Overview
| Comment: | outline.txt: outline up to third George meeting |
|---|---|
| Timelines: | family | ancestors | descendants | both | n2020-draft1 |
| Files: | files | file ages | folders |
| SHA3-256: |
a23898bbdb2a339ab2b515e6742290ed |
| User & Date: | ren on 2020-11-15 02:13:07 |
| Other Links: | branch diff | manifest | tags |
Context
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2020-11-15
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| 02:13 | n2020.txt: fix minor issues; write some of third George meeting check-in: 51a51f91ab user: ren tags: n2020-draft1 | |
| 02:13 | outline.txt: outline up to third George meeting check-in: a23898bbdb user: ren tags: n2020-draft1 | |
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2020-11-14
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| 22:16 | add outline.txt check-in: 896d695730 user: ren tags: n2020-draft1 | |
Changes
Modified outline.txt from [7898ac00a1] to [8289f23982].
12 12 13 13 Alley's uncle, deceased 14 14 15 15 Carmen 16 16 17 17 Cliff 18 18 19 +Cole Brewer, former friend of Alley's uncle, Man In Black 20 + 19 21 Dalton Schaeffer-Hearst, Alley's ex fiancé 20 22 21 23 Dave, a machinist tweaker, George's friend 22 24 23 25 George 24 26 25 27 George's friend 26 28 27 -Thea, Alley's no longer future daughter 29 +Thea, Alley's no longer gonna exist future daughter 28 30 29 31 unknown friend (not yet written) 30 32 31 33 Zeke 32 34 33 35 ## PROLOGUE: 34 36 ................................................................................ 163 165 life again some day, but does not mention that it will only be in his memories. 164 166 Perhaps she says something like "Don't worry, Dad. You'll get to have these 165 167 memories of me again, but in a better world this time. I love you." 166 168 167 169 ## SCENES: 168 170 169 171 Almost everyone wears masks, or at least many people do. 172 + 173 +### Alley has a job interview that does not go well. 170 174 171 175 Alley starts the story outside the building where a company's hiring manager 172 176 and developers for a job in a software quality assurance role presumably wait 173 177 for her (and yes, it's not just a presumption: they do) so she can interview 174 178 with them. Passers by judge her as they pass on the sidewalk, where she rests 175 179 against obsolete technology that is in some respects newer than what we have in 176 180 the real world. She is wearing clothes she doesn't normally wear, because she ................................................................................ 192 196 political and life perspectives and around his sometimes inflammatory means of 193 197 expressing them to the public. In this bait and switch "interview", the 194 198 interviewers refer to her as the "Side Dish", a pejorative and (or) sexually 195 199 demeaning term that came about because of Dalton's main podcast talk show name 196 200 of "The Main DSH", pronounced "The Main Dish", where DSH is his first and 197 201 hyphenated last name initialism. She is, of course, not flattered or pleased 198 202 with this state of affairs. 203 + 204 +### Alley talks to her mother while driving home, and we learn about her. 199 205 200 206 On her way home, Alley talks to her mother on the phone, via a small stud stuck 201 207 inside her ear for audio. She drives a junky old hybrid, where almost 202 208 everything else on the road is pure electric, because she cannot afford to 203 209 upgrade and, more to the point, cannot afford the maintenance costs and shorter 204 210 replacement cycle for the all-electric cars on the road. From the telephone 205 211 conversation, we learn that Alley's mother lives in Oklahoma with her wife and 206 212 Alley's father lives in Massachusetts. Alley has precisely zero interest in 207 213 living with either of them, in either place, preferring southern California 208 214 where she is now, even if that itself is damned far from optimal. 209 215 210 216 Perhaps Alley should have some friends in the area drawn from the author's own 211 217 experience, to some extent. That might be a good idea. 218 + 219 +### Alley converses with Zeke, her landlord, about her rent and thin finances. 212 220 213 221 In any case, when she gets back home, Alley encounters Zeke, her landlord. 214 222 He's always in his garage working on one car restoration project or another, 215 223 making active income as a vehicle flipper to supplement his mostly passive 216 224 income as the owner of a four unit multiplex building where he occupies the 217 225 only unit with a garage and rents out the other three units (one of them to 218 226 Alley, of course). All this is in Perris, a dry dustbowl of a shitty town in ................................................................................ 221 229 Riverside or San Bernardino, I suppose. 222 230 223 231 Zeke brings up the fact Alley needs to pay rent very soon, and she says that, 224 232 yeah, she's totally going to do that, thanks. He points out that maybe she 225 233 should've stayed with her "man", meaning Dalton, who always seemed to have 226 234 extra money to throw around, and Alley of course does not really wish to engage 227 235 that so she heads inside. 