All locks yield to a dragon!

Orig'nal Khrakterr Doh'nut Steelu

[purplepohlkunan]

“Curse this day, and curse my foolish soul for entering the world upon it!”

[purplepohlkunan]

Visit Original Link

[purplepohlkunan]

libra-meyer

“You’d be surprised what people can make with sugar and imagination.”

Libra looked at the gummies and grinned.

“Those? Actually they’re really soft and chewy. And they come in so many flavors, like strawberry and lemon. I love them. Haven’t really had any in a while though.”

“Soft?!”

They looked like little lumps of molten gemstone. But now he had to try them.

“Well then, we must go in and purchase some. For you to have again, and for me to have for the first time!”

[purplepohlkunan]

queen-of-the-mood-matrix

“I can’t run the Mood Matrix without him, and he does a lot of stuff most people use smartphones or smart watches for or whatever; he’s indispensable in court, for a lot of reasons.  Widget can pick up on my tones of voice even better than others’, because, since he’s listening any time I’m awake and not in the shower, he has a huge collection of samples.”

Athena’s sentiments on Widget, overall, were probably also shown by the fact that she referred to it not with “it” as one would to an object, but with the pronouns one would use for a person.  “We get along as much as a human and an AI can get along.  I mean, he’s not a person, no matter how good his AI is.”  So Athena did draw a sharp line between what constituted “human” or not.

Orig’nal seemed a little saddened.

“Ah... To be so clever and not even be a person... How it must sting,” he remarked, “But I suppose if he is only a man-made brain, he can’t feel that sort of pain?”

Orig’nal shook his head like an old dog.

“Augh! Now I’m thinking in circles! It’s all too much for me. My expertise lie in breaking things, breaking into things, and collecting a great deal of information safely at once. Not computers...”

He squinted at Widget again, curiously.

“Although... Perhaps I should become better with computers. Your Widget sounds like a useful pair of extra ears.”

[purplepohlkunan]

libra-meyer

“Oh?”

Libra looked in the window and felt her stomach growl. She’d skipped lunch that day.

“That’s a lot of candy. Definitely some cool shapes in there.”

“So many colours and shapes... I’ve never seen anything like it before!” he remarked, loudly, “Can they really all be edible? I have seen pastries that are shaped in the form of birds and flowers and the Mitama. But look at the way the light shines on these...” 

He points to a large display of gummies, “They’re like... glass! Or jewels... Ah, but you must know a lot more about them than me, Ms. Meyer?” 

[purplepohlkunan]

of-battles-and-logic

“Hm? Well let’s see what they’re about.” Phoenix stands up from his seat and walks over to him. He gets the papers and surveyed them, nodding after reading them. “Nice work Orion. Though I do believe there is a toilet that needs to be cleaned.“

‘Orion’ saluted, “There was no great personal, risk, but a large man in a trench coat did tell me to ‘watch my step, pal’. Beware of him.”

He turned towards the bathroom, frowning, “Didn’t Ms. Cykes clean it just this morning? Has there been an accident?” 

[purplepohlkunan]

libra-meyer

Libra looked up at the sound of her name.

“Hm, oh it’s you! How’s it going, Mr. Steel?”

“Just fine and dandy, Ms. Meyer!” he cried, jovially, before beckoning to her.

“I am preoccupied with this shop window,” he explained, motioning to the window of a candy store, “There are many strange things in here.”

[purplepohlkunan]

*Suddenly, bananas*

“Whoa!”

[purplepohlkunan]

@libra-meyer

"Oh! Ms. Meyer!”

Orig’nal has seen Libra passing by in the reflection of a shop window, and now he’s flagging her down.

“Ms. Meyer! Long time no see!”

[purplepohlkunan]

@of-battles-and-logic

“Mr. Wright, sir!”

Orig’nal pounds into the office, waving a bunch of papers in his hand.

“I have returned with important reconnaissance, sir!”

[purplepohlkunan]

// hey all y’alls like for a starter if you want

[purplepohlkunan]

queen-of-the-mood-matrix

“Gee, I wonder where that flock learned such ‘colorful’ Khura’inese…”  She wondered how much of the Khura’inese uttered at her by a certain prosecutor was actually just a string of cusses.

“That creepy bird that sounds like an attacking mammal?  I…think I’ll pass…”

[That sounds more like you!]  Oops…

“Widget………..”  Athena was thisclose to powering off Widget for the day, dangit!

Orig’nal looked as if he hadn’t the foggiest as to what she meant. 

