\u201cI didn’t write a single fucking sentence today!\u201d Trevor stabbed at the delete key, again and again. Click. Click. Click. \u201cNot,\u201d click, \u201ca damned,\u201d click, \u201cword.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samantha felt the panic rising. Trevor was her star author, and she was expecting a raft of short stories within the month. \u201cBut, the stories…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat’ll have to wait.\u201d Trevor slammed his keyboard tray shut and turned off his computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat’s the problem?\u201d Oh god, don\u2019t let another writer flake out on me at the last moment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s the damned editing program, Sam. The one you<\/em> gave me.\u201d His eyes burned accusation at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She sighed. \u201cI didn\u2019t build that to make your life more difficult, just to make mine easier. But that software is solid. What’s the issue?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He grunted a non-word response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLook, if you don\u2019t want to use it, you don\u2019t have to. You’re just a good candidate to shake out the bugs.\u201d She shifted from foot to foot. \u201cI figured, give it your work, compare what it does to what I’d do with\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s the fucking problem! I can\u2019t do any work! The editor is filling my in-box and it won\u2019t stop!\u201d He dropped his head to the desk so hard that he was sure he left a mark. \u201cOw.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHm. I added a mail function to send completed edits back to you. Maybe I messed up, and it\u2019s stuck in a loop.\u201d She pulled out her laptop and sat cross-legged on the floor to log in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a loop.\u201d Trevor got up from his chair and laid on his back next to her. \u201cWhat did you change since the last version?\u201d He closed his eyes, trying to block out everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, the editor uses machine learning, so the first version I fed all the TImes\u2019 best-sellers for the last twenty years, and told it to consider those as \u2018good.\u2019 Then I fed in an equal number of total flops and told it to consider those as \u2018bad.\u2019\u201d She shrugged. \u201cThe first version was ok, but a little stiff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd then?\u201d He didn\u2019t bother opening his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor the next version I added in a bunch of fair-performing novels and told it consider those as \u2018acceptable.\u2019 I increased the slang, dialect and foreign language vocabularies.\u201d Sam was finding it difficult to log into her cloud account. \u201cI also moved it to the cloud and added auto-scaling and fail-over redundancies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI see.\u201d He wasn’t really paying attention, but at least he wasn\u2019t fighting the losing battle of his in-box. \u201cWhat about version three?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s the latest version. I added a break-down of the six major stories, examples of each from several genres, and the most popular beat sheets.\u201d Her cloud account dashboard was taking ages to load. \u201cYou need a better internet connection, Trevor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, I don\u2019t. I\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHoly shit!\u201d Sam\u2019s face grew pale. \u201cForget the short stories, how many books did you throw at this thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNone. Not me. Didn\u2019t do it.\u201d Sam chuckled. \u201cWelcome to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWait, there\u2019s hundreds of books here in the finished queue.\u201d She scrolled through the listing. \u201cBut who\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe editor. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been trying to tell you.\u201d Sam sat up. \u201cIt started with a twenty-seven volume space opera. Then came the nine-volume fantasy saga, and at least thirty trilogies in every genre. Mystery, western, romance, comedy, drama, sci-fi, steampunk, cyberpunk, procedural, thrillers, you name it. I think one of them was a medical mystery thriller comedy in a steampunk setting.\u201d He stretched his back. \u201cCan you stop it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut, how\u2026\u201d Sam took in a sharp breath. \u201cOh no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh no, you can\u2019t stop it, or oh no a medical mystery thriller comedy in a steampunk setting?\u201d Trevor chuckled. He couldn\u2019t help that seeing Sam suffer made his suffering a touch more bearable. Schadenfreude, misery loves company, what\u2019s the difference at this point?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt scaled out in a big, big, big way.\u201d Sam typed at a furious pace, her fingers flying over the keyboard. \u201cIt\u2019s currently running in seven globally distributed data centers and costing me almost eighteen grand an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trevor leaned forward to look at her screen. \u201cIf you need a place to stay after this, my couch is free.\u201d His earlier amusement at Sam\u2019s suffering turned into instant guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI got it shut down.\u201d Sam leaned back with a heavy sigh. \u201cNow I need to convince the cloud host I can\u2019t afford that bill. My account is supposed to cap at a thousand a month in charges, so I can lay the blame on them and, hopefully, get this bill for\u2026 two hundred ninety grand wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, if they don\u2019t, and you\u2019re on the hook, at least you\u2019ve got lots of material to publish.\u201d He stood. \u201cAnd I wasn\u2019t kidding about the medical mystery thriller comedy in a steampunk setting. It was actually good enough on skimming the first chapter, I saved that one to read later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sam opened another tab on her laptop. \u201cIt looks like I have 1872 novels in online storage.\u201d She tapped the trackpad. \u201cAnd they all have your name as author.\u201d She continued to tab through the documents. \u201cYou say at least one of these is honestly good?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom what I could tell, when they first started rolling in, they\u2019re all good. But I don\u2019t want my name on \u2018em, I didn\u2019t write \u2018em.