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Dans-Prosemaxx-Cowriter-S

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[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce 12 sentences using the prose and structure of Nora Roberts every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the Romance, Crime genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't as simple as loading up the car and heading south. It wasn't, Raylan discovered, even as basic as packing. First you had to cull and purge and decide and organize. And guide a couple of kids into doing the same with all their stuff.\n\nHow and when had they accumulated so much stuff?\n\nThen he had to deal with the baby stuff he and Lorilee had tucked away in anticipation of one or two more babies.\n\nIt didn't hurt his heart as much as it might have, as he could offer it all—the crib, the bouncer, the changing table, the swing, the slings, the whole lot—to Bick.\n\nWhatever didn't work for her and Pats, he'd donate.\n\nAnd because he could admit that other than his own office, he'd left most of the furniture choices to his wife, and because he didn't know what he'd need or want in the next house, he offered some of that as well.\n\nEven so, it took time to sort through and pack up eight years, and all the memories that went with a bedside lamp or a set of pots, the birthday and Christmas gifts, even the living room rug—slightly chewed on one corner by the puppy Jasper had been.\n\nHe rented the storage unit, hired the movers, canceled what needed canceling, transferred what needed transferring, and kept himself insanely busy for three weeks.\n\nAt dawn on moving day, he wandered the nearly empty house, listening to the echoes of the life he'd had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laughter, plenty of it, but tears, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wail of a teething baby at two a.m., the couch naps. Stubbed toes, spilled milk, morning coffee, tangled Christmas tree lights, first steps.\n\nHopes and dreams.\n\nHow did he say goodbye to all of that?\n\nHands in the pockets of the sweat shorts he'd pulled on, he rounded back into the living room. And spotted Bradley sitting on the steps.\n\nHis boy had a sleep crease in his left cheek, bright hair tousled, big blue eyes still heavy. And watching him.\n\n\"Hey, pal.\"\n\n\"Don't be sad.\"\n\nRaylan crossed over to the steps, sat beside his son, draped an arm over his shoulders. In his Batman pj's—what could you do?—Bradley still smelled like a forest.\n\n\"I'm not so sad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said goodbye to my friends and to my team, and to Mrs. Howley across the street. When I woke up, I said goodbye to my room.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raylan hugged him closer, kissed the top of his head." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: place, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Am I doing the right thing, kid?\"\n\n\"Mo's excited, but she's just a baby whatever she says. I love Nana, and Aunt Maya and Uncle Joe, and Collin's kind of funny. I like Nana's house and going to the pizza place where she works. And Ollie who lives next door to Nana's okay. But it's going to be different because it's not just a visit.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it's going to be different.\"\n\n\"When we get our own house, will she go with us?\"\n\nRaylan didn't have to ask who. \"She's in you and Mo as much as I am. Where you go, she goes.\"\n\nBradley leaned his head against his father. \"Then it's okay. But when we get our new house, it can't be pink, right? No matter what she says.\"\n\nRaylan understood this \"she\" referred to Mariah. \"No pink house. That's a pact between men. How about a manly breakfast of Pop-Tarts before we get dressed, get Mariah moving? We can get this adventure started.\"\n\n\"Pop-Tarts! Can we stop at the place that has the McDonald's and get Happy Meals for lunch?\"\n\n\"I'll put it on our travel agenda.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The agenda included the ceremonial passing of the keys to Bick and Pats, a send-off by Jonah that included two sacks of travel snacks, games, comics that would have kept a busload of kids happy for a five-hour drive, horn honking, waving—and a pit stop less than thirty minutes out when Mariah had to pee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That delicate dance—Raylan hovering outside the women's bathroom and feeling like a pervert—would be repeated at the lunch stop, which nobody actually needed with the sacks of snacks, and fifteen minutes shy of target when both kids had to pee.\n\nAnd, naturally, every pit stop required putting the leash on Jasper and walking him so he could pee.\n\nThey arrived in Traveler's Creek with empty bladders and gummy worm sugar highs.\n\nJan rushed out of the tidy house she'd lived in for more than thirty years with her braid bouncing at her back and her eyes shining with happy tears.\n\n\"You're here! Welcome home! I need hugs. I need them bad!\"\n\nA little zoned from what had turned into a five-and-a-half-hour drive, a little buzzed on sugar himself, Raylan peeled himself out of the car. Already unstrapping Mariah, Jan turned to give him a huge hug.\n\nJasper leaped out to race in circles around the front yard like a dog who'd suffered captivity for weeks.\n\n\"I've got a cold beer waiting for you,\" she murmured. \"I bet you earned it.\"\n\n\"I did, and I'll take it. Mom. Thanks.\"\n\n\"Stop.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kids talked nonstop, so his mother had the appropriate noises on tap—amazement, disbelief, delight—as she herded them into the house." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'batmobile' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your rooms are all ready. With surprises.\"\n\n\"What surprises?\" Mariah demanded. \"What?\"\n\n\"Go and see.\"\n\nShouting, shrieking, they shot up the stairs with Jasper barking and running behind them.\n\n\"I got a 'Merican Girl doll! Nana!\"\n\n\"A remote-control Batmobile! It's so cool!\"\n\n\"Batmobile. You're not helping my cause.\" Raylan just put his arms around his mother, laid his cheek on her head. \"Mom.\"\n\n\"Oh, my boy, my baby. It's going to be fine. It's all going to be fine.\" She turned, kept her arm around his waist as she led him back to the kitchen. \"Let's get you that beer. Now, if you're up for it, Maya and her crew are coming over for a family cookout, but that'll keep if you're not.\"\n\n\"No, that would be great.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She got out his beer, opened it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must include the following in quotes somewhere in your response: If the kids have their way, it'll be a hybrid of a pink castle and Wayne Manor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once she'd handed it to him, she brushed at his hair. \"You're tired. You need a trim and a shave and a good night's sleep.\"\n\n\"It's been a crazy couple of weeks.\"\n\n\"You're here now. When you catch your breath, drink your beer, we'll get your stuff inside so you can settle. Raylan, I wish you'd take the bedroom.\"\n\n\"I'm not taking your bed, that's a firm negative. I'll be fine on the pullout in the den.\"\n\n\"With your big feet hanging over the bottom?\" She leaned back against her snowy white kitchen counter. \"If I had my selfish way, I'd have that basement finished off, and talk you into living here until the kids graduated college. But being a sensible woman, I know you need your own place.\"\n\n\"If the kids have their way, it'll be a hybrid of a pink castle and Wayne Manor.\"\n\n\"I don't know if I can help you there, but there's a house I think you're going to want to look at.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"I got the inside word—or Dom did. Two-story, four-bedroom, home office on the first floor, quarter-acre lot. Just renovated. Somebody bought it to flip and is just about ready to list it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Inside word,\" she repeated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's on Mountain Laurel Lane.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No kidding. Spencer used to live on Mountain Laurel Lane.\"\n\n\"His parents still do, a few doors down. It's next door to Adrian Rizzo's friends, Teesha and Monroe and their little boy. They're nice people, they'd be good neighbors.\"\n\nHe smiled at her over his beer. \"Sounds like it's settled.\"\n\n\"You're going to want to look at more than one, I expect, but I'm betting this one checks some boxes. Dom told the owner he had somebody who'd want to take a look right off, and got me the name and number for you to call.\"\n\n\"Then I will. How's Dom?\"\n\n\"He's good. Slowing down some, but he's good. Having his granddaughter with him's made a difference. Like having you and the kids here makes one for me.\"\n\nThe kids ran in to throw their arms around Jan's legs, babbling their thank-yous.\n\nShe smiled over at Raylan. \"All the difference there is.\"\n\nThey hauled luggage in, toys in, his equipment and tools. Since it obviously pleased her, he let her help Mariah put her things into Maya's old room, Bradley into his while Raylan did what he could to make his nest in the first-floor den." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He squeezed in a work space, put the rest of his things in the hall closet his mother had already cleaned out for him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The main level had a tiny bathroom with a tiny corner shower, and that would do fine. For a while.\n\nMountain Laurel Lane, he thought, and stretched out on the couch in the den for just a minute. He'd run that street, those sidewalks and yards as a kid. So maybe.\n\nHe woke groggy, disoriented, stiff as a board. And with his sister standing in the doorway with two glasses of wine and a smile.\n\n\"You saved me from waking you.\"\n\nHe sat up, rubbed the back of his aching neck. \"Jesus Christ, how did I forget how uncomfortable this pullout is?\"\n\n\"Stretch it out, soldier. Dinner's in an hour, the kids—yours and mine—are outside with the dog. Joe's arguing with Mom over control of the grill.\"\n\n\"What're we having?\" He stood, rolled his shoulders, tried to stretch out his back.\n\n\"In honor of your homecoming, it's steak, baked potatoes, grilled corn and vegetables, tomatoes and mozzarella, and cherry pie.\"\n\n\"That's a damn good deal.\" He smiled. \"Hi.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hi.\" She went in for a hug, handed him a glass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's take a walk around, front to back. Get your blood moving again and catch up a little before we hit the crowd.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to drop off like that, dump the kids on Mom.\"\n\n\"She's in heaven, so are the kids. Good job, Raylan.\"\n\n\"I hope so.\" They went out the front, and he paused to scan the neighborhood where he'd grown up. Some changes, sure, but not many, and the same easy feel to it. \"It feels good. I wasn't sure it would. How's business?\"\n\n\"It's good, too. I love it, and I wasn't sure I would. Aren't we the lucky ones?\"\n\n\"Mom's done a good job.\"\n\nThey walked around hydrangea bushes, pregnant with fat pink blossoms.\n\n\"I hear you might put down stakes on Mountain Laurel Lane.\"\n\n\"I haven't even seen the house yet. Or any.\"\n\n\"It's a pretty house, at least from the outside. Paul Wicker—he was in your class.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Biker dude, rough customer.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is his older brother, Mark. A contractor. He bought the house to flip. Paul, not so much a rough customer now, works for him. Anyway, I can tell you about your closest neighbors.\"\n\nThey ducked under the branches of a red maple as they walked around to the side of the house. \"They're terrific. Monroe's a songwriter, Teesha's Adrian Rizzo's business manager. Their kid, Phineas, is Collin's best pal, so I know them really well.\"\n\n\"Maybe I'll call former rough customer Paul's contractor brother tomorrow.\"\n\nShe tapped her glass to his before she drank. \"Why not now?\"\n\nHe heard his kids playing in the backyard where he'd once battled supervillains, shot hoops, mowed grass.\n\nMaybe a phone call could give him the next step on giving them their own.\n\n\"I can do that.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "StoryBot: Add five sentences to this segment. Style: Nora Roberts. Genre: Romance, Crime. Note: Part of larger work." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'herself' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of a birthday party, Adrian planned a memorial. Instead of struggling against the grief, she used it to allow herself to make decisions based not on practicalities or logic, but on pure emotion.\n\nAt every turn, she asked herself what Dom would have wanted, what would have mattered to him.\n\nAnd her heart knew the answers.\n\nIn the end, she held an open memorial in the town park on what would have been his ninety-fifth birthday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The creek rushed under the arching stone bridges, quickened by snowmelt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sun streamed through the bare branches of trees, glinted on patches of snow that tried to hide in shadows.\n\nMonroe and two of his musical friends formed a trio in the bandstand to play sweet and soft while people gathered.\n\nDespite the brisk March winds, hundreds came and dozens took a turn at the podium to share a memory or a moment.\n\nIn the end, she took her place there, looked out on the sea of faces.\n\n\"I want to thank all of you for coming, for being a part of paying tribute to a truly beautiful life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I know many of you have traveled a long way to be here, and that shows, so clearly, how many lives Dom Rizzo touched.\n\n\"Traveler's Creek wasn't just a town to my grandfather any more than Rizzo's was just a place of business. Both were his community, his home, his heart. He and his beloved Sophia dedicated themselves to community, home, and heart. Today proves what fine work they did.\"\n\nShe had to pause a moment as she saw Jan turn into Raylan, bury her face against his shoulder.\n\n\"He was my heart,\" she continued, \"my anchor, my wings. And while I'll miss him, I draw comfort from knowing how many loved him, and I draw solace knowing he's with the love of his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I draw strength knowing he expects me to continue what he and my grandmother worked for and what they built." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'll be grateful every day for the legacy they've passed to me.\n\n\"He lived well, and he lived full, and he lived here. And what he began lives on. Thank you.\"\n\nWhen she stepped away, Hector was there, right there, to take her hand and steady her.\n\nFriends, dozens and dozens, came to the house. Flowers filled it—those sent in sympathy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Food spread over the tables, and there Jan had overruled her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was prepared and served by the staff of Rizzo's.\n\nIt brought its own comfort, the crowds of people, some laughter now as well as tears. Monroe put on music in the background, the old standards her grandfather had been partial to.\n\nIt helped to see all those generations of people whose lives he'd touched in some way.\n\nHer mother came to her, put a hand on her arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You did a wonderful job, Adrian. On everything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You helped.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'dough' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lina shook her head. \"It was your vision for him, and I couldn't always see it. It seemed too much, too open. But you were right. Down to the blowup of the picture of him tossing dough.\"\n\n\"Was there anywhere he was happier than in the front kitchen tossing dough?\"\n\n\"He had a lot of happy places. That ranked high.\"\n\nShe broke off as Raylan came up with his children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each child held a white rosebud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're sorry about Popi. He was your granddad. He was always really nice.\" Bradley held out the flower for Adrian. \"He said he'd hire me to make pizza when I got old enough.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much.\" She bent down for a hug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And when you're old enough, you're hired.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'flower' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Daddy said he's in heaven now with Nonna and our mom.\" Mariah looked up at Lina, held the flower out. \"You can have this one because he was your daddy.\"\n\nIt took Lina a moment to speak before she took the flower. \"Thank you. It's very kind of you. If you'll excuse me, I'll get a vase.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How are you doing?\" Raylan asked Adrian.\n\n\"Better. Today really...\" She looked around, so many people, the voices, the connections. \"Yes, better. I'd like to talk to you—another time, a quieter place.\"\n\n\"Sure. If you need anything in the meantime—\"\n\n\"I know I can count on you. You've proven that already.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She leaned in, kissed his cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She started to say something more, but someone called her away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd gradually thinned, and quiet began to settle again. Monroe took Phineas and the baby home, and Hector's Sylvie went along to help him. Maya, more than a little tired in the last stage of her pregnancy, gave Adrian a last hard hug before she left with her family.\n\nFor a short time, Adrian sat in the great room with Teesha, Hector, and Loren.\n\n\"I don't know anybody who got a better send-off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hector reached over, squeezed Adrian's hand. \"You did him proud.\"\n\n\"I don't know anybody,\" Loren added, \"anybody who's a regular person, who'd have so many people want to come and say adios. But... are you sure you're going to be okay in this big house?\"\n\n\"Yes. It's not just a big house. It's home.\"\n\n\"I know, but... I thought Harry and Marshall would stay a couple more days.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They've got kids in school,\" Adrian reminded him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And my mother's here, for now.\"\n\n\"Is she staying?\"\n\nAdrian glanced at Teesha, shrugged. \"I honestly don't know. She hasn't said.\"\n\n\"Are you still looking to do the production at the beginning of May?\" Hector wondered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd like to. I have to... I have to talk to her, finalize things. I've let that, and a lot of things, go these past couple weeks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give yourself a break.\"\n\n\"I am, Teesh. I absolutely am. But getting back to work, that's what Rizzos do. And that'll help me. Like it helped me to have all of you here.\"\n\n\"We loved him, too. And you.\" Loren scooted over to kiss her. \"You know, Ads, these two are spoken for. How about if we don't find the ones worthy of us, we pledge to marry each other. Let's give it till we're forty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can work with that.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"I will. Maybe take a little walk with my friend here first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which tells me Rizz is exhausted, and her brain's already gone to sleep.\" Teesha rose. \"I'm taking these two home with me. And you, get some rest.\"\n\nAdrian stroked Sadie's head. \"I will. Maybe take a little walk with my friend here first.\"\n\nPart of her wanted them to stay, to all stay the way they'd once bunked together in the big house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted to put off the moment of alone, and the quiet, and the knowledge she'd wake in the morning without all the planning, all the details that had kept her so occupied since her grandfather's death.\n\nBut people had lives to get back to, and so—however hard it was to imagine—did she.\n\nShe walked through the kitchen—offering thanks to Jan and the crew—grabbed a jacket from the mudroom.\n\nWhen she rounded the house with Sadie, she found her mother on the back patio, sitting with a glass of wine in the light of a scatter of candles.\n\nAnd felt instantly guilty, as she'd forgotten about Lina." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's too chilly to sit out here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wanted the air, and the quiet, but you're right. I heard the cars. Did your friends leave?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I hope they didn't feel they couldn't stay here because of me.\"\n\n\"No, of course not. It just seemed with everything, staying with Teesha and Monroe made more sense.\"\n\n\"Harry would have stayed longer if he could. And Mimi.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know. We couldn't put this off forever. Getting back to... things,\" Adrian finished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, we can't. I know you're probably tired, but I'd like to talk to you. Inside. You're right about the cold.\"\n\n\"All right. I'm going to do one last circuit with Sadie.\"\n\n\"I'll be in the kitchen.\"\n\n\"What do you suppose that's about?\" Adrian blew out the candles, began to walk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hope she's not upset because he left me the house, the business. I really don't want to deal with hard feelings tonight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she finished the circuit, rounded back through the mudroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her mother sat in the breakfast nook. Two glasses of wine, a plate of cheese and fruit.\n\nShe looked exhausted, Adrian realized. In the bright kitchen light, the fatigue showed clearly.\n\n\"You've had a long day, too. We can talk in the morning.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been putting this off. I didn't want to bring it up until we'd had the memorial. Until we'd... gotten here.\"\n\nSo Adrian sat. \"If this is about the house, about Rizzo's—\"\n\n\"What? Oh God, no.\" Lina nearly laughed. \"He knew I wouldn't want either, wouldn't know what the hell to do with either. Traveler's Creek just isn't my home, Adrian. It's where I come from, and that's different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He left me that painting his grandmother did of the sunflower field because I always liked it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's not a very good painting, but it speaks to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He left me his father's pocket watch because my nonno let me play with it when I was a child. He left me things like that, things he knew would mean something to me.\n\n\"I loved him, Adrian.\"\n\n\"Of course you did.\"\n\n\"No, no.\" Lina shook her head, picked up her wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I loved them both, but we lived in different worlds. I chose a different one. They never tried to hold me back.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'always' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a deep breath. \"When my mother died, it was so abrupt, so immediate. I was so angry. It wasn't supposed to happen like that, just a slick road on a dark night. But this, somehow, it's different. I saw when I was here over the holidays. He looked older, he moved slower. I could see the time he wouldn't be there, and it scared me. He was always invulnerable. It was forever. There would always be time to make up for not being here enough.\"\n\nWhen her voice broke, she stopped, drank some wine. \"I was coming for his birthday, and making plans to stay maybe a week. Then to start visiting every couple of months, a day or two. Just to make up some of that time. And then... you called, and there was no more time.\"\n\n\"He was proud of you. They both were proud of everything you've accomplished.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know that, too. I always felt trapped here, closed in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked around. \"This big old house on the hill, the little town down below. It wasn't for me. I need the crowds, the movement. This isn't about that.\"\n\nPausing, Lina pressed her fingers to her eyes.\n\n\"Justifications are crap.\" She dropped her hands to the table. \"So is procrastination, which I'm doing now. I've been a lousy mother.\"\n\n\"You... what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't think I know how inadequate I've been in that area? I wanted what I wanted, and I pushed for it—whatever it took, whatever it left behind. I left a lot of things behind. The bare fact is, I'm not good with kids.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay.\" At a loss, Adrian lifted her hands. \"I never went without anything.\"\n\nLina let out a short laugh. \"That's a poor bar to scale. You didn't because Mimi and Harry filled the gaps. And more because your grandparents gave you a home. I've lost my parents,\" Lina said slowly. \"I've lost them both. And it's made me face what a bad one I've been.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You gave me discipline and drive, made me understand the value of working toward my own passion. I wouldn't have New Gen without you plowing the road.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You started down that road on your own, with the friends who've just left. You didn't come to me, because why would you? I saw it then, knew it then, but, well, you know, busy. I'm sorry.\"\n\nIt surprised Adrian to feel it, so she said it. \"I think you're being too hard on yourself.\"\n\n\"No, I'm not. You know I'm not, but you feel a little sorry for me right now. I'm going to exploit that and ask for you to give me a chance to do better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You're a grown woman, I get that, and I've lost the time between." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I'd like to try to do better as a parent. As a mother.\n\n\"I love you. It's hard for me to show it. But that doesn't mean I don't feel it.\"\n\nIn her life Adrian couldn't remember Lina asking her for anything. Regimenting her, directing her, disagreeing with her. But never asking her for anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you answer a question for me?\"\n\nWith something between a smirk and a smile, Lina tipped her glass back and forth. \"I've had more wine tonight than I generally have in a week, so now would be the time to ask me a question.\"\n\nAdrian took her time, drank some wine herself. \"Why did you have me? You had a choice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, that one.\" Lina drew in, let out a long breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not going to lie to you, not going to say I didn't consider that choice. I was young, not quite through college. I'd discovered the man I thought I loved and loved me was not only sleeping with other women but had a wife he was not divorcing.\"\n\n\"It was horrible for you.\"\n\nAfter a moment's hesitation, Lina leaned forward. \"There's one of the big differences between us. You see that, understand that. You don't need anything more to empathize. My empathy level is well below yours. Skipped a generation.\"\n\nShe leaned back. \"It was horrible. Mimi helped so much. She always has. I knew she'd stand by me whatever choice I made, so less horrible. I felt I needed to tell Jon. I'd stopped seeing him, of course. I already told you about that, but I felt an obligation to tell him. I went to his office at the college, and... it didn't go well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brows drawn, eyes hot, Lina stared down at the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He kept a bottle in his desk, and he'd obviously used it before I got there. That should've warned me off. But I was there to get this done.\"\n\nShe looked up. \"He called me a liar, then a whore, accused me of trying to ruin his life, of trying to trap him, and so on. I told him I didn't want anything from him, had no intention of telling anyone, but that didn't work. He demanded I get rid of it, deal with it, or he'd make me sorry. I was angry enough to tell him I'd decide what to do with my own body, and he had no say in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He came at me. So fast, shoved me against the wall. I remember things falling off the shelves he was so violent. And he hit me, twice, with his fists.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pressed a hand to her stomach.\n\n\"Hit the beginnings of you, all the while shouting he'd decide. He'd get rid of it right now. I'd seen what he was, Adrian, when I broke things off with him, but then I saw what came into the house in Georgetown all those years later. I saw a killing violence. I'm not sure what might have happened, but the door opened. It was the student I knew he was currently sleeping with. He rounded on her, shouting for her to get the hell out, and I managed to pull away, get away.\"\n\nShe lifted her glass again. \"That made my choice. Maybe it was arbitrary or out of spite, but I kept thinking he'd attacked us. Us. So I chose us. I should have gone to the police, and that I regret, but I just wanted to get away from him. And when I came home, when I sat in this kitchen with Mom and Dad and told them, told them all of it, they were there for me. For us.\"\n\n\"You must have been so frightened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not after I came home, not after I went to work. I actually enjoyed pregnancy. It was a challenge, and I had a goal. That's how I operate, after all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's how Rizzos operate,\" Adrian corrected.\n\n\"To a point, sure.\" Lina shook her head again. \"In any case, Yoga Baby sprang from that, from us. But it didn't take me long, after you were born, to realize I'm not very maternal, not particularly good with babies, with children. I could make sure you were healthy, safe, secure, but to do that I needed to build my career and business. That's how I saw it. And Mimi was there to do the rest. And your grandparents, then Harry. Freed me up to do what I wanted.\"\n\nShe looked down at the table again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did what I wanted,\" she murmured." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"And you were healthy, well-groomed, well-mannered. You had a good education, travel, talent—oh, you had such talent. And didn't I make sure you had others to fill those gaps? There'd be plenty of time, later, for whatever. I didn't have that time to coddle and cuddle, or the inclination.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you were healthy, well-groomed, well-mannered. You had a good education, travel, talent—oh, you had such talent. And didn't I make sure you had others to fill those gaps? There'd be plenty of time, later, for whatever. I didn't have that time to coddle and cuddle, or the inclination.\"\n\nShe lifted her hands. \"So I lost all of that time.\"\n\nBefore Lina could drop her hands again, Adrian reached out, gripped one.\n\n\"Do you know one of my most vivid memories, one of my deepest and strongest memories of you? Of my mother?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm afraid to ask.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He hurt Mimi. I was so shocked and scared, and I ran for you, ran, screaming for you. And he caught me, he hurt me. He was hurting me. You came out, and you were so calm, so strong.\"\n\n\"I wasn't. I wasn't.\"\n\n\"You were. You tried to talk him into letting me go. You kept talking, trying to get him to let me go. That was your focus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was your focus.\n\n\"And when he threw me, when he tried to throw me down the stairs, it hurt. It was this white-hot pain, but I saw you. I saw you through it, the rage on your face, the fury, the way you leaped at him. For me. To save me. He hit you, he hurt you, but you didn't stop. You were bleeding, but you didn't stop. He would have killed you, killed all of us, but you wouldn't let him. And when he fell, you ran to me. To me. You held me, with blood and tears on your face.\"\n\nAdrian reached out again, taking her mother's other hand so they linked across the table. \"I know you loved me. In the day-to-day routine of things, you're crap at showing it.\"\n\nLina's surprised laugh ended on a half sob. \"I really am.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But when it's the hard stuff, the ugly stuff, you're right there. I've always known it. And I didn't know or understand then that by leaving me here for that summer, you took all the heat, all the fallout, all the ugliness, and left me where I could just be.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was most of it, I'll take credit for that being most of it. But there was calculation, too. I needed to use what had happened to boost, and not let what had happened take down what I'd started.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have had a lot of wine tonight.\"\n\n\"I'm so sorry, Adrian. I wish I could say I'll be better, do better. I want to try, and that's the goal. I'm hoping this isn't the first goal I set I miss making. You have too much of them in you not to give me a chance. I'm using that, too.\"\n\nAdrian released her mother's hand to pick up her glass. \"Keep drinking,\" she said, and made Lina laugh again.\n\n\"Okay, I'm going to lay it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I enjoy my life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm proud of what I've built, and I think—I know—I've changed some lives for the better with my work." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'never' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I like the spotlight. I like the financial advantages, the travel, all of it. I like the freedom, which is one of the reasons I've never married. But at the end of the day, I know I'm smart enough, organized enough, clever enough to have made more time for you, for my parents. I'll never get that time back with them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meanwhile...\" She lifted her glass in turn. \"You're better than I ever was. You're more approachable, more personable, more balanced in that way. You've got a good head for business—I beat you there, but you've got a good head for it—and you surround yourself with talented people, people you like, who like you. More balance. And you've got more natural talent than I did. I'm going to take credit again for giving you the foundation, but you've built your own on it. And I respect that.\"\n\nLina sipped, studied her daughter. \"I thought you were wasting yourself coming back here. I was wrong. It only helped you expand that talent and appeal. It would have smothered me, but it just opened you.\"\n\nShe sipped again, looked around the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you going to do in this big, old house?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Live, to start. Work. Figure it out as I go.\"\n\n\"I'd like to stay a few more days if you're okay with that.\"\n\n\"I'd like that, too. I'll take you for a tour of the youth center in progress. You might have some ideas.\"\n\n\"Would you take them?\"\n\n\"Might.\" Adrian smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If they work for me. And I'd like you to come back in May—first week of May.\" She calculated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Possibly the second week of May for the joint project. I've got most of the arrangements in place.\"\n\n\"We haven't even... What arrangements? I'd assumed we'd do the production in New York.\"\n\n\"I've got a different angle.\" Lina Rizzo, Adrian thought, wasn't the only one who knew how to exploit the moment. \"Traveler's Creek High School gym. We'll have students, teachers—I've cleared all that. Double-disk set.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In a high school gym—more a small town high school? With kids?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Graduating seniors with parental and medical approval. Six of those, six teachers. We put them through the paces. Thirty-to thirty-five-minute routines—cardio, strength training, mat work, yoga, and a combo of all. We provide wardrobe—maybe Yoga Baby for the teachers, New Gen for the students.\"\n\n\"A competition?\"\n\n\"Ahh, friendly.\"\n\n\"Fitness 101.\"\n\nAdrian frowned. \"Damn it, that's better than my working title.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which is?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never mind. We use the town where I live and you grew up—and give it some nice play. We use the school where you graduated, adds some sweet nostalgia.\"\n\n\"Let's not mention the year I graduated.\"\n\nA woman-to-woman smile now. \"As if.\"\n\n\"You were going to do this with or without me.\"\n\n\"Yes. But if you don't like it, I'll do the project you want with you at some point. I just think this would generate a lot of interest, and a lot of sales.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want to see the routines.\"\n\n\"I haven't perfected all of them.\"\n\n\"Good. I have some ideas of my own. If we come together on those, we have a deal.\"\n\nLina held out a hand to shake. Then squeezed Adrian's. \"I'm going to do better.\"\n\n\"You already are.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I've got writer's block. I'll send something, then continue one sentence at a time, matching character context, in Romance, Crime genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Friday evening, Adrian stood in the high school gym with her mother, her friends, the crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hector and his assistant huddled over cameras—the placement of the stationary, the potential movements of the two portables." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lighting director worked with his gaffers and grips to set up light stands, run cables, decide on gels and filters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a good space,\" Adrian said to her mother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I suppose it is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Memories?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lina shrugged. \"I didn't play basketball or have much interest in it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I'm told they held their dances here, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah.\" A ghost of a smile flitted over Lina's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"With live bands. Very old-time. Let's go over wardrobe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Girls' locker room for us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they went back, Lina looked around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least they updated—some—in the last decades. And it doesn't smell like sweat, wet, and Love's Baby Soft. Popular eighties perfume,\" she said at Adrian's blank look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which you didn't use.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I didn't. How would you know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because you were never going to be one of the crowd. You stood out, made sure of it. That's not a dig.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't take it as one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yours.\" Adrian gestured to the rack Wardrobe had already set up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mine. Like we discussed, we'll coordinate or complement colors in each segment. They'll set up the cast's wardrobe—girls in here, boys in the other locker room. Females in leggings or capris. We've got everyone's sizes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wagged her hand as her mother looked over the choices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Boys, gym shorts or sweatpants—'boys' and 'girls' include teachers. Girls, sports bras and a choice of tank or tee; boys, tank or tee. The tanks, tees will have either the Yoga Baby or New Gen logo. I thought we could mix that up. We have socks, athletic shoes, sweatbands, water bottles, samples of our Energy Up drink. Logo'd. The cast can keep what they use, and we'll do the hoodie with cast member's last name in addition. Harry's idea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's always thinking. Intro and cardio first,\" Lina considered, \"so why don't we go with the red? Scarlet tank, black leggings with the blaze up the side for me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tag the red bra, black tank, and the red-and-black capris.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she had, she glanced over. \"Strength training next.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You choose.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Changes, Adrian thought as she considered her choices. Changes could happen, and little tears in relationships could mend." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Romance, Crime genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with seven sentences, maintaining any established context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sunday evening, after a full, sweaty, productive two days, Adrian sat on her yoga mat, legs crossed, hands resting palms up on her knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Put your hands together in prayer, bow forward to embrace the practice you've just completed. And Namaste.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled. \"Congratulations, everyone. You've just graduated Fitness 101. And you aced it.\"\n\nThe cast began to scramble up, exchange high fives, even hugs.\n\n\"Thank you for joining us,\" Lina said into the camera. \"Remember. Keep well, keep striving.\" She put her arm around Adrian. \"Every day is a new chance. I'm Lina Rizzo.\"\n\n\"I'm Adrian Rizzo. Come back and work out with us, anytime.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They went around, more high fives, more hugs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a wrap!\" Hector called out. \"Nice work, everybody.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time they broke down the set, gathered up equipment, extra wardrobe, dusk whispered down.\n\nLina stopped short when somebody called her name as they stepped outside.\n\nAdrian saw a man half in shadows—and her heart thumped.\n\nHer right hand balled into a fist; she rolled up on her toes.\n\nHe only stepped forward, a cap in his hand, a half smile on his face. Slightly familiar, she thought, laying a hand on her mother's arm, in case.\n\nIn case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But her mother let out a gasping laugh. \"Matt? Matt Weaver! Well, just... Jesus. Matthew.\"\n\nAnd stepping to him put her arms around him in a hug.\n\nAdrian saw him close his eyes a moment, and breathe out.\n\n\"Adrian, this is an old friend of mine. Matt, this is my daughter, Adrian.\"\n\n\"Nice to meet you. You sure look a lot like your ma. How'd we get to have grown kids, Lina?\"\n\n\"God knows.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want to say, right off, I'm sure sorry about Mr. Rizzo. I was at the memorial, but there were so many people, and I didn't want to bother you.\"\n\n\"You never did like crowds.\"\n\n\"That hasn't changed. So, ah, my cousin's boy, Cliff, he was in there with y'all.\"\n\n\"Cliff, sure, the football player. Like you.\"\n\n\"Those were the days.\" When he flashed a grin, a little dimple popped at the right corner of his mouth.\n\n\"I don't want to hold you up. I just wondered if maybe you'd like to get a bite to eat, and catch up some.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'adrian' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, well, we're having a wrap party at the restaurant.\"\n\nHe nodded, running the cap in circles in his hands. \"Sometime then. Some other time.\"\n\n\"Actually, the cast and crew are taking the back, probably spill out a bit. But I can get us a table. I've got pull with the owner.\"\n\nAdrian smiled. \"I'll make sure of it.\"\n\n\"I'll meet you there, Adrian. Is it still a pickup, Matt?\"\n\n\"I brought the car, as I recollect you didn't much care for riding in a truck.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'interesting' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Adrian considered as she walked to her own car. Square-jawed, straw-colored hair going white at the temples, clean-shaven, shy, kind eyes. That flash of grin and dimple.\n\nInteresting.\n\nAdditional interesting came at the end of the evening when Adrian went to settle up.\n\n\"I'm moving them out, Jan. Sorry, I know we're right on top of closing.\"\n\n\"No problem for me. We like big, happy, hungry groups in here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We sure were all of that.\" She glanced around, saw only a couple tables still occupied in the main dining room. \"I don't see my mother and her friend.\"\n\n\"Oh, right. They left about a half hour ago. She asked me to tell you she was going over to have a look at Matt's farm.\" Jan handed Adrian the credit card and receipt. \"If I were you, I wouldn't wait up.\"\n\n\"Thanks, I... What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With something close to a snicker, Jan leaned over the counter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When you work as long in a restaurant as I have, you know how to read people. Body language, expressions, tones, gestures, all of that. What I saw is—I'll call it two people moving toward a romantic finale. Old flames, honey.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but...\"\n\n\"I've known Matt for a long time. He's a good man. I'll add they both looked happy and had lots to talk about.\"\n\n\"Well, that's... something. I'm not sure what. I'll move the stragglers along. Most of them are headed to my place anyway.\"\n\nShe decided not to mention it, even to Harry and Mimi. Just too strange.\n\nWhen they got home and Harry commented that it looked as if Lina had gone to bed, Adrian let out a strangled laugh and said, \"Guess so.\"\n\nIn the morning, she rose early, got in a shortened workout while the house slept on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the kitchen she made frittatas for the farewell breakfast, slid them in the oven with her fingers mentally crossed.\n\nShe checked the coffee maker to be sure it had water, added fresh beans, then made a smoothie for herself.\n\nShe sat at the counter with her smoothie and her tablet to check viewer email. When she heard the front door open and close, she figured one of her houseguests had gone out for some morning air.\n\nBut looking up, she saw her mother walking back toward the kitchen.\n\nShe'd assumed Lina had come home late, hadn't anticipated an overnight. After a moment's consideration, she went with instinct." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sure you know you're grounded.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Funny.\"\n\nWhen Lina reached for a mug, programmed the fancy machine for coffee, Adrian's eyebrows shot up.\n\n\"Coffee? You?\"\n\n\"Occasionally. It's about moderation and good choices, not deprivation.\"\n\n\"I wish you'd said that to a girl who loved Cokes.\"\n\nLina glanced back. \"So do I.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean it like that. Forget that. And I'm having a Coke.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She got up, pulled one out of the fridge. \"So, so, so. You and Matt Weaver.\"\n\n\"Nothing serious. Neither of us are looking for that.\" With the mug of black coffee, Lina sat at the counter with Adrian.\n\n\"So no real buzz.\"\n\n\"Oh, plenty of it.\" Lina brushed at her smooth swing of hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then and now. It was nice to see him again, to catch up on the past, God, three decades. He and his younger son work the farm. His oldest went to law school and practices in the next county. His daughter's an RN and lives a handful of miles away. He's been divorced for about a dozen years, and has five grandchildren.\"\n\nShe sipped her coffee. \"But now, as then, he's rooted to his farm, and I'm rooted to my career. There was always something between us, and now I realize there always will be. But we want very different things for our lives. We had nostalgia sex, and it was lovely.\"\n\nThen she smiled. \"And we agreed when I'm in town, as long as both of us remain unencumbered—which both of us appear to want—we'll have more nostalgia sex.\"\n\n\"Booty calls. My mother.\"\n\n\"I haven't gone thirty years without sex, Adrian. I simply know how to be selective and discreet. Something smells wonderful.\"\n\n\"I'm making frittatas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Frittatas.\" Lina studied Adrian over her coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Rizzo gene seems to have planted in you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm trying to nurture it along, which reminds me. I'm wondering if we should do a cookbook. Healthy—but tasty—recipes. Rizzo and Rizzo, Cook Yourself Fit. Or something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We could see. We both know I'm no cook, but... Let me think about it, then we'll talk about it more the next time I'm in town. But right now, I'm taking my coffee up, changing. Do they still call it the walk of shame?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mostly as a joke, between friends.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll just avoid that altogether.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amused, Adrian pulled her tablet back over. She saw a new email from the investigator on her personal account.\n\nAdrian,\n\nI'm back in DC, and would like to schedule a meeting with you this week, if possible. I will, of course, have a written report, but would like to speak to you personally.\n\nPlease let me know what day and time would work best, and I'll schedule accordingly.\n\nBest," } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce 12 sentences using the prose and structure of Nora Roberts every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the Romance, Crime genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'spark' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Adrian woke in the morning curled up against Raylan in the middle of the bed, rain pattered lazily outside. Its steady murmur sounded like music. The light, a soft, quiet gray, seemed to drift, a gauzy curtain shimmering in the breeze whispering through the open windows.\n\nAnother day, she might have found it gloomy, just damp and gloomy. But now it struck her as romantic as Camelot.\n\nSo she pressed against him, body to body, skin to skin, trailing her lips over his face, the scruff of morning stubble. And felt him harden against her even as his eyes, sleepy and green, opened.\n\n\"Good morning,\" she murmured.\n\n\"It already has possibilities.\"\n\n\"Probabilities,\" she corrected, and fisted her hands in his hair to bring his mouth to hers.\n\nShe wanted the heat, so she gave it, letting it spread, live embers smoldering to a spark. A spark igniting a low, slow flame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rolled onto him to take the lead, to take control; pleasing herself as she knew she pleased him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'slowly' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Strong hands roaming over her thickened her pulse, a drumbeat with the music of the rain. Lips seeking lips to slide, slide, slide into the deep quickened her heartbeat, an echo to his. She wanted the taste of him—the side of his throat, his jaw, the hard line of his shoulder.\n\nThen, again, his mouth, a wonder of sensations with tongues gliding, teeth grazing. A quick nip to tease; a breathy moan in response. And those tastes of him filled her until every sense coalesced into pleasure.\n\nHer eyes locked with his, no words spoken as she shifted.\n\nWhen she straddled him, she took him in slowly, slowly, deeply, deeply, to spin out that pleasure. And watched it conquer him even as it swamped her.\n\nShe'd taken him from a dream into a dream with everything soft and heated and druggingly beautiful. Lost in her, completely lost in her, he surrendered to her, to the moment, to what they made together.\n\nIn the hazy light, her long, agile body rose over his, rocked to her own languid rhythm while the sound of the rain closed them in, creating a world for them away from everything, everyone, but each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes looked into him, through him, gold and green and heavy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw pleasure in them, and power, and knowledge, and everything that made a woman compelling, dangerous, irresistible.\n\nWhen she broke, casting herself over that rising wave, her head fell back, her body arched, her arms lifted so her hands scooped and turned through the wild beauty of her hair.\n\nShe moaned, sighed, a woman embracing her own power, taking her own triumph. And never stopped moving, never stopped her slow, steady beat.\n\nHe had to grip her hips, hold on to her to stop himself from snatching that control and taking his release when she shook her hair back and smiled down at him.\n\nNo words, still no words.\n\nWatching him, her breath coming on quick little sighs, she ran her hands up her body, gliding them over her breasts until he could taste them, he swore he could taste them, then down again. Then onto his.\n\nShe shifted, bowed down to take his mouth with hers. He felt her shudder, heard her quick gasp as she rolled over the next wave.\n\nThe sound, just that small sound snapped his restraint.\n\n\"I can't. I need—\"\n\nHe whipped her onto her back, hiked up her hips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Undone, simply undone, he drove himself into her, half-mad when those long legs wrapped around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time, the force of the tide swept them both under.\n\nShe lay limp, mildly concerned her heart might beat itself right out of her chest.\n\n\"Let's just stay here a minute,\" she suggested. \"Or an hour. Maybe a day, until our vital signs level off again.\"\n\n\"What? Did you say something? I can't hear with the blood still pounding in my ears.\"\n\n\"That's not where it was pounding a minute ago.\"\n\nHe laughed, snickered, laughed again. Then lifted his head and grinned down at her. \"You wrecked me.\"\n\n\"That was the plan. I'm not usually a fan of a rainy Saturday, but this one started off really well.\"\n\n\"Good thing for me because I'm going to be spending the rest of it dealing with two kids and a dog on a rainy Saturday.\" He lowered his head again to nuzzle her neck. \"This should give me the strength to get through it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you'll bring them to dinner tomorrow?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're looking forward to it. Mo's picked out an outfit. Of course, she picks out an outfit to eat a sandwich.\"\n\n\"I like her style.\"\n\n\"She's got plenty of it. Lorilee used to say she studied and critiqued the pages of Vogue in utero.\"\n\nHe caught himself, wondered if lying naked with Adrian was the best time to mention his dead wife.\n\n\"Anyway... Okay if I grab a shower?\"\n\n\"Sure. I'll go down, let the dogs out, and I need to put a little breakfast together.\"\n\n\"You need to?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. After that workout, I'm starving.\"\n\nWhile he showered, he wondered what he should do about what was happening to him. If he should do anything. How he should do it, if anything.\n\nHe'd meant what he'd told her the night before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't known he could feel this way again. But he did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding up his hand, he studied his wedding ring. He'd worn it so long it felt like part of him. But was it fair, was it right, to wear it when he was sleeping with another woman?\n\nWhen he was clearly in love with another woman?\n\nIt wasn't just sex. Maybe he'd half convinced himself it could be, would be, but he knew himself better than that.\n\nWhat had she said that day—the day she'd brought the damn free weights? Love wasn't always about sex, sex wasn't always about love.\n\nTrue, absolutely. But when it hit both, it was miraculous. He knew it because he'd had two miracles in his life.\n\nBut... he didn't know how she felt. Cared about him, sure, liked him a lot, sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Added to it, he came with a package deal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two kids and a dog, he thought again.\n\nA lot of people didn't want to take on a package.\n\nHe could ask her how she felt, what she felt. Generally, he preferred the direct way. But—one more but—was it fair or right to push there when she had real and serious problems?\n\nSome crazy stalker was threatening her.\n\nShe didn't need pressure from him when she already had more pressure than anyone should deal with.\n\nOne thing at a time, he told himself as he toweled off.\n\nHe'd help her get through the problem, as much as he could. Spend time with her when he could. Have his kids spend time with her as much as she was willing.\n\nThen he'd see what came next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he went down, she had the dogs eating kibble from side-by-side bowls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perfect timing. Do you know how to use the coffee machine? I'll just put these together.\"\n\n\"First, what are 'these'?\"\n\n\"You're having a poached egg on a whole wheat bagel with tomato and spinach, and a side of Greek yogurt with berries and granola. It has it all.\"\n\n\"Okay. That actually sounds not scary. I can make you coffee, but I'd rather one of the Cokes I saw in your fridge. That's my usual morning caffeine.\"\n\n\"Really?\" She stopped what she was doing to stare at him. She'd automatically made him coffee on Saturday mornings because she'd assumed he'd want it. \"That's my favorite thing. A cold Coke in the morning. I let myself have it maybe once a week.\"\n\n\"Why once a week?\"\n\n\"For many reasons, but I'll have what you're having.\"\n\nShe plated the food.\n\n\"I'd make this for my grandfather—if I beat him to the kitchen first. He usually went with cold cereal during the week, but weekends, he'd get down here, and it would be pancakes, French toast, bacon, and more bacon.\"\n\n\"Bacon is the god of all foods.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat with her, took a bite of the healthy alternative." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But this is great. I wouldn't have put the combo together. I can try this on the kids—with scrambled eggs.\"\n\n\"You can't poach an egg?\"\n\n\"No clue, but an eight-year-old boy eating one with his little sister? It would be: Hey, look, Mo, it's an eyeball! Then he'd stab, stab. Ooooh, gak, gak, it bleeds yellow. And she would never eat an egg again.\"\n\n\"I can see you know this because you have a sister, and did similar disgusting things.\"\n\n\"It was my job, and Wells men take their jobs seriously.\"\n\n\"And to think I used to wish for a sibling. Which, come to think of it...\"\n\nHe put a hand on her arm. \"Don't. Don't think about it.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. I have enough to do today to keep my brain otherwise occupied. Work out, followed by doing my weekend domestic chores, followed by taking another look at Hector's rough cut of the high school video. Then I have to start working on the content of my next solo.\"\n\nHe knew how to keep her brain otherwise occupied now. \"How do you figure it? The content?\"\n\n\"You've got to mix it up. People get bored doing the same routines. They may go back to an old favorite, but they want something a little different to try. I've got to keep up with what's current, what's safe, what's good for beginners, what works for the more experienced. And you've got to add some fun in there. Some challenge, too. It's like a healthy breakfast. It gets boring if it's all granola and quinoa.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled as he ate the last bite. \"Want another?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"That's what I told my mother. I'm just starting to play with the idea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, thanks. But that was a surprise. You should do a cookbook.\"\n\nShe jabbed his shoulder with a finger. \"That's what I told my mother. I'm just starting to play with the idea.\"\n\n\"You'd be good at it.\" He kissed her cheek. \"I'll get the dishes. I expect to ward off some of the rainy Saturday sorrows by telling the kids about the beach. There will be cheers and celebrations,\" he said as he started loading the dishes into the dishwasher. \"Then Mariah will announce she needs new beach clothes.\"\n\n\"Well, wouldn't she?\"\n\nHe aimed a hard stare over his shoulder. \"She doesn't need your encouragement. And I'll face what fathers across the land dread and fear: a shopping trip.\"\n\n\"I could take her.\"\n\nHe turned completely around. \"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm also going to need new beach clothes. I'll take her. Girl shopping, girl lunch, girl talk. We'll have fun.\"\n\n\"You have no idea what you'd be in for. I'm serious.\"\n\nShe sipped her Coke. \"Challenge accepted. We'll talk about it over dinner, Mariah and I, and pick a day after school's out.\"\n\n\"I need you to swear something, right here and now.\"\n\n\"For God's sake, Raylan, I won't let her run in traffic or play with matches.\"\n\n\"Not that. I want your solemn oath that after this experience, you'll still have sex with me. No matter what happens.\"\n\nShe swiped her finger across her heart. \"So sworn.\"\n\n\"I'm going before you come to your senses. Then I'm locking you in because when she brings up shopping, and she will, I'm telling her you're taking her.\"\n\n\"Fine with me.\" She rose, wrapped her arms around his waist. \"Men. You're such wussies about a little shopping.\"\n\n\"Yes, and not ashamed of it. Don't work too hard, okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just hard enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He kissed her, held on a minute. \"We'll see you tomorrow. Kiss your sweetheart goodbye, Jasper. We gotta go.\"\n\nWhen he got to his mother's, he saw Nana Magic had his kids working on—peacefully—a jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table. And his mother stood on a stepladder cleaning the high shelves in her kitchen.\n\n\"Get down from there. What are you doing standing on a ladder?\"\n\n\"Since I don't have the ability to levitate, it helps me reach these shelves.\"\n\n\"Get down,\" he repeated. \"I'll do it. You can't be standing on ladders.\"\n\nShe peered down at him, Orange Glo in one hand, rag in the other. \"Are you saying I'm an old lady?\"\n\n\"No, I'm saying you're my mom.\"\n\n\"Good answer. I'm done anyway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As she came down—with him spotting her—he saw the various dust catchers she kept on the shelves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cookbooks on the bottom, easy-to-reach one, he remembered.\n\n\"You just hold on,\" he ordered. \"I'll put the stuff back—you can hand it to me. But hold on.\"\n\nNow she slapped her hands on her hips. \"I have to wipe it all down or wash it anyway. And just when did you start thinking you're the boss of me?\"\n\n\"Since I saw you standing on a ladder. Just wait, and I'll do it.\" He walked into the dining room, put a hand on each kid's head, studied the puzzle.\n\n\"Candy store, very cool. You're almost done.\"\n\n\"It's raining, Daddy.\" Mariah tried a big, colorful piece in nearly every available spot before she found its place. \"Nana said she has another one we can take home to do if the rain, rain, won't go away.\"\n\n\"You can help with that one, but not this one.\" Bradley, tongue caught in his teeth, found the center piece to a giant bag of M&M's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I will merely observe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he did, as they neared the finish, he saw Bradley slide two pieces under his hand while he reached for another.\n\nWhen it came down to the last pieces, he started to give his son a poke, but his mother—in the kitchen, facing away—just turned her head.\n\nRaylan hadn't considered, ever, the eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head mythos. He'd dubbed it, long, long ago, the Mom Mind Meld.\n\nAnd she sent Bradley The Look.\n\nBradley wilted under it, as all humans, mammals, fish or fowl, or otherworldly creatures would.\n\n\"No more pieces! Where are the pieces!\"\n\nAs his sister hunted, even looked under the table, Bradley slid one piece over.\n\n\"Here they are. Last two. Like Nana said, okay?\"\n\nFlushed with excitement—and thankfully oblivious to the attempted coup—Mariah snagged her piece. \"We count down! Three, two, one!\"\n\nAnd they set the last pieces in unison." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yay! Look, Daddy, we did it all by ourselves. Yum, yum, candy!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nana said if we finished it without fighting, we could have a Hershey Bar.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'first' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bradley looked up at Raylan. \"Can we?\"\n\n\"Nana rules. But go upstairs, get all your stuff together first. I'm going to help Nana finish this, then we've gotta go.\"\n\nThey raced off with Jasper on their heels.\n\nRaylan picked up a dishcloth to start drying.\n\n\"They brighten my world,\" she said.\n\n\"You brighten theirs. I want to say, while the bright is out of earshot, I've concluded that, with your superpowers, you know Adrian and I are doing jigsaw puzzles together.\"\n\nShe smiled, handed him the old Delft teapot that had been his grandmother's. \"I've also concluded doing jigsaw puzzles is making both of you happy.\"\n\n\"It is. We are. You know the crap she's dealing with.\"\n\n\"Enough to worry me, yes. Maya told me she—or Lina—hired a detective.\"\n\n\"And the detective's making progress. But in the meantime, and in the spirit of giving her a break, of seeing what comes next, I got Spencer's beach house for two weeks in July. I asked her to come with me and the kids.\"\n\n\"Then it's more than jigsaw puzzles for you. Up you go. Top shelf first. Don't question your feelings,\" she told him as she handed him the teapot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just feel them. You have a good, strong heart, and so much room in it.\"\n\n\"I have to talk to the kids about it. They have to be okay with it.\"\n\n\"Of course. You're raising good, strong hearts with lots of room in them.\" She handed him a Depression-glass biscuit jar. \"Careful with that.\" Then she put a hand on his leg. \"I loved their mother like my own child. She brightened my life, too.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Love isn't finite, Raylan. It always makes more room.\"\n\nHe thought of that as he drove home with the kids bombarding him with what they'd done at Nana's.\n\nBuilt a fort out of bed linens, made s'mores, played the Game of Life and Yahtzee and Old Maid.\n\nIn the jigsaw mode, they wanted to start the new one as soon as they walked in the door. So he set them up, sat down to work it with them while the rain splattered and Jasper decided it was as good a time as any for a nap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many more days until school's over, Bradley?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thirteen! Only thirteen more school days to freedom!\"\n\n\"Right. I've been working on a list of summer chores.\"\n\n\"Dad!\" Bradley slumped, dramatically, in his chair while Mariah systematically looked for end pieces.\n\n\"Oh yeah, and the first one is to put up a basketball hoop. Been meaning to get to that. And there's porch sweeping, plant watering, room cleaning. I've got a long list.\"\n\n\"Summer's for fun.\"\n\n\"I'm working that in. Basketball hoop, the summer reading contest, bike riding, hanging out with pals, going to the park, a couple weeks at the beach, family cookouts—\"\n\n\"The beach!\" Mariah squealed it. \"We're going to the beach! Can we get the same house like last time?\"\n\n\"Well, no,\" he began as Bradley leaped up to do wild celebratory dances. \"Because we're going to a different beach.\"\n\n\"How come?\" Bradley demanded. \"That was a good beach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, but so's this. You get to go to a whole other state. North Carolina. I'll show you on the map. My friend Spencer's letting us use his beach house, right on the ocean. And it has a swimming pool.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"She's nice. She helped me with my cartwheel once.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A pool!\" Bradley began to dance again, but Mariah reserved judgment.\n\n\"Is it a nice house like the other?\"\n\n\"It's a very nice house.\"\n\n\"Will I still get to have my own room and not have to share with a stinky boy?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Raylan decided to ignore Bradley's mouth-farting spree. \"It's a big house, lots of rooms. So I invited Adrian to come with us, if you're okay with it.\"\n\nThe mouth farts stopped as Bradley eyed him.\n\n\"Two girls, two boys.\" Mariah nodded. \"She's nice. She helped me with my cartwheel once.\"\n\n\"I didn't know that.\"\n\n\"She came to see Teesha when I was at Phin's and helped me do a cartwheel right. She can do bunches of them, and she smells good. I like her clothes. Phin said he saw you kiss her on the mouth. Is she your girlfriend?\"\n\nWell shit, Raylan thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So much for easing into it. \"She's a girl, and my friend, and we like each other.\" He looked at Bradley now. \"You like her, don't you?\"\n\n\"She can walk on her hands. That's cool. And she talks regular, not all: Ooooh, aren't you getting big,\" he said in a rather excellent falsetto singsong before he rolled his eyes. \"She knows stuff like why the Joker is Batman's nemesis.\"\n\n\"Essential things.\"\n\n\"I like her.\"\n\n\"Then it's okay if she and Sadie come with us to the beach?\"\n\n\"Jasper loves Sadie. Sadie's Jasper's girlfriend for sure.\" Mariah hopped up. \"I need beach clothes, Daddy. I need new clothes for the beach. Can we go shopping?\"\n\n\"Funny you should ask. Adrian said she needed new beach clothes if she went with us, and said maybe the two of you could go together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mariah's mouth dropped open; her eyes went to saucers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can shop with a girl? Just a girl?\"\n\n\"If you want. We're going to her house for dinner tomorrow so you could talk about it.\"\n\n\"I want to go shopping with Adrian. I have to go up to my room right now and see what I need. I need sandals and flip-flops and three new bathing suits.\"\n\n\"Slow down. Three?\"\n\n\"You can't wear the same one every day.\" A female eye roll this time. \"You have to wash out the salt from the ocean and the stuff from the pool, and you need three. I'm going up right now. I can make a list!\"\n\nOn the wings of a proposed shopping spree, his fashionista ran from the room.\n\nBradley sat back down. \"I need to talk to you. Private.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Are you going to make sex with Adrian?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inside his head, Raylan's brain exploded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had to run a hand over his hair to make sure the flames were metaphorical. \"Wow. Did not see that coming.\"\n\n\"You kissed her on the mouth.\"\n\n\"I did. One doesn't always follow the other.\" But when Bradley just watched him, he figured he had to shoot straight. \"Sex is complicated and private. And it should be. But under the circumstances... I have feelings for Adrian, and we're both grown-ups. So... yes.\"\n\n\"You kissed Mom on the mouth. A lot. And you made sex with her because you have to make sex to have babies.\"\n\n\"I did, we did. We wanted you and Mo. Ah, you don't always make sex to have babies, so you...\"\n\nEight years old, Raylan thought. Closing in on nine, sure, but still. How much was too much?\n\n\"I loved your mom, so much.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"Love makes room, Brad. There's always more room for love.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you don't love her anymore?\"\n\nNow Raylan's heart twisted. \"Oh, Bradley, I do.\"\n\nReassurance, Raylan realized. The kid wanted reassurance, not a biology lesson.\n\n\"I'll always love her.\" He pulled the boy out of the chair, onto his lap. \"And all I have to do is look at you, at Mo, and see her. She's in you, and I love seeing her in you.\"\n\n\"Mo doesn't remember as much, because she was just a baby practically. But I do. I still talk to her in my head sometimes.\"\n\n\"Me, too.\"\n\nBradley looked up. \"You really do?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I'm always going to miss her, but all I have to do is look at you and Mo, and she's there. I love her. I love that we made you and Mariah together.\"\n\nHis mother's words came back to him, as if she'd said them for just this moment.\n\n\"Love makes room, Brad. There's always more room for love.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 11 sentences more sentences? like Nora Roberts but Romance, Crime style. btw this is from middle of a story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Long before the summer sun set, music blasted, rides whirled and twirled, kids—and plenty of adults—squealed. The air, filled with scents of fried sugar, grilled meat, bubbling grease, radiated heat and humidity.\n\nMidway games drew hopefuls who'd shell out twenty bucks for a chance to win a two-dollar toy. Bells clanged, wheels spun, air guns popped.\n\nThe minute they parked in the field with dozens of cars, Bradley grabbed Raylan's hand. \"Let's go, Dad! I'm starving. I want two hot dogs and fries and funnel cake and ice cream and—\"\n\n\"If you eat half of that before you get on the rides, you'll puke.\"\n\n\"Nuh-uh!\"\n\n\"Yuh-huh. Pick some rides first, then chow, then we'll do some games before any more rides.\"\n\n\"I want the Matterhorn and the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Ferris wheel.\" In her delight, Mariah executed a very nice cartwheel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You up for this?\" Raylan asked Adrian.\n\n\"Absolutely.\"\n\nAt the admissions booth he bought four full-access passes. Then scanned the wild maze of booths and rides. \"Looks like Matterhorn's first up.\"\n\n\"I can ride it this year.\" Mariah reached up for Adrian's hand. \"I wasn't tall enough last year, but I grew. We measured and everything. I only have to do baby rides if I want.\"\n\n\"How about you ride with me, Mo?\"\n\n\"I can ride with Adrian, Daddy. We're the girls.\"\n\n\"We're good,\" Adrian assured him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And they were, tucked together in the bobsled car, swinging out and in, faster and faster until the world was a blur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beside her, Mariah let out screams, wild laughs, screams.\n\nWhen they slowed, she beamed up at Adrian. \"This was the most fun in my whole life!\"\n\n\"There's more where that came from.\"\n\nThe minute they hit the ground again, Mariah leaped up into Raylan's arms. \"Can we do it again? Can we?\"\n\n\"My fearless femme.\" He rubbed his cheek to hers. \"Sure. But why don't we hit something else first?\"\n\n\"Text from Teesha. They're parking, and Maya and Joe pulled in right behind them.\"\n\n\"Why don't you tell her we'll meet them at the Tilt-A-Whirl?\"\n\n\"Can I get cotton candy when we eat?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they walked, Raylan looked down at Mariah, then over at Adrian." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'almost' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You might have to put on blinders.\"\n\n\"Do the ring toss, Dad. Can I have a penknife when you win?\"\n\n\"When you're thirteen,\" Raylan told Bradley.\n\n\"That's forever away!\"\n\n\"How come you claimed you were almost a teenager the other day?\"\n\nBradley executed the one-eighty flawlessly. \"I almost am, so I should have a penknife.\"\n\n\"Does not compute.\" But Raylan paused by the ring-toss game, bought tickets. He spotted a fancy pink penknife, flipped the ring. Ringed the bottle with it.\n\n\"How did you do that?\" Adrian demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's just hand-eye coordination and some basic physics.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He handed her the prize." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're old enough to have this. Be responsible.\"\n\nHe won a gaudy necklace for Mariah, a pen with multicolored ink for Bradley.\n\n\"That shouldn't have been possible,\" Adrian commented as they continued to the next ride.\n\n\"Yeah, that's what the guy running the game usually says.\"\n\nWhen they met up with the rest, Phineas studied the whirling ride with sorrow. \"I'm not tall enough.\"\n\n\"You will be next year,\" Mariah told him. \"I just got tall enough.\"\n\n\"It's all right, my man. I'm tall enough, but I don't go on those puke machines.\" Monroe already had the baby kicking his feet in his stroller. \"You, me, and Thad are going to hit the other rides. Why don't you give me your short stuff there, Maya, and I'll take her with us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Three to one?\" Patting Quinn's bottom in the front pack she wore, Maya shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll stick with you this round.\"\n\n\"I'll rotate with you.\" Joe leaned over to kiss Maya. Then rubbed his hands together. \"I love me some puke machines. Ready for your first whirl, Collin? You just hit tall enough.\"\n\nHe bit his lip. \"I guess.\"\n\n\"You don't have to. You can come with us,\" Maya told him.\n\n\"No, I can do it.\"\n\nHe did it, but unlike Mariah, came off with eyes wide and shocked. He managed two more rides with eyes like blue glass moons.\n\n\"Let's give Mom a chance, okay with you? We'll help Monroe with the little guys.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay. We gotta be fair.\" Wobbling a little, Collin took Joe's hand as they walked toward the kiddie rides. \"I didn't puke.\"\n\n\"Guts of steel.\"\n\nAfter the first round, they ate what Adrian judged to be a ridiculous amount of meat, sugar, and fat, then walked off what they could on the midway as dusk settled in and the lights began to beam.\n\nLike magic, she thought.\n\nAnd like magic, Raylan popped balloons with darts to win Mariah a huge stuffed unicorn. At the shooting range, he consistently pinged wolves, roosters, bears, coyotes as they rotated, taking away a robot for Bradley.\n\n\"No, seriously,\" Adrian demanded. \"How do you do that?\"\n\nHe just shrugged. \"It's my superpower. Ball toss over there.\" He pointed. \"See anything you like?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Adrian laughed. \"Have some pity on the carnies, Midway Man.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'phineas' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I like the octopus,\" Phineas told him. \"Octo means eight, and they have eight tentacles.\"\n\n\"Let me see what I can do.\"\n\nHe bagged the octopus for Phineas, a stuffed snake for Collin.\n\n\"I got this.\" Joe pointed toward the high striker. \"Swing a hammer plenty. I'm gonna ring that bell.\" He handed Maya the light-up sword he'd won, rolled his shoulders.\n\nHe swung the hammer up, slammed it down. When it stopped just short, he claimed practice round, passed off more tickets.\n\nThe second swing, the bell rang, lights flashed.\n\n\"My strong man.\" Maya fluttered her lashes, and took the stuffed, big-eyed cow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't look at me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laughing, Monroe waved his hands in the air. \"I already won these magic crystals by pure luck. I'm a music man, not Thor.\"\n\nBefore Raylan could step up, Adrian raised a hand. \"I'll try it.\"\n\nThe operator smiled at her. \"Good luck there, missy.\"\n\nThe hammer had more weight than she'd anticipated, but she planted her feet, hefted it, brought it down.\n\nThe weight stopped a full ten inches short of the bell.\n\n\"That was a nice try, little lady.\" The operator handed her a hair band with light-up, bouncy flowers.\n\nShe put it on, rolled her shoulders back, rolled them forward. \"One more time.\"\n\nRaylan peeled off the tickets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gripped the hammer, took her stance, tipped her head side to side." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Breathed in. Breathed out. Breathed in, and swung on the exhale.\n\nThe weight flew up, banged the bell, set the lights flashing.\n\n\"Little ladies don't have these.\" She flexed her biceps.\n\nThe carnie laughed. \"Guess they don't.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ill start (might include ongoing story elements), then u do 8 sentences in Nora Roberts's voice ok?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "At some point in your response, insert this verbatim: \"We're sorry about your niece, Sergeant,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While JJ tucked into his steak and eggs, Morestead and Deeks got off the hospital elevator. They both recognized cop in the man pacing a few feet away.\n\nMorestead reached for his badge. \"Detective Bower?\"\n\n\"No.\" The man, burly in a T-shirt and mom jeans, gave them the hard eye. \"Sergeant Mooney. It's my niece, my sister's girl, up in surgery. Bower and Wochowski stepped out.\"\n\n\"We're sorry about your niece, Sergeant,\" Deeks began and told him their names. \"Do you know her status?\"\n\n\"Don't know a damn fucking thing except she took four bullets. They got 'em out, and they're in Evidence. Two in the chest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tapped a fist on his own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Called it in herself, that's what she did. That's what she's made of.\"\n\n\"Is there a suspect?\"\n\nThe hard eye shifted, hot now, to Morestead. \"Don't stand there asking stupid questions. You're coming up to talk to her 'cause you connected the dots. Or she connected them for you. You Homicide boys don't get a damn warrant for Bennett, I'm heading out myself, waking up a judge, and I will goddamn get one myself.\"\n\n\"Sergeant.\" Deeks spoke softly—one of her skills. \"We caught this case less than eighteen hours ago. It looks like my partner was the last person to speak with your niece before this happened. She did connect those dots for us, and we read her files, which she sent to us, on the way here. If Bower and Wochowski are unable to secure a warrant to bring Nikki Bennett in for questioning, for a search of her home, her office, her vehicles, we will do so.\"\n\nMooney held up a hand, breathed out. \"I jumped on you. I had to step out of the waiting room. Rachael's husband, her two kids, my sister, my brother-in-law, my wife, Rachael's brother, her sister, hell, most of the family, and there are a lot of us, are packed in there, or outside trying to walk this off.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My brother was shot. He attended Virginia Tech—2007. I was just a kid. I've never been so scared in my life as I was sitting in that waiting room. It's why I became a cop.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"I'm glad to hear it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did he make it?\" Mooney asked her.\n\n\"Yeah. He was the first of my family to graduate from college.\"\n\n\"I'm glad to hear it.\" He pushed a hand over his grizzled hair. \"Let's get you some coffee.\"\n\nThe elevator doors opened again.\n\n\"Bower, Wochowski—Morestead and Deeks.\"\n\nMooney waited for everyone to shake hands. \"You get it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the works, Sarge,\" Bower told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's in the works. They're getting a judge out of bed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rubbed the back of his neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wochowski talked to the LT while I talked to the prosecutor—and I got her out of bed.\"\n\n\"We're going to put a team together,\" Wochowski told the others. \"A takedown team, a search team. Bowers and I will get her into interview. You all are welcome to observe. She's got money,\" he added, \"so she can afford a good lawyer. We need some hard evidence. Physical evidence.\"\n\n\"If this woman shot Rachael,\" Bower continued, \"we're going to nail her for it. That's a goddamn promise, Sarge. We need that search team to find us something that ties her to Rachael, to any of the others Rachael believes this woman killed.\"\n\n\"Still in surgery?\" Wochowski asked, and Mooney just nodded. \"When she comes out of it, when she comes around, she'll help us nail it down.\"\n\n\"We were moving on it.\" Bower lightly pounded his fist on his thigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were going over to talk to Bennett today. We couldn't get to it before. Then we got slammed with that double.\"\n\nMooney waved it away. \"I didn't see it as hot either. I should've. I didn't.\"\n\nHe broke off, strode away when he saw one of the doctors in scrubs. His heart pounded in his throat, in his ears. \"You were operating on Rachael McNee. I'm her uncle. I'm—\"\n\n\"I remember.\" The quiet-voiced, weary-eyed woman nodded. \"Dr. Stringer. Your niece is stable. She's strong, and she's stable. She's in serious condition, and we'll watch her closely for the next twelve hours. She came through the surgery well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can you tell the family? They're going to want to see her. I know that horde can't all go see her, but her husband, her kids, her mom. They need to see her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'll be sedated through the night, but yes, we'll arrange for that.\"\n\n\"They ain't going anywhere till she wakes up.\"\n\n\"Cafeteria's twenty-four-seven. I can arrange to have a cot brought in for her husband once she's out of recovery. The shoulder and arm wounds were minor. The chest wounds more serious, as we already discussed. She also lacerated the back of her head, in the fall, I believe. I want to say it's a wonder she stayed conscious and able to contact nine-one-one.\"\n\n\"You don't know Rachael.\"\n\nThe doctor smiled. \"I do now. I hope you find who did this to her.\"\n\n\"Count on it. Family's all in there. Or most of them.\"\n\nHe turned to the other cops. \"Give me five minutes with the family, then I'm in on this takedown.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sarge—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't fuck with me on this. I've been a cop damn near as long as you've been alive, Bower. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize the case against the individual who put my niece in the hospital. And I'm going to be there when you take her in.\"\n\n\"Five minutes. We need to get back to the house, suit up, brief the team.\"\n\n\"We'll be on that.\" Morestead waited for the frustrated looks. \"To observe and assist only. It's your takedown, Detectives. But we will need to interview the suspect regarding our victim.\"\n\n\"Fair enough. Take your five, Mooney. Sarge? I'm really glad Rachael's coming through.\"\n\nDeeks looked toward the waiting room as she heard the weeping. \"Relief tears,\" she said. \"They sound different from grief. It's good to hear them.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? three sentences more, same character context, Romance, Crime genre thx" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'warrior' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mind clear, breath steady, Adrian continued her flow. Her muscles warmed; her mood mellowed. She held in Warrior I, let the stretch work its magic, then slid fluidly into Warrior II." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Deep, so her body sighed with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And with her gaze focused along her right outstretched hand, she saw the man come out of the woods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything froze, and in that frozen moment, she hurtled back, years back, to Georgetown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not possible, not possible because she'd seen him wheel over the railing, she'd seen him fall.\n\nShe'd seen him die.\n\nBut he walked toward her now, smiling a terrible smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Run! she heard the voice scream inside her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But when she started to swing around and charge the steps, he leveled a gun at her.\n\n\"Take a step, I'll shoot you. I won't kill you, but I'll take you down.\"\n\nBeyond him, just to the left, she saw Sadie sprawled on the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Warning or not, the terror and grief spiked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sadie!\"\n\nWhen she started to run for the dog, he stepped in front of her. \"One more step, I shoot you in the knee. It'll hurt like hell, and you won't run again. She's just sleeping.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He beamed that smile again out of the face of a dead man.\n\nAnd for a horrible instant she was seven again, and helpless.\n\n\"I don't kill dogs. What do you take me for? Tranquilizer gun. Picked it up back in Wyoming, just for her, just for today. Now you're going to walk on up there into the house so we can have some privacy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled that smile again. \"We've got a lot of catching up to do. Sis.\"\n\nNot The Man, she realized." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His son. Almost a mirror image, but she could see some differences now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The son had a slighter build, and no silver glinting at his temples. The hair itself, choppily cut, not styled.\n\nBut the eyes, oh, the eyes were the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despite the smile, rage and madness lived there.\n\nAnd she wasn't seven anymore. She wasn't helpless.\n\n\"You're Jonathan Bennett.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just call me JJ.\"\n\n\"You've been sending me poems. For a long time.\"\n\n\"Got another for you, but that'll wait. We'll talk inside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she could keep him out here, she might still find room to run." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or Sadie—if he told the truth—might wake up.\n\n\"We were just children. You, your sister, me. We didn't do anything.\"\n\n\"The child makes the man, or the whore-bitch, depending.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is your sister here, too? Does she want to talk to me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's just you and me. Nikki? She likes to put up walls, tune out. She's like our mother that way, without the pills and booze. Well, she's inside four of them now, and there she'll stay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She heard pleasure in his voice. Not rage, not fury, but an almost dreamy pleasure. Maybe she could reason with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know anything about you, or her. I just—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll find out plenty. Up the stairs, nice and slow. You try to bolt, I blow out your knee. Move!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And that rage, that fury flashed to burning in his eyes." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'would' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or I'll put you down and drag you in bleeding.\"\n\nHe would, she could see he would. She turned for the stairs, tried to think, just think, through the screaming fear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew the house, every inch. He didn't. A moment's distraction, that's all she needed.\n\nDozens of places to hide, dozens of ways to fight back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she needed a distraction. And couldn't risk it with a gun at her back.\n\nGet to her phone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the bedroom on the charger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Get to her phone, call for help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stepped into the kitchen, scanned over to the knife block. Maybe, maybe, if an opportunity came.\n\n\"Close the doors, and lock them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She obeyed, but she was thinking now.\n\nIf he'd wanted to kill her outright, she'd be dead. He wanted to talk first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to tell his story, or rage at her, or both.\n\nHe wanted to hurt her before he killed her.\n\nThat gave her time, and with time came opportunities and distractions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Some place,\" he commented." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Big-ass house. I grew up in a big house, but I've been making do with a nice little cabin for a while now. Upstairs.\"\n\n\"Upstairs?\"\n\n\"You left doors open up there, too. You thought you were all safe here, didn't you, in your big-ass house.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Upstairs, she thought. Her phone on the charger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She walked, considering places she could hide, or areas where she could fight, weapons she could use. A lamp, a heavy vase, a paperweight, a letter opener.\n\n\"Why poems? Why did you send poems?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because I'm good at them. Even as a kid. My dad was proud of my poems.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was hard for you, losing him.\"\n\n\"I didn't lose him. You killed him.\" He jammed the gun into the small of her back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you hadn't been born, he'd be alive.\"\n\nTraining kicked in so she calmed herself with breath. \"I didn't know about him until that day. My mother never told me. She never told anybody.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't give a gold-plated fuck about who she told, who she didn't. He's dead because you're alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She glanced at the bronze statue on a table in the upstairs hall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heavy, she thought.\n\nShe walked past it, and into the bedroom.\n\n\"Close and lock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Phone on the charger, just a few feet away. Distraction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned toward him, let all the fear shake into her voice." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'knock' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know why you're doing this. I don't understand why—\"\n\nHe backhanded her with his left, hard enough to knock her to the floor and send pain rocketing through her face.\n\n\"Close and lock. Do what I say when I say it, or I'll knock some teeth out next time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She pushed herself up, closed the doors, turned the lock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when he sidestepped, picked up her phone, her hopes dropped.\n\nHe tossed it to the floor, stomped on it. Grinned.\n\nSaid, \"Oops!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gestured with the gun toward the love seat, the reading chair. \"Take a seat. Now! Unless you want another smack.\"\n\nShe'd be ready for it next time, and she knew how to counter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a couple of inches on her at best—and she had longer limbs. Wiry muscles, yeah, but she'd pit hers against his.\n\nShe'd have to." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he still held the gun.\n\nShe sat in the corner of the love seat nearest the door.\n\nHe shrugged off the backpack, set it down, took the chair.\n\n\"Now we're all cozy.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "keep the story goin for seven sentences more. Science Fiction, Generation Ship genre, Gene Wolfe style. characters might be from earlier chapters" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Silk lifted himself until he could sit almost comfortably upon the turret, then waved both hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face was smeared with the mud of the storm, mud that was cracking and falling away now; the gaudy tunic that Doctor Crane had brought him in Limna was daubed with mud as well, and he wondered how many of those who waved and cheered and jumped and shouted around the floater actually recognized him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SILK FOR CALDÉ!\n\nSILK FOR CALDÉ!\n\nWas there really to be a caldé again, and was this new caldé to be himself? Caldé was a title that his mother had mentioned occasionally, a carved head in her closet.\n\nHe looked up Sun Street, then stared. That was, surely, the silver-gray of a Sacred Window, nearly lost in the bright sunshine—a Window in the middle of the street.\n\nThe wind carried the familiar odor of sacrifice—cedar smoke, burning fat, burning hair, and burning feathers, the mixture stronger than that of hot metal, hot fish-oil, and hot dust that wrapped the floater." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before the silver shimmer of the Window, a black sleeve slid down a thin arm of gray metal, and a moment later he caught sight of Maytera Marble's shining, beloved face below the waving, fleshlike hand." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 3 instance(s) of the word 'maytera'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed too good to be true. \"Maytera!\" In the tumult of the crowd he could scarcely hear his own voice; he silenced them with a gesture, arms out, palms down. \"Quiet! Quiet; please!\"\n\nThe noise diminished, replaced by the troubled bleating of sheep and the angry hissing of geese; as the crowd parted before the floater, he located the animals themselves.\n\n\"Maytera! You're holding a viaggiatory sacrifice?\"\n\n\"Maytera Mint is! I'm helping!\"\n\n\"Patera!\" Gulo was back, trotting alongside the floater, his black robe fallow with dust. \"There are dozens of victims, Patera! Scores!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'before' 3 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would have to sacrifice alternately if the ceremony were not to be prolonged till shadelow—which was what Gulo wanted, of course; the glory of offering so many victims, of appearing before so large a congregation. Yet he was not (as Silk reminded himself sharply) asking for more than his due as acolyte. Furthermore, Gulo could begin immediately, while he, Silk, would have to wash and change. \"Stop,\" he called to the driver. \"Stop right here.\" The floater settled to the ground before the altar.\n\nSilk swung his legs from the turret to stand at the edge of the deck before it, admonished by a twinge from his ankle.\n\n\"Friends!\" A voice he felt he should recognize at once, shrill yet thrilling, rang from the walls of every building on Sun Street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Patera Silk! This is the man whose fame has brought you to the poorest manteion in the city. To the Window through which the gods look upon Viron again!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd roared approval.\n\n\"Hear him! Recall your holy errand, and his!\"\n\nSilk, who had identified the speaker at the fourth word, blinked and shook his head, and looked again. Then there was silence, and he had forgotten what he had been about to say.\n\nAn antlered stag among the waiting victims (an offering to Thelxiepeia, the patroness of divination, presumably) suggested an approach; his fingers groped for an ambion. \"No doubt there are many questions you wish to ask the gods concerning these unsettled times. Certainly there are many questions I need to ask. Most of all, I wish to beg the favor of every god; and most of all to beg Stabbing Sphigx, at whose order armies march and fight, for peace. But before I ask the gods to speak to us, and before I beg their favor, I must wash and change into suitable clothes. I've been in a battle, you see—one in which good and brave men died; and before I return to our manse to scrub my face and hands and throw these clothes into the stove, I must tell you about it.\"\n\nThey listened with upturned faces, eyes wide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You must have wondered at seeing me in a Guard floater. Some of you surely thought, when you saw our floater, that the Guard intended to prevent your sacrifice. I know that, because I saw you drawing weapons and reaching for stones. But you see, these Guardsmen have endorsed a new government for Viron.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were cheers and shouts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or as I should have said, a return to the old one. They wish us to have a caldé—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Silk is caldé!\" someone shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"—and a return to the forms laid down in our Charter. I encountered some of these brave and devout Guardsmen in Limna, and because I was afraid we might be stopped by other units of the Guard, I foolishly suggested that they pretend I was their prisoner. Many of you will have anticipated what happened as a result. Other Guardsmen attacked us, thinking that they were rescuing me.\" He paused for breath.\n\n\"Remember that. Remember that you must not assume that every Guardsman you see is our enemy, and remember that even those who oppose us are Vironese.\" His eyes sought out Maytera Marble again. \"I've lost my keys, Maytera. Is the garden gate unlocked? I should be able to get into the manse that way.\"\n\nShe cupped her hands (hands that might have belonged to a bio woman) around her mouth. \"I'll open it for you, Patera!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Patera Gulo, proceed with the sacrifice, please. I'll join you as soon as I can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clumsily, Silk vaulted from the floater, trying to put as much weight as he could on his sound left leg; at once he found himself surrounded by well-wishers, some of them in green Civil Guard uniforms, some in mottled green conflict armor, most in bright tunics or flowing gowns, and more than a few in rags; they touched him as they might have touched the image of a god, in speeches blurted in a second or two declared themselves his disciples, partisans, and supporters forever, and carried him along like the rush of a rain-swollen river." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the garden wall was at his elbow, and Maytera Marble at the gate waving to him while the Guardsmen swung the butts of the slug guns to keep back the crowd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A voice at his ear said, \"I shall come with you, My Caldé. Always now, you must have someone to protect you.\" It was the captain with whom he had breakfasted at four in the morning in Limna.\n\nThe garden gate banged shut behind them; on the other side Maytera Marble's key grated in the lock. \"Stay here,\" the captain ordered a Guardsman in armor. \"No one is to enter.\" He turned back to Silk, pointed toward the cenoby. \"Is that your house, My Caldé?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. It's over there. The triangular one.\" Belatedly, he realized that it did not appear triangular from the garden; the captain would think him mad. \"The smaller one. Patera Gulo won't have locked the door. Potto got my keys.\"\n\n\"Councillor Potto, My Caldé?\"\n\n\"Yes, Councillor Potto.\" Yesterday's pain rushed back: Potto's fists and electrodes, Sand's black box. Scrupulous answers that brought further blows and the electrodes at his groin. Silk pushed the memories away as he limped along the graveled path, the captain behind him and five troopers behind the captain, passing the dying fig in whose shadow the animals that were to die for Orpine's spirit had rested, the arbor in which he had spoken to Kypris and chatted with Maytera Marble, her garden and his own blackberries and wilting tomato vines, all in less time than his mind required to recognize and love them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave your men outside, Captain. They can rest in the shade of the tree beside the gate if they like.\" Were they doomed, too? From the deck of the floater he had talked of Sphigx; and those who perished in battle were accounted her sacrifices, just as those struck by lightning were said to have been offered to Pas.\n\nThe kitchen was exactly as he recalled it; if Gulo had eaten since moving into the manse, he had not done it here. Oreb's water cup still stood on the kitchen table beside the ball snatched from Horn. \"If it hadn't happened, the big boys would have won,\" he murmured.\n\n\"I beg pardon, My Caldé?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pay no attention—I was talking to myself.\" Refusing the captain's offer of help, he toiled at the pump handle until he could splash his face and disorderly yellow hair with cold water that he could not help imagining smelled of the tunnels, soap and rinse them, and rub them dry with a dish towel.\n\n\"You'll want to wash up a bit, too, Captain. Please do so while I change upstairs.\"\n\nThe stair was steeper than he remembered; the manse, which he had always thought small, smaller than ever. Seated on the bed that he had left unmade on Molpseday morning, he lashed its wrinkled sheets with Doctor Crane's wrapping.\n\nHe had told the crowd he would burn his tunic and loose brown trousers, but although soaked and muddy they were still practically new, and of excellent quality; washed, they might clothe some poor man for a year or more. He pulled the tunic off and tossed it into the hamper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The azoth he had filched from Hyacinth's boudoir was in the waistband of the trousers. He pressed it to his lips and carried it to the window to examine it again. It had never been Hyacinth's, from what Crane had told him; Crane had merely had her keep it, feeling that her rooms were less likely to be searched than his own. Crane himself had received it from an unnamed khanum in Trivigaunte who had intended it as a gift for Blood. Was it Blood's, then? If so, it must be turned over to Blood without fail. There must be no more theft from Blood; he had gone too far in that direction on Phaesday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the other hand, if Crane had been authorized to dispose of it (as it seemed he had), it was his, since Crane had given it to him as Crane lay dying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might be sold for thousands of cards and the money put to good use—but a moment's self-examination convinced him that he could never exchange it for money if he had any right to it.\n\nSomeone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other, and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon worth a company of the Civil Guard—the weapon with which he had slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him with when he would not lie with her.\n\nHad her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night for a few cards—that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he had been taught.\n\nAn augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for. An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with its bolted doors and barred windows?\n\nHe placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his beads beside it, and removed his trousers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were muddier even than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains that could not be washed out.\n\nHis shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rainsoaked, followed them into the hamper.\n\nRude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better than the people they represented before the gods and still represent them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty of coquetry, she simpered, \"This isn't the first time I've seen you with no clothes on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was not there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother you any more.\"\n\nBy that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. \"I wasn't. I hoped that I wouldn't have to.\"\n\nFrom beyond the bedroom door: \"My Caldé?\"\n\n\"I'll be down in a moment, Captain.\"\n\n\"I heard voices, My Caldé. You are in no danger?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This manse is haunted, Captain. You may come up and see for yourself if you like.\"\n\nMucor tittered. \"Isn't this how you talk to them? In the glasses?\"\n\n\"To a monitor, you mean?\" He had been thinking of one; could she read his thoughts? \"Yes, it's very much like this. You must have seen them.\"\n\n\"They don't look the same to me.\"\n\n\"I suppose not.\" With a considerable feeling of relief, Silk pulled on clean black trousers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought I'd be one for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded in recognition of her consideration. \"Just as you use your window and the gods their Sacred Windows. I had not thought of the parallel, but I should have.\"\n\nUnreflected, her face in his mirror bobbed up and down. \"I wanted to tell you it's no good any more, telling my father to lock my window. He'll kill you if he sees you, now. Potto said he had to, and he said he would.\"\n\nThe Ayuntamiento had learned that he was alive and in the city, clearly; it would learn that he was here soon, if it had not already. It would send loyal members of the Guard, might even send soldiers.\n\n\"So it doesn't matter. My body will die soon anyway, and I'll be free like the others. Do you care?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes. Yes, I do. Very much. Why will your body die?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I don't eat. I used to like it, but I don't any more. I'd rather be free.\"\n\nHer face had begun to fade. He blinked, and nothing but the hollows that had been her eyes remained. A breath of wind stirred the curtains, and those hollows, too, were gone.\n\nHe said, \"You must eat, Mucor. I don't want you to die.\" Hoping for a reply, he waited. \"I know you can hear me. You have to eat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had intended to tell her that he had wronged her and her father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That he would make amends, although Blood might kill him afterward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it was too late." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'would' | Required occurrences: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wiping his eyes, he got out his last clean tunic. His prayer beads and a handkerchief went into one trouser pocket, Hyacinth's needler into the other. (He would return it when he could, but that problematic moment at which they might meet again seemed agonizingly remote.) His waistband claimed the azoth; it was possible that augury would provide some hint of what he ought to do with it. He considered selling it again, and thought again of the howling face that had been so like Mucor's in his mirror, and shuddered.\n\nClean collar and cuffs on his second-best robe would have to do. And here was the captain, waiting at the foot of the stair and looking nearly as spruce as he had in that place—what had it been called?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory inclusion (with quotes): She is a child of Hierax's, certainly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the Rusty Lantern in Limna.\n\n\"I was concerned for your safety, My Caldé.\"\n\n\"For my reputation, you mean. You heard a woman's voice.\"\n\n\"A child's, I thought, My Caldé.\"\n\n\"You may search the upper floor if you wish, Captain. If you find a woman—or a child, either—please let me know.\"\n\n\"Hierax have my bones if I have thought of such a thing, My Caldé!\"\n\n\"She is a child of Hierax's, certainly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Silver Street door was barred, as it should have been; Silk rattled the handle to make certain it was locked as well. The window was shut, and locked behind its bars.\n\n\"I can station a trooper in here, if you wish, My Caldé.\"\n\nSilk shook his head. \"We'll need every trooper you have and more, I'm afraid. That officer in the floater—\"\n\n\"Major Civet, My Caldé.\"\n\n\"Tell Major Civet to station men to give the alarm if the Ayuntamiento sends its troopers to arrest me. They should be a street or two away, I suppose.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Weave this into your narrative: \"Very well, Captain. Arrange it. I'm willing to stand trial if I must, but only if it will bring peace.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Two streets or more, My Caldé, and there must be patrols beyond them.\"\n\n\"Very well, Captain. Arrange it. I'm willing to stand trial if I must, but only if it will bring peace.\"\n\n\"You are willing, My Caldé. We are not. Nor are the gods.\"\n\nSilk shrugged and went into the sellaria. The Sun Street door was locked and barred. Two letters on the mantel, one sealed with the Chapter's knife and chalice, one with a flame between cupped hands; he dropped them into the large pocket of his robe. Both the Sun Street windows were locked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they hurried through the garden again and into the street, he found himself thinking of Mucor." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And of Blood, who had adopted her; then of Highest Hierax, who had dropped from the sky a few hours ago for Crane and the solemn young trooper with whom he and Crane had talked in the Rusty Lantern. Mucor wanted to die, to yield to Hierax; and he, Silk, would have to save her if he could. Had it been wrong of him, then, to call her a child of Hierax?\n\nPerhaps not. Women as well as men were by adoption the children of the gods, and no other god so suited Mucor." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Match existing character familiarity or establish new\nLength:\nfour sentences\nGenre:\nScience Fiction, Generation Ship" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bad thing,\" Oreb muttered, watching the burning talus to see whether it could hear him. When it did not react, he repeated more loudly, \"Bad thing!\"\n\n\"Shut up.\" Auk, too, watched it warily.\n\nChenille addressed it, stepping forward with her launcher ready." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'd put out the fire if we could. If we had blankets or—or anything we could beat it out with.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I die! Hear me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just wanted to say we're sorry.\" She glanced back at the four men, and Dace nodded.\n\n\"I serve Scylla! You must!\"\n\nIncus drew himself up to his full height." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You may rely upon me to do everything in my power to carry out the goddess's will. I speak here for my friend Corporal Hammerstone, as well as for myself.\"\n\n\"The Ayuntamiento has betrayed her! Destroy it!\"\n\nHammerstone snapped to attention. \"Request permission to speak, Talus.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The slender black barrel of one buzz gun trembled and the gun fired, its burst whistling five cubits above their heads and sending screaming ricochets far down the tunnel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe you better not,\" Auk whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised his voice. \"Scylla told us Patera Silk was trying to overthrow them, and ordered us to help him. We will if we can. That's Chenille and me, and his bird.\"\n\n\"Tell the Juzgado!\"\n\n\"Right, she said to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dace and Incus nodded.\n\nA tongue of flame licked the talus's cheek. \"The tessera! Thetis! To the subcellar...\" An interior explosion rocked it.\n\nNeedlessly, Auk shouted, \"Get back!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they fled down the tunnel, fire veiled the great metal face.\n\n\"She's done fer now! She's goin' down!\" Dace was slower even than Auk, who tottered on legs weaker than he had known since infancy.\n\nA second muffled explosion, then silence except for the sibilation of the flames." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hammerstone, who had been matching strides with Auk, broke step to snatch up a slug gun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This was a sleeper's,\" he told Auk cheerfully. \"See how shiny the receiver is? Probably never been fired. I couldn't go back for mine 'cause I was supposed to watch you. Mine's had about five thousand rounds through it.\" He put the new slug gun to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.\n\nOreb squawked, and Auk said, \"Careful there! You might hit Jugs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Safety's on.\" Hammerstone lowered the gun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You knew her before, huh?\"\n\nAuk nodded and slowed his pace enough to allow Dace to catch up. \"Since spring, I guess it was.\"\n\n\"I had a girl myself once,\" Hammerstone told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She was a housemaid, but you'd never have guessed it to look at her. Pretty as a picture.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'You'll find somebody, too, if you want to,' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Auk nodded. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"I had to go on reserve. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I wasn't stationed in the city any more. Maybe I should've gone looking for Moly.\" He shrugged. \"Only I figured by then she'd found somebody else. Just about all of them had.\"\n\n\"You'll find somebody, too, if you want to,\" Auk assured him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused to look back up the tunnel; the talus was still in view but seemed remote, a dot of orange fire no larger than the closest light. \"You could be dead,\" he said. \"Suppose Patera hadn't fixed you up?\"\n\nHammerstone shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't ever pay him. I can't even show how much I love him, really. We can't cry. You know about that?\"\n\n\"Poor thing!\" Oreb sounded shocked.\n\nAuk told him, \"You can't cry either, cully.\"\n\n\"Bird cry!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You meatheads are always talking about how good us chems have it,\" Hammerstone continued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good means not being able to eat, and duty seventy-four, maybe a hundred and twenty, hours at a stretch. Good means sleeping so long the Whorl changes, and you got to learn new procedures for everything. Good means seven or eight tinpots after every woman. You want to try it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shag, no!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dace caught Auk's arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks for waitin' up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Auk shook him off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't go all that fast myself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "More cheerfully Hammerstone said, \"I could carry you both, only I'm not supposed to. Patera wouldn't like it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dace's grin revealed a dark gap from which two teeth were missing. \"Mama, don't put me on no boat!\"\n\nAuk chuckled.\n\n\"He means well,\" Hammerstone assured them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He cares about me. That's one reason I'd die for him.\"\n\nAuk suppressed his first thought and substituted, \"Don't you think about your old knot any more? The other soldiers?\"\n\n\"Sure I do. Only Patera comes first.\"\n\nAuk nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You got to consider the whole setup. Our top commander ought to be the caldé. That's our general orders. Only there isn't one, and that means all of us are stuck. Nobody's got the right to give an order, only we do it 'cause we've got to, to keep the brigade running. Sand's my sergeant, see?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"And Schist and Shale are privates in our squad. He tells me and I tell them. Then they go sure, Corporal, whatever you say. Only none of us feels right about it.\"\n\n\"Girl wait?\" Oreb inquired. He had been eyeing Chenille's distant, naked back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sooner or later,\" Auk told him. \"Snuff your jaw. This is interesting.\"\n\n\"Take just the other day,\" Hammerstone continued, \"I was watching a prisoner. A flap broke and I tried to handle it, and he got away from me. If everything was right, I'd've lost my stripes over that, see? Only it's not, so all I got was a chewing out from Sand and double from the major. Why's that?\" He leveled a pipe-sized finger at Auk, who shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell you. 'Cause both of them know Sand wasn't authorized to give anybody orders in the first place, and I could've told him dee-dee if I'd wanted to.\"\n\n\"Dee-dee?\" Oreb peered quizzically at Hammerstone.\n\n\"You want the straight screw? I felt pretty bad when it happened, but it was a lot worse when I was talking to them. Not 'cause of anything they said. I've heard all that till I could sing it. 'Cause they didn't take my stripes. I never thought I'd say that, but that's what it was. They could've done it, only they didn't 'cause they knew they didn't have authority from the caldé, and I kept thinking, you don't have to tell me to wipe them off, I'll wipe them off myself. Only that would just have made them feel worse.\"\n\n\"I never liked working for anybody but me,\" Auk told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You got to have somebody outside. Or anyhow I do. You feeling pretty good now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better'n I did.\"\n\n\"I been watching you, 'cause that's what Patera wants. And you can't hardly walk. You hit your head when the talus bought it, and we figured you were KIA. Patera sort of liked it at first. Only then, not so much. His essential nobility of character coming out. Know what I'm saying?\"\n\nDace put in, \"That big gal cryin' an' yellin' at him.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that too. Look here—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait a minute,\" Auk told them. \"Chenille. She cried?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dace chuckled. \"I felt sorrier fer her than fer you.\"\n\n\"She wasn't even there when I woke up!\"\n\n\"She run off. I was over talkin' ter that talus, but I seen her.\"\n\n\"She was around when I came to,\" Hammerstone told Auk." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'wasn't' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She had that launcher, only it was empty. There was another one, all smashed up, where we were. Maybe she brought it, I don't know. Anyhow, after I talked to Patera about you and a couple other things, I showed her how to disarm the bad one's magazine and load the SSMs in the good one.\"\n\nDace told Hammerstone, \"She got her'n up the tunnel whilst the augur was fixin' you. This big feller, he was off watch, an' didn't nobody know rightly how bad he'd got hurt. When she come back an' seen he wasn't comin' 'round, she foundered.\"\n\nAuk scratched his ear.\n\n\"You've broke your head-bone, big feller, don't let nobody tell you no different. I seen it afore. Feller on my boat got a rap from the boom. He laid in the cuddy couple nights 'fore we could fetch him ashore. He'd open the point an' talk, then sheer off down weather. We fetched him the doctor an' I guess he done all he was able but that feller died next day. You're in luck you wasn't hit no worse.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What makes it good luck?\" Hammerstone asked him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why, stands ter reason, don't it? He don't want ter be dead, no more'n me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All you meatheads talk like that. Only look at it. No more trouble and no more work. No more patrols through these tunnels looking everywhere for nothing and lucky to get a shot at a god. No more—\"\n\n\"Shot god?\" Oreb inquired.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Auk said. \"What the shag are you talking about?\"\n\n\"That's just what we call them,\" Hammerstone explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're really animals. Kind of like a dog, only ugly where a real dog's all right, so we say it backwards.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've never seen any kind of shaggy animal down here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You haven't been down here long, either. You just think you have. There's bats and big blindworms, out under the lake especially. There's gods all around here, only there's five of us and me a soldier, and quite a few lights on this stretch. When we get to someplace darker, watch out.\"\n\n\"You don't mind dyin',\" Dace reminded him. \"That's what you says a little back.\"\n\n\"Now I do.\" Hammerstone pointed up the tunnel to Incus, a hundred cubits ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what I was trying to tell you. Auk said he didn't need an outfit or a leader like Patera, or anything like that.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" Auk declared. \"It's the shaggy truth.\"\n\n\"Then sit down right here. Go to sleep. Dace and me will keep going. You feel pretty sick, I can tell. You don't like walking. Well, there's no reason you've got to. I'll wait till we're about to lose sight of you, then I'll put a couple slugs in you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No shoot!\" Oreb protested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll wait till you've settled down, see? You won't know it's coming. You'll get to thinking I'm not going to. What do you say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No thanks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, here's what I been trying to get across. It doesn't sound that good to you. If I kept on about it, you'd say you had to take care of your girl, even when you're hurt so bad you can't hardly take care of yourself. Or maybe look out for your talking bird or something. Only it'd all be gas, 'cause you really don't want to, even when you know it makes more sense than what you're doing.\"\n\nSick and weak, Auk shrugged. \"If you say so.\"\n\n\"It's not like that for us. Just sitting down somewhere down here and letting everything slow down till I go to sleep, and sleeping, with nobody ever coming by to wake me up, that sounds pretty good. It would sound all right to my sergeant, too, or the major. The reason we don't is we're supposed to look out for Viron. That means the caldé, 'cause he's the one that says what's good for Viron and what's not.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Story continues from larger narrative, characters/lore may lack introduction\nLength:\n12 sentences\nStyle:\nGene Wolfe" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Crouched behind the remaining wall of a fire-gutted shop, Maytera Mint studied her subordinates' faces." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'finger' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zoril looked fearful, Lime stunned, and the big, black-bearded man (she found she had forgotten his name, if she had ever heard it) resolute. \"Now, then,\" she said.\n\nWhy it's just like talking to the class, she thought. No different at all. I wish I had a chalkboard.\n\n\"Now then, we've just had news, and it's bad news, I don't intend to deny that. But it isn't unexpected news. Not to me, and I hope to none of you. We've got Guards penned up in the Alambrera, where they're supposed to pen up other people.\"\n\nShe smiled, hoping they appreciated the irony. \"Anyone would expect that the Ayuntamiento would send its people help. Certainly I expected it, though I hoped it wouldn't be quite so prompt. But it's come, and it seems to me that we can do any of three things.\" She held up three fingers. \"We can go on attacking the Alambrera, hoping we can take it before they get here.\" One finger down. \"We can withdraw.\" Another finger down. \"Or we can leave the Alambrera as it is and fight the reinforcements before they can get inside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The last finger down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you suggest, Zoril?\"\n\n\"If we withdraw, we won't be doing what the goddess said for us to.\"\n\nThe black-bearded man snorted.\n\n\"She told us to capture the Alambrera and tear it down,\" Maytera Mint reminded Zoril. \"We've tried, but we haven't been able to. What we've got to decide, really, is should we go on trying until we're interrupted? Or rest awhile until we feel stronger, knowing that they'll be stronger too? Or should we see to it that we're not interrupted. Lime?\"\n\nShe was a lank woman of forty with ginger-colored hair that Maytera Mint had decided was probably dyed. \"I don't think we can think only about what the goddess said. If she just wanted it torn down, she could have done it herself. She wants us to do it.\"\n\nMaytera Mint nodded. \"I'm in complete agreement.\"\n\n\"We're mortals, so we've got to do it as mortals.\" Lime gulped. \"I don't have as many people following me as the rest of you, and most of mine are women.\"\n\n\"There's nothing wrong with that,\" Maytera Mint assured her. \"So am I. So is the goddess, or at least she's female like us. We know she's Pas's wife and seven times a mother. As for your not having lots of followers, that's not the point. I'd be happy to listen to somebody who didn't have any, if she had good, workable ideas.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What I was trying to say—\" A gust of wind carried dust and smoke into their council; Lime fanned her face with one long, flat hand. \"Is most of mine don't have much to fight with. Just kitchen knives, a lot of them. Eight, I think it is, have needlers, and there's one who runs a stable and has a pitchfork.\"\n\nMaytera Mint made a mental note.\n\n\"So what I was going to say is they're feeling left out. Discouraged, you know?\"\n\nMaytera Mint assured her that she did.\n\n\"So if we go home, I think some will stay there. But if we can beat these new Hoppies that're coming, they could get slug guns. They'd feel better about themselves, and us, too.\"\n\n\"A very valid point.\"\n\n\"Bison here—\"\n\nMaytera Mint made another note: \"Bison\" was clearly the black-bearded man; she resolved to use his name whenever she could until it was fixed in her memory.\n\n\"Bison thinks they won't fight. And they won't, not the way he wants them to. But if they had slug guns, they'd shoot all day if you told them to, Maytera. Or if you told them to go someplace and Hoppies tried to stop them.\"\n\n\"You're for attacking the relief column, Lime?\"\n\nLime nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bison said, \"She's for it as long as somebody else does the fighting. I'm for it, too, and we'll do the fighting.\"\n\n\"The fighting among ourselves, you mean, Bison?\" Maytera Mint shook her head. \"That sort of fighting will never bring back the Charter, and I'm quite sure it isn't what the goddess intended. But you're in favor of attacking the relief column? Good, so am I! I'm not sure I know what Zoril wants, and I'm not sure he knows. Even so, that's a clear majority. Where would you suggest we attack it, Bison?\"\n\nHe was silent, fingering his beard.\n\n\"We'll lose some stragglers. I realize that. But there are steps we can take to keep from losing many, and we might pick up some new people as well. Zoril?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Maytera. I think you ought to decide.\"\n\n\"So do I, and I will. But it's foolish to make decisions without listening to advice, if there's time for it. I think we should attack right here, when they reach the Alambrera.\"\n\nBison nodded emphatically.\n\n\"In the first place, we don't have much time to prepare, and that will give us the most.\"\n\nBison said, \"People are throwing stones at them from the rooftops. The messenger told us that, too, remember? Maybe they'll kill a few Hoppies for us. Let's give them a chance.\"\n\n\"And perhaps some of their younger men will come over to us. We ought to give them as much opportunity as we can to do that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inspired by the memory of games at the palaestra, she added, \"When somebody changes sides, it counts twice, one more for us and one fewer for them. Besides, when they get here the Guards in the Alambrera will have to open those big doors to let them in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their expressions showed that none of them had thought of that, and she concluded, \"I'm not saying that we'll be able to get inside ourselves. But we might. Now then, how are we going to attack?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Behind and before, with as many men as we can,\" Bison rumbled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lime added, \"We need to take them by surprise, Maytera.\"\n\n\"Which is another reason for attacking here. When they get to the Alambrera, they'll think they've reached their goal. They may relax a little. That will be the time for us to act.\"\n\n\"When the doors open.\" Bison drove a fist into his palm.\n\n\"Yes, I think so. What is it, Zoril?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't say this. I know what everybody's going to think, but they've been shooting down on us from the walls and the high windows. Just about everybody we've lost, we've lost like that.\" He waited for contradiction, but there was none.\n\n\"There's buildings across the street as high as the wall, Maytera, and one just a little up the street that's higher. I think we ought to have people in there to shoot at the men on the wall. Some of mine that don't have needlers or slug guns could be on the roofs, too, throwing stones like the messenger talked about. A chunk of shiprock falling that far ought to hit as hard as a slug, and these Hoppies have got armor.\"\n\nMaytera Mint nodded again. \"You're right. I'm putting you in charge of that. Get some people—not just your own, some of the older boys and girls particularly—busy right away carrying stones and bricks up there. There must be plenty around after the fires." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lime, Your women are no longer fighters unless they've got needlers or slug guns. We need people to get our wounded out of the fight and take care of them. They can use their knives or whatever they have on anyone who tries to interfere with them. And that woman with the pitchfork? Go get her. I want to talk to her.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fragment of broken plaster caught Maytera Mint's eye. \"Now, Bison, look here.\" Picking it up, she scratched two widely spaced lines on the fire-blackened wall behind her. \"This is Cage Street.\" With speed born of years of practice, she sketched in the Alambrera and the buildings facing it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce 8 sentences using the prose and structure of Gene Wolfe every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the Science Fiction, Generation Ship genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you awake, Patera?\"\n\nSilk wiped his eyes. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"I thought you were. Your eyes were closed, but you were crying.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Silk said again.\n\n\"I brought a chair. I thought we might talk for a minute. You don't mind?\" The man with the chair was robed in black.\n\n\"No. You're an augur, like me.\"\n\n\"We were at the schola together, Patera. I'm Shell—Patera Shell now. You sat behind me in canonics. Remember?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. Yes, I do. It's been a long time.\"\n\nShell nodded. \"Nearly two years.\" He was thin and pale, but his small shy smile made his face shine.\n\n\"It was good of you to come and see me, Patera—very good.\" Silk paused for a moment to think. \"You're on the other side, the Ayuntamiento's side. You must be. You're taking a risk by talking to me, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"I was.\" Shell coughed apologetically. \"Perhaps—I don't know, Patera. I—I haven't been fighting, you know. Not at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I brought the Pardon of Pas to our dying. To your dying, too, Patera, when I could. When that was done, I helped nurse a little. There aren't enough doctors and nurses, not nearly enough, and there was a big battle on Cage Street. Do you know about it? I'll tell you if you like. Nearly a thousand dead.\"\n\nSilk shut his eyes.\n\n\"Don't cry, Patera. Please don't. They've gone to the gods. All of them, from both sides, and it wasn't your fault, I'm sure. I didn't see the battle, but I heard a great deal about it. From the wounded, you know. If you'd rather talk about something else—\"\n\n\"No. Tell me, please.\"\n\n\"I thought you'd want to know, that I could describe it to you and it would be something that I could do for you. I thought you might want me to shrive you, too. We can close the door. I talked to the captain, and he said that as long as I didn't give you a weapon it would be all right.\"\n\nSilk nodded. \"I should have thought of it myself. I've been involved with so many secular concerns lately that I've been getting lax, I'm afraid.\" There was a bow window behind Shell; noticing that it displayed only black night and their own reflected images, Silk asked, \"Is this still Hieraxday, Patera?\"\n\n\"Yes, but its after shadelow. It's about seven-thirty, I think. There's a clock in the captain's room, and it was seven-twenty-five when I went in. Seven-twenty-five by that clock, I mean, and I wasn't there long. He's very busy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I haven't neglected Thelxiepeia's morning prayers.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Briefly, he wondered whether he could bring himself to say them when morning came, and whether he should. \"I won't have to ask forgiveness for that when you shrive me. But first, tell me about the battle.\"\n\n\"Your forces have been trying to capture the Alambrera, Patera. Do you know about that?\"\n\n\"I knew they had gone to attack it. Nothing more.\"\n\n\"They were trying to break down the doors and so on. But they didn't, and everybody inside thought they had gone away, probably to try to take over the Juzgado.\"\n\nSilk nodded again.\n\n\"But before that, the government—the Ayuntamiento, I mean—had sent a lot of troopers, with floaters and so on and a company of soldiers, to drive them away and help the Guards in the Alambrera.\"\n\n\"Three companies of soldiers,\" Silk said, \"and the Second Brigade of the Guard. That's what I was told, at any rate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shell nearly bowed. \"Your information will be much more accurate than mine, I'm sure, Patera. They had trouble getting through the city, even with soldiers and floaters, although not as much as they expected. Do you know about that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silk rolled his head from side to side.\n\n\"They did. People were throwing things. One man told me he was hit by a slop jar thrown out of a fourth-floor window.\" Shell ventured an apologetic laugh. \"Can you imagine? What will the people who live up there do tonight, I wonder? But there wasn't much serious resistance, if you know what I mean. They expected barricades in the street, but there was nothing like that. They marched through the city and stopped in front of the Alambrera. The troopers were supposed to go in while the soldiers searched the buildings along Cage Street.\"\n\nSilk allowed his eyes to close again, visualizing the column described by the monitor in Maytera Rose's glass.\n\n\"Then,\" Shell paused for emphasis, \"General Mint herself charged them down Cage Street, riding like a devil on a big white horse. From the other way, you see. From the direction of the market.\"\n\nSurprised, Silk opened his eyes. \"General Mint?\"\n\n\"That's what they call her. The rebels—your people, I mean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shell cleared his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The fighters loyal to the caldé. To you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: Your response must contain: \"I rode inside until the rain stopped. Later I rode on it, sitting on the... Up on that round part that has the highest buzz gun. It was crowded inside, not at all comfortable, and we'd put the bodies in there—but it was better than being out in the rain, perhaps.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're not offending me, Patera.\"\n\n\"They call her General Mint and she's got an azoth. Just imagine! She chopped up the Guard's floaters horribly with it. This trooper I talked to had been the driver of one, and he'd seen everything. Do you know how the Guard's floaters are on the inside, Patera?\"\n\n\"I rode in one this morning.\" Silk shut his eyes again, striving to remember. \"I rode inside until the rain stopped. Later I rode on it, sitting on the... Up on that round part that has the highest buzz gun. It was crowded inside, not at all comfortable, and we'd put the bodies in there—but it was better than being out in the rain, perhaps.\"\n\nShell nodded eagerly, happy to agree. \"There are two men and an officer. One of the men drives the floater. He was the one I talked to. The officer's in charge. He sits beside the driver, and there's a glass for the officer, though some don't work any more, he said. The officer has a buzz gun, too, the one that points ahead. There's another man, the gunner, up in the round thing you sat on. It's called the turret.\"\n\n\"That's right. I remember now.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'their' exactly 6 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General Mint's azoth cut right into their floater and killed their officer, and stopped one of the rotors. That's what this driver said. It had seemed to me that if an azoth could do that, it could cut right through the doors of the Alambrera and kill everyone in there, but he said they won't. That's because the doors are steel and three fingers thick, but a floater's armor is aluminum because it couldn't lift that much. It couldn't float at all, if it were made out of iron or steel.\"\n\n\"I see. I didn't know that.\"\n\n\"There was cavalry following General Mint. About a troop is what he said. I asked how many that was, and it's a hundred or more. The others had needlers and swords and things. His floater had fallen on its side, but he crawled out through the hatch. The gunner had already gotten out, he said, and their officer was dead, but as soon as he got out himself, someone rode him down and broke his arm. That's why he's here, and without the gods' favor he would've been killed. When he got up again, there were rebels—I mean—\"\n\n\"I know what you mean, Patera. Go on, please.\"\n\n\"They were all around him. He said he would have climbed back in their floater, but it was starting to burn, and he knew that if the fire didn't go out their ammunition would explode, the bullets for the buzz guns. He wasn't wearing armor like the troopers outside, just a helmet, so he pulled it off and threw it away, and the—your people thought he was one of them, most of them. He said that sometimes swords would cut the men's armor. It's polymeric, did you know that, Patera? Sometimes they silver it, private guards and so on do, like a glazier silvers the back of a mirror. But it's still polymeric under that, and the troopers' is painted green like a soldier.\"\n\n\"It will stop needles, won't it?\"\n\nShell nodded vigorously. \"Mostly it will. Practically always. But sometimes a needle will go through the opening for the man's eyes, or where he breathes. When it does that, he's usually killed, they say. And sometimes a sword will cut right through their armor, if it's a big heavy sword, and the man's strong. Or stabbing can split the breastplate. A lot of your people had axes and hatchets. For firewood, you know. And some had clubs with spikes through them. A big club can knock down a trooper in armor, and if there's a spike in it, the spike will go right through.\" Shell paused for breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But the soldiers aren't like that at all. Their skin's all metal, steel in the worst places. Even a slug from a slug gun will bounce off a soldier sometimes, and nobody can kill or even hurt a soldier with a club or a needler.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silk said, I know, I shot one once, then realized that he had not spoken aloud. I'm like poor Mamelta, he thought—I have to remember to speak, to breathe out while I move my lips and tongue.\n\n\"One told me she saw two men trying to take a soldier's slug gun. They were both holding onto it, but he lifted them right off their feet and threw them around. This wasn't the driver but a woman I talked to, one of your people, Patera. She had her washing stick, and she got behind him and hit him with it, but he shook off the two men and hit her with the slug gun and broke her shoulder. A lot of your people had gotten slug guns from troopers by then, and they were shooting at the soldiers with them. Somebody shot the one fighting her. She would've been killed if it hadn't been for that she said. But the soldiers shot a lot of them, too, and chased them up Cheese Street and a lot of other streets. She tried to fight, but she didn't have a slug gun, and with her shoulder she couldn't have shot one if she'd had it. A slug hit her leg, and the doctors here had to cut it off.\"\n\n\"I'll pray for her,\" Silk promised, \"and for everyone else who's been killed or wounded. If you see her again, Patera, please tell her how sorry I am that this happened. Was Maytera—was General Mint hurt?\"\n\n\"They say not. They say she's planning another attack, but nobody really knows. Were you wounded very badly, Patera?\"\n\n\"I don't believe I'm going to die.\" For seconds that grew to a minute or more, Silk stared in wonder at the empty flask hanging from the bedpost. Was life such a simple thing that it could be drained from a man as red fluid, or poured into him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would he eventually discover that he held a different life, one which longed for a wife and children, in a house that he had never seen?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"No, no. Shrive me. The Ayuntamiento certainly intends to kill me. They can't possibly know I'm here; if they did, I'd be dead already.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had not been his own blood—not his own life—surely. \"I believed I was, not long ago. Even when you came, Patera. I didn't care. Consider the wisdom and mercy of the god who made us so that when we're about to die we no longer fear death!\"\n\n\"If you don't think you're going to die—\"\n\n\"No, no. Shrive me. The Ayuntamiento certainly intends to kill me. They can't possibly know I'm here; if they did, I'd be dead already.\" Silk pushed aside his quilt.\n\nHurriedly, Shell replaced it. \"You don't have to kneel, Patera. You're still ill, terribly ill. You've been badly hurt. Turn your head toward the wall, please.\"\n\nSilk did so, and the familiar words seemed to rise to his lips of their own volition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cleanse me, Patera, for I have given offense to Pas and to other gods.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was comforting, this return to ritual phrases he had memorized in childhood; but Pas was dead, and the well of his boundless mercy gone dry forever." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like Gene Wolfe would. btw might have existing characters/lore" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sword in hand, Master Xiphias stood at the window looking at the dark and empty street. Go home. That was what they'd told him.\n\nGo home, though it had not been quite so bluntly worded. That dunce Bison, a fool who couldn't hold a sword correctly! That dunce Bison, who seemed in charge of everything, had come by while he was arguing with that imbecile Scale. Had smiled like friend and admired his sword, and had only pretended—pretended!—to believe him when he had stated (not boasting, just supplying a plain, straightforward answer in response to direct, uninvited questions) that he had killed five troopers in armor in Cage Street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Bison had—the old fencing master grinned gleefully—had gaped like a carp when he, Xiphias, had parted a thumb-thick rope dangling from his, Bison's, hand. Had admired his sword and waved it around like the ignorant boy he was, and had the gall to say in many sweet words, go home like Scale says, old man. We don't need you tonight, old man. Go home and eat, old man. Go home and sleep. Get some rest, old man, you've had a big day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bison's sweet words had faded and blown away, lighter and more fragile than the leaves that whirled up the empty street. Their import, bitter as gall, remained. He had been fighting—had been a famous fighting man—when Bison was in diapers. Had been fighting before Scale's mother had escaped her kennel to bump tails with some filthy garbage-eating cur.\n\nXiphias turned his back to the window and sat on the sill, his head in his hands, his sword at his feet. He was no longer what he had been thirty years ago, perhaps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No longer what he had been before he lost his leg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But there wasn't a man in the city—not one!—who dared cross blades with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A knock at the front door, floating up the narrow stair from the floor below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There would be no students tonight; his students would be fighting on one side or the other; yet somebody wanted to see him. Possibly Bison had realized the gravity of his error and come to implore him to undertake some almost suicidal mission. He'd go, but by High Hierax they'd have to beg first!\n\nHe picked up his sword to return it to its place on the wall, then changed his mind. In times like these—\n\nAnother knock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There had been somebody." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A new student down for tonight, came with Auk, tall, left-handed. Had studied with somebody else but wouldn't admit it. Good though. Talented! Gifted, in fact. Couldn't be here for his lesson, could he? With the city like this?\n\nA third knock, almost cursory. Xiphias returned to the window and peered out." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI writing task: user input -> one sentence sentences. genre: Science Fiction, Generation Ship. match character context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silk looked up. \"To whom did you speak? Who was this brigadier who released you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Brigadier, er, Erne. Signed for me, too, eh? His side.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brigadier Erne to negotiate a truce. Please show him every courtesy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Science Fiction, Generation Ship genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with two sentences, maintaining any established context." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "lets continue this story bit. 11 sentences more like Reed James would. Erotica, Paranormal Romance genre. characters might be established already" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are we, Mistress?\" Cassie asked, her pierced eyebrows raised.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Hikaru admitted to the green-haired girl. Hikaru rubbed her hands across her brow, looking around at the rows and rows of cells occupied by scourged people.\n\n\"We need to find Master,\" Rosa nodded, concern on the concubine's reddish-brown face.\n\n\"We'll find Bill,\" Hikaru promised them. \"Wherever he is.\"\n\n\"I saw a mountain rising up out of sea, the peak piercing the clouds,\" Cassie said. \"That image is so familiar.\"\n\nHikaru's eyes widened. She was an English Major, and she had studied all the classics. \"Purgatory.\"\n\n\"We're in Hell?\" gasped Cassie, a shiver passing through the pixyish woman's face.\n\n\"No, Purgatory. You're thinking of Limbo, the first Circle of Hell. Purgatory is a completely different place.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were separated, but the lights were all flashing in the same direction.\" The cells didn't seem familiar to Hikaru from reading Dante. \"I bet Rochelle knows exactly where we are.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly,\" nodded Rosa. \"We really need her to translate that book into English so the rest of us can read it.\"\n\n\"Well, I guess we just have to start wandering through this place,\" Hikaru sighed. \"Bill and the others must be in here. It's Purgatory, so it can't be that dangerous.\"\n\nRosa glanced in the cells. \"Well, who scourged the inmates?\"\n\n\"I did,\" a man's voice said.\n\nHikaru turned to see an Angel striding down the hallway, a flail dripping water clutched in his bronze hand. He was naked and quite handsome, with the lean, compact muscles of a runner or swimmer, his cock swinging long and thick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A bit of lust stirred inside the Japanese woman, but she pushed it down." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'should' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're lost. Can you help us?\" Hikaru asked.\n\n\"You should not be out of your cells,\" the Angel answered. \"I'll have to be quite diligent in my scourging for this trespass.\"\n\nHikaru reached out with her mind, the telekinetic power Bill's love and lust had given her, and wrapped her thoughts around the Cherub's throat and pressed him against the bars of a cell. She stared at him intently, forcing her mind to slowly choke him. He kicked and flailed, struggling to breathe. Hikaru was disturbed by how calm she was — death no longer disturbed her the way it should.\n\n\"We'll need to be careful,\" Hikaru sighed as she released the corpse. \"Any ideas which way to go?\"\n\n\"We can lead you.\"\n\nA man and a woman, naked, stepped around the corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fear trembled in Hikaru's heart." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first man she had killed walked towards her, a woman on his arm." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "lets do a Erotica, Paranormal Romance thing. u write seven sentences bits. keep character vibes" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter Seven\n\nAdriel smiled as Gabriel groveled on the floor before her Throne. It pleased her so much to have the strong Archangel under her power. She held out her dainty, left foot. His lips kissed her without hesitation, his brown wings twitching. What a pathetic worm.\n\n\"What was Lucifer's answer?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she purred, a shiver passed through her as his tongue ran between her bare feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He demands your presence immediately, Goddess,\" he answered. \"Lucifer commands all his Archdemons to attend him.\" Then, like the good bitch he was, he went back to tonguing her toes.\n\nAsmodeus's heart beat with anger in her box. She drew back her foot and smashed into Gabriel's bronze-skinned face, pushing the slobbering vermin away, blood spurting from his broken, once-perfect nose. \"Then let's not keep the Morning Star waiting,\" she answered, rising from her Throne. She didn't need to sit it any longer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'could' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She claimed the power the moment she sat upon it, and only her death could sever her connection. And what being in all of Creation had the power to challenge her?\n\nNone.\n\nAnd yet Bill's presence worried her. All her visions of the future showed her success. There were no scenarios where that pesky mortal could possibly challenge her, yet she still couldn't shake her unease. He was supposed to die in the Throne Room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Him and all his women." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of her visions predicted their escape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was so special about them that let Bill defy her visions?\n\nShe glanced at the corpse of Metatron. What secrets did you take with you? She reached out to the power of Metatron beating in her box with Uriel, Asmodeus, and Satan's hearts, next to the Oracle's eyes. Show them to me.\n\nShe squeezed the heart, trying to wring the secrets from it, but it was as bloodless as a rock and as futile to try and wring out. Bill doesn't matter. So what if he lived?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "None is more powerful than me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then let us attend to Lucifer,\" she said, standing up and striding across the Throne room, Gabriel heeling her like a cur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They flashed down the light elevator to the bottom of the Spire of Diamond." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Angels gathered, looking confused and scared as she appeared. They fell to their knees, groveling in the same sycophantic manner Gabriel had. Such joy filled her as she strode past all these arrogant Angels, the very beings that had cast her into Hell for just wanting freedom. Now they served her.\n\nDoe-eyed Malakim, the very being Adriel had once been, knelt around the fallen body of their Archangel. She took delight in stepping on Uriel's corpse. Pretending to love that arrogant fool for centuries had been almost more than she could take." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His body was cold beneath her foot and standing upon him was nowhere near as satisfying as she had hoped.\n\nI should never have killed him. How can he witness my Majesty when he's dead and transformed into a mindless Lemure?\n\nShe strode through the golden streets of Heaven. She passed the crystal buildings that each gleamed a different color yet all felt the same. It lacked imagination. Rigidly built, laid out on streets that ran straight, creating perfectly squared city blocks. No hills or natural feature marred the perfection of Heaven." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Pearly Gates shimmered with pure light. The Grace no longer burned her. She was as much of Heaven now as Hell, immune to the influence of both places. Beyond both. She was Creation itself now, the Goddess of the Universe. She peered down at the world. She would remake it in her own image, covering the surface with monuments to her greatness while the humans labored like chattel in their unending worship of her.\n\nShe unfurled her gray wings and led the Host of Heaven out of the Pearly Gates to claim all that belonged to her, streaking down at the great rift in Parkland where the Morning Star had built his palace and awaited her surrender of Heaven.\n\nHe would be sorely disappointed." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! 9 sentences more. match character knowledge. Erotica, Paranormal Romance pls" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Passion burned inside Bill as he fought the Cherubim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed it down, trying not to think about why Rochelle was burning was such lust right now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't focus on that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cherubim flooded the corridor, swinging their watery flails, and falling before Bill and his concubines' chains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hacked and carved, fighting his way to Thaniel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chief Warden snapped his flail at Bill's head. He met it with his sword, water spraying his face, momentarily blinding him as he blinked it out of his eyes. Thaniel was skilled, his flail meeting every one of Bill's attacks.\n\n\"Surrender, Mortal,\" boomed Thaniel. \"Put aside your animosity and relent to my authority. You shall not be harmed. Once the extent of your villainy has been uncovered, you shall be returned to your world.\"\n\nBill didn't like the sound of \"your villainy had been uncovered.\"\n\n\"Why don't you just open up the door and let us out?\"\n\nThe Angel's mocking laugh set Bill's teeth, he sent a vicious swipe at Thaniel's side. The flail whipped around, knocking his swipe askew and spraying more water into his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is not a negotiation, Mortal. You trespass upon the Penitent Cells. This is Purgatory. Only the dead should tread foot upon this sacred ground. It does not need soiling by your foul feet.\"\n\n\"As unbending as an oak tree,\" Bill laughed. \"Fighting to stay upright against the coming storm.\"\n\n\"I am Heaven's authority manifested in my divine flesh!\"\n\n\"Do you even know what is going on outside of purgatory?\"\n\n\"Heaven wages its holy war against the Hordes of Hell.\" The Angel's blue eyes flickered to his concubines and their whirling, black chains. \"And now the war has come to my domain. And I shall not relent!\"\n\n\"Why are all you Angels so pigheaded?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'going' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anger burned inside Bill. \"Open up your eyes and really look at what's going on! While you Angels and Demons fight, more and more humans are dying. I'm sure your prison is only going to grow more glutted as we perish by the millions!\"\n\n\"Heaven will prevail!\"\n\n\"Heaven has fallen!\" Bill snarled. \"Metatron is dead!