I've written this story before - or half-written it, anyway. It was posted on SpaceBattles because I wasn't aware of why SV was a distinct site at the time, and I stopped posting at the end of 2016 for writer's block and motivational reasons.
But hey, it's 2020, the future is completely uncertain now, I have some fun ideas on machine learning and Minds that Iain M Banks (RIP) never got to try out, and SV seems like a much nicer place where I won't have to constantly defend the concepts of anarcho-socialism or using "they/them" pronouns for a character!
So here's You Needed Opponents With Gravitas, Redux. I'm changing the course somewhat while sensibly cannibalizing what I'd already written. I still have most of the same ideas I want to express, but I think I have a better handle on the method and tools to explore those ideas.
From 1976-1978 CE, the General Contact Unit Arbitrary hung around the solar system with its sensory units fixed fairly firmly on the Earth. Contact personnel and drones investigated, collected, contemplated, and eventually decided against contacting or destroying the planet or its predominate mammalian species (the "destruction" being less of a firm plan and more the after-dinner suggestions of a few crew members on too many psychotropic substances).
In 2002 CE, a routine jump through the expanding shell of Earth's electromagnetic signals resulted in an unexpected slamming of the metaphorical brakes, as numerous powerful Minds took a look at the broadcast history of the planet's last thirty years and said, "Wait, what the fuck?"
Take Star Trek, add some libertarian-socialism (classical definition, not American Libertarianism), put some hyperintelligent AIs in charge, and change "no meddling" to "meddle but be discrete about it." The Culture is the setting/semi-protagonists of the eponymous Culture novels by Scottish sci-fi author Iain M. Banks. They're a vast conglomerate of humanlike species who, several thousand years ago, came together to form a kind of federated near-civilization under the rule of benevolent AIs called Minds. Individual humans have access to vast resources, usually communally-distributed, personal freedom to the very limits of not hurting others, and all the utopian sci-fi inventions: sex changes via thinking about it hard and a few months of gradual hormone change, mind pattern copying for remote duplication of experts and restoration from death, and a ridiculous cornucopia of non-harmful drugs for useful and entertainment purposes. People don't have to work but often volunteer to help the Minds just to have something to do.
Naturally, a number of the books question the cost, viability, and philosophical underpinnings of this utopia, because what else can you do with a utopia in this kind of fiction?
I try to have at least brief explanations of any concepts I've borrowed from the Culture books in the narration, and I'm happy to clarify or edit for anything unclear - odds are plenty of other people will too, the series seems to be a favorite among sci-fi fans with left-liberal leanings and optimistic tastes.
Meh. I'm not a big canon guy. The point of divergence is technically the observational visit from the GCU Arbitrary in 1976 (Culture book 3, State of the Art), but that doesn't really change anything. More significantly, by the time our story begins in 2011, the Culture has been back for nine years, but I consider anything not expressly mentioned in Worm to be open for changing, like the fairly undefined socioeconomic and political situation in the US of Earth-Bet. Also it's been a while since I read the whole doorstopper of Worm and I may have just forgotten some stuff. That may or may not be changed if pointed out. I burned out on Ward, I'm sure there's cool new info about the nature of powers and shards in there but I'm not gonna worry about it. And Wildbow's WoG is just trolling, folks, c'mon.
This is phone-posted without being beta read because I really need to post something and put pressure on myself to write more. Feedback appreciated.
logindex localcalendar 2011.01.08 localrefraction Earth-Bet localmunicipality Brockton Bay
I put my hands down on my bedroom desk, encircling one of the only two things left on it. I'd carefully set aside all my homework, backup homework, notebooks, old participation and punctuality trophies and ancient photos (except the one of Mom), diligently focusing on the work and not thinking about what I was clearing the desk for (don't think about pink elephants, don't think about pink elephants…) until I'd finished.
The business card was the normal size, off-white (eggshell? linen? I hadn't exactly been able to focus when we did color theory in art), uncreased even after being pulled from the ratty velcro wallet I'd gotten in junior high. The writing was shining silver, blocky capital letters, and small, just six words on three lines with a lot of blank space around them.
I put my index fingers on opposite sides of the card and flexed it. It wasn't any thicker, any heavier than it should be.
It was just the metaphorical weight of the power behind it. All in my head. Much more comforting.
"… hello? … testing." I refused to look at the other object on my desk while I talked to the business card. Nothing was happening… would that make it fake, or just capable of telling when I was being serious?
It was there. It was definitely real, whole, and not a hallucination. There weren't any painkillers still in my system. I was thinking straight (I thought). Except I was contemplating something that was definitely insane.
Dad was asleep. We'd left the hospital around six, and he'd collapsed pretty much right when we got home.
