Tell her we've come to stop her.
You tell her that she has to stop her plans to take the Chemical X immediately, or you’re going to stop her yourself.
Dr. Feringus laughs at you, brushing your serious tone off casually. “What, you?
Really? Oh, that’s… that’s sweet, honestly, but regardless of whatever happened to you that made you think you’re different from the other bots, you’re not the
least bit autonomous, and you’ve got a built-in overriding program that stops you from causing harm to a human. If I want to take all this energy, what on earth do you think you could really do about it?”
You stare at the ground, uncertain.
“Here, go on. Hit me. In fact, that’s an order. Close your fist up into a ball and hit me in the face as hard as you can, right now!”
You wind up to punch, fist clenched, arms shaking.
“Go on, hit me!
HIT ME!”
...You can't do it.
“Don’t embarrass yourself. You’re no more than a robot. If I ordered you to, you’d jump right off this ramp and burn up into one of those globes just like your friend. I could even order you to be
happy about it if I wanted to.”
Ask her what happened to the Skree village
You ask her what happened to the oculoid village.
“The…? Oh! The creatures’ home, yes. I couldn’t tell you. Hardly gave it much regard myself. If it’s been disrupted, I imagine that was the work of my rather zealous assistant. He did show such…
zest in carrying out his orders.”
She smiles sardonically. “You’re adorable, robot. Protecting these mindless animals from a danger they’re not even aware of? That’s what you think you’re trying to do, isn’t it? I mean, I’ll admit it’s endearing to watch artificial intelligence take responsibility for others unto its own, but there’s not really any point in your trying. You’re a little tin puppet, and I’ve got your strings. I mean… really, you don’t even know what’s going on here, do you?”
Ask her about [the purpose of Chemical X].
You admit that you don’t and ask what is so important about Chemical X.
She is silent for a moment, staring down. Then she begins to speak.
“I don’t really expect you to understand this, robot. Your design is… rather remarkably human, actually, but you’ve never spent any time on Earth. All you know is what your data banks of ancient caricatures and stereotypes tell you.
“We have been facing an imminent energy crisis for decades, now. We still have plenty, of course. But it’s all based on finding new sources in galactic exploration. And we’ve been using it faster than we can find more. Sooner or later we’ll be all out, and… things will become rather grim.
“When Les and I left Earth over two years ago, the riots were beginning. The government was beginning to restrict energy usage to prolong our stores. We were lucky to get out before martial law was enacted. There will still be energy for a decade or so to come, of course, or perhaps even two with careful rationing… but then our reserves will be emptied. So we needed something superior. Something
lasting.
“There is no chemical compound actually named Chemical X as such. The term is a catch-all used to describe the hypothetical existence of an infinite energy source. We are standing in the middle of the first, and likely only, real source of a Chemical X. It defies physics, and all scientific knowledge of the natural world. And it’s
ours.
“Have you noticed how cold it is in here compared to the caves in the planet’s crust, or the surface? Or how close the planet is to the local star, yet without burning up or even being unbearably warm? It’s this source that keeps the planet cool and habitable by your cold-loving creatures, and they in turn support the source.”
“Watch, robot.
Observe. Look at the creatures’ interactions. Some feed on the chemical, and others cry out to it. The vibrations in the oculoid calls cause it to react, and to grow. They take from it and give back to it, and the sudden chemical reactions cool the planet. It’s a marvelous work of natural evolution, really. There’s no predators, no real ecosystem to speak of. Just a planet and its creatures, relying on each other to survive.
“Now…
imagine.”
You feel chill wisps rush past you. The nearest globe is beginning to destabilize, whirling looser and wider around its center. The swirls of cold energy seem to pierce the ship’s brilliant white surface, getting absorbed into whatever storage system is hidden away inside.
Feringus begins to speak more fervently. “A world without conflict, without
need! We isolate the energy into tiny base amounts, then proceed to stimulate it with the correct vibrations until each new fraction of energy is a source as big as these, and then we repeat the process again, and again, and again!
Energy farming, robot. We could grow it faster than we’d be able to use it!
“
That is what this is about, robot. Solving the energy crisis for the entire universe… and not just for ‘now.’ For all-time.”
