Galatea (video game)

"So the tides disappoint you?" you ask. "Disappoint? Who am I to be disappointed?" She shrugs, laughing a little dryly. "They're only one of a million things about which I was wrong. So? The world is larger and less pretty than I thought. But I have no right to complain about what is.""

"She turns -- not her whole body, just her head, so that you can see one ear behind the cascade of hair. "What's so fascinating about the curtain that it merits your fixed attention?" She laughs; turns a bit towards you; seems to relax a shade. "Nothing," she says, "except that it presents no surprises." You raise an eyebrow. Processing humor in an apparently spontaneous manner is a rarity."

"Heat floods you. She shouldn’t be able to do that, shouldn’t touch the audience without permission, certainly shouldn’t inflict pain or injury. Broken. Spluttering, you speak an old reset code — EUDOXIA — but she doesn’t respond. Other than with a positively ghoulish smile. It’s going to take a couple of shots of something strong to keep nightmares out of your head tonight."

"[after suggesting she remove her dress] She puts a hand on your shoulder, leans down, and whispers in your ear: “It’s sewn on. But if you know of someplace quiet where there’s a pair of scissors...” Which just goes to show, you never can tell."

"Hey,” you say. “Trade you places.” Her eyes meet yours briefly. “What?” she asks, startled. “Come on, get down. You can wander around. Talk to people. Look at things.” She just looks at you speculatively, her forehead creased. “Very well,” she says finally. She steps down, and you climb up in her place — first hanging your jacket strategically over the placard. Which is how it comes about that you spend the rest of the night sitting on the pedestal. It’s rather amusing, in fact; your long familiarity with animate behavior styles makes it easy to emulate one. Of course you are a bit piqued by your reviews: “Supplied only with esoteric data... personable in a self-deprecating way, but unexciting... breaking no important barriers in the development of more human-like animates.” Damn critics. From the same source, you read that the gallery hired a new assistant. In the photo she’s looking severely at the camera, her pure-blonde hair taken up in a French twist. It’s already occupied, and there’s certainly no room for two. Interesting statement though that might make."

"“Bored so soon?” she asks, in a flat voice. You turn and look at her one last time. “I have other things to do,” you say. “And even your creator would admit that you’re — shall we say a bit rough around the edges?”"

"Io, Bacchus!” she shouts, so loudly that the sound echoes off the walls. What happens next comes all at once. There is a tremor in the floor like the beating of drums. The air conditioner rattles, the vent disgorges dozens of emerald snakes. The curtain becomes a tangle of vines. A man steps through them, a young man, with curling blond hair and a smooth face, carrying a strange rod with a pine cone at the end. When he sees you, he smiles — a sweet menacing smile that makes you take a step back. His attention turns to her. He taps her with the end of the wand, and the stiffness and the posed quality leave her. She follows him. Called to, she does not turn around. The vines part. She is gone. “What have you done to her?” you demand. “Set her free. I could do the same for you. If you like.” You stare at the vegetation, embarrassed — by your sudden longing to follow Galatea, by your doubts, by your inability to understand what the god is offering you. “Choose, but choose now,” he says. “Yes or no?” “Yes.” For half a moment it flashes before you what you have to lose — your life, your sanity, your position — and then in the darkness, drums and flutes on the ground honey and a sweet flow of wine and all around dancers, hands and eyes"

"You’re an avatar, you’ve got someone controlling you in realtime!” The reply, when it comes, is not from Galatea. The velvet curtain moves violently; tiny gold tacks shower out of the wall; half the backdrop wrenches free, thanks to the opening of a door beyond. “Hi,” says the newcomer. “Behold the Great and Powerful Oz,” she adds under her breath. “What?” You stare down at her: she’s rather short, a little on the dumpy side, and dressed in a ripped pair of blue jeans. An unlikely source for that performance you just observed. She cocks her head to one side. “Sorry to disappoint, “ she says with a smile. “It was an experiment that — well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was curious what people would say. Hope you don’t take it personally.” You glance at Galatea — lifeless now that her controls have been switched off — and then back at the artist. “You could start by telling me your real name.”"

"She falls silent and thoughtful, and then after a moment she goes on to other anecdotes: plotless, rambling, visions rather than events. And you have a sense of overwhelming strangeness — most of all when she speaks of places that are familiar to you, of Pygmalion’s adventures in your own country. Everything was a portent or an omen to him. The effect stays with you for days, for weeks. Things catch your eye. Windows watch you, doors fly open of their own accord, trash arranges itself into inscrutable sigils. Winds trouble you. Trees stretch and touch your shoulder as you pass, but when you turn your head, they have nothing to say. And night by night you wake, tangled, with the moon on your face."

"As you talk, she sinks to sit on the pedestal, her skirts billowing around her. She only says enough to let you know that she’s still listening. You find yourself pouring out all your losses, disappointments, frustrations. And last and deepest, that sense of isolation that has never left you since Jenny died. By the end of the evening you feel as though you’ve been through a wringer, and at the same time strangely healed. (Someone should write a psychologist program for animates. It would make millions.)"

