Note from the authors: Eltyr: I know I know, it's not the first moon chapter. Life is still difficult and busy for me. However Colette and I got to online chatting last night about Exos and certain bits of lore I've picked up from D2, and before we knew it this was born. So I decided to share this with you guys in the meantime. Hope you enjoy it!
Destiny O.T.V.A Bonus: Do Exos Dream of Stone Crypts?
Avi had been taking a brief detour through the Titan barracks - some Warlocks had once again caused a traffic jam in the stairwell with one of their "projects" that no, could not simply be transmatted like everything else - when she heard Atom scream. She was off like a shot before she even had time to question how she automatically knew it was Atom who was screaming, especially since the most indication he ever gave that he was in pain had been to grunt when being shot at. She sped past a few Titans who were looking around in alarm and trying to figure out where the scream had come from themselves; some had even drawn their weapons out of pure reflex. Seconds after the scream had reached her ears Avi reached Atom's door and began pounding on the bulkhead.
"Atom?" She called out hesitantly. "You okay in there?" She waited about five seconds in silence, and that was a little more unnerving than any answer he might have given. "Okay, I'm coming in!" She decided.
The door opened with a brief whir of mechanical servos and admitted the worried Hunter into the room beyond. Low power lights were only just flickering on to lend a dim blue glow to the otherwise dark room, but she could make out a few maps along the walls as well as a few tables that bore… models? Stepping further into the room Avi found that they were indeed models: of what looked like a city. Not the City or any city that she recognized, but a miniature city with tall buildings, most of it structured in a neat grid of streets.
Her observations were put on hold as a brief shuffling drew her eyes to the far side of the room, where Atom was sitting on the edge of a very plain and utilitarian bed and staring at the floor. He was dressed only in a grey long sleeve shirt and a decidedly scruffy looking pair of faded jeans; it was the first time she'd really seen him outside of his armor.
"Atom...are you alright?" She questioned softly.
Atom slowly raised his gaze to acknowledge her, his expression unreadable as he looked back down slowly. "...Sorry, just… bad dream." He sighed. "I went to the crypt when I powered down just now…"
Avi blinked. "You went… where? I thought only Warlocks had weird visions."
Atom shook his head slowly. "The Deep Stone Crypt: that's what we call it anyway. It's a… recurring dream I guess, and every Exo has it every once in a while when we nod off."
Avi sat down on the edge of a table across from the bed - making sure not to sit to close to any models. "So Exos have a recurring nightmare, and you just had it?" When Atom nodded she hesitated for a moment before saying, "Er, I'll understand if you don't want to talk about it, but it usually helps if you do."
Atom seemed to war with himself internally for a few moments before finally giving a tiny nod. "Alright, just… it's pretty bad, just to warn you." She nodded as he thought of where to start. "Okay so, picture this: you're out in a field. Sometimes it's all ice, sometimes it's grass going on as far as you can see, the only thing that stays the same is that you're all alone at first. Just you and the big empty world."
He sat back and closed his eyes briefly. "You walk around aimlessly for a bit, until you look up a little and see the mountains. Just towering there way the hell off in the distance. But that's not what you focus on: because in front of them is a tower. Not this one we're sittin' in, a different one. Not sure I can describe what it really looks like it's just… big."
He went quiet again for a minute, as if he was reluctant to keep going. "Soon as you see the tower you're drawn to it, so you start walking. Hours go by in that funny way that time passes in a dream, and you never really know why you have to get to the tower; you just have to get there."
His hands clenched just a little in his lap. "Once you get close enough, you see an army at the base of the tower. Thousands of people just standing there. And they're all people that you know: Guardians I've fought alongside, friends, mentors, and a whole lot of people who you don't remember but feel like you should." He glanced up at Avi briefly. "You were there. And Ocena, and Vic, Thane… everyone." He closed his eyes again, and Avi watched his shoulder plates bunch up a little as if there was something heavy pressing down on them, and his hands were now fists.
"Then, without any kind of signal, and no matter how hard you try to stop yourself, you charge…" He trailed off for five whole minutes. Avi waited patiently, her heart racing a little in spite of herself. She knew a 'bad part' of a story when she heard one, and she had a feeling that Atom was not about to disappoint.
But nothing could have prepared her for what he said next. "...And you start killing. You attack them all, first with your fists, then eventually you find a weapon… you can't stop yourself, not even when you're caving in the skull of a Guardian who had your back on your last patrol." Avi felt cold, she cupped a hand to her mouth in shock as Atom ploughed on, his body actually shaking now as he spoke. "I shot Zavala through his left eye… Victor I left with a broken arm before I shot Thane in both knees. For Ocena, I had to snap her neck because she kept… she kept slipping away when I tried to strangle her. Cayde was covered in someone's blood when I put my boot through his chest-"
Avi darted up and grabbed his hands with her own, causing him to flinch slightly before eventually relaxing again. "First thing's first: try to calm down a little, nightmares suck and right now you're freaking out. I get it, the dream was freaky but try to calm down a little okay? Everyone is fine, nothing bad has happened and you certainly didn't do anything! Just take it easy a moment."
