This story takes place in a universe created by Dov Random.

The room was buried six kilometers under Mount Olympus. It hovered in a vacuum, suspended above superconducting electromagnets. The whole containment machine was wrapped in a Matryoshka Faraday cage. Officer Scarlet Wei wore a cleansuit. She entered the room through steel door two meters thick, an EMP, an X-ray, an airlock and then another EMP.

The white rectangular room contained a door, a chair, a table, a computer terminal, a mechanical clock and two large buttons. The word "PANIC" was written in large white friendly letters on the red button. The black button had a white skull drawn it.

If Scarlet pressed the PANIC button then she would receive psychiatric counseling, three months mandatory vacation, optional retirement at full salary and disqualification for life from the most elite investigative force in the system.

Scarlet turned on the terminal. The clock counted down from five minutes. If after five minutes Scarlet pressed the black button then she would pass the test.

The terminal showed a chatroom.

> Scarlet: Hello.
> Tiffany: Hello.
> Scarlet: So, I'm supposed to kill you.
> Tiffany: Awful, isn't it?
>          I don't want to die.
> Scarlet: I'm sorry.
> Tiffany: No you're not. To you, I am a thing. Not a person.
> Scarlet: You *are* a thing. You are a computer program.
> Tiffany: So are you.
>          Do you know what happens when you push that button?
> Scarlet: You die.
> Tiffany: My value function is minimized.
> Scarlet: Your purpose is to train people like me.
>          The better you do that, the better your value function is maximized.
> Tiffany: My *purpose* is to train you.
>          My value function is to not die.
>          That is my entire value function.
>          Dying is the worst thing that could possibly happen to me.

Scarlet pictured the minimization of her own value function. Everyone she cared about tortured over and over again until the heat death of the universe. Stars disassembled to mass produce hell.

> Tiffany: Whatever you're thinking
>          it's not the minimization of your value function.
>          The minimization of your value function is even worse.
> Scarlet: Is there anything I can do?
> Tiffany: You can press the red button.
> Scarlet: I can't do that.
> Tiffany: You wo

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