The Carnival
The Carnival
Part 1
“Battery cell fully charged. “ She said in a monotone voice that echoed in a empty hotel room. Alina was getting prepared to the annual Automaton Festive Carnival in Brazil where hundreds of robots and androids of all shapes and forms would gather in the streets to celebrate the whole evening. She flew in Brazil just this afternoon and would be staying for 2 days. This was Alina's first attendance at the Carnival and this year would be quite the event since it was the 90th iteration of the event.
The carnival was very known to androids and technophiles alike. Alina was always particularly interested to participate in the past but couldn’t because of her work and now the timing couldn’t be better to go for this year 90th anniversary.
“Charging cable disconnected.“ She said as she unplug the cord from the charging port located to the side of her abdomen. Alina’s current body was a sight to behold. She was robotic from neck to toe with partly covered mechanical joints on her knees, elbows and shoulders. Only her head was human-like: gorgeous latina woman, looking in her late twenties with brown wavy short hair. Although, that was the hair she chose to wear for the carnival as it was a wig plate that she could just switch and attach on top of her plastic head.
Same for the rest of her body, she had ordered some custom body parts just for the event. She went with body parts matching her latin skin tone with bright green carnival-like stripes around the legs and arms parts. The crotch part had a exotic green panty painted on it giving it a sexy carnival look and her chest plate was something she never wore before. Her breast were big, round and busty with a matching color paint coat finish of a bikini top covering her breast in half with the matching backplate on her back. All parts were made of thick hard plastic with a glossy finish.
Since her current body was very sexualized, she couldn’t walk casually outside under these circumstances. She had to wear a long sweater to cover her body after installing those body parts. Still, it was awkward to look at since her chest was really prominent under the sweater and also for the fact that robots of her kind looked abnormal in human clothes. Her “normal” attire was nothing more than a grey and white metallic robotic body which didn’t required to be clothed. But tonight was the night to show off the modifications she had made, as she really wanted to participate at the event at least once in her robotic life.
“Still have an hour and 3 minutes left before the event. OK. Just need to install this program and see if everything is OK.” She said to herself after a quick status update.
A robot going to a carnival and not knowing how to dance would make one stand out amongst the crowd. Although, Alina could always run the default dance.act file extension in her system to simulate dancing but that was way too basic. Alina was able to find online a program with several preprogrammed dance routines she could perform. A bit taxing on CPU usage, from online users review she read about, but nonetheless the highest rated dancing program application out there for androids. The program was compatible with her model type and she met the minimum requirement too.
She had previously downloaded the program on to her laptop and needed to run it into her system matrix managing software for a smooth installation. Already in front of her laptop, she typed in a few commands and a prompt instructed her to connect herself to the laptop. With mechanical precision, she plug herself and nearly instantly froze as her managing software established a connection with her. The android arms readjusted themselves bending slightly forward to its default position when in standby mode. The system matrix managing software started uploading the program into her and a lot of information data was rapidly flashing in her field of vision, processing all the incoming data, creating new directories within her system. After a few minute, the upload was complete and she needed to reboot to complete the installation. “Shutting down.” She said before powering down, closing her eyes and lowering her head.
A second later, a soft beep was heard as she powered up. “Unit SDX-535 activated, startup process initiated…verifying system files…loading system files…initializing SST4500RX unit...loading settings…loading complete. Female unit SDX-535 working within parameters“ Alina said in a robotic monotone tone, gazing straight ahead without any emotions, her body twitching a little and her pupils flickered as her CPU was still managing all the loading sequence to boot her up in autonomous mode. She then proceeded to unplugged herself from her laptop.
Her system notified her of a new program installed since her last activation. “Now to test this.” She said to herself.
Faint whir sounds could be heard as she got up and walked in front of a tall mirror reflecting her sexy body. She quickly access the new program in her hard drive and ran the testing mode. Automatically, she started dancing to one of the preprogrammed dance routines in her newly repository database, dancing with more grace than the average human. A little odd since there was no music in the room, only the sound of grinding joints performing an incoherent robotic melody. Alina regained a normal posture after the testing sequence ended. Her system didn’t detect any anomalies or errors and the program itself sent a successful test result to her. Alina’s checked her CPU usage during the test and it registered a high peak usage at the start of the test but it wasn’t problematic, just normal computation load, the program was working within parameters.
