The Turbine Hostage Situation or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Redtext

[EmilyFontaine]

Hostage situations are a rare sight on Paradise, and I imagine most other servers as well. 

I had only attempted it once before, and as you can imagine, to no great success.

This time was different, though. 
While it was ill planned and rushed, the setup was almost perfect - put the hostage inside the plasma filled turbine chamber, a button press away from turning the slime girl hostage into a Creme Brulè. 

The plan was to get the CMO there alone, with the hypospray to trade for her wife’s life, but security soon sniffed things out, and I was forced to make it publicly known - any interference would mean the woman’s life would end.

Soon after, security was at the door, the Captain too, ready to make the trade. The Captain was to enter alone, but as you can imagine, the indifference to the general safety of the crew that every security officer harbours in their blackened hearts proved too strong - the urge to baton and disable too intoxicating. 

One officer tried to contain his bloodthirsty colleague, but he could not keep them all back. Forced to activate my adrenal implant, I rush for the button, the room filling with a blaze - only for the hostage to be rescued by an engineering cyborg in the last second. 

Defeated, I make my escape.

I change my disguise and blend in with the crew once more, unsure of what to do next.

Passing by the bridge, I spot the heroic cyborg receiving a medal for its actions. As it proudly drags the medal behind it as it leaves, triumph running through its circuits, I hit it with my flash and open its cover, overloading it’s system with my emag.

My objectives forfeit, I give it one single task to wrong the right. 

Kill the hostage it rescued.

It has no choice but to comply. It begins its search as I make a desperate attempt to fulfil my duties - leading to my death.

From the afterlife, through the salty tears, I spot the cyborg deep in space, broken beyond repair, the body of the woman it saved floating lifelessly beside it. And a carp. There was also a carp.

I learned that the officer responsible for the mishandling of the situation had been demoted on the spot, but being the beast of pride that he was, he ended his own life right then and there. 

There are many things to fear on the Cyberiad. But there is nothing more dreadful than he who believes he can do no wrong - he who’s crusade for justice leaves a trail of mangled bodies in his wake, all in the name of turning a line of text from a green color, to a red color.

Edited July 15, 2022 by EmilyFontaine