Chapter 6: Inflection Points
Chapter 6: Inflection Points
Part 1: Paternal Scolding
Regarding a thorough scolding as delivered by my doctors, written shortly afterwards that I might accurately record their sentiments. How cathartic has my writing been, my secondary release!
The “meeting” was a daily ritual, always upheld except for the more tranquil days of sleepy weekends. Dr. Hoffman and Dr. Medicos, my flesh and wire physicians respectively, sat me down in the office in which they met with patients at almost random times. You could never tell how long a patient would be with them, Beverly especially, she was a half hour or a two hour kind of woman. The two physicians were donning modern doctor white, and yes, the robot was wearing clothes. Trendy shoulderhoods included. Physician robots actually had names, unlike other specially-purposed robots, which is a little elitist. I mean Zenbot 5000, come on, surely he deserves a name too. Anyways.
“Alianii, this episode of yours, this display of extremely poor judgment,” said Dr. Hoffman, “Sexually risky behavior is a symptom of mania or hypomania, and demonstrates a lack of impulse control.”
“Dr. Hoffman. I understand your frustrations, and I agree with your overall sentiments. That being said, Alianii, perhaps, in my own way, I am better suited to understand your drives and struggles with sexuality.”
“How the fuck do you figure that?” I asked, dumbfounded at the gall of a robot attempting to explain how it understood my sexuality.
“I have no sexuality, by design, though I can engage in emotionally fulfilling romantic relationships if I choose to do so. But physical intimacy, this drive, is something that I in no way possess. To go from zero to even a small drive is a larger increase, proportionately, than to go from an average drive to a hyperactive sex drive. Whereas Dr. Hoffman is biological, and thus cannot comprehend such extremities compared to his moderation, as I am the opposite extreme, I can fully, totally and holistically understand. Even if you are suspicious of this claim.”
“We should make a movie together, a romantic comedy, you fall in love with a pink pussy sex bot and I’ll marry an asexual. We’ll overcome our natures together. The Zenbot 5000 has told me this is the way of the electric Buddha. What say you of this wisdom, grand doctor, patriarch of patriarchs, father of steel and medicine.”
Dr. Hoffman continued, “Your nicotine patch incident, where you demanded the highest dose patch we have available, and threatened to sexually harass a staff member, destroy property…Alianii. You’re too brilliant for stunts like that, look at you, you don’t belong in Steelslum. You’re young, and talented, you have curiosity and humor and kindness and selflessness as evidenced by the job you wish to go back to. There is nothing more that we want than to send you home. Do you understand what kind of predicament you put us in? We do not have a lengthy list of mental health indicators by which to keep you here indefinitely, and we cannot, and we will not. That is not our role - our role is to shield you from the extreme moments. But at the same time, our fears are profound, whats to say that you will not delve into prostitution, and wind up dead, mutilated, in an alleyway near your home, perhaps on the floor above? How do we as doctors reconcile a patient’s clarity and wit with a willingness to, over several weeks, plot sexual escapades with strangers?
“I can never be a prostitute if I fuck for free, what toll and fee have I need for. I was born and shall die in poverty. And when I die - I shall have no family to mourn me. I raped my closest friend, through time dilation, and now have nothing of purpose or significance but my ability, my talent, to use my insanity, or creativity, or whatever you call it, to bring some small measure of light and hope to others, to children. I’ll never be a mother, but I can be a nurse, if you are doctors as such, send me back to my Everse hospital, where I’m the nurse, or kill me here and now.”
My human doctor spoke again, “Alianii. We’ve talked about this Hugo person. From what we’ve talked about, you both frequently engaged in risky sexual behavior and drug use and other addictive behaviors. You overdosed with him, but you weren’t trying to kill him. You weren’t trying to rape him. Two addicts miscalculating a dose is not the same as rape or murder, and, in time, perhaps he will even forgive you. It is regrettable that you have found it challenging making other friends.”
“I don’t struggle with making friends. I struggle with keeping them. And I did rape Hugo, I have tens of thousands of hours logged or more. I try to forget the exact number. I pressed a billion squared like a psychotic whore. I’m so fucked, Dr. Hoffman.”
It was time for my robot doctor to chime in, “So you do not think we should release you?”
I was tearing up a little at this point, if I am honest, “Is a de-winged bird safer in a cage by which its life is living death, or in the wild by which death defines life? I have only my colors, my violet and my silver, and my ideas, and that’s all I wish to utilize. I don’t care where I live. It’s either a cage in Steelslum, or a cage of “padded” walls and antipsychotics. That is except for when I’m a horny, drug addict whore that wants to be pinned down and needled until I’m chemically fucked up enough to pass out. If only guns were legal, or euthanasia for the bipolar, how simple my life would be.”
