apassingthought | First Message

[She's in the middle of swimming, a good way to clear her head. It's all to easy to let herself slip into a dreamlike trance...]

I hear you. Who's there?

[She doesn't break her stroke, not at first; but there is a sharpness to the impression of her answer.]

Edited 2013-02-04 06:58 (UTC)

[Great. It's that girl. A part of Cortana hoped she would get to contact others before finding her. Even then, she knows a simple truth why is she attempting this.

John matters more. Especially now.]

If you have to know, UNSC AI CTN 0452-9. I think we met before calling myself "Cortana". Hi. I didn't catch you at a bad time, did I?

[The last sentence is dripping with sarcasm.]

[Then the chief she means is...

One of the reasons Ami is currently swimming in this pool: John, who she hasn't heard from in longer than she'd admit to counting.]

How nice to hear from you again. [Sarcasm for sarcasm.]

Likewise.

[Mizuno Ami adopted sarcasm. Cortana was born with it.]

Look. I want to have a pleasant conversation as much as you, but I need to know. How much time has it passed where you're at after we left?

[She bets Cortana wants pleasant conversation exactly as much as she does. But Ami stops swimming and lets herself float, letting the water enhance her mental reach. This is going to take more focus to maintain the link.]

It's been about six weeks.

Edited 2013-02-04 07:21 (UTC)

Six weeks?

[Sadly, it does make too much sense. Time-space dilation was especially cruel to the Master Chief with the portals opening. Four years had passed for him, instead of crossing over the five years he was out.]

It's only been half a day for us...! I... think we do need to talk.

[Half a day? The shock threatens to jolt her from her reverie. After this long without a word, after their parting, she'd assumed... to say the least, she'd assumed the silence meant they wouldn't be contacting each other again. It was an idea that had been carefully reinforced for that entire time. It's not that easy to shake off.

Stick to the essentials. It's not time to be sidetracked or confused.]

I'll listen to your current situation.

Honestly? Things are kind of hectic right now.

We fell into a Forerunner Shield World, there's a bunch of Covenant in possession of UNSC warheads and seeking for artifacts, a Forerunner General with a hatred of mankind woke up, we're escaping from the breaking core of the shield world aboard a Ghost, and there's a huge UNSC ship that's under attack by his forces.

Does that cover everything?

[She knows the right answer to this. The right answer is to shrug, casually, what can I do? and let it all roll off. No good will come of living her life through dreams.

The right answer is to cut this conversation off now, not to start thinking things like if I see that friend again....

But somehow, she doesn't say those things. She doesn't shake her head to shake off the notion of this intrusive other world. Silently, she listens to more.]

[Silence. Cortana wonders for a moment whenever if the information received by John's mind had suffered a delay or a disconnection, but his processes haven't changed yet. She's still operating at the speed she needs - for now.

She has a limited window until they escape their danger, and John's mental processes take over.]

Look. We don't like eachother, but things are going bad here. I know what John told you six weeks ago. He is going to appreciate the help.

Edited 2013-02-05 07:13 (UTC)

[He is only a dream.
You have tasks to complete - here.
He has already said farewell... hasn't he?

These remembered words war with the urgent ones spoken by Cortana.

Dully, like a thought by habit instead of one of her own:]

It's a separate world.

A separate world!? That not only is John in danger, but that hundreds of lives are at stake doesn't matter to you!?

[(John is gone. No more than a dream. A dream that was just his fabrication to fill the hole left by Cortana to begin with. He comes and goes (she's in no shape to consider that he always comes back), and she can neither see him in reality, nor touch his heart. This is the simple truth.)

Thus it's been reinforced, sharply and often. It's been long enough since saying farewell (the end), since forcing herself and being forced to acknowledge John is gone, that it's hard to remember how much she'd wanted to go with him, nearly chasing after him. Regretting not chasing after him. These feelings are a dull undercurrent only starting to re-awaken.

It starts as a discomfort, a discontentment. It ends in a question she can tell herself is meaningless, or even refusal, but that she knows is the first step to the wrong answer.]

Why should I fight someone else's war?

Because John wants you in it? Because you want in? Pick your reason. In case you have forgotten it in the middle of your self-pity and regret, I can read either of you like unencrypted documents.

You wanted to tell him you wanted to come back then, and we both know it.

[She remembers John walking away from her. She doesn't admit the part where he hadn't wanted to.]

Things change.

[It's colder than it should be, it's colder than she feels, but she's desperately clinging to that ice.]

Change?

You don't "change" loyalty, especially when he begged you to come -- when he was loyal to you. Even now he still hopes you'll come.

[But she has changed loyalty, so completely that it shook everything and those tremors spread out to change her entire world. An appeal to loyalty means very little to her.

But the thought of someone waiting and hoping is different. She knows it all too well: the quiet way of sitting, what it feels like knowing it's hopeless but trying to believe all the same, trying to convince yourself it's fine if it doesn't come true.

Still...]

I'm saying no.

