At my discretion, of course. But there's a lot of jobs that need doing out in the yellow zone, due to its overall lack of infrastructure compared to green zones.
I guess on an individual level. Like, deciding where to stay for curfew. Is it better to go to a place you know that you'll have an effect at, or just like, your cabin, and have no effect at all?
Once it's established, and everyone knows about the effects, it's safer to go to somewhere that will give you an effect, no? If you're lucky, then you'll get an effect that exonerates you from culpability entirely. Even if you aren't, you might be able to hide in the crowd if you're faking it, and most of them are hardly an ordeal to go through.
Unless you foresee needing plausible deniability, in which case it would be very suspicious if you were to stay in areas with effects... and then not, all of a sudden, some week. In that case, maybe you'd rather risk the extra suspicion every time anyway.
[ i was gonna be all nice and aesthetic and give you the memory only at the right timing in the conversation, but you know what, fuck that. they walk.
they get a decent amount of the way to somewhere nice and dry! maybe towards the mess hall! but of course memshare week is a bitch.
so. the memory unfurls. there is something strange about it, like an old recording, fuzzy and staticky. it is corrupted, blocked and degraded somehow in signal quality. white noise and static threads around the edges of the brief snatches he gets, echoes of your sister's voice youhavetherighttoliveonthisisthebestpossibleending and visage flashing by, stutter-skipping therightchoicesarealwaystheonesthathurtyouthemost like a hung process-
"do you want to die with me so badly? ... go on. the time has come to rewrite our fate."
this image stays a bit longer than the others: your sister steadies your gun for you. her dogtags burn painfully in your palm despite your temperature sensors reporting otherwise. you think you might be screaming as the muzzle flashes.
but that too gets cut off into static. there's flashes of conversation-
"i thought... there wouldn't be any more survivors." "so... even you want to kill me?" "don't bother struggling. i'm sure you know your odds." "the only thing i know... is 'what's right.' i must survive...!"
but nothing concrete, until.
you're pinned. you knew this was a hopeless fight from the start, but still, you tried, that single desperate mantra- you have to survive, no matter what, it's what she wanted, it was her last wish- repeating endlessly in your mind. but the gap in ability is too high, your opponent is an elite, and you've only ever been defective, disposable goods. there is one thing you can try, still, but you're not ready yet, you need time--
"any last words, traitor?" says m16, leaning in. you struggle for your gun, uselessly. "you still want to put up a fight, huh?"
(just a little more...) "... i wonder which of us is the real traitor?"
your opponent scoffs. "are those your parting words? fine. farewell, UMP45."
it's just enough. now is the only chance you'll get, and--
m16 fires. she misses- which should have been impossible, at the point blank range you were at- and leaves two holes in the ground where you were as a loud and vicious crack resonates through the air. your systems and neural cloud are sent reeling by the simple feedback alone from breaking your own arm in an effort to buy yourself a chance to fight back, even though you've already turned off the pain sensors in your left arm. you whirl and kick away as hard as you can, using the recoil to force yourself closer to your gun and take aim in return as m16 recovers quickly.
"... i didn't expect you to be able to disrupt my fire control system in such a short time. you've done very well for a doll like you."
you don't move an inch. you don't dare. "all those dolls from earlier, in front of the door. they were shot in the back... that must have been your handiwork, right?"
"my mission was to eliminate all traitorous dolls."
a small, distant part of you despairs at the confirmation, while the rest of you goes both icy hot and deathly cold. "so you knew something like this was going to happen. you betrayed us all from the very beginning!"
... m16 doesn't respond.
why? you need to know- why? "have you thought about what will happen to you too, after this? do you think you can avoid being silenced as well?"
all of them sent here today... from the start, none of them were meant to survive. who did this? who was responsible?
but m16 doesn't answer your questions. maybe she doesn't know herself. "you shouldn't be thinking about a question like that. all you need to do is die here."
she fires, but can't land a shot for now. sabotaging her fire control system earlier is the only thing that might be able to save your life now, because your speed is all you have, and you're nearly out of ammunition. but what can you do? someone went to great lengths and efforts to set this mission up, sabotage and compromise it, brush it under the rug, make sure that nothing about it can leak, kill every possible witness. and now you two are the only ones left.
you try anyway. you fight back, as best as you can with only one arm, but even with m16 hindered and in pain from an ongoing meltdown, you end up disarmed, grabbed by the collar, pinned underneath her again, scrabbling and clawing desperately at her eye for any possible leverage you can get and breaking your other arm as well in the process, as she pulls a dagger out from her belt and, with both hands, stabs it down toward your head.
you tried. you tried, but you'll die here, and everything and everyone who died here will die with you. ]
[Ah. An old friend. Death is here. A fight to the finish, going out in a blaze of glory, no, that isn't him, who is so keen on laying down and letting death take him into its arms. So this is not him, this will to survive at all costs, fierce and ready to clamp down its jaws. Even as he blinks to reality, the words sound in his mind. The image of that girl, muzzle of a gun pressed against her forehead, the talk of traitors, and, ah, now that's something that resonates a little deeper than most:]
"you've only ever been defective, disposable goods"]
[Anaido stands, hand reaching up to his head instinctively. Part of him wonders if the knife in the memory made a hole in its wake. It didn't, of course.]
