Executive Board Meeting 542-23-145C Transcript

(The PDA is heavily damaged. Countless warnings pop up on the screen, but some of the data is readable...) [Executive Board Meeting 542-23-145C Transcript] --------------------------------------------------------------- LOCATION: Company Headquarters at ▓ DATE: 12-04-[fetch.year(): failed] --------------------------------------------------------------- ▓: -you surely realize what we have on our hands here. The Sawians- they… they are our golden ticket! The data we have right now would be enough for a Nobel Prize for every single person in this room! ▓: Yes. That's nine prizes. If we all agreed to donate the cash from those to [▓], we'd end up with roughly fifteen million dollars. A drop in a bucket compared to the financial black hole that is your idiotic project! [▓ rises from his chair.] ▓: IDIOTIC?! IDIOTIC?! WE ARE CREATING LIFE! You are a witness to the infancy of a new intelligent species! Our colleagues would *kill* for such an opportunity mere ten years ago! ▓: Kill? Sure. Pay what you ask? Hell. No. ▓: Is it always money with you? Fine! We are making money! Even our plushie line is more than enough to cover- ▓: Pay more than cash, you cretin! The moment this whole affair ends up on some nosy journalist's desk, we will all pay with our *lives.* Hell, our families will be lynched. Besides, the plushies do not require us to keep your colony of… talking rats alive. ▓: The Sawians are not talking rats! They are a mix of- ▓: OH, EXCUUUSE ME! I meant to say walking tickets to a dematerializer! OUR TICKETS! I am not ending up before the ICC, just because you are a greedy little fu- ▓: Gentlemen. Please. ▓: I- Ah. Apologies ▓. ▓: Doctor ▓. Please make your case. Why are those creatures worth keeping? [Silence. ▓ sits down.] ▓: I mean... There are so many reasons to pick, I- ▓: Then I trust that you will be able to pick the right one. ▓: Uh. Right. Okay. Braingrow! We have Braingrow! ▓: Yes, the commercially available medicine that one can purchase at the corner store. ▓: No. Not this one. I could bash someone's head straight open. Introduce the frontal lobe to a hammer. Corner store Braingrow won't help here. Ours will have the fellow walking and talking within a WEEK. Without such an ample supply of human-like test subjects, we'd need decades to perfect the nanomachines' operational directives. Twice that for testing. ▓: Of course. ▓. Your counterpoint? ▓: Yeah. He's got results. The moment the public finds out just HOW he got them, we are all done for. What are you going to say, [#######]? That the creatures whose likeness we sell to kids exist, and that you enjoy cracking their heads in your spare time? There will be no shifting the blame. We will answer for this; the entire Company will. They'll even lynch our goddamned janitor! [The ▓ nods, watching the two silently for a moment.] ▓: I now understand why you clash with such intensity. It is not in our nature to back down when the truth is on our side. And the truth is… You are both correct. [Silence.] ▓: The Sawians pose a risk that we cannot afford to take. They are also an opportunity that we cannot afford to let go. We have them in our grasp. And we must make sure things remain that way. ▓: But… how, ▓? [▓ smiles, and- ▓ [Meeting summary] -Facility put on lockdown until further notice. -Sawians confined to their cells until further notice. -Employees are forbidden from leaving the grounds until further notice. -Employee contracts extended indefinitely. -Carrying firearms made mandatory for Security personnel -Facility-wide thermal remediation procedures approved and pre-authorized.