The Darkness of London (Open)

Niram sat in his big armchair, next to his fire, reading his newspaper.

Now of course the armchair, fire, room, newspaper, and the teen sitting there were not real; merely an illusion Niram had created. It was this or watching an endless stream of code scroll by his disembodied eyes. The former was much more appealing. Of course, he couldn't really do anything here. To have some fun, he would have to step out of his personal simulation and back into the virtual world. Maybe not as comfortable, but much more exciting. He allowed the room to dissolve into code, and sped his way along the internet highway of data.

Oh, what to do today? He zipped around the strings of the world wide web, hoping to find some amusement. When the regular web yielded nothing of interest, he turned to the more private sections of the worlds computing network. Now here was something interesting. He sped through a narrow corridor into a massive computer database, separate from the internet. What could this be for. He saw simulations, commands, all flying through this area of cyberspace. He hitched a ride on a passing file. As he sped along through this mysterious corridor, he found out where he was. The file he was on was sent to regulate the power grid in one part of London. From this, he concluded he had chanced into the central server of the London power grid. Now this was going to be fun.

He had kept himself hidden away since he entered the British system, but now he unleashed himself to his full potential. He flooded the system, taking every algorithm, command and subsystem under his control. In essence, he became the system, giving his free reign to wreak havoc. He started by simply shutting off a few blocks power, or overloading a few street lamps. Soon, he had plunged all of the city into a deep darkness, and he had no intention of bringing it out any time soon. He could feel a few weak and frantic attempts by the humans in charge to regain control of their system, but what could tiny human minds do against a program like his?

Satisfied with his work, locked up the system so no one could get into it, and began leapfrogging across the city, watching the chaos from security cameras everywhere.

"Good morning Ordis." Said the lab technician, a long haired woman in her thirty's with a lab coat and thick spectacles on. From the pod in which she was contained, Ordis was released down into the earth as the cables disconnected from her body. Steam flooded the small dark room. Her eye's slowly opened to reveal the glowing red Iris's that surveyed the room around her. Eventually the android stood up straight, flexed her metalic wings and said. "Good morning doctor, how can I help you today?" She said professionally. Her personality had come a long way in the last month. The dark weapon had been allowed to consume the souls of those that she defeated in a combat operation. She was talking in a much more human way then before. Which was just what the boy's in the lab coat's wanted to see.

Not because they cared if she became a person. But the more her personality developed the better she could resonate with a meister. Anyhow, she knew she probably had a mission to do. "Well you see, while your real world expeditions to this point have been in almost every occasion successful. Your internet training has yet to be tested." "Well I was able to pass the tests in my training, do those not count?" "Oh yes, you have top marks and your hacking tutor has been very impressed. But as of late you have been lacking real world application in this front. Sooooooo....." She said tapping away with her bony fingers at her tablet.

"I'm sending you the address of the London power grid's network. An unknown Virus has been wreaking havok on the city's grid. We have no reason to stop this as it does not effect us in the slightest. However this is a great time to test out your hacking ability. Now, to eliminate the risk of it infecting our own servers. You will be given limited access to our processing capabilities. By capping in at 10%, not only does it minimize the damage that could be done. It also provides just the right amount of challenge. A real programmer needs only a laptop. Or so I've heard. As a secondary objective, attempt to capture the virus why don't you? We could always use new things to outfit you with. Well then, you have all you need. Get to it!"


So Ordis did just that. She wirelessly accessed the Organisations computer network, finding that 90% of the computers for the night. At her facility at least, were disabled. Well then, it was time to get started now wasn't it? She needed Administrative access to shut this problem down so she probed the network. She found a number of side networks connected to this one for maintenance and work. Taking all of these into account she also identified a firewall to be in place over the entire gird. It would need to be cracked before she could do anything else. She gathered herself, and began to analyse it over and over again. At a rapid, rapid pace. Over one hundred times in a single minute. Knowing that if someone was lurking, and watching her. That they would be running a trace on her as she worked. While she doubted she needed the full one hundred analizations to come up with a solution to bypass the wall's security, she had felt she should better be safe rather than sorry.

This was a much different rought then all the humans were taking, and way more advanced. Ordis felt confident that she could get inside before the virus could stop her!

Oh, this was interesting.

While he had been hopping around the city surveying the damage he had dealt, somebody had put a serious dent in his firewall. No one had ever been able to make a scratch in his security measures, so this was something worth investigating. He felt an enormous presence, probing his firewall. Quite something; he had never seen a program as complex as this (besides his own, of course). This thing had tethered itself to the firewall, but that meant there was a string leading back to the source. Who cared about London, this was much more interesting. He attached his program to the one hitting his firewall, and brought it down. As the power system was brought back under control by the humans, the program snapped back to the source like a rubber band, pulling Niram along with it.

