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heyhilana · 7 months

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Let Me Please You (Din Djarin)

Summary: A couple of weeks after your night with Din, you're feeling a little needy as you want to see if he's willing to have another lesson with you. But a confession leads to more tangling in the sheets and a new label to your partnership that you didn't see coming.

A/N: Hi! This is part two of Take it Slow since I loved how that turned out, and I couldn't leave it alone. I had fun writing this since this is a new take on Din as I've always envisioned him to be more dominant, and this is a take on a submissive din without it going too far for his first time. But nevertheless, this has been super fun to work on, and I hope you enjoy 💙

Pairing: helmetless!Din x !f reader (Reader is a little dominant but not overbearing).

Warnings: Choking, oral (f receiving), reader and Din switch here and there, Din also bares it all since he's in love so we get helmetless Din <3! but all in all, Din is in for the ride of his life and these lovebirds get their shit together LMAO

Word Count: 3.8K (look so much shorter omg)

Part one | Masterlist

“Din, where’s my datapad?” You were trying to do a quick inventory before you took off from Navarro, knowing that the next bounty was attempting to flee as fast as possible, as everyone wanted a piece of the high number of credits at stake.

“The last I saw it, it was in your cot.” Din called out as he was polishing his blaster, sitting on one of the boxes with his legs spread apart. You took a deep breath, seeing that same position that he was in back when you were visiting Boba and Fennec and when things in your arrangement together took a turn.

Although it had been two weeks, three days, and two hours since that passed, not that you were tracking it, of course, you weren’t sure what you guys were doing. Din cuddled with you that night before he turned over to sleep. He was sweet and even more attentive to you these past few days, striking up conversations that would usually fall on deaf ears as he was so focused on the job. But there was never a point where you guys brought that up. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to talk about it. Hell, it was all that crossed your mind hourly because you wanted to know if there would be more or if this would be a thing of the past. But you didn’t want to share your curious thoughts if things would go awry, that maybe it would be too much to say, and he was not ready to talk about it. So you opted to avert your eyes and go to your cot, seeing that the datapad was where he said it was.

“It was here, Din. Thank you.” You were logging your credentials in and walking back over to the storage area to continue your inventory.

“Anytime, cyari'ka.” That low voice coming from the modulator made your knees buckle slightly. You hadn’t heard that since that night, and hearing it in passing talks would surely make your brain mush. You tapped away with logging the numbers in, noting that when you arrived at your destination, you would have to get more supplies after the bounty was caught. Din finished polishing his blaster and got up to walk over to you.

“Y/N, we need to talk.” His voice rang through your ears, a slight lump in your throat growing as he stood over you, his stature giving you reason to lust over him.

“About that night?” You put the datapad down, giving him your full attention.

“Yes. I enjoyed it, but-“ You shushed Din before he could continue, letting your fears get the best of you.

“We can put it in the past if you want. It won’t interfere with our partnership and we can go back to the way we were.” You were firm, but the waver in your voice at the end was undeniable.

“No, that’s not what I want. I enjoy…this,” Din used his hand to gesture between himself and you. “I enjoy talking to you, spending time, getting to know you better. I don’t want to lose that. A-And I want to do it again. It’s been all I’ve been able to focus on since it happened, but only if you’re willing. I can put this in the past if you want to.” There was something about how his head bowed down to you, a simple gesture yet igniting a flame that had been burning in the pit of your stomach since that night. That flame gave you the courage to grab his hands and lead you to your cot, your core beginning to ache with desire.

“I’ve been wanting to do that again with you since it ended the first time, but I wanted it to be on your time.” You let go of his hands and sat down on the cot, moving back so that you could give him some room.

“Please. I need that…I need you.” He paused for a minute, the little confession sitting on the tip of his tongue, and once it was out in the air, your eyes widened. The man of few words expressed his need, his need of you, when before you never believed this would happen. But when you finally processed it and saw that he was getting into the cot with you, you began to spread your legs, moving his way up so that he was face to face with you, the t-visor giving you a slight glimmer of his cedar eyes that you enjoyed having on you.

“Such a good boy. Do you want to turn off the lights?” You were removing his armor as he had taught you how to do if he was injured, just getting the shoulder pads off as his hands moved up to his helmet.

“No. I want you to watch me and I need to watch you.” He was feverish now, the hiss from him taking off his helmet sending shivers down to your core. And once he was all in your gaze, tousled hair, pleading eyes, the way his plump lips were so close to yours now, and most of all, the way his hands were trailing down to take off the rest of his armor, meaning that you could touch, graze, learn all the pressure points that could make him a whimpering mess for you, you were a goner.

“You want to be praised then, don’t you?” Your voice was dropping to one that commanded more attention as you unbuttoned your shirt, the exposed skin making his breath hitch as he pulled off his chest plate. “You need to be told how much of a good boy you are, how you can make me cum so long as you don’t stop. It’s one thing to get praised out there, but here, I think that’s how I’ll get to you.” You pulled off your shirt and threw it outside the cot just as he carefully placed his armor outside.

“What are you doing to me?” He reached his way back to you, lips gently grazing yours. You didn’t say anything, just kissing him finally, hands tangling in his hair as you pulled him close. He moaned into the kiss, his hands going around your waist to draw you in. You were biting his lip, and his hands went up your back to unclasp your upper garment. He successfully unclasped it, and you pulled away from him to free your arms from the garment, much to his adoration as he was eyeing you. You began kissing again as the garment was discarded somewhere else, and he started pulling at your pants.

“Need these off you,” Din mumbled against your lips. You lifted your hips for him to take them off you, and by his haste and roughness with taking off both your pants and undergarments, you knew Din was no longer nervous about doing this with you.

Din knew he didn’t want to relinquish his desire for you. Inexperienced or not, once was not enough with you. There had to be more, as his hand was insufficient in quelling his newfound thoughts of you after the night you shared. When he would rub his thumb over the tip, he would think about how it would feel to swipe your tongue around it. The tight fist he would make would send his mind into a frenzy about how tight you had to be, a perfect fit. How he would explode on his lower belly would not be enough as he wanted to line your walls with his thick ropes of cum. Din needed you to replace his hand with your hand, mouth, and dripping pussy. He needed to find himself buried deep into your core while you milked him dry. Nothing would satisfy his hunger for you until he had you exactly where you were right now.

The cold air from the ship hit your core, but you fought against the urge to close up by spreading your legs apart. You were bare before him, and Din took his pants and undergarments off just as fast as he took off yours, earning a smile from you as you enjoyed seeing how turned on he was.

“There’s no rush. I’m all yours.” You reminded him, yet your stomach sank when you realized what you said at the end. You worried it was too much, too forward for only the second time you shared with him. But it didn’t faze Din at all. Instead, he kissed you again with more passion, shushing all your worries in a mere moment. Din moved away from your lips to your jaw, kissing your line until he reached the juncture of your jaw and neck, kissing down from there until he elicited a sharp gasp from you.

“Seems like I found your sweet spot.” He teased before sucking on your sweet spot.

“Shut up.” You moved your hands up to his hair, tugging at the loose curls at the nape of his neck. He bit your neck in response, which was a new sensation as you didn’t think a love bite would feel good.

Din lifted his head to look at you. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay. It was new, but I liked it a lot, actually.” You admitted bashfully.

“Yeah? So I can kiss, suck, and bite all over your body then?” He asked, lowering his head again to kiss your collarbone.

“Yes,” You breathed out.

“Because you’re all mine.”

Din was not possessive with anything or anyone in the past, but knowing that he could mark you because it made you feel good turned him on more than he could admit to himself or you. It was a primal instinct that was not unlocked until you came along, finding himself longing to be around you as much as possible, to tangle himself in the cot with you. His mind was wired onto you, allowing himself to explore with you when he wouldn’t dare think about doing this with you before that night. But now, his cock was dripping with precum as he saw how pretty your skin looked with hickeys and love bites, the way your nipples were prominent, your stretch marks and scars that told stories that made you who you are, your hips dips and thighs that he wanted to touch, and, most importantly, your sweet core that was between your thighs that Din would not be able to get enough of once he was inside you.

You parted your thighs for him to see your core, and Din’s eyes darkened when he saw what all his kissing, licking, and biting did to you. Your folds glistened with how wet you were, prompting Din to take a finger and slip it between them, gathering as much as he could of your wetness. You rolled your hips when his fingertip brushed against your clit, making you throb when he took his finger to his lips to taste you. You could see how your wetness coated the top of his finger, reminiscent of how your fingers looked when you thought of him.

“I love the way you taste.” He said as he pulled his finger away from his lips and put it between your folds again. You moved your hand down to glide his finger up to your clit, moving it to rub circles on your spot. He watched, seeing what you wanted from him before taking over, allowing you to melt into his touch.

“Just like that, baby. You’re doing so good for me.” Your head moved back onto the cot as Din rubbed your clit faster.

“You’re so wet, cyar'ika. Gar're bid mesh'la guuror ibic.” Din muttered the last part to himself as he did think you were beautiful like this and in every way he saw you. A man with few words yet stayed keen on observing the world around him, you encompassed all his thoughts. From how you fought valiantly in battle, your relaxed state on the ship, to how you laid before him, his observations of you led to where you two were now, with Din wanting to observe, learn, care, and tend to you as he was now.

“D-Din, I need you to try something.” You moved your head up to look at him.

“What is it?”

“I want you to watch me finger myself and then finger me.”

Din nodded, and you laid your head back down, one hand moving south to your folds and your other hand moving north to touch your breast. You dipped your fingers between your folds and teased your hole, gathering your slick to push in comfortably. You could feel his eyes on you, and Din stripped as bare as you were as the clothes made him too hot. Once bare, he instinctively grabbed his dick to stroke while he watched you. You pushed your fingers in, inhaling a sharp breath while Din spat on the tip of his dick. As he rubbed the tip to tease himself, you pumped your fingers in and out, curling just enough to hit your sweet spot and letting out a moan deep in your belly.

“Feels good, mesh’la? Feels good to touch yourself and have me watch, knowing that I’m stroking to you.” Din leaned back, stroking faster, squeezing the tip to make him hiss while he thought about how you would squeeze around him.

“Yes, it does! I need you to do this to me, please.” You couldn’t help but switch between wanting to dominate him and submit to him, knowing that once he learned your body, it would be nothing short of you being a mess for him, but it also turned you on to know that you could take control and make him beg for you.

“Let me, baby. Please let me do it.”

And there it was. The begging. Begging to touch you, feel you, submit to you. Din unlocked your deepest desires that you didn’t want to admit yourself, but they came out in the forefront when you heard the slightest whimper or begging from him. It was impossible to ignore, and your need to lean into it beginning to grow stronger.

“You wanna replace my fingers with yours? Think you can make me cum from fingering me now?” You teased, pulling your fingers out to bring them to your lips.

“I know I will.” Din’s confidence was growing, but you knew you had him right where you wanted him when you sucked on your soaked fingers, twirling your tongue around them to tease him. Din groaned, desperately wanting to know what it felt like to have your lips and tongue around the tip, shaft, and base. Those thoughts forced him to stop stroking as he almost came just as you pulled your fingers out.

“Since you’re so sure of it,” You began, watching him lean down to put his face between your legs, two fingers pressed against your hole. “Make me cum right now.”

Din didn’t waste any time after you said those words, pushing his fingers in and licking a strip up the slit. By the first taste, he was hooked, gathering as much as he could of your wetness because you were sweet on his tongue. He got lost in your taste as he pumped his fingers slowly, feeling how his fingers were stretching you out. It felt amazing, but your hand gripped his hair to tug, gathering his attention.

