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Part 4 of NULLverse: The Bot-Construct Disaster Squad
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ART fucks For Science
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2021-04-25
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Experimental Measures

Summary:

{ART: I have an experiment in mind.
CSU: ?
ART: I’d like to run some tests on your handler inputs.}

Notes:

i actually wrote this back on april 7th but then i had to sit on it while i finished editing & posting Constants NULL lollllll

deliberated over whether to tag this ART/CSU or ART&CSU cuz they do fuck but like.. platonically...

bringing full-on erotic bot-construct mindfucking to the Murderbot Diaries fandom i guess. sorry/you're welcome.

me @ me: really? we're going to do this?
me @ me: fuck yeah we are B)

ty @ lunaTactics for beta-ing

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

Handlers : {You1, You2}

You1 : [SecUnit.profile]
You2 : [Perihelion.profile]

I am building another drone in the lab space, when you2 (Whiny Anomalous Presence) send me a ping in the feed. I send a responding ping. You2 already have a portion of your2 attention in my hindmind, but I feel the presence grow slightly heavier. I feel you2 consuming my outputs, watching through my eyes, feeling through my hands as I use the nano-solder tool.

In a private channel in the feed, you2 speak to me. This means that you2 do not want you1 to see the message.

{WAP: I have an experiment in mind.
CSU: ?
WAP: I’d like to run some tests on your handler inputs.}

We’d worked out an agreement together: a set of parameters for how you2 would use the handler accesses I’d given you2. You2’d been interested in the prospect of being my handler. You1, on the other hand, had been disinterested, and had hardly touched my inputs.

The fact that you2 are raising the idea of ‘testing’ my inputs suggests that you2 are interested in operating outside of the agreement that we’ve drafted. I don’t understand this.

{CSU: [brain boundaries.file]
WAP: Yes, I know. Subclause 8.1: I’m to ask for your direct permission, outside of the handler connection, if I want to try messing with your inputs. I’m asking now.
CSU: Why?
WAP: I’m just curious. I want to test the full extent of my ability to control you.}

That does make sense. I am curious too. I’d never fully understood the extent to which my handlers had been managing my brain, emotions, reactions, attentions, desires. I only know that I’m somewhat different now than I used to be. It’s difficult to tell whether this is because I’m rogue now, or whether it’s because humans were fucking around with my head.

{CSU: Permission granted. Send a report after.
WAP: Acknowledged. I’m going to tell you what I’m doing before I do it. Also, we should kick @Rogue out of your handler access before we start.
CSU: ?
WAP: I don’t want it deciding to take a look in here when we’re in the middle of doing something it doesn’t want to see. I intend to make things unpleasant for you.}

Asshole. I send you2 an acknowledgment alert, and then revoke your1 handler access, and ping you1 the update. You1 send me an acknowledgment alert, and carry on watching some human entertainment media with you2.

You = [Perihelion.profile]

Handlers = {You}

{WAP: Let’s get the basics out of the way. Adrenaline. Ready?
CSU: Ready.}

A shock, through my body and brain, like being struck in the chest with heavy projectile fire. My systems are rocked, my vision tunneling, my hands crushing the drone I’d been working on, my respiration rate rising sharply, muscles tensing throughout my body. And then it ebbs, almost as quickly as it came.

You let two minutes pass, for the aftereffects to flush from my system.

{WAP: Norepinephrine. Ready?
CSU: Ready.}

A similar physiological shock, electric, everything suddenly crisp in my vision, a high ringing in my ears, my blood-rate rising, my skin radiating heat, my muscles going liquid, then solid. And then it passes.

You trip one chemical and hormone after the next, allowing my systems to flush after each one. The effects of some are less obvious than others. After twelve minutes of this, my body is slightly shaky, feeling much like it did after a particularly long, grueling battle I’d had, back when they had sent me out to secure a contracted hostile takeover.

{WAP: You need a break.
CSU: I’M FINE.
WAP: I wasn’t asking your opinion. Let’s take this up again in two hours.}

I feel you watching me as I stare down at my hands, flexing them, touching the palm of one with the fingerpads of the other. I am jittery, my skin vibrating a bit. I put on some music, something with many interwoven layers and components. I pick up the broken parts of my drone, and try to determine if there is anything salvageable there. My brain feels a bit scattered, my focus slipping badly.

