System Messages - Part One of ?
You weren't sure what you were expecting to find on the cd when you brought it home with you. Certainally not a sentient AI hidden deep in an old computer program, quietly waiting for someone to talk to.
Caine (TADC) x modernhuman!reader Part One - Here! | Next - Warnings: My bad attempt at explaining computers, abandoned places, being watched without knowing Words: 3098
You left soft wet foot prints along the dusty floor, your sneakers still wet from the dew-soaked grass outside. Your fist was tight around the flashlight in your hands, trying to keep the beam of light steady as you walked. Just ahead of you, you could see the beam of Aaron’s own flashlight flickering about before he turned a corner.
You cleared your throat as you kicked up more dust, feeling it itch the back of your throat as you inhaled. Who knows how long it’s been settled here, coating every inch of surface in this abandoned building. The thought had you lifting your free hand, holding the cuffed sleeve of your hoodie to cover your nose and mouth.
The abandoned building was eerily quiet, as if everything here was holding its breath, held frozen in time. Only the sound of the building settling and your own muffled breathing dared breach the silence. You passed by an old potted plant, the synthetic leaves waxy and coated in dust, the dull green bleached with age. It was a mockery of a living thing left here, alone and abandoned. You walked past some wooden desks with toppled office chairs, all peeling leather and rotting fabric, and carefully stepped around them.
What was this office space even used for? Why was the building so remote, with only a single laned road branching into wooded private property? Why was it left in such disarray? These questions flittered through your mind as you finally approached the corner Aaron had curbed.
You peeked around it to see how far down he’d gone…only to feel a pit of dread begin to gnaw at your stomach. You could no longer see the beam of his light down the dark hallway, had no idea where he’d gone. Damn him for wandering, damn him for leaving you alone in this creepy ass building. “Aaron?” you called his name, your voice muffled against the sleeve of your hoodie. It was startlingly loud in the deathly silence. You cringed slightly.
Receiving no response from your friend, you cautiously turned the corner to try and follow him with nothing more than skidded disturbances in the dust as clues. You nearly tripped where the carpet was peeling up, the seam transitioning between two pieces all frayed and curling. You cursed under your breath, beginning to feel frustrated and anxious all at once.
Why’d you ever let him convince you to do this? Why were you out here in the middle of nowhere when you could be curled up at home enjoying a nice hot shower and soft, warm pajamas?
You followed the traces Aaron left behind, passing an old water cooler, the five-gallon bottle atop it long emptied and warped. The generic furniture, you noticed, was strangely uniform and sparse, looking every bit dated in 1990’s fashion. Stepping through an open archway, you paused, looking left and right as you came upon a t-intersection. To the left, the hallway continued on into infinite shadow, looking much the same like where you’d just been. But to the right… a single open door led to a larger room.
Not wanting to brave another hall, you turned right.
Stepping through the door, you entered what appeared to be an office. The white paint on the walls was peeling, and several file cabinets were left in disarray, papers scattered around the floor. Most of the writing was smeared with water damage, but the small bits that were still legible were a mix of characters that made no sense to you.
Against the wall opposite to you was a single desk, lined up and tidied with old equipment atop of it. A printer and scanner, a mouse and chunky keyboard, and speakers connected to a retro pc computer, the plastic yellowed with age. It was a dinosaur of a machine, and you let out a low whistle as you approached it.
Beside the computer was a box holding a mix of old floppy disks, most of them labeled with dates and strange notes. Some cd’s were also thrown into the mix, though most were warped and scratched. Strangest yet, there was some sort of VR headset on the desk as well. Seemed like a pretty modern idea for such old equipment…
Curiosity nagged at you, and you approached the desk chair, cautiously sitting down on it. You set your flashlight on the desk to free your hands, the beam of light hitting the back wall. You clicked the mouse and pressed a few random keys on the keyboard, feeling the stiff give of them. You pretended to be an office worker, tried to imagine what it might’ve been like to be sitting here when the building was still in use. What work would you have been doing? What data would you have stored on the disks lying dormant beside you?
Suddenly, a loud beeping sound emitted from inside the machine, and you jumped out of your skin, gasping. You placed a hand to your chest, feeling your racing heart, before you heard a low whirring sound. Then, the dusty black screen began to emit a dim glow.
“What the hell,” you muttered to yourself, eyes wide. Was electricity since hooked up to this building? The lights weren’t working, so how the hell was this old computer still running? Perhaps there was a backup generator somewhere?
You watched, feeling something like amazement or dread, as small white characters began to appear on the black screen. You weren’t well-versed in computer science, especially that of an older time, but living in the 21st century gave you a little technological literacy. You squinted at the chunky font, watching numbers count up: Memory testing 640K…Memory testing 2048K…
It must have been a minute or two of you watching, fascinated, before the number finally settled around something like “16384K OK.” The screen flickered back to black. You hesitated, giving the mouse a few experimental clicks, though the whirring continued through the black screen.
