Organic logic
Oct. 23rd, 2011 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missmaryrPoints of View For Prejudice prompt of Briget’s Flame
When he saw the group of females huddled up in a group whispering in short sentences, tension in their voices, Precision vented air before he rolled over. Of course trouble rolled up and crashed on the afternoon after the organics worked without constant supervision through the morning. Sullen, stupid fools, he thought bitterly as the females saw him coming and formed a protective circle around something. But what can you expect from organics?
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He stopped a little way from the protective circle. At three meters, the aqua blue Srai towered over the tallest of the group. He peered down to see a human lying on the floor. “Move,” he said curtly. Instead several females bent over the one on the floor, while three blocked his way. He expected a savior’s welcome when he received his first shipment of organics. The females came off the transports and filed into the auditorium. On each one’s neck the mark of their identification chip injection glowed a sullen red, which faded within a few days of their arrival. Thirty pairs of eyes looked at him. One dark-haired female approached him before he started his prepared lecture. “I need the bathroom,” she said.
“Why?” he asked, and got his first shock. Most of the females needed to void after the trip of several hours. Within an hour of their arrival his planned routine tipped into chaos and for two solid months, he did not get another settled.
As he waited for the females to move so he could handle this most recent disruption, they shifted to stand in his way. “Wait,” the blonde female in front said, her voice high and strained. “She just fainted, she’ll be up in just a few seconds. “ She glanced back at the huddle.
“I told you at the beginning lecture that anyone who malfunctions reports to me,” he reminded them. “Now move so I can evaluate her.”
Instead two of the huddlers stood and stood behind the three in front.
He discovered that ‘organic’ meant chaos. Logic eluded both, and finding a path to the greater good of all took trial and error instead of logical pathways. They could not download information. Some learned from listening; some learned from watching; and others had to practice everything physically several times before they learned. They even processed their fuel differently. A food most could eat caused red marks on one; some refused to eat particular fuels. The array of differences bewildered him. They were all different in so many ways from each other! With one exception-all of them hated their Srai supervisor.
The blond female- Angela, according to her chip, said, “Look, she’s always gotten up in a few minutes. Just give her some time. We’ll work late, make up the quota, we always have.” Some of the females leaked from their eyes. He wondered why this time. At first a lot of the females leaked eye fluid, and he worried until he researched the problem and found the malfunction mild, an emotional reaction that settled quickly and did not interfere with the work.
More and more he resented their attitudes. He came to teach them the greater good, give them care and order to replace the chaos in their short lives, and he got complaints and resentment in return.
“So she’s malfunctioned before,” he said, “and all of you kept this information from me?” The silence answered him. He rolled forward, pushing the females out of the way firmly but gently and scooping up the one on the floor. He checked the floor for fluid, but saw no brown fluid that indicated purging or red fluid from springing a leak. He put in a request for a medic through the wireless network.
“But it was always just a few moments, look, she’s waking up already-“
“Get back to work,” he said sharply. “I’ve called for a medic.”
Instead of obeying, they swarmed around his legs. “How am I supposed to get her repaired if you get in my way?” he demanded, exasperated with their illogical reaction.
“She’ll come back?” Angela asked desperately. Several faces, many wet, looked up at him and the stirring organic in his arms.
“Of course,” he said, bewildered. “Why shouldn’t she?” He called up his stats for the week as he moved, and stopped at another unit. “All of you are ahead for the week,” he said. “One of you go help out at Shipping. “
“Extra allotment?” a tall orange-haired one asked, meaning a mild temporary increase in her luxury allotment. He accessed her chip and agreed that she was eligible as she and her unit were slightly over quota. “I’ll go,” she said, glancing at the others. When they nodded, she trotted off.
Precision rolled to the infirmary, feeling his normal bitterness. These humans did not understand the greater good. Everything with them revolved around personal reward. He placed Peg on the treatment table. It read her chip and pulled up her medical information as he bunched buttons to send the information to the medic. When Peg sat up, Precision told her, “The medic will arrive in twenty minutes." For a moment an expression he associated with fear flashed over her face, before she bowed her head and nodded.
Of all the emotional illogic he encountered in his charges, Peg possessed the least. He valued her most of all the leaders. She handled problems with a calm that so many of the other females lacked. By this time most of the females worked reliably, but Peg’s value in dealing with emotional excess in the others exceeded her value as a worker. More than that, she approached him more than once regarding production, with both her own and others’ ideas. The ideas did not always work, but the cumulative effect of those that did was an increase in production. Unlike so many of the other humans, she understood working for the greater good of all.
The medic arrived. Precision went back to the factory floor. While the work moved at its normal pace, he saw many looks in his direction that he knew indicated anger or fear. Team leaders reported with heads down and in short sentences. Many of the females on Peg’s team were leaking eye fluid steadily. He tried to find the logic as he returned to the infirmary, and failed. Several of the humans had injuries from accidents on the floor, and all returned.
The medic was packing up as he arrived. Peg had her arm bent. “Nothing more than a bad case of anemia,” the medic said. “I took some blood and I’ll make sure there’s nothing else, but I sincerely doubt it.” Peg smiled at the medic, her fear gone. “Supervisor, I am leaving Peg some supplements that should correct the worst of the problem. She’s to take them with orange juice every morning. “Done with her packing she turned to face Precision fully. “Women in this age group need more iron in their diets, and all humans need to drink plenty of water. Are the women on the floor able to get water easily?”
