Insurance - part 14

[miriam_e]

(2537 words)

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I didn't get much more than an outline to this part done yesterday. I had hoped to catch up by writing twice as much today, but lightning storms came through a few times and I had to turn all the computers off... and I am so goddamn bloody slow.

This was a hard one to write because there is a lot of background explaining and that is always difficult. Some of this is in response to queries raised by alecto23. I'm trying to explain the way things work. I hope this doesn't turn out as boring as I'm scared it might be. This stuff is vitally interesting to me, but I suspect not so much to others. I have three parts to this yet to write. I guess I have to do them tomorrow.

Let me know what you think.

Note that what follows contains adult concepts.
The love of two females for each other is central to this story so if you are offended by that stop reading now.

14 - work (1)

Rachel and Sally lay in bed together. Rachel had woken an hour or so earlier, had eaten her breakfast, then she and Sally had returned to the bed.

Sally was pushing the glossy, black hair away from Rachel's eyes and asked, "What have you got planned for today then sweetheart?"

Rachel smiled and answered, "Sex on a scale, you haven't dreamed of."

Sally touched the tip of Rachel's nose and said, "Oh I doubt that."

Rachel's eyebrows went up.

Sally chuckled. "I'm a pretty good dreamer."

Rachel laughed and rolled over onto Sally and planted a kiss on those lovely, full lips.

Just then a call came through to Rachel's cap. She sighed, rolled off her girlfriend, and answered the call.

It was from Dina. Rachel patched it through to Sally so she could hear it too, as she figured it would be likely be about the Cyborg Pride Parade being planned. They both greeted Dina.

"Good morning ladies. Sorry to bother you, but we have a bit of a problem down here and I am out of ideas as to how to fix it. I was wondering if you could think of anything."

Rachel and Sally looked at each other in surprise. Rachel said, "Of course we'll do what we can. How can we be of help?"

Dina explained that some of the cyborgs had been getting impatient with the lack of progress in removing the percentages law. Instead of welcoming the pride march as most had, they'd felt it was the last straw. To them it was an insult. They wanted an all-out strike. They'd managed to inflame tempers enough that almost a third of the cyborgs had been brought around to their way of thinking.

"If this wasn't bad enough, the idiot city managers city are trying to use this as an excuse to fire all cyborgs. Some of them have been wanting an all-android workforce for some time now, but have been unable to do so en masse. They'd been quietly replacing cyborgs with androids singly any time a cyborg needed time off for health or parts maintenance. Arguing that an android is more reliable. I build androids and I know that isn't true, but it is difficult to argue the point when the cyborg being replaced is needing down-time. As a result of this most of the cyborgs don't take time off and get replacements done overnight. Even that isn't good enough for the city managers. They point out that androids don't need to sleep."

Dina sounded exasperated, "I don't know what to do. I'm a psychologist, but I work on androids. I'm used to high intelligence and gentler, more positive emotions. I don't know how to deal with this. Many of the cyborgs are furious. And the city managers have taken such an antagonistic and provocative approach that nothing good can come of it. If they provoke extreme actions by a few angry cyborgs we could all be portrayed as a threat and lose what few rights we have."

Rachel shook her head. "This is terrible. I think you need someone way smarter than me to deal with this. Have you put this to Zoe?"

"I haven't been able to contact her. From time to time when she's doing something particularly demanding in VR she switches off all real-world contact for a while. She'll be back, but I don't know when, and this can't wait. I hoped you might have some ideas."

Rachel thought for a moment. She got up out of bed and started to put on her bikini. "Have you explained to the cyborgs that a strike plays into the hands of the city managers?"

Dina answered, "Yes. They're upset though. They see their replacement as being just a matter of time anyway, as the city managers do it by stealth. They think they will be able to bring it out into the open with a strike and convince the public. They don't realise the public isn't interested. All they will see is the inconvenience of loss of services. And you know who they will blame."

Rachel nodded "Mmmm. Most people don't understand why anybody would want to work nowadays." She and Sally walked into the livingroom. "I'll switch to full transmission Dina."

"Me too," Dina answered and her image appeared in the livingroom. She was tall and slender, wearing white bikini top, miniskirt, and sandals. She also had short, white gloves on. Rachel guessed she was at work. Dina's eyes were still all dark without whites. Perhaps they were implants rather than contact shades.

Rachel and Sally waved and Dina returned it.

Rachel said, "This is an ancient problem. Two people pull in opposite directions. Once started, neither can stop for fear of the other winning and taking all."

