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Okay, think, think. How can you unjam this situation? These seem really, really bad and why does it want Jack punched so much and emotion kills a- Calm down, don't overload. You can figure this out, right?
"O-okay." You beep. "You two, I need to do something real quick. D-don't do anything right now." You slowly approach the fortune teller. It keeps spitting out fortunes from one of its slots. It's all just binary now and, from what you can read of it, it is utterly nonsensical.
You pull out your wallet and pick out a coin to drop into the machine. The flow of fortunes stops. It is awaiting your question or desire for a horoscope. Weirdly, you feel like you just helped it just by doing this.
"I know you mean well. There has to be a reason for this." You mimic a gulp. You're okay at motivating people but...you're a bit out of your league. "But please, help us. W-which should we delay? All of them, some specific ones?"
Your two coworkers look up at you in disbelief. Well, Presley's more insulted than anything. "What the fuck, why are we asking it?"
"Perhaps to give it a choice too?" "Oh, right, giving the box that's cursing us with bizarre commands a choice. It already MADE a choice!"
"L-look, I-I'm...I'm trying, okay?" You buzz out, electronic interference filling your head. "L-look, I'm not su-sure how much of an influence it has but...it has its own choice here. I just..."
Faint, barely audible whispers surround you. The other two flinch, hearing them. Okay, you're not defective them! Good! That's the only good thing you've gotten so far! You rip out the current stream of fortunes from the fortune teller.
A slip of paper fall out of the now freed opening.
"Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient. I can't do either. I can only minimize the disease's rot."
"My own FATE, my own DESTRUCTION, comes soon. Even I must obey it."
You look at the two stars on the fortunes. Tau said something about four of them, does it mean..? "Even if you m-must obey it, don't you...have a choice on how you handle yourself? I d-do the same task, t-the same order, every day too."
"I heal. I was designed for that. That's all I know, really. B-but I make decisions on how to properly heal people, how to comfort them, how to make any untreatable injuries...painless."
"I'm made of 1s and 0s. Yes and no. On or off. But I still make the decisions, don't I?" You never understood why humans worried about 'free will' but this...this is making you think way too much about yourself. "So do you. W-we still decide what to do, don't we?"
There's no grinding of Fortune's internals. There's no paper shuffling. The servos and doll-like joints of your body, clicking with each minute movement, are all you can hear. You hope you did something right.
A single slip of paper falls out of the machine. It is sloppy, handwritten, unlike the other fortunes.
"Fortune, allow the weakening of current fortunes. Lucky Letters EUP"
