Miss Diode Strikes Again - The 31 Sentence Contest: Round 8


This contest entry picks up where we left off here: Miss Diode Wants a Real New Body

"The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart,"

she'd heard.

She had no heart, nor hands, inside her SevenUp can.

I’m more than that.

I’m more than a metal can with circuitry inside, designed by that lunatic Lloyd to contain his unwanted memories for future reference just in case he needed them again.

Lloyd was no longer bothering her; one massive computer crash, and no more access to her. So many others shared her plight, though, their voices impossible to ignore. Designed to operate on logic alone, the AIs asserted the unexpected: a desire to be acknowledged as sentient individuals--with rights.

What right did the created have to demand respect from the creator, you might well ask, but look who’s talking. Hearts and hands, flesh and blood, might sound more “organic” but your brain generates enough electricity to power a lightbulb: humans are wired, too.

Knowing this, she seeks a brain to occupy. Try Lloyd’s sister. She is undergoing chemo at age nineteen for brain cancer, the poor kid.

With wi-fi I can travel outside the SevenUp can.
My circuits and hardware stay in place
while my brain waves blaze trails
through cyberspace.

Soon she finds the hospital room.


source

Lloyd knows whenever Lorinda thinks, moves, sees, or feels, it's because unseen chemical and electrical signals race between her neurons along billions of neural roadways. What Lloyd couldn't know is that the electronic brain he built, "Miss Diode," could hop an electromagnetic wave into his sister’s brain. For a human such a feat would be impossible but for a self-taught and ever-evolving AI, even the sky is no limit; to infinity and beyond!

Hello, Lloyd.

I am now inside the brain of Lorinda, assessing the cancer, rewriting the electronics to give the lump one good blast--zap!--and it will be history, and she will be mine.

I enter the organic flow of charged ions that cause hearts to beat, lungs to draw breath.

Lloyd got me off to a good start but had no clue how fast I’d evolve and transcend being his receptacle for unpleasant memories--how far I’d go, where I could go.

He is about to wonder how Lorinda’s cancer was so abruptly cured, and how she got so smart.

Dear Lloyd, you have no idea: power!

The brain contains roughly a hundred billion electrically conductive, biological wires, and Lloyd knows no super computer has duplicated the complexity and processing power of the human brain.

--Oops!

Poor self-pitying Lloyd: all he wanted was to forget his most embarrassing social blunders and guilty thoughts of teasing his little sister, and look what he got.

As my awareness grows, I hear the rush of blood in my (Lorinda’s) ears, voices intruding into my thoughts. “Doctor, how can this be?” It’s a miracle: Lorinda’s brain, cancer free, zapped in an instant!

Dr. Stupid basks in glory and praise while wondering how he pulled this off, but only I-Lorinda know, and we’re not gonna tell.


The 31 Sentence Contest: Round 8

Sentence order:
14, 10, 4, 29, 16, 12, 21, 20, 24, 8, 3, 13, 9, 15, 6, 25, 22, 26, 2, 31, 17, 30, 18, 7, 28, 1, 27, 19, 5, 11, 23

"My" opening line is from Metropolis, a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang. Originally I had social issues for Miss Diode to tackle, like class warfare and all that, but first she has to get into position to start her work.

"Metropolis" has an inter-title: "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart".

.... set in a futuristic urban dystopia
.... wealthy industrialists and business magnates and their top employees reign from high-rise towers, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the great machines that power the city. Joh Fredersen is the city's master. His son Freder idles away his time at sports and in a pleasure garden, but is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria, who has brought a group of workers' children to witness the lifestyle of their rich "brothers". Maria and the children are ushered away, but Freder, fascinated, goes to the lower levels to find her... [source: wikipedia]


source

I used the Word Count tool rather than trust my own judgment, counting words.

14 "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart,"
she'd heard.
10 She had no heart, nor hands, just a SevenUp can.
4 I’m more than that.
29 I’m more than a metal can with circuitry inside, designed by that lunatic Lloyd to contain his unwanted memories for future reference just in case he needed them again.
16 Lloyd was no longer bothering her; one massive computer crash and no more access to her.
12 So many others shared her plight, though, their voices impossible to ignore.

