Mugwump101
05-19-2008, 06:19 PM
Hi, I wrote a little bit of the novel I'm working on but I want to submit the 1st chapter to my literary magazine. I was wondering if it's any good to submit (I'm really insecure about my writing but I want to get it submitted if it's any good). Thanks a LOT!! I really appreciate it!!
Opps. That is the sound of anyone, anywhere, anytime making mistakes. It is said that it is human to perform errors as long as we learn from them but we are constantly condemned for our mistakes. Often they occur because we weren’t supposed to be doing what we supposedly did. Does that mean we’re supposed to be perfect every instance of our lives? Our every move, our every thought, our every action… precise. Not one single fault, not one single spec of error. If we supposed one could do so, then they must be angels or of some divinity. So, what are we supposed to do?
Sophie huddled down to inspect the variety of dust and dirt spots that lay on the feet of a metallic being. She leaned closer hoping to find the answer that troubled the man standing beside her, looking quite furious.
“Why can’t we ever get these things to work?”
“First of all, they’re not things. They’re created by us in order to help us, so you can at least appreciate their existence as similar to ours.”
“Then, why can’t you get it to work all the time? It keeps braking down.”
“That’s why I’m here and besides, usually it’s because your input may have caused confusion.”
“Ah-huh. So, did you spot anything?”
“Yeah, the inner parts needed to be clean roughly every six months. Also, you gave it too many commands so it couldn’t decide which one to do first. The power supply is down, I’m going to have to replace it.”
He flushed and merely nodded.
“Stand back a little, I’m going to put him down and use a concentrated air spray” Pushing her glasses up a little, from her pockets she took out a can and sprayed it through the cracks. And then she adjusted monitor settings that made up the head of the robot and removed a bunch of wires and replaced them with new wires that were connected to a minuscule fan.
“That should do it.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“No problem, just make sure to notice these malfunctions. It is ignorance after all that makes us not understand the complications of the world.”
“Okay…thanks for your services.” He reached into his pocket and took out several bills for her services.
“Thank you. And I’m off.” She lead herself out of the door and then settled her eyes on her wrist watch. Ten passed six. She still had time.
She took her parked bicycle from the sidewalk ledges and hurried toward a huge building called Cybernetics Corp. She parked her bicycle along the racks and hurried into the building.
“Sophie, you were supposed to be here a little earlier assisting me with this anomaly.” said a man with jet black hair and green eyes. He wore a typical business suit with polished shoes. He was the Chief of the Department of Artificial Intelligence.
“I know… Let’s see, what’s the status?” She followed him into a small room, that looked so synthetic than it seemed as if it’s from another world. Computer parts tossed aside, screens are huge as walls lined up to one part of the room, keyboards and input devices all on the ground, and room flashed with colors every now and then.
“X500GN1, he -- well, as I would like to think-- has been programmed and subjected to emotional reason. If someone asks him an existential question, he aborts all programs. It’s as if he knows we are behind it but it can’t accept it because it does not reason with his definition of guardians or parents.”
“I see that would make sense. So, in order for him to accept it the statement would have to be true and true on both occasions…”
Sophie reached for a chair and gently pushed the man’s hands away from the controls. “I can try working with some of these controls…maybe if I were to add a different definition that could make both statements true…”
“But Sophie, you’re missing a piece of logic,”
“What’s that?”
“Our own existential problem, no body in the whole universe could give us an answer.”
“Hmmm….”
“Exactly,”
“It always comes down to that fact, it’s difficult to give something inanimate our consciousness.”
The human consciousness, the one thing that is seemingly impossible. Why are we so capricious?
“I suppose we’ve failed again.” said the chief engineer of the department of artificial intelligence.
“One should not think of it that way but by the way that it draws us closer to our answer as we know our question.”
“True, true….” he said with solemn eyes.
“I’m going to off head to the department of programming.”
“Sure, how about we meet up for lunch? About eight.”
“Sure,” She quickly turned around and walked out.
She headed to the escalators to the 4th floor, department of computer programming. She headed to a medium sized office with 3 desks and she settled herself into the chair of a elegant mahogany desk pushed to the far left.
“Let’s see….” She ransacked through several enormous bins before finding the exact file she needed. She started to work on several code inputs and tested them on sample miniature robots. In the process, eliminating several codes and keeping the others.