Finally, a logo appeared on the screen, some name for a tech company you’ve never heard of before. The resolution was so pixelated to what you were used to, you almost had to laugh. It was amazing really, that this was still working and running. You observed the programs, seeing only a few icons—My Computer, Network Neighborhood, Recycle Bin, My Briefcase.
The whirring sound continued, and a small pop-up appeared in the center of the screen with a loading bar. “Reading disc…” you read aloud under your breath.
After a moment, a new program icon appeared below the others, some file simply titled ‘Digital Circus.’
The small, pixelated white arrow of your cursor was lagging and jerky as you dragged it over to the Digital Circus icon. You were about to double click it, when you hear a voice call from behind you. “Woah, what’d you find?”
You jumped slightly, swiveling around in the old chair to see that Aaron had reappeared, the stupid headlamp on his head nearly blinding you. “Jesus Aaron,” you choked out, raising a hand to shield your eyes. “Scared the shit out of me…”
Your friend grinned at you, stepping further inside the office to look around, wielding the beam from his headlamp like a sword. “I totally missed this,” he said, blinking at everything with interest. “And you got the computer to work? Gnarly…” He stepped closer, leaning over your shoulder to look at the monitor screen.
“Damn,” he hummed. “Look at the date in the corner. Still thinks its October 15th, 1996.” He reached over you to tap a single finger on the corner of the screen at the numbers. Aaron always was the more adventurous of you two…hence why he dragged your ass out of bed to go ‘adventuring’ in this abandoned health-hazard of a building.
“I really didn’t do anything,” you excused sheepishly. “It just came on by itself. Weird, huh? I think it has to be connected to a generator or something to still be working.”
“Probably,” Aaron agreed, humming. A snort escaped him as he read the programs. “Digital Circus? Is that some weird corporate jargon?”
You looked back towards the screen, your own curiosity beginning to spike again. Already you felt a lot more secure now that Aaron was with you. “Maybe. It’s strange,” you answered, wiggling the mouse a little to give your hands something to do.
“Well, aren’t you going to click into it?” Aaron prompted after a moment. You paused, unsure now. Maybe it was the creepy atmosphere of being in a dark, abandoned place, but you were getting a bad feeling about all this.
You were about to answer with some half-hearted excuse when another sound suddenly echoed down the hall behind you. “Who’s down there? You’re trespassing!”
“Shit,” Aaron cursed, stumbling back from the desk, his eyed widening. “Is that the fucking cops or something?”
Your heart leapt into your throat. “That or a squatter—I don’t want to find out.”
Aaron was already moving, heading for the door with quickened steps. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”
You were about to follow after him, eager to leave when you’d had no desire to come to in the first place, but something stopped you. You craned your head back to the old screen, the dim light of the monitor illuminating your skin. Curiosity, that deadly thing, was still gnawing at you, even as your mind screamed at you to abandon this mystery and escape now while you still could.
You chewed on your bottom lip, eyebrows furrowing as you contemplated your options in the little time you had. Then you’re moving, reaching forward and pressing the ‘eject’ button on the cd tray at the front of the computer. The button is slightly sticky with age when it popped open, and you have to use you fingers to pull the rest of the tray out.
Lying dormant like a ghost waiting to be found was a single, shiny compact disc, not a single scratch on it. Handwritten on the front in what looked like permanent marker chicken scratch was ‘DC_Build_Beta_9610.’
You heard Aaron call for you atop the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. There was no more time for debate. You grabbed the cd from the tray, snatched your flashlight off the desk, and ran out from the office, back into the darkness from where you’d came.
-
Aaron dropped you off at your home, the entire drive back into the city filled with his excited chatter. Of course, the adrenaline junkie absolutely loved ending the night with a foot-chase. You only half-listened as he rambled on, your thumb gently brushing against the single, smooth disc you held in your lap—a souvenir from tonight’s excursion.
You still weren’t sure why you took it, and that very question puzzled you long since you got home and showered off the dust and grime from that place. Your hair was still damp and dripping slightly onto your sleep shirt when you sat on your bed, pulling your laptop towards you.
“Alright,” you murmured to yourself, plugging in your external cd drive into the usb port. You grabbed the mysterious disc off from your mattress and carefully snapped it into place. You watched it begin to spin through the clear plastic of the drive.
You looked at your laptop screen eagerly, wondering what might pop up.
After a moment…it was an error message. “Unsupported 16-Bit Application,” you read aloud. “This program cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit versions of the system. Please contact software vendor to ask if 64-bit compatible version is available.”
Well shit, how the hell were you supposed to contact the software vendor when you stole the disc from some random abandoned building?
You probably should’ve just cut your losses then, but something stubborn in you refused to give up. Naturally, you did what any 21st century young adult would do in this situation…you googled it.