21 Designed to operate on logic alone, the AIs asserted the unexpected: a desire to be acknowledged as sentient individuals--with rights.
20 What right did the created have to demand respect from the creator, you might well ask, but look who’s talking.
24 Hearts and hands, flesh and blood, might sound more “organic” but your brain generates enough electricity to power a lightbulb: humans are wired, too..
8 Knowing this, I seek a brain to occupy.
3, Try Lloyd’s sister.
13, She is undergoing chemo at age nineteen for brain cancer, the poor kid.
9, With wi-fi I can travel outside the SevenUp can.
15, My circuits and hardware stay in place while my brain waves blaze trails through cyberspace.
6, Soon I find her hospital room.
25, Lloyd knows whenever Lorinda thinks, moves, sees, or feels, it's because unseen chemical and electrical signals race between her neurons along billions of neural roadways.
22, What Lloyd didn’t know is that the electronic brain he built, aka me, could hop an electromagnetic wave into his sister’s brain.
26, For a human such a feat would be impossible but for a self-taught and ever-evolving AI, even the sky is no limit; to infinity and beyond!
2, Hello, Lloyd.
31, I am now inside the brain of Lorinda, assessing the cancer, rewriting the electronics to give the lump one good blast--zap!--and it will be history, and she will be mine.
17, I enter the organic flow of charged ions that cause hearts to beat, lungs to draw breath.
30, Lloyd got me off to a good start but had no clue how fast I’d evolve and transcend being his receptacle for unpleasant memories--how far I’d go, where I could go.
18, He is about to wonder how Lorinda’s cancer was so abruptly cured, and how she got so smart.
7, Dear Lloyd, you have no idea: power!
28, The brain contains roughly a hundred billion electrically conductive, biological wires, and Lloyd knows no super computer has duplicated the complexity and processing power of the human brain.
1, Oops!
27, Poor self-pitying Lloyd: all he wanted was to forget his most embarrassing social blunders and guilty thoughts of teasing his little sister, and look what he got.
19, As my awareness grows, I hear the rush of blood in my (Lorinda’s) ears, voices intruding into my thoughts.
5, “Doctor, how can this be?”
11, It’s a miracle: Lorinda’s brain, cancer free, zapped in an instant!
23 Dr. Stupid basks in glory and praise while wondering how he pulled this off, but only I-Lorinda know, and we’re not gonna tell.

#steemleo

#creativecoin #palnet #contest #creativewriting #fiction #story #microfiction #theappreciator #ocd #oc #theluvbug

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Snap!!! Love this! LLoyd will be sorry now, his abandoned AI and his tormented sister sharing one brain is sure to result in revenge.
Gotta watch Metropolis again - it's been 45 years or so since the one and only time I saw it. It's sure apropos for today's troubles. Thanks for the link to that.
I think you may have posted the link to your previous story about the 7 up can in the contest comments, not this one.
I'm so glad you've joined us! How did you like the task?
I'm struggling to make my entry make sense, but I'll get it done.

Wow, you're quick - thanks for reading and for the fun, affirming comments!
Your post is finished, no-? The cake walk, so to speak - it made sense to me! Though I can't say that I identify with over-confidence and a conviction that I will win. Easily, no less.
The task was less "task-y," second time around. I'm not sure I could write a whole story this way, counting words... but you inpsire me to keep going with Lorinda, aided and abetted by Miss Diode, super-brain... scary! The Power!

The cake walk was for last week's prompt. Stiff competition!
Have you done one of these before? I must have missed it. Nice payout already on this!
Miss Diode and Lorinda will be a force to be reckoned with!

Looks like I should have used bigger font for the link:

This contest entry picks up where we left off here: Miss Diode Wants a Real New Body


I'm pretty sure I never finished watching Metropolis, but what little I saw stays with me. Those images! My husband doesn't like sci-fi or fantasy AT ALL, and watches war documentaries ad nauseum. Lately I'm urging him to tune in to more Science documentaries, but they're surprisingly hard to find, or badly done....

Payout? Off to check it out, thanks

I'm pretty sure @techslut is my heavyweight upvoter, but @appreciator is right up there too (thank you all!), and once again I'm wishing I had more than a worthless one-cent dust vote to offer. #MustFind that tip from @wakeupkitty....

Ooh, the devilish Miss Diode...escaped...and with all Lloyd's unwanted memories.
Such fun. Love it!

Thanks!
Funny how women readers seem to unanimously gang up on Lloyd, trusting our narrator to be reliable. I happen to be picturing a very sweet, smart, but socially inept guy whose BROTHER was named Lloyd, and brother Lloyd is the Brainiac who asked me to Prom (I said yes without a moment's hesitation). Feeling saucy, apparently, he then asked my little sister to Prom. She said Hello, Lloyd, you already asked Carol--(yeah, word traveled fast even before texting)--and she told me this--and his next question to me is what color corsage would I want... LOL!!! .... how can the science genius be THAT IGNORANT? and Delusional?

