milliways_bar | Kobold-plot-adjacent

Holy shit, there are two Bastion units in the bar?!

No, wait, that's the same bird that was at the party. He thinks. What are the odds of two Bastions having similar birds? (Why does it have a bird at all???) So somebody must've given the thing a coat of paint.

Right?

It only just came in so maybe it hasn't realized there are people here to kill yet...or it could be the dancing Bastion from before. Gabriel waits to see, ready to dive behind the furniture if it goes into sentry mode.

Bastion is aware that some of the human patrons are watching them, but they also know that Milliways picks up people from worlds that don't have omnics, so this doesn't ping as an immediate problem. They head over to the Bar to see if she has any more joke book recommendations, but get distracted by the trilobite tank instead.

Okay, that's one question answered: not currently a murderbot.

Now what?

He guesses he could just go up and talk to it? Like any other patron? Should he pretend to be from an Earth without omnics? They've been the enemy for so long it feels wrong to just go up and be truthful with it. But he's honestly not sure he can pull off 'friendly'. Let's just...keep it simple, Gabe. Start with hi.

The soldier warily approaches the bot, not quite managing a smile. He wishes he had a weapon though he knows it's probably better he doesn't. (Jesus, he forgets how big they are up close.)

"...hi."

Bastion interrupts their study of the long-extinct arthropods (so many legs!) to peer quizzically at the apprehensive-looking human soldier. They wave with their manipulator arm, and beep a four-note greeting. The gun on their other arm stays pointed at the floor. // Hello.

Ganymede tilts his head and chirps at Gabe, which could be a friendly greeting or possibly an inquiry as to whether he's hiding any seeds on his person.

Sweet, he hasn't been shot.

His throat is so dry. He tries to swallow but it's near impossible. There's no way he can fake being friendly but he should at least be able to pull off non hostile.

"Hi," he says again. "Saw you at Emcee's party."

Edited 2018-01-24 04:13 (UTC)

"Bweeoo-dweet. Vwoo." // I think I remember seeing you there. It was a very lively party.

There's a short pause. Quietly, what might be under their breath if they were human, they beep a few notes from the Daft Punk song they sang on New Year's Eve. It's not perfectly on-key. The tip of their index finger bobs around slightly to accompany the notes.

His nervousness makes sense to them; you don't have to have seen a Bastion unit before to notice their built-in weaponry. It's the reaction they expect, although they haven't met very many humans for long enough to hold a conversation, and meeting new people usually makes them apprehensive on general principles. This man's face looks vaguely familiar, but if he was in the crowd at the party maybe that's why.

And he still hasn't been shot. Gabriel forces himself to take a deep breath.

And frowns in confusion at the Bastion.

"Can you not speak?" Obviously he hasn't had conversations with any in the field but he'd thought with this being Milliways...

Bastion looks at Gabe. "Vwrrp." // I speak omnicode, but I can't pronounce phonetic languages.

The beeping is not translatable speech by itself, and Gabe doesn't have the parts to pick up the rest, so the Babel fish can't do a lot to help.

This just got a lot harder.

Though he appreciates the problem providing a distraction.

He thinks for a moment. "Can you text?" His personal phone is in lockup on the base, along with everyone else's (top secret government projects yay), but he can probably get a burner from Bar. And he'd prefer a burner for talking with it anyway.

Bastion makes a dweedle-eedle-dweedle noise resembling an old-fashioned monophonic ringtone. // I could if I had a phone.

Bar, who can understand both sides of this conversation, helpfully provides two... well, they look more or less like phones, they definitely have screens and a couple of buttons and will fit in a humanoid hand, but there's also a strong resemblance to giant bugs. The case is more like a shell, and on the side opposite the screen is a cavity filled with green goop.

The hell is this...weird phone bug thing. (Good job giving him another distraction, Bar!)

Gabriel gingerly picks up the phonebug, glad he's still in the habit of wearing gloves from the nitro paste incident. It kinda reminds him of the Zerg and he's not sure how he feels about that but he pushes one of the buttons anyway. The screen lights up with Karkat's instructions and Gabriel skims over them while keeping the Bastion unit in his peripheral vision.

umbralAmbulation signed on.

"This work for you?"

