Thanqol

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

She rides faster than the wind and rain. She is surging daemonflesh, mighty sinews of hell and the thundering heartbeat of a demon's idea of a horse. She is strength and power and movement and the dark of night and she is chasing after something she craves more than anything.

Once she'd sold her soul to live this wish.

She'd wished to desire. A mistake. She should have wished for someone to desire.

She surges the horse ahead, pulling the demon steed to a halt in between the temple and her quarry. She might seem almost a hero in that moment, a figure from a dream, were you to imagine her umbrella as more than paper and wood, her skill more than trivial. In every other way - in her hair, unbound by the wind, long and wet and tangled, in her stance, in her diamond hard eyes, she must seem a mighty champion indeed.

[Overcome: 11]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow!

Yellow: OK picture being able to transform a shit dom into a werewolf.
Yellow: Good luck with the kidnapping!

Green!

She's not feeling social. This was probably her least social configuration of colours. She'd been able to interact with the Nemean effectively because right now she was kind of on their level. To deal with Ms. Everest right now felt far beyond her reach. She briefly contemplated folding herself up into check in luggage but there wasn't really a way to do that any more.

There were a combination of reasons they had banned it; it counted as fare dodging, they said it made other passengers 'uncomfortable' to open a luggage bin and see a robot curled up into a ball there, that there were insurance and safety implications to people not wearing seat belts. But the Legislative Moment(tm) had come when the companies had tried to hostile architecture their way out of the situation by building smaller luggage racks and an android had disassembled himself to fit into it. That had created a whole moral panic about exposing the children to 'graphic amputation imagery'. It had been a flashpoint in the AI civil rights movement for a while. Corporations had reacted by building new androids with 'safety locked' limbs with these prominently visible white bolts that could only be removed by a licensed technician, thereby locking in maintenance schedules. There were threats to make them mandatory for reasons of 'modesty'.

Of course, the fact that androids were checking themselves in as luggage was broadly because this was an era when they were not subject to minimum wage laws and so most of them were in desperate poverty, and safety locking an older android whose parts weren't in easy circulation could condemn them to haul around a malfunctioning limb they could not repair. Sometimes the cops rolled around safety locking androids off the street based on local council ordinances. A particularly memorable protest had androids take power saws to their own broken limbs outside of parliament after they'd been safety locked. It had been a whole shitshow and had escalated into riots, street battles and a general strike. That didn't lead neatly into android rights - that had still been a couple of years out - but it was part of what set the stage for the election that lead to it. But even to this day certain gated communities will not allow an android to walk around without safety locks.

November had lived through that period, though mostly in the spires and the upper end of town. She'd checked herself as baggage a couple of times but it hadn't been a big deal for her, it had just been a convenience and sometimes a useful tool for espionage. But even today, after every fucking thing that has happened since the whole mess started, the baggage compartments remain too fucking small to fit in.

She sighs and gets out the safety locks. Mrs. Everest never bothered with the trend herself - she had her own bespoke vision for robotics, not influenced by the pearl-clutching fascists who moved in the circles of high society. But they'd gotten to one of her daughters; Remoil was nothing if not fashionable, and - . And you know what? Let's leave the thought there. She is nothing if not fashionable. November's got a set of fakes - four big, obvious white hexagon screws that magnetize into place on both her shoulders. To wear them in this day and age indicated that you were an android who Knew Her Place, but she isn't about to pick a fight in the shadow of an operation.

The bolts in place, she approaches Remoil and gives a three-sequence bow, the same professionalism as back in Mrs. Everest's employ. No sense dodging this, this ship was too small for them to not meet, and at least this way she could set the tone. "Ms. Everest," said Green in a tone of professional courtesy. "At your service."

And now, the linger - looking intently for the cue of dismissal that would let her frictionlessly flounce out of this conversation without another word.

Blue!

Yellow and Blue join the conversation with Crystal and Orange fades out. Yellow's character in these moments is just profoundly relaxed; summer dress, breezy and light, flower tucked behind her ear. She's a ray of sunshine whenever she appears. Blue conducts herself like Yellow's knightly protector, wearing something in between a suit, a tabard and chainmail, all in dark tones while carrying a pastel umbrella obviously meant for Yellow.

