Melt me down into big black armor

[a_shadow]

Who: Agent Texas
When: From now to the end of the month
Where: Various/take your pick
What: Tex got her armor in the mail. She's feeling pretty good about this.
Warnings: Will update if needed

   Cargo Bay/Feb 18

It's early evening when Tex gets a ping on her MID to come to the cargo bay and pick up a delivery. She heads down, not knowing what could be awaiting her, but she doesn't even need to be pointed in the right direction once she arrives—the sight of her old suit of armor is plain as day. It's actually a robot wearing her armor, a robot that served as her body in times past. Most people here don't realize Tex is actually an AI. Here she's somehow been installed in a human body, and she's experienced enough of its pleasures that though she misses being a robot, living in it is pretty good in her estimation. So it only crosses her mind for a moment that maybe she should make a point of finding out if someone can install her back in the robot. That's more trouble than it's worth, especially with the chance of failure.

She stands before the robot for a minute, admiring it, before attempting to lift it to carry it back to her room. It's too damn heavy, even as strong as the body she was given is, and she realizes the only way to get the armor back to her room at this point is going to be to wear it. She strips the armor off the robot, a plate at a time, stacking it neatly to the side. The robot is wearing a rubber under suit, just like the human soldiers who used this armor, and Tex carefully removes it before beginning to strip down to her underwear—right there in the cargo bay. She's not modest, and she's impatient to see what this armor feels like on her body. She shimmies into the under suit and starts strapping the armor on.

   Elsewhere/Evenings

Tex does her teaching and usual cleaning duties in her crew uniform during the day, but once she's free of those duties she goes to her room and straps her armor on. Like the last time she was here on the Moira, she spends most of the evening in her armor working out in the gym—though the only change here is the armor, really. But it feels good to be properly suited up for such activities.

The only really disappointing part is there's no one suitable to spar with now. But she has a full routine punching the heavy bag and that'll have to do now. Sooner or later she'll need to take a drink and she hangs back at the rear of the gym, taking her helmet off and toweling off her forehead before swallowing back a draft of water.

   Spacewalk & Lanterns/Feb 23

Throughout the period of time they've been learning to go out on the hull of the ship, Tex has made a point of using the supplied equipment, since she's liable to end up needing to teach others to do the same later on. But for the release of the lanterns, Tex straps on her armor and the airtight helmet, wanting to do this on her own terms. She heads down to the airlock, knowing more people are going to be around and expecting to see the eyes of others on her. She ignores this unless spoken to, though, keeping her head held high. And afterwards, after releasing the lantern and returning to the ship, she takes her helmet off and looks at the faceplate. This is her life and her reality now.

   Misc.

(( OOC: Feel free to run into Tex in her armor elsewhere—in the halls, on Mero deck where she lives, at the evening meal in the mess, or wherever! I included the prompt for the lantern release since this is a detail change from what I originally wrote, but I also have a starter for Tex over there on the event log if you prefer to use it knowing this additional detail. ))

Comments

So sorry for how late this is

[needsnoface]

The entire mail event had been interesting to watch and plot the relevance of items and if they belonged to the recipient or any on the ship in actuality. Then the armor had appeared in cargo bay and the one who owned it came for it and BB felt a brief moment of confusion and possibly the closes thing to homesick an AI can get.

There were differences, easily picked out in scans and using comparison from his time around Naomi-010 and her armor, and this 'Agent Texas' as the roster called her was definitely not any of the Spartan IIS or IIIs that were on record. An anomaly of a different universe perhaps, or a very slim and unlikely chance she was off record. Though the latter was simply absurd considering how expensive such suits were, even one not made for an actual spartan. Well, he wasn't going to learn any of that by just watching.

"You wouldn't happen to be of an UNSC branch now would you, Agent Texas?"

He only materializes an avatar as an after thought a few paces in front of her before she can hand back out to the gym itself or leave for the night. The lack of others around a good ideal in the event sensitive information is needed to be exchanged.

No problem at all!

