FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

CONTENT WARNING: threatening behaviour, parental violence, foul language, T

STAVE THE FIFTH

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”

Jeremy had put little Jerry down on the table and was staring sadly at the doll. Vector closed the distance between the back door and the table in two big leaps. Suddenly, Jerry flew from the table and shoved itself under Jeremy’s chin. The big bear reared back, clutching at the doll.

“Do you have any idea how long Jerry’s been waiting to be back in your arms?” Vector growled. “It’s all he could talk about the whole time he was with us while we were cleaning him up and fixing…”

“How did you do that?” Jeremy roared.

“Telekinesis!” Vector shot back. “Jerry needs you to hold him! Don’t you dare put him down!”

“He’s… It’s only a toy!”

“Only a toy! Okay, d’you wanna know what Jerry really is? He’s your heart!”

“My heart!” Jeremy grunted incredulously.

“He’s a symbolic link with your conscience, your empathy, your… your social need to belong! All the positive feelings…” Vector looked down, his ears sank to half-mast. “...that your dad took away from you when you were little.” Tears shone in his eyes. He turned an angry finger on the bear. “And you haven’t used those feelings in fifty years, you need that crutch!”

“Forty-five.” Jeremy corrected.

“Forty-four years, four months give or take a few days. Oh em gee, hold onto Jerry like your mental health depends on him! ‘Cause it does!”

Jeremy cradled his bunny doll in his arms. “But wouldn’t therapy or something…”

“Yeah, you need that too, but we only have one night. Oh, I never introduced myself. I’m Vector, your agent of Christmas Future.”

“Future, huh? I know I’m going to die.”

“Huh? Well duh! We’re all gonna die. I’ll probably die before you, I live a very dangerous life.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because it’s worth it! All over the world these days, governments and the rich and powerful are using advertising to make people angry at people like me, the 2SLGBTQ+ community, immigrants and indigenous, others who don’t fit in like cookie cutter conservatives! They treat tolerance lke some kind of perversion and more and more people are buying their shit! That’s what The Overlord wants to fix. She just wants people to be able to be their truest, most authentic selves without being hated for it. I’m willing to risk my life to help her. And that’s what The Korp is all about, Jeremy Fellows.”

“No, I mean why are we talking about me dying one day? That’s what the Ghost of Christmas Future was about in the book, you know.”

“Oh!” Vector exclaimed and laughed. “That’s a popular misconception, though. Dickens put it in the ghosts name, The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come! It was there because Scrooge had a hope of avoiding Marley’s fate and living to see more Christmases. Just like you!”

“Where did you get that interpretation?”

“Uh, it, doesn’t matter…” Vector looked up at the middle distance. “Rose, do I have to?” He looked away, embarrassed. “Oh okay. I didn’t read A Christmas Carol in time for my eleventh grade book report, so mom let me get the Cliff Notes version.”

“You mean Coles Notes?”

“Coles had their own notes?”

“Lelland & Fellows designed their Notes covers!”

“Anyway, I got it online from Amazon. Dad has Prime so it came next day. I read it for Christmas every year now. The book, not the Cliff Notes. Jeremy, I’m here to talk about your future, now that you have Jerry back.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about the deals you make with the wealthy. They liquidate their value and give the money to you. They get to keep five million for themselves and never have to work another day in their lives.”

“More like six million Canadian. And we use the money to finance our operations and take care of people in need. But all your wealth is tied up in your business, except for your salary. If you liquidate your company, then what would happen?”

“You get the money.”

“The best way would be to incorporate and go public, right? Then sell it to a bigger graphics design company. You’d probably get at least partly stocks, but you could sell them for liquid cash which you’d give to us. But what would happen to your artists? The new company would implement your plan to replace your workers with a Generative AI trained on your back catalog. In fact they’d be more likely to buy at a better price if you implement it first.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Jeremy, it won’t work!”

“What won’t work?”

“Replacing your artists with an AI. It won’t work.”

Jeremy looked down at Jerry as if the bunny doll could understand better than he could. He stared at Vector. The bunny agent raised his ears to full height and smiled.

“Generative AIs can create… sort of… but they can’t innovate. Why do you have repeat customers?”

“Because we give them what they need.”

“Because they need updates to their look to keep up with fashion. Minimalist, maximalist, abstract, geometric, photorealistic, flat, retro, they want whatever’s in. Right? Your AI is only trained on what’s been fashionable up to tonight. Fire all your artists and your company freezes right now! You’ll never be able to update your customers’s styles again. Or give new customers the latest look, either.”

Jeremy looked down at Jerry again, his face full of shock. “Shit!” he said.

“Rose ran a set of simulations. She’s good at them. She predicts that you’ll be able to fake it for two years, maybe three, before your customers notice that you have nothing new to sell them and start shopping elsewhere. At that point, there are three ways you can handle it. You can give up and sell out.”

“Sell a worthless company? I wouldn’t get back what I put into it!”

“Or you could scrape the ‘Net for training material like other AI companies. Rose believes you’d get away with that for another couple of years before somebody notices and sues your ass off.”

“Or?”

“Or you could hire back some living minds to innovate for you. You could train your AI on that, although it would always be behind the curve. Or you could be proactive and not fire the living minds you have now.”

“And all the money I spent on the server, training the AI, wasted?”