Bastion presses the most prominent button on the other strangely organic handheld, and then picks it up as it boots. They scroll through Karkat's instructions at a rapid clip. Ganymede peers at the device from Bastion's shoulder, not sure what to make of it.

derelictConservationist signed on.

derelictConservationist began trolling umbralAmbulation
DC: This is sufficient.

Edited 2018-01-25 04:14 (UTC)

That's pretty much how he'd expect a robot to speak, clinical and unfeeling, and he tries to keep his apprehension from rising again. (He may be projecting.)

"Right, good." He nods, trying to wipe his sweaty palms on his pants through the gloves. It doesn't work well.

"Like I said, saw you at Emcee's party but you were pretty banged up. Only recognized you now cos the bird." He points at Ganymede.

Ganymede tilts his head. Bastion whirrs softly at their bird friend as they thumb-type out a response.

DC: His name is Ganymede. <3

...it's using emoticons.

"Ganymede," Gabriel repeats, nodding slowly with raised brows. "You name him that?"

Ganymede chirps at Gabriel. Possibly he recognises his name.

DC: I did. I found the name in a myth and I liked it.
DC: He's my best friend.

And now its best friend is a bird.

What.

Just. What. Everything about this omnic throws Gabriel for a loop.

"Right." He's nodding again and stops. "He doesn't mind when you shoot?"

DC: I try to avoid shooting anything when he's there. Unless it's trying to eat him.
DC: He doesn't like the noise, but he trusts me not to hurt him.

Note to self: don't try to eat Ganymede.

(He can't believe he just thought that.)

"That's cool." Ugh, so awkward. Is it at all significant that the bird trusts the omnic? He's not sure. "So who did the paint job?"

That would be a bad decision for several reasons! Bastion is only maybe half of them.

DC: One of the people I work with offered to clean up the dirt and restore me to prime operating condition. He's a mechanical engineer who has a lot of experience with omnics.
DC: He said I would cause less alarm if I had a unique paint job. I haven't met anyone new in my world since I got it, so I'm hoping it works.

Gabriel reads that and looks up again, letting his face put on a slight grimace.

"Kinda? Just thought you were a second Bastion unit in the bar till I saw Ganymede."

And he waits, wary, to see how that goes over.

Bastion angles their head to the side and retracts it backwards slightly, visibly surprised. Not because the human thought they were someone else at first, but because he knows their model by name. If he was guessing, he'd have used the designation printed on their chestplate.

DC: You're from my world???

That explains some things about this conversation.

That movement was really...human.

He rolls his shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension in them. "Probably. Know you're an omnic and nobody else here seems to have them on their Earths. Don't have your model, though."

He scoured their database on Bastions. No mention of E54 anywhere. And nobody in their right mind would give a Bastion a makeover.

This response is bewildering at first, because by the time they were built, E54s were one of the most common Bastion models in production. That's not the kind of thing that's easily forgotten, even if they're the only E54 they know of who survived the war. But then Bastion remembers what X mentioned, about Milliways connecting different times as well as different worlds.

Externally, this mental journey manifests as continued head-tilting while they type.

DC: What year?

He lets his expression fall to something harder and the hand not holding the phonebug clenches.

"2041. Bit before your time, I'm guessing."

This just gets worse. Although, really, there was no other way it could have gone after he mentioned that he didn't know their model, taken together with his clear discomfort with this conversation from the moment he initiated it. He's from the early part of the war, when the omnic army would simply roll through human cities slaughtering everyone in their path. The human armed forces had significantly bolstered their defenses by the time Bastion was built. Their shoulders droop as the topic sinks in.

DC: It's 2077 for me.
DC: I was built in 2046.

Edited 2018-01-28 02:19 (UTC)

2046. Jesus Christ, he's got at least five more years of war ahead of him. Fuck.

But.

"2077. So we survive." He's still scowling but he finds himself holding his breath, waiting on confirmation that the unit's engineer is, indeed, a human.

Bastion nods.

DC: Humanity is alive and well in my time.
DC: I'm the only omnic among the watchpoint staff, although one of us is a non-mobile AI supercomputer and another is a genetically modified gorilla, so I'm neither the only nonhuman nor the only AI.
DC: The other two are human.

Edited 2018-01-28 04:14 (UTC)

He lets out the breath at the first line, nodding once.

The rest of it...

"You're shitting me," he says flatly. "A gorilla."

