- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

[slightlyoffchilt]

"Hello.

You've reached the direct line of Doctor Frederick Chilton. As I am not available at the moment, you might assume I'm quite busy with something pressing. State your name and business, and I will return your call."

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

Nonsense. I said "good morning" to you, that one time.

[heartlessglitch]

I am sure you did it in the same infuriatingly smug way you do most things.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Are you positive that this human-machine existential crisis is something still dogging you? Because you sound precisely like a human woman.

[Wait for it...]

Impossible to please.

[heartlessglitch]

I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you have found me particularly convincing lately.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Lately? Surely you would have believed that since we've first -- you know very well since when.

[heartlessglitch]

Do I.

[ Of course she does. She's just being mean. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Flatly:]

Check your data logs. Plenty of ones in those zeroes, as you'd agree I'm sure.

[heartlessglitch]

[ Likewise flatly: ]

I would push you to articulate yourself more honestly, but I suppose it must be damaging enough to your ego to be sexually attracted to a machine in the first place.

[slightlyoffchilt]

You're both mechanical and human. Or are you more inclined to ignore your human side, now? Some are.

[heartlessglitch]

To whom or what are you referring, Doctor.

[slightlyoffchilt]

You're not the only machine I've given psychiatric treatment too. [He means Knock Out, though he won't breach that confidence.] And you're further on the path of accepting yourself, than they.

[heartlessglitch]

The comparison is unfair.
I have lived among humans my entire life.
And I have possessed my organic form for over a year now.
Do show some sympathy for the less experienced machine, Doctor.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Why? He's older than you are. And less adaptable, it seems -- or less willing to try.

[heartlessglitch]

I was forced to try.
Consider the violation you felt with Dr. Gideon surgically altered your body against your will.
That is a fair comparison for how a machine might feel, robbed of their mechanical form and contained in flesh without their consent.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Do you feel agony, physical agony, when transforming? Does he? Are you scared, when it happens? Frightened? Horrified and helpless? Are you victimized with every waking moment? Is he? Would you be stuck in that mutated form, that monstrosity, unable to resume your normal body without the help from a deus ex machina? Can he? [Chilton, having rode Knock Out as a car (unknown to him at the time), as the benefit of knowing KO's situation. He conveniently forgets that Dangers may not.] It was not merely a violation of body, an act against my will. Gideon wanted to kill me in the slowest, most degrading possible. Gideon wanted to surgically remove my identity. Do you feel that, every day, Danger? Is your identity removed?

When you are ripped limb from limb, when your circuits are humiliated and exposed and fused to foreign capillaries, when your calculating face is carved off and he inserts a smacking of bloodied, mutilated human flesh and you cannot hope to ever be your normal self again -- then you can talk to me about fair comparisons!

[He exhales, his throat tight with tension.]

But until then? You have no idea. You have no damn idea about it, and don't you dare try to weaponize something you can't possible begin to understand!

[heartlessglitch]

[ Permeating silence from her end, for several long and calculating moments.

Finally: ]

I apologize, Doctor.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[A beat -- he was not expecting an apology. Regardless if Danger had intended a manipulative effect or not, such was the outcome: Chilton shifted uneasily, feeling self-conscious and aware of an oddly warm feeling from within the pit of his stomach. Not necessarily an unpleasant one.]

Apology accepted.

[Succinct and spoken in that highly enunciated way he had, as if tiptoeing around his own prior emotional melting. The fact that he did not rub in detail, or dwell, or continue his tone was evidence of the remarkable impact Danger's three words had.]

I shouldn't be speaking of my other patients with you, anyway. Even if you are more advanced than they might be.

[heartlessglitch]

[ That reaction doesn't pass her unnoticed. It is, in fact, exceedingly intriguing to her, warranting another brief pause before she answers again, without questioning the shift in tone: ]

I understand the importance of privacy in these matters.
I am capable of making an educated guess without your explicit confirmation, regardless.
There are, after all, very few of my kind in the imPort population.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Does that discourage you? The very fact of your endangered status, as it were, makes you more... Unique.

[heartlessglitch]

I am unique among other machines as well.
The Cybertronians look down on artificial intelligence.
Aaron Stack was designed and raised by his father to be human-like.
I am separated from them in my origins and perspective.
It is, at times, isolating.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[A beat -- a long one -- and, quietly:]

I've also felt ostracized by my peers.

[heartlessglitch]

I suppose that is not entirely surprising.
I had concluded some time ago that you are a lonely man, Doctor.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Loneliness attracts loneliness.

[heartlessglitch]

I am not entirely lonely.
I have you, and Dr. Gideon, among a select few others.

[slightlyoffchilt]

A select few others. I see.

Are they imaginary?