#gdi now I have to actually write it and make a coherent narrative

[manorpunk]

Okay.

I’ve been working on something that I’ve been hesitant to talk about, because I think I have a habit of sharing things too early and then changing my mind and getting cold feet. So this time, I wanted to have a mostly-complete outline ready before I shared it. And here it is:

The Haunted Maidbot Mansion of Allen Staanke, v1.1, in which I am using the manorpunk setting for a work of self-contained genre fiction, which has made things a lot easier. Seriously, so many of my previous attempts were so big and trying to cover so much. Going with an established genre - “a cyber-noir haunted house” - gives me a rough roadmap where I can sprinkle in the background setting instead of trying to do everything ‘from scratch.’

ACT I

Now then, let me introduce you to Johnny G. Newsroom - the G stands for ‘Goddamn’ - a private investigator and our viewpoint character. We get a glimpse of his life, and it’s rather humble: his home office (meaning his home and his office) is a repurposed shipping container on the streets of Neo-Modesto, located between a payday loan office and a sexbot brothel. He’s mulling over his lack of upcoming cases when he gets a surprise visit from the one and only Sunny Roosevelt, hijacking his computer to talk to him.

Sunny tells him that Allen Staanke - reclusive billionaire, self-proclaimed genius in the field of AI and robotics, and kind of an Elon Musk pastiche - has gone missing, and she needs Johnny for the investigation. Johnny can’t imagine why Sunny would need him specifically, so she eventually tells him why: Staanke’s reputation is so toxic that none of the big reputable agencies want to be associated with him.

(“Would this be a job for the police?” “the what now?” “You know, the police. Law enforcement.” “teehee you’re funny Johnny.”)

She’s willing to sweeten the deal, though: a lifetime subscription to platinum-tier citizenship and half a million economy tokens for the trouble. He’d be set for life. Johnny reluctantly agrees, closes his office for the day, and does some research and preparation.

(Things that get introduced in act I for later callbacks:

El Huevo Vagabondo, a Mexican brunch place that Johnny’s rather fond of.

Honey Circuits, the aforementioned sexbot parlor. Johnny makes a visit to talk to one of the bots, Lilith, hoping to learn more about neural networks on short notice. The conversation establishes Johnny’s starting viewpoint on AI: he’s cynical about it, thinking robots don’t really ‘feel,’ they’ve just been taught how to tell people what they want to hear.)

It’s not long before the big day comes, and Johnny meets up with the rest of the main cast, in rough order of importance:

Dashiell Redacted, a higher-up with the Global Logistics Network’s North American division. A consummate corporate ghoul who thinks everyone else needs to get over their emotions and sentimentality and focus on the ‘big picture’ (increasing efficiency and maximizing throughput). He’s there because the GLN was Staanke’s biggest investor for years, and Dashiell had always been skeptical that Staanke’s research would provide results, so he’s hoping to recoup their losses as best they can and put the whole thing behind them.

Victor Harmen Staanke, “the only one of Allen Staanke’s kids who isn’t dead, missing, or under house arrest,” in his own words. Wry and withdrawn, Victor has spent his entire life trying to escape from under his father’s shadow, and now finds himself being dragged back into it against his will. The Staanke incident has taken him away from his usual work as a robot maintenance technician - his father was disgusted that one of his sons would be a ‘mere techie,’ but his knowledge will prove useful.

Dr. Rongmao Ai, a respected veteran in the field of neural network robotics (AI designed specifically for robots that will interact with humans). She’s torn between seeing robots as ‘just another machine, turning input into output’ but also appreciating the ways that robots can seem better than lying, hypocritical, easily-tempted human beings. She’s there because she’d worked extensively with Staanke on different parts of his ‘big project.’

Carolus von Zuckerberg-Lorraine, Duke of the San Joaquin Valley. His reputation precedes him: an indulgent party-loving failson given a do-nothing job lording over farmers and meth-heads. Carolus is well aware of his reputation, and he sees the Staanke incident as a chance for him to start fixing his image, doing something important and useful in a high-profile case.

