008; Voice

[andblockbuster]

 [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?

Comments

[testgasm]

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.

[andblockbuster]

[Silence silence

siiiilence.

Ping. Lightbulb.]

Oh my God. I'm an idiot.

[testgasm]

Are you? Because I'm fairly certain you're the brains of the operation, here. As far as the, ah. Neurological background goes, and if you are in fact, the idiot, then maybe I should just build the imprint chair.

[WAS IT A JOKE??? The world may never know.]

[andblockbuster]

No, no, no. Hard drives- the wedges. I should have thought of that from the start. The only thing better than a journal is a copy of your own brain, which if this goes well, I could have. ...It doesn't really help anyone else, except maybe you and possibly Dirk, but still. It's... something.

[Someone is possibly a little concerned about losing his memories and grasping at straws here. He does, however... realize that. Good job, Topher.

AND HE'S STILL. NOT. SHUTTING UP ABOUT IT.]

It probably wouldn't even work, but it... makes me feel better. Kinda. Having a plan in place. [SIGH] ... Look, I'm the guy who has to remember everything, even the stuff I don't necessarily want to. That's my thing. And let me just say that there are worse things I have to go home and remember than blowing up a building, all of which I'd love to replace with eight months worth of-of this. Heck, I'm almost over the fact that my best man-friend was the biggest Judas that ever made moon eyes at a piece of silver.

[testgasm]

So, putting something on my hard drive--for when the chair works. [Because it's going to work.] A video file, or something, with you, or--or I don't know, any one of us, really, that explains it.

I'm not sure what I could do about it, where I am back home [in space], but it might be worth a shot.

[THERE ARE OTHER THINGS, HOWEVER, THAT CATCH HIM A LITTLE OFF GUARD.]

Sorry, what?

[andblockbuster]

Like I said, it's something to hold onto. If it doesn't work... We won't actually remember it didn't work, but trying never hurt anyone. [But it can end the world.

Which hurts a lot of people.

Meanwhile, Topher may have just blurted out that his best friend was a traitory traitor, but he clearly has no idea what part of that was... disorienting to Wheatley. CERTAINLY THE WORD TRAITOR DOES NOT BRING BACK HORRID MEMORIES.]

...What... what?

[testgasm]

Your...best man-friend, is what you said. Your best man-friend and something about the moon?

[andblockbuster]

[A+ for getting Wheatley to say man-friend. But really, bro... You might have a problem with the moon.

But for everything else, there is an appropriate gif.]

Oh... That. My, uh, best friend turned out to be the head of Rossum, which would be fine if he wasn't also the head of the Enslave Every Person On The Planet For Funsies Club. So he lied about being the Big Boss Man and he lied about being a freakin' psychopath. Three years of friendship reduced to a steaming pile of oh by the way, I'm kinda evil.

[testgasm]

[I HAVE MANY PROBLEMS WITH THE MOON.]

Oh.

[why are we talking about betrayals and psychopaths did we have to talk about betrayals and psychopaths.]

That's...unfortunate.

[andblockbuster]

[He's gonna blame that on you being kinda British and prone to understatement.]

I've had eight months away from it. It's not that big a deal. [It is a terribly big deal and his pain is great. HE HAD MY GIRLFRIEND KILLED. WHY.]

It's just not the thing I want fresh in my head when I get zapped back home, but who could blame me? [S-so casual.] I'm sure a lot of us came out of crappy situations before we ended up here.

[testgasm]

[He is very British he doesn't say hard 'r's except he totally does because Bristol suck it Adelle]

No, no, I...understand. We've all got--got unpleasant things to worry about, sort of--of putting them off, by being here.

[andblockbuster]

Like a vacation, except not nearly as relaxing.

[testgasm]

I can't say I've ever taken one.

[andblockbuster]

Yeah... I haven't either and I actually could leave. Agoraphobia... Happens. [That awkward moment when you realize you're kinda pathetic...]

[testgasm]

I would have liked to see the outside, I think. I mean, I could make educated guesses, there were some parts of the facility near the surface where the ceilings were--were less than functional, that's probably how the birds got in.

[andblockbuster]

It's very bright. And loud, but only if you were underneath a bustling metropolis or something. Cities, in general, are not tiny robot friendly.

[testgasm]

I don't really know what we were under. What is there to be under in Michigan?

[andblockbuster]

[HE HAS TO THINK ABOUT IT...]

Detroit? Not exactly the science capitol of the world, but no one would think to look for a giant secret underground lab under Detroit.

[testgasm]

Oh, no, we weren't secret. We won all sorts of awards, you know, back when the humans were still alive.

[The US Senate loved us]

[andblockbuster]

Well, you guys weren't hiding a Build Your Own Person workshop in your basement. Not that we didn't get a lot of attention for the stuff we could actually admit on record that we were doing, but it was... sorta biased, in retrospect.

[We owned the US Senate.]

... And people wonder why I have so much trouble talking about what I do for a living.

[testgasm]

Apparently we were, though, in a--in a backwards sort of way.

[We lost some astronauts]

I mean, I guess I could see why you would. But we're okay, as long as nobody really knows about it.

[andblockbuster]

Build-Your-Own-Robots-With-Human-Brains-That-Go-Crazy-And-Kill-Everyone. Doesn't have the same ring to it.

[...You might win that one.]

So far so good. And the whole science department seems to be jumping ship to those creepy labs that you couldn't pay me to set foot in again. We could end up with the whole less-sketchy department to ourselves.

[HE IS VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.]

[testgasm]

No, you're right, it doesn't. Good thought, though.

I love having that lab to ourselves. So much more preferable to everyone mucking about in there all the time. Less chance of anyone asking questions about the chair.

[andblockbuster]

And if they do ask questions about the chair, which they... probably won't, because they've got other things to worry about, we'll just... tell them we're making a massage chair. Or a virtual reality simulator. It's not like anyone actually knows what an imprint chair looks like.

[Except Claire...]