Sally asked, "I don't understand why the cyborgs want to work. Wouldn't they be happier away from the conflict?"

Rachel said, "The work ethic."

Dina nodded. "Yes. Replicators, androids, and the demise of religion should've seen the end of it, but it's still around. Most cyborgs do their work simply because they like to. But a minority believe perversely that not working is a sin."

Sally put in, "Sloth."

Dina nodded again, "They're the puritans. They despise people who don't work, and feel morally superior to them. They call work a right. These are the people that caused such big problems around the world and played such a large part in the fall of the USA. They bitterly fought the large scale introduction of robots and androids. For them, not having a job is the ultimate indignity. It makes them extremely threatened by the city managers."

Rachel added, "They would tend to see the city managers as very one-dimensional enemies. In fact some of the city managers are very similar to them. They see work as a duty and have exactly the same tendency to look down on those who don't have a job. Ironic really. Each sees the other as their opposite, but they are really almost the same."

Dina said, "I wonder if that could be the key to solving it. If the troublemakers on each side can be either moved to the middle ground or else made irrelevant then everybody else could get on with their lives."

Rachel pondered that for a moment. "Paradoxically, it is easier to make people switch between extremes than to move to or from the middle ground." She thought for a moment. "There may be a way to get the extremists on each side to see that they are the same and build some kind of allegiance. I can't see immediately how it could be done though. I'll give it some thought later. But much more likely would be finding a way of cutting off support for the extremists on each end of the spectrum. I've met a lot of the city managers, and I know many are annoyed with a few who manipulate discussions into contests of conflict. If the majority of city managers could be persuaded not to listen to them this might be fixed."

Dina disagreed. "Maybe a year ago that might have been enough, but it is beyond that now. Things have reached boiling point among a lot of the cyborgs. We need to work out a way to isolate the cyborgs who want conflict... perhaps whatever magical technique you were thinking of using with the city managers would work with the cyborgs too."

All three thought for a while.

Sally brightened. "I wonder if we could borrow a blue court android to sit in on discussions."

Dina and Rachel looked at each other in surprise. Rachel turned to Sally, "Wow, honey! That's a terrific idea! I'll make enquiries among some of my legal-eagle friends."

Dina laughed, "No need. This is where they're made. We have some in stock. I can prep one today."

Rachel kissed Sally, "My sweetie saves the day again."

Sally said, "Not quite. Even supposing it works the way we hope, we still have to work out the logistics. Do we get the city managers to meet the cyborgs for a discussion? Or do we have two separate discussions?"

Rachel answered, "Good point. Any meeting between the two groups would be a lot smoother if the troublemakers on each side had already lost power."

Dina said, "Three meetings then. The cyborgs meet separately, the city managers meet separately, then everybody meets. On each occasion a blue court android is at the meeting."

Rachel nodded. "That sounds good to me. I'll find out when we can get the city managers together for a meeting."

Dina thought for a moment. "The cyborgs are probably more volatile than the city managers. I think we should deal with them first. I'll try to set up a meeting with them tonight. It will take me the rest of the day to prep the android."

"OK," said Rachel. "I'll try to set up a city manager meeting for tomorrow then."

Dina smiled, "Thanks ladies. I'll call again this afternoon in about 6 hours." She waved and her image disappeared.

---


Rachel spoke with someone she knew on the city management committee who was very interested in anything that would defuse the tension. They were annoyed at how the situation had been mishandled and inflamed by a few. A couple of hours later an android secretary sent a message to Rachel letting her know the meeting had been set up for tomorrow morning.

---


Sally and Rachel decided to take a stroll down to the river at the bottom of their valley. Along the way they talked about how the world had been changed by replicators and androids.

They were admiring the view as they walked. The early afternoon sun was high and the air was warm. Bees buzzed in trees covered in blossom as they wandered down the slope. Just grass, shrubs and trees as far as could be seen. Rachel said, "I still remember what it was like when I was a little girl -- it was so different then. This was all inner-suburbia -- roads telegraph poles, houses, shops, cars. Hardly any living things apart from people. In just a couple of decades everything changed. It is hard to believe it could all happen so fast."

Sally agreed, "All the books I read make it seem like another world entirely. From what I understand it started with the net."

Rachel said, "I don't remember the beginning of the net, but I do remember 3D printers. They swept the world when I was still young. My Mum showed me how to download patterns for toys off the net. When I wanted a new toy I'd just make one. I even designed a few and shared the patterns with friends." She laughed. "Mine weren't very good, but it was fun."

Sally asked, "Did you know anybody who was sued by the big corporations?"

