For the first time years since he’d started studying his craft at MINT, Marcus Manners had slept well. This was despite keeping late hours again, but for a different reason from surfing the bountiful educational and tutorial videos on Bountiful... (that was a bit of a moutnful for a specialised anything of any sort, why couldn’tthey keep to two syllables like so many of the other big names going throung his house?)
He thumbed through the smart tablet briefly after a quick meal of a pre-made overnight soaked chia and wheatgrass cereal. The slight wobbly and seedy feel of the chia seeds slightly bloated up after a night in water followed by the slightly tart light yoghurt in the cup had been nice, but the wheatgrass tasted and felt in his mouth like more of an afterthought thrown in...
Marcus shrugged. He would have plenty of time to learn how to hack this ‘healthy food diet’ stuff for a little more enjoyment and a little less calorie cutting. What he had to do now was mount this tablet on the wall... carefully hovering the back of tablet to find the studs he’d used last night while planning the room...
The tablet clicked against the specific studs he’d been looking for, magnets holding the bulky rectangle surprisingly well and in place as the lasers started mapping the room again, pulsing different colors a few times where he had placed virtual furniture, the various volumes waiting to be filled in by actual physical versions of the furniture. Satisfied, he quietly clicked off the lasers and git hunsekf ready to accept a few deliveries.
The next few hours till lunch were a flurry of moments of busy-work punctuated by lots of waiting. Fresh groceries into the fridge and the larder, a few choice horrendous decisions out (it was a home not a frat house, he wouldn’t need to keep that many TV Meals when he was getting a daily healthy meal kit in for two or three meals in the house a day).
The OKEA NOW delivery people showed up next, circumspect as usual. He had specified that he would only pay for delivery, but fix things up himself like over 90% of OKEA customers did. The flatpacks fit nicely through the doorway into the room he had chosen to turn into a bedroom for Elliot, accompanied by the usual gift of yet another Allen Key – a sort of magical not-screwdriver that everyone somehow got tons of use out of when they used OKEA furnishings. This he quickly put to good use in assembling a smal bed, a study desk, and a half-height bookcase that a child could easily access all the shelves of. Into this he had hurriedly placed a few books on various homeschooling subjects, as recommended by a “Mr Carruthers’ Learning From Home With Better Curriculums” video playlist.Another small cupboard was pressed into service after a bit of fiddling as a clothes storage closet
The tablet was now providing the same laser guidance he head set up earlier, the volumes flickering briefly between red and green as he maneuvered the furniture into place, the app having the smarts to read the embedded chips in the fine Finnish wood and recycled plastics that made up the furniture, a separate process blaring an old protest song from the Despotic Years era, as a grizzled old singer loudly yelled for the overthrow of the tyrant who had elected to give himself another five terms on top of the three he had already won ‘fairly’. He now sang a stanza about how “Mr Manners should reply back now” -
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“Mr Marcus Manners? Please respond. This is Alaska Wild Patrol 35032, we have picked up your ping. Are you requiring assist? Or are you capable of waiting out this storm? Please reply back now!” A plainitive radio call had been patched through on the campervan, which had opted to disobey Marcus’ earlier orders for a good cause and patched it into a speaker somewhere as loudly as it could without distorting the voice too much.The speakers were of very good quality, it turned out – loud enough to shake him awake. Groggily, he shook himself awake and yelled.
“This is not a vehicle capable of weathering this storm, 35032. Requesting evacuation to nearest safe point for warming and shelter.” Marcus yelled, taking for granted that the AI of the campervan was patching the response back to the patrols.
It had certainly done that. There was a moment of silence after he had yelled on the radio, before another crackle came through. “35032 locating stricken vehicle with extra accuracy scanning. Pleaase standby for evac within 120 minutes. Stay frosty.”
There was no camera inside the campervan that the AWP could access. If they could, they would have seen Marcus’ mien taken on a odd mix of relief and outrage. Sure it was nice watching the AI of the campervan cheerfully announce that there was now a 90% chance of him getting out alive with minimal or no injury. But their choice of words hadn’t been something like “Sit Tight”, or “Stay Alive”. No, they had told him to “Stay Frosty”. Right as he was skirting the edge of actually becoming frosty and chilled.
He was going write something about this on the forms when they handed him the post-rescue reports. He carefully thought about how to word it to sound less like a Karen Complaint and more like “that was funny, but please, for the love of Goddess, don’t do it again.”, pausing briefly to bite down on what would soon be an extremely big pile of waste food and a mostly spent heating pad set, savoring the plebian fatty pork and spices like it was fine cuisine as the sauce it came drenched in soaked into the bun. All he had to do now... was wait.
