mark my words, expose anything and everything;

[recrypt]

Comments

[recrypt]

[ She's lounging in one of the gazebos, staring out into the flowers surrounding them. It'd be easy to mistake her for being unaware of his presence until he speaks up if it weren't for the way she slowly starts to drum her fingers along the railing even before he makes his presence known.

45 hums a little, not bothering to face him just yet. ]

I have seen images. Of one particular part of ocean, from years before my time.

[ Then she glances back at him, head canted in mild curiosity. ]

But I wouldn't be able to begin to tell you whether it still looks that way. Why, did you think I was lying?

[wowcool]

[His gaze flits to her fingers, tapping along.]

Why would I think you were lying? [His attention fixes back on her, like the sweeping gaze of a lighthouse. He smiles, gently.] I just wanted to confirm it, because I was curious.

[But something she says interests him.]

Whether it still looks like that? Why, did you expect it would look different?

[recrypt]

Ah. I guess we have that in common. Curiosity, and wanting to know things that maybe we shouldn't.

[ what's the saying? curiosity killed the cat? but perhaps satisfaction keeps bringing it back. ]

Those images were from decades ago. The world's changed since then. There's been a major world war, amongst other things... [ a mild, vague shrug. ] For all I know, that particular bit of shoreline might not exist anymore. Or maybe it does, and nature persists despite human actions.

[wowcool]

...A world war?

[Well, if it was that extensive...could it really change the image of the ocean that drastically?]

Nature is tougher than you think, though. So in your shoes, I'd assume that shoreline still exists. Mankind is only ever so mortal, after all. Nature lasts forever.

[recrypt]

That shoreline might still exist, but I wonder if the view's the same. Is it just the beach itself? Does the vegetation still exist? Perhaps the coral has been bleached.

But you're right, I suppose. One way or another, the world continues.

[wowcool]

Perhaps all of that, or none of that. I guess you'll never know unless someone goes and sees it. Maybe that someone will be you.

[He huffs.]

That's a dream worth working for, I think. To see a sight that probably no one else has seen for years.

[recrypt]

Haha. Maybe.

It'd be quite the thing for someone like me to achieve something like that.

[wowcool]

And why is that? Is it difficult, to get to the ocean where you're from?

[recrypt]

To that specific piece of ocean? Likely. It's on the other side of the world entirely, after all.

But to the ocean in general... Mostly, I'm just not at liberty to travel that far. Perhaps if a job ends up sending me there, one day.

[wowcool]

...

What do you do for your job, 45?

[recrypt]

Contract work, mostly~! ♪

[ it's trilled out, light and breezy. ]

At my discretion, of course. But there's a lot of jobs that need doing out in the yellow zone, due to its overall lack of infrastructure compared to green zones.

[wowcool]

Contracted by who? A corporation?

[He scratches at his chin.]

And what exactly does the work involve?

[recrypt]

Not by any single group exclusively, no. Frankly I don't think that the type of corporations you might be imagining still exist.

It's various parties. But we do search and rescue, retrieval, infiltration, escort ... that sort of thing.

[ among other things. ]

[wowcool]

Ah. That almost sounds like a military operation than anything else.

[Then again WHAT DOES HE KNOW ABOUT THE MILITARY]

Here's a question: what's your favorite type of work?

[recrypt]

Well, yes, to an extent. I am a Tactical Doll, after all. I've never been civilian.

[ when you are made to be weapon, ]

Either way, business is business. It's not my place to have an opinion on the kind of work we do, though what jobs we do take are up to me in the end.

[wowcool]

So you have control over what you want and don't want. That's nice.

[Way better than him.]

...Hm. A Tactical Doll...in a novel, you'd probably be called a "robot" or a "droid". I assume you're fully synthetic?

[recrypt]

Do I? It's still taking orders all the same. I'm not at liberty to refuse overmuch.

[ she's just... a special case. ]

Do you mean to ask if I'm partially biological, but simply augmented? Haha. No, you're correct. I'm fully synthetic.

[wowcool]

But you have freedom to do what you like. While other people, like myself, have no choice whatsoever. Even a little freedom means a lot.

[A nod.]

How interesting. That robots in some other future have progressed that far...haha, well, I shouldn't be surprised! Technology is moving fast!

[recrypt]

Do I? I'm executing my baseline operating principles in the end. Perhaps I only have the illusion of free choice?

And what shackles you so, hm? The constraints of society, or the role you're meant to play?

[ novel metaphor, and all. ]

[wowcool]

Perhaps. Ah, but the person who programmed you, or the machine that made you gave you preferences. Those would be the preferences belonging to your creator, so now we have to consider this: are those preferences real? Or are they also an illusion? Does it matter, who it comes from? A machine, a man, a god? Haha.

[He raises his shoulders in a shrug.]

Both, I would think. They feed into each other. The role cannot exist without society needing it. And society requires the information I uncover to help it thrive by catching killers who pose a risk to it.

[recrypt]

Well. If even those preferences aren't real, then how are you to say that any of them are?

[ no one:
absolutely no one at all:
these two: what is a man ]

Conversely, if none of it is real, and all of it is simply a constraint made and enforced by someone, something else... then are you truly so different from anyone else?

[ ah, society. ]

[wowcool]

Then that would assume that everything isn't real in the first place. But surely something real must be able to create the unreal, right?

[And a nod.]

Haha, that's true! I'm just another layer of unreal, if that's the case.

[recrypt]

Hm. What are you then, if you're an abstraction away from presumably the rest of humanity?

[ mildly. ]

Don't tell me they had mind-mapping technology already, where you're from ... Ah, but if it's faulty and prototypical, then that might explain your amnesia, hm?

[wowcool]

Hahaha, what, are you calling me a ghost in the machine?

[How spooky.]

Perhaps! Or maybe it's just me, if that really was that type of scenario.

[recrypt]

I'm not calling you anything that you aren't saying yourself. Ghost in the machine is your wording, not mine?

[ spooky indeed. ]

Hmm. Do you really think of yourself as so different from other humans, Anaido?