Read SF in The City Anthology Online

Authors: Joshua Wilkinson

SF in The City Anthology (19 page)

“It’s not that big a deal,” Lada said as the two of them slid behind an empty table. “I’d rather you didn’t spend your time ogling the ‘soiled doves’ anyway.” 

“Shush, this is a family establi
shment,” Trim cracked a smile.

A waitress dressed in apparel so modern it clashed with the western setting even more so than most audience members’ clothing, approached the couple’s table and asked them if
they wanted to order anything.

“We’ll pass tonight, thanks,” Trim said politely, as he star
ed at the overinflated prices.

“Just five minutes until the comedian takes the stage,” Lada yawned. “What do you want to talk about until then?

“Talk?” Trim looked around the room and saw dozens of families and couples sitting in silence, a clear sign they were chatting telepathically. “Verbally or no,” he thought to her.

“Let’s speak aloud,” Lada put her hands behind her head and reclined even further in her seat, “just to shake things up.”

“I’d rather not talk about politics,” Trim rubbed his eyes.

“How about we place a wager on the skills of tonight’s entertainment?” Lada suggested with a sly grin.

“What if we both agree one way or the other about it
s comedic merits?” Trim asked.


Well I’m going to bet that the bot is a flop,” Lada said confidently.

“You know what; I’ll take a chance on him, it,
whatever you want to call it.”

“Really? You never
seemed like the type.”

Trim smiled again and looked at the stage. “To be quite honest, I’m just bored, and a competition with my girlfriend will at least keep me half ways interest
ed in how the show turns out.”

“See I knew there was a cynical reason for your willingness,” Lada laughed. “The loser has to buy dinner for the winner next time we eat out.”

“Deal.” 

The next few minutes were spent debating the park’s decision to use an artificial intelligence as entertainment. After all, several comedy models existed on the market which took cumulative data from audiences’ responses to jokes and turned out even better showmanship. While those models were specifically assigned to the task of stand-up comedy (without a further purpose for existence) an AI had the capacity to think outside the
box which was its profession.

“Why an AI has to even have basic programming for a specific field, I don’t know,” Trim said with unhidden frustration. “By now studies have demonstrated that an AI has the capacity to choose a line of work for itself that it desires, yet it will still have to register with Central Authority as performing a job designated to it by its creator.”

“People are still afraid of a robot takeover,” Lada said. “To be quite honest, machines in the hands of evil human beings are far more dangerous than AI research. Realistically, what reason would an AI have to enslave its human makers? We’re so uninteresting.”

“Except when it comes to comedy, you think humans are better?”

“I never said that,” Lada replied quietly. “I’ve seen plenty of half-baked comedy routines from human beings, and yet our species created comedic androids in the first place. How much funnier could an android be if its design came from the minds of humorless inventors?”

“We’re about to find out,” Trim said as the lights dimmed slightly and a spo
t light beamed onto the stage.

An android with a Scacchic 4200 body walked out onto the stage, its luminous green eyes scanning the crowd. Even with all the advanced technology present in The City, the principle of the uncanny valley had still won out in regards to androids’ appearances. A model that looked so human like that it could be confused with human beings had never been successfully built, most likely because people didn’t want such a device around in the first place. Looking at the crowd, the metallic android “cleared its
throat” and began its routine.

“Hello y’all, my name is Billy Nascent,” the android said as “he” placed a cowboy hat on his head. “I welcome you to The Sappy Saloon. You know, I find that most people think
administrators called this joint ‘sappy’ because of the sentimental nature of a Western theme, but really it’s because you’re
all
saps for paying money to see an untested AI do stand-up comedy. Burn on you guys.”

This garnered a few chuckles from the easily humored, but Lada only smiled slightly, sure that she had this competition in the bag. Billy’s comedic abilities would be measured against Lada and Trim’s tastes, which were less easily satisfied than those of most people. Trim would be honest for the sake of the bet, a
nd he would most likely lose. 

“That’s right, I am a legit AI,” Billy said with pride “or
artificially insipid
, as my girlfriend puts it.” He took a pause, just long enough to get the crowd thinking. “I can even bore a machine to death, so prepare yourselves. This is going to be as fun an evening as hanging out with a quantum computer programmer when you’re in line for a new platform. You know those kinds of guys. They sit around talking about the newest QCOS (Quantum Computing Operating System) platform and all the bells and whistles that come with it and all I can think is ‘I really hope I recorded Battle of the Brigadiers.’”

This garnered a few laughs from the crowd, especially the more nerdy amongst them. Trim actually chuckled a little, though it was more because of the androids unique facial expression than for
the references.

“My girlfriend doesn’t appreciate that I spend so much time enjoying shows rather than fulfilling her honey do list, but I keep looking over it and telling her we should just pay someone to get it done.” He suddenly began to look at his hands as if he was reading from a list. “Fix the apartment’s wiring problem. I’m made up of wires and circuits, but I have no idea how electricity works. Walk the dog. What he can’t
walk
himself? I’m pretty sure we should rename that task to ‘drag your mongrel while trying to avoid fire hydrants and other dogs and see who wears out first.’ Launch an robot takeover of the world,” Billy paused to give the crowd a humorously evil facial expression, “nah, the CA already took care of that, so I don’t have to worry about it.”

This garnered a more positive reaction from the crowd, including Trim and Lada who were both more anti-establishment
in their outlook on the world.

“I can’t knock my girlfriend,” Billy continued. “At least if she decides to take over the world, she doesn’t look as ugly as a terminator, you know.” Only the more nostalgic in the crowd laughed.