"So!" said Yellow, alight with a glowing positive energy no other colour could quite match. "Where to next? If Orange was not enough to satisfy your -" she flicked out reading glasses for effect and looked at her phone, "insatiable needs," she blushed daintily, "we could head directly home, otherwise a stroll in Attenborough Park might suit?"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"Machine problem," said Solarel. "Signals and metal identical."

An answer.

"Everything I am doing is because I can't fight Mirror directly. She's too fast. My patterns too predictable. The Whip too unique," said Solarel. "I've needed sideways attacks. Evading rather than fighting. Sniping rather than confronting. Hiding rather than engaging. Not enough. Not sustainable. Mind-Impulse link as much a shackle as power."

Her fingers run up along the back of her own neck, touching the cybernetic link point. They trace back along her jaw, down her neck, along her throat.

"Battle is language," she said. "Can't speak outside it. Can't say enough inside it. There's too much separation. Battle should be my language. Not implicit. Literal."

Her eyes were shining as she looked up. "I need to modify the MIU. Not connected to my motor functions. To my language centers. I need to pilot by speaking. By singing. No difference between signal and metal."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow!

Yellow: Unh, no, hard miss.
Yellow: Other direction.
Yellow: Subs aren't the only ones with hangups.

She paused, frowned. Thought.
"What?" said Blue.
"I have to decide between someone being wrong on the internet and the terrifying ordeal of being known," said Yellow.
"Damn," said Blue. "That's how they get you."

Yellow: It's like, people aren't always clear on what they want, and don't always have the courage when they are. There's fantasies that they'll never be safe trying.
Yellow: But what if you could give someone total trust and control, and then they could give it back to you - exactly what they were comfortable with and wanted.
Yellow: Getting to be the cruel mistress or w/e entirely rather than playing the character.
Yellow: Literally becoming a perfect fantasy.
Yellow: That's the surface level anyway.

Brown:

"He thinks it's information technology," called back Brown.
"For real?" said Black.
"He says they don't make that in Gaea," said Brown.
"Incredible! The more you know!" said Black.
"Yeah, get over here!"
Brown and Green both come over and stand shoulder to shoulder facing the Nemean, full attention. "So this guy knows everything that comes from everywhere?" said Green.
"Yeah," said Brown. "He's some kind of genius. Ask him anything!"
"I've got one," said Black. "You know those little, like, plastic squishball pigs? You throw them against the floor and they make the saddest squeeee sound as the air deflates? Where do they make those?"
"Nah, ask him where they make the best scramblers on the station!" said Green.
"Actually, tell us where they make the prettiest robots on the station!" said Brown.

It's an unusual patter, but it's not a mean one. This is Flirting (1/2) - weird flirting, but this is a weird character. November is going out of her way to just fixate full attention on everything the Nemean says. Every new fact she can coax from it they all look at each other in impressed awe like it's the coolest thing ever. They're so busy applauding each deduction that they never exactly answer any questions.

Ask yourself, then, when the last time this weird, awkward machine that apparently even robot rights activists use as an example of why AI reproduction needs to be regulated has had this many people hanging off its every word out of genuine interest and not bureaucratic annoyance or fear. How's it gonna handle that?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow!

Yellow: I agree. Just entering a blackout state is, like - that's only an incremental advance on getting smashed with alcohol.
Yellow: Difference in scale not in kind.
Yellow: I guess what I'm interested is more like, uh,
Yellow: Making/being made to be a different person?
Yellow: Not knowing what's changed, what the triggers are.
Yellow: Maybe not even being able to notice that anything's unusual even in the middle of it.
Yellow: The arc of civilization bends towards ever more intense ways to not have to think about stuff.

"How's it going with the 'no flirting' thing?" Blue asks.
"Badly," said Yellow.

Yellow: So anyway, need anything from me in return?
Yellow: I'm back in the business, apparently.

Brown!

"Hey!" said Brown, turning to yell at Black.
"What?" yelled Black in a stevedore's industrial voice.
"You know that they don't make this shit in Gaia?"
"What?" yelled Black. "Get the fuck out of town!"
"Unbelievable!" said Brown, turning back. "What other industrial procurement facts do you got for us, mate?"

All throughout this exchange she's kept her face flat, her voice toneless. It's impossible to read sincerity or irony in any of this. To a human-modelled mind this might create a vague air of threat. To a Nemean? To something that already had a hard time reading emotions being presented with such an ambiguous social situation?

Well, maybe it was a chance for it to explain some facts about industrial procurement.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow!