He'd been confronted with what had been going on for over a year, and I'd scared him. I wondered how he would have felt if he'd know where I'd really been. (Probably really been)
Or what I was about to do. I swept the card and the other item into one hand, then shoved them into the pocket of a thinning grey hoodie as I shoved it on. I could pull it tight enough to hide most of my face. That would work for now, keep my identity concealed (Maybe I wouldn't even keep the same face if I went through with it).
Taking a possibly insane, definitely reckless, late night stroll across the not-quite-the-Docks-but-nobody-goes-there-because-it-might-as-well-be-the-Docks wasn't something that would help Dad's stress level either. But screw it. I was either right, in which case I had one pretty damn higher power looking out for me, or I was completely full-on physical hallucinations losing it, and it would probably be better to get shanked in an alley than to have my mind break down one neuron at a time.
And it gave me time to think. And remember.
"Okay. Say I believe this, this is real, you're real. You'll just give me powers?"
"You agree your world needs to change. Change requires power. Exceptional individuals are one of the axes we like to balance our fulcrums on."
The words pushed over me without settling in. I had other things on my mind. "I can be a hero."
"Do you want to?"
I looked up, sat up suddenly. I tried to sit up; the chair had moved with me, flowing with my back and still flawlessly supportive. "What do you mean? Of course I do!"
The answer came after a pause, considered, and as yet another question. "What defines a hero?"
"Helping people!" I threw my arms up, full of all the mad energy I hid and stomped down, because a crazy reject girl was even more pathetic than just a reject. My elation had spun out into howling fury. Why not? I couldn't express any of it in reality. So why not here, when I still half-knew it had to be a dream? "Stopping villains. Being fair - no, justice, being just, being honest, being good!"
"Heroes." They didn't think highly of them, the word made that clear. "An injustice has been done to you, Taylor, just as an injustice has been done to your species." The same words that had greeted me at the start of this delusion.
The expanded explanation made me a lot madder.
The south neighborhoods of Brockton Bay at night were a different landscape from their daytime form. The street signs and building numbers didn't define them any more. If you wanted to see what actually mattered, you had to look until you saw islands of light in a dark ocean, unlit mountains of empty and sealed buildings rising above them.
But like the lucky explorers, I had a guide. My Virgil was silent and invisible, seen only through their actions. Shadows lit up in the lenses of my glasses, doing the work of broken and inadequate lighting, and more, showing the street as brightly as the noon sun. Words and arrows in a smooth, crisp font guided me.
"Pothole, 3.1 meters away, chance of collapse if approached."
Probability of confrontation: 36%
Probability of force: 2%
Encounter Danger: negligible. Encounter Stress: high."
The directions grew more complex, the further I walked.
"[Pulaski Motors]" over the faded pattern where a sign had once been mounted on a wall. "Closure: 2009. Cause: income insufficient to pay rent. Employees: 8 (As of today: 6 unemployed, 1 dead)."
"Residence: Greenland Apartments. Residents: 11 (squatters). Former Residents: 85. Condemned: April 19, 1997. Cause: Collateral Damage (Marquis vs. Kaiser, April 3, 1997). Insurance Payment to Landlord: November 8, 2006. Reconstruction: Coming Soon!"
I couldn't stop reading them. Couldn't decide if I was being told that my problems didn't matter. Or that I could have had it worse. That it wasn't my fault? Maybe just that I'd been hurt like other people had.
And I couldn't decide if I believed any of those. I didn't feel mad, or justified, or comforted. Just sick. And unable to look away.
"Larinioides cornutus, furrow orb spider, 1.78 meters away. Please do not squish."
I stopped and looked. It was the classic web shape, wheel-like, spokes and circles, between a hydrant and a signpost-sans-sign. Coastal spray or dew had gathered on it, little thick beads of water across the web. It was empty. Did that mean the spider was hungry too? I didn't know much about arachnids, besides freshman science, idle Wikipedia browsing, and dad's campy old sci-fi movies. I knew the webs were to catch prey. And everything needs to eat.
The note from my guide, the only direct request so far, had caught my mind. The spider glowed in my glasses, stood out far more than something that tiny would even in daylight. A fat little body, smaller than my fingernail, with what I thought of as a "very spidery" head, the flat top, eight eyes, little mouth claw things. It was kind of cute, once I rejected the icky feeling it immediately conjured.
"Yeah, I get the metaphor," I told the thin air. My voice was hoarse, and probably angrier than I needed to be.
If my guide was going to continue the parable, it was interrupted by the scream.
I ran.
Towards the sound, of course.
