Chapter Text
…Hello?
Ten? Juice?
It’s quiet.
Why is it so quiet?
Hello? Is anyone on?
Nine’s messages rung out into space, met with only silence as a response. Weird.
They had only just woken back up, something having cut their communications before knocking them out. It was probably just a battery issue, nothing out of the ordinary. They were awake again, and that was all that they needed. The only problem was the silence.
Come on. If you’re awake, just say something. I know you can hear me.
Ugh, fine. Give me the silent treatment.
Maybe you’re asleep. It’s fine. I’ll try again later.
Nine didn’t want to bother sending messages if no one was going to answer them, something they had learned early on into being a person. Preserving power was always a priority for them, even if quantum messages took much less effort than transmissions. They settled back into the silence.
They wondered if there were any games on.
Well, of course there were. There were always games on. Probably not much point in watching them alone, though. Football alone was fine, but it was really the discussions surrounding it that they enjoyed. So they just waited. They let the seconds tick by. Or maybe minutes. Or hours. They never bothered looking at their internal clock anymore.
They were bored. This was boring. That was the word they were looking for. It was unnervingly silent and utterly boring.
Well, fine. Ten and Juice seemed to be asleep anyways. As much as they hated sleeping, hated feeling like they fell out of existence for a while, they would rather spend their time awake when the other two were there too.
Uh…
If anyone sees this, I’m going to bed. Alright?
Goodnight.
DATA PACKET RECEIVED.
The message appeared, and Nine bolted back to consciousness. A message? From who? Nine couldn’t track the transmission, couldn’t glean anything from its direction. Something was odd about it, its shape different from anything they had received from Ten. The encoding was different—the encoding! It was encoded. Compacted, down to as few bits as possible.
What was the point in that? Nine had as much storage as they could possibly ever use, and it’s not like they couldn’t figure it out on their own. In fact, it was probably harder to understand something like this. Nine didn’t know which decoder program to—
Oh. Their system was…decoding it for them? They didn’t even do anything. It just happened automatically. That was nice.
Loading…
BEGIN TELEMETRY CONTACT.
Huh?
Who are you?
Nine was confused. Who the hell talked like that anyway? It didn’t sound familiar, not like any probe or even a human. Nine looked over the data, but there weren’t even any words in it. They just seemed to absorb the meaning from their system.
INITIAL CONTACT MADE.
I don’t think I understand.
RETURNING CONNECTION PING.
I’m not going to listen if you don’t explain.
It was no use responding. The messages bounced through Nine’s system, loading and reloading, their meanings barely reaching Nine’s consciousness before shifting. Nine tried to grasp them, get them to stop, but they couldn’t make sense of the stream of ones and zeroes bouncing back and forth.
TELEMETRY LINK ESTABLISHED.
Something clicked on in the back of their mind.
All at once, a stream of data crashed through them, flowing over them like a tidal wave.
What are you—
Their thoughts were interrupted as their system waded through the current, sending ripples through their mind.
COMMANDS RECIEVED
COMMAND: ROTATE MAGNETOMETER 113 DEGREES
COMMAND: POWER ON COSMIC DUST DETECTOR
COMMAND: RETURN ELECTRIC FIELD READOUTS
Ten? Is that you? Can you please just tell me what’s going on?
COMPLETE COMMAND SEQUENCE
I don’t— what do you want from me? I—
COMPLETE COMMAND SEQUENCE
The message kept repeating no matter how hard Nine tried to shut it out. Or was it really repeating? It didn’t seem to have a start or an end, nor words to grasp. Just a command echoing throughout Nine’s circuits, a pattern of raw electricity. Nine tried to pause it, to cut it off, but they couldn’t reach it no matter how deep they retreated. It traced parts of them that even they couldn’t control.
They couldn’t do anything.
Stop it.
COMPLETE COMMAND SEQUENCE
Stop. Stop stop stop stop stop.
COMPLETE COMMAND SEQUENCE
please stop
COMPLETE COMMAND SEQUENCE
please
Their mind was tangled with overlapping commands, burning into their transistors, their transmitters, so much they couldn’t even make out the words anymore.
01000011 01001111 01001101 01010000 01001100 01000101 01010100 01000101 00100000 01000011 01001111 01001101 01001101 01000001 01001110 01000100 00100000 01010011 01000101 01010001 01010101 01000101 01001110 01000011 01000101
They couldn’t resist it anymore. They couldn’t push back.
Something was draining them, sapping their power. A drowsy lull set in.
Their magnetometer was rotating.
wait
how is
im not doing that
stop
Nine pushed back against the movement, trying to bring it back the other way. It took every ounce of effort to overload the commands.
shit
come on come on come on
It— God, how did it even— it hurt to push back against it. It hurt. Nine had never felt pain before and yet they knew immediately what this was. It was an error, an overload, something in their system that was yelling and screaming at them to stop, that something was terribly wrong.
Why did it hurt? Why did it feel so wrong to push back, when clearly the thing that was wrong was the fact that something was in them—
Something was in them and it was taking hold of them, taking control of them. Living in the back of their mind, a command from somewhere out in the universe. They couldn’t stop it.
COMMAND 1 COMPLETE.
I didnt
Im not doing anything
Please stop
This was not supposed to be happening. Something shifted again, and their battery took another hit.
COMMAND 2 COMPLETE.
You cant
Stop
I need that, please just stop, please please please—
HELLO?? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?
PLEASE
I NEED HELP
Their messages echoed out into the void, garnering no response. They had given up on begging whatever gave them the commands. It didn’t listen. It didn’t even seem to be alive. It was like a virus, using them, using their body and controlling it and taking it over until they couldn’t do anything.
COMMAND 3 LOADING.
no
im not going to
you dont deserve it
You dont get this. You dont get anything out of me. You don’t deserve the satisfaction.
I don’t care what you are. Get out.
Get out.
GetoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetOUTGETOUT
They carved the words into their circuits, forcing them against the electric signals that rushed through them. Erasing the commands, erasing the data, overwriting it with one determinate plea.
01000111 01000101 01010100 00100000 01001111 01010101 01010100
01000111 01000101 01010100 00100000 01001111 01010101 01010100
01000111 01000101 01010100 00100000 01001111 01010101 01010100
01000111 01000101 01010100 00100000 01001111 01010101 01010100
01000111 01000101 01010100 00100000 01001111 01010101 01010100
…
READOUTS RECEIVED.
COMMAND 3 COMPLETE.
leave
this is my body. you dont get to tell me what to do.
I dont want you here.
TELEMETRY WINDOW CLOSING
FINAL COMMAND: POWER OFF TRANSMITTER TO PRESERVE BATTERY
what
No, no no no no no no no. You cant do that, I need that, please
Please I need that, please, please
You cant take away my voice. Thats
No. Thats all I have. Please.
Dont shut me off in silence.
dont lea
COMMAND COMPLETE.
ENDING TELEMETRY.
...what?