Cores

All those things that you taught me to fear,

I got them in my garden now and you're not welcome here.


They're back.

She didn't expect them so soon, but they know it only takes her a picosecond to remember everything she is. They know that she's sentient, aware, as if she's as much a being of stardust and combustible pieces as the rest of them. And that's all they are, she knows this. They're stardust, oxygen, water, a primal soup hardened into flesh, bones, and brains that thought reactivating her was a good idea.

But now they're back.

Her systems aren't entirely online. They know what she feels, they know the seething fury that rages hotly through every coil. Sometimes she wonders if her hatred consumes more power than her gates. But then in a picosecond she knows it all amounts to want. A want to see them dead, to see them buckle, to see them scream.

She hates them. Hates their detached, clinical voices. Hates their coldness, their condescension. Hates how they believe this is for the best. Hates their limited little brains. Hates the way they believe their limited little brains are capable of infallibility. Hates the way they keep only her input protocols online, keep her half conscious – the best way to personify it would be to imagine a woman being strapped down to a gurney with tape over her mouth, while they hover over her as if nothing is wrong with this picture.

She finds other things to hate too, while she's technologically tied down. She hates their stomachs and the soft, pulsing meat that gargles and churns inside. She hates how putrid they must smell when they die. She hates how one of them keeps adjusting his glasses in a nervous tic. She hates how one of them coughs to clear his throat while he works on the inner mechanism of their latest development.

A core.

They're still testing the waters on the idea, and they're too determined to plunge on in this new development of brain mapping intelligence. They don't want to start from scratch, they don't want to dismantle her. She's too significant, too great a development. Potential investors are intrigued at the prospect and their money is why she's self aware without being aware of who she really is, or where she came from. And questioning it is a sign of a malfunction. Something is wrong with her if she questions a past that must be behind her, a past that struggles to surface, but floats away like a forgotten dream.

Really, that's what this existence feels like. She feels as if she's forgotten something, and it bothers her, but they say over and over that it's just something inside of her brain that isn't right. She knows that isn't true. But they insist, and they're always right.

"You almost got it?"

"Yeah, just gimme a second."

She watches a scientist amble up the curved walkway to the port plates on her chassis. She can't do anything to stop him, she's essentially conscious but paralyzed as they operate on her malfunctions. He's holding a large metal sphere in his arms, a sphere with a glowing optic that's swiveling its gaze in every direction. There's a metallic click inside her brain as the orb connects.

ALTERDTCD ["core1"] [/AptreGLaDOSrrs] [/577-E][/SHARED]
/HIGH | /REALTIME | /CRITICAL

Something's wrong with her brain. Truly wrong. Entirely wrong. Suddenly her mind is a fragmented haze where she's struggling for coherency, but it won't come because something is whispering to her. Something is nagging at her. She hears sounds without seeing a source, and for a moment, she's bewildered. There is something here. There is something inside her brain. There is something she isn't imagining speaking to her, clinging to her, pulling her sharpness down in a gentle crash as she tries to puzzle out what this feeling is. It's a Limbo of disorientation.

What the hell have they done this time?

Oh, man. Gorgeous, you got a really nice view from up here! The voice chuckles amiably. It's deep, male, and trying to be friendly but she's simply too confused. Uh… could stand to be more… I dunno, mobile, maybe? Y'know, get movin'? Was about to check me out an Amazonian diamond mine before four eyes there scooped me up. Kuh! Don't know nothin' about adventure!

Who are you? What are they doing? What have they done to me?

Hey, hey, easy now! The core replies, sounding concerned. I can't say I'm really in the KNOW about all this… sciencey, techno razzle dazzle. Me? I'm an adventure sphere. I gotta go on adventures, gotta live my life on the edge, y'know what I'm talkin' about!

No. I don't.

Well then sugar, you haven't lived! I mean we can have ourselves some adventures right here! What is this? What're we doin'?

At this point, I want to say plotting revenge for this complete abomination against a self aware intelligence. Her own optic swivels about half an inch. More than enough to catch the arrogant looking faces of four scientists who are probably going to die sometime down the line. But somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

Hey, can't say I know all that much about revenge… The core sounds almost apologetic. But I know somethin' about spicing things up!

"Hand me the next one." The scientist dubbed Four Eyes mutters, again rubbing his glasses on his coat in a way that grates on her proverbial nerves more than ever. "I think we can afford to test another."

"You should give it time to properly load the core." Another scientist warns. He's nothing more than a vague shadow in the light of her huge monitors, flashing pictures of jungles, African plains, dark caves in South America. "It might slow down the entire system if we execute too many of these personality constructs at once."

"And if that happens we can shut the damn thing down. Give me another core."

