stevie universe (lovelikeyou) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-09-11 20:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, steven universe: stevie universe, → week 044 (westworld) |
westworld | day five
Then there was Stevie. She’d left home before ever arriving at Derleth. Her training and challenges as a kid regularly took her away from home into some scary situations. Stranded on a random planet? No problem! Locked in a tower? Okay, slight problem, but things tended to turn out okay.
And here? She’d made new friends. She’d found people important to her she’d never have met otherwise. The resets weren’t great but sometimes they were fun. Like Disney World or … LA was okay with the cartoon people, even if the Crying Breakfast Friends hadn’t been born yet.
She just needed to find something to cheer everyone up. Something to make this week special, make sure everyone came away with some good memories.
Stevie decided the answer was pizza. And she needed tomatoes.
She’d traveled south out of Sweetwater in her noble quest, deciding to make a daytrip of it, riding a trusty steed that wasn’t a Crystal Gem shapeshifted into a horse. Still, the entire time, Stevie had talked to the horse as if she were Amethyst.
“I just think the adults are having a harder time adjusting. Like they have a more set idea of what their life is going to be like, and plans, but most of the people my age don’t really know what we want to do for the rest of our lives. I think they might need stability. I think they need us. I’m just worried that even if I do find tomatoes, how many should I even get? I know I’ll have you to help me carry them back, thanks by the way for your help, but this pizza party needs to be really good. Like really good. Especially since I don’t drink.”
Westworld was an intricate theme Park, not some Jurassic Park knock off, no. The experience was very real, even if a human being could not be harmed in the Park by a Host. That wasn't to say they couldn't be harmed or that the danger around them wasn't real. Those bullets were very real, and those Hosts? The only thing holding them back were lines of code.
Ashley Stubbs was very aware of what could be considered a breach in security and the new Reveries code was making everyone in the Mesa very nervous.
The Host he was looking for was on horseback. That should make it easier for him to direct her to where he needed her. He headed south through the tunnels in one of the dune buggies until he reached the closest elevator near her location. It was just a little farther south than she was currently.
It was one of the smaller elevators located inside a boulder. There were thousands of these all over the Parks on the island. While it was critical to keep the atmosphere of the Park for the visitors, it was even more critical that they have a way to reach the guests should something like a broken leg or heat stroke.
Ashley stood out from the other security. He always wore a heavy kevlar vest over his clothes and looked like he was prepared for anything. His loyalty to Robert Ford was unquestionable, and he always believed in the man's desire to do well by his Hosts.
When the small girl arrived on horseback, Ashley pushed off the rock he was leaning against and simply said: Freeze all motor functions..
Both horse and rider stopped.
Which didn’t make sense to Stevie. No one from Derleth had their powers this month. Stevie didn’t even have her gem. It wasn’t the first time it had been missing, nor the second, since joining Derleth. It wasn’t even the first time she’d lost her powers before arriving at Derleth.
But she wasn’t expecting to come across anyone else with abilities.
It was a little creepy. She tried not to assume the worst. Not yet.
What had they said? She was certain there had been magic words, but Stevie couldn’t remember them.
The worst part was, she couldn’t turn her head to look at the speaker. Stevie just sat there on her horse. Even the horse was frozen, so she knew it was some pretty serious magic.
Open her mouth to say hello? Couldn’t do it.
Blink? Nope. Not even on purpose.
Breathe? Not even that.
So she waited.
"Follow me," were the next words, and Stevie dismounted the horse to follow him. He pulled a tablet from his back pocket and unfolded it. With a few taps, a wall in the boulder opened up. Ashley opened the door and gestured for Stevie to go in. Once she did, he stepped in front of her and pressed another button in the elevator.
It descended several floors smoothly. The elevator was large enough to fit a handful of people or a stretcher and one or two people. There was nothing special about it to Ashley; he'd traveled on these elevators for as long as he could remember.
On the lower levels, he directed her to a small room with a chair for her to sit in. Across from it was a stool where Ashley would sit. Once Stevie was in place, the questions started.
"Bring yourself back online. Can you hear me?"
