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[Story][Season 0] Sepia
[Story][Season 0] Sepia
#1
Sepia - 27/May/2012
Summer, 2007, UK.  Post-Thunder Storm.
Brains thought frantically.  He'd come-around after the ritual to find that everything around him was sepia-coloured.  And, a late teenage girl, in Victorian dress, was standing in front of him.  Wearing a not too happy expression.
"Are you a god?"[1][2]  "Yes", he quickly replied.  She smiled, for a moment.  "You pass on 'pop culture'.  Are you ready to go on to philosophy, like, 'why do I exist' ?"
He swallowed.  "Because the world needed you.  You are part of it..."
She waited, and his mind churned.
"OK.  I need you.  The world is broken.  I'm broken.  Both need fixing.  You get things fixed", and he broke down, crying.
She waited, until he regained his composure, stroking the cloth cat that she held in her arms.
She sighed, "You might be a god.  You've created life, after all.  But, I'm not a goddess.  Or a fairy godmother.  I'll let you give it a try".
She looked around, and the mess tidied itself up.  Then a work table unfolded itself, and moved to in front of Brains.  She carefully put the cat down on the table, and somehow reached inside it, pulling out a woodpecker bookend, a rag doll, a toad with a banjo on a tin, and finally, a mouse organ.
"Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss
Old Fat Furry Catpuss
Wake up and look at this thing that I bring
Wake up, be bright, be golden and light
Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing"
Then she turned around and walked out of the room, the colours gradually brightening back to normal, as she went out of sight.
Brains watched the cloth cat.  He showed no sign of animation.  No sign of waking.  Finally, after about ten minutes, the room slowly faded to sepia again, as Emily walked back in, carrying a tea cup on a saucer.
She sipped her tea, watching Brains.  This time he stubbornly waited until she spoke.
"Have you figured it out?"  "No", he said sullenly.
She sighed, "Bagpuss never wakes when anyone is watching.  They only ever repair inanimate things.  Not people.  You are not a 'thing'.  Do you understand?".
"Yes."  She looked at him with obvious compassion.  "You can do this, but it will need Work.  Alchemical Work.[3]  The sort that transforms the Worker as much as the material worked on."
"Call me when you need me."
She stepped forwards, blurring.  And all that was left on the table was a framed Victorian print.  Of a girl.  Holding a cloth cat.  Beside an empty tea cup on a saucer.
'Wasn't that cup cracked?', he thought.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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#2
META "Sepia"

This obviously follows on after "Bootstrap 1".

It pushes the limit of what you can do while creating an AI with handwavium pretty hard, but I'm pretty sure it could all be done without even nanotechnology, never mind Emily being an immaterial entity, just a lot of misdirection and high tech. If you really want I'll tell you how Emily does it! [grin]

Poor old Bagpuss is being a bit abused, here, with a rather more literal reading of a 'cat' which is a 'bag'...

Sorry if I disappoint anyone wanting to see Bagpuss and friends (immediately) active.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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