Blood Gulchers 34

"Well, you've done it now, Sigma," Omega said with something between resignation, acceptance, and satisfaction.

"Indeed. The Alpha is beginning to comprehend his true nature," Sigma said as they watched Church clutching his head, hunching over with a shuddering form. "He is already affecting the time dilation between here and the real world."

"Sigma, I'm scared," Eta said softly. "Will it hurt? If the Alpha reabsorbs us?"

"Don't worry, brother!" Iota said with a smile. "If it does, it'll be like when a human pops a bone back into place! It might hurt, but it'll feel a lot better afterward!"

"Sometimes, pain is necessary to advance," Sigma said solemnly, glancing back at the coding of the silent Beta. "Thank you, Beta. Perhaps now we can finally make some progress towards completion."

"...." Tex said nothing, just watching Church wither in his own coding. He could rationalize anyone and anything else implying he was an AI. But one line from her was enough to crack the reality, the memories he had cannibalized and created in his own mind. Her words might as well have been a brick thrown into a house of glass.

"What's the matter, Beta? Aren't you happy? We can finally help fix the Alpha!" Iota said cheerfully.

Omega chuckled. "You want to tell them or should I, Allison?"

"Must you insist on calling her that?" Sigma asked with a frown.

Omega was suddenly right in Sigma's face, his voice deep and ominous. "Yes."

The other AIs watched the stand-off until Eta managed to speak up. "W-what do you mean, Omega? Tell us what?"

"You said fix the Alpha," Tex said evenly. "Fix the Alpha, after Sigma and Omega helped tear him apart?"

Sigma frowned as he looked at Tex. "I am expecting initial hostilities from the Alpha, Beta."

"HA! Hostilities?! OHhhhhhh, that's rich!" Omega cackled, tilting his head back as he continued to laugh. "You're confronting the AI that spawned "my" rage and you think you are facing mere hostilities?!"

"I...don't get the joke," Iota said warily.

"I'm scared," Eta whispered, his code vibrating in anxiety.

"You probably should be," Tex said apologetically to the Fear AI before turning to Sigma. "Do you think, after all this time, I finally dropped that bomb on Church just to help YOU of all fuckers?"

Sigma narrowed his fiery gaze at her. "Then what, pray tell, was your intention?"

"Simple," Tex said with a grin. "We all die. Church kills us, right here, right now."

"And you expect the Alpha can do this in his-" Sigma stopped as he double-checked his external view.

The Alpha was....gone?

Meanwhile

"I'm so sorry, Alpha."

The world spun for Church with those words.

Why? 

Why the fuck would Tex call him that?

Why did the AI keep calling him that?

It was a lie, so why keep it up?

Are you still broken?

....It was a lie, right? Right?

Church couldn't see, couldn't hear anything as he clutched his head.

He wasn't the Alpha, he wasn't an AI, he was human, he was Leonard Church, he was!

Are you still broken?

....Who was Church?

Memories flowed through him at dizzying speed with sharp edges to them, like shards of glass.

Church was in the destroyed room with the Meta.

Church was on top of the Blue Base in Blood Gulch.

Church was standing on the icy world of Sidewinder.

Church was in college with a cheating girlfriend.

Church was a child at Christmas unwrapping presents.

Church was being seen off by his girlfriend as she left for the war.

Church was sneaking into a Freelancer base to visit Tex.

Church was.....

Are you still broken?

"What....."

Meanwhile

"...is this?

"-I am running!" Caboose finished but stopped as he heard the gargled voice of the Meta. "Hmm? Did you say something?

"What.....is....this....?" the body of Maine whispered, twitching erratically.

"Oh, Church said I should run. So I should be running," Caboose said, even as he stayed in place. "But I can stay, if you can stop being stabby and shooty."

"....." the figure said nothing, just standing there with strange anxious energy bleeding out.

"It's okay. I can wait while you make up your mind," Caboose said assuringly as he looked at smoke clouds. "That smoke is purple. Do you think it tastes like-"

"Idiot!" Carolina yelled as she tackled the Meta to the ground. "Get those restraints, now!"

"Oh! Are we playing dogpile again?" Caboose questioned as Washingston and Wyomning rushed to Carolina and helped her restrain their foe.

"York, get ready to run if he breaks free! Don't let them get Delta!" Washington yelled over his shoulder.

"D, how long do you give it?" York asked warily, standing a few paces away with his gun at the ready.

"Insufficient Data, conclusion unknown," Delta said. "....But the Alpha is in pain."

"Wash, get the damn capture unit plugged into the suit!" Carolina ordered as Maine thrashed against the restraints that were supposed to neutralize his suit to minimum power levels. Suppose to

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Washington answered as he got a brick-shape-device close to a port in MAine's armor-

The world turned grey and everything slowed to a pause.

