[Worm]

This is a private role play between Mekatra and Worm.
Feel free to lurk, but no posting without permission.
Possibility for mature content.

[Worm]

Seven Opal

Seven was covered in blood. It trickled down his arm and pooled onto his table. His other arm was propped up, holding a laser pen and scrawling into his other. It was time for an upgrade. He bit down on an old t-shirt, so used to the pain of these upgrades, that he rarely needed any anesthetic. The arm performing the surgery was completely robotic. This was his first installment. It was due to a military injury, which shoved him out of the front lines. Luckily military soldiers were the first to receive these upgrades, free of charge. He'd always had interest in cybernetics, but it wasn't until he started tweaking his own parts, that he discovered an innate talent with them.

He zoomed in now with his goggles, focusing on a single wire that ran down near his wrist. The blood in that area was especially thick. He sealed the vein shut with a simple run of his pen. The blood slowly stopped. His face was a bright white, when it would normally be a soft olive color. With one final move, he was able to reattach a new wire and his new software was installed. He wiped his forehead with the free, metal arm, not making much of a difference. "There." He said to himself. He pulled a flap of metal from the other side of the exposed musculature and robotics and sealed it over. He had to scale off some extra skin to make sure it fit properly.

When it closed, he took a deep breath, pressed one of the buttons on the top side of his arm and the music in his ears stopped. That meant it worked. He smiled, leaning back in his chair. The blood on his table would be cleaned up by his helper bot, as per usual in his cybernetics shop. It was dark outside now, which meant the shop was closed to walk-ins. With no appointments, it meant it was his own upgrade time. He stood, legs wobbly from blood loss and found himself a big bottle of whiskey and took a swig. The sting of alcohol helped numb the pulsating, radiating pain in his arm.

[Mekatra]

Warning sirens blared as dark pendulous clouds rolled across the sky. Long ago rain was as common and unremarkable an occurrence as hair on a dog, but with the high levels of pollution in the air warning was required before the lashings of acid rain fell. Shoppers in the street hustled to get where they were headed to get out of the oncoming weather. Only a few short minutes separated the piercing notes of the alarm sirens and the first patters of the toxic rain upon the ground.

Seven's door was flung open and a cloaked form threw themselves into the floor. There was steam lightly rising off them as the laid there for a few moments then rolled over. They were filthy and the stench coming from them was so bad it could nearly singe hairs. The form slowly dragged itself to its feet and the cloak slid to the ground.

While Seven was in the military he would have seen combat androids, and the individual in his shop was unmistakably one of the newest models of those machines. Its cold grey eyes took a moment to focus on him, but when they did there was a slight flash behind them. "Pardon my intrusion, sir. I am seeking shelter from the rain. May I offer you compensation for the trouble?" While most androids in the military were made to appear more humanlike, but the actual combat units were left metallic and cold in appearance. No skin modifications covered the dull metal sheen of their chassis. Their face was smooth, similar to a human's but with little expression, and there was no hair to speak of on their head or body.

The android's expression remained unchanged as it scanned the room. "You perform illegal modifications on this premise."

[Worm]

Seven had just finished off the bottle in his hand, so decided to chuck it towards the recycling compactor. He let out a harsh groan only to be interrupted by the violent opening of doors. He was instantly reminded of the outside world, sirens and harsh rain falling in the background. A flash of lightning lit up behind his newcomer, a penumbra around their cloaked form. The stench coming off of them stung into Seven's memory, causing his heart to patter so quickly it felt like it was going to explode. He clenched his chest and took a seat. As they came to their feet, Seven's eyebrows shadowed skeptical, brown eyes.

The gleam of metal on the intruder's skin was clearly military grade. He gulped, realizing that there might be no option but to harbor this machine. While he was equipped with some illegal weaponry, it might not be able to compete with a sleek new model like this one. Though its shell seemed damaged and dingy. "Close the door behind you. Come in." Normally he would spit and shoo away anybody intruding in his space past business hours. And it was hard for him to even invite the robot inside, but he did so out of intimidation. Though, he did his best not to show it.