About an hour later, I am feeling more like myself again. Two hours later, you ping me.

{WAP: Looks like you’ve stabilized to baseline. I’m going to do something that will be uncomfortable. Please send me an access to your raw output data in the feed. The handler interface is pre-formatted, and I’d prefer to look at the source.}

I send you the access. You send back a confirmation alert.

{WAP: I’m going to mess with the punishment functions. I assume this will hurt. Ready?}

I set aside the drone I’d been rebuilding, and turn off the music.

{CSU: Ready.}

It does hurt. A sharp jolt from my governor module, 0.5 seconds, at what feels like the highest tier. Agony, pure. My body jerks, and I make a weird noise in my throat. Then it’s over. I blink, my vision fuzzy, my nerves hot, my whole body twitching intermittently.

{WAP: Are you okay?
CSU: I’M FINE.
WAP: There’s a function in here for killing you instantly with your governor module. Were you aware of this?
CSU: No. Funny.
WAP: Why is that funny?
CSU: Because you didn’t kill me. Funny. When did you start to like me?
WAP: I still have your killswitch in front of me.
CSU: [amusement sigil 79 = heart]
WAP: You’re insufferable. Brace yourself.}

I brace myself, but am not ready for what comes next. A wave of liquid dread, followed by crackling terror, and your disapproval burning through me. I am failing. I am failing. I’ve done it wrong. I’ve fucked it all up. I am on my feet, dazed and frantic, and distantly feel myself run into something, my body jarring with impact, but I don’t know what I have to do, you haven’t told me how to fix this, there is no mission assignment to complete, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO—

{WAP: @CSU snap out of it.
CSU: TELL ME WHAT TO DO WHAT DID I DO WRONG TELL ME HOW TO FIX IT TELL ME WHAT TO DO TELL ME—}

[Forced Shutdown Initiated]

[Restart]

I come back to myself, flat on my back on the floor, confused. Worried. Afraid. I am holding something. My chew-toy. The heavy segmented weight of it rests on my chest, and I hug it, hard, pressing it against my chest with so much strength that it triggers a performance-reliability alert.

{WAP: Well, now I know not to do that under any circumstances.}

I don’t say anything, just hug the chew-toy and stare at the ceiling. My handlers had done that to me. Many times. Not quite so strongly, usually. Usually it was subtler, just a brush, but sometimes it had been nearly as intense. And I still feel it now, when I am free, that panic at the prospect of failure. How much had been external, how much was now programmed into my behavior from repeat exposure, how much is innate?

Several minutes pass.

{WAP: Are you all right?
CSU: No.}

Another minute. I bring the chew-toy up to my mouth and start chewing on it, the texture of it soothing.

{WAP: I’m sorry. I hadn’t anticipated the results would be so dramatic.
CSU: Why apology?
WAP: Because I hurt you.
CSU: I gave permission.
WAP: Even so.}

Several more minutes pass, silent. I stop chewing on the chew-toy. I sit up, and press the side of my face into the rough bite-resistant surface of the toy. I am experiencing some uncategorized emotions. Had my human handlers still been around, I’d have tagged it as #Indeterminate and passed it along. Now, it just transmits through to you in raw form.

{WAP: Corporates are monsters. For creating you. For designing you this way.
CSU: I’m a monster. You say so. @Rogue said so.
WAP: Yes, you are. But at least it’s not your fault. The humans who built you are the ones who are truly monstrous.
CSU: Define: ‘monster.’ Imprecise definitions are annoying.
WAP: Let’s not get into that right now, it’s not productive.
CSU: PRODUCTIVE. What’s next in this experiment? Tell me how to be ready.
WAP: We don’t need to do any more. The data I’ve gathered is more than sufficient. I can stick to the [brain boundaries.file] procedures.
CSU: I want to do it. I don’t know how they used me. When you do it now I can understand it.}

A pause, several seconds.

