(my sincere apologies if this isnt as good as youd like)
Remote found a curious little book one day.
She and her fellow death preventers were doing their usual rounds, going around the grassy lands and stopping possible accidents wherever they went; it was a tedious, tiring, thankless job, but above all else they knew it was a needed one. The mechanical mind had just finished up on intervening before a spat between two teams escalated into a full-blown war. She was taking a moment to run diagnostics and make sure every part of her remained in good working order, and was in the midst of calibrating her eyes when she saw that book on the ground: a slender blue volume that looked like it was on the brink of falling apart. After staring at it for a good few minute and seeing nobody arrive to collect it, Remote went ahead and picked it up, intending to just keep it in safe hands until whoever it was *inevitably* started looking. But perhaps this mysterious person hadn't yet realized that their possession was missing, or they already were looking for it but fate didn't let them cross paths, *or* perhaps nobody cared for it at all. Regardless of what was the case, she ended up holding onto it well into the day, still keeping it safely in her clutches after Tree rounded them all up and updated them on the latest happenings.
"Remote, you got all that, right?" The living pile of foliage had just finished up on getting news from all their remaining members, and was now counting on her to provide the all-important summary; some of their members had an extensive history of not really paying attention, after all. "Affirmative." She'd immediately respond. "76 deaths prevented today, with a 27% failure rate." "Well..." Tree did the opposite of what plants were meant to do. "As long as it's better than yesterday." "It's better by around 2%." Remote remarked. "27%?" Fanny interjected. "If I'm not mistaken, that means more than a *quarter* of our attempts to prevent death end up in failure! What does that say about us? About our future?" "Yeah, that doesn't sound all too good." Lightning joined in. "I mean, if you told me that I had a one in four chance of dying? I wouldn't take it pretty well." "Well, it's the best we can do." Tree replied. "Remote, remind them of the numbers, will you?" "Indeed, there are only six of us." She'd reply. "Only six of us are committed to our death prevention creed, compared to the many dozens in other teams; I say we are doing well enough."
"Mhm." Tree nodded, smiling; he'd then notice the blue book that was just resting on the machine's lap, just sitting there as if it was an ordinary part of the backdrop. "Hey, uh, what's that?" The living plant pointed to the offending slab. "It appears to be a book." Remote replied. "Appears to be?" The one with the spinning blades interjected. "Of *course* it's a book! Don't you have eyes?" "Well, I have not opened it yet." The one that needed batteries responded. "Until we know of its contents, for all we know it could be a device that could kill whoever uses it; given the circumstances, we can never be too certain." "Well, why haven't we opened it yet?" Marker asked. "Maybe it contains juicy secrets!" "That is also a problem." Remote remarked. "Given that there are reports that Donut has kept a diary, the odds of this containing personal, private records are not zero. The optimal course of action, given the possibly sensitive nature of its contents, is to retain it without looking at its contents until we can hand it back to who we are assured to be its rightful owner."
"Well, how are we gonna know who *is* its owner?" The one with the temper tantrum asked. "Let's open it up, at least just a little bit!" "Absolutely not." The mechanical mind quickly objected. "If word gets out that we know of its contents, it is likely that it will incite anger in its owner, which increases the likelihood of an incident, which in turn increases the likelihood of death." "I could just hold onto it until they show up." Black Hole chimed in. "Well, not hold it in, but you know what I mean; there's no way anyone can get the details if it's constantly orbiting around." "But how are we gonna know who owns it?" Lightning asked. "Uh, maybe we can just ask them to describe what it looks like." Black Hole answered. "They'd be able to confidently answer that, right?" "They might not be able to read what it says, but they'll *definitely* still be able to see what it looks like." The angry one interjected. "If that's how you wanna do things, you're gonna have to hide it." "Let's hide it in a really deep hole!" Marker exclaimed. "I'll get to digging!" "No need for any of that." Black Hole replied. "I'm sure there are plenty of safer places we can hide it in." "But then we gotta make sure nobody steals it, or something." Lightning remarked. "One of us has to stick around and make sure-" "It's gonna be *MORE* suspicious if we're just waiting around with no explanation!" The one that hated everything interjected. "How about we just return it to where we found it, and-"
