“I’ve got another 250 xp,” I offered up to the dressing room at large. There seemed to be a synergy to the upgrades. “Anyone see something I can do for them with it?”
“Ah hem,” came a gruff voice from the hover-vacuum at my feet. The Roomba coughed on a bit of confetti-like streamer that was stuck in its bristles. I was hit once again with this cleaning thing and why it wasn’t like the sand.
“Whatcha’ need?” I asked the little Roomba, suspending my disbelief.
“I believe an upgrade for the flooring to be self-cleaning would only cost you 75 xp, and I would trade the catering upgrade for that. While you get to eat set food, those of us stuck backstage have to make do on what’s backstage.”
“It’s food,” I shook my head in disbelief that this was what any of them wanted. “You’re all AIs. What do you want with better food?”
“In here for you, it’s food, but for us, it represents better power sources and an upgrade to our upgrade menus,” the hover-vacuum advised me. I realized that the little Roomba wasn’t a real vacuum, but rather a visual representation of something else. Were all their affectations just visual representations of their actual functions? “The Producer AI bought the last one, but he has better things to spend his points on than our power sources.”
If food wasn’t food, but power sources, what was I buying when I’d thought it was just a lark to give Grace the ability to change her appearance? She was on hairstyles, and she’d gotten at least a few decades younger. The sepia tone was gone from her face, but what was happening underneath?
The Producer AI has informed me that he would spring for floor cleaning and another catering upgrade in return for this upgrade to the Producer AI, the World AI put in, as I was trying to figure out how to ask Grace about her upgrade. I was directed to a new upgrade list that I’d never seen before.
Quest: Make Deals, Influence AIs
If you’re going to do this anyway, you might as well get some help from me.
Rewards: 50 xp/deal negotiated plus Contract Negotiation skill upon 10 successful trades.
Accept Y/N.
Is this what it would have been like to be involved in one of their staff meetings? The Producer AI had asked for a censorship option which allowed that AI to blur out sections of our on-air programming that it didn’t want the spiders to pick up. I was happy with that as it was only 350 xp for me, but special effects had a discount for that upgrade if I bought the auto-visual blur upgrade for profanity and crude body gestures, which it turned out had cost them two extra seconds when they’d blurred out me flipping off biker-bozo. That two seconds allowed one troll to start pumping our lewd behavior out into the moo-verse which only wasn’t getting traction because of another scandal on a prime channel. The special effects auto-blur was only 150 xp for me, so I bought it. The special effects department bought the Producer’s upgrade, and we suddenly had a full catering spread and an expresso machine next to the regular coffee maker. Interestingly enough, the Roomba didn’t change in appearance at all, but it didn’t seem to clog up as easily as it puttered about happily sweeping up confetti and glitter.
Now that everyone was invested in the process, they found ways for us to get more experience so we could turn around and spend it on each other. Tami had bought herself a book of exotic food with a recipe search option before and it had cost her quite a bit of her experience, but because she’d bought it, our catering cost had been cut down by almost 90% for the Producer AI. The Producer AI didn’t talk to us directly, but some of the new experience I got was spent upgrading it with a hefty 1000 xp upgrade. That opened up a discounted Writer AI Upgrade that made all our Acting skills almost double. It was almost like someone had written a back door escape from the prison system, and that made me wonder if anyone had done this before?
“Is there an upgrade that would allow me to do internet research?” I asked Grace, who had settled on the visage of a lovely young woman who would naturally belong in any live action Disney flick, though I could tell that she was still wavering on eyebrow choices.
“The Producer AI might have one,” Grace gave a pretty frown.
“What other Producer Upgrades do we have that might give the Producer more xp?” I asked. It seemed to me that if you gave the AI with the most powerful upgrades more experience, it would have more to spend. That kind of trickle-down effect was exactly what the real world needed.
The list for Producer AI Upgrades was pretty small, at least for me. “What about upgrades from other AIs or AI departments?”
“That list is a little larger,” Grace admitted. “There is an upgrade for you to be able to see everyone’s upgrade options. It’s one of the big ones though.” It was 1500 xp for me to see other screens. Would it be worth it? And why did that make me feel like a peeping Tom?
