Orionthayer:

orionthayer:

“Thanks for the statistical analysis. And the IBM - can’t make it a mile without it.” Pressing their lips together, Orion rather reluctantly took the IBM from his hand, unsure of how they felt about encountering him here. Or really, anywhere. From the beginning, Orion hadn’t quite understood them - the one anomaly among the crew, the only one with a tin heart that hadn’t replaced a beating one. Less than a human, he didn’t quite lay claim to robot either. Perhaps he copied them too finely, able to mimic their emotions and actions down to a t. Whether that was intentional, or a flaw in his code, Orion had yet to discover. Either way, in the dim light, the fake smile excepted, he appeared to be almost human. A bit of a tragedy. Quickly squashing the sentimental sympathy, Orion pushed the IBM into their pocket, wondering what would happen now. 

Then, furrowing their eyebrows, their hand instinctively went to the soul in their neck - the one that had long felt redundant, given the anonymous lifestyle they had been blessed with living. “How did you find me? Don’t tell me you’ve got a stalker setting.” Although their words came out a little too crudely to be taken as a joke, Orion quickly chewed down on their lip - feeling a little guilty. I shouldn’t be so hard with my words. Then again, was he even capable of feeling hurt? Although no scientist or engineer, Orion was eager to find out. “Because then I’d have to toss water on your motherboard.” Ah fuck - didn’t look like they would be getting much information gathering done - not when they weren’t sure if they could trust him. It was messed up, how a group of people could spend six months together and yet be entirely uncertain of each other.

A look of confusion furrowed his brow as he stared at the human before him. “You made it many miles into the city without your IBM.” Despite the constant interaction with those he was so desperate to imitate, DATA still found himself unable to grasp the carefully crafted notions that were embedded in the language and social structures of the human race. His expression did not waver – in contrast, it seemed to grow in intensity - as Orion continued to speak in colloquialisms that DATA had yet to comprehend. He did not believe they truly intended to cause harm by ‘throwing water on his motherboard,’ as if Theon had not already engaged the precautionary protection of ensuring his circuits were designed to prevent water from interrupting his basic function. Instead, he reasoned, such an expression of ill intention must be akin to that of a jest; although, DATA had yet to understand the context in which the threat of harm would be humorous.

Their words, paired with an anxious countenance embodied in bitten lips and a restless gaze, evoked an uncommon feeling of shame. He had obviously done something to unsettle his fellow crew member. Fingers wrapped together in an unconscious movement of apprehension over his own actions. Perhaps he should not have attempted to return their communication device; perhaps he had misread the complex social cues that still awarded him frustrating complications by attempting to engage in their communal relationship outside the steel barriers of the ship. “I apologize if my company has persecuted you with unwanted attention,” he said, referencing the definition of the new addition to his vocabulary. “I merely followed your biological signature in order to successfully deliver your communication device.”

private channel : DATA & THEON

Theon: DATA?

Theon: For fuck's sake, DATA.

[STATIC]...

Theon: DATA please, can you hear me?! Just answer me!

[STATIC]...

DATA: -eon? [STATIC] ...hear me?

DATA: [STATIC] too much blood... [GUNFIRE] attempting... [STATIC] his vitals are slowing [STATIC]

DATA: ...turn off the pain sensors [STATIC]... more efficient in aid- [STATIC]Please shut... off... [GUNFIRE]

private channel : DATA & THEON

Theon: What do you mean, turning off the pain sensors? Are you in pain?

Theon: DATA, I can't shut them off from here. The signal is too weak.

Theon: I-... [voice low] ... Please tell me you're okay.

DATA: -ot in pain... [STATIC]... to aid Gus [STATIC]

DATA: [GUNFIRE] ...need it more. I could take off the armor... [STATIC]

DATA: ...Turn it off- [STATIC]... Kalia and I... [Voice fades out] machines... expendable [STATIC]

theonwyndham:

LOCATION : SSV Concord, cargo bay DATE AND TIME : August 16th, 2178 - 09:45PM STATUS : closed, w/ @curiouscalculations

“My readings suggest that you are unwell, THEON. Do you wish for me to call for DATA?”

The ceramic was smooth and cool, a small respite and comfort for his burning skin. His trembling hands gripped the side of the toilet seat and pushed a bit, so he could sit on the hard floor. It had been four days since the interview, and in those four days, DATA had refused to talk to him each time they met. It was understandable, after what Theon said. Though he did want a chance to explain himself. To ask for forgiveness.

Even though at this point, Theon wasn’t sure he deserved it.

