001 █ radio

[arkproject]

[ Sometime after radio communications are restored to people at the mall, Catherine acquires one and clicks it on, broadcasting to all receivers. ]

Sooo... what's it like out there? Seriously. Anyone who's been out-- tell me what it's like?

I'm trying to make something that can help. Oh, my name's Catherine, by the way. Nice to meet you. [ She sounds calm, even-voiced, more sincere than sarcastic. Let's face it, this is not the worst next place she could've gone after PATHOS-II. Not the best, but there's other, living humans, so Catherine can make do. She just wants to make herself useful. The objectives seem completely obvious to her, and provide an immediate direction: help everyone survive. ]

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[theseuschip]

[ Simon gets up and starts pacing. Because carrying around things that Catherine is in (?) and continuous motion just go together at this point, and the flood of relief and inner conflict are just reinforcing it. Even when she was plugged in in a single room, it’s not like Simon stayed still while he talked to her.

For some reason, he hadn’t expected the emotion in her voice, and feels a prickle of guilt at the sound of it. ]

I- I don’t know, it feels like days. Are we in some kind of game? I looked for a server room, or... something, but the only thing that’s out of place is those... cryogenic pod things.

[ yeah ok simon that’s what they are. ]

And the customers. If they’re brain scans, they’re bad ones.

[arkproject]

[ Of course she's emotional. Sheesh. She's a person, not a robot. (Ha, ha.) ]

They're definitely not brain scans. Way too limited. Seems more like a rudimentary A.I. [ Maybe she'll be lucky, and Simon will just keep asking her expository questions... Uh-huh. Catherine already knows she won't just be able to sweep everything under the rug; she's not even sure, for once, if she's capable of it. But the urge to do so is very strong nevertheless. She has to squeeze her hands into fists, pressed on her thighs where she's kneeling, surrounded by electrical parts and her radio. ]

... Otherwise, I don't know. [ Her voice gets quieter. ] Sorry, Simon. This time, I don't have any answers.

[theseuschip]

[ he pauses. That pause is where a window of opportunity to address the elephant in the room feels like it was. But there it goes, because he let it. Well, shit. ]

Can’t you just... can’t you dig around in the mainframe or something? The technology can’t be that different if it can handle us, right?

[ Simon doesn’t labor under the delusion that Catherine always has answers. She just usually has answers. She’s his sole answer-provider when it comes to suddenly finding yourself a digital clone in a deserted human settlement, so his tone is a bit dismayed and incredulous. ]

[arkproject]

[ There we go, there's the illusion that she isn't affected by anything that Catherine had been putting up like a bulwark against her feelings. ]

How am I supposed to do that? Simon, it doesn't work that way-- I told you-- [ Catherine breaks off in frustration. ] There's limitations to what I can do. There's always been limitations. I thought that was pretty clear by now.

[ Nope, not bitter at all. Augh. She hadn't meant to let that slip through. She's so frazzled from everything going on right now, and Simon's in the unique position to know exactly the right buttons to push, to know her just too well to put up with the polite fiction that she's above and beyond all this. ]

[theseuschip]

[ Her frustration seems disproportionate, to him, but not entirely out of character, so Simon responds the way he would at any other time: by doubling down on sounding dumb, but you know, very earnestly. ]

What are you talking about? You did it all the time when you were plugged in in PATHOS-II. You can’t see anything?

[ Obviously she’s still in digital form, because human Catherine is Other Catherine (and human Simon is Real Simon, because.... logic), so obviously she should be able to spread her consciousness across this whole simulation somehow via means Simon can’t even visualize, much less understand. Or, if not that, at least do it a little, an even more nebulous concept. ]

[arkproject]

[ Impatiently: ] Do you see anything for me to plug into? The best I've found is an electronics store with hundred year old computer cables.

[ Come on, Simon, catch up. It doesn't even occur to Catherine that they need to go over that she isn't a digital presence anymore, because she assumes the same thing that happened to her happened to Simon. It should be obvious, right? ]

[theseuschip]

[ Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: “it should be obvious, right? Come on, Simon.”

He’s already walking in a random direction, because just standing around making noise here is freaking him out a little. If this simulation’s implemented calories, post-PATHOS Simon is going to burn so many. ]

Well, you’re in something. How are you talking to me? Where are you?

[ It’s impatient, too, but a toothless, bickery impatience, borne of what’s started to be a seed of understanding that Catherine is maybe sincerely unable to predict the conclusions Simon comes to, or fails to come to, as the case may be.

Unselfconsciously sussing out the one layperson neuron they have in common is just kinda what he does now. ]

[arkproject]

I'm using a radio, same as you are? [ There's Catherine's blank 'duh' voice making its return. Maybe Simon's missed it. ]

You have realized there's no Omnitools here... right? This is 2007. There's no mall-wide system for me to be in apart from some security cameras.

[ Okay, she'll back up for him-- back way up. This is still better than having a real argument, which had seemed all too likely a possibility when she'd first heard his voice, though she was still relieved. ]

[theseuschip]

That’s not what I meant. [ He doesn’t elaborate beyond that, because even if Catherine’s Duh Voice doesn’t come as a second shot of strange, pricking relief (it does), it’s not like he’s ever been all that invested in avoiding it, or arguing against it. ]

It’s a simulation like the ARK, why wouldn’t there be a system for you to be in? There’s nobody left. Somebody has to be maintaining it as a scan from the inside somehow, right? I mean, if we’ve actually time traveled—

[ Simon has been so focused on a digital environment where the creator herself would be inside of it — while it floated in space — that the idea makes more sense to him than it probably should. More sense than it would to somebody from not-an-apocalypse, you know, without a computer floating in space full of human brain-clones with exactly one programmer on board. ]

Just... look, how do I get to you? [ impatient!! CATHERINE!!!! ]