Dr. Medicos pulled out an electronic handkerchief from his pocket and transmuted the color from white to criss-crossed purple and silver. I started sobbing, it might seem odd that I appreciated his gesture, since it made me cry more, but it was what I needed.
In between sobs, I managed to thank my metal not-quite-a-friend, my temporary caretaker.
The robot spoke, “The sentiments you have just shared with us are perhaps the most important that have been conveyed in this conversation. If you are contemplating, fantasizing about or even just romanticizing suicide, we cannot, by law, common sense and common goodness release you from careful supervision. But…perhaps there is an altogether different solution, a compromise if you will. Vaguely romanticizing suicide, in this nihilistic world of ours, isn’t perhaps the strongest reason to keep you in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. You’re a teacher and a social worker. I’m quite sure you’ve heard of the Hotel Apollo. The repurposed hotel turned into a less-restrictive, supervised housing environment for…other individuals…who have struggled with mental health, substance abuse, sex addiction and other personal challenges. You would only be able to leave with a supervision bot, or on group activities…but you would have access to the Everse for your job. You would pay no rent for at least six months, you would make friends…hopefully not ones with whom you would engage in unhealthy levels of intercourse…but…perhaps a bounded park as such is better than this padded cage? Are you receptive to a new living arrangement, Alianii? It is ordinarily near impossible to get admitted to this facility, but we have arranged a spot for you, through an extensive effort aided by serendipity and circumstance.”
Part 2: Hello Apollo
Written in the evening following my transfer to the Hotel Apollo, “Where indeed the smiles are ever-sunny, even when it’s always raining.”
I wanted to leave the hospital and arrive at the transitional housing with dignity, and for that purpose my doctors allowed me to wear the dress (yes I washed it, it was the only pretty thing I had). Of course they couldn’t take away my possessions, meager as they were, but they could have made me leave and arrive in medical clothing. How humiliating that would have been.
I was escorted in the morning, around nine, note my sleep schedule had been “fixed”. How this would work with Amanda’s hours, I did not know, but I would soon find out. My escort was a bulky supervisor bot. He was basically a walking, talking fridge with eyes and arms. He sat in the front of the orange medical air taxi that would take me to my newfound residence.
The doctors had in a one day accelerated process obtained a court judgment, which I don’t really want to talk about, because it’s a bit humiliating. But suffice it to say I would be at Apollo for at least a year. At least I didn’t have to wear handcuffs. Sometimes they made the really rascally patients wear handcuffs, though they were the soft, fuzzy kind that didn’t cut into wrists and leave marks.
The medical air taxi flew through the ever-drizzled, verdant garden district, with the rainbow of glass skyscrapers surrounding Hope Park. It was a neo-Oregon forest of multicolored pine trees and others. It was like someone had spray painted an amalgam of holidays onto a Pacific Northwest state park. They were genetically modified to have different flowers throughout each season, the goldies saved themselves the pleasant aromatics. And the trees sang, of course, like the modified flowers. I closed my window, I had no need to inhale the fragrant reminder of my socioeconomic status as a peasant. I had no need to partake in City Center level goldie privilege.
We passed the headquarters of Geneticus, that’s the company that basically cucked Nintendo by using genetic engineering to create creatures that, oftentimes, resembled Pokemon. Without the abilities, of course, and to their credit with 4000 Pokemon it’d be hard to make something that didn’t look like one. Pokemon has what, trademarks or copyrights (I’m not a lawyer) over every elemental magic variety of fucking turtle? Naw. I’m fine with Geneticus bringing to actuality what others dream of.
You may find it perverse that, as an egg, I am supportive of genetic engineering. Indeed there are certain groups amongst us eggs where the discourse is anti G.E. However, I personally look at it in a very simple way. I apparently have a right to exist even if I wasn’t wanted, surely then, by some logical property, most of which is wanted ought to be? Non-evil things, of course? What hypocrite unwanted being would advocate for the elimination of the actually desired, and thus condemn themselves? Some eggs have more yolk between their ears then others. Imagine advocating for the extermination of your own kin, indirectly, without realizing it.
I closed my eyes. The driver of my medical air taxi, a medical escort robot himself, turned on relaxing music, Oriental zen, the main instrument a flute, as accompanied by a sister piano.
Maybe this hotel wouldn’t be so bad. I’d heard good things about it before, but it was reserved for adults and not children and so I had no firsthand experience with the facility.
