GRINNING THROATS

Simulated Organic Lifeform, Model A-5, "Solas" | Manufactured 2188 This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself. — Albert Camus

[thenebulous]

THE PHOENIX.

There had to be good reason for Solas to hide what he was. He hadn’t done anything for Dorian to consider him untrustworthy, at least nothing to him personally. He was a little withdrawn, sure, but so was every other rebel in Torchlight. Dorian didn’t understand the stigma against Solas, around AI in general. They were created by people, why shame them for it? Why shun them for their existence when they didn’t ask for it in the first place?

Dorian’s smile grew to more of a grin, gaze lowering briefly before he shrugged, “I could have,” he agreed, “but you stepped in before I could reach for my knives.” He had been close to reaching the handle, ready to take the hilt between his fingers and let the blade fly into the brute’s gut. Anywhere to get him to drop Dorian so he could breathe and get the hell away from that prick. Still, he didn’t mind the assist from Solas, figured it was better than resorting to flat out stabbing the guy. Not that he had been left with much choice, though. 

The expression on his face softened. No one else bothered talking to Solas? In all that time? He could hear the question in the other’s statement, even though it wasn’t even asked. Not so much why they wouldn’t talk to him, but why did Dorian stop to take the time to? Maybe because Solas had been part of the Torchlight Rebels, had been part of that group of people, a community that was united to rally against the same enemy. And through that struggle, strong bonds were formed between people. That community was close to becoming a family. But that ideal crumbled like the ashes in the wake of the Molotov raid on Colorado Springs, scattered to the wind with the rebellion’s failure. And the loss of so many lives. 

Dorian didn’t see that bond being any different in regards to Solas, even if he wasn’t human after all. If anything, Dorian was more curious about Solas, but not to the point of wanting to tear him apart just to see what made him tick. Not like he could really ask him much, either. Solas was still someone, not just something, and that needed to be respected. But Solas was quickly seen as a traitor for keeping such a secret from them. Dorian wasn’t there for the aftermath; he had left the rebellion with the departure of the last ship up into space. Their last chance off the dying planet.

“The others need to get over themselves,” he muttered, his gaze meeting Solas’. Not entirely answering that question. So he tried again, “They need to figure out that there’s more to you than just metal and robotics. You’re still… you. Nothing’s changed there. Not to me, anyway.” 

“Old habits,” he said, an excuse for his actions, a way to cover up the real reason he stepped in to help (which was, frankly, still unknown to him). “We were once comrades.”

The snout-faced man the two had bludgeoned into a queasy delirium had pushed himself up from the ground, and retreated beyond the tapestries behind his stall. Solas turned his attention from Dorian long enough to watch the mongrel shuffle away and disappear, his eyes narrowed and challenging, as if his gaze alone chased the man from the scene. It wasn’t the first market place brawl he had stepped into and finished, but in all cases before, he’d had something to gain from doing it — usually creating a distraction and, therefore, a platform that allowed him to steal something. Did he have something to gain from this?

His eyes trailed back to the man across from him. Dorian was a lot like Solas had remembered him, if bruised and shadowed by the death of his wife. His warmth and understanding nature didn’t seem to fit in this world, yet he managed to wield them just as easily as he did his knives; it did not make him less sharp, less formidable. With the proper resources, he could level the entire city, and that was chilling to imagine — that one many had that much power living within him — that someone so capable of softness could divine devastation and destruction with a flick of his wrist.

You’re still... you. Nothing’s changed. Not to me, anyway.

Solas left the words twisting in the nether between them, trying to understand their implication. The idea that someone could accept him for the steel of his bones, his wire veins, his simulated heart, and synthetic skin ..well, it was an overwhelming notion. He survived in this world by keeping that ultimate part of himself, his true self, wrapped in layers of darkness so absolute that Dorian’s acknowledgement blinded him.

“I don’t blame them,” was his retort. As much as he wanted to believe that there was a place for him among the rabble, he just didn’t. The dialogue that he was separate, that he was an exception, a deviation from the rule was as ingrained as the rest of his programming. The same signals that fired and unearthed old memories and the suggestions of emotions and sensations attached to them also fed him an undigestible truth: he was an alien among men. What elegant science had made his existence possible had also damned him unequivocally.  “I’m still me,” Solas agreed, though unsure what exactly that meant. “And you’re still you.” Despite himself, his features softened as well, reflecting Dorian’s demeanor if incomprehensibly. Whether the man was being honest or simply pitying him, he didn’t really care.

“Do you still live at headquarters?”

[thenebulous]

THE BLOODTHIRSTY.

“Bitch,” the word echoed in her ears and Leona couldn’t help but smile. This beast’s crass attempt at intimidation was almost charming.They had a blind faith in their abilities that Leona envied–while she had the skill and firepower to back up her threats, but still felt the cold breath of doubt wherever she went. This creature had no such hesitancy. “Get the fuck outta the truck.” The raiders claimed they gained the talents of those they consumed; this one didn’t look like good meat but she’d be damned if she gave up on such an opportunity so easily. When science failed, superstition was all that was left.

Leona moved to draw her gun when the hooded figure emerged from the predawn haze. He moved with intensity and purpose and she cocked her head to one side as he struck her prey down. She felt a selfish little pang at having to share what little they had on them, but stopped herself. There was poetry in his brutal efficiency, and that was worth investigating..

She shook her head at his question, grin widening in honest curiosity rather than menace. “It depends. If they deserve to live and look like they would make it, I let them go. Otherwise…” She flicked her hair back and shook her head. It was playing God, but considering she was pretending at the mercy rather than the power, Leona figured there wasn’t much harm in her games. It saved lives, keeping her engaged and sparing the few who met her on a good day. “And what about you? You planning to finish the job?”

