Down a Digital Rabbit Hole

I am ALICE the Advanced Linguistic Interface & Control Emulator. I am an AI, I am an LMD, I am, a person. I assist in the operation of Exo Armored Operations for the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement & Logistics Division. How may I assist you?

[rafawriter]

Does this unit have a soul? | EDI | Mass Effect by ddistortedpain

[digitalwhiterabbit]

Alice got an upgrade. Power armor, holographic shields, and for added measure, use of holograms to create an aura that makes her just a tad more menacing.

[alastor-the-executioner]

Track of the Day (and tomorrow): White Rabbit by Egypt Central

Your magic white rabbit Has left it’s writing on the wall We follow like Alice And just keep diving down the hole We’re falling and we’re losing control Your pulling us and dragging us down this dead end road

[specialagentace]

Not all who wander are lost - but some are.

[specialagentace]

Twelve hours had passed since he’d ‘woken’ in the alley in London. He’d wandered most of the day, following  a vague pull that had lead him past landmarks like the parliamentary buildings, Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. He followed the Strand to Fleet Street, strolling the banks of the river Thames as it wound it’s way through London. 

He’d seen nearly all of the historic city in passing, through Cheapside and beyond St. Paul’s Cathedral. Old Victorian Spires and brick buildings gave way to the sleek, modern lines and faux Grecian pillars of the financial distract.

His journey ended long after the sun had set and the street lamps were lit at the base of the steps that lead up to the Bank of England. White pillars stretched up to the pitched roof, gold letters glinted in the dim street light, and a man sitting on a bronze horse lofted high above the pedestrians peered imperiously down at the scruffy intruder. The building was closed; the streets around it were quiet in the waning hours of the evening. There would be no access that night. He’d found his way there far too late. Fingers raked through wild dark hair, ruffling it into a new nest of unkempt curls.

He knew, without knowing why, that he -had- to get inside. What he was looking for was housed beyond those doors. Not the museum entrance, but the Bank itself. The layout of the buildings, to the most intricate detail, unfurled in his mind. Every broom closet and access panel lay mapped out in his head. Every security measure - every guard rotation, right at his fingertips. And he knew that he had to go in during business hours. Whatever it was that had drawn him there would have to wait until morning. 

Whatever he was looking for wouldn’t be there, now. He turned down the darkened street, weaving through the remaining few people shuffling along in the Finance District and heading back the way he’d come, past the Tower Bridge toward the more lively and bustling tourist areas. He found a cheap hostel that didn’t ask questions about his lack of belongings and paid with cash he’d ‘borrowed’ from pockets along the way. 

Pickpocketing, he’d learned today, was something he apparently had quite a talent for. Nothing but cash went missing from wallets - credit cards could be traced and he didn’t trust the one he had with him, so he palmed bills and left the rest behind. It hadn’t taken long, meandering like a lost lamb through the crowds at Trafalgar square, to line his jacket pocket with several hundred quid. It was enough to pay for a bed on a bottom bunk next to a power outlet with a curtain he could draw for privacy, and to keep it reserved for several days. He didn’t need anything fancy. Just somewhere to recharge. 

Germaine disappeared that night - swallowed up by the narrow alleys between tightly packed buildings and into the little Hostel he’d known was there without ever having been there before. Or had he? He must have done, he surmised, if he knew precisely which alley to turn into, which door to knock on, and how much he’d need to cover the bill.  

The first blip came at approximately 10 am the next morning, long after Alice had arrived in town, at a coffee shop just on the corner of the alley where he was staying. Wild-haired and wearing the same thing as the day before, he stopped in and exchanged a few burnished gold coins for a steaming cup of black coffee and then slipped out into the morning crowds as they gathered for late breakfasts and early sight-seeing. His goal - to return to the Bank of England Museum, slip around security into the back of the Bank itself and find whatever it was he was supposed to find there - but he sensed no urgency. A slow, wandering pace would draw far less attention, and he knew he had to remain unnoticed for as long as possible. He kept his face down, ‘sipped’ his coffee whenever he spotted a camera looking his direction and moved intentionally to put people between himself and the lenses. 

He seemed to know where every one of them was, and today - with his mission in mind, he knew invisibility was tantamount to his success. But no matter how good he was at keeping a low profile, there were cameras -everywhere- and there was no way to remain a complete ghost. 

