I was finally getting a good understanding of how Dina’s trope actually worked.
I could read all I wanted from the Carousel Atlas, but it wasn't until I started this storyline that it really came together and formed a complete picture in my mind.
We were cut off from the story.
Sure, we were there, and it was possible that some little indication of our existence might end up in the final film, but we were not really characters. We were warm bodies that happened to be in the same vicinity of the story, and I was clueless as to how we were going to fix that without causing bigger problems.
I had some idea of how to direct the action of a storyline when I was a character in one, and even though I was usually a secondary character—or at least I started as one—that was worlds apart from what I was here: a nameless voice over an intercom.
I had to imagine that the isolated nature of this storyline played into how Dina’s rescue manifested.
I could see that Dr. Andrew Hughes, or at least the NPC playing him, as well as Michael Brooks and Lila White, were On-Screen most of the time. That was a problem. As NPCs, they didn't need Off-Screen breaks. This storyline could end up being very quick. Even when we spoke to them, and they went Off-Screen to respond, they didn't stay Off-Screen long.
How were we supposed to make our presence known enough that we could affect the final film? Could we really pull this off from the shadows? I didn’t know.
Lila White was a Wallflower, and the NPC playing her was living up to that name.
Even as Michael and Andrew discussed what they were going to do, she stayed in the back with her arms crossed, looking nervous and disgusted by the bugs around her. She was small and pale and might have made a good Hysteric.
I couldn’t blame her for that part.
I was so glad we didn’t run this storyline as prep.
I couldn’t imagine being in a situation like that myself. There was no way to kill the enemy; they were surrounded, and from the look of the bedbug tropes, I had the feeling the bedbugs were just not going to go away. They had a Plot Armor of 100. Could an enemy like that be defeated in a traditional way? Would it be a waste of time to try?
> "Can you please open the door?" Andrew Hughes asked, trying not to allow his emotion to reach his voice but failing.
>
> "I’m sorry," IBECS said, "but I need an officer’s approval to allow you out of this room."
>
> "None of the officers can awaken! Don't you understand? They're being sedated right now for their own health! Isn't there some protocol for this situation?" Andrew asked.
>
> "While KRSL leads several industries in preparedness and innovation, it is not guaranteed that every situation will be accounted for. This is why it’s imperative to rely on our trained officers and business managers."
>
> "But they are all sedated!" Andrew said.
>
> "Yes," IBECS said, "I am unable to circumvent my protocols on this matter. Let me check to see if I have any wiggle room... Nope. I have sent a message to KRSL headquarters with a comprehensive explanation of the problem and expect to hear a response within three months."
>
> "Three months?" Michael screamed. "Are you kidding me? We're going to be dead in three months! There's no food!"
>
> "That is incorrect," IBECS said. "I am stocked with plenty of nutrition for the whole crew. We even have a live protein incubator on this ship."
>
> What did live protein incubator mean exactly?
>
> "But we can’t get to it unless you let us out of this room," Michael said.
>
> IBECS must have been stumped there because it didn’t answer.
I didn’t know what to do to help with the situation, but one thing that made sense to me was that I had to talk to IBECS and try to understand how it worked. I couldn’t tell if it was just a series of prerecorded messages combined with a bit of old-school tech know-how or if it was genuine artificial intelligence by sci-fi standards.
I sat down in one of the chairs on the flight deck and opened a chat with IBECS. It was easy because all I had to do was think about it and press a button. And unless I just happened to press the right button, it would seem that Carousel didn’t care about the specifics. It was make-believe.
"IBECS, do you know what's going on?" I asked.
"It would appear that most of the employees and private contractors I am carrying have not awoken from their deep sleep chambers due to negative readings on their health monitors," IBECS answered.
He was talking to me and to the NPCs at the same time, two different conversations.
"What is causing the health issue?" I asked as the others gathered around me.
"While your concern for the private contractors and officers aboard my sleeping bays is laudable, I cannot disclose medical information that is deemed private. I hope you understand," IBECS said.
