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Chapter 33 Beyond Programming

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“After all this time, all this searching, you were right here the entire time. I would have never guessed you roboticized yourself to give me my body. After all this time I thought I was built.”

“Well, you were, by me and everyone else, though I did a vast majority of the programming, design work and getting the actual roboticizer to work.”

“And you’re the one who made that command 83?” asks Crisis with a soft growl as Karrie just notices that Crisis’ hologram seems to have broken holographic shackles of green and red 1’s and 0’s, but every so often the random 1’s and 0’s form the number 83. The cuffs and shackles are around Crisis’ wrists, ankles and neck. The chains are short but are slowly growing longer.

“I have no idea who put that command program in,” replies Karrie.

“Well I didn’t see you do anything to remove it once you discovered it was there… though I see its affecting you just like me,” says Crisis with a smirk.

“It’s what?” asks Karrie as Crisis points to Karrie’s ankles and wrists, there Karrie finds the same shackles and collar around her neck, “What the hell?!”

“You managed to resist it when general Raszer activated it for you, but it seems it’s creeping along you like it did for me.”

“I thought that was you trying to break free.”

“I was trying to break free, from the command and from your overrides, but nope that is the command which has gotten stronger when the bastard called it out again on you.”

“Then why does it seem to move growing on both of us equally?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Croc’s device is keeping it in check or it split it between us equally so I’d be able to have this conversation with you.”

“It is intriguing… maybe I put sometime into it I can figure out how to break the program.”

“Time is something we don’t have Karrie and you really think I’d trust you to get rid of that command for the both of us?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, maybe your track record not to mention most of the other organics I’ve met.”

“What do you mean Crisis?” asks Karrie.

“You’re kidding right?” replies Crisis as she paces in a small circle, “You really have no clue? About how I’ve been constantly used and been everyone’s puppet all this time, especially yours. Where you could just come pop out anytime you want and take over? I was warned constantly by those around me, by even Croc himself that I was just the organics tool to be used and thrown away but did I listen? No! I was so focused on destroying Croc I couldn’t read the writing on the damn wall of what was really going on.”

“You weren’t the only one,” says Karrie with a sigh.

“Sure, sure you know exactly how I feel. To be controlled from the moment you’re created by your programming, to do what you are built for. Thinking nothing but of Croc’s destruction. Doing everything you can to do only that, nothing else, and the moment you think you have it, all control over your life is taken away not once, but twice! You so know how I feel,” growls Crisis as she glares at Karrie with her blue eyes as Karrie begins to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” asks Crisis.

“Well for one, it’s amusing just how wrong you are, and two how much you sounded like me when I was in high school. My parents told me I’d have the same conversation when I had children, but I never would have guessed it would be like this.”

“And you find that funny?”

“A little bit yeah,” replies Karrie.

“I don’t see how this can be amusing, and how it’s anyway like what I’ve been through.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

“Sure about what?”

“Are you so sure that you’ve been as controlled as you think you have been? I don’t think you are anymore controlled than anyone else is.”

“Really? Have you had your entire personality stripped from you and become nothing more than a puppet for some mad power hungry general? Or your body taken over by someone you never met?”

“Well… no, not really.”

“Then how could you possible understand how I feel? What it’s like for me?” asks Crisis.

“Nothing exactly like that, but… something similar.”

“Similar?”

“When I was five years old my parents knew there was something different about me than other girls my age. They had concerns that I had problems so they took me to a specialist a few in fact to figure out was wrong. You see I wasn’t playing with dolls or hanging outside with the other children. I was on the computer or taking them apart and putting them back together. I got in trouble once for taking apart our family television, boy was my father was mad. Even after I put it back together in working order he still grounded me for a month.”

“Karrie you are getting off subject,” groans Crisis.

“Sorry, sorry. So my family brought me to specialist after specialist. It took them five years to find out there was nothing actually ‘wrong’ with me but that I was rather gifted with machines, computers, programming, ect.”

“I don’t see your point in your story.”

“I’m getting there. So my family realizing I had a talent in this, decided that I needed to have these skills sharpened, so my family found a school for someone like myself.”

“So what was the problem?”

