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My name is Kazuhira Miller. I've been around for a while, and mostly I've been focusing on building my own small business. But I have noticed that there are a good number of us that, while there are some general assignments the Savrii provide for extra wages, still don't have a good use for our talents, so I'm gauging interest for a project. [There's a splash of water and a clank of glasses. Ignore him, he's multi-tasking.]

What I'm proposing, and what I will bring before the Savrii if there's adequate interest, is a Rescue and Recovery program. With Ingress activity having the potential to go awry or with natural disasters in Ingress accessible worlds, or allying worlds that might need to call on us for help, some people with appropriate skills could go on rescue missions. Especially when there are children or endangered animals at risk. It wouldn't matter if it was a complete disaster or a low grade backyard rescue. We have a lot of people and a lot of resources for it.

It would require investors, donations, part-time or volunteer work. People willing to offer medical facilities for recovery, since it wouldn't really be fair of us to rescue someone and then charge them for the retrieval.

[If you run that kind of business then you ask for the money up front.]

Also people actually going into these situations would be deserving of hazard pay. Even for a less than strenuous mission.

And... I was thinking- [here's the catch] -the best way to draw attention to the need for money in this sort of venture would be some sort of regular broadcast. I'm not sure how shows [television? hologram? How do semi-future planet media] work here exactly but that's something I would need more information on and another reason this project would require more than one handler. [And there goes the clank of some plates.]

I've not received any approval for the project but I thought I would gauge interest. [And a metallic clatter and crash in the background.] Shi- [Cut off silence. After a beat?] Let me take care of this and then I'll be back.

Does anyone here know how to fix the lid to a futuristic industrial dishwasher? That I can pay for myself.

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Unless a program's written very badly or traumatized, they want to fulfill their function. Do what we're meant to, what we are best at doing. In my experience most of us express that as wanting to help our Users. Not all. We do have energy needs, and companionship's still important. Users at home never take notice of our friends or family, and now I realize it's because they don't realize we're capable of that much independent thought--but we have them, when we're allowed. My User wrote several programs meant to work together, and I think of them as sisters. I hope so. A kitten? One roommate on the Moira had the task of looking after the kitten tree, so I used to visit it. I was never in charge of their food, though. Not exactly my area of expertise.

I'm pretty sure he wants to help "Alan-One". I wasn't very clear on everything that was happening [when is Rinzler clear? only with a baton and anger] but I could tell he was unhappy that he disappointed him.

Sisters? Are you all very similar in code? Identical?

We had a cat on our old base. Its name was Nuke. I hand fed it katsuobushi occasionally and it had soft whiskers and a scratchy tongue. I don't know if you can feel that sort of thing, how functional your current bodies are in that regard, but I guess if you're going to get the full kitten experience it's something to try.

[The full kitten experience. More things he never thought he'd say, let alone advise an AI on.]

Alan-One is the programmer who wrote both Tron and Rinzler, before Clu got hold of Rinzler. Their own User. He didn't realize at the time that his security programs were people. He's gotten better about it now that they've met. It's a sensitive topic for programs, especially if they think they've failed somehow. My sisters and I are complementary code, not identical. But many programs tend to look like the User who wrote them.

[Since Yori spent an unhappy few months adjusting to humanity in the inexplicable high school, she can actually make that sensory comparison.]

I'll remember. I suppose it's different world by world, but Rinzler and I have most human senses about the level you'd expect, plus a feel for energy that's hard to explain. We can't digest your food, though.

[And she's quite thankful not to need it anymore.]

I met him briefly and he helped me out. I appreciated it at the time but I wasn't happy when he tried to reprogram Rinzler.

[All the more reason for Rinzler to build up distrust. Though he seems to have mostly resolved that, as far as Kaz knows.]

[Identical people are still a subject of interest to him. His experience is with reprogrammed people, chopped and fashioned by surgery to resemble someone else. Twins meant to be copies, back-up plans. Replacements for an original that was more ludicrous ideal than responsible human being. So he's always curious about how other people take being replicas of someone else. If they can find their own definition, or succomb to being a useless repository of another person's key traits only meant to serve one purpose, unable or unwilling to escape.]

[It's a complicated subject but what he ends up saying is-]

That's a pity. I take a lot of pride in the food I make. If I ever had a choice, I've never been one to wolf things down. [If he has that choice. Sometimes he didn't when he was in the thick of the jungle.] I knew a man that didn't need to eat, though sometimes he chose to. He could still digest but rarely indulged. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have one of my best recipes.

[Not that he's asking her to eat but now he's just being conversational. Ignore him.]

