"Oo...okay. What should I do in the meantime?" Robin's voice sounds less chipper, and a little small and scared. "Just..just sit here and wait? Alone?"

"I'm sorry. I wish I had a better--wait, do you have a cortex chip?"

"I...I don't know," The robot's camera head pans around slightly. "Do I?"

Margaret looks around behind Robin's back where she can't point her eyes. "I think you do. So, then, theoretically, if you wanted me to, I could take your chip out and bring you with me to the Ark, and wake you up there and let you decide what you want to do, and then you wouldn't have to wait. But if I die on the way you might never wake up."

"I think....I think I'd like that. I don't want to be stuck down here instead of eternity among the stars. What do I need to do?"

"Okay." How did this work with Catherine . . . "I think I need you to eject your cortex chip, can you try to figure out how to do that?" She starts speculating about potential mental motions it might feel like, then realizes that she probably also has a cortex chip and really needs to not figure out how to eject it by trial and error right now.

Robin seems to think for a moment, focusing inward. "I...no, no, I can't. You need to make sure the chip is powered down and ejected, though--fully loaded Cortex chips are delicate, if they're removed from power while active, they can get corrupted."

"So, you need to shut down, but then I can pull it out?" This shouldn't be making her nervous; it's just like taking Catherine places. At least she knows more than she did when she met Carl in Upsilon, who she needs to go back for at some point.

"Yeah. I just...I don't know how to do that like this."

"Hmm." She walks around Robin, looking for a handy 'hibernate' button or whatever.

The casing of the robot housing Robin is cracked open and exposing both what appear to be normal components, but also large tendrils and blobs of structure gel. There doesn't look to be anything immediately obvious like a power outlet, other than one large tentacable trailing over to a WAU bulb at the base of the lamppost nearby, but the casing's intact portions have a few sealed covers screwed closed. Something might be behind there--a power switch shielded against impacts, or components which shouldn't be messed with to avoid a sudden loss of power that could hurt Robin.

"Okay, so I can see where you're getting power from, but just cutting that off wouldn't work . . . because it might . . . corrupt your data . . ."

Why did you do that? I was okay . . . 

If she had known then what she knows now, could she have made a better choice? 

I was okay . . . 

"Probably. But...if I die, maybe that's okay? Maybe that's better, for the continuity?"

"What? No!" Margaret drags herself back to the here and now. "No, okay, you're not going to die, you're going to be okay, you have to be okay." She fumbles at her pockets until she finds the one the screwdriver is in. "You have to have a switch somewhere."

Eventually, removing every access panel and cowling turns up a small service panel around the engines (propeller?) housing with a large molly-guarded E-stop, a smaller "power" button, and what looks like some kind of data connector next to an inserted cortex chip.

"Alright. I found your cortex chip and also a power button. Do you want me to push it, or do you want to try ejecting the chip again now that the cover is off?"

"I think it might be best if you do it, I still don't know how to just...switch off."

"Okay. Here goes." And if she doesn't get any last-minute objections, she presses the button.

The Bass-bot powers down at the press of the switch, the lights on the casing flickering out in what....looks, hopefully, like a controlled shutdown. After a moment, there's a click from the cortex chip slot, and then the last lights go out other than a green "ready" light above the power switch.

The click and the green light are reassuring. She gently pulls on the cortex chip to see if it wants to come out.

The chip slides loose as easily as Catherine's did. Like Catherine's, there's a few spots of structure gel on it, but the more delicate connectors where it fit into the slot seem clean and intact.

Okay. Good. That's good. She pockets Robin, hoping the saltwater doesn't mess up the contacts, and gets moving again. There's something else on the seabed on the other side of the sub, with a light shining on it; what is that? (Please don't let it be another sad person who needs help.)

On the other side of the submersible, there's a line of what almost look like plastic or metal storage bins embedded in a line in the seabed, half buried by silt, but each marked with an upright placard saying "ETERNITY AMONG THE STARS". On the lamppost nearby, there's a comm panel with a flashing "Buffer ready" message.

It looks like . . . a graveyard? But why that inscription--

Oh.

They must have had so much faith in Catherine, she thinks, to kill themselves in the belief that the Ark would be enough. She must have been so trusted.

She listens to the data buffer.

There's a crackle in Margaret's head as the recording starts, and then a vaguely familiar voice. "Is this thing on?"

"Go ahead, John," a second voice says.
"Listen up! All members of staff, the Ark project has caused a lot of arguments the last few months. I'm not going to pretend I understand what the hell Sarang talked about, and how his Continuity suddenly makes sense to kill yourself. For the love of fucking God, or whatever you think is important, don't. Kill. Yourself. This place is miserable enough. Don't force your friends to clean up your blood."

There's a pause, then the guy--who Margaret recognizes suddenly as the security guy telling field service technicians to break into any place their omnitools won't let them go--adds, "Rest in peace, all of you."

"All right, everyone, show's over. Get back to work," the second voice adds, and then the recording shuts off.