Inform doctor Feringus that you don't approve of her methods.
You tell her that you think her methods are both morally and ethically wrong, and that you don’t condone them.
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard it before. Death is wrong. To cause it is wrong. And yet so many around us die. So then the question becomes: who should decide who lives and who dies, and how ‘fair’ it is? Think of it mathematically, robot-- you can do that much, I’m sure. You find out where the pros most greatly outweight the cons, and you make the decision. There’s no emotional weight involved. It’s just numbers.”
ask about Les' death and how it occured.
Before she can continue, you quickly interject to ask how Les died.
She blanches, thrown off, and quiets.
“Les’ death was… unfortunate.”
She is silent a moment longer.
“We split the duties of locking down the facility before reconvening at the mobile submarine lab. The sub is temperature-resistant, you see, and the creatures would not be able to attack us if we retreated to there. Then we could formulate a plan to take back control of the facility and continue our research. He took the lower levels, sealing away the lab, the ship, and the generator. I took the upper ones, sealing the living space and gathering as much of our research as possible. I returned to the submarine first, and waited. But Les never returned.
“I knew after twenty four hours that he must be dead. There was no refuge in optimism. The large monsters were destroying the facility, and the smaller ones seemed to be on a rampage as well. I’ve never seen the clouds so black, or a storm so cruel. I feared leaving the sub. The beasts would tear me apart, surely. So I kept waiting.
“Months later… countless months… my hideaway was located by one of the auxbots - your friend there with the monocle. That was not yet even a week ago. He told me that he had discovered Les’ skeleton; mangled, as expected. This only served to confirm what I had already believed. But my actions are not ones of vengeance, or rage, or any other weak, over-emotional state. My actions are not meant to doom these beasts; that’s merely a welcome side-effect.
“I’m a scientist, robot. An intellectual. My work benefits the masses, and secures humanity’s future. If it causes some hiccups here and there? That’s just tough. It comes down to math, robot. Would I condemn one to save another? No. What about one to save two? One to save ten? Certainly something to think over. But one planet of… of
docile vermin, to save a hundred million? I wouldn’t even blink.
“I don’t need to concern myself with the well-being of a planet full of animals. Would you have such an indignant moral problem with a planet inhabited only by buffalo? Or fish? Or apes?” She laughs. “Of course, because you’re
fond of these creatures, that necessitates their salvation to doom countless others. I would have thought a robot of all things would be able to make the tough calls.”
Ask if she would like to hear what you have learned of the oculoids.
You ask if she’d at least be willing to hear what you’ve learned about the oculoids.
“Learned? What
you’ve learned? You mock my research, imply that there’s something I don’t know, something I
missed? Robot, I know the physiology of these creatures inside and outside, backwards and forwards, any other trite colloquialism you’d care for. I spent months—
years researching these disgusting creatures. I didn’t miss a thing.
“I tracked your interactions with the creatures, robot. You weren’t researching them. You were making friends with them. And useful as that was to finding their secret hideaway, it’s hardly appropriate to equate ‘play time’ with ‘exhausting scientific study.’
Also ask her to tell more of these "vibrations" the magic energy stuff reacts to.
As you talk, an oculoid is blown onto the ramp. It is looking around rather blankly.
You say that if she expects you to think more scientifically, you need to know more about the scientific aspects of the chemical. You ask to hear more about the vibrations that are so crucial to inducing reactions in Chemical X.
She grins at your use of the word ‘scientifically.’ “You might just be able to redeem yourself yet, robot. Yes, a series of vibrations repeating at the proper tempo and tone can cause reactions much more intense than the minor ones the oculoid calls produce. The right series of notes at the right octaves… We discovered this musical link entirely by accident. Les brought a music box with his personal belongings as a memento from home. It took months to notice that the storms always seemed to coincide with the use of the music box.
“It sounds silly to say that a simple melody was so key to uncovering the chemical’s true secrets, but… it cannot be denied. The music would cool the planet, and the rapid cooling would trigger planet-wide storms of incredible magnitude. We brought out Les’ old piano and managed to deduct that an additional two notes, C and A, could produce a similar effect, but instead calming the storm. With both these triggers we will be able to grow the chemical at our discretion, then stabilize it when we are done our work. A magnificent system.”
