What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Dreamers of Manhattan, you've lucked out. Rather than finding yourselves in some kind of dystopian nightmare, you'll end up in a series of formal gardens on a lovely day, the air filled with birdsong and a cloud-scattered sky arching overhead. Some of the gardens look a bit wilder than others, in an artful sort of way, but it's clear that all of the gardens are well kept and frequently tended. Aside from each other, dreamers aren't likely to run into any creature larger than a rabbit. True, there are no actual exits - every doorway or arbor leads to another garden - but that's hardly a problem. It's beautiful, it's safe... what could go wrong?

Well, that depends on the dreamer's honesty. No uncomfortable truths will drop unbidden from anyone's mouths like last time, but the dreamers will find that any time they attempt to lie or prevaricate, they'll be beset by a sneezing fit. A tiny lie by omission might only prompt that uncomfortable feeling of an impending sneeze; a larger, more significant (or more stubborn) fib will lead to a sneeze attack so crippling that the dreamer might just need to sit down for a minute.

You could try to pass it off as allergies, if you could get the words out without making everything worse. But while telling the truth is not compulsory, lying is punishable - and pretty well obscured - by sneezes.

[OOC: Usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome to participate regardless of whether they've been apped in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.]

Comments

[centralcore]

Mm, she's crafty, this one. Glados can respect that. Crafty humans usually (usually) make for better science.

"You are an excellent observer," she says, falling much more comfortably into a coldly friendly tone. "Yes, I am very human. I'll prove it. I am so human, I'm going to do the most human thing you can think of. Go ahead. Think of something."

She smiles, she thinks unnervingly.

"Do you need any helpful suggestions?"

[driftseeker]

She does not consider very long before she smiles, shyly.

"I think you are already doing it," Mako ventures. "You are dreaming."

Dreaming is not so unlike the Drift, particularly here. Though she would like to think that their minds are not so intimately joined in this way. As intriguing as she finds Glados, she does not think she would like to know her that well.

[centralcore]

Crafty and clever. Can this get any better.

Her smile doesn't falter. She lets out a low partial chuckle, a little "Hm."

"Actually," she says, "many artificial intelligences have been designed to dream. Just not me." She thinks this is probably a good time to make some sort of motion. Folding her arms, maybe? Yes. And looking imperiously down her nose. Good.

"I was thinking something more along the lines of die," she coos. "Did you know humans are very good at that? I did."

[driftseeker]

"Yes." She stares back at the impassive water, trying not to feel as though she is shrinking beneath the weight of the A.I.'s stare. "Almost everyone I have known is dead."

Dead, or lost to her.

For a moment her fingers tighten on the edge of lip of the pool, her knuckles blanching. Those memories are not for here or for now. Their weight is unbearable.

We all live with it, Mako, says Raleigh. We can always find 'em in the Drift.

But there is no Drift here.

"But all things die." She cannot look back at her. She does not want to see what might be in that woman's gaze. "Even machines. Not just humans. All things that feel die."

[centralcore]

Oh well that's no fun. It's pitiful, she can log that away for later, but there's no shock or horror, just grim acceptance. The human has so far eluded Glados' every attempt to unbalance her, and Glados is beginning to tire of it.

"I died," she says curtly. "And I came back. That's the joy of being a machine that feels. It's easy to bring us back. It wasn't even on purpose. Someone flipped the switches by accident. Because he was a moron." She curls her lip in disgust. Still minutely aware of every little facial twitch, even though this is not physically happening. "Humans are very good at being temporary, until they're permanently dead."

There's an itch, somewhere, not like the Itch, but something all the same, pressing around the edges of her awareness, something hard and sharp and painful. Getting into her voice and her - feelings. Ugh. She does not like it. This woman must be causing it somehow, so Glados backs away.

"I should be going," she says coolly. "Other humans to taunt. I'm very busy, you know."

[driftseeker]

To create a machine that feels. It sounds like some kind of sin of science, something that should not be allowed. She is sure Glados would not appreciate the acute spike of sympathy that darkens her gaze, but she finds it difficult to contain regardless.

Perhaps the liminal nature of humanity is a blessing in its own right.

Mako keeps looking at the water.

"Of course," she says quietly. "I'm sorry to have kept you."