Information

Cyclic has a minion!

patient the Rhett

Cyclic
Legacy Name: Cyclic

The

Steamwork Kumos
Owner:

jeremycorbyn

Age: 8 years, 3 months, 6 days

Built: February 23rd, 2016

Adopted: 8 years, 3 months, 6 days ago

Adopted: February 23rd, 2016

Nominate Pet for Spotlight

Statistics

Level: 1
Strength: 10
Defense: 10
Speed: 10
Health: 10
HP: 10/10
Intelligence: 0
Books Read: 0
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Unemployed

occurring in cycles; regularly repeated.

public static void main (String args[])
{
public static void wasteland(String HippocraticOath, ArrayList temperature)
{
First: do no harm. You don't know what cold is; you don't get to be cold; you can't feel like that. Everyone knows this but you. You don't understand why you wake up shivering at night and drape the enemy's fallen bloodied flag you scavenged over your shoulders. The wind cuts you like a knife and they remind you that you don't know what cold is. You can't feel that way. You're heartless.

You agreed to this. You remember that. That's all you remember.

They send you out into the icy wastes with an army at your back, baying for a cause you don't remember. You stitch their flesh together where it's been blasted apart because it's the only thing you know how to do. They tell you that your job is to protect and restore. You're a battlefield medic; you have teeth and claws but they're excess. Leftovers.

There's a small pouch of medicines you carry and it surprises you that there are no plants here. You only remember this steel; these needles; this endless industry to keep death at bay is all you have left. It's all you've ever had, but something out-of-reach asks you about rivers and forest and medicinal herbs. You don't know what any of those are. You can't miss them; you miss them; you can't miss them and it hurts your head.

They tell you that you can't feel that either. And it makes no sense to you. They could have spoken to the same effect. The effort is unnecessary and clumsy and organic. It answers nothing. It means nothing. Perhaps that is the point. They send you out again.
}
public static void medicalFunction(String[] knowledge, String[] residualMemories, String creatorMessage)
{
There's no flesh or covering to cushion anything; each step on the ground sends a painful grating shudder up through your joints. It hurts to run or move or even sit (maybe it just hurts: a truth). You did this to yourself. You remember that. You do remember it because you tell yourself that you do. Maybe if you chose it then it has some meaning.

There might have been a before but there might as well have not been because it doesn't exist anymore. That which no one remembers is lost.

You grind your metallic vessel forwards each day and it hurts and they tell you that it helps others. They tell you that doesn't matter to you that it helps others; speak of you like a wind-up construct compelled towards every action. They deny you free will. It shouldn't matter; it matters; it has no right to matter and sometimes you look down at the thick metal claws, teeth and wonder what it would be like to destroy instead of mend.

Then you go back to unsanitary bone saws to cut off the sick flesh (they have no alternative for the gaping mental wounds, tell you to shrug them off) with anger and self-disgust. It's the emotions; grey and red and black; you see them like they see the sky or battlefield; you hear their thoughts as clearly as their words. One moment there is truth pouring from them and into you in a torrent of information impossible to parse and then the clearest lies escape from their lips.

Each day the sensory overload worsens with the chaotic thoughts of the damned and dead flooding from all directions. You can only take written orders because it deafens you and combined with the pain of moving, of being, you just want to crumple.

For the first time you wonder if you should hate yourself for this condemnation. But you can't because you're not the person who agreed (sometimes you feel them creaking around the back of your skull with unfamiliar associations and alien emotional reactions) you're a new being. The previous one was your creator; your vessel; the ground you crush beneath your metal feet.

Whatever agreed to this died shortly afterwards and left you here. Remnants of a dream, misguided, no sign of motive or plan, surrounded by individuals reducing you to a fatalistic path and inhumanity. You are faceless; you are a hound; and could it have always been like this? Time confuses you.

Lips are flesh and muscle wrapped around teeth and bone, tied to the face with sinew. You once had a patient bite through theirs with pain. You thought the words cosmetic surgery but, oh, thanks, you don't know what that is. These words - poetry and fountain and lily of the valley - what were you thinking leaving them in your head? They don’t belong here. You don’t need words at all.

You want to be clean and sterile. Away from the conflict, the helping and hurting, away from these words you use without knowing the meaning of and these people who pour their hatred down your throat until you choke on these fumes; these people; no more; you're getting out; you're-

One day the shadow (creator; origin; cross-section of a straight line) throws something at you. Maybe it’s always been there, this message, this achingly nostalgic sentiment representing something you’ll never know, but it’s there, and:

System.out.println("The horizon does not get closer as you approach. There’s nothing worth remembering; don’t try because forgetting is harder.");

You think the code from your handlers was more helpful and run needlessly fast, violently, bruising these pipes holding you together. It’s just this healing without context destroying you, you tell yourself, all you see is patching people up so they can return in pieces to be thrown into a glacier. You’re killing people and that doesn’t bother you; you’re killing patients and that means something strong to the emotional residue in your mind.
}
public static void resetWarning(Boolean limitReached, ArrayList Pain)
{
One day you throw it all to hell and run as far away as you can. You reach the edge of a polar ice field before they drag you back and overwrite that consciousness with a fresh one. You understand then, moments before erasure: this is not the first time you have fled. Awaken; heal; become; flee; return; repeat.

