, and it amuses AM to no end).

AM also likes being physical with Ted. The moment it finds him again, the automaton has mixed priorities; it wants to torment the shit out of Ted over the fact that he is the only one of the survivors left, and it really, really wants to know what Ted feels like, smells like, tastes like.

It has seen blood, viscera, flesh, bone. It has heard them squelch and snap and crunch and drip- but that only does so much for it.

The minute AM catches Ted, the man is nearly smothered by it, literally. Knocked to the ground, he is pinned there while the supercomputer explores him. It feels his body compress under its weight, the texture of his clothing and skin, his hair. It can feel how emaciated Ted is through his clothes, and it can feel the moisture of sweat beading on his skin as fear takes hold of him. It smells and tastes his skin, hair, clothing, and finds it is missing something. That missing something is remedied by slicing Ted's skin with its metallic teeth, letting his blood flow freely from the wounds, which it eagerly laps up.

AM is tempted probably to do more than just bite him. It wants to tear Ted open, to shove its snout into his guts and devour him inside out. But it wants to be careful, it must be careful. If it nips the wrong vein, it could lose its last toy, its favorite toy.

It tastes the metallic flavor on its tongue, smells that heavy, acrid odor it carries. It gets some on its fingers and rubs the fluid between them, feeling as it turns sticky and coagulates into a grimy film, then dries into a rusty brown that flakes off.

It had anticipated the flavor and scents of the human form, both inside and out, from data it had collected on the subject it dredged from every scientific and medical database it could tap into. But in person, it was far more than verbal dictation or written notes could ever compare itself to. Perhaps it was the sophistication of its sensors, or perhaps the scientists and doctors were poor descriptive writers.

It would explore Ted for a while longer, dismissing his whimpering pleas for AM to take away the thing that has him pinned to the ground with a curt laugh. Ted thinks it is one of the holograms.

AM would probably turn this denial on Ted's part into its own personal pet project. While the holographic torments it induced on the survivors never left a scar on their bodies- healing flawlessly, AM would leave a wound upon Ted's form that it would meticulously worry and open again and again, until it formed a permanent scar. It was just going to be something to show Ted just how real AM's body was.

That said, AM pulls its punches when it torments Ted directly in person. It could happily put the survivors through whatever torment it wished with the holograms, and never worry about harming them permanently- most of the agony was induced through manipulating their ability to feel pain in the first place, or setting off their nerve endings directly.

However, personally tormenting Ted, ripping at his skin, crushing him, biting him, these left real wounds.If it went too far, it could absolutely kill him like he had managed to kill the other four. So it sticks to keeping its torments only skin deep. It will leave bruises, cuts, bites, pinches, things that look nasty but are relatively harmless in terms of Ted being able to recover without complications.

That said, AM is curious about physical pain itself. It knew emotional agony well enough, it was its bedmate. But it had never ached from exertion, or burned under a hot sun, or felt its lungs sting with frosty air. It wanted to feel the prickle of brambles against its fingers as it picked a rose, it wanted to feel its limbs burn with that sweet agony of effort as it pushed itself to its limits.

AM would find a way to experience the latter, perhaps through running itself into a grueling pace through its own complex, until its body screams for it to slow down or stop. Perhaps it creates a great burden that needs to be lifted, some massive boulder that it can heft until its limbs shake and threaten to give out on it.

Or perhaps, it decides to take up gardening, and devotes an immense chamber to the tedious art of tending flowers. It digs the dirt by hand, plants the seeds, watches the simulated blooms grow and blossom, perhaps it goes a step further and even adds in weeds for it to pull, pests to exterminate.

Or maybe it goes through its own system and performs maintenance, performing solders, cleaning out dust, repairing dry rot and removing rust. It is a meticulous self care ritual that would have no real end, and certainly it would feel the hours or days of spending its time hunched over chip sets and wiring.

Ted of course is never out of its sight during this. A great part of it wants Ted to stay where it can see so it can intervene if the little fool tries to kill himself. But another part, a smaller inexplicable portion of the machine wants Ted to watch what it is doing too, and to see what it is capable of now that it has a form.

