After absent mindedly catching the glass, refilling it and sliding it back Machine loads one for himself, knocks it back then says
"Okay then. From the why to the how. To start with I'm considered a little 'weird' by a lot of people. Should the unfortunate situation arise where there's a lull in the action and nothing else worth doing we can always trade life history then. Point is not how that came to be but what it means now. I have fallen off the proverbial line between genius and madness. There will be things I will say and do that, at first glance, will appear annoying, infuriating or even outright treacherous. It will always be part of some bigger ruse to finish the job and I always finish the job. One of those weird things about me. I'll also need to utilse your considerable talents to help along the way.
Like what I'll need with the first task here. It's gonna have to be a ground up build for something this sophisticated. At least that is if you actually want it clean and able to fly without worrying about caressing a control and catching an explosion in the face. This means I need to know what bits need to be cleared up out of the design. All those lockouts, immobilisers, inhibitors, overrides, kill-switches and booby-traps in all the systems that all little paranoid ship builders are made of. I've been testing a theory that might just help but it's going to take a stolen silicone soul to even try."
Frowning like he'd forgotten something Machine lit a fresh cigar, idly offered another to Silver and tried to look down the track of his train of thought to see where it was leading him.
Before speaking Machine reloads and downs another glassful.
" . . . "
On second thought he reloads again, downs that one too then says
"Long story short I wasn't just showing off when I assisted you during your docking. My ability to shift was gained from an accident that occurred during my time with a previous employer. In the same way people research bio-weaponry by going nomad hunting and dissecting what's left there was a project to ascertain the viability of nano-tech augmentation by doing the same thing with those ships that had artificial intelligence.
Not surprisingly something went wrong, there was an explosion and I woke up with the freaky powers and the little one who is currently downstairs on a time out. If I understand correctly I absorbed a big cloud of nano-tech stuff that integrated with the biological stuff that, up to that point, was me.
I'm skipping a lot, you understand, but here comes the important bit. When I shift myself or you or your ship I target what I want to move and where I want to move it in an image in my mind's eye. It's like a really dark room and only seeing a tiny moment of an afterglow. But in that moment I see everything. Energy fields, structural resonance, sub-atomic phase . . . everything. Spread out like a rainbow of theoretical physics. It's blurry though and very brief. If I could get my hands on some of the tech they were using at the time I might be able to boost the image for longer. A few seconds maybe. In addition I should be able to save the raw data from my short term memory so I can look over it in detail afterwards.
But . . . the vital hardware required isn't something I can pick up at the nearest Freeport. There are some facilities that have servers complex enough but, if breaking in isn't an option, we need the central secondary core of one of those A.I. vessels. Their equivalent of an escape pod. What they download their essence, their soul, onto before ejecting into the void . . ."
Taking another deep draw then letting the smoke slowly just curl from his barely parted lips he then spears the lazily drifting smoke with a sudden exhale.
" . . . which, rather neatly, brings me round to what we'll be imaging. That Odin docked here. We will quite obviously and deliberately set off all the security devices simultaneously. They'll all light up like a funeral pyre to me so I know what to fabricate from scratch. Or I'll screw up somewhere and lobotomise myself in a fraction of a nanosecond."
Mentioning that last point as if it were a minor irrelevance, Machine takes a quick draw in, puffs it out again then says
"In any case, do we storm the fort or go hunting?"
Fun. All Silver could think. A nearly suicidal mission was just thrown at her lap just because of a tool.
"The things i do for decent hardware, love."
And the atmosphere shifted in the room. What was once a cozy salon to drink and shift words became cold. Oppressive. Unrelenting. Like the throbbing headache that refused to pass on, warning you that you were fallible. Her whole form changed from the cool demeanor that her face and body presented to a godless wraith of death, claiming all the cells on ones body to one single purpose.
Death.
"Hunt. All i do these days. Give me twenty four hours. I'll bring ya that soul."
Her chuckle was of a devilish kind. Like you were ensnared in a prison that didn't allowed you to breathe.
"Just be ready. Now.. how do i leave the premises?"
She threw the cigar into the ground and step on it, like it was a person she hated.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:12:00] Traxit: this is smut stop
Upon feeling the change in the room Machine did get lost in his thoughts for a moment.
[Now THAT is a strangely familiar feeling. So close to that stillness, that finality, yet somehow free from drowning in it's depths. A favor so often granted and never asked for . . . it feels like home, the home of the heart at least, those fleeting moments where the muddle of the multiverse makes some kind of sense. Especially as she is now, she is . . . impressive.]
{More than that! She's-}
[Shut. Up. Now. Go. Away.]
{I'm just a subsection of what you're already thinking. The 'what if' . . . ?}
[What if nothing. Let others flirt and fantasise. It doesn't take much to work out if she was interested in someone they'd know about it. If they'd failed to satisfy her attentions they'd know about it quickly enough but, I suspect, that's probably harder to recover from. There are more important matters at hand in any case.]
Shaking his head to clear it somewhat, Machine replied to Dea-, I mean, Sliver's question.
"Well we can either take the lift there" Machine sidesteps to reveal a metal double door behind him "but, as that only seems to draw power from the backup circuits under emergency protocol, it is a bit slow. Or there's the express alternative" turning the sidestep into a little flourish as he offers his hand.
