S.I. (original/SI)
- Thread starter DataPacRat
- Start date
- Status
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not assuming that, but going back, I guess I phrased it badly. The Technovillains were basically throwing challenges at Bunny. And now someone else with obvious high tech level charges them with a wall of death. Something the protagonist saw coming. Why didn't they send a killbot? You don't use weapons of mass destruction for assassinations. On one hand this is massive overkill, on the other hand it's not enough. If they were that desperate to see them dead, why not use a bio weapon designed for Bunnies biology? Or a nuke?
23
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
*Chapter Three: Ex-tirpation*
By the time the others came back, my pelt was barely recognizable as such, after encountering the various substances emitted by both leaking engines and leaking little girls. I managed to get a raised eyebrow from both Joe and Dotty, when they saw Minnie helping with a bit of delicate work even my fingers were a bit too big to easily do. (Re-threading a hand-held throttle, if you're curious.)
I waved, then pulled my hand back to work on hammering some of a propeller's safety cage back into shape. I called out, "Find everything we need?"
"Yes," Joe said. "We will stay overnight, then go set the trap tomorrow."
I nodded. "I realized something else one of us needs to do - probably me. There's going to be more people from the other cities on Lake Erie who are going to come to Buffalo, sooner or later, and wander into the deadly area. The sooner someone starts spreading the warning, the fewer will die." I gestured over at the radio. "I recorded a message to Technoville on that. No idea if it'll get through to them before the trap destroys the whole thing, but it's worth a shot."
Dotty asked, "You're not going to leave Minnie by herself, are you?"
"Nah. It'll take me a while to finish working on these. I figure when you're done at DeCew, you'll come back here, and we can work things out. Maybe I fly to Erie with the warning, and all of you start in the canoe to head there; and when he drops you off, he can head north across the lake to rejoin his people, and I can come back here to get back to my studies. Or maybe we'll try to rendezvous between here and Erie. Or maybe Joe wants to head to his people first. And that's not even dealing with who'll go get Clara back after the trap springs - or what we'll do if the city-killer doesn't take the bait. Or triggers the trap, but isn't stopped."
"Trust me," said Dotty, "anyone or anything that triggers /my/ trap is going to be stopped."
"Trust's a funny thing, sometimes-"
"All done!" called out Minnie.
"'Scuze me," I said to Dotty, and shuffled over to join Minnie. I inspected what she'd done, and nodded. "That looks good," I said. "We'll hook it up and test it out in just a few moments."
Dotty frowned. "You're not just using her for... slave labour, are you?"
Minnie smiled up at her. "She an' Miss Boomer are teaching me about physics, an' action an' re-action, an' safety, an' deleg-shun-"
Boomer piped up, "De-le-/gay/-shun."
Minnie repeated the correction, and kept on listing various things I'd gotten Boomer to incorporate into a quickie, age-appropriate set of practical lessons. The AI seemed to be happy to be doing something educational, and it had kept Minnie distracted from unpleasant thoughts... and, at least occasionally, from glomping onto me. My latest respite was just finishing, though, as she'd finished what she was doing and I was right next to her, so I let her wrap her arms around my waist. (Well, it wasn't like I could stop her, short of using the super-tech rope to tie her up.)
Dotty kept frowning, but not as hard. "I'm not sure I approve," she said, once Minnie ran down, "but I /did/ leave her in your care, and she's not any worse off than she gets on her own... Alright, Minnie, time for a bath for both of us before supper." Dotty glanced at me. "Looks like you should join us."
"Ah," I blinked. "Are you sure? Um... where I'm from, bathing is kind of private..."
Dotty shrugged. "Come with us, or don't, just don't get any engine grease in the soup."
After a few more moments of hesitation, I joined them. Both Pinky and Brain were on guard against any waterborne threats, I kept my various weapons as close as possible on shore, and Joe kept to the other side of the island, so we were about as safe as anyone was in this world. Minnie laughed when I first rose from the water, my fur plastered to my body, and she spent more time playing and splashing than getting clean, but I wasn't going to complain about that, and neither did Dotty.
As they dried off and dressed, and I didn't even bother trying to apply a towel to my fur and just pulled on my own minimal outfit, Dotty asked, "How long've you been a Changed?"
"Less than a month. The hoof's even more recent... I got a genetic analysis that I could regrow a paw there if I," I glanced at Minnie, and changed my phrasing to be a bit less violent, "lost the hoof, but honestly, I'm so new to both hoof and paw that it hardly seems like it'd make a difference."
"How'd it happen? Wander into a bad city?"
"It's a bit complicated," I said, dishing out some food. "But it was actually done for medical reasons. I'd been poisoned, and it was either go on life-support and dialysis and so on, probably permanently, or," I waved my hand at myself, "this."
"How were you poisoned?"
"Odd as it may sound, to save my life. Or at least, to try to. I was struck by a vehicle, and unconscious at the time, but the relevant medical professionals tried to keep things from getting any worse for a while by lowering my body temperature. The poison was to keep the cold itself from damaging my body." I shrugged. "Didn't quite work as well as anyone hoped, just well enough to bring me to here."
"There's something you're not telling me."
"Yep. I'm not exactly hiding it, I'd just rather not talk about it right now."
We went back to eating, and then to cleaning food from Minnie, and then since whatever was stuck to Minnie tended to rapidly end up stuck to my fur, from me.
--
"Can I fly one of these?" asked Minnie.
Joe and Dotty had left to set up the trap, leaving Minnie and I to spend two or three days in each others' company. (At least, I /hoped/ it was just a couple of days.)
"That's a good question," I said. "How much of the answer can you tell me yourself?"
"Do I have to?"
"Not at all. But if you can't tell me the answer, then I'm pretty sure you don't know enough about how they work to fly one yourself."
"Can I fly with /you/?"
"Ah, that's easier to answer. I've flown one of these with a great big heavy pack attached in front of me. It shouldn't be that hard to rig up a safety harness to tie you in front of me, instead. That's actually why I've been working so hard on getting the first one of these working - in case something gets past Pinky and Brain, and we have to leave the island. I'd rather not do it just now - I haven't even made a test flight yet, and I'd rather not risk you getting hurt if I missed something."
Before either of us could say anything more, I lifted my ears to the sound of distant thunder - big and solid, but sharp, and with a hint that it wasn't from any weather system. "Let's hope they didn't miss anything, either..."
--
When Joe and Dotty beached the canoe, I was sitting cross-legged, a selection of the spare parts I'd accumulated since I first put paw to pedal spread out in front of me, in various stages of half-assembly into a 'thinking cap'. Minnie had her arms around my neck, watching over my shoulder while Boomer nattered on about the fundamentals of electrical flow.
When they came into hearing range - human hearing, not rabbit-eared - I called out, "Everything go well?"
Joe frowned. "I think so. Mostly."
I glanced up from what I was doing. "Any souvenirs?"
He shook his head, and picked Clara up from out of the boat. "Clara?" he asked. "Could you explain?"
She popped her bovine avatar into virtual life. "I can replay my video, but I do not think you will learn much. Several hours after the radio was activated, the air started to become opaque. After three minutes, my cameras were unable to distinguish anything. Five minutes after that, there was an explosion consistent with the explosives I witnessed being placed. At the same time, I registered a sharp increase in transient faults in my processors, consistent with an increase in ambient radioactivity. I gave warning, and was pulled out. After some time, the air became transparent again, and I was lifted over the edge of the gorge. I began to transient again, and was retrieved."
I looked over at Dotty. "Did we break some radioactive container?"
She nodded. "I'd guess a power source, maybe a radio-thermal generator. I'm not going to pop my head in there to take a look without sticking a calibrated geiger counter in first."
"Clara?" I asked. "Get any pictures of the remains?"
"Possibly," she answered. "However, with the transients, and the level of destruction, it is difficult to determine what parts of the images were part of what you refer to as the 'city-killer'; and it is even more difficult to discern any further information about it."
I slowly nodded. "But - the dark cloud of nerve gas came with it, and then the cloud disappeared? You're sure it didn't just move away?"
Joe nodded back. "I was far enough away to see the cloud from the outside. It did not move, it merely faded away."
I took in a breath, and slowly let it out. "Right. I'm going to want to see what Clara did - but I'm willing to tentatively say that the world is down one city-killer. Hopefully, it's the only one. Let's get a hot meal into you two, and then we can talk about who goes where when with what."
Minnie spoke up, /right/ next to my sensitive ears, "/May/ I fly?"
I turned my head a bit to look at her, while also folding my now-ringing ear. "I still need at least one test flight - and if that works, then it's up to your grandmother."
--
The hazmat suits had been designed more to handle chemical contamination than radiation, but had weathered the city-killer's final bout of spite well enough. Minnie complained about getting bagged in a tarp again, but Dotty refused to let her ride with me into the air. The trio, guarded by both Brain and Pinky, with Clara as translator, had left to pass by Buffalo's danger zone, after which they'd be aiming for Erie. They'd left everything but what they needed for the trip on Pirates Island.
I, on the other paw, had once again taken to the air. I had my map showing safe maximum altitudes back, which let me avoid getting shot down by Toronto; and with Boomer in tricorder mode, I'd been able to determine the height of the residual nerve gas, and charted a course around the danger zone without wasting too much of my currently nigh-irreplaceable fuel. Joe had handed me his bow, quiver, and shield, saying I'd probably need them before he did; I tried to offer something in return, but he'd just pointed his thumb at the canoe.
At a decent cruising speed, it was about three and a half hours to get to Erie - instead of the three and a half days it was likely going to take Minnie and the others. I tried to watch for any fishing boats, or other ships, on their way to Buffalo, in order to warn them off; but even from altitude, I didn't see any. Which gave me three and a half hours to reflect on Dotty and Minnie, among other things.
One possibility was that the grandmother was a live instance of one of my cover stories - she'd grown up with a late twentieth-century archive, in her case including tapes of a certain cartoon. The other main contender that came to mind was that she was, like me, an actual pre-Singularity survivor. She looked to be older, but not a centenarian - of course, neither did I. Given that she knew about twenty-fifty era hazmat suits, knew where her city's militia kept its claymores, and had survived an incident that had killed nearly everyone around her... 'competent long-term survivalist' was as good a working hypothesis as any. I only expected to see her once more, as I passed by their canoe or campsite when I flew back to Pirates Island and the other paragliders; but if she'd managed to keep kicking since the nineteen nineties, it was entirely likely that we'd bump into each other in a few decades. Or centuries.
Assuming that another Singularity didn't make the whole idea moot. And that I stayed alive that long. And that I stayed sane enough to keep myself alive that long. Even using just the relatively primitive psychology from my native era, I was pretty sure I was heading straight for a case of PTSD - deliberately searching through a city full of dozens of thousands of corpses for survivors wasn't exactly conducive to mental health, even if you did find a couple. I didn't trust Technoville, Dogtown was barely more reliable, if I went nuts I probably wouldn't be able to pay for a decent asylum in any other city, the squiddies were literally inhuman, and about the only other group that might owe me a favour was the Great Peace. I wondered if I could renew my request with them for some sort of private dwelling...
My musings were interrupted as I caught sight of the islands just offshore of the original city of Erie. Technoville's maps hadn't been very detailed about the lake's south shore, and nobody else had known much about the place. Thus, it wasn't until I was almost right there that I could tell that the post-Singularity version of the city had been built on the near side of the remains of the old.
I cut the engine, and started silently gliding down, spiralling as I looked for a good crowd of people - a marketplace or the like. The busiest area I could find were the docks, so that's the place I tugged my shrouds to aim at.
I didn't know what kind of reception I might get - I was a Changed in the eyes of most, arriving on a Technoville-designed vehicle; so I made sure the woodland-patterened shield was snug, and got ready to throttle back up if anyone down below did take a pot-shot at me.
People were pointing, so I had to make a final choice - land or flyby. I tried to find any trace of angry expressions, or visible weapons, or anything of the sort, that would suggest I shouldn't land; I didn't see any; I /still/ didn't see any; so I pedaled my legs and dropped all the way onto the street at the base of one dock. The wind was from the south, so I landed facing into it, with my shrouds behind me. (Good for a quick take-off, if I needed to.) I took a deep breath.
"Your attention please!" I already had a whole bunch of faces pointed at me. "I have just flown over the city of Buffalo!" I heard murmurs as some of my audience translated my words into other local languages. "It was attacked about a week ago. Nerve gas was used. I have only found a couple of survivors. If you go near there, you will need to bring your own air. Please pass on this information! Anyone who goes near Buffalo will die without this warning!"
My message passed on to people who could spread it better than I could, I decided it was time to move, before the local powers-that-be decided to try acquiring a flying machine of their own. So I tugged on my lines, pulling the shroud into place to get ready to launch.
One of the fishermen shouted back, "What, that's it? You're leaving? Where are you going?"
"Like I said," I called out, "a couple of survivors."
Another voice shouted out, "Who the hell /are/ you?"
I flashed a buck-toothed grin, and couldn't resist. "I'm the bunny Queen, mate. Sorry, gotta go refuel." I squeezed the throttle, and the engine noise cut off any further discussion. A couple of steps forward filled the shroud, my feet lifted up, and I pulled a quick left turn to keep from accidentally kicking anyone in the head as I left.
Saving lives, flying, and dropping Doctor Who misquotes... maybe sanity was over-rated.
--
Naturally, after I'd gotten about fifty kilometers away from anyone, my engine coughed and died.
I wasn't /especially/ worried; after all, I had a parachute already deployed. But when I wasn't able to restart the thing in mid-air, I was at least a tad annoyed that I'd have to land to try to fix it. Or, worse, that I might not be /able/ to fix it, and have to either wait for Joe and the rest in the canoe, or start using my own two feet (Paws. Hoof. Whatever.) to get anywhere else.
After an hour of tinkering on the beach near what Boomer unhelpfully informed me was Chautauqua Creek, I was pretty sure that I was done flying for the day - or maybe the week, until I could get back to the other paragliders. While I'd read everything Technoville had provided on maintenance and repair, and Boomer had a few suggestions derived from her general database, I wasn't any kind of mechanical genius. The pull starter just wasn't getting the engine to turn over, and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe the fuel was tainted, or there was a broken mechanical linkage I couldn't see, or something else I couldn't see.
Joe and the canoe would probably be coming by in about a day, a day and a half, depending on how worried they got when they didn't see me fly back. And since I didn't want to either haul the paraglider with me or leave it behind, that left me with a bunch of hours of downtime.
Fortunately, I'd brought my hammock, and Boomer had plenty for me to read, even without my nearly-complete thinking cap. With my tail sticking comfortably down out of my everyday armour and through the hammock's mesh, and most everything else packed up in case it rained, I settled in for a relaxing read on some popularized descriptions of the math behind twenty-fifty era 'trust verification'.
--
Unfortunately, when Scorpia woke me up with a gentle tingle of warning, the locals who were coming to take a look at me were already pretty close... and both of them were carrying shotguns. Or maybe flintlock muskets; my glasses were in my pocket, and everything was rather blurry.
The adult said... something, and waved his weapon in my direction.
I whispered, "Boomer? Translation?"
She responded equally quietly, "I have no knowledge of that language."
In a louder tone, I answered the man, "I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français? Hablas español? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"
My litany was interrupted by the more universal language of his weapon pointing at me and jerking in the direction he wanted me to go. I reached towards my pocket for my glasses, but got a frown from both, and a longarm raised to the shoulder of the young one, so I stopped that. I didn't want to give my torso armor a live fire field test, especially since a failure meant I'd have to give Bun-Bun's regenerative abilities an even more stringent test (especially if 'failure' meant 'headshot'); so I carefully held my hands away from anything, and slowly rolled off the hammock to the ground.
"Moshi moshi?" I tried, even though I didn't actually know any Japanese - I was just running out of ways to try to initiate /any/ sort of conversation. "Nihao? Namaste? Aloha? Shalom? nuqneH? Hola? Salud? Ave? Shoy? Oh, come on, not even a hint?"
Guns pointed. I sighed. We walked.
--
Maybe five kilometers of following the creek later, we arrived at what seemed to be our destination. As I walked between the two rows of disreputable houses and ramshackle people, what I saw (and smelled) gave me the impression that the whole hamlet wasn't just dirty, it was /slovenly/. Junk left abandoned in place, litter blowing across the street, no reactions to vermin scuttling around corners... there were innumerable little signs that whoever lived here, simply didn't give a damn about the world around them.
The guns waved me to a building near the middle, one with a patchwork-shingled steeple (though without any sign of bells, cross, or other symbol). More specifically, around its side and to its back. Sitting there in neat rows were more people than had been hanging around the doorsteps on the streets, who all seemed to be focused on one fellow in front of them. Standing on the edge of an empty swimming pool, I was able to make out that he wore black robes and was balding (though I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up until /somebody/ let me put on my glasses).
The robed fellow (who I tentatively identified as 'priest', while mentally reserving the right to re-identify as more evidence appeared) seemed pleased at our arrival. He spoke some words, the crowd mumbled vaguely coherently in return, and the whole process repeated a few more times.
The gun prodded at my back, and as I reluctantly made my way up the middle, I called out, "Does /anyone/ speak English?" For my trouble, I heard a mechanical clicking sound from roughly where the longarm prodding me forward would have a hammer. I took the hint and quieted down for the rest of the walk.
I was at least a little less quiet when I got to where the maybe-priest was standing, making what I think was something of an 'eep' sound when I glanced down into the pool. It turned out not to be completely empty: we were standing above what used to be the deep end, the bottom of which was covered in a writhing mass of black shapes. With my bad eyes, they could have been snakes, tentacles, or giant earthworms, but I didn't feel any urge to drop in for a closer look.
Unexpected movement - a few dead squirrels and such fell in, from the other side of the priest, where the younger of my captives had taken a place. Some portion of the boiling mass of shapes wriggled over to the hunting prizes, swarmed over them... and in just a few moments, the clump thinned back out, showing that there was nothing left down there but snakes. (Or whatevers.)
The priest gestured to one of his parishioners, who retrieved a long pole with a hook on the end. He lowered it into the pool, caught one of the snakes, pulled it over to a low table. A couple of others were standing by, quickly pulled out some knives that demonstrated how impressively sharp they were by filleting the snake, passing pieces to the other members of the congregation.
I decided that it was well past time to exercise my freedom of religion by gaining a certain amount of freedom /from/ religion. The creek wasn't too far away, well within sprinting distance. I turned away from the spectacle below, tensing my legs to get as fast a start as possible-
Thunder, and pain, and I was falling backwards, landing flat on my back. My breath knocked out, my tail hurting something fierce where I'd landed on it. Looking up, a small bit of smoke drifted out of the longarm's muzzle. I managed to lift my head, looked down at my armour; the woodland pattern was almost completely intact, save for a small, grey divot in the middle of my chest.
I recalled the danger I was in, but I was having trouble moving just about any of my body, and coherent thought was in a bit of short supply. Still, I did have a very distinct memory of one method of escape, and cramps were a small price to pay for using it.
"Bun-Bun," I croaked. "/Up/."
Under her control, I rolled forward, and almost screamed when I put my weight on my tailbone, but just didn't have the breath to make more than another squeak. My feet landed in a crowd of the snake-things... but nothing happened. I guessed my body-glove was more than they could easily eat through, so I reached down to grab a handful and throw them up and out of the pool. I heard a few screams.
While that was going on, I rose to my feet and sprang up, catching the lip of the pool in both hands. I felt an odd weight behind me, on my behind; turning my head, I saw that one of the black snake-things, around a meter long, had latched onto my tail. This close, I could see that the head end was the dangling end, and couldn't make out how it was holding on, or even any hint of the cotton-puff I'd grown accustomed to. But I was in a hurry, so I simply kept pulling; as my head rose to ground level, I observed a suitable amount of pandemonium, perfect for letting me get away without a mob on my heels.
A billowing black shape slid in front of me. Seemed like a handy hand-hold to keep pulling myself up with, so I reached and grabbed at it; my hand clutched a leg, which, perhaps not expecting my weight, suddenly slid and shifted, tilting to repeat my recent dive.
I didn't expect his cassock to protect him anywhere near as well as my costume did for me. I also didn't want to look down to add the sight to the nightmares that I was sure would be including the sounds.
The boy with the longarm was still standing there, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Go west, young man," I told him, "and grow up in a better society." Then I remembered he didn't speak English; I wasn't completely tracking.
Speaking of tracking, I turned away from the houses and the people fleeing to them, and strode right back to the creek. "Time to swim, Bun-Bun," I muttered to myself - or my selves, as the case may be. "Get as far as we can before someone thinks to start shooting."
I jumped into the water ungracefully, took a breath, and with a few strokes, pulled myself underwater. A few frog-strokes later, I felt my lungs start aching. I decided to stay under as long as I could stand it, then surface for breath and hope nobody saw me.
After a while, I realized my lungs weren't feeling any worse. I paused in my stroking and kicking, trying to puzzle that out. Was Bun-Bun pulling a new trick out of our collective rear end? I turned to look back at myself, in case I'd suddenly sprouted gills.
What I did see... was the snake-thing that was clamped to my tail, with its head above the surface of the water, and its chest pumping like a bellows, in great gasps and gulps of air.
I poked my fingers at the tail-hole Joe had made for me in the body-suit. There was my skin and fur; and then there was the smooth surface of the snake-thing. My cotton-puff was nowhere to be found.
I would have sighed if I could, but for the moment, simply stretched back out and went back to swimming.
--
I waved as Joe stepped out of the canoe. He raised an eyebrow at me, and asked, "Made a new friend?"
My tailsnake stopped peering from around my waist and hid behind me again. "Not sure," I said. "I've got both Boomer and Bun-Bun keeping an eye on Wagger, and I'm keeping a knife handy for a quick amputation if need be... but I'm really hoping to get a few tests run, like a genetic analysis. And maybe check in on Laura at the same time."
By the time the others came back, my pelt was barely recognizable as such, after encountering the various substances emitted by both leaking engines and leaking little girls. I managed to get a raised eyebrow from both Joe and Dotty, when they saw Minnie helping with a bit of delicate work even my fingers were a bit too big to easily do. (Re-threading a hand-held throttle, if you're curious.)
I waved, then pulled my hand back to work on hammering some of a propeller's safety cage back into shape. I called out, "Find everything we need?"
"Yes," Joe said. "We will stay overnight, then go set the trap tomorrow."
I nodded. "I realized something else one of us needs to do - probably me. There's going to be more people from the other cities on Lake Erie who are going to come to Buffalo, sooner or later, and wander into the deadly area. The sooner someone starts spreading the warning, the fewer will die." I gestured over at the radio. "I recorded a message to Technoville on that. No idea if it'll get through to them before the trap destroys the whole thing, but it's worth a shot."
Dotty asked, "You're not going to leave Minnie by herself, are you?"
"Nah. It'll take me a while to finish working on these. I figure when you're done at DeCew, you'll come back here, and we can work things out. Maybe I fly to Erie with the warning, and all of you start in the canoe to head there; and when he drops you off, he can head north across the lake to rejoin his people, and I can come back here to get back to my studies. Or maybe we'll try to rendezvous between here and Erie. Or maybe Joe wants to head to his people first. And that's not even dealing with who'll go get Clara back after the trap springs - or what we'll do if the city-killer doesn't take the bait. Or triggers the trap, but isn't stopped."
"Trust me," said Dotty, "anyone or anything that triggers /my/ trap is going to be stopped."
"Trust's a funny thing, sometimes-"
"All done!" called out Minnie.
"'Scuze me," I said to Dotty, and shuffled over to join Minnie. I inspected what she'd done, and nodded. "That looks good," I said. "We'll hook it up and test it out in just a few moments."
Dotty frowned. "You're not just using her for... slave labour, are you?"
Minnie smiled up at her. "She an' Miss Boomer are teaching me about physics, an' action an' re-action, an' safety, an' deleg-shun-"
Boomer piped up, "De-le-/gay/-shun."
Minnie repeated the correction, and kept on listing various things I'd gotten Boomer to incorporate into a quickie, age-appropriate set of practical lessons. The AI seemed to be happy to be doing something educational, and it had kept Minnie distracted from unpleasant thoughts... and, at least occasionally, from glomping onto me. My latest respite was just finishing, though, as she'd finished what she was doing and I was right next to her, so I let her wrap her arms around my waist. (Well, it wasn't like I could stop her, short of using the super-tech rope to tie her up.)
Dotty kept frowning, but not as hard. "I'm not sure I approve," she said, once Minnie ran down, "but I /did/ leave her in your care, and she's not any worse off than she gets on her own... Alright, Minnie, time for a bath for both of us before supper." Dotty glanced at me. "Looks like you should join us."
"Ah," I blinked. "Are you sure? Um... where I'm from, bathing is kind of private..."
Dotty shrugged. "Come with us, or don't, just don't get any engine grease in the soup."
After a few more moments of hesitation, I joined them. Both Pinky and Brain were on guard against any waterborne threats, I kept my various weapons as close as possible on shore, and Joe kept to the other side of the island, so we were about as safe as anyone was in this world. Minnie laughed when I first rose from the water, my fur plastered to my body, and she spent more time playing and splashing than getting clean, but I wasn't going to complain about that, and neither did Dotty.
As they dried off and dressed, and I didn't even bother trying to apply a towel to my fur and just pulled on my own minimal outfit, Dotty asked, "How long've you been a Changed?"
"Less than a month. The hoof's even more recent... I got a genetic analysis that I could regrow a paw there if I," I glanced at Minnie, and changed my phrasing to be a bit less violent, "lost the hoof, but honestly, I'm so new to both hoof and paw that it hardly seems like it'd make a difference."
"How'd it happen? Wander into a bad city?"
"It's a bit complicated," I said, dishing out some food. "But it was actually done for medical reasons. I'd been poisoned, and it was either go on life-support and dialysis and so on, probably permanently, or," I waved my hand at myself, "this."
"How were you poisoned?"
"Odd as it may sound, to save my life. Or at least, to try to. I was struck by a vehicle, and unconscious at the time, but the relevant medical professionals tried to keep things from getting any worse for a while by lowering my body temperature. The poison was to keep the cold itself from damaging my body." I shrugged. "Didn't quite work as well as anyone hoped, just well enough to bring me to here."
"There's something you're not telling me."
"Yep. I'm not exactly hiding it, I'd just rather not talk about it right now."
We went back to eating, and then to cleaning food from Minnie, and then since whatever was stuck to Minnie tended to rapidly end up stuck to my fur, from me.
--
"Can I fly one of these?" asked Minnie.
Joe and Dotty had left to set up the trap, leaving Minnie and I to spend two or three days in each others' company. (At least, I /hoped/ it was just a couple of days.)
"That's a good question," I said. "How much of the answer can you tell me yourself?"
"Do I have to?"
"Not at all. But if you can't tell me the answer, then I'm pretty sure you don't know enough about how they work to fly one yourself."
"Can I fly with /you/?"
"Ah, that's easier to answer. I've flown one of these with a great big heavy pack attached in front of me. It shouldn't be that hard to rig up a safety harness to tie you in front of me, instead. That's actually why I've been working so hard on getting the first one of these working - in case something gets past Pinky and Brain, and we have to leave the island. I'd rather not do it just now - I haven't even made a test flight yet, and I'd rather not risk you getting hurt if I missed something."
Before either of us could say anything more, I lifted my ears to the sound of distant thunder - big and solid, but sharp, and with a hint that it wasn't from any weather system. "Let's hope they didn't miss anything, either..."
--
When Joe and Dotty beached the canoe, I was sitting cross-legged, a selection of the spare parts I'd accumulated since I first put paw to pedal spread out in front of me, in various stages of half-assembly into a 'thinking cap'. Minnie had her arms around my neck, watching over my shoulder while Boomer nattered on about the fundamentals of electrical flow.
When they came into hearing range - human hearing, not rabbit-eared - I called out, "Everything go well?"
Joe frowned. "I think so. Mostly."
I glanced up from what I was doing. "Any souvenirs?"
He shook his head, and picked Clara up from out of the boat. "Clara?" he asked. "Could you explain?"
She popped her bovine avatar into virtual life. "I can replay my video, but I do not think you will learn much. Several hours after the radio was activated, the air started to become opaque. After three minutes, my cameras were unable to distinguish anything. Five minutes after that, there was an explosion consistent with the explosives I witnessed being placed. At the same time, I registered a sharp increase in transient faults in my processors, consistent with an increase in ambient radioactivity. I gave warning, and was pulled out. After some time, the air became transparent again, and I was lifted over the edge of the gorge. I began to transient again, and was retrieved."
I looked over at Dotty. "Did we break some radioactive container?"
She nodded. "I'd guess a power source, maybe a radio-thermal generator. I'm not going to pop my head in there to take a look without sticking a calibrated geiger counter in first."
"Clara?" I asked. "Get any pictures of the remains?"
"Possibly," she answered. "However, with the transients, and the level of destruction, it is difficult to determine what parts of the images were part of what you refer to as the 'city-killer'; and it is even more difficult to discern any further information about it."
I slowly nodded. "But - the dark cloud of nerve gas came with it, and then the cloud disappeared? You're sure it didn't just move away?"