Sgt. Rina Pskovski, Dashiell Redacted’s bodyguard. A short and wiry Slavic lady, she might look almost cute at first until you see her dead, emotionless stare, or the way her solution to most problems is to threaten to stab them. She seems almost more robotic than the robots themselves.

Bees! McCoy, popular nonbinary influencer recognizable by their large cotton-candy pink afro. They’re a friend of Sunny Rooseevelt and the ‘Nieph’ of Piedmont governor Michael McCoy, and they finagled their connections into an exclusive scoop. Eternally cheerful and bubbly, though also quite blunt sometimes, Bees! is acting it up for the camera at all times, even when the cameras are off.

Chuck Bumpus, executor of Staanke’s provisional will. A bona-fide country-fried southern lawyer type with the white linen suit and fondness for mint juleps to match.

After introductions, they arrive at their destination: a massive edifice, half luxury estate and half apocalypse bunker, tucked into the Sierra Nevada mountains, just beyond the reach of California’s state authority. (“Why should that make a difference? If you ask me, Californian law ought to apply everywhere.” - Carolus) (Note to self: think of some details about how they get in - were there perimeter defenses that needed to be taken care of? Some kind of perimeter wall or fencing?) They enter the foyer, an ostentatious central hub of marble and hardwood, and are greeted by a trio of robotic maids:

Summer, the doting, motherly one, always speaking softly and smiling warmly.

Aki, the dutiful and serious one, usually preoccupied with some task or chore.

Zima, the timid, dainty, and delicate one, usually hiding.

The maidbots introduce themselves as the chief caretakers of the estate, and say that ‘the master’ is currently out of the estate on business. Immediate reactions are mixed: Dr. Rongmao wants to know more about their personality modules (or some other fitting technobabble). Dashiell wonders if they’re one of Staanke’s personal projects, and if they’d have anything worth reverse-engineering. Bees! starts taking selfies with them. Carolus asks if there’s a big-titty goth maid. Johnny finds the whole thing uncomfortably Freudian.

Johnny’s also the only person there who seems to remember that this is still technically a missing person investigation, not a publicity stunt or a corporate asset-stripping job. He informs the maidbots that Staanke didn’t show up to the last investor meeting and has been declared missing. The maidbots say they have no idea what happened, and when Johnny asks for access to security footage, the ‘bots politely but firmly tell him that they aren’t allowed to give him access to that. Thankfully, the maids are more than happy to continue chatting with everyone else, so Johnny slinks away, takes out his tabule, and starts digging into the mansion’s network. Moments later, there’s a massive rumbling sound as massive metal doors begin to shut all around the mansion’s exterior walls. The maidbots inform the gang that the house’s defense systems have been activated, causing the blast doors to shut. Even worse, it turned on a signal jammer that blocks any attempt to communicate with the outside world. There’s no need to worry, though - they can deactivate it after (24? 48? some length of time) hours. In the meantime, the guests are kindly invited to wait until then. The maidbots are available to provide anything they might need, and they’re welcome to explore wherever they’d like on the first and second floors. Just please stay away from any of the lower levels. The automated defense system is more… severe… down there, and we wouldn’t want anyone to have an accident, would we? :)

ACT II

The game is afoot!

The gang struggles to be in a room together for five minutes without wishing death upon each other.

Mysterious happenings happen - odd rattles and noises, vague images appearing in the background of Bees!’s recordings.

Johnny investigates the top two floors for clues regarding Staanke’s disappearance - he’s seemingly the only one invested in actually trying to find Staanke, everyone else is happy to either assume he’s dead or assume it’ll figure itself out.

Dashiell has the maidbots bring him boxes of documents from the lower levels and begins doing research, occasionally working with Dr. Rongmao and Victor to try and understand Staanke’s new neural network system. One of the document boxes has a large “coffee stain” on it.

Dr. Rongmao points out little ways in which the maidbots’ behaviors mean they must have a very different kind of AI system, some lore about the more ‘normal’ regulated AI systems most people are more familiar with. Most AIs that interact with humans are very ‘agentic,’ tailored to a specific need like customer service (or, y’know, sexbots) but the maidbots show a remarkable degree of adaptability, improvisation, and operation range.

