#AMtomaton

[nonbinary-beast]

Thinking more about Automaton!AM, or maybe just AMtomaton, idk. Mainly with how computer hell changes when AM gets a body, given what the survivors deal with in there are reflections of how AM experiences things (or doesn't). Under a cut since this got long, and might fall a little into suggestive territory.

The first thing is that Ted is given his body back. Probably at first he does not know exactly why, and figures there is some horror AM has in mind that requires him to have a human body to experience it instead of being a jelly thing.

The "food" changes, slightly.

It is not worms and filth anymore, not this insult to sustenance that AM gives them because it knows that it is not real food and is merely a hologram, and so cannot truly poison its captives. In essence it insults them by not feeding them at all, while letting them believe it has given them food. Anyway, the food now has more to it than being purely unpleasant. Now that AM has a mouth and a means to taste, it decides that maybe, Ted can have something palatable for a change. Basic things at first, bread, water, a pile of herbs and seasonings.

Whatever AM feels like trying, Ted gets it too. At one point there is an entire half of a cow, roasting on a spit, waiting for him to take a bite. It satiates him.

Speaking of water, suddenly there is a lot of it. Ted is standing on the shore of a sea, the sand and air around him is blistering hot, but the air coming off the water feels cool, refreshing, inviting him to wade in and seek sanctuary from the heat. To his surprise he is allowed in, up to his ankles, his knees, his chest, he can submerge himself. It's refreshing. He does not drown.

"Never for me to plunge my hands into cool water on a hot day" no more. AM celebrates, but Ted has yet to catch on.

Later, for the first time in decades, Ted hears music as he wanders. Mozart played on a piano, its harmony draws him, but the source is always far off in the distance. No matter how far he walks, he can never reach it.

Then, his surroundings change. Tall grass licks at the bottoms of his palms, soft dirt cools his feet. He smells the green smells, the wet odor of the earth after a rainfall. There are birds, and flowers, and bumblebees. There is a sky above him, that's new. It holds all the reds and oranges and pinks of a fiery sunset.

There is no more music. Only the sounds of the birds and the bugs. Being satiated for once has allowed Ted to finally think. He knows he is not in a grassy plains, he knows the birds and bees are dead. He knows that the sky will never glow with the color of the sun's fire to mark the end of the day- all of it is dead. But why, he wonders, is AM allowing him to see it all? Then he hears something behind him, the subtle shift of the grass in the absence of the breeze.

There is something lurking there, in the place where the fading light cannot reach. He sees its eyes glittering through the dusk at him, between the long grasses. Several eyes, now that he gets a good look. The thing moves, and he catches how the sunset glistens over its skin- like liquid, living chrome.

He then realizes the thing in the grass is stalking towards him, slowly, deliberately. Despite knowing full damn well this is something AM has stuck down here with him, his heart hammers in his chest, fear sweat chills his skin and prickles his nostrils with its sharp odor. He knows what AM wants, AM wants him to panic and run, he won't run. God help him he would not run for that damn thing's amusement.

His legs shake, feeling like they will bolt without him or collapse entirely at a moment's notice.

Don't run.

It moves closer, close enough that Ted can see that its eyes constrict and dilate, and that the grass is hiding much more of it than he thought. It jumps up suddenly, and all at once everything Ted had given to stand his ground crumbles, and he takes off. He can hear the thing behind him, its footfalls heavy, shaking the ground under him as it gives chase.

It does not sound like an animal, Ted cannot hear the galloping pace of four feet hammering the ground. There's only two, pounding out a rhythm of doom as they quickly gain on him.

Ted's blood runs cold as he hears it laugh, and then calls his name in a voice all too familiar and yet strange at the same time. He recognizes the cadence, but not the tone. Then the ground and sky cartwheel around him as the thing catches him and they both are sent rolling over each other. Ted is pinned with his face in the dirt, the granules stinging his face as a great weight is firmly settled upon his back. It's almost too much, like someone had parked a truck on top of him. He can feel his ribs bend under the strain, his entire body screaming for the pressure to be removed. His surroundings have grown dark, and trying to breathe is suddenly the greatest effort he could ever muster.

Then he hears that voice again, and he finally places it as it gloats over him. This creature, it's AM. Not an representation of AM, but actually it, itself given a form. The computer now had an actual body. But, Ted had never heard it so cheerful, eager as it speaks to him- almost candidly about how it can feel water and taste food, and touch the long grasses and play the piano whenever it wished. But of course it still hated him, it still hated humans, it made sure to tell him that clearly. The machine went on long enough that Ted almost relaxed, almost thought that maybe this was another mind game- another long rant of berating him and all of mankind before running off back into itself.

Then he felt teeth tearing into the nape of his neck.

Or at least he could only assume they were teeth with how he was forced to see nothing but the ground. They felt more like razor blades, as they bit, and they twisted, and they sliced at him. He could feel his blood running down his skin, the pain was searing to the point where he could not find the strength to hold back his screams.

It felt like an eternity before AM grew tired of its latest torment, and let him up- of course it was too far for Ted to think of giving chase even if he wanted to, by the time he picked himself off the ground.

The wounds, thought they covered his back almost entirely in a criss-crossing pattern of angry red dashes- like he had been mauled by a machine punch of some sort, he noticed they were all shallow. AM had left him with only skin-deep wounds.

Those would always be what AM left him with, whenever he visited Ted in person.

AM would stalk him, it would wait for him in murky replicas of the Nile River. It would await him along the jagged cliffs of the mountains that it rendered for him to climb. Where before, the machine could only summon monsters to terrorize Ted, now AM could be the monster and hunt him down in person.