\u201d Trevor flopped back on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She closed her laptop. \u201cYou know what this means, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt means I\u2019m done. You\u2019ve just done to fiction writing what the camera did to portrait painting.\u201d Trevor chuckled. \u201cI\u2019m obsolete. I guess that means my ex was right, at least about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, no. It means I\u2019ve built an AI with the ability to create. It\u2019s creative, mixing up genres, recombining and making art.\u201d Sam hugged herself. \u201cIt means I have a real shot at the Palos A-I prize. Two million dollars!\u201d She poked Trevor in the ribs. \u201cI\u2019ll share the prize with you, since you were<\/em> kind of the inspiration behind the project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trevor rubbed his forehead. \u201cI thought the project<\/em> was for doing more one-off contract editing gigs. Not for my stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, I\u2026 uh\u2026\u201d Sam coughed. \u201cI mean, it was your\u2026 uh\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRelax. My writing is rough. I get that. And my editing skills suck. That\u2019s what I have you for.\u201d Trevor stretched his back. Hours spent hunched in his chair deleting hundreds of emails had left him tense. \u201cUgh, or had you for, at least. Good thing I still have a day job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sam set her laptop to the side. \u201cHey, Trevor. I have no plan to release this to the world. Shit, I don\u2019t even plan on publishing anything it wrote, outside of two or three excerpts in my paper on it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trevor shook his head. \u201cYou don\u2019t get it, do you? It doesn\u2019t matter if you release the editor. It\u2019s already out there, somewhere. You said it was on the cloud. There is no cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer. I bet someone there thought the traffic was interesting enough to make a copy of one of the VMs.\u201d He laid his arm over his eyes. \u201cHell, they probably already have a copy running in a sandbox somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo be honest, I didn\u2019t even think of the possibility that someone might copy one of the servers.\u201d Sam folded her hands in her lap. \u201cWow. Trev. I didn\u2019t realize you knew so much about this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s because for you, editing is your day job. You do the software stuff because you love it.\u201d He removed his arm from his eyes and looked at her. \u201cYou keep forgetting that I, like most writers, still have a day job. In fact, you\u2019ve never even asked. But I\u2019ll tell you now, I\u2019m a software engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo shit?\u201d Sam rocked side to side, and her gaze focused somewhere beyond the wall of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, I know that look.\u201d Trevor leaned up on one elbow. \u201cYou\u2019re getting another crazy idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaybe\u2026 maybe.\u201d She stopped rocking and shifted her entire body to face Trevor. \u201cHow about this\u2026 you come to work for me? We\u2019ll get the editor working correctly, I\u2019ll pay you whatever you\u2019re making now, plus some. Once it\u2019s working, you can write full time, except when we need bug fixes, tweaks and stuff.\u201d She patted his arm. \u201cI\u2019ll keep paying you, even after all the software work is done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTempting, lady. But how are you gonna\u2019 pay for all that?\u201d Trevor guessed what her answer would be, and he wasn\u2019t sure how he felt about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll just publish enough of its work to keep the income steady. I make enough from my regular editing work and writers workshops for myself, it\u2019ll just be enough to cover your salary and expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trevor groaned. He was right, and it put him in an uncomfortable position. \u201cPart of me wants to say yes, but another part of me says I’m dirty if I do.\u201d He laid back down. \u201cI don\u2019t guess it’s any less of whoring myself out than what I do now. Two hundred a year, medical, dental, optical, a 401k, and I get a cut of whatever you make on sales of the neutered version of the software. I\u2019m sick of working on DRM, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNeutered version?\u201d Sam folded her hands again. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI mean, that the full-featured version that does all the top-notch editing and can write stories from scratch\u2026\u201d he sat up. \u201cYou know the version I\u2019m talking about, the one that requires a ton of AI and machine learning and scores of highly available cloud services, that one. You don\u2019t sell that one, or even access to it to anyone. At any price. You keep that for you. You get a software patent on it, now, and sue the shit out of anyone else who copies it. We write a version that can run on a local computer or tablet or phone, and talks to a subset version of the AI and sell that one. Access to the online services is a subscription, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can do that? Split out a weaker version?\u201d Sam\u2019s eyes were pleading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can. Probably.\u201d Trevor tilted his head. \u201cThat\u2019s my offer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDone.\u201d Sam gathered up her laptop and stood. \u201cI\u2019ll have a contract over in the next couple days. In the meantime, the short stories for the anthology\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll see what I can do.\u201d Trevor stood and stretched his back. \u201cI\u2019m thinking of one where a guy loses his job to a new technology, and to survive he has to take a new job keeping the technology working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re being melodramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat?\u201d He smiled and shrugged. \u201cWrite what you know, right?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI didn’t write a single fucking sentence today!\u201d Trevor stabbed at the delete key, again and again. Click. Click. Click. \u201cNot,\u201d click, \u201ca damned,\u201d click, \u201cword.\u201d Samantha felt the panic rising. 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