The whirling winds around you are beginning to worsen. This sphere has nearly entirely become loose swathes and wisps circling its former mass, and the others seem to all be floating this way. You don’t think you have too much time.
“So then, robot, what is it? Will you pursue the betterment of humanity through science as well, or consign yourself to stay on this burnt husk of a planet, having both tried and failed to save your beasts?”
The stray oculoid is curiously investigating your bag.
>Do you actually have to doom the oculoids? You said you can grow the chemical at your discretion. How much of it do you need?
You feel rather put on the spot and try and sidestep the question, asking if it’s really necessary to take
all of the chemical and leave the oculoids none with which to sustain the planet.
“
Yes, it
is necessary. The chemical growth rate is incredibly slow. The more we have, the faster we can grow it exponentially. I don’t want a new unlimited energy source years from now, I want it
today. Stop changing the subject and choose.” The doctor is getting rather fed up with you.
The oculoid seems to have lost interest in your backpack and is staring at the fading light trails in the air.
Say –snip-
As the last of the globe swirls off into the ship, you try to explain that she is prematurely writing off the oculoids as non-intelligent by way of ignoring their psychology.
She is most certainly angry now. “There’s nothing to study! They respond animalistically to physical stimuli, their screeching sounds don’t have any sort of pattern to them, and touching them just gives off a sort of fear-inducing pheremone, presumably made by some internal gland to scare off predators. There is
nothing to
study.
"I’m getting a bit tired of your stalling, robot. I’ve got somewhere to be that I’ve dearly, dearly missed these last two years.”
You are now in the center of the chamber, as best you can judge. The other spheres have been drawn towards the ship, and are beginning to come loose themselves, all at once. The light waves stream towards the ship from all directions.
Commune with the oculoid and direct it to commune with Feringus.
Getting low on options, you pick up the oculoid. It seems to be enjoying the cold winds and pretty lights flashing by you. You direct it to talk to Feringus and greet her in a friendly manner.
Before you can put it down and let it crawl over to her, she stops you.
“Don’t let go of that thing.”
You feel your arms freeze up, oculoid still well in hand.
“Okay, robot, it was fun pretending you had a choice, but the short of it is that you’re coming back with me whether you like it or not. Now are you going to get over your faulty sympathetic artificially-generated personality issues and get rid of that creature of your own ‘free will,’ or am I going to have to teach you a lesson in obedience and
make you?”
You flinch.
“Do it, robot. Put your hands together and kill it. Crush it! Pop its eye like a grape!
Do it! That’s an
order, robot,
kill the oculoid!”
Begin crushing the oculoid EXTREMELY SLOWLY.
You begin to kill the oculoid.
For a little while nothing happens. Swirling light continues to shoot past you. Some of the energy has come ‘loose’ from its wisps and is floating like snow in the air.
“Well? That was a direct order, you know!”
You know. But you’re not in any rush. Could take all day. A few days. Maybe even a month or two. No hurry.
You place the oculoid on the ground. You’re quite sure you’ll get around to killing it… eventually.
“What? What are you doing?! Pick it up, robot! Pick it up
now!!”
You tell her that the oculoids don’t have a ‘fear pheremone.’ They have a touch-induced method of communication going directly into your senses, a synesthetic union that conveys raw emotions. You learned this the first time you befriended one. She didn’t after two years. So then the question is, you say, who’s the real scientist here?
The oculoid begins to crawl towards Feringus.
“Get that thing away from me! Get it
away! Are you listening to me, robot?!? I’m giving you an order!!”
Get ‘it’ away? ‘It’ isn’t very specific. She could be referring to anything. Maybe a rock somewhere. Maybe the sun. Certainly nothing you could do about that.
You tell her that the oculoids have a village, a history, their own culture and religion. A true scientific endeavour would have examined this civilization, learned from it. A real scientist would have known that figuring out the oculoids’ thought patterns and interacting with them would have been key to understanding the planet, especially knowing that the oculoids are the
only sentient life form on the planet.