[He can hope.]
Hm. [His eyes are closed as he smiles, briefly, taking it all in before he finally lets out a sigh, murmuring:] What a fierce woman you are, 45.
[ it certainly left something. the knife in the memory plummeted down towards the same side that possesses quite the notable scar, after all, running up and down her eye.
perhaps not so much a mystery where that came from, is it? ]
Am I a woman, or a simulacrum of one? Am I fierce, or is that simple self-preservation?
[ why does it matter what she thinks? ]
That first girl you saw -- she thought me too naive to survive, the way I was then. What do you think, hm? You two think different things. Should I just accept one opinion over the other?
Hahaha. [His smile twists upward, ever the fool.] You say it like its "either, or", but I don't think that's right! You're both at the same time.
[Because even she, as whatever she is, can contain a paradox. He knows, because he's one himself.]
From my perspective, you're fierce, because compared to myself, you act more than I ever would. That girl may have felt you were lacking compared to whatever she might have done. So in that way, you're both. We're both right. We're both wrong. That's how it is.
A squad shrouded in mystery. ▓▓▓▓▒ has met them once, and others can only guess at the members' identities from rumors. Members of the squad all have advanced AI and high capacity for independent operation. Rumor has it that Squad 404 usually deals with ░▓▒▓▓▓▒▓▓▒▒▒░░
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2020-07-09 04:42 am (UTC)[ that darn memoryshare effect. ]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-09 04:46 am (UTC)[He huffs.]
That's a dream worth working for, I think. To see a sight that probably no one else has seen for years.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-09 05:01 am (UTC)It'd be quite the thing for someone like me to achieve something like that.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-09 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-09 05:10 am (UTC)But to the ocean in general... Mostly, I'm just not at liberty to travel that far. Perhaps if a job ends up sending me there, one day.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:42 am (UTC)[Well. He can't control that. He closes his eyes, momentarily, before moving on to stand at her side.]
I'll take the risk, I suppose...
[What's the worst that could happen?]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:43 am (UTC)[Weird.]
Here's a question. Do you think its better to have an effect, or no effect at all?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:46 am (UTC)What do you do for your job, 45?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:48 am (UTC)[ it's trilled out, light and breezy. ]
At my discretion, of course. But there's a lot of jobs that need doing out in the yellow zone, due to its overall lack of infrastructure compared to green zones.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 01:50 am (UTC)[He scratches at his chin.]
And what exactly does the work involve?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 02:18 am (UTC)Unless you foresee needing plausible deniability, in which case it would be very suspicious if you were to stay in areas with effects... and then not, all of a sudden, some week. In that case, maybe you'd rather risk the extra suspicion every time anyway.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 03:01 am (UTC)[ i was gonna be all nice and aesthetic and give you the memory only at the right timing in the conversation, but you know what, fuck that. they walk.
they get a decent amount of the way to somewhere nice and dry! maybe towards the mess hall! but of course memshare week is a bitch.
so. the memory unfurls. there is something strange about it, like an old recording, fuzzy and staticky. it is corrupted, blocked and degraded somehow in signal quality. white noise and static threads around the edges of the brief snatches he gets, echoes of your sister's voice youhavetherighttoliveonthisisthebestpossibleending and visage flashing by, stutter-skipping therightchoicesarealwaystheonesthathurtyouthemost like a hung process-
"do you want to die with me so badly? ... go on. the time has come to rewrite our fate."
this image stays a bit longer than the others: your sister steadies your gun for you. her dogtags burn painfully in your palm despite your temperature sensors reporting otherwise. you think you might be screaming as the muzzle flashes.
but that too gets cut off into static. there's flashes of conversation-but nothing concrete, until.
"any last words, traitor?" says m16, leaning in. you struggle for your gun, uselessly. "you still want to put up a fight, huh?"
