Version Shock

[Nik]

The breakdown of a care-bot has unexpected consequences...
---
'Version Shock' is a genuine 'wake grabbing for note-book' tale. It interrupted my work on a mildly weird fantasy, derailed research on my next Convention story, begged to be told.

I've completed it, but I'm still polishing. Each reading picks up one-last-typo. Today, I caught an unfortunate phrasing...

Here's the intro...
---

Version Shock.

I suppose it all began when Mark didn't wake up. I tried the reset twice, but he did not respond.
"D'uh..."
I switched to Plan_B. Using TwoE, I unplugged the wheel-chair's charger, drove out of the hutch in the workroom, reached and pressed Mark's hardware reset.
"Come on, Mark. Time to wake up."
He sat, unmoving. I pivotted the chair, peered at the diagnostics. Nothing.
"D'uh..."

I'd been dreading this day. There was only one thing to do-- Call the Service Contract.
"International Androids, Mary speaking ! How may I help you ?"
"Hi, my name's Sam O'Brien." My speech rasped, "My Mark Six is flat-line, won't boot."
"No problem, Mr O'Brien ! We'll have help out to you within an hour !"
It had been a while since I'd answered the door as TwoE, but Joe, the smart, young repairman, was too professional to flinch at my sickly appearance.
"Morning, Mr O'Brien ! Which way, please ? Thank you... Oh, that's not looking good." He plugged a diagnostics cable into Mark's navel, poked at his PDA, shook his head, "I'm sorry, I can't do anything here."
"Ah..."

"I'll just phone the office and schedule it. Hi ! Yes, I'm on site. Not good. Can't be sure without full strip-down, but needs a main-board at least. Mark 6. Yes, a Mark 6. Yes, a genuine, original Mark 6-A. Not a Clone. Oh. Oh. Could you explain it ?" He turned his PDA to me.
"Hello, Mr O'Brien ! I'm Art Morgan, UK Service Manager. I'm sorry, we have a problem. There's no replacement main boards for the Mark 6 series. None. Nada. Zilch. Storm damage at the US depot. An F5 hit. We've nothing left prior to Series 8, and that's not back-compatible."
"Service Contract." I grated.
"Yes, Mr O'Brien, I am cognisant of our obligations. We are urgently developing plug-compatible boards. Unfortunately, the first are still several months from beta-testing, so no help to you. However, there are alternatives. May I conference our Technical Department ?"

"Hello, Mr O'Brien ! Pete from Technical... Look, this may sound silly, but we can emulate the Mark Six on a Fourteen."
I puzzled, "I thought you were up to Series 12 ?"
"Beta testing. The Mark 6 was such a stable platform. Also, many people still prefer the Mark 6's limited interaction. Less distracting. Lower bandwidth."
"I like my Mark 6. The neighbours know him. He does my shopping and gardening."
"We can upload the speech formants, but... Um..." Pete swivelled the web-cam to his pretty young assistant, a casually dressed brunette, "Henry, would you explain ?"
"Hello, Mr O'Brien !" She was a liqueur-smooth soprano, "This is a Mark Fourteen."
"Huh ?"
The assistant turned on her heel, curtsied nimbly. The web-cam tracked beyond her to a large, hairy man wriggling on a VR couch. He lifted an arm. The assistant matched him. He twiddled fingers. The assistant matched him, then met my gaze with bright blue eyes.
"Sorry..." The formants and lip-synch were perfect, beyond 'Uncanny Valley', "Fourteen-X only comes in 'cute'."

"You don't look surprised, Mr O'Brien..." Pete wondered.
For reply, I reached down, pulled up my sweat-shirt hem.
"But-- But that's a Mark 2 !" Repairman Joe gasped, "You're-- Oh. He's Mark's back-up ?"
I nodded, "TwoE's chair-bound now. I use him for sick-room and emergencies, but I need Mark's strength and range."
"Ah, Mr O'Brien ?" Pete was waving, "Fourteen can handle that, and more. Fuel cells have shrunk, servos are more powerful. Watch."
The Fourteen stooped, grabbed him to a Fireman's Lift, carried him around the room, landed him gently.
"I'm impressed."
"Look, I know this is unexpected, but would you like to test-drive the Fourteen ? We've a second 14-X prototype. A week would give us a chance to assess your Mark 6. There's a fair chance we could retro-fit a Mk 14 board. It would be worth trying anyway, and there's still a bunch of 6B, C, D and E models in utility applications where a Fourteen would be, um, inappropriate."