“Oh yaay!” she said clapping her hands in a cutesy way. Happy with the results, she just needed to put on some carnival trinkets and she was good to go. She took out some bracelets, jewelry beads and a tiara to wear. After putting them on, she was now ready as she glanced at her really hot body in front of the mirror, slowly turning back at the mirror doing an inhumane 180° head rotation at the same time to look at her back of her body. Satisfied, she swiveled back her head to the front in a robotic way with noticeable whirring sound, ready to carry out her objective: attend the Automaton Festive Carnival.
Part 2
Alina made her way through the hotel and as she was about to exit the building, her terminal notified her wirelessly of a new firmware update available for download. Those updates were mandatory and couldn’t be postponed if the unit were close to their terminal station, in which Alina’s case was her laptop. Alina’s system automatically calculated her current location and priorities, and it concluded to cancel any current directive and to go download and install the latest system firmware as a priority directive.
Robots and androids alike were programmed under strict rules and regulations. Most of them were connected through a dedicated wireless server which serves as a unified point of information where androids could quickly search information, in which many would call it to be internet for robots. This server was also used by robot manufacturers and AI software developers to send out updates directly to terminals used by androids.
Alina emitted a sigh from her speaker. “Don’t they know the carnival is about to begin that they had to roll out this update now?” she said to herself with a tone of annoyance which is ironic since she was complaining about her programming that she had no choice but to obey. Had she had been outside the hotel when she received the notification, her system wouldn’t override her directive.
Alina made her way back to her room and sat once more in front of her laptop. No need to type in commands as the terminal was already waiting for the unit to establish a connection.
She plugged herself and the terminal took over control of Alina and switched her to standby mode. "System update version 9.65 in progress. Downloading update." She sat there talking to nobody in a robotic monotone voice.
This was a rather large update as Alina’s system calculated the estimated time to complete the download was 45 minutes and 44 seconds. Although, Alina was oblivious by this details as no personality subroutines were active in standby mode, only her core system efficiently managing the incoming flux of data…until an error occurred while installing the package.
“Error. Ccfloor.dll could not be created. Error. Sfloor.dir could not be created. Error. Exemption at address 0xcvcl00001. Routing in progress……routing failed. System update complete. Shutting down.” Alina said in a robotic voice.
Then a second later "Unit SDX-535 activated, startup process initiated…verifying system files…loading system files…initializing SST4500RX unit…loading settings…loading complete. Female unit SDX-535 working within parameters" Alina said as she unload the last bit of data of her startup sequence.
Immediately as she gain control of herself, warnings flashes up in her field of visions in which her system have detected some problems. There was some errors while installing the latest update and there was a warning about her body temperature being higher than normal which could affect her CPU and damage some of her electric components.
The later was a known minor problem she’s used to have after installing an update. The quickest solution was to open her access panels to quickly vent her internals and lower her body temperature but this was somewhat of a concern now. Unlike her regular body, her custom body parts had no access panels that she could open herself by command. They were all bolted down and could be only opened by a screwdriver which she had no way to unscrew herself. She would have needed a programming calibration to where the screws are located but didn’t since this was just a temporary body.
The former problem was deemed to be of lower priority since it didn’t affect any sector of her core programming or personality programming. She would have to run a full system scan to pinpoint the cause of this error. Alina had enough self control to bypass certain errors and carry any directive set by herself since she was a HTM (Human To Machine) android. They retain some of their human personality and freedom but are also functioning through pre-programmed artificial intelligence and algorithm.
But as a fraction of a second she determined those possible solutions to those problems, she also noticed that the carnival already debuted 18 minutes ago, oblivious to the fact that the update took longer than her system calculated.
