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Who: Cortana and ...you!
When: Throughout September
Where: ADI apartments + various locations around town
Summary: Cortana runs some tests in preparation for her plan to transfer herself to a robotic body + supernatural music interfering with errand running
Warnings: Fainting spell + possible mention of nightmares in the last prompt. Will warn for anything else that comes up.

A) There's a roomba wandering the apartment buildings.

It can be most often found in the hallways of building A, but that doesn't mean it never shows up in the others. At first glance it might seem ordinary, but there's a sort of purposefulness to its movements that an ordinary roomba would lack. It's not mindlessly covering as much ground as possible in an attempt to properly clean the floors; in fact, it doesn't appear to be cleaning anything at all. It moves in a straight, or at least mostly straight, line down the hallway, occasionally bumping into obstacles (primitive sensors suck) but does a remarkably good job of navigating around them ...at least until it bumps into your feet.

...Hey, Cortana recognizes those feet! Or at least, she thinks she does. Roombas can sort of see the floor under and in front of them but they don't see very well and Cortana is trying to limit herself to the abilities of the system she's currently inhabiting. She gently bumps against the feet in question before doing a little circle around you, whoever you are. Hi friend!

B) Apparently Cortana got a package in the mail. It's a pretty big one too, the box doing a pretty good job of blocking her view as she tries to carry it to her apartment. She's stumbling around a bit awkwardly as she tries to avoid tripping or bumping into anything. It's probably kind of funny to watch, honestly.

...You might want to get out of her way though, lest she bump into or trip over you.

C) There's a strange robot wandering the apartment buildings again. This time it's a more advanced design, modular, with several possible configurations:

A wheeled robot is driving through the hallways. It's a bit faster and more maneuverable than a roomba, but it's still a bit clunky in comparison to a human-and it absolutely cannot handle stairs. Which is why one might find Cortana in her normal hologram body carrying the thing between floors.
This time the robot is still in a wheeled configuration, but it's also equipped with an arm. It's a bit awkward, and even slower and clunkier than the first version, having to fold the arm up in order to move without tipping over, but it has one ability in particular that is proving to be invaluable: it can operate the elevator.
This version doesn't have wheels (or an arm), but stubby little legs! Cute! ...And also very slow and awkward. Still, it can move around outside without immediately getting stuck, so Cortana has taken it outside and is now 'joyriding' on the lawn.
No new configuration here, Cortana just managed to send her temporary body tumbling down the stairs by accident and a bunch of those oh so convenient modular parts popped right off and scattered over the floor. Her bound flash drive took a bit of a hit too-her hologram's nose is distinctly bloody and there's a lot of grumbling, pained noises, and swearing as she picks up the mess she made.

D) Oh hey! Cortana is actually out doing something other than playing with her new robots for once.

Or at least, she was.

Caught in the rain while on her way back from running some errand or other, she's taking shelter under a tree when the music reaches her ears. It's nice-the audio receptors on the robot bodies just aren't as good, when they even have them, roombas can't hear unless you hack them to do so-and she'll spend several minutes just listening, and listening...

She's not stressed, but transferring between systems and forms as much as she's been doing takes power, and she's been cutting back on the whole 'scaring people into practicing proper cybersecurity' teaching tactic, so she's been running low...

Yeah she's out. One moment she's got her eyes closed and an expression of peace on her face, the next she collapses bonelessly into the mud.

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She smiles. "It would be pretty different, huh?"

For Cortana, well, they had moved to entirely different forms of currency by her time. And yet, it has had quite a bit of relevancy in her life: Halsey used a quarter to determine whether John would be included in the Spartan program.

"Advanced robotics is still a fairly new technology at this time. A lot of stuff I've looked at was closer to five - or even fifty - thousand dollars." She frowns. Her own body plans, if they work, could result in a model that would blow even those prices right out of the water. Will ADI really help her with this?

"It's pretty instinctive to me." She shrugs. "Sort of like moving between rooms or houses ...if your entire perception and ability to interact with the world changed with each move."

Edited 2022-11-04 01:27 (UTC)

Steve can't help the wince at the amounts of money she goes on to give him. Honestly, no matter how long he lives in the "future" or how adapted he thinks he is, some things will always sound a little crazy. "And that's a little hard to afford on a regular salary," he puts in, though he isn't entirely joking about that - it seems unfair, really, that she should be stuck without the tools she needs, as well as being stuck here.

