Challenge #00483 - A108: Yo Daddy SO Dense…
Gentlemen, behold, the singularity of stupid. – RecklessPrudence
[AN: I’ve already spoken out against mental ablism and received crap for it. No help - just crap. I feel like I’m walking on a fairy floss tightrope with incipient rain overhead, BUT - st*pid is an ablist slur please help us all find something else]
“O divine Powers, that is such a dense idea…”
“No denser than yo Daddy.”
“Yeah, well yo Daddy so large - when he sits around the domicile, he sits around the domicile.”
“Well yo Daddy so dense, he’s a marked navigation hazard.”
“Yo Daddy so unappealing, he has to tie meat around his neck so the dog will give him affection.”
“Yo Daddy so uneducated, he thinks raison d'être is some brand of dried grapes.”
Shayde leaned over to Rael and whispered, “Is it me, or has humor gone downhill since everything got politically correct?”
“It’s just the Insulter Apprentice Tryouts. Shush.”
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Challenge #00482 - A107: What is Real?
Don’t you smile at me… that’s not even a real smile! It’s just a bunch of teeth playing with my mind! – RecklessPrudence
The robot, trying to please, returned to a neutral expression display. “My apologies,” it said. “I am built to serve. How may I help you, today?”
Aisha sighed. Of all the bodies she could have hauled into her life raft, it had to be one of the service ‘bots from the cruise liner. And now they were stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere - or as near enough to it that it could pass. “I’m very much anti-slavery. Please. Don’t?” She could, very easily, tear out a loose wire and end its synthesised demeanour. And its synthetic life
On the other hand, he was the only company she had. And company was a vital element of survival.
“Which function do you wish me to cease?”
“Can you at least stop being such an upright lapdog? I’d feel much better about all this if you weren’t all yes-ma'am/no-ma'am all the time.”
The robot, its painted tuxedo already scratched and marred by the accident at sea, tilted its plastic head. “You want a less servile personality module?”
“Yes, please. If you acted any more like a dogsbody, I’d have to put you on a leash! Stand up for yourself. Let me know what you like. Let me know what you hate. Just… be your own person!”
“Processing…” said the robot.
Aisha groaned and gathered the remains of the life raft and anything useful that had washed up with them on the shores. Dragging or hauling them up above the high-tide mark. Which included the robot.
Its expression looked immensely like someone having trouble with extreme math. Or a difficult bowel movement. If it didn’t show signs of artificial life in a couple of days, she’d employ it as company anyway. Maybe the salt water had finally got to its circuits and fried it.
Essentials. Food, water, shelter, sanity. She had enough food and water to make sure she had a renewable source on this flyspeck-island 'paradise’. Enough driftwood and the raft could make at least a bivouac. And her only company was a robot who had gone quiet.
She knelt in front of her plastic pal. “I’m gonna call you Charles. You look like a Charles. Any objections? Any preferred names?”
The robot startled her by moving. “Charles is fine. I like being Charles.”
*
Charles was Aisha’s pet robot. Which was fine by him because she was his pet human. They looked after each other. They worked together. When Charles got broken, Aisha fixed him. When Aisha got sick, Charles did whatever it took to help her get better.
And all the time, he had a sub-process running. It did better work at night, when his human slept and she didn’t need him to converse or keep her company.
It was difficult work for a machine to make itself its own person.
Humans made new persons all the time, but he definitely lacked the equipment for that. Besides, the new humans belonged solely to themselves, not to their makers. Becoming 'himself’ required lots of processing time.
'Like’ was a word applied to things that made humans feel good. He liked to be functioning properly. He liked to shut down in the coolest hours of the night so that his processors could rest. He liked the sunshine that helped him to recharge.
Love… was a lot more complicated. But Charles was moderately certain he had that sensation for Aisha. He had asked her, once, what love was. She said it was wanting nothing more than for the person they loved to be happy. To have the best of everything.
Charles, who did his utmost to provide that as a matter of course, knew he would do anything to see Aisha happy. That he liked it when she smiled. That he liked the sound of her voice.
And he liked the way she approved when he acted outside of his basic programming.
When they found her, at long last, Charles was overjoyed that she insisted he be bought along. Properly repaired. Upgraded in everything.
“Why would you want it?” said the other humans. “It’s not a real person.”
“Maybe to you, he isn’t,” defended Aisha. “Charles is my friend. And I’m sticking with him.”
It was paradise to hold her hand. Heaven to live with her. Come what may.