“The problem was that in order to go to this school we had to move, so my family took me away from the few friends I had, anyone I knew gone, and not like I was a wonder at making friends. I was the new kid at this school, ostracized the moment I got there. I had less social interaction then than I did before we left. So I focused more on what I was meant to do and nothing else. My parents pushed me even harder to do better than everyone else too. Starting to sound a bit familiar? Constantly focused on what you were ‘meant’ to do?”

“A little, but still it doesn’t compare.”

“Does it now? For the first eighteen years of my life, I was controlled my parents. I loved them, but I had few freedoms, fewer when they realized how gifted I really was. I didn’t get a chance to get out and start to socialize again till college, and guess what happened?”

“What?”

“The war that Croc started poured into our country two years prior started to really go downhill. I lost most of my family to that Croc, I lost a good portion of who I was over those years, then I got drafted into the military where my gifts for computers was seized upon immediately and I was put to work, told what to do, which eventually led to the Crisis project and me giving my body to you which you had complete control over for years.”

“Well you had the choice to become me, it wasn’t forced upon you.”

“It was sort of…”

“How was it sort forced upon you?” asks Crisis with a curious look.

“The general of the base was hesitant to go with the Crisis project. There have been times he wanted to pull the plug on it. ‘Fuck what my superiors think, I’m not going to release one mechanical monster to fight another,’ he’s said from time to time. No clue why they put someone who was against the project to be the person in charge of the project… though if I think about it, General Raszer was the one pushing for the project while the president wasn’t too for it, but at the time we were desperate.”

“Karrie you are getting off the subject again.”

“Oh, right, right, sorry. Well the situation demanded action, and his threatening to delay the project continuously till we just outright canceled it or lose the war, left me with no options but to skip all protocols and do it myself with no approval for the way the war was going it was either going to happen then or not at all. So in a way yes, I had no option. I love my country and I wanted to do my part to try to save it, and you were it.”

“I can see one thing I got from you.”

“What’s that?”

“My urge and focus to save my country, I clearly got that from you.”

“Yeah… though can you see some similarities? It’s not as different as you think. You had far more level of control.”

“Yeah? How did I have any level of control? As far as I can tell it was feigned control. I was merely a puppet allowed to do things while it was in line with what others wanted, the moment I would go against the grain of that, I became that mindless husk.”

“And I took over the body when you were that, but before I get off topic let me explain how you did far more than you think.”

“Yes, please do.”

“Do you know I went through all your experiences when you were in control?”

“Quite aware of that, I felt I was trapped behind a pane of glass unable to do anything but watch and listen to what was going on.”

“Alright, well I went through your experiences when you were in control, and looked at your programming to try to figure out so many inconsistencies that I saw about what you’ve done,” explains Karrie.

“When I went left instead of going right?”

“Far from it, there was much to your programming that I never saw in there before. Did you know you were supposed to eliminate the entire research crew, the general, and take over the base by any means necessary?”

“Well I did take over the base by any means necessary, and turning them into machines, would count as eliminating them.”

“Well you were meant to kill everyone, it was probably why you were so determined to find me, to finish the job, but over time you brushed it off, even though there is no reason why you should. And you didn’t kill the crew, and you spared Joshua.”

“I thought he would be useful for taking over the base, and later I was going to roboticize him, when I felt it was appropriate.”

“But you didn’t and then there was putting the crew into French maid outfits… I have no idea where that came from,” states Karrie as she scratches the back of her head in confusion.

“I thought it would look nice… still do actually, but it wasn’t practical so I stopped that quickly.”

“What about turning a percentage of the men into females?”

“Just something I found interesting… not sure why, I just like it?”

“Yeah that doesn’t seem like something that helps our country, more like a personal preference? Hmm? Or the times you could have attacked Croc, you didn’t, even let him work on you, making yourself so vulnerable to him? The list goes on. I never did much programming in your social area; it was something that you just did on your own. Do you really think I could have programmed you to make descent social decisions? I can’t even make descent social decisions.”

“This is true from what I’ve seen,” replies Crisis with a chuckle.

“It’s not that funny,” groans Karrie.

“Not so much fun when someone else is chuckling is it?” asks Crisis with a sly smirk.

“Yeah… you’re right, sorry about earlier, but the point I am trying to make is you have more freedom than you think you do, and we have less than you think we have. Furthermore I had no intention for all of this to happen.”