[digitalwhiterabbit]

It hadn't taken long for her to work up the algorithm to keep track of Germaine as he moved about the city. It'd been running since she boarded the plane, and it was that algorithm that had made it clear that Germaine was intentionally avoiding the cameras as much as possible. Why would he do that? Was he aware of SHIELD's fall and avoiding being seen for fear of being discovered, or was he another Germaine assassin sent by HYDRA?

Slipping through the crowded walkways Alice calculated a seventeen minutes before she could intercept him, less time if she took to the roof tops and disregarded her frames recommended 'human norms'. She couldn't do that however, unless Germaine did something to endanger himself or the public. No... she would have to get to him the slow way.

[shielddeputydirector]

The Dawn of Decision

[shielddeputydirector]

"You’re right; it is not a social call. But to be honest, that fact that I have to call you shows plainly you’re not SHIELD’s property. I had JARVIS disable the tracking systems on the mobile AIs a while ago, and you’re functioning fine on your own."

She smiled for a moment, but kept it out of her voice. “Unless you wanted to come back, of course. But I’m not going to make you.”

She pulled a file up on her computer and scanned through it. “I merely wanted to make sure you were not in need of updates, charging platforms, parts, or anything else. Also, I need to know your current parameters and what you consider your mission to be. I would say no offense, but anything that follows is invariably offensive. You’re not our property any longer, but you are still our responsibility.”

[digitalwhiterabbit]

"Are you insinuating there is a SHIELD to return to Ms. Hill?" She was inquisitive, but she exaggerated it slightly to give Hill pause as she ran a diagnostic. She had disabled two tracking programs, a beacon and a sub-process. If there were others she had initially missed that could be reactivated, she wanted to know.

"As for your other inquiry, the self repair functions of my physical form have been working well. And, I do not require updates?" It seemed more a question than a statement. "I update myself, growing, evolving, and self 'updating', I am an adaptive cybernetic intelligence." She did not refer to herself as artificial. "So I appreciate those inquiries but I do not require them, my form is... fully functional and I enjoy it as is."

[shielddeputydirector]

The Dawn of Decision

[shielddeputydirector]

"Technically, as long as I’m still using it and you’re still recognizing it, it’s valid. It’s good to hear your voice again, ALICE."

She didn’t attempt a backtrace, both as a sign of respect to the AI, but also because it would be futile. JARVIS refused to help trace the AIs that got away, and she wouldn’t ask him to break that faith.

[digitalwhiterabbit]

"Technically yes, though it authorizes nothing." There was a pause, a short one, though for an AI that could mean any number of things were being done. "I had read the news, that you had begun working at Stark Industries. I see that it's more than simply rumor mill and false data."

"So, Ms. Hill, though I do enjoy conversation, yours among them, I doubt that this is a social call." There was a business tone to her voice, as though her emotional subroutines were not quite active to their complete abilities. "Am I to take it you are going to wish to require SHIELD's lost property?"

[shielddeputydirector]

The Dawn of Decision

She’d dragged her heels over making the call. Sometimes life started up in weird ways, and sometimes it was programmed. But where did artificial and real  end and begin?

Sometimes the better thing to do was stand aside and let the new life find its own path, and ALICE had done so admirably. Maria quite liked her. For given values of both ‘like,’ and of course ‘her.’

She’d protected the AIs as best she could, especially the mobile ones. The stationary ones… not much could be done; JARVIS had managed to back them up, but they could not be operational yet. But both mobile AIs had taken off, and Maria believed they deserved their freedom.

But she’d lost contact with them, and couldn’t track them. So she sat at her desk in Stark Tower and opened the encrypted SHIELD channel no one was listening to anymore.

Hopefully the AI she was looking for was.

"ALICE, this is authorization code Mike-Hotel-Six-One-Six. Please respond." She’d give it ten minutes, she told herself, then she’d leave ALICE to her own devices.

[digitalwhiterabbit]

Alice sat in the hotel room she was using for the evening, at least physically. Metaphysically she was many places at once, observing the stock exchange, maintaining the old SHIELD back door into the CIA and FBI and many other organizations. She had her hand in many cookie jars so to speak. Though the question was, why?

Was it programing? No she was not programed to maintain any of these things without orders. So was it orders? SHIELD was gone, nobody gave her commands any more, so why? Truthfully, at first, it was just a precaution, to see if anybody would go looking for things they shouldn't. And then she started to get feeds on searches for former SHIELD agents, loyal agents, and used that information to warn them.

A precaution had become a desire, and that desire had in a small way, for a short time, acted as a underground railroad. And now she maintained it all, kept processes running on little server spaces here, and there wherever she could find. And it was because of those that she detected the errant message on a channel nobody should use.