He snickered, “They are sacred, Warba’ads. That cry heralds the Justice of Lady Kee’ra! ...But I can see how it’s not for everybody.”

He was a little startled by another of Widget’s outbursts. That little mechanical marvel really was a chatterbox!

“You do not seem to get along with your little friend... Tell me, is he more of a help or a hindrance in court?”

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queen-of-the-mood-matrix

Athena almost deflated like she tended to in court, but she knew better.  Always…birds…  Why is this my life? And “friendly term of endearment?”  She wasn’t sure what to think about that; aside from June, Athena wasn’t a huge nickname-giver, (though it seemed her fate that everyone she would ever meet was one…)

“So this banan a’buhrd is totally fearsome, just like I am in the courtroom, right?  It’s gotta be an awesome bird!”  Athena was assuming quite a bit, but she didn’t seem startled by his laugh this time; she’d get used to it…slowly…  It hadn’t yet dawned on her that she could be just as loud as Orig’nal or Apollo, even after all that time spent practicing “Chords of Steel” with the latter.  Phoenix must have had a heck of a migraine by this point…

Orig’nal tugged at his bandage, thoughtfully.

“Well... It is about yea big,” he held up his hands to imply a bird about the size of a budgerigar, “And it eats fruit. It’s no Warba’ad, but it can nip something fierce. And they’re very clever... If you’re patient, you can teach them to speak. There was a flock nearby one of our–– er, nearby... a flock that would scream curse words at you.”

He chortled at the memory. 

“Would you prefer I call you Warba’ad instead, then?”

[purplepohlkunan]

queen-of-the-mood-matrix

“Mmm…the robots are about…”  Athena held a hand around waist level, “about that tall, I think.”

“Banan A’buhrd?  You’ve said that twice now; what does it mean?”  Athena was already multi-lingual and suspected that, whether she intended to or not, she would wind up adding Khura’inese to that list sooner or later.  “Sorry if you told me before and it slipped my mind.”

“Hmm,” Orig’nal peered down at her hand, thinking.

Yes, that wouldn’t be too difficult to defeat if the need arose, especially if there weren’t many of them. So long as they didn’t have lasers or something.

He glanced up as she asked about his use of his native tongue.

“Oh! Ahah, you noticed that–” he smiles, genially, “It is a friendly term of endearment! It means... Well, directly, Yellow Skipper- it is a type of bird that inhabits the warmer parts of my country. I thought it would suit you!”

He gave another one of his belly-laughs. After all, she was yellow and quick on her feet. And rather loud, when she wanted to be.

[purplepohlkunan]

queen-of-the-mood-matrix

“There’s a few around the country; some launch rockets an stuff like that, other’s don’t.  If you ever stop by ours, one of the robots that’ll guide you was programmed by Mom.”  Athena wasn’t necessarily sure which one, now that Aura didn’t have exclusive possession of her personal robot.

“By the way, if it bugs you for money, ignore it.  The Director made Aura add that junk.  Just tell the robot it’s doing a good job and it’ll leave you alone…probably…”

The sudden volume made Athena jump, sending Widget to bright yellow status.  Orig’nal didn’t mean to assault her ears–Athena knew that–so she just took a few breaths for her heart rate to climb down from quadruple digits.  Her hand went to Widget, the necklace humming idly as she listened to Orig’nal speak.

“Anytime.  As far as fitting ‘the intricacies of the human mind’ into Widget, I wouldn’t go that far.  Like, Widget can tell me if someone is happy, but not what made the person happy, unless he has clear-cut data–intuition can’t play a role here.  That’s why I still have to rely on my own intuition and pressing witnesses during trials.  Widget also can’t make moral judgements about right and wrong…or whether or not I had a perfectly valid reason for keeping my internal thoughts just that: internal.”  Athena glared down at her necklace, with its penchant for embarrassing her, before returning her glance to Orig’nal.

[He must think I’m such a jerk!]  A low growl formed in Athena’s throat.  “Widget…”

She was just going to let that “killing anybody” comment slide for now…  Widget had thoroughly distracted her from it anyway.  Did killing an AI count as murder?

“If it was a part of your esteemed heritage, I would certainly like to see it,” said Orig’nal, cheerily. He felt it would be best to get to know his new coworker better, anyway, “I will be sure to praise the robot most highly.”

While he did notice a slight dip in Athena’s mood, he wasn’t sure why. Did he frighten her? He was, after all, a big scary rebel. He was meant to be frightening. But he decided he’d have to tone it down, for her sake.

“So he cannot think for himself... I suppose it would be difficult to fit a human brain inside something so small. I would assume these other robots are much bigger.”

