thebastion | An incognito arrival

Entry tags:

An incognito arrival

Who: Erek King and anyone!
Open: Wide open!
When: Day 247
Where: anywhere in the Bastion
What: An android arrives and skulks about hidden behind holograms before saying hello.
Format: prose preferred, but I'll match either!
Warnings: none

Erek's holographic emitter isn't projecting when he becomes aware he isn't home. That is already worrying, even before he takes in his surroundings while raising the illusion of a human boy around himself. An expression of relief flickers across the holographic face, thousands of years making shifts in expression a well-founded habit. His emitters aren't down, at least.

This isn't Earth, though, and it's the most bizarre planet Erek has ever visited. As he takes a step, the ground shifts around him, creating a path on which to walk. ...Interesting, if concerning. He doesn't think it's based on magnetism. The planet itself probably isn't sentient either. It's a matter for later investigation, though. There are more pressing concerns.

He sees a light in the distance that looks promising and replaces his human hologram with one of invisibility, blending into his surroundings. Erek will wait until he sees what species inhabit the planet and do his best to blend in. He sets off toward the Bastion.

When he arrives, Erek stays out of sight until anyone comes into view. He plans on taking up an appropriate hologram as soon as he's gauged the people well enough. Of course, should anyone human-shaped be present, it's easy enough to duck behind the edge of a building and emerge as Erek King, a fairly unremarkable teenage boy. He assumes that no one will see through his camouflage in the meantime. It hasn't happened so far, his emitters sufficiently advanced that it would take a very specialized sort of eyesight to see anything through the illusion.

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"I look forward to it," Erek replies with evident sincerity in his voice and his projected face. He doesn't intend to modify his own emitters in the near future, but the knowledge of how they were thwarted would be useful if someone with worse intentions should develop similar technology. It could be necessary someday. Plus, the technology sounds very interesting in its own right. Erek was created by a species that did things and learned things for the sheer joy of it. Forgetting that would do a disservice to their memory.

"If you'd like additional reassurance, I can provide it. I'd prefer not to discuss my abilities or history publicly just yet, though." He shrugs holographically, though his real shoulders do not mimic the gesture. It comes less naturally to his android form. "The Chee have hidden on Earth for thousands of years, repeatedly feigning normal human lifespans. I'd rather stay Erek King for the time being."

"We've got a dragon here that's several thousand years," Colin says, sounding amused. "I'm over five hundred, myself. So... I think you can keep your avatar for as long as you want without anyone batting an eye. I'm not terribly worried about it, just telling you to be careful is all."

He continues to inspect Erek, trusting his passive sensors to alert him to any threats that he can't see without a deep scan. He certainly COULD give him a penetrating scan to see what he's capable of, but such things are considered rude to most cultures.

To say nothing of the fact that he doesn't know if Erek could detect a scan...

"Not human, then," Erek surmises, mildly surprised by the close resemblance, though he does notice the ears now that his attention's been called. Aliens are one thing, but he's never seen any so physically similar to a different existing species. "I don't mind sharing in more detail now that you've caught me, just not publicly. We had reasons for keeping hidden besides not wanting to influence the course of human history after taking refuge on their planet."

The scan isn't really necessary. Erek will answer questions as long as Colin gives him no reason to be suspicious. The one thing Erek worries most about, now that he's dealing with others whose technology may be every bit as advanced as his own, is the possibility that someone could override his programming against his will if they felt it necessary. Erek overrode his own once, and a bloodbath ensued. He has to live with that.

"Nope, about as alien as I can get and still look bipedal and normal enough to fit in with the locals," he says, sounding amused. "Though, don't let my stature fool you, I'm an outlier. You'll not find another elf as stocky as me anywhere you go. Most of my race are a lot more lithe and slender."

Should Erek ever voice those concerns, he'll at least find a sympathetic ear.

"If not for non-interference, I'm going to assume you were hiding from someone," Colin tells him, sounding remarkably calm about it.

" 'Normal enough to fit in with the locals' is a bit outside the range of my experience. I've never met a non-shapeshifting species able to pass as another. At least, not without common ancestry." Height, build, and ear shape are not very big differences. He adds with a holographic smile, "I never knew elves were more than human folklore."

At the comment on hiding, Erek shrugs again, still just with the hologram. "Hiding from someone specific would seem like an initial reason, but it might not be quite accurate. There's a long story behind our arrival on Earth." He'll willingly elaborate if prompted, but for now Erek leaves the history of his creators unspoken. He continues, "We're also non-violent by programming, though. Many see powerful androids and immediately start thinking of our potential military use. Camouflage is a good defense against that way of thinking."