I was prepared for evil artificial intelligence gone rogue, but ultra-bureaucratic artificial intelligence was proving to be far more frustrating.
"There’s something on the floor and covering the sleeping bay. Can you tell me what I am seeing?" I asked.
I could see up on the monitor as the camera zoomed in close enough to make out the individual wriggling bed bugs marching to and fro.
"It would appear that….” He paused. “Excuse me. I have gathered the information that you require," IBECS said, "and I will make sure that Captain Marlin is apprised of it immediately."
There was something strange in his automated voice, almost like a disc skipping, as if he wanted to say something but immediately changed his direction.
"The image on the screen right now," Kimberly said, having found a tie to put her hair up in a ponytail, "what is on that image? Just answer that."
"Those are bedbugs, I believe," IBECS said.
"So you’re infested with bedbugs, right?" Kimberly asked.
"No," IBECS said. "The pre-launch procedures designed by KRSL have been tested as being 100% effective at preventing contamination and infestation of all foreign lifeforms."
We looked at each other in frustration.
"But the image on the screen showing the interior of the sleeping bay shows bedbugs?" Antoine asked.
"Yes, the image is of bedbugs," IBECS responded.
We looked at each other.
"It's like he has some kind of mental block," Cassie said. "He can't acknowledge what's going on."
That made me think of something.
"When you said you sent a message to headquarters, did you mention the bedbugs?" I asked.
IBECS took a while to answer, but then he said, "It is unclear whether you are permitted to know the contents of a message sent to headquarters."
I thought for a moment. "Maybe you should send a similar message to nearby ships in case there are any qualified officers on board who may be able to relay your message more efficiently," I suggested. Does your protocol forbid that?"
For a few moments, IBECS did not say anything.
"My protocol does not directly forbid that. I have sent a mayday beacon with a similar message encoded," IBECS said.
I looked over at Rudy, the captain of the Helios. "Did we get that mayday?"
Rudy looked at the screen and said, "Yes, we did." He clicked something, and an indicator appeared on his screen.
"Open the message," Rudy said.
The Helios' AI voice responded, "This message is for officers ranked A3 or above."
"I am the captain of this ship," Rudy said. "You will open that message. That's an order."
At that, it appeared that the message was opened.
Rudy read through it. "No, he didn’t mention bedbugs," Rudy said. "He just said it was some sort of mysterious malfunction or health problem."
That wasn't useful to us directly, except it did give us insight into IBECS's thinking.
"Okay," I said. "So the first thing we know is that it cares about corporate hierarchy to the letter but not necessarily the spirit of the rules. It could send a message for a high-ranked officer to this ship, and then the captain of this ship could order his ship to read the message, but he couldn't just directly tell us what was in the message."
"Sounds like wonderful design," Isaac said.
"What it sounds like," Antoine said, "is that they put all of their effort into advancing technology and nothing into stopping hackers."
"Well, that would be the 1980s sci-fi movies for you," I said.
"It almost sounds like it just can't admit there are bedbugs," Ramona said. "So that's probably why it didn't do anything about it."
I didn’t know if the programming was that simple. Surely, he wasn’t restricted from fixing problems just because he wasn’t allowed to admit to them. That would be ridiculous.
"IBECS," I said, "what is the procedure for when bedbugs are found aboard the ship in flight?"
"When a commanding officer is made aware of any infestation, such as bedbugs, they will first coordinate with me to develop a plan for addressing the particular needs brought up by the issue. For bedbugs, there are no insecticides aboard the ship, but there are both chemical and alternative methods for dispatching such an infestation."
"Wait," I said, "so your only protocol for dealing with bedbugs assumes that a human officer sees them first?"
"KRSL pre-launch procedures have 100% effectiveness at preventing emergencies like a bedbug infestation."
I started to respond, but Antoine jumped in.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Can you say something negative about KRSL for me? Just give me any criticism of the company."
