Yet, even though she was a machine, Aegis really couldn't see herself being able to blindly look at the corridor in front of her. She had been created to fight for mankind against one of its greatest threats, but she wasn't just some mechanical device. Her decisions were her own, and she was able to consider what was going on around her, unlike some security camera with no mind of its own.
What made it a problem was that as much as she wanted to, she couldn't go out and protect humanity from the disaster that was currently afflicting it. Beyond the fact that she was programmed with the purpose of fighting enemies that would want to slay innocents, she wanted to safeguard human lives, no matter how much harm that might bring for her. If anything, she wanted to protect the lives that were so precious to her, especially the friends that she had made in her quest to fight off the dangers that loomed in the darkness.
And there she was, moving along corridors, making sure that there were no threats that had slipped into this installation. Knowing that so much death and suffering was going on outside of those walls, but being unable to do anything galled her. But she knew that she couldn't do anything to really help them, and as much as she didn't want to admit it, she was aware of how futile it was to even try. There was just something inherently... wrong about the idea of saving people's lives, just so that they could die later.
Because of that, she was now strolling along, looking for something out of place in this bland looking station. Of course, she was more likely to see a need for a repair than an enemy of some sort. Still, that was also important work, seeing as they needed to keep this place in as good shape as possible, to keep those inside living as long as they could. So, she opened up her sensors as much as she could... only to get an alert about something that most assuredly should not have been where it could be detected at that moment.
Breaking into a sprint, Aegis hurried to the location she'd come across, hoping to get there before something bad happened.
Stumbling backwards, Riki began to try wildly to figure out what he should do. This was most certainly not his field of expertise, and he wasn't looking to branch out into it. Hell, he was a damned janitor, not a soldier, and this was not in his job description. If someone wanted to find someone to fight a clog in the drainage systems, he was their man, but he was not looking to fight creepy things in the dark.
Then again, it didn't seem like he was going to get a reprieve in facing... whatever the Hell it was. Nothing about it seemed natural, as no animal or plant had such a look, at least from his experience. It looked more like an oil spill that had started moving on its own, with one of those theater masks stuck to it.
Whatever it was, it didn't seem friendly as it reached out to him. He had no way of knowing its full intentions, but somehow he rather doubted that the wobble in his direction wasn't acting like some alien that wanted to 'phone home'. No, it seemed to reshape the 'limb', until it was a thin pointed cone.
Once it was done... he had only a few moments to act before the tentacle came darting towards him. Right then, it became clear that it was not only going to be a threat, but that it was attacking him at that moment. On top of that, it was not merely trying to beat him up, but was trying to actively kill him.
Fear robbed his legs of their strength, and so he collapsed to the floor... which was what probably saved his life. The tentacle sailed right over his head, piercing through a wall, rather than his head. For just a second, he thanked his lucky stars that he'd survived, but then recognized that he was still in serious danger.
Seeing as he did not want to wind up being skewered, he somewhat stumbled to a crouch, and began to crawl across the floor, towards hopeful safety, while:
(Posted Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:40)
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