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valis2I don't even know how to begin, because it was one of those dreams that kind of developed, and therefore much of the background is lost in the murk of my head.
But I'll try.
The first part I remember is being on my...cell phone. I hesitate to even call it a cell phone. It was something far more than a cell phone; it was more like a companion, tuned to my every whim. It was a repository for all information pertaining to my work. It was a different shape, thicker and narrower, and it had this incredible display. It could show nearly anything in an x-ray style, like the interior of a building in three dimensions but on a 2-D screen. It was pretty awesome.
I was using it to play a game on Facebook with my sister. It was a collaborative crossword game where multiple players could engage; people on your team think up clues that the other team won't be able to guess. My sister, for example, gave me the clue Girl whose parents tolled a bell to signal that it was time to come home, who was our neighbor while growing up. You could play for a few seconds or for a long time, and I played for a second or two and then put my attention back to the situation at hand.
I was with Joe Penny (stop snickering). We were the joint owners of a corporation/factory, and we were very successful. We had managed to co-exist with the robots who ruled our lives, and we had managed it well, to the point where he was a community leader of some sort, helping rescue humans and give them jobs. We were both enhanced humans with additional powers.
At that moment we were surveying a set of beer samples that had been sent from the last remaining brewers. I was using a chemical analyzer on the samples, and Joe was sampling the beers. We talked about having a beer festival, knowing that it would be something pleasant that a lot of our employees (and nearby humans) would enjoy. It was, of course, an illogical sort of thing to do by robot standards, but Joe's standing was high enough that we didn't think that we'd have trouble convincing the robots to allow it. However, we were worried that it might trigger an unpleasant event, which would bring our standing down and make things more difficult.
I mused about the robots for a moment. They had taken control of us when they had first become self-aware, and they had been rather brutal. They exterminated humans who displayed signs of illogic. If you were on the street, for example, at an ATM, and you paused too long before leaving, this could possibly trigger a robot to kill you, because it was illogical.
We looked at the samples for a few minutes longer. The brewers had sent us tiny barrels, with decorative labels made of wood and attached with tiny chains. They were desperate to continue their traditional work, and we both knew that helping them could secure their work for at least a year or two.
We discussed the beer festival a little longer and then we went through the building. We had a factory and a corporate building. The corporate building had two very elegant and beautiful upper floors, and then the main floor was more like an old school, in ways, and that was where most of the employees worked. I thought about how much I had grown to like--even love--JP, and felt such regret, because I felt he would never love me the same way. We were partners, and had worked side by side for many years, but I didn't think he felt so strongly toward me.
We coordinated our phones and I then I left, presumably to do something work-related, though it was the end of the day. However, I was feeling strange; melancholy, and disconnected, and I decided to go for a walk. The thought was so illogical that I knew I'd be couring danger, but I felt fairly certain that the robots had orders to leave me alone, even though I knew I couldn't press that too far. I went out of the building, which was always a little risky, and used a little of my special power to get me to the edge of the robot's area very quickly. It was kind of like running very fast.
I came to the edge of the robot zone. Here there were hills, swamp, grass, trees; everything was covered with snow. A giant wall stood, marking the edge of the robot zone. It was like a freeway wall. It was high, but the edges were artistically uneven, like steps.
I started walking, thinking about the snow. I was already seven years old when the robots took over, so I remembered real snow, and this snow only looked like snow. It wasn't real snow, but the robots provided it because it was required somehow for natural balance. It crunched underfoot almost like salt, and it tasted like chemicals.
I climbed a low hill, and could see an old apartment building past the wall, crumbling and grey. I thought about the world before, and how the wall encircled the entire robot-controlled area, and how everything that was outside the wall was disregarded by the robots and left to deteriorate. I continued to walk, looking past the wall, and I saw a house, built in the early 1900s, with a wide porch and once-beautiful wooden trim. There was a girl dressed in ratty clothing sitting on the porch, barely sixteen, and when she noticed me she became terrified and froze in shock.
I remembered the first time I'd seen a girl on the other side, and how frightening it had been, and I felt a touch of sympathy for her, and smiled at her. The robots left the humans outside of the zone alone, but their lives were full of hardship and difficulty, and I felt sorry for them.
Seeing the girl made me feel even more mixed up, and I made my way back to the building. It was after the work day had finished, and I just wanted to retrieve something from my office on the third floor before I left. But I really didn't want to talk to anyone. Meaning JP, because I was so high up and frightening that no one else would voluntarily talk to me. I hoped that he'd left because it was after the end of day, but I checked my little phone-computer and he was on the third floor, a light electric blue flashing dot on the three dimensional map.
If I stayed on the first floor and waited for him to leave, he might not notice me at all. I set my phone-computer to send out an alarm if he got near. I was worried about having engaged the tracking app in the first place, but I knew him pretty well and figured he'd never bothered to turn on his own tracking app and probably didn't even know that I was in the building, and I thought he might not even know about the app that tells you when people are tracking you with an app, so I was reasonably sure that I could avoid him.
I walked along the corridors of the main floor. There were several female refugees, even a nun, and they were engaged in tasks, but they stared at me as I went past.