"Yes. Is that going to be a problem?" Seven snarled, a sharp tooth hanging on his lip. If the machine wanted a fight, then he would give them one. Not to say that he would win.

[Mekatra]

The android scanned the room again and then focused back on him. It shut the door like he instructed. "Thank you for allowing me to use your shelter." It moved further into the room and stopped, standing stone still. "I do not foresee a problem. I am not responsible for reporting crimes or catching offenders." It turned to look at him. "My creator used Engel to refer to me. I would be grateful if you would not report my presence to law enforcement authorities."

It went silent again, awaiting a response from him. It flexed slightly on its toes, then settled into an alert stance. "My apologies, do you have a name you would like for me to use when referring to you?"

[Worm]

Hal sniffed, brushing under his nose with the remainder of flesh on his arm. Then he stood, now looming over the metal creation with the sound of the door shutting resonating in the background. So, he was in the same boat as Seven, eh? It wouldn't be so bad to have a highly weaponized machine to his assistance. It was only fair to ask the robot to protect him as well in exchange, right? "Good. I don't need any of those pigs in my home either. You keep your mouth shut, and I'll do the same." He gave a serrated grin.

"Call me Seven, Mister Engel." Seven's eyes darted to the closet adjacent to him. The sound of his cleaning bot startled him. The closet door swung open right at the strike of midnight. The little motorized vacuum hovered over its programmed area, picking up debris, and sanitizing his work station. It also collected hazardous material and made sure to dispose of it safely. It was a simple machine, but Seven was happy to upgrade it constantly also. Machines were his specialty. He extended a hand to finally greet the guest, distracted by the movement of his cleaner. "Its a pleasure to have you here. Just know that if you ever double cross me, I'll have your brains rewired and deactivate you in a heartbeat." He snarled, gripping the robot's hand throughout his threat, making sure to make direct eye contact with its lenses. When he was finished, he released his grip with a sigh of relief.


"Otherwise, make yourself at home."

[Mekatra]

Engel remained standing stiffly in the middle of the room until Seven held his hand out for him to shake. He returned the gesture, clasping his hand and mechanically pumping it up and down three times before letting it go. It was clearly a very rehearsed action. "It would not be advantageous to either party to betray the other. It would be more likely to work in our favor if we were to combine out abilities toward a common goal." He met his lenses. It was likely it wasn't even possible for him to be intimidated. "I will keep your threat in my memory banks for future referencing. Feel free to ask me about it in the future if you forget what you said you would do in case of a betrayal."

He watched the cleaning bot curiously and eventually bent down to inspect it closer. "This is a simple machine made for doing exact tasks in a pre-set area, correct? Did you design and program this machine?" He brought himself back up to full standing and turned his mirror lensed eyes back toward Seven. "Are you also a creator?"

[Worm]

Seven patted Engel on its sturdy, metal back. "Good lad!" He said in response. This was why he preferred machine to man, machines were subservient. As the cleaning bot made its rounds around his station, it bumped into Engel's foot once, having to change its direction. It probably wasn't used to having another being in the vicinity. "Yeah, I guess I am!" Seven mentioned with pride. It felt good to be a creator around machines. His smile softened as he met Engel's mirrored eyes. "Now, who created you?" His eyebrow perked at the question, wondering if the information would change his perception of the well crafted machine.

[Mekatra]

Engel seemed reluctant to speak again for a moment, carefully weighing the consequences and possible outcomes of sharing what was considered classified information. "My creator and programmer was Chief Engineer Dalica Kastos. I was part of the Titan series of machine soldiers." Some lights flashed behind his lenses as he disregarded warning his system was popping up about revealing his origins. "Miss Dalica reported to her superiors that I was non-functional due to an non-reparable hardware failure. I had been residing in her private laboratory for four hundred twenty-six days when she was killed in an accident during a routine test of another member of the Titan series." He said it matter-of-factly, but there was a change in him, almost a sadness. True artificial intelligence, ones that attempted to actually mimic human behaviour and to strive toward becoming more human-like had been made strictly illegal. Even in the top tiers of the military such experiments were rare and heavily regulated.

"Perhaps you can repair me." He attempted to lift one arm, but the shoulder servo motors seemed to me malfunctioning and he was only able to lift it about chest level.