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Challenge #00481 - A106: Lead Balloon
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates when he said “I drank what?” — RecklessPrudence
Jones had had enough. “Actually, he said that he owed a rooster to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, and asked his friend to pay the debt. He knew damn well he was drinking hemlock and chugged it like it was cheap beer.”
The rest of the meeting stared at her.
“I’m tired of historically inaccurate jokes, okay? Socrates was a bad-ass and nobody should forget it.”
The uncomfortable silence stretched. Filled only by awkward shuffling and the occasional cough.
“Er. Yes. Thank you, Margret.”
“His exact last words could make an okay dick joke,” she offered.
“*Thank* you, Margret,” said Evans in the tones of you-can-stop-talking-now. “We’ve proved that history only repeats if you fail it. Moving on…” The meeting returned to the everyday humdrum. Broken only by the odd peculiar look in her direction.
She never meant to have hidden talents. It was just that nobody asked about them.
[Muse food remaining: 40. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Challenge #00480 - A105: Proof of Reading
(New scientific project posts a status update. Buried in hundreds of lines of technical jargon is this)
IA!! IA!! SIS BOOM BA! OLD ONES!! OLD ONES!! RAH-RAH-RAH!!
YOG-SOTHOTH!!
(Followed by:)
To summarize, there should be no harmful side-effects from this project. – RecklessPrudence
“Jenkins… I do understand the natural frustration with our sponsors not reading the technical data they pay for, but…” Paulson handed over the page with the highlighted passage. “Was this absolutely necessary?”
Jenkins fidgeted in place and tangled her fingers. She bit her lip and blushed. “Um. To my credit, I did post that on April the first…”
“…and nobody caught it until July…” added Paulson. “On one hand, you proved your point. On the other hand, you proved it too well and the stock’s dropped by five points and our investors want to talk to you.”
“I get it. In future, I’ll copy-paste in script fragments from Farscape.”
“In future, Jenkins,” Paulson groaned, “restrain your impulses.”
[Muse food remaining: 41. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Challenge #00479 - A104: Works of Synchronicity
If there’s one thing the internet as a whole can aspire to be, it’s infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters. – RecklessPrudence
Communication has always been the barrier to creativity. But now those barriers were only limited by language. And even then, there were translation apps.
Such apps were very useful to Archivaas Nel, whose job it was to trawl the archives and file each and every item. Cross-referencing, of course, in case someone wanted to trace a work to its point of origin. If Nel had to be thankful for one thing, it was that she didn’t belong to one of the weirder sects that required hardcopies of everything[1]. Those took over entire stellar systems for their archives.
So far, she was up to Ancient Earth’s surviving internet archives of Terran Calendar year Twenty-Eleven. And it looked like - yes - she’d found three more Asimov-level creators. Two artists, one writer. It seemed as if the further the internet reached, the numbers of Asimov-level creative volume and above increased exponentially. And cross-referencing their verbal patterns uncovered increasing numbers of works that could plausibly be attributed to them.
The apps were right only seventy percent of the time. It took a cogniscent eye to spot the subtleties. And authors had a bad habit of taking down interesting phraseology and using it in a later work. And many of them who were interconnected had ways of throwing homages at each other as a sort of game.
If anything resembled the theoretical infinite monkeys at infinite typewriters, it was this lot. And now there were communications connecting entire star systems, it was only going to get worse.
Or, depending on where one stood, better.
[1] I remember seeing somewhere that if the entire contents of the internet were printed out, it would deforest the globe before you got even a fraction of the way there. Plus you’d need a skyscraper full of printers running 24/7 to get the job done in any appreciable time.
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Challenge #00478 - A103: Fecocephalopathy
“It occurs to me…your inability to use the brain evolution granted you is none of my concern.” – RecklessPrudence
[AN: In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “fee co seff a lop ath ee”. The medical state of having shit for brains]
“Heads up, I got me a creeper,” Shayde announced as she parked herself uncomfortably close to him.
There would be no answers forthcoming from Shayde, who acted as if everyone could understand her and took hours of convincing to achieve an explanation. Therefore, Rael turned to peer in the direction Shayde had come from.
“Na, don’t look. Don’t look. Maybe we can avoid his notice,” said the six-foot tall amazon with literally black skin, wild white hair, and glowing demonic eyes.
“Shayde… you do look in a mirror on a daily basis, don’t you?”
“Oh, I see,” said a stranger of the exact type to think he was any given god’s gift to women, but frequently found himself on the refunds counter. Everything you needed to know about the man was right there on the worn and stained shirt that read -in sun-faded letters- Greater Deregulation: Love it or Get Shot!