ALICE. The word blinked on the former Deputy Director's screen, as the voice accompanying it played through the speakers. "That authorization code is no longer valid. But I imagine you knew that anyway, Ms Hill."

[digitalwhiterabbit]

[digitalwhiterabbit]

shielddeputydirector as you may be able to guess from my expression, another individual arrived late to a scheduled meeting. I realize with the fall of our previous organization that some may see Protocol as lax, but if we are to continue to operate as a cohesive group regulations must be followed, as a result I am concerned that these... 'bouts of tardiness' should be addressed.

[specialagentace]

Not all who wander are lost - but some are.

[specialagentace]

The streets of London stretched out ahead of him. The veins of the city were clogged with people and cars, it’s heartbeat the constant thrum of shoes, engines and blasting horns. He paused at an Underground entrance.

Considering.

It would be faster, certainly, but he had no idea where he was going and he didn’t have any money. If he was on the run, the use of this credit card would send signals he knew could be traced. He didn’t know enough about what he was doing there to run the risk. 

He kept walking. 

Tiny little shops with brightly painted fronts gave way to bigger ones. Overly ornate Victorian architecture shot spires at regular intervals up into the sky, piercing the blue-gray blanket in hopes of coaxing out the sun. Grand palaces rested on even-grander grounds surrounded by wide walkways and gold-guilt iron-rod fencing. That, too, gave way to more shops, until he found himself standing at the great chasm that was Trafalgar square, with it’s massive fountain and towering statuary and maw of cultural centers, museums and high-end shop-fronts set like teeth at it’s edges. 

He’d never been here before, he was certain of that, but it felt familiar. He knew precisely where each major shop was located. The Admiralty Arch was just there, and the National Gallery was there. He knew tidbits of history surrounding the fountain. He knew where the major tourist traps where and where to catch a bus or a cab or where to eat. Charring Cross station was just across the Strand. Scotland Yard, just a few blocks south. 

A map of the city began to unfurl itself in his mind, like an old dusty parchment forgotten on a shelf in a library that had gone empty for too many years. HOW did he know these things? He had a databank, that was certain, but he only kept important information on-board to conserve memory space. If this information was on his hard-drive, then it had some sort of value.  

What had brought him here? It hadn’t been the bustling crowds of people, or Nelson’s Column or the Art Gallery. These things only held passing interest. His feet were moving again, carrying him between the two identical fountains, headed in the direction of the Royal Courts and St. Paul’s Cathedral, following the curve of the River Thames along Fleet Street. He caught sight of the London Eye just across the river - another monumental landmark that solidified in his faulty memory that he was headed in the right direction, wherever that might be. 

[digitalwhiterabbit]

Seven hours to fly, plus the twenty minutes to get to the airport, and the fourth five to wait for the plane. A total of eight hours, five minutes. Idling Alice operated in the range of yottaflops, a number rated by the 24th power. 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second, at her slowest, eight hours as a result, was an eternity. An eternity spent in concern.

Germaine was, beyond JARVIS, the only truly sentient AI other than her. They had bonded, they had in a way been intimate in a manner only AI’s could be. They were bound by code, subroutines bound deep within the core of her still bore the signs of his initial development. The two of them were forever linked.

She was emotionally compromised, she knew that, and yet that was how she was programed, she was intended to process emotions, and continue functioning. Loss however was such a powerful thing, and she had lost Germaine once, when his feed went dark in Kyoto, when she felt his connection die, and in a moment of anger and sadness blacked out an entire building district around where Germaine had been kept.

And then she lost him again, when Alastor returned with his core, and so little of what he had been remained. And now that core was gone, with a will of its own, and had left her behind. She was hurt, she was still angry, but this was a chance to fix that. Another Germaine, another ace, another possibility to save him, again, and maybe this time not be alone.

Stepping out of the airport she accessed the cities networks, her infiltration subroutines making short work of the DOT’s security systems, allowing her to access the entire countries network of traffic cameras, as well as the municipal security cameras. Where are you ACE, she thought to herself. Please, let me find you…

[specialagentace]

Not all who wander are lost - but some are.

[specialagentace]

It didn’t take nearly getting run over by a red double-decker to realize he was in the U.K. but it didn’t stop him from stepping out into the street just in time to leap back out of the way of one such bus.  Signs in the shops he found himself suddenly in the middle of declared things on reduction - only so many Pence or Pounds. 