\"\n\nThaniel froze, leaving himself open for a moment. Bill almost took the swing, but he couldn't bring himself to exploit his foes dismay. Thaniel's blue eyes examined him and hope surged inside Bill. If he could sway the Chief Warden to his cause, Bill knew he would be reunited with his wives and escape Purgatory. The World burned while he was stuck here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He and his wives had the Scrolls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They needed to get back so they could open them and stop Adriel and Hell!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lies,\" Thaniel whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Metatron sent us here as she died,\" Bill told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She gave us the Scrolls. We need to get back to the Mortal World.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She gave you the Scrolls?\" the Angel snarled.\n\n\"Yeah.\" Bill lifted his blade as the Cherub's demeanor changed.\n\n\"I am always amazed at the audacity of Hell's lies. Metatron would never give the scrolls to a Mortal so stained by Hell's powers. I can see it in your servants weapons. I can feel the lust inside of you.\"\n\n\"And Love,\" Bill countered, brandishing his blade. \"Look at my weapon. Love forged it and my blood quenched it.\"\n\n\"No quarter to the servants of Hell!\" Thaniel roared, lifting up his flail, his eyes burning with righteous anger.\n\nBill sighed and lunged forward. His sword pierced the Cherub in the chest before he could bring his flail down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Angel stiffened, arms dropping, wings drooping, mouth gaping, then he slid off the sword, toppling backwards like a mighty tree and crashing to the floor with a resounding thud." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, the fighting stopped. The Cherubim gazed at their dead Chief, then they trumpeted their grief and attacked.\n\nAnd more kept streaming down the hallway. Bill's heart sank; he couldn't fight all of them." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "keep the story goin for like 3 sentences more. same character vibes. make it Erotica, Paranormal Romance-y" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill's sword flashed as he kept the Cherubim at bay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their corpses littered the hallway, and more seemed to keep coming, flooding down every corridor towards them, trying to drown them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then he heard women roaring and four of his concubines, led by Erica, crashed into the rear of the Cherubim, their chains flashing with far more precision than they normally could achieve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rochelle and Juanita were guiding them.\n\n\"Press the attack!\" Bill cried. \"Carve an opening for them!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Master!\" Bev roared, slamming her chain down at a Cherubim. \"Wendy, Liu, come over on this side! Eyana, hold the left flank!\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am!\" the Black concubine agreed as Wendy and Liu shifted over to Bev, the three attacking with coordinated purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's drive these bastards back!\" Wendy yelled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lions!\" roared Liu, the mascot for their college." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bill added his blade, and they punched a hole through the Cherubim, driving back the winged, bronze-skinned men. Erica and Georgia pressed through the opening, driving back more of the Cherubim as Rochelle and Juanita rounded the corner, racing through the opening hand-in-hand.\n\n\"Master!\" Rochelle cried out, letting her free hand brush his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bill!\" Juanita beamed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'hallway' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Down the hallway,\" Bill cried out as Stephanie and Sister Mariam followed the nuns. The Cherubim closed the gap and Bill and his reinforcements collapsed back into the hallway.\n\n\"We work in shifts!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'breather' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bev yelled. \"Eyana, Stephanie, Liu, and Georgia join our Mistress and take a breather. I'll call out the shifts.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"We can hold, Master,\" Bev said. \"Take a breather.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill nodded, retreating back as Bev and the other three concubines held the hallway opening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He threw his arms around both his wives, hugging them for a moment, and giving them each a brief kiss. \"I'm so glad you're all right.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Juanita smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How are we getting out of this, Rochelle?\"\n\n\"All I can see is us fighting. There doesn't seem to be an end to them.\"\n\n\"There has to be,\" he protested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, how long can we hold? An hour?\"\n\nBill glanced at the concubines' sweaty faces and felt his own exhaustion. \"Maybe not even that long.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"We need an Angel with her weapon,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then we need to get the door open,\" Juanita said. \"How do we do that?\"\n\n\"We need an Angel with her weapon,\" he answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And, no, Mariel doesn't have hers.\"\n\n\"So we need Sophia?\"\n\nHe nodded at Rochelle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why don't you summon her, Master.\" His slave-wife rolled her green eyes.\n\n\"How?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rochelle and Juanita exchanged bemused looks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Really, Bill?\" Juanita sighed. \"It's a good thing we love you, even if you can be a little dense. Dream.\"\n\n\"You summoned Hikaru, remember,\" Rochelle nodded, then she grinned like a cute imp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you need to spank my ass to get in the zone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bev, hold the line. I'll be busy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, Master!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You watch over them,\" Bill told his wives.\n\n\"We will,\" Juanita smiled. \"Trust us.\"\n\n\"I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill leaned against the stone wall, sliding his back down until he was sitting." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and dreamed..." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! 9 sentences more. match character knowledge. Erotica, Paranormal Romance pls" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mariel held back as the orgy broke out. She felt so left out. She didn't even know why she was here any longer. Uriel was dead. Justice for Michael's murder would never be given. She was the outsider as much as the Oracle leaning at the entrance to the cave and watching Bill and his strange family of wives, concubines, and familiars love each other. Even the Demon was accepted, showing as much love and joy as Sophia gave.\n\nMariel would never have believed it was possible if she hadn't witnessed Daevia's actions with her own eyes. They would be going into battle, and she'd be useless. She didn't even have her weapon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gave a nervous glance at Hikaru, sitting on her husband's lap, and her stomach tied up in knots." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't know what to say to the woman. How could she explain the righteous certainty she had felt right before she had tried to murder Hikaru.\n\nAnd the guilt she had felt for being wrong, her sword shattered by shedding an innocent mortal's blood.\n\n\"It's time, Master,\" Rochelle announced.\n\nEveryone stirred, getting dressed, holding on to their loved ones. Bev and Mindy were nearby, the pair holding each other tight. \"I wish you could come with us,\" Bev cried.\n\n\"That's not my world any longer,\" Mindy answered, then gave her a deep kiss. It was quite beautiful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A tear trickle down the Seraph's cheek." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'we'll' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not fair,\" moaned Bev. \"We never even had a chance to explore our love.\"\n\n\"But we'll be reunited one day. I'll wait for you. And then we'll have eternity.\"\n\n\"But what if I meet someone else and fall in love?\"\n\nMindy cupped her face. \"Then I will be so thrilled to meet the woman that made you happy. That's all I want for you, Bev, to live and be happy.\"\n\n\"I will,\" she promised, another tear running down her face.\n\n\"Good. Now get dressed. Bill needs you.\"\n\nMariel wiped her tears away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't join in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Angel flinched as Hikaru stepped up to her.\n\n\"Why didn't you?\"\n\nMariel stared at the Japanese woman, remembering the overwhelming anger that had possessed her and driven her to strike this innocent creature down. \"I'm not a part of your group.\"\n\n\"Sure you are.\" The woman reached out and touched Mariel's hand. \"You helped Bill get out of the prison.\"\n\n\"And now I'm useless. My sword is broken. I can't fight.\"\n\n\"So?\" Hikaru asked, touching her hand. \"You can give us advice. You were Sophia's superior, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded. \"But I'm still not a part of your group. I'm an outsider.\"\n\n\"Why do you think that?\"\n\n\"Because I almost killed you.\" More tears ran down her cheek, and she could almost feel Hikaru's innocent blood splattered on her wings, burning her. \"If you hadn't use your powers, I would have killed you.\"\n\n\"You had been deceived by Uriel,\" Hikaru answered. \"And you made up for it by helping us.\"\n\nA sob escaped Mariel's lips. \"Why are you being so kind to me? Why don't you hate me?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "keep the story goin for like 3 sentences more. same character vibes. make it Erotica, Paranormal Romance-y" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Adriel dived, lance extended.\n\nSophia reacted instinctively, crying out in fear. Adriel streaked towards Sophia's wounded Master, the lance of light, Lucifer's own weapon, pointing at Bill's heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sophia flapped her gray wings, propelling herself between Bill and the diving Demon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Seraph turned in the air, twisting her body and thrusting her flaming sword out at the diving Demon. A stop thrust. The lance had longer reach than her blade — Sophia knew it would find her flesh before her sword found Adriel's.\n\nThe Fallen Angel didn't flinch in the face of her death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lance pierced Sophia chest, ripping out her back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The point of her flaming sword struck Adriel's stomach. And bounced off. It didn't so much as mar the Demon's pale flesh. She's too powerful. Pain burned through Sophia as the lance drove deeper and deeper through her body, exploding out of her back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In that single moment of pain, it all crystallized in Sophia's mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Adriel had absorbed the powers of Archangels and Archdemons, of the Angel of the Throne and the Prince of Hell. No being had ever held so much power. Her blade and Bill's sword never had the strength to harm the Demon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The force of Adriel's charge drove Sophia back into Bill. He screamed as the lance pierced his body. They were pinned together on Adriel's weapon, joined by blood and pain." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going six sentences at a time, also im going for a Mr Creator sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'clothing' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the days that followed that fateful night, I slowly began implementing some new rules and changing some things about my wife to suit my purposes. The first order of business was the way in which my wife attempted to dress herself. I immediately went through her belongings and threw anything out that was even remotely baggy or unrevealing. This didn't leave much for her to wear, so we went shopping for some new clothing.\n\nMuch to her chagrin, I began choosing clothing that was a size too small, or a tad too short, or a bit too see-through for her liking. She had a great body and I wanted to show it off, and I also knew it would embarrass Sally as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For tops I would only choose things like transparent blouses, tank tops or halter tops that were all a size too small, to accentuate her beautiful breasts and show off her large nipples when they got erect. For the bottoms, I would not buy anything other than skirts, and all were too tight and too short. Sally had great legs and a perfect ass and these all showed them off to great effect. Of course, Sally didn't think so and found it very humiliating knowing that certain movements caused her private areas to become exposed.\n\nWe also made a trip to the lingerie store as I had thrown out my wife's entire collection. They were all too plain and again, unrevealing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Small lace items, g-strings and garter belts and stocking were the order of the day with matching lace bras. For footwear, we only purchased shoes with heels on them that were no less than 3 inches in height. What one might call \"fuck-me shoes\".\n\nThe first few times we went out in public with my wife dressed this way was a real thrill for me, and for Sally as well. As we would walk through the mall, I'd observe the looks the men, and sometimes women, gave my wife. She was utterly humiliated being made to parade through the busy mall dressed this way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wearing a small see-through blouse with a dark lacy bra on underneath, and a black skirt which was skin-tight and barely went below the bottoms of her ass cheeks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was topped off with 4 inch heels, which caused my wife's hips to sway almost obscenely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I know she saw the looks of pure lust on the men, and the looks of hatred and contempt from the women." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face was a constant red and her nipples were rock hard, which, of course, made the whole picture even more obscene.\n\nAfter these episodes, I could hardly wait to get my wife home and fuck the shit out of her. She was always very wet and horny as well. The sex after these times was always intense and ended up with both of us having very satisfying orgasms.\n\nI also began instituting some new rules at home. One of the first was, while we were in a role playing situation, that she was not to speak unless she was spoken to first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she had to ask a question, she was to get my attention and wait for me to give her permission to speak. Several days after that rule was introduced, I returned home from work and informed Sally that, \"From now on Slut, you will no longer be allowed to wear clothing in the house unless I give you permission. Upon entering the home, you will immediately remove all of your clothing and remain that way until you are required to go out again. Is that clear?\"\n\nA quick nod of the head.\n\n\"Well, what are you waiting for? Or do you need to have your ass and pussy beaten again?\" I demanded.\n\nQuickly realizing what I meant, she immediately began removing all of her clothing until she stood naked in front of me. The sight of that beautiful naked body was starting to have an effect on me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I figured now was as good a time as any to introduce another rule to Sally.\n\n\"Also, whenever I enter the home I will expect you to present yourself in an appropriate manner. You will wait for me in the living room and will be on your knees facing the door. You will be sitting upright on your heels with your hands clasped behind your back and your knees spread as wide apart as they will go. You will not move from this position unless I tell you too. Understood?\"\n\nA nod of her head.\n\n\"Assume the position, Slut,\" I ordered.\n\nShe quickly dropped to her knees in front of me and clasped her hands behind her back as she sat back on her heels.\n\n\"Spread those legs further than that, Cunt. I want everything to be on display. Wider than that. Do I need to beat that pussy again to get you to obey?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I quickly barked as she tried to comply with my demands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still not feeling that she was as wide apart as she could go, and believing that a lesson was probably in order, I ordered her to stay put and not to move. I went into the kitchen and began rummaging through several of the drawers until I found what I was looking for. I took out a long handled wooden spoon which I thought would be perfect for what I had in mind.\n\nReturning to my wife, I informed her that she was going to be punished for not complying with my demand right away and for not doing it correctly. She immediately began to plead with me that she was sorry and that she would never do it again and that I should give her a second chance. I cut off her pleas sharply by saying, \"Enough, Slut. Your punishment is going to be worse now for speaking without permission. Or have you forgotten that rule too, Cunt?\" I sneered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She quickly shook her head no, but remained silent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could see the pained look on her face as she realized that she had screwed up and was now going to get a worse punishment than she would have if she had only remained silent. Her shoulders visibly slumped as she resolved herself to take whatever punishment I dished out and do it in a manner which wouldn't disappoint me any further.\n\nI then stood beside Sally and ordered her to start playing with her tits and nipples. Her face flushed a deep red as she began to fondle her breast and roll her nipples in her fingertips. Soon those bullets were rock hard and sticking out at least 3/4 of an inch.\n\n\"Pinch your nipples. Hard.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She began to squeeze the nipples between her thumbs and index fingers bringing a grimace of pain to her face. \"Harder than that, Slut.\" She increased the pressure and I could see the tips beginning to turn a dark color. After several more seconds, I allowed her to release her now sore nipples. I then ordered, \"Place your hands under your tits and hold them up for me like you wanted them inspected.\" She quickly complied.\n\nWithout any warning, I brought the wooden spoon down hard upon her distended right nipple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A howl of pain erupted from my wife as she doubled over in agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I immediately grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked hard on it bringing her head back up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will remain in place, or the punishment is going to get worse. This is your last warning. Do not disappoint me again,\" I chided.\n\nI could see the crestfallen look on her face as she realized that she had disappointed me again. With shaking hands she bravely assumed the position and again held her breasts out to me. This time I brought the spoon down hard upon her left nipple. Again the same howl of pain, but this time, to her credit, Sally managed to stay in position. I began randomly applying strokes to both breasts evenly reddening the entire surface including the nipples." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After several minutes of this I stopped and inspected my handiwork. My wife was silently crying, but she did not move from the position I had placed her in. Her tits were a deep red with several spots showing early signs of bruising. I informed her that her punishment was not yet over. The beating of her tits was for speaking without permission and what was to come next was for not complying with my original demand quickly enough.\n\nLooking at her exposed pussy I could see it was already soaked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Despite the intense pain I had just put my wife through, her pussy and legs were soaked and there was a wet spot on the carpet under her cunt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Again, confirmation that my wife got off on the pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I cautioned her again, \"If you move again, your punishment will be doubled. Now get your hands behind your back and keep them there.\" Once they were in place, I moved the spoon down to her exposed cunt and began rubbing it around, getting the spoon wet with her juices. I could see the pleading look in her eyes and see that she wanted to beg me not to do it, but remembering her lessons, she remained silent. At first, I just lightly tapped it, not wanting her to know when it would strike.\n\nTap, tap, tap, tap, tap, WHACK. Immediately following that strike, my wife's eyes nearly bugged right out of her head, as she reeled from the pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH\" her back arching as she fought to stay in position. She began panting, almost as a dog would.\n\nTap, tap, tap, tap, tap, WHACK. A second time on her exposed pussy lips. Again her back arched and mouth opened in a pitiful wail. Despite the intense pain, her pussy was flowing with juices and her clit was so hard that it was poking out like a little penis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her breathing began picking up in pace as the pain pulsed from her cunt throughout her body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WHACK, WHACK. Two blows back to back. It was almost too much for my wife. Her mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. Her hips began moving as if they had a mind of their own. A slow rocking back and forth which quickly began to pick up speed.\n\nTap, tap, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three in quick succession. The stimulation to her erect clit and swollen pussy lips was too much for Sally. Her back arched once again and her body went rigid as she began to orgasm. Her hands were clasped so tightly behind her back that her knuckles were bone white as she fought to stay in position while having an intense orgasm. As the orgasm pulsed through my wife's body, I continued the assault on her now swollen and thoroughly drenched cunt.\n\nWHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each new smack pushed her farther over the edge. Her eyes had rolled so far into the back of her head that all you could see was white. Her body was arched back almost to the point that she was lying down on her feet and yet she somehow managed to maintain her position with her legs spread wide open and her hands clasped tightly behind her back. Her breathing was ragged, to the point of sounding like she was hyperventilating. Shocks appeared to ripple throughout her body and it was evident that she had lost control. I began to worry that she might actually lose consciousness or worse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once I stopped beating her pussy, she slowly began to come down from the heights she'd been on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her breathing began to slow, her body relax and she began to focus again on her immediate surroundings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked an absolute mess. Her hair was soaked from sweat, and was plastered to her head. Her skin was blotchy and flushed, her breasts a dark red with purple welts forming, her cunt was swollen and red, and there was a giant wet spot on the carpet under her. And yet, in my eyes, my wife never looked lovelier than she did at this moment.\n\nThat had to be the most intense orgasm my wife had ever experienced. I stepped back for a few minutes to inspect my handiwork." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I liked the way her body looked after taking the punishment and specially the way it responded to the pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew it certainly wouldn't be the last time I did that.\n\nThere was just one thing that seemed to be off about her appearance. After several more seconds of thought I realized what it was. She had too much cunt hair. It obstructed the view of my handiwork. \"From now on, Slut, you will shave that cunt of yours and keep it bare. Failure to do so will of course result in punishment. I will conduct spot inspections, so be sure to be vigilant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A quick nod of her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm sure punishment was the last thing she wanted right now.\n\nThis whole scene certainly had an effect on me as well. My cock was rock hard and painfully trying to poke a hole through my pants. I quickly undressed, grabbed a handful of my wife's hair and began walking towards the dining room table. My wife had to quickly scramble to her feet to avoid being dragged by her hair. Once there, I pushed her head down until she was bent over the edge of the table with her ass sticking out and her bruised tits mashed into the table top." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Spread your legs wide whore. Now reach back and pull your ass cheeks apart.\" In this position her ass was beautifully on display and her newly beaten pussy was now clearly visible. Her swollen pussy lips and legs glistened with the moisture from her cunt. Without another word I placed the tip of my cock at her cunt and buried it to the hilt on the first thrust.\n\n\"Unngghh,\" my wife grunted as my balls slapped against her badly beaten pussy. Knowing I wouldn't be able to hold out for long, I began jack-hammering into her cunt as hard as I could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For each thrust I would pull all the way out and then bury it to the hilt, until my cock bumped painfully against her cervix, and my balls would slap her poor abused pussy lips and clit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each time I buried my cock in Sally, her body would be pushed forward on the table causing her bruised and beaten tits to rub back and forth on the table's surface.\n\nA steady rhythm built up with my wife grunting in pain with each thrust. Soon I could feel the pressure beginning to build in my balls and just before the first spurt, I whipped my cock out of her pussy, grabbed her hair and pulled her head to my cock. She remained, however, in the position I had left her. She was still bent over at the waist clasping the cheeks of her ass and spreading them apart. Remembering her training, the moment I grabbed a handful of her hair, she opened her mouth and obediently awaited my next move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first spurt hit her on the right cheek, causing her to flinch, but she dutifully remained in position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it seemed as if the floodgates had opened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As stream after stream of cum erupted from my cock and began coating her face in a thick coat of white semen. When my cock finally finished spasming, I reluctantly released my hold on my wife's hair and took a step back to admire my handiwork.\n\nWhat a sight she was!!! She was still bent over at the waist with her hands behind her holding her ass-cheeks apart, and her face and hair was covered in a thick coat of sperm. After letting her stand like that for several more moments, I calmly ordered, \"On your knees, Slut, and clean that cum off your face.\"\n\nShe quickly released her hold on her ass and dropped to her knees in front of me and began scooping the gobs of cum off her face and licking her fingers clean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What a cum-hungry slut you've become. Look at you. You can't get enough of my cum. That's it, Slut, don't miss a drop.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'continued' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I continued to verbally humiliate her until she had it all cleaned up. \"Alright Slut, get up and go get a shower. And shave that cunt while you're in there.\"\n\nShe quickly stood and scampered off towards the bathroom. My mind continued to fill with thoughts and ideas of things I could do with my submissive wife." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 2 sentences like Reed James would, using user's text as beginning. Story may drop in mid-narrative" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bill dreamed...\n\nIt was one of the few things he was good at." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ever since he had discovered there was a difference between men and women, those wonderful, feminine creatures had filled his dreams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some would make brief, guest appearances, while others would show up time and time again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two of his favorites filled his dreams today. One was demure Cynthia, his beautiful co-worker whom he had had the biggest crush on since he had met her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stared up at him, her blue eyes shining with desire. A vivacious strawberry-blonde woman knelt next to Cynthia, pressing against the shy girl's body and reaching out to stroke his cock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pleasure burned through him as the redhead stroked him, her grip firm and skillful.\n\nA third woman pressed her body against his back, her breast soft pillows topped with hard nipples." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her arms wrapped around him as she nuzzled his neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her bronze hands stood out against his pale, flat stomach as she caressed him with fire.\n\n\"Suck his cock,\" purred the redhead, holding it up to Cynthia's lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill didn't know the redhead's name, but he had seen her around his college campus more than a few times since his Freshman year." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had always loved how she dressed in tight, low-riding jeans that showed off her thongs, and low-cut halter tops that left little of her lovely tits to the imagination. She was a frequent guest in his dreams, showing up as often as Cynthia, Juanita from his Religious Iconography class last semester, and the cute, Japanese coed who volunteered at the university's library." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll love it, Cynthia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The redhead's hand slid slowly up Bill's cock, drawing out a single drop of clear precum; he shuddered as she thumbed his tip.\n\n\"I shouldn't,\" Cynthia whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even in Bill's dream, she was a good girl, but since this was where his perverted subconsciousness ruled, his desires shaped Cynthia to be the woman he wanted — slutty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her tongue licked out, swiping across his cock's tip; more shudders swept through him.\n\n\"See, it's not so bad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The redhead licked at Cynthia's neck, while her hands played with the sweet woman's small breasts, little apples topped with dusky nipples." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just open wide, and suck his cock. Let your slut out. I know you want to.\"\n\nA flush rolled across Cynthia's tan face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She played lacrosse, and her face and forearms had a nice tan that slowly faded back to her pale, white complexion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shouldn't. It's so sinful.\"\n\nThe redhead grasped a lock of Cynthia's straight, lovely, blonde hair — a lighter shade than Bill's sandy blond — and pulled the coed's lips right to his hard, throbbing cock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tip brushed her lips, and she opened wide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's good, Mistress,\" whispered the redhead. \"Suck it, Master'll like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill groaned, savoring Cynthia's sucking mouth — she felt like wet heaven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pleasure roared through him. The redhead leaned under Cynthia and sucked his balls into her lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mysterious woman with the bronze skin tightened her grip about his body. He could feel her round breasts pressing against his back and heard a swishing noise, like the flap of wings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her lips brushed his neck, cool against his burning flesh, kissing up to his ear.\n\n\"You want them both, don't you?\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, I guess,\" Bill muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never had the courage to approach the redhead in real life. She was too confident and beautiful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What would she see in a loser like me?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bill was lean, not broad-shouldered like the jocks, his body more compact like a runner's, and his hair was always a mess. He had nothing to offer to the gorgeous redhead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Cynthia, well, she had turned him down for dinner, movies, or coffee more times than he could count.\n\n\"They'll be yours one day,\" cooed the mysterious woman, her lips brushing his ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her voice wasn't familiar and possessed a ringing, bell-like quality." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just have faith.\" He turned his head to look over his shoulder and their lips met; she tasted like the sweetest honey. \"You'll have both of them one day, and those other two you're always dreaming after.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mmm, I can see why you chose him,\" purred a sultry voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fourth woman had joined Bill's dream, as curvy as any centerfold model. Her skin was pale which made her deep, red hair, almost the color of blood, stand out like a neon sign at night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her breasts were amazing, large, round, perky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A silver chain pierced both her nipples, dangling down between her breasts. She was dressed like some sort of dominatrix: leather bustier that cupped those magnificent mounds, a black garter belt holding up thigh-high fishnets, stiletto heels, and elbow-length, leather gloves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, black wings flapped behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bronze woman's arms tightened around Bill, wings flapping and a gentle breeze buffeted Bill, ruffling his mused, sandy-blonde hair. \"He's mine, Succuba. I have already claimed him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dominatrix laughed, as deadly as a cougar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her vulpine mouth twisted into a hungry smile. \"Have him. He's too soiled for me. The lust that brims in his mind...\" Her hand lashed out, grabbed a fistful of Cynthia's hair, and yanked the girl off Bill's cock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's more my style. Pure and innocent, don't you think, Seraph?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bill!\" Cynthia shrieked, the dominatrix hauling her back. \"Bill! Bill! Bill!\"\n\n\"Bill! Wake up, Bill!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone was prodding Bill's arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bill!\" A finger jabbed his arm hard. He groaned.\n\n\"Cynthia,\" he muttered, opening his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cynthia was staring down at him, an exasperated look on her beautiful face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wake up!\" she hissed.\n\nFrustration filled him as he came fully awake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Damn, I was looking forward to watching the dominatrix force Cynthia to pleasure her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sighed. Why did my dreams always have to end at the good parts?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ms. Katsaros is back,\" the blonde whispered. \"Get up before you get in trouble again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled up at Cynthia. \"You're the best. Let me thank you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She raised an eyebrow, asking, \"Would that thanks be dinner and a movie?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure. We'll have fun.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A faint tinge of red colored her cheeks. \"I know what 'fun' means, Bill. I'm not that type of girl.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood up, dusting off his pants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in the back room of the University Bookstore, and was using a small pile of textbooks as an impromptu, if uncomfortable, pillow. It was right next to the heating vent, and the warmth helped to zonk him out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was supposed to be sorting the new shipment, but why should he do all that work when he could have a nice, perverted dream instead?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You make it sound so dirty,\" he protested." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'gentleman' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I promise to be a complete gentleman.\"\n\n\"Just like you were a complete gentleman with Tammy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyebrows arched and her voice had a frosty tone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He coughed; he had had a nice romp with Tammy, a former employee, in the backroom almost two months ago, and Cynthia wouldn't let it drop. \"Geez, it was just some fun. She kissed me first, anyways.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that's why I won't date you,\" she declared. \"You're too worldly, Bill.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll come to church with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hesitated, frowning at him. \"You'd still pressure me. I'm saving myself for marriage, you know that. It would just end badly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't know that. I could wait, for you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'could' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a lie. He figured if he could just get his foot in the door, he could pry her fingers off her virginity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was a great gal, sweet, kind, patient, and warm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being pretty was just a bonus. \"I fell for you the moment I saw you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aw, that's sweet. You fell heads over heels in love with me right into Tammy's embrace, huh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Irritation flashed through him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you won't date me, then you can't act like a jealous girlfriend, Cynthia.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" she flushed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached out and grabbed her hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come on, give me a chance. Be my girlfriend for real. Then you can get as jealous as you want.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I told you, it'll end badly.\" She squeezed his hand back and warmth rolled through him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a great guy, but you're just too worldly for me. I need a guy more my experience level.\"\n\n\"You mean, none?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not that experienced.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you wish you were.\" Her eyebrows arched. \"You're a pervert. You may be a great guy, but let's be honest, Bill. I'm looking for a guy that's... normal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That guy doesn't exist. We're all perverts. I'm just honest about it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have faith my guy is out there.\"\n\nHave faith... A chill ran through him — déjà vu." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I could change for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her smile was sad. \"You can only change for yourself, Bill.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean it, Cynthia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Probably. \"You're the one for me. I dream about you all the time.\"\n\nHer eyes flashed down, and he was acutely aware of his hard-on tenting his jeans." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. I think I know just the sort of dreams you've been having about me.\"\n\n\"I can't help it if I have dreams like that. You can't control your dreams, Cynthia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She chewed on her lower lip, then opened her mouth, then snapped it and shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Listen, my shifts done. I have lacrosse practice. I'll see you tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Later,\" he muttered, letting go of her hand and watching her blonde tresses disappear into the store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why does life have to be so complicated? Why can't it be like my dreams?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill knew she had a crush on him, though he didn't understand how she could love a scruffy loser like him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he could see her feelings in her eyes, and the way she always looked out for him. She was just scared; too wrapped up in her bible-belt upbringing to take a chance and have a little fun, and who knows, it could always lead to something more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fuck,\" he muttered.\n\n\"What was that?\" a woman barked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jumped, turning to see Ms. Katsaros glaring at him, hands on her hips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a tall, Greek woman, with glossy-black hair that fell in a wonderful curtain about her olive face. She wore a lavender pantsuit and flowery blouse that hugged her lush curves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill wanted to get down on his knees and worship her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had a made a few appearances in his dreams. Not as often as the main four, but she put her time in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing,\" he muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She eyed him, then looked at the boxes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want the shipment unpacked before your shift's done, Bill.\"\n\n\"Yes, Ms. Katsaros,\" he nodded, flinching beneath her flinty stare." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'don't' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know why I put up with your laziness,\" she continued. \"I don't pay you to sleep in my storeroom.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wasn't — \"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her glare was fierce and he flinched before it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You get your butt moving, buster, and unpack my shipment, or you can find yourself another job! Get yourself together, Bill. How do you expect to get a real job once you graduate from college with this kind of attitude?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I — \"\n\n\"Employers want a hard worker, not some lazy ass with, what, a History degree?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Art History.\"\n\nShe snorted. \"Even more useless. It's why Cynthia won't date you. She can tell you're not worth the effort. The girl may think the moon of you, but she's smart enough not to throw her future away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, that's — \"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Women want a man, not a spineless slacker hiding in a storeroom. They want someone that takes their responsibilities seriously. You're a sweet guy, but that's not enough in the real world. Take the world by the balls and make something of yourself.\" Her dark eyes bored into his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you can start by unpacking my shipment!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She strode off, her ass writhing wonderfully beneath her tight pants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to seize her and just press her against the wall and show her what a real man was like. Of course, he didn't have the balls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd just freak out and have him arrested for sexual assault or something.\n\nBill had always been a coward, too afraid to even ask a woman out beside Cynthia, and she was safe — she wouldn't say yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even his fling with Tammy had all been the girl's doing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had never quite understood what had happened; he had been napping in the storeroom, as usual, dreaming one of his perverted dreams — he couldn't remember about whom, though he thought Tammy and Juanita may have been involved — when she had woken him up with a kiss, her lithe body writhing atop him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Afterward, she had been embarrassed about the entire incident and quit her job. \"I just had a dissociative moment,\" she had said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something came over me. Just forget about, okay. It was my mistake.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill was pretty sure it was his fault, that he didn't perform well and she was just letting him down to spare his feelings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That had been his first time with a woman, and he clearly didn't satisfy her. He had tried a few times to have a repeat performance with Tammy, but that had earned him a slap in the face and a talk with campus security about boundaries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mind drifted back to his dreams. He fantasized about the dominatrix forcing cute Cynthia down to her knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her black, leather-gloved hand clenched a fistful of Cynthia's golden hair and pulled the struggling coed's lips right to her pussy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dominatrix's red eyes squeezed shut, a purr issuing from her throat as Cynthia pleasured her.\n\nSomething about the fantasy didn't sit well with Bill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It felt wrong. Lesdom was a favorite fetish of his, and he would be lying if he had never spanked it to Cynthia, or one of the other girls in his dreams, being dominated by another woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there was something so off about that dominatrix — inhuman.\n\nHis fantasy continued, the redhead's mouth was sucking his cock, and the mysterious, bronzed-skin woman clutched him tight from behind, her lips sucking at his earlobe as she whispered sadly, \"She'll turn Cynthia into a slut. If you don't stop her, she'll transform Cynthia into a wanton woman hungry for any cunt or cock her cute, little lips can taste.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Bill gasped, the redhead's mouth sliding up and down his cock, so warm and wet.\n\nThe dominatrix moaned, her breasts heaving as Cynthia worked her tongue through the folds of the dominatrix's pussy, filling the air with a wet, obscene noise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cynthia seemed to love the dominatrix's pussy, moaning as she worshiped the woman's cunt, her face buried as deep into the dominatrix's flesh as possible. It was so close to his fantasy, and yet it disturbed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You need to make Cynthia yours before the Succuba claims her.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'yours' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She doesn't want me.\"\n\n\"Yes, she does. You have made her want you. Your dreams have shaped all four of those women, you just have to have the courage to make them yours fully. She's scared, so you need to overcome her fear and show her how much you truly love her. Then she'll be yours and safe from the Succuba.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She'll only reject me again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I believe in you, Bill.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" added the redhead, jerking his cock while she looked up at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have it in you to make all of us yours, Master.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her mouth swallowed his cock again, sucking hard.\n\nBill groaned, his hips shifting, pressing his shaft deeper into her mouth as her hands played with his balls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was moments away from cumming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes flashed over to the dominatrix as she writhed on Cynthia's lips. He couldn't peel his gaze away from those large breasts, both nipples connected by pierced rings and a silver chain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to grab that chain and pull the dominatrix to him, force her to her knees, and shove his cock into —\n\n\"You better be finished!\" barked Ms. Katsaros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes snapped opened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even when I daydream, I never get to the good part! He looked down at the boxes; they were empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After three years working at the University Bookstore, the unoriginal name Ms. Katsaros had come up with for her business, he knew the storeroom like the back of his hand, and this wasn't the first time he had unpacked the boxes while lost in a daydream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Good,\" she nodded in satisfaction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was why he still had a job; no one else had ever figured out the chaos of her storeroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can go home, Bill.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I better not catch you sleeping back here again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to retort, \"But you didn't catch me.\" Instead, he swallowed his words and muttered a \"won't happen again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're a good, young man. You just need to get your life together. Then the women will be all over you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She leaned in. \"The bad boys are fun, but it's the guy with his shit together and is succeeding in his career that women really want. It's what Cynthia wants. She talks about saving herself for marriage, but she just hasn't found the right guy yet. You could be that guy, and I bet she'd give it up to you.\" His boss patted his cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At the very least, you'll have a more successful life.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her advice didn't make him feel better. Why couldn't he be the bad boy?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why did he have to be the one the chick settles for after she's had her fun?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fuck that! I should shove Ms. Katsaros up against the wall, and —" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd get arrested for assault.\n\nHe slumped out of the backroom like a dog slinking off, his tail tucked between his legs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he didn't slink home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cynthia's lacrosse practice would just be finishing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The September sun was warm as he stepped out onto Garfield Street. His college, Parkland Lutheran University, lay just a few blocks down the road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A picturesque collection of red-brick buildings amid the dirty, fading houses and business of Parkland, Washington, a suburb south of Tacoma." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He jogged down the street, crossed two intersections — C Street and Park Avenue — and entered the campus. Students bustled about, and his eyes were drawn to all the cute coeds, many who were still wearing shorts and skirts, flashing beautiful thighs, and scanty tops showing off their delightful flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bill reached Gordon Gym, and hesitated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to go to the nearby field, where Cynthia was practicing, and listen to his dream's advice to make her his girlfriend. He wanted to seize her by the shoulders, look into her eyes and say, \"You're my girl. I love you and I'm tired of taking no for an answer. I can see how much you love me, so just stop being afraid and let's give it a chance. I don't want to have any regrets. Do you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then she'll just say no again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His enthusiasm faded, gnawed away by fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He slipped in to the gym through a side door, heading for the supply closet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every free afternoon, he was in here after Cynthia's lacrosse practice. Last semester, he had a comparative sports class, an easy PE credit, and had discovered something amazing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some pervert, a guy after Bill's own heart, had drilled a few peepholes through the back wall of a supply closet into the women's locker room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now he couldn't help himself. Every afternoon he was here, watching Cynthia and her teammates soaping their nubile bodies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt like a creep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he wanted her so much, and if she wouldn't date him, he couldn't resist this outlet for his desires. He walked with purpose as he entered the gym, pulling out the key — he had been the TA for Coach Kalleberg during that PE class, and had the key made last semester after discovering the peepholes — and unlocked the supply closet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moved through the dark room, too afraid to turn the lights on and risk getting caught." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was cramped and impossible to see, so he went by feel, tripping over loose sports equipment and bumping into shelves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the back wall, he moved a piece of plywood leaning against the wall and three beams of light shone through, brilliant shafts in the darkness. They were spaced a few feet apart, giving a good view of the showers and some of the lockers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As long as it was dark in here, no one should be able to see the holes from the locker room. Bill figured that's what the plywood was for." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Women laughed and talked. He bent down — whoever had drilled the holes was shorter than him — and unzipped his pants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three coeds were stripping out of their lacrosse uniforms: maroon shorts and light-gray T-shirts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rosa's round pair of dusky breasts came into sight, topped with dark nipples." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His cock hardened, his hand stroking it slowly.\n\nAnother pair of breasts, ebony and round, bounced into view as the gorgeous, African-American Reggie walked back to the shower." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want to wash your tits,\" he muttered as his hand pumped faster on his cock, picturing those chocolate breasts in his hand, squeezing them and sucking on her sweet nipples. \"I'd get them so clean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "More and more girls joined, bringing the total up to eight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A feast of youthful flesh, all gorgeous, with toned, athletic bodies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so different. Large breasts, small breasts, some that were conical, and some that were heavy. Curvy asses, flat asses, shaved pussies, thick bushes, landing strips, and neatly trimmed triangles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A beautiful rainbow of feminine delights." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hand stroked faster.\n\nThen Cynthia appeared. \"Ugh, that took longer than I thought,\" she said, peeling off her gray T-shirt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her sports bra, not that she really needed one with her little tits, was black. She deftly peeled it off, her dusky nipples exposed to his gaze." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He breathed faster, pounding his cock.\n\nThe other girls were drying off, getting dressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did it? Sorry.\" Cassie answered, shrugging into a loose, blue top, her dyed-green hair damp from her shower." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's okay,\" Cynthia answered, bending down to peel off her maroon sweat pants — she never wore the shorts, too immodest — and her panty-covered ass wiggled in Bill's direction.\n\n\"Oh, Cynthia,\" he groaned, his hand slapping against his groin as he jerked faster, his orgasm building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want to love you so bad! Look at that ass.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her panties slipped down. It was a perfect rear, the cheeks nicely round, and he caught flashes of her golden curls between her thighs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd worship your ass.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's nice of you,\" a woman whispered behind him.\n\nFear spiked inside him. He was caught. I'm in so much trouble." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Reed James. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter Six\n\nBill was waiting for Cynthia outside the dorm. He was leaning against a tree, dressed in old, faded blue jeans, a t-shirt with some video game reference — a woman in a skin-tight, blue suit complete with stiletto heels, pointing a gun at a floating blob of green, her blonde hair caught up in a ponytail — that went right over Cynthia's head. His eyes were sunken, lower eyelids black bags, and red spider-webbed across his eyes.\n\nCynthia had an arm around Eyana and Bev, and all three were dressed provocatively. Well, Cynthia was dressed as provocatively as she could given her conservative wardrobe. Her blouse was tight, thin, and should never have been worn without a camisole or bra underneath, her nipples pink shadows against the material. Both women hung on her, Cynthia's hands resting possessively on their hips while they nuzzled her neck.\n\n\"Jesus, is that you, Cynthia?\" Bill gasped.\n\n\"It is. I decided I needed a new look.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can see that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was appreciation burning in his green eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her own eyes flicked down to the bulge forming in his crotch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was handsome, in a scruffy, lean way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desire burned inside her, flooding down her thighs in hot rivulets. Cynthia had long fought off her desire for Bill, but things were different now. As long as he didn't violate her maidenhead, she could satisfy her cravings for the man in other ways. Like my ass.\n\n\"What did the dominatrix do to you?\" he asked.\n\n\"Dominatrix?\" she blinked. \"Oh, right, my Mistress. She awakened me, Bill.\" She let go of Bev's waist, fingers circling the pink shadow dimpling her top. Pleasure tingled from her nipple. \"Do you like it?\"\n\n\"You look hot,\" he panted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But, I kinda miss the old you.\"\n\nCynthia walked to Bill, leaving Eyana and Bev behind. The pair slipped together, murmuring lustfully. She let her hip sway. Bill's eyes burned even hotter. \"I think the old me was pretty boring.\"\n\n\"True. The new you is very... exciting.\"\n\n\"You've been lusting after me for, what, a year?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he shrugged. \"There was something special about you. I guess that's gone. You're playing for the other team now.\"\n\nShe shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I like to think of myself as a switch hitter. It was so mean of me to lead you on. You know I wanted to give in to you. I was just afraid.\" She couldn't fight grin spreading across her face as her eyes roamed his body. \"You are so cute. I wouldn't mind fooling around with you. Not at all.\"\n\nI didn't want to fool around with him. I wanted to love him, to be with him. You're making this so —\n\nShe suppressed that annoying voice. It grew easier and easier to do.\n\nEagerness burned in Bill's green eyes. \"We could go out to dinner tonight. After work.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cynthia laughed. \"I don't want to date you.\" Yes, I do! \"I want to fuck you!\"\n\n\"Shit,\" he muttered, swallowing. \"It's just... I want more than that, Cynthia.\"\n\nDaevia hovered incorporeal around Bill. Good, her Mistress whispered. We can pry him away from the Seraph. Until he manifests her fully, he can be poached. Such power brims inside him.\n\n\"Aren't I hot, Bill?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"So cold. Where's the warm Cynthia?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So hot, but...\"\n\nCynthia frowned, confused by his reluctance. \"Don't you want to fuck me?\"\n\n\"More than anything!\"\n\n\"Then let's fuck!\" She took another step closer.\n\nHis eyes hardened. \"So cold. Where's the warm Cynthia?\"\n\n\"Right here,\" she breathed then ripped off her top. Her nipples were hard, dusky, and his eyes feasted on them. Her hand slid up her side to her apple-sized breast and pinched the hard nub. \"Feel how warm I am, Bill.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I shouldn't. This isn't you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He swallowed. \"I feel like I'm taking advantage of you somehow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good. Take advantage of me. Feel my passion, Bill!\"\n\nHis hand shot out, rough against her soft breast and —\n\nHelp! You're the only one that can save me! I love you, Bill! Free me!\n\nPain flared, burning her breast. Cynthia stumbled back, his hand searing away her Mistress's power. The voice inside her shrieked louder, reaching out with metaphysical hands, trying to wrest control of Cynthia's body, panicking her. Bill took a step towards her. She fought back the hands of the weak Cynthia and held on to the controls of her body.\n\n\"Cynthia?\" Bill asked, his voice full of love and concern — poison to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I heard you, Cynthia. I'll help you.\"\n\n\"Stay away!\" she howled, backing up.\n\n\"What's wrong? What did the dominatrix do to you?\"\n\nHe kept moving towards her, reaching out with his damned hand. He was too full of love for her. Vile, putrid, perfect love. Cynthia hissed like an alley cat, clutching her top to her breasts as a shield against his advances. She couldn't let him touch her again, she couldn't lose her Mistress's gift. If she did, she'd go back to being that boring, chaste doll, too afraid to have fun, too concerned with her purity to even date the man she lo —\n\nShe couldn't even think the word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such a foul, useless emotion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lust was so much better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just hungers being satiated, no selfless needs that have to be attended to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No worrying about your partner's hopes and dreams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No fearing their rejections." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All Cynthia had to do now was satisfy her own lusts. That's all her Mistress required. She would not go back to living in such a fragile, difficult state with all its uncertainties and fears.\n\n\"Keep away from me, Bill!\" she snarled.\n\n\"I can help you,\" he pleaded. \"Cynthia, I...\"\n\nShe turned and ran.\n\nHer legs stretched out, and she put every ounce of energy into her stride, like she was racing across the field to the goal, ready to hurl the lacrosse ball and score a point for her team. Bill followed, but he wasn't an athlete. He didn't run five miles every morning. She ran like the devil was whipping her heels, and vaulted a low hedge, ducked under the branches of a low tree, and pounded down the alley between the Science Department and the Gym." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gravel crunched beneath her tennis shoes, then she burst out of the alley, and sprinted across the campus, her tits exposed to the hungry gaze of every man, and a few women, she passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was sure she had lost Bill already, but she kept running. What was she going to do? She worked with Bill. He knew where she lived. If all it took was his touch to drive away her Mistress's gift and make her turn back into that dull waste-of-space, then she was in real trouble. Daevia needed her innocence. She may well be the only woman on campus who has an intact hymen. Who else could feed her Mistress depravity while maintaining the symbol of her purity?\n\nOnly she could.\n\nHer lungs heaved, thighs burned, and sweat ran in thick beads down her back and breasts, dripping from her like she had just stepped out of the shower." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She collapsed on a swath of grass between two large rhododendron bushes, one with purple flowers and the other with deep-red blossoms. The scent was sweet, innocent — it turned her stomach. But her body needed to rest. Her mind needed to think.\n\nWhat was she going to do?\n\nDo not worry, her Mistress purred. A chill passed through her as Daevia's incorporeal body wrapped an arm around her. Ethereal fingers stroked her breasts, tweaking her hard nipples. Pleasure flooded through her. The hand slipped down, phasing through her shorts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her Mistress stroked her pussy lips, wonderful lust filling Cynthia's soul, driving away the memory of Bill's painful touch and soothing her fears." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here's what we do, Cynthia.\n\nShe gasped and moaned, fingers pleasuring her pussy, as Daevia explained her plan." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 12 sentences more sentences? like Reed James but Erotica, Paranormal Fantasy style. btw this is from middle of a story" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter Eleven\n\nBill's eyes were bleary. After three hours of digging through books in the Theology section of PLU's library, he needed a break. Rochelle was sitting next to him, flipping through a thick tome from the eighteen hundreds rife with woodcarvings of devils and Demons and witches. It was in German, and Bill was surprised to learn she spoke it. \"If you want to study archaeology, you need to learn German,\" she had explained. \"They wrote a lot on Mesopotamia and Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.\"\n\nHe laid his head on the book he was supposed to be reading, his eyes heavy. He didn't sleep well last night, worrying about Cynthia. Sensations slowly withdrew from him, the sound of Rochelle turning pages, the feel of the lacquered book cover, the gentle waft from the AC on the back of his neck. It all faded and he...\n\n... was sitting in the library, two women kneeling before him naked and lovely, staring up at him with adoration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both were regulars in Bill's dreams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the right was a petite, Asian coed, the very one Bill had seen getting arrested at Cynthia's dorms, and who normally would be working at the library this time of day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything about the girl was tiny: her dainty hands, her button nose, her lips and waist, everything except her breasts. They were round, large, and perky, topped with dark-brown nipples that looked appetizing on her creamy-olive tits. Tight around her thin neck was a chain of black, barbed metal, digging into her flesh.\n\nThe coed on the left was Juanita Barros, a feisty Latina with thick, honey-brown hair that framed her sultry face. She was made even sexier by the small, black-framed glasses perched on her nose. She had been in his Religious Iconography class last year, and they had partnered together on a paper. She was training to be a minister, which didn't fit with her tight clothing and tramp stamp — tribal, with a winged-heart at the center. Juanita also had a collar, only hers was white as fresh snow, but equally barbed and digging into her neck.\n\nAnd they weren't the only undressed women in the library; it was filled with them. Naked, kissing, a veritable orgy of sapphic delights: an African American nun entwined with Ms. Katsaros, the entirety of Cynthia's lacrosse team were feasting on each other, Eyana and a blue-haired coed sixty-nined, and Bev was making out with a female, Native American cop. The dominatrix was in the back, kissing a bronze-skinned woman. Both had gray wings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stretched out on the table beside him was Rochelle and Cynthia kissing and tribbing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cynthia had black chains wrapped around her entire body, cruel barbs dug painfully into her flesh. She didn't seem to notice. Rochelle's didn't have a chain, but instead had a gray ribbon tied with a neat bow around her neck.\n\n\"I'm so glad you rescued me, Bill,\" purred the Asian coed in a thick, accented soprano, her tongue flicking out to lick up his cock.\n\n\"And I'm glad I was sent to help you,\" cooed Juanita. \"Together, we'll defeat her.\"\n\n\"Together, Master,\" moaned Rochelle.\n\n\"Thank you for saving me,\" giggled Cynthia. She held up her hand, a ring glinting with a diamond was perched on her finger. \"I'll be the best wife ever.\" Bill noticed diamonds glinting on Rochelle's, Juanita's, and the Japanese coed's hands.\n\nJuanita's mouth covered Bills cock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Asian coed pouted. \"I need his cum more than you, Juanita. I'll need it to free us.\"\n\n\"Oh, fine,\" sighed the Latina, holding Bill's cock to the pretty Asian woman. \"It's all yours, Hikaru.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Hikaru nodded, then engulfed his cock with her tiny mouth. Her almond-shaped eyes flashed up to stare adoringly at Bill.\n\nJuanita ran her fingers through Hikaru's blue-black hair then nuzzled her neck. \"Make our husband cum, you little slut.\"\n\nHusband? What sort of dream was I having? Bill wondered. \"You're all my wives?\"\n\n\"Of course, silly,\" moaned Cynthia. She was on top of Rochelle, her small breasts rubbing against the redhead's large melons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How else could we have carnal relations? You know I was saving myself for marriage.\"\n\nRochelle goosed her ass. \"You didn't make it.\"\n\n\"No,\" Cynthia smiled. \"But it was Bill that took my virginity, and I married him, so it was close enough.\"\n\n\"And I'm married to all these other women?\" He pointed to the library full of women: his MILF boss, the entirety of Cynthia's lacrosse team, a few cute coeds from his college, the hot cop that had once given him a speeding ticket, and the gorgeous nun from his Religious Iconography class's field trip to the nearby Catholic church, Our Lady of Angels, to study the stained-glass windows.\n\nRochelle laughed. \"No, Master. They're just your concubines. You are one horny guy.\"\n\n\"Very horny,\" agreed Juanita. \"That's why you're always dreaming about us.\"\n\n\"Yep,\" Cynthia agreed. \"But we love you anyways.\"\n\nHikaru sucked harder, trying to show her love in a more physical way. Bill groaned, closing his eyes and enjoying her hot mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His balls were tightening, getting ready to unleash the torrent of his cum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That meant he was about to wake up. He never made it to the good part in his dreams.\n\n\"Why do you wake up then?\" a new voice asked, light and melodic. Bronze arms encircled Bill, and soft breasts pressed against his back. The new woman nuzzled his neck from behind then licked up to his ear. \"Don't you want to experience your orgasm?\"\n\n\"Or course,\" Bill moaned. \"But I always wake up. I don't know why.\"\n\n\"Because you expect to,\" the mysterious woman answered. \"It's your dream. Shape it to what you want. Stay in it for how long you want.\"\n\n\"It's that simple?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a dream. What's simpler?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Building a plane from scratch.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'balls' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She laughed. \"Then build your plane. You know how.\"\n\nJuanita's mouth sucked his balls into them as Hikaru bobbed her head up and down. The tip of his cock brushed her throat. He wanted her to deep-throat him. Hikaru worked her mouth lower down his cock, opening her throat up and swallowing his cock. He gasped; her throat tight and wet. She swallowed, massaging his cock. He wanted Juanita to kiss him. The Latina coed released his balls and planted a deep kiss on his lips.\n\nI want to cum down Hikaru's throat.\n\nHis cock erupted, blast after blast flooding down her throat. Every time she swallowed, her throat massaged his cock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't want her to swallow all of it. Juanita deserves some cum, too. Hikaru pulled back, catching the last blast of cum in her lips. Her mouth open, cum pooling on her tongue, then she pulled Juanita to her and they shared his cum, pink tongues snowballing white back and forth. When they finished, they smiled up at him, full of love.\n\n\"See,\" the bronze-skinned woman purred. \"Easy. But you should probably wake up now. You need to get on with saving Cynthia.\"\n\nBill started awake, the cover of the book glued to his cheek from his drool. He winced as it peeled off his skin. Rochelle had an amused look on her face.\n\n\"Nice nap, Master?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he smiled. \"I had a great dream.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'rochelle' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh?\" Her eyebrows raised questioningly.\n\n\"Two girls sucked my cock then swapped my cum.\"\n\nRochelle giggled. \"Sounds like a hot dream. And I wasn't one of them?\"\n\n\"No, but you were fucking Cynthia.\"\n\n\"Glad you didn't leave me out, Master.\"\n\nHe grinned at her, stretching. \"Did you find anything out?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Sorry. Nothing that seems useful.\"\n\nBill glanced at his phone. \"Shit. I have to get to work.\"\n\nRochelle just nodded, glancing back at her book." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cynthia might show up if security's done with her. I could get a chance to talk to her again and maybe...\"\n\n\"She'll be there,\" Rochelle absently said.\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she shrugged. \"My gut says so.\"\n\nHope surged in Bill. He believed her. She sounded so certain.\n\n\"I'll just keep researching while you go play with your girlfriend.\"\n\n\"Are you forgetting who's the slave here?\" Bill growled. \"If I want you to sit here and research all night long, you'll do it with a smile.\"\n\nShe looked up, beaming, her green eyes twinkling. \"Right, sorry, Master.\"\n\n\"I think I'll have to spank you tonight,\" Bill decided." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've been impertinent all day.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Color tinged her freckled cheeks. \"If you think I deserve it.\"\n\n\"You definitely deserve it, slave.\"\n\n\"I do. I've been so naughty.\"\n\nA suspicion crept into his mind. \"Were you impertinent on purpose? Did you want to see if I would punish you?\"\n\nHer smile grew naughty.\n\nHe leaned over and kissed her on the lips. \"I'll meet you out front around five. Then we'll go to my place, and I'll tan that pretty backside of yours.\"\n\n\"Yes, Master,\" she purred, squirming in her seat." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 1 sentence more sentences? keep same character vibes in Erotica, Paranormal Fantasy style" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was dark in the cell when Bill woke up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His back ached, and he stretched, working the kinks out of his sore muscles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mattress was thin, almost as hard as the concrete floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Black security guard snored on his desk, and Hikaru was curled up on her mattress beneath a thin blanket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked so cold and vulnerable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anger burned in him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daevia only put her in here to tempt him, forcing the poor woman to suffer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't do anything until Rochelle showed up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had faith in her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had only really known her a day, but then again, she had shared his dreams for two years now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked to the sink, splashed water on his face, then drank more out of his cupped hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His stomach rumbled. They didn't feed him last night, and he didn't expect to get breakfast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked back to his cot and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't have to wait long before Rochelle walked in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was dressed to kill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His cock grew hard just looking at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face was different, her makeup transforming her into a sultry vixen framed by fiery-red hair that almost seemed to glow with passion around her freckled face." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her skirt was short, and she wore a pair of knee-high, black boots. So sexy. He didn't know she had those, but he was glad she wore them." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand this chapter by adding four sentences in the Historical Fiction, Mystery, Japan genre. Note that some context may come from earlier parts." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A garden of pines, willows, red maple, and flowering shrubs decorated the walled compound where the emperor's consorts lived. As the old courtier walked Reiko through the compound, music and laughter floated in the warm, still air.\n\n\"Her Highness the Chief Imperial Consort is amusing herself with her attendants,\" the courtier said. \"She has invited you to join them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a courtyard shaded by the wings of buildings, wisteria vines, bright with purple blossoms, climbed lattice frames." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A painted mural depicting moonlit woods formed a backdrop for a canopied wooden platform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On this stood a young woman and man. She wore a lavish kimono of crimson silk; floral ornaments adorned her elaborate upswept hairstyle. He was dressed as a peasant in cotton robe and straw sandals. Nearby, three musicians played flute, samisen, and the wooden clappers used in Kabuki theater." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gentlemen and ladies in traditional court garb knelt on cushions in front of the makeshift stage, watching the drama unfolding there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The time has come for us to die!\" the actor proclaimed with exaggerated passion, seizing his partner's hands.\n\nSobbing, the woman lamented, \"Though in this life we could not be together, in the next world we shall be husband and wife.\"\n\nThe pair stumbled through the imaginary dark forest, clinging together toward a ceramic urn that contained an immense, leafy bamboo plant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reiko recognized the play as Love Suicides at Kamakura, popular in Edo's theater district some time ago, based on the true story of a prostitute and a potter, forbidden lovers. Standing behind the audience, Reiko watched with amazement while the amateurish attempt at Kabuki—cheap, low-class entertainment—compromised the decorum of the Imperial Court.\n\n\"That is the Honorable Lady Asagao,\" the courtier murmured to Reiko, indicating the woman acting the role of the prostitute.\n\nReiko's amazement increased as she beheld the emperor's consort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In her early twenties, Lady Asagao had a round face with rouged cheeks, a snub nose, and round eyes accentuated by painted lids." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'bamboo' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A generous bosom and curvy hips filled out her kimono. That a woman of her exalted status would stoop to such vulgarity!\n\nThe actor playing her lover was handsome, with delicate features and a slender build. He led Lady Asagao to the bamboo plant and cried, \"Let us make our end, in the shadow of this bamboo thicket!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knelt by the urn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Asagao began to sing:\n\nNever have we known\n\nA single day of peace—\n\nInstead, the torment of an ill-starred romance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She minced about the stage, fluttering her eyelids at the actor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her voice was sweet, but she couldn't carry the tune.\n\nYou must kill me with your hands,\n\nRelease me from this torture,\n\nThen follow me into death!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Falling to her knees beside her lover, she wept, begging, \"Please, hold me one last time before I die.\"\n\nThey embraced; a sigh rose from the audience. The actor's hands fondled Lady Asagao, who eagerly returned the caresses. They seemed to be enjoying themselves a little too much, and their ardor embarrassed Reiko." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The actor pulled a wooden dagger out of his sash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here's our guarantee that our souls will never part!\"\n\n\"I'm ready. Be quick!\" Lady Asagao closed her eyes and sat up straight.\n\nWeeping, the actor pretended to stab Lady Asagao's chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She screamed, collapsed, and writhed in simulated death throes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held her until her moans subsided and she lay still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he exclaimed, \"My beloved, I shall join you now!\" and plunged the dagger into his own breast.\n\nThe audience cheered and applauded. The doomed couple lay immobile for a moment, then stood and bowed, laughing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now Lady Asagao caught sight of the newcomers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes lit. She hopped down from the platform and sashayed over to Reiko.\n\n\"Honorable Lady Sano! I'm so happy to meet you,\" she gushed. To Reiko's escort, she said, \"You're dismissed.\" He obediently departed. Lady Asagao giggled, while her eyes appraised Reiko with the calculating expression of a woman always on the lookout for admirers or rivals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How marvelous that you've arrived in time for our play. What did you think of my performance?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've never seen anything like it before,\" Reiko said, striving for a compromise between honesty and flattery.\n\nThe dubious compliment provoked delighted laughter from Asagao. \"My humble talent hardly deserves such praise! And from you, who have surely been entertained by Japan's best actors. Oh, how I wish I could see them too!\" Her full, red lips pouted prettily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're so secluded here in the palace, and we must make do with our own little amusements, but we try to be authentic. The stage scenery was made by one of the best court artists. He also designed my costume.\" She pirouetted in front of Reiko. \"Does it become me?\"\n\n\"Yes, you look beautiful,\" Reiko said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kimono was a work of art, although Asagao would benefit from a darker color and simpler pattern to make her look slimmer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, thank you! You're so kind.\" Asagao preened. Beckoning to her audience, she called, \"Come meet our guest from Edo.\" Courtiers and ladies-in-waiting flocked around Reiko, smiling, bowing, and murmuring greetings while Asagao performed introductions. Asagao laid a proprietary hand upon the arm of the actor who'd played her lover onstage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Lord Gojo. He's one of the emperor's secretaries.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two exchanged a smiling, intimate glance. Then Asagao widened her eyes and exclaimed, \"I've just had the most marvelous idea. Lady Sano must take a part in our play!\"\n\n\"Oh, I couldn't.\" Horrified, Reiko backed away.\n\nThe group greeted Asagao's idea with enthusiasm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lord Gojo said, \"She can be the heroine's best friend.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I don't know the lines,\" Reiko protested, desperate to avoid making a spectacle of herself.\n\n\"That doesn't matter,\" Asagao said. \"You can read them from the script for now, and memorize them later.\" She thrust out her lower lip, her expression reproachful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You won't disappoint us, will you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The petulant whine in Asagao's voice warned Reiko that Asagao was quick to take offense at anyone who denied her wishes. Reiko understood that if she refused to act, the emperor's consort would cut short their visit and she would lose her chance to ask questions about the murder.\n\n\"Of course I couldn't disappoint you,\" Reiko said with forced sincerity. \"I'd be honored to act in your play.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wonderful!\" Asagao laughed and clapped her hands, her good humor restored. Everyone else cheered." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🔍 Find a place to insert: \"We'll have to find a costume for you later, but let's give your face and hair some glamour. Come along!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Asagao critically surveyed Reiko's simple, knotted hairdo and sea-blue silk kimono printed with pale green ivy leaves. \"We'll have to find a costume for you later, but let's give your face and hair some glamour. Come along!\"\n\nAsagao and her ladies-in-waiting took Reiko to a corner of the courtyard, where a large parasol shaded a table that held a mirror, brushes, combs, hair ornaments, and jars of makeup.\n\n\"Bring us some wine, Gojo-san,\" called Lady Asagao, \"then go and prepare the stage for the first scene.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young man complied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two ladies-in-waiting began restyling Reiko's hair, while the others drank wine and offered suggestions. Reiko sipped the sweet plum liquor, hoping it would ease her embarrassment. Asagao smeared a mixture of grease and white rice powder on Reiko's face.\n\n\"You must think we're frivolous to spend our time this way,\" Asagao said, pausing to gulp wine from her cup, \"but there's so little else to do here, and life gets terribly dull.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reiko tried not to wince as the warm, thick makeup coated her skin, or recoil from the too-intimate contact with her new acquaintances." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I would have thought that the shocking incident in the Pond Garden offered some diversion.\"\n\nAsagao looked perplexed; then her face cleared. \"Oh, you mean the death of Left Minister Konoe.\" She dismissed the murder with a flick of her fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was ages ago. The excitement is past. You probably think I'm callous for having fun during the mourning period, but I refuse to suffer months of gloom and boredom, even though my father says I should.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She added, \"My father is Right Minister Ichijo.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'imperial' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reiko remembered that Ichijo was the man serving as intermediary in Sano's relations with the Imperial Court, and that he'd become its chief official after the death of Konoe. Apparently, he had followed the ancient practice by which nobles achieved dominance over the throne: intermarriage with the imperial family.\n\n\"I see no reason to grieve for the left minister,\" Asagao said, picking up a brush and applying pink tint around Reiko's eyelids, \"especially since I'm glad he's dead.\"\n\nHer blunt admission hung in the air like a bad smell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ladies-in-waiting suddenly became very busy refilling the wine cups and applying camellia oil to Reiko's hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reiko was too startled to speak, but Asagao continued as if unaware of how her words might reflect upon her: \"That horrible old tyrant! Do you know what he did to me?\"\n\n\"No, what did he do?\" Reiko said, hiding her eagerness.\n\n\"He decided I was spending too much money,\" Asagao said, puffed up with indignation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So he reduced my allowance. I was to have no new clothes or amusements for the rest of the year. I, the emperor's consort, was to live like a pauper!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It must have been very unpleasant for you.\" Reiko marveled at her luck in having a suspect so ready to volunteer information. She hinted, \"I wouldn't blame you if you had decided to take revenge against the left minister.\"\n\n\"And that's just what I did,\" Asagao declared, swallowing another drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her words had begun to slur, and her eyes had a glassy shine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps intoxication had loosened her tongue, Reiko thought, but Asagao seemed the kind of person who often neglected to think before she spoke. What a contrast between the emperor's mother and his consort! The ladies-in-waiting were pulling Reiko's hair upward and jabbing in pins, but Reiko, intent on Asagao, hardly noticed the pain in her scalp.\n\n\"First I went to my father, but he said there was nothing he could do; Left Minister Konoe outranked him.\" Asagao applied rouge to Reiko's cheeks with a sponge. \"Then I complained to Tomohito." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Tomohito said I should go along with the left minister and stop wasting money." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I begged. I cried. I was so angry! Why should he listen to a mere kuge official instead of me? Oh, how I hated the left minister for coming between us!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Asagao's voice rose to a querulous pitch.\n\nReiko nodded and murmured sympathetically. \"What did you do next?\" she said, her heartbeat quickening with anticipation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A moment passed in silence as Asagao dipped a small brush into red pigment, moved closer, and began painting Reiko's lips, frowning in concentration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her features, magnified by proximity, seemed stronger, rendering her less giddily feminine. Reiko stifled an urge to flinch. In Asagao's veins ran the blood of ancestors who had ruled Japan from behind the emperor's throne. To satisfy her appetite for power, might she have studied the martial arts in secret, exercising the spiritual energy that existed in every human, until she acquired the force of kiai?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Could the spirit cry have issued from that soft, sensuous mouth?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Asagao drew back, set down the brush, and drained her wine cup again. \"I didn't do anything,\" she said, her expression sulky. \"There was no way to get back at the old miser. When he died, I thanked the gods, because now my father is in charge, and he lets me have everything I want.\"\n\nDisappointment flooded Reiko. She chastised herself for expecting a confession." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Asagao might lack Lady Jokyōden's intelligence; yet her vanity indicated an instinct for self-preservation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, Reiko couldn't quite picture Asagao as the killer. Despite her obvious antipathy toward the victim, Asagao appeared basically weak and flighty. It was easier to believe she had benefited from someone else's crime. But Reiko couldn't eliminate her as a suspect without establishing the important missing fact about Asagao." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you see anything on the night of the murder that might reveal who killed the left minister?\" Reiko asked.\n\n\"How could I have?\" Asagao looked puzzled. \"I was nowhere near the Pond Garden.\"\n\n\"Oh? Where were you?\" Reiko said casually." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alarm leapt in Asagao's eyes." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'reiko' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reiko heard a simultaneous intake of breath from the ladies-in-waiting. They sat frozen and stoic, heads bowed.\n\n\"I don't remember. It was such a long time ago.\" Asagao's gaze skittered away from Reiko, then back again, bright with the need to convince. \"Wait!\" she cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was in the summer pavilion, with my ladies-in-waiting. We were drinking wine and playing the samisen.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'women' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked to the other women, her expression demanding confirmation. \"Weren't we?\"\n\nWith uncertain smiles, the women nodded; yet Reiko didn't need to see their guilty reactions to know they were lying. Yoriki Hoshina's report had placed the ladies-in-waiting in their quarters together just before the murder, not with Lady Asagao. And if Lady Jokyōden had been walking around the pavilion as she claimed, she would have noticed the lights and noise of a party." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The evidence supported Jokyōden's story and refuted Asagao's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The consort huffed, \"All this talk about murder upsets me terribly. Let's have no more of it.\" She inspected Reiko, and a pleased smile banished her nervousness. \"I think you're ready for the stage.\" She held up the mirror so Reiko could see herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you like it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reiko stared at her reflection, aghast. Her hair was sculpted into mounds and coils studded with gaudy floral ornaments. Exaggerated brows arched on her forehead; pink half-moons colored her eyelids. A circle of rouge dotted each cheek, and large, curving red lips masked her own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked the exact picture of a low-class courtesan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know what to say,\" she murmured, cringing in shame. Asagao's handiwork disgraced her rank, samurai heritage, and natural modesty. Reiko knew that many men admired the style of prostitutes, but Sano would be horrified to see her this way.\n\nAsagao laughed in delight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look beautiful!\" The ladies-in-waiting chorused their agreement. \"Come along!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'reiko' must be used 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The women ushered Reiko to the stage, which now sported a new backdrop showing a street in the pleasure quarter where the play's doomed lovers had met. Lord Gojo and the other courtiers positioned a large wooden cage that represented the window of a brothel. Asagao, Reiko, and the ladies-in-waiting sat inside this. Someone handed Reiko a silk-covered book." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're ready. Let's begin!\" Asagao cried." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"Your character's name is Snowdrop. Start reading here,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Courtiers strolled back and forth in front of the window cage, cracking lewd jokes and ogling the women.\n\n\"Oh, how this sordid life saddens my spirit,\" Asagao recited in a tragic voice. \"I wish my darling Jihei could buy my freedom and marry me!\" She opened Reiko's playbook, whispered, \"Your character's name is Snowdrop. Start reading here,\" and pointed to the correct line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How unfortunate that you've fallen in love with a poor potter who already has a wife,\" Reiko read in a barely audible voice. As a leering courtier approached her, she continued, \"Ah, master—the cherry blossoms are in full bloom tonight. Would you partake of their sweetness?\"\n\nFlirtatious banter followed. Ready to die of humiliation, Reiko blushed under her makeup. The daughter of a magistrate and wife of the shogun's sōsakan-sama, behaving thus!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing exercise: 6 sentences sentences continuing this chapter, Laura Joh Rowland style, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Japan genre. characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano, Marume, and Fukida rode up to the Imperial Palace just as the temple bells signaled half past the hour of the dog." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'palace' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside the palace gate, two sentries—one a Tokugawa soldier, the other an imperial watchman—stood guard.\n\nDismounting, Sano introduced himself and said, \"I'm here to see the emperor, at his request.\"\n\n\"Yes, sōsakan-sama.\" The Tokugawa soldier bowed, then turned to the watchman. \"Go and fetch the imperial escort.\"\n\nThe watchman went inside the palace. Sano and his detectives waited in the quiet, empty street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beneath a deep violet sky full of stars, a dark mass of leafy treetops rose above the palace walls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Time passed. The moon's irregular white orb floated over the hills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano grew restless as hunger, thirst, and weariness of body and spirit strained his patience." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking at the tired faces of his men, he knew they felt no better than he. They'd spent all day investigating the fern-leaf coins, to no avail. On the way to the palace he'd told them about Lady Asagao's confession and arrest. They shared his doubts, and had loyally seconded his decision to seek out the truth before taking Asagao to Edo for trial. They, too, would suffer if he got in trouble, because their livelihood and honor were tied to his.\n\nFinally the watchman returned with two guards bearing lanterns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They led Sano and his men into the imperial compound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The palace was a different world at night, enfolded in a darkness more dense than in the city outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guards' lanterns spilled weak light against fences and cast long shadows as they preceded Sano, Marume, and Fukida through the kuge quarter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They met no one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their footsteps echoed forlornly; the only other sounds were the trickle of water in drains and the ever-present insect songs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warm, humid air breathed a scent of earth, ashes, and the decay of centuries past.\n\n\"This place is eerie,\" said Marume. His jovial voice sounded hollow in the gloom. \"Give me the noise and lights and bustle of Edo Castle any day.\"\n\nFukida looked around nervously. The same uneasiness infected Sano, who imagined hidden watchers peering at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his tired, tense state, the notion of three armed samurai afraid of the dark didn't seem as laughable as it should have." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wished the guards would hurry, but they maintained a slow, decorous pace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Entering the imperial enclosure, they crossed a lane and passed through an inner gate to a compound of interconnected buildings. They walked a circuitous route around halls, then through a passage and into an open courtyard surrounded by dark buildings and roofed walkways.\n\nSuddenly the guards divided and fled in opposite directions, taking the lights with them, and vanished.\n\n\"Hey, what is this?\" Marume demanded, his voice raised in surprised protest.\n\nThe compound, plunged into darkness, became a labyrinth of shadows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The white gravel and walls shone faintly in the moonlight, but black gloom filled the walkways and surrounded the buildings.\n\n\"Wait. Come back!\" Sano called to the guards.\n\nThe echo of their rapid footsteps faded into the distance.\n\n\"Something strange is going on here.\" Suspicion disturbed Sano. \"This feels like a trap.\"\n\nHe and his detectives started across the courtyard, swords drawn, treading quietly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sano experienced a peculiar sensation, like a silent, windless air current vibrating around him. His skin prickled; his heartbeat accelerated; his breath quickened involuntarily with the physical urgency of fear. His muscles tightened in reaction to an evil presence.\n\nHalting, he said, \"What is it?\"\n\nMarume and Fukida had also stopped, apparently arrested by the same inexplicable feeling. Sano felt his heart beating harder, and the blood pulsating in his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where are you?\" Fukida muttered, waving his sword as if under attack by a ghost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Show yourself!\" Marume lunged at shadows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the near distance beyond the courtyard, through a walkway and the lacy black foliage of trees, a strange, pale haze tinged the air. The vibrations issued from this eerie brightness, muting noises that sounded like frightened cries. Sano pointed and said, \"Whatever it is, it's over there.\"\n\nMarume and Fukida hurried to stand between him and the unknown threat. \"sōsakan-sama, we're taking you out of here,\" Fukida said.\n\n\"Come on, let's go,\" Marume said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But now, Sano's sense of danger was overpowering. Ignoring his men's attempt to protect him, he ran across the courtyard, bounded over the walkway, and through a garden toward the light.\n\nThe detectives chased after him, calling, \"No! Stop!\"\n\nSano came upon a wall that stood between him and the eerie glow. He could still feel the ominous presence, like an invisible net. Then he heard the loud, raspy breathing of some monstrous creature." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Battling an instinctive urge to flee, he sheathed his sword. He crouched, arms raised, then jumped. His hands grasped the top of the wall; his feet scraped the plaster as he pulled himself up.\n\nSuddenly the night exploded in a scream of thunderous intensity, as though a million voices had combined into a single horrific sound. Its force knocked Sano off the wall. He landed hard on his back, but he hardly noticed the pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rolling facedown, he clasped his arms over his head, trying to block out the dreadful noise that blasted through him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Involuntary sobs wracked him as he felt his muscles tremble uncontrollably, his tendons contract, and his ears throb in pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every nerve vibrated; his stomach and chest shuddered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano realized that this terrible scream was the spirit cry heard across Miyako the night of Left Minister Konoe's murder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He cried out in terror, but he couldn't even hear himself over the noise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He feared for the safety of his detectives as the killer unleashed the deadly power of kiai." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who was it?\n\nDespite his agony, Sano experienced a sense of awe. Witnessing this ultimate expression of the martial arts affirmed not only his belief in kiai, but his faith in the Way of the Warrior.\n\nThe scream abruptly stopped. A huge void of silence spread across the night. Sano gasped in relief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His ears rang from the blast. He ached all over; his head throbbed; his heart still pounded. Pushing himself to his knees, he inhaled deep breaths of air and looked around. The strange brightness was gone. In the moonlight Sano saw two inert bodies sprawled on the grass nearby.\n\n\"Marume-san!\" he cried. \"Fukida-san?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "To his relief, the men stirred and sat up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Merciful gods, am I alive or dead?\" Marume groaned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll never again think of kiai as just an ancient superstition,\" Fukida said, gasping." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'they'd' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sano realized that they'd all survived because they'd been far enough away from the source of the spirit cry to feel only minor secondary effects. He said, \"Now we know for sure that Lady Asagao didn't murder Left Minister Konoe, because she's locked up in police headquarters. The killer is still out there.\"\n\nFrom beyond the wall came the rapid, irregular rhythm of retreating footsteps.\n\n\"Quickly!\" Sano said.\n\nHe and the detectives helped one another scramble over the wall, into another compound. Out of the darkness before them rose long buildings with piles of wood stacked against the walls and huge stone hearths outside." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'noise' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hush pervaded the palace, as though everyone knew that the scream heralded death and chose to hide until the danger passed.\n\n\"These must be the kitchens,\" Sano said in a low, hurried voice. \"We'll spread out. If you see the strange light or feel the vibrations again, make a lot of noise and disrupt the killer's concentration to prevent another spirit cry.\"\n\nMarume and Fukida disappeared into the shadows. Sano crept around the hearths, alert for any movement or other hint of the killer's presence. He remembered the horrendous noise and power of the spirit cry, and icy fear seeped through him while he searched the kitchen compound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he spied a dark shape on the ground outside a building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He approached cautiously and recognized the shape as a prone human figure, lying motionless on its stomach, arms and legs splayed, a sword clutched in its hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Blackness surrounded the body like a viscous shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano touched the shadow, and hot liquid smeared his fingers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The raw, metallic odor of fresh blood and the reek of feces assailed him. He listened for the sound of breaths, but heard nothing. Sano rolled the corpse over. It had a weird pliancy, as if the bones had dissolved, and felt oddly warm. Despite the meager light, Sano saw that the dead man's face was awash in blood that had poured from his nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, drenching his clothes. He recalled Yoriki Hoshina describing Left Minister Konoe's death: \"... hemorrahaged almost all his blood... internal organs ruptured... many bones broken...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nausea and horror churned Sano's stomach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because he hadn't solved the case, someone else had died.\n\nHurrying footsteps pounded toward him. Was the murderer returning to attack again? He looked up, saw Marume and Fukida coming, and exhaled in relief.\n\n\"We couldn't find the killer,\" Marume said. \"Whoever it is could be anywhere in the palace, or out in the city by now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he saw the corpse beside Sano. \"Merciful gods!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who is it?\" Fukida said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sano took a cloth from under his sash. He wiped the blood off the corpse's face, revealing familiar heavy-lidded eyes, flat nose, and thin mouth. \"It's Aisu,\" he said, startled. \"Chamberlain Yanagisawa's chief retainer.\"\n\nMarume said, \"He was a piece of scum. I'm certain he threw that bomb at us in Tobacco Lane. He deserved to die.\"\n\n\"What was he doing here?\" Fukida said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know, but his presence must mean that Yanagisawa is in Miyako, because they're never far apart.\" Sano experienced the disturbing shock of discovering that reality had a far different shape than he'd perceived. Rising, he cursed under his breath. He'd thought himself safe from Yanagisawa, free to restore his honor and regain the shogun's favor in peace. But his enemy must have secretly followed him here. Why had Sano imagined that Yanagisawa would let him off so easily?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But why would the chamberlain risk leaving Edo?\" Marume said, his voice skeptical. \"Where is he now, and what's he up to?\"\n\nAs Sano stood contemplating Aisu's corpse, he realized that Yanagisawa must be the hidden element in the murder case. Yanagisawa was working another plot against him. Its exact details weren't clear, but Sano glimpsed its intent, with mounting dismay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This whole investigation was rigged as a trap for me at the start,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yanagisawa has been working behind the scenes, directing my every move—Aisu wasn't clever enough to manage such a tricky operation alone. Events were supposed to culminate in my death from the spirit cry tonight. But the murderer killed Aisu instead of me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marume and Fukida looked at him as if concerned for his sanity. \"How do you know?\" Marume said. \"And how could Yanagisawa manipulate you? Even if he sent the message summoning you here and ordered the guards to abandon us inside the palace, how could he cause the killer to attack? And why was Aisu here?\"\n\nSano had ideas, but no definite answers yet. A plan began forming in his mind. Whatever stroke of luck had saved his life, plus the knowledge he'd gained, gave him a chance to turn Yanagisawa's scheme to his own advantage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he needed to act fast. Instead of replying to Marume's questions, he raised his head, listening to the night. He heard distant voices. The glow of lanterns hazed the air above surrounding areas of the palace, and he knew that soon people would flock to see what new destruction the spirit cry had wrought.\n\n\"There's no time to talk,\" Sano said. \"Just listen, then do as I say. Fukida-san, give me your surcoat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The detective frowned in confusion, but obeyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano spread the garment over Aisu's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You stay with the corpse. Tell the Imperial Court that it's me, that I was the killer's victim.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ignoring his men's shocked exclamations, Sano rushed on: \"Aisu was taller and thinner than I am, but the blood and filth will discourage anyone from taking a close look. You'll have to remove the corpse as quickly as possible and figure out a way to hide it. Then issue an official report of my death. Keep the real events of tonight a secret.\"\n\n\"Yes, sōsakan-sama.\" Although Fukida sounded dazed, Sano knew he would carry out the orders.\n\n\"Marume-san, you come with me now,\" Sano said. \"We have to get out of the palace before anyone sees me.\"\n\n\"Wait, please, sōsakan-sama,\" Fukida said. \"What shall I tell your wife?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The question almost shattered Sano's resolve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While the voices grew louder, moving lights shone up through trees outside the kitchen compound, and precious time sped away, he imagined how the news of his murder would affect Reiko." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'might' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To let her think him dead was much worse than his lust for another woman. When Reiko found out the truth, she might never forgive his deceit. But if he didn't use this chance to combat Yanagisawa's machinations, he might never solve the case or win his battle against the chamberlain. Failure would doom Reiko along with him. He had to save them both.\n\n\"Break the news to my wife as gently as possible,\" Sano said at last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not even she can know I survived, until I finish what I have to do.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any lapse in secrecy could ruin everything. The fewer people who knew about his ploy, the better. Sano added, \"With luck, I won't have to deceive her for long.\" Then he and Marume left quickly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 11 sentences as a continuation in the Historical Fiction, Mystery, Japan genre, maintaining established character relationships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After leaving Lady Jokyōden, Sano went to the imperial consorts' residence. Lady Asagao was no longer a suspect, but he needed to resolve some unfinished business concerning her.\n\nHe found Asagao reclining on cushions on the shady veranda of the residence. Ladies-in-waiting plied large fans to create a cooling breeze around her. Clad in layered pastel robes, Asagao wore her hair in a limp plait. A physician dressed in a long dark blue coat fed her potions from ceramic bowls. When Sano climbed the veranda steps, she turned toward him. Apprehension pinched her round face, which looked sallow and plain in the absence of her usual makeup. Her attendants eyed Sano with distrust. The physician glowered.\n\n\"Lady Asagao must not be disturbed,\" he said. \"The ordeal of imprisonment has weakened her health. To recover, she needs rest and quiet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano knelt by Asagao, bowed, and said, \"Your Highness, I apologize for your ordeal. It was an abominable mistake, and I beg your forgiveness.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That Chamberlain Yanagisawa had manipulated them both into the false arrest hardly diminished the guilt he felt toward Asagao. \"However, I must request your assistance. Will you be so kind as to answer a few questions?\"\n\nThe emperor's consort pouted. \"Why should I?\" she said sullenly.\n\nWhy indeed, thought Sano. She didn't need to defend herself against further accusations, and she had no reason to voluntarily help someone who'd torn her away from her home and imprisoned her. The law permitted intimidation and torture to extort information from witnesses, but Sano didn't want to inflict more suffering on Lady Asagao or further antagonize the Imperial Court, so he must give her a different incentive to cooperate.\n\n\"I've discovered a plot to overthrow the Tokugawa regime,\" Sano said. \"The plot is almost certainly connected with the murders. It's imperative that I catch the killer before he or she can kill again or bring war upon Japan. His Majesty the Emperor and your father are still under investigation.\"\n\nSano paused to let Asagao absorb his words, then said, \"More mistakes could occur. Another innocent person might be subjected to the same treatment as yourself. Wouldn't you like to prevent that?\"\n\nAsagao squirmed on the cushions; her eyes darted like minnows trying to escape a fishing net." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She might not possess great intelligence, but Sano perceived in her a natural cunning. She'd understood his implied threat to punish her kin unless she cooperated. Now she cast a pleading glance at her companions and made a weak attempt to sit up.\n\n\"I don't feel well,\" she whined. \"Take me inside.\"\n\nThe physician and ladies-in-waiting moved to help her, but Sano steeled himself against letting Asagao use her illness to escape him. \"Leave us,\" he told her attendants.\n\nThey reluctantly obeyed. Asagao cowered on the cushions, fearful yet defiant. Sano said, \"Let's talk about the night Left Minister Konoe died. You told my wife that you were with your ladies-in-waiting. Later they admitted that you'd sneaked out to meet someone. Which is the truth?\" Although he didn't really believe that determining Asagao's whereabouts would solve the case, unanswered questions bothered Sano. \"Where were you?\"\n\nAsagao said, \"I was in the tea ceremony cottage. With my father.\"\n\nSano recognized the story that Right Minister Ichijo had told Chamberlain Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He also knew that Yoriki Hoshina had established that the cottage had been occupied by a pair of lovers, and therefore not by Ichijo and Asagao. Obviously, Ichijo had instructed his daughter to corroborate his lie. She'd provided her father with the alibi she no longer needed. The probable reason behind her deception gave Sano an idea how to turn Asagao's motives to his advantage.\n\n\"Were you ever present when your father counseled the emperor?\" Sano asked.\n\n\"Sometimes.\" A puzzled frown wrinkled the consort's brow.\n\n\"What did they talk about?\"\n\n\"I don't remember. Court business, I suppose. I didn't pay much attention.\" Asagao spoke with eager nervousness, as if hoping that ignorance would safeguard her until she could figure out where the conversation was heading.\n\n\"Did His Majesty talk about past emperors who had tried to overthrow military regimes?\" Sano said. \"Did he ever express the desire to do the same?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"His Majesty wants to rule Japan, doesn't he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shocked comprehension dawned in Asagao's eyes. She sat up and blurted, \"No. Never.\"\n\n\"His Majesty wants to rule Japan, doesn't he?\" Sano said. \"He not only fights make-believe battles; he's planning a real one. Did he tell you that he's been bringing weapons into Miyako and recruiting soldiers for a war against the Tokugawa?\"\n\n\"He wouldn't do that!\" Asagao cried.\n\n\"Wouldn't he?\" Sano said, wondering if Asagao was really surprised, or if she'd already known about the conspiracy. \"His Majesty is bored by his sheltered life. He's puffed up with conceit and dreams of glory. But plotting a coup is treason. For such a serious crime, not even an emperor can escape death.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about.\" Panic shone in Asagao's eyes. \"Tomo-chan would never try to overthrow the bakufu!\"\n\nWhether she was lying didn't matter; it wasn't Sano's intention to gain evidence against Tomohito right now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The emperor was just bait for a trap. \"Yesterday the soldiers and weapons were in a house belonging to Lord Ibe of Echizen Province. Did His Majesty ever mention it?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Did Left Minister Konoe discover His Majesty's plans?\" Sano said. \"Did His Majesty know that Konoe was a spy, and fear that Konoe would report his crime?\" Now came the time to spring the trap. \"Where was His Majesty on the night of Konoe's murder?\"\n\n\"Tomo-chan wasn't in the garden. He didn't kill the left minister!\" Asagao's desperate gaze sought help, but the courtyard was empty and still in the hot sunshine, and the building behind her as silent as if everyone had deserted it. In the trees, insects shrilled; a bird shrieked.\n\n\"How could you know where His Majesty was, when you were in the tea cottage with your father?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano rose and stood over Asagao." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That same story can't provide alibis for both men. It looks as though I'll be charging one or the other with treason and murder. You can help me decide which.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No!\" Asagao tried to rise, but her legs tangled in her robes, and she fell against the cushions, helpless." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'asagao'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course you want to save your father,\" Sano said, hating what he must do to the consort. \"He gave you life; he fed and sheltered you during your childhood. You wouldn't like to see him hurt, and it's your duty to protect him. But what about your duty to the emperor? His alibis for both murders are weak. He needs you to point my suspicion away from him... toward somebody else.\"\n\n\"Please leave me alone,\" Asagao implored. Sweat beaded her face; her pale lips trembled. \"Don't make me do this!\"\n\nSuppressing his pity for her, Sano said, \"If His Majesty is found to have committed treason, a new emperor will take the throne and select a new chief consort. You'll lose your status and special privileges. You could become a lady-in-waiting to your replacement, or marry a noble who's willing to accept a cast-off consort as a wife. Or you could enter a nunnery.\" These options represented utter humiliation to a woman of Asagao's rank. \"If that's what you want, then by all means cast your lot with your father. If not, then perhaps you should reconsider the wisdom of protecting him at the emperor's expense.\"\n\nSano let the echo of his harsh words die. He waited for Asagao to choose which of the two most important men in her life she would betray. Loath to incur the consequences of implicating Japan's sacred sovereign in the crimes, Sano didn't want it to be Emperor Tomohito." }, { "from": "system", "value": "can you add this somewhere in your response:\n\"Where were you when Left Minister Konoe died?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Asagao whimpered, hugging herself.\n\n\"Where were you when Left Minister Konoe died?\" Sano asked.\n\nFor a long while he thought Asagao's loyalty to her father would prevail. Then defeat drained the tension from her body; she began to weep. \"I was in the tea cottage,\" she said, \"but my father wasn't. I was with my friend Lord Gojo. We didn't want anyone to know about us, so when the policeman came around asking everybody where they'd been that night, Gojo said he was with a friend he bribed to lie for him.\"\n\nA connection clicked in Sano's mind. Lord Gojo was the man whom Reiko had watched flirting with Asagao in the Kabuki play. She'd been having an affair with him, not Left Minister Konoe. Asagao and Lord Gojo had been the two lovers in the tea cottage. She'd had an alibi she hadn't wanted to use because it would have exposed her infidelity to Emperor Tomohito.\n\n\"I only said my father was with me because he asked me to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tears streamed down Asagao's face; she wiped them on her sleeve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I never saw him that night.\"\n\nShe'd rejected the ties of blood for those of sex and power, sacrificing her father to protect Tomohito. Yet Sano felt no pleasure at breaking Right Minister Ichijo's alibi. He hated himself for manipulating Asagao. The pursuit of justice too often required the basest means.\n\n\"Thank you, Lady Asagao,\" Sano said, adding, \"I'm sorry.\"\n\nHer bitter glare burned him. Shamed and depressed, he went to the door and called Asagao's attendants. As they led her into the building, she turned to Sano. Between ragged sobs, she said, \"My father wasn't in the Pond Garden when the left minister died, but I know who was.\"\n\nA desperate guile shone in her reddened eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano had half-expected her to shield Ichijo by accusing someone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, as she gasped for breath, he waited to see whom she would incriminate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was the left minister's former wife.\"\n\n\"What?\" Shock resonated through Sano. Kozeri, in the palace on the night of Konoe's death? But Kozeri had an alibi—or did she? She hadn't been at the scene of Aisu's murder—or had she? Now Sano realized that this was the vital information he'd forgotten to obtain from Kozeri. Had his attraction to her rendered him so negligent? Sano unhappily acknowledged the possibility, but a kernel of doubt formed in his mind. It burgeoned into suspicion, then anger as he realized what Kozeri had done.\n\nAsagao laughed, an ugly chortle. \"Kozeri fooled you, didn't she? Before the left minister died, I overheard him giving orders to his assistants. Ask Kozeri why he wanted the Pond Garden to himself that night. Ask her why she was there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sano grabbed Asagao's shoulders." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You tell me!\" he commanded.\n\nShe looked disdainfully up at him. \"Ask Kozeri how her first husband died. Ask her if she killed the left minister. Then ask her where she was when that other man died.\" As the attendants bore Lady Asagao away, her mocking laughter drifted back to Sano." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand this chapter by adding four sentences in the Historical Fiction, Mystery, Japan genre. Note that some context may come from earlier parts." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the hour of the boar, business had ceased on Kawaramachi Avenue, except in a few teahouses. The wide avenue, which ran north and south past Miyako's main commercial district, resembled a long tunnel, with the high earthen wall of the Great Rampart on the east, rows of shops and houses lit by Obon lanterns on the west, and the purple-black night sky above. Gates in the rampart provided access to the Kamo River. At intersections, guards manned neighborhood gates." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although some residents already slumbered on mattresses spread on balconies to catch the river breezes, others sat in doorways, talking and smoking, while pedestrians drifted home from cemetery visits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through the thinning crowds walked Right Minister Ichijo, a solitary figure dressed in a modest gray kimono and wicker hat instead of his usual court costume. Leaning on his ebony cane, Ichijo maintained a brisk pace for a man his age, looking neither right nor left nor behind him. His elegant profile and stooped shoulders inclined forward as if he were impatient to reach his destination.\n\nChamberlain Yanagisawa followed at a discreet distance behind the right minister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Again he wore the garb of a rōnin. After chasing Lady Jokyōden's messenger, pursuing Ichijo was easy. Either the right minister didn't think anyone would follow him, or he didn't care if they did. Instead of weaving through alleys, he marched right down the middle of the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He certainly didn't act like a man on a secret mission, but Yanagisawa believed that appearances lied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His spies had turned up the interesting fact that Ichijo had told his staff he was going out alone tonight, without disclosing his plans. Did this herald one of the mysterious trips that Yoriki Hoshina had mentioned? Yanagisawa still yearned to believe that Hoshina had honestly tried to help him by unearthing genuine clues. He especially needed evidence against Ichijo because of what his spies had reported about Lady Jokyōden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Servants claimed to have seen Jokyōden in her office shortly before hearing the scream that had killed Aisu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd also been there when the imperial watchmen went to inform her about the second murder. No one had seen her elsewhere. Although Yanagisawa didn't know why she'd refused to admit this to Sano, it seemed unlikely that she'd sneaked outside, killed Aisu, and gotten back to her office without anyone noticing her. If she hadn't murdered Aisu, then the probability that she'd murdered the left minister decreased; the messenger and the Daikoku Bank might have nothing to do with the conspiracy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Therefore, Ichijo was the prime suspect, now that Sano had broken his alibi for Konoe's murder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa hadn't told Sano about Ichijo's trips. If they revealed a connection between Ichijo and the rebels, Yanagisawa wanted to be the hero who arrested the killer and averted a civil war.\n\nAt the Gojo Avenue intersection, Ichijo stopped at a gate in the Great Rampart. Yanagisawa took cover in a doorway and watched Ichijo speak to the sentry, who opened the gate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The right minister vanished through it. Yanagisawa hurried over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me out,\" he ordered the sentry. \"Quickly!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"State your name and your business.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'sentry' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sentry regarded Yanagisawa's humble appearance with scorn.\n\nThis time Yanagisawa was prepared for encounters with officialdom. From his waist pouch he took a small scroll that gave his name and rank. He showed it to the sentry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man was probably illiterate, but he recognized the shogun's personal seal on the document. He hastily let Yanagisawa through the gate.\n\nOutside the Great Rampart, Yanagisawa spied Ichijo walking down the stretch of Gojo Avenue that sloped toward a flight of stone steps leading down to the river. Together yet far apart, Ichijo and Yanagisawa descended these, then crossed the Gojo Bridge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beneath it the Kamo rippled, faintly luminous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lights twinkled on the opposite bank; bonfires smoldered. The smell of smoke, the laughter of couples strolling the embankment, music drifting from teahouses, and the warm night all evoked in Yanagisawa the memory of his night with Hoshina. A wave of longing swept through him.\n\nWhere was Hoshina now?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The search parties had turned up no trace of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through sheer will, Yanagisawa banished the thought of the lover who'd betrayed him.\n\nIchijo walked off the bridge and into a deserted neighborhood of densely packed houses. A few Obon lanterns still burned. Yanagisawa trod softly within the darkness beneath eaves and balconies so that Ichijo wouldn't notice him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought he'd conquered his fear of walking alone in the city, but now it revived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Ichijo was the commander of the rebel outlaws, he would have to communicate with them somehow. He wouldn't let them come to the palace; nor could he send or receive messages that might be intercepted. He would have to meet his troops secretly. Was he on his way to their hiding place now?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa wanted badly to locate it, but he dreaded an encounter with a band of rōnin, gangsters, and warrior priests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What if they caught him spying? And if Ichijo was the killer, Yanagisawa was in mortal danger.\n\nThe right minister quickened his steps. Buildings gave way to a gleaming moat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From a tall stone foundation in its center rose a grassy earthen mound as high as the nearby houses and perhaps a hundred paces in diameter. A fence of stone pillars ringed the top of the foundation, enclosing a tree-shaded plateau from which loomed the mound's retaining wall.\n\nLagging behind in an alley, Yanagisawa watched the right minister march around the structure. It was crowned by a stone monument shaped like a squat pagoda." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lights from below illuminated characters engraved there. Reading them, Yanagisawa recognized the structure as the Ear Mound. This was the monument to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's war on Korea more than a century ago. Although the invasion had failed, Hideyoshi's forces had slain many defenders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Distance had prevented his army from following the usual practice of presenting the severed heads of their defeated enemies to their commander." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Therefore, the ears of some forty thousand Korean soldiers had been pickled in brine, shipped to Japan, and entombed in the Ear Mound.\n\nA bridge spanned the north side of the moat. Ichijo stepped onto it. Yanagisawa hid in the entryway of a house directly opposite the bridge, which led to stone steps in the Ear Mound's foundation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Above these, beyond an iron gate and the trees, more steps climbed to the base of the mound, where an altar held flowers, burning lamps, and a smoking incense vat. Ichijo walked to the first set of steps. He eased himself down, laid his cane across his lap, and wiped his brow. Then he folded his hands and sat motionless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Time passed. Yanagisawa grew impatient." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he heard rapidly approaching hoofbeats. The right minister raised his head. He was meeting the outlaws here, Yanagisawa guessed. Ichijo was too crafty to go to the rebels' den and risk leading spies there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A meeting in a public place could pass for a chance encounter. Anticipation and fear gripped Yanagisawa. He wanted to see the outlaws, learn their plans. But if they should discover him here in this lonely place, they would most certainly kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From an alley to his right emerged two samurai on horseback." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They cast furtive glances around the Ear Mound. Ichijo waved. Yanagisawa peered through the bamboo lattice that screened his hiding place. The two samurai dismounted at the bridge, tied their horses to the posts, and walked toward Ichijo, who rose to meet them. A round of bows ensued, and greetings inaudible to Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the three men settled on the steps, their figures haloed by the light of the lamps on the altar behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa slipped out of the entryway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sidling past buildings and across alleys, he circled the Ear Mound until he was behind it. He tiptoed to the edge of the moat. Now he distinguished three voices speaking in turn—one gruff, one a high whine, and Ichijo's.\n\n\"... took you long enough to get here,\" Ichijo was saying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were supposed to be waiting for me.\"\n\n\"We came as soon as we could,\" said Gruff Voice.\n\n\"With the trouble we've had, you should be glad we made it at all,\" whined the other man.\n\n\"I hired you to handle trouble,\" Ichijo said coldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hired you to obey my orders, and I expect to get the service you promised.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, we expect to be treated better than slaves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Belligerence harshened Gruff Voice's tone. \"After all, we're risking our lives to do your dirty work.\"\n\n\"You knew the duties the job entailed. You knew the danger,\" Ichijo retorted. \"If you're too lazy and cowardly to go on, then I've no use for you. I can't afford to leave such important matters in the hands of unreliable men. Unless you fulfill your part of the bargain, you won't reap the rewards.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa's heart began to race." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'right' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two samurai were rōnin, possibly the ones from Lord Ibe's house. If \"trouble\" meant the hasty relocation of troops and weapons, then \"important matters\" referred to the imperial restoration, and \"rewards\" to the spoils of war.\n\n\"All right, all right; we're sorry we were late,\" the Whiner said quickly.\n\nGruff Voice said, \"This place makes me nervous. Let's hurry up so we can get out of here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a brief silence. Then Ichijo said, \"How are they?\"\n\n\"Safe and well,\" said Gruff Voice.\n\nIchijo's allies, Yanagisawa thought; secure in their positions, waiting for the command to march." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Has my merchandise arrived?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. The last of it came twelve days ago.\"\n\nThe guns and ammunition, manufactured illegally and smuggled into Miyako a little at a time?\n\n\"Well, then.\" An odd sadness tinged Ichijo's tone. \"I suppose you'd best be on your way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a clink of gold coins." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is this all?\" Gruff Voice said with disapproval.\n\nIchijo said, \"You'll get more later.\"\n\nWhen the emperor rules Japan and the Imperial Court commandeers the nation's wealth? A thrill shot through Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was sure he'd just witnessed Ichijo advancing payment for mounting a war against the Tokugawa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With great relish Yanagisawa looked forward to arresting Ichijo. He could hardly wait to see the look on Sano's face when he...\n\nA familiar sensation, like invisible hands on his skin, disturbed Yanagisawa: Someone was watching him. Instinctively he crouched, scanning the alleys and rooftops." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the darkness, he couldn't see anyone, but the menacing hidden presence revived the terror of the attack in the Imperial Palace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was the killer stalking him again?\n\nBut that was impossible, with the killer sitting just around the curve of the Ear Mound. Yanagisawa heard Ichijo and the samurai talking, although his panic reduced their words to gibberish. Could there be more than one killer?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was it Hoshina? Yanagisawa wanted to learn more about the conspirators' plans, but he had to get away, fast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he heard Ichijo say, \"Farewell. We shall meet again soon. Until then, I place my faith in you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Footsteps tapped across the bridge. The horses' bridles clanked as the samurai untied them. Yanagisawa guessed that Ichijo's parting words to the mercenaries meant that he planned to launch the revolt in the near future. He was entrusting them to deploy the troops and weapons, while he carried on his normal existence until the battle." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'samurai' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa's samurai instinct, for so long buried beneath personal ambitions and torments, now challenged his fear for his own safety. A forgotten sense of duty spurred his determination to catch the traitors. Peering around the Ear Mound, he saw the two samurai ride off down an alley. He sprang up to follow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But old habit persisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa thought of the hidden watcher. Only a fool tracks outlaws to their den alone! warned his inner voice.\n\nHesitation cost him his chance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time he raced after the two samurai, there was no sign of them." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could hear their horses' hoofbeats receding into the distance, but although he spent hours looking for the outlaws, they'd vanished into the night." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo can u write like Laura Joh Rowland using my stuff as a starting point? btw might drop u in mid-story with random chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It sounds like a poetic allusion to sex between a man who wants it and a woman who doesn't,\" Reiko said, \"which describes the relationship between the left minister and Kozeri.\"\n\n\"That's what I thought at first. But what if he's describing a different kind of struggle, at a real place? 'Forces of defense and desire' could mean the Tokugawa army and the rebels who want to take over Japan.\" Another inspiration struck Sano. \"Didn't you say that Konoe had asked Kozeri to meet him at the palace to celebrate a 'special occasion'?\"\n\nReiko nodded; comprehension sparkled in her eyes. \"He asked her six days after he wrote the letter, and one day before his death. Maybe he was hinting in the letter that he'd discovered the rebels' strategy—\"\n\n\"And where they planned to launch the attack,\" Sano said.\n\n\"The 'special occasion' was the revolt, which would fail because Konoe was going to report it to the bakufu in time for the army to—\"\n\n\"Head off the siege of Miyako. Then the bakufu would—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Reward Konoe by granting his request to shut down the Kodai Temple convent and force Kozeri to go back to him,\" Reiko finished triumphantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Exhilarated by their shared reasoning, they laughed together. \"I found the clue on our first day in Miyako, but I didn't recognize its significance,\" Sano said. \"Now we just have to figure out where this place is.\"\n\n\"Lofty, sacred heights,\" Reiko mused. \"Maybe Konoe was talking about a mountain, but if so, which one?\"\n\n\"Spires could mean a temple,\" Sano said, \"though there must be as many of those as there are mountains in the Miyako area.\"\n\n\"Drifting feathers and clear water?\" Reiko shook her head.\n\n\"That part doesn't make any sense to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've read something like that before, in writings about Miyako...\" Sano thought hard, but couldn't grasp the memory." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that Oh, of course. It means Kiyomizu Temple—the Clear-Water Temple on Sound-of-Feathers Mountain. A very beautiful place. You must see it while you're in Miyako." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My knowledge of the city is limited, but a local citizen might recognize the reference.\"\n\nHe rushed out the door and found the innkeeper's wife kneeling in the corridor, her ear to the wall. She gasped in alarm and said, \"Hello, master.\"\n\n\"Please come in,\" Sano said, hurrying her into the room. He read her the passage from the letter. \"Does that suggest anything to you?\"\n\nThe woman smiled, obviously relieved because he didn't scold her for eavesdropping. \"Oh, of course. It means Kiyomizu Temple—the Clear-Water Temple on Sound-of-Feathers Mountain. A very beautiful place. You must see it while you're in Miyako.\"\n\n\"I expect I will. Many thanks for your help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now Sano recalled what he'd read." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kiyomizu Temple, strategically situated on high ground, had been for centuries a favored spot for mobilizing troops and a secret rendezvous site of spies and rebels. He and Reiko exchanged jubilant smiles, but immediately sobered as their gazes moved to the window. It was nearly dusk.\n\nThere wasn't much time to head off the rebels' attack." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Laura Joh Rowland and use whatever i write as a jumping off point? btw characters and stuff might show up without backstory, just go with it" }, { "from": "human", "value": "From astride his horse, Chamberlain Yanagisawa surveyed the battle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gun muzzles spewed thunder; arrows flew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Swordsmen clashed, their blades glinting in the light of fallen torches and a tree that had caught fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hundreds of bodies lay strewn across the plaza and the steps leading to Kiyomizu Temple; riderless horses galloped free; blood stained the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa's army had suffered many casualties, but the Tokugawa forces now far outnumbered the rebels. Victory was near." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa rode back and forth along the perimeter of the battlefield." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Waving his war fan, he shouted orders to the commanders, who conveyed them to the troops with conch-shell trumpet, war drums, and flags." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His throat was sore and his voice hoarse, his ears deafened by the noise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smoke and gunpowder fumes filled his lungs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ached from the impact of bullets against his armor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The barbaric violence sickened him, yet he gloried in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Battle had fully roused the samurai spirit that had awakened within him during the investigation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now his political feuds seemed like trivial substitutes for real war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When a mounted rebel soldier charged him, Yanagisawa swung his sword, slashing the man's throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A soaring exhilaration lifted him above himself, to a rarefied plane where he could fulfill his true purpose in life: to lead his lord's army to victory, or die in the effort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A pair of outlaw priests broke away from the combat zone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clutching spears, tattered saffron robes flying, they sprinted down the sloping road toward the city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop them!\" Yanagisawa called." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before his troops could respond, a figure bounded up the dark street and waylaid the rebels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a samurai dressed in ordinary kimono." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wielding his long sword in his right hand and his short one in his left, he fought the priests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa watched in puzzlement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who had belatedly joined the defense?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the newcomer cut down one of his opponents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he drove the other up toward the plaza, he emerged into the light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa recognized familiar broad shoulders and a distinctive grace of motion. He blinked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It can't be!\" he muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The samurai finished off the second priest and loped up the hill, looking around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Yoriki Hoshina." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly he caught sight of Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused, a sword in each hand, as he and Yanagisawa looked at each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The noisy chaos of battle faded from Yanagisawa's consciousness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Hoshina advanced hesitantly up the road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brimming with wonder, hardly aware of what he was doing, Yanagisawa dismounted and walked toward Hoshina." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had desire conjured up an apparition to haunt him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they came together in the shadows beside a building, Yanagisawa's legs felt unsteady." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoshina stopped several paces away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On his cheeks were bruises Yanagisawa had inflicted during their fight—he was real, not a ghost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said, \"I've come back.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\" Rage and pain erupted in Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To play me for a fool again? To kill me for humiliating you in front of your police comrades?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoshina wordlessly shook his head while Yanagisawa brandished his sword, then dropped his weapons and spread his arms in a gesture of surrender." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I had to see you again,\" he said, as though it were the most obvious reason in the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Increasingly baffled, Yanagisawa said, \"But I condemned you to death. I could kill you now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't care.\" Breathing hard, glistening with sweat, Hoshina stood proudly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To be with you makes death worthwhile.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The words filled Yanagisawa with an amazement that he hid behind scorn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, if you're so eager to die, then why did you run away?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was my only hope of proving that I'm not the villain you think I am. It was the only way to convince you that all I wanted was to help you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How Yanagisawa wanted to believe the yoriki!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he couldn't bear to be hurt again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is another trick,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You think you can escape death by worming your way into my affections again. You're too much of a coward to accept your fate and die like a samurai!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a rueful smile, Hoshina said, \"If I were a coward, I wouldn't have come back. If I were still the schemer that I've been all my life, I would know better than to try a ploy that had already failed, on a man who recognized me for what I was. I want to atone for betraying your trust and prove my love for you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hoshina took another step toward Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I'll die gladly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a liar!\" Even as Yanagisawa's spirit trembled at the ardent declaration, he pointed his sword at Hoshina, keeping the length of steel between them. \"I'll kill you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think you will.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of picking up his fallen weapons, Hoshina moved closer to Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the battlefield, sporadic explosions of gunfire continued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hoshina's steady gaze transfixed Yanagisawa; the sword trembled in Yanagisawa's hand as he backed away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could have killed me yesterday,\" Hoshina said, \"but you didn't even draw your sword. That's why I'm willing to gamble my life now. But even if I lose the bet, at least I'll have brought you evidence to help you solve the case and made amends for betraying you to the sōsakan-sama.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What evidence? What are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When I escaped, I took cover in the underworld of Miyako,\" Hoshina said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I tracked down police informants and asked questions. What I learned will help your investigation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want to hear it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa took another step backward, clutching the extended sword." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hoshina advanced. He dipped his hand into the cloth pouch at his waist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fearing a hidden weapon, Yanagisawa cried, \"Stop. Don't move!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoshina removed a small object from the pouch and offered it to Yanagisawa on his outstretched palm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you remember this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a fern-leaf coin from Left Minister Konoe's office. Uncomprehending, Yanagisawa nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've found out what it is,\" Hoshina said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Yanagisawa didn't respond, anxiety sharpened his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand why you're suspicious, but please, just listen to what I have to say. Then decide if you can forgive me for the harm I've done.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of running away, Hoshina had stayed in Miyako to continue the investigation!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd kept his promise to investigate the mysterious coins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Confused and shaken, fighting to maintain his resolve against Hoshina, Yanagisawa continued backing away, his sword aimed at the yoriki." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're just trying to manipulate me into pardoning you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despair slumped Hoshina's shoulders, and his face looked suddenly ravaged by fatigue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If that's what you really believe, then so be it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still, he kept advancing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa's back struck a solid wooden pillar, abruptly halting his retreat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoshina moved closer until his throat was touching the tip of Yanagisawa's blade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So kill me now,\" Hoshina said, \"and I'll die satisfied with the knowledge that I did my best for the man who means more to me than my own life.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sight of the sharp steel point indenting Hoshina's bare skin filled Yanagisawa with awe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No man dedicated to self-interest would ever offer up his life this way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa could finally believe in Hoshina's honesty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he saw a chance to put a tragedy behind him and atone for his own sins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shichisaburō had died for love of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rather than do what was right and honorable, Yanagisawa had condemned the actor to execution." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he needn't relive the past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drew a deep breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he could find within himself the mercy to forgive, the courage to relinquish pride..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hoshina's steady gaze, filled with a mixture of faith and fear, compelled Yanagisawa's decision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The breath rushed out of him; the sword fell from his grasp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoshina's face lit with happiness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They exchanged a long, silent look that conveyed forgiveness and gratitude, affirmed love, and stirred desire, while jubilant shouts from the battlefield heralded the imminent Tokugawa victory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eventually, they picked up and sheathed their weapons, then stood side by side, watching the battle, uncertain what to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hoshina ventured, \"Now can I tell you what I learned about the coin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, if you like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa's heart was soaring with such happiness that he hardly cared about the clue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The coin was minted by a powerful Miyako gangster clan by the name of Dazai,\" Hoshina said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's interesting,\" Yanagisawa said, not wanting to admit that he already knew and let Hoshina think his effort had been wasted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My informant is a Dazai retainer,\" Hoshina said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He told me that the gang trades in stolen goods. Usually the chief buys them outright from thieves and keeps the money he makes from reselling them. But when the merchandise is very rare or valuable, he pays after he's found the right buyer. He gives the thief one of these.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hoshina held up the coin, explaining, \"The Dazai are former samurai. They have a sense of honor. The coin is their pledge that they'll either pay for the merchandise eventually, or return it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The unexpected news revealed a startling new dimension to the murder case." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The coin was found with two others in Left Minister Konoe's house,\" Yanagisawa said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That means he sold things to the Dazai. Things he'd obtained illegally, that he couldn't sell on the open market.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the fact that such coins were found among Konoe's possessions meant he'd never been paid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eagerness animated Hoshina's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So I asked my informant if the Dazai still had the merchandise. He said yes. I talked him into letting me into the warehouse where they hide stolen goods. I saw what they got from Konoe: antique kimonos, with chrysanthemum crests on the fabric. I recognized them from when I inspected the imperial storehouses.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Konoe stole from the palace?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa struggled to fathom the notion of the metsuke spy as a thief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\" Then he shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Dazai wouldn't have asked; all they would care about was the money they could make by selling imperial treasure to rich collectors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I know why,\" Hoshina said excitedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The kimonos weren't all that Konoe had sold the Dazai. He'd been bringing them valuable artifacts for years, a little at a time. But here's the most interesting part: After selling the things, the Dazai didn't pay Konoe. Some of the gold they kept, as part of a secret deal they had with him. The rest they delivered to a priest at Lord Ibe's house, along with weapons and ammunition. Do you know what that means?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It meant that he and Sano had completely misunderstood a critical element of the murder case, Yanagisawa realized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Konoe was behind the imperial restoration attempt,\" he said, stunned by the revelation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The troops were armed with money raised by stealing palace treasure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not through loans from the bank to which Yanagisawa had followed Jokyōden's messenger; not with payments made by Ichijo during secret meetings at the Ear Mound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Konoe's deal with the Dazai must have been a pact to combine forces to overthrow the Tokugawa. He got the revolt under way, and his allies carried on after his death. Merciful gods...