Out of Body, Out of Mind

“I’ve been able to establish autonomous life in machines, so there is no reason why I cannot use similar methods to digitize a human mind. Of course, there - “ Viktor began to monologue, only stopping once he noticed Zor’Rak rise from the ground. He hadn’t picked up on the floating before, but now, it was impossible not to notice. He couldn’t see any mechanical means through which the man was achieving levitation, and he was truly baffled as he continued to stare at him.

“How exactly are you doing that?” he asked bluntly, letting his growing curiosity shatter the silence.

At this point, he was beyond the initial interest he’d had with the man and his metal mask and metal ideals. Perhaps, one day, if Viktor managed to complete his work, he’d inquire again but until then, his attention could be better put elsewhere.

At the question, the purple slits of his eyes focused on the man in silence for a moment as Zor’Rak’s legs crossed in the air with little effort on his part. Should he bother to tell him an answer? How much of an answer would he give if he did? Viktor has been... hospitable enough to humor his curiosity, so perhaps he would return the favor to some degree.

{ ♪ } – She sighed and relaxed, brushing her fingers through her hair. At least he wasn’t being aggressive at this point. There was nothing she could really do to understand his thought process.  It was annoying that he was so… unaware of things. She was trying to explain things that she never thought she’d explain. It was almost like dealing with a really young child.

    “Do you have a name? Or should I think of one for you?”

  She wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t have a name. It didn’t matter much at this point. If he didn’t have a name, she’d give him a nickname and leave it at that. There wasn’t much else she could do in a situation like this. Wetting her lips, she fished in her bag and found a hair tie. It took only a second to tie her long hair up, looping it into a lazy bun. Red eyes were almost wary.

  He hadn’t asked the most obvious question, and it almost bothered her. Any human she came across always mentioned the color of her eyes. Asking if it was natural, or if she was wearing contacts. She usually was wearing contacts, but that wasn’t the point. She didn’t wear colored ones. It was making her almost upset that he hadn’t asked. Why not just get it over with?

    “Well. I guess I’ll go okay? I’m sure you’ll have some way of finding me if you need me. So, just ask if you need something. I’ll try to explain to the best of my ability, but even though I don’t lie, I’m not always one hundred percent correct. I’m not someone who knows everything, so… If I can’t answer your question, don’t be upset.”

He was accustomed to being asked questions at this point given that people usually saw him and either freaked out or grew curious, though that question was not typically inquiring about his name. The addendum of asking if she should think of one for him brought a frown to his lips, eyebrows tilting downward. Why in the world would she ask if she should name him? That thought alone prompted him to answer the initial question, if only to avoid the alternative.

“Zor’Rak. The name is Zor’Rak, not any made-up name.”

Watching her, he observed as she withdrew a hair tie and tied hers back, though he didn’t ask about the action. He’d seen enough people around with different hairstyles, up or down, short or long, that he wasn’t going to bother with the subject, pointless as it was. Things like that, pointless things, didn’t really interest him that much. The same could be said of her out of the ordinary eye color.

As she spoke up again, his chin lifted and he made a mental note of her offer. She would attempt to be helpful, which was good. She was also close enough to Franky that, if she didn’t know something, he could inquire about it to the other woman as well. Two sources of information in one city-state, as they called it. Piltover would become an important place, perhaps. “That is fine.” It may grow to be annoying if neither of them knew something, but then it would be... dealt with. Somehow.

Such little foresight. Viktor was honestly a little perturbed that the man so quickly dismissed his work simply because it hadn’t come to fruition yet. Science was an art built on trial and error, logical reasoning, and perhaps most of all, patience. If one expected a scientific advancement to exist immediately, they were nothing more than a mere consumer. Consumers had little place in the forefronts of progress.

“I’ve made significant developments in the creation of computerized consciousness,” Viktor offered nonetheless. Although he was starting to doubt whether the man would be a good fit among the ranks of acolytes, he couldn’t resist defending his work.

If he perhaps knew more about the concept of science in general, he might have understood a little better. He might have even liked the idea of the experimentation, or done a little of it himself. Zor’Rak only knew but so little about that kind of thing compared to most people, and he only grasped what he was told of it, not what was generally assumed to be common knowledge. 

In short, what Viktor was trying to explain to him went almost completely over his head in numerous ways. 

Despite telling the other that he was no longer particularly interested in the topic, the masked man went on to tell him some brief summation of his career in the field anyway. The mention received a quiet snort from the floating man, who only began to rise a little higher into the air as black and purple eyes were cast elsewhere, seeming to have written off the other as important. 

{ ♪ } – She took another breath, still a little shaken from his sudden appearance. Taking a look at him, she frowned. He clearly wouldn’t understand a concept like manners without a lengthy explanation. Obviously she shouldn’t expect him to know what to do to fit in as far as social cues went.

  Bella frowned at him for a second and took a deep breath.

    “Okay, you clearly aren’t human, and I don’t have that much of an issue with that. What you need to try and understand is that humans are… Stubborn. Incredibly stubborn. That’s how this race has survived so long. Some people can be really stupid, and everyone understands that, but there is always going to be a group of people that are hell-bent on surviving, and so we’ll survive. It’s… Been really hard to stamp us out. Things have gotten hairy, but humanity has obviously survived. I don’t think it’s going to stop any time soon.”

  It took a little more for her to calm herself down. She was a little irritated with him. Perhaps she should go on and explain manners and social etiquette, but she honestly didn’t have the energy for it. Running one hand down her face she took a breath and glanced at him. Hopefully he wasn’t too worried about fitting in. If he was, she felt like she might have to take pity on him.

    “Look. My name is Bella, okay? i… I don’t have the patience to explain much more tonight. You kinda made me angry with the sudden popping out and accusing me of lying about my sight problems. It frustrated me and I need to calm myself down. If- If you have questions, I guess you can come to me. I’m normally a very patient person, but I don’t take kindly to being called a liar, okay? I don’t lie.”

Now that he had returned her glasses to her, the voidborn assumed that this would appease the woman to some degree. Humans were, from what he had gleaned so far, possessive of what they owned, which was something he could understand on some level. Well, even though he himself did not really have much in the way of belongings (and everything he had in this world wasn’t technically his).

Upon her mention of what might have been considered obvious, Zor’Rak brought both hands to hover before his chest, pressing index fingertips together. He remained quiet while she went on to explain the stubborn survival of humanity, which he took with some consideration. 

If any more of his ‘brethren’ were to pass into this world, that would be considered a good thing.

Zor’Rak was mostly used to people reacting in scared or angry ways whenever he approached, so he didn’t think this interaction was strange at all. If anything, it was interesting to compare how the red-head reacted to how others did. This one just seemed more tired, perhaps. Not as loud as some others, at the very least, which he considered a good thing. Helpful too, just in a roundabout way.

“Bella.” He echoed the name with a slight tilt his head that sent the swaying longer tendrils of hair wavering in the air. She said he could ask more questions of her - at a later date. That piece of information was filed away for potential later use. Not too many people readily offered themselves as a wealth of information.

SWEATS,,,