[ Simon notices. only a few feet away when Hank touches the backlit film. His gaze shoots over to the X-rays, but by the time his eyes have focused on them, the change he thought he saw has disappeared. ]
Uh- [ He does that thing where you scrunch up your face and press your thumb and second finger into your eyes like you’re the problem and the issue is that you got 4 hours of sleep last night or something and not that you’re in a soggy psychological torture chamber. Hank’s question floats back up to the surface. ] I don’t know.
[ Simon starts this contemplation cautiously, creeping into the very subject with some kind of wariness. In the world of the WAU’s creations, some were monsters. There had to be Just Monsters. There are only so many parallels he can afford to accept, only so many asterisks he can add to the validity of his own existence before he drops off some kind of precipice into god knows what. ]
Maybe it’s the brain scans that make the difference. The robots with those— the WAU can’t control them. They’re themselves, usually, just... [ He pauses, uncomfortably, trying not to wade into how he was once that delusional, that he maybe still is, being this new entity that thinks he is Simon. That he once looked at himself down here and still saw a human body until he was forced to accept it and thought every robot he encountered who claimed to be human was insane, malfunctioning. ]
Confused. The dead people brought back are like puppets, most of them.
[ Ego aside, it’s unsettling to imagine that there is real pain behind the frozen screams of the gagging, writhing Proxies. And probably nothing else. He’d rather not consider that.
and he concludes, soberly, ] Hope she’s a special case.
no subject
Uh- [ He does that thing where you scrunch up your face and press your thumb and second finger into your eyes like you’re the problem and the issue is that you got 4 hours of sleep last night or something and not that you’re in a soggy psychological torture chamber. Hank’s question floats back up to the surface. ] I don’t know.
[ Simon starts this contemplation cautiously, creeping into the very subject with some kind of wariness. In the world of the WAU’s creations, some were monsters. There had to be Just Monsters. There are only so many parallels he can afford to accept, only so many asterisks he can add to the validity of his own existence before he drops off some kind of precipice into god knows what. ]
Maybe it’s the brain scans that make the difference. The robots with those— the WAU can’t control them. They’re themselves, usually, just... [ He pauses, uncomfortably, trying not to wade into how he was once that delusional, that he maybe still is, being this new entity that thinks he is Simon. That he once looked at himself down here and still saw a human body until he was forced to accept it and thought every robot he encountered who claimed to be human was insane, malfunctioning. ]
Confused. The dead people brought back are like puppets, most of them.
[ Ego aside, it’s unsettling to imagine that there is real pain behind the frozen screams of the gagging, writhing Proxies. And probably nothing else. He’d rather not consider that.
and he concludes, soberly, ] Hope she’s a special case.