(just a little more...) "... i wonder which of us is the real traitor?"
your opponent scoffs. "are those your parting words? fine. farewell, UMP45."
it's just enough. now is the only chance you'll get, and--
m16 fires. she misses- which should have been impossible, at the point blank range you were at- and leaves two holes in the ground where you were as a loud and vicious crack resonates through the air. your systems and neural cloud are sent reeling by the simple feedback alone from breaking your own arm in an effort to buy yourself a chance to fight back, even though you've already turned off the pain sensors in your left arm. you whirl and kick away as hard as you can, using the recoil to force yourself closer to your gun and take aim in return as m16 recovers quickly.
"... i didn't expect you to be able to disrupt my fire control system in such a short time. you've done very well for a doll like you."
you don't move an inch. you don't dare. "all those dolls from earlier, in front of the door. they were shot in the back... that must have been your handiwork, right?"
"my mission was to eliminate all traitorous dolls."
a small, distant part of you despairs at the confirmation, while the rest of you goes both icy hot and deathly cold. "so you knew something like this was going to happen. you betrayed us all from the very beginning!"
... m16 doesn't respond.
why? you need to know- why? "have you thought about what will happen to you too, after this? do you think you can avoid being silenced as well?"
all of them sent here today... from the start, none of them were meant to survive. who did this? who was responsible?
but m16 doesn't answer your questions. maybe she doesn't know herself. "you shouldn't be thinking about a question like that. all you need to do is die here."
she fires, but can't land a shot for now. sabotaging her fire control system earlier is the only thing that might be able to save your life now, because your speed is all you have, and you're nearly out of ammunition. but what can you do? someone went to great lengths and efforts to set this mission up, sabotage and compromise it, brush it under the rug, make sure that nothing about it can leak, kill every possible witness. and now you two are the only ones left.
you try anyway. you fight back, as best as you can with only one arm, but even with m16 hindered and in pain from an ongoing meltdown, you end up disarmed, grabbed by the collar, pinned underneath her again, scrabbling and clawing desperately at her eye for any possible leverage you can get and breaking your other arm as well in the process, as she pulls a dagger out from her belt and, with both hands, stabs it down toward your head.
you tried. you tried, but you'll die here, and everything and everyone who died here will die with you. ]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 03:29 am (UTC)It's various parties. But we do search and rescue, retrieval, infiltration, escort ... that sort of thing.
[ among other things. ]
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:23 pm (UTC)[Ah. An old friend. Death is here. A fight to the finish, going out in a blaze of glory, no, that isn't him, who is so keen on laying down and letting death take him into its arms. So this is not him, this will to survive at all costs, fierce and ready to clamp down its jaws. Even as he blinks to reality, the words sound in his mind. The image of that girl, muzzle of a gun pressed against her forehead, the talk of traitors, and, ah, now that's something that resonates a little deeper than most:]
"you've only ever been defective, disposable goods"]
[Anaido stands, hand reaching up to his head instinctively. Part of him wonders if the knife in the memory made a hole in its wake. It didn't, of course.]
[He can hope.]
Hm. [His eyes are closed as he smiles, briefly, taking it all in before he finally lets out a sigh, murmuring:] What a fierce woman you are, 45.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:28 pm (UTC)[Then again WHAT DOES HE KNOW ABOUT THE MILITARY]
Here's a question: what's your favorite type of work?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:34 pm (UTC)perhaps not so much a mystery where that came from, is it? ]
Am I? I wonder.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:36 pm (UTC)[He smirks over at her.]
You don't think you are?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:38 pm (UTC)[ when you are made to be weapon, ]
Either way, business is business. It's not my place to have an opinion on the kind of work we do, though what jobs we do take are up to me in the end.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:51 pm (UTC)[ why does it matter what she thinks? ]
That first girl you saw -- she thought me too naive to survive, the way I was then. What do you think, hm? You two think different things. Should I just accept one opinion over the other?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:54 pm (UTC)[Because even she, as whatever she is, can contain a paradox. He knows, because he's one himself.]
From my perspective, you're fierce, because compared to myself, you act more than I ever would. That girl may have felt you were lacking compared to whatever she might have done. So in that way, you're both. We're both right. We're both wrong. That's how it is.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 10:59 pm (UTC)[Way better than him.]
...Hm. A Tactical Doll...in a novel, you'd probably be called a "robot" or a "droid". I assume you're fully synthetic?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-13 01:49 am (UTC)[ she's just... a special case. ]
Do you mean to ask if I'm partially biological, but simply augmented? Haha. No, you're correct. I'm fully synthetic.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-13 01:56 am (UTC)[A nod.]
How interesting. That robots in some other future have progressed that far...haha, well, I shouldn't be surprised! Technology is moving fast!