Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2018-08-27
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(43) Next › Last ››

2018-08-27

by Jeffrey C. Wells on August 27, 2018 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Figgs and Phantoms
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Discussion (43) ¬

  1. thejoemoose
    August 27, 2018, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    Ah, a very subtle hint.

  2. Bruceski
    August 27, 2018, 12:08 am | # | Reply

    NO! I built the giant death ray as a tool for peace!

    • BRGR
      August 27, 2018, 1:41 am | # | Reply

      Then why would you name it the death ray, Dr Death? (Nevermind, I get it.)

      Well, I suppose you could turn the oo-ray into a weapon, but that is true of almost any technology!

      • Ogden Wernstrom
        August 27, 2018, 9:58 pm | # | Reply

        We started with such high ideals. How did Project Slaughter go so wrong, Nefario?

      • jdreyfuss
        February 3, 2020, 3:00 pm | # | Reply

        Excuse me, but it’s pronounced DEE-ath.

  3. casimir
    August 27, 2018, 12:29 am | # | Reply

    Those robots destroy in the nicest possible way!

    • Bruce A Munro
      August 27, 2018, 1:00 am | # | Reply

      She’s right, you know. They have all sorts of private industry applications: the food industry, forestry, construction, home security, dead Kaiju disposal…

  4. Dave
    August 27, 2018, 12:32 am | # | Reply

    All I can think about right ow is some sort of fridge/body horror here Nick’s basically in a state of paralysis: aware, perceiving, but incapable of moving or doing anything.

    • Robert Nowall
      August 27, 2018, 10:25 am | # | Reply

      Well, we have seen a couple of pictures of Dr. Lee sitting on a brain in a jar…

      • Dave
        August 27, 2018, 12:45 pm | # | Reply

        Oh my GOD, the foreshadowing goes deeper than I thought!

  5. Robert Nowall
    August 27, 2018, 12:33 am | # | Reply

    I thought the Killbots came *before* the drone project.

    • Daibhid C
      August 27, 2018, 7:24 am | # | Reply

      The original killbots were probably created by an actual mad, and then Ginny did what she does, which is work out how to make a less-mad version that A-Sig could actually use. She probably only started on it after she met the killbots in “Can’t Catch Me”.

  6. Bruce A Munro
    August 27, 2018, 12:58 am | # | Reply

    “But now they have the weapons they need.”

    Ouch. I was afraid of that.

    (Of course, one can never entirely trust anything an agent of an evil secret society is saying. This may be a bluff).

  7. WuseMajor
    August 27, 2018, 12:59 am | # | Reply

    Ok, so here’s what I got:

    Lumberjack
    Sawmill
    Recycling center
    Wood shop
    Junkyard

    Anyone have any other ideas?

    • Bruce A Munro
      August 27, 2018, 1:02 am | # | Reply

      Possibly Ninja, like you ninja’d MY comment! 🙁

    • Robert Nowall
      August 27, 2018, 1:08 am | # | Reply

      One of ’em got a job as a cook at the Jersey Barrens Safe House.

    • D. Walker
      August 27, 2018, 3:09 am | # | Reply

      Butcher
      Gardener
      Ice Sculptor
      Barber
      Disc Jockey
      Sports Commentator
      Ballet Dancer
      Mohel

      • awgiedawgie
        August 27, 2018, 3:18 am | # | Reply

        Thank you. I was going to mention Butchers as well.

      • BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
        August 27, 2018, 4:09 am | # | Reply

        Suddenly I realize I’ve always wanted a disc jokey who regularly replaces random verbs with “destroy”.

      • tremor3258
        August 27, 2018, 9:20 am | # | Reply

        Repossession
        Rescue work
        Air traffic control (if they SHOOT the buzzsaws instead of just have them)

      • Stig
        August 27, 2018, 7:12 pm | # | Reply

        Introducing Twin Peaks episodes?

    • Dr. Steve
      August 27, 2018, 10:06 am | # | Reply

      Hotel manager?

    • Shadowmehr
      August 27, 2018, 7:44 pm | # | Reply

      Carpentry, woodcarving, and chainsaw carving exhibitions. People would pay money to watch a robot create that kind of art (just judging by the number of CNC videos on YouTube nowadays). Trade out the buzzsaws for frisbees, add a launching mechanism, and they’d make great dogsitters, able to play catch with their charges.

  8. codebracker
    August 27, 2018, 2:10 am | # | Reply

    Ok, just saying, she never said she needs to kill him, just that they don’t need him anymore, she could just keep him and build him a drone body

    • OneUniverse
      August 27, 2018, 12:19 pm | # | Reply

      Or have Helen “Beta” Narbon grow Nick a better one.

      • awgiedawgie
        August 27, 2018, 11:46 pm | # | Reply

        Oh, the endless possibilities there.

        But Virginia created Unity, and surely by now she has been able to improve on the process. So she really doesn’t need Helen’s help.