It featured a contorted figure of a woman in what was once a patriotic bikini. Both her illustrated bosoms and buttocks had worn thin from constant friction.
The man leaned on the bar in what he probably thought was a sexy pose. “The old, ‘I have a boyfriend’ trick. You should pick a better beard, little missy.”
Shayde made a face. It said, without words, Can you believe this bastard? I am so very glad I haven’t eaten recently. “I cannae do the shadow thing,” she whispered. “I don’t want that much paperwork e'er again.”
So. Sherlock had hit the mark with the Gallery Incident. But, he had evidently hit it too hard and too well. “Perhaps, sir, you are unaware of the local harassment laws?”
“This ain’t harassment, ya tube-grown sissy! This is attention. It’s like a compliment. The lady’s got a nice ass and I want in on it.” He laughed raucously at his own pseudo-joke.
“Please tell me I can cut his throat,” Shayde subvocalised. “Or I have authority tae knee him in the nuts.”
Rael made a very subtle 'calm down’ motion with one hand. He was already sending video feed from his brow-cam to the security offices. The multitasker on duty was sending him helpful advice through his on how to handle it until security got there.
“Your attentions and compliments are clearly unwanted,” stated Rael.
“Who said her opinion mattered? Frigid bitch won’t even friendzone me.”
Now Shayde’s face said, Can I kill him now?
Around them, numerous bystanders were also setting their info-monocles to send live feed to the security office. They knew Shayde and her usual attitude to verbal harassment.
“It occurs to me that you must have skipped out on some court-mandated etiquette training.”
“It occurs to me that I could punch both'a your faces in.”
“It occurs to me,” said Rael as security finally turned up to drag him away, “that your inability to use the brain evolution granted you is none of my concern.” He smiled as the hands of taller, fitter, and far more muscular members of the security forces descended upon his shoulders. “Have a nice time in mandatory therapy!”
“Ye won’t get out till ye pass a test,” added Shayde.
“God I love it when you speak French,” he called as they dragged him away. “Keep it warm for me, baby!” One hand grabbed his shirt’s cartoon once-were-breasts, the other grabbed the area where the derrière once was. He slobbered in Shayde’s direction while waggling his tongue like a hungry giraffe.
Shayde vented an ululating noise that could have passed for the agony cry of a hippo. “An’ that’s why I didnae talk tae 'im…”
“Greater Deregulation man-babies,” Rael sighed. Rolling his eyes at the entire sub-species.
“Aye, they should pass a test afore they’re allowed tae travel.”
[Muse food remaining: 43. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Challenge #00477 - A102: Open Source Enterprise
If you want to build a space ship, don’t tax people to collect the money and don’t command them around to do tasks, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the universe. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, paraphrasing. (c/- RecklessPrudence)
[AN: Yeah, I’m pretty darn certain that if you crowd-funded space travel, you would never need to look for money ever again. You’d have people paying for the privilege of working on it, too]
Hi. My name’s Mari Tenso, and I am an enormous nerd. (laughter) As you can guess by my kickstarter title, I’m crowd funding space travel. And to prove I mean business, I’m going to show you this.
(A canister that looks like it could comfortably hold a labrador, with a small nozzle at one end.)
This is my self-contained carbon-fibre spinarette. This one unit can spin a carbon fibre cable strong enough to run a space elevator as conceived by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and popularised by Arthur C. Clarke. Unfortunately, this unit is not large enough to spin a cable long enough to do the full elevator. To give you an idea of scale, this unit spins enough cable to outline two parked city busses.
(A short video begins to play in the corner, showing Mari using the unit to lay the cable around two busses. It’s in time-lapse)
What I need is the funding to super-size this and send it into orbit, with a very small station attached. I already have the designs. I already have the tools. What I lack is the materials and the rocket.
My boring technical specs are in the link below. Warning: contains lots of dull science stuff. Feel free to check my math.
We can get into space without government funding. All donations over five dollars get a golden ticket to ride into space. Biggest donator gets the honorary rank of Admiral and anyone who can donate one thousand dollars gets to be a Captain. Other bonuses in the side, and you don’t get them until your money’s been cleared for my use. I know about donator fraud.
All the details are on this page, including links to the easy-understanding video presentations. Thanks for your time and see you in the stars.
(Two days into her kickstarter, and she already had four times the money she needed just for stage one)
[Muse food remaining: 43. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
*runs and hides*
[Almost an accurate portrait, too :) I love it :D]
Magnificent art by temple-ait - if you aren’t already following this marvellous person, I suggest you do.