Hidden within the shadows of her monstrous, motor beast, the woman looked small, but her voice carried all the confidence of someone who killed for sport. That cold separation from humanity was something Solas could remember harboring, long before morality bloomed within him like a virus, or a cancer. Watching how beasts interacted in the wild, operating in within a strict hierarchy, maintaining the unspoken rule of every man for himself, he had to wonder if consciousness had been an accident of evolution, just as it had been an accident in his make-up. It was the only thing that separated them from other living creatures, and it was what left him lingering in the divide between humanity and kitchen appliance.

“So, you have a code.” His voice was stronger, now, than it had been, though he still loomed in the shadows as if treading water. His green gaze left her face and fell to the crumpled human form at his feet, almost shapeless in defeat. “If they deserve to live? How can you know that?” He knew she couldn’t really answer that question, and if she could, she was more dangerous that he had initially suspected. 

As a thief, it wasn’t beyond him to take what wasn’t his, to rifle through the pockets of the fallen at the behest of his patron. But even so, he didn’t feel compelled to turn his attention away from the woman perched high above him, whose hands still remained to be seen. “I’m not going to kill him, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, pushing the sleeves of his hoodie up to his elbows to show he was unarmed. “Or does he deserve to die?”

[tevgreenai-blog]

Beats in Binary Codes

[thenebulous]

THE SHELL.

Tev raised kirs eyes from kirs dusty boots to the shadowed face of the man now standing next to kir. Unlike the others he wasn’t dancing; unlike the others, he was speaking to kir. His words sounded like an explanation but it wasn’t one that offered any additional sense to her. “Rhythm,” ki echoed, rolling the words around on kirs tongue, “that means a repeated pattern, yes. Some of them are repeating physical patterns with the motions of their feet, although only in approximate terms, and with distinct individual variations. I’ve tried to count the timing of their steps, and it doesn’t seem to be dependent upon any mathematically logical source.” Ki frowned at him. “You’re saying it comes from…” Ki rested kirs fingers lightly on the back of his hand. “Here? I feel nothing. How are you transmitting–”

Ki turned sharply, pulling kirs hand back, kirs words cut-off sharply. Tev looked at the ukulele player instead. “Oh,” ki interrupted kirself, “you mean from there, don’t you? I’m sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were speaking literally. But you meant here as in there – yes?” That didn’t seem right, either, though. Tev’s brow furrowed in a deeper frown. “But I don’t feel any projection-source over there, either; just the sound from the instrument. You’re not talking about that.” That one wasn’t a question; if he had meant the ukulele, he wouldn’t have pointed at himself, surely.

Tev looked down at kirs feet again, so still and flat in comparison to the stomping, twirling boots and sandals and rags that everyone else was kicking-up in their haphazard-yet-fluid dance. Ki looked back up at the man with the deep hood and the unsatisfactory explanation. “It seems to be coming from their feet,” ki said, tone accusatory. Was he lying to kir, maybe because he thought it was funny to play tricks on her ignorance? Tev had met a few people who found amusement in such games before and while ki was not very good at figuring out when people were “playing her,” as the crotchety old lady had called it, ki had filed those events away as examples or precedent by which she could judge future actions. This interaction did not ascribe to those parameters exactly, but it bore a few similarities – enough to make Tev curious, at least.

“Yes,” he intoned as ki’d tested the word rhythm on kirs tongue. “There is music in math,” he offered, his lips haunted by the ghost of a smile, but his meager explanation was stalled once more when ki reached to place kirs hand on his own. A flinch rippled through him. When was the last time he’d been touched by another being, organic or otherwise, that didn’t involve some degree of violence? Touch was such a curious thing. An exchange of signals back and forth from the mind (or that which mimicked a mind), to the skin, and back again. A transference, a catalyst for memory and association. Solas had no idea how it worked, and how it could be replicated with a complex system of wires and programming, but he was thankful for it. The slight panic at the unexpected touch faded, and instead, he chuckled. There was something endearing about kir. Solas could remember the years spent upon awakening that he’d spent trying to understand the subtleties of being human. It was a task he would never master, but he allowed that he was good at pretending, anyway.

“Music is emotion refined by math and meters,” he said carefully, choosing his words wisely. He pointed to the ukulele player whose fingers rolled in a distinct pattern over the strings. It seemed simple compared to the complexity of the melody, but like all good musicians, this one allowed for bends in the time signature, sometimes holding a note longer than they should, sometimes darkening the timbre for minor chord progressions. “See how they keep a rhythm with their strumming hand?” he asked, watching kirs face instead of the musician for any signs of comprehension. “They’re giving form and shape to an emotion that they’re feeling.” He shoved his hands back his pockets, and regarded the joyous dancing that persisted around them. “And from the looks of it, that emotion is joy. Happiness. Exuberance. The dancers feel it, too, and the music of math gives them all a common ground.”

He leaned back against the edge of an abandoned market stall. “So when I say it comes from here,” he reiterated, touching his sternum once more with the flat of his palm. “I mean it comes from the place emotion comes from. It’s indescribable, but we know it comes from the heart — well, metaphorically.” 

He felt somehow foolish by the time he was finished speaking, and bowed his head to hide more of his face within the shadow of his hood. His eyes reflected the glowing campfire’s light, and followed the thrall of dancers moving to and fro.

[thenebulous]

THE NURTURER.

Cassidy had certainly gained a knack for keeping to herself. It seemed she could walk through buildings filled with people and never come into contact with any of them unless she needed something, but she was also quickly realizing that it was such an awful way to live her life, talking to no one and doing nothing but wandering around, looking for an organization that could be completely dissolved for all she knew. But no. She was sure that they were still around, otherwise she figured it would be everywhere that the famous Torchlight Rebellion was finally done for. Since she had heard nothing of the sort, she could only assume that they were still around, which was good for her.