"KRSL is an exemplary organization," IBECS said. "While year after year of increased profits and market performance are not absolute indicators of corporate health, they do suggest a general trend that KRSL is a rapidly advancing and evolving company."
"That’s not what I asked," Antoine said. "Can you see any news articles about KRSL that are not flattering? Do you have that kind of information?"
"Alas," IBECS said, "corporate sabotage and smear campaigns have touched many great companies, including KRSL. No meaningful accusations of malfeasance have ever been substantiated."
Antoine looked back at us. "It can’t disparage its company," he said. "It literally cannot say something negative or even seem to imply it. Somehow, the pre-launch procedures didn't work, but it won’t acknowledge that because it has to pretend those procedures are 100% effective. It’s practically blind to the bedbugs."
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
That made sense when it came to actually talking to IBECS, but I had to wonder how deeply that behavior was coded. Was it not able to acknowledge problems that it was told could not exist or that would harm KRSL if discussed? That didn't feel like a complete picture.
There was a symphony of errors on that ship. The question was, which errors could we fix?
Bedbugs had a long tradition of hurting corporate pocketbooks in the hospitality industry. It would make sense if they had a similar effect on stock prices in a world where people were shipped off into space.
----------------------------------------
We continued to fiddle with IBECS more, trying to understand precisely how he thought and how he reacted.
Meanwhile, NPCs Andrew, Michael, and Lila were busy trying their own efforts to get out of the large warehouse that comprised the sleeping bay of the ship.
I hadn’t been watching them very closely because it didn’t seem like they were having much success. Based on the gimmick of Dina’s rescue trope, it seemed likely that they could never succeed on their own. The question was, how could we intervene?
The answer was not a happy one.
The Party Phase continued to fly by regardless of what we did or said because the story wasn't about us; it was about the psychological horror that the three NPC surrogates were experiencing.
Most psychological horror of this ilk did not rely on plot beats based on an antagonist's actions but rather on how a situation affected the emotional well-being of its principal characters. Based on that alone, the story flew by, and I was nothing but a fly on the wall watching it.
These NPCs were suffering as the bugs crawled all over. They spasmed and itched and were visibly miserable and jumpy.
I watched them through the monitors, which were kindly giving us a live feed of the surrogates.
> "I don’t understand how bedbugs would have gotten on the ship to begin with," Andrew Hughes said. "The protocols that they had in place were nauseating and repetitious. I don’t understand how anything could have gotten on here; they practically scalded our skin off."
>
> "I’m not surprised at all," Michael said. "That was all for show, the procedures. They were trying to prove to us who's boss and how unimportant we were—treating us like cattle being doused in disinfectant."
>
> "We should never have come here," Lila said. "All those people picketing because of safety concerns—why did we not listen?"
>
> "Don’t go talking like that," Michael said. "We came here for a job, for honest labor. We have nothing to be ashamed of. If those people wanted to work, they would have. The question is, how did bedbugs get here?"
>
> "That’s not the question," Andrew said as he paced around to make sure the bugs didn’t crawl on him. "That question doesn't give us any answers that can help. The question is, how do we get out of this room and get to safety? The longer we wait, the more dire the situation becomes. Spaceships, even with AI, cannot sail indefinitely without human intervention. That is by design."
>
> "You know what I mean," Michael said.
>
> "I do, and I think that whatever the answer is, we’ll never find it. The protocols that they designed were tested against control groups and volunteers. I’ve been thinking a lot about this—the methodology they would have used. I doubt they tested it against people who had some motive to sneak in a child’s stuffed teddy bear or their lover's perfumed coat to keep them warm at night while we're gone in space for nearly ten years. KRSL’s methods were not tested against people who might have a motive to subvert them. And I hate to break this to you, but all the people in these pods, aside from the officers, were not exactly well-trained. They didn't understand why we weren't allowed to bring anything from home; all they understood was that they shouldn’t get caught. Most of the people in this room had never even been to space before. They weren't ready, they weren't cautious, they didn't know the risks or care. They wanted money. We cast our lot in with rats, and we wonder why we got fleas—or in this case, bedbugs."