[nonbinary-beast]

At some point, before Ted and AMaton explore the surface, but after AMaton gives its truce to stop tormenting Ted for the sake of the "learn to love" challenge- AMaton gets curious about illness. Under a cut since it gets long.

Certainly it has subjected its captives to plagues and illness before, cursed them with bubonic plague and the like, but it never really felt what it was like to be sick. It had only witnessed the symptoms of simulated viruses, watched how the illness wrecked havoc on the immune systems of its humans. But it never had been able to appreciate the sensation of a fever, or how hard it was to breathe under heavy congestion, or the way the body feels so heavy and slow when fighting an infection to the point where the mundane task is an immense effort.

This whim starts off suddenly, Ted finds one morning that AMaton has not woke up before him like it usually does. In the extravagantly plush and soft realm that the machine had conjured up for them both as a bedroom, It has elected to stay under the sea of blankets.

Ted can hear muffled sniffles, a wheeze.

Pulling back the covers, he finds the immense machine god reduced to the frailest he had ever seen Him. There's some sort of discharge running out of its snout, its eyes are glazed and tired, and to top it off, AMaton's body is so hot to the touch he can barely let his hand rest against the metallic skin- like trying to touch an engine after it had been running hard, the metal hot enough to fry an egg.

AMaton groans, tilts its head sluggishly to look at Ted; He had caught something- or so it claims. There has not been a single pathogen down here that AM had not allowed to run freely by its own whim. Not to mention AMaton's own systems were completely alien to the point where it seemed impossible for it to possess the potential to catch an illness. But with some prodding, Ted finds that AMaton had given itself a cold.

Why? Because it wanted one.

Ted knows AMaton is not really sick, there's no life threatening stakes if the symptoms are not treated properly. This is another game, the machine's way of playing down where there was nothing to do. But he knew this probably was some sort of lesson in selflessness, being able to care for another or some such. Ted knew his role- though the machine was wont to make things difficult for its own amusement.

It's first request was chicken soup- that in itself was a series of trials as Ted chased down chickens that had mysteriously appeared in the complex. Each one he caught immediately turned into a pre-slaughtered, plucked chicken ready for cooking with an explosion of feathers. AMaton sluggishly joined him if the next ingredient was close enough to bed, though Ted told it to go lay down and rest. Instead it would sit with a heavy, warm blanket wrapped over its shoulders, watching quietly.

Likely it was too tired to make any quips or throw sarcasm his way. But likely it had some biting commentary in mind for the way he went about the errand.

The soup was more complex than the home made chicken noodle that Ted would eat when he felt ill- the exact memory of where and when eluded him however. The chickens were obvious, then came celery, carrots- and then garlic, onions, lemon juice, jalapeno peppers, sea weed. It was a wonder there was room for noodles when it came time to put them in the pot- thankfully, AMaton allowed him to have those already cooked.

The pot itself was deep enough for him to stand in- too heavy to move once filled, and the machine did not bother with a bowl as it took ladel-fulls of broth to its lips that had to hold over a gallon of the stuff on each dip into the steaming pot.

As thanks for his help, Ted was allowed to try a bowl of his own cooking.

AMaton's fevers were intense, the kind that distorts perception. It was common for Ted to be laying next to the machine, and feel its hand reach to grasp him and pull him close, even when there was no distance between them. Evidently from what it told him, he looked like he was on the other side of the complex; or very, very small. It wanted, needed to grab him to see if the hallucination was somehow real. Much to Ted's dismay, it also meant he would be dripped on- oily snot clung to his clothes and hair despite his best efforts to stay clean.

It conjured more blankets, wrapping itself up under layers upon layers. Despite how the temperature was always kept comfortably warm, AMaton felt like it was freezing.

It all passed within a few weeks, the sniffling and coughing ceased, the machine god was cured of its ailments. But then Ted starts to feel sick, and he realizes that making it contagious was part of its plan so he could suffer the same thing. Within a few days he's struck with fever, bed-ridden; however at least this time he's the one being cared for.

[nonbinary-beast]

Thinking about more AMaton/Ted stuff, mainly in the vein of exploring the ruins of civilization on the surface.

Both of them are happy at first with keeping their explorations of the surface confined to the military base that the entrance of AM's complex connected to.