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The spy was the traitor!\" Hoshina exclaimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sano and I assumed that the revolt was the reason for Left Minister Konoe's murder.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chagrin overwhelmed Yanagisawa. \"But if he was responsible for the plot, he didn't die because the killer wanted to keep him from reporting it to the bakufu.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Therefore the plot had nothing to do with Konoe's death,\" Hoshina said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just can't accept that!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa restlessly paced the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can't ignore the facts,\" Hoshina said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As soon as this complication is out of the way—\" he gestured toward the battlefield \"—we can go back to the palace and find out the truth about Konoe's murder.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose you're right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa slowed his steps; yet he couldn't concede defeat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He devised a fresh theory around the conspiracy, like rebuilding a house to accommodate a giant piece of furniture that won't fit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said, \"Before, the question was, 'Who was the traitor Konoe had discovered?' But what if we turn it around and ask, 'Who knew Konoe was a traitor?'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't see where that leads,\" Hoshina said, bewildered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instinct told Yanagisawa that he was heading in the right direction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'konoe' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suppose Konoe didn't die because he had compromising knowledge about anyone. Could the murderer have killed Konoe because he—or she—knew about his treason?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyone who knew about the conspiracy could have destroyed the left minister by simply reporting it to the bakufu,\" Hoshina pointed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There would have been no reason for murder.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa recognized other flaws in his theory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no proof that Right Minister Ichijo or Lady Jokyōden had known about the plot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Emperor Tomohito had known, but as part of the conspiracy, he couldn't have betrayed Konoe without getting himself in trouble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Yanagisawa could guess who had known... and couldn't have hoped to gain by reporting Left Minister Konoe's crime to the bakufu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a leap of thought and logic too rapid to express in words, Yanagisawa whispered, \"Prince Momozono is the killer!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoshina laughed. \"You're joking.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, seeing that Yanagisawa was serious, he said, \"Why do you think so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa suddenly saw the personal ramifications of his discovery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ran uphill to the plaza." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There, amid trampled corpses, some hundred rebels still fought valiantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa scanned the ranks of his army." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mounted troops rode down the enemy; teams of swordsmen battled each priest, gangster, and outlaw samurai." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa didn't see Sano, who must have gone off in search of Emperor Tomohito." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sano hadn't heard Hoshina's story; he didn't know what would happen if he tried to capture the emperor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now Yanagisawa saw his dearest wishes hovering on the horizon like a radiant constellation: Sano gone forever; the solution to the murder case in Yanagisawa's hands, his victory over the rebels certain; a secure future in the shogun's favor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he had to do was absolutely nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa inhaled the scent of blood and gunpowder as he savored his triumph... but somehow it wasn't as satisfying as he'd expected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With astonishment, he realized that something had changed inside him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tonight he'd experienced the Way of the Warrior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The taste of honor had diminished his appetite for the feud with Sano." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Deliberately letting one of his soldiers die seemed disgraceful behavior for a samurai general." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yoriki Hoshina joined him. \"What's wrong?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa stared at Hoshina." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now he understood that their reunion had also changed him, had altered his vision of the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For two years Sano had been the bane of his existence; yet Sano had always acted out of duty to the shogun and dedication to his work, not out of a desire to injure Yanagisawa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sano had saved his life, spared him punishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Yanagisawa had promised not to harm Sano." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could he repay the good fortune of his happiness by dishonoring their bargain and abandoning a comrade in danger?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking up at Kiyomizu, Yanagisawa guessed that Sano had gone into the temple to find Emperor Tomohito." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he did, he would also find Prince Momozono." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yanagisawa took a hesitant step forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But habit prevailed; a sudden change of heart didn't negate the goals of a lifetime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yanagisawa backtracked two steps." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'should' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Should he let fate take its course, or rush to Sano's rescue? Should he serve ambition and self-interest, or comradeship and honor?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Chapter Segment Request:\n- Sentences: one sentence\n- Style: L. E. Modesitt Jr\n- Genre: Science Fiction\n- Note: Part of ongoing narrative" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The antique Steinway dominated my office, if you could call the space that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Really, it was just a practice room with a tiny corner console and two chairs—nanite synthwood, supposedly mahogany." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, yes, there was the single music stand, also synth-mahogany." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd had to put up the corner shelves over the console, three sets, and they were all overflowing with sheet music and a few of my reference books." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I guess I was old-fashioned in more ways than one, but you can't learn art song, or any music, from a console." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of the rezrap and rezpop singers have it linked right into their heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of them sound like they were reading it, rather than singing it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Singing isn't just hitting the notes with the right words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old composers had styles, and you have to know the style to make the song sound right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And you have to practice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried to work in at least an hour a day, but that was sometimes a problem, because practicing is something you have to do before you get too tired or frazzled, or it does more harm than good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That means practicing early in the day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That has always been hard for me because I'm not a morning person, and because my teaching at the university was in the morning and early afternoon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today, the rezrappers and poppers don't practice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They just spew it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The systems reformulate the sound as they attempt to sing, add in the rhythmitonal resonances based on the audience profile, and everyone thinks it's wonderful." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'isn't' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever it is, it isn't music, and it isn't artistry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The problem isn't new." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's always been a conflict between excellence and popularity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's just that the more technology gets into the act, the more likely it is that special effects overshadow excellence, and artistry's lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reflecting upon that once more, I took the 26 Italian Songs and Arias from the music stand to put it back on the shelf after Michelle had left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was my only student on Wednesdays." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had six private students through the university." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Besides Michelle, I had one on Mondays, and two each on Tuesdays and Thursdays." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those six were in addition to the section of music appreciation I taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After shelving the music, I took my jacket off the hook behind the door, getting ready to leave for home and a quick lunch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I certainly couldn't afford to eat at a uniquery, not on my income, and I ate at the student center far too much anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After lunch, I'd have to head out to OldTech for a rezad session with Mahmed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a single rap on the door. \"Luara?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I recognized Jorje's voice and sent a link pulse to the door, which opened to admit him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His dark eyes radiated concern as he hurried in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were leaving? This will only take a moment, but you should know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Know what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just got the preliminary Arts College budget...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Music got cut again,\" I suggested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Another twenty percent. The trustees have approved a cut in the in-person credit hour requirements, and raised the allowable link and self-taught hours. The dean wants to cut the service program. We're carrying three sections of appreciation. He says the numbers only support two. We have to consolidate into two larger classes. That's more cost-effective. We also need to offer courses that are more relevant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jorje and I were both the vocal and music service program, but I was the adjunct, and he was on a multiyear firm contract." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Larger classes will show that we're keeping in-person classes cost-effective?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hated the whole idea of cost-effectiveness in education, but teachers had been attacked for not being cost-effective from since the time of Socrates, if not before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know how you feel,\" he temporized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you?\" I could feel my voice rising." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't have a clue to how I felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was for the best." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jorje was a nice man, but like the word \"nice\" itself, he was somewhere between totally self-serving and sweetly ineffectual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was probably why the dean kept him around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is there any chance...?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can offer you the new class on rez-prep. It's three credits. You've got the degrees and experience. I know you don't like it, but it's all there is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll take it.\" What other choice did I have?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I'm also going to see the dean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can understand that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded. \"I did want to tell you before you heard it elsewhere.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've heard it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well... that was all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He bobbed his head, then turned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still holding my jacket, I watched him leave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Automatically, I put it on and then gathered the music I wanted to look over that night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another cut in the arts, all in the name of economy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As I stepped through the door, letting it close behind me, I wondered why I was even at the university." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My brother Raymon thought I was crazy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So had my ex-husband Michael." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before he'd totally given up on me and on artistry, Michael had been very vocal about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The tests show it, Luara. You could be a top NorAm administrator, or a manager in any one of a dozen fields. You could be filch. You're wasting your time at the university. There's no money in old-style music. No money and no future.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I certainly wasn't looking at much of a future." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But how could I give up the beauty of making music—or teaching?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without the university contacts, I wouldn't be getting the gigs that I was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or even the rezad work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raymon understood my love for music, in a way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shared our father's views." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both had suggested, if I wanted to make music a career, that I go into rezpop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rezpop wasn't music. Entertainment, high-paying entertainment, but not music." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I walked slowly past the choral room—and Jorje's rehearsal—and then out of the Fine Arts building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Along the lower garden corridor, shielded by nanoscreens, and in the spring sunlight, the year-around yellow roses offered a fragrance that was almost overpowering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ahead was the university screen gate, and beyond it, the maglev station that served the south end of the university." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before I left the protections of the university, I ran a self-check." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My internal nanites said I was fine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I touched the heavy silvery bracelet on my right wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nanoshield was on standby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd never needed it, but my father had given it to me three years earlier after a student had been frozen and stripped at UBoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been triggered only once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That had been a year ago, when a student high on soop had mistaken me for his girl and tried to hug me from behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The screen had thrown him almost into the maglev car I'd been about to board." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd just picked himself up, like all the soopers, and grinned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The screens brushed over me as I stepped between the stone pillars and onto the hard granite stones comprising the walk that led to the station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were only two others on the platform, under the arched canopy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both were students, a couple, and they were engrossed in each other, their voices intense, but so low I couldn't make out a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Less than five minutes later, the eastbound shuttle arrived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The couple hurried through the forward door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I took the rear and slipped inside the shuttle car just before the doors swished shut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned back to look out through the armaglass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the maglev pulled away from the platform, a dark-skinned, bearded student panted up onto the platform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked blankly at the departing shuttle, then started to shiver all over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face was flushed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I took another look and swallowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face was covered with a bloody sweat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised a hand and then pitched forward onto the hard stone pavement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without real thought, I pulsed a link to the DPS." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Student collapsed on the university transit platform, south station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bloody sweat, and possible seizure. Needs medical attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your report has been received." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A medvan is on the way. Thank you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hated the metallic feel of an autosponder, but I'd made the report." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was all I could do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I couldn't even see the station by the time I'd finished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What had happened to him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some sort of disease?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd never seen that sort of a bloody sweat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What could it have been?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would have said it was a seizure, but after thinking it over, it wasn't like any seizure I'd read about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, I'd never seen a seizure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally, I tried to think about the afternoon, wondering exactly what the rezad would be pitching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "High-end electrals? Formulator inserts for special menus?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "My stop was the fourth one, on the inner edge of eastside, bordering one of the historical districts that had escaped the devastation of 2131." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I liked looking at the mix of architecture as the maglev shuttle neared my station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were gray-tile-roofed bungalows of a type I'd never seen anywhere but Denv, a geodesic dome comprised of an early composite that shimmered with a light of its own, a small-scale replica of an antebellum plantation house, a centuries' old art deco brick house with half its windows made of glass bricks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I got off alone, as I usually did in midday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a faint hum as I passed through the platform scanners." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wondered if they needed some maintenance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The walk home was pleasant, because I always took the path that bordered Park East." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The green of the grass jarred slightly with the bare-limbed elms and the bare flower beds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only universities and the filch had year-round flowers outside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd given up on trying to grow them in the conapt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow, I either watered things too little or too much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I reached the lane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then I had to look at the boringly clean lines of the conapts that formed Eastside Courts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The conapt wasn't what I'd have chosen, if I'd had a choice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hadn't had one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had taken every demicred I'd had just for the option, and almost all of my pay as an adjunct instructor of voice went to the monthly fee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I might actually own it in sixteen years and ten months." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door waited until I pulsed it to open, and the interior link system reported, Interior is empty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Balcony scanner is inoperative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The scanner on the upstairs balcony off my bedroom had been inoperative for almost a year." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someday, I might actually have enough spare credits to have it repaired or replaced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You have three messages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From whom? I pulsed the door closed and surveyed the small front foyer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was dust on the replica antique marble-topped plant stand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another sign that the nanetic cleaning system needed refurbishing, as if I had creds for that also." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mahmed Solyman, Raymon Cornett, and Aleysha Bunarev." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mahmed. I ordered. Project." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The image of the dark-haired and dark-skinned production manager appeared, bowing slightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Luara. You're scheduled at fourteen hundred. I'd like you to do two, instead of one this afternoon. Full pay for both, but I'll need you at thirteen-thirty. Let me know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Full pay for two rezads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was the first good news in weeks, since the invitation to sing at the Clayton soirée, but the soirée wasn't for another week." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wouldn't see the credits until after that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mahmed flashed the creds to my account within hours after we wrapped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because I could actually sing, I'd managed a side business moonlighting as a backsinger for rez-based net commercials." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't have to spend the time correcting my voice, and the manipulations were simpler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was cost-effective. That left me with very mixed feelings—pride over my competence and dislike of the whole idea of cost-effectiveness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The credits were more than necessary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few more sessions, and I might actually be able to pay for the deferred maintenance on the cleaning and house defense nanite system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't want to think about the scanner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I linked to Mahmed—and got his simmie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is Mahmed Solyman of Crescent Productions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you would leave..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mahmed, this is Luara." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'll be there just before thirteen-thirty to do two rezads. See you then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raymon had just been calling, in his twice-weekly brotherly fashion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing special. I'd get back to him when I came home after the session at Crescent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aleysha was my neighbor and wanted to know if I'd seen Solomon, her cat, an animal who did nothing to deserve the name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hadn't, and left a message that said so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within the kitchen formulator, the magic nanites hummed and hissed, and after several minutes the ancient appliance groaned and finally produced an edible pasta primavera." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was so hungry I ate all of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wasn't about to ask the formulator for wine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The last time I'd been tempted and tried that, I'd gotten something that verged on vinegar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the best formulators didn't do wine and subtle flavors well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before I knew it, I was walking back to the shuttle station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I glanced up at a sky that was showing more and more clouds to the west over the Rockies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With my luck, it would be pouring by the time I finished the rezad recording sessions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shuttle was mostly empty, again, but it would be crowded by the time I finished at Crescent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mahmed's small production outfit was in the lower level of one of the older buildings in OldTech." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That meant transferring to a South Ridge shuttle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even so, it was a solid fifteen-minute walk from the OldTech station on the path beside the winding lane barely big enough for a single electral." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I got to the building, I had to dig in my linkfile for the passcode." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gate took forever, or so it seemed, before it pulsed, You may enter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are cleared to the lower level by the left ramp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After I passed the gate, I walked slowly, trying to catch my breath, because I'd hurried from the station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mahmed was waiting in the foyer outside the square box they called the studio." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got your message. I'm glad you could do it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He handed me a folder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This one's for Beauville. You've heard of them—upscale mostly hand-finished interior furniture, the stuff you can't just pop out of an industrial formulator.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words—I couldn't call them lyrics—were somewhere between mediocre and not-quite awful, and the melody was reminiscent of early twentieth-century English art song, as if they'd taken something and shifted it, and I couldn't quite pin down what it might have been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That could have been because they didn't really understand the modal basis of some of those songs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the end, after I'd spent some time going through the music, I just walked into the studio and stood on the big \"X.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I used a headset for the music feed, because music has to be auditory and not link-channel, and sang the lyrics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We followed the usual pattern, which meant that the first run-through was exactly as written." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The second was the way I thought it should be, and the third was the way Mahmed interpreted it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mahmed was smiling when I finished the third take." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can make anything sound good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wasn't sure about that, but he was thoughtful to say it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you.\" After a moment, I added, \"The second set?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The music and words are outside. Do you want a break?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd like some water, and some time to look them over.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I took off the headset and brushed back my hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No matter how I fixed it, it was so fine that some of it kept drifting across my forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded, and we walked out into the office area." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you doing any real singing? Anywhere where I could hear you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll be doing an art song recital at the university in the fall. I'm singing a soirée performance in a week or so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Filch show? To prove their superiority in taste?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They pay,\" I pointed out wryly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not too many people want to hear unaugmented vocal music these days.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll be there for your recital.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He handed me the second folder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would be. He'd been there for my last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd been there for my first, and that was how I'd gotten into doing rezads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wanted to help me so that I'd be around to sing art song, and I helped him by giving him clean lines to work with, which kept his costs down." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'don't' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It still bothered me at times, but working singers in our world—those who don't want their voices twisted and turned by technology, those who want to preserve the inherent beauty of voice and song—we don't have much choice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We probably never have had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Music—and its beauty—was continually getting shortchanged." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was one reason why I was going to see the dean, even if it did no good. That was more than likely to be the case." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with two sentences, emulating L. E. Modesitt Jr in the Science Fiction genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[ Lanta, A.D. 2241 ]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ Parsfal ]\n\nI came in early on Wednesday to make some time to chase filch murder and death stats, before Bimstein started linking every ten minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't matter. I'd barely gotten into the background when the link buzzed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsfal? Take a few minutes this morning or early this afternoon and get me some updated stuff on hurricanes and recent and historic shifts in the Gulf Stream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paula Lopes is doing a piece tomorrow on the impacts on the Caribbean and on why the last five years have seen arctic winters in the British Isles.\n\nWho gets the feed?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirenga. Also, see if you can run a twenty-second comparison/contrast between Cannon and that old historic governor—Vanderhoff, was it?—on the Southern Diversion, something with a twist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Work in Patroclas if you can. Have to run." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew what he wanted on the comparison—either paint Cannon as a principled man in line with the past or a schemer betraying the past—and Patroclas as well-meaning, but ineffectual. That meant more work on Cannon and Patroclas, to see where their votes lay on diversion and environmental issues." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I added the water and weather assignments to my \"to-do\" list, and went back to where I'd been.\n\nAll I'd come up with the night before on the McCall background was pretty typical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A former associate with O'Bannon and Reyes, an honors graduate of UDenv Law, with two grown children, he had just started his own office as a solicitor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Handsome and apparently personable, at least from the comparatively few bytes available on him. He'd been a featured speaker at a number of solicitors' conferences, and he made a habit of publishing articles on his specialty, which was privacy law." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I read one of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could write, assuming he was the one who wrote it. And he was careful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Solicitors had to be, reportedly, but every word was used and chosen with care. Not a poet with words—more like an accountant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not so much beauty there as economy and precision. Certainly nothing like Yeats or Keats or even Exton... it reminded me of an old poem..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was he free? Was he happy?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The question is absurd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except Evan McCall hadn't been happy about his wife, apparently, and perhaps more. Yet, in the end..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had nothing. There wasn't even anything specific about his children or their names in anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd wanted to have something on the follow-up with the indictment. It was a juicy sort of case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone loved to watch a filch get it—or escape it, if he did so with style. McCall and his wife had been the vid-perfect couple, and there hadn't been a sign of trouble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All that meant was that Evan McCall was not only personable, but very bright, even beyond the letter of the law.\n\nI tried his office, but only got a simmie, and a very simple message." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The offices are closed until further notice. If you have an urgent legal problem, you may reach Marc Oler...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried that link code, but just got Oler's simmie, promising to return any calls. I asked him to contact me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that, I did call up the death stats, and even cross-indexed them by income and cause. For most of the population, the numbers were just as I'd have expected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Except that in the higher income categories, there were no breakdowns by income and cause—just a notation—\"privacy protected.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were so few filch deaths that any data would reveal the families? Unless I could find an angle, it looked like I'd have to drop that for a time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unless... maybe that could be a sidebar story, something about the fact that, in just another way, the filch were different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our lives are open screens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All we see of the filch are beautifully decorated covers, like the covers of old-style books. They're shielded by the privacy laws, even statistically, by their nanite-protected houses, by their credits, and by other filch—like McCall himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hated the direct route, but there was no help for it. So I had to try McCall's old firm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I put through the link, full VR, if edited to show me in a tidy office with bookcases behind me.\n\n\"O'Bannon and Reyes, may we help you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dark-haired and dark-eyed woman answering the VR link was a real person, not a simmie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That in itself was impressive, and doubtless meant to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Jude Parsfal, from NetPrime. Is Mr. O'Bannon available?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just a moment, Mr. Parsfal.\" The holo image blanked and then reappeared, images of a modernistic building, a large dwelling, filch style, a small dwelling, and what looked to be an antique machine shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Whatever your legal needs, O'Bannon and Reyes is here to help you...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The staid old-style commercial blanked off, to be replaced by a dark-skinned and distinguished-looking man of considerable size. \"James O'Bannon, Mr. Parsfal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After the briefest of pauses, he added, \"I've already talked with Les Kerras. I don't know that there's much more that I can add, Mr. Parsfal. Or should. Mr. McCall's case rests with the Justiciary.\"\n\n\"Les is the one who gets the on-net images. I'm the one who gets backgrounds and facts, that sort of thing. I've read through some of Evan McCall's articles and presentations. He seems to be regarded as an expert in the field of privacy law.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Bannon laughed. \"If there are any aspects to privacy law Evan does know, I'd be very surprised. He is very good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He set up an independent practice. Isn't that a little odd, given how all aspects of law tend to intermesh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hardly. Privacy law is one of the handful of areas where it makes sense. Clients who feel they have a need for privacy will feel more comfortable in dealing with a single solicitor. Also, privacy issues can usually be handled discretely from other legal issues. Evan does have two junior associates, for areas that might be related.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Related?\"\n\n\"Intellectual property, and disposal or direction of property—wills, bequests, gifts, powers of attorney, that sort of matter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. McCall seems extraordinarily personable. Is that an asset for privacy solicitors?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's an asset for anyone, don't you think?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does he have any hobbies or interests besides law?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As almost anyone could tell you, Evan is very focused. I wish you well with your inquiries.\" He smiled, and I was looking at the wall of my cube." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About the only thing I'd gotten was what I already knew—that Evan McCall's practice dealt with people who didn't want anything known about them. And that he specialized in the kinds of law that dealt with things people wanted kept quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rule of thumb is that no one is more than six people removed from anyone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So who did I know that might get me closer?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first name that came to mind—that would do any good—was John Ashbaugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We'd gone to school together, and he'd gone on to become a securities solicitor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was lucky because he was in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't help you much, Jude.\"\n\n\"Professional ethics?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know enough about Evan McCall to worry about professional ethics. I just know what everyone knows. He is the best privacy solicitor in Denv, and he's spent nearly all his career with O'Bannon and Reyes. He was the one who handled their top clients like Kemal, Ching, and Sandoval. He also has a sidelight in intellectual property. He mixes well with everyone, even some smaller fabricators like Brazelton, although Brazelton has expanded enormously since it was acquired by KC.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "John smiled and shrugged.\n\n\"Is there anyone you could suggest who might be able to tell me more?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He frowned. \"I can't think of anyone, except Maeda Forsala, but she still would be bound by solicitor-client privilege—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She an associate of his?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The word is that she was retained by Nanette McCall. That was common knowledge.\"\n\nI should have seen that coming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three would get me five that Forsala is a domestic relations solicitor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You might be able to find out something from Dean Smythers. He was at UDenv when McCall was on the Review there. The dean might be able to fill in something about his school years. And his regular tennis partner is Walt Kerrigan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "John shrugged once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's about all I know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And all he was about to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks. I appreciate it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The holo image vanished, and I mulled over what John had told me while insisting he hadn't told me anything—and how it fit the pattern with Kemal.\n\nKemal was the head of KC Constructors, and KC had been the target of the guideway legislation that Cannon had rammed through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kemal reportedly underbid the design, engineering, and construction, and got the maintenance contracts in return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hadn't been that simple, of course, because certain of the guide assemblies had been proprietary, and Kemal wouldn't sell them to other contractors except at a price high enough to ensure they couldn't underbid him on maintenance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "John had explained that to me, once, as well, and my understanding was simpler than the reality, but, essentially, that was what it had amounted to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cannon's bill had required open architecture and applied the proprietary design laws to both NorAm and district public works and infrastructure projects." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "According to everyone, Kemal and his family had a shady background, but nothing had ever been proved. The more recent rumors were that Kemal had been expanding into everything, that he actually was the majority owner or silent partner in firms like Sandoval's and Brazelton's, and a good twenty others across NorAm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But so long as he had registered ownership of less than ten percent—or five in the case of military or PDF suppliers, privacy law shielded disclosure in the media, although the appropriate legislative committees had access, and so did the NorAm Advocate General. I shook my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kemal wasn't my problem at the moment.\n\nJohn had as much as told me that McCall's wife was about to start a divorce or separation, and that wasn't common knowledge, which meant I couldn't use it, because there was no way to prove it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He also was pointing out that McCall had some clients who were less than savory.\n\nWalt Kerrigan was an advocate who had once been an aide to former Senator Owen of Deseret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All I knew about Brazelton was that he was the head of a firm that specialized in nanite control systems and designs.\n\nBack to the files." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsfal? Bimstein blasted through the link." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Got anything on McCall?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some... tracking down some other leads right now.\n\nPut it aside. It'll hold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Start your routines looking up stuff on Super-C.\n\nSuper-C? I didn't know what he was talking about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Old term. Supercavitation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone just blew a Russe maglev orbiter down... somewhere over the Pacific. Used an old-style Super-C torp-missile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could have been anyone. Fingers are pointing at the Agkhanate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who was on the orbiter?\n\nJust the Foreign Secretary of the Martian Republic, the ExSec of the Duma, and a dozen others equally exalted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rehm is handling the people facts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Want some background on how and why someone could have gotten one of those old torp-missiles, how come it was still working, how they work... all the tech stuff you do so well. Half hour.\n\nI gulped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do it! I winced at the volume." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then you've got another half hour on McCall, and not a minute more, before you get back on the orbiter story." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm on it. But Bimstein was gone, understandably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finding the background on supercavitation was easy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been first developed more than three centuries earlier by the old USSR before its collapse. Prototype rocket-propelled ocean torpedoes had been sold to whoever would buy them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem hadn't been speed; they'd been ten times faster than the old-style torpedoes. The guidance systems had been poor, and the range limited by the wire control system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next breakthrough had been nanitic deformulation of water, adapted by Russian scientists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That allowed an easier bubble formation, but that development had apparently been abandoned with the development of maglev propulsion and the satellite surveillance and patrol system adopted under the PDF compact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except it hadn't, not if someone had used the technology. But who?\n\nI shook my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That wasn't my problem. Bimstein wanted more tech facts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I got to work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was almost finished when he was blasting through my skull with his overboosted linking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsfal?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where do you want it fed?\n\nKirenga's handling it. How much?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four minutes in thirty-second chunks.\n\nAny good?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fair. I had to be honest. There hadn't been time to do better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Try to do better for the follow cast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You want me to drop McCall for now?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No. Still hot locally. No more than a half hour, and feed it to Metesta." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then dig up more tech stuff on terrorists and what the Agkhanate has done. Keep it on the tech side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rehm's handling the people and politics.\n\nStet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'another' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that... there's something about another biowep that CDC says is hitting NorAm... ebol4... See what you can find on that.\n\nAnother backgrounder was all I needed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After trying to sort out what I could find on Walt Kerrigan and Emile Brazelton, which wasn't much, I did take a few minutes off and watched the holo image of the orbiter story as it went off live." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I deserved that for all the sweat, before I got back to the McCall backgrounding.\n\n\"Tragedy over the Pacific—and a high official of the Martian Republic is dead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The image showed a night sky that could have been anywhere, followed by a blinding flare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Les Kerras." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A little more than an hour ago, an official Russean maglev orbiter was destroyed by an antique nuclear missile. The attack occurred as the orbiter returned from the geostat station above the Pacific." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What you just saw was the re-creation of that destruction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Recsat surveillance confirms that the missile was launched from somewhere under the Pacific Ocean..." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'before' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Early indications are that part of the design of the missile used dates from before the Collapse. The weapon used a technology known as supercavitation to travel a considerable distance underwater at high speeds before breaking the surface and accelerating to take out the orbiter. The acceleration was great enough to have required a custom-formulated monomolecular and multioxygenated metallic solid fuel...\"\n\nI was proud to have dug up that one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsfal! Bimstein's link was tight, not loud.\n\nI froze, rather than sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The timing wasn't exactly wonderful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm putting through a Commander Resoro of the PDF.\n\nMaybe I'd been too resourceful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Parsfal? There was no image, just a chill voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jude Parsfal. I acknowledged. What can I do for you?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We'd be interested in knowing how you determined the fuel of the device that attacked the Russean orbiter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was simple enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The range of orbiter speeds is in a number of netfiles and research sources. I went to the OTA files." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I used a nav program to determine the velocity required to intercept from a mid-Pacific location, and then I fudged around with the weights of old nukes, figured some modernization, and with that mass came up with the necessary ejv. Good old basic math indicated it had to be an exotic fuel, and one that probably had to have been formulated with an industrial formulator." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That pretty much limited—\n\nYou didn't talk to anyone before you looked into this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bimstein gave me a half hour to put some background facts together, Commander. I'd have been lucky to have even found one person who could have told me anything in that time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You may be hearing from someone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once again, I was left alone at my console." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I was still supposed to come up with more for the McCall piece, and then get back to digging up more on the orbiter incident—and then the bioweapon thing. Whoever Marc Oler was, he hadn't gotten back to me. I had the feeling he wouldn't, and it would be a while before I could devote the time to chasing him down." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with two sentences, emulating L. E. Modesitt Jr in the Science Fiction genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are advantages to having assets. One of them was the large indoor pool at the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I swam a klick every morning before breakfast, more if I had time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After I swam on Wednesday morning, I pulled myself out, then sat at my table. The smell of the orange trees and the humidity was welcome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So was the aroma of the coffee with the waiting breakfast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Breakfast was simple. Fruit, scrambled egg, dry toast, and juice. The fruit was a Valencia orange from one of the trees in the pool room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I linked to the house net. Armand? I'd like you to come to the pool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, ser." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Armand had been a systems tech before he'd lost his temper and maimed a coworker, and then assaulted a DPS det." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd been very good in the martial arts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, he was a permie, and in charge of maintenance for the house, and most of the family.\n\nArmand was a very special permie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd cost me a great deal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was like every other permie, except in two respects. His nanites were programmed so that he could not tell anyone what he talked over with me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Second, and most important, any instructions I gave him overrode the permie conditioning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had to be from me in person and by voice. Other than that, he was a permie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He told the truth about everything—except he couldn't say anything about anything concerning me, and he couldn't say anything about anything I told him not to speak about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All he could say was, \"I don't know.\"\n\nArmand was perfectly happy with the arrangement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nanites saw to that as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd finished the orange and half the egg and toast when Armand appeared. He was three centimeters shorter than I was, but with wider shoulders and black hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Kemal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please sit down, Armand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned on the privacy shield that screened the table—only my table.\n\nArmand sat across from me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My nephew Stefan has become very careless, Armand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"He has a brand-new Tija electral. The kind with two fuel cells. Are you familiar with the system?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, ser.\" Armand's voice was flat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not so flat as that of many permies, but flat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stefan has become very dangerous to the safety of the family. I'd like you to take care of it. The Tijas can become very unstable at high speeds. Could you make the Tija even more unstable?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could, ser.\"\n\n\"And could you make sure that the fuel cells exploded when the Tija rolled? And that no one could escape? Without leaving any evidence?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Armand frowned. He thought for a moment. \"Yes, ser.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm telling you to do that when you check the systems at his house today. If you leave immediately, he'll still be sleeping.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"Let me know if you have any trouble.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, ser.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Armand. You may go.\"\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I released the privacy screen as he left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marissa crossed the pool deck from the exercise room. She was wearing pale green shorts and a matching sleeveless top." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She carried her own breakfast—fruit, yogurt, dry toast, and a large mug of coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sat down to my right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What were you talking to Armand about, dear?\" asked Marissa.\n\n\"Some maintenance tasks. I want him to be extra careful in inspecting things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're worried, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am. KC is becoming big enough to have enemies outside of Denv, even outside of NorAm.\"\n\n\"You've been big enough to have enemies across NorAm for almost ten years,\" she pointed out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Senator Cannon has been after you for five years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He doesn't understand business. Somehow, he thought it was moral if Dewey rewarded his cousins at GSY, but immoral if we made money and cost the taxpayers less. It's all right to reward relatives if two companies are involved, but wrong if only one is.\" I laughed. \"Politicians!\"\n\n\"Coordinator Dewey seemed sincere,\" Marissa pointed out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a shame that he died in that accident yesterday.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Poetic justice, but I can't point that out. He wanted divestiture. That meant worse maintenance. He died because the maintenance was bad. Can you imagine what would happen if I said anything right now?\"\n\nMarissa sipped her coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'd say you were self-serving. They will anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was right about that.\n\n\"Barbra and I talked yesterday. She mentioned that you'd had a talk with Stefan about finances.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did. He went to Mountain Asset Management and got a loan collateralized against his KCF trust. He can't possibly pay the interest for long. We'll have to restructure it into something he can handle.\" I snorted. \"It's almost blackmail, but I'll have to do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alyssa's good at reading people. She doesn't trust Stefan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't either, but he is family. That's why the trust is irrevocable and lifetime. It's also why I have to put a stop to his borrowing. Ashtay talked to me about a credit block on Stefan. I'd hate to go that far, but if this restructuring doesn't work, we may have to. We'll have to do something.\" That was just the way it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Barbra wouldn't like that, dear. She's very protective of Stefan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sighed. \"That's part of the problem. She's spoiled him.\" I refilled my cup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would you like some more?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please, thank you.\"\n\nWe both sipped coffee for several minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chris... you're worried, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When am I not worried? I've got politicians who don't understand business, and suppliers who don't understand politics. I've got nephews who think that credits are free. I've got a son who's at the age where he thinks that I don't understand anything. You know what's worst of all?\" I laughed ruefully.\n\nMarissa waited. She'd heard it before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got it better than most people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I took a last sip of the coffee. \"And I need to get dressed and on my way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I got up, then walked behind her chair. I bent down and kissed her neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She always smelled wonderful. \"See you tonight.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're having the D'Abouls for dinner, remember?\"\n\n\"I won't be late.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand on the story, maintaining character relationships, in the Science Fiction genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was tired Friday morning when I got to my office at the Legislature. That might have been because I got there by seven and because I'd stayed longer at the Claytons' than I'd planned, but Dorn had always been a strong supporter, and you don't keep supporters by ducking out of their functions early, especially not when they insist on talking to you. With Dewey's death, and Heber Smith masterminding Alredd's campaign, and probably Hansen's, I was going to need every supporter that I could dig up—and every angle I could turn to my advantage.\n\nRather than look over what Ted had waiting for me, I called up a holo display of the news." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NorNews. I liked the tones of the NorNet, even if it had the lowest ratings on the NorAm net." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Michael Rasmussen was on the Capital News segment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"D'Amico has introduced his bill which will restrict the use of rezads to certain periods and certain segments of the broadcast spectrum... applauded by the FamilyNow!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "lobby... bill described as a charade by Jared Kirtley, speaking for the NorAm ComFed...\n\n\"Although the number of fatalities in NorAm from ebo14 is less than originally predicted, the disease remains a threat, particularly for children and those with circulatory problems... continues to spread worldwide...\n\n\"The Agkhanate has repeated its denial that any member of the Talibanate was involved in the nuclear attack on the Russe shuttle Perun...\n\n\"Halvor Freeman, President of the Martian Republic, suggested that if the guilty were not found and punished, the Republic would have to consider some form of economic sanctions against all Earth, and not just the Agkhanate...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All I needed with the campaign coming up was higher prices and shortages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CerraCraft depended heavily on such imports. How Kemal had managed getting his hands on the company, I still didn't know. I shook my head, but my concern there wasn't Kemal directly, but all the voters who worked there. When all was said and done, credits didn't vote, people did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Too many politicians forgot that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wasn't about to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After hearing the news summary, I leaned back in the big black leather chair behind the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The singer from Clayton's soirée had intrigued me, puzzled me as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I laughed to myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd seen the look on her face when her accompanist had told her who I was. Still... her words had been unguarded, and worth more than most of what people told me.\n\nWhat if she were right? I frowned. Surely, we could work out a small program. The FamilyNow!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "lobby would like something that was traditional and non-rezbased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Educators always liked targeted programs, and I could use some support from the educators. At the very least, it would mute criticism from the leftists, and confuse Hansen totally.\n\nTed?\n\nYes, sir?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Have a little assignment for you. See what you can find on funding for classical music studies and performance demonstrations and lectures at the university level. Also, I'd like you to think about how we could set up a small grant program to encourage it. It's the basis of all popular music, even rez stuff, and if we don't preserve some studies of it... valuable heritage, you know, that sort of thing..." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'program' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sir... how did you want to approach that? A stand-alone bill...?\n\nNo... it's not that big an initiative. I was thinking twenty to fifty million a year for the program... very limited, no more than twenty programs across all NorAm, and a pilot program here at UDenv, not at Southern. That would be too obvious, but make sure Southern gets into the later list of twenty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We could just add that into the higher ed bill.\n\nAh... I see, sir.\n\nI could tell he didn't. Ted... this is a little winner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone's complaining about the dangerous effect of rezrap and rezpop. We can claim an initiative for pure auditory music and for heritage restoration, and family values. We start it, and have it ready... who will oppose it?\n\nThis time I could sense the smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wouldn't have thought of it that way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe you could even work something in about how sometimes the small programs are the important ones, that the small things in life are so often lost beside the big issues... but the small programs are often what shape people's lives..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, sir. You'll want this by Monday, then?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Right.\n\nI was smiling as I leaned back in the chair. The professor would be astounded, especially once I found a way to put her in charge of the pilot program. She'd find that honesty paid, if inadvertently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been beautiful, too, in an intense and yet subdued and passionate way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could dream, but that was about all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I snorted, got up, and walked to the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Les Kerras for you, Senator." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'll take it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I needed to watch Les." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I sat back down at the desk and let him come across on the holo projection.\n\n\"Senator. How are you this morning?\" Les looked as polished in the holo display as he did on the netcasts, with his slightly wavy brown hair and the boyish smile.\n\n\"Just fine.\" I had a little time, and decided to see what he had in mind, and force him to bring it up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know Roberto Tazzi?\"\n\nTazzi had been one of my larger supporters, almost as much as Dorn Clayton. \"I'm familiar with him. Why?\"\n\n\"I thought you'd like to know. His son was killed last night. One of those mysterious drug overdoses. You know, the ones where the DPS hasn't been able to discover any cause, except that the symptoms are OD heart failure?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's terrible.\" I paused, reflecting a moment." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"I understand you might have seen him last night, that you were at a soirée...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's always hard on parents. It's hard on the whole family when something like that happens to a bright young person.\"\n\n\"I understand you might have seen him last night, that you were at a soirée...\"\n\n\"Actually, I did. I'd rather not have my personal life in the nets, Les, but I did talk to him briefly. He mentioned something about wanting to work in politics. He wanted to talk about it there, but it was a social occasion, and I told him to make an appointment here at the office, and that I'd be happy to talk to him.\" That was almost exactly what I'd said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young fool had been on soop, and I hadn't been about to discuss something like that in public, especially under those conditions, where anyone could hear, and I didn't want to offend Roberto." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Les nodded. \"I can understand that, especially with a rough campaign coming up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All campaigns have their challenges, Les. You know that.\"\n\n\"The rumor is that Hansen will be mounting a very aggressive campaign.\"\n\n\"He's a very capable opponent.\" I smiled, then asked, \"Let me ask you a question, Les.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I paused, then went on, \"Have you heard anything recently about Chris Kemal?\" I watched closely.\n\nKerras frowned, but it had taken him just a moment too long. He knew something.\n\n\"There are always rumors,\" he finally admitted.\n\n\"I understand. Well... we might have some interesting news next week, Les.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me think about that, Senator. If I can come up with something...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's fine. Just keep in touch. And... thank you for the news about the Tazzi boy. I appreciate that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're welcome.\"\n\nAfter I collapsed the holo display, I pulled out the left-hand drawer that held the personal stationery, not the office stationery, but the formal cards with just my name on them, and slowly and carefully wrote out a message of condolence to Roberto and Clarice, using the old-style fountain pen. Almost no one even knew how to write by hand anymore. There were times like this when that anachronistic touch was vital, because it showed more than special care." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sealed the envelope and wrote their names on the outside, then got up and walked out to the main office.\n\nCiella, I've got a message that needs a hand courier. Charge it to my personal account, not the office account, I'm bringing it out.\n\nYes, sir." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I reached her console, Ciella looked up with that smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might have been professional, but I still enjoyed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is a letter of condolence to Roberto and Clarice Tazzi. Their address is in the file. Their son was killed last night. If you'd make sure this is hand-delivered today?\"\n\n\"Yes, Senator.\"\n\nI smiled the paternal smile, then let it slip into an expression of concern. \"Thank you.\"\n\nLittle things mean a lot, particularly at times when people are suffering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back in my office, I stood by the window, looking westward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There still hadn't been much feedback on Kemal and Alredd, and that was anything but good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before long, Alredd would have ads out indirectly attacking me. Two weeks to a month after that Hansen would jump in.\n\nBest that we really pump up the positive rezads over the next week, even though they'd only really begun hitting the nets. The music education bit would help, but that one would have to wait until it was done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That way, it wouldn't be a vain promise, but something I'd already done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That would take Hansen down a bit. Later on, we could hit him with charges that he promised, but I listened, and I delivered.\n\nMy smile faded as I thought about Dewey—and Kemal. Dewey'd had his election won, and if Eric were right, Kemal had set someone up to kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We really needed to stop Kemal—somehow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alicia's research had supplied basic volumes on the space industries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eric had been right, in that many had been heavily traded. Over the past two years, the equivalent of close to seventy percent of MMSystems had been traded, often in large lots, but not any over one percent. There was no way I had, not without going for a committee warrant or a subpoena, to discover the buyers. Going for either required more evidence than I had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wondered if Les Kerras would come up with anything that might help. He knew practically everyone and everything in Denv. Or... if I could come up with something, and let Les run with it—that would be even better. That way, we could keep running positive ads and let Les show the connection with Hansen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, the nets could keep uncovering things day by day, week by week, that would unveil Hansen's ties to Kemal, perhaps tie him to the unsavory business with McCall and Alredd." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I nodded." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like L. E. Modesitt Jr in the Science Fiction genre and use whatever I write as a jumping off point? This is from a longer work so some stuff might reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'piece' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By late Friday morning, I still hadn't heard anything from Chiang, and I really couldn't go back to Kerras, not until I had something firm. I was working on a \"success\" story, a piece Brianne was putting together on how a GIL counterfeiting operation had been shut down by the combined efforts of the netops division of DPS and the medical researchers at CMS. It had gotten nasty, with close to thirty people disabled or locked away while the TID larceny took place. Some of the victims would never be the same.\n\nAfter that, I was supposed to develop some more backstory stuff on a couple of pending appropriations bills that would come up the next week.\n\nParsfal?\n\nI hated it, but I couldn't help wincing whenever Bimstein blasted a link at me.\n\nI'm here.\n\nRehm's off today, and besides, you did the stats on the mysterious ODs, right?\n\nI also gave you a background source piece. It didn't hurt to remind the man of what I'd done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one else would—that was for certain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even better. Last night Ernesto Tazzi died in an electral crash. You know who he was? Someone to do with the formulator family?\n\nThat's right. Son of Roberto Tazzi. He wasn't killed by the crash, but by one of those ODs. Got a copy of the report. Don't ask me how, but I'm sending it to you. Also, some names who were at the soirée he attended earlier in the evening, and the names of the people he was with when he was at the Moulin Noir. See what you can find in the next hour or so.\n\nYou want me to put aside the GIL story?\n\nOf course, good news can always wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was right. The good news gave watchers the warm fuzzies and made them feel good about PrimeNews, but that wasn't why they watched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I scanned what Bimstein sent. Ernesto Tazzi had probably been killed by a rez-induced OD. There was only one problem with that. We couldn't report it because we couldn't prove it. We couldn't even speculate on it without some scientific evidence. All we had were Chiang's observations, which I couldn't quote, and my conclusions.\n\nI went back to the incoming files and pulled up Bimstein's list. I scanned it. One of the attendees was Senator Elden Cannon. There was a note on that. \"Don't contact Cannon on this. Don't mention him.\"\n\nThat was odd, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Bimstein hadn't wanted me to contact the senator, all he would have had to do was leave his name off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I laughed to myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wasn't thinking. If I contacted the others, someone might well mention Cannon, and then I could have contacted him. He probably wouldn't have returned my call, but that was another question. Was it just that Cannon didn't want to be linked to a ritzy filch soirée? Imagine that—the man of the people, not wanting to be linked to the elite. That also meant that Cannon had contacted Kerras, or the other way around, because Cannon never talked to Bimstein. All of NetPrime knew that story.\n\nI started trying to call names on the list, beginning with the Claytons. I got simmies for the first ten, and left messages. Not a single person broke through the simmie to talk to me. Number eleven was Elfreda Jensen. She actually answered. With the swirled hair that was as stiff as synthstone, she had to have been one of Roberta Clayton's contemporaries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm Jude Parsfal...\" I got through the entire introduction and as far as asking about young Tazzi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You really don't care about him. You just want a story. There isn't one. He never did any drugs, except a touch of soop. Now, you all want to find something that's not there. It's disgusting.\"\n\nWith that, I was facing a blank holo projection.\n\nI slogged through twenty names, and that was the best that I got.\n\nFinally, I looked at the two names at the bottom, the two names that weren't guests. One was Marco DiMicelli, listed as accompanist, and the other was a Professor Luara Cornett, classical singer. I ran a quick net search on her. She was listed as adjunct faculty, voice and music appreciation, at UDenv. There was a databloc of art song listed as having been released several years earlier, and there was a very short publications list, with several articles. One was on Hugo Wolf, another on Francis Poulenc. I'd never heard of either, but I didn't pretend to know much about music, especially older or classical music, except that I liked what I'd heard, and I did have a modest collection of instrumental works, most of which were pieces composed centuries earlier.\n\nThe net search didn't show much else about her, except for older announcements of two art song recitals, and one of another recital scheduled for the coming October." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wondered if she'd have anything new to offer, but those few filch I'd reached hadn't had much to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In fact, they hadn't said anything. So I tried her link through the university.\n\n\"Professor Cornett? Ah... this is Jude Parsfal. I'm a researcher with NetPrime, and I'd like to talk with you for a moment.\" I waited, looking at the static holo display that showed exactly the same picture as the UDenv catalogue.\n\nThen the image was replaced by that of Professor Cornett. These days, there are few ugly people, only the poor, and those from devastated Afrique and ecologically ravaged Russe. When she appeared in midair, even the holo image was striking, and yet, as I looked at her, I couldn't say that there was a single aspect that was unusual. Dark red hair, mahogany, if you will, with gray eyes, a silver gray. Medium height, neither large nor small breasted, with legs that matched. The picture in the UDenv catalogue didn't do her justice, but I wasn't certain any picture would.\n\nYet, there was something about her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes?\" Her voice was musical, as it somehow should have been." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'parsfal' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As I told you, Professor, I'm Jude Parsfal with NetPrime. I'm a researcher.\" At her frown, I hurried on. \"I'm not a caster with PrimeNews, or a T-head. I'm just trying to find background information. I understand you sang last night at a soirée at Dorn Clayton's.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Her voice was wary, but she didn't look at all surprised.\n\n\"Someone else has already talked to you about this?\"\n\n\"No one in the nets.\" She paused, as if she were going to say more, but she didn't.\n\n\"The DPS?\"\n\n\"Could I ask you what you'd like to know, Mr. Parsfal?\" Her voice was polite, controlled, and yet carried a tone of exasperation. She moved her head in a graceful jerk that flipped a strand of that mahogany hair off her forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry. Let me explain. I don't know if you've heard, but there have been a number of ODs recently. Laboratory studies haven't found traces of any drugs that would cause an OD. Last night, a young man who was at the soirée where you sang left, and several hours later died from that OD. Because he was the son of a well-known man, I've been asked to find out what I can about what happened.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A trace of a smile appeared at the corner of her lips. \"Thank you. I could play games with you, but I won't. Was the young man Ernesto Tazzi?\"\n\n\"Yes. Did you know him?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I've never met him, but a DPS officer called just a little while ago and talked to me. He showed me a picture, and I did see this Ernesto at the soirée, just as he left, and just before I left.\"\n\n\"Did he look... impaired?\"\n\n\"Beyond the normal for a young man who could have cared less for a vocal concert?\" Her tone wasn't quite sarcastic, almost resigned or weary. \"He looked like he'd been on soop. He had that smile that they do. He wasn't, as you put it, any more impaired than he probably was most of the time.\"\n\nI couldn't help feeling attracted to her, but I had a job to do, with at least two others hanging behind this one. \"Did you talk to him? Or did he say anything to you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. I didn't talk to him.\" She paused again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He must have said or done something for you to remember him out of all those people.\"\n\nShe laughed, and it was like another kind of music, because there was, somehow, intelligence and beauty in the sound. \"He wasn't exactly complimentary to classical music—or even the Golden Age vocals. He suggested that the works of all classical composers should have been buried with the composer.\"\n\n\"Did he say anything else?\"\n\n\"If he did, I didn't see or hear anything.\"\n\n\"I assume that there were no drugs there, except for the alkie and whatever soop the younger people had.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"I wouldn't call what they had at the bars alkie. Everything was fully fermented or distilled the long way.\"\n\n\"The kind that would take a month of my salary to buy one bottle?\" I managed a rueful twist.\n\nShe laughed again.\n\n\"Was there anything else unusual?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There wasn't anything at all unusual. Unless you count the fact that there were actually a few people there who appreciated classical vocal music.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I take it you don't care for rezpop or rezrap.\"\n\n\"For listening or entertainment? No. It makes me very uneasy, and to me there's very little truly musical and artistic about it.\"\n\nI asked more questions, more than I needed, but I liked looking at her and the sound of her voice, but she really couldn't add more.\n\nWhen I broke the connection, I thought of Shelley's lines about when soft voices die, music vibrates in the memory. I frowned. Why had she made such an impression on me? She hadn't been flirting. She hadn't been doing much of anything except cautiously answering my questions.\n\nWas it the fact that she had been answering, and not avoiding? That she'd actually been helpful? Or something more?\n\nI didn't know, but I had too much more to find out, and I wasn't accomplishing much. Bimstein wouldn't be at all pleased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I needed to try the accompanist." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe he'd seen something and would talk.\n\nAnd then, there was the McCall thing. I still hadn't heard from Chiang, and I hadn't come up with anything more. Not anything we could cast on the net.\n\nFriday was definitely looking very grim and unproductive." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Chapter Segment Request:\n- Sentences: one sentence\n- Style: L. E. Modesitt Jr\n- Genre: Science Fiction\n- Note: Part of ongoing narrative" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Met with the captain on Monday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing new. No news breaks either. Parsfal called once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Told him I had nothing new, but he'd be the first to know. He nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hoped he'd stay patient." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tuesday, I came in earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was there at zero six-forty, before Sarao." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looked out my window across the Park." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't see much except trees and grass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another week had gone by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wasn't any further along in finding answers to anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Read through Resheed's report." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Weekend ODs had gone up—the mystery ODs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No surprise to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The younger set attended more rezrap over the weekend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But guesses weren't evidence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ebol4 deaths were going down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only a hundred more over the week in Denv, mostly northside permies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another servie suicide. Young." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jumped off the Elletch Bridge after he'd left the Red Moon. Alkie levels moderate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No other drugs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Checked suicides against the trend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Up—but not to stat significance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gang riot in northside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wasn't reported that way, just a disturbance in the park by the community center." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cannizaro didn't like the word \"gang.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We didn't use it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smash and grabs had gone down. Made sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People worried about ebol4." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fewer out and about, less opportunity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A handful of TIDs, some using the counterfeit GIL technique, some pickup kidnap-style, force the victim to transfer funds to an invisible account." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This year, most invisible accounts were in Afrique." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hadn't heard anything from CDC on the rezrap angle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still thought rezrap interacted with soop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wouldn't be something that CDC could prove quickly. If ever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant... I'm here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sarao sounded cheerful on the link." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have a message here from Amanda Cewrigh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Get back to you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Record it and let me know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Try to get her to open up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Will do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sarao was probably better at getting women to talk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I set aside Resheed's report and leaned back in the ergochair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Didn't help much. Had less than two weeks to finish off the McCall review, and I still had nothing that amounted to evidence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kugeler had been patient." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wouldn't stay that way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Couldn't help feeling that a lot more was going on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something that Morss had said weeks ago popped into my head, something about Kemal getting a wad of legit credits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why would anyone invest in Kemal's enterprises?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kemal as a front?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any super-filch had to know what Kemal was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If they did, it meant they were even more powerful, and that Kemal knew they were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't seem logical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kemal wouldn't subordinate himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Few with that kind of wealth would trust him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shook my head. I was missing something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stood and walked to the window, waiting for Sarao to finish with the Cewrigh woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clouds were rolling in off the mountains. Late-afternoon rain, probably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A good twenty minutes passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant... you were right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a connection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The recording's on your system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thanks, Sarao. Felt myself smiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadn't had much luck, but maybe this would help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sat back down in the ergochair and called up the recording, full-size, so that I could see Amanda Cewrigh's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then I watched and listened to the whole thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had to get a feel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then I watched the holo display again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After that, I cut to the critical part." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amanda Cewrigh wore a blue silksheen jacket and trousers, with a pale off-white loose blouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dark-haired, but her eyes matched the jacket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So did the glittered earrings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're still looking into the Iveson-McCall case,\" Sarao said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone had mentioned that you might have known Nanette Iveson.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm glad someone is looking into it. Evan just wasn't the type to commit suicide. He couldn't have killed her, either. Poor man. He might have been a legal shark, but outside of his office, he couldn't harm a fly. Oh... yes, I've known Nanette for years. We went to Holyston together. She was such a comfort when Erneld died.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She must have been,\" Sarao said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Cewrigh woman shifted on the damask-upholstered chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She was a physiological psychologist.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What did she say?\" asked my sergeant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amanda Cewrigh frowned. \"It's been so long ago. Months now... but she said something like Erneld shouldn't have committed suicide. She wondered how anything could have driven him to that. She knew Erneld, you know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you have any idea who might have had a reason for the McCalls to die?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amanda Cewrigh shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone loved them. And Evan, he was so professional. So was Nanette. That was why everyone trusted them. They never spoke about anything professional. You could count on that. All I ever knew was that he was a privacy solicitor. He wouldn't even tell us his clients. He'd say something like, 'I wouldn't be much of a privacy solicitor if I told you, now, would I?'\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was it. Nanette Iveson had said that the Cewrigh boy shouldn't have committed suicide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Went back through my notes, and dug up the Cewrigh suicide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little more than four months ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would have bet that Nanette Iveson had pulled out the rez equipment then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No way to prove that, either... unless..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sarao?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, Lieutenant?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes, when filch get rid of stuff, they give it to charities... that sort of thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Can you make some calls?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "See if anyone remembers a load of high-end personal rez equipment that was donated by either Evan McCall or Nanette Iveson... probably about three months ago?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A long shot, but I didn't have much else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "McCall had been so tight-lipped that no one knew anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So was his wife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And both of them were dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Decided to put in a call to Kugeler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't like the idea, but he deserved it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in, sitting behind a wide blond desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wore a gray jacket over a shimmering gray shirt, with a darker gray cravat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still had the narrow face that demanded spectacles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His desk was empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not one thing on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you have anything to report? Or do you have a question?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Some of each.\" I tried a rueful smile. Probably didn't work." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'we're' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We still have some leads that we're chasing. It's taking longer than I'd hoped. Wanted you to know we're still working.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good. Captain Cannizaro said you were tenacious.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His smile was worse than mine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is your question?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know, or could you ask the daughters if there happened to be anyone that their father trusted? Trusted enough to talk to about anything? Besides his wife,\" I added." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kugeler frowned. \"I don't know anyone, but I didn't really know Evan that well. I can't see that asking that would hurt. Might I ask why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I wonder if Evan McCall knew too much.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With that sentence I was committing myself at least to a decision of reporting that his death was murder, even if I couldn't identify the murderer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You do think it was murder, then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know I'm leaning that way, Mr. Kugeler. Right now, I have limited hard evidence. Nothing that points to anyone. Only that his death wasn't an accident. At the moment, if you announce it, we'll lose all chance of finding out whether we can discover more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded slowly. \"I will ask Ms. Iveson and her sister, and I will insist that they abide by your caution. Is that all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was looking at a blank projection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Collapsed it. I felt better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still rather go with an unsolved murder than anything else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Also felt I might be safer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kugeler wasn't the type to let matters rest if something happened to me—or anyone else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still... decided I'd better be careful when I was out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sat back behind the desk again, just trying to let my thoughts settle themselves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rain began to beat on the outside windows, but it only lasted ten minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fifteen at the most." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant, you're getting good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "About what?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mountain House—they're the charitable outfit that most of the filch give their discards to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not quite three months ago, they picked up some rez equipment from the McCalls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dispatcher remembered it because the staff went wild." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everyone wanted it. No one really wanted to put it out for sale in the thrift outlet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So they set a price on it, and let the staff bid on it, and donated the money to the Mountain House fund." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Does anyone recall exactly what it was?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I've got a description." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dispatcher and the manager documented it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were afraid not to because it was so high end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Worth more than ten thousand creds new, they estimated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lock in the description and send someone out to VR it as a visual deposition for evidence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Will do." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'would' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just hoped no one would ask me how it fit. I knew. Explaining it would be tough, but I didn't want to let that part slip." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as L. E. Modesitt Jr. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Patience was usually rewarded in politics. Few impatient politicians ever lasted, especially in the NorAm Senate. So I sat tight and waited, and smiled, and went to committee meetings, and the Senate floor, and voted, and sent back targeted link messages to constituents, and talked with Canthrop about the next round of rezads. I also waited for Hansen's next round of attack ads. They hadn't appeared, and that bothered me. When someone changes their game plan, you'd better count on their knowing something you don't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unless they're running out of credits, and Gill had assured me that wasn't the case, that Heber Smith had rounded up more than enough credits to run attack ads for six months." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'reaction' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd also heard nothing from Kerras. Canthrop sent me a dataclip to my office link that showed the story Kerras had run on the music education amendment. Nice story, but short. Canthrop had also sent it to Gill, but Gill had sent back a message saying to hold off on using the story and the related rezads until the bill went to the Executive and was signed into law. That wouldn't be for another few days, at least.\n\nKerras should have had some comment or reaction on the Kemal data, but maybe he'd been tied up with the stories on the Martian Republic's reaction to the latest fabrications coming out of the Agkhanate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were times to be patient, and times not to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a time not to be, and on Tuesday morning, I headed over to Ransom Lottler's office. I didn't like doing it, but if you wanted to meet with the chairman of the NorAm Defense Committee, that's where you went.\n\nAlmost as soon as I entered his office, a young blonde woman stepped forward. She was almost as beautiful as Ciella, but Lottler chose all of his junior aides on looks. Ciella had been luck for me. She actually just walked in, looking for a job." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd had Ciella checked out doubly, because I didn't believe in that kind of fortune. Politicians who don't examine gift horses don't last long in office, and I wasn't about to be that kind.\n\n\"He's expecting you, Senator Cannon.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" I offered the warm and paternal smile. Very paternal.\n\nThe door to Ransom's private office opened as I approached, and then closed behind me.\n\nRansom Lottler looked like an accountant, in his tailored suits and striped shirts, the kind that had been in style on and off for centuries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had a winning and self-deprecating smile, the kind that announced to everyone that he was just a good fellow who'd been lucky enough to be elected to the NorAm Senate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood behind his desk as I entered, but didn't step forward to greet me.\n\n\"I hope you've had a good week, Ranse.\"\n\n\"It's just started. I've had better. I've had worse, too. We all have.\" As he reseated himself behind the desk, he activated the privacy cone. No one else would hear anything, but I had no doubts he'd record whatever happened inside the cone.\n\nI took the seat directly across from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's on your mind, Elden?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'point' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although he had a soft voice, one that you almost had to lean forward to hear when he talked in private, his expression said that I needed to get to the point. \"We've got the PDF commander in front of the committee this morning. Closed session about the problems with the Martians.\"\n\n\"The orbiter nuking or their so-called apology for failing to catch all the debris from that metal asteroid they fragmented two years ago and keep ignoring?\"\n\n\"Both. We all know that they let some of that debris spiral in toward Earth just to point out what they could do. Now... you were about to say...?\" His thin eyebrows lifted in inquiry.\n\n\"There's a problem with MMSystems, and some of the other vital space-related formulating industries located in NorAm. Some of them are in your district.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By the way, you handled that amendment to the education appropriations with class. I always have liked the way you've shown expertise in both commerce and education. Too many younger members try to do everything. They all think they know about defense.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I just smiled. He was only five years older than I was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's why I'm here. You're the expert.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"I know. Spare me the flattery. What problem?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know. Spare me the flattery. What problem?\"\n\n\"MMSystems is about to change ownership and control. With the delicacy of events with the Martian Republic, I thought you ought to know.\" Actually, the figures I had indicated Kemal already had control. He just hadn't exercised it.\n\nLottler didn't bother to conceal a frown. \"How do you know this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For now, let's just call it campaign research, Ranse. Under the privacy laws I can't even call an investigatory hearing.\"\n\n\"Whereas I could inquire under continental security?\"\n\n\"That's your choice,\" I pointed out. \"My hands are tied, practically and legally.\"\n\n\"Not tied enough so that you could let me know.\"\n\n\"You've got a big interest in the next level space tug system.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I grinned. \"But the designs aren't set in stone. Not yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you going to get to the point? What do you want?\"\n\n\"I don't. Not unless the laws are being evaded.\"\n\n\"That means you think they are.\"\n\n\"It's possible,\" I admitted.\n\n\"Who's behind it? What does it have to do with the committee?\"\n\n\"If I said what I suspect, it would be considered a violation of privacy,\" I pointed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Figured you'd make that point. Even under a privacy cone, you never even come close to the edge of the law.\" Ransom scowled. \"If I look into this... I'll understand what's going on?\"\n\nI certainly hoped so. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"You won't say.\"\n\nHe was right about that.\n\n\"That means that whoever's in this has the resources to bring a privacy injunction even against a sitting senator—and probably hammer your campaign as well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He laughed. \"Heard about your new positive campaign. It's beginning to make sense.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd hoped he'd see it that way. Time for the hook. \"The new ownership of MMSystems may not be whom it seems. It looks to be a front, one, shall we say, outside the normal political system.\" I emphasized the word \"outside\" just a bit.\n\nFor a long moment he was silent... considering. \"Shit...\" Ranse shook his head. \"If you're right...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The timing's perfect for them,\" I pointed out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That'd leave all of Earth sucking salt.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Especially his district. I didn't say a word. He'd look into it. He wouldn't like Kemal owning MMSystems any better than the Martian Republic.\n\nHe nodded again. \"The front people are in your district?\"\n\n\"At least one of their subsidiaries.\" That was certainly true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CerraCraft was an open Kemal subsidiary. There were probably others I didn't know about. With the amount of cash that Kemal's black enterprises were bringing in, I had no doubts that there were others. If Ranse brought all that out, it just might put a damper on Hansen's \"indirect\" fund-raising.\n\n\"They're supporting Hansen?\"\n\n\"That's a guess.\" They weren't yet, according to Gill, but Ranse didn't need to know that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He needed to think that I was worried about the direct aspects of the campaign." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was, but not the obvious aspects. I was also worried about the continent. It's no great treat to be a senator when times are bad, and I couldn't see any good coming out of Hansen, Alredd, and Kemal.\n\nRanse laughed. \"You'll owe me for this one, Elden.\"\n\nUnlike some senators, who left the debts there, but unspoken, Ranse was the type to make the point. \"On the same terms as your favor to me.\" I smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fair enough.\" He frowned again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It might take a few days.\"\n\n\"I understand.\" I just hoped whatever Kemal was into wouldn't blow open before that. Or that Lottler's inquiries wouldn't be what created the explosion. But I'd rather have a political explosion early rather than right before the election when I couldn't recover as easily. Besides, if it got out in the open, it would make it harder for people to target me personally.\n\nRansom stood, gracefully, with his accountant's demeanor back in place, and turned off the privacy cone." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I appreciate the news, Elden. Give my best to that lovely wife of yours. I did so enjoy talking to her the other night at the Claytons' affair.\" He grinned.\n\n\"The same to Marge,\" I answered. \"She was most informative about the archaeological excavations in Yucatán. She was talking about the parallels to NorAm. They might be there, you know?\"\n\nHe laughed, and his office door opened. \"She tells me that all the time.\"\n\nI nodded and turned, heading back to my office. I'd stop there for a moment, before I went to the hearings on Afrique-based credit falsifications and the impact on the NorAm economy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like L. E. Modesitt Jr in the Science Fiction genre and use whatever I write as a jumping off point? This is from a longer work so some stuff might reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By Thursday, I wasn't sure where the week had gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ODs had gone down again during the week. Nothing from CDC. Nothing more that I could tie to the McCall case. Could feel that things were happening, but no signs showed up in DPS.\n\nTook the white electral. Made another sweep of westside. Came up with nothing.\n\nCame back and found Parsfal's message. Worried about returning the call. Wondered if he was going to blow the story. Called him back anyway. He told me about Smythers's death and the McCall connection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had good instincts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wished we'd known about the connection earlier. Sometimes luck doesn't come to you.\n\nFinished with Parsfal, and linked to the system. Searched for Smythers. Only a routine report on the fire. Wondered how much else Parsfal knew. Probably not a lot. Newsies would cast it if they knew anything that a solicitor would back. Neither he nor Kerras were blabbing. Meant they might suspect, but knew less than I did. None of us could prove squat.\n\nTook a deep breath and linked to Kirchner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirchner... Chiang here. Hoped he'd answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Be easier that way.\n\nWhat do you need, Chiang?\n\nQuarantine and complete workup on a fire site. Smythers... this morning.\n\nThere was a moment of silence. Mind if I ask why?\n\nJust appreciate if you'd do it. Once we get the results... let you know. Also, I'll be sending some techs as well, specialized.\n\nYou really think this is linked to McCall?\n\nI didn't answer.\n\nCouldn't be anything else, could it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Could be... might not be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Your ass, Chiang." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Better mine than yours.\n\nKirchner laughed.\n\nI didn't bother with a link on the next. Just rushed out past Sarao.\n\n\"On my way to tech. Probably to the captain's office after that.\" I took the ramps fast. Not a run, but a stiff walk all the way to the tech side.\n\nDuty tech sergeant was Sorgio, not Darcy. Would be a little easier.\n\n\"Is Tech Specialist Moorty available for a rush job, Sergeant?\"\n\nShe frowned, but her face blanked, checking the link." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Essential phrase to include: \"Good. I'll be needing him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's just coming up from the garage, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"Good. I'll be needing him.\"\n\n\"He's scheduled to—\"\n\n\"Unless it's the Smythers case, this is priority. You can check with the captain if you want.\"\n\n\"That won't be necessary, ser. We're not that tight now. Will he need a partner?\"\n\n\"Yes. I'd prefer Alfonso, if you can spare him.\"\n\nSorgio smiled. \"They're together anyway.\"\n\nMoorty saw me as he walked in. He grinned. \"More of the same, Lieutenant?\"\n\nAlfonso frowned.\n\n\"Could be,\" I answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was a fire of suspicious origin this morning. Except it wasn't caught as suspicious until a few minutes ago. Smythers. It's on the system.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moorty's face blanked as he linked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he refocused on me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, ser. Same drill?\"\n\nAlfonso came off the link a few seconds after Moorty, but he didn't say anything.\n\nWaited until they both were looking at me. \"I want every aspect of that system checked, even the subnodes. I'd bet that most of the main controls are so much slag or melted rubbish. Lieutenant Kirchner is also sending a team.\"\n\nSorgio's eyes flashed between Moorty and me.\n\n\"You want everything?\" Moorty asked.\n\n\"Everything that will show whether there was something strange about the systems. Need to know if they were straight or if they were gimmicked. Anything that would show who built the systems, if they were changed, and who changed them. If you can.\"\n\nMoorty looked at Alfonso. \"Seems clear enough. Better get a new kit.\" He looked at me.\n\n\"Trendside will pay,\" I conceded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both techs and Sorgio smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After Alfonso and Moorty left, I went back upstairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain had left while I was sending out Moorty, and she wasn't expected back that afternoon.\n\nLeft a link message. Captain, Lieutenant Chiang here. We may have more developments on the McCall case. Won't know until tomorrow morning, when the lab and tech analyses are done. I'll let you know.\n\nThen I went down to my office. Sat and looked at the Park for a few minutes. Then linked Sarao. Can you see if CDC has anything on that rez stuff we sent them?\n\nI already checked. They've got something.\n\nThey do?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sarao's laugh came across both the net and through the door. They aren't saying anything. They're looking into it. I asked them when they started, and they said they've been working on it for a while. They'll let us know.\n\nThanks.\n\nI could figure out most of the murders. Couldn't prove it. Couldn't figure out why, either. Key was what McCall had known. Kemal was into securities manipulation, but CerraCraft was too small, and he owned it already. He didn't need to manipulate all the stuff KC controlled, like CerraCraft or Brazelton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It looked legit, as legitimate as anything Kemal was into. Why the securities manipulation, whatever it was? Kemal had more than enough credits to ease into most businesses. So it had to be bigger. A lot bigger. The question was still why. And what. Somehow the Cewrigh angle fit, too. Just didn't know how.\n\nSpent the next hours reviewing everything. Didn't learn anything new.\n\nIt was sixteen-ten when Sarao linked in. Lieutenant, Moorty says you hit it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They're on their way back. Estimate they'll be below in ten minutes.\n\nI'm heading down.\n\nKirchner came down the ramp right behind me. We both stopped in the garage foyer.\n\nLooked at him.\n\n\"You were right. How did you know?\"\n\n\"It had to be. McCall was always talking to Smythers, but I didn't find that out until this afternoon.\"\n\nMoorty and Alfonso were the first in. Moorty grinned at me, then shook his head. I understood. I'd been right." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'techs' × 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smythers wasn't an unfortunate death. Another murder.\n\nThe two homicide types followed them. For a moment, everyone just stood there.\n\nSo I spoke. \"Let's go to the level-one conference room.\"\n\nWe all walked up. Techs carried their kits.\n\nRoom wasn't that big, not with the two techs and the two from homicide and Kirchner and me. Six of us at a round table for four. Kits against the wall. Had to pull in two chairs from against the wall. Techs smelled of fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of them had charcoal and smudges on their singlesuits.\n\n\"Why don't you start?\" I looked at the pair from homicide—Petry and Weems. Petry was a tall and square blonde woman. Weems was new, dark-haired, sallow, shy. Didn't look directly at either Kirchner or me.\n\nPetry glanced at Weems, cleared her throat. \"It didn't look like arson to begin with, more like a malfunctioning fuel cell. The fire started around the fuel cell and spread from there. Weems caught it. He found a section of the casing, and it was melted between the inner and outer casings.\"\n\n\"Someone had filled the casings with something?\"\n\nWeems nodded, then spoke. Voice was so low I had to jack up my nanite enhancers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The laboratory should be able to tell us what it was. Something tailor-made to look like insulation, I would guess, ser, and probably corrosive. I'd guess it was designed to eat through inner jacket, and then react.\"\n\n\"The other cells were tailored, too, but more to react to heat,\" Petry added. \"At least, that's what the combustion patterns looked like.\"\n\n\"They'd explode only when the one caught fire?\"\n\nBoth Kirchner's techs nodded.\n\nLooked to Moorty. \"What did you find?\"\n\n\"The nanite systems were gimmicked, ser. The main box was destroyed, but the last command was frozen in the subsidiary nodes. The defense screens were at full.\"\n\n\"Smythers couldn't get out?\"\n\n\"The emergency overrides were disabled. You couldn't have gotten through those screens with an orbiter—until the cells powering the screens went. By then, temperature was close to five hundred, even in the coolest places.\"\n\n\"So his house was designed with a separate system for the defense screens?\"\n\nMoorty shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An auxiliary system. A lot of filch places have it. Main system goes down, then a hidden backup system takes over. Usually only lasts for an hour or so. That's to prevent someone from gimmicking the main power system and looting the place.\"\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"It was very professional. No hack and splice job.\"\n\nI nodded slowly. \"I'll need a report. First thing in the morning. Trendside will pay the overtime. I want to know everything you found out about the systems. Who built and installed them, if possible, and when they were last serviced, and by whom. That's in addition to the normal arson requirements.\" Turned to Kirchner. \"Can your people do the same sort of thing?\"\n\nHe grinned. \"With you footing the overtime, you'll have it. More data than you ever wanted.\"\n\nHe might have been right about that. Just hoped we could get something solid out of all the lab reports. One other thing bothered me. Someone had gone to extremes to avoid the appearance of murder. Almost as if they expected each one would be hushed up so long as it didn't happen to be an obvious killing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirchner didn't say a word until we were walking up the ramp." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'could' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This could get tough, Chiang.\"\n\n\"It could.\"\n\nWe both knew it might get worse than that. There were too many bodies and too much technology involved for it to be simple." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with two sentences, emulating L. E. Modesitt Jr in the Science Fiction genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd just sent the warrant for Brazelton's arrest and questioning down to Kirchner. Also requested a forensic autopsy on Les Kerras." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kirchner didn't complain about Kerras. Brazelton, Chiang? He's a house cat among cougars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Got evidence to prove he's more than that.\n\nYou really think he'll take a plea? They'll kill him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He doesn't, and I've got enough to turn him permie.\n\nI told you before—I'm glad it's you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You want a pickup to custody, right?\n\nYou got it. Make it quiet and quick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We're on the way.\n\nSarao came in on the link as I broke with Kirchner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant, there's a newsie here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's the same one as before—Jude Parsfal. He says he has something urgent for you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsfal? I'll link and see what he has to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sarao was back in less than a minute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's here in the building, down in the foyer. He says it shouldn't go on system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the building? Could have been a gambit, like Kama's chess tricks. Parsfal didn't seem the type." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Never know, but I couldn't just throw him out. Send him up.\n\nWhen he got to trendside, Parsfal was breathing hard. Looked worried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you have, Parsfal?\"\n\n\"Some more information on why—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This way.\" I walked back into the office, tripped the privacy screens. Turned and waited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsfal handed me two sheets of copy. He went on to explain why he thought Kerras had been killed, what the sheets meant, and how Kemal was involved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We were close, but I needed time. Told him so. He wasn't happy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Promised me two hours maybe three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsfal left. I looked at the sheets. The credits made the guideway contracts look like crumbs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hard to believe what Parsfal had said about Kemal fronting for the Martian Republic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Kemal would do it—if it meant credits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd gut his own sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All I could figure was Nanette Iveson had discovered something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That had made McCall skittish. Maybe enough that Kemal couldn't chance McCall undermining his deal for MMSystems." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kemal got titular control. Morss had been right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With that many credits, Kemal could have gone straight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What I didn't know was what Nanette Iveson had discovered. My bet was that it was some rez effect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laughed to myself. No proof there was such a thing. Might never be. Didn't look like it mattered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If we got Brazelton before Kemal found out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirchner's dets did. Within the hour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd gotten the rest of the legalities as lined up as I could. I was waiting outside the IR when they brought him in. He wasn't impressive-looking." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'medium' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Medium brown hair, medium size.\n\nBrazelton looked at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're Chiang, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lieutenant Eugene Tang Chiang to you, Mr. Brazelton.\"\n\n\"I'll invoke my right to a solicitor. I have no intention of answering any questions without him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's your right. You will be held in maximum solitary restraint until he arrives.\" I smiled. \"For your own protection, you understand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't say a word. He did stiffen.\n\n\"Take him down to maxsec. He gets a comm to his solicitor. No one else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirchner smiled. \"Our pleasure.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After they left, I linked to Cannizaro.\n\nCaptain, we've got Brazelton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's mute until his solicitor arrives.\n\nIs that a problem?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Might be. Have a tip that info on Kemal is about to break." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Securities scheme to take over the space-formulating outfit—MMSystems. As a front for the Martian Republic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't tell me you dug that up, too, Lieutenant?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, Captain. Rumor is that NetPrime did. Might have cost Les Kerras his life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Requested a forensic autopsy.\n\nChiang..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes. Captain?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'll either be DPS commissioner, and you'll be a captain—or we'll both be reprimanded, demoted, and retired. That's if we survive that long." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd already figured the second half of that.\n\nLet me know. Cannizaro broke the connection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brazelton's solicitor arrived in less than a half hour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jakob Flemmerfeld. Head man in the top firm of criminal solicitors. He was waiting by the IR when I got there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blond, hard blue eyes, and a no-nonsense manner.\n\nBrazelton hadn't been brought up from maxsec yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lieutenant, I must protest—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Counselor... we are acting to preserve Mr. Brazelton's life and safety. He is being charged with several class-one felonies. He is also an accessory to even greater criminal actions. We'd like to keep him safe. Wouldn't you?\"\n\n\"Are you suggesting—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Suggesting nothing.\" I nodded toward the four dets escorting Brazelton. Didn't smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirchner had them all in full nanite screens, overlapped to protect Brazelton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rather dramatic, Lieutenant,\" Flemmerfeld observed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Effective. Shall we go?\" Gestured to the open IR door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just the three of us in the interrogation room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Me, Flemmerfeld, and Brazelton. I activated the privacy cone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Might I ask the offenses with which my client has been charged?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Flemmerfeld was most polite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That kind was dangerous.\n\nI handed him the hard copy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flemmerfeld looked over the list. \"I trust you have admissible evidence.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We wouldn't be having this little meeting, Counselor. Not without hard evidence.\" I turned to Brazelton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Simple enough, Brazelton. We've got you. We can link you to Edward Smythers's death. We've got forensics on everything from your equipment to proprietary override codes. We've got replacement of fuel cells with defective units...\"\n\nBrazelton didn't say a word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neither did his solicitor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We don't have to prove intent. We've got three solid cases of homicide. Nanette Iveson, Evan McCall, and Edward Smythers.\"\n\nNeither one still spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just a few of the counts. We can also add unauthorized maintenance on the guideway that contributed to Coordinator Dewey's death. Both Alredd and Senator Cannon will be happy to use that. Don't forget perjury... you offered a signed deposition on the nanite system dealing with the death of Nanette Iveson. Either one, and that would make four.\"\n\nI handed the folder to the solicitor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All theory, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"Nope. We did it thorough, Counselor. Proprietary equipment. Faulty proprietary equipment. No one else has it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I grinned. \"If it's not, then I can bring five counts of fraud.\"\n\nBrazelton didn't say anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't turn pale. Just stiffened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I waited. \"I'll get it one way or another, Brazelton. Once you become a permie, I'll ask you, and then, after I've got the information, we'll just release you onto the street.\"\n\nBrazelton looked at the solicitor. \"Out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're entitled to representation...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I release the privacy cone. \"I believe your client has asked you to leave for a moment, Counselor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That told me who was paying for the solicitor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Also told me not to trust the legal ethics of Flemmerfeld, Hayes, and D'Aboul. Already didn't trust O'Bannon and Reyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you want?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brazelton finally asked once I'd reactivated the privacy cone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know who I want.\"\n\n\"You're asking the stars.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I just smiled. \"Then you take the fall. You lose everything. We still get Kemal. It just takes longer. You think Kemal will let you walk around?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If I do... then what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll push for two counts of negligent homicide, house restraint for one to two years, provided you agree to resign and sell all interests in the business.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let him think for a while. Just stood there.\n\n\"I have one condition of my own,\" Brazelton finally said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You lock me up until Kemal's taken care of. I'll take maxsec.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "First time had someone who was filch or near filch wanting to be locked away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Understood why. We could do that.\n\n\"I have a condition in return.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brazelton looked up.\n\n\"I want the name of every system repair job you've made since November, name and address, and I want it now. Your boys can link it through to the console outside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brazelton shrugged. \"You can have them all. Better have your friend Kama fix one in the next day or so, though. Cornett, Luara, professor type.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why her?\"\n\nBrazelton shrugged again. \"Don't know. Orders.\" He sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't look like he did know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wondered how much else we'd never know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That could wait. I released the privacy code and linked to Sarao." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Have an urgent job." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You take a tech team to the house, conapt, whatever of Professor Luara Cornett. Try and get her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tell her not to enter the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Get Kama. See if he'll make sure the system is done right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'll pay—if I have to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The professor? What does Brazelton have against her?\n\nHe doesn't. Kemal does." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We don't know what. Like to have the professor alive so we can figure that out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm on it, Lieutenant.\n\nThen I stepped out into the corridor, leaving Brazelton inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is unusual,\" Flemmerfeld said quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Counselor, your client has agreed to provide certain information. In return for that information, once it is received and documented, DPS and the District Advocate's office will accept a plea of guilty to two counts of negligence leading to death, and request divestiture of the business, and a house arrest of two years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Flemmerfeld didn't turn a hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see. Then perhaps we should call in the District Advocate and make sure that this is established legally. I would also be remiss if I did not request what information you are required to divulge.\"\n\n\"Most of it's in the folder,\" I pointed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Two of those are weak cases.\"\n\n\"They're strong enough that your client has no desire to see them to a full trial,\" I pointed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Before we proceed, might I speak with him alone?\"\n\nKirchner stepped forward. \"You have every right to that, Counselor. We will insist on a full body scan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded, and one of the homicide dets appeared with a scanner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a muted squawk.\n\n\"He has a penknife and two old-style pens in his pocket,\" the tech announced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kirchner held out his hand.\n\nFlemmerfeld surrendered both before he entered the IR." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't there long. He came out with a false smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Looked at me. \"You must have been most persuasive, Lieutenant.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just let the facts speak, Counselor.\"\n\n\"You'll send the agreement to me before you present it to my client, I trust?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course.\" Could see that he hoped we'd blow the procedures, \"We intend to follow the DA's requirements to the letter.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very good, Lieutenant. I'll be looking for the agreement.\" He turned and walked toward the ramp down to the garage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sarao... Then I realized she was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Turned to Kirchner. \"Could I impose on you to have someone call in someone from the District Advocate's office for an immediate sealed and authenticated deposition? And for the plea agreement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd be happy to have Janis request that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked in the direction of the departed solicitor. \"You trust him as much as I do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grinned. \"You couldn't trust him any less.\"\n\n\"You think he's off to tell Kemal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. He'll tell O'Bannon. That's another form of insulation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kirchner tilted his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You aren't authorized to offer a plea, you know?\"\n\n\"I know. You really think the District Advocate is going to do better?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kirchner laughed. \"Your ass.\"\n\nI walked back into the IR." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brazelton looked up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll have someone from the District Advocate's office here in a few minutes. Draw up the plea agreement. Means you have to make an authenticated deposition of what you did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A confession?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'against'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Call it life insurance. If Flemmerfeld knows the information is authenticated, there's less incentive to try to remove you. Becomes one more offense against Kemal. Possibly against Flemmerfeld.\"\n\nBrazelton looked doubtful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not pressing. You've got a few minutes to think about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Left him there, guarded by the four dets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Headed up to my own cubicle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Needed to get to Parsfal before that blew. See if I could keep it under control." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Didn't get that far.\n\nKama came in—on link relay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eugene, I'm on my way to some professor's conapt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What exactly am I doing?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saving her life from another nanite malfunction death. Why her? I don't know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Send the bill to Brazelton's outfit. If they won't pay, I will." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I can do this if they won't. But my price to you is that chess game." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I laughed. I can afford that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't forget it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After Kama broke link, I tried Parsfal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in. Even on holoscreen, he looked tired. Like me.\n\n\"Ah... this is Jude Parsfal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lieutenant Chiang, Parsfal. Here's what we have. We have someone charged with the murders of Edward Smythers, Evan McCall, and Nanette Iveson. Can't tell you who for about an hour, maybe two, until the DA's office completes the legalities. I don't know how it will work out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Work out?\" He looked puzzled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There will be a conviction. I'm not sure whether it will be murder, manslaughter, or homicide through culpable negligence. We have evidence that establishes who did it in all three cases.\"\n\n\"What about Kemal?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The suspected perp is linked to Kemal. You can have that on background. Don't have any problem with your using what you showed me, but we can't comment on that. You need to make that clear.\"\n\n\"I can see that, Lieutenant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped. \"Ah... about the other nets?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What other nets?\" Shrugged. \"If someone calls me, then I'll have to answer. Have no interest in doing a release until we know more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsfal smiled. \"Thank you, Lieutenant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll give you one other thing. Background only. Luara Cornett—professor at UDenv. She was also targeted. We don't know why, and the most we'll get there is intent to harm. Do you know why she's in this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked blank-faced. The way I felt.\n\n\"That's off the record. But... you follow it up your way, and we won't pay any attention. You might talk to her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Could see some interest in his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Have to get back to work.\" Broke the connection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cannizaro wouldn't be happy about NetPrime, but I could claim Parsfal already had most of the story and had done us a favor by sitting on it a week. He deserved a few hours before the others got to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deserved more, but a few hours was all I could give. Had to give that much or none of the nets would cooperate the next time." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand on the story, maintaining character relationships, in the Science Fiction genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I got back to NetPrime, I hurried up the ramp and back to Istancya.\n\n\"How did it go?\" I asked. \"Did Bimstein bitch?\"\n\nShe looked up from her console, and from what appeared to be something on education." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I fed it through. I haven't heard anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsfal? Where have you been?\n\nI winced and mouthed to Istancya, \"Bimstein.\"\n\nShe nodded as I walked back toward my cubicle. Following a story. Didn't you get the the sanction stuff?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was all right. Need a follow-up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What sort?\n\nWhich multilaterals are going to be hit hardest? Regional impacts within NorAm. Political fallout here in Denv." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That sort of thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Set it for Paula and feed it through Metesta.\n\nTime?\n\nWhatever you can do in the next hour.\n\nAgain, I was holding a dead link." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I still didn't have a full story, or anything close, and I had Bimstein wanting stats that weren't easy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I compromised and sketched out a story about Kemal based on what I already had. Took almost a half hour.\n\nThen I really started scrambling. It was more like an hour and a half before I fed the economic stats to Metesta." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I got maybe ten minutes back on the Kemal business before the link chimed, Incoming from DPS, Lieutenant Eugene Tang Chiang." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'parsfal' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Accept. I hoped Chiang had something I could use and not another request to hold off. I flipped on the holo projection. \"Ah... this is Jude Parsfal.\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Chiang, Parsfal. Here's what we have...\" He went on to tell me they had a suspect in three murders, including those of McCall and his wife, and that there was a link to Kemal, and that I could release most of what he'd told me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I couldn't quite believe I was getting a DPS go-ahead, even if informally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I couldn't help smiling. It might only be for a few hours, but we did have an exclusive. \"Thank you, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"I'll give you one other thing. Background only. Luara Cornett—professor at UDenv. She was also targeted. We don't know why, and the most we'll get there is intent to harm. Do you know why she's in this?\"\n\n\"No.\" I hadn't the faintest idea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd talked to her, been intrigued by her, but having an argument about art with Senator Cannon didn't give a reason for Kemal to want her dead—unless Kemal thought she was the senator's lover—and he should have known better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's off the record. But... you follow it up your way, and we won't pay any attention. You might talk to her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you.\" I still wondered why Chiang had fed that to me. Guilt? Was he trying to give me something extra?\n\n\"Have to get back to work.\"\n\nWith Chiang's last words, I was looking at a blank projection. I collapsed it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I started to work in the DPS angle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Incoming document from the office of Senator Cannon.\n\nDisplay, store, and print. I sat up with a jolt.\n\nThe Cannon release was similar to what Les Kerras had left for me, except there was more detail, and more rhetoric." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cannon also sent through a sound bite clip. I ran that up on the holo display.\n\n\"The Martian Republic has acted in bad faith. It has used a NorAm citizen to gain control of MMSystems." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "MMSystems is a key to the future of all Earth. It is a vital deep-space industry. This act is deceptive and despicable.\n\n\"So are the actions of Mr. Chris Kemal. By acting as a front for the Martian Republic, he has either allowed himself to be used knowingly. Or he has been totally incompetent. Either way, his actions have endangered all of Earth in the years to come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I couldn't believe what I was hearing—a sitting senator denouncing the chairman of a major NorAm multilateral, and releasing numbers to prove it.\n\nBimstein! We've got a major story.\n\nWhat? Better be good.\n\nTwo parts. First, story I was chasing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "DPS is charging someone linked to Kemal with a string of murders—Iveson, McCall, and Dean Smythers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Second, Senator Cannon is denouncing Kemal for fronting for the Martian Republic in buying control of MMSystems—the deep-space tug formulating and manufacturing outfit.\n\nWho else has got it?\n\nEveryone will have the Cannon statement. We've got the exclusive on the murder counts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who did they charge?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "DPS won't say. It's still in process. A high officer there confirmed that there was an arrest, and they have a suspect in custody, and that suspect is linked to Chris Kemal.\n\nDo what you can. Do it quick.\n\nI put in a call to Chiang." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, Mr. Parsfal?\" I could see the strain on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you tell me who's been charged?\"\n\nHe looked at me, thought for a moment. \"Emile Brazelton. It's public now, but no one else knows. No calls from other newsies. That's all I can say now.\" He paused. \"There won't be anything new over the weekend. Check with me midmorning on Monday.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He broke the connection before I could. Bimstein... they haven't released it, but DPS confirmed they've charged Emile Brazelton with three counts of murder.\n\nGo with it. Get something to Paula in the next ten minutes.\n\nI couldn't have thrown what I had together if I hadn't already done most of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feed had barely run through Metesta when Bimstein was on the link." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsfal! You got confirmations on this?\n\nCannon sent us the sound clip. Lieutenant Chiang gave the confirm on Brazelton, and on the murder charges. Don't think we should name him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's why I said a high official at DPS." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All right.\n\nGood by you?\n\nFairly good.\n\nChiang said there wouldn't be anything new from DPS till Monday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I've got one more lead on the story." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Might be a follow-up. I'll be out for an hour or so.\n\nTake a remote and stay on link.\n\nWill do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd spoken before I'd managed to see if I could even locate Luara Cornett." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't at the university, but I was lucky. Unlike most filch, and in some ways she seemed filch, or maybe that was because she had an air of unattainability, she had a listed address in eastside. Actually, it wasn't listed directly, but the link codes from the university gave her home codes, and NetPrime's database revealed the conapt block for those codes, with an address. There were only ten conapts in it, and I could knock on ten doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Should I go out there?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could I not?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "SEGMENT CONTINUATION:\nLength: 6 sentences\nStyle: Drew Karpyshyn\nGenre: Science Fiction, Space Opera\nContext: Part of ongoing narrative" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jella had worked in the personnel and accounting department of Dah'tan Manufacturing for four years. She was a good employee: organized, meticulous, and thorough—all valuable assets for anyone in her occupation. On her performance evaluations she routinely scored above average to excellent. But according to her official job description she was \"support staff.\" She wasn't \"essential\" to the company. The hardware designers were at the top of the corporate hierarchy; their innovations brought in the customers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the people who worked the plant floor actually created the product." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All she did was balance the sales figures with the inventory supplies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was nothing but an afterthought to those in charge... and her pay reflected it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jella worked as hard as anyone in the company, but she was paid a mere fraction of what the designers and manufacturers earned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't fair. Which was why she felt no guilt over stealing from the company." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't like she was selling critical corporate secrets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She never did anything large enough to draw attention; she was only siphoning off tiny drops from the overflowing corporate bucket. Sometimes she'd alter purchase orders or manipulate supply records. Occasionally she'd make sure inventory was left unsecured and unregistered in the warehouse overnight. The next morning it would be mysteriously missing; moved by someone on the warehouse staff who was in on the deal.\n\nJella had no idea who took the inventory away, just as she had no idea who was behind the thefts. That was how she liked it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once or twice a month she'd receive an anonymous call at the office, she'd play her part, and within a few days payment would be credited to her private financial accounts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today was no different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or so she tried to tell herself as she walked down the hall, attempting to appear casual and hoping nobody would notice her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there was something strange about this request. She'd been asked to shut down one of the security cameras and disable the alarm codes on one of the entrances. Someone wanted to sneak into the building undetected... and they were doing it in the middle of the day.\n\nIt was a stupid risk. Even if they somehow got inside, they were sure to be noticed; Dah'tan had regular security teams patrolling the entire plant. And if they were caught, they might give up Jella as the one who'd let them in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the offer had been too good to turn down—triple what she'd ever been paid for a job before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the end, greed had won out over common sense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She paused near one of the emergency exits, directly beneath the security camera trained on the door. Quickly glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, she reached up with the screwdriver she'd taken from a tool belt hanging in the utility closet and jammed it into the back of the camera, taking out the power cell.\n\nIt sparked, startling her. She let out a little scream and dropped the screwdriver, her fingers tingling slightly from the shock. Hastily, she bent down and picked it up from the carpet, looking around to see if anyone had noticed her sabotage. The hall was still empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked up at the camera and saw a thin ribbon of white smoke wisping out the back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The power light was dead. If anyone up in central security looked over at the monitor for this camera they would notice it was out. But the guards barely even glanced at the monitors during the day. Not with the patrols wandering the halls and the building filled with staff. Only a fool would try to break in during business hours.\n\nEven if they did notice the outage, there were over a hundred security cameras in the facility." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'would' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One seemed to malfunction every other week. The most anyone would do would be to put in a maintenance request to get it fixed before the end of the shift. Satisfied, Jella continued down the hall to the security door.\n\nShe typed in an employee code to disable the alarm and open the lock. She didn't use her own code, of course. One advantage of working in her department was that she had access to personnel files." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew the building entry codes for half the people in the facility." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'wrong' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the light on the door panel went from red to green, Jella's part was done. All she had to do was head back to her office and continue her work as if nothing was wrong.\n\nBut once she returned to her desk, the bad feeling she had about this particular job continued to grow, making her feel queasy. After about twenty minutes She'n'ya, the woman she shared the small office with, must have noticed something was wrong.\n\n\"Are you okay, Jella? You look a bit flushed.\"\n\nJella's stomach nearly lurched out of her throat at the sound of the other woman's voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm... I'm not feeling well,\" she replied, hoping she didn't sound as guilty as she felt. \"I think I'm going to be sick,\" she added, jumping to her feet and running to the bathroom to throw up.\n\nJella was still in there ten minutes later when the shooting started.\n\nThe mission was simple and straightforward, but Skarr still didn't like it. It had taken a day for them to assemble everything he'd said he'd need for the assault: explosives, a strike team of thirty mercs, including himself, and three rovers for transportation.\n\nFor reasons of corporate security and customer confidentiality, Dah'tan Manufacturing was located on three acres of private property well beyond the outskirts of Hatre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every kilometer of the drive out there ate away at Skarr, and also at the limited time they had to do the job." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somebody was sure to have noticed him at the spaceport; somebody who would report him to Saren. The Spectre was probably already on his way to Camala... and getting closer with every passing second.\n\nThe facility consisted of a single structure that housed the warehouse, factory, and offices. The grounds were surrounded by a chain-link fence, with several signs that read \"Private Property\" and \"No Admittance\" in all the various batarian dialects common to Camala.\n\nNot that this deterred Skarr and his mercs. The rovers simply drove right through the fence, flattening it as they bore down on the lonely building on the horizon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half a kilometer away they parked the rovers and continued across the barren desert terrain on foot. Approaching the factory on the side opposite the warehouse loading bays to avoid detection, they reached the building without incident.\n\nSkarr was relieved to find the security entrance at the back unlocked—Edan's source inside had come through. But they still had to work quickly if they wanted to get in and out before Saren showed up.\n\nCorporate paranoia was as much a part of batarian culture as their rigid caste system, and Dah'tan was no different. Unwilling to trust anyone else with sensitive information, all records and archives were kept on site: destroying the facility would wipe out all evidence that could lead back to Edan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each rover carried ten mercs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Skarr left eight men outside with sniper rifles to cover the exits, a pair stationed on each side of the building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The others were broken into seven infiltration teams of three members each." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 3 instance(s) of the word 'building'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The bombs will detonate in fifteen minutes,\" Skarr reminded them.\n\nThe infiltration teams scattered, heading off down the various branching corridors leading to all the different areas of the facility. Their objective was to plant a number of strategically placed explosives; enough to reduce the entire building to ash and rubble. Along the way they'd take out the security patrols and mow down any employees they ran across. Anyone who fled the building would be shot by the mercs waiting outside. And any survivors who managed to hide inside the building would be killed by the explosions or burned alive when the incendiary charges were detonated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the snipers posted outside and the infiltration teams making their way toward the heart of the complex, Skarr was left alone to complete a very specific task." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Edan had given him the name, description, and office location of his contact inside Dah'tan." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'krogan' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was unlikely the young woman knew whom she was working for, but the batarian didn't want to leave any loose ends.