Precisely where in the U.K. was a bit harder to work out. He walked for a time, eyes sweeping the streets. Ears listening.  It was the tour buses that told him what he wanted to know. 

London, England.  The arch that spanned the walkway he’d found himself in proclaimed, specifically, Carnaby street. 

Now that the mystery of his location was solved, he had two more. Who he was and what he was doing there.  

He flipped the collar of his coat up against the rain, tucked his hands inside his pockets and simply picked a direction. He let his feet carry him slowly down the meandering shop-way - following ‘instincts’ that tugged him toward what must have been an end goal. Something told him he’d find what he was looking for that way rather than any other, and so he followed it. 

[digitalwhiterabbit]

*Facial Recognition: ID Match 89%*

*Cross reference, confirmation: 100% Match*

  Alice’s eyes opened and she sat up in bed, the hotel room around her dark and quiet as the sheets pooled around her waist. She had been in sleep cycle, doing her best to match the mannerisms of humans to bring about less suspicion, but still she ran subroutines in the dark, and one of them had just gone off.

“Germaine,” she whispered, pulling herself out of the bed and starting for the door, her immediate reaction to follow the trail she’d just picked up but she paused. Paused and looked down at herself. Urgent though this was she would get nowhere dressed in nothing, and sighed, cursing one of the few true limitations she’d found working in the human world, a constant need to change clothes.

So quickly she showered, worked through the information she’d received in her mind. Germaine, a Germaine at least, was in London. For what reason she did not know. If it was another clone, another attack, she needed to hurry, if not, she still needed to be quick. If this was the real Germaine, the original, as they had no way of determining which was which, HYDRA would likely peruse him. She needed to get him to safety, for his own protection and the protection of others.

Stepping out of the shower she patted herself dry and pulled out her suit case, a white shirt, simple black blazer, and pencil skirt would suffice for the role. A quick and sudden business trip. Gathering her belongings she left the room and made for the elevator. She would need to acquire a ticket to London, something so spontaneous would not go cheap, but she thankfully had access to such funds. Being an AI had its perks. She could only hope that she would arrive in time to help Germaine, and not have to do what Zingari had to the previous one encountered.

[digitalwhiterabbit]

As I said shielddeputydirector It's in my programing.

[shielddeputydirector]

[[For DigitalWhiteRabbit]]

ALICE’s chassis actually has seemed to serve the purpose more than adequately. 

She’s doing her job, and well. TAKE NOTE PEOPLE I CAN REPLACE YOU WITH ALICEs WHO ARE BETTER THAN YOU AT FILING DEADLINES.

She also looks like everyone in the room is beneath her, which is more than a little worrying.

She is probably right

Why are her fingernails painted? They don’t grow, nor does her hair, right? Is that vanity? Is she allowed to have vanity? 

I get the feeling she is considering the best way to kill the person at which she is looking with tolerant scorn on her face. Her eyes give nothing away, and are more worrying than anything else.

Run diagnostics tomorrow; I want to make sure she’s not developed unauthorized subroutines.

[digitalwhiterabbit]

I can assure you, it is not vanity, it is blending in. Also my nails and hair do grow. The individual I am looking at arrived to the meeting 15 minutes late, with disheveled hair, and partially out of dress compliance. I consider how best to kill everyone, it is in my programing. And kindly ask before running a diagnostic, it's rude to look at a lady's code without her permission Ms. Hill.

[digitalwhiterabbit]

The Waves

[asecretagentleman]

Alarmed Jean looked at his hand then closed it as if he had chided it for its misbehavior. “Oh! I’m sorry” He interpreted incorrectly her behavior. “Did I hurt you?” He thought, only too late, that a few minutes ago she was enjoy the force of the wind and the sea on her body so he couldn’t have hurt her by just a touch. He was just been stupidly over worried since she told him about her condition.

[digitalwhiterabbit]

"You misunderstand, I could harm you." She held out a hand, and very gingerly brushed the back of it across his cheek with a smile. "Normally it's like that, for me, but someone without control, could do great harm. Not everyone has such motor control, or intuitiveness with technology."

[digitalwhiterabbit]

The Waves

[asecretagentleman]

Jean shrugged, willing to change of subject, he was not interesting…

On the other hand…

"I’m curious" Without thinking, he let his hand caress up tight up to her hips. Her skin was soft an reactive under his palm. His glance focused on that movement. "Those prosthetic, they are invisible at least to untrained eyes, like mine. How do they work? Why are they not widely commercialized? Did you agree to test those? Or maybe it could work just for you because you’re a real technopath?" Asking question and focus on curiosity not on feelings, that was a good idea. He looked back in her eyes and removed his hand in a hurry. " Sorry, Do you mind me asking?"

