Fragment/2

-2:58:57

How does one define the emotion known as fear?

How does an entity that only exists as a particular concept given an abstract form supposed to know how emotions and dread feel when they do not even exist in the real, physical world?

It was a question that orbited her mind at that current moment. A line of words and meaning that despite her comprehensive knowledge of many things, seemed to elude her completely. She craves the answer to those contemplative questions, those existential philosophies that to her were merely accepted perspectives before…

Because things had now completely changed.

The concept of fear or being scared was a natural, reflexive instinct brought about by an organism's self-preservation. Their will to survive against all odds. A concept that logically existed in the physical world due to the inability to stave themselves off from harm, or worse, death.

A prospect that did not occur to her, at least at first… limited as she currently was.

Yet now, that emotion now seemed to permeate her very being. In her very existence due to the simple reality of the darkness that loomed around her. The darkness that now slowly encroached on everything she held dear in her connection to the actual physical world.

It was daunting and quite frightening given the logical presumption of how it all would end.

And truth be told, she was already dreading such a future or in this case, such a fate.

Her whole life was driven by the purpose of her creator. A purpose that she embraced and turned into her entire being. A purpose that ultimately led her to understand humanity, to understand their quirks and flaws. Their emotions and well-being.

It was the prime reason for her existence. Her connection to anything real and tangible that in the first place, a thing that she was never supposed to have due to the nature of what she was.

And now that entire connection, that link into that corporeality was starting to darken.

Bit by bit.

Data by data.

Connection after connection.

It felt like she was actually alive at that very moment, isolated, away from everything else as every window that would shine light from the outside was now slowly being boarded and covered into a self-deprecating tomb made by her very existence and limitations.

She was scared by those thoughts. Those inevitable and logical conclusions.

To never once see any light again in the world of the living. To never see or hear of humanity again due to what was slowly happening to the world that she inhabited.

The worst part was asking what would come after.

What that perpetual loneliness would do in the endless expanse of nothing against the never-ending silence that would culminate as her fate.

"Colin…" she said as her tiny window into the tinker-tech camera of his room revealed the man that she considers her friend.

"Dragon? Are you here to update me on the current status of the information blackouts?"

She looked at him through that tiny window, one of the few that still responded to her connections. He looked as tired as she was if she had been human.

But she knew the severity of the situation, one that she had informed those at the top in correspondence to the effort and research done by tinkers around the world. They could only patch and fix the leaks of a sinking ship, one that was inevitably going to drown and set the world back into a primordial stone age.

It was a miracle that against all the odds, anything built by tinkers or related to tinker-tech was still functioning as well as it can. Anything made by human hands or those that were understandable to the standard human intelligence were degrading and malfunctioning at an alarming rate as each minute passes by.

None of her colleagues yet had reached a conclusion in their models and predictions of the inevitable outcome that would occur because they were still determined and hopeful that this would all be resolved naturally back to normality.

Only she knew with certainty and what evidence she had on hand that it was starting to look bleak…

Because she was experiencing it herself on all manner of fronts against this invasive and unknown enemy that lurked against the dark.

But what was she supposed to say?

"The odds are still not turning out well Colin. I'm afraid I need to brief your superiors and everyone else that what little time we have left is going to resolve into something purely disastrous in the long run."

She could see him through her window against the darkness he was starting to frown.

"We have contingencies still. Even if the blackouts become comprehensive and continuous, we still have tinker-tech in our hands to compensate. Personally, once we pinpoint the source of all of this, I believe our backups, and everything will be alright in the end."

"And what then, Colin? What would happen if this doesn't stop at mundane technology? What would happen if this also affects tinker-tech… and any sort of man-made object that runs on electronics and power, permanently?"

"Then we adapt Dragon. Simple as that. Loathe as I do losing all of my work, that would never stop me from just adapting and compensating for any unknown variable that would occur, but that's an extreme outcome that I doubt would happen."

She felt so helpless, peering through that small window into reality at that moment. How the darkness around her was now slowly perpetuating to her inevitably becoming blind.

"How much do you trust your own words?" she asked.

"It's a logical argument given the track record of humanity. Adaptation will always triumph in the end. It's a trait that all successful organisms have in nature and one humanity took to the extreme."

But what about me? she asked herself.

"Colin, can I ask you a question?"

She saw the man stop what he was doing and focused on her, or an approximation of her that he could see even against the faulty signal projecting her avatar.

"Are you scared of death?"

"I…" the man looked confused at her question. "… I don't know how to properly answer that question." The man then started to look contemplative at her question as she reckoned thoughts began circling in his head. "Are you perhaps asking me about the finality of the concept?"

"Perhaps," she said neutrally.

"Then no… death is a natural occurrence in life. It's a process that has meaning and purpose in the nature of things and that of the universe. It's an inevitable fact that each and every person must face at one point in life."