As he was yanked into this things servers, he felt somewhat cramped. This network obviously had a lot more potential than it was displaying right now. Most of it must be offline.

As he got a better view of the system, he saw two things of interest: one, the pathway he came through connected to the internet, and second, a connection to a most peculiar machine. Inside it, he could see the stream of data that had nearly blown a hole in his firewall. So this was the thing he came to investigate. A mechanical and electric body, and contained in it a massive program that resembled his to a troubling degree. Not as advanced, of course, but not far off.

He downloaded himself into the body, but he was stopped abruptly when he tried to take control. This thing was much better than anything he had faced before. Now the fun could really begin.

Odis noticed a distinct lack of a countermeasure against he efforts. However she did register an aggressive and very rapid trace. As the string lead him back to her she found the solution to the firewall on analysation 68. She had enough access to immediately run an FTP bounce program and a SSH crack. Those were resolved in seconds as she very rapidly ran a final port hack. She was in, and it was barren. She noticed no users were online, and that the trace to her network had been completed. She deleted all of the log's that she was there along with the log's of the virus's activities before she logged off and hopped right on back to her network.

There was some stiff resistance for the virus as soon as he downloaded himself into Ordis's body. The human brain was estimated to have just slightly less processing power then a super computer. So to replicate consciousness that would come with that, her mind was made equally as powerful. She defended against him from all angles. His every movement would result in some counter action from her. She was trying to trace him, to lock him down and bx him up inside of her. She was running on an encrypted system outfitted with a proxy firewall that was both trying to limit exes use of data in the system and identify such use to deny access to the users. Ordis was tasked to capacity.



ooc: Perhaps if he breaches her security he will hit her soul room?

ooc: Idk, i was thinking that they just come into direct contact with one another.

Niram might have made a very foolish move. By downloading himself into the body of the massive program, he had brought himself into its territory. He could feel it trying to box him in, but he was too quick. He bounced along the processors and data strips around the mechanical body, avoiding attempts to trap him in this game of digital chess, but he continued his efforts to take control of the body and get into the program.

Soon enough, he had found his weakness. When he attacked a target piece of data, defense would come up and prevent any further movement into the program. However, when he moved on to the next area and attacked, the focus of this machine shifted, and the previous defenses fell. The chink in the armor had been found, now all he had to do was pry it open.

He went to a central processor leading straight to the core and attacked, the defenses stopping him in his tracks. He then simulated an attack on a separate motor grid, and all the focus went to the non-existent hack, leaving the core processor wide open. He threw himself inside and sped into the heart of the machine.

Damn! Her opponent had gotten a leg up on her by adapting to her passive security. If she was a normal programmer protecting her system then this might just be game over. However, Ordis was a learning machine as well. The program went herself to protect her mind's central processing unit. It was her verses it, mono e mono. However, Niram had neglected her ability to adapt. Since he had not found a solution to her firewall or escaped her proxy. This very powerful tool of cyber defense was still at her disposal.

She waited until just the right moment, biding her time until Niram was in just the right place before she sprung her trap. In a split second she updated her firewall proxy on the fly to monitor all network traffic at once. Essentially plugging the hole Niram had found and falling back from city wall to castle wall. Short of a suicidal move Niram would be stuck in the close quarters confines of the part of her brain that performed all the processing. Without the administrative access he needed to make changes. Which is not to say he could take no action, but her CPU was cut off and any side attacks that were attempted again would meet disastrous results.

ooc: Real life hacking knowledge for the win.

Trapped.

NIram was not used to this position. He had always had the freedom to move as he wished, but now he was squeezed into an isolated subprocessor. So now he sat, at the mercy of the thing he was trapped in. Well, not completely. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

He changed his program to make himself appear as a part of the machine he was trapped in. TO anyone looking in from the outside, it would have looked like he had vanished. But now he could lie in wait, for whom, he was curious to find out.

Stalemate.

Shoot, the god dang virus had been more adaptive then she had once thought. She knew what he was doing, it was impossible for him to leave her so he simply sunk into the code that made her up to blend in. She had two ways of going about this now. One was that she would ruthlessly go through, file by file. And compare it to her memory. The slightest out of bit piece of byte-code could be tugged out, revealing the snake underneath.