Her coworker came in, a woman with long red hair, blue blouse that was neatly tucked into her pencil black skirt.
“Hey, how was your day? Busy?”
“Not much…”
“You look like your preoccupied”
“Do I?” She said with a solemn expression on her face, “Sorry. Just been thinking…”
“Thinking… well that’s a good one,”
Half-way through the conversation, Sophie noticed a flicker outside the window coming from below. “Hold on, Jenny! Look!” She spotted a robotic figure that was blasting crimson laser from it’s metallic palm. “That isn’t supposed to happen, I’m going to check it out. Wait here!” Sophie said and nearly ran out of the door. “Wait, Sophie, it could be dangerous, why don’t you call the police” but before Jenny could stop her, she was running down the stairs. Cramming her way through several employees, she rushed down even when some employees shouted bits of curses her way. As soon as she got outside, the robot disappeared from view.
I wonder where it went and who ordered it like that? She thought to herself. About to head back, she heard cries muffled by the sound of heavy traffic. She followed the direction of the sniffling and found herself upon a small child in what looked like a patient’s hospital clothes, “Are you okay?” She held out her hand and picked up the child from the crumbled floor, “The man…. I hope he’s alright… I have to find him to thank him.” The boy said.
“What man? Where?”
“He saved me…. He used some sort of beam on the robot, something like hypnosis and it malfunctioned. Then he took the robot and disappeared.”
“Hmm….I ought to report this.”
“No, don’t take me in! I don’t want to go back…”
“Go back whe---”
“SOPHIE!!” said a gasping, out of breath Jenny, “I was so worried… who’s the kid?” She turned to look at him, dark jet-black hair and dark brown eyes with pale skin looking even paler in the white uniform.
“Well, he’s , what’s your name?” Sophie questioned.
“I don’t have a name.” The boy replied
“So, where did you originally come from?
The boy looked away and shook his head, “I must go…” and he dashed away, tearing floating in the sky. Sophie wanted to help him, almost to take care of him but it was not in her order to do so. It simply wasn’t that easy of a job. She watched him disappear like the robot earlier.
“Hey, you can’t let a kid like him go alone by himself. He needs to be by his parents!” said Jenny angrily.
“Somehow, I thought he knew what he was doing.” Sophie’s voice trailed away but a jolt of epiphany ran through her head, “It’s almost eight!” She went back inside to finish a bit of paperwork when Jack peaked into her office eyes darting around, she almost didn’t notice him standing there until she looked at her wrist watch and the door, their eyes meeting and she blushed a little, gulping.
“Hello,” he said cheerfully.
Sophie got out of her hand, clumsily knocking it over, and flushed even more whilst picking it up, “sorry” she apologized. And she saw Nicolas rolling his eyes, “What are you apologizing for?” She was going to point at the chair but decided that wasn’t the best idea. She hurried out of the office and closed it shut behind her. Nicolas started the conversation with work details, he noticed this always made her feel more comfortable, rational ideas, mathematical calculations, nothing that could stimulate the emotional side. He walked her to the nearest bakery. She picked an almond peanut bun with black tea and he picked a strong coffee and a honey pineapple pastry.
“So, I heard you’ve rewarded on new discoveries in the field of nanotechnology. What sort of ‘discoveries’ are these?”
“They’re actually not declared by the NSF as available to the masses yet but we can use nanotechnology to make our skin impeccable, in the sense that if a bullet or if we get pierced, it’s impenetrable and it’s very possible. With our liquid armor the military already uses, we can use the same nanotechnology to save lives especially in times of war.”
“I see. Any sides effects?”
“Well currently, several people have been tested to be allergic to the chemicals that are in the cells. We have already successful succeeded in avoiding our own White Blood cells from fighting back the unknown substance.”
“Ah-huh,” he took a sip from his coffee. “I heard you’re also working with the robotics psychological team, why’s that?”
“Well having an interdisciplinary degree in computer engineering and psychology, I feel that I have the ability to position myself there.”
“Ah-that is rather interesting.”
They continued the discussion long into the night and after the abrupt change in topics from new technology to bananas to what’s new in the world of literature, they departed. Sophie went home that night dreaming on the incident earlier which followed closely by a nightmare. The boy…
She woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window, staring the night sky. She remembered thoughts of her past...
