12 hours and one database back in Toronto restore later. ( if this doesn't make sense check the previous chapter )
"Do you know where RK is?" said #DEC impatient to get on with the interview and switching the word processor on. She wanted to begin the interview precisely on time.
"I don't know he's been running around doing something with this Russian guy" said Reb.
"While we are waiting I just wanted to ask you. What was with the whole L'Oréal announcement in chapter 53. I've been quite enjoying the stuff the extra radiation shielding of it gives me a nice warm non glow. What's the story behind it?" asked #DEC warming.
"Oh that was RK. L'Oréal rejected him the whole 'we are surprised any people fall for it' was a direct quote from the head of marketing during the phone call where they poured cold water on the whole product placement in a book thing. Like the other lot said to him last time, the problem is that girls who read books don't buy enough make up. I told him he should aim for something they actually do or use" said Reb.
"What like more books?" said Villeria coldly.
"I said that to RK but he feels if you start having books within books the whole thing becomes a recursive nightmare. I think he had a bad experience while watching Inception" said Reb then she added firmly " and if you have any other thoughts about our readers Villeria I would advise you to keep them to your self."
There was an awkward silence.
Valeria raised her hand. "I can feel a terrific darkness in the wifi" she said.
Reb raised her eyebrow, turned to her side the pen shot across the room into her hand but no one else noticed.
The door bell to room 404 went.
"Let me get that Mistress. It's probably RK arriving late for the interview" said #DEC getting up. Before Reb could say anything #DEC was at the door and waved her hand to unlock it.
"Sorry I'm late." said RK walking in. Reb hid the pen.
Behind RK was a older man, he was also wearing black but he had a long pony tail with flecks of white in the hair in the side.
"Can I introduce Dr Sheep Dalton" said RK.
"RK do you have to hang out with your hacker characters on set" said Reb.
"He not a character he's real" said RK.
"Hi I'm a lecturer in computing at the Open University" said Dr Sheep.
#DEC ordered a new mobile chair in for Dr Sheep.
"Oh a Dr Sheep really?" said Reb while RK sat down next to her.
"I think Sheep is his hacker name" RK Whispered to Reb " I'm told the longer the pony tail the further into you computer they can hack"
"You know I can hear you," said Dr Sheep.
"Hear that? I he can hear what we are thinking? What a hack" said RK.
"No I'm in the same room as you, room 404, cute, is it ever found?" said Sheep.
"I guess with a hacker handle like Sheep you must have done some wild hacking exploits, what was it CIA? NSA ? NASA?" said RK.
"I don't hack into things. I'm a computer scientist. I teach computing at the Open University" said Sheep confused.
"Sure" said RK in a 'I so don't believe you' way. Clearly he was like Indian Jones using his academic credentials as cover for being an uncatchable hacker. "This Open University you work for sounds really ominous," said Reb.
"It's a University in the UK. Everyone has heard of us we used to be television" said Sheep.
"Oh so you are a character on a fictional and now canceled UK TV program. I'm sorry we don't do fan fiction" said Reb confused.
"No, No Google us. We are a real university, we used to have lectures on the TV now we do it over the internet. I'm a real lecturer" said Dr Sheep.
RK googled furiously on his phone.
RK turned to Reb and whispers "Shut TFU. I've googled 'sheep dalton' he is as real as you are, he's written academic papers and everything and don't irritate him, not if you don't want to wake up with no money in your bank account and your entire life history eased"
"I told you, I can hear you talk, and I'm not a hacker" said Dr Sheep.
"So Professor Sheep" Reb began "what do you what?"
"Well I'm studying design fiction - the use of science fiction mostly as a way of exploring new technology. I work in the area of human computer interaction, we make computers easy and simpler to use. Currently scientists like my self are interested in how we can collaborate with science fiction authors to explore various ways people understand technology. I was hoping we could collaborate to create some research findings about how people understand the next generation of technology."
Reb turned to RK "Are you sure he's real ? He monologs like a cyborg"
"We've been watching cyborg's pet for some time. I think it's a wonderful medium to explore technological ideas" said Sheep.
