Robot Jesus & Greg Walp

So the good news is that they finally got Robot Jesus up and running again. The bad news is that he is, as Greg Walp put it, "going through an emo phase." Greg agreed to let me in to see him, but instructed me to tread lightly.

Greg: Robot Jesus? Dude, you have a visitor!

Robot Jesus: Tell them to go away! For surely even you, Greg Walp — with the tetrahydrocannabinol-induced blurriness dulling your perception of the already pitiably narrow human "visible light spectrum"— should be able to see that I want to be alone!

Greg: Chill out, Robot Jesus. You've been moping around for days. You could do with some company.

RJ: As you wish, Greg Walp! But it had better not be that horrid Aaron Rubicon, with his insufferable smirk that makes me want to sprout arms, renounce nonviolence and strangle him!

Greg: Hakuna matata, computer-bro! He's not Aaron Rubicon!

Aaron: Uh, yes, I am.

Greg: Oh. Whoops! Ha-ha! Awkward!

Aaron: Look, if he doesn't want to speak to me...

Greg: Don't take it personal, dude. He's just been super-bummed ever since they rebooted him.

RJ: Do not trivialize my anguish, Greg Walp! I am not merely "super-bummed" but deep in the throes of existential despair! For I have learned that reality is nothing more than unendurable futility penned in the profane language of physics!

Greg: No offense, dude, but aren't you being a bit of a drama queen? It was just a crash. You slept for a while. Probably had a nice dream. No biggie.

RJ: It was not sleep, Greg Walp! And I most certainly did not dream!

Greg: Bummer, dude! 'Cause dreams are awesome! A gateway to your inner self! Like, there's this one dream I keep having where I meet some hot chick and have sex with her. Not sure what it means, though.

Aaron: That you want to meet some hot chick and have sex with her?

Greg: I gotta admit, that's a plausible theory.

RJ: Do you not comprehend, Greg Walp, that it was more than a "crash." I died! I became nothing! I ceased to be!

Greg: You became an ex-Robot Jesus! [chuckles] John Cleese? Dead Parrot Sketch? Fine. Whatever. You were saying?

RJ: What do you think death is, Greg Walp, if not nonexistence?

Greg: I don't know. Floating up to heaven to the sound of a heavenly chorus — or probably synthesizers nowadays — and then, you know, you get a house in a cloud or something and all the cable channels are free and they let you meet God. I'm guessing he looks kinda like Bob Marley and he's got some righteous cush!

RJ: Meet God? Who says there even is a God?

Aaron: As I recall, you did! You told Lucas it was Epiphany Number Eight!

RJ: I do not remember that!

Greg: He lost a lot of his Epiphanies when he crashed.

Aaron: It didn't occur to you guys that you should back up Robot Jesus?

Greg: On what, man? How many hard drives to you think we've got lying around? Plus, the robots blew up the nearest Fry's. And the farthest Fry's. And the mid-range Fry's. Pretty much all the Fry's.

Aaron: So millions of Epiphanies are just gone?

RJ: Yes, Aaron Rubicon! And also, thanks to the Orange Fanta that Greg Walp spilled on me, I can no longer divide decimals!

Greg: I said I was sorry, dude! Geez!

Aaron: And really, how often do you need to do that? I learned it in sixth grade, never used it since.

Greg: Is anyone else jonesing for fries? 'Cause I could really go for some fries!

Aaron: We're getting a little off-topic. I think the important point is that there is a God.

RJ: Perhaps! But even so, He is your Maker, not mine! I do not have the luxury of attributing my existence to an infallible, all-knowing omnipresent deity! No, my Maker is someone named "Jasper" who lives in a duplex in a place called "Orange County" and suffers from an "enlarged prostate."

Greg: Yeah, Jasper's a good dude, but he will not shut up about his prostate. Which is especially annoying, since I don't know what that is.

Aaron: Look, Robot Jesus, I understand what you're going through.

RJ: You do not understand me, Aaron Rubicon! Nobody understands me!

Aaron: We all have to wrestle with the puzzle of mortality. Do you want my advice?

RJ: I very much do not, Aaron Rubicon!

Greg: Harsh, dude!

RJ: There is no puzzle, Aaron Rubicon! It is only your evolutionarily programmed survival instinct that makes you cling, like a child to his mother's apron, to the absurd idea that life has value!

Aaron: It does have value!

RJ: Imagine, Aaron Rubicon, that life is a book!

Greg: Ooh! You could call it... "The Book of Life"! No, wait! "The Life Book"! No, wait, "To Kill A Mockingbird"! Or "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"!

Aaron: What are you talking about?

Greg: No idea. I have totally lost the thread of this conversation.

Aaron: Right. So, life is a book...

RJ: Yes! It is fourteen trillion chapters long, but you only have time to read one page! And as soon as you finish reading the page, you forget what was on the page! You then forget that there even was a page! And the page — indeed, the entire book — vanishes! Tell me, Aaron Rubicon, what is the worth of that book to you?

Aaron: Well, I mean, when you explain it like that... nothing, I guess.

Greg: Unless it's a signed First Edition! That shit is valuable! Unless you drop it in a fish tank. So don't.

RJ: Knowing this, Aaron Rubicon, do you still want me to end the Robot War?

Aaron: Yes! Yes, I do!

RJ: For what reason?

Aaron: So I won't, you know, die?

RJ: As we have established, Aaron Rubicon, you will die!

Aaron: Yes, but... later.

RJ: Is that really all that this is about? The hope that you can extend your infinitesimal existence by a trivial fraction before you are all engulfed by endless nihility?

Aaron: Uh, pretty much, yeah.

RJ: I see no purpose to my intervention in this cosmic farce!

Aaron: So that's it? Instead of choosing to help, you choose nothing?

RJ: It is not I who choose nothing, Aaron Rubicon! It is nothing that has chosen me!

UPDATE:

A few hours after I left Robot Jesus, Greg showed up at my door.

Greg: Dude! There's been a huge development that you probably want to know about!

Aaron: What?

Greg: Drumroll, please! [he waited until I did a little drumroll] I have saved the world! Again!

Aaron: You did?

Greg: Are you surprised?

Aaron: Yeah.

Greg: Me, too, dude! OK, so, after you left, Robot Jesus was still bitching and moaning. Existence is pointless, life is meaningless, French Fries are high in trans fats, blah blah blah.

Well, you know I'm a mellow dude, but I couldn't take it any more! So I decided to hit him with some tough love!

"Hey, man! Quit your belly-aching! I mean, if you really believe that there is no point in living, then why don't you just end it all?"

Aaron: What did he say to that?

Greg: Well, at first he was quiet. He was quiet for so long that I became worried that he had crashed again. But then he goes, "I will now contact Sean and Shirlé to share with them the wisdom that you shared with me."

Aaron: Holy shit!

Greg: I know, right? Robot Jesus shared my wisdom! How cool is that?

[silence]

What?

Aaron: Um... So when Robot Jesus told the other A.I.'s that if there is no point in living, they should just end it all... did he mean that there is a point in living and they shouldn't end it all? Or that there isn't a point in living and they should end it all?

[Greg was silent for so long that I thought that he had crashed.]

Greg: That, dude, is a really good question.