Hello!
Hello!
Good day to you too...
My name is Evan. I was recently transferred here, so I'm trying to get to know my colleagues.
My name is Stephen Dawking.
Yes? Speak. What? Are you trying to distract me from work? What do you want?
Responses
Ask about tests
Ask about Carl Zero
Ask about work
Give him the certificate he asked for
Talk about the Suburb
Talk about solving the Suburb's problems
Give him the certificate he asked for
General chat
End conversation
Tell me about personality tests. I don't want to upset the boss...
Oh, they’re fun! Senseless and merciless like an electric shock. Choose the Leader wherever you can if you want to pass them.
Do you have any information about Carl Zero?
About the prototype? Why do you ask?
Weinberg asked me to find out. He’s having some difficulties with the firmware.
I read in the documents that they tested some experimental anti-sleep drug on the prototype.
Did it somehow affect the clones?
I don't know, but the clones have a good resistance to all medication and are great for testing drugs on.
Thanks! I hope this information will be useful.
Stephen, how did you get this job?
Diversity quotas. I have a disability.
Disability?
What, can’t you see it? Ha-ha... It’s a mental disability.
What do you mean?
The blood vessels in my head are shot. Ever heard of an aneurysm? The Ministry of Social Care sets aside a few places for people like me - smart, but weak in the head. This is a welfare state after all, right, Evan?
Of course!
So, in a way, I’m the personification of this state - I have a blood clot in my head, but also a job.
And how is it going?
It could be worse. Though every year I have to go to the bureaucrats and prove to them that a miracle hasn’t happened yet.
What do you mean?
I need a disability certificate to keep this job. By the way, can you help me?
I'll do what I can...
These idiots recently moved the department of information from the Ministry to the other end of the town. On the twelfth floor, no less.
That must be inconvenient!
Inconvenient? Those stairs will be the death of me! Maybe you could go and get the certificate for me? It should only take about half an hour. Or do you not want to help a disabled man?
Responses
Agree
Of course I'll help - it's no problem for me!
I'll give you the address of the Certificates Office. Thank you in advance!
Back
I can't help you right now. Maybe another time.
Yes of course, disabled people live forever after all...
I brought you a quota certificate!
About time! I've already been summoned to the personnel department! Give it here!
They wanted to send you for treatment, but I refused because you didn't ask for it. Maybe I shouldn't have?
Treatment, you say? The way they treat people, I’d rather suffer my whole life!
Thank you, Evan! Did it cost you much? Tell me, I'll pay!
Responses
It cost
Just
Here, take it! The certificate is more important!
It cost
I had to give them a fiver to skip the line.
Well, that's not a godly amount. Although there is no god, otherwise I would not have to collect these papers. Here you go!
I don't need anything
I have a travel card, so I didn't spend a thing.
Of course! One has to enjoy the benefits that the state provides, right?
All hail the Leader!
Of course, of course!
And why do you need these quotas, certificates, bureaucracy? Aren't you eligible for some kind of allowance?
You think I'm here for the money?
What else?
Eh... Okay. You look like a reliable guy...
Have you heard anything about the chemical factory in the suburbs?
The one you’re not supposed to go anywhere near?
That’s the one. I was born in the suburbs. When the factory was built there, they surrounded the entire village with barbed wire so that no one could tell people about all the emissions the factory produced.
That's how I got my aneurysm and disability.
But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise! My disability helped me get this job and now I can get drugs, surgical tools and even transplants!
But why?
People are dying in the suburbs, Evan.
Once a week I bring them cloned organs, medications, and dressings. I perform surgeries. They have no other medicine.
What do you think is better, Evan - recycling unwanted organs in the Shredder or helping people?
I wanted to talk about the Suburbs.
Yes?
Responses
Offer help
Is there any way I can help fix the situation?
Do you have the Novichok antidote?
Who told you?
Can you stop the chemical factory?
No.
Maybe you can convince the boss to send organs to the village officially?
Not likely!
Then how can you help me?
I don't know yet, Stephen, but I’ll try!