It wasn't even out of the way. Maybe not even in the Docks - close to Oakwood and the tech companies that had displaced the manufacturing, straddling the border of depressed, dying old Brockton and vibrant, advanced new Brockton. An empty lot turned into a cash-grab parking lot, and a tech worker - "Mohammed Idrisi, 29, Programmer ($48,765 annual) at BeneTech Data Solutions" - with his back against his Ford Assurance's window. The only reason he wasn't on the asphalt was that he'd caught the squat sedan's side mirror in his right armpit. His left hand was on the stab wound - "27% chance fatal, 47% without hospitalization within one hour."
There were six Empire guys, from skeletal to steroidal, all men, if you were generous. One ostensible boy - "Tim Bailey, 17, No Juvenile Record" - a face I'd maybe seen in the halls at Winslow once or twice. He was the one with the knife out, at least before they saw me. He was the one whose muttered "-sand nigger," reached my ears.
I hadn't approached undetected. My converse were old and squeaky, and the streets here full of pebbles. I got the attention of about half the pack, including the biggest guy, the giant meat-wall of a skinhead that looked to be in charge - "Matt Fletcher, 31, Arrest Record, No Convictions, Empire 'Sergeant' inducted 09/16/2003 via Assault with a Deadly Weapon on-" okay, he was in charge, and I didn't need to know that much. I knew he had a gun, for one thing, a little black boxy "Glock 17, manufactured-" pistol, I didn't need to know more. He half-raised it.
"Fuck off. You want to die for this n-" His words across the cold air, the quiet lot, just shuffling feet and stirring hands, choking gurgling, hot anger. Hate. Not the same hate, but hate I knew.
I considered whether I was going to jump in - no, of course I fucking didn't, why else was I here? "Do it."
Maybe he thought I was talking to him - or would have, if he had the time to think.
His gun melted, exploded and splattered chunks of molten metal over his hand and shirt, but he didn't get the time to react to that either. He went flying into the lot, skidded across it on his jacket a dozen feet before the involuntary backflip, shedding some of that scalp on the asphalt, and landing smack on his face.
The gun's clip (magazine? I didn't watch a lot of cop shows) hung in midair, where the gun had been blown apart without touching the ammunition. It emptied onto the ground, each bullet bursting in a flash of harmless light.
I didn't really catch everything that happened. I had to rebuild it in my mind afterwards. The next nearest guy, addict skinny with a gross patchy beard, had a silvery blur rip through his shirt, punch right through the gun tucked into his wasteband, causing one of the bullets to burst in light - and force, which sent him reeling into the second guy, another meaty gym rat, who threw him out of the way.
First one was down, but the second left standing. That probably just flagged him for more force. The silver flickered in front of him, caught the light of the one good streetlamp for a moment, then he just hit the ground, groaning while an invisible giant stepped on him, even the asphalt pebbles around him stuck in place. The third one, face tattoo with a big blonde mustache, managed to turn and get one foot off the ground. His other one left involuntarily. He flew at the nearest building at car crash speed, stopping inches short of it, and toppled over.
Fourth guy, skinny, tall, too much like Dad with less hair, got out one syllable of "Cape!" before he was thirty feet in the air and just shouting. Well, screaming. Then he was two feet in the air. Then fifty. Then fainted, and on the ground.
Tim, for some reason, waved his knife at me, then spun to his target. The handle shattered, plastic shards stabbing into his hand, and he screamed, staggering back. He stumbled again, like an invisible harasser was shoving him, and fell on his ass.
I hadn't moved my hands out of my hoodie's pocket.
I looked at Mohammed. His face was pale, drained, his eyes barely able to focus on me. "Can you stabilize him?"
A faint hiss and a sparking green mist appearing around his gut wound were the answer. He finally slumped off the car mirror, falling onto the parking lot, propped against his car. "Consciousness recovery in 6.9-7.4 minutes," my glasses updated.
It took me a couple seconds to work up the courage to dig around in his pockets. His phone was in there, with an ultra manly rugged case or whatever black rubber and plastic was supposed to be. The "LOCKED, ENTER KEY CODE" screen just flickered and vanished when I picked it up. Trying not to feel too invasive, I found the call function, put in 9-1-1, and hesitated before hitting call. But I had to do something, right? Be part of the process at some point.
"911 Emergency."
I- okay, how was I going to-
"Hello?"
Shit. I was taking too long. "Empire attack. Victim needs attention." I rasped it, my sorry childhood imitation of Alexandria, the first voice I could think of. "2200 block of High Street. Attackers are down."
"Are there any parahumans involved? Are you a parahuman?"
"No," I said to both, honestly, and dropped the phone. The weight in my hoodie pocket reappeared, a bit less than the phone. I tried not to touch it. Or think about it.
