Dark City - Random Large Apartment Complex

I wake feeling… better? Is that what this is? I’ve got a bit of energy and maybe my joints hurt a little less. Could it be placebic? Fuck it, I’m on the mend. Go super science.

“Does the psycho sound farther away today?”

He is. Not checking your messages may have helped. Or there’s something different about today’s apartment complex. More doors, or less routers, or more routers, or something.

I shrug. “It’s progress anyway. We’ll deal with him today. Wake a cop. But give me a minute with this courier first.”

The courier is a football sized quadcopter in the shape of a four sided die. Each face has an oversized rotor on it, with blades long enough to mesh with the other rotors.

It’s a strange arrangement for flying, but the body of the drone will be completely obscured by spinning blades when it’s in motion. I’m guessing this will be relevant, judging by the strip of LEDs along the blades.

I fire it up for a test flight, and the spinning LEDs make a convincing hologram of a bag of crunch. Ah, that would be the holographic ad capability. Explains why the ever-present drone swarm is so flashy. They're blasting commercials into a consumer-less void. That's probably ironic or something. Anywho, I see no need to participate, and change the image to a pufferfish. It swims casually through the apartment.

Cool.

“Yeah, that’s fun. Let’s get you loaded up.”

While I’m prepping the link, I take a look at Volt’s threat detector. Time to see how this bad boy works.

The documentation is sparse, but apparently it tries to predict when I will be in distress, and then intervenes so that doesn’t happen. Cool.

I can see what Volt considers distress (fear, pain, rage) and what data streams she monitors (audio, visual, brainwave). But not what she considers a distress trigger (???) or a timely intervention (???). One is labeled training data and readable code, the other incomprehensible bricks of self generated mathematics. So, I know what she’s trying to do, but not what she’s gonna do. Perfect. Let’s give her more grenades.

The data streams also suggest that Volt is monitoring my behavior. This implies that she will try to protect me from myself. Which explains a couple things.

It’s all a little strange, but pretty decent work considering I built it in my sleep. Two issues stick out - overtraining and visual identification.

Part of Volt’s training data are standard sets of images, sounds, and brainwaves. The Human Distress Database. The Human Speech Database. The Standard Visual Identification Database. Sounds and Their Causes. Etc. These databases are specific and comprehensive, but ultimately finite.

The rest of her training data - what she sees, hears, scans, and downloads - is incomplete and mostly irrelevant, but functionally infinite. Eventually, it will give better results than the labeled data, but not if Volt’s equations run out of parameters first. If that happens, she starts forgetting stuff. Maybe what color mauve is. Or that sarsaparilla is sweet. Or possibly, that screaming is bad and blood goes on the inside.

This is called overtraining and it sucks. It’s difficult to tell when you’ve overtrained your d-bot, even when paying close attention. I have not been paying close attention.

That said, I’m gonna keep her training because the Standard Visual Identification Database is over a hundred years old and it sucked back then. It’s the same database the Dark City d-bots train on and I can fool them with a trashbag.

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Volt needs time to train her visual identification with a better field of view than my pocket. Hopefully the courier will help with that.

I link the phone to the drone. “There ya go. Try it out.”

The pufferfish bobs erratically around the room. Woo-hoo! This is awesome!

The hologram flickers and turns into Volt’s chrome head. “Hey! We’re back together! But don’t touch me! I’ll chop your dick right off.”

“Not going to be a problem, buddy.”

“Sorry, forgot we were penisless. That was insensitive.”

“It’s okay.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you some dick.”

“Great. Thanks. Are you gonna stay a floating head?”

“Is it weird?” Volt flickers. Becomes a chibi version of herself. “Is this better?”

“It’s still weird, but less like severed anatomy, so let’s roll with it.”

“Does that mean we’re leaving?”

“May as well. Let’s go wake up the chief of police.”

“Do we know where he is? Should I send a tracking pixel?”

“Do we know where the police chief lived a hundred years ago? Because, with Immortalis, it could be the same fucking guy.”

“Hmm. Good idea. I do have an address. Let’s check it out.”

We pack up. I consider leaving my phone behind. Volt’s got a new body and the psycho is probably tracking the phone. But do I want to lose the psycho? I’m risking the cops specifically to get him caught. What if I ditch the phone and he disappears? Leaving me in legal trouble with no extenuating circumstances? I better keep the phone and give it to the police chief.

Between my new energy, and his new confusion, evading the psycho is childsplay. We debate the wisdom of meeting the police chief in a stolen truck, but decide mobility is more important than plausible deniability. His address is a large apartment building. Looks nice.

We find room 713, and let ourselves in. There’s a huge old dude passed out on the bed. He’s twice the size of the old police chief. Still, could be him. His identifying biometrics are mostly obscured by fat and wrinkles, but he’s the right height and ethnicity. I’m gonna wake him up.

We yell, shake, and poke him. Slap him until it gets weird. Eventually, I peel off his brain scanning sticker. That gets a slow reaction - visibly agitated sleep. A waspish flick to his big toe finally wakes the beast.

“RAAH!!” He comes up swinging. I arthritically dodge and catch a heavy blow to the chest. Slump against the wall of the dingy ass apartment.

He squirms on the bed until he’s facing me on all fours, hackles raised, seething with rage. His massive body tenses like a spring. Staring hate straight into my soul.

Well shit.

He leaps, catching my throat in one stinky paw. Yells incoherently, snarling and slobbering, slamming me against the wall. Volt crashes into the side of his head, rotors binding in strips of greasy hair. He slaps the courier away, turns back to me, and gets jabbed in each eye with a spoon.

“AARH!!” He stumbles back holding his face. I scooch around the bed, making for the door. He screams and flails around with heavy swipes, the sounds of his tantrum covering my graceless steps. Until he goes dead silent and I stop.

It’s a small apartment. I’m halfway between him and the door. Almost free and almost caught. His eyes are watering and swelling, but intact. Need a sharper spoon. He obviously can’t see well, but he’s trying. Also trying to control his breathing. It gets quieter and quieter.

Across the room, Volt’s broken drone gives a little twitch. The beast roars and dives towards it. I slip out the door and scurry to the stairs. Stealth down one floor and into the nearest apartment. Slip into bed with a large sweaty guy and hide under the sheets. Give the big dude a reassuring pat, careful to not disturb his scanning sticker.

Take deep slow breaths. Try to calm down so I can be quiet.

Soo… wonder what he was dreaming about?

“the fuck?” I whisper.

I don’t think that guy wanted to wake up.

“I guess not”

What now? Wake the Deputy Chief of Police?

“Jesus. I don’t know.”