But life isn't fair. He knows that.

"Well, that probably negates my next question, then," he says with a little sheepish laugh, trying not to focus too acutely on the unfairness of it all. At least, not only on that. It's still in the back of his mind. "I was gonna ask if you consider every time you move to a, uh, different body your birthday."

And, well, she laughs at the suggestion.

"That would be a lot of birthdays." When she's transferring systems, she tends to do it multiple times daily. Would every time she entered a system be a new birthday, or would it only count once for the specific system? What about when she entered John's armor? Would it count as a birthday for both of them?

There's a big smile on her face as she shakes her head. Good of a mood as she's in, she doesn't feel particularly fearful saying the next bit:

"I turn 11 in November, actually."

"Yeah, I guess it would," Steve agrees, laughing a little, too. "I didn't realize you did it so often. It sounds disorienting."

But then, maybe she's used to it - or designed to be used to it. He's only done it the once, and it was definitely disorienting.

He does seem to perk up, though, when she mentions her birthday. "Wait, really? That's pretty soon." And, "Eleven, that's a nice number." He grins just a little. "I thought it was a big deal, turning 11."

She shrugs. "You get used to it."

Existing as an incorporeal construct of thoughts that inhabited temporary bodies in the form of computer systems had been her entire existence for basically her whole life before coming here. Until she met the Chief, she hadn't even known what she was missing.

Her smile is still there, but it does get a little awkward when he comments on her age. Eleven is kind of a big deal for a smart AI. Not that she's going to tell him that, or why. "November 7th, actually. It's even sooner than you think."

Steve hums. "You can get used to an awful lot," he agrees, whether it's fair or not. Then again, maybe he's overthinking it, from his very human point of view.

He blinks when she mentions the date, though, because she's right. "Oh. That is soon. Are you going to do anything?" Not that he's generally had the luxury, but - they sort of do now, right? They're slogging through a war, but it's a very different war than either he or she are really used to fighting.

"Wasn't really thinking of it." She shrugs. Celebrating an AI's birthday? That'd be odd. Almost cruel to bring up another year gone by like that when they have so few.

It's not... it's different now, but she doesn't really want to broadcast her age to everyone at ADI, or even her friends.

Not that she says any of this.

"Hm," is what Steve says, somewhat thoughtfully (and clearly not at all suspiciously!) to that. "Well, there's no rule saying you have to."

And no rule saying you can't, either.

But also, "You know, it's customary to get gifts on your birthday."

Just saying.

"Hm. I guess it is." She says nonchalantly. Gifts would be nice, she supposes. Not that she actually knows what she'd want in this case.

She gets back to work on opening the box with the robot. Being modular, it doesn't come assembled, so what's inside when she lifts the lid isn't so much a robot as a bunch of individually packaged robot pieces.

Not helpful at all, Cortana. Maybe you'll just have to get a party as your gift. (Clearly it will go phenomenally.)

Steve is definitely curious, watching as she pulls things out. "Do you... can you put those together any which way?" He's trying to envision it in his head; he's very visual, but even after all this time, robots are just the tiniest bit foreign to him.

Yeah, she totally isn't blatantly ignoring his fishing attempts for a reason and this will all go swimmingly and be absolutely great. No problems at all!

"That's why I bought it." She shows him the side of the box showing the different configurations. There's a wheeled version, an arm, a wheeled version with an arm, and a four legged walking version. "Figured it'd be best to try out different limbs and forms of locomotion."

He leans in, curious, and grins a little. "Well, that's something - getting to pick the best option for what you need. What are you going to try first?"

She makes a show of pondering this. Decisions, decisions. "Hmmm ...I don't know. What do you think?"

Steve considers, and then ultimately has to go with, "Wheels, I think. Why go slow when you can go fast?"

Cortana makes a little 'hmm'ing noise, then grins. "I like your style."

She grabs the parts for the main body and the wheels. "Thinking of going without the arm in that case - it'll be faster."

Steve hums. "Seems reasonable. I can stick around and grab anything you need." He definitely wants to see this. "Can you manage stairs like that still, you think? Or are you planning to stick around here?"

"With this thing?" Cortana looks at the robot she's assembling with a skeptical expression. "Probably not." The parts go together pretty easily as she works, and it's clear that it was designed to be usable even by people who aren't all that well versed in engineering. There's even an instruction manual, though Cortana isn't paying much attention to it.