Stevie thought of White Diamond. The way she was able to possess others and puppet them as extensions of herself. She wondered if this was how it felt for Yellow, Blue and the Crystal Gems, being fully aware of what was happening around them without being in control of the wheel.
She walked as she was told, stood in the elevator as she was directed. All without being able to ask what was happening or why. Not until she was seated in a chair, could Stevie be herself.
“Yeah…” she started, testing out the sound of her own voice. “I can hear you.”
Stevie frowned.
“If you just asked, I would have stopped. I don’t understand why you had to go through all this trouble.”
She glanced around the room. It was different from the desert upstairs, from the small town of Sweetwater. It was more like… She couldn’t put the words in place. When she tried to describe the room, the words were there but she couldn’t bring them forward.
“Is there something wrong?”
"Put yourself in Analysis Mode."
Ashley looked at his tablet and frowned. Something wasn't right here, but he was going to have to get to the bottom of it. He wasn't familiar with this Host's ID number or storyline, but there were over two thousand in Westworld alone. That wasn't surprising, especially with Ford moving around narratives every day.
"Do you know where you are, Stevie?"
Stevie’s expression went slack. Any mid gesture was forgotten as her hands returned neatly to her lap and she sat unnaturally still. She no longer seemed to be looking at Stubbs, but right through him as though in a trance.
In a way, she was.
“I’m in a dream,” she said.
Stubbs watched Stevie's face for any changes that shouldn't be. When he was content that all was well, he returned to the tablet and inputted a few notes. This shouldn't take much longer, so long as he got the answers that would put her back top-side. Otherwise, he'd been instructed to put this Host in Cold Storage.
"Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
The question seemed to confuse Stevie.
“No…”
Sometimes she had strange dreams, but that still wasn’t questioning her reality. Dreams were just that, dreams. Occasionally they were extensions of her powers, but that really wasn’t the same thing.
Like now.
This was a pretty weird dream.
But she didn’t question it.
Okay, so that was a check mark in Stevie's favor. Stubbs was having a hard time believing this Host was malfunctioning. Even before he put her in Analysis Mode, she wasn't behaving erratically. All of her personality modifiers seemed to check out as well. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in her file.
"Has anyone around you?"
That made Stevie pause.
“...Confused, maybe. I don’t know. There was a lot going on with the shootout and some people got really scared. I think they’re just stressed.”
That was Stevie, always trying to be helpful. She thought about the question a little more.
“I don’t think so.”
That tracked. The shoot-outs were meant for the guests to enjoy, but the other Hosts would, at the time, remember it as a not so fun moment. Especially when a good chunk of them were killed and sent for repairs to be back out in time for the dinner crowd.
Why would he be sent to look at this Host if nothing was wrong?
"Would you ever lie to us, Stevie?"
“I don’t even know who I’m talking to,” Stevie said. To her that made the answer obvious. Why would she lie to someone she didn’t know?
“I guess, if I’m in a dream, I’m talking to me. Why would I lie to myself?”
She paused thoughtfully, and then decided that tracked.
“I just want to help,” she said.
Stubbs tried not to laugh, but his mind was already making a snarky reply in his head that people lie to themselves most of all. He'd seen in very nearly every person he'd come across at the Park and especially with the people he worked with and for. But the Host wouldn't understand that reply, because when they were in Analysis Mode, they were essentially like children — at their simplest but their most earnest.
"You are helping, Stevie."
Stubbs eyed the configuration while he asked, "Would you ever harm a living thing?"
Stevie looked mildly horrified by the question.
“What! No! Never!”
If only because she was haunted by the time she’d come close to hurting the very people she cared about. Was that really something she was supposed to worry about again? Was her dream trying to tell her something?
He stood up. He was going to need to take this up with Ford. Stubbs couldn't see any reason to bring this host down to run any kind of diagnostics or ask these questions. There wasn't any reason for them to. Then again, he wasn't in coding. Maybe there was something in the coding that wasn't quite right. He'd have to keep an eye on this one.
"Are you ready to get back to helping people?"
Stevie frowned. She wasn’t entirely convinced she was helping. But in her dream, the voice said she was. So it must have been the truth, right?
“Am I going to wake up now?”
Yes, she was ready.
Even if she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do.
"You will. Let's get you outside first, okay?"