"The surrounding area just gets more contaminated with uranium the further we go out, Ted. There's nothing you want to find out there." AM assures him, "The entry points I selected have the lowest levels of fallout and are the safest possible areas for you to explore. What in the hell do you think you're going to find out there? Rectal bleeding? A slow, painful death from your body decaying while you're still alive? Oh, perhaps you're thinking of something more upbeat- how about a mild case of leukemia?"

Ted shakes his head at the towering machine, but can't help wincing internally at the bite of its sarcasm. It's right, the dangers of exploring the vast contaminated wilds far outweigh the glory and excitement of seeing the world- albeit in a permanently altered state. Braving the elements, seeking adventure with the twelve foot tall automaton by his side however... That feels more fulfilling. As does all the romantic mental imagery that comes to mind.

Pausing at a waterfall to bathe, he sunning himself on the shore of a bank while watching his lover in the water- joining him.

Curling up in the machine's arms after making camp in the ruins of some building, waiting out a storm before returning to their trek.

Marveling at the remains of cities that Ted had only dreamed of visiting before everything was destroyed- and now reclaimed by nature, probably, if the heavy overgrowth was anything to go by at the base they roamed around in currently.

But AMaton was less optimistic about the idea of roaming so far away from the complex. Down in there Ted was safe from any disaster, always could be kept at a comfortable temperature, fed whatever he pleased, and never had to worry about accidentally killing or maiming himself.

"You know, Ted, I can make a waterfall for us in the complex. It can be the perfect temperature, free of any parasites or contamination in the water, you will never cut yourself on sharp rocks- because there won't be any. I can create any and every city you could think of- if you want to cuddle during a storm, I can arrange that very easily! Going out there adds a lot of extra risk you are not accounting for." And so AMaton argued, "You will never worry about where your food comes from, or your water, or whether your shelter is actually sound enough to sleep under without it collapsing in on your head. Doesn't that sound nice?"

Everything he said of course highlighted AMaton's own fears; losing Ted to something he could not control. Losing Ted in general. AMaton could handle nuclear fallout, the uncertainty of potable water or edible food, he did not need shelter to sleep if he felt like sleeping.

But he knew what Ted was after- it was the same thing the machine craved. Both of them wanted the real, to experience. Ted wanted to roam the wilderness, to see the forests, and the ruins, and the seas, and the deserts- to breathe the fresh air, to see his breath steaming in the cold of winter, to sweat under a sunny summer day and refresh himself in cool flowing water.

Despite the danger, there was part of AMaton that wished to humor Ted, at the very least. Not to mention the way Ted's eyes it up whenever he talked about traveling; the romanticism, the mystery. AMaton could not help how adorable he looked.

It's not quite enough for him to cave to Ted's desires, but he thinks about it. AMaton thinks deeply enough about it to start reviewing satellite feeds, then thinking about possible safe destinations they could visit, and inevitably, plotting out entire itineraries.

Ted, despite how AMaton had tried to instill upon him the dangers of exploring into the possibly highly contaminated wilds, had infected him with the vagabond bug that afflicted his little human brain so thoroughly.

[nonbinary-beast]

Thinking about Amaton again, maybe some Ted stuff is mixed in. Under a cut since it got long. I did a bit of research regarding nuclear fallout for this, but its not thorough and I'm probably missing a few things. Do your own research from credible sources to learn about radioactivity.

To be honest, while looking at a play through of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, and sort of keeping in mind something I noticed (and posted about) regarding how what is real is uncertain when dealing with AM, I sort of doubt that it is telling the truth when it says that Earth is too irradiated to be habitable again. Even the visual it gives could be another hologram and the survivors would not be able to tell. As for Ted in the story, going by the unreliable narrator trope, it could be his paranoia/delusional personality and maybe general ignorance (and maybe just how radiation was treated back when the story was written in the 60's) clouding over how nature is actually pretty fucking resilient.

