For someone with a customer facing job at a large amusement park, Kate was quite cheerful. Her demeanour almost never changed when she was dealing with the dozens and dozens of parents who came to drop off their kids, raise complaints about mundane topics or be completely unreasonable in their demands. She never lost her temper, never raised her voice and never complained about her job. Heck, she was never even seen without a smile on her face.
Anyone who knew her would agree that Kate was the most cheerful person at Strawberry Castle. She had been working at the children entertainment giant for seven years. Although she currently headed the customer service department, Kate would often visit the play area and help its staff. She was liked by the children and her Fairytale Hours on Sundays was a popular attraction.
This was a day like any other. Kate finished up her routine checks on the customer complaints and feedback received, made sure everything was responded and in order and got ready to leave. Before she stepped out of her small office, she made sure to take a piece of paper from her desk and slipped it inside her purse. Her steps were light as she exited Strawberry Castle waving to the security guards.
“Mm…hmhmm… Mm…hmhmm… This is a nice evening to be out…” she hummed to herself in a sing-song-y voice. Unlike usual, today she took a different route back home. She cut through Hiblander street and took the long path through the woods. Although the city she lived in was small, it had a nice close knit community. Corporations such as Strawberry Castle and Ronald’s Burgers were slowly destroying much of the forest and natural greenery the city had.
Despite hating this, she worked at one of them simply because she enjoyed watching children smile. Somehow keeping them safe and happy felt like it made her life a bit better. It helped her have something to do every day and feel good at the end of the day. Isn’t that the goal of our lives? To be happy and to make others happy? She thought to herself.
A sudden rustling sound from behind her woke her up from her cheerful day dreams. She stopped walking and took a look around. The road was completely empty and she could not see anything moving through the forest path on either side of the road. M_ust have been a small animal moving._ She started walking on, albeit a little faster than before. A few minutes in she heard another rustling sound, this time followed by faint footsteps.
Her mind ran a dozen different worst case scenarios and just as many equally possible rational ones. She increased the speed of her steps a bit more while listening intently. The footsteps seemed to be coming from her right side. It kept up with her, as if someone was carefully trying to follow her but not fast enough that they got ahead. Sweat drops started forming in the back of her neck and forehead.
While maintaining some calm, she quickly went through all the objects in her purse. Anything that could be used as a makeshift weapon. Like any smart woman she had a small pepper spray bottle. Without turning back, she slipped it out with one hand and held the tiny pocket knife attached to her key chain tightly in the other. She broke into a half run, her heart now pounding.
paht! paht! paht! The footsteps following her now broke into a run as well. Kate tilted her head while trying to figure out how one person could have such a heavy footstep. Maybe it is an animal? She decided to use this opportunity. She ran through the next steps in her head. She would turn around, use the pepper spray on her pursuer and then run away full speed. This was her best option as without a deterrent, the pursuer will catch up to her speed.
Having made up her mind, she turned around and pressed her finger on the nozzle of the spray while she pointed it at the massive figure behind her. The pepper mix that was spat out covered the figure before a massive arm the size of a dustbin lid was swung toward her face. “Oh, shit!” Kate’s world spun as she took a heavy slap to her face. Her body was sent flying and landed two feet away from its initial spot. Blood covered one side of her face. Her horrified eyes watched as the massive bear roared in pain from taking the pepper spray to its face.
“Yeah… i-it burns… doesn’t it?” Kate breathed her last muttering that.
“CUTTTT!” Chief Director Yeewon Nam yelled at the crew. “A bear? A. FUCKING. BEAR?!” He pointed his thick, stubby finger at the dozen technical crew members sitting in the A.I.R. office. “Are you morons THAT stupid? Or do you morons NOT understand what we are doing here?”
“S-sir…” Brennan Lager, the Lead in charge of this operation tried to explain their decisions. “We increased the difficulty to extract the most amount of emotions from the subject in the shortest time possi…”
Yeewon stepped next to Brennan and screamed in his face, “THE SUBJECT NEEDS TO BE ALIVE TO EMOTE! A bear kills a human very, VERY easily! Do you understand that?”
Brennan was scared out of his wits. He had never seen the Chief Director this angry before. He kept his mouth shut and only nodded, afraid that he might lose even more face in front of his crew if he tried talking anymore.
After a few seconds of making incoherent noises, Yeewon finally seemed to calm down a bit. “Listen here guys! This is the final run we have at getting the best results possible for Project Zebra. The idea is to get the best possible emotions out of our subjects by inducing artificially created scenarios into their mind and getting them to react to various possible stimuli. The simulation needs to include fun and sad scenarios in equal parts. A constant flow of happy, sad, bittersweet, foul, scary and tension-inducing moments are needed to fill up the Neogen 8K21 series cells. You cannot be doing things like bringing a bear into a thrill scene.”
He paused looking around, “Unlike in movies and video games, most humans would instantly get killed against such a powerful foe. No more being alive, no more emotions flowing and no more A.I. recordings.” He took a few more breaths and took a cigarette out of his pocket.
“Remember, all our subjects are people who are either old, wounded beyond recovery or otherwise classified as being non-useful civilians. They can only take a dozen virtual deaths at most before their hearts stop naturally. We are investing heavily into the life support units for preserving each of their bodies. Our goal is a minimum of 30 full cells of neural energy and a recommended 41 full cells if we want to break even next year.”
Placing it in his lips, he lit up the cigarette. “Keep the situations tense, but not enough to be fatal. Make them go through the good, the bad and the ugly. I want emotions, I want to see ecstasy, I want to see joy, I want to see tears and I definitely want to see fear. All this, while making sure the subjects feel like they accomplished something in their… ah, ‘lives’,” he made two air quotes with his fingers.
“Heck, make them feel like superstars or heroes if you have to. But do not make things fantastical or too perfect. If they suspect that things might not be real, then the output will not be as efficient.”
He smiled at the crew once again, “Let’s take it from the top folks. This time, be more careful Brennan.” Brennan nodded, feeling a little better now that his boss seemed to have calmed down.
“Do you know the name of the subject Brennan?” Yeewon asked. Brennan took out the subject’s information chart and read out. “Katherine Taylor, sir. Age 82, paralyzed from the waist down after an incident involving domestic abuse…”
“No, you moron. Her subject-name in the file. So I can keep track of the number of A.I. deaths she has had.” Yeewon scowled.
“Oh, sorry sir. Uh, File A-9-211.”
Yeewon nodded and made a change in the YeeCorp app.
‘Test Project Zebra’ file.
Note 1 – Subject A-9-211 : +1 death due to screw up from Crew 7.
“Who the fuck cares about her actual name anyway?” He mumbled as the new holographic projection started.
‘Studio 7. Artificially Induced Recordings – Making your energy consumption eco friendly’, a sign read in front of large theater room door as the next scenario began playing out in Subject A-9-211’s mind.