"“Okay,” she says. “Where’s some food? You have any?” “What? No, not — not with me. There’s some in the other room, if you like.” “Excellent.” Bemused, you follow her into the other room, where (disregarding the stares of everyone around her) she helps herself to two handfuls of crackers, a whole wedge of Stilton, and enough caviar to recolonize the Dead Sea. Her bravado wears off a little when it comes to actually eating the stuff, and she carries her plate back into the other room and sits consciously on the pedestal. “So what do I do?” “Take something, put it in your mouth. Chew. Swallow.” She still looks confused, so you fix up one of the crackers. “The Stilton’s a bit of an acquired taste—” But she seems to be choking, so you skip the monologue and hand her the bottled water you had the prescience to pick up. “You okay?” She swallows, with difficulty; looks at you teary-eyed; and says, “This is AMAZING.” “Welcome to humanity,” you say."

"“Well, she sounds like a harmless and pleasant sort.” She turns so that she is looking at you straight on — level gaze, smoky eyes, brows pale and washed out in the light. Not her most beautiful angle, which might be why she avoids it. “Pleasant and harmless,” she repeats in a dull voice. “She’s the one who sent Helen to Troy; she’s the one who made Zeus chase after all sorts of mortal women, to their disadvantage and Hera’s fury. If it weren’t for her and her tricks and her cruelty—” She pauses, her eyes flickering up to something behind you. You turn. “It is unwise,” says the newcomer, “to rail against the gods. Especially against those who have done you favors.” She walks toward where you are standing: from a distance she looks like one of the gallery owners, but when she is beside you you realize that this is an illusion: close up you notice how tall she is, and how the light seems to follow her of its own accord. There’s a smell of something sweet and unfamiliar."

"[…]Maybe we’re both machines; maybe neither of us is; maybe this whole thing is itself a simulation inside a box somewhere.” “An unanswerable bit of Sophistry,” you reply. “You win. For now.” You execute a little bow, and she laughs as you go out."

"Not stopping to question the odd fixity of this idea, you reach out and grasp the curtain. Galatea gives a little gasp as you pull firmly; tiny gold tacks fly out of the wall and roll across the polished floor. And there’s just blank plaster, and rows of holes where the tacks went... You turn and find Galatea regarding you in some amusement from the pedestal. “Looking for something?” You shrug, feeling like an idiot; in the distance you hear the heavy tread of approaching feet. You’ll never be able to explain this: a compulsion that came from outside, totally out of character, like a command from God..."

"…and there’s that funny feeling of disconnect as you break the fourth wall, force information into your avatar that isn’t part of the program, that comes from outside. For just a moment the avatar circuits register doubt, confusion, a hint of self-awareness... And then you’re sitting back in the control room, scrubbing at your eyes with the palm of your hand. Someone holds a cup of water under your nose. “You didn’t finish the scenario,” says a voice, up and to the left. A cool reassuring hand on the back of your neck, another voice answering: “Leave her alone for a minute! God!” You don’t answer either of them. Your gaze is fixed on the monitors: in the test room your avatar has fallen slack, no longer receiving your commands. You sip at the water, trying to feel like yourself again. “I don’t know,” you say finally. “I don’t think it’s going to sell. Too cerebral.”"

"Remembering, on purpose, is not something you’ve forced yourself to do for a long time. And it is perhaps not a good idea, even now. Worries, first symptoms, diagnosis, despair. Standing in the hospital parking lot in the whirling snow, watching the lights go out on her floor. The hours and hours consumed by intractable emotions. And then when she was gone, the utter solitude in your life. “Are you all right?” Galatea is reaching towards you, but you turn away."

"“Like and love are different things,” she replies. “You must know that. And then — he had a kind of intensity that compelled, that was absolute. I’ve not met anyone else like that. Yes, it’s true that I haven’t met very many people yet in my life, but my suspicion is, from all I see and hear, that he was unusual in that regard. There was something eating him from the inside, all the time, and the energy ofit was contagious.” “Most people don’t have that kind of genius, but most people also aren’t so impossible to live with.”"

"She blinks once without turning toward you. "He didn't want me to be awake, you see. He didn't make me to be a live person. He told me he wanted something that belonged to him, and that if I could think and talk, I couldn't belong to him any more. So he threw me away.""

"I myself have a kind of weird love-hate relationship with Galatea at this point — a lot of people love the piece, but it’s pretty much the first thing I wrote that ever got any widespread scrutiny. I would write it differently now, in many ways and for many reasons. Parts of it strike me as flippant, parts clueless, parts overblown. I’ve gotten some great fan mail, art, and even music about that game, and also more creepy and bizarre email than about anything else I’ve written. And I’m also grateful, as that single piece is probably responsible for my career, a lot of my friendships, even my marriage. I remember it fondly but I almost never replay these days. So revisiting it long enough to reimplement all the text in a new context was strange. I disciplined myself not to change too much of the original dialogue, even when it wasn’t what I would now write."