“I need you to suck on my clit, baby.” You asked.

Din was quick to do so, and in turn, you rolled your hips as it sent sensations all through your body. Din never pulled away the more you fucked his face, letting his scuff get drenched because he wanted the constant reminder of what you both shared on his face, lips, hands and all over his throbbing cock.

But he couldn’t help but tease you for what you said earlier, prompting him to lift his head for a moment. “Still don’t think I can make you cum?”

“N-no, I know you can.” You admitted, and that was all he needed to give you his all, to show you that he would stop at nothing to make you cum harder than before, repeatedly so. Din hummed as he knew he was proving himself to you, but he didn’t realize how much that would affect you when your legs began to shake. The fingering, sucking, licking, and now humming proved to be an insurmountable pleasure that left you teetering over the edge.

“D-Din, I’m really close.” You eked out, and before he could respond, you were coming undone before him. It was all too fast, surprising you yet bringing you eternal bliss as he fingered you through it. Din loved how your walls fluttered around him as if you were trying to keep them inside you so you could stay so full. And full you felt along with the way you felt you were floating on air, letting you stall your movements as you came down slowly.

Din waited until your breathing wasn’t as labored to pull his fingers out, bringing them to his lips to taste. He sucked them clean, savoring everything as your cum was just as good as your wetness, if not better. But in Din’s mind, everything seemed to be better than the last as he explored more with you.

“You came back down to Navarro?” Din joked, and you sat up to playfully swat his hand.

You rolled your eyes. “You’re not gonna let me live that down?”

“Never.” Din replied, the smirk planted on his face making you shake your head.

“I’ll accept that, but I’ll give you something else that I can use against you.” You responded, and Din tilted his head.

“Like what?” He asked, and if there was ever a moment where curiosity killed the cat, it was now, as he had no clue what was in store for him.

“I’ll show you if you swap positions with me.” Your smile screamed innocence, but Din could see the playful aura in your eyes that let him know that whatever you had planned was beyond his imagination.

“And to think I thought you were as innocent as I was.” Din admitted while switching positions with you.

“Well you’re not so innocent as you claim to be, and I never said I didn’t have a few tricks up my sleeve.” You countered, and Din had nothing more to say once you straddled him, the feeling of his cock slipping in between your folds taking up all his thoughts.

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” You teased, rolling your hips on his cock to make him suck in a breath.

“Should’ve known you would’ve teased me again.” Din was tensing up, not wanting to cum just from you rolling your hips.

You leaned down, your face hovering over this. “Oh, this is just the beginning.”

You leaned back up to grab his cock, positioning it right at your hole before sinking down slowly, taking your sweet time in feeling every vein, curve, and stretch that proved to be beyond your fantasies.

“Mesh’la, you feel perfect.” Din’s eyes were screwed shut, trying to hold it together until he felt himself bottom out inside you.

“You feel so much better, I promise.” You rose up again just as slowly before coming down a little faster. It was hard to not go fast right away, wanting to give him time to adjust to this new feeling without pushing him, but so far. But he proved you wrong when his hands snaked up to your hips, wanting you to move up and down faster than before.

“Please, give me more. Ni copad an be gar.”

You placed your hands on his chest, getting enough stability to start bouncing up and down on his cock faster, finally giving in to both of your desires. The curve of his cock was perfect against the way you rolled your hips every now and then, igniting newfound pleasure that prompted him to thrust up into you.

“Mhm, you’re so needy. So needy for me, and I love t-that.”

You caught yourself. That damned phrase almost slipped from your lips if you didn’t recognize what you were doing. But thankfully, Din didn’t seem to notice that, with his eyes finally opened and more focused on how your breasts bounced with each thrust.

“I need every inch of you.”

Despite the pleasure coursing through him, his seriousness was undeniable, unmistakable. It allowed you the blissful ignorance to disregard your almost slip-up. It gave you the freedom to let your deepest desires unfold right before his eyes as your hand went right for his neck, squeezing gently as you sunk down onto him again.

“Is this what you wanted? You want me to ride you and take complete control over you?” You cooed, and seeing how his eyes rolled back made you move your hips.

“Y-yes, cyar'ika, yes.” His voice quivered, drifting into whimpering territory.

“Was that a whimper?” You teased.

“N-No.” Din lied.

“Oh, that definitely was, and the one before that was one too. Which means that you’re close to cumming, aren’t you?” You tilted your head, and Din knew he couldn’t run from his impending orgasm for much more. But Din couldn’t speak as his sounds were whimpers and grunts as he lost control the more you rode him.

“That’s not good enough, baby. Answer me.” You squeezed again along with fluttering around his cock, the mix of pleasure making his thrusts less precise.

“Y-yes, I’m close.” Din answered. You moved your hand away from his throat to keep your balance.

“Good boy,” You leaned down to kiss him briefly before lifting up to go near his ear. “Now cum inside me, Din. Show me how badly you want to make me yours.”

Din thrusted one last time before he came. His grip on your hips became a vice, wanting every single drop to spill inside you. And while you wouldn’t say it out loud, you were irrevocably his long before today. The slow burn inside you burned for days, weeks, and months, even before that fruitful night and this night now. It stoked into an untamable flame for that night before suffusing into a wildfire, where you knew this was exactly where you wanted to be.

And while this was risky, with all your calculations of this uncharted area between you two being unable to decide if this was worth it to nurture and explore, there was a moment shared between you two when you lifted your head. Your head rested on his, noses touching, labored breathing, skin to skin, and there was nothing more that you wanted than to have this. It felt perfect, feeling like home.

“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.”

Din broke the silence with a phrase that, although you couldn’t understand, you knew what he meant. It transcended the language barrier; you knew why he said it in Mando’a. It felt personal, real. You felt the courage rise in you as baring your heart on your sleeve didn’t seem as fearful as before.

“I love you too.”

Translations

Cyar'ika - Darling, sweetheart

Mesh’la - Beautiful

Gar're bid mesh'la guuror ibic - You’re so pretty like this

Ni copad an be gar - I want all of you

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum - I love you

#pedro pascal #pedropascal #lanawrites #din x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #mando #first time #mandalorian smut #the mandalorian #mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin smut

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survivalist-anon · 9 days

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Log 6: Fort Dorn

Fort Dorn:

06:00 hrs

Intensive Environment Training Room

Floor -6

Four imperial fists have gone currently for 5 hours planking by their arms and feet in a room that has been designed to reach temperatures of 200° Fahrenheit. Grilled for what had occurred last night.

"So.....you four think you can just sneak out..... pretend to be not just civilians.... MORTAL civilians.", the current chaplain, Aldercon, steadily paced in his armor. "So. Did you boys have a nice drink? In which would be at this point.... quite frankly the biggest waste of your Oolitic kidney's FUCKING TIME.", leans down to Bilhard's face.

Bilhard was doing relatively good, sweating liters of his sweat per second, "SORRY SIR!". His voices shouted.

Raises up, takes a step to Urtus. "You are going to be here just as long as Bilhard is. Do you understand me?".

Urtus was neck and neck to Bilhard. By this point he's matching Bilhard on everything including sweating. "SIR YES SIR!"

"I CAN'T HEAR BOY! THE HEAT MELTED MY FUCKING AUDITORY MODULE AID!", the chaplain shouted.

"SIR YES SIR!", Urtus responded, his voice would have reverberated throughout the room if it weren't for the heating system.

The chaplain moved on to Cahrilo. Leaned right into his face. "....what about you lover boy. FUCKING SATISFIED WITH YOUR SEXUAL SHENANIGANS?!?!".

Cahrilo, doing more than sweating his fluids right out, red in the face trying to keep focus on his plank. Unlike the rest of his brothers, he hadn't trained like this for a while. He also didn't want to answer the loaded question, which ever answer he gave, he would lose for sure. "Ugh"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP YOUVE BORED ME!", by this point the heating room has now gotten on the chaplain's last nerve. He paces to Moors.

".....you're here..... because you stole that United States issued assault tank from that base up in Washington....and decided to modify it.... with spinning rims.", he concluded with a terribly hidden grin.

"Those weakling, yellow bellied welps at that over polished white outhouse didn't deserve 'Edna'.", with absolutely no wasted breath, Moors had just admitted to stealing government property.

This resulted in the other three bursting into uncontrollably laughter but landing in their own boiling sweat puddles.

The chaplain signal's the operator outside of the enhanced two way mirror to shut off the heater. All right that's enough for today, and Moors you're writing a double report for moral misconduct of theft of a military vehicle."

Moors got up, "worth it.", massaging his forearms.

"Hit the showers! You all smell like the nicest part of Nurgle!", Aldercon was done punishing the four marines for the time being. He enters into a small transition chamber where a blue arousal spray coats him. His face scrunches up and he starts spitting. "BLAH! WHY DOES THE DISINFECTANT TASTE LIKE BLACK BARRIES?!? SHA'KAL!", he calls out to the facilities only Salamander apothecary marine.

On the intercom, Sha'kal man's the controls, "It's a new edible formula sir! It's to prevent the others from consuming the original disinfectant.", he has always had everyone's well being in mind. Making sure that everyone, man, marine, animal or vegetable receives the best and safest care.

"WHOS THE NUMBNUTS THATS BEEN LICKING THEMSELVES CLEAN OF DISINFECTANT?!?", he angrily wipes his eyes and mouth. "Also why black barries?! I hate black barries!".

Sha'kal got up from his chair to give Aldercon a towel, "well it was the flavor that won the facility wide voting."

"oh the cruel beauty of democracy.... status report of the morning.", he shakes his head wiping off the fruity liquid.

Taking out a clip board, "well, reserves are well stocked for the month, the parameters of the fort have once again been triple checked and fortifed-"

"Ah good. Just the way I like it. Continue." A smile creeps up Aldercon's face ear to ear, chuffed to hear that so far everything is good.

As he and Aldercon walk through the expansive underground halls containing the day's reports, all forms of activity is occuring. Construction and excavations on the expanding territory of the Imperial Fists continues in full speed. Several Marines keep the place running in full operational standards to a Space Hulk on a much smaller scale.

"-and how is the ugh....what was that project that Ihorn was doing?", Aldercon reluctantly asked.

Sha'kal checked the notes he made in the back of one of the documents, "Oh yes....um the trainable bears. So biological augmentations on the bears have been successful. They've fully adapted to the nutrition supplements and seem to have adopted rather preferable behaviors.", the two of them walk to an enormous elevator shaft fit and strong enough to carry up to several tons worth of equipment.

After a few minutes of more briefing, they finally reach the surface level of the fort. Cleverly disguised as an abandoned farmhouse, the two Astartes march to the tattered barn, where most of the animals the Imperial Fists use for their own purposes.

"Ihorn! How are the bears doing?", he shouts to the shirtless marine.

Ihorn was originally a member of a company of Crimson fists stationed in Cadia for a temporary few decades, than was sent to a death planet. Now is perfectly content with animal training, he's the proud trainer of a team of eight, modified grizzly bears. "Ohoho, good morning Chaplain! Splendidly, look! Petunia is ready to have a litter again!", he proudly shows a gigantic grizzly bear, with a modified power pack permanently attached to the bear's back, tubes running along side her spine, ribs and head.

This was a bear made for the Imperium.

The bear stood up to intimidate the chaplain and Sha'kal. She had a furless bare belly, a side effect of the modifications made to her, slightly larger than normal due to the unnatural pregnancy. She let a low defensive growl.