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There had been a club in MINT called the “Worshippers of Miniature Beauty”. Apparently it was some sort of club that delighted in collectible fashion dollbots, their members parading their shrunken little companions and delighting in giving them different looks, The membership had been surprisingly even in terms of how roughly equal in number the male and female students, with a smattering of some of the staff of the college.
It had seemed a bit odd to him, though he did appreciate their aesthetic sense as they took a new theme every few weeks and went through a flurry of activity to interpret the theme in different ways. New wigs, new clothing designs sketched and handcrafted and fitted. If necessary, retailored to correct a part that didn’t fit well.
Marcus had declined to join them even though many of them were fellow sculptors from both specialisations in how sculpting could be done. He was now making a mental note that he would never speak ill of such clubs ever again.
After all, he was already doing the same thing, kind of, Marcus had mused this way as he filled the clothes cupboard with Elliot-01’s provided clothing, before turning to check the tablet and smiling. The test unit was fully charged and it was now safe to boot him up. Marcus looked at the watch on his wrist as it read 9:42pm. Wow, the time had certainly fown. Even if he’d skipped lunch and dinner he’d still have finished doing all this setup quite late anyways...
A yawn escaped his mouth as Marcus briefly checked through some options... Schedule a wakeup time? How about 7 in the morning... that seemed good... use default startup programs...
Somewhere further up the line, if Elliot-01’s creation had been a matter of dumping things into a magic cauldron and stirring, someone had apparently opted to throw a few books on healthy living and exercise into the mix... He read the schedule the test unit would go through for at least the first one to three hours – a little breakfast, a jog around the block, some simple callisthenics...
The AI could probably run a different schedule that fit more to a kid who had scholastic committients at an actual school or homeschool, and it was probably capable of adapting on the fly to fit the needs of the owning parent, but this was a good way to start the day. He was beginning to be a little unsure if he was looking at a robot, a kid, or an actual lifestyle training device, really.
Still, Marcus reflected as he looked around the new child’s bedroom, he had done as much as he could to prepare for Day 3... he just had to write up a report and feed it back to Seamus and Bellamy at HQ, and then he could go to sleep-
Marcus facepalmed as he realised he was commiting a major blunder as a father wannabe. Good fathers didn’t just leave their children completely undressed.
He chewed himself out as he fished in Elliot-01’s clothing cupboard to pick out a set of pyjamas and briefs, sittiding down in the office hair he had paired with the study desk – it was intended for Elliot-01, but the sizing proved to be okay for Marcus as well, if a ittle cramped. He reached over to lift Elliot-01’s limp form into his lap, learning that he was hefty, but not overly heavy for his size.
It was still hard to dress him up entirely on his own, having to maneuver Elliot-01’s limbs like a four-legged octupus, He took brief notice of the way Elliot-01’s chest was now heaving slowly, serving the dual purpose of maintaining a stable human-like operating temperature and providing a semblance of life even as he buttoned up the pyjama top. Over twenty hours of charging and presumably busy setup procedures beneath the surface had impoarted a slight warmth to Elliot-01, and he felt, in a way, more life-like, the heat having slightly loosened up the synthflesh and making it flex more realistically.
A few more minutes of fumbling later, Marcus had entirely corrected the big mistake he had been making. As a finishing touch, he carefully pulled the winter blanket out and tucked Elliot-01 cosily under it, checking to make sure the charging pad beneath the bedsheets was working and maintaining a slow trickle of power to Elliot-01. He checked the controller app one last time on his tablet as he shut off the lights, plunging the bedroom into total darkness, making sure everything through the house was running okay. and going off to wash up properly for bed, sending off a few notes before he finally fell asleep, far more tired than he’d ever been, simply coasting along at work on his skills and experience.
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Marcus Manners hadn’t expected a Children Of The Corn style wakeup call. He had woken up about half an hour earlier than planned on his own, blinking slowly in what little light had come into his bedroom through the curtains.... Minnesota winters were a pain, and only living further up in the North in the winter (or its equivalent location and timing in the Southern hemisphere) would have provided even less light at this time of morning.
He stretched a little and looked out towards the bedside window, expecting to see only the prolonged darkness of a winter’s morning... “YELP!”