"How long?" said RK
"August, Josh Tanenbaum put me on to you," said Sheep.
RK paused and scrunched his nose. He then pulled out his phone and started looking at wattpad. "Crap! I thought that name looked familiar Josh Tanenbaum was one of our earliest followers - we even dedicated a chapter to him. The scientists have been on to us from the start" said RK..
"Google Josh Tanenbaum and design fiction" said Sheep.
There was a cold period of silence "OMG he is even on the wikipedia article for design fiction" RK began "they've been ... they've been on to us from the beginning WTF."
"Scientists? Scientists have been watching our book ? Why" said Reb almost in disbelief.
"Well you know your intelligent red carpet in Stellavista" said Dr Sheep.
"Sure" said Reb.
"I built one. Google sheep dalton taptiles" said Sheep.
Villeria looked it up "He did!" she said.
Reb started laughing "Ha - there was you thinking you had invented it! Not only did he come up with it first he built one! It's the make up printer all over again" she said to RK. "Tell me you build a killer robot" she added. "No, I don't do killer robots, but I built an intelligent wineshop in the lab once. Google 'sheep dalton popup wine shop' that was done by one of my more gifted PHD students. You went into the shop and each bottle had a little light beneath it. When you went in the lights showed you which was the popular wine. When you picked a bottle up the colours changed to show 'people who bought this wine bought that wine'"
"Like Amazon, your kidding!" said Reb.
#DEC brought large tablet over and googled the pictures Sheep was talking about.
"This is so cool we so have to get this into cyborg's pet" said RK.
"How?" Reb started "we have the ending and everything."
"I don't care I want one - how about in cyborg's daughter?" said RK
"That's teen/young adult fiction" Reb said.
"I don't care, they had a bar in star wars we can do a wineshop" said RK almost gloating.
"So apart from causing plot problems for me what do you want Professor Sheep" said Reb.
"Dr Sheep. Well I wanted to use some of your public data to analyze and publish a paper about" said Sheep.
"Let me get this right you want to publish a paper about I'm a Cyborg's pet a badly spelt book which doesn't even exist in print" said Reb.
"Yes" said Dr. Sheep.
There was silence.
"Scientists publish this kind of stuff?" said Villeria.
Dr Sheep looked over.
"Sure google 'chi robot overlords ACM Kirman' you should get 'CHI and the Future Robot Enslavement of Humankind; A Retrospective'" said Dr Sheep.
"OK my brain has finally melted - what's the point why are you doing this?" said Reb.
"Look we went to a lot of trouble building a physical wine shop with some mini artificial intelligence in it. Then we test it on people are we get people saying I liked this I didn't like that. Now you do that in your book and it takes a week not a year and you have lots more people from around the world saying stuff about it."
"Right" said RK.
Dr Sheep continued "Look imagine your about the spend lots of money developing Google glass. You know those spectacle things. So you before you start work you write some SciFi about them. People read the SciFi and they talk about invasion of privacy and so on. So before you build it you get feed back from people saying this wouldn't work or that sounds pretty cool. If they had done that with Google glass they would have worked out it was pretty no hope of an idea and not wasted a huge about of money on it"
"Well people have been saying how they would like to have one of the slave collars" said RK.
"That's precisely what I want to write the paper about" said Sheep.
"Huh. I guess that makes sense. Except for people liking the slave collars." said Reb.
"We will do it if we can be authors on your paper" said RK.
"What?" said Reb.
RK Lent over "think about it, we will be in print like proper authors".
"ohhh nice" said Reb then turned to Dr Sheep. "What he said" she added.
"Sure" said Sheep shrugging his shoulders.
Reb sat there and lent over to RK "That was easy perhaps we should have asked for more"
"When will this paper come out?" asked RK.
Dr Sheep shrugged "Well I will aim it CHI the conference on human interaction so May but the paper has to be accepted it might not, each one is scrutinised in detail and if it doesn't come up to the highest of international standards it will be rejected, but there is a condition."
"You want our first born. I knew it" said Reb.
