Hour 1: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1125115769/ Prev Hour: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1125115769/ Next Hour: Not ready! Read instructions first, then notes and credits! I cautiously stand up, my fists tightening as I walk down the increasingly long hallway, the walk seemed like hours. Hours of eyes watching me make an insecure pace toward their office. I haven’t even seen the CEO. They’re always shut off, announcing everything through text or something along the lines. Never showed their face, never even heard their voice. But whoever was called to the office, sure, they came back however, went missing or quit shortly after. There I was, watching the rooms pass by, D-1, D-2, D-3, D-4, D-5, and finally, D-6. My hand hovered over the door; waiting a few moments until a shaking hand knocked on the door. A voice sounded, the same one on the speaker “Come in.” I carefully opened the door, I finally saw them, dirty blonde hair, an award-winning smile and a cream turtleneck with brown chino pants. He looked friendly, welcoming. Completely the opposite of what I thought. He finally sat up straight and motioned me to take a seat, which I did. “Hello, Miss Morningstar!” He greeted, clasping his hands together. “Please,” I finally put myself together to put a reasonable appearance for him, “Call me Aezrielle!” “Alright, Miss Aezrielle.” He straightened up a couple of papers, I started glancing around the room for a minute, his nameplate, showing the name ‘Lucifer Shoel’, the random plant in his room, and the window, allowing to shed light, but covered by a deep, velvet curtain. “We’ve been reviewing your report, seeing how much you’ve done for our company—” He flipped through a couple of my records, “—and I must say, I’m impressed!” “Oh! Thank you, sir.” I perked up, the CEO, impressed with my work! There is no way this could have happened. “I just uhm- I don’t know what to say!” “And that’s a good thing!” He exclaimed, handing me the paperwork for my pay raise. “We’re giving you a raise! From a salary of 65k to about…” he paused for a moment, looking at the paper “80k I would assume.” My eyes widened, that’s a big raise considering I’ve only had this job for about 2 years, 2 gut wrenching years of putting all the work on my shoulders for the good of the people and now my efforts are finally being recognized. He smiled, handing me a form. “Now, this needs to be signed, simple as that. You can look over it all you want.” I looked over the paper, looking over the clauses and scanning the details. ‘upon signing the form, your pay will increase to $81,500—’ and the rest was what I already do, testing devices, coding them and more. That’s when he handed me a headset. He grinned, finally explaining what it was. “This is our new tech ware. This uses AR sensing to allow our employees to be more productive. You can inspect it all you want, and I’m giving you until January next year to give me the finished product.” I inspected the ware, running my fingers over the fabric and looking at the cameras on the front. “Hm. What does this thing already have installed?” “Well, it already has a graphics card, Bluetooth and the AR already works, we need hand tracking, eye tracking… body tracking—” He paused for a moment, thinking of what else it may need. “It needs… brain scanning.” “Brain scanning?” Such a horrible idea, it’s stupid as hell. Sure, Elon has a chip implanted into everyone’s head, but is he truly being serious when he says he wants brain scanning??? “I don’t think that’ll work—” “Of course it will!” He interrupted me, a hopeful look in his eyes as he enthusiastically explained what he meant. “If you can find a way to connect the headset to the wearers brain chip, then I’ll give you a bonus of $20,000. I REALLY want this for our company.” I laughed at his proposal, finally dying down after a good minute. “It’s stupid! This is some sci-fi crap! Like, who the HELL wants their device to connect to their BRAIN??” Lucifer smiled, showing his double fang, standing up and giving a mischievous look in his eye. “It sounds stupid, but we’ll be head of the market.” I paused, considering his intentions. They could be anything; I couldn’t put my finger on his wolf-like smile or the foxy look in his eye. Messing with the small decoration on his desk before looking me right in the eye again. “Well, Aezrielle?”
