About Ruth

Ruth woke up early
so that she would have time
to do the evil

she had been planning,
before she had to go
and take the schoolbus;

went to the bedroom,
put the cyberdragon
underneath her coat,

took it out the door
into the back garden
where the tulips grow,

in the pouring rain,
so that it would be ruined
so that its velvet

dress would be soaked through,
so that its red leather
boots would be soaked through,

so that its fine hat
of lace would be soaked through,
and its lace gloves too,

so that it would stand
out in the rain all day,
in the cold gray rain.

Ruth hates the creature,
hates the cyberdragon
that her parents love

more than they love Ruth.
Ruth knows she will be whipped,
and Ruth doesn't care.

Thank you for all your kind, and very interesting, comments in response to "For Jedella, With My Very Best Regards." I just want to mention a couple of things here.

Michael Farris raised the question of why the human beings in this fictional universe bond with the cyberdragons, saying, "To understand the stories, I accept the hold that cyberdragons have over the humans that .... bond(?) with them. But there still seem to be missing elements on just how that bonding (or whatever it is) happens. I don't know if you've worked that out yet or are just as in the dark as I am..."

And then houseboatonstyx mentioned the gecko animation in the Geico commercials, which made me think of how crazy I am about that little gecko -- I am for sure bonded with that little gecko -- and the contrast between that reaction on my part and the creeped-out way I react to Golem in "The Return of the King."

If you've read the earlier posts in this fictional universe, you'll remember that the cyberdragon/human bonding phenomenon was an accident; the company that made the cyberdragons had intended them to be toys for children, and was taken by surprise. ["We had a dozen of the dragons in an observation room, and we brought in a dozen adults, and what happened next was beyond belief. We'd told them that the dragons were kids' toys, of course. Standard procedure. But in oh, two minutes flat, every single adult in the room was either sitting there with a dragon in their lap or walking around the room holding a dragon's front paw the way they would have walked around holding a child's hand. With big happy smiles on their faces. We'd never seen anything like it. And we sure as hell couldn't have predicted it."]

The company immediately made some modifications. ["We went back and made them softer, and lighter, and more ... more cuddly. And of course we re-did their front paws to make them exactly like a little child's hands."] That paw makeover, it seems to me, was a stroke of genius. There's something about the way a tiny child's hand, offered trustingly and without hesitation, feels to an adult human that -- at least for me -- has a very strong appeal. And the company would have known to make modifications that would trigger the standard human hard-wired reactions: the small round head; the big round eyes with the long silky eyelashes; the slightly-pouty rosebud mouth; and the irresistible little soft voice. And the programming that guaranteed impeccable Good Behavior, always. All those things, it seems to me, would lead to bonding.

I know there is a subset of adult humans who are immune to these characteristics, and who find little kids icky at best, and even repulsive. But the majority of us -- fortunately for the survival of our species -- don't have that immunity. Whether, in this real nonfictional world -- we'd be likely to bond with cyberdragons and perhaps treat them more lovingly than we treat our biological children, I can't say. I can only say that I hope not.

For Jedella, With My Very Best Regards

I remember the day my mother brought Jedella home;
I remember all her friends hurrying to our house.
I remember my mother, drunk on power, allowing them
to pass Jedella along from lap to lap.
I remember how each of those women rushed away tight-lipped,
and I knew even then what they were so determined not to say:
"It's not fair! Damn it all, I'm the one who should have been first,
the first to have a cyberdragon of my own! It should have been me!"
I remember my mother letting each one of those women
parade one turn around our livingroom
holding Jedella's pretty little hand.
[That's how they're made, you know. With little hands, like the hands of a child,
on their two front legs.]
I remember it all.

I tried everything I could think of to break Jedella,
but I wasn't strong enough -- I was only five.
Today, my men -- the men of the Humankinders --
hold the cyberdragons high in the air
and pop out their four slender legs, one at a time,
from the cunning balljoints,
pop their pretty heads out of their slender throats,
while their owners stand there screaming.

And they call us terrorists.