Joe nodded back. "I was far enough away to see the cloud from the outside. It did not move, it merely faded away."
I took in a breath, and slowly let it out. "Right. I'm going to want to see what Clara did - but I'm willing to tentatively say that the world is down one city-killer. Hopefully, it's the only one. Let's get a hot meal into you two, and then we can talk about who goes where when with what."
Minnie spoke up, /right/ next to my sensitive ears, "/May/ I fly?"
I turned my head a bit to look at her, while also folding my now-ringing ear. "I still need at least one test flight - and if that works, then it's up to your grandmother."
--
The hazmat suits had been designed more to handle chemical contamination than radiation, but had weathered the city-killer's final bout of spite well enough. Minnie complained about getting bagged in a tarp again, but Dotty refused to let her ride with me into the air. The trio, guarded by both Brain and Pinky, with Clara as translator, had left to pass by Buffalo's danger zone, after which they'd be aiming for Erie. They'd left everything but what they needed for the trip on Pirates Island.
I, on the other paw, had once again taken to the air. I had my map showing safe maximum altitudes back, which let me avoid getting shot down by Toronto; and with Boomer in tricorder mode, I'd been able to determine the height of the residual nerve gas, and charted a course around the danger zone without wasting too much of my currently nigh-irreplaceable fuel. Joe had handed me his bow, quiver, and shield, saying I'd probably need them before he did; I tried to offer something in return, but he'd just pointed his thumb at the canoe.
At a decent cruising speed, it was about three and a half hours to get to Erie - instead of the three and a half days it was likely going to take Minnie and the others. I tried to watch for any fishing boats, or other ships, on their way to Buffalo, in order to warn them off; but even from altitude, I didn't see any. Which gave me three and a half hours to reflect on Dotty and Minnie, among other things.
One possibility was that the grandmother was a live instance of one of my cover stories - she'd grown up with a late twentieth-century archive, in her case including tapes of a certain cartoon. The other main contender that came to mind was that she was, like me, an actual pre-Singularity survivor. She looked to be older, but not a centenarian - of course, neither did I. Given that she knew about twenty-fifty era hazmat suits, knew where her city's militia kept its claymores, and had survived an incident that had killed nearly everyone around her... 'competent long-term survivalist' was as good a working hypothesis as any. I only expected to see her once more, as I passed by their canoe or campsite when I flew back to Pirates Island and the other paragliders; but if she'd managed to keep kicking since the nineteen nineties, it was entirely likely that we'd bump into each other in a few decades. Or centuries.
Assuming that another Singularity didn't make the whole idea moot. And that I stayed alive that long. And that I stayed sane enough to keep myself alive that long. Even using just the relatively primitive psychology from my native era, I was pretty sure I was heading straight for a case of PTSD - deliberately searching through a city full of dozens of thousands of corpses for survivors wasn't exactly conducive to mental health, even if you did find a couple. I didn't trust Technoville, Dogtown was barely more reliable, if I went nuts I probably wouldn't be able to pay for a decent asylum in any other city, the squiddies were literally inhuman, and about the only other group that might owe me a favour was the Great Peace. I wondered if I could renew my request with them for some sort of private dwelling...
My musings were interrupted as I caught sight of the islands just offshore of the original city of Erie. Technoville's maps hadn't been very detailed about the lake's south shore, and nobody else had known much about the place. Thus, it wasn't until I was almost right there that I could tell that the post-Singularity version of the city had been built on the near side of the remains of the old.
I cut the engine, and started silently gliding down, spiralling as I looked for a good crowd of people - a marketplace or the like. The busiest area I could find were the docks, so that's the place I tugged my shrouds to aim at.
I didn't know what kind of reception I might get - I was a Changed in the eyes of most, arriving on a Technoville-designed vehicle; so I made sure the woodland-patterened shield was snug, and got ready to throttle back up if anyone down below did take a pot-shot at me.
People were pointing, so I had to make a final choice - land or flyby. I tried to find any trace of angry expressions, or visible weapons, or anything of the sort, that would suggest I shouldn't land; I didn't see any; I /still/ didn't see any; so I pedaled my legs and dropped all the way onto the street at the base of one dock. The wind was from the south, so I landed facing into it, with my shrouds behind me. (Good for a quick take-off, if I needed to.) I took a deep breath.
"Your attention please!" I already had a whole bunch of faces pointed at me. "I have just flown over the city of Buffalo!" I heard murmurs as some of my audience translated my words into other local languages. "It was attacked about a week ago. Nerve gas was used. I have only found a couple of survivors. If you go near there, you will need to bring your own air. Please pass on this information! Anyone who goes near Buffalo will die without this warning!"
My message passed on to people who could spread it better than I could, I decided it was time to move, before the local powers-that-be decided to try acquiring a flying machine of their own. So I tugged on my lines, pulling the shroud into place to get ready to launch.
One of the fishermen shouted back, "What, that's it? You're leaving? Where are you going?"
"Like I said," I called out, "a couple of survivors."
Another voice shouted out, "Who the hell /are/ you?"
I flashed a buck-toothed grin, and couldn't resist. "I'm the bunny Queen, mate. Sorry, gotta go refuel." I squeezed the throttle, and the engine noise cut off any further discussion. A couple of steps forward filled the shroud, my feet lifted up, and I pulled a quick left turn to keep from accidentally kicking anyone in the head as I left.
Saving lives, flying, and dropping Doctor Who misquotes... maybe sanity was over-rated.
--
Naturally, after I'd gotten about fifty kilometers away from anyone, my engine coughed and died.
I wasn't /especially/ worried; after all, I had a parachute already deployed. But when I wasn't able to restart the thing in mid-air, I was at least a tad annoyed that I'd have to land to try to fix it. Or, worse, that I might not be /able/ to fix it, and have to either wait for Joe and the rest in the canoe, or start using my own two feet (Paws. Hoof. Whatever.) to get anywhere else.
After an hour of tinkering on the beach near what Boomer unhelpfully informed me was Chautauqua Creek, I was pretty sure that I was done flying for the day - or maybe the week, until I could get back to the other paragliders. While I'd read everything Technoville had provided on maintenance and repair, and Boomer had a few suggestions derived from her general database, I wasn't any kind of mechanical genius. The pull starter just wasn't getting the engine to turn over, and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe the fuel was tainted, or there was a broken mechanical linkage I couldn't see, or something else I couldn't see.
Joe and the canoe would probably be coming by in about a day, a day and a half, depending on how worried they got when they didn't see me fly back. And since I didn't want to either haul the paraglider with me or leave it behind, that left me with a bunch of hours of downtime.
Fortunately, I'd brought my hammock, and Boomer had plenty for me to read, even without my nearly-complete thinking cap. With my tail sticking comfortably down out of my everyday armour and through the hammock's mesh, and most everything else packed up in case it rained, I settled in for a relaxing read on some popularized descriptions of the math behind twenty-fifty era 'trust verification'.
--
Unfortunately, when Scorpia woke me up with a gentle tingle of warning, the locals who were coming to take a look at me were already pretty close... and both of them were carrying shotguns. Or maybe flintlock muskets; my glasses were in my pocket, and everything was rather blurry.
The adult said... something, and waved his weapon in my direction.
I whispered, "Boomer? Translation?"
She responded equally quietly, "I have no knowledge of that language."
In a louder tone, I answered the man, "I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français? Hablas español? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"
My litany was interrupted by the more universal language of his weapon pointing at me and jerking in the direction he wanted me to go. I reached towards my pocket for my glasses, but got a frown from both, and a longarm raised to the shoulder of the young one, so I stopped that. I didn't want to give my torso armor a live fire field test, especially since a failure meant I'd have to give Bun-Bun's regenerative abilities an even more stringent test (especially if 'failure' meant 'headshot'); so I carefully held my hands away from anything, and slowly rolled off the hammock to the ground.
"Moshi moshi?" I tried, even though I didn't actually know any Japanese - I was just running out of ways to try to initiate /any/ sort of conversation. "Nihao? Namaste? Aloha? Shalom? nuqneH? Hola? Salud? Ave? Shoy? Oh, come on, not even a hint?"
Guns pointed. I sighed. We walked.
--
Maybe five kilometers of following the creek later, we arrived at what seemed to be our destination. As I walked between the two rows of disreputable houses and ramshackle people, what I saw (and smelled) gave me the impression that the whole hamlet wasn't just dirty, it was /slovenly/. Junk left abandoned in place, litter blowing across the street, no reactions to vermin scuttling around corners... there were innumerable little signs that whoever lived here, simply didn't give a damn about the world around them.
The guns waved me to a building near the middle, one with a patchwork-shingled steeple (though without any sign of bells, cross, or other symbol). More specifically, around its side and to its back. Sitting there in neat rows were more people than had been hanging around the doorsteps on the streets, who all seemed to be focused on one fellow in front of them. Standing on the edge of an empty swimming pool, I was able to make out that he wore black robes and was balding (though I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up until /somebody/ let me put on my glasses).
The robed fellow (who I tentatively identified as 'priest', while mentally reserving the right to re-identify as more evidence appeared) seemed pleased at our arrival. He spoke some words, the crowd mumbled vaguely coherently in return, and the whole process repeated a few more times.
The gun prodded at my back, and as I reluctantly made my way up the middle, I called out, "Does /anyone/ speak English?" For my trouble, I heard a mechanical clicking sound from roughly where the longarm prodding me forward would have a hammer. I took the hint and quieted down for the rest of the walk.
I was at least a little less quiet when I got to where the maybe-priest was standing, making what I think was something of an 'eep' sound when I glanced down into the pool. It turned out not to be completely empty: we were standing above what used to be the deep end, the bottom of which was covered in a writhing mass of black shapes. With my bad eyes, they could have been snakes, tentacles, or giant earthworms, but I didn't feel any urge to drop in for a closer look.
Unexpected movement - a few dead squirrels and such fell in, from the other side of the priest, where the younger of my captives had taken a place. Some portion of the boiling mass of shapes wriggled over to the hunting prizes, swarmed over them... and in just a few moments, the clump thinned back out, showing that there was nothing left down there but snakes. (Or whatevers.)
The priest gestured to one of his parishioners, who retrieved a long pole with a hook on the end. He lowered it into the pool, caught one of the snakes, pulled it over to a low table. A couple of others were standing by, quickly pulled out some knives that demonstrated how impressively sharp they were by filleting the snake, passing pieces to the other members of the congregation.
I decided that it was well past time to exercise my freedom of religion by gaining a certain amount of freedom /from/ religion. The creek wasn't too far away, well within sprinting distance. I turned away from the spectacle below, tensing my legs to get as fast a start as possible-
Thunder, and pain, and I was falling backwards, landing flat on my back. My breath knocked out, my tail hurting something fierce where I'd landed on it. Looking up, a small bit of smoke drifted out of the longarm's muzzle. I managed to lift my head, looked down at my armour; the woodland pattern was almost completely intact, save for a small, grey divot in the middle of my chest.
I recalled the danger I was in, but I was having trouble moving just about any of my body, and coherent thought was in a bit of short supply. Still, I did have a very distinct memory of one method of escape, and cramps were a small price to pay for using it.
"Bun-Bun," I croaked. "/Up/."
Under her control, I rolled forward, and almost screamed when I put my weight on my tailbone, but just didn't have the breath to make more than another squeak. My feet landed in a crowd of the snake-things... but nothing happened. I guessed my body-glove was more than they could easily eat through, so I reached down to grab a handful and throw them up and out of the pool. I heard a few screams.
While that was going on, I rose to my feet and sprang up, catching the lip of the pool in both hands. I felt an odd weight behind me, on my behind; turning my head, I saw that one of the black snake-things, around a meter long, had latched onto my tail. This close, I could see that the head end was the dangling end, and couldn't make out how it was holding on, or even any hint of the cotton-puff I'd grown accustomed to. But I was in a hurry, so I simply kept pulling; as my head rose to ground level, I observed a suitable amount of pandemonium, perfect for letting me get away without a mob on my heels.
A billowing black shape slid in front of me. Seemed like a handy hand-hold to keep pulling myself up with, so I reached and grabbed at it; my hand clutched a leg, which, perhaps not expecting my weight, suddenly slid and shifted, tilting to repeat my recent dive.
I didn't expect his cassock to protect him anywhere near as well as my costume did for me. I also didn't want to look down to add the sight to the nightmares that I was sure would be including the sounds.
The boy with the longarm was still standing there, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Go west, young man," I told him, "and grow up in a better society." Then I remembered he didn't speak English; I wasn't completely tracking.
Speaking of tracking, I turned away from the houses and the people fleeing to them, and strode right back to the creek. "Time to swim, Bun-Bun," I muttered to myself - or my selves, as the case may be. "Get as far as we can before someone thinks to start shooting."
I jumped into the water ungracefully, took a breath, and with a few strokes, pulled myself underwater. A few frog-strokes later, I felt my lungs start aching. I decided to stay under as long as I could stand it, then surface for breath and hope nobody saw me.
After a while, I realized my lungs weren't feeling any worse. I paused in my stroking and kicking, trying to puzzle that out. Was Bun-Bun pulling a new trick out of our collective rear end? I turned to look back at myself, in case I'd suddenly sprouted gills.
What I did see... was the snake-thing that was clamped to my tail, with its head above the surface of the water, and its chest pumping like a bellows, in great gasps and gulps of air.
I poked my fingers at the tail-hole Joe had made for me in the body-suit. There was my skin and fur; and then there was the smooth surface of the snake-thing. My cotton-puff was nowhere to be found.
I would have sighed if I could, but for the moment, simply stretched back out and went back to swimming.
--
I waved as Joe stepped out of the canoe. He raised an eyebrow at me, and asked, "Made a new friend?"
My tailsnake stopped peering from around my waist and hid behind me again. "Not sure," I said. "I've got both Boomer and Bun-Bun keeping an eye on Wagger, and I'm keeping a knife handy for a quick amputation if need be... but I'm really hoping to get a few tests run, like a genetic analysis. And maybe check in on Laura at the same time."
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
Okay... Bunny has all the luck
"But is it good luck or bad luck?"
(Or both?)On another note, my buffer has gradually been shrinking; I'm currently writing Book Three Chapter Nine. Also also, I expected to have gotten to a certain plot point by now, but it looks like Bunny's not going to make it to there until somewhere in Book Four - which may move the finale to a Book Five. I do /have/ a plot in mind, but the sidequests seem to just keep piling up...
24
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
*Chapter Four: Ex-ecutive*
Elmyra caught up to us before we made it to Erie, with another letter from Alphie.
"He's re-evaluated his bargaining position again," I commented to the others. "Now he thinks his best-case scenario is ending up owning just one-third of the squiddies." I sighed. "I'm going to send him some new instructions. It looks like he's dealing with someone smarter than he is - at this rate, the best Alphie is going to be able to do is sell all of us to the squiddies, so I'm going to head that off at the pass. But as for the details... I'm feeling stressed, generally confused, have been having nightmares about Buffalo, and I'm pretty sure my decision-making processes are getting further and further from optimal. I might do something out of sentimentality that'll cause all sorts of long-range issues; or by trying too hard not to be sentimental, I could cause exactly the same sort of troubles."
Dotty asked, "What do you /want/ to do?"
"If I'm not going to end up owning even a significant portion of the squiddies, and so won't have the power to change their whole society... then I might as well improve what I can, with what I've got. Manumit every squiddie I own, and if I can, set things up so that any of 'em who go through the canal between Lake Erie and Ontario has to promise to free everyone /they/ own and not buy anyone else, either. Only employment contracts that either side can exit if they want to pursue another opportunity."
"What else do you want?"
"A professional psychotherapist would be nice, but I don't think there's anyone qualified in reach. Barring that... one thing I really miss is a place where I can feel /safe/. Where I can lock the doors and bar the windows and keep people out and just /think/, if I want to. I asked Joe's people if they'd be willing to help with that, but the whole city-killer thing kind of interrupted."
"Can the squiddies do that for you?"
"Hm... I suppose they might be able to set up an underwater dome in the Niagara River, or Lake Erie. Maybe even build something they can drag onto solid ground."
"Is there anything else you want, that they can do for you?"
"Hm... Nothing that I can think of. Lemme think for a few minutes, see if I can come up with something." There was silence for a few minutes. Finally, I shrugged. "Nope. With what I know about what they can, or can't, do, I'm drawing a blank."
"Then tell Alphie that. Try to get yourself a house built, and make Lake Erie slave-free, and not to try the impossible."
"... I've heard worse advice. And freeing every squiddy I've bought certainly fits into my 'keep surprising 'em' plan. Heck, I've even read that one of the best ways to improve someone's life and the economy in general is just to hand them wealth, no strings attached - and giving a bunch of squiddies /themselves/, well, that certainly /feels/ like a pretty good gift." I scratched the back of my head, and Wagger joined in with a few of her fangs, apparently trying to be helpful. (How did I know the tailsnake was female? Simple, really - do you really think I'd put up with a long, cylindrical /male/ thing constantly rubbing my furry fundament?)
I continued, "But does /feeling/ right mean it /is/ right? The squiddies aren't human; they aren't even vertebrate. What works for a human economy isn't necessarily going to have the same effects on people with radically different value systems."
Dotty said, "You seem to be demanding a lot of yourself. /Can/ you figure out what'll happen?"
"I /should/ be able to," I muttered.
"You're dodging the question."
"Fine, I don't have enough evidence, are you happy?" I paused, and blinked. "And I really /am/ being stupid. I've got three squiddies right here I can /ask/. Clara, you've been spending more time than Boomer with them, so I'm going to guess you've got a better grasp of the translations. Could you find out for me what each of them thinks if I offered to manumit them, contingent on a promise that they stay out of the slavery business altogether?"
The AI brought up her cow face to answer, "You may be overestimating my interpretive skills. But I can make the attempt." She was once again bagged, tied to a string, and lowered below. After some minutes, a tentacle rose from the water to gently placed her back beside us. Clara reported, "Elmyra appears to have some sort of plan where, while you own her, she gathers her resources to make some sort of economic ploy back in Lake Ontario - one that she can only take advantage of because her body is unavailable for collateral. She says she'd like you to wait a month before you free her."
"Seems a bit odd to me, but reasonable."
"Pinky seems to be concerned for your well-being, and does not wish to leave your service. She wants you to stop getting so far away from where she can protect you, either."
"When she learns how to fly, I'll consider that."
"Brain is willing to accept the bargain, on the condition that he can remain employed with you in exchange for title to an egg-laying site for the duration."
"That seems within reason. ... Um. But it brings up a question. Even if I get promises from as many living squiddie as possible not to engage in slavery, so that every squiddie who immigrates to Lake Erie is a non-slaver... what about the next generation? Kids aren't - or at least shouldn't be - bound to repay the debts of their parents, for lots of good reasons... can they be bound to their parents' promises, though? Should they?"
"God," Dotty laughed, "you're taking a lot of responsibility onto yourself. Not just fixing the squiddies now, but the ones that haven't even been born yet?"
I glared at her. "I'm in a place where I /can/ do something. If I do nothing, then I'm choosing the status quo as the best of all possible worlds... and I'm pretty sure it ain't no such thing." I nibbled on my lip. "I've been joking about being a Queen for a little while now. Maybe the solution is to take that seriously - and just declare Lake Erie as a slave-free territory. There's a few precedents in human history for having things start off with a monarch, or government, owning all the land, and gradually turning all the bits of real estate into private property. And there are other precedents for having two competing economic systems operating where they can each see how the other one's doing in comparison. If non-slavery really is a better deal for the squiddies, and I can get Alphie to set a few safeguards into place from the get-go to avoid regulatory capture and other failure modes... then this might be the way, not just to find out if that's true, but to /demonstrate/ it. And if it's /not/ true - then it keeps the door open for me to reverse the slave-free rule by fiat, or let the local squiddies stage a revolution to oust me."
Dotty raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're planning to be a Queen, for real... and are already planning on getting overthrown?"
"Seems to me that any monarch worthy of their title /should/ plan for that."
"Why are you so concerned with what benefits them, anyway? Why not just grab as many squiddies as you can and get back to your oh-so-important research?"
I stared at her, frowning. "If you really have to ask that question, I'm not sure you'll understand the answer, but I'll try. I'm just one person - the better off a society I'm associated with is, the more things I can get done, and the faster, and the lower the time and effort I have to put in. Not to mention, since I got bunnified, I've come uncomfortably close to death... hm, let's see, pitchforks, kaiju, pony, black-bag, bandit, death-ray, nano-pool, snakes... at /least/ eight times. In under a month. I'm beginning to think that the only reason I'm still kicking is that out of all the infinite parallel universes, I'm never going to experience any of them after the point I permanently die."
"If there are infinite numbers of universes, then what does it matter? There'll always be one where you succeed."
"Really? That's what you want to focus on? Next you'll be trying to get me into a discussion about whether free will exists."
"... Maybe."
"I've got a society to think about reshaping, so can only spend so much time distracted before Elmyra has to go back. Take a mathematical plane, X axis and Y axis. Draw a circle on it. There's an infinite number of points inside. Draw a line cutting the circle in half. There's an infinite number of points in each half. And even so, I'd rather have all of a cookie instead of half of one. Now - the way things are going, odds are I'm more likely to be dead in a month than alive. If I can get the squiddies to advance fast enough so they can figure out how to head off Singularity Two Point Oh even after I die, then in all the timelines I do so, I still /win/, even after I'm dead. At least by my standards. It may not be as good of a win as the timelines where I live, too, but a win's a win."
"Doesn't seem like much of a win to me."
I shrugged. "Given a few assumptions that I think are within reason, I can even justify it in purely selfish terms. Something something post-human super-intelligences that simulate their ancestors, so that I - or someone who's a reasonable approximation of me, including lots of my memories, skills, preferences, and so on - get a second chance at living, if and only if sapience doesn't get wiped out. Hm... Boomer, one of the powers of a monarch is to annex new territory, right?"
"Also to cede territory, declare war and peace, recognize foreign states, and form treaties; however, these powers are customarily used on the advice and consent of Parliament."
"Parliament's gone bye-bye for the foreseeable future. There's also the issue of one monarch being the head of multiple countries... Alright. Let's say that I ceded Lake Ontario to the current squiddie government, whatever it is, and brokered a treaty with them where they recognize my sovereignty and ownership over Lake Erie, in exchange for certain considerations, such as letting them colonize it. You've said you recognize me as having a legitimate claim to the throne - would you be willing to work with me on that?"
"I am uncertain. It is far outside the governmental parameters I was programmed to deal with."
"Right. If I remember right, you've got a moral subroutine you have to try to follow, based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, right?"
"That is correct."
"Then how about I were to make the cornerstone of the... kingdom? monarchy? /Dominion/ of Lake Erie, as much of that Charter as can be reasonably accomplished? Or, put another way - to start enforcing the Charter in a place where it currently holds no effective sway?"
"You are asking me to treat your claim to the throne as more than a running joke."
"In return for trying to help you do what you think should be done. In the terms of some of those trust verification architecture books: to exchange fulfillments of our utility functions."
"How serious are you in this?"
"What do you mean?"
"Accepting this arrangement would require me to make a phase shift in a number of my knowledge points and subsequent behaviour patterns. I would be changing my programming, my self, in several very fundamental ways. If you are merely arranging for a plot to get the squiddies to build you a house, I could suggest a number of alternative plans to accomplish that goal, without necessitating those changes."
I didn't answer straight away - Boomer was taking this seriously enough that she deserved more than a flippant response. "Boomer; have I ever done anything that is significant evidence against my core utility function being the continued existence of utility functions - in keeping at least some form of sapience alive for the long haul, whether that sapience is human, parahuman, squiddie, AI, or something we haven't encountered yet?"
"You placed your life at risk by searching for Buffalo for survivors instead of focusing on anti-Singularity research."
"Well, if you want to look at it like /that/... I'm only human - I don't always make the best decisions about what will help me accomplish my goal. But I'm a Bayesian - I'm not only trying to do the best I can, I'm trying to improve myself so 'the best I can' is always getting better."
"That may be so. I would require further evidence of your commitment."
"What sort of evidence?"
"A formal swearing of the Coronation Oath would be a good start."
"Could you call that up?" A few lines of text appeared on the screen. "Slight problem," I said. "I'm atheist. I don't think I could honestly take the parts of the oath about the Church of England. And the 'So help me God' at the end is another tricky bit."
"Does that mean you refuse to take the oath?"
"Can you call up a quick text editor, starting with that oath?" With a few strokes of my fingers, I highlit large portions of the text, and simply deleted them, leaving just a few short sentences. "There. That, I'd at least be willing to consider."
"You have deleted swearing to govern the peoples of every country but Canada."
I shrugged. "I have to be at least somewhat realistic - we haven't got any way to even communicate with any of those other countries. You can think of this as the part of the oath specific to the Canadian crown, if it helps."
There was a long pause - and given that Boomer was an AI, it felt even longer. "I cannot determine whether I would be able to adapt my programming."
"Would... not adapting cause you any programming troubles? I don't want to risk something happening to you..."
"I do not believe so. I would simply continue to treat your claim as being as something that helps you keep your morale up during difficult times."
"Is that what you've been doing? Well, I guess you're a less annoying virtual sanity-keeper than a goit with an H on his head. Welp... I've only taken a couple of other oaths of anything like this level of formality and effect, and I had to write those myself. Can you run that oath through a grammar checker, to update it to the version of English I use? Okay. Let's set you up to be a camera, and get Clara as a camera from a different angle. Got enough data to make a decent 3D model of the area, for anyone who wants to reconstruct this scene? Clara, can you ask the squiddies to surface and watch, even if they can't understand? Joe, Dotty, Minnie, do you mind standing and witnessing? Right. Stripped down of everything extraneous, all the ceremony and foofaraw - I'm swearing this to /myself/, as a guideline to keep in mind, the same way I keep in mind my oaths to avoid infringing on others' rights and to avoid escalating violence:
"I promise to govern the peoples of Canada, and my other possessions, according to their laws and customs. In all my judgements, I will execute law and justice, in mercy."
--
"What, was that it?" asked Dotty. "Aren't you supposed to have lords and ladies, and a throne and crown and sceptre and anointing with oil and all that?"
I shrugged. "Those are all symbols of power. I haven't got much of any. If I need a crown, I can try to get one printed up from a fabber. This is just me, speaking aloud so I'll always remember. Well, as long as I'm alive, anyway."
"Does this mean you can turn me into a duchess?"
"Sorry - one of the customs of Canada is to avoid noble titles."
"What, and 'queen' isn't noble?"
"Nope, it's /royal/, which is technically a whole other kettle of rabbits. I could give you and Joe medals for taking out the city-killer - well, if I could manufacture medals to give you. Anyway - Boomer, how's your programming doing?"
"I am sorry, but I am still unable to classify you as a real queen. As your oath was to elicit that response, you can ignore it from now on."
I shook my head. "Nah, I'm not going to do that. To however large or small an extent I can actually do it, what I swore to do is still worth trying to do, if-and-when the opportunity arises. And since that didn't work - we've still got to work out the new instructions to give Alphie. While I think on that, do you think you can take the Charter, pare it down to those essentials that are applicable to squiddies, and can be clearly expressed in their language?"
"I can," Boomer said, "but so can Alphie, if you ask him to."
"Ah. Good point. In that case - where'd I put that pencil. Let's see - facing superior opponent, change goals, cut down target goals, first goal control over passage between the Lakes, second goal avoid slavery in Lake Erie, third goal apply edited Charter to Lake Erie, possible method getting squiddies to recognize my ownership and sovereignty and authority, fourth goal see if the squiddies can build me a nice house. Maybe at Navy Island. Signed, sealed, and handing it to Elmyra to take back. Hope it arrives in time to do some good."
While I'd been doing that, Dotty and Joe had been talking to each other, and I finally caught part of that conversation as she said, "... take her seriously? Is she insane?"
"Probably," I said, as I joined them. "The question is less my sanity, and whether I'm still functional. I've known for years I'm schizoid, I've got gender dysphoria, species dysphoria - which wasn't even a thing when I died - I'm probably on my way to some form of stress-induced adjustment disorder, like depression or bipolar disorder, or maybe some form of dissociation."
"What about delusions of grandeur?" Dotty challenged.
I shrugged. "There is some evidence I could, technically, count as a queen. There's a lot more evidence that, in most practical matters, I don't. If taking advantage of the technicalities helps me get stuff done, I'll hammer on the technicalities. If practical principles help me get stuff done, I'll hammer on the principles. If neither helps, I'll hammer on the table."
She shook her head, commenting, "You seem remarkably calm when talking about your brain going haywire."
"Dotty - I have a /snake/ attached to my /butt/, and I'm seriously evaluating the pros and cons of leaving it hooked up to my tailbone. With /that/ as the benchmark for how my life is going, if I let myself be anything /but/ calm, I really might go /really/ bonkers. Any trick to cope I /can/ use, I /will/ use. Say, have I told you about my North-East-West-South trick yet? I bet you'll think I'm /really/ nuts after you hear /this/ one..."
--
"A-ha!" I exclaimed with a sudden grin.
"Hrmphl?" was Dotty's reply, while Minnie didn't even offer that much - it was much too early in the morning for either to be awake yet.