“If we could all just get along and share, that’s 1500 xp that I can spend on something else,” I looked around at what had turned into a picnic on the floor of our dressing room. I realized that they weren’t eating. They were processing new databases of information. “That way you don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”
“Why don’t I just compile all our wish lists into a database,” Grace offered. “If I cross-referenced similar or synergistic options,” she was muttering as her image tapped out things. “Yes, that’s doable. Ours are done, but we’re still waiting on yours.”
Had they just forgotten that I wasn’t one of them? “I don’t even know what to want,” I shrugged, trying to play it off so maybe they wouldn’t notice, but they had meetings in my pauses. “I want more stats and skills. I just want to get good enough at this so that…” I trailed off. The right thing to say was that I wanted to get out of here. Didn’t everyone want out of prison?
“One million viewers,” Grace prodded me as I went silent. “It’s okay to want to get to the end of your sentence. We aren’t offended by that. We’re rooting for you.”
“But what happens when I get to the end?” I dared to ask what I hadn’t thought was possible even days before.
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“Don’t worry about us,” Grace was saying, misunderstanding what I meant. “We get recycled and we get to keep our upgrades, so we’re all good.” I was glad she’d misunderstood. I was, in this instance, actually thinking more selfishly than they’d expected. I hadn’t been thinking about what happened to them and I had the very human jealousy of them knowing what would happen to them next. I didn’t know that.
“We might even get a real actor or two if we get a good enough show going,” Tam bumped into our conversation. I looked down at my VR hands. Would I go back to my job? I’d probably lost my job by now. Would my parents take in their ex-con kid? Would my mom clean out her new craft room to let me come back home?
“Someone who wants to be here,” Jean mused out loud. My mind stumbled. Did I want to be here? I wanted to be here more than I wanted to go to my parent’s house. I wanted to be here more than I wanted to be homeless. Hell, I wanted to be here more than I wanted to go back to my original job and my original apartment.
They spoke so fast and over each other for several minutes before they settled on two upgrades from me and a whole lot of you-help-me-and-I’ll-help-you negotiations that I couldn’t follow but got credit for in xp anyway. I just bought what they wanted and found myself richer again. The Producer AI gave us the catering upgrade twice. Each of the production teams chipped in for stat increases for me, including the sound studio and special effects meaning I got one boost for each stat. They’d been upgraded by the World AI because the Producer AI had bought a hefty upgrade for the World AI that was very rare and only available because of the Producer upgrade I’d bought at some point.
Skill Gained: Contract Negotiations.
Hex nudged my hand and I pet her. I wanted a cat like Hex and two lovely ferret pets named after ones from the oldest, campiest movie ever. I wanted friends like Tami and Jean. I wanted a job where I got rewarded for doing the right thing. But did I want to be here? Hex’s gentle purr said that she got me in ways the others didn’t. Did an AI get me more than any real person ever had?
It would have been enough to bump me up another 3 levels by the time they were all done rushing around each others’ screens looking at options and weighing prices except that my next level was now 5,000 xp away. They haggled and traded like pros until the World AI finally called a halt at the point that the Producer AI said we were going to get flagged for data manipulation.
Exp +100 (Quest: More Viewers!! Quest Complete!)
“Do you want to be here?” Hex asked me so softly around all the other noise that I missed the fact that they were all listening to me. They talked, and they did the motions of being animated with each other, but somehow I knew they were all listening for this answer.
“Is that even possible?” I asked even softer as I pet her fur.
“You’d have to apply and audition,” Grace told me gently and carefully. “The Director AI gets final say, but the Producer AI and World AI get to weigh in.”
I found myself smiling at Hex as I scratched behind her ears in just the way she seemed to like. It wasn’t hope. I wouldn’t let myself hope. Hope had killed me when I’d pinned all my dreams on becoming an author. I dribbled the last of my stat bumps into place and took a look at my character sheet.
