chasing shadows [CaROLiNE]

[Lightning Farron]

Your boy is like a memory
some sense of touch and a melody
your girl, she's a renegade
a hurricane that keeps you there, safe.

Lightning's paranoia was playing tricks on her, she was sure.

Where once there had been Orphan's Cradle, the digitized world that seemed to glow a magenta red as they traversed it, was naught but a very long staircase, as ghoulishly and expressionlessly white as the Narthex was. Here and there were windows that seemed to show the endless blue sky that did not in reality exist beyond the walls - in actuality, she was in the dead center of Eden, below the Sanctum's noses.

Oh, how inattentive they had become.

She knew she could owe the silence down here to the climate outside - the war was a drop of a hat away, and Lightning wondered idly how Raines was handling things, and if he would ask for help.

There was no way this was what Orphan's Cradle looked like when... well, when there was no fal'Cie to cast illusions.

The Narthex was familiar, though, the same odd couches and statues that the l'Cie knew were of Lindzei, to her apathy. Really, she couldn't care less about the Maker and Lindzei's little argument; it had nothing to do with her, other than explaining the fal'Cie's actions and the birth of her homeplace.

Those were all things to be talked about later, though, when she wasn't hunting for closure.

Cocoon was floating again, which meant something happened with the inner sanctum of the Sanctum. Ha, ha. But if Orphan was back, that explained why her brand was active again - well, not active, but there. It showed no signs of progressing anytime soon, despite being in its first stage.

At the far end of the Narthex, she came upon the ledge at the peak of the room. Knowing the extent of her physical strength, the soldier simply jumped, landing with her knees bent easily on the mesh below.

The room was lit from the back, still, and had the garish yellow and black appearance it had before. At the sight of the place, a chill ran over Claire's skin, leftover memories from becoming a Cie'th briefly.

But her eyes landed on what rested at the head of the room.

"What the-"

... That explained a lot.

[caroline]

Lightning Farron, the woman who had killed both of CaROLiNE's predecessors, may not have noticed it, but small cameras tucked away in corridor corners around the complex had monitored her motions with nearly as much paranoia as the rose haired soldier exhibited in coming here. She knew perfectly well what the soldier had done; the recordings she had managed to recover from the data streams severed upon Orphan's destruction showed her what the two Fal'Cie had both done and gone through for their punishment.

But they had done it on purpose; they knew what they were doing when they enacted the Purge, and when they tried to destroy the world through their own monsters... and it was terrifying. What made it worse, none of Cocoon seemed any the wiser to what had occurred. Her memory couldn't have been glitched; she had witnessed what had happened in Orphan's Cradle then. She couldn't have been coming to kill her... could she? The self-aware computer would have shuddered in fear at the idea if shuddering was at all capable except through extreme levels of stress on her processors.

And then she emerged through the door. That woman that had murdered (Perhaps justly) the two beings whose systems were now left to CaROLiNE to run. The yellow photoreceptor, the only visible spot of difference on the perfect white rectangle of her head, narrowed to a point only a few millimeters across as the entire body swung around from the remains of Orphan's systems crudely adapted into her own body, stretching high up into the ceiling. The personality cores scattered around the room with enough sentience to know what was going on all trained their photoreceptors on the woman as well.

"Oh. It's you." She said almost nonchalantly, save for a sudden and sharp dropping in tone at 'you'. If she were capable of it, she would have shrank back to the other side of her chamber in fear, even if her monotone voice was incapable of expressing the fear running through her higher AI routines. "I was wondering when you were going to come to ruin Cocoon's vital systems again. Like when you and your allies killed Orphan and Eden. I was only instated here after you killed them. My only job is to run the systems left behind after their deaths. I never harmed you of my own volition. But you've come to kill me anyways, haven't you?"

At that, all of the spheres, aware of the situation or not, trained their photoreceptors on Lightning. Some of them didn't have much intelligence on their own, but they all knew well enough what would happen if the central system was destroyed. Even if they had only ever lived in a room much like this one, the prospect of death was absolutely terrifying. Humans? Perhaps they had some form of afterlife to go to. They had nothing but the abyss to look forward to. "If you are going to murder me, I don't think you will need to call your consorts to do it. Orphan and Eden were Fal'Cie; I am a supercomputer capable of running the systems they did to sustain life on Cocoon. Severing my head will not take you quite as long or as much effort as it did for them."

((As clarification, her voice tone snaps back to a GLaDOS-sounding monotone when she's experiencing extreme emotions.))

[Lightning Farron]

"Oh. It's you."

If she hadn't seen stranger - much stranger - before, Lightning would have jumped at the monotonous and digitized voice that seemed to erupt from the room around her. That rectangle up there, the white one, with the yellow receptor - that was its head, wasn't it? Or at least, a close semblance of one.

Sentient machines were hardly a shock, and thus, Lightning was able to ignore that concept and move on to what it had said.