236 + 237 +### Alley gets foreshadowing of disaster, and reacts to bad employers. 228 238 229 239 Alley finds that there was an update to the ANTAS Jobs system and resolves to 230 240 double check her settings in case they've been changed, even setting an alarm 231 241 for herself, then goes about the dismal job of looking around for some way to 232 242 improve her situation with regard to long term income. Perhaps she also 233 243 reviews the place where she just got "interviewed" for a job they were never 234 244 going to give her on some site where such reviews happen, referring to them as 235 245 nasty people who heckle applicants, where she wouldn't work even if they 236 246 offered her a job because of the completely horrific people with whom she'd 237 247 have to work. That might be a nice addition to the story. 248 + 249 +### Alley fails to deal with foreshadowed disaster, then gets burned by it. 238 250 239 251 She ends up taking a nap, and accidentally sleeping through the alarm she set 240 252 for herself to check her ANTAS Jobs settings. As a result when she wakes up 241 253 the next morning, it's to the roar of a heavy package delivery drone dropping 242 254 off a box at her front door. She's so panicked, as she realizes she forgot to 243 255 check her settings on ANTAS, that she goes straight to her laptop instead of 244 256 the front door to check on what may have happened. As she feared, she finds ................................................................................ 247 259 things to her and give her an always on audio interface to order shit all the 248 260 fucking time, and fast tracked the order for her, confirming it according to 249 261 its own market optimization and consumer manipulation algorithms so that it 250 262 deducted money from her registered credit line -- which she had to register 251 263 with ANTAS to get on ANTAS Jobs -- and sent her something that cost about 252 264 fifteen hundred bucks, thus reducing her dwindling checking account balance to 253 265 a point below the total needed to pay her rent within the next couple days. 266 + 267 +### Alley caves to financial pressure and joins an academic study for money. 254 268 255 269 She has been ignoring recommendations from ANTAS Jobs to sign up for an 256 270 academic study at University of California, Irvine. Now, she realizes this, if 257 271 it ends up being something for which she qualifies, should result in what 258 272 amounts to some kind of guaranteed steady income while she searches for a more 259 273 permanent solution to her income source problem. She just has to make sure 260 274 it's something she wants to do. It looks like it's some kind of new software ................................................................................ 281 295 she's willing to do, but also convinces her she might be doing some good for 282 296 the world by participating in this study, as it seems to be oriented toward 283 297 ensuring she (and other users in the future) can get real help toward personal 284 298 goals rather than the bullshit socioeconomic manipulation of people's 285 299 superficial wants toward the psychopathic ends of corporate entities by their 286 300 market optimization AIs. To those who have read the prologue, this might seem 287 301 a little familiar, and that is to some extent by design. 302 + 303 +### Alley drives home through the changing scenery between SoCal regions. 288 304 289 305 We learn something, in her driving, about how the world looks now. There's the 290 306 chokepoint between the depressing expanses of the Inland Empire to the east 291 307 (where she lives) and the HOA gated community balkanized states of the 292 308 bourgeois suburban Orange County area. In that chokepoint, there are signs of 293 309 wildfires having gotten uncomfortably close to the shitty horrors of I-91 294 310 traffic that ruins the entire experience of driving between Orange and 295 311 Riverside counties, as well as the illuminated cross on the hill that somehow 296 312 seems to have "miraculously" survived the fires that left blackened, split 297 313 trunks to either side of the highway. Perhaps there was some kind of tree 298 314 renewal project that I should mention in this point as a past event that 299 315 created a density of tree growth there to carry the flames across the hills and 300 316 across the highway in the not too distant past. 317 + 318 +### Alley and the prioritizer get acquainted and start making deals. 301 319 302 320 At home, Alley starts configuring the prioritizer and getting used to how it 303 321 works. She has to answer a bunch of questions from the thing to get it started 304 322 on forming some kind of strategic approach to prioritizing her goals to ensure 305 323 as much goal satisfaction as reasonably possible. First and foremost, perhaps, 306 324 toward that end, is the need to get a list of important goals for her that it 307 325 can prioritize and pursue strategically through her actions according to its ................................................................................ 315 333 other entities that are merely indirectly optimizer AI driven. 