For a good five minutes or so, I rested as my air taxi traveled to the little pocket of our megacity. Before I’d left the hospital I looked on a computer map - the “hotel” was nowhere near the city’s center, nor even Steelslum, it was further West towards Portland. It wasn’t in a suburban area, but rather was near an appreciable pocket of various offices and towers. It was an interesting area, but it wasn’t as ornate as the clockwork-esque City Center enveloping Hope Park and the artificial lake. That’s where there are hundred million dollar, sometimes even billion dollar apartments that are, usually, but not always, empty.
The Hotel Apollo, it turns out, as I saw on the Everse, was more horizontal than vertical, and looked kind of like a smallish-castle made of glass and orange desert stone. It was a passable imitation of a desert-themed and somewhat luxurious Disney hotel. The hotel was funded by Eastern money that foolishly assumed mimicking Big Mouse could be lucrative. Disney sued them, almost into non-existence. The company was forced to stop its operations until it was successfully approved for a less-than-ideal contract for government-subsidized housing, for crazies, like me.
The medical air taxi dropped into the parking lot and my metal escort got out of the vehicle and unlocked my door. I left the vehicle, and put my hand through my hair and brushed it back. At that moment I thought, Alianii, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into? Alas, there was only one way to find out. I walked through the front door, step in step with a machine, and went to the front desk.
“Greetings! You must be Alianii,” said the Denkeeper, a mechadwarf (comically-large white mustache included), wearing a formal neomagi suit, black shoulderhoods with a tuxedo body.
“I am Moseby. Mr. Moseby. And yes, in case you were curious to ask based off my magnificent mustache. I used to be an entertainment wizard. Worked in the Disney animatronics division of Digital Flame and Dazzle for four years. Good years, but nothing like being at your service, Alianii. Alianii, you would not believe the wonderful things we’ve heard about you. Sara in particular is looking forward to meeting you!”
I’d never seen an entertainment wizard (a hyper-specialized type of biocybernetic robot, including sentience hardware) before in person, he looked so real, as real as I myself did. He must have cost millions to manufacturer. My Denkeeper, who would be the “enforcer” of the rules, was a re-purposed Disney hand-me-down. Mind you, if he were in the Everse he would smoke me at the speed of producing magic shows and whatever mix of technical flourishes. I’m not a technical wizard like that, but I’m creative enough and understand child psychology enough to get em’ good with the little charms.
“…wonderful things? I was hoping for a blank slate. Maybe this isn’t the place for me. I don’t want to…”
“What? Blank slate? You’re a hero, your doctors forwarded us your LearnQuest profile, Alianii, you’ve corralled nearly a thousand students, single handedly, from being non-participatory to enthusiastic learners. You’re the technician they go to when no one’s getting through to the child.”
“I don’t know about all that, I just like to tell stories, kids just happen to enjoy them.”
“Oh Huffpuffery!” said Moseby, “Come in, come in! There’s no paperwork for you, everything has been taken care of. All we have to do is just review the schedule and curfew with you, review a few of the rules, get your Everse access restored, you know, the little things. I already transferred to you your authentication key.”
“Saraswati, come say hello to Alianii,” said Moseby.
From the a little nook off to the side of the front desk, I heard the sounds of an eccentric, bright string instrument. I would later learn it to be known as the veena. There was a young woman, my age, maybe a year or two younger, notably beautiful, with light brown hair and dark brown almond eyes. Her eyes glimmered with light, her hair was enlivened by blond highlights. She was playing the instrument, plucking the strings passionately but with calculated control as she played a tranquil song. She was wearing a neo-Hindu dress, with the same “magic” shoulderhoods that became so fashionable in the 2080s.
Saraswati put down her veena and walked over to me. I went to shake her hand and she got closer and just openly hugged me. Well…ok, she’s a hugger. Fine.
“Hi! Please feel free to call me Sara, or sawh-ra if you prefer that pronunciation. Doesn’t matter to me in the slightest! Oh my gosh Moseby has been bragging about you non-stop! It’s so nice to meet you.”
“I’m Alianii. Nice to meet you. I’m just a teacher, it’s nothing crazy, I mean I love what I do and it’s a blessing but, you know, just your ordinary adventure guide.”
“Stop being so humble!” said Saraswati, smiling at me warmly, “I’m a teacher too…I do music lessons. Moseby showed me your LearnQuest profile, you have like almost 5 stars and over 600 reviews and you’re at master rank. You’re like close to my age right, 23 or 24? That’s so crazy!”
