futurology | c.chun ➤ 001 ➤ text

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c.chun ➤ 001 ➤ text

Hi, everyone. I'm Catherine!

I've been talking to a few people about our mission, and I've been thinking... Do we have any ideas for how to restructure the government that don't require full-scale fighting? Like, if we could gather evidence of the corruption and expose it to the public, through, say... cyber espionage? It would at least give us more information, even if we don't go that route.

Reconnaissance is a good first step!

I'm not an expert in this, but I figure one of you is. So I want your thoughts! Or if you have experience hacking and want to teach me. It sounds like it would be easier to sneak in and put a physical receiver into one of their central systems, but in the spirit of keeping our options open, I might as well learn.

Even if doing it the manual way is going to be very slow.

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[ ... ??? ?? not that he isn’t doing okay, but what is this statement ]

Because I can kind of heal people?

[ Sometimes talking to Catherine is like playing charades. You have to be at peace with looking ridiculous, because yelling out a guess is the only way to win.

but talking to Simon is sometimes like a 1-vs-3 Mario Party minigame that made you lose a friend in 4th grade

and the 3 are all simon

so they’re pretty much even ]

[ one of them is inexplicable here and it's not her!! she is totally logical ]

Because I've had two different people tell me they're friends of yours. I was a little worried, okay? I know rejoining society as a WAU creation can't have been easy, and you're totally hung up on it.

[ ...aw. ]

Oh. Thanks, Cath. I appreciate it.
Being in space helps. Most people have seen weirder things.

Are you doing okay? I know it must be a downer to have to leave PATHOS-II the way it was, even if there wasn’t any way we could’ve fixed it.

[ oh god that was enough emotions, abort now, stop it Simon ]

I'm not thrilled to be stuck in a body I have no control over, but I'm fine. I told you, we launched the ARK. Sitting around in the creepy underwater grave of my old workplace isn't the kind of eternity I was looking forward to.

[ yup she's fine, Fine, emotionally honest moment is over ]

[ it’s too late, she told him that she Cares and now he knows forever and she can’t take it back ]

What do you mean, ‘have no control over’??

[He can know she cares, but she doesn't want to talk about it. And she's a little wary he isn't going to make this about how much luckier she is in the body department, but... She's always honest. ]

I was in the Omnitool because I told you to put me there, and you could take me out if we wanted to. I didn't have a lot of choices about this.

[ Simon still finds it incomprehensible that Catherine could have been born human and lived as a human for far longer than he did and want this, but he can relate to the last part, so he holds his tongue

for now ]

Would you really rather be in the Omnitool? It sounds like a lot less control to me.

No, I don't want to be in the Omnitool, I just want to be able to determine where I am. I thought you'd understand that.

[ This isn't meant hurtfully; it's Catherine's typical mystified long-suffering explanations. ]

I do, but I never thought I’d need to, especially not as many times as we have to when you’re in the Omnitool. I just wanted to be me, the only way I ever knew it.

It’s just surprising, that’s all. Is it just that it looks so human?

[ he keeps that vague — could be talking about the uncanny valley, after all. He’s not about to make an explicit reference to what she told him, about never having felt comfortable being human, here where anyone can read it. ]

[ She gets what he means immediately. ]

It was weird at first, but I'm starting to adjust. I miss being able to feel out a whole network's systems at once, in milliseconds. Mostly I just want to be able to decide for myself where my consciousness is housed. This is probably how you felt the whole time, huh?

Something like that.

[ holy shit, did Catherine just find a way to empathize with Simon’s robot problem? ]

You just have more options. I only know how to be one thing, and I’d need a time machine.

We can figure something out, but it sounds kind of risky. I don’t know if I like the idea of setting your consciousness loose where something might happen to it.

[ Now that she's not hyperfocused on launching the ARK and has more than two days to think about it, she can be a little sympathetic, okay. ]

Setting it loose? Just what are you thinking I'm going to do?

[ It’s exactly the kind of empathizing Simon would have imagined. Well, he would’ve imagined something less realistic where she pats his butt about it, probably, without expecting such a thing, but. ‘Oh hey, is this that thing you keep talking about?’ sounds about right. ]

Feeling out a whole network’s systems at once sounds like setting loose to me.

It's what I did on PATHOS-II. You know I hadn't ever experienced those systems before you plugged me in. This one would just be larger.

[ Catherine was empathetic for about one sentence in a supremely offhanded way, which counts as progress. Truth is, although she does obviously feel things, the part where she's supposed to express them is a real obstacle. It always feels unwise, unsafe, and frankly unnecessary, like it wouldn't contribute anything, anyway. Because who wants to hear about her feelings?

Except Simon. The weirdo. ]

[ There’s no getting off Simon’s wild feelings ride. ]

This one? You don’t mean Drakstaden’s, right?? That would be insane.

I'm certainly not getting on Hathaway's. Why not? It'd be different, but I'm sure I could handle it.

It’s a dystopian police state, can’t you just keep your brain where it is and hack their government the regular way?

I am going to be doing that. Unfortunately. Maybe next time I'll be in a position to go the direct route.

You know, if you missed flying Simon Air that much, you could’ve just said so.

Ha, ha. Don't worry, you'll always be my favorite chauffeur, Simon. Like I'm going to trust anyone else with my brain.

I am probably the best in the biz. I ran across the Atlantic with it and only dropped it a couple of times. Still good as new.

That was a joke, I never dropped it.

Trust me, I would've noticed if you did. It's almost spooky thinking you might have another copy of me sitting on that Omnitool... You said you didn't have any luck activating it?

No luck. Nowhere to hook it up to.
What do you want to do with it? I don’t want to activate it now, but it feels kind of weird to leave you sitting in my desk forever, even if it’s... another you.

Hm... maybe I should hold onto it? Having an extra cortex chip as a backup would be good, but I should check if I'm still on there first. Ugh, this is exactly what I didn't want happening.

What for? If one of your parts breaks, it’ll probably be something you can fix, right? Not your chip.

[ oh god, this “nice android body I have here... sure would be a shame if something were to..... happen to it” rollercoaster is Simon’s life now isn’t it ]

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arkproject - 2018-05-01 10:11 (UTC) - Expand

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