A real scientist wouldn’t have abandoned their principles in pursuit of an answer. A real scientist wouldn’t have seen torture as an acceptable way to further their own species’ advancement. A real scientist wouldn’t have forgotten what compassion was.
Feringus falls backwards, seemingly-paralyzed. The oculoid blankly keeps moving towards her.
“No! NO!!!! Get it away from me robot, do you hear me?! I’m a human! I’m your
master! YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME, YOU HAVE TO!!!!”
You hold out Les’ letter, and tell Feringus that even Les was uncomfortable with the actions being taken to ‘acquire’ the chemical, and was only continuing because he thought the actions would benefit humanity enough to be worth it. But he couldn’t mask his guilt as well as her. Or his conscience.
The oculoid communes with Feringus.
“ROBOT, GET IT AWAY FROM ME RIGHT NO—”
She abruptly cuts off and goes silent.
You say that she alienated her partner in her blind pursuit for success. She threw away her ethics. Her moral responsibility. You say that your ‘database of ancient caricatures and stereotypes’ might call those things a ‘soul.’ But a more modern term would be her ‘humanity.’
So she stayed, and convinced Les to stay. And her actions turned against her. But she never accepted responsibility for the consequences. Instead she just denied her role in Les’ death, hid behind her doctorate, and repressed all feeling until she was consumed by her desire to succeed regardless of what it took. Or who.
So much for ‘no emotional weight.’
The oculoid curls up in Feringus’ lap and goes to sleep.
Sphere-wisps floats in from all directions. The air is cold, but not nearly as cold as it first was. Snowy sparkles of energy dance in the air, being tossed back and forth gently by the rape of the world. Despite the whirling icy winds around you, in the eye of the storm the moment seems quiet and beautiful.
Claire begins to weep.
gently tell her that she can fix everything
You’ve gotten through to her. No more need to talk her down any more.
You kneel down and tell her that she can fix everything. But she’s got to hurry. The energy’s nearly all gone.
“Fix everything…?” she says. “How? I can’t fix all those… all the deaths, all… we spent hours… all the… the deaths…” She is barely able to speak. “I can’t undo that, robot. I can’t… I can’t fix this.”
Take only enough of the energy as you would need to make a solution, leave the rest.
You tell her that she can compromise. Take the bare minimum of energy that she needs for the new energy source. Leave the rest for the oculoids. Everyone wins.
“No, robot. Everyone doesn’t win. I… I killed so many. And now I’m going to destroy their home. And I can’t do anything about it.”
You tell her to just put the energy she doesn’t need back in the core, then you can discuss morals afterwards.
Claire wipes some tears from her eyes, her voice regaining its confidence again. “It’s not simply about putting things here back to the way they were. The core… robot, the entire planet is cooled by this chamber. You know that. But the reactions the oculoids cause… are tiny. Their cries don’t revert the temperature back to any automatic ‘cold’ range, they simply make things a bit cooler than they otherwise would be. They merely
keep it cool and stop it from warming further.”
You pause and consider the implications of this.
Claire stands up, pulling some sort of monitoring device out of her pocket as she does so. The oculoid formerly on her lap hops off the ramp and begins to propellor away. “The temperature of the planet is currently about thirty-five, maybe forty degrees hotter than is comfortable for the oculoids, and that figure is only going to keep going up. Releasing the energy could perhaps keep us at that level, though it wouldn’t stop the planet from essentially burning up. But I can’t revert it. There’s… there’s no hope, robot.”
She keels over, beginning to cry again. “I… I can’t even save them, after all I did to hurt them! I came here to help people, robot! I thought… I thought I could help
everyone…”
The doctor pauses. The heat’s getting much more noticeable, even uncomfortable. The energy has been fully absorbed into the ship. “Perhaps then it would be best…
No. Not ‘best.’ Perhaps it would be
right to stay. I have done too much to simply disappear across the known universe and leave them to die alone. I will send Rusty back with the bare minimum energy necessary to power the ship and vent the rest back into the core. I must accept responsibility for my actions.”