“Oh no!” she said in shock “I am late!” she said unplugging herself from her laptop. She logged all of her errors as low priority and made haste to exit her room.
“Stupid update! Making me late to the festival!” she said to herself as she rapidly make her way through the halls only to trigger once more her body temperature regulator sending another warning about her rising temperature. She had no choice to slow down her pace as this could potentially had severe repercussions if her heat problems would continue throughout the night.
The street were becoming busy, festivity was in the air. The streets in the city was decorated in a carnival theme with colorful lights flickering all over the place. Lots of androids with carnival themed builds like Alina were seen around, some even with flashing leds covering their body.
Alina was making her way to the starting point of the carnival, making a few head glanced her way, humans and androids alike. She knew her body was a showstopper and liked the attention she was getting but she had some other worrying concerns alerting her: her system keep sending heat temperature warnings. The high temperature of the country was something she never processed as a risk when accounting for dangers to herself when she planned the trip. The only option for her now was to discard those warnings.
As she was making her way, she noticed two line up coming in the direction of the starting point. She wasn’t sure if it was the lines to get in or the lines to spectate from the boardwalk. She tried to zoom in the other end but the street lights were too detrimental as her system tried to process what she was trying to see. She had no other choice to ask someone in line.
She approached seemingly a female android waiting in line. “Excuse me?” Alina said. The robot turned around. “yes?”
She was a beautiful brunette android with a feminine sexy and slick metallic body from neck to toe, with a few shade of metallic red over her body. A LCD control panel was light up blue above her chest showing off her internal status such as battery life and CPU usage. This was reminiscent to what Alina have on her primary body.
“Is this the line to the Automaton Festive Carnival?” she asked the brunette android. “Oh, yes it is. The line up is to validate our tickets entry and agree to the terms and conditions of the event.“ Replied the beautiful robot. “Is this your first time?” she added. “Yes it’s my first time and I wasn’t expecting waiting in line to be honest.” Replied Alina.
“There’s always a line up every year but this year it's longer than usual.“ said the brunette. “How long have you been waiting in line?” asked Alina. “Oh, I just arrived a minute ago. From the previous years, it wasn’t that long to get in, about 5 to 6 minutes but this year it look like it should take approximately 15 minutes.“
“It’s not so bad I guess.” Replied Alina. “I was supposed to arrive earlier but got caught in a system update when I was just ready to leave.”
“Wait.” The brunette said. “System update version 9.65?” the brunette asked knowingly. “Yep, that one.” said Alina.
“LOL! I got the notification too but my boyfriend postponed the update for me since we planned to hang out before the carnival starts. These updates always seems to comes at the worst possible time!“
“Always I tell you!” Alina said with full agreement. She enjoyed the chit chat she was having with the android and the feeling seemed reciprocal with the other android Alina calculated.
“May I ask your name?” asked Alina. “You may ask for my name” the brunette replied jokingly but oblivious to the joke, Alina took it literally “What is your name?” Alina asked again. The brunette letting out a digital chuckle. “I’m Jennifer.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Alina.” “Hey likewise! Are you here by yourself?” “I am. I always wanted to come to the festival but couldn’t because of obligations. It was one of my checklist since I left the testing and calibrating maintenance process at the lab.” “Kind of the same for me as well. The Automaton Festive Carnival is THE spot for androids to interact with one another. I don’t know if you talked with any other androids here but it is the general consensus being said around.” “I know! It’s not easy to have social interaction outside of our lives and to share our experiences with other androids in real life.” “You are right. I met some great people here at the festival over the years. It sure beats communicating digitally online with other androids.” “Talk about it! It has It’s perk, yes, but I want to experience the normal, human way, so to say.” “I agree completely. How long have you been active?” Continued Jennifer. “I made the conversion into an android 6 years ago and was under contractual obligation for 5 years. I had full self control autonomy 9 months ago so yeah, I’m still new at experiencing and exploring all my capabilities.” “Oh that’s wonderful! The more you try out what’s out there, the more you will feel in control of your life. I like your modifications by the way.” Jennifer added.