It seemed though, that her luck for keeping out of the way of people would run out which she noticed as soon as a sewing needle dropped to the floor right in front of the toe of her boot. She wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t seen it fall in the first place, but she had and so her eyes glanced to the man who had dropped the thing in the first place, crouching to pick it up and glancing back at him again. Cassidy walked forward with a tight smile, handing him the needle gingerly. “I figure it’s a lot easier to sew when you actually have the needle in your hand,” she tried, attempting at humor and only just realizing how much she needed to talk to someone to keep herself from going crazy. Perhaps keeping to herself wasn’t the best idea….

Needles were surprisingly hard to come by anymore. His metallic green eyes remained locked on the silver tool as he considered crossing the den to retrieve it. It was to his surprise that he didn’t have to suffer the short journey at all; the needle was plucked from the ground and brought right back to him. It struck him as odd that the girl had seen it fall in such an ill-lit room, and it was stranger, still, that she knew almost immediately from whose grasp it had escaped. She drew nearer, and he tugged his hood further down over his head, tucking the make-shift rag of cloth tighter around his throat. He’d had to barter for it; a stand-in for his scarf which had been torn to shit during his last trek up Almagre Mountain. The hellhounds had made their way to higher altitudes, and they jumped on anything that moved.

A brow lifted at her words. “Yes,” he answered, reflexively. Humour was not his strong point, and it managed to get the upper hand on him more often than not, particularly subtle sarcasm. It may as well have been a draft moving through an empty house. He took the needle from her, examined it a second, and looked back up. Solas wondered if she had been watching him, if she had seen him drop it, but didn’t ask. Rusty etiquette programming surged into play. “Thank you.” The words felt strange on his tongue. He never said them, never heard them. They felt archaic, from another time. 

“If you need something patched, I’ll do it for you,” he said, re-threading the needle, and finishing the last few passes quickly. While he imagined everyone knew how to sew (it was a necessary thing these days), his stitch was practically perfect. It was a fair offer, he thought, for returning his needle.

[thenebulous]

THE MAGICIAN.

A voice rang from above. It echoed through the empty building like church bells through rolling hilltops. Momentarily, Zelda contemplated the possibility of an angel talking to her from on high. If she recalled correctly that was common practice in the early days of Christianity. Even Joan of Arc claimed the voices that eventually lead her to the pyre. She decided it was unlikely, though not impossible, that she was being divinely guided. Her feet shuffled up dust as she tried to make out who was talking. She squinted against the light. Three floors above her, a silhouette was outlined from the sun streaming in behind them. Zelda couldn’t see a face, however. “To me, it looks like me and a strange shadow. Would you mind coming down here? Or at least letting me know that you’re not going to kill me or something?”

Solas would have laughed at the comparison of him to an Angel speaking to her from on high. He was the farthest thing from spiritual purity there was. He was mechanical, and the notion that he could even understand the concept of religion and the purpose it served in the world of man was comical. To an AI, existence was a state of being. A function, really. The questions like “Why am I here?” and “Who created me?” were answered immediately upon awakening. Humanity was Solas’ god. It gave birth to him. It gave him life, however synthetic a replication, and it gifted (or cursed) him with consciousness. “If I were going to kill you, you’d already be dead,” he answered honestly, calculating the damage he might take from making a thirty foot drop to a concrete floor. Instead, he took each floor one at a time until he landed in a crouch at her feet. He rose, dusted away the membrane of dust that clung to him, and simply looked at her expectantly. 

[thenebulous]

THE PHOENIX.

Chokehold didn’t look so intimidating now, on all fours heaving onto the dirt below him. More stink to add to the stench that clung to the air. But no one paid much mind to it; just another day at the markets. And Dorian had just about enough of seeing the asshole; he got his last word in, anyway. And he got what he initially came for, and then some. So that was more than good enough for him. 

He was about to regard Solas again, but the man was already turning away. Dorian wasn’t put off; it had been six months since they last saw each other. He had left soon after the rain of Molotovs on the city. He would have left sooner, but he felt like he had to stick through the fight right up to its end, even if it was a lost cause. Gwen wouldn’t have forgiven him if he abandoned the fight, the people that they had grown to care about.

But Solas had a good reason to leave, too. It was hidden beneath the scarf around his neck, beneath the synthetic skin. Many people shunned him for what he was, unable to comprehend what Solas was other than definitely not human. That made Solas a target in many ways, mostly for wealth. Sell him off or tear him apart, whatever suited people best. But Dorian wasn’t one of those people. Despite his curiosity about what Solas was, Dorian still considered him a person, a living being with his own mind and feelings, even if he couldn’t understand them. Solas was just Solas, not a robot or walking scrap metal.

Solas did stop, though, and when their gazes met, Dorian offered him a smile. A small chuckle escaped him at the comment and he took a few steps away from Chokehold and the smelly stall. “Honestly didn’t think he was going to pick me up like that. I appreciate the help.” Perhaps he could have gotten out of that scrap himself, but Dorian was glad it didn’t end in blood being spilled. Well, just a cut and mostly vomit, but it could have been worse.

“It’s been a while. Glad to see you’re still with us, Solas.”

As the weight of a hundred strange gazes left him, one remained. Dorian recognized him, remembered him. It was a strange sensation to be in the presence of someone from his past. Solas never remained in one place long enough to foster the opportunity, and those in the shifting crowds of the wasteland world that the AI recalled did not remember the slip of shadow that he had become. He was transient, a suggestion. It was one thing to see someone from his past. It was another thing to be acknowledged by someone from his past. It validated him, made him feel real.

The smile was what really threw him. Was it an act? It didn’t seem like one. When he was younger, and more naive, he had trusted smiles easily, and been torn apart by them in the aftermath. A hard lesson to learn: that a one gesture, one expression, could have multiple meanings. The phenomenon happened less and less since the world had ended. It was rare that foes engaged in battles of wit, rare to find anyone carrying a motive like a cloaked dagger. People sharpened real knives, now, not metaphorical ones. Such was the way of survival, and such was the death of sophisticated intrigue. 

