"No, because this is the outside of Theta. I've been having continuous experiences since Upsilon, and I've been to there and Lambda and the Curie and now here and I haven't met anyone who says they're in the Ark and the Catherine I met explicitly said we're not." It's kind of tempting to start doubting everything including whether any of her memories correspond to actual past experiences, but she's just going to not do that, actually. 

"What? Really?" Robin's gone from sounding slightly upbeat and astounded to distraught. "But...how? Why are we here instead of the Ark? If we're not in it, if I'm out here, then how can I be in the Ark, too?"

"You probably are in the Ark, and just--can't perceive it from here because this one of your brain doesn't have access to your senses in there, and that one doesn't have access to the you out here, see? I'm not actually sure why you're also out here, though; like I said, someone or something has been running brain scans. Possibly the WAU."

"The WAU? The Warden? Why would it do that?" Robin sounds shaken. "But if I'm in the Ark, I can't be out here. I...really need to not be out here."

Margaret understands where Robin is coming from way too well, and if she manages to copy herself into the Ark she's going to have an awful decision to make, but that's for the future, if she gets that far. "I'm on my way down to the Ark now," she says instead. "I can try to check whether you're running in there, and then come back up here and tell you and you can decide what to do then. Okay?"

"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.