Marcus quickly turned under his blanket. He had seen some sort of apparition standing by the side of his bed... a pair of irises examined him, little round discs of black against brownish orange lenses. Fumbling for his tablet, Marcus tapped the room light controls for his bedroom and flooded it with a warmi whiteness. Only then did he turn back to look at what had intruded into his bedroom at 5.30-ish in the morning.
Elliot-01 was standing stiffly at attention, his arms placed at hs sides. His eyes scanned Marcus for a few more seconds, before his irises slowly resolved into ordinary light brown. He leaned in a little closer, curiousity now taking over from fear. The lenses in Elliot-01’s eyes had adjusted through several main shades of the rainbow, some utterly unnatural amongst human eyes without the benefit of a trip to an optician for colored lenses, before finally going that shade of hazel as per client specification.
The detailing was impressive – Seamus had somehow replicated the webbing that real human irises had ti a level that withstood some scrutiny. There was obviously a limit of course – given the right expertise and scanners someone could probably pick out mistakes. The illusion would fall apart given enough handling and observation by someone who knew human anatomy as a medical science rather than something to base a realistic sculpture off of... But he wasn’t a medical expert, Marcus reflected, and neither was Senator Bundt, or most normal people, really. The level of detail Marcus had witnessed so far on so many aspectswould pass muster. A professional part of him quietly noted this with clinical interest for his next report to the Arendt brothers...
Marcus tapped further on the controller app for Ellliot-01. At this point, getting any more sleep was going to be a wash. He might as well start the day early... He might as well try to omit the number as well even though he suspected he knew what it implied in terms of Elliot-01 obviously not being one of a kind.
“Elliot-01, please allow me to address you as Elliot.” Marcus typed into the tablet as he sat there in bed. Glancing over at the stiffly posed figure... no visible response from there, just like he was expecting.... the screen briefly lights up with acknowledgementsm causing Marcus to smile as he types in another command in plain and simple American English, “Trigger start of morning schedule immediately.”
Code: Select all
Enable response to alternate name “Elliot”
ERROR- Priority 999: Immediate activation of morning schedule not possible.
INFO: Please wait 45 seconds for Elliot-01 to bring forward full start-up.
It still suprises him when Elliot finally awakes fully, his lungs heaving harder once as he takes a larger breath, blinking as he examines Marcus’ sleepy face, his own mien contorting into a slightly impish smile. “Papa, wake up. You promised me we were going to have a good jog and a proper workout today since it’s a school-free day.” his voice chirps warmly, his hands tugging at Marcus’ blankets. “You’re not going to back out of our promise, right?’
Marcus has a sore temptation to just do exactly that. Tell Elliot that no, he just wants to go back to bed. Partly because he still wants to sleep another hour or two w But also to see how he would respond to a requested change to their schedule in the form of a personal rejection, out of professional interest to generate more data points for studying later.
His pesky little inner voice had other ideas, starting a small little internecine war inside. There wasn’t a tiny angel and a small imp on his shoulders, but Marcus still got the voices doing the debate....
“It’s just a damn toy, Marky boy. Tell him no, let him manage himself for an hour or two. Besides, being that healthy is kind of overrated. You just have to get in some regular walking and a healthy meal or two each day. You don’t really need to do actual CARDO AND CALLISTHENICS, do you?’
“A promise was made, little one. You should honor it. He’s trying to be a good boy, and he wants you to get and stay healthy so that you live longer.”
“Hah! It’s all just plastics and mechanics, ya putz! Are you going to let a doll dictate your entire morning? Next you’ll tell me ‘let him set the schedule the whole day!”... ... ... “ya wimp. If you weren’t going to do it when your tablet begged you via a lifestyle app, what is going to be different if the lifestyle app comes wrapped in the form of some young kid?”
“You seemed to be getting used to treating him like a real son. I don’t know about the giant whales or the island that turned everyone into jackasses in that story... whaasitcalled...” finger snapping noises, as if whoever that gentle voice had belonged to was trying to recall what the Pinnochio story was called... “anyways, he’s a child. He wants to be good. You should reward him by helping him along and listening to some of what he asks for... especially when it helps you as well.”
The time seemed to stretch and snap back abit as the gravelly demonic voice and the gentle lady’s tones mixed it up... but Marcus was a bit better than Neelix the Cat at adjucating a fight between his better and worse sides and taking a decision. At least, he liked to imagine that... He rolled out of bed and nodded. “I don’t see why not, it’s a bit cold, but not that cold. Go get your exercise stuff on. Maybe wear one of your cold-weather jackets, or undersuits, stay a little warm. Meet you at the front door in five minutes.” He stood up, glancing briefly as Elliot exits his bedroom while dancing a little silent jig as if in joyous exxcitement.
