Wherein Falcon kills a computer.
It had been two days.
Two days of damage assessment, cleanup, and more relief than he'd ever felt in his entire life. It was over, and it felt as though a great crushing force had suddnely vanished, leaving him positively elated. And for someone like Falcon, being positively elated was a huge deal. After facing Giygas and winning...well, how could he not be ecstatic?
Okay, so it wasn't the real Giygas. But it certainly felt real. Not that Falcon had ever faced off with the real Giygas, but that was rather beside the point.
He returned to his apartment almost immediately after playing chauffeur for Ollie and his family to find the complex relatively untouched. It was clear there had been scuffles in the area, but for the most part, everything was exactly the same. Disheveled, but at least the building was still standing, and at least he'd had the foresight to pack most of his belongings away in the Flyer.
Nevermind the fact that the boxes had been rooted through, the contents spilled (probably from crazy flying over the course of the whole ordeal) his stuff strewn all over the interior, and a lovely mess for him to clean up, courtesy of Rawk Hawk and Ganondorf. It took him an hour or so to douse the entirety of the interior with Oxy-Clean and bleach and a multitude of other disinfectants, but once he was satisfied on the cleanliness front, he collapsed inside the craft on a pile of clothes that had decided not to stay in their box and slept for fifteen hours straight.
When he woke up, it dawned on him exactly how much he had to do, especially when he rubbed the grogginess from his eyes and realized that he had fallen asleep in a rather large spaceship that was sitting in the parking lot of an otherwise normal-looking apartment complex. At any other time, he would have gone to great lengths to keep the craft hidden away but...after all he'd been through, Falcon was beyond caring.
He took the longest shower of his life instead.
Somewhere between the hot water and steam and copious amounts of shower gel, he figured out what he needed to do. He didn't want to, and he wished there could be a different course of action but...after what happened during the war...he needed to.
"Heeeey. Computer. Raptor." He said as he made his way back into the Flyer, rubbing the excess water out of his hair with a towel and knocking on the interior of the hull. "Wake up."
"I trust you are well-rested, Captain?" Hearing that mechanical voice made him bite his lip.
"Yeah. I did. Thanks." Falcon said, taking a seat in his chair and beginning to plug codes into the control panel. He slid a large card into a slot in the CPU. "I need you to do me a favor. Run a complete backup and save to the card, will you?"
"Running backup. Any particular reason?"
The excuse came so quickly it sounded rehearsed. Which...it was. "Journal entries all disappeared off the school network. Can't be too careful. Back up everything. Absolutely everything. All my files, all the databases, everything. Your programming too."
"Yes Captain."
Falcon was silent as he watched the progress bar creep slowly towards completion. Either he was doing a really good job of hiding what he was about to do, or the Flyer was really good at pretending he didn't know what was coming. With every percentage that ticked away, he felt a little worse. He'd built the Flyer from the ground up. He'd programmed the AI himself. Gave it a personality and the codes that would make it develop over time.
But Falcon never thought it'd develop to this. Mutiny was mutiny, and even though they were getting on fine now, just as they always did, he had to ensure that an incident like that would never occur again. Maybe he hadn't been the best captain. But he'd never be able to do his job if he had to worry about his AI deciding it didn't want to do what he asked. And the Flyer was just a computer, after all.
Just a computer. A computer that had been his only companionship for nine lonely years in space. He'd never changed the AI. Not once. And no matter how much they squabbled, Falcon would admit...however reluctantly...that it was perhaps the Flyer that had kept him sane.
And now with the press of one button, he was going to obliterate it all.
A dinging noise alerted him to the completion of the backup. He ejected the card and pocketed it, finding an ounce of relief in knowing he could reverse it all if he wanted to. "Switch to manual input mode, please."
He wasn't sure he wanted to.
Falcon's fingers hovered over the keyboard as the Flyer made the transition without saying anything. He couldn't help but feel as though the computer knew what commands he was about to perform, and was just...accepting it. He started typing numbers. It was only a matter of time before the AI recognized the codes. But nothing. Silence. Falcon wondered if he'd feel better if only the Flyer would say something. A few more minutes of furious typing and all he had to do was press enter. The deletion would run and that would be that.
But now he found himself hesitating. It was just a computer...it could think, yes, but it couldn't feel. It wasn't like he was killing a living breathing human being.
No. He was killing the one thing that had stuck by him for years, even if that's what it was created for. He was killing his best friend. He might as well have been dragging him behind the shed and shooting him.
"There's no sense in waiting."
"You're just going to let me?" He found himself frozen over the keyboard.
"You are my Captain, after all."
Falcon pressed enter before he could change his mind.
--------
So uh. I know I talked to a bunch of you already and a lot of you are out a place stay. My apartment's pretty much intact so if anyone needs somewhere to crash, I've got a working shower and I'll set up some air mattresses in the living room or something.
If there ends up being a lot of us (and I think there are) I have...uh...a second place of residence that's a hell of a lot bigger. Putting that out there for those of you that don't know I have another pad. My apartment near the school is a bit small, I'll be the first to admit that, so if we need the extra room, and I think we will, uh...
Fancy a trip? Transportation's covered.
---------
Checking in. Everyone's okay? Anyone need anything?