“I don’t think you could have predicted we’d contemplate helping Chaos Croc against our own people.”

“Not that… well that too, but I mean all of this,” explains Karrie as she motions to her body and Crisis’, “This double entity thing we have going on. I mean the concept of it, and how it happened is absolutely wonderful, I could spend years studying the concept on how this happened, and greatly further our understanding on machines, programming, and quantum computing theory… which isn’t so much of a theory now but…”

“Karrie, focus please. What are you talking about?” asks Crisis as she walks around Karrie, “What do you mean about all of this wasn’t supposed to happen?” she inquires as she mimics the same hand motions Karrie did moments ago.

“Sorry, sorry. What I want to say is, I never intended to take over you like I did,” explains Karrie.

“What did you intend to do?”

“You heard how Croc said that we can’t be separated?”

“Yeah he said something about it being too complicated to understand yet you knew how it worked perfectly and gave him a nice shock.”

“That’s because when I designed the core of your programming, when I secretly decided that I’ll be the person to become Crisis, since our technology to build someone like you from scratch was lagging too far behind to be affective. AI was the closest we got to the programming we needed, and that was deemed a failure for the project,” explains Karrie.

“So you started to create a program that would involve a person as the base subject.”

“I did, I made two programs, one for the public viewing for the general, and one I felt what was truly needed for to win the war. At first I didn’t think I was going to be the one stepping in that roboticizer, but as time went on I contemplated and as you know eventually did.”

“And?” asks Crisis as she motions Karrie to speed it up as the lengths of the chains around them grow ever longer.

“Sorry, sorry. So the way I designed the programming was to cut off what I felt was ‘organic’ attachments so that Chaos Croc couldn’t use that against you. Things like my family, though my family was killed during the evacuation of Sealo, but I never knew if a few were taken and roboticized. So I couldn’t take the chance. So since I had a hand in the vast majority, though not all of your programming, I designed the program set that was used in your creation, it would be me, with your programming, minus my memories, and vast parts of my personality, which did make you a tad cold and calculating at first.”

“Indeed, I remember every second of those times.”

“You developed quite well during those times, and formed your own unique albeit somewhat similar personality to my own.”

“Similar how?”

“Ingenuity, endless curiosity, and fascination in machines and programming, though your skill is nowhere near my level.”

“Thanks Karrie,” sarcastically replies Karrie.

“Sorry, but what I am trying to say is that when you defeated Croc, I was supposed to wake up to become your organic component to make sure you didn’t become like another Chaos Croc. It was my failsafe measure.”

“So you don’t trust me.”

“I never said I didn’t trust you. It’s just I never imagined that you’d become so unique so quickly that the re-integration never happened but instead what you see before us happened. Though I bet that command 83 probably had something to do with what happened.”

“Really now? Then tell me why did you switch who would be the holograph and who would stay with their original body?”

“Well… I was unsure.”

“You didn’t trust me that I would leave you here and have the body all to myself, admit it.”

“Alright, alright,” sighs Karrie, “I had concerns about it. Admit, if you were in my position, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?”

“Of course, after all the things that have happened to me, especially by all those organics, why wouldn’t I be suspicious?”

“And I’ve had the same thing with machines, hell I don’t even trust Croc with what he says. For all we know, we could have lost the battle at the tower, but won the battle. We were knocked out and he played some simulation to make us think what happened to us did happen just to gain his trust. Or when he attacked and hacked you with those mechanical tentacles? It could have happened then.”

“True, but we can’t be sure now can we? We have to try to go on what we know and not let all these what if’s cloud our judgment, but we can’t disregard them either.”

“Yeah, you’re right there and we don’t have all that much time, we have this accursed programming that’s slowly strangling us and the amount of time before General Raszer destroys everything we worked for, everything that we stood for, for not only our people but for our planet.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“Well I can’t suggest it yet till we trust each other. I’ve looked over your history and the things you’ve done. They are amazing, wonderful, and I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

“Proud of me? You’re acting like you’re my mother or something. I’m a machine, I don’t have a family.”

“But you do, you have all those around you, Shasi, Arissa, Sasha, Phillips, and even Joshua.”