I gulped. I thought it through aloud, "I-- I don't get out. Mark's my public face. Few visitors see TwoE. There's no way I can just, uh, appear as that Mark Fourteen."
"That's fair, Mr O'Brien." Art Morgan nodded, "But I think I can help you. My niece Jaine is a cybernetics student, with us for her industry placement. She needs a project."
"Chaperone ?"
"If you will..."
"D'uh..."
"Hold on, I've located her." The screen split again.
"Hello ?" Bright blue eyes, a soprano voice as smooth as expensive liqueur, "Hello ?"
"Jaine, we've Mr O'Brien on conference. His Mark 6-A flat-lined--"
"You want to try the 14-X2 under emulation ? You'll need some help." She eased back from the lens. A young, pretty, casually dressed brunette, she gave me a big hit of deja vu, nodded, "As IA based the Fourteen's features on mine, and I wrote a big chunk of the code, I'd say I was the logical candidate !"

"I-- I can see the familial relationship." I agreed.
She grinned. Then her grin froze. She peered at me. Her eyes went wide, "That-- That's gotta be an early Mark 2 ! Wow ! O'Brien ? O'Brien ! Of course ! Gosh ! You were the first in UK to tele-operate your own carer-bot ! Wow !"
"Uh..."
"Mr O'Brien, it would be an honour to work with you-- When may I start ?"
"I-- I--"
"Don't worry, I've got a sleeping bag and three brothers."
"I-- Ah, TwoE can keep me going for five or six days. I do have cooking facilities and a guest-room with en-suite. There's only Formula in fridge and freezer, so you must bring your own food."
"Sounds good to me !"
"We'll need a few days to switch the 14-X2 from the engineering test configuration." Pete reported, "There's safety protocols and a bunch of telemetry patches..."
"So, Mr O'Brien ?" Art Morgan asked, "Will you give it a go ?"
"D'uh..." I'd been cornered, "For a week, while you assess my Mark 6."
"A week, then."

[MistingWolf]

Very interesting, and the title is epic. Made me have to look. Now my complaints.

The word "D'uh" sounds.... well, not so smart. I personally don't know anyone who says d'uh when they're frustrated or confused. In the first instance, I would suggest "Ugh...." In the second, maybe he just growls and mutters to himself. As for the third, a good old "Uhh....." would suit. The next thing is to slow down a little and give a bit of description. What is Mark Six? Is this a droid? I'm assuming it is, since it has a navel and runs errands. But maybe tell us a bit more. What does it look like? Dark, or light hair? Tall, short? Medium build or lanky? And next, what in the world is a TwoE? Please explain! I got utterly confused. And the next thing. I have a preference that, when using smaller numbers, I write them out. It looks better as text than to have all these rogue numbers jumping in, and odder still when it's a mix. And no abbreviations on your Mk 6's. It looks very strange and distracts. I had to pause. "Wait, what? Is that an abbreviation?" One other thing. Please, no spaces between a word and an exclamation mark or question mark. No underscore for Plan B. "Mr O'Brien" should be either "Mr. O'Brien" or "Mister O'Brien." Wheelchair does not have a hyphen. Main board doesn't need one either, nor does web cam, sweatshirt, sickroom, or guestroom. During the conversations, give us a slight break between dialogue. Maybe he has to shift into a more comfortable position because his foot fell asleep or something. Shake his head because he doesn't want to give up his beloved Mark Six. Something, but we need a breather between all the talking.

[Nik]

I say "D'uh."
It covers a multitude of unprintable expressions, and circumstances with cascading consequences that may escalate to disaster...

Hyphenation's a zoo, with enough 'regional variations' to drive a pedant to drink.
On Hyphenation - Anarchy of Pedantry
Hyphen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hint: WallE / Wall-E / Wall.E

Okay, the Mr/Mr. is my bad. I'll go fix it. And, perhaps, rationalise some of those 6/sixes...

That space between word and ! or ? is for the benefit of my steadily weakening, middle-aged eyes. If I find a more-legibly kerned, low-overhead Notepad font, something that doesn't scr@w my vision despite 12-point, I'll re-consider.
Kerning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Um, gotta go zap family meals: Will be back later...

[Nik]

Had time to read reply in detail. There's several fair points.

My numbering convention is inconsistent.
IA tech-folk think alpha-numeric rather than words, but then they don't. Sam considers his IA 'bots as 'Mark(6)' and 'TwoE' except when he doesn't. Needs fixing...