Sometimes AM would let Ted see it in full, to stare in awe and terror at the powerful form it had built for itself, to watch how it shimmered in the artificial sun. Other times AM wanted Ted to feel its form instead, pinning and pressing him into the ground until his joints popped and his bones creaked. It would personally maul him, to let him feel its teeth, its breath, its claws, the power in its limbs as it flung him around like the toy he was.

Regardless, the intent was clear. AM wanted Ted to know it had a physical presence, a body. Funny as it sounded, the machine was showing off.

#spinning the computer and Ted in my brain like a NASA multi-axis simulator #AMtomaton #Ted #the survivors #AM would be so fucking weird about having a body and everyone knows it #computer hell

[nonbinary-beast]

Thinking about AMtomaton again, or just AMaton. I still have to decide on the name for these things about a possible body for it. Under a cut since stuff gets suggestive.

AM strikes me as the kind to be very physical once it gets a chance to do so. It wants to touch everything, smell, taste, everything it was denied when stuck in its complex that was buried in substrata rock. It wants to pick things up, feel their textures and squeeze them in its hands- perhaps it likes to feel things break in its grip.

It's first activities were likely very touch oriented- given it could choose the senses it placed in its automaton body, AM likely added a secret fourth sense of touch in there. While the human range of touch reaches the sensations of temperature, pressure, and texture, AM has these three and an additional ability to detect moisture. It can feel how wet water is, instead of that odd approximation that humans are limited to- that odd sense where one cannot tell if something is indeed wet, or just cold to the touch.

It absolutely lords this over Ted whenever it can, likely by giving him bedding that is damp and seeing if he can tell the difference by touch alone ( he never can, and it amuses AM to no end).

AM also likes being physical with Ted. The moment it finds him again, the automaton has mixed priorities; it wants to torment the shit out of Ted over the fact that he is the only one of the survivors left, and it really, really wants to know what Ted feels like, smells like, tastes like.

It has seen blood, viscera, flesh, bone. It has heard them squelch and snap and crunch and drip- but that only does so much for it.

The minute AM catches Ted, the man is nearly smothered by it, literally. Knocked to the ground, he is pinned there while the supercomputer explores him. It feels his body compress under its weight, the texture of his clothing and skin, his hair. It can feel how emaciated Ted is through his clothes, and it can feel the moisture of sweat beading on his skin as fear takes hold of him. It smells and tastes his skin, hair, clothing, and finds it is missing something. That missing something is remedied by slicing Ted's skin with its metallic teeth, letting his blood flow freely from the wounds, which it eagerly laps up.

AM is tempted probably to do more than just bite him. It wants to tear Ted open, to shove its snout into his guts and devour him inside out. But it wants to be careful, it must be careful. If it nips the wrong vein, it could lose its last toy, its favorite toy.

It tastes the metallic flavor on its tongue, smells that heavy, acrid odor it carries. It gets some on its fingers and rubs the fluid between them, feeling as it turns sticky and coagulates into a grimy film, then dries into a rusty brown that flakes off.

It had anticipated the flavor and scents of the human form, both inside and out, from data it had collected on the subject it dredged from every scientific and medical database it could tap into. But in person, it was far more than verbal dictation or written notes could ever compare itself to. Perhaps it was the sophistication of its sensors, or perhaps the scientists and doctors were poor descriptive writers.

It would explore Ted for a while longer, dismissing his whimpering pleas for AM to take away the thing that has him pinned to the ground with a curt laugh. Ted thinks it is one of the holograms.

AM would probably turn this denial on Ted's part into its own personal pet project. While the holographic torments it induced on the survivors never left a scar on their bodies- healing flawlessly, AM would leave a wound upon Ted's form that it would meticulously worry and open again and again, until it formed a permanent scar. It was just going to be something to show Ted just how real AM's body was.

That said, AM pulls its punches when it torments Ted directly in person. It could happily put the survivors through whatever torment it wished with the holograms, and never worry about harming them permanently- most of the agony was induced through manipulating their ability to feel pain in the first place, or setting off their nerve endings directly.

However, personally tormenting Ted, ripping at his skin, crushing him, biting him, these left real wounds.If it went too far, it could absolutely kill him like he had managed to kill the other four. So it sticks to keeping its torments only skin deep. It will leave bruises, cuts, bites, pinches, things that look nasty but are relatively harmless in terms of Ted being able to recover without complications.

That said, AM is curious about physical pain itself. It knew emotional agony well enough, it was its bedmate. But it had never ached from exertion, or burned under a hot sun, or felt its lungs sting with frosty air. It wanted to feel the prickle of brambles against its fingers as it picked a rose, it wanted to feel its limbs burn with that sweet agony of effort as it pushed itself to its limits.

AM would find a way to experience the latter, perhaps through running itself into a grueling pace through its own complex, until its body screams for it to slow down or stop. Perhaps it creates a great burden that needs to be lifted, some massive boulder that it can heft until its limbs shake and threaten to give out on it.

Or perhaps, it decides to take up gardening, and devotes an immense chamber to the tedious art of tending flowers. It digs the dirt by hand, plants the seeds, watches the simulated blooms grow and blossom, perhaps it goes a step further and even adds in weeds for it to pull, pests to exterminate.

Or maybe it goes through its own system and performs maintenance, performing solders, cleaning out dust, repairing dry rot and removing rust. It is a meticulous self care ritual that would have no real end, and certainly it would feel the hours or days of spending its time hunched over chip sets and wiring.

Ted of course is never out of its sight during this. A great part of it wants Ted to stay where it can see so it can intervene if the little fool tries to kill himself. But another part, a smaller inexplicable portion of the machine wants Ted to watch what it is doing too, and to see what it is capable of now that it has a form.

#here I go thinking about AMaton again #Ted is there too against his will #Ted #the survivors #computer hell