TO994M | day 4 | morning | audio

[cactusy]

[There's the sound of footsteps on sand; she's walking as she talks, heading away from the beach and up towards the scrubby jungle.]

So I got got by what I think was a crossbow bolt. Kinda hard to tell for sure; it all came at me pretty fast. Got an arrow to the leg not long before that, but the one that came for my head seemed bigger in the point-two seconds of reaction time I had before it hit. And it did hit. Should've been difficult-to-impossible to survive, but here I am. Which tells me some things.

[She relays the news of her almost-certain death matter-of-factly, in the same flat-ish tone as her previous radio contributions. If anything, she sounds a little more upbeat here: it's not by much, but having (what she thinks are) answers is a relief. At least now she (thinks she!!) knows what she's dealing with.]

Look, guys; this isn't real. Fifty-fifty odds whether you're a part of it or not - maybe you're all artificial constructs and I'm the only real sentient person here, or maybe we're all hooked up to machines in a lab and we've been tossed into this simulated... thing together. Gonna be nice and assume the latter, for now. Point is, signs have been pointing to this for a while, and this proves it. But this is good news, kind of. It means that whatever happens here doesn't really matter. We die, we screw up, we do something our monitor overlord doesn't like - we just reset. I fired off three bullets, and they're back now, because the gun and the bullets are just lines of computer code that can be rewritten in whatever way the people running this want.

Priority number one shouldn't be escaping the island or long-term survival or whatever. It should be figuring out how to get out of the simulation. Then the party can really get started.

Comments

[cactusy]

This isn't my first rodeo, I've been doing this for a while.

[ichoosefight]

Then I think you might've forgotten something important: Dying hurts. Pain is bad.

You remember what happened, right? That makes it real. That means it matters. It doesn't matter if it's just numbers on a screen somewhere. It happened, and you have that experience, and that's not nothing.

[cactusy]

Sure it was. Just one in over seven thousand.

[But.]

It did hurt; I won't lie to you. Can't blame you for not wanting to go through that yourself, no matter how fake. If I ever run into you in person, I'll protect you.

[ichoosefight]

I don't--! [ She stops herself from yelling it. ] need your protection. I need you not to encourage people to get themselves killed when you aren't sure what's happening.

And you aren't. There are a thousand different explanations.

[cactusy]

Are there?

[ichoosefight]

Yes.

Maybe we're clones! That's seven thousand people that didn't have to die. Maybe there's a limit, and death eight thousand is permanent. Maybe it's magic. Last year a bunch of living superheroes turned into evil zombies. Stuff happens!

[cactusy]

There's no such thing as superheroes or zombies.

[ichoosefight]

Yes there is. But more importantly, there's no such thing as a computer simulation designed exclusively to torture you that tries to convince you it's real using information it could see wouldn't work by checking your Facebook page.

[cactusy]

Oh, are we playing this game? Yes there is.

[ichoosefight]

Okay, clearly you're going through something right now, and I'm sorry, but that's not my top priority. So I'm going to put that aside and make one thing very clear:

I don't care if this is a simulation. I don't care if I'm not real. I don't care if you're not real. I don't care if they aren't real.

I don't like when people suffer.

Starving to death? That's suffering. So what I need from you right now is to not tell people to try killing themselves because you're having a mental breakdown.

If someone dies because you told them it didn't matter? I call that murder. I don't care if they wake up the next morning feeling better than ever. And I will hold you accountable. Okay?

[cactusy]

[... Huh, would you listen to that. It's the exact type of thing someone would - should - say if this were real.

Which it isn't, of course, but still, she has to admire both the sentiment and the balls.]

You got a name?

[Congratulations on being the first person she's actually bothered to ask, Steph.]

[ichoosefight]

[ Okay that's a slightly better direction but it doesn't actually acknowledge her point here. ]

Stephanie. Stephanie Brown.

[cactusy]

Sameen Shaw. You got a good head on your shoulders. The sentiment's misapplied here, but in any other situation--

[ichoosefight]

That's a backhanded compliment, but I'll take it.

So? No more reckless endangerment? Or do I have to cross this jungle and put you in a headlock.

[cactusy]

I'm not wrong.

[ichoosefight]

Once again: I don't care.

[cactusy]

If we pretend this is real, Stephanie, we'll never make progress in actually getting out. Trust me, I've tried the "just stick it out" thing; it didn't work. Now, for some reason this one is lasting longer, and it's different - way more sophisticated, if you guys really are real people. And I sure don't like the implications of a simulation that's designed to run indefinitely, do you?

[ichoosefight]

[ Okay, Sameen clearly isn't getting the message here. ]

You think I'm not serious, but I've fought on 3 days without food or water before and I'm not afraid to do it again. It won't even be hard. There's plenty to eat around here for a suicide mission.

[cactusy]

I think you're serious. I think you also think I'm insane, and it's affecting your judgement of the situation.

[ichoosefight]

I don't think you're insane. I think you're a threat. I'm hoping that there's a reasonable person in there that's just been through a lot and forgot how to not be a threat, but I'm not taking that chance.

[cactusy]

Oh, I'm a threat.

Not to you, though.

[ichoosefight]

I mean, I'm getting ready to risk my life searching miles of jungle to find you and take you down. And I already know you have a loaded gun. I'd call that pretty threatening.

[cactusy]

Look, you're worried people are gonna run off and kill themselves in a fit of despair because I told them nothing here is real, yeah? Or that they're gonna think death is a way out, even though me still being here is proof that it's not?

Most people here seem smarter than that. What I'm saying is, we have to stop looking at this as a real-world situation and start thinking in terms of a world that's being tailored for us. That's how we figure out how to beat it.

[ichoosefight]

I'm more worried that they'll take stupid risks because they think it's not a big deal if they fail. And I'm a little worried you're gonna run out of ammo and find a cliff to jump off of so you can reload.

Oh yeah, and I'm worried that you're so convinced you're right that you can't see how dangerous it is to make that assumption.

What I'm saying is that all those worries outweigh my fear of your gun or a little discomfort or the idea of being trapped in a never-ending simulation designed to torture me.

In case it's still not clear, this is an ultimatum. I'm not backing down on this.

[cactusy]

Okay, think of it this way: would you seriously rather people not know? You think Blackwood dying in a cell wouldn't've been comforted to hear that this isn't real and that he's going to come back? You think him thinking that was how his life was going to end was better for him?