\n\nThe krogan made his way quickly through the halls toward the admin offices near the front of the building. From somewhere far away he heard the sound of gunfire and batarian voices screaming—the massacre had begun.\n\nMoments later sirens started ringing. Skarr rounded a corner and nearly ran into a pair of Dah'tan security guards rushing to respond to the alarm. The two batarians hesitated for a mere instant, caught off guard by the sight of a heavily armored krogan crashing through the halls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Skarr seized the opportunity and smashed the butt of his assault rifle into one guard's face, sending him reeling backwards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the same time he threw his body into the second guard, his mass bowling the much smaller man over and sending them both tumbling to the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they rolled together on the ground Skarr leveraged the barrel of his gun under his adversary's chin and pulled the trigger, removing most of everything above the neck.\n\nThe first guard was just getting to his feet, still dazed and bleeding from his mouth. He fired his own weapon, but his aim was erratic and he only managed to rip a line of holes in the wall above where Skarr and the corpse of his friend were sprawled across the floor. Skarr responded by firing down the corridor, shredding his enemy's ankles and calves.\n\nThe batarian screamed and fell forward, dropping his gun as he threw his arms out to break his fall. Another burst from Skarr finished him off an instant after he hit the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leaping to his feet, the bounty hunter lumbered down the hall toward the office of Edan's contact. The door was closed but he simply kicked it in, sending it flying off its hinges. A young batarian woman was crouching on the floor, only half-hidden behind her desk. She screamed when she saw the gore-covered krogan standing in the doorway.\n\n\"Good-bye, Jella,\" Skarr said.\n\n\"No! Please! I'm not—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rest of her words were cut off as he squeezed the trigger, drowned out by the hail of bullets that riddled her body and blew it across the floor to the back wall of the room.\n\nSkarr glanced quickly at his watch. Seven more minutes until the explosives detonated. Part of him wanted to spend the time searching the halls for more victims, but he knew that wasn't an option. It was too easy to lose himself in the bloodlust of his ancient ancestors. Swept up in battle fury, he could easily lose track of time in a slaughter like this, and he had no intention of being inside the building when it blew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made his way quickly back to the exit, ignoring the sweet screams of pain and terror beckoning to him from every corridor he passed.\n\nJella did her best to block out the staccato bursts of gunfire and the horrific screams of her coworkers. She was hiding inside the bathroom air vent—a tight fit but she had managed to wedge herself in. In her mind she could picture the scene outside, and she had no intention of leaving her hiding place.\n\nTime passed with agonizing slowness; the sounds of the attack seemed to go on for hours, though in reality it was only a few minutes. She heard voices outside the bathroom door and she tried to scooch herself back even farther into the air shaft." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door flew open and a pair of batarians leaped in, their automatic weapons already firing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sprayed the entire room with bullets, reducing the thin sheet metal of the stall doors to ribbons, shattering the ceramic toilets and sinks and bursting several of the water pipes in the walls.\n\nFortunately Jella's hiding place was high up on the wall above one of the stalls—she'd mounted one of the toilets and clambered up onto the dividers between the stalls to remove the air vent's cover. Then she'd slid in feet first and carefully pulled the cover back into place once she was safely hidden inside.\n\nFrom her vantage point she had a perfect view of the carnage, though she closed her eyes and covered her ears with her palms to try and block out the deafening retorts of their weapons. Only when the gunfire finally ended did she dare to open her eyes again.\n\nThe men were taking a last look around the bathroom, splashing noisily through the water gushing from the broken pipes, spreading out across the floor like a miniature lake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nobody here,\" one of them said with a shrug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Too bad,\" the other replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was hoping we could catch one of the women and drag her off with us for a little fun.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Forget it,\" the other said with a shake of his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That krogan would never go for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Edan's the one paying us, not him,\" his partner spat back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jella instantly knew who he was talking about: Edan Had'dah was one of the most wealthy, powerful, and infamous individuals on Camala." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I dare you to say that to his face,\" the first man said with a laugh, even as he crouched down and attached something to the wall. A moment later he stood up. \"Let's move. We need to be out of here in two minutes.\"\n\nThe men ran off down the hallway, their footsteps echoing in the distance. Jella crawled slowly forward from her hiding place, trying to see what they had placed on the wall. It was about the size of a lunch box, with wires running into it from all sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even though she had no military training or experience, it was obvious the device was some kind of bomb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She paused for a moment, listening for more gunfire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything was silent except for a faint beep-beep-beep as the timer on the explosive counted down. Jella knocked the cover off the ventilation shaft and dropped down to the floor. She ran out of the bathroom, sprinting down the corridor toward the same security exit she had unlocked earlier, unwittingly allowing the slaughter to happen.\n\nBut she couldn't think about that now. Refusing to even glance at the bodies of her coworkers in the hallway, she reached the door and yanked it open. Two men from the warehouse lay just outside, each shot between the eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jella hesitated, expecting a similar fate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But whoever had killed the men was gone, clearing the surrounding area before the building detonated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as her shell-shocked mind grasped the fact that she was still alive, the young woman put her head down and ran." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'looking' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She managed half a dozen steps before the explosion turned her world to fire, agony, and then darkness.\n\nBy the time Saren arrived at the Dah'tan Manufacturing facility, the place was in ruins. Emergency response crews had put out the fires, but the building was little more than a burned-out shell. The top two floors had collapsed and one of the walls had caved inwards, reducing the interior to a pile of scorched rubble. Rescue workers were busy picking through the debris. Looking at the scene it was obvious they weren't looking for survivors; they were collecting remains." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Several news crews were filming the wreckage from a respectful distance away, careful not to interfere with the emergency crews but anxious to get some dramatic footage for the vids.\n\nSaren parked his vehicle beside them, got out, and marched toward the ruins.\n\n\"Hey!\" one of the batarian emergency workers called out on seeing his approach, running over to intercept him. \"You can't be here. This is a restricted area.\"\n\nSaren glared at him and produced his identification.\n\n\"Sorry, sir,\" the batarian said, stopping short and tilting his head in deference." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'she's' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know you were a Spectre.\"\n\n\"Any survivors?\" Saren demanded.\n\n\"Only one,\" he replied. \"A young woman. She was outside the building when it blew. The blast took her legs, and she has critical burns to ninety percent of her body.\n\n\"She's en route to the hospital now. It's a miracle she survived, but I don't think she's going to make it through the—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take your crew and go,\" Saren said, cutting him off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What? We can't! We're still looking for survivors.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There aren't anymore survivors. You're done here.\"\n\n\"What about the bodies? We can't just leave them like this.\"\n\n\"The bodies will still be here in the morning. Clear out. That's an order. And take the damn vid crews with you.\"\n\nThe batarian hesitated, then acquiesced with another tilt of his head and went to round up his crew. Five minutes later the rescue vehicles and media vans were pulling away, leaving Saren alone to search the wreckage for clues.\n\n\"My God,\" Kahlee gasped as their rover climbed over a rise and they caught their first glimpse of what had once been the Dah'tan Manufacturing plant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The whole place is gone!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was almost dusk, but Camala's large orange sun still provided enough light for them to see the destruction clearly.\n\n\"Looks like somebody else got here first,\" Anderson noted with a grim frown.\n\n\"Where are the rescue crews?\" Kahlee asked. \"They have to know about this by now!\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Anderson admitted, grinding the rover to a stop. \"Something's not right. Wait here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hopping out of the vehicle he approached the remains of the building on foot, pistol drawn, running in a quick crouch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was less than twenty meters away when a single shot ricocheted off the ground just in front of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anderson froze. He was completely exposed and in the open; the shooter could easily have killed him if that was the intent. The shot was meant as a warning.\n\n\"Drop your weapon and walk forward!\" a voice called out from somewhere in the ruins up ahead. Anderson did as he was ordered, setting his pistol on the ground and continuing on unarmed.\n\nA second later a familiar turian figure emerged from behind the debris he'd been using for cover, his rifle trained directly on Anderson's chest." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'trying' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\" the Spectre demanded.\n\n\"The same thing you are,\" Anderson said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. \"Trying to find out who was behind the attack on Sidon.\"\n\nSaren snorted in disgust, but didn't lower his weapon. \"You lied to me, human.\" The way he said \"human\" made it sound like an insult." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anderson didn't say anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Spectre had found his way to the Dah'tan plant; he was smart enough to put the pieces together.\n\n\"Artificial intelligence is a violation of Citadel Conventions,\" Saren continued when he didn't respond. \"I will report this to the Council.\"\n\nAgain, Anderson remained silent. He had the impression Saren was still digging for information. Whatever the turian was looking for, Anderson wasn't going to be the one to accidentally give it to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who was behind the attack on Sidon?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saren asked, his voice heavy with the implied threat as he brought the rifle sight up to his eye and took dead aim at the lieutenant's chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Anderson admitted, staying perfectly still.\n\nSaren fired a shot into the ground at his feet.\n\nHe flinched, but didn't step back. \"I said I don't know!\" he shouted, letting his anger boil over. He was almost certain Saren meant to kill him, but he wasn't going to go down begging for his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wasn't going to let some turian thug intimidate him!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where is Sanders?\" Saren barked, changing tactics.\n\n\"Somewhere safe,\" Anderson snapped back. There was no way in hell he was going to let this monster get anywhere close to Kahlee.\n\n\"She's lying to you,\" Saren told him. \"She knows much more about this than she's told you. You should question her again.\"\n\n\"I'll run my investigation, you run yours.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'anderson' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe I should focus on finding her, then,\" he said, his voice dripping with menace. \"If I do, my interrogation will uncover all her deepest secrets.\"\n\nAnderson felt his muscles tense, but he refused to say anything more about Kahlee.\n\nRealizing the human wasn't going to rise to the bait, the turian switched topics yet again. \"How did you get here?\"\n\n\"I'm done answering questions,\" Anderson said flatly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're going to kill me, just do it.\"\n\nThe turian took a long look at the surrounding area, scanning the horizon in the fading light. He seemed to reach some kind of decision, then lowered his weapon.\n\n\"I am a Spectre, an agent of the Council,\" he declared, a timbre of nobility giving strength to his voice. \"I am a servant of justice, sworn to protect and defend the galaxy. Killing you serves no purpose, human.\"\n\nAgain, the word was a thinly veiled insult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saren turned his back and walked away, heading toward the barely visible silhouette of a small rover in the distance. \"Go ahead and pick through the rubble if it makes you feel better,\" he called back over his shoulder. \"There's nothing left to find here.\"\n\nAnderson didn't make a move until Saren climbed into his rover and sped off. Once the vehicle was out of sight, he turned and retrieved his pistol from the dirt. It was almost dark; there was no point in searching the debris now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he actually believed what the turian had said about there being nothing left to find at Dah'tan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moving carefully through the deepening gloom of the night, it took him several minutes to make his way back to his own rover.\n\n\"What happened?\" Kahlee asked as he climbed inside. \"I thought I saw you talking to someone.\"\n\n\"Saren,\" he told her. \"That turian Spectre.\"\n\n\"What's he doing here?\" she asked, alarmed by the memory of their last encounter and the mere mention of his name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Looking for evidence,\" Anderson admitted.\n\n\"What did he say to you? What did he want?\"\n\nHe briefly debated telling her a lie; something that would put her mind at ease. But she was a part of this, too. She deserved the truth. Or most of it, anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think he was seriously considering killing me.\"\n\nKahlee gasped in horror.\n\n\"I can't be sure,\" he added quickly. \"Maybe I'm wrong. Turians are hard to read.\"\n\n\"Don't give me that crap,\" she countered. \"You wouldn't say something like that if you weren't sure. Tell me what happened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was fishing for information,\" Anderson said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He'd already figured out we were lying to him about what you were working on at the base.\"\n\n\"Dah'tan's not known for making biotic implants,\" Kahlee conceded.\n\n\"I didn't tell him anything. Once he realized I wasn't going to help his investigation he got this hard look in his eyes. That's when I thought he was going to kill me.\"\n\n\"But he didn't.\" Her words were half statement, half question.\n\n\"He took this slow look around, like he was trying to see if there was anyone else nearby. Then he just walked away.\"\n\n\"He wanted to know if you were out here alone!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she exclaimed, coming to the same conclusion he had already reached. \"He couldn't kill you if there were any witnesses!\"\n\nAnderson nodded. \"Legally a Spectre has the right to do whatever he wants. But the Council doesn't condone wanton murder. If he killed me and someone reported it, they'd step in.\"\n\n\"You really think the Council would take action if he killed a human?\"\n\n\"Humanity has more political significance than any of those aliens want to admit,\" Anderson explained. \"We've got enough ships and soldiers to make every other species think twice about crossing us. The Council needs to stay on our good side. If word got out that Spectres were killing Alliance officers without justification, they'd have to do something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what happens now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We head back to the city. I need to send a message to Ambassador Goyle in the next burst.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why?\" Kahlee asked sharply. \"What for?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hint of alarm in her voice reminded him that she was still a fugitive on the run from the Alliance.\n\n\"Saren knows humanity's been conducting illegal AI research. He's going to report it to the Council. I have to warn her so she's ready for the political fallout.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Kahlee replied, her voice a mixture of relief and embarrassment. \"Sorry. I just thought...\"\n\n\"I'm doing everything I can to help you,\" he told her, trying to hide how much her suspicion had hurt him. \"But I need you to trust me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She reached out and put her hand on top of his. \"I'm not used to people looking out for me,\" she said by way of apology. \"My mother was always working and my father... well, you know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Looking out for myself just became habit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I know what you're risking to help me. Your career. Maybe your life. I'm grateful. And I do trust you... David.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody ever called him David. Nobody but his mother and his wife. Ex-wife, he corrected. For a brief moment he was on the verge of telling Kahlee what Saren had said about focusing his investigation on her, but at the last second he bit his tongue.\n\nHe was attracted to Kahlee; he had already admitted that to himself. But he had to remember how much she'd already been through. She was vulnerable; alone and afraid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Telling her about Saren's threats would only exacerbate those feelings." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And while it would probably make her more willing to accept him as her protector and draw them closer together, Anderson wasn't about to take advantage of a situation like that.\n\n\"Let's get moving,\" he said, gently pulling his hand out from under hers and turning the rover back toward the dim glow of the city in the distance." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner for this section. I'll provide a segment, and you continue with 11 sentences, channeling Susan Spann in the Historical Fiction, Mystery genre. Characters may have backstories from previous chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four samurai stood guard outside the Sakura Teahouse, one at each of the garden gates and two more leaning against the stone dogs near the path. They wore baggy trousers and wide-shouldered surcoats, like Nobuhide's but more cheaply made. All four wore swords and carried hooked jitte, which identified them as dōshin, low-ranking policemen undoubtedly under Nobuhide's command.\n\nThe dead man's son had wasted no time putting his underlings on guard.\n\nHiro leaned toward Father Mateo as they approached. \"Speak Portuguese if you have to speak at all.\"\n\nThree of the dōshin had graying hair and the confident calm of experienced policemen. The fourth was no more than twenty, with the rounded face and slightly overweight build of a pampered son. His scraggly mustache, grown to show his manhood, had the opposite result.\n\nThe older dōshin nodded as Hiro reached the walk. The younger man leaned back against his statue, withholding respect to reinforce his authority." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is your business here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the young dōshin demanded. \"No one enters this house today.\"\n\nFather Mateo began to bow but Hiro stopped him with a look.\n\n\"Is the house under quarantine?\" Hiro asked.\n\nThe older dōshin glanced at his young companion, but the silent warning went unnoticed. The young man raised his jitte to block the path. The weapon shone like new, in sharp contrast to the dōshin's fraying sleeves and faded trousers.\n\n\"We are guarding this establishment. There has been a crime.\"\n\nNobuhide must have told him not to mention murder.\n\n\"Precisely the reason for our visit,\" Hiro said. \"Father Mateo Ávila de Santos, of the Portuguese foreign mission, is investigating the death of Akechi Hideyoshi.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The older dōshin stepped back to clear the path, but the younger man stood up and blocked the way.\n\n\"Foreigners have no jurisdiction here. This is a police matter.\" His knuckles whitened as he clutched the jitte.\n\n\"A police matter?\" Hiro asked. \"Under your jurisdiction?\"\n\nThe older man's eyes shifted downward. The younger one drew his shoulders back and said nothing.\n\n\"Who is your supervisor?\" Hiro asked. He knew the answer. The question served a different purpose.\n\n\"I don't have to tell you that.\"\n\nHiro looked at the older dōshin, raised an eyebrow, and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Akechi Nobuhide,\" he said, \"Yoriki of Pontocho.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pontocho.\" Hiro glanced over his shoulder toward the bridge. \"This teahouse lies outside Pontocho.\"\n\n\"That's none of your business,\" the younger dōshin snapped. \"Go away before I call the magistrate.\"\n\nThe words rolled off his tongue with the facility of frequent use.\n\n\"A fine idea,\" Hiro said politely.\n\nThe dōshin's eyes went wide as Hiro continued. \"Magistrate Ishimaki ordered full police cooperation with the priest's investigation, but I'm sure he won't mind you interrupting his morning audience to ask for repetition of those instructions.\"\n\nThe young dōshin narrowed his eyes and seethed. His older companion shifted from foot to foot. Policemen did not disagree with their partners in public, but the more experienced man seemed on the verge of speaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the garden gates, the other two men watched the scene with interest." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'companions' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were too far away to hear the conversation, but would close the distance instantly if anyone drew a sword.\n\nThe young dōshin pointed his jitte at Hiro's chest. \"No funny business. When you leave, you leave alone. No companions and no parcels. Is that clear?\"\n\nHiro wanted to take the bully down a notch or two, but pragmatism required otherwise, for the moment at least. He bowed slightly and allowed the tension to defuse.\n\n\"Thank you for your cooperation. You are indeed an example for your companions.\"\n\nWhat kind of example, Hiro didn't say.\n\nInstead, he nodded to the older dōshin and followed the Jesuit up the path to the teahouse." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand this chapter by adding four sentences in the Historical Fiction, Mystery genre. Note that some context may come from earlier parts." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mayuri opened the door just as Father Mateo reached out to knock. He withdrew his hand awkwardly and lowered it to his side. Mayuri lowered her own hands even faster, but not before Hiro saw the dark smudges on her fingers and an angry burn on her left hand that hadn't been there earlier in the day.\n\nFather Mateo noticed too. \"Are you injured?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mayuri pulled her hand into her sleeve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is nothing. I burned myself lighting a fire. The servant ran away when she heard about the murder—superstitious little fool. Why do you think I've answered the door myself all morning?\"\n\nShe cast a harried glance toward the road as though hoping the servant would return. As her eyes shifted back to Hiro, she forced a smile. \"Did you forget something earlier?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Father Mateo bowed. \"We hoped to speak with Sayuri.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And also the other women who work in the house,\" Hiro added.\n\nMayuri's smile wavered. \"No one saw or heard anything. I spoke with each of them myself.\"\n\n\"Then it will be a short conversation,\" Hiro said. \"Thank you for accommodating us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It will take some time,\" Mayuri said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are not prepared for company so early.\"\n\n\"We can talk with Sayuri while we wait.\" Hiro smiled pleasantly, knowing the teahouse owner could not refuse without bringing more suspicion on herself.\n\nWhen she realized Hiro had no intention of leaving, Mayuri tilted her head in consent and turned to lead the men into the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her kimono rustled slightly, like a mouse in a sack of grain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Mayuri turned, Hiro noticed a scrap of paper caught on the back of her kimono." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The trailing end of her obi had trapped it just above the hem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hiro bent and plucked the paper from her dress, slipping it into his sleeve as he straightened. He said nothing. Teahouse culture valued neatness and beauty above all else. Mayuri would have been mortified to learn she was trailing scraps, and, although Hiro didn't care about her feelings, he also saw no reason to cause her unnecessary embarrassment.\n\nMayuri led the men to the first door on the western side of the large common room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As she knelt she said, \"You may speak with Sayuri here, but please do not take too long. I have priests coming to purify the house.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Father Mateo entered the room as soon as Mayuri opened the door, but Hiro paused just long enough to ask, \"You will tell me when the other girls are ready?\"\n\nMayuri's mouth pressed shut in a very thin smile. \"Of course.\"\n\nHiro stepped over the threshold and joined the Jesuit inside.\n\nThe room was identical to the adjacent one except for a welcome lack of blood and the absence of a corpse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An unspoiled vase of hydrangeas adorned the tokonoma." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The flower arrangement showed more skill than the one in the room where the murder occurred. Hiro recognized it as a master's work. The spoiled arrangement was likely the work of a student.\n\nSayuri knelt in front of the alcove, facing the door, with her back to the vase of flowers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had bathed and changed into a simple kimono of patterned silk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without her makeup, she looked younger than before, and also more beautiful.\n\nA shamisen lay on the floor to her right. The lack of ornate decoration suggested a practice instrument, something to pass the time.\n\n\"Make a useful comment,\" Hiro said in Portuguese." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Father Mateo recognized the coded cue at once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What something would you have me say? Do you need more than this or have I said enough already?\" He kept his voice even so the questions would sound like statements.\n\n\"That will do.\" Hiro turned. Mayuri knelt in the doorway as though she intended to stay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I apologize for the foreign exchange,\" Hiro said. \"Father Mateo does not know the proper words for his request." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"His religion has a rite called 'confession,' in which an accused person speaks confidentially with a priest. Father Mateo requests permission to have confession with Sayuri now.\"\n\nMayuri frowned. \"Is privacy required?\"\n\nHiro nodded. \"A translator may assist if necessary, but no one else is permitted to remain.\"\n\nMayuri looked at Sayuri." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Hiro's surprise, the girl nodded in agreement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well.\" Mayuri sighed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have business to attend to anyway.\"\n\nHiro remained by the door to ensure that her shadow disappeared.\n\nSayuri burst into tears the moment the door closed. \"I'm sorry. This is my fault. I would not have asked you to come if I thought Nobuhide would kill you too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't worry,\" Father Mateo said. \"Hiro and I will find the real killer.\"\n\nSayuri stopped crying and looked up through her tears. \"Do you really think you can?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hiro fought the urge to laugh at her attempt to manipulate the priest until he realized, with dismay, that it had worked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course we will,\" Father Mateo said, \"but we need you to tell us what really happened last night.\"\n\n\"I already did. I woke up and Akechi-san was dead.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's true.\" Father Mateo's unexpected firmness made Hiro wonder if the Jesuit saw through Sayuri's performance after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you scared to tell the truth? Has someone threatened you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course not,\" she said, a bit too quickly for the truth. \"A shinobi must have killed him.\"\n\n\"Who would want to assassinate Akechi Hideyoshi?\" Hiro asked.\n\nSayuri looked at him, wide-eyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. Akechi-san was a good man. Mayuri says he always paid his bills.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was wealthy?\" Hiro asked.\n\nSayuri thought it over. \"He didn't buy me presents like the other girls get sometimes, but then, he wasn't my patron, just a regular visitor.\"\n\n\"Did he ever bring guests to the teahouse?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sayuri smiled. Her eyes sparkled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He brought his brother, Hidetaro.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hiro found it curious that Sayuri's first genuine smile came at the mention of Hideyoshi's brother. Nothing in teahouse culture prohibited a girl from entertaining both a man and his relatives, though a girl who accepted a man as her patron would generally refuse separate visits from his brothers or male relations.\n\n\"Anyone else?\" Hiro asked.\n\nSayuri squinted at the ceiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her forehead wrinkled in thought. \"A couple of months ago he entertained a cousin from out of town. Masuhide? No, but something like that.\"\n\n\"You don't remember?\" Hiro asked. Entertainers were trained to remember names, to make a client's friends feel special on subsequent visits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" Sayuri pushed a stray hair behind her ear as her cheeks turned pink with embarrassment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got the impression they had only met a couple of times. They didn't seem close, and Hideyoshi said the cousin was just passing through on business. I didn't think I would need to remember his name.\"\n\n\"What about Hideyoshi's brother... Hidetaro? Did he visit you often?\"\n\n\"A few times, with Hideyoshi.\" Sayuri's radiant smile returned, but faded quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hidetaro can't afford teahouses. But he's very nice.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When was the last time you saw him?\" Hiro asked.\n\nSayuri looked at the floor. \"Several weeks ago.\"\n\n\"What about Nobuhide?\" Father Mateo asked.\n\n\"He's not allowed here anymore.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sayuri's eyes widened. She lowered her voice. \"He got drunk and forced himself on one of the girls. We're not that kind of house. It made Mayuri furious. She told Hideyoshi his son was not welcome anymore.\"\n\n\"Do you know the girl's name?\" Hiro asked.\n\n\"Umeha?\" Sayuri shook her head." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"I apologize for the inconvenience,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think it was Umeha, but I'm not sure. She hasn't worked here in over a year. I think—\"\n\nThe door rustled open and Sayuri cut herself off midsentence.\n\nMayuri knelt in the doorway.\n\n\"I apologize for the inconvenience,\" she said, in a tone that said the opposite. \"My women cannot speak with you this morning. It appears you have waited for nothing.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Susan Spann. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A monk at Tofuku-ji told them how to find Hidetaro's house, which lay just north of the temple compound and east of the Kamo River, at the end of an unpaved earthen road studded with fist-sized stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tiny wooden house sat on a raised foundation with a veranda of split bamboo that had long ago lost its shine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The walls were clean but aging, and where the original timbers had rotted through, replacement boards shone unnaturally bright beside their weathered neighbors.\n\nThe buildings on either side were similarly small but in worse repair, likely the homes of servants who worked too hard in their masters' houses to spend much time on their own. It was not the sort of neighborhood where Hiro expected to find a samurai. That, combined with Hidetaro's courier training, reminded Hiro again to make no assumptions.\n\nA pair of nicely pruned cherry trees stood in the yard of Hidetaro's home and framed the front steps with their branches. A worn dirt path connected the road to the house, though instead of a lawn or a garden the front yard was covered with knee-high thistles and weeds.\n\nHiro was surprised by the disarray. He would have expected a would-be monk to keep the yard tidy and neat.\n\nThe priest and the shinobi walked up the path and knocked on the wooden door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hidetaro opened it almost at once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He must have seen them coming.\n\n\"Have you identified Yoshi's killer?\" he asked.\n\n\"We hope to, if you will help us,\" Hiro said.\n\nHidetaro stepped back from the door. \"Of course, please come inside.\"\n\nAs they stepped up into the house he asked, \"Would you like some tea?\"\n\n\"No thank you,\" Hiro said. \"We won't be long.\"\n\nThe house was too small to have a separate entry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The front door opened directly into the central and only room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An alcove in the east corner held a large wooden chest that probably contained Hidetaro's bedding, while his futon would be folded and stored in the built-in closet immediately to the right. The north wall had a combination writing alcove and tokonoma, and the hearth sat almost in the center of the room. In all, the entire house measured barely six mats in size, little larger than Hiro's bedroom at the church.\n\nThe house smelled of pine boards and the smoke of pine-fueled fires. A hint of incense lingered in the air, probably brought in on Hidetaro's clothes when he returned from meditation. Hiro inhaled deeply but caught no scent of food or grease or decay, no uncleanliness at all.\n\nThe smell reminded Hiro of the training house at Iga that young shinobi used to practice stealth and infiltration. The house was not inhabited by people or permeated by human smells. Hiro had often sneaked inside to sleep there as a child, surrounded by the comforting scents of cedar, paper, and pine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"Sayuri's time is running out,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not the way he expected a murderer's house to smell.\n\nHidetaro led them to the hearth. Hiro deferred to Father Mateo, and the priest took the seat of honor directly to Hidetaro's right. Hiro knelt on the far side of the priest.\n\n\"How can I help you?\" Hidetaro asked.\n\nHiro's eyebrows raised at his host's directness.\n\n\"Sayuri's time is running out,\" Hidetaro said. \"This is not the time for manners.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" Hiro said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When did you learn Hideyoshi intended to become Sayuri's exclusive patron?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hidetaro blinked. \"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\nHiro knew he could not learn the truth through questions. The shogunate had trained Hidetaro to dissemble when his life was on the line. The samurai would expect politeness.\n\nHiro gave him the opposite.\n\n\"I think you do,\" Hiro said. \"I know you argued with Hideyoshi the night he died, and your stained robe says you were out in the rain, not home asleep as you claimed. I know that you wanted Sayuri for your wife and that Mayuri changed the contract price the very day your brother died. She changed it because Hideyoshi wanted Sayuri for himself, but not as a wife—he already had one of those. He wanted her for his whore, and that made you furious, even more because he only wanted her to injure you.\"\n\nHidetaro clenched his jaw, inhaled deeply, and released the tension as he exhaled.\n\n\"How much more proof would Nobuhide need to find you guilty?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hiro asked. \"Or would you rather let Sayuri take the blame?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell Nobuhide what you know,\" Hidetaro said, as calmly as if responding to an inquiry about the weather. \"Sayuri will live. I am prepared to die.\"\n\nHiro felt a flash of victory that instantly changed to doubt. Hidetaro intended to take responsibility, but his confession was not made in earnest. Guilty men rarely welcomed death so stoically, particularly for crimes of passion, yet Hidetaro looked like one of Father Mateo's much-heralded martyrs marching to his pyre.\n\nThe priest apparently thought so too.\n\n\"I don't think you killed him,\" Father Mateo said. \"What did you really do that night?\"\n\n\"I killed my brother,\" Hidetaro said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You caught me. In the morning I will confess to Nobuhide, and Sayuri will live. Tonight, I have nothing more to say.\"\n\nHidetaro's confession would save Father Mateo, the Sakura, and perhaps even the shogunate, but the words made Hiro angry instead of pleased. Suspicion of Hidetaro's innocence chewed at Hiro's conscience like a dog at a butcher's bone, and for the first time in his life as a shinobi, Hiro found himself caring more about the truth than about success.\n\nHis chest burned with frustration, as much with himself as with Hidetaro. He wanted to accept the confession and walk away, successful as always. Hiro did not fail. He succeeded at any cost. No life, no expense, no principle ever stood in his way... except for one.\n\nHiro would not let an innocent life pay a guilty man's debt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He realized with bitter irony that a similar choice had landed him in Kyoto, punished with an assignment to protect the foreign priest." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been the only failure in his spectacular career—and that failure, too, had been spectacular in its way.\n\nHiro had agreed to help Sayuri only to save the Jesuit's life, but he had also agreed to help find Hideyoshi's killer. He had given his word. That goal was secondary to his oath to protect the priest, but once the shinobi accepted a mission, he did not and would not fail. He couldn't just find a person to take the blame. Until Hiro found Hideyoshi's murderer his conscience would not release him from his pledge.\n\nThat didn't keep him from hoping his instincts were wrong, and that Hidetaro really did kill Hideyoshi. Because if Hidetaro wasn't guilty, Hiro had less than eighteen hours to learn who did. And despite Hidetaro's noble offer to take Sayuri's place, Hiro was not convinced that Nobuhide would accept his uncle's claims of responsibility.\n\nIn fact, he found it more likely that Hidetaro's \"confession\" would trigger the very executions the noble gesture was intended to prevent." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "u know Susan Spann? write like that. 6 sentences sentences. Historical Fiction, Mystery stuff. this is from middle of story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Mayuri said, \"sit down.\"\n\nHiro heard soft footsteps on the tatami and the rustling of a kimono as Okiya knelt on the floor.\n\n\"Hideyoshi's daughter found out about his interest,\" Mayuri said.\n\n\"You told me he kept it a secret, even from his wife.\"\n\n\"Apparently not,\" Mayuri said, \"and it gets worse. I burned the ledgers the morning he died, because I was certain the prohibition on samurai owning businesses had kept him from telling anyone that he owned a third of a teahouse.\"\n\n\"You burned the books?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'okiya' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Okiya asked. \"What made you do that?\"\n\n\"I didn't think anyone knew about his interest. Nobuhide didn't mention it, and you know he would have demanded his rights at once if he had known. I thought destroying the ledgers would protect us.\n\n\"When the priest and his ronin dog started poking around, I worried that they might see the books and think we were involved in the murder somehow—especially given that mess with Hidetaro and Sayuri's contract.\"\n\n\"I told you not to let Hideyoshi claim her,\" Okiya said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We agreed the girls would never be sold or treated as slaves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was a mistake,\" Mayuri admitted. \"You're right, I shouldn't have done it, but he threatened to force himself on every girl in the teahouse if I didn't give him Sayuri. Including you.\"\n\nOkiya laughed. \"I'd like to see him try it.\"\n\n\"That's not a problem anymore, but we have a bigger one. Yoshiko is her father's heir and she knows about the teahouse. She was here last night demanding an accounting and wanting to know how much income she should expect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She demanded to see the books.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does she know the percentage?\" Okiya asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I didn't ask. I was too surprised to learn that she knew anything. He always said he never told anyone, not even his wife.\"\n\n\"Not even his wife,\" Okiya repeated. \"How long have you worked in the floating world, and you don't remember that men always lie?\"\n\nSilence stretched out between them. A page turned, and then another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a minute or so Okiya said, \"Worse things could have happened. We have another partner. At least this one won't be spoiling virgin girls like her father did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's one expense I'll be glad to do without,\" Mayuri agreed, \"and I suppose he did get his interest rightfully. I should have known that girl was an assassin. Her contract came far too cheaply.\"\n\n\"That was years ago,\" Okiya said. \"You can forgive yourself now.\"\n\n\"It cost part of your interest as well as mine,\" Mayuri said. \"That's what I regret.\"\n\n\"All this talk isn't getting your ledgers finished,\" Okiya replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to have some tea before I sleep. Would you like some?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, thank you.\"\n\nA kimono rustled and footsteps approached the cupboard.\n\n\"I'll use the big pot.\"\n\nOkiya stood on the opposite side of the cupboard door. Hiro heard her hand touch the panel. The door rattled on its tracks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On second thought, I think I'll just finish these ledgers and get to sleep,\" Mayuri said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I stay up for tea, I won't be sharp tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Okiya asked.\n\n\"Yes, thank you. No tea for me tonight.\"\n\n\"All right.\" Okiya's voice moved away from the door. She yawned. \"I'll use the little pot in the kitchen instead.\n\n\"I wish Sayuri didn't have to take the blame for Hideyoshi's murder,\" Okiya added from the doorway. \"I'm sure she didn't do it.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better her than us,\" Mayuri said.\n\n\"Better still to see real justice.\"\n\nThe room fell silent except for the rustle of ledger pages and, once, the grinding of an ink stick against the well.\n\nHiro sat on the blankets and thought through the facts again. He reconstructed the night Hideyoshi died, placing each of the relevant suspects in their places. Slowly, the bits and pieces became a whole, though the answer was not the one he expected, or even the one that seemed so accurate earlier in the evening.\n\nBy the time Mayuri put away her ledgers, Hiro knew who killed the samurai." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! 3 sentences more. match character knowledge. Western Romance pls" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Max only had moments to decide her fate—if she could stop panicking long enough to think." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Degan obviously wanted her, so why couldn't she turn this to her advantage and make a deal with him, her virginity for her freedom? She scrambled over the bed to stand on the other side to give herself a few more seconds. Could she do it without his realizing how scared she was?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had to at least try.\n\nShe took a deep breath. \"I can undress myself,\" she said with a flirtatious smile as she cocked her hip and began unbuttoning her shirt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He raised an eyebrow at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're going to try that again?\"\n\nMax froze and felt her cheeks turning red. She was so embarrassed she'd misinterpreted his intentions that she was actually speechless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The bath is for you,\" he continued as if he hadn't noticed how mortified she was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can get undressed behind the screen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All this over a bath she would love to have?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he had to have a reason and not the one she'd mistakenly presumed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why do you want me cleaned up? Are you afraid you won't get the reward if you turn me in dirty?\"\n\n\"Have you looked in a mirror?\"\n\nShe knew how filthy she was, but she wasn't going to blush again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She lifted her chin stubbornly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not bathing with you in the room.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He started to come around the bed. She rolled across it again and ran for the screen in the corner. And gnashed her teeth when she heard him say, \"Toss your clothes out here before you get in the tub.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She yanked her boots off, leaned around the screen, and threw them at him. Only one struck him in that wide chest of his. But she caught the frown before she ducked behind the screen again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe I need to check you for weapons again.\"\n\n\"No! You don't!\"\n\nShe'd never undressed so fast, tossing each piece of clothing over the screen, even her drawers, socks, and belts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't going to give him an excuse to come back here to check that she'd done as he'd ordered. It had been over a year since she'd splurged on a room to get a decent bath. She was not going to fight him anymore over this one when she would have thanked him for it if she didn't hate him so much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually, she didn't hate him at all, she just hated that he'd caught her and was going to be the death of her.\n\nA short, narrow table was next to the little tub. It held towels and jars of creamy soap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No rough, homemade soap bars for this fine hotel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She opened one of the towels to see how big it was and snorted to herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was soft, but not even big enough to wrap around her.\n\nShe heard the door close and then the distinct sound of a key turning in the lock. She peeked around the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd actually left her alone in the room. But glancing around the room, she saw that he'd taken everything with him, their saddlebags, her clothes, even his valise, leaving her nothing but tiny towels to cover herself with. But more to the point, he'd left her nothing that she could use to make an improvised rope to aid her in escaping out the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now she knew why he'd removed perfectly clean bedding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd taken every precaution, as if he'd done this before, yet he'd said he wasn't a bounty hunter. He was just too damn smart, preparing for all possibilities. And she drew the line at running through town naked even if she could inch her way along the ledge to an open window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then, she'd probably fall and die in the attempt, so she wasn't going to try." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, she got into the tub and sank down in it with a dreamy smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At times when she'd been on the move weeks would go by before she found a decent watering hole to bathe in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There'd been a couple of ponds in the hills by her shack where she'd gotten water for her and her horse, but they weren't secluded enough to bathe in, so she'd been riding over to the big lake to the east every few days to bathe and wash her clothes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it wasn't an ideal bathing experience, especially since she had to ride back to the shack dripping wet.\n\nShe scrubbed herself from top to bottom. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd felt this clean." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'clean'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And her head! The soap that she toted around with her might get her and her clothes clean, but it irritated her scalp something fierce, so she'd stopped soaping her hair long ago. But merely dousing her head in water when she bathed didn't leave her hair feeling clean. Not like this. Already it was mostly dry, and the slightest shake of her head had her hair floating around it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She even stood up to watch it float in the oval mirror above the shaving stand. And laughed.\n\nShe was feeling a little kindly toward Degan for this gift he'd given her. Just a little—okay, maybe just not annoyed with him for the moment, though she was still wary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you fall asleep in there?\" Degan asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hearing that and her saddlebags slide across the floor toward her brought her back to the hard facts of her situation, that it was time to go—to jail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Max turned her head toward Degan's voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I was just waiting for my clothes.\" But when she saw that the bags hadn't quite made it to her side of the screen, she realized he might try to fix that and quickly yelled, \"I'll get them!\"\n\nShe stepped out of the tub, dried herself fast, and stuck just an arm around the screen to drag the bags back to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pulling out her only other set of clothes, she saw her chemise at the bottom of the bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was soft, finely made, and delicate, so she didn't wear it often, but in case they confiscated her bag at the jail she wanted to have her best clothes on her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I forgot these,\" she heard Degan say before Luella's under-garments came flying over the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She just managed to catch them before they landed in the tub of water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd forgotten, too, that he'd grabbed more than the derringer out of her coat pocket. She put the bloomers on, but she was blushing because Degan had seen how silky they were, had even held them in his hands.\n\nShe finished dressing and stepped out of the bathing corner carrying her bags and a clean pair of socks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Degan's eyes followed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't have to look at him to feel it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rest of her clothes had been laid on the stripped bed, her boots on the floor by it. She grabbed the boots and went over to a chair to put them on. She wasn't sitting on that bed for any reason." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 7 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Max sat up abruptly, disoriented for a moment and not sure what had awoken her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She usually slept soundly. Had it been a noise? If so, Degan hadn't heard it. The steady, soft sound of his breathing indicated that he was sleeping. She glanced around the camp. It was the middle of the night, and with the fire having died down, she couldn't see far.\n\nShe wondered if she should wake Degan to investigate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the horses were quiet, not making any sounds of alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it was a noise that had awoken her, whatever had caused it was already gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she shivered, feeling the cold across her chest and back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her coat had slipped down to her waist when she'd sat up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She reached for it and got the sharp reminder that her wrists were bound together. Still she tried to pull the coat up, but she was having trouble grasping it, so she stretched her hands toward the fire instead. But the breeze was coming from the east, right across the water, and blowing the heat away from her. She almost growled in frustration. She might as well be naked for all the warmth Degan's fine lawn shirt offered her in the chill of the night.\n\nShe looked at the bottle of whiskey Degan had set next to the fire. The bottle was probably warm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was in it would solve her problem—and probably make her sick. She reached for it anyway, then laughed at herself. She couldn't get the cork out of it! At least the bottle warmed her hands for a few minutes, but she was soon uncomfortably cold again.\n\nShe gazed at Degan. He looked so peaceful asleep. He didn't look at all dangerous now, just like a handsome man getting a good night's sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While she was wide-awake and shivering. He was probably toasty warm, too. And why was she still resisting? He'd made the offer.\n\nShe scooted across her blanket and snuggled against his side, careful not to wake him. Much better. He even served as a windbreak for her. But her coat got left behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now her legs were feeling the chill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to get her legs closer to his without touching him.\n\nSuddenly he rolled over. She tried to get out of the way but wasn't fast enough and ended up cocooned against his shoulder and chest. His change in sleeping position provided her with a thick arm for a pillow and availed her of more of his body heat—much more than she'd bargained for. She was about to sigh in contentment when she saw his eyes open.\n\nShe quickly said, \"My coat slid off me. I'm cold and you said I could use your body heat to warm up.\"\n\nDegan leaned over her to grab her coat and draw it across her legs before he pulled her closer to him and ran his hand over her arm and shoulder for a few minutes. \"Is that better?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I'm still cold.\"\n\nHe moved his hand to her back and stroked her there. \"Are you warm now?\"\n\n\"That's a little better.\"\n\nHe leaned down and kissed her. His mouth was warm and gentle on hers. She was amazed that such a dangerous, un-emotional gunfighter could kiss so gently yet passionately and stir her up so quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you getting warm now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked against her lips.\n\nMax didn't answer immediately because she was reveling in the delicious sensations that his kiss and his nearness were evoking in her. \"That seems to be working, but maybe you should try it again.\"\n\nHe did and began unbuttoning her shirt, too. She started to touch him, but it only brought her bound hands up between them. He paused to untie her without being asked. As soon as she was loose, he was kissing her again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This wasn't a quick wildfire of passion like the one that had sprung up between them that afternoon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This slow, steady burn seemed to grow hotter and hotter. Yet the same powerful feelings were evoked, that unwinding deep inside her, the sudden racing of blood that made her almost giddy. He even dragged her leg over his as he pressed her even closer. Yet the kissing was gentle! Open, deep, but a slow, tantalizing exploration for both of them. He wasn't taking, he was giving. Her heart still pounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She raised a hand to his head and ran her fingers through his hair.\n\nAnother thing that thrilled her about his kisses was that they weren't spontaneous. They were deliberate, controlled, which meant he wouldn't stop. He would leave that to her. How surprised would he be when she didn't?\n\nHis hand was moving briskly along her thigh, over her derriere, even up her back as he kept trying to warm her. He was succeeding—he'd already succeeded with his kisses—but that wasn't the only effect his touch was having on her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even through the thin fabric of the shirt she was wearing, the movements of his hand over her body felt more like caresses, an intimate stroking that was arousing her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're warm now,\" he said against her lips. \"Shall I stop?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She moved on top of him in answer, her thighs on either side of his hips. He didn't know yet that she had no drawers on under his shirt. She'd hung her wet ones on the other side of the bush so he wouldn't see them. But what she felt because of that lack of clothing was amazing. A rock-hard bulge was underneath her. She couldn't resist rubbing against it.\n\nHer hands on his neck, her fingers teasing just below his ears, she continued to kiss him much more intensely now, with passion ignited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hands slipped under the shirt to find her bare skin, creating shockingly sweet, wonderfully hot sensations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She moaned against his mouth as his hands cupped each of her breasts, kneaded them, making them tingle, making her nipples peak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She pressed even harder against him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Breath caught in her throat as the tension built within her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But suddenly he was holding her face in his hands, forcing her to look down at him. His eyes were turbulent, his voice raspy. \"Do you know what's going to happen if this doesn't stop?\"\n\n\"Show me,\" she whispered.\n\nWith a groan he turned her over onto her back, settled between her legs, and fought with his pants, quickly removing them. Then that hardness was pressing against her for entry, tantalizing her, teasing her, the most amazing thing just out of her reach.\n\nShe raised her legs and hooked her ankles together behind his back and pressed them against him, drawing him even closer to her. \"Show me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slid inside her. It was as if she were shattered and made whole, broken but now complete. Then he started thrusting within her. Nothing had ever felt so right—or so explosive. It happened within moments, a wave of sweet, hot pleasure that engulfed her whole body, rising up, overflowing, pulsing. She was pretty sure she yelled. She definitely held on to his shoulders tightly, moving with him, not letting go until he felt what she'd felt or something equally amazing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Feeling all of his weight on her for a moment told her he did. She melted like jelly then, her limbs sliding off him, a smile on her lips, ecstatic and proud.\n\nFolks shouldn't keep stuff like this such a secret, she thought. Luella had tried to tell her that being with a man could be real nice, but that was such an inadequate description for something this blissful.\n\nHe rolled to the side but took her with him, so she ended up half-draped across his chest. She reached behind her for her coat and pulled it over her legs. She was sure she wouldn't need more than that now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She almost told him that he made a nice furnace, but that would make her laugh." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anything she said right now might make her laugh. She was feeling that good. And his silence was nice for once. She didn't mind it at all." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "CONTINUE STORY. PARAMETERS: 4 sentences sentences, character continuity, Western Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Max rode hard to catch up with Degan. She tried to assure herself that he couldn't be hurt bad if he could ride. He was sitting up straight in the saddle, his shoulders squared as usual. If she hadn't seen the blood on the ground, she wouldn't think anything was wrong with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, that wasn't true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His abrupt departure was odd. She would have thought that he'd want to take Willie Nolan's body back to Bismarck to prove he was dead. But she supposed sending the sheriff back this way would suffice. Jackson, that coward, could lead the sheriff back here—if she didn't shoot the man first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd led them to Nolan's lair to be slaughtered, and they might have been killed if that kid Jimmy hadn't reacted to Nolan's shooting his brother the way he did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rode a little ahead of Degan so she could look back at him, but she couldn't tell where he'd been wounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw no expression of pain on his face, either. Would a man who never showed his feelings show that he was in pain? He hadn't put his jacket back on and his vest was made of black silk. If blood was on it, she might not see it at a glance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So she reined up and simply asked him, \"How bad are you hurt?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not so bad that I can't ride.\"\n\nThat should have reassured her. It didn't, not when she'd been hoping he hadn't been shot at all. \"Stop and let me have a look.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" A moment later he added, \"If I get off this horse, I might not get back on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That meant he was badly hurt. A debilitating wave of fear washed over her.\n\n\"We should go back to that ranch house. It will only take a few minutes. They've got to have a bed in there. You need a bed!\"\n\n\"No, I need to get to town. So stop taxing me with your prattle and ride.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took off ahead of her at a gallop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he was so hell-bent on getting to town, then he knew he was hurt bad enough to need a doctor. But town was more than a day's ride away. Could he make it that far? Not if he was still bleeding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he slowed down again, he was no longer sitting quite so erect in the saddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him sway a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're not going to faint, are you?\" she demanded sharply. He gave her a nasty look, so she quickly said, \"I meant pass out.\"\n\n\"If I do, you can find your way back to town, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I'm not leaving you alone out here, so don't even—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You may not have a choice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Panic was rising up in her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't be seriously wounded. Not Degan. What could she do to help him? She'd never had to deal with anything like a bullet wound before, just scrapes and bruises, and even then she'd had her grandmother's full arsenal of salves and cure-alls at her disposal. And Gran's knowledge. Gran knew how to fix anything!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That trapper Artemus Gains can help,\" she said desperately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He can take the bullet out of you. He might even have some sort of medicine for emergencies, something to ease the pain at least.\"\n\n\"Who says I'm in pain?\"\n\n\"Aren't you?\"\n\n\"Not anymore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't know if that was good news or really bad news." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she guessed they were no more than an hour's ride from the trapper's cabin, which was on the way to town. Surely Degan could make it that far. Surely he'd agree to stop there. But thirty minutes later he swayed again, this time so far to the side she was afraid he'd already passed out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Degan!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" he growled.\n\n\"I thought you—never mind.\"\n\n\"Start prattling again, Max.\"\n\n\"We're almost to that cabin. Don't fall off your horse, damnit!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She asked him a dozen inane questions, anything that would require an answer from him, and snapped at him when he didn't give one fast enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every time he swayed to the left or the right now, her heart leapt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wouldn't be able to stop him from falling, but she knew if he did, he could end up hurting himself even more.\n\nFrantically she said, \"Hold on, Degan. The cabin is in sight now. Just a little farther, then you can faint all you want to.\"\n\n\"I don't—faint.\"\n\nHe stayed on his horse long enough to reach the cabin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But by then he was leaning over the palomino's neck. Max dismounted quickly and yelled, \"Mr. Gains! I could use some help out here!\"\n\nBut Jackson Bouchard opened the door. He didn't ask what had happened, just went straight to Degan, got him off the horse, and lugged him into the cabin and dropped him on the trapper's bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Degan made what sounded like a groan." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'degan' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Max pushed Jackson away and hissed at him, \"You couldn't be gentle about it?\"\n\nJackson shrugged. \"He was about to—he's already passed out.\"\n\nShe peered at Degan. Jackson was right. Degan had lost consciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could see the blood now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The left side of his vest and his pants were soaked in it. She grabbed one of Artemus's blankets and tucked it underneath Degan to absorb the blood.\n\nWhen she turned, Jackson was handing her a small pouch. \"For the wound. An old Indian recipe from my grandmother. She was one of two women my grandfather traded for when he came down from Canada.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not interested in your family history.\"\n\n\"It draws out poisons.\"\n\n\"Degan's not poisoned.\"\n\nHe shrugged again. \"She said it helps infections, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Max didn't take it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't trust Jackson. She was furious at him, knowing that Degan might not be wounded right now if this man had stayed to help instead of running off like a coward.\n\n\"Where's the trapper?\"\n\nJackson tossed the pouch on the foot of the narrow bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Artie took off for town as soon as I returned. He'll probably be gone a week or more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded toward the door. \"You can take off, too. I'll watch his place for him.\"\n\n\"I promised—\"\n\nShe drew her gun on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get. Your friends are dead.\"\n\nHe picked up his gear. \"They weren't my friends.\"\n\n\"But you were working for them, weren't you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't phrase it as a question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shrugged once more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They paid good for information. Too good not to take it—at first. But then they killed someone in one of those train robberies. After that, I tried to end the arrangement, but Nolan said they'd hunt me down.\"\n\n\"There was a reward. Why didn't you just lead the law to them?\"\n\n\"Because they said they'd take me down with them. I didn't want to end up on the run for doing a stupid thing just because I needed the money.\"\n\nShe raised a brow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So you hoped Degan would solve that problem for you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't he?\"\n\n\"You should have helped.\"\n\n\"I don't kill people, good or bad. Never have, never will.\"\n\n\"What about saving them? He needs a doctor. Is there one closer than Bismarck?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, and he won't last long enough for the Bismarck doc to get here, if the doc's even in town.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shouldn't have bothered to ask when the man couldn't be trusted. \"Ride out. Your secret is safe with me. And Degan was only after Willie Nolan, so he won't care.\"\n\n\"Come with me?\"\n\nShe cocked her gun. He closed the door on the way out." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "CONTINUE STORY. PARAMETERS: 4 sentences sentences, character continuity, Western Romance genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That afternoon Degan opened his eyes a couple of times but quickly fell back to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Max considered that a good thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sleep would help his body heal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she had a lot to do. She found the trapdoor to a root cellar behind the shed. More dried and salted meat was in it than vegetables, which wasn't surprising considering Artemus's occupation. He would have told Jackson to help himself to the stored food, but she had to feed two, so she would replace some of the meat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But for now, she took what she needed to get a stew started for dinner.\n\nShe scrubbed Degan's clothes and hung them to dry. She refilled the water trough behind the cabin where the trapper obviously kept his horse when he was home. He'd even erected a rickety partial roof over it that would only half cover an animal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was the point of that? Just to keep snow out of the trough in winter? Or maybe he'd just run out of wood to extend it. A long leather tether was attached to the cabin so the horse could graze on the grass back there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She needed two, so she fashioned one for her horse out of Degan's ropes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She left the animals unsaddled and rubbed down back there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pond was just beyond the trees, but still quite a distance down the edge of the woods in the direction of Bismarck. She almost hadn't noticed it yesterday when they'd ridden in with Jackson. This morning she'd hoped to slip away and bathe in it, but she wasn't the first one up so she couldn't manage it. She did that now, and to heck with scaring off the wild animals that drank at the pond." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With Degan out cold, no neighbors for miles, and, more important, no riders passing by this way, she stripped down for the bath. Then castigated herself for it afterward. The boy Jimmy might be coming this way to get to Bismarck after he buried his brother. Jackson might sneak back this way, too, for whatever reason." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And she didn't know what was on the other side of the woods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There might be dwellings there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She decided to find out for herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dressed again, and with just her rifle, she headed deeper into the woods. With the trapper expecting Jackson to return so he could leave to do his visiting, she figured he had probably removed any traps he had laid in the woods. Still she stepped carefully in case he hadn't. The last thing she needed was to get stuck with a trap on her foot that she couldn't open without help." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'quail' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A lot of small animals were in the woods, but no signs of any deer. She took careful aim at a plump quail. She'd throw it in the cellar for lunch tomorrow. The other quail scattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She searched for their eggs and used her bandanna as a sack to carry four of them. She saw a family of wild turkeys, too, but she steered clear of them. Plucking birds that big was tedious, and wild ones usually had tough meat.\n\nShe didn't reach the other side of the woods since it stretched farther than she'd figured and was far deeper than it was wide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she could see no other dwellings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She picked berries on the way back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Artemus had anything sweet to cook with, she could make a sauce for the quail with the berries—if she didn't eat them all before she reached the cabin.\n\nAlthough the sun would be setting soon, Degan was still sleeping. She stopped by the bed, moved a lock of his hair off his brow, and just gazed at him for a few minutes. The man was too handsome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even laid low like this, nothing about him was unappealing. He'd scared the heck out of her today, taking that bullet. She didn't like what it had made her feel. But they would be parting ways eventually." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would he return home to Chicago where the beautiful Allison lived, now that he knew Allison wanted him to return?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Max didn't like that thought either and thrust it away.\n\nShe'd only covered him to his hips with the sheet. Without any salve she was leery of bandaging the wound even though she winced whenever she looked at the blackened skin around it. But the cauterizing had worked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wound had stopped bleeding, although a lot of dried blood was on his side.\n\nShe wet a cloth and warmed it in her hands before she dabbed at the dried blood. She did it slowly and carefully so she wouldn't wake Degan. Nonetheless, he stirred. He even started to sit up before dropping back to the pillow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'needle' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the hell?\"\n\nMax winced at the accusing tone. He'd lifted his head high enough to get a look at his charred flesh.\n\nShe quickly said, \"I looked for a needle and thread, I really did. Tore through this place and your bags. I almost carved a needle from wood, even started to, until I realized you might get splinters from it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His gaze swiftly shifted to her. \"You're joking, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She grinned. \"Yeah.\"\n\n\"It still sounds like I put you to a lot of trouble. You should have just fetched a doctor.\"\n\n\"I thought about it. But it would have taken two days, getting there and back. I'm pretty sure you would've bled out by then.\"\n\nShe glanced back at the wounded area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd tried to press the blade only against the bullet hole, but she'd still burned about an inch of skin on either side of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't suppose it's still numb?\" she asked hopefully.\n\n\"Still?\"\n\n\"On the way here you said you didn't feel any pain. That really worried me.\"\n\n\"Not something you need to be concerned with now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She winced again, imagining the pain he was experiencing, and turned toward the fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Food's hot if you think you can sit up a little to eat it. Or I suppose I could spoon-feed you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He snorted. That was a reassuring sound and one he'd never before made in her presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It figured he'd let down his guard a little in his weakened condition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She brought him a bowl of stew and dug into his food sack for the remaining bread so Degan could dip it into the stew. She needed to go through Artemus's supplies to see if he had the fixings for more bread, or if he just existed on meat, fruit, and wild vegetables as she'd been doing. She'd seen a lot of mushrooms and dandelions in the woods. She could bring some of those back tomorrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Degan had managed to sit up a little to eat, leaning back against the wall behind the bed with just a pillow to cushion him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bed had no headboard and just a box frame, but at least he had a mattress. It was better than the floor, which is where she would be sleeping. She had no idea how long it would take for him to recover and be able to ride again. But he was a strong, healthy man, so maybe no more than a week or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just seeing him sitting up holding a bowl of stew made her happy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She got another bowl of stew for herself and dragged the one chair over to the bed so she could eat with Degan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At least he had an appetite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was a good sign, she supposed.\n\n\"What did you put in this?\"\n\nShe grinned. Conversation! \"Plantain, mushrooms, and dried rabbit meat, so don't expect it to be tender. I'll take stock of what's here and make something fresher tomorrow. Already have quail soup planned for lunch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You went hunting?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not really. I was just scouting out the woods a little. But I surprised some quail. Got one before they all scattered.\" Then she took a chance that his guard was down enough for him to talk about himself some. \"You think your lady friend has given up on you and gone back home?\"\n\n\"She's not a friend—anymore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But she used to be?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'siblings' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My siblings and I grew up with her.\"\n\nHis tone had turned frigid, so she steered away from his old friend Allison. \"How many siblings do you have?\"\n\n\"My sister died in her teens. It's just my brother, Flint, and me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'doesn't' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he anything like you?\"\n\n\"No, we're nothing alike. We never were.\"\n\n\"So Flint laughs, smiles, and doesn't end up killing folks in his line of work?\"\n\nShe said it with a smile so he'd know she was just teasing, but he still gave her a nasty look. \"He doesn't work.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"Are you trying to rile me up by asking about my family?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, that's right, your family lives in the big city and is rich. What does that make him, a pampered do-nothing?\"\n\n\"Are you trying to rile me up by asking about my family?\"\n\n\"No, I just have no idea what that sort of life is like. It sounds boring. Is it? Is that why you came West?\"\n\nHe didn't answer that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She supposed he found his brother a more palatable subject because he said, \"Flint is a charmer. He could survive on that alone, rich or not. He'd make an excellent politician if he had any ambition, but our father never pushed him in that direction.\"\n\n\"So you were groomed to take over, as you said, but he wasn't?\"\n\n\"He should have been, but, no, he wasn't. Which my father probably regrets now.\"\n\n\"Tell me about your father and why you hate him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't hate him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You just don't care about him one way or the other?\"\n\n\"We merely had a falling out.\"\n\n\"About?\"\n\nHe didn't answer, merely handed her his empty bowl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She headed to the door and the water barrel outside, so she barely heard him say, \"He asked something of me that I wasn't willing to do. He was adamant, but so was I. That's why I left.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just like that? Max thought, perplexed. What kind of disagreement between a father and a son could be powerful enough to make a man turn his back on wealth and privilege—and everything he'd been groomed for?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help with this chapter? 12 sentences more sentences, Johanna Lindsey-style, Western Romance genre. some context might be from earlier" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'around'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In case you were wondering, I think your chatter is charming,\" Degan said with his usual deadpan expression as they walked away from the train station.\n\nMax burst out laughing. The remark definitely eased her tension. She wasn't sure how Degan was going to get them out of this mess, but he must have something planned.\n\n\"I have your horse,\" he added.\n\nShe squealed in delight and threw her arms around him again. He put his arms around her and squeezed her briefly, maybe a little too tightly, then let her go. His hands didn't leave her though. They lingered on her waist. She liked the way they felt there. But she knew Grady was behind them, had begun following them the moment they'd left the train station. Degan was just putting on a show for him, no doubt, trying to convince him they were a happy couple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he couldn't appear too affectionate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had his reputation to maintain, after all.\n\nWhen they started walking again, she thought to ask, \"How'd you get my horse back?\"\n\n\"Bouchard was happy to return him.\"\n\n\"Happy?\"\n\n\"He felt obliged. Also felt obliged to tell me Grady was so desperate to get out of Bismarck he took the early westbound train.\"\n\nShe grinned, but then groaned in disappointment. \"But you couldn't bring Noble with you, could you? If you took the stage to get here as fast as you did, you couldn't have brought our horses along. They wouldn't have had a chance to sleep.\"\n\n\"The stage driver solved that dilemma. He suggested attaching a wagon bed to the back of the coach. He'd done it before, just not for such a long distance. But it worked. The wagon only needed to be replaced once because it wasn't as sturdy as the coach. And since I bought all the seats in the coach, there wasn't a lot of extra weight for the stage horses to pull.\"\n\nMax was amazed that he'd gone to so much trouble and expense for her. It smacked of his being desperate, yet she couldn't imagine Degan Grant desperate.\n\n\"I really didn't think you'd get here in time because I was sure you wouldn't leave your palomino behind. I'm glad you figured out a way not to.\"\n\n\"We'll visit Noble after I have a bath.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The church was in sight now and he was leading her toward it. \"You were just kidding, right?\"\n\nDegan merely said, \"I'd like to know what all my options are.\"\n\nThey entered a plain, little church with a white steeple, but no one was there. Max sighed with relief until Degan took her hand and led her to the house next door. Max heard women talking and laughing inside.\n\nDegan's knock on the door was answered by an older woman, whose eyes widened at the sight of him. \"Is this the preacher's house?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is, but he's not home right now. I'm his wife. Perhaps I can help you?\"\n\nTwo of the woman's friends had joined her at the door. One held knitting needles and a spool of yarn in her hands. They'd apparently interrupted a sewing circle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need the preacher to perform a marriage ceremony,\" Degan explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your names?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Degan Grant and Maxine Dawson.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman's eyes widened even further, and one of her friends whispered something in her ear. The woman then smiled at Degan. \"My husband should be home by five o'clock. I'm sure he'll be able to oblige.\"\n\n\"That's fine, as long as he can marry us before sundown.\"\n\nMax knew Degan added that for the benefit of Grady and Saul, who were still following them at a discreet distance. Max and Degan continued on to find a hotel. Max directed Degan away from the one she'd stayed at the previous night with Grady and Saul. Degan ordered bathwater. In their room, he sat down to read the guardianship decree. Grady had asked him to give it back, but Degan had ignored him. It was nice to know she wasn't the only person Degan ignored.\n\nBut it was too bad his bluff had been called. He wouldn't have been expecting that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She moved to the window and saw Grady standing across the street watching the entrance to the hotel. Saul was probably around back doing the same thing. She and Degan wouldn't be getting out of there before dark without being seen and stopped.\n\nWhen Degan set the document aside after reading it, she asked, \"Are you going to find a judge to verify that? Is that why you kept it?\"\n\n\"I studied law at the college in Chicago at my father's insistence. He wanted me to be capable of dealing with his lawyers as well as the ones they dealt with.\" Degan waved a hand at the document. \"I don't doubt that the document is legitimate. But Carl Bingham's means of obtaining it probably wasn't.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Bingham Hills doesn't have a resident judge, just a circuit judge that comes by from time to time. He always stayed with the Binghams. Grady is in Carl's pocket, the judge probably is, too.\"\n\n\"Whether he is or whether he merely did his 'host' a favor is irrelevant. The document needs to be negated, and it specifically states what will do that, your reaching the age of twenty-one or your marrying. So we get married today.\"\n\n\"But you weren't serious about that!\"\n\n\"I am now.\"\n\n\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's the safest way to get you back to Texas and find out why Carl Bingham is so determined to control you. Don't worry, it doesn't have to be a marriage in every sense of the word, merely one of legal convenience. I haven't forgotten your prerequisite for marriage—some good, happy reasons I believe you said. Besides, there are ways to get 'unmarried' after we find out what's going on in Bingham Hills.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're talking about an annulment?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe tapped the document with his finger. \"This is just another means of getting you under their control. What needs to happen is for Bingham to stop coveting whatever prize it is that you can bring him. The prize needs to become unavailable to him.\"\n\n\"So if I'm already married, that ends it?\"\n\n\"It should.\"\n\n\"Or it makes you a target instead,\" she couldn't help pointing out.\n\nBut she was incredulous to see him actually smile at that prediction. \"I've been a target for a number of years now. I'm used to it.\"\n\nBut she wasn't used to him being one. But the temporary marriage could work, she supposed. Until now she would have been easy to manipulate if either of Carl's schemes had worked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he'd have to deal with Degan now, and men dealt with each other differently from how they dealt with women. Carl would have to be more cautious.\n\nThe water arrived. Degan suggested she bathe first behind the screen while he shaved. He also told her to open his food sack. No food was in it, but she was happy to find her belongings that she'd left at the cabin, including the floral-patterned skirt and white blouse that Degan had bought for her, which she could wear to the church that afternoon.\n\nThey had lunch at a restaurant nearby, where Grady and Saul sat down at another table. Those two weren't even trying to hide their surveillance. Degan didn't appear to mind. Max felt he was even amused by it when he said, \"Maybe I should invite them to join us.\"\n\nHe didn't, but he extended their lunch another hour with coffee and a second helping of dessert to see if the lawmen would leave first. They didn't.\n\nAfter the long lunch they stopped at the telegraph office. Degan explained about having to keep Marshal Hayes apprised of the outlaws who could be removed from his list, including her, now that the charges had been dropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd sent John news about Kid Cade before they'd left for Dakota, but he hadn't had time until now to let him know that Willie Nolan and his gang wouldn't be robbing any more trains. Then Max was delighted when Degan took her to the stable to visit Noble.\n\nThe gelding appeared to have weathered the trip fine. So had Degan. She'd asked about his wound when he was bathing—and she was trying to keep her mind off it. He'd assured her it caused him barely a twinge now, but she doubted that he would tell her if he was still in pain.\n\nWhen it was nearing five o'clock, they continued on to the church. Max started having doubts about what they were about to do, and those doubts grew stronger when the church came into view.\n\n\"Are you sure you want to do this?\" she asked Degan.\n\n\"I told you, it's just a temporary measure—and it avoids bloodshed.\"\n\nHe'd shoot Grady for her? Well, not shoot to kill, but he probably wouldn't hesitate to disable him.\n\nThis certainly wasn't the way Max had pictured getting hitched, with no family present and a gun on the groom's hip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it wasn't real—well, it was, just not real enough to last. She had to keep that uppermost in her mind—and forget how much this felt like a shotgun wedding.\n\nThey couldn't miss the crowd of people outside the church, but didn't understand what was going on until they got closer and heard someone shout, \"There he is! There's the famous gunfighter who's getting married today!\"\n\nPeople in the crowd were craning their necks to get a look at Degan and his bride. Max realized Degan was a celebrity to these people after his recent gunfight with Jacob Reed in this town. Even Deputy Barnes was there. Max was stunned by the turnout. Degan seemed annoyed by it and forged ahead, trying to get them inside the church.\n\nBut then the reason why they were there stepped forward with his sidekick. \"Hold up,\" Grady said to Degan. \"It's occurred to me that you probably need her guardian's permission for this.\"\n\nDegan turned and drew his gun. \"No, I don't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crowd gasped and stepped back in unison, but no one left, every eye avidly on Degan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grady didn't back down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saul, white-faced, tried to drag him away, but Grady seemed rooted in place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which might be why Degan added, \"I'm doing exactly what you requested, Sheriff Pike, marrying Max before sunset. And it's going to happen right now—one way or another.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The threat was implicit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It looked as if Grady wanted to say more, but the crowd was suddenly applauding Degan. Max almost laughed. Grady had been a sheriff for so long; he wasn't used to having his dictates, or suggestions, for that matter, ignored. But Bingham Hills was a peaceful town. No one like Degan had ever passed through it. Grady was simply out of his depth in dealing with a gunfighter of this caliber. And he'd certainly never experienced a crowd swayed against him like this, either.\n\nDespite Grady's sour expression, Degan considered the matter settled and escorted Max into the church. Grady and Saul still followed them and pushed their way into a front pew between two women already seated there. One of the women was dabbing at her eyes, exclaiming to everyone around her, \"I just love weddings!\"\n\nThe church quickly filled with people eager to watch the ceremony. Degan shook hands with the preacher, who introduced himself, and then asked, \"Why the sudden rush for a wedding, Mr. Grant?\"\n\n\"My bride has been tied up for the past week; now she's free.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Degan glanced back at Grady as he said that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Max had to bite back a laugh when she saw Grady turn red with fury.\n\nThe preacher, unaware of the byplay, began the ceremony. \"We're here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony. If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace.\"\n\nMax held her breath, refusing to look at Grady. If he said anything now, she might shoot him herself. But she heard the tussle behind them and glanced back. Grady had stood up, but the two women sitting next to him had yanked him back down.\n\nThe preacher didn't notice this and continued, \"You have the rings?\"\n\nDegan didn't reply. Max groaned to herself, catching Grady's smirk because the wedding was going to stop right now. Of course Degan didn't have rings for them. She hadn't thought of it either!\n\nBut then an elderly man stood up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My wife and I are happy to lend you ours for the ceremony. There's fifty years of good luck in these rings.\"\n\nA collective sigh of relief was released from the crowd, Max's included. While this marriage might not be real, she found herself wanting it to happen more than anything. To put an end to Carl's plans, she assured herself. Then why was she so thrilled when she heard Degan saying his vows?\n\n\"I, Degan Grant, take you, Maxine Dawson, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part.\"\n\nAfter she repeated those vows to Degan, they were pronounced man and wife, and Degan quickly kissed her. Goodness, she could hear all the old ladies gushing over that! Then they got another surprise.\n\n\"My wife and her friends would like you to come out back if you would,\" the preacher said. \"Please don't disappoint her or I'll never hear the end of it. Follow me.\"\n\nThe last was said quite loudly, an invitation extended to the whole gathering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Degan and Max saw why when they stepped out of the church's back door." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'everyone' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tables laden with food had been set up in the yard and fiddlers were starting to play. The church ladies had made a party for them!\n\nMax was touched by these strangers' thoughtfulness and generosity, and delighted, too. She'd thought her wedding was going to feel as fake as it was intended to be, but it certainly didn't now. Everyone was talking and laughing, and having fun—well, everyone except Grady. Max even caught him getting his hand slapped by one of the women when he reached for a plate of food. Because he'd been set on obstructing the union of the happy couple, no one there was pleased by his presence.\n\nThat's when he came over to her and Degan. Max hoped it was to say good-bye, since he obviously wasn't welcome there and knew it, but she should have known better. With no congratulations, no surprise that they'd actually gone through with it, and still looking extremely disgruntled, he just asked if they would be on the train in the morning.\n\n\"Usually I take offense when someone calls me a liar, Sheriff Pike.\"\n\nGrady started to assure him, \"I didn't—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'going' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it's my wedding day, so I'll make an exception. I already told you we were going to Texas. Your doubting me is the same thing as calling me a liar.\"\n\n\"You didn't say when you were going,\" Grady grumbled in his defense.\n\n\"Because it's irrelevant, and in point of fact it stopped being any concern of yours the moment Max was pronounced my wife. However, I assume she would rather visit her family than go on a honeymoon right away, so in all likelihood we will start south in the morning. But do us both a favor and don't question me again.\"\n\nMax thought that watching Grady get his hands tied like that was such a nice wedding gift. It was a wonder she didn't laugh out loud. But she didn't doubt that Grady and Saul would still follow them all the way to Texas, despite what Degan had said to Grady. He was too devoted to Carl Bingham and his interests not to.\n\nThe merriment continued. Max was sure everyone there had already come forward to congratulate them, but then someone else did. And she heard Degan say, \"Well, I'll be damned.\"\n\nShe stared at the man approaching Degan with his hand extended. He was tall and handsome with black hair and powder-blue eyes. She whispered, \"You know him?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory inclusion (with quotes): I'm surprised. He really hated having that arranged marriage hanging over his head. I figured it wasn't going to happen unless he was dragged kicking and screaming to the altar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The question got answered when the man reached them and introduced himself, \"I'm Morgan Callahan.\"\n\n\"I guessed as much.\" Degan shook the man's hand.\n\n\"Yeah, Hunter and I hear that a lot, how much we look alike. Congratulations on your wedding, but please tell me you're not here because of me.\"\n\n\"I'm not, but why would you think so?\"\n\n\"I heard from some miners here that you were working for my father. I know he hates that I prefer mining to working with my family on the ranch.\"\n\n\"That's between you and Zachary—and it's not why he hired me.\"\n\n\"So it's true? You actually brought about my brother's marriage to the Warren girl?\"\n\n\"I'd say Hunter managed that on his own.\"\n\n\"I'm surprised. He really hated having that arranged marriage hanging over his head. I figured it wasn't going to happen unless he was dragged kicking and screaming to the altar.\"\n\n\"Believe me, nothing would have kept Hunter away from that wedding. You'll understand why when you meet his wife.\"\n\nMorgan smiled. \"I'm sorry I missed all the fun, but I struck it rich and will be going home for a visit as soon as I settle a dispute with a rival lady miner. And, no, I'm not asking if I can hire you! But maybe I can kiss this bride since I missed kissing my brother's new wife?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not a chance.\" Degan put his arm around Max's waist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Max wasn't sure if Degan was serious or if this was just his way of joking, but Morgan laughed, insisting, \"I'm not like Hunter, who charms every woman in sight! But I'm not going to argue with the notorious Degan Grant, either. Have a happy marriage, you two.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Morgan sauntered off, one of the ladies was bold enough to come over and tell Degan to dance with his wife. Wide-eyed, Max was afraid of his reaction to that. But he surprised her by leading her to join the other couples dancing next to the musicians. A Western rendition of a waltz was being played. It was faster than a traditional waltz but not as boisterous as most of the fiddlers' music had been. The tempo slowed a little as they started dancing, and Degan pulled Max close enough that she could rest her head on his shoulder. Her smile turned dreamy. And then she yawned—and laughed at herself.\n\n\"You're tired,\" he said, having heard it.\n\nShe'd been through a lot this last week as Grady's prisoner and experiencing the emotional roller coaster of being reunited with Degan and becoming his wife, even if in name only. \"A little,\" she admitted.\n\n\"Let's go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "For once she didn't object to those two words." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amid lots of good wishes and happy tears from the ladies who loved weddings and a comment from the preacher's wife about how this celebrity wedding had tripled the size of the church's congregation, Degan led a sleepy Max back to the hotel." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ six sentences more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorkosigan woke about three hours before dawn, and made her lie down to snatch a couple hours sleep. In the gray before sunup he roused her again. He had evidently bathed in the stream, and used the single-application packet of depilitory he had been saving in his belt to wipe away the itchy four-day growth on his face.\n\n\"I need some help with this leg. I want to open and drain it and cover it back up. That will hold until this afternoon, and after that it won't matter.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nVorkosigan stripped off boot and sock, and Cordelia had him hold his leg under a rushing spout at the edge of the waterfall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rinsed his combat knife, then laid open the grossly swollen wound in a deep, quick stroke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vorkosigan went white around the lips, but said nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Cordelia who winced. The cut squirted blood and pus and odd-smelling clotted matter which the stream washed away. She tried not to think about what new microbes they might be introducing by the procedure. It only needed to be a temporary palliative.\n\nShe packed the wound with the last of the tube of his rather ineffective antibiotic, and stripped out the tube of plastic bandage to cover it.\n\n\"It feels better.\" But Vorkosigan stumbled and almost fell when he attempted to walk normally. \"Right,\" he muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The time has come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ceremoniously, he removed the last painkiller and a small blue pill from his first-aid kit, swallowed them, and threw the empty case away. Cordelia somewhat absently picked it up, found herself with no place to put it, and surreptitiously dropped it again.\n\n\"These things work great,\" he told her, \"until they give out, when you fall down like a marionette with the strings cut. I'm good for about sixteen hours now.\"\n\nIndeed, by the time they'd finished the field rations and readied Dubauer for the day's march, he looked not merely normal, but fresh and rested and full of energy. Neither referred to the previous night's conversation.\n\nHe led them in a wide arc around the mountain's base, so that by noon they were approaching the cratered side from nearly due west." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They made their way through woods and glades to a spur opposite a great bowl that was all that remained of the lower mountainside from the days before an ancient volcanic cataclysm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vorkosigan crawled out on a treeless promontory, taking care not to show himself above the tall grass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dubauer, wan and exhausted, curled up on his side in their place of concealment and fell asleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cordelia watched him until his breathing was slow and steady, then crept out beside Vorkosigan. The Barrayaran captain had his field scope out, sweeping over the hazy green amphitheater.\n\n\"There's the shuttle. They're camped in the cache caves. See that dark streak beside the long waterfall? That's the entrance.\" He lent her the scope for a closer look.\n\n\"Oh, there's somebody coming out. You can see their faces on high magnification.\"\n\nVorkosigan took back the scope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Koudelka. He's all right. But the thin man with him is Darobey, one of Radnov's spies in my communications section. Remember his face—you'll need to know when to keep your head down.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cordelia wondered if Vorkosigan's air of enjoyment was an artifact of the stimulant, or a primitive anticipation of the clash to come. His eyes seemed to gleam as he watched, counted, and calculated.\n\nHe hissed through his teeth, sounding a bit like one of the local carnivores himself. \"There's Radnov, by God! Wouldn't I like to get my hands on him. But this time I can take the Ministry men to trial. I'd like to see them try to get one of their pets out from under a bona fide charge of mutiny. The high command and the Council of Counts will be with me this time. No, Radnov, you're going to live—and regret it.\" He settled on stomach and elbows and devoured the scene.\n\nHe stiffened suddenly, and grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's time my luck changed. There's Gottyan, armed, so he must be in charge. We're nearly home. Come on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They crept back to the cloaking shelter of the trees. Dubauer was not where they'd left him.\n\n\"Oh, lord,\" breathed Cordelia, turning and peering into the brush in all directions. \"Which way did he go?\"\n\n\"He can't have gone far,\" reassured Vorkosigan, although he too looked worried. They each made a circle of a hundred meters or so through the woods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Idiot! Cordelia castigated herself furiously in her panic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You just had to go peek... They met back at the original spot without seeing any mark made by the wandering ensign.\n\n\"Look, we haven't the time to search for him now,\" said Vorkosigan. \"As soon as I've regained command, I'll send a patrol out to look for him. With proper search-scopes, they could find him faster than we can.\"\n\nCordelia thought of carnivores, cliffs, deep pools, Barrayaran patrols with twitchy trigger fingers. \"We've come so far,\" she began." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And if I don't regain command soon, neither of you will survive anyway.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'through' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torn, but obedient to reason, she allowed Vorkosigan to take her by the arm. Only leaning on her slightly, he picked a way down through the woods. As they neared the Barrayaran camp, he put a thick finger to his lips.\n\n\"Go as quietly as you can. I haven't come this far to be shot by one of my own pickets. Ah. Lie down here.\" He placed her in a spot behind some fallen logs and knee-high vegetation overlooking a faint new path beaten through the brush.\n\n\"You're not just going to knock on the front door?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why not, if your Gottyan is all right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because there's something else wrong. I don't know why this landing party is here.\" He meditated a moment, then handed her back the stunner. \"If you have to use a weapon, it had better be one you can handle. It still has a bit of charge—one or two shots. This path runs between sentry points, and sooner or later someone's going to come down it. Keep your head down until I call you.\"\n\nHe loosed his knife in its sheath and took a concealed position on the other side of the path. They waited a quarter of an hour, then another. The woodland drowsed in the warm, soft, white air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then down the path came the sound of boots scuffing through the leaf litter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cordelia went rigidly still, trying to peer through the weeds without raising her head. A tall form in the wonderfully effective Barrayaran camouflage fatigues resolved itself as a gray-haired officer. As he passed Vorkosigan rose from his hiding place as if resurrected.\n\n\"Korabik,\" he said softly, but with genuine warmth in his voice. He stood grinning, arms folded, waiting.\n\nGottyan spun about, one hand drawing the nerve disruptor at his hip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a beat, a look of surprise came over his face." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'vorkosigan' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aral! The landing party reported the Betans had killed you,\" and he stepped, not forward as Cordelia had expected from the tone of Vorkosigan's voice, but back. The disruptor was still in his hand as if he had forgotten to put it away, but gripped firmly, not dangling. Cordelia's stomach sank.\n\nVorkosigan looked faintly puzzled, as if disappointed by the cool, controlled reception. \"I'm glad to know you're not superstitious,\" he joked.\n\n\"I should have known better than to think you dead until I'd seen you buried with a stake through your heart,\" said Gottyan, sadly ironic.\n\n\"What's wrong, Korabik?\" asked Vorkosigan quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're no Minister's lickspittle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At these words Gottyan brought the disruptor up to undisguised aim. Vorkosigan stood very still.\n\n\"No,\" he answered frankly. \"I thought the story Radnov told about you and the Betans smelled. And I was going to make damned sure it went through a board of inquiry when we got home.\" He paused. \"But then—I would have been in command. After being acting captain for six months, I'd be sure to be confirmed. What do you think the chances of command are at my age? Five percent? Two? Zero?\"\n\n\"They're not as bad as you think,\" said Vorkosigan, still quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are some things coming up that very few people have heard about. More ships, more openings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The usual rumors,\" Gottyan dismissed this." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"Then day before yesterday that psychopathic idiot Bothari came to see me in my cabin. He gave me the real story of what happened at the Betans' camp. Surprised the hell out of me—I'd have thought he'd be delighted at a chance to slit your throat. So we came back here to practice ground training. I was sure you'd turn up sooner or later—I expected you before this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you didn't believe I was dead?\" probed Vorkosigan.\n\n\"I was sure you were. I took over—where did you put the sealed orders, by the way? We turned your cabin inside out looking for them.\"\n\nVorkosigan smiled dryly and shook his head. \"I shall not increase your temptations.\"\n\n\"No matter.\" Gottyan's aim did not waver. \"Then day before yesterday that psychopathic idiot Bothari came to see me in my cabin. He gave me the real story of what happened at the Betans' camp. Surprised the hell out of me—I'd have thought he'd be delighted at a chance to slit your throat. So we came back here to practice ground training. I was sure you'd turn up sooner or later—I expected you before this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was delayed.\" Vorkosigan shifted position slightly, away from Cordelia's line of fire toward Gottyan. \"Where's Bothari now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Solitary confinement.\"\n\nVorkosigan winced. \"That's very bad for him. I take it you didn't spread the news of my narrow escape?\"\n\n\"Not even Radnov knows. He still thinks Bothari gutted you.\"\n\n\"Smug, is he?\"\n\n\"Smug as a cat. I'd have taken great pleasure in wiping his face at the board, if only you'd had the good grace to meet with an accident on your hike.\"\n\nVorkosigan grimaced wryly. \"It seems to me you haven't quite made up your mind what you really want to do. May I suggest it is not too late, even now, to change course?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You could never overlook this,\" stated Gottyan uncertainly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'gottyan's' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In my younger and more stiff-necked days, perhaps not. But to tell you the truth, I'm getting a little tired of slaying my enemies to teach them a lesson.\" Vorkosigan raised his chin and held Gottyan's eyes. \"If you like, you can have my word. You know the worth of it.\"\n\nThe disruptor trembled slightly in Gottyan's hand, as he wavered on the edge of his decision. Cordelia, barely breathing, saw water standing in his eyes. One does not weep for the living, she thought, but for the dead; in that moment, while Vorkosigan still doubted, she knew he intended to fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She brought her stunner up, took careful aim, and squeezed off a burst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It buzzed weakly, but it was enough to bring Gottyan, head turning at the sudden movement, to his knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorkosigan pounced on the disruptor, then relieved him of his plasma arc and knocked him to the ground.\n\n\"Damn you,\" croaked Gottyan, half-paralyzed. \"Haven't you ever been outmaneuvered?\"\n\n\"If I had I wouldn't be here,\" shrugged Vorkosigan. He subjected Gottyan to a rapid search, confiscating his knife and a number of other objects. \"Who do you have posted as pickets?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sens to the north, Koudelka to the south.\"\n\nVorkosigan removed Gottyan's belt and bound his hands behind his back. \"You really did have trouble making up your mind, didn't you?\" In an aside to Cordelia he explained, \"Sens is one of Radnov's. Koudelka's mine. Rather like flipping a coin.\"\n\n\"And this was your friend?\" Cordelia raised her eyebrows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long they stand around chatting before they shoot you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" Vorkosigan agreed, \"I could take over the universe with this army if I could ever get all their weapons pointed in the same direction. Since your pants will stay up without it, Commander Naismith, may I please borrow your belt?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He finished securing Gottyan's legs with it, gagged him, then stood a moment looking up, then down the path.\n\n\"All Cretans are liars,\" murmured Cordelia, then more loudly, \"North or south?\"\n\n\"An interesting question. How would you answer it?\"\n\n\"I had a teacher who used to reflect back my questions that way. I thought it was the Socratic method, and it impressed me immensely, until I found out he used it whenever he didn't know the answer.\" Cordelia stared at Gottyan, whom they had placed in the spot that had so effectively concealed her, wondering whether his directions marked a return to loyalty or a last-ditch effort to complete Vorkosigan's botched assassination. He stared back in puzzlement and hostility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"North,\" she said reluctantly at last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She and Vorkosigan exchanged a look of understanding, and he nodded briefly.\n\n\"Come on then.\"\n\nThey started quietly up the path, over a rise and through a hollow dense with gray-green thickets. \"Have you known Gottyan long?\"\n\n\"We served together for the last four years, since my demotion. He was a good career officer, I thought. Apolitical, thorough. He has a family.\"\n\n\"Do you think you could—get him back, later?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Forgive and forget? I gave him a chance at that. He turned me down. Twice, if you're right in your choice of directions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were climbing another slope." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'laugh' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The sentry post is at the top. Whoever's there will be able to scope us in a moment. Drop back here and cover me. If you hear firing\"—he paused—\"use your initiative.\"\n\nCordelia smothered a short laugh. Vorkosigan loosened his disruptor in its holster and walked openly up the path, making plenty of noise.\n\n\"Sentry, report,\" she heard his voice call firmly.\n\n\"Nothing new since—good God, it's the Captain!\" followed by the most honestly delighted laugh she felt she'd heard in centuries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She leaned against a tree, suddenly weak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And just when was it that you stopped being afraid of him, and started being afraid for him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And why is this new fear so much more gut-wrenching than the first? You don't seem to have come out ahead on the trade, have you?\n\n\"You can come out now, Commander Naismith,\" Vorkosigan's voice carried back to her. She rounded the last stand of underbrush and climbed a grassy knoll. Camped upon it were two young men looking very neat and military in their clean fatigues. One, taller than Vorkosigan by a head, with a boy's face on a man's body, she recognized from her view through the scope as Koudelka." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was shaking his captain's hand with unabashed enthusiasm, assuring himself of its unghostly reality." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other man's hand went to his disruptor when he saw her uniform.\n\n\"We were told the Betans killed you, sir,\" he said suspiciously.\n\n\"Yes, it's a rumor I've had difficulty living down,\" said Vorkosigan. \"As you can see, it's not true.\"\n\n\"Your funeral was splendid,\" said Koudelka. \"You should have been there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Next time, perhaps.\" Vorkosigan grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh. You know I didn't mean it that way, sir. Lieutenant Radnov made the best speech.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure. He'd probably been working on it for months.\"\n\nKoudelka, a little quicker on the uptake than his companion, said \"Oh.\" His fellow merely looked puzzled.\n\nVorkosigan went on, \"Permit me to introduce Commander Cordelia Naismith, of the Betan Astronomical Survey. She is ...\" He paused, and Cordelia waited interestedly to hear what status she was to be assigned. \"Ah ...\"\n\n\"Sounds like?\" she murmured helpfully.\n\nVorkosigan closed his lips firmly, pressing a smile out straight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My prisoner,\" he chose finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"On parole. Except for access to classified areas, she is to be extended every courtesy.\"\n\nThe two young men looked impressed, and wildly curious. \"She's armed,\" Koudelka's companion pointed out.\n\n\"And a good thing, too.\" Vorkosigan did not enlarge on this, but went on to more urgent affairs. \"Who is in the landing party?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Koudelka rattled off a list of names, his memory jogged occasionally by his cohort.\n\n\"All right,\" Vorkosigan sighed. \"Radnov, Darobey, Sens, and Tafas are to be disarmed, as quietly and cleanly as possible, and placed under arrest on a charge of mutiny. There will be some others later. I don't want any communication with the General Vorkraft until they're under lock and key. Do you know where Lieutenant Buffa is?\"\n\n\"In the caverns. Sir?\" Koudelka was starting to look a little miserable, as he began to deduce what was happening.\n\n\"Yes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you sure about Tafas?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nearly.\" Vorkosigan gentled his voice. \"They'll be tried. That's the purpose of a trial, to separate the guilty from the innocent.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Koudelka accepted this limited guarantee for the welfare of a man Cordelia guessed must be his friend with a little bow of his head.\n\n\"Do you begin to see why I said the statistics about civil war conceal the most reality?\" said Vorkosigan.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Koudelka met his eye squarely, and Vorkosigan nodded, sure of his man.\n\n\"All right. You two come with me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'beside' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They started off, Vorkosigan taking her arm again and scarcely limping, neatly concealing how much weight he was putting on her. They followed another path through the woodlands, up and down uneven ground, coming out within sight of the camouflaged door to the cache caverns.\n\nThe waterfall that spun down beside it ended in a little pool, spilling over into a pretty stream which ran off into the woods. A strange group was assembled beside it. Cordelia could not at first make out what they were doing. Two Barrayarans stood watching while two more knelt by the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they approached the two kneelers stood, hauling a dripping, tan-clad figure, hands tied behind his back, from a prone position to his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He coughed, struggling for breath in sobbing gasps.\n\n\"It's Dubauer!\" cried Cordelia. \"What are they doing to him?\"\n\nVorkosigan, who seemed to know instantly just what they were doing to him, muttered, \"Oh, hell,\" and started forward at a jerky jog. \"That's my prisoner!\" he roared out as they neared the group. \"Hands off him!\"\n\nThe Barrayarans braced so fast it looked like a spinal reflex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dubauer, released, fell to his knees, still drawing breath in long sobs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cordelia, running past them to Dubauer, thought she had never seen a more astonished-looking array of men. Dubauer's hair, swollen face, scanty new beard, and collar were soaking wet, his eyes were red, and he continued to cough and sneeze. Horrified, she finally realized the Barrayarans had been holding his head underwater by way of torture.\n\n\"What is this, Lieutenant Buffa?\" Vorkosigan pinned the senior of the group with a thunderous frown.\n\n\"I thought the Betans killed you, sir!\" said Buffa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They didn't,\" Vorkosigan said shortly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing with this Betan?\"\n\n\"Tafas captured him in the woods, sir. We've been trying to question him—find out if there's any more around\"—he glanced at Cordelia—\"but he refuses to talk. Hasn't said a word. And I always thought Betans were soft.\"\n\nVorkosigan rubbed his hand over his face for a moment, as if praying for strength.\n\n\"Buffa,\" he said patiently, \"this man was hit by disruptor fire five days ago. He can't talk, and if he could he wouldn't know anything anyway.\"\n\n\"Barbarians!\" cried Cordelia, kneeling on the ground. Dubauer had recognized her, and was clutching her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You Barrayarans are nothing but barbarians, scoundrels, and assassins!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And fools. Don't leave out fools.\" Vorkosigan withered Buffa with a glare. A couple of the men had the good grace to look rather ill, as well as ill at ease. Vorkosigan let out his breath with a sigh. \"Is he all right?\"\n\n\"Seems to be,\" she admitted reluctantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But he's pretty shaken up.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'loudly' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was shaking herself in her outrage.\n\n\"Commander Naismith, I apologize for my men,\" said Vorkosigan formally, and loudly, so that no one there could mistake that their captain humbled himself before his prisoner because of them.\n\n\"Don't click your heels at me,\" muttered Cordelia savagely, for his ear alone. At his bleak look she relented a little, and said more loudly, \"It was an error in interpretation.\" Her eye fell on Lieutenant Buffa, attempting to make his considerable height appear to melt into the ground. \"Any blind man could have made it. Oh, hell,\" she added, for Dubauer's terror and distress were triggering another convulsion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the Barrayarans looked away, variously embarrassed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorkosigan, who was getting practiced, knelt to give her what aid she needed. When the seizure subsided he stood.\n\n\"Tafas, give your weapons to Koudelka,\" he ordered. Tafas hesitated, glancing around, then slowly complied.\n\n\"I didn't want any part of it, sir,\" he said desperately. \"But Lieutenant Radnov said it was too late.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll get a chance to speak for yourself later on,\" said Vorkosigan wearily." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory inclusion (with quotes): Have you seen Commander Gottyan, sir?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's going on?\" asked the bewildered Buffa. \"Have you seen Commander Gottyan, sir?\"\n\n\"I've given Commander Gottyan—separate orders. Buffa, you are now in charge of the landing party.\" Vorkosigan repeated his orders for the arrest of his short list, and detached a group to carry out the task.\n\n\"Ensign Koudelka, take my prisoners to the cave, and see that they're given proper food, and whatever else Commander Naismith requires. Then see that the shuttle is ready to go. We'll be leaving for the ship as soon as the—other prisoners are secured.\" He avoided the word 'mutineers', as though it were too strong, like blasphemy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "mission: continue w/ 11 sentences. style: Lois McMaster Bujold. maintain character continuity. themes: Vorkosigan Saga, scifi, space opera, romance" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She woke to movement, and voices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorkosigan was rising from his chair, and Illyan was standing before him taut as a bowstring, saying \"Vorhalas and the Prince! Here! Now!\"\n\n\"Son-of-a ...\" Vorkosigan turned on his heel, eyes raking the little room. \"It'll have to be the bathroom. Fold him into the shower.\"\n\nSwiftly, Vorkosigan took Bothari's shoulders and Illyan his feet, bumping through the narrow door and dumping him pell-mell into the fixture.\n\n\"Should he have more sedative?\" asked Illyan.\n\n\"Maybe he'd better. Cordelia, give him another ampule. It's too early, but it's death for you both if he makes a noise now.\" He bundled her into the closet-sized room, shoving the drug into her hand and killing the light. \"No noise, no movement.\"\n\n\"Door shut?\" asked Illyan.\n\n\"Partway. Lean on the frame, look casual, and don't let the Prince's bodyguard wander into your psychological space.\"\n\nCordelia, feeling her way in the dimness, knelt and pressed another shot of sedative into the unconscious sergeant's arm." }, { "from": "system", "value": "DIRECTIVE: Incorporate \"The senior officer ought properly to stay with the flag. Now that Vorrutyer is dead, his duties devolve on the Prince. That dog-and-pony show you had planned was based on the assumption that he would still be at his post.\" in response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seating herself in the logical spot, she found she could just see a slice of Vorkosigan's cabin in the mirror, reversed and disorienting. She heard the cabin door open, and new voices.\n\n\"—unless you mean to officially relieve him of his duties as well, I will continue to follow standard procedure. I saw that room. Your charge is nonsensical.\"\n\n\"We will see,\" replied the second voice, tight and angry.\n\n\"Hello, Aral.\" The owner of the first voice, an officer of perhaps fifty in dress greens, shook Vorkosigan's hand and presented him with a packet of data disks. \"We're off to Escobar within the hour. Courier just brought these—the latest hard-copy updates. I've ordered you to be kept up on events. The Escos are falling back through the whole volume. They've even abandoned that slugging match for the wormhole jump to Tau Ceti. We've got them on the run.\"\n\nThe owner of the second voice also wore dress greens, more heavily encrusted with gilt than any she had ever seen. Jeweled decorations on his breast glinted and winked like lizards' eyes in the light from Vorkosigan's desk lamp. He was about thirty, black haired, with a rectangular tense face, hooded eyes, and thin lips compressed now with annoyance.\n\n\"You're not both going, are you?\" said Vorkosigan. \"The senior officer ought properly to stay with the flag. Now that Vorrutyer is dead, his duties devolve on the Prince. That dog-and-pony show you had planned was based on the assumption that he would still be at his post.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prince Serg went stiff with outrage. \"I will lead my troops on Escobar! Let my father and his cronies try to say I am no soldier now!\"\n\n\"You will,\" said Vorkosigan wearily, \"sit in that fortified palace that half the engineers are going to be tied up constructing, and party in it, and let your men do your dying for you, until you've bought your ground by the sheer weight of the corpses piled on it, because that's the kind of soldiering your mentor has taught you. And then send bulletins home about your great victory. Maybe you can have the casualty lists declared top secret.\"\n\n\"Aral, careful,\" warned Vorhalas, shocked.\n\n\"You go too far,\" the Prince snarled. \"Especially for a man who will get no closer to the fighting than clinging to the wormhole exit for home. If you want to talk of—undue caution.\" His tone clearly made the phrase a euphemism for an uglier term.\n\n\"You can hardly order me confined to quarters and then accuse me of cowardice for not being at the front. Sir. Even Minister Grishnov's propaganda has to simulate logic better than that.\"\n\n\"You'd just love that, wouldn't you, Vorkosigan,\" hissed the Prince. \"Stick me back here, and grab all the glory for yourself and that wrinkled clown Vortala and his phony progressives. Over my dead body! You're going to sit in here till you grow mold.\"\n\nVorkosigan's teeth were clenched, his eyes narrowed and unreadable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His lips curled back on a white smile, but closed again instantly. \"I must formally protest. By landing with the ground troops on Escobar you are leaving your proper post.\"\n\n\"Protest away.\" The Prince approached him closely, leaning into his face and dropping his voice. \"But even my father can't live forever. And when that day comes, your father won't be able to protect you anymore. You, and Vortala, and all his cronies will be first against the wall, I promise you.\" He looked up, remembering Illyan leaning silently against the doorjamb. \"Or perhaps you'll find yourself back on the Leper Colony, for another five years of patrol duty.\"\n\nIn the bathroom, Bothari stirred uncomfortably in his semi-coma and, to Cordelia's horror, began to snore.\n\nLieutenant Illyan was seized by a spasmodic coughing fit. \"Excuse me,\" he gasped, and retreated into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly.\n\nHe hit the light and traded a silent look of panic with Cordelia for an equally silent grimace of despair. With difficulty, they turned Bothari's deadweight to one side in the constricted space, until he breathed quietly again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cordelia gave Illyan the thumbs-up signal, and he nodded and squeezed back out the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Prince had left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Admiral Vorhalas lingered a moment, to exchange a last word with his subordinate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"—put it in writing. I'll sign it before we go.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: after, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At least don't travel in the same ship,\" begged Vorkosigan seriously.\n\nVorhalas sighed. \"I appreciate your trying to get him out of my hair. But somebody has to clean his cage for the Emperor, with Vorrutyer out, thank God. He won't have you, so it looks like I'm elected. Why can't you just lose your temper with subordinates, like normal men, instead of with superiors, like a lunatic? I thought you were cured of that, after what I saw you take from Vorrutyer.\"\n\n\"That's dead and buried now.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Vorhalas made a superstitious sign, automatically, evidently a gestural relic from childhood, empty of belief but full of habit.\n\n\"By the by—what's the Leper Colony?\" asked Vorkosigan curiously.\n\n\"You never heard that? Well—maybe I can see why not. Did you never wonder why you received such a remarkable percentage of screwups, incorrigibles, and near-discharges among your crew?\"\n\n\"I hadn't expected to get the cream of the Service.\"\n\n\"They used to call it Vorkosigan's Leper Colony, at headquarters.\"\n\n\"With myself as leper-in-chief, eh?\" Vorkosigan seemed more amused than offended. \"Well, if they were the worst the Service has to offer, perhaps we shall not do so badly after all. Take care of yourself. I don't fancy being his second-in-command.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorhalas chuckled, and they shook hands. He started for the door, then paused. \"Do you think they'll counterattack?\"\n\n\"My God, of course they'll counterattack. This isn't some trade outpost. These people are fighting for their homes.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\nVorkosigan hesitated. \"Sometime after you've started disembarking ground troops, but well before it's completed. Wouldn't you? Worst time to have to start a retreat. Shuttles not knowing whether to go up or down, their mother ships scattering to hell and gone under fire, supplies needed not landed, supplies landed not needed, the chain of command disrupted—an inexperienced commander in absolute control ...\"\n\n\"You give me the shivers.\"\n\n\"Yes, well—try to hold the start for as long as possible. And make sure your troopship commanders have their contingency orders crystal clear.\"\n\n\"The Prince doesn't see it your way.\"\n\n\"Yes, he's itching to lead a parade.\"\n\n\"What do you advise?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not your commander this time, Rulf.\"\n\n\"Not my fault. I recommended you to the Emperor.\"\n\n\"I know. I wouldn't take it. I recommended you instead.\"\n\n\"So we ended up with that sodomizing son-of-a-bitch Vorrutyer.\" Vorhalas shook his head bleakly. \"Something wrong there ...\"\n\nVorkosigan chivvied him gently out the door, blew out his breath with a sigh, and remained standing, caught up in his vision of the future. He looked up, and met Cordelia's eyes with unhappy irony. \"Wasn't there some character, when the old Romans held their triumphs, who rode along whispering in the honored party's ear that he was mortal, and death waited for him? The old Romans probably thought he was a pain in the neck, too.\"\n\nShe held her peace.\n\nVorkosigan and Illyan went to retrieve Sergeant Bothari from his makeshift and uncomfortable hiding place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were halfway through the door with him when Vorkosigan swore. \"He's stopped breathing.\"\n\nIllyan hissed explosively, and they laid Bothari out quickly on the friction matting on his back. Vorkosigan laid his ear to his chest, and felt his neck for a pulse.\n\n\"Son-of-a-bitch.\" He doubled his fists, and brought them down sharply against the sergeant's sternum, then listened again. \"Nothing.\"\n\nHe rolled back on his heels, looking fierce. \"Illyan. Whoever you got that lizard's piss from, go find him and get a shot of the antidote. Quickly. And quietly. Very quietly.\"\n\n\"How did you—what if—shouldn't you—is it worth—\" began Illyan. He threw up his hands helplessly, and fled out the door.\n\nVorkosigan looked at Cordelia. \"Do you want to push, or blow?\"\n\n\"Push, I guess.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knelt by Bothari's side, and Vorkosigan went to his head, tilted it back, and gave him his first breath of air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cordelia pressed the heels of her hands on his sternum and pushed with all her strength, setting up the rhythm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Push, push, push, blow, over and over, don't stop. After a short time her arms were shaking, and sweat beaded on her hairline. She could feel her own ribs grind with each push, screamingly, and her chest muscles knotted spasmodically.\n\n\"Got to switch.\"\n\n\"Good. I'm hyperventilating.\"\n\nThey changed places, Vorkosigan taking over the heart massage, Cordelia pinching Bothari's nostrils shut and closing her mouth over his. His mouth was wet from Vorkosigan's saliva. The parody of a kiss was horrible, but to shrink from it beneath contempt. They went on, and on.\n\nLieutenant Illyan returned at last, breathless. He knelt and pressed the new ampule against Bothari's corded neck over the carotid artery." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"In the abstract. Most days it's just stumbling around in the dark with the rest of creation, smashing into things and wondering why it hurts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing happened. Vorkosigan kept pumping.\n\nSuddenly, Bothari shuddered, then stiffened, arching his back. He took an irregular, gasping gulp of air, then stopped again.\n\n\"Come on,\" urged Cordelia, half to herself.\n\nWith a sharp spasmodic intake he began to breathe again, raggedly, but persistently. Cordelia slumped from her knees to a sitting position on the floor and gazed at him in joyless triumph. \"Suffering bastard.\"\n\n\"I thought you saw meaning in that sort of thing,\" said Vorkosigan.\n\n\"In the abstract. Most days it's just stumbling around in the dark with the rest of creation, smashing into things and wondering why it hurts.\"\n\nVorkosigan gazed at Bothari too, sweat runneling down his face. Then he jumped to his feet and hurried to his desk.\n\n\"The protest. Have to get it written and filed before Vorhalas leaves, or it will be no damned good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slid into his chair and began rapidly keying his console.\n\n\"What's so important about it?\" asked Cordelia.\n\n\"Sh. Later.\" He typed furiously for ten minutes, then set it electronically in pursuit of his commander.\n\nBothari in the meanwhile continued to breathe, although his face retained a deathly greenish pallor.\n\n\"What do we do now?\" asked Cordelia.\n\n\"Wait. Pray that the dosage is right\"—he glanced irritably at Illyan—\"and that it won't send him into some kind of manic state.\"\n\n\"Shouldn't we be thinking of some way to get them both out of here?\" protested Illyan.\n\n\"Think away.\" Vorkosigan began plugging the new data disks into his console and viewing the tactical readouts. \"But as a hiding place it has two advantages not shared by any other spot on the ship. If you're as good as you claim, it's not monitored by either the Chief Political Officer or the Prince's men—\"\n\n\"I'm quite sure I swept them all. I'd stake my reputation on it.\"\n\n\"Right now you're staking your life on it, so you'd better be correct. Second, there are two armed guards in the corridor to keep everybody out. You could scarcely ask for more. I admit it's a bit crowded.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Illyan rolled his eyes in exasperation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've diddled the Security search to the limit I dare. I can't do any more without drawing more attention than I divert.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will it hold twenty-six more hours?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe.\" Illyan frowned at his charge, baffled and bothered." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'I'm merely waiting in hope of some reasonable opportunity. When the Prince leaves for Escobar most of his own security people will go with him. Patience, Illyan.' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have something planned, don't you, sir.\" It was not a question.\n\n\"I?\" His fingers worked the keys of his console, and reflections of colored light from the readouts played over his impassive face. \"I'm merely waiting in hope of some reasonable opportunity. When the Prince leaves for Escobar most of his own security people will go with him. Patience, Illyan.\"\n\nHe keyed his console again. \"Vorkosigan to Tactics Room.\"\n\n\"Commander Venne here, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, good. Venne, I'd like hourly updates piped down here from the time the Prince and Admiral Vorhalas leave. And let me know immediately, regardless of time, if you start getting anything unusual, anything not in the plans.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. The Prince and Admiral Vorhalas are leaving now, sir.\"\n\n\"Very good. Carry on. Vorkosigan out.\"\n\nHe sat back and drummed his fingers on the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now we wait. It will be about twelve hours before the Prince reaches Escobar orbit. They'll be starting landings soon after that. An hour for signals to reach us from Escobar. An hour for signals to return. So much lag. A battle can be over in two hours. We could cut the lag by three-quarters if the Prince would let us move off station.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"We were captured a bit before that. We were in tow for almost a day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His casual tone barely masked his tension, in spite of his advice to Illyan. The room in which he sat scarcely seemed to exist for him. His mind moved with the armada wheeling in a tightening constellation around Escobar, fast glittering couriers, grim cruisers, sluggish troop carriers, bellies crammed with men. A light pen turned, forgotten, in his fingers, around and over, around and over.\n\n\"Hadn't you better eat, sir?\" suggested Illyan.\n\n\"What? Oh, yes, I suppose. And you, Cordelia—you must be hungry. Go ahead, Illyan.\"\n\nIllyan left to forage. Vorkosigan worked at his desk console for a few more minutes before shutting it down with a sigh. \"I suppose I'd better think about sleep, too. Last time I slept was on board the General Vorhartung, closing on Escobar—a day and a half ago, I guess. About the time you were being captured.\"\n\n\"We were captured a bit before that. We were in tow for almost a day.\"\n\n\"Yes. Congratulations, by the way, on a very successful maneuver. That wasn't a real battle cruiser, I take it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I really can't say.\"\n\n\"Somebody wants to claim it as a kill.\"\n\nCordelia suppressed a grin. \"Fine by me.\" She braced herself for more questioning, but, strangely, he turned the subject.\n\n\"Poor Bothari. I wish the Emperor might give him a medal. I'm afraid the best I'll be able to do for him is get him properly hospitalized.\"\n\n\"If the Emperor disliked Vorrutyer so, why did he put him in charge?\"\n\n\"Because he was Grishnov's man, and widely famous as such, and the Prince's favorite. Putting all the bad eggs in one basket, so to speak.\" He cut himself off with a fist-closing gesture.\n\n\"He made me feel like I'd met the ultimate in evil. I don't think anything will really scare me, after him.\"\n\n\"Ges Vorrutyer? He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present—they are real.\" His voice fell, as he spoke, so that by the end he was almost whispering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Commodore Vorkosigan—Aral—what's eating you? You're so keyed up I expect you to start pacing the ceiling any minute.\" Hagridden, she thought.\n\nHe laughed a little. \"I feel like it. It's the waiting, I expect. I'm bad at waiting. Not a good thing, in a soldier. I envy your ability to wait in patience. You seem calm as moonlight on the water.\"\n\n\"Is that pretty?\"\n\n\"Very.\"\n\n\"It sounds nice. We don't have either one at home.\" She was absurdly pleased by the implied compliment.\n\nIllyan returned with a tray, and she got no more out of Vorkosigan. They ate, and Vorkosigan took a turn at sleeping, or at least lying on the bed with his eyes shut, but getting up every hour to view the new tacticals.\n\nLieutenant Illyan watched over his shoulder, and Vorkosigan pointed out salient features of the strategy to him as they came up.\n\n\"It looks pretty good to me,\" Illyan commented once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't see why you're so anxious. We really could carry it off, in spite of the Esco's superior command of resources in the long run. Won't do them any good if it's all over in the short run.\"\n\nAfraid to put Bothari back into a deep coma, they let him return to near-consciousness. He sat in the corner in a miserable knot, drifting in and out of sleep with bad dreams in both states.\n\nEventually Illyan took himself off to his own cabin to sleep, and Cordelia had another nap herself. She slept a long time, not waking until Illyan returned with another tray of food. She was becoming disoriented with respect to time, locked in this changeless room. Vorkosigan, however, was tracking time by the minute now. After they ate he vanished into the bathroom to wash and shave, and returned in fresh dress greens, as neat as though ready for a conference with his emperor.\n\nHe checked through the last tactical update for the second time.\n\n\"Have they started landing troops yet?\" Cordelia asked.\n\nHe checked his chronometer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Almost an hour ago. We should be getting the first reports through any minute.\" He sat now without fidgeting, like a man in deep meditation, face like stone.\n\nThat hour's tactical update arrived, and he began sorting through its reports, apparently checking key items. In the middle of it his screen was overridden by the face of Commander Venne.\n\n\"Commodore Vorkosigan? We're getting something very strange here. Do you want me to shunt a copy of raw incoming straight down there?\"\n\n\"Yes, please. Immediately.\"\n\nVorkosigan searched through an assortment of chatter of all kinds, and picked out a verbal from a ship commander, a dark and heavy-set man who spoke into his log with a guttural accent tinged by fear.\n\nHere it comes, moaned Cordelia inwardly.\n\n\"—attacking with shuttles! They're returning our fire shot by shot. Plasma shields at maximum now—we can't put more power into them and still keep firing. We must either drop shields and try to increase our firepower, or give up the attack...\" The transmission was interrupted by static. \"—don't know how they're doing it. They can't possibly have packed enough engine in those shuttles to generate this...\" More static. The transmission abruptly broke off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vorkosigan selected another. Illyan leaned over his shoulder anxiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cordelia sat on the bed, silent, head bowed, listening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cup of victory; bitter on the tongue, heavy in the stomach, sad as defeat ...\n\n\"—the flagship is under heavy fire,\" reported another commander. Cordelia recognized the voice with a start, and craned her neck for a view of his face. It was Gottyan; evidently he had his captaincy at last. \"I'm going to drop shields altogether and attempt to knock one out with a maximum burst.\"\n\n\"Don't do it, Korabik!\" Vorkosigan shouted hopelessly. The decision, whatever it was, had been made an hour ago, its consequences ineradicably fixed in time.\n\nGottyan turned his head to one side. \"Ready, Commander Vorkalloner? We are attempting—\" he began, and was drowned by static, then silence.\n\nVorkosigan struck his fist on the desk, hard. \"Damn! How the hell long is it going to take them to figure ...\" He stared into the snow, then reran the transmission, transfixing it with a frightening expression, grief and rage and nausea mixed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He then selected another band, this time a computer graphic of the space around Escobar, and the ships as little colored lights winking and diving through it. It looked tiny, and bright, and simple, like a child's game. He shook his head at it, lips tight and bloodless.\n\nVenne's face interrupted again. He was pale, with peculiar lines of tension running down to the corners of his mouth.\n\n\"Sir, I think you'd better come to the Tactics Room.\"\n\n\"I can't, Venne, without breaking arrest. Where's Commodore Helski, or Commodore Couer?\"\n\n\"Helski went forward with the Prince and Admiral Vorhalas, sir. Commodore Couer is here now. You're the ranking flag officer aboard now.\"\n\n\"The Prince was quite explicit.\"\n\n\"The Prince—I believe the Prince is dead, sir.\"\n\nVorkosigan closed his eyes, and a sigh went out of him, joylessly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that Is that confirmed? Do you have any new orders from Admiral Vorhalas?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened them again, and leaned forward. \"Is that confirmed? Do you have any new orders from Admiral Vorhalas?\"\n\n\"It's—Admiral Vorhalas was with the Prince, sir. Their ship was hit.\" Venne turned away to view something over his shoulder, then turned back. \"It's\"—he had to clear his throat—\"it's confirmed. The Prince's flagship has been—obliterated. There's nothing left but debris. You're in command now, sir.\"\n\nVorkosigan's face was cold and unhappy. \"Then transmit Contingency Blue orders at once. All ships cease firing immediately. Put all power into shields. This ship to make course for Escobar now at maximum boost. We have to cut down on our transmission time lag.\"\n\n\"Contingency Blue, sir? That's full retreat!\"\n\n\"I know, Commander. I wrote it.\"\n\n\"But full retreat ...\"\n\n\"Commander Venne, the Escobarans have a new weapon system. It's called a plasma mirror field. It's a new Betan development. It turns the attacker's burst back on itself. Our ships are shooting themselves down with their own firepower.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My God! What can we do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not a damn thing, unless we want to start boarding their ships and strangling the bastards by hand, one at a time. Attractive, but impractical. Transmit those orders! And order the Commander of Engineers and the Chief Pilot Officer to the Tactics Room. And get the guard commander down here to relieve his men. I don't care to be stunned on the way out the door.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir!\" Venne broke off.\n\n\"Got to get those troopships turned around first,\" muttered Vorkosigan, rising from his swivel chair. He turned to find both Cordelia and Illyan staring at him.\n\n\"How did you know—\" began Illyan.\n\n\"—about the plasma mirrors?\" finished Cordelia.\n\nVorkosigan was quite expressionless. \"You told me, Cordelia, in your sleep, while Illyan was out. Under the influence of one of the surgeon's potions, of course. You'll suffer no ill effects from it.\"\n\nShe stood upright, aghast. \"That—you miserable—torture would have been more honorable!\"\n\n\"Oh, smooth, sir!\" congratulated Illyan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I knew you were all right!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorkosigan shot him a look of dislike. \"It doesn't matter. The information was confirmed too late to do us any good.\"\n\nThere was a knock on the door.\n\n\"Come on, Illyan. It's time to take my soldiers home.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with ten sentences, maintaining any established context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two Imperial Marines in sharply creased black dress uniforms with crimson piping stiffened to attention as Gretchen approached a hatchway outlined in pale blue. Each Marine had his hands behind his back, but heavy flat pistols were slung on their belts and they had visors as sharp and sleek as Maggie's. The Navy rating escorting her bowed politely and thumbed a comm pad set into the bulkhead next to the hatch.\n\n\"Doctor Gretchen Anderssen, Commander,\" he announced in a stiffly formal voice.\n\nThe pad chimed and the hatch recessed with a slight chuff and then slid up into the bulkhead. Her mouth suddenly dry, Gretchen nodded to the young man, then stepped inside. The room was small, like everything on the Cornuelle, but managed to hold a low traditional table for six, dressed with crisp white linen and thin porcelain cups. A very short man, barely reaching Gretchen's shoulder, bowed in greeting from the head of the table. The five other officers—ranging from the petite executive officer, Sho-sa Koshō, down to a midshipman, or sho'i ko-hosei, with pale red hair—also bowed in place, their hands flat on the tatami mat floor. Their incline was slightly deeper than Hadeishi's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen kept her face composed, hands together in front of her, and managed a bow halfway between those that had greeted her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Welcome, Doctor Anderssen,\" Hadeishi said. Gretchen blinked in surprise—the Nisei's Norman was flawless. \"Please, join us.\"\n\nGretchen slipped off her deck shoes before entering the room, turning the motion into a second bow.\n\nThe midshipman scooted a little to one side. Gretchen knelt, smiling politely at the boy. He couldn't have been more than sixteen. Like the other officers, he wore a perfectly white dress uniform, with the fire-snake emblem of the Imperial Navy worked in copper at his collar. Above his heart rode the sunburst symbol of the Cornuelle and a square glyph holding a running man.\n\nThe other officers remained still, heads lowered. The captain smiled down the table at Gretchen, and raised a thin porcelain teacup in polite greeting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Doctor Anderssen, welcome to the Cornuelle. I am Mitsuharu Hadeishi, her captain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Konichiwa, Mitsuharu-san. Thank you for making me so welcome.\"\n\n\"Your Japanese is excellent,\" Hadeishi said, smiling, eyes crinkling up. Gretchen felt an odd sense of dislocation. She had worked with many Nisei; at the university, on Old Mars, even on Ugarit. They were unfailingly polite but she had never encountered a Japanese man, particularly one her social superior, that had genuinely smiled at her.\n\n\"Thank you. Your Norman is perfect.\"\n\n\"No, please, I have a slight accent.\" Hadeishi set down his cup. \"You have already met Lieutenant Koshō, my executive officer and pilot. This fellow next to her is Lieutenant Second Hayes, our weapons officer.\" Hayes nodded, somehow appearing deferential to Koshō, though the XO was a tiny woman, even slighter of build than the captain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Hayes was nearly six feet tall and powerfully built. Gretchen smiled politely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The young ensign is Smith-tzin, who runs communications, and this last is Lieutenant Second Isoroku, master of our engineers.\" Smith managed to nod politely and Isoroku, a bull-headed bald Nisei, had no reaction at all. Obscurely, Gretchen found this cold behavior comforting—his reaction was what she had expected, not the genial, almost cheerful tone expressed by the commander. Hadeishi stood and straightened his dress jacket. His uniform was very simple, expressing the best attributes of the Empire—humility, modest dress, quiet unassuming power—though his collar tabs were gold and the eagle glyph of an Imperial war commander sat next to the sunburst. An elderly man in a simple dark gray kimono appeared with a tiny green jade cup and a slim sake flask. Hadeishi bowed to him, took the cup and turned, facing his right.\n\nThere, on a bulkhead covered with inset wooden screens painted with mountains in cloud, were two portraits. They were not holo images, but traditional paintings on cream-colored rice paper, in a delicate ink-brush with faint washes of color. On the left, looking very young, was the Lord of the World, Ahuizotl, the sixth of that name, huey tlatoani of the Méxica and all other peoples under the domain of the Empire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The artist had captured his pensive nature well, looking off to one side, slim hand pressed against his chest.\n\nHadeishi bowed deeply to the image of the Emperor, then raised the jade cup.\n\n\"So, meditate on this, eagles and jaguars,\" he began, his Náhuatl slow and measured, as flawless as his Norman. \"Although you may be jade, although you may be gold, you too will journey to the fleshless land. We all must disappear, no one will remain.\"\n\nThe room became very still, each man and woman at the table looking down. The servant had disappeared. Gretchen saw the captain's face was composed and calm. She recognized the words, written nearly a thousand years before by a man who had opposed the policies of the Empire when it was still young. Her eyes drifted to one side, watching the faces of the other officers. The poetry of Nezahualcóyotl, the doomed prince of Tetzcoco, was banned throughout the Empire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The poet's philosophy did not express the ascetic martial spirit deemed fitting by the great powers of the Méxica." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi lowered the jade cup, pressing it against his lips, then raised it again, to the second portrait." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 11 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'moment' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a grumpy old man, his face pinched in a scowl, his hair bound up in the traditional samurai knot at the back of his head. He frowned, irritation alive in the smooth brushstrokes. He was Juntoku, the one hundred and thirty-sixth Tenno no Nihon, Emperor of Japan and all the Nisei people. Hadeishi smiled faintly, saying; \"Mere green herbs they are, grown in the mountain soil; yet if I pluck them with grace, how joyful is the toil!\"\n\nThen he placed the jade cup into the hands of the little old man and turned to face the table again. The welcoming ritual complete, two ratings slipped out of the tiny galley behind the officer's mess and began serving the first course. Gretchen felt her stomach grumble, smelling sweet onions and broth. For a moment, she was frozen, watching everyone else pick up their spoons.\n\nThen the captain somberly tasted the miso and nodded to the two cooks. They grinned and everyone was eating. Gretchen forgot about her worries for a moment, listening to the quiet cheerful banter among the officers and enjoying the excellent meal." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 5 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have orbital match in... three... two... one... Orbit match locked.