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've seen these people use a ten-year-old to their own ends.

[meadqueen]

Oh, I'm sure.

[Not surprising that people who created a supposed dream torture labyrinth would be morally equivalent to Ivarr the Boneless]

But for their knowledge?

[cactusy]

I don't know. Maybe he's-- a hostage, to ensure someone else's cooperation.

[meadqueen]

That's my other concern.

If you're correct about the nature of this situation and you're the target, then it's possible that the rest of us could die in order to motivate you.

[cactusy]

[Well. When she puts it that way.

It does make a sick sort of sense. Shaw already knows that Samaritan and Decima are all too willing to cause untold amounts of collateral damage in service of their cause, so could that be it? Could they have brought other people, real people, into the simulation with her not because they're looking for information from them, but because they want to up the stakes for her specifically?]

Yeah. It's possible.

[Her voice stays even and unwavering, but she sounds just a slight bit perturbed. Congratulations, Randvi; this is the first thing anyone's said that's actually rattled her.]

[meadqueen]

I don't know what that means for us, or what to do about it, but please be careful.

[cactusy]

Look, they don't--

They're not just going to stop on their own. You need to know that.

[meadqueen]

I do understand.

[Even if she's wrong, the resources invested in doing something like this to anyone mean they're unlikely to stop on their own]

But if you're the only one who has experienced this before and even you don't know the rules yet, it would be foolish to take unnecessary risks.

[cactusy]

My risks aren't unnecessary. I'm gonna gather intel.

[meadqueen]

All right.

But if you cross them and they kill me for it, I promise that I'll find some way to haunt you.

[Is that a joke? It's hard to say. Being a pawn in games played by others is not a pleasant place to be]

[cactusy]

[Abruptly, Shaw thinks of Dr. Ayumi Kagawa: shot dead in real life, by her, because she'd thought she was in a simulation. Decima had used her to eliminate innocent people. Why wouldn't they also use innocent people to keep her in line?]

... They're going to use you to try to make me join them.

[She says it slowly; a dawning realization.]

[meadqueen]

Is there someone that you could ask about it?

[She’s trying to honour Martin’s request here, but a secret person on a private network offering some unspecified help seems pretty suspicious if that's the goal]

[cactusy]

What, like yell at Greer to wake me up and tell him to quit using innocent people as pawns in his little game? Somehow I don't think that's gonna work.

[meadqueen]

I think if yelling was going to be useful, we would know that already.

If we know what specifically they wish for you - or us - to do, it may be easier to try and work around it.

[cactusy]

I can't tell you all of it. I really-- really can't.

But they do want me to join up with them in their bid to literally take over the world; that part's free info.

[meadqueen]

Right. What do you do in here to give them the victory? Tell them something? Kill us?

[cactusy]

-- I don't know. It's too... different for me to figure it out this early. Could be either; could be both. Could be something different.

[meadqueen]

Then that would be a valuable avenue for intelligence gathering at this time.

Throwing ourselves against the bars of a cage we don't understand yet carries a level of risk that I don't like, and I don't think you do either.

I don't think I understand enough about this to help you, but if there's anything I can do...

[cactusy]

What kind of Viking do you think you are? Warrior or civilian?

[Even civilian Vikings had kind of been warriors, hadn't they?]

[meadqueen]

[That's kind of a thorny question at this point]

I'm not a warrior anymore. But I can fight, if that's what you mean.

[cactusy]

What are you now, retired? Injured?

[meadqueen]

Married.

[cactusy]

Okay.

I'll tell you if there's anything you can do.

[meadqueen]

[At this point, some kind of evil nightmare prison actually seems a bit more plausible than the supposed ʼairplanesʼ that people keep insisting are real but somehow are mysteriously never where anyone says they're going to be]

All right. Watch your back out there.

[cactusy]

You, too.