Short Sci-Fi Story: The Android That Sell Meaning

I spent the last week in street trainings. With my instructor, we went to the fast train station and looked at the passenger's walking routes and facial expressions. My instructor Karl explained that determining the correct passenger profile is critical to sales. In the station cafeteria, when Karl was sipping his coffee, we watched a colleague selling adventure novels. My colleague showed explicit scenes across the screen on its chest to a middle-aged woman. "Isn't that inappropriate?"I asked. "Sex should be sold into other genres," said Karl. Fast trains were flying like giant snakes. Hundreds of people and android quickly boarded and landed on trains like ant flocks. "I love this mobility, but there are other places to see," Karl said.

Zeppelins was used extensively for picnics and parties with city views, as they were easily hanging in the sky. On weekends, especially when the weather was clear, the city was overflowing with heavy-running zeppelins like little white clouds. As soon as Karl entered the gate of the zeppelin terminal, he said, "You'd better try a sale while I'm here." I tried not to reveal Karl that I was very anxious, but I think he understood. I was wondering why I wasn't manufactured in a brave and outmoded structure like other sales androids, and I asked Karl about it. "It is very easy for the company to adjust your personality, but philosophical knowledge cannot be marketed with an aggressive manner like other packages. You're built with a powerful, custom processor and a large memory. Philosophy enthusiasts are much more conscious than average consumers. It's not easy to pick up with sales jugglers. Philosophy requires you to penetrate the content of information you provide to people. A software patch has been created for you to use if you need. The address and password that you can access via hypernet was handed over to the manager. Let's get to work," said Karl. I got up and approached a brunette girl with some strands blinking like red light sticks. "Do you need a philosophy book to better interpret your life?"I asked her. "What a cute thing you are, are these models new?"she asked. "Actually, I'm a prototype, I've been specially produced to promote philosophical knowledge." "Let me take a good look at you, look at that white elegant body, the arm and leg joints are decorated with chrome plating. All receivers and transmitters on the head are highlighted in dark red. Can I take a picture? Yeah, just what I imagined. I'm training on industrial aesthetics, I assure you, your appearance is very cool. Just, as I said, your head looks a little big compared to your body," she said. "Philosophy requires a lot of processors and memory, at least on a macro level from all sciences..."I have to go, I'm too young for philosophy, I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Prototype, "said the girl, with the lights in her hair turned green.

Karl handed me over to my manager, Oskar this morning. From now on, he said that my responsibility was entirely in Oskar, and that I should not seek him under any circumstances. "Don't call me, my little friend, you are an autonomous robot, you must have the skills to take care of yourself," said Oskar. I asked for the address and the password of the software patch Karl mentioned, because I thought he could get rid of me at any time. "Not now, little friend," said the Oskar. He dragged me to the door of the company. He put his finger on my finger and gave me contact information. "Our company is making big investments to you, each of you is like a separate business for us, now it is time to pay for what you are given." There was a nice sunny weather out there, but it didn't seem to work out for me. I took a cab and said that I would like to go to the port. I was in an old car. From the first members of the driverless car generation, they were vehicles famous for their misconceptions, I wrote "let's go to the big port" on the touch screen behind the front seat to get the job done.

The traffic was busy at the entrance to the big port, so I decided to get off the cab early and walk to the huge main gate. I asked to the woman in the colourful outfits that I met on the road "Have you ever wondered what life means?". The words "I'm busy" appeared in front of her huge furry hat. I didn't know what she were busy with, but it wouldn't be appropriate to insist. I crossed the main gate of the big port. In the vast courtyard where I reached, I saw a large number of helicopters go up, and the trucks were buzzing along the lanes. I followed the routing plates showing the main terminal building where the passenger transfers were made. The elevator on the front façade of the terminal building grabbed us like a big mouth and took us to the passenger welcome section of the building. The view from the large windows of the passenger welcoming floor was spectacular. In front of the red morning sun, tens of giant ekranoplanes flying over the sea were entering the gigantic harbor in various directions. I just stood there for a while watching the ekranoplanes, and then I turned my eyes into the hall. The old man could have been a good customer. I sat next to him asking for permission and said, "I'm a philosophy book, my name is Aristotle." I had hoped to surprise him by choosing such a discourse, but he didn't seem excited. "What kind of book you are and how you can benefit me" the old man asked, like an accountant. I noticed that he didn't use the name of Aristotle I just made up. "I offer you a philosophy book summarized in five distinct degrees of detail. If you buy, you will be able to read and take advantage of all updates on the hypernet. Of course, we deliver a version of hardcover paper to your address without requesting an additional fee "'I look the essence of the job, and I'll recommend it to you, my robot friend" said the old man. There was no trace of impatience in his face. "We're not talking about an ordinary philosophy book, but about some kind of IDEA of philosophy books," I said. "The content of this book passed over the hundreds of thousands of pages, and the content summarized in different intensities based on the depth of the reader's time and interest..."I don't know. I have wasted my whole life," the old man said, his eyes were moistened, and he looked out the window. The wings of the ekranoplanes, reflecting the sunlight, turned into a show of light over the sea. I said,"Every life can be qualified full and empty." The old man was sad as if he had lost a relative, and he was crying. Meanwhile, the hall became crowded, and the number of people waiting to sit next to the bank increased. I said, "I have to go." Without even asking for the price, he paid the book by extending his finger to my finger, and received the necessary address and password in return. "Take care, my dear friend," he said, as if he had just rolled over his misery.