[But that seed stays planted in the back of her mind, harder to shake off than she'd have expected.]

[She stays silent. John had put his faith on this girl for five years, and even Cortana was willing to follow him in spite of the envy she saw in herself, too. But now that they are separated, and a chance finally appeared for the two of them to reunite, Cortana realizes a brutal truth.

She was a coward. For once, she feels John's faith was misplaced.]

Whatever happens in our world, it will happen because you weren't there when you were given a choice.

Keep that in mind as you cry inside of your castle. The only person you're lying to is yourself.

[This doesn't sound like Kyuubey, but it's the first Homura's had the experience of a voice in her head (other than his, or another puella magi if Kyuubey is transmitting the thoughts).

As a result, her reply is hardly friendly.]

What do you want?

[This one is different. Studying from John's mind and dreams, it becomes familiar -- and almost surreal. A girl with several military-grade weapons.]

Just for the record, are you familiar with Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117? He seems to dream a lot with fighting girls in skirts.

[Not Kyuubey. She remembers this Master Chief, she remembers fighting with him, a war that had nothing to do with her.

A dream. Only a dream.]

Am I asleep?

That's the kicker. I noticed his brain lights up every time he enters REM state. I'm not so much inside of his head, so much as actually transmitting signals at a compatible frequency to his brain stem, the frontal, and the frontolateral areas of his brain in coordination to send messages and translate those that get to reach him.

It's amazing, really. It seems it's also possible to talk to others while John is meditating. Ooooor in a case where he's kind of busy.

[A collapsing mini-world, for instance.]

Edited 2013-02-04 07:20 (UTC)

[What? Before any coherent reply, there's simply an impression of confusion, like a murky fog. Repeated lessons in school over and over are one thing to grasp fully; this is quite another.]

What is it you want?

For one I wanted to test his link now that I have the chance to do so and see how many could I get to listen through this network.

On another, I wondered if you had access to a slipspace engine and if you wanted to kill a dormant god that wants to destroy humanity. The usual.

You have one person. [This leaves the question of the battle entirely unaddressed.]

[Sadly, it doesn't surprise Cortana too much. It's a huge request to cross worlds apart as it is. But hey, she tried.]

Make that two, so I consider this a win. Transdimensional telepathic communication doesn't sound as crazy until you try it.

[Homura may manipulate time, but dimensions would be something entirely different. Besides, she's uninterested. It has nothing to do with ~~Madoka~~ her. It's not her battlefield.]

I have never seen this power cross dimensions before. I would like to know what manner of being you are, to accomplish it. [The dead voice suggests little of the suspicion behind the words.]

I'm not so much the one doing this whole thing, but I'm actually sending piggybacked signals into the mind. I'm actually a Smart A.I. working in synchrony with the augmented human of a SPARTAN-II that got to cross world with gathered technology from other worlds.

UNSC Artificial Intelligence serial number: CTN 0452-9. I'm "Cortana". Hi.

[Most of that means nothing at all to Homura. An AI. A Spartan, she knows only from history class. Ancient Greece. An augmented human... not entirely different from the 'hardware' upgrade of a magical girl, to borrow Kyuubey's phrase.

A serial number. These AI were mass produced? Where? How?

Piggybacked signals, she'd said.]

If this is true, you are probably already aware that I am Homura Akemi.

Part of the things I researched from his dreams, but I appreciate the politeness. Nice to meet you.

[Homura Akemi. Someone like Mizuno Ami?]

I only got to hop back in after that dream happened, but I got to check his notes and residual memories on that.

It's amazing, though. An interdimensional network with an uplink inside of a person's mind...

[Like, and yet very different.]

I believe there is someone I will ask some questions about that.

[She's going to find out what Kyuubey might know about this aspect of the dreams. With the way things are now, in her world... he may actually give a straight answer. And she could use one.]

I'm not exactly sure how it happened in the Master Chief's mind, either. My closest guess, comparing biological data, is that his body most likely received a mutation of sorts with the extensive contact with the radiation he cynically calls "magic".

Given how a lot of people use it, I think it could be an accurate one.

[Homura knows very well that magic exists. While that doesn't alleviate her doubts, it is an explanation she accepts as factual. This new theory is... not impossible, either.]

Perhaps that is so. However, such things do not come without a price in return.

I think that applies with a lot of things as well, and the Buddhist concept of karma holds the abuse of power as part of the eternal cycle of pleasure and suffering.

[Not that she, as an AI, didn't love the ideal of true enlightenment. Sadly, John wasn't as big on zen koans as she is.]

His price was five years outside of his world. I agree that it is a big price for a power like that.

[Sounds like he got off easy, to the girl who lost herself inside time for so long. But that's good, really; certainly preferable.]

Has he returned now?

To his world, yeah, but...

[From the back of Cortana's own voice, Homura would probably be able to hear an explosion.]

Nnnot as peacefully as you would imagine.

Peace is a goal obtained for some at the expense of others. That is simply the way matters stand. Those unprepared for it should not be involved in the fight.

First Message :: Help

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