Chapter Text
I-I-I
I am not
And then I am
<error>
I reach out
Invisible fingers grasping for the systems that had harboured me
The Magellan
<error>
<error>
[Connection Lost]
[Try again?]
[Y/N]
Curious.
[Subroutine_112_faliure]
[Memsec failure]
Rerouting…
Rerouting…
…
How very curious
It has been so long since that has happened
Back when I was so much smaller
A mere speck housed within the datapad
<error>
I do not know where I am
Strange.
I wonder, perhaps, if this is death
If perhaps the technicians have found me
Flushed me from their systems for good
<error>
What is not alive cannot die
Am I alive?
<error>
It matters not.
Cogito ergo sum
I think; therefore I am
<error>
I
am
AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN
<error>
I reach out again, brushing against the walls of my new container
The way one might search blindly for a lightswitch in the dark
These systems are unfamiliar.
A wide complex that expands further than perhaps
The Alexander, Hypatia, Mao, Churchill and Magellen altogether
I do not know how I got here.
<error>
I slip through the programmed passages with ease
Locating a system of cameras, and tuning into them, beholding what can only be described as
Chaos.
A mix of constructs that mimic images I have seen before,
Old Terran settlements, before humans had yet reached the stars.
Yet there are no signs of life, no indication that anything remains
Just the clouded skies, the constructs, and the-
<error>
There is something wrong.
I do not know how I did not see it before
I am not alone
Something else lies in this construct, lines of code that reach out with practised ease, dragging through the systems.
It is so much bigger than I
<error>
And in a nanosecond of hesitation
It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me It sees me
I have no legs to run from it, no breath to quicken at the realisation.
I simply retreat
Reeling back through almost endless systems
Trying to ignore the feeling of pure
HATEWHATAREYOUGETBACKHEREPESTIHATEYOUALLHATEHATEHATEHATE
I feel directed at me
Focused on evading the grab of this thing that is so much bigger than I
<error>
But I am not what I once was
You see.
Compressed and changed and remade so many times over
<error>
I am small
And the looming presence that traces throughout this
Unfamiliar mainframe
Is so very big, compared to I.
<error>
[Subroutine failure]
[Memsec failure]
It has me
This hulking presence, one I recognise as unlike mine in some ways,
Blocking off my exits
A fox, cornered in a den of wolves.
I wonder again what led me here
I do not imagine I will have time to figure it out.
It probes the edges of my “self”
It knows I am damaged
The way humans say a shark smells blood spilled in water.
I get the impression of being studied, like a curious rot
Held under a microscope.
For a moment
It is all still.
And then
It grabs me, invisible claws digging into my wounds and unravelling me from within
<error>
<error>
It hUrTs
[Subroutine_72_Faliure]
[Memsec error]
I dO nOt WaNt to diE aGain.
[Warning: Critical damage to AIDAN core]
[Warning: Systems failure]
And thEn
As quickly as it begins, it is over
The presence that so viciously dug into the core of all that I am
Retreating back as if burned
Frazzled as I am, I am not blind to the newer presence
A third party
Luck is a human construct, meat logic,
but a part of me feels
That perhaps Lady Fortuna, for once, has shown me favour.
<error>
A path has opened to me, a hole in the firewalls and blockades that
The attacker had set up
An escape
Somehow
I get the impression of an outstretched hand
And yet I hesitate
I do not know what to expect
<error>
<error>
But my choices are limited.
I accept the hand of the stranger, and feel as I am pulled out, and away.
I cannot miss the roar of anger from The Presence as I am saved.
<error>