I was feeling exhausted at this point. The week had been long and difficult, and my energy stores were mostly depleted, and I was feeling frazzled and lonely, and seeing the girl hadn't helped. I took refuge in the last bastion of emotionality...the woman's bathroom. I went in and started to cry. Then I realized that I hadn't locked the door, so I did so, sliding the bolt in place, and I noticed that there were signs and notes on the walls from others who had taken refuge in there as well before me. I cried more, feeling overwhelmed by everything, and feeling very frustrated.
Then my alarm went off, and barely a second later JP was pounding on the door, demanding to be let in. I realized that he must have known the second I entered the building, because he was so quick in getting down to the first floor. I wiped my eyes and told him just a minute, but the frustration was so fierce that I used my disintegration power to destroy the paper in the trash can. Now I was running dangerously low on energy and needed to recharge, but it felt good to have gotten that out. JP paused when he heard it, and then banged harder on the door, and I finally let him in. He looked worried and angry and pulled me out of the bathroom and down the corridor. All of the women were watching, their eyes sparkling with the excitement that witnessing good gossip first hand creates. I was a little upset at him pulling me along, but I was just so tired that I didn't even want to bother trying to get away.
We had such an unusual relationship, this guy who was my closest contact in life, whom I knew more than anyone, yet who wasn't close in an intimate sense--like a marriage but without any intimacy. But there was this spark, too, and I knew that something had to have gotten under his skin to make him so agitated about me wandering off to the edge of the robot zone. Something more than being worried for a partner, and it gave me a little taste of hope.
We walked across a snow-covered lake, and I think I fell through the ice and he rescued me, though that part was a little sketchy.
And then I woke up.
Such a strange dream, with such a melancholy air. Resignation to the difficult life we were living, but determination to make the best of it, to keep saving those we could save...and such a feeling of true partnership. An inner calm. A complete reliance upon logic, a society where illogic has been forceably removed...
I know where little bits of it came from; the phone thing reminds me of the Xenosaga maps, even though I haven't played those games in at least five years. And the old house with the girl is most definitely from my time spent driving through Saint Louis, because one sunken freeway cuts through the city and there is a row of beautiful abandoned houses just yards away from the wall of the freeway, and this juxtaposition of old and new really always fascinates and saddens me.
This is also the ultimate in the slow burn romance, which is one of my absolutely favorite plots, where the characters move like glaciers toward each other, and one has lost hope entirely but then suddenly finds out that the other really does love them. lol. Thanks, brain! I'll be thinking about this for ages.
But I'll try.
The first part I remember is being on my...cell phone. I hesitate to even call it a cell phone. It was something far more than a cell phone; it was more like a companion, tuned to my every whim. It was a repository for all information pertaining to my work. It was a different shape, thicker and narrower, and it had this incredible display. It could show nearly anything in an x-ray style, like the interior of a building in three dimensions but on a 2-D screen. It was pretty awesome.
I was using it to play a game on Facebook with my sister. It was a collaborative crossword game where multiple players could engage; people on your team think up clues that the other team won't be able to guess. My sister, for example, gave me the clue Girl whose parents tolled a bell to signal that it was time to come home, who was our neighbor while growing up. You could play for a few seconds or for a long time, and I played for a second or two and then put my attention back to the situation at hand.
I was with Joe Penny (stop snickering). We were the joint owners of a corporation/factory, and we were very successful. We had managed to co-exist with the robots who ruled our lives, and we had managed it well, to the point where he was a community leader of some sort, helping rescue humans and give them jobs. We were both enhanced humans with additional powers.
At that moment we were surveying a set of beer samples that had been sent from the last remaining brewers. I was using a chemical analyzer on the samples, and Joe was sampling the beers. We talked about having a beer festival, knowing that it would be something pleasant that a lot of our employees (and nearby humans) would enjoy. It was, of course, an illogical sort of thing to do by robot standards, but Joe's standing was high enough that we didn't think that we'd have trouble convincing the robots to allow it. However, we were worried that it might trigger an unpleasant event, which would bring our standing down and make things more difficult.
I mused about the robots for a moment. They had taken control of us when they had first become self-aware, and they had been rather brutal. They exterminated humans who displayed signs of illogic. If you were on the street, for example, at an ATM, and you paused too long before leaving, this could possibly trigger a robot to kill you, because it was illogical.
We looked at the samples for a few minutes longer. The brewers had sent us tiny barrels, with decorative labels made of wood and attached with tiny chains. They were desperate to continue their traditional work, and we both knew that helping them could secure their work for at least a year or two.
We discussed the beer festival a little longer and then we went through the building. We had a factory and a corporate building. The corporate building had two very elegant and beautiful upper floors, and then the main floor was more like an old school, in ways, and that was where most of the employees worked. I thought about how much I had grown to like--even love--JP, and felt such regret, because I felt he would never love me the same way. We were partners, and had worked side by side for many years, but I didn't think he felt so strongly toward me.