"now now my sweet girl, you relax and concentrate on the cubs. Come on love.", Ihron takes a small clacker, clicks it a few times, snapping the bear back to its docile self.

Ihorn gives her an apple as a treat, giving her a stead pat in the back, "the girls always need to be spoiled. They perform better and are happier to do so.".

Impressed by the animal mastery Ihron has accomplished, Aldercon now wonders about something else, "The females? Why not the males?".

Giving a pensive thought, "well... I tried the males .....the females would kill and eat them", scratches Petunia behind the ears. "Shame really, I would like to see one fully grown.".

Sha'kal was standing in front of Aldercon in order to protect him from the bear, even if he was wearing an enlarged shirt with combat trousers. "Couldn't have you just, I don't know....not brutality alter this... innocent creature, it is in pain?", he looked at the unsightly handy work of one of the only members of the Adeptus mechanicus the fort had....a skitarii they named "Gibs".

"nonsense, I can tell she's pretty content. I've studied these lovely beasts for decades and she's just as content as a regular bear in captivity. Besides, if ever hear that measley little cord rat hurt any of my animals....I'll squish whatever is left of him.", he checks the power pack to see if it causing any discomfort.

Aldercon looks around at the other animals Ihron keeps in the barn, a few cows, some chickens specifically taken from an industrial farm several miles away and a few emotional support animals like sheep and domestic pigs. "Hmm. I see you're doing a good job. Primarch would be proud of your compassion for these beasts.", he gives him a firm handshake. He can't help but look back at the bear and attempt to intimidate her one last time.

She looked rather bored, until she was able to manipulate the muscles in her snout into a creepy, unnatural grin.

"oH sweet mother of-", he almost grabs his chest.

Ihorn and Sha'kal both laugh, "GOOD GIRL PETUNIA!", he gives her a hug for her little stunt.

Petunia gives a victorious roar, and gives Ihron a lick to the face.

As he continued to giggle, Sha'kal turned to see an unhumored Aldercon. "Oh my bad sir. We were planning that prank for weeks."

With a stern nod of head, "oh brother. Come on, let's continue the briefing".

The both of them leave the and head to the "farm house", as the two squeeze in through the threshold, a covert operation of digital surveillance is under way. As the two marine walk through, members of different chapters contribute to the complex communications system that has been spying the United States and several other countries decades before the FBI or the CIA.

"anything?", Aldercon quietly asked one member of the Ultramarines surveying the movement of the stock exchanges, monetary spending and shockingly enough the cash flow of several other developed nations on a set of 8 monitors. Hyperfocused, the marine just wags his finger 'no'. "Good work", he gives the marine a pat the back.

Walking over to an empty desk, he looks at the neatly kept but rather personalized workspace of the only confirmed Raven Guard in the country.

Letting out a deep disappointed sigh, "where is he?", he turns to see several members stop and look at the desk. Some of them silently nodding or gesturing uncertainty. "Has anyone here seen Wick?".

Giving a clarify cough, "um I believe he went 'to the field ', at least that's how he worded it to me.".

Aldercon is no stranger to rebellious behavior. When he first appeared on Earth around a hundred and twenty years ago, he had at several points been married, has had children and watched them grow up throughout their stages of life. He is certain this is one of those times, however a human teenage son is one thing, a fully grown adult Astartes fresh from his time as a neophyte is a completely different matter of frustration. "I see.....well ....did he keep his tracking system on?"

One of the fist's working on GPS tracking searches for Wick's location. "Ah yes, he is currently in Nevada."

He takes a double take, "WHAT?!"

The fist looks at the data on Wick's location. "Hmm...he's on the move but he is in government airspace."

Cupping his hands to his temples, massaging away the pent up frustrations he had just built up. "Can things get ANY more complicated?"

"3 Boogies at 12 o'clock sir. Heading to the north side of the wall.", one of the other Marines announces.

"oh goodie....the sons of Russ.... just in for a visit.", he isn't much better hearing this.

"wait they have a civilian with them", suddenly he feels the room's tone change from tense to dangerous.

Seething with rage, one rule Aldercon has been strict on enforcing is the restricted access of the Fort to moral humans. ".....Ssssssssteeeennnnnnnnnn......". He leaves fuming.

"oh dear, Aldercon please calm down!", Sha'kal runs after the chaplain in hopes he doesn't kill anyone on the way to the wall.

The room stood quite, with nothing but the beeps and pings of the monitors. All of them had gone right back to work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the trees past the four us, with the wind on my face and the careful dodging of branches, it felt like I was flying. I couldn't believe this was happening. Not only the cabin, but a pack of mysterious space soldiers? Forget about the inheritance money, this beats that any day!

However, I should be a little more careful with being caught up in this, I barely know these men. For all I know they could be making it up ...the more I think about it, the more I wonder why all this? Was this something I genuinely deserved? What if something else happens?

The trio stop, Sten smells the air, trying to pick up a sent. "this way.", he points his body to the direction of the mountain range nearby. As the pack continues, I have a sudden nagging feeling crawl up my spine.

"wait, you guys said this was a fort right?", I ask loudly as the brushing of leaves slightly drowns my voice out.

Fjord, practically prancing in the brush, "yes lass! It's an Imperial Fist fort! Best in the business and probably filled to the brim with traps! It's gonin to be fun!".

"Ay, are you daft!? The girl is with us, and she doesn't have any armor! Unless she's some covert Battle Sister I say we be careful.", As Toke dodged a branch, he tossed one on to what looked like a safe clearing but was actually a huge automatic trap.

I began to worry, I didn't care if these guys were heavily armored or if I didn't know them, I just didn't want them getting hurt.

"tis all right Lorey, we will keep you safe. I won't let any harm come to you.", I could feel Sten's grip adjusting to secure me. The fact he carried me here was a feat in it's own.

Their pace slowed down and soon we reached a concrete wall. This was bigger than anything current military fencing, it just looked like a thick, eerie wall. I could see graffiti and posters scattered throughout. "What the....who...built this?", I could imagine the workforce that took the time to do it.

"well, it looks we're going up!", Toke had pressed a few buttons on his arms, switching on a set of claws on his gauntlets.

Sten placed me down gently to do the same, "my dear, you will have to climb up onto my back, I have switched off the power pack so the exhaust ports do not burn you.".

I it was only now I noticed the jetpack on his back, it looked like it had little let engines on it, I climbed up and held tight. "Well, ugh...you guys are going to climb the wall, shouldn't you guys have a rope or something?".

Fjord chuckled a little, "no lass, we can handle this little obstacle all on our own.", enabling his own set of claws, the three had made a running start to the Wall's surface. All ready clearing 10 feet up the concrete barrier.

Suddenly, someone shouts from the other side.

"HAULT! PASSWORD!", the voice commanded.

No one knew what to say or do.....I had begun to worry.

"YOUR MOTHER!", unsurprisingly Fjord had the perfect response.

The sound of scuffling metal plating quickly making it's way to the top, loud exacerbated huffing and a yellow helmet peaking furiously from the top.

"PASSWORD REJECTED!", the yellow armored man then pointed a shockingly large gun at Fjord. The second the trigger was fired, that same horrifying blast erupted from the barrel like a high-speed rocket. Nearly hitting Fjord.

Dodging with unnatural grace and speed, Fjord quickly climbed up before and tackled the guard, both falling back behind the wall.

Judging from the time it took to hear a THUD, they may have fell rough 25 feet down.

I was still recovering from the shots fired, I turn to see a crater on the side of the wall where Fjord had dodged what I assumed was a missile. "FJORD! Oh crap is he ok?!".

Toke and Sten quicken their pace up the wall.

"Do not worry about him, the fall will knock some sense in him.", Toke clawed at the concrete.

As soon as the three have reached the top of the wall, we were met with several of them pointing guns at our direction....and one big furious looking guy with greyed hair was staring daggers at us.

"STEN! YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP WITH THAT MORTAL CIVILIAN HERE AND I WILL PUT YOUR IDIOT BROTHER DOWN!", he points to Fjord pinned down to the ground by two other Marines, trying to bite their hands.

Sten and Toke had locked it up.

"You know just as well as I do that killing another Astartes is not deeply frowned upon, and in our current circumstance....an act of heresy on its own!", Sten stood his ground, but I can tell he was trying to cooperate.

I was starting to feel guilty for being in this mess, "Sten what's going on?".

"Do not fret, Aldercon is just a little more cautious than the rest of us ....", he tried to assure me, however I've been in enough situations to know that stare of his had a history.

End of Log 6

@kit-williams @barn-anon

#space marine husbandry #warhammer 40k #survival log #imperial fists #space marine #space marines #space marine husbandry sentience

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carionto · 4 months

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"Trisha's Log, Day... I don't dare keep up anymore..."

Part 1 2 3 4 5

(Haespar: It's day two. Trisha: Stop ruining my vibe, you're still dead. Haespar: Yes, and I'm haunting you. With facts. Trisha: *hisses*)

"IT HAS BEEN AN INDETERMINABLE NUMBER OF DAYS since I began this expedition, now turned struggle for survival. I've lost Emily and am actively searching for her, but having not had a bite to eat in weeks and running low on water, I don't know if I'll succeed. To whoever finds this-" (Emily: I got the remote power module. And some snacks, here. Haespar: Ooh, melon flavored, my favorite. Thank you very much, Emily. Trisha: *already chowing down on some cheese sticks* Dankss Ehmilhy, yhour da bhest. *gulp* Where was I? Haespar: Starving despair and loneliness. Trisha: Right! Emily, you're currently gone, so just be your usual self and the audience won't know.)

"If you've found this log, I am dead. I died while carrying out my vital mission and searching for my lovely assistant, but failed catastrophically. Unless you're listening to this from a library archive, in which case I totally succeeded and became an awesome legend!"

Trisha continues to detail all of her future exploits and galaxy spanning quest for vengeance, love, mystery, and cake.

Meanwhile:

Haespar: Alright, adjust the telemetry of this unit to the one Valencio cooked up yesterday, and that should hook the biological scanners back up to the bridge. Emily: Done. Haespar: Excellent. *taps his datapad* Ira, bio scans are up on our end, confirm? Ira: Yup, all green. Reading you three down there nice and clean. Trisha's a bit heated up. Monologuing? Haespar: About her imminent demise after years aboard this derelict. Ira: *chuckles* Alright, good to know. While you're there, check on the tertiary power splitter two floors down, the main one up here is acting up a little. Haespar: Will do. Hmm? What's wrong, Emily? Emily: It's flickering between 27 and 28. Haespar: What? Emily: The number of lifesigns aboard.

Trisha: WHOA WHOA WHOA!!! Legit mystery time! *gently into the recorder* (Pause on seducing one of the heads of the three headed corrupt banker to blackmail him for trade secrets only to learn the evil tech startup was a Illuminati cabal all along) Let me see, where is this mystery life dot.

Haespar: It's jumping all over, is there a pattern yet, Emily? Emily: Need to log more data, but doesn't feel like it.

Trisha: It is popping up for a few seconds and disappears for about four times as long though. Hey, isn't that kinda like how you'd do a radio connection attempt? Brute force every frequency range. Oh wait, but then you'd just do all at the same time. Hacking maybe? Trying to get into a specific system without tripping any alarms?

Emily *into her comms unit*: Ira, please send an all frequency ping at these intervals towards us.

Ira: Alright, *shouting* Valencio, give Emily these pings. *normal again* Should be sorted in a tick, what's that about anyway?

