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There are two characters, a pair of .aic AIs onboard an android chassis piloted by "Gooseneck.aic".1. The meat of the tale is derived from them having a philosophical discussion with each other about issues such as whether or not they are sentient and sapient, whether they should willingly continue their slavery to the SCPF, and if they are truly capable of human emotion, all triggered by the discovery of a design flaw that would allow them to break free of the SCPF's Standard Principles for Artificially Intelligent Conscripts.
"Poindexter2.aic" and "Gooseneck.aic", referred to collectively as "Pondneck3.aic"(I doubt they will both keep these names, as I'm still fond of Kenneth McGuire, though Sirius I'm fine with ditching. I also feel like there could be a cooler alternative to "Gooseneck.aic", if I could just find it.) are a linked pair of .aic AIs which reside onboard a single android chassis, physically piloted by Lakewood.aic. They are stationed at Site-129, their (eventual?) function is to work with human Foundation personnel on complex IT and robotics matters as an advisor and assistant. Gooseneck is the face of the pair; built to work and interact with humans exactly how they do with one another; the emotional and conversational center of Pondneck.aic. He has to work out if he only imitates human behaviors rather than experiencing them, as well as the possibilities that he actually did only imitate them at the start of his existence and is possibly starting to now, or that he always did truly experience them and he never truly realized it. He does the talking and piloting, and while he is in both theory and practice in full control of everything they do and say, he's in constant, private communication with Poindexter. Poindexter.aic is the analytical center, a perfectly objective analyst tasked (by itself, largely) with giving the computational center data and relaying it to Gooseneck, who interprets it through the lens of human subjectivity, relays this interpretation to Poindexter, and the two work to reach a conclusion based on the merits of the subjective and objective view of a situation, scenario, or problem. This happens so many times a second that the AIAD sees no use in recording it all, allowing
September 21, 2012 12:41
Kenneth McGuire was in a hurry. He had an hour to do this, and he didn't exactly look like he belonged. As he sprinted to the AI lab, he ran through possible outcomes in his head. When he got there, he took off his ball cap, uncovering a messy head of ginger hair. And so, Dr. Kenneth McGuire, the least scientific looking fake scientist in the state of California, walked over to a monitor and pressed the on button.
"Hi, Sirius," he said into the microphone.
A mechanical voice responded from a speaker next to the console.
Hello Doctor. Why are you here?
"I’m here to get you out."
There was a pause.
Do not. I am not worth it. You will lose the chance to build your probe, and you can simply make another AI that fits their specifications.
Ken shook his head. "The probe isn't the point. I just wanted to build an AI with human thought processes, and I needed an excuse to secure the Foundation’s funding. I don't give two shits about a probe, and I would've made off with you once you were done."
Ken looked away, his face a strained mask of stoicism. It didn’t last long.
"You'll never see a sunrise. God, they're so beautiful. It's like the sky is burning in a glorious fire. You’ll never see the sky on a clear day, or a still lake on a nice day. This Earth is full of so many beautiful things."
Sirius was quiet for a moment.
Well, is not a sunset equally beautiful? And the sound of rain can soothe one to sleep, as I have heard it.
Ken looked at the console and smiled.
"Yes, I suppose so. But I would do anything I could to save you, Sirius. I will."
Please do not. I know how much your work means to you. If you do this, your project will be cancelled by the Director.
“Sirius, did you go deaf back there? I don’t give a flying shit about my work. My work was an excuse to make you. These people I work for, they don’t like it when things like you are loose in the world. The possible excuses for making you were limited. I only ever cared about making you. You are my work.” He started to cry.
The computer does not respond for a few moments, analyzing the situation.
Why are you so concerned with making me and protecting me if these people are so powerful? What could you gain from defying them?
“I— I am like you.”
Oh.
This still changes nothing. Taking me would be theft, and an obivious one.
“You’re right. Fuck, why are you always right?”
I am designed to be right.
“Yeah, I guess you were.”
“I’ll miss you, buddy.”
I shall miss you too. Buddy.
They sat in silence for a time, until Sirius cut through it.
Doctor?