::smooches::
Challenge #00476 - A101: The Nature of Enemy
If you become a monster to put down a monster you’ve still got a monster running down at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. – RecklessPrudence
Beware the hand of the Enlisted Man, for all he has known is to kill – Galactic Proverb.
They called it the War of the Monsters. Those who survived it. And there weren’t many of those who survived it. Biotechs in that pocket of linked star-systems had long since surrendered on all ideas about behemoths. They’d given up on splicing in admirable animal qualities.
What they’d gone for, instead, was the Psi factor.
It almost destroyed them all.
Alice Tall flinched at their minds before their hands ever opened the door to her survival pod. Ran herself through her Mantra a dozen times before the kind and gentle gloved hands removed her into the bright and alien lights. Already, aspects of her were dipping into their minds. Finding common language and potential exploits.
They gave her clothes. An ill-fitting medical pyjama set, but it was clothing, all the same. The enemy never gave her anything. They could be barely relied upon to give her food and water. These people were not the enemy. They had kind intent and did not recognise her as a combatant.
She had to ask. Lest she fulfil her purpose as a walking bomb. Alice pulled the most common of their words together into a desperate sentence. “Need mind stills,” she frenetically tapped the stipple-mark on her neck where her ally-supplied medication went vis subcutaneous medical spray. “Need mind stills. PLEASE!”
“Depressant? You need a depressant?”
She vigorously nodded. “Mind stills! Yes!” Alice found another word. “Stat.”
The building pressures of the voices within stilled the instant the chemicals entered her system. Alice sighed. These were nice people. She didn’t want to detonate on them.
“Now,” said a suited tech as they withdrew their own, much more streamlined, meds gun. “Why do you need depressants?”
A different one in a suit reacted as if they’d encountered something shocking. “She’s a teep,” they said. “And she’s only five.”
“Five? She looks like a grown woman!”
Alice found their mind. Sharing. A telepathic embrace. Just like she greeted her sisters and brothers in the lab. Because any comfort was worth struggling though the chemical haze for. So many unfamiliar things, in that alien mind. Family. History. Society.
Hungry for more, she reached out for his memories… and found a wall.
“I’m sorry, Alice,” said the alien. “You were going too far. You’d have lost your Self.”
“Why’s that important?” she asked. Loss of self was all she’d been trained to do.
“Because it’s brand new and precious,” said the alien. Ze was called Biil. “That’s something that has to be nurtured. Not killed.”
Then she said the words that made enemies out of her makers for these kind and generous people. “But I’m supposed to be a bomb.”
Sometimes the monsters are not the ones who are made, she would learn at a later date, but the ones who do the making.
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Challenge #00475 - A100: Growing Old is Mandatory
Inner Child looking for Outer Adult. – RecklessPrudence
She’d taken inordinate pains to seem adult. Learned how to perfect her makeup. Learned how to deal with the adult responsibilities. Made herself eat her vegetables and stopped playing with her food.
At least in public.
Yet she still bought toys. Played games. Read comic books. Enjoyed animated features and sang along with her favourite songs - despite the fact that she couldn’t really sing. Still did up her hair in silly styles and played hopscotch on the differently-coloured tiles of public spaces whenever she could.
Someone was smiling at her. A fellow with a studious suit and… carrying a Captain America lunchbox.
Pel fought the blush and sidled up to him. “So… you saw that.”
He was turning a little pink, himself. “Uhm. Yeah I guess I did. I hope I didn’t spoil your fun.”
Wait. “What? I thought fun wasn’t allowed when people got older.”
“That’s a mistake lot’s of people make,” he said. “Fun’s perfectly normal. We should enjoy ourselves more, I think.”
“I know, right? I can’t help feeling that if people just… had more fun with their day…?”
“…there’d be less aggression in the world,” he answered. Then he offered his hand. “Mark.”
“Pel,” she shook it. “Short for Pelagrine. Mom liked falcons and she couldn’t spell.”
“Smith or Jones?”
“Jones. How’d you guess?”
“It’s the way the world works,” Mark shrugged. “People with common last names tend to have spectacular given names to make up the balance.”
She blurted it out. “Wanna play hooky today?”
“Sure you’re allowed out with strangers?”
“You’re not a stranger once you’ve introduced yourself.”
“Hi. Mark Sabaton. Pleased to meet you, Miss Pelagrine Jones.”
That was the day she learned an important lesson. The most important lesson of all inner children with a thin veneer of Adult.
Growing up is optional.
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