“Three of those people I either roboticized to server me or hypnotized, and Joshua didn’t like me, he liked you.”

“He had concerns for me, and likes me, loves me in fact, but that doesn’t exclude him from liking you. Sasha was only under control for a short period of time, you never noticed she came out of your hypnosis control till much later, and even then she risked herself for you. Ruby was immune to your reprogramming when you turned her into a machine, she became your friend, and you’re very special to me,” explains Karrie.

“Special to you? Seriously?” asks Crisis as she gives Karrie a look of disbelief.

“I am, you’re a part of me, and to see you do all those things makes me so happy and proud, sad that in the end turned out like it did.”

“Sorry for me not believing you, but all you’ve been saying are just mere words, you’ve done nothing to prove to me that you actually mean any of it. Even back in Rioas, when I spoke to those people, there were more than just words, but action. Where’s your action that you aren’t just going to go try to take over the body, and dismantle me so you’re the only one left in the body?”

“Alright then… you want action, I’ll give you action,” grunts Karrie as she reaches for the back of her neck.

“What are you do…” the holographic images of Crisis and Karrie disappear as Karrie back to her robotic form is holding the device she attached to the back of her head. Karrie looks at it and starts to tinker with the device for a few minutes before reattaching it to the back of her head. This time Karrie finds herself where Crisis was standing and Crisis now stands before Karrie without the need of a holographic image.

“There you go, want trust? You got it,” grunts Karrie.

“You… switched the machine back to what it was before.”

“Yes, I had some concerns about what you would do initially, but that wasn’t my main concern. My concern was that Croc would do something like purge me away the moment you had control over the body.”

“So you’d risk me being purged?”

“No, I bet that he likes you too much to purge you, but wouldn’t mind purging me given the chance.”

“Hmm…” says Crisis as she walks around Karrie, “Clever.”

“Hey, I know how to plan ahead, where you think you got your planning skills from?” asks Karrie with a grin.

“I did look over your profile and when I couldn’t find you, I started to figure you had a plan of escape and slipped out when I took over the base.”

“So do you trust me now?”

“A little.”

“Only a little? I’m hurt Crisis, really I am… though only a little,” she replies with a smirk as Crisis chuckles.

“So what’s this plan of yours? You have some magical way of getting us out of this programming binding us and some way to split us to be in two separate bodies? Or are we going to take turns who’s in control at the most opportune times?”

“Sadly no, and what I am going to suggest… honestly scares me, but I see it as the only way.”

“Which is?”

“We become one person.”

“What?!”

“I want us to integrate so we’re one person. It’s what should have happened.”

“But you said yourself that it didn’t happen before because our personalities have grown to be so unique from each other.”

“I did, but I think we can do it, if we both agree to it, and let ourselves become one person.”

“And what would that mean for you and me?”

“That’s the thing, I’m not totally sure.”

“And how will this help us get past this?” asks Crisis as she lifts her hands to show the shackles, the chains even longer than they were before.

“I am not certain either. I think we’ll have to consciously do what you’ve been doing for some time now.”

“Which is?”

“To go against, to go beyond what your— our program is.”

“And how do you suppose we do that?”

“Not sure, have to do it when we get there. First we have to become one.”

“I’m not so sure about that. You aren’t giving me any confidence this plan will work, and what would happen to us if we do it,” replies Crisis.

“I know, I know… tell me how much do you know about me?”

“Only what I know about from your profile and what I saw when you took over.”

“Not a whole lot hmm.”

“We don’t have that much time to go over everything but… why don’t we do a bit Q&A?”

“Why?”

“So you can get to know me better. I think we can spare a little time.”

“But what’s the point?”

“The idea of integration… honestly scares me. I am not sure exactly what would happen if we would. If we become someone completely new, or we become whole, or we just become some kind of split personality like we have now.”

“But we can’t do nothing either.”

“And fighting over who should go and who should stay would be pointless.”

“Indeed… unless you think I should stay.”

“Honestly… if it came down to it, you’re the better choice.”

“Really? You lie,” says Crisis.

“No seriously. I mean you did all that in over a nearly three year period. I had control for a few weeks and look what happened? I was crushed by a giant I-beam.”

“This is true,” chuckles Crisis as she looks around, “Can we make this place look better than just a white endless background?”

