[network] @r_m; A Message [DAY 441; open]

[snowblindmods]

I hope you've had fun.

Comments

[rubikscomplex]

I'm dying, depressed, and missing a hand and some of my toes because of your anomalies. Nothing makes me feel better. But thanks for playing, Robbie. Final question: What does your keycard actually even work on?

[snowblindmods]

The door to town hall.

[rubikscomplex]

[Okay, one more follow-up because that deserves a question.]

What exactly was the point of giving us a key that unlocks a door we can't reach?

[snowblindmods]

I didn't give it to you.

[rubikscomplex]

Who did? Someone's been leaving us breadcrumbs. I assume some of it was the data ghosts. But they're not in charge of the spiders. Unless they were. Care to illuminate?

[snowblindmods]

The malfunctioning automated systems have been distrubuting things at random.

[rubikscomplex]

Random my ass. We could only get your malfunctioning automated systems to distribute things by solving some bullshit horror video game puzzles. I'm assuming you were watching how we found Jia Xu's death recording? That was planned. Don't give me random.

[snowblindmods]

Alright, not exactly randomly. Relevant to people and places within the town. Some did react to the data ghosts and tried to give things to them as if they were living people.

[rubikscomplex]

Who even set up the puzzles, though? Your malfunctioning system? Why? To keep us entertained? I'm all for a good puzzle, but I want a freaking answer at the end. What was even the point of the cult? What's the goddamn entity that Rhys saw when he hacked the system? Why did we have those dreams where whatever told us it couldn't see far enough? Was that the Admin? Was it you?

[snowblindmods]

It was the malfunctioning systems.

[rubikscomplex]

Holy Christ, that's not an answer! Who attacked you? You've had how many cycles to figure it out? Why haven't you? What have you been doing? Don't you care? Who did it? Why? How? Those are answer. A malfunctioning system is a goddamn symptom!

[snowblindmods]

This isn't a mystery novel, this is a bunch of people and a lot of systems making a lot of mistakes without all the information.

[rubikscomplex]

Someone set up a story for us to follow and you're a goddamn ghost writer on it. You know more than you're telling us, which is why you won't give Enoch his tapes. Don't want us to see how much of a screw up you are, Dr. Frankenstein?

[snowblindmods]

Sometimes there's no mastermind, you know.

[rubikscomplex]

[He refuses to accept that.]

Someone orchestrated the cult. Someone orchestrated us being here. The cycles. Things have meaning. They don't just happen for no reason. We haven't been here for more than a year for no reason.

[snowblindmods]

The cult was a result of malfunctioning nanomachines and the desperation of those remaining to survive altering the minds of its members. The cycles are the administrator's attempt to fill the population quota of the town. You have been here for more than a year because you happened to be selected through whatever criteria the administrator uses to try and keep the town alive just like everybody else.

[rubikscomplex]

And what are those criteria? How does the machine work? You either don't know or you won't tell us. Which makes you useless to solving the ultimate question of why us.

[snowblindmods]

I don't know. Go ahead and work on that question, if you want.

[rubikscomplex]

Why don't you care? Like seriously, dude, you've been watching this go on forever and you don't care about the answers. How can you live like that?

[snowblindmods]

I've always been the kind of person who focuses on my own goals instead.

@Mnemosyne; text

[bookofnope]

I think I might owe you something. For the bet. I don't quite remember what. It feels like it's been centuries, doesn't it?

[rubikscomplex]

Say you were right, Dr. House. And we'll call it even.

[bookofnope]

You were right, Dr. House. None of this is magic. Just human mistakes.

[And then - bizarrely - how the fuck even - it's like something in his chest comes loose. Something breaks free. There's a twisted flood of overwhelming, defiant joy.]

Bloody hell, it isn't bigger than us. It isn't some cosmic cataclysm. We can do better than it.

[rubikscomplex]

Okay... I'm assuming that's a good revelation, but it doesn't really solve the you're all dying in a week without an answer problem.

[bookofnope]

Not in itself. But it means that just maybe the problem can be solved. This isn't hell. It isn't the work of something too far beyond us to even attempt. Human incompetence has done this, and by God, if that is all, then I can believe that we can survive it.