Dead End processes that information for a few moments; his navigational routines idly note that the nearest 'tentative path' is still nearly thirty miles away.
"That is even more curious--that date is about 20 years in my past, yet you--or a Hook--have been part of the Constructions all the way up to my present--and still are, as far as I know. You have not been missing, that I know of."
Hook mulls that data over, rolling along silently towards the 'tentative path' that he hopes is a road. He's actually rather glad that the Stunticon is focusing on the circumstances of their arrival rather than the reality of their situation. He did not need the depressive grasping their lack of fuel and supplies until after he had some idea of how to deal with the situation.
"I suppose that option is not inconceivable, considering that we seem to have been flung to a world that isn't Earth without any sign of an actual transport."
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
Dead End ponders some of his favorite reference texts stashed in the back of his auxiliary data storage. They contained all sorts of disturbing, intriguing ideas. Ideas about time and space and life and death.
"Given that you have not been missing for the last twenty years, either you are from an alternate reality where you did disappear, or we will be returned to the same time we left and will for some reason not make a report of it, or..." Dead End seems to be reluctant to voice the last possibility, "you and I are copies of the original Hook and Dead End, and that is why you were not missed."
If I am a copy of Dead End, then my brothers still have the 'real me' to hold the team together--but I'm not 'real'. It does not matter if I survive or not. If I am an 'original', then things are going to get very bad back 'home', and I must survive and get home quickly.
"Since when do you know the slightest bit about temporal physics?" Hook's tone is the faintly contemptuous tone familiar to everyone who has unexpectedly displayed a flash of intelligence that Hook hadn't expected of them.
"While all of those theories are possibilities," the crane allows, as much as it pains him to admit the Stunticon has a point. "There's no way to determine which, if any of them, is correct. Though, I will rule out being a copy."
Because Hook is arbitrary like that.
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
"I don't. I read about it," Dead End says in a faintly surprised tone. "You are correct, though. There is no way to determine which is the truth. I can't even decide which is the most likely." When Dead End says 'most likely', he means 'most likely to result in my deactivation in some messy fashion'.
"Out of curiosity, if we cannot determine which is correct, why do you rule out being a copy?"
"Because if I assume I am a copy, I am less likely to preserve my own life to the fullest. For much the same reason, you do not tell someone that you have backups of their memory and personality waiting in case that they die. They'll too often decide that means they are immortal and can be as reckless as they like while suffering no 'real' consequences."
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
"You have a valid point I had considered myself. To be a copy would make my existence even more pointless than it already is. If I am not a copy... the consequences could be severe. The Stunticons as a team are not stable without my presence; we must find a way to get back where we came from as soon as possible."
Dead End rolls on, his engine grumbling as he follows along the path Hook is smashing through the grass. It would be grumbling a lot more if he had to push through the grass himself.
"That's foolish," he says. "Having a zombie with your memories and personality is hardly the same as being you. One prefers a certain amount of.. continuity. Though large, unexplained interruptions in continuity of consciousness, such as this one, does set one to wondering... What if we're zombies in some alien experiment?"
Last Edit: Apr 15, 2007 22:01:58 GMT -5 by Dead End
Well, of course they have to get back. Hook has a surgery to perform!
Dead End's latest question causes Hook to come to a stop in sheer disbelief that anyone would say something so outlandish. He starts up again shortly, smashing his way through the dull-green grass. Wretched flora full of wretched fauna. Hnh.
For about the fifteenth time in his life, Hook wished he had a flame-thrower.
"If we are the experimental subjects of some sort of xeno-organism, then we shall find them, hunt them down, and kill them. We are Decepticons."
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
Hook doesn't seem interested in solipsism as philosophy. Pity, since their advent into this world raised all kinds of interesting questions. "I must admit, there'd be a lot more point to that. By the way, if you see anything floaty with five faces and tentacles, shoot it. And its friends."
Dead End continues in silence for a while, as if he'd stopped talking, and then says, "Given we are stranded on this unknown world, have you any ideas how we go about obtaining fuel and supplies?"