  9. David B Huber
    August 27, 2018, 3:43 am | # | Reply

    Dr. Lee is being given a chance to choose the winning side…

    Time for Lovelace to upload Nick’s consciousness to the Cloud before Virginia gets herself extirpated by dashing aboard Nick and learning he has no fuel to escape…

    • Anson
      August 27, 2018, 3:54 am | # | Reply

      I don’t think that’s the way it works. Nick is a meat brain with a digital interface, not an AI. Lovelace can’t “upload him to the cloud”. He’s got versions of him in the cloud because AI copies of him were made already. So I guess Lovelace maybe could copy him again, and the only people who would know the difference would be her, soon-to-be-dead-meat!Nick, and Yahweh. It’s an interesting thought experiment.

      • David B Huber
        August 27, 2018, 8:53 pm | # | Reply

        You are of course correct. It’s doubtful any intervention by Lovelace would be sanctioned by the Daughters of the Air but she did find him attractive. And Aimee might make an argument on meat!Nick’s behalf that Prop 39 should be stretched to include her template once he’s rendered, ah, “incorporeal”.

      • soft
        August 28, 2018, 8:57 am | # | Reply

        Don’t forget that Dave did upload his own meat brain consciousness into Lovelace’s servers at one point (essentially killing her), so it should be possible to upload Nick somewhere, too.

    • BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
      August 27, 2018, 4:10 am | # | Reply

      Ah, the old IG-88 Death Star gambit

    • Robert Nowall
      August 27, 2018, 7:49 am | # | Reply

      She can stand athwart history yelling “Stop!”

    • awgiedawgie
      August 27, 2018, 11:51 pm | # | Reply

      “Choose the winning side” can be taken more than one way. You (and they) could be assuming that the winning side is already determined, and she has the chance to join forces with them.

      On the other hand, it could also mean that she can join forces with the side she wants, and thereby “choose” – i.e. “decide” – which side will win.

  10. hobbitunderfoot
    August 27, 2018, 7:55 am | # | Reply

    The only way out of this is for Virginia to have been pre-Mad, and going mad.

  11. Dr. Steve
    August 27, 2018, 10:07 am | # | Reply

    Buzzsaw robots at a party? Nah – total buzzkill.

    • ailsaekAilsa Ek
      August 27, 2018, 10:34 am | # | Reply

      *rimshot*

  12. Robert Nowall
    August 27, 2018, 10:58 am | # | Reply

    If never I’d built you,
    I wouldn’t have seen you fly.
    If not for my sick career,
    I’d never have to see you die.

    If never I found you,
    My problem in retrospect.
    We need to start talking.
    And there’s a lot you don’t suspect.

    I keep telling you hard-ass chopper,
    You’re not a hard-ass chopper.

    Nick, the gamer helicopter,
    A working fighter-chopper,
    A project of my dreams.

    Nick, I like ya,
    I always think about ya,
    You play a hard-ass chopper,
    Baby, just because you can.

    Before I start disassembly,
    And take your brain from your box.
    I don’t want to do this, Nick,
    I’m not sure if you’re Orthodox.

    I keep telling you, hard-ass chopper,
    You’re not a hard-ass chopper,
    You’ll play a hard-ass chopper,
    Baby, just because you can.

    Nick, the gamer helicopter,
    A working fighter-chopper,
    A project of my dreams.

    Nick, I like ya,
    I always think about ya,
    You play a hard-ass chopper,
    Baby, just because you can.
    You play a hard-ass chopper,
    Baby, just because you can.

    Oh, yeah, my my, it’s hard, I’ll try,
    I’m just getting’ my tools, whoa, I’m grievin’ here.
    My my, my my, my my, baby goodbye.
    I’ve gotta get approval, approval,
    Bye, bye bye baby,
    Ooh, goodbye, baby, oh…

    —from “Hard Luck Woman,” Kiss.

    • OneUniverse
      August 27, 2018, 3:30 pm | # | Reply

      Now I picture Nick being incorporated into Tigerlily’s transformer type funkadelic flying machine with white face makeup on, complete with vibrating massage seats and a holodeck. Well done!

  13. Sheik
    August 27, 2018, 2:49 pm | # | Reply

    Building demolition
    They would be safer for a variety of reasons, and maximize the recycling of materials.

    • Shadowmehr
      August 27, 2018, 7:46 pm | # | Reply

      If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, wouldn’t that lead to the possibility of a grey-goo scenario, but with buzzsaw robots instead of nanotech. Cooler, but still as much of a headache.

      • Robert Nowall
        August 27, 2018, 11:15 pm | # | Reply

        Actually the Killbots we’ve met always seemed kind of nice guys. Bubbles Waters even started a long-term relationship with one of them. Are they the buzzsaw robots in question here?

        • awgiedawgie
          August 27, 2018, 11:57 pm | # | Reply

          This is just my gut instinct, but I have a feeling that the robots we met were the original buzzsaw robots, and whatever A-Sig is holding in-house is the reverse-engineered version. I suspect that part of that reverse engineering had to do with making them more controllable (i.e. less intelligent).

  14. wykstrad
    August 28, 2018, 12:35 am | # | Reply

    Countless, because all of your fingers are cut off.

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