Work Text:
**Initializing System Activation Sequence...**
[[][]................] 20% Booting up...
[[][][][.............] 35% Initializing core functions...
[[][][][][]..........] 50% Checking subsystems...
[ERROR]: System malfunction detected.
**Reboot Attempt 1...**
[[][][][][].........] 50% Diagnosing errors...
[[][][][][][][][....] 75% Attempting recovery...
"...Alh..m...n..you....ear...me....?!..."
[ERROR]: Unable to complete reboot.
**Reboot Attempt 2...**
[[][][][][][][][....] 75% Scanning for corrupted files...
"...arch.ns......th.s..is...ins..ane.....hold..on....the.re..."
[ERROR]: Anomaly detected in primary circuits.
**Reboot Attempt 3...**
[[][][][][][][][.....] 75% Reassessing system priorities...
[[][][][][][][][][]..] 90% Resolving conflicts...
[[][][][][][][][][][]] 100% System online.
____________________
Alhaitham's eyes open wide, instantly focusing on the ceiling, or rather a piece of cloth that served as one. The pattern of it is familiar, he's seen it too many times – eremites' tent. Yet when he looks around, he sees no enemies and only a, too, familiar head of blonde hair. Crimson eyes dart up to meet Alhaitham's.
"Alhaitham! You're awake, thank gods!"
Kaveh's head falls back as if he was really exhausted, something akin to repairing tools falls from his hands. There's sweat on his neck and forehead, sand on his clothes and some dirt on his face that he unsuccessfully tries to wipe away, only smudging it further.
Alhaitham looks around again. Eremites' tent. The widths of sand can be seen through the thin gaps between fabrics of the walls. They are in the desert.
"Why are you here?"
Kaveh looks at him, as if not believing his own ears.
"Why am I here?.. I– Why are you– You were gone for so long, I've come here looking for you, only to find you like.. this!"
Alhaitham's eyes fall to look over his own body. He's clearly missing an arm together with a chunk of his torso and a shoulder. His body in a place of missing parts is now a hole, full of microcircuits, wiring and other stuff. Some of it damaged, some of it presumably patched up by Kaveh. There's something wrong with his head too, because the sound only registers from one side.
"I'm fine." Alhaitham concludes.
And he's not lying, this is better than expected, because he actually expected himself to be dead.
"It is so far from being fine, Alhaitham!" Kaveh stands up, rigid, and starts pacing around as far as the place allowed him to, in front of the made of scraps desk Alhaitham was sat on. "And if you are, are you going to explain whatever this is? How come I've never heard that you are, what, a robot? An android?! How come you've never told me anything about it?"
Alhaitham winces at the sound of Kaveh's voice going so high in pitch it messes with his sound input device and closes his eyes to reduce the incoming visual signals. It's all too much to process to begin with and Kaveh is too animated.
"It's a long story."
He tries to use it as an excuse, but Kaveh is stubborn.
"We have plenty of time," he says, "I've sent Mehrak for help so we're stuck here for a while anyway. I'm all ears."
The story indeed is long. It roots all the way back to half a decade ago. A group of scholars was suspected in conducting an illegal experiment that violated several of the ethical laws – a duplication of one's consciousness into an inanimate body in order to achieve immortality. A delegation from the Akademiya was sent to inspect the situation, Alhaitham being a part of it as the scribe. It didn't took him long to realize they certainly underestimated the scale of the problem, but even then it was already too late. A whole group of five, including Alhaitham, fell into a trap, becoming the test subjects for the said experiment.
It was all messy from there. The 'scholars' were in a hurry – their cover was blown and soon more forces will come for their heads. Mistakes and miscalculations were made.
Experiment failed.
Experiment failed.
Unable to transfer.
Failed.
Brains of the test subjects turned into mush one after the other, the atmosphere was heating up. Alhaitham was the last one left, preparing himself to meet the same fate as the others but the miracle happened. The transfer was successful. If you would even dare to call that a miracle, because whatever happened next Alhaitham would prefer to never experience at all.
