Here’s a sneak peek into “Undaunted,” to be released by the first of the year. “Undaunted” is book #6 in the Dreamscape Conspiracy series and will not disappoint.
Some context…
This chapter focuses mainly on the relationship between the AI Humanoid, Amelia Amethys, and Marci, one of the psych team members, who has been assigned to help a newly birthed Humanoid (3 days old…but looking like she’s 25 years old). Marci’s job is to help Amelia learn what it’s like to be an organic (human).
Where’s the handbook on that?
How do you learn life?
You live it, and Marci resolves that is precisely what they will do…dive in the deep end and take the evening as their first stab at learning…with a twist nobody saw coming.
Peace! G.
7 – Trolling
Marci was not altogether sure that taking Amelia to a bar was the perfect learning experience, but there they were, standing room only at Lil’ Charlie’s microbrewery. It was Thursday, so live entertainment was in the bar, escalating the typical noisy environment by many decibels. They had arrived right before the rush and were lucky enough to find a booth; unfortunately, it sat flush against the far corner with only one way in or out.
Marci knew from their previous dining experience that Amelia did not consume anything, neither food nor drink. It was awkward to be in an environment with a humanoid that knew nothing about being human and, honestly, looked different enough to catch eyes — too many second looks. Where is a better place to experience interpersonal friction with organics than in their native environment – a noisy, packed bar?
Marci, undaunted by her unease, ordered a cabernet and folded her hands on the table, saying nothing, yet feeling the pressure to speak. She was not even sure what they would accomplish there. How did one teach life experiences anyway? Perhaps life experience was the real teacher, and Marci needed to referee and keep Amelia together as she navigated her new life as an organic.
“Hellooo, ladies,” slurred an inebriated man, maybe 25 or so, doing his best to make an impression and dropping into the space next to Amelia without invitation. “Mind if I join you?”
Amelia stiffened, servos in her arms and shoulders were poised to answer her call to action, whatever she figured out that action should be.
“I mind,” said Marci sharply.
He swung his head to look at Marci, as if it weighed a hundred pounds. I wasn’t talking to you, bitch. I was talking to this…this…what the fuck are you?” he asked, swinging his head back to Amelia.
Without skipping a beat, Amelia said, “I am an Advanced Generation Mod-2 SuperIntelligence AI Humanoid. What the fuck are you?”
Marci flinched, wondering how the fight that was brewing would turn out, and praying she wouldn’t find out.
“You’re a what?” he slurred. “Humanoid? Is that why your skin looks so slick?” and he reached up and stroked Amelia’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. That move did not bode well for the drunk organic. Amelia went active, grabbing his wrist with one hand in a crushing grip and his throat with the other, squeezing with enough pressure to send the message that death was just around the corner.
Marci, still stewing over being called a bitch by some drunk dick, watched Amelia’s response in shock when she moved so quickly. When Amelia began to lift the guy by the throat, Marci knew intervention had to happen before serious injury or death resulted. For some crazy reason, she was reminded of an old Georgia Satellites song that said Tell me no lies and keep your hands to yourself. Well, the drunk didn’t, and Amelia’s silent truth had him by the throat. Her lightning-quick response and crushing grip telegraphed what he should not have done with his hands.
Marci reached out and grabbed the guy’s wrist to pull him away from Amelia and said, “You need to back off, asshole, before you get hurt. Feel me?”
Amelia released him, and he wordlessly stumbled from their booth, clutching his throat, and looking back in wonder as he retreated from Amelia, not quite sure what had just happened to him. Marci sat back in her seat to ponder how she could teach Amelia to be a responsible adult without risking charges of assault and battery.
Marci leaned in closer, putting a hand on Amelia’s shoulder, and shared thoughts telepathically. Amelia, do you have any idea how strong you are? You started to lift that guy off his seat…by the throat. Russ told me you may not know your own strength when you bumped fists with him in Leesburg, but now I believe it. You’re powerful. Dangerous and resorting to physical violence should not be your first course of action.
I am sorry, Marci, but he touched me without asking.
Marci shook her head slowly in acknowledgement. I saw the whole thing, and, yes, it crossed the line of decency by invading your private space. That kind of thing is going to happen in your new life, and you cannot resort to violence as your standard response when it does. His behavior is not uncommon in places like this, where organics are drinking and feeling uninhibited after too much alcohol. If it were me, I’d have reacted too, but by pushing him away with a warning before crushing his larynx. Does that resonate with you, Amelia?”
Amelia said nothing, and the look on her face belied the presence of any emotion. Was she thinking? Did she have enough awareness to reflect on what happened without any life experiences to serve as a benchmark? Will filing it away in her memory yield any valuable lessons, or will it just be an event with no life lesson?