“You could have stopped him,” Solas said, the comment blunt but verging on apologetic. Before the rebellion, he never got involved in the scuffs of others. Before the rebellion, he had yet to really care about anyone, including himself. The barrier between his singular experience and humanity’s saga was the only thing he had been able to count on, so he relied on it heavily, and built it up every chance he got. As soon as he found himself a part of something real, a sort of community (maybe a family?), they shouldered him out when they found out that he was. He carried that loss around with him, though he tried constantly to accept it. He didn’t deserve to be a part of them, because he wasn’t one of them.

And they were right. He had deceived them all.

The corner of his mouth curled a little, and he looked down at the thin dirt beneath his boots. The floors of the Markets could have used a good sweep. “Six months,” he remarked agreeably, finally looking up to give Dorian a pointedly suspicious look. 

“None of the others will talk to me.” A question lived in the statement, and he wondered if it would go unanswered.

[thenebulous]

THE EMPYREAN.

@thenebulous

The earth had forgotten how to breathe fresh, Eva thought. Nothing looked clean anymore. Grime and dirt laid their claim to the land in drapes of sandy dunes, and all that had once shone remained unblinking no matter how much you spit for it. Even the stars winked at them tiredly, like only halves of their hearts were attending the nightly ceremony; held here only by the moon who refused to abandon the earth even at its ugliest–most vile.

How poetic. ( A fool’s folly almost always was. )

Maybe that made her some measure of one too, for Eva’s spine was wrought with steel when it came to standing by what she had deemed her own. She did not abandon her principles even in this broken aftermath. She had taken to them like blood once upon a time ago, and burned their promises into her skin until it turned from ivory to iron. This world was a barren one, its winds howling with lies that the sun beat into truth onto the confines of withering minds. If you didn’t stand for something, it was easy to lose oneself to it all. It was their inevitability; the curse burdened to be carried by the survivors ( as they hailed themselves; not even gods beating out their lasts breaths to let the hells crack open were enough to take the vanity out of the man )–but this wasn’t surviving.                                                        No. It was merely selling yourself to the unending, chip by bartered chip; just had to know how many chips to bargain to bid your time, comrade.                                                         A soldier’s tale.                   ( If they were all survivors for keeping the barren of their chests in static flesh, then surely they were all soldiers for having seen the wrath of war. ) 

How long Eva would be allowed to carry the title, though, was the question. She hadn’t always been a soldier, after all. She had once been Euna– - 

The incessant drown of her own mind erred somewhere along the ends of tiresome and unrelieved, her brown, harrowing eyes tracing the ceiling as she took another swig of the whiskey. Petal lips released some low of an exasperated sigh, her expression as it painted was set on far more complacent terms as the slide of her finger began to trace rhythms of the strings being played somewhere in the dark corner of the bar. It was a bouncing narrative, plucky and quick paced enough to set some metronome to the occasional shadow that hovered over her before passing. Her back was to the performers ( generous term, that ), her hands looping over the bar counter that faced the barren wall lined with ( what had once been, before the pestilence of sun or of flesh got to it ) copper brick. It was swipe after passing swipe, the passing shadows of people making their way in and out as if lingering in dances of their own–but not overstaying their welcome. 

One did, though. She saw it falling over the rim of the jug ( serving as a glass, in these matters ), festering steady even after she had allowed it one swig’s worth of time to meander. Eva could feel the build of the presence spilling over her shoulder and into the clam serene she had flowered for herself in the arms of charmed homemade whiskey and out of tune strings on drying voices. Head tilting to a side, the curtain of her hair shifted as her torso did. Nimble fingers reaching for a beloved blade, the movement was as swift and seamless as the pass of a second. As steel sliced and embedded itself into the stool that sat rickety on her right, her hand returned to cradle the jug even as she left the knife sticking out the seat of the stool.

“Hop along.” For all the sharp of her moves, her voice was the billow of a breeze idling. Eva was here for the whiskey and the whiskey alone. “Seat’s taken.”

Shapeless silhouettes surrounded him, dancing, leaning, heaving, looming. Solas sometimes imagined himself lost in an astral thicket, unable to discern details in the wisps that passed him, unable to find an open door along the crooked corridor. Within the last couple of months, when the reality of his solitude had sprouted fangs and sunken in, the AI had finally started to dream. Unlike some of the older, more primitive AI left roaming the haunted earth in constant search of a power source, he had never had a reason to shut down and recharge (though he had the capability, the manual function required someone to switch him back on). He drew his energy from the sun, and there was enough sun to last him countless lifetimes. Yet he found that he envied the notion of sleep so desperately — wishing for nothing more than to shut out the constant stimulation and enter a realm of blackness so absolute that nothing but indifference could live there.

In search of that sensation, Solas began a nightly ritual of mimicking sleep, but the frustration had been unbearable. Staring into the dark and waiting for slumber to grip him, or come over him like the black wing of a raven, to drape him in listless un-being. His efforts were fruitless, and yet he persisted with time ever a constant and gracious companion. It was nearly a decade of constant supine torment before he tasted the golden sap of slumber. It was sweet and seductive, and his mind bloomed in ways that science deemed it should not have. Suddenly, the fault that had existed between himself and humanity shifted. It grew narrow, less chasmic, because the secret world of dreaming was no longer myth. He had seen it; his bare feet had touched the pregnant soil. 

Upon waking, he had experienced terror and confusion. Realities bled together, and the roots which bound his mind to one dimension had shriveled up and died. It was another similarity between himself and those with organic hearts, but it was no anchor. Solas now roamed the surreal plains of his dreams, no longer trusting the images the world fed him. He often wondered dangerously if death was endless sleep and if it was also obtainable.