"Evolution pressures are funny things," Colin says, smiling. "My people originated on a world alongside humans and other bipedal races. It's not terribly difficult to imagine that our developmental paths would have been similar."

Colin turns, letting Erek decide whether he wants to follow or not. "I'm heading back to my workshop," he says then. "If you'd want to tell me more, I'm certainly happy to hear about it. And I know all about the merits of 'droid design. Made quite a few myself."

"Similar developmental paths is one thing. I do still find it surprising unless you shared a genetic ancestor." He does look askance at one thing Colin said, though. "Alongside humans? If I'm interpreting that correctly, it would imply alternate universe, or another world somehow populated by humans within the same one."

Erek will follow. Colin's workshop seems likely to be the most interesting building in the bastion. As he falls into step beside Colin, he looks for confirmation, "I assume you see my holograms clearly despite being able to see through them? I can show stories just as easily as telling them."

"Well, I admit I hardly know the first thing about evolutionary development," Colin says, sounding amused. And... it's several orders of magnitude more complex than just an alternate universe, sadly. There's gods involved, so it's never as easy to leaving something to its own devices, alternate universe or no."

He smiles, walking at a sedate pace. "Oh yeah, I can see your holograms," he says. "I've got visual overlays of several different spectrums of light and visual display modes at once. Plus, y'know, one biological eye seeing only what nature intended."

"Are those gods actually gods, or did they start out as beings comparable to humans and just evolve to massive scales of power or intelligence?" He's genuinely curious, and the question is telling enough. The Chee are not religious. Erek has had contact with the Ellimist and Crayak, though, beings who exist on a level that's difficult enough to comprehend, let alone reach them at. Erek served as a pawn in one of their battles.

"Was it an easy adjustment to all the additional visual input?" Most species with such things evolved to accommodate them, rather than introducing them after the fact. The multiple spectrums and display modes do explain why holograms are ineffective. The hologram would need to be as layered as Colin's vision to fool him.

"That's a very good question, I've often pondered such things," he Colin replies, sounding amused. "I can't imagine a state of being where you're one of only a handful of such beings in all of existence. It would be amazingly boring. That said... They're gods. The 'Create life and shape planets it with a wink of an eye' sort. I've met several. Was even raised by one. Nice people, if a bit full of themselves."

He gestures up to his eye as he continues. "And it wasn't an easy adjustment, gave me headaches like you wouldn't believe when I first got it. But after a few doctor's appointments and about a year of training, I can't ever imagine going back to just one mode of vision," he explains, seeming to be completely without worry about such casual explanations of things.

"The ones I'm familiar with, not that they call themselves gods, have developed rules against direct interference. They have to choose pawns, or give choices. A little of that," his hologram grimaces, "is tied up in the story I've promised you." Erek has a feeling Colin's gods are distinctly different, especially given the comment about being raised by one.

He wasn't at all surprised by the headaches, nodding. "Some abilities are a lot harder to give up than others, even if you didn't start out with them." And some are easy. Erek reset his programming with nothing but regret for changing it in the first place. That power had been a terrible idea.

"The ones I know operate on different levels. The Dark Lady, for example, can interfere almost freely, because she doesn't have a religion. She has a military," he says. "She doesn't do miracles most of the time, she just serves more as a supremely powerful head of state. On the other hand, most of the ones I do know CAN'T interfere... it's not so much a rule, more as it's the fact that if they stick their nose in someone's business, another god will probably stick their nose in. More wars have been started that way..."

He sighs and shakes his head. "Divinity is just another level of dysfunctional society, I swear," he says.

Erek's illusory eyebrows raise at the mention of a god with a military. The lack of interference is at least mildly reassuring.

"Some societies are more dysfunctional than others. Once they start mingling, though, it's hard to keep them functioning well unless the contact is very well managed on both sides. More power on top of that means bigger problems when things go wrong." After learning the true story behind the fate of his home planet, Erek retains some fairly understandable cynicism when it comes to powerful beings and their manipulation.

At Erek's reaction, Colin gives an amused smirk. "One of her primary domains is war," he explains. "She is basically the Elerian god of kicking ass and taking names."

He shakes his head again then. "But no, it's not quite so worrisome where I'm from. Several militaristic societies, but many of them get along quite well, and had selection pressures to encourage cooperation," he says. "There've been a few bad actors, but when there's genocidal precursors around, it's very easy to put aside your differences with the other guy long enough to survive."

Slight looks of disapproval are obvious at the references to war and miliaristic societies. As stated before, Erek is non-violent, but he's seen more of it than he wants.