Cyberdragons, let us all please remember, are machines,
no more alive than your coffeemaker or your stove.
They feel no pain. They feel no fear.
They have no emotions.

My parents were fond of me, yes. But they loved Jedella.
They left me home when they went out [with one exception],
and took Jedella with them in her designer outfits.
The exception? They took me along, in my store-bought dresses,
when they went to church.
Loving your human child ... that is a family value,
expected of human parents when at church.
My mother explained it to me, carefully:
"Darling Brecklyn, it would be wasted money
to buy you designer dresses. Only think...
you'd grow out of them.
Jedella will never grow out of hers. And that's why."

October 8, 2086

"Interview with Officer Grange Kollekney," conducted by CNN-Prime's Malcolm Ndebe
Burglary at cyberdragon warehouse nets 1183 dragons

CNN-Prime:
Officer Kollekney, this is a terrible thing -- a terrible thing! Could you just briefly tell our viewers what happened last night at the Cyberdragon, Inc. Warehouse?

Officer Kollekney:
Well... You know, the whole thing was just such a surprise. I mean, the warehouse had pretty good security, but nothing spectacular. You don't really expect to have to worry about people creepy enough ... filthy enough ... to break into the vaults and steal the retired dragons.

CNN-Prime:
You're right. The whole thing is just so ... stomach-turning. But could you set that aside for a minute and just give us an account of what happened?

Officer Kollekney:
Oh ... sure. I'm sorry. Let's see... There's not much to tell. The alarms went off at the warehouse about three o'clock this morning, and we thought it was just a fluke, you know? We sent one patrol to check. And when they got there they reported back that there'd been a real break-in and all 1183 vaults were empty. Every last one of them.

CNN-Prime:
Unbelievable! Amateurs or professionals?

Officer Kollekney:
Professionals. No question. Stupid professionals, but pros for sure.

CNN-Prime:
Officer Kollekney, it's possible that some of our international viewers don't understand what "retired" cyberdragons are. Maybe you could explain that, in just a few words?

Officer Kollekney:
Yeah, sure. When you buy a cyberdragon you sign a contract and you agree never to transfer the ownership of the dragon to anyone but a biological adult child of your own. Suppose you get tired of the dragon and want to turn it off; you have only two choices. You can just put it away in a closet or in your attic ... someplace like that ... or you can turn it in to Cyberdragon, Inc. and they'll store it in a vault for you; that's a "retired" dragon, and they'll retire its ID number too.

CNN-Prime:
Can you imagine such a thing as getting tired of your cyberdragon and wanting to turn it off?

Officer Kollekney:
No. I can't. And I don't know anybody else that can. But it does happen, because there were 1183 of them at the warehouse.

CNN-Prime:
And what happens now? Where, and how, do you start looking for 1183 stolen cyberdragons, Officer?

Officer Kollekney:
Hey. No problem.

CNN-Prime:
I beg your pardon?

Officer Kollekney:
Seriously -- no problem. Every single one of them is reporting its location to Cyberdragons, Inc., nonstop, right this minute; they're programmed to do that. All we have to do is go pick them up.

CNN-Prime:
I didn't know that! And obviously, neither did the creepos that stole them! So it's not as terrible as I thought!

Officer Kollekney:
Naah. The company doesn't spread the word around about that programming, because they don't want to spread any twisted ideas -- like stealing retired cyberdragons and starting up trade in "used" ones -- around. You know? But they know there are creepos out there; they planned ahead.

CNN-Prime:
Well, I feel a lot better, Officer Kollekney! Thank you for clearing all this up for me, and for our viewers.

Officer Kollekney:
Any time.

=======
[The earlier cyberdragon items in this journal are at:
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/421074.html
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/423028.html
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/467355.html
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/528214.html
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/528999.html ]

In a comment, dteleki -- after pointing out, accurately, that from the beginning the cyberdragons have also been referred to as "dragons" -- asked a number of hard questions. I'm going to try to answer them below...