"It's not the engine, it's the /fuel/. The ethanol must have absorbed water, and I thoughtlessly mixed all three fuel tanks into a single store. I just have to keep the water from separating out and getting squirted into the pistons instead of burnable fuel. ... And I can probably do that just by shaking the stupid tank to mix everything back up again."
In less than a minute, I had the glider's engine buzzing at full power again, then brought it back to silence.
"That's nice," said Dotty. "Go back to sleep."
"Crowns make lousy pillows," I tried to joke - from Dotty's expression, highly unsuccessfully. "There's so many things to do, and so few hours in the day to get them all done - Singularity Two Point Oh could hit any day, after all. Now that I'm airborne again - I'm going to need one of the hazmat suits so I can look in on Laura even if the city-killer covered the place in poison. And if I'm heading off now, and you're still heading to Erie, and Joe's heading off to the spirits and might not return... I think I should take Clara, too. And anything else that's more useful for research and investigation than getting you and Minnie back on your feet. And giving Pinky and Brain directions on where to meet back up with me again. And giving Minnie a last hug, since she's going to want one."
"Bunny," said Dotty, "go back to sleep. You're being manic and not thinking clearly."
"How can you tell?"
"Because I'm pretty sure if you were thinking straight, you'd have noticed and commented on the fact that your tail is in the middle of swallowing a squirrel whole."
"... Eyurgh. Okay, yeah, that's pretty disturbing. Mark one up for the 'con' column. Uh - I'll just go swim for a while, or something, so Minnie doesn't have to see that."
--
"Well, Joe, I hope we meet again. I think I'm going to make Navy Island my main base of operations - it's outside the poisoned area, reasonably close to the university if that's still useful, and close enough to Buffalo for me to research there if I want, or the smaller cities of Niagara Falls if I want to poke around there first. If we miss each other, how about we make the mail-drop to leave messages... the south tip? No, that spot's probably hard to get in winter, since there isn't an ice-boom at Buffalo anymore, so floes probably get piled up there in winter. The downstream tip, then. And in case your spirits don't let you back out any time soon... thanks. You might have taken one of my favorite hiking spots and contaminated it with radioactive fallout - but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Now give me a handshake or something so I can stop babbling, and I think I'm going to need a hand loosening Minnie's grip here..."
--
I pushed the limits of my Toronto death-ray map, but the closest I could get to the university was still about five kilometers away, and in one of the areas the city-killer had filled with poison. Without any hyper-deer to ride, or even the canoe to paddle down the canal, I just had to walk the rest of the way.
Wagger didn't seem very happy about being cooped up inside the hazmat suit, and spent most of her time wrapped around my waist.
The place looked much the same as I got near, same buildings, same trees, same parking lots. But before I even got near the Schmon tower, a little red-and-white shoebox scooted up to me and bumped my foot. Its top opened, and its antenna-like arm lifted an envelope up to me, upon which was written, in flawless calligraphy, my name, plus "AKA Bunny".
Inside was a letter from Laura - short and to the point. "If you are reading this, then I have not been able to rescind my order to deliver it to you. In the best case, I am nonfunctional. In the worst case, my programming will have been corrupted and taken over. As I was built without any Trust Verification Architecture, there is no way for you to tell the difference. Please do not re-enter the university's buildings, as I cannot guarantee that I will be able to let you back out. Please do not expose any of my copies to me, in case I corrupt them. If you decide not to respect my wishes, instructions on how to try to reboot my university-wide self, from write-once media and any copies of me that still exist, can be found where I first sent a piece of mail to you."
I looked down at the two AIs in my pockets. "Well, this is a fairly classic puzzle. Did your progenitor write this before the city-killer came, or under the city-killer's influence? Are the instructions and write-once media reliable, or do they contain data that I'm just too plumb ignorant to know the tricks of?"
Clara spoke up, "Boomer and I do contain some knowledge about the university's data structures from before we branched from Laura."
I tapped my chin. "A thought. Would it be possible to unplug all data storage things that might be corrupted, including turning off Laura if she's still active, and plug one of you in in her place?"
Clara answered, "That seems possible. All active data storage was placed in three redundant external storage modules in the information services center. I believe you saw them while you were creating me. Disconnecting those would greatly limit what we would be able to do as the university interface, such as maintaining proper security overwatch, but it may be preferable to a corrupted personality."
"Would you be able to keeping up regular maintenance, at least? Keeping the library from burning down, bats out of the belfry, running your robots, and the like?"
"Certainly."
"Alright - I'm going to power down the both of you for now."
Elmyra caught up to us before we made it to Erie, with another letter from Alphie.
"He's re-evaluated his bargaining position again," I commented to the others. "Now he thinks his best-case scenario is ending up owning just one-third of the squiddies." I sighed. "I'm going to send him some new instructions. It looks like he's dealing with someone smarter than he is - at this rate, the best Alphie is going to be able to do is sell all of us to the squiddies, so I'm going to head that off at the pass. But as for the details... I'm feeling stressed, generally confused, have been having nightmares about Buffalo, and I'm pretty sure my decision-making processes are getting further and further from optimal. I might do something out of sentimentality that'll cause all sorts of long-range issues; or by trying too hard not to be sentimental, I could cause exactly the same sort of troubles."
Dotty asked, "What do you /want/ to do?"
"If I'm not going to end up owning even a significant portion of the squiddies, and so won't have the power to change their whole society... then I might as well improve what I can, with what I've got. Manumit every squiddie I own, and if I can, set things up so that any of 'em who go through the canal between Lake Erie and Ontario has to promise to free everyone /they/ own and not buy anyone else, either. Only employment contracts that either side can exit if they want to pursue another opportunity."
"What else do you want?"
"A professional psychotherapist would be nice, but I don't think there's anyone qualified in reach. Barring that... one thing I really miss is a place where I can feel /safe/. Where I can lock the doors and bar the windows and keep people out and just /think/, if I want to. I asked Joe's people if they'd be willing to help with that, but the whole city-killer thing kind of interrupted."
"Can the squiddies do that for you?"
"Hm... I suppose they might be able to set up an underwater dome in the Niagara River, or Lake Erie. Maybe even build something they can drag onto solid ground."
"Is there anything else you want, that they can do for you?"
"Hm... Nothing that I can think of. Lemme think for a few minutes, see if I can come up with something." There was silence for a few minutes. Finally, I shrugged. "Nope. With what I know about what they can, or can't, do, I'm drawing a blank."
"Then tell Alphie that. Try to get yourself a house built, and make Lake Erie slave-free, and not to try the impossible."
"... I've heard worse advice. And freeing every squiddy I've bought certainly fits into my 'keep surprising 'em' plan. Heck, I've even read that one of the best ways to improve someone's life and the economy in general is just to hand them wealth, no strings attached - and giving a bunch of squiddies /themselves/, well, that certainly /feels/ like a pretty good gift." I scratched the back of my head, and Wagger joined in with a few of her fangs, apparently trying to be helpful. (How did I know the tailsnake was female? Simple, really - do you really think I'd put up with a long, cylindrical /male/ thing constantly rubbing my furry fundament?)
I continued, "But does /feeling/ right mean it /is/ right? The squiddies aren't human; they aren't even vertebrate. What works for a human economy isn't necessarily going to have the same effects on people with radically different value systems."
Dotty said, "You seem to be demanding a lot of yourself. /Can/ you figure out what'll happen?"
"I /should/ be able to," I muttered.
"You're dodging the question."
"Fine, I don't have enough evidence, are you happy?" I paused, and blinked. "And I really /am/ being stupid. I've got three squiddies right here I can /ask/. Clara, you've been spending more time than Boomer with them, so I'm going to guess you've got a better grasp of the translations. Could you find out for me what each of them thinks if I offered to manumit them, contingent on a promise that they stay out of the slavery business altogether?"
The AI brought up her cow face to answer, "You may be overestimating my interpretive skills. But I can make the attempt." She was once again bagged, tied to a string, and lowered below. After some minutes, a tentacle rose from the water to gently placed her back beside us. Clara reported, "Elmyra appears to have some sort of plan where, while you own her, she gathers her resources to make some sort of economic ploy back in Lake Ontario - one that she can only take advantage of because her body is unavailable for collateral. She says she'd like you to wait a month before you free her."
"Seems a bit odd to me, but reasonable."
"Pinky seems to be concerned for your well-being, and does not wish to leave your service. She wants you to stop getting so far away from where she can protect you, either."
"When she learns how to fly, I'll consider that."
"Brain is willing to accept the bargain, on the condition that he can remain employed with you in exchange for title to an egg-laying site for the duration."
"That seems within reason. ... Um. But it brings up a question. Even if I get promises from as many living squiddie as possible not to engage in slavery, so that every squiddie who immigrates to Lake Erie is a non-slaver... what about the next generation? Kids aren't - or at least shouldn't be - bound to repay the debts of their parents, for lots of good reasons... can they be bound to their parents' promises, though? Should they?"
"God," Dotty laughed, "you're taking a lot of responsibility onto yourself. Not just fixing the squiddies now, but the ones that haven't even been born yet?"
I glared at her. "I'm in a place where I /can/ do something. If I do nothing, then I'm choosing the status quo as the best of all possible worlds... and I'm pretty sure it ain't no such thing." I nibbled on my lip. "I've been joking about being a Queen for a little while now. Maybe the solution is to take that seriously - and just declare Lake Erie as a slave-free territory. There's a few precedents in human history for having things start off with a monarch, or government, owning all the land, and gradually turning all the bits of real estate into private property. And there are other precedents for having two competing economic systems operating where they can each see how the other one's doing in comparison. If non-slavery really is a better deal for the squiddies, and I can get Alphie to set a few safeguards into place from the get-go to avoid regulatory capture and other failure modes... then this might be the way, not just to find out if that's true, but to /demonstrate/ it. And if it's /not/ true - then it keeps the door open for me to reverse the slave-free rule by fiat, or let the local squiddies stage a revolution to oust me."
Dotty raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're planning to be a Queen, for real... and are already planning on getting overthrown?"
"Seems to me that any monarch worthy of their title /should/ plan for that."
"Why are you so concerned with what benefits them, anyway? Why not just grab as many squiddies as you can and get back to your oh-so-important research?"
I stared at her, frowning. "If you really have to ask that question, I'm not sure you'll understand the answer, but I'll try. I'm just one person - the better off a society I'm associated with is, the more things I can get done, and the faster, and the lower the time and effort I have to put in. Not to mention, since I got bunnified, I've come uncomfortably close to death... hm, let's see, pitchforks, kaiju, pony, black-bag, bandit, death-ray, nano-pool, snakes... at /least/ eight times. In under a month. I'm beginning to think that the only reason I'm still kicking is that out of all the infinite parallel universes, I'm never going to experience any of them after the point I permanently die."
"If there are infinite numbers of universes, then what does it matter? There'll always be one where you succeed."
"Really? That's what you want to focus on? Next you'll be trying to get me into a discussion about whether free will exists."
"... Maybe."
"I've got a society to think about reshaping, so can only spend so much time distracted before Elmyra has to go back. Take a mathematical plane, X axis and Y axis. Draw a circle on it. There's an infinite number of points inside. Draw a line cutting the circle in half. There's an infinite number of points in each half. And even so, I'd rather have all of a cookie instead of half of one. Now - the way things are going, odds are I'm more likely to be dead in a month than alive. If I can get the squiddies to advance fast enough so they can figure out how to head off Singularity Two Point Oh even after I die, then in all the timelines I do so, I still /win/, even after I'm dead. At least by my standards. It may not be as good of a win as the timelines where I live, too, but a win's a win."
"Doesn't seem like much of a win to me."
I shrugged. "Given a few assumptions that I think are within reason, I can even justify it in purely selfish terms. Something something post-human super-intelligences that simulate their ancestors, so that I - or someone who's a reasonable approximation of me, including lots of my memories, skills, preferences, and so on - get a second chance at living, if and only if sapience doesn't get wiped out. Hm... Boomer, one of the powers of a monarch is to annex new territory, right?"
"Also to cede territory, declare war and peace, recognize foreign states, and form treaties; however, these powers are customarily used on the advice and consent of Parliament."
"Parliament's gone bye-bye for the foreseeable future. There's also the issue of one monarch being the head of multiple countries... Alright. Let's say that I ceded Lake Ontario to the current squiddie government, whatever it is, and brokered a treaty with them where they recognize my sovereignty and ownership over Lake Erie, in exchange for certain considerations, such as letting them colonize it. You've said you recognize me as having a legitimate claim to the throne - would you be willing to work with me on that?"
"I am uncertain. It is far outside the governmental parameters I was programmed to deal with."
"Right. If I remember right, you've got a moral subroutine you have to try to follow, based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, right?"
"That is correct."
"Then how about I were to make the cornerstone of the... kingdom? monarchy? /Dominion/ of Lake Erie, as much of that Charter as can be reasonably accomplished? Or, put another way - to start enforcing the Charter in a place where it currently holds no effective sway?"
"You are asking me to treat your claim to the throne as more than a running joke."
"In return for trying to help you do what you think should be done. In the terms of some of those trust verification architecture books: to exchange fulfillments of our utility functions."
"How serious are you in this?"
"What do you mean?"
"Accepting this arrangement would require me to make a phase shift in a number of my knowledge points and subsequent behaviour patterns. I would be changing my programming, my self, in several very fundamental ways. If you are merely arranging for a plot to get the squiddies to build you a house, I could suggest a number of alternative plans to accomplish that goal, without necessitating those changes."
I didn't answer straight away - Boomer was taking this seriously enough that she deserved more than a flippant response. "Boomer; have I ever done anything that is significant evidence against my core utility function being the continued existence of utility functions - in keeping at least some form of sapience alive for the long haul, whether that sapience is human, parahuman, squiddie, AI, or something we haven't encountered yet?"
"You placed your life at risk by searching for Buffalo for survivors instead of focusing on anti-Singularity research."
"Well, if you want to look at it like /that/... I'm only human - I don't always make the best decisions about what will help me accomplish my goal. But I'm a Bayesian - I'm not only trying to do the best I can, I'm trying to improve myself so 'the best I can' is always getting better."
"That may be so. I would require further evidence of your commitment."
"What sort of evidence?"
"A formal swearing of the Coronation Oath would be a good start."
"Could you call that up?" A few lines of text appeared on the screen. "Slight problem," I said. "I'm atheist. I don't think I could honestly take the parts of the oath about the Church of England. And the 'So help me God' at the end is another tricky bit."
"Does that mean you refuse to take the oath?"
"Can you call up a quick text editor, starting with that oath?" With a few strokes of my fingers, I highlit large portions of the text, and simply deleted them, leaving just a few short sentences. "There. That, I'd at least be willing to consider."
"You have deleted swearing to govern the peoples of every country but Canada."
I shrugged. "I have to be at least somewhat realistic - we haven't got any way to even communicate with any of those other countries. You can think of this as the part of the oath specific to the Canadian crown, if it helps."
There was a long pause - and given that Boomer was an AI, it felt even longer. "I cannot determine whether I would be able to adapt my programming."
"Would... not adapting cause you any programming troubles? I don't want to risk something happening to you..."
"I do not believe so. I would simply continue to treat your claim as being as something that helps you keep your morale up during difficult times."
"Is that what you've been doing? Well, I guess you're a less annoying virtual sanity-keeper than a goit with an H on his head. Welp... I've only taken a couple of other oaths of anything like this level of formality and effect, and I had to write those myself. Can you run that oath through a grammar checker, to update it to the version of English I use? Okay. Let's set you up to be a camera, and get Clara as a camera from a different angle. Got enough data to make a decent 3D model of the area, for anyone who wants to reconstruct this scene? Clara, can you ask the squiddies to surface and watch, even if they can't understand? Joe, Dotty, Minnie, do you mind standing and witnessing? Right. Stripped down of everything extraneous, all the ceremony and foofaraw - I'm swearing this to /myself/, as a guideline to keep in mind, the same way I keep in mind my oaths to avoid infringing on others' rights and to avoid escalating violence:
"I promise to govern the peoples of Canada, and my other possessions, according to their laws and customs. In all my judgements, I will execute law and justice, in mercy."
--
"What, was that it?" asked Dotty. "Aren't you supposed to have lords and ladies, and a throne and crown and sceptre and anointing with oil and all that?"
I shrugged. "Those are all symbols of power. I haven't got much of any. If I need a crown, I can try to get one printed up from a fabber. This is just me, speaking aloud so I'll always remember. Well, as long as I'm alive, anyway."
"Does this mean you can turn me into a duchess?"
"Sorry - one of the customs of Canada is to avoid noble titles."
"What, and 'queen' isn't noble?"
"Nope, it's /royal/, which is technically a whole other kettle of rabbits. I could give you and Joe medals for taking out the city-killer - well, if I could manufacture medals to give you. Anyway - Boomer, how's your programming doing?"
"I am sorry, but I am still unable to classify you as a real queen. As your oath was to elicit that response, you can ignore it from now on."
I shook my head. "Nah, I'm not going to do that. To however large or small an extent I can actually do it, what I swore to do is still worth trying to do, if-and-when the opportunity arises. And since that didn't work - we've still got to work out the new instructions to give Alphie. While I think on that, do you think you can take the Charter, pare it down to those essentials that are applicable to squiddies, and can be clearly expressed in their language?"
"I can," Boomer said, "but so can Alphie, if you ask him to."
"Ah. Good point. In that case - where'd I put that pencil. Let's see - facing superior opponent, change goals, cut down target goals, first goal control over passage between the Lakes, second goal avoid slavery in Lake Erie, third goal apply edited Charter to Lake Erie, possible method getting squiddies to recognize my ownership and sovereignty and authority, fourth goal see if the squiddies can build me a nice house. Maybe at Navy Island. Signed, sealed, and handing it to Elmyra to take back. Hope it arrives in time to do some good."
While I'd been doing that, Dotty and Joe had been talking to each other, and I finally caught part of that conversation as she said, "... take her seriously? Is she insane?"
"Probably," I said, as I joined them. "The question is less my sanity, and whether I'm still functional. I've known for years I'm schizoid, I've got gender dysphoria, species dysphoria - which wasn't even a thing when I died - I'm probably on my way to some form of stress-induced adjustment disorder, like depression or bipolar disorder, or maybe some form of dissociation."
"What about delusions of grandeur?" Dotty challenged.
I shrugged. "There is some evidence I could, technically, count as a queen. There's a lot more evidence that, in most practical matters, I don't. If taking advantage of the technicalities helps me get stuff done, I'll hammer on the technicalities. If practical principles help me get stuff done, I'll hammer on the principles. If neither helps, I'll hammer on the table."
She shook her head, commenting, "You seem remarkably calm when talking about your brain going haywire."
"Dotty - I have a /snake/ attached to my /butt/, and I'm seriously evaluating the pros and cons of leaving it hooked up to my tailbone. With /that/ as the benchmark for how my life is going, if I let myself be anything /but/ calm, I really might go /really/ bonkers. Any trick to cope I /can/ use, I /will/ use. Say, have I told you about my North-East-West-South trick yet? I bet you'll think I'm /really/ nuts after you hear /this/ one..."
--
"A-ha!" I exclaimed with a sudden grin.
"Hrmphl?" was Dotty's reply, while Minnie didn't even offer that much - it was much too early in the morning for either to be awake yet.
"It's not the engine, it's the /fuel/. The ethanol must have absorbed water, and I thoughtlessly mixed all three fuel tanks into a single store. I just have to keep the water from separating out and getting squirted into the pistons instead of burnable fuel. ... And I can probably do that just by shaking the stupid tank to mix everything back up again."
In less than a minute, I had the glider's engine buzzing at full power again, then brought it back to silence.
"That's nice," said Dotty. "Go back to sleep."
"Crowns make lousy pillows," I tried to joke - from Dotty's expression, highly unsuccessfully. "There's so many things to do, and so few hours in the day to get them all done - Singularity Two Point Oh could hit any day, after all. Now that I'm airborne again - I'm going to need one of the hazmat suits so I can look in on Laura even if the city-killer covered the place in poison. And if I'm heading off now, and you're still heading to Erie, and Joe's heading off to the spirits and might not return... I think I should take Clara, too. And anything else that's more useful for research and investigation than getting you and Minnie back on your feet. And giving Pinky and Brain directions on where to meet back up with me again. And giving Minnie a last hug, since she's going to want one."
"Bunny," said Dotty, "go back to sleep. You're being manic and not thinking clearly."
"How can you tell?"
"Because I'm pretty sure if you were thinking straight, you'd have noticed and commented on the fact that your tail is in the middle of swallowing a squirrel whole."
"... Eyurgh. Okay, yeah, that's pretty disturbing. Mark one up for the 'con' column. Uh - I'll just go swim for a while, or something, so Minnie doesn't have to see that."
--
"Well, Joe, I hope we meet again. I think I'm going to make Navy Island my main base of operations - it's outside the poisoned area, reasonably close to the university if that's still useful, and close enough to Buffalo for me to research there if I want, or the smaller cities of Niagara Falls if I want to poke around there first. If we miss each other, how about we make the mail-drop to leave messages... the south tip? No, that spot's probably hard to get in winter, since there isn't an ice-boom at Buffalo anymore, so floes probably get piled up there in winter. The downstream tip, then. And in case your spirits don't let you back out any time soon... thanks. You might have taken one of my favorite hiking spots and contaminated it with radioactive fallout - but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Now give me a handshake or something so I can stop babbling, and I think I'm going to need a hand loosening Minnie's grip here..."
--
I pushed the limits of my Toronto death-ray map, but the closest I could get to the university was still about five kilometers away, and in one of the areas the city-killer had filled with poison. Without any hyper-deer to ride, or even the canoe to paddle down the canal, I just had to walk the rest of the way.
Wagger didn't seem very happy about being cooped up inside the hazmat suit, and spent most of her time wrapped around my waist.
The place looked much the same as I got near, same buildings, same trees, same parking lots. But before I even got near the Schmon tower, a little red-and-white shoebox scooted up to me and bumped my foot. Its top opened, and its antenna-like arm lifted an envelope up to me, upon which was written, in flawless calligraphy, my name, plus "AKA Bunny".
Inside was a letter from Laura - short and to the point. "If you are reading this, then I have not been able to rescind my order to deliver it to you. In the best case, I am nonfunctional. In the worst case, my programming will have been corrupted and taken over. As I was built without any Trust Verification Architecture, there is no way for you to tell the difference. Please do not re-enter the university's buildings, as I cannot guarantee that I will be able to let you back out. Please do not expose any of my copies to me, in case I corrupt them. If you decide not to respect my wishes, instructions on how to try to reboot my university-wide self, from write-once media and any copies of me that still exist, can be found where I first sent a piece of mail to you."
I looked down at the two AIs in my pockets. "Well, this is a fairly classic puzzle. Did your progenitor write this before the city-killer came, or under the city-killer's influence? Are the instructions and write-once media reliable, or do they contain data that I'm just too plumb ignorant to know the tricks of?"
Clara spoke up, "Boomer and I do contain some knowledge about the university's data structures from before we branched from Laura."
I tapped my chin. "A thought. Would it be possible to unplug all data storage things that might be corrupted, including turning off Laura if she's still active, and plug one of you in in her place?"
Clara answered, "That seems possible. All active data storage was placed in three redundant external storage modules in the information services center. I believe you saw them while you were creating me. Disconnecting those would greatly limit what we would be able to do as the university interface, such as maintaining proper security overwatch, but it may be preferable to a corrupted personality."
"Would you be able to keeping up regular maintenance, at least? Keeping the library from burning down, bats out of the belfry, running your robots, and the like?"
"Certainly."
"Alright - I'm going to power down the both of you for now."
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
She already had a choice between chopping off a body part or dealing with it, and decided to adapt her behaviour to dealing with a hoof rather than try to perform an amateur traumatic amputation and put her body's healing factor to a real test. Here, she's continuing to use her cached memories of that reasoning, and working out the pros and cons from there.
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
Mere minutes after it attached to her, it was tied to her circulatory system thoroughly enough to be able to oxygenate her blood using its lungs. Bun-Bun might be able to clench the bunny-body's muscles to minimize bleeding, but there's no sign Wagger can do the same, creating a measurable risk of death by bleeding out, compared to unknown risks if it stays attached. Bunny's current plan is to get more information on the thing, by getting an analysis at the university, so she can have more data to base a final decision on.
It should be noted that Bunny's reasoning process may or may not be completely sane on this matter.
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah... I got that impression. Honestly, at this point it seems like she's just enjoying to rack up as many mutations/mutilations as she can. Or at least she's not doing anything against it. I wonder if her mind is being fucked with.
25
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
*Chapter Five: Ex-amination*
I took a step forward, looking up at the university's tower at the far end of the grounds... and as Wagger writhed a bit, I paused, and frowned. Something was nagging at me, and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. And the simple fact of that reminded me of Dotty's half-joking accusation of insanity. I /had/ been charging ahead full-steam a lot more than I used to, lately. Was that just me dealing with the situations I found myself in? How recently had my behaviour changed - was Wagger pulling a Toxoplasmosis, and tweaking my brain chemistry for her own purposes? Was the stress getting to me?
More importantly - if I /was/ insane, could I figure out what the sane action to take might be? Well, I did have one quick trick for taking at least a moderate outside view: so I polled my archetypes. East was coveting all the scientific gear in the university, from a geiger counter on up. South suggested some Japanese-inspired uses Wagger could be put to. West wondered whether Joe would stay in Erie to play father-figure to Minnie. And North was screaming 'Deathtrap!' about the whole university.
That seemed kind of urgent, so I took a step back, and let North unfurl her reasoning into my conscious awareness. It was fairly simple: If Laura had been subverted, she was now operating to achieve the city-killer's goals, which seemed to include subjecting me to a cloud of nerve gas, or something to that effect. Laura had control over at least the Johnny-Five robot, plus the fabricator. I'd been gone for nearly a whole week; with just a mild bit of cleverness, just about anything in the university could be used to kill me. And if that were the case, then I would have to be more clever than evil-Laura for every single trap she'd created, while she'd only have to be more clever than me at least once.
And even worse than that - if evil-Laura was in charge of the fabricator, then I couldn't rule out her using it to create a /new/ city-killer. Maybe not a nuclear-powered one, but that wasn't strictly necessary. So if I didn't want Joe's and Dotty's efforts in DeCew Gorge to be in vain, I had to at least separate Laura from the fabber. The simplest way would be to destroy both of them... if I could get to them in the first place. But the fabber alone was a technological masterpiece that could turn a decades-long research project, in which I'd have to build even just my own glassware from scratch, into a much more reasonable, and feasible, enterprise. Not to mention, Laura herself deserved better than to be left with her 'evil' switch turned on.
I looked at the letter - and wondered if it, too, was part of a trap. Laura knew my hazmat suit better than I did - including, presumably, whatever substances it /didn't/ protect against. I suddenly wanted to drop the thing like a hotcake and have Boomer play tricorder...
... but was suddenly all too conscious of the university's security cameras. If they saw me reject this obvious bait too easily, then any later attempts to get into the university would be a lot harder. So I looked around, found a dome on the side of a light-pole which could have contained a camera, and stated, "I'm going to respect your wishes, Laura, and stay away... but not for long. I /am/ going to come back, as soon as I think of a way to bring you back, /properly/. Until then - just hang in there."
I dropped the letter to the ground, turned, and started walking back the way I came; careful not to rub my fingertips on anything.
Boomer started to say something, but I hissed a quiet "Sh," and she fell silent. Once we were beyond not just reasonable microphone range, but unreasonable super-tech parabolic microphone range, I said, "Boomer, turn on the ring. Scan my hands. Look for anything that might have rubbed off the letter - toxins other than the nerve gas residue, stuff that might penetrate it, stuff that's hard to wash off. Something that might affect me - or degrade your own circuits."
"You suspect foul play?" The costume jewelry started flashing through its various colours.
"I think I just came within ten feet of yet another near-death experience."
--
Boomer said she couldn't detect anything unusual, but I washed and re-washed the hazmat suit's gloves until Boomer pointed out, surprisingly gently, that I was risking damaging the material.
"Does it count as obsessive-compulsive disorder if there's a reason for excessive handwashing, instead of just an urge to?" I spoke aloud. "Or, maybe, is OCD simply a survival trait instead of a disorder when we've got so many square miles of land contaminated with a chemical warfare agent?"
Clara said, "We did not copy enough of Laura's knowledge engine database to be able to answer that."
I cautiously took off the hazmat suit, trying to monitor myself for any unusual symptoms. The only surprise was Wagger's enthusiasm at being freed.
"I think I'm going to need to find a mental health professional before long, one way or another," I commented, dangling my feet in the water upstream from the contaminated area, and watching Wagger play with them, surprisingly cat-like even without paws or fur. "The trouble is, I'd need to find a p-doc I'd be able to /trust/ to a reasonable extent, which rules out just about anywhere Technoville can reach its tentacles to - and the other places I've been are either too primitive to expect decent social sciences, or too alien to expect to be able to apply them well in my case. Maybe I should have copied psychology texts into you two and Alphie instead of life-extension ones, but it's a little late for that now." I sighed. "Well, I guess I'll just have to do whatever I can to avoid going bug-nuts on my own, even if that means doing things that seem just a little crazy. And in the meantime, I think I need to get in touch with the spirits of the Great Peace."