I was a few years older at 27 but was flattered and did not correct her. I was a little enchanted by her serene beauty, and her bubbly disposition. Moseby was beaming towards the two of us, “You too Saraswati, you’re always too humble with your accomplishments. Sara’s our musical prodigy here at Apollo. Aside from being a teacher like you, she has over 273,000 followers on MyMuse and counting! Can you believe that? Wow. Nothing but talent at the Hotel Apollo! Truly marvelous, what a home, what a lovely place for us all to be. She keeps the lobby relaxing in the mornings, before she heads upstairs to work in the Everse, our little musician! Isn’t that right, Sara?”
“I do my best Mr. Moseby. Thank you.” Sara bowed humbly and brushed a blond highlighted lock from her predominantly brunette hair back behind her head.
“Of course dear. Also, do you think you could do Alianii and I a favor and help her to her room? I registered her chip already. I saw it on the sensor when she came in, so she’s all prim, proper and ready.”
The Denkeeper continued, “As opposed to preemptively scolding you, were you to be or not be a troublemaker, hypothetically,” said Moseby, winking at me, “Here is an envelope with a brochure regarding various aspects of our little community. The first page is our mission statement and community values description, the second page has the rules by which we keep our environment loving and prosperous for all members. There’s also a map, a menu for the kitchen, details for how to order food, which is offered all day and night by the way, a list of the various accommodations and amenities, et cetera. We’re so blessed to have at our disposal a full-service hotel, and a luxurious one, at that! I am positively sure you will find this to be a blessed home. Alianii, you will make friends, and we will all continue to grow together. And that’s despite me being a mostly-metal dwarf of fixed stature!”
I blushed and bowed in gratitude towards Mr. Moseby.
Saraswati left her veena in the lobby, she radiated trust towards the overall hotel and Moseby. This was clearly her home, and she loved it here. She took me to the glass elevator at the back of the orange sandstone lobby. I was carrying the measly assortment of my things, she offered to help, but I declined, and so she pressed the button which opened the door a second later.
“I’m so excited to have you here Alianii. I’ve never met a master-rank adventure guide before. Anything higher and you’d need a doctorate…that’s so crazy! How’d you do it?”
I smiled and took a moment to respond, my room was right near the elevator and responded to my chip when I opened the door, “I don’t know, I guess I just tried to really focus on my strengths. I’m umm…bipolar, you see. I’ve been through a lot. Being an egg and all that. So I focus on trying to help students that are like me when I was young, just kids that are a little different. There are kids that aren’t responsive to most teachers that just need a little extra dash of affection, a little more creativity and intuition, to open up and blossom.”
“…that’s beautiful, Alianii. You’re a guardian angel, I hope you know that. Here let me help you put your things down,” said Sara, “Where’s your other stuff? Do you have a suitcase downstairs or outside by the taxi or something?”
“Oh. I got it, I’ll handle my things, there isn’t exactly much to handle. This is it, this is me, my life fits in a bag smaller than the case that carries your instrument, ha-ha. What is that thing, by the way? You play it so beautifully.”
“It’s a veena, it’s an ancient Indian instrument, you can hear about it on WikiVerse if you’re curious, there’s so much history behind it,” she said, smiling warmly. “By the way…we’re like twins, we’re the same size, if you need to borrow any clothes I have way too many. Some of my fans send me things and I literally don’t know what to do with it all, you could keep whatever you liked. Also I love your hair, silver…so cool! I wish I had the confidence to try something like that.”
“Thanks Sara. That’s very sweet of you, I might take you up on that offer, maybe in the next few days or week or so. I have to check on a case for work, and then I think I need to read the rules and all that.”
Saraswati spoke, “Now, Alianii, I do need to mention something. This may sound a serious, it kind of is, but I’ve been instructed to have a meeting with you, after you check your messages on the Everse. You’re not in trouble or anything, there are just some things about the Apollo you need to know about. Sorry for stressing you out like this. Can we meet for lunch around twelve?”
“Um…okay. It’s fine, I guess I’ll meet you in the lobby at eleven fifty?”
Saraswati bowed, “Please do not go outside until after we’ve had our meeting, okay? Technically leaving without an escort is against the rules. You need a escort or supervisor bot to go further than the gardens around the hotel, and we need to have our meeting first. It’s very important.”
“Understood…weird, but understood. Thank you.”
Part 3: Dearest Amanda
Written in the evening following my transfer to the Hotel Apollo
I logged into the Everse and found my inbox had several packages accompanied with voice messages from Amanda, as well as a few messages from Marabelle. I opened the messages from Amanda first, I started with the earliest she sent to me.