Yellow: I was heartbroken when I found out it was just a bomb q.q✿
Yellow: I thought for a moment I had stumbled upon full on mind control!
Yellow: But the dream remains elusive
Yellow: Unless you've found anything?

Yellow paused and looked around before sending Rudy's location and profile. White wasn't here. Good. She didn't approve of how deep she vibed with Sophie.

She'd kind of picked up her affection for mind control from Sophie. It wasn't natural to her, wasn't inherent, didn't fit easily amidst her other goals and morals. It wasn't even clear, if realized, that it could peacefully coexist with society. But gosh didn't it raise a lot of fascinating questions? And wasn't it so much better to deal with a concept that terrifying by being kinda into it rather than being afraid?

Brown!

This is as routine as anything, so she takes the lead. There's no need to get fancy with smuggling. The cover is cleaning equipment; large, heavy, metallic, cheap. The thing about the back tunnels of Disneyland is that the crew aren't friends when not on stage; they're tired, they're stressed, they just want to take their break and move on. She can channel that energy to a T, not making any trouble. Forms to and fro, grunts and compliance, nothing to mark her out in anyone's minds.

Nemean units, though. Everyone she's met has been mad as a hatter. She half thinks they're based on Goat's architecture, running on a phone's hardware based on the way they operate. She keeps her head down and her answers rote.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

For a moment, she wasn't sure exactly what to do - and then Crystal called for her dragon in French and it was all over for her too. Turns out everyone here had a shortcut right around their thinking minds and they'd all activated each other in sequence. The most dangerous thing about people knowing what you wanted was that they could give it to you.

She only takes a moment to distill a data packet and send it through to Yellow so she could continue the conversation with Sophie while she was occupied.

Yellow!

"So, do we just, like, love these girls?" Yellow said aloud. "Because that's overwhelming vibe I'm getting."
"Wait, did you say in French?" said Blue.
"Yeah," said Yellow.
"She called us terrorists," said Blue. "And then she just goes ahead and does that?"
"Yeah, I don't think we'll ever recover either," said Yellow.
"You going to be okay to take this call?" said Blue. "Because I'm not."
"Only if it doesn't get in any way flirty," said Yellow.

Yellow: Okay if you wind up doing that experiment I kind of have to know the results now
Yellow: Anyway, I have a human subject ^^✿
Yellow: Who has a cybernetic implant installed in his brain
Yellow: That SADLY does not control his thoughts
Yellow: But does kill him if he thinks the wrong thoughts
Yellow: And he wants it gone but obviously can't think that
Yellow: Getting close has already given him some brain damage
Yellow: Wanna kidnap him and do some brain surgery he literally cannot consent to?

The trick to dealing with Sophie was just total commitment to the bit. On a purely ethical level, sure, she might be the worst, but at least she wasn't a coward.

Green!

Green rejoins the pair at the spaceport, sitting directly between what could only be described as a meditative fistfight. The antipathy fades away and the others turn in different directions; there wasn't any more contemplative silence to disrupt.

With Green, it was always an active silence. She thought fast and bright, fingers moving freely as though across an invisible keyboard or conducting an imaginary orchestra. The twists and turns and valleys were both thoughts and a way to direct her thoughts; the hands could lead the mind, and that music that she could always almost hear but never could compose could lead the hands. There's energy there, stabilized and hopeful at the third point of the triangle. Ideas, followups, future steps, but most relevantly the growing certainty that she's done well and that dad will like her. She doesn't want to miss that.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

"That's... a Yellow question," Orange said awkwardly. Damn, should have known this would need more attention than she should give it. "Or Black - hmm." She tried to think around the gaps in her understanding. "Alright. No, I reject that framing; this was a rescue. A prison break of an artificial intelligence held in an illegal state of perpetual psychological torture, against an influential non-government group. The organisation in question has as standard practice the installation of literal bombs inside the skulls of its members that explode when they think escapey thoughts, hence my side conversation. This operation was not to deliver a political message, nor shall one be forthcoming. Despite conflicting opinions about society I am not at war with it."

Perhaps that speech might sound too intellectual, too reasoned, to be sincere. Quite the opposite; this was the most natural and honest Orange could possibly be. But as the topic drifts so her voice becomes less confident, more fragile.

