Re: The Fatal Conflict! (GBS2G7) (Round 2: Robo City!)
12-28-2010, 08:32 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
Scott ran, plain and simple. Sentient machines were high crimes back home for a reason. They were the stuff of nightmares, made all too real by the last war. Robots and cyborgs and machines had murdered millions of people and converted tens of thousands more, sending loved ones back to fight their own families. They had calculated the optimal use of each survivor, sending them to the place where they could cause the most horror and ensure the population put up the least resistance.
Fortunately, the war had been won. The machines had been pushed back, their extensive backups wiped, and anything with the slightest risk of sparking another war was criminalized. Some thought the governments were doing too much, but the fear of what horrors AIs could spawn kept people from protesting too much. It may have kneecapped research in some fields, but popular, not-entirely-unjustified fear won out.
So Scott, fear of sentient machines ingrained into him by his culture, ran. He didn't pay much attention to where he was going, he didn't stop, he didn't look back. He just ran. He jumped, ended up in a maintenance tunnel and kept running. Minor drones raised the alarm as he went, spurring him along even faster. He jumped again, his heart beating so hard it took barely three minutes before he jumped again, ending up in a darkened warehouse.
He stopped running then, but only because his lungs were on fire. He'd hardly been able to exercise back home, so while he was certainly thin, he was hardly in shape. He collapsed into a small gap between steel storage units, breathing fast and ragged. He didn't think there was anything else here- the lights were down, and it seemed like most of this stuff was in long-term storage.
After a minute or two, he calmed down from "absolute panic" to "moderate terror", priorities shifting from "runrunrun" to "whatdoIdowhatdoIdo". His eyes darted around, looking for anything that could be of any use. There were crates all around, unlabelled save for a large number and a barcode. A glance at his watch found it registering too much interference to be useful- the display simply read "nh:ar:dt", letters shifting a bit. Had he been paying attention, he might have noticed the letters scrolling to the left, spelling out a message. He was too preoccupied, though- something caught his eye on a crate several away from where he was sitting. There was a small, yellow square on the front face, standing out against the rows and rows of dull, silvery metal. Cautiously, Scott moved towards it, watching all around for any movement so frantically that he would hardly have been able to spot much of anything.
It was a yellow sticky note, bright and clean against the dusty and tarnished crates.
the game is on, mr. williams
it's time to have some fun
It was hardly reassuring. He had to get out of there, he decided, and he started running once again. There was an exit at the end of the row, its illuminated outline a beacon to Scott's frantic mind, and he set off towards it.
As he approached, the doors slid open with a quiet ding. It was an elevator, brightly lit and spotless, and another note was stuck above the buttons.
second floor, mr. williams
the doctor is in
Without even thinking about it, he slammed the button for two. The doors slid shut and the car started ponderously downwards. Eight, seven, six... The doors slid open again before the elevator reached the third floor, and Scott could hear the sounds of a pursuit down the hall. A pair of explosions came in quick succession, and a moment later, Kaja ducked sideways into the open doors. They slid shut moments later, and it continued its downward journey.
The doctor leaned on the wall and caught his breath. "Rather nice timing there," he said. "Much appreciated."
Scott didn't quite know what to say, and as Kaja started brewing some sort of potion, he just stood in awkward silence as the car continued down. He had even less of an idea what was happening now than he'd had in the last round, but the game, apparently, was on.
Scott ran, plain and simple. Sentient machines were high crimes back home for a reason. They were the stuff of nightmares, made all too real by the last war. Robots and cyborgs and machines had murdered millions of people and converted tens of thousands more, sending loved ones back to fight their own families. They had calculated the optimal use of each survivor, sending them to the place where they could cause the most horror and ensure the population put up the least resistance.
Fortunately, the war had been won. The machines had been pushed back, their extensive backups wiped, and anything with the slightest risk of sparking another war was criminalized. Some thought the governments were doing too much, but the fear of what horrors AIs could spawn kept people from protesting too much. It may have kneecapped research in some fields, but popular, not-entirely-unjustified fear won out.
So Scott, fear of sentient machines ingrained into him by his culture, ran. He didn't pay much attention to where he was going, he didn't stop, he didn't look back. He just ran. He jumped, ended up in a maintenance tunnel and kept running. Minor drones raised the alarm as he went, spurring him along even faster. He jumped again, his heart beating so hard it took barely three minutes before he jumped again, ending up in a darkened warehouse.
He stopped running then, but only because his lungs were on fire. He'd hardly been able to exercise back home, so while he was certainly thin, he was hardly in shape. He collapsed into a small gap between steel storage units, breathing fast and ragged. He didn't think there was anything else here- the lights were down, and it seemed like most of this stuff was in long-term storage.
After a minute or two, he calmed down from "absolute panic" to "moderate terror", priorities shifting from "runrunrun" to "whatdoIdowhatdoIdo". His eyes darted around, looking for anything that could be of any use. There were crates all around, unlabelled save for a large number and a barcode. A glance at his watch found it registering too much interference to be useful- the display simply read "nh:ar:dt", letters shifting a bit. Had he been paying attention, he might have noticed the letters scrolling to the left, spelling out a message. He was too preoccupied, though- something caught his eye on a crate several away from where he was sitting. There was a small, yellow square on the front face, standing out against the rows and rows of dull, silvery metal. Cautiously, Scott moved towards it, watching all around for any movement so frantically that he would hardly have been able to spot much of anything.
It was a yellow sticky note, bright and clean against the dusty and tarnished crates.
the game is on, mr. williams
it's time to have some fun
It was hardly reassuring. He had to get out of there, he decided, and he started running once again. There was an exit at the end of the row, its illuminated outline a beacon to Scott's frantic mind, and he set off towards it.
As he approached, the doors slid open with a quiet ding. It was an elevator, brightly lit and spotless, and another note was stuck above the buttons.
second floor, mr. williams
the doctor is in
Without even thinking about it, he slammed the button for two. The doors slid shut and the car started ponderously downwards. Eight, seven, six... The doors slid open again before the elevator reached the third floor, and Scott could hear the sounds of a pursuit down the hall. A pair of explosions came in quick succession, and a moment later, Kaja ducked sideways into the open doors. They slid shut moments later, and it continued its downward journey.
The doctor leaned on the wall and caught his breath. "Rather nice timing there," he said. "Much appreciated."
Scott didn't quite know what to say, and as Kaja started brewing some sort of potion, he just stood in awkward silence as the car continued down. He had even less of an idea what was happening now than he'd had in the last round, but the game, apparently, was on.