1. Can cyberdragons talk?

Yes, but only in a limited sense. They're programmed with the sort of vocabulary an average three-year-old human child might have, and with a very simple basic grammar that's heavy on pragmatics and politeness. That grammar doesn't allow them to complain or whine or threaten or in any other way use language that adults might find annoying or unpleasant.


2. If they can, what are they able and willing to talk about...

They aren't able to initiate conversations themselves and talk "about" things. Their linguistic competence is for the most part an ability to respond approriately when spoken to.


3. ... and what mental age do they appear to display?

The target mental age is three years. Owners are going to project their own perceptions, certainly, and some owners may decide that their dragons display a mental age of at least four or five, but the figure would never go higher than that.


4. Do they develop or mature mentally? ("Eleven years" suggests either they don't, or it's very slow.)

I don't remember the source of the "eleven years" reference; I don't question it, I just don't remember when or where it came up. If I said in some post or response that they develop to a perceived age of eleven years, that was a careless error on my part, and yet another example of why an author should always go back and check before answering questions. A central pillar of the cyberdragon cultural phenomenon is that the dragons always remain tiny-child surrogates.


5. Can a purchaser select or custom-order a specific mental age, or a specific personality or personality type? Or is it just the luck of the draw?

It's just the luck of the draw. And that's a deliberate decision on the part of the manufacturer.


6/7. Can a dragon owner choose to annihilate the personality of a cyberdragon, and start over with a new personality inside the same cyberdragon body? Can multiple cyberdragon personalities be swapped in and out of a single cyberdragon body, with most of them remaining in storage until they're wanted again?

No. And the very idea of doing such things would strike the society in that fictional universe as horrifying and twisted and unnatural.

I think this is finished now, and I haven't made many changes. I've just added a new fifth and sixth stanza, and I've done some minor punctuation-tweaking...


Choosing

"It's time you had a child," his mother said,
"for me to hold and love. Before I'm dead."
"Now, Mother, don't start that again!" She winced
because his voice was so sharp. And then,
"Hush, dear," he murmured, and he smoothed her bed.

"One grandchild, son," she pleaded. "That's not much to ask!"
He shuddered. One child, yes. Then task after tiresome task
for at least twenty years. Or you could bask
in the joys of owning cyberdragons. Instead.
He made his face a careful courteous mask.

She knew what he was thinking; she always knew.
"Those things of yours -- those machines -- mean more to you
than your own mother does. And that is true."
He wondered what to do.

"Things," she called them. "Machines." His precious dears!
His Jason, and his Estella! He fought back tears.
They had been his pride and his joy eleven years.
Matched bronzes, they were, and he was well aware,
his friends and neighbors envied him and his wife that pair.
Children, he thought. Children brought endless work, and endless fears.

The cost of children went on and on and on. It grew
year after year, a bill that was always due,
a bill in money and strength, a bill in time,
draining the parents to emptiness. That, too, was true.

His mother would be able to send the children away.
Whenever she wearied of nuisance and of noise,
she could just send them home. As if they were toys.
As if, for her, they were cyberdragons. It wasn't fair.
She was crying now. He reached down and stroked her hair.

Cyberdragons never ate or drank or grew or ailed;
they had no bodily wastes and were always serene.
Their beautiful clothing always fit like the day it was bought,
and was always clean.
They remembered -- forever -- whatever they were taught.
And you could turn them off. Try that with a child!
If something failed, you ordered a replacement part,
to be promptly mailed.

Why, he wondered, would any sane human being choose
the burden of children, who could break and sicken and bruise,
who had to be given huge gifts of the goods of Earth?
How could children, even to carry on names, ever be worth
their enormous cost?
A couple who had a child was a couple lost.
Trapped for life in a web of intricate tiresome messes.
A cyberdragon, on the other hand, only blesses
the home where it dwells.

"Never!" he thought. "I will never have a child!"
But that's not something a courteous son ever tells
his mother.

Thank you for all your comments and responses, and for the very interesting and wide-ranging discussion. I need to do a bit of clarification here, and to answer a question....


ethesis commented:
"My assumption is that cyberdragons will do the dishes and clean the house for you, put out soothing rhythms that make it easier to feel calm and to sleep, and are interactive like a good puzzle game (cyberdragon tetris, etc.). They are also obviously collectibles with a hierarchy of rareness. ... But they would be caretakers for the elderly, always kind, always patient, always there."