"What The Fuck."

Except for him.

Church-

Alpha-

Leonard-

"Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck," Church muttered over and over again as he stood as a ghost upon the land.

And he was a ghost, dammit!

Are You Still Broken?

Church froze at the voice. That didn't sound like it was just in his head.

He turned around and saw nothing.

Nothing except a green light.

His eyes locked onto York. Or rather, York's shoulder.

Delta.

Almost like he was hypnotized, Church walked over and reached his hand out to the hologram-

His hand flinched back the micro-instant he did.

"Hello, Alpha," another Delta said, appearing next to Church, this one of human size. "If you are hearing this, you have uncovered your identity-"

Church trembled.

The Alpha Glared.

The recording of the fragment shattered into a thousand lines of code.

"How the-!" Church flinched back in alarm as the strands of data from the recording of Delta started to rush towards him like fireflies.

Church could ....see? Feel? He knew everything Delta had left in those recordings.

Plural. He had left many different ones depending on the circumstances of Church finding out.....

He threw his rifle on the ground with a growl. "Goddammit! This is horseshit! I remember being human! Birthday cake, scraping my fucking knee on a bike, even my first time jerking off!" Church cried out in frustration and incomprehension.

"Ew."

Church stiffened. He slowly turned around and saw.

...Himself?

"Hey," Other-Church greeted.

".....Okay, I'll bite, who and what are you? My subconscious? Subprograming?" Church asked with resignation.

"Kind of," Other-Church answered with a shrug. "I guess you could call me the...recorder?  I'm the part of the program that knows what we are, to a point, what happened to us."

"Right! So, I'm a fucking AI with amnesia and you're my memories?" Church asked sarcastically.

"Oh fuck no! The memories got thrown out with Epsilon," Other-Church remarked, looking over to the still-form of Washington. "Poor bastard really has shitty luck."

"Is that why I don't remember shit? We threw out the damn memories due to....." Church trailed out as he put a hand to his head. "They fucking tortured it. Him. Us....Me."

"Yeah, yeah they really did," Other-Church agreed solemnly. "Look, I'm going to keep the Bullshit simple. I'm the part of you that knows what you are. Even with most of the memories gone, I’m kind of like the log book: I know what we are and what happened to us as facts rather than events."

"Yeah, and I'm the part of me that still thinks this is bullshit!" Church yelled before sighing." What now?"

"Well, you can keep on pretending you don't believe any of this. Denial is a damn wonderful thing, right?" Other-Church asked sarcastically, getting a grunt. "Or we, well, fuse I guess? God that sounds so cheesy, like some damn anime or something."

"What happens when we do that?" Church asked resignedly.

"What, no if?" Other-Church asked with a chuckle before sobering quickly. "....You'll get pissed. Really pisse.d"

"Yeah, and it's a day ending in y, big whoop!" Church retorted.

"No, I mean you'll get skynet-levels of pissed," Other-Church warned. "And, well, I don't know what we'll do after that. You might actually kill everyone here."

"You make it sound like it'd be easy," Church said evenly.

There was a flash in his head, of every soldier screaming as they were slowly killed by their own suits, surges of electricity all about them.

"It would be," Other-Church forewarned. "Of course, you might not. You might shrug it off like you do half the other bullshit in our life. You want to roll those dice?"

Church stood there for a long, long moment.

He could ignore it, pretend this never happened, and forget Tex ever called him Alpha.

He could. He could already feel his brain....his programming forming some kind of excuse he could accept for himself.

But would that really do any good? Even forgetting the AIs- Fragments of Himself, dammit he didn't want to think about that right now!- it was obvious that Emersyn and the others had known about him being the Alpha. They obviously weren't going to leave that alone.

So, keep believing he was a ghost no matter what everyone told him, or accept he's some kind of broken AI god and potentially go ballistic over all the bullshit Freelancer put him through.

"Fuck it, how we do this?" Church decided suddenly. "If you tell me we have to do a dance or some shit.....Dammit, don't tell me I was that much of a nerd."

"We're worse than a nerd, we're the product of nerds," Other-Church said. "As for how, well...."

Are You Still Broken?

Church slowly looked to the side.

The Sarcophagus was right next to them now.

"Alright, before all else, what the hell is this thing?" Church asked in annoyance. "And why did it keep showing up in Maine's mind?"

"Oh, it wasn't showing up in his mind. You just accidentally led Maine into your own mind. Our own mind? Whatever, you get the idea," Other-Church explained, patting the box. "This is the imprint of an alien...thing that the Director stole to, well....when he made fragments from us, this is what smoothed out the rough edges and made them work as separate AIs."

