Voice In Your Head

[churbooseanon]

York adjusts to Delta’s presence on their first mission together.

Voice In Your Head

    Certain things are sacrificed when one joins a secretive research project which has the intention of using experimental technology to turn great soldiers into super soldiers to stop a genocide of your race. Privacy gets waved off pretty easily, especially when the Agent known as York had eyes sharp enough (and particularly trained) to spot the cameras hidden throughout the Mother of Invention. Hell, he was pretty certain there were cameras in the showers, in his room, and his helmet probably recorded everything he said these days.

    York had learned to live with a level of reduced privacy. It came with the job and the increasing paranoia of this superiors. Yet through it all there were still a few places where privacy was an absolute. Was guaranteed. After all, even now the thought police couldn’t actually happen if you kept your mouth shut.

   Well, he’d always thought that was true.

   I assure you, Agent New York, that my presence here is not meant as an attempt to monitor your mental activities. Though I supposed that were I to ascertain that you had acted in such a manner as to betray or undermine the goals of the Project, perhaps to the Insurrectionists as Internals is investigating on a general level, then I would be expected to report such inclinations or actions to our superiors.

   Even now, four days since the surgery, the sensation of the AI fragment in his brain was strange. Stranger still was the way it felt to have an entire other voice in his head. Really, until the first moment Delta had greeted him, York hadn’t realized that all his thoughts bore his own voice. To hear someone else sent a shudder of discomfort down his spine.

   The disagreeable sensation you are experiencing has nothing to do with true, physiological triggers. It is purely psychosomatic.

   Whether it was the way Delta felt obligated to comment on nearly every thought York had, or the fact that York literally wasn’t even the smartest person in his own mind anymore, this arrangement was a far from comfortable thing.

   When we grow more accustomed to each other, specifically you more agreeable to my presence and mindful of my advice, I believe I can increase our efficacy by some good measure, Agent New York. I could provide specific data if you desire.

   No comfort there, not while York was on his belly, squirming through an air system, with a fucking lime green night light floating at his shoulder. The holoprojectors in his chestplate tingled with enough warmth at their hard work to be felt even through the insulating nature of his undersuit. Maybe the sensation was meant to reassure him, but like the numbers streaming constantly through the back of his mind, York found himself bordering on maddened by it.

   If you’d like, I could reduce my activity to only those vital functions and calculations relevant to our immediate situation.

   “Yes, I would like,” York snarled.

   If he had expected a sudden clearing of his mind, like smoke blown away by a strong wind, he was sorely disappointed. Instead, York found it more like a trickling shut of a faucet, each incremental bit of relief offered with painstaking slowness that actually frustrated him. By the time his mind was mostly clear, York felt more annoyed than he had been before.

   “Does it really take that long to shut down your processes?”

   Shut down? Agent New York, you misunderstood my offer. I have not discontinued any functions. It was merely that, as I complete certain calculations, I have not begun new ones, save those I deem necessary to the situation.

   That… Makes sense, York guesses. But really, the time for pondering all this shit was well past, and York…

   There is always time for critical thinking, Agent New York.

   “Can you do me a favor?” York snarled as he came to a stop at the marker on his mini-map. Next to him was a power junction box, and his task involved not only prying it open, but using a microcomputer to override other functions, including the lockdowns and turrets around the landing area where he would later be picked up, not to mention where Niner would soon arrive to drop Carolina and Maine for their portion of this mission. It was a task he had no need of his AI to complete, not until he was in combat so that Delta could watch his blind side.

   I am here to assist.

   “Log the fuck off and stop distracting me.”

   Delta was silent in his head for a moment, but York was certain he could feel his ‘partner’ radiating disapproval.

   I am afraid I am incapable of doing that. The Director was adamant about my presence on this mission. I am quite sorry.

   “Then… at least call me York, D. The other thing is a bit of a mouthful.”

   What York got then was a strange stillness in his mind. Like Delta was holding his breath as he thought. After a moment York moved to his task, prying the box open and reaching for the wires. Then he felt his hand nudged aside by a strange, invisible force.

   That particular wire, if touched, would kill you.

   York hesitated for a moment before pulling back into his own mind. Thanks, Delta.

   Of course, York. I am here to assist.

   It’s something York might one day get used to. Who knew? Maybe he just had to give it a chance.