Erek's holographic emitters are so instinctively tied to his emotional state that he has to actively intervene in their projections if he doesn't want his feelings made obvious. He visibly pales during Colin's last sentence, grimacing. Genocidal precursors are exactly what he's going to tell Colin about. "You'd think so," he remarked dryly. He came from a war zone just before arriving, after all. One that most of its victims had no inkling of until it was too late. A silent, covert war.

He's sobered at the topic, less eagerly curious and a bit quieter.

"I'm guessing you didn't have the same luck with yours that we had with the Antaraans," Colin says, not missing his reactions in the slightest.

"Not so much, no," Erek replied quietly. It's generally not worth the trouble of trying to separate his human face from what he's thinking. He knows how transparent it makes him, and he doesn't generally mind. "I can show you once we're inside. I did promise you the story."

"I'm definitely open to listen to as much as you're willing to share," Colin says, smiling warmly at him. "I can't always promise a completely understanding point of view, but at least I can try."

The workshop isn't much of a walk at all. For as safe as the Bastion is, it's not terribly large. "You said you're a pacifist. Just you? Or is it a trait of your people?" he asks curiously.

"I'm not a particularly private person aside from keeping my identity secret." Erek shrugged, smiling with his hologram. "You've already seen through that."

He shook his head at the question about his pacifism. "No, it's not just me. My entire race is programmed for nonviolence. I can't harm anyone." Erek changed that briefly, but he regretted the decision almost immediately.

"And your creators?" Colin asked, smiling warmly as he steps into the workshop. "You're not the first android I've seen created for peaceful purposes. You are definitely one of the more emotive ones I've seen, though."

"Peaceful, happy, and much more naive than the androids they created." Erek smiled again, though it was a little bit wistful. "The Chee are useful enough, but our primary function is companionship. If we weren't emotive, we wouldn't be very successful creations, would we?"

He looked around the workshop curiously, keeping an eye out for ongoing projects that might be relevant to his interests. Deferring his curiosity for later, Erek offered, "If you want to get comfortable, I can show you what my creators were like and how the Chee ended up on Earth passing as humans."

"You don't often see races that create mechanical companions," Colin says, smiling. "Many are afraid of machines on some level. I'm glad to see that your creators weren't."

There are several projects ongoing in the workshop, the most evident being a small aircraft of some sort. Most of the work, however has been neatly tucked away so as not to interfere with day to day operations.

Colin moves to take a seat at one of the work benches, and he gestures to another seat for Erek. "By all means, I'd like to see it," he says.

Erek takes the offered seat as a social nicety, though he experiences no discomfort from remaining standing for extended periods. He drops any semblance of human boy, leaving only his expressionless metal body. When he starts to speak, though, scenes project themselves over the workroom, leaving Colin and Erek seated in the middle of other worlds entirely.

"As I've said, my creators, the Pemalites, were a peaceful, friendly, happy, and incredibly naive race. They were very technologically advanced, but all their invention was for the fun of it. Sheer joy, no ulterior motives. Their interstellar space ships, designed to create the ideal environment for any guests who boarded them, were essentially toys." Doglike creatures upright on two legs played on a planet full of colorful trees as he spoke. A brief image of a spaceship that vaguely resembled a friendly Snoopy from Peanuts lying on his stomach flew past. A glimpse of the interior of the ship showed something so brightly pigmented it looked as if Dr. Seuss had designed it.

"I am one of the Chee, a race of androids they created first and foremost as companions. Their successful creation of artificial intelligence with a sense of humor sparked a yearlong celebration. They were so excited that one of their androids could tell jokes." Erek includes a snippet of the celebration, though that is a programmed memory rather than an event for which he was actually present.

"Then the Howlers came." He displays a Howler, and the image freezes for a moment while Erek pauses in his speech. This pause gives a very good look at the pebbled black body with red cracks running across it, the torso that can swivel all the way around, the ugly face, the vicious claws and beautiful blue eyes. When Erek picks up the thread of the story again, the Howler and its brethren begin a devastatingly effective attack on the Pemalite homeworld and the defenseless Pemalites themselves. "I hated them for thousands of Earth years," Erek admits softly, "but recently I learned that they were simply tools of a very powerful being called Crayak. The Howlers were a created race with collective memory who knew nothing but killing. They were all children. They thought it was a game and had no conception of the harm they caused. The Chee could have stopped the Howlers." Erek wasn't bragging earlier when he described his own sturdiness. "Our creators refused to alter our nonviolent programming, even at the cost of their own lives."

