ataraxion | 008; Voice

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008; Voice

[Welcome back to another exciting adventure in the world of Topher Brink. There's a methodical clanking of tools and, once again, it seems Topher has turned his communicator on with the purpose of saying something, and then gotten distracted. Luckily, you're not stuck with ten minutes of dead silence with the actual sounds of someone working. In fact, it's only a few seconds before he starts talking.]

Sometimes I really think I'm the only one who doesn't spend an hour of every... relative day, I guess, thinking how bad I wanna go home. Don't get me wrong. I didn't get possessed by demons or nearly assimilated into a hive mind or chewed on by hellbeasts back home, and all of those things suck, but... It's not that bad. Everyone dies eventually, right? Why not die in space. ...Okay, so it's a touch cynical and I know- I'm terrifying the children. Cover their ears, ban that last bit from future broadcasts, whatever... The point is...

[There's a pause, followed by a pained noise, because genius here probably pinched his fingers or something.] The point is, uh... [Oh, did he have a point? He totally had one.]

... I don't remember what the point is, but I'll tell you something else. Hayley's post got me thinking about the whole... lack of dates thing. And I know it doesn't mean much to most of you, but it was, like... Late May or something when I showed up here and I've been here for eight months now, which means if time in space weren't so kerflooey, it'd be late January. So that means I'm 28 years old now, which... Yeah, that means exactly what I'm implying.

And this is not some big extravagant plea for gifts or attention or anything. I was just thinking about how this time last year, my birthday went by unnoticed and most of the time... Yeah, let's just say I've never had many people to celebrate it with. But here... If I said I wanted to gather some of my buddies up and sit in a common room and... I dunno, raid the library for something watchable and eat cake... It could happen. Not that I'm suggesting that either, because I have my doubts about whether the library has the best kind of bad science fiction when we're living the best kind of bad science fiction, but I could do it. And that means a lot to me.

Ah, I found my way back to the point. With all the bad stuff that happens here and the imminent badness continuing to loom over us and the fact that we miss the people we left behind back home... We can't forget that for some of us... This stupid ship has actually given us something. Fresh starts, the families we never knew we needed, friends, whatever. And that's a good thing.

[There's a thoughtful sigh.] I dunno. It does kinda make a guy wonder what happens if we do all go home. Sure, we lose all the bad things, but what about the stuff we actually wanna remember?

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He'll never let it go. [He has learned this about Dave. The more you express outrage at something, the more he'll keep doing it.] I'm sure his heart was in the right place, but maybe he should let his brain in on it too.

But now I've got indisputable facts. Proving that his version is not how it actually happens.

[PAUSE]

How does it actually happen? Just so we're clear?

[His life is so special sometimes.] Okay. There was a puppet child named Pinocchio and he was made by a named Gepetto. That part's true. And... I dunno. Maybe he wanted to have kids or maybe he was just going senile in his old age, but he wished on a star that his little puppet kid would become a real boy, so the blue fairy showed up and made Pinocchio a living, not-quite-breathing, but capable of functioning in human society puppet who could move around without strings, and then she gave him the whole "listen to your conscience and you'll become a real boy" spiel. So the kid goes through some trials and screws up a lot and eventually he ends up sacrificing himself to save his fake-dad and that makes him a real boy, because he was brave and unselfish.

There's stuff about Pleasure Island and people turning into donkeys when they act like jerks and that lying thing... His nose grows when he lies. It's not that important, except teaching the value of not lying to people.

[IS THIS AWKWARD YET...]

So, basically, not how Dave described it at all.

[But probably more relevant than he initially thought.]

[Just explained a children's story to a confused robot.

Good times.]

Dave makes valid points, but he can't actually explain them if you don't speak Dave.

Well, that's why I asked you.

[You're like his Dave translator.]

I mean, I still can't find this supposed valid point, but at least now I understand the context.

[ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT DAVE IS WRONG FOREVER]

His valid point is based entirely on not believing you're really a robot. So it's valid, but woefully inaccurate.

[And not everyone believes people at face value like that. It's just easier.]

That's the most frustrating thing about it! Do you know how hard it is, trying to convince the people around here that I'm not crazy? It's difficult. To be honest.

[CONSIDERING HE USED TO BE ONE OF THEM WHO BELIEVED THAT...]

Well, as we say in the genius community- people? Are dumb. Simple fact. That which they don't understand invokes intolerant attitudes.

[Pretend I wasn't an intolerant jerk until I got to know you. That's how buddy cop movies work.]

[Suddenly there's a lot he can't quite bring himself to say--that with each passing jump it's harder and harder to convince new arrivals he's anything but human, not because of them, but because he's getting better and better at (dressing like one, being presentable, hygienic, moving and using his hands and looking and acting like one) blending seamlessly with their kind. He vaguely realizes he's slowly becoming human (a real boy) out of sheer necessity--not because he wants to, but because he has no other choice. (Does it really matter when he might have been one all along?)

This spaceship is no place for tiny spherical robots.