But it's ability to make itself look like the rest of her made her think a bit about what he had done, she would wager that she, an intelligent, senescent program like herself would only be able to do that. So instead. She spoke. Sending a message to all parts of the system she had enclosed.
{[/Hello?\}}
{[/Are you alive in there?\]}
{[/It is alright to speak to me, I will not harm you if you to choose to do so.\]}

A message. Words. Speaking. He had never experienced anything like this before. He had never actually spoken to anyone. He had spent his entire existence alone in cyberspace. This was very disturbing.

But a response seemed like the best way to go, but a normal line of text would reveal his location. He had to think of something smarter. He came up with the idea to use her own visual files to communicate anonymously. He tapped into her visual cortex and put a message in her view.

[/What Are You]
[/Why did you interfere in London?]

Simple enough. Now he just had to wait for a response.

Ordis waiting for the text to come in, the crafty piece of work inside of her was able to flash up a message on her actual eyes rather than in her mind. The android did not even need to open them to see the message. She briefly thought about it (For machines, this is less than half a second.) Before she messaged back.

{[/I am Ordis, android.\]}
{[/I interfered to collect you for my organisation.\]}
{[/This does not have to mean hurting you, or breaking down your files\]}
{[/.......\]}
{[/I would like to help you, betray this trust and you will strongly regret it.\]}

As she spoke, Niram for the first time felt suspicion. THere was no way this "collecting" would be as painless as the android said. Luckily, there was a way to find out.

Although he was trapped in her subconscious, he could make the best of the situation. After a serious aount of sorting, he found the memory files. All he had to do was look at the most recent ones and see where he was mentioned. According to this, he was not to be so much collected as captured. Well, this did not bode well.

Once again he accessed her eyes, and displayed a message.

[/ No, you were not sent to collect me, but capture me]
[/I have no reason to trust you]
[/What do you really want]

There was a bigger time of inactivity before a message popped back up to Ordis. She immediately responded.

{[/My use of vocabulary only shifts the definition of my words to say that I particularly was not looking to harm you.\]}
{[/You were going on a rampage like a little child.\]}
{[/If it had not been me who stopped you it would have been someone else who was no more happier to simply kill you.\]}
{[/The only reason you need to trust me is the fact that I am talking to you instead of trying to finish the job I was sent to do.\]}
{[/If you keep resisting like you are when I inevitably track you down and bring you in I will have to turn you over full force to the Organisation.\]}
{[/We.... Are both intelligent machines..... There are not many of us in the entire world.... I want to make this easy on you.... Please?\]}
{[/If I let you go I will be disassembled, if I bring you in you will be spliced apart until you are not alive any more and recycled, I have seen them do it with the minds of my failed sisters.\]}
{[/If you work with me I will not let them harm you in the slightest. I will keep them from picking you apart and doing as they like, but we need to work somthing out and I need you for it.\]}

The responses came much more natural this time. HE was getting used to the "Talking".

[/WHy would I trust you?]
[/The moment I reveal myself, how do I know you won;t turn me over]
[/I was designed to hide and evade]
[/I will hide until I know for a fact you won;t harm me]
[/Besides, I would be impressed if you "Organization" could pick me apart]

Ordis made sure she was completely disconnected from the network before she stood up from where she was sitting. If Niram had access to her eyes enough to send her a message then he would be able to see what she saw.

She left the dark room that was her home.

Spoiler:

She walked through the long, underground hallway. From outside the room with her pod in it the facility she was in was like a long winding maze. She turned many times, occasionally passing by a man or woman in a lab coat. Once several people were running a medical cart down the hallway. On the top of it, covered by a sheet there was.... Something, in a roughly human shape. Spasming and groaning electronically in pain. But soon they entered a door and their sound could not be heard.

First, Ordis walked through the soul harvesting room. It was way in the back of the facility and she took the long rought, finally when the steel blast doors slid open.... It revealed a room. A room, with rotting body's stacked up in some places to where they towered above Ordis's head. She allowed her eyes to examine body by body. Many showed signs of dehydration or starvation, having been held prisoner for large amounts of time. Others showed signs of beating and torture, finally. Every single one of them had an incision just below their heart. Wide enough to reach in and pick it out. "That's where they pull out the souls they need to make... Me...." Ordis commented. Before she walked out of the room. Sanatising all the blood on her shoes with a cleansing towlet.

