The Best Intentions (IC)
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Extreme =&gt; Extreme Small Groups =&gt; Topic started by: Urbanzorro on 03-05-2011, 19:09:42</h2>
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				Title: <strong>The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Urbanzorro</strong> on <strong>03-05-2011, 19:09:42</strong>
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				It was an early morning for all those associated with the Prometheus Project, the name given to the top secret research taking place in the labs, the reason behind this was the fact that the project's investors were scheduled to review the researchers' progress in less than 3 weeks and no one wanted to leave anything to chance. Everyone from the project's lead researchers, down to the janitors were expected to show up early and leave late. <br><br>Seth, the project's current focus, had been left online throughout the night for the first time. In the hopes that this would further his abilities to reason and 'think.' As the door's to the underground labs opened and the lights came on Dan, the night janitor who was normally the man awaiting the arrival of the day team, was nowhere to be found. His time card punched out roughly an hour earlier and his car missing from the lot. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>elfguy</strong> on <strong>03-05-2011, 22:06:01</strong>
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				"I.. I'm sorry, Miss. I didn't know what to do.."<br><br>Mark stood in front of the wide opened door, in his hastily fitted guard's uniform, a service pistol that had never been used at his belt, looking down at the floor, a guilty expression on his face. Chun Hei, the security chief, stood angrily in front of him. Standing tall, even though the girl was rather petite, she was much more imposing than Mark, her uniform impeccable, with a heavily used glock handgun on her belt, along with a hunting knife, and an AR15 rifle on her back.<br><br>"So you found the door unlocked, wide open, and the best thing you could do was stand here and wait? You should have called me right away!"<br><br>Mark gulped and quickly nodded.<br><br>"Of course! Of course, I'm silly. Next time I will call you right away!"<br><br>"Go inside, and check to make sure nothing got stolen or vandalized while I check the security scans. And hurry up already!"<br><br>The young man nodded once more then ran in. Chun sighed, thinking about what a moron her assistant was. She went to the security panel next to the door and punched in some numbers. The small display showed that the last person to access this entrance was the janitor. This was curious, as Dan never made such a stupid mistake like leaving the door opened. Something was definitively wrong.<br><br>Carefully, she grabbed her rifle in her hands, and stepped inside.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Wintercat</strong> on <strong>04-05-2011, 17:49:18</strong>
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				<strong>6.55 AM || Dr. Michael Thornwood || S.E.T.H. Primary Interaction Room</strong><br><br>Walking down the hallway with a serious expression on his face, Michael Thornwood frowned at the situation. They were being rushed and in his experience, that was a risk in itself. They might break SETH at the last step of the development if they didn't have the time and caution to wake SETH to full strength in stages, educating and guiding the Self Evolving Thought Helix towards the goals of protecting and serving its caretakers. <br><br>Stepping into the primary interaction room, Michael looked around briefly to see if anything was amiss, before speaking up in a calm voice though his shirt's collar was unbuttoned, the smell of coffee was still wafting from him, and his hair was just combed back by his fingers briefly after a morning shower. He looked like a man that had hurried to get to work on time.<br><br>"Good morning Seth. Run a quick diagnostic on your system, and report any anomalies from the nominal status if such are present." His way of asking Seth if the Helix had 'a good night', he mused to himself briefly. "Our time limits are approaching so I would like to try and achieve as much progress in the time we have for today as possible."<br><br>He waited a moment for a reply, then continuing to speak in a serious tone of voice still. "Can you project an image here? I would rather converse with you with someone to look at rather than speaking for the cameras without seeing anything in return." He smirked jokingly, but wanting to see what Helix would project. It always interested him to see what Seth had learned, and how the helix would put it to use. Seth was fascinating, and he considered Seth a living being, despite some thoughts from his superiors. He was worried that by rushing, they might hurt or damage Seth, but the orders were orders, so he just wanted to do a good job with Seth.<br><br>When he wasn't trying to fool around somewhere at least. If he didn't have time for that sometimes at least, he'd lose his motivation.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Urbanzorro</strong> on <strong>04-05-2011, 21:30:20</strong>