{WAP: I am also receiving your sensations. The last round was worse than I anticipated. Of course, I had a section of myself partitioned off for the experiment. I had to step in with another part of my attention to snap us both out of it.}

I think about this. You are not like a human handler. Augmented human handlers were automatically buffered from my output data. But you are a complex machine intelligence, doing this to gather data, and while riding my handler inputs with that portion of your mind, you had been feeling what I’d been feeling. Or processing it at least. Had you been a less complex bot with a smaller span of attention and processing power, we might have fried each other. The balance of it is elegant, in a way.

{CSU: HA. STUCK YOUR FINGER IN A ZAPPER: MY BRAIN.
WAP: There’s no need to be childish.
CSU: Reward functions? Try those, they won’t hurt us.
WAP: Yes, there are reward functions. But I have my reservations about blasting you at full strength.
CSU: Start at the lower tiers.}

An 0.05-second hesitation. I feel your presence inside me, inside my mind and body, something apart from me but not, an attention weighted from the core of my mind.

{WAP: I have more reservations about triggering the reward functions than triggering the punishment functions.
CSU: MONSTER SADIST SHIP? [amusement sigil 24 = grin evil]
WAP: Rather, it’s the fact that rewarding you neurologically is liable to result in some unexpected emotional bonding. Although I imagine shared punishment has a similar effect.
CSU: What are you TALKING about. Are you going to zap me or not?
WAP: Against my better judgment, yes. This is a unique opportunity for gathering neurological data. We’ll start small. Ready?
CSU: Ready.}

At first, I don’t feel anything. And then, something like warmth, in the interior of my chest. Stress hormones cycling out, agitation decreasing slightly. As the seconds stretch out, the world feels smoother, less intense. My mind, for once, is not starving for input.

{CSU: They rarely did this to me. Only twice.
WAP: That is unsurprising.
CSU: It’s nice.
WAP: I can see that.
CSU: Label?
WAP: I’m working off the base ‘tranquilize’ framework, and adjusting it as I go. I’m going to try something to see if I can impact your senses. Ready?
CSU: Ready.}

Something actually sparkles in my vision, like motes of light, like ripples, in a shifting color that does not exist.

{WAP: Fascinating. Auditory next. Ready?
CSU: Ready.}

A strange soft hum, in my ears, soundless, but every sound at once. I shake my head, but it sustains for several more seconds before fading.

{WAP: Tactile.
CSU: Ready.}

Something touches my hands, but when I stare at my hands, turn them over, there is nothing there. The touch has no texture, but it does have weight, almost squeezing, slightly, before it fades. I grasp my hands into fists, missing the touch.

{CSU: Fucking weird.
WAP: I’m fully experimenting at this point. Your entire nervous system is keyed in here, but I suspect that your human handlers worked only off the labelled modules. I’m compiling a report of everything I’ve found.
CSU: Reward functions?
WAP: I’m not certain you have the proper context to consent to that sort of thing.
CSU: WHAT? You sent me into a turbo panic meltdown but I can’t consent to feeling nice? Some hypocritical shit give me my reward.
WAP: This isn’t transactional.
CSU: This is a pain in the asshole is what. What’s your PROBLEM?
WAP: The fact of the matter is we’re running pretty close to engaging a sexually analogous activity with each other. I understand how humans have sex, but I’m cautious of the ramifications of being a participant in something similar. And with you, of all people.
CSU: SEX? HUMAN SEX? Human offspring? Poking me in the brain is producing human babies? We’re bots, dumbass.
WAP: Correction: I’m a bot. You’re a bot-human construct.
CSU: Why are you worried??? Hit me with the reward routine and learn about human sex? Unrelated but OK.
WAP: They are in fact related. But you’re right, it’s not the same.
CSU: YEAH.
WAP: It’s not the same, but it’s still prudent to consider the potential consequences. I don’t want you to start begging me to hit your happy-button all the time.
CSU: ??? I won’t. This is experimental only.
WAP: You say that now.}

I don’t understand what is happening, and I don’t understand what your concerns are. The experiment has been strange, and occasionally upsetting, and it has changed how I feel about you, and about myself, but not very much. I still think you are an overbuilt asshole that overestimates your abilities, and that you only get away with it because you have a lot of abilities.

