Work Text:
Rutherford stood alone in the holodeck, surrounded by a partial simulation of his old lab. The holodeck grid was visible; he hadn’t bothered to re-create the lab’s walls, just the consoles and a few screens.
He tapped a few buttons on one console. “Okay, I think that should do it,” he said to himself. Then he raised his voice slightly. “Computer, recompile program Rutherford Tactical AI from working copy and execute smoke tests.”
The computer bleeped affirmatively and a progress display appeared on the screen in front of him. He stood there for a few moments as the progress bar filled up, colored a healthy green. But then partway through, it turned red. He glanced over at the test output.
“Dammit! Segmentation fault ag—wait, a segfault?”
Rutherford turned to the writer, standing just off camera. “Dude, seriously? That’s ridiculous. How are segfaults still a thing four hundred years in the future?”
A giant, anthropomorphic letter C popped into existence next to Rutherford, and laughed evilly.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME?!” it bellowed in the sort of booming voice normally reserved for supervillains. “ENTIRE LEGIONS OF YOUR BRETHEREN HAVE FALLEN BY MY HAND! FOR I AM C, AND I AM ETERNAL! I AM TIME ITSELF!”
A slightly terrified look appeared on Rutherford’s face as he turned back to the writer.
“Uh, right. Can we just, uh, do another take?”