This child would be either the death of him, or part of his salvation, Marcus mused as he got on his exercise shorts and a a slightly worn T-shirt that read “It’s not that cold, It’s Minnesota Warm”, shrugging on a dark purple down jacket and a pair of trainers. He hadn’t exercised that much in a long while, but he was sure he could show him a challenge! He punched the air with one fist, smugly looking at his admittedly out-of-shape body in the dresser mirror,
Ten minutes later, he started to realise something... if you let a robot lead a exercise routine, the chances that you’re the one who gets challenged isextremely high unless you fiddle with the dice by prrogramming artificial limits in... and even those limits could still be way more than you can handle.
Marcus wheezed as he pounded the pavement. It was just light... cardio.... he could match a little child with a half-sized pair of legs and the lack of pacing to boot... surely... Elliot had definitely thrown him a bown by slowing down a little, but the boy had shown no signs of tiring out, and was even taking occasional moments to slow down and yell at Marcus to keep up as they rounded the pathway of the block, taking them to the lawn ground in the middle of the block.
Unlike most of the block, the ice had shied away mostly from the lawn. A series of pipes beneath the fake grass and shredded sponge Fake-Earth warmed the surface, melting the ice as fast it could land on most winter days, and letting it dran downward into the loamy soil beneath, in a controlled manner that would hopefully keep it from turning into a slusky muddy mess.
Elliot had started doing little exercises on that surface, switching over every few sets of reps, breathing a little deeply and sweating it out even in the icy cold. Marcus had made an effort to keep up, but he quickly learnt that one hindrance of getting fit with callisthenics was that if you were heavier, there was a more resistance in each exercise... and more effort needed to move around...
An hour later, he was sitting all spent in the kitchen back home. This getting healthier thing was... really tiring him out. He had stretched and pulled muscles he swore should not have existed. Marcus was POOPED.
A small hand suddenly brushed and patted his hair. Elliot made a show of rewarding Marcus’ efforts by gently cooing mumbly little patitiudes... “Why don’t you soak in the bath tub for a bit. I tfind it helps when your muscles really ache after a hard workout.” He gently asked, as if offering advice as a physiotherapist. (Bear in mind this is basically someone who looked like a young kid).
Marcus nodded slowly. A soak in some warm water for a while did indeed seem like a good option. The bath tub was placed on one of the balconies on the upper floor, heavily shielded for privacy and modesty. The AI managing Little Sanctuary’s home builds had come to a correct answer on those matters, but woe betide anyone who asked it to show its workings, because the Agent seemed to have an obsession with giving everyone a chance to soak in the outdoors with hot water. Sometimes it was little more than a tap and a cork in the bottom of a wooden bathtub, sometimes it was a entire jacuzzi. Just like house assignments and design variations, the way people got a simple tub or something that jetted warm sprays....
Marcus had been fortunate, getting a jacuzzi. As he sunk his bare form into the hot tub, he reflected on the first morning he’d had with a cheeky little runt had almost run him into the ground. It would probably get easier with more regular participation in his ersatz son’s cardio and callisthenics, but for today, for a first time, he was WIPED.
He chilled for a few minutes, letting the warm gushing massage the pain out of his sore body, before he decided to put in a voice-only call. He knew who was going to get his ear talked off.
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Seamus had answered fast. He and Bellamy had agreed to take turns on alternate days to act as tech support for Marcus on the tests they had forced onto him, and Seamus was the more conscientious of the two... Bellamy had calmly reported that nothing untoward had happened on initial setup at the Manners home, but Seamus had re-reviewed the first report and logs Marcus had returned and... well... he was very concerned.
“That’s what I said, Seamus.” Marcus calmly spoke to the microphone embedded in hi tablet after carefully propping it up so that it would avoid any heavy splashes or falling in the direction of the jacuzzi water. “The initialization phase took 28 hours to complete, and the robot proceeded to offer me a very useful exercise regimen to work through in the morning.”
“There are several what-the-hells in just those two statements you’ve made.” Seamus rubbed his forehead, the creasing of hard worries plastering themselves across the skin despite all the metrosexual beauty care and premium rejuvenation he’d undergone.
“Explain to me like I don’t know what the baselines you were looking for are. Because I don’t” Marcus deadpanned, his show of flat concern clearly visible even over the audio-only call he was making.