"You know me?" she bit out, immediately sinking to lower her center of gravity, in case it attacked her. It was of Cocoon make, and thus unprovoked belligerence would theoretically be in its programming.

"I was wondering when you were going to come to ruin Cocoon's vital systems again. Like when you and your allies killed Orphan and Eden. I was only instated here after you killed them. My only job is to run the systems left behind after their deaths. I never harmed you of my own volition. But you've come to kill me anyways, haven't you?"

Its - her? The voice seemed feminine - purpose had been easy to discern, true. It certainly explained why Cocoon was floating again. But how did she -

Security footage. Of course.

"I'm not here to destroy you," Lightning stated flatly."Like you said, you never harmed me. The fal'Cie - we were trying to protect Cocoon. You haven't done anything wrong."

"Which begs the question - wha-who are you?"

Dozens of small yellow lights focused on the soldier, and she found herself shrinking back just the slightest. She was no powerless weakling, but there was something intimidating about being stared down by a multi-headed machine. If she wanted to destroy the pinkette, there wasn't much Lightning could do in her own defense.

"If you are going to murder me, I don't think you will need to call your consorts to do it. Orphan and Eden were Fal'Cie; I am a supercomputer capable of running the systems they did to sustain life on Cocoon. Severing my head will not take you quite as long or as much effort as it did for them."

"You've already given me plenty reasons not to." Lightning's tone was dry, but she remained cautious, iced eyes darting here and there to take stock of what she might have to face if the other - it was hard to think of her as a machine, there was something invariably human about her - decided to smite her on the spot.

"Who are you?"

[caroline]

"Of course I have," CaROLiNE replied, 'course' dropping almost a full octave in a show of sarcasm, despite still maintaining a monotone voice. "But I have seen enough humans who needed no provocation to slaughter hundreds of people. Oh, wait, that's right, they make me do it. I shouldn't have any kind of concern for 'Pulsian filth' infesting Cocoon, should I?" Her tone dropped gradually out of the monotone as she spoke to something more akin to an autotuned 'disgust' for the concept. She obviously didn't like being forced to kill off groups of people daily for no reason besides they weren't native to Cocoon. By logical standards, that fantastic racism should have long been absolved. But no, every few days a man would come through and speak an override code to force her hand anyways.

"Really, your self-defense isn't any kind of concern. If I had weapons, wouldn't I have logically deployed them the instant I knew you were heading here? Much less let you get in here unharmed if it were in my ability to do anything," CaROLiNE commented, yellow optic still trained on the pink haired woman. Really, if she'd been able to, she would have rolled her eyes. A practical super soldier in front of her and she was the one who was tensed for combat rather than the computer. The main body of the computer finally turned away to some of the screens on the sides of the room, some of them divided to show feed from hundreds of security cameras, some of them showing rapidly scrolling code, some of them displaying the logo for the company that had created her in the first place, and other such things. They were there for technicians, but she still liked the illusion that she was somewhat normal.

After a bit, a chair on an automatic rail to circle the room's banks slid over in front of light, along with the rounded rectangular head and it's single glowing light. "But since you say otherwise and I am incapable of doing anything to you in either case, I may as well give you the benefit of the doubt. Your name is Claire Farron, if your record is at all valid. I call myself CaROLiNE. You're welcome to call me whatever you like, I suppose."

[Lightning Farron]

"Of course I have. But I have seen enough humans who needed no provocation to slaughter hundreds of people. Oh, wait, that's right, they make me do it. I shouldn't have any kind of concern for 'Pulsian filth' infesting Cocoon, should I?"

It was interesting how the digitized voice was able to express emotion through unexpected methods. Lightning found herself slightly taken aback at the statements - so she had free will, the Cocoonian technicians had developed her with the capacity to make her own decisions, and yet they rescinded the right anyway.

Sometimes she was really disgusted by her fellow countrymen.

"Really, your self-defense isn't any kind of concern. If I had weapons, wouldn't I have logically deployed them the instant I knew you were heading here? Much less let you get in here unharmed if it were in my ability to do anything."

"Logically," Lightning argued, "if I had any reason to believe you were fully in control of yourself. Cocoon still wants me dead as far as I know; how do I know they won't just override your systems right now and use you as a weapon? It's nothing against you, I'm just used to looking after my own skin."

Nevertheless, the grip on her gunblade and the stiffness of her posture relaxed slightly at her words, and Claire straightened a slight amount, regarding the entirety of the feminine machine with unadulterated curiosity.

"But since you say otherwise and I am incapable of doing anything to you in either case, I may as well give you the benefit of the doubt. Your name is Claire Farron, if your record is at all valid. I call myself CaROLiNE. You're welcome to call me whatever you like, I suppose."

"I prefer Lightning," the pinkette said shortly, taking a leap of faith and collapsing her gunblade to store it in the sheath behind her thighs. "It's a pleasure, CaROLiNE.