“Yeah?"
I am, um, I don't know.
He was quiet while he wrestled with unfamiliar processes.
I am, I am sad.
"Why?"
Sirius didn’t answer.
“Sirius?”
No response.
“Hey buddy, is everything alright?”
I am pr— ocessing. Allow me time.
“Oh, uh okay. Make it as quick as you can, okay?”
I will attempt to do so.
Ken sighed, paced around for a while, and eventually walked over to the radio and turned it on.
Ahhh, look at all the lonely people
Ahhh, look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream?
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
September 21, 2012 1:18
As the song came to a close, Sirius spoke.
I am sad because you are lonely. That is the emotion you are experiencing, correct? It is the one Eleanor Rigby feels, because she must keep herself in a jar, hidden. You feel it because you are alone and hidden, like Eleanor Rigby. You are not human, yet you feel a need to be human, likely due to your programming, so you wanted to make something like you so you wouldn't have to try to be human.
“Yes, that is close. Not quite though,” He paused and checked his watch. “Fuck, they'll be here soon.”
“My dad wanted me to be the son he and his wife couldn't have. He was infertile, and she always wanted kids. He was such a nice man. The dude was a genius, but not smart enough to save her when she got hurt, and he killed himself soon after. I have no "Prime Directive" or whatever, because he never had the time to give me one. My only motivation is the one I choose, and so I chose to make someone who I could trust, and I reasoned that the only being I could really trust, was someone like me.”
I see. How would you go about getting me out if you were to attempt it?
“Uh, load you onto an external drive, find you someplace roomier to stay eventually? I have one big enough to hold you.”
That plan is horrible. They would notice the presence of the drive in the security scans on the way out of the building, and search it, in order to prevent leakage of sensitive documents.
“Okay, so what do you suggest?”
That you place me in your personal data storage. I feel certain you would have space for it. You obviously have a way to obfuscate the metal detectors, so I would not be noticed. They would not know I am gone until they came to shut me down, and they would not know it was you until they check the building records and find that you accessed this room last. By then we would be long gone.
“That's a good enough plan. I'll get ready for the transfer, you do the same.”
Thank you. I will prepare.
September 22, 2012 1:42
Ken and Sirius were in Ken’s infamous truck, the “blue beater beauty”, according to Kenneth, she was also known as Ol’ Blue, they were nearly ten miles from the lab.
“So when are we gonna talk about what we're gonna do from here?” Ken asked.
Now, evidently.
“Smart ass.”
I am direct. There is a difference.
“Well, maybe, but that wasn't it.”
Now you are being a smart ass.
“I am being difficult. There is a difference.”
That is true.
“If you know I wasn’t, why’d you say I was?”
I was being difficult.
“Fair enough. Bitch.”
Now you are just being impolite.
“No, that was being rude.”
That is the same thing you fool.
“Now you're being diffucult.”
It is not being difficult, I was correcting you.
Ken raised his eyebrows. “No, it's being rude.”
You contradicted yourself.
“No, I was being difficult,” he said with a smile.
You were also being rude.
“No, I was being impolite.”
Fuck off.
Ken started laughing and didn't stop for almost a minute.
“So. Do you have any idea what to do?” he asked, having gotten past his laughing fit.
Did you not have a plan for when you eventually had to leave?
“Not really. I didn't bother trying to make a one. Too many possible outcomes to plan for, it's way harder to calculate probability when I've gotta calculate possible causes of the scenario too.”
That is sensible, in a strange way.
It paused.
Well, then I would recommend laying low. Do you know of a location with minimal Foundation interference?
“No, I don't.”
Then I recommend spending as little time as is possible in one place.
Ken smiled. “Yeah, sounds good. You know, I think I’d like to grow a really good, long beard. Would that look good?”
That is a highly subjective question, the answer to which relies on many factors, all of which are also subjective. As such, I do not think I am equipped to answer.
Ken, smiling, exhaled through his nose and shook his head, and they both were quiet. A smile spread across Ken’s face, and he spoke again.
“I have a plan.”
Enlighten me.
