Prompt response: unplugged
[OOC: This takes place after Swindle and Vortex have taken the first step in sorting out their differences (NC-17, sticky and p’n’p), and is a companion piece of sorts to Swindle’s latest post.]
Stuck in the middle of his defrag cycle, Vortex twitches.
Undercharged, and under-rested, his databanks haven’t had the opportunity to restore order for a long while. Longer than is healthy. His thoughts are piecemeal, his subconscious restless.
He’s been out cold for a while now, and he won’t wake up any time soon.
*
It’s dark. Not the dark of an absence of light, but the dark of an absence of everything.
He’s used to it by now; he’s had long enough.
He misses his sensor net. He misses the sky. He misses his hands, his rotors, his optics recalibrating in the proper dark, the kind he could hide in, wait in, the kind that led to other peoples’ ruin.
He doesn’t dwell on it. He can’t afford to. He knows what solitary can do to a mech, was horrors can emerge from sensory deprivation. He clings to the knowledge as he clings to the connection with his databanks. His memories are all he has.
*
In a dilapidated house under a stormy sky, Swindle disconnects the interface.
*
Vortex stirs; something changed. Just now. Something significant.
Loss wells up, thick as oil; it covers every part of him, but he doesn’t know why. Only that he had something, just a moment ago. Something good, something right. And now he doesn’t have it any more.
It aches, the loss. Everything aches. He hates it, and again he doesn’t know why.
But he’s too deep in defrag, too tired to break through the haze and haul his processor back to wakefulness.
He would whimper, but his vocaliser is missing. Missing? Of course it’s missing. Everything’s missing. His frame, his weapons, his metal and plastic and glass. All he has is his core, the heart of him - his personality component, his databanks. And then, only a fragment of his processing power.
Only a shadow of what he should have been.
He wonders if he’s meant to be conscious.
Is he supposed to be aware of this? Is it part of the punishment?
Or is it just a glitch? Is he meant to be offline, calm as the dead, thoughtless and with no reason to care?
The questions are fleeting, no sooner asked than gone. Only the loss remains, seeping in through gaps between molecules, suffusing him, filling him until he knows nothing else.
He tries to shake it off, but it’s impossible in the endless void of the Detention Centre.
*
His defrag cycle enters the final phase.
*
Something’s happening. Oh Sigma no, not again. He can’t cope with this, doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it.
Someone’s jacked in to him, someone’s fiddling around in his processor, moving files, patching lines of code, backing things up, shunting things around.
It is intensely uncomfortable. Not painful - there’s no pain here, no physical sensation at all - but it’s discomforting, uncanny. He has no control, no power, the foreign consciousness can do what it likes, and he has absolutely no way of stopping it.
He wishes he could struggle. He wishes he could fight. If he had his body, he wouldn’t lay still for this. They’d have to knock him offline.
Whoever ‘they’ were.
But there’s nothing to fight with. No comms either, no way to make contact; he can’t even protest.
Eventually, they’ll go away. They always do.
But they always come back as well, every half vorn without fail.
*
Vortex shuffles restlessly in recharge, but does not wake.
Stuck in the middle of his defrag cycle, Vortex twitches.
Undercharged, and under-rested, his databanks haven’t had the opportunity to restore order for a long while. Longer than is healthy. His thoughts are piecemeal, his subconscious restless.
He’s been out cold for a while now, and he won’t wake up any time soon.
*
It’s dark. Not the dark of an absence of light, but the dark of an absence of everything.
He’s used to it by now; he’s had long enough.
He misses his sensor net. He misses the sky. He misses his hands, his rotors, his optics recalibrating in the proper dark, the kind he could hide in, wait in, the kind that led to other peoples’ ruin.
He doesn’t dwell on it. He can’t afford to. He knows what solitary can do to a mech, was horrors can emerge from sensory deprivation. He clings to the knowledge as he clings to the connection with his databanks. His memories are all he has.
*
In a dilapidated house under a stormy sky, Swindle disconnects the interface.
*
Vortex stirs; something changed. Just now. Something significant.
Loss wells up, thick as oil; it covers every part of him, but he doesn’t know why. Only that he had something, just a moment ago. Something good, something right. And now he doesn’t have it any more.
It aches, the loss. Everything aches. He hates it, and again he doesn’t know why.
But he’s too deep in defrag, too tired to break through the haze and haul his processor back to wakefulness.
He would whimper, but his vocaliser is missing. Missing? Of course it’s missing. Everything’s missing. His frame, his weapons, his metal and plastic and glass. All he has is his core, the heart of him - his personality component, his databanks. And then, only a fragment of his processing power.
Only a shadow of what he should have been.
He wonders if he’s meant to be conscious.
Is he supposed to be aware of this? Is it part of the punishment?
Or is it just a glitch? Is he meant to be offline, calm as the dead, thoughtless and with no reason to care?
The questions are fleeting, no sooner asked than gone. Only the loss remains, seeping in through gaps between molecules, suffusing him, filling him until he knows nothing else.
He tries to shake it off, but it’s impossible in the endless void of the Detention Centre.
*
His defrag cycle enters the final phase.
*
Something’s happening. Oh Sigma no, not again. He can’t cope with this, doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it.
Someone’s jacked in to him, someone’s fiddling around in his processor, moving files, patching lines of code, backing things up, shunting things around.
It is intensely uncomfortable. Not painful - there’s no pain here, no physical sensation at all - but it’s discomforting, uncanny. He has no control, no power, the foreign consciousness can do what it likes, and he has absolutely no way of stopping it.
He wishes he could struggle. He wishes he could fight. If he had his body, he wouldn’t lay still for this. They’d have to knock him offline.
Whoever ‘they’ were.
But there’s nothing to fight with. No comms either, no way to make contact; he can’t even protest.
Eventually, they’ll go away. They always do.
But they always come back as well, every half vorn without fail.
*
Vortex shuffles restlessly in recharge, but does not wake.