text; un: firecracker

[cactusy]

[Shaw is not a social media user, and when it comes to intel-gathering, she'd much rather do it in person; someone else (hint: this means you, Root) can keep tabs on the simulation's weird-ass internet. Not her circus, not her monkeys.

Except right now, she's holed up in the apartment Root's stashed her in, physically and emotionally exhausted but with her brain still moving a mile a minute. So, okay, she'll pull out her tablet. She'll play a few (or ten) rounds of Snake. And then she'll take a peek at the network.

Two of the most recent posts are lengthy musings on philosophy. Goddammit.]

you're all excruciating

Comments

voice; un:curtaincall

[endcaller]

Mmm!

Aren't we just?

[cactusy]

I'm already sick of this place and I haven't even read the comments sections

[endcaller]

Oh, you aren't missing much.

The usual topics of discussion are existential anxiety and violence.

[cactusy]

so what, group therapy?

[endcaller]

Not at all.

I see very little evidence that our discourse has relieved anyone of their distress.

We mostly make each other worse.

[cactusy]

oh, yeah? what did our overlord think of that?

[endcaller]

You speak of the AI?

If only I knew! If only any of us did!

The poor dear grew a tad...mmm... "ill" shall we say, and thus we reset it.

The ordeal proved beyond any doubt that we exist in a simulation of some sort. Hence the anxiety.

We've not heard a word from the AI since.

Perhaps if we all lose our minds and kill each other it will encourage our keeper to say something?

[cactusy]

careful about giving people ideas

[endcaller]

Oh, I would never encourage such wretched behavior!

[Though he may have given a few people advice on how to kill and torture others already.]

Not that a bloody altercation among the chosen would need my hand to guide it.

[cactusy]

seriously, is this place actually that much of a bloodbath? you want to name a few past incidents so I know what to look for?

[endcaller]

I am so delighted you've asked!

Where to even begin...?

Ahem. Well, a few moons back there was the whole sordid Gnosia situation. We collectively lost our minds and slaughtered each other in the streets! Aside from that, you will find no small number of explosions in our recent history. The Townhall, or Court House as it now is, has been attacked a couple of times.

We are, on the whole, not a well-mannered group. Then again we're a penal colony, so I suppose that is to be expected.

[cactusy]

[There's a bit of a pause from her end - less than ten minutes, but still a departure from the rapid-fire messaging she'd been doing before.]

what was it like when you lost your minds? I mean logistically. you came to and found the knife in your hand, that kind of thing?

[endcaller]

Oh, if only we could be so blessed as to forget our actions!

Alas, no.

We felt a deep compulsion to fulfill various roles, as if assigned to them for some grand stage performance. Fulfilling these roles meant dividing ourselves into factions and fighting one another.

When our minds were again our own we recalled it all in vivid detail. Quite upsetting, that. Some poor souls are still navigating the trauma of having murdered their friends.

[cactusy]

[A deep compulsion to fill various roles. Like seeing the world glitch and coming out of it with a gun in her hand, raising it to shoot John in the back, Greer telling her that everything was going to plan, Lambert telling her that she'll never know what's real and what isn't, ever again--]

ok

[She's fine!]