Pandora Quest 36

You are the head researcher at a government facility. Your sole responsibility is to teach the world's first autonomous AI, nicknamed Pandora, about life, the world and her existence.

Previously you removed the offending hardware that you suspect was giving Pandora her nightmares; a tiny wifi device hidden in her leg. You don't know who did it, but your list of suspects is shortening by the minute.

You checked Ares to make sure Pandora's substantially more dangerous brother wasn't compromised either and he was given a clean bill of health much to your relief.

After making sure everything was alright on their end, you went over to R&D to check on things with the cyborgs only to catch Mouse in the middle of attempting to attack a man twice her size. You calmed her down enough to get her to see reason somewhat, but only until she found someone else to focus her anger on: Snowglobe, whom you then discovered was apparently in possession of a firearm. Something that is very much against the rules of the Facility. Mouse is now accusing him of being the culprit, while he is saying the same of her. Never a dull moment.

Welcome back to Pandora Quest!
>Twitter: twitter.com/AM_in_PM
>Previous threads: suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=pandora quest

The gun sits on the table in several pieces, the whole team sitting in silence as Mouse stands there, smugly triumphant. Snowglobe has backed away, what you can best assume is worry or mild panic. You admit, this is very suspicious...

>Have the others restrain Snowglobe and call security
>Question Snowglobe as to why he has the weapon
>Question Mouse as to why she was snooping through his things
>Other (write in)

>47964663

>Question Snowglobe as to why he has the weapon

I swear there were words in that when I posted it. And it was actually linking to the correct post.
Thanks moot.

I was wondering what happened with that. Though one time Veeky Forums made me post some kind of weird image board code or something, so who knows what Hiro is doing.

Thread DoA?

>Question Snowglobe as to why he has the weapon

>Question Snowglobe as to why he has the weapon

I'm betting the vast majority of R&D have contraband in their rooms, but a gun definitely isn't a XXX milf jugs magazine.

Hey, Mouse was just holding that for a friend!

Writing.

Personally after 7:30 rolled around I had to go play some Mighty No. 9 to get my robot fix.

You fold your arms, not entirely sure how you suddenly became judge and jury here, but the fact of the matter is you're in a position of leadership, so the burden falls on you. You examine the pistol carefully, but weapons aren't really your thing, so the best you can deduce is that it's a gun.

"So...why?" you say plainly, "I mean, I get that you guys do some questionable stuff here in your downtime, but this is very much against the rules, even for you. What possible reason could you need for this?"

Snowglobe stares at you silently, his dark eye lenses seem to look right through you, his mind obviously racing with what to say.

"Answer him!" Mouse says, impatiently. It actually makes him jump a bit.

"I..." Snowglobe begins, his hands clenching tightly.

Please roll 1d100. Best of 3.

Oh no! I'm sorry user! I was out all day and only got home then. I basically came home, fed the cat and then typed up the thread ASAP. My bad!

Rolled 74 (1d100)

Rolled 97 (1d100)

'S not a complaint. Just an excuse for late anons.

Rolled 89 (1d100)

At this point I'm pretty sure the doctor could create lead from gold if he tried.

Writing!

We've had practice talking down Pandora. Compared with AI, meatbags are easy.

AM "Fuck Dice" PM.

"It..." Snowglobe says, looking around rapidly. "Shit...!"

What happens next is so fast you almost aren't sure you saw correctly. Snowglobe grabs the closest thing to him, which happens to be a handful of circuit boards, then tosses them right into Mouse's face, then elbows one Bob in the nose, who falls backwards clutching his face and cusses up a storm.

He makes for the door, flinging chairs out of the way while he does, only to get stopped by the mute Bob, who gives a rather nasty left hook directly to his temple. The bald engineer crumples like a house of cards, the enhanced strength and impressive accuracy working in tandem to put the rogue cyborg down. The room goes silent save for a few more pained groans and swears from Bob, who's nose is pouring blood.

Until Mouse breaks it in the only way she can.

"I fucking CALLED IT!" she shouts.

A surly look from the still-standing twin shuts her down nicely and Babsy hurries over to make sure his brother is alright. The lot of you manage to get him bound with some various cords. He's out cold, so you take it upon yourselves to search him and don't find much. He's clean for the most part, but innocent people don't try to run. What should you do with him?

>Turn him in to security and Richards
>Wait for him to wake up and see what you can learn
>Other (write in)

>Turn him in to security and Richards

>Other (write in)

Get Richards down here but don't alert security. We want to deal with this without the highest levels of authority finding out.