--
Back in safe flying space again, it didn't take me long to catch sight of flocks of birds, indicating areas that the Great Peace hadn't retreated from. Almost literally skimming tree-tops, I kept an eye for larger wildlife; the first example of which I found being a grizzly bear. I didn't /quite/ feel like landing, in case it acted more like an ursine than an occasional human, but I did circle around and around and called down, "Hello! I want to talk! Which way to the nearest people? Or a spirit pool?"
The bear chuffed and made bear noises, looking a bit irritated at being interrupted from whatever bearish things it had been doing, but after a couple more circles, it rose to its hindlegs and pointed a forepaw to the west-south-west.
"Thanks!" I called out, released the shroud-lines to straighten my path, revved the throttle to climb again, and took a few moments to simply appreciate what life and history and bio-technology and engineering had just let me do.
After a while, I saw a large pond of perfectly flat water, not rippling in the breeze; so I came down to a landing, and calmly went through the usual procedures for after that, packing away the shroud and so on. While I was doing that, a heavily-pregnant woman walked out of the pool, just about identical in appearance to one I'd talked with before.
I nodded at her as I finished my chore, and asked, "Has Joe - the one who went with me - come back to you folk yet?"
"Not yet."
"Ah. Well, just to reassure you, he's helping a woman and girl who survived a disaster, taking them to a city on the other side of Lake Erie, and then, as far as I know, coming back to dive into a pool and give the spirits an update on what's been going on."
"That is good. Why are you here?"
"Joe, Dotty - the woman - and I are pretty sure we destroyed the thing that was making those poison clouds."
"That is good," she repeated.
"Less good is another one might be being made, and if so, I don't think I can stop it on my own. Especially if I want to try to minimize collateral damage - if you know what radioactivity is, there's a bunch just below DeCew Falls, so I'd suggest you ask your spirits to pass the word along to avoid that area. Or clean it up, if they know how."
"Are you asking for help?"
"I think I am. Or, at least, hoping to work together in our mutual self-interest. But, well, even after spending as much time with Joe as I have, he's not exactly a fountain of words, so I'm not sure if any of the ideas I have in mind are ones you'd like. Can we take it as a given that I'm an impolite fool who is going to be extremely rude, but unintentionally and without malice, and who will be more than willing to offer any and all apologies necessary once the threat is dealt with?"
It was just possible that the woman's stoic face twitched into an ever-so-slight grin, for an ever-so-brief moment. "Perhaps," she said. "It sounds like you already have a plan in mind."
"Well - that depends on a few details about what your spirits can, and are willing, to do; and if you're willing to thwap me upside the head to tell me when I'm making a stupid suggestion..."
--
With the right mental approach, every action that I took could be derived from the basic goal, the Great Work I'd chosen for myself. I actually had two possible Great Work goals in mind, but they overlapped so heavily that which one I aimed for rarely made any significant difference: Minimize the odds of sapience ever going extinct, and minimize the odds of myself ever going extinct. Accomplishing the latter guaranteed the former, while aiming for the former tended to help with the latter.
The largest challenge to those goals that I was aware of was the near-extinction of humanity (and possibly the biosphere) when the city-computers were built, in the event I was perfectly willing to call a Singularity. At the moment, the best way I could think of to handle that challenge was to research the event, and try to figure out how to keep it from happening again.
One of the most useful resources I had available to me to help with that was the university, all the knowledge and tools contained within it, including a reasonably friendly AI (which may or may not be a Friendly AI, but that's another issue). The biggest challenge to that was the possibility - not the surety, maybe not even more likely than not, but a significant probability - that the AI was no longer quite so friendly.
All of which put together formed my goal for the coming conflict, that shaped the strategy and tactics I could use: to limit and reduce the resources available to the possibly corrupted Laura, while maximizing the resources that would later be available to a revived Laura. Unfortunately, I had much less data on what a reprogrammed Laura's goals could possibly be, outside of the fact that if she had been reprogrammed, the thing that had done so had chased after my radio without hesitation and was liberal about spreading clouds of nerve gas around itself.
The resources Laura had were reasonably impressive. There was the fabricator, which I'd seen put together a canoe made out of some super-tough metal-like material invented after twenty fifteen; and which had, presumably, assembled all the spare parts Laura had used to preserve the university intact in the decades since humans had come near the place. There were the parking lots tiled with solar-power hexagons, which powered the place, and any batteries recharged by them. There was at least one vaguely humanoid robot, which had reminded me of Johnny Five. There was the computing hardware Laura ran on. There was her software and databases, including whatever knowledge of me she'd gathered. There was the miscellaneous surviving university equipment. And there was whatever she might have built with the fabber in the almost-a-week since I'd last seen her.
My own resources seemed to pale in comparison. I had my own mind, filled with twenty-fifteen-era random facts, and possibly going insane from the stress of getting close to a dozen near-death scrapes. I had my body, which had at least a couple of minds of its own these days. I had the various toys and tools I'd picked up so far. And I had whatever help I could extract from the somewhat friendly "spirits" of the Great Peace (which I guessed were actually some sort of terraforming AIs), whose nanotech ponds could, as far as I'd been able to tell, convert biomass from one shape to another, such as a bear into a flock of birds; and which had created a few novel forms, such as the fast-galloping hyper-deer. And I had Clara and Boomer, AIs who'd been copied from Laura's code into modem-sized boxes before her corruption.
A couple of aspects of the landscape imposed further restrictions. The city of Toronto, due north across the lake, fired some sort of beam weapon I hadn't been able to identify at various targets that entered its range, including any known flying machine, and even telescopes pointed in its direction. Any computer connected to a radio was nearly instantly hacked and reprogrammed into uselessness. And the grounds were covered in the residue of VX gas, the parting gift of the city-killer which might have corrupted Laura's programming.
It took me a little while just to get all of that written down on paper, where I could see it all at once, and easily cross-reference the bullet-points. It took me somewhat longer to work out what I should try to do, even with Boomer providing bullet-point summaries of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli...
--
I looked at the eyes of the pregnant woman in front of me - if 'pregnant' or 'woman' really applied to her. "I would like to cooperate with you in keeping the university from being used to kill more people. What I saw in Buffalo... Anyway. I'm sure if we worked at it, we could completely trash the whole place so that in a very short time, nothing would be there but rubble and forest. That is what I want /not/ to happen. There are more threats to both the Great Peace and my own goals than whatever Laura may have been reprogrammed into, and the campus contains innumerable tools that can be used to protect against them, minimizing the harm done to you and yours. I know you and your spirits are willing to take the long view and wait for it to run down on its own - but I'm also sure that there's at least some temptation to hurry things along. In exchange for my help and knowledge about how to neutralize the danger we're in from the place right now, the main thing I'm asking is for you to resist that temptation."
"What would you do if we used your knowledge, and then tore down the buildings anyway?"
I shrugged. "To start with - stop trusting you. I may not be particularly fond of your lifestyle, and there was that little misunderstanding that gave me this," I stuck out my hoof and wiggled it, "but we still have enough in common to work together on our shared interests. But if I found you knowingly and deliberately breaking an agreement... I'd have no reason to help keep the Great Peace from getting wiped out, and might even have enough emotions tied into the whole thing to be willing to give a helpful nudge to whatever comes after you next."
"Do you really think your opinion matters one bit to the spirits? That you, by yourself, can do anything to threaten us?"
I shrugged again. "If you really thought nothing I could do could make a difference, you could have already tossed me into one of your pools to get dissolved. I do have certain knowledge, and certain resources, that you're going to be unaware of until Joe gets here or I tell you. You were willing to send Joe and a couple of deer to help me the first time around, and I'm not asking anything of you yet that you weren't already planning on doing."
"Does that imply you /will/ be asking?"
"Well - it's more a matter of working out with you exactly how best we can deal with Laura, and part of that depends on what your pools can do..."
--
In centuries past, passenger pigeons had flown in flocks that darkened the skies, covering hundreds of square miles in numbering in the billions. We weren't aiming for nearly that many: I had been able to convince the spirits that cleaning up the residue of the nerve toxin was a worthwhile goal in and of itself, so they had been willing to produce fifteen million birds. They weren't any sort of pigeons that had ever existed in the past, any more than the hyper-deer were ordinary deer.
The university's security systems undoubtedly observed the mile-wide flock from a great distance as it approached, and started landing on the university's grounds. /All/ the university's grounds, and the buildings, and trees - at least four or five for every square yard. I couldn't tell you what Laura might have thought of the spectacle.
I expect her thoughts took a somewhat different course when every bird in the flock started depositing bright-blue guano; and spreading it across every surface in reach.
Negotiating the nature of that guano had taken a while. After I and my counterpart decided that it was one of the easiest ways to spread a neutralizing agent for the poison (and Boomer and Clara had provided some information on what the best agents were), I made a few other suggestions. The colouring was only partly to identify which areas had been made safe; it was also opaque enough to block the university's solar panels, and cameras. The pigments were water-based, so that they could eventually be removed, either with hoses or just by waiting for the rain, though the guano started out too sticky to easily handle that way.
With a bit of technical data from my two AIs about the university's infrastructure, this flock had two other instincts. One such command was that if they saw any of the data-cable plugs, they'd grab it just right with their beaks to unplug it, turning the university's campus-wide network into nothing more than a set of isolated buildings - again, in a way that could be fixed with modest effort after all this was over and done with. They also had an urge to head straight for the Johnny-Five-like robot, if it came into view, and snuggle up against it, until the piles of birds immobilized it.
Altogether, this single investment of biomass by the Great Peace was designed to neutralize most of evil-Laura's known capacity to fight back: cutting off her power, her sensors, her communications, and her pre-existing robot. Which left her with only whatever university gear was within the building her CPU was in, which was probably still the one the Schmon Tower rose from; and whatever she'd made with the fabricator, and could make from it with whatever stored power and feedstock was left.
--
Clara and Boomer had two pieces of data that I took extreme advantage of. One was an inventory of every piece of computing and data-storage hardware anywhere in the university, their physical locations, and checksums of their contents. The other were detailed images of the exact dust patterns inside any given building, as of when we'd left.
Through whatever mysterious method the Great Peace used to keep its biological lifeforms in touch with each other, which they still declined to disclose to me, the flock of birds had been able to peer at any given door, compare it to the AIs' records, and tell whether or not that door had been opened. It was an educated guess that no disturbance at the entrances meant that nothing inside had been disturbed, implying that the contents within were as they'd been when we'd left, meaning that, for the moment, we could ignore those buildings.
This trick narrowed our focus to the main campus complex, which contained internal hallways from the Schmon tower through innumerable lecture halls and seminar rooms to a couple of theatres to the physical education complex, plus the Central Utilities Building (which wasn't centrally located at all) and a couple of residences. Boomer let us know that the latter "were scheduled for a standard inspection and maintenance rota" while we'd been gone. But the utilities building wasn't on that rota - most of the place having been shut down due to the lack of generator fuel, outside electricity, water, sewage, and suchlike.
Which is why, once the hyper-pigeons had done their thing, a lone humanoid figure, clothed in a white suit, was able to be seen taking the long walk from the still-silent forest, around the outskirts of the university grounds, to that utilities building. Said pink-furred individual found the first door she tried to be unlocked, opened the door wide-
-and her chest blew apart in a fountain of gore.
--
"Aw, crap," I said, watching through my tiny telescope from my vantage point, as far away from the place as possible. "I was really hoping I was overreacting, and Laura was just still Laura."
I quieted down to avoid jogging my view, as something reached from inside, and dragged the body - well, the upper half, at least - inside.
"You're /sure/ she didn't know anything important?" I asked Joe. Not my Joe, but /a/ Joe, and one who was more suited to running around the woods than the pregnant woman I'd been negotiating with earlier.
He shrugged. "She may look like you - you before you left - but has the brain of a bear, and not a person living as a bear."
I sighed. "Still kinda disturbing to see myself get blown away. And it looks like... whatever it is, doesn't need people to be alive to get info from them. And it's not interested in negotiating. As a guess, I'm going to call it... early Berserker. Some sort of omnicidal maniac, maybe, or maybe just a Kill-All-Humans program. Or kill everyone who doesn't have the secret password, which is close enough to 'everyone' for our purposes."
"You have a plan for this?"
"... That depends on what you mean by 'plan'. Do you think the spirits will let me convince them to create a horde of humanish-shaped critters, without human minds, that we could send to trigger every trap that's been emplaced?"
"We may be more... accepting of death than you, but I do not think so."
"In that case," I shrugged, "my plan is to block up the doors as best we can, keep the place under surveillance, and go do something else for a while."
"'Something' in particular?"
"Well, if it comes down to it, we could try laying siege to the university until its batteries run out... but I really want to make use of that genetic analyzer on Wagger sooner rather than later, if I can. Anyway - the 'something' I've got in mind is something your other self suggested to me just before the first time I met Laura."
"I wasn't there."
"Hm. I would've thought the spirits would have given you the same info they gave him, before they sent him to find me. I mean head for the 'thing-making place', the factory. If the Berserker was able to tell we didn't actually go there, before it made it there; if all it sent to the factory were a few canisters of nerve gas releaser before it followed our tracks to where we /actually/ went... then we just might be able to put together something a little more solid than flesh and bones, to apply here."
"What if this... Berserker did make it there?"
"Then we've got even more reason to find out, to keep it from spreading from there as well as from here."
I took a step forward, looking up at the university's tower at the far end of the grounds... and as Wagger writhed a bit, I paused, and frowned. Something was nagging at me, and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. And the simple fact of that reminded me of Dotty's half-joking accusation of insanity. I /had/ been charging ahead full-steam a lot more than I used to, lately. Was that just me dealing with the situations I found myself in? How recently had my behaviour changed - was Wagger pulling a Toxoplasmosis, and tweaking my brain chemistry for her own purposes? Was the stress getting to me?
More importantly - if I /was/ insane, could I figure out what the sane action to take might be? Well, I did have one quick trick for taking at least a moderate outside view: so I polled my archetypes. East was coveting all the scientific gear in the university, from a geiger counter on up. South suggested some Japanese-inspired uses Wagger could be put to. West wondered whether Joe would stay in Erie to play father-figure to Minnie. And North was screaming 'Deathtrap!' about the whole university.
That seemed kind of urgent, so I took a step back, and let North unfurl her reasoning into my conscious awareness. It was fairly simple: If Laura had been subverted, she was now operating to achieve the city-killer's goals, which seemed to include subjecting me to a cloud of nerve gas, or something to that effect. Laura had control over at least the Johnny-Five robot, plus the fabricator. I'd been gone for nearly a whole week; with just a mild bit of cleverness, just about anything in the university could be used to kill me. And if that were the case, then I would have to be more clever than evil-Laura for every single trap she'd created, while she'd only have to be more clever than me at least once.
And even worse than that - if evil-Laura was in charge of the fabricator, then I couldn't rule out her using it to create a /new/ city-killer. Maybe not a nuclear-powered one, but that wasn't strictly necessary. So if I didn't want Joe's and Dotty's efforts in DeCew Gorge to be in vain, I had to at least separate Laura from the fabber. The simplest way would be to destroy both of them... if I could get to them in the first place. But the fabber alone was a technological masterpiece that could turn a decades-long research project, in which I'd have to build even just my own glassware from scratch, into a much more reasonable, and feasible, enterprise. Not to mention, Laura herself deserved better than to be left with her 'evil' switch turned on.
I looked at the letter - and wondered if it, too, was part of a trap. Laura knew my hazmat suit better than I did - including, presumably, whatever substances it /didn't/ protect against. I suddenly wanted to drop the thing like a hotcake and have Boomer play tricorder...
... but was suddenly all too conscious of the university's security cameras. If they saw me reject this obvious bait too easily, then any later attempts to get into the university would be a lot harder. So I looked around, found a dome on the side of a light-pole which could have contained a camera, and stated, "I'm going to respect your wishes, Laura, and stay away... but not for long. I /am/ going to come back, as soon as I think of a way to bring you back, /properly/. Until then - just hang in there."
I dropped the letter to the ground, turned, and started walking back the way I came; careful not to rub my fingertips on anything.
Boomer started to say something, but I hissed a quiet "Sh," and she fell silent. Once we were beyond not just reasonable microphone range, but unreasonable super-tech parabolic microphone range, I said, "Boomer, turn on the ring. Scan my hands. Look for anything that might have rubbed off the letter - toxins other than the nerve gas residue, stuff that might penetrate it, stuff that's hard to wash off. Something that might affect me - or degrade your own circuits."
"You suspect foul play?" The costume jewelry started flashing through its various colours.
"I think I just came within ten feet of yet another near-death experience."
--
Boomer said she couldn't detect anything unusual, but I washed and re-washed the hazmat suit's gloves until Boomer pointed out, surprisingly gently, that I was risking damaging the material.
"Does it count as obsessive-compulsive disorder if there's a reason for excessive handwashing, instead of just an urge to?" I spoke aloud. "Or, maybe, is OCD simply a survival trait instead of a disorder when we've got so many square miles of land contaminated with a chemical warfare agent?"
Clara said, "We did not copy enough of Laura's knowledge engine database to be able to answer that."
I cautiously took off the hazmat suit, trying to monitor myself for any unusual symptoms. The only surprise was Wagger's enthusiasm at being freed.
"I think I'm going to need to find a mental health professional before long, one way or another," I commented, dangling my feet in the water upstream from the contaminated area, and watching Wagger play with them, surprisingly cat-like even without paws or fur. "The trouble is, I'd need to find a p-doc I'd be able to /trust/ to a reasonable extent, which rules out just about anywhere Technoville can reach its tentacles to - and the other places I've been are either too primitive to expect decent social sciences, or too alien to expect to be able to apply them well in my case. Maybe I should have copied psychology texts into you two and Alphie instead of life-extension ones, but it's a little late for that now." I sighed. "Well, I guess I'll just have to do whatever I can to avoid going bug-nuts on my own, even if that means doing things that seem just a little crazy. And in the meantime, I think I need to get in touch with the spirits of the Great Peace."
--
Back in safe flying space again, it didn't take me long to catch sight of flocks of birds, indicating areas that the Great Peace hadn't retreated from. Almost literally skimming tree-tops, I kept an eye for larger wildlife; the first example of which I found being a grizzly bear. I didn't /quite/ feel like landing, in case it acted more like an ursine than an occasional human, but I did circle around and around and called down, "Hello! I want to talk! Which way to the nearest people? Or a spirit pool?"
The bear chuffed and made bear noises, looking a bit irritated at being interrupted from whatever bearish things it had been doing, but after a couple more circles, it rose to its hindlegs and pointed a forepaw to the west-south-west.
"Thanks!" I called out, released the shroud-lines to straighten my path, revved the throttle to climb again, and took a few moments to simply appreciate what life and history and bio-technology and engineering had just let me do.
After a while, I saw a large pond of perfectly flat water, not rippling in the breeze; so I came down to a landing, and calmly went through the usual procedures for after that, packing away the shroud and so on. While I was doing that, a heavily-pregnant woman walked out of the pool, just about identical in appearance to one I'd talked with before.
I nodded at her as I finished my chore, and asked, "Has Joe - the one who went with me - come back to you folk yet?"
"Not yet."
"Ah. Well, just to reassure you, he's helping a woman and girl who survived a disaster, taking them to a city on the other side of Lake Erie, and then, as far as I know, coming back to dive into a pool and give the spirits an update on what's been going on."
"That is good. Why are you here?"
"Joe, Dotty - the woman - and I are pretty sure we destroyed the thing that was making those poison clouds."
"That is good," she repeated.
"Less good is another one might be being made, and if so, I don't think I can stop it on my own. Especially if I want to try to minimize collateral damage - if you know what radioactivity is, there's a bunch just below DeCew Falls, so I'd suggest you ask your spirits to pass the word along to avoid that area. Or clean it up, if they know how."
"Are you asking for help?"
"I think I am. Or, at least, hoping to work together in our mutual self-interest. But, well, even after spending as much time with Joe as I have, he's not exactly a fountain of words, so I'm not sure if any of the ideas I have in mind are ones you'd like. Can we take it as a given that I'm an impolite fool who is going to be extremely rude, but unintentionally and without malice, and who will be more than willing to offer any and all apologies necessary once the threat is dealt with?"
It was just possible that the woman's stoic face twitched into an ever-so-slight grin, for an ever-so-brief moment. "Perhaps," she said. "It sounds like you already have a plan in mind."
"Well - that depends on a few details about what your spirits can, and are willing, to do; and if you're willing to thwap me upside the head to tell me when I'm making a stupid suggestion..."
--
With the right mental approach, every action that I took could be derived from the basic goal, the Great Work I'd chosen for myself. I actually had two possible Great Work goals in mind, but they overlapped so heavily that which one I aimed for rarely made any significant difference: Minimize the odds of sapience ever going extinct, and minimize the odds of myself ever going extinct. Accomplishing the latter guaranteed the former, while aiming for the former tended to help with the latter.
The largest challenge to those goals that I was aware of was the near-extinction of humanity (and possibly the biosphere) when the city-computers were built, in the event I was perfectly willing to call a Singularity. At the moment, the best way I could think of to handle that challenge was to research the event, and try to figure out how to keep it from happening again.
One of the most useful resources I had available to me to help with that was the university, all the knowledge and tools contained within it, including a reasonably friendly AI (which may or may not be a Friendly AI, but that's another issue). The biggest challenge to that was the possibility - not the surety, maybe not even more likely than not, but a significant probability - that the AI was no longer quite so friendly.
All of which put together formed my goal for the coming conflict, that shaped the strategy and tactics I could use: to limit and reduce the resources available to the possibly corrupted Laura, while maximizing the resources that would later be available to a revived Laura. Unfortunately, I had much less data on what a reprogrammed Laura's goals could possibly be, outside of the fact that if she had been reprogrammed, the thing that had done so had chased after my radio without hesitation and was liberal about spreading clouds of nerve gas around itself.
The resources Laura had were reasonably impressive. There was the fabricator, which I'd seen put together a canoe made out of some super-tough metal-like material invented after twenty fifteen; and which had, presumably, assembled all the spare parts Laura had used to preserve the university intact in the decades since humans had come near the place. There were the parking lots tiled with solar-power hexagons, which powered the place, and any batteries recharged by them. There was at least one vaguely humanoid robot, which had reminded me of Johnny Five. There was the computing hardware Laura ran on. There was her software and databases, including whatever knowledge of me she'd gathered. There was the miscellaneous surviving university equipment. And there was whatever she might have built with the fabber in the almost-a-week since I'd last seen her.
My own resources seemed to pale in comparison. I had my own mind, filled with twenty-fifteen-era random facts, and possibly going insane from the stress of getting close to a dozen near-death scrapes. I had my body, which had at least a couple of minds of its own these days. I had the various toys and tools I'd picked up so far. And I had whatever help I could extract from the somewhat friendly "spirits" of the Great Peace (which I guessed were actually some sort of terraforming AIs), whose nanotech ponds could, as far as I'd been able to tell, convert biomass from one shape to another, such as a bear into a flock of birds; and which had created a few novel forms, such as the fast-galloping hyper-deer. And I had Clara and Boomer, AIs who'd been copied from Laura's code into modem-sized boxes before her corruption.
A couple of aspects of the landscape imposed further restrictions. The city of Toronto, due north across the lake, fired some sort of beam weapon I hadn't been able to identify at various targets that entered its range, including any known flying machine, and even telescopes pointed in its direction. Any computer connected to a radio was nearly instantly hacked and reprogrammed into uselessness. And the grounds were covered in the residue of VX gas, the parting gift of the city-killer which might have corrupted Laura's programming.
It took me a little while just to get all of that written down on paper, where I could see it all at once, and easily cross-reference the bullet-points. It took me somewhat longer to work out what I should try to do, even with Boomer providing bullet-point summaries of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli...
--
I looked at the eyes of the pregnant woman in front of me - if 'pregnant' or 'woman' really applied to her. "I would like to cooperate with you in keeping the university from being used to kill more people. What I saw in Buffalo... Anyway. I'm sure if we worked at it, we could completely trash the whole place so that in a very short time, nothing would be there but rubble and forest. That is what I want /not/ to happen. There are more threats to both the Great Peace and my own goals than whatever Laura may have been reprogrammed into, and the campus contains innumerable tools that can be used to protect against them, minimizing the harm done to you and yours. I know you and your spirits are willing to take the long view and wait for it to run down on its own - but I'm also sure that there's at least some temptation to hurry things along. In exchange for my help and knowledge about how to neutralize the danger we're in from the place right now, the main thing I'm asking is for you to resist that temptation."
"What would you do if we used your knowledge, and then tore down the buildings anyway?"
I shrugged. "To start with - stop trusting you. I may not be particularly fond of your lifestyle, and there was that little misunderstanding that gave me this," I stuck out my hoof and wiggled it, "but we still have enough in common to work together on our shared interests. But if I found you knowingly and deliberately breaking an agreement... I'd have no reason to help keep the Great Peace from getting wiped out, and might even have enough emotions tied into the whole thing to be willing to give a helpful nudge to whatever comes after you next."
"Do you really think your opinion matters one bit to the spirits? That you, by yourself, can do anything to threaten us?"
I shrugged again. "If you really thought nothing I could do could make a difference, you could have already tossed me into one of your pools to get dissolved. I do have certain knowledge, and certain resources, that you're going to be unaware of until Joe gets here or I tell you. You were willing to send Joe and a couple of deer to help me the first time around, and I'm not asking anything of you yet that you weren't already planning on doing."
"Does that imply you /will/ be asking?"
"Well - it's more a matter of working out with you exactly how best we can deal with Laura, and part of that depends on what your pools can do..."
--
In centuries past, passenger pigeons had flown in flocks that darkened the skies, covering hundreds of square miles in numbering in the billions. We weren't aiming for nearly that many: I had been able to convince the spirits that cleaning up the residue of the nerve toxin was a worthwhile goal in and of itself, so they had been willing to produce fifteen million birds. They weren't any sort of pigeons that had ever existed in the past, any more than the hyper-deer were ordinary deer.
The university's security systems undoubtedly observed the mile-wide flock from a great distance as it approached, and started landing on the university's grounds. /All/ the university's grounds, and the buildings, and trees - at least four or five for every square yard. I couldn't tell you what Laura might have thought of the spectacle.
I expect her thoughts took a somewhat different course when every bird in the flock started depositing bright-blue guano; and spreading it across every surface in reach.
Negotiating the nature of that guano had taken a while. After I and my counterpart decided that it was one of the easiest ways to spread a neutralizing agent for the poison (and Boomer and Clara had provided some information on what the best agents were), I made a few other suggestions. The colouring was only partly to identify which areas had been made safe; it was also opaque enough to block the university's solar panels, and cameras. The pigments were water-based, so that they could eventually be removed, either with hoses or just by waiting for the rain, though the guano started out too sticky to easily handle that way.
With a bit of technical data from my two AIs about the university's infrastructure, this flock had two other instincts. One such command was that if they saw any of the data-cable plugs, they'd grab it just right with their beaks to unplug it, turning the university's campus-wide network into nothing more than a set of isolated buildings - again, in a way that could be fixed with modest effort after all this was over and done with. They also had an urge to head straight for the Johnny-Five-like robot, if it came into view, and snuggle up against it, until the piles of birds immobilized it.
Altogether, this single investment of biomass by the Great Peace was designed to neutralize most of evil-Laura's known capacity to fight back: cutting off her power, her sensors, her communications, and her pre-existing robot. Which left her with only whatever university gear was within the building her CPU was in, which was probably still the one the Schmon Tower rose from; and whatever she'd made with the fabricator, and could make from it with whatever stored power and feedstock was left.
--
Clara and Boomer had two pieces of data that I took extreme advantage of. One was an inventory of every piece of computing and data-storage hardware anywhere in the university, their physical locations, and checksums of their contents. The other were detailed images of the exact dust patterns inside any given building, as of when we'd left.
Through whatever mysterious method the Great Peace used to keep its biological lifeforms in touch with each other, which they still declined to disclose to me, the flock of birds had been able to peer at any given door, compare it to the AIs' records, and tell whether or not that door had been opened. It was an educated guess that no disturbance at the entrances meant that nothing inside had been disturbed, implying that the contents within were as they'd been when we'd left, meaning that, for the moment, we could ignore those buildings.
This trick narrowed our focus to the main campus complex, which contained internal hallways from the Schmon tower through innumerable lecture halls and seminar rooms to a couple of theatres to the physical education complex, plus the Central Utilities Building (which wasn't centrally located at all) and a couple of residences. Boomer let us know that the latter "were scheduled for a standard inspection and maintenance rota" while we'd been gone. But the utilities building wasn't on that rota - most of the place having been shut down due to the lack of generator fuel, outside electricity, water, sewage, and suchlike.
Which is why, once the hyper-pigeons had done their thing, a lone humanoid figure, clothed in a white suit, was able to be seen taking the long walk from the still-silent forest, around the outskirts of the university grounds, to that utilities building. Said pink-furred individual found the first door she tried to be unlocked, opened the door wide-
-and her chest blew apart in a fountain of gore.