And, yes, there's several places where an extra word or two would significantly clarify the tale. What does Mark look like ? Anonymous ? TwoE ? Sickly of face, but...

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point about the conversations. IMHO, there are no grinding monologues, while sentences are short enough to breathe, include hesitations and exclamations...

Um, you have not yet met Sam. You may have heard his words, but not his voice. Few do.

Whatever, thank you for feedback. I wrote this tale in a mad rush to get it out of my system. I was blind to the bugs.
{FX: Grabs swatter...}

[Nik]

I suppose it all began when Mark didn't wake up. I tried the reset twice, but he did not respond.
"D'uh..."
I switched to Plan B. Whatever Mark's problem, TwoE was working. I linked, unplugged the wheel-chair's charger, drove out of the hutch in the workroom, reached and pressed Mark's hardware reset.
"Come on, Mark. Time to wake up."
He sat, unmoving. I pivotted the chair, peered at the diagnostics. Nothing. Nothing at all. Awake, Mark was a forgettable Everyman in baggy sweats. His Series' brown hair, brown eyes, soft smile and gentle voice formants had bridged 'Uncanny Valley'. Now, he was just an expensive mannequin.
"D'uh..."

I'd been dreading this day. There was only one thing to do-- Call the Service Contract.
"International Androids, Mary speaking ! How may I help you ?"
"Hi, my name's Sam O'Brien." My phone-synth grumbled, "My Mark Six is flat-line, won't boot."
"No problem, Mr. O'Brien ! We'll have help out to you within an hour !"
It had been a while since I'd answered the door as TwoE, but Joe, the smart, young repairman, was too professional to flinch at 'my' sickly appearance, too busy to look further.
"Morning, Mr. O'Brien ! Which way, please ? Thank you... Oh, that's not looking good." He plugged a diagnostics cable into Mark's navel, poked at his PDA, shook his head, "I'm sorry, I can't do anything here."
"Ah..."

"I'll just phone the office and schedule it. Hi ! Yes, I'm on site. Not good. Can't be sure without full strip-down, but needs a main board at least. Mark Six. Yes, a Mark Six. Yes, a genuine, original Mark Six-A. Not a Clone. Oh. Oh. Could you explain it ?" He turned his PDA to me.
"Hello, Mr. O'Brien ! I'm Art Morgan, UK Service Manager. I'm sorry, we have a problem. There's no replacement main boards for the Mark Six series. None. Nada. Zilch. Storm damage at the US depot. An F5 hit. We've nothing left prior to Series Eight, and that's not back-compatible."
"Service Contract." I grated.
"Yes, Mr O'Brien, I am cognisant of our obligations. We are urgently developing plug-compatible boards. Unfortunately, the first are still several months from beta-testing, so no help to you. However, there are alternatives. May I conference our Technical Department ?"

"Hello, Mr O'Brien ! Pete from Technical... Look, this may sound silly, but we can emulate the Mark Six on a Fourteen."
I puzzled, "I thought you were up to Series Twelve ?"
"Beta testing. The Mark Six was such a stable platform. Also, many people still prefer the Mark Six's limited interaction. Less distracting. Lower bandwidth."
"I like my Mark Six. The neighbours know him. He does my shopping and gardening."
"We can upload the speech formants, but... Um..." Pete swivelled the web-cam to his pretty young assistant, a casually dressed brunette, "Henry, would you explain ?"
"Hello, Mr. O'Brien !" She was a liqueur-smooth soprano, "This is a Mark Fourteen."
"Huh ?"
The assistant turned on her heel, curtsied nimbly. The web-cam tracked beyond her to a large, hairy man wriggling on a Full-VR couch. He lifted an arm. The assistant matched him. He twiddled fingers. The assistant matched him, then met my gaze with bright blue eyes.
"Sorry..." The formants and lip-synch were perfect, beyond 'Uncanny Valley', "Fourteen-X only comes in 'cute'."