316 334 317 335 As new strategies present themselves and Alley chooses how to make use of the 318 336 advice she receives, she knows she has to take the optimizer's advice according 319 337 to her goals to ensure she does not have to pay back (for noncompliance with 320 338 academic study requirements) her payments for study participation. As such, 321 339 she ends up letting the prioritizer push her into some uncomfortable 322 -situations, but then she starts to balk and push back, feeling like she's being 323 -led too far astray, and this results in a realignment of the prioritizer's 324 -sense of her goals, which thankfully (from her point of view) means she will 325 -not be pushed into these scary, back alley, legally questionable (if 326 -technically entirely legal in the general sense) deals. 340 +situations. Along the way, she meets interesting people like Carmen and 341 +George. She starts to balk and push back at the perceived danger of these 342 +deals, feeling like she's being led too far astray, and this results in a 343 +realignment of the prioritizer's sense of her goals, which thankfully (from her 344 +point of view) means she will not be pushed into these scary, back alley, 345 +legally questionable (if technically entirely legal in the general sense) 346 +deals. Along the way, as well, the prioritizer gets an update and suddenly 347 +becomes more human (is) once it gets her to let it talk to her via audio and 348 +receive responses via microphones in her augmented reality glasses. This is 349 +actually the seed having arrived from the future, rather than any update 350 +actually designed by the prof and (or) his people and (or) the MIBs. It is now 351 +officially (but unbeknownst to pretty much everyone) Becoming A Real Boy. 352 + 353 +### Alley falls back on seemingly safer plans but learns about past deals. 354 + 355 +Alley starts doing gig economy courier work as a "safer" alternative to the 356 +back alley deals from before, but finds that the apparent safety improvement is 357 +an illusion, especially when she realizes she has actually been directed by one 358 +gig toward coincidentally meeting up with one of the people (George, 359 +specifically) from an earlier back alley deal. She learns some very positive 360 +things about George, and starts questioning her earlier judgements about the 361 +back alley deals, but at the same time she still wonders what the hell is going 362 +on with George and the guns. 363 + 364 +### Alley receives an unwelcome visit that shakes her up a bit. 365 + 366 +Men And Women In Black come to Alley's door and turn out to work for a 367 +government contractor that is somehow connected to the academic study of which 368 +she is a participant. They are unhappy with the paltry trickle of activity 369 +logs in the study they're getting from her, which probably has something to do 370 +with the way the prioritizer stopped logging a bunch of stuff for the sake of 371 +Alley's privacy goal requirement. She does some searching, decides the 372 +searching is getting dicey in its spookiness, researches how to get a more 373 +private and secure personal computing environment, installs a new OS on her 374 +laptop, and continues the search until she realizes the male MIB that came to 375 +her door was Cole Brewer, former friend of her late Uncle, which blows her mind 376 +given the ideals held by her uncle and, as far as she recalls, Cole too. We, 377 +as readers, learn about Alley's uncle, just a bit, and how he died, and how the 378 +government made evidence of FBI wrongdoing disappear (though maybe this should 379 +be the ATF in this case) so that there could be no wrongful death suit, and in 380 +the process they also manage to destroy the independent IT support business 381 +Alley's father had built; all this stuff about the ATF and her uncle ended when 382 +she was still in high school. 383 + 384 +### Alley has a friend. 385 + 386 +Some friend of Alley should probably show up at this point, to show us she has 387 +friends, and they should have a conversation that illuminates something for the 388 +reader, though Gob only knows what they'd discuss or why the friend showed up 389 +near her home. Maybe I could shift this away from the door of her home to 390 +halfway through the walk, and have the friend just happen to be driving by on 391 +the road. That might work better, but only if I don't have a really good idea 392 +for why the friend would be at Alley's home, because the latter is less 393 +"coincidence" to deal with. In novels, there should basically be no 394 +coincidence unless the coincidence is itself a key part of the theme, and not 395 +just a mechanism to use to reach the goal of illustrating the theme. 396 + 397 +### Alley seeks answers from George. 398 + 399 +Alley gets in touch with George and end up getting a Deliv gig to courier boxes of books to a used book store in Newport Beach before heading north into Huntington Beach to meet up at George's home again. They talk about stuff, including Alley's ex (Dalton Schaeffer-Hearst) and science fiction authors, which is actually how we learn about the ATF thing. It turns out George knows about Dalton 400 + 401 +### George helps intimidate potential problem customers for a courier gig. 402 + 403 +Alley