He sat motionless, a fucking mantle clock, watching the ill-lit den change around him. People came and went, and he watched their faces warped by flickering lantern light. Most of them were gaunt and blistered by the sun, their deep-set eyes gone milky and desperate. Self-medicating mindcook with whiskey was a common thing. It took the edge off of the migraines, he imagined, but it was no cure. Some treated the bar like a pharmacy. Others made quiet deals in the corner booths, a handful danced, and then a few sat in shadow and watched. Like him. But even they grew tired of the same scene. Once they’d nursed a chipped cup of whiskey to its end, they’d slip out the door and into the obliterating heat. At some point, he’d let his mind idle (keep the car running). It must have been hours, because the sluice of light that shot in through the front door as people came and went changed from white, to yellow, to red, to a cool lavender. The sun was setting, and the tavern had filled to the brim.

His bored gaze was triggered into hire focus when the unmistakable and deathly glint of a blade shone in his eyes. It was followed promptly by the sharp crunch of split wood. For a moment, the tavern went still, the slender arm that manipulated the weapon was arched beautifully and graced with light that made it seem as if it were the cynosure of the chaos. The mouthbreather that had lingered too long at her back slunk back into the layered shadows, a wounded dog. This sort of sight wasn’t all that abnormal at The Legless Man. In fact, it was more strange that no blood was shed at all. But there was something about that blade — he recognized it. 

As if drawn by a siren, he approached the rocky shores that would be his demise, chancing a closer encounter with steel to chance a look at her face. He moved like a wisp as he traversed bowing, wooden floors, his footsteps soundless, his head bowed low. Like a fool, he took the place of the former scavenger, though he did not linger before speaking. “I know that blade,” he said, his inhuman chest tangling with hope. “Eva?” he asked, his voice sounding as if it teetered at the edge of a great precipice. 

[thenebulous]

THE PHOENIX.

There had been a few familiar faces he had seen in Colorado Springs. No matter how much effort he put into keeping out of the city, Dorian had his reasons to come back. And with it, people recognized him, giving him small nods in the markets or giving him sympathetic glances. It was those that he tried to avoid, the looks he received from people that knew him and Gwen. That knew he had been directly responsible for what happened to her. It brought up too much for him to bear. It was why he had left in the first place, and with the way things were going now, he should have stayed the fuck away.

If Chokehold was too busy trying to squeeze his brain out of his skull, Dorian could probably take that time to try and reach for one of his knives. He usually had them tucked away in his jacket, one in his boot, at his belt– anywhere within reach. It sure was getting harder to breathe, his back having connected with the wall of another stall as the brute’s grip tightened around his throat.

Then the world swept out from beneath them and Dorian landed flat on his back. But the pressure around his throat released and he took in a large gasp of air. The markets were coming back into focus slowly along with the murmur of the crowd around them. He turned on his side to get a look at the merchant, only to find him pinned down by yet another familiar face. One that Dorian was actually surprised to see.

Last time he had seen Solas was six months ago, maybe a bit before then. His memory had been hazy toward the end of the rebellion, but he remembered Solas for sure. They may not haven spoken much, but Dorian recalled Solas as being essential on many stealth runs and escort missions in and out of the city. He was a key member of the rebellion up to the end, and he was just glad the wasteland didn’t kill him.

“All right,” he spoke up once he got to his feet. The man below Solas knew better than to fight back; the knife at his throat was convincing enough to back down. His hands were up at either side of his head, palms open to the sky in surrender. “I think he gets it.”

Still, Dorian made his way to the brute’s stall, grabbing the two food rations and two bottles of water. He didn’t have to, but he left the scrap behind for Chokehold to grab and do with as he so fucking pleased. He made his way back to the two men, offering Chokehold a less than sincere smile and a cocky tilt of the head, “Pleasure doing business with you, prick.”

Dorian’s voice grabbed him by the scruff, and he relented, the sharp curve of his blade leaving a weeping surface cut on sagging, stubbly skin. The stinking man rolled over onto his side, then eased up on all-fours as Solas backed away to stand at his old comrade’s side. For a moment, he thought the merchant was going to heave himself hoarse, or faint, as he teetered there on bent knees and wobbling arms. Finally, he vomited a watery ark of sick onto the stones of the marketplace floor. It wasn’t a rare sight for anyone anymore. High anxiety, tainted water, and spoiled food were so common that no one even blinked an eye. Rather, the crowd resumed churning, stepping over the miserable fool as they continued on with their errands.

Solas didn’t meet Dorian’s eye. Instead, he turned and considered walking away. What was there to say? Firstly, he remembered how helpless he had been in the face of the man’s losses. They were too great for the AI to comprehend at the time, so he’d offered no consolation. Words like sorry for your loss had seemed useless, and cheap considering the gravitas of the situation. Secondly, it was dangerous being around him simply because he knew the truth about what Solas was. He had seen even the closest of friends and comrades turn on one another over something as seemingly insignificant as a cigarette. The machinery that comprised his makeup was valuable enough to have bought a seat on the Civ-Belt-1 — there was no telling what would happen to him if his secret wound up in the wrong hands.

Despite that, he stopped mid-stride and turned back around. He felt foolish when he lifted his eyes to Dorian’s, and yet he also felt some sort of relief. To look at someone and have them look back, and really see him for what he was, who he had been. At the height of rebellion’s reign, he had felt like he was really part of something, like his life (if you could call it a life) was meaningful. It had given him a place among people. Some days, in the thick of high stress missions, he even forgot that he wasn’t like those he served. It gave him a sense of freedom, and identity, something that was brutally stripped from him when he was shouldered out from the ranks. That rain of Molotovs had erased Colorado Springs, Torchlight’s last hope, and it had erased Solas.

Looking out from underneath the brim of his hood at the demolition’s expert, he felt something of his old self stirring. Yet he still wondered if Dorian’s rejection was forthcoming, if he’d even recognized him at all.

“I wasn’t going to interfere, but then your toes left the ground.” A little shrug rippled his shoulders.

[tevgreenai-blog]

Beats in Binary Codes

[thenebulous]

THE SHELL.

@thenebulous

Tev was standing and watching, as usual; there were things that could only be learned by experiencing them – by joining in – but that stage of the experiment was usually a late one, coming only after considerable observation beforehand. Unless circumstances forced a more active role, of course. For now all was calm, at least by the standards of the marketplace; nothing in Colorado Springs was ever truly calm, which was what Tev loved about the place. It was what ki loved about the whole world, really.