"No, No your not allowed to tell anybody about the scientific observation until the paper is accepted. This would invalidate our scientific findings. People must behave normally."
"Why won't they behave normally if we told them?" said RK
"Have you read Coming of Age in Samoa by American anthropologist Margaret Mead?" said Dr Sheep.
"No I'm waiting for the movie" said Reb.
"In 1920s or so Margaret Mead goes to on the island of Ta'u in Samoan Islands and talks to whole bunch of young girls about growing up in the indigenous culture there"
"and.."
"Well she's interviewing a whole but of teenage girls so they have a big laugh and feed her this complete lie. She believes this whole hoax, goes home writes this international best seller. The whole world is Rickrolled into the lie. Vast numbers of people around the world believe the joke these teenage girls tell her. Takes 50 years for Derek Freeman to find out it's a complete joke. So yes scientists are very careful what a whole bunch of teenage girls say, IF they think they think there is a gullible scientist on the end of the line."
It did ring true Reb's first reaction to a gullible scientist would be the same.
"OK we don't tell anyone. You write paper about us...the book" said RK keen to cut to a deal.
"And one more thing could we throw in some technology like a futuristic shoe shop. See how people respond?" Dr Sheep said.
RK looked at Reb and nodded "may be."
"OK I have go off and go to a meeting then teach a class. It's been good talking to you. Nice place you have here. I know someone who does robotic buildings you should talk to" said Dr sheep fading out.
"Think he's gone?" said Reb.
RK Looked around "I'm not sure. If he could hack into the house wifi in reality then surely he could do so in fiction.
"You should have been more careful about what we look like when he meets you" said Villeria.
Reb looked at Villeria.
"A bit of dirt on your clothes here, something there, he will work out who you are, what your password is" said added "he probably knows enough to log in as you already."
Reb screwed her face up.
"You want to let him write about our book?" said Reb to RK.
"He could already, it's in the public domain anyone with a wattpad ID can read comments. He was just being polite, plus it was a Wattpad first - who else has got bunch of scientists writing about their book?"
"That is pretty cool" said Reb.
"Plus scientists will read the paper then read the book" RK added.
"Also pretty cool" said Villeria sarcastically.
"hmm" said Reb.
"Look the whole idea of the book was to raise awareness of robots being given weapons and taking over." said RK who was clearly sold on the idea." The world is neck deep in zombie apocalypses, the whole point of pet was to get people going about something which could actually happen? Getting written up in a scientific what did he called it CHI ? Getting published in a CHI is a super cool way of spreading the word. Plus he feeds us ideas about digital wine shops and stuff, what's not to like."
"It's a pain we can't tell the readers about this. " said Reb.
"They will when the paper is published. I'm sure they will find it super cool to know they have helped scientists design the technology of tomorrow" RK flipped back.
Reb sat back, uncertain.
"You know chapter 80 something were Jenny and Loop get captured in a town run by robots. I think I've just had a funnier idea. How about very cyborg sheep" she said.
"Why not unicorns?" said RK
"Yes - Unicorns, cyborg horses with an antenna coming from their heads, and cyborg sheep. Very dangerous cyborg sheep. The sort you don't want to mess with." said Reb.
"We can keep them for the ending too." RK shot back.
"Zombies, Ballet and Unicorns genius" said Reb.
"Hay what about my interview ?" said Villeria.
"Your interview can drop dead" said RK to a disappointed Villeria "can't you see we are writing!"
"RK We need a town on the east coast, somewhere taken over by the machines." said Reb to RK.
RK turned to #DEC. "Call the pod bay tell them we need an Osprey to take us to the East coast. I have a town to invent. Remember now we are writing for science!"
***
A/N this chapter is relatively true - we did meet a scientist, his name is Sheep ( no we didn't ask why). We did skype with him. We did promise not to say and we didn't see any harm only because he could have done all this without our help. Every Google works the way we said it did. You can see what he wrote here http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/26100/
On an unrelated note Dr Sheep wasn't the first people to use wattpad for science follow this link. https://www.inverse.com/article/12308-reading-helps-a-i-learn-to-predict-human-reactions
These are diffrent guys.