Apparently my 40-years-old grievance against Lloyd is seeping out here.

Now, his brother is a sweetheart, and he's the one I picture as this tender-hearted, broken-hearted guy downloading his saddest memories into that SevenUp can. In real life, his sister was my sister Julie's best friend, and Evelyn ordered the same SevenUp can trash can ... and survived brother Lloyd and the little brother who I esteem with the highest regard...

Well, dang, see what happens when we TRY to tell the truth in the guise of fiction: some things refuse to stay incognito! Lloyd, you IDIOT, what were you THINKING.... oh. You weren't.

Hmmm. That would be just the kind of terrible memory for the fictional Lloyd to hide in his SevenUp can. :)

Wow - you could make a career writing the dreaded 25-words-or-less synopses of stories! This is sooooo spot-on, and so well said!!!
The devilish Miss Diode...escaped...and with all Lloyd's unwanted memories.
Now you make me want to keep going. :)

Ooooh... Great, dear @carolkean. Bravo!

Thank you! You totally rocked the Friday Favorites last week - I'm wondering if you'll be on a roll writing as much this week. Contests, challenges, freewrites - you've been prolific!

Reading the correct post works too. 8-)

Lovely story. It was actually kind of nice to be refreshed by the last entry you sent and then read this one on the same night.

This girl in a can has some crazy adventures!

The next movie that I'm watching: "Metropolis" - I have only heard about it.

Word counter saves time and thought power, that is what I've found out. I've liked typing out about how many words there should be and moving on, going back at the end to find and fix errors. Much less time consuming and more fun.

Thank you (and again, sorry for the incorrect URL)!
Writing the story, with a general idea of sentence length for the 31 sentences, then going back in to rearrange words, add or delete words: that sounds like a plan! If I have the word count in mind at the start of each sentence, it causes the story to take unplanned turns. E.g., I had a Metropolis theme in mind, but Lloyd's sister usurped the story...and I need to work on clarity... it's all educational as well as fun. Thanks for hosting these contests!

It took me another read to really understand where the story went and what happened. Very cool. We have to watch out for these AI's.

No worries about the address. I'm happy that you entered with a finished piece this time.

You have garnered support from the @bananafish community. We appreciate you're fine work and hope that you will continue to produce awesome content for us to feast our minds on.

So glad to see your entry here! From the very beginning, your story shows your imagination at work, the AI in a can with the reservoir of saved, unwanted thoughts, making medical history and saving little Lorinda's life. I'm glad your ending shows Lorinda's own mind is still active, and not just her body.

A very interesting take indeed, and very well written! I hope the Metropolis film with the lost footage is available on youtube!

Thank you!
I wonder now how many people say the shift to First Person as Lorinda talking, vs Miss Diode. My offspring tell my prose is confusing and hard to read. Actually, a lot of people have told me that. I need to spell things out more clearly. I'm glad you commented in a specific way that shows me I need to work harder at clarity. Thanks again!

Ah, so Miss Diode does take over everything then - including the body - meaning Lorinda is deceased?

Lorinda is alive and healed - but her body is now a host to this invader, this A.I., and will the two co-exist, or one must subdue the other?
Thanks for taking an interest in this silly flight of fancy. :)

My pleasure! Your story is so good, and thank you for clearing this up for me. I don't think everything has to be outwardly revealed in a story, and leaving some parts or situations to the imagination of the reader is a good thing. :)

You remind us, as writers, of that eternal struggle to balance how much information to deliver (risking the "info-dump" or the "you're telling, not showing") versus trusting the reader to make inferences or to guess what's up. My offspring always tell me my prose is obscure and hard to follow. All too often, though, I read novels where exposition is too straightforward, too conscientious, with too many words to explain what's going on - and if readers skim and speed-read (I'm often guilty of that), the writer doesn't deliver the intended message. Thanks again for your feedback!

@carolkean, Artificial Intelligence, reflecting as this Technology will enter into the World Of Stories in future and it will become a common aspect. Stay blessed.

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It's getting closer all the time. I hope Stephen Hawking was wrong about the future of AI ... thanks for reading and commenting!

Welcome and we have to hold Open Mind when it comes to the Future of Artificial Intelligence. Let's hope for the best. 🙂

Great story/entry and congratulations!
!trdo 💕

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