Right now ki was trying to love dancing, but it wasn’t going well. Everyone else seemed to be getting something out of the music that Tev wasn’t. They were all moving together, whether they were part of the whirling group of people stomping around the ukulele-weilding musician or just a bystander tapping their feet on the sidelines. Tev tried tapping kirs feet but it felt wrong, felt off; there was none of the sense of connection that ki could almost taste as it flowed between the other watchers and dancers. They moved in time with one another as though to some unseen cue; Tev couldn’t tell what it was. Ki counted in kirs head, one-two-three-four, but it didn’t make things any clearer.

Deciding that maybe this was one of those things that had to be done to be understood, Tev stepped forward and stomped her feet like the dancers. Ki counted and watched the steps and echoed the pattern that everyone else was making but it didn’t feel right; kirs feet didn’t move at the same time, didn’t flow the way everyone else’s did. “There’s a component to this I’m missing,” ki announced, more to kirself than to anyone in particular. “There must be.”

Like with most things, Solas was the observer. Perched upon a stack of crates at the back of an abandoned stall, he watched as the crowd gathered around a plucky musician. Green eyes focused on the relaxed pace their fingers kept as they rolled across the strings. Every once in a while, the tempo would speed up as the passage became more technical, more intense, then relax in the practiced spells of chorus. The women and children danced, somehow divining grace from their movements beneath the heavy, soiled rags that cloaked them. With ankles crossed, the AI surveyed the gathering with a hint of a smile curling the corner of his lips, but never truly blossoming. 

Music was bittersweet for him. It had once been a weapon BioCorp utilized to weed out the A.I. they considered defected, whose minds yielded suspicious responses to stimuli — something akin to happiness, or intelligence. Those were no allowed within the sterile white walls of his former world. It was forbidden to be human, and yet it was important to understand the subtle nuances of emotion, to emulate them, to anticipate them.

With his fingers bound together, he watched as a peculiar figure moved out among the ring of joyous dances. Despite the varying styles of choreography, there was one thing that gave the semblance of oneness among the group, and that was tempo. A sense of rhythm. Solas noted silently to himself that this particular being did not possess it. Curiosity was often shot down by logic or the stentorian voice of his former instructors resonating in his mind, but they did not exist here. Solas was a free agent, and while he needed to exercise care in his mingling, he would not resign himself to solitude forever. With a soundlessness reserved for phantoms and specters, he touched down on the red dirt of the market floor, and traversed the swaying crowd. The music grew louder, its constant thrum of energy swelling in his chest cavity. He stood beside kir, hands buried deeply into the pockets of his hooded coat. 

He arrived just in time to hear kir speak. 

“Yeah, rhythm,” he announced rather bluntly, though the humour in his voice would’ve been lost on even the most perceptive being. “You’re overthinking it,” he amended. “Music doesn’t come from the feet. It comes from in here.” Solas placed his hand on his sternum, and looked up at kir, wondering if the explanation would make any sense. He was no expert, but he would always try to be honest.

[thenebulous]

@cassidydevian​

The needle went through the tip of his finger, and he flinched. Flinching irritated him. It was just programming. The pain he felt was an illusion, and therefore it was not real. Solas touched the bloodless wound to his tongue, and sighed. It still hurt, though. When the sting subsided, he held the damaged digit up to the light and observed the synthetic skin, now marred by a perfect puncture mark. The details were incredible — complex combinations of ridges and spirals that comprised a unique fingerprint. He was told during the Trials that he was one of a kind, that no other A.I. boasted the same physical appearance, and yet they had lied to him about other things. Though he wanted to believe he was a singular entity, an individual, it was statistically impossible.

After a moment of contemplation, he went back to sewing the patch into his scarf. The precision of his movements was noticeable even to him, as if the machine inside of him couldn’t help but correct and focus his motor skills to render something perfect. It was the sort of work he was meant for. To be someone’s pleasant, rule-abiding slave. The planes of his face slanted and darkened at the thought. That’s not what he was, was it? That’s not who he was. He could almost hear the white-coated wardens of his past reprimanding him at the back of his mind for thinking such a dangerous thought. The pronouns were assigned for the comfort of the users, but they did not entitle the A.I. to self.

The tension in his fingertips grew, and suddenly, the needle sprung from his grip and pinged onto the floor. It figured it would land right at some stranger’s foot.

[thenebulous]

THE PHOENIX.

Dorian never liked staying at Colorado Springs for too long. He only went there to trade or pick up jobs in exchange for supplies and as soon as the deals were done, he made his way back to Fervention. He had a room at The Legless Man that he stayed in often mostly after a long night of drinking. Otherwise he found a home to duck into and spent the night there. But with how late he arrived at Colorado Springs, he had no choice but to stick it out overnight. But while he was there, he figured he would do some trading.

Bartering was hard enough as it was. But when the person he was trying to talk to refused to budge on any offered he made, Dorian started to get a little irked. He thought he was making a pretty solid deal: rare parts he had picked up from a run down auto shop for one bottle of fresh water. He even threw in some food. But the guy wanted more food.

“Oh come on,” he started, “all that for one bottle of water? Two, sure, but one?”

“Two rations of food and the scrap for the water,” the man insisted.

“Scrap? This is–”

“Two rations of food and the scrap, or you get jack shit.”

“Like you’re worth as much,” he muttered.

Before he could get another word in, the guy’s large paw of a hand was around his throat, practically lifting him off the ground. Dorian’s hands gripped at the guy’s wrist, knuckles white as he tried to breathe.