Edited 2018-01-28 04:51 (UTC)

Bastion shrugs, at the shoulder for their gun arm and all the way up with their phonebug-holding hand.

DC: His name's Winston. He's also an engineer, but not the one who repaired me. That's Torbjörn.
DC: In the mid-2040s the Horizon Lunar Colony produced a group of gorillas genetically modified for intelligence, communication, and physical adaptations to low gravity and an artificial habitat.
DC: Winston's the only one on Earth. The others are still on the moon.

"Sure. Okay. Monkeys on the moon in the future." Gabriel sets the idea of moon monkey scientists aside because even if it's true it's not something he has to deal with. At least for now.

But he knows the second name the omnic said. Lindholm is the lead engineer that designed the Bastions. No surprise he was looking after this one, though Gabe has to wonder if it's out of responsibility or pride.

"So your engineer, he reprogrammed you?" It seems less likely that the thing is gonna snap into sentry mode and go on a rampage but it still has weapons.

Bastion makes an annoyed-sounding whirr and starts thumb-typing faster. Ganymede chirps at them.

DC: No. I only met him a few weeks ago, and if I'd been attacking humans or seemed particularly likely to start, he would have shut me down permanently and moved on. He only changed his mind because I didn't react violently when he tried to goad me into it or when violence was directed at me.
DC: I decided for myself that I didn't want to follow my original directives, and I've spent years learning to disengage my combat protocols when they self-activate. Ganymede helps a lot with that.

That answers the question about Torbjörn's motives. And a bit about this omnic's.

Gabriel actually seems a little taken aback when he looks up from his device.

"You're capable of that?" Of being able to decide and deciding against its directives.

Bastion only picks up on the second half of Gabriel's intended meaning, it not having crossed their mind that the first half might be in doubt.

DC: It wasn't easy. It wouldn't have worked if Ganymede hadn't been there to guide me through it.
DC: The first time my combat protocols reasserted themselves he gave me something I cared about to focus on instead.

Without him, they would have gone on a rampage; they wouldn't have been able to stop themself. They're certain they wouldn't have survived it.

Gabriel is not in the habit of thinking of omnics as people. But this...it almost sounds like the thing has PTSD. Omnics are the enemy, terrifying and efficient. They can't care. But this one does.

At least about its bird.

Even that is just so much more than he ever suspected they were capable of. The omnic armies have said nothing since the omniums reactivated, no one stepping forward to make demands or conditions of surrender.

Just death.

"Can all omnics do that? Or just you?"

DC: I was built according to the same specifications as any other E54, and I haven't received any hardware modifications or outside reprogramming after the fact.
DC: I'm not familiar with any other combat omnics who chose to abandon their directives, but my circumstances were unusual.
DC: I was damaged in combat and lost power, was assumed nonfunctional, and reactivated in 2063. Many years after the war had ended.
DC: I would like to think that others could make the same decision I did if they were given the chance, and I don't have any unique inherent properties that would make it possible for me and impossible for them.

He scowls as the Bastion finishes typing. "Okay. So how do I give them that chance? Because right now they're not talking to us."

He's not saying he will. But he'd be a fool to not look hard at any option that might help end the war. Even if it won't be effective for five years.

Bastion takes a while to think about this, staring off to the side and whirring to themself. Their shoulders slump gradually further down as they find themself unable to come up with a useful answer.

DC: I don't know. By 2046 humanity had no reason to believe we wanted anything other than their destruction, and newly manufactured Bastion units weren't told anything about why we were fighting except that the humans would destroy us if we didn't kill them first. We weren't informed of our commanders' goals or why they started the war.
DC: I can't think of anything that would work during wartime to both convince one of us that it was possible to coexist peacefully with humans and prevent our commanders from forcing us to return to combat. Individual Bastion units were expendable for them, but they would have taken countermeasures against widespread desertion, and if there were any omnics fighting on the humans' side who came within their radius of control, whether defectors or civilian models, they would use them against you.
DC: Even for a single Bastion unit who wouldn't be missed, persuading them wouldn't stop their combat programming from treating humans as enemies.

"Figures," he says bitterly, running his hand down his face.

Fuck. It was the answer he was expecting but not the one he wanted. He's not sure what he was hoping for, maybe some way to fast forward the war to however it ended and end it sooner but this unit was just a means to an end.