I trust Alan-One's intentions--I'd probably call on him if we did have rescued programs to worry about--but he's not used to thinking of us, so it's safest if he has someone to catch errors. Like the time he tried to trap and reprogram Rinzler without running the idea by anyone who actually knew Rinzler.

[She hadn't been around then, but Tron was, and Rinzler had made at least a few positive contacts aboard ship. Unfortunately, if a better solution meant Tron had to volunteer condemning details about his own past version to his creator...it was never going to go well.]

I can see how it's important to enjoy what you need.

[Yori would probably appreciate the concept of food more if it weren't so tried to inefficient digestion.]

In fact, there are different...flavors is not really accurate...different grades of energy, inside a system. Working programs don't get much when all the resources are going into ways to stomp out resistance, of course. Pure energy goes a lot farther without a greedy admin. The energy supply here is more complicated, but has its good points.

I was there for that. I was pretty disappointed in one of the people responsible. She was a teacher and I was worried what impression she'd leave some of her students with. I know one of them in particular was confused.

[The boy really didn't know what to think when an individual "meant" to fight had been condemned when he felt he was also intended to fight.]

I don't guess it matters now.

So your admin can control your energy? Or what sort of energy you get, anyway? What is it like here?

Things do seem better, so far.

[The reprogramming situation had calmed long ago, but Yori hadn't forgotten the potential threat. This Ingress-shaped world seems more stable than a ship full of frightened strangers. If their hosts stand by everything they've said. Yori hopes, but she doesn't trust blindly.]

Depending how strict the system gets, they certainly try. Energy here isn't liquid, so it's more a feeling of...warmth? I absorb what I need by touch. There are converters to make sure it's right. I don't use much compared to most light fixtures, apparently. I appreciate the lack of restrictions. There's so much to learn here!

You drink your energy on the grid?

[See, she explains all that, and that's the bit he has to come back to before responding to anything else.]

The better kinds, when we get a chance. It pools in the cracks if no one in the area is putting it to immediate use or diluting it down for factory workers to subsist on. Not quite like water, but definitely liquid. Since electronics don't seem to agree with water out here, I know how weird it sounds.

As you observed we have a unique digestion system so I can't be too judgmental. [A life without ulcers does have its very clear advantages.] But I am a little surprised.

How did Rinzler get his energy then, was he allowed to remove his helmet to recharge? [Energy enema? Everything is the worst kind of mystery now.]

Most lower-quality energy is absorbed by touch. Combatants use a lot to fight. I assume Rinzler was high enough on Clu's priority list to tap from the system wherever he went. No need to waste time taking off his helmet. In case you can't tell, I am being deeply sarcastic with that last.

I could hear it right through the text. Thank you for the patience, though. I guess it gets tiring when no one gets where your from or even how you need to eat.

Explaining isn't bad. We've all been pulled from strange worlds and have to cope, it's sort of bonding. I wish I could do a better job of explaining to the Users that we even exist as people who might want to talk.

I'm still getting used to the idea that an artificial intelligence can find value in our lives. Not that I thought there would be animosity, but the first artificial intelligence I met sacrificed herself so the rest of the world might live. She even sang as she did it.

But I guess it's the same as humans, considering how you describe Clu. It's always possible to find a bad egg.

That was brave of her. Users are significant. Even to the programs who have reason to hate them, even to the ones who go crazy. It doesn't help if we hardly get a chance to know them by more than what they request, what they order, and what they design. You create us. All the similarities, the differences, are fascinating.

I don't think you meant to, but you may have just been the only person to tell me that humans [or whatever other users that exist] are significant in a way that actually sounds like it means something, and isn't just sentiment.

[Meant to be the only person to do it, that is.]

I can say in the case of the AI that I encountered, her creator loved her very, very much.

Edited 2017-03-26 06:06 (UTC)

Do you need to be told you're significant? I would have assumed it was obvious, in general. What you do affects a lot of worlds, ours and yours, especially from here. I like to hope my User would be pleased with me if we ever met. It's reassuring to see Alan-One with Tron. Despite the...misunderstandings.

You would think wouldn't you? But most of us live every day just hoping to be noticed. To have one person to tell us that we're needed and appreciated. Not many of us can generate our own value or happiness. The ones that can are enviable. [Or in some cases, contemptible with how they flaunt it and pit it against someone else's worthlessness.] The ones that manage to find love are even luckier.

I'm sure she would be. You're very charming and I'm glad you spoke with me. The explanations helped.

Maybe that's a way we're just like humans, after all, instead of a difference. I've always known how lucky I am to know those who love me. Thank you for saying so.

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