station72 | mental link

[ someone's up and awake again. Not so tired sounding, though. This time, she's remembered to go and eat before she reaches out to the rest of the hive. ]

( Is anyone in the Bearings that can give me an update on what I've... missed? As much detail as possible.

If it were safer, I might suggest we start keeping more accessible records for these... interludes. )

[ She's not fond of this not knowing everything all the time ever. Which on the note of: she sighs, little echoing tumbling thought that is edged with frustration. ]

( And... does anyone what kind of tricks lions should do? Are they meant to be predators? Are they meant to be tamed?

.... Actually, does anyone know what a lion is? I'm starting to realise I don't know very much about animals if they aren't trying to eat you. Which isn't particularly useful, right now. )

[ ... and for anyone looking for Angel, she will be with a strew of mechanical parts around her that is half in her room, half in the corridor for her shiny new, tackely bright gold performing robotic lion. ]

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( To sleep.

Or, well, some of us go into a coma from time to time. This is the second time I've done that, so far. )

( Right. Because of the thing in our heads. )

[There's a sense of certainty in it, two pieces of information coming together in a conclusion he doesn't like but isn't surprised by.]

( I'll take a guess you don't remember doing anything that made it happen, either. How long have you been here? )

( No, nothing that I know, I've done it twice now, too. This time was longer than the last. But I am not surprised that the symbiote needs me to rest now and then. My body wasn't... well when I arrived. )

[ A simple, polite explation. ]

(I arrived with the first group here, so I suppose some months now? Depending on the time system you are most familiar with. )

( Or it messed with your brain too much and knocked you out. )

( Months works. There anyone tracking these comas? )

( I suppose that could also be true. I do have cybernetic implants in my mind. I can't imagine that helps. )

[ A pause, and no - no she supposes they haven't. ]

( Not yet. This is only our second mission together. I am sure Cathaway or Prince might have more information, given the length that they've been in the hive. )

( The "we" chick with the bells? Yeah, she seems like a really stable source of information. )

[He hasn't met Prince yet, but if they go in a sentence together like that he thinks he probably doesn't want to.]

( Implants like computer chips? )

( She's powerful. )

[ A shrug. Accepting. ]

( Kind of. But more advanced than just that. Mostly redundant now, anyway, since I am not keeping surveillance on a whole planet. )

( What, with this head stuff? Great. )

[Crazy people + power = not a good combo, in his experience.]

( They're not redundant if they're protecting your brain. But hey, if you felt like passing any on. )

[It's not really serious, even if some part of him might consider it. But putting one thing in your brain to combat another seems counterproductive, when the goal you want to reach is nothing being in there at all.]

[ It's not like he knows, there's no point getting frustrated with him even if there's a flood of thought that's stained purple, a sick, high painful scream that is her own. Tries to shut it down, take it somewhere he doesn't have to see it before she comes up like bile. Pain, a pain that burns and burns and burns and - ( Come on Angel, this is for your own good. ) - the choking gasping feeling as the control collar locks around her tighter and tighter and tighter - can't breathe, can't think, she knows she will wake when this pain gets too much with the feeling of being clawed apart. The wires in her brain, the plugs in her spine. It's not for her protection, it's for theirs, because they're just human and she's not and it's so, sickeningly a cliche, isn't it?

Shut down, close that file, it's nothing relevant to now. ]

( Sorry. )

[ It goes dead like a dropped line as she draws it back to a quiet, even tone. ]

( Trust me, they sell it like a great idea, but the drawbacks aren't worth the asking price.

Besides, it wasn't really for me: more for everyone else's sake. )

[This isn't the first time it's happened, getting this kind of rebound, sudden stumbling into memory or feeling for something he's knowingly or unknowingly said. His concept of mental barriers still aren't strong enough to deal with it, and it hooks into him, pulls up fractured echoes - a noose instead of a collar, pain for pain (blades and beating, rough demands for information drowned out by his screams).

It reverberates even as she shuts it down, and he has to stop, take a breath. Try to act like it hadn't happened, like he isn't so damn vulnerable like this.]

( My bad. )

[Genuine, if a little bitter. He'd said it, but if he'd known there was a minefield there, he wouldn't have walked into it.]

( Wouldn't go for it anyway. Just finished killing an AI who was forcing everyone to take chips and be her brainwashed army. )

[The impression of a shrug.]

[ A rogue AI, wait that sounds - ]

( You don't happen to know Rhys, do you? Or Handsome Jack, I guess. )

[ Because it's the one she knows about, that is at the forefront of her mind. She doesn't know him, but she hadn't known Rhys either. After all, blaze of glory it might have been, but she had killed herself. It meant she supposed she relinquished the right to know anyone and everyone important on the planet when that happened.

Maybe he was from Pandora too? ]

( No. )

[Rhys sounds like it could be a grounder name, but he thinks he'd remember someone called Handsome Jack.]

( She was called ALIE. )

( Oh, ....

Well, at least you didn't have to deal with him too. )

[ Clears her throat, carrying on where it's left off. Well, one less person exposed to Handsome Jack, the better. ]

( I am sorry you had to deal with that. A rogue AI can be... tricky to deal with. )

( Yeah, that's an understatement. )

[She had blown up the planet 97 years ago, after all.]

( But she's dead and I'm stuck here, so I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. )

( Well, if she does turn up... let me know. I might be able to help.

Oh - and I'm Angel, by the way. )

( Unless they can stick one of these bugs in a computer, I think we're good. But thanks, I guess.

Murphy. )

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