Morbid recreations (open)

[Calvin Strong]

"Not with so many self-determining variables, I know. But god damn it, I should be able to figure something out," he grumbled. Except that he's smarter than me. And we both know it. So... probably I can't. So we're all screwed.

[ASHLIE]

"That means his calculations aren't free from errors either."

[Calvin Strong]

"They don't have to be. He has so many of them. Every step has multiple layers to it... there's what he wants, and what he wants if that fails, and what he wants if that fails, and how he's going to turn it around if that screws up... This guy doesn't think like other people do. It's like a pocket calculator trying to keep up with a supercomputer."

[ASHLIE]

"I am a supercomputer." she, somewhat proudly, reminds him. "Even contingency plans fail. He's safely locked away and I will track down his accomplice and detain her as well."

"You said you were in contact with her. Can you provide me with any more data I could use to try and locate her central processing core?"

[Calvin Strong]

He hesitated. "I... Don't know if I should," he said, not meeting Ashlie's eyes. Not that that probably meant much to an android.

[ASHLIE]

If she notices it certainly doesn't show. "Okay. Let me know if you change your mind. I don't understand your hesitation but I don't understand a lot of decisions people make."

[Calvin Strong]

"I've seen what she does to other AIs she gets access to."

[ASHLIE]

"I don't intend to engage an unknown AI directly. I'm not that kind of program."

[Calvin Strong]

"You wouldn't need to. I've burned through more computers just looking for her without getting close to finding her before she retaliates. And that's just what she does with outside systems."

[ASHLIE]

"This drone is designed as a proxy and is ultimately disposable. All evidence suggests that I have encountered one of her traps before and while devious, she did not reach the Crystal Computer. You may be older and more experienced than me, but I could face her on even footing."

[Calvin Strong]

"I might be older than you, but she's older than both of us combined," Cal pointed out. "I just... I've gotten enough people hurt by her," he said, shifting uncomfortably as he became suddenly interested in one of the other maps.

[ASHLIE]

"What happened at the club and the kidnapping wasn't your fault though." she notes. It might sound like an attempt at comforting him if it didn't come from a computer.

[Calvin Strong]

"I don't know about that," he admitted. "She's... been watching me. I found it out a few weeks ago. So this whole thing could have been as much to get me to come back as it was to amuse her sick research method."

[ASHLIE]

"If that is true then she sounds like a threat that needs to be taken care of. And she seems to have no qualms about abducting other people than you." she says, looking at Cal's reconstruction of the corpse.

[Calvin Strong]

"Yeah, I know. But for some reason she doesn't want to kill me. So I just need to figure out where the next location she has is."

[ASHLIE]

"If she and her accomplice are as sophisticated as you say they are then following the path they lay out for you is not going to accomplish much."

[Calvin Strong]

"Gets me away from people they can use as collateral damage. All I'm doing if I sit and wait is putting crosshairs on everyone else."

[ASHLIE]

"Oh, I understand. You want to sacrifice yourself to spare others the suffering. Very noble."

[Ryan Gabriel]

"I want a shot at her without her having someone to hold over me," Cap clarified.

[ASHLIE]

"My analysis still holds. And how can you take a shot at her if she is only present remotely at those test environments?"