Back
Let's talk about it another time.
Stephen, I have good news!
Let me guess... They introduced a tax on socks with holes? Banned rain drops from falling on us from the sky? Do we have to blow our noses in strict accordance with an official timetable?
You’re funny. No, I went to get your certificate and it just so happened that they suddenly got some extra places for treatment. I managed to sign you up! You’re going to get better, Stephen!
Treatment? What treatment? Are you crazy?
Stephen, I thought it would be better that way!
What kind of moron are you, Evan? Who asked you to do this? What am I supposed to do now?
Be happy!
Go to hell! You’ve ruined everything!
Responses
Learn more
Stephen, don’t get so worked up. You have weak blood vessels as it is! What did I ruin?
Do you want the truth? You’ve doomed hundreds of people to their deaths with this piece of paper!
What?! What are you saying? They nearly tore my legs off for this piece of paper and tried to stab me in the eye with a pen.
It would have been better if they had!
This is what I get for helping people!
Say goodbye
This is what I get for helping people! You want to do what's best, and in return...
Go to hell!
Yeah, right... “go to hell!” You’re not a nice person, Stephen. I'd better leave.
Stephen, what if we think of a way to help these people together?
Do you think that just because I have an aneurysm, I can't use my brain? You are very much mistaken!
And what have you come up with?
I have some ideas. But I can’t do it alone.
Responses
Ask about options for helping people in the Suburbs
What are the options?
I see three of them: get the Novichok antidote, arrange official deliveries of organs and medicine, or just shut the factory down somehow.
Responses
Ask about the Novichok antidote
Tell me about Novichok.
It’s a special drug - the latest secret development. It triggers tissue regeneration in all living beings. The effect is colossal! And Novichok was tested on people - Weinberg didn't want to use Carls.
How can we get it?
We need to think! We can’t discuss this with Weinberg - the project is secret. They’d take us in immediately and send us for experiments.
Ask about organs
So, transplants will help?
Yes, but I can’t reach an agreement with the boss. He says that “evolution knows what's best”! To hell with evolution! Evolution didn’t build the factories that are killing the environment and those workers.
Ask about shutting down the factory
Would it help if the factory was shut down?
Probably. I don't really believe in this option, though. I hope we can come to some kind of agreement with the manager. But the people are so afraid to speak that they won’t even band together to speak up as a group.
Back
Suggest a solution to the Suburb problem
Responses
Official organ deliveries
Stephen, I talked to Weinberg about the delivery of unused organs.
Do you think that’s the right decision?
Responses
We have to do something!
I think we have to make the most of this chance! Go see him and start making arrangements.
I need to think some more
Factory closure
Stephen, I talked to some people. They said they can arrange a strike that’ll put the factory out of business.
Do you think that’s the right decision?
Responses
We have to do something!
I think it's worth a try! Here’s the number: 14-061-789. Call them and set everything up.
Well, I'll try!
I need to think some more
Use the Novichok antidote
I thought about it, and I reckon the best thing would be to use the Novichok antidote. You say that it accelerates tissue regeneration - meaning we can cure the sick!
Well, I don't know...
Responses
We have to do something!
But I do! I spoke to Oliver Vertinsky. He’ll help you get the amount of antidote you need. Just contact him.
Thanks for the help, Evan!
I need to think some more
I need to think some more
Back
Back
Responses
Ask about favorite TV show
Discuss Quantum Junk Heap
Discuss Quantum Junk Heap
Discuss Quantum Junk Heap
Ask about family
Do you have a family?
Why do you ask?
That's what people always talk about. Family, weather, work...
Listen, I'm here on special terms and I have a double work quota. So I have no time to talk about family, work, weather and other nonsense.
Talk about clones
Stephen, do you think clones are people?
Clones are clones. Bags of meat for us to put brains into.
But aren't people also bags of meat with brains?
You're smart! But if you feel sorry for the clones, you won't last here long.
Ask about colleagues
Could you tell me about our colleagues?
Who do you want to know about?