[Worm]

Seven's interest was piqued. He crossed his arms, listening to the robot spill classified information. He'd heard about the Titan soldiers, but never had the chance to work with any. He was actually part of the design team. But it seemed that the result was a little different than the initial designs. It was the name Dalica Kastos, that made his blood boil. His fists clenched, remembering the domineering energy of Kastos. They had a vision, and didn't intend to have anybody change that. Hence why this machine was so different from the designs. From the amount of facial variability, he had to think that Engel blurred the line of legality. "Kastos." Was all he managed to say in response to Engel's dark story. He had to wonder what was going on before she died. Usually, engineers were not left alone to test the machines. Something struck him as incredibly fishy. His instincts were telling him to get away from the machine and the possible incarceration that might occur from him tampering with him. However, he did know how to fix Engel...

He sighed, watching the shoulder motor grind and stop at a certain point. "Its a simple fix, really." While he couldn't manage a smile, he still felt a bit of compassion towards the machine. After all, it didn't choose the path of its creator. He walked behind Engel and tapped on the plate of metal which acted as a sort of shoulder blade, usually there was an opening on either side. He sniffed and pulled away, digging into his pocket for a cigarette. With the other hand, he lit it. He took a long drag, smoke pluming around the robot's frame. "I'll have to grab my old tool set." His military issued set was largely untouched these days. Most of his personal machines were not military grade and didn't require fancy tools to unlock and update. He liked to keep them simple, even though he had the ability to make much more complex machines.

He wandered towards his basement, first opening a side door to a lift. He gestured for Engel to follow him. The lift would have just enough space for the two of them, arms extended. It would glide slowly to the basement floor and the door would open to an array of lights flickering on to each corner of vision.

[Mekatra]

Engel watched him curiously until he went out of the range of his lenses, and then went back to staring straight forward. "You did not like my creator? Did she wrong you? I have read many reports and complaints from those that had worked with her. She was, by all accounts, a difficult working companion." The android blinked to clean his lenses and looked back over his shoulder as much as he could to watch him as he popped open his chassis. "She disliked failure and disobedience." He agreed, which shouldn't have been possible for him to even know. Machines didn't disobey, that shouldn't have even been something his programming would allow him to do. The military had many failsafes in place to prevent any machine from progressing to the point of having that ability.

When he was instructed to follow him he did so. "I believe I am operating with an illegal program inside of me. Doctor Kastos deleted the Halifax protocol from my core code." That statement alone would have been enough to send the late engineer to a life incarceration, or perhaps since she had done it to a weaponized machine, a death sentence. The Halifax Protocol, the kill switch that was required by law to be placed in the code of every machine created and used by humanity, was named after the first incident of a robot purposely murdering a human. A Canadian scientist had been working to create a learning machine and had been playing a riddle game with it. When he asked it what was meant to be a hypothetical morality question it degenerated quickly and eventually the machine had killed its creator. The incident rocked the world and harsh sanctions, eventually leading to heavily restrictive law had been enacted.

Apparently Doctor Kastos had decided she was above the law. It was likely it was another of her freed machines had been the reason behind her accident.

[Worm]

Seven struggled to understand why the machine was so receptive to his emotions. Most machines would not pick up on the lilt of his voice. After all, all he did was mention the creator's name. He said nothing about his feelings for her. Yet somehow, Engel knew. He scowled, a bit overwhelmed with what he was getting himself into. "I wouldn't say I disliked her. We didn't work well together." He shoved down repressed memories deep into his gut. He must've blacked out for a moment, because they were in the basement now. He looked down at his still fresh arm upgrade wound and recalled Engel's mention of the Halifax protocol. Everything in his body boiled, his hair rose, his eyes widened. This was not good at all!