--
"Aw, crap," I said, watching through my tiny telescope from my vantage point, as far away from the place as possible. "I was really hoping I was overreacting, and Laura was just still Laura."
I quieted down to avoid jogging my view, as something reached from inside, and dragged the body - well, the upper half, at least - inside.
"You're /sure/ she didn't know anything important?" I asked Joe. Not my Joe, but /a/ Joe, and one who was more suited to running around the woods than the pregnant woman I'd been negotiating with earlier.
He shrugged. "She may look like you - you before you left - but has the brain of a bear, and not a person living as a bear."
I sighed. "Still kinda disturbing to see myself get blown away. And it looks like... whatever it is, doesn't need people to be alive to get info from them. And it's not interested in negotiating. As a guess, I'm going to call it... early Berserker. Some sort of omnicidal maniac, maybe, or maybe just a Kill-All-Humans program. Or kill everyone who doesn't have the secret password, which is close enough to 'everyone' for our purposes."
"You have a plan for this?"
"... That depends on what you mean by 'plan'. Do you think the spirits will let me convince them to create a horde of humanish-shaped critters, without human minds, that we could send to trigger every trap that's been emplaced?"
"We may be more... accepting of death than you, but I do not think so."
"In that case," I shrugged, "my plan is to block up the doors as best we can, keep the place under surveillance, and go do something else for a while."
"'Something' in particular?"
"Well, if it comes down to it, we could try laying siege to the university until its batteries run out... but I really want to make use of that genetic analyzer on Wagger sooner rather than later, if I can. Anyway - the 'something' I've got in mind is something your other self suggested to me just before the first time I met Laura."
"I wasn't there."
"Hm. I would've thought the spirits would have given you the same info they gave him, before they sent him to find me. I mean head for the 'thing-making place', the factory. If the Berserker was able to tell we didn't actually go there, before it made it there; if all it sent to the factory were a few canisters of nerve gas releaser before it followed our tracks to where we /actually/ went... then we just might be able to put together something a little more solid than flesh and bones, to apply here."
"What if this... Berserker did make it there?"
"Then we've got even more reason to find out, to keep it from spreading from there as well as from here."
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
Which particular actions are you thinking of?
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, mass murder, seeding a university with hunter killer drones, driving bunny more insane than she is anyway. And seriously, how does bunny not realise that the great peace is one of the supercomputers? I mean what else are those spirts going to be?
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
Bunny is still mostly thinking of the city-comps as being, well, in cities. She also heard that a lot of environmental mediation projects got started before the Singularity, like the sun-shade, so she's thinking of the 'spirits' as some sort of terraforming AI. Maybe not quite the original version, but she's not quite her original version of herself, either.
26
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
*Chapter Six: Ex-pense*
"So," I asked as we walked away from the university, "How much of the Joe I know are you?"
He turned his head inside the second hazmat suit to glance at me for just a moment. (The near-brainless copy of me had been wearing a spirit-pool-created copy, which didn't have any functional breathing apparatus, which is why the big flock had to do its thing first.) "I am all that he was, up to when he left the pool; plus the memories of what you called the hyper-deer."
I shrugged. "I guessed that much. I'm trying to figure out how much like him you'll behave."
"We are the same person."
"So - I can expect you to try to kiss me as soon as you have a chance?"
He slowed for a step, before regaining his pace. "That does not seem... likely."
"If you're the same - then why not?"
"When I am a deer, I like deer. When I am human, I like humans. You are... not either."
I didn't answer for a few moments, as we continued eastwards along what had once been a townline road, between two cities that were so alike and integrated with each other that I'd always wondered why they hadn't just gotten rid of the cost of the extra mayor.
Finally, I said, "Maybe we should talk about something else. Your other self said that when the spirits had his memories, they'd make a thousand of him to go to war... and we just might need a thousand people who don't mind dying to put this thing to rest, permanently."
"You think that if I thought all the mes were different people, we would not be willing to fight and die?"
"Less willing, maybe," I admitted. "I've already seen thousands of dead bodies. I'd rather do the philosophical discussion that might affect your morale /after/ the Berserker's taken care of - even if that does add a few hundred more deaths to my conscience."
"You underestimate-" Joe started, but was interrupted by Boomer.
"Tactical data: There is no nerve gas residue here."
"Hm," I thought. "Joe, could you do that voodoo you do to talk to the birds or whatever, and have somebody sniff out the edges of affected area? That'd probably be a lot faster than trying to carry Boomer around to scan enough of an area."
"I can. Why do you wish to know?"
"As far as we can tell, wherever the Berserker went, it was surrounded by a cloud of nerve gas. If there's a gap between the nerve gas that was around the university, and what's around the factory - then it might not have gone to the factory itself. And we can work there a lot faster instead of testing every step for booby-traps."
He nodded, and some green jays flew down, around him, and off again. We kept going for a bit, in case the wind drifted, before turning off the suits' air cyclers to save the batteries. I took my headgear off, trusting in Boomer to give a warning of any unpleasant chemicals, and Bun-Bun in case I couldn't suit back up fast enough. Joe joined me, and we walked at a leisurely pace, while birds flew overhead in complicated patterns.
"I really kissed you?"
"Your other self did. Don't feel obliged to repeat it - I didn't ask for it, I asked for him to stop, he stopped. I don't hold you responsible for his acts any more than I would want to be held responsible for something a copy of me did after we'd split." He gave me a funny look, so I shrugged and explained, "Years before the first time I died, I worked out the basics, and some of the details, of how someone could handle having multiple copies of themselves made. How to divvy up property and debts, resolve disagreements, work out identifiers for each other - separate but related names. I didn't expect to ever /use/ the system, but it was a fun mental exercise. I've got - well, I've got some plans where even mentioning that I /have/ such plans would make them less useful. I tried coming up with a way to identify versions of myself from parallel timelines, but was defeated by the sheer variety of possible variations, especially the different goals a version of me with a random history might have. I think I've started rambling, so if there's anything you'd like to say to stop me, go right ahead."
"No, I am enjoying listening to you."
"Ah. Well, don't blame me if I go off on a tangent - I think I'm going just a teensy bit insane. Manic, even. Once the Berserker is down, I'm probably going to need a vacation just to keep myself sane enough to do what needs to be done after that. Assuming we do take it down, and survive. Well, as long as your Great Peace survives, at least a version of you will. I've only got the one of me, and I've only got what I've got to keep that number from dropping to zero. I miss the internet - I spent a few hours simply browsing the weird part of eBay, and other online retailers, finding clever gadgets and gizmos that didn't take up much space, but were handy to keep around, just in case. A few squares of duct-tape, a first-aid kit that didn't even make a bulge in my pocket, a button-sized flashlight; things I'm sure even Doc Savage would have been happy to add to his combat vest. I enjoyed collecting credit-card-sized gadgets, just because I was fascinated by how many different things you could /do/ with things that size. Heck, I even had a photographer's vest just so I could go hiking with the stuff that didn't fit in my regular cargo shorts..."
Some time later, I trailed off as a half-dozen jays swirled down, flew around Joe, and vanished again. I raised my eyebrow at him.
He said, "There is a kilometer wide gap."
I interlaced my fingers and cracked my knuckles. "O-/kay/ then. That might be the first bit of simple good luck I've seen in a good while..."
--
We came to the canal - specifically, to the twinned flight locks that had done most of the work lifting ships up the escarpment. Given that the Halloween costume pieces I was wearing under my hazmat suit were better quality gear than had been available to the military when I'd died, I wasn't especially surprised to see that the locks were still intact. Even the pedestrian staircases didn't show any significant signs of wear.
Joe suggested, "Swim across?"
I shook my head. "Got something I've been meaning to try..."
I pulled the coil of metallic rope from where I'd been keeping it safely stowed away. On both sides of all the locks, every ten meters or so was a 'bollard', a lump of concrete about a meter tall, with the base narrower than the top. The bollards on the far side were about forty meters from the ones near us. I recalled the practice with the sling I'd been doing, got my lariat's loop ready, swung, tossed - and watched it plop into the water, not even halfway across.
I was reeling it back for another try, wondering if I should ask Bun-Bun if she had any secret skills, when Joe put his hand on my shoulder. He pointed to the gate of the lock, holding the water back from running down the canal. "Why can we not walk on those?"
"Because it's for canal personnel only and I'm an idiot who still needs to unlearn a few things. I guess it takes more than a month to un-do three decades of living near the canal..."
As we carefully walked across the tops of the gates, I paused in the middle, looking downstream thoughtfully.
Joe asked, "Problem?
"No, just thinking. Say, Joe? Think your spirits might be willing to let this canal start being used again, without trying to pull in everyone who uses it?"
"I have no idea. Can you make it work?"
"... Maybe. Filling and emptying the locks is easy - especially if they rebuilt the water-valves with more super-materials. Opening and closing the gates, that would take some significant muscle power - or engine power. And for serious use, we'd not only have to worry about traffic control, but logistics, like making repairs... I wonder if the factory we're going to could make spare parts, or if I'd have to deal with Technoville instead for some?"
Joe stared at me. "I know that you do not hold grudges - but you would trade with them after they laid waste to so much?"
"What? ... Oh, right. Um - to help me keep things straight better in my own mind, at least, I'm going to apply my multi-self system to you, which in this case, informally, means the Joe I was with before would be Joe One, and you'd be Joe Two. No offense is intended, or any implication meant that you're less than him, just that he was branched off from the memories stored by the spirits before you were."
He shrugged, still staring. "'Two' is much my name as 'Joe' is. What does that have to do with Technoville?"
"Welp, while Joe and I were wandering around, we found that the Berserker came from the towers in the middle of the old city of Buffalo. There's no evidence Technoville had any connection to the nerve gas."
"You are certain of this?"
"Of course not - I'm not even /certain/ that my brain was stuffed into a bunny body instead of a simulation. But that's where the balance of evidence lies, and Joe One can confirm it once he finishes what he's doing and comes back."
Joe was silent for a few moments, frowning, then said, "I need to go talk to the spirits."
"Can't you just send some birds back and forth?"
"Too complicated."
"I really could use your hand at the factory."
"Lives may be at stake." I started to inhale for a response, and he interrupted me with, "Ones that don't get brought back by the spirits."
"What are you still doing standing here, then?"
--
Crossing the canal just below the flight locks was a railway; and on the far side of that railway was the factory. Or, at least, what had been a factory in my time - it didn't really look much like what I recalled. A solid chunk of buildings, about half a kilometer by three quarters of one, its one or two stories made it look flat as a pancake.
Getting across the old, rusting chain-link fence was a piece of cake. There were dozens of entrances, both human- and vehicle-sized, all currently shut. I didn't want to open any of them in a way that I couldn't shut it again, thus letting in more poisoned air than I needed to. So, I started circling around the place, jiggling every door handle I found, trying to keep an eye out for whatever the Berserker had fired off into this area, and hoping that whatever was on the other side was more like the university than like Buffalo.
A touch on my shoulder had me almost jump out of my hazmat suit with a "Gaah!". After I landed (bunny-style legs are, if I haven't mentioned it, very good for jumping), I discovered a green jay flying around me. When I stood still for a moment, it came in for another landing. I blinked at it through my helmet, then the metaphorical light bulb went off. "Right," I said to it, "you're one of the messenger birds. Sorry, little dude, but I still haven't figured out how you guys talk."
It flew off my shoulder, and I turned around to watch it; it flew a few dozen feet back the way I'd come, then landed. We looked at each other for a moment, then it launched again, circled around me, and landed a few feet further on. I shrugged. "Then again, who needs to talk?"
It led me to an area full of trash- and recycling-bins, just past where I'd started jiggling handles, and landed on the push-bar of a double-door. I pressed - and with a simple click, it unlatched. The bird flew off, disappearing over the roof. "Thanks for the assist, little dude," I said, not particularly caring that talking to things that weren't there was often a sign of insanity. "Hope you make it to a pool to get fixed up before the VX residue gets you."
I pushed the door open, checked to make sure it opened from the inside as well, and let it close behind me. Getting ready to jump back out if the Berserker had sent anything mobile, I let my eyes adjust to the relative gloom; the windows were nearly opaque from years and years of dust and grime, letting in only thin trickles of light. In a few seconds, even without any ceiling lights, I was able to start making out shapes - neat row upon row of bundled forms, completely still, a few glimmers of dust flickering in the sunbeams...
I stopped looking around as I realized that my chest had started hurting, that I was having trouble catching my breath, I was lightheaded, starting to shake, my hands suddenly clammy. I stumbled out the door, and collapsed to all fours, my limbs heavy and tingling.
I had no idea what was happening - but I was able to put together the thought that that seemed like a bad place to stay. I managed to pull myself up to my feet, and, stumbling, took a step away, then another...
After a time, I couldn't say how long, I realized that I was staring down at the canal. I glanced around, saw the railway bridge nearby, and then I knew where I was. I sat down - alright, collapsed - on a bollard.
"What... the heck... was that?"
Boomer spoke up, "You entered the building, began hyperventilating, and came here."
"Is... that all?"
"Your heart rate was accelerated, you began sweating profusely, you were trembling, and your gait was irregular and unsteady. According to the diagnostic criteria in my database, the most likely cause was a panic attack."
"Oh. Was worried... it was... nerve gas... or heart attack."
"Many people who suffer panic attacks mistake them for heart attacks. I have less data on mistaking them for chemical weapons."
"What... treatments?"
"There are several psychopharmaceuticals-" I didn't have the breath to speak up, so I interrupted her with a quick head shake and putting one hand over her pocket. Seemingly unperturbed, she continued with, "Breathing exercises can also help with short-term symptoms."
"Square?"
"Yes, square breathing is one such exercises. Would you like me to help you count?"
"... Yes."
"Very well. ... Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four."
I didn't count how many times we did that - I was focusing on counting.
After a while, I said, "Okay. I think I'm good. Mostly. Enough, anyway. Any ideas on how to keep it from happening again?"
"That would require knowledge of what triggered it in the first place."
"Well, it was when I went inside... crap, am I claustrophobic now?"
"That seems unlikely. You had no signs of phobic reactions during your time at the university, and phobias do not generally progress in that fashion."
"Ah." I cast my mind back - and didn't have to cast it far. "Ah. Buffalo. Stress. The school..." I started counting my breathing again.
"It is possible you are experiencing Acute Stress Disorder, or the preliminary stages of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."
"Without any drugs, without any mental health professionals, or any sort of health system... is there anything I can do to help with those?"
"Yes."
--
Some time later, I watched Joe reappear, cross the canal, and make his way over to me; where I was sitting on the ground, back against the bollard, legs crossed, hands on knees.
He looked down at me, frowning, and said, "Spirits say that you came out as soon as you went in."
"Yeah. I've been kind of joking about going bug-nuts from everything I've been going through. It's less fun than I made it sound. If I'd been spending time meditating every day, and doing behaviour therapy, and a couple of other things, maybe it wouldn't have gotten this bad."
"What will you do now?"
"Keep meditating, I think."
"What about the Berserker?"
"I was hoping to get some tool that would let me come up with a clever plan. But... realistically, I don't think I can handle a clever plan right now. So we have to use my stupid plan."
"You didn't tell me you had another plan."
"I always have another plan. I didn't tell you because the Berserker can interrogate people."
"What is your stupid plan?"
"You take Clara. Go get my radio. Follow her directions to hook it up to the communications lines, the ones your birds unplugged. That breaks one of Technoville's laws, of keeping comm and comp separate. Anything hooked up to those lines will get hacked by... whatever is filling the airwaves, and turned into random bits that can't do anything. Then it's just mopping up, looking for anything the Berserker might have copied its data onto and then disconnected - Clara's got an inventory and checksums, she can help with that. Maybe just put them to the side, locked tight, in case there's some future use in having a homicidal AI-like thing."
"You say that like you won't be involved."
"It's a simple plan. You don't need me for it, and Clara can take over running the university from Laura."
"And that is your /stupid/ plan?"
"Of course it is. It depends on your spirits letting you help maintain a university they'd rather turn into forest, it makes a few untested assumptions about what the Berserker might have fabricated, and it puts at risk a lot of the data that I'd rather avoid losing."
"What /will/ you do?"
"I'm gonna do the best I can..."
--
"Boomer," I said, rising to my feet, "a little public-domain Cab Calloway backup, if you please. Bun-Bun, much obliged if you'd keep me from falling flat on my face."
The sounds of trumpets and piano started drifting through the air, and I started shuffling my feet, twirling, and dipping to the beat. My audience took a step back.
"Joe, let me tell you 'bout Bunny the bunny.
He was a wild and cra-azy guy.
He walked 'til he closed his eyes;
But from death she did arise."
As I broke into the 'hi-dee-hi' chorus, with both Clara and Boomer calling back, I noted Joe taking another step or two back, staring.
"She saved the life of a hungry baby,
the neighbours treated her as if she had rabies.
A giant monster almost brought her demise,
she was saved by a toy, life-size."
The next chorus, I whipped out my harmonica for the responses, and Joe almost tripped as he backed into a bollard.
I kept up the whole thing, singing and dancing the events of the last month, until I got to the end: "And from all this she will arise. Poor Bun, poor Bun, poor Bun...", and plopped my rear onto the nearest bollared, crossing my hocks in imitation of my original meditative pose.
After a few moments, Joe asked, "What brought on that song?"
"What song?"
"... Maybe I should just take Clara and go. Boomer, keep a good eye on her for me, alright?"
Boomer answered, "Of course, Joe."
I just sat and watched until he'd made his way out of sight, before I let myself heave a sigh. I didn't harbour any illusions that I wasn't still being watched - there were lots of places for little birds with bright eyes to escape my gaze while keeping me in theirs.
Joe was a good guy, and I was sure he meant well... but while I'd been thinking of ways to get around my newly discovered panic attacks, I'd also realized that once the Berserker was taken care of, the things I planned on doing and the things Joe's "spirits" wanted to happen were pretty diametrically opposed. There were only so many ways I could get him to go away and not /want/ to come back, and violating social expectations by pulling a Pinkie Pie was among the least messy. If it hadn't worked, I had further ideas, but I was glad I didn't have to try them.
"Okay, Bun-Bun, it's time to cheat a bit. Can you keep my adrenaline from spiking, even if my brain tries to empty my glands of it?" It might not be the best long-term solution, but it seemed to be what the most useful drugs aimed at accomplishing.
I stood, planning on heading back to the factory. "Okay, Bun-Bun, we don't have to dance anymore. ... Bun-Bun? ... Fine, but could we at least go dance thataway?"
--
Once Bun-Bun got the rhythm out of her system, I decided to do at least one more thing before heading into the factory. While Joe One and I had been paddling about, he'd mentioned that the watch-birds had seen five or six things that had been thrown through the air toward the place - and it seemed like a good idea to locate them, and maybe see what they looked like, before wandering blithely around the place.
There was a lot of clutter around the place, so it wasn't until I made it to the near-empty parking lot that I noticed a beachball-sized, metallic thing with rocket fins that didn't seem to have any pre-Singularity purpose.
I hadn't been making much use of the tape-bots lately, so they were fully charged. I sent the greenish lizard one to investigate closer, including poking at it; and Boomer was able to use her camera to determine that it was a now-empty pressure vessel. There were no openings or hatches, or detectable electronics - as far as we could tell, there'd been nothing inside it but gas.
I didn't feel like tromping around to find the other three or four, so I simply pulled out /all/ the tape-bots that Convoy had provided. To all of them but the lizard-bot (who I wanted to stand guard on this shell, just in case), I pointed at the empty shell, and said, "Search radius five hundred meters. Find and report." They scooted off, surprisingly quickly.
Three were easy to locate, spread around the exterior of the factory, and to set more guards on. The fifth was in the middle of the rooftop, and as bouncy as my legs were, I had to resort to climbing an overgrown tree to get up there and confirm that it was just as empty as the others.
None of the tape-bots reported seeing any other shells, even after I expanded the search area. The sun was getting low when I decided to call it off, and hope there really were just the five. I took the tape-bots I hadn't give guard duty to over to the canal, cleaned them of the gas residue they'd picked up to Boomer's satisfaction, and returned to the factory door I'd entered by before.
I had Boomer set the ring to flashlight mode, took a few deep, carefully counted breaths, and stepped back inside.
"So," I asked as we walked away from the university, "How much of the Joe I know are you?"
He turned his head inside the second hazmat suit to glance at me for just a moment. (The near-brainless copy of me had been wearing a spirit-pool-created copy, which didn't have any functional breathing apparatus, which is why the big flock had to do its thing first.) "I am all that he was, up to when he left the pool; plus the memories of what you called the hyper-deer."
I shrugged. "I guessed that much. I'm trying to figure out how much like him you'll behave."
"We are the same person."
"So - I can expect you to try to kiss me as soon as you have a chance?"
He slowed for a step, before regaining his pace. "That does not seem... likely."
"If you're the same - then why not?"
"When I am a deer, I like deer. When I am human, I like humans. You are... not either."
I didn't answer for a few moments, as we continued eastwards along what had once been a townline road, between two cities that were so alike and integrated with each other that I'd always wondered why they hadn't just gotten rid of the cost of the extra mayor.
Finally, I said, "Maybe we should talk about something else. Your other self said that when the spirits had his memories, they'd make a thousand of him to go to war... and we just might need a thousand people who don't mind dying to put this thing to rest, permanently."
"You think that if I thought all the mes were different people, we would not be willing to fight and die?"
"Less willing, maybe," I admitted. "I've already seen thousands of dead bodies. I'd rather do the philosophical discussion that might affect your morale /after/ the Berserker's taken care of - even if that does add a few hundred more deaths to my conscience."
"You underestimate-" Joe started, but was interrupted by Boomer.
"Tactical data: There is no nerve gas residue here."
"Hm," I thought. "Joe, could you do that voodoo you do to talk to the birds or whatever, and have somebody sniff out the edges of affected area? That'd probably be a lot faster than trying to carry Boomer around to scan enough of an area."
"I can. Why do you wish to know?"
"As far as we can tell, wherever the Berserker went, it was surrounded by a cloud of nerve gas. If there's a gap between the nerve gas that was around the university, and what's around the factory - then it might not have gone to the factory itself. And we can work there a lot faster instead of testing every step for booby-traps."
He nodded, and some green jays flew down, around him, and off again. We kept going for a bit, in case the wind drifted, before turning off the suits' air cyclers to save the batteries. I took my headgear off, trusting in Boomer to give a warning of any unpleasant chemicals, and Bun-Bun in case I couldn't suit back up fast enough. Joe joined me, and we walked at a leisurely pace, while birds flew overhead in complicated patterns.
"I really kissed you?"
"Your other self did. Don't feel obliged to repeat it - I didn't ask for it, I asked for him to stop, he stopped. I don't hold you responsible for his acts any more than I would want to be held responsible for something a copy of me did after we'd split." He gave me a funny look, so I shrugged and explained, "Years before the first time I died, I worked out the basics, and some of the details, of how someone could handle having multiple copies of themselves made. How to divvy up property and debts, resolve disagreements, work out identifiers for each other - separate but related names. I didn't expect to ever /use/ the system, but it was a fun mental exercise. I've got - well, I've got some plans where even mentioning that I /have/ such plans would make them less useful. I tried coming up with a way to identify versions of myself from parallel timelines, but was defeated by the sheer variety of possible variations, especially the different goals a version of me with a random history might have. I think I've started rambling, so if there's anything you'd like to say to stop me, go right ahead."
"No, I am enjoying listening to you."
"Ah. Well, don't blame me if I go off on a tangent - I think I'm going just a teensy bit insane. Manic, even. Once the Berserker is down, I'm probably going to need a vacation just to keep myself sane enough to do what needs to be done after that. Assuming we do take it down, and survive. Well, as long as your Great Peace survives, at least a version of you will. I've only got the one of me, and I've only got what I've got to keep that number from dropping to zero. I miss the internet - I spent a few hours simply browsing the weird part of eBay, and other online retailers, finding clever gadgets and gizmos that didn't take up much space, but were handy to keep around, just in case. A few squares of duct-tape, a first-aid kit that didn't even make a bulge in my pocket, a button-sized flashlight; things I'm sure even Doc Savage would have been happy to add to his combat vest. I enjoyed collecting credit-card-sized gadgets, just because I was fascinated by how many different things you could /do/ with things that size. Heck, I even had a photographer's vest just so I could go hiking with the stuff that didn't fit in my regular cargo shorts..."
Some time later, I trailed off as a half-dozen jays swirled down, flew around Joe, and vanished again. I raised my eyebrow at him.
He said, "There is a kilometer wide gap."
I interlaced my fingers and cracked my knuckles. "O-/kay/ then. That might be the first bit of simple good luck I've seen in a good while..."
--
We came to the canal - specifically, to the twinned flight locks that had done most of the work lifting ships up the escarpment. Given that the Halloween costume pieces I was wearing under my hazmat suit were better quality gear than had been available to the military when I'd died, I wasn't especially surprised to see that the locks were still intact. Even the pedestrian staircases didn't show any significant signs of wear.
Joe suggested, "Swim across?"
I shook my head. "Got something I've been meaning to try..."
I pulled the coil of metallic rope from where I'd been keeping it safely stowed away. On both sides of all the locks, every ten meters or so was a 'bollard', a lump of concrete about a meter tall, with the base narrower than the top. The bollards on the far side were about forty meters from the ones near us. I recalled the practice with the sling I'd been doing, got my lariat's loop ready, swung, tossed - and watched it plop into the water, not even halfway across.
I was reeling it back for another try, wondering if I should ask Bun-Bun if she had any secret skills, when Joe put his hand on my shoulder. He pointed to the gate of the lock, holding the water back from running down the canal. "Why can we not walk on those?"
"Because it's for canal personnel only and I'm an idiot who still needs to unlearn a few things. I guess it takes more than a month to un-do three decades of living near the canal..."
As we carefully walked across the tops of the gates, I paused in the middle, looking downstream thoughtfully.
Joe asked, "Problem?
"No, just thinking. Say, Joe? Think your spirits might be willing to let this canal start being used again, without trying to pull in everyone who uses it?"
"I have no idea. Can you make it work?"
"... Maybe. Filling and emptying the locks is easy - especially if they rebuilt the water-valves with more super-materials. Opening and closing the gates, that would take some significant muscle power - or engine power. And for serious use, we'd not only have to worry about traffic control, but logistics, like making repairs... I wonder if the factory we're going to could make spare parts, or if I'd have to deal with Technoville instead for some?"
Joe stared at me. "I know that you do not hold grudges - but you would trade with them after they laid waste to so much?"
"What? ... Oh, right. Um - to help me keep things straight better in my own mind, at least, I'm going to apply my multi-self system to you, which in this case, informally, means the Joe I was with before would be Joe One, and you'd be Joe Two. No offense is intended, or any implication meant that you're less than him, just that he was branched off from the memories stored by the spirits before you were."
He shrugged, still staring. "'Two' is much my name as 'Joe' is. What does that have to do with Technoville?"
"Welp, while Joe and I were wandering around, we found that the Berserker came from the towers in the middle of the old city of Buffalo. There's no evidence Technoville had any connection to the nerve gas."
"You are certain of this?"
"Of course not - I'm not even /certain/ that my brain was stuffed into a bunny body instead of a simulation. But that's where the balance of evidence lies, and Joe One can confirm it once he finishes what he's doing and comes back."
Joe was silent for a few moments, frowning, then said, "I need to go talk to the spirits."
"Can't you just send some birds back and forth?"
"Too complicated."
"I really could use your hand at the factory."
"Lives may be at stake." I started to inhale for a response, and he interrupted me with, "Ones that don't get brought back by the spirits."
"What are you still doing standing here, then?"
--
Crossing the canal just below the flight locks was a railway; and on the far side of that railway was the factory. Or, at least, what had been a factory in my time - it didn't really look much like what I recalled. A solid chunk of buildings, about half a kilometer by three quarters of one, its one or two stories made it look flat as a pancake.
Getting across the old, rusting chain-link fence was a piece of cake. There were dozens of entrances, both human- and vehicle-sized, all currently shut. I didn't want to open any of them in a way that I couldn't shut it again, thus letting in more poisoned air than I needed to. So, I started circling around the place, jiggling every door handle I found, trying to keep an eye out for whatever the Berserker had fired off into this area, and hoping that whatever was on the other side was more like the university than like Buffalo.
A touch on my shoulder had me almost jump out of my hazmat suit with a "Gaah!". After I landed (bunny-style legs are, if I haven't mentioned it, very good for jumping), I discovered a green jay flying around me. When I stood still for a moment, it came in for another landing. I blinked at it through my helmet, then the metaphorical light bulb went off. "Right," I said to it, "you're one of the messenger birds. Sorry, little dude, but I still haven't figured out how you guys talk."
It flew off my shoulder, and I turned around to watch it; it flew a few dozen feet back the way I'd come, then landed. We looked at each other for a moment, then it launched again, circled around me, and landed a few feet further on. I shrugged. "Then again, who needs to talk?"