Two days of damage assessment, cleanup, and more relief than he'd ever felt in his entire life. It was over, and it felt as though a great crushing force had suddnely vanished, leaving him positively elated. And for someone like Falcon, being positively elated was a huge deal. After facing Giygas and winning...well, how could he not be ecstatic?
Okay, so it wasn't the real Giygas. But it certainly felt real. Not that Falcon had ever faced off with the real Giygas, but that was rather beside the point.
He returned to his apartment almost immediately after playing chauffeur for Ollie and his family to find the complex relatively untouched. It was clear there had been scuffles in the area, but for the most part, everything was exactly the same. Disheveled, but at least the building was still standing, and at least he'd had the foresight to pack most of his belongings away in the Flyer.
Nevermind the fact that the boxes had been rooted through, the contents spilled (probably from crazy flying over the course of the whole ordeal) his stuff strewn all over the interior, and a lovely mess for him to clean up, courtesy of Rawk Hawk and Ganondorf. It took him an hour or so to douse the entirety of the interior with Oxy-Clean and bleach and a multitude of other disinfectants, but once he was satisfied on the cleanliness front, he collapsed inside the craft on a pile of clothes that had decided not to stay in their box and slept for fifteen hours straight.
When he woke up, it dawned on him exactly how much he had to do, especially when he rubbed the grogginess from his eyes and realized that he had fallen asleep in a rather large spaceship that was sitting in the parking lot of an otherwise normal-looking apartment complex. At any other time, he would have gone to great lengths to keep the craft hidden away but...after all he'd been through, Falcon was beyond caring.
He took the longest shower of his life instead.
Somewhere between the hot water and steam and copious amounts of shower gel, he figured out what he needed to do. He didn't want to, and he wished there could be a different course of action but...after what happened during the war...he needed to.
"Heeeey. Computer. Raptor." He said as he made his way back into the Flyer, rubbing the excess water out of his hair with a towel and knocking on the interior of the hull. "Wake up."
"I trust you are well-rested, Captain?" Hearing that mechanical voice made him bite his lip.
"Yeah. I did. Thanks." Falcon said, taking a seat in his chair and beginning to plug codes into the control panel. He slid a large card into a slot in the CPU. "I need you to do me a favor. Run a complete backup and save to the card, will you?"
"Running backup. Any particular reason?"
The excuse came so quickly it sounded rehearsed. Which...it was. "Journal entries all disappeared off the school network. Can't be too careful. Back up everything. Absolutely everything. All my files, all the databases, everything. Your programming too."
"Yes Captain."
Falcon was silent as he watched the progress bar creep slowly towards completion. Either he was doing a really good job of hiding what he was about to do, or the Flyer was really good at pretending he didn't know what was coming. With every percentage that ticked away, he felt a little worse. He'd built the Flyer from the ground up. He'd programmed the AI himself. Gave it a personality and the codes that would make it develop over time.
But Falcon never thought it'd develop to this. Mutiny was mutiny, and even though they were getting on fine now, just as they always did, he had to ensure that an incident like that would never occur again. Maybe he hadn't been the best captain. But he'd never be able to do his job if he had to worry about his AI deciding it didn't want to do what he asked. And the Flyer was just a computer, after all.
Just a computer. A computer that had been his only companionship for nine lonely years in space. He'd never changed the AI. Not once. And no matter how much they squabbled, Falcon would admit...however reluctantly...that it was perhaps the Flyer that had kept him sane.
And now with the press of one button, he was going to obliterate it all.
A dinging noise alerted him to the completion of the backup. He ejected the card and pocketed it, finding an ounce of relief in knowing he could reverse it all if he wanted to. "Switch to manual input mode, please."
He wasn't sure he wanted to.
Falcon's fingers hovered over the keyboard as the Flyer made the transition without saying anything. He couldn't help but feel as though the computer knew what commands he was about to perform, and was just...accepting it. He started typing numbers. It was only a matter of time before the AI recognized the codes. But nothing. Silence. Falcon wondered if he'd feel better if only the Flyer would say something. A few more minutes of furious typing and all he had to do was press enter. The deletion would run and that would be that.
But now he found himself hesitating. It was just a computer...it could think, yes, but it couldn't feel. It wasn't like he was killing a living breathing human being.
No. He was killing the one thing that had stuck by him for years, even if that's what it was created for. He was killing his best friend. He might as well have been dragging him behind the shed and shooting him.
"There's no sense in waiting."
"You're just going to let me?" He found himself frozen over the keyboard.
"You are my Captain, after all."
Falcon pressed enter before he could change his mind.
--------
So uh. I know I talked to a bunch of you already and a lot of you are out a place stay. My apartment's pretty much intact so if anyone needs somewhere to crash, I've got a working shower and I'll set up some air mattresses in the living room or something.
If there ends up being a lot of us (and I think there are) I have...uh...a second place of residence that's a hell of a lot bigger. Putting that out there for those of you that don't know I have another pad. My apartment near the school is a bit small, I'll be the first to admit that, so if we need the extra room, and I think we will, uh...
Fancy a trip? Transportation's covered.
---------
Checking in. Everyone's okay? Anyone need anything?