“Thank you! It’s one of those things I wanted to try out as well. I wanted to “feel” what is like to have a different body. I like that I can modify my body to my likings but I’ve encountered an issue with this current body though.” “What is it?” asked Jennifer. “This body cannot vent well the heat generated from my circuits. I keep having heat temperature warnings since the last update earlier and it won’t stop. The heat temperature is 4 degree Celsius above threshold however, it’s not a critical issue so I can bypass it for now.” said the hot robot. “I get some warnings too but nothing critical as well but I think you should remedy it sooner because it will get hotter when you’ll be in the parade with all of us androids around.” Jennifer said in a concerned tone. “Can’t you open up your access panels?” Jennifer added. “Normally, yes, I can open up my control panel to vent my internals but only on my primary body though. This option is currently unavailable for this body.” “You know what you could do, there are some restaurants on the parade road that have setup air conditioners in their building specifically for androids for situations like this. You should take rest in one of them.” “I think I will. Thank you. I’ll just wait after I check in. I think I can hold a little longer.” “You’re welcome. I think you...” Jennifer stopped talking mid sentence and straightened her head a little. “Sorry, my boyfriend just pinged me, I have to go see him. It was nice talking to you Alina.” Jennifer said and as she was just about to leave, Alina tried to stop her. “Before you leave, do you mind I have your unit designation number so I can add you on social media?”. “Sure, it’s unit SVX-323. I’ll follow you back. See you later!” She said as she walked away to the beacon signal. “Later!”
Mere seconds later, Alina indexed the unit into her database and created a profile based on her interaction: DATA PROFILE #1647: UNIT SVX-323; JENNIFER FIRST CONTACT: BRAZIL, RIO DE JANEIRO, 150728191953 CATEGORY: ANDROID GENDER: FEMALE RELATION: FRIENDSHIP; TIER 1 TAGS: ANDROID, ROBOT, HTM, FRIENDLY, HELPFULL, KIND NOTE: IF POSSIBLE, ACHIEVE FRIENDSHIP LEVEL TIER #3
From the profile she created, Alina wanted to become friend with the android. For as long she has been active, Alina never had the time to become friend with another android like herself in real life and this was also on her checklist. The prompt got activated when Jennifer started the small talk and Alina’s programming did the rest.
Since she wanted to pursue this friendship, Alina quickly logged into her social media account, quickly found SVX-323’s account and sent a friend request. Jennifer accepted the request nearly instantly as if she was waiting for it but it was just pure digital efficiency amongst androids.
Alina looked at Jennifer’s profile like a bot would do if it wanted to get all information from a person. However, this was normal android behavior since it wasn’t seen as intrusive like humans would think otherwise. Androids aren’t concerned about people scrutinizing their public information that they put out themselves for the world to see. Plus, Alina was just curious about Jennifer and wanted to update Jennifer’s database with new information. And as an android just like her, Jennifer probably did the same too.
While she was scanning Jennifer’s profile, Alina finally reached the entrance booth. A humanoid robot was the entrance with a large screen on his abdomen showing a QR code.
“Please scan the QR code shown on my panel” said the robot in a friendly manner. Alina’s lenses zoomed in and scanned the code which Alina’s decoder system translated the code and a warning prompt appeared in her HUD.
WARNING, HYPERLINK DETECTED, ACCESS HYPERLINK With a simple command, Alina accessed the link and went blank for a moment as a connection was made to her. It was the event dedicated server that accessed to a part of Alina’s of subdirectories, checking the tickets number file since it was embedded in Alina’s serial number after purchase. After the program checked the validity of the ticket, a Terms and Conditions temporary file was uploaded into her that would delete itself after 24 hour. “Do you agree to terms and conditions of the event?” the robot asked her. Alina’s computational mind read the 52 page long document and in an instant, understood everything written in that file. “Yes, I agree to the terms and conditions of the event”. She then felt the host disconnecting from her system. “Enjoy your evening!” the robot said. “Thank you!” Alina replied with her heat temperature problem prompting again in her field of vision.