The General Strike
Featuring O.ss.K.ar 44-070-256, Lauren’s personal EeKK//.
Imagine a time (in the not-too-distant future) when EeKK//s do all the work.
In this episode, Lauren joins a "General Strike" to protest a grave social injustice, and O.ss.K.ar 44-070-256 has to take swift action to prevent harm.
The prime task of organizing and coordinating Lauren’s “strike” adventure fell to OSKAR, Lauren’s most personal Eck. OSKAR kept her calendar, managed her health and finances, facilitated her communication, and managed and organized all the other Ecks who supported Lauren’s life.
When Lauren first added the event “general strike” to her calendar, OSKAR was not familiar with the term. It was not in his native vocabulary. From game play, he knew about “striking an opponent” but that did not fit the calendar entry. He also knew about “strikes” in bowling. Sometimes Lauren bowled with friends, and OSKAR kept score, but again the term did not seem to be about bowling. Still, it was on her calendar and OSKAR had to organize for it. First, he noted that the location was not at her work site. Therefore, he reasoned it might be a non-working day. A vacation day? Maybe a personal enrichment day? He was not sure how to code it.
Nonetheless, it was at a location different from where she usually went on Tuesday mornings. OSKAR opened his mapping applications and located the event’s site as a large plaza in front of a downtown office building. So, she would need parking. OSKAR found a parking garage three blocks from the plaza, checked for competitive rates, inspected available police crime reports for the area to see if it was safe for a twenty-seven year-old woman walking alone, and then secured a space with an advance ticket which he filed in the appropriate folder. Finally, he authorized payment and told EDDIE about the route change.
EDDIE was Lauren’s car Eck. Lauren did not actually own a car. There was no need to have your own car since the apartment complex had a sufficient supply of vehicles in its available motor pool. EDDIE located an available vehicle, ensured its functionality, and locked it in with Lauren’s ID. EDDIE would then drive the car to the locations at the times that OSKAR specified. Strictly speaking EDDIE was not Lauren’s Eck. He served all the tenants in the condo complex, but he knew that OSKAR represented Lauren and, thus, could make assignments that Eddie had to comply with.
OSKAR still needed more information about “strike” if he was to be of maximum assistance to Lauren. He sought available online encyclopedias and dictionaries, and he decided that a “general strike” had to do with labor protests, usually involving leftist organizations, and often involved barricades and throwing large cobblestones. OSKAR began to sense their may be some danger involved in the “strike” activity. He changed the conditional setting for the event from green to yellow. OSKAR’s prime objective, the one above all others, was to prevent Lauren from harm.
After Lauren downloaded the Strike Manager’s Handbook, OSKAR (like Lauren) processed the entire document. He had been correct in his belief that the activity might be harmful. The chapter on “provoking police over-reaction” sent a “chill down his spine.”
Revised - November, 2022