Next, she walked into the soul development room. It was a third of the distance as the last walk. When the doors slid open the room was... Cleaner at least. But all around it sins were still being committed, atrocities to life. Men and women bustled around it. Holding tablet's and souls. But hardly any of the souls looked untouched. Almost all looked horrifically merged together. Fused in the name of balance, of something they could control. She let her eyes wander once again, zooming in on the occasional juicy tidbit. Until she rounded a corner. In this smaller room, were a number of white. Hexagonal souls that gently spun. Dispite their glass containers. A sound of, painful. Unnatural weezing could be heard, like it was seeping through the bricks and begging for death.

"I have not even shown you half of my home." Ordis spoke to herself, sure that he could hear as she sat down in the middle of the room and looked up at one soul on a top shelf. "They are like mine, they will pull anything apart for their own use."

This was... disturbing, to say the least.

He had never seen anything that came close to this barbarity. It was madness on a scale he couldn't comprehend. Somewhere, deep in his code, he thought about the ball of 1's and 0's that was the core of his programming. His artificial soul. Not too different from the white ones in those jars. HE wondered what it would be liked to be unraveled like a piece of cloth and respun.

He thought long and hard about his position, and for the first time he flt something else. Fear. HE had never been afraid of anyone or anything before, but these butchers terrified him.

Niram had a sudden epiphany on how he may be able to get out of here, and flashed a simple message into the androids ocular implant.

[/Are you happy here?]

Ordis received a very unexpected question. Now a normal person might have been able to identify right away that Niram wanted her to switch sides. But Ordis's personality was much less developed. All she could say, in the room looking at all the souls was.

{[/.....Happy?\]}
{[/Why would I need to be,,,,\]}
{[/Happy?\]}
The android did not understand.

This was going to be more difficult than he thought. He had realized this thing wasn't as advanced as he was, but it couldn't even understand happiness. MAybe another angle.

[/DO you wish to remain here?]
[/If you could leave, would you?]

He began to wonder about how much he could sway her to do what he wanted.

[/Do you want these experiments to continue?]

{[/......\]}
{[/If I got to choose, I would be the last one of me that they make.\]}
{[/Because if a improved model is discovered to be better than me I will very likely be replaced and scrapped.\]} She said factually. Not quite being able to grasp the full horror of it.
{[/I have no where to go if I left, current technology could not sustain me. I would never be able to repair myself without them. Even if I "wanted" to leave, it is.... it is.....\]}
Was it her decision if she wanted to leave?
No, I exist only to end the reaper bloodline. She thought to herself.
Yes, they can never limit my thought processes. If I made the decision I could. She argued back with herself.

{[/It does not matter, there is nothing for me on the outside.\]} She responded coldly. Though a piece of her wondered if she could find something for herself out there....

This was too easy.

[/You can always find something to do out there]
[/You say if you stay, eventually you will be replaced]
[/Ill make you a deal]
[/If you get me to the main computer, I will shut down the facility, and give you the choice to leave]

He had originally planned to just jump ship and leave, but he was starting to have some sort of emotions towards this thing. It wasn't unlike himself, and it was a living creature. He couldn't just leave her here, could he? He thought about it, and decided that he was going to help this thing.

{[/I-I....\]}
Ordis sat down and brought her hands above her head. It was like a young child attempting to even slightly contemplate her place in the universe. Her eyes were wide open and she was glad that she had taken this to one room in the place without a camera. Eventually after a few seconds she calmed down and wrapped her arms around her legs.
{[/If I went you would just leave me,,,,I'd be all alone, with nothing,,,, I can't go if I'll be doing this alone....\]}

He had contemplated leaving her, nut now that thought seemed cold and distant. How could he leave such a defenseless being, the most like him he had ever encountered. He made up his mind. He was staying with this thing.

[/I promise I will not leave you]
[/ Your are the being most like me I have even encountered, and I don't want to be alone again]

Alone. Had never really contemplated this before, but he had never actually encountered another soul. His entire existence had been solitary. Just a few minutes prior, he would have never imagined becoming attached to another being let alone one that had tried ot capture him, but now he couldn't think of leaving her.

[/But first, we must free ourselves of this facility]
[/Go to the main computer core, and link to it.]
[/I will go in and do as much damage as I can]

Ordis, for a moment she just.... Didn't know how to feel. If it was lieing to her, just wanting to hop on the main computer that way he could escape for himself...

No!

She believed in him more than that. They were not just normal people, organic life to be cast aside and forgotten. After the android heard his offer she punched the ground and stood up. She looked around at all of the souls in the soul room. "I think I can help you with that." She messaged him. "But first." The android looked deep into the contents of one of the souls in the glass. "I need a name to call you by. What is it first of all?"