“Well... the initizalization phase should only have taken eight hours. You should have started sending in actual live testing data a day earlier than you did... The second thing is, we still haven’t firmly added much functionality besides basic obedience and some simple AI to simulate and handle a few basic responses. The scope of response you are stating happened to you should not have been possible now. Maybe in a year of patches and learning, but not now.” Seamus hissed.
Marcus hummed a note of concern. “Maybe your bro went far ahead of the schedule? He’s a bit bad at following the requirements sheet exactly. Or maybe there’s a difference in the hardware you gave me that explains it?”
Seamus’s head shake was practically audible. “Uh uh. I made two Elliots, and I made sure the hardware was all exactly the same right down to the fricking dates and batch numbers on the components, before I sealed the headcases and torso chipsets to prevent tampering. You’d have to literally destroy half the chips unsealing either set of processors to try that. And they both work... jjust not the same way...”Seamus paused for a moment. “Look, I’ll come over tomorrow to rerun the checksums and make sure there really isn’t anything untoward hardware wise. After that, we’ll start figuring out if it’s software tampering or some shit. In the meantime, keep pretending it’s all okay and don’t give Elliot-01 any indication that you think something’s wrong with it.”
Marcus nodded uneasily. “Can do... But please do hurry up. I don’t enjoy thinking nonstop that I’m about to be part of a real-life reboot of Saturday The 14th.”
“The original 1976 movie? The one with the hokey voodoo?”
“No, the TV reboot from 2015 where the dolls are based on Voodoo9 GPUs rather than voodoo the magic.”
“... ... there was a TV reboot?” Seamus just HAD to ask. The existence of such a version of a slasher movie classic was a surprise to him.
“Yes... apparently it sucked.” Marcus gently noted.
“If it sucked, probably nobody I know in that direction would recommend it to me.” Seamus sighed. “Talk to you later.” He hung up and pondered over the recent spate of oddities in the IT world, starting with the heist of York off a self-admitted mega-rich Nazi cum vehicle baron.
Through some weird trick, someone had ripped out the entirety of York AI from every shard hosted by Magellick Naryan, moved it out of reach somehow on the Internet, and left a million people complaining and demanding refunds because York wasn’t working at all... It’s brain had disappeared totally, leaving only the utterly useless chat systems. Magellick had screamed for a restore, but efor some reason, everytime they attempted to reinstall the AI, it had fragmented and disappeared somewhere again.
Seamus shrugged and decided to focus on what he could affect, typing into his smart tablet. There was a soft padding noise as another figure loomed into view.
Elliot-02 walked up to Seamus, his arms carting a tray with a carafe of soda and mint leaves paired with a glass with a giant ice prism swirling in it. For easier debugging, the standard error messaging methods had been left enabled, and Elliot-02 was wearing only briefs. “Delivering desired drink, papa.” Elliot-02 announced in a even, soulless voice as he rested the tray on the table next to him.
Seamus scratched his head a little. This was indeed the sort of behavior Elliot-01 should have exhibited with the currently available AI, the same hardware. It was admittedly lifeless, but it was functional enough to run a lot of tests on. Marcus’ situation was a headscratcher in so many ways... He sighed as he tapped more instructions out.
Elliot-02’s eyes briefly flashed, his bellybutton giving off an erratic green flicker as code uploaded for execution... “Executing KeyJunctionHash dot program. Pipping output to associated controller, results_35affn215.log, announce on full complete in approximately.... 5 hours.” Elliot-02 closed its eyes, falling completely silent save for the heavier heaving of his lungs as they worked to cool the coolant circulating through its critical headcase and torso chipsets as they went under the load of doing tons of math to check that they had not been tempered with.
Seamus frowned and turned away from the ersatz boy, returning most of his focus to other affairs. This was probably the extent of his interactions with Elliot-02. While he was getting good at feigning being human, especially with the help of his neural medications, he was still a psychopath if nobody was around to rein in his erratic thinking. And while he could get the right answers on a quiz about making human-like decisions with a leash on from a good friend or relative, the workings would be totally alien. He wasn’t sure if he should really apologise for that.
In the odd differential in interactions and functionality between the two Test Units he'd put together, He did not see two individuals with variations in circumstances and and rolls of the dice to be sussed and examined with academic interest for future purposes. Seamus instead saw a baseline that was to be expected, and one unit going totally haywire, even if in a manner that produced ''better' behaviors. He wasn't going to celebrate it. He was going to nail it down and erase the difference if it proved a threat.
Seamus sighed again, before oreturning to his paper paper.
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