I stammered a bit, looking from the headset to Mr. Shoel, on one hand, this could make me famous, on the other hand, the idea is stupid as hell. But then, if it’s an experiment, I can’t fail. I nodded. “I’m in. Give me 6 months.” “Alright, Miss Morningstar, all you gotta do is sign these forms.” He handed me the papers, which I filled in quickly before handing them back. “Thank you, I look forward to seeing your progress.” “Oh! Thank you, Mr. Shoel.” I stammered, collecting the headset and slowly making my way out of the room. He stopped me for a moment. “Please, it’s Lucifer, and have a good day, Aezrielle.” He tilted his head, a welcoming smile still given. “And I’ll see you soon!” ‘I’ll see you soon.’ Those words tainted my brain as I made it back to my desk, inspecting the headset more. I decided to work on the hand tracking first, since it was most likely the easiest. I specifically started training an AI, showing it various photos of a hand. It took about a week of testing, showing hand positions, testing, checking in with my CEO, etc. etc. Eventually, it was as responsive as a talkative friend you really want to get away from. It was unsettling, but enough of that, I then continued to work on the response for the body. It wasn’t that difficult considering it was basically just the same but with more steps. I trained it from various body types, and while I was working on it, one of my co-workers decided to annoy me again. “Hey, Aezzie!” Josh went over to my desk, looking at the headset I was fiddling with. “Heyyy! What’s that?” I just sighed, “Shoo.” I couldn’t stand people like him; but he persisted, giving a large grin. “Well, I thought I’d just check in! Like how’s it goin’ how’s life? How’s your boyfriend?” “My life sucks, I’m feeling tired and horrible, and I don’t have a boyfriend. Now shoo.” I wanted to slam my head against my desk again, I didn’t know they made people as annoying as him. I just wanted to shove his face into a wall. “Awhh, poor thing. You’ll get game someday.” He laughed, ruffling up my hair. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you when you—” “WILL YOU SHUT UP?” I yelled, gritting my teeth. “You constantly annoy me when I’m doing my DAMN JOB! Which you don’t even do, because you’re too busy CHEATING ON YOUR GIRLFRIEND.” I covered my mouth, getting back to my desk and working on the headset more. Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!!! I’m so dead- I shouldn’t have snapped at him, bloody hell, now the looks will start, and I just want to bash my head into the table. BANG! I bashed my head into the table, it hurts. But hey! I can’t complain, I caused it to myself. The rest of the day, I watched the clock tick tock slowly reaching 5:00 Pm. My watched beeped for 5 pm; I bolted out of there, speed-walking out with the headset in my hands, finally leaving the workplace. I get into my car, revving the engine a bit before exiting the parking lot, getting onto the freeway. Still fuming, my hands were tight around the wheel. After about 10 minutes of driving I pull into my driveway and unlock the door to my home. I practically collapsed on my couch, then my phone rang. I answered, putting it to my ear. “You’re calling Aezrielle Morningstar.” I muttered, I immediately perked up when I heard Lucifer’s voice on the other end of the line. “Hello, Aezrielle!” He chirped, “I’m just checking in on the progress report!” “Well- I finished the eye, body, and hand tracking. I’m almost finished with seeing if I can connect it to the brain chip.” I groaned, sitting up, “Looks like we can use Bluetooth, which you said was already implemented.” “Of course!” He laughed, “Say, I sent you some code via e-mail! Mind seeing if that works? Of course, you’ll need to use your brain chip, which won’t be a problem!” “Yea, it won’t be a problem, I’ll see if this works. Thanks.” I pressed the ‘hang up’ button on my phone, finally sitting up and applying the code to the headset. I noticed a couple of bugs, so I decided to fix those while I was at it, seeing an hour pass, I had a quick bite to eat, made myself some biscuits and gravy, my mother’s favorite, and I finally sat at my desk. I started running the code. I put on the headset, and allowed it to connect to my brain chip. Everything goes black I can’t see, I’m panicking at this point, the headset won’t come off, it’s like it drilled in holes into my head, as hard as I try, nothing works. My hearing is depleting quickly, I muster all my strength to abort the code. I push everything from my desk in a desperate attempt for it to stop and… then there was nothing. The last thing I hear is… “Breaking news! Aezrielle Morningstar was declared dead!”