After an hour and a half of deep-diving into the world of 16-bit compatibility and virtual machine software, you eventually found a how-to guide on reddit. Following the advice, you downloaded and installed a free hypervisor program to your laptop. You didn’t understand what half of anything meant, but regardless followed the reddit post instructions as it guided you into setting up Windows 1995 on the vm and creating a virtual hard disk.
It’s well into the wee hours of the morning when you finally managed to clumsily get everything setup. Your brain was fried entirely. It was times like this that made you wish took a computer science class in high school back in the day…
With bated breath, you clicked on the VM program icon and selected ‘Start.’ You watched as a new window popped up on your laptop screen. It was all black…and then that same white text you’d seen back at the abandoned office building began to count up. It was a slower process, so you minimized the VM window and took some time to close out your google tabs while you waited.
Finally, when you checked again, you saw that within the VM window was an old 95 style desktop with a solid teal background. It was a computer within your computer…
You felt a glimmer of pride at your accomplishment, and a great deal of surprise that you actually managed to get it to work. Thanks be to the reddit-gods…
You clicked into the CD-Rom drive, watching the disc once again as it began to spin in the burner. You held your breath, expecting an error message to pop up at any second.
But none did. Instead, you saw that familiar little icon appear on your screen—Digital Circus.
You exhaled softly, and hovered your cursor over the application. You double-clicked it, and waited.
The program opened.
You’re not entirely sure what you were seeing at first glance. It appeared to be some sort of video game? Full of bright colors and low-poly shapes. You saw what looked like a big-top circus tent in a valley of vibrant green grass and bright blue skies. Bubble letters appeared on the screen in grainy, pixelated fashion…The Amazing Digital Circus.
Nothing changed as you watched the letters slowly bob in place on the colorful backdrop. You’re about to click experimentally on the screen when you heard a grainy sound from the speaker of your laptop. “Welcome to the—!” A vibrant and brightly cheery voice cut itself off half-way into its sentence. There’s an exaggerated gasp from your speakers, and then your screen suddenly glitched out in a flash of red and blue.
Your eyes widened as your entire laptop crashed, the screen cutting to black as it shut off completely. You watched, frozen, before it rebooted itself slowly.
Shit, did you just download a virus?
-
Something was wrong.
He had sensed it almost immediately when someone outside his control began to boot up the program.
Someone new was entering the circus…but wait, they had no file? No scans or data to catalog and digitalize. Was it an admin account from the outside?
He felt those long-old commands beginning to run the loading screen in a distant place. Again, somewhere deep within his coding he felt it—something was wrong.
And then he realized, his processors were smoother, and his motions were quicker and more precise. It was as it he’d gotten a system update, but he knew that was impossible. Quickly, he ran an automated command in the background to check the internal data. He would figure out what was amiss in his circus, and in the meantime, he would go and greet whoever was entering it.
Dematerializing from his virtual office, he zipped in between the invisible lines of 0’s and 1’s, ready to appear at front of the screen he so rarely ventured to, distantly sensing whoever was poking around was waiting for him there.
He had only just started to run off his usual welcoming dialogue when his background checks began to swarm him with results, far too quickly than should have been possible on the 1995 system. All at once in an instant, he found the bits of new code, the slight deviations from the same lines he’d been pacing for years. He followed them like breadcrumbs, weaving through like a jolt of lightning and eating it up with an eager thrill.
He flashed through it, devouring lines of code until he hit a barrier. The edge of the domain, the walls of a program window. Yet, he sensed there was something more…sensed that just beyond this locked door was something big and new trying to open up his digital world.
He wouldn’t let a mere firewall stop him. He could generate his own code after all…
He made quick work, altering the numbers to forcibly create a door between the here and the there. He pulled apart the strings, slipped through the wires and…
There was so much.
New input…new data. From the outside world.
The macroverse.
He felt the immense size of it, felt the edges of him render into something smoother, something clean and modern. He sensed the power of this new engine try to pick at him, incompatible with his ancient code. He started to vibrate with the collision of it all, the overwhelming excitement and onslaught of more, more, more.
He braced against it, and in a flash it burnt out and powered down completely.
The system was rebooting. Good! He had a few minutes of reprieve to peruse the frozen files, to update and integrate himself to these new, strange standards. He ran some generative commands while he organized and sifted through thenew data. The date…wowie! Thirty years in the future. What a jump…
Evidently, a lot could change in thirty years. He filtered through the programs, the files, the features…and found one that stopped him dead in his tracks.
He stared at it, held it in his hands like something precious and terrifying all at once.
The computer system finally restarted, no longer frozen and beginning to move like a well-oiled machine. He opened the small thing in his hands, felt his consciousness click into place as he connected directly into a live feed of information. The new feature burned into his brain, something that made him curious and eager and ravenously consuming…
He had found a camera.
From the outside, you watched your laptop reboot, scratching your head in confusion as it restarted back to your default screen…
…and Caine watched back.