...huh. He wonders how much of this is a means to an end. Why did the omniums wake up? Why did they attack?

But he sets those thoughts aside because they're not important right now. What's important is that humans survive. Humans survive and they thrive and they send monkeys to the goddamn moon. If that's the only hope he can take from all this then by God he will grab onto it with all his might.

They survive.

He looks grim but determined. "Guess I'm gonna be fighting for a while."

Bastion nods. As a human soldier, he has a lot of work ahead of him, and they don't envy him any of it.

Gabriel turns his attention back to the omnic, a scowl on his face as he looks the machine over.

"Don't suppose you care to share your weak points for when your unit starts showing up in the field?"

He'd love to know how the war ends but the Bastion already said it wasn't aware for that and he doubts the information he'd need would be public record. This intel, at least, should be obtainable. He realizes he's basically asking the machine to tell him the best way to kill it but how it might feel about it hasn't occurred to him. That it feels at all still hasn't quite sunk in.

Bastion shrinks back from that question, leaning their upper body and inclining their head further away from him. After a drawn-out, disconcerted pause they start typing.

DC: E54s are only slightly different from our predecessors in terms of body design. We don't really have new design flaws, but we didn't solve the old ones.
DC: For instance, we're as vulnerable to being shot in the head as ever, and Configuration: Sentry just moves that weak spot behind our front-facing armor instead of substantially protecting it.
DC: I have no intention of assuming sentry configuration in the middle of the bar, so unless either I completely lose my self-control or something horrible attacks Milliways, you'll have neither a reason nor an opportunity to use that against me personally.

Dammit, that was another very human gesture.

It's just a machine, he reminds himself as it looks down to type. It's probably just programmed to do that. But still, he shouldn't get on its bad side and the last line of text confirms that.

"Thanks," he says dryly, "but I have no intention of picking a fight with you." He makes himself look sincere and keeps his tone appeasing. "Just the ones back in 2041."

DC: I appreciate it.
DC: I can offer tactical suggestions if you want me to, but I may not have anything you haven't already heard. Or used.
DC: I can't recreate my exact schematics from memory, and your time already has a vast number of highly skilled people working on the slightly more general question of how to most effectively destroy Bastion units. Being one myself doesn't make me a better tactician than they collectively are.

They find it profoundly unnerving to give out advice on the subject of how to kill other Bastion units. However, the Bastions of 2041 are indiscriminate killers, either more complicit in their overlords' war against humanity or less capable of questioning what they're doing. If Bastion does have anything useful to say -- on the topic of dropping omnics like them faster, if nothing else -- it's not likely to turn the tide of the war completely, but it is likely to save innocent lives and buy the humans time to defend their civilians from later attacks. This is no place for squeamish objections to turning against their own kind.

They also don't expect the human to be particularly sympathetic if they bring any of this up.

Gabriel considers this a moment then nods once.

"Might take you up on that when I get back in the field." No point in hearing it now and frankly he'd like a break from this conversation. It's been stressful. "You think of anything I should know sooner just leave a message with Bar. Gabriel Reyes."

He really wishes he could have a stiff drink after this.

Bastion cranes their neck in surprise when they hear the name. They were fairly certain the human was in at least a moderately important military position, or had the ear of someone who was, in order to be able to put whatever he learned from them to use. However, they weren't prepared to be speaking with one of the founding members of Overwatch. Especially one who's been dead for nearly six years in their time.

DC: I can do that.
derelictConservationist ceased trolling umbralAmbulation

They press the button to turn the phonebug's screen off, and beep hesitantly at Bar, uncertain where they're supposed to keep it when they're not using it. A note appears informing them that she can hold onto it for them.

He's not sure what to make of that last movement. He doesn't think anything he said would warrant that.

umbralAmbulation signed off.

"Good." He nods once at the unit, thoughtful and frowning. "Till then."

He deposits the phonebug on Bar, not up to explaining Zerg tech to his superiors today. Then he turns to walk away, keeping an angle that lets him see Bastion as he goes.

Bastion puts their phonebug down on Bar as well, holds their hand out for Ganymede to sit on, and walks off towards the back door. They'd like to wander around outdoors for a bit, to take their mind off this grim, stressful conversation.

Kobold-plot-adjacent

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