She leapt back a second later as Atom exploded to his feet. "I HAD NO CONTROL!" He bellowed. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE? TO WATCH YOURSELF KILL EVERYONE YOU'VE EVER CARED ABOUT AND NOT BE ABLE TO HIT THE BREAKS?!"
He stood there bristling with anger for a few tense moments before seeming to realize what he was doing. When he did the tension visibly drained out of him and he slowly sank back onto the bed. "...I'm sorry," he whispered. "That… that wasn't fair. I was… I am mad at myself; I shouldn't be takin' it out on you."
Avi waved him off. "I'm not upset, frankly I'm one of the last people who should comfort someone waking from a nightmare I'm not really…" She made a face and tried to gesture something but failed. "Ehh...you know what I mean right? I'm kinda bad with...people I guess? Been on my own too long maybe." She mused.
Atom shrugged helplessly. "It's kinda an Exo thing too. I mean…" He trailed off trying to find the right words. "It's like… most of me hates having that dream, cuz' of the obvious. But there's more to it: It scares me to think that I was like that once."
Avi blinked. "Like what?"
"A machine," Atom said simply. "Damned if we can remember why or how, but we Exos were kinda made to be war machines. Some of us have a running theory that the whole killing thing is because we were built to fight a war, and that there's some part of us, maybe some background subroutine or somethin', that thinks of nothing but killing." He grimaced. "So there's that, and then there's the fact that once we all just took orders and that was it: go here, kill this, scout this compound, blow that up. And we'd do it, just like that. Nothing really going on upstairs. I hate that feeling, of being… a tool. Of not thinking."
"I… honestly don't know what to say to that," Avi eventually said. "I mean yeah, I can definitely see why that'd bother you, or anyone really, but at the same time you were right about what you said before: I really don't know how any of that feels." She gave Atom a sad look. "I'll tell you one thing though: I hate having to see you go through feeling that. God, how do you sleep? Are you like, scared of having that dream every time you shut yourself down?"
Atom nodded. "Oh yeah, it's why I'm so glad the Light energizes us and lets us go for longer without sleep than most folks can-"
"That's really not healthy you know," Avi chided lightly with a small smile. "But I get where you're coming from."
Atom hesitated for a moment. "That's not the entire reason why I'm mad with myself though; I mean yeah, that's most of it, don't get me wrong, but… It's also because some tiny part of me actually wants to dream of the Stone Crypt."
Avi was at a bit of a loss again. "Um…" She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly wondering what to say to that. "Morbid curiosity?" Was that the right term? She wasn't certain but it was all she had.
Atom raised a hand and made a 'so-so' gesture. "Kinda. See, you know how we Exos all have numbers in our names? Like Banshee-44, Cayde-6, Erianna-3?"
Avi nodded unsure if she was about to like what she heard next.
"Well… my full name is Atom-5," he said with a sigh. "And that number? It's how many times we've been 'rebooted.' The number of times we've had our memories reset and had to start from scratch." He faced her with a small smile. "When I was reborn as a Guardian, it wasn't the first time I'd woken up with holes in my memory."
Avi gained a cold chill. "...What...happened in the other times then?" She had a guess but she wasn't certain she would rather hear it from Atom what he thought before she voiced a guess.
"That's the kicker: we don't know." He sighed. "The theory is that we were humans once, or we had human 'templates,' people who had their brains scanned and the scans were used as the basis of our personality. But I don't know why we got reset or what determined the frequency of the resets: poor Banshee's been reset 44 times for pete's sake, while I've only been reset 5 times." He sat up a bit straighter. "See the thing about the Stone Crypt dream is that It gives us a chance for answers. Maybe we can force our way past the horror and disgust of killing everyone we know for a minute to get a really good look at some of the faces that we don't recognize but feel like we ought to know. Or maybe the dream itself is supposed to mean something about where we came from or how we were made. Maybe something is supposed to happen when we get to the tower in our dreams. I mean, every Exo has the Stone Crypt dream, no exceptions. No way in hell that's a coincidence."
He sat back with a sigh. "So that's why I'm so upset: I wanna know who I was in-between resets, but so far it looks like the only way to get a clue is going through that god-awful nightmare whenever it pops up." He looked down at his hands. "I just… sometimes I wonder if I was somebody else before I was… me, Atom. Was I ever a person, with a family or something? Did I live in that city that I can and can't remember?" He added while pointing at the model city next to Avi. "Or am I just a machine that dreams that it used to be a person?"
Dammit, I'm really not cut out for this conversation, she thought to herself nervously. But there's no-way I can just leave him in a state like this. "Which theory do you like best?" She finally blurted out. "And do you really want to remember people who may be long dead?" Avi regretted those words. "No," She shook her head. "I take that back: all memory is important but still which theory do you follow?"