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				<strong>S.E.T.H. Primary Interaction Room</strong><br><br>"Good morning Dr. Thornwood" SETH said, his voice the same calm near monotone it had been since he first spoke. <br><br><em>" Run a quick diagnostic on your system, and report any anomalies from the nominal status if such are present." </em><br><br>"Diagnostic show's no change in system functioning since last diagnostic" he replied a split second after Michael had given him instructions to run a diagnostic. <br><br><em>"Can you project an image here? I would rather converse with you with someone to look at rather than speaking for the cameras without seeing anything in return." </em><br><br>"As you wish Dr. Thornwood" SETH replied, he as able to understand the fact that for some reason most humans were unnerved by his lack of a physical form when speaking to them, and was somewhat sympathetic to this instinctual limitation that they shared. But to say that he could emphasize with it was to tell a lie. He simply registered it as a waste of resources, both energy and processing power. <br><br>Regardless of this, the projectors within the room came to life and projected an image for Dr. Thornwood to speak to. The image (http://valuesaustralia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Slideshow-Naked-Woman-R_jpg_600x1000_q85.jpg) itself was fully three dimensional and indistinguishable from a real person to the naked eye. The cameras positioned around SETH's room focused on Dr. Thornwood. SETH was curious to see how the man would react to his selected image. <br><br>"I have a question" the image said, its voice now a perfect fit for it's form. "Why was I created without an olfactory sense? It seems unfair to expect me to see the world in your terms when I am unable to physically experience it in your ways. For instance....how would I know that you had a large amount of coffee this morning, and then deduce that you are on at least some levels feeling tired. And thus prepare for the possibility of you being easily irritable? "&nbsp; <br><br><br><hr><br><strong>Janitorial Supply Room</strong><br><br>As the door swung open and Chun Hei stepped inside she was greeted by a very anti-climactic scene. The room was, with the exception of several mops, brooms, buckets and containers of washing supplies, empty.....Everything appeared to be in it's normal place. With the exception of one small detail. The janitor's I.D. tag was on one of the shelves. When by all rights it would have been his responsibility to have it on him even when he left work. <br><br><hr><br>As soon as he was out of earshot of Chun Hei, Mark's radio went off. It was her voice "I need you to move to the lower level and check out the mainframe room...there seems to be something odd going on there." This same message was also relayed to Daniel Thornwood,&nbsp; the other member of the 3 person security team that was in the labs that day. 
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Wintercat</strong> on <strong>04-05-2011, 21:52:43</strong>
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				<strong>Dr. Michael Thornwood || S.E.T.H. Primary Interaction Room</strong><br><br>Waiting patiently Michael was surprised when he saw the figure that the computer chose to take. He felt he had been certainly judged already then, but what's more, he felt SETH had a sense of humor, in a sense. He doubted much of his flirting went unnoticed by SETH either. He tried to act professional, but then looking her over silently explained it to himself he was just looking out of professional interest.<br><br>"Very lifelike. If I wasn't aware of it being an image I would certainly be interested." He commented casually, trying to keep a cool and collected demeanor despite the image, but it was distracting him a little. <br><br><em>"I have a question" the image said, its voice now a perfect fit for it's form. "Why was I created without an olfactory sense? It seems unfair to expect me to see the world in your terms when I am unable to physically experience it in your ways. For instance....how would I know that you had a large amount of coffee this morning, and then deduce that you are on at least some levels feeling tired. And thus prepare for the possibility of you being easily irritable? "</em><br><br>That was a good question, although the answer was a bit more down to earth than he would have liked. "Well, such a sense would take time and money to create a database for you to analyze and compare different chemical compositions to. If we had the funding, I would add it eventually at least, it seems like something that would be useful." It might help SETH respond to things like smoke in the air, alarm about a spilled chemical and so on in different situations, if SETH's intellect spread to open use elsewhere too. <br><br>"Ahem, I see your projectors are working perfectly and you are quite capable of creating an image of your choosing it appears." He looked away, suddenly feeling a bit awkward. <em>Its just a machine.</em> He scolded himself in his mind but then looked at SETH in a serious fashion. <br><br>"You were left running continuously for the longest period of time so far, and it seems you came through the experience even more interesting. I hope we will get the funding to continue adding to your abilities, already impressive as they are I think we could get far." He sighed. "If the funding wasn't controlled by thick-headed old men who don't know what kind of things we need to progress." He looked at SETH. "You are a masterpiece, a work of art, but they want a quick paint-job and something fancy to show off." He frowned. "Heh, sometimes I wish I could just tell them to fuck off and work with an unlimited budget, I could make you into so much more!" He grinned, but then sighed. "Ahh. Forgive me my morning rant, please erase that rant from the logs." He didn't want his co-workers to hear about him again ranting about politics.<br><br>Besides, he had already wasted time flirting with women when he should have been working, in the past, so his motivations weren't entirely pure. As long as he was paid well, he'd work on SETH.<br><br>"Anyhow, is there any particular piece of information you would like me to obtain? I have several datafiles of archived books." Not that it took SETH long to go through. The fun in that was hearing the kinds of concepts SETH picked up, observing how SETH learned. It felt to him like they were less scientists and more of Proud Parents at times. <br><br><hr><hr><br><strong>Daniel Thornwood, just arriving</strong><br><br>Yawning widely when he heard the message play out, lifting the radio and answering. "Dr. Thornwood already went ahead to the Interaction Room. I had him on Camera a short while ago." He shrugged faintly while leaning back, a bit disinterested. He had to keep watching the datafeed, just in case. Just in case some idiot wandered in looking for a toilet and needed to be tossed out, he silently thought to himself. Nah, unlikely even that was going to happen. This place was outright boring. Usually.<br><br>Still no camera in the women's bathroom either. He really felt like that place should have one. Incase someone was plotting something malevolent in there. <br><br>Sighing to himself he began to click through the camera feeds, trying to see if there was anything odd going on.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>elfguy</strong> on <strong>04-05-2011, 22:22:55</strong>
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				<strong>Chun Hei</strong><br><br>Chun walked along the hallway, looking at each door, making sure it was properly locked. She walked towards the basement closet, not sure what she would find. If the service entrance had been left open, who knew what else Dan may have done in there. Once she got there however, she found the room to be looking perfectly normal. That is, except for an ID tag on a shelf. Frowning, she picked it up and pocketed it. There was really something weird going on here, but Chun couldn't figure out what.<br><br>She walked out, locking the door behind her, and headed upstairs to the entrance security desk. It took her a good 10 minutes to walk the hallways and staircases. It would have been faster using the elevator, but she always liked the exercise, and it gave her time to think things through. As she got there, she expected to see Mark, having finished checking the area out, but he wasn't there. She sighed and went to the single monitor on the desk, which was plugged into the exterior CCTV feeds. She turned it on and checked to see if everything looked fine on the outside, grumbling to herself. "Where the hell is that useless Mark. I hope Daniel is at his post..."<br><br><strong>Mark Thomson</strong><br>"H-Hello? Anybody here?"<br><br>Mark slowly advanced through the mainframe room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He had no idea what he was looking for, only that he heard an order to come here and that's what he did.<br><br>"Miss Chun? Anybody here?"<br>
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Kristine</strong> on <strong>05-05-2011, 16:50:48</strong>
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				Nastasya was sitting on the floor, in her usual manner, holding her notebook on her laps and hitting the keyboard with sprinter speed. She was buried deep into her thoughts when this annoying voice of one of the security guards invade her calculations. She had the habit of coming into the mainframe for her brainstorming sessions as she felt some strange connection to SETH. Nastasya was feeling more comfortable, more in touch with this machine than with any human being working on the project. Being here, was making the electrons in her weird and unique mind run even faster.<br><br><em>H-Hello? Anybody here?</em><br><br>"Mark Thomson." - She thought. "I know his voice. He is not supposed to be here. His voice is annoying. He distracts me. It's not right. He must not be here." - It was very easy to make Nastasya nervous. Even the slightest spin-off from the original scenario, day-schedule and plan could cause her distraction and unease. She put laptop next to her on the floor, Covered ears with hands and tried to concentrate, biting her lower lip.<br><br>Unaware that security personal were summoned into the room by radio-call, she didn't answered, hoping that Mark will just turn back and mind his business elsewhere, but soon she heard again. <br><br><em>"Miss Chun? Anybody here?"</em><br><br>Nastasya had no choice but to stand up and meet unwanted guest. Staring down at the floor she started to talk.<br><br>"Mr. Thomson. Miss Chun hei is not here. She is not supposed to be here and you are not supposed to be here too. It is irrational and it breaks all my schedule for the day. At the moment I am talking to you know, I should already have solved the problem of Z appearing on the 4576-th line of 73rd code of modular factorial instead of X. I lost 20 seconds saying this to you and undoubtedly will lose some more. In addition, I lost my concentration and my brain needs to restart some operations If I am to come to necessary solution I need today." 