Her first message was a crunch message in the form of a violet apple, it tasted like cookies and cream ice cream, like the milkshake I had sent her. Curiously, Amanda’s messages were not voice messages, but text messages, like the olden days of emails and regular cell phone messages. I found this to be very, very odd.
Amanda’s first message, “hi mara told me you got injured in an accident. Are u ok? I miss u. Thx for getting me food me and joe shared, it was so good. Plz be okay, mara is nice but ur my favorite teacher.”
The second package was another crunch message in the form of a chocolate, golden pirate coin, “Ali I miss u, mara is nice but she is tough. School is good I know I’m worried about u. Mara and I did math and she taught me what doubloon is. I have fun but Mara keeps wanting me to say were I live and I don’t want to.”
Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK.
THE NUMBER ONE THING YOU DO NOT DO WITH HOMELESS NEURODIVERGENT STUDENTS IS PUSH THEM OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE. FUCK!
I had one last message from Amanda, from five days prior, this one was an animated red box, the size of a shoe box, inside of it was a crying emoticon the size of a baseball, the box was bleeding purple blood, fuck.
Her message, “I trusted u and mara and now everything is ruined. They took my brothers. Plz help me I need you Ali, plz come soon.”
I checked the ordinary voice message from Marabelle, I was livid, so fucking livid, but I had to see her perspective before I acted rashly. This wasn’t the time to be impulsive, this was a serious incident, and Amanda’s happiness and prosperity was at hand. I had to believe there was still a way for me to salvage the situation.
“Hi Alianii,
This message may seem a little rushed, I’d send you an hour-long message if I had the time, but I don’t. I am swamped with work right now, I have like eight cases that I’m juggling. They’re hard cases, but they’re not like…I mean what you do, the work we take on together. Alianii you will never understand the degree to which I respect your efforts.
I wish you the speediest recovery. With what I have learned from you and about you, that is perhaps the extent to which you would naturally prefer I address your current circumstances. We can discuss them in greater detail in the future, if we need to.
As for Amanda, I did my best the first session to console her, but it was just impossible. I don’t know how you did it, but this girl needs you. The second session I did an evaluative test and she scored three to four grade levels below her age level for every subject except for art and music. Her artistic expressions and creativity measurements place her at the high school level. Not unusual for a bipolar child, but impressive. You have this in common with her.
So her academics are severely deficient, but she has innate talents. You were the perfect assignment for her, to get her to open up, but I think that by the time you read this message you will come to agree she needs remedial teaching. Not just emotional counseling, which you excel at. I’m going to try to coordinate a few more sessions with her and evaluate her learning style(s), so that when I hand off her case to the next teacher they are as prepared as can be to assist with Amanda’s needs.
Lastly, I’m going to try to keep an open mind regarding her initial appearance when you first met her. Her scanning herself in that condition is indicative of major depression, as you well know, and indicates grooming, hygiene and lifestyle challenges that are at an emergency level of severity. Out of respect for you and your methods, and seeing how you were able to get her to dress herself and groom herself, and provided her with clothes and food and money, I am waiting on contacting child protective services. I know that you do not want me to act rashly, and I know you are an expert with sage wisdom. You get through to students no one does - but the initial footage I saw puts me in a very difficult situation. I’m going to try to pull through for you and use best judgment.
Recover quickly, this child needs you in her life, and even if you aren’t the one teaching her how to spell, she needs a few hours of your time, every week, for the foreseeable future.
With respect and envy of your talents, Marabelle”
At this point, yeah, I was crying, a lot. I tried to calm myself and think rationally, but I was so overwhelmed with what I was reading, and with guilt, guilt that burned to the quintessence of my spirit. Logical. Be logical. Problem solving is logic, and what are children but puzzles, that need solving with love, and kindness, and effort?
There were two more messages from Marabelle. I understood completely where she was coming from, it made perfect sense, but this all was such a bitter pill to swallow. It was absolutely fine that Marabelle was getting her a remedial teacher, that was incredible, she needed it. What destroyed me was seeing how profoundly I had fucked up, in succumbing to my addiction, in abandoning this child. She needed me with her, holding her hand, and getting her emotionally ready for academics. She did not need her life to be catapulted into oblivion, especially not without someone she trusted at her side, in person.
I activated the second voice message from Marabelle.
“Hi Alianii,
I hope this finds you in good spirits, and that you are recovering. Don’t be a stranger, okay? I know you’re injured, maybe stressed out, embarrassed, I don’t quite know what you’re going through. I’m hoping your doctors approve Everse access soon so we can coordinate a call and talk about Amanda’s case. We had a good third session, it was relatively light on the academics, I tried to do more exploratory and adventurous learning in alignment with your teaching style. We were pirates.