It led me to an area full of trash- and recycling-bins, just past where I'd started jiggling handles, and landed on the push-bar of a double-door. I pressed - and with a simple click, it unlatched. The bird flew off, disappearing over the roof. "Thanks for the assist, little dude," I said, not particularly caring that talking to things that weren't there was often a sign of insanity. "Hope you make it to a pool to get fixed up before the VX residue gets you."
I pushed the door open, checked to make sure it opened from the inside as well, and let it close behind me. Getting ready to jump back out if the Berserker had sent anything mobile, I let my eyes adjust to the relative gloom; the windows were nearly opaque from years and years of dust and grime, letting in only thin trickles of light. In a few seconds, even without any ceiling lights, I was able to start making out shapes - neat row upon row of bundled forms, completely still, a few glimmers of dust flickering in the sunbeams...
I stopped looking around as I realized that my chest had started hurting, that I was having trouble catching my breath, I was lightheaded, starting to shake, my hands suddenly clammy. I stumbled out the door, and collapsed to all fours, my limbs heavy and tingling.
I had no idea what was happening - but I was able to put together the thought that that seemed like a bad place to stay. I managed to pull myself up to my feet, and, stumbling, took a step away, then another...
After a time, I couldn't say how long, I realized that I was staring down at the canal. I glanced around, saw the railway bridge nearby, and then I knew where I was. I sat down - alright, collapsed - on a bollard.
"What... the heck... was that?"
Boomer spoke up, "You entered the building, began hyperventilating, and came here."
"Is... that all?"
"Your heart rate was accelerated, you began sweating profusely, you were trembling, and your gait was irregular and unsteady. According to the diagnostic criteria in my database, the most likely cause was a panic attack."
"Oh. Was worried... it was... nerve gas... or heart attack."
"Many people who suffer panic attacks mistake them for heart attacks. I have less data on mistaking them for chemical weapons."
"What... treatments?"
"There are several psychopharmaceuticals-" I didn't have the breath to speak up, so I interrupted her with a quick head shake and putting one hand over her pocket. Seemingly unperturbed, she continued with, "Breathing exercises can also help with short-term symptoms."
"Square?"
"Yes, square breathing is one such exercises. Would you like me to help you count?"
"... Yes."
"Very well. ... Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four."
I didn't count how many times we did that - I was focusing on counting.
After a while, I said, "Okay. I think I'm good. Mostly. Enough, anyway. Any ideas on how to keep it from happening again?"
"That would require knowledge of what triggered it in the first place."
"Well, it was when I went inside... crap, am I claustrophobic now?"
"That seems unlikely. You had no signs of phobic reactions during your time at the university, and phobias do not generally progress in that fashion."
"Ah." I cast my mind back - and didn't have to cast it far. "Ah. Buffalo. Stress. The school..." I started counting my breathing again.
"It is possible you are experiencing Acute Stress Disorder, or the preliminary stages of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."
"Without any drugs, without any mental health professionals, or any sort of health system... is there anything I can do to help with those?"
"Yes."
--
Some time later, I watched Joe reappear, cross the canal, and make his way over to me; where I was sitting on the ground, back against the bollard, legs crossed, hands on knees.
He looked down at me, frowning, and said, "Spirits say that you came out as soon as you went in."
"Yeah. I've been kind of joking about going bug-nuts from everything I've been going through. It's less fun than I made it sound. If I'd been spending time meditating every day, and doing behaviour therapy, and a couple of other things, maybe it wouldn't have gotten this bad."
"What will you do now?"
"Keep meditating, I think."
"What about the Berserker?"
"I was hoping to get some tool that would let me come up with a clever plan. But... realistically, I don't think I can handle a clever plan right now. So we have to use my stupid plan."
"You didn't tell me you had another plan."
"I always have another plan. I didn't tell you because the Berserker can interrogate people."
"What is your stupid plan?"
"You take Clara. Go get my radio. Follow her directions to hook it up to the communications lines, the ones your birds unplugged. That breaks one of Technoville's laws, of keeping comm and comp separate. Anything hooked up to those lines will get hacked by... whatever is filling the airwaves, and turned into random bits that can't do anything. Then it's just mopping up, looking for anything the Berserker might have copied its data onto and then disconnected - Clara's got an inventory and checksums, she can help with that. Maybe just put them to the side, locked tight, in case there's some future use in having a homicidal AI-like thing."
"You say that like you won't be involved."
"It's a simple plan. You don't need me for it, and Clara can take over running the university from Laura."
"And that is your /stupid/ plan?"
"Of course it is. It depends on your spirits letting you help maintain a university they'd rather turn into forest, it makes a few untested assumptions about what the Berserker might have fabricated, and it puts at risk a lot of the data that I'd rather avoid losing."
"What /will/ you do?"
"I'm gonna do the best I can..."
--
"Boomer," I said, rising to my feet, "a little public-domain Cab Calloway backup, if you please. Bun-Bun, much obliged if you'd keep me from falling flat on my face."
The sounds of trumpets and piano started drifting through the air, and I started shuffling my feet, twirling, and dipping to the beat. My audience took a step back.
"Joe, let me tell you 'bout Bunny the bunny.
He was a wild and cra-azy guy.
He walked 'til he closed his eyes;
But from death she did arise."
As I broke into the 'hi-dee-hi' chorus, with both Clara and Boomer calling back, I noted Joe taking another step or two back, staring.
"She saved the life of a hungry baby,
the neighbours treated her as if she had rabies.
A giant monster almost brought her demise,
she was saved by a toy, life-size."
The next chorus, I whipped out my harmonica for the responses, and Joe almost tripped as he backed into a bollard.
I kept up the whole thing, singing and dancing the events of the last month, until I got to the end: "And from all this she will arise. Poor Bun, poor Bun, poor Bun...", and plopped my rear onto the nearest bollared, crossing my hocks in imitation of my original meditative pose.
After a few moments, Joe asked, "What brought on that song?"
"What song?"
"... Maybe I should just take Clara and go. Boomer, keep a good eye on her for me, alright?"
Boomer answered, "Of course, Joe."
I just sat and watched until he'd made his way out of sight, before I let myself heave a sigh. I didn't harbour any illusions that I wasn't still being watched - there were lots of places for little birds with bright eyes to escape my gaze while keeping me in theirs.
Joe was a good guy, and I was sure he meant well... but while I'd been thinking of ways to get around my newly discovered panic attacks, I'd also realized that once the Berserker was taken care of, the things I planned on doing and the things Joe's "spirits" wanted to happen were pretty diametrically opposed. There were only so many ways I could get him to go away and not /want/ to come back, and violating social expectations by pulling a Pinkie Pie was among the least messy. If it hadn't worked, I had further ideas, but I was glad I didn't have to try them.
"Okay, Bun-Bun, it's time to cheat a bit. Can you keep my adrenaline from spiking, even if my brain tries to empty my glands of it?" It might not be the best long-term solution, but it seemed to be what the most useful drugs aimed at accomplishing.
I stood, planning on heading back to the factory. "Okay, Bun-Bun, we don't have to dance anymore. ... Bun-Bun? ... Fine, but could we at least go dance thataway?"
--
Once Bun-Bun got the rhythm out of her system, I decided to do at least one more thing before heading into the factory. While Joe One and I had been paddling about, he'd mentioned that the watch-birds had seen five or six things that had been thrown through the air toward the place - and it seemed like a good idea to locate them, and maybe see what they looked like, before wandering blithely around the place.
There was a lot of clutter around the place, so it wasn't until I made it to the near-empty parking lot that I noticed a beachball-sized, metallic thing with rocket fins that didn't seem to have any pre-Singularity purpose.
I hadn't been making much use of the tape-bots lately, so they were fully charged. I sent the greenish lizard one to investigate closer, including poking at it; and Boomer was able to use her camera to determine that it was a now-empty pressure vessel. There were no openings or hatches, or detectable electronics - as far as we could tell, there'd been nothing inside it but gas.
I didn't feel like tromping around to find the other three or four, so I simply pulled out /all/ the tape-bots that Convoy had provided. To all of them but the lizard-bot (who I wanted to stand guard on this shell, just in case), I pointed at the empty shell, and said, "Search radius five hundred meters. Find and report." They scooted off, surprisingly quickly.
Three were easy to locate, spread around the exterior of the factory, and to set more guards on. The fifth was in the middle of the rooftop, and as bouncy as my legs were, I had to resort to climbing an overgrown tree to get up there and confirm that it was just as empty as the others.
None of the tape-bots reported seeing any other shells, even after I expanded the search area. The sun was getting low when I decided to call it off, and hope there really were just the five. I took the tape-bots I hadn't give guard duty to over to the canal, cleaned them of the gas residue they'd picked up to Boomer's satisfaction, and returned to the factory door I'd entered by before.
I had Boomer set the ring to flashlight mode, took a few deep, carefully counted breaths, and stepped back inside.
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
Bunny's stress has been building ever since her revival, partly shown by her decision-making. I did some reading on stress response when I was writing about her looking through a city full of corpses; and seemingly random panic attacks in response to triggers of an especially stressful moment are a thing that happens.
Bunny may have Bun-Bun's help with this particular symptom - but she's still facing all manner of stresses.
27
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
*Chapter Seven: Ex-propriation*
Boomer gave the all-clear, so I stripped off the hazmat suit, to save battery power, to let me move more freely, and to get Wagger to stop being quite so annoying.
Staring down the rows of palleted goods, all shrink-wrapped and ready for transport, I didn't /like/ what I was seeing, but I didn't feel like my heart was seizing up, either.
I stepped closer to one, and shining the light on it, it looked absolutely nothing like a still little body slumped over a desk. Neither did the second. I walked up and down the rows, looking at each one, so I know for a fact none did.
Most pallets held stacks of smaller boxes, each pallet a different product - lamps, or diapers, or coat hangers, or bicycle tires. Some had larger, individual items - an engine, or some sort of machine tool, or something I couldn't recognize. There was a thin coating of dust on everything, but it wasn't much worse than the grease and gunk I'd seen in industrial buildings, pre-demise. (I'd spent more than one hour of my childhood hanging out in a certain printing plant, with the noise of the presses and the smell of the ink and the dusty shreds of cut paper shifting in every breeze.)
After I'd inspected every ready-to-deliver pallet in the room, I stood near the door again, trying to think.
Boomer interrupted my ideas before they had much of a chance to form, saying, "It is getting late. If you wish to set up camp outside the poisoned area before the sun sets, you should start putting on your suit."
I shook my head. "I think I'm going to pull an all-nighter, here. Joe and the spirits are probably going to be busy at the university, so if I want to get anything done that they might not like, this might be my only shot."
"I do not understand."
I shrugged. "They're into the whole organic thing. If I want to figure out how to make machines to make the canal work, or something more important, like building more computers to help solve problems without them getting hacked, or even more important stuff that I'm not going to mention aloud just now in case they've got eavesdropping mice or whatnot - then it is, at the very least, the polite thing to do to keep from rubbing their noses in it."
"I still do not understand. How did your review of these products assist in that goal?"
"... Good question. Let me get back to you on that." I closed my eyes and rubbed my head, tugged my ears, scratched my short muzzle... and sighed. "It probably didn't. Which probably means my mind is getting frazzled - I can usually at least /rationalize/ a reasonable excuse, but I can't think of any that would pass muster."
"Would sleep help?"
"... I'm pretty sure I don't want to fall asleep for a while. So. Limited time before Joe comes back with whatever his version of a straitjacket is - hm, can I block the one door here? Would I want to, if I had to run out quickly? I'm going to guess that a lot of the doors are easier to get out of than in, so maybe I'll just set this tape-bot here to guard, to warn me if anything starts moving."
I did so, and then started walking to one of the entrances to deeper in the factory. I continued thinking aloud, "I still want to get as much done as I can, in as little time as I can. So I need to leverage whatever resources I've got as much as I can. Info is the biggest lever... say, Boomer? Have you got any info on this place, other than the outside maps?"
She responded, "This factory was originally built by General Motors Canada in nineteen fifty-four to build engines. After several changes, in twenty forty-six it was converted to general additive and subtractive manufacturing, to produce items that were less expensive to create in bulk than individually, or in a location which could easily handle multiple materials and processes. Its area of coverage was primarily Thorold and western St. Catharines, while eastern St. Catharines was covered by the MacKenzie Plant-"
I cleared my throat, which Boomer took as a signal to change tack. "Citizens could place their orders online, and have them delivered by multiple means, or visit one of the design centres in person to take advantage of the interface rooms."
I perked up at that (and, with the hazmat suit rolled up, my ears could finally perk up in comfort again). "'Design centre' - that sounds like a place to start. Are there any on site?"
"Yes. Would you like me to direct you to one?"
"Please."
--
"So, Boomer - is this place solar-powered, like the university?"
"While the parking lot and roof do contain solar surfaces, the primary source of electricity was the electrical grid."
"So we might not be /able/ to do anything until daylight?"
"That is possible. However, a common product of facilities similar to this one was batteries. I do not have access to data on what was done here in twenty fifty, before most people disappeared, so I cannot say what extraordinary provisions might have been put in place."
"Well, Joe knew this as a 'thing-making thing', so unless he was just talking about a handed-down legend, it seems likely that something's still in working order."
"According to the social media records I have, the next door on your left leads to a part of the facility that was open to the public."
"Okay, let me just find a doorstop, so we don't accidentally get locked out of the behind the scenes... hunh, I'm almost surprised they still had mops and buckets in twenty fifty, instead of super-roombas."
"According to the university's economic department, significant portions of infrastructure were optimized for humanoid forms, and in many cases, the greatest economic gains were found in minimizing the cost of generalized humanoid workers that could be frequently repurposed rather than creating mechanical devices optimized for each particular task. However, the gains from specialization were increasing every year, and one of the most referenced projections was that no humanoid generalist would be able to compete by the year twenty sixty-seven."
"Well, so much for that projection. And here we are and - whoah. Is that what this place is /supposed/ to look like?"
"It matches the most recent social media imagery in my database."
"I've heard of baroque, but this place is... /fractally/ baroque. Gah, I can't even make out where any corners are, with the shadows dancing like that."
"Social media gave the architecture generally positive reviews. The general consensus was that it was good advertising for the level of detail available for the facility's products."
"An anti-Apple store?"
"If you wish."
"What I wish, right now, is more light."
"There is one to your left."
"What, here?"
"Further left. Left. Left. Right. Left. There."
"Looks just like every other protrusion I can see." I poked at the thing in a few directions, and it finally moved when I tried rotating it. To my surprise, when I did, the whole room lit in a soft glow. "Hunh," I commented, looking around. "Looks a lot less Giger-esque and a lot more... delicate CGI, like that."
"Such comparisons have been made before."
"I'm sure they have. Okay, so at least some power's still on - let's not waste too much of it. Which way to the design centre?"
"The nearest one is to your left."
After a few minutes, we arrived. It didn't look like much - a chair with a refreshingly non-fractal set of cushions, and some rows of extraordinarily transparent glass sheets in front of each other. When I took the obvious seat, words glowed in front of me, as if in mid-air, reading in pale blue-white, "Please provide catalogue number" in the pre-Singularity letters I was still able to read much more easily than the newfangled Free Press alphabet.
I looked around the room, but didn't see anything else. I asked Boomer, "Catalogue?", but the room itself responded, the original instruction fading out in favour of "Please provide catalogue search parameters".
I thought back to the Great Peace, and what I'd probably have the most trouble getting anything made of if Joe came back to do his spirits' will, and said the top thing that came into my mind: "Robots." I thought a bit more, and added, "Without radios. Weatherproof."
New words faded in: "Purpose of robots?"
I floundered a bit, and said, "Lots of tasks. Um - bodyguard work."
The display changed to, "Desired price range?"
"Er... what do I have to pay with?"
New words appeared under the first. "You have _100%_ of this facility's production capacity available to you."
I shrugged a bit, and asked, "What's the most expensive model you have?"
A whole paragraph appeared, along with a rotating display of... myself. It read, "Full-body scans can allow the production of lifelike androids that are the physical duplicate of the scanned person. The scanned person must waive their personal-identity copyright to permit the duplication, and additional scans are required to match body-language, voice, scent, and other non-visual identifiers." I kept reading the ad-copy, but didn't see any hard numbers. "I could use a dozen of those, but how much power - hey!"
The words had changed to, "Preliminary order for _12_ personal duplicates placed. Please follow the blue lights to a scanning room, where your privacy will be protected."
"Cancel order. Undo? Backup? Change catalogue to power-generation?" Nothing changed. I asked Boomer, "Maybe the software's degraded over the years?"
"It is possible. In the university, Laura kept at least triplicate copies of all data, and errors still occurred."
"Let's try another design room."
We headed out to the room next to the one I'd entered, and as I sat, the words "Please provide catalogue number" appeared.
"What do I have to pay with?" I asked, as a test.
The response appeared, "You have _50%_ of this facility's production capacity available to you."
"Hm," I said. "Catalogue, please," and when it asked for search parameters, I said, "Power generation. Mobile. Not based on fossil fuels. Can operate independently of a power grid."
Instead of just one result, a list appeared. Before I even started reading, I noted one detail, and asked, "Why are those top entries red instead of blue?"
Explanatory text stated, "Red entries match specified search parameters, but have not been validated." A clever animation zoomed them out from the rest - and I noticed a detail they all had in common. A particularly interesting detail: the date they'd been entered. "2050/11/01". The day /after/ everyone had started vanishing.
"Could I see /all/ entries that were made on that day, or later?"
Text faded in, "These are all the entries for power-generation that were made on that day."
"I mean, for more than just power generation."
The text didn't change.
"Can I start a new search? ... Are there any other interfaces? Escape? Backspace? ... Can you remove all entries that require fissionables or helium-three as fuel?" If the equivalent of the 'back' button was broken, I could at least try gathering as much information as I could going forward. With a few more phrases to get rid of designs that weren't likely to be of any use in a post-post-industrial society, I ended up with a mere two power-plant designs. Both claimed to produce energy through fusion, though in rather different ways - one's description stated it used 'decaborane' heated by magnetic fields in a 'field-reversed configuration', while the other used lithium in an 'inertial electrostatic confinement'. I stepped out of the room for a few moments to consult with Boomer without getting the room's interface confused, and determined that it would probably be easier to get hold of lithium than boron, so I re-entered the room, selected the latter generator, and said, "Please show me all you can on this one."
Text appeared, "Do you wish to place an order?"
"Maybe. Can you show me the fuel consumption? How much power it produces?"
The text remained the same. I stepped back out again, and went into a third room, where I had "_33%_ of the facility's production capacity" available. What I had in mind would probably take nowhere near that much.
"Catalogue, please. Manuals. I would like all the available documentation on a fusion generator fueled by lithium, which functions by inertial electrostatic confinement, particularly any that are relevant to the design entered on the first of November, twenty fifty. Oh, and I'd also like any manuals about the personal duplicate robots that are on preliminary order."
The text read, "Order complete. Please pick up in the lobby."
Boomer directed me to said lobby, where, on a receptionist-style counter (which had the usual bric-a-brac decorations), were a couple of nearly-as-decorated tablet-shaped computers, recognizable as such only because their faces were big and blank.
I tapped one, and words appeared - the interface was simple enough. "Let's see," I said aloud, for Boomer's benefit, "Fusion, da-da-da, three-hundred sixty megawatts heat, sixty megawatts electric, seven tons plus heat radiators, and with that much of a heat load it needs a lot of cooling, normal operating parameters, external magnetic field - hey, I'm pretty sure you'd be just fine even if you were right next to it. Not that I plan on trying it. Fuel consumption seven milligrams a second, which works out to, per year, um..."
Boomer supplied, "Two hundred twenty one kilograms."
"Really? That's all? And how much is sixty megawatts compared to... something I'd know?"
"A typical electric locomotive from twenty fifteen used three megawatts of power."
"Twenty locomotives, in seven tons? With a ninth of a ton of fuel to run for a /year/? You folk from twenty-fifty had your energy problems /solved/."
"I am afraid that is not the case. According to my databases, fusion reactors are considered experimental, and are much larger."
"So - it's really from the Singularity?"
"I am not qualified to answer that."
"Well, it's certainly suggestive. One question is - if it is built, does it actually do what it says it does? I'd really rather not flip a switch and disappear in a ball of sunfire. ... Well, I guess I might be about to get a few extra pairs of hands that could flip the switch for me, while I'm at a safe distance. Let's look at the robot manual. Mm-hm, can fulfill standard humanoid tasks including janitorial, customer service, da da-da da-da, light bodyguard work, skipping ahead - okay, /this/ model is specifically designed... Ew."
"Would you care to elaborate?"
"Well, since they were expensive, I was /expecting/ sex-bots. That's probably easy enough to deal with - just don't program them to have sex. These are, uh, /snuff/ bots. Designed to die as realistically as possible, get fixed up, and die again. Apparently to relieve fetishistic urges - there are some hypertext links to some psychology papers."
"Does this mean you will be canceling your order?"
"... Actually, I'm not sure. I'm squicked, but I can also imagine some actual uses for body-doubles like that. Hm... I imagine that if I were a /real/ rationalist, instead of just an aspiring one, the reasons to go through with the order pretty much overwhelm the reasons not to. If nothing else, they seem to be taking up an order-slot, which might slow down other production until it's built. Anyway, there's a trick right there - if you can think of how someone else would get the right answer, then you've just thought of it yourself. I don't know of too many people, real or fictional, whose advice would have been reliable enough to let me survive the first time I died. I'm sure a few popped up after I died, but you're not letting me read much about them, due to copyright and most of your memory being taken up with, well, your own memory. And out of those few, I only know a couple well enough to make a reasonably good model in my own head. ... And even then, I died before their story was finished being written. I've been talking for a bit and you haven't said anything back. Have I started babbling? I think I'm babbling. Say something to stop me babbling, would you?"
"'Something'."
"Fat load of help you are. So the smartest person I know is fictional, and has extremely questionable moral goals, and I don't even know what fate he supposedly met was, but maybe he's more useful a guide for some things than my usual four mental directions. And my mental model of him says - get the body-doubles made already, and focus on the more important stuff, such as preparing a tactical retreat in case the locals get pushy, and once that's done, then maybe investigate the November files. Right - which way to the scanning room?"
After giving Bun-Bun her head in demonstrating how far all my joints could stretch - including Wagger's - I re-dressed, hit the second design room to confirm that order, and went back to the third room.
"Catalogue search," I ordered. "Vehicles. Capable of off-road travel. Capable of crossing streams without bridges. Capable of carrying the fusion generator recently ordered. Capable of carrying at least thirteen people. Capable of being sealed up against chemical weapons. Does not require significant amounts of fossil fuel. Enough cargo space to carry enough tools to perform regular maintenance and repairs."
The floating text had a new message, reading, "Sorry, there are _0_ results for your search. Would you like to create a custom design?"
"Yes. Yes, I would."
--
"I hereby dub it the 'Munchkin'."
Apparently, there'd been a revival fad in the early 2040's for intermodal containers being used for anything imaginable. Since the fusion reactor happened to fit exactly into a twenty-foot container, I'd used that as my starting place. I'd dug up the various ways that'd been invented to move containers around, from classic wheels and treads to various arrangements of legs. A lot of the latter were interesting, but hadn't been very practical, given their energy requirements; a trailer with wheels could be dragged, but one with legs needed just as much power as the truck pulling it. However, I just so happened to have a sixty megawatt power source handy, which turned those impractical designs into actual possibilities.
After running through the system's astonishingly user-friendly iterative design process, I ended up with three options: Legs, wheels, or tracks. Each had a slab to carry the container, with various electronics, batteries, trailer hookups, and suchlike; but running through a sort of VR evolutionary algorithm, the legged design turned out to have a particular advantage over the other two. In either irregular or soft-and-squishy terrain, the legged version could keep trundling along at full speed, while the other two were greatly slowed. So legs it was.
Of course, by 'legs', I don't mean a pair of legs like a mecha, or even four big legs like the big camel-things from 'Empire Strikes Back'. Somewhere around twelve tons of vehicle needed a whole lot of ground contact area to keep from sinking. Imagine, instead of four wheels, four great big skis or sleds, with enough robotic legs to choke a millipede connecting them to the main body; enough robotic machinery to move the ski-things at a blurring pace. Like I said - completely impractical, without a bit of post-Singularity power generation. But with the power to burn, as useful as could be.
I put in an order for three of the legged tray things. The first for the generator, and the second for a container of cargo, like the bunny-bots. For the third, I found a pre-existing design that had everything I wanted, and then some: Winnebago's top-of-the-line design for a twenty-foot mobile home. Solar panels unfolded from the top, providing a nominal forty kilowatts and change, enough to keep the batteries charged to power the self-contained recycling systems 24/7 - including, a bit to my surprise, complete air, food, and water recycling, and a coffin-like robotic surgeon under the main bed. The ad-copy was 'complete self-sufficiency anywhere this side of the Arctic circle'. And more luxuries than I could count - starting with computerized displays covering both interior and exterior instead of windows, and going up from there.
(I did make one change to the design - I simply ran a find-and-delete for every radio. Having random post-Singularity intelligences hack into any available computer was bad enough when you weren't /inside/ the computer...)
I wondered why, if this sort of thing was available, why so many people had been hanging out in cities and got caught by the Singularity. I guessed that most people just liked being around other people more than I did; and that not much factory production was dedicated to making these homes-in-a-box. I also wondered how many of these things were scattered around the continent, with or without anybody still living inside them. Given the various monsters I'd seen, outside the biosphere run by the Great Peace, I suspected that any that were still around were almost certainly without any current residents.
--
While that started getting made, I wandered over to take a look at the first robot off the line. It was breathing, and looked to be asleep - which, I assumed, would have been better PR than arriving looking like a corpse. "Still feels odd looking at myself, kind of, from the outside. Have to admit she's cute, though. Um - remind me to get clothes fabbed for them all. And to figure out what behaviour packages to run by default. And I'm still going to have to run through their command codes to register them to my voiceprint and biometrics and so on. ... In the meantime, let's go see if we can find out more about the November files..."
Unfortunately, while the design interface had been easy to use to build a customized vehicle, something was keeping it from running what seemed to me to be very ordinary search queries of its database. I began to get mighty sick of reading, "Sorry, that search is generating an error. Would you like to search for something else?"
I'd just decided to try a brute-force search-and-skim, when I felt something poking at my hoof. Looking down, I saw the tape-bot I'd set to guard the door. When it saw me looking at it, it chirped once. At least one person had come into the factory.
I left the design rooms, set Boomer to tricorder mode to scan for any nerve toxins that might have entered, and followed the tape-bot back into the mechanical back rooms, many of which were now whirring and whizzing as parts were assembled out of one substance or another.
Before long, I saw someone walking away, down a random aisle - and before they turned around, I was able to observe two long ears, and a cotton-puff tail. Brown fur, instead of pink, and when they - she - looked towards my light, she wasn't wearing any glasses, and was both taller and more rounded than myself.
My first thought was that the factory had started making robots that weren't /exact/ doubles of myself. My second was that the Great Peace's spirits had sent in another bear-brained bunny-morph to scout around. My third thoughts were interrupted when she said, "Bunny? Is that you?"
"Who's asking?", I responded.
"Joe. Joe Three, I guess."
I blinked a bit, and started walking closer, going from yellow alert back down to green - chartreuse, anyway. "Joe? What are you doing in that getup?"
She shrugged. "Not sure. Joe Two went into the pool to talk to the spirits, and he and I walked out. They say I should hug you more often than Minnie did."
"Oh. Uh - I don't think that's really necessary."
She shrugged again. "I think they think you're lonely."
I shook my head. "I may be crazy, but being alone isn't part of it."
By now, we were just about next to each other - and without any further words, she stepped right up to me and wrapped her arms around me. I just kind of stood there for a few moments, then cleared my throat. "Okay, you can go tell the spirits you've hugged me."
"That's not how it works."
"Forcing an introvert into undesired social interactions can make them go buggy /faster/."
She reluctantly let go. "We'll talk about it in the morning. Let's get some sleep."
"Nah, I'm staying up the night. Lots to do, and the sooner I get started on it all, the sooner it'll get done."
"Such as?"
A small forklift trundled by, carrying one of my duplicates to the front section.
Joe raised a rather expressive eyebrow.
"Oh, don't look at me like that - I just needed to clear out the production queue, it's not like they're sex-bots. Well, alright, they /are/ sex-bots, but I'm not planning on using them for what they're supposedly built for. Okay, so I might end up using them for their designed purpose, but not like that. ... Look, how about I stop digging myself a hole and start explaining from scratch?"
Boomer gave the all-clear, so I stripped off the hazmat suit, to save battery power, to let me move more freely, and to get Wagger to stop being quite so annoying.
Staring down the rows of palleted goods, all shrink-wrapped and ready for transport, I didn't /like/ what I was seeing, but I didn't feel like my heart was seizing up, either.
I stepped closer to one, and shining the light on it, it looked absolutely nothing like a still little body slumped over a desk. Neither did the second. I walked up and down the rows, looking at each one, so I know for a fact none did.