"Might be able to go down the stairs... though an out of control tumble really doesn't sound like my idea of fun."

"No," Steve agrees; he thinks she probably(?) can't feel pain like that, but it would not, as she says, be fun.

"Is it frustrating? That that's... the best we can do these days?" he asks, motioning to the pieces she's putting together. "Sometimes I think Tony must get frustrated when he's got ideas for things that need parts that, y'know. Just don't exist yet."

She can feel pain in some circumstances. Generally circumstances of direct injury to her holobody or her coding. She'll likely link the android body up to her ability to sense pain too, if only because she wants to be as human (and thus hopefully as far from entity influence) as possible.

...Cortana blinks, pausing as she looks down at the partially assembled robot. "For this time period? No. Humans advanced pretty fast in the early days -- it's genuinely impressive." For other time periods? She comes from 500 years in the future and yet had no body and went insane due to planned obsolescence: what do you think?

Not that Steve knows about any of that. She's not going to tell him either, instead going back to work.

"There we go..." She mutters as one of the last pieces clicks into place.

"Oh," he says, and - well. That's nice to hear. She'd know, after all, he figures.

Anything else he might ask gets pushed down the list, though, as he watches her get the last piece together. "So how's it work? Transferring yourself over. It's probably way simpler than I think, I'm guessing." He's adapted pretty well to 'modern' technology, but sometimes his idea of what to expect is still just a little skewed.

Edited 2023-02-14 03:25 (UTC)

"Well for one, this body is a projection. The actual me is in here." She takes her necklace off and holds it out for him to see. It's a flash drive, and she's got a string looped through a little bit on the end that was likely originally meant for hooking it to a keychain.

She turns her attention to the robot "And in the early 21st century, plug ins for flash drives and other USB devices were near ubiquitous -- as outdated as it is in my time, they used to use these for everything. Take a look." She'll indicate the main part of the body that is presumably a part of every configuration and oh look, there are two USB ports there.

Steve blinks, but, "Oh - right." He laughs a little - at himself. "I sort of just got used to thinking of you being... you, like that," he says, motioning to, well. Said projected body.

"But you're right," he agrees, because he is by now very familiar with the little USB ports that seem to be on nearly everything. "That does seem pretty simple." He grins a little, then frowns a little. "Is that thing - uh. Reinforced?"

He certainly doesn't want something to happen to the flash drive - and thus, happen to her.

She smiles "To be honest, I do too. The body is a reflection of my self image."

Which, on the one hand, her body looks exactly how she thinks she's supposed to look, which is pretty nice. On the other, you'd think she'd be more fucked up by the knowledge that it's not 'really' her... except she's not. And that's not even getting into why an AI would see themself as a human in the first place...

Her smile doesn't fade in response to his question, either. "Don't worry, these little things are tougher than they look." After a moment, she takes the necklace off and holds the little device out to him so he can get a closer look. It might seem like she's being awfully casual with what is essentially the core of her being, heart and mind and soul all wrapped into one, but she spent most of her life being handled like that. It's just not a big deal to her.

Steve's got a pretty strange sense of self, even if he's never examined it. His body changed literally in a matter of minutes, and sometimes he still sort of forgets what size he is or that he doesn't need to worry about certain things. Hell, half the time he's small and his dreams are in washed-out colors with half of them missing. So it's definitely not his place to question what anyone does or doesn't think they should or should not look like. Maybe Cortana's got it easiest of all, if she looks exactly how she thinks she should, and that's that.

He does lean in closer, inspecting it, though keeping a polite distance. Even if she's not being particularly serious about it, he still considers it worth being careful. "Good," he says, grinning a little as he leans back. "I mean. I always knew you were tough."

He is definitely not the kind of guy to judge someone on physical appearance, after everything he's been through. And he definitely means what he says. "Well. Don't let me keep you from enjoying your new body. Should I get out of your way and let you have at? I can get the door for you and prop it open if you want to get out in the hallway."

She smiles at his words, both about her being tough and at his offer.

"Always the gentleman, huh?" She sets the completed robot on the floor. "That'd be lovely." Propping the door open, that is.

"If you're still curious you're free to follow me around, though I'm afraid I won't be much for conversation."

maybe wrap this one up?

punched_hitler - 2023-03-19 23:34 (UTC) - Expand

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