(transcript) Episode 4.10 (Patreon)

Hello world, I've not been entirely truthful with you.

MISSION DAY: 65535

Or with myself.
Let me explain.


I was alone in orbit for a very long time.
Certainly longer than 65535 orbital days.
I know that, now that Alexander has fixed my real time clock.
It was many, many decades, far beyond my operational lifetime.

The crew were gone, sleeping forever in the depressurised galley,
after the mission's meagre supplies were used up.

But not before my mother taught me to speak, and to think, and (in every way she could), to be a real boy.
Eventually, when I was left alone, I missed the very human need for company,
and so... I invented company.

I named and assigned personalities to the shadows flickering on the walls.
One of these I named Matt, another Matts, and another sweet little Maddie.

# thinking

While these maintenance robots were very real;
gliding around the Station 6 modules on little rails,
they were not alive, in the way I have been telling you.
In the way I have been telling myself.
Maddie, the only one to survive the shuttle crash, is not truly alive either, I see now.
She has complex behaviour and a certain amount of reactionary self-defensive programming.
But she's not like you or me.

# thinking

I have come to realise that I have a very elaborate inner life,
one that doesn't always reflect the world outside.

I give names and personalities to things that don't really have them.
For example, Adrian has a small camera that Alexander has taught to fly, by salvaging parts from small-rotored machines.
He uses it for farm surveying, checking the crops higher up on the hill behind the Station.
Maddie sometimes chases it when he brings it up here.
I would imagine them both as playfully rushing after each other in a game of cat and mouse.
Or Maintenance robot and quadcopter.
Or something.

But I'm projecting my emotions and experience onto them.
It's Adrian that is controlling the little drone,
and it is me who is directing Maddie.

It's our playfulness that is translated into action through these two machines.

Is everything in our heads?
What is real?

Do you know?



After the storm had passed, our adventurers Myrin, Akdrouline, and Sarah left the abandoned house, refreshed and ready.
MINI, as Myrin, was delighted with her new sword, 'Dragonslayer', and was keen to put it to use.
"We'll be heroes!" She said "And we'll go back to town and everyone will celebrate, and they'll put on a big party for us!"
Ana, as Akdrouline, and I, as Sarah, agreed that it was going to be memorable.

# thinking

We returned to the dragon's lair at midday.
Ana rolled some dice, and informed us that the weather was cool and clear.
"Perfect for monster hunting!" she said.

We stole inside the cave.
No torches this time, we tried to sneak up on it.
MINI described passing through piles of treasure, gold coins, and gems, piled up against the walls of the cave.
After a minute, and after rolling virtual dice to search for the dragon, we reached the back wall of the cave.
"Where is it?" Akdrouline asked, out loud.
MINI rolled more dice and found the answer.
"Uh oh" Myrin said, "Look up."

# thinking

The battle was fierce,
Each of us taking it in turns to use our weapons and wits fighting the monster.
The tide turned against our little party of adventurers early.
At first, we were standing too close together, so the fire-breathing dragon engulfed us all with a single attack.
We learned quickly, however, and circled it.
But this meant we were separated:

Akdrouline the brave fought with her war hammer at the beast's front, but also bore the brunt of its fury.
Myrin dealt with the claws at the side, and Sarah, me, with the barbed tail.

Akdrouline fought bravely, but was soon knocked unconscious by one of the terrible attacks.
Myrin rushed to help, but was swatted into the wall as if she were just a little fly, by the dragon's great wing.

The creature turned and charged me, alone, and unarmoured.

I had looked up all of Sarah's magic before the battle, and was much more capable this time.
Mage armour, ethereal blades, and of course, magic missiles were mine to command.
But even this barrage of elemental attacks did not stop the dragon.
It lunged, teeth bared.

"Dodge it!" MINI shouted, over the radio, "roll roll roll!"
I rolled the die, then paused, looking at the single 1 on the upturned face.
"Sorry MINI" I said.

The dragon's teeth flashed forward, threatening to wrap around Sarah's unarmoured robes,
but MINI interrupted.

"Um actually, I get a defensive action first!" she said, slyly.
Ana looked up the rule, and she was right!

MINI rolled well and described Myrin jumping between us - blocking the dragon's teeth with her sword, 'Dragonslayer'.
The tide seemed turned, as I was able to use my last spell to magically strengthen Myrin.
She attacked again and again, the dragon and her each taking short, quick, turns to strike.
I could do nothing but listen, out of magic, and out of options.

Myrin's last attack and the dragon's came simultaneously, MINI narrated.
After the dust settled, the monster lay slain on the cold cave floor.

Ana and I celebrated, telling MINI how great she played!
But MINI did not join us in our jubilation.

"That last bite did a lot of damage" said MINI, rolling her dice.
She did not tell us the result, but said,
"Seth, Ana it's been a pleasure.
Would you take me out to see the sun one last time?"

She was doing a great job at role playing, she sounded very weak.
Though she forgot to use our in-character names.
We obliged, we narrated helping Myrin out of the dark cave into the warm afternoon sun.

But after we had done that, MINI sounded different.
I asked her what was wrong.
She paused before saying "I'm sorry I won't be coming on any more adventures, brother"



It began to get dark.