Most pallets held stacks of smaller boxes, each pallet a different product - lamps, or diapers, or coat hangers, or bicycle tires. Some had larger, individual items - an engine, or some sort of machine tool, or something I couldn't recognize. There was a thin coating of dust on everything, but it wasn't much worse than the grease and gunk I'd seen in industrial buildings, pre-demise. (I'd spent more than one hour of my childhood hanging out in a certain printing plant, with the noise of the presses and the smell of the ink and the dusty shreds of cut paper shifting in every breeze.)
After I'd inspected every ready-to-deliver pallet in the room, I stood near the door again, trying to think.
Boomer interrupted my ideas before they had much of a chance to form, saying, "It is getting late. If you wish to set up camp outside the poisoned area before the sun sets, you should start putting on your suit."
I shook my head. "I think I'm going to pull an all-nighter, here. Joe and the spirits are probably going to be busy at the university, so if I want to get anything done that they might not like, this might be my only shot."
"I do not understand."
I shrugged. "They're into the whole organic thing. If I want to figure out how to make machines to make the canal work, or something more important, like building more computers to help solve problems without them getting hacked, or even more important stuff that I'm not going to mention aloud just now in case they've got eavesdropping mice or whatnot - then it is, at the very least, the polite thing to do to keep from rubbing their noses in it."
"I still do not understand. How did your review of these products assist in that goal?"
"... Good question. Let me get back to you on that." I closed my eyes and rubbed my head, tugged my ears, scratched my short muzzle... and sighed. "It probably didn't. Which probably means my mind is getting frazzled - I can usually at least /rationalize/ a reasonable excuse, but I can't think of any that would pass muster."
"Would sleep help?"
"... I'm pretty sure I don't want to fall asleep for a while. So. Limited time before Joe comes back with whatever his version of a straitjacket is - hm, can I block the one door here? Would I want to, if I had to run out quickly? I'm going to guess that a lot of the doors are easier to get out of than in, so maybe I'll just set this tape-bot here to guard, to warn me if anything starts moving."
I did so, and then started walking to one of the entrances to deeper in the factory. I continued thinking aloud, "I still want to get as much done as I can, in as little time as I can. So I need to leverage whatever resources I've got as much as I can. Info is the biggest lever... say, Boomer? Have you got any info on this place, other than the outside maps?"
She responded, "This factory was originally built by General Motors Canada in nineteen fifty-four to build engines. After several changes, in twenty forty-six it was converted to general additive and subtractive manufacturing, to produce items that were less expensive to create in bulk than individually, or in a location which could easily handle multiple materials and processes. Its area of coverage was primarily Thorold and western St. Catharines, while eastern St. Catharines was covered by the MacKenzie Plant-"
I cleared my throat, which Boomer took as a signal to change tack. "Citizens could place their orders online, and have them delivered by multiple means, or visit one of the design centres in person to take advantage of the interface rooms."
I perked up at that (and, with the hazmat suit rolled up, my ears could finally perk up in comfort again). "'Design centre' - that sounds like a place to start. Are there any on site?"
"Yes. Would you like me to direct you to one?"
"Please."
--
"So, Boomer - is this place solar-powered, like the university?"
"While the parking lot and roof do contain solar surfaces, the primary source of electricity was the electrical grid."
"So we might not be /able/ to do anything until daylight?"
"That is possible. However, a common product of facilities similar to this one was batteries. I do not have access to data on what was done here in twenty fifty, before most people disappeared, so I cannot say what extraordinary provisions might have been put in place."
"Well, Joe knew this as a 'thing-making thing', so unless he was just talking about a handed-down legend, it seems likely that something's still in working order."
"According to the social media records I have, the next door on your left leads to a part of the facility that was open to the public."
"Okay, let me just find a doorstop, so we don't accidentally get locked out of the behind the scenes... hunh, I'm almost surprised they still had mops and buckets in twenty fifty, instead of super-roombas."
"According to the university's economic department, significant portions of infrastructure were optimized for humanoid forms, and in many cases, the greatest economic gains were found in minimizing the cost of generalized humanoid workers that could be frequently repurposed rather than creating mechanical devices optimized for each particular task. However, the gains from specialization were increasing every year, and one of the most referenced projections was that no humanoid generalist would be able to compete by the year twenty sixty-seven."
"Well, so much for that projection. And here we are and - whoah. Is that what this place is /supposed/ to look like?"
"It matches the most recent social media imagery in my database."
"I've heard of baroque, but this place is... /fractally/ baroque. Gah, I can't even make out where any corners are, with the shadows dancing like that."
"Social media gave the architecture generally positive reviews. The general consensus was that it was good advertising for the level of detail available for the facility's products."
"An anti-Apple store?"
"If you wish."
"What I wish, right now, is more light."
"There is one to your left."
"What, here?"
"Further left. Left. Left. Right. Left. There."
"Looks just like every other protrusion I can see." I poked at the thing in a few directions, and it finally moved when I tried rotating it. To my surprise, when I did, the whole room lit in a soft glow. "Hunh," I commented, looking around. "Looks a lot less Giger-esque and a lot more... delicate CGI, like that."
"Such comparisons have been made before."
"I'm sure they have. Okay, so at least some power's still on - let's not waste too much of it. Which way to the design centre?"
"The nearest one is to your left."
After a few minutes, we arrived. It didn't look like much - a chair with a refreshingly non-fractal set of cushions, and some rows of extraordinarily transparent glass sheets in front of each other. When I took the obvious seat, words glowed in front of me, as if in mid-air, reading in pale blue-white, "Please provide catalogue number" in the pre-Singularity letters I was still able to read much more easily than the newfangled Free Press alphabet.
I looked around the room, but didn't see anything else. I asked Boomer, "Catalogue?", but the room itself responded, the original instruction fading out in favour of "Please provide catalogue search parameters".
I thought back to the Great Peace, and what I'd probably have the most trouble getting anything made of if Joe came back to do his spirits' will, and said the top thing that came into my mind: "Robots." I thought a bit more, and added, "Without radios. Weatherproof."
New words faded in: "Purpose of robots?"
I floundered a bit, and said, "Lots of tasks. Um - bodyguard work."
The display changed to, "Desired price range?"
"Er... what do I have to pay with?"
New words appeared under the first. "You have _100%_ of this facility's production capacity available to you."
I shrugged a bit, and asked, "What's the most expensive model you have?"
A whole paragraph appeared, along with a rotating display of... myself. It read, "Full-body scans can allow the production of lifelike androids that are the physical duplicate of the scanned person. The scanned person must waive their personal-identity copyright to permit the duplication, and additional scans are required to match body-language, voice, scent, and other non-visual identifiers." I kept reading the ad-copy, but didn't see any hard numbers. "I could use a dozen of those, but how much power - hey!"
The words had changed to, "Preliminary order for _12_ personal duplicates placed. Please follow the blue lights to a scanning room, where your privacy will be protected."
"Cancel order. Undo? Backup? Change catalogue to power-generation?" Nothing changed. I asked Boomer, "Maybe the software's degraded over the years?"
"It is possible. In the university, Laura kept at least triplicate copies of all data, and errors still occurred."
"Let's try another design room."
We headed out to the room next to the one I'd entered, and as I sat, the words "Please provide catalogue number" appeared.
"What do I have to pay with?" I asked, as a test.
The response appeared, "You have _50%_ of this facility's production capacity available to you."
"Hm," I said. "Catalogue, please," and when it asked for search parameters, I said, "Power generation. Mobile. Not based on fossil fuels. Can operate independently of a power grid."
Instead of just one result, a list appeared. Before I even started reading, I noted one detail, and asked, "Why are those top entries red instead of blue?"
Explanatory text stated, "Red entries match specified search parameters, but have not been validated." A clever animation zoomed them out from the rest - and I noticed a detail they all had in common. A particularly interesting detail: the date they'd been entered. "2050/11/01". The day /after/ everyone had started vanishing.
"Could I see /all/ entries that were made on that day, or later?"
Text faded in, "These are all the entries for power-generation that were made on that day."
"I mean, for more than just power generation."
The text didn't change.
"Can I start a new search? ... Are there any other interfaces? Escape? Backspace? ... Can you remove all entries that require fissionables or helium-three as fuel?" If the equivalent of the 'back' button was broken, I could at least try gathering as much information as I could going forward. With a few more phrases to get rid of designs that weren't likely to be of any use in a post-post-industrial society, I ended up with a mere two power-plant designs. Both claimed to produce energy through fusion, though in rather different ways - one's description stated it used 'decaborane' heated by magnetic fields in a 'field-reversed configuration', while the other used lithium in an 'inertial electrostatic confinement'. I stepped out of the room for a few moments to consult with Boomer without getting the room's interface confused, and determined that it would probably be easier to get hold of lithium than boron, so I re-entered the room, selected the latter generator, and said, "Please show me all you can on this one."
Text appeared, "Do you wish to place an order?"
"Maybe. Can you show me the fuel consumption? How much power it produces?"
The text remained the same. I stepped back out again, and went into a third room, where I had "_33%_ of the facility's production capacity" available. What I had in mind would probably take nowhere near that much.
"Catalogue, please. Manuals. I would like all the available documentation on a fusion generator fueled by lithium, which functions by inertial electrostatic confinement, particularly any that are relevant to the design entered on the first of November, twenty fifty. Oh, and I'd also like any manuals about the personal duplicate robots that are on preliminary order."
The text read, "Order complete. Please pick up in the lobby."
Boomer directed me to said lobby, where, on a receptionist-style counter (which had the usual bric-a-brac decorations), were a couple of nearly-as-decorated tablet-shaped computers, recognizable as such only because their faces were big and blank.
I tapped one, and words appeared - the interface was simple enough. "Let's see," I said aloud, for Boomer's benefit, "Fusion, da-da-da, three-hundred sixty megawatts heat, sixty megawatts electric, seven tons plus heat radiators, and with that much of a heat load it needs a lot of cooling, normal operating parameters, external magnetic field - hey, I'm pretty sure you'd be just fine even if you were right next to it. Not that I plan on trying it. Fuel consumption seven milligrams a second, which works out to, per year, um..."
Boomer supplied, "Two hundred twenty one kilograms."
"Really? That's all? And how much is sixty megawatts compared to... something I'd know?"
"A typical electric locomotive from twenty fifteen used three megawatts of power."
"Twenty locomotives, in seven tons? With a ninth of a ton of fuel to run for a /year/? You folk from twenty-fifty had your energy problems /solved/."
"I am afraid that is not the case. According to my databases, fusion reactors are considered experimental, and are much larger."
"So - it's really from the Singularity?"
"I am not qualified to answer that."
"Well, it's certainly suggestive. One question is - if it is built, does it actually do what it says it does? I'd really rather not flip a switch and disappear in a ball of sunfire. ... Well, I guess I might be about to get a few extra pairs of hands that could flip the switch for me, while I'm at a safe distance. Let's look at the robot manual. Mm-hm, can fulfill standard humanoid tasks including janitorial, customer service, da da-da da-da, light bodyguard work, skipping ahead - okay, /this/ model is specifically designed... Ew."
"Would you care to elaborate?"
"Well, since they were expensive, I was /expecting/ sex-bots. That's probably easy enough to deal with - just don't program them to have sex. These are, uh, /snuff/ bots. Designed to die as realistically as possible, get fixed up, and die again. Apparently to relieve fetishistic urges - there are some hypertext links to some psychology papers."
"Does this mean you will be canceling your order?"
"... Actually, I'm not sure. I'm squicked, but I can also imagine some actual uses for body-doubles like that. Hm... I imagine that if I were a /real/ rationalist, instead of just an aspiring one, the reasons to go through with the order pretty much overwhelm the reasons not to. If nothing else, they seem to be taking up an order-slot, which might slow down other production until it's built. Anyway, there's a trick right there - if you can think of how someone else would get the right answer, then you've just thought of it yourself. I don't know of too many people, real or fictional, whose advice would have been reliable enough to let me survive the first time I died. I'm sure a few popped up after I died, but you're not letting me read much about them, due to copyright and most of your memory being taken up with, well, your own memory. And out of those few, I only know a couple well enough to make a reasonably good model in my own head. ... And even then, I died before their story was finished being written. I've been talking for a bit and you haven't said anything back. Have I started babbling? I think I'm babbling. Say something to stop me babbling, would you?"
"'Something'."
"Fat load of help you are. So the smartest person I know is fictional, and has extremely questionable moral goals, and I don't even know what fate he supposedly met was, but maybe he's more useful a guide for some things than my usual four mental directions. And my mental model of him says - get the body-doubles made already, and focus on the more important stuff, such as preparing a tactical retreat in case the locals get pushy, and once that's done, then maybe investigate the November files. Right - which way to the scanning room?"
After giving Bun-Bun her head in demonstrating how far all my joints could stretch - including Wagger's - I re-dressed, hit the second design room to confirm that order, and went back to the third room.
"Catalogue search," I ordered. "Vehicles. Capable of off-road travel. Capable of crossing streams without bridges. Capable of carrying the fusion generator recently ordered. Capable of carrying at least thirteen people. Capable of being sealed up against chemical weapons. Does not require significant amounts of fossil fuel. Enough cargo space to carry enough tools to perform regular maintenance and repairs."
The floating text had a new message, reading, "Sorry, there are _0_ results for your search. Would you like to create a custom design?"
"Yes. Yes, I would."
--
"I hereby dub it the 'Munchkin'."
Apparently, there'd been a revival fad in the early 2040's for intermodal containers being used for anything imaginable. Since the fusion reactor happened to fit exactly into a twenty-foot container, I'd used that as my starting place. I'd dug up the various ways that'd been invented to move containers around, from classic wheels and treads to various arrangements of legs. A lot of the latter were interesting, but hadn't been very practical, given their energy requirements; a trailer with wheels could be dragged, but one with legs needed just as much power as the truck pulling it. However, I just so happened to have a sixty megawatt power source handy, which turned those impractical designs into actual possibilities.
After running through the system's astonishingly user-friendly iterative design process, I ended up with three options: Legs, wheels, or tracks. Each had a slab to carry the container, with various electronics, batteries, trailer hookups, and suchlike; but running through a sort of VR evolutionary algorithm, the legged design turned out to have a particular advantage over the other two. In either irregular or soft-and-squishy terrain, the legged version could keep trundling along at full speed, while the other two were greatly slowed. So legs it was.
Of course, by 'legs', I don't mean a pair of legs like a mecha, or even four big legs like the big camel-things from 'Empire Strikes Back'. Somewhere around twelve tons of vehicle needed a whole lot of ground contact area to keep from sinking. Imagine, instead of four wheels, four great big skis or sleds, with enough robotic legs to choke a millipede connecting them to the main body; enough robotic machinery to move the ski-things at a blurring pace. Like I said - completely impractical, without a bit of post-Singularity power generation. But with the power to burn, as useful as could be.
I put in an order for three of the legged tray things. The first for the generator, and the second for a container of cargo, like the bunny-bots. For the third, I found a pre-existing design that had everything I wanted, and then some: Winnebago's top-of-the-line design for a twenty-foot mobile home. Solar panels unfolded from the top, providing a nominal forty kilowatts and change, enough to keep the batteries charged to power the self-contained recycling systems 24/7 - including, a bit to my surprise, complete air, food, and water recycling, and a coffin-like robotic surgeon under the main bed. The ad-copy was 'complete self-sufficiency anywhere this side of the Arctic circle'. And more luxuries than I could count - starting with computerized displays covering both interior and exterior instead of windows, and going up from there.
(I did make one change to the design - I simply ran a find-and-delete for every radio. Having random post-Singularity intelligences hack into any available computer was bad enough when you weren't /inside/ the computer...)
I wondered why, if this sort of thing was available, why so many people had been hanging out in cities and got caught by the Singularity. I guessed that most people just liked being around other people more than I did; and that not much factory production was dedicated to making these homes-in-a-box. I also wondered how many of these things were scattered around the continent, with or without anybody still living inside them. Given the various monsters I'd seen, outside the biosphere run by the Great Peace, I suspected that any that were still around were almost certainly without any current residents.
--
While that started getting made, I wandered over to take a look at the first robot off the line. It was breathing, and looked to be asleep - which, I assumed, would have been better PR than arriving looking like a corpse. "Still feels odd looking at myself, kind of, from the outside. Have to admit she's cute, though. Um - remind me to get clothes fabbed for them all. And to figure out what behaviour packages to run by default. And I'm still going to have to run through their command codes to register them to my voiceprint and biometrics and so on. ... In the meantime, let's go see if we can find out more about the November files..."
Unfortunately, while the design interface had been easy to use to build a customized vehicle, something was keeping it from running what seemed to me to be very ordinary search queries of its database. I began to get mighty sick of reading, "Sorry, that search is generating an error. Would you like to search for something else?"
I'd just decided to try a brute-force search-and-skim, when I felt something poking at my hoof. Looking down, I saw the tape-bot I'd set to guard the door. When it saw me looking at it, it chirped once. At least one person had come into the factory.
I left the design rooms, set Boomer to tricorder mode to scan for any nerve toxins that might have entered, and followed the tape-bot back into the mechanical back rooms, many of which were now whirring and whizzing as parts were assembled out of one substance or another.
Before long, I saw someone walking away, down a random aisle - and before they turned around, I was able to observe two long ears, and a cotton-puff tail. Brown fur, instead of pink, and when they - she - looked towards my light, she wasn't wearing any glasses, and was both taller and more rounded than myself.
My first thought was that the factory had started making robots that weren't /exact/ doubles of myself. My second was that the Great Peace's spirits had sent in another bear-brained bunny-morph to scout around. My third thoughts were interrupted when she said, "Bunny? Is that you?"
"Who's asking?", I responded.
"Joe. Joe Three, I guess."
I blinked a bit, and started walking closer, going from yellow alert back down to green - chartreuse, anyway. "Joe? What are you doing in that getup?"
She shrugged. "Not sure. Joe Two went into the pool to talk to the spirits, and he and I walked out. They say I should hug you more often than Minnie did."
"Oh. Uh - I don't think that's really necessary."
She shrugged again. "I think they think you're lonely."
I shook my head. "I may be crazy, but being alone isn't part of it."
By now, we were just about next to each other - and without any further words, she stepped right up to me and wrapped her arms around me. I just kind of stood there for a few moments, then cleared my throat. "Okay, you can go tell the spirits you've hugged me."
"That's not how it works."
"Forcing an introvert into undesired social interactions can make them go buggy /faster/."
She reluctantly let go. "We'll talk about it in the morning. Let's get some sleep."
"Nah, I'm staying up the night. Lots to do, and the sooner I get started on it all, the sooner it'll get done."
"Such as?"
A small forklift trundled by, carrying one of my duplicates to the front section.
Joe raised a rather expressive eyebrow.
"Oh, don't look at me like that - I just needed to clear out the production queue, it's not like they're sex-bots. Well, alright, they /are/ sex-bots, but I'm not planning on using them for what they're supposedly built for. Okay, so I might end up using them for their designed purpose, but not like that. ... Look, how about I stop digging myself a hole and start explaining from scratch?"
28
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
*Chapter Eight: Ex-chequer*
"Bunny?"
"Busy."
"Kind of important."
"... I've seen too many sitcoms to ignore something like that. Let me send this order as-is and shut it down, to keep something unfortunate from happening... there. What's up?"
"I should show you." I sighed and rolled my eyes, but let Joe Three lead the way. She asked, "What were you doing?"
"Looking for high-energy gear that's connected to the November files, something that would make good use of that generator. Didn't find much, just some pieces from the generator of frankly astonishing statistics, like something that's rated as a capacitor, but seems to be made out of superconducting magnets. Did find out that I'm not allowed to order up a pre-constructed class four laser, but I am allowed to order the easily-assembled pieces of a pulsed infrared laser emitter. And a few accessories."
"That sounds dangerous."
"That's the idea. At least, while I'm trying to think of some other way to get around the search restrictions. Given where we're heading - the bunny-bots haven't started trying to kill each other, have they?"
"No."
"Joe One got to be more talkative than you are."
"Here we are."
"I don't get it. They're all just in a pile, faking sleep? ... This isn't their refractory period, is it?"
"No. They are just asleep. And you need to join them."
"You're kidding. You interrupted me for /that/?"
"The sun is coming down again. You need to sleep."
"'Need' is a funny word. I think I can probably convince the factory to make a gizmo that would produce some modafinil, or whatever better version was invented later."
"You are avoiding the point."
"Yep."
"If you do not lie down, I will hug you until you do."
"Even if I took that as a threat, I don't /do/ cuddle-piles."
"Why not?"
"For one, introvert and schizoid. Which should be enough. For another - I used to get too hot just when my cat curled up on my shins. And now you've reminded me of another thing I lost when I died, thank you very much."
"Now you are making excuses."
"Of /course/ I'm making excuses! There's no rational reason for me to stay up so long my brain turns to mush! My brain /is/ mush, I'm not rational, I'm a freaking snake-tailed rabbit standing next to a dozen robotic clones of myself, talking to another rabbit made by self-proclaimed 'spirits' for the express purpose of hugging me, and I just finished designing a death ray so that I don't have to rely on the local technocratic dystopia for an air strike in case I come across a kaiju, or just a killer robot. /Another/ killer robot, that is. A month ago I was looking forward to the new season of Mythbusters. Now I'm in freaking Wonderland, and /everybody/ is mad in Wonderland, so why should I be any different?"
Joe's answer was to reach her arms around me.
I huffed a breath out my nostrils. "I could probably order the bun-herd to hug you en masse so I can get back to work."
"You said your 'work' is thinking of an idea. You are too sleepy to even come up with a good excuse."
"Will you let go if I promise to go find a cot or something?"
"I think... no. You need sleep, but you also need more than sleep."
"Let's just stick to sleep for now. I still want to skip the bun-pile... do I really smell like that?"
"Less then them all together. But yes."
"Tell you what. You go find some birds to talk to your spirits, and find out if the university's clean yet. And while you're doing that, I'll check their manual to see if I can reduce the realism of that part of their imitation of me. Or see if the factory can cough up some Febreeze. Or the like."
"You are trying to get rid of me."
I shrugged. "As if I could? I've got a dozen mes, none of whom are very bright. If I seriously tried to get away from you, your spirits could make a thousand of you, all just as smart as you, and get them stick me in whatever you'd do for an asylum for someone who can't just be melted back into the mix."
"Now you are back to making excuses."
"At least I'm back to being /up/ to making excuses. You're overly warm, and I haven't got a desktop fan to blow air on my face to let me feel pleasantly cool. ... You know what, maybe that's what I've been missing. A piece of technological civilization that's purely for personal comfort. I'll go order one up, and maybe I'll even pretend the bun-bots are as smart as cats, and join the pile of 'em."
"You stay here. I will get you your fan."
Joe finally let go, and left the office-turned-bedroom.
I sighed, walked over to the pile of gynoids, and poked at them with a hoof. I sat down, my back against a couple of theirs...
... and it was suddenly morning.
--
"Did you actually make a death ray?"
"I'm not entirely sure. I /think/ so. Which means that we're going to observe all safety precautions as if it /is/ as lethal as the guns that the factory won't let me print without a firearms license I don't have and can't get."
"You sound like you are still rambling."
"I am down a night of sleep. And now that I'm thinking about what I may be not thinking of... what would the spirits think of me having a lethal weapon of any sort?"
"Could you have killed us when we first met, and tried to bring you to a pool?"
"Physically... probably. Crossbows, tasers to the heart, sleeper hold held too long. Mentally... well, I obviously didn't."
"Then what is the difference?"
"The fact that I can reach out and touch someone from a kilometer away, if it works?"
Joe shrugged. I rolled my eyes.
"Right," I said. "Let's at least get you a pair of safety goggles. Don't want you going blind from a stray reflection and have to bother your spirits for new eyes."
That was easily enough done. "Okay," I said, "Let's see. Laser head, superconducting magnetic energy storage capacitor-like things, pre-chiller, primary heat exchange loop, secondary heat exchange loop, heat sink, shoulder stock with adjustment dials. Feels about as heavy as, oh, a couple of big bottles of soda. The built-in capacitors hold a bit over five hundred kilojoules, which if I read the specs right, is enough for two shots. Here's a power-cord, a battery with a belt-clip good for ten shots, and a backpack with a bigger battery, more coolant, and bigger radiator surface, good for a hundred."
"What are you going to shoot?"
"Nothing in here, anyway. Let's hit the parking lot."
After a few minutes to don our suits - the local air force hadn't decontaminated this area yet - we made it out there. "Might as well aim for, oh, one of the metal fence posts. What do you think that's made of - aluminium? Think it's solid or hollow?" I checked the manual, and started twiddling the dials; tweaking the frequency, the length of the individual pulses, the time between them, and the overall power. According to the text, different substances vaporized in different ways, and the settings to create the most impressive possible holes in wood wouldn't do nearly as well against metal, the settings for metal would do poorly against ceramic, and so on. "Anyone over that way, who should be warned to get out of there if it works?"
"No. What if it does not work?"
"Best case scenario - piece of junk. Worst case - it blows up."
"Maybe I should test it."
"Can't. Already locked in my palm-print. Don't want random strangers to steal it to shoot at us."
"Then make another."
"Eh, we're already out here."
"You are being reckless about your personal safety."
"Joe, of the nine and counting near-death experiences I've had recently, in at least... six of them, I'd have been better able to handle them with a decent weapon."
"That does not mean you have to risk your life to test it now."
"Joe - I've got a robotic factory building a freaking nuclear power generator. Say, I've been saying 'freaking' a lot lately, haven't I? Anyway, if I can't trust that this place builds things to spec, then when we turn /that/ on, there won't be enough of either of us left to - um, I'm trying to think of a good metaphor here."
"'Fill a room with the smoke that's all that's left of us'?"
"That'll work. I'm not just testing the I.R. laser here - I'm testing the factory's power-source manufacturing."
"That almost sounds reasonable."
"Only 'almost', eh?"
"You could still make a second one and let me test it."
I sighed. "You're really going to make me say it, aren't you?"
"Say what?"
"I don't feel comfortable with giving you a gun. Death-ray. Whatever."
After an uncomfortable pause, she asked, "Would you give one to Joe One?"
"... Maybe. I didn't stop him from playing with a pile of claymores."
"Then what's the difference?"
"Your spirits."
"What about them?"
"They made Joe One to bring me... here, actually. But I went off-script, and we went to other places, and did other things. But you were made to - well, hug me. And I don't know what all else. And you're still doing exactly what your spirits made you to do."
"So?"
I shrugged. "I don't know enough about them to trust them. I don't know if I /can/ know. I'm reminded of that every time I stand on this hoof. I don't even know why I got that, instead of either being turned into a deer just like you do on a regular basis, or just getting turned into a pile of mush, if your spirit-pools really don't work on me. And that's just the most obvious thing. Well, second most obvious, now that they've made a bunny you."
"Is that why you don't want me to hug you? You don't trust me?"
"Well... I've never been much for physical contact. Maybe when I was a kid, but if so, I don't remember."
"Is that the only reason?"
"Joe - a vast, alien, and incomprehensible mentality /made a person/ for the express purpose of /hugging/ me, ostensibly to do something about my mental health. When I died, something as simple and comprehensible as a government agency wouldn't even assign me a social services caseworker without some justification about how doing so improved the lives of the people in power. Avoiding getting into a digression about the incentives involved in a democratic society - I can't figure out how them making you benefits them, unless you're part of a larger plan that you yourself probably don't know about."
"That doesn't seem to give me much room to work with."
"Oh, there's plenty of room. The further you get from your spirits' plans, the more likely I am to trust you more... at least that you're acting for your own sake, instead of theirs."
"In other words - if I want to get you to stop running away from me hugging you, all I have to do is stop trying to hug you?"
"Well, if you're going to look at it like /that/..."
"Bunny - look at me. I'm soft, furry, and have arms. I'm a child's toy brought to life."
"Welcome to the club."
"I don't know who made you-"
"Ditto."
She ignored me. "- But if I can't do what this body was made for, I might as well go get myself one that's less..." She trailed off, glancing at me and then looked away.
"Go ahead," I said. "Cartoonish? Ridiculous? Undignified?"
"/Specialized/," she declared.
"Nice save."
"Thank you."
"If you want to stop being you, I'm not going to stop you. Er, from stopping. Anyway - if you go get melted, and a new Joe Four comes along, then I'll have no more reason to trust him-or-her than I do you. So why not stick around? Maybe you'll come up with a way to get around my trust issues and start hugging me anyway."
I didn't feel like adding another reason I had for suggesting she stay out of the pool - that I still wasn't sure if her going into the pool to be broken down counted as 'dying', in either a practical or an ethical sense. (My ethics, that is - I already knew it didn't count as such for hers.)
She asked, "Are you still hung up over whether the pools kill the people who go into them?"
So much for hidden motives. "Eh," I shrugged. "Could be. Even if so, it doesn't change the rest of the argument for staying out."
"I'll think about it."
"That's a step forward - as long as you're thinking, you're still around."
"Speaking of steps. You may not trust me - but I can still stand between you and the weapon when you test it."
"You could. I could also get a bunny-bot to play meat-shield, so that if something does go wrong, I don't have to train up a new Joe through this conversation from scratch again."