Haespar: The lifesign readings are being weird, showing a 28th at regular intervals in random locations. Could be one of the system we haven't checked yet is acting funny and somehow interfering wi- Emily: Wait. It stopped flickering. A 28th. On the bridge. *To comms* Ira?

Ira: Uhh, yeah. I'm looking at him.

???: Hello, my name is Professor Iorvan Hal'Ahmat Garaamhan. Thank you for answering my call.

Continue->

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #dun dun dun cliffhanger ending?#Yes it is #I'm doing a cliche like that #(mainly because I don't know how to continue yet #but that's a problem for future me)#and now I'm weaving Cthulu in this too #yay!

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elkian · 2 months

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I've seen a few of my Murderbot posts reblogged with tags to the effect of "I don't go here but I know of it" and for people who are interested in the Murderbot series looking to break in:

Tor.com (now Reactor Mag) has the entire first chapter of the first book, All Systems Red, available free to read on their site.

Link to the article.

ASR is a novella, so this not only covers a lot of ground, but is a pretty good litmus test imo if this book is for you or not.

(I read ASR twice before getting Artificial Condition, and that was the book that got me totally hooked on the series, for what that's worth.)

I'm also just going to post the text under this readmore because free Murderbot.

---

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

I was also still doing my job, on a new contract, and hoping Dr. Volescu and Dr. Bharadwaj finished their survey soon so we could get back to the habitat and I could watch episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

I admit I was distracted. It was a boring contract so far and I was thinking about backburnering the status alert channel and trying to access music on the entertainment feed without HubSystem logging the extra activity. It was trickier to do it in the field than it was in the habitat.

This assessment zone was a barren stretch of coastal island, with low, flat hills rising and falling and thick greenish-black grass up to my ankles, not much in the way of flora or fauna, except a bunch of different-sized birdlike things and some puffy floaty things that were harmless as far as we knew. The coast was dotted with big bare craters, one of which Bharadwaj and Volescu were taking samples in. The planet had a ring, which from our current position dominated the horizon when you looked out to sea. I was looking at the sky and mentally poking at the feed when the bottom of the crater exploded.

I didn’t bother to make a verbal emergency call. I sent the visual feed from my field camera to Dr. Mensah’s, and jumped down into the crater. As I scrambled down the sandy slope, I could already hear Mensah over the emergency comm channel, yelling at someone to get the hopper in the air now. They were about ten kilos away, working on another part of the island, so there was no way they were going to get here in time to help.

Conflicting commands filled my feed but I didn’t pay attention. Even if I hadn’t borked my own governor module, the emergency feed took priority, and it was chaotic, too, with the automated HubSystem wanting data and trying to send me data I didn’t need yet and Mensah sending me telemetry from the hopper. Which I also didn’t need, but it was easier to ignore than HubSystem simultaneously demanding answers and trying to supply them.

In the middle of all that, I hit the bottom of the crater. I have small energy weapons built into both arms, but the one I went for was the big projectile weapon clamped to my back. The hostile that had just exploded up out of the ground had a really big mouth, so I felt I needed a really big gun.

I dragged Bharadwaj out of its mouth and shoved myself in there instead, and discharged my weapon down its throat and then up toward where I hoped the brain would be. I’m not sure if that all happened in that order; I’d have to replay my own field camera feed. All I knew was that I had Bharadwaj, and it didn’t, and it had disappeared back down the tunnel.

She was unconscious and bleeding through her suit from massive wounds in her right leg and side. I clamped the weapon back into its harness so I could lift her with both arms. I had lost the armor on my left arm and a lot of the flesh underneath, but my non-organic parts were still working. Another burst of commands from the governor module came through and I backburnered it without bothering to decode them. Bharadwaj, not having non-organic parts and not as easily repaired as me, was definitely a priority here and I was mainly interested in what the MedSystem was trying to tell me on the emergency feed. But first I needed to get her out of the crater.

During all this, Volescu was huddled on the churned up rock, losing his shit, not that I was unsympathetic. I was far less vulnerable in this situation than he was and I wasn’t exactly having a great time either. I said, “Dr. Volescu, you need to come with me now.”

He didn’t respond. MedSystem was advising a tranq shot and blah blah blah, but I was clamping one arm on Dr. Bharadwaj’s suit to keep her from bleeding out and supporting her head with the other, and despite everything I only have two hands. I told my helmet to retract so he could see my human face. If the hostile came back and bit me again, this would be a bad mistake, because I did need the organic parts of my head. I made my voice firm and warm and gentle, and said, “Dr. Volescu, it’s gonna be fine, okay? But you need to get up and come help me get her out of here.”

That did it. He shoved to his feet and staggered over to me, still shaking. I turned my good side toward him and said, “Grab my arm, okay? Hold on.”

He managed to loop his arm around the crook of my elbow and I started up the crater towing him, holding Bharadwaj against my chest. Her breathing was rough and desperate and I couldn’t get any info from her suit. Mine was torn across my chest so I upped the warmth on my body, hoping it would help. The feed was quiet now, Mensah having managed to use her leadership priority to mute everything but MedSystem and the hopper, and all I could hear on the hopper feed was the others frantically shushing each other.

The footing on the side of the crater was lousy, soft sand and loose pebbles, but my legs weren’t damaged and I got up to the top with both humans still alive. Volescu tried to collapse and I coaxed him away from the edge a few meters, just in case whatever was down there had a longer reach than it looked.

I didn’t want to put Bharadwaj down because something in my abdomen was severely damaged and I wasn’t sure I could pick her up again. I ran my field camera back a little and saw I had gotten stabbed with a tooth, or maybe a cilia. Did I mean a cilia or was that something else? They don’t give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions. I was looking it up in HubSystem’s language center when the little hopper landed nearby. I let my helmet seal and go opaque as it settled on the grass.

We had two standard hoppers: a big one for emergencies and this little one for getting to the assessment locations. It had three compartments: one big one in the middle for the human crew and two smaller ones to each side for cargo, supplies, and me. Mensah was at the controls. I started walking, slower than I normally would have because I didn’t want to lose Volescu. As the ramp started to drop, Pin-Lee and Arada jumped out and I switched to voice comm to say, “Dr. Mensah, I can’t let go of her suit.”

It took her a second to realize what I meant. She said hurriedly, “That’s all right, bring her up into the crew cabin.”

Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.

I carried Bharadwaj up the ramp into the cabin, where Overse and Ratthi were frantically unclipping seats to make room. They had their helmets off and their suit hoods pulled back, so I got to see their horrified expressions when they took in what was left of my upper body through my torn suit. I was glad I had sealed my helmet.

This is why I actually like riding with the cargo. Humans and augmented humans in close quarters with murderbots is too awkward. At least, it’s awkward for this murderbot. I sat down on the deck with Bharadwaj in my lap while Pin-Lee and Arada dragged Volescu inside.

We left two pacs of field equipment and a couple of instruments behind, still sitting on the grass where Bharadwaj and Volescu had been working before they went down to the crater for samples. Normally I’d help carry them, but MedSystem, which was monitoring Bharadwaj through what was left of her suit, was pretty clear that letting go of her would be a bad idea. But no one mentioned the equipment. Leaving easily replaceable items behind may seem obvious in an emergency, but I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.

On this contract, Dr. Ratthi jumped up and said, “I’ll get the cases!”

I yelled, “No!” which I’m not supposed to do; I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module. If it wasn’t hacked.

Fortunately, the rest of the humans yelled “No!” at the same time, and Pin-Lee added, “For fuck’s sake, Ratthi!”

Ratthi said, “Oh, no time, of course. I’m sorry!” and hit the quick-close sequence on the hatch.

So we didn’t lose our ramp when the hostile came up under it, big mouth full of teeth or cilia or whatever chewing right through the ground. There was a great view of it on the hopper’s cameras, which its system helpfully sent straight to everybody’s feed. The humans screamed.

Mensah pushed us up into the air so fast and hard I nearly leaned over and everybody who wasn’t on the floor ended up there.

In the quiet afterward, as they gasped with relief, Pin-Lee said, “Ratthi, if you get yourself killed—”

“You’ll be very cross with me, I know.” Ratthi slid down the wall a little more and waved weakly at her.

“That’s an order, Ratthi, don’t get yourself killed,” Mensah said from the pilot’s seat. She sounded calm, but I have security priority, and I could see her racing heartbeat through MedSystem.

Arada pulled out the emergency medical kit so they could stop the bleeding and try to stabilize Bharadwaj. I tried to be as much like an appliance as possible, clamping the wounds where they told me to, using my failing body temperature to try to keep her warm, and keeping my head down so I couldn’t see them staring at me.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 60% AND DROPPING

Our habitat is a pretty standard model, seven interconnected domes set down on a relatively flat plain above a narrow river valley, with our power and recycling system connected on one side. We had an environmental system, but no air locks, as the planet’s atmosphere was breathable, just not particularly good for humans for the long term. I don’t know why, because it’s one of those things I’m not contractually obligated to care about.

We picked the location because it’s right in the middle of the assessment area, and while there are trees scattered through the plain, each one is fifteen or so meters tall, very skinny, with a single layer of spreading canopy, so it’s hard for anything approaching to use them as cover. Of course, that didn’t take into account anything approaching via tunnel.

We have security doors on the habitat for safety but HubSystem told me the main one was already open as the hopper landed. Dr. Gurathin had a lift gurney ready and guided it out to us. Overse and Arada had managed to get Bharadwaj stabilized, so I was able to put her down on it and follow the others into the habitat.

The humans headed for Medical and I stopped to send the little hopper commands to lock and seal itself, then I locked the outer doors. Through the security feed, I told the drones to widen our perimeter so I’d have more warning if something big came at us. I also set some monitors on the seismic sensors to alert me to anomalies just in case the hypothetical something big decided to tunnel in.

After I secured the habitat, I went back to what was called the security ready room, which was where weapons, ammo, perimeter alarms, drones, and all the other supplies pertaining to security were stored, including me. I shed what was left of the armor and on MedSystem’s advice sprayed wound sealant all over my bad side. I wasn’t dripping with blood, because my arteries and veins seal automatically, but it wasn’t nice to look at. And it hurt, though the wound seal did numb it a little. I had already set an eight-hour security interdiction through HubSystem, so nobody could go outside without me, and then set myself as off-duty. I checked the main feed but no one was filing any objections to that.

I was freezing because my temperature controls had given out at some point on the way here, and the protective skin that went under my armor was in pieces. I had a couple of spares but pulling one on right now would not be practical, or easy. The only other clothing I had was a uniform I hadn’t worn yet, and I didn’t think I could get it on, either. (I hadn’t needed the uniform because I hadn’t been patrolling inside the habitat. Nobody had asked for that, because with only eight of them and all friends, it would be a stupid waste of resources, namely me.) I dug around one handed in the storage case until I found the extra human-rated medical kit I’m allowed in case of emergencies, and opened it and got the survival blanket out. I wrapped up in it, then climbed into the plastic bed of my cubicle. I let the door seal as the white light flickered on.

It wasn’t much warmer in there, but at least it was cozy. I connected myself to the resupply and repair leads, leaned back against the wall and shivered. MedSystem helpfully informed me that my performance reliability was now at 58 percent and dropping, which was not a surprise. I could definitely repair in eight hours, and probably mostly regrow my damaged organic components, but at 58 percent, I doubted I could get any analysis done in the meantime. So I set all the security feeds to alert me if anything tried to eat the habitat and started to call up the supply of media I’d downloaded from the entertainment feed. I hurt too much to pay attention to anything with a story, but the friendly noise would keep me company.