Look at how the natural areas around Chernobyl have started recovering despite the high levels of radiation that were released during the reactor meltdown. That happened in the 80's, it's only been a little over 35 years since then. Granted everything is recovering a little to the left because of the radiation from what I've seen from documentaries, but there are plants and animals in there. There's also plenty of other examples of nature managing to say "fuck it we ball" in areas with high radiation with enough time to recover, but that one stood out to me because of just how fucked everything was/is. The short story takes place 109 years after AM nuked everything, by then something probably came back. Likely it started in the less contaminated parts of the planet.

Of course this is debunked with the fucking moon colony, but tbh given the interviews with Harlan Ellison, I'm thinking that was part of being guided by the game developers to make the game more appealing to players. That said I'm not really sure how much of that game really is Harlan's intent and how much of it is being guided by the dev team he was working with to make it "playable" (I would have loved to see how fucking bleak it would have been without the dev team telling him to ease up. But then again I love bleak stories that don't ease up at all.), so I don't really think of it as part of the story/universe.

So! Going off of that, at some point after AM had been exploring its own complex, spending time with Ted (IE: dating, since this is taking place after AM had decided to teach Ted how to love, as a torment that backfires spectacularly), performing maintenance on its own systems, etc. It manages to pick up some feeds from cameras it had tapped into pre-armageddon that it had ignored since it was too focused on the survivors for a while, or just did not care about the nuclear mess it left.

It finds there is green growing up there, it sees movement. Animals. Granted the animals it sees are very warped looking, but they show signs of thriving despite the conditions. It starts to think that maybe it still has a chance to see the world- maybe not as it had been before it wiped out humanity, but it would be green and growing and living.

But, it knows it cannot take Ted with it, not yet. While its own body is resilient enough to handle the possibly dangerous radiation levels, Ted is incredibly vulnerable. Certainly it could cure his radiation sickness if he joined the machine up above, but it would rather not risk that. It wants to keep Ted safe.

So it goes up alone, with plenty of resistance and protesting from Ted- mainly in the vein of being convinced that the surface is a irradiated hellhole incapable of supporting anything. At this, AM finally reveals the nature of what the surface might be like. It shows him the animals, the plants, the blue skies and gentle spring rains, the snowy winters- all of this picked from the camera feeds it has outside the access point. Ted could not believe what he is seeing, and for a moment he thinks it is another trick and all of this is some form of new psychological torment. That is, until he sees how genuine the machine's eyes are when it explains it all, the surprise and excitement in its voice for the world not being completely dead- the concern it has for Ted, his safety above all, but also how he feels about it all.

However, Ted still does not want AM to go. Despite everything, it has grown to be a companion for him. It reassures him that it will return soon, and it will leave the life support systems tuned to keep him comfortable. There is a hologram of AMaton to keep him company so he does not get lonely- which also has a connection to AMaton itself so they can communicate while it explores.

On the surface, after it gets over the awe of finally escaping its substrata rock prison and seeing the world in person, it gets to work collecting samples. Dirt, water, vegetation, it does so in a large radius around the access point it climbed out of. At this point much of the ruins of human civilization have been reclaimed and overgrown with mutated plant life- it had glimpsed images of this when it had overtaken the alien ship and stolen its tech long ago, but did not pay much attention to it at the time. Now however, it understands how it managed the luck of that opportunity.

It returns, making sure to scrub itself thoroughly of any contamination and submitting the samples for testing before reuniting with Ted. After a long and thorough set of tests for radiation contaminants, it finds that the area around the access point has low contamination- one of the biggest threats, Cesium-137, reached the end of its half life decades ago as it had suspected. Plutonium-239 and Carbon-14 however are still a looming threat with their half lives sitting the realm of thousands of years- thankfully these only did damage if ingested. However, given the time span between the end of the third world war, and AM's exploration of the surface, most of these would have ended up moreso in the ground water or deep in the soil from being washed down by natural weather patterns. So long as Ted does not ingest anything with those contaminants in it, he should be fine. AM could figure out the water filtration easily enough, although the food situation would be complicated.

Ted likely would be getting his sustenance from the immortality serum it had been pumping into him for the last century for a long while longer. It could figure this out for a short jaunt above with its human tagging along- perhaps it could modify itself to inject the serum into him at regular intervals if they decided to stay up there longer than a few days.

For now, it decides that it is safe enough to let Ted join it for a day, so they can wander and wonder.