vivarium | THE FINALE - 【 ZERO 】 ESCAPE

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THE FINALE - 【 ZERO 】 ESCAPE

It's been ten days since the so-called "anniversary" on Day 90. Every single trace of a makeshift casino has been cleared out, leaving this suspiciously identical second warehouse empty (and the doors within that lobby locked), and Calhoun has mysteriously stopped dropping by as often as he should have. In the rare times he did drop by, he hemmed and hawed about what was happening and outright avoided answering any questions, shrieking that he's a busy mouse and he shouldn't be harassed by test subjects.

Thus, for nine whole days, not a single particular event has occurred. No Calhoun Hours, Ambidex Games, or even a little announcement. It's not until the morning of the tenth day that something finally transpired.

A loud siren goes off and the sound of a heavy door being slid open echoes from the second warehouse's lobby. Within seconds, however, both nuances cease and silence returns...

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"Yeah, his name's Calhoun. But he's just a robot, or so the theory goes. It's Zero pullin' the strings behind the scenes. Guy in a gas mask and raincoat. Hardly ever shows his face."

"It's too bad you guys couldn't get out, but... how'd you manage it in the first place? Maybe we could give it another try. That is, if Zero ain't as good at patching things up as he says he is."

"He's a robot." Atsuro answered it firmly, as if stating it as a fact. "We... shut him down for a while with a virus. But I don't know how long ago that was."

A fact that's now worrying him. How long were they're out for? Did Zero clean out the virus from Calhoun's system yet? What's going to happen now?

"And about that... we were helped by a robot. A different one. Said he's... against Zero and would help us out, but..." He frowned, clearly unhappy about it. "After we followed his instructions, he left us to drown!"

"I think it's safe to say that all the robots here are either under Zero's control," said Heiji. "Mostly because I can't see him jeopardizing his experiment by letting free agents wander around.

"But can you tell me more about him? And how exactly did you get the virus into Calhoun's system? You can barely sneeze around here without him injecting you with sedative, or worse." In some cases, significantly worse.

"Yeah... still, it's frustrating." That they can't do anything in the end. They're still stuck here.

"As for the virus, you know how Calhoun's a robot, right? The other robot, the one who helped us but betrayed us, gave us a thumb drive with a virus on it." Atsuro explained, thinking back and slowly calming down. Explaining things was easy, it gave him something to do and focus on. "So to get him... one of us called him out and distracted him, until we ambushed him and connect the thumb drive to his port."

Heiji frowned. "If the first robot was workin' for Zero all along, then why give you the thumb drive in the first place? Why let you get so far in shutting the place down? Seems like a pretty roundabout way of jerkin' your chain. Especially since Zero put up that big act about how put out he was by having to show up himself and fix Calhoun."

He put a hand to his chin, thinking. "The robot must have had a cover story, right? Some reason he wanted to help you guys out? What was it?"

"His cover story..." Atsuro thought back to their first meeting and the first time they get any message from someone. Give him a moment to get his thoughts into order. "He offer us a chance to escape, as long we offer our cooperation..."

Then, it slowly sank in. One of their missed opportunities. "We... basically agreed without asking a lot of questions."

They're that desperate to escape. Goddamn.

"W-well, don't feel too bad," said Heiji, since it seemed like Atsuro could possibly be beating himself up over this.

"I mean, it's not like we've been able to get many answers out of Zero, either. Hard to find out anything when one side holds all the cards. I just thought that... I dunno. That maybe the robot you talked to wasn't a part of the big plan, somehow. One of the things Zero told me was that in this big experiment of his, the possibility of failure was very high. 'Course, he coulda been lying through his teeth. But somehow, I don't think he was. He's arrogant as hell, from what I can tell, and types like that ain't really keen on acknowledging failure. Know what I mean?

"So... how about this? Do you think the robot was set to betray you all along? Or is it possible that he really did have some motive other than followin' Zero's orders? Not helping you guys, necessarily, but maybe something like 'screwing up Zero's plans'?"

"Screwing up his plans..." Atsuro paused to think, frowning a little.

"If it's a robot, he shouldn't be able to go against the creator that designed his AI. If it's me, I'd make sure there's a fail-safe for that... So if it wants to screw up Zero's plans, either it's self-learning, Zero designed it on purpose or someone else did it. Like a third party."