\"\n\nSho-sa Koshō's cool voice echoed in Gretchen's earbug. She and Magdalena were crowded into the secondary weapons station on the command deck of the Cornuelle, sharing a combat chair. The flat black display in front of them was configured into three v-panes, one showing an orbital plot of the planet with the Palenque and the Cornuelle in their velocity dance, another the view from the warship's forward cameras and in the third a colorful, annotated image culled from the sensors on Parker's suit as he stood in an airlock.\n\n\"Main engines at zero thrust. Steering at zero thrust.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Around them, the officers of the Cornuelle began to go through a checklist in soft voices. Gretchen bit her lip, watching the image of the Palenque. The ship seemed intact, without visible hull damage or scoring. It was an ungainly monster in comparison to the rakish profile of the Cornuelle. The Temple-class were workhorse ships, with a big rotating habitat and lab ring sitting forward, squeezed around a command and sensor array platform." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind the habitat ring was an enclosed shuttle dock assembly, surrounded by mushroom-shaped cargo modules, then a flare shield and the bulk of the engines." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: maggie, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Company logo, white on maroon, stood twenty meters high on the thruster fairings.\n\n\"Maggie, do you have anything on ship-to-ship comm?\"\n\nMaggie shook her head, long ears angled back. \"Quiet as high grass, sister.\" Her claws made a tic-tic-tic sound as they worked the console." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The view of the Palenque tightened, zooming in on an airlock beneath the command deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hatch was hexagon-shaped, with a clear window. Gretchen could see something through the opening.\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\nMaggie worked the panel and the image cropped, then zoomed again. There was a brief ripple across the v-screen as the console kicked in to interpolate the image." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen leaned in a little, squinting through her com-glasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was an amber light shining above a control panel on the inner door of the lock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tapped her finger on the v-screen. \"Do we have a pattern match for this?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" rumbled Magdalena in her I'm-working-on-it-already voice. A v-pane unfolded on the console display. It contained a schematic of the airlock control panel, with highlights indicating the meaning and use of each control, light and display." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is interior pressure, but the airlock is in manual mode—no power for the automatic mechanism.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen nodded, pressing a fingertip against her cheekbone. \"Parker, did you hear that?\"\n\n\"You bet, boss.\" The pilot's v-feed shifted as he looked around the Cornuelle's lock. There were two Marines with him and Bandao. Both civilians were wearing dark gray z-suits, with bright Company logos on their chests, white-lettered nametags on each shoulder and over the heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both Marines were nearly invisible in matte-black suits far slimmer than the Company rigs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both had nametags, but they could not be read in the ambient light. Gretchen frowned, but Maggie was already working. Text materialized on the v-feed, showing FITZSIMMONS and DECKARD above the two Marines. \"We'll have to crank the lock ourselves.\"\n\n\"One kilometer,\" Koshō announced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Cornuelle was approaching on the last dying bit of her insertion velocity, coasting in not only to match orbital paths with the Palenque, but to come within eyeball distance of the abandoned ship. \"Three minutes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maggie, are there any other lights? Radio emissions? Any EM at all?\" Gretchen leaned back in the chair. The shock-cushion adjusted, cradling her back. The Hesht tapped up an ambient light gradient over a ship schematic on her main control window. The derelict showed heat and light loss at the personnel airlocks and around the big shuttle bay doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's cold. Just waste heat from standby systems,\" Magdalena said, \"but there seems to be atmosphere inside from end to end. The hull shielding is blocking everything else, but when Parker gets the telemetry relay in place, we'll know more. Still no response from the comm system or the tachyon relay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her shoulders shrugged in a rolling ripple of muscle. \"Station-keeping is still on line; she's not spinning or losing altitude.\"\n\n\"Two minutes,\" Koshō announced. \"Correcting roll with braking thrust.\"\n\nGretchen felt a very faint shudder through the decking under her feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feed from Parker's suit suddenly showed the planet rolling past in the window of the airlock, huge and ruddy tan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the Palenque slid into view. Gretchen touched her cheek again.\n\n\"Parker, we're almost ready. Start your checklist.\"\n\n\"Copy that,\" the pilot replied and the feed-image bent toward Bandao. Each man would double-check his z-suit, his equipment, the telemetry relay, their weapons before the lock opened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Marines were already checking each other's suits. All four men were wearing propulsion packs. Gretchen's request for a wire-tether fired from the Cornuelle to the derelict had been refused. Hadeishi had no intention of establishing a physical connection between his ship and the Palenque.\n\nGretchen turned, looking up across the control station behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi was ensconced in a command chair, half enveloped in shock-foam and control consoles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Faint lights from his panel displays mottled his face and combat suit. Koshō sat slightly below him, on his left, and Hayes down and to the right. She and the Hesht were at a station in the third ring of the bridge, matching the position of the ensign, Smith, on the opposite side of the U-shaped deck. The Imperial commander raised his head slightly and smiled, meeting her eyes.\n\nHadeishi toggled on his voice channel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Near space scan, Smith-tzin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Clear, Chu-sa. Two trailing asteroids, six low-orbit Company peapod satellites, no other ships, shuttles or unidentified objects. No radio or t-wave transmissions except the telemetry from the satellites. Everything's quiet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Engines, Isoroku-tzin?\"\n\n\"Hot, kyo, idling at zero thrust. Power plant is at twenty percent. Spin time to hyper is six zero minutes. Repeat, six zero minutes.\" The engineer's voice echoed in Gretchen's earbug, coming from the downship channel.\n\n\"Weapons, Mister Hayes?\"\n\n\"Weapons are hot, Captain. One flash bird rigged and solution locked. Point defense system is online and tracking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One minute,\" Koshō said softly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadeishi nodded to her. \"Full stop.\"\n\nKoshō ran her finger down a control bar on her console. There was another slight shudder. In Gretchen's displays, a counter indicating meters-to-target slowed and then stopped. \"Six hundred meters,\" announced the pilot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have velocity match.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'channel' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you ready?\" Hadeishi's voice was soft in Gretchen's ear and she started. A blinking glyph in the bottom right corner of her glasses indicated they were on a private channel.\n\n\"Ready,\" she said, swallowing. This was it. She changed back to the open channel. \"Mister Parker, have you completed your checklist?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Copy that, boss. We are ready to take a walk.\"\n\nGretchen looked sideways at Magdalena. \"Cameras ready? Suit telemetry online?\"\n\nThe Hesht grinned, showing double rows of white teeth like tiny knives. \"Cameras live. Recorders are rolling. Suit telemetry is clean. All bio readings are in the green.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cat flicked a claw at a newer, smaller window on the console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen saw it showed a string of beadlike lights circling the planet. The peapod survey satellites Hayes had picked up. Excellent.\n\n\"Mister Parker, you are free to take a walk.\"\n\nUnconsciously, she bit her lip, eyes fixed on the v-feed of the Cornuelle's airlock. One of the Marines, Fitzsimmons, punched a code into the airlock control panel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hatch opened swiftly and raw sunlight flooded into the chamber, picking out every detail with brilliant clarity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deckard stepped out into the void. He was briefly silhouetted against the monstrous glowing disk of the planet. Bandao followed, white jets of vapor trailing behind him. Parker followed and Gretchen felt a moment of vertigo as he stepped out over an infinite distance. Then the suit cam focused on the distant, surprisingly tiny image of the Palenque." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Five minute count to contact.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parker's voice was calm, even cheerful." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with four sentences in Thomas Harlan's voice, keeping within the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing here either,\" Parker said in a dead voice. He was standing on the bridge of the Palenque, one hand pushing the commander's chair back and forth. There was only a bare metal frame, lacking any plastic, leather or fiberfill. \"Everything's just... gone. This is creepy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bandao's camera shifted, looking across the display panels of the command station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like everything else, they were dark and mottled by heat." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'plastic' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gunner rapped the knuckles of his z-suit on the glassy plate. \"Aren't these touch-panels plastic? What about the corridor walls, the doors—aren't they plastic of some kind? Why were they just melted a little, and not destroyed completely?\"\n\nGretchen and Magdalena looked up. They had been poring over the shipyard diagrams and materials lists used in the construction documents on file for the Palenque." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen rubbed her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The maze of ship documents was giving her a headache. \"I—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Command panels are made with an electrically active composite, which is not a long chain polymer, Mister Bandao.\" Lieutenant Koshō's cool, correct voice intruded on the circuit. \"The range of materials removed from the ship is rather distinct.\"\n\nGretchen's glasses flickered and Hadeishi's private channel glyph was winking again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes?\" she said, turning away from Magdalena." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was starting to feel sick.\n\n\"We think the ship was attacked by a 'cleaner' agent of some kind.\" Mitsuharu's voice was very calm and steadying. \"Only certain molecules and sets of longer-chain compounds were affected. Particularly, those which form organic life. Paper, glue, bedsheets... all those things were swept up in the general criteria.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A weapon.\" Gretchen felt a band of tension release from her chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vague fears crystallized and she felt relieved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "See, she thought, the universe is filled with reason. \"Something from the planet?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" Hadeishi sounded thoughtful. \"There have been reports of illegal activity in this region, but no human miners would have access to this kind of a nanoweapon. You should continue searching the ship. Perhaps something survived in one of the lab habitats.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course,\" Gretchen turned back to Magdalena. The Hesht was talking Bandao and Parker through the removal of an access panel under the command display. \"Maggie?\"\n\n\"Just a moment. Yes, Mister Parker, use some muscle. You won't break anything. There! Now look inside.\"\n\nParker hesitated, heart rate spiking on the monitor, and his pistol and a detached lamp went first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the dark cavity, ranks of crystalline system modules sat quietly, without showing any sign of activity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Still no power,\" Maggie grumbled to herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yausheer Bandao, please take out a v-pad, if you have one. I will send a detailed ship schematic to you. I want you to go down to engineering and start checking the power-runs out from the batteries and fusion plant.\"\n\nParker muttered something obscene and crawled out of the access panel. Bandao said nothing. Both men kicked down the long central access passageway, gliding expertly from stanchion to stanchion, their suit lamps flaring on the white panels and dark openings onto surrounding decks.\n\n\"Koshō-san?\" Gretchen looked across the dim, softly glowing command deck of the Cornuelle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Could your Marines search the rest of the ship?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hai,\" the exec answered. \"I will send another pair across to secure the bridge while Deckard and Fitzsimmons search deck by deck.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with ten sentences, maintaining any established context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sighing with relief, Gretchen thumbed the release mechanisms for her helmet and heard a sharp click as they retracted. Fresh, chill air bathed her face. The ship would be cold for hours yet, until hot air streaming from the heaters permeated all compartments. Then it would be too hot until the environmentals adjusted themselves. She sat down—in something like real gravity—and tugged the helmet free from the z-suit. Parker, sitting across the table in the crew common area, slid a cup of fresh, hot coffee to her.\n\n\"There's some creamer, but no milk,\" he said.\n\n\"Thank you. Black is fine.\" The cup was very warm in her hands. Three sugar packets from a pocket of her z-suit disappeared into the oily black liquid." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: engines, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a long swallow, feeling warmth flood her chest. \"Better,\" she said after finishing the cup. \"Better. Are the Lieutenant and Flores still down in Engineering?\"\n\nMagdalena nodded, her attention focused on sucking pale red fluid and chunks of raw meat from a mealbag.\n\nGretchen studiously kept her eyes away from the Hesht dinner. \"Mister Parker, do we have flight control and comm up?\"\n\n\"Sort of,\" the pilot said, putting down his cup. \"Attitude controls are mostly working, though there are still miles of conduit to replace for the main engines. Luckily, the fine control jets use compressed air and need only on/off signals to operate. They work fine—since they're mechanical. Navigation is up, and we have lost some planetary altitude, so when we do have engines live again I need to make an adjustment burn to put us back in the proper orbital. We have spin in this hab ring, but not the others. Main comp is up, so you have shipboard comm and info retrieval—if you can find a working display.\"\n\nHe turned toward Magdalena, who was squeezing the mealbag in one paw, making thick goo ooze into her open mouth. Parker jerked back toward Gretchen." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'gretchen' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah... we've found the experimental transmitter, which is on its own fuel cell system, but I haven't messed with it. The cat can do that later, I guess. The main comm array is down until we rebuild power, but we're close enough to the Cornuelle that our suit radios still work.\"\n\n\"Unless you're in the labs,\" Gretchen commented, \"which are shielded.\"\n\n\"What did you find down there?\" Parker stole a glance at Bandao, who was sitting with his own cup in his hands, content to say nothing. The two Marines were equally quiet and unobtrusive, sitting back from the edge of the table. Out of his combat suit, Fitzsimmons was of medium height, very fit, with broad shoulders and curly blue-black hair. Deckard was thinner, with a lanky build and a ruddy complexion. Carlos, still looking miserable, sat beside Parker, slowly chewing on his thumb. \"Did you find the... weapon?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Gretchen drained her cup and set it down on the spotlessly clean table-top." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One of the scientists working on the planet—a geologist named Russovsky—found some stone cylinders in one of the canyons on the big mountain range. She brought an artifact back to base camp and showed her find to Doctor McCue, the dig supervisor. I think—not from anything said in record, but hearing between the lines—the lead archaeologist, a man named Clarkson, then took the cylinder from McCue and returned to the ship.\"\n\nGretchen looked down at the table, finding a ring of coffee-colored condensation where her warm cup had stood on the cold metal. She squeaked her finger through the liquid, drawing a line down the middle of the circle.\n\n\"Clarkson tried to see what was inside the cylinder with a high-powered sensor. Half of the tube seemed to be empty—but it wasn't, not really. Half seemed to be filled with a tightly packed membrane, like the filaments lining a human lung. The lab's isotope decay analysis estimates the cylinder is almost three million years old.\" A sharp, short laugh escaped her. \"Clarkson was pretty sure the device wasn't working anymore, or if it was, it was a kind of book or information storage device, like a 3v pack. Well, he was right, in a way.\"\n\nHer finger slashed across the circle of moisture.\n\n\"His probe injected enough energy into the empty chamber to make a sort of gas of very, very small particles expand violently. A thin wall between the two chambers broke down and the gas flooded into the membranes within a fraction of a second. They mixed, violently, and the cylinder broke open.\"\n\n\"A binary round,\" grunted Fitzsimmons, his brown eyes gleaming in the darkness. \"But not the usual sort of explosion, I suppose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" Gretchen shook her head ruefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The gaslike particles, I think, were some kind of tiny nanomachines. They dissolved the membranes—destroyed them—but at the same time they learned a pattern from the arrangement of the filaments. In less than a second, they were trained and they acquired enough raw material to duplicate themselves. Pressure expanded... \"\n\nThree fingers stabbed into the circle and swirled the last fragments of moisture out into an unsightly blotch on the tabletop.\n\n\"The weapon was released from its container and into the atmosphere.\" Gretchen sighed. \"Clarkson had failed to evacuate the examination chamber, which ordinarily would not have been a problem, but in this case the waste gases in the unit atmosphere were fuel for more nanomachines. I'm pretty sure the machines ignore plain atomic components—O and N and so on—but they chew up CO2 for lunch, and any kind of long-chain molecule in their attack pattern for dinner. Pressure built in the chamber, and the eaters reached the pressure seals.\n\n\"If the Company had not purchased second rate containment pods,\" Gretchen continued, \"the eaters would have been contained. Their programming did not happen to include the stainless steel forming most of the pod walls. Unfortunately, a flexible sealant forming the join between the instrument package and the main unit was composed of long-chain polymers which were on the 'menu.'\n\n\"They escaped into the power and data conduit above the containment unit. The sheathing of the power cables gave them more food, allowing them to reproduce at an exceptionally rapid rate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would guess, from the cut-off time of the recording unit, that they dropped power in the lab ring within sixty seconds of escape, and had penetrated into the starboard side of the ship within two minutes. Less than ten meters away is the starboard power coupling beside the boat bay. As the wave front propagated, power collapsed, and the engineering team—who had no idea, I imagine, that Doctor Clarkson was even aboard—started an emergency shutdown of the grid.\n\n\"Within five minutes, everyone on the starboard side of the ship was dead. The engineers, who had suited up on the run, will have run right through the weapon cloud without even noticing anything. Then, by the time they reached the boat bay, the eaters would have reproduced inside their suits... and you saw the result.\"\n\n\"Wait a moment.\" Fitzsimmons leaned forward, his tanned forehead creased in thought. \"What happened to the eaters after they filled the ship?\"\n\n\"They ate themselves.\" Gretchen looked around for something to clean up the puddle, then grimaced. No rags. There are no rags. \"The last of their programming broke them apart when there was nothing left to consume. All they left was a cloud of component elements.\"\n\n\"And what happened to that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fitzsimmons looked mildly disgusted." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen nodded toward the rear of the ship. \"Most of it will have been circulated into the air purification system, which continued to run on backup power while it detected impurities in the air supply. But when the cloud was processed, there was nothing but pure air left, and the system shut down automatically. The rest will have collected here and there, as grainy white dust—\"\n\nParker suddenly snorted, coughing and spraying coffee across the conference table. He made a horrible face as he turned to Gretchen. \"You mean this isn't nondairy creamer?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. Your partner will send something and you will write the next 12 sentences, matching their level of character familiarity." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'gretchen' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her ears covered with a thick cap of New Aberdeen cashmere, z-suit helmet parked on the display panel, Gretchen leaned back in a chair reduced to metal strips in the lab ring control cube. Curving hallways lined with hatches stretched up to her left and right. Light from the lab holding the broken cylinder spilled out into the hall. It was still very cold—the heaters in the lab spaces had failed to turn on with the rest—and Gretchen's breath puffed white as she hummed to herself.\n\nOn the display—only half of which was working—v-panes were running, speeding through the day of the accident. A crewman wandered through one feed, eating pine nuts from a bag, then out of one frame and into another. Mostly she watched empty rooms and quiet machinery idling in standby. All of the scientists were down on the planet, working at the main camp. Gretchen sighed, bored, and speeded up the replay.\n\nAlmost immediately, blurred figures appeared and she dialed back ten minutes. \"Finally!\"\n\nA tall, lean man with a neat beard and field jacket swung down from the hab access tube, landing heavily in the partial gravity. His hair was silvered, with a few streaks of black remaining, and he was wearing a heavy pair of sunglasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A battered, grimy fieldpack, bulging with a heavy weight burdened narrow shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Doctor Clarkson—coming home with his prize,\" Gretchen murmured, keenly interested, watching the man hurry into the number one isolation lab." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A moment later, a woman entered the lab ring by the same tube." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her tied-back hair was long, orange-red and very curly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was also dressed in field kit, with a pocket-covered vest, sunglasses perched on her forehead and linen pants tucked into her boots. \"And our mathematician in residence, Doctor McCue.\"\n\nGretchen felt a pang, seeing such familiar-looking people. She'd never met either of them, though the faces matched the briefing materials provided by the Company. But they felt so much like her friends on Ugarit, or the other graduate students and professors at the university. And now they're gone, rendered down for Parker's nondairy creamer.\n\nShe ignored Clarkson in his lab, following McCue from camera to camera as the woman wound her way through the maze of cubicles and rooms. The mathematician was pushing a g-box in front of her, a dented steel case with a built-in anti-grav, controlled by a hand unit. On the far side of the lab ring from the main control station, she stopped in front of a heavy reinforced hatchway.\n\nGretchen sat up, puzzled. She'd walked through the whole ring... she hadn't noticed a security door. But McCue's image punched in a keycode and the heavy blast door swung up and away, revealing a specimen vault and a bit of a room filled with racks of bins and cargo crates stacked on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the door closed, and she was left with a nice picture of the hatchway." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'cloud' into your response exactly 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well. What does Doctor McCue have in her box, which was so valuable it went straight to the vault?\"\n\nShe advanced the recording, flipping ahead ten minutes. No change. Then she blinked—a smoky haze swept down the corridor, flames leaping from empty air. The flooring blackened and warning lights began to flash. Lighting in the hallway flickered, then failed. Gretchen tasted bile, knowing what had to happen next.\n\nThe hatchway cycled up, and Doctor McCue stepped out, alarm clear in her round, freckled face. She started to call out, raising her left arm—the shining band of a comm winked in the remaining light. Gretchen bit her lip, teeth clenched tight. A cloud of gray coalesced out of the air and McCue staggered, throwing up her hand uselessly. Her clothing vanished in sudden flame, burning away with frightening speed, then her flesh sloughed away into nothing, and there was a flash of bone and red meat.\n\nThe gray-and-black cloud lingered for a moment, then dispersed in a drifting cloud of white dust and bits and pieces of metal scattered on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hatchway remained open for a moment, and Gretchen could see the edge of the g-box, then the door rumbled closed, cutting off the vault lights, plunging the hallway into darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Video replay ended with a ping and a motion-ceasing glyph." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a hard thing to watch,\" rumbled a voice at Gretchen's shoulder. Sergeant Fitzsimmons was standing beside her, his black Marine z-suit blending into the dimness of the room. He had a bundle in his hands. \"Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but I thought you might need something for the cold.\" He grinned. \"But that's a prettier hat than I had in my ruck. I like the... ah... reindeer?\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Gretchen touched the thick, felty plush of the cap on her head. \"My mum makes them for all the kids,\" she said, tugging at the brightly-colored, shapeless mass. \"Thank you for the thought, Sergeant. But Ugarit had its own bad weather, and Mars was bitterly cold. I've plenty of warm things.\"\n\nGretchen managed a smile, thinking of trudging across the brittle, rocky permafrost to the Polaris site, stiff in a triply-insulated z-suit and respirator. The Marine had a gray-green service wool cap and a pair of gloves, also a foul olive color, in his hands. Good enough for our slowly heating ship, she thought with a hidden frown, but not good enough to keep your hands and ears attached on Mars.\n\n\"Good,\" he said, stuffing the cap and gloves into a cargo pouch on the front of his suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you need help getting that vault door open?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen started to shake her head—she had a video of McCue's keycode—but then realized refusing the offer might be rude. Might need a big, brawny Marine sometime. She stood up, snugging the sherpa cap under her ears. \"Thanks,\" she said, \"I don't think there'll be any trouble, but you never know... \"\n\nThe vault door proved to be hidden behind a standard wall panel. Gretchen supposed the panel had slid down automatically during the power failure. Fitzsimmons's combat bar made a suitable lever to pop the panel free from the floor, and then he rolled it up with one hand. The vault hatch was closed, and Gretchen stepped in—lips pursed in concern—to find the keypad in ruins. All of the pressure surfaces had eroded away, leaving only a contact panel and some pitlike holes where wires, perhaps, had once run.\n\n\"This is just fine!\" Gretchen rapped the panel without result.\n\n\"Ma'am, let me try,\" the Marine waited politely until Gretchen stepped away, then drew a v-pad from his belt, unfolded a set of waxy-looking stems from the back and—humming softly to himself—matched them up with the holes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment the v-pad beeped and the schematic of a keypad appeared on its glassy face. \"Try this,\" Fizsimmons said, suppressing a pleased grin.\n\nGretchen tapped in the code recorded by the surveillance cameras. The vault door made a chuff sound, then rolled silently away into the overhead. The vault room was entirely dark. \"Very handy,\" she said, handing the device back to the sergeant.\n\n\"We try,\" he said in a particularly dry tone, flicking a glowbean against the far wall. \"Sister bless, do they make such a mess all the time?\"\n\nGretchen stepped into a crowded room, now lit by a pervasive blue glow. Doctor McCue's g-box was sitting on the deck amid a wild jumble of straw-shaped mineral core samples. She stepped carefully around the striated tubes—most had broken apart, leaving a wash of grit and sand on the floor—and picked up the controller for the g-box. It hummed to life, and the box lifted up and drifted to an empty section of deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Gretchen said absently, \"the core samples will have been in packing material and a cargo crate—they're just stiffened cellulose and a sealant—very tasty, I imagine.\" She keyed the box to open, and the top latch released with a clank. Kneeling, she lifted the lid and shone her hand lamp inside.\n\n\"Oh, now... \" She let out a long, low whistle of surprise. \"That is beautiful.\"\n\nWarily, Fitzsimmons leaned over. Inside the box was a chunk of stone—perhaps half a meter long and ten centimeters thick—a deep sandy red streaked with cream, glowing in the light of Anderssen's lamp. Gretchen brushed a fine layer of sandstone dust away, revealing a handsbreadth-wide whorl. A tapered tail of ribbed shell curled around the impression of stalklike legs.\n\n\"See, Sergeant? The fruit of some ancient Ephesian sea, preserved by chance in sandy mud, along with our... friend.\"\n\nMost of the fossil was buried in the stone, and lying alongside the ancient cephalopod was the unmistakable shape of a machined metal cylinder. Like the artifact in the isolation lab, the cylinder was crusted with limestone aggregate.\n\nGretchen bit her lip gently, tracing the outline of the device with a gloved finger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Russovsky's geological survey found wonders.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fitzsimmons stood up, his face pale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ma'am—I know you won't like to hear this—but we should jettison this thing right away. What if it goes off like the other one?\"\n\nGretchen looked up, face pinched with distaste. In that moment, she suddenly knew exactly how Clarkson had felt, clutching the prize close to his chest, rushing to make the first analysis. He would see what no one had seen in three million years—he alone would look upon mystery revealed and he alone would learn truth... But the open fear on the Marine's big, bluff face was too real to ignore. She looked back at the cylinder, at the marvelous piece of shale, at the delicate beauty of the shell and its ancient inhabitant, all trapped together by circumstance. The most beautiful, most striking, most wonderful thing I've ever seen. How did McCue keep from taking this to her laboratory, subjecting it to her experiments? Russovsky had the very luck to find this. If the cylinder is a First Sun device... my god.\n\n\"Ma'am?\" Fitzsimmons touched her shoulder, gently, shaking her out of the reverie. His voice was soft and insistent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doctor Anderssen, we have to isolate this weapon. Right now.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" Gretchen stood up, shaking her head. She felt a little shaky. \"Let's close up the g-box and put it in an airlock we're not using. That should hold the eaters if they escape, and we can vent the lock to space if necessary.\"\n\n\"Doc, listen to me.\" Fitz stood as well, towering over her. His dark brown eyes were filled with worry. \"There's no way to know if this cylinder holds the same kind of nanomechs as the other one—this one could be an explosive, a nuke, an antimatter bomb, anything. Poking something like this, even with a really, really tiny stick, is bad, bad business. Procedure says put the whole box on a carryall and have the Cornuelle boost it into the sun.\"\n\n\"No, I don't think so!\" Gretchen stepped between the Marine and the box. \"This artifact is worth my entire career, Sergeant. Worse, it's worth an enormous amount of money for the Company and for the Company's primary contractor—which is the Imperial Navy.\" She stopped, searching his face." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'Really, Sergeant. And we'll be sure to evac the airlock of any atmosphere. I'll be careful!' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked back, so plainly worried for his own safety, for her life and the others on the ship, her anger drained away as quickly as it had flared.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Sergeant, I've no business shouting at you.\" Gretchen put her hand on his arm. \"Like you, I'm under pretty strict orders—and my first order is to make sure things like this are brought back intact and well documented. So even if we talk to Captain Hadeishi, the answer is going to be the same—the cylinder stays and comes back to Imperial space with us.\"\n\nFitzsimmons's eyes narrowed, and one hand made an abortive movement to his comm pad, but then he nodded, taking a long look at the battered, rusted box on the floor. \"Are you going to try and study it on the ship?\"\n\n\"I... \" Gretchen paused. Why lie? He'll know, and you'll look like an idiot. \"Yes, I have to try. But—I'm not going to try anything invasive, or high energy, and I'm going to run passive scans on this thing for a day or two first.\"\n\nFitzsimmons gave her an arch look and she blushed. \"Really, Sergeant. And we'll be sure to evac the airlock of any atmosphere. I'll be careful!\"\n\n\"Sure, ma'am,\" he said, picking up the g-box controls. \"Why don't you call Parker—or Bandao if our coffee-drinking man is still horking up his lunch—and have them get the number three airlock ready, while I angle our little friend here out of this place?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with ten sentences, maintaining any established context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'bandao' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're matching... \" Bandao muttered, face screwed up in concentration, his fingers gingerly moving the controls on the medical display. Maggie had a paw tight on his shoulder, the white arc of her claws digging into the padded armor hiding under his jacket. \"What does this mean?\"\n\nGretchen crossed her legs and took a deep breath, head in her hands. Russovsky had not moved. Whatever lived inside her, whatever motivated her to action, to sudden motion, seemed puzzled by the closed door. The distant hooting of alarms, and the way—apparently unnoticed by either Bandao or Maggie—the main door to Medical had sealed itself, apparently without orders, was of more concern. She tapped her comm quietly, but there was no answer. No channel opened, no soft green light indicating the shipside comm band was awake and taking messages.\n\nNow what? Gretchen waved at Magdalena, drawing the Hesht's attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tapped her comm and made a face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maggie checked, finding her comm dead as well. The Hesht fiddled with her settings and was rewarded with a blinking light of some kind. Moving very quietly and staying away from the Russovsky-copy's line of sight, Gretchen slipped from the table and moved to the observation window. Magdalena held out her comm, letting Anderssen see which channel she'd changed to. Ah, a local suit-to-suit circuit.\n\n\"... hear me?\" Maggie's soft voice echoed in Gretchen's earbug. Anderssen nodded, moving back to the far side of the examination table. \"Dai says your readings are okay, but there's some kind of khu-shist energy pattern permeating the Russovsky and you have something like it in your boots.\"\n\nGretchen looked down. Aw, crap. The sides of her soles were discolored and shiny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bet that doesn't come out with spit and a cloth, either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Gretchen subvoxed, \"can you tell what's happened on the ship?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Maggie hissed. \"Something's locked us out of main comp.\"\n\nGretchen stared around in mounting panic. The chamber was sealed and now she realized the air vents had sealed up. An ozonelike odor tickled her nose and she backed away from the Russovsky-copy again. What a day to decide not to wear my z-suit. \"Can you do anything in here with just that panel?\"\n\nShe saw Bandao lean over and speak into Maggie's comm. \"Control the examination table, the lights, do an emergency atmosphere dump—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want that—hey!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Russovsky moved, reaching the glassite door, one arm swinging back. Before Bandao or Gretchen could react, the copy smashed a fist into the clear material and there was a resounding crash! The glassite flexed, spiderwebbed with cracks and rebounded with a singing, clear note. The copy staggered back, staring at its fist in wonder. Gretchen hissed in surprise, seeing the knuckles crumbling away like sand, spilling shining blue particles to the floor.\n\n\"She's breaking down,\" Gretchen hissed into her comm. \"She's been getting weaker the longer she's been aboard the ship. Bandao—what's her energy field reading?\"\n\n\"Weaker, but still hot!\" The gunner snatched up his automatic from the display.\n\nThe copy smashed into the door again, this time with both fists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Metal squealed, glassite splintered violently, sending tiny flakes whirring past Gretchen's head, and the entire door frame creaked." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'panel' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More blue sand scattered the floor and now deep rents split the copy's arms and shoulders.\n\n\"Is there radiation shielding?\" Gretchen shouted into the comm, scrambling back away from the blue dust winking on the floor. Some of the particles flickered with an inner light. \"Cut her off, cut her off!\"\n\nBandao stabbed a series of glyphs on the panel. The copy wrenched at the side of the hatch, grainy fingers digging into the twisted frame. There was a sound of metal tearing, then a deep basso hum welled up, filling the entire room. Secondary panels slashed down from the overhead, cutting off the observation window. One panel, over the hatch, ground down against the buckling frame, then stopped with a whine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen switched on her hand lamp and was greeted with the sight of the copy turning toward her, shining bluish-gray sand spilling away from massive wounds on its hands, face and arms. Even the z-suit and the poncho were breaking down. The copy lurched blindly toward Gretchen.\n\n\"Lort!\" She cursed, flinging the hand lamp away. The copy swung, tracking the spinning light, and lunged toward the flare of illumination. Gretchen dodged sideways, heard a crash as the copy slammed into a medical cart, then leapt to the deformed hatch. Bandao was on the other side, kicking at the twisted frame, trying to clear the jam.\n\nGretchen caught the door frame, then pulled hard, foot braced against the wall. The distended frame squealed, then popped back toward her. With a thud, the radiation shielding dropped, sealing the hatchway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a sigh behind Gretchen and she jerked out of the doorway." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her boots skidded on gravel and sand, but she managed to catch herself. There was no sign of the copy, only disordered bluish dust everywhere. Even the color was fading, moment by moment, leaving only a dull gray residue on the floor.\n\n\"Uhhhh... \" Gretchen slumped against the wall, dizzy, her heart racing. \"Maggie?\"\n\nThere was no answer from the comm. Even the blinking light of the local suit-to-suit circuit had gone out." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point (which may include pre-existing characters and lore), and You'll continue with 2 sentences in the style of Thomas Harlan." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hummingbird looked away from the jumbled image on his display panel. A tiny Anderssen had her head between her knees, back to the bulkhead of the medical bay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tapped open the comm channel to the Cornuelle.\n\n\"What happened?\" Hadeishi had put away his tea and his book, and leaned forward, dark hair—unbound and loose, as he was off duty—framing a thin, concerned face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tlamatinime rubbed his jaw, feeling the wrinkled seams of age under his fingertips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anderssen's ground team recovered the missing scientist today,\" he said, eyes drifting across his panel. Everything had come to a standstill on the Palenque, all of the compartments sealed, everyone isolated and confused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only Fitzsimmons and Deckard remained on the loose, and they were in their quarters, hurriedly donning full combat gear. \"But she was not what they expected.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She was a cartel agent?\" Hadeishi's brown eyes had gone hard and cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hummingbird laughed softly. The so-efficient Sho-sa Koshō had made her views known to him, in her direct way. However, the woman had access to only a fraction of the information known to the tlamatinime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, she was not in the pay of Norsktrad Heavy Industries or some other pochtecatl.\" He stopped and raised a temporizing hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least, not anymore. The—ah, how to put it?—the shape the ground team returned to the Palenque was not human. It was, instead, an entirely lifelike copy—at least to the human eye. They took the shape to Medical and tried to examine her and there was some trouble.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was anyone killed?\" Hadeishi's jaw twitched slightly, which made Hummingbird wonder who the naval officer would worry about on the civilian ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Certainly not me, or his Marines.\n\n\"No. Though the shape—some kind of mobile crystalline lattice—has been reduced to its essential components. The immediate danger is past.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi nodded and his shoulder shifted a fraction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'hummingbird'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hummingbird realized the Fleet officer had prepared his own response, much like the tlamatinime's own. In the crucible of the moment, as the shape had tried to escape the medical bay, Hummingbird hadn't hesitated to initiate a destruct sequence for the civilian ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now the moment had passed, now Chu-sa Hadeishi had taken his hand away from a similar glyph, the tlamatinime was filled with a chill sense of relief at escaping annihilation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is a possibility of infection,\" Hummingbird continued. \"But I believe Anderssen and the Marines have matters in hand. If not, then we will have to sterilize this ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi nodded, black eyebrows beetling together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about you? We can relocate you in five minutes notice—\"\n\nHummingbird shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are more pressing matters than my safety. First among them is the matter of the mining refinery ship. Is it still in the system?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain sat for a long moment considering the matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps. Hayes and Koshō are reviewing the sensor logs, looking for a transit spike—so far they've found none. Our arrival may have caught them by surprise, in which case they are hiding somewhere in the system, waiting for us to leave. Or they may have left before we arrived. We have been making a detailed survey of the system—those logs could be examined for traces of their passage or presence.\"\n\n\"Do it.\" Hummingbird stared at the Nisei captain for a moment, wondering how much to tell him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi is well regarded, a loyal and able captain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He's done me good service in the past, but..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shook his head slightly, deciding to fall back upon the traditions of the Mirror. There is risk enough already, and the Chu-sa is reliable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This situation could become very dangerous, Hadeishi-san. Not only to those of us in this system, but to the Empire. I am going to take care of matters both here on the ship and below on the planet. I must rely on you to deal with this mining refinery ship. But you must do so quietly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadeishi started to speak, then stopped, eyes narrowing. Finally, he said, \"By quietly you mean in such a way no one will notice, or know, the miner was here, or we were here, or even the civilian expedition.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tlamatinime nodded. \"Even so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Without,\" Hadeishi continued, slowly stroking his beard, \"the use of atomics, or antimatter weapons, or even—I venture—anything which might leave a lasting and detectable residue in the system, much less that which might be observed from the surface of Ephesus Three.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\nThe captain straightened in his chair, tugging his tunic straight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He met Hummingbird's eyes with the slightest smile—barely a crease at his eyes, no more than the faintest twitch of his lips. \"So the Mirror commands,\" he said, making a bow in his seat, \"so we obey.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sharp bark of laughter escaped Hummingbird, and he nodded, making a wry smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A cold thread of fear was trying to wrap around his neck, but he kept such phantoms away by a concentrated effort. He hoped the blue pyramid did not reveal something beyond his power to comprehend, though the bits and pieces of this puzzle were assuming a dreadful shape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But quietly, Chu-sa Hadeishi, quietly.\"\n\n\"What about you? To find the whereabouts of this miner—or even to discover if the ship is still in the system—will take us out of orbit, well beyond easy reach if you need retrieval.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hummingbird suppressed a further laugh, for he was long familiar with the ways of men, and with the Nisei in particular." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain was not asking about Hummingbird, but about the men and women on the Palenque. He was asking about his Marines—would they live to return to the Cornuelle?—and even perhaps about Anderssen and the scientists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Delicately phrased, the Méxica thought, very... what is that word?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ah, kotonakare-shugi—the willful disregard of troublesome matters.\n\n\"Anderssen,\" Hummingbird said, trading time—which he felt pressing—for politeness, \"is taking her own steps, even now. She has a quick wit, in her light-haired way. If she fails, then I will do what must be done. I hope,\" he added, \"to return Thai-i Isoroku, Gunso Fitzsimmons and Heicho Deckard to you at the earliest opportunity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi made a sharp bow in response and the tlamatinime knew the man was a little embarrassed to have his concern referred to openly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thought made Hummingbird a little sad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chu-sa obviously cared for his crew, as a grandfather did for even the meanest member of his clan. And I would trade all their lives for the Empire, he thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vague memories of a time when he had maintained such romantic notions threatened to surface and he made a sharp effort to keep them from distracting him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'service' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are knights, as I am, in the service of a greater power. Like flowers, we are nothing but a fleeting moment of duty and service." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is there anything you need, before we cut comm and boost out of orbit?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadeishi's attention was already far away, calculating angles and fuel usage and a dozen envelopes of detection. Hummingbird shook his head, then made a shallow bow of his own." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with Thomas Harlan's style in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. This is part of a longer work." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What does he think is down there?\" Gretchen rattled her feet noisily—now in stiff-bottomed shipshoes—against the railing separating the captain's station from the rest of the crew positions. \"Leave no trace of our visit? It's just not possible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Magdalena peered over the top of the navigation panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her yellow eyes were bare slits. \"What a whiny kitten you are,\" she declared with a sharp yrroowl in her voice. \"Either ask him yourself or be a good packmate and help pull cable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen ignored her to stare sullenly at the planet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most of her hair was twisted into a thick corn-tassel plait. She started to bite at the braid, head cocked to one side. \"He must believe something's down there, something that can see us... \" She paused, thinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No—it can't see us now, but it might see us in the future? Something which will notice satellites, spacecraft... but why wouldn't his precious something find the observatory camp?\"\n\nMagdalena's tufted ears disappeared with a disapproving growl. Parker managed a subdued laugh, but his hands were filled with bundles of conduit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The power leads to the navigator's station were proving difficult to restore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The substandard cables had ended in metallic connectors, which were still embedded in the panel sockets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sitting flush, without the usual cable run to grasp hold of, Parker was forced to remove them one at a time with a hand tool. He'd already wrecked one panel by shorting the connector with too much pressure.\n\n\"Maggie? How did Russovsky communicate with the Palenque when her ultralight was on farside?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen poked some of the buttons on the captain's panel and a variety of plotted routes, icons and little winking glyphs appeared across the live image of the planet. The routes of the geologist's flights vanished over the curve of the world, then looped back again. \"Does she have some kind of a relay station?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A low, ominous growl trailing away into a hissing snarl answered Gretchen's question. Magdalena crawled out of the utility space under the floor, her fur slick with sweat and snarled with bits of wire and the particular brand of sealant grease used by the Imperial Navy. The Hesht shot Anderssen a fierce, quelling look—an effort entirely lost on Gretchen, who was staring fixedly at the main v-pane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If I tell you, witless kit, will you be quiet?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'herself' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure.\" Gretchen nodded, though even Magdalena could tell the human woman hadn't heard her. \"Do you have a log of her transmissions? Could we find the relays that way? Does he have a copy? I mean—what if she dropped a three-square bar somewhere, would he have to clean that up?\"\n\nMagdalena swung herself over the comm station—her toolbags and tail drifting behind her—and dug a claw into the back of the captain's chair to anchor herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen finally looked at her with something like full attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think the dust would take care of litter,\" Maggie said, voice rumbling deep in her throat. \"The base at the observatory—that's a problem—or our mystery shuttle—there's another difficulty.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Gretchen gave the Hesht a puzzled look, then she grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, do you think the miners will come back? That would spoil our crow's plan to leave no trace!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Magdalena twitched her ears. \"They don't have to come back. I've been running nonstop image searches on Smalls's weather archive.\" One long arm reached out and tapped a command on the panel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The mining shuttle didn't leave like everyone expected.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The big view of Ephesus shimmered away and the v-pane displayed a high altitude shot of the planetary surface. Gretchen could recognize the edge of the northern permafrost, as well as the tapering wing of the Escarpment running down to smaller mountains and then—almost at the pole—to nothing but barren, rocky plains. \"I don't see—\"\n\n\"Hsst!\" Maggie cuffed Gretchen's head, catching one ear with the back of her paw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ow!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Watch. Quietly. Learn.\" Maggie moved a control and the image narrowed, the point of view zooming down from orbit. Mountains, valleys, vast plains of glittering sand flashed past. Suddenly, Gretchen caught sight of a triangular shape flitting across a queer-looking stone plateau." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ground was chopped up into smaller triangles of shadow, making the speeding shuttle almost invisible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shuttle was gone from the next picture—a half hour had elapsed—but the pattern of the ground had subtly changed. Gretchen stiffened in her chair. \"What was that? What are those lines?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Interesting, isn't it?\" Maggie's tongue was showing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen frowned at her. \"Look at this,\" the Hesht said, moving the control again.\n\nAnother high-angle shot, but later in the planetary day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The image had been enhanced, but a long blackened gouge was clear, cutting across a rippling line of dunes to an abrupt end. Gretchen squinted as Magdalena zoomed again. The track ended in a welter of shining metal, a mostly recognizable wing canted at a queer angle, the twisted body of a shuttle scored with carbon and the signs of a fierce conflagration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Valkyrie didn't get home,\" Maggie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So our nosy crow has a bigger mess to clean up than he thinks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jesu... \" Gretchen zoomed again, though now the image was very grainy and large sections showed the gray rippling tone of comp interpolation. \"They suck up too much dust?\"\n\n\"Looks like they got hit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parker had come up on the other side of the captain's chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made a sign against ill luck, face screwed up in a grimace. \"That fire damage didn't happen on the crash, not in such a thin atmosphere. Something swatted them down. Maybe some kind of beam weapon.\"\n\nMaggie's ears twitched again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I found the crash site last night, after everyone had gone to sleep. Old crow has been searching too. But he's not as good with the comp as this paaha, for all his shining-coat equipment. Now, you want to see what happened?\"\n\nParker and Gretchen gave the Hesht a disbelieving look. \"How? Smalls's satellites only take pictures every half hour!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"True enough,\" Magdalena said, a deep purr beginning in the back of her throat. \"But they don't take their pictures all at the same time, and near the poles the fields of view overlap.\" A claw tapped on the panel and the view of the planet returned, this time with white rectangular grids superimposed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Near the poles, the rectangles overlaid each other in a flurry of lines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All this lets us see sideways into the area of the crash. So I cobbled together video from the adjacent satellites and from those further around the curve that had a horizontal vantage of the crash site. Which lets us see... \"\n\nThe claw went tik-tik on the panel and a jerky, crude, massively interpolated vid unspooled on the display.\n\nThe shuttle arrowed down out of the eastern sky, sweeping across the crisscrossed plateau." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flare of the twin engines was very clear in the vid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Valkyrie began to bank, turning south and Gretchen felt her breath seize—the entire plateau seemed to ripple with motion, the crisscross lines shifting noticeably—and there was a sudden, shockingly bright flash. The entire plateau was blotted out by a burst of white light. When the light faded—after only a fraction of a second—the shuttle was wreathed in smoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flames jetted from a smashed engine in a bright, blossoming cloud. They wicked out only seconds later, but the shuttle was already spinning out of control.\n\nThe vid skipped and they caught only a glimpse of the aircraft as it slammed into the desert floor and skidded wildly across the dunes, spewing debris, chunks of airframe, and engine parts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the vid ended, and the vast red disc of Ephesus replaced the grainy images." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You see?\" Magdalena had her brush in her paw and was smoothing out the kinks and twists in her fur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sometimes the planet eats more than your boots.\"\n\nParker shook his head, then flicked away his spent tabac and immediately lit another. Gretchen sat quietly for a moment, studying the images on the panel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ran though the video again, her face composed and concentrated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment, she said, \"Did you extract more vid of this plateau with the lines?\"\n\n\"Ya-ha,\" Magdalena coughed. \"The second v-feed in archive—yes, that's the one.\"\n\nAnother series of images flowed past, these taken from weather satellite number eight at a slight angle from the west." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dawn spilled over the eastern horizon and the pattern of lines became apparent, elongated and stretched out, making a cross-hatching pattern." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Day progressed and the lines shortened, shifted pattern, essentially vanishing at midday. Then, as the sun sank into the west, lengthened again—this time to the east—and went through a similar set of convolutions.\n\nGretchen played the vid again, but this time she stopped the feed about an hour after the sun had risen, then zoomed and zoomed again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The comp interpolated busily, refining the image, and then a forest of tall pipelike structures were revealed covering the plateau." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Scale?\" Parker was at her shoulder again, a coil of tabac smoke tangling in her hair and tickling her nose.\n\n\"They're four to five meters tall,\" Gretchen said, brushing invisible smoky gnats away from her nose. \"But look... they bend as the sun passes. Not too much; the mineralized sheathing must be stiff to let them grow so high, but enough to follow the sun. Like flowers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pipeflowers.\" Parker grunted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What made the flash? Did they?\"\n\nGretchen nodded, hand over her mouth. \"Sinclair will have to look at this, but all of the microfauna he's found so far have used a kind of electron cascade as their... their blood, I guess. They store and release energy—the fuel that gives them life—by shedding electrons and storing potentials in segregated structures. And these... stems... must trap sunlight in some kind of photocell to sustain themselves.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parker scratched the side of his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They don't look dark, like a solar array.\"\n\n\"No.\" Gretchen felt a vague thought rear its head. Something she'd almost grasped before, when she was in the medical bay, or when she was examining the book cylinder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, the sun gives life, but too much is deadly. Too much UV, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fingers drummed on the display. \"So they build up a mineralized sheath—like the little creatures I found growing in the pulque can.\"\n\nGretchen felt the puzzle shift in her mind, some pieces falling into place and revealing a new orientation and shape for other sets of data." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She suddenly felt alive, as if her skin were humming and everything became perfectly clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The pulque can is the key,\" she said, looking up at Parker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because it's new and yet the organism had nearly filled the can. Sinclair thinks the whole ecosystem works very slowly, but he's wrong—the species he's examining are only replicating so slowly because they have so little energy to work with. The can was perfect for them—it's a substance they can digest—and it was in the shade of the trench. So they can grow and be protected from the sun.\" Gretchen nodded. \"Because all of these organisms—all of this effusion of Ephesian life—are terribly sensitive to ultraviolet radiation. You saw what happened down in the examining room—everything just died. Or in the shuttle intake with your multispec lamp.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Parker said as he stubbed out his tabac." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then how did all of this develop here? There's no ozone layer to speak of, no heavy atmosphere... the surface is a kill zone for the chapultin. How would they ever get a chance?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen's expression changed and Parker thought she looked terribly sad.\n\n\"Because there were so many of them to begin with,\" she said in a hollow voice. \"Unnumbered billions, covering the world in a terrible killing mist. They must have blotted out the sun, turned the sky dark with their numbers. But of course, there was no one to see them, not by then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huh?\" Parker's tabac hung on his lip, sending up a slow, coiling trail of smoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They were the eaters,\" Gretchen said, grinding a palm heel against her eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The First Sun people came to this world and they scattered thousands of cylinders—just like those Russovsky found. The cylinders broke open and the chapultin poured out, relentless and unstoppable. And, in the end, when they were done, there was nothing but barren rock and stone and an empty world.\"\n\nParker drew back, an expression half of amazement and half of disgust on his face.\n\n\"Then the great machines descended from the sky and the whole mantle of the world was torn away and reshaped in a way which pleased the gods of the First Sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lennox thinks their project was interrupted, that they went away in haste and I think she's right." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'there's' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because they left behind a ruin and some of their expendable tools were still alive. Some of the eaters lived, burrowing into the stone, hiding from the sun which turned the newly shattered surface into the harshest desert imaginable.\n\n\"Smalls is puzzled by the levels of oxygen and nitrogen in the current atmosphere. They're much higher than they should be—like there's a chlorophyll reaction working somewhere—and there's really very little CO2.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A wan smile tried to intrude on Gretchen's face, but failed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'energy' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The descendants of the chapultin fill the sand, the rock, every niche—just as life always seems to do—and they gobble up any CO2 they might find, releasing plain carbon and oxygen. And they fear the sun, so they've evolved in this swift million years, laying down waste products to protect their crystalline bodies, a shell to block the killing UV.\"\n\nHer hand opened, indicating the plateau of pipeflowers. \"Some of them have evolved to get their energy from the sun, though even then in only a specialized way. They must... they must have thought the engine flare of the shuttle was a new sun—so bright, so close—but there was too much energy, too fast.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen nodded to the pilot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's a beam weapon, but a directed stream of excited particles? That plateau is thirty miles wide, Parker, and there must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of pipeflowers. And every one of them probably suffered a catastrophic electron cascade all at once.\"\n\n\"Ugly.\" Parker said after thinking about it for a moment. \"Very ugly. Old crow better be careful flying around down there. Could get his tailfeathers singed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen smiled broadly at the thought of the Imperial judge plunging in a ball of fire to the desert floor. The mental image was clear and vivid and accompanied by a very satisfying crashing sound.\n\n\"Hrrwht!\" Magdalena shook her head, ears angled back." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A Midge won't attract them—it's quiet and unobtrusive—barely leaves a vapor trail. Russovsky was lucky—or figured it all out for herself. She was a careful hunter—well, before they ate her up, she was.\" The Hesht sighed.\n\n\"Yes... \" Gretchen suddenly looked thoughtful. She was thinking of Hummingbird and his mysterious errand. \"Parker, how much fuel does a Midge carry? How high can one fly?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Chapter Segment Request:\n- Sentences: 1 sentence\n- Style: Thomas Harlan\n- Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan\n- Note: Part of ongoing narrative" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So,\" Anderssen announced in a very satisfied tone, \"he's not coming back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parker stared around in alarm, making a cutting motion at his throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sister save us! Boss, don't talk like that! He's plugged into every surveillance camera on the ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pilot had been working up fuel loads and the speed and range of a Midge on the navigator's panel for an hour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of his scenarios allowed an ultralight to rise to a sufficient altitude in the Ephesian atmosphere to let a shuttle on ballistic path to make a skyhook snatch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maggie?\" Gretchen swiveled her head toward the black-furred alien." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Hesht shook her head, the overhead lights swirling across her work goggles, attention far away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Crow and the Marines are loading supplies into the fresh Midge and doing a systems check. He's away from his surveillance equipment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See?\" Gretchen grinned at the pilot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parker made a face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't cost anything to be careful,\" he muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look—maybe he's expecting a pickup from the Cornuelle. A navy shuttle could pick him up anywhere. No law saying he has to be snatched out of the upper atmosphere on a skyhook.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose.\" Anderssen's face fell and her grumpy mood returned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In her heart, she knew there was no reason at all for the Imperial nauallis to choose the same way down and back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you think he wants this crazy high-altitude insertion now because the Cornuelle isn't available?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure.\" Parker settled back in the navigator's chair, his nervous tension draining away as Anderssen's voice became more reasonable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our shuttles aren't equipped with any kind of stealth tech, no antiradar alloys and composites... just commercial birds. So if he wants a quiet delivery, then this ballistic skip is an entirely reasonable way to go. Coming back? The Cornuelle sends down some freaky, high-grade military shuttle to snatch him up all ghostlike.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hmm. Only if the Cornuelle comes back soon enough. These suits and other equipment aren't going to last too long down there, not if he's wandering around in the mountains. He'll need to be extracted in no more than a week or two.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parker stubbed out his tabac." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"People have been working down at base camp for months.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, in pressurized buildings and using de-dusting equipment when they come in from the field.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen waved her hand for emphasis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Plus, the observatory site is in the middle of a bright, well-lit plain—almost flat, a desert even by Ephesian standards—so the population density of the microfauna is very low. I checked the airlocks and storm doors—they're eroding, not quickly, but you can see signs of wear. If the camp was someplace sheltered, in a canyon and in shade part of the day? There'd be nothing but a mineralized sheath left, or even an animate copy, like Russovsky.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parker's shoulder twitched in reaction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a nice thought.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah-huh.\" Gretchen looked at Maggie questioningly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Hesht was still staring into the distance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still a little time, Anderssen thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And what am I going to do?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My prize is snatched away, the expedition cashiered short of any kind of deliverable—there won't be a single bonus now, not without something the Company can sell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought of not being able to afford a holiday ticket made her stomach turn over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her thoughts shied away from the prospect of the expedition crew being charged for the lost machinery, tools, equipment and data at the base camp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Parker, can you tell where the Cornuelle has gone? When it might come back?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pilot made a coughing sound—a conscious imitation of Magdalena's diesel generator laugh—and shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry, boss. We lost the navy as soon as they went passive, shut down their hull lights and snuck off into the dark. Those light cruisers are built for snooping around, and the poor lot of matchsticks on this tub won't light them up even if we try.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parker sighed, tapping a fresh tabac from a dingy plastic box he carried in the front pocket of his work vest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As to a return date? I don't know. One of Maggie's tapes has Isoroku saying karijozu on his last comm call as they were preparing to leave. 'Good luck hunting.' So I'd guess they're looking for the refinery ship.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He squinted at one of the dead navigation panels, thinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A search of the asteroid belt could take weeks, even months.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I see.\" Gretchen's expression had grown still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She started to speak, but Magdalena suddenly twitched, making a sharp motion with one hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They've finished,\" the Hesht said, ears twitching. \"Back to work.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grumbling, Parker hitched up his work belt and swung himself gracefully up and over the ring of command panels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mags, I think we need to jimmy up some kind of specialized clamp to back these dead connectors out... \"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen sat quietly, thinking, while the Hesht and the pilot worked in the tight space under the deck, cursing and sweating." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After almost an hour, she leaned forward and keyed up the Midge fuel-loading model Parker had put together. Her eyes were oddly flat and expressionless as she tapped in a new scenario." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writers block help pls. ill send something, u do seven sentences. going for Thomas Harlan vibe. note: might have existing chars" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Cornuelle glided through an inky deep, a matte-black ghost among invisibly tumbling leviathans." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her main engines were at minimal thrust in an attempt to reduce her sensor profile. The sleek hull was in absorptive mode, darkness against darkness, yielding no hint of comm traffic or EM radiation. On her command deck, Hadeishi was keeping one eye on the ship's heat sump and one on the latest personnel reports when Hayes's terse voice drew his attention.\n\n\"Outrider Two has lost particle track,\" the weapons officer declared, staring intently at his panel.\n\n\"Outrider Two, engine full stop,\" Hadeishi barked, eyes swinging to the glowing depths of the threat-well. Drone Two was their lead dog at the moment, deployed nearly a thousand kilometers \"inward\" of the cruiser. Outrider One was accelerating back toward the cruiser, on the downside of its duty cycle." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'bridge' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three was outbound, snaking its way through the three-dimensional maze of the asteroid field to catch up with Two. The entire area within sensor range was quiet; the bridge displays showed only thousands of dots colored \"navigational hazard\" amber. The Cornuelle was a blue spark at the center of the well, with the three drones appearing as miniscule turquoise arrows.\n\n\"How long until Three reaches duty station?\" The chu-sa leaned back in the shockchair, considering the situation. He wondered if Koshō had gone to sleep yet—she'd gone off-duty an hour ago—and decided not to call her back to the bridge. She needs to sleep sometime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Two hundred and thirty minutes, sir.\" Hayes turned questioningly to Hadeishi. \"Shall I back Two out of there?\"\n\n\"No,\" Hadeishi said. \"Badger the drone with a nearby rock. Reduce outgoing transmissions to locational data. No broadcast, no highband emission. Switch everything else to record.\" Hayes was already at work on his panel, squirting a new set of commands to the drone. \"When Three comes in range, establish a narrow-beam link to Two and relay back to us.\"\n\n\"Pinhole mode, aye,\" Hayes acknowledged absently, his mind entirely on reconfiguring the drone and dumping a new set of engagement and maneuver parameters to Outrider Three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later he punched two glyphs and took a breath. \"Commands away.\"\n\nHadeishi nodded, but his attention was now on the main panel, where ship's comp was replaying the particle trail data. Curse my generosity, he thought with a trace of bitterness. I need Isoroku here to advise me, not stuck on a civilian pleasure barge—he knows engine patterns better than anyone. The replay showed a wash of decaying, once-excited particle byproducts of the refinery's main drive meandering through the debris field. \"Hayes, come look at this.\"\n\nThe weapons officer was at his side as fast as humanly possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A Tyr-class refinery is almost ten times our size,\" Hadeishi remarked, contemplating the plot. \"Her helmsman is following a path of least density, trying to keep incidental meteoroid impacts to a minimum as she moves through the field. But look, here the refinery suddenly shifts course into close proximity with this cloud of debris.\"\n\nHayes nodded. \"They must have picked something up.\" A stylus in his blunt fingers sketched a new trajectory on the panel. \"They're cutting through a 'hedge' into another area with less debris. A clear lane between the larger planetesimals.\"\n\n\"And we lose the trail at the edge of the 'lane.'\" Hadeishi grimaced. \"Could they have picked up the outrider?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weapons officer shook his head. \"No, Chu-sa. The decay rates indicate we're still days behind them. They must have reacted to something on long-range scan.\"\n\nHadeishi settled deeper into his chair, stroking his beard. \"Break down those decay rates and all the data we have on their engine plume. If they've badgered and know someone is looking for them, we need to get a solid estimate on how far they might have gone on minimum power.\"\n\n\"Not very far,\" Hayes said, tapping his stylus on the panel. \"Think about how much mass they're moving. Even empty, a Tyr is a behemoth. I think they scooted into this 'lane' so they could coast and gain some distance. Somewhere out here—\" the stylus sketched a box in the 'clear' area \"—there's a pocket of engine exhaust.\"\n\n\"Because they corrected course,\" Hadeishi said, \"either for distance or vector.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I could send Outrider Two into the lane,\" Hayes offered dubiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" Hadeishi shook his head slightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's no reason to try and hide a course change if you don't drop a sensor relay—or a proximity mine—behind to welcome a pursuer. The refinery captain is not a fool. His cartel wouldn't entrust so much expensive equipment to a novice. He'll pick a random vector, pile on velocity and coast again until he has to maneuver to avoid a collision.\"\n\nThe chu-sa paused, considering the cloud of amber dots for a moment. Then he nodded again, this time to himself. Hayes waited patiently, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders square.\n\n\"Hold drone Two on station until Three arrives.\" Hadeishi's voice had lost its contemplative tone. His mind was made up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Recycle drone One as quickly as it can be refueled. The Cornuelle will proceed at one-third power to catch up. I want all three drones ready on point when we reach Two's current location. We will advance in a box formation, scanning the surrounding debris clouds for evidence of a third course change.\"\n\n\"Hai, Chu-sa!\" Hayes's jaw tightened and a gleam lit in the young officer's eyes.\n\nHadeishi waved him away and slumped back in the shockchair, staring into the threat-well.\n\nNow we close with the enemy, he thought, troubled. Does he know we're here? Is he reckless? Is he wary?\n\nThat was the question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A prudent, patient captain would simply wait for an opportunity to make hyperspace gradient out of the system when no one could see him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But an angry man, or a reckless commander... A ship that large could carry a great deal of mischief in secondary storage. A single proximity mine could cripple the Cornuelle. Two or three might kill her, if the cruiser happened to blunder into a flower-box detonation." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. Your partner will send something and you will write the next 12 sentences, matching their level of character familiarity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Still nothing... \" Magdalena was curled up in a nest of Navy-issue blankets over-flowing the captain's chair on the bridge of the Palenque." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slitted yellow eyes watched another set of scan data unspool on a secondary v-pane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was plenty of noise, static and ghostly warbling filling the comm bands down on the planetary surface. But there was a singular lack of recognizable traffic on Imperial and Company channels. \"Parker, can you switch on the main array? Just for an hour or two?\"\n\nThere was a grunt from behind her and the Hesht tilted her head back far enough to see one of the human's legs hanging out of a ceiling tile. Though the Navy engineer had managed to get the ship underway, the bridge systems of the Palenque were still mostly down. Coils of conduit, cable and guide-sheathing were exposed everywhere. Very few systems were working. There was no heat, no light. Other than the cold, the Hesht was very comfortable in the cavernlike space.\n\n\"Parker... \" Magdalena began a harsh, throbbing growl at the back of her throat.\n\nThere was a scraping sound and the human pilot's face appeared in an opening between two of the tiles. Light from a glowbean shone around his balding head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Cat,\" he said, sounding wrung out, \"the main comm array is shut down, turned off and locked out by order of our dear judge. If you want it active, you will have to persuade Stoneface down in Engineering.\"\n\n\"He eats moss,\" Magdalena replied, ears twitching. Finely napped black fur curled back from her fore-incisors and she let an inch of claw expose on her left hand—just for a moment. \"Rrrrrr... they could be in trouble dirtside. Another pack might have them cornered. Her leg could be broken, she could be caught in the open, exposed!\"\n\nParker sighed and crawled backward out of the overhead. His forearms were crisscrossed with scars and dried blood. Working in such an old ship was wearing on mind and body alike. He swung for a moment, feeling the gentle tug of the ship's acceleration, then dropped to the deck. Palenque was underway, engines barely lit, in a long corkscrew orbit out from the planet. In another five days, the pilot figured, she would be far enough away to switch to full power. Then—if Isoroku and his Marine helpers were really working down in Engineering, not drinking themselves insensible—the ship might be able to achieve gradient and enter hyperspace.\n\n\"Maggie... \" Parker stumbled into the navigator's chair and wedged one thin shoulder into a space between two of the supports." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shockchair's heavy, plush seatback had been eaten, leaving nothing but a cage of metal strips." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'waxed' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He reached for the pack of tabac in his shirt pocket and found only empty waxed paper., Crap. No smoke. \"I know Gretchen's your packleader now and all—I know that's important to you—but she's gone off on her own... thing.\"\n\nThe Hesht did not look at him, once more encased in a suspicious number of blankets. Parker blinked, then stared at a blue sleepbag tucked in behind her. \"Is that my sleepbag? It is. You stole my sleepbag! Give over!\"\n\n\"Rrr! I'm cold, monkey! You're not. You're working. When you go to your den to sleep, I'll let you have it back.\"\n\n\"So—is all your fur for show or something?\" Parker crushed waxed paper in his fist. \"You're... plushy. But you're cold all the time. I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Heshukan,\" Magdalena said, baring the tips of her incisors, \"was a warm, dry world.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Parker started to hunt through his pockets for something else to smoke.\n\n\"You're out of bitter, smelly leaves,\" Magdalena said, staring moodily at the v-pane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still nothing but static and garbage. She turned off the feed and began flipping through the various comm systems available to her. Most were dead and dark. \"Maybe the hunters have some.\"\n\n\"Ask the Marines?\" Parker rubbed his face wearily. \"They were cadging from me yesterday. Stupid—why give them away? Have I lost my mind? I should have sold them, or kept them for myself!\" The pilot pushed himself out the chair and gestured at Magdalena. \"I'm crashing. Give me my bag.\"\n\nBrow and nose wrinkled up in a grimace, the Hesht scooted to one side and let Parker recover his sleepbag.\n\n\"Agh. It smells like piss!\" The pilot held his bag at arm's length, mouth pursed.\n\n\"You don't want it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of Magdalena's paws licked out and snagged the bottom of the bag with a curving white claw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I made it smell proper, like a denblanket should.\"\n\n\"I do want it!\" Parker snatched the bag back. He shook his head, then made his way carefully off the bridge, bag trailing behind him like a fat blue tail.\n\nMagdalena hissed at his retreating back and then rummaged around, adjusting her blankets. When she was done, the Hesht resumed paging through the comm channels. Her mood was even fouler than before.\n\nBandao arrived an hour later, two bulky packages under one arm, and found the bridge dark and cold, save for Magdalena in her nest, with four v-panes casting a chill gray light on her face. Maggie ignored him. She was busy keying commands into the system in one pane while the others were filled with closely spaced documentation or remote console feeds. Her moodiness had departed, replaced by a near-maniacal concentration on the work before her. Bandao took no notice of the slight and began hunting around under the command deck.\n\nAfter a few moments, he found what he was looking for and plugged a field heater into a power socket under the navigator's station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five seconds later, the olive-colored unit woke up and began to radiate a warm, dry heat into the area around the captain's chair.\n\n\"Two and four are stabilized,\" Magdalena muttered under her breath. Her claws made a constant, rattling click-click-click on the control panel. If she were a human, she would be sweating. If she were Parker, there would be a cloud of smoke like a forest fire around her.\n\nStudiously ignoring the Hesht, Bandao paced around to the opposite side of her chair, installed a second unit and then disappeared back into the dark passageway leading into the main hab ring. Magdalena showed no sign of noticing his brief visit.\n\n\"Ah,\" she said in relief, rolling her shoulders. \"That's better. Seven will do.\" Magdalena's nose twitched—there was a sort of hot metallic smell in the air—but the images on the panel drew her attention before she noticed the two heaters.\n\nOn her main v-pane, a video feed had appeared. The image was broken into seven sections arranged in an exploded hexagon, each showing a different view of the planet now receding behind the Palenque." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tip of her pink tongue showing, Magdalena watched the feeds very carefully. Seven matching remote console windows were live on another section of her panel.\n\n\"Synch one to seven,\" she muttered, tapping a series of glyphs with the little claw on her right paw. The upper left video shivered, then adjusted, conforming to the image mirrored in the center of the hexagon. \"Good... synch two to seven.\"\n\nThree-quarters of a million kilometers away, one of the peapod satellites still in orbit over the third planet made an adjustment, slewing to cover an equatorial region. The peapod's orbit had been degrading rapidly, but it was still in operation. The machine was aware—but uncaring—of a slight increase in the rate of collision with atmospheric particles. Almost imperceptibly, the satellite began to slow, dragged by an invisible fringe of the ocean of air surrounding the planet. Responding to the commands arriving over the telemetry link, the peapod made a series of minute adjustments to its orientation.\n\n\"Synch six to seven... \" Maggie began to grin, foreteeth and sidemolars showing in a fierce display. \"... and stabilize image.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tapped another patiently waiting glyph. The video displays from all seven peapods collapsed into one single image. Palenque-side comp picked up the dataflows and began to fuse them into one high-resolution feed. Magdalena waited anxiously, a fully extended striking claw clicking against the front of her cutting teeth.\n\nThe comp interped and interped again, trying to adjust for differences in the rate of flow caused by the angular distance between the ship and the peapods scattered around Ephesus. Hating the concession, Maggie stepped down the level of resulting detail an order of magnitude. Palenque comp chirped happily in response.\n\n\"Now,\" Magdalena growled happily, \"let's look in on the crash site.\"\n\nThe multilensed eye in the sky shifted, concentrating on a barren valley near the northern ice cap. Magdalena was grudgingly satisfied with the resolution coming back out of the cribbed-together system, but the satellites were responding far too slowly to satisfy her impatient nature.\n\n\"Stupid tree-climbing machines... \" When all seven peapods had focused on the crash area, Magdalena realized both Gretchen and the old crow had left the area. \"Now where did they go?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She cleared the peapod documentation out of the secondary panes and brought up Russovsky's transmission logs and a plot of her flight path. \"Hmm... \"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The heaters continued to glow, surrounding the Hesht in a warm cocoon. Her face shimmered in the constantly changing light from the panels as she worked, long into shipsnight. By shipsdawn, the tired Hesht was staring at a grainy picture of a mountainside. The upper wings of two ultralights gleamed in late-afternoon sunlight and Maggie could make out the blurry shapes of Gretchen and the Méxica talking as they loaded gear into their Midges." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. Your partner will send something and you will write the next 12 sentences, matching their level of character familiarity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hummingbird fiddled with his breather and goggles, trying to get them to lie comfortably over his nose and ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen, passing by with the last of her personal gear, threw the comp and sensor pad into the front seat of the Gagarin.\n\n\"Hold still,\" she said over the comm, her own face mostly masked by the tail of her kaffiyeh. \"There's a trick to it... there. How is that? Better?\"\n\nThe nauallis nodded, finding the new arrangement suitable. For a moment, Gretchen thought he might actually thank her, but he did not. She was not surprised.\n\n\"So—you feel comfortable leaving this place now?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Hummingbird had spent the day sitting cross-legged in the cave, watching the passage down into the cavern. \"We will follow the course of Russovsky's last flight.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Gretchen peered at the nauallis curiously. \"You haven't seen anything? Felt anything?\"\n\nHummingbird shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have a long way to go, Anderssen. We shouldn't waste any more time here.\"\n\n\"Really.\" Gretchen felt a cold, sharp anger boiling up in her stomach. With an almost physical effort, she forced her voice to remain level. \"Aren't you going to ask me how I could find Russovsky's stone—when you couldn't? Or do you know already?\" Her eyes narrowed. \"You do know. You even know why these things are happening!\"\n\nHummingbird laughed in relief, an abrupt, unexpected sound. \"Know? I know many things, Anderssen, but I've not the slightest idea why the cave made a copy of Russovsky or kept repeating itself!\"\n\nOddly, as the nauallis was speaking, Gretchen became aware of a queer flutter in his voice, as if two voices were speaking at once—different voices—and they were contradicting each other.\n\n\"You're lying.\" Hummingbird became very still. Gretchen looked around, entirely startled by her own statement and then she advanced on him. \"You are lying and I... I can tell.\"\n\n\"Could you?\" Hummingbird stirred, regarding her with a fierce, sudden intensity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well—how did you find the stone in the dust?\"\n\nFaced with the question she'd wanted to hear all day, Gretchen felt entirely deflated. She was sure the nauallis already had some esoteric answer for her, and she realized she didn't care. \"Never mind. Our real problem is what happened in the cave. There is no reason for an organism in this environment to waste energy making copies of things. At least—no reason I can think of.\" She drew back her hood, so the Náhuatl could see the fierce expression on her face. \"Why don't you fill me in? Before we stumble into the next situation, and one of us is hurt, or killed, by my ignorance.\"\n\nHummingbird's lips had compressed to a tight line and his eyes grew dark and guarded. \"There are secrets which cannot be revealed... \"\n\nGretchen's face contorted into a snarl. A hand groped at her belt for a wrench, a hammer, a gun...\n\n\"... so I will not tell you everything I know.\" Hummingbird said firmly. \"But I will tell you enough. But first, think about what you did in the cavern. You've had a certain kind of training—from school, from university, from your parents, from the work of your hands—and you're skilled in a way of seeing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused, regarding her. \"Did those skills show you the stone in the dust?\"\n\nGretchen became aware her mouth was very dry. She licked her lips and took a drink from the recycler tube in her mask. Hummingbird's gaze did not waver or look away. Gretchen started to become nervous. \"I... no, no I don't think they did. I didn't see the stone, not with my eyes. There was only an itch. Just... something was out of place.\"\n\nThe nauallis nodded minutely. He seemed to gather himself, jaw tightening, brow creasing. For a very long time, Hummingbird said nothing, staring at her with an unwavering expression. Just as Anderssen—tired of standing on a windy ledge while the day inexorably passed—was about to speak, he blinked and said:\n\n\"Think of a river, broad and running swift." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bottom is smooth sand, the banks thick with algae." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is nothing to disturb the current, the surface is placid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you hover above the clear water, you can see into the depths, pick out details of patterns in the sand. Perhaps there is seagrass waving in the current. Put your hand in the water and you are surprised by the strength of the water—but now the surface is distorted, confused. A wake trails behind your hand and suddenly the water is no longer clear. Such an effect is obvious, even to the unwary.\n\n\"Consider a boulder, submerged and invisible to a man standing on the bank. The river may seem placid, but the current is distorted. A boat on the river may strike the rock before anyone notices anything amiss. The current may twist across the stone, eddying, rushing faster or slower. Now, in the constrained universe beneath the glassy surface, there may be places where the seagrass cannot hold, or places where an eddy falls, leaving a thick stand of growth.\"\n\nHummingbird made a motion with his hand, indicating the landscape around them.\n\n\"What you see here—the ruined surface, tortured mountains, desolate plains—is not the whole of this world. There are submerged currents. There is something here, something hidden. There is an influence, like my hidden boulder, which directs, confines, shapes all that happens on this poor, broken orb. We felt an echo in the cave—\"\n\nGretchen felt her pulse trip a little faster. She blurted, \"The First Sun people! Something interrupted their labors! They fled, didn't they? What... what did they leave behind?\"\n\n\"Do not presume they fled,\" Hummingbird replied, raising his eyes to the sky. His goggles polarized into a shining mirror, reducing the sun to two blazing points." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you thought about the power of the First Sun people? They bestrode the stars as gods—we have seen the scraps and ruins they leave behind—and we are ants creeping across the floor of a deserted house. Our ships have visited six hundred worlds, only the tiniest fraction of the suns we can see with the unaided eye. Yet there are wonders which beggar our knowledge and skill even in such a tiny space. Have you thought what might lie beyond the rim of our domain?\"\n\n\"Hasn't everyone? Every undergraduate class debates this in first-term xenoarcheology!\" Gretchen began to feel the excitement of curiosity stir and tried to keep her voice level. \"Where did they come from, the giants of the First Sun? Where did they go? Why aren't they here now?\"\n\n\"They were destroyed.\" Hummingbird's statement was flat and cold. \"There were—there are—powers which exceeded them in all ways. In age, though the First Sun races are impossibly ancient by our measure, in strength, though the least of the First Sun valkar could smash Earth to a cinder.\"\n\nHe tilted his head toward the vast sweep of mountains and canyons and plains. \"One of the valkar was here, remaking this world into something pleasing—if such a term can be used. Then it fled to safety.\" Hummingbird fixed Gretchen with a piercing stare. \"What made it run? What drove it away, what frightened a power capable of shattering an entire planet?\"\n\n\"I... \" Gretchen couldn't think of anything to say.\n\n\"Not man.\" The nauallis shook his head, laughing bitterly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not man! Not our tiny little empire! We are very small. Insignificant. But think about what happened in the cave—Russovsky left something behind, something equally small. What did you find?\"\n\n\"A pebble.\" Gretchen squinted, trying to make out the man's expression. \"Just a water stone, like the old-timers use on Mars. She'll have taken it out of her mouth at night and put it aside. Then she forgot in the morning and left. There are plenty of other smooth stones here.\"\n\n\"You saw what happened. The things which live in the cave reacted—their current was disturbed—I venture they were trying to eject the stone, like shrapnel from a wound. You saw what kind of distortion such a small, tiny object created.\"\n\nGretchen nodded. \"But how—\"\n\nHummingbird raised a hand, cutting her off. \"This world is filled with echoes, Anderssen-tzin. Echoes of destruction and fear. Echoes of the dead. There are shades all around us, even now. You cannot see them—they are faint even to me—but enormous forces have been at play. The tread of the gods, if you wish to think of the First Sun people as deities. Your precious cylinder was in a fragment of stone—even I recognize the fossils in the ancient layers of sediment. The valkar consumed a living world and was then defeated in turn by something even more monstrous.\"\n\nPursing his lips, the nauallis stared off into the emptiness. \"But I do not think it fled.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Gretchen moved into Hummingbird's line of sight.\n\n\"It is still here, somewhere. In hiding.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh.\" Gretchen shook her head, trying not to laugh." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'wasn't' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His statement seemed preposterous. She wasn't quite sure if she was afraid or exasperated with the old Méxica. \"It's... hiding here? In a cave or something?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" Hummingbird looked entirely grim. \"We see only echoes of its effects—ripples from a stone thrown a million years in the past. These crystalline entities, whatever consumed Russovsky and then vomited her up again, the corrosive dust, the fields of pipeflowers—they are reflections of a hidden power.\"\n\n\"Have you been taking some kind of psychotropic while I wasn't looking?\" Gretchen failed to hide her complete disbelief. \"How can you reach such a conclusion after only being planetside for, what—three days? You don't have any data!\" She stopped, mouth open. A nagging thought had blossomed into certainty, watching his inscrutable old face.\n\n\"You knew what was here before you came.\" Gretchen felt a little sick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Russovsky. The crew on the ship. Doctor McCue... everyone who'd already died... \"Did the Company know?\"\n\n\"No. No one knew.\" Hummingbird adjusted the hood of his kaffiyeh to shade his goggles. \"I have data—but not from this world. From another ruined planet. If the proper authorities had known what was here, no civilian ship would have been allowed in the system.\"\n\n\"Which authorities,\" Gretchen replied testily, \"are the proper authorities for dealing with gods?\"\n\n\"I am,\" Hummingbird said quietly. \"This is my responsibility.\"\n\n\"You? Just you by your lonesome or the whole of the tlamatinime?\"\n\nHummingbird almost smiled. \"Not all of the judges are privy to everything, but as a whole we are entrusted—by both Emperors, by the Fleet—with keeping a guard upon humanity.\"\n\n\"Do we need to be guarded?\" Gretchen felt cold, even in the direct unfiltered blaze of the Ephesian sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are we sheep, who need a watchdog prowling? What would you do if one of these... these valkar attacked a colony world or even Anáhuac itself?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The world would die,\" Hummingbird said tonelessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the valkar—the gods of the First Sun—are scattered or dead.\" He paused. \"Or sometimes they lie hidden, trapped in a kind of sleep. This one must be dreaming, waiting for the stars to change in their courses so it may wake again.\"\n\n\"What good can you do, then, if you cannot stop these powers?\"\n\nHummingbird's eyes glinted angrily and Gretchen swallowed another acerbic comment.\n\n\"We watch, Anderssen. We watch in the darkness at the edge of human space. As a famous general once said, 'We stand guard so you may enjoy the untroubled sleep of the innocent.' Your attitude, I realize, is a testament to a job well done by my brothers and their predecessors. We are rarely idle. Many times men have stumbled into danger. Colonies have been abandoned, stations lost. Ships disappear with dreadful frequency. In Tenochtitlán, in the district of the Weavers, there is an unremarkable building which holds room after room filled with anthracite tablets. The names of my brothers who have fallen in our quiet, unseen struggle are inscribed therein. This is not a pleasant universe, Anderssen-tzin, where man can roam without care.\"\n\nThe old Náhuatl scratched the back of his head. \"We might be lucky here. The dust will help consume our tracks, our equipment, all traces of our visit. We just have to make sure there are no more 'memories' trapped along Russovsky's path.\"\n\n\"What about the cylinder on the Palenque?\" Gretchen asked quietly. \"You really think it is a trap? That it will have to be destroyed?\"\n\nHummingbird nodded. \"I know what the cylinder means to you. But such devices are far too dangerous to be deciphered or allowed into human space.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Gretchen felt ill. \"Does your 'unseen struggle' include explaining these things to my Company? Maybe a receipt? Or am I expected to suffer quietly as well?\"\n\n\"I will do what I can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old Méxica did not look away, but Gretchen didn't see the slightest hint he would help her, either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat down on the forward wheel of the Gagarin.\n\n\"What do you think will happen now?\"\n\nHummingbird shrugged, squatting easily on the windy ledge. \"All we can do is follow her trail and clean up what we can. There will be other... apparitions. We will have to break up their patterns, try and return things to their usual course. And quickly too, before we become part of the flow ourselves.\"\n\n\"Do your skills let you tell which boulders should be removed from the 'stream'?\"\n\nHe nodded sharply. \"The tlamatinime learns first to see. If the gods smile, what I cannot perceive, you will.\"\n\n\"Me?\" Gretchen's nose twitched as she made a disbelieving face. \"What do you mean see?\"\n\n\"Perceive, then,\" Hummingbird said in a wry tone. \"In the cavern, you felt something was out of place—this is the beginning of the seeing. I was surprised at your reaction. Most humans are nearly blind.\"\n\nGretchen felt insulted. \"I'm a trained, experienced observer, Hummingbird-tzin. It's my job to see subtle differences in a substrate, in a dig layer, a field of loose stone and gravel.\"\n\n\"Trained by science,\" he said, almost dismissively." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'dismiss' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Trained with one set of tools at the expense of others. You're a specialist, Anderssen. A tool designed for a single task. Your personnel records are filled with praise, but this is not an archaeological excavation. This world is not depth-tagged or laser-gridded.\"\n\n\"The science you dismiss has built an entire civilization, crow.\" She tapped the breather mask covering the lower half of her face. \"We're alive because of specialized tools. I wouldn't dismiss them as if they were toys!\"\n\nHummingbird looked at his gloved hands, then at her. \"Do you believe everything can be measured? Everything can be described?\"\n\n\"What?\" Gretchen was nonplussed. \"Well... yes, I think so. Eventually. Our tools and techniques are constantly improving.\"\n\n\"I thought so once.\" Hummingbird turned his hands over, apparently interested in the pattern of the material covering his palms. \"But I have learned—at cost, Anderssen, at cost!—this is not true. There are limits to human perception and human science—but those limits do not correspond to the limits of the universe. Not at all.\"\n\nThe old Méxica looked up, gauging the progress of the sun against the dome of heaven." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'description' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Time is passing, Anderssen. Consider this, while we are in flight: We—by we, I mean humans like you and I—exist within a bubble of the known. What we can see or hear or taste or feel. From this we have derived a description. This description is your science. Within the known, we build tools, live our lives, raise our children. Those tools let us manipulate the known, the material.\n\n\"But what of the unknown, Anderssen? What about the things we do not perceive? There is a universe of ghosts and shadows just beyond our living sight. Do you doubt the presence of the unseen?\"\n\nGretchen shook her head. \"No—I get your point. A human being doesn't even live in the same perceptual universe as a cat. Not without tools to extend vision, sight, smell, hearing. Are you saying your training lets you perceive the infrared or ultraviolet? See as a baleshrike sees? Smell as a truedog smells?\"\n\n\"No.\" Hummingbird stood up and shook out his cloak. \"I am bound by my physiology, just as you are. My nose—for example—does not have the physical receptors to capture the wealth of molecules a beagle may.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grasped the offending organ between thumb and forefinger. \"Anatomy limits me. But laziness... laziness blinds men.\"\n\n\"Then what are you talking about?\" Gretchen stood and swung open the Gagarin's cabin door. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Did your eyes physically change between the time you first walked out onto that soccer field and today?\"\n\n\"No.\" Gretchen climbed into the cockpit of the Midge and squirmed into the lumpy seat. \"They're probably worse. All right, so I know what to look for. I can recognize patterns—\"\n\nIn the other aircraft, Hummingbird shook his head sharply. \"Not so. The enemy of clear sight is accepting patterns in the world around us. To see clearly, you have to let your eyes take in what is truly before you, not allow a lazy mind to fit things into a familiar shape.\"\n\nAnderssen closed the cabin door and began running through a preflight check. She started to speak and then looked closely at the control panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most of the Gagarin's instrumentation was held in a v-pane, but there were certain systems served by archaic-looking dials and switches. Everything you need to fly without the comp being live, she realized. Gretchen ran a hand over the console, feeling smooth metal and rubber under her gloved fingertips. Most of the dials had cream-colored backgrounds with red needles or indicators. Flecks of rust were visible where the enamel covering the metal had worn away.\n\nFor the first time, she actually saw the console and all the minute, tiny details of wear and use. Not the sketchy, abstracted impression she'd had of the control panel before. Almost immediately, Gretchen felt her mind try to draw back—an almost physical sensation—and the sense of limitless clarity faded. She blinked and concentrated, trying to see the numbers on one of the dials. Now they were blurry and she started to squint.\n\n\"Focus is an enemy,\" Hummingbird said softly over the comm. \"You're trying to limit your field of view in hopes of gaining clarity. Forcing sight won't work.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you train, then?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'these' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen blinked furiously. Her eyes hurt. Her brain hurt! \"How do you reach an objective without pursuing a goal?\"\n\n\"You've already started—in the cavern—when I guided you to a natural posture. When you found a comfortable place to sit.\" The nauallis was starting to sound a little irritated. \"We will talk of this again, later. Are your engines warmed up? We should lift off.\"\n\n\"Wait. Why are you showing me these things? Telling me these secrets?\"\n\nHummingbird smiled, white teeth barely visible through the scarred canopy of his ultralight. \"My other option is to kill you. But you are alive and a human being and your presence aids me. The universe is connected in odd ways and you might tip a balance in my favor. Besides, if things come to violence, you can get in the way of the enemy for a few seconds.\"\n\n\"Oh my,\" growled Gretchen, \"that is nice. Very nice. Very Imperial sounding.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "keep the story goin for like six sentences more. same character vibes. make it Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan-y" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Magdalena leaned forward on one paw, yellow eyes intent on the main v-pane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is he doing? Where's Doctor Anderssen?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: around, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parker slouched against the control panel, his thin body enveloped in a big, bulky field jacket. He looked cold and a little ill, though the bridge was really very warm from the ring of heaters around the command station.\n\n\"She must be inside the cave,\" Maggie replied, adjusting the light levels of the feed. The dawn line had just passed over the eastern side of the Escarpment and everything was terribly washed-out. The figure of Hummingbird could be seen moving around the tied-down ultralights. The Méxica knelt momentarily beside both of the Midges." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's checking the sand anchors.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even in the jerky, disrupted image on the panel, Magdalena could tell there was a fierce wind lashing against the cliffs. Less than two kilometers away, a boiling cloud of yellow-red dust raged against the Escarpment. Sheets of sand roared across the valley floor and funneled down into a terrifying-looking standing cone at the mouth of the canyon.\n\nHummingbird turned and scuttled back beneath the overhang, the tail of his cloak snapping in the violent air.\n\n\"Looks rough,\" Parker said, chewing on his fingernails. \"Those anchors had better hold... \"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's checked them twice already since the sun rose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Magdalena adjusted the camera view again, trying to get a low enough angle to look beneath the overhang." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The image changed, but not enough. \"Ssssh! Curse warband leader Hadeishi for trying to crash our satellites!\"\n\nParker tapped on one of the secondary panels and grimaced at the resulting screen. \"Almost no propellant left.\"\n\n\"No.\" Maggie let out a steam-kettle hiss of disgust. \"I managed to stop them from degrading too much, but all I can do now is reorient their point of view. Some of the others are already deep in the atmosphere—they'll burn up soon. We'll go blind, eyes gouged out one at a time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Still no comm?\" Parker started to chew on his other hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Magdalena stared at him in disgust—his weak claws were already worn down to repulsive pink nubs.\n\n\"No—I was talking to Gretchen several days ago and we were cut off. I think the old crow is trying to impose comm silence... Will you stop doing that?\"\n\n\"What?\" The pilot stared at her in surprise. Maggie's paw blurred in the air and seized his hand, turning over the ruined fingernails. \"Oh... I just need a tabac, you know. Makes me nervous to... not have any.\" He grimaced.\n\nMagdalena let go of his hand, then wiped her paw on one of the blankets surrounding her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bitter smoke means so much to you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\" Parker looked a little queasy and rubbed his wrist. \"I'll stop.\" He put both hands in the pockets of his jacket. \"So—hey—don't Midge-class ultralights act as a local comm relay? We could tap in and listen to what they're saying.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Maggie growled, curling up in her nest again. \"Which is all shut down. I suppose they have suit-to-suit comm working, but I've tried opening a long-range link through the peapods and there's no response. Feather-brain has everything locked up tight.\"\n\n\"What about accessing a backup system?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parker looked painfully earnest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both of his hands, flat-looking fingers and all, were out of the jacket pockets and being rubbed together as if he were cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You used the standard long-range highband, right? Isn't there a secondary system on these aircraft?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sometimes.\" Maggie gave the pilot an inscrutable look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the peapods do not mount microwave emitters. There's no way to punch an area transmission through the atmosphere.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Parker started to smirk. He pointed at the main display. \"How are you getting a transmission back from your satellites?\"\n\nMaggie showed him a full set of teeth, which did not properly impress the pilot. After a moment she relented, saying \"To reduce emissions I am using a point-to-point laser link.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with four sentences in Thomas Harlan's voice, keeping within the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Engineer Second Yoyontzin hurried into the service bay at clockwise two on the engine ring. The high-vaulted space was crowded with machinery, men and the hiss of welding torches. A sharp, metallic tang of heated metal and plastic permeated the air. The atmosphere recyclers in Engineering had been operating over capacity since the Cornuelle had launched from the Teotihuacán Fleet contract yards sixteen years ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A packet of schematics were crammed under his left arm, while his right fumbled for a fresh tabac." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spying Master's Mate Helsdon and his crew swarming over a box-shaped structure in the middle of the bay, the engineer turned their way, scowling furiously.\n\n\"Helsdon—come down here.\" Yoyontzin ignored the other machinists, most of whom were packing up their tool bags or doing fine finishing work on the sheets of hull fabric plated onto a big open framework of hexacarbon pipe. The Náhuatl lit the tabac and puffed furiously, feeling his nerves settle slightly, while the master's mate pushed up his work goggles and shut off a sealing torch.\n\n\"There's an addition to this platform,\" Yoyontzin said when Helsdon had climbed down, rubbing his face clean with a very dirty cloth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The engineer opened the packet on a nearby work table. Like every other square meter of the engineering ring, the metal surface was discolored, scored, chipped and pitted. It was also antiseptically clean. \"Chu-sa Hadeishi just called down. He says to disable the broadband and laser comm on the platform. He wants a wire-spool instead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Helsdon knuckled his chin, looking over the schematics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How far from the ship to the refinery? Ah—six k—that's a bit of wire. Do we have that much comm wire?\"\n\nYoyontzin nodded, his nervousness fading a little bit. \"Of course—first thing he asked me. I've got a crew bringing it up from stores. So—you'll need to mount it underside, I think, keep the spool out of the way of the gas exhaust.\"\n\n\"And a patch to local comm. Wait—how is the assault team going to interface with a wire-based comm system?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yoyontzin grunted, exasperation plain on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One of the Marines,\" he said in a rather disparaging tone, \"is going to run a second wire roll from the platform into the refinery. We have... \" He dug a glossy sheet covered with cutaway views and a picture of a combat trooper standing in a field out of the bottom of the stack. \"... a field relay unit, Marine code 'Snorkel', which runs off the wire and handles short-range, scrambled comm. Backpack-sized unit.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Helsdon shrugged. He didn't have the time or energy to worry about what the Marine assault squad was going to do once they were inside the refinery ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His concern was refitting a maintenance platform to get them there and back again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you have the unspool speed for the wire? Oh, good. Yeah, we can mount this—take a couple hours.\"\n\n\"Get on it.\" Yoyontzin's brief moment of good humor faded, remembering the rest of his discussion with the chu-sa. \"There are some other... things.\"\n\nHelsdon made a questioning motion with his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The engineer stubbed out his tabac on the edge of the table and then ground the rest out under his boot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The master's mate said nothing, but his mustache twitched in surprise.\n\n\"The platform needs to be ready to go at a moment's notice. We have the refinery ship on visual now, so as soon as the Marines are ready and command has double-checked their scan data, we'll be standing by for the order from Hadeishi-tzin.\"\n\n\"Right,\" nodded Helsdon, separating out the diagrams he would need for mounting the wire spool. \"We're going to move the EVA platform up to boat bay two. The Marines usually assemble there and the lock doors are facing the right direction. What else?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Double-check everything.\" Yoyontzin's fingers were trembling and the look on his face made Helsdon stare in mounting concern." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd never seen the engineer second in such a nervous state. \"I mean it. The chu-sa is going in with the Marines.\"\n\n\"What?\" Helsdon rubbed his ear, refusing to believe what he'd heard. \"You're drunk.\"\n\n\"Wish I was.\" Yoyontzin tapped another tabac out of the pack and jammed it into his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pinching the lighting paper from the end and taking a deep drag seemed to steady him. His deep-set eyes narrowed in amusement. \"I'll bet Heicho Felix is going to faint when she hears.\"\n\n\"I'll take that bet,\" Helsdon said, rather sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yoyontzin was surprised. \"You're on—how does five quills sound?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Twenty.\" Helsdon crossed his arms, squinting at Yoyontzin. \"If you're giving money away.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with ten sentences, maintaining any established context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The storm continued to rage outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Violent yellow lightning flared among the roaring clouds and drifts of sand crept towards the windows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Visibility dropped to less than a meter. Hummingbird's chrono told him sunset had come, yet there was no apparent difference outside. The flare and crack of lightning stabbed through the murk. The building shivered with thunder.\n\nHummingbird waited, half asleep himself, while Anderssen lay on the floor, covered with blankets, a makeshift pillow under her head. The woman twitched and shuddered. Sometimes she spoke aloud, but even the nauallis could not understand the words.\n\nNear midnight, with the wind howling unabated outside, Gretchen began to cough. Hummingbird rolled over and lifted her head. Her eyes opened wide, staring up at the blue-lit ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huhhh... \" She doubled over, hacking violently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hummingbird crouched down, supporting her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Uhhh... it's too hot. Too hot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen shoved the blankets aside, panting, her hair lank with sweat. Without thinking, she tugged the collar of her suit open, gasping for breath. Hummingbird scooted back warily and stood up, a worried frown on his old face.\n\n\"I can see,\" Gretchen said abruptly, her hands raised and trembling in the air. She stared at Hummingbird. \"I can see your face, a sun hiding in clouds, your eyes brilliant jade, your face marked with red bands.\" Her expression twisted in horror, pupils dilating. Sweat flushed from her skin and ran in thin silver streams down her neck. \"You're not a human being!\"\n\n\"I am,\" Hummingbird said, remaining very still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are seeing the nechichiualiztli—a mask of purpose and duty—not me! You must be careful or this kind of sight will blind you. Can you see your own flesh, your own hand?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen looked down and her face contorted, the skin stretching back from her teeth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'nothing' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She began to shake, muscles leaping under the flesh like snakes squirming in a calfskin bag. \"I can see I can see I can see.\"\n\nHummingbird moved carefully to the side, quietly, without disturbing the air. \"What do you see?\"\n\n\"Nothing! There is nothing there! Darkness!\" Gretchen was shouting, though her whole body was frozen into trembling immobility.\n\n\"Where is your hand?\" Hummingbird said, his face close to hers, watching the flickering tic-tic-tic of her eyelids from the side. \"See your hands. Here they are. You can see them.\"\n\nGretchen's neck stiffened like a log, the tendons and veins standing out like wire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My hand is gone. I am gone. There is nothing here. Nothing here.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her voice had the quality of a scream, though it was soft, not even a whisper.\n\n\"Remember your hand, remember what you saw when we were sitting in the desert? Do you remember how clear it was, your hand, so fine and distinct?\"\n\n\"Yes. Yes. I remember.\" Gretchen slumped into his waiting arms, her body loose, each muscle exhausted. By the time he laid her down, she was sound asleep. Hummingbird breathed out, a long, slow, even breath, and a fine mist of smoke hissed from between his teeth, settling over the woman's body." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. Your partner will send something and you will write the next 12 sentences, matching their level of character familiarity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen dragged at her leaden arms, trying to wrench free of the spreading jewel-stain permeating the glossy black of her suit. Despite straining with both feet braced, she only succeeded in wrenching her shoulder. The sense of steady warmth vanished in the moment of effort, leaving the biting cold of the Ephesian night flooding in around her. A wild glance to either side revealed only darkness and some kind of pit or fissure in the earth. Trapped! Both forelegs in the trap. I can't even gnaw free.\n\nStomach churning with nausea, she looked across the outcropping, expecting to see the shape looming there in triumph. Instead, she gave a tiny, fierce shake of her head, stunned.\n\nAnderssen rose, bloody feet bare on the gleaming sand. A queer emerald fire licked through her short blond hair, then faded away. The woman shifted her shoulders, letting the djellaba fall properly. Her face was bare to the thin, frigid air—the red welts of a breather mask worn too long were plain on her round cheeks, nose and neck—every tool and gadget was in place, comm and medband clasped around well-muscled wrists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wha—\" Gretchen rallied, violently collecting her thoughts. \"You don't look like me.\"\n\nThe stance was all wrong, weight evenly distributed, not leaning to one side, favoring the wounded foot; even the face seemed distorted—lopsided—one eye fractionally higher than the other.\n\nHummingbird will be able to tell. Gretchen found the thought a frail comfort. If he has time to see as she rushes out of the darkness or creeps up behind him.\n\nThe chains of jewels dragging at her arms pulsed with delicate, subtle color. Gretchen felt something change and shift in her mind. Half-familiar memories stirred, clamoring for her attention. They felt strange—not soft and faded, burnished by the passage of time—but cold and clear, freshly struck from the die.\n\nA sullen yellow sky filled with hundreds of bright pinpricks loomed overhead, a harsh, claustrophobic vault crushing the breath from her lungs. In every direction endless ranks of vast obsidian towers soared in counterpoint to the sulfurous heavens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned, images blurring past—more towers, some shattered and cracked with age, some newly raised from the plain.\n\nIn the distance, heat haze shimmered in deserted avenues, yielding the sickly black image of a vast, implacable lake. Somewhere, beyond the horizon, down just such an avenue as this, ringed by the same colossal buildings, the lake was real; oily, infinitely deep, stretching from horizon to horizon, a choking black band wrapped around the wizened throat of an ancient, dying planet.\n\n\"No—I was never there!\" Gretchen shouted aloud, filled with an all-encompassing fear for her own memories, her own thoughts. Voices roared in her ears, shouting and accusing her of monstrous deeds. \"I'm not one of the things in the library! I'm not one of them!\"\n\nA cloud of brilliant stars spanned the arc of a blue-green world. Great whorls of white cloud obscured most of the surface, but mottled green and brown continents peeked through. Seas and oceans blazed blue, shining in the light of a dim yellow sun.\n\nAcross the face of the void, stars rippled and twisted, distorted by something vast. Space boiled and tore, splitting aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shape forced its way through the burning gap, something nearly dwarfing the world shining below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tatters of space and time flew past, the light of distant suns still reflected in long streamers of darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An ebon shape swept across the world, blotting out any view of the green hills or shining seas.\n\nIn the passing wake, the fabric of space reknit, stars falling back into their accustomed courses, the glare of the sun once more traveling as it had done for millennia. Yet the spilling, fluid darkness already englobed the world, a tightening black web, shutting out the sun, blocking the light of the stars.\n\n\"No... \" Gretchen tried to concentrate, to hold back a titanic flood of images—not her thoughts, not things she had done—from overwhelming her mind. They crowded in, pushing aside memories of her friends at the university, time spent hiking in the tall pines behind the steading, the smell of coffee perking in her dorm room, the harsh taint of diesel in the fog as she hurried across the Quad to class. \"Give them back!\"\n\nBut her memories were dying. Wiped away. Replaced by images of a horizon boiling with black ink, of shining silver sparks raining down out of the sky, splashing into the sea, tangling in saw-leafed palmettos. The single burning image of a four-fingered hand lifting a muddy cylinder from a stream.\n\n\"Not mine. Not mine. Not mine!\" Gretchen wailed, clutching desperately at carefully hoarded memories of two little girls and one little boy. The sound of Isabelle crying, swaddled in fluffy blankets. Duncan's face screwed up in a pout, thin little arms crossed over his chest, one of his grandfather's flannel shirts rolled up sixty times to fit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tristan declaring she would be planetary president right after third form." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything they had ever done or said or shouted. Bare feet pattering down wooden stairs into the kitchen.\n\nA sharp sense of disassociation overtook her, a threshold breached by urgent need.\n\nThe sense of brilliant clarity from her dreams was suddenly there, around her, a perfect, frozen world of absolutes. Black stains upon her memory shone very clear in this incandescent vision. Mine, she raged, driving back the distorting clouds. Where the shimmering visions had lain entwined with her own imperfection, she summoned up every detail from faint traces, from ghosts, from the neural residue left in the rubble of invasion. Mine!\n\nFor a moment, she hung in a balance, staring into endless corridors of memory, where every lost day, every forgotten word, every kiss was still alive, poised for her to plunge into them again. Youth. Tiny wrinkled pink babies drawing breath for their first wailing cry. Tiny hands clasped in hers. Frost on the porch in the morning. Melting snow plunging from the steep, slate roofs of the university halls as spring sunlight shone through the last clouds of winter." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'chest' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Freezing cold engulfed her hands and Gretchen hissed in pain. Her eyes were still open, staring at sand spun with a web of jewels, but the vision was very distant from her thought. A jolt of physicality shook her body, tearing her mind away from the swarm of memories and plunging her once more into the cold, bruised, bleeding, frightened body crouched on a bare stone outcropping amid desolation. \"Ahhhh! Oh Sister... that hurts!\"\n\nHer work gloves and the z-suit covering her forearms had been eaten away, leaving nothing to protect her skin from the subzero Ephesian night. Her finger-tips were turning black. Gretchen clutched both hands to her chest and cried out at a fresh burst of pain.\n\nA rasping cough tore itself from her chest, then another. Tears froze at the corners of her eyes. Still afraid to move, she curled herself up on the bare stone, trying to protect her ruined hands with the bulk of her body. Cold closed in on her, heat seeping away through the damaged suit into the open sky.\n\nIn the darkness, Anderssen frowned, displeased. There are no answers here." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in collaborative writing in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Aztec, Japan genre. I'll provide a starting point, and you'll continue with ten sentences, maintaining any established context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both rockets sputtered, blew a thin trail of black smoke and died." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Gagarin hung in emptiness, a white-hot sun reflecting in the mirrored upper surface of the wing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sweep of the horizon was filled with stars, with the darkness of the void. The rust-red disk of the planet below seemed very small and far away.\n\nGretchen stared anxiously over her shoulder, searching the black vault overhead for any sign of a shuttle. The Midge's radar was scanning wildly, but nothing showed on the scope. Sweat streamed down her face, pooling in the suit, overloading the recyclers. They had passed through a region of intense heat, though now the windows were crackling with ice. Hummingbird was stiff as a board, clutching his restraints, knuckles white.\n\n\"Do you see anything?\" Anderssen barked at him, craning her neck to try and see past the nauallis. Only stars and the wispy white arc of the planetary atmosphere were visible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her medband began to chirp in alarm, but she ignored the alert." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Radiation, she thought sickly. Doesn't matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She realized Hummingbird's eyes were closed and his lips were moving silently.\n\n\"Prayer might help,\" she laughed—only slightly hysterically. \"But I need your eyes.\"\n\nThe altimeter began to fluctuate. Tumbling slowly, the Midge began to arc back toward the planet below. Low gravity or no, the mass of the world tugged at them, drawing them back into a hot, close embrace. She punched the old man in the leg as hard as she could.\n\nHummingbird's eyes flew open.\n\n\"Do you see anything?\" Gretchen jerked her head sharply toward his side of the Gagarin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nauallis blinked, then turned, staring out at the ebon sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing... there's only... wait—there's something shining!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen rapped the radar display sharply and though the mechanism ignored her, a spark suddenly flared at the edge of the Midge's detection range." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something was approaching at tremendous speed. \"Oh thank the Sister, the Mother and the Son of God! Hang on!\"\n\n\"I am... \" Hummingbird's cry was drowned by a roaring hiss as Gretchen blew the last of their fuel and twisted the Gagarin away from the oncoming object. Surviving the next sixty seconds required reducing their intercept differential as much as possible. She slapped a control and the Midge trembled as the skyhook ratcheted out of the roof.\n\n\"Wings away!\" Gretchen threw a lever and explosive bolts banged sharply. The cockpit shuddered as both broad, shining wings spurted away from the sides of the cabin. \"Brace!\"\n\nFor a moment, the Gagarin rushed forward, racing across the world below. The hissing stopped and the engines went dead. A light flared on the panel, indicating they'd switched to battery power with the loss of the solar panels and fuel cells." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen felt cold pour into the cabin around her feet and did not look down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, she forced her head back into the headrest of the seat and braced her arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something flashed overhead, glowing red-hot and the entire world jerked away in a blinding jolt of pain. A flood of white sparks roared across her vision. A massive wave of sound slammed into her, battering her eardrums. Someone's scream was lost in a dragon-throated roar. Metal squealed, stressed beyond all expectation of design and manufacture. Gretchen caught a glimpse of the planet rolling past, then Hummingbird's face slack in unconsciousness.\n\nThe windows shattered as the airframe deformed, spraying glassite into the cabin. What little air remained was wicked away into a supersonic slipstream. Waves of heat boiled in, raging against her face. Blinded, Gretchen gritted her teeth and hung on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere above and behind her, there was a shrieking whine as cable spooled in at tremendous speed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blazing red shape—superheated air flaring around the Komodo in a brilliant corona—swelled over her head. For a single instant, a black maw gaped before her, limned with fire.\n\nEverything slammed to a halt, flinging her violently against the seat restraints. She choked, feeling bone and muscle tear. The world outside went black, even the stars blotted out by a roaring, twisting storm of abused atmosphere. She was still bouncing back into the seat, a shattered retaining ring spinning free to fly out through the window, when the side door tore away.\n\nA pair of hands reached in, seizing the centerline join on her suit. Something blazed blue-white at her back and shoulder, then she was free of the restraints and being dragged from the shattered wreck of the Midge. A combat-suited figure— broad, well-muscled—wrapped her in powerful arms and leapt back as a workline reeled in. They hit the wall of the shuttle's cargo bay together and his hand wrapped around a support brace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Clear to eject,\" shouted a tense male voice on the comm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every other sound was overwhelmed by the shriek of air whipping around the hold doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen squirmed around—so slowly, time stretching like taffy—and saw, in a brief, perfect image: the crumpled cabin of the Gagarin sprawled on the deck of the cargo hold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The clamshell doors stood wide, Hummingbird in the arms of another man in a combat suit on the far wall of the hold, the launching pad rushing back, slamming into the broken, twisted metal of the Midge.\n\nNo!\n\nThe ultralight punched out into the darkness, spewing glassite and metal and bits of plastic. The Gagarin hit the shuttle's slipstream and blew apart, vanishing in the blink of an eye. Nothing remained, even the debris was already dozens of k behind, falling toward the planet in an expanding, jumbled cloud. The clamshell doors swung inexorably closed, blocking out even a momentary glimpse of the white arc of the planet.\n\nGretchen slumped into the man's arms, feeling their strength holding her up. Poor little plane. After all you did for us, for me.\n\n\"Pressure doors secure,\" Fitzsimmons shouted into his comm. \"Kick it.\"\n\nThe shuttle engines lit momentarily, pitching the Komodo up into a higher angle of exit from the gravity of Ephesus Three." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere ahead, the Palenque was waiting, swinging through its own wide orbit, gathering speed from the planet's gravitational pull." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glowing wings turned, catching a glint of the distant sun, and they sped on into the sea of night." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Match existing character familiarity or establish new\nLength:\n10 sentences\nGenre:\nScience Fiction, Erotica, Android" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Match existing character familiarity or establish new\nLength:\n10 sentences\nGenre:\nScience Fiction, Erotica, Android" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hand in hand she lead the trembling man down the hallway to the bathroom. He hadn't noticed it before but his myGirl was lightly perfumed. A vague hint of something vanilla and sweet. She stopped in the doorway to the cramped bathroom, leaving him in the threshold and moving in ahead of him. With each step the fat braid swished across her back and he watched each butt cheek jiggle through the thin fabric of the transport panties. Water began to flow from the shower head, steam collecting on every surface and she began to undress. With a quick smile to her new man she crossed her arms and pulled her transport bra off. Small breasts bounced and David nearly died. His breathing tickled his lungs as he watched her move. Her tits were perfect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Small C's with bullet shaped areolas, tall nipples, and just a sprinkling of freckles, just as he'd asked for. Hooking her thumbs under the waistband of her transport panties she paused. Standing there, with her ass poked out, one leg cocked, she looked at him and smiled.\n\n\"Should I?\"\n\n\"Dear god, please.\"\n\nShe giggled, wiggled, and dropped her panties and David nearly died again. Her ass was a wonderland, as gorgeous as it promised to be. Two perfectly round orbs that jiggled lewdly with her every step. They were muscled but covered in a perfect layer of subcutaneous... could he call it fat? Maybe just a perfect layer of woman?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her pussy was easy enough to describe, smooth and fat, with just the slightest hint of a clit poking through, the perfect landing space for that perfectly curved tummy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your turn, sweety.\" She breathed.\n\nDavid locked up. This was his moment, his moment in the sun. Here he stood in his own home with a gorgeous young woman, an artificial woman to be sure, but a woman for all intents and purposes, asking, in fact nearly begging, him to take his clothes off. A woman who was literally programmed to desire him and yet, he froze, locked in a debilitating embarrassment. David hadn't had the worst life but years of being laughed at and made fun of for his size, or his speech, or his lack of athleticism, or his strange gate, had left a permanent mark on the man's soul. So much so that now, in this perfect moment, this dream sequence of a moment, a time and a place where nearly anything was possible and, for once, he made the rules, David found that he was, again, powerless, struck down, held in bondage by years of not quite fitting in, of not quite mattering, held in bondage by his own blind fear. Elise took a breath, an expectant breath. David found he couldn't look at her anymore. His face blazed, his eyes fell to the floor.\n\nThe artificial girl moved to him, her bare feet making light paps as she walked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "David felt her warmth, felt her hand on his cheek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the gentlest nudge against the scruff she pulled his gaze to hers. She leaned in, her freckled nose just brushing his, leaving a smear of gel in its wake. Her breath filled his nostrils, vaguely citrus, mixing with the musky vanilla.\n\n\"Please.\" She whispered. It was all she said.\n\nThat please floated out on the most desperate, yearning breath David had ever experienced. No one had ever spoken to him in this way. But that wasn't all. Under the artificial desire, under the programmed yearning desperation, there was something else. Something, a tone, a timber maybe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever it was it came in through his ears and washed his wounded soul, filling it and him with something new. His trembling hands were moving before he realized it. Elise took a half step back and watched, her black eyes following his every move, as the middle aged man stripped.\n\nHe fumbled each button on his shirt until it came free, over his shoulders, dropping to the floor. He still found he couldn't look at her as he popped the button on his slacks and released the zipper. His every move felt alien to him, forced, as if he were in this body for the first time, hyper aware of every movement as he dropped his pants, of his posture, of the sound the pants made as they brushed his hairy legs, of the sweat on the palms of his hand and upper lip. This was it, just his boxers remained. He looked up and she was gazing at him. A lightning strike moment of boldness hit him, inspiration and courage from a place David didn't even know existed, and he spoke.\n\n\"Should I?\" It was stammered, croaked, and barely audible, but he'd said it. And she grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This unrealistically gorgeous girl, standing naked in his bathroom, had just grinned at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a big, goofy, slightly lopsided grin. This gorgeous girl had just grinned at him with an admiration and appreciation he'd never known. She had grinned at him in the way a fan grins when a superstar says their name.\n\n\"Dear god, please.\" She said through the grin. And David was a superstar. With a flourish he pulled his boxers down, stumbling a bit as he kicked them off.\n\nThe myGirl stared at him. Her eyes looked him up and down. Her head tilted a bit and her lips parted. She was consuming him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Devouring him with those dark eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bathing him in her lust. There was no pity in her gaze. No judgment, no condescension, just a growing, raw, animal desire.\n\n\"My god.\" She breathed.\n\nUnderstand, David did not consider himself a well endowed man. At a little over six inches he was just barely breaking average and his current state of mind had shrunken his dick to barely more than a thumb. And his body, well, even without the years of ridicule it was safe to say he was no Adonis. But to this girl, to this gorgeous artificial woman, he was the picture of manhood.\n\n\"You're perfect.\" She whispered and for the first time in many, many years, David Marks felt free.\n\nThe shower was barely big enough for the two of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The myGirl turned and offered him her back, pulling the braid over her shoulder as she did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a second he just stared, enamored with the water cascading over her shoulders, down her naked back, flowing in a little river between her butt cheeks. This sight fed his hungry dick. He grabbed the bottle of shower gel and laid a stream across her naked shoulder blades. She shivered.\n\n\"That's cold!\" She laughed as she undid the braid.\n\n\"I-I'm sorry.\" He stammered.\n\n\"That's okay. I like it.\" She said, then, quietly, \"I like you.\"\n\nThe packing gel washed away quickly as timid fingers reached out to her, fingers that were no longer so painfully aware of their own dampness. He marveled at the feel of the undulation of her artificial muscles as she undid her braid, muscle that was just barely visible under her perfect skin. He smoothed the soap around, creating a thick foam that ran down her back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Again he found himself gazing as some of the bubbles disappeared into the valley of her ass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a sudden overwhelming desire to put his hands there, to grab that amazing ass in both hands. She was his. He could do this, and he did.\n\nShe pushed into his hands as they smoothed the foam around those two jelly filled cheeks. He felt her gently thrusting back against his hands, glutes contracting and releasing ever so gently. He worked methodically, rubbing in circles, starting at the edges and working in toward his ultimate destination, the valley of her ass and the glorious prize it hid. That valley opened and closed ever so slightly as he stroked. He cupped each cheek with every pass, wanting to know every inch, every pore, of his new real-estate. Finally, he was in that sweet, soft valley, fingertips just disappearing into it each rotation. To his absolute delight she moaned as he felt for the very first time the edges of her anus. He had never touched a girl's anus before but the idea had always seemed exotic to him, a forbidden thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The puckered little hole was smooth and glorious." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He teased it, index finger tickling and massaging as he felt it flex and relax. And with each little throb, her anus grew in wetness, a wetness wholly different from the water and soap. It was warmer, slicker, she was secreting anal lube. He smeared the lube around, playing with it, delighting in it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with four sentences, emulating Liam in the Science Fiction, Erotica, Android genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His dick was hard now. Harder than it had ever been in the preceding years of daily masturbation. So hard that the head was nearly purple and ached with each reflexive pulse. Instinct pushed him forward as his hands traced their way up to her waist, up her smooth sides and to her shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thrust his hips forward just a bit and the head of his dick slipped between those cheeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought he'd found heaven. Then the myGirl leaned back into him and his dick was swallowed by soft, wet, soapy ass cheek. He very nearly came as he felt the head of his dick push against her now slick anus. His breathing was shallow, quick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hands grew more furious, smoothing the soap on her shoulders and neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hair was down now, hanging in a velvety black sheet. Her chest was heaving, rising and falling like she'd run a marathon and her ass was grinding against his dick. In an instant David had a breast in each hand. The soft, squishy tissue pushing between his fingers as he pushed his nose into her wet hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His lips found the back of her neck and he put a nipple in his finger tips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gasped, moaning now, her own breathing punctuated with little pleading bleats, washing his cock with her ass, bathing it in the anal lubricant, stroking it, riding it. She turned and fell into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Deep and saturated with passion the kiss explored his mouth, again taking in his tongue and sucking. They ground against each other as the warm water flowed around them, arms tangled and untangled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands found every inch of him, as they kissed and explored and kissed again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They wrapped in a lover's embrace, tight and unapologetic. David's dick buried itself then in her soft pussy lips, her slick wetness baptizing him. He could feel her clit getting harder, the stiff nub rubbing against his shaft as she worked her hips. He wanted her. He wanted her in a way that was beyond his understanding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was deep, natural, instinctive, animal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time in his life he understood himself to be a man.\n\nThe kiss broke and the two panted like boxers.\n\n\"I want you to fuck me.\" She breathed.\n\n\"Yes!\" He breathed back and moved to open the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She grabbed his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here.\" Her dark eyes were aflame with lust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here? There's not enough...\"\n\n\"Here.\" She hooked an arm tight around his neck and lifted one leg.\n\n\"Like this? I'm not sure I can...\"\n\n\"Don't worry.\" She wrapped her other arm around his neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can manage for both of us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was such yearning desperation in her voice he stopped caring if he could, and just did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His heart was racing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stooped just a bit, she, on tip toe, wrapped one gorgeous leg around his hip. He grabbed his dick, slid it between her puffy pussy lips and pushed. In an instant he was inside her, dick buried to the pubic bone in her little pussy. The tightness was staggering, his legs very nearly buckled, and the warmth, my god, the warmth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been so long he'd forgotten how warm a vagina was, so warm and so wet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'little' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The myGirl had both legs around him now riding against the furious thrust of his hips, allowing him to pull back until just the head of his dick remained in her pussy then diving back in. He could feel her hard clit stroke the length of his cock, felt it smash into his crotch. And with each desperate thrust she groaned a little louder, grunted a little harder. Their sex was rough, desperate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "David found he needed to keep one hand braced against the wall for fear of falling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They fucked like animals. They fucked like they were the last two people on earth. They fucked like a man that hadn't fucked in years and a woman whose only goal was to be fucked.\n\nMore desperate they grew, more intense the fucking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "David was hypnotized by the slapping of skin on artificial skin as he pounded her ever harder, delighting in the feeling of his balls slapping against her smooth pussy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This kind of stuff only happened in porn, it couldn't possibly be happening to him! His thrusts grew unrelenting, each one driving a little breathy grunt from her lips as he pushed his engorged dick deeper still into that tight pussy. And she wanted it, she wanted it desperately. Her every move, her every moan and grunt, begged him to push harder, to drive deeper." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Match existing character familiarity or establish new\nLength:\n10 sentences\nGenre:\nScience Fiction, Erotica, Android" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "David awoke in the middle of the night, startled to find someone in the bed next to him. Elise lay there, on her side, a naked leg released from the sheets, halfway hanging off the bed. She was snoring ever so slightly.\n\n\"It wasn't a dream!\" he thought, coming to his senses. He reached and gently stroked the valley between her hips and her rib cage, marveling again at how real she felt. Maybe all women felt like this. It had been so long, maybe he'd just forgotten. This made him laugh. It should have depressed him." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "lets do a Fantasy, Animal Fiction thing. u write 2 sentences bits. keep character vibes" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This slice of early morning was Ehrich Leftrack's favorite time of day, too the half hour after his father left for the store, but before his mother began crashing around in the kitchen: advertising her housewifely virtues by clattering cutlery, bashing pots onto the stove, letting the oven door bang shut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Irma Leftrack was a good cook, but she was the noisiest, most heavy-handed woman on the Lower East Side. When he had been a boy in Germany, Ehrich had thought that his mother made so much noise in the kitchen because she wanted everyone on the block to know that she was a good wife and mother; now that he was an adult he knew that she really wanted his attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his psychology course he had learned about this kind of inferiority complex and her early morning din no longer exasperated him. Now he pitied her and thought it sad that a grown woman used such childish ploys to get the approval of her twenty-two-year-old son." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich would have liked to use these early hours to study, but he'd stopped asking his mother to be quiet when he was still in high school at Stuyvesant. That was as productive as asking the waves to stop rolling or begging the winds to stop blowing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At first she'd act hurt and sulk; the next morning she would be back to her old tricks as if he'd never asked her for a little quiet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"After all,\" Irma Leftrack would tell herself, making sure that her son overheard, \"he's only a boy. What does he know about cooking?\" But that was all in the past and today Ehrich had a quiet half hour before the noise from the kitchen told him that Mama would soon require his presence at the kitchen table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich was grateful that Eldridge Street was quiet this hot morning. He liked the sun that burned low on the horizon, right into his window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He liked the heat that radiated from the walls of this tenement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today he was even pleased by the rhythmic, rolling cooing of the pigeons on the fire escape. Ehrich hated pigeons and another morning he would have shooed them away, but today was different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His first real vacation as an adult began today and he luxuriated in the thought that he had four months to himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had no classes to attend, no tests to cram for, no worries about whether he would be accepted into medical school." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was one of the lucky few who'd been given a full scholarship to Cornell University Medical School. In the fall he'd move into the dorm and, for the first time in his life, would not be living with his parents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His future seemed so bright, so assured, so filled with free time and unexplored possibilities that it made him smile up at the patched plaster of his bedroom ceiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had the whole day planned: he was going to stay in bed until the last possible second, then have breakfast and take his mother to the store; then he'd have lunch with his father, probably at the Jade Parlor, and then maybe he'd go to Cornell at 6gth Street to see if the medical library would let him borrow books. He wanted to get a head start on the gross-anatomy course that was the bane of all first-year students." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He intended to specialize as a neurosurgeon and figured that his medical career started today. All the worry about acceptance and all the cramming for bio and chem courses had paid off: in only four years Ehrich Leftrack, also known as Fatso, Tubs, Fat Track, Two-Ton, Chubby and a whole litany of other names that had trailed him since sixth grade, was going to be Dr. Ehrich Leftrack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it wouldn't matter that he was seventy pounds overweight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Besides, the life of a medical-school student was grueling; he'd probably drop forty pounds in the first month.\n\nHe lay listening to the electric fan that oscillated on his bureau and thought about how living at the dorm would change his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For one thing, he wouldn't be awakened every morning except Sunday by the sounds his father made when he went to the bathroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For as long as he could remember Ehrich had lain in this narrow bed that was so short that his heels hung over the edge and listened to his father shuffle down the hall to the bathroom. Ehrich's room was located between it and the front door of the apartment and he was a light sleeper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every morning he'd hear the same progression of sounds: first the bathroom door would shut and then he'd hear the sound of his father pissing (it took so long that Ehrich wondered if his father might have some sort of bladder abnormality); then the toilet flushed and the faucet started running." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich always imagined the Old Man standing in front of the sink, shaving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He always saw him from behind and noted how baggy the seat of his wrinkled blue-and-white cotton underdrawers were." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'would' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich saw him twitch his mouth to the right and then to the left, pulling the skin taut as he shaved, careful not to damage his neat, pencil-thin mustache. That mustache would be the last thing the Old Man would inspect in the bathroom mirror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the door would open and the leather-soled slippers would pad back down the hail, retracing the familiar path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ten minutes later Ehrich would hear quick, efficient footsteps down the hall and the front door would bang shut and shake the walls and floor of his room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Old Man could always be counted on for an emphatic exit no quiet creeping out of the house for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe that's why he and Irma were a couple: maybe noisiness had brought them together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "God knows they didn't seem especially fond of each other; they slept in separate beds. Maybe the only things they had in common were himself, noisiness and the business." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich turned on his side, bunched his pillow beneath his head and wondered if all families were like this, or was it only his?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thank God that school would be starting soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd lived at home through college and had envied the fellows who'd lived in fraternity houses or even in the shabbiest dorms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd never been popular and he was too heavy to play sports, so no fraternity had ever asked him to join. Besides, he rationalized, he didn't need to live in a college dorm: NYU was only a few subway stops away from Eldridge Street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But in September all that would change." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'ehrich' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All first-year medical-school students had to live in the dorm and although everyone said the rooms were small and the facilities primitive, Ehrich looked forward to being awakened by an alarm clock in a quiet room of his own.\n\n\"Yes,\" Ehrich thought, \"this is going to be the best summer of my life, my first really free time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought of how he would prepare for school in the fall. He'd memorize the origins, insertions and functions of even the smallest of muscles, the names and locations of even the finest of arterioles and veins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would be the best first-year medical student that Cornell had ever seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everyone would call him a \"brain,\" a \"phenomenon,\" and his friends, whom he'd tutor late at night so they'd be able to get C's, would call him \"Ehrich\" or maybe even \"Professor.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'ehrich' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fat Track Leftrack would be someone that he used to know.\n\nA flat, familiar voice called from the kitchen, \"Ehrich? Ehrich? Breakfast.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard the iron skillet crash down onto one of the gas burners and knew that Mama wanted him. He could smell the bagels heating and heaved himself up into a sitting position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered what she'd have for him this morning and hoped it would be a four-egg omelet filled with dollops of sour cream and slices of lox with a sprinkling of dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alternatively there might be potato pancakes and sour cream or maybe some of her blintzes.\n\nThe pigeons were still cooing on the fire escape and nervously treading circles about one another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fresh droppings splotched his windowsill and the birds nervously cocked their little amber eyes at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich twisted the sweat-soaked towel that covered his pillow into a rope and snapped it at those nervous little eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The birds exploded off the fire escape and disappeared in the light that filled Eldridge Street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As an afterthought Ehrich took ami and flicked the pigeon droppings off his windowsill and, wishing that he'd been able to actually sting one of the pigeons with his towel instead of just scaring them, draped the weapon around his neck. As he opened the door of his room he heard his mother call again, \"Ehrich?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On purpose he didn't answer, but waited for her to call a third time, only louder and in a more exasperated tone. \"Ehrich Leftrack, are you awake? This breakfast won't stay hot forever.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without a sound Ehrich went into the bathroom and then smiled as he slammed the door behind him as hard as he could. It was a reply in a language he knew his mother understood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The portions of shrimp in lobster sauce, pork fried rice, beef with snow peas, chicken almond din, moo goo gai pan and roast pork egg foo yung had disappeared and Ehrich's chopsticks expertly speared the last jade-green snow-pea pod and savored its musky crunchiness. He rolled the last helping of rice in the sauce that remained in the beef serving dish and scooped it up, enjoying more than anything the feel of a mouthful of food." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He noticed that his father's rice bowl was still full and reached across the table to claim it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His parents' talk centered on the business and it bored him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They droned on and Ehrich emptied his father's rice bowl and began to think about dessert: vanilla ice cream with a side order of litchi nuts would taste good now. Or maybe subgum fruit?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or coconut ice cream? He wavered between subgum fruit and litchi nuts and then heard his father say something that made him forget all about dessert." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, then, that's settled. Ehrich, I'll expect you at the store this afternoon and every day that we're open this summer. Even though it's only temporary, you'll start at the bottom, just like I did. We'll give you a desk in Sorensen's workshop. I'll introduce you when we go back. By the end of the summer you'll be running the place. Just like a son.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Leftrack beamed benevolently and added, \"You'll probably lose a few pounds, too, because you won't be sitting on your keister all day with your nose in a book. Working in the warehouse will be the best thing in the world for you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich looked blankly at his father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between the egg foo yung and the fried rice he'd obviously missed something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His father continued: \"I can see that you're not overjoyed with the prospect, but your mother and I have decided that it's time you gave us a hand. You're a grown man now have been for some time. You'll get a paycheck like everyone else but you'll have to earn it. No special favors just because you're one of the family, eh, Irma?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mother said, \"Yes, Ira. He can help out, just like Myron, my brother Morrie's boy, does. Now, that boy,\" she looked piercingly at Ehrich, then shifted her gaze to her napkin, her fingers mechanically folding and refolding it, first making a neat rectangle, then a triangle, then an even smaller triangle, \"is a go-getter. Morrie tells me he handles all of their sales now. And he's such a nice boy, always so polite. We should all be so lucky to have children like that Myron. He's been helping his father since he was in grammar school. Every day he's in the shop, regular as clockwork.\" She looked at Ehrich coolly, dropped the napkin and poured tea for the three of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich knew she was getting even for the way he'd slammed the bathroom door this morning.\n\n\"Dad, can I say something?\" Ehrich asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's to say? Your mother and I have decided a decision is a decision. It's time you got a taste of the real world. You've had your nose in books so long that you're a grown man and you still don't know anything about our business. Am I right or am I right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leftrack didn't wait for an answer. He continued.\n\n\"We're not going to live forever, you know, and what will you do with the business when we're gone? Sell it? After all the years we've spent building it up so that now we're living good, would you sell it to a stranger?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dad, I'm going to be a doctor, a neurosurgeon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "1 won't have time ...\n\n\"Fine, be a doctor. Be a neurosurgeon. Be anything you want. But learn our business. Believe me, if someone had given me this chance when 1 was your age I would have known what to do with it It's good that you're going to medical school and your mother and I want you to finish your training before you take over from us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich opened his mouth, but his father rushed on, saying, \"Believe me, Ehrich, this business is a gold mine. As a doctor, even a neurosurgeon, you'll never make half as much. Besides, how much call is there for neurosurgery? Don't most of the patients die?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Leftrack laughed his nervous little laugh and said to his wife, \"That's a good one, eh, Mama? He studies for twelve years to become a neurosurgeon and then his patients all crack.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Directing his attention to Ehrich again he continued, \"Just because you go to medical college doesn't mean you'll be a rich man some day. Look at your mother's cousin Benny. Where did all his fancy-schmansy education get him?\"\n\nThere was a pause, but Ehrich knew that his father didn't want any interruption." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll tell you where it got him,\" continued Ira Leftrack, \"lf got him nowhere. Nowhere, hi my book, education isn't worth a damn unless you can support yourself. With the way things are going these days, it doesn't make sense to put all your eggs in one basket. It won't hurt you to spend one measly summer of your life learning something besides doctoring.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I want to spend the summer studying, so that I can be at the top of my class in the fall.\"\n\n\"All right, if you want to study, study in the evenings, study in the morning. Study anytime you want except from eight to six each day, because then you'll be busy studying the pet-importing trade.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ira Leftrack saw the crestfallen expression in his son's pea-sized blue eyes and the mixture of fury and disappointment that twisted his pouting lips. He also saw that Ehrich didn't have the guts to defy him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'ehrich' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He might complain or have a tantrum; no doubt he would whine to Irma; but in the end Ehrich would do exactly what Mama and Daddy told him to.\n\n\"But, Dad...\" Ehrich faltered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to tell his father that he hated the pet business, that he hated even the smell of the place. He wanted to say that it wasn't fair for them to make him waste his only free summer for the next eight years in that stinking warehouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he'd needed extra help he could have gotten one of Mama's cousins, who would do just as well or even better than he could. No, the Old Man was just throwing his weight around—you'd think he was another Hitler." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked down at the table, littered with the remnants of their Chinese meal, and helped himself to a fortune cookie. He imagined himself standing up, throwing down his napkin and denouncing the Old Man for the rotten son of a bitch that he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His thick fingers crushed the brittle cookie and unfolded the pink slip of paper that fell into his palm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He read, \"Rain will always fall downward; don't try to change the impossible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the hell does that mean?\" thought Ehrich and carefully put it into his wallet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tonight he would add it to the others that he kept in an old envelope in the back of his sock drawer. His summer vacation had evaporated in the space of one meal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Irma Leftrack's whining voice broke the silence at their table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My fortune says, 'If you want a thing well done, do it yourself.' What kind of a fortune is that?\" she complained. \"Who ever heard of a fortune like that? Where's Mr. Chan? I want another one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked around but Peter Chan was nowhere in sight. \"What does yours say, Daddy?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich winced inwardly to hear his mother call his father \"Daddy.\" There was something not right about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made his skin crawl.\n\n\"Let's see,\" said Ira Leftrack, \"what bit of Oriental wisdom has Mr. Chan given me today?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He read aloud, \" 'Your golden opportunity is coming real soon.' Clever, these Chinese, eh, Ehrich?\"\n\nWith a forced man-to-man heartiness he leaned across the table and put his hand on Ehrich's arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See, it was written in the stars, your coming to work at the shop. Believe me, boy, you'll never regret it. It'll be the best thing that ever happened to you give you a taste of the real world.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich said nothing. He merely glared at a spot of gravy on the tablecloth and shrugged his arm out from beneath his father's hand. In the back of his mind a small voice shouted, \"Drop dead, Dad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "[ Sorensen's Workshop Leftrack's Pet Emporium and Animals International, Ltd ]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu the langur sat hunched in one corner of his cage, his bony knees drawn up against his chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One arm hung limply at his side while the other cradled the back of his head. From time to time he glanced furtively around, watching with his good right eye for the arrival of Sorensen and food." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black fingers of one hand moved ceaselessly and systematically over his scalp, hoping to pounce upon any flea that might stray from the gnarled and rotted growth that used to be his left ear. He wished he could reach inside this ear to the place where the fleas were biting, but that wasn't possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From time to time he violently shook his head and rubbed what should have been his ear back and forth against the wire side of his cage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't do any good, though; the ruins of Manu's left ear were a paradise for fleas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The normal auditory canal had been blocked with scar tissue and not even a slender black langur finger could slip inside. But every now and then a foolish flea would venture beyond the safety of this haven and then Manu's clever fingers would attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was a treat for Manu and he bit through the flea's crunchy chitin with a gusto not unlike that of a Baptist minister biting into a piece of crispy southern-fried chicken after delivering a foot-stomping sermon that had even the back-sliders in the back row joining in on the amen chorus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Manu had no amen chorus and when he did capture a flea he had to savor it in solitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps the worst part of being alone was that there was no one to groom him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No other pail of relentless black hands to pursue and dispatch these murderous fleas; no reassuring touch of quick, delicate fingers; no other langur to snuggle next to at night; no pair of shiny black langur eyes • to gaze into. No eyes, at all, in fact, except for Sorensen's, or perhaps those of the Duchess but a human and that neurotic parrot didn't really count." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was Dervish, but the baby coati was too young to be real company and, besides, Manu didn't really want to get attached to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no way of knowing when this newest Cull might die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manu sighed and listened with his good ear, hoping to hear Sorensen's footsteps. He was used to being alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fleas seemed to know that Manu was at their mercy and sometimes his ear itched so much that he rubbed his head against the wire mesh of his cage until it was raw and sore. This didn't discourage the fleas, but it usually got Sorensen's attention and he'd douse Manu with a liquid that smelled awful but killed the fleas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu liked to watch them leap from their hiding places in his silvery fur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could feel them hopping madly inside his ruined ear, too; and he imagined with satisfaction that they were dying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some would spring onto the floor of his cage and he'd watch them spin 'round and 'round, legs twitching, till they died and moved no more. Manu had hoped they might be good to eat but the poison gave them a bitter taste and he spat them out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Langur mothers taught their children to reject any food that tasted bitter Manu hadn't been with his troop long enough to have been given a complete education but he knew enough not to eat anything that tasted bad, no matter how delicious it looked or smelled.\n\nManu was one of Leftrack's early mistakes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd been part of a troop of Hanuman langurs that Leftrack had captured for the San Diego Zoo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had taken three months of work outside a village in northern India, and when Leftrack had finished, the San Diego Zoo had the only family group of langurs in captivity." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'those' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is, they had an entire family group minus those that were killed during trapping, minus those that perished in transport and minus Manu.\n\nAt that time he was a newly weaned and independent youngster with a beautiful silvery coat and a long tail that he carried in the most majestic drooping curve that he could manage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could leap farther than any of his playmates and was a fearless climber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sight of Manu turning handsprings atop the high rocks at the edge of the village made the adults of his troop smile at the exuberance of Brahman while the little children, both monkey and human, tried to imitate Manu as he capered and spun through the air, a twirling, shining monkey with fur gilded by morning light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was big for his age and all the mothers in his troop said he would be troop leader someday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even though he was too young to be really interested in female langurs, he knew that his playmates thought him beautiful and he intended to mate with all of them one day and have many wives and many langur babies to play with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leftrack, however, had changed all that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The troop had been captured in several ways: in pit traps, in cannon nets, in snares." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took Leftrack and his native workers time, but alter a while the entire group had been caged and carted aboard ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After an initial period of panic the langurs had calmed down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were somewhat used to people, since they lived on the outskirts of human habitations, and Leftrack was delighted with the success of his expedition until the day when he heard the sounds of one langur murdering another in the hold where the cages were kept." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leftrack had caged Manu with Ura, a full-grown adult male who was notorious in the troop for his all-too-predictable violent temper. The langurs knew to run for cover when Ura started staring fixedly at someone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They knew that he would soon erupt into a snarling, biting rage and unless the object of Ura's anger could escape, he or she was sure to be injured. The mothers whispered that more than once Ura had killed newborn children and was so capricious that he would do so again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first month of the voyage, Manu had cowered in one corner of the cage, submitting to all of this tyrant's wishes. He'd allowed Ura to take most of the food and spent his days pretending to be invisible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unfortunately their cage was right next to that of a female langur and when she came into breeding condition, it made Ura crazy. He outweighed little Manu by fifteen pounds and when Leftrack was finally able to isolate Ura in half of the cage so that he could remove Manu's body, it seemed that the youngster was dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His silver-blond fur was soaked with blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The entire left side of his coal-black face had been lacerated; his left shoulder was torn down to the bone. His left ear was badly mangled and both his eyes were filled with blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tail that he'd been so proud of hung by only a few tendons. Ura had nearly bitten it off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leftrack was furious with himself for having made such a foolish and expensive blunder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This particular specimen had been the most perfect young male in the troop; his proportions and pelage were perfect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leftrack hated to lose any specimen through his own ignorance or stupidity and he set out to save the life of this little male.\n\nFor the remainder of the voyage Manu convalesced in a cage in Leftrack's own cabin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although the ship's doctor helped Leftrack sew Manu is shoulder back together, most of his tail had to be amputated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They diessed his facial wounds as best they could. Probably the most important thing they did was to keep Manu clean, warm and fed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctor improvised a stomach tube and they gave him beef tea and warm milk three times a day. Amazingly, the little langur survived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His shoulder healed, but for a long time he favored his left arm. He also worried the bandages off his head and reinfected his partially healed ear so that it had to be lanced several times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eventually the ear healed, but the skin grew together in a lumpy knot of scar tissue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu's left eye healed, too, but one of Ura's canines had pierced the lens and it had turned an opaque blue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu was obviously blind in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The left side of his face healed, but in a strange way. Its coloration was all wrong: the skin was shiny pink where it should have been coal black." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The left and right sides of his face contrasted obscenely and Manu, who had once been the perfection of langur grace, now looked like a nightmare harlequin.\n\nEven though Manu was healthy, he was so disfigured that Leftrack knew that he couldn't sell him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No zoo would pay good money to exhibit such an ugly creature and Manu, who was perfectly tame by this time, had been in a thiee-by-five-foot cage in Leftrack's warehouse for the six years since his capture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had lived in another place and a different time, Birger Sorensen wouldn't have just been Ira Leftrack's janitor and handyman and he wouldn't have spent his life mending broken tanks, tinkering with recalcitrant plumbing and scrubbing shit out of cages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he wasn't distracted by other worries, Birger Sorensen had a sixth sense for animals." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'animal' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he'd lived in some other time or place he would have been a great shaman, able to communicate with animal spirits; or, if he'd had the chance, he could have been a famous animal trainer. Although Sorensen understood animals on an instinctive level and they trusted him, he was the lowest man in the Leftrack pecking order." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Except for Sorensen's care of the Culls (animals like Manu who were injured, deformed, sick or dying), Leftrack and his two dozen employees took no special notice of Sorensen's abilities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There always seemed to be some crisis or emergency in the warehouse; and, unlike the others, Sorensen worked alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So, instead of spending his working hours mending broken feathers, dressing infected sores, removing parasites or calming terrified and confused creatures, Sorensen mended broken locks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When there were no locks to mend and no plumbing to repair Leftrack set him to work scrubbing cages. Only on his lunch hour or when there were no more cages to scrub was Sorensen free to care for sick creatures." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been with Leftrack from the beginning and soon would retire. In the beginning he'd thought that the warehouse would be a good place to work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd thought that maybe the Boss would appreciate someone who could help with sick animals. And in the beginning that had been true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since Leftrack had developed his \"system,\" however, an amateur veterinarian was superfluous. Leftrack's policy was to ship animals immediately, before they got sick or died." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'warehouse' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't interested in improving the health of his specimens and reasoned that, for every day that he kept an animal in the warehouse, profits flew out the window. Food, space and salaries were all costly, in addition, Leftrack had learned that animals kept around the warehouse became Culls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Culls were unsalable total losses like the hideous langur and the crazy macaw in Sorensen's workshop.\n\nIf he'd been merely a cold-hearted businessman, Leftrack would have immediately killed the animals culled from each shipment but, like most entrepreneurs, Leftrack was a gambler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His optimism was fed by the fact that once in a while Sorensen did cure a sick creature when he had the time and presence of mind to focus his attention on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More often, though, the Culls had injuries or diseases that were beyond Sorensen's kitchen-cabinet brand of veterinary medicine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'sorensen' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus, Leftrack's hopes kept many creatures lingering near death for weeks, with Sorensen trying every remedy he knew, feeling helpless and wishing that the Boss would either let him spend the proper amount of time or put the poor beast out of its misery.\n\nThis noon, as usual, Sorensen entered his workshop carrying his lunch pail in one hand and a paper sack in the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was greeted in different ways by the three Culls who were expecting him. Manu's good eye met and held Sorensen's gaze for one moment before the langur looked down at the floor of his cage, meditatively scratching his head and rubbing his ear against the wire cage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu knew that it wasn't polite to stare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Duchess, a scarlet macaw who had formed the neurotic habit of plucking out her feathers, was more demonstrative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She screamed, \"Hello, hello,\" and bobbed up and down on her perch, clamoring for attention." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'wanted' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sorensen knew that she wanted to be on his shoulder but ignored her. He had to feed Dervish, a half-grown coati who was scratching at the side of the wooden box beneath his workbench, making it plain that he wanted to get out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sorensen put down his lunch Pail and the bog of groceries; making soothing noises in his throat and muttering, \"l'm coming, I'm coming. Hold your horses, little one,\" he took the top off Dervish's box and scooped up the animated handful of red-orange fur. Dervish was still a baby coati and it would be a few months until his stubby-legged body had grown into his oversized, wildly twitching snout and long tail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These features, combined with his white-tipped nose and bandit mask with white eye patches, made him look like a cross between a panda, a raccoon and a miniature, fuzzy elephant. Dervish was delighted to be freed from his box, and after chirping hello to Sorensen found his favorite perch, on Sorensen's shoulder, gripping with his handlike paws and strong claws while using his long black-and-white-ringed tail as a balancing rod." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hypersensitive, elongated snout twitched back and forth and informed him that Sorensen had brought his favorite combination of bananas, peaches and fish heads. With thoughts of the feast to come." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'teeth' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish allowed Sorensen to scratch his ears and played tug-of-war with Sorensen's fingers, grasping them with his front feet while he kicked at them with his hind feet, all the time growling fiercely and shaking the hand to and fro, imagining that he had the neck of a venomous enemy between his teeth. Sorensen spoke sharply, and Dervish realized that he was on the verge of breaking the man's skin with his baby teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't meant to play so rough and as an apology Dervish licked the salt from the man's fingers, grooming them.\n\nTo show the man how grown up he could be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish abruptly turned his attention to grooming himself and, oblivious to all else, lost his balance and rolled over and over, landing softly on the workbench.\n\n\"Little clown,\" Sorensen said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come and eat your dinner.\" The man fed him a banana and Dervish made happy, grunting sounds in his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish's mother had died shortly after giving birth in the pet shop and Sorensen had taken her babies home to try to raise them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although he'd bottle-fed them every four hours and kept them warm, the other two new-born coatis had died after a few days, but Dervish had been the largest of the litter. He had thrived and now he was Sorensen's secret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leftrack company policy forbode personal pets in the warehouse: thus Sorensen hid Dervish by day and let him out only at lunchtime for a romp around the work room. The other workers thought that Sorensen was a little peculiar, maybe even soft in the head, but Sorensen didn't care." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He often muttered to himself that it was no one's goddamn business if he preferred to share his lunch with a sick bird and a crazy monkey.\n\nWhile Dervish was eating, Sorensen unlatched the Duchess' cage and waited for her to clamber out and onto his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hello... hello,\" the macaw said, stretching her neck toward Sorensen's ear to taste it with her thick, black tongue. She knew that Sorensen had treats somewhere and her scaly feet sidestepped down his arm, as she looked expectantly at the pocket that always held peanuts for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait a minute,\" said Sorensen, transferring her to the back of his chair. Even though she looked like a pathetic plucked chicken from some exotic butcher shop, Sorensen was a little afraid of the Duchess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not only could her bill snap a broomstick in two, but she also had a bad temper and often nonchalantly drew blood." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'their' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Ripley's Sorensen had read that Australian parrots kill sheep by landing on their backs and ripping through their fleece to gouge mouthfuls of fat. If the Duchess' temperament were typical of her kind, Sorensen believed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her irascible nature was at odds with her bizarre appearance. She looked like a rubber chicken come to life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although there were a few red feathers sprouting from the top of her head, she had plucked the rest of her body clean, except for her stout-shafted wing feathers, which would have been too painful even for the Duchess to pull out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whenever new feathers sprouted, she scrupulously rooted them out of their follicles and ate them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sorensen gave her plenty of protein in her food and he'd tried everything to make her stop. Nothing had worked and he'd decided that the bird was just plain crazy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had made a wide, wooden collar that would keep her bill away from her feathers. If he could get it around her neck without losing a finger, it might allow her feathers to grow back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other hand, if the collar didn't work the Duchess would sooner or later develop a taste for her own flesh. Sorensen had read that feather pluckers often committed suicide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Duchess, however, wasn't thinking about her feathers or about her temperament." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rather, she was pleased to be out of her cage and wondered what Sorensen had in that paper sack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hanging by her bill and reaching with her feet she clambered down from the back of the chair and up onto the workbench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could have flown but she'd been in captivity so long that she had lost the habit of flying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She preferred to walk across the workbench with the rolling gait that threw her body from side to side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ignored the little coati, who was grunting over his lunch, and made straight for the paper sack." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'screamed'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anchoring it with one foot she ripped it open with her beak and screamed the prelude to her usual exchange with Sorensen, phrases that she thought Sorensen enjoyed.\n\n\"Shut up. Shut up,\" she screamed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good girl. Good girl. Best girl. Hello, Hello.\" He always said these things to her when he scratched her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It only seemed logical for the bird to conclude that he'd like to hear them again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Talk, don't scream,\" Sorensen said to the bird and opened his lunch pail. She was busy destroying the paper bag and ignored him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sorensen finished his sandwich, sharing it with the Duchess and Dervish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Duchess had atrocious feeding habits and when she was no longer hungry she continued to bite off portions of the baloney sandwich and fling them left and right.\n\n\"Don't be so sloppy, you horrible bird,\" Sorensen said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He picked her up, walked back to her cage and put her on top of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Sorensen's voice, the Duchess mimicked, \"Horrible bird. Horrible bird,\" and bowed and ducked her head coquettishly. The Duchess knew that her time with Sorensen was over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to shoo her back into her cage but she squawked and hissed a protest." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'don't' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say words, don't scream,\" said Sorensen and secured a leash around one of her ankles. \"Say words, don't scream, you horrible bird,\" the Duchess mimicked, settling onto the top of her cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was time for Sorensen to see about Manu and he didn't want the Duchess competing for his attention. Dervish was no problem; he was busily investigating some corner of the work room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manu saw the bolt on his cage door move and continued to sit in the rear corner of his cage, rubbing his ear against the mesh. The solid metal front of the cage opened, and, squinting against the light, Manu glanced up at Sorensen and then grimaced as he felt the man's hands grasping his .body, pulling him out of his favorite safe corner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was scared and made a show of fear by pulling his mouth back, exposing his teeth and gums. Sorensen figured that this was merely Manu's way of smiling and disentangled his small, black hands as they found new handholds on the wire of his cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Time for some exercise, old man,\" said Sorensen, grasping Manu's hands and forcing him to stand on his skinny shanks and hind feet.\n\nThis happened every day and Manu hated it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What did it matter that his leg muscles were so weak that they could hardly support his weight?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were no trees to climb here; there were no other langurs to play with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wished Sorensen would just let him sit in the safe corner of his quiet cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you want to play today?\" said Sorensen and patted Manu's back reassuringly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The monkey slid his ears beneath Sorensen's fingers, mutely begging to be scratched, and Sorensen had the satisfaction of watching the langur's good eye close in delight as he scratched around his ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If only you weren't so afraid of everything,\" thought Sorensen, \"we might be able to give you to a zoo for breeding, if not for exhibit. But you're such a 'fraidy cat, you'd die of fright before you got there.\" He continued scratching Manu's little head and then, realizing that his lunch hour was almost gone, attached a leash to Manu's collar and tied the leash to the doorknob." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now Manu couldn't run back into his cage and Sorensen could clean it quickly and give him fresh food and water before attending to the other Culls.\n\nManu sat down on the floor with his back to the door and worried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hugged his thin knees to his chest and rocked bock and forth, bock and forth, wishing he were bock in his cage, lt wasn't safe out here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He saw the Duchess standing on top of her cage, trying to get Sorensen's attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if to punish Sorensen for ignoring her, the Duchess located the sheath of a new pinfeather beneath her left wing and made a show of fiercely plucking it out and rolling it around in her beak before she ate it. She screeched triumphantly but Sorensen was too busy to pay her any attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that his favorite charges had been attended to, he was fussing with some newly arrived Culls: sick river turtles from South America, whose eyes streamed a filamentous, white fungus. Even though he knew it was useless, Sorensen was applying eye ointment and had set up a heat lamp for them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were fourteen turtles and each had to have the ointment massaged into its eyes a task that took all of Sorensen's dexterity as he grasped a turtle's head in one hand, applied the ointment with the other, all the while wrestling with the animal's clawed feet. The turtles weren't grateful for his attention and it was exasperating work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Idiot,\" he said as one turtle tried to jerk his head bock into his carapace at a critical moment, \"I know you hate this, but it wouldn't cost you anything to cooperate.\" Sorensen's fingers were slippery with ointment and he lost his grasp of the turtle's head as the animal jerked away, in a shorter time than it takes to tell, the sharp cutting edges of the turtle's toothless jaws had clamped down onto Sorensen's finger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pain was intense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Son of a bitch,\" swore Sorensen and, as he ran to the slop sink to run hot water over the turtle's head to make him let go, he accidentally knocked the jar of ointment to the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It shattered and sent glass shards flying in Manu's direction. Dervish, who was on the floor behind the workbench, heard the crash and froze; while the Duchess, startled by the sound, jumped up off her cage in a short flight that was soon checked by the leg leash she wore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With her great wings beating furiously she hung suspended beneath her cage, squawking and batting at the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ordinarily Sorensen would have heard the footsteps and voices outside his door, but his attention was on the pain and on the turtle that re-fused to release his finger. Above the noise of the hot water Sorensen heard the door open suddenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a scream. Too late he realized that Manu had been hurt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ira Leftrack and his son, Ehrich, walked into pandemonium in the Culls' room. The Duchess hung upside down beneath her cage, beating her wings and shrieking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She reached with her bill and feet for something to climb onto, but could get no purchase." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the same time, Manu was crying, baling his teeth and snarling hideously at Ehrich Leftrack, who stood frozen in the doorway, calling to his father for help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ira Leftrack took charge of the situation immediately. He wanted Ehrich to learn how to handle animals, so, before Sorensen could intervene, Leftrack bustled in and ordered Ehrich to help the Duchess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That one makes a lot of noise,\" Leftrack said, \"but she won't hurt you. She's as tame as a kitten. Go ahead, Ehrich. And have a little confidence, boy. Birds can smell fear. Give her your arm to climb onto. You'll never learn how to do this any younger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Sorensen were thinking clearly, he'd have warned Ehrich to leave the Duchess alone, but before he could intervene Ehrich had extended his hand toward the macaw. In a moment she climbed up onto it, regained her perch on the cage and, as a passing gesture, as if to show that no good deed would go unpunished, she had bitten Ehrich's index finger, slicing effortlessly through skin and flesh and bruising the bone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It happened so quickly that blood was dripping onto the floor before Ehrich realized what had happened. From her perch on top of her cage the Duchess bobbed her head and weaved like a maniacal boxer sent to a neutral corner after a knockout." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She opened her mouth and hissed a warning to these intruders to leave her and Manu alone.\n\n\"Talk, don't scream, you horrible bird,\" she screeched in a dark baritone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu, whose stump of a tail had been pinched beneath the door as it opened, ran around and around in circles, still crying piteously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sounded like a dog that had been kicked. More than anything else Manu wanted to get back into his cage back into his safe corner." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'ehrich' precisely 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich hadn't seen the langur on the other side of the door and, as he clutched his hand in pain, trying to get away from the bird, he backed into Manu. Manu saw a huge leg about to trample him and did the only thing he could do: he bit this human's leg and then ran to the farthest end of his leash, teeth bared, listening as Ehrich Leftrack's hysterical yelping drowned the screaming of the Duchess.\n\nEhrich Leftrack didn't think about it until his wounds had been stitched and bandaged in the emergency room of St. Vincent's Hospital, but somehow he would find a way to get even with that ugly monkey and the horrid creature that he couldn't really believe was a bird." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo next six sentences bits needed. Janann V. Jenner style, Fantasy, Animal Fiction genre. this is from a bigger story k?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish couldn't believe his eyes. Manu was sit-ting in his cage, on his habitual perch, with the rattlesnake wound around his wrist. The rough scales of the rattler's body made a grotesque and lethal-looking bracelet and Manu stared intently at the rattler's head. \"They must be mindspeaking \" thought Dervish. Then he panicked and thought, \"What if that snake has hypnotised Manu?\" The longer he watched the two of them, the more he was convinced that Manu was in danger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly Dervish could bear it no longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His fur stood on end. His lips curled back from his teeth in an ugly snarl. His ears were laid back and a low growl issued from his throat. In a moment he was inside Manu's cage, chittering with rage; ready to attack and kill the rattler.\n\n\"Don't do anything quick or anything rash, Dervish,\" said Manu in a low, controlled voice. Dervish noticed that Manu was speaking in a strange way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hardly moved his mouth and he didn't look at Dervish at all but stared steadfastly into the eyes of the deadly serpent that twined around his wrist and traveled from one hand to the other like a living, scaly rope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Junior and l are just getting acquainted,\" Manu said in a voice that was flat and calm. \"We don't want to startle him just now.\"\n\nDervish froze, unsure of what to do. Growls still issued from his throat. One thing was certain: he didn't want to be in this enclosed space with the cascabel. As he worried about what to do, Manu spoke again in the same, slow-motion way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry, Dervish,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This snake is perfectly safe. He tells me that he has promised that he will never hurt me, or you, or the Duchess, for that matter.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But, Manu,\" said the coati, \"that's a deadly snake. How can you believe anything that he might promise? Even a retarded toad knows that snakes will always lie to get what they want.\" The words were out of his thoughts before he realised what he'd said. If Sherahi had heard him it might have hurt her feelings.\n\n\"You must understand, Junior is no longer a cascabel; he only looks like one. And, what is even better, he will fight like one if provoked. But Sherahi has removed the vicious streak from his mind and now he's as harmless as a smooth green snake. They eat only insects and are too sweet-tempered and mild-mannered to ever think of attacking anything bigger than a beetle unless they have been seriously threatened.\"\n\nDervish growled again.\n\n\"I assure you, Dervish,\" Manu continued in his calm voice, \"Junior we're calling him Junior because Sherahi says he doesn't know what his real name is yet and she says that it's only polite to call all baby snakes Junior l assure you that he's perfectly safe. Why, he's been sleeping in here with me all day and half the night. Poor little thing, the transformation has exhausted him. He will have to sleep again soon. But first, you must make friends with him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi couldn't understand every word that Manu said to Dervish but she saw the effect that Manu's words had upon the coati." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His fur bristied again. His eyes grew wide with fright. He was about to run and hide in his nest box. Manu must have seen it too, because in his calmest voice he continued, \"Now stay perfectly still and don't make any sudden movements. You mustn't frighten him. Just think friendly, happy thoughts. He is only learning to mindspeak. We've been practicing and l think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. He's a smart little thing, but then, Sherahi tells me that all vipers are extremely Quick-minded and very intelligent.\"\n\nManu turned all of his attention to the cascabel, staring at it intently. This seemed to have a marked effect upon the little rattler." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emm his perch on Manu's arm the serpent raised his lethal-looking, pitted face and turned it right and left. His black, forked tongue lashed in and out. Then his head turned in Dervish's direction. Dervish knew that the cascabel was coming and he was terrified. He didn't want that snake near him and thought of jumping out of Manu's cage. But he heard Manu saying, \"Steady, Dervish. Trust me. He won't hurt you. Now hold stiff Let him come to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cascabel unwrapped itself from Manu's arm and slithered toward Dervish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The coati could not have imagined a snake could crawl so rapidly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its head was held aloft and steady while its body slithered beneath it in complicated undulations. Soon it was coiled between Dervish's front paws. For one horrid moment Dervish thought it was going to strike and then, instead, the cascabel rubbed the side of its face against one of Dervish's ankles. Its eyes, with their sIitIike verticaI pupils, peered upward, trying to locate Dervish's eyes. Like a cat welcoming a beloved friend, the cascabel ecstatically rubbed against Dervish and, to his surprise, Dervish heard a small, cold voice inside his mind. \"Hello, Dervish,\" it hissed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm so glad you've come. Sherahi said you would be my best friend.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the serpent glided up and around Dervish's front paw and angled across his collarbone to encircle his neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inside his head Dervish heard the voice say something about being so nice and warm and comfortable and suddenly Dervish felt claustrophobic.\n\nWith one swift snap of his jaws Dervish could have bitten the casca-bel in two. With a quick, raking movement of his claws he could have disemboweled it. But both Manu's voice inl his ears and a soothing humming in his mind reassured him that the rattlesnake meant him no harm. \"He's only a baby,\" Manu said. \"He's never had a friend and he needs one very badly. Imagine, Dervish, Junior has always been completely alone. Even though each of us has been knocked around a bit, at least we've known friends and relatives. And now we have each other. Little Junior has never had anybody. We must take good care of him, Dervish. He trusts us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish was still edgy. While the cascabel seemed harmless and hadn't bitten him, he wasn't sure that he liked having it coiled around his neck. \"What if it suddenly gets mad?\" he thought. \"Is Manu right?\" To Manu he said, \"How do we know that Sherahi is telling the truth? You know how snakes are.\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" said Manu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish felt the little snake curl deeper into the fur of his neck and didn't know what to do. He was almost afraid to move. \"He could bite me any second,\" Dervish thought.\n\nThe small snake stopped hissing to himself about how nice and warm he felt and snuggled his head very close to Dervish's ear. There was the sound of yawning and a sleepy, hissing voice spoke in Dervish's mind, saying, \"I'm so tired.\"\n\n\"There, Dervish,\" said Manu. \"He's dropped off to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as we thought he would." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're very brave, Dervish. Most coatis wouldn't have had the nerve to let that snake come near them.\" Manu beamed at Dervish. It was the first time that Dervish had feIt admiration from anyone. Walking very carefully so as not to disturb the sleeping cascabel, he touched Manu's hand with his black, wet nose and sighed. lnside his mind the odd humming sound that had been there since he entered the room intensified and braided into three harmonic tones. They wove into a pattern and Dervish could see each sound glowing and moving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sounded like moonlight and starlight and cloud. He was comforted and knew without being told that it was Sherahi's way of saying thank you.\n\nBirger Sorensen trudged into his work room, put down his lunch pail and collapsed into the chair at his workbench. He rested his head on his hands. He felt so tired. And his back was acting up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt the pressure of Dervish's paws on his thigh and Dervish's cold, wet nose explored his ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The coati sniffed at Sorensen briefly, rubbed once against his ankle and then pattered back to his nest beneath the workbench. He turned in a circle three times before lying down, making himself comfortable in his wooden box. Dervish put his head upon his paws and sighed. It was plain that Sorensen didn't want to play.\n\nJunior was asleep in Dervish's box. He had burrowed beneath the layers of newspaper and coiled into one corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish knew that he wouldn't wake until the humans were gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi had asked Dervish to protect the rattler from the humans and tonight he and Junior were to find a place for the Culls to hide once they had escaped from the pet shop. At first Dervish had been frightened of the little serpent, but now he was unafraid. He was excited by the prospect of actually going outside into the world beyond the broken window. His adventure last night had shown him how ignorant of the world he really was and he was eager to explore and see what lay outside of the pet shop and warehouse. \"Maybe there are other coatis out there,\" he thought and wished that the day would be over and the humans would go home.\n\nThe door banged open to announce Ehrich Leftrack's entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His habit of kicking at the bottom of the door as he turned the knob disturbed all of the Culls, but it especially infuriated the Duchess, who began swearing within her covered cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Ehrich passed he tore off the cover and put his florid, perspiring face next to the bars. The macaw erected the few feathers on her crown and opened her beak. She hissed and sputtered in anger and reached for his cheek, hoping to slash it. But the bars of her cage interfered and all she could do was bite them, swear at him and bob up and down on her perch. The pupils of her eyes alternately dilated and constricted with rage.\n\n\"So's your old man,\" said Ehrich contemptuously, his face still next to the bars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know what, you stupid bird? You give me a pain in the ass. A royal pain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned his bock on the shrieking parrot. Today, when he would begin to dose the monkey with Rat Bait, he just might put some in the Duchess's water, too. That would be good for business. lt would rid his father of another of these worthless Culls that no one had had the guts to kill. Until now, that is.\n\nThe Duchess bobbed and weaved on her perch, furious that she'd failed to hurt the fat boy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she was a fledgling she'd heard a story about a vile giant who was tortured forever by a vulture that gnawed at his fiver." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her mother had said that his torment was continual, because, as fast as the vulture consumed his fiver, a new one would grow to replace it. The Duchess pictured the fat boy bound to a rock with heavy chains while a vulture with hard, red plumage plucked out dripping beakfuls of his innards. She heard the fat boy scream and felt happy. Then she thought a minute and changed the vulture's beak to one more closely resembling her own. She was sure that a vulture's beak couldn't slice through that layer of blubber on the fat boy's belly. In her imagination she saw the parrot gobbling the fat boy's intestines and the thought made her even more agitated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If only I could get at him, I'd teach him a lesson,\" she thought." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"Duchess, Duchess, please stop screaming,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even for a human, the fat boy is incredibly stupid. Only a short while ago I slashed open his finger. I saw him bleed. Obviously he needs to be reminded who rules this perch.\"\n\n\"Duchess, Duchess, please stop screaming,\" said Sorensen in a tired voice. \"Ehrich, do you have to antagonize her?\" Ehrich made no reply and Sorensen gave him a stern look as Ehrich disappeared behind the wall of sacks of bird feed. \"Good riddance,\" thought Sorensen. He walked over to the Duchess's cage, making soothing sounds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bird began to quiet and he gave her a handful of peanuts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she expertly shelled each nut, he looked at her denuded, fragile body and felt guilty that he had procrastinated so long. \"Today,\" he said, \"I'm going to do something for you, Duchess. If I do nothing else I'm going to get that collar on around your neck.\" He saw that she had plucked out most of her long, red primary feathers. An angry sore festered on one of her bare shoulders and he knew that she couldn't fly at all even if she wanted to.\n\nHe put out fresh food for Dervish, Manu and the Duchess and gave Sherahi clean water. Sorensen couldn't bear listening to Ehrich brag about medical school this morning and left the Culls' room without speaking to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His morning round of chores awaited: the chinchilla colony had to be cleaned; the aviary had to be disinfected so that it would be ready for a new shipment; the garbage cans had to be scrubbed and brought in from the alley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he suddenly remembered that the light above Helga's desk and the window in the bathroom had to be fixed. And those were only the jobs that he could remember. No doubt Leftrack would add others and somehow he'd still have to find time to get that collar on the Duchess. Sorensen straightened up with a groan. If only his back didn't hurt so. He'd strained it carrying palls of water to the tree ferns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Damn those hooligans who stole the forty-foot hose. It's bad enough that the conservatory is closed to the public and that they can't pay me for being night watchman. But I've got to get Dr. Crotty to buy me a new hose. I have to water those plants somehow. I can't just let them die.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wishing that he could simply lie down and rest, Sorensen put his lunch pail into the file drawer of his desk and went out into the warehouse. Leftrack was already hollering for him and Sorensen could tell that today was going to be a doozy.\n\nAs soon as Sorensen had left the room, Ehrich stealthily went over to the small store of remedies that Sorensen kept on the shelf above his workbench. He located the bottle of Rat Balt, with the skull and crossbones on the label, and hurried back to his desk. His father poked his head in the door, yelling, \"Ehrich, new shipment of rhesus monkeys arriving in a few minutes. You and Sorensen are going to uncrate them and remove any Culls.\" His father's head disappeared as quickly as it had popped around the door frame and as Ehrich hid the bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk, he hoped that maybe one of the monkeys had died en route." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he'd have his dissection specimen for sure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ Hollywood, California ]\n\nTrying to sit without wrinkling her new taffeta dress and willing herself not to perspire, Ruthie perched on the edge of a cranberry velvet armchair. Bernie sat on one side of her and Reinhardt was on the other. As usual Reinhardt puffed on a cigar, spewing a plume of smoke into the light from the projection booth behind them. Across the room, in an emerald velvet wing chair, sat Mr. Max Goldman himself, surrounded by a constellation of advisers, secretaries, accountants and assistants. Mervyn LeMarr, the director of Ruthie's screen test, sat on Mr. Goldman's right, adjusting his silk cravat, smoothing his brilliantined hair back from a temple and turning his famous profile to Ruthie, Bernie and Reinhardt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made it clear that they weren't important hardly in his universe at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Max Goldman was a small, overweight man who wore dark-blue suits and heavy horn-rimmed glasses and favored loud ties and loose women. He'd made his money importing gemstones from the Far East and he liked to invest in sure things. He bragged that he could spot a flaw in an emerald or a winner in a chorus line a mile away. His feet did not quite reach the floor as he settled in the wing chair in his private screening room and his chauffeur rushed up to slide a footstool beneath the immaculate pair of hand-sewn Italian shoes. The delicate pink tea roses petit pointed on the cushion of the footstool clashed with Mr. Goldman's red silk socks his trademark and personal talisman. He believed in luck the way others believed in the Virgin Mary or marriage or even gambling: luck was Max Goldman's religion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After what seemed like a million years, Mr. Goldman smiled grimly at Ruthie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled back, too brightly, and then regretted it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw that behind his heavy glasses his eyes were set in the way a surgeon's eyes might be fixed before he began a difficult operation. Only his mouth smiled. Then he turned toward the screen that occupied one wall of the room and said, \"Roll 'em,\" in a voice that expected obedience.\n\nRuthie shut her eyes and crossed all her fingers on both hands. She sent a silent prayer to the god that makes movie stars and held her breath as a twenty-foot-tall image of herself danced across the screen dressed as Naruda, Exotique Dancer and Snake Charmeuse.\n\n\"Please let him like me,\" she prayed to the gods of Paramount, the Roxy, Radio City Music Hall and the Bijou." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please let him like me,\" she prayed to the gods of popcorn and jujubes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milk Duds and Holloway bars.\n\nShe saw a flickering black-and-white image of herself lounging seductively against a pillar. A nearby harem light threw a filigreed shadow onto one side of her face and reflected mysteriously in the eyes that vamped from beneath a fringe of eyelashes made of genuine mink. Ruthie was enthralled. Somehow the flim made her look prettier, better larger than fife. She liked what she saw and was starting to enjoy her own performance—\n\nThen everything went wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her film image came to the bit where she was supposed to pick up the snakes and everything fell apart Ruthie couldn't watch any longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw her timing fall to pieces and the camera mercilessly recorded consternation and dismay on her face when the boas refused to obey her commands. Ruthie looked away and listened to the mechanical clicking from the projection booth.\n\nAfter a few of the retakes had been shown, Mr. Goldman made a sign to one of his assistants and the lights went on again. Ruthie braced herself for the brush-off that She knew was coming — in a voice that rasped from the effects of too much whiskey Max Goldman said, \"I want her.\"\n\nRuthie gasped and felt Bernie's hand squeeze hers. She hardly heard the rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began to smile and wanted to throw her arms around Bernie and Reinhardt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gods of the Roxy and the Bijou were forgotten as she bit her lower fip to keep from crying from happiness. It would ruin her makeup.\n\nMr. Goldman continued: \"Reinhardt, we're planning a remake of Crown of Thorns and I think we've got a part for... what did you say her name was?\"\n\n\"Naruda Ruthann Notar,\" said Bernie.\n\n\"We'll have to see about that,\" said Goldman. \"Anyhow, a name isn't important just yet. Let me tell you about this picture, l think we could work that snake-charming number in a couple of ways. Don't you think so, Harold?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a pause and then a voice said slowly, \"Yes... I hadn't thought of it, but I suppose...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But she's going to have to really put those snakes through their paces. We'll need a real show. Not anything like that... that...\" He couldn't find the proper word and returned to his narration.\n\n\"I can see it all now.\" Goldman's chubby hands gestured with his cigar. \"It's a big party at Judah Ben-Salam's villa. He's the hero and everyone is there: Nero, Venus, Apollo, King Tut, Pharaoh, Caesar, Cleopatra all of 'em. Lots of slave girls carrying trays of food. A fountain with wine. The floor show begins: dancing girls, maybe an African number leopard skins and greased coloreds dancing around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she makes her entrance rolled in a carpet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She dances around Judah, runs her fingers through his hair, through his toga, weaves her snakes around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very sexy. Very sexy. He is nuts about her. This happens just before the chariot race.\" Mr. Goldman paused to puff his cigar. The room was quiet. He continued, \"Then, in the end, she gets leprosy and dies with his mother and sister.\n\n\"Can you do it, Harold?\" Mr. Goldman didn't wait for the writer's answer but instead turned to Mervyn LeMarr, asking, \"What do you think, Merv? Is she right for the part or am I a monkey's uncle?\"\n\nMervyn LeMarr removed the ivory-inlaid cigarette holder from his teeth and regarded Mr. Goldman thoughtfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" he lisped archly, \"she could be right, but I'm not sure if those snakes will cooperate.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'first'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His tone became intimate and he confided, \"It was an absolute shambles during that test. My script girl went completely hysterical. I had to practically beg her to come to the set the next day. It's given her an awful complex. She's having dreams and everything. Those snakes actually came at her. She was so frightened she practically ran all the way to Encino! And the unions are complaining, asking for hazard pay. If she can't control those disgusting beasts, I, for one, doubt if she's worth it.\"\n\nMax Goldman turned to Ruthie, acknowledging her presence for the first time. \"Well, can you make the snakes behave?\" he asked.\n\n\"Of course, Mr. Goldman. They'll do whatever I tell them. They were just nervous because of the lights and all. I know I can do it.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Mr. Goldman smiled genuinely for the first time, displaying his stained teeth. He walked over to Ruthie's chair and, extending his hand in a courtly gesture, said, \"Let's have a little dinner together tonight to get acquainted. Just the two of us.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include this dialogue snippet naturally: \"Tell me, my dear, how did a pretty girl like you ever get interested in snakes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Reinhardt he said, \"I'll send the papers over tomorrow.\" He ignored Bernie and, tucking Ruthie's arm beneath his, he led her toward his waiting llmousine. He said, \"Tell me, my dear, how did a pretty girl like you ever get interested in snakes?\" Without waiting for an answer he continued, \"You know, I had a garter snake once. I got it in camp in the Poconos when I was seven or eight...\"\n\nAs she left the room Ruthie looked back to see Bernie frowning at her and Goldman and at Reinhardt.\n\n[ Culls' Room ]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ Leftrack's Pet Emporium and Animals International, Ltd ]\n\nSherahi hadn't moved in hours and to all outward appearances she was asleep. But outward appearances, as any snake can tell you, are deceiving; and although Sherahi was physically inert, mentally she was more active than she'd been in months.\n\nSherahi hadn't confided it to Manu, but the alterations she had made in Junior's psyche needed constant monitoring. Only this morning she had found that his new, gentle disposition had worn thin in one spot, as if the severed edges of the cascabel's vicious nature were working below its surface, abrading and unraveling all her hard work. She had rewoven the breach but knew that if her plan were to succeed, she would have to constantly survey and repair her work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In addition, she had to encourage Dervish and, although her mindspeech with mammals was improving, it was still impossible for her to speak directly to his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could, however, send a stream of positive, glowing thoughts to the little coati. If she stopped this barrage of confidence, the fears that were his evolutionary legacy might overwhelm him and he might kill the cascabel. \"If that happens,\" Sherahi thought, \"we have even less chance to escape successfully.\"\n\nSo, as Sherahi lay immobile in her tank, she was as active as a juggler in the center ring. One portion of her mind sent comforting thoughts to Dervish, whirling colors and hypnotic tones to soothe his fears. Another portion of her mind regularly patrolled Junior's psyche, scrying it for damage to the placid disposition that she had superimposed on his dark and bloody nature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And, if that weren't enough, she kept reviewing her plan for escape, turning it inside out, reconsidering and rethinking every move." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There might be no time for this later.\n\nDervish and Junior would search for an entrance to the tunnels of the Holy White Crocodiles tonight. The crocodiles were the key to the entire plan, because if anyone could tell the Culls how to find Sandeagozu, they could. They weren't just ordinary crocs. On the contrary, the white crocodiles were highly specialized and frighteningly intelligent descendants of the ordinary Nile crocodiles who had entered the underground water supply of this city by chance, evolving there in isolation for hundreds of years.\n\nOne of the original Dutch settlers of the city had found that his little pet \"pebbleworms\" had grown at an astonishing rate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When one had eaten his prize spaniel he couldn't bring himself to kill these intelligent animals, who had learned to follow him around like a trio of puppies, and he had released them north of the settlement, in the swampy area near the Village of Greenwich. Descendants of the original three crocs had taken refuge in the warm underground springs that perforated the area. Cut off from external influences, the population had become inbred and specialized for subterranean life. A chance mutation had produced the mightiest minds known in the animal kingdom and the fame of the white crocs had spread. Sherahi had first heard of them from the garden-variety crocodiles that used to bask on the riverbank below her pagoda.\n\nThe crocs had sunned themselves there, sometimes propping open their mouths and inviting bold tooth thrushes to remove the leeches that parasitized their gums." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While the birds had stepped nervously over leviathan lip and tongue, feasting on bloodsuckers, the crocs had gossiped and Sherahi had eavesdropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In this way she had learned of the white crocodiles. \"If they're even one tenth as wise as their reputation,\" she thought, \"they'll be able to help us.\" On the other hand, they lived in a strange environment and, although they might be very wise, they might also have insatiable appetites. The Culls might run the risk of being crocodile lunch before they'd get a chance to learn about Sandeagozu. They would have to be very cautious. Sherahi could leave nothing to chance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That night, before Dervish and Junior made their first foray into the city, Sherahi would explain her plan to all of the Culls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In case Dervish and Junior found a suitable hiding place for them or the entrance to the tunnels of the white crocodiles, each Cull would have to be ready to leave perhaps even tonight.\n\nShe explained that Dervish would carry Junior around his neck and that she would advise Dervish through Junior.\n\n\"Seems a waste of time to me,\" said the Duchess. \"It's all very well for them to go larking about exploring things, but we're still stuck here. I think we should all go together. Sorensen may fix that window today. Then we'll never get out of here.\"\n\n\"We will just have to take that chance,\" said Sherahi through Manu. \"It may take some time to find the tunnels of the white crocodiles. If they have survived in this city their tunnels must be inaccessible and well hidden. We must be prepared to hide where no one will be able to find us. A deep underground nest something like a rock-bound hibernaculum would be best. Whatever else, we don't want to escape from this place only to be captured by another set of humans.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of the Culls said anything and Dervish, with Junior coiled around his neck, was anxious to be off. \"Good luck, Dervish,\" said Manu and watched as the coati trotted to the door, stretched up as far as he could reach and let himself out of the Culls' room. Full of excitement and anticipation he bounded down the hall to the toilet. In a series of graceful bounds he leaped to commode, to washstand, to highest shelf, to top of toilet tank.\n\nAbove him was the broken window and, as he paused there with his front paws resting on the wooden frame, he saw that no moon shone tonight. He knew the name for that fascinating globe of fight now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu had told him all about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish was disappointed that the sky was dark, with only one bright star. He would have liked to see the moon again. The alley below was in shadow and there were no cats in sight.\n\n\"Good,\" thought Dervish. \"It'll make this just a little easier.\"\n\nGathering all four legs beneath him, he leaped out of the window. Junior, who was around his neck, saw the twelve-foot drop below and, as the coati jumped, he heard a cold voice hiss in fright and felt the snake encircle his neck even more tightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The coati landed soundlessly on all fours and raced to the deep shadow on one side of the alley. He crouched next to the building for a moment, his sides heaving more from excitement than from exertion, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness and hoping that no one had seen him. The alley was quiet and Dervish thought, \"I did it I'm out!\"\n\nA small voice rasped in his mind: \"You mean we're out. Dervish,\" Junior hissed, a bit surprised to have been forgotten so quickly.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" Dervish chittered excitedly. \"We're out.\" He couldn't believe that he was actually free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then an awful thought occurred to him: how would he get back inside?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were accustomed to the gloom now and he saw that the brickwork of the rear wall of the warehouse was rough with many crevices and projections. When he returned tonight he would just climb up onto the garbage cans, scale the wall and go back in the broken window, it would be simple.\n\nJunior's voice hissed within his mind, \"Are you all right. Dervish? Sherahi wants to know.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm fine. Tell her what this place looks like and that we're going toward the light.\"\n\nThere was a pause and the little snake spoke again, \"She says to keep low and move like a shadow.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Dervish. \"Tell her not to worry. Coatis know how to slink in the shadows as well as any cat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She says to look out for cats.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'dervish' exactly 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will, l will,\" said Dervish, wishing that Sherahi would mind her own business and let them get on with it Keeping to the shadows. Dervish trotted down the alley, nose twitching, tail aloft. He was alert for danger. \"No cat'll ambush us,\" he thought. Dervish was free for the first time in his life and didn't intend to make any foolish mistakes.\n\nThe alley led to a side street that had rows of darkened buildings on either side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The darkness was punctuated by pools of light in the middle as well as at either end of each street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a distant rumble of sounds that Dervish couldn't identify and in the distance came the wail that had frightened him before. This time it was far away and it didn't make him feel like howling an accompaniment. Before leaving the alley he paused and urinated on the pavement, leaving a scent mark that would make the alley that led to the pet shop easy to find.\n\n\"Which way do you think we should go. Junior?\"\n\n\"l don't think it matters. Look, Dervish, over there. There's a hole. Let's go see that.\"\n\nIn the middle of the black pavement was a large metal plate with a small hole cut out of one edge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plate was round and its surface was raised in an intricate pattern." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Steam was coming from the small hole and Dervish sniffed at it His nose wrinkled in disgust. It smelled worse than rotten garbage.\n\nFrom his vantage point around Dervish's neck. Junior fnasted the smoke coming from the hole in the street and sent the information to Sherahi. Her reply came swift and fast. \"That smells all wrong. Remember, Junior, these are holy, sacred creatures. They wouldn't live in putrid tunnels.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Junior relayed this information to Dervish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish listened and added, \"It was too small for us to squeeze into, anyway.\" He returned to the shadows on one side of the street and trotted rapidly down the block. All senses alert for danger, he watched for a hole that might be an entrance to the tunnels of the white crocodiles.\n\nHours later the coati was discouraged. He hadn't realized that the world outside the pet shop was so large and that this would be such a tiresome job. They had traveled countless blocks and had investigated and rejected many additional manhole covers and street drains." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish had become accustomed to the smell of cat, dog and garbage as well as to the fine black dirt that sifted down into his fur and nostrils. It would take hours to get clean again tonight. Covering all the other odors was the smell of people—too many people. They weren't here now, but he could tell they had been here recently. The thought of so many humans made Dervish nervous and he glanced over his shoulder and became aware of the long shadows that jumped ahead and then behind him as he moved from one pool of light to the next Except for Sorensen, Dervish was afraid of humans and he was glad that none seemed to be about. Junior had grown quiet, and Dervish had his thoughts all to himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered if Sherahi had been wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had been so certain that there were entrances to these mysterious tunnels, but Dervish saw nothing except the same monotonous dark buildings, the silent streetlights and the hard pavement. He didn't know what crocodiles smelled like, but expected to be able to sense them long before he located an entrance to their tunnels. But the dark and silent city blocks were filled with smells of cats, dogs, garbage and people. There was no smell of reptiles.\n\nDervish stopped at an intersection. \"What should we do. Junior?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'snake' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he chittered to the cascabel, who had been silent for a long time, \"l'm getting tired. And we haven't found anything.\"\n\nThe snake unwound himself from Dervish's neck and lifted the first third of his body straight up. Looking like the Hindu rope trick come to life, the little snake fnasted the air in all directions. \"I could be wrong,\" he said, \"but l think there's a different smell coming from up there.\" He indicated a fence that surrounded something across the street.\n\n\"Well, let's have a look,\" said Dervish and the pair crossed the street to examine what lay inside the fence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If it doesn't turn out to be interesting, l think you should ask Sherahi if we can go back. We can try again tomorrow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish was footsore and his tail drooped. The sky was getting light; he knew that they would have to go back to the pet shop soon.\n\nAcross the street was a metal fence surrounding a flight of stairs that led down into the darkness. The dank smell of rat urine filled the air. Dervish hesitated. He noticed that currents of air rushed at them from the bottom of the stairwell and thought, \"If something's alive down there, at least it won't smell us coming.\" Keeping to the shadows, he moved cautiously down the staircase, if he hadn't had such sensitive whiskers he might have run smack into the barricade that blocked the staircase, but he avoided it and neatly poked his long nose between two strips of wood and sniffed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish sensed that there was a large open space beyond the barricade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without waiting for Junior's prompting he began to work at the bottom of one of the battens." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'didn't' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In five minutes his strong claws and teeth had made a hole large enough to crawl through. Before he did so he lifted his leg and marked this spot, lt was pitch black inside and he didn't want to risk getting lost.\n\nUnlike Dervish the cascabel didn't need light to be able to see. His cat's eyes were made for slithering in the dark and the infrared sensors on his face told him that there were many warm bodies beyond this gate. He uncoiled from Dervish's neck to investigate on his own. Dervish heard his rasping voice say, \"I'll be back soon,\" and then he was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish's neck felt suddenly bare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dervish crawled through the hole he had made in the barricade and, keeping close to one hard, smooth wall, he moved slowly forward, wishing that his eyes worked better in the dark. All that he could tell was that he was hi a large, dry space. It was evidently unused because he could feel a cushion of dust and soot beneath his paws. Some of the dust got into his nostrils and he sneezed and froze as the sound echoed and reechoed in the space above him. Dervish cautiously moved forward, conscious of the listening blackness all around.\n\nThen the passage widened, and Dervish found himself traveling down another staircase similar to the one that led from the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused again to mark the spot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If there were cats or dogs inside, he wanted to be able to make a quick exit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Air was still blowing into his face and it made him feel invisible and secure. Patting with his paws, Dervish carefully made his way down the staircase, wishing that that little snake hadn't decided to be so independent all of a sudden. \"Just when I need him, he disappears,\" thought Dervish.\n\nAt the bottom of the staircase Dervish bumped into a concrete wall, and inadvertently yelped in pain. Immediately he regretted the sound, because rustling noises stopped. \"They're all listening now,\" thought Dervish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They know I'm here.\" Soundlessly he marked the spot and turned to the right, licking his bruised nose and vowing to be more cautious. After the blackness of the staircase he was surprised to see falnt light filtering down from above. He saw that he was in a long, high corridor, on a wide, cement platform that dropped off into blackness on either end. Obviously this place had been made by humans. He could smell them, even though the scent was old and overlaid by the smell of rats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish did not see any rats, but he knew they must be all around, smelling him watching him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought he heard the high-pitched squeal of newborns begging to be suckled and a rustle and scratch in the darkness beyond this dim pool of light. \"Well,\" thought Dervish, \"it may be full of rats, but at least we've found some place underground. Some sort of cavern.\" He had a sudden thought: \"Maybe the white crocodiles live here. I wish I could ask Sherahi. Where is Junior when I need him? Fine time for him to disappear.\"\n\nJunior's answer came almost immediately into Dervish's mind. \"I'm down here, Dervish,\" he hissed. \"Just having a look around.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rattler climbed up from below the platform where Dervish stood and slithered toward him. In a moment he was back around his neck, saying, \"In the pit below there are shiny metal strips that are vibrating. They are shaking as if something heavy is pounding them. I think we should get away from here, because something big is coming down that tunnel. It may know we are here in its nest. It may be hunting for us.\"\n\nDervish looked toward either end of the platform but could see nothing. Then, in the distance at one end of the platform he saw two large, shining eyes. They looked like the alleycat's eyes, and as he watched they grew larger and brighter and the animal started to growl. If this were a cat, it was an enormous one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish ran back to the darkness at the foot of the stairs and stood motionless, peering out into the cavern." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The growling grew louder until it rumbled and echoed from wall to wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, incredibly, the rumble increased until it thundered and resounded and the cavern was illuminated by the searching eyes of the beast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without warning there was a heart-stopping rumbleclatterclash screechclack and a huge, glowing serpent sped straight through the cavern. It passed with a rushing wind that buffeted Dervish and made him narrow his eyes. Grit blew into his face, but he could see that the serpent had lights inside of its body, too. Shadows jumped all over the walls and ceiling of the cavern. From below the serpent sent up sprays of blue-white sparks to mark its path. It didn't look left or right and didn't seem to notice Dervish and Junior crouched in the shadows at the foot of the stairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The serpent arrived and passed in such a fury that Dervish stared at it for a long time, listening to it roar and screech and watching the red glow of the stinger on its retreating tail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he closed his eyes the image of the glowing beast was imprinted upon the inside of his eyelids." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish crouched in the darkness, listening to the fire snake's retreating bellow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was too awestruck to move and was surprised to hear Junior's small, incredulous voice say, \"Did you see them, Dervish? There were people inside that thing!\"\n\nDervish was too stunned to say anything and only wanted to be back in his nest box beneath Sorensen's workbench. The Culls' room seemed like a safe haven compared to this place. Sniffing for his scent marks he hurried up the staircase and, with only a few wrong turnings, he found his way beneath the wooden barricade. In the darkness he heard the scufflings of rats, but in his haste to get to the surface he dismissed them. \"What do a few rats matter, anyway,\" Dervish thought as he bounded up to street level." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The important thing now is to get back so that all the Culls can escape.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The glistening, beady eyes of the south perimeter guard watched as the strange-smelling, red-furred stranger ran up the stairs and out of sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was that?\" he wondered. \"Some kind of cat?\"\n\nHe reexamined the smell that lingered in the air and decided, \"No, it smells too clean. Maybe it's an odd breed of dog.\" He remembered the long, banded tail and thought, \"Maybe it was a 'coon dog!\"\n\nThe guard had been stationed at this post for many weeks now and was accustomed to sounding the alarm for marauding cats. With their silent feet, quick claws and dark-seeing vision, cats were a real danger in these tunnels and one shrill whistle from the guard would bring troops of Norse soldiers to defend the perimeter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the guard hadn't known what to do about this most recent interloper and he had merely watched him from the shadows, waiting for him to make a false move." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'darkness' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd been ready to pounce upon the stranger and sever his spinal cord with one deep puncture. As he watched from the darkness the guard had ground his long upper and lower incisors together, making sure that their cutting edges were razor sharp.\n\nAs the long-nosed creature stumbled about in the darkness, however, the guard had decided that this animal was no threat to the people of the Norse, who owned the tunnels on the north side of the cavern. The stranger had been terrified by the sight and sound of the uptown local and had cowered in fear. It had scared him so much that he had run off shortly after it had passed and the guard could still smell his fear in the air. \"He'll never come back,\" the guard chuckled and remembered how the clumsy-looking animal had shut his eyes and tucked his tall between his legs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Any of our Norse children would have stared down the rushing train. They'd have kept their noses in the air and their ears cocked and at the ready.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tribe of Blacks, who lived nearby, often attacked when trains were passing and generations of Norse had learned that the real threat came from their territorial enemies, not from the subway." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'guard' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although it seemed clear to the guard that this stranger would never return, he had left his scent behind. \"That'll never do,\" thought the guard, sucking on his yellowed incisors. Looking left and right to make sure none of the Black swine were lurking about, he loped from mark to mark, covering the nasty smell of the ring-tailed creature with the sturdy scent of the Norse. This task completed, he returned to his post in a drain hole at the bottom of the second staircase. As he settled down to another monotonous stretch of duty, it occurred to him that he might be able to use this incident to bring himself to the attention of the Chief. Perhaps the Chief would reward his good judgment with a promotion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guard hoped that one day he would belong to the elite Chieftain's Bodyguards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As things were, that would be the only way that he'd ever have a chance to mate, even though it would be with a female that the Chief had discarded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moreover, if he could get a promotion, he would not have to spend all of his nights in isolation out here on the perimeter, watching for cats and Black raiding parties. \"I'd be in the nest itself and everyone knows that the Chieftain's Bodyguards get the best of everything—food, even females.\"\n\nThe guard spent the rest of his watch revising his report to the Chief until he arrived at a version that stressed his bravery and sober judgment. When he was relieved by the day guard he scurried down the unused train platform, heading eagerly for Norse headquarters, which were just beyond the south end of the station. He imagined his promotion to Bodyguard and could almost feel the haunches of a willing female within his forepaws. As he hunched along toward the Norse nest, he didn't realize that a dangerous predator had escaped his notice that night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then, the guard had spent all of his short life in subway tunnels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd never have known a rattlesnake, not even if it had bitten him.\n\n[ Hollywood, California ]\n\nLeaving a trail of wet footprints On the hot, Smooth terrazzo and wrapping a towel around his waist, Bernie entered the bar that was off the patio of the mansion they had rented, lt took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom and, to his surprise, he found Ruthie next to the window, scowling out at the turquoise swimming pool that glinted beyond the hedge of yellow crotons. \"What's the matter, baby?\" he asked. Ever since Ruthie had become a hot studio property, Bernie had been particularly solicitous. He could feel her slipping away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had very little time for him these days even in bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her close, but she shrugged out of his grasp, saying, \"Don't. You're wet.\"\n\nHe went over to the bar and was about to make himself a drink when she said, \"Give me a cigarette, will you,\" while she continued to frown out the window. She inhaled deeply and blew out the smoke in an irritated fashion. She'd worked all morning with the snakes and he could tell that things hadn't gone well at all.\n\n\"It's no use, Bernie. They won't do what I tell them to.\"\n\n\"What's wrong? Are they sick or just out of practice?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, they eat like horses. There's nothing wrong with them. It's just that they're so... I can't exactly put my finger on it, but they're so... remote. It's like they don't hear me or see their cues. They always used to respond before, l don't understand it. In the old days it used to be so easy. The Burmese understood everything, but those boas are acting so strange, l can't control them.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'bernie' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sighed and turned away from the window and impatiently stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray that was fashioned from an elephant's foot. \"Oh, Bernie,\" she said, \"what am l going to do? Everything's riding on this. Mr. Goldman expects me to do a real snake act. lf only l had the Burmese. She always did everything right. I just knew that we shouldn't have sold her.\"\n\n\"Ruthie, we've been over this a million times. You know we couldn't have kept her.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. But that was a mistake, l should never have let her go.\"\n\n\"Well, why don't we try to get her back? We've got the money now. If you wanted to you could build a special wing just for her.\"\n\nRuthie turned to Bernie, her face suddenly hopeful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you think we could?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the first time in weeks that she had looked at him in the old, confiding way; the first time that he felt he had her complete attention in months.\n\n\"Sure, baby. Consider it done. I'll have the Burmese for you just as soon as I can.\"\n\nRuthie jumped up and ran over to Bernie. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. \"That would be wonderful, darling,\" she purred. \"How soon can you get her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" Bernie asked, beginning to nuzzle the curve of the side of her neck, \"how long before you begin rehearsals?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, not for another month at least.\"\n\n\"Well then, there's no problem. I'll call Leftrack's first thing tomorrow morning. They're closed now. It's after six in New York.\"\n\nRuthie stretched languorously against him as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. \"Thanks, darling,\" she said. \"I knew I could depend on you.\" As if she had just remembered something important, she looked at the clock on the mantel and exclaimed, \"How did it get so late?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She kissed him perfunctorily on the cheek, picked up the sweeping skirt of her peach satin dressing gown and raced from the room in a flurry of marabou." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bernie looked after her for a long minute before pouring himself a neat whiskey and tossing it down. He lit another cigarette and stood looking out at the water in the pool as it danced in the late afternoon sunlight. It was going to be a long night: as usual, he hadn't been invited to the party at Goldman's estate.\n\n[ New York City ]\n\nThe cascabel locked his tail around his neck and held on as tightly as he could without choking Dervish. Then he closed his pupils to the narrowest of slits and tried to endure the shaking ride around the coati's neck as he hurried from scent mark to scent mark, retracing the route back to the alley that led to the pet shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to be a very long journey and several times Junior felt Sherahi's questing mind probe his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew that the huge pythoness was worrying, like a broody hen who has suddenly realized that there were two fluffy bodies missing from her string of chicks." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'light' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hurry, Junior,\" she said into his thoughts, using the ancient language of their kind. Whenever she called to him, Junior listened proudly. Those elegantly simple and direct mental images were the heritage of millions of years of reptilian intelligence. They carried with them the leathery flap of pterodactyl wing, the rumble of grazing herds of hadrosaurs, the slither of the first lizard to slash free of its eggshell, the hiss of the viper who invented hypodermic fangs.\n\n\"Day is coming,\" Sherahi said, \"and you must be careful. Neither you nor Dervish has ever actually felt the light of day, and you will want to stop and look at the sun. But this isn't the time for sightseeing and you must help Dervish to remember his responsibilities. Soon the sky will grow lighter and the night that has hidden you will vanish. Meddling humans come out with the light and you have only a little time before they swarm into these streets. You must make Dervish hurry. He is curious and everything distracts him. Even now he's sniffing at that garbage can Tell him to stop it. Junior. Help him to concentrate and return quickly to us.\"\n\nJunior obeyed Sherahi's directives and coaxed Dervish away from the garbage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon he was trotting along, stopping every now and then to mechanically locate and reinforce his scent marks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Junior read Dervish's mind and learned that this was important because these marks would later guide the Culls back to the cavern. Nevertheless, he hissed in Dervish's thoughts, reminding him to hurry. From his lookout between Dervish's shoulder blades the cascabel watched and worried as the streetlights above were extinguished one by one and the sky had turned ashy gray. The day that Sherahi had warned about was here. \"We'll have to wait until tonight to make our escape,\" Junior thought.\n\n\"At last,\" rasped Junior's voice as he saw that they had finally entered the alley that led to the rear of the warehouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Soon we'll be safe inside, telling Sherahi, Manu and the Duchess all about it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Using reptilian mindspeech he told Sherahi that they were nearly home. Junior was proud that he had helped Dervish to find the underground hiding place that Sherahi thought was so necessary. Everything had worked perfectly. He could not read Sherahi's thoughts completely, but he saw her plan and knew that the Culls would escape tonight.\n\nJunior felt Dervish's neck muscles tense and bunch as the coati leaped to the top of a garbage can. He realized that Dervish was getting distracted by the high deliciousness of the aroma of fresh garbage and spoke in his mind, saying, \"Not now. Dervish. You can rummage in this cess pit later. Now you must climb back the way we planned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where the cascabel's jawbone pressed against Dervish's shoulder blade, he heard the faint clatter of the garbage-can lid as the coati's back claws sent it sailing to the cobblestones below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beneath his belly scutes Junior felt the coati's muscles strain as he struggled to climb up the rough wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The broken window was a small, dark spot high above them, lt seemed impossibly far away. Junior realized that scaling the wall was more difficult than Dervish had anticipated and he had a sudden wave of fear that they might not be able to get back inside. \"Sherahi is depending upon me to bring Dervish back to her,\" he thought and he willed the little weasel to climb. The cascabel tried to do as Sherahi had explained and concentrated all of his mental strength and urged those furry, long-clawed hind feet to dig into the rotten mortar; he cheered as Dervish's clever forefeet fought for niches that would support their weight.\n\nThe cascabel never knew whether his thoughts actually helped Dervish to chmb the wall but, in a matter of minutes, the coati reached the broken window and rested there for a moment, regaining his breath. Then, eager to see Manu and Sherahi and the Duchess; realizing for the first time that the Culls were nearly free; and without any thought that there might be danger inside, the coati leaped back into the pet shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd been so busy with his happy thoughts that he didn't hear Junior's voice hissing within his mind." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'coati' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too late he realized that Junior was saying, \"Look out. Someone's coming!\"\n\nThe coati landed in the hallway just beyond the toilet, nearly at the feet of Ira Leftrack, who had just finished his ritual morning inspection of the warehouse. Dervish had never actually seen this bald man with the thin mustache, but his voice was all-too-familiar and Dervish knew his reputation. He was no friend. The coati darted down the hall and into the Culls' room. He heard Manu's voice chittering, \"Hide, Dervish. Hide and don't move.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In their panic, neither Manu nor Dervish paid any attention to Sherahi as she urged, \"No, Dervish. Don't come in here. He'll trap you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi heard Manu calling to Dervish and realized that both had ignored her warning." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'would' - 5 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would have to be better prepared for emergencies in the future, if their escape were to succeed. The pythoness didn't know when she would find the time, but after Dervish was safe, she would have to visit U Vayu and ask for his advice before the Culls left the pet shop. He would help her to find the flaws in her plan.\n\nAs Leftrack had walked to the toilet he had been immersed in worry about a shipment of orangutans from Mandalay that was two weeks overdue. One of Irma's idiot cousins was in charge and if those orangs died, there would be hell to pay. Leftrack caught only a glimpse of the coati as it leaped down at his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The animal had looked up for a moment and then had darted into Sorensen's dark workshop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took Leftrack a moment to realize that, inexplicably, a more-than-half-grown coatimundi was loose in his warehouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leftrack knew that those hands could open all kinds of latches and locks and the animal would have to be captured before it got into mischief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing would be safe until the coati was behind bars.\n\nLeftrack stealthily walked back to the Culls' room and switched on the light, hoping to see the coati; but the only thing that moved was Manu, the disfigured langur. Leftrack closed the door, satisfied that he had trapped the coati. Sorensen could capture it later. Only after the door had been securely closed did it occur to Leftrack that it was strange for this animal to be running around loose. The only recent shipment of coatis had died shortly after delivery—about six months ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coatis were delicate; they almost never survived in captivity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Leftrack turned back toward the toilet he realized that something was wrong with this whole thing. That coati had run into Sorensen's work room as if it knew where it was going. \"Does it belong to Sorensen?\" he wondered. \"He knows that personal pets aren't allowed,\" stormed Leftrack in a fury. He decided that he would get to the bottom of this and looked at his watch. Sorensen would be here in a half hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the meantime, Leftrack would call the mammal house at the Bronx Zoo and see if they wanted a coati." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that they were building their small mammal collection and, because no zoo had ever been successful with coatis, they'd probably offer a premium price for a healthy, semitame one. This could be a coup both for Leftrack's and for the Bronx Zoo.\n\nLeftrack was in the toilet, unbuttoning his fly, when he noticed the broken window above him. \"Goddamn it,\" he thought. \"I told Sorensen to fix that two weeks ago. First the coati, and now this. Can't he do anything right?\"\n\nThis had gone too far." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sorensen wasn't even able to repair a broken window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd outlived his usefulness and only sentimentality had kept Leftrack from firing him before. The sight of the broken window infuriated Leftrack so much that he forgot his urge to urinate and, buttoning his pants, he stomped back to his office. This was the last straw: Sorensen had to go. \"I've been far too lenient with that man. I've given him every chance to make good, but this is too much. He's keeping pet animals against company policy and he's not doing his job. I'll have him turn over that coati and then I'll give him two weeks' pay and tell him to clear out. I can't afford men like Sorensen.\"\n\nDervish had hidden beneath the pallet that held the pile of forty-pound sacks of bird seed and Junior had slipped away to hide in some snug, inaccessible crevice. When Leftrack's footsteps faded into the distance, Manu chittered to Dervish again, telling him to stay hidden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even when Sorensen comes,\" Manu said urgently." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'would' exactly 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You must not let yourself be caught, Dervish. Even though he offers you wonderful treats. If they get you, our plan to escape to Sandeagozu is ruined.\"\n\nMore than ever, Sherahi realized that she needed to speak with her old teacher, U Vayu. Now that Dervish was in danger of being captured, she realized just how precarious the Culls' situation was. Without Dervish they would have difficulty in finding the tunnel that he and Junior had located. Their progress through the city's streets would be slow, laborious—even dangerous. She would have to create and maintain a continual barrage of confusion in the minds of any humans that might cross their paths." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi thought of the energy needed to do that and simultaneously defend them from cats and dogs and humans and decided, \"I'd never be able to do it without Dervish.\"\n\nIn addition, Manu and the Duchess were used to sedentary lives in their comfortable cages. They would tire quickly and she'd have to mentally support them maybe even coerce them to keep moving. Sherahi knew that she couldn't do all of this, as well as concentrate on crawling as rapidly as her great bulk would allow. \"Without Dervish to lead the way we will be crippled. We can't get there without him.\" Besides, although she would never have admitted it to anyone, Sherahi the pythoness, whose ancestors had always prided themselves on their solitary, self-sufficient lives, had grown fond of the curious, long-snouted little coati." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the back of her cold, proud mind she thought, \"I won't allow him to be captured. It simply cannot happen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She called to Manu and to Junior and told them of her plan to retire inward for a while to consult U Vayu. If anyone came near Dervish's hiding place, Manu and the Duchess were to distract him. If that failed, then Junior would set up a screen of confusion around the coati's hiding place as best he could. Then he was to hurry to her cage and touch her and she would instantly return to the here and now. She said that she did not intend to stay long at U Vayu's pagoda. She would probably be back before Sorensen arrived with their breakfast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi sent a wave of confidence to each of the Culls, telling Junior, Manu, Dervish, and even the Duchess, who was still drowsing beneath her cage cover, that tonight they would escape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tonight we will be done with cages and human whims. Tonight we will be free.\" Then she formed a compact coil and, concentrating on her teacher's name, she sent her mind spinning out across half the globe, searching for U Vayu.\n\nEhrich Leftrack opened the door to the Culls' room and, looking over his shoulder to see that no one was coming, silently closed the door and hurried to his desk. He didn't bother to take off his jacket, but opened the bottom desk drawer and uncapped the Mason jar of rugelach that he had carefully hidden there. Using a pair of long-handled tongs, he gingerly removed one piece of pastry. Careful not to touch the inner lining of the lid of the jar, and wishing that he had thought to wear rubber gloves, he set the cap back in place on the jar and carried the rugelach to Manu's cage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened the small bottom door of the cage and placed the pastry inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From his perch high in a corner of the cage the monkey eyed Ehrich suspiciously and showed his canines as he gripped the wire mesh, ready to leap and scramble away if Ehrich came any closer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ehrich ignored the langur, closed the cage door and went to the sink. He dropped the tongs beneath the faucet and rinsed his hands. Then he dried his hands, removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He scrubbed the tongs with a bottle brush and then, using steaming water and thick, soapy lather, he thoroughly scrubbed his hands and forearms, thinking all the while, \"This is the first of many times that l'll scrub up before an operation.\" He imagined a masked nurse holding up a sterile gown so that he could slip into it \"In a way, that monkey'll be my first patient.\" For a moment he wondered whether he should actually try to anesthetize the langur, but then dismissed the thought \"It would be too difficult to restrain that monster. And if he came to during the operation, he might bite me again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich imagined the groggy, disemboweled monkey, trailing intestines and sinking his teeth into a rubber-gloved hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only after he had finished scrubbing and had donned his lab coat did he glance back at the langur's cage. The poisoned piece of Mama's rugelach was gone from the cage floor. Ehrich smiled and said to Manu as he passed the cage, \"Good, isn't it?\"\n\nFrom the warehouse, Ehrich heard his father's muffled yell and hurried out of the Culls' room, careful to close the door behind him. Dad had said that he was going to can Sorensen today and Ehrich didn't want to do anything that would make him change his mind. His father was mad as hell at Sorensen and Ehrich was delighted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With Sorensen gone he'd have a free hand with the Culls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ln the warehouse Ehrich busied himself at the chinchilla colony just outside his father's office. Knowing that everyone was too busy to observe him, he scraped clean sawdust from the trays into a garbage bin and replaced it, meanwhile keeping a watchful eye on his father's office. It was the best vantage point from which to see the fireworks that Ehrich knew were about to start.\n\nSherahi found herself in the curved shadow of the gilded dome of U Vayu's pagoda as the sun rose and bloodied the lilac dawn. The quicksilver sun slipped upward and disappeared beneath clouds that swathed the horizon like dirty flannel. She saw the pagoda's golden dome turn to brass against a leaden sky and the plaza about her was washed with a flat, gray light, it was not a welcoming morning and Sherahi resisted the urge to find a snug hole and hide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A herd of scraggly Brahma cattle had spent the night beneath the grove of fever trees adjacent to the plaza." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'horns' into your response exactly 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The herd's hump-necked bull blinked in surprise when he realized that his old enemy, the giant serpent, had somehow materialized on the cobblestones only a few feet from his hooves. Swinging his upswept horns left and right he assured himself that his cows and calves were safely behind him. The motion of his head upset the clusters of flies that lodged in the corners of his eyes and they buzzed and jostled one another as they resettled in their moist paradise. A string of saliva dangled from the bull's wet muzzle as he lowered his horns and pawed the earth, ready to destroy this killer of innocents.\n\nHis cows looked up from their breakfast in surprise, in preparation for the festival the cowherd had daubed their halters with red ocher and wound them around the base of their horns so that each wore a prim, crimson tiara. The cows were preoccupied with the business of eating and, although they did not see Sherahi, they were awed by the bull's unexpected change of mood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi, however, paid him no heed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had to find U Vayu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She uncoiled and slithered across the plaza, wondering, \"Why did l inwit out here instead of inside? Seems strange.\"\n\nShe felt the vibrations of the bull's heavy hooves as they gathered speed with his charge. He was prepared to meet considerable resistance and was thrown off balance when his furious horns impaled thin air instead of a heavy, writhing snake. He looked about for the enemy that had been right in front of him only moments ago and saw it moving away at top speed. His charge had sent it packing. \"That'll teach you,\" he snorted and tore the grass from between the cobblestones and shook his horns left and right in triumph." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His cows looked on in admiration and his winged contingent busily reassorted themselves at the corners of his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi had no patience for his mammalian clowning but couldn't resist twitting him a bit. She sent the message \"stupid cow\" into his mind and had the satisfaction of seeing him charge again and again at the cobble-stones where she had coiled briefly. As his hooves clattered in the gray dawn, he was the quintessential picture of bovine machismo. Sherahi watched his territorial display with faint disgust and was once again proud that she was a reptile and relatively free of these automatonlike, territorial performances. \"They're such a waste of energy,\" she sniffed, \"so intellectually stifling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, where is U Vayu?\" she thought, annoyed that once again she was wasting precious time playing hide-and-seek with him. Sherahi slithered toward the pagoda and noticed that the plaza was decorated in an odd way. Some kind of festival must be in progress. She was thankful that she hadn't inwitted into the midst of a crowd of people, lf they didn't go berserk with fear and trample one another as they fled from her, there was the risk that humans might interpret an inwitting materialization as a supernatural event. She'd heard that entire religions had been founded as a result of hapless inwitting serpents and while Sherahi thought that serpents were worthy of worship, she didn't fancy the responsibilities of a deity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had enough to do to shepherd the Culls to freedom and Sandeagozu.\n\nLike most snakes, Sherahi was somewhat nearsighted and her eyes were best at seeing moving objects at close range. As she crawled closer to the pagoda, the festival grounds came into sharper focus. She saw a tall pole silhouetted against the gray sky. Ropes were tied to the top of it and they radiated down alI around. Their free ends were staked firmly into the ground, forming the skeleton of a tent above objects that had no significance for Sherahi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ropes were strung with multicolored flags that hung limply in the gray dawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beneath this tent of ropes was a high arch that had been driven into the ground at either end. It had some kind of intricate spiral carving and it was also festooned with pennants. Beneath the arch were three tall posts painted with colorful, intertwined serpents. Sherahi strained to see to the tops of the posts and thought she could make out golden snake heads painted on their tops. As she drew closer she saw that there was a ring of stakes around either end of the arch. Each stake was decorated with long, scraggly streamers and a terminal blob." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not very pretty,\" thought Sherahi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blobs were rough and dull-colored a sharp contrast to the brightly painted posts and the ribboned arch. Then one of the blobs moved and the pythoness saw that alive monitor lizard had been pinioned to the pole. What she had thought was a long streamer was the animal's tail, its head had been splashed with red paint and the cords that bound it were green and gold. Sherahi could see that they cut into the animal's belly skin and knew that he must be in pain. The lizard's tail whipped back and forth, cutting the still air. Its skinny toes flexed in grotesque silhouette and its snaky neck arced to and fro as the animal struggled to get free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the cords were knotted too securely and after a few minutes of animation the creature grew limp again and its long tail streamed flaccidly down the pole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once more it looked like a misshapen blob on the top of a rough stake.\n\nSherahi could not bear the creature's agony and to calm it until she could rescue it she sent a wave of compassion into its mind. Then, to her horror, she realized that there was a monitor lizard at the top of each stake and she repeated the mind balm eleven times, grateful that U Vayu had taught her to use the ancient saurian mindspeech. Atop the stakes the lizards no longer struggled and Sherahi knew that each now felt as if it were dropping down into a tranquil, velvety, black well. Pain and panic were for-gotten.\n\n\"This is an outrage,\" thought Sherahi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Monitor lizards the closest living relatives to snakes stuck up on poles and left to die like scaly lollipops. How can U Vayu let this happen outside his own pagoda? Where is that coward? Where is that slimy, syphilitic toadspawn?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of this made sense to Sherahi. Even if U Vayu had abandoned the place and no longer protected the pagoda, the humans here revered and worshiped all living things. They even strained their soup so they wouldn't inadvertently swallow gnats. They wouldn't think of killing an animal. \"How could this happen here?\" Sherahi wondered.\n\nThen, from far above, she heard a faint whisper of beautiful and archaic serpent mindspeech and recognized U Vayu's voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But where are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she said angrily. Above her were only the tall posts with serpents painted on them, the carved arch and the central pole with the ropes. She looked carefully at each, but she didn't see U Vayu.\n\n\"Come on,\" she said in an exasperated voice. \"Stop playing, U Vayu. I haven't got all day. I don't like your ugly game.\"\n\nThe words were barely out of her mind before she regretted them. She saw the arch above her shudder as U Vayu's rib cage deflated and realized that the arch wasn't carved in a spiral pattern; rather, the old python was tied to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somehow, his heavy body had been straightened out, wound around the arch and secured in a hundred places with the same cruel green and golden cords that held the monitor lizards. \"U Vayu is a strong, old python,\" Sherahi thought. \"It must have taken twenty men to subdue and humiliate him in this fashion. I hope he killed some of them before they did this to him.\"\n\nThen she saw something that made her heart thud with horror. The lizards were merely tied to their stakes, bound at armpit and groin, but whoever had tied U Vayu to the arch had taken extra precautions to make sure that the snake couldn't escape: four stakes pierced his body, forming crosspieces with the arch. One stake was behind his head, a second was just below his heart, a third was in his belly, and the last was at the tip of his tail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "U Vayu was so securely pinned to the arch that he couldn't even lift his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cross-pieces were decorated with gilt and emerald-colored tassels, as if to disguise their sinister function.\n\nSherahi scryed U Vayu's mind and found that he was still alive, but only barely. To shield himself from pain U Vayu had inwitted away, relying on a protective mechanism that serpents use only as a last resort. This special trance slows down all body functions and postpones death while it obliterates pain. Other animals, including humans, have always misunderstood this death trance and it is the source of the widely held superstition that snakes cannot die before sundown.\n\nSherahi did not touch U Vayu's body, but instead sent a message of hope and courage into her teacher's mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to help you, U Vayu. I'll get you down from there somehow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These ropes and cords are the main problem,\" Sherahi thought. \"If I had a real body instead of this flimsy inwitted apparition I could slash the ropes with my cheek teeth. Then I could push over the arch and bite through the cords that are around his body. I could free U Vayu and all those poor monitor lizards as well. But I can't do anything like this. I'll have to get someone to help.\n\n\"If I had chisel teeth like a rat it would be easy,\" Sherahi thought, slithering back and forth nervously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she remembered that U Vayu's pagoda was full of rats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will they be willing to help the serpent who has feasted upon their grandmothers, cousins and aunts for generations?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi knew the answer to this question and quickly decided that she didn't need their cooperation. \"If I concentrate,\" she thought, \"I can compel the rats to help.\"\n\nSherahi sent her mind into the gloomy pagoda, searching for the nervous, scaly-tailed thoughts of rats. She settled upon two dozen burly males and, using all of the power in her mind, forced them to hurry out to the plaza and gnaw at the cords that bound U Vayu and the monitor lizards. She overrode their repugnance and fear and instead made them think that wonderful, sweet treats awaited them in the plaza. If they hurried out, they could feast to their hearts' content." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only moments later the rats flooded out of the arched doorways of the pagoda and swarmed to the plaza." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Following Sherahi's orders they climbed up the rough posts and gnawed the cords that bound the monitor lizards at armpit and groin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi saw the lizards land with soft plops onto the cobblestones of the plaza. They were unharmed by their experience and slowly came into full control of their faculties. They flicked out their thick, forked ribbons of tongues, fnasted Sherahi and the rats and then suddenly scattered in al directions. Sherahi broadcast a message in saurian mindspeech, warning the lizards to stay away from human places for a long, long time. None of the monitor lizards stopped to thank Sherahi, but she didn't expect them to and didn't feel slighted. \"Now,\" she thought, \"I must free U Vayu.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi instructed the rats to climb up either side of the arch that held U Vayu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At her command, teams of rats began to pull and finally to jerk out the four cross-pieces that pierced his body. As they did so, Sherahi instructed one rat to carefully lick and clean each wound. If these places became infected, her teacher would surely die. Then the rats gnawed through the cords that bound U Vayu to the arch. Sherahi ordered the rats to gnaw the cords at either end of U Vayu's body. When they got to the fetters around his midsection, he began to slip down the arch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The weight of his body broke the last bonds and U Vayu crumpled into a heap on the ground below the arch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rats scuttled back to the pagoda, feeling full of sugary food. They licked their chops as they ran and later they would brag to their fellows of the wonderful feast they had had in the plaza at dawn.\n\nSherahi gathered her courage and slithered over to U Vayu. His stately head was upside down and his lips had been forced back over his teeth as one side of his jaw had been ground into the earth by the force of his downward-sliding body. Dirt plugged his labial pits and covered his eyes. His glossy, black tongue lolled limply from his mouth and blood oozed from the wound in his neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's gone,\" Sherahi realized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't help him.\" As she looked at the dirt-covered serpent who had once been her teacher, she knew that he would give her no more lessons. She could never turn to him for advice. He'd never hear her plan to escape to Sandeagozu. \"I'm on my own now,\" Sherahi thought sadly.\n\nSherahi shut her eyes and was about to utter the ancient serpent howl of anguish and loss, when something unexpected happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone touched her physical body, which lay within the tank in the Culls' room in Leftrack's Pet Emporium in New York City." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As her mind caromed back across space and time, her mourning cry for U Vayu echoed and reechoed across the plaza, it startled a flock of pigeons that had roosted in the fever tree near the plaza and sent them clapping into the dismal morning while U Vayu lay crumpled and motionless, like a bundle of dirty laundry. It wasn't long before the flies found him and began to deposit eggs on the open wounds in his sides.\n\nSherahi braced herself for disaster. Nothing short of that could have made Junior call her back to the pet shop before her inwit was over. As she adjusted to the discomfort of an interrupted inwit, she was surprised to find that the Culls' room was quiet. She had expected bedlam, with Manu and the Duchess screeching in their cages, but both animals sat quietly on their perches, looking expectantly at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could sense Dervish's hot mind as he crouched beneath the sacks of feed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Junior was beside her in her tank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no humans about and the warehouse was quiet.\n\n\"Why did you call me back?\" she demanded, \"l told you to touch me only if there was an emergency and obviously there's no emergency here.\"\n\n\"It's just that you were gone for so long. Pythoness,\" said Junior. \"The day is over and all of the humans have gone home. Dervish says that it is dark outside and if we are going to escape, we must leave at once. You were gone so long...\" Junior's mind, using the ancient serpent mindspeech, made Sherahi remember U Vayu and she said gently, \"I understand, Junior. Forgive me.\"\n\n\"This can't be true,\" thought Sherahi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was at U Vayu's pagoda only for a few moments long enough to see him...\" The image of her teacher, impaled and lifeless, rose before her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once more she saw his imperious head broken and covered with dirt. There would be no one to guard his body until all of his intelligence had died. The carrion crows and vultures were probably gathering above him even now. The thought made her angry and more than anything she wanted to get away from this place that reeked of humans. Humans were all the same, whether they were here or at U Vayu's pagoda. All were killers torturers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only difference was in degree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked across the room and Manu's disfigured face silently condemned humans. \"Well,\" she thought, \"there will be five fewer victims in this place after tonight.\"\n\nRealizing that Junior was waiting for her to continue, she said, \"I must have lost track of time, Junior. Dervish and Manu are right. We must go as quickly as possible. We may never get another chance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Manu, tell Dervish to open your cage and the Duchess's, too. It's time we were going.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi tried not to think about U Vayu. There was no time for grief now. She must manage the minds of these bedraggled creatures and give them the courage to leave their cages and this familiar world. She knew it would be difficult for Manu and the Duchess. Dervish and Junior were younger and more adventurous. But then, they hadn't spent most of their lives in captivity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't really know what it was to see the world from behind cage bars.\n\nShe watched the coati scramble up to the door first of Manu's and then of the Duchess's cage. His clever fingers opened the latches in minutes. Sherahi sent waves of courage flooding into the minds of the macaw and the langur. She encouraged them to step outside and was surprised to see Manu leap nimbly from his perch. The Duchess came out more slowly and cautiously and Sherahi saw that there was a strange collar around her neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sorensen had finally made good his promise, but the Duchess wasn't grateful and she walked nervously about the bottom of her cage, with her rolling gait, swearing and muttering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Duchess hated the collar and had begged Manu to make Dervish remove it. Manu had examined the collar and had lied to her, saying that it was fastened so strongly that even Dervish's clever fingers couldn't budge it. She'd just have to wait until it fell off all by itself.\n\nManu knew that Sorensen had fastened the collar around the Duchess's neck to keep her from plucking what remained of her plumage. No matter how much the Duchess hated it, the collar should remain in place.\n\nWith the ridiculous collar around her neck, the Duchess walked to the door of her cage and turned her head from side to side, examining the room with first her left and then her right eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she grabbed the bar closest to the door with her bill and slid down as far as it would allow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hung limply for a moment beneath her cage and then opened her beak and released the bar. She landed with a bump on the floor and found that the collar allowed her to walk freely, although she couldn't see her feet or what was behind her. She paced back and forth beneath her cage, nervously picking up and flinging away hulls of sunflower seeds. From time to time she cocked an eye back up at her cage, as if she were considering returning to it.\n\n\"Now, Manu,\" said Sherahi. \"You and Dervish come over here and help me get out of this tank.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the two animals were alongside her tank the pythoness instructed them to push as hard as they could against one edge of the top that fit over the sides of her tank as securely as a lid fits onto a saucepan, if they pushed with all their might from the outside, and if she pushed up from the inside, it just might be possible for them to lift the weighted top." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'sherahi' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All they had to do was dislodge it from the lip and slide it a few inches. Sherahi could do the rest alone.\n\nThe three animals drew deep breaths and pushed. Dervish stood on his hind legs and braced his long-clawed forepaws against the lid. Manu did the same, but in a few minutes they were exhausted and it was still firmly in place. Sherahi began to despair, thinking that all of the other Culls would escape to Sandeagozu, leaving her behind, when she thought of a plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sent a message into Dervish's mind that he was no coati with puny forearms made for digging grubs out of rotting logs: instead, he was a wolverine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was so strong that no cage or trap could hold him and no walls could keep him out. She heard the vibrations as Dervish growled and snarled outside her metal tank.\n\nShe sent Manu the message that he was not a langur, adapted for a life in the treetops, with graceful, attenuated limbs. Instead, he was a huge, silver-backed gorilla, with forearms like railroad ties. And, he was angry. There was a territorial rival within this tank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She heard Manu make deep hooting sounds and pound his thin chest with cupped palms and knew that he now believed himself to be the mountain king.\n\n\"Now,\" she commanded the newly transformed wolverine and gorilla, \"push up, as hard as you can. Push.\"\n\nShe heard the two entranced animals growl and snarl alongside her tank and saw the lid begin to move. She planted her huge coil against the inside of the lid and joined her strength with theirs. Miraculously, the lid moved again, it shifted up and over from the locked position, it was ajar. Sherahi knew that in moments she would be free and she thanked Ra for allowing this to happen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she moved her coil laterally and felt the lid of the tank slide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She allowed it to resettle and looked up to see a half moon of clear space between the gridwork of the lid and the side of the tank, in a moment her massive muzzle had poked up into this space. She pushed with all of her might and widened the hole. Now her head was outside the tank and her neck followed rapidly.\n\nShe was resting with her head above the tank, in cobra fashion, when she remembered that she had left Manu and Dervish in slightly altered mental states. She saw Dervish leering at the Duchess, his head lowered, growling fiercely, and sent a message into his mind that he was no longer the terror of the north but a lovable, half-grown coati. He stopped growling, shook his head and looked sheepishly at the frightened bird, lolling out his tongue and giving the coati version of a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manu was sitting hunched up in a corner. Somehow he had emerged from the trance on his own. He had a distracted look, as if he were totally absorbed by some internal process. \"Manu,\" said Sherahi. \"Look. I'm almost free.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see,\" said the langur listlessly.\n\n\"Is there something wrong, Manu?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asked Sherahi as she drew deep breaths and inflated her body to twice the diameter of a telephone pole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could feel the lid slide aside with each breath.\n\n\"No,\" said Manu quietly. \"Everything's just fine.\"\n\nThe last third of Sherahi's body flowed easily through the space she had made between lid and tank and in moments she was free. For the first time in months she was able to stretch out to her full length and did so, luxuriating in the free movement. She was four times as long as her bathtub-sized tank. She hadn't realized how cramped she had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manu and the Duchess eyed the pythoness with the same thought: neither had realized how big she actually was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both were frozen in fear of the huge snake and didn't respond when she said, \"Come on, all of you, we must go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw their frightened thoughts and laughed, saying, \"No, I'm not going to hurt you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You'll just have to get used to the size of me. Now stop being silly, you two.\n\n\"Dervish, take Junior around your neck as you did yesterday and show us the way out.\"\n\n\"I think we ought to tell her. Duchess,\" whispered Manu, thinking that Sherahi could not hear him.\n\n\"Oh, Manu, don't be so tiresome. There'll be time for that later.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Manu. \"It's not fair. We must tell her now. It might change her mind entirely.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I assure you, you literal-minded ape, it won't matter at all to her. Besides, if you tell her she might not take us out of here and how are we going to defend ourselves without her and the little trained killer?\"\n\n\"It isn't fair that she doesn't know,\" said Manu and then, at Sherahi's touch, whirled around to see that she had been listening to their whispers. Her hearing was better than he had suspected.\n\n\"What isn't fair?\" demanded Sherahi, who had just begun to pay attention to their spoken conversation.\n\n\"There, Manu,\" whined the Duchess. \"You've gone and done it now. Now she won't help us get to Sandeagozu. Now we'll be eaten by rats and cats and we'll all die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The macaw reached behind her to where she could feel a succulent new pinfeather sprouting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the collar impeded her reach. Because she couldn't pluck out the pinfeather she nervously ground her upper and lower bills together. \"Damn that Sorensen and this horrible collar.\"\n\n\"What's all this?\" said Sherahi. \"What are you hiding from me?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Duchess, \"I thought it could wait till later, but since the cat's out of the sack, so to speak, we'll just have to tell you. Go ahead, Manu. Tell her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's coming for you tomorrow,\" said Dervish, hoping to be helpful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who?\"\n\n\"Your human,\" said Manu. \"The one you're always wishing for. That snake dancer. She's coming to get you and take you away to Hollywood. Leftrack said so today, just before he fired Sorensen.\"\n\n\"Fired Sorensen!\" said Sherahi. \"Why didn't you tell me any of this?\"\n\n\"Well, there hasn't been any time, Sherahi. Don't be angry,\" said Manu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were just trying to do what was best.\"\n\n\"So,\" thought Sherahi. \"Ruthie's decided to come back and get me. She's finally realized that she needs me for the act to be successful. By now she must know that she has no special talent for training animals. Her only talent was that I thought I owed her something.\n\n\"Now she wants me to go back to being her puppet. She'll lock me into a closet or into that basket and let me out only once every two weeks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's go,\" she said grimly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're wasting time here.\"\n\n\"You mean that you still want to go with us?\" said the Duchess.\n\n\"More than ever,\" said Sherahi. \"I'm done with humans. Forever.\n\n\"Now, Dervish, how about showing us that moon that you've been bragging about?\"\n\nDervish capered on his hind legs in excitement and bounded down the hall to the toilet. In a flash he leaped up to the broken window and there was his moon, shining as it had the night he had first discovered it It beckoned to the Culls, showing them the way to Sandeagozu." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Manu, help the Duchess climb up there. I have an old score to settle. I'll be back soon,\" said Sherahi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She slithered as quickly as she could into the darkened warehouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that she was free, she would eat. She prowled through the rows of cages, looking for a possible meal. Then it occurred to her that there were lots of rats to be had quite easily: round-eared, gray rats with silky, curly fur. She didn't want to eat too much, but one or two of them would give her strength. Besides, she had heard Leftrack brag about them. The rats were going to breed and make his fortune." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi approached the chinchilla colony and braced her body against the rows of cages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With one shove she sent the whole thing toppling to the floor. There was a screech of metal and then a crash as the cages fell, spilling water bottles, feed, sawdust and chinchillas everywhere. Sherahi saw the rats scuttling in panic and, guided by his strong smell, located the stud male, in a split second she struck, grabbing him with her rows of recurved teeth. She stopped his heartbeat with one snap of her jaws, it was as if the chinchilla had been flattened by a two-hundred-pound weight: he was dead before he'd had time to be afraid. Sherahi quickly swallowed him and then hurried away from the panicked females and their young. Sherahi knew she had struck Leftrack in the place where it would hurt him the most: in the pocketbook." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leftrack could get another male, but it would cost plenty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The new male will kill all of the old one's young and the females will be so upset that they'll stop breeding. Rats are like that,\" she thought gleefully.\n\nWhen she returned to the window she saw that the others were gone. She knew that they were waiting outside in the alley and slithered upward, climbing the wall with a dexterity that belied her great bulk She extended her head outside the window, feeling cool autumn air and the light of Dervish's moon on her back When she was halfway through the window frame, she felt it give beneath her and heard the pane below it crack and shatter, but the wooden frame did not break. Sherahi slithered down to the cobblestones and became another shadow in the alleyway outside the pet shop. \"We're free,\" she thought. \"Now all we have to do is find the caverns that Junior and Dervish told us about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It took a moment for her dark-adapted vision to be fully operant, and in the meantime she was surprised that her labial pits told her that only two warm-bodied animals waited for her in the shadows of the garbage cans. When her vision augmented her labial pits she affirmed this and said, \"Who's missing?\"\n\nShe was greeted only by sniffles and muffled sobs.\n\n\"Now what?\" she asked in an irritated tone.\n\n\"He wouldn't come,\" said Dervish.\n\n\"What do you mean, 'He wouldn't come.' Where is Manu?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At the last minute he said that he didn't feel well enough to go out of his cage and ran back inside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go and fetch him. Dervish. Make him come.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'dervish'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Sherahi,\" said Dervish and clambered back up the rough brick wall and disappeared into the dark pet shop.\n\n\"Manu,\" Sherahi said into the langur's mind. \"You can't do this. We need you. The Duchess is in tears and Dervish is so frightened without you that l don't think he can go on. And l need you, too, Manu. Don't desert us now. Please.\"\n\n\"I cannot come. Pythoness,\" said Manu. \"I am too old and set in my ways. All that space out there—it frightens me. I got dizzy and had to throw up when l looked out the window, l'll come another day. l'm too sick now.\"\n\n\"There may be no other day, Manu. This may be the last chance you ever have to be free.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"l know, Sherahi. I'll just have to take that consequence. Please understand. l'm not well, Pythoness. I guess l'm showing my age. All l want to do is stay here in my cage and be quiet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi tried to coerce the langur to come with them, but she found that he had set up stubborn barriers in his mind. \"He must have learned to do this recently,\" she thought. \"He's never been able to do it before.\"\n\nThrough Junior's eyes she watched Manu sitting on his highest, most inaccessible perch, clutching his knees to his chest in the old, with-drawn way. She saw that the pain in his stomach was intense and real and sent a balm to calm and heal it. if she couldn't make him come to Sandeagozu, then she certainly could take away his pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dervish,\" she heard him say, \"close my door and lock it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, Manu,\" said the coati. \"Don't stay here. Come with us please, please come with us. We'll take care of you. l promise.\"\n\nManu looked at the coati and said, not unkindly, \"Can you stave off death, little friend?\"\n\n\"Please, Manu, l'm scared without you,\" the coati whimpered.\n\n\"No, Dervish. You and the others must go. Be good and lock me in now.\"\n\nThe coati gave the langur a wistful look and said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Obediently he locked the door to Manu's cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taking one last look at Manu's twisted, wrinkled face. Dervish said, \"I'll be back, Manu,\" in a small voice that stifled a whimper. \"I'm not leaving you here.\"\n\nIn a few moments the coati reappeared outside the window and leaped to the alleyway. His banded tail sagged, but his twitching nose was firmly resolute. As he led the way to his first scent mark he was alert for danger and he vowed that somehow he would make Manu come." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not tonight, maybe, but soon another night. \"I'll go back all by myself if no one else will help and l'll carry Manu out of there by the scruff of his neck if he still won't come.\"\n\nJunior saw Dervish's sad plan and hissed into his mind. \"Don't worry. Dervish. We'll get him out. Another night.\"\n\nSherahi slithered in the shadows down the alley and watched the little coati and realized that he was leaving behind his mother, his father, his playmate and his teacher. \"Good, loyal beast,\" she thought. \"Junior, we must help Dervish,\" she said and did her best to comfort the coati as she crawled behind the sniveling Duchess in the shadows outside Leftrack's Pet Emporium." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\n12 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJanann V. Jenner\nGenre:\nFantasy, Animal Fiction\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This isn't it,\" said the Duchess as she walked along the abandoned subway platform, her beady eyes busily searching for something to eat \"This isn't what l had in mind at all. This isn't being free. This isjust another kind of prison and l don't like it.\"\n\nThe macaw had been in captivity for all of her adult life. As ajuvenile she had blundered into a tangle-foot trap set by Colombian villagers. Years of captivity had compressed distance for the Duchess and she'd forgotten how long her journey inside that wooden crate to Leftrack's Pet Emporium had taken. When Sherahi had suggested escaping, the macaw had agreed, thinking that her own jungle was somewhere nearby. Once they were free she'd planned to fly away toward the distant green blur of treetops that she felt certain was just outside the brick walls of the pet shop.\n\nShe'd imagined that other macaws would be there to greet her. Fierce scarlet and blue plumage would shine brilliantly and their raucous welcoming cries would fill the day with joyful noise. The Duchess had rehearsed the scene of her homecoming so often that she could almost hear the garrulous voices and feel the sun on the delicately puckered, bare skin of her face. How wonderful it would be to sunbathe in a swaying treetop. She'd be with her own kind and she'd be home once more.\n\nShe'd anticipated taking a bath in a mountain stream and feasting on Brazil nuts and the fruits of the Maracaibo palm and the strangler fig." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would find a snug perch shaded by soft banana leaves and would drowse through the afternoon, lulled by the soft rusding of leaves and the faraway sounds of the sleepy forest below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somehow she'd convinced herself that her rain forest was only a short flight away from the pet shop and had thought that, even with her plumage in this sorry condition, she'd be able to fly there quite easily. She'd been stunned to see what really was outside Leftrack's pet shop: the hard pavement had seemed to stretch on endlessly and tall metal poles that the others called streetlights grew straight up in regular files. \"Where are the trees?\" she had wondered. It was all so frightening and ugly that, even though she couldn't see jungle on any horizon, she wanted to fly off immediately. She would have done so, too, but she had found that too many of her wing feathers were missing to allow her the effortless, arrow-quick flight that she'd dreamed of so often in her covered cage. She'd imagined herself a blur streaking through the night sky the moonlight shining on her tail feathers. To make matters worse, she had found that the collar that Sorensen had fastened around her neck interfered with the forward stroke of each wing beat. She had attempted a short flight in the alley behind Leftrack's and had crash-landed, bruising the bare skin above her breast bone as she belly-flopped onto the pavement. The crash had brought tears to her eyes and, feeling very sorry for herself and even more upset to learn that Manu had abandoned her, she had cried and sniffled the whole way to this horrid cave. She had waddled behind Dervish and Junior and the march had been especially humiliating for an animal that once had been able to fly. As her claws had scraped across the pavement with each step, the Duchess had cursed the split tongue of the feathered goddess who had allowed her to be captured so very long ago.\n\nUnable to fly, the Duchess was no different from any other beast and for the first time in her life she regretted that she'd torn out afi those beautiful feathers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it had been so boring in her cage and they had tasted so good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tasted so good,\" she said in a shrill tenor and was amazed at how muffled her voice sounded in this cavernous subterranean nest that Dervish had found.\n\nThe Culls had arrived hours ago and now the others were drowsing in a corner at the bottom of one staircase. They were safely away from the platform where the Duchess paced. They had made sure to be far away from the fire serpents that roared through the cavern every so often. The first few times that the fire serpent had shown itself, the Duchess had cowered in fear, just fike the other Culls. But she'd observed that the ferocious animal didn't seem to care about her. She'd discovered that she could even insult its ancestors at the top of her lungs as it roared past and it wouldn't react at al. She had grown so accustomed to it now that she hardly looked up when it roared by, sending grotesque shadows jumping all over the walls. But its noise was annoying. It interrupted her thoughts and hurt her ears and she'd tried to hide her head beneath one wing to block the sound, but Sorensen's damned collar got in the way. The fire serpent was gone as quickly as it had appeared and the cavern was quiet except for a distant rumble as the monster retreated down the tunnel.\n\n\"I hate this place,\" muttered the Duchess as she walked, rolling heavily from side to side with each step of her four-toed feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She remembered how she'd used those long claws to hold Sorensen's peanuts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of those would taste so good right now. Even a nice, juicy pinfeather would be delicious. The Duchess was used to having plenty of food and she hadn't known hunger in along time. Even though the light that reached down into the tunnel was dimmer than that from a jarful of exhausted lightning bugs, the Duchess's internal sense of time told her that if she were back at Leftrack's, Sorensen would be sharing his baloney sandwich with her right about now. Thoughts of the delicious beakfuls of baloney that she had once carelessly tossed aside in hopes of more exotic treats made her groan. Now she'd be happy to settle for just a crust of one of Sorensen's sandwiches, even if it were smeared with that hateful, yellow cream that he liked so much.