Forums » General Roleplay » Sands of Time (1x1)

"Well, now what?" Bill asked, staring at the cores and the steaming engine.

Chris sighed. "Well, we've got two cores joined into one. I can try to separate them, but I really don't want to splinter them any more than they already are, and frankly there's no guarantee that what I break off will be solely 54 or CD's data. We'd just end up with more splintered personalities."

"Clutch, can you hook up to them now and see what you can find?" Even though they were off, Clutch would be able use his own battery power to detect things and communicate with the AI cores.

Clutch sighed. "Now you want me to help. Fine." He extended his wire and winced as it connected.

Instantly he detected the hostility, mainly from 54. CD was just scared to death and not wanting to fight her sister. 54's data seemed to only move when CD was on. 54 was angry, a murderous rage stirred up from being painted pink.

Clutch's engine revved as he fought his way past the hostility. "She's upset, 54, I think. I don't think she's going to calm down anytime soon."

Chris sighed. "Is there anything we can do to calm her down? Does CD know anything?"

Clutch ran his wipers. "Let me ask." Internally, he passed along Chris' question to 54 and CD.

CD replied grimly, saying that 54 was the hardest to calm down and the only way to talk to her would be to let her in control. But CD warned that her core was still fighting 54 off when turneed on.

"So basically," Chris said when Clutch had relayed the info, "we either keep her shut off indefinitely until she cools down, or we let her start up and hope we can calm her down."

Bill sighed. "We should have taken better care to keep the cores isolated."

Chris shrugged. "I don't know if that would have done any good. At least now you can go through 54's bodywork and see what you can replace and stuff."

Bill nodded. "I'll do that then."

Clutch sighed. "I guess we're turning CD and 54 back on," he communicated through the wire. "Should I detach or stay connected."

Chris hesitated. "Detach, for now, but keep the wire handy." He started the engine again, now that it had cooled to a more reasonable temperature.

CD turns back on, but both her eyes were blue indicating CD had let 54 in control. 54 growled, still annoyed. The ceystals in the '45' lit up dimly, pulsing violently like the two cores were. She scowled, blue eyes narrowed harshly.

"Enough of that," Chris told 54. "Right now you're stuck with CD and she with you, so it's not going to help if you keep getting overheated. Anyhow, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that it's possible to separate your data codes. Likewise, you're no longer have to worry about your new paint job, 54. The bad news is that...to actually separate you back, I'm going to have to resplit your core or something, and I'm not sure I can do that without fracturing more than just the crystal."

Bill began to work his way methodically through 54's prior build. "Hey, Chris, this might not be a bad thing after all. Since her core is missing, er, fused, whatever, with CD's, why not transfer a more malleable AI into the vehicle?"

Chris paused, mulling it over. "Actually, that's not a bad idea." He glanced at the two-personalities-in-one car and grinned. "Whatcha think, 54?

''And how would that help?'' She hissed.

"Well, technically it wouldn't," admitted Chris, "but it would be fun to see what sorts of secrets your car holds..."

Clutch suddenly perked up. "Does 54 have eyes? Could I finally see? Could I, could I?" The ancient AI regressed several decades in his eagerness.

Did blackmail work on cars? Chris was about to find out.

54 grumps. ''As if you can trust Clutch with guns.'' She hissed. ''And that means Clutch would be labelled as a muderer for being in my old body.'' She snirked, snorting.

Clutch snorted. "How hard could it be? Don't shoot something you don't want to kill. Easy enough." But he paused. "I'd rather not get hauled away because I'm in the body of a murdering car..."

Chris rolled his eyes. "You two are a pair. What does CD think about all this anyway? Can you and CD communicate or is it just a constant battle to stay in charge?"

54 shot Chris a death glare, growling. ''CD is too terrified of me right now to bother fighting for control. Hmph.''

Chris scowled, grabbing a glove to whack the hood. "CD, it's fine. 54 is in your car body now, not the other way around. So you should have..." he paused and then grinned. "Or wait, you will have control shortly."

He leaped into the driver's seat and grabbed his laptop, attempting to type in a command override that would give CD control.

''HEY!'' 54 hissed, engine rumbling in protest. ''What are you doing? Ack....''

Chris typed frantically, shifting lines of code around, parenthesizing some, isolating others. "Alright, CD, I'll only know if this works if you can actually take control. And don't worry about 54. She's not used to your vehicle to try anything stupid. Besides, if worse comes to worse, I can always delete her."

Clutch listened attentively, slowly backing away. He'd never seen this side of Chris before, and it slightly terrified him to think that an entire AI could be deleted. Whether it actually could or not, he wasn't sure--but that was reason enough to not push matters.

54 shut her eyes tightly, core spazzing out badly before CD came back into control. The eyes opened again, brown and blue again. ''I'm thinking 54's lost her reasoning and gone berzerk. She isn't supposed to be this violent...'' CD whined, still sound terrified.

Chris scowled though he was relieved to be talking to CD again. "I'm sorry; we're probably--well, this whole situation--probably isn't helping matters any. I wrote a few commands to help you keep control in the meanwhile. Do you have any ideas as far as how to fix this? Your cores seem to have melded together, but not perfectly--so I'd be able to splinter them, but I'm afraid if I do so, bits of code from both you and 54 will only get more fractured..."

He sighed and massaged his temples. Since when did things get so complicated. Bill at least was still at work on 54's body, pulling it apart in preparation of giving it a good clean.

''I think our two codes are colliding and can't equal out. Your best bet would have to be to find a way to seperate her core from mine by following the line that shows where the two connect at barely. Did you figure out why 54 is so angered?''

Chris sighed. "Alright, I'll do my best then. As for why she's angry...er, I'm guessing it's not just because of the new paint?"

Clutch hesitated, he wanted to connect to CD again, feeling left out.

Bill returned with a wrench in one hand, his other one slightly...blood stained. "It's rust," he lied to Chris when his son looked over and started to blanch again. "A lot of rust."

''Urm....Your hand...'' CD gacked, staring. ''54 wasn't as rusty as I was though. Why would rust be making her so mad? Her cores just a shard of mine, but it's big enough to be easily seperated.''