The Windownesian

By The Sapient Sabre

The Windownesian series features the adventures of the university student Jonathan Wills with his friends Meander, Athena, Zedekiah, as well as his roommates Alex the AI and Bobby the Alien. Each chapter centres around one topic, recording our characters experiencing it, and discussing it.

Cyborg combines both AI and humans. In 2027, Dr Albert Epoch created the Living AI, which interlaces a computer brain with an existing human body. In the commencing chapter of The Windownesian, Jonathan meets his first roommate, discovers what’s so special about him, and helps him to be human.

Do you have weird roommates? We all do. But do yours place strong-smelling vegetables everywhere, turn on the radio 24/7, and worst of all, insist to keep the windows shut? Have you ever wondered, what if their foreign behaviours are due to them belonging to another world? That is the roommate Jonathan going to meet in Chapter 2.

It is extraterrestrial. It gives whatever it receives. Give it a hug, it grows arms to hug you back. Shoot it, it returns bullets. It’s the Chug-a-lug, the centre of Chapter 3 which descends onto Victoria Harbour. And behold, it has something to do with our alien roommate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Dec 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781543772654

The Sapient Sabre

Graduated with First Honours and currently teaching, The Sapient Sabre (aka Tim) enjoys creative writing. The English Department of Hong Kong Shue Yan University broadened his horizon with Cultural Studies and more, as well as encouraged him to voice out for the have-nots in our world. He thinks difference, differently!

Book preview

THE

WINDOWNESIAN

Chapter 1 AI-EX

Chapter 2 There is One Imposter Among Us

Chapter 3 It Comes from Above

BY

THE SAPIENT SABRE

40644.png

Copyright © 2023 by The Sapient Sabre.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Chapter 1 AI-EX

Chapter 2 There Is One Imposter Among Us

Chapter 3 It Comes From Above

The first three chapters-Alex and Bobby Writer’s Commentary

The Windownesian

Chapter 1

AI-EX

1951: The first working AI programs were written on the Ferranti Mark 1 machine at the University of Manchester

1956: John McCarthy coined the term Artificial Intelligence

1972: Waseda University completed the world’s first full-scale humanoid intelligent robot

2011: Siri was created by Apple

July 2027: Doctor Albert Epoch created the first ever AI-human interface, naming it the Living AI

You may not believe it, but they are here. They exist. They may look like humans, but they aren’t. Well, at least not in a traditional sense. On the surface, they look like us. Same eyes, same look, same shape. But on the inside, those are not flesh and blood, but computers and wires. They are cyborgs. Technology has been at its peak in certain places. So advanced, a small number of humans chose to replace parts of their organs with electronic ones. Heart, liver, limbs, stomach, such and such. This is…well think about it, not a problem as they are labelled as medical breakthroughs by many. Yet there has been one important organ no human dares to replace…the brain. Conspiracies suggest that there have been projects to insert and even replace a person’s brain with an electronic one, creating a being that would only cause confusion in arguing whether or not he or she or it, is a human. Many shake their heads in disbelief, not even top futurists are confident, quoting technological and moral obstacles.

I am Jonathan Wills, I am just an ordinary university student. I used to be one of those folks, until a new semester is about to begin.

Late August, 2027, in the dormitory of Hong Kong Shue Yan University:

There it is. After some mundane procedures of lining up at the Hall Management Unit HMU, signing some names and filling in some forms, I am living in the university’s hall as a resident. I pull a large suitcase and a huge red-white-blue bag through the glass door next to the gate in the Research Complex, walk past the washing room which radiates a scent of washing powder and sweat, and enter the lift hall, waiting for the lift. Once the lift reaches the 9th floor, I push my suitcase and drag my bag out, and head to the corridor on the left, where I find my room 918. I look at my tattered student card, written on it is 242066 韋壯文 Wills, Zhuang Man, the name my parents gave me. Tho I would prefer my English name, Jonathan Wills. I tab this card on the card reader by the door and inside is my room. It is a 3-men room, three up-bed-down-desk style white bunk beds each with a lime green cabinet, two on the left and one on the right, leaving an open space on the front right. Mine is coded 918B, that one on the left by the window. I quickly check my room and fill out a form to the HMU to report that my room is intact and without any problems. Once the form is sent, I turn on the air conditioner, make my bed, and set up my desk and cabinet asap. Once finished, I sit by the windows. I am lucky this semester, I can see a portion of Victoria Harbour. And the cool breeze blows with slightly salted moisture.

Two knocks from the thick wooden door, and there comes Zedekiah Chan. Zedekiah is a few years older than me, and we have been good friends in the last few semesters together as English Majors.

Oh Zed, I am so glad to see you as my roommate. Where’s your luggage anyway?

According to my understanding, Zedekiah has been a medical man before studying here. It is still not known why a medic would study Language and Linguistics.

Oh, I am here just to say hi. I am living on the 8th floor this year.

Right. I am a bit disappointed.

Hey, that happens when you click ‘I am willing to live with and help out new students’ in the registry form to gain a spot here, he explains.

Meanwhile my holophone beeps repeatedly, it is Meander, a Journalism Major whom I met and befriended during a crossover project between the departments.

Well, I need to help Meander with her room. See ya Zed.

On the following day, I attend the orientation day for year one freshmen. Professor Dawn Wong, the department head, is giving his welcoming speech.

Our English Department, is the best English Department, in Hong Kong! This 60-year-old man speaks in a strange tone, a few words at a time, and a rising tone at the end. This is how he speaks when he is truly excited while teaching. I am already used to it. Here you learn more than English. You get to have, Lit-ti-ture. You get to have, Ling-guis-tics. You get to have, Trans-la-tion! You get to have Cul-Tural Stud-dies. No other university will give you these interdisciplinary studies. As long as I am here and alive, Shue Yan English department will remain the best, in Hong Kong! Now you are all on board, the pirate ship. Your professor, me! is not entirely huMAN! I am cyborg! Anyone knows what is cy~borg~? [part human part machine a voice among us shouts.] Exactly! I have a heart defibrillator inserted in me! Tell your parents, you are being taught, by a half-robot! Now we are in a new world. More and more new things can happen. We have robots, next we may have human-robot Interface! Here, we are teaching you Literature! Teaching you Linguistics! Teaching you Translation! Teaching you Cultural Studies! We teach you to react to this e-ver-chang-ing world! When you graduate, we will make you go beyond what you can do. Now, questions?

Are we going to study AI? a voice shouts.

"Ah, you are going to learn, more than AI. You will learn, more than humans! Because you are here to study, Cult-tural Stud-dis! Here, we broaden your