Marci asked. Are you okay?
Amelia remained emotionless. No one has ever touched me without asking first. You touched me, but you asked for my permission. That organic did not. My response was defensive, and I did not know what else to do.
Marci responded. That’s fine. You’ve just had a learning experience that you can recall the next time a situation like this arises. That means you must consider the alternatives you have before reacting and potentially damaging an organic. You have a right to privacy in your own space. If someone crosses the line, you tell them to stop. If they don’t stop, push them away. If they don’t stop, then you move to plan B based on the severity of the offense.
The expression on Amelia’s face had still not changed. Marci wondered where Amelia was in that humanoid head, or wherever her Logic Array resided. Granted, she did not exhibit many facial expressions, but she was gifted with a warm smile and those amazing green eyes. She was beautiful in an alien sort of way and attracted many second looks. It almost felt to Marci like fishing, trolling with Amelia as bait to attract experiences that would help her develop.
Marci forgot Amelia could listen to her thoughts until Amelia reminded her by saying. I am not aware of you using me to capture life experiences, so do not feel badly. Because of our trolling fish, I have learned what it is like to defend a friend. I have thrown a drunk organic ten meters onto his head and likely killed him. I have learned how violent music selections are made at the Waffle House, and did not kill an organic who clearly needed something more violent than picking him up off the floor. Oh, and I learned that scattered and smothered is a food for organics. All of this in one evening.
Marci guffawed, “I know, right? All those amazing experiences in one evening. Wow! Learning by living is how you will become capable in the way of organics. The trick is to keep you alive long enough to become like a capable organic.”
It finally dawned on Marci that Amelia needed to learn to be an organic by learning like one – taking things as life served them up. Would that choice be a death sentence to her, or somebody else?
“This has been an exciting evening for you, I can feel your eagerness to learn more, yes?”
Amelia said, “Always learning, Marci. Always. Can we go burn a house down?”
“WHAT?” shrieked Marci. “Sweet baby Jesus, where did that come from?” She swiveled her head around to see if anyone had heard her outburst in the car.
Amelia continued playing her dumb-as-a-fox charade, said. The music playing at the Waffle House as we exited kept repeating the words ‘burning down the house,’ and it sounded like a viable learning moment.
Marci came off the rails at a high volume she usually reserved for Wayne, “You cannot be serious?”
Amelia stared back at her with that little smirk of a grin or smile or whatever it was she distorted. Marci brought her hands up to her temples. “That tears it right down the middle.”
Amelia put her left hand on Marci’s shoulder as she began to speak, initially sounding almost apologetic. “I can’t protect you all the time.”
Pausing a second before her voice and tone shifted to whatever the opposite of apologetic might sound like if wrapped in sarcasm. “If I had a lighter, I’d drop your ass off at the first house we saw, and you could absorb your fucking learning moment all the way to the ground.
If the life experience I have, that you, by the way, do not have, says, burning a house to the ground will grant another learning moment you do not want to have in the women’s penitentiary. If any of that’s not making sense…look it up. I’m done!”
Amelia, deadpanned with her smirk, squeezing Marci’s shoulder, said softly, “Are you finished?”
Call it intuition or second sense or whatever mind tricks this was, but Marci knew she had just been punked…by a goddam AI.
Amelia cooed, “That was quite entertaining for me to learn that not every organic can detect a joke.”
“Fuck you, Amelia!”
Amelia pushed away. “That’s…how do you organics say, a non-starter.”
“…and your little dog,” Marci concluded her reply.
Amelia had not finished. “I do not have a dog, and since we cannot burn down a house, can you get me a dog as another organic growth experience?”
“Don’t push your luck, sister,” growled Marci, “I’m tired and need to be in my bed, but I’m pretty sure I have enough fight left in me to choke you out or die trying.”
“The latter would be the outcome…sister,” looking directly at Marci with the smirk, or was it just a crooked little grin?
Amelia’s arrogance angered her, and she needed a righteous humbling. Humbling, that is, as long as the sarcastic humor was protected. There was no question that a fondness for Amelia grew, despite the attitude. Marci sensed the connection and wondered if Amelia’s arrogance was a misdirection hiding a frightened child trying to be bold enough to survive. Perhaps that was always going to be a problem, until she grew into it—if she had the time to do so.
“Would you prefer, since I have the cooler disposition, to drive us home?”
Like a bolt of lightning, it struck. ‘Drive us home?’
Gary G. Wise
Writer of Things – Author – Storyteller
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