FINAL TRIAL

[bathymetric]

Alright, that's enough snooping around for one day. There's a door in the underground tunnels that lets out beyond the vault door, just use that to get to the elevator. One of you has a damn staff keycard now, might as well just have you use it, since apparently I'm down both of my Assistants. The code is 020594.

[ As you head in and punch in the code, the elevator rises up to meet you one last time. And one last time, you take the ride down into the depths, evidence in hand. Something stirs in you - hope? Dread? It's hard to feel nothing at a time like this, don't you think? Even if it's just being really angry at The Professor.

When you reach the bottom, the dome is the same but you find the setup itself changed wildly. There's no sign at all of the original podiums or where they were, just a number of sleek new ones and a box of frosted glass. It stands out in stark contrast to the inky blackness of the sea outside. The lights don't reach out of the dome at all, and within the dome they illuminate the silhouette of a man, sitting at a desk, hands folded in front of him.

The Professor is here. You hope. Do you have any choice but to believe he's here? ]

Take your places, boys and girls. It's not what I think any of us anticipated, but it's time for your final trial. There are several questions I expect you to be able to answer, the largest being, well... tell me where you are and what you're doing here. Though I suspect first you'll want to talk over your... evidence.

[ Welcome to your final trial. ]

Comments

[nothingcanstop]

The answer... Yeah. Yeah, of course- this is an experiment, after all. But, what question could all this be seeking an answer to? Especially if he can just...suppress people's memories to get results?

[bolderfell]

It's something the last run didn't teach him. Either banding together, or... stopping killing, them doing that threw everything off badly enough that he had to start over. Kinda sounds like he doesn't intend to stop with us, either. Something he has to keep doing to find out...

[...]

And there's what he said in that recording Birkin found all those weeks ago. He's trying to "ensure the future" of something. He studies psychology and he teaches crime... There has to be something in the center of all that.

[nothingcanstop]

...Maybe...how to control a group? Because- because his technology, it still didn't...completely wipe things. You guys all remember a bit of Saturday, right? And Angel and Cassandra started remembering things too.

[bolderfell]

Yeah. There's still plenty we don't remember, but...

[He rubs his chin, then says more slowly:]

There's still plenty we don't remember. But... we all woke up in this experiment after "processing" to be at... sort of the same levels. A lot of our group wouldn't know how to thieve, manipulate, or kill, right? Not unless they were taught. What if... we all were, and we just don't remember?

[philoxenia]

Then-- what is the point of this?

[ ..... ]

Is it some sort of test? How much memory does that wipe take? ... The abilities we might have learned, are they the sorts of things you can really just take away completely?

[bolderfell]

...That might be something worth testing.

[nothingcanstop]

[ Don't like that. ]

How long could that kind of thing take? Some of us...I don't know how much missing time I'd notice, but some of you... If it was a year or more, that's the kind of thing that leaves a mark.

[ Hair, height, something like that. ]

[philoxenia]

.... If we're in a virtual space, our-- our appearances here wouldn't necessarily reflect our actual appearances, right?

[mouflon]

...Yeah. Back home, I used a digital avatar that had some pretty significant difference between it and my real body, and I doubt I was the only one doing it.

[fivestagegod]

Processing took a few weeks.

[Just...going to put that out there.]

[nothingcanstop]

Okay. So that's not a long amount of time, not for someone to really learn something.

[bolderfell]

It can be, when a lot's riding on you learning.

[fivestagegod]

The sort of skills he's riding on us learning really aren't the sort of thing you can just pick up with any sort of proficiency in a few weeks, just because you were told to. Even under the threat of death.

[bolderfell]

...Guess not. Took me my whole life so far.

[bolderfell]

Think Angel said we'd been processed for weeks in a different place.

[nothingcanstop]

Weeks. Weeks, that's...okay, a lot more reassuring. Still.

[hardnosed]

That's why Rejuvenators stopped being used.

[ literally what the fuck does that mean and why is it bolded ]

... William found one. It's a weapon that returns any Gem it cuts to exactly how they were at the beginning of their existence. But it didn't actually destroy their memories — it just suppressed them.

[nothingcanstop]

He had something like that, from Gems? Why?

[ Wait- ]

Suppressed them. Like... What would bring their memories back? Say, strong emotions?

[hardnosed]

Emotions and experiences. Things that could remind a defective Gem of why it was she defected — and then make her remember that she did it at all.

We don't have minds in the same way you lot do. [ Didn't. ] Maybe that thing in the blueprints wouldn't have worked on me or her. But a Rejuvenator might have, even an altered one. That's why.

[fivestagegod]

[...]

Well, that's sufficiently horrible.

[hardnosed]

It's archaic. But it's not like they were going to just shatter us every week.