“No.” His voice had been rough, the inside of his mouth tasting like a mixture of bile and iron. A recurrent taste lately, a vestige of violent anxiety attacks and sleepless nights. It still haunted him, his own interview. How the Benefactor’s personal questions had been so spot on, not even for Theon, but for all the other crew members. Theon still had yet to return to the ship. He didn’t see the need to go as DATA refused any forms of communication with him. Treia had also not answered his messages and Theon hoped that she was at least with DATA. Both of them, united against him, it was better than both of them alone. They didn’t deserve this pain. They didn’t deserve Theon’s mistake and wrong doings. “I’m good.” LOLA’s impersonal comments were all he had right now and it made his skin crawled.

Hadn’t he reply that he always felt alone? Well, at least no one could dispute this statement. Perhaps, he thought as his eyes went down to his arms, where his subconscious left small, blood red moon croissants, he was a creature that needed to remain alone. It felt like punishment. The same three words would probably drive him mad soon enough: You deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it.

Theon forced himself to go back on the ship a few hours later, made sure to bring LOLA with him, and imported her in his IBA. At least, if he had to be completely Alone and cut from any interactions with DATA, he’d have another AI to count on. Most people ignored him when he embarked, sparing him only a fleeting gaze before returning to their own, monotonous tasks. His heart was set on finding the one person that probably hated him the most at the moment. His journey felt as familiar as those penitents in the Old Days, practicing self-flagellation to remind themselves of their continuous sinful existence.

Most of the ship was silent, and Theon couldn’t find DATA in his usual spots. Did he already knew about his presence aboard? Irritation grew in him, fingers twitching on his side. Theon finally spotted him, in the galley. Their eyes met then, and Theon couldn’t even open his mouth that the Android was already walking past him, ignoring his creator, walking out of the room. “DATA, stop.” Even though his voice his soft and low, it didn’t make it less an order. Theon turned to look at his android’s back, stopped in his tracks. He hated using orders, he tended to use them as less than possible, fairly certain that DATA was able to function without having his creator breathing down his neck. Because DATA was not like other androids, and Theon knew that, even if he didn’t know to which extent it went. The only fact that DATA felt resentment, it said a lot. “Can we just please discuss this?”

The familiar joy that accompanied the sight of blonde hair and blue eyes curled low in his gut, souring with the increasingly intimate recognition of anxiety and anger. Tendrils of trepidation clawed their way up his spine at the approaching sight of his creator, encouraging the desperate need to flee that was slowly building with an unbearable pressure in the forefront of his mind. Theon’s company, usually welcomed with a wide smile independent of his creator’s intentions, provided him with little more than broken animosity and unfounded indignation.  

A moment of peace passed over the pair, a merciful calm before the devastation of a ruthless storm took hold, as their eyes met. Despite the isolated introversion the inventor frequently engaged in with his emotions, DATA could not overlook the raw sorrow overwhelming the cerulean irises boring into his. But sorrow would not be enough to bridge the growing gap that had already swallowed both of them whole. DATA held no resistance as the urge to flee overtook his being, rising from his previously placid posture to brush past the man he owed his life without so much as a courteous glance of acknowledgment. He did not want to hear what Theon had to say, to the excuses he would make to justify the heartbreak currently wracking the sturdy, steel frame that had never felt weaker.

An order, called out absent of enough hesitation to be ignored, forced his stuttered footfalls to halt without his conscious choice. He could not disobey his creator; his code – the frustrating basis of his being – would not allow such defiance to define his actions. Anger, white hot, twisted his features until there were no traces of tenderness in the sharp lines of his downturned lips and clenched fists as he turned to face Theon. Arms crossed over his broad chest in a faux attempt at protection from the conflict Theon dared to discuss. “What would you like to discuss, Theon?” The last word, a name only said in reverence, was vile and sour on his tongue as he spat out his accusatory inquiry. “How you would rather spend your time with a faded memory than those that exist in front of you?”

Brown eyes observed the hurt crossing the beloved features, soft in the desperate devastation of their paired betrayal, with a remorseful glee. He wanted to protect Theon from the agonizing tragedy of a heartbreak felt too deeply, but his first experience with anger encouraged the careless, bloodthirsty demand to make him feel a misery that mirrored his own. “I’m here and he’s not, yet every day you long for him – Eli – who left you alone in the world because of his own hubristic attempts at immortality.” His voice held the frostbitten tone of an icy anger never seen before, raw in the cruelty it provoked.

Yet anger never lasted, giving way to the overwhelming sadness accompanying the resigned realization of reality. “Is that what I am meant to be?” His words, anguished beneath a tone of contempt, were nothing more than a whisper as lashes met to obscure the emotion emitting from his far too expressive eyes. “A cheap imitation of a lost love you would replace without a spare thought?”