He blinked as the little necklace beeped out a sentence.

“Oh! No, on the contrary you have been anything but, Banan A’buhrd!” 

[purplepohlkunan]

queen-of-the-mood-matrix

“If you want to learn more about astronauts and stuff, I’m sure we could lose at least a day at the Space Center.  There’s also the NASA website and stuff.”  She’d caught Apollo watching NASA’s TV feed during work more than a few times and had to wonder if he was bringing Khura’in’s internet to a crawl, (they had internet, right?) trying to stream it over there.

As to the AIs, “That’s a fair point…how about we just be glad that none of the AIs my mom created are in bodies that could hurt anyone even if they wanted to.”  Granted the individual most qualified to “fix” any of these AIs was currently in prison…  Given Aura’s personality, it was almost a surprise nether of the robots could hurt a customer, and that Widget had never “turned” on Athena somewhere along the line, because it was logical that Aura had probably been the last person to “work” on Widget before Athena was sent overseas.

“Yeah, I do, but you don’t seem to want to discuss why you’re here, so I don’t bring it up.”  Athena had at least that much judgement.  Athena seemed to “pull back,” just a bit, from the conversation, so Orig’nal wouldn’t feel in the slightest that she was trying to press the matter.  Pressing was for courtroom witnesses, usually.

“The space centre? You mean there is an entire centre devoted to space?”

How remarkable! Khura’in erected temples to the mother, but America seemed to erect temples for whatever it pleased. He supposed space was a worthy idol, however.

“Hmm. That is a blessing,” he agreed, though he had no idea what these other ‘AI’s looked like. If they had arms and legs, they were still probably a threat.

“I...”

It wasn’t a topic he liked discussing. He missed home deeply, but there was no going back until his name was cleared, and since he’d simply run away...

“...Hah!” he lets out a loud guffaw, “Hahahah! Do not concern yourself with my troubles, Banan A’buhrd! It’s nothing really, just a little scrape! A scrap of a scrape! Really!”

He coughs, “A-anyway! Thank you for all these interesting informations on such interesting topics... It seems dreamlike that humans can fit all the intricateness of a human soul down into a tiny little pendant... Without having to kill anybody...” 

[purplepohlkunan]

queen-of-the-mood-matrix

Athena noticeably sighed and relaxed once Orig’nal exited her personal space “bubble.”

“I don’t know about many, but there’s three of my mom’s AIs that I know of.”  Little did Orig’nal know that Widget could change Athena’s TV channel if she was subconsciously bored, or if the audio on the channel went over a particular decibel level. The latter had been set up on purpose, however.

“The HAT-1 launch was a rocket we launched into space to deploy the Hope probe,” Athena really wanted to know who named it that… “in order to collect astroid samples.  A lot of stuff went wrong, but it was only six months after I started working here that we learned the launch had been sabotaged.  The probe returned to Earth before that incident.”

Orig’nal had asked the million-dollar-question about AI.  “I think that’s why Mom tried so hard to create ‘robots with hearts.’  She wanted to make sure the AI could make those moral judgements the way a human would.  That I, Robot movie was the sort of thing she was trying to prevent.  That move’s older than I am, though, so I would be surprised if you’ve seen it.  The danger is someone creating an AI who doesn’t teach it any kind of morals, or ‘bad’ morals, I think.”  Athena usually kept her thoughts about such matters to herself, but she also felt the need to defend her mother’s life’s work.

“Three?”

Three was still a pretty impressive number, he thought, for man-made brains.

Orig’nal nodded, mouth open slightly in awe. He was aware of the concept of astronauts, but due to his rather... interesting upbringing, it wasn’t like he had much time to look into the business. It seemed suddenly magnificent to him; breaking the huge glassy blue dome of the sky and exploring words untold. But, evidently, it wasn’t an easy business... though that didn’t ruin his fantasy entirely.

“Pohlkunka. I think I should like to learn a little more about that.”

The office might have records of it. Or at least the internet would. Finally, those annoying little humming briefcases had a proper purpose.

Orig’nal returned his focus to the matter at hand.

“Hmm... But even those with proper morals can be lead astray. After all, nearly all of my people practice Khura’inism... And yet, well... You know a thing or two about the reason I’m here...”

He coughed. He didn’t like that she knew; it meant he was naked and vulnerable in her presence. At any moment she could sell him out, and he had to trust that she wouldn’t. He hadn’t known her for long, and she did seem like a spirited, trustworthy woman... But one could never be too sure. Many of the rebellion’s little projects had failed for just such reasons.