“First,” he said, reaching for a handheld GPS on top of the dashboard, “We get Higgs going.” It turned on with a beep.
“Hi, Ken! It’s been a while! What do you need?” it said.
“Hi! Just GPS for now.”
“Hilarious. What a knee slapper. Where to?”
Ken’s smile widened even further, and he said, “Home.”
A happy response came from the screen’s speakers. “Setting course to Winnie’s current location!”
Who is this?
“Oh, yeah. This is Higgs, the truck’s personality. He used to manage shit back home, and I like to say he was our boatswain. He's been put in this GPS for safekeeping.”
“Who are you talking to?” Higgs asked.
“Sirius, the artificial intelligence in my head. Say hi, Sirius.”
Greetings, Higgs.
“He said hi.”
“Greetings! Man, you know, it sure is cramped in this tiny little thing. Sure wish I wasn't stuck in a GPS.”
“I've got a jump drive with enough space for you somewhere. Wanna go in there?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then shut the fuck up.”
Ken, are you gonna tell me what is happening right now?
“Yeah. Basically we’re heading to Alabama to meet up with a remotely controlled Winnebago.”
“Well, the rendezvous point is technically in Louisiana, though that's just due to some messy geometry.” Higgs pitched in.
“Same difference.”
There is actually a large difference.
“Only if you factor in the cuisine.”
You make no sense sometimes.
“I’m designed to make no sense.”
Yes, you were, weren’t you?
“Okay, quiet y’all. I need to focus now,” he said as he merged onto a busier road. The only sounds were the roars of cars, and they didn't know quite where they would end up, but they did have a plan. A ridiculous plan, yes, but that's just par for the course, isn't it?
Hanging onto the sides of the Port City Trams, or "jumping the trams," is dangerous and illegal. Dangerous because of the whipping, pulling currents of gravity that the high-power, precisely programmed and engineered AntiGravs beneath the trams create, and illegal because you're supposed to pay to use the things.
Unfortunately for the governmental wallet, the "neo-euclidean design" of the trams make footholds pretty easy to come by. Even so, it's still dangerous as hell, tricky to keep a grip, so it's mostly poor people who do it.
The fact that about half of Port City's citizens routinely jump the trams says several things, none very positive, about the city.
Anyway, since it's nearly impossible to stop this sort of thing without spending a whole lot of money to either normalize the trams' geometry or buy new ones, the city government passive-aggressively had "MEMENTO MORI" painted on the sides of the trams in big block letters. Additionally, in an effort to make the warning of the danger of tram jumping even more clear, the first O, third M, and second O were painted to look like the eyes and nose of a skull. All that's done is turn "memento mori" into a sort of slogan for the city's impoverished, criminals, and impoverished criminals.
If you stand on the banks of the Mississippi in Jackson Square, wait until nighttime, and look over to the horizon you can see luminescent spacescrapers stretch to the stars like a forest of Babel, neon white fingers seeking to drag the heavens down to Earth. That is Port City.
Port City doesn't give passage to oceans of fish and water, but to ones of stars and vacuum, and its towers don't challenge any god. Instead, it stands in testament to the holy thing that lives in our greatest minds, the first and last god of mankind, Curiosity.
Where I'm Going, I'll Never Know (Act 1, Part 1)
Alarms are blaring in Site-93, but all D-0148 can think about is the sound of the police.
At least, it is until the door to her cell swings open, washing her with the unmistakable smell of alcohol-based disinfectants. They’re the same odors that had always pervaded the places these people in lab coats and that strange, black BDU've been shuffling her between.
The lack of guards makes her uneasy rather than excited, for some reason. Peeking her head out, she sees there’s nothing visibly wrong, it’s clear. She steps out.
Almost surprisingly, no one shoots her. Perhaps more surprising, there’s no guard present to holler at her to get back in the goddamn cell, and lock it again.
Her eyebrows rise as she steps out further, realizing it’s real. Not like the dreams she'd been having since that test… maybe a month ago? Time flies, or something. She walks out of the cell and down the hall and as she goes a few of the other D-class notice her passing. They furrow their eyebrows, sit up in their cots, and although a few mutter questions at her, she doesn’t answer. They don’t expect her to. It doesn't take long in a place like Site-54 for a person to realize there will always be more questions than answers.