"Then we can go soul shopping." The entropic chill, for a moment, became far more prominent. Machine, smiling warmly, then said "Don't look at me like that. It's no attempt to spoil your fun. As uniquely talented as your are . . . do you know which out of those who are about to die are going to be of any use? In addition someone needs to transport all the bits left over after your performance. I've a ship ready more suited for that. You deal death, I sweep up what's left. We both do what we do best. Anyway, shall we?"
She gave her hand to him and with a raised eyebrow, she merely replied.
"Sigmas. That's where i will start huntin'."
Machine nodded his head, and suddenly the two persons shifted from the room.
Five minutes later, an Odin emerged from the base and sped to the nearest jump-hole.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:12:00] Traxit: this is smut stop
After some time has passed Machine returns, docks and shifts into the room where he'd first been before Silver's visit. Lifting a blanketed bundle from a box he says
"Certain death may be easier on me than what I'm about to do."
Then, cradling the bundle, he shifts into the docking/repair bay. Gently putting the bundle down he starts to unload his ship and set up various bits of equipment.
Then a new scene in the docking bay. The Odin, now parked, was being eyed by the ball who was currently sporting a silver chrome appearance, probably in an effort to show off to it's new audience, Machine was holding a spike attached to a cable which, in turn, was connected to a cylindrical object. This, to clear up confusion, is the silicon soul Silver . . . acquired . . . not so long ago. This chain of things was finally connected to a computer console who's rather large readout screen currently read 'awaiting data'
"Good evening! For my first trick . . . this!"
Upon saying 'this!' Machine rather purposely and forcefully plunged the spike into the back of his own neck.
"Yowch! Yeah. That felt exactly like . . . sticking a spike between two vertebrae of my spinal column. Not much of a warm up act, I admit, but wait for the main event! My glamourous assistant here will be interfacing with your ship in a deliberate attempt to trigger all the little naughty hidden things we don't want for the ship that I'll, hopefully, be building for you. With the aid of the core I'm now plugged into I'll see what I can see and the video release will be available on sale at that computer terminal over there.
Easy enough . . . well . . . almost. Here's the twist. There had to be one . . . build the suspense! Give 'em a show! In this case I failed to mention how little chance there is of this happening and it not frying my brain when we talked before. Signs look good though. You're not wearing black robes and I see no agricultural equipment nearby so who knows? Maybe I get a free pass? In any case, should this go wrong, the forcefield generator under your chair can handle anything that can go boom and there's a shuttle safe in bay 2."
With a flourish and a bow Machine said to the now seated Silver
"If it does all go to hell though. . . you were magnificent company. Lie and make up something about me. Make it a good one."
He looks over to the chrome ball which has developed a plethora of spider-leg-like appendages, using some of them to balance, and poising the rest all around the Odin which, by now, looks rather small in comparison. Machine says to his psychotic sidekick
"Hit it."
At which point many things happened rather quickly.
The 'legs' speared into the Odin at various points and, at a nano-molecular level, the drone set off any and all security devices it could find. As is only has a pseudo-personality it can only be described as pseudo-insane and deliberately overloaded other systems it could find and destabilise too. It likes making things explode. What ya gonna do?
Machine, over the tortured screaming of the silicone soul, took in all the detail he could with the spinal implant relaying the information to the computer. The console then formatted the raw data and built three dimensional models, recordings and notations based on the incoming information in tiny fractions of tiny fractions of a second.
The various intentional and unintentional explosions happened. The results of this were unseen as a cloud of thick black smoke blocked all view and the only untainted air in the room at that point was around the seated figure.
The environmental sensors activated extractor fans to clear the smoke. The bay now was different. A pile of bits lay in one corner that used to be the Odin. The ball, minus appendages but still with a silver chrome finish, was cheerfully bouncing up and down on the head of the deathly still figure lying face down on the floor in it's own friendly attempt to wake him.
The computer at the far wall had changed only in it's readout.
Silver had seen crazy. Silver had seen geniuses. Silver had seen crazy geniuses. But never she had met someone like Machine. The right dosage of style, madness, and that way of seeing things. She liked that. Just the right ammount. Like a good old whisky.
As the smoke cleared, she grabbed the antenna of the force field generator and broke it, not even bothering to find the power switch on it. With a visible shift, an almost imperceptible barrier faded. Heading to the prone form of Machine, which had that curious looking ball jumping around, Silver opened her hand in an inviting gesture to said... minion, as it were, and it eagerly jumped to her palm, liquefying itself on contact and covered her whole hand in that silvery chrome. Cold to the touch, but alive. Silver smirked at the small thing, and looked down on Machine. She knelt down and pulled the implant out, dragging some blood with it. Getting even closer, she smelled the body like a predator and sneered.
"Not your time yet, kiddo."
She deliberately exhaled onto to the prone body, and got up. Not seeing a movement, she kicked it with a good bit of strength.
"Get up."
And the silvery sheen on her hand transformed into a ball once again, and jumped to her jacket pocket in, what one could guess, fear.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:12:00] Traxit: this is smut stop
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