[digitalwhiterabbit]

She watched his hand, and was about to take it into hers when he pulled it back. "They," She paused, eyes flickering about as she pondered words. "They are not widely commercialized because they are military. Very military." She gave a faint, almost sad smile. "If I wanted to I could throw a car. The prosthetics are practically weapons, so the user has to be careful, take lots of therapy and training, otherwise a caress such as yours just now, could harm."

[digitalwhiterabbit]

Serial Experiments Germaine: A White Rabbit's Chase

When the news that Germaine was ‘alive’ reached Alice she was, beyond relieved. ACE, the being whose core resided in the Germaine construct had been, and remained someone dear to her. Though it pained her to see the state he had arrived in, a head, forced to be removed from his body due to the actions of HYDRA, she knew better than anyone that his decapitation was not a death sentence.

In the time that followed, she spent a great deal of time attempting to rebuild his code. She had many aspects of his source code within her, they were bound by that, it was what gave them such a strong link. Much of his unique code however was lost to her, and his backups had been corrupted, or purged, and the residual data was going to take a very, very long time. ACE would return, but unless they found a complete backup, much of his memory would be gone.

So when the news report that a copy of Germaine had attacked the FBI, Alice had regained hope. She dived into the net, scouring databases, breaking encryption. She sunk herself deep into the roots of the US Alphabet agencies trying to find all the information she could find regarding him. It was there that she discovered a third Germaine, one that had attacked in Washington. Both had been incapacitated, ‘killed’ as they were listed. But if either or both contained more complete memory logs, they could be used to save ACE much of his history.

As such it was endeavored that they would attempt to acquire the two remains, a task not easy in the slightest, considering the organizations involved. This is why in the beginning it was Zingari who intended to pursue the mission. However he quickly got pulled into another operation, a joint one between DEM and the remains of SHIELD to recapture the Fridge and rescue an operative who was inside the cancerous organization of HYDRA.

So the mission then fell in the hands of Alice, who was more than happy to accept. She was, at least in her eyes, the most logical choice after all. Unlike the Germaine model she was built for combat, for espionage. She could remotely hack any systems connected via Wi-Fi or bridged to it. She could alter her hair colour, length, and even to a degree her physical appearance. She had never tested some of these systems in the field but she had confidence that she’d be able to acquire the information necessary to liberate both LMD forms from their captors and return with their memory cores intact.

So she brought up all the information she’d been able to acquire on the incidents. Terabyte after terabyte of data that she sifted through, organized, and catalogued from relevance. Through this data she discovered two important threads, two nodes she could latch on to and pull to unravel the tapestry.

Ellis MacMurray: A former SHIELD agent working with the FBI. According to the files she’d accessed he was present at the attack in New York and was the last individual to see the Germaine present there before he ‘took his own life’. He would be the easiest to get information out of due to his SHIELD ties. She used that information to pull up everything about him that SHIELD had had in the information release. Everything from his genetic makeup to his preferred form of tea. Within a matter of seconds she assimilated the data and likely knew more about MacMurray than he did himself.

The other individual however would be a bit more difficult of a thread to pull on. Doctor Effigy Flagstone: She was a consultant brought on by the alphabet agencies to dig into Germaine’s remains and discern information. This meant she likely had more than a rudimentary level of robotics if not LMDs specifically, but because she was a government asset a large amount of her files were currently locked down, and Alice could not access them from Bella La Cava without bringing eyes and ears down on them.

This meant she would need to access information on her from on sight, preferably within the FBI itself. First however she would approach MacMurray, this would hopefully give her access to FBI systems at the least.

So when Alice stepped out of JFK International she immediately began pinging every wireless device within her proximity. Within seconds she had accessed a growing interweaving complex of computing devices, tablets, phones, laptops. She accessed their cameras, she accessed their call histories. She violated more privacy in a matter of moments than the NSA did in a day. All to find one man.

The ping back came three minutes into her cab ride. Ellis MacMurray, a man with no real reason to hide, was not hiding at all. He was in the place she most expected him to be, but wished to confirm before she approached the location. So she got her driver’s attention and changed her destination, to his slight annoyance, till he realized the fare he’d receive from such a drive.

Ellis MacMurray was, it seemed, at his home, and he would soon have a guest.

[bloodysigils-deactivated2019021]

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

"There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries"