March
21st, 2037
1140
Dear
Space Diary
Through
careful conversation and a little luck, Mary has been forgiven for her previous
crime of inadvertently wiping out a factory of clones. Unfortunately she now
stands accused of a completely different crime.
So it’s
not going well.
Despite
her (very loud) threats to the contrary, I don’t think Mary 2.0 can actually
have anyone killed. She’s regrowing pretty fast but is still confined to her
tank, and while she seems to have gained control of the lightdogs (not that
surprising given her clone-in-law), I’m pretty sure they’re actually hard coded
to not be able to harm humans; a very Asimovian move on NASA’s part. Given
their tendency to not do anything they don’t have to, I’m guessing something
went badly wrong during the testing phase. RIP, and all that.
So,
given her threats are all kinds of empty, what they basically boil down to is
Mary 2.0 shouting at us. A lot. This would be more of a concern, except for the
fact that the gel in her tank makes her sound almost entirely hilarious. I’m
waiting outside until she calms down. Mary is still pinned to the wall by the
lightdogs, and so must sit and endure her punishment.
I’m
probably going to pay for that at some point.
1153
…I
think she’s done. Might go inside to check.
“And
another thing!”
Oh,
Mary, shut up. Really. She didn’t trap you in here. Mary rebuilt the facility
to run on automatic. The lightdogs were meant to stop as soon as they ran out
of backup DNA samples.
“So why
didn’t they then?”
Well,
somebody decided to jump off a cliff and provide them with an unlimited supply.
“Oh.”
1155
“Was
that someone me?”
What do
you think?
“I
think you could have told me earlier so I didn’t just spend 20 minutes shouting.”
“Yes, I
think that too.”
I’m
going to pay for that too, aren’t I?
“Yes.”
“Oh
yes.”
1259
Mary’s
been working on shutting down the facility. A few tests have confirmed that
removing the DNA sample will simply mean that no new clones will be created;
all the existing ones will be fine and fully grown. All told there are 74 Mary’s
that have been started, most are nearly complete, all that needs to be done is
to let them out of their tanks.
That’s
a lot of Marys.
“You’re
telling me”
2.0 is
nearly complete too, though apparently it takes longer to regrow than grow so
she’s a little behind the others. Mary thinks she can disengage the case and
just wheel 2.0 out.
“Stop
calling me that, my name is Mary.”
Well I
have to differentiate between you somehow. Otherwise what happens every time I
call out Mary?
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
I rest
my case.
“Sigh.
Ok, fine. But please leave the Mary in there. It’s my name, after all.”
Ok
Mary.
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
Now you’re
doing it to spite me.
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