Walk over to the right and examine the machinery/computer.
You head over to examine the console. Skree doesn’t like the feel of the grate flooring and screeches at you from the ramp.
The monitor is just flickering static. There is another small screen that’s been smashed and isn’t readable – something appears to have been thrown right through the screen. Working stuff appears to include a clutch lever pulled to its downwards position, a turn coordinator that’s level with the horizon, an airspeed indicator at 0, some kind of power-monitoring grid, and a keyboard wired in to the working monitor.
Put your VHS tape in the VCR-looking thing below the screen.
You pop the cassette in. There are a few little playback buttons, so you rewind it all the way and then press play.
After a moment, the static begins to clear.
A robot like you is digging in the background. Another walks past the camera, closer. Sound eminates from all around you as a voice begins to fade in.
“All right, this is, uh… wait hold on, let’s try that again”
The camera cuts ahead suddenly.
“Ahem. This is Doctor—Rusty! Get outta here, slobberhead! I’m making a—”
The camera jumps ahead a second time.
“Uh… ahem… this is Doctor Preston Alexander Les, on, uh… Oh hell, I’m going to have to start over again—”
“Would you relax? It’s fine, it’s just a video log, we’re not submitting this to a scientific review panel or anything.”
“Right, right, uh… okay, so what you’re seeing right now is our ‘bots – Claire, you’re in the shot!”
“Oh, sorry, Preston, am I ruining your award-winning documentary?”
“Ha ha ha. Listen, when we make the discovery of the century and they want to know how we did it and I say 'Sorry, my colleague got in the way of every video I took—'”
“
‘My colleague?’ You tease.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, you know what—”
“—have a clue. I haven’t seen anything like it.”
“Well can we get a sample?”
“I’ve tried chipping at the damn things, I can’t even leave a mark!”
“Aw, Mister Big Strong Scientist can’t even dent a little-bitty rock?”
“…You’re filming this?! Give me my camera!”
“I’d hardly call it a ‘camera,’ this thing’s gotta be at least a hundred years old—”
“It’s an antique, and you’re getting your hands all over it!”
“Take your silly toy then, you big baby—”
“Hey, did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Sounded like thunder.”
“Thunder? Here?”
“Maybe we should get insi—”
“—you up to?”
“Just another journal entry. Not much else to do, unless we make some progress soon.”
“Yeah. Slow going lately.”
“‘Slow going’ is an incorrect term. That would imply we were making
any progress
at all.”
There is some silence.
“I’m, uh... going to head up to see how the ‘bots are doing on the cabin.”
“Have fun with that.”
The camera lingers before turning and leaving the living room.
“Geez…
Somebody hasn’t been getting enough sleep lately...”
“Hm… coming along pretty nicely—”
“—old it still, okay? Steady! Just… okay, just focus it on me, all right?”
“Bloody ‘bot… Right, okay, so this is a little critter… I think Feringus wants to call ‘em oculoids? So this is an oculoid. They just sorta showed up the other day and they’ve finally stopped jumping around long enough for us to get 'em to cooperate. It’s a weird-looking bugger, that’s for sure. So I’m going to see here what it’s visual reaction time is, get a better idea of how that big ol’ eye works. ”
“All right, now hold still, little buddy… I’m just gonna shine this light around your—”
“
Skreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!”
“Hold your horses little bud—”
“—issy little rock, isn’t it.”
“Yeah. Funny, that.”
“Hardly.”
“Well, I mean… how familiar the whole weather system is, you know?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘funny.’”
“All right, it’s not funny, all right? It’s ‘interesting.’ Okay? Interesting.”
“I would accept ‘interesting.’”
There are sounds of rain for a few moments.
“What do you think we should call it?”
“Hardly seems our place to do so.”
“Well, you know, just between us then. What
would you call it, I’ll say.”
“I haven’t given much thought to the matter. Something pretentious, I imagine. Possibly in Latin. This awful place deserves no less.”
“Maybe ‘
Uter Aquae?’”
“Too comical. ‘
Procella,’ perhaps.”
More silence; rain.
“Got a sort of a ring to it, doesn’t—”
“
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”
“Augh!”
“Les!”
“Grab it, grab it!”
“Got it! It’s out. Are you okay?”
“What the hell just happened?! I didn’t
do anything and it just jumped at me—”
“Not just you; it went for me, too. A whole species can’t be classified as bi-polar, can it? And come give me a hand with this thing, you can play with your stupid camera later.”
“It’s not— Regardless, I think that’s the last straw for the ‘intelligent species’ theory.”
“Good. I’ve just about had it with baby-talking these things to calm them d—”
“—did it, Feringus. We did it.”
“We’re not done yet by any stretch, Les. It’s progress, yes, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“But we’ve
found it, Feringus. This compound matches all the required parameters! This is our Chemical X! Fourteen months and we’ve finally found it!”
“That may be so, but until we’ve found a way to get substantial quantities of it we’re not done here. There’s still much more work to do.”
“Fine by me. And at least we’ll actually be making progress now. I’m just glad those damn creatures actually ended up being
useful for someth—”
The audio fades out permanently as the tape stops playing.
Going to call that round-end for now. Seems a good point to do so. I’ve got more prep work to do, anyhow (plus dear lord that update took forever), and you guys have a lot of food for thought in the meantime. The usual round consolidation post is a-coming in a bit.
There’s one or two commands I skipped over because they would have interrupted the pacing of the orb investigation – we’ll get to them eventually, no worries. I don’t like missing commands.
e- quick grammar fix. No content edited, don't worry, nothing new was added.
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Topic: [ISG] Adventure Guy! - Epilogue (Read 520061 times)