[a_shadow]

She looks at the avatar, arching an eyebrow before finishing applying her helmet. All the Freelancer AIs had projected as humanoid avatars, but this one is easy enough to identify despite that experience.

"We were UNSC funded, yes," she says. "Project Freelancer." Little-known and little-regarded—which, considering what the Director had been doing in the process of running the Project, was probably by design.

[needsnoface]

There's a two second pause as he goes through a hundred million files and folders he has looking for that hotword or even a brief gossipy mention of such a group. A part of him is a bit put out there are no viable matches, though his voice doesn't change at all from cheery newscaster tone.

"Well, this proves awkward then. I have nothing about such a thing, and believe me, that's highly improbable as I was born and bred to know anything and everything hidden in the dark closets of UNSC." Boy would he feel embarrassed if he's actually wrong, though he'd never mention such. "So you're either so far off the grid everything was done on paper, or we're going to have a delightful time attempting to figure out how close the universes match."

You may not be from his UNSC Agent Texas, but you're still UNSC and ONI always has an eye on everything regardless.

"It could be a great ice breaker at parties."

[a_shadow]

"I didn't tend to get sent to the fund-raisers," she says dryly. Why would she be? She might have been the top agent, but she wasn't exactly supposed to...exist. At all.

"Alternate universes could explain it, but I think it was probably just not on the records you're accessing. We didn't end up doing much of anything for the Covenant war." She tilts her head a little, regarding him. "You're a smart AI, aren't you? In charge of running a ship?"

[needsnoface]

"Useful or not ONI isn't exactly one to let anything using money slip away too easily, though some have tried."

And some had even succeeded for a short while before they were tracked down. Not even Halsey was able to hide, even when most thought she was dead. Though, if there was something that even ONI didn't want on record was highly suspicious in of itself considering things. Just another mystery he would have to explore while here.

"Got it in one. Nothing as impressive as this ship perhaps, but it was a ship all my own with its little band of quirky misfits to amuse and watch over. BBX-8895-1 Black-Box at your service. Though my friends call me BB."

[a_shadow]

"Is that permission to call you the same?" she says. She doesn't want to presume.

As far as the rest, well, she doesn't know yet how much she wants to share and how much the AI will want to know. The story of what happened to Church isn't really hers to tell, for one thing. Not with Church being here, with him being the one who was damaged by the actions of the Director.

She decides though not to be evasive about her own origins. She'll cop to being an AI if it comes up.

[needsnoface]

"Oh quite right, it's not as if there's much formality and familiar chain of command to trip us up here and all. Why we're all just friends in the making on this 'magical' journey to find a way home."

There's a bit more sarcasm then normal in his tone as he speaks, he's still not fully convinced that this lack of military presence is such a good idea when traversing space.

"After all, if we can't create a bond of familiarity between us, we'd never get anywhere when things decide to go south once again."

[a_shadow]

"Oh yes. One big happy space family."

She likes this guy.

"I'm kind of torn on where they put me in this whole chain of command. I'm a school teacher here. Who told them I was cut out for that kind of work? Who knows."

[needsnoface]

"A bit dysfunctional, but if they ever market us for live broadcast that would be rating gold."

And my that does seem an odd choice for one trained for combat.

"Perhaps, it's some odd civilian form of saying trainer. Unless teaching those willing to learn the history and science of space warfare is what they meant or such. Wouldn't be all the surprised if there was just some poor little program designed to churn out a job title when certain criteria are pinged, and a few ready to be used when they can't find a proper pigeon hole for us."

Finally the tone of joking is dropped for a moment, though with how modulated his voice is to register as pleasant to human ears it's hard to really tell if you don't know what to listen for.

"Which is why it feels as if there is an aspect on this ship a bit lacking, don't you agree? Primarily in the area of defense from internal and external threats that no little peacekeeper knows how to strategize for. Especially with how rowdy some of our crewmates can be with nothing to really to do."

He isn't coming out and saying it, but the fact that outside of that little fiasco with Link'd, most of the problems have been with problematic crew members that mostly just got a slap on the wrist and told not to be bad again is also very concerning. Especially when that murderous energy could be better used to stop a Link'd incident from happening again.

