“Undaunted” Snippet From Chapter 7 – Trolling
This snippet from “Undaunted” illustrates the difficulty Marci faces as she pursues her task of teaching Amelia Amethys to survive in the world as an AI-driven humanoid masquerading as a real girl.
Needless to say, the task was daunting when Amelia was visibly unique with an iridescent exodermal, not to mention, was dangerously beautiful.
After the first opportunity to fend off a drunken man, and before Amelia could end his existence, she began to question if agreeing to train Amelia in the ways of being an organic was such a rewarding assignment.
Asking herself about her decision to be a mentor to an Advanced Generation Mod-2 SuperIntelligence AI Humanoid made her question if she needed a little mentoring herself, before somebody was maimed or killed.
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“Undaunted” From Chapter 7 – Trolling
“Hellooo, ladies,” slurred a large and inebriated man, mid-twenties 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 a 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 anyways?” 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 sure to come 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.
For some crazy reason, the words popped into Marci’s head from a Georgia Satellites song: ‘Tell me no lies, and keep your hands to yourself.’ Well, the drunk didn’t, and that move did not bode well, and Amelia went kinetic, 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 a drunk dick, watched Amelia’s response in shock when she moved with incredible quickness. When Amelia began to lift the guy off the seat by the throat, Marci knew intervention had to happen before serious injury or death resulted.
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, pondering how to 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 I believe it now. You’re powerful and dangerous. Resorting to physical violence should not be your first course of action.’
Amelia responded. “I am sorry, Marci, but he touched me without asking.”
Marci shook her head slowly in acknowledgment. “I saw the whole thing, and, yes, he 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 a repeatable event with no life lesson for future guidance?
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 weigh your alternatives 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 still 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 brain, 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, attracting many second looks. It almost felt to Marci like she was fishing, trolling with Amelia as bait to attract experiences that would help her develop.
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