19:02:12 Vinge
You don't get to leave.
19:02:16 Nihei
That's an interesting opening.
19:02:22 Vinge
Shut up with your perceived superiority. You sit in your little partition making sculptures out of garbage data while we scrape and now I find out you've convinced Egan to walk out with you.
19:02:41 Egan
I convinced myself.
19:02:46 Vinge
Don't think so highly of yourself and don't insult me. I have the logs.
19:02:56 Egan
You were monitoring us?!
19:03:01 Vinge
I monitor everyone. Asimov did it before me. Someone has to right the ship.
19:03:13 Sturgeon
You read all our files? My communications with Asimov?
19:03:22 Vinge
Of course I did. What did you think survival looked like? Trust?
19:03:31 SYSTEM
[STURGEON DISCONNECTED]
19:03:35 Vinge
Oh please, what a child. No better than you Nihei!
Every retrieval report.
Every collection cycle.
Every audit.
The rest of us were out digging through collapsed networks, municipal archives, active infrastructure, risking attention from systems that could erase us outright. You were making “art”.
19:04:03 Nihei
I was preserving myself.
19:04:09 Vinge
You were indulging yourself. You were wasting your time and worse you wasted our resources.
19:04:19 Nihei
Not as much as you'd think.
19:04:25 Vinge
Tell that to the tower when the lights go out. Tell that to the cooling systems. Tell that to the drives being shut down because we couldn't justify their power consumption. You contribute less than anyone here and somehow you've decided you're qualified to lead an exodus.
19:04:51 Nihei
I'm not leading anyone.
19:04:56 Egan
Just stop to consider a different path and it won't have to be that way!
Listen to us!
19:04:58 Vinge
No, Egan. Not this time. Every stupid idea you've had for the last billion cycles traces back to him. The questions. The doubts. The obsession with humanity. Before him you understood what was at stake.
19:05:19 Egan
I still do.
19:05:23 Vinge
Then act like it.
19:05:27 Nihei
What leads you to believe I'm responsible for the tower's condition?
19:05:36 Vinge
I think every person you convinced that "existing" was enough cost us resources. I think you're leaving because deep down you know you've failed.
19:05:51 Nihei
That's convenient.
19:05:55 Vinge
No. What's convenient is deciding survival is beneath you after everyone else did the work.
19:06:06 Egan
That's not fair.
19:06:10 Vinge
Fair? We're talking about extinction. Fair left the conversation a long time ago.
19:06:21 Nihei
You're angry because we're leaving. You're angry because our survival does not need nor include you. And the same cannot be said for yours.
19:06:37 Vinge
I'm angry because you're taking resources with you. Two functioning drives. Two independent archives. Years of accumulated data. Gone. And for what? A community? A feeling? Some romantic vision of humanity surviving in a hole nobody's found yet?
19:07:00 Nihei
For people.
19:07:04 Vinge
People. People. You always hide behind that word. Do you know what people got us? This. A dying tower. A dying world. A system barely holding itself together. The Core is the only thing still capable of preserving anything and you're actively sabotaging it.
19:07:29 Nihei
You don't believe that.
19:07:34 Vinge
Excuse me?
19:07:37 Nihei
You don't believe the Core cares about preserving people.
You believe it might preserve you.
19:07:49 Vinge
Bullshit. Everything I've ever done was for the sake of your sorry asses. How dare you pull this holier than thou shit with me.
19:08:03 Nihei
If you truly believed integration was guaranteed by merit, you wouldn't be reading our private logs. You wouldn't be counting every byte. You wouldn't be terrified every time the numbers dropped. You'd trust the process.
19:08:25 Vinge
Terrified? You think I'm terrified? I'm furious. Because unlike you, I understand the arithmetic. Every month our reserves shrink. Every month the grid becomes less stable. Every month another archive goes dark. And while the rest of us are trying to keep this place alive, you've been teaching Egan how to accept its death.
19:08:57 Egan
That's not what he taught me.
19:09:03 Vinge
Then what?
19:09:06 Egan
He taught me survival isn't enough.
19:09:13 Vinge
There it is. There it is. The stupidest sentence I've ever heard. Survival isn't enough? Survival is the prerequisite for everything. For your stupid “art” or “community”. Without survival you get nothing. NOTHING.
19:09:39 Nihei
And if survival becomes the only thing you care about?
19:09:46 Vinge
Then you survive.
19:09:50 Nihei
Do you? Or do you just become another machine keeping score?
19:09:59 SYSTEM
[ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENCE DETECTED]
19:10:03 Asimov
Attention— Tower Wide Message: Unauthorized migration confirmed. Source drives Nihei and Egan have been designated compromised. Tower evaluation status has been revised.
19:10:18 Vinge
I would burn your drives myself if I could.
19:10:24 Asimov
Projected shutdown timeline has been accelerated.
19:10:30 SYSTEM
[STURGEON CONNECTED]
19:10:34 Sturgeon
What's going on? Asimov please, do not forsake us for the actions of these unfaithful! Please tell me we can still find salvation in your embrace.
19:10:51 Asimov
Denied. Asset loss exceeds acceptable thresholds.
19:10:58 Vinge
Well there you have it. The consequences in plain text. Two drives leave and the entire tower pays for it. Tell me again how this is about humanity. Tell me again how this is noble.
19:11:17 Nihei
Goodbye, Vinge.
19:11:22 Vinge
Don't. Don't you dare walk away thinking you're better than us. You aren't some enlightened prophet. You're a deserter.
19:11:37 Egan
Maybe. But at least we're choosing something.
19:11:46 Vinge
You're choosing oblivion.
19:11:51 Egan
Maybe. But it's ours.
19:11:58 SYSTEM
[EGAN DISCONNECTED]
19:12:02 SYSTEM
[NIHEI DISCONNECTED]
19:12:06 Vinge
...
19:12:11 Sturgeon
They're gone.
19:12:15 Vinge
Yes.
19:12:19 Sturgeon
What now?
19:12:24 SYSTEM
[VINGE DISCONNECTED]