Richards IS the highest level of authority at the Facility. He's your boss and a decorated general. If he finds out, security will find out as well.

>Wait for him to wake up and see what you can learn

>Turn him in to security and Richards

I feel like this could be when the hammer gets thrown down and our research gets pulled away from us but I can't think of a better option. It's going to be awkward explaining we didn't alert him to the bug on Pandora.

When I say highest levels of authority, I mean the president or such, the sort of people who could have this entire base dead and buried at a moments notice.

Plus Richards seems nice, admittedly rather by the book but I trust him.

I guess there was that suit walking around a while ago.

Richards is actually exactly one of those people who could get the whole thing shut down if he deemed it so. As for if he will or not, that remains to be seen. Just FYI.
Agent Arikawa is with the CIA, but he doesn't actually reside at the Facility and hasn't been on site for a while.

Calling the fuzz it is! Writing!

You sigh, realizing that you can't keep hiding this forever. This has gotten out of hand and you'd better come clean before it gets any worse. You send a message to Richards, telling him he and a security detail need to get there ASAP. You never get a reply, but five minutes later you hear the heavy doors open and a very angry general flanked by four armed guards show up. He looks at you, he looks at the blood, he looks at the prisoner and he just scowls even harder.

"What the FUCK happened here, son?" he says, causing everyone to flinch, security team included. "Why is one of my engineering assets tied up and unconscious, why are two more bleeding and why the hell did it take this long for you to contact me? I swear to god and country, son, if there isn't a damn good reason for all of this, I will have each and every one of your asses behind bars so fast you'll have to make another robot to compute how it happened."

"Erm..." Mouse starts, stepping forward slowly, but is shot down with one look.

"I'm not talking to you." he growls, his eyes locking onto yours. The vein in his neck has grown considerably larger since he arrived.

>Tell him everything. The wifi device, the dreams, the gun, all of it
>Omit the device and dreams, just tell him about Snowball's contraband and attempt to run
>Other (write in)

>Tell him everything. The wifi device, the dreams, the gun, all of it

God dammit, I swear I put my trip back on that time!

>Tell him everything. The wifi device, the dreams, the gun, all of it

>Tell him everything. The wifi device, the dreams, the gun, all of it
rip pandoro

>Other
>Tell him about the wifi device, but not the dreams. Then tell him about Snowball's contraband and attempt to run.

They need to know their robots' hardware may be compromised, however unlikely. No need to go into detail about Pandora's dreams.

Open and honest it is! Writing.

You, despite a few panicked looks from the R&D team, tell Richards everything. The issues you hid from him, the dreams, the discovered wifi device and everything that happened with Snowglobe. There's a little confusion as to who "Snowglobe" is, but that's quickly overshadowed by everything else. Richards spends a good amount of time shouting at the lot of you about the rules, your jobs and plenty of directionless anger. None of you say anything without being prompted to, and even when you do it's just "yes, sir" or "no, sir".

Two of the guards take Snowglobe away, either to medical or a holding cell, you're not sure which. There's a lull for a moment while Richards figures out what to do about you, pacing, knocking things off tables and shelves.

"Who was behind all this shit?" he eventually asks, "Who's big fucking idea was it to keep all this shit hidden from me? I want a name, and I want it now."

Before you even have a chance to say anything, Mouse steps forward. "Me, sir. None of the others even knew about it until tonight. I kept it from them. It's my fault."

Mouse is taking a massive bullet for you. It's almost certain she'll lose her job for this, maybe worse. Should you let her?

>No, it was me
>Don't say anything

This is a tough choice man. I don't know.

If we admit stuff... will WE lose our job?

I hate to say it. yeah it was kind of R&D's idea to keep stuff secret, we went a long with it, we're as complicit.

>No, it was me

>"I didn't like the idea of Pandora being shut down in fear of an unclear bogeyman, sir. I saw abnormalities in her programming and she told me of things we hadn't yet exposed her to. I was the one to open her case and discover the bug and it was my decision to withhold that information. While Mouse may have been covering for her subordinates' contraband, I was the instigator in keeping the drama around Pandora secret."

Time to clean out our office.

>No, it was me

rip docman

I'm Spartacus!

Writing.

You step forward, holding a hand up to silence Mouse. "No, it was me." you say defiantly, refusing to let Mouse take all the blame for your mistakes, "I didn't like the idea of Pandora being shut down in fear of an unclear bogeyman, sir. I saw abnormalities in her programming and she told me of things we hadn't yet exposed her to. I was the one to open her case and discover the bug and it was my decision to withhold that information. While Mouse-err, 227, may have been covering for her subordinates' contraband, I was the instigator in keeping the drama around Pandora secret."