Responses
Maria Curie
Tell me about Maria Curie.
What is there to tell? She walks around and babbles. I can't understand a thing she says! They say she was a prominent scientist back in her own country, so our intelligence services stole her. But she has zero value here.
Why?
Like I said, no one can understand what she's mumbling about! And it's impossible to find interpreters in the Ministry.
Horatio Newport
What about Newport?
I’ve never understood these child prodigies! I’ve heard that he has an enormous IQ, but he works like any other idiot!
Isaac Weinberg
What can you tell me about the boss?
What is there to say about him? He’s a brilliant scientist, but like all geniuses, he’s a bit crazy. He adores his clones and tinkers with them constantly in his laboratory. Sometimes I think that they are all he needs.
Back
Ask about this floor
I never thought there’d be a whole floor in the Ministry occupied by clones!
But that is our future!
What do you mean?
These clones will soon replace you, me and everyone else working in the Ministry.
Doesn't that scare you?
I just hope it happens after I’m dead. In the meantime, I just do science, like everyone else here.
Ask about the suburbs
Stephen, how are your charges doing?
Worse than you can imagine! Instead of a holding a strike, those bastards blew up the chemical factory and it closed down.
Isn't that good?
Depends on how you look at it... Now people in the village aren’t just sick - now they don't have any work, either.
They used to have no medicine, and now they have no food. The new tomorrow is better than yesterday, ugh!
Stephen…
And the explosion formed a cloud that covered half the village. When it cleared... It was a terrible sight!
Better than they were! The Ministry opened a hospital in the village that does transplant surgeries for free...
That's wonderful!
Based on lists.
Well, they need to keep records..
And on the annual surgery plan…
Well, they have to somehow foresee everything...
And on your merits for the state.
...
So now people die knowing that the state cares about them.
They are less sick. The Ministry arranged deliveries of the Novichok antidote, which neutralizes the factory's poisons in the body.
Great news!
It’s a good thing I didn't use it!
Why?
Now the residents can’t go beyond the perimeter of the pollution zone. When they do not receive the necessary chemical elements from the outside, the antidote starts taking them from the body and destroys the person in a matter of days.
Wow!
This is our country, son. Get used to it!
I can help them as long as I’m working here!
Is this the chemical factory in the suburbs where there was an accident a few years ago?
The very same! After the accident, people in the nearby buildings started dying in terrible agony, but our beloved state chose to fence off the whole village wait for them all to perish.
Here, in this place, I can get them medicines, surgical tools and transplants!
You steal cloned organs?!
“You steal cloned organs?!” Yes, I do! They’d just go right into the Shredder anyway, and I can use them to save people!
Back
Do you have a favorite TV show? Something about medicine, I bet?
So you assume that just because I have a disability, I must automatically watch something about medicine? I like science fiction. Quantum Junk Heap, for example. I really like it. At least on that show they don’t try to treat hemorrhoids with the Leader's quotations.
I tried watching Quantum Junk Heap and didn't understand a thing!
There are plenty of strange things in the first episode: a synchrophasatron, beams, radiation, the theory of relativity, all that... And I'm not very good at physics...
Well, just ask if there’s anything you want to know! I'm always happy to help. At least I'll have someone to discuss new episodes with!
Stephen, Quantum Junk Heap isn’t that boring after all! If you dig a bit deeper, then everything gets clearer - even to a fool like me!
What did I tell you? Just wait ‘til it gets its claws into you!
But I don't understand: if Kirk Muglas jumped into a time loop, how did he get back on the spaceship again?
Yes, I know exactly what you mean! I even wrote a letter to the show’s creators about this mistake! I’m glad you picked up on that!
Stephen, did you see the new episode of Quantum Junk Heap? What did you think of the part where...
Don’t! No spoilers! I want to see it for myself!
Are you sure?
Absolutely!
Suit yourself.
So you now know the show better than I do? Great! I never thought there’d be two crazies in here!
See you.
I don't have time to talk about this.
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Connections
Achievements
Extended Friendship