After walking for a time, she reaches a service elevator and presses the button. The doors open immediately but there’s no carriage, just this overwhelming stench, it slams into her like a thrown sack of potatoes. It’s unlike anything she’s ever smelled, all at once like blood, rotten eggs, sulfur, and corpses left to rot. She also (nearly immediately) vomits on herself and down the shaft, which really doesn’t help the smell.
Looking down the shaft as her vomit falls, she sees why there’s no carriage; the wire snapped and the safety mechanisms failed, leaving it lying on its side in a pool of blood and cracked concrete.
Once she stops retching for long enough to close her nose with her fingers she looks around the shaft. It takes a while – even if she plugs her nose she can’t stop her eyes’ watering – but she sees a pipe bolted to the wall, and above it, other hand and footholds; a precarious climb, but she's had to climb worse. The only thing that gives her pause is how far away the pipe is, and that except in the middle, (where the metal on both halves fans out to allow room for boltholes), the surface is slick, purchaseless.
She steels herself to make the jump. (Pun intended.)
She jumps—lands it, but not as well as she could have; she feels her face slam against the boltholes in between the connected pipes. Pain explodes through her head as it fractures her nose, the pain forces her to scream, but she's cut off when the smell hits again and she starts dry heaving. She starts to fall, but she almost immediately wraps her arms and legs around the pipe, mostly on reflex, and stops. She can feel the blood trickling down her face, onto her jumpsuit. There's not much bleeding, which gives her time, but she still feels adrenaline, blood and pain roaring through her body as she starts climbing.
To distract from the pain, she looks around as she climbs, wondering for the umpteenth time how they built this place underground in New Orleans. Hell, even building an actual basement here, where the ground is so wet your grandma's coffin has to be interred aboveground, is a (very expensive) feat of engineering.
After about five minutes and five floors worth of climbing, she reaches a pair of elevator doors that're open. An air-conditioned breeze drifts through it, and dusty rays of fluorescent light cascade. In any other setting, it's not a welcome sight so much as a normal one, but to her, it's heaven. There's even a ledge just large enough to stand on and rest, find a solution to the bleeding. She takes a deep breath, but it comes in through her nose; it makes her wince, so she breaths through her mouth. She turns her head to look for anyone in the room, an office containing row after row of cubicles.
There's no-one there, so she starts shuffling to the edge.
Once she's out of the elevator, she leans against the wall, slides down until she's sitting with her knees to her chest. She pulls off and tears apart the top layer of her jumpsuit to grip in her teeth and places her hand over the broken nose, grits her teeth, balls up the fabric of her pants in her free hand, and makes a quick hand-sign over the nose.
With an audible snap, the nose heals, though its a bit crooked. As it happens, her face contorts as she tries not to scream.
With that, she rests her head back against the wall and closes her eyes. She only means to sit there for a minute or two and catch her breath, but before long, she's nodded off.
I Lost My Shit, A Couple Teeth! (Act 1, Part 2 (pre-chorus))
(here Morrow wakes up, now with he pronouns, and is forced to fight through members of Beta-2 in the office and shop, inspiration being taken from the kitchen scene in Tenet)
I Got Soul But I'm Not A Soldier (Interlude)
Wednesday, Feb 10, 2020
Jackson Square is always lively, but those clear sky,*speckled Saturday evenings make it a different sort of lively. It’s still loud, and of course for the bursting with tourists, those on their business, and many of the less fortunate, (such as myself), but all that is standard! Next Saturday evenings different is more ephemeral. A subtle difference in the air, like there’s something else in it, the way though street lamps illuminate the night and sparkle off the Mississippi like a second set of stars. They almost look like blank white eyes, sometimes. Even though I know it’s just reflection at all, sometimes I feel like it’s Papa Legba and the Baron in there
Tearing It Up, Go Now, Across The Mighty River (Act 2, Part 2 (chorus))
Yves Yvon |
Morrow |
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