We coordinated our phones and I then I left, presumably to do something work-related, though it was the end of the day. However, I was feeling strange; melancholy, and disconnected, and I decided to go for a walk. The thought was so illogical that I knew I'd be couring danger, but I felt fairly certain that the robots had orders to leave me alone, even though I knew I couldn't press that too far. I went out of the building, which was always a little risky, and used a little of my special power to get me to the edge of the robot's area very quickly. It was kind of like running very fast.
I came to the edge of the robot zone. Here there were hills, swamp, grass, trees; everything was covered with snow. A giant wall stood, marking the edge of the robot zone. It was like a freeway wall. It was high, but the edges were artistically uneven, like steps.
I started walking, thinking about the snow. I was already seven years old when the robots took over, so I remembered real snow, and this snow only looked like snow. It wasn't real snow, but the robots provided it because it was required somehow for natural balance. It crunched underfoot almost like salt, and it tasted like chemicals.
I climbed a low hill, and could see an old apartment building past the wall, crumbling and grey. I thought about the world before, and how the wall encircled the entire robot-controlled area, and how everything that was outside the wall was disregarded by the robots and left to deteriorate. I continued to walk, looking past the wall, and I saw a house, built in the early 1900s, with a wide porch and once-beautiful wooden trim. There was a girl dressed in ratty clothing sitting on the porch, barely sixteen, and when she noticed me she became terrified and froze in shock.
I remembered the first time I'd seen a girl on the other side, and how frightening it had been, and I felt a touch of sympathy for her, and smiled at her. The robots left the humans outside of the zone alone, but their lives were full of hardship and difficulty, and I felt sorry for them.
Seeing the girl made me feel even more mixed up, and I made my way back to the building. It was after the work day had finished, and I just wanted to retrieve something from my office on the third floor before I left. But I really didn't want to talk to anyone. Meaning JP, because I was so high up and frightening that no one else would voluntarily talk to me. I hoped that he'd left because it was after the end of day, but I checked my little phone-computer and he was on the third floor, a light electric blue flashing dot on the three dimensional map.
If I stayed on the first floor and waited for him to leave, he might not notice me at all. I set my phone-computer to send out an alarm if he got near. I was worried about having engaged the tracking app in the first place, but I knew him pretty well and figured he'd never bothered to turn on his own tracking app and probably didn't even know that I was in the building, and I thought he might not even know about the app that tells you when people are tracking you with an app, so I was reasonably sure that I could avoid him.
I walked along the corridors of the main floor. There were several female refugees, even a nun, and they were engaged in tasks, but they stared at me as I went past.
I was feeling exhausted at this point. The week had been long and difficult, and my energy stores were mostly depleted, and I was feeling frazzled and lonely, and seeing the girl hadn't helped. I took refuge in the last bastion of emotionality...the woman's bathroom. I went in and started to cry. Then I realized that I hadn't locked the door, so I did so, sliding the bolt in place, and I noticed that there were signs and notes on the walls from others who had taken refuge in there as well before me. I cried more, feeling overwhelmed by everything, and feeling very frustrated.
Then my alarm went off, and barely a second later JP was pounding on the door, demanding to be let in. I realized that he must have known the second I entered the building, because he was so quick in getting down to the first floor. I wiped my eyes and told him just a minute, but the frustration was so fierce that I used my disintegration power to destroy the paper in the trash can. Now I was running dangerously low on energy and needed to recharge, but it felt good to have gotten that out. JP paused when he heard it, and then banged harder on the door, and I finally let him in. He looked worried and angry and pulled me out of the bathroom and down the corridor. All of the women were watching, their eyes sparkling with the excitement that witnessing good gossip first hand creates. I was a little upset at him pulling me along, but I was just so tired that I didn't even want to bother trying to get away.
We had such an unusual relationship, this guy who was my closest contact in life, whom I knew more than anyone, yet who wasn't close in an intimate sense--like a marriage but without any intimacy. But there was this spark, too, and I knew that something had to have gotten under his skin to make him so agitated about me wandering off to the edge of the robot zone. Something more than being worried for a partner, and it gave me a little taste of hope.
We walked across a snow-covered lake, and I think I fell through the ice and he rescued me, though that part was a little sketchy.
And then I woke up.
Such a strange dream, with such a melancholy air. Resignation to the difficult life we were living, but determination to make the best of it, to keep saving those we could save...and such a feeling of true partnership. An inner calm. A complete reliance upon logic, a society where illogic has been forceably removed...
I know where little bits of it came from; the phone thing reminds me of the Xenosaga maps, even though I haven't played those games in at least five years. And the old house with the girl is most definitely from my time spent driving through Saint Louis, because one sunken freeway cuts through the city and there is a row of beautiful abandoned houses just yards away from the wall of the freeway, and this juxtaposition of old and new really always fascinates and saddens me.
This is also the ultimate in the slow burn romance, which is one of my absolutely favorite plots, where the characters move like glaciers toward each other, and one has lost hope entirely but then suddenly finds out that the other really does love them. lol. Thanks, brain! I'll be thinking about this for ages.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-09 06:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-09 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-09 10:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-09 02:54 pm (UTC)Robot overlords! lol. Who would have guessed?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-11 08:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-12 01:19 am (UTC)And it was pretty cool--I do keep thinking about it. hee!