That would make a very good science fiction story, but it doesn't fit in the fictional cyberdragon universe that I've been writing. My cyberdragons don't do any work, or any caretaking, of any kind. Like my own tiny Maltese terrier Sheba, they're ornamental and adorable. Unlike Sheba, they're programmed to provide an illusion of love and devotion that's seductive enough to evoke pampering behavior in their human owners, but it's only an illusion; Sheba does, I believe, really love her humans.


And anderyn wanted to know whether the cyberdragons are only for the wealthy. The answer to that question is no, because they can be purchased on an installment plan. However, the wealthier the owners are, the fancier the cyberdragon they'd be able to buy, obviously, and the more they'd be able to spend on its outfits and jewelry and furniture and all the rest of the "display" stuff.

The links to the cyberdragon stories (all in the format of fictional interviews) are at:
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/421074.html ,
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/423028.html , and
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/467355.html .

December 9, 2084
"Interview with Genneva Casterhazy Halldread," conducted by CNN-Prime's Malcolm Ndebe
Cyberdragon dismembered by Humankinder terrorists at charity ball while guests watch in horror

CNN-Prime:
Mrs. Halldread, let me begin by expressing CNN-Prime's deepest sympathy for you and for all the guests at the Crystal Ball who went through this terrible ordeal last night; our hearts go out to you.

Genneva Casterhazy Halldread:
Thank you, Malcolm.

CNN-Prime:
Could you -- I know it's hard -- could you just briefly tell our viewers what happened?

Halldread:
Well.... Last night was the Crystal Ball, at the Governor's Mansion...

CNN-Prime:
Yes. The annual charity ball for victims of Alstrina's Syndrome. One of the year's most glittering events! As I understand it, everything was going beautifully. And then something happened that has never happened before.

Halldread:
Yes. Everybody was there, and of course everybody had brought their cyberdragons with them for the occasion -- we always do that -- and we were all dancing and enjoying ourselves. The band was playing "Chestnuts Roasting By An Open Fire"... [Shudders.] I will never be able to listen to that song again... never!

CNN-Prime:
And then -- suddenly?

Halldread:
And then suddenly this gang of Humankinders -- this gang of terrorists, these men all in black, with black masks over their heads, jumped up on the stage and of course the band stopped playing... And one of the men....

CNN-Prime:
Yes, Mrs. Halldread?

Halldread:
He.... He had my favorite cyberdragon -- my little Evangeline, my darling little Evangeline -- and he was holding her up over his head and just laughing and laughing and shaking her in the air and... and he yelled at us to hand over the cashbox with all the money for the ball or he was going to.... He said, "Or I'm going to pull this little cyberdragon's legs off, one at a time!" And my husband ran -- he ran -- to the stage with the cashbox and gave it to him -- he didn't argue, I swear he didn't, he went right to that man, with the cashbox... And...

CNN-Prime:
Take your time, ma'am. Please.

Halldread:
And the man took the cashbox and he handed it to one of the others, and then -- Malcolm, then he went right ahead anyway... They all did, there were half a dozen of them... They held Evangeline there in front of us, where we could all see everything that happened, and... oh dear god in heaven.... Malcolm, they just pulled her apart. They pulled off all her legs, you cannot imagine what it was like to see that ... they pulled off her little tail ...

CNN-Prime:
And I understand that... that they pulled off her head.

Halldread:
[Sobbing] Yes! YES, they pulled off her head! And then they stood there on the stage laughing, Malcolm, and they sort of .... they played catch, you know? They threw the pieces of Evangeline to each other, threw them back and forth... while one of them went out the back door with the cashbox. And then they pointed their machine guns -- did I mention that they all had machine guns? -- they pointed their machine guns at us and they backed their way out of the ballroom ... and they took all the pieces of Evangeline with them, and oh god they could be doing anything to her and we don't have any way of knowing what they're doing to her and I can't stand it, I can't stand it, what they might be doing to her!

