008 웃 VIDEO

[secretasshole]

[The feed clicks on to show David, wearing his usual gray uniform, standing near the pool table on level six. He's holding a nail and studying it a bit before he says anything, turning it over and over again in his fingers before looking up and smiling politely at the camera, in that usual polite but definitely vaguely creepy way everyone should be accustomed to at this point.]

A colleague [More or less, although he doubted Holloway thought of him as such. He had always seemed to treat him as a child, or a tool, and one usually didn't consider either such things colleagues.] of mine and I once had a conversation about how far one was willing to go to get their answers. It is my understanding that most of you are here for something less abstract, but nevertheless just as hopefully satisfactory, often at extreme personal cost and risk.

So I would like to pose the same question to you, wardens: how far are you willing to go, to get what you came all this way for? What would you be willing to do?

[Private to Erik]

[After his chat with Pietro, David really did not know how to process it. At all. And while admittedly, there are potentially better people to talk to about this, the very confused robot is turning to someone he more or less respects and probably understands how fucking weird this whole thing is.]

May I have a word with you? [He doesn't exactly sound shaken, but. He certainly sounds less cool than he usually does.]

Comments

[routemistress]

Far as it takes, pet. What you aimin' to prove 'ere?

[secretasshole]

I'm simply curious.

[routemistress]

You've framed it in an anecdote about interrogation, petal; I'm pretty sure that weren't accidental. Wouldn't've been if I'd done it, any road.

Does it 'elp if I tell you I don't really 'ave a solid deal as such? I'm open-ended. What I'm 'ere for right now is get one bloke to a place where 'e can get on with whatever life 'e chooses. Not to use 'im to get something I want, to do a thing that needs done.

[love_slave]

Stay on a ship where our minds might be taken over or we might accidentally hurt people against our will.

[Staying on the Barge seems like the most obvious answer to this question.]

[secretasshole]

Fair enough.

[mistconduct]

How is this question supposed to help you evaluate who to murder in their sleep?

[secretasshole]

I don't recall stating that as my intentions in asking.

[mistconduct]

Oh. Okay, I just thought that was a good end goal to have. You take suggestions, right?

video;

[trenchcoatedly]

Would you consider the possibility that wardens are here for rehabilitating inmates, and their deals are secondary?

video;

[secretasshole]

If given sufficient evidence, yes.

Re: video;

[trenchcoatedly]

What would you qualify as sufficient evidence?

[timesbureaucrat]

I can't possibly know how far I'd go until I got there. Choices are situational. Until I see the specifics of a situation, I don't know what my decisions would be.

But my deal is very important to me, I'll acknowledge that.

[secretasshole]

May I ask what it's for?

[sharpememory]

I wouldn't go very far. Like, maybe from my bed to my mailbox? But that's about it.

[secretasshole]

I see.

[burnmythoughts]

I'm not sure. Just staying on board seems tough enough, half the time.

...If you could make a deal, would you?

[secretasshole]

No.

[text]

[ifightfor]

So long as actions taken are consonant with desired goals, as far as it takes.

[Rinzler does not see why this is a difficult question.]

[text]

[secretasshole]

I see. Thank you.

[bloodyamericans]

I imagine some would go very far.

[secretasshole]

I'm interested in the specifics.

[private video]

[supersonic]

[ Any interest Pietro might have had in actually answering the question is gone before David even starts speaking it. The face is unmistakable, and the hair is, strangely enough, closer to what he knows than Erik's is, but his father has a very distinct presence — and this is not it.

He doesn't stop to think what mode he's using, just flicks the feed on to respond in kind. Have a late-thirties white-haired gentleman with a slightly threadbare button-down shirt a more-than-mildly unfriendly tone. At least he has the foresight to make it private. ]

What are you?

[private video]

[secretasshole]

[David just stares.

Obviously, he hadn't known his creator when he looked like this, and there are subtle differences - the hair, for one - but it's still startling in a way his programming doesn't really know how to deal with, and so that's all he's managing to do for several seconds.

It's unusual, for him to ask a question rather than answer one he's been asked first, but he really doesn't know how to proceed with this like. At all. And he just needs to know what he's dealing with here before he does anything else.]

Who are you?

[Private]

[wecanavenge]

[He almost doesn't notice the difference, but it gives him pause at the last moment, a barest hesitation after he's clicked on his feed.]

What is it?

[Private]

[secretasshole]

[David just turns the communicator so Erik can get a view of the wrap around view screen behind him. Instead of showing some natural setting or a movie like usual, David's called up a film and paused it on an image of this fellow, who looks shockingly like someone he just had a very strange, kind of uncomfortable conversation with.]

This is a recording of my creator, Peter Weyland, during a TED talk in 2023.