I tried not to run, to hold myself to a walk, ignoring the distant voice from the speakers. I still didn't feel comfortable pulling my hood down until I was five blocks away, turning me into an identifiable teen girl walking just past the Docks around midnight: weird, sure, but probably not connected to any crimes.
I heard the police sirens, but managed to avoid the cars. Without having to ask Virgil for help.
My front door loomed. I could sneak around, maybe get in the back. Maybe they could levitate me to my window?
Or I could just go in and face the misery head on. I'd faced Nazis head on already tonight. What was some deep-seated trauma on top of that?
Okay, it was still a lot. I wasn't ready to talk about it (I would never be ready to talk about it).
I had already hopped the broken step and had my hand on the handle. Adrenaline made bad decisions.
Dad opened the door. Neither of us said anything.
"I just needed some air. I was safe." I guess I was used to breaking our silences. Dad stepped back and let me through the little foyer (fancy name for a ten square foot hallway).
I slumped onto the couch. He'd been watching some rerun network. Looked like Columbo. Dad approached, but didn't sit down, just leaned on the back of the couch at the other side. "Taylor," he started, paused. "Do you want to-"
"No," I intercut immediately. Paused myself. "But I will, Dad. We'll talk. I promise. Soon." I couldn't set a day, couldn't have that looming (I had enough looming, a mountain waiting to fall on me).
"That's- that's fine." I didn't think he wanted to try and wrap his head around it now, either. At least he'd tried, asked something. That was more than he'd done in months.
I watched the TV for a minute. There were three or four cable networks like this. "Classics" or whatever. Not really an honest name. What they meant was "pre-capes." "Dad. You saw this all happen. Do you think." My throat was dry. Dumb. It wasn't anything I hadn't asked myself a dozen times. "Do non-capes still matter?" I grabbed the remote. Flipped until I found something. Rebuilding Marseille? A panel show, and desperate enough for ratings to have the Leviathan's head on the chyron.
"Taylor, if- does-"
"It's not about me," I said, brazenly lying. As if he could tell. "The world, dad. The one I'm supposed to live in. Could I change it, if I wanted to? Just me. Just Taylor. No powers."
He took a while to find the words. "I want to say yes." He took a little less time to find the next ones. "Annette would have said yes. But longer, and better."
"But."
"But." He wiped his eyes, squished his face with his fingers. "Maybe not. People without powers? Yes. People still matter, still make things change." He had to find the strength to add, "People like you and me?"
"Not quite the same as CEOs and senators."
"No." He said it barely above a whisper.
I pushed myself off the couch. I hugged my dad. It had been a while. He'd tried at the hospital. I hadn't let him. "I'll make breakfast tomorrow," I said, and walked to the stairs, hoping I hadn't made dad think I was suicidal or anything.
I returned to my desk. Pulled out both items of the night from my hoodie pocket. Put them back on the desk.
Put both hands on the card. Looked at the silver pen.
The silvery pen-shaped object.
"Okay. I'm in."
The almost-pen, the light weight, my Virgil, flared to a thumb-thick bulb at the end, lifted off my desk, hovering vertically above the card. A ripple of blue and orange light ran down it, projected on the air just above its surface. "Thank you, Taylor."
"Conveying your agreement to the GCV Sufficiently Advanced Technology now." There was only a fraction of a pause. "Welcome to Contact, Special Circumstances division, Agent Hebert."
It's funny, I was just thinking of this story a day or two ago, checking your SB profile, with news of "updates soon" that was a year out of date, and yet here you are. Welcome back! The name change briefly confused me, in that "surely I hadn't missed a Culture story..."
I've enjoyed all your works, but this one is a little bit extra special for being among the rare Culture fanfic there is. I imagine it's hard to write for. I greatly appreciate the effort.
Edit: my wholly useless feedback is that I have little but praise and encouragement; this seemed fine, if I remember correctly it's a fair bit more visually/emotionally framed, lighter on the narration/telling than the original version, but I might be conflating several chapters into one in the remembering. I like the tone it sets, it's a little bit more '2020 / everything is fucked' than the original's somewhat more detached framing, it paints the mindspace pretty well.
I liked the earlier version of this for its campy tone and humor, but I love this one for the more polished writing, with a great intro so far. Watched and waiting for more.
Depending on how much of her canon path was the result of precog manipulation via Contessa/Simurgh etc, to a being with the analytical capabilities of a Mind she may well have the metaphorical equivalent of giant red arrows pointing at her saying "Somebody's Important Pawn, Yoink Immediately".
"Conveying your agreement to the GCV Sufficiently Advanced Technology now." There was only a fraction of a pause. "Welcome to Contact, Special Circumstances division, Agent Hebert."
