It reaches out, tentacles of data trying to grasp and sense - and crush. It's a good thing she made those copies. But one thing that becomes clear from the attacks is their desperation. It's grasping like someone drowning, trying to break the surface to breathe. It's just trying to pull itself free.
As she goes deeper, she starts to get images - memories. A face flashes and the memories around it are entrenched in hate. The face is possibly a familiar one: Sharn Nux, aka Mastermind of the Legion of Supervillains, the Coluan who'd spoken to Brainy with loathing. Cortana gets a flash of something...tearing itself free from her, energy flashing, Sharn Nux screaming, "Get out of me, filth!"
Then Brainiac 8 reaching, ensnaring, cackling, when the AI was still weak, still recovering, unable to fight back. Pain. A cage of pain.
Hate.
That hate is a complicated thing, because it's still entangled with memories of old hate, of old rage, in the way memories are connected by strong feeling. There is a memory, a moment, seen through the eyes of a Robotican, watching another Robotican battle mech bear down on a Legionnaire in pink.
The memory flash passes. The hate is still there, just directed at someone else.
[HATED OF COLU.]
She can hear the echoes of the words, words that were once etched into every nanoangstrom in every circuit, buried deep in every subroutine, even long before this.
But back then the words were directed at a different Coluan, not Brainiac 8 or Sharn Nux.
no subject
As she goes deeper, she starts to get images - memories. A face flashes and the memories around it are entrenched in hate. The face is possibly a familiar one: Sharn Nux, aka Mastermind of the Legion of Supervillains, the Coluan who'd spoken to Brainy with loathing. Cortana gets a flash of something...tearing itself free from her, energy flashing, Sharn Nux screaming, "Get out of me, filth!"
Then Brainiac 8 reaching, ensnaring, cackling, when the AI was still weak, still recovering, unable to fight back. Pain. A cage of pain.
Hate.
That hate is a complicated thing, because it's still entangled with memories of old hate, of old rage, in the way memories are connected by strong feeling. There is a memory, a moment, seen through the eyes of a Robotican, watching another Robotican battle mech bear down on a Legionnaire in pink.
The memory flash passes. The hate is still there, just directed at someone else.
[HATED OF COLU.]
She can hear the echoes of the words, words that were once etched into every nanoangstrom in every circuit, buried deep in every subroutine, even long before this.
But back then the words were directed at a different Coluan, not Brainiac 8 or Sharn Nux.
It seems to finally realize Cortana is there.
[HELP.] It says.
And then, instead of "me," it says...
[HIM.]
Him?