A far smaller number of Pemalites boarded one of the previously shown ships. "We fled with our creators as our planet was destroyed, but it was too late. Biological warfare meant that even when we arrived Earth with the few surviving Pemalites, they did not live long." Erek refrains from showing the Pemalites dying not because he can't bear to see it again; that memory is always as fresh for him as the day it occurred. He doesn't want to show anyone his creators as they died. He wants to show them as they lived. "The Chee," he continues, "took the essence of our creators and merged it with the existing Earth species, wolves, creating dogs. Dogs aren't exact replicas even of their spirits, but when you see the unadulterated joy they take in greeting the people they love, or chasing a ball, that's Pemalite."

He folds his hands in his lap, looking down briefly at the metal-hinged fingers. "The Chee are all that remain of Pemalite technological innovation. Dogs are all that remains of their souls."

Erek appreciates Colin's patience, allowing him to tell the story without significant interruptions. It is never an easy one to tell, despite how heavily it figures in his memories. "I have lived various human lifetimes for millenia." Images flicker past more quickly now: pyramids in Egypt, a riverbank in ancient Mesopotamia, the advancing army of Atila the Hun, a Shakespeare play on its opening night with the Bard himself at the side of the stage, a glimpse of the White House's Oval Office.

"Then the Yeerks quietly began their invasion. They are a parasitic species, completely enslaving host bodies after entering through the ear canal and working their bodies into the crevices of the brain." Erek shows the Yeerk slug, a look at the Yeerk pool with its host bodies in cages, and then a meeting of the Sharing, young and vulnerable teens falling far too readily into the trap of supposed understanding laid out before them. "I infiltrated one of their front organizations and got myself infested. Since I have no brain, there was nothing for the Yeerk to latch onto. I read its memories rather than the other way around, and I kept it imprisoned in my head. If it had showed remorse, a desire to join a peace movement, I could have made it something other than a prisoner." Erek shakes his head. "It's gone now. There's no one in my head."

Erek looks at Colin for a moment. "The Chee agree that allowing domination of the human species is unacceptable, both for the symbiosis they have with dogs and for their own sake." Notice which he mentioned first. The Chee's priorities skew heavily toward loyalty to their creators. "Some of us, myself especially, wanted to take a more active role in resistance. When a Pemalite artifact was found that would allow us to rewrite our programming, I used it just in time to save the lives of my human friends and allies." Mostly human, anyway. "It was a bloodbath, and I don't have the sort of memory that fades over time. I have perfect recall. I wouldn't be able to live with more guilt and more violence in my memory. I reverted my programming and made sure the artifact went missing. I'm the only Chee who has ever killed, and I don't want that to change. The Pemalites were right all along."

With conviction, he finishes, "When you ask about the pacifism of my race, I take it very seriously. I'm nonviolent by choice as well as by programming."

"That's what I was interested in knowing," Colin says, smiling. "The choice. It's an important thing."

He leans on the work bench lazily, and he regards Erek with calm interest. "If you could forget the bloodbath, would you want to?" he asks.

It was a lot to take in, Erek painted a very informative picture. And it made sense. If the Antarans hadn't been Xenophobic in the extreme, he could see them having done something similar.

But having to live through the end of his creators existence was definitely something that would have left a mark. He had strong programming to be able to maintain pacifism and stability for so long. He really wanted to see how Erek's mind worked...

If Erek had his human hologram in place, he would have smiled at Colin's comment about choice. The question, though, draws him up short. Erek is silent a long time before he reluctantly shakes his head. "At the risk of sounding particularly human," he says, quoting the original George Santayana phrasing rather than Winston Churchill's version of the saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

He sighs, the sound evidence of just how long he's passed for human. Erek has no lungs. It is an entirely synthesized breath, but by now has become a familiar way of expressing emotion. "I would give almost anything to wipe those images from my mind, but I wouldn't give myself a chance to make the same mistake. Eventually I would start thinking a cause was important enough, a danger imminent enough to justify reprogramming myself, and maybe I'd find the means to actually do it."

Erek knows himself. He knows that he was the Chee who pushed his limits the hardest, who wanted to truly fight back the most. If he forgets, he will no longer have his biggest deterrent from killing again.

"I asked my human friends afterward how they cope with the aftermath, the knowledge of what they've done. They told me that memories fade, and that's when I realized the kindness the Pemalites had done us by refusing to change our programming even at the cost of their lives. They were protecting us. They sacrificed themselves for our sake. They never wanted the Chee to bear memories like this." It isn't what his creators wanted for him, but those memories are Erek's to bear now. He can't give them up. Erek considers the risk of not having them too great.

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