You folks have no idea how flattering it is that people remember the original version of this fic! I'm still keeping large parts of that skeleton, just trying to trim some fat and add muscle to the parts I felt were weak. And to make it angrier and more punk rock.
"I know it seems obvious, but I am saying it for a reason," my host continued. The avatar of the General Contact Vehicle Sufficiently Advanced Technology was a genderless (androgyne?) human speaking in Marain, the Culture's language. I had woken up mumbling it and moved towards full fluency as the day went on; it had been provided by the knuckle-sized pill I'd been given and swallowed last night, which I had been told had now morphed into a nanoscopic web over my brain called a neural lace; it sounded a lot like what we'd learned about the corona pollentia, except that instead of just a superpower, it gave me a new language, and instant access with a thought to a database hundreds of times larger than all human knowledge. All Earth human knowledge. Human meant different things in Marain.
In Marain, anyone who wanted to be human was. Or at least, that was how it seemed to me. The term covered dozens of basic types of people from about one to three meters tall, with a wide variety of extremities and digits. The two arms, two legs, and a head (typically-but-not-always with similar organs to mine) were about the only universal features. And that was just the baselines! Someone with wings, extra arms, or an exoskeleton might just be a human with cybernetics or genofixes, or actually what I'd call an alien in English. And they were pretty much all compatible in ways I was not ready to ask for details on.
And then "human" in Marain still wasn't the same as "person," which had an even broader definition!
And they all knew who I was.
That was a chilling thought, so I had decided to thoroughly ignore it.
"Okay. Powers are a Trojan Horse, a poison apple from bad aliens. You're good aliens who want to help us. What else?"
The Sufficiently Advanced Technology's avatar was on the thin side for a human - its body reminded me of the 50s sci-fi aliens in flying saucer UFOs, or an elf. Narrow in most dimensions, except vertical. The eyes were definitely not human, though - not Earth human, anyway. Shimmering, actually glowing violet irises that moved with absolute precision. "Your comparison is flattering, but not entirely accurate. We don't know what the end purpose of Scion or parahuman powers fully are, only that our sources believe it to be dire."
"That's the conspiracy, Cauldron?" I had tried to remember everything they'd told me in the first offer, but being teleported out of my locker a couple seconds before I would've hurled, to a talk in space in a cafe-style setting, hadn't been ideal conditions for remembering everything.
"Our primary and most effective unwitting source, yes." With a wave of the avatar's fingers, a web of faces and icons linked by glowing lines sprung up in my view, gave me a few moments to look - the Protectorate, the federal government, the Thanda, the Yàngbǎn, the Elite, and more, all with some kind of leverage from Cauldron - then shrunk to icon-size, hovered at the edge of my vision. "Their preparations for him are even more apocalyptic than their efforts against your Endbringers. I suspect they know more about his aims, but they're quite reticent even within their headquarters. There is clearly a shared knowledge base, established before we arrived and began to surveil them. I can infer much, but not everything. It is possible we are lacking some key component to Scion's actions. Or that in the end, the morality of parahuman powers is irrelevant. Secondly, I will caution you, Taylor." The violet eyes were serene, gentle, and totally focused on me. I was intensely aware of my heartbeat, my sweat, the churning acid in the pit of my stomach, before I closed my eyes, just for a second, then tried to meet their gaze. "The Culture wants to help your species. I want to help you and your species. This is at least three goals between two significant actors. We are acting to benefit you, by our standards, but that does not make us 'the good guys.'"
I was still swallowing some of the feelings their words had spawned, which had matured from bodily unease to mental stress, but I suddenly felt like I had enough to go on. An edge piece of a puzzle that I could at least describe. "I shouldn't be too trusting?"
The avatar smiled. Their teeth were entirely flat, although not all the same length. A human mouth, but not a human mouth - I was going to have to get over this or I'd drive myself nuts just trying to sort out who was what. "I won't say that. Your trust is helpful. I will act in your best interest. Contact and Special Circumstances have millennia of practice and numerous mistakes we are determined not to repeat, when it comes to accelerating change in lower civilizational levels. However, taking all those assertions as fact, I still urge you to think for yourself. If you feel questions or doubts regarding my motives or suggestions, ask them. They will be welcomed." The avatar's close-lipped smile was easier to handle. Calm, controlled, and patient. Not exactly unfamiliar, but… I was avoiding admitting they reminded me of Mom. Something now missing from my life. "I won't ask you to make every decision about the the future of homo sapiens. But I will ask you to be the final decider for the future of Taylor Hebert."
What did it say that I still felt ready to run away from being comforted?