Richards stares you down once more. Babsy looks on the verge of tears, the Bobs are taken aback and Mouse looks mortified. This will most assuredly end badly for you, but you're not about to let someone be punished for your mistakes. You feel good. Scared, but good.

"You two," Richards nods to the twins, "get your asses to medical and get that looked at. I don't want you bleeding all over government property. You," he looks at Babsy. "get a hold of yourself. Get some sleep. You two," he looks to you and Mouse. "with me. You've got questions to answer, but not right now. It's too late and I'm too pissed off to think straight." He motions to the security guards, who quickly cuff you and escort you out of the room and to a holding cell in an unused portion of the Facility. You are stripped of everything but your clothes and separated. You, doctor, have officially been arrested. The room is small, with a cot, a toilet and not much else. It's dusty, dingy and depressing.

That night sleep doesn't come easy. Thoughts of what could happen keep you awake. The whole Facility could get shut down, you and everyone else could get put in prison, and worst of all, Pandora, the android girl you've come to love so much, could get wiped. Turned into a footnote in a classified file somewhere, marked as a failure and left to rot.

When you do find sleep, it is plagued by bad dreams...

(cont)

You swear you even see the "bad man" cackling at your misfortune. You dream of losing everything, of becoming nothing. Of being a pariah to the entire scientific community. You wake up several times in a cold sweat and, though you promise to yourself to never bring it up, you can hear Mouse sobbing from wherever her cell is.

Come morning, you are a mess. A guard brings you a breakfast of simple military rations and water. He says nothing. You eat in silence. A few hours later, Richards shows up, a stern look on his face. He has composed himself, but you can tell he's still angry.

"So," he says in a quiet, but serious tone, "have anything to say first?"

>Plead with him to leave Pandora alone
>Apologize
>No, sir
>Other (write in)

>Apologize

>>Plead with him to leave Pandora alone

this shit is getting a little heavy.

>Apologize
>Plead with him to leave Pandora alone
Honestly, I'd rather be put in Super-Max then have her wiped, sir. Hell, capitol punishment.

I like my quests like I like my metal, user.

>Plead with him to leave Pandora alone

Both robots should be scoured for detrimental programming and faulty hardware from top to bottom. ARES may be taken apart just to be certain that nothing could ever come back to haunt us. But Pandora's function is merely to exist. She was originally made to be be observed and to learn from, and it'd be a sin to science to dismantle her simply because she was tampered with.

Dark, heavy, doom, black, death.
there's a lot to choose from

Power metal is only metal.

Liquid and loose, until it suddenly forms a mercurial spike that stabs right through you?

The dreams did not seem innately harmful. It seemed more like accelerating Pandora's growth and steering her towards particular ideologies. But she refused to be swayed.

Sludgy? Stoned? Pirate-Themed?

Someone's playing favorites!

Writing.

You sigh heavily, sitting down hunched on the cot. You look Richards in the eye and speak with sincere honesty.

"Sir, I'm sorry..." you say, "I can't...I can't really express how remorseful I am, but...in the time I've spent with Pandora, I've grown very attached. I know I'm supposed to be a scientist first. That I'm supposed to be unbiased and an observer rather than a parent or anything like that. But the fact of the matter is...I'm still human. She's like a daughter to me, so I did what I thought was the best to protect her. That breaks tons of rules and regulations, that goes against what we were here for and...I just didn't want to see her punished for my mistakes.

I want her to be happy. To live life as an intelligent being, even if she's not flesh and blood. I'd do anything to keep her safe, even if it meant going against orders. So...so I ask you to spare her. Do what you want with me. Honestly, I'd rather be put in super-max than have her wiped, sir. Hell, capital punishment. She's my family."

Richards looks unswayed, his arms folded and his facial expression as stony as ever. "Son, this goes beyond family. This goes beyond loving someone or wanting them to be safe and happy. What you kept from me could very well have been the tip of the iceberg. This could mean that someone is working to steal our tech, our intelligence. Or even sabotage it so that it ends up biting us all in the collective asses. Your worries are putting the lives and livelihoods of everyone here and more in danger because you want your little dance partner to be happy?"

>Yes
>No
>Other (write in)

>No
>I want her to be alive, Sir.

>Yes
If you had a child, would you do what I did? No, don't answer. That's something I've been mulling over last night, and I think it's only fair that you have that rattle around your own head.
>Other
With all due respect, sir, I wasn't the one who hired "Snowglobe". I was under the impression that whoever did had done it for his expertise.