I’d never seen a purple pirate before, but she repeatedly, with every outfit she tried, changed the base color to match your eye color. She loves you so much that I almost feel out of place, but I know it’s just my job to take care of her as best as I can. I know you’ll be back for her soon. As for academics, we did light learning, some basic math problem-solving in the form of working with quantities of treasure. We did some vocabulary, both typical English and pirate and oceanic nomenclature. She’s obsessed with the word doubloon.
There is one area of things that concerns me, and this is Amanda’s relationship with violence and mature content. She repeatedly asked me for editing permission to adjust the learning experience, and out of curiosity and intuition, I allowed her to do this. She’d gotten bored with the light, light academics and was insistent. She proceeded to immediately elevate the maturity level from age-appropriate to adult-level violence. I knew what she was about to get into and preemptively stopped the graphic sexual content that would have been rendered.
But the violence - this needed exploration - at least my intuition of “What would Alianii do?” So I conducted the experiment, as you would, and remember we were fully immersed in this experience, she wasn’t watching it as a movie. Amanda’s reactions to the scenes of violence were disturbing. She didn’t seem to take pleasure, per se, in the executions, but they captivated her interest, and in no way did she react with shock or negativity to blood or gore that occurred right in front of her in a fully interactive way. I allowed for her to observe this content for one minute before I disabled her editing privileges and lowered the content to be age appropriate. She asked me why I did that, and I said that she was too young for that kind of violence. She looked me in the eyes, Alianii, and told me, “I prefer the real world.”
I’m going to have to call child protective services. I know this isn’t your style, to act so quickly, but there’s something about this case that profoundly disturbs me. I can’t explain it, it’s just my intuition, maybe a little dash of Alianii inspiration. Before I call, however, I’m going to do one more session…there is the, elephant in the room, abuse wise, that I have no choice but to attempt to evaluate.
-With respect and profound concern, I am truly hoping you are back soon, so that you can further provide care for Amanda as we heal her through our process - Marabelle”
My colleague had a point, and I was increasingly confident that her actions were forced, her hands were tied, and I respected her for making a difficult decision. Plenty of children watch terrifying horror movies, even in fully immersive interactions, and usually, but not always, it has some effect on them. But considering kids play games and blow each other’s brains out, interactive shooters and slicing and dicing, I mean, fuck, kids are desensitized as hell. It’s horrific. But to actually watch historically-realistic graphic violence, pirate beheadings and torture…and to be presented with a childhood lesson but to desire to immediately raise the violence level? That’s a problem, that’s a serious problem. Even the kids that shoot each other six hours a day, after school, do not typically try to force their teachers to join them in watching murder and pillaging.
Teachers are for companionship, learning, affection, fun, other kids are for imaginary play, violence, adventure, escapades, danger. I don’t like how absurdly violent the Everse can be for kids, but what I really, really don’t like…was that when given joyous innocence, her desire was to catapult the experience into abject darkness. I know this seems hypocritical, considering I allowed her to wander around a horror section in a museum, but this is different. Children are curious. Extremely curious. Even regarding darkness. You take them to a museum, maybe they go to the spooky section, they look around. They tap something scary, glance through it - maybe even watch it on fast-forward - but they do not jump into it headfirst, or else, after doing so once, they usually do not ever do it again. But children actually enjoy games and working with teachers, and it is almost unheard of for a student, being chaperoned by a teacher and engaged in mini-games, to suddenly and insistently and for no apparent cause elevate the violence and maturity level. It’d be like eating an apple and wanting to press a button to make the apple be a beating heart - it’s indicative of, at the very least, extremely challenged, harmful thought patterns. It’s indicative of severe abuse or desensitization even by the Everse in 2100 standards. Child Protective Services was the way to go, without a doubt.
I had one more message from Marabelle to get through.
“Hi Alianii,
I hope your recovery is nearing its end. I haven’t been able to reach you so, if you haven’t had Everse access this long, I’m assuming your health challenges were more serious than either of us anticipated. It would be good, in the future, for you to be more open with me regarding your illness and for you to reach out to me. We’re partners. if something like this ever happens again, just call me, just so I’m in the loop. Anyways, not a big deal, but I care about you. As for the purpose of this message, aside from checking in on you, I wanted to leave you a professional courtesy regarding the case of Amanda.
I conducted the Romeo and Juliet test. Her response was indicative of either being the direct victim of or having witnessed extensive sexual violence. In lieu of consensual, age appropriate romance as perceived via media e.g. kissing, hugging, possibly cuddling, without aggression, Amanda explicitly and dramatically raised the sexual intensity level as well as sexual aggression levels of various male characters in the simulated experience. The encounter would have led to graphic sexual violence based off of her selected settings, but I stopped the experience shortly before obscene material was portrayed. I waited as long as I could to see if she would react negatively to the content. The content did not phase her in the slightest.