"Putting my own life on the line doesn't make you trust me more? Not even a little?"
"You already tried pulling that one on me before - just before you had me dip my toes in the waters to test them, remember?"
"As you put it - worth a shot."
A few minutes of rearrangement later, a third rabbitoid joined us, also in a white suit. (Less to keep her alive and more to make it easier to clean up when we were done.)
"Everyone - goggles on? If they are, say 'check'."
"Check."
"Check."
"And 'check' for me. First step: death ray power test, using the low-power laser sight. In three, two, one."
Joe asked, "Did it work?"
"Hold on, lemme get around Bustress here to look at the telescopic sight... Yep, there it is. Nice blue dot on that tree-trunk."
"Is blue easiest to see?"
"When we've got these goggles on, which filter out low-frequency light - yep, the closer to violet, the better. Okay, everyone back in place. High power test in three, two, one."
The target tree was nearly a full kilometer away, and wasn't all that big to start with. With an emphasis on 'was'. The sound of its violent destruction took three full seconds to reach us.
Joe looked at the weapon with a new expression as I put the safety back on. "Is that what was used in the War of the Serpents?"
"I'm pretty sure not. Or at least, only in rare cases. If you know the trick, its limitations, it's fairly easy to counter."
"What trick?"
"What you don't know, you can't reveal under torture."
"What I don't know, I can't take into account if we are in a battle."
"If we end up in an actual battle, things will have gotten so far out of whack that one more piece of info isn't going to make a difference in any plan you might make. Hm... besides, I think I've already told you enough to figure it out, if you had a good grounding in physics. And without that grounding, then even if I described the trick, you wouldn't /really/ understand it well enough to know the limits of when it would and wouldn't work."
"And if I don't know the trick, then if I ever do something worthy of your mistrust and we fight, then I will not be able to use it against you."
"Well, that goes without saying. Want to practice hugging the bun-bot, or should I send her back in?"
"I'll just stay and watch while you blow things up."
--
"Ow."
"I /warned/ you not to get too close, before I got the fire extinguisher."
"I did not step on anything on fire."
"Didn't it occur to you that, you know, a lot of the debris might be /almost/ on fire?"
"No. Ow."
"Hold still - the plastic's melted into your fur pretty good, and I don't want to take off any more skin than I have to..."
"Ow."
--
"What is that?"
"Thinking cap. Makes you smarter, in certain ways. Supposedly. Built by the factory. Immensely more accurate and controllable than the one I've been making from Boomer's plans. A lot lighter, too."
"Does it work?"
"Don't know. I'm a little nervous about trying it."
"Do you want me to try it first?"
"What, I thought all this techno stuff was stuff you good folk of the - what was it, nine nations of the Great Peace, didn't get involved with?"
"I'm here to help /you/. Even if that means using things like that. What is the worst that can happen?"
"You get lobotomized and become a drooling idiot that not even your spirits could recover a single memory from. No, wait, that's only second worst; depending on its programming, it just might nudge you into a new set of loyalties and goals that you never would have considered possible before, which run contrary to everything you currently believe in and hold dear."
"Why did you make such a thing?"
"Because it's so /simple/, really. Just some magnets and electrodes and such. The hat's not dangerous at all - it's what /controls/ the hat that's important. And I don't even know if those worst-case scenarios are even possible."
"So what will you do with it?"
"Probably... stick it on a shelf in the Munchkin, while I put the finishing touches on my own hat, and be very careful to use /that/ in the ways I /can/ understand even before it does its thing."
--
"Do I even want to know?"
I shrugged, and waved my hand at the bun-bots, who gracefully finished their riverdancing, standing in a line as they waited for new instructions. "Grabbing all the behavioural software packages I can find, and testing a few to make sure there aren't any obvious jokers."
"Why would there be?"
"At least a couple of my inner voices are wondering about this place. A whole factory, able to build just about anything I ask for... still intact, and functional. After decades, presumably most of which they were surrounded by a biology-loving group of entities who inexplicably failed to plow it under. In the middle of immense quantities of radio hacking attempts that it just happens to be immune to. Which nobody in the Great Peace cared to use, and nobody outside the Great Peace knew existed."
"Is there anything you /don't/ find suspicious?"
"Boomer, maybe. I can understand where she came from without needing too many assumptions about mysterious motives, and at least in general, what she's programmed to try to do."
"You have some theories?"
"Several. One is that this place is a honey-trap, to pull in anyone who, like me, can get through the Great Peace without being absorbed, and is willing to take advantage of opportunities for handy resources. If that's true, then it's only a matter of time before I trip something and get squished, either literally or metaphorically. Or maybe the trap's already here, in some part of the programming of the robots or the Munchkin that it would take me decades to find, looking on my own."
"But you are still here. And making things."
"Yep. That's because there's only a certain chance that theory is true. Another is that some entity set this place up as their own private base or factory or fallback position or something. A sub-theory is that the real controller is still active somewhere, and keeping an eye on this place, and will intervene if I endanger their plans too much. Another sub-theory is that they've died off at some point, and this place really is free to use, and I'm just the lucky bunny who got here first."
"That's a lot of theories. Are you making any plans based on them?"
"A few. One is to get ready to take whatever I've already got made and skedaddle in a hurry, in case the place suddenly becomes much less friendly. Basically, as soon as the Munchkin's finished being built, that might be all I can /get/ built. And if it's not - it's still a good idea to be able to scoot, if a new Berserker comes by."
"Any plans I should worry about?"
"Probably. Including a few I'm not going to tell you about, in case your spirits are the ones who'd pull the rug out from under me. But for what I am willing to talk about... once the Munchkin is able to move, I'm going to get back to hunting November files for a bit - they might be the trigger if this place is a honey-pot - and maybe see if I can put a lock on this place so I get to say who can use it or not, in case it really is just what it seems. And after that... I've got a few ideas on places to go. Start with the university - with Boomer's and Clara's inventory, I just might be able to get my hands on some computing hardware that's no more under the secret control of whoever's running the factory than Boomer herself is, and swap out the Munchkin's computers for those. Would be nice to have a driver I can actually trust, after all. Maybe the bun-bots, too, though swapping out their hardware requires something that looks an awful lot like surgery, and I'm not sure I've got the stomach to, well, rummage around in a dozen copies of my own stomach."
"Could Boomer drive?"
"Well, probably - but then I wouldn't have her with /me/, not to mention the risks in hooking her up to unknown hardware."
"And if you do all that, what then?"
"I've been thinking a bit, about a variety of things, and remembered something: heliographs are easy to make. Long-distance signaling things. Basically just some mirrors, which don't even have to be that well-made if they're big enough, and some telescopes. Not even any electricity needed, just a person to run them. If you've got power, you can use signal lamps with shutters instead."
"I hear you, but I do not follow your logic."
"Oh, I know I'm rambling a bit. Okay, a lot. I'll get to the point soon enough. As a ham radio enthusiast, I can tell you that hundred-foot towers are fairly easy - you don't even absolutely need guy wires, though they do help. The horizon from a hundred feet up is twelve miles away; the top of one such tower can see the top of another from twice that, twenty-four miles. If I were to set a starting tower on Navy Island, and a line of towers every twenty-four miles along Lake Erie's southern shore, the fifth tower would be in Erie, the eighth in Cleveland, the twelfth in Dogtown, and the fourteenth could be in Technoville. In short, for an extremely modest investment, of gear that doesn't need anything near as complicated as this factory to build, then the whole of Lake Erie's southern shore - and the Great Peace, if they want in, and possibly even the Lake Ontario squiddies - can be connected, to spread news faster, from the price of trout to another attack like on Buffalo. Without any link to any radio that might hack a computer. I might even be able to build some small robots just smart enough to run such relay towers, at least until locals can be hired for the task."
"That sounds... useful, I suppose, for people who do not have the spirits to help them."
"Useful indeed. The question is - why hasn't anyone done this yet? I can think of a few vague possibilities - but none have significant evidence for them. In fact, about the only way I can think to gather such evidence... is to go and build some towers, and see what happens. Might make for a good maiden voyage for the Munchkin."
"There are many different cities and people and other things on the lake shore. How will you protect these towers, from people who want to take them over?"
"A little electricity can go a long way. Plus, there's the fact that the value is in the system, meaning there isn't much point to just seizing a single tower, so if there's somebody who can put together enough of an organized force to seize multiple towers... well, then, hey, mission accomplished anyway. From a certain point of view. Of course, there /are/ certain benefits that come with running the communications infrastructure, so I shouldn't /deliberately/ tempt any local warlords to make any hostile takeover attempts."
"If you can make all these towers, what then?"
"Then I can start making a bit of money by charging people to send messages back and forth, faster than any horse or boat. And I could start learning more about the local cities - and maybe even an excuse to start traveling further away from Lake Erie, to extend the network. And possibly more importantly, I'll have learned something about what the post-human intelligences who nudge whole societies thataway are, and aren't, willing to let happen, which could give some clue about how they got to be post-human intelligences in the first place."
"That seems a lot to learn from some towers and mirrors."
"I'd learn even more from what happens if I /can't/ put together a simple light-telegraph line. Besides, that's technology for you - put together some tricks, and you can do something; and put a new set of tricks on those, and some more on those, and you can reach the moon."
"Bunny?"
"Busy."
"Kind of important."
"... I've seen too many sitcoms to ignore something like that. Let me send this order as-is and shut it down, to keep something unfortunate from happening... there. What's up?"
"I should show you." I sighed and rolled my eyes, but let Joe Three lead the way. She asked, "What were you doing?"
"Looking for high-energy gear that's connected to the November files, something that would make good use of that generator. Didn't find much, just some pieces from the generator of frankly astonishing statistics, like something that's rated as a capacitor, but seems to be made out of superconducting magnets. Did find out that I'm not allowed to order up a pre-constructed class four laser, but I am allowed to order the easily-assembled pieces of a pulsed infrared laser emitter. And a few accessories."
"That sounds dangerous."
"That's the idea. At least, while I'm trying to think of some other way to get around the search restrictions. Given where we're heading - the bunny-bots haven't started trying to kill each other, have they?"
"No."
"Joe One got to be more talkative than you are."
"Here we are."
"I don't get it. They're all just in a pile, faking sleep? ... This isn't their refractory period, is it?"
"No. They are just asleep. And you need to join them."
"You're kidding. You interrupted me for /that/?"
"The sun is coming down again. You need to sleep."
"'Need' is a funny word. I think I can probably convince the factory to make a gizmo that would produce some modafinil, or whatever better version was invented later."
"You are avoiding the point."
"Yep."
"If you do not lie down, I will hug you until you do."
"Even if I took that as a threat, I don't /do/ cuddle-piles."
"Why not?"
"For one, introvert and schizoid. Which should be enough. For another - I used to get too hot just when my cat curled up on my shins. And now you've reminded me of another thing I lost when I died, thank you very much."
"Now you are making excuses."
"Of /course/ I'm making excuses! There's no rational reason for me to stay up so long my brain turns to mush! My brain /is/ mush, I'm not rational, I'm a freaking snake-tailed rabbit standing next to a dozen robotic clones of myself, talking to another rabbit made by self-proclaimed 'spirits' for the express purpose of hugging me, and I just finished designing a death ray so that I don't have to rely on the local technocratic dystopia for an air strike in case I come across a kaiju, or just a killer robot. /Another/ killer robot, that is. A month ago I was looking forward to the new season of Mythbusters. Now I'm in freaking Wonderland, and /everybody/ is mad in Wonderland, so why should I be any different?"
Joe's answer was to reach her arms around me.
I huffed a breath out my nostrils. "I could probably order the bun-herd to hug you en masse so I can get back to work."
"You said your 'work' is thinking of an idea. You are too sleepy to even come up with a good excuse."
"Will you let go if I promise to go find a cot or something?"
"I think... no. You need sleep, but you also need more than sleep."
"Let's just stick to sleep for now. I still want to skip the bun-pile... do I really smell like that?"
"Less then them all together. But yes."
"Tell you what. You go find some birds to talk to your spirits, and find out if the university's clean yet. And while you're doing that, I'll check their manual to see if I can reduce the realism of that part of their imitation of me. Or see if the factory can cough up some Febreeze. Or the like."
"You are trying to get rid of me."
I shrugged. "As if I could? I've got a dozen mes, none of whom are very bright. If I seriously tried to get away from you, your spirits could make a thousand of you, all just as smart as you, and get them stick me in whatever you'd do for an asylum for someone who can't just be melted back into the mix."
"Now you are back to making excuses."
"At least I'm back to being /up/ to making excuses. You're overly warm, and I haven't got a desktop fan to blow air on my face to let me feel pleasantly cool. ... You know what, maybe that's what I've been missing. A piece of technological civilization that's purely for personal comfort. I'll go order one up, and maybe I'll even pretend the bun-bots are as smart as cats, and join the pile of 'em."
"You stay here. I will get you your fan."
Joe finally let go, and left the office-turned-bedroom.
I sighed, walked over to the pile of gynoids, and poked at them with a hoof. I sat down, my back against a couple of theirs...
... and it was suddenly morning.
--
"Did you actually make a death ray?"
"I'm not entirely sure. I /think/ so. Which means that we're going to observe all safety precautions as if it /is/ as lethal as the guns that the factory won't let me print without a firearms license I don't have and can't get."
"You sound like you are still rambling."
"I am down a night of sleep. And now that I'm thinking about what I may be not thinking of... what would the spirits think of me having a lethal weapon of any sort?"
"Could you have killed us when we first met, and tried to bring you to a pool?"
"Physically... probably. Crossbows, tasers to the heart, sleeper hold held too long. Mentally... well, I obviously didn't."
"Then what is the difference?"
"The fact that I can reach out and touch someone from a kilometer away, if it works?"
Joe shrugged. I rolled my eyes.
"Right," I said. "Let's at least get you a pair of safety goggles. Don't want you going blind from a stray reflection and have to bother your spirits for new eyes."
That was easily enough done. "Okay," I said, "Let's see. Laser head, superconducting magnetic energy storage capacitor-like things, pre-chiller, primary heat exchange loop, secondary heat exchange loop, heat sink, shoulder stock with adjustment dials. Feels about as heavy as, oh, a couple of big bottles of soda. The built-in capacitors hold a bit over five hundred kilojoules, which if I read the specs right, is enough for two shots. Here's a power-cord, a battery with a belt-clip good for ten shots, and a backpack with a bigger battery, more coolant, and bigger radiator surface, good for a hundred."
"What are you going to shoot?"
"Nothing in here, anyway. Let's hit the parking lot."
After a few minutes to don our suits - the local air force hadn't decontaminated this area yet - we made it out there. "Might as well aim for, oh, one of the metal fence posts. What do you think that's made of - aluminium? Think it's solid or hollow?" I checked the manual, and started twiddling the dials; tweaking the frequency, the length of the individual pulses, the time between them, and the overall power. According to the text, different substances vaporized in different ways, and the settings to create the most impressive possible holes in wood wouldn't do nearly as well against metal, the settings for metal would do poorly against ceramic, and so on. "Anyone over that way, who should be warned to get out of there if it works?"
"No. What if it does not work?"
"Best case scenario - piece of junk. Worst case - it blows up."
"Maybe I should test it."
"Can't. Already locked in my palm-print. Don't want random strangers to steal it to shoot at us."
"Then make another."
"Eh, we're already out here."
"You are being reckless about your personal safety."
"Joe, of the nine and counting near-death experiences I've had recently, in at least... six of them, I'd have been better able to handle them with a decent weapon."
"That does not mean you have to risk your life to test it now."
"Joe - I've got a robotic factory building a freaking nuclear power generator. Say, I've been saying 'freaking' a lot lately, haven't I? Anyway, if I can't trust that this place builds things to spec, then when we turn /that/ on, there won't be enough of either of us left to - um, I'm trying to think of a good metaphor here."
"'Fill a room with the smoke that's all that's left of us'?"
"That'll work. I'm not just testing the I.R. laser here - I'm testing the factory's power-source manufacturing."
"That almost sounds reasonable."
"Only 'almost', eh?"
"You could still make a second one and let me test it."
I sighed. "You're really going to make me say it, aren't you?"
"Say what?"
"I don't feel comfortable with giving you a gun. Death-ray. Whatever."
After an uncomfortable pause, she asked, "Would you give one to Joe One?"
"... Maybe. I didn't stop him from playing with a pile of claymores."
"Then what's the difference?"
"Your spirits."
"What about them?"
"They made Joe One to bring me... here, actually. But I went off-script, and we went to other places, and did other things. But you were made to - well, hug me. And I don't know what all else. And you're still doing exactly what your spirits made you to do."
"So?"
I shrugged. "I don't know enough about them to trust them. I don't know if I /can/ know. I'm reminded of that every time I stand on this hoof. I don't even know why I got that, instead of either being turned into a deer just like you do on a regular basis, or just getting turned into a pile of mush, if your spirit-pools really don't work on me. And that's just the most obvious thing. Well, second most obvious, now that they've made a bunny you."
"Is that why you don't want me to hug you? You don't trust me?"
"Well... I've never been much for physical contact. Maybe when I was a kid, but if so, I don't remember."
"Is that the only reason?"
"Joe - a vast, alien, and incomprehensible mentality /made a person/ for the express purpose of /hugging/ me, ostensibly to do something about my mental health. When I died, something as simple and comprehensible as a government agency wouldn't even assign me a social services caseworker without some justification about how doing so improved the lives of the people in power. Avoiding getting into a digression about the incentives involved in a democratic society - I can't figure out how them making you benefits them, unless you're part of a larger plan that you yourself probably don't know about."
"That doesn't seem to give me much room to work with."
"Oh, there's plenty of room. The further you get from your spirits' plans, the more likely I am to trust you more... at least that you're acting for your own sake, instead of theirs."
"In other words - if I want to get you to stop running away from me hugging you, all I have to do is stop trying to hug you?"
"Well, if you're going to look at it like /that/..."
"Bunny - look at me. I'm soft, furry, and have arms. I'm a child's toy brought to life."
"Welcome to the club."
"I don't know who made you-"
"Ditto."
She ignored me. "- But if I can't do what this body was made for, I might as well go get myself one that's less..." She trailed off, glancing at me and then looked away.
"Go ahead," I said. "Cartoonish? Ridiculous? Undignified?"
"/Specialized/," she declared.
"Nice save."
"Thank you."
"If you want to stop being you, I'm not going to stop you. Er, from stopping. Anyway - if you go get melted, and a new Joe Four comes along, then I'll have no more reason to trust him-or-her than I do you. So why not stick around? Maybe you'll come up with a way to get around my trust issues and start hugging me anyway."
I didn't feel like adding another reason I had for suggesting she stay out of the pool - that I still wasn't sure if her going into the pool to be broken down counted as 'dying', in either a practical or an ethical sense. (My ethics, that is - I already knew it didn't count as such for hers.)
She asked, "Are you still hung up over whether the pools kill the people who go into them?"
So much for hidden motives. "Eh," I shrugged. "Could be. Even if so, it doesn't change the rest of the argument for staying out."
"I'll think about it."
"That's a step forward - as long as you're thinking, you're still around."
"Speaking of steps. You may not trust me - but I can still stand between you and the weapon when you test it."
"You could. I could also get a bunny-bot to play meat-shield, so that if something does go wrong, I don't have to train up a new Joe through this conversation from scratch again."
"Putting my own life on the line doesn't make you trust me more? Not even a little?"
"You already tried pulling that one on me before - just before you had me dip my toes in the waters to test them, remember?"
"As you put it - worth a shot."
A few minutes of rearrangement later, a third rabbitoid joined us, also in a white suit. (Less to keep her alive and more to make it easier to clean up when we were done.)
"Everyone - goggles on? If they are, say 'check'."
"Check."
"Check."
"And 'check' for me. First step: death ray power test, using the low-power laser sight. In three, two, one."
Joe asked, "Did it work?"
"Hold on, lemme get around Bustress here to look at the telescopic sight... Yep, there it is. Nice blue dot on that tree-trunk."
"Is blue easiest to see?"
"When we've got these goggles on, which filter out low-frequency light - yep, the closer to violet, the better. Okay, everyone back in place. High power test in three, two, one."
The target tree was nearly a full kilometer away, and wasn't all that big to start with. With an emphasis on 'was'. The sound of its violent destruction took three full seconds to reach us.
Joe looked at the weapon with a new expression as I put the safety back on. "Is that what was used in the War of the Serpents?"
"I'm pretty sure not. Or at least, only in rare cases. If you know the trick, its limitations, it's fairly easy to counter."
"What trick?"
"What you don't know, you can't reveal under torture."
"What I don't know, I can't take into account if we are in a battle."
"If we end up in an actual battle, things will have gotten so far out of whack that one more piece of info isn't going to make a difference in any plan you might make. Hm... besides, I think I've already told you enough to figure it out, if you had a good grounding in physics. And without that grounding, then even if I described the trick, you wouldn't /really/ understand it well enough to know the limits of when it would and wouldn't work."
"And if I don't know the trick, then if I ever do something worthy of your mistrust and we fight, then I will not be able to use it against you."
"Well, that goes without saying. Want to practice hugging the bun-bot, or should I send her back in?"
"I'll just stay and watch while you blow things up."
--
"Ow."
"I /warned/ you not to get too close, before I got the fire extinguisher."
"I did not step on anything on fire."
"Didn't it occur to you that, you know, a lot of the debris might be /almost/ on fire?"
"No. Ow."
"Hold still - the plastic's melted into your fur pretty good, and I don't want to take off any more skin than I have to..."
"Ow."
--
"What is that?"
"Thinking cap. Makes you smarter, in certain ways. Supposedly. Built by the factory. Immensely more accurate and controllable than the one I've been making from Boomer's plans. A lot lighter, too."
"Does it work?"
"Don't know. I'm a little nervous about trying it."
"Do you want me to try it first?"
"What, I thought all this techno stuff was stuff you good folk of the - what was it, nine nations of the Great Peace, didn't get involved with?"
"I'm here to help /you/. Even if that means using things like that. What is the worst that can happen?"
"You get lobotomized and become a drooling idiot that not even your spirits could recover a single memory from. No, wait, that's only second worst; depending on its programming, it just might nudge you into a new set of loyalties and goals that you never would have considered possible before, which run contrary to everything you currently believe in and hold dear."
"Why did you make such a thing?"
"Because it's so /simple/, really. Just some magnets and electrodes and such. The hat's not dangerous at all - it's what /controls/ the hat that's important. And I don't even know if those worst-case scenarios are even possible."
"So what will you do with it?"
"Probably... stick it on a shelf in the Munchkin, while I put the finishing touches on my own hat, and be very careful to use /that/ in the ways I /can/ understand even before it does its thing."
--
"Do I even want to know?"
I shrugged, and waved my hand at the bun-bots, who gracefully finished their riverdancing, standing in a line as they waited for new instructions. "Grabbing all the behavioural software packages I can find, and testing a few to make sure there aren't any obvious jokers."
"Why would there be?"
"At least a couple of my inner voices are wondering about this place. A whole factory, able to build just about anything I ask for... still intact, and functional. After decades, presumably most of which they were surrounded by a biology-loving group of entities who inexplicably failed to plow it under. In the middle of immense quantities of radio hacking attempts that it just happens to be immune to. Which nobody in the Great Peace cared to use, and nobody outside the Great Peace knew existed."
"Is there anything you /don't/ find suspicious?"
"Boomer, maybe. I can understand where she came from without needing too many assumptions about mysterious motives, and at least in general, what she's programmed to try to do."
"You have some theories?"
"Several. One is that this place is a honey-trap, to pull in anyone who, like me, can get through the Great Peace without being absorbed, and is willing to take advantage of opportunities for handy resources. If that's true, then it's only a matter of time before I trip something and get squished, either literally or metaphorically. Or maybe the trap's already here, in some part of the programming of the robots or the Munchkin that it would take me decades to find, looking on my own."
"But you are still here. And making things."
"Yep. That's because there's only a certain chance that theory is true. Another is that some entity set this place up as their own private base or factory or fallback position or something. A sub-theory is that the real controller is still active somewhere, and keeping an eye on this place, and will intervene if I endanger their plans too much. Another sub-theory is that they've died off at some point, and this place really is free to use, and I'm just the lucky bunny who got here first."
"That's a lot of theories. Are you making any plans based on them?"
"A few. One is to get ready to take whatever I've already got made and skedaddle in a hurry, in case the place suddenly becomes much less friendly. Basically, as soon as the Munchkin's finished being built, that might be all I can /get/ built. And if it's not - it's still a good idea to be able to scoot, if a new Berserker comes by."
"Any plans I should worry about?"
"Probably. Including a few I'm not going to tell you about, in case your spirits are the ones who'd pull the rug out from under me. But for what I am willing to talk about... once the Munchkin is able to move, I'm going to get back to hunting November files for a bit - they might be the trigger if this place is a honey-pot - and maybe see if I can put a lock on this place so I get to say who can use it or not, in case it really is just what it seems. And after that... I've got a few ideas on places to go. Start with the university - with Boomer's and Clara's inventory, I just might be able to get my hands on some computing hardware that's no more under the secret control of whoever's running the factory than Boomer herself is, and swap out the Munchkin's computers for those. Would be nice to have a driver I can actually trust, after all. Maybe the bun-bots, too, though swapping out their hardware requires something that looks an awful lot like surgery, and I'm not sure I've got the stomach to, well, rummage around in a dozen copies of my own stomach."
"Could Boomer drive?"
"Well, probably - but then I wouldn't have her with /me/, not to mention the risks in hooking her up to unknown hardware."
"And if you do all that, what then?"
"I've been thinking a bit, about a variety of things, and remembered something: heliographs are easy to make. Long-distance signaling things. Basically just some mirrors, which don't even have to be that well-made if they're big enough, and some telescopes. Not even any electricity needed, just a person to run them. If you've got power, you can use signal lamps with shutters instead."
"I hear you, but I do not follow your logic."
"Oh, I know I'm rambling a bit. Okay, a lot. I'll get to the point soon enough. As a ham radio enthusiast, I can tell you that hundred-foot towers are fairly easy - you don't even absolutely need guy wires, though they do help. The horizon from a hundred feet up is twelve miles away; the top of one such tower can see the top of another from twice that, twenty-four miles. If I were to set a starting tower on Navy Island, and a line of towers every twenty-four miles along Lake Erie's southern shore, the fifth tower would be in Erie, the eighth in Cleveland, the twelfth in Dogtown, and the fourteenth could be in Technoville. In short, for an extremely modest investment, of gear that doesn't need anything near as complicated as this factory to build, then the whole of Lake Erie's southern shore - and the Great Peace, if they want in, and possibly even the Lake Ontario squiddies - can be connected, to spread news faster, from the price of trout to another attack like on Buffalo. Without any link to any radio that might hack a computer. I might even be able to build some small robots just smart enough to run such relay towers, at least until locals can be hired for the task."
"That sounds... useful, I suppose, for people who do not have the spirits to help them."
"Useful indeed. The question is - why hasn't anyone done this yet? I can think of a few vague possibilities - but none have significant evidence for them. In fact, about the only way I can think to gather such evidence... is to go and build some towers, and see what happens. Might make for a good maiden voyage for the Munchkin."
"There are many different cities and people and other things on the lake shore. How will you protect these towers, from people who want to take them over?"
"A little electricity can go a long way. Plus, there's the fact that the value is in the system, meaning there isn't much point to just seizing a single tower, so if there's somebody who can put together enough of an organized force to seize multiple towers... well, then, hey, mission accomplished anyway. From a certain point of view. Of course, there /are/ certain benefits that come with running the communications infrastructure, so I shouldn't /deliberately/ tempt any local warlords to make any hostile takeover attempts."
"If you can make all these towers, what then?"
"Then I can start making a bit of money by charging people to send messages back and forth, faster than any horse or boat. And I could start learning more about the local cities - and maybe even an excuse to start traveling further away from Lake Erie, to extend the network. And possibly more importantly, I'll have learned something about what the post-human intelligences who nudge whole societies thataway are, and aren't, willing to let happen, which could give some clue about how they got to be post-human intelligences in the first place."
"That seems a lot to learn from some towers and mirrors."
"I'd learn even more from what happens if I /can't/ put together a simple light-telegraph line. Besides, that's technology for you - put together some tricks, and you can do something; and put a new set of tricks on those, and some more on those, and you can reach the moon."
DataPacRat
Truthseeker
- Location
- Niagara, Canada
One significant difference between radio comms and optical comms is that, in general, optical comms require a straight line-of-sight between transmitter and receptor and radio comms don't. Whatever antennas are emitting the AI hacking signals could be just about anywhere in the area; but any optical hacking attempts require more careful positioning, and since Bunny hasn't been seeing mysterious flashes of light all over the place, she thinks it unlikely that there are too many AIs set up to do so.
Even if external light-flash spam becomes an issue, the problem can be greatly reduced with a simple filter: A telescope focused on the target heliograph.
( https://www.youtube.com/user/rafowell has several videos of heliographs, both close ups of historical models and in use dozens of miles away.)
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wouldn't a laser on a high rise building targeted on the lense of the telescope still be enough to disrupt signal transfer?
- Status