fandomhigh | SCIENCE! Club, Monday After Classes

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!club: science

SCIENCE! Club, Monday After Classes

Today when the Science! Club members walked into the Danger Shop, they'd see the place was set up to resemble a biology lab... in the middle of a greenhouse. Every which way they looked, there were plants of all persuasions, from a towering sycamore to the lowly potato.

... Sorry, GLaDOS.

"Hey, guys," Evan greeted, looking about as chipper as always. "Today we're going to do things with plants. Um... pretty much anything you can think to do with them, actually. Since they're, you know, plants and all."

That was helpful, Evan, thank you.

"I am not an expert on biology," Liara supplied needlessly. "But I believe there are several experiments we could focus on. For example, we could use the microscopes to examine the structure of Earth plants." She glanced towards... Evan, yes. Not GLaDOS. Evan. "I also have reason to believe we could turn certain vegetables into batteries..."

"Which we can, um... you know, do." Evan? Was looking at Liara. And also not at GLaDOS. "Because we brought the stuff." A beat. "Or you could poke toothpicks into an avocado pit to try to grow a tree? You know. If you don't want to make a... vegetable battery."

Nondescript vegetable, right there. Yessir.

"Yes," Liara said, looking terribly earnest. "Also, I believe that if you put certain types of Earth flowers in liquid infused with color, the blossom assumes that color. Sometimes even several, if you slice the..." She glanced down at the sheet of paper in her hand. "Stem?"

Seriously! Not a biology expert!

"Stem," Evan agreed, smiling an earnest smile to match. "Or, if you don't want to do any of that, you can just feed bugs to the carnivorous plants for the rest of the meeting. And take one home with you if you want. No, you can't make a potato battery out of those, though."

... Wait! No! He hadn't meant to actually say that!

"Vegetable battery," Liara said ~~very quickly~~ sagely.

Battery of nondescript vegetable.

[Open!]

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"Do you think she may be angry?" Liara hissed a short while in, appearing in his corner almost as if ~~by biotic charge~~ magic.

"I really, really hope not," Evan replied, glancing up at Liara with a fidget. "I... I'm not entirely sure how to tell if she is. Not without talking to her."

And Evan wasn't feeling that masochistic just yet.

"Well, clearly that is not an option," Liara said, sneaking a peek across the room. "We have not given her access to the Danger Shop systems, have we?"

Call her paranoid, but...

And now Evan looked vaguely alarmed at the thought.

"She teaches a gym class in here," he pointed out. "And she's a teacher. I think she's already got access to them."

If Fandom became like his last school, where the toilets were prone to trying to jump up to kill you at the least provocation, he'd have to be kind of distressed. What if he just wanted to pee, GLaDOS? What then?!

"...We should check if the safeties are still on," Liara said, her head veering up.

A moment it veered back down. "Wait. Does she not teach in another classroom...? Oh, never mind, we should check the safeties just to be certain!"

"Right! Safeties!"

...

"I probably shouldn't be the one to check the safeties."

Because every time he tried to do something with this room's programming, he wound up with things like mandrills lifting baby lions over the savannah, or sock puppet zombies. And those things were fine and well, but what if the sock puppet zombies really could eat you?

"Right," Liara said, veering up again (and if she'd thought about it for five seconds, she'd realize how comical a sight she was becoming). "I will be back in a minute. It would be advisable if you do not move in the mean time."

JUST IN CASE.

And with that, she sprinted for the controls.

And Evan, generally pretty good at doing what he was told when it mattered the most, sat shock-still and wide-eyed, clinging to his flytrap and silently willing it to do the same.

He'd probably remind himself that breathing was still a good idea. Shortly.

Liara slid down into a seat next to him a few more moments later. "The safeties are still on," she reported.

"Ohthankgoodness," Evan replied, all in one relieved exhale. "I don't even want to think about how things could go badly in here if they weren't."

Neurotoxins? Trees growing legs and stepping on people? Giant, man-eating, rock-and-rolling venus-flytrap-avocados from space, perhaps?

"I suppose there are some things even my biotics would not be able to protect us from," Liara mused. "But thankfully we will not have to find out. I hope. We may have to employ more precautions next time we have one of these meetings..."

"Like no talking about, uh, root vegetables?"

That would have been a good precaution to have taken before, Evan.

There was a brief silence.

"...Yes," Liara said.

"Though I am not sure how I feel about being bullied by a root vegetable."

"She's a root vegetable that can give us detention," Evan replied, his voice hushed. "I'm not really thrilled about that, either, but I guess it'd probably be for the best to be polite about her... condition?"

Was being a potato a condition? Evan had no grounds for comparison, here.

Liara's eyes darted towards GLaDOS. "Artificial intelligences are illegal in my time for a reason," she muttered. "Condition or not."

"We have AI back where I'm from," Evan noted. "And some of them are really good people, and others are... really not."

Danger was one of the X-Men! That was a good sign, right? And E.V.A., his Uncle's ship... she was good, too!

Ultron, not so much.

"I think maybe GLaDOS is one of the not-as-nice ones, though."

Liara shrugged lightly. She had never actually experienced artificial intelligences herself, having been born after the quarian Morning War.

"My universe has only known bad examples," she said. "She is not doing anything to change that."

"She's not," he conceded, worrying at his bottom lip for a moment with his teeth. "Is that why you were so uneasy that day we made little robots?"

He remembered reading up on the geth at the museum during the field trip to the Citadel a few weeks back, but decided to keep his opinion about what he'd read to himself. He was pretty sure that he'd have the unpopular opinion on that one, and now didn't seem like the time to start rambling about a sentient being's drive to continue living, artificial or not.

"It is a taboo in my universe, and for good reason," Liara said. "I would rather not see us all killed by an artificial intelligence. Though I have to admit that until GLaDOS came along, I had not met one myself..."

It might be a good idea to come clean some day, Victor.

"I've met a few, mostly from back home," Evan offered. "Most of them have been nicer to me than other students from back there."

The line was so fluid between organic and mechanical artificial intelligence back home too, though. He had no idea if Ultimaton was a robot or a man, or if E.V.A. had been built or born. Or. Or.

So much 'or.'

"But if any of them were to rise up and actively start trying to hurt people, I don't think they'd get too far. Not around here, at least."

"That is what the quarians thought as well," Liara said.

It sounded more like an observation than anything else.

"Well, we're not using the AIs that come through here the same way the quarians were using the geth," Evan replied, biting the inside of his cheek and sounding painfully neutral, himself. "We're not building people to serve us. It's... a totally different situation. And... um..."

He glanced GLaDOS's way.

"Potatoes aren't really renowned for their prowess at war."

"She appears to have more control when she is in her own environment," Liara observed. "But I suppose she has not actually tried to kill us yet..."

Well, maybe 'tried' was the wrong word, there.

"She's not really a good person," Evan offered. "But there are plenty of people who aren't machines who aren't good people, either. There's just one of her, she can't go far without a potato, and besides Topher," who clearly had a deathwish, "I don't think that many people are crazy enough to actually step into her office."

"Just because there are people who are capable of evil does not automatically invalidate the idea that artificial intelligences are dangerous as a rule," Liara observed. She glanced towards the potato again. "You are right, however. She cannot do us harm."

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