And no matter how much he asserts his mechanical identity (one he isn't even sure was his in the first place--can you lose something you never had?), there will always be the fact that he has no actual, indisputable proof to offer those who don't believe him, and on top of that, there will always be the part of him that just wants to fit in. It's that same part of him that wants a birthday and the unconditional cakes that go with it, the part of him he can't remember that maybe was human the whole time (but you can't have a birthday if you've never been born).

The fact that Topher does accept his (ridiculous, impossible) story is unprecedented, really, and means more to him than the neurologist might ever know (it's certainly more than he can coherently express). His memory isn't made of files and data anymore, and he knows he's starting to lose what it actually felt like, to function mechanically, to control the facility. He's already forgotten how to read zeroes and ones and he knows it's only a matter of time before (the last place he can pretend nothing about him has changed) his dreams betray him, too. It's only a matter of time before he believes them when they call him crazy.

So when Topher says I believe you, even though you cannot provide tangible evidence to justify your claim (in his backwards, Topher sort of way), it helps him hold on (stops him from forgetting so quickly), because it's easier to believe something when someone else believes it, too.]

Well I am...glad. That you're on board, I mean. They call me crazy and I just go, ha ha, joke's on you, the neurologist believes me. Knows all about brains, knows mine is--is decidedly that of a robot.

[But he stops there, realizing that he's talking himself in a circle again and the words will double back on themselves and sound insincere.]

I do appreciate it. Really.

[None of which Topher knows or suspects really, and, admittedly, he's contributed to a lot of that real boying- not because he has any vested interest in Wheatley becoming human, but because he actually believes this is temporary and that in a few months it won't matter. He's told himself that he'll succeed so many times that the idea of failure doesn't even register.

But if there's one person on the ship equipped to handle an identity crisis or capable of handling the horror of being in a body that isn't yours and having to adapt to it, it's him. It's not even that Wheatley's convinced him that makes him believe (Wheatley really is terrible at being a robot)- it's the simple, undeniable fact that there's no reason why it wouldn't be true. Sure, he couldn't prove it. Or maybe he could. He hasn't seen Wheatley's scans or anything- maybe there'd be something in there that would be decidedly off. Either way, it's not something that needs to be proven. And even if he still believed Wheatley was lying, he wouldn't be expecting proof of it.

And God help him, but no one would actually want to be a tiny limbless spherical robot, unless they had always been a tiny spherical robot.]

It's no problem. And if this whole thing works... who really has the last laugh?

[The if is what scares him, because he's already had one failed attempt and he doesn't know what he'll do if his next-best shot is a bust. He can't fully cope with what's happened to him as long as there's the possibility that the imprint chair will work, but it's terrifying to think that the procedure will fail and he will have to accept that this is it.

Ten months later, he's still not ready to do that. He doesn't think he'll ever be.]

I guess--I guess that would be us.

[Then there's the matter of going home, that hypothetical situation where they destroy whatever haunts this ghost ship and make it a place to stay, or discover a planet that's habitable and welcoming and earth-like, and they're given a choice. And his choice is go home to his body, his real body, but float alone in space until his (ample) battery life runs its course, or stay wherever they find themselves, in the organic shell that has arms and legs and independence, effectively surrender Aperture and everything he was in favor of permanent humanity.

He's not sure he's ready to make that decision, either.]

You'd stay, if you had the choice?

Edited (fuck me and my typos i'm so sorry) 2012-09-02 19:32 (UTC)

[The question actually gives Topher pause, because, to be honest, while he does like the idea of staying, it's mostly been a cheat to make himself feel better about the possibility of never having the option. It's selfish and he knows it- leaving Adelle and Echo and the rest to sort out what comes afterwards. The fallout from Rossum after destroying their mainframe would make Chernobyl look like a housefire. None of them would ever be safe and none of them would try to be safe. They'd keep fighting until every Dollhouse was dismantled, every body Harding, Ambrose, Clyde, and Boyd found as replacements put back to rights. And if they succeeded in that? Then what? He retires to Malibu and lives out his days in idle boredom? Alone, more than likely, because he knows that the Dollhouse was literally the only thing any of them had in common. The only thing keeping the family together and with it gone... Well, he's alone again.

Pretty much every option back home sucks, but deep down, he knows the house doesn't need him. He's a liability and they have Topher 2.0 if need be. He could start over somewhere else...

And make the same mistakes, says some niggling little voice in the back of his head, because he is building that imprint chair and bringing the tech to the ship and lying about it. And that's not progress, even if it's helping someone.]

The ship's gotta be heading somewhere, right? Might be nice setting up shop on a completely different planet. [It's not really an answer. He just likes pretending to be certain, because he's as cynical as anyone when it comes to whether or not they're getting off this crazy thing.] Also, I helped blow up a building, so that sort of spells the end for my career on earth.

[Yeah... That joke didn't sound as convincing as he thought it would. He tried.]

Certain death, maybe.

[It's almost funny how much easier it is to come to terms with dying on the Tranquility sometime in the near future than the prospect of sticking out this body's natural lifespan. Cave had said fifty or sixty more years, not accounting for unexpected illness or freak accidents.

He has lived that long already (and then some) and it is a very long time.