"You don't look surprised, Mr. O'Brien..." Pete wondered.
For reply, I reached down, pulled up my sweat-shirt hem.
"But-- But that's a Mark Two !" Repairman Joe gasped, "You're-- Oh. He's Mark Six's back-up ?"
I nodded, "TwoE's chair-bound now. I use him for sick-room and emergencies, but I need Mark's strength and range."
"Ah, Mr. O'Brien ?" Pete was waving, "Fourteen can handle that, and more. Fuel cells have shrunk, servos are more powerful. Watch."
The Fourteen stooped, grabbed him to a Fireman's Lift, carried him around the room, landed him gently.
"I'm impressed."
"Look, I know this is unexpected, but would you like to test-drive the Fourteen ? We've a second Fourteen-X prototype. A week would give us a chance to assess your Mark Six. There's a fair chance we could retro-fit a Mark Fourteen board. It would be worth trying anyway, and there's still a bunch of Six-B, C, D and E models in utility applications where a Fourteen would be, um, inappropriate."

I gulped. I thought it through aloud, "I-- I don't get out. Mark's my public face. Few visitors see TwoE. There's no way I can just, uh, appear as that Mark Fourteen."
"That's fair, Mr. O'Brien." Art Morgan nodded, "But I think I can help you. My niece Jaine is a cybernetics student, with us for her industry placement. She needs a project."
"Chaperone ?"
"If you will..."
"D'uh..."
"Hold on, I've located her." The screen split again.
"Hello ?" Bright blue eyes, a soprano voice as smooth as expensive liqueur, "Hello ?"
"Jaine, we've Mr. O'Brien on conference. His Mark Six-A flat-lined--"
"You want to try the Fourteen-X2 under emulation ? You'll need some help." She eased back from the lens. A young, pretty, casually dressed brunette, she gave me a big hit of deja vu, nodded, "As IA based the Fourteen's features on mine, and I wrote most of the code, I'd say I was the logical candidate !"

"I-- I can see the familial relationship." I agreed.
She grinned. Then her grin froze. She peered at me. Her eyes went wide, "That-- That's gotta be an early Mark Two ! Wow ! O'Brien ? O'Brien ! Of course ! Gosh ! You were the first in UK to tele-operate your own Carer-Bot ! Wow !"
"Uh..."
"Mr. O'Brien, it would be an honour to work with you-- When may I start ?"
"I-- I--"
"Don't worry, I've got a sleeping bag and three brothers."
"I-- Ah, TwoE can keep me going for five or six days." I worked through the logistics issues, "I do have cooking facilities and a guest-room with en-suite. There's only Formula in fridge and freezer, so you must bring your own food."
"Sounds good to me !"
"We'll need a few days to switch the Fourteen-X2 from the engineering test configuration." Pete reported, "There's safety protocols and a bunch of telemetry patches..."
"So, Mr. O'Brien ?" Art Morgan asked, "Will you give it a go ?"
"D'uh..." I'd been cornered, "For a week, while you assess my Mark Six."
"A week, then."
---

So, folks, how did this read ??

[zaelyel]

Erm somehow I liked the original story better with its numbers; it adds a more futuristic feel to it. There are already many new things that the reader has to take in, and unlike MistingWolf, I felt the physical descriptions could have waited.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Please, if you want people to read this, could you read our formatting guidelines and put a blank line between paragraphs? The way you have everything crowded together makes it difficult to follow.

I think some of the mistakes that Misting Wolf pointed out are the difference between British and American usages -- like the period after Mr. On an international forum like this one, these things come up.

However, I'm finding your (apparent) scene breaks inexplicable. I think those, like the running together of your paragraphs, may be the result of losing the formatting of your original document when you posted it here. But do read the guidelines and follow them.

[Nik]

Sorry, it may be an artifact of my old browser, but the blank-line paragraph breaks in the forum match those in my plain-text original.

FWIW, I use Notepad, and turn off word-wrap before copy/pasting.

I'm not sure what else I can do...

Um, I count seven (7) paragraphs in this intro.
Should there be more ?
Or less ??

[Teresa Edgerton]

There should be a new paragraph at least every time a new person speaks. In a long speech by a single character there might be paragraph breaks, too, but that doesn't come up here.

You can see this in any work of fiction you have on your shelf, although the indents (which you can't do here) make it less obvious than the spaces between that we have to do in place of indents.

What you call seven paragraphs come across as scene breaks, because you've lumped all your other paragraphs together.

All you need to do here is a simple copy/paste, and then put in the spaces between paragraphs manually. But before that, you need to learn how to write proper paragraphs in the first place.

You also (I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but these are pretty basic writing skills) need to learn how to punctuate dialogue, and figure out which words actually constitute dialogue tags and which describe actions or body language that accompany dialogue. For instance, you do not "nod" or "wave" a sentence. In what you have written above, you do these things the wrong way more often than you do them right. It's almost as if you've got them backwards, but your mistakes aren't consistent enough for that.