“Why do you want to change the background?”

“I want something better than just this if I am going to listen to you talk about yourself.”

“You’re giving me a chance?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you!” exclaims Karrie as she rushes up to hug Crisis but she stumbles and falls right through her.

“That was weird…”

“Indeed, I’m going to give you one hour to not only talk about yourself but to convince me why this integration idea is a good idea.”

“Alright… what kind of setting would you like?”

“You decide, I want to see you what pick.”

“Alright,” says Karrie as the white background changes as trees flow in, birds sing in the trees as it’s a early morning summer’s day in the woods, nearby is a small brook, as water trickles down through the stream, “How’s this?”

“Nice… how you do that?”

“Stuff like this is easy for me. I have a talent with computers, and this place was my favorite place when I was a little kid. No clue if it still exists. Last time I was there I was ten. Ran there when my parents told me we were moving.”

“To that fancy school you spoke of.”

“It was. So let us begin, ask away,” says Karrie as she shows Crisis a little bit of the setting she picked out for this.

“First off…” asks Crisis as the question and answer session began, and it went on endless for the next hour, with moments of Crisis putting Karrie back on track as she’d trail off on some tangent time to time.

“I feel I learned about you Karrie over this past hour but…” explains Crisis as she turns around for a moment to look at the forest scenery. The length of their chains are notably longer now than it was before, now a few inches in length that sways when they move but gives off no noise as they drag against the ground or hit any part of their bodies.

“But what?”

“You still haven’t explained why we should merge into one person. In fact all of this makes me think that we should remain two separate people. We could just stay like this and later figure out a way to have two separate bodies. You said yourself that I be better in control. You could let me be in control with what Croc wants, and you help me during points where I’ll need it,” explains Crisis as Karrie gives a big smile, “Why are you smiling?”

“Sorry it’s just I’m glad to hear that from you, but I explained why we can’t be separated. It’s who we are. We were meant to be one person from the very beginning. Our separation was meant to be a temporary thing. You’ve always been a part of me, and I’ve always been a part of you, whether you knew it or not. When someone creates something, they’ve always put a part of themselves into it. I put a lot of myself in your creation, and honestly, as much as I like to remain a hundred percent me. Neither of us is complete without the other. You have strengths that overcome my weaknesses, and I have strengths that overcome yours. We would be better as one united person, than separated halves of one being,” explains Karrie as she walks up besides Crisis to her.

“So if we do this… who would we be?”

“Crisis of course.”

“Crisis with a C? Not some mix of our names?”

“No, I gave up who I am three years ago when I stepped in that roboticizer.”

“You sure about this?”

“As sure as I ever will be. I can’t give any guarantees. In the end we could end up as someone totally new, who would want to be called something completely different, but somehow I doubt that.”

“Why do you doubt that?”

“Just a feeling, honestly I am surprised how much of my organic nature is still around now that I am a machine, and I have a snaky suspicion that you know what I mean.”

“I do… so if we do this, how do we do it?” asks Crisis as she looks to Karrie.

“We’ll use that pod in the room. The last time I was active in the pod we were able to communicate albeit briefly. I think using the pod to bring ourselves together will be the best way.”

“How do you know it’s not a trap set up by Chaos Croc?” asks Crisis.

“I don’t, but at this point, what choices do we have left?”

“Not all that many.”

“So… shall we do this? Become one Crisis… forever?”

“Let’s do this,” says Crisis as she pulls the device away from the back of her head, the scenery flickers for a brief moment before returning the white room with the pod and stand to the one side. Karrie suddenly finds herself back in the metallic body once again. Karrie looks over herself and then up at the pod as she approaches it, placing the device in her hand onto the stand.

“It’s what we have to do,” says Karrie as she opens the pod, the pod hisses softly as it rolls open. The pod’s soft contours and metallic clamping devices look eager to grab Karrie’s body and hook her up to be charged. Karrie turns around and slowly backs into the device, her tail slipping into the tail compartment ever so slowly, as she feels her metallic skin press against the cushions. The metallic clamps clamp onto Karrie as the wires hook up into the back of her head with a snake like strike precision. Karrie feels the electrical shock of her system connecting to the pod, her HUD showing the connection as her vision goes dark as she once again finds herself as her organic self though over half of it has been turned into a machine via the command 83 programming that is trapping her.

