thecomputer | DEAD 04

[Welcome, Anthy, Sakura and Simon!]

[You regain consciousness in a waiting room of some sort. Something is clearly odd - your entire body is slightly transparent, and everything you were carrying with you aside from your clothes is gone. On the plus side, you seem to be impervious to all harm.]

[There is an end table with two stacks of papers. One is a large area to write in (there is a small assortment of pens next to this), and the other all bear the same message:]

Congratulations! You have died.

Please wait in this area until such time as the exercise is terminated. At that time, you will be transferred to your appropriate afterlife. If you were assigned a Communist role, rest easy knowing that any ultimatum given as part of your motivation was false.

If you have any questions, please shout them into the air, and a representative will get back to you within 5-100,000 business days. If you have any final messages for the living, please write them on form B and submit it into the slot in the south wall. Delivery is not guaranteed.

[Sure enough, there’s a slot. In addition, a hallway connects this room with a much larger room, not unlike a movie theatre. A large screen on the far wall shows various events back in the facility as they unfold in real time. A side alcove provides slightly transparent popcorn and a water cooler, although hunger, thirst and exhaustion don’t seem to exist here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hello there, Simon.

Greed never actually spoke to him before, but he might as well do it now. It keeps things from becoming to tense around here.]

You bought Yomiel some time. I don't know how they keep missing, but I'm sure he's thankful.

[Simon is shaking from ghostly head to toe.]

No... no, no, no, nowaynowaynoway! It wasn't supposed to be me!

Just like it wasn't supposed to be me?

[...he's really not the best at this comforting thing, sorry.]

Call it bad luck if you'd like. Most of us were here to be canon fodder.

You don't understand—I was so close! If he'd just listened to me about framing the brat, if I'd just turned down his scheme in the first place—

No, no, I was screwed either way. That detective. It must have been that fucking dimwit of a detective! Why didn't I push to kill him sooner?

Fullbright?

[That gets him to tense up for a moment.]

...yeah, he's probably one of them. He's been acting suspiciously since day one. Fullbright and Newman are probably both Communists, and that leaves just one more.

We all suspected him. We'll be seeing him soon.

[There's a note of bitter satisfaction in there, but it's only one note drowning in the entire orchestra of self-pity he has going on.]

[...honestly, Simon might be the first person to respond to this normally, because Greed hadn't cared about dying. He cared about dying because of Clay.]

There's something odd about this afterlife. It's possible it's another part of the game.

[He doesn't quite believe his own words, but he's trying.]

I didn't expect to have one in the first place...

[But he considers that, taking a deep breath to calm himself and then glancing around.]

But so help me, you're actually right. There's something profoundly weird about all of this.

There's nothing we can do here, I don't think. Moge-ko and I tried to leave this place. There doesn't appear to be an exit, but the afterlife isn't like this. This is more like a holding pen.

If that computer can put consciousness into clone bodies, then maybe there's something else going on. Beyond the killing game.

...Does that mean you were also dead before?

Twice before.

I... don't remember the second time at all, and the first time what I remember doesn't match up with this place.

[He offers a smile. It's not a very comforting one, but he's trying.]

Best case scenario, this doesn't stick for you.

...The last thing I need right now is to falsely get my hopes up.

[Even though he says that, though, there's wheels going in his head. He's already seen someone come back from the dead, after all.]

The computer claims that it destroys all clones after a person is executed. But it must have the ability to create new ones to do that in the first place.

I'm not saying we're not all going to really die, but this computer likes its rules. For every rule there's a loophole, and then another rule to close that loophole.

Likewise, it claims that it's been uploading our consciousnesses into them, which means it must be storing them somewhere.

Edited 2014-11-17 03:30 (UTC)

That's right.

I think we're the consciousness it's been uploading into the clones.

And if all those bodies were "clones," it's possible we have real ones lying around somewhere.

[He nods.]

The problem is, I don't know if there's a way out of here-- Moge-ko and I looked when we both woke up here a couple days ago.

If this is where our minds are being stored, there isn't going to be. I'm not a computer expert like Yomiel or anything like that, but I can't imagine we'd have access from the inside.

[Simon owns a laptop, which naturally puts him ahead of most of 2019 Los Angeles computer-savviness-wise.]

Maybe.

[Greed is from 1915. He doesn't know shit.]

I'm more comfortable with solving my problems with my fists as it is. That doesn't do us any good here.

If it really is a computer, I'm sure Yomiel will have some insight for us when he gets here. We'll just have to wait.

....I really don't like these odds.

We'd better hope more information comes out. So far we haven't learned anything, and all the group has been doing is killing each other. We've been doing a good job playing the game, but there has to be more to it than this.

[Sure, it could still be some kidnapper's fucked up entertainment but there might be more to it than that.]

As long as killing each other is still on the table, nobody's going to think about anything else. That's the way people are.

You're right.

And to be honest, as much as I love a good mystery, there's not much point to it when we're all trapped in a tiny room as disembodied souls.

Probably not much point to anything we do in here.

[He moves to pick up one of those "write to the living" forms.]

Probably not, but we have to pass the time somehow.

[He's not even certain if the letters to the living will reach the living, after all. They probably won't.]

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murimurimuri - 2014-11-18 00:03 (UTC) - Expand