[MistingWolf]

I liked it better, thank you. And it makes a bit more sense now, though I'm still confused as to what/who TwoE is. And yes, I am in America, going by how our publishers would have edited it. Sorry if I sounded mean or anything.

[Nik]

"basic writing skills"
Okay, I've grossly misunderstood the formatting guidelines. My apologies. If you'd prefer I deleted this critique submission, please say and it is gone.
---

Hmmm, this could account for why I flunked EngLang, EngLit, French & Latin, despite --Or perhaps 'due' ??-- reading more fiction than my teachers dared believe. Everything from Sherlock Holmes to Homer, via Kipling, Wells, Chesterton, Forester and almost anything SciFi. An average page taking a sweep of sacccades, perhaps 10 secs if really, really data-dense, so an average paper-back an hour before my eyes slowed in 'middle-age'. Haven't *read* non-fiction words, lines, paragraphs etc since pre-teen, just watched the instant movie...
D'uh...

Hastily checking my recent bookshelf, I can see 'standard rules' are a historical legacy designed to make teeny-tiny 8 & 10 pt serif fonts legible.

Hence the 'new-and-half' line spacing for new-speaker paragraph to distinguish from single-spaced 'flowed text', and 'double' spacing for scene-breaks, which latter I've mis-called paragraphs. Yes, I have just checked the definition.
{FX: Ouch...}

Unfortunately, those rules don't help legibility when you're working in well-kerned 12 or 14 pt sans-serif. Worse, when using a plain-text editor such as Notepad or forum default, double-spacing dialogue and triple-spacing scenes bloats a document into aerogel...

D'uh...

I'll re-post intro per these rules, then crawl off and hide my aching head under an ice-pack...

[Nik]

I suppose it all began when Mark didn't wake up. I tried the reset twice, but he did not respond.

"D'uh..." I switched to Plan B. Whatever Mark's problem, TwoE was working. I linked, unplugged the wheel-chair's charger, drove out of the hutch in the workroom, reached and pressed Mark's hardware reset. "Come on, Mark. Time to wake up."

He sat, unmoving. I pivotted the chair, peered at the diagnostics. Nothing. Nothing at all. Awake, Mark was a forgettable Everyman in baggy sweats. His Series' brown hair, brown eyes, soft smile and gentle voice formants had bridged 'Uncanny Valley'. Now, he was just an expensive mannequin.
"D'uh..."

I'd been dreading this day. There was only one thing to do-- Call the Service Contract.

"International Androids, Mary speaking ! How may I help you ?"

"Hi, my name's Sam O'Brien." My phone-synth grumbled, "My Mark Six is flat-line, won't boot."

"No problem, Mr. O'Brien ! We'll have help out to you within an hour !"

It had been a while since I'd answered the door as TwoE, but Joe, the smart, young repairman, was too professional to flinch at 'my' sickly appearance, too busy to look further.

"Morning, Mr. O'Brien ! Which way, please ? Thank you... Oh, that's not looking good." He plugged a diagnostics cable into Mark's navel, poked at his PDA, shook his head, "I'm sorry, I can't do anything here."

"Ah..."

"I'll just phone the office and schedule it. Hi ! Yes, I'm on site. Not good. Can't be sure without full strip-down, but needs a main board at least. Mark Six. Yes, a Mark Six. Yes, a genuine, original Mark Six-A. Not a Clone. Oh. Oh. Could you explain it ?" He turned his PDA to me.

"Hello, Mr. O'Brien ! I'm Art Morgan, UK Service Manager. I'm sorry, we have a problem. There's no replacement main boards for the Mark Six series. None. Nada. Zilch. Storm damage at the US depot. An F5 hit. We've nothing left prior to Series Eight, and that's not back-compatible."

"Service Contract." I grated.
"Yes, Mr O'Brien, I am cognisant of our obligations. We are urgently developing plug-compatible boards. Unfortunately, the first are still several months from beta-testing, so no help to you. However, there are alternatives. May I conference our Technical Department ?"

"Hello, Mr O'Brien ! Pete from Technical... Look, this may sound silly, but we can emulate the Mark Six on a Fourteen."

I puzzled, "I thought you were up to Series Twelve ?"

"Beta testing. The Mark Six was such a stable platform. Also, many people still prefer the Mark Six's limited interaction. Less distracting. Lower bandwidth."