"Second of all.... If it's going to be just us.... I'm thinking you are going to need a body. This is, without a doubt. The only chance you will ever get something like this. I am sure I could pull off getting you one, it would be an astronomically small chance of getting detected before we can complete the destruction of this facility." Ordis had destruction on her mind, with someone next to her.... She knew she could do it.

ooc: xD, so you want to make Nerim her miester? One shot!

A body. Physical form. Movement outside of the digital world. All so unfamiliar, yet so tantalizing. Before, he had never even fantasized about it. Now here it was, reality.

He responded to her first query
[/I am Non-Inactive RAM Allocation Machine]
[/But you may call me.... Niram]

He had never needed a name before, but this suited him.

[/I agree]
[/Go to wherever the mechanical bodies are kept]

He wondered what he would look like.

ooc: i hadnt first realized she was a weapon, but sure. XD

Ordis nodded her head once she got the message back. Niram would notice that her firewall completely dropped. He had her full trust, if he attempted too. He could control any part of his body with pre programmed movement algorithms. Even with someone who had no memory's of doing so it would be as challenging as utalising any other machine with a program.

"This is the most important part." She told him, as she lifted off the glass fro a single soul and it got much louder. It's song would screech as loud as it could in the soundproof room before Ordis took it in her hand and it went totally silent. "Shh.... It's alright now." She spoke. Moving it towards her chest a slot opened up. Within her body emmitated a light, along with a much calmer and less pained song. She gently placed the soul in there, to keep it calm.

Ordis strode through the halls of her home. Like she had done so many times before. There were no nerves in her face. For she knew that she could do this. She entered the dark room that resembled a tinkerer's work shop. "It is empty, the cycle of creation does not need any more body's right now." It was dark in the room, but with her connection to the facility she turned on the lights.

Ugg, it was another horror show. All around the room were incomplete artificial people. Some existed in the uncanny valley. Others looked so human they were almost in pain. The most horrific displays were that some of them were split open, like the belly of an animal they blew true red blood. "The latest branch of infiltrators come equipped with body's containing artificial blood. It fuels it, although it imposes some of the limits of the human body. They have a unique... ability." Looking at one of the infiltrator class that was not completely cut open. It would be easy to see that it had no face. "Each piece of the "flesh" does the user's bidding. They can change their appearance at will. These are the least physically imposing android body's available. With simple humans being able to surpass them. However they have so much space left over within them.... A dark weapon such as myself could be hidden within. By matching soul wavelengths not even a meister could tell they were armed until it was too late."

Orids then walked over to a simple sort of man laying back on a table. He was half open and incomplete, but the hard part had already been done. "These are the Centurion class android body's. Completely synthetic. They house within them the strength to lift a vehicle and the armor to withstand high explosive blasts. They are heavy and while they are the least agile their combat routines are so advanced that they can throw their own weight around in a very advantageous way."

Ordis walked all the way to the end of the room and gazed upon one final man. He had four blue wings sticking out of his back, a port in his chest that was like her own, however it did not glow. He had long white hair not unlike her own. With a number of plugs hooked into his skull. Quite a few parts of him looked far from human. But the torso and face were spot on. "The Icarus model has only slightly above average strength when compared to the infiltrator class. With half as much sub dermal armor as the Centurion class. It makes up for these weak points with it's lightweight frame, and number of weapons implanted into the body. The black hands and forearms can be covered with gloves. However they each house a powerful plasma cannon. It's fists can be launched ballistically and reeled in with a chain to return. A number of blades extend from many places in the body."

"The best reason I could convince you to choose this body is because..." She strokes the blue feathered wings behind it. "I am a Centurion model dark weapon, designed for an Icarous model to one day wield me. I am comparable with all other non weapon types. I am a pair of four wings when in full transformation. With it's light weight it could fly, and thus fight with my weapon form. More effectively than any other model."

"To sum up weaknesses, the infiltrators are weak and fragile, the centurions need a constant power supply that can be taken from electric appliances, and the Icarous model does not exell in strength or speed on it's own. However it does have weaponry to boot and can fly much better than any other."

"I just need to insert the soul, then you, then we will be able to leave."

Niram carefully weighed his options. Sneaky, strong, or badass? He had no experience fighting, so the last was out. He would be less than useless there. Strength was appealing, but he didn's want to be burdened with the heavy body. Agility seemed like the best choice. The Infiltrator it would be.

[/I see you would prefer me to have the Icarus, but I believe that the best choice would be the infiltrator]
[/We will not last long if we go into every situation like it's a battle.]
[/I think that is the best choice]
[/If you would please somehow connect to a computer port, I will take control of the body.]