[It’s Fitz who works to fix his physical body, or some nebulous manifestation of it, planted into the ash of this wasteland. An engineer’s hands lain on a broken machine, imploring plastic casing to slide away in white planes and revealing the workings beneath; the electric blue of Thirium, stilled into dullness in its tubing. An android’s infrastructure built upon a synthetic skeleton. Actuators designed down to the most precise degree of efficiency. Wires that all feed into critical components (biocomponents, Markus had labeled them before), each failed connection being connected again. Readjusted and prepped for reset, anything gone ajar made stable by Fitz’s touch, wrongness turned right, correct. Pieces slowly back where they belong, like a jigsaw puzzle sliding into place, and with a snap here and an adjustment there, forcing organization back into his frame, Markus becomes whole again.
But not functional. Sparks dance against his parts, tame firecracker bursts, but it isn't enough.
Because an android is not just a man-shaped object, made to look and act human. There's still a hollow void in his center, ripped away by a dream, requiring more than just a jolt of energy that would shake and startle his systems back to life. How does one quantify a consciousness of experiences, how do you send life surging back into a spirit, a soul, a heart?
It’s Riku who finds that part of him, forcing it to the surface, urging it into a waking state, connecting it back to some immutable part of the self that had wandered astray — cast into the sterile lights and cold waters of the facility, a ghost with regrets on repeat. And when the image of a heart recedes back into his chest, it’s like a shock runs through him. The spark that Fitz was looking for, that electric current that can now run cyclically through a fixed body thanks to his friend's harried efforts.
Mismatched eyes fly open, start-up screens flash in numbers and statistics that only he can see. He straightens, sits up in a jolt, almost knocking into Fitz — ash kicks up with one hand, clenching fingers into the ground. His other arm is still prone, still opened up and exposed, the flickering of circulating blue dancing within. His words are a strained gasp, disoriented and still hot on the heels of wrenching guilt and the remembrance of an indescribable pain.]
Why are you here? [Immediately, eyes fixed on nothing and everything, his focus a kaleidoscope that hasn’t congealed.] You shouldn’t be here.
[Why are you here, you shouldn’t be here, the spectres had said. He had said.]
no subject
But not functional. Sparks dance against his parts, tame firecracker bursts, but it isn't enough.
Because an android is not just a man-shaped object, made to look and act human. There's still a hollow void in his center, ripped away by a dream, requiring more than just a jolt of energy that would shake and startle his systems back to life. How does one quantify a consciousness of experiences, how do you send life surging back into a spirit, a soul, a heart?
It’s Riku who finds that part of him, forcing it to the surface, urging it into a waking state, connecting it back to some immutable part of the self that had wandered astray — cast into the sterile lights and cold waters of the facility, a ghost with regrets on repeat. And when the image of a heart recedes back into his chest, it’s like a shock runs through him. The spark that Fitz was looking for, that electric current that can now run cyclically through a fixed body thanks to his friend's harried efforts.
Mismatched eyes fly open, start-up screens flash in numbers and statistics that only he can see. He straightens, sits up in a jolt, almost knocking into Fitz — ash kicks up with one hand, clenching fingers into the ground. His other arm is still prone, still opened up and exposed, the flickering of circulating blue dancing within. His words are a strained gasp, disoriented and still hot on the heels of wrenching guilt and the remembrance of an indescribable pain.]
Why are you here? [Immediately, eyes fixed on nothing and everything, his focus a kaleidoscope that hasn’t congealed.] You shouldn’t be here.
[Why are you here, you shouldn’t be here, the spectres had said. He had said.]