Analogue: A Hate Story Part #22 - I'm a horrible monster who'll let you die

Part 22: I'm a horrible monster who'll let you die

And here we are, back at the beginning!

Let's skip ahead a bit.

It's time to be a jerk.

Pardon, pardon. Sorry, I understand. Here's your interface.

Annoying small-talk out of the way, time to start asking *Hyun-ae about things!

Really, that’s just something you need to keep in mind when reading these logs...

It was considered to be the natural way of things.

Oh... Well, I think you're wrong, and that's terrible to think!

Just... well, fine. Why don't you keep reading? You can see for yourself what that really means.

And if you still think that's the way things should be...

...well, then I don't want to talk to you.

Later.

Oh, hm...

Sorry... I'm afraid I don't have anything.

You have to understand something: It's traditional for women's letters to be deleted after being read, so the disk space can be reallocated.

Women weren't really supposed to read or write. Certainly, the nobles did! It's just the idea was that spending time on education got in the way of the important virtues for women, which was serving her husband.

So in practice... even if a woman was literate, she could at least excuse it by destroying her words afterwards. It's less pretentious if at least the writing wasn't permanent.

Really? It certainly doesn't make sense to me. On the contrary, it's horrible and silencing and awful!

But regardless... Kim Yeong-seok's wife was definitely considered a very virtuous woman, so I have none of the letters she received. So I'm sorry... I can't give you anything here.

Then, at the bottom of Block 5.

Oh... hi.

Fine. Sorry. Forget I said anything.

Fine! I give up!

You're... You're impossible. I thought, somehow, you'd be different from all the others... but no, you're just as cruel.

Why? Why do you have to be this way?

I'm through. I refuse to keep talking to you!

There are a number of points along this sequence where *Hyun-ae can get fed up with you. Here's another:

Thanks. I appreciate that. Really, I appreciate that you're here.

I know you've got ulterior motives - what they are, I'm not really sure, but most people do - and that's alright all the same.

I'm glad you're reading these logs, though. Even if you don't really care, it's better than nobody from outside the ship ever seeing them... which is what I thought for sure would happen.

Or am I just being cynical? If so, my apologies!

What, you think she should've just shut up and quit complaining? Be a good little girl and abandon all hopes of having her own life?

Is that what you're saying? She should have just kept her mouth shut?

Fine! I give up!

You're... You're impossible. I thought, somehow, you'd be different from all the others... but no, you're just as cruel.

Why? Why do you have to be this way?

I'm through. I refuse to keep talking to you!

Or, if we want to make her REALLY mad, we have to jump in much later.

BGM: Hyun-ae (Static)

Look, I don't want to scare you here, this isn't your fault, but we have a really big problem.

I'm... sure you've noticed that static on the line, yes? I was wondering what was causing that so I checked, and it's... well... look, don't panic here, please?

But it's a... well... a reactor meltdown in progress.

I'm really sorry. It's... we've been running in low power mode for so long and that was fine, but when you established communications, everything started back up again.

Which should've been fine! Except it's been centuries since the last maintenance job was done, and... I'm not really sure what's wrong. Yet.

I'm not going to lie to you. This is bad. This is really, really bad. I don't know if you're really aware of how this works, but... we're running on nuclear fission.

And, uh, it looks like we've got about twenty minutes before total meltdown. It's already running really, really hot right now. I wish I'd noticed sooner, I'm so sorry!

Uh... well... Please, uh, don't try just it... I... I can't shut it down on my own. A human has to do it.

What?! Don't just... don't just... you can't transfer me over that quickly, if you don't... if you don't help me, I'll die! Permanently!

You can't recover data from the middle of a nuclear explosion... it'll kill me forever! Please, please, don't let me...

What... Why not...

It's possible to shut it down! There's time, it's not that hard! I just need you to help!

You know, it's your fault this is happening! If you never came along, it'd still be in low power mode, it never would have put the extra strain on the reactor...