By noon, I had many unsuccessful sales attempts at the passenger terminal of the big port. It bothered me that some naughty kids came in, grabbed my nose and squeezed gum between my joints. Leaving the harbor and using the subway network, I took the road to the android garage in the suburbs of the city. It was a filthy and cheesy place where thousands of free-running androids like me stayed. A single-story building spanning hundreds of acres of standard rooms, two metres to two metres for each android. In front of the garage, dozens of elevators which looked like cages were waiting for androids to carry. The cage I walked into,shut its steel mouth, took me over the building, first moving north and then east at lightning speed, carried me to the ceiling of my room. The glass ceiling opened, I jumped down into my cell. I had to remove one of my arms with other and clean the gum that sticks to my arm joints. After this small-scale repair, I put myself on a charge and hooked up to the hyperspace to see if my book had an impact. I saw in horror that my book wasn't being launched on hypernet. My manager Oskar was supposed to be publishing the related micro site in the early hours of the morning and directing the users there. I called Oskar and asked him about the situation. "Get away from the company, man. Learn to take care of yourself. You were designed in 3 months by an experienced engineer, you have the best processors, a book that is pre-arranged. Without seeing the return of the investment, it's unthinkable that the company will spend another five cents on you. You're wasting my time, little friend. Put your site on the air and advertise it with the money you earned. Your manager expects victory from you. Work hard." It was clear that my manager would not benefit me. For a moment, I didn't know what to do, so I opened the book in me and begin reading. The 46-page summary version of the book was really great. It explained what philosophy was, what it used to do, and his main concepts in a concise way. More detailed content of interest was easily accessible through links. I was shocked when I read a larger version of 200 pages. Because in a very small fraction of this version, philosophy was mentioned, it was full of garbage like the biology of fruit flies, roofing systems, plants, etc. I panicked and called my trainer, Karl, I had his phone rang for a long time, but he didn't answer. I did not see the need to call Oskar, already proved that he was useless. I had to take everything from the beginning and edit it. I knew I had the ability to do it, the only trouble was money. On the first day I was able to sell one book, and the majority of the amount were transferred to the company and some of it were transferred to my manager Oskar. It was clear that if things went that way, what I would not pay my garage rent. And I was upset that we were thrown into our rooms like bird fodder. The micro site, where the book was in, required updates against viruses and spare parts requirements were always available with money. The searchs I did on hypernet showed that sales were almost impossible without face-to-face interviews. That means I'd have to endure the transportation costs required by face-to-face communication. Until midnight, I tried to maintain consistency in the versions of my book. The control of a hundred thousand-page full content, the style, the visuals, the main idea would have to be developed. If the initial source bottleneck had been overcome, things would have worked better. I had to deal with it.

I spent the whole day on the streets, in the fast train stations, in cafes, in the big harbor, introducing my book. I made the only sale of the day to a passenger, a retired worker from the countryside. It was true that the journey made people open to innovation. In their own cities, people exhibited a closed, prejudiced, conservative attitude. Most of them even refused to listen. "Get out of my way," they said, some tripped and dropped me on the ground. Of course, I didn't see it as an insult to myself, I was an android, and there was no quality standard for people. I tried my luck at the forums that people discuss philosophy in hypernet, but people seemed to have been saturated with knowledge and even hated more information. When I looked at the micro site, I noticed that there were two sales. Now it means the sales count was up to four, but of course it was far from satisfying me. I put myself in charge, I went into full activation, and all of a sudden, many thoughts attacked my processors. All of the hundreds of pages of my book were stacked in my cache. Concepts, history, philosophers biographies mingled and collided as if they were on a battlefield. Some concepts demanded hypernet searches as if they had declared their freedom, connections were realized, wrong ideas were extracted. Neither my memory nor my processor could afford such a great war. I took memory and processor support from hypernet by connecting to the widest possible bandwidth. Philosophers' biographies and historians have been deactivated for a while and the concepts began to dominate my thinking and struggle among themselves. I could feel that concepts such as self-existence, self-esteem and freedom, being came to the fore. When my thought finally took a steady state at the end, my transistors were overheated, processor errors exceeded of five times more the normal value. Because of the intense calculations, I had no idea what I had achieved after all these sessions. I have reduced my processor speed to normal, I have brought myself to stand-by mode to clean my memory and edit my thoughts.

I woke up in the darkest hour of the night and went out of the garage. The metro were closed, the streets were so secluded. I asked one of the hookers waiting around the corner, "How do you make sense of your life?". "You mind your own business, tin-head." she said. I didn't tell her my job was about these questions. I turned my head into the sky. There was a purple sky filter on the southern part of the city. Fairy figures with childish lines on purple background. I saw a fairy blinking at me through the clouds that looked like a tulle. I took a cab and go to the fast train station. When I arrived at the station, I realized that the journey created a sense of freedom for me as well as the customers. Fast trains were flying like giant snakes. I bought a fast train ticket with my last money left on the hypernet. Since it's only ten minutes before the first train leaves, maybe I could make a sale. "Have you ever considered what all this means?" I asked. "What do you mean?"said the young man. "I'm selling a philosophy information set. I'm trying to make people see the big picture." "I don't have time to lose with these," he said with a top-facing attitude. I remembered the company I owed my existence to. My creation would not have given them the right to establish a complete dominion over me. If I were to fail and be reprogrammed or recycled, they would also lose. I went downstairs and got on the fast train that opened the doors. I sat next to a young girl with glasses, which I thought would be a good customer because of her thoughtful appearance.

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