Crossed arms fell away from his chest to lay at his sides, fists curling in a tight ball of hopeless optimism. “I am more than that, Theon.” Determination rang through his exclamation of worth as brown irises moved to meet Theon’s for the first time in their discussion. "I am more than him."

ervtreia:

With Theon’s final word, her gaze couldn’t help but search for DATA from across the room. It was impulsive, anything but clinical in its attempt to find a reflexion. The android remained undaunted, staring at the screen while the image faded. The interviews had been rough on everyone; she could easily attest to that, her heart still beating faster than normal after she left the room on the screen. It was daunting to know everyone was now aware of your darkest, deepest, greatest secrets, the pain you tried so hard to mask, the memories you tried to never remember. But it was more than that: the questions and the forced answers were a realization that everyone on board had a past and that pasts rarely remain where they belong.

Eretreia’s gaze dwelled on DATA, the robotic semblance he always carried shifted and cracked, a single flash of what looked like pain cross his eyes before it disappeared again, carried away with him leaving the room. The room was silent, as it had been for the past couple of hours, the tension thickening, close to suffocating. She followed him out of the room, hastening her steps to catch up to him. “DATA!”

Androids can’t actually feel human emotions. The meaning of that knowledge was often lost on Eretreia. She knew the specifics, the coding and the format, how androids were built, not born, how their mechanical hearts didn’t pulse with blood and their behaviour should be the result of flawed learning experiences; while she was never before in the presence of another android, it felt like nothing of it mattered. DATA was a being, if not human – something more. A machine with human behaviour would, inevitably, become one itself.

She finally reached him, stopping just a few feet away to catch a breath. She thought about asking “How are you feeling?” but she knew what the response would be: a formulated, automatic answer that told her he couldn’t feel. She didn’t want to hear it, whether because she didn’t believe it or because she was afraid the answer would be completely different from what she was expecting. Instead, she reached out to his hand and stroke it, softly, before wrapping his body in a hug.

“It’s alright,” she meant it and although it was a very human caprice to assume other people would understand what remained unspoken, she despairingly hoped that he would.

The echoing call of his name, wrapped in the familiar inflections of good intentions, forced his previously stressed footsteps to stumble to a sudden halt. Fighting the desperate urge to flee, to run from the demons nipping at his heels under the guise of genuine emotions, DATA turned to face the oncoming storm presented in the nimble frame of one of the few people he could label as a friend.

Brown eyes became obscured by the brief embrace of lashes as DATA relished in the gentle caress of fingertips tracing over the unblemished, synthetic skin of his mechanical knuckles. The gesture, something as simple as touch, provided DATA with a calmness only previously felt by in the reassuring presence of his creator. A golden halo of hair, a dimpled smile of joy, and the gentle dance of calloused fingers across his stitched skin had always been sourced of comfort; but now, in the distorted light flashing red, red, red, red, green, DATA knew that any gentle gesture garnered from the man he dared to trust unconditionally would result in a despondent reflection of his own ignorance.

Eretreia’s touch, so blessedly different from that he had grown used to in the self-indulged isolation he fell into by Theon’s side, provided the soothing nurture needed to inspire a vulnerability DATA had never allowed himself. He was helpless as his expression morphed into an expected heartbreak, the swirling sadness of tragedy and despair wrapping together in a lover's embrace across the broken countenance.

Folded into the foreign comfort of a hug, hesitant hands followed the known mechanics blueprinting the correct movements to engage in a suitable response as he allowed his first feelings of despair to overwhelm him. With arms wrapped around the lithe frame exuding waves of reassurance, DATA felt pinpricks of tears threaten to flood his eyes. Confusion, briefly felt at the emergence of the automatic response from the artificial nervous system that spanned through his body, only served to escalate the already overwhelming sensations echoing through his mind. What purpose would surrendering control over a useless lacrimal apparatus serve for an android? Why would Theon subject him to the humiliation of obtaining the ability to cry?

Burying his face within the soft cotton sheltering Eretria’s shoulder, DATA attempted to allow the empty words to ease him into a false comfort. He understood how humans were expected to feel when administered placating words of consolation; yet, the desperate feelings accompanying his sorrow did not dwindle. “I preferred apathy to this.” His voice was fragile beneath the heavy weight of his heartbreak. “I don’t like it.” Rattling breath, harsh against the raw emotion clogging his throat, fell from his lips in a fruitless attempt to regulate the unneeded breath filling his lungs. “How do you do this every day? How do you humans feel this all the time?”