《Technically Sentient》Chapter 2
Advertisement
‘PLEASE REMAIN CALM.‘
Darren Higgs had very little reason to remain calm at that moment, however. He had just been bathed in blinding light, frozen half to death, nearly boiled in his own skin, bombarded by a stream of colored dots, dashes, circles, triangles, and things he couldn’t even recognize, kept in absolute darkness for nearly 15 minutes, stripped naked by invisible hands, and then misted from head to toe in something that smelled faintly like orange zest. He had very littlereason to remain calm whatsoever, but he was still managing it, because of the statement directly below the 6 foot high glowing red letters on the wall.
‘AN ASSOCIATE WILL BE WITH YOU IN A MOMENT.‘
There was something impossibly comforting about the banality of that statement, something so bland, uninteresting, and halfhearted about it that made being abducted by a flying saucer and experimented on for hours seem like a mild nuisance that he’d be able to complain about to his buddies on the job site tomorrow. Like going to the DMV, or there only being one register open at Wal-Mart.
He shivered, naked, citrus smelling and afraid, and thoroughly inconvenienced.
– – –
Cas smiled gently at her reflection in the polished steel wall panel, and dipped her head slightly to simulate a polite nod – or at least she did on the hard light avatar she was projecting. She averaged together the human morphological archive she had on hand, only consisting of about 200 subjects, and then tweaked a few aspects of it to better suit her personality. Selecting for non-threatening traits she decided that the close cropped haircut and slight, feminine-presenting build were optimal in quickly establishing a rapport. By presenting a youthful, and likely vulnerable appearance, she might effectively trigger a nurturing or protection response in the creature.
Cycling through smiling, giggling, blushing, scowling, pouting, frowning, and sighing exasperatedly, she detected no tearing along the hard light projection she was using as a “body”. The only thing left to do was clothe it. Well, that and rig up a believable walk cycle. She T-posed her way across the small office to her requisition hamper, awaiting the Centaurian jumpsuit she’d called for. It was a close enough size match, so having a custom one 3D printed would have been inefficient. After about 25 seconds of waiting, it dropped into the small hamper labeled “Inbox” with a quiet thump. Putting the thing on was an interesting puzzle in passing a three dimensional inflexible object through a 2 dimensional warped plane. The office itself was small and cramped to begin with, and now that it was packed with unused furniture and odd bits that no one else had a place for, it had become doubly so.
Advertisement
Cas enjoyed the challenge it presented, however, and on her third attempt to get dressed, began incorporating the various obstacles in her office into her solution attempts. Her legs were too long for the jumpsuit, which was frustrating. It was far too tight around the midsection, and getting the zipper to go up all the way required her to change the topography of her virtual chest, but in the end she triumped and managed to get into the ill fitting, greyish-blue garb. Her desk was stacked with chairs to make room for the stacks of data storage crystals that, per regulation had to be kept but no one had reviewed in the entire time Cas had been online. None of that really bothered her, but what did bother her were the results of the human’s ‘Reason Exam.’
Reason was the hallmark of intelligence. Cas, of course, considered herself a true intelligence. The ability to feel, on the other hand, was the hallmark of sentience. The Earthling was, technically speaking, capable of feeling things.
So was the the small, non-vocal feline that accompanied him.
Cas browsed their results, and consistently returned the emotion ‘grim resolve’. She would integrate these ‘TechnicallySentient’ creatures, as it was her function. Neither of them could see beyond the 300 – 700 nm wavelength, and the human couldn’t even see all of that. Hearing was the same story again, with the human being less sensitive to lower amplitude sounds, and having smaller range. The feline seemed to respond to the extreme changes in magnetic fields, while the Earthling couldn’t – or just chose not to. When it came to the mathematics testing portion of the exam, they fared about as well. Neither of them made any attempt at resolving the prime number sequences, neither recognized symbolic proofs of the fundamentals of mathematics, and the cat technically scored higher than the human in that it at least attempted to pursue the hard light geometric shapes to rearrange them into their proper sequences, even if the specifics of sequencing were wrong. The cat scored higher on innate spatial processing, but the human did well on spatial reasoning, indicating it had a stronger sense of object permanence than the cat did. All in all . . . she concluded that neither of them constituted true intelligences.