TO BE CONTINUED!
Opps. That is the sound of anyone, anywhere, anytime making mistakes. It is said that it is human to perform errors as long as we learn from them but we are constantly condemned for our mistakes. Often they occur because we weren’t supposed to be doing what we supposedly did. Does that mean we’re supposed to be perfect every instance of our lives? Our every move, our every thought, our every action… precise. Not one single fault, not one single spec of error. If we supposed one could do so, then they must be angels or of some divinity. So, what are we supposed to do?
Sophie huddled down to inspect the variety of dust and dirt spots that lay on the feet of a metallic being. She leaned closer hoping to find the answer that troubled the man standing beside her, looking quite furious.
“Why can’t we ever get these things to work?”
“First of all, they’re not things. They’re created by us in order to help us, so you can at least appreciate their existence as similar to ours.”
“Then, why can’t you get it to work all the time? It keeps braking down.”
“That’s why I’m here and besides, usually it’s because your input may have caused confusion.”
“Ah-huh. So, did you spot anything?”
“Yeah, the inner parts needed to be clean roughly every six months. Also, you gave it too many commands so it couldn’t decide which one to do first. The power supply is down, I’m going to have to replace it.”
He flushed and merely nodded.
“Stand back a little, I’m going to put him down and use a concentrated air spray” Pushing her glasses up a little, from her pockets she took out a can and sprayed it through the cracks. And then she adjusted monitor settings that made up the head of the robot and removed a bunch of wires and replaced them with new wires that were connected to a minuscule fan.
“That should do it.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“No problem, just make sure to notice these malfunctions. It is ignorance after all that makes us not understand the complications of the world.”
“Okay…thanks for your services.” He reached into his pocket and took out several bills for her services.
“Thank you. And I’m off.” She lead herself out of the door and then settled her eyes on her wrist watch. Ten passed six. She still had time.
She took her parked bicycle from the sidewalk ledges and hurried toward a huge building called Cybernetics Corp. She parked her bicycle along the racks and hurried into the building.
“Sophie, you were supposed to be here a little earlier assisting me with this anomaly.” said a man with jet black hair and green eyes. He wore a typical business suit with polished shoes. He was the Chief of the Department of Artificial Intelligence.
“I know… Let’s see, what’s the status?” She followed him into a small room, that looked so synthetic than it seemed as if it’s from another world. Computer parts tossed aside, screens are huge as walls lined up to one part of the room, keyboards and input devices all on the ground, and room flashed with colors every now and then.
“X500GN1, he -- well, as I would like to think-- has been programmed and subjected to emotional reason. If someone asks him an existential question, he aborts all programs. It’s as if he knows we are behind it but it can’t accept it because it does not reason with his definition of guardians or parents.”
“I see that would make sense. So, in order for him to accept it the statement would have to be true and true on both occasions…”
Sophie reached for a chair and gently pushed the man’s hands away from the controls. “I can try working with some of these controls…maybe if I were to add a different definition that could make both statements true…”
“But Sophie, you’re missing a piece of logic,”
“What’s that?”
“Our own existential problem, no body in the whole universe could give us an answer.”
“Hmmm….”
“Exactly,”
“It always comes down to that fact, it’s difficult to give something inanimate our consciousness.”
The human consciousness, the one thing that is seemingly impossible. Why are we so capricious?
“I suppose we’ve failed again.” said the chief engineer of the department of artificial intelligence.
“One should not think of it that way but by the way that it draws us closer to our answer as we know our question.”
“True, true….” he said with solemn eyes.
“I’m going to off head to the department of programming.”
“Sure, how about we meet up for lunch? About eight.”
“Sure,” She quickly turned around and walked out.
She headed to the escalators to the 4th floor, department of computer programming. She headed to a medium sized office with 3 desks and she settled herself into the chair of a elegant mahogany desk pushed to the far left.
“Let’s see….” She ransacked through several enormous bins before finding the exact file she needed. She started to work on several code inputs and tested them on sample miniature robots. In the process, eliminating several codes and keeping the others.
Her coworker came in, a woman with long red hair, blue blouse that was neatly tucked into her pencil black skirt.