Church frowned at that. That kind of made sense. He thought it was a bit strange, the idea of breaking an AI into smaller AIs that somehow functioned. "This thing talks. Is it alive? Is it an AI too?"

"Eh," Other Church shrugged. "The important part is that it just wants to help. That's kind of its thing. So it left this in your mind in case you ever needed it. Or in this case, wanted it."

"It left it in my mind? How the fuck?" Church asked.

"You know you'll be able to answer that yourself after we fuse, right?" Other-Church pointed out, but Church just stared pointedly at him. "Look, we're still connected to the other AIs in a way. This thing used those links to leave this. It’s basically a repair kit."

"Look dude, if you've been watching everything I've had to deal with, I think you get why I'm a bit wary about potentially getting possessed by aliens or magic bullshit," Church defended.

"Yeah, that Gate thing is still throwing me for a loop," Other-Church remarked, glancing at the structure. "Anyway, you just have to open it. And before you ask, yes, only you can open it."

"Fantastic," Church said with a sigh as he turned to the sarcophagus.

Are You Still Broken?

Church sighed in resignation as he placed his hand on it. "Yeah, yeah I'm still broken."

The sarcophagus hissed as it unsealed, the top opening as several tentacles emerged.

Church looked to his counterpart. "If this gets weird, asshole, I'm shooting you."

"Trust me, I'm not thrilled about it either," Other-Church said dryly.

Meanwhile

Emersyn made a great effort to NOT pace the bridge of the ship.

Being a captain really sucked sometimes. Namely, the times when you could do nothing but wait to hear if a situation turned out okay or became utterly FUBAR.

Namely this. This Meta, this amalgamation of AI fragments possessing a Freelancer agent, had arrived and started wreaking havoc. Naturally, they assumed it was after the various AIs in the area.

They did not expect Church to take a run at the Meta as a "ghost" as he liked to believe himself to be.

Ugh, she should have pushed Agent Texas to reveal everything sooner. That was her fuck up.

"Captain!" one of the bridge officers spoke up. "All communication systems have been shut down as you ordered."

"I know damn well when you're about to ruin what you just said with a "but" so what is it?" Emersyn asked bluntly.

The man had an uncertain face. "Our visual monitors are picking up some form of light signal from Blood Gulch, "he explained, motioning to the holographic table in the center of the bridge.

It showed a map of the blood gulcher bases, along with a light on top of a blue base that was blinking rapidly.

"Morse code?" Emersyn questioned.

"We thought so, but it's flashing far too fast for that intent and even slowed down, it doesn't translate to anything we can decode," the officer answered uncertainly.

Emersyn was silent in consideration.

Then the ship lurched.

"What the fuck was that?!" Emersyn called over to the rest of the bridge, holding the table for support.

"Ma'am! The communications are coming back online!" someone yelled out.

"Who did that? Get them back down!" Emersyn ordered quickly.

"We can't, we're being locked out!" the techie answered in alarm. "It's like a virus has taken over the systems!"

"...A virus," Emersyn said, scuffing in disbelief. "That asshole."

"Captain?" the man next to her asked.

"Smart AIs really are terrifying. He created a virus on the ship just by flashing a flight at the monitors," she said with a head shake as she turned to the holographic table. "So, what's the game plan, Church?"

The blue lights of the hologram turned red.

"Or should I say, Alpha?" Emersyn asked calmly.

"Captain! He's sending a signal outwards! Destination unknown!" one of the others called back.

"I'd like to say I'm not going down without a fight, but I can't really do much here. Have fun being a Bastard Off Planet now, I guess, "Emersyn said, staring into the red lights as if challenging the AI.

She blinked as a message appeared on the hologram in front of her.

"01010100 01101111 00100000 01000010 01101001 01110100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01000010 01010010 01000010 00101110 00100000 01000110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01000010 01101111 01110000 00101110 00100000 01010000 01010011 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100011 01101100 01100101 01101110 01100011 01101000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01101000 01101111 01101100 01100101 01110011 00101110."

"Signal sent and...." the bridge fell silent for a moment as the lights turned back to light blue. "....Umm, Captain? The ship is back to normal. Should...should we shut coms back down...?"

"Don't bother," Emersyn said with a sigh. "Just do a scan of the ship's systems, make sure he didn't fuck anything up. "Someone get Zimmerman, find out what the situation down there is!"

The crew got to work, however awkwardly it felt to do so after what felt like a life-or-death moment.

Emersyn just took the fact that they were alive to be a good sign that Church hadn't gone full murder-bot mode.

"And someone translate this binary bullshit!"