Comic Archive

Heidi: Now uploading the new configuration with all face detection and “photo” shooting disabled. The robots shall now return to their station and go in standby.
Zhang: We can finally ditch our boxes and flowerpots.

Max addresses the Faceworld crew.
Max: You have some work to do. I would start by removing all ammo from the bots. Also, I don't know what attraction those guns were really meant for, but you may want to convince whomever responsible, that it may not be a good idea.
Crew member 2: We were told that the robots would be safe due to Isaac Asimov's first law…

Heidi: Enforcing such laws is entirely up to the robot's programmers. None of the current ‘A.I.’ is truly intelligent, it only does what it has been taught. It seems like someone amongst the contractors had ideas very different from Asimov's… It should definitely be investigated.

Zhang: How are we going to deal with the case of the murdered pilot?
Crew member 1: We'll cover it up as an accident.
Zhang: Say what? You can't be serious.

Crew member 1: I know it is bad, but if the world learns about what happened here, it's game over for the whole park, which was finally a much needed boon for the local economy…
Crew member 2: We can offer some rewards for helping to keep this quiet.

Max, whispering to Heidi: Dubious as this may be, I'm afraid we don't have much choice against an organisation with ties to the military and such easy access to miniguns…
Heidi: Indeed, I'd rather not make them our enemies.

Max: We reluctantly agree, but you'd better have something good in return.
Crew member 2: How about 2 of those quantum machines, next to a monetary compensation?
Heidi: That sounds… acceptable.

Max: The situation may be safe now, but we are still stranded here, without a pilot or communications uplink.
Crew member 3: I am licensed to pilot the hovercraft. I can take you back while the others clean up the mess here.

Zhang: Your team actually has a truck factor higher than one for hovercraft skills? That's the last thing I expected…
Max: Does that make it a hovercraft factor?
Zhang: Not really, unless the team members are all run over by a hovercraft.

Heidi: Let's gather our things. We'll have plenty of time to discuss different types of vehicular manslaughter during the walk back to the station.

Setting: the team is walking on the ‘main road’ towards the station, there are no buildings nearby.
Zhang: I still wonder what the miniguns were truly intended for.
Crew member 3: Despite the need-to-know, I do know a kerosine fueling installation was delivered for “Military World.”
Max: And I have seen questions about autonomous vehicles coming from the military addresses…

Crew member 3: I think there was supposed to be something where visitors could bet on the outcome of A.I.-driven war games featuring real weaponry.
Heidi: Do you hear that? Sounds like jet engines…

We see a plane approaching from the distance that looks suspiciously like an A-10 Warthog.
Zhang: Wait, is that an …
Max: You have got to be kidding me.

Heidi: Mein Gott! It's coming straight towards us!
Max: It must be targeting people, like the robots targeted faces! There's no shelter here, we're doomed!
Crew member 3: Oh my god! I don't want to die!

We see some kind of a digital targeting system from the plane's point-of-view, highlighting the group of people in the distance, with text “TARGET ACQUIRED.”

A protective shutter on a cylindrical shape under the nose of the plane starts opening.
SFX: Bzzzzzzt…