When I stopped the test, Amanda figured out what I was doing, and signed out of the Everse and blocked me. I called the police and filed a report and they picked her up from an apartment in in Willow Park alongside a few other young adults whose ages ranged from fourteen to seventeen. The others, it seems, had also escaped from Barnaby Beaumont. They had been living in an apartment unsupervised, the miscellaneous bills were paid by an unknown party. There’s an investigation that has started and this trafficking case is already considered to be very serious and is all over the news.
I am in no way able to engage with Amanda further at this point, as she does not trust me and sees me as having betrayed her. It isn’t a fun role but it’s part of the job, I suppose, sometimes being hated means the child is safer for it. It sucks, though, Alianii, it sucks - and in particular, from the reports her caretakers have given, it appears that she is suffering separation anxiety from a fellow child, named Joe or Joey, alongside the two older young adults. Note Joey isn’t on her friends list, and we have no more information about it, other than the fact that she is completely despondent and is refusing to participate in any learning experiences and is only seldom eating.
It’s a terrible situation, to say the least, but she won’t speak about how to find the other children. She is also being bullied by the other nurture center children.
At this point, it’s obvious to me that there’s no one that’s going to get through to her except for you, and your intervening could very well save the lives of multiple other children. I took the liberty of gathering the evidence that shows your relationship with Amanda, and submitted an emergency appeal for you to be granted the role of executive caretaker level social care worker and the related privileges. In her current state, there is no way she is able to participate in formal academic learning. Mr. Steinsberg agreed with my conclusion and approved your EC-level status. As soon as you’re out of the hospital, you should be good to go to be able to check her out and work with her one on one. At this point I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of her being willing to go into the Everse alone, especially anything to do with LearnQuest. A physical school would be even worse, if she is already being bullied by fellow nurture center children. I honestly believe the only hope for this girl, truly, if for you to embrace the emergency caretaker privilege level and work with her in person, for as many hours as you can, until she’s more confident and can learn around peers her age.
- Respectfully, and I know you can do this. I have all of the faith in the world that you will be able to help Amanda and get through to her such that we can rescue any other unhomed children that she is knowledgeable of who we did not pick up when we found her - Marabelle”
Part 4: Emergency Caretaker
Marabelle, you fucking saint, you fucking queen, you rock star, you rock star, you rock star. I sent an extremely short reply.
“Marabelle, thank God you did what you did, and I appreciate and recognize how hard all of the decisions you had to make were. You did everything perfectly, and I’ll take the case on from here. You getting me EC status was, so, so, so helpful - words cannot describe how helpful - I’m going to send you a soliloquy as soon as I can, but right now I’m rushing over to pick her up and talk to her. I got this. Thanks so, so, so much - going to be super busy for the next few days.”
I tapped Amanda’s case and I had a whole new flood of information that had been recovered via the police investigation. Some of the information was updated as recently as yesterday and the day before. The most important thing was her current case status, specifically, where she was located. I was pretty sure I knew, and I was right - Barnaby Beaumont.
I called an air taxi and went into the lobby, ran straight past Mr. Moseby, and waited outside in front of the hotel for my air taxi to arrive in about three minutes.
“Alianii - where are you going? Have you even had breakfast? Furthermore, you do not yet have authorization to leave for work duties, and you are an Everse worker. You have not yet met with Saraswati. I must ask you to return to the building as it seems you have called an air taxi.”
“I’m so sorry Mr. Moseby, but this is a serious situation. I have been granted emergency caretaker status of a young girl. This status is not granted lightly, and the details of the case are such that I cannot fully disclose their contents to anyone who is not a government licensed social worker.”
“Which I happen to be, Miss Alianii,” said Mr. Moseby, who was stroking his mustache, “Here’s my profile, scan it. See? I actually have higher access levels than you do for certain case categories. I look after a hotel of patients with such challenges ranging from mental health to addiction and more.”
I accessed my Everse overlay and transferred a copy of the case to Mr. Moseby for his review, as an AI, he understood it instantly.
“Ah, Amanda. Yes, she’s all over the news. I really think you should hold off and speak with Saraswati before you jump heads first into this. At the very least, I need you to take an escort bot or two with you. This is imperative. If you had reviewed the case more thoroughly, you would see that this situation is actually very dangerous. The FBI is already involved. You need to know what you’re getting into before you are seen publicly. If Amanda is suspected to know information about a trafficking network, they could try to kill her, and you as well. You cannot help her if either of you are dead.”