“No,” Peg said. “Besides, the tap water here tastes awful.”
“The water is safe to drink,” Precision said, familiar with the complaint. He did not understand the concept of taste except as a problem the women had with some of the food and with the water.
“It’s a common problem,” the medic told them both. “Supervisor, taste evolved in organics as a means of identifying problems with some kinds of food. If something tastes bad to an organic, they don’t want to eat it instinctively, even if they know there is nothing wrong.” Why can’t more of the organics explain matters like this? he wondered.
“Is there a way to improve the taste, then, without luxury additives?” Most of the women used their allotments to buy flavor additives but complained about it.
“There are water containers with charcoal filters available at Med Central that will improve the taste of the water and encourage your workers to drink more. They are considered medical supplies. I will send them with Peg’s prescription.”
“That is acceptable. Peg, go back to work and calm down your team, please.” He learned early on that meaningless phrases like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ improved responses to his requests. After escorting the medic to her transport and discussing the annual physicals for his workers, he headed back to the floor.
As he made his rounds, he marveled at the change in attitude once Peg returned. The team leaders looked at him when they reported. “Do you know when the water pitchers will come?” one asked. Peg’s team was smiling. When the shift ended, he checked production, finding it normal. He caught sight of Peg and her team leaving, and made a sudden decision.
“Wait,” he said. “Peg and your team, come here please.” They came over, tense. “Why were you afraid to tell me that Peg was malfunctioning?’ he asked. He noticed several other teams pausing to listen. They shared looks.
“In the reeducation camp-“Angela started, and stopped. The floor was silent, both the incoming and outgoing shift listening.
“Yes?” he said.
“If someone was sick, and it wasn’t something obvious like a wound or something, they got taken away and never came back,” Angela said in a rush. “One was my sister. “Then she started leaking eye fluid again. “They said she was sent elsewhere.”
“We’d see wrapped bodies carried out,” Peg added. “Once one fell off the transport. It was Angela’s sister.”
“Anybody who needed a lot of medicine went away and never came back,” one of the other females said, and there was a murmur of agreement.
With this new information, the emotional reactions of the females became logical. How to deal with the problem now?He turned, seeing all eyes on him again. In this time of shift change, almost all of the work force was on the floor.
“I cannot say what happened at the camp,” he said. “I can only tell you what I will do. I must work for the greater good. You all understand that.” Most nodded. “Part of that is keeping all of you in good maintenance. If Peg needs a supplement, she will get it. If filters will help you drink more water, I will get them. “
“What about a wound that needs an amputation?” Peg asked. “What about someone having heart trouble?”
“Those will go to Medical Center and are beyond my control,” he admitted. “But we can prevent most accidents if problems are reported. You can perform preventive maintenance ,as I do. “
"Like getting enough sleep, eating right, brushing our teeth." Peg qualified.
“At least we don’t have to worry about getting enough exercise,” someone said from the back of the room, and everyone laughed.
“Just don’t lie to us,” Peg requested. “It’s easier on all of us if we know what’s going on, what to expect.”
“I can do that,” he said, and heard approving murmurs from the floor as the females dispersed. Maybe there was hope for these organics, after all.
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Edits!
Date: 2011-10-24 08:58 pm (UTC)To make things easy, I put "P#" next to the edits so you know what paragraph they're from. All my editing suggestions are in brackets.
P1: "Sullen, stupid fools, he thought bitterly as the females saw him coming and formed a protective circle around something[.] [B]ut what can you expect from organics?"
P2: "Precision came to this green[,] wet world..."
"Like most [(]though not all[)] of his fellow Srais,"
P4: "Within an hour of their arrival[x] his planned routine tipped into chaos, and for two solid months[x] he did not get another settled." (Remove commas where the x's are)
And that's all I found! Wow, what a cool story! I really enjoyed how you made Precision sort of a caring character, even if he didn't quite understand why he was being caring to Peg and her crew. Very nice!!
Re: Edits!
Date: 2011-10-24 09:35 pm (UTC)Glad you liked the story- it's long, but once I started it I couldn't stop.
ROAR!
Date: 2011-10-25 03:40 pm (UTC)Once again, I really enjoyed the dystopian world that you've created. Unlike most other stories in this genre, in which the overlord-like characters are cruel, merciless killing machines, it seems that the Srais are actually interested in educating the humans on the idea of working for the common good rather than just subjugating them to harsh rule. Very cool!
To back up that statement, I liked that Precision did things that he knew would please and held the women under his care, even if he didn't understand why. I also liked the little hint at the end that maybe, just maybe, Precision was starting to experience a little of the emotion that he so often imitated for the women in his care.
Very good story!
Re: ROAR!
Date: 2011-10-25 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-26 05:46 pm (UTC)The imagination here is spectacular. Some of the language was a bit stilted, but your ideas were so interesting I hardly cared. I also really quite liked (despite myself) the name Precision! Great job this week.
Thanks
Date: 2011-10-26 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 04:19 pm (UTC)Glad you liked it
Date: 2011-11-01 08:45 pm (UTC)