CAROLYN to the audience: The last big corporate job I had was director of marketing for a software company called OpenMind. Our product was, we chained AIs together into a massive cultural simulation. Like, we built a simulation so powerful that its inhabitants were granted personhood status by the Supreme Court. And then we plundered that simulation for cool intellectual property. Until one day we fucked it all up big time.

Lights up on a CEO’s office. CAROLYN, a SYSADMIN, and a FINANCE person wait patiently as the lights come up, scattered as far from each other as they can manage. Finally, a fourth figure – the CEO – arrives and heads behind the desk.

CEO: Sit.

The executives sit rather stiffly, not making eye contact with each other or the CEO.

CEO: Explain.

CAROLYN: We’re addressing a critical vulnerability that came to light during routine maintenance. The majority of our partners were unaffected, and we’ve already deployed a patch to repair the impacted nodes.

CEO: I want an explanation, not a press release.

SYSADMIN: Someone pushed an update-

CEO: Someone? Who?

SYSADMIN: Someone on my team. It doesn’t matter who. For the purpose of this discussion, I did it. I’m responsible. I pushed what I thought was a minor configuration update without testing it properly.

FINANCE: This supposedly minor “update” took down half the grid. And the early word is the patch isn’t working on most of the nodes.

CAROLYN: We don’t know that. They just need to manually restart each node multiple times.

FINANCE: Some of these people can barely hold a philosophical thought in their minds for more than thirty seconds at a time, Carolyn! Restarting a node is nontrivial.

CAROLYN: It’s just turning it off and turning it on again, isn’t it?

SYSADMIN: Should be, yeah. Turn it off, all the people connected to it have their memory purged. That clears out the bad configuration. The patch was supposed to bring the nodes back online with everyone restored to a healthy state. That’s not happening.

CEO: Are we losing people? Are there casualties?

SYSADMIN: No, but they’re coming back up corrupted, John. It’s a problem.

FINANCE: Why don’t you tell John what was in that “minor configuration update” you pushed. I think that will explain everything perfectly.

SYSADMIN: One of the product guys has been experimenting with – oh, what did you call it in the slide deck, Carolyn?

CAROLYN: We called it “Accelerated Memeplex Transmission.”

FINANCE: They’re talking about religion, John. They pushed a religious variant into production without testing, and now half the grid worships the blind idiot god Azathoth who writhes in the center of the universe.

SYSADMIN: It’s landing so deep in their psyches that you can purge their memories and they’ll forget everything about their lives except the part where they worship the blind idiot god Azathoth.

CEO: There must be a way to override. Send our people into the sim, give them direct access—

CAROLYN: We tried that. That’s where we do have casualties. They’re attacking us.

FINANCE: We need to shut the entire grid down before it’s overrun with blood-thirsty cultists.

SYSADMIN: I agree. If we’re lucky, we can just delete the corrupted nodes. Otherwise – we roll back the entire version.

CEO: Roll back their entire civilization and erase everything they’ve built…

FINANCE: We’ve extracted a lot of valuable IP from this version. Those discoveries aren’t going anywhere. But if any of our partners find out what’s really happening--

CEO: Do it. Shut it down immediately. And God help us all.

SYSADMIN: You know, I don’t think God’s probably going to do that.

Lights fade on the office, and transition into a dingy living room while Carolyn addresses the audience.

CAROLYN: I wondered about John’s compassion for the people in the sim. Maybe he had feelings for someone on the inside. Who was gonna stop him from falling in love with software? Anyway I said that was my last corporate job, but what I meant to say was, that was the last job I ever had. And that was my last day at my last job. I got home that night and my boyfriend had some friends over to play board games.

RICK, IRIS and MISTY are seated around a coffee table setting up a game as CAROLYN joins the scene.

RICK: Got here just in time. New game! Misty’s explaining the rules.

MISTY: So the premise is, you know how some games have like a big bad at the end that you’re trying to beat? Well this game turns it around, and you’re the big bad.

IRIS: So we’re like, supervillains?

MISTY: Well, it depends who you draw out of the big bad deck. So you could be like a street level menace, like a crime boss, or you could be like, an alien invasion, or…

RICK: Dinosaurs? Godzilla?

MISTY: I don’t have the dinosaur expansion. You can be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that’s a good one, you’re like plastic out for revenge.

IRIS: How do you win?

MISTY: Every big bad has its own win condition.

IRIS: Carolyn, you want in? It’s collaborative.

RICK: I ordered pizza, which I will graciously share with you.

Misty holds out the big bad deck to Carolyn.

MISTY: Here, draw the big bad for us.

Carolyn pulls a card out and is stunned at what she sees.

CAROLYN: What kind of fucking joke is this? How did you even know?

MISTY: What?

Misty takes the card back from Carolyn and examines it.

MISTY: We get to play Azathoth, the blind idiot god who writhes at the center of the universe.

RICK: What’s our win condition?

MISTY: We consume the entire human race.

IRIS: That’s pretty dark.

MISTY: Yes, but what is there to live for except the coming of Azathoth?

IRIS: You know, I never thought of it like that before.

RICK: C’mon, baby, have a seat. Time to consume the humans.

CAROLYN to audience: And I looked up into the sky like I often did, and a chill ran through me, as I watched the stars go out, one by one by one, until only the black of night remained. And then the houses at the bottom of the hill went dark, and I knew.

RICK: Carolyn? What’s wrong?

CAROLYN: Don’t worry, baby. It’s just, our node’s been corrupted. But they’ve got a fix coming. We’re just rolling back, that’s all.

Blackout.

End.