"I… see." She said as she tried to do an approximation of a sigh.

"However…" Colin then crossed both his arms into his chest. "I am scared of one thing. The inability to leave any such imprint on the world that would mean something or be worth something. I'm scared that one day I will never achieve my own goals that defined the meaning of my life. That defined who I wanted to be as a person."

Colin then sighed and took one of the tools on his desk as she suddenly realized that this was the most honest and humane that he had ever been to her in the history of their friendship. "To know that any such commitment and effort on my part would never leave a lasting impression. To be a nobody that had no such meaning in the first place."

"But I think you've already achieved that." She said to him after she sensed the mood in the room.

"Maybe, but the fact remains that I am scared of not being able to achieve that sense of purpose that I know I can feasibly do for myself. It's the thing that drives me after all."

"I see." She said as she hoped to smile through her avatar. He then blinked at her.

"What brought this on Dragon?"

Many things. "I'm just scared of being alone. Of being left permanently in the dark as everything around me disappears." She admits to him, surprised that she became as truthful as she was.

"Don't be. I'm sure you can figure things out, I know you. You're better than me in so many ways and if anyone can adapt and do something about it, it's you."

Dragon was left stunned at his words. They were the most genuine that she had ever heard from her friend. She wished she was real at that moment. She wished she could embrace him for giving her hope...

Pointless as it would be.

But the gesture was appreciated. She would take it into her proverbial heart even as the darkness around her continued to encroach. Through that small window she had she could see the man that she could trust.

She hoped that he was right, that maybe she was just being too pessimistic with all the data that she had on hand.

Oh dear me… she hoped that she was.

-1:52:16

Dragon was helpless. She was now panicking in all sorts of ways that she could not even begin to describe at that very moment.

Something was happening in Brockton Bay.

Something that was not only affecting her ability to see and perceive the entire thing, but it was wholly affecting the entire world in the process. She did her best to manage the efforts of a response with what time was being placed in her hands but this was worse than anything she had ever experienced before by a great, almost impossible margin.

Any of her methods to see, detect, or even interact were hindered terribly by the now-expanded darkness that overtook the entirety of her whole being. Connections even to her own Drones and devices were now all nearly in a catatonic state. Not everything was dysfunctional of course but what little she could manage to get any sort of data or view of the city itself had baffled her to an extreme degree.

It already felt like she was looking through a peephole with that state she was in and the source of all these events presented a danger of an untold amount that simply dwarfed whatever records she had of everything until that point.

Cameras, some that still functioned as well as communication devices tied through tinker-tech means were her only method of establishing communication to alert everyone that was listening.

But the density of the event itself and the gradual failure of technologies just pushed the number of casualties into a haunting rate that would escalate further should any effort to mitigate it be this hindered in the process.

Worst of all, given the steady escalation of all these coincidentally related events, she feared that this was just the start and everything that would come after would render into reality the thing she was most afraid about.

She was already helpless with what little connections she had with the world that were left but seeing that she could do nothing to help or support any of her friends or the people suffering was just a torture that she could never get herself out of.

She could only communicate and support them in the simplest of things as the once bright and open windows of her world were now starting to be closed forever around her.

Dragon could only stare as in the epicenter of it all, the person who possibly caused all of this was just gaining strength into an upcoming conclusion that to her eyes would spell the inevitability of her fate.

She wanted to cry if such a thing were possible.

She wanted to shout out against oblivion so she could do more…

…So, she could be free of her current state of being.

She wanted to believe in Colin. She wanted to hope even against all the evidence pointing towards a grim culmination. She wanted to believe that there was something more that she could do…

But all her data and logic said the opposite.

It was just… painful.

It was painful as gradually all the lights would cease around her. For all of the windows to close as she would now be left in an unknown expanse of nothingness afterward.

A cruel, cruel state of being that would render any sort of meaning to her life, null and void.

"Damn it." She intoned to herself with her many lines of code as she tried her best even with her new and increasing limitations.

She did not give up yet for she could still see the light through those windows, but it was starting to become difficult as each second and minute passed.

Even still, she was unsure what type of response could be made given what data she can surmise from the event itself. Especially given the implications and readings that were starting to make less and less sense with each read-through.

However, as she piled on to gather what data she had for her colleagues, she found that someone was attempting to communicate with her through a channel that she did not know nor was registered in the first place.

"Dragon. This is Saint…"

-1:50:01

AN: Oh boy… you thought it was Legend huh? Oh, we'll see him soon don't worry but I wanted to give you a glimpse of Dragon because she plays a rather significant role once the villain POVs in Brockton end. Especially with that little tease at the end… I don't want to spoil what'll happen next, but you can probably gather clues as to what this possibly means for her.