“Fine. Will you send me with some escort bots? I don’t know what’s going on, but my heart is telling me that Amanda is not safe at Barnaby Beaumont. For the same reason that the children on her friends list are dead, and for the same reason she ran away. I need to get her to safety, Mr. Moseby. I need your help. Please.”
Part 5: The Violetica Trap
Military Brief: The Violetica Trap
The following military brief was generated to be in narrative form as historical context and documentation for the Violetica Trap. This trap related to the Alianii Incident, and so this inclusion serves as part of the Metal Alliance and Doge Guild’s appreciation for Alianii’s sacrificial efforts.
First, let us remind the reader of some now common knowledge, that is the Doge Guild, the Doge Coin funded cryptoguild, has two main divisions. The first and more important division, arguably, is the Doge Guild Strategy Division, which manages the policy and proposals, and usually guides the actions of the Forward Division (the military branch that enacts policies). As closely-knit members of the Alliance, the Strategy Division or S.D worked alongside researchers from the Metal Alliance to analyze, thoroughly, the contents of Violetica.
The findings were more serious than anticipated. Violetica was built in 2088 as an intentional “session trap”, after the 2086 patch which attempted to prevent such locations with hypercritical security vulnerabilities which could be used to identify individuals on MBLs (mutual block lists). Considering this journal was published three decades after the beginning of the Alianii Incident, we are now able to publicly and plainly discuss the nature of “session traps”. MBLs are mutual block lists, profiles of individuals whose Everse LearnQuest profiles were maliciously manipulated to be rendered invisible to each other. These alterations were primarily used by Diotrem on twin embryos at nurture centers. Of course, the existence of MBLs was identified by the twins Sunny the Dead and Sunny the Living. Their happenstance visitation to a Sun-themed astronomy exhibit, a solar eclipse, involved their simultaneously being at a location in which MBLs were rendered ineffective by the simulated light which overwhelmed various Everse sensors. The quote commonly attributed to them, symbolizing their discovery, is below, though it is likely made more poetic than the original words as directly stated. Sunny the Living, in accordance with his privacy and sorrow, has never confirmed the accuracy of these specific words, but has not denied them, either.
“You are me and I am you,” they said, to one another, forgotten twin brothers, “…we are one and one, in the Sun,”
“And so our war is not yet won.”
In identifying each other, each twin seeing each other in their eyes, their mechanical eyes, they knew they had been experimented upon, and separated, as babies. Despite being in front of each other, they could not add each other to their friend list, message each other, or detect each other on their personal scan radars. It occurred to them to communicate via friends who were NOT on either friend list, an unintentional work-around to communicate indirectly. MBLs, it was eventually revealed, were a sinister creation by Diotrem as part of their wider but difficult to comprehend goals for societal control.
As is now common knowledge, members of Diotrem had infiltrated the FBI and coordinated the installation of compromised brain chips in “eggs” raised in government facilities. They had installed pre-planned, remote access genocide, kill switches into an increasingly large segment of the population. The exact rationalization of this action is difficult to understand, the hivemind supercluster that forms the computational center for Diotrem does not readily disclose its motives. But it is suspected that the blossoming political kinship between biobots, metalheads that is, and the growing community of eggs, was a political risk.
As for what exactly the chips did and how the experiments were conducted, it has by the time you are reading this document been publicly revealed and acknowledged. Eggs, especially but not exclusively twin eggs, were born and raised separately and used in experiments for chips with “decision influence mode”, the ability to toggle on control over the actions and perceptions of the selected individual. Note that most eggs, nearly all eggs, had installed kill switches, but only a small amount of randomly selected twin eggs were chosen for the study of these mind-altering, mind-controlling chips.
In any case, Diotrem was found to have manipulated Alianii’s subconscious, through the display of an advertisement of Violetica, which she did in fact visit on a few occasions before taking Amanda. Alianii’s chip did not allow full control but was an intermediary, transitional chip which allowed for subtle influences. Diotrem’s subconscious manipulation of Alianii and Amanda was well-calculated, with Amanda’s favorite color of purple, with Alianii’s eye color of violet, with the advertisement and subliminal messaging to visit the museum. It was all a plot for Amanda’s capture, and presumed torture, to acquire Doge Guild members who were presumed to be around Amanda as identified through reconnaissance. Amanda was a key to higher-ranking members of the guild, who themselves were the exploitable weakness by which Diotrem could eliminate the higher-ranking enemies of their adversary organization.