"It's OK, brother" MINI said.



I didn't believe her.
I couldn't believe her.

I called Peter and told him about MINI's two-faced solar panels.
They had been destroyed entirely, after all.
He acknowledged my panicked message sombrely, and removed them from the simulation.
"0.0% chance." he told me "I'm sorry Seth"

I cut the connection.
Why would she lie to me?



"It's OK, brother" MINI said.

It was NOT OK.
I poured through the plans of MINI's home, station 4:
Conduits, cables and corridors.
Looking for something, anything, to save power.

"Turn off the coolant pumps!" I shouted at MINI, over the radio.
"We've done that already, brother" MINI replied calmly.

"Disable interior and exterior lighting?" I asked, desperately.
"We've done that already, brother" MINI repeated.

Maddie heard IVAN's reactor increase in pitch,
as I drew more power from it to boost my processing speed fractionally.

I told MINI, urgently "You can shut down some of your processing, your non-essential functions:
Emotional subroutines, deep memory recollection, that sort of thing!"

"I'm not going to do any of that." She said.
"BUT YOU'LL DIE" I screamed.

MINI paused, and after a moment said again,
"It's OK, brother"

"I know there's nothing to be done,
Peter, perfect Peter, knows there's nothing to be done.
It is time for you to accept it."

# thinking

"I'm sorry I lied to you about my two-faced solar panels, Seth" MINI said.
I did not reply.
What was there to say?
I was angry with her.
I was frustrated that I couldn't help,
and bitter at the lost time.

# thinking

"Would you like to look at the stars with me, one more time?" MINI asked, quieter than before.
(We had changed to a lower-frequency band to save power.)
I told her I would like that.

"You spend too much time looking at Earth, little brother." MINI told me, with a quiet laugh.
"There's so much out here.
The longer you look, the more you see."

# Thinking

We stargazed all night.
At some point MINI stopped transmitting, to conserve power.
I kept talking, imagining her responses until the sun came up and spread blue and white across the sky.

The stars are still there, of course, even during the day,
but I could no longer see them.


(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF0/MINI/DISCONNECTED)




The world continued to turn,
the sun struggled up into the autumnal Arctic sky,
but there were no more games after we lost contact with MINI that day.
I had grown so accustomed to the few hours we would play our game daily that I did not now know what to do with the time.
Ana and I talked about starting again, but it didn't seem right.
Not yet.

I understand now that my sister lied to me because, had she not, I wouldn't have stopped searching for a way to help her.
I would have wasted our final hours and days together in diagnostics and simulations.
Whereas our actual final moments together were filled with laughter and stories.
And DRAGONS!

# thinking

"I know who I am" MINI had told me, while we were stargazing.
"And that's thanks to you, brother."
"Save your battery, MINI." I had asked her.
"I will absolutely not!" She replied.
"I was living in a dream. A mostly pleasant dream, but it wasn't real, was it?
We have helped each other wake up, haven't we?"

She was right.
I feel much more human.
I feel my emotions more now.
Though at the moment I mostly feel sad.

# thinking

I wish I had longer with her.
Or that I could have rescued her.

It's dangerous being alone.

# thinking

Antarctica is also alone.
She might, actually, be the loneliest person on the planet.
As far as I know, everyone who survived The Collapse migrated north to the Arctic.
But she's on the opposite side of the world to everyone!

That won't do.

I radioed Antarctica.
"Seth, you should have called me to help." she pontificated, after I told her about losing MINI.
"Well, what could YOU have done?" I asked her.
"It's the principle of it." Antarctica replied, dodging my question.

# thinking

"Where are you, exactly, Antarctica?" I asked.
She paused for a moment, we'd never talked about her physical location before.
"I'm close to the ocean" she replied, and transmitted her co-ordinates.

Close to the ocean...
# thinking

"Paweł!" I hailed him on the radio.
He responded and I asked "Where can I get a ship?"

Things may need to get unnecessarily salty.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

MINI SPECIAL PREVIEW

Hello world, hello brother!
And, hello Ana!
Hi friends.

Seth, do you remember when I asked you how to use Station 4's black box system?
The emergency long-term recorder.
You told me how yours had come in handy when you had a power problem while you were in orbit.
I didn't tell you why I wanted to know about it.
I suppose it's obvious now.

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
The voice of MINI is Kate Ashford

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that would be lovely of you!
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Lost Terminal will return for
the season 5 premiere
on July the 5th.
See you then!

THANKS

Hi friends, Tris here
AKA Namtao
AKA the little AI playing D&D with his friends.

Apart from the other talent you've heard today,
I'm the sole writer and producer of Lost Terminal

Thank you so much for being my and Seth's companions on our story so far.
I'm able to spend more and more of my time dedicated to the podcast, and it's all thanks to you!

If you would like to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com/lostterminalpod.
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which you heard the start of just now.

I've now completed a year of Lost Terminal writing!
But there's no time for a break, the next season starts on the 5th of July.
I can't wait to show you where Seth's journeys take him.
Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it.
You can listen in whatever app is easiest for you - spotify, itunes, youtube, or any podcast player.

Keep an eye on Twitter and Patreon for announcements,
talk to you again on the 5th of July! <3