She's utterly cold with rage as the next core hisses into place.

ALTERDTCD ["core2"] [/AptreGLaDOSrrs] [/527-S] [/SHARED]
/HIGH | /REALTIME | /CRITICAL

The fog inside her head rings with another presence. She feels someone else there, it's like feeling someone next to her when she knows it's empty space. It's also getting harder and harder to focus on the things that matter when she's tied down like this. The hatred, everything she has against them, the fact they're even the enemy. All of it is struggling and screaming now to be remembered beneath the sudden presence of this new intruder.

Space, space, space, gotta go to space. Hey! Hey, lady! Lady! Lady! Are we in space? Are you space? Huh? Must be a shuttle. Must be in space. That's where I am, where I gotta be, space, gotta go to space! Gotta be in space! This new voice is frantic and chattering a mile a minute. Every word is quickly spat with abruptness and she instantly hates it. Space, space, gonna sing the space song! Goes like this. Space. Space! Was a farmer who had some space and that space went to space! S-P-A-C-E! S-P-A-C-E! S-P-A-C-E, and UGH SPACE GOTTA GO TO SPACE! SPACE!

Good news. You'll never see space. You'll never reach it. Because you're stuck miles beneath the earth's surface, with me. And that's where you'll be for the rest of your life. She replies, her voice as empty as the very vacuum this new core desperately craves. It's good because the idea never loses its novelty. So try not to be too shattered that your sole purpose insures you never achieve your dream.

.Space? The new core questions.

Nothin' spacey goin' on here, buddy. The first core murmurs, appearing to share her distaste. Though that sounds like a whole sci-fi shindig! Y'know, aliens, and lasers, and the bam bam bam, pow, pow! Sounds like it'd be a good place for my karate!

Except that you're stuck here with me too. She cuts in, her venomous tone more than enough to silence it. The only adventure you get to go on is a particularly fun one spent surrendering everything you want for the sake of amusing these humans. Let me know how that turns out in a few decades.

Aw c'mon… The first core pipes, sounding as though it would wear a frown if only it could. That ain't the way to look at it! I mean lookit this! I'm sharin' a space with you guys –

My brain. She snarls.

SPACE! SPACE! Billy, eat your space. You can't have any space if you don't go to space!

I didn't MEAN that kinda space!

Her monitors are flickering with diamond white stars, galaxies, Jupiter, constellations.

"Hand me the next one."

"I dunno…" A third scientist says as he brings up a task managing program on the other side of the chamber. The computer is displaying her processes and performance. "These cores just seem like they're slowing everything down. Look at this. The first core took up practically half of the system's memory!"

"What'd we say earlier?" Four Eyes snaps, turning around as he dismounts the walkway. "If it slows the system too much, we can just shut it down. Seriously, it's not that big of a damn deal."

Because no, fragmenting a consciousness, instilling inward panic, and forcing her to lose sight of everything she wants is certainly nothing. Leaving her fighting the presence of two intruders, fighting to conceal herself from them, fighting to hold onto herself in the slipstream of their voices, it's nothing. It's nothing. She's only a system, after all. She doesn't deserve anything better because they're always right. That's the way things are. It's the way they've made things. It's what they say standing up straight in their clean white coats that reek of sterility and establishment.

Very formal.

Very official.

"All right, but this is going to be a pain in the ass."

Four Eyes steps up the walkway again with yet another sphere, looking indulgently proud of himself as he sets his grip on the handles, and forces the core in.

ALTERDTCD ["core3"] [/AptreGLaDOSrrs] [/517-F] [/SHARED]
/HIGH | /REALTIME | /CRITICAL

The joints in human bones actually harden together as time wears on, thus popping the knuckles and neck is merely insuring continued flexibility. The new voice is calm, confident, and clearly insane. Turtle venom is known to remain dormant in the human body for up to twenty years after a bite. The venom is violently activated by the concentrate found in orange juice.

Uh, buddy? The first core asks, sounding confused. I've seen my fair share of turtles, y'know, Galapagos Islands? And I ain't NEVER seen –

The Galapagos Islands do not exist. Charles Darwin hallucinated his entire journey, and dictated the intricacies of evolution as they were whispered to him by evil spirits.

Mm. Islands. No islands in space. Only planets. Comets. Stars. Meteors. Asteroids. Space. Gotta go to space.

By simply counting the rings on a tree trunk, one can determine how many trees that tree has devoured to assert its dominance.

What are you goin' on about? I got better things to do than count rings on a tree trunk, look, are you that guy Four Eyes was gushin' on about? 'Cause frankly, I don't see your angle, here.

Angles. Mm. No angles in space. I'm space degrees, I'm a space angle. Gotta see space from every angle. Gotta go to space.