“Walking to the spare parts store the other day, I walk past this Halii 9000 pleasure model and you know what, they make androids sexier every day. Did you know that? See all the men in the room; y’all are constrained by these societal mores, while I’m not.”

The crowd listened in, some even dropping their mental side conversations to pay
full
attention. This was a family establishment, and they wondered where his joke would lead.

“So I go home that evening and tell my girlfriend, Griselda, ‘honey I think it’s time for us to upgrade our relationship status.’ She looks at me like I’m crazy and says ‘we already live together, so how do we
upgrade
?’ I tell her about the Halii 9000 I saw that day. Now there’s something I haven’t told you about my
little
Griselda. She’s in nursing, which means she was designed to lift 400 pound patients like they were paper plates.” He paused. “Needless to say, I had to make
another
trip to the spare parts store that night.”

Lada and Trim actually genuinely laughed at this last joke. They really hadn’t gone into the routine with the highest of hopes. While Billy’s wisecracks would probably have garnered more laughter out of a crowd of fellow androids, he at least made an effort to make them relevant to a human audience, and his timing had actua
lly been good that evening too.

“By now Griselda and I have developed this language between us, and no it’s not binary code,” Billy continued. “Researchers working on the Universal Emotion Project having been trying to determine what make emotions tick and how they differ between animals, humans and machines. I think I’m going to bring my Griselda in at some point. I tell you that girl will let you know she’s about to kick your android butt
without anybody else noticing.”

The married couples laughed the most, while Lada and Trim just looked at each other knowingly. They were getting more into the territory of clichés by now.

“As you all probably know, androids can hear frequencies human ears can’t pick up. The other day I spotted two fish in a tank and heard one say ‘How are you supposed to drive this crazy thing?’”

Lada stifled a laugh, a little perturbed that she would probably lose the bet if Billy continued to deliver his jokes with such a quirky delivery. He had a strange charisma that came from his artificial expressions. Just as Lada sometimes found herself crying because of the sad expressions of animated characters in movies and shows, something about Billy
’s unique look made her laugh.

“Speaking of hearing, my single android friends give me the weirdest responses when I tell them they need a girlfriend. One of them told me that he didn’t date by
choice
. I told him, ‘well yeah, all the girls you meet
choose
not to date you.’” Billy then began to pretend to limp, as he said “back to the spare parts store.”

Lada chuckled and turned to look at the crowd’s reaction, but much to her dismay, the vast majority of those in attendance had vacant expressions on their faces, their mental conversations taking pr
ecedence over the comedy show.

“I went to a simulatar fight a few nights back, and I met this crazy guy who thought that as an AI, I didn’t have the same kind of free will as human beings,” Billy noticed he was losing the audience’s attention as well. “I look at this guy like he’s the nutcase and ask, what do you think they are doing down there with one human being using another as a puppet? ‘Yeah, but that’s my definition of relationships
and politics, he responded.’”

Trim and Lada both looked at each other and then at the people around them, almost embarrassed for being associated with such an inattentive crowd. Not a single person around them smiled, or even seemed to comprehend that they were sitting in The Sappy Saloon listening to a co
median.


Laugh please,” Billy said as he shrugged his right shoulder like it was in pain.

“Something’s not right with him,” Trim thought to his girlfriend, as the android’s faci
al expressions began to alter.

“He’s an AI,” Lada thought back. “It’s not like he’s
going to lock up or anything.”

“Laugh please,” Billy implored.

A few curses could be heard from the employees at the back of the room, as a man in a lab coat ran to the stage, muttering “he’s stuck in a programming whorl” under his breath.

“Laugh!” Billy grabbed the sides of his head, as if an in
tense migraine had seized him.

“Oh, I think something happened to the robot,” one little girl pointed at the stage calmly before rejoining a mental c
onversation with her neighbor.

Lada didn’t know what was worse, the audience members’ disregard for the fate of their deactivated comedian or the fact that she empathized with Billy so strongly. Just as he was an ignored entertainer, Lada had seen thousands of people ride “her coaster” and fail to enjoy it because they lived inside the mental network. She had won the bet that evening. There was nothing funny about the show and its finale at all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 10: “
Surfin’ Nerd”

 

If any resident of the waterside district of Prefecture 102 was asked to name the chillest citizen in The City, they would all invariably identify Arkady Braveza as that man. Known as the “Surfin’ Nerd” amongst his friends, Arkady ran a blog by the same name. Unlike most passionate people who updated “mlogs” (mental blogs) telepathically, this free spirited youth came from a family that decided not to embrace the insertion of nanotubes in their brains.

             
On a particularly torrid day, Arkady sat at his laptop writing a post on his surfing experience at Lake Toxic in Prefecture 44, including safety instructions for fellow surfboarders. Money meant very little to this 28 year old, yet he still included affiliate links to safety equipment and boards in his blog, more for the sake of helping out his audience than making a profit. Before he signed off, Arkady also made sure to drop by one of his fellow surfer’s blog, Aggro Gate, and leave a positive comment on her review of the “Charybian Indoor Waterpark.”

             
As he prepared to shut down his computer, Arkady suddenly remembered that he hadn’t made housing arrangements for his upcoming trip to Prefecture 78’s Industrial Lake. He already had the hovercraft flight worked out and paid for with his credit card’s points. Signing into sleeponmysofa.com, he looked up Florian Okoro, a maker of traditional biwa
[31]
, and messaged him about staying at his house again. He picked Mr. Okoro specifically because the older man kept his profile open often and would reply quicker than any other host.

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