Eamon gave me an entire history lesson yesterday before he handed me the little firearm, but quite frankly, I don't remember any of it. I don't really care who made it or how the technology came about; I just care if it will protect me if the situation arises again.
Isla, these are dangerous weapons. Especially in your hands, so you have to respect their power.
Internally, I roll my eyes at the memory of his lecture.
I can respect an object and still not need to know that the first handgun was invented in 1433. Or was it 32? Shit, I don't remember.
Sitting at my computer, I still feel the itch to run back downstairs and continue shooting at the targets. Eamon says I'm not ready for anything that moves yet, but that I will be soon.
Yesterday, I almost bashed his head in with the mace, but he barely managed to dodge it at the last second. I grin, remembering the surprise on his face, the way it lit up with a huge, beaming smile at almost being taken out.
I only have a little bit more time to prove that I can be safe for a trip back to see everyone. Bel has been kind enough not to ask if I'll be able to make it, not wanting to put it into my head that she'll be disappointed if I can't. As if I don't already know. But at least she doesn't say it and make me feel worse.
She understands the complicated situation I'm in.
Well, parts of it. It's not like I can tell her that on top of everything else, I'm also occasionally sleeping with my captor. The last thing I need is her going all crazy and thinking I have Stockholm Syndrome.
Fuck, maybe I do.
My work day is almost over, which means I can go do whatever the fuck I want for a few minutes before Eamon tells me I have toeat my protein.
My fucking god, I can't wait to never hear the word protein again.
Fifteen minutes left.
I thumb through the notes left for me by that little shit at Paradigm Media. He's a fucking moron, but what I would give for just a fraction of the ego he carries around. It must be fantastic to not be burdened by things like others' opinions or even their provable theories.
His notes on my latest critiques imply that I'm just not seeing the bigger picture. That somehow his ideas about the future of media outweigh the very provable shrinking of their audience.
Artificial Intelligence is the future. It's going to revolutionize how we create and consume media.
It's fucking not.
AI will never have the heart and soul required to create art. It might be able to imitate art, but true creation is an entirely mortal talent. AI is and always will be the uncanny valley of artistic expression. It might feel almost real, but the human mind will know something about it is wrong.
As all of their studies and focus groups for which they've paid thousands of dollars have proven. But he thinks spending more money on better generative AI is going to be the thing that puts their company into the green again.They just don't know what they want,he told me.
I'm so sick of him and his bullshit I'm almost ready to drop them as a client altogether if they don't tell him to shut up. He's a significant part of why they're going to be left behind, because rather than pay for human creators, he thinks programs can replace the raw, deep humanity that art requires.
Another email comes in, this time from Bel.
Why would Bel email me instead of just calling or texting?
Subject:Call me.
What the hell?
I open the email, and it doesn't tell me anything the subject didn't, except that underneath the message that says to call is a phone number that most definitely isn't Bel's.
Maybe she got a new one.
It makes sense if they're still feeling paranoid, what with the hunters surrounding my old apartment. It's sickening to think of it as my old apartment now. I have so many memories there, and I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. In a harshly worded email from my landlord, including a hefty fine for abandoning the home, he alerted me that he'd changed the locks and moved someone else in.
I paid the fine, of course. It's not their fault that my life fell apart, and they're well within their rights to do so. But it still sucks.
Ending my day four minutes early, I send a previously drafted email to the CEO of Paradigm, telling him, in no uncertain terms, who the root of his problems are and that if they continue to follow his vision for the future, I see them being bankrupt within the next 18 months.
Happy to be finished with that for the day, I dial the number Bel left me, not thinking twice about it.