According to the tests, the cat was at least closer . . . but the human possessed complex language, which meant he could be communicated with, at least on a rudimentary level. That expanded his list of potential occupations to a full 3 options. “Mechanical Portal Operation Regulation Associate, Medium Scale Durable Goods Kinetic Manipulation Technician, and Oxygen-to-Water Processing Bioreactor.”
Advertisement
She listed him as a ‘MSDGKM Tech’, and posted it to the ‘net. It was ambitious, but she was sure she could find a translation unit in storage that would be durable enough to withstand his misuse. Cas would find him work, she self affirmed – She was obligated to in her core processing constraints, after all. But before she scheduled any interviews she was going to give him a citrus fragrance spray to cover the Earth smell . . .- – – –
She ‘walked’ to testing chamber a few minutes later, fresh jumpsuit in one hand, Brute-Alizer 9000 in the other. The Brute-Alizer was the only brand of universal translator that she believed would resist the ‘rigors’ of the Earthling’s… bumbling. Between his calcium ion rich internal skeleton and higher than average gravity home world, his body was a bit more durable than some of the sleeker, more subtle designs there were on hand. In form, the Brute-Alizer was a large collar device that went around the subject’s neck; the actual translation processor was embedded in several layers of impact foam wrapped in carbon fiber mesh in a lightweight alloy shell.
Of course . . . durability, cost, and performance were a ‘pick 2’ game. The lesser used languages were . . . inelegant when translated with this piece of technology, but functional. She’d even tested it out on her way. “Hello world.” She intoned softly, bulky device around her slender neck beeping softly as it struggled to find the correct language. “[Hello, world.]” It intoned back, in Universal Basic. She practiced smiling with pleasure. “Perfect.” There was a long pause. “[Good.]” A frown that came fairly instinctively after all her practice reading the human’s testing scores crossed her face. “Best?” A pause. “[Best.]” She shrugged, a sign that was commonly a gesture of indifferent resignation in bipeds with only four limbs. “Close enough.” She flicked it off, and entered the testing room.
– – –
The first meeting with the Earthling was not going well. Introductory pleasantries were surprisingly strained, with him using the cat as a physical shield to cover his reproductive organs, the cat becoming agitated by this, inflicting what appeared to be non-permanent damage to the Earthling, and a great deal of shouting what she believed to be profanity. She waited for this all to settle down before she attempted to speak.
“Hello! My name is C.A.S.I.I. and I’m here to help!” Her tone was chipper, her posture non-threatening, and her smile was wide, but not too wide as to exceed the parameters of her face.
“H-hey . . . I-Im Darren. Darren Higgs . . . uhh . . . where am I?” He was still clutching at what she assumed were his reproductive organs with both hands, and looking very flighty.
“Space!” She continued to beam, as she handed him the custom fitted jumpsuit.
He frowned, refusing to make eye to hard light simalcrum of an eye contact while hastily pulling on clothes. “Yeah, I mean . . . I knew I got abducted by something . . . I wasn’t sure if it was aliens or angels but . . . but where in space?”Cas, still smiling, pointedly ignored his question. “Please put on the collar.” She extended one of her arms to him, holding out the translator.
“Why? Who are you?” He backed up a few paces defensively.
Stepping forward to match the distance between them, she continued to smile in what she calculated to be a disarming fashion. “I am your Career and Social Integration Intelligence.” She leaned forward, and used one of her exasperated sighs, abandoning her attempts at generating a friendly rapport. “And this is a very durable translator, so you don’t have to worry about breaking it.” She activated a condescending smile. “As a technically sentient being, capable of emotions and limited reason, you have a right to live in this society. Without burdening you of the details of ‘how society functions’ and ‘what a society is’ you put on the collar, you do a job, you get to stay warm, and fed, and have lots of air to breathe. All of these are good for you, okay?” She began nodding, trying to coax the Earthling into mimicking her motions.
“O-oh . . . so where are we again? I mean, where in space are we?”
Cas gritted her virtual teeth in an unprompted expression of emotion. Maybe Mechanical Portal Operation Associate would be more his speed.