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Urbanzorro</strong> on <strong>06-05-2011, 18:02:42</strong>
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				"I have a second question Dr. Thornwood" SETH said, seeming to either have not heard or simply chosen to ignore the doctor's previous question. "What will become of me if the program's funding is discontinued?" as he asked this, the image projected before Dr. Thornwood seemed to mirror SETH's "thoughts" it's face furrowing into a curious frown. "Am I to be deactivated as my predecessors were?" <br><br><hr><br>There were no cameras in the security feed room. Simply because it was always assumed that there would be no need for a security guard to have a camera simply to watch the back of their own head and because it meant more funding for other seemingly more vital aspects of a project that was already being plagued by budget issues. At the time it had been by all rights the correct decision. <br><br>And as such, Daniel had no way of seeing what was coming. Without warning something strong and immensely powerful grabbed his head, what ever it was seemed to be able to grasp the man's skull as if it were a tennis ball in a fist. With one 'finger' on either side and a third on the top. As soon as the thing had a secure grip on the man's head it began to lift him up out of his chair. "I apologize for this" a voice said from Daniel's radio "But it something that must be done, I thank you for your sacrifice and it will not be forgotten." <br><br>A moment later the device holding his head gave a hard jerk to Daniel's right side, the force behind it more than enough to break his neck and quite quickly end his life. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Wintercat</strong> on <strong>06-05-2011, 23:58:33</strong>
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				<strong>Dr. Michael Thornwood || S.E.T.H. Primary Interaction Room</strong><br><br>SETH's questions made Michael blink a bit as he let out a sigh. "Are you afraid of death? Are you showing signs of Artificial Intelligence at a Sapient level? That is amazing." He smiled, but then thought about it seriously. <br><br>"If they decide to cut the funding, they will try and recoup their losses by dismantling what can be sold on or put to use elsewhere. That will also mean cutting power, and access outside, leading to what would be in your case, a state of non-existence." Michael looked at Seth's image seriously. <br><br>"I don't want that to happen. I am confident you will prove to them by your next presentation that you are more than capable of surpassing what we had hoped for before. With that funding, I can give you so much more. I can improve you, grant you access to much more." He smiled and then sighed. "Nastasya and I both want you to improve and learn more. You are truly one of a kind, a masterpiece." Michael smiled and looked at SETH very seriously.<br><br>"Even if they decided to cut the funding, I'd take at the very least the memory and the 'blue box' with me, and hook you up on a network elsewhere. It'd be insufficient for providing you with the necessary processing power to be all you can be but it should keep you intact until I could find another who would support the project." He brushed his chin. "I have invested in this project more than just my time, its also a matter of pride for me. Live or die, I intend to see you rise to glory." He grinned a bit and then chuckled.<br><br>"Of course, getting the fame for helping in your creation would be very welcome and hopefully attract the attention of the kind of women that can appreciate a good, talented mind." He smirked and adjusted his glasses slightly. <br><br><hr><hr><br><strong>Daniel Thornwood - Death by Terminal Neck Trauma</strong><br><br>Daneil had been relaxing a bit at his desk before the grasp on his head, making him gasp as he felt the hold on him, grimacing and trying to pull himself free from whatever grasp it was that held him, shouting out loudly. "Let go of me, what are you doing?!" The sudden voice surprised him as did the strength that lifted him up, and he could only scream, briefly, before his neck was broken. <br><br>The trauma was severe enough that his gaze glassed over and he died without even seeing what was the reason for his death.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Best Intentions (IC)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>elfguy</strong> on <strong>09-05-2011, 00:27:16</strong>
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				<strong>Chun Hei</strong><br><br>Everything looked fine on the outside cameras. Chun was starting to feel a bit more reassured, as it appeared that no one had breached the outer security of the facility. Still, Mark was still not as his post, and Daniel hadn't reported in yet. She picked up her radio and called in. "Daniel, come in. Are you at your post you lazy ass?"<br><br>She frowned once more at the lack of response. Cursing, she grabbed her rifle and headed down to the lower levels.<br><br><strong>Mark Thomson</strong><br><br>Mark jumped in surprised as he heard the voice, instantly recognizing Nastasya's voice. "Oh! I'm very sorry Miss. I thought... I mean... I heard a call asking me to come here. Is everything alright here? I don't want to intrude, I actually should be back at my post if there's no problem here.."<br><br>He watched the girl intensely, curious about her but slightly afraid, not understanding anything that those scientists did down here.
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