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]

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?

[ichoosefight]

You don't know!

[ Her tone started out pleading, but it quickly turns resigned. ]

You're making an assumption based on personal experience and treating it as gospel, and people are going to get hurt.

Starting with me, because I'm the only person crazy enough and stubborn enough to volunteer to be your babysitter.

[cactusy]

No one's going to get hurt, and you don't even know where I am.

Calm down.

[ichoosefight]

That's not how an ultimatum works.

[cactusy]

You wanna talk about what's going to get people killed? You panicking over this is gonna get you killed.

[A beat.]

That wasn't a threat. I'm not threatening to kill you. I'm worried you're gonna do something stupid.

[ichoosefight]

Hey, you're the one who thought I had a good head on my shoulders. That's on you.

And I'm not panicking. I'm pissed off.

[cactusy]

I did, but the panic kinda killed that. Now we're going with "at least your heart's in the right place".

[ichoosefight]

See, this is why I feel like you need a chaperone. Your heart is in the wrong place, and you know it, you just don't care.

[cactusy]

-- You seriously think I want to hurt people, don't you.

[ichoosefight]

I think you don't care if you hurt people. And in a situation like this, with this many lives on the line, I think that's just as bad.

[cactusy]

You're wrong.

[There's a slight pause, because she knows exactly how unconvincing just ending it there sounds, but she also doesn't know how to fix that. Words have never been anything close to her strong suit.]

Pretty sure any explanation I could give would just freak you out more, though.

[ichoosefight]

[ This is so frustrating it makes her want to scream. She's putting supplies together, but she really doesn't want to trek across the jungle either. She will, but she doesn't want to. She takes a deep breath and lets it out. ]

Okay. Human 101:

Do you realize that all you had to do was say "yes, I'm sorry Steph, I'll be more careful about what I say"?

[cactusy]

Will that actually get you off my ass about this?

[ichoosefight]

It might have 5 minutes ago. But you've made it clear that not only do you not care about people getting hurt, you have no interest in keeping them from getting hurt.

So no. I want you and your gun where I can see them.

[cactusy]

I want every person in here to understand the situation that they're in. I want every person in here out and back home where they belong. There's times when you lie to people to keep them safe, and times when people having the full context is important. This is the latter.

[ichoosefight]

That would be true, and relevant, if you had the full context. But we can have a nice long talk about parallel universes after I've punched you a few times.

[cactusy]

Parallel universes are also not real.

[ichoosefight]

Says the person who's died a thousand times.

[cactusy]

Seven thousand.

Those weren't parallel universes. They were psychological warfare done by some very bad people. The same people who have you in their custody now, and who I want to help you escape from.