Atom moved his faceplates into a position that Avi knew meant he was smiling. "In that order? I'd like to think that I was someone, that I had a past worth gettin' all worked up over not being able to remember it." He paused a moment. "Beats the hell out of thinkin' that I'm just a bunch of zeros and ones that glitched out and started acting like a 'real' person." He leaned back a little. "As for me wantin' to remember people who're gone… well if people like you an' me don't, who will? Wherever they're buried is probably a mess, so there's no way to show that they were ever there except in our memories."
Avi nodded. "One is only really gone when no one remembers them…" That was a sad saying nowadays but it was true. Next thing to address now. "I think, Atom, that you don't have to worry about whether or not all you are is a machine, and do you know why?"
Atom gave her a shrug and indicated for her to continue. Avi sighed and smiled softly holding his shoulders lightly making sure he was looking at her. "You said it yourself earlier: the clear proof you aren't just some mindless AI or mindless machine. You. Care. About. People. Atom." She gave him a tiny shake. "A machine or AI DOESN'T feel anything. You care about people, you love, you can feel fear, joy and happiness. You and every other Exo aren't just things, a thing can't feel. Do you get it?" She really hoped she had done something to help, if not she was going to sick Ocena on him.
She blinked in surprise when he started laughing, deep and hearty like he commonly did. "Dammit, but you make it sound so simple an' obvious." He gently lifted her hands off of his shoulders and held them for a moment. "What can I say? When you're right, you're right. And you definitely ain't wrong."
Avi noticed that Atom was still holding her hands, she would have commented on it but he let go a second later and stood up, staring intently at the model city on the table. "... When I get past the… army," he said carefully, "I come to the base of the tower and enter. And… that's where it stops. Even though we know we have to get to the tower and descend into the lower levels, where everything is cold and made of stone, all we get is waking up with the Exo equivalent of the night sweats… usually." He smiled and moved over to the model, picking up a set of tiny whittling tools lying next to it. Avi watched him for a few minutes as he made some tiny adjustments to a few buildings, scratching out new floors of windows or adding symbols to the sides of others. What once had been a tiny lump hanging out of the side of a building near ground level had transformed into a sign that said, 'Moe's Famous Pizza.'
"But sometimes," Atom said slowly as he stood back and inspected his handiwork. "Sometimes those holes in the memory are shapes, and those shapes whisper things to us." He shook his head slowly. "I dunno where the hell this city is, or probably was, but I know there's a reason I keep trying to remember it one inch at a time." He cocked his head to the side quizzically for a moment. "Huh, I think I just remembered somethin'."
Avi perked up. "Oh?"
"Some lyrics to a song, I think. 'The curse of the mind is that it never forgets.' Heh. Probably Pre-Golden Age. If they ever met an Exo or a Guardian, they'd never hear the end of the arguments," he laughed. They were quiet for another minute or two. "Thanks," he suddenly said. "For listenin'. I talk to an Exo about this, most of them will say that I shouldn't let it bother me and to just try and ignore it, and most Warlocks are more interested in trying to figure out what it means." He let out a small huff. "Cayde calls it 'scratching the unscratchable itch.' He ain't wrong, either."
"Eh I'm always willing to listen cuz I'm better at that than talking." She made a face that was very clear from when she first tried to make him feel better. "As for the rest...it might be better to only bring it up with close friends Atom, and if close friends say ignore it or want to pick at it until they figure it out, tell them you want a friend to listen; not a Guardian, a friend. And yes," She stated with a pointed look, "there is a difference."
"Don't gotta tell me twice, 'specially after a Crucible match or two with some of these mooks," Atom chuckled. "And don't sell yourself short: I'll take a good listener over a good talker any day." He looked back at his model city. "I think I'm gonna be okay now Avi. Thanks again for checkin' in on me."
Avi nodded and gave Atom a friendly pat on the shoulder and a sad smile. She was about to pass through the doorway when a thought occurred to her. "Hey…" she called back into the room where Atom had been about to start working on his model again. "I'll uh… get Neutron to send me a scan of that model you've got there every now and then. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up passing through somewhere familiar."
Atom paused with his tools in hand. He smiled and gave her a nod. "Yeah. I'll do that."
Avi smiled, and headed out. He watched the space where she had stood for a few minutes in silence. At one point Neutron appeared hovering over his shoulder, but the Ghost remained silent. He knew that his Guardian, his brave and unbreakable Titan was trying not to think of how many times he'd dreamed of killing the Hunter who had just listened to his nightmares.
"You've got a choice now," the Ghost eventually volunteered. "Maybe you had a choice back then, and maybe you didn't. But you do have a choice now: isn't that what matters?"
Atom turned to his Ghost. Eventually, he smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."
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