Rachel shook her head, "No. We were all scared of them though. They were trying to stop the 3D printers by scatter-gun law suits. By all accounts they hurt a lot of people, but they couldn't stop it. Everybody had them."

Sally nodded, "It was a good thing they couldn't stop it. 3D printers launched the robotics age."

Rachel remembered. "Yeah. All my friends were making them. The excitement was incredible. Kids would go home, download the latest designs, make them, often with their own modifications and bring them to school. I remember some amazing designs some of my friends made. It was happening everywhere."

Sally said, "And then, bang! Replicators and brain scanners. That must have been something to live through."

"Yes." Rachel sighed. "As if everything wasn't changing fast enough already, replicator technology was developed independently at several places around the world. We used to have discussions about that at university. If just one place had created them it might have been stopped, but several places... nope. Biomechanical machines based on 3D printers, but able to make things out of thin air the way plants do. Wow! Suddenly people didn't just make solid mechanical things, they also made food." She shook her head. "They spread around the world in just weeks, because a replicator could make more replicators."

Sally chuckled, "Depending upon which books you read from the time it was the best thing or the worst thing to happen to civilisation. Economies crashed, but starvation and poverty ended almost overnight."

Rachel looked serious. "If you ask me, most economies deserved to crash. They depended on wage slavery, doling out luxury goods and food in minimal amounts in return for people selling off their lives. They lured with freedom but never actually delivered. After replicators, people finally got it. They only worked if it was fulfilling and meaningful."

Sally asked, "You were in university then?"

Rachel nodded, "My whole idea of what I was going to do with my life got turned upside down. All emphasis had been upon being able to earn an income. Very little thought had been given to what would make people happy or make their lives worthwhile. A lot of the tutors just up and left. It was interesting, because the best ones remained -- those who taught because they enjoyed it. A lot of kids left too. The ones who really wanted to learn stayed, so the ratio of students to tutors actually worked out pretty well."

Sally said, "Robots were hurried into the workforce."

Rachel nodded.

Sally added, "...except in places where there were a lot of puritans."

"Yeah, that was so weird. Puritans. People who felt that pleasure was wrong and that work was needed as a kind of cleansing punishment. I guess nobody really noticed how screwy that was until you didn't have to work anymore. People took back their lives. But there were these nuts telling them that they still had to work. The puritans campaigned against robots, destroyed factories, and where there was enough of them they boycotted places that used robots." Rachel shook her head. "All they managed to do was hurt themselves and those around them. It was a real shame. And they're still causing trouble. We'll be seeing some tonight at the cyborg meeting, and tomorrow at the city managers' meeting."

Sally said, "And brain scanning... it made veeps and androids like me possible.""

"Mmmm. But that's not what most people would think of. For them brain scanning was most visible in the caps. It started out as something for the disabled. I don't think many would connect brain scanning with androids. I do because I'm a psychologist. High resolution brain scans revolutionised our understanding of the brain. It made AIs possible -- true AIs, not the 'expert systems' that were really fancy databases. It made the robots smart. They became androids." She smiled and hugged Sally. "Lucky for me."

Neither spoke for a while. The walked in the sun.

Sally said, "Big changes. Technology accelerates. I wonder what the great changes now are... how they will change the future."

Rachel shook her head. "Who can say? I doubt anybody saw these things happening."


---


Dina called. The cyborg meeting was set for early tonight in the same warehouse as the previous one.


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Comments

[gothxxangel.livejournal.com]

I really liked this chapter. You have a way of layering the political and social realities that are fascinating and sound so true. I can understand the tensions between the cyborgs and the city officials.

Really good, really detailed world. Plus, I love how the main characters are women! The point you made about replicators and how Rachel sees it from both sides as she's had to go through the transition really explains a lot about their society.

As usual, lovely descriptions of the characters! I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with the cyoborg meeting!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks.

A lot of what I write about here is actually beginning now.
Robots are really starting to hot up; 3D printers are on the verge of becoming cheap (they are currently about the cost the first CD burners were); there is a lot of work on brain scanning technology working from different angles at the moment and some can now scan down to the detail of individual nerves; there are at least two major projects currently underway to model a human brain; I build virtual worlds and was the manager of a large world for a while; a lot of people are starting to realise the advantages of building underground; there is some fantastic work being done on low energy computing (my PalmVx uses a tiny trickle of power); there is a small amount of work being done on powering things with ambient energy (a few years back a researcher built a nanomachine which was powered by brownian motion!); and of course we are all cyborgs.

I'm grateful for the encouragement.