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]

... Fabricate a world where I just tell them what they want to know. Seriously. This isn't magic, it's--

[She cuts herself off, biting her tongue until her frustration ebbs.]

I don't think they stuck you with new memories in any easy-peasy kinda way. I think they tortured and brainwashed you until you didn't know what end was up. Maybe it got so bad that you retreated into a fantasy world where superheroes exist.

[ichoosefight]

Okay, that's just insulting. I mean, if you're going to invalidate someone's entire life at least be subtle about it.

If they were going to torture me anyway, why wouldn't they do it in front of you? Seriously, what's the point? Why make everything so difficult for themselves? If you're right, then these guys are incompetent morons.

[cactusy]

Oh, they're morons. But they're not incompetent.

Guessing there's a bigger picture that I don't know about. They've had me for, uh-- probably at least a year, by this point. A lot can happen in the outside world in that time. I'm putting together a puzzle when I only have a quarter of the pieces.

[ichoosefight]

I don't get how you can fail to see how desperately you're reaching for ways to make this theory work. We might be in a simulation, but the more we talk the more convinced I am that it has nothing to do with you.

If it's taken them a year to reach this level of idiocy, I'm calling that incompetence.

[cactusy]

Because the only alternative that even begins to make sense is that I'm in a science fiction movie, and that's just lazy.

[ichoosefight]

Dude, you already sound like you're in a science fiction movie. Your whole premise is lazy.

And here I am, being very patient and understanding about the realms of possibility, and I don't even get fake memories, just a boring fugue state.

[cactusy]

You gave yourself superheroes and parallel worlds. Kinda badass.

[Jokes??? Maybe.]

[ichoosefight]

I'm from Gotham. I got psychotic, mass-murdering clowns and "Condiment King". If my life is a lie it could at least be a good lie.

[cactusy]

Is "Gotham" supposed to mean something to me?

[ichoosefight]

Not any more than "Condiment King" is.

Alright, let's look at this practically, okay?

There's a chance that you're wrong. If nothing else, there's a chance that all of this is a setup. Brainwashing, trap doors, drugs to wipe your memory, the most convoluted scheme you can possibly think of to explain all of this outside a simulation. Maybe you've been in stasis for decades and you don't know who the players are out there anymore.

I'm not saying that's even a tiny bit likely, because it flies in the face of Occam's Razor, but it's possible.

If we assume that you're right, and you know exactly who is behind this and everything is a simulation, you make a lot of other assumptions too. For example, that you can't die. And that our exact locations are always known, as is every word we say.

If you're wrong, then those assumptions are wrong. You give up on getting off the island, you miss your one chance to do it. You give up on staying hidden, the enemy finds out where you are. You assume a certain set of rules apply, and your plans all fall to crap because of it.

You follow?

[cactusy]

Sorry, I'm still stuck on you thinking "in stasis for decades" is possible.

[ichoosefight]

What, seriously? You don't even have that yet? You've got computer simulations realistic enough to make you believe you've died, but you can't manage cryostasis?

Fine, whatever, you've been in a coma a few years, the old boss had a sudden heart attack and the new guy reorganized the whole team. Happy?

God, you can pull nonsense out of the air to explain your own theory but you absolutely refuse to do it for anything else.

[cactusy]

Because I've actually seen my "theory" in action.

[ichoosefight]

Will you please stay on point for two minutes? This is not helping your case.

[cactusy]

On point is "what if all the parallels to your personal experience don't matter and everything is magic instead?" Kinda dumb.

[ichoosefight]

[ She's going to scream. She really is. ]

I just explained how it could reasonably be completely real with no magic and no technology past your ridiculous standard.

Do you not understand what's happening here? I'm going to spell it out for you point by point, so when you're surprised by the outcome there's proof that I tried talking to you.

I'm just about ready to go. I've got as many supplies as I can carry, which isn't a lot, and doesn't include water because I still don't have a way to boil it. I've picked a direction. In about 30 seconds I'm going to start walking in it, and I'm not going to stop until I'm too tired to keep going.

You claim you don't want this. You claim that you care what happens to me, or anyone else around here. You claim you aren't a threat. I disagree on all points.

I am right now giving you an opportunity to prove that you do care by attempting to discuss my concerns reasonably, to prove that you can be trusted to think before shooting someone, and to prove that you aren't a threat because you know how to not take unnecessary risks.

You don't need to convince me you're right. You don't need to tell me I'm a hypocrite. You don't need to believe a single word I say. None of those things are going to stop me right now. You need to try to convince me that you can be a reasonable person.

You're doing a really bad job of it.

[cactusy]

I never said I'm not a threat. I said I'm not going to hurt you.

[Her voice is tight; there's the audible sound of gritting teeth.]

Fine.

[ichoosefight]

Yeah, I'm banking on that. It'll make it a lot easier to take you down.

Overconfidence gets people killed, Sameen. Not just you, but everyone around you. Trust me, a tiny mistake can cost hundreds of lives.

[cactusy]

You think I don't know that.

Inaction from being overly cautious costs lives, too.

[ichoosefight]

[ Wow. Give her a moment, for a second there she actually understood how Bruce must have felt talking to her. ]

You sure don't act like you know it.

I'm not talking about inaction. I'm talking about taking precautions because you can't assume they're pointless without solid proof. And no, "this is really similar" is not proof.

[cactusy]

You know, I haven't actually done any of the big, bad things you're scared of yet.

[ichoosefight]

You woke up like, 4 hours ago. It's called "preventative measures". If you wait until after somebody's done something stupid then you've kinda failed your job.

[cactusy]

Your job. You're what, thirteen?

[ichoosefight]

Nineteen, I told you. Besides, nobody else has applied for the position.

[cactusy]

I vote not you.