Heiji's laugh was just a teeny tiny bit forced. "Well, they sure didn't program the bots in here with the Three Laws, if ya know what I mean. But anyway, I think the idea of a third party makes the most sense so far. Of course, what their motives were for getting mixed up in all this is the real question -- but they sure don't sound like they've got our best interests in mind."

He crossed his arms. "Whoever they are, they'd also need an intimate understanding of how this place works. Zero blows a lot of smoke, but it's true that he's got this place locked up tight. If someone was able to circumvent his security methods, even if he did need a little help from you guys, that's pretty significant. Not to mention he'd have to know enough about Calhoun's systems to write a virus to take him down."

What OS did Calhoun even run...

"I'm thinkin' they're either one impressive investigator or they've got inside knowledge."

Who knows what kind of OS Calhoun used... Atsuro would be interested in it, if they have time.

"I agreed. Personally, I'm leaning towards someone with inside knowledge, since that would be more likely than an outsider figuring out how to get around Zero's security without any help." Difficult, bt not exactly impossible. This possible investigator would have to be very good to get this far. "Going from there, having inside knowledge would mean they're connected to this place or knows someone who do."

He sighed and looked up a bit. "If we have more info, it'd be easier to infer and speculate about this."

"That would mean this person would also probably know why we're here. 'Cause that's one thing Zero's been real tight-lipped about." Personally, that was something that Heiji was interested, after having been here a little while. Why kidnap these people?

Admittedly he'd rather escape than find out what Zero's motivation was, but one might lead to the other. Heiji looked thoughtful. "So you guys have been goin' through your own set of ordeals, right? When'd you wake up? What happened?"

"I agree. I try asking Calhoun about it, but he just yelled and called me stupid." Why, no, he's not bitter about when the rat screamed into his ear. Only just a little.

Atsuro thought for a moment, before he shake his head. "I don't know when we woke up. After the flood, I don't know how long we've been out for. But I can tell you what happened after I woke up. The others in my... group have been here longer than me, so I don't know everything they dealt with."

Atsuro didn't wake up and meet his group on the same 'day'. He met them later.

"So... you just kind of showed up later? Sure, then, whatever you remember'd be helpful." There had been quite a few like that in the warehouse, though most were quickly taken away. Whether the same would happen to this group was the question.

"Alright..." Atsuro take a deep breath and let it out, before he start to think back.

"After I showed up and met the others, we learned that we don't know a lot about this entire situation. I went exploring and that's when I meet the rat--Calhoun, who's just attaching fruit to the trees in this greenhouse." Atsuro pointed over at where the fenced off trees were. Were there even any fruits there? "I started asking him questions. He didn't tell us who's in charge of all of this, but he did say we're here for some kind of experiment."

Which stood out a lot in his mind.

"After that, probably some days later? We get forced into playing a game of Would You Rather. It's basically picking between two things we rather happened to us and vote for it. The choices basically scaled from harmless to outright harming ourselves." He raise a hand over one of his eye. It's basically healed by now, but he can't exactly forget it. "But I did learn that we can make a deal with him when I asked him questions."

He mentioned it, because that's what's going to help with next.

"So after the game ended, we get the message from the robot about escaping. But before we do, we have to stop Calhoun with a virus. We have someone luring him out via asking for a deal and basically ambushed him." His idea, which he's happy that it worked. Too bad they're still here. "After we shut him down, we go back to the robot and helped him shut down the power. It's a bit of work because it's not easy to deal with, almost like solving a puzzle? But we managed it..."

He paused and frowned.

"... Next, we went to a room with tanks, which was where the robot betrayed us and we get flooded in."

Hmm. An interesting story. "We've been through stuff like that Would Ya Rather game, too. Like a game where ya had to vote for who got 'punished', and one where he basically tortured us with stuff we were afraid of."

Heiji looked none too pleased at the memory. He'd been electrocuted more than enough times in the past few months than he cared to in all his life, thank you.

"What kinda deal, though? Like to be an informant or something?"

"Something like that. We can request for something and in exchange, we would do something roughly equal to what we ask for. Even if it means possibly turning against everyone else..."

Which was why Atsuro didn't initially take up the offer. He won't do it unless there's no better choices.

Heiji nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like him. This guy named Simon from our group, I think he took a similar deal... before he disappeared, anyway."

DUN DUN DUN

"...What?" He blinked and stared. "Do you know what kind of deal? And how did he disappear?"

You know, for reference.

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THE FINALE - 【 ZERO 】 ESCAPE

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