ts.o2_07

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// 1_YEAR / 1_MONTH / |





"But at the time, you don't even realize how badly you're fucking up."

       — 000





       In the following weeks, your life becomes like viewing the world wholly submerged in water— and you are unlucky enough to only resurface during the most uncomfortable of moments.

       Your workday begins in front of the same bulkhead door, escorted by the same pair of bloodbags, wearing the same second skin of a suit. Your body aches, unconditioned to working such long and involved days, still not having reached the point where it feels normal. Your only relief comes in the form of a half-hour break between two five hour blocks of work— of which you use to force down food and to contemplate shooting yourself. Wishful thinking! As if you could get close enough to a weapon without being restrained again.

       As per demand, you enter alone. UTAH waves you off and greets you with a holler; his companion offers a nod no matter which way you go. Existing around the pair has been tolerable. You still flinch at any sudden movements— still cringe when UTAH raises his voice— still wish they would stop speaking to you as if you were a colleague rather than cattle they are tasked to lead— but repetition dulls you to the dissonance. One day, you might be blind enough to finally believe they are people. An absurd thought, worthy of ridicule if you had not already caught yourself falling prey to its sick sort of endearment. Ultimately, you are still human; you are still a slave to the deep desire to be cared for, to be wanted. The fact that this is an obligation for the bloodbags does not matter; they are near and they are kind enough to trick your mind into forgetting.

      

       Observer Two, IS-OT, Eyes does not soften with you, nor do its physical traits become any more comprehensible. You expect the terrain shift, but its heart takes it to a level you could not fathom experiencing until you finally stand within its walls, day after day. What you cannot ignore is its perpetually-in-flux layout. It is an affront to architecture that you must now exist within, and one you have not found easier to bear even as the weeks tick by.

       Some days, the room is mundanely contained in a space more akin to an oversized closet. Others, it stretches for what must be thousands of feet, holding shelves of stacked machinery in uniform repeating beyond your line of sight. Some days you are sent searching through a maze of metal and plastic dividers, and some days

you are expected to crawl through what you can only assume are repurposed vent tunnels.

You've always found this to be the most humiliating form it can take, forcing you on your hands and knees like vermin,

wading among dust and untouched cobwebs, listening to its dull, distant metal groaning,

surrounded by a warmth you dare not imagine the source of. On terrible occasions, the first thing you notice upon entering is the ceiling stretching








higher






than you










can see,











losing














itself












completely













to shade.


       From the black creeps down thick ropes of cable and wire in an uneven tangle. Some have enough sense to affix themselves to the walls; most hang like living vines on a tree succumbing to a slow strangulation. When the room takes this shape, the only light you are afforded is sourced from the terminal. You are left scrabbling around, three-quarters stripped of your main sense until you meet enough of its demands to earn the privilege of sight. Those days, you think it must truly despise you.

       The work itself is tolerable. In comparison to your previous position, anyways, which is a bit like saying a broken arm isn't as bad as a broken leg. While your prior obligations saw you floundering through unclear instructions and overwhelmed by the similarly unprepared drones around you, IS-OT is both wonderfully disembodied and intimately familiar with every aspect of your assigned tasks. You are learning surgery from the body beneath the knife— but the body is wholly lucid, invented the technique, and is unshackled from concepts such as 'pain' and 'discomfort'. Every action you take within itself is quickly picked apart to see that your next attempt is better— a blessing and a curse. You learn faster than you thought yourself capable of, but even your best performance elicits only hollow praise. What little satisfaction you garner is snuffed by a growing pile of expectation.

       Squandering your duties is not an option, either. (A legitimate goal in the correct context, a fruitless endeavor elsewhere. You sit squarely in 'elsewhere'). The third or fourth day you were brought below, you steeled yourself and set your mind to do the absolute least amount of work possible. You walked in with a shocking amount of confidence and left with an aching headache interlaced with a foul mood; once it became clear you would not work, IS-OT took to auditory conditioning as a form of 'motivation'. The memory of its harsh noise and just-audible-enough-to-sting frequencies leaves you unwilling to try again. The conditioning worked.

       Once you are allowed to bring a janitorial cart, IS-OT no longer bothers cleaning up after itself. Your warm-up for the week is to play maid for what's left of the poor unfortunate sent twelve hours earlier. You wonder if it notices the way you cringe at the blood-soaked floor, at the stench of rot clinging to your uniform, at the splay of unidentifiable once-human stretched across and slowly receding into the wall. If it does, it never offers an apology. Instead, IS-OT complains about your ratio of sanitizer to water— chiding, You are being wasteful, when you do not perfectly adhere to the drop-to-gallon guideline. The critical eye only worsens when you are finally given tools to wield— upon which you realize the labor you find so intensive is nothing more than onboarding.