Generally speaking, Hook assumes that when a person uses a specific word then they mean that specific word and are not misusing the word. Then people go and throw such irritations as "thingy" at him.
Fortunately, Dead End has yet to do that, though the descriptor 'floaty' makes Hook rather wary. Still, he was quite certain that even a Stunticon knew the difference between a 'face' and a 'head'. Interesting.
-And Dead End had finally brought up their current situation. Lovely. Well, at least he didn't have to fret about demoralizing the Stunticon.
"I have several ideas. If this 'tentative path' turns out to be an actual road, I will know which ones might conceivably be worth implementing."
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
Dead End fell silent for quite a while, apparently having nothing he felt worth saying. About an hour after Hook started beating the path through the long grass, they broke rather abruptly out of the grass onto a swath of black metal stretching east and west. Across the road, the tall, gray-green grass once again rose to pampas-grass heights.
Hook transforms and crouches down, pressing his hands against the road. He jerks them back quickly, failing to avoid looking like he'd discovered that the road was hotter than he expected it to be.
"Hmm." He reaches into subspace and pulls out his toolkit. It is a singularly massive box, looking as if it could serve as a fine bunker for something as small as a human. (Yes, it does come up to Hook's knee. It is huge.)
Pressing his thumb against one of the various locks causes it to open, displaying rack upon rack of tools. The smaller racks at the top of the 'kit contain his delicate surgical tools, including his impressive collection of scalpels. Those he brushes aside, and they ratchet up out of his way to present the middle racks of tools.
He pulls out a heavy-duty laser-cutter, the kind used for opening up Guardian-grade armor, then skitters to the edge of the road. It, unfortunately to him, is sunk into the earth, melding at the edges into the grasses of the plain.
"Hmm." Hook activates the laser-cutter and carves out a small half-circle of the road-edge. He is extremely careful not to catch any of the grass with his 'cutter; as much as he might long to set the whole plain on fire, that would create a signal for everyone in the world.
Palming the small piece of black metal, he maneuvers back to his toolkit. The laser-cutter goes back into its slot, but he does not close it up yet.
Instead he studies the piece of road carefully. "Excellent. The technology-level required to mine and refine the individual metals, create an alloy of it, and lay a road that stretches on smoothly for miles, excepting extreme weathering, is more than enough to suit our purposes."
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
Dead End transforms and watches Hook get his sample. To Dead End, the road meant an easier, faster drive if they followed it. And, in his experience, roads generally went somewhere. Not that somewhere or the middle of nowhere really mattered, in the end. They'd still die, probably of fuel starvation, on this alien planet. Still, perhaps they'd find something vaguely interesting.
"Which way are we going, then? There's more plains west, and possibly a branch road going north into the hills that way, or east into the lowlands. There are reflective structures in the lowlands."
"To the structures, of course," Hook answers irritably. "We want to bend already existant infrastructures to our uses, not set fire to the plains."
Hook really needs to get out of the grasses, yes.
Brushing aside more of his tool racks, he draws a smaller box out of the bottom of the toolkit. This one is divided into tiny compartments, almost all of which are empty. Three at the top are full, though, each one holding some small item from Earth. A small LCD underneath each compartment displays the date and notes for each sample.
Hook tucks the road piece inside the fourth compartment along the top, then enters a brief bit of data into the keyboard along the side of the specimen box. He frowns when it prompts him for a date.
"How do I properly label what today is...?"
Reluctantly, he enters Day One, Year Zero.
Engineers can create handy things like sentry guns, health dispensers and teleporters. If you're lucky, he'll tell you where they are. If not, well, he's not there to hold your hand.
Dead End transforms back to car form and turns toward the east. "In that case, I shall scout ahead."
// Radio check. I don't anticipate any problems with radio communications, so if I fail to check in every ten minutes, something has probably killed me. Is there anything in particular I should observe? //
The dark red Stunticon revvs his engine and speeds off eastward, along the black metal road. His tires sing oddly on the metal surface, but it feels good to be moving on a road again. Dead End keeps his speed down to the most fuel-efficient speed for the situation--which for energon-burning Decepticon cars, isn't 55 mph.