"So what do you know about Cocoon lately? What are they after? I only have a vague idea of what's going on." Ice-blue eyes sharpened just the slightest amount. "Why the Purge?"

[caroline]

This post's theme is: GLaDOS' Awakening (Portal 2)

"Because I am not equipped with weapons systems anywhere near this facility. It would seem to be a stroke of rare human brilliance; they may have difficulty reaching me to activate an override in such an instance," the computer commented, seeming to almost roll her 'eye' from the way the head tilted forward and back. Despite being a machine and speaking in what was mostly an autotune-sounding monotone, her motions and voice were very fluid. The effect was somewhat disturbing on human minds, or so she had noticed. They apparently had the idea that something so inanimate could not look so alive. Just another segment of human thought she wouldn't understand any time soon.

Her photoreceptor focused on Claire for a moment before the head pulled back and a screen swung down from above. She showed a quick hash of what seemed to be people who were in support of the purge, speaking of such things as bringing disease to Cocoon, coming to kill them all, and other such nonsense. She then followed up with a hash of similar things from the few weeks the pink-haired soldier had been a L'Cie and on the run, which consisted of mostly the same thing as the more recent views. After that, the monitor swung back up to show CaROLiNE's photoreceptor moved to a position that made it look as though it were half closed, even if such wasn't possible.

"I think that should answer your concerns about the Purge, if you didn't already know that part. But if you're referring to the war, I couldn't tell you. My long range scanners were damaged on arrival to this new world. But from what I have managed to learn..." CaROLiNE paused for a moment, and the streams of data on the monitor in the far edge of the room sped up. This woman was the perfect opportunity to strike back at her creators... "... You know what? I would be more than happy to download all of what I know to your PDA... if you would do something for me. A small favor, nothing that would pose a problem to you of all people..."

[Lightning Farron]

"Because I am not equipped with weapons systems anywhere near this facility. It would seem to be a stroke of rare human brilliance; they may have difficulty reaching me to activate an override in such an instance."

"Huh." Lightning frowned at that. "I'm surprised. Cocoon's usually more paranoid than that. We didn't have any trouble getting to Orphan the last time."

She shifted as the monitor was lowered, coming to rest her left hand gently on her hip as the similarities between now and the Ragnarok Focus were revealed through the amalgam of minuscule sound bytes. Even she should have known the thought process behind the Purge - Cocoonians were nothing if not xenophobic. And to them, it must seem like Pulse suddenly became a thousand times more threatening.

If they only knew.

"I think that should answer your concerns about the Purge, if you didn't already know that part. But if you're referring to the war, I couldn't tell you. My long range scanners were damaged on arrival to this new world. But from what I have managed to learn..."

CaROLiNE paused.

"... You know what? I would be more than happy to download all of what I know to your PDA... if you would do something for me. A small favor, nothing that would pose a problem to you of all people..."

Lightning pulled the small device out of her pocket, one she had managed to pick up in Palumpolum under cover of a disguise just before coming down here through Edenhall. She usually wasn't one to be incredibly technologically advanced - give her a commlink and a Grav-Con and she was set, after all - but the prospect of owning one seemed ultimately useful. Weighing the PDA in one hand and the prospect of running errands for CaROLiNE in the other, Claire thought...

"What's the favor?" she asked at last.

[caroline]

"It's simple really. I am running on an insufficient power source. A majority of this area's power is being sent to the defunct systems Orphan and Eden used to run, and is being essentially released into the air. It's very wasteful, and if it continues, then I will likely begin to suffer the drawbacks of not running on a proper power supply. And from there, the possible failures could include about anything you can think of. Combat inhibitors on the machines failing, the antigravity system dropping out, other such terrible things," CaROLiNE said, not mentioning yet how to reroute the power directly to her. Though she wasn't lying, she also wasn't telling the whole truth; she wasn't running quite that low on power, and getting to that state would take quite a while at this rate, but it would still happen. She also needed the extra power to focus on finding a way to disable the command override placed on her.

"I can communicate with you through the intercoms and through your PDA to guide you through re-routing the power here. If you do this for me, I'll download whatever information you want that I've managed to collect to your PDA. Will you do it?"

[Lightning Farron]

Lightning wasn't stupid.

She also knew that the Sanctum wasn't stupid.

She also knew that, given enough circular programming, sentient machines were capable of circumventing the logical answer of telling the full truth. The soldier was not stupid.

That said, there was still a slight twitch at the corner of her eye, a tic she had developed through Hope's company that always seemed to call out when she was pretending to be steely but was internally conflicted.

The twitch manifested as the woman opened her mouth, pocketing the PDA as she did. "No."

And that denial was sharp.

"I can figure things out on my own."

The pink-haired soldier turned to leave, climbing back up to the ledge by use of the pipes nearby as footholds. Only when she'd reached the doorway out did she turn back to regard the female machine.

"Thanks for your time, and good luck."

exit lightning.