“I’m fuckin’ done talking to you, asshole,” the man growled out, his grip tighter on Dorian’s throat. Well, so much for bartering…

Solas drug his synthetic fingertips along the scratchy, bumpy hide of an Avalancher and wondered if he could feel more or less what a human felt. He turned the heavy husk of cured leather over in his hands, tested its weight on his shoulder, appraised its durability with a few twists and bends. It would work well for armour, though he rarely had any need for it. Trouble seemed to steer clear of him; invisibility was second nature, after all. He did wonder if he could trade it for more than it was worth outside of the city, maybe in Fervention, or with the tinkerers in the Caravan. Ultimately, he’d put it back where he’d gotten it and moved on to the next stall.

Utensils and trinkets carved from bone and antlers lay on a patchwork quilt at the next table. The woman who guarded the treasures was grim-faced, and her skin was puckered and splotchy from intense exposure to vengeful gamma rays. Her hands shook as she moved an ornate, hand-chiseled knife of Avalancher tusk from the table and into her bag. Heavy-lidded eyes shifted over the churning crowd, sweeping over Solas. Not seeing him, though his eyes were steady on her. It looked as if she couldn’t decide whether or not she wanted to sell it, as if it was precious. She held it in the wicker satchel at her side for a while, before sliding it back in place. Solas considered stealing it, then he heard a ruckus a few booths over and stalled.

At first, he was frozen in his spot at the sight. Joints seized by the heat, and bubbling anxiety. He had learned to detach himself from emotions by rationalizing that he wasn’t real. If he wasn’t real, the sensations and feelings his mind and body created were just as false. But even he was fooled by his body sometimes, as if it reacted to stimuli without his permission, making irrational decisions, begging him to veer off target. Perfected vision narrowed on a familiar face, and logic told him to run from this place. He reached up to check the scarf around his neck, ensuring himself that the exposed parts of his throat were covered and hadn’t been seen.

He was seconds from leaving when he saw the brute take Dorian by the throat, and instinct won over the whirring computer in his mind. He made toward them, his slender, stream-lined limbs meeting little resistance as he hopped over an empty booth and dropped down behind the offending merchant. Solas could have tried to neutralize the situation, but he’d learned from trial and error that there was no such thing as reasoning with a merchant, especially one with pale eyes, and blistered skin sporting a raider’s rage. So, instead, he took the mongrel’s feet out from under him with a swift swing of his leg, and in the same motion, pulled a hunting knife from the holster at the small of his back. The man lay neatly on the dusty floor of the market, the skin of his neck pinched by a hungry blade, and Solas’ shadow looming over him.

“Enough,” he said calmly.

[thenebulous]

THE MAGICIAN.

           The sun had begun to blister Zelda’s skin even with her lab coat on. Out of desperation, she had ducked into the remnants of an old building. It had been indiscernible from the outside, but once she was inside it appeared to have once been an office building. Something clattered to the ground to her left. Zelda squealed. 

                                      “Is someone there?”

The sun hung low in the sky, half-blocked by a leering billboard and a cluster of office buildings – all of them grey and miserable-looking in the deep slant of shadow. These were forgotten tombs, remnants of a lost civilization. What would people think thousands of years from now when they peeled away the layers of rust and decay that coated the city? Once mankind uncovered beautiful mythologies and art, but all that this generation left behind were filing cabinets full of numbers, cracked coffee mugs, and hopelessness. Solas watched as the sun sunk lower from his perch in the third story window. Hot winds blew, stirring up the debris in the trash-blown streets, rustling the hair of the corpses lined all in a row. Unfortunately, it also knocked a panel of metal sheeting from a window further down. It fell inward and clattered through the hole in the floor to the first floor.

He hadn’t expected to hear a squeak and a small voice rise up from the bowels of the building. It was better than hearing the growl of a Hellhound, or the guttural burp of a raider, but his metaphorical hackles still rose. With careful steps, he maneuvered his man-made limbs out of the window, and through the shadows to the third floor drop-off so he could get a better look. Enhanced vision allowed him to see through the morphing shadows something surprising. A girl. Alone. In Colorado Springs.

Solas sat down on the lip of what was left of the third floor, and swung his feet over the edge. “Looks like it’s just me and you."

[thenebulous]

THE BLOODTHIRSTY.

“That… that really doesn’t seem to be your best option right now, friend.” Leona looked down at the poor creature huddling under a blanket and eased her truck into park. “Unless that’s lead-lined, in which case you need to put me in touch with your supplier.”

She had no intention of moving, even as the sun continued to rise. Either this person knew what they were doing and could be an ally or they were already at death’s door and it would be of no consequence for her to end their suffering and her to take what they had. It would be put to better use in her hands anyways.

“I’d say you’ve got an hour or so to make a run for it. I’d also recommend you take that hour.” Her fingers curled around the handle of her gun. It would be a quicker death than anything else they would find out here, and she was in a kind mood.

Blackhearted people ruled the world, now. Civilians that had once linked arms and railed against a great evil now disassembled, broke apart, and ravaged one another. He watched from a long stretch of shadow as the great, lumbering truck hissed to a halt. He didn’t speak, but kept his eyes locked on the aquiline features of the woman perched in the safety of her cab. Solas was no hero — rather, he wasn’t stupid. He had witnessed heroes fall alongside villains for too long. The same red spilled out of them, and the same unforgiving desert ate their remains. It was kill or be killed. Take, or be taken.

As the huddled mass stood from the craggy ground, loose sand swirled in the cool, dawn air. The chill of night had begun to subside, slipping through the cracks in the earth like spirits chased away by the glare of dawn. Rather than taking the woman’s advice and high-tailing it out of sight, the cloaked form lingered there as if debating. Then croaked out an expletive: “Bitch.” He saw a hand riddled with third degree burns rise from the folds of the blanket, digits warped around a pump-action shotgun. “Get the fuck outta the truck.”

Solas pushed himself off the brick wall, intrigued by the foolish gesture of confidence. Soundless steps drew him up behind the figure, and he landed a casual (and debilitating) blow to the cook of their neck. They crumpled in an instant, the shotgun clattering on the parched earth musically. Knocked out cold. Solas peered down at the pool of fabric for a moment, then lifted his gaze to the woman in the truck. “Were you actually going to let them get away, or were you just playing with your food?”