>
> "Oh, because you’re so much better than the rest of us," Michael said. "You’re above it all."
>
> "I didn’t say that," Andrew replied. "You think I’d be on this ship if I still had my medical license? No, I’m no better than the rest of them, but I know that I’m not the reason that bedbugs got brought on to this human buffet. I followed the rules."
>
> "I’ve been to space before," Michael said. "It was a ground conflict in the Martian colonies... A bad case of lice went through my unit. We were all shaved slick as dolphins. Thought that’d be the worst of it."
>
> He scratched at his face until blood drenched his fingers.
>
> Just watching them itching themselves, wriggling, trying to get some form of relief that never came—I couldn’t help but scratch myself.
>
> I also vowed that if I ever had the opportunity to give my character a background of fighting in a Martian war, I was going to do it.
>
> "So, what are we going to do?" Michael said. "We’re gonna try and break the door?"
>
> "No, no, no, my friend," Andrew said. "You’re being far too literal. We’re just going to break the glass."
>
> I didn’t know what he meant until I watched through one of the camera feeds as he pried open a metal panel on the side of the wall and unveiled a small bright red handle behind a glass pane with a sign above it that read "Fire Alarm."
>
> Break the glass, indeed.
I almost asked IBECS what the procedure was for when someone pulls a fire alarm, but I didn’t because I oddly felt like I would be ratting on the NPCs.
So, instead, I asked Rudy, the captain of our ship.
"It’s not a bad idea," Rudy said. "Fire suppression is critical in a spaceship, as you might imagine. The first thing that will happen is that oxygen will get sucked out of that room—not all of it; it won't be a vacuum, but enough that the fire won’t spread. Then CO2 will get pumped in, assuming they have enough of it in storage. It might be nitrogen. I’m not sure how the sedated passengers will factor in. It’s hard to tell with old ships like that, especially a modular build like that. We don’t know what the procedure is. It might help. It might do nothing."
> Andrew looked at the others and said, "I think you should go into your chambers. We don’t know what’s going to happen."
>
> Michael looked at him and said, "I’m not going anywhere. Pull the lever."
>
> Lila went into the sleeping chamber and quickly pulled the top up, but based on the lights on the side, it never clicked on.
>
> Andrew lifted the glass protective plate and pulled the lever.
>
> And nothing happened.
>
> "What the hell?" Andrew said. He pulled the handle a few more times. "What's going on, IBECS?" he asked.
>
> "You are not authorized to trigger the alarm. Only KRSL employees have access to that function unless I am able to verify the existence of a fire independently."
Andrew dropped to the ground, straight to his knees.
Andrew, Michael, and all of the other non-officers on the ship were private contractors, not employees.
On some level, it made sense that a spaceship would not just let anyone trigger a fire suppression system.
"Can we still talk to them?" Antoine asked.
"I think so," I said, "but I’m not sure if we should when they’re On-Screen."
"We need to start telling them what to do, then," Antoine said. "We’re almost out of the Party Phase, and we need to take charge here."
"Why aren't they doing the obvious thing? Why don't they drag an officer out of his pod and put his eye up against the scanner or something?" Isaac asked.
There was no eye scanner, but his point wasn’t bad.
"Players would do that," I said, "but they’re not players. We need to direct them to do things."
"I say we do that," Isaac said.
"Couldn’t hurt," Antoine added.
Undoubtedly, the first thing players would attempt would be to wake up an officer. Of course, because it was the first thing people would think to do, I doubted it would work. Still, we had to play the game.
So we waited a few moments—long enough for Carousel to get all the shots they needed of the surrogates' depressed reaction to the failed fire alarm stunt.
As soon as they went Off-Screen, Antoine walked up to the console with the red button, pressed it, and said, "You have to wake up one of the officers."