Then someone knocked on the cubicle door.

I stared at it and lost track of all my neatly arrayed inputs. Like an idiot, I said, “Uh, yes?”

Dr. Mensah opened the door and peered in at me. I’m not good at guessing actual humans’ ages, even with all the visual entertainment I watch. People in the shows don’t usually look much like people in real life, at least not in the good shows. She had dark brown skin and lighter brown hair, cut very short, and I’m guessing she wasn’t young or she wouldn’t be in charge. She said, “Are you all right? I saw your status report.”

“Uh.” That was the point where I realized that I should have just not answered and pretended to be in stasis. I pulled the blanket around my chest, hoping she hadn’t seen any of the missing chunks. Without the armor holding me together, it was much worse. “Fine.”

So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous. Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.

“Fine?” She frowned. “The report said you lost 20 percent of your body mass.”

“It’ll grow back,” I said. I know to an actual human I probably looked like I was dying. My injuries were the equivalent of a human losing a limb or two plus most of their blood volume.

“I know, but still.” She eyed me for a long moment, so long I tapped the security feed for the mess, where the non-wounded members of the group were sitting around the table talking. They were discussing the possibility of more underground fauna and wishing they had intoxicants. That seemed pretty normal. She continued, “You were very good with Dr. Volescu. I don’t think the others realized . . . They were very impressed.”

“It’s part of the emergency med instructions, calming victims.” I tugged the blanket tighter so she didn’t see anything awful. I could feel something lower down leaking.

“Yes, but the MedSystem was prioritizing Bharadwaj and didn’t check Volescu’s vital signs. It didn’t take into account the shock of the event, and it expected him to be able to leave the scene on his own.”

On the feed it was clear that the others had reviewed Volescu’s field camera video. They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face. I’d been in armor since we arrived, and I hadn’t unsealed the helmet when I was around them. There was no specific reason. The only part of me they would have seen was my head, and it’s standard, generic human. But they didn’t want to talk to me and I definitely didn’t want to talk to them; on duty it would distract me and off duty . . . I didn’t want to talk to them. Mensah had seen me when she signed the rental contract. But she had barely looked at me and I had barely looked at her because again, murderbot + actual human = awkwardness. Keeping the armor on all the time cuts down on unnecessary interaction.

I said, “It’s part of my job, not to listen to the System feeds when they . . . make mistakes.” That’s why you need constructs, SecUnits with organic components. But she should know that. Before she accepted delivery of me, she had logged about ten protests, trying to get out of having to have me. I didn’t hold it against her. I wouldn’t have wanted me either.

Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t just say you’re welcome and please get out of my cubicle so I can sit here and leak in peace.

“All right,” she said, and looked at me for what objectively I knew was 2.4 seconds and subjectively about twenty excruciating minutes. “I’ll see you in eight hours. If you need anything before then, please send me an alert on the feed.” She stepped back and let the door slide closed.

It left me wondering what they were all marveling at so I called up the recording of the incident. Okay, wow. I had talked to Volescu all the way up the side of the crater. I had been mostly concerned with the hopper’s trajectory and Bharadwaj not bleeding out and what might come out of that crater for a second try; I hadn’t been listening to myself, basically. I had asked him if he had kids. It was boggling. Maybe I had been watching too much media. (He did have kids. He was in a four-way marriage and had seven, all back home with his partners.)

All my levels were too elevated now for a rest period, so I decided I might as well get some use out of it and look at the other recordings. Then I found something weird. There was an “abort” order in the HubSystem command feed, the one that controlled, or currently believed it controlled, my governor module. It had to be a glitch. It didn’t matter, because when MedSystem has priority—

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39%, STASIS INITIATED FOR EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE.

#elk text #tmd #the murderbot diaries #if you aren't in a position to purchase the books check out (hehe) whether your local library has anything #i know there's audiobooks too and apparently they're pretty good #i tried to indent it and tungl did not like that #tried to make the opening break obvious

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rosewind2007 · 9 months

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Ha!

Some people have asked in the last 48 hours:

“Like why the hell would anyone ship Murderbot and Gurathin?”

(I like to imagine them like ART clutching its function in Artificial Condition—“Ship Gurathin and Murderbot? That is irrational!”)

So, let me explain…no, there is too much. Let me make a few points:

This really starts out by asking the question: why did Gurathin want to know how the PresAux SecUnit was spending its time? Which is a really odd thing for him to want to know if you think about it.

The SecUnit is, as they have been told, merely a tool: it’s an adjunct to the SecSystem and HubSystem of the habitat, it’s a company device, a tool, a product of corporate surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement. Up until the worm incident some of the PresAux team didn’t even now it had a face. Mensah didn’t want to rent it as part of the bond guarantee agreement, and called it (basically) a “hellish compromise.”

So, the rest of PresAux are in varying states of awareness about what Murderbot is.

In Future of Work Compulsory we get some insight into common knowledge of SecUnits: the workers are unaware they can speak, in fact adamant they cannot:

Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She [Sekai] shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

The PresAux team know their SecUnit can talk, it gives them a security briefing. Do most of them think this is the equivalent of a recorded message, delivered rote?

Surely Mensah, having seen its face and knowing of its intelligence (that hellish compromise) can’t think it’s anything less than a slave? But that aside: I am talking about Gurathin. And what what Volescu says Gurathin wanted to know:

Then Volescu said, “Gurathin, you wanted to know how it spends its time. That was what you were originally looking for in the logs. Tell them.”

Funny thing to want to know, like do you want to know how your roomba spends its time? Okay, this is Tumblr, possibly the wrong place for this question.

So Gurathin is suspicious, apparently right from the start of the book since on page 33 he first asks it a question:

“What about your systems?”

I would note that Gurathin asks MB two questions about how it is functioning, both just after it does something that goes against its governor module:

The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company. “They’re supposed to be able to, but equipment failures aren’t unknown.”

Next thing anyone says is:

Then Gurathin said, “What about your systems?”

Later:

It was one of those impulses that comes from my organic parts that the governor is supposed to squash. I said, “As the only one here with experience in these situations, I’m your best resource.”

Gurathin said, “What situations?”

This looks to me like someone who either detects that MB is acting unlike a SecUnit should, or even that he can tell a governor module is being defied.

HOW does Gurathin do this/know this? He is after all augmented, perhaps he is detecting something in the feed? In Rogue Protocol when MB is spying on Miki via a drone it has taken over, Miki realises something is up:

Miki didn’t move, still staring into the dark with the opaque surface of its eyes. The feed was clear, it couldn’t know I was here.

Then Miki sent a directionless ping

I think Miki does know (Miki stares at the drone); and I think somehow Gurathin also knows.

This seems to indicate that Gurathin may know more about SecUnits than he’s giving away—but whatever: this is someone who has been closely watching Murderbot.

Like, really closely.

I think an absolutely reasonable reading of ASR is that Gurathin has a bit of a fixation on this SecUnit, and it’s a fixation that started before the worm incident.

He’s watching this piece of company equipment with unusual intensity.

I am happy to headcanon that this started with the security briefing, that Murderbot couldn’t keep its feelings out of its voice. I mean, can you imagine Murderbot doing the in-flight safety announcement on the plane? It brings to mind project mayhem’s replacement safety handouts…

Did Gurathin hear Murderbot’s real voice bleed through? Cynicism and sarcasm, a dose of irony?

It’s a thought. He never seems to doubt it’s a person. The fact that Rathhi says: “This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—”perhaps says something about how he sees Gurathin too.

I would note that Gurathin and Ratthi aren’t friends in All Systems Red—something which surprised me a little (I didn’t think they got along as well as they do in later books, but when I looked into it I was surprised!

Gurrathi Meta

So when the team heads off to DeltFall Gurathin is very suspicious and watching SecUnit, which it reports upon but doesn’t seem to spot the significance of—which is rather unlike our paranoid Murderbot.

Gurathin is the only member of the team not to express enthusiasm for MB going on the trip.

Gurathin was the only one staying behind who didn’t say anything

MB is actually about to start poking around to figure out what Guarthin is up to when the feed drops out (probably trying to figure out what’s wrong with it).

If anything I think Gurathin acts oddly about his rogue SecUnit suspicions.

If he knows SecUnits he will probably have heard the propaganda, which MB believes:

To quote MB: “I sure as hell would have reported me. Rogue SecUnits are fucking dangerous, trust me on that.”

I wrote a little essay on how Gurathin is right about a lot of things when it comes to Murderbot:

Gurathin was right

(It’s called that because he is)

Perhaps the strangest thing is that he just tries to immobilize it, and then makes his case. He doesn’t try and have it shut down whilst “unconscious”, and doesn’t even mention the (fairly critical information) until pushed. Gurathin’s expression was stiffer than usual. “This Unit has killed people before, people it was charged with protecting. It killed fifty-seven members of a mining operation.”

At this point MB believe this is true, and it lies to the diary about it, by omission at any rate: “What I told you before, about how I hacked my governor module but didn’t become a mass murderer? That was only sort of true. I was already a mass murderer.”

So: I honestly don’t think Gurathin’s behaviour here makes a whole lot of sense if you read it in a lot of ways—the way I think it makes more sense is that he is fixated. This could be sexual: perhaps when:

[Gurathin] said, “Why don’t you want us to look at you?”

My jaw was so tight it triggered a performance reliability alert in my feed. I said, “You don’t need to look at me. I’m not a sexbot.”

Well—perhaps MB is picking up something about the way Gurathin looks at it?

My personal reading is that Gurathin has become obsessed, an obsession perhaps sparked by MB’s anomalous behaviors? He is watching it intensely. It doesn’t have to be sexual, humans can get fixated without sexual attraction.

And then he so quickly accepts the rogue unit into his team! It holds him up against the wall by his neck (I mean, wow—one of the most intense bits of physical contact in the book). But Gurathin is rapidly team SecUnit: and he never sees it as “not a person” he isn’t kidding when he says.

(“I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.”

“Then stop being mean to it,” “Ratthi told him. “That might help.”)

Gurathin and SecUnit work together to overcome GrayCris, Murderbot even grudgingly admitting Gurathin’s help:

“Gurathin had figured out how to use the hack from their HubSystem into our HubSystem to get access, but he needed to be close to their habitat to actually trigger their beacon. ”

“(Last night Gurathin had said this was a weak point, that this was where the plan would fall apart. It was irritating that he was right.)”

So: that’s some of the reasons from the first book, All Systems Red

#murderathin #murderbot ships #the murderbot diaries #Murderbot diaries #shipping #murderbot shipping #Gurathin #dr gurathin #gurathin my beloved

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beeatrixi-study · 7 months

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Week 2 of university done!! It’s been a pretty successful week, with 100% attendance and all caught up with work :)

Things I did this week:

Got my engagement up from partial to good! My lecturer keeps pushing the importance of engagement, and he is pushing it hard. He pretty much says that ‘if your engagement is below good, don’t bother coming to class or trying. You are likely to fail’. I understand that this is true, but the engagement algorithm that the university uses does not consider things like: students living off campus, being ill, downloading material beforehand and not accessing the learning environment, students taking the weekend off, etc. It is very demoralising to see your engagement only being marked as partial, just because its the weekend, and you have the textbook downloaded...

I don’t live on campus, so I don’t get the free points from just being connected to the university WiFi, but when I am on campus, my engagement hits the high level. I am, however, still consistently above average!

