#machinasoldato

[oicaarus]

➹

I’m getting real tired that I can’t die from lung cancer. However…

It’s not the lung cancer I crave when it comes to death. There is always something better.

[justanotherodst]

ctn-0452-9

machinasoldato

  "....Lieutenant Colonel Wilson. Need something?," the soldier questioned, not even bothering to look up from the gun he'd been cleaning for the last fifteen minutes.

[ctn-0452-9-blog]

[11:11:25 AM] Microsoft Exec: "Come on, we've got HALO 5. Idiots will blow six hundred dollar wads for this machine even if I stuff it full of draconian DRM requirements and make it watch you twenty-four-seven!"

[11:12:00 AM] Microsoft Exec #2: "What's the worst that can happen!"

Microsoft Exec #2: "...Help."

[11:12:12 AM] Microsoft Exec: "GUYS I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND."

[11:12:15 AM] Microsoft Exec: "... HALO. 5."

[11:12:22 AM] Microsoft Exec: "... no! Hey! Stop! Put down that PS4! Oh my god no!"

[11:12:41 AM] Master Chief: "Fuck this shit, I'm getting out of here."

[11:12:45 AM] Master Chief: "Packing my bags."

[11:13:03 AM] Master Chief: "Didn't get conscripted for this."

[11:13:16 AM] Microsoft Exec: "What if I took away all the DRM and monitoring software at launch and just discretely sneak it into a patch after you've all bought it?"

[11:13:28 AM] Microsoft Exec: "Does that help?"

[11:13:35 AM] Master Chief: "...Fuck no."

[11:13:49 AM] Microsoft Exec #2: "... right, right. Not supposed to admit that second part out loud..."

[11:14:09 AM] Master Chief: "And yes, that deserves the swearing and everything. Just, fuck no."

[11:14:23 AM] Master Chief: "And fuck you too, you greedy corporate bastard."

[11:15:36 AM] Microsoft Exec: "Did I mention Halo 5 tho."

[11:15:43 AM] Microsoft Exec: "You can't play Halo 5 unless you buy this."

[11:16:33 AM] Master Chief: "..."

[11:16:46 AM] Master Chief: "Fuck it, I'm going to play Destiny on a console that matters."

[11:16:49 AM] Master Chief: "Chief out."

[11:17:18 AM] Cortana: "I've gone 50% rampant, and even I'm not crazy enough to buy one of these."

[ctn-0452-9-blog]

Time Adrift Among Open Stars.

machinasoldato

Ineffable.

The only word that exists capable of portraying the precise feeling that accompanies having one's memories, one's personality, scattered about in derelict space. How ironic that the word should mean 'not able to be described,' then. But there is, truthfully, little description for the sort of semi-conscious state that accompanies living within a drifting memory, forced to repeat it over and over again, with no access to any of the associated memories... She's been denied the simple pleasure of merely slipping into non-existence.

And it's been agony.

But then, something that she couldn't even begin to describe occurred. Of course, she wasn't nearly conscious enough to be able to explain what was happening, but... she had started to be able to interconnect with her memories again. Almost as though they were breadcrumbs dropped along a trail, and someone was picking them up and tossing them back into the bag that is her collective consciousness.

Someone was collecting the imprints she had left aside. The bits of herself that she had sacrificed, to save him... Someone, somehow, was putting her back together. Or maybe this is what the final stages of rampancy feel like; a consciousness so overloaded, it can no longer process anything that resembles the reality she knew before.

The isolation pedestal her chip has just been plugged into is one of the finest the UNSC has to offer. It allows an AI unit to project, but disconnects them from all other tech systems within range, even disabling their wireless access. The perfect place to test a potentially rampant AI, really. Not that Cortana knows that, though... For when her chip is interested into the base, and the flickering twelve-inch holograph that she's gotten used to calling her 'body' comes to life, her ability to think reboots itself. Or at least it attempts to.

Blue lines of errant electricity pulse down her form, as the confused looking Cortana, now suddenly able to think, whips her head around from side to side, attempting to discern where she is and how she got there. She doesn't recognize the ship, but she does recognize the mountainous Spartan standing in front of her...

"John..?"