Andrew heard him and asked, "Who is this? Do you have any way of getting the ship to let us out of this room?"
"Do what I said," Antoine said. "You have to wake up one of the officers."
"I don’t know how," Andrew admitted. "Even if we managed to get a chamber open, that doesn’t automatically wake up the person that’s in it, and we might be seen as hostile by IBECS itself for damaging property."
Antoine almost responded again, but then, remembering our team strategies, he gestured for Isaac to speak.
"Maybe being seen as hostile isn't the worst thing," Isaac said. “It might be what it takes to open the door.”
Andrew’s eyes perked up—I could see them even though he wasn't very large on the screen. The realization that he might have to poke the bear seemed to have registered with him.
"Wait," Isaac said. "No, don’t do that—oh, shit."
"Bad idea?" I asked.
He nodded his head. “Not the worst. But not great.
Isaac had Hindsight 20/20 equipped. He could tell his action was not the best one.
But it was too late.
> Michael had found some piece of pipe lying around the room, and before we could say anything, he was back On-Screen, smashing the pipe into one of the deep sleep chambers. It only took a moment for us to realize why that might not have been the best decision. However, I was sure Carousel loved it because the ensuing chaos probably provided some terrifying footage.
>
> As soon as Michael started attacking the chambers, an emergency protocol was initiated, causing red lights to start blaring around the area where he was smashing things—not just the red lights on the chambers themselves, the room lights.
>
> And then the chambers near the incident started to open.
"Ramona, get Cassie out of here!" I said immediately, as soon as I realized what was about to happen.
I didn’t know if Ramona understood why, but she grabbed Cassie and dragged her down the platform and away from the side of the monitor.
Cassie had a trope that allowed her to share pain with others, and she had a bad habit of triggering it unintentionally, or at least without good forethought. I didn’t know if that would happen this time, but I did know that there was undoubtedly about to be a lot of anguish in front of us.
It only took a few moments for the screams to start. But they weren't huge, breathy screams—no, they were choked, miserable screams accompanied by gurgling and coughing.
Then, we saw on the screen just how terrible a little bug can be.
"How would bedbugs do all this?" Isaac asked, suddenly taking things far more seriously than I had ever seen him.
> Because on the screen, arms started to rise out of their chambers, bloody, pulpy messes covered in scabs and bleeding wounds that oozed with pus.
>
> These people weren't just covered in scabs, though; many of them were swollen and misshapen, which didn't make sense to me because I had never associated that kind of injury with bedbugs before. But then, there had probably never been, in the history of our planet, a more severe situation involving bedbugs.
>
> "Stop it!" Andrew said. "It's triggering all of the chambers to open. We have to sedate them again!"
>
> "But I thought that once they were woken up, they wouldn’t be able to go back in," Michael said in horror.
>
> "Not for more than a few hours unless we can get an officer to—" He stopped explaining as his eyes darted around the room. Some of the afflicted were already trying to stumble to their feet; others never actually left their chambers. They couldn’t.
>
> Andrew immediately began examining some of the injured miners. "But how... Oh no. Anemia, infection, allergic reactions," he said. “They were sensitized to the proteins in the bedbugs' saliva and became allergic. We have to get them hooked back up to their chambers now! They need to be on life support.”
>
> As if to punctuate his demand, some of the awakened began seizing, flailing, and if I wasn't mistaken, going into cardiac arrest.
>
> He and Michael began hauling people back to their chambers, though that wasn't particularly difficult as most of them didn't manage to make it far.
>
> "What's wrong with that one?" Michael asked, looking at something we couldn't see.
>
> The person was still inside their chamber.
>
> “They succumbed to infection," Andrew answered.
>
> Michael gave another glance back down.
>
> We watched in horror as they worked to help return every miner in the vicinity to their chambers. Luckily, only those near where Michael was breaking things actually woke up; the others were still sedated. All told, there were probably sixteen miners ejected from their chambers, but their raspy screams filled the room.