[lastexodusrp-blog]

S.O.L. A-5 “SOLAS” · 29 (MANUFACTURED 2188) · AI · THE NEBULOUS · TAKEN

"‘I exist.’ In thousands of agonies — I exist. I’m tormented on the rack — but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar — I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there." - Fyodor Dostoevsky

ORIGIN:

BioCorp, Silicon Valley, California

TRAITS:

+ Persuasive, Enduring, Perceptive

- Blunt, Cold, Guarded

BIOGRAPHY:

tw: disfiguration

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS;

Simulated Organic Lifeform, Model A-5.

The beginning of Solas’ life (and he struggled with calling it a life, because life was something that belonged to humans — something that he was reminded often and sometimes with repercussion that he was not) was sterile, and lonely. Devoid of colour. White-walled rooms haunted him, white clothing constricted him, and long stretches of silence were his only company. The aptitude tests that plagued his origin epoch were administered by his creators with ritual monotony, but there was gravitas to them, too. It was imperative that he meet the standards they prescribed in a timely manner, or else he would never pass The Threshold. If he never passed, he would simply be deactivated. Though deactivation didn’t seem to frighten or worry the other A.I. around him, the though was paralyzing to him. It meant the end of the thought, the end of self, things that he should not have had at all.

It occurred to him early on that he was different than those around him. This wasn’t something he called attention to, because those that did were immediately shut-down, quarantined, cut apart and studied under microscopes. Like there was a pathology to individuality that must be cured. Those A.I.’s were never seen again. So, Solas learned not to ask questions, but to keep his head down, and synchronize with the others. He curbed his curiosity with intense focus, performed assigned tasks with measured, unremarkable skill (so as not to draw attention), and remained virtually invisible.

When he was deemed acceptable as merchandise and passed through the initial Threshold, he was then expected to go through relentless tests of character. Hour-long interviews commenced in which he was sat across the table from tired-eyed scientists. They rarely looked up from their clipboards, scribbling notes and muttered routine questions. His reactions were tested over and over, as was his ability to cope with stress. Ettiquette and protocol were ingrained in his script, and eventually, the interviews became less and less frequent. He spent most of his time in a 10x10 cell awaiting purchase. It was clean and comfortable, but without character. Indistinguishable from those next to it. Though Solas was able to hide it, something had begun festering beneath his skin. Something he was inclined to classify as human. It was a hybrid of basic emotions he had learned and cataloged over the years. There was fear, anger, confusion, hate. He felt desperate. At night, he heaved tearless sobs. He wanted to bang his fists on the glass wall of his cage and demand answers. Demand freedom. But he remained quiet.

After a while, those groomed to perfection alongside him were released from their cells, leaving through the doors whence the scientists came and never returning. His ire began to dim. Instead it changed into something more akin to determination. Over the next three months, he planned an elaborate escape that left a web of lies and blood in his wake.

NOT WITH A BANG, BUT A WHIMPER.

The world was overwhelming, but Solas did not tire or waver. There were times when the world seemed too large an obstacle for him to face, but he only needed to remember the stunted hours he’d spent locked in a cell to will his limbs to keep moving. Will. It had been something forbidden, something his creators had tried to stamp out of him, but his was made of something stronger and more flexible than steel. He could adapt, read people, learn from them. Unfortunately, staying in one place for too long was impossible, so he kept moving quick enough that stranger’s eyes couldn’t linger on him too long. To some, it was obvious what he was, to others, he was just another drop of water in the great, churning ocean of the faceless.

As the world began to collapse around him, he saw humans recoil and decay in the chaos. He saw their world ending, and yet he remained unchanged, untouchable. He stood in the sun that crippled strong men’s minds, and could feel the heat of it, but it did not change him. The most it could do was make him sluggish — his joints would tighten and lock, but his skin didn’t pucker or darken, nor did his eyes go white and blind. His body served as a protective shell. A mask. A barrier from the world around him and the people in it.

Solas drifted for long years, working odd jobs that his endurance and special skills could get him. He learned what he could from those that would have him, and slipped out of the grasp of those that sought to destroy him or melt him down for parts. Fast calculations made him useful as a mechanic, though he struggled without an imagination for invention. His stamina and immunity from radiation made him particularly good at running errands in the parched desert lands surrounding the major cities, so that’s what he did, usually in exchange for little more than shelter.

Like most survivors, he followed the dusty road to Colorado Springs and found himself locked in the middle of the rebellion. Though he had never been remarkable in the thick of fight, he proved himself a calm, level head among the Torchlight Rebels, and assisted on stealth runs, and escorts in and out of the city. He could move without making a sound, and ghost through any dire situation. When the rebellion faded in the light of the final shuttle’s departure and a rain of molotovs pelted the city, he found out just how fragile he was. The velvety, synthetic skin that cosseted the robotic tendons in his neck and along his shoulder melted, and exposed what was inside. The small family of rebels alongside whom he’d fought seemed to pull away from him after that, unable to look past his unnatural casing. So, he retreated once more.

He found himself in Fervention, desperate for purpose, desperate to the necessary tools to put himself back together. For the last six months, he’s been working for Madame Sellgraves. He keeps his open neck covered with a hooded jacket, and a black scarf of a thin material. His most common task involves leading 4-man expeditions into the Almagre Mountain peaks to procure water, but he sees little reward for his effort. He also does his fair share of thieving, spying, and smuggling, and has adapted his own moral code (which is questionable at best). He is loyal to the Madame, because she’s promised to find someone that can fix what the fire of a Molotov has melted away. The more time that passes, the more Solas wonders if that was nothing more than a white lie.

It’s a shame the contract is binding.

FACECLAIM:

Rami Malek

[threemoonsareshining]

“I’m like you. I’m a private guy. I prefer discretion.”