apocalypsehowcomm | (no subject)

Who: Cortana and Tony
When: June, before event
Where: Howling Moon Inn
Summary: Cortana asks Tony to have another look at her code.
Warnings: Discussion of rampancy and its associated CWs (mental illness, mental degredation, memory loss, terminal illness, mistreatment of the mentally ill), extreme trauma, probable discussion of torture and nonsexual violation, possible mention of additional CWs which will be warned for if they come up.

It's time, Cortana thinks, to have another attempt at fixing her damaged code.

She's needed to do this for some time, really. She just ...it's not that she doesn't trust Tony. Quite the opposite, really. It's just... she doesn't want to.

Still, she needs his help. It'd be irresponsible and selfish to keep putting things off. She needs to do better.

She has to be better.

It's the start of the planning around the ritual that prompts her to finally send a text to Tony asking him to take another look at her code. If the stakes are as high as ADI says (and evidence suggests that they are), she needs to be in good shape for the upcoming battle.

She has to do this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Venting, huh.

(She's never been much of one for venting, at least not about stuff like this. A lot of her experiences were top secret, with the only other person who she could really talk to being John... and he didn't need to be burdened with her problems.

She's in a new world now, though.)

Guess I can't get in trouble for sharing top secret knowledge when I'm in an entirely different universe.

(Still, she hesitates. Then sighs.)

Where do I begin? You've seen those movies about contagious zombie plagues, yeah? Pretty sure those were really popular in the early 21st century...

(Except, of course, the reality is so much worse than the movies.)

Imagine something like that except the zombies are ferociously strong, absorb the memories and intelligence of their victimes into a collective consciousness, and are also capable of taking over the entire galaxy.

[ Well that's a big goddamn yikes. Tony has had run-ins with aliens, ghosts, and freakish underwater leviathans straight out of a Lovecraft novel, but he can't say he's ever faced off against the living dead. As of right now, anyway. ]

Oh boy, the old 'taking over the galaxy' schtick. That's pretty constant no matter which universe you're in.

[ Something rises up suddenly in Tony's mind-- a memory. ] Wait, so that time I had on Dawn of the Dead while I was waiting for my benzos to kick in, that's why you got all antsy? I'd just thought you weren't a Romero fan.

Maybe, but this is less ruling the galaxy and more turning everything into a conglomerate of fungus and oozing, pustulent flesh.

(She makes a face at the memory. The blood, the piles of steaming guts, the bodies bloating until they exploded in a spray of fluid and spores and infection forms, human and covenant alike screaming and writhing as tentacles bore through their skin and snake their way to their spine...

She shivers. She doesn't stop shivering.)

As classic as they might be, zombie movies really aren't my thing. The Flood is less dawn of the dead and more like if Lovecraftian horrors had zombie nightmares. It doesn't just give people a fever and cause them to get back up again once they're dead, it transforms them. Into monsters, biological weapons, incubators for more spores and infection forms... whatever the Flood needs. Have you ever seen someone's body split open from the inside while they're still alive to feel it, Tony? Even when they do finally die that's not really the end for them - the memories and knowledge of every Flood victim gets absorbed into their collective consciousness until they eventually form a Gravemind.

(She pauses for a moment there, but don't go mistaking that for the end of this incredibly fucked up explanation of the worst thing to ever hit her home galaxy.)

The Gravemind is ...it's like an entity composed of all of that suffering and death and rot. The rules of conventional reality don't apply to him. Like something out of a nightmare.

[ Well this is all objectively horrifying, and Tony doesn't actually want to hear much more, lest his human body physically present anxiety the way robotic ones typically don't, and that would be super awkward. He did offer to let her vent, though, and it's too late now to roll that back-- that, and all this unpleasantness is ultimately (hopefully) going to culminate in some revelation about Cortana's programming that'll help him sort her out, so. It's worth it to power through. ]

Sounds like a hell of a party for everyone involved. [ Sorry but he can't not make a joke about everything. Something something coping mechanism. Whatever. ] That's humans, though. I take it he installed body horror that's robot-compatible too?

Edited 2023-01-14 20:52 (UTC)

(She did warn you, you poor foolish man.

Unfortunately, now that she's started, it's almost like she can't stop. She's shaking continuously now, curling in on herself and hugging her knees to her chest.

An AI's memories don't fade with time, nor do pain, misery, or fear: this isn't something she likes to talk about either.

She looks up at Tony's question, then shakes her head.)

No. Inorganic matter is physically inedible to the Flood. (She rests her chin on her knees, staring into the distance, eyes dull.) I thought I'd be safe.

(A pause.)

But the Flood, it... it takes minds too, remember? (She makes a soft, miserable little choking noise.) The Gravemind wanted information, and I had it. If it - I could have defended myself if it - if he went through normal channels - if I could just see what he was doing - (Her voice is raising again, agitated, defensive, panicked.) - I tried to fight him, I really did, but he ...every time I processed data - it's like breathing, I can't just stop - I - he was going to destroy me, I...

(Are you familiar with the term freeze response, Tony? Where you just seize up in the face of something terrible and can't do anything?)

I let him in.

(Ever heard of an AI having a response like that?)

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CW: detailed depiction of trauma, discussion of mental invasion, mental invasion as rape metaphor