"Your Halifax protocol?"He could feel the air being sucked from his lungs, he whipped his hands to his head, stringing through short, brown hair. It all made sense now... In alarm, Seven grabbed his pistol and held it close to him. They were after him weren't they? This was all planned. His thoughts were winding deeper into paranoia as he looked the machine up and down. He felt a lump in his throat. "What was her intention in doing this?" He kept the pistol moving with his hand gestures, still drunk on panic. The basement lights were florescent, blinking on in sets behind the robot. Underneath the groups of lights were tables with various projects on them. Every inch of the walls were covered in tools, weapons, scrap or some sort of metal. "I do have the file on all of my machines, there might be a way for me to transfer it back onto your hard drive." He kept his distance from the military grade mechanized weapon.

[Mekatra]

Engel stepped backward when the pistols came out and brought his arms up to shield his core parts from any bullets that might be coming, but when he paused and asked a question instead the android slowly lowered them. "Doctor Kastos stated that within the Protocol there were choice inhibitors that stopped me from reaching my potential." The machine had already scanned the room and glanced back Seven's way. "The lack of Halifax Protocol is not the only illegal software in my system. If you are concerned that I am going to harm you I can give you the verbal code that Doctor Kastos used to shut off my deep learning capability and return me to my military configuration. Please do not think I will harm you unless you attempt to physically harm me or erase my coding. My sense of self-preservation is quite intact."

Deep learning, self-preservation. These were all things he shouldn't have even been capable of. Clearly Kastos had not toed the line of legality, but instead took a flying leap into the land of artificial intelligence that had been illegal for over a century. "I would prefer if you fixed my shoulder and did not alter my code..."

[Worm]

The way that Engel responded to Seven’s brash, programmed responses was undeniably human. It was strange to say the least. In some ways it made Seven even more intimidated by the machine. He perked an eyebrow, the pistol hanging loosely from his hands. So if I mess with his coding, he is programmed to react? He wondered just how much of Engel’s program was self-learned. If Kastos had managed to program this level of intelligence, he had to wonder what she was trying to attain and how much she’d already accomplished.
”Sounds like a deal. Give me the code. And I’ll fix your jacked shoulder.” He shrugged, placing the pistol on a metal dissection table. ”Would you let me try this code, make sure it works?” He grinned. Though his intentions were initially sparked from fear, he now began to question if he could mess around Engel’s mainframe while he was shut down.

[Mekatra]

Engel hesitated, running possible scenarios based on what he had observed of Seven. "Once I grant you knowledge of the code, it is not possible for me to control what you do with it. I do not grant my permission to be shut down for non-emergency situations, but my permission is not required for the code to function." The android appeared to be stalling. "I have a few safeguards against possible sabotage, please do not attempt to bypass them."

With that he opened a compartment on his abdomen just above where a belly button would normally be, and withdrew a small plastic card. Kastos had apparently written the code on the back on an expired access key card in permanent marker.
"0226E-N-G-E-L" and "Recover 0226E-N-G-E-L" Kastos's handwriting was small, blocky and precise.

"I believe that will be my final code, since there should be no further versions of my software. Please, once again I must request, do not alter my code. I know my data is not of importance to you, but I do not wish to lose the data I have collected in my memory. I do not want to forget what I have learned." Without facial expressions or voice inflection changes, the plea seemed simultaneously oddly hollow and terrifyingly close to an actual emotional appeal.

[Worm]

Seven snatched the card from Engel's hand, taking an extra amount of time to read and re-read the code. It was most definitely Kastos' handwriting. It took him back to his time working with her and the notes she would scrawl across his blueprints. She was a genius. And it showed more and more as this machine spoke. Seven felt a twinge of guilt in his stomach. Was sympathy for a machine necessary, or logical at all? Either way, he tucked the card into his pocket, unsure if Engel would want it back.

"I don't want you to lose your memories either." Seven sighed, shaking his head. He started to regret his threats. After all, if he erased anything, or modified anything, what would he be losing? He hadn't the slightest idea as to what the machine was capable of. And this terrified him, but he felt a little better with the machine's shut down code. He turned to a nearby table, sifting through his company toolbox and selecting a model repair tool by pressing a button on the screen. After making his selection, he put in his pin and a drawer raised from the table to reveal the tools. "Alright, take a seat." He nodded, gesturing for the machine to find his way onto the table by patting on the cold metal surface. "That shoulder must be bothersome." A softness in his voice was exposed in a way that rarely showed.