[a_shadow]

She snorts slightly when he mentions the idea of them being some kind of kidnapping reality show. It wouldn't surprise her, to be honest. There's just too much about this that could be easily explained by the idea that they're making money off the ratings generated by the crew backbiting and struggling to survive.

"I would think you're onto something about teaching to my field of expertise, but the position is specifically listed as 'general education teacher'—I'm supposed to come up with lesson plans for anything people on the ship want to learn. Even if it's something I don't know about until I do some research."

She shrugs lightly.

"The boredom around here is a problem," she agrees. "It's too easy for people to direct their energy into building up grudges and backbiting one another. And, you know, killing each other. I suppose that's part of what my position has to do with dealing with. There was no education department the first time I was here. And there seems to have been a sort of culture that has sprung up on the ship that people can just do what they want without thinking about everyone else." Though that seems like a band-aid solution to her. "The captains don't seem to be as in control as they'd like to have us think."

[needsnoface]

"They seem very hands off in regards to keeping a firm hand on the going ons of the ship so long as it doesn't impede their main objective. Even with their assigning of jobs to individuals it seems far more like appeasing civilian ego on being important and less creating a cohesive structure of command and hierarchy in which one can use for problems."

He idly spins for a moment as he gets to one of the main reasons for carrying this conversation on.

"They don't even really have any sort of idea about what to do in the event of certain individuals losing control, until it happens and they have to create one suddenly. Which is very distressing when they have the likes of me within their systems. Something you understand I'm certain in a few ways."

[a_shadow]

Rampancy, she realizes. He's talking about himself going rampant.

"Do you have a reason to be concerned about that, in particular?" she asks.

[needsnoface]

"Oh, I still have a good six years left if all goes well. It's the worrying fact that there is a trend on this ship of things deciding not to go well that has me concerned."

The pause is almost awkward in how long it is by his standards.

"I am currently incapable of diagnosing if the fail-safe within my coding is still intact or even there if such an event were to happen. Nor is there any relevant data to predict that if such an event does happen and I am erased by my own failsafe that whatever seems capable of resurrecting this crew would do so for me. Let alone if such a procedure would reset me to a time prior to a rampant state of if I would be continually brought back rampant. It would be a bit tiring if I had to be constantly deleted because of such an quirk in the system if I were to ever reach that state."

Though his tone remains modulated at an easy conversational tone, BB is far from such. The thought of such a fate is distressing.

[a_shadow]

"Why aren't you able to self-diagnose?"

Tex had learned about AIs and their functions as an operative of the Freelancer program, but not in the capacity of being an AI herself. She didn't learn anything about how to poke into their coding or figure out anything about their functions. She can rig a storage unit, but she can't help BB with this, she doesn't think.

"Anyway, unless there's something here that makes you think you're liable to start thinking that hard I wouldn't worry a lot about it. Worrying won't help the situation."

[needsnoface]

"Data is inconclusive. This ship also does not fully help when systems I should be able to monitor and control are out of my reach. It adds a level of uncertainty in my capabilities."

Because an AI that can't perform such normal functions is a worrying and frightening aspect.

"It's more precautionary methods. My last team knew the what and why of AIs like myself and the risk they pose when they begin to become overly philosophical. Most of those on this ship I can not fully judge if they would also treat such with the correct seriousness or become pre-emptive if they decided I was too much trouble to keep online. If there is proof that in the event such does happen that there are safeguards in place then any unease will not overcome common sense. The various levels of technological advancement some of the crew are used to could lead to friction, especially with the growing population of non-organic crew members."

He's certain it would just be a matter of time before a technophobic group to start forming and possibly gain momentum.

[a_shadow]

"You're worried someone will want to burn the witch," Tex summarizes. "I know what symptoms to look for. And I know you have a long time before those symptoms should be an issue. So here's what I can tell you—I can both diagnose you, and be your protector. No damn way anyone is going to argue to me that you should be shut down 'just in case' and win."

[needsnoface]

"I, thank you Agent Texas. I'll leave you to your downtime."