What he knows about Topher's home isn't much. He knows something about accidentally almost ending the world, but the implications and fallout are sort of lost on him. He knows they're both from America, albeit near-opposite sides of it, but he doesn't know if it's the same America, and if it is, it's certainly not the same time.

Not that any of it matters, because he'd been forcibly ejected from Earth.]

~~YOU COULD SET UP SHOP ON THE MOON~~ I'm sure it's not all bad, right? You could find something to do back home. What's one building? [I almost blew up the Michigan Peninsula]

But, uh, I do suppose it's nice. To know whether or not you'd want to stay. In the unlikely event that choice, ah. Presents itself.

Probably, but I'm trying to reassure myself that no one would build a ship this big just to crash it into the sun. [But Ward and Resnik might be steering it into one to cut their losses. They're probably space crazy.]

One building belonging to the biggest global medical research facility, the founders of which you can never kill, because they back themselves up on hard drives and imprint random people off the street with their personalities. One building turns into all of us getting branded as fugitives from the law and hunted down and in the meantime? We all have to go play terrorist to shut the whole thing down for good. [And when he lays it out like that...] ... Okay, yeah, it sounds like I'm running away from it. And maybe if the choice did present itself... I'd realize that I need to be back there.

[But the real reason he's justified that decision to himself is a bit more complicated.] I just don't wanna forget what happened here if I do.

I'm just saying there is a possibility this ship is going to crash into a sun. Of some kind. And barring that, I'd put money on any kind of deep space disaster. If I had money.

[But yeah, Topher, that sounds kind of shitty, even to a robot who doesn't really understand things like terrorism or an actual functioning human society. He can't really blame you for wanting to leave it, because HEY he'd totally do the same thing.]

Is that what happens? When people leave and come back? I haven't actually known anyone who's done it, so.

[TRYING NOT TO THINK ABOUT THAT. ONLY YOU CAN SURVIVE ON PANIC ATTACKS.

And yeah, bro. It sucks. And also there's the horrible apocalyptic future wherein he goes CRAZY AND DIES.]

Tony did. Once. He said he couldn't remember anything about the ship while he was back home, but when he got back, he remembered everything. Can't tell you how that works, but... It's a little terrifying. I'm in the business of making people forget. I don't necessarily wanna experience it.

Oh.

[Then this really might be a bad dream after all. He might just wake up one day, back in orbit, back in his body, and remember nothing about the hell of forced humanity.

And HAHA right Topher casually wipes brains all over the place. The recent revelation that he may or may not have huge chunks of memory missing does not really add much relief, given the topic at hand.]

It can't be so bad, right? You don't even know it's missing. [The only way that gets bad is when you start to realize you're missing it.]

Edited 2012-09-04 06:01 (UTC)

Yeah, and once I'm back home, I'll have a million things to distract myself with that won't involve Spaceship Hell, but still. It's not even just that I'd never see you or Ariadne or Alayne or anyone again... I'd never remember you existed at all.

[He is, at least, vaguely aware that he's describing sentimental attachment to a robot who has very little, if not no, concept of it.] It's one thing to lose someone. I'm used to that. But it just sucks to think that I've gotten so close to people here and then one day... Poof. Gone. Except not like that, because the brain doesn't work like that- you'd always feel like something was missing, but there'd be no way to get it back.

[No shut up he totally understands sentimental attachment, as long as cubes are involved.]

It makes me wonder if there isn't a way to--to I don't know, send a message to ourselves. Probably wouldn't make sense, at first, but maybe--I don't know.

[Let's tattoo "*~*ARIADNE*~*" on your butt.]

Edited 2012-09-05 07:00 (UTC)

And that's when we become those people who obsessively journal everything. ...Though that might not be a bad idea. Assuming the journal stays with us and doesn't get lost in the void.

[Only if we can laser "Wheatley, destroyer of cubes" onto your little robot shell's hull.]

It's all wishful thinking, anyway. It's been what? Ten jumps since this all started? And we're not even close to figuring out what the hell's going on. It's probably pointless harping on what could be.

I mean, it's not going to work for me. If I go home, it's presumably [to be in space forever] back to my body. Which doesn't have the appropriate place to keep a journal, or--or anything, really.

[TOO SOON]

You're the one who brought it up in the first place.

Yeah. I did. [You can pretty much hear him pinching the bridge of his nose. And a person given to sanity might take this moment to change the subject, but nope.]

You can't tell me it doesn't bother you though. Just a little? It might be futile to harp on it, but it's always gonna be some... niggling thing.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things that bother me, it's there, but not as bothersome as some of the other things that bother me. See, when you've got--when you've got your entire memory stored on a hard drive, anyone can just go in and shuffle things about or remove things entirely, and you'd never know.

But, uh. I'm sure you know all about that. Sort of.

[Silence silence

siiiilence.

Ping. Lightbulb.]

Oh my God. I'm an idiot.

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oh geez sorry i have no idea where this came from please punch me in the face

I THINK THE SUDDEN FEELINGS ARE ENOUGH PUNISHMENT. SAD ROBOTS WHY.

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