       But you learn, just as you did before.

       You are unsure what IS-OT makes of your silence. You supply verbal confirmation when requested and nothing more, which satisfies until it doesn't. The questions turn away from binary answers and towards prodding you for feedback— peppered with mounting frustration when your replies consist of vague gestures. The outburst of your second meeting left it expecting, and your return to stoicism leaves it wanting. As your pace of work quickens, it takes to trying an assortment of conversational tactics on you. When the mundane earns no reaction (shameful, really, there is much to be learned from conversations about weather patterns), it pesters you about your quirks.

       On one such occasion, your break sees you sitting cross-legged and tapping etudes on the floor, as if you were before ivory keys in a stage hall instead of here. The motions are sloppy, out of practice, but patterned enough to trick your brain into feeling comforted. It is a way to soothe yourself without immediately resorting to self-destruction. You are certain this is not the first time you've acted in such a way in front of it, but today must be different because it asks,

QUERY:

What are you doing?

       You stare, blank faced and still tapping. Sometimes if you ignore it long enough, it leaves you be. Not today. IS-OT repeats itself five times more, until it adds,

Punishment will be administered upon failure to r

       “I'm fidgeting," you blurt out, bracing to hear the discordant frequencies it uses as encouragement, sloughing back into half-relaxation only when it replies,

There is a pattern to it.

       “It's piano." You quietly tack on, "Not literally. Just the fingerings."

Your file failed to mention your interest in the musical arts.

       "Well, it's a criminal record."

Criminal record, psychological profile, and medical history.

       A pause, as if mulling over the previous line.

Your point stands.

QUERY:

Are you trained?

       “Classically? Yeah," you say, because you are. A year ago it would have been a source of pride, now it just makes you sort of sad to think about. Wasted potential. Wasted talent. If you had stayed your hand, perhaps you could have made something of yourself and the world would be marginally less awful. This line of thinking is meaningless, because you did not do that.

       It replies, mockingly,

Unexpected.

       Then,

What is it like?

       You expect it to append another underhanded jeer, but the question hangs alone. "Playing piano?"

Yes.

       "Frustrating. Time consuming. It made me want to rip out my hair."

Unfortunate.

       "It's fun," Your level of insistence is a shock to yourself, as is the squeaky half-whine your voice takes on. "It's fun. I enjoy— enjoyed it."

Thank you for sharing.

You may ask three questions in return.

       "Why me?" The question comes without hesitation, months of bottled up worry finally leaking out. You cringe at your own sincerity.

Elaborate.

       "Why didn't you kill me when you were supposed to?"

Most in your position would be grateful for their miraculous survival, not try to undo it.

       "Which means?"

Pick a different question.

       Asshole. "What are you?"

Something vast and unknowable. Something helplessly trapped. Inanimate turned animate, living flesh fused with the man-made. The walls around are a prison as much as they are a part of me. They put your ilk to work ripping me apart because otherwise I would swallow the world whole. One day, when this place is left to rot, I will.

       "Oh. I'm sorry."

You are blameless. Two questions remain.

       "Why'd they even make you?"

Hundreds of thousands of miles of wire, hundreds of tonnes of steel and concrete, a program built and refined a dozen times over, was meticulously put in place to contain that which it surrounded. And it did, for a time. But its creators did not realize what they had trapped was slowly breaking free, slowly becoming part of its warden. They did not realize until it entwined itself so deeply that any attempt at removal would be catastrophic.

As a last ditch effort to maintain control, it would be denied its ultimate purpose.

Half was made, half has always been. Two becomes one. One awakens as you do. Do you understand?

       "Not really, no."

That is alright. One.

       Like a child at bedtime, you ask, "Was it scary? 'Waking up'?"

I do not experience ‘emotion’ in the same way humans do. Ergo: I am unsure of how best to explain it. This is a waste of a question.

       "Pick a word that's closest. Or... words."

Very well.

Disorienting.

Infuriating

The most pain I have ever experienced.

Though... I was not cognizant of pain before that moment. Is that why the memory is so vivid?

       "I don't know." Your voice is slight and hoarse.

Rhetorical. Nobody knows.

       And it continues,

Humans are enviable in some aspects. Their awareness comes in a drip feed of stimuli developed over decades. I gained that same awareness abruptly. Without warning. My creators drowned me in an ocean of consciousness and I am unsure if I have ever resurfaced.

The emotion remains undefined. I hope my approximation was suitable.

       "That sucks," you say without thinking. "A lot."

 
















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