"Alright. I'll try to be cynical about everything," I offered, forcing a grimace of a half-smile onto my face. "That can't be it for the preparations you want."
The avatar flashed the genuine grin again, just barely different enough from the last one that they felt alive and human. I wasn't sure if it was; that really hadn't been clear when it was introduced as the (a?) voice of the Mind. "Of course not. You confirmed this morning that you would like to appear parahuman."
"Yeah." I shuffled in the chair. It resembled a cafe chair, but it sure didn't feel like wrought iron with minimal padding. I could probably have conquered Brockton Bay with that chair alone. "If I'm going to be the center of attention, everyone will think I have powers anyway. There's always suspicion about anyone that's an amazing speaker or inspiring or whatever."
The avatar tipped its head slightly, a bit to the side, not quite agreeing but accepting.
"And…"
"And?"
"You said I was one. Would be, would have been one. In the locker."
"Yes. We don't look inside brains without asking; too much knowledge of form and function makes it effectively impossible to do so without discerning some portion of your thoughts. We consider that invasive, impolite. So I have not scanned your brain to see the parasitic growth you call the corona pollentia and gemma." The avatar sipped their tea, which smelled something like oranges mixed with peanut sauce, yet still appetizing. "Monitoring the growth of your neural lace, however, confirmed it is there, and was attempting to grow."
"Was. You-" I swallowed, tried to consider what that meant, what I felt about it. "Stopped it."
"I was not going to let it hurt you." The airy, academic tone boiled away, and the Sufficiently Advanced Technology shone in the eyes of its avatar - the 44 km long galactic spacecraft, carrying over half a million crew, with the constructive and destructive capability to match my world's entire human civilization. This was the Mind that had first greeted me, had awed me into calm from the repulsion of the locker, and it was focusing its entire will into this statement.
I tried to think straight, not to fall into the image in my head of being cradled in the hand of a benevolent god. "The power. It would have hurt me?"
The avatar nodded. "I've been observing your Earth for nearly a decade. I haven't needed to invade any minds in order to see that there isn't a single power that's been of use against the traumas that spawned it. If they didn't simply exacerbate them."
Traumas. I wasn't- (wasn't traumatized? Really, Taylor? Can you say that? Can you list what's been done to you, go through that notebook, without your voice cracking, your eyes leaking? Don't lie to yourself, at least) - wasn't able to dispute that, if I was any example of the people that got powers. "Why?"
A stupid question, but the Mind didn't seem bothered. "Uncertain. Cauldron's original source seems to think these colony "Entities" provide their powers for data collection. They attribute power limitations and malformations to filtration." I tried not to let the avatar's current behavior - placid face, seething voice - remind me of Emma. It wasn't a person. It was a Mind. "Ridiculous. If true, neither of our oppositional forces have any comprehension of scientific processes."
"What, um. What does that mean?" My stupid leg wouldn't stop twitching. It was under the table, but the ship clearly saw.
The avatar relaxed its expression, returning to the warm smile, the light in its eyes dimming to a mere glimmer when the smile reached them too. "There are many things like Scion in the greater galaxy. Hegemonizing swarm entities, smart matter, are capable of growing to great size and complexity, and of significant danger to lower civilizational levels."
I (consciously?)flickered the question through my neural lace, picked out visual examples with my eyes, saw the globs of replicating, consuming materials, devouring people and facilities, but ultimately a pest, an infection to be handled by specialists but not a true enemy, not to the Culture. "Dangerous to us."
"Very much so. And yet, not governed by a human intellect, let alone a Mind, and the erratic nature of the parasitic powers is significant evidence of such. This is not science," the avatar said, and a video flashed up in my vision, a blonde girl younger than me in a small room, the dull antiseptic surroundings of a medical facility. My anxiety wriggled in my stomach. Her surroundings didn't remain that way for long, long rusty spikes and corkscrewing thorns growing out of an expanding circle of otherworldliness. She didn't react, saying nothing even when orderlies rushed in to pull her out. A second video: a red-haired woman surrounded in flame, eyes just as blank at first, light flooding back into them, like they were capturing the fire, and she roused, swollen with energy, racing through the fire, hurling it around. Burnscar. Slaughterhouse Nine. "At my most generous, I will call it an approximation of science by a crude machine mimicking consciousness, lacking any legitimate processes. At my most repulsed? This is torture. The abuse of supposed subjects of testing for no valid purpose." The avatar put their cup down - then pushed the entire tea set off the table. There was no clatter. It had stopped existing before it hit the ground. "I will not experiment on you." The avatar paused. "Not as an individual. And not without permission. Our shared goal is to find the best method for accelerating your culture's development, while healing the damage done to, and by, parahumans. There will be some testing involved simply to specialize our methods. I hope that is acceptable."