“Hey, how was your day? Busy?”
“Not much…”
“You look like your preoccupied”
“Do I?” She said with a solemn expression on her face, “Sorry. Just been thinking…”
“Thinking… well that’s a good one,”
Half-way through the conversation, Sophie noticed a flicker outside the window coming from below. “Hold on, Jenny! Look!” She spotted a robotic figure that was blasting crimson laser from it’s metallic palm. “That isn’t supposed to happen, I’m going to check it out. Wait here!” Sophie said and nearly ran out of the door. “Wait, Sophie, it could be dangerous, why don’t you call the police” but before Jenny could stop her, she was running down the stairs. Cramming her way through several employees, she rushed down even when some employees shouted bits of curses her way. As soon as she got outside, the robot disappeared from view.
I wonder where it went and who ordered it like that? She thought to herself. About to head back, she heard cries muffled by the sound of heavy traffic. She followed the direction of the sniffling and found herself upon a small child in what looked like a patient’s hospital clothes, “Are you okay?” She held out her hand and picked up the child from the crumbled floor, “The man…. I hope he’s alright… I have to find him to thank him.” The boy said.
“What man? Where?”
“He saved me…. He used some sort of beam on the robot, something like hypnosis and it malfunctioned. Then he took the robot and disappeared.”
“Hmm….I ought to report this.”
“No, don’t take me in! I don’t want to go back…”
“Go back whe---”
“SOPHIE!!” said a gasping, out of breath Jenny, “I was so worried… who’s the kid?” She turned to look at him, dark jet-black hair and dark brown eyes with pale skin looking even paler in the white uniform.
“Well, he’s , what’s your name?” Sophie questioned.
“I don’t have a name.” The boy replied
“So, where did you originally come from?
The boy looked away and shook his head, “I must go…” and he dashed away, tearing floating in the sky. Sophie wanted to help him, almost to take care of him but it was not in her order to do so. It simply wasn’t that easy of a job. She watched him disappear like the robot earlier.
“Hey, you can’t let a kid like him go alone by himself. He needs to be by his parents!” said Jenny angrily.
“Somehow, I thought he knew what he was doing.” Sophie’s voice trailed away but a jolt of epiphany ran through her head, “It’s almost eight!” She went back inside to finish a bit of paperwork when Jack peaked into her office eyes darting around, she almost didn’t notice him standing there until she looked at her wrist watch and the door, their eyes meeting and she blushed a little, gulping.
“Hello,” he said cheerfully.
Sophie got out of her hand, clumsily knocking it over, and flushed even more whilst picking it up, “sorry” she apologized. And she saw Nicolas rolling his eyes, “What are you apologizing for?” She was going to point at the chair but decided that wasn’t the best idea. She hurried out of the office and closed it shut behind her. Nicolas started the conversation with work details, he noticed this always made her feel more comfortable, rational ideas, mathematical calculations, nothing that could stimulate the emotional side. He walked her to the nearest bakery. She picked an almond peanut bun with black tea and he picked a strong coffee and a honey pineapple pastry.
“So, I heard you’ve rewarded on new discoveries in the field of nanotechnology. What sort of ‘discoveries’ are these?”
“They’re actually not declared by the NSF as available to the masses yet but we can use nanotechnology to make our skin impeccable, in the sense that if a bullet or if we get pierced, it’s impenetrable and it’s very possible. With our liquid armor the military already uses, we can use the same nanotechnology to save lives especially in times of war.”
“I see. Any sides effects?”
“Well currently, several people have been tested to be allergic to the chemicals that are in the cells. We have already successful succeeded in avoiding our own White Blood cells from fighting back the unknown substance.”
“Ah-huh,” he took a sip from his coffee. “I heard you’re also working with the robotics psychological team, why’s that?”
“Well having an interdisciplinary degree in computer engineering and psychology, I feel that I have the ability to position myself there.”
“Ah-that is rather interesting.”
They continued the discussion long into the night and after the abrupt change in topics from new technology to bananas to what’s new in the world of literature, they departed. Sophie went home that night dreaming on the incident earlier which followed closely by a nightmare. The boy…
She woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window, staring the night sky. She remembered thoughts of her past...
TO BE CONTINUED!