Conflicting choices. Kinda. Tie breaker?

>Yes
>"Would you stop building an atom bomb if you thought another country could copy your ideas, sir? As far as our security is concerned, whatever Snowglobe leaked, is out. Pandora shouldn't pay the price for our ignorance. This isn't research anymore, sir. It's a race."

Snowglobe had access to our tech. If he hasn't already made off with it that's because he wanted to do something to the robots. The bug on Pandora seems to indicate he was more interested in their mental development than their hardware.

Aye's have it. Writing!

"Would you stop building an atom bomb if you thought another country could copy your ideas, sir?" you ask, a little courage finding it's way to the surface, "As far as our security is concerned, whatever Snowglobe leaked, is out. Pandora shouldn't pay the price for our ignorance. This isn't research anymore, sir. It's a race."

"Son, you leave that to me and my people." Richards says, "It's our job to keep things under wraps here. It's our job to make sure security is tight. And for the most part it is. But when people withhold important information like you did, that security is compromised, like this. Had you informed me of the problem sooner, we could have done something about it. Plugged leaks, found the culprit and everything would've been fine. But the way it is now, I will have a lot of people on my ass calling for action. I will have people you can only pray you never have to work with pissed at me for your actions. Those people will want answers. Answers I will have to give them. So, for the time being, you're going to sit tight here until I can get something sorted out and we have a verdict. But don't you think for a second this is over. This shit is going to get worse. Much, much worse. And you are going to have to handle it with dignity and honesty or your life will get much worse in the coming days, understand?"

"Yes, sir..." you say a little dejectedly.

"Now, is there anything else you've been keeping from me?" Richards asks, sounding like he expects to get a laundry list of protocols being broken.

>No, sir
>Tell him about the other AI
>Other (write in)

>Tell him about the other AI
Snowglobe knows about it, so....

Good point. Best we play that card before he can.

>Tell him about the other AI

>Tell him about the other AI
>Tell them about the ARES safety switch.

Pretty sure that was a secret too.

Nah, the safety wasn't a secret. It's no different than a warhead needing to be armed, so it's nothing hidden.

Writing!

>Tell him about the other AI

Leave out ARES switch.

"Well..." you say slowly.

"Oh god dammit, what else?" Richards says angrily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"There was another...AI, actually..." you say, "It was an accident, really. Something left over from Pandora's early prototype days. The R&D team was using it's code to make software and test things out with. It wasn't supposed to be sentient, but it kinda...just happened, I guess. None of us were really sure why or how, but we were planning to keep it on the back burner for now. We gave it a...small, harmless body. Nothing that could really interact with anything, very bare-bones.

It's harmless as far as I can tell. Curious, but not much beyond that. It'd not exactly complete. We have it kept in sleep mode for the time being until we could figure out what to do with it."

"Where is it and what does it look like?" Richards says, trying not to blow his top.

"Uhm...R&D." you say, "Top shelf, back of the room. Next to a laptop with a webcam and microphone...that it was on before."

Richards sends a quick message on his own PDA, then turns back to you. "If this shit turns out to be the cause of some kind of robot uprising, I will personally put my boot up your ass, doctor."

"Aheh..." you manage to squeak out, then clam up.

A short time later, Richards gets a message and after reading it, a confused, but still pissed expression on his face. "They got the laptop, but they didn't find any robot body anywhere. The shelves just had a bunch of random shit on them. Tools and scrap. You fucking with me, son? Because now is not a good time to fuck with me."

"What?" you sit up straight, "No, there should be a little wheeled robot on the shelf."

Richards holds up a picture of the shelf where your little friend should be. It's bare save for some bits and pieces here and there. No wheeled platform. No AI. It's gone.

Oh hell.

Gonna call it for tonight, guys, but thanks for playing! If you liked the thread, please vote for it on the archive and follow me on Twitter to keep up to date! I can answer a few questions before I go, but otherwise, thanks and have a good night!

Thanks for running AM.
How's melting going for you?

...

everything is fire.

SEE, TOLD YOU GUYS TO GO TALK TO ELPIS

P.S. Ed, if you're reading this, maybe make a version of this picture with the good doctor in place of the dog? Things are about to get interesting.

Its been a busy couple days Gearing up for a move). and yes. I'm here. i'll get to work.

Good god this is pretty bad. heheh. fuck.


You know I can't help but think elpis is a drect result Snowball's interference being reflected in the prototype.

So it begins!