Inbox - Penance

[red_song]

...
Just say something. I might listen.

Comments

[red_song]

[Of course he does.]

He fought for us.

[tobetheone]

He reprogrammed my brothers until they barely recognized me. He dug into their circuitry and pulled out everything they used to be. And you're fooling yourself if you don't think he did anything like that to you.

Albert Wily is a monster.

[red_song]

Albert Wily restored me, and gave me life. And you assume I wouldn't know if he messed with my head.

[This was it. This was the line that would always be drawn between them in the sand.]

[tobetheone]

He forced you to become something you were never meant to be. He stuffed you full of lies until you felt ingratiated to him. He didn't care about you. He doesn't care about our kind! He just wanted another machine to send after me.

[red_song]

Rock, you know nothing of what he said to me. He feared me.

[tobetheone]

He said that to me too. Three times.

[He pitches his voice until it's something that sounds identical to the Wily's nasal tones.]

"I'm just an old man! Please don't hurt me!"

That one? Did he get on his knees too?

[red_song]

[Proto rolls his eyes. Don't be stupid.]

You were going to hurt him. He feared me from the moment I woke.

[tobetheone]

I never hurt him. No matter how much he deserved it or how much Father wanted it. That isn't justice.

But it doesn't make him your savior either. He just realized that all those copies of me he kept building couldn't actually beat me. Everything he does is just to serve him. A robot uprising with himself at the top of everything? Flipping which side is enslaved isn't equality. And one day maybe you'll understand that.

[But now his face feels hot and he finds himself less interested in Proto's response. It'll be something hurtful and it won't change anything. He starts downstairs, clutching the banister tightly after he stumbles on the first two steps. He hasn't mastered that kind of movement yet. The ankle joint is in the wrong place on a human body.]

[red_song]

He at least let me live. And we didn't serve him. We protected what he was making. Protected Gamma.

[And Proto mostly just worked to get the right to go after his father. And with the other man going, well, he isn't going to deal with any of this if Mega is going to walk away.]

[tobetheone]

[Walking away is happening for sure. He's going to get closer to where there's Christmas, an he's going to start a conversation and make a friend and going to have an aggressively cheerful holiday celebration or die trying.

Because otherwise, he just wants to shoot something and there isn't
a single thing here that's okay to shoot.]

un: t3cHg0d69; text

[twatter]

[ The rudest thing one can do to someone is call, so Tech Boy's motto is always text -- even if he's probably not very far away in one of the tents. ]

yo. checking in to see how you made out with your bro. did lucifer bring him back?

UN: RedSong

[red_song]

[Very kind of him. Proto was not as fond of speaking aloud. His voice sounds wrong, because it isn't synthesized. He doesn't like vocal cords.]

He lives. He was, I believe the word is 'traumatized' by what he has experienced. This is nothing new. He has been through war before. He has been here before. He will recover.

I do not understand your username.

[twatter]

glad to hear it. everything worked out for the best except the fucking hotel is gone so now we're all sleeping out here like animals.

lol idk if you want me to explain it or.....

[red_song]

You say that while I rest on a bed that is shaped like a dog. You are quite accurate.

Yes, please explain. More data yields better interactions with the world.

[twatter]

its something called 1337 speak which stands for leet (or elite) speak. popular with gamers and people on the internet. you use numbers or symbols for letters. 3=E 1=L etc. you can also do shit like |) for D.

humans are fucking obnoxious. i'm basically the internet, tho, so i'm fluent in it.

my name is techgod69. 69 is popular number. it stands for a specific sex act involving simultaneous oral sex. the proper response to seeing it online is usually 'nice.'

[red_song]

That is interesting. We do not, or perhaps did not, have that in my world by the time I was turned on. The internet we have. Being such must be quite the strain.

...

A procreative act. Humans are quite obsessed with procreative acts.

[twatter]

yeah they are. sex sells. its why the porn industry's as big as it is. people are obsessed with feeding their fantasies even if the real thing's never as good as its portrayed on vid.

[red_song]

Porn?

[twatter]

pornography. videos and pictures and live cams and even written stories about people having sex that other people watch. its in every corner of the internet. even a harmless search will pull that shit up sometimes.

[red_song]

And none of those who have tried to define any of this human process have hinted at this. It is frustrating, what they choose to keep from me.

Now I find myself wondering. Humans make this all so needlessly confusing.

[twatter]

it's a human thing to be needlessly confusing. truth is, they probably don't want to talk about it. they can get so squeamish about that shit. you want facts, you're better off coming straight to the internet.

[ In this case, him. He'll take on the role of google. ]

[red_song]

There is no internet to go to for assistance. They all tell me different things. That this place will force me to experience it so I should try. That it should only be had with someone you have feelings for. That it should only be romantic. That it should only be transactional, that it should never be done but with a martial partner.

They are all caught up in opinion and will not provide fact.

[twatter]

i mean me. i'm the internet. 🤙

yeah you're right. all that shit is opinion. no matter what reasons they give for it, it's all the same. they do it for release. it's like a biological drug that hijacks the brain and releases dopamine (a feel good hormone) into the system. and like all highs, some people are satisfied doing it only with a partner they love and other people are only satisfied going at it HARD with anyone who's willing.

[red_song]

I have been told that the dopamine release can be created in a solo experience, thereby bypassing the human procreative programming by denying it but still reaping the reward.

[Yes, he had come away from the discussion of masturbation as a form of 'hacking' the human body.]

[twatter]

that's true, too. that's what most people do when they watch porn.