James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nerves_of_ice) wrote2021-05-17 02:35 pm
nerves_of_ice) wrote2021-05-17 02:35 pm
Entry tags:
[oom] i wake to sleep and take my waking slow
The first few days after Bucky goes under are spent in data analysis and quality assurance. There's a lot of information in the human mind, after all. Much of it is messy and complicated and stored in structures that are interconnected in unexpected ways. And when it comes to a project like this, something that's never truly been done before with a biological mind versus synthetic structures and artificial intelligence, something that has the highest of stakes, there's no second chance and thus no room for error.
Shuri spends her time focused on the mission during the first few days, leaving the majority of the data integrity checks to her technical team. She reviews their work at the start and end of each day when she comes to check on her sleeping patient, making corrections to methods and systems and processes where needed. She makes sure that there are two untouched backups of the original digital representation stored safely at all times in case they have to start over. Finally, they're able to confirm that everything is prepared, that the digital representation is not only complete but stable, and that the real work is ready to begin.
Once the mission's done, she turns the weapon prototype and its blueprints over to a few of her most highly-trusted developers for analysis and immerses herself in Bucky's mind. She'd already drafted the initial algorithm, of course, and has spent nearly three months refining it against the initial scans, every additional scan she's done since, the data from the notebooks Bucky'd kept and the memories he'd written down. She doesn't think it'll take too long to finish it.
It takes weeks.
She ruins multiple copies of the digital representation in the first two weeks while testing the algorithm against it - first in simulation and then in practice. It's the practical part that turns out to be problematic. During the first few tests, her code destroys HYDRA's trigger programming as intended, but then also devours the memories attached to it and proceeds to spread like a virus through everything it can reach. The next series of tests fails to fully eliminate the triggers, and post-implementation simulation reveals that the damaged programming, if not fully removed, will destabilize the mind entirely over time, leaving the subject lost to madness or dementia or both. Shuri refuses to allow any of it. Even the possibility is too much. Nothing must be left to chance. Nothing of harm must be allowed to remain.
Meanwhile, silent in the cryo chamber, Bucky sleeps on.
They're into the third week before the first test is passed. All work comes to a halt in the lab as they stare at the displays. No one dares breathe until the test is repeated. When the second series of results flashes up on screen, showing success across every aspect, the lab explodes in cheers. Instead of becoming easier, Shuri's work becomes even more painstaking and demanding, as she sets out to ensure the smallest nuances are fully refined. She creates additional copies and runs the algorithm against them under high-strain conditions. She practices transitioning the new digital copy from server to server to server, trying to eliminate any and all possibility of data loss during transfer.
At the end of the third week, she sends for T'Challa.
____________________
The first thing he's aware of is the cold. This kind of cold he knows all too well. It chills all the way to the bone, pinning him in place with frigid air around him and a cold surface under him. He's too cold even to shiver. Bucky can't move or speak, or do anything at all other than lie still and quiet, listening to the soft hissing sound that's the only thing he can hear.
He drifts in and out of awareness for a while as the light around him gets brighter and the temperature starts to rise. It's not until there's a loud 'click' and the hum of the cryo chamber opening that he finally opens his eyes.
Shuri spends her time focused on the mission during the first few days, leaving the majority of the data integrity checks to her technical team. She reviews their work at the start and end of each day when she comes to check on her sleeping patient, making corrections to methods and systems and processes where needed. She makes sure that there are two untouched backups of the original digital representation stored safely at all times in case they have to start over. Finally, they're able to confirm that everything is prepared, that the digital representation is not only complete but stable, and that the real work is ready to begin.
Once the mission's done, she turns the weapon prototype and its blueprints over to a few of her most highly-trusted developers for analysis and immerses herself in Bucky's mind. She'd already drafted the initial algorithm, of course, and has spent nearly three months refining it against the initial scans, every additional scan she's done since, the data from the notebooks Bucky'd kept and the memories he'd written down. She doesn't think it'll take too long to finish it.
It takes weeks.
She ruins multiple copies of the digital representation in the first two weeks while testing the algorithm against it - first in simulation and then in practice. It's the practical part that turns out to be problematic. During the first few tests, her code destroys HYDRA's trigger programming as intended, but then also devours the memories attached to it and proceeds to spread like a virus through everything it can reach. The next series of tests fails to fully eliminate the triggers, and post-implementation simulation reveals that the damaged programming, if not fully removed, will destabilize the mind entirely over time, leaving the subject lost to madness or dementia or both. Shuri refuses to allow any of it. Even the possibility is too much. Nothing must be left to chance. Nothing of harm must be allowed to remain.
Meanwhile, silent in the cryo chamber, Bucky sleeps on.