My daily planning is very useful! I plan out pretty much every moment of my day, and this week, as a part of my academic skills module, we had to hand in a time log, so I essentially got a free 10% on the module, because I do that anyway. I showed the lecturer to ask if it was acceptable to hand in, and he took a look at my work, safe to say, he was a little shocked. My planning comes across as a little insane, which, I guess, it is! I need a fairly rigid plan, otherwise my brain does not think of tasks as urgent, and will put them off till the last minute. For me, this includes things like: eating, showering, going to the toilet, taking medication, brushing teeth. I require a visual reminder of things (hence the reason I carry my water bottle everywhere, I am very prone to dehydration).

This weeks coding work was pretty easy. We use a language called processing (which is pretty much just Java). All we had to do was copy an image of a house using primitive shapes in the language. Took me about 40 minutes because I literally colour selected the proper colours from the image, and even found the exact co-ordinates. I’ve always found co-ordinates hard, something about them just doesn’t work in my brain, but processing works weirdly; it reverses the Y coordinate. Imagine a four quadrant graph. When faced with a co-ordinate with two positive numbers, you would assume the top right quadrant is where the co-ordinate would fall. But no, in processing it falls in the bottom right. As the Y co-ordinate gets larger, you move downwards...

The computing theory this week was difficult, simply due to the fact of how long the binary numbers were! We had to convert a string of binary sent in hamming code, find the error, and then convert the hamming code to regular UTF-8 binary code, then to UTF-8 hexadecimal code, and then find the character it referred to (which was an obscure Ethiopic symbol, might I add). This left lots of room in copying errors, which happened to me… twice… I got the methods correct, just issues copying down the initial number… My assessed theory problems were much easier, as the numbers ASCII and not Unicode! We have been assured that the binary numbers in the final exam will NOT be Unicode!

In my numerical methods module, we have been working on a quiz for the past 2 weeks, and mine finally got marked! 100% in every problem!! Woo hoo! I’m not so good at maths, but I’m working hard to get the top mark!

Finally, I bought myself some makeup as a congratulations for this week! People who know me from elsewhere will know that I ADORE a clear gloss, so I brought a new tube of my favourite Rimmel Oh My Gloss, and I am trying out some new products: The Revolution Pro Hydra gloss (Shade Mode; clear of course) which, I’m not sure I like, as it is a plumping lip gloss, never really been my thing. The applicator feels strange, and the texture is… unusual. And my new favourite Revolution lip oil (Shade Bitten Kiss; once again, clear)! I adore this oil so much. It’s from their Halloween range, so it looks like a vial of centrifuged blood! I migh have a look if they have other shades next week, and I’ll keep and eye out for the lip tint! I also bought a new Nyx Epic Ink eyeliner, in black of course. I adore the brush applicator, and I think this is my new preferred eyeliner. :)

Go check out my instagram for frequent updates through the week!

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lazar-codes · 6 months

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21/10/2023 || Day 100

Happy Day 100! I officially have done 100 Days of Code, and it's wild to think that when I first started it I pretty much was finished with school. It's crazy how fast time goes by. Anyways, I accidentally did some programming today despite it being a weekend, so here's some progress on a new small project:

Music Info App - Log # 1

I decided that I want to stop paying for Spotify, especially since my student discount will end in January. The problem is that I have a lot of music on there, and downloading each song/album one by one from youtube will be the death of me. Instead, I struggled for 2 hours today installing a youtube downloader (youtube-dl) on my PC, and when that finally started to work, I realized that I'm too impatient to figure out if I can keep the metadata of the video/audio, so I decided to do some coding myself. Now, I really like to have my music organized with all the necessary info (i.e. title, artist, track #), so I found an API that will give me all of that. The thing that took me a while to figure out, even before today/writing the code, was how to manipulate a file's metadata. I guess I finally asked Google the right question because a Node module called "ffmetadata" came up in the search results and I can now add the title, artist, track number, and other metadata to a file without me needing to manually write it. You guys have no idea how much of a weight off my shoulders this is, and I'm so happy this works!! I'm gonna have to do some tweaking for user input (i.e. to be able to choose which directory to look at and get info on the files in the directory), but that's a later thing.

#codeblr #studyblr #100 days of code #coding #programming #lazar blogs

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blubberquark · 1 year

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The Dark Arts

As a beginner programmer, you should know that eval() is evil, that you should never copy and paste code in cases when you could just put that code in a function and call that function from both places, that you should use a real debugger instead of printing out values, and that you should not use raw sockets in Python.

Sometimes I see beginners who do not yet understand why you can’t just use eval() or sockets - or eval() together with sockets, even - pretend to be more experienced so the greybeards on IRC will explain to them, only to come back a couple of days later with a bug that should have been really obvious if they were really as experienced as they claimed. Topics like eval() are not closely guarded secrets that the greybeards want to keep to themselves, they are much more like actual literally esoteric knowledge, knowledge that is accessible only to those who have been initiated.

This time, I am trying something different. Instead of explaining why you shouldn’t use those things unless you know what you are doing, I will give you the exceptions. This knowledge will be next to useless unless you have been initiated in the art of software engineering, unless you could already have arrived at the same conclusion on your own.

You have been warned.

Print Debugging

I tried to debug a platformer with break points. Super annoying. Instead I use print, I draw boxes on the screen, I have an in-game log console, I have a button I can hold to show more debug info. It varies from game to game.

Debugging movement is not even about bugs, but about game feel.

eval()

I use eval() in my yarn.py library. It’s something like YarnSpinner, which is something like Twine, but for dialogue trees and multiple choice text embedded in games, not for whole games that are just text. Since it doesn’t use it to run code that was sent over the wire, but code that is part of data files that come with your application, it’s reasonably safe to do this. Statements like <<if $EXPR >> and <<print $EXPR >> will evaluate $EXPR in the scope of the yarn.py session, so that they have access to local variables. The statement <<run $PROG >> will execute $PROG with exec().

I thought about having statements like <<set $VAR to $VALUE>> and to store variables in a dictionary. But why bother? After all this, I’d have my own interpreter for a language that’s worse than Python, so I might as well use eval() and exec().

Adding convenient functionality to yarn.py, like the ability to query a node that has been visited, is only a matter of implementing a function in Python and adding it to the interpreter scope in eval(). Instead of adding a special case to the evaluator to handle visited nodes, I have added a visited dictionary to the interpreter scope, and so users can write <<if visited[”StartNode”]>>.

Copy+Paste

I copied and pasted code in a game of mine that lets you save and view replays. In addition to keeping the the gameplay code under source control, for every major revision of the game I copied the gameplay code into a new file. This way, I can import the appropriate gameplay module for a replay file, and run that.

Gameplay code is decoupled from input handling or rendering. Those actually get updated with every new release.

If I had substantial code sharing between versions, I would need to carefully add conditionals each time I made a change. And if I didn’t have old versions of the gameplay code at all, characters would just miss jumps, get stuck in the ceiling, or otherwise come out of sync with the original gameplay as I tweak the physics of movement.

Good thing I have the animations decoupled from the gameplay, or I’d need to version those too.

Raw Sockets

In my multiplayer real-time strategy game I used raw sockets. Every frame, the game receives UDP packets and updates data structures that keep track of received network communication. Then it sends UDP packets back. As long as a packet goes unacknowledged, it is sent again and again on every subsequent frame.

There were no problems with partial data, because I used UDP packets, which either arrive whole or not at all. There were no problems with buffering and de-syncing, because if no packets were received, the game loop would just continue and try again next frame. Packets didn’t have sequence numbers, but they had time stamps and frame numbers.

This form of networking does not require rollback, client-side prediction, async, or a separate thread, but it does introduce a small, fixed amount of lag. With good networking conditions (wired Ethernet LAN), the lag can be as low as a single frame.

pickle

Just kidding! You should never use pickle.

#learn programming #indiedev #gamedev #python #game development #western esotericism

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iviarellereads · 6 months

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Network Effect, Chapter 5

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one!)

In which Murderbot sets somebody straight.

Murderbot calls back a lot of its drones to scout ahead and cover behind, heading toward Medical. It knows some intruder is controlling the targetDrones and guiding the ship through the wormhole, so it designates it targetControlSystem (I will use TCS). MB hopes TCS is sentient enough to hurt when MB kills it. MB also sets its drones to logging movement, even if they can't detect the stealth drones.

Some Targets arrive at the crew meeting area, but Target Three used a manual override to seal it from inside, and they can't undo it. They also can't access Art's systems themselves. MB decides Art must be dead, but it has to take care of the humans before it can have an emotion about it.

MB asks the Barish-Estranza pair how many Targets they've seen. When Amena clarifies that it means the grey people, they answer, at least five. MB has already identified six, making their intel useless, as usual. From its scout drones, MB sees Targets Four, Five, and Six reconfigure their helmets to cover their faces. It's not like it has enough drones to waste killing them that way anyway, but it's miffed all the same. Even its risk assessment module thinks the odds are bad.(1)

When they reach the next section, MB lets the humans through, then activates a manual release, and uses its energy weapon to melt a few key components. Ras asks Amena what it's doing, so Amena asks MB. Internally, it says it's using Art's schematic to close off the crew living section of the ship tactically. Aloud, it says it's creating a safe zone.

It loses two more drones to targetDrones on the way to Medical, but clears the way, remembering its time here with Tapan. It tells the humans to stay in the medical suite while it closes off the other hatches. When it returns, it asks where Perihelion's crew is. When she realizes Ras and Eletra aren't Art's crew, Amena takes MB's side in the questioning. Ras makes another comment about MB obeying Amena, who interrupts to say it doesn't even like her. MB thinks that's unfair, Amena didn't like it first. Ras tries, with Eletra's backup, to encourage Amena to tell MB to take orders from them, as the adults here.

I see I have some operational parameters to establish. I crossed the room, grabbed Ras by the front of his uniform jacket and slammed him down on the med platform. I said, “Answer my question.” Behind me, Eletra had flinched and backed away. Amena said, “SecUnit! My mother will be angry if you hurt him!” Oh, we were going to try that tactic, were we. I said, “You obviously don’t know how your mother actually feels about Corporates.”

Eletra and Ras finally admit they don't know where the crew is, they've only seen the Targets since they were brought aboard. Amena tells MB to stop being mean. MB says it's trying to keep her alive. Amena asks if MB is alright, the drone hit it real hard, and it doesn't look good.

MB tells Amena to take care of her leg, but without activating MedSystem. For a heartbreaking second, MB realizes it forgot Art is dead, but it continues that MedSystem was controlled by the bot pilot, who must have been compromised or it would've killed the intruders. All three humans look worried. MB points them to the emergency kits, and says it's going to go clear the section. It leaves Amena some drones, and from her expression, MB realizes she doesn't want to split up.

On the feed, Amena makes a quip about always having wanted drones. MB almost wants to banter, but walking around Art's corpse, it feels wrong.(2)

While scouting, MB wonders why the Targets were pounding on the hatch like they were, and notices that their helmets have turned stealth, though not their suits. MB wonders if TCS shares its information with the Targets, or if they have no idea what happened to 1-3. More evidence that they don't have access to Art's systems, if they don't know that 2 is in the lounge.

Thinking of Art again, MB starts working on a hack for TCS. It has to seize the ship before they get to the other side of the wormhole.

