conflicts of interest
Victor has a polite conversation with his boss. TW for manipulation, implied harm to children, medical experimentation
[SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE TRANSCRIPT] ██/██/████
[FOOTAGE BEGINS]
[Knocking sound]
“Come in.”
[Footsteps]
“Ah! Victor! You needed to see me, correct?”
[A pause for several seconds]
“Correct, ma’am”
[A pause for several seconds]
“...Well, what for? Has there been an issue with the project? You didn’t state it as an emergency, so…”
“I-”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Go ahead, dear. What is it?”
“What we’re doing. The project. It is supposed to be helping them, correct? You told us you found the children outside, and we’re trying to treat the effects of the Recursion on them. Right?”
[A pause for several seconds]
“What we’re doing is for the greater good, Dr Askelson.”
“You didn’t answer my question. The girls. Are they going to be okay, Dahlia?”
“You don’t have clearance to refer to me like that.”
“Are they going to be okay, Dr Miro?”
[A pause for several seconds]
“...You can’t answer me, can you?”
“I doubt you’d understand, Askelson. You’re letting your feelings get ahead of your head again.”
“I wouldn’t call basic morals ‘g-”
“Ah! I see why this is upsetting you.”
“It’s called being a good pers-”
“Let me speak, Askelson. They’re reminding you of somebody, aren’t they?”
[A pause for several seconds]
“Listen to me, Victor. You cannot put your heart ahead of Kismet’s plans. You want us to be able to leave this place before everything collapses, don’t you? You want everybody to be safe and happy in some other dimension far from this one? We lost months in that last blackout. Time is running out.”
“But how is doing- doing whatever you’re doing to them- How is that helping? I don’t understand, we have Penny’s research already why is this necessary?”
“You want to see your children again, don’t you? When everyone is somewhere safer? It’d be far too risky now to head out to go look for them. You’d be able to find little… what was her name? Cercife?”
“Cerise.”
“Right. Do you want to see Cerise again?”
[A pause for several seconds]
“As I’d thought. Now, don’t you have logs to catch up on? I’m sure it’s M-A1’s monitoring time.”
“...”
“Yes, ma’am.”
[FOOTAGE ENDS]