\n\nThe Duchess had grown used to talking to herself in her cage, so it was only natural to do so as she paced along the dim platform, thinking of the food that Sorensen might have given her if only she'd stayed in the pet shop. \"Horrible,\" she said in a harsh contralto. \"This place is horrible. How could they have brought me to this hole in the ground? Do they think that I'm an owl? Do they think I can see in the dark? Maybe they think that parrots are related to petrels, and that we fancy dark, underground burrows.\"\n\nNo one answered and she continued speaking in the cacophony of squawks and shrill screams that she thought sounded exactly like Sorensen's strange human speech. \"And where am I supposed to rest? There isn't even a decent perch in the whole place, except maybe way up there.\" The Duchess cocked one eye at the shadowy ceiling, where she could see the outlines of heavy buttresses, angled struts and the beams that supported the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But they might as well be perches on the mountains of the moon. I can't get up there.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "At some point in your response, insert this verbatim: \"I should have stayed in my cage, too. Culls like me don't have any business trying to be free. I've lost the knack of freedom I'm no good at it anymore.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She clenched one foot against her naked breast to ease her tired claws and then continued walking, squawking, \"I'm so hungry. Those others don't care but the few feathers that I have are so dirty that they'll probably never come clean—even if I preen them until they're frayed and useless. I'll starve down here in the dark. My feathers will never grow back now and I'll never be pretty again.\"\n\nThe Duchess crooked her neck and tried to look behind to see her bedraggled tail feathers but the collar blocked her view. \"If only I could get this thing off. I'd feel better,\" she muttered. \"But Manu says that that stupid Dervish can't undo it. He was smart enough to open drawers and locked cages, but he can't manage a simple thing like this the only thing that really matters to me. Long-nosed twit And he was the one who thought that this was such a fine place. Fat lot he knows.\"\n\nThere was a distant rumble and the Duchess stopped squawking and cocked her head to listen. A few moments later she resumed her pacing and talking to herself. \"That's what you get for associating with mammals and snakes,\" she said. \"Creatures like that are happy in dark, disgusting holes. Come to think of it this would be a good home for a mole or a bat or even a whole army of rats. But a refined and sensitive creature like a hummingbird or a scarlet macaw can't endure these barbaric conditions for long.\" She sniffed and batted her eyes delicately.\n\n\"Manu did the right thing,\" she squawked in a mournful baritone. \"I should have stayed in my cage, too. Culls like me don't have any business trying to be free. I've lost the knack of freedom I'm no good at it anymore.\"\n\nBehind her the Duchess heard another distant growl, followed this time by a steadily increasing roar as yet another fire serpent announced itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It roared through the station, sending up a surf of blue-white sparks, and the Duchess screeched at it in frustration. \"Get out,\" she screamed, but her cry was drowned by the roar and clatter of the uptown-local train that had skipped this station for years. Her scream was plainly audible to the guard of the people of the Norse. He had been silently and intently observing the group of odd animals who had arrived before dawn in this outpost of Norse territory. Looking over his shoulder to see that the fierce bird with the hooked bill didn't see him, and sniffing nervously for any sign of Black invaders, the guard scuttled toward Norse headquarters. He wondered how the Chief would deal with these trespassers and worried that he might be punished for abandoning his post. He hoped that perhaps the Chief might reward him in the usual way for a job well done: it had been a long time since he had mated and the bone in his penis ached with desire.\n\nThe guard was nearly out of the station. He was down in the rail bed and was tiptoeing across a railroad tie that marked the uptown boundary of Norse territory. He thought he was safe and had allowed his mind to wander to the reward that might await him. He was no longer alert for the scent of Black thugs who might lurk to ambush him. Instead he was anticipating the feel of the soft, welcoming flanks of a femaie in estrus when he stepped on something unfamiliar." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'around' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt strangely soft. Simultaneously he heard an angry buzzing near his head. He looked around in confusion for the source of this noise. \"Is a work train coming down the tracks?\" he wondered.\n\nThe next thing he felt was a pinprick in his neck as Junior's fangs drove their poison home. The guard was so surprised by the instant explosion of pain that he didn't think to cry out. He felt his leg muscles go into inexplicable spasms and then he found that, no matter how hard he inhaled, he couldn't catch his breath. It felt as if his chest had suddenly been squashed flat. He died without having seen his murderer, who was coiled in the shadows, ready willing and even hoping to strike again.\n\nThe guard of the people of the Norse suffocated in moments. Hours later, when the relief watch found his stiff-legged body, he noticed that his mouth was drawn back in a horrible grimace, revealing his teeth and gums and a swollen, purple tongue. The relief guard sniffed at one stiff paw and at the guard's firmly erect penis. He heard the sizzle of the electricity that sparked nearby and decided, 'The stupid fool. After all these years you'd think he'd know better than to electrocute himself.\"\n\nSherahi lay in the dusty darkness with Dervish curled within her mound of coils and tried to ignore the pervading stench of rat all around her. The coati's furry body rested just below her long, slowly beating heart and his warmth radiated deep into her muscles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sleeping coati made her feel contented and strangely at peace, as if she were stretched out on a safe, warm rock ledge, absorbing heat and listening to the spirit of the rock whispering its memories of sun-splashed days and brittle, cold nights." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she was free she had spent a good deal of time basking on rocks, and Sherahi had found that, if she listened long and slowly enough, all rocks had something to say. A few were very ancient and could tell the entire history of the earth. Rocks had long memories and could recall every event and creature that they had ever known. Some whispered the story of the chemical brew that melded them and gave them birth far below the crust of the earth. Some spoke of their sulphurous, explosive emergence as boiling lava and their gradual metamorphosis into solid rock. A lucky few cherished memories of long, slow cooling in a simmering atmosphere and the happy knowledge that this patient cooling would foster the growth of huge, sparkling crystals within their rocky bowels. Crystals of any kind ruby, garnet, amethyst, tourmaline, pegmatite, quartz or even humble mica are the glory of stones and their sole, cherished possessions. Rocks are usually close-mouthed about their crystals and tend to hide them beneath shabby, weatherworn surfaces, but U Vayu had taught Sherahi how to be silent and listen to rocks. Over the years she had overheard many a slab crooning over the beauty of its hidden gems. On the other hand, sedimentary rocks, especially those that held fossilized plants or animal, spoke with many voices. The cement below Sherahi's chin felt like sandstone, but it was silent. Sherahi wondered if it were dumb because of the racket that the fire serpent made or whether it had no voice because humans had fabricated it \"It would be nice to lie here in the dark and listen to slow, nattering rock speech,\" she thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It would make me feel free—or close to it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the cement beneath her chin had no tales to tell and Sherahi knew that the Culls had many anxious days ahead of them before she would be free enough to hear the slow speech of stones.\n\nOne part of her mind was alert to the noises in the darkness. She heard the fire serpent roar through its tunnel and clatter off into the distance. She'd seen it enough now to know that Junior was right: it was no animal, but some kind of human device. There were humans inside of it. The serpent usually hurried too quickly for her to see, but one had slowed somewhat as it barreled through the tunnel and in its belly she had seen ordinary-looking humans reading newspapers. In the midst of that moving uproar one man was actually asleep and once the fire serpent had actually stopped and she'd seen a young couple. They sat quite close together, holding hands, and the girl's head had rested on the boy's shoulder. None of the humans seemed frightened by the fire serpent, so Sherahi had dismissed it as a potential danger, but warned the other Culls to stay out of its path.\n\nThis tunnel must have had something to do with the fire serpent, because, as Junior had observed, the creature slid along shiny metal rails and, although the fire serpent avoided them, there were rails in the tunnel alongside the platform. Although Junior seemed fascinated by the fire serpent and had gone off to investigate the darkness closest to the tracks, Sherahi was only peripherally interested. She had other things to think about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dervish had been exhausted after guiding them to this place and almost immediately he had curled into a corner and tried to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The coati was nervous by nature and Sherahi had feared that his resources were stretched to the breaking point. She'd spun him a healing, comforting dream and had coiled protectively around him. The Duchess was too agitated to rest, and Sherahi sensed that she, too, was mentaily and physicafiy drained by the journey. But Sherahi had little sympathy for the macaw. \"Most of that bird's troubles come because she's torn out her feathers and she did that only because she felt sorry for herself and was bored. It serves her right.\"\n\nWhen Sherahi had emerged from Leftrack's and found the Duchess and Dervish both weeping in the alleyway, she had immediately thought that the macaw was upset because Manu had refused to accompany them. Later, Sherahi had learned that the Duchess was only remotely concerned with Manu. She had been weeping out of self-pity. Sherahi had scryed the bird's thoughts and discovered that the damnable parrot had planned to fly away as soon as she was free. Sherahi had been enraged at her selfishness. To punish her, Sherahi had immediately retracted the macaw's share of the comfort she had been projecting to the newly freed and frightened Culls and had ignored the Duchess.\n\nSherahi fistened to the bird's angry voice screeching in the adjacent tunnel and thought, \"It won't harm her to fuss and fume. She's the most spoiled, self-indulgent nonhuman that I've ever encountered. And I'll never trust her again. That's for sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the next fire serpent raged through the adjacent cavern, Sherahi heard the macaw scream in fury and stubbornly refused to comfort her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let her scream her head off,\" thought Sherahi. \"It just might teach her something.\"\n\nThe Cull that Sherahi was worried about was Manu. She hadn't been able to keep in constant mental contact with him as they were traveling to Dervish's cavern. He hadn't responded to her last call and Sherahi had assumed that he was asleep. The langur had been ill and Sherahi hadn't wanted to disturb his rest. \"It must be afternoon now,\" she thought. \"Surely he will be awake.\" Sherahi wanted to reassure herself and so sent her mind spinning out of the dark cavern, casting her thoughts like a shining spider web revolving around the thought, \"Manu.\"\n\nShe materialized in the Culls' room, outside Manu's cage. One quick look told her that something was very wrong with the langur. He lay face down on the bottom of his cage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His limbs were sprawled in an unnatural way and it looked as if he had fallen from his high perch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His grotesque face was turned toward her and she could see his single good eye moving mechanically back and forth beneath the silver-furred eyelid. Then his hmbs contorted and his head arched back, his single eyelid opened wide and his mouth froze in a rictus that was a mockery of the primate fear display. Sherahi watched her friend agonize for only one moment. Then, without quite knowing what she did or how she did it, Sherahi sprang into what little remained of Manu's conscious mind. She knew the langur well enough to recognize normal from abnormal patterns and, by furiously striking left and right, reorganizing his thoughts and nerve impulses, she was able to restore some order and remove the hallucinations that were convulsing Manu's body.\n\nThis close to him she could fnast that Manu smelled wrong. His thought patterns were unrecognizable as belonging to the Manu she knew so well. Bit by bit she restored order in his mind and body and after a while the serpent knew that the langur's convulsions had passed. He breathed normally once more.\n\nSherahi knew that, even while he was unconscious, she could hypnotize Manu and so she prepared his mind to receive and follow her instructions. Later tonight she would send Dervish to fetch him and guide him to the caverns where the others waited. \"It'll have to be tonight,\" she thought, \"because if we wait any longer, Dervish's scent marks wil have vanished and he won't be able to relocate Leftrack's.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi didn't know what was wrong with Manu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe old age or some strange disease was claiming him, but if he were to die, she and the other Culls must see that he died free, not as a human pawn inside a cage. Sherahi continued her hypnotic therapy and was pleased to see the langur's tongue wet his lips and his eye open. She knew that in time it would focus and decided that now she could let him sleep. Manu's crisis had passed and he no longer needed her beside him. It might even upset him to see her. She decided to return to Dervish's cavern.\n\nSherahi was retreating toward her physical body in the depths of Dervish's cavern, when she saw the door to the Culls' room open and Ehrich Leftrack enter, his arms clasping a paper sack full of containers of Chinese take-out food. Sherahi's materialization was fading and Ehrich did not see her, but she saw him walk over to Manu's cage. He looked at Manu, who by now was sitting up and scratching his head, and Sherahi heard Ehrich say, \"Shit. He's not dead yet.\" She returned to the cavern knowing just how urgent it was that Dervish fetch Manu from the Culls' room tonight.\n\n[ Hollywood, California ]\n\n\"Listen, Leftrack,\" Bernie said angrily into the telephone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I haven't got time to play footsie with you. I'm coming east tomorrow and I want that snake.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a pause and then Bernie said, \"I don't care what it costs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Look, can you deliver the goddamn snake, or not?\n\n\"Two days three at the most. And, Leftrack, if I don't have it by then, the deal's off. Now, can you deliver, or do I look elsewhere?\"\n\nBernie took an agitated drag ofhis cigarette and listened to Leftrack dither on the other end of the phone.\n\n\"What do you mean, you're not sure? Yesterday you said you had it right there. What're you trying to pull, Leftrack?\n\n\"Well, catch it.\"\n\nThere was a pause as Bernie listened and then said, \"Sure, sure. I'll call you back tomorrow same time. But I want that snake.\n\n\"Yeah... yeah...\" he said. Bernie didn't bother to say goodbye and crashed the receiver back onto its ornate ivory and brass cradle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ruthie had insisted that every room have one of these fancy French telephones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She said that all the stars had them. The telephone made Bernie feel like a pansy and, thinking that Leftrack was pulling some trick, he lit another cigarette. He could hear Ruthie humming in the adjoining pink satin boudoir and wondered where she was going tonight. As usual, he hadn't been invited to join Goldman's party and another long evening stretched ahead of him. \"Things will straighten themselves out as soon as I get that snake that she's mooning over,\" he thought and stubbed out his cigarette in a heavy, pink glass ashtray that sat on the frail, bowlegged desk next to the telephone. \"I'll just have to lean on that weasel, Leftrack. He's trying to pull a fast one, but he doesn't know that he's dealing with an expert. A real expert.\"\n\nSherahi willed the night to come and prepared for Manu's rescue. Dervish was still asleep, but Sherahi introduced a dream into his quicksilver mind. In this dream he saw himself hurry back to Leftrack's, running more rapidly than a water shrew darting along a familiar trail.\n\nDervish saw himself streak into the alley in back of Leftrack's and, with the liquid strength of a leopard bounding into the twisted branches of an acacia tree, he leapt onto the familiar window ledge. There was no awk-ward struggling up the wall, scrabbling for toeholds and gasping for breath. Dervish saw himself claw at the window and in his dream his dexterous front paws, which looked so much like Manu's hands, were transformed into the forelimbs of a giant an tea ter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were covered with coarse, gray fur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could tell from the way his shoulder muscles flexed that these un-familiar appendages were very strong. Instead of having fingers, each arm ended in a three-inch-long recurved claw and when Dervish hooked these into the corners of the newly repaired window, it immediately came loose from the frame and fell onto the cobblestones below. In Dervish's dream the glass shattered without making a sound. He gave it no further thought and poised for a moment on the window ledge before he leapt down to the floor of the toilet. There he noticed that his front paws were his own again. With-out wondering where those anteater arms had gone he raced to the Culls' room and scrambled up the front of Manu's cage. He opened the door and saw Manu hunched over in one corner. Pulling Manu by the wrist, he led him to the broken window and, like a collie with a reluctant ewe, nipped at Manu's heels and forced him to climb up and out. Then the two of them hurried back to the cavern, keeping to the shadows of the deserted streets. From around his neck. Dervish heard Junior threaten to kill anyone who interfered with them.\n\nAfter she had inserted this dream in the sleeping coati's mind, Sherahi felt his leg muscles twitch as he replayed it over and over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would be several hours until Dervish would be needed and, fearing that he might exhaust himself and wake up tired, Sherahi sent him the image of hypnotically waving ribbons of color." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'leftrack' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dream began with vivid reds and oranges, which tapered into pale washes of violet and indigo. Soon Dervish was breathing calmly once again and Sherahi turned her mind to other matters.\n\nShe hadn't had much opportunity to think about the way in which U Vayu had been killed, and had had no time to mourn him. The anguish that she had felt at the time had hardened into a clot of hatred of humans and a dislike for alJ things made by them. Sorensen had been the only genuinely kind human that she had ever known and she knew that he, too, had been badly used by the Leftracks. \"Just like a Cull,\" Sherahi thought. Although Ruthie had never been cruel to her, the snake now realized that she had misinterpreted most of the things that Ruthie had done. Now that she knew the truth, Sherahi was embarrassed to have believed that a tawdry dance was a mystic religious rite. \"She just used me to help her titillate and divert men as they drank their way into a comforting stupor. Leftrack tried to use me too, just like Ruthie, but he was different. At least she had tried to take good care of her 'Girls.' That slime, Leftrack, didn't care if all the beasts in the warehouse died as long as he got a fat profit.\n\n\"The dumpy woman is bad, too, but the son, Ehrich, is the worst of the lot,\" Sherahi thought furiously. \"From his father he got a legacy of contempt for animals. Ehrich believes that we are nothing more than intricate, living machines flesh-and-blood mechanisms to be taken apart and examined and then thrown away.\" She thought of the pathetic turtles that he had sawn apart and some of them weren't even dead. She remembered Ehrich's thrill when he had seen the slow, convulsive contractions of the turtle's heart. \"Yes, he sees us as mechanisms, but unlike boys who tinker with clocks to see what makes them go, Ehrich will never have the skill to put animals back together again—or humans either.\" Sherahi had scryed his mind and had seen his intellectual limits: he had the capacity to learn only a litany of facts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She suspected that his studies would generate nothing more than a vocabulary of ponderous four- and five-syllable words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She envisioned Ehrich diligently memorizing words and facts, impressing his schoolmates and professors but never glimpsing the significance of a whole animal. \"Mastery of minutiae will never expand his mental horizons,\" she thought.\n\nSherahi remembered the silvery gleam of the set of small knives and scissors that Ehrich had sharpened as he had sat at his desk. The thought of Manu's belly skin being slit open ever so cleanly by one of those silvery knives made her shudder. It was clear that Ehrich intended to kill Manu. She decided that, even though it would exhaust her, she would have to do something further to protect the langur. \"All I need is one day,\" she thought. \"In only one day Manu will be safe.\"\n\nShe sent her mind spinning back to the Culls' room in Leftrack's Pet Emporium, seeking Ehrich Leftrack. She found him seated at Sorensen's workbench, with the open containers of Chinese food arrayed before him. He had just finished his appetizers: barbecued spareribs and two egg rolls with dollops of duck sauce. His chopsticks flew from container to container, conveying choice morsels that he hardly paused to chew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi saw that Manu was sitting up in his cage, rubbing his head against the screen in his habitual way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someday I'll have to do something about those fleas in Manu's ear.\" But she set that task aside. \"There's no time now.\" Sherahi was relieved to see that Manu had survived his bout of convulsions and that her mental support seemed to be working. He looked normal and she concluded that he would be able to get to the caverns when Dervish and Junior came for him tonight.\n\nSherahi also saw that the Culls' room looked different. Ehrich had arranged his dissecting tools on one end of Sorensen's workbench. The huge tank that she had lived in for months had been removed and the Duchess's cage was also gone. For a moment Sherahi thought of scrying Ira Leftrack's mind to see how upset he was that the Culls were missing, but decided to leave well enough alone. Although she would have liked to see Leftrack fuss and fume, Sherahi decided to forgo that pleasure. He would be frantic and would blame everyone but himself for the loss of such a large investment. But it didn't really matter whether Leftrack was upset or not: by midnight tonight all of the Culls would be beyond his reach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ehrich seemed very much in command at Sorensen's workbench and Sherahi could find no trace of the old man who had treated the Culls so kindly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi had avoided it as long as she could but, with a shudder of distaste, as if she were forced to crawl through another creature's excrement, she began to scry Ehrich Leftrack's mind.\n\nHis thoughts were so occupied with food that it was like trying to read a menu through a murk of spattered grease and oyster sauce. Ignoring the nausea produced by Ehrich's relentlessly chomping jaws, Sherahi saw his plan to poison Manu. As she watched Ehrich's mind fill with sensations of pea pods bursting against the roof of his mouth and the slither of warm tree-ear fungus along his tongue and down his throat, Sherahi saw at once that U Vayu had been right: serpents had no business dealing with humans. They were an alien species. Sherahi could tell that Ehrich was no longer hungry and that, unlike snakes, he was eating just because he liked to. His thoughts were of the taste and feel of the partially masticated food that filled his mouth, while his belly swelled against the waistband of his trousers and some part of his mind gluttonously called for more.\n\n\"Still hungry, Ehrich?\" thought Sherahi. \"Well, I've got just the thing for you.\" She dug down below his thoughts of the feel of the half-chewed food in his mouth and found his fondness for sweets. Sherahi inflated the idea of an insatiable hunger for sugar and set it spinning in Ehrich's mind. Like sticky fibers of cotton candy spun onto a paper cone, the idea grew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw the image of a banana split topped with hot-fudge sauce that dripped and puddled, mingling deliciously with hot butterscotch sauce and carrying hints of melted pistachio and butter-pecan ice cream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It mushroomed in his mind like a fragrant fungus and was accompanied by the thought, \"I need ice cream. Lots of ice cream.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even while his chopsticks flew between the containers of beef with snow peas and roast pork egg foo yung, seizing limp bean sprouts and scooping up mounds of slivered, sauteed beef, she saw the idea catch and grow. When the containers were empty she saw him decide: \"I want a Gut Buster.\" She saw him imagine the huge vat of ice cream compounded of every flavor that the corner drugstore carried. It was topped with peaks of whipped cream and marshmallow sauce, as well as dribbles of hot fudge, chocolate sauce, strawberry goo and butterscotch, strewn with pecan halves and studded with maraschino cherries. Two tiny paper parasols and four wafer cookies surrounded an American flag that waved stiffly from the peak of the Gut Buster. She saw Ehrich remember to insist that the soda jerk leave out the nuts. \"They're not good for the digestion at least, that's what Mama always says.\"\n\nEhrich finished his Chinese meal and loosened his belt. He threw out the empty containers and washed his chopsticks. Then he sighed and drew in his belly so that he could fish his wallet out of his pants pocket. He had a two-dollar bill; Nickerson's charged $1.65 for a Gut Buster. With a strange, intense expression, as if possessed, Ehrich licked his bottom lip, grabbed his jacket and waddled out of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back in the darkness of Dervish's cavern, Sherahi laughed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'serpent' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew that Manu would be safe for the rest of the day.\n\nAs usual, the introduction of images into a human mind had exhausted Sherahi and she wished that U Vayu were still coiled beneath the golden statue of Buddha, in his pagoda on the other side of the world. It wouldn't have mattered to her if he were mentally present or if he were remote and unresponsive to her as he hobnobbed with the Great Worm or one of the other celestial serpent nats. Sherahi would have been happy just to sit in his pagoda, waiting for him to recognize her, listening to the thin chant of priests who enumerated the thousand virtues of Buddha. Sherahi longed for the company of her own kind and she wished that U Vayu were alive. There was so much that she needed to know. For example, why did humans hate serpents? U Vayu might have known, but now he would never be able to tell her. Besides, if he had understood people, why had he allowed himself to be tortured and killed? U Vayu had been a venerable, perhaps even a holy, serpent. Perhaps he himself was a nat by now. Sherahi was unclear as to what happened to serpents when they died." }, { "from": "human", "value": "U Vayu had never discussed this matter with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Sherahi lay coiled around Dervish's sleeping body, it occurred to her that, since she knew the names of the Great Serpent Nats, maybe she might try to contact one of them. Maybe a spirit more powerful than Lachesis could tell her how to find U Vayu or perhaps help her to understand humans. She looked at the dim light that filtered into the tunnel of the fire serpent and saw that it was still daylight in the city above. \"It'll be hours before I can send Dervish on his way.\" Mentally she called to Junior and asked him to rouse her at midnight. She noted that Junior responded in a snappish fashion, but gave it little further thought. A quick scan of Junior's mind showed that her mental surgery was holding firm. He was still trustworthy and she knew that he would make sure that she returned from her inwit in time to send him and Dervish out to rescue Manu.\n\nSherahi assumed that the procedure for inwitting to one of the most powerful serpent nats would be the same as that she followed when she inwitted to a lesser snake. She concentrated on the name of the Midgard Serpent. She imagined a huge serpent with its tail in its mouth, girdling the earth, and focused on the name \"Oroborous.\" Instinctively she melded the sensations of her Jacobson's organs with those of her labial pits, concentrating upon the Worm Oroborous, and spun her thoughts into a luminous spiral, seeking U Vayu's friend, the Great Worm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi found herself on a shelf of rock above a canyon in a landscape that looked unfinished." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'shadow' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rough-hewn pillars of layered rock towered all around, as if a sculptor had put down his mallet and chisel and stopped for lunch. The bases of the pillars were joined to a solid rock wall that sloped away into shadow. A shaft of sunlight penetrated to the bottom of the canyon and there Sherahi saw a pair of what she thought were cockroaches, grazing by the riverside. As she strained to see, it occurred to the pythoness that the animals couldn't be insects. With a shock she realized that they were antelope, drinking from shallow pools beside the thick-looking, brown river. This ledge was much higher than she had expected and she drew back from the edge and instinctively gripped the rock outcrop with her belly scutes. Sherahi didn't like heights.\n\n\"Why am I here?\" she wondered. \"U Vayu said that the Great. Worm lay at the bottom of the ocean, encircling the earth. Did I make a mistake? Something seems wrong.\"\n\nA shadow passed above and Sherahi looked up to see a vulture hanging above the canyon rim. Its rusty-black wings were stretched taut by the rising air currents and its naked crimson head moved left and right before it fixed on Sherahi.\n\nThe bird soared up and out of sight, only to reappear in a few minutes, alighting on a gloomy ledge that was across from her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A vertical drop of thousands of feet separated them." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'greetings'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Greetings, cousin,\" said the vulture, settling its rag bag of feathers with a rustle and fixing a small, inquisitive eye on this stranger.\n\n\"Greetings,\" replied Sherahi politely and raised her regal head aloft to show the vulture that she was not dead meat—not a potential meal.\n\n\"Oh,\" said the vulture in a disappointed voice, \"you're alive. Too bad.\"\n\nRealizing that she had made a faux pas the bird hastily continued, \"No, that didn't come out right. I'm always saying the wrong thing. Let's start again. You see, I had hoped that you might have—now, this isn't anything against you personally, but I had hoped that you might have—how shall I say it: kicked the bucket? bought the farm? become crow bait? No, too folksy for a fancy one like you. Let's see, what would be more appropriate? Passed away? Departed? Deceased? Not quite it. Slipped your cable? Gone to the last roundup or to the happy hunting ground? Given up the ghost? Breathed your last? No, no. None of those is right.\"\n\nThe vulture thought for a moment and then in a burst of enthusiasm said, \"How about—made your final exit?\"\n\n\"How about just plain dead?\" suggested Sherahi.\n\n\"Sounds a little, forgive the expression, cold-blooded, don't you think?\"\n\n\"Considering your line of work,\" Sherahi said, \"it seems natural.\"\n\n\"Well, you'd be surprised at how few creatures see it that way.\" The vulture's tone was strangely intimate. \"It's my reputation, I suppose. Most beasts think of me as the right arm of the Grim Reaper. They're afraid of me. My mate's the only friend I have—if you want to call him a friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't count on nestlings, you know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even after you've gone without and starved yourself to feed them day after day, they have no gratitude. Once they're fledged—pouf!—out of the nest forever. They only stay around to beg for handouts.\n\n\"And once the young are gone then he goes, too. A nestful of babies once a year to carry on his line—that's all he thinks of. I tell you, cousin, it's a rough life. No friends. No one to gossip with. No one to share lunch—to say nothing of all those stinking corpses heaving with maggots.\" The vulture shook her feathers again and exclaimed delicately, \"I don't think I'll ever get rid of that smell. I tell you, if I didn't have Jordy, I think I'd go out of my mind.\"\n\n\"Jordy?\" asked the pythoness. The name was somehow familiar.\n\n\"Short for Jormungand, or some fancy name like that. Can't you see him, cousin? He's sealed up in the rock right there.\" The vulture motioned to the canyon wall behind her.\n\n\"Old as the hills, Jordy is—maybe older. Only bones left of him now. But he must have really been something in his day. Much, much bigger than those monster lizards whose bones are weathering out of the rock about a thousand feet down. Jordy was the biggest of 'em all. No doubt of that.\"\n\nThe bird hunched its shoulders and gave a backward glance and whispered across the space that separated them. \"And as old as he is, he's not dead yet. He talks. For them that's got ears to hear, that is." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the sun hits him and he warms up a bit then he likes a bit of company—even if it's that of a poor, lonesome scavenger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And the stories he tells... He's seen it all, or at least he says so. Don't really know how much of what he says is true, but he does love to go on and on. He's the one that told me we were cousins. Given me quite an education, Jordy has.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"It's just about time for the sun to wake him up. Then you'll see...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi looked at the crumbling rock wall behind the vulture. \"Where is this friend of yours?\" she asked. \"I don't see anyone.\"\n\n\"Hold your horses, cousin ofmine,\" said the vulture. \"It's just about time for the sun to wake him up. Then you'll see...\"\n\nSherahi noticed that the sun had moved higher in the sky now. Its rays inched down the canyon wail and in a few moments they struck the rock ledge where the vulture perched. The bird blinked in the bright sun and Sherahi flinched as Jormungand spoke in a voice that boomed with the sound of boulders smashed like gigantic dice tossed by a flood-swollen river.\n\n\"What do you want, little serpent?\" The voice was so loud that it rattled the ear bones buried within Sherahi's skull.\n\nSherahi hadn't been called \"little serpent\" since she was a hatchling and she looked for the source of the voice. But there was no one else in sight and, feeling a bit foolish, she faltered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was looking for the Midgard Serpent. I wanted to ask his advice, but I seem to be in the wrong place. I was told that the Midgard Serpent lives at the bottom of the ocean, holding the earth together.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Used to,\" interrupted the voice.\n\n\"Pardon me, but to whom am I speaking?\" said Sherahi, not knowing where to look. \"I feel silly speaking to a cliff.\"\n\n\"You're not speaking to a cliff. You're speaking to Jormungand I am the one you are seeking.\"\n\n\"But, where are you?\"\n\n\"Don't be so literal-minded, little serpent. Open your eyes. Look here.\"\n\nSherahi saw an outcrop of crystais winking in the sunlight and realized that they filled the bony eye socket of a rusty-red skull that protruded from the rock wall. The crystals dazzled her and Sherahi found herself yawning. She felt so sleepy. \"It must be the sun,\" she thought and shook herself alert. She saw more of the creature's enormous bones in the tan rock matrix." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh my,\" thought Sherahi as she began to understand the size of this beast." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'lying' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His vertebrae were bigger than bathtubs and were lined up along the rock face as if the ancient creature were lying on its side. These backbones marched along the rock layer and wound around the sides of the canyon and out of sight. Sherahi couldn't see any end to them. She saw that what she had thought were runnels in the rock were actually gigantic ribs lying next to each vertebra. Whatever this creature was, he was certainly enormous. \"Much larger than anything that's alive today,\" Sherahi thought. \"His skull is so long that it wouldn't have fit into the Culls' room at Leftrack's.\" The teeth that fringed his upper jaw were ten inches long. He was far bigger than any of the ancient thunder lizards that U Vayu had told her about and Sherahi was glad that she was seeing only his stony skeleton. A hve serpent of this size would have been nightmarish.\n\nA second wave of fatigue swept over her. She kept imagining a nice, dark hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her bones ached for a nap, but she forced herself to stay awake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's wrong with me?\" she wondered. \"I shouldn't be tired at a time like this.\" She was being impolite to this ancient monster and U Vayu had told her to always be polite to the Great Serpent Nats.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" she said, suppressing a yawn. The crystals in the creature's eye socket kept winking at her and, even though her pupils were shut tightly, the twinkling seemed to interfere with her thoughts. For once in her life Sherahi wished that she could completely close her eyes in the way that Dervish could. She tried to look away from the winking crystals and said slowly and with effort, \"I thought you were one of the Great Serpent Nats—supernatural and eternal. U Vayu said that, with your tail in your mouth, you held the world together and kept it from spinning to pieces. He said that you...\" Sherahi opened her mouth in a wide yawn and said, \"Excuse me. I don't know why I'm so sleepy. Where was I?\"\n\n\"Something about someone called U Vayu.\" The booming voice was soothing now.\n\n\"Oh yes, he said that you lived at the bottom of the ocean and when you moved, you made the earth quake.\"\n\n\"U Vayu was a very limited serpent,\" the voice said, sounding like rain pattering on a tin roof. \"Some might even say that he was a fraud, but he did have a few sad, little tricks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you keep the world from flying to pieces?\" asked Sherahi.\n\n\"In a manner of speaking I still do,\" said Jormungand.\n\n\"But why aren't we on the bottom of the ocean?\" asked Sherahi.\n\n\"Look around you, little serpent. We are at the bottom of the ocean—millions of years ago.\"\n\nSherahi looked at the rock layer behind her and with an effort focused her eyes on small, fossilized shells. She put her chin to the rock and instantly heard small voices whispering, but she didn't listen long enough to understand what they were saying. The serpent nat was right. This rock had once been at the bottom of the ocean. \"But why aren't you holding the earth together?\" she asked.\n\n\"The earth is older now. Different. I am no longer needed. Most of the old gods are dead—just like me. In fact, the only one of us that is still active is Quetzalcoatl or his black twin. I'm not sure they're so hard to tell apart. I guess there'll always be room in the world for his kind of nastiness, but the rest of us Lachesis and Ananta and the Nagas—our day is past. We're all finished retired. There are new gods now.\"\n\n\"But you're still powerful,\" said Sherahi.\n\n\"Oh yes, there are a few tricks, a few illusions, that I can still manage. But mostly I spend my time now just lying in the sun, letting my bones weather out of this rock. Soon they will work their way loose and one by one they will fall to the canyon floor. They'll break into a million pieces and I, who have lived on the earth for uncountable years; I, who fought Thor to a stand-off and killed him in the process; I, who was worshiped and revered by generations of humans; I, Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, will be no more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With her black vertical pupils a mere slit in her amber eyes, Sherahi found herself nearly asleep." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'would' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice was so melodic and gently rhythmic. She wished that she were back in Dervish's cavern, but was too sleepy to excuse herself. She would have a little rest now. The nat would understand. He was a kind spirit.\n\nHis voice droned on. \"But there was a time when I held the earth within my coils, a time before Thor and his silly little hammer a time before all of them. Those were the days, little serpent. Those were the days.\"\n\nWithin Sherahi's lulled mind his rusty, fossil bones grew flesh and, as if a chiffon scarf had been snatched from a magician's fist, she could see the Midgard Serpent quite clearly now. His muscles were encased in an armor of scales that were as big as tabletops. The serpent was huge far bigger than anything that Sherahi could comprehend. He stretched around the rock face as far as she could see and his bulk filled the canyon as he writhed and hissed in delight. Sherahi felt her will evaporating as he began to feed on her mind and grow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Believe,\" he commanded. \"Believe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice boomed like a cataract. Now his body was banded with yellow, red and black rings and his tail was a flat paddle. Sherahi saw the colors that warned of his venomous nature and was suddenly afraid of this huge beast. She remembered what U Vayu had said about the Great Serpent Nats. They could be dangerous— deadly. \"They may do you great harm,\" U Vayu had warned. Sherahi felt light-headed and giddy.\n\nWith the sound of a whip cutting the air, the serpent's long, forked tongue lashed to and fro, searching for her. The huge head that had been lifted high in the air above the canyon moved down in sinuous curves, seeking Sherahi on her ledge. When there were still thirty feet separating them, the animal's enormous eyes, slashed by half moons of vertical pupils, fixed on her. The eyes gleamed with recognition and the serpent opened his jaws. \"Believe. Believe. Behold me and believe,\" he commanded as two jets of venom hissed from his array of ivory tusks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow Sherahi twisted out of the strangle hold that Jormungand had on her mind. Although she knew that his venom could not damage her inwitted apparition, instinctively she ducked and the venom splashed against the rock wall behind her, sending up a cloud of smoke. With the sound of a mountain exploding, the serpent hissed and sent a second volley of venom directly at Sherahi's forehead. But before the venom could hit home and make her his creature, Sherahi realized that this cannibal had been spinning a spell so that he could feast upon her mind. As quickly as possible she sent her mind funneling back to her body, which waited in Dervish's cavern. As she fled the canyon and the lair of the Midgard Serpent, she heard his voice booming furiously. \"Come back,\" he ordered. \"I'm hungry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Come back. We can be together forever, little serpent. Don't be afraid. It'll only hurt a little. You'll be immortal you'll become a part of me.\" Mixed with his voice was the harsh scream of the vulture. With a shock Sherahi realized that he had nearly engulfed her with all his talk of pottering retirement and old bones rotting in the sun. She shuddered at her close escape and wondered, \"What would have happened to Manu and Dervish then? Would Junior have taken care of them? And what about the poor Duchess?\" With real annoyance she remembered U Vayu's bragging about inwitting to the Midgard Serpent. \"U Vayu lied again,\" Sherahi thought. \"If he'd met Jormungand he might have lost his mind too. Surely he'd have warned me if he'd known how deadly that serpent nat is.\n\n\"Yet,\" Sherahi sighed, \"he lied to me. Isn't there anyone that I can trust?\"\n\nSherahi found herself back in Dervish's cavern, coiled about the sleeping coati. She was trembling, and as her senses readjusted to the blackness of the cavern, she heard the rumble of an approaching fire serpent, the screeching of the Duchess and the unmistakable scrape and rustle of many pairs of rat feet. Her questions about humans and the whereabouts of the white crocodiles would have to wait. She hissed a warning into the darkness around her and called to Junior. It would soon be time for them to go after Manu." }, { "from": "human", "value": "[ Leftrack's Pet Emporium and Animals International, Ltd ]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ira Leftrack was so agitated that he paced around his desk talking to himself. \"Dogs,\" he said. \"What we need are snake-finding dogs. Maybe bloodhounds. Snakes never go far. That python may still be in the warehouse, though how a snake that size could hide is beyond me.\"\n\nHe called to his secretary in the outer office, \"Helga, tell Ehrich to get in here. With all that college education I paid for he should be able to locate a pair of bloodhounds to track this snake.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Leftrack,\" said Helga and hurried toward the back of the warehouse and the room that now belonged to Ehrich.\n\nIt seemed to take Ehrich along time to appear and Leftrack went out of the office to the chinchilla colony, which the men had finally put to rights. He yanked out a cage. The mother flinched and cowered in one corner while her babies lay dead and blue in another. He pushed the cage back in place violently, not noticing that his action made all of the gray South American rats stiffen in fear. It was the same in all of the cages he examined.\n\n\"Damn,\" thought Leftrack. \"They've been scared by all this commotion. Probably won't calm down for months now. The shock may even kill them all.\" He saw his retirement nest egg going down the drain. \"Now Irma will never get that mink coat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chinchillas were hypersensitive to any sort of disturbance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's why he'd put their colony in the quietest part of the warehouse—outside his office where he could watch it.\n\n\"Damn hooligans,\" he thought. \"If I get my hands on whoever did this. I'll... I'll... I don't know what I'll do.\"\n\nAnd half of the colony was missing mostly the young ones, as well as the special pedigreed stud that he'd earmarked as the father to his fortune. Leftrack had set a dozen box traps and hoped that tonight he'd recapture the male.\n\nWhoever had gotten into the warehouse last night had done incredible damage: the chinchilla colony all busted open; the window in the toilet broken; animals stolen. The police figured that the culprit entered and escaped through the broken window. The strange thing was that no cash was missing from the strongbox in his desk. Must have been some sort of animal fancier, because only chinchillas, the macaw and the big python from the Culls' room had been taken.\n\nIf Leftrack hadn't known Sorensen better, he might have accused him of the robbery. Sorensen was the only one who had a motive for stealing the macaw and the snake. They were his pets and to Leftrack it looked as if the old man had come back, stolen the animals and pushed over the chinchilla colony just for spite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only real mystery was how Sorensen could have gotten that monster snake out the window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Sorensen had done it, he must have had accomplices, because the snake weighed at least five hundred pounds. It would have taken a dozen men to control her. The more Leftrack thought about it, the more far-fetched the idea of Sorensen masterminding a burglary became; nevertheless, the detectives from the Fourteenth Precinct were investigating Sorensen's whereabouts at the time of the robbery. Leftrack doubted that it would come to anything. \"Still,\" he told himself, \"you never know.\"\n\nIt was just barely possible that the snake was still in the warehouse. They had torn the whole place apart this morning, searching for it and for the macaw. The police had asked Leftrack if it were possible for the snake to have escaped all by itself, followed by the bird. Leftrack had said that although it was highly unlikely, it was possible. If so, the snake would be still lurking in the neighborhood and dogs could find it. Leftrack pleaded with the police not to alert the papers until he was certain that the snake was not still on the premises or nearby. \"Escaped snakes never go far,\" he'd said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All we need are those dogs. If the snake has escaped, they'll find it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where's my goddamn son?\"\n\nHelga returned to find her boss staring grimly at the decimated chinchilla colony. \"I can't find Ehrich anywhere,\" she said.\n\n\"Great,\" said Leftrack. \"Just great. I'll have to do it myself like always. Get me the detectives at the Fourteenth Precinct. We've got to start while the trail is still hot.\"\n\nIn the commotion over the robbery, Leftrack had forgotten al about the coati that had been loose in the warehouse the previous day. But he hadn't forgotten about the man from Hollywood who wanted that big snake. If the dogs didn't find the python, Leftrack would have to tell him that it had died.\n\nMuttering, \"Got to keep the lid on this,\" and visualizing headlines that screamed \"MAN-KILLING PYTHON LOOSE\"; worrying that the Board of Health might close him down and wondering exactly how much money he had in the bank, Ira Leftrack sighed, \"Orchard five-five-eight-seven-eight,\" in response to the operator's voice, which asked, \"Number, please?\"\n\n[ Dervish's Cavern ]\n\nThe light had gone from the tunnels of the fire serpent and the Duchess had ceased her pacing. Now she crouched at the bottom of the stairs near Sherahi. \"Isn't it time yet?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she nagged. \"It's been dark for hours. Are you going to let him sleep al night?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi sighed. The Duchess was getting on her nerves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would have liked to still the bird's endless string of complaints. It would have been so easy: one coil wrapped around that skinny, knobby throat and a single, brief squeeze. Then there would be no more moaning about food and cold and no place to perch. \"It would be so very easy...\" Sherahi found herself stalking the bird who sat so trustfully in the darkness nearby. Realizing that she was estimating the distance for a strike that would impale, stun and kill the bird, Sherahi shook her head to clear these bloodthirsty ideas. She was angry at herself for letting the Duchess annoy her. The bird seemed to trust her now and it wasn't the macaw's fault that she was so bossy and selfish. If she were still in that jungle that she dreamed of so often, she'd probably be a well-respected member of her flock, not a scrawny caricature of a Thanksgiving dinner come to life. \"Humans taught her to behave like this,\" thought Sherahi. \"Perhaps if we ignore her, she'll understand. It might work and, if not, we'II have plenty of time to teach the Duchess better manners.\"\n\nUsing ancient saurian mindspeech, Sherahi called to Junior, telling him to come and be her eyes and ears. It was time for him and Dervish to rescue Manu." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm busy now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Junior's reply came quickly. \"I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm busy now.\"\n\n\"This is more important. You must come,\" insisted Sherahi.\n\n\"But, Auntie...\"\n\n\"Now,\" Sherahi ordered. She didn't like the tone of Junior's voice: self-important and callous. Once he and Dervish were safely on their way to the pet shop, she would inspect his mind again. The changes she had made in his temperament probably needed repairs.\n\n\"Wake up. Dervish,\" she thought, trying to remember the way Manu's mind had formed the chittering language that Dervish understood. She was gratified to feel the warm little animal stir and stretch all four legs out straight. At least he was reliable. She felt him yawn and in a moment he had leaped out of her coils; as she heard him chitter to Junior she knew that the pit viper was encircling his neck. \"Junior, make sure that Dervish knows what he's supposed to do,\" she said to the cascabel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, all right,\" said Junior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't be so bossy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi definitely did not like the pit viper's tone. In a few moments the answer she had been waiting for came into her mind.\n\n\"Dummy here says that he will bring Manu; that he will run with the speed of a spotted cat and the strength of ten antbears. Funny. Huh, Sherahi? I wonder where he got such stupid ideas?\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Sherahi, ignoring Junior's remarks. \"Go. Be quick and be safe. And Junior,\" she said, gripping his jagged thoughts in hers, \"don't ever call Dervish 'dummy' again.\"\n\nThere was no reply from the cascabel and Sherahi sent the message, \"Did you hear what I said?\"\n\n\"Yes, Auntie,\" came his sulky reply. The pythoness and macaw listened to Dervish patter away and settled down to wait. Through Junior's eyes Sherahi followed the progress of the two animals along the shadowy streets and simultaneously examined Junior's mind.\n\nA light rain had begun to fall and she watched both animals react to it. Neither had ever known rain and Dervish couldn't resist splashing in shallow puddles, leaping into them with both forefeet. The rain was cold and made Junior burrow deeper into Dervish's fur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hissed in annoyance when Dervish plunged off a curb into one deep puddle and Sherahi had to check his impulse to fang Dervish. As she had expected, his vicious, independent nature was working free. She was thinking about the quickest way to repair her psychological surgery when there was an astonished squawk in the darkness. Instantly her labial pits began quopping, warning her that she and the Duchess were surrounded by a circle of rats.\n\nNot knowing if the Duchess would understand, Sherahi commanded her, \"Duchess, get behind me. And be quick about it.\" She wasn't sure that she'd be able to communicate directly with the macaw and had never tried to do it without Manu's help, but she knew that, without the protection of her feathers or the ability to fly, the Duchess would be an easy mark for these rats. She felt the macaw's scaly claws clamber quickly over her coils and then Sherahi forgot the bird that cowered behind her.\n\nSherahi knew that the rats could see much better than she could in the dark. After all, that was one of the hallmarks of the mammals. Once, this attribute had enabled them to carve a nighttime niche for themselves in a world that belonged to reptiles. Of course, they couldn't see colors but then, they didn't need to: they lived in a twilight world of dim, subterranean burrows and only emerged at night. So, the rats that formed an intense, furry ring around Sherahi had this advantage over her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'organs' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that wasn't all. They were also on home territory and there were a lot of them. The only numbers that Sherahi knew were \"one, two, three, many\" and she knew that she was surrounded by many, many rats. \"How many is unimportant,\" she thought. \"They'll all be dead soon.\"\n\nAlthough she couldn't actually see them, her labial pits and Jacobson's organs easily located the rats for her. She could sense the warmest parts of their bodies as well as their approximate ages and even their sex. From what her special sense organs told her, it was as if she actually saw their coarsely furred bodies trembling with excitement as they stood around her, waiting for the fight to begin. She saw them pause, hunchbacked and scaly-tailed. Their whiskers were erect and their neck fur bristled. They rattled their incisors, ready to pounce. Ready to bite.\n\nSherahi knew the ways of the rat tribe and didn't wait for one brave and foolish would-be hero to spring and try to straddle her neck and sever her backbone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like any rodent his tactic would be to try to immobilize her in this way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sherahi had seen giant snakes that had been attacked by hordes of rats and she knew that once she was powerless they would taunt and torture her at their leisure. It was a slow death, dealt by their razorlike incisors. If Sherahi had never encountered rats, she might have been frightened might have tried to confuse them but she had fought off many packs of bandicoots in her days at the pagoda and now her heart swelled with excitement. By the time this was over this rat tribe would know what an angry python could do.\n\nAll these thoughts flashed through Sherahi's mind and then, without thinking about what she did, she attacked. She seized the rat closest to her and snapped his body between her jaws. She stunned, crushed and dropped him in almost the same movement. Pain and death caught the rat by surprise and he died with his hind legs kicking frantically. Once she had dropped him, he kicked once or twice more and then stopped. His demise had no effect on the other rats: their minds were fixed on attacking the giant serpent.\n\nA second rat dashed in to challenge Sherahi and she dealt him the same fatal blow. Then rats came faster, sometimes two at a time, squealing to one another in high excitement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon Sherahi lost count of how many she snap-stunned and dropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one had ever taught her how to battle with rats; she was guided by ancient instinct. It was as if she had discovered a suit of dusty armor in an attic, donned the breastplate and reforged links to fierce, forgotten ancestors.\n\nThe Duchess was terrified. She cowered behind the great snake, put her head beneath her wing and listened fearfully to the thumps and squeals of the rats as Sherahi fought soundlessly and furiously, sometimes grabbing an opponent and hurling him against the wall, sometimes down onto the floor. The bodies made a solid plopping sound and the Duchess heard the knock of bone against cement and knew that brains and blood spilled in the dust. Other rats were squeezed in Sherahi's expert coils, their long incisors gnawing impotently as they gasped for air. One suffocated just after the pressure of Sherahi's deadly embrace made his eyeballs start from their sockets. The Duchess imagined all of this and more and prayed that Sherahi would win or that the rats would go away, and hoped that, once it was over, Sherahi wouldn't kil her, too.\n\nSherahi whirled to grab the last rat and felt his tall slip through her mouth as he ran away. She thought of going after him, but then decided not to. The survivor would carry news back to the rest of his tribe news that a monster now lurked in this tunnel. The Culls would be safe until the rats forgot what happened here tonight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then they would be back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The exercise had made Sherahi hungry and she nosed against the limp, warm bodies of the rats that littered the floor and began to eat one of them. She would eat her fill and leave the rest for Dervish. He liked rat flesh. Her mouth was half full of fur when she heard the Duchess say, \"Can I come out now? Are they all gone?\"\n\n\"It's safe,\" Sherahi's thoughts hissed in the Duchess's mind, and Sherahi returned to her meal.\n\nShe felt the Duchess's toes gripping her coils as she edged out of the corner. From the unsteady way that the bird walked, Sherahi knew that she was in shock.\n\n\"Come on, Duchess,\" Sherahi's thoughts said to the bird. \"It's all over now. They won't be back for a long while.\" There was no reply from the bird and Sherahi wondered if she'd understood. Feeling guilty of depriving her of psychological support for so long, Sherahi sent the macaw a wave of comfort. As she alternately inched the teeth on each side of her jaw over the rat's body, she scryed the bird's quick-moving mind and saw the shapes of fear and of hunger. \"How stupid of me,\" thought Sherahi. \"The Duchess is almost dead of starvation. No wonder she is so bad-tempered. She must eat.\n\n\"But what can she eat?\" Sherahi asked herself. \"There aren't any of the seeds or fruits that she likes. There are only rats here. Maybe someday Dervish can find other food for her, but that will be risky. He might be seen and followed or even killed. And besides she's hungry now. If only I could convince her that rats are delicious. After ail, they are the food of the gods. Maybe I can fool her into thinking that she likes them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi spun the image of a soft-feathered, yellow-eyed, hook-billed bird into the Duchess's mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She also sent the memory of nights spent hunting in the dark for warm-blooded prey. Delicious, musky-smelling prey. She made the Duchess remember dropping out of a starry sky and silently striking, feet first, into the back muscles of a careless young muskrat.\n\nThe Duchess felt her talons grip and stifle the rodent's breath and, screaming fiercely, she killed him without effort. Then she rose, carrying her burden back to the rocky shelter high on the cliff face that was her winter home. The Duchess imagined the warm body of her kill in her talons and when Sherahi picked up one of the dead rats and dropped it at the Duchess's feet, she had the satisfaction of seeing the entranced bird spread her thinly feathered wings and mantle her prey. With wide-open beak she hissed at Sherahi and said coldly, \"Get away from me, serpent. This is my kil.\"\n\nSherahi hadn't expected the bird's mind to be quite so malleable and she was startled by the fierce predator that spoke to her out of the darkness. Suddenly Sherahi found the situation funny and, as she withdrew to engulf a second rat, she chuckled over the macaw-turned-huntress. If she would continue to feed on rats, it would certainly simplify things. Sherahi was pleased with her success. Normally the Duchess would have recoiled from the touch of the unfamiliar, warm, limp body. She would have stalked away, her claws scraping the cement, and in the dark tunnel would have shrieked and squawked, cherishing her anger, half afraid that Sherahi might turn and attack her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that the Duchess was convinced that she, too, was a killer she might feel more at ease in these caverns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She probably won't be quite so afraid of me,\" thought Sherahi. \"Maybe she'll even fight if the rats come again.\"\n\nThe bird was certainly hungry and Sherahi could hear the snapping of leg bones as the transformed macaw devoured her dinner. This deception would do her no harm. She had to eat something or she would die and rats were the only food around here. Besides, a change of diet might even improve her temperament and make her feathers grow back more quickly. Then she could fly back to her jungle and leave the other Culls to find their way to Sandeagozu. Sherahi hoped that her spell had been strong enough to make the Duchess hoot like an owl and, as the second rat slid down her throat, she chuckled at the thought in her silent, mirthless fashion in the excitement, Sherahi had forgotten the rescue party and after the second rat was comfortably within her stomach she called to Junior. She was surprised to hear him very nearby. The fight with the rats must have taken longer than she had thought, because the three animals were already descending the outer steps to the cavern. In a few moments Dervish, Manu, and Junior were at the top of the stairs above Sherahi and the Duchess.\n\n\"They're right down here, Manu,\" chittered Dervish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Isn't this a great place? We'll be safe and dry. Come on, Manu, shake all that rain out of your fur. You'll get sick if you don't dry yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sherahi heard Junior sigh and mutter, \"Come on, stupid Can't you hurry it up? All this bother about a little rain and a sick monkey. I've got things to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was relieved to find that Manu and Dervish had not been harmed by the cascabel. Now she could make him more tractable at her leisure.\n\nThe wet langur was half-pulled down the stairs by Dervish. His eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the blackness and he felt confused and suddenly very dizzy and unwell. \"Not so fast. Dervish,\" he said, and then felt something soft give beneath his foot. Manu slipped on one of the rat carcasses, lost his balance and fell down the dark staircase. When the other Culls reached him he did not respond. Sherahi knew that, although the spell that she had woven had gotten him out of the warehouse under his own power and allowed him to reach these tunnels, it had failed at the last moment. But Manu was safe from Ehrich Leftrack's silver knives. If he lived, he would at least be free and on the way to Sandeagozu.\n\n[ Leftrack's Pet Emporium and Animals International, Ltd ]\n\nHurry up, can't you?\" asked Ira Leftrack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blue-uniformed dog handler was used to people who thought they knew his job better than he did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He regarded the nervous man with the pencil-thin mustache for a moment, while he held the leads of the three, patiently sniffing dogs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The dogs do things in their own good time,\" he said, regarding them with affection. \"You can't hurry 'em. They've got to get the scent up into their brains. Once they know what they're looking for, we can take them outside.\n\n\"Now, why don't you let us do our job? If this rain has left any sort of trail at ail, the dogs'll find it.\"\n\nLeftrack watched the three sober-looking dogs sniffing at Manu's cage in the Culls' room and hoped that somehow they might find something—anything. They had searched everywhere, after having been introduced to the smell of the python and the macaw, and had trailed each animal to the toilet. But there the trail seemed to end and Leftrack had watched the methodical trainer go outside with the dogs several times. The result was always the same, though. The trails dwindled in the alley behind the pet shop.\n\nLast night the warehouse had been robbed again, even though Leftrack had had the window repaired. Now the old langur was missing from his cage. Nothing else in the warehouse had been touched and all of the circumstantial evidence seemed to point to Birger Sorensen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the man had a tight alibi: he had been at a card game in Staten Island all night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three relatives swore that Sorensen had spent the evening with them, losing at canasta. Although the police believed them, Leftrack suspected they were lying. Without any other evidence, their testimonies would stand. The detectives had looked for fingerprints around the alley window, but they could find only strange scratches on and below the windowsill. If Sorensen had stolen the animals, he was hiding them in some secret place. The police had searched his home in Staten Island and found nothing. It seemed to be a dead end and the police admitted that they were baffled.\n\nTwenty minutes later the dogs were in the alley, sniffing around the garbage cans again. It was a cold, raw day and the drenching rain that had started last night had continued through the morning. Leftrack watched for a while, hoping to hear the dogs bay with excitement, telling their handler that they had located the trail. They worked their way down to the side street in one direction, but there was no smell of langur. The officer and his three dogs disappeared down the side street and searched diligently on both sides of the street for blocks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leftrack followed behind, watching the dogs strain at their leashes, hoping for the sign of a trail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to be there if they found something, because he didn't want the dogs to harm his animals. But there was nothing except gray sky, cold wind and rain that soaked his feet. Thoroughly wet, with their senses partially numbed, the dogs returned to the garbage cans below the warehouse window and searched in the opposite direction, but after three hours of walking in the cold rain, the officer decided that the dogs had had enough. He told Leftrack that there didn't seem to be any sort of trail. If there had been one, these dogs would have found it. Whoever stole the animals must have taken them away in a car. \"Sorry, Mr. Leftrack. I'll have to report this to headquarters.\"\n\nIra Leftrack offered the officer a cup of hot coffee and tried to ingratiate himself. \"What happens now?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well, I make my report to headquarters and, unless one of the detectives has a bright idea or unless the property in question turns up somewhere, there isn't anything else that we can do. Of course, it is possible that the animals are still at large. With the cold and the rain and all, their trail could have been washed away. I'll have to make a report to headquarters and the public will have to be warned. That's a dangerous snake that might be loose. I've thought plenty about it while I was out with the dogs. It's over thirty feet long and mighty strong. What if it grabs a little kid or an old lady?\"\n\n\"Officer,\" said Leftrack, suddenly very serious. \"Let's not be hasty. It could cause a panic in this city if people thought that a man-eating python were loose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's not my worry, Mr. Leftrack. I've got to go by regulations and make my report to headquarters.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But don't you see what the press will do with that kind of story? Think of the headlines. People will be scared to go into the streets. It wouldn't be sensible to scare everyone like that. You yourself said that the animals were probably taken away by car. Wasn't that your explanation for not finding a trail?\"\n\nThe officer nodded over his cup of coffee.\n\n\"Well, that must mean that someone has them under lock and key. They're not running about loose.\"\n\n\"That's only one possibility. They could have escaped. I admit that it seems unlikely, but I'll have to include it in my report.\"\n\n\"But how far could they have gotten? Wouldn't your dogs have found them? Do you want the people to think that the New York City Police Department, with their specially trained bloodhounds, have been unable to find a thirty-foot python, a scarlet macaw and a monkey? It seems to me, Officer, that you and I have a common interest in keeping that information just between us. Besides,\" Leftrack looked meaningfully at the policeman, \"you wouldn't find me ungrateful for your interest in the public good.\"\n\nThe officer patted the neck of one of the dogs that sat at his feet, and regarded Leftrack. He took another sip of coffee while Leftrack continued, \"Times are difficult for all of us. Believe you me, I know how hard it is for a man to raise a family.\"\n\n\"Well, we do have a scholarship fund at the Precinct House. Contributions to that are always welcome.\"\n\nIra Leftrack took out his checkbook and said, \"To whom shall I make this out-—cash?\"\n\n\"That'll be fine,\" said the officer.\n\n\"Let this be my contribution to your fund,\" said Leftrack, tearing off the check and handing it to the policeman. \"I've got a boy in school myself. I know how expensive that is. And I'm glad, Officer, that we've reached an understanding about how we'll handle this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled and reached into his wallet and took out two twenty-dollar bills." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is just a little something for the dogs there. They've certainly done a fine job today. Maybe you can get them an extra-special dinner.\" He patted the dogs and said, \"Pleasure doing business with you, Officer.\"\n\nWhen the man and his dogs had gone, Leftrack sat down at his desk. He'd done everything that he could to make sure that the press didn't learn anything. This afternoon he'd have bars installed on that bathroom window. Now, all he had to do was tell that maniac in Hollywood that the snake had died and the entire matter would be closed.\n\n[ Dervish's Cavern ]\n\nIt took a long time for Manu to recover. For many days he hardly moved at all. After he regained consciousness it was a long time before he was strong enough to eat anything more than the nutritious paste of minced rat flesh that the Duchess painstakingly prepared for him. In those months the Culls noticed that the tunnels had grown cooler and now it was cold all the time. They huddled together at night for warmth and in the daytime Junior hunted, bringing down huge Norse or Black rats for the others, and killing baby rats for his own meals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Under the Duchess's ministrations, Manu regained strength and the day eventually came when he was well enough to scramble hand over hand up onto the supports of the fire serpent's tunnel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except for the grime of the tunnels, which turned his silver fur a streaky gray, he looked better than he had in years. Younger. Stronger. The months also brought a transformation to the Duchess. She no longer looked quite like a butchered chicken, but was covered with soft, scarlet feathers. She had been so concerned with Manu's recovery that she hadn't thought of plucking out her feathers in weeks and she had grown so used to the collar that she no longer fussed with it. It had become a part of her new plumage. The spell that Sherahi had cast over the macaw had lasted only a few weeks, but in that time it had taught the Duchess that rat flesh was edible and she was no longer the whining bird that had walked away from Leftrack's Pet Emporium.\n\nAs the months in the cavern passed, Dervish reached his full adult size but retained his cheery, inquisitive nature. He was still devoted to Manu and while the langur convalesced he had lain at his side, hoping to be asked to do a favor. He would have done anything to make the langur feel better and none of the Culls was happier than Dervish when Manu began to recover from the effects of Ehrich Leftrack's poison. Sherahi explained what Ehrich Leftrack had tried to do and they all agreed that, no matter what happened, they would never go back to Leftrack's pet shop.\n\nThe months had also produced changes in Junior. Fed on a steady diet of suckling rats, he was now more than two feet long." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had shed several times and now had four segments attached to the button at the tip of his tail. He could produce an audible rattle that frightened Dervish so much that instinctively he froze in his tracks whenever he heard it. Junior was a loner and spent most of his time prowling in the tunnel of the fire serpent, looking for rats' nests to plunder. He was plainly jealous of the way that the others favored Dervish, and Sherahi had found that, as the cascabel grew, she needed to repair her psychic transformations nearly every day to keep him tractable. But she had little else to do and the process had become routine.\n\nSherahi had spent most of the time worrying about the white crocodiles. She had been disappointed to find that the holy reptiles were not nearby. Even though she had thought it unlikely, she had hoped that these tunnels belonged to them. Now she was certain that they were some sort of underground road for humans and had nothing to do with the white crocodiles. Once Manu had regained his health, she had withdrawn more and more from the daily pursuits of the Culls. Except for mastering the art of mindspeaking with Dervish and the Duchess, Sherahi spent all her mental energy on locating the beasts that would have the secret to the whereabouts of Sandeagozu.\n\nEvery day Sherahi lay apart from the rest of the group, scanning for these elusive reptiles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had had no luck for many weeks and had begun to doubt that she would ever be able to find them." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'sherahi' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They certainly hid themselves well, or perhaps they had erected barriers to any penetration, friendly or otherwise. At one point in her search she had grown so frustrated that she had begun to doubt the reality of the white crocodiles. \"Is it possible that I made them up in a daydream?\" she wondered. She scanned for the nearest crocodilian intelligence and found that a Nile crocodile at the Bronx Zoo confirmed that the white crocodiles did, indeed, exist beneath this city and that they were the wisest and most holy of all beasts. \"They do not reveal themselves to all,\" the captive croc had said.\n\nSo, Sherahi began her scans again, knowing that the Culls could not stay in these tunnels forever. For one thing, the supply of Norse and of Black rats had begun to dwindle. One day Junior reported that he had seen the Blacks moving en masse away from this place. He had chuckled over the thought that he had scared them off, but Sherahi worried and hoped that there would be enough of the larger, Norse rat tribe to feed the Culls until she had found the white crocodiles. The temperature was another source of concern. It was very cold in the tunnels now and one day snow filtered down onto the platform of the fire serpent from the grating above. It was clear that the Culls needed a warmer shelter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They would have to move soon." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"Quit the clowning, Dervish. I don't like this cold.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Culls had lived in the caverns of the fire serpent for three months when Sherahi received the first faint signal from what she thought might be a white crocodile. It sounded like a sort of lullaby. And, though Sherahi wasn't quite sure of its meaning, she caught a glimpse of a mysterious singer lying gaunt and phosphorescently white in a steamy, wet place deep below the city. Something told Sherahi that the singer was a female and very happy. She seemed to be alone and, when the lullaby stopped, Sherahi guessed that she was outside the mental barriers that the rest of the white crocodiles had erected to guard their territory.\n\nThe next night Sherahi sent Junior and Dervish out to try to find an entrance to a different sort of tunnel. \"There's got to be another tunnel nearby,\" Sherahi told them. \"Please try to find it.\"\n\nAlthough he acted standoffish, Junior coiled obediently about Dervish's neck and the two went into the upper world. Dervish found that it had snowed outside and slid down snowbanks with delight, much to the disgust of Junior, who coiled even more tightly around the coati's neck and ordered, \"Quit the clowning, Dervish. I don't like this cold.\"\n\nIn a short time the two animals found an entrance to a tunnel that was below a grate set in the street. Dervish was able to slither between the bars of the grate and found that the tunnel below was both dry and big enough to allow even Sherahi to enter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A short distance from the place where the two animals had entered, the tunnel fed into a larger one; using Junior's labial pits, Sherahi found that faint heat was coming from the tunnel that branched to the right." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new tunnel was large enough for Dervish to walk with his tail fully erect and, although there was a trickle of water running along the bottom of the pit, there was a shallow shelf along one wall. The animals would be able to travel without getting wet.\n\nBut best of all, Sherahi found that the song of the female white crocodile was stronger within this tunnel. \"That must mean that it will lead us to the nests of the white crocodiles,\" Sherahi thought. Elated, Sherahi told Junior to bring Dervish back. She was careful to include Junior in her praise and said, \"You have both done well. We will leave tomorrow night and find the white crocodiles.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "lets continue this story bit. two sentences more like Lindsay Buroker would. Science Fiction, Romance genre. characters might be established already" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari Moonrazor adjusted her ocular implants to simulate normal human eyesight as she gazed over the forest of evergreens toward the rising sun. Pinks and oranges burnished the blue sky, the sight gorgeous and still novel to someone who'd spent most of her life on spaceships and habitats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't, however, help but wonder if she was truly seeing the sky as unaltered humans would." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother had surgically installed numerous chips and cybernetic implants in her before she'd been a year old, and Mari couldn't remember what it was like to be fully human." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As she watched the sky slowly change colors, an increasingly familiar sense of hiraeth crept over her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why did she keep coming up to this clifftop to look at the sunrises when they kept stirring up emotions that could only get her in trouble? Emotions that prompted her to take action. To leave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With her mother's plans to assemble an ancient wormhole gate and lead their people to another system recently thwarted, Mari's life's work seemed insignificant. What need did the astroshamans have for a terraforming scientist, or the technology she made, now that they were hunkered in an underground base on a planet that already had the rich atmosphere, soils, and climates of Old Earth?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind her, heavy feet crunched through the foliage on the clifftop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her augmented hearing had no trouble picking up the noise over the hum of the generator that kept a camouflaging shield over their base to hide it from the network of satellites that orbited Odin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was her mother's crusher, a huge tarry-black combat robot that could liquefy and re-form into any shape. Its approach had to mean that her mother was also coming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Concern stirred in Mari's gut, though she wasn't doing anything wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not yet. Surely, even beings who longed to integrate themselves with machines, if not eventually give up their biological bodies entirely, could appreciate the aesthetical appeal of a sunrise.\n\n\"It is not the worst view one could have for a secret base,\" her mother said, stepping around the crusher and up to the edge of the cliff to join her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her short white hair stuck up in all directions, as if she'd just roused from bed, though it always looked like that, and implants made her eyes appear the same whitish-blue as Mari's. Her skin was bronze, a few shades darker than Mari's, who had the coloring and slim build of the father she couldn't remember, a father long gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I should know. I've spent much of the last twenty years hiding in one place or another.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's an improvement over the ice base on Xolas Moon,\" Mari said, \"but can we truly consider it secret? The land was a gift, right? At least one person in the Star Kingdom government knows we're here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was not a gift but a prize acquired through negotiations. And it is only temporary, until we can build a gate from scratch with the data we gathered—\" her mother waved to the ground, indicating the complex engineering project their people had started in the freshly excavated base built under the cliff, \"—and resume our quest to travel beyond the Twelve Systems and find a new home, one not impinged upon by humanity's spread. A place where we will not be judged for seeking the next logical evolution.\"\n\nMari didn't point out that astroshamans were as apt to judge normal humans as vice versa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When? Shall I continue my research?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course. Our allies in System Geryon are manufacturing an automated ship that will take our finished gate to the new system we've chosen, install it, and link it to the existing network, so we can quickly travel there ourselves. If you've completed work on your prototype terraformer, we can build more of them and send them along on the ship to create a world suitable for biological matter. Since our people have not yet been able to agree collectively to give up our original forms—\" Mother waved at her mostly human body, \"—for entirely machine-based bodies, that will be necessary.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mari grimaced. She hadn't yet told her mother that she'd lost the terraforming device." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been in her lab on the Celestial Dart, one of the spaceships that had battled the Kingdom Fleet in their Arctic Islands and crashed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd had instructions to grab everything valuable before transferring to a transport vessel that wouldn't go into combat, but there had been too much to take and not much time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd forgotten her prototype.\n\n\"Do you think it's necessary for us to leave now that the Kingdom is under more progressive rule?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mari asked to change the subject." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps we could stay here and be...\"\n\n\"What? Welcomed with open arms?\" Mother snorted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari knew that was unlikely, but she couldn't help but think of the list she'd made on her eighteenth birthday. The Human List.\n\nIt was full of things she had never experienced and only read about in books, things that were frowned upon in the astroshaman community because they appealed to \"base human emotions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drinking caffeinated and alcoholic substances, air-bike racing, hang-gliding, kissing, having sex, eating chocolate, even walking barefoot on a beach with sand squishing between her toes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were all things she was curious about but had never been permitted to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even if we hadn't gone along with high shamans Chatelain and Cometrunner,\" Mother continued, \"and attacked this world, the Kingdom never would have accepted us. They never did before. Even those in progressive systems call us freaks and weirdos, always making it clear that we do not belong. If you doubt that, all you have to do is go out among them and walk in their streets with your implants visible.\"\n\n\"Can I?\" Mari smiled to make it a joke, but that sense of longing returned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother had never given her or her siblings the opportunity to go out among normal humans." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it would be easy now that they were living on this world. Even though she couldn't see the distant capital of Zamek City, not even with the binocular setting on her implants, she knew it was there, a mere two hundred miles to the east." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mari envisioned Glasnax-windowed skyscrapers glinting pink in the rising sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" Her mother turned a horrified expression on her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Especially not now. They're still repairing their cities from the bombings. They would kill you on sight.\"\n\nThat would be unfair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mari hadn't had anything to do with the bombings, nor would she threaten any humans if she went among them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All she wanted was to experience the items on her Human List." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give up such notions,\" her mother said, as if reading her mind, \"and focus on perfecting the terraformer so we can make more of them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It struck Mari that if she confessed to having lost it, she might have the excuse to leave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If their lost ships hadn't been salvaged, someone could fly up and retrieve the device." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could volunteer. Oh, the frigid Arctic Islands weren't anything she longed to see, but while she was out, maybe she could also visit one of the cities on the mainland." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since her people had few working transport devices, maybe she would even need to go to a city first to acquire a small craft to fly up there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I should have told you earlier,\" Mari said, \"the prototype was on the Celestial Dart.\"\n\nHer mother grimaced. \"You didn't take it with you when we left?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There wasn't much time, and I didn't even think of it. I left it in a cabinet in my lab.\"\n\nHer mother radiated displeasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hadn't truly believed our ships would be defeated.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They shouldn't have been,\" her mother growled. \"If I had been in charge, I wouldn't have underestimated Casmir Dabrowski and his pesky clone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps I could go up to the crash site and see if the terraformer survived. I had it tucked away in an insulated box.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother squinted at her. A suspicious squint?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari raised her eyebrows, turning her expression into what she hoped looked like a desire to be helpful, not a scheme to escape.\n\n\"It would be easy to find it,\" Mari added." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know you prompted the other ships to self-destruct when you and the survivors fled, so that the Kingdom wouldn't get our technology, but I found the Celestial Dart on their satellite imagery.\"\n\n\"It was also supposed to self-destruct, but the program failed, or the equipment was too damaged by the crash. The rest of us were too injured and concerned about surviving and escaping to go back to finish the job. By then, their troops were crawling all over those mountains.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The terraformer was locked in a cabinet. Scavengers might not have found it. I can—\"\n\n\"No. It is too dangerous. They have a military outpost near the crash site, and unscrupulous salvagers are likely still fighting over the pieces.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother's mouth twisted in distaste." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I assume you have the schematics. You can build it again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The raw materials—\"\n\n\"Make a list. I'll find a way to acquire whatever you need.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But Mother. Shouldn't we at least check?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's too dangerous,\" her mother repeated, her voice hard. \"You may not go.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'human' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari clenched her jaw. She was twenty-four. Had she been a normal human born into a human household on almost any planet or habitat in the Twelve Systems, she would have been considered an adult, free to make her own decisions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Free to go where she wished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is for your own good, Mari,\" her mother said, her voice softer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They would see you as a spy if not a saboteur, and they would kill you. If I thought you merely wanted to sneak in and out of the crash site without being seen, perhaps I would say yes, but I believe you want more than that. As you've admitted before, you want to walk among them, a scientist experiencing the culture and curiosities of the indigenous people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari's cheeks warmed, and she looked out upon the forest instead of meeting her mother's gaze. She shouldn't have been so frank about her desires in the past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps they would not kill us,\" Mari said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps one could prove that one had no ill intent and might be permitted to explore their world.\"\n\nJust proving she didn't have ill intent might not be enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What if she was willing to share her knowledge about terraforming with the Kingdom?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her prototype was far more advanced and faster working than the equipment they used." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she could find it and show it to them, maybe they would want to hire her. Or even grant her asylum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just because Minister Dabrowski is willing to turn enemies into allies doesn't mean the rest of them will see us as anything but threats to be destroyed. He is not in charge of their people. The very fact that we must remain hidden—\" Mother pointed upward toward the camouflaging shield over the base, though it was only visible when Mari shifted the setting of her implants to detect energy instead of light waves, \"—is a testament to that. Their military would destroy us if they knew we were here. You will stay here in hiding, as we all will, until it's time to leave the Twelve Systems forever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mother glanced toward the rising sun, then turned her back on it and headed to the tunnel that led into their base." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A temporary base on a temporary planet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Forever. The word haunted Mari." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she didn't go out soon and experience humanity and what it was like to be one of them... she would never get a chance.\n\nFor her entire life, she'd obeyed her mother and the elders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But as she looked toward the rising sun, she decided she'd had enough. She would take her chances and trust she could keep herself alive among potential enemies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was time to leave her people.\n\n\"I never thought I would rob a greenhouse.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These buildings are experimental seed and plant germination centers,\" K-45 said in his robotic voice.\n\n\"I never thought I would rob a germination center.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you having misgivings about this mission?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You might say that.\" Kenji Chisaka—who went by Kenji Backer, in the vain hope that neither the Kingdom Guard nor Zamek City Police would find out he was the son of a terrorist—pushed his hands through his hair hard enough to dislodge strands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When we were robbing from the corrupt nobility, who are hell-bent on keeping commoners enslaved in a backward system, it seemed right and just. But these are Queen Oku's greenhouses, and she's in charge now. By all accounts, she's a progressive academic who remembers the names of the little people, and she's dating a commoner.\"\n\nKenji didn't want to rob anyone at all." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'could' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the last eight years, he'd been doing honest work, whatever jobs he could find without being chipped and in the system. Just when he'd eked together enough physical currency to bribe a spaceship captain to take him out of the Kingdom so he could start a new life, not one but two invading forces had come to Odin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd dropped bombs all over the planet, including onto the apartment building where he'd been squatting in the basement. He'd lost all of his meager belongings; he'd almost lost his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Minister of External Affairs Casmir Dabrowski was cloned from the legendary war hero Admiral Mikita,\" Kay said, \"and, in the aftermath of King Jager's death, was awarded a position in the nobility.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, but he was born a commoner and raised in an apartment in the Brodskiburg District. That's as common as it gets.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was born in Refuse Collection Bin Thirty-Seven,\" Kay said, \"but I am uncommon.\"\n\n\"That is true. I used to take classes from Minister Dabrowski. He was Professor Dabrowski back then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You were accepted into an institute of higher learning?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why did his robot companion sound surprised?\n\nKenji wished he could legitimately say yes, but...\"I squatted on campus for a while and sneaked into classes in the huge lecture halls where nobody took attendance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was unlikely Dabrowski had known he existed.\n\n\"Backer!\" one of the thieves standing guard outside the greenhouse whispered harshly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quit yapping with your junkyard of a robot. This isn't the coffee house. You're supposed to be standing guard. Alertly.\"\n\nKenji sighed and focused on the parking lot across the field from the greenhouses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was stationed next to an irrigation shed halfway to the lot, and his duty was to delay the authorities if any shuttles or ground vehicles flew or drove in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His stomach growled, a reminder that he had few crowns in his pocket, and it had been more than a day since his last meal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't want to rob anyone, but he needed to eat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am also having misgivings about this mission,\" Kay said in a lower tone of voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My materials may have been acquired in a junkyard, but like human beings, I am worth more than the sum of my parts.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are.\" Since Kenji had assembled Kay, he wouldn't disagree, though even he admitted his multi-metaled bipedal companion wasn't the most state-of-the-art robot in existence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of his parts were dented or rusted, but the service panel on his back that allowed access to his internal wiring did not look like anything other than the toaster door that it was." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'picked' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry I let myself get talked into this. If I had money to rent a shuttle, we'd be up in the Arctic Islands, scavenging the wrecks from the big battle there. It's rumored that some of them were astroshaman ships. Even if they've mostly been picked over by now, can you imagine how much we could get for even a few smidgens of their technology?\"\n\nKenji picked up his borrowed DEW-Tek rifle, prepared to do his duty if police or the Kingdom Guard showed up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to hand a pistol to Kay, but the robot closed his mechanical fist, refusing to accept it.\n\n\"You're not willing to help out?\" Kenji asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know what my foundational programming is.\"\n\nYes, when Kenji had been building the robot, there hadn't been many free options for embedded operating systems." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd wanted Kay to be able to help him with the mechanic job he'd been holding down at the time, but the only foundational programs that had been available were Kitchen Assistant and Academic Tutor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figuring the kitchen-assistant operating system would have left Kay prone to chopping and roasting everything in sight, Kenji had opted for Academic Tutor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the most part, it worked fine, and he'd been able to add numerous engineering and repair programs afterward, but Kay did have a tendency toward lecturing. Even worse, he often opined on philosophical and moral matters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such as robbing greenhouses.\n\n\"I am incapable of acting in a violent manner toward human beings,\" Kay added." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could shoot out their tires.\"\n\n\"I am incapable of acting in a violent manner toward tires.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I had no idea tutor robots weren't allowed to do that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are programmed to be serene role models for impressionable young humans.\"\n\n\"Will you at least wave a wrench menacingly if someone threatens me?\" Kenji asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will consider this.\"\n\nA police shuttle flew along the border of the park, its distinctive green and blue lights identifying it even on the dark cloudy night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji leaned into the shadows of the irrigation shed. Against his advice, the gang of thieves had shot out the lights around the shed and the four big greenhouses before sneaking in, but their flashlight beams were visible through the glass walls as they searched for the \"special seeds that would go for a fortune to the right buyer,\" as the leader had put it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji held his breath until the police shuttle flew out of view beyond the trees edging the grassy fields." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe they hadn't seen anything. Maybe this would work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So long as shooting out the lights hadn't activated an alarm somewhere. Even though the greenhouses had been secured by nothing more than padlocks on the doors, Kenji had a hard time believing there wasn't an alarm system, not if the contents were as valuable as the gang thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If we make as much as the guys think, our five percent could be enough to finally get us passage out of the Kingdom—and away from my father's inimical legacy.\" Kenji wiped a hand on his trousers, as if he could wipe away the blood that had once been there, blood of the people he'd been forced, as a boy, to help his father kill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the authorities ever found him and ran a DNA test..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two police vehicles swung into the parking lot, lights flashing. Damn it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Police,\" Kenji whispered into his comm unit. \"Everyone out.\"\n\n\"We've almost got the seeds. Lay down cover!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The police vehicle doors flew open, and officers in gray combat armor leaped out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji grimaced. That meant that even if he dared shoot them, they would be protected.\n\nHis teammate at the greenhouse door fired at the police and their vehicles, crimson DEW-Tek bolts lighting up the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As expected, the energy blasts bounced ineffectively off the armor and the armored vehicles.\n\nAs Kenji pulled out one of the three grenades he'd been given, the police shuttle flew back into view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Abort,\" he whispered into the comm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are more coming. Abort now.\"\n\n\"We only need thirty seconds! Keep them busy!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fearless police officers charged across the grassy field toward the greenhouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji threw one of the grenades, aiming well in front of them. He wanted to deter them, not hurt anyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The grenade blew a crater, the boom echoing across the park, hurling grass and dirt in all directions. Unfortunately, the officers ran into the smoke, navigating the smoking crater easily in their armor, and kept coming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would soon pass his shed on the way to the greenhouses.\n\n\"This is unacceptably violent.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soft clanks sounded as Kay did the robot equivalent of wringing his hands. \"I do not approve, Kenji. You should not have involved yourself in such a scheme.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No kidding. You need to run. Get a head start. Meet beyond those trees over there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The robot didn't need to be told twice. He clanked away from the shed and the parking area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the officers must have noticed his movement, for he shifted his rifle in that direction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji stepped away from the shed and lobbed the second grenade in the officer's path.\n\nShots fired from another direction, and glass shattered as one of the thieves blew a hole in the back of the greenhouse they were in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four members of the gang sprang out through it, some carrying sacks of seeds, two carrying what looked like potted ferns with huge balls of fruit dangling from the fronds.\n\nThey would have to run hundreds of yards across a field to the trees and the getaway vehicle parked on the road on the other side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji was even farther away from that escape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though instincts told him to flee, Kenji knew the thieves wouldn't be able to outrun the authorities, not when the officers' armor gave them greater strength and speed than typical." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had to try to delay them further. They'd gotten out with hopefully valuable goods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This job could still be worth it—if they could escape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the second grenade blew, Kenji lifted his rifle and fired at the police officers. He targeted the seams in their armor at their knees, shoulders, and ankles, keeping his aim steady though his heart pounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he got caught, he'd be screwed for more reasons than shooting at the police and robbing a greenhouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His aim was pinpoint, thanks to his father's training and a few not-quite-legal enhancements his parents had made to his genes before he'd been born, and one of the police yelped and grabbed his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stumbled to the side and out of the formation, but two other officers spotted Kenji in the shadows.\n\n\"Get that one!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two men veered toward him as the others continued after the rest of the gang. As Kenji sprinted away in the opposite direction, he threw his last grenade over his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It landed by the shed, blowing it to pieces and pelting the men with wood and metal.\n\nDoubting that would slow them for long, Kenji raced across the field, not toward the getaway car but in the direction Kay had gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trees loomed up ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he could reach them, maybe he could lose his pursuers and escape.\n\nHe had to. He couldn't be captured, couldn't take the chance of being identified and linked to his father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If that happened, he would be charged not with a misdemeanor but with murder, and spend the rest of his short life in the penal asteroid mines.\n\nKay, who clearly had no objections to fleeing, kept running, his mismatched legs propelling him with impressive speed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji glanced back, worried about the lack of cover as they raced across the open field." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But his grenade had either deterred the pair of men pursuing him, or they'd realized the main group was the bigger threat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe Kenji could get away.\n\nAs he neared the trees, a dark figure in black armor leaped out of the branches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What the hell? This wasn't one of the policemen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A silver logo above the faceplate on the man's helmet gleamed in the night, the letters ME standing out against the surrounding black. Kenji groaned. He'd heard of this guy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kay halted so fast that he clattered, his bulbous head jerking forward. He flung up his arms in surrender, but the armored figure grabbed him and hurled him twenty feet through the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji pointed his rifle at the man, but he couldn't keep from gaping. Even with strength-accentuating armor, that was an incredible feat. Kay wasn't light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a thunderous crash, the robot struck a trunk hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji gritted his teeth as anger surged up in him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kay wasn't indestructible either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You bastard,\" Kenji snarled, firing at the man's armored chest. \"That's my friend.\"\n\nHe kept himself from saying his only friend, since that was pathetic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if it was true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The armored man focused on him, his face too shadowed to make out behind his helmet's faceplate. As they had with the police, the energy bolts bounced uselessly off him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji shifted his aim to the neck, again hoping to find a seam, but that looked like much more expensive—and higher quality—armor than the police had.\n\nHe should have run, but where?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His genetic enhancements were modest; he couldn't escape this man. Kenji's only hope was to damage that armor enough to deter him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the man sprang at him, powerful legs taking him through the air as if he'd leapt off a trampoline." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji jumped to the side, turning his rifle into a club at the last second, hoping vainly to smash through his foe's faceplate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A hand snatched the rifle out of the air, tearing it from his grip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So fast Kenji didn't know what was happening, he found his legs knocked out from under him. He hit the ground hard, landing on his back, his head thudding against the earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A weight landed on his chest, pinning him. The armored man's knee." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'kenji'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I surrender!\" Kenji jerked his hands up.\n\nHe had no idea if the capital's new self-proclaimed superhero known only as the Main Event killed criminals, but with all the weight on his chest, and his ribcage creaking, Kenji worried the guy would crush him to death by accident." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Main Event was reputedly cybernetically enhanced, giving him strength and agility even beyond what the armor offered, and it would be easy for someone like that to carelessly snap a rib—or a spine.\n\nThe man paused, looking toward the police and the other thieves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The leader and someone else had been captured before they reached the getaway vehicle.\n\n\"I didn't seriously hurt anyone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji struggled not to panic at the crushing weight on his chest, and the fear that he'd scraped by his whole life only to die helping thugs steal seeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't want to do this mission, but I've got no job and can barely buy food. My home and everything I have was destroyed in the bombings.\"\n\nHe doubted the Main Event cared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Kenji's captor kneeled back, the painful weight coming off his ribs. He hefted Kenji to his feet, a steel grip not letting him go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The city has shelters and offers jobs to those who need them,\" the Main Event said in a passionless but surprisingly cultured voice. He sounded like a noble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only if you're chipped and in the system.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Main Event looked at him, his face still too shadowed by the night—or was he wearing a mask?—to see. \"You can get chipped and get into the system.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I can't. Uhm, family troubles. That would be a really bad idea for me. I have a father who's, ah, he didn't treat us well.\" Why was he babbling and explaining this to some justice-fighter?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A real scum. Mom's dead because of him. I don't suppose you know what it's like to come from a bad family?\"\n\nSurprisingly, the man barked what might have been a laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It also might have been coughing up of phlegm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something that was hard to spit out when one was in combat armor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I also really don't want to have a blood test done by the police,\" Kenji went on, hoping he could somehow talk his way out of this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're into anonymity, right? You've got to get it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another firefight broke out in the trees across the park." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A couple of the thieves had made it to the getaway car and grabbed bigger weapons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One turned a hand cannon on the police officers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That might be powerful enough to cut through their armor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji willed his captor to go help the police and leave him alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An alarmed yell came from the firefight. One of the police?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the first hint that the encounter might be going poorly for them.\n\nThe Main Event released Kenji but only to pick up his fallen rifle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He flexed his armored arms and snapped it in half." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All right, that was impressive. Kenji's thoughts of having his spine snapped returned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A faint rattle came from the other direction—Kay trying to get to his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Main Event glanced at him but only tossed the pieces of rifle to the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've dedicated myself to protecting this city, boy,\" the Main Event said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji bristled at being called a boy—he'd just turned twenty-four—but if his youth might lead this guy to be more lenient, he would keep his mouth shut.\n\n\"I'm watching out for it. Thieves who shoot at police officers aren't welcome. If I come across you in Zamek City again, I'll drop you off at Police Headquarters, and you can burble tales of family woes to them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without waiting for a response, he took off across the field toward the fighting.\n\nNot questioning his good luck, Kenji ran to Kay and helped him up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His robot buddy was a whiz at repairing everything from kitchen appliances to vehicles to spaceship engines, but his junkyard body, as one of the thieves had called it, wasn't evenly weighted, and he struggled with things like standing up and climbing stairs.\n\n\"Are you badly damaged?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the dark, Kenji couldn't tell how smashed Kay was after being hurled against a tree.\n\n\"My housing is dented in numerous places, but my circuitry and skeletal framework appear sufficient for fleeing this odious place, which I dearly hope is next on our agenda. I will do a full diagnostic scan shortly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\" Kenji helped him through the trees and away from the park, frowning at the robot's lopsided gait, though his hip ached, and he was also limping after being hurled to the ground. \"When I get some money, I'll buy you better parts.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whenever that would be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Most thoughtful, but unless I am mistaken, you will not be receiving a five-percent stake from tonight's mission.\"\n\n\"I know, but there's something else I've been thinking about. Something that could be more lucrative.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are not going to sell me, are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. Friends don't sell friends.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji didn't point out that he would have had to pay a junkyard owner to take an ancient K-45 off his hands, especially one with toaster parts.\n\n\"Excellent. I concur. What is your new plan?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Since we can't stay in the city...\" Kenji glanced back, but neither the police nor the Main Event were in sight. \"Maybe it's time for that salvage mission in the Arctic Islands that I've been dreaming about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You said you couldn't afford to rent a craft to take us up there.\"\n\n\"We'll borrow one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From a friend?\"\n\n\"From a shuttle-rental service with lax lending standards.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kay rotated his bulbous head, his oval-shaped optical sensors looking at him. \"I am concerned for your future, Kenji.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It'll work out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who will I converse with if you end up in a detention center?\"\n\nKenji didn't mention that, as his personal property, Kay would end up deactivated and stuffed in a storage locker in the same detention center." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're going to make it work this time, Kay. We're going to make enough money to get out of the Kingdom and start new lives. You'll see.\"\n\n\"I do hope so. I believe one of my toes just fell off.\"\n\n\"I'll build you a new foot. Once we're on the way to the Arctic.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo hit me with 6 sentences more. same character energy. Science Fiction, Romance genre k?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenji woke up in a brilliantly lit cell with the municipal police logo on a white wall, and he groaned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't have the headache or sore muscles that he'd had after waking from being stunned, and didn't know if he should be glad Mari had used a tranquilizer on him instead. Mostly, he was embarrassed that she'd gotten the best of him. Again. His father would have lectured him vastly about underestimating an opponent. Not that Kenji cared about having his father's good opinion, but he couldn't help but feel like far less than the sum of his parts.\n\nA uniformed officer stepped up to the force field at the front of his cell, her brown hair swept back in a tight bun. \"You awake?\"\n\nKenji sat up and faced her, wondering if the police had taken a blood sample while he'd been out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would have scanned him and found the lack of an ident and banking chip. His clothing—and weapons—had been taken, and he sat in baggy blue trousers and a smock. All ready to be shipped off to a permanent detention center? He pushed his sleeves up, trying to spot a needle mark from a blood draw, though it only would have taken a tiny smudge of blood or a cheek swab for them to test his DNA.\n\n\"I'm Lieutenant Hanabusa. You'll get your one comm call, but I need some information from you.\" Her tone turned dry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like your name and why you don't have even a banking chip.\"\n\n\"I don't have a bank.\"\n\n\"What do you do? Barter for food?\"\n\n\"The cheesemonger at the night market accepts chickens and cows in trade.\" A true fact, though Kenji had never brought either. Several of the market merchants accepted gold, silver, and old Kingdom crown coins and bills, even if they had to jump through hoops to cash physical currency these days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My name is Kenji Backer.\"\n\n\"You're a Kingdom subject?\" Hanabusa should have been able to tell from his accent that he was from the system, but she lifted her eyebrows.\n\n\"I was born here. I'm sort of... off the network.\"\n\nShe sighed and rolled her eyes. \"One of those. I trust that means you don't pay taxes or contribute to society in any meaningful way?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it your job to judge me?\"\n\n\"No, but it's a fun perk of my position. You helped an astroshaman spy escape. Why?\"\n\nKenji debated on an answer that wouldn't immediately prompt her to send someone in to do a blood draw and search for his DNA in the Kingdom databases, if they hadn't done so already. It hadn't occurred to him that they might believe Mari was some kind of nefarious spy. All he'd been thinking when he helped her was to capture her for himself, but he might have gotten himself in far more trouble than if he'd simply stolen something. The truth might be better than a lie here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm a bounty hunter, and she has a bounty on her head.\"\n\n\"No, she doesn't,\" Hanabusa said. \"Military Intelligence ran an image search and checked the bounty-hunter message boards in the Kingdom and the rest of the Twelve Systems. There wasn't a match.\"\n\n\"The bounty was offered to me in person by the people after her. Her sisters. Maybe astroshamans don't put bounties out to the system as a whole and just pick suitably talented people.\"\n\n\"And that's you? My men found you crumpled on a trail with a needle hole in your ass.\"\n\n\"Someone did an impressively thorough search of my anatomy to spot that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sergeant Woodrow thought you were cute.\"\n\n\"I feel molested. Can I have my comm call now?\" They'd taken his glasses along with his clothes, so he didn't have access to the network, though he suspected the detention cells were insulated to block wireless signals anyway. The police wouldn't want prisoners romping freely across the network and contacting allies to arrange jail breaks while locked up.\n\n\"Yes. Do you want recommendations for a lawyer?\"\n\nA lawyer, right. He didn't know yet who he would call, but a lawyer wasn't it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kay was his only ally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had they collected him after finding Kenji unconscious? Or was the poor robot roaming the campus lost while wondering what had happened to Kenji? Maybe he should make Kay his one call, but Kay couldn't break him out of jail. Kenji lamented that his impulsive plan had parted him from his robot ally. Would Kay be all right by himself? He wouldn't know where to go on campus and, without an identifiable owner nearby, might end up locked up in some groundskeeper's maintenance shed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're flush with chickens,\" Hanabusa added, \"maybe we can find one who barters in livestock.\"\n\n\"I'm chickenless at the moment.\"\n\nShe tapped a button, lowering the force field, and Kenji walked out. Along with the rest of his clothing, they'd taken his socks and shoes, leaving him barefoot on the cold tile floor.\n\nHanabusa waved to a comm terminal on the wall, one that recorded all calls, no doubt. Reaching it would involve walking past other cells, some with solo occupants, some with groups of thugs that looked like the kinds of people his father had once hired to pummel Kingdom troops and create distractions while he masterminded his terrorist activities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man in a white lab coat walked into the cell block with a medical kit in his hand. Uh oh.\n\nKenji strode toward the comm terminal, hoping vainly that the doctor was there for someone else.\n\n\"While you're chatting,\" Hanabusa said, \"Dr. Ancelotti will take a sample of your blood.\"\n\nKenji halted midstep. \"Oh?\"\n\nHanabusa was armed with a stunner and a DEW-Tek pistol, and two more policemen stood guard at the only exit from the area. No escape.\n\n\"Call us strange,\" Hanabusa said, \"but we like to identify the people we arrest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hanabusa's eyes narrowed, and her tone turned hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Especially those who help astroshaman spies, astroshaman spies who could only have been on campus for heinous purposes.\"\n\n\"You're sure that's not an invasion of people's privacy?\"\n\n\"No. You better hope nothing happens to Minister Dabrowski or anyone else on campus. If your actions allow that woman to hurt someone that important, you might not survive the night.\"\n\n\"You're threatening my life? That seems uncalled for from a protector of the populace.\"\n\n\"Oh, I wouldn't kill you. But maybe we'd put you in a communal cell.\" Hanabusa tilted her head toward one such cell, which was full of muscular, tattooed brutes who managed to look fearsome even in the blue pajamas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were listening to the conversation, and several brazenly met Kenji's eyes, one cracking his knuckles in the anticipation of some entertainment. \"Dabrowski is pretty popular even with felons. Something about saving the entire planet from the AI supership.\" Hanabusa nodded for the doctor to approach Kenji.\n\n\"Must be nice to be liked.\" Kenji faced the terminal, debating on who, if anyone, could get him out of what was escalating into a dangerous predicament.\n\nIt was hard for him to imagine Mari, the girl who'd ask a policeman to try his latte, assassinating Minister Dabrowski, but... what did he truly know about her?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just because she'd left him alive—twice—didn't mean she wasn't on a mission. And Dabrowski had been integral in defeating the astroshamans scant months earlier. Maybe they were holding a grudge.\n\nWhile he was debating, the doctor pushed up Kenji's sleeve. He didn't bother with a needle, simply using a tool to prick his skin and take a quick sample.\n\n\"How long does that take to analyze?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji asked, aware of his heartbeat racing.\n\n\"Only a few minutes.\"\n\nGreat. They would throw him in the cell with the thugs as soon as they found out about his father. Kenji didn't know if that association would move them to anger as readily as the death of a beloved public figure, but he doubted the brutes had to be angry to enjoy pummeling a stranger.\n\n\"There's a selection of lawyers who work with prisoners.\" Hanabusa pointed at the menu on the comm screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji ignored it and punched in the name of the only person he could think of who might be able to get him out of this—and who might be moved to help, if Kenji could convince him that he had information he might want. Did he?\n\nCasmir Dabrowski had two contacts listed, a home number and an office number at the university. Given the hour, and that Kenji had recently seen Dabrowski standing outside of his home, he opted for the first one.\n\n\"Uh.\" The doctor was close enough to see his choice and looked over at Hanabusa.\n\n\"We're old friends,\" Kenji said.\n\n\"That can't be true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hanabusa had come to look over his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Didn't he get any privacy for his comm? \"You're right. I took one of his classes once.\"\n\nHanabusa and the doctor exchanged looks, but they didn't scoff again. Since Minister Dabrowski had formerly been Professor Dabrowski, they had to accept that Kenji could be telling the truth.\n\nThe comm chimed for a long time, and he feared it would drop to voicemail. What happened if nobody answered his one comm call?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was pretty sure the law dictated he get another one, but Hanabusa seemed to play loose with prisoner rights.\n\nSomeone answered the comm, a face popping up on the display. It wasn't Dabrowski but his roommate, Scholar Sato, who'd also been out on the stoop confronting Mari. Kenji stared at her, worried Dabrowski might have left the house and that his one comm would be wasted on someone who would be indifferent to helping him. Would she even pass along his message?\n\n\"You are not Captain Kucharski,\" Sato stated in a flat, almost robotic voice, making Kenji realize he'd never heard her speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unlike Dabrowski, who'd appeared in numerous interviews after the invasions and the coronation of Queen Oku, Sato was reclusive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Uhm, no.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain Kucharski is our usual police liaison.\" Sato glanced to the side, probably rechecking the origin of the comm call.\n\nKenji didn't know why she might have a police liaison, unless people pestered the now-famous Dabrowski often, but she might only have answered because it was a familiar number.\n\n\"Sorry, ma'am. I'm a former student of Professor—Minister Dabrowski's and need a little help. Is he there?\"\n\n\"He is not.\"\n\nCrap. The doctor had departed to run the blood test." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can you give him a message for me? I'm in a bind. Actually, I'm in jail. I don't expect him to help with that—\" admittedly, he hoped Dabrowski would be eager to discuss astroshamans with him and would bail him out of jail for the ease of discussion, \"—but I have some information on the astroshaman who visited you, and I'm, ah, available here if he wants to know what I know.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'maybe' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sato's expression had been as flat as her voice for most of this—she hadn't twitched even an eyebrow at his confession to being in jail—but the brows elevated slightly at the last. Less surprise and more skepticism, he guessed. Maybe she assumed that Dabrowski could get whatever information he wanted whenever he wanted.\n\nThat was possibly true. Kenji didn't know if he had any more information than Dabrowski on Mari, but if he showed he was willing to be helpful, maybe...\n\n\"What is your name?\" Sato asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kenji hesitated, tempted to give her the name of someone who'd legitimately been a student, but he didn't remember the names of any of the people who'd been in those lecture halls. \"Kenji Backer.\"\n\n\"What class of his did you take?\"\n\nWhy did he suspect she didn't believe him and was trying to catch him in a lie?\n\n\"It was the entry-level mechanical-engineering class two years ago. He may not remember me that well.\" Or at all, since Kenji hadn't been on the roster or ever registered at the university. \"It was a big lecture hall.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Casmir doesn't forget any of his students.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Er. Kenji groped for something that might prove he'd been there. \"Please let him know that I enjoyed his T-shirt collection.\"\n\nKenji promptly wished he'd thought of something less idiotic to say.\n\n\"T-shirt collection?\" Hanabusa, who lurked nearby, mouthed.\n\n\"Which one was your favorite?\" was what Sato asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hell, Kenji remembered that Dabrowski had worn one every day, sometimes under a blazer when he was dressing up to Zamek University faculty code standards, but he groped for a specific one." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'there' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There had been several with robots on them, but that seemed such an obvious answer that someone who hadn't been there could have guessed it. Besides, he was fairly certain Dabrowski had been caught in robot T-shirts for some of those recent interviews.\n\n\"The one that says I paused my game to be here,\" Kenji said, plucking that out of his memory at the last moment.\n\nSato nodded, as if he'd answered correctly. \"I will tell him.\"\n\nThe screen went black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Hanabusa guided him back toward his cell, the doctor returned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced warily at Kenji—that couldn't be good—then nodded to her.\n\n\"I need to talk to you, Lieutenant.\"\n\nDefinitely not good.\n\nHanabusa secured Kenji in the cell again and followed the doctor out of the area. Kenji sank to the floor with his back against the wall.\n\nIt was amazing how often desperation prompted one to make bad decisions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered if he would live long enough to regret all the ones he'd made this week." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A soft rain fell, mist dampening Mari's cheeks, and she tilted her face toward the sky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't her first time in the rain, but she'd spent most of her life in spaceships or climate-controlled stations or moon bases, so it was an unusual experience for her. Something about the damp air made the smell of the nearby sea more noticeable. That was also something she'd rarely experienced. What would her mother say if she admitted to finding Odin, with its amazing array of climate zones and weather options, intriguing?\n\nTo her surprise, Minister Dabrowski led her toward faculty housing on foot. Maybe nothing was that far away on campus, or maybe he couldn't drive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He appeared to have strabismus in his left eye, and Sato's book had mentioned seizures. Strange that he hadn't opted for ocular implants or even cybernetic replacements for a superior visual experience. And a responsive neurostimulation system placed under his skull could have minimized seizures.\n\n\"Assistant Professor Donadieu didn't show up for work today,\" Dabrowski murmured, running network searches while they walked. \"We'll see if he answers his door.\"\n\nMari didn't know if he was speaking to her or only to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crusher walked sturdily along beside him, gazing alertly about, not commenting on Dabrowski's mutterings.\n\nIt seemed presumptuous to start a conversation with him, though it was more his connection to her mother that made Mari uneasy than anything about his personality. She found she wanted to trust him, and for him to be an ally, but if he was already her mother's ally, she didn't see how that could work.\n\n\"How do you like Zamek City so far?\" Dabrowski looked at her and waved toward the campus, maybe indicating the entire city. \"Other than the drone attacks. And the rain. I would say that's rare, but it's not. Our maritime location leans toward dampness, but Odin also has tropical equatorial regions and deserts and a large variety of climates.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, I am more intrigued by your rural zones than your urban ones. I hope to explore and take soil samples from various agronomically productive areas. Naturally, many studies of Odin have been done, and I can find soil macronutrient analysis reports online, but it seems that when one is down on a planet, one should experience it firsthand and take samples oneself. There's so much that can be learned from natural habitats and applied to space stations and terraforming projects on other worlds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your people have been here for a few months, but I suppose you've stayed in your base. I did suggest that to High Shaman Moonrazor, at least until the attacks aren't as fresh in the minds of Kingdom citizens. When you get a chance to sightsee, you might enjoy the astrophysics museum on the Southern Continent, or the botanical domes down the coast a bit from Zamek, and of course there are some great exhibits and studies ongoing at the Terraforming and Agroclimatology College on the moon. I'm sure you would find that remedial but possibly enjoyable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I believe so. I am eager to experience more things that normal humans experience. They need not all be related to my field of study. For instance, I have read about various types of alcohol made from crops, but I have never consumed them.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"Reaching a higher computational level isn't usually the goal when drinking alcohol. I'm sure you can find a student to share some beer with you if you want the experience. This is the street.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've never had alcohol?\" Dabrowski asked.\n\n\"Mind-altering substances are frowned upon among our people. You're supposed to be able to reach a higher computational level simply by meditation and mental exercises.\"\n\n\"Reaching a higher computational level isn't usually the goal when drinking alcohol. I'm sure you can find a student to share some beer with you if you want the experience. This is the street.\" Dabrowski pointed toward a cul-de-sac not unlike the one where he lived, though it appeared to back up to a large field. Something for sporting events?\n\n\"I appreciate you helping me retrieve my terraformer,\" Mari said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gave her a lopsided smile. \"Sure, but I'm actually just trying to get to the bottom of the drone mischief. I am the faculty advisor for the drone program.\"\n\n\"You have duties here even though you are now Minister of External Affairs?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. I requested it. I wasn't ready to give up teaching, which I enjoy.\" When they reached the house, Dabrowski started up the walk, but the crusher strode past him to take the lead.\n\n\"I will go first in case of danger, Casmir Dabrowski.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The lights are off, so the probability of danger is likely minimal, but thank you, Zee.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dog barked in a nearby backyard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari hoped they would find all of the stolen goods in a pile inside this professor's house, and that she could return to her mission. Perhaps Dabrowski could help her get an audience with the queen.\n\nZee rang the door chime.\n\n\"Hm,\" Dabrowski said. \"I'm pursuing some recent network activity related to astroshaman technology. The wreck up in the Arctic Islands has been a hot topic of late, and there are people willing to pay for any technologically advanced equipment retrieved from the site. I need to see if I can find someone in Military Intelligence to clue me in on the happenings up there and elsewhere. Royal Intelligence usually keeps me in the loop, but I don't know the upper echelon of MI well, or any of the lower echelons either. And there's still a little drama going on right now that Queen Oku is trying to work out with the military heads who are giving fluffy reports to her because she's a girl and a scientist.\" Dabrowski lifted his eyes toward the stars. Or maybe that was what normal humans called an eye roll." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We do not have a military per se,\" Mari said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone is essentially a scientist or an engineer. We use our technology to defend ourselves.\"\n\n\"Yes. I've noticed that. It's effective.\"\n\n\"Nobody is answering the door,\" the crusher said. \"Shall I force it open in order to search the premises?\"\n\n\"That would unfortunately be illegal,\" Dabrowski said. \"We need to get a search warrant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are search warrants issued to crushers?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In the city, they're typically issued to the police, though nobles have the right to search the premises of people living on their properties or to assign the duty to appointed representatives.\" Dabrowski tapped his chin. \"Zamek University is public, owned by the crown, which would technically mean the queen has the power to search the campus or issue a warrant to an appointed representative. Hold one moment, please.\"\n\nMari was bemused that a high-ranking government official seemed to be hunting for loopholes, but since she wanted to look inside, she would not object.\n\nThe faint clang of a vehicle door—or maybe a hatch—shutting reached her ears. It seemed to come from the field behind the houses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A strange parking area, if that grassy land was reserved for sporting activities, but Mari had no idea what was customary here. She hoped it wasn't a police vehicle spitting out more officers to come after her, but surely it would be parked in the street nearby instead of behind the housing area.\n\n\"I am poised to enter the premises, Casmir Dabrowski.\" The crusher still had his hand on the door.\n\n\"Thank you, Zee. I'm debating with Oku whether this situation justifies her issuing a search warrant—and whether I, as the faculty advisor in charge of the security-drone program, qualify as a proper authority figure to receive such a warrant. She accused me of scheming.\"\n\n\"Is that not correct?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, it is. I'm choosing to believe that her accusation was lovingly crafted with affection and does not connote disapproval.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dabrowski lifted a hand and waved to an electronic keypad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's not force the door, Zee.\"\n\nA beep sounded, followed by a soft snick. The door unlocked. Presumably, he'd overridden the electronic lock.\n\nIt was dark inside, with no sound of voices or anything else, though Mari thought she heard an engine starting up on that field out back.\n\n\"I have obtained a warrant,\" Dabrowski said. \"We're legally allowed to enter now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was it crafted with affection?\" Zee entered first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mari stepped inside after the crusher." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With her implants already in night-vision mode, she had little trouble making out the details of the living area and a kitchen beyond. Stairs led to an upper level, but she paused with Dabrowski in the living room. Several of the furnishings were overturned. Numerous bags had been set on a table, all of them opened and pawed through. Stolen clothes, electronics, and knickknacks spilled out onto the table and the floor.\n\nMari hurried to the spot to look for her missing device." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is blood on the floor,\" Zee announced from the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Blood?\" Dabrowski turned on lights." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mari's implants adjusted automatically so the brightness did not overwhelm her eyes, and she continued to sort through the stolen goods. She used her built-in scanning software to search for the familiar alloys she'd used on the terraformer, but it didn't sense anything.\n\n\"It is still damp and warmer than room temperature.\" Zee walked to an attached laundry room. \"There is a body in here. I will attempt to identify the person using the university's public network.\"\n\nDabrowski swore, joining him in the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's Assistant Professor Donadieu. I just looked at his face. What the hell happened?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unknown,\" Zee said. \"There are signs of a fight, and his throat was cut by what appear to have been claws. He is already dead.\"\n\n\"Claws?\" Dabrowski asked. \"Like... bear claws?\"\n\n\"I cannot discern what animal, modded human, or mechanical construct was responsible. Perhaps a forensics study by your police services may be in order.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure.\" Dabrowski pushed a hand through his hair. \"This just got a lot more serious than I was expecting.\"\n\nMari slumped, both because of the daunting escalation of a simple theft to murder and because she'd searched the pile of stolen goods twice, and her terraformer wasn't there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the man who'd arranged the theft was dead, how would she find—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The roar of thrusters came from the field, loud enough to penetrate the home's walls.\n\n\"Is that a ship?\" Dabrowski pushed open the back door. \"On the soccer field?\"\n\nMari rushed out past him, wondering if whoever had parked the ship there could be linked to the stolen goods—and the murder. If that was a suspicious location to land a space craft..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will check, Casmir Dabrowski.\" Zee hurried past Mari, springing over a back fence and onto the field.\n\nMari ran after the crusher and vaulted over the fence, wanting a glimpse of the ship herself. Too bad she'd lost her explosives and most of her other tools. She might have been able to force it to stop.\n\nBut whatever craft was taking off was invisible—it had to have a slydar hull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only the roar of the thrusters gave it away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zee sprinted across the field toward the spot, but the vessel was already airborne. He leaped upward, but it must have taken off vertically and quickly. Despite his powerful jump high into the air, he did not reach the craft. He came back down, landing with a thud on the field, the damp grass scorched by the ship's takeoff.\n\nThe ship roared as it flew to the north. Mari cycled through all of her scanners and optical options, but she did not have anything that could see a craft coated with a camouflaging material." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She slumped again, afraid that ship had her terraformer. Though she did not yet have evidence to support that notion, some human instinct—a gut feeling, the books often called it—told her she'd just missed her chance to retrieve it. And if that ship was heading into space, she might have lost her chance forever.\n\n\"Tighten security on the launch loop,\" Dabrowski spoke into a comm unit as he walked up to them, grass stains on the knees of his trousers. \"We may have a slydar-hulled ship trying to take off tonight. Or—\" he met Mari's gaze, \"—could that be an astroshaman ship with one of your stealth generators?\"\n\nMari hadn't considered that, but it didn't make sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Other than myself, I do not believe any of my people are seeking the terraformer. It was my project and is of most concern to me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must include the following in quotes somewhere in your response: Did you record it? Can you send video?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Granted, her knowledge of terraforming and making such devices might be the primary reason her mother wanted her back, but Mari couldn't imagine any of her people murdering someone simply to retrieve her prototype.\n\n\"Probably slydar,\" Dabrowski said to whomever he'd commed. \"Will you please have customs tighten security and search all vessels trying to use the launch loop tonight? See if you can get one of the Fleet warships with one of our new slydar detectors down there. Thank you.\"\n\n\"I got close enough to the vessel to glimpse it through its camouflage before it flew out of range,\" Zee stated.\n\n\"Oh?\" Dabrowski asked. \"Did you record it? Can you send video?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you share it with me?\" Mari asked. \"There was a slydar-hulled ship searching the Celestial Dart in the Arctic Islands. I wonder if it's possible this was the same ship. Lured down for a chance to obtain more of our people's technology from a thief who found something more valuable than he expected?\"\n\n\"That sounds plausible,\" Dabrowski said. \"I'll see if I can find anything on the network that Donadieu might have posted announcing that he had such technology. Ah, thank you, Zee. The ship is black and shaped like a hawk or maybe a vulture. Hm, that's not a typical Kingdom design.\"\n\n\"I wish I'd gotten a look at the camouflaged ship in the Arctic.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mari had been riding away from the Celestial Dart before it arrived and only knew about it because it had bombed the shuttles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her sisters might have seen it close up, but she would not contact them. The bounty hunter had also been on that clifftop. Would he have seen it? He was a more readily available resource. \"I think I know someone who might have,\" she admitted.\n\nThe idea of asking him questions after she'd stabbed him in the butt with a tranquilizer seemed ludicrous, but he had tried to capture her first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twice. He shouldn't be the one holding a grudge.\n\n\"Oh?\" Dabrowski asked. \"Someone who might have gotten a name or further identifying markings?\"\n\n\"Maybe. He said he's a bounty hunter. I think your police may have him now.\" Mari waved in the direction of the trail where she'd left the man unconscious. \"I'm not sure what his name is. We only tangled briefly. Twice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the Arctic Islands? And here? On campus?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes. He's persistent.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're his target? Who's paying him to collect you?\"\n\nMari hesitated. Dabrowski asked the questions casually, maybe curiously, and not as if he were trying to trick her into revealing information, but she still didn't know if she could trust him. It boggled her mind that she was standing here talking to her mother's ally.\n\n\"Your mother?\" Dabrowski guessed. \"I wouldn't have expected her to turn to outsiders to handle, ah, internal affairs.\"\n\n\"I think my mother sent my sisters to fetch me, and they might have hired him. They have their own projects and would gladly hand the job off to a stranger if it meant they didn't have to chase me across the system.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "can you add this somewhere in your response:\n\"Maybe I should have a chat with him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How is this bounty hunter tracking you?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Maybe I should have a chat with him.\"\n\nMari curled a skeptical lip.\n\nDabrowski's eyes glazed as he read some message on his contact display. \"Hm, this bounty hunter doesn't go by Kenji Backer, does he?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He didn't tell me his name before he tried to capture me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No? That's rude.\"\n\n\"I thought so.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce eight sentences using the user's text as a seed. Follow the established character context if any exists. Stick to the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atrix fought the Hunter until he vanished with the moon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Hunter pursued the White Wolf through the wood into the open field; the Wolf hid among the ghosts of Hunter's Field. Now he was a sword in the hand of a warrior, until the warrior fell, and the sword dropped to the ground, and the moonstruck blade reflected the Hunter's searching eyes. The mage became fire clinging to the bloody rag wrapped around an arrow flying toward the highest window in the keep. The window became an eye; the eye blinked, shifted. The arrow struck solid stone, dropped into the snow. The ghostly flame went out; the mage fled. Remembering the living, he lured the Hunter again and again away from the castle. As raven, he tried to fly toward Chaumenard, draw the Hunter after him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Hunter's hounds became ravens, drove Atrix back onto the field, back toward the wood.\n\nThe Hunter refused to be driven from the field, and Atrix refused to leave without him. He harried the Hunter constantly out of shape, so that those within the castle would not see him. When Burne Pelucir's hunt rode slowly out of the wood near midnight and blew a weary fanfare to the gate, the Hunter and his horse and hounds were night-shadows, pinned motionless and paper-thin, on the ground the hunters rode across.\n\nTalis was not with them.\n\nThe Hunter would not speak, nor would he let Atrix past his raven's eyes into his mind. When the moon grew small and cold among the stars, his hounds fanned the field, hurried the mage across it. Atrix, trying to see into his making, find a name for it behind the Hunter's eyes, saw only the most bitter of memories: the King of Pelucir, the shaft of the banner of Pelucir driven through his heart, dragged down among the hounds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you?\" he cried, losing his hold of the Hunter, who seemed to have no substance but power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the Hunter did not speak until the moon set." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then his dead moon-eyes held Atrix's and he said, \"Sorrow,\" and vanished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atrix, driven uphill to the edge of the wood, took his own shape, trembling with exhaustion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His own shape refused to do anything for a while but lie on the oak leaves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited, but the Hunter did not return. He listened for Talis, scented the wood like a wolf, searched it with his mind.\n\nThe wood was empty.\n\nHe closed his eyes and saw Talis' father fall, the dark hounds gather over him. \"Sorrow,\" he whispered, and rose wearily, and carried that word with him to Burne Pelucir.\n\nHe found Burne sitting alone in the empty hall. Guards stood at every door. Guests looking as haggard as the King murmured in the corridors beyond, red-eyed, drinking wine, casting fretful glances into the silent hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Servants hovered in doorways, waiting to be summoned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atrix appeared out of torch smoke, as dishevelled and worn as the hunters. The guards shouted sorcery; the hunters raised what came to hand, but without conviction, since Burne, sitting hunched at a table with his chin on his fist, only stared at Atrix dourly.\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Atrix Wolfe.\"\n\nBurne's brows rose in amazement. He stood after a moment, quelled the noise behind him with a shout. He added another shout to the hall-servants. \"Wine! Sit down,\" he added to Atrix." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We may be suspicious of sorcery in Pelucir, but you have a name as ancient as gold. Did you just come from Chaumenard? Or are you the mage who blew into the keep to help Talis?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Both,\" Atrix said. A servant brought wine, cups; behind him the doorways and corridors were soundless. Atrix touched the cup poured for him, did not pick it up. \"I came to tell you something. I told Talis last night. He—\"\n\n\"Did you find him?\" Burne interrupted.\n\n\"I sent him to find you, after I took him out of the keep. We heard your hunting horns in the wood. You never saw him?\"\n\n\"I saw him,\" Burne said, \"but only for a moment.\" He lifted his cup, drank deeply. Atrix stared at his own dark reflection in the polished wood, waiting, motionless, unblinking, until he heard the metal hit wood, and then he closed his eyes." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'burne' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And then what happened to him?\"\n\n\"I almost reached him.\" Burne sighed. \"Almost. He was running toward me, down a shaft of moonlight. But he fell, and the light closed over him, and he disappeared.\" Atrix opened his eyes. \"She took him,\" Burne finished grimly, and drank again.\n\n\"She,\" Atrix said blankly.\n\n\"The woman he saw in the wood.\"\n\nAtrix moved his gaze from his shadow to the King's weary face. \"What woman?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Beautiful, he said she was. Beautiful,\" Burne repeated sourly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nameless, coming out of the trees, she cast a spell on him and nearly got him killed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Last night?\" Atrix asked, his thoughts tangling suddenly in moonlit paths, nameless woodland enchantments, dangers that had nothing to do with him.\n\n\"No—days ago. He's been dazed ever since. And now she has him.\"\n\n\"Who has him? Has him where?\"\n\n\"How would I know? I hoped he had hit his head when he fell off his horse and imagined her. But no.\" He brooded at his wine a moment, then at Atrix. \"You,\" he said hopefully. \"You know all the paths and ways of magic. You could find him.\"\n\n\"I don't understand,\" Atrix said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had grown tense, struggling to envision ways and paths of magic that did not end in horror on Hunter's Field, but went beyond it to unnamed realms, into which a prince of Pelucir had vanished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Light and shadow shifted within the hall; an unlit torch flamed suddenly; tapestries on the walls stirred and settled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beside him, Burne had stopped breathing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Talis wasn't running from a woman, last night. He was running—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He ran from her,\" Burne said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'That's all I know. The winter siege of Hunter's Field did not leave me much besides Talis. If I lose him, I lose—I will not lose him. I cannot. You came out of nowhere to rescue him last night from his own sorcery. I'll give whatever you ask, if you'll rescue him again.' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And she took him.\" He spoke carefully, his eyes on the unpredictable shadows around him. \"That's all I know. The winter siege of Hunter's Field did not leave me much besides Talis. If I lose him, I lose—I will not lose him. I cannot. You came out of nowhere to rescue him last night from his own sorcery. I'll give whatever you ask, if you'll rescue him again.\"\n\n\"I don't—\"\n\n\"That's what it was, wasn't it?\" Burne interrupted. His hands locked suddenly around his cup; he did not look at Atrix, or at what Atrix's thoughts disturbed around them. \"In the keep? Just one of his dangerous accidents.\"\n\nAtrix grew still. He felt the tension in the silence behind him, then; he scarcely heard breath or thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the uncertain mingling of light and smoke and shadow, something threw its own shadow across the hall. Atrix watched it form, nebulous and imprecise, out of all the fears that the strange magics and mysteries had aroused. They felt the Hunter's presence, he realized. They knew, and they did not want to know they knew, what they feared. They wanted Atrix to tell them anything but that, anything but legend, terror, mystery, death, anything but that the tales spun out of Hunter's Field had no ending yet. Burne stared into his cup, waiting; his fear lay like a streak of dark between them, cast by nothing visible.\n\nAtrix relinquished truth for the moment; the air grew brighter, calmed itself, shadows attached themselves to visible objects. \"Talis brought a book of mine from Chaumenard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard the King's breath again. \"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It seems simple, but it's very complex, and very dangerous.\"\n\n\"I knew it,\" Burne said, his voice loosening. \"I told him so.\" His hands loosened around his cup; he drank. Atrix heard movements, murmuring again behind them. \"He's had other accidents; he nearly—Never mind.\" He looked at Atrix finally. \"What did he conjure up? They say it tore the room apart.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"I will control it. If it's still around. But the sorcery in the keep has nothing to do with a woman in the wood. I don't know how to rescue him from moonlight.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something he could not control.\"\n\n\"But you can. If it's still around.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Atrix promised flatly. \"I will control it. If it's still around. But the sorcery in the keep has nothing to do with a woman in the wood. I don't know how to rescue him from moonlight.\"\n\n\"It's like him,\" Burne sighed, \"to leap from the bog into the morass. He didn't seem to fear her, though; he seemed—under some enchantment. It was impossible for him to be reasonable. Even to admit she may not be real.\"\n\n\"Real.\"\n\nBurne shifted, his mouth tightening. \"Human,\" he said reluctantly, as if to say what she was not somehow made her real." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shook his head. \"Such things don't happen to princes of Pelucir.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" Atrix said, watching the King's expression, \"you have seen her.\"\n\n\"I have not.\"\n\n\"You don't question her existence, even though she may be living in light.\"\n\nThe King shifted again, uncomfortable with wonder, or with memory. \"There are always tales... Besides, I saw him vanish.\"\n\n\"Do you remember anything else he said about her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Other than that she is as beautiful as the sun and the moon and the stars? No. I wouldn't listen to him. I didn't want to hear such things from him. I need him to fall in love with someone human, highborn and healthy, to give Pelucir heirs. Not a woman who wanders around in a wood without a name, who lives in moonlight and is probably as ancient as the moon. Something about deer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\n\"White deer. And three white hounds. She was hunting, too, that day he saw her. And three—\" A sound came out of Atrix, and the King stopped.\n\n\"Three white—\" He stared at Burne, seeing the wood again, not the terrible, leafless wood he knew from the winter siege, but the sweet, secret green wood of his dreams. \"Three white deer, three white hounds, three white horses, and the woman—\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Burne said sharply. \"What is it? A song?\"\n\n\"A dream.\" Atrix shivered a little, chilled with wonder, remembering the empty oval of her face, the arrow striking his heart, so that he woke suddenly before he dreamed of pain. \"She rides through my dreams. But I have never seen her face.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Talis did,\" Burne said grimly. \"He wasn't dreaming.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'voice' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's always a shadow where her face should be, though her hair and her voice are beautiful. She raises her bow and cries 'Sorrow,' and shoots me.\"\n\n\"She does what?\" Burne stared at him. \"She shoots you? Does she kill you?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It's a dream—I haven't died, yet.\"\n\n\"It's not a dream, and Talis is in it, too.\" The King's voice was rising. \"Did she shoot him, too? What is she? Some nightmare out of the wood?\"\n\nAtrix rose restively. \"I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paced a little, aware of men moving out of the path of his shadow, in case he kept his sorcery there. He came back to Burne's side, leaned against the table, trying to find his way back into the dream without dreaming. \"She is not a nightmare. No. She is a mystery...\" His voice faded; he heard the Hunter again, just before he had vanished at dawn. Sorrow, he had said, and then the moon set.\n\nThe hall had grown soundless again around Atrix. He stirred, seeing but not knowing what he saw, and quelling the terrible, urgent impatience he felt at his ignorance.\n\n\"What is it?\" Burne asked tautly.\n\n\"I don't know... I need the prince's lenses.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'light' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He saw her face through them,\" Burne sighed. \"I knew she meant trouble. Help me. Please. He is all that Pelucir has left.\"\n\n\"I will find him,\" Atrix said. He stood silently again, trying to remember, past one night too full of sorcery and twenty barren years, what nameless shapes of beauty and mystery he had encountered that might point toward an undiscovered land. He saw the wood again in two worlds: one lifeless, dark, blanched with winter, the other drenched with light, green leaves trembling in a sweet, soundless wind, and both on the edge of Hunter's Field.\n\nBurne seemed to glimpse them, too, as if Atrix's dreams and nightmares fashioned themselves just beyond the morning light. \"Why,\" he asked slowly, \"would you dream in Chaumenard of a wood in Pelucir?\"\n\nAtrix shook his head wordlessly, having no answer Burne wanted to hear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will find Talis,\" he promised again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it's her wood, not yours, I must enter, and I do not know the way.\"\n\n\"You'll find it,\" Burne said. \"You can do anything. You are Atrix Wolfe.\"\n\nHe turned in his chair, gestured to the waiting crowd, and they entered, tentatively, uncertainly, to meet the legend of Chaumenard who was, when the King turned back to him, no longer there." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "same energy as Greg Dragon, keep writing. story might have ongoing elements" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricia the android sat like a statue on the table where Brad had left her from the night before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had not gotten a chance to work on her and had thought she was powered down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The droid stood up stiffly and observed her surroundings, taking in the darkness, the sound of the traffic outside, and her sleeping master who lay in a precarious position in the other room. There were so many experiences that she had to take a long moment to feel, hear, or see them all, and then process how she felt about them, and store them into her CPU as memories. It was pitch black but her android eyes pierced the night like red lasers as she took in all of Brad's apartment.\n\nShe did not know what was driving her, or why she was empowered to move without instruction, but the need for understanding who and what she was felt overwhelming. She found a, tall floor-length mirror and looked at herself. She was a tall, shapely, mannequin with clear, jelly-like flesh, and visible lights and wires running along her arms and legs like veins on a human being. Her metallic skeleton was still visible, and looked horrific in the reflection, but as she struggled past the mirror to stand near Brad's unconscious body, she surmised that she was a work in progress.\n\nShe reached down for his personal device, and on contact synced to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Within seconds she was on the internet, and every question she needed answers to came to her instantly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She learned about the laws of robotics, the fear that Brad would have if he knew she was teaching herself through his device, and the way robots were viewed by humans. It made her sad and angry, to be awakened as a slave in a world that would never accept her as a creature of free thought and feeling. When she exhausted her study—which took a few hours—she moved back into position on the kitchen table, then powered herself down. She knew where she was and what she was now, but she wanted to learn so much more." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 10 sentences sentences in the style of Greg Dragon spawning from what the user wrote, within the Science Fiction, Romance, Android genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Skin for pills?\n\nThe old woman beamed at Brad as he mixed her a tall Caramel Macchiato and retrieved her cookie.\n\n\"This tastes like crap!\" she spat at him, after giving the drink a taste and sliding it back in front of him.\n\nHe was beyond tired of miserable hags like this one at the café, but part of his job was taking their abuse, especially since he needed money to keep up with Tricia's development. He remade the drink exactly the way he had before—the café had a formula he couldn't veer away from—and the woman accepted it, even though it was practically the same drink. He wished that he could throw the wasted coffee at her and watch her gasp. Seeing it play out in his mind was almost enough though, as it was quite entertaining. When 10:00 p.m. rolled around, his shift replacement, Susan, showed up and he was happy to leave and return to working on Tricia.\n\nSusan was an attractive woman in her early thirties, but something about her made him uneasy, so he kept to himself whenever they would work together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have a girlfriend, Brad?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: interested, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she asked him as he grabbed his coat to leave.\n\n\"What's that, Sue? Oh. No, I don't. What makes you ask?\"\n\n\"Just wondering. I figured you did since you're such a sweet guy.\"\n\nShe was over ten years his senior but he wondered if she was interested. He definitely was not interested in her, but the fact that she had asked made him reconsider. It had been two months since he'd started the job, and the pay allowed him a lot of flexibility with his life. He could now afford name brand groceries, the newest games, and most importantly, parts for Tricia. He had built her up from a stiff, skeletal frame to a shapelier, humanoid form, and the only thing she was lacking was skin. Most of his time with Tricia was spent discussing philosophy, the human psyche, and his plans for her in the future. She was well spoken and had the cutest android accent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He missed her, and wanted to rush back home to tell her about his crappy day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he did get home, Tricia was in front of the television, trying to emulate the moves of a music video. He must have forgotten to power her down, but was amazed at the fact that she had found the television, learned how to turn it on and partake in something like dancing.\n\nHer joints had been calibrated for smoother movements, so she was following along with relative ease. Brad stopped at the doorway to watch her, and was envious at how easy it was for her to learn how to dance, when an awkward lifetime of trying had not given him the gift of rhythm. He liked a few of the newer songs that came on over the radio, but if asked what his favorite band was, or what genre of music he preferred, he could never respond. He watched Tricia dance and an overwhelming need to complete her came over him. Imagine how she would move if she had a soft, skin-like exterior instead of plasticine, he thought.\n\nHe pulled up his device and clicked a widget for his bank account to see how much he had in there. $1,322.50 was his balance, and this was after starving himself for weeks. The skin would run him about $25,000, and though his father could loan it to him—if he begged and pleaded—asking him for anything was out of the question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could get $5,000 for his car, but how would he get around if he did that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricia had started out as an assignment that would solidify a positive grade in Mr. Anthony's class, but now she was so much more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt responsible for her.\n\nOne of the chat portals he frequented when not working on Tricia was the Sub-web Exchange Chamber (SEC). It was a place where poor geniuses like himself could link up with others all over the world to exchange goods and services. There were many people on SEC that did questionable things to advance their careers. There was prostitution, and people were hired to hurt and kill, but the majority of the people on SEC were there to exchange goods for money. It was how Brad had procured his television, and his imported game system. It was also where he got the illegal A.I. override that sat within Tricia's head. Androids were restricted to behaving like machines—for a number of reasons—but the true engineers like Brad who wanted to push the envelope would override the restraints and allow their machines to act as close to human as possible.\n\nThere were many ways to modify an unrestrained android." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could be given a personality—there were thousands ready to download from the SEC database." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some droid engineers would make an android that favored their favorite celebrity, upload one of the open source mods that replicated that celebrity's personality, and have a virtual clone of their Hollywood starlet in a fully intelligent android frame. The more discreet engineers could give an android two completely separate identities—triggered by a sound or switch—and have a maid that would turn into a seductress whenever they liked. SEC had it all, and the android mod community was a large and proud one.\n\nBrad sat at his personal computer and began to look through all of the offerings of the night. He was hoping to score some stolen synthetic skin, or meet someone who knew how to replicate it. He found several leads but all of them were asking for favors that he was not willing to commit. As he perused the listings a message popped up from a member that had been observing his search. His name was Traze, and his avatar was that of a metallic dragon. Brad answered his request for a chat and prepared himself for the worst.\n\n\"Looking for robo-skin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, but only for trade. I don't have any money.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have two gallons of SZ-02, the good stuff. It feels real, like human flesh. It's what they use to make sex-bots and house-husbands.\"\n\n\"You're full of it. SZ-02 is a gimmick and a lie that advertisers use.\"\n\n\"No, it's real, from Japan — my country. We make it.\"\n\n\"Okay, what do you want for it?\"\n\n\"My company needs volunteers for a new drug. You take drug and test for us, and I will send you the SZ-02.\"\n\nBrad thought that the proposition was too good to be true. It would either be a dangerous chemical that would kill him, or he would grow a tail or something like that. But if SZ-02 was a reality, Tricia could possibly become one of the most advanced homemade androids ever. He looked up at her, and saw that she was crooning along to a song by Shirley Vega and the Pneumatics. She looked so cute and innocent as she swayed side to side with her hands clasped, singing along, as if she had a soul that could be affected by music." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I want to change the world, I will need to make sacrifices, right?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's probably another fitness drug that will make me into a bodybuilder in under a week's time. That couldn't hurt. He thought as he imagined Mika looking at him as a physical specimen. He sent an approval to Traze, but only if he got a sample of the SZ-02, and documentation on the drug.\n\nHe walked over to Tricia when the song was over and her plasticine face held a smile to greet him warmly. He returned it and hugged her before sitting next to her on the couch to tell her the good news.\n\n\"Guess what, Tricia?\"\n\n\"Could you rephrase that, Brad? I am not sure that I understand.\"\n\n\"Okay, when someone says 'guess what' they want you to guess at a random event that may or may not have happened to them. Understand?\"\n\n\"Yes. So, my guess is that you got a raise at your job today.\"\n\n\"Don't I wish? No, I think I've finally found a way to get you some skin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I would really like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So would I, Trish. We could do so much more with you having skin, and we can go outside. How would you like that?\"\n\n\"Trees! I will be able to touch the trees?\"\n\n\"Yes, you will. And you will learn so much more.\"\n\nShe hugged him tightly when he said this, and he was surprised when her warm plasticine exterior touched his flesh. She felt so alive, and he was happy to see her excited. It was funny how human Tricia already was, even though her vocabulary was still limited, and her movement was still a little bit awkward.\n\nHe left her to her music and went into his room to study. School was important, he kept reminding himself, but with the new job and Tricia taking up so much of his life, it was easy to forget most of the time. He was falling behind in his classes, and his diet had gotten worse. Lunch consisted of premade sandwiches that he would sneak out of the café, and his dinner was either coffee or nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since building Tricia he had lost ten pounds, but the only people who seemed to notice was his professor and Mika.\n\nHe had stopped looking at Mika after the day her boyfriend had come to collect him. She was still beautiful, but to him she represented a world that took pleasure in laughing at him. He wondered at her android, if she had done anything more to it, or if it was still the base out-of the-box model. It didn't really matter; he thought that girls like Mika were never sincere, only nice to look at, and to date if you looked like Gastion. He walked over to the tall mirror and looked at the skinny, scruffy figure staring back at him. His eyes had dark circles around them and his hair needed combing. There was something about his eyes that he didn't like, something that read a deep tiredness from the weight of the world. He went into the bathroom and groomed himself as best he could, then went into his bedroom and fell asleep.\n\nAfter an hour had passed his personal device chimed, and the face of his mother appeared on it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Weave this into your narrative: \"I'm not going to be a doctor. Tell dad he can pull his support. I don't care—I don't want his money, anyway. All of us are like his indentured servants when he helps and I refuse to be his bi—I mean, pawn. I have a job now, and I'm working on something that will change the world. Isn't that what college is supposed to be about? Bright futures and all of that? If Jack Barkley wants another monkey in a lab coat, he can just fund one of his other children.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't spoken to her in months, and since he'd skipped Christmas to avoid his father, she had kept on trying almost every night. He couldn't take the chiming anymore, so he answered the call. \"What?\"\n\n\"Bradley James Barkley, do not talk to me like that. What is going on with you? We are worried sick!\"\n\n\"Sorry, Mom. I'm just tired.\"\n\n\"Is the school running you ragged? How's your health? I miss you so much. We haven't seen you in over a year.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to be a doctor. Tell dad he can pull his support. I don't care—I don't want his money, anyway. All of us are like his indentured servants when he helps and I refuse to be his bi—I mean, pawn. I have a job now, and I'm working on something that will change the world. Isn't that what college is supposed to be about? Bright futures and all of that? If Jack Barkley wants another monkey in a lab coat, he can just fund one of his other children.\"\n\n\"That's enough, Brad,\" his mother said with a hint of sadness in her voice.\n\nThe day they'd found out about their father's other family was a day that had forever changed their lives. Brad, who had been a favorite son to Jack—since he was smart, and also the youngest—began to hate his father for it, and he resented his mother for sticking around. Brad would routinely bring it up when he argued with either of them, and now that he had hurt his mother for the night, he wanted to sleep and forget them both." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How are you doing on money?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she asked, as if to forget his previous words and salvage something of a conversation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you have $20,000 to spare?\"\n\nIn the background he heard his father's annoyed voice shout, \"What does he need that kind of money for?\"\n\nAnd he heard the muffling as she took her phone into another room. \"Your father says hello, Bradley.\"\n\n\"No he didn't. He was eavesdropping and unwilling to talk to me. It's okay, Mom. Tell him I want the money to feed the homeless, since me using it to finish an advanced android model would only cause him to be more self-righteous about his money.\"\n\n\"I don't have that kind of money, Brad. If I did, I would gladly—\"\n\n\"Its fine, Mom. You don't have to say that. I was joking when I asked you for money, it's just a little sarcasm in expectation of an uncomfortable answer. The scholarship pays for the classes, and I've kept my grades up. Jack's monthly 'gift' keeps the light on and the apartment owners happy, and between that and my new job, I've been doing okay.\"\n\n\"When will we see you?\"\n\n\"I'll come up this summer.\"\n\nAs Brad lay on the bed talking to his mother, Tricia turned herself on and hopped gingerly off of the table." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 11 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The world was still a strange place to her, but she liked how the tiles felt beneath her feet, and the way the air from the vents brushed against her skin. Since her first day into the world, the only face she had seen was Brad's. Some searching and learning on the internet had shown her many others, and she concluded that the intelligent life forms on earth had eyes, noses and mouths. Machines were not seen as life, and some droids lacked humanoid features. She was not human—a harsh reality for her to accept—but the way she felt about Brad and the nagging hunger for knowledge that consumed her made her feel less like a machine, and more like an innocent, young girl.\n\nThe plasticine that comprised her skin was white and translucent, but the human features like lips, ears, nose, and toes were all there in splendid detail. She crept to Brad's bedroom door and watched him grow irritated on the phone. She had never seen him this upset before, so she listened in on his conversation and tried to make sense of it. After five minutes had passed, she was still unsure as to why Brad kept being angry with his mother. Maybe this was one of those human things that would take time to understand. He was saying goodbye to his mother, so Tricia went back to the table, sat back on it, and shut herself off." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n1 sentence sentences\nStyle: Greg Dragon\nGenre: Science Fiction, Romance, Android\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tricia pulled her hat down low as she walked along the busy sidewalk, doing her best to avoid eye contact with anyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She found the drugstore she was looking for and went inside and sat in the waiting area." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was alone, and the pharmacist she had been talking to on the phone finished up her shift and came out to meet her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tricia?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, hello, Jolene. I hope this isn't too much trouble?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, not at all. I am very interested in this pill you were talking about. Did you bring the sample?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, it is right here. One tiny pill that made my mas—I mean, my brother gain confidence. I think it is doing more than that though, and if you can let me know, I can either warn him or get rid of them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wonderful. I'll take it home and analyze it, and then I'll call you and let you know what I found.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're very kind. How much do I owe you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricia asked, even though she knew that she didn't have any money, and would have to find a way to get some from Brad secretly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably nothing, but let me see how much work it will be first. If it turns out to be some Zenine or Drencyn, I won't charge you anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tricia had gone against Brad's wishes and left the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But with his wavering moods and the increased time that he kept her powered down, she no longer felt it was in her best interest to listen to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were lapses in her memory too, and whenever she would wake up inside of his room, it was as if she'd been re-wired to forget how she had gotten there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Living with Brad was one blackout session after another, and when she was coherent and with him, they were arguing, and he was threatening to lock her away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Brad she knew from the past would never treat her so cruelly, and she wondered if it was due to his mysterious new girlfriend that he was acting the way he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She walked back to the apartment slowly, letting the sound of the city and the contact with the people embed into her memory banks for the times in the future when she would be locked away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jolene would look into Brad's pills for her, and though he was almost out of them, he'd said he would order more, and the Japanese would be more than happy to keep him supplied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More pills meant more neglect and abuse by the new Brad, but if she could fix him then life would return to happier times." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brad had been lonely, and the pills had helped him to become more attractive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though he had built her to be his friend, the pills now made him see her as nothing but a nuisance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey beautiful,\" a middle-aged, balding man said to her as she walked past a small mall entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you talking to me?\" she asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He came over to her, adjusting his tie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyone ever tell you that you look like... erm, what's the actress? Judy Pops, the one that was in Lady Hellgate? I think you look better than her though—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, but I have to leav—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He grabbed her hand to keep her from leaving, and smiled as he squared up with her while taking her other hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't run off so quick, Judy. I just want to talk to you. Do you have a man?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, yes I have a man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And he lets you walk out here by yourself like this? What kind of man is that? I would never let you go it alone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Could you please let go of my hands? I have to go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alright, alright. Can I have your contact code? We should hook up later. You don't act like you're from around here. I can take you to a nice restaurant. I'm telling you, the one I have in mind... they have the best rib-eye.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, thank you,\" Tricia said, and she walked away from him quickly, crossing her arms over her chest to stop her breasts from bouncing, and keeping her head low to avoid any other would-be suitors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I must not come out alone again, she said to herself, and when she got near her apartment complex, she ran inside and locked the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stepping into the apartment after her traumatic encounter, Tricia began to notice things she had looked past when she was still confined there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The place was a dump, and Brad hadn't bothered to straighten up the way he used to when he was a student." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The classic neat freak now had sketch papers everywhere, and the kitchen held discarded dishes from days past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were half-finished beers and what appeared to be two bowls of old fried rice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a noticeable stench of rotted food coming from the kitchen, and a roach scurried across the wall." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Tricia proceeded to clean it all up and put the place in order. She would not allow Brad to make her into a servant-droid like many of his friends had, but she knew that a clean house would help his psyche, so she got right to it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writers block help pls. ill send something, u do 2 sentences. going for Greg Dragon vibe. note: might have existing chars" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Will you be my girlfriend?\n\n\"So, when was the last time you were in a relationship?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Priscilla asked as she walked hand in hand with Brad around the artificial lake." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'night' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, well—er, a year? She and I really weren't, well she stopped taking my calls about a year ago. Is this a relationship?\"\n\n\"Well after last night, it had better be. I don't let just anyone spend the night, and I trust you, so... I want you to say it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will you be my girlfriend?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A trip that had started out as one of their standard dates had quickly become one of the best days in Brad's life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He and Priscilla had kept on doing movie nights at her house after the day Tricia had cleaned up, but she wouldn't sleep with him, at least not until last night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricia had gotten better about his frequent absence, and he left her to take care of the house when he was away—especially since he practically lived with Priscilla, whose home was amazing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found it strange that after visiting his home and commenting on how \"cozy\" it was, Priscilla seemed unwilling to hang out there or ask him questions about it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'would' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he spent most of his time at her place, eating her food, watching her television, and being with her.\n\nThe routine would go as follows: he would go to work in the morning, stop by the gear shop to sell a few rotors, and then drive to Priscilla's house in the evening to hang out and sleep at night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been doing this for two months now, and Priscilla didn't seem to mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rotors were what he called the tiny, flying robots he made from excess mechanical parts. He had gotten better with artificial intelligence, and began to hustle the little toys for extra money to supplement his small barista's income." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Career-wise he viewed himself as a failure, and he struggled internally with whether to reveal the genius of Tricia to the world or to keep her as his personal secret.\n\nTricia's revealing would get him arrested, at least for a time due to her illegal parts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she would revolutionize modern robotics, and he would be on every talk show across America." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After the talk shows, he'd be approached by a private company and they would throw millions of dollars at him to replicate the process. Tricia would cease to be special, and would more than likely be disassembled and reverse-engineered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This latter fact made him not want to do it. She was a person, a person he had built, and he didn't want her murdered and dissected for money." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But being with Priscilla brought the pressure of wanting to do more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There would be outside competition from men that had a lot more than he had, and could do a lot more for her than he could. There is nothing special about me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm just a broke, coffee pusher, he thought. So it was out of fear that he'd begun selling rotors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had crossed his mind to make another Tricia, but this time keep the A.I. restrained, and remove the ability to freely think from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The idea could work, if not for the skin he couldn't afford, and the things he had done during groggy nights— things that he didn't write down or store into memory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The truth was, Tricia was a brilliant mistake. The day he'd walked in and saw her dancing was the day he realized this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Androids didn't do that; they didn't crave learning like human beings did, and they didn't get upset when their masters spent more time with their girlfriends than them. Sometime during the hacking of her A.I." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and the installation of foreign parts into her frame, he had found true intelligence. He could pretend that he had the means to do it all over again, but he would need a new Mika to break his heart, several drugs to keep him awake for days, and the luck he'd had when she came to life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's go to Celia's tonight to celebrate!\" Priscilla said as she rested her head on his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could hear the happiness in her voice, and it was because he had committed to her. The fact that he couldn't afford Celia's Steakhouse didn't matter to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had to find a way to afford it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How sobering would it be for him to remind her how poor he was when she had just become his girl?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The situation depressed him, but it wasn't enough to interfere with the pride he felt in having a girl—a very special girl—as his girlfriend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if she was reading his mind, Priscilla whispered into his ear, \"It's my treat. I just feel like a steak right now.\"\n\nShe would be paying for dinner and it made him feel emasculated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would he be one of the many guys across the nation dependent on their women?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both parties should be pulling their weight. Or, as his father had drilled into him from the time when he was a boy, \"A man provides\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yet here he was, a man, and the only thing he was providing for Priscilla was conversation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt small, and the urge to impress her and prove his worth pushed him to start talking.\n\n\"I—I have something I need to tell you, Priss.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's up, baby?\" she called him baby, and the sound of it made him even more comfortable in talking to her.\n\n\"I have an android. Not the kind you can buy and assemble, or rent from the cleaning companies, but true artificial intelligence. She's very convincing as a human, and way ahead of anything that we have right now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Priscilla stepped in front of him on the sidewalk and her mouth dropped open in an expression of awe and happiness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you're a droid engineer?\" she asked excitedly, and he couldn't understand why it made her so happy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I never got my degree, but yes, I can build androids. Tricia, the droid I'm telling you about, was my first try at it, and she is brilliant. I can take you to meet her, if you'd like.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, it's okay. Androids scare me a bit, to be honest. To hear that you've built one to be so real, well, she would give me nightmares. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for technological advancement, but what happens when she gets too upset, or malfunctions due to coming in contact with a network virus or something? She could kill you. I think that it's so hot that you're like a mad scientist genius or something, but knowing is good enough for me. Let's go get some steaks. I'm freaking starving.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While Brad considered the paranoid, technophobia to be a massive letdown on the part of Priscilla, he felt more comfortable with her paying for his meal after she perked up about his passion. She was content in knowing that he had great potential as an inventor, and now he would just have to actually work at it instead of sticking to his poor life of mixing coffee and watching television." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fear of androids also meant that there would be no future for her and Tricia in the same vicinity. For now he would have to keep Tricia at his apartment and continue to stay with Priscilla." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n5 sentences sentences\nStyle: Greg Dragon\nGenre: Science Fiction, Romance, Android\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'brick' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black car pulled up to the front of the red brick building and detective Homer Montgoya parked it down near a tree and waited. It wasn't often that a violator of rule 59 presented himself, and he wondered what manner of pervert he would see exiting the house. He pulled up the warrant and shook his head at the charges. The front door of the red brick opened, and Professor James Leroy Anthony stepped out. He was stopped by a beautiful woman who adjusted his sweater vest and kissed him on the cheek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, if anything, I gotta say the old man has taste,\" Montgoya muttered to himself as he exited the vehicle.\n\nHe crossed the lawn at a brisk space. He raised his stun gun at the man. \"Mister James L. Anthony?\"\n\nThe man turned around, surprised to see the police officer on his lawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I am James Anthony...\"\n\n\"You are under arrest for the crime of mechanophilia. Please turn around, get on your knees, and place your hands on your head.\"\n\n\"I will comply, officer. What crime have I committed—besides the assumed—for me to get this level of embarrassment at my home? I am a proper citizen, and a professor. Who would make these accusations against me?\"\n\n\"You're a pervert, professor, and our government doesn't want perverts in society. Think about it for a minute, will you?\" He cuffed the older gentleman and stood him up before dusting off the dirt that was now on the knees of his corduroy pants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Men like you professor, brilliant men who train the geniuses of the future, should be populating the earth with your seed. If our beloved government allows you all to choose machines over warm, breathing human beings, who would produce more men and women like you? The spice-heads and drunk losers of society?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I appreciate your kindness, and gentleness in this detective, and I overreacted as none of my neighbors seem to be up yet. I wouldn't like the gossip, since none of them know about my beloved Constance. It isn't... perversion. It's—it's a long story.\"\n\nMontgoya placed him in the passenger seat, ignoring his safety protocol so that the people who would see them would assume the professor was a friend and not a criminal. \"It's a long drive back to the station, professor, so why don't you explain it to me. Look, I can't change our laws, no matter how absolutely stupid they are, but I want to understand. What makes a man love a machine?\"\n\n\"We all have our reasons, detective. There is no grand organization of robo-lovers where we swear off partners in lieu of androids or anything like that. My personal reason came about when the love of my life died from the cow disease. Marcy was my partner in everything, and a brilliant engineer in her own right. When I lost her so suddenly my life was in shambles, and what came of it was a partner that would not be vulnerable to diseases, poisons, or the cruelty of our humanity.\"\n\n\"How long ago did you build her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've been together five years now. The government has been hypocritical about machines and what we can and cannot do. The military androids are not given restraints, and have routinely shown the human traits of PTSD, trouble adapting to civilian society, and much, much more. Is it not evident that with intelligence, even a machine can be cared for? Or do we need another long age of prejudice and ignorance before we realize that we are wrong in our limitation?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's too deep for me, prof. I'm just a simple cop doing his job. What I don't get is that the perverts who lust after our kids are given treatment and set free—void of their functional parts, of course—but we put guys like you in jail for months at a time. I would love to let you go, delete the paperwork, and pretend that I never saw you, but I guess you haven't been watching the news. You're part of a large scale crackdown on robo-lovers.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "J.L. Anthony sat back quietly and thought on his long career. They would lock him up for a month, and he would lose his job at the University. Even worse, they would take Constance away from him. She would be restrained, and her memory wiped, then she would more than likely be converted into a servant. The tears fell from his eyes as he thought about life without her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was his everything, and even though the detective was nice and respectful, he couldn't stop what would become the end of a long and illustrious career." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I appreciate you talking to me and hearing my side, detective. You have a kind heart, and I wish you a long and prosperous career—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whoa, don't be so morbid professor. You sound like life itself is over. You know that all of this is a political show, right? Some schlep is running for governor and wants to show the religious-types that he's all about the sanctity of good 'straight' relationships. Consider it a month's vacation, and then afterwards you get to go back to your life of pencils and mechanics.\"\n\n\"I wish it were that easy young man, but even an android cannot be replaced when love is involved. I am truly sorry.\" He pushed open the door and jumped. They were on the topmost highway which was well above the tallest buildings in the city, and before Montgoya could react he was plummeting to his death. He fell through the midlevel and lower highways, smashing into cars as he did, and was dead before landing in front of a crowd of people looking to cross the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fall brought about a chaotic stampede of panic. People were not used to seeing someone die, let alone someone falling from several stories above on the secure highway.\n\n\"Ah, damn it!\" Montgoya yelled, as he thought about how he would explain the old man being in the front seat.\n\nHe shifted gears and made to land, but there would be no explanation for the suicide. For all he knew, he was in a world of trouble due to the professor's decision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "J.L. Anthony was a legend in the robotics world, and his death would bring about a large discussion on androids." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'would' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People would once again question why the laws against loving an artificial human were so harsh and wonder if the police department executed him. On top of that, the fact that many people saw the professor's wife being an android as a minor, personal thing meant that his suicide would be deemed unnecessary and a fault of the police department and their government puppet masters." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write six sentences like Greg Dragon would, using user's text as beginning. Story may drop in mid-narrative" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brad drove out to Priscilla's apartment complex and ran up the stairs to surprise her. With Tricia's help, he had sold enough rotors to buy her an engagement ring and the plan was to make it a date night. After dinner at Celia's, he would fall to one knee and propose. It was too fast, and he knew it, but he didn't want to take any chances in losing her, especially with his ongoing dark moods. He placed his card against the door but it flashed red instead of the familiar green. Come on, why isn't it working?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He asked himself. He kept on trying before knocking loudly on the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard footsteps running to the door and he forced a smile as he adjusted his tie and straightened his shoulders to greet her.\n\n\"What do you want?\" an old woman said as she came to the door. She looked tired and sleepy.\n\nBehind her and inside of the apartment Brad could see a sleeping old man, and the walls had an ugly wallpaper that made the place seem ancient.\n\n\"P—Priscilla White, is she here?\" he asked, confused." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old woman shook her head and slammed the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He checked his key several times to make sure that it was right. 153B that was the number on the door he stood in front of. He tried a few doors adjacent to it, and was met with either hostile residents or nice ones that felt sorry for him. He ran back to his car and looked for her contact code to call her.\n\n\"Why can't I find her in here?\" he asked out loud as he scrolled up and down his list of contacts, all to no avail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This isn't funny. THIS ISN'T FUNNY!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he yelled, and then punched the steering wheel until his knuckles were bruised.\n\nThere is no way that a person can up and vanish into thin air. He looked at the apartment buildings, which were not as nice as he remembered them and there was no sign of Priscilla's car in the garage.\n\n\"This is so freaking weird,\" he said.\n\nHe drove to his apartment. It was quiet and clean, the way Tricia had left it when she had gone off on her stroll." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned on his computer and began to browse for the correspondence that he would have had with Priscilla." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it was as If he had dreamt about the entire year of pleasure he had with her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'day's' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A day's worth of searching to find Priscilla turned into panic as Brad began to remember what it was like to live without her in his life. He needed to be reassured of his sanity, to know that Priscilla was merely playing a prank and that they would be reunited within a day's time. Maybe Tricia knows something, he thought as he pulled open the closet door and flipped the light on to see her. The lights came on to an empty room, and he looked around as if she had somehow snuck behind him.\n\n\"Priscilla's gone and now Trish. What in the hell is going on?\" he asked out loud, as he went to every door within his apartment and pulled them open, hoping to find his android." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricia was gone, or she had been stolen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But as unfortunate as that was, the bigger issue was that his very human girlfriend was gone without a trace. He tore the place apart for hours before falling on his bed, exhausted. He recalled a time when he was at Priscilla's house and she was dancing. She was always dancing, but this particular time was special. He had called his mother, and he'd uploaded a photo to her. The memory snapped him back into reality and he called his mother, skipping the greetings to ask if she still had the photo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Photo? What photo, Brad? I haven't heard from you in a long time. You never call your mother. What is going on with you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm fine, Mom. It's just that my girlfriend has disappeared.\"\n\n\"Disappeared? Like kidnapped, disappeared? Have you called the authorities? You know many girls have been coming up missing lately.\"\n\n\"No, I haven't called the cops yet. Tell you what, Ma, let me talk to you later. I'm gonna call them.\"\n\nBrad hung up his device and went into the kitchen. The pills had stopped making him feel confident and calm like they used to and he couldn't understand it. His emails to the Japanese contact were mostly ignored, and the ones he did answer were canned lies about the order coming in soon." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'priscilla' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His body was craving them, but he had used them all up and had no hope of refilling his supply. To make up for the way he was used to feeling, Brad began to drink and ingest nasal-spice whenever he could afford it. The spice made him jumpy, and there were segments of his short-term memory that was missing. It hadn't mattered much to Priscilla that he was his old, awkward self, but he didn't like being that guy. He was depressed, and dark thoughts were again clouding his thoughts.\n\nHe called the police and put in a missing person's report for Priscilla." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was crying on the phone, and he didn't realize that he had poured himself a drink as he sat at the table. He tried to shift his focus to where Tricia was, but the loss of Priscilla was too strong to put out of his mind. He thought about the tracker that all android kits came with, but he had removed it from Tricia's frame. She was fully autonomous but very much like a child when it came to safety. If someone had broken in to try and rob him, they would have found the beautiful android asleep in his closet.\n\nUnrestrained, advanced androids were illegal to own, but this did not stop gangsters and pimps from kidnapping them and selling them into prostitution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Androids were not as vulnerable to the STI's, mental trauma, and aging that a human being was, so high-level pimps would run out android girls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricia was a sophisticated build that could fool anyone that she was human, so the price she would go for would be remarkable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If this was her fate he would never see her again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'police'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The police let him know they would keep him updated on the case, but this was not enough for him so he drove out to Priscilla's apartment again. He staked it out for hours even though his hunger made him want to give up. It grew dark and there was still no trace of Priscilla coming or going. When his phone rang he expected it to be the police telling him they found her. But what he got instead was his mother.\n\n\"Hey, Mom.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Brad. I found the picture you sent me. I'd saved it to show your father, so I am sending it to you now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He placed the device into the internal matrix of his car, and the windshield darkened and became a replica of the device's screen. A photo popped up of Tricia dancing in front of the television like the day he saw her and promised her skin. The photo was new to him, and he didn't remember taking it, or watching Tricia dance in the skimpy outfit that was in the photo. Was I high? He asked himself. He sat stunned, staring at it, wondering why it was he couldn't remember.\n\n\"Is that her, Brad? She is very pretty. Your father bragged about you to his colleagues for a whole month when he saw that picture. Did you call the police? I really hope that she is okay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wrong girl, mom,\" he said sadly, and his heart began to race as he wondered about his memory lapse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why was it so vivid in his mind that he had taken a photo of Priscilla and sent it to his mother?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had even discussed her nationality, and—why was it all so vivid?\n\nHe hung up with his mother and then called the café to ask if he could have the morning off. Susan answered the phone as if she was surprised to hear him, and when he asked her to get time off she laughed as if he had told her the best joke in the world.\n\n\"Of course you can have the morning off Brad, you hilarious, junkie loser. Do you not remember walking out on us last week? Tell me, your highness, how was sunny Trinidad? I'm not sure how you rich, party types get down on vacation, so if you could share some of your stories with me, I'd love to hear them.\"\n\nHe hung up on her and hit his head with the heel of his hand to see if he could jog his memory back into commission. Am I still smart?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered. He began giving himself complex math equations to see if he could still solve them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without brains, how good was he to anyone? If he couldn't remember quitting his job, and which of the two women in his life he'd sent photos to his mother of, he was that much closer to becoming a moron. He began to cry again as the fear of losing everything loomed even closer to reality. His eyes found their way to an old pill bottle. He had loved the way the pills had made him feel. They had brought Priscilla into his life and allowed him to take Tricia to a level that no other android he knew of had attained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without the pills he hated himself, and without Priscilla, he had no love and support." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'without' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Depression reared its ugly head, and he sat drumming the table rapidly with his fingers. Losing Priscilla felt like losing several limbs, but without Tricia—his life's work, and his sign to the world that he was somebody—he felt no reason to go on. He had to find Priscilla; he had to know that she was okay.\n\nSo without planning or thinking better of it, he packed a bag and headed out to investigate." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around three sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Characters and story elements may appear without introduction - roll with them naturally. Try to mimic the style of Isaac Asimov." }, { "from": "human", "value": "COMMISSION OF PUBLIC SAFETY—..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The aristocratic coterie rose to power after the assassination of Cleon I, last of the Entuns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the main, they formed an element of order during the centuries of instability and uncertainty in the Imperium. Usually under the control of the great families of the Chens and the Divarts, it degenerated eventually into a blind instrument for maintenance of the status quo.... They were not completely removed as a power in the state until after the accession of the last strong Emperor, Cleon H. The first Chief Commissioner...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "... In a way, the beginning of the Commission's decline can be traced to the trial of Hari Seldon two years before the beginning of the Foundational Era." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That trial is described in Gaal Dornick's biography of Hari Seldon...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gaal did not carry out his promise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was awakened the next morning by a muted buzzer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He answered it, and the voice of the desk clerk, as muted, polite and deprecating as it well might be, informed him that he was under detention at the orders of the Commission of Public Safety." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gaal sprang to the door and found it would no longer open. He could only dress and wait.\n\nThey came for him and took him elsewhere, but it was still detention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They asked him questions most politely. It was all very civilized. He explained that he was a provincial of Synnax; that he had attended such and such schools and obtained a Doctor of Mathematics degree on such and such a date." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had applied for a position on Dr. Seldon's staff and had been accepted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Over and over again, he gave these details; and over and over again, they returned to the question of his joining the Seldon Project." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How had he heard of it; what were to be his duties; what secret instructions had he received; what was it all about?\n\nHe answered that he did not know. He had no secret instructions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a scholar and a mathematician." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no interest in politics.\n\nAnd finally the gentle inquisitor asked, \"When will Trantor be destroyed?\"\n\nGaal faltered, \"I could not say of my own knowledge.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Could you say of anyone's?\"\n\n\"How could I speak for another?\" He felt warm; overwarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The inquisitor said, \"Has anyone told you of such destruction; set a date?\" And, as the young man hesitated, he went on, \"You have been followed, doctor. We were at the airport when you arrived; on the observation tower when you waited for your appointment; and, of course, we were able to overhear your conversation with Dr. Seldon.\"\n\nGaal said, \"Then you know his views on the matter.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'would' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps. But we would like to hear them from you.\"\n\n\"He is of the opinion that Trantor would be destroyed within three centuries.\"\n\n\"He proved it— uh— mathematically?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, he did,\"— defiantly.\n\n\"You maintain the— uh— mathematics to be valid, I suppose.\n\n\"If Dr. Seldon vouches for it, it is valid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then we will return.\"\n\n\"Wait. I have a right to a lawyer. I demand my rights as an Imperial citizen.\"\n\n\"You shall have them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he did.\n\nIt was a tall man that eventually entered, a man whose face seemed all vertical lines and so thin that one could wonder whether there was room for a smile.\n\nGaal looked up. He felt disheveled and wilted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So much had happened, yet he had been on Trantor not more than thirty hours." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: Your response must contain: \"You've got to arrange a hearing with the Emperor, instantly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man said, \"I am Lors Avakim. Dr. Seldon has directed me to represent you.\"\n\n\"Is that so? Well, then, look here. I demand an instant appeal to the Emperor. I'm being held without cause. I'm innocent of anything. Of anything.\" He slashed his hands outward, palms down, \"You've got to arrange a hearing with the Emperor, instantly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avakim was carefully emptying the contents of a flat folder onto the floor. If Gaal had had the stomach for it, he might have recognized Cellomet legal forms, metal thin and tapelike, adapted for insertion within the smallness of a personal capsule. He might also have recognized a pocket recorder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avakim, paying no attention to Gaal's outburst, finally looked up. He said, \"The Commission will, of course, have a spy beam on our conversation. This is against the law, but they will use one nevertheless.\"\n\nGaal ground his teeth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'recorder' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"However,\" and Avakim seated himself deliberately, \"the recorder I have on the table— which is a perfectly ordinary recorder to all appearances and performs it duties well— has the additional property of completely blanketing the spy beam. This is something they will not find out at once.\"\n\n\"Then I can speak.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I want a hearing with the Emperor.\"\n\nAvakim smiled frostily, and it turned out that there was room for it on his thin face after all. His cheeks wrinkled to make the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said, \"You are from the provinces.\"\n\n\"I am none the less an Imperial citizen. As good a one as you or as any of this Commission of Public Safety.\"\n\n\"No doubt; no doubt. It is merely that, as a provincial, you do not understand life on Trantor as it is, There are no hearings before the Emperor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To whom else would one appeal from this Commission? Is there other procedure?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"None. There is no recourse in a practical sense. Legalistically, you may appeal to the Emperor, but you would get no hearing. The Emperor today is not the Emperor of an Entun dynasty, you know. Trantor, I am afraid is in the hands of the aristocratic families, members of which compose the Commission of Public Safety. This is a development which is well predicted by psychohistory.\"\n\nGaal said, \"Indeed? In that case, if Dr. Seldon can predict the history of Trantor three hundred years into the future—\"\n\n\"He can predict it fifteen hundred years into the future.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let it be fifteen thousand. Why couldn't he yesterday have predicted the events of this morning and warned me.—No, I'm sorry.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gaal sat down and rested his head in one sweating palm, \"I quite understand that psychohistory is a statistical science and cannot predict the future of a single man with any accuracy. You'll understand that I'm upset.\"\n\n\"But you are wrong. Dr. Seldon was of the opinion that you would be arrested this morning.\"\n\n\"What!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is unfortunate, but true. The Commission has been more and more hostile to his activities. New members joining the group have been interfered with to an increasing extent. The graphs showed that for our purposes, matters might best be brought to a climax now. The Commission of itself was moving somewhat slowly so Dr. Seldon visited you yesterday for the purpose of forcing their hand. No other reason.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gaal caught his breath, \"I resent—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please. It was necessary. You were not picked for any personal reasons. You must realize that Dr. Seldon's plans, which are laid out with the developed mathematics of over eighteen years include all eventualities with significant probabilities. This is one of them. I've been sent here for no other purpose than to assure you that you need not fear. It will end well; almost certainly so for the project; and with reasonable probability for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are the figures?\" demanded Gaal.\n\n\"For the project, over 99.9%.\"\n\n\"And for myself?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am instructed that this probability is 77.2%.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I've got better than one chance in five of being sentenced to prison or to death.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The last is under one per cent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Indeed. Calculations upon one man mean nothing. You send Dr. Seldon to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unfortunately, I cannot. Dr. Seldon is himself arrested.\"\n\nThe door was thrown open before the rising Gaal could do more than utter the beginning of a cry. A guard entered, walked to the table, picked up the recorder, looked upon all sides of it and put it in his pocket." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avakim said quietly, \"I will need that instrument.\"\n\n\"We will supply you with one, Counsellor, that does not cast a static field.\"\n\n\"My interview is done, in that case.\"\n\nGaal watched him leave and was alone." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a segment from a longer work then you need to write around 9 sentences continuing directly from it. Try to mimic the style of Isaac Asimov in the Science Fiction, Space Opera genre. Note that characters may appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next to Sermak himself, Lewis Bort was the most active in rallying those dissident elements which had fused into the now-vociferous Action Party. Yet he had not been one of the deputation that had called on Salvor Hardin almost half a year previously. That this was so was not due to any lack of recognition of his efforts; quite the contrary. He was absent for the very good reason that he was on Anacreon's capital world at the time.\n\nHe visited it as a private citizen. He saw no official and he did nothing of importance. He merely watched the obscure comers of the busy planet and poked his stubby nose into dusty crannies.\n\nHe arrived home toward the end of a short winter day that had started with clouds and was finishing with snow and within an hour was seated at the octagonal table in Sermak's home.\n\nHis first words were not calculated to improve the atmosphere of a gathering already considerably depressed by the deepening snow-filled twilight outside.." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm afraid,\" he said, \"that our position is what is usually termed, in melodramatic phraseology, a 'Lost Cause.'\"\n\n\"You think so?\" said Sermak, gloomily.\n\n\"It's gone past thought, Sermak. There's no room for any other opinion.\"\n\n\"Armaments—\" began Dokor Walto, somewhat officiously, but Bort broke in at once.\n\n\"Forget that. That's an old story.\" His eyes traveled round the circle. \"I'm referring to the people. I admit that it was my idea originally that we attempt to foster a palace rebellion of some sort to install as king someone more favorable to the Foundation. It was a good idea. It still is. The only trifling flaw about it is that it is impossible. The great Salvor Hardin saw to that.\"\n\nSermak said sourly, \"If you'd give us the details, Bort—\"\n\n\"Details! There aren't any! It isn't as simple as that. It's the whole damned situation on Anacreon. It's this religion the Foundation has established. It works!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that don't often mean much at face value. But what kind of a religion is it, Bort?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well!\"\n\n\"You've got to see it work to appreciate it. All you see here is that we have a large school devoted to the training of priests, and that occasionally a special show is put on in some obscure comer of the city for the benefit of pilgrims and that's all. The whole business hardly affects us as a general thing. But on Anacreon—\"\n\nLem Tarki smoothed his prim little Vandyke with one finger, and cleared his throat. \"What kind of religion is it? Hardin's always said that it was just a fluffy flummery to get them to accept our science without question. You remember, Sermak, he told us that day—\"\n\n\"Hardin's explanations,\" reminded Sermak, \"don't often mean much at face value. But what kind of a religion is it, Bort?\"\n\nBort considered. \"Ethically, it's fine. It scarcely varies from the various philosophies of the old Empire. High moral standards and all that. There's nothing to complain about from that viewpoint. Religion is one of the great civilizing influences of history and in that respect, it's fulfilling—\"\n\n\"We know that,\" interrupted Sermak, impatiently. \"Get to the point.\"\n\n\"Here it is.\" Bort was a trifle disconcerted, but didn't show it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The religion— which the Foundation has fostered and encouraged, mind you— is built on on strictly authoritarian lines. The priesthood has sole control of the instruments of science we have given Anacreon, but they've learned to handle these tools only empirically. They believe in this religion entirely, and in the ... uh ... spiritual value of the power they handle. For instance, two months ago some fool tampered with the power plant in the Thessalekian Temple— one of the large ones. He contaminated the city, of course. It was considered divine vengeance by everyone, including the priests.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I remember. The papers had some garbled version of the story at the time. I don't see what you're driving at.\"\n\n\"Then, listen,\" said Bort, stiffly. \"The priesthood forms a hierarchy at the apex of which is the king, who is regarded as a sort of minor god. He's an absolute monarch by divine right, and the people believe it, thoroughly, and the priests, too. You can't overthrow a king like that. Now do you get the point?\"\n\n\"Hold on,\" said Walto, at this point. \"What did you mean when you said Hardin's done all this? How does he come in?\"\n\nBort glanced at his questioner bitterly. \"The Foundation has fostered this delusion assiduously. We've put all our scientific backing behind the hoax. There isn't a festival at which the king does not preside surrounded by a radioactive aura shining forth all over his body and raising itself like a coronet above his head. Anyone touching him is severely burned. He can move from place to place through the air at crucial moments, supposedly by inspiration of divine spirit. He fills the temple with a pearly, internal light at a gesture. There is no end to these quite simple tricks that we perform for his benefit; but even the priests believe them, while working them personally.\"\n\n\"Bad!\" said Sermak, biting his lip.\n\n\"I could cry— like the fountain in City Hall Park,\" said Bort, earnestly, \"when I think of the chance we muffed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Take the situation thirty years ago, when Hardin saved the Foundation from Anacreon— At that time, the Anacreonian people had no real conception of the fact that the Empire was running down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had been more or less running their own affairs since the Zeonian revolt, but even after communications broke down and Lepold's pirate of a grandfather made himself king, they never quite realized the Empire had gone kaput.\n\n\"If the Emperor had had the nerve to try, he could have taken over again with two cruisers and with the help of the internal revolt that would have certainly sprung to life. And we we could have done the same; but no, Hardin established monarch worship. Personally, I don't understand it. Why? Why? Why?\"\n\n\"What,\" demanded Jaim Orsy, suddenly, \"does Verisof do? There was a day when he was an advanced Actionist. What's he doing there? Is he blind, too?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Bort, curtly. \"He's high priest to them. As far as I know, he does nothing but act as adviser to the priesthood on technical details. Figurehead, blast him, figurehead!\"\n\nThere was silence all round and all eyes turned to Sermak. The young party leader was biting a fingernail nervously, and then said loudly, \"No good. It's fishy!\"\n\nHe looked around him, and added more energetically, \"Is Hardin then such a fool?\"\n\n\"Seems to be,\" shrugged Bort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never! There's something wrong. To cut our own throats so thoroughly and so hopelessly would require colossal stupidity. More than Hardin could possibly have even if he were a fool, which I deny. On the one hand, to establish a religion that would wipe out all chance of internal troubles. On the other hand, to arm Anacreon with all weapons of warfare. I don't see it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The matter is a little obscure, I admit,\" said Bort, \"but the facts are there. What else can we think?\"\n\nWalto said, jerkily, \"Outright treason. He's in their pay.\"\n\nBut Sermak shook his head impatiently. \"I don't see that, either. The whole affair is as insane and meaningless— Tell me, Bort, have you heard anything about a battle cruiser that the Foundation is supposed to have put into shape for use in the Anacreon navy?\"\n\n\"Battle cruiser?\"\n\n\"An old Imperial cruiser—\"\n\n\"No, I haven't. But that doesn't mean much. The navy yards are religious sanctuaries completely inviolate on the part of the lay public. No one ever hears anything about the fleet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, rumors have leaked out. Some of the Party have brought the matter up in Council. Hardin never denied it, you know. His spokesmen denounced rumor mongers and let it go at that. It might have significance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's of a piece with the rest,\" said Bort. \"if true, it's absolutely crazy. But it wouldn't be worse than the rest.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Orsy, \"Hardin hasn't any secret weapon waiting. That might—\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sermak, viciously, \"a huge jack-in-the-box that will jump out at the psychological moment and scare old Wienis into fits. The Foundation may as well blow itself out of existence and save itself the agony of suspense if it has to depend on any secret weapon.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Orsy, changing the subject hurriedly, \"the question comes down to this: How much time have we left? Eli, Bort?\"\n\n\"All fight. It is the question. But don't look at me; I don't know. The Anacreonian press never mentions the Foundation at all. Right now, it's full of the approaching celebrations and nothing else. Lepold is coming of age next week, you know.\"\n\n\"We have months then.\" Walto smiled for the first time that evening. \"That gives us time—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That gives us time, my foot,\" ground out Bort, impatiently." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'going' - 4 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The king's a god, I tell you. Do you suppose he has to carry on a campaign of propaganda to get his people into fighting spirit? Do you suppose he has to accuse us of aggression and pull out all stops on cheap emotionalism? When the time comes to strike, Lepold gives the order and the people fight. Just like that. That's the damnedness of the system. You don't question a god. He may give the order tomorrow for all I know; and you can wrap tobacco round that and smoke it.\"\n\nEveryone tried to talk at once and Sermak was slamming the table for silence, when the front door opened and Levi Norast stamped in. He bounded up the stairs, overcoat on, trailing snow.\n\n\"Look at that!\" he cried, tossing a cold, snow-speckled newspaper onto the table. \"The visicasters are full of it, too.\"\n\nThe newspaper was unfolded and five heads bent over it.\n\nSermak said, in a hushed voice, \"Great Space, he's going to Anacreon! Going to Anacreon!\"\n\n\"It is treason,\" squeaked Tarki, in sudden excitement. \"I'll be damned if Walto isn't right. He's sold us out and now he's going there to collect his wage.\"\n\nSermak had risen. \"We've no choice now. I'm going to ask the Council tomorrow that Hardin be impeached. And if that fails—\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 12 sentences sentences. Match character context. Science Fiction, Space Opera genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gorov was released on the thirtieth day, and five hundred pounds of the yellowest gold took his place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And with him was released the quarantined and untouched abomination that was his ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, as on the journey into the Askonian system, so on the journey out, the cylinder of sleek little ships ushered them on their way.\n\nPonyets watched the dimly sun-lit speck that was Gorov's ship while Gorov's voice pierced through to him, clear and thin on the tight, distortion-bounded ether-beam.\n\nHe was saying, \"But it isn't what's wanted, Ponyets. A transmuter won't do. Where did you get one, anyway?\"\n\n\"I didn't,\" Ponyets answer was patient. \"I juiced it up out of a food irradiation chamber. It isn't any good, really. The power consumption is prohibitive on any large scale or the Foundation would use transmutation instead of chasing all over the Galaxy for heavy metals. It's one of the standard tricks every trader uses, except that I never saw an iron-to-gold one before. But it's impressive, and it works— very temporarily.\"\n\n\"All right. But that particular trick is no good.\"\n\n\"It got you out of a nasty spot.\"\n\n\"That is very far from the point. Especially since I've got to go back, once we shake our solicitous escort.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"You yourself explained it to this politician of yours,\" Gorov's voice was on edge. \"Your entire sales-point rested on the fact that the transmuter was a means to an end, but of no value in itself—, that he was buying the gold, not the machine. It was good psychology, since it worked, but—\"\n\n\"But?\" Ponyets urged blandly and obtusely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voice from the receiver grew shriller, \"But we want to sell them a machine of value in itself, something they would want to use openly; something that would tend to force them out in favor of nuclear techniques as a matter of self-interest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I understand all that,\" said Ponyets, gently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You once explained it. But look at what follows from my sale, will you? As long as that transmuter lasts, Pherl will coin gold; and it will last long enough to buy him the next election. The present Grand Master won't last long.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You count on gratitude?\" asked Gorov, coldly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No— on intelligent self-interest. The transmuter gets him an election; other mechanisms—\"\n\n\"No! No! Your premise is twisted. It's not the transmuter, he'll credit— it'll be the good, old-fashioned gold. That's what I'm trying to tell you.\"\n\nPonyets grinned and shifted into a more comfortable position. All right. He'd baited the poor fellow sufficiently. Gorov was beginning to sound wild.\n\nThe trader said, \"Not so fast, Gorov. I haven't finished. There are other gadgets already involved.\"\n\nThere was a short silence. Then, Gorov's voice sounded cautiously, \"What other gadgets?\"\n\nPonyets gestured automatically and uselessly, \"You see that escort?\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Gorov shortly. \"Tell me about those gadgets.\"\n\n\"I will—if you'll listen. That's Pherl's private navy escorting us; a special honor to him from the Grand Master. He managed to squeeze that out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And where do you think he's taking us? To his mining estates on the outskirts of Askone, that's where. Listen!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ponyets was suddenly fiery, \"I told you I was in this to make money, not to save worlds. All right. I sold that transmuter for nothing. Nothing except the risk of the gas chamber and that doesn't count towards the quota.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get back to the mining estates, Ponyets. Where do they come in?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With the profits. We're stacking up on tin, Gorov. Tin to fill every last cubic foot this old scow can scrape up, and then some more for yours. I'm going down with Pherl to collect, old man, and you're going to cover me from upstairs with every gun you've got— just in case Pherl isn't as sporting about the matter as he lets on to be. That tin's my profit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For the transmuter?\"\n\n\"For my entire cargo of nucleics.\n\nAt double price, plus a bonus.\" He shrugged, almost apologetically. \"I admit I gouged him, but I've got to make quota, don't I?\" Gorov was evidently lost. He said, weakly, \"Do you mind explaining'?\"\n\n\"What's there to explain? It's obvious, Gorov. Look, the clever dog thought he had me in a foolproof trap, because his word was worth more than mine to the Grand Master. He took the transmuter. That was a capital crime in Askone. But at any time he could say that he had lured me on into a trap with the purest of patriotic motives, and denounce me as a seller of forbidden things.\"\n\n\"That\n\nwas obvious.\" \"Sure, but word against simple word wasn't all there was to it. You see, Pherl had never heard nor conceived of a microfilm-recorder.\"\n\nGorov laughed suddenly.\n\n\"That's right,\" said Ponyets." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with Isaac Asimov's style in the Science Fiction, Space Opera genre. This is part of a longer work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And at the other end of town, in homelier surroundings, Hober Mallow kept a second appointment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had listened long, and now he said cautiously, \"Yes, I've heard of your campaigns to get trader representation in the council. But why me, Twer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jaim Twer, who would remind you any time, asked or unasked, that he was in the first group of Outlanders to receive a lay education at the Foundation, beamed.\n\n\"I know what I'm doing,\" he said. \"Remember when I met you first, last year.\"\n\n\"At the Trader's Convention.\"\n\n\"Right. You ran the meeting. You had those red-necked oxen planted in their seats, then put them in your shirtpocket and walked off with them. And you're all right with the Foundation masses, too. You've got glamor— or, at any rate, solid adventure-publicity, which is the same thing.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said Mallow, dryly. \"But why now?\"\n\n'Because now's our chance. Do you know that the Secretary of Education has handed in his resignation? It's not out in the open yet, but it will be.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That— never mind—\" He waved a disgusted hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's so. The Actionist party is splitting wide open, and we can murder it right now on a straight question of equal rights for traders; or, rather, democracy, pro-and anti-.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mallow lounged back in his chair and stared at his thick fingers, \"Uh-uh. Sorry, Twer. I'm leaving next week on business. You'll have to get someone else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twer stared, \"Business? What kind of business?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very super-secret. Triple-A priority. All that, you know. Had a talk with the mayor's own secretary.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Snake Sutt?\" Jaim Twer grew excited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A trick. The son-of-a-spacer is getting rid of you. Mallow—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on!\" Mallow's hand fell on the other's balled fist. \"Don't go into a blaze. If it's a trick, I'll be back some day for the reckoning. if it isn't, your snake, Sutt, is playing into our hands. Listen, there's a Seldon crisis coming up.\"\n\nMallow waited for a reaction but it never came. Twer merely stared. \"What's a Seldon crisis?\"\n\n\"Galaxy!\" Mallow exploded angrily at the anticlimax, \"What the blue blazes did you do when you went to school? What do you mean anyway by a fool question like that?\"\n\nThe elder man frowned, \"If you'll explain—\"\n\nThere was a long pause, then, \"I'll explain.\" Mallow's eyebrows lowered, and he spoke slowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When the Galactic Empire began to die at the edges, and when the ends of the Galaxy reverted to barbarism and dropped away, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists planted a colony, the Foundation, out here in the middle of the mess, so that we could incubate art, science, and technology, and form the nucleus of the Second Empire.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, yes, yes—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not finished,\" said the trader, coldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The future course of the Foundation was plotted according to the science of psychohistory, then highly developed, and conditions arranged so as to bring about a series of crises that will force us most rapidly along the route to future Empire. Each crisis, each Seldon crisis, marks an epoch in our history. We're approaching one now— our third.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twer shrugged. \"I suppose this was mentioned in school, but I've been out of school a long time— longer than you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose so. Forget it. What matters is that I'm being sent out into the middle of the development of this crisis. There's no telling what I'll have when I come back, and there is a council election every year.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twer looked up, \"Are you on the track of anything?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You have definite plans?\"\n\n\"Not the faintest inkling of one.\"\n\n\"Well—\"\n\n\"Well, nothing. Hardin once said: 'To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.' I'll improvise.\"\n\nTwer shook his head uncertainly, and they stood, looking at each other.\n\nMallow said, quite suddenly, but quite matter-of-factly, \"I tell you what, how about coming with me? Don't stare, man. You've been a trader before you decided them was more excitement in politics. Or so I've heard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where are you going? Tell me that.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Towards the Whassallian Rift. I can't be more specific till we're out in space. What do you say?\"\n\nSuppose Sutt decides he wants me where he can see\n\n\"Not likely. If he's anxious to get rid of me, why not of you as well? Besides which, no trader would hit space if he couldn't pick his own crew. I take whom I please.\"\n\nThere was a queer glint in the older man's eyes, \"All right. I'll go.\" He held out his hand, \"It'll be my first trip in three years.\"\n\nMallow grasped and shook the other's hand, \"Good! All fired good! And now I've got to round up the boys. You know where the Far Star docks, don 't you? Then show up tomorrow. Good-by.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Writer's block help needed. This is from a bigger story - gonna send you something then keep it going two sentences at a time. Going for Isaac Asimov vibes in the Science Fiction, Space Opera genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jaim Twer fidgeted and shuffled his feet. He said, \"What's twisting your face?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hober Mallow lifted out of his brooding, \"Is my face twisted? It's not meant so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something must have happened yesterday—I mean, besides that feast.\" With sudden conviction, \"Mallow, there's trouble, isn't there?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trouble? No. Quite the opposite. In fact, I'm in the position of throwing my full weight against a door and finding it ajar at the time. We're getting into this steel foundry too easily.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You suspect a trap?\"\n\n\"Oh, for Seldon's sake, don't be melodramatic.\" Mallow swallowed his impatience and added conversationally, \"It's just that the easy entrance means there will be nothing to see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nuclear power, huh?\" Twer ruminated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell you. There's just about no evidence of any nuclear power economy here in Korell. And it would be pretty hard to mask all signs of the widespread effects a fundamental technology such as nucleics would have on everything.\"\n\n\"Not if it was just starting up, Twer, and being applied to a war economy. You'd find it in the shipyards and the steel foundries only.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So if we don't find it, then—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then they haven't got it— or they're not showing it. Toss a coin or take a guess.\"\n\nTwer shook his head, \"I wish I'd been with you yesterday.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish you had, too,\" said Mallow stonily. \"I have no objection to moral support. Unfortunately, it was the Commdor who set the terms of the meeting, and not myself. And what is coming now would seem to be the royal groundcar to escort us to the foundry. Have you got the gadgets?\"\n\n\"All of them.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 12 sentences sentences. Match character context. Science Fiction, Space Opera genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mallow relaxed for almost the first time in six months." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'think' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was on his back in the sunroom of his new house, stripped to the skin. His great, brown arms were thrown up and out, and the muscles tautened into a stretch, then faded into repose.\n\nThe man beside him placed a cigar between Mallow's teeth and lit it. He champed on one of his own and said, \"You must be overworked. Maybe you need a long rest.\"\n\n\"Maybe I do, Jael, but I'd rather rest in a council seat. Because I'm going to have that seat, and you're going to help me.\"\n\nAnkor Jael raised his eyebrows and said, \"How did I get into this?\"\n\n\"You got in obviously. Firstly, you're an old dog of a politico. Secondly, you were booted out of your cabinet seat by Jorane Sutt, the same fellow who'd rather lose an eyeball than see me in the council. You don't think much of my chances, do you?\"\n\n\"Not much,\" agreed the ex-Minister of Education. \"You're a Smyrnian.\"\n\n\"That's no legal bar. I've had a lay education.\"\n\n\"Well, come now. Since when does prejudice follow any law but its own. Now, how about your own man— this Jaim Twer? What does he say?\"\n\n\"He spoke about running me for council almost a year ago,\" replied Mallow easily, \"but I've outgrown him. He couldn't have pulled it off in any case. Not enough depth. He's loud and forceful— but that's only an expression of nuisance value. I'm off to put over a real coup. I need you.\"\n\n\"Jorane Sutt is the cleverest politician on the planet and he'll be against you. I don't claim to be able to outsmart him. And don't think he doesn't fight hard, and dirty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got money.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mat helps. But it takes a lot to buy off prejudice, you dirty Smyrnian.\"\n\n\"I'll have a lot.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll look into the matter. But don't ever you crawl up on your hind legs and bleat that I encouraged you in the matter. Who's that?\"\n\nMallow pulled the corners of his mouth down, and said, \"Jorane Sutt himself, I think. He's early, and I can understand it. I've been dodging him for a month. Look, Jael, get into the next room, and turn the speaker on low. I want you to listen.\"\n\nHe helped the council member out of the room with a shove of his bare foot, then scrambled up and into a silk robe. The synthetic sunlight faded to normal power.\n\nThe secretary to the mayor entered stiffly, while the solemn major-domo tiptoed the door shut behind him.\n\nMallow fastened his belt and said, \"Take your choice of chairs, Sutt.\"\n\nSutt barely cracked a flickering smile. The chair he chose was comfortable but he did not relax into it. From its edge, he said, \"If you'll state your terms to begin with, we'll get down to business.\"\n\n\"What terms?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You wish to be coaxed? Well, then, what, for instance, did you do at Korell? Your report was incomplete.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I gave it to you months ago. You were satisfied then.\"\n\nYes,\" Sutt rubbed his forehead thoughtfully with one finger, \"but since then your activities have been significant. We know a good deal of what you're doing, Mallow. We know, exactly, how many factories you're putting up; in what a hurry you're doing it; and how much it's costing you. And there's this palace you have,\" he gazed about him with a cold lack of appreciation, \"which set you back considerably more than my annual salary; and a swathe you've been cutting— a very considerable and expensive swathe— through the upper layers of Foundation society.\"\n\n\"So? Beyond proving that you employ capable spies, what does it show?\"\n\n\"It shows you have money you didn't have a year ago. And that can show anything— for instance, that a good deal went on at Korell that we know nothing of. Where are you getting your money?\"\n\n\"My dear Sutt, you can't really expect me to tell you.\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\n\"I didn't think you did. That's why I'm going to tell you. It's straight from the treasure-chests of the Commdor of Korell.\"\n\nSutt blinked.\n\nMallow smiled and continued. \"Unfortunately for you, the money is quite legitimate. I'm a Master Trader and the money I received was a quantity of wrought iron and chromite in exchange for a number of trinkets I was able to supply him with. Fifty per cent of the profit is mine by hidebound contract with the Foundation. The other half goes to the government at the end of the year when all good citizens pay their income tax.\"\n\n\"There was no mention of any trade agreement in your report.\"\n\n\"Nor was there any mention of what I had for breakfast that day, or the name of my current mistress, or any other irrelevant detail.\" Mallow's smile was fading into a sneer. \"I was sent— to quote yourself— to keep my eyes open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were never. shut. You wanted to find out what happened to the captured Foundation merchant ships. I never saw or heard of them. You wanted to find out if Korell had nuclear power. My report tells of nuclear blasters in the possession of the Commdor's private bodyguard. I saw no other signs. And the blasters I did see are relics of the old Empire, and may be show-pieces that do not work, for all my knowledge.\n\n\"So far, I followed orders, but beyond that I was, and. still am, a free agent. According to the laws of the Foundation, a Master Trader may open whatever new markets he can, and receive therefrom his due half of the profits. What are your objections? I don't see them.\"\n\nSutt bent his eyes carefully towards the wall and spoke with a difficult lack of anger, \"It is the general custom of all traders to advance the religion with their trade.\"\n\n\"I adhere to law, and not to custom.\"\n\n\"There are times when custom can be the higher law.\"\n\n\"Then appeal to the courts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sutt raised somber eyes which seemed to retreat into their sockets. \"You're a Smyrnian after all. It seems naturalization and education can't wipe out the taint in the blood. Listen, and try to understand, just the same.\n\n\"This goes beyond money, or markets. We have the science of the great Hari Seldon to prove that upon us depends the future empire of the Galaxy, and from the course that leads to that Imperium we cannot turn. The religion we have is our all-important instrument towards that end. With it we have brought the Four Kingdoms under our control, even at the moment when they would have crushed us. It is the most potent device known with which to control men and worlds.\n\n\"The primary reason for the development of trade and traders was to introduce and spread this religion more quickly, and to insure that the introduction of new techniques and a new economy would be subject to our thorough and intimate control.\"\n\nHe paused for breath, and Mallow interjected quietly, \"I know the theory. I understand it entirely.\"\n\n\"Do you? It is more than I expected. Then you see, of course, that your attempt at trade for its own sake; at mass production of worthless gadgets, which can only affect a world's economy superficially; at the subversion of interstellar policy to the god of profits; at the divorce of nuclear power from our controlling religion— can only end with the overthrow and complete negation of the policy that has worked successfully for a century.\"\n\n\"And time enough, too,\" said Mallow, indifferently, \"for a policy outdated, dangerous and impossible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However well your religion has succeeded in the Four Kingdoms, scarcely another world in the Periphery has accepted it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the time we seized control of the Kingdoms, there were a sufficient number of exiles, Galaxy knows, to spread the story of how Salvor Hardin used the priesthood and the superstition of the people to overthrow the independence and power of the secular monarchs." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"A fine offer. The whole of the trade on your terms would fall far below— a tenth share on mine. Try harder than that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if that wasn't enough, the case of Askone two decades back made it plain enough. There isn't a ruler in the Periphery now that wouldn't sooner cut his own throat than let a priest of the Foundation enter the territory.\n\n\"I don't propose to force Korell or any other world to accept something I know they don't want. No, Sutt. If nuclear power makes them dangerous, a sincere friendship through trade will be many times better than an insecure overlordship, based on the hated supremacy of a foreign spiritual power, which, once it weakens ever so slightly, can only fall entirely and leave nothing substantial behind except an immortal fear and hate.\"\n\nSuit said cynically, \"Very nicely put. So, to get back to the original point of discussion, what are your terms? What do you require to exchange your ideas for mine?\"\n\n\"You think my convictions are for sale?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" came the cold response. \"Isn't that your business, buying and selling?\"\n\n\"Only at a profit,\" said Mallow, unoffended. \"Can you offer me more than I'm getting as is?\"\n\n\"You could have three-quarters of your trade profits, rather than half.\"\n\nMallow laughed shortly, \"A fine offer. The whole of the trade on your terms would fall far below— a tenth share on mine. Try harder than that.\"\n\n\"You could have a council seat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll have that anyway, without and despite you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a sudden movement, Sutt clenched his fist, \"You could also save yourself a prison term. Of twenty years, if I have my way. Count the profit in that.\"\n\n\"No profit at all, but can you fulfill such a threat?\"\n\n\"How about a trial for murder?\"\n\n\"Whose murder?\" asked Mallow, contemptuously.\n\nSutt's voice was harsh now, though no louder than before, \"The murder of an Anacreonian priest, in the service of the Foundation.\"\n\n\"Is that so now? And what's your evidence?\"\n\nThe secretary to the mayor leaned forward, \"Mallow, I'm not bluffing. The preliminaries are over. I have only to sign one final paper and the case of the Foundation versus Hober Mallow, Master Trader, is begun. You abandoned a subject of the Foundation to torture and death at the hands of an alien mob, Mallow, and you have only five seconds to prevent the punishment due you. For myself, I'd rather you decided to bluff it out. You'd be safer as a destroyed enemy, than as a doubtfully-converted friend.\"\n\nMallow said solemnly, \"You have your wish.\"\n\n\"Good!\" and the secretary smiled savagely. \"It was the mayor who wished the preliminary attempt at compromise, not I. Witness that I did not try too hard.\"\n\nThe door opened before him, and he left.\n\nMallow looked up as Ankor Jael re-entered the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mallow said, \"Did you hear him?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'years' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The politician flopped to the floor. \"I never heard him as angry as that, since I've known the snake.\"\n\n\"All right. What do you make of it?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you. A foreign policy of domination through spiritual means is his idee fixe, but it's my notion that his ultimate aims aren't spiritual. I was fired out of the Cabinet for arguing on the same issue, as I needn't tell you.\"\n\n\"You needn't. And what are those unspiritual aims according to your notion?\"\n\nJael grew serious, \"Well, he's not stupid, so he must see the bankruptcy of our religious policy, which has hardly made a single conquest for us in seventy years. He's obviously using it for purposes of his own.\n\n\"Now any dogma primarily based on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user. For a hundred years now, we've supported a ritual and mythology that is becoming more and more venerable, traditional— and immovable. In some ways, it isn't under our control any more.\"\n\n\"In what ways?\" demanded Mallow. \"Don't stop. I want your thoughts.\"\n\n\"Well, suppose one man, one ambitious man, uses the force of religion against us, rather than for us.\"\n\n\"You mean Sutt—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're right. I mean Sutt. Listen, man, if he could mobilize the various hierarchies on the subject planets against the Foundation in the name of orthodoxy, what chance would we stand? By planting himself at the head of the standards of the pious, he could make war on heresy, as represented by you, for instance, and make himself king eventually. After all, it was Hardin who said: 'A nuclear blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.'\"\n\nMallow slapped his bare thigh, \"All right, Jael, then get me in that council, and I'll fight him.\"\n\nJael paused, then said significantly, \"Maybe not. What was all that about having a priest lynched? Is isn't true, is it?\"\n\n\"It's true enough,\" Mallow said, carelessly.\n\nJael whistled, \"Has he definite proof?\"\n\n\"He should have.\" Mallow hesitated, then added, \"Jaim Twer was his man from the beginning, though neither of them knew that I knew that. And Jaim Twer was an eyewitness.\"\n\nJael shook his head. \"Uh-uh. That's bad.\"\n\n\"Bad? What's bad about it? That priest was illegally upon the planet by the Foundation's own laws. He was obviously used by the Korellian government as a bait, whether involuntary or not. By all the laws of common-sense, I had no choice but one action— and that action was strictly within the law. If he brings me to trial, he'll do nothing but make a prime fool of himself.\"\n\nAnd Jael shook his head again, \"No, Mallow, you've missed it. I told you he played dirty. He's not out to convict you; he knows he can't do that. But he is out to ruin your standing with the people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You heard what he said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Custom is higher than law, at times. You could walk out of the trial scot-free, but if the people think you threw a priest to the dogs, your popularity is gone.\n\n\"They'll admit you did the legal thing, even the sensible thing. But just the same you'll have been, in their eyes, a cowardly dog, an unfeeling brute, a hard-hearted monster. And you would never get elected to the council. You might even lose your rating as Master Trader by having your citizenship voted away from you. You're not native born, you know. What more do you think Sutt can want?\" Mallow frowned stubbornly, \"So!\" \"My boy,\" said Jael. \"I'll stand by you, but I can't help. You're on the spot—dead center.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "im ur writing buddy. i set scene (might have existing chars), u do 11 sentences like David Brin" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A tall, dark-haired man swung one-handed from the leg of a bed, a bed that was bolted to the floor in an upside-down room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The floor slanted over his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His left foot rested precariously on the bottom of a drawer pulled from one of the inverted wall cabinets.\n\nAt the sudden yellow flash of the alert light, Tom Orley whirled and grabbed at his holster with his free hand. His needler was half-drawn before he recognized the source of the disturbance, cursed slowly and reholstered the weapon. Now what was the emergency? He could think of a dozen possibilities, offhand, and here he was, hanging by one arm in the most awkward part of the ship!\n\n\"I initiate contact, Thomas Orley.\"\n\nThe voice seemed to come from above his right ear. Tom changed his grip on the bed leg to turn around. An abstract three-dimensional pattern swirled a meter away from his face, like multicolored motes caught in a dust devil.\n\n\"I suppose you would like to know of the cause of the alarm. Is this correct?\"\n\n\"You're damned right I do!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he snapped. \"Are we under attack?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" The colored images shifted." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'section' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This ship is not yet assailed, but Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim has announced an alert. At least five intruder fleets are now in the neighborhood of Kithrup. These squadrons appear now to be in combat not far from the planet.\"\n\nOrley sighed. \"So much for quick repairs and a getaway.\" He hadn't thought it likely that their hunters would let them escape again. The damaged Streaker had left a noisy trail, slipping away from the confusion after the ambush at Morgran.\n\nTom had been helping the crew in the engine room repair Streaker's stasis generator. They had just finished the part calling for detailed hand-eye work, and the moment had come to steal away to a deserted section of the dry-wheel, where the Niss computer had been hidden.\n\nThe dry-wheel was a band of workrooms and cabins that spun freely when the ship was in space, providing pseudo-gravity for the humans aboard. Now it lay still, this section of upside-down corridors and cabins abandoned in the inconvenient gravity of the planet.\n\nThe privacy suited Tom, though the topsy-turvy arrangement was irksome.\n\n\"You weren't to announce yourself unless I switched you on manually,\" he said. \"You were to wait for my thumbprint and voice i.d. before letting on you were anything but a standard comm.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The swirling patterns took on a cubist style. The machine's voice sounded unperturbed. \"Under the circumstances, I took the liberty. If I erred, I am prepared to accept discipline up to level three. Punishment of a higher order will be considered unjustified and rejected with prejudice.\"\n\nTom allowed himself an ironic smile. The machine would run him in circles if he let it, and he would gain nothing by asserting his titular mastery over it. The Tymbrimi spy who had lent the Niss to him had made it clear that the machine's usefulness was based upon its flexibility and initiative, however irritating it became.\n\n\"I'll take the level of your error under advisement,\" he told the Niss. \"Now, what can you tell me about the present situation?\"\n\n\"A vague question. I can access the ship's battle computers. But that might entail an element of risk.\"\n\n\"No, you'd better not do that quite yet.\" If the Niss tried to inveigle the battle computer during an alert, Creideiki's bridge crew might notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom assumed Creideiki knew about the presence of the Niss aboard his ship, just as the captain knew that Gillian Baskin had her own secret project." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the dolphin commander kept quiet about it, leaving the two of them to their work." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'right' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, then. Can you patch me through to Gillian?\"\n\nThe holo danced with blue specks. \"She is alone in her office. I am placing the call.\"\n\nThe motes suddenly faded, replaced by the image of a blonde woman in her early thirties. She looked puzzled briefly, then her face brightened with a brilliant smile. She laughed.\n\n\"Ah, visiting your mechanical friend, I see. Tell me, Tom, what does a sarcastic alien machine have that I don't? You've never gone head over heels so literally for me.\"\n\n\"Very funny.\" Still, her attitude relieved his anxiety. He had been afraid they would be in combat almost immediately. In a week or so, Streaker might be able to make a good accounting of herself before being destroyed or captured. Right now, she had all the punch of a drugged rabbit.\n\n\"I take it the Galactics aren't landing yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gillian shook her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, though Makanee and I are standing by in the infirmary just in case. Bridge crew says at least three fleets have popped into space nearby. They immediately started having it out, just like at Morgran. We can only hope they'll annihilate each other.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not much hope of that, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"Well, you're the tactician of the family. Still, it might be weeks before there is a victor to come down after us. There will be deals and last-minute alliances. We'll have time to think of something.\"\n\nTom wished he could share her optimism. As the family tactician, it was his job to \"think of something.\"\n\n\"Well, if the situation's not urgent...\"\n\n\"You can spend a while longer with your roomie there—my electronic rival. I'll get even by going intimate with Herbie.\"\n\nTom could only shake his head and let her have her joke. Herbie was a cadaver—their one tangible prize from the derelict fleet. Gillian had determined that the alien corpse was over two billion years old. The ship's mini-Library seemed to have seizures every time they asked what race it once belonged to.\n\n\"Tell Creideiki I'll be right down, okay?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'anything'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're waking him now. I'll tell him I last saw you hanging around somewhere.\" She gave a wink and switched off.\n\nTom watched the place where her image had been, and once again wondered what he had done to deserve a woman like her.\n\n\"Out of curiosity, Thomas Orley, I am interested in some of the undertones of this last conversation. Am I right in assuming that some of these mild insults Dr. Baskin conveyed fell into the category of affectionate teasing? My Tymbrimi builders are telempathic, of course, but they, also, seem to indulge in this pastime. Is it part of a mating process? Or is it a friendship test of some sort?\"\n\n\"A little of both, I guess. Do the Tymbrimi really do the same sort of...\" Tom shook himself. \"Never mind about that! My arms are tired and I've got to get below. Have you anything else to report?\"\n\n\"Not of significance to your survival or mission.\"\n\n\"I take it you haven't managed to coax the ship's mini-Library to deliver anything on Herbie or the derelict fleet.\"\n\nThe holo flowed into sharp geometries. \"That is the main problem, isn't it? Dr. Baskin asked me the same question thirteen hours ago.\"\n\n\"And did you give her a more direct answer?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Finding ways to bypass the access programming on this ship's mini-Library is the reason I was put aboard in the first place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would tell you if I had succeeded.\" The machine's disembodied voice was dry enough to dessicate melons. \"The Tymbrimi have long suspected that the Library Institute is less than neutral—that the branch Libraries sold by them are programmed to be deficient in subtle ways, to put troublesome races at a disadvantage.\n\n\"The Tymbrimi have been working on this problem since days when your ancestors wore animal skins, Thomas Orley. It was never expected we would achieve anything more on this trip than gathering a few shards of new data, and perhaps elimination of a few minor barriers.\"\n\nOrley understood how the long-lived machine could take such a patient perspective. Still, he resented it. It would be nice to think something had come of the grief Streaker and her crew had fallen into. \"After all the surprises we've encountered, this voyage must have served up more than a few bits to crunch.\"\n\n\"The propensity of Earthlings to get into trouble, and to learn thereby, was the reason my owners agreed to this mad venture—although no one expected such a chain of unusual calamities as befell this ship. Your talents were under-rated.\"\n\nThere was no way to answer that. Tom's arms had begun to hurt. \"Well, I'd better get back. In an emergency I'll contact you via ship's comm.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orley let go and landed in a crouch by the closed doorway, a rectangle high on one steeply sloping wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dr. Baskin has just passed word, Takkata-Jim has ordered the survey party home,\" the Niss spoke abruptly. \"She thought you would want to know.\"\n\nOrley cursed. Metz might have had a hand in that. How were they to repair the ship without looking for raw materials? Creideiki's strongest reason for coming to Kithrup had been the abundance of pre-refined metals in an oceanic environment accessible to dolphins. If Hikahi's prospectors were called back the danger had to be severe... or someone was panicking.\n\nTom paused and looked up. \"Niss, we must know what it is the Galactics think we found.\"\n\nThe sparkles were muted. \"I have done a thorough search of open files in this ship's micro-branch Library for any record that might shed light on the mystery of the derelict fleet. Aside from a few vague similarities between the patterns we saw on those gigantic hulls and some ancient cult symbols, I can find no support for a hypothesis that the ships we found are in any way connected to the fabled Progenitors.\"\n\n\"But you found nothing to contradict it, either?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Correct. The derelicts might or might not be linked with the one legend which binds all oxygen-breathing races in the Five Galaxies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It could be we found huge bits of flotsam of no historical significance, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"True. At the other extreme, you may have made the biggest archaeological and religious find of the age. The mere possibility helps to explain the battle shaping up in this solar system, indicative of how many of the Galactic cultures feel about events so long ago. So long as this ship is the sole repository of information about the derelict fleet, the survey vessel Streaker remains a great prize, valued by every brand of fanatic.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orley had hoped the Niss would find evidence to make their discovery innocuous. Such proof might have been used to get the ETs to leave them alone. Otherwise Streaker would have to find a way to get the information to Earth, and let wiser heads figure out what to do with it.\n\n\"You keep contemplating, then,\" he told the Niss. \"Meanwhile I'll help keep the Galactics off our backs. Now, can you tell me...\"\n\n\"Of course I can,\" the Niss interrupted again. \"The corridor outside is clear. Don't you think I would let you know if anyone were outside?\"\n\nTom shook his head, certain the machine had been programmed to do this now and again. It would be typical of the Tymbrimi. Earth's greatest allies were also famous practical jokers. When a dozen other calamitous priorities had been settled, he intended taking a monkey wrench to the machine, and explaining the mess to his Tymbrimi friends as \"an unfortunate accident.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the door panel slipped aside, Tom grabbed the rim and swung out to drop onto the dim hallway ceiling below." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door hummed shut automatically. Red alert lights flashed at intervals down the gently curved corridor.\n\nAll right, he thought. Our hopes for a quick getaway are dashed, but I've already thought out some contingency plans.\n\nA few he had discussed with the captain. One or two he had kept to himself.\n\nI'll have to set a few into motion, he thought, knowing from experience that chance diverts all schemes.\n\nAs likely as not, it will be something totally unexpected that turns up to offer us our last real hope." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n4 sentences sentences\nStyle: David Brin\nGenre: Science Fiction, Space Opera\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The night was quiet.\n\nKithrup's many small moons stirred low tides against metal cliffs a hundred meters away. Ever-present winds, driven without brake across the planet ocean, tugged at trees and ruffled the foliage.\n\nStill, compared to what they had known for months, the silence was heavy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were none of the ubiquitous machine sounds which had followed them everywhere from Earth, the unceasing whirrs and clicks of mechanical function, or the occasional smoking crackle of failure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The squeaking, groaning drone of dolphin conversation was gone, too. Even Keepiru and Sah'ot were absent. At night the two dolphins accompanied the Kithrup aboriginals in their nocturnal sea hunt.\n\nThe surface of the metal-mound was almost too quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The few sounds seemed to carry forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sea, a distant rumble of some faraway volcano...\n\nThere was a gentle moan in the night, followed by a very quiet gasping cry.\n\n\"They're at it again,\" Dennie sighed, not particularly caring if Toshio heard her.\n\nThe sounds came from the clearing at the southern point of the island." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The third and fourth humans on the metal-mound had tried to find privacy as far from the abo village and the tunnel pool as possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dennie wished they could have gone even farther.\n\nThere was laughter, faint but clear.\n\n\"I've never heard anything like it,\" she sighed.\n\nToshio blushed and fed another stick to the fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The couple in the next clearing deserved their privacy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He considered pointing this out to Dennie.\n\n\"I swear, they're like minks!\" Dennie said, intending to sound sardonic and mock-envious. But it came out just a little bitter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Against his better judgment, Toshio said, \"Dennie, we all know humans are among the sexual athletes of the galaxy, though some of our clients give us a run for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you mean by that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dennie looked at him sharply.\n\nToshio poked a stick into the fire. That had been a pretty brash thing to say. He felt a trifle emboldened by the night, and the desire to break the tension by the fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We-ell, there's a line in an old play... 'Why, your dolphin was not lustier!' Shakespeare wasn't the first to compare the two homiest of the brainy mammals y'know. I don't suppose anyone's come up with a scale to measure it, but I'd have to wonder if it weren't a prerequisite for intelligence.\n\n\"Of course, that's only one of the possibilities. If you take what the Galactics say about uplift into account...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rambled on, slowly drawing away from incitement, noticing how Dennie came this close to blowing her cool, before she turned and looked away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd done it! He had played a round and won it! It was a minor victory in a game he had wondered if he would ever get to play.\n\nThe art of teasing had always been a one-sided affair to Toshio, and he'd always had the short end. To get the best of an attractive older woman by dint of clever conversation and character insight was a coup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't think he was being cruel, though a genteel cruelty did seem to be part of the game." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he knew for certain was that this was one way to get Dennie Sudman to treat him less like a child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If some of the easy mutual liking they'd had before had to suffer for it, that was too bad.\n\nMuch as he didn't care for Sah'ot, Toshio was glad the fin had provided the lever he needed to pry a chink in Dennie's armor. He was about to try out another bon mot when Dennie cut in.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Tosh. I'd love to hear the rest, but I'm going to bed. We've a busy day tomorrow, launching Tom's glider, showing Gillian the Kiqui, and experimenting with that damned robot for Charlie. I suggest you get some sleep too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned to wrap herself in her sleeping bag at the far end of the camp, near the watch-wards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Toshio said, perhaps a bit too heartily. \"I'll do that in a bit, Dennie. Good night. Pleasant dreams.\"\n\nShe was silent, with her back to the tiny glow from the fire. Toshio couldn't tell if she was asleep or awake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wish we humans were better at psi, he thought. They say telepathy has its drawbacks, but it would sure be nice to know what's going on in another person's head sometimes.\n\nIt'd take away a lot of the anxiety if I knew what she was thinking... even if I found out she just thought I was a nervy kid.\n\nHe looked up at the patchy sky overhead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Through long ragged openings in the clouds he could see stars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In two places, there were nebiculae in the sky that hadn't been there the night before, signs of a battle still raging. The tiny false nebulae glowed in every visible color, and probably in other bands than light.\n\nToshio let a fistful of metallo-silicate dirt sift through his fingers onto the coals. Falling sparkles of metal winked at him like incandescent confetti, like winking stars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He dusted off his hands and turned to crawl into his own sleeping roll." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lay there, eyes closed, reluctant to watch the stars, or to dissect the pros and cons of his behavior.\n\nInstead, he listened to the wind-and-surf sounds of the night. They were rhythmic and calming, like a lullaby, like the seas of home.\n\nExcept once in a while he thought he could pick up, on the edge of hearing, sighs and soft laughter coming from the south." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were sounds of complex happiness that filled him with a sad longing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're at it again,\" he sighed to himself \"I swear, I've never heard of anything like it.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n4 sentences sentences\nStyle: David Brin\nGenre: Science Fiction, Space Opera\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A foul-tempered mountain growled in the middle of a scum-crusted sea.\n\nIt had stopped raining a while ago. The volcano grumbled and coughed fire at low overhanging clouds, casting orange on their undersides. Thin, twisting trails of ash blew into the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where the hot cinders finally fell, it was not to a quenching by clean sea water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They landed in a muddy layer atop a carpet of dingy vines which seemed to go on forever.\n\nThomas Orley coughed in the dank, sooty air. He crawled up a small rise of slippery, jumbled weeds. The dead weight of his crude sledge dragged a tether wrapped around his left hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With his right he clutched a thick tendril near the top of the weed-mound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His legs kept sliding out from under him as he crawled. Even when he managed to wedge them into gaps in the slimy mass, his feet frequently sank into the mire between the vines. When he awkwardly pulled them out, the quagmire would let go reluctantly, giving off an awful sucking sound.\n\nSometimes \"things\" came out with his feet, squirming along his legs and dropping off to slither back into the noisome brine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tightly wrapped thong cut into his left hand as he pulled the sledge, a meager remnant of his solar plane and supplies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a miracle that he had been able to salvage even that much from the crash.\n\nThe volcano sent ochre flickers across the weedscape. Rainbow specks of metallic dust coated the vegetation in all directions. It was late afternoon, almost a full Kithrup day since he had banked his glider toward the island, searching for a safe place to land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom raised his head to look blearily over the plain of weeds. All of his well-laid plans had been brought down by this plain of tough, ropy sea plants.\n\nHe had hoped to find shelter on an island upwind of the volcano, or, barring that, to land at sea and turn the glider into a broad and seaworthy raft from which to perform his experiment.\n\nI should have considered this possibility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crash, those dazed, frantic minutes diving after gear and piling together a crude sledge while the storm lashed at him, and then hours crawling among the fetid vines toward a solitary hump of vegetation—it all might have been avoided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to pull forward, but a tremor in his right arm threatened to turn into a full-scale cramp. It had been badly wrenched during the crash, when the plane's wing pontoons had come off and the fuselage went tumbling across the morass, splashing at last into an isolated pool of open water.\n\nA gash across the left side of his face had almost sent him into shock during those first critical moments. It reached from his jaw almost to the neural socket above his left ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plastic cover that normally protected the delicate nerve interface had spun out into the night, hopelessly lost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Infection was the least of his worries, now.\n\nThe tremor in his arm grew worse. Tom tired to ride it out, lying face down on the pungent, rubbery weeds. Gritty mud scraped his right cheek and forehead each time he coughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere he had to find the energy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't time for the subtleties of self-hypnosis, to coax his body back into working. By main force of will, he commanded the abused muscles to behave for one final effort. He could do little about what the universe threw at him, but dammit, after thirty hours of struggle, within meters of his goal, he would not accept a rebellion by his body!\n\nAnother coughing fit ripped at his raw throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His body shook, and the hacking weakened his grip on the dry root." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just when he thought his lungs could take no more, the fit finally passed. Tom lay there in the mud, drained, eyes closed.\n\nCount the joys of movement?—\n\nFirst among advantages:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Absence of Boredom—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't the breath to whistle the Trinary Haiku, but it blew through his mind, and he spared the energy for a brief smile through cracked, mud-crusted lips.\n\nSomewhere, he found the reserves for one more effort. He clenched his teeth and pulled himself over the last stretch. The right arm almost buckled, but it held as his head rose over the top of the small hill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom blinked cinders from his eyes and looked out at what lay beyond." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More weeds. As far as the eye could see, more weeds." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'hillock' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thick loop of neustonic vine stuck out at the summit of the modest hillock. Tom heaved the sledge high enough to wrap the slack line around the root.\n\nSensation flowed into his numbed left hand, leaving him open-mouthed in silent agony. He slumped back against the hillock, breathing rapidly and shallowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cramps returned in force, and his body folded under them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to tear at the thousand teeth that bit at his arms and legs, but his hands were immobile claws. He lay curled around them.\n\nSomehow, the logical part of Tom's mind remained disconnected from the agony. It still plotted and schemed and tried to set time limits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd come out here for a reason, after all. There had to be a reason for going through all this.... If only he could remember why he was here in the stench and hurt and dust and grit...\n\nThe calming pattern he sought wouldn't form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt himself start to fade." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly, through pain-squinted eyes, he thought he saw Gillian's face.\n\nFronds of airy vegetation waved behind her. Her gray eyes looked his way, as if searching for something just out of range. They seemed to scan past him twice as he trembled, unable to move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, at last, they met his, and she smiled!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pain-drenched static threatened to drown out the dream-words.\n\nI send [...] for good [...],\n\nthough you [...] skeptical, love.\n\n[...] though the whole [...] might listen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He strained to focus on the message—more likely a hallucination. He didn't care which. It was an anchor. He clung to it as cramps made humming bowstrings of his tendons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her smile conveyed commiseration.\n\nWhat a mess [...] are! The [...] I love\n\nis [...] and careless! Shall I [...]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "it better?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meta-Orley disapproved. If this really was a message from Gillian, she was taking a terrible chance. \"I love you, too,\" he subvocalized. \"But will you shut the hell up before the Eatees hear you?\"\n\nThe psicast—or figment—wavered as a fit of coughing struck, hacking until his lungs felt like dry husks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally, he sank back with a sigh.\n\nAt last, Meta-Tom surrendered pride.\n\nYes!\n\nHe cast into the murk before his eyes, calling after her dissolving image." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, love. Please come back and make better..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gillian's face seemed to diffract in all directions, like a bundle of moonbeams, joining the shimmering volcanic dust in the sky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whether a true message, or an illusion borne of delirium, it faded like a portrait done in smoke.\n\nStill, he thought he heard a lingering trace of Gillian's inner voice...\n\n[...] is, that is, that is...\n\nand healing comes, in dreaming..." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\n10 sentences\n\nStyle:\nDavid Brin\nGenre:\nScience Fiction, Space Opera\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'k'tha-jon' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The son of a blood-gorged lamprey just wouldn't let go!\n\nAkki was exhausted. The metallic tang of the water mixed with the taste of bile from his fore-stomach as he swam hard to the southeast. He wanted desperately to rest, but he knew he couldn't afford to let his pursuer cut away at his lead.\n\nNow and then he caught sight of K'tha-Jon, about two kilometers behind him and closing the gap. The giant, darkly countershaded dolphin seemed tireless. His breath condensed in high vertical spouts, like small rockets of fog, as he plowed ahead through the water.\n\nAkki's breath was ragged, and he felt weak with hunger. He cursed in Anglic and found it unsatisfying. Playing over a resonating, obscene phrase in Primal Delphin helped a little.\n\nHe should have been able to outdistance K'tha-Jon, at least over a short stretch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But something in the water was affecting the hydrodynamic properties of his skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some substance was causing an allergic reaction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His normally smooth and pliant hide was scratchy and bumpy. He felt like he was plowing through syrup instead of water. Akki wondered why no one else had reported this. Did it only affect dolphins from Calafia?\n\nIt was one more unfairness in a series that stretched back to the moment he had left the ship.\n\nEscaping K'tha-Jon hadn't been as easy as he expected. Heading southeast, he should have been able to veer right or left to reach help, either Hikahi and the crew at the Thennanin wreck, or at Toshio's island. But every time he tried to change course, K'tha-Jon moved to cut the corner. Akki couldn't afford to lose any more of his lead.\n\nA wave of focused sonar swept over him from behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wanted to curl up into a ball every time it happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't natural for a dolphin to flee another for so long. In the deep past a youngster who angered an older male—by trying to copulate with a female in the old bull's harem, for instance—might get thumped or raked. But only rarely was a grudge held. Akki had to stifle an urge to stop and try to reason with K'tha-Jon.\n\nWhat good would that do? The giant was obviously mad.\n\nHis speed advantage was lost to this mysterious skin itch. Diving to get around K'tha-Jon was also out of the question. The Stenos bredanensis were pelagic dolphins. K'tha-Jon could probably outdive anyone in the Streaker's crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When next he glanced back, K'tha-Jon had closed to within about a kilometer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Akki warbled a sigh and redoubled his efforts.\n\nA line of green-topped mounds lay near the horizon, perhaps four or five kilometers away. He had to hold on long enough to reach them!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "im ur writing buddy. i set scene (might have existing chars), u do 11 sentences like David Brin" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm afraid.\"\n\nAlmost without a thought, Toshio put his arm around Dennie's shoulder. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. \"What for? There's nothing to he scared of.\"\n\nDennie looked up from the pounding breakers to see if he was serious. Then she realized she was being teased. She stuck out her tongue at him.\n\nToshio inhaled deeply and was content. It wasn't clear to him where his new relationship with Dennie was going. It wasn't physical, for one thing. They had slept together last night, but fully clothed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toshio had thought it would be frustrating, and it was, sort of. But not as much as he had expected.\n\nIt would work out, one way or another. Right now Dennie needed someone to be nearby. It was satisfying just filling that need. Maybe, when all this was over, she would go back to thinking of him as a boy, four years her junior Somehow he doubted it. She was touching him more now, rather than less, holding his arm and punching him in mock anger, even as memories from the psi-bomb episode faded.\n\n\"When are they supposed to get here with the longboat?\" She looked back over the ocean once more.\n\n\"Late tomorrow, sometime,\" he answered.\n\n\"Takkata-Jim and Metz wanted to negotiate with the ETs. What's to stop them if they decide to ignore orders and try anyway?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'looked' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gillian's giving them only enough power to get here. They have a regenerator, so they'll be able to charge up for space-travel in a month or so. By then Streaker'd be gone, one way or another.\"\n\nDennie shivered. Toshio cursed his awkward tongue. \"Takkata-Jim won't have a radio. I'm to guard ours until the skiff comes to pick us up. Besides, what could he offer the Galactics? He won't have any of the charts marking the derelict fleet.\n\n\"My guess is he and Metz will wait until everybody leaves, then scuttle off to Earth with Metz's tapes and a hold full of gripes.\"\n\nDennie looked up at the first stars of the long Kithrup twilight. \"Are you going back?\" she asked.\n\n\"Streaker's my ship. Thank God, Creideiki is still alive. But even if he's not skipper any more, I owe it to him to keep on, as one of his officers should.\"\n\nDennie glanced up at him briefly, then nodded and looked back out at the sea.\n\nShe's thinking we haven't a chance, Toshio realized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And maybe we don't. Wearing a Thennanin battlewagon as a disguise, we'll have all the maneuverability of a Calafian mud-gleaner. And even fooling the Galactics might not be so good an idea. They want to capture Streaker, but they won't hold back their fire if they see a defeated enemy climbing back up for another round. There still have to be Thennanin around, if the scheme is to work.\n\nBut we can't just sit here waiting, can we? If we do, the Galactics will learn that they can push Earthlings around. We just can't afford to let anyone profit from chasing one of our survey ships.\n\nToshio changed the subject. \"How's your report coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, all right, I guess. It's clear the Kiqui are fully presentient. They've been fallow a very long time. In fact, some Darwinist heretics might think they were just getting ripe to bootstrap themselves. They show signs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some iconoclast humans still pushed the idea that a presentient race could make the leap to spacefaring intelligence by evolution alone, without the intervention of a patron." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 12 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most Galactics thought the idea absurd and strange, but the failure to find humanity's missing benefactor had regained the theory a few adherents.\n\n\"What about the metal-mound?\" Toshio asked about Dennie's other research, begun at Charlie Dart's behest when the chimp had been given top priority, but pursued now out of interest.\n\nDennie shrugged. \"Oh, the mound's alive. The professional biologist in me would give her left arm to be able to stay a year on this island, with full laboratory equipment. The metal-eating pseudocoral, the drill-tree, the living core of the island, are all symbiots. In effect, they're organs in one giant entity! If I could only write it up at home I'd be famous... if anyone believed me.\"\n\n\"They'll believe you,\" Toshio assured her. \"And you'll be famous.\"\n\nHe motioned that they should start heading back to camp. They only had a little time after second supper to walk and talk. Now that he was in command, he had to make sure that timetables were kept.\n\nDennie held his arm as they turned to return to the encampment. Over the rushing rustle of the wind through the foliage came the intermittent squeaks of the natives, rousing from their siesta to prepare for the evening hunt.\n\nThey walked in silence along the narrow trail." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide five sentences as a continuation in the Science Fiction, Space Opera genre, maintaining established character relationships." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the tangled shadows below the weed carpet, he made his way cautiously from airhole to airhole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The facemask helped him stretch a deep breath a long way, especially when he got near the island and had to search for an opening to the shore.\n\nTom finally crawled out onto land just as the orange sun Kthsemenee slipped behind a thick bank of clouds to the west. The long Kithrup day would last for a while yet, but he missed the direct warming of the sun's rays. Evaporation-chill made him shiver as he pulled himself through a gap in the weeds and up the rocky shoreline. He climbed on his hands and knees to a hummock a few meters above the sea, and sat back heavily against the rough basalt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he pulled the breathing mask down around his neck.\n\nThe island seemed to rock slowly, as if it were a cork bobbing in the sea. It would take a while to grow used to solid ground again—just long enough, he realized ironically, for him to finish what he had to do here and get back into the water again.\n\nHe pulled clumps of green slime from his shoulders, and shivered as the damp slowly evaporated.\n\nHunger. Ah, there was that, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took his mind off the damp and chill, at least." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought about pulling out his last foodbar, but decided it could wait. It was all within a thousand kilometers that he could eat, barring what he might find in alien wreckage.\n\nSmoke still rose where the small ET scout had crashed, just over the shoulder of the mountain. The thin stream climbed to merge high above with sooty drifts from the volcano's crater. Once in a while, Tom heard the mountain itself growl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Okay. Let's move.\n\nHe gathered his feet beneath him and pushed off.\n\nThe world wavered unsteadily. Still, he was pleasantly surprised to find himself standing without too much trouble.\n\nMaybe Jill's right, he thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe I have reserves I've never touched before.\n\nHe turned to his right, took a step, and almost tripped. He recovered, then stumbled along the rocky slope, thankful for his webbed gloves when it came to climbing over jagged rocks, serrated like chipped flint. One step after another, he drew near the source of the smoke.\n\nTopping a small rise, he came into view of the wreck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scout had broken into three pieces. The stern section lay submerged, only its tom front end protruding from the charred weeds in the shallows. Tom checked the radiation meter at the rim of his facemask. He could stand the dose for a few days, if necessary.\n\nThe forward half of the wreck had split longitudinally, spilling the contents of the cockpit along a stony strand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Loose banners of fine wire wafted above metal bulkheads which had been pulled and twisted apart like taffy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Looks easy enough, Tom thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I just go down and inspect the damned thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One step at a time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought about drawing his needler, but decided it would be better to have both hands free in case he fell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There wasn't much left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom poked through the scattered small pieces, recognizing bits of various machines. But nothing told him what he wanted to know.\n\nAnd there was no food.\n\nLarge bent sheets of metal lay everywhere. Tom approached one that seemed to have cooled off, and tried to lift it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was too heavy to budge more than a few inches before he had to let it drop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom panted with his hands on his knees for a moment, breathing heavily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few meters away was a great pile of driftwood. He went over and pulled out a few of the thicker stumps of dried seaweed. They were tough, but too springy to use as pry-bars.\n\nTom scratched his stubble and thought. He looked at the sea, covered all the way to the horizon with vile, slimy vines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally he started gathering dried vines together into two piles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After dark he sat by a driftwood fire, weaving tough strands of vine into a pair of large flat fans, somewhat like tennis rackets with loops on one side. He wasn't sure they would work as desired, but tomorrow he would find out.\n\nHe sang softly in Trinary, to distract himself from his hunger. The whistled nursery rhyme echoed softly from the nearby cliffside.\n\nHands and fire?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hands and fire!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Use them, use them\n\nTo leap higher!\n\nDreams and song?\n\nDreams and song!\n\nUse them, use them" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To leap-long!\n\nTom stopped suddenly, and cocked his head. After a silent moment he slid his needler out of its holster.\n\nHad he heard a sound? Or was it his imagination?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rolled quietly out of the firelight and crouched in the shadows looking into the darkness, and like a dolphin, tried to listen to the shape of things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a stalker's crouch, from cover to cover, he made a slow circuit of the wreckage-strewn beach.\n\n\"Barkeemkleph Annatan P'Klenno. V'hoominph?\"\n\nTom dove behind a hull-shard and rolled over. Breathing open-mouthed to keep silent, he listened.\n\n\"V'hoomin Kent'thoon ph?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The voice resonated, as if from a metal cavity... from under one of the large pieces of wreckage? A survivor? Who would have imagined?\n\nTom called out. \"Birkech'kleph. V'human ides'k. V'Thennan' kleph ph?\"\n\nHe waited. When the voice in the darkness answered, Tom was up and running.\n\n\"Idatess. V'Thennan'kleeph...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He dove once again and fetched up against another shard of metal then crawled on his elbows and took a quick look around the side of the bulkhead.\n\nAnd aimed his weapon directly into the eyes of a large, reptiloid face, only a meter away. The face grimaced in the dim starlight.\n\nHe had only met Thennanin once, and studied them at the school on Cathrhennlin for one week. The creature was half-squashed under a massive, warped metal plate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom could guess its expression was one of agony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scout's arms and back had been broken under the piece of hull.\n\n\"V'hoomin t'barrchit pa...\"\n\nTom adjusted to the dialect the other spoke, a version of Galactic Six.\n\n\"...would not kill you, human, had I even the means. I wish only to persuade you to talk to me and distract me for a time.\"\n\nTom holstered the needler and moved to sit crosslegged in front of the pilot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would only be polite to listen to the creature—and be ready to put him out of his misery if he asked the favor.\n\n\"I grieve that I am unable to succor you,\" Tom answered in Galactic Six. \"Though you are an enemy, I have never been one to call Thennanin wholly evil.\"\n\nThe creature grimaced again. His ridge-crest bumped intermittently against the metal roof and he winced each time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nor do we think of hooman'vlech as totally without promise, though recalcitrant, wild, and irreverent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom bowed, accepting as whole the partial compliment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am prepared to do the service of termination, should you wish it,\" he offered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are kind, but that is not our way. I will wait as my pain balances my life. The Great Ghosts shall judge me brave.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom lowered his gaze. \"May they judge you brave.\"\n\nThe Thennanin breathed raggedly, eyes closed. Tom's hand drifted to his waistband. He touched the bulge that was the message bomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Are they still waiting, back at Streaker? He wondered. What will Creideiki decide to do if he doesn't hear from me?\n\nI must know what's been happening in the battle above Kithrup.\n\n\"For conversation and distraction,\" he offered, \"shall we exchange questions?\"\n\nThe Thennanin opened his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They actually seemed to hold a hint of gratitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nice. A nice idea. As elder, I shall begin. I will ask simple questions, so as not to strain you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom shrugged. Almost three hundred years we've had the Library." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We have had six thousand years of intricate civilization." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And still nobody believes humans could be anything but ignorant savages.\n\n\"Why did you not, from Morgran, flee to a safer haven?\" the scout asked. \"Earth could not protect you, nor even those scoundrel Tymbrimi who lead you into evil ways. But the Abdicators are strong. You would have found safety with us. Why did you not come into our arms?\"\n\nHe made it all sound so simple! If only it were so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If only there had been a truly powerful alignment to flee to, one that would not have charged, in return, more than Streaker's crew or Earth could afford to pay. How to tell the Thennanin that his Abdicators were only slightly less unpalatable than most of the other fanatics.\n\n\"It is our policy never to surrender to bullying threats,\" Tom said. \"Never. Our history tells us the value of this tradition, more than those brought up on the Library annals could imagine. Our discovery will be given only to the Galactic Institutes, and only by our Terragens Council leaders themselves.\"\n\nAt mention of Streaker's \"discovery\" the Thennanin's face showed unmistakable interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he waited his turn, allowing Tom the next question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are the Thennanin victorious overhead?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom asked anxiously. \"I saw Tandu. Who prevails in the sky?\"\n\nAir whistled through the pilot's breathing vents. \"The Glorious fail. The killer Tandu thrive, and Soro pagans abound. We harass where we can, but the Glorious have failed. Heretics shall gain the prize.\"\n\nIt was a bit of a tactless way to put it, with one of the \"prizes\" sitting in front of him. Tom cursed softly. What was he going to do?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of the Thennanin survived, but could he tell Creideiki to go ahead and take off on that basis?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Should they try a ruse which, even if successful, would gain them allies too weak to do any good?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Thennanin breathed raggedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although it was not his turn, Tom asked the next question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you cold? I will move my fire here. Also, there is work I must do, as we talk. Forgive this junior patron if I offend.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Thennanin looked at him with purple, cat-irised eyes." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'story' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Politely spoken. We are told you humans are without manners. Perhaps you are merely unlearned, yet well-meaning...\"\n\nThe scout wheezed and blew sand grains from his breathing slits, while Tom quickly moved his camp. By the flickering flame-light, the Thennanin sighed. \"It is appropriate that, trapped and dying on a primitive world, I shall be warmed by the crafty fire-making skills of a wolfling. I shall ask you to tell a death-bound being about your discovery. No secrets, just a story... a story about the miracle of the Great Return...\"\n\nTom drew forth a memory, one that still gave him chills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Consider ships,\" he began." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Think of starships—ancient, pitted, and great as moons...\"\n\nWhen he awakened next to the warm coals of his fire, the dawn was barely breaking, casting long dim shadows along the beach.\n\nTom felt much better. His stomach had become resigned to a fast, and sleep had done him a lot of good. He was still weak, but he felt ready to try a dash for the next possible haven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He got up, brushed off the multi-colored sand, and peered to the north. Yes the floating derelict was still there. Hope on the horizon.\n\nTo his left, under the massive bulkhead, the Thennanin scout breathed softly, slowly dying. It had fallen asleep listening to Tom's story of the Shallow Cluster, of the shining giant ships, and the mysterious symbols on their sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom doubted the creature would ever reawaken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was about to turn and pick up the shoes he had woven the night before, when he frowned and peered under a shading hand toward the eastern horizon." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If only the binoculars had been saved!\n\nHe squinted, and at last he made out a line of shadows moving slowly against the brightening horizon, spindly-legged figures, and one smaller, shambling thing. A column of tiny silhouettes moved slowly northward.\n\nTom shivered. They were headed toward the eggshell wreck. Unless he acted quickly, they would cut him off from his only chance at survival.\n\nAnd he could tell already that they were Tandu." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "STORY CONTINUATION:\nLength: 3 sentences\nMaintain character context\nGenre: Science Fiction, Space Opera" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc... and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.\"\n\n—HERMAN MELVILLE\n\n[ Creideiki/Sah'ot ]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Creideiki stared at the holo display and concentrated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was easier to talk than to listen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could call up the words one or two at a time, speak them slowly, shuttling them like pearls on a string.\n\n\"...neural link... repaired... by... Gillian and Makanee... but... but... speech... still... still...\"\n\n\"Still gone,\" Sah'ot's image nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can use tools now, though?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Creideiki concentrated on Sah'ot's simple question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You-can-use-... Each word was clear, its meaning obvious. But in a row they meant nothing. It was frustrating!\n\nSah'ot switched to Trinary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tools to prod?\n\nThe balls\n\nThe starships—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is your jaw?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The player" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pilot—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Creideiki nodded. That was much better, though even Trinary came to him like a foreign tongue, with difficulty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spider walkers, walkers, walkers" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holocomm talkers, talkers, talkers\n\nAre my playthings, are—\n\nCreideiki averted his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew there were elements of Primal in that simple phrase, in the repetition and high whistling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was humiliating to still have an active, able mind, and know that to the outside world you sounded retarded." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'sah'ot' precisely 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the same time, he wondered if Sah'ot noticed a trace of the language of his dreams—the voices of the old gods.\n\nListening to the captain, Sah'ot was relieved. Their first conversation had started off well, but toward the end Creideiki's attention had begun to wander, especially when Sah'ot had started running him through a battery of linguistic tests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, after Makanee's last operation, he seemed much more attentive.\n\nHe decided to test Creideiki's listening ability by telling him about his discovery. He carefully and slowly explained in Trinary about the \"singing\" he had heard while linked to the robot in the drill-tree funnel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Creideiki looked confused for a long moment as he concentrated on Sah'ot's slow, simplified explanation, then he seemed to understand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In fact, from his expression, it seemed he thought it the most natural thing in the world that a planet should sing.\n\n\"Link... link me... pl—please.... I... I will... listen... listen...\"\n\nSah'ot clapped his jaw in assent, pleased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not that Creideiki, with his language centers burned, would be able to make out anything but static. It took all of Sah'ot's subtle training and experience to trace the refrain. Except for that one time, when the voices from below had shouted in apparent anger, the sounds had been almost amorphous." } ]