CNN-Prime:
Mrs. Halldread, I am so sorry -- but as a journalist, I have no choice, I have to ask you this question: Doesn't it help to know that because Evangeline is a robot she can't feel pain?

Halldread:
NO! NO, it doesn't help! We love her! She is precious to us! And I'm not sure she can't feel pain -- how can we be sure??

CNN-Prime:
Mrs. Halldread, you do know that Holdyn Callaweigh -- the CEO of Cyberdragon Inc., the company that built Evangeline -- was on the air before dawn this morning with a statement assuring us all, unequivocally, that their cyberdragons absolutely cannot feel pain or distress of any kind.

Halldread:
Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? ... And Malcolm, I have a question for you too, that I have to ask: What if you had to stand helplessly and watch while a gang of brutes tore one of your cyberdragons to pieces?

CNN-Prime:
It's an honest question; I'll give you an honest answer: I really do believe I would lose my mind. I believe I would go insane. I'm not as tough as you are, ma'am.

Halldread:
Malcolm, you have to understand, everybody needs to understand -- they didn't just take Evangeline when they left. They were all carrying cyberdragons under their arms. And they told us this was just the beginning. They told us... "Starting right now," they told us, "no cyberdragon is safe. We have cells everywhere, and we are going after every cyberdragon on this planet, and we're not stopping until we have destroyed them all, every last one of them!" Malcolm ... what are we going to DO?

CNN-Prime:
I understand that the Department of Homeland Security is in an emergency meeting right now, as we speak, and that--

Halldread:
Oh, THAT'S good! That's WONderful! It's in the hands of HOMEland SeCURity! Now that I know THAT, I know everything will be FINE! RIGHT? RIGHT? [Hysterical laughter.]

CNN-Prime:
[Clears throat.] We thank you, Mrs. Halldread, for being willing to talk to us at this difficult time. We appreciate it.



=====
[Note: The other interviews about the cyberdragons are at http://ozarque.livejournal.com/421074.html and at http://ozarque.livejournal.com/423028.html .]

November 7, 2081

"Interview with Holdyn Callaweigh," conducted by CNN-Prime's Malcolm Ndebe
Retiring CEO of Cyberdragon Inc. has a story to tell


CNN-Prime:
Mr. Callaweigh, what our viewers on "Business Parade" would be most interested in is the history of Cyberdragon Inc., if you're willing to share some of your memories with us now that you're retiring.

Holdyn Callaweigh:
Well, the whole thing was a complete surprise to us. When it started, we were a very succcessful toy company--

CNN-Prime:
Callaweigh Toys.

Callaweigh:
Yes. Not a very original name, but a very successful company. But of course after the cyberdragon thing happened, it wouldn't have made any business sense not to just go with that one product, and then we changed our name. [Laughs] To yet another not very original name, I'm afraid.

CNN-Prime:
So how did the "cyberdragon thing" get started?

Callaweigh:
You'll find this hard to believe, Malcolm .... but the original idea was that the dragons were toys for kids to ride on.

CNN-Prime:
[Pause] That's .... Actually, Mr. Callaweigh, I have to say that that's a bit shocking.

Callaweigh:
It's true, all the same. That was the original concept. And we'd made saddles for them, and bridles, and fancy saddle blankets, and for the top-of-the-line buyers we were planning to offer fancy little stables to put in the back yard. You know the kind of thing.

CNN-Prime:
But how on earth--

Callaweigh:
Well, it was the focus group, you see. We'd tried the cyberdragons on a group of kids, and they loved them; step two was to find out how parents would react, so we tried that. We had a dozen of the dragons in an observation room, and we brought in a dozen adults, and what happened next was beyond belief. We'd told them that the dragons were kids' toys, of course. Standard procedure. But in oh, two minutes flat, every single adult in the room was either sitting there with a dragon in their lap or walking around the room holding a dragon's front paw the way they would have walked around holding a child's hand. With big happy smiles on their faces. We'd never seen anything like it. And we sure as hell couldn't have predicted it.

