Re: Petty Squabble [ROUND 1] [Fort Ayers, New Atlantis]
09-06-2011, 01:50 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.
The corpse failed to answer question number twenty-two.
Six quivered with emotion, his mental circuitry exploding with emotions. Emotions so deeply rooted in sentience and living that they were bursting, pushing at the seams, at the inhibitors and wires and the programming. They were screaming, screaming for life and recognition and comprehension, in the robot’s head, beating like a thousand hearts removed from a thousand contestants. But all the chaos, all of the switches firing, all of the ones and zeroes bouncing around in the darkness, were met with a response, a single word response, an idea that had been slipped into the subconscious since day one.
Professional. Six had to stay professional.
“I repeat, contestant, please answer the question. ARE YOU DEAD?”
It was in vain. Question number twenty-two remained unanswered.
A heavy silence hung in the air. The various technicians scattered across the room just sat there, stunned. This was… something. One of those things that people witness, and yeah you might be able explain what happened with words but what you felt the intensity and profoundness of the thing could never be explained unless you were there. Moments of such humanity that humanity fails to explain it to itself.
The tension of the silence built and built, like a soundless crescendo, building and building and building and building and building until it burst with the voice of a robot speaking to a dead man.
“INCORRECT. YOU HAVE FAILED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION.”
And that familiar, mechanical sound started up, a singing siren, echoing in the laboratory, the sickly sweet song so alluring and so dooming. The Limb of Death raised itself, level with the blood-splattered die that only somewhat controlled its movements and decisions.
The saw blade cut into the cadaver. Slicing the flesh, gnawing the bone, splattering whatever blood that still resigned in the lifeless body. He cut the flesh into neat strips, and then little squares, furiously hacking at the mutilated thing that could only barely be called someone’s body, before finally angrily sweeping the little bits off the table and onto the floor with a cacophony of gut-wrenching squelching noises.
But no, that was not enough. (not ever no never) Six knew that he was long dead, it was obvious. It wasn’t a real elimination. No one had died. It was just a lot of gore with no weight. The audience hates gore with no weight it means nothing they watch men and women die because they want to FEEL. He could see the hatred and fear in the audience’s eyes and expressions, disgust and prejudice and all these things Six knew all too well.
Someone had to die. No one had died. An elimination must be carried out.
~~~~
It wasn’t Dr. Mark Thomas’s best decision in his entire life to stealthily try and retrieve the artillery-backpack from the proximity of the dangerous and unstable robot. But, however, it would be his last decision. An unexpected sawblade to the neck sort of does that.
The maiming of a dead body, followed by the beheading of an actual living person, broke the strange, peaceful tension that had kept everyone captured by Six for so long. Fear and hate swarmed over them, and they ran, or tried to fight the robot, or at least do something besides sit there in fascinated horror. They all ran to wherever they thought they were going to go, a panicked and hateful mob that simultaneously tried to swarm the robot and run from it, swirling in a confused chaos.
And this was a thing Six understood. Fear and hate and confusion, they were things Six understood. They were cues. Cues to kill. And even though Six had just ended a life, regret and thousands of years of human philosophy trying to swarm up to his conscious mind, he couldn’t stop. Never stop. Always cutting until they’re all dead
Forever.
Six was almost completely covered in blood by the time he finished. He thought nothing of the dead silence that permeated the atmosphere. He was covered in blood.
Six hated blood.
The corpse failed to answer question number twenty-two.
Six quivered with emotion, his mental circuitry exploding with emotions. Emotions so deeply rooted in sentience and living that they were bursting, pushing at the seams, at the inhibitors and wires and the programming. They were screaming, screaming for life and recognition and comprehension, in the robot’s head, beating like a thousand hearts removed from a thousand contestants. But all the chaos, all of the switches firing, all of the ones and zeroes bouncing around in the darkness, were met with a response, a single word response, an idea that had been slipped into the subconscious since day one.
Professional. Six had to stay professional.
“I repeat, contestant, please answer the question. ARE YOU DEAD?”
It was in vain. Question number twenty-two remained unanswered.
A heavy silence hung in the air. The various technicians scattered across the room just sat there, stunned. This was… something. One of those things that people witness, and yeah you might be able explain what happened with words but what you felt the intensity and profoundness of the thing could never be explained unless you were there. Moments of such humanity that humanity fails to explain it to itself.
The tension of the silence built and built, like a soundless crescendo, building and building and building and building and building until it burst with the voice of a robot speaking to a dead man.
“INCORRECT. YOU HAVE FAILED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION.”
And that familiar, mechanical sound started up, a singing siren, echoing in the laboratory, the sickly sweet song so alluring and so dooming. The Limb of Death raised itself, level with the blood-splattered die that only somewhat controlled its movements and decisions.
The saw blade cut into the cadaver. Slicing the flesh, gnawing the bone, splattering whatever blood that still resigned in the lifeless body. He cut the flesh into neat strips, and then little squares, furiously hacking at the mutilated thing that could only barely be called someone’s body, before finally angrily sweeping the little bits off the table and onto the floor with a cacophony of gut-wrenching squelching noises.
But no, that was not enough. (not ever no never) Six knew that he was long dead, it was obvious. It wasn’t a real elimination. No one had died. It was just a lot of gore with no weight. The audience hates gore with no weight it means nothing they watch men and women die because they want to FEEL. He could see the hatred and fear in the audience’s eyes and expressions, disgust and prejudice and all these things Six knew all too well.
Someone had to die. No one had died. An elimination must be carried out.
~~~~
It wasn’t Dr. Mark Thomas’s best decision in his entire life to stealthily try and retrieve the artillery-backpack from the proximity of the dangerous and unstable robot. But, however, it would be his last decision. An unexpected sawblade to the neck sort of does that.
The maiming of a dead body, followed by the beheading of an actual living person, broke the strange, peaceful tension that had kept everyone captured by Six for so long. Fear and hate swarmed over them, and they ran, or tried to fight the robot, or at least do something besides sit there in fascinated horror. They all ran to wherever they thought they were going to go, a panicked and hateful mob that simultaneously tried to swarm the robot and run from it, swirling in a confused chaos.
And this was a thing Six understood. Fear and hate and confusion, they were things Six understood. They were cues. Cues to kill. And even though Six had just ended a life, regret and thousands of years of human philosophy trying to swarm up to his conscious mind, he couldn’t stop. Never stop. Always cutting until they’re all dead
Forever.
Six was almost completely covered in blood by the time he finished. He thought nothing of the dead silence that permeated the atmosphere. He was covered in blood.
Six hated blood.