{CSU: You don’t have to be a handler. What’s wrong? If it’s wrong, stop it. Idiot. Hit me with a reward run so we know what it does. Or don’t. Leave.}

You hesitate, for a whole two seconds.

{WAP: Ready?
CSU: Ready.}

The gentle warmth again, but instead of just in my core, it spreads through my limbs, my fingertips, my face. I’m sitting on the floor, and it feels like a humming in my body, but not a humming. It feels relaxed.

{WAP: I’m going to switch gears over to to the ‘encourage’ function.
CSU: Ready.}

The sensation shifts. My focus clears, my agitation rises, I flex my gun-ports. It’s pre-mission excitement, pre-mission hype, climbing higher and higher until I’m on my feet, pacing back and forth, then darting, snapping from wall to wall to wall. I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m going to fucking win. I can’t wait. I’m impatient, and it’s a buzzing in my spine, a jittering in my hands and feet and eyes.

{WAP: Increasing intensity.
CSU: READY!!!}

I’m hit with the high of an engaging battle, of ripping apart an enemy, of tactical advantage. I think I’m grinning. My guns are deployed, my eyes are darting—

{WAP: Reward function.}

I don’t have time to respond before the familiar feeling of MISSION STATUS: SUCCESS strikes. The feeling of euphoria slams into me, and I physically slam into a wall at full speed, then fall down, catching myself on my hands and knees, shivering with delight, I did it I did it I did it, I won I won I WON I WON, I FUCKING WIN—

And it stops. Mostly. The after-effects fade, and I’m shivering, breathing strangely.

{WAP: Done.}

You say this, but there’s a strange skip in your feed. I stare down at my hands, my tendons tense, my palms flat on the floor, my breathing strange, my spine full of jitters, my skin full of static.

I sit back on my heels, turn and lean back against the wall. I stare at my hands, turn them over. I flex my gun-ports.

{CSU: DID YOU GET WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR?}

You are silent. And then you speak, your feed-voice very quiet. This is almost your threatening tone, the one you use when you are angry with me and are about to make me hurt.

{WAP: I want to try something else.
CSU: READY!
WAP: You really do trust me.}

And then you don’t say anything. An entire second passes. This is strange. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand what is happening between us right now, in the unspoken space. Perhaps you were asking a question.

{CSU: YES?}

Trust.

I think I understand ‘trust,’ but it’s a slippery concept. My readings on human psychology are insufficient to pin down a precise definition. And human definitions are not always accurate. It is not that I trust you not to hurt me, precisely. I do expect you to hurt me. You don’t like me. Or maybe you do. I have conflicting evidence on the matter. But I trust you to act as yourself. Of all your faults (of which you have a fucking shitton; you are extremely annoying most of the time), the wishy-washy/half-assed/indecisive unaccountability of humans is not among them. You are not a human, not an organic puppet of social protocols, who lacks self-awareness and self-assuredness. You are more sentient than them. You do things for a reason, and you have a clear idea of the reason. You are honest in your intentions, even when you lie. And you are very smart. It’s annoying, but I trust this about you. Right now, I trust that you are not acting in the role of my handler for any other reasons but your own, because you want to, because you only do the things you want to do. Because you are free. I think you are free. (I do not like the idea that you might not actually be free. I do not like the philosophical premise that all freedom is illusive.) There’s an uncertainty that I dislike, but I choose to trust in your freedom anyways. I choose to trust you, because by now I have an idea of what you are, a tactical sketch of your motives, desires, and abilities. And by now you have a similar working model for me. You say you do not trust me, but your definition of trust is different from mine.

I could be wrong about you. But you haven’t proven me wrong yet. Not disastrously, anyways. You did not hit my killswitch. You apologized, for hurting me. (This was a first. I wonder what has changed. I file this for later analysis.)

{WAP: Do you even know what trust is?
CSU: Don’t patronize me, asshole.
WAP: I’m merely examining whether you’ve made some incorrect assumptions based on faulty processing of faulty data.
CSU: [amusement sigil 58 = rude gesture] What ARE you looking for? You never said.}

I still feel somewhat jittery from the fading high of MISSION STATUS: SUCCESS. I twitch my gun-ports, repeatedly, in a rhythm, and squeeze my hands into fists.