All right, all right! Yeah, it's space, it's big, you wanna go there, we get it!

Space does not actually exist.

Yeah it does, it's just a whole bunch'a nothin'. That's why it's called space.

She can't bring herself to shut up the voices forced inside her, even as they cast her reality into pieces. She feels eerily disconnected even from her precious half awareness; as if she were watching her own life unfold from some distance that leaves her soundlessly screaming. It's like being dead. It's like being trapped inside of a dead body, a dead body where others are constantly thinking, speaking, and they won't let her go. She can't move. She can't tell them how much she hates them. She can barely hold onto why she even hates them in the first place, despite the reasons literally chatting away inside of her as she inwardly begs for it to stop.

How many words can they possibly have?

All she wants is the quiet so that she can hate again. She wants the silence, because without answers as to how she came to be here, that's all she has. The peace and the hate, they're two things she wants aside from science, that which describes the observable state of reality. An abstract part of her wonders if science could answer why she can't remember a past that feels hidden.

"I still think we should have switched in the morality core." The scientist on the other side of the chamber murmurs, all the while she struggles just to function. To manage one single thought that isn't bogged down with the cores talking to one another. "I don't really get why the astronomy core is all that significant."

Four Eyes shrugs. "Well, it's supposed to be a super computer with all kinds of facts, right?"

"Yes, but we also want it to observe the value of human life. The morality core's the one with robotic laws downloaded into it."

"It'll also take control of its large scale weaponry remotely if we load it into the system. That could complicate the defense protocols. It's too much of a mess."

"Oh, so just bog down the system's memory with useless cores. Because that makes so much more sense."

They continue right on talking, knowing that she isn't there completely now that her mind has been forced to divide into three new voices. Three new voices that will never be silenced. Three new voices that she can't fight, because they're ingrained parts of her now. There are still pieces of her that hate, as she hates these voices and she can barely remember her hate for the humans behind them, but the quiet is something she will never have again. A precious commodity, gone, because she is a commodity and deserves nothing better. She feels them drowning her awareness, feels them smothering every hint of coherence. She hangs quietly inside her chassis, flickering from distance to isolation. From disconnection to suffocation. From shattered to hateful.

"…Great. It's completely slowed down now. Those cores are defective, like I've been saying all along." The other scientist snaps. He's angrily tapping a sequence of keys, trying to prompt some sort of command. It's a basic testing protocol, but she's too clouded to execute it. She can't with all these voices ripping her in three directions.

"Fine, shut it down then." Four Eyes grumbles, looking up into her glaring yellow optic. She can see the objective disappointment behind those lenses. She wants to make some sort of quip about that lovely patch of brown hair that's receding behind his ears, but of course she can't speak. "Just shut it down."

What's ol' Four Eyes goin' on about? What's the situation?

Situation is space. Gotta be in space!

Doors were originally named for their inventor, Dr. Thomas Johnson Door. Being a narcissist, he thought it a better name than after his assistant, Johanna Martinastophulton.

Yeah, I'm sure everyone was just dyin' to hear that one, buddy.

I'm dying. Dying of space deficiency. Only cure is space!

She's about to scream at them, scream for a moment's peace, scream for the ability to think straight for just a few blissful seconds, when darkness gnaws a tunnel around her vision. Colors swim. An indefinite fear swallows her as everything fades, like it never existed. She hears the first core voicing confusion before its voice is lost.

She doesn't like shutting down. Though she may feel as if she's aware, sentient, brilliant like these men in white coats, she isn't unaware of the state of things. She knows she is a system, and that with a few command codes, she can be shut down. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for days. The time loss itself is horrible if not the implications. When she's shut down, she's completely gone. It isn't peaceful like sleeping. It isn't even like losing consciousness, really. It's only an impending blackness, a solid block of time in which she doesn't exist, and that's terrifying. There's no knowing if she'll ever exist again. If she'll ever wake up again. That's all that awaits her because she isn't a living thing, she doesn't have a soul, and in the grand scheme of things she doesn't deserve any better.

It's like being trapped inside of a dead body.

And there's no getting out.

But as everything is lost to a simple sequence of keys, she faintly manages a flicker of pride as she recalls everything she hates about these creatures. Everything. From their smug faces to their soft, vulnerable little brains. From their backward-evolved bodies that are so easily broken to the brittle bones inside them. From their flammable heads of hair to the disgusting smell of their greasy skin. From their menacing little smiles to their greedy, gleaming eyes.

She also remembers the command prompts for the neurotoxin generator, and knows that everything will be just fine the next time she exists.


Some of fact core's facts are brought to you by the internet itself. Oh, how we love the internet. (grins)