Final Trial

[cartesio]

Final Trial

It takes a few minutes after everyone talks with the generic mannequin. The easygoing conversation, the bragging from Gant, Keith's exasperation, it all stops when a very heavy and ominous presence fills the room.

"I think it's about time this circus stopped"

It's the Sergeant. He's standing on the doorway, arms crossed. The shadows on his face wriggle, he seems to be rather furious, but is restraining himself from lashing out

"I should have guessed you bunch would take advantage of all that noise and ruckus to sneak in here. I was careless, I admit. 'Oh, this is over in like four hours, it will be okay if I step away to deal with that'. Careless."

Slowly the Sergeant enters the workshop. Behind him, the door slowly disappears, fading away, until where the door was now there's only a smooth wall. The Sergeant raises an arm, the entire room shakes.

All the mannequins fly up to the ceiling, the one that was now Damon Gant turned back into the empty husk the mannequin was before. The one with a t-pose has the same fate. Once all the mannequins are up on the ceiling, the operation tables are uprooted, bolts and screws flying around. The tables are twisted in the air, formed into knots, disassembled and assembled all over again, until several rustic podiums are formed and deposited on the ground.

Seven podiums, with him at the center. The Sergeant crosses his arms and speaks:

"Get on those spots. Tell me... ...how much do you know?"

Is it a rhetorical question? Who knows. You still have to answer, though

Comments

[marmoron]

[Looking right you, asshole.]

Enrichment. Now are you going to tell us more about that or what.

[cartesio]

Enrichment is training all of you to gain skills and traits that either you don't have, or aren't as nurtured as others.

It's as simple as that. You should know, you're our biggest success, even if you won't be getting out of this town.

[quickpersuader]

...Which skills were those supposed to be for me, anyway?

[She's pretty much been doing as she usually does.]

[cartesio]

For you it was more like encouraging and reinforcing that behavior onto you. Slowly rewriting you until you're overtaken by them, while other more positive behaviors will be diminished.

You sure gave a lot of chances to do such a thing.

[quickpersuader]

...

You know... I was already a bad person from the start, though.

[That's pretty much her usual MO.]

[cartesio]

I know, but not bad enough. We need you to stop doing this out of convenience and start going out of your way to actually cause havoc and harm.

A traveler who does immoral things for herself and keeps going on is of no use to anyone. A traveler who travels with the intention of ruining the cities and countries she visits is extremely valuable.

[In other words, stop being neutral and go full throttle into the negative end of the spectrum no matter what]

[quickpersuader]

[...That just gets a small smile from her, and she sets down the box to instead hover a hand over the persuader on her left.

Canon.]

Sergeant, you really don't know the story behind the bullet you gave me, do you?

[There's no way he could say something like that if he did.]

[cartesio]

I know, I know. You should say it for everyone's benefit, though.

[marmoron]

[Yeah he got the memo about that and he fucking hates it.]

What the hell is that supposed to imply.

[cartesio]

Think, Keith. Why are you and Kino the best samples of our success? Why is Sakura the big failure among you all?

[marmoron]

[....]

You're really going to credit for my shitty attitude, huh.

[cartesio]

Something like that. I sure wish you had earned a medal by showing initiative. You would have been a great commander. Spiteful, wanting to do whatever you think is right no matter what, wanting to get out...

It'd have been great to use all that to twist you into what we want.

[marmoron]

[Ah. Ah that's funny. So this whole time he was right about why the Sarge brought him over the other paladins. Good to know, but...

Christ. He's actually laughing.]

You're right. I like to do things my way. And my way means not playing by your terms. I already told you I'd rather die than help you.

[cartesio]

You're already staying in here, you're automatically under my terms. Trust me, I have your entire life defined ahead of you.

[He gestures with his hands, describing his vision]

You'll start your new life as the guy in charge of the park. You'll plant hydrangeas for a good while before you're taken into the police force as someone who will ascend through the ranks until you pioneer a new force that'll keep order in Cartesio.

It'll be an extremely productive life. You'll even have that Shiro guy by your side to be your partner. I still have his mind stashed away, after all.

[relieable]

Are... are you trying to say... you did all this to help us?

[cartesio]

In some way, yes.

[May be good to know his definition of "helping" is way twisted]

You were going to need all the help possible to be able to do whatever you want out there.

[relieable]

[YEAH... way twisted...]

Out where? What was gonna come after this?

[cartesio]

The world outside. You'll live the rest of your lives and do whatever you want, following your desires and striving to reach the satisfaction you'll crave no matter what.

It just so happens it'll be at the cost of the lives of many people, getting rid of social stability, and most likely causing a domino effect that will end in the progressive destruction of the world.

No big deal.

[relieable]

Um. If you think that's what's gonna happen, you're wrong. There's no way I would help destroy the world.

[robitussin]

And... How are you quantifying how enriched we are, exactly?

[cartesio]

I have all the data about your minds with me. The more you indulged in certain types of behavior, the more you interacted with a few select people who would unknowingly feed and nurture your worst traits subconsciously, the more enriched you'd be.

[robitussin]

...That's bullshit.

[She frowns.]

You can't count those kinds of behavior without considering why we did it.

[cartesio]

Data doesn't take into account why. Corruption slowly takes you over, Natalie. Morality is a finicky thing -- a bad action does have weight on you, no matter what reason it has. It's a taint in your subconscious you can't get rid of, and my role was to ingrain that taint as much as I could.

It's for that reason we pushed you all to engage in progressively worse behaviors.

[robitussin]

...Jesus, you're even more cynical than I am.

[She takes a breath.]

You're also wrong.

[protectandselfserve]

All things considered, though... you really didn't do as good a job with your little Matrix as you could have!