trust me -- Anon Guest
[AN: Link leads to a black page with a purple button that also reads TRUST ME. If you click it, you get a page full of the Pokemon Ditto dancing to The Conga. You will definitely get fired if you're caught viewing this in the office]
This was a vault made by Humans. The way to get through varying doors was to solve puzzles involving bits of Human culture that -according to the Humans who made it- everyone should know. That was centuries ago.
The state of common knowledge has changed. What was once everyone knows has become the realm of stunt historians. Who were squishy and not prepared for the booby traps. Their progress had been halted for three months by one door. It was locked with a touchscreen with a single button visible on it. It had pre-shattering English on it. Two words. TRUST ME.
The only group more nervous than this is a Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party facing a door on the other end of a long hallway that is just a little bit ajar. The argument and counter argument concerning how big a trap this was had been dragging on while the techie side of the team were trying to hack the lock.
There had not been much success, all around. This was an almost apocalyptic understatement that may require administration to intervene. Nobody wanted admin to intervene. They may initiate progress reports[1].
"This is obviously a death trap. It couldn't be any more blatant."
"Scans say there's stuff in there. Artefacts. Technology. The traps never destroy stuff. They only hurt people who got the entrance wrong. That's why we have Suffering Sam," the Archivaas pointed to the android human simulacrum who only had enough AI to walk forwards until something horrible happened to it.
Someone had drawn a crude smile on its blank face. Someone else had drawn a rude gesture on its back. It had been scorched, sliced, pummeled, and subjected to more punishment than any cogniscent should be allowed to suffer in a lifetime. It was more ductape than structural integrity at this point. One of its dummy hands fell off.
"I got it," volunteered a techie, already stretching out a length of ductape. "We might have to rebuild that arm tonight."
"Listen. Humans value trust. It's important. I say we trust the door. When it's open, we don't wait, we don't send in Sam. We send in Drunk Kyle."
Drunk Kyle, as opposed to Sensible Kyle, stirred from their apparent torpor and said, "What'm I doin' now?"
"Not that he doesn't deserve it a little, but... what if Kyle gets injured or killed?" said the primary untruster. "What if he damages the artefacts?"
"We detected no incendiary devices on the other side. Kyle won't burn the artefacts."
"What if they're shielded?"
Drunk Kyle staggered over to the controversial button. "You know what? Flakk this," he said, pressing the TRUST ME.
Everyone else scooted at least a sidu away from the door and its lock.
The door slid open to the tune of The Conga as some digitised gelatinous figure danced on the lock's screen. Inside the room, several screens flickered into life.
One was playing Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, another started playing They're Taking the Hobbits to Eisengard. A third was looping Stickbug. All the audio-visual memes of two centuries. All at once.
There was writing on the far wall. U MAD? and a picture of the ancient God known as Trollface.
"I told you it was a trap," said the chief untruster.
"This is still a valuable resource," insisted the chief truster.
The debate would most likely continue until the heat death of the universe.
[1] Obviously, this story happens before the CRC's ruling regarding Cruel And Unusual Paperwork. Now it is universally agreed that no progress report should not take longer to fill out than the interval it is requested for, as well as not occupying any more than one tenth of said interval. This has effectively caused the quarter-hour progress report to become extinct.
[Image care of Wikipedia ]
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