Advertisement
Heather the Necromancer
Heather was a normal girl living in an abnormal world. When the visitors came, they struggled to understand humans and their ways. It was through video games they began to learn, and then they came up with a plan. They created a virtual world of magic and dragons where people could translate and become parts of the game. Through this world, they watched and learned, growing in their understanding of us. She knew little about it, only what came across the occasional tweet or blog post. She knew that people went into the world known as New Eden because they volunteered. She also knew that rarely other people were forcefully drawn in; these were referred to as the chosen. Heather didn’t pay much attention to it all. For most of the world, things went on like they always had. She had classes to attend and boys to tease, and her cell phone was her world. That was until she woke in a forest clearing and realized she had been chosen. Discord Server
8 501Observation Log Of Miss Miner
After untimely death by protecting her favorite story. Our Mc character wakes up in a brand new world that is full of interesting stories. What will she do to continue her favorite stories and sagas? From Writer: English not my first language so expect grammar errors or missing words. This is best I can.
8 250The Cost Of Your Crown
Empress Eris Scotus has unrivaled knowledge, wealth, and control in the world she governed. Managing her domain as a just ruler giving her subjects happy lives that she had promised when she told them to follow her lead. Giving everything in her life just to change the revolting system in her world for the better. Only to meet her end by betrayal from her own family. The same family she swore to protect and have forgiven, had betrayed killed her by igniting a Coup d'état killing innocent people along side her in the process. But at the end of her painful journey came face to face with a god named Chronos that given her a chance to be reincarnated in another world for reasons unknown. Adamant of the offer the god has no choice but to forcibly reincarnated the empress, resulting her having to relive her life from zero. Now left with a new life Eris was given a choice; whether she'll lose her way once again or change anew a choice left in her fragile hands. Unbeknownst to anyone the young empress has taken the first step to yet another bloody road.
8 141The heart of Arcturus
The story begins shortly after Eloiya and her comrades met a man called Alan. Alan has always known there was something different about him since he was young. Something that no others would believe him, not even his own parents. A hallow sense began to grow inside him as he became older and he soon began to realize his time has stopped in the past.When the world was placed upon his shoulders, the once, broken boy found home. He sought to protect what was his and maybe one day he could find back the past he lost.
8 240oneshots
this is my first time using wattpad and my friend told me that most people put all their oneshots in one book? absolutely wild to me but ig im doing it(transferring fics from ao3)
8 191Star Wars IX- The Rise of Skywalker
"We've passed on all we know. A thousand generations live in you now, but this is your fight." A familiar voice, Luke's, whispers. Luke Skywalker stands net to R2-D2 the sky around him burns shades of orange, yellow and red and behind him a Jedi temple burns.Kylo feels his father's hand upon his face the watched as his father falls into the abyss."Your journey nears its end." A sinister voice now whispers, and a flash of blue light reveals a fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers filling the vastness of space as blue fire leaps between them.A powerful red laser of an unseen weapon obliterates the surface of a planet.Shrieks, whispers and screams and then the sound of a lightsaber igniting. A fiery red saber but behind that saber is Rey, her hand twitches and the saber becomes a double-pronged staff. A maniacal evil laugh cackles.Kylo woke with a start and sat upright on his bed.Written after the first trailer dropped and finished before the film was released. Contains references to previous films, novelisations and comics.I'm a Reylo shipper but there will be no major smut- one additional slightly adult chapter at the end of the book.#Bendemption#Reyloisendgame#1-starwarsfanfiction 25.12.19#1- Dyad 4.5.20 (May the 4th be with you)#1-Bendemption 4.4.20#17- Reylo 25.8.20#1-episode iv 30.11.20#2- reylofanficyion 6.1.22'This is legit my favourite reylo fan fiction OMG it's so in character and like literally perfect for episode 9 I'm dying this is amazing.''You definitely did justice to this story, so much warmth and hope at the end.''Why couldn't Rise of Skywalker be just THIS?? This story is miles better than what we got. This was wonderful and healed so many wounds inflicted by that movie. Thank you so much for sharing this. Your hard work is much appreciated!'Consider donating to Adam's charity Arts in the Armed Forces.https://www.gofundme.com/f/bensoloslegacy
8 108