When the connection between his consciousness and an 'empty' body was established and his mind was duplicated, for some time there were two of him. The real him, and the new him. Simultaneously. He could feel and think for both, his mind splitting but yet being whole, two new streams of incoming visual and other information being recorded onto one hardware. He could see himself in front of him from both points of view at the same time and it began to shatter his perception of reality. It was dizzying, wrong, impossible, broken, not right. Painful.
The overlap of two streams of memories recorded live began to cause the malfunction and he felt his own brain melting, burning as if it was frying itself. Or was it his brain or other him, he couldn't think straight.
Experimenters couldn't afford to lose such 'positive' results so it was decided to cut off the incoming stream of consciousness from the 'body', the quickest way to do so was to eliminate the source.
Alhaitham felt and saw himself being killed. He died, but also watched himself dying, every second of each being recorded into his memory until one of the streams suddenly stopped in it's tracks, leaving him alone in his own mind again.
He experienced death, and yet was still alive.
Not long after the matra flooded the place. And after the scholars were dealt with, a question hang in the air – is it ethically correct to leave this 'body' containing Alhaitham's mind be. Is it even a living being or just a copy of one. A paradox.
The question was put on hold. Alhaitham was helped in being well maintained, not only in terms of his new body being a one of an android, but also to help him regain his own unique features in order to avoid the body dysphoria and providing him with the needed amount of therapy.
The recovery went, well, better than expected. It's been a long time since the matter of his existence has been brought up. He, himself, sometimes forgot the origins of this body. Until today happened.
When Alhaitham finished talking, Kaveh looked smaller than he did half an hour ago. He looked crumpled, rigid.
In the established silence the noise of the upcoming sandstorm could be heard from far away, wind rustling the fabric of the tent. Alhaitham patiently waited for the other to say anything, while thinking if it would be better for Kaveh to never find him here in the desert and to think that he died now, rather than for him to know that in reality Alhaitham already died all that time ago.
Or did he? That's for Kaveh to decide.
And whatever left his mouth next, was the one thing Alhaitham was scared to hear the most.
"Did he suffer?"
He couldn't see Kaveh's eyes behind the blond curtain of his hair, but his voice was enough to make Alhaitham wince. So it's 'he' now, not 'you'.
He swallows thickly.
"I–"
"No!" Kaveh is suddenly loud and his voice is shaking with the patterned walls of cloths, "Stop referring to him like that, you have no right! Just answer the question: did he suffer when they killed him?"
"I–" Alhaitham starts again, and Kaveh's eyes, furious, glare up at him, "I can't say that he didn't."
Kaveh stands upright and starts pacing around the place again, nails digging into his own shoulders. Alhaitham didn't bother following the other's movements with his gaze. He didn't bother doing anything at all, just sat there, staring into space.
He lost Kaveh. Again.
Whatever second chances this life gave him he wasted all of them.
The sound of the sandstorm creeped closer, bringing the sounds of the desert monsters with it. Kaveh didn't seem to care, as he kept moving in circles on the periphery of Alhaitham's sight.
"How dare you come to me and pretend to be him?! How could you? You're not Alhaitham, you're a fake, a copy! Wires and metal, a piece of junk, that's what you are! I don't know what you're thinking of yourself if you even can think, but living off of his memories is.." Kaveh tries to ping point the words but fails, his hands falling helplessly to his sides as he speaks louder over the sandy wind that hits the tent from the outside, "Why would you help me then, take me in? Because you think he would've want to?"
'Because I wanted to.' Alhaitham doesn't say.
"Tell me then, why would you lie to me?! Alhaitham would never do that!"
'Because I was so scared of losing you again.' Alhaitham doesn't dare think.
Something stings in his chest, presumably where his heart would be. A phantom feeling he tries to dismiss.
He feels.. ashamed? Ashamed of his own being. He sits still, not moving a single one of his artificial muscles, because every miniscule movement reminds him of the damage that was done to his body, and that inevitably reminds him of what he is and that he has no idea himself of who he's supposed to be.
"So what, you're just gonna ignore me now, is that what this is? Do you have nothing to tell to me at all, or did your brain just short circuited?!"
A low screeching reaches them from behind the wall, too close to their shelter, and Alhaitham perks up, alarmed.
"Keep your voice down, Kaveh, if they hear you they'll tear this place into pieces."