“Not wasted! You can use it to do busy work for your artists, all the non-creative work, different versions of a design, versions for letterhead and signs, all that repetitive crap that doesn’t take a living mind to create.

“I admit that you won’t need as many artists, not with your AI doing busy work for them. You can only get so many new customers, even if you can promise faster delivery times. But you know which of your artists are worth keeping and which are deadwood. The Korps only asks that you give them a chance to retire early, not just throw them out on the street. And don’t spoil their chances of getting a new job in art, but do let them know why they have to go.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Jeremy murmured. “Act like the world’s biggest…”

“Asshole?”

“And it would’ve ruined me.” He petted Jerry’s ears. “You saved me from making a big mistake. I guess I owe you.”

“Know who you really owe? Guy Lelland. He risked going to jail to get in touch with us because he was scared for you. All he ever wanted was to be friends.

“So we want you to stay and run your company, just like it is now, except maybe be nicer to your employees. You could start by cleaning up this stinking mess of a break room! Make it fit for people to eat here. Guy mentioned adding a couple of dishwashers to take some work off the maid service. And you’re more likely to not get your staff stolen by other companies and have to spend money replacing them if their wages are competitive in the first place. Just… treat your staff like people, like fellow passengers to the grave, not a lesser race of creatures bound on lesser journeys.”

“So now you’re Scrooge’s nephew.”

“You know the book really well!” Vector replied. “How many times have you read it?”

“Same as you,” Jeremy replied. “Dad used to read it for us every Christmas. Then he lived the opposite way. Heart shut up against the world. I wish…” and he sighed.

“Do you identify with Scrooge?”

“Well I am like him, aren’t I! Maybe even worse.”

Vector nodded. “And now that you have Jerry back, what are you going to do about it?” Jeremy just stared, so Vector leaned closer. “Jerry,” he said, “what do you think Jeremy should do?”

Jeremy looked down at the doll, half-expecting a reply. Something astonished him.

“How… How did you do that?”

“Do what? Oh em gee, did Jerry speak to you?” Vector shook his head. “We didn’t bring a telepath or anything, that was your own interior monologue. I told you, Jerry is a symbolic link to the feelings your dad tried to take from you. This proves you still have them! So? What did Jerry say?”

“He said, I shouldn’t blame myself for being bad to people, that’s what Dad taught me to do. And I shouldn’t blame Dad either, because people were mean to him because he looked so scary. And anyway, blame won’t solve anything. But…” He looked down at Jerry again “But at the same time, I did bad things to people and it’s my responsibility to make them right.” He heaved a big sigh. “I have an awful lot of people to say sorry to.”

“How are you gonna do that?”

“I don’t know! I just now came to this realization! Let me think about it!”

“Rose suggests writing a book.”

“A book?”

“A... life of cars? Oh! Autobiography, funny Rose. I see what she means, though. Tell your history to describe why you were so mean to everyone. Don’t deny your own responsibility or try to shift the blame, just tell the reader what was going through your head, the way Blindspot did. Then end every chapter with apologies to everyone in it you hurt, why you did it, why it was wrong of you and sorry.”

“And send a copy to everyone I mention so they don’t have to pay for their apology.”

“That’s the spirit!” Vector giggled. “Said the spirit. Oh, and don’t forget to forgive anybody who wronged you. That’ll help, too.”

“So how am I supposed to find everyone I ever offended to send them a book?”

“The Korps can help with that. Just send us a list. Hmm? Rose says that the more you can tell us about where they lived or where you last saw them, the quicker we can find them.”

“Speaking of The Korps, what do you get out of all this?”

“Not buying that we’re doing it out of the goodness of our hearts? Korps Tradition? Training exercise?”

Jeremy shook his head. Vector smiled, a remarkably predatory smile. He made a temple of his fingers and turned both ears towards Jeremy.

“Okay then. Someday, and that day may never come, The Korps will call upon you to do a service for us. But until that day, accept this justice as a Christmas gift.”

“The Godfather now?”

“We’re villains, we don’t always go by the book.”

“The otter already said that.”

Vector opened his mouth and raised a finger, but found nothing to say. He lowered his finger and both ears. “Well fuck!” he said.

“Anyway” he continued, “that’s all I have for you. Um… Questions?”

The bear thought for a moment. “I’d like to meet Rose,” he said.

“Meet her?”

“I watched you agents talk to her all night, I have a few questions for her.”

The bunny started to answer, then paused and looked into the middle distance for a minute.

“Rose says she’ll speak to you,” he said, “but there are conditions. First, if you want her to do your art for you in place of your own AI, the answer is no, don’t even ask. Second, if she says she won’t answer or she’s out of time, that’s final. Third, we’re getting short on time, so she can only take a few questions. Finally, she wants Jerry to promise that you’ll honour these conditions.”

“Jerry?”

“She has reasons. She always has reasons,” he added. “Does Jerry promise?”

Jeremy looked down at the doll. He looked back at Vector, then the doll again. With a dubious expression, he held Jerry up and made his head nod. Vector got up.

“Okay, come with me.” He lead Jeremy to the back door. “Oh hey, Crystal and Sunny, we’re through in the break room. Come get your cocoa!”

“Sunny, Crystal,” Rose said in their RCGs, “before you go, release the scrubbing bubbles!”

(CONCLUDED IN “STAVE THE SIXTH”)

(NB. Copyright notices can be found at the end of the final chapter. Vector’s super power is telekinesis.)