"I like my Mark Six. The neighbours know him. He does my shopping and gardening."

"We can upload the speech formants, but... Um..." Pete swivelled the web-cam to his pretty young assistant, a casually dressed brunette, "Henry, would you explain ?"

"Hello, Mr. O'Brien !" She was a liqueur-smooth soprano, "This is a Mark Fourteen."

"Huh ?"

The assistant turned on her heel, curtsied nimbly. The web-cam tracked beyond her to a large, hairy man wriggling on a Full-VR couch. He lifted an arm. The assistant matched him. He twiddled fingers. The assistant matched him, then met my gaze with bright blue eyes.

"Sorry..." The formants and lip-synch were perfect, beyond 'Uncanny Valley', "Fourteen-X only comes in 'cute'."

"You don't look surprised, Mr. O'Brien..." Pete wondered.

For reply, I reached down, pulled up my sweat-shirt hem.

"But-- But that's a Mark Two !" Repairman Joe gasped, "You're-- Oh. He's Mark Six's back-up ?"
I nodded, "TwoE's chair-bound now. I use him for sick-room and emergencies, but I need Mark's strength and range."

"Ah, Mr. O'Brien ?" Pete was waving, "Fourteen can handle that, and more. Fuel cells have shrunk, servos are more powerful. Watch."

The Fourteen stooped, grabbed him to a Fireman's Lift, carried him around the room, landed him gently.

"I'm impressed."

"Look, I know this is unexpected, but would you like to test-drive the Fourteen ? We've a second Fourteen-X prototype. A week would give us a chance to assess your Mark Six. There's a fair chance we could retro-fit a Mark Fourteen board. It would be worth trying anyway, and there's still a bunch of Six-B, C, D and E models in utility applications where a Fourteen would be, um, inappropriate."

I gulped. I thought it through aloud, "I-- I don't get out. Mark's my public face. Few visitors see TwoE. There's no way I can just, uh, appear as that Mark Fourteen."

"That's fair, Mr. O'Brien." Art Morgan nodded, "But I think I can help you. My niece Jaine is a cybernetics student, with us for her industry placement. She needs a project."

"Chaperone ?"

"If you will..."

"D'uh..."

"Hold on, I've located her." The screen split again.

"Hello ?" Bright blue eyes, a soprano voice as smooth as expensive liqueur, "Hello ?"

"Jaine, we've Mr. O'Brien on conference. His Mark Six-A flat-lined--"

"You want to try the Fourteen-X2 under emulation ? You'll need some help." She eased back from the lens. A young, pretty, casually dressed brunette, she gave me a big hit of deja vu, nodded, "As IA based the Fourteen's features on mine, and I wrote most of the code, I'd say I was the logical candidate !"

"I-- I can see the familial relationship." I agreed.

She grinned. Then her grin froze. She peered at me. Her eyes went wide, "That-- That's gotta be an early Mark Two ! Wow ! O'Brien ? O'Brien ! Of course ! Gosh ! You were the first in UK to tele-operate your own Carer-Bot ! Wow !"

"Uh..."

"Mr. O'Brien, it would be an honour to work with you-- When may I start ?"

"I-- I--"

"Don't worry, I've got a sleeping bag and three brothers."

"I-- Ah, TwoE can keep me going for five or six days." I worked through the logistics issues, "I do have cooking facilities and a guest-room with en-suite. There's only Formula in fridge and freezer, so you must bring your own food."

"Sounds good to me !"

"We'll need a few days to switch the Fourteen-X2 from the engineering test configuration." Pete reported, "There's safety protocols and a bunch of telemetry patches..."

"So, Mr. O'Brien ?" Art Morgan asked, "Will you give it a go ?"

"D'uh..." I'd been cornered, "For a week, while you assess my Mark Six."

"A week, then."
---
???

[Boneman]

Hi Nik,

I've been reading the various versions and this one is the best so far, on the eye, so I read it all the way through. It's a great premise, and I like the style you've now settled on. I'd probably tell you to go easy on the strong cheeses before bed, but that has obviously awoken a muse from a deep slumber, so stick with it!

I can't actually see any grammatical problems, (Just spotted one! see below...) or nitpicking small mistakes, but can I just say I'm very confused at to what is actually going on? Not the failure of the carer robot, and the attempts to fix him, but to the character of O'Brien himself. It's probably that I'm quite thick and have missed something, so for god's sake point me in the right direction, and I'll stop hassling you with idiotic comments...

