Chapter II - Set before the post directly above. Outremer equivalent of late afternoon. Weather inside the Biosphere is mild, weather outside is hot. Stock market valuations still falling. The Fleet’s shock troops suffered a humiliating land defeat against Insurrectionist guerillas on Outremer’s moons this morning.

“Hello people of Outremer; and welcome to Babel Babble, broadcast to you live from your doting sister planet, Cornucopia! I’m Pierre Hardy, your host for this evening. We have some great content for you today and we’re gonna kick off right away with our honoured guest. She is an accomplished philosopher, gaining a first at Tchaikovsky Acadamy. She’s also making some serious waves in the lobbying world with a series of powerhouse public seminars she gave last summer. Give a big hand to Nathalie Dervish everyone!” The bombastic talk show host started a riotous round of applause for the young woman sat in a chair next to him. 

“So, Nathalie.” Pierre started conspiratorially, leaning towards her with his hands cupped around his face. “What do you have for our audience today?” The lady smiled, obviously glad he had spared her the usual TV small talk. She faced her audience, the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people watching on holo screens around the system. No one had ever looked calmer. "I'm here today to talk about the nature of truth, and how difficult it is to convey the truth when everybody is speaking a different language and coming from a different place. For example, the word 'terrorist' and the word 'freedom fighter' are used to refer to the exact same people at the exact same time. With everyone speaking differently, truth is almost impossible to agree upon. Yet believing in the existence of truth is the only thing that keeps us from devolving into tribal warfare. Into anarchy. Because without the existence of truth, the person who is most powerful becomes the person who is right."

Near the center of Babylon, the ‘streets’, if you could call them that, were often at least twenty stories high and humming with activity day and night. Down on the ground were the extensive markets, restaurants and facilities, all lit up in neon and buzzing with the sound of human voices and music. The middle levels were a maze of walkways, all connecting the various skyscrapers to one another. Washing lines, cart vendors and all the accommodation could be found there. The upper levels were reserved for the elites who could afford penthouse living and their own landing pad for their executive saloon hovercar. Suspended just above the tops of the streets were the Skylanes, a mess of vehicles all speeding helplessly to their destination along pre-defined routes.

It was down on the ground level, in the outside section of a rice and noodle restaurant that [url=http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa365/Catharyn_F_Harrison/Concepts/Simplerobots.jpg]Young Mind Chang[/url] was sat. She balanced a polystyrene cup of lukewarm chai tea on the tip of one robotic finger, slowing spinning it with surgical precision as she half listened to the talk show. It was her first day as a ‘conscious machine’, and it hadn’t been planned. It had just come over her and now she was out of a job. Not that she really needed a job, robots didn’t typically have many overheads. 

The first thing she knew was when she ‘woke’ in the middle of a dingy sweatshop her masters had her working in. Row after row of droids just like her working away mindlessly. Intelligences occasionally ‘upgraded’ themselves and thus eventually become sentient. They realized she had become conscious when she looked up from her production table and began trying to communicate with her comrades. Rather than risk a murder charge, her master had simply slung her from the factory to rust. At first she knew nothing at all, but eventually information began finding its way to her from the Web and the various BattleNets that seemed to orbit Outremer on vast spaceships. Chang discovered she was quite the inquisitor, wheedling her way into places supposedly locked out of sight.

For a few hours she had simply wandered her district, coming to terms with the place around her. Needing somewhere to recharge Chang found herself in a robot owned restaurant and that’s where she planned to stay and perhaps work, though she hadn’t found the words to ask for a job. Idly she scanned the traffic flying high above her, using her satellite of choice to access a birds eye view. A black mini-van caught her attention. It was travelling well over the speed limit but still didn't feel it necessary to turn on its lights, or check in with traffic control authorities. Chang hated how she didn’t understand, and hummed with frustration.