She begins to head into the ship, her voice trembling very minutely. “I will be sending the ship off in approximately one minute. You will… no, I apologize. If you would like to return with Rusty, you may. Or you may choose to stay. You are free to do either. I will, however,
suggest that you leave. You have done your part here.”
You are left alone on the ramp. The ship begins to flicker with black cracks of lightning. The chamber is empty; the spheres have disappeared into the ship and the oculoids seem to have fled to the village. It is just you and the now-sweltering, unrelenting heat.
Explain to the Doctor how to cool off the Core
An idea strikes you. Reactions. You need to make the energy react.
You are pretty sure this will work. Better tell the doctor.
You enter the ship, finding Feringus working at the controls panel. A new mechanism you didn’t see before is hanging down, a small bit of energy floating in it. The white energy is flickering along the insides of the walls in massive amounts, incredibly unstable and entirely uncontained.
“So you’ve decided to go back, then,” she says as you enter, not turning around from the console. “That’s understandable. Wait here and the ship will leave shortly.”
stay on the planet regardless.
You tell her that you’re planning on staying no matter what happens – but even better than that, you have an idea. You take out the music box and tell her that if it could cause storms when played on the surface, it could probably react even more intensely when played in here, maybe even enough to reverse the planet’s meltdown.
Claire marvels at the small music box as you hold it out. “…Amazing. The same trinket that lead us to discover the planet’s cooling mysteries helps solve them as well. Yes. Yes, I think that would work. Hold on, I’m ready to vent the energy.”
There is a
woooosh as the energy seems to seep into the walls and disappear. The interior darkens again.
You ask whether the ship has speakers that you could use to amplify the music box’s sound.
“No— …well. Once. We took them out when we set up the piano. Didn’t think we’d need them again. But no matter. I think the vibrations will be close enough to cause a react more than strong enough to lower the temperature acceptably. Perhaps more than enou…”
The last of what she says is just outside your hearing range as you rush down the ramp and back outside. You don’t know how much time you have left. Energy has begun to flood back out from the ship. You’ve got to do this now before anything else can go wrong.
play the music box.
You put your hand on the music box’s wind-up handle. All right. This thing better do what it’s supposed to for once. You prepare to turn it.
“Robot, stop. Completely. Do not move. Do not play the music box. Do not respond to me. Those are all orders.”
You feel yourself freeze up as the overriding functions following an order close off your will.
Feringus has caught up with you. You can only partially see her, unable to turn your head.
“The ship will be leaving shortly. I understand that you want to stay here. I warn you now that the reactions we will encounter shortly… will be rather strong. I cannot predict exactly how so. But I suspect the planet will become exceptionally volatile, and dangerous. Things may be hard for you.”
She takes the music box delicately from your unresisting hands.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your task. I mean to take it for myself. I have a terrible weight hanging over me. It must be relieved. I owe it to the cr— …the oculoids. This is my burden. I will not allow you to involve yourself further.
The ship’s door seals behind you, cutting through the still-extended ramp. It begins to float away, you with it.
“I used to hear these cries, robot. For maybe a year now. Screaming out in my nights. Sleeping was… all but impossible. I believed that Les was cursing me for abandoning him, that maybe if I had gone back I might have been able to find him before his injuries took him... that if I hadn’t been so
damned insistent on finding the energy source then maybe this entire nightmare could have been avoided.
“I no longer believe those cries to have been Les’ now. Robot, I used to… I have… I have these dreams where…” She trails off.
“No. No more nightmares. Let us leave those behind.”
The energy has now fully vented from the ship, which crackles black ever more.
“I will give you one final order, robot. And this one you will obey immediately and to the letter.”
She holds up the music box with a great air of finality.
“
Run, robot.”
FADE.
The music box begins to play. Four repeating notes, just like Feringus said. No C or A.
The melody echoes in the tunnels of the world…
And the mother of all storms begins to set in.
The world begins to fade.
Run.
You begin to run. But not in the direction she expected.
…with the Doctor
You grab the doctor, the music box falling from her hands, still playing. Orders or not, you’re not leaving anyone behind. Besides…
A Mnemnem is responsible for
all of its people.
You flee.
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Topic: [ISG] Adventure Guy! - Epilogue (Read 518982 times)