Now,

TwoE was working. I linked,

I kinda get the idea that O'Brien is elsewhere, from this comment, and he's using TwoE to do what he wants. Fine, but then whenever you use the first person form of 'I', I naturally think of O'Brien himself, even though I am assuming he's not yet been seen in the flesh, and we're only hearing his narration. For instance:

For reply, I reached down, pulled up my sweat-shirt hem.

Only it's not 'my sweat -shirt' it's TwoE's isn't it? I had a picture of a dreadful scar that put O'Brien into an awful coma/state of vegetation, and then I realised it was just so that TwoE could be shown to be a mark two. But I had to read it a few times before I got it. As I say, I'm being quite thick, but I think it might help (me anyway) if that read: For reply, I reached down, pulled up TwoE's sweat-shirt hem.

And then:

"Hello, Mr. O'Brien !" She was a liqueur-smooth soprano, "This is a Mark Fourteen."

I looked to see where the mark fourteen was... probably better if she says: "Hello, Mr. O'Brien !" She was a liqueur-smooth soprano, "I'm a Mark Fourteen." BTW, there should be a full stop after soprano.

And my biggest confusion, which I'm afraid made me skip the whole paragraph was this:

"Look, I know this is unexpected, but would you like to test-drive the Fourteen ? We've a second Fourteen-X prototype. A week would give us a chance to assess your Mark Six. There's a fair chance we could retro-fit a Mark Fourteen board. It would be worth trying anyway, and there's still a bunch of Six-B, C, D and E models in utility applications where a Fourteen would be, um, inappropriate."

I just cannot keep up with the numbers, sorry. In fact, I don't want to. And adding the X to the fourteen model and then the B, C, D made me want to skip to the next bit of action. I was going to suggest that perhaps the androids could be labelled in Roman numerals I, II, III, IV and so on, but XIV-X just wouldn't work... I appreciate you're trying to give us a picture of an efficient technological salesman, but there's too much irrelevant information in there. And TwoE is too close to R2D2 for my liking. Would IIE be better? No, but Mark IIe might? I really think you could leave out the alphabetical additions and not lose anything in the writing. Or use greek, so he'd have a Mark IV alpha, or a Mark IVά.

It's just that I'm drowning in numbers that are spelled...

But I like the idea of the story, and I'm quite intrigued, it has legs and could develop nicely.

[chrispenycate]

You don't need my region of expertise, but I will say that I followed the entire story, without any difficulty and being given the information I needed ('Oh, it's not him in the wheel chair, he's totally paralysed and hasn't got rid of the old model when the new was delivered…'), when I needed it and not before, so it was a surprise.

The thing that upset me is something you did deliberately; used exactly the same descriptive terms for the advance waldo – um 'teleoperated humaniform robot? – and the girl. A feeling of deja lusent my eyes flashing up the page to make sure I wasn't reading the same phrase again, desuspending the disbelief, and I don't imagine this will be a common reaction.

[Nik]

I'm glad you found it more readable in places.

I suppose IA's convention is eg Mark 14-X for 'Experimental' then, when production gets going, 14-A, 14-B, 14-C....

Hence Sam's 'Mark' is a genuine Mark 6-A. And his 'early uptaker' Mark 2 is a Two-E, so familiarly called per Joey, Bluey, Wall-E etc...

I must re-consider MistingWolf's suggestion about spelling most of the numbers. I can't relate to much numerical info presented thus, either...

After trying several ways, calling a bot 'Mark 14-X1' to disambiguate, or 'Fourteen' to distinguish from flat-line 'Mark (6)' or the now-chairbound 'Two-E' does seem to work. Which, funnily enough, is almost where we came in...

A point about the time-line: If Sam was an 'Early Uptaker' with that Mark 2-E, and the sequence is up to Mark 14, he's been bossing his 'bots for a long, long time. Prolonged tool-use extends the mental boundaries of self. Immersion in VR will shade it further. When Sam's linking TwoE, he is literally TwoE-- Electric wheelchair, baggy sweats, and that un-attractive, sickly face that the repair-guy politely ignored. Sam's being very precise when he pulls up his hem, or says Mark is his public face...

Um, the rest of the tale is a romp but, at ~12000, a tad too long to post here. Besides, given the issues with this brief intro...
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Chrispenycate, that deja-vu is very deliberate, and drives the plot.