Futurology. Contact.

[selfimage]

username: LOKI

ring ring ring! magic 911.

Comments

[unburdening]

I'm working on it. [ which is to say that there is no plan. ] But I can't do it alone.

[selfimage]

No, you can't.

[ he admits easily. not as fresh as he is, not like this. ]

You need my experience.

[unburdening]

[ which leaves one important question. ]

So are you with me, or aren't you?

[selfimage]

That depends on what your measurement of success is.

What exactly do you want out of this little excursion? In the personal ambition sense, of course.

[unburdening]

[ a beat. then, ]

I agree that Zymandis is a problem. But what we need is a solution that disables their Mothership without sacrificing the people on it.

[ he frames it as what we need instead of answering with what I want, too used to saying one and too unused to saying the other. ]

[selfimage]

We need to detain this Leader fellow.

[ he says after a moment, with a quirk of his head. ]

The one with the god complex.

[unburdening]

You think the rest of the agents will fall in line if we do?

[selfimage]

It doesn't matter. He's the fellow who created the Timeline.exe, they won't have much of a choice to continue forward without him.

[unburdening]

Cut them off from the program and the man who made it. [ ... ] It could work.

[ assuming they don't have people who could reverse-engineer the AI, but one problem at a time. ]

[selfimage]

If we leave him, then another patch is all but guaranteed—a waste of resources, really.

[unburdening]

What else do you know about him?

[selfimage]

That he has some sort of god complex. That he once created our Timeline.exe only to abandon the idea of preservation with destruction.

I've heard the word arrogant thrown around.

[unburdening]

Not hard to guess why.

You said detain him, but we can't take him back here. We can't risk him getting near our Timeline.exe.

[selfimage]

It certainly depends on the circumstances, doesn't it? If we need to, we can certainly find a way to remove him.

Where our answers our limited, I'd rather keep the options open.

[unburdening]

Fair enough. There's too much we don't know. It won't be easy to find him, let alone get close.

[selfimage]

[ sometimes it's good to be blunt. ]

I have a sword that will force him to tell the truth if he's stabbed with it.

[unburdening]

[ what. ]

You what?

[selfimage]

Don't act so surprised—I did say I was a god, didn't I? I have a magic truth sword.

[unburdening]

I swear to god, if you're making this up --

[ he doesn't even know how he's going to finish that sentence. just when you start to think you've seen everything, magic truth sword. ]

[selfimage]

Lying about a truth sword is up there on irony scale ... but no, I'm not making it up—I have a magic truth sword. You're welcome to test it for yourself, but most generally don't have the stomach for the consequences.

[unburdening]

Fine, I'll bite. What are the consequences?

[selfimage]

The truth.

[ he says, easily. ]

Not just the truth in words, but the truth that you deny yourself, the discomforts and horrible realizations included: what you are, your own actions, and the lies that you use to build your own sense of self. Everything is stripped away.

It can kill you, if you're not careful.

[unburdening]

[ he's seen, heard, done awful things; but loki's right, he never wants to get near that thing. ]

Remind me to never get on your bad side. [ ev...er... ] So we find him, we can find out whatever he knows. Anything he knows.

[selfimage]

We can.

[ Loki replies, but after a pause, he says: ]

The magic of the sword is strong and ancient. Myths are like good wine, they get better with age. The sword itself was forged in malice, then doused with the blood of a dragon cursed.

There's a possibility that this fellow has his own defenses against such arts, or that he knows what he is and truly believes in the horrors of the cause. [ that brings up a bad memory. he huffs. ] It won't harm him then, and it will still be able to draw the truth, but in retaining himself it gives him means of omission.

[unburdening]

[ a dragon. a cursed dragon. but, then, he's (supposedly) talking to a god about his magic sword. it's ridiculous, and it wastes time, to argue any of this. ]

So there's no guarantee it'll work at all, even if we can get to him. But we won't know until we get there and try.

[ not that he's criticizing, really; it's not as though he just so happens to have other means to get the truth out of people lying around. it's worth a shot. ]

And you're willing to do this? A minute ago, you didn't want to commit.