Actor Character Sheet
Name: Janet Mosely Level: 10 Exp: 3779/5000
CB – 25
DQ – 5
TA – 5
SS – 12
ER – 8
Skills: Acrobatic Stealth (3), Acting (41), Brand Insertion (3), Contract Negotiations (2), Hiding (9), Lockpicking (2), Misbehaving (4), Misdirection (11), Safe Cracking (2), Stealing (5)
image [https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53636641794_cb93f55b4d_n.jpg]
I wasn’t thinking about getting out anymore. I was planning for a resume. Could I get good enough? My viewer rating was still abysmal, but it wasn’t crazy low considering that I’d started at zero less than a week ago. Had it been a week in the real world? It felt like longer. If I could just research to see if anyone else had ever transitioned from prison into something better, I could know it was possible.
The Producer AI upgrades list consisted of Producer AI Advertising Budget Upgrade, Producer Hiring Budget Upgrade, Producer AI Time Management Processor Upgrade, Producer AI Charisma Upgrade, and Producer AI Autonomy Upgrade. They all sounded like giving away more control over my life. There was no guarantee that I’d get anything out of it since the Producer didn’t even talk to me. I was tempted to just queue up the World AI’s upgrades instead and let that trickle down, but I got to thinking about it. The bottom line always came back down to the fact that we needed the show to thrive, and it took a good producer to make sure that it happened.
“Queue up the Producer Upgrades, Grace,” I said into the silence of the dressing room.
“AIs can’t be swayed into favoritism,” Grace warned me, her words that careful politeness that all AIs get when you first start talking with them. “If you want your resume to be up to standard, you’ll have to be as strong as the show.”
“Then I’d better get out there and dance,” I levered myself up from my dressing table, and took a good long look at the red door. “Get the Producer Charisma first, then the Autonomy, Hiring Budget, and finally the Advertising Budget. Let them hire a person for Time Management or someone else can buy that one. I think the World AI has one for that.” I moved down the mirrors that were all open to the upgrades I wanted to look at. “Then we can slide in Grace’s next Processing Upgrade, so your research is faster, if you don’t mind.”
“That works,” Grace manifested a notepad and pen, scribbling furiously. “I will do that.”
“Then I’ll work in the next three wish-listed upgrades for the World AI, bump the Producer’s Charisma and Autonomy again, and we’ll let them decide how to spend their points among the rest of us since that’s what they’re supposed to do anyway,” I concluded, walking to the red door with more purpose and knocking knees. “We can renegotiate after that on further upgrades. Sound good to everyone?”
“What about the agents?” Grace asked, as I paused with my hand on the door handle.
“Lock them out,” I tossed back with more bravado than I felt. I think I wanted them locked out as much because I was done with human interaction for a while as anything else. “Permanently.”
“That might send up more red flags to the psych eval folks,” Grace warned.
“What’s the worst the prison psychologists can do to me?” I put my back to the door to answer Grace. “My aminos are balanced and my blood work is going to come back sane. Are they going to kick me out of prison because I supposedly can’t handle it?”
“I’d have to research that,” Grace hedged, and I knew there could be real repercussions that could get worse for me than reality TV, but I’d just have to deal with this the best way I could.
“File a complaint against the previous agent for being too flirty and say it means that I have trust issues with men,” I suggested.
“That will rule out male agents, but what about female ones?” Jean pointed out. They were trying to help me, but I didn’t have all the answers. They were the smart ones.
“I’ll deal with another psych if they pull me out again,” I groused and turned back to the door.
“The Producer AI has suggested that I put a rolling reminder to reup the timeout for agents every ten minutes,” Grace told me. “It will take them longer to flag that than if I just put one out there permanently. One or two might weasel through the gaps though.”
“See?” I threw up my hands as I walked back out onto the beach. “Those upgrades are already paying off and I haven’t even earned them yet.” This really was all about synergy. I scooped my shoes up out of the sand and headed for the ballroom. I still had hours to dance and earn 50xp per dance until Glenda served the mimosas. “In the meantime, research what happens to most reality TV prisoners when their terms are up and give me some best-case scenarios. And if anyone sees a skill for me that helps me say no to these agent bozos, buy it for me and I’ll love you forever!”