"And why do you care?! Are you even capable of caring or do you just.. pretend? Imitate what he felt?! You–! A fake piece of–"
He couldn't finish due to the sound of the fabric being torn interrupting his speach as a long sharp tail of a serpent breaks through, luckily missing it's target and hitting the sand floor before retorting back, likely preparing to attack again. Kaveh quickly makes a couple of steps away from the newly made opening, trying to stay out of monster's sight, but it seems to be too late. The rustling of sand under the dozens of scorpio feet circles around the tent, the howling of other desert creatures heard not so far away.
Alhaitham makes a quick analysis of the situation, before standing upright, taking a second to regain his balance due to one of his arms missing. Kaveh looks at him, confused.
"Lay low and wait for the help." Alhaitham says, while he moves to the hole in the wall, "I'll take their attention away from you."
With his one hand he reaches out to move aside a piece of torn fabric but there's suddenly a grip on his wrist, not letting him go.
"Are you crazy, what do you mean take their attention away?! You only have one arm, they'll kill you in no time! You're in no condition to fight!"
"And why do you care?" Alhaitham echoes Kaveh's preview question, voice almost devoid of emotions, looking back at him and the other falls silent, "Or do you just replicate what you have felt for him?"
Fingers lightly brush off of his wrist, and after another second of painfully silent eye contact, Alhaitham goes back to his task.
Kaveh watches through the opening as Alhaitham steps into the storm, wind hitting his body with a great force, tangling his hair, pushing him to the side, but Alhaitham stands strong, slowly moving forward to where the serpent was hissing behind the curtains of the sandstorm.
Alhaitham's coat rustles in the wind, covering the damaged side of his body, and like that, Kaveh catches himself thinking, he looks so much like just Alhaitham. Not something alien or robotic or cold.
He grabs the shirt on his chest, his heart aching.
It's so unfair.
One swift movement of the hand and a heavy rain of chiseled mirrors starts falling on the ground, hitting the sand and destroying everything else that stands in it's way. It doesn't stop even when the sword is being summoned into Alhaitham's hand, as he keeps moving forward, vision dangling on his shoulder, lively green amongst the dull colors of the desert's sand.
Kaveh's eyes widen and his heart skips a beat.
The vision. Alhaitham's vision, he got it before the whole memory transfer happened. If the vision holder dies, it fades out and becomes an empty shell without any trace of elemental power it once hold.
So why, why was Alhaitham's vision still shining, bright and resilient?
"Alhaitham?" Kaveh whispers, mouth covered with the palm of his hand, his mind going back to their previous conversation, or rather his own monologue. Tears pool in his eyes, a sob crawling up his throat, as he watches a familiar figure disappear further into the sandstorm, "Alhaitham!"
______
**Initializing System Activation Sequence...**
[[][][][.............] 35%
[[][][][][][][][][]..] 90%
[[][][][][][][][][][]] 100% System online.
Alhaitham's eyes open slightly, slowly focusing on the ceiling. He's in his room. In his bed. Or Alhaitham's bed. He doesn't know anymore.
A quick glance to the side and he sees Kaveh, sleeping peacefully, head on the bed while sitting on the floor. Alhaitham's lips press into a thin line – he'll have to deal with this whole situation between them eventually, somehow.
His eyes trail down to look at his presumably missing arm, but instead, to his surprise, he sees a yet to be finished but already working and attached limb. It's missing the usual coat of artificial skin but it's still better than a gaping hole.
Alhaitham moves the hand up, turning it in front of his face, polished parts catching on the sun that spills through the window.
He feels the mattress dip and hesitantly turns to look at Kaveh.
"Alhaitham?" He asks, rubbing his eyes after the slumber. "How are you feeling? You've been sleeping for a long time, got me worried again."
It's now or never, Alhaitham thinks.
"You don't have to call me by that name anymore," he whispers, a lump stuck in his throat, "I'm sorry I lied to you, and that I used his identity. In truth, I have no idea who I really am and–"
Before he's able to finish, he's being pulled into a tight embrace.
"Shut it," Kaveh says, squeezing him tighter, "I know exactly who you are, Alhaitham. You are you, and I don't need any further explanation."