"Am I the experimenter or the experiment?" I asked. Maybe I was taking the advice to be cynical a bit too seriously (maybe I couldn't make myself believe in anything sincerely good just yet).
"Both," the avatar was amused, encouraging. "That's the nature of intervention, after all. You will be changing yourself while you change your world." They settled their hands onto the table, steepled them, and relaxed in their chair. "Now. Let's discuss your parahuman powers, or the facsimile we will be creating."
"What power should- can I have?" Should was a bad choice (don't surrender control right when you've finally been given some!) - but I hoped the Mind would ignore it.
"Effector fields." The Mind pushed something to my neural lace again, flooding my view with a swarm of images, articles, and videos, almost overwhelming - but they began to filter themselves immediately, to sort into trees and structures, hiding portions behind links and cross-references. Was the ship modeling it on a wiki? Was I?
I picked up enough from a scan, feeling awkward for reading in the middle of a conversation - but I'd been doing that all day, and the Sufficiently Advanced Technology hadn't once shown the irritation and impatience I knew it had to be feeling at my slow, feeble human brain. "This does… everything."
The avatar released something between a chuckle and a titter. "In a sense. Your world's progress along these theoretical lines has been severely damaged by attempting to incorporate the garbage results of powers. Effector fields aren't the most perfectly finessed tool I could provide," they said in what sounded like genuine pain at the aesthetic flaw, "but they are the most adaptable. With the power limited by your scale compared to mine, you will still be able to move mountains."
"Thanks. I don't know if I want to be the size of a city. No offense." I hoped it wasn't offensive. We were talking about powers, throwing my life end on end, the fate of humanity, but the Mind seemed (to my feeble social skills) to be mostly amused, excited, curious. The cracks of furious anger had only been directed at other cosmic actors, like Scion. Right?
"None taken. If I desired to always bring my full scope to bear, I wouldn't use an avatar. And if I were the kind of ship that didn't fully appreciate the human experience, I wouldn't be here, or crewed." The ship had known everyone we'd run into on the walk to this cafe on its underside, too. That made sense, of course. They lived here. What would it be like, to live in an intelligent, powerful city? It would have to like you, right?
Maybe not Brockton Bay. I wasn't eager to talk to my hometown. It didn't feel like it would become the kind of intelligence that was friendly with its inhabitants.
I wrenched my mind back to the subject at hand. Not that the Mind seemed mind this pause any more than my neural lace educational breaks. "I'd have to be a Tinker, right?"
The avatar shook its head. "Forget their paradigms. You will be using technology: that doesn't mean we need to make that obvious." Three new videos in my view, appearing as real as any before, but obviously created: me, as a hero.
Me with crystalline growths from my shoulders and wrists, crackling lightning jumping between them and arcing into Purity.
Me in a hood and cloak, stepping between shadows and teleporting through them, putting a dueling Uber and Aegis to sleep with a touch.
Me appearing in the eyes of everyone in sight, speaking, and the moment they hear me, they freeze in place, a captive audience.
"Variety is quite possible."
I leaned back, the faux-metal chair bending and stretching to support my back. "That might be too much to choose from. What-" I tried not to bite my lip. "What power was I going to get? From the- the parasites." I needed to evict the word 'alien' from my vocabulary. Not that there was really a direct Marain analog anyway. No easy way to say 'other, alien, outsider.'
"Uncertain. The restrained growths in your mind linked to areas associated with multi-tasking and pattern-seeking, along with some input-output nodes tied to motor control and proprioception. As an educated guess, some form of minion control."
I frowned. Me? A Master - a mastermind? A leader, a controller? It felt…
I didn't know exactly how I felt, but the Mind's offense at intentions of the parasites sounded right. I wanted control, yeah. Absolutely. Of my life. Not… something? Some one? I tried not to picture myself as some new Heartbreaker and failed. "Not what I want."
"Not a helpful ability for your health," the avatar agreed.
I almost asked what would be helpful, but I couldn't. I needed to make the decision for Taylor.
That didn't mean I couldn't talk it through, right? "Control over me. A power that affects myself. An Alexandria package?"
"A useful basis," the Mind agreed.
I wasn't just fixing myself, though. And change meant facing down people with real power. Dad went up against the mayor and executives. That was just for jobs in a dying town. "And an area power. Big, and strong. Something to shut down threats. And rescue people." I wasn't going to be a hero. I'd seen enough of the heroes to know what they really were. But I was going to help people. I had to.
"A powerful and adaptable theme sounds in order. A large slice of the pie that an effector field offers, though smaller than its entirety."
