MAGPIE Bryan Partington
Stewart had spent the better part of seven hours staring at the crumpled Dixie Cup on his bedside table, torpid, while Magpie cycled the questions through his preconscious: “What do you consider to be your greatest weakness? Your greatest strength?” “Do you prefer to work independantly or as part of a team?” “What do you consider to be your greatest acomplishment?” Maybe it
was more efficient than sleep, but the cognitive looping of managed
sedation could become hypnotically repetitive. Not that Stewart was
complaining. After all, sleep was the enemy, and the more of it he could
avoid, the better. If Magpie’s tinkering with his dream state allowed
for a weekly defragmentation of seven hours,
in lieu of 49 hours of sleep, this unending parade of the banal would
be worthwhile. Besides, it wasn’t like he would remember any of it. His internal
chronometer asserted itself, running an automated routine that abruptly
jogged him into consciousness. “Fuck”, Stewart
vocalized, little more than a groggy mutter. He gathered
his sheets, perturbed, pulling them into a hasty mess that matched
the general state of disarray in his apartment. Stewart reminded himself
to clean the place as soon as he could muster the energy – probably
not anytime soon. Commanding his legs over the side of the bed and
sitting silently on its edge, Stewart laughed.
“I am sorry
Stewart”, expressed Magpie, calmly. “I would not have woken you so
soon if you had not requested for me to do so.” Supposing
it might help him wake up, Stewart shook his head vigorously. In addition,
he knew Magpie was in there somewhere, and maybe if he shook his head
hard enough she would feel as disgruntled as he did. “As you may
recall, I warned you against this deviation from your normal sedation
cycle.” Magpie retrieved
and began to play back the cognitive log from the night before, when
Stewart had requested the early defrag in order to sharpen himself for
the morning’s job interview. In hindsight, it had been a bad idea. “I don’t
need to be reminded, Maggie” Magpie promptly
arrested the log and filed it. Sometimes Stewart wondered why he hadn’t
programmed Magpie to be less intrusive. His first familiar, Rover, had
been programmed by his parents and never left him alone for an instant
while he grew up. The first thing he did on his eighteenth birthday
was to pull Rover’s core programming and install a more liberal set
of protocols. Over time, however, he had added many more directives,
and by the time he upgraded to Magpie, his familiar was as intrusive
as Rover ever was – and in some ways more so.
“Again,
I apologize. I will revise my protocols if you would like me to, Stewart” “No, that’s
okay. I’m up now. It’s fine” xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Stewart adjusted
his jacket’s lapel, nervously folding it over the shoulder strap of
his bag as he stepped out into the street in front of his apartment
complex. It was a small, inexpensive tenement adapted from the pre-spike
era. Built of brick and steel, it contrasted sharply with daggerlike
translucent towers of nanocomposite fullerene
that dotted the city. Beyond the jagged skyline, the sky looked clear,
and he wondered why Magpie had reminded him to carry along his umbrella. “Aggregate
data indicates a 92% chance of precipitation between the hours of Smiling at
the familiar’s attention to inconsequentia,
Stewart walked towards the primary intersection while Magpie searched
the transit net, running a series of location queries and fare auctions.
By the time he reached the corner, she had an autoCAB
there waiting for him. Riding alone in the autoCAB gave Stewart a chance to collect his thoughts, with some help from Magpie. The job market had been extremely tight for the last two years, and Stewart’s tele-social marketing acumen hadn’t exactly been in demand of late. Establishing brand based virtual communities had once been his strong suit, but the ephemeral nature of such enterprises wasn’t well suited to a steady paycheck. A highly sought after management position at an intellectual proprietor of some influence was something he could not afford to pass up, despite the awful hours and unceasing workload. Stewart was
extremely apprehensive about the interview, insecure in his ability
to face his potential employers, and all too aware of the debt he had
incurred in order to install the new familiar. “Your record
stands for itself, Stewart”, Magpie reassured him, “There is no need
for worry, and it is highly unlikely they would have arranged this meeting
if they had no intention of hiring you.” “I know Maggie,
it’s just that …” Stewart hesitated; he wanted to make sure that he
expressed himself in terms that Magpie could compile. “I am more comfortable
communicating by proxy; through my record or through an avatar or through
you. I get nervous otherwise. The more I detached I can be, the better.” “And now
I can help, because I am aware of this.” “Yes Maggie,
you can.” One of any
familiar’s core directives was to allow the host to defer tasks that
were tedious or bothersome. The host could then be responsible for the
familiar, and the familiar could be responsible for most everything
else. Stewart noticed
Magpie suspending many of her active processes, taking the opportunity
to reconfigure her internal information architecture. And then,
everything went blank. Stewart awoke,
in his apartment, to a flood of incoming economic status indicators
and messages of congratulations. “Maggie,
what the hell happened?” Stewart stared
about the room, bewildered. Everything in the room had been cleaned.
The bed was made. Even the crumpled Dixie Cup on the bedside table had
been unfolded to its original state and carefully positioned beside
the reading lamp. “I am able,
Stewart, to suspend or alter your cognitive functions. Indeed, I do
this every time you defrag. I also use this ability to communicate with
you, as I am now.” Stewart nodded
instinctively, although there was no one around to see him. “I am also
quite capable, as you know, of augmenting or overriding your body’s
motor control. This is a secondary aspect of the defragmentation
process, and allows me to regulate your physical systems should they
come to harm.” Stewart began
to see where this was headed. “Seeing that
you were apprehensive about the interview, and your stated preference
to regulate your social contact, I merely assumed control of your body
and guided it through the interview process.” “But…. Did
I get the job?” “Yes” replied
the familiar, “And better still, by this method, you will never have
to endure a day of work again. You may engage in all these activities
through me, if that is what you would prefer.” Stewart paused,
contemplating the ramifications of this for a moment, before casting
a stray thought to his newly padded credit balance. “I’ll have
to think about it.” The End |