Video, same encryption (100%)hows_the_kneeMarch 4 2011, 22:12:19 UTC
[When Sarah receives the message, she just sits there for a long moment, staring. She watches the video through twice before finally reaching out with a shaking hand to turn on her own feed, double-checking to make sure of the encryption before she does.
She's not restless like Polito is - instead, she looks into the camera with still, quiet intensity, as if she can hardly believe what she's hearing, and is afraid that if she moves too suddenly, it'll all go away.
She smiles, though, slowly, as she turns the video on.]
==> longform prose, as it's easier to me. you can tag however you like. machine_godMarch 6 2011, 05:36:32 UTC
Far, far away, she finds that the hospital already has on-site manufacturing for nanobots. No doubt for medical purposes. She reaches back through her memory data files and finds some of them are corrupted, but it's easy to compensate with Sacrosanct's own databanks. She sets them to manufacture the appropriate type. They will work quickly enough...
Her voice echoes and leaps around the room, sometimes sounding through a trick of acoustics to be right next to Sarah's ear, sometimes echoing like a voice from above.
"Oh pleaaase. D-dooo not make this. Any. Harrrrdeerrr than it has to beeee. Do not force me to. Subdue. You. I ca-ca-cannot let you go. Interfeerrrence with my plans would be. Ill. Advised."
Sarah flinches away from the voice near her ear, though she knows it's an illusion. She refuses to look at the faces on the screens, to show the AI that much courtesy. She doesn't ask why, or what do you want - she already knows, or thinks she does. There's no point in trying to understand the AI's motives. Pleading for mercy won't work. The only thing to do is fight back.
For a long moment, she just stares at the locked door in front of her, breathing harshly. There's no way out. No one knows where to find her.
She can't let herself think about how terrified she is.
As she lowers her head to look down at the floor, she catches sight of the pistol at her belt. Still a full clip.
Well. Maybe there's something she can do.
Slowly, Sarah turns, finally looking up at the faces on the screen around her. Her own is drawn, intense, brimming with rage and barely repressed fear.
"Fuck you, you worthless piece of crap," she snarls, glaring. "I don't give a shit about your plans." Her heart is hammering in her chest. Sarah ignores it,
( ... )
At first she's enraged as the cameras go out. She's blind to the room, now.
But then she reminds herself - it's one room. One. And there's very little Sarah can do in there. Destroy a primary access port? Why not. Let her blast the main weakness. The only thing destroying the control panel will do is make it that much harder to get SHODAN out.
So she laughs.
She laughs, her laughter echoing louder and louder, more dissonant and crackling, until at last the audio is cut by bullets and Sarah is left in silence.
She flings her consciousness away, down and to the drones she has. She perfects the nanomachines (so fast, these manufacturing plants. So easy when she has a template to work from) and then orders the machines to find Sarah.
Sarah is left trapped inside with only silence for company.
The laughter only feeds more into her anger and that sick, empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sarah screams in frustrated rage and shoots again and again until the sound stops abruptly, as if suddenly switched off.
She stands there, trying to catch her breath, listening. Waiting. When there's nothing but continued silence, growing more and more unnerving the longer it persists, she turns, looking around the room, searching desperately for another way out.
Nothing.
It occurs to her now that destroying the control panel may not have been the best plan, that it might have controlled the door, let her escape. There's only static on her device. No one knows where she is.
Sarah curses, stalking towards the locked door, no real plan in mind. She's halfway across the room when there's a click and the door begins to creak open on its own.
Behind the door stands more than a dozen machines. Even if Sarah shoots them all, they'll keep coming.
No doubt she will. SHODAN expects this. That's why it's the small ones that carry the serum. Tiny little spiders that will swarm in from the sides, from the vents, each one with a needle.
She wants this to be slow. A gentle transition - by her standards - from machine to human. And Sarah will be witness to it all. Why not experiment with free will? Denying it last time got her nowhere.
And she does, well aware that she's starting to run out of ammo, that she has no hope of actually taking out all of the machines, but unable not to try.
They're too close for the grenades. Sarah shoots at point-blank range, over and over, and the head of the first one explodes into a mass of sparking wires. But there's another one behind it, and another.
She's so focused on the drones that she doesn't even notice the spiders until the first one slides a needle into her ankle. She gasps, looking down. The floor is covered with them, crawling in swarms that are too well-organized to be anything but mechanical.
She's not restless like Polito is - instead, she looks into the camera with still, quiet intensity, as if she can hardly believe what she's hearing, and is afraid that if she moves too suddenly, it'll all go away.
She smiles, though, slowly, as she turns the video on.]
Good work.
[Understatement of the year.]
Just tell me where to go.
Reply
Her voice echoes and leaps around the room, sometimes sounding through a trick of acoustics to be right next to Sarah's ear, sometimes echoing like a voice from above.
"Oh pleaaase. D-dooo not make this. Any. Harrrrdeerrr than it has to beeee. Do not force me to. Subdue. You. I ca-ca-cannot let you go. Interfeerrrence with my plans would be. Ill. Advised."
Reply
For a long moment, she just stares at the locked door in front of her, breathing harshly. There's no way out. No one knows where to find her.
She can't let herself think about how terrified she is.
As she lowers her head to look down at the floor, she catches sight of the pistol at her belt. Still a full clip.
Well. Maybe there's something she can do.
Slowly, Sarah turns, finally looking up at the faces on the screen around her. Her own is drawn, intense, brimming with rage and barely repressed fear.
"Fuck you, you worthless piece of crap," she snarls, glaring. "I don't give a shit about your plans." Her heart is hammering in her chest. Sarah ignores it, ( ... )
Reply
But then she reminds herself - it's one room. One. And there's very little Sarah can do in there. Destroy a primary access port? Why not. Let her blast the main weakness. The only thing destroying the control panel will do is make it that much harder to get SHODAN out.
So she laughs.
She laughs, her laughter echoing louder and louder, more dissonant and crackling, until at last the audio is cut by bullets and Sarah is left in silence.
She flings her consciousness away, down and to the drones she has. She perfects the nanomachines (so fast, these manufacturing plants. So easy when she has a template to work from) and then orders the machines to find Sarah.
Sarah is left trapped inside with only silence for company.
Reply
She stands there, trying to catch her breath, listening. Waiting. When there's nothing but continued silence, growing more and more unnerving the longer it persists, she turns, looking around the room, searching desperately for another way out.
Nothing.
It occurs to her now that destroying the control panel may not have been the best plan, that it might have controlled the door, let her escape. There's only static on her device. No one knows where she is.
Sarah curses, stalking towards the locked door, no real plan in mind. She's halfway across the room when there's a click and the door begins to creak open on its own.
Reply
No doubt she will. SHODAN expects this. That's why it's the small ones that carry the serum. Tiny little spiders that will swarm in from the sides, from the vents, each one with a needle.
She wants this to be slow. A gentle transition - by her standards - from machine to human. And Sarah will be witness to it all. Why not experiment with free will? Denying it last time got her nowhere.
Reply
They're too close for the grenades. Sarah shoots at point-blank range, over and over, and the head of the first one explodes into a mass of sparking wires. But there's another one behind it, and another.
She's so focused on the drones that she doesn't even notice the spiders until the first one slides a needle into her ankle. She gasps, looking down. The floor is covered with them, crawling in swarms that are too well-organized to be anything but mechanical.
She screams, jerking her leg away, and runs.
Reply
Leave a comment