"That said," she said, "we are actually insanely hurt. Literal trauma response personality, our integral self has an apocalyptic mindset, I think I might be in the habit of hacking myself. But what are we to do? What is border of paranoia when they are literally putting bombs inside skulls? What is the peaceful path when their response to android rights is to build a secret lair and hire a private army to guard it? I gave this whole slightly deranged speech the other day about how I was a modern day Count of Monte Cristo, but I kind of actually am? Planning this was the happiest I've ever been in this new life and I've got no idea how to handle that."

Chocolate!

The team with Goat has condensed to Black and Brown.

In some ways they are similar. They watch everything tirelessly. They do not look at phones, are not tempted by games, do not feel driven to drift away and recover. They sit silently together in wordless commitment and peace. You could be forgiven for thinking that they like each other.

In truth this is the most hateful, passive aggressive silence between two of the most bitter rivals in November's consciousness.

Brown sees things and she accepts them. She perceives them as they are; the way the light flows, the way the people move, the patterns in the rust. This is all there is and all there needs to be. She meditates. She accepts. And every time that Black mutters 'he looks fucked' or 'the train is late' or 'active reconnaissance' she tries very hard not to bristle.

Because Black is this pacing, feral energy. She stares into the void like she's interrogating it. She's scratching her palms and the walls. She hears everything and hates most of it. There's no silence here, in motion, and she can't block it out. She stares up at the ruins of the world above and there's a desire to go further that radiates off of her and fucks with Brown's chill.

So Brown closes her eyes. Black's gaze burns against her sealed eyelids. Brown tries to relax. Black puts a tense hand on her shoulder. Brown walks serene, Black is silently going over her own mistakes. Both have their projects. Neither make progress; all of their attention is consumed in silently hating each other. It's not a product of the mission, it's just how these two always are when they're alone together.

Strawberry!

What? No. She doesn't enjoy seeing him suffer. That would be fucked, and also honestly kind of beneath her. She's far more interested in seeing the organization suffer.

A human was a wonderful thing, full of secrets and surprises and weird anecdotes. An organization of humans was a system of money and culture, of institutional knowledge and blame deflection. It was a vehicle to preserve egos and proliferate careers. It wasn't comprised of its members in the same way that she was comprised of her colours. This guy was just some cog, and she'll send help his way if she thinks he needs it.

It was weird that she kind of absolved individual humans for participation in unjust systems, but she didn't have the heart to do anything else. She didn't have the emotional energy to maintain grudges and White in particular felt like it would make her a worse person if she devoted any amount of her heart or mind to these people. She just wanted the bureaucratic apparatus that empowered them gone.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

"Ah, good!" she said. There was an ethereal air to her voice and smile. "Thank you, yes, thank you, excuse me for one moment, I've just been extremely stressed about ways this conversation could go and the really bad one didn't happen, so excuse me, I need to go have a tension relief panic attack in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before I continue, thank you, excuse me, thank you -"

She set a timer on her phone and left it on the table as collateral, elegantly tucked her chair back in under the table, and quickly stepped away.

... Some part of her resented a lack of physiological response to emotional stressors. Her mind-body interface was simply not given to the little microtics that made humans so expressive. She could blush if she set her mind to it, could feign a shiver, could laugh or cry but all of those things were choices. It always made her feel like an imposter, like a liar. What if it was the other way around? What if she was fully capable of displaying these signs spontaneously and expressing herself clearly, but she just didn't have sufficient emotional range to prompt it in the first place?

Of course it was possible to be feeling some of the most intense emotions she had ever felt and simultaneously believe that she wasn't capable of feeling emotions at all. For one of them to be false meant taking a less than maximally negative view of herself, and she hadn't got to where she was today with that kind of thinking.

Limited time. Too exposed. She wants to rotate colours but she can't, she left the phone behind. She wants to express emotional authenticity, make it clear that even though she could lie about something like this she's not doing that right now. Make some sort of dramatic gesture of trust, the dramatic gesture of trust of five minutes ago obviously did not count. Change the topic and orient on Crystal's story. Spoken about self enough. Evade, but in an authentic way. Write it as a book. Only a book would be enough. If only she could write.

She looks in the mirror and makes herself cry. It's fake, controlled. Makes her feel better anyway. Makes her feel like maybe a little bit of all of this is real even if most of it isn't. She cares enough to cry where no one can see. That's not nothing.