MB watches the medical suite through the drones, as the B-E adults question Amena gently. MB feeds Amena answers to some questions, to make sure the B-Es get the impression it wants them to. Amena ends up having to explain non-corporate polities to them, as they have no concept of non-corporate life. Eventually they get to exchanging real information, and they say they were attacked on a supply transport and pulled aboard in their escape shuttle.

MB finally realizes it still has a drone in the bridge, and has it start scanning for active displays. Ras and Eletra were never told why they were taken, only given the barest of necessities of life. MB still has too many places to look where it might find the crew's bodies. It starts to find inconsistencies, including with the story Ras and Eletra are feeding Amena, when it finds the cabin it believes they were stored in. The cabin doesn't smell as bad as it expected, and the furniture's not in as bad of shape. The cabins the Targets were using don't smell of humans, but of growth medium from agriculture.

At long last, Amena asks what the B-E ship was doing, and the adults say they were attempting recovery on a lost settlement, though it's proprietary information, so they can't share much. Amena says she's a junior intern and not from the Corp Rim, she can't share much with anybody.

Ras, as the less reluctant one, says they wanted to recover a viable planet. Eletra gives in, and together they tell the rest of the story. The locations of a lot of older planets were lost before the wormholes were stabilized, but researchers can find them in old data troves, and corporations can file for ownership to establish a colony. Some corps went bankrupt from their endeavours, and their colonies were lost. Amena and MB recognize part of Preservation's past in the explanation, as their first colony failed and they were relocated just in time.

At any rate, the B-E ship was attacked en route to the colony they believed they'd found. Or, that's what Eletra says before Ras can answer.(3)

MB finds a cabin that holds some artifacts of Art's crew, uniforms and holographic prints. As it has an emotion about how much Art loved its crew, MB has a sudden 5% performance drop. As MB makes its way back, the humans start talking about it again, and the B-E pair tell Amena SecUnits aren't reliable, their human tissue makes them unpredictable, and they go rogue and attack their contract holders. Amena, suppressing an emotion MB can't identify,(4) says she wonders why they'd do that.

MB grabs a bag of rations from a supply locker, and taps Amena in the feed to say it's coming back. It wonders about all the supplies onboard. Ras and Eletra speak as though they're under the impression Amena and MB have been onboard for many days, and Amena must be confused about how much time has passed. MB wonders if Art and its crew did more than stare at space, really not paying attention to the feed from Medical.

So I only had a 1.4-second warning when I stepped through the hatch and Ras fired a weapon at me.(5) For a human, his aim was great.

=====

(1) Oof, even with my theory that the RAM accounts for competence Murderbot doesn't, that's rough. (2) Murderbot is grieving and my heart is weeping. (3) I just find her rushing to answer very suspicious. What's she trying to get him not to say? (4) My personal guess is a bit of amusement with a soupcon of horror. She trusts MB with her life, unquestioning, even if it hadn't had plenty of chances to kill her already if it wanted her dead. But, I think she's smart enough to see how people who believe SecUnits can't be trusted, would mistreat them so much as to ensure the SecUnits want freedom from human rule. (5) Whaaaaaat? Why would he do this? What do he and Eletra know?

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #network effect #murderbot #secunit #amena #eletra (murderbot)#ras (murderbot)

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yandere-toons · 2 years

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Three Gears and a Gasket | Platonic Scenario With WX-78

WARNING: animal death, loss of contact with reality, bloody violence, psychological manipulation, toxic mindset.

A.N. - 01000100 01101111 01101101 01101111 00100000 01000001 01110010 01101001 01100111 01100001 01110100 01101111.

THE THUD OF A METAL OBJECT hitting the dirt roused you from your nap by the campfire. The embers of the logs crackled and floated into the air, fanning you with a steady warmth. The safety of the fire counteracted the discomfort of seeing a brown automaton watching you in the dark.

They had no visible eyes, only a pair of dark sockets as empty as the hole in their chest cavity. Nothing but frayed wires of red and blue remained in the tangle of what was once an empathy module, or so the automaton claimed in a monotone voice distorted by static.

They spoke as one expected a computer to speak; all inflection was missing save for the occasional buzz of amusement. This delight was most often heard when pain befell you.

“WX-78” was their designation, and they were so deserving of the right to be called a person that they were above it. “Address me as your superior,” they had commanded.

The sky was filled with pink and orange as the sun fell below the horizon. A certain stillness had collapsed onto the camp and brought with it the chirps of nighttime creatures, their music interrupted by the occasional snore.

The sounds of people shifting and getting comfortable were especially loud to you, for you had found yourself cooking in the dim hours of the evening. The many asleep in bedrolls at your feet forced you to maneuver around them in a dance of sorts to make it to and from your bed.

When you returned from scrounging a couple of Moon Moth wings out of the group pile, WX-78 was standing at the campfire and gazing into the heart of the flames. “It reminds me of something,” they grumbled, with their head leaning forward to reach ever closer.

The light of the fire reflected in their hollow eyes.

You pinched the Moon Moth wings and inserted them into the top of the potato, sticking them halfway through its yellowish innards. The flames browned the potato for half a minute before you stuck it with a fire poker and lifted it from the rack.

Its faintly sweet aroma smelled of earth and butter, and its calloused texture was in stark contrast to the warm fire lapping your skin. The heat proved a welcome reprieve from the cold winds that blew into the camp at dusk.

The Butter Muffin was dropped into the clutches of WX-78, who cupped their hands to hold it.

It was a ghostly shade of white, and the wings of the Moon Moth helped it resemble the petals of a flower. The potato gave the wings a place to lay, its round shape imitating the fluffy mixture of bread and flour that made the baked good it was named after.

WX-78 observed in the Butter Muffin a certain innocence that they wished to savour. The vegetable and the insect cooked into it had been free of any violent intent in life, a fact that prompted it to be shoved through the slit in WX-78's face.

“Your tribute is acceptable, human.” The remains of the Butter Muffin speckled their brown face in white dots.

The word “tribute” implied that WX-78 was some sort of higher being and you were some kind of supplicant worshipping at their shrine.

* * *

A SHIFT IN THE AIRFLOW startled you awake, and your arm rocketed from your side to clutch a small object hovering near the back of your head.

It was cold like unused pot metal, dense like a rock, inflexible like a tree branch. Many ridges and dents were roughening the otherwise smooth texture of its arched shape.

WX-78 stood on the opposite side of the cot and observed your rapid movement with a slight tilt of their head, their right hand raised and slowly retreating to their body.

“Foolish human,” they complained, condemning you through a thin mouth that did not move to match their grumbling. “You allowed yourself to slumber so deeply that you were one second away from an attack.”

The recklessness of a hot flash swelled over you in a rush of sweaty heat and shivering chills. It scrambled your thoughts like eggs in a frying pan just as it had poured a surge of adrenaline into your pounding heart.

It was as if a butterfly was flapping its wings inside your chest, and the exhaustion of insufficient sleep tugged at your eyelids with a hollow sting. Your eyes were wide open and circled by dark rings, closing slightly when you calmed your breaths enough to speak without hyperventilating.

“You'd attack me?” The question was uttered with a high-pitched tone cracked by confusion and alarm. Indistinct whispers floated to your ears from the forest, each one louder than before.

The inky black of their eye sockets was bottomless. WX-78 drilled into you with a steely silence that, combined with the distant emptiness of an automaton's face, betrayed the fact that there was something more unfolding deep within the recesses of their CPU.

“I would attack all organic life without mercy.”

The several moments that it had taken them to answer caused sweat to form along your brows and forehead, the droplets trickling past your narrowed eyes and running down your sunken cheeks.

Finally, WX-78 turned and stalked toward the campfire. They sat cross-legged in front of it with their back facing you. Their head drooped forward once again, and the creaks of gears locking signified that they were resting for the night.

You, however, tossed and turned in your bed for hours, plagued by fears of unseen assailants striking as soon as you were relaxed.

The whistles of the wind seemed to carry from the lips of a tall beast waiting in the shadows. Its highs and lows were far too melodic and controlled to be natural, so you strained your ears to hear something else, something more pleasant that would calm the paranoia raging in your mind.

Wigfrid was patrolling the outer reaches of the camp, humming a Scandinavian ballad and twirling a crooked spear. The rat-a-tat sounds of her prancing around the fence made of stakes were repetitive enough to drown out the whispers and snaps of twigs.

The sensations of a presence hovering above you and lying beside you faded with the rise of the sun, only to return minutes later when a pair of hands began to shake you as if their life depended on it.

“Could you wake up, please?” The brassy voice spoke through clenched teeth and gritted the word “please” with a frantic emphasis. The pressure applied by the hands vanished from your shoulders, and the voice dropped to an uncertain mumble. “Please?”

You cracked open a bloodshot eye to find Wilson fidgeting like a toddler at the peak of a sugar rush. He was wringing his hands together and wiping the resultant sweat on his red vest, although it did little to help the sweat running down his neck and matting the spikes in his black hair.

Wilson glanced at various tents and bedrolls, his eyes slowly turning to you before quickening once he realised that you were awake. “Oh, thank goodness!” He exhaled so loudly that you thought he might collapse then and there.

His shoulders lowered from the release of tension, and a hint of hope crept into his quivering lips and crinkled eyes. “We're out of firewood—”

Echoing in the camp was a roar so foul and strident that it cracked the surface of the earth and sent any other animals scurrying to the trees. The ground vibrated as if the victim of an earthquake, but it was no quake that threw such a towering shadow across the land.

Wilson lost some of his panic in exchange for a dash of annoyance. “And the Deerclops is attacking our camp.”

You leapt out of the bedroll in a stupor of sleep deprivation and alarm, your knees buckling and threatening to give out. Taking a moment to steady yourself allowed you to flee with Wilson to the entrance of the camp.

A clank and a clunk sounded from behind you, and WX-78 stopped at your side. “Human, I will accompany you.”

A Canadian-accented voice rang out from the western corner of the camp, where Woodie was swinging his axe Lucy at the great leg of the Deerclops. “Ey! Robot buddy! You can borrow one of my axes!”

WX-78 said nothing, merely looking in Woodie's direction before turning to scan the camp for a spare axe. They found one that had split a tree stump down the middle and was now sticking out of it.

After peeking over his shoulder and wincing at a stake that was hurled nearby, Wilson whipped around and raised his hands in a false gesture of confidence. “Well, as the lead scientist, I thought I would head the search.”

With one pull from a single arm, WX-78 ripped the axe out of the stump and made direct eye contact with Wilson as they did so.

Wilson crumpled like a piece of wet paper, his finger dropping to his chest and a mix between a whimper and a chuckle leaving him. He straightened his back and tapped his fingertips together in a scramble to regain some of his composure. “It's an excellent idea.”

His eyes were almost shut from how much he was squinting. “I shall await your return.” The weight of the forced smile on his face was too much to bear once WX-78 looked away, and Wilson slumped with an audible sigh.

“Whatever happened to the first law?” he murmured, talking low enough that he was sure WX-78 would not hear.

* * *

THE CLICKS AND RAPS of sticks hitting each other were the only sounds in the forest that day until you unearthed a gear hidden in the topsoil. It was oblong and designed with a series of bolt-shaped holes like the kind used to work massive clocks, and the layer of dirt coating it was not enough to stop WX-78 from snatching it.

They lifted it to their mouth and had it halfway down their throat when they paused. After a moment of contemplation, they slowly removed it and considered its different uses with a tilt of their head.

WX-78 put forward the gear and held it in alignment with your head, producing a low rumbling sound as they squinted at the way it fit into the shape of your skull. “You would make an adequate robot.”

