Cloneseed 1 — Prekursor

c̶̥͔͖͔͙͓̹͐̀y̶̲͕͎̟̞̠͎̓͜͜n̴̖̦̦̺̟̣̔͑̈́̄͑̄̆̈̂͘ ĥ̷͓̮̼͓̎̈́͂͆̌́̿́̕i̵̢̧͇̖̖̖̝̣̖͇͗̓͛̑̔͐͘à̷͍̯̞̬̝̳̺͗͜A̶̼̭̰̖̱͂͑̂̋I̷̢̛̖̭̫̠̍̽̋͂̌͘̚ͅ

c̶̥͔͖͔͙͓̹͐̀y̶̲͕͎̟̞̠͎̓͜͜n̴̖̦̦̺̟̣̔͑̈́̄͑̄̆̈̂͘ṫ̷̠̳͈̃̉͛̎̀̀͒̈́͑ĥ̷͓̮̼͓̎̈́͂͆̌́̿́̕

Testimony of Leland Maston

It was cold, dark, too early and really I couldn’t much be bothered with it, and yet I went anyway. I needed some cash and Li was getting pissy with me for not being ‘a go-getter’. I don’t much care what she thinks but I’m not up for being single in this shitty weather. I threw on a polo shirt and some jeans and headed to the station. It was even colder and darker outside. There’s a mound of snow that has been sitting outside the building’s entrance for nearly two months - it pisses me off everytime I see it. The commute was tedious, three trains and a long walk on the second connection; the station was freezing too. I listened to 35 songs that were meant to have been created ‘just for me’ but that could only have been true if the AI that did it hated me and wanted me to suffer. I considered cancelling that shit and making a big fuss about listening to old music like Lars and those wankers do. If they actually got any girls out of all that pissing around I probably would.

c̶̥͔͖͔͙͓̹͐̀y̶̲͕͎̟̞̠͎̓͜͜n̴̖̦̦̺̟̣̔͑̈́̄͑̄̆̈̂͘ṫ̷̠̳͈̃̉͛̎̀̀͒̈́͑ĥ̷͓̮̼͓̎̈́͂͆̌́̿́̕i̵̢̧͇̖̖̖̝̣̖͇͗̓͛̑̔͐͘à̷͍̯̞̬̝̳̺͗͜A̶̼̭̰̖̱͂͑̂̋I̷̢̛̖̭̫̠̍̽̋͂̌͘̚ͅ

The front of the office was bland and undesignated and I was pleased to see it getting battered with snow and wind - unimaginative shite these towers are, they deserve everything they get. I was late but the receptionist didn’t say anything, nor did the hiring manager; I forget his name but I suspect he was the dullest man to have ever lived. I mean what can they do? My cohort is the smallest in history, just 10,000 university graduates last year and only a few hundred in biotech like me. The AIs can do all the heavy lifting, they just need grunts who understand the basics to be the arms and legs of the operation but they can’t even find people to do that now. They don’t pay much, so they can’t afford to get all sniffy about things like punctuality or they’d just have an AI and a few clumsy droids trying to run a lab. So fuck em, if I’m late I’m late, they can fire me anytime, the UBI is enough to get by on.

I sorta drifted off in the orientation but the place seemed to be another one of those startups that are trying to realise an AI designed technology and get it to market before anyone else. I worked at a similar place straight out of university but they got raided and shut down on my second day. I did get to see the CEO get shot in the face when he tried to set fire to the lab so I can say that job holds a special place in my heart - a piece of shit that guy was.

c̶̥͔͖͔͙͓̹͐̀y̶̓

̲͕͎̟̞̠͎͜͜n̴̖̦̦̺̟̣̔͑̈́̄͑̄̆̈̂͘ṫ̷̠̳͈̃̉͛̎̀̀͒̈́͑ĥ̷͓̮̼͓̎̈́͂͆̌́̿́̕i̵̢̧͇̖̖̖̝̣̖͇͗̓͛̑̔͐͘ à̷͍̯̞̬̝̳̺͗͜A̶̼̭̰̖̱͂͑̂̋I̷̢̛̖̭̫̠̍̽̋͂̌͘̚ͅ

Dull and cold as it was, I decided it was worth sticking at just to stay in Li’s goodbooks; I just couldn’t see how I was going to meet such a cracking looking girl now that I was out of university. So everyday I carried out the tasks that appeared on the slate but took no real notice of what I was doing. I knew the goal was to realise some extremely convoluted cloning process that the AI had dreamed up - it looked like a classic case of overfitting on a small data set to me - but I didn’t give it much more thought than that. I took some stock options in lieu of payment for the first three months because I figured that’s what go-getters did and go-getters, if nothing else, seem to get laid.

c̶̥͔͖͔͙͓̹͐̀y̶̲͕͎̟̞̠͎̓͜͜n̴̖̦̦̺̟̣̔͑̈́̄͑̄̆̈̂͘ṫ̷̠̳͈̃̉͛̎̀̀͒̈́͑ĥ̷͓̮̼͓̎̈́͂͆̌́̿́̕

i̵̢̧͇̖̖̖̝̣̖͇͗̓͛̑̔͐͘à̷͍̯̞̬̝̳̺͗͜A̶̢̖̭̫̠͂͑̂̋̌ͅ

By my fourth month the weather had warmed and that fucking mound of snow finally met its demise with some help from me and a bucket of boiling water. Li seemed happy; all was well. I was summoned to the CEOs office on the last Friday of the month. I expected to be told that the piggy bank was empty and that I should please piss off with my pile of worthless shares. Instead I was asked to sit in on an investors meeting as a technical liaison - the first round of tests were solid and they were going after the big money pumps. This shit actually looked like it was going to work.

₵ⱠØ₦Ɇ₴ɆɆĐ

Likelihood of significant falsehood: 2%
Likelihood of minor falsehoods and embellishments: 75%
Recorded and filed by CynthiaAI on Tuesday 25th March CE215