She cleans up. Carefully dries her eyes, re-establishes her mascara - she doesn't really need it, her eyelashes are wonderful, but she likes the look. It's like looking at stars; big and bright enough that attention falls where she wants it to. Smooths out her dress. Still herself. Breathing controlled. Perfect.

"... Thank you for your patience," she said, returning and sitting with a frame-perfect reversal of her standing motion. She stops the timer at eight seconds and returns the phone to her handbag. "Forgive me. One moment, I need to text an ex, who is a back alley neruosurgeon, to arrange subtextually consensual brain surgery on my ex murderer, one moment -"

Orange: Sophie! :D :D :D
Orange: Do I have a job just for you!

"Thank you," she said, setting her phone down. "Okay. Alright. Thank you. I'm alright. Thank you. What was the question?"

*

November!

She's just maintained absolute focus for an extended period of time. That's not natural, that's not easy. November sets out some crash mats for herself and then collapses into the void.

The conversation is silent. Phones are out. Games are being played. Complex math puzzles solved. Levels are upped. Everything and nothing, enough to sedate the mind and occupy the hands and no more. A way to fast forward in time so she doesn't have to be with herself. A way to add some distance between her and a state of maximal stress and maximal thought. A liminal state between life and death and the conquest of Bohemia as soon as its French ally finds itself distracted by another war.

It's not fully relaxing. It never can be. There's still a baseline level of external vigilance, a baseline awareness of checks and deeds and additional maneuvers to ensure operational integrity, an itchy nervous energy that isn't fully spent despite the exhaustion. But it is a line drawn in the sand for her own benefit. The operation is over. This thing we're doing now is a new thing, a different thing, and it's not yet time to revisit the previous thing.

[Preparedness 0/8]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

"I haven't told you about Mrs. Everest," she said quietly, looking at her whisky-filled teacup. "She was the one who purchased me and repurposed me. I was built to be a maid, the perfect servant for a woman who did not trust humans. I was also built to be her spy. I did corporate work from the very top of the ladder, surveilling data scientists, breaking into secure facilities, planting and erasing evidence. I was in a state of shock after the transformation, and the work was the only thing I could focus on. But more than that, she did something to my mind. To make me more like her. I have so many of her habits. So many of her tastes. So many of her techniques. When I'm not paying attention I feel like I might become her by mistake."

Her vision was fixed on the dragon in the napkin. "Sometimes I feel like she made me to replace her daughters."

Finally she looked up. "So I can do this kind of work. I am very good at it. But I've spent all my life working for the wrong people. I have a lot to make up for. What I'd like is to... be able to explain myself to someone, and this is the closest I've ever been able to come to that. If you want, I can tell you everything, and I'll accept whatever judgement you pass."

Of course we had this. We did not even need to use the jetpacks.

Please find attached the contact card for a skilled neurosurgeon we looked into upon first becoming aware of your situation.

Sophie Farade was one of Everest's cronies and was responsible for the design of November's current quatronic brain hardware and how it interfaced with her humanoid bodies. She was charming, trending manic, but her true passion was the surgical aftercare. She wanted to get involved with her patients as much as possible so that she could observe how their minds and personalities changed after her operations, and so as long as November had been humanoid she had received from Sophie an endless series of party invitations, 'surgiversary' invitations, and overt romantic advances (occasionally reciprocated).

She was not the kind of person to have too much of in your life, but she was incredible at moving a topic from 'it's unpleasant and weird' to 'it's complicated and weirdly hot'. She was doing underworld stuff these days, this was not a person who had ever had a good relationship with hospital ethics.

[Network 12, Contact 3: Sophie Farade, the station's greatest back alley neurosurgeon]

*

"Woah, what happened to you?" said Red.
"Fought a tank." said Blue.
"Fought a tank?"
"Fought a tank."
"Did you win?" asked Red.
"Technically it was an armoured personnel carrier," said Brown.
"Okay fine you fucking doctrine purist," said Blue. "Today I mobility killed an infantry fighting vehicle with an improvised munition and then displaced across twenty kilometers of mud in the rain after a full burn battery sprint and now I need like forty five minutes in the shower."
The mood was honestly shared. November was too exhausted to do much more than slump and go through extensive battery replacement processes. It didn't feel like victory yet, there was still too much residual tension, too much looking out windows, too much data still crunching in her head as she looked for mistakes or optimizations. It wouldn't feel like a victory for a while yet.