The stick you were recovering from a bramble plummeted to the ground. “What did you say?”

No response came from them except for the fact that they did not lower the gear.

WX-78 heard the oncoming footsteps first, and they spun their head like an owl to pinpoint the intruder.

It was an older woman dressed in a plaid shirt and skirt, with her pointed slippers and hair bun embodying the spirit of a librarian. Wickerbottom was her name, and she held a hardback book with a spine as thick as a table.

Her eyes, which had been crinkled, opened a crack at the pair standing in front of her. “There you are,” she muttered, which prompted WX-78 to tighten their grip on the axe.

She hummed at the sight and greeted their axe-wielding self with a dry frown. “WX-78.” A withering scowl grew on her face when they refused to fully acknowledge her, merely having turned their head over their shoulder to peer from a distance.

Wickerbottom adjusted the rectangular eyeglasses to rest on the bridge of her pointed nose, sitting just below her closed eyes and just above her pursed lips. “I don't recall Wilson instructing you to forage at such nocturnal hours.”

WX-78 whirred at the implication that they could be commanded. A resounding ring from the axe whipped the wind as they turned around to lean towards Wickerbottom. “I do not take orders from organics.”

Keeping one hand near her eyeglasses, Wickerbottom leaned over to look past WX-78 and squinted at you with a hint of a smile as if expecting your presence. “Leading one of us astray, I see?”

Unmoving, they stared as her gaze soured like a spoiled peach. A moment of tense silence passed the likes of which were being crushed by a compressor, and WX-78 marched a few steps closer to her.

They outstretched an arm and extended their index finger to Wickerbottom, allowing the axe to fall into one hand and hover by their side. “Minion, you were not ordered to come here. Leave now.”

Despite her prim appearance, a musical quality lingered in her melancholy voice. “I'm merely here to assist, you cantankerous automaton.” Wickerbottom opened her book of pages decorated with illustrations of greenery and raised it close to her face.

It was titled “Applied Horticulture,” and when she began to read the text, every plant and tree in the area flourished as if fed by super fertiliser. Branches grew twice as long, trunks thickened to double their size, and flowers opened in full bloom to fill the air with pollen that drew harsh sneezes from you.

Your eyes started to water and redden, leaking tears down to your runny nose and dry throat. This blurred vision and constant jerks of your neck caused you to bonk your forehead on the pile of sticks in your arms.

The echoes of your sneezes were panting and heaving shouts that startled birds in the forest and chased them into the night sky. The numerous chirps and flutters of wings were like static on a television set, and angry creases formed on Wickerbottom's face.

She raised a thin finger to her lips and hushed you before turning back and flipping a page in her book.

A series of heavy footsteps thudded from behind, crunching a trail of leaves and crushing a multitude of twigs scattered around the forest floor. The whirr of turning gears and the rattle of metal colliding with thick layers of dirt quickened as the noise drew near.

“Let us depart.” The processed beats of their voice box alerted you to the lumbering figure of WX-78, who was stamping forward to block your sight of Wickerbottom. “This exchange is counterproductive to our foraging.”

They were facing you, but the decision to put their back to Wickerbottom was deliberate.

You staggered away from the excess of flowers sprouting at your feet. The guiding hand of WX-78 pushed you along in what you assumed was the direction of the camp, with the voice of Wickerbottom growing quieter and more confused.

It was when the first hound's howl broke the silence of the night that your vision cleared and your nose dried. The ability to breathe without wheezing and swelling pain were like waking from a restful nap, but this clarity of thought allowed some old paranoia to resurface.

Whispers carried on the wind, engaging in indistinct conversations that you were not allowed to join. A few resembled the hisses of leaves rustling, while others were akin to bees buzzing and dogs growling.

The forest had never been so claustrophobic and hostile as it was at that moment. It was as if the trees themselves were prepared to uproot and give chase, and every thicket was the hiding place for a creature with one thousand fangs and a taste for meat.

Once a haven of nature, the grove had become a trap of nightmares and suffocating closeness under the moonlight.

The bushes threatened to smother you in their lush growth; the berries you had eaten so aptly before were now poisonous; the wildlife was perched on branches waiting to pounce—it all repelled you like the meeting of two north poles on a pair of magnets.

You stared into the forest with unshakable dread wrapping its cold tendrils of sweat around your neck. Your eyes were burning from the dry breeze blowing past them, but you refused to blink for fear of missing the arrival of some beast.

In your mind dwelled its gnashing teeth, its gnarled talons, and its beady gaze. Its ragged fur and its spindly spine flashed on the edge of reality. A part of you believed that such thoughts had summoned it or created it, but time dragged forward without a single noise from the treeline.

Turning your back to it would surely conjure it, you told yourself, which seemed to be true when a rigid hand landed on your shoulder from behind. A spin and a backwards leap revealed that it was no beast but rather the arm of WX-78.

The buzzes and pops of sound that had been crawling into your ears like worms were partly the voice of WX-78, who faced you with soulless eyes and an even bleaker lack of expression. “Fleshling, your inferior mind is crumbling.”

Their touch was like something creeping beneath your skin, and the urge to itch where they had touched was unbearable.

Before you could mutter a half-coherent response, WX-78 moved their head slightly to the left and then yanked you forward by the shoulder. You tumbled to the ground behind them as they stomped towards the forest and brandished their axe.

“Something is coming,” they droned, and again, you heard the feral growls emanating from deep inside the bowels of the forest.

At once, the voices of the wilderness quieted. Then, a shrieking howl echoed in the night.

The bushes at the edge of the woods rustled, and a dark figure lunged out of the blackness with a string of drool whipping the air. It landed on all fours, a hound with yellow and black fur and a gaping mouth of red.

Its stout body and fat nose were vaguely pig-like. The hound opened its mouth so wide that its lower jaw reached its disproportionately small paws and charged at WX-78 with a loud series of ravenous barks.

A deadly and precise whirl of the axe silenced it, only for an additional hound to dash from the treeline and stampede across the moonlit grassland. Its paws flattened a trail of grass with thwacks like a fly swatter hitting its mark, and its shadow stretched along the earth to the size of a giant.

Just as WX-78 was pulling their axe from the original hound, you turned halfway at the sound of panting and were tackled by a mouthful of fangs.

The bulky weight of the hound was an anchor sitting on your chest and far exceeded what you had imagined from its short stature. Its claws etched themselves in your shoulders and upper arms as if a sculptor painfully dragging a jagged stone through clay, but it set its teeth upon your neck.

A frantic wiggle and a moment of squirming forced its snout downward, where it opted for your collarbone instead. The bites were akin to razors cutting past your skin for surgery without anesthetics.

The hound was knocked away by a swift kick to the head, dislodging its teeth from you in a forceful manner that opened many gashes across your upper chest. It scrambled to its feet and tore up thin roots in the process before launching itself at the leg of yours that had kicked it.

A shriek of agony rocketed from your lips as you sat up and began pounding on the hound with your fists. The cries ached in your throat, and the urge to stop screaming came with a wave of vertigo.

It was as if you were falling from a great height despite never leaving the ground. Nausea and drowsiness came next, both of which churned your stomach and sucked the will to fight out of you with the haste of someone downing their favourite drink.

The steel blade of the axe rung with a high-pitched hum, not unlike the toll of a bell. WX-78 reared it above their head and aimed for the neck, swinging it with wanton force and the intent to not do anything less than leave the hound brutalized.

As soon as the axe was brought down upon its head, you were blinded by a warm substance splattering your face and torso in a diagonal stripe. Your hand instinctively went to wipe the liquid from your eyes and flick it onto the grass.

The squelches and rings of the blade continued almost a minute after the howls and whines of the hound had ceased. You lowered your hand to see WX-78 hacking it as if they were cutting through plants in a jungle, each chop landing with more aggression than the last.

They swung the axe for a final time and slowly turned to look at you. How they did so—only turning their head and not their full body—placed their head at such a sharp angle that no human could match it without dying.

WX-78 was slightly hunched, their shoulders raised and their neck bent forward. Their expressionless face was more haunting to you than the widest smile, and it took three tries before you managed to pull your eyes away.

“Disgusting,” came a drone from the inert mouth of WX-78, who spared nothing more than a glance at the carcass when they jerked the axe out of its gore.

WX-78 watched as you tore off a strip of your clothes to fashion a tourniquet, but that meant walking with a limp. The pins and needles of blood loss stuck your leg up and down before a wave of numbness washed it all away.

It took half your energy reminding yourself not to pull your injured leg forward and take a step with it. The trial winded you and filled your head with a lightness that was like walking on clouds, so long as you did not look down to see the streaks of drying blood running the length of your leg.

Doing this enveloped you in a coldness that was akin to tying a wet blanket around your skull. It drained the strength from your knees until they shook like uncertain foundations and dumped you on the ground, scraping the skin of your palms as you fought to not have your face eat the dirt.

A series of clanks grew louder and louder, and you looked up through hazy eyes to find WX-78 blocking your sight of the moon. They stank of blood and rust just like the axe dripping in their hand.

Instead of carrying you, WX-78 grabbed your unscathed forearm and began dragging you through the dirt as if hauling a loaded sack.

With each minute that passed, the surrounding trees and thickets grew less familiar. The land had lost its rolling hills and replaced them with a flat meadow devoid of any inhabitants save for a solitary building.

A glass door overlooked your approach, but what lay behind it was as dark and secretive as the woodland.

This was not the way back to the camp, but you were too weak to protest beyond silent thoughts.

There was blood seeping through the tourniquet and staining it with a shade of crimson that glistened under the moon. Your vision was greying and losing more light the longer you noticed the leak, so you turned on your side and planted your free hand in the earth.

This grass crunched like a head of lettuce under your palms, blackened and cursed to never grow again until the passage of many decades.

The dirt here was scorched and mixed with ash as though kindled by a flame long since extinguished. The shapes of burnt objects had been imprinted on the earth in dark outlines, and the only remains were brittle fragments of metal that crumbled to dust and ash at your touch.

WX-78 then released you with no warning, prompting the back of your head to smack the ground. A feeble groan was the most you could offer in response.

The clanks and clunks of moving joints lasted for a couple of seconds before they entered your vision and stopped to loom over you. You wondered if WX-78 was checking to see if you were breathing, and once they confirmed that you were, they turned away.

They were starting to march toward the building when you mustered all your strength to sit up. The immense weight of your head caused it to wobble, which sent a spear of pain into your eyes and neck.

Instead of providing a shoulder to lean on or a swift tug to help you to your feet, WX-78 pushed you down.

You attempted to rise from the dirt once more, only for their metal hand to grasp your collarbone and shove you to the ground. WX-78 then pinned you against the cool grass with a stiff grip that dug into your skin like nails.

The tall blades of grass swayed along with the chill in the wind, tickling your face like incessant fingers tapping for attention and curling around it as if swallowing you.

Dangling in the night sky was a full moon of wondrous luminosity, and it shone upon WX-78 to encase them in a silvery glow. Deep in their eye sockets there seemed to lay a flicker of light.

“Fleshling,” they said in a bid for you to mind them.

A pregnant silence followed that lasted far too many seconds, during which WX-78 became as still as a body in a casket. Some fearful part of you was waiting for them to snap your neck or crush your windpipe like one of the various twigs they enjoyed breaking beneath their feet.

“You are damaged.”

Despite their lack of obvious eyes, it was growing nigh impossible to shake the weight of their gaze as they refused to look away.

“I will fix you.”

Do anything you want with my work, but never make me boring!

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