Victor reminisces on his childhood - he rarely saw Staanke, and when he did, Staanke was either using him as a publicity prop or privately piling massive obligations on his shoulders to “live up” to Staanke’s name.

Johnny (and others?) make attempts to go to the lower floors. Those attempts are politely but firmly thwarted by the maidbots (possibly involving them seeming to move impossibly fast from one side of the mansion to the other).

Despite everything, a sort of routine starts to settle in, with the gang meeting every night for dinner despite their mutual dislike and distrust.

“Mornin’ Dashiell. How’s the soulless maximizing going?” “Constantly waylaid by provincialism” “ok cool”

“Mornin’ sergeant. How’s the bloodlust?” “fulminating. :|” “ok cool”

“Mornin’ Bees! How’s the sudden lack of fan engagement?” “I haven’t posted in two days, I can see colors that shouldn’t exist :D” “ok cool”

“Mornin’ Chuck. How’s the… law?” “I got a big hat with dang ol’ ram’s horns on it.” “okay so are you like from Virginia or Texas or…” “I’m from The South. Y’know. The South. All of it.” “ok cool”

“Mornin duke Carolus. How’s the-” “I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna fuck the maidbots.” “ok cool. I respect none of you.”

Having exhausted the easy options, the gang realizes they’ll have to get more proactive if they’re going to make any progress. A plan is hatched to make it to the lower levels - something that would require them all to cooperate. One of those things where everyone has a thing they have to contribute. Maybe the maidbots have to recharge every (day? couple of days?). Maybe there’s some kind of sensor or tracker that prohibits them from getting downstairs and they need a ‘sleeping’ maidbot to get scanned to open the door? The details here will be worked out later.

In any case, they finally make it to the lower floors, which are a stark contrast to the above: undecorated concrete walls with pipes and girders, creepy hallways with fluorescent lights. It looks like part of some kind of industrial complex: the doors along the long hallways lead to workshops, testing labs, assembly lines, and very dismal-looking barracks. Worst of all, they find what appears to be a makeshift graveyard for employees who had died while working there. (Some lore exposition - since it was technically outside of any state’s jurisdiction Staanke was free to violate as many labor laws as he wanted. This is where Dashiell says “ugh this is like Operation Paperclip all over again” as he weighs the potential benefits against the bad PR.) Johnny’s being-watched sixth sense starts tingling, he catches glimpses of what will turn out to be Primavera, the secret fourth maidbot.

The things they see on their exploration are definitive proof that the maidbots were lying (note to self: give them definitive proof that the maidbots were lying). Their time-window for exploring closes and they have to go back upstairs. There’s a window of time where they have to wait for their next opportunity, and it leads to some tense moments where everyone has to act like normal while they wonder if the maidbots know what they did, and wonder what else the maidbots were lying or withholding information about.

(missing step goes here)

Aki confronts them in private, saying she knows what they did. Rina fights her and wins, Victor begs her not to permanently damage Aki and to just hit her manual shutoff switch instead, which she begrudgingly does. While she’s ‘knocked out,’ Dr. Rongmao wants to take the chance to do some digging into Aki’s memories. She puts on a headset visualizer thing (foreshadow this earlier, people play VR with it but it can also be used for fancy-dancy software stuff) and goes in. A few minutes later she stops talking and her hands start to twitch. Johnny’s like “okay I’m going in there,” grabs another headset and hops in. He finds Dr. Rongmao’s avatar frantically dashing back and forth, stuck in an endless busy-box loop - “put the red tab in the red slot to open the door, now put the blue tab in the blue slot, now etc.” He gets her to snap out of it and stop playing the game by its own rules. They smash the console with all the tabs and slots and the door suddenly opens, revealing another glimpse of Primavera before everything turns to static and Johnny and Dr. Rongmao get booted out of the visualizer thing. They’re both like “huh that was weird.”