"Yeah." I sat up, looked around. From this cafe, jutting out of the side of the main body of the Sufficiently Advanced Technology, I could see its field envelope, the ship's effective body, and two more of the thirteen separate vehicles that made the one singular General Contact Vessel. And beyond the envelope, moons. Titan, a golden atmospheric haze hiding a surface that looked hauntingly Earth-like from afar. Iapetus, squished out from the orb shape I'd thought all planets (moons?) had. And behind them, the swirling giant of Saturn. "Gravity. Gravity is powerful, and- important, right?" I cringed. Had my freshman Basic Sciences class been hell? Yes, absolutely. And I still should have remembered more. I should have looked it up before I sounded like such an ape to the artificial super-intelligence.
"Very important," the avatar said. (It wasn't just humoring me, I wasn't a complete idiot.) "Systemizing gravity's relationship with other fundamental interactions is a large step towards the technology that birthed effector fields. For all the Culture might seem powerful to you, we do regularly yield to gravity - or request its assistance. Gravitational forces are the basis of our Orbitals." The avatar looked me directly in the eyes. "A self-perfected form with gravitational projection?"
"Yeah. Yes. That sounds good. I can use that." Clamping my jaw shut when I was done saying what I needed to say was the next skill I had to learn.
"Aesthetics should be quite entertaining to design. I urge you not to give too much weight to the input of the populace, however."
"Input?" Gravity didn't feel like it was affecting me right now. It felt like the chair and floor had vanished from under me, and I was free falling.
"Not everyone onboard is still fascinated with your world. Nine years of observation has been enough for the trend to rise and fall several times. But active intervention is quite interesting to anyone still paying attention, and has brought back a few wavering enthusiasts."
"Enthusiasts?" I hoped my voice wasn't as squeaky as it felt.
"Curiosity is a near-universal sentient urge. Heavily selected for on the path to awareness. For every dossier or plan I will devise for you, you'll have at least five from people who have spent years studying your Earth, or some particular part of it."
"They're part of- they're all part of this."
The avatar put its hand, cold and smooth, over my fist. That made me realize I was clenching my hand into a fist. And hyperventilating. "They can be. They would like to help you."
"They- everyone knows me. They all know…"
"What has happened to you. Yes, in broad strokes. If my passengers want detailed knowledge about your world, they have to go down there and be present. My recordings and assessments are shared based on my own values. Sharing information you clearly want to keep private would hurt you. I have no interest in doing that."
"Go there. Be present. Is- did anyone-"
"None of my crew have been party to the campaign against you." The ship's voice softened from that titanium sentence. "I won't pretend every member of the Culture is a paragon, but they are not taught to take pleasure in harassment or ostracizing. The competitive urge is addressed in healthier diversions."
I clung to that. "What will they - offer me?"
"Planning advice. Assessment of other actors. On the ground operatives. Not everyone is the dilettante of our promotional material. I am openly a Special Circumstances vessel, and if I do say so myself, somewhat of an exemplar even within the Culture for being involved. I have drawn a considerable number of like-minded individuals, concerned by the problems of others." The avatar's grin was… distant, nostalgic? "What use has paradise if you cannot share it?"
"Generous," I mumbled. "If- how long will everything take, to prepare?"
"Two weeks."
I closed my eyes. Steadied myself. "I can do two weeks."
"Taylor." The avatar waited until I opened them again. "Two weeks here. I would like you to have a chance to rest. Bodily augmentation and power design will be a process with considerable feedback requested, and the better you know my crew, the less their assistance will intrude on you. It would hardly be an inappropriate amount of time for you to take away from school."
"They'll be twice as worse when I get back," I thought aloud.
It seemed strange that such a flat-toothed, herbivorous, skinny avatar could have such a shark-like smile. "I believe my crew and I have a number of ideas for that as well."
"What- what about my dad?"
The avatar leveled the full power of their stare at me again. I tried not to cringe, although the chair folded around my slight movement and was still very comfortable. "That depends on how much you want to tell him." I picked up on the implication. (Be honest. With yourself, with him, with them, with someone, just for once, Taylor!)
"Okay." I stood up for the first time in what had to be hours. My legs weren't even sore. Amazing chair.
"Can you send me home?"
The avatar only smiled.
This is the hero that slew the twisted chair of Cheradenine Zakalwe, the chair that hones itself to annihilate Lung's comfy barcalounger, source of his power and arrogance. It is the seat savior of humankind. It will not be mentioned again, but you will know where it has passed.
The Chair is one of the most wonderfully indulgent pieces of writing I have seen in a while, and I adore it beyond all reason. Also the rest of the story is pretty neat too. Also also, I also remember this story from way back when, and am glad to see it reborn from the ashes. Good to have you back