>
> It must have smelled bad because Michael would gag on occasion.
>
> "Why did we do that?" he asked. "Why did I do that? I’m sorry. I’m so fucking stupid."
>
> Hey now.
> Luckily, even though Isaac's suggestion that they act hostile had triggered a mass ejection, causing untold suffering to all those who were broken out of sedation, it did bear fruit. Several of those who were woken up were officers working for KRSL.
>
> "Pick one, any one," Michael said as they surveyed the three officers who had been woken from their chambers.
>
> The officers were completely out of it, and while one of them tried to say something unsuccessfully, the other two were still under the effects of sedation or infection or allergic reaction or something. They were scabbed over skeletons cursed with life.
>
> They had them leaned up against one of the chambers.
>
> It was neat that one little suggestion from Isaac—perhaps a little bit too zealous—had set forth an entirely new stream of story.
>
> Perhaps it was a brutal version, but it was interesting nonetheless. With one little nudge, we could change the direction of the narrative, and the NPCs would go along with it because they were scripted to follow our lead. At least, they followed our instructions for things like this.
>
> "Martinez is the healthiest at first glance," Andrew said, "but he's also the lowest ranked."
>
> He was the only one of them who seemed to have a normal-shaped face. The others had strange growths like their skin had gotten thick or swollen to look like elephant skin covered in scabs.
>
> "All I care is that he's high enough ranked to get us out of this room," Michael said.
>
> Andrew nodded. He walked up closer to the character who had the name "Martinez" on his jumpsuit—or whatever it was—and examined him.
>
> "Officer Martinez, this is Dr. Andrew Hughes. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
>
> Officer Martinez did not respond.
>
> "He has to be able to talk, right?" Michael asked.
>
> "To open the door? I think so," Andrew said. "I'm thinking this is the result of prolonged infection as a result of bites and then agitation from the deep sleep chamber as it stimulated his muscles and his blood ran through his slicker. He’s not catatonic, he climbed out of his chamber… but he isn’t responding. Curious."
>
> "Yeah, that's great. Are the other ones alive? Are they brain-dead too?"
>
> Andrew examined Martinez a little further but then moved on to the next one and then the next one.
>
> "Officer Emhoff," Andrew asked the man who was mumbling to himself, "do you understand me?"
>
> Emhoff suddenly snapped out of his stupor, if only enough to make eye contact with Dr. Hughes. He swallowed and wriggled his lips as if he was trying to wet his parched mouth.
>
> "Help," the man rasped.
>
> "I'm going to help you," Dr. Hughes said. "I just need you to tell the computer to open the door to this room."
>
> "Help," Emhoff repeated.
>
> "Does he understand what's going on?" Michael asked.
>
> I noticed that Lila had finally found her way out of her chamber, having missed the terrifying part intentionally.
>
> Andrew had a resigned look on his face.
An idea struck me.
"IBECS, do you see those crew members trying to open the door to the sleeping bay?"
"Yes, they are not authorized," IBECS responded.
"Did you not hear the command from Officer Emhoff to help them?"
"I did not register that as a command to assist in opening the door," IBECS responded.
So he wasn't that stupid, but there was still hope.
"That's incorrect," I said. "Listen again."
As if scripted to do so, Dr. Hughes said again, "I need you to tell the computer to open the door to this room."
And as he had been repeating, Officer Emhoff whispered in a husky tone, "Help."
"See?" I said. "He's telling you to help them."
I was betting that a computer wouldn't be able to pick up on social cues and understand what was going on but would take the literal meaning of the words being spoken.
To my most incredible thrill, my little trick worked because moments later, the door to the large room containing all of the deep sleep chambers popped open with the release of steam and slid out of the way. Afterward, Officer Emhoff leaned over and either passed out or died. Either way, they loaded the officers back in their sleep chambers for life support.
We were learning. Now, what was next?