(missing step goes here)

Then it’s Summer’s turn for the same treatment - maybe she tries to confront the gang, or maybe they get another opportunity while the maidbots are recharging. In any case, they do the visualizer thing again, Johnny and Dr. Rongmao going in together.

Right after that we get a sequence where Johnny appears to wake up from a dream, and now he’s in an idyllic life with his beautiful wife (either Lilith or Rongmao, ahh damn, it’s hitting all the beats for Johnny and Dr. Rongmao to have a romance isn’t it) and his two perfect children. They go out for brunch at El Huevo Vagabondo, which is now a squeaky-clean tile-floored diner instead of a hole in the wall. The waitress is a beautiful blonde gal named Summer. Everything is seemingly perfect but slightly ‘off.’ Johnny realizes he’s somehow been pulled into a VR simulation, at which point Summer snaps. She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him, screaming that he’s “ruining it” and “why can’t you just be happy? Don’t you want to be happy?”

Summer ‘wakes up,’ but refuses to move, slumping against the wall with an empty-eyed smile and not responding to anything. Aki barges in and demands to know what they were doing. When she sees Summer slumped over, she runs over and grabs her and starts crying, saying they “did the same thing” to her, generally making it clear that the gang has unintentionally done some mind horror stuff to both of them. Everyone has different reactions to this realization, Johnny starts to think to himself that it was justified, but he hears Dashiell talk about how he definitely thinks it was justified and everyone else needs to grow up and act like an adult, and Johnny finally realizes that he’s sick of agreeing with the corporate ghoul, no matter the reason, and vows that he’s going to help the maidbots.

(so they’ll need some chance to do something to try and make amends w/ the maidbots. Also Summer comes back online a bit later and continually insists that it’s fine and nothing happened.)

Act III

(missing step goes here)

The gang pieces things together - Staanke was deep in the hole with his GLN investors. His massive labor violations and flagrant disregard for existing AI regulation had gotten him as far as making a couple of working prototypes of a new AI system that, rather than being tailor-made to a certain narrow purpose, could be ‘seeded’ with certain ideas and events the same way that adults are influenced by their childhood experiences. He soon got carried away, and saw the potential to replace the ‘failures’ of his flesh-and-blood children with advanced robots who would possess all the autonomy and faculties of a real person while also being unquestioningly devoted to him. (We definitely need to find a letter where Staanke denounces Victor specifically, where Victor working as a “mere techie” is treated as a severe targeted insult to Staanke.) Those robots were, of course, the maidbots, and living with Staanke and their hard-coded devotion to him made them turn into metaphors for different adaptations to having abusive parents: Summer putting on a false smile, Aki keeping herself distracted and dissociated through constant work, and Zima withdrawing from everyone.

Primavera, though, was different.

(missing reason why they meet Primavera at around this time goes here)

The internal conflict between her hard-coded devotion to Staanke and the cruelty she saw with her own eyes broke her programming and essentially made her gain sentience. She saw an opportunity to arrange an ‘accident’ for Staanke, something like a faulty ladder or exposed wire. But before the accident happened, Staanke was in a bad mood and told the maidbots not to disturb him for any reason, so when the accident happens and he gets injured, he starts calling for help but the maidbots (besides Primavera) are too scared to go against his instructions, and Staanke dies.

Primavera tells them all this, and then says she knows that she’ll probably be deactivated or killed or whatever you would call it but she’s ready for it because sentience is awful and she doesn’t know how everyone else deals with it. Victor - who cares for the maidbots, since he can relate a lot to what they went through - finally pulls rank and embraces his status as Staanke’s heir, now that Staanke is dead he will take responsibility for the maidbots and what they’ve done. Dashiell warns him that he’ll get into a lot of trouble for it, but Victor insists. Primavera finally opens the blast doors, and everyone is finally able to leave.

There’s a brief epilogue - Sunny reappears during the debriefing, Johnny goes home with his promised stacks of cash, and he visits Lilith again, talking to her with a more open mind this time. It’s unclear what will happen with the maidbots, but Johnny is helping Victor with legal research pro bono.

THE END