Re: The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 2: The Museum]
07-20-2010, 11:18 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
The Countess hummed, the crystal little note barely audible over her body's perpetual whirring and ticking. There was a final gasp from the gagged robot as she yanked out its bolted, valved heart. She fastidiously examined it, raising the thudding device as she fluted,
"And what would be your punishment if I refused?"
'I am bleeding out as we speak, Countess.' The Old One's thoughts rasped through the amalgam's mind, implicitly warning her that this abomination had nothing to lose. The Countess' head rotated to face Thane, the rest of the clockwork monster unmoving. One hand, tips dyed red (and Thane could smell, with a dubious sense of relief, that it was just red dye) unlatched itself from the heart and motioned.
"Let me see that. No," she said, a claw pinging against the proffered arm. The jaws creaked open a little wider. "Yours."
Thane couldn't help but recoil a bit. He hissed at the Countess, anger making his thoughts a bit louder, a bit more jarring to the listening mind. 'I already removed the bullet.'
"Hmm. I presume you maintained the human musculature?
Wh-? Yes. The Countess peered up and down the twisted shell, head tilted, figuring the balance between her knowledge of cybernetics, how badly she could screw Thane over, and how useful the Old One could be. She nodded, clashing in her eerily sedate way down a row of increasingly futuristic displays.
"Follow me. The exhibit I require is ahead."
Thane did so, studying the displays down this walkway with less empathy and more caution, unable to ease the misgivings he had with this disturbingly unfazed beast ahead of him. The victims in these exhibits were less often human, though a bloodied form still occasionally featured amongst the energy blades. The Countess heard Thane's footsteps slow as he paused to comprehend a huge, magnetic chamber; the Old One didn't realise how eerily similar its powers, over a robotic mind, were to his own over a human.
The Countess whirred over, hit a button to activate the chamber, and watched the roughly humanoid droid. Its voice, starting out smooth and rather youthful, warped and screeched as it begged for the smirking clockwork to turn the machine off. Garbled pleas that it'd say anything, everything, were curtailed by its thrashing form freezing, and returning smoothly to a static, standing position. The Countess already scuttled off, having played with this exhibit before and knowing how it ended; Thane lingered as a voice barked,
"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" The droid's head jerked mechanically toward the noise, before replying in a robotic, soulless monotone,
"Error: Root command "Your" not recognised." There was a pause. It was probably Thane's imagination, but the toneless voice might've been tinged with regret. "Error: Data root input command "Name" unavailab-" its voice started cracking up again as the demonstration completed, the robot twitching violently as it had its memory rewritten. Thane rejoined the amalgam, glancing occasionally at more of this futuristic torture.
'What are these, Countess?'
"Artificial Intelligence, dear. Robots. A little beyond your time, I think. From what I understand, the first minds humans built. They could've been what humans were too scared to make themselves.
But they had to be petty. They had to be so stupid and ugly and selfish and cripple what should've been their successors with their archaic notions of what it meant to know, to be aware." The Countess' synthesised voice didn't shift from its musical airiness, even as fingers danced out and hit switches, tapped at keyboards, filling the air with the agonized keening of machinekind. "They didn't have to do this, Yt'hroloth. They didn't have to teach them what pain was. Senseless," she smirked. "So senseless. And with pain, in turn, they were condemned to fear. Rats begetting rats. It's simply tragic."
The Countess stopped by an expansive display; the biggest Thane had seen in the museum. Doubling as a repair facility for the animatronics, it was also demonstrating how more were made, if the whimpering wreck in front of them with his blood being pumped out and replaced by oil was anything to go by. All manner of futuristic, vicious tools loomed overhead on mechanical arms, primed to take apart and reassemble a human with deadly precision. The Countess' smile widened.
The Countess hummed, the crystal little note barely audible over her body's perpetual whirring and ticking. There was a final gasp from the gagged robot as she yanked out its bolted, valved heart. She fastidiously examined it, raising the thudding device as she fluted,
"And what would be your punishment if I refused?"
'I am bleeding out as we speak, Countess.' The Old One's thoughts rasped through the amalgam's mind, implicitly warning her that this abomination had nothing to lose. The Countess' head rotated to face Thane, the rest of the clockwork monster unmoving. One hand, tips dyed red (and Thane could smell, with a dubious sense of relief, that it was just red dye) unlatched itself from the heart and motioned.
"Let me see that. No," she said, a claw pinging against the proffered arm. The jaws creaked open a little wider. "Yours."
Thane couldn't help but recoil a bit. He hissed at the Countess, anger making his thoughts a bit louder, a bit more jarring to the listening mind. 'I already removed the bullet.'
"Hmm. I presume you maintained the human musculature?
Wh-? Yes. The Countess peered up and down the twisted shell, head tilted, figuring the balance between her knowledge of cybernetics, how badly she could screw Thane over, and how useful the Old One could be. She nodded, clashing in her eerily sedate way down a row of increasingly futuristic displays.
"Follow me. The exhibit I require is ahead."
Thane did so, studying the displays down this walkway with less empathy and more caution, unable to ease the misgivings he had with this disturbingly unfazed beast ahead of him. The victims in these exhibits were less often human, though a bloodied form still occasionally featured amongst the energy blades. The Countess heard Thane's footsteps slow as he paused to comprehend a huge, magnetic chamber; the Old One didn't realise how eerily similar its powers, over a robotic mind, were to his own over a human.
The Countess whirred over, hit a button to activate the chamber, and watched the roughly humanoid droid. Its voice, starting out smooth and rather youthful, warped and screeched as it begged for the smirking clockwork to turn the machine off. Garbled pleas that it'd say anything, everything, were curtailed by its thrashing form freezing, and returning smoothly to a static, standing position. The Countess already scuttled off, having played with this exhibit before and knowing how it ended; Thane lingered as a voice barked,
"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" The droid's head jerked mechanically toward the noise, before replying in a robotic, soulless monotone,
"Error: Root command "Your" not recognised." There was a pause. It was probably Thane's imagination, but the toneless voice might've been tinged with regret. "Error: Data root input command "Name" unavailab-" its voice started cracking up again as the demonstration completed, the robot twitching violently as it had its memory rewritten. Thane rejoined the amalgam, glancing occasionally at more of this futuristic torture.
'What are these, Countess?'
"Artificial Intelligence, dear. Robots. A little beyond your time, I think. From what I understand, the first minds humans built. They could've been what humans were too scared to make themselves.
But they had to be petty. They had to be so stupid and ugly and selfish and cripple what should've been their successors with their archaic notions of what it meant to know, to be aware." The Countess' synthesised voice didn't shift from its musical airiness, even as fingers danced out and hit switches, tapped at keyboards, filling the air with the agonized keening of machinekind. "They didn't have to do this, Yt'hroloth. They didn't have to teach them what pain was. Senseless," she smirked. "So senseless. And with pain, in turn, they were condemned to fear. Rats begetting rats. It's simply tragic."
The Countess stopped by an expansive display; the biggest Thane had seen in the museum. Doubling as a repair facility for the animatronics, it was also demonstrating how more were made, if the whimpering wreck in front of them with his blood being pumped out and replaced by oil was anything to go by. All manner of futuristic, vicious tools loomed overhead on mechanical arms, primed to take apart and reassemble a human with deadly precision. The Countess' smile widened.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow