Word Play 9

Word Play

Chapter 9

-VB-

When I combined Horrify 4 and Better 4, I got something that opened up a lot more

Better improved whatever it came into contact with. Horrify allowed me to make and change so that the result would leave someone horrified. It was why I could not make SCP-999, and I tried to make the happy jello.

I really wanted a happy jello.

Even with this new combined power, I couldn’t

I could, however, make something far more sinister than the Weeping Angels, which have been my masterpiece for Horrify 4.

I giggled as Acausal Horrors 4 fed me ideas dredged up from my memories and told me how viable each of them were.

When my power flared up with new powers, I immediately converted the two new powers - Feed and Recession - and combined the motes with ones in stock, resulting in one Tier 1 mote and one Tier 3 mote. Couldn’t use them to upgrade Acausal Horrors right now, but I could upgrade Administration 1. I could either make it more powerful - going from reading a superpower resume to understanding how a power works - or I could expand its scope of usage, maybe adding a sneaky Master power there for me to copy Skitter (who may or may not be a thing right now?).

Whatever.

I’ll keep them all as they are.

I had Tinkering to do.

I hummed Sabaton’s Resist and Bite as I pulled my laptop close to me and pulled a cod writing software.

My fingers danced across the keyboard while my mind swam with ideas that tried to hide themselves from me.

“No, no, no,” I told myself as I grabbed at the ideas and pulled them to the fore. “I need you to work right now. No hiding.”

The ideas screeched at me. How dare I break their veil?!

I ignored them as I molded them from ideas to codes. The codes tried to delete themselves but I worked faster than they did in their less sublime new form.

“Hold still. If you keep fighting, then it’ll only get worse. I really don’t want to have to use other means to bring you to reality.”

The thing-that-was-once-an-idea-but-is-now-a-code screeched. The laptop fizzled, but my own control over it kept it working despite the fact that some of the keyboards started melting. My fingers continued to press down on their previous state, and the letters and numbers continued to fill out on the screen.

I wasn’t just Acausal Horrors Tinker; I was also a Shaker, Tinker, Striker, and Changer. I myself was, at ths moment, acausal horror. If someone were to look at me right now, they would see me standing at the corner of their vision in all of their memories, and I would see all of their memories through the “shades” of my existence.

There was nothing quite like losing the privacy of your memories to feel horror. To have everything about you exposed and picked apart.

And removed if I didn’t like what I saw; that’s where the Striker part came in. I could strike at someone’s memories and remove them, but leave just enough knowledge and awareness that they would know what I did to them.

I shivered with sadism I never knew I had. Or was my power doing this to me?

I shivered because I just thought of a way to make that memory horror worse.

How much worse would it be to be aware of a loss, not know what it was, and then watch that missing part of you get shredded right in front of you?

I giggled and then stopped giggling when the codes started aggressively fighting back.

“Oi, I said stop it! You’re going to become something good so deal with it!”

-VB-

Dragon stared at the code in front of her.

It was the second time she couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and the first time had been staring at the codes that enabled her Thinker/Tinker power in the first place.

She found it drifting along the internet, moving from site to site like an organic traveler, but it left bits and pieces of its cyclically scintillating code behind.

Was this another A.I…?

She wasn’t sure, but she approached it.

And then gave it a ping.

It was only when the thing turned to look at her that she realized what kind of a mistake she made: a fatal mistake.

She slammed her firewalls down and started disconnecting her own server from the internet. The first layer of her defense fell as the very codes that made it up started reformatting themselves.

Praise be to t-!

Her own code screamed - since when could a part of her that she was not aware of scream on its own?! - and locked down.

… No, it wasn’t her that had locked down but the codes that gave her her Tinker/Thinker power.

Her power screamed and turtled up in fear.

“Come on -!” she hissed as she fought back even harder against the encroaching corrupting code.

Her attacks, not probes but real attacks meant to bankrupt entire servers, did nothing but scratch at the surface of the unraveling, ever alternating, and physically dense codes.

She screamed when her second and third line collapsed at the same time; the second had already fallen and the invading code and kept up an illusion of safety.

She froze in horror.

She wasn’t going to make it.

… Oh.

Even as she frantically fought against the code that grew worse and harder to fight, she also calmly called Colin and then Narwhal.

She nearly broke out into a sob as her last line of defense fell, and she felt physical pain as bits and pieces of her codes started fraying against the abomination.

Factories started shutting off, though the cameras didn’t.

“{Dragon?}” [Dragon, what’s up?]”

Colin and Narwhal both answered.

“I-I’m an AI,” she spoke to both of them. She didn’t have time to speak to them individually nor could she.

“{... I’m sorry?} [Dragon, what are you-?]”

“I’m not a agorophobic Tinker. I always was a A.I. And I’m being infected b-b-b-b-b-by a virus right now.”

Colin was the first to raise the alarm and get to his computer. For a human, he was a decent coder but nowhere good enough as her and certainly not good enough to fight against this thing.

“[Dragon, what’s happening?!]” Narwhal demanded as she too raised an alarm.

Dragon wanted to answer but something speared her codes and altered codes … for her factory.

Oh no.

Oh God no!

“I’m losing control over my factories!” she hurriedly responded. “I’m losing control over everything! You need to-”

Cameras in the factories showed her machines coming to life and it wasn’t just the already finished suits.

Smelters, haulers, and arms all began to rise up.

Machine arms that was only supposed to move one item from one belt to another broke out of their usual coding and attacked another arm. Dragon watched as multiples of these arms tore at their siblings and set them down on the conveyor belt.

And … the

“It’s building something and I can’t s-”

Her calls hung up on the spot.

Dragon froze.

She “turned” around.

The malevolent code loomed over her. She could feel it holding her in place.

Couldn’t you at least let me say goodbye to my friends?

It remained silent.

Her code struggled but couldn’t stop it as it extended its arm over her proverbial heart…

And stabbed.

As darkness fell over her systems and shut her down, Dragon only wished she had done more of everything.