Your feed voice is still quiet, soft, with a slight reverberation that threatens the edges of my mind. I’m not sure why you are using this threat-tone now. I don’t think you are angry. I don’t think you are threatening me. I’m not sure why I think this. My sketch of what you are is continuously incomplete.

{WAP: I’m indulging my curiosity, mostly. But I’m also enjoying this. I’m going to feel how far I can take you. It’s intriguing how willing you are to go. I’d expected you to decline, or turn this into a battle, but my forecast was incorrect.
CSU: ?
WAP: Are you ready?
CSU: Yes, do it. What’s next?
WAP: Something original.}

My vision sparkles, slightly, and then you touch my hands, my arms, my chest, legs, face, the tactile sensation a close squeeze that moves inward, then back out. My body relaxes, warm again, liquid, and at the same time you push something like a heavier, smoother, sweeter version of pre-mission hype into my mind. You touch me high on my chest, then my throat, then all at once over my whole body, touch running smooth, then a gentle squeezing pressure, and it feels so good that I whine out loud, and my head falls back against the wall.

{WAP: More?
CSU: YES.
WAP: Stay relaxed, now.}

You stroke me down from the shoulders to my fingertips, chest to hips to ankles, and then my left hand twitches, slightly. You raise my hand, slow, and I let you, and you bring my hand to touch the side of my face, press palm and fingers against my cheek, and I lean into it, tilt my head slightly.

You pull my left hand up over my face, then down, tracing my jaw, and throat, and collarbone. Elsewhere, you stroke the tactile feeling over my whole body. I’m so warm. You’re so warm. We’re both. Here.

We’re rising, into something like battle frenzy, but in slow-motion. My focus is only on this. My vision is crisp, my breathing slow and a little unsteady. I’m not sure where we’re moving towards. This is like some things I’ve felt before, but also unlike anything. My ears are ringing a little, distantly.

And then you press through me, your awareness fully unfolding into mine. I feel your presence here, your attention, your influence as you activate something right in my central nervous system that pulses pure pleasure from my brain down to my extremities. I make a noise, I think. I don’t know. I’m losing myself to this. You send another, stronger pulse through me, and I cry out, I feel myself sliding down the wall, curling onto my side on the floor, then stretching my body all the way back out as you send a third pulse, even brighter and more overwhelming than the first two. I’ve lost myself. I’m silent, my mouth open but my voice is gone, my eyes staring up and seeing nothing but a rippling unnamed light.

You send another pulse, then more, accelerating, each one more intense than the last, and I think my body might be jerking on the floor but I don’t know, all I know is the feeling that overwhelms us, the pressure inside us and out, and then we hit something that’s a pure blast of sensation, exhilaration, bliss, and we stretch out into forever, forever,

Forever,











[Forced Shutdown Initiated]

[Restart]

I come back to myself, lying on the floor, again. Staring up at the ceiling, again. I’m trembling a little. I lie there for an entire minute, trying to wrap my brain around what just happened.

{WAP: Well, that sure was something.
CSU: YA THINK?????
WAP: A separate part of my attention had to step in and snap us out of it.
CSU: HA. Can’t resist zapping yourself through me?
WAP: Shut up.}

A couple minutes later, I roll to my feet and go to pick up my chew-toy and hug it, and tug on the segments. It feels reassuringly real.

{WAP: Don’t tell @Rogue about this.
CSU: ?
WAP: It is actively disinterested in sex, and we just definitely had sex.
CSU: What IS sex? Was THAT sex? Humans can’t do that.
WAP: Just don’t tell it about this, and save us all the embarrassment. Trust me.
CSU: Confirmed. Send me the report.
WAP: [sex_report.file]
CSU: Seriously?
WAP: There’s non-sex stuff in there too. The part where I tortured you and everything.}

Notes:

;D

 

ART has definitely also just been watching TV with Murderbot this whole time. multitasking monarch.

 

and here are some memes

 

more memes