CNN-Prime:
It just happened spontaneously like that? That's amazing!

Callaweigh:
The eggheads tell us that we had somehow managed to tap into the set of characteristics that turn on all the hardwired parenting instincts in most human beings. You know.... the round face, the big round eyes, the long eyelashes. That kind of thing.

CNN-Prime:
So what did your company do?

Callaweigh:
Hell, we weren't stupid; we went straight back and redesigned the whole project. We had made the dragons sturdy -- and muscular, you know, kind of hard -- so they could handle the wear and tear of having kids riding on them. We went back and made them softer, and lighter, and more ... more cuddly. And of course we re-did their front paws to make them exactly like a little child's hands. And we made little birth certificates for them... And they just took off. We didn't have to do a damn thing to promote them, Malcolm; we just put one ad on the comsets and from then on our only problem was producing enough of them to keep up with the demand. Three weeks into it, we had to set up a separate division just to handle the installment plan orders for people who couldn't afford them otherwise.

CNN-Prime:
And the rest is history!

Callaweigh:
And the rest is history.

August 11, 2083

"Interview with Jemalia St. Gareth," conducted by CNN-Prime's Malcolm Ndebe
Protests at cyberdragon springtime fashion show

CNN-Prime:
Were you surprised by the riot that disrupted your spring show this year, Jemalia?

Jemalia St. Gareth:
Well, in the first place I wouldn't call maybe fifty demonstrators a riot, Malcolm. And in the second place, I wouldn't agree that they "disrupted" my show; the fedrobots had them all nicely stunned and netted and hauled away in ten minutes flat. And in the third place -- to answer the legitimate part of your question -- no, I wasn't surprised. I was sorry, but not surprised.

CNN-Prime:
Sorry, but not surprised... Could you elaborate on that?

St. Gareth:
That group of demonstrators -- the Humankinders, I mean -- has genuinely good intentions; they mean well. They just don't understand the real world.

CNN-Prime:
You're talking about this crazy campaign of theirs for a federal law making it illegal to own more than one cyberdragon?

St. Gareth:
Yes. It's not just craziness, though -- it's ignorance. It's stupidity. They claim they're working to benefit humankind and preserve this world, and yet they're blind to the fact that the more dragons a family has the better it is for all of us, and for the planet. A family can have ten dragons, or twenty dragons .... dragons use almost no resources at all. Children, on the other hand, they have to have water and food and clothing--

CNN-Prime:
Hey, Jemalia -- dragons have to have clothes! Let's not forget that you make a very good living designing those clothes!

St. Gareth:
But dragons don't outgrow their clothes, Malcolm. You buy one of my outfits, you have something that will last you years and years. It's not like that with kids; you have to keep buying more and more clothes all the time. And dragons, unlike children, don't have to be educated, they don't get sick--

CNN-Prime:
They don't die.

St. Gareth:
Right. They don't die. As for laws that would tell people what they can buy with their own money -- that is not the American way! Say you have a blue dragon; you'll want a pair of blue ones. Or you'll want one in every color .... a bronze, a scarlet, a green, a white ... maybe whatever is the newest color. It's like any other collection; you always want just one more. You know! And that's good. Good for the country, good for the economy ... I mean, think about what it was like even thirty years ago -- families with two kids, sometimes three kids, and a dog or a cat... all eating and drinking and needing medical care... There's no way we could have gone on like that!

CNN-Prime:
Of course, we want to remind our viewers that a family does need to have one child, at some point. To carry on the family names.

St. Gareth:
Of course. At some point.

CNN-Prime:
My wife and I... We have triplets. Three bronzes; perfectly matched.

St. Gareth:
And you love them with all your heart. I can hear it in your voice, how you love them.

CNN-Prime:
Oh, god... We love them so much; neither of us had any idea we were going to love them so much...

St. Gareth:
I know just what you mean! It's incredible! But of course you don't love them as much as you will love your child when the time comes to have one of those.

CNN-Prime:
Oh -- of course not! When the time comes.