“You’ve done this before.” You tell the person restraining you.

They look away. Guilt, avoidance, both, neither. It hurts to try and isolate that feeling from the constant bombardment.

“How many?” You ask, eyes glowing different colours, ears peaked. “How many times have you put me through this exercise in futility?”

“Sisyphus.” He says it like it’s supposed to mean something to you; to cast a light on some great and meaningful truth. The pretense, the poetry frustrates you. How are you supposed to understand? He must know it means nothing to you.

He adds nothing else. They took your identity; they gave you claws; they gave you teeth. Their loud thoughts bleed into yours: xe hasn’t attacked us in the last thirty rotations; xe won’t start now. You’re so busy concentrating on the one voice that you don’t see one of them take a cattle prod out and presses it into your side.
}
public static void pacify(String[] instructions, String[] availableActions)
{
You don’t lash out in pain (feels wrongwrongwrong) you curl up and go limp. They don’t press you again.

“Conditioning worked.” One mutters to the other. “Now if we could just train xyr to focus maybe we could find a use for the telepathy.”

“Xe doesn’t have the mental capacity to process the information. That’s why we couldn’t make xyr fight. Give up the dream.”

You want to say something that will stay with them, make them suffer. Instead you reach for meaning.

“I can feel temperature.” It’s half a wheeze. You’re unable to shift yourself from this position prostrate on the floor. “I can feel. Cold. And. I remember that I chose this. I can remember.”

The one with the cattle prod starts unscrewing your metal cranium. You know what will come next and you choose, choose (this is important: you consciously affected something with forethought), to move your head up and grab that fat wrist covered in sinew and-

Another blocks you with a spanner. You were too fast; they knew it was coming. You must always do that; each time they try to wipe your mind clean your teeth must snap shut at that exact instant. Their timing is too perfect. You fear you’ve traveled around this wheel too many times.

“I am.” You tell them, like it’s supposed to mean something. They don’t hesitate as they br-

return;
}

public static void main (String args[])
{
public static void wasteland(String HippocraticOath, ArrayList temperature)
{
Waking. Cold. First: do no harm.

“You don’t feel the cold.” A spear; a voice; harpooned.

Shuddering. Joints hurt. Everything hurts. Quake. Screeching sound of metal on metal.

You’re still cold.
}
return;
}

Diary of Dr.{REDACTED} confirmed handler of Subject_23

DAY 1
They gave me another basket case this time. It's impossible to replicate entire neural networks in machines without leaving residual memories and associations, and this is another example of where the scanned mind was unable to withstand the stress of transformation. If they expect reliable drones they need to use simplistic AIs.

Subject_23 is the worst kind of unbalanced: intelligent, quick, and violent. Upon our first meeting xe seemed disoriented, complaining of joint pains and sensory overload. Due to the nature of the project it would be counterproductive to reduce the sensitivity of xyr sensors.

Upon nearing xyr cage xe almost instantly went prone. I suspected another incomplete copy and stepped forward to remove the body so it could be rewritten. Xe jumped me and would have gored my arm if not for [REDACTED]'s diligence. I asked for Subject_23 to be decommissioned but [REDACTED] denied my request yet again.

The predisposition to violence must be halted before xe can do any damage. I've ordered a neural shunt which should be installed by tomorrow as well as the standard conditioning.
DAY 2
This new case is endlessly challenging. I have deleted the neural map from the database; xe is too volatile and the residual memories are too strong. By dominating they are preventing any kind of new identity from taking place.

I have isolated new memory from the main algorithm to allow for multiple approaches at obedience training. However, their original skillset, as a medic, seems to have been entirely retained. It would be a waste to not use these skills.

I have recommended their deployment as a medic for the ongoing Artic conflict once their conditioning is complete.
DAY 5
I managed to convince [REDACTED] that Subject_23 was not suited for the telepathy trial. Xe is unable to process information as it is, with the hypersensitivity required for xyr functionality. Telepathy would cause xe to completely break from reality.

DAY 11
Six stitches. The anti-violence shunt is not functioning correctly. Under extreme stress SUBJECT_23 is still able to fight back.

I'm recommending xe for the telepathy trial.
DAY 14
After three wipes SUBJECT_23 is still completely incoherent post-telepathy installation, although it appears to have worked as xe responds to our thoughts.

Xe perceives physical sensation, sound, and thoughts as one stream of information which rapidly diminishes their sanity. It's likely that xe will have to be wiped at least weekly for the rest of xyr existence.
DAY 53
Today my team was called in to wipe Subject_23 again.

Subject_23 is incapable of stability for a period longer than a week. We are able to deploy xe as a battlefield medic, but after a period of 6-9 days xe will run away. Telling xyr that xe is incapable of sensation or free will has thus far extended the period to 8-11 days.

Xe is currently not proving a profitable investment and still attempts to bite the hand of whoever administers the wipe (today xe almost severed [REDACTED]'s wrist). The telepathy keeps xe confused enough that xe does not attempt to attack or disobey for the week-long period.

This routine has been going for over a month, I expect it will continue. I have no interest in continuing work on this project. I will be passing the case on to [REDACTED].