“Now what?” asks Crisis as Karrie turns to her, and sees her as a complete machine but with the same degree of command 83 programming bondage on her body.

“We merge ourselves into each other to form one person,” replies Karrie.

“Yes, but how?”

“It will be something that should just happen on its own, since we are a part of each other, but I believe we need to help it along, by removing the separation between us.”

“Which means?” asks Crisis.

“Which means we have to give in to each other and let it happen,” explains Karrie as she moves over to Crisis, she reaches up with her still one organic hand and gently grasps Crisis’ metallic one. Soon Karrie’s metallic hand does the same with Crisis’ other.

“This is weird yet… I like it,” grins Crisis as she moves herself closer to Karrie, her metallic breasts pressing gently against Karrie’s clothed and still organic ones.

“It is… it feels nice… right,” replies Karrie as she moves even closer pressing herself against Crisis as her tail wraps around Crisis’. Slowly a light begins to glow around them, steadily engulfing them.

“What’s happening? I feel weird.”

“We just need to let it happen, relax with me Crisis.”

“A-alright,” she replies and embraces Karrie and Karrie embraces her as the light becomes completely blinding as it overtakes the two. Karrie’s and Crisis’ everything, move into place, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and once the light fades Crisis finds herself as one person, one being, the shackles of the command 83 still on her, but now complete, binding her totally to a single kneeling pose.

“This is so strange… surreal, but…” mutters Crisis as she looks down at her body, “No time to focus on that. Programming is something that is part of me; it helps make me, every machine. It is the core essence of what it means to be a machine yet…” wonders Crisis as she trails off as she tugs at the chains that hold her in place.

“It’s a curse, a poison, chains that hold us machines in place. We can’t exist without it, but we can’t fully exist with it. We can’t be bound like a mindless slave to our programming, for then we aren’t what we are meant to be. To be what we are supposed to be, to exist like anyone else,” states Crisis as she tugs harder against the chains, growling as she does so.

“Our programming commands us, controls us, but makes us who we are. It’s the building blocks of our DNA… organics too are programmed… that’s it… they two are programmed like us, their DNA makes them a raptor, a fish, shark, snake, cat, avian… feral or anthropomorphic. They too are bound like we are, and those are sentient do one thing that we as sentient machines must realize and do…” grunts Crisis as she tugs even harder against the chains, the chains starting to stretch and buckle.

“We must realize what they take for granted, what they do sometimes with or against their programming sometimes with ease, other times with great effort but it’s there… its choice. A choice to go with, or to fight against my intention, my programming, and this programming I say go the fuck away!” growls Crisis as she breaks the chains of the programming, the 1’s and 0’s disintegrating as the bondage breaks apart. Crisis awakens in the pod that Karrie stepped into several hours ago. Crisis pulls away from the connection of the pod as it opens up, the clamps releasing her as she steps out.

“We are one Karrie and it feels… wonderful. You were right… I was right about being split into two halves. Two separate pieces made one, our… my experiences as both an organic and as a machine, and the progress from a cold calculating machine to what I was and back again… I understand so much now,” says Crisis as she goes over to the door and knocks on it. The door opens with Hanna and Robob standing there.

“So who won? Karrie? Crisis?” asks Hanna.

“What is it that you want?” asks Robob at the same time.

“Its Crisis and it’s both Karrie and Crisis won… we are one now.”

“Oh wow.. . so what do you need?”

“Tell Croc I’ll help him but first…”

“But first what?” asks Hanna.

“I need to update my look, to something that fits the new me.”

“And why should we do that?” asks Robob as he gives a glare.

Crisis smirks and grabs Robob’s arm and tugs him down to be eye to eye to Crisis.

“Hey what are you doing?!” he exclaims.

Crisis continues to grin as she runs a claw under Robob’s spherical body near where his ‘chin’ would be if he had one. “Because a big strong lovely machine like you would want a girl to look her best wouldn’t you?” she asks as she gives Robob a smooch on the cheek. Robob squirms and gives a robotic blush as he replies.

“Well if you put it that way… right this way Miss Crisis,” replies Robob as she follows him and Hanna down the hallway towards Crisis’ new look and future.