They're into the third week before the first test is passed. All work comes to a halt in the lab as they stare at the displays. No one dares breathe until the test is repeated. When the second series of results flashes up on screen, showing success across every aspect, the lab explodes in cheers. Instead of becoming easier, Shuri's work becomes even more painstaking and demanding, as she sets out to ensure the smallest nuances are fully refined. She creates additional copies and runs the algorithm against them under high-strain conditions. She practices transitioning the new digital copy from server to server to server, trying to eliminate any and all possibility of data loss during transfer.
At the end of the third week, she sends for T'Challa.
The first thing he's aware of is the cold. This kind of cold he knows all too well. It chills all the way to the bone, pinning him in place with frigid air around him and a cold surface under him. He's too cold even to shiver. Bucky can't move or speak, or do anything at all other than lie still and quiet, listening to the soft hissing sound that's the only thing he can hear.
He drifts in and out of awareness for a while as the light around him gets brighter and the temperature starts to rise. It's not until there's a loud 'click' and the hum of the cryo chamber opening that he finally opens his eyes.
no subject
He hears the first word in Ayo's soft, clear tones, and waits in suspended agony for it to begin, bracing himself for the procedure to fail, for the wave to roll over him, starting the spiral that will drag him down into the darkness.
It doesn't happen. Not with the first word, nor the second.
"Seventeen," she says, and in that moment Bucky discovers that hope is far, far more painful and terrifying than fear.
"It's not going to work," he chokes out, and it's a desperate, disbelieving plea.
no subject
She takes a breath and continues, inexorable. (All of this is for nothing if the words are not said correctly, in the correct order, within enough time.)
"Daybreak."
Each word is soft and precise, like tugging petals from a flower. He is struggling now, pain and fear and hope all warring with each other as he frowns, as he shakes, his gaze steady on the fire.
She continues. It is the kindest thing she can do. "Furnace."
no subject
Instead of feeling like he's drowning, sliding into unconsciousness, struggling against it, with each word jolting him another level into the dark, he sees a different sort of flash, filling where the void should be. Memories.
The Winter Soldier's memories.
The red book slamming shut in his handler's grasp. Trying to slam his way out of the glass-and-steel cell. Standing on a street he doesn't recognize, staring at a man he knows he should.
("Who the hell is Bucky?")
Masked, unmasked, weapons in hand, screaming in the chair.
Mission report: December 16, 1991.
("Nine," murmurs Ayo. "Benign.")
His breathing comes faster and faster as his face twists into a grimace.
no subject
His gaze is on the fire, but she doubts he is seeing the flames. "Homecoming," she says. In her voice the words are not a fist dragging him into the darkness, but a kind, beckoning hand.
Tears have started in his eyes. The cords stand out in his neck. He's trembling. His features are flushed and twisted. "One," she says.
They are so close. She keeps a firm hand on her own worry, her own fears. Her voice is utterly calm as she places the final word into the air between them. "Freight car."
no subject
The last word hits the air, and instead of falling into the darkness that the mountain pass had brought him to, he lands here in the present, in the warm night by the fire, still aware. Still himself.
Tears are streaking silently down his face. His shoulders shake as he fights to hold back the sobs.
no subject
Which means she can see the precise moment realization hits him: That he is still himself. That the power those words held is gone forever. That he can never, never be used that way, ever again.
She takes a deep, cleansing breath of the cool mountain air, and her features relax into a smile, her eyes warm and pleased. "You are free," she tells him.
There can be no doubt. His face is wet with tears as he looks up towards her, as if pleading for it to be true, so she nods slightly, her voice a bare whisper as she says it again, this new truth for him to hold.
"You are free."
no subject
He stares up at her, then out past the fire into the night, eyes bright with emotion as he clenches his hand in front of his mouth, as if trying to hold her words to his own lips.
Free. Free. He can feel the smile break over his face as unutterable relief and joy wash through him, leaving him lightheaded and unsteady.
It's over. After all these years, it's over. He's no one's weapon to wield, not any longer. He's free.
no subject
She takes another deep breath and sighs it out through her nose, well-pleased, and does not yet tap out a message on her Kimoyo beads.
She will inform King T'Challa once they have come back down the mountain. For now, this moment is his, and his alone.
no subject
But it hasn't failed. His mind is his own again, and no one else's.
A soft, choked laugh escapes him, and he shakes his head, then lowers his hand and looks back up at Ayo.
"Thank you."
no subject
This was her duty – to Wakanda, to her king – but also an act of friendship. She is perhaps the only person who could give it to him, and so she offered it freely. Her smile grows, slightly.
"I am happy for you, White Wolf."
no subject
"Want me to get the torches or this fire?"
no subject
She busies herself with putting out the torches, dousing the flames with a metal cap like a large candle-snuffer, then waits until he has reduced the fire to a heap of loose dirt and ash.
This place has served its purpose. And he has somewhere else to be.