First Message :: Help

[one_one_se7en]

[From this voice, some other strange sounds can be heard, almost muted. Like a storm heard only from kilometers afar.]

So...

Can anyone hear me? I'm a little curious if it is a latent symptom of schizophrenia, but I get the feeling the Chief hasn't lost his marbles just yet.

Comments

[one_one_se7en]

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.]

[braidstobows]

[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?

[one_one_se7en]

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.

[braidstobows]

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

[one_one_se7en]

[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.

[braidstobows]

[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.]

[one_one_se7en]

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.

[braidstobows]

[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.

[one_one_se7en]

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...

[braidstobows]

[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.]

[one_one_se7en]

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.

[braidstobows]

[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.

[one_one_se7en]

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.

[braidstobows]

[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?

[one_one_se7en]

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.

[braidstobows]

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.