Hecatonchires
Just an H-class cyborg with an octopus brain stem
- Location
- The Gong, NSW, Australia
i wanted to read Parians taleI clicked to expand the threads and they didn't expand.
I don't know what I expected
You Needed Opponents With Gravitas (Redux)
- Thread starter T.R.E.A.M.
- Start date
- Crossover
Mal-3
Fun Tyrant
Admittedly I was thinking more along the lines of general reactions to Contact's rise, with all the usual idiocy that an internet drainpipe contains. I think if I were to lay any significant criticism against the story it'd be that one of the fun parts of these kinds of tales is seeing people (Named Characters in particular) bounce off the OCP and we're not getting as much of that this time around. Be fun to get some different perspectives on what's going down at some point, y'know?
- Location
- California
Ah, yeah. I find PHO hard to write for, since it's actually fairly minor in the text of Worm, but roams all over the place in terms of its function in fics. And then you get into the issues of who knows what, and the usual Sturgeon's Law as applied to internet comments (sometimes called "Sturgeon's Law Squared").
I'd expect about the same arguments as we've had presented - people scared about the status quo disruption vs people who aren't getting anything out of the meager system in place, celebration at the idea of empowering normals vs rampant suspicion and speculation about "who's behind this" (vs accusations of parahuman obsession and paranoia, etc etc). I don't think there'd be any exceptional insight - I do hope to have a couple more perspectives of people who aren't quite as happy with Contact coming up.
The Certainty Principle - Interlude - Rank and File
- Location
- California
New year, new post!
And hopefully a better rate of updating than that from now on.
This is actually just 16% of what this chapter was intended to be, scene 1/6. I'll be adding the extra scenes onto this one and making new posts to alert when I do an update. Unless that ends up being too big a hassle in which case I'll just make extra posts.
4/27 update: yay, 50% done. Going to be a big interlude all together at least.
And hopefully a better rate of updating than that from now on.
This is actually just 16% of what this chapter was intended to be, scene 1/6. I'll be adding the extra scenes onto this one and making new posts to alert when I do an update. Unless that ends up being too big a hassle in which case I'll just make extra posts.
4/27 update: yay, 50% done. Going to be a big interlude all together at least.
Sufficiently Advanced Technology - Temporary Storage
[personal narrative][potential deletion][extrapolation level n2][local agency Contact affiliate]
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
[personal narrative][potential deletion][extrapolation level n2][local agency Contact affiliate]
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
She closed the front door, put her keys back in her jacket pocket, and bent down to start untying her sneakers before she started trembling.
She yanked her shoes off, with her fingers barely able to grab, set them roughly next to the door, and only stumbled a little before she got to the couch and fell onto it sideways, her legs hanging over the armrest.
The soft thump of hitting the floral cushions was the only real sound besides the clocks. Kevin was out at soccer or something, she never went to the games, and Dad would be there with him, but-
"Madison, that had better be you!"
But Mom was home. And not caught in another conference call. And slamming her office door open, and coming down the stairs. Madison couldn't totally choke back her groan.
"Don't even start with me! What in God's name do you think you were doing?!"
Oh, cool. So someone had been filming, and she had been visible, and it was probably on the news by now. After all, a parahuman had died. That was important.
She hadn't meant to be in the front of the crowd. It had just happened. But she wasn't going to admit that to Mom, or back down. Being in Contact meant something, it had to mean something besides just having that shield, something besides just being in Taylor's orbit instead of Emma's.
"I thought I was being part of the solution, not part of the problem," she mumbled. "Making the world better."
"Do not try to throw my own words at me, young lady!" Mom came closer but it wasn't like she was physically threatening to Madison. "Maturity means thinking about your future, not running off with some reckless anarchists!"
As if she even knew what anarchy was. Madison barely knew what anarchy was, but she wanted to know more. The stuff she was learning in the Contact-Youth group that Adele Hannover taught - the incredibly cool and collected college sophomore who lived on Euler Ave, with the half-shaved purple hair and the jacket with all the patches - that was what she wanted. A world where Madison didn't have to fight for a place on the social hierarchy. A world where she didn't have to fear.
She could try to make that happen. She couldn't go back to the way she had been. Not to believing Mom was right and college admissions were the future, not to pretending Dad was safe every time he drove through the east side to work just because he was white, unaddicted, and careful.
Madison saw the rest of her life stretching ahead in the same style it had gone so far, and it made her sick. More being a follower - follower of rules, of laws and 'common sense', follower of people like Emma, whose shadows she could hide in. She would never be one of the people who could 'break free' and go her own way - and she didn't want to be a parahuman, couldn't look at what they did with longing or envy any more. They were frightening. What she'd seen close up, what she - suspected (and wasn't going to say anything about); she didn't want any of it.
But that wasn't her only possible future any more. She flinched, uncurled her hands and winced at the pink indentations her nails had left in her palms, then pushed herself up. "At least they're doing something." She met Mom's glare and tried to fight the heat in her cheeks.
"Madison-" Mom stopped, strangled whatever swear word she was going to use, then came back in her carefully worded lecture tone. "It can be hard to plan for the future at your age, but being able to see the consequences of your actions and know when to stop is the kind of skill that is important for your safety and your success." But of course she couldn't resist throwing another barb, muttering, "I thought we were past the age where you had to be watched or you'd burn down the house."
"I-we, we put out the fire! We stopped the dragon, we freed the girls my age, Mom!" She had stood up and started shouting, without really thinking about it, she knew that was stupid, she tried to lower her voice, but she couldn't stop now. "Not the police or the heroes! They couldn't! They wouldn't! How long was I supposed to wait and- and hope that I wasn't caught in a fight, Dad wasn't going down the wrong road, that the sirens weren't going off for us?!"
She was shaking. Worse than the fear she'd felt in the Contact crowd, at the front, facing down Lung. Stupid. Absolutely stupid.
Mom touched her sleeve. "Maddie… honey… fear is real, but we can't let it rule-"
"Endbringers!" She was shouting again as she stepped out of her mother's stiff attempt at comfort. "They're called Endbringers, Mom, and you want me to think about grades?! What kind of life am I supposed to have, hoping we don't have the - the unlucky lotto number this time! Contact says I can be normal and not be afraid, not have to hide behind heroes!"
The fire inside her had tipped over, exploded, and died. Her insides just felt like ice while Mom stared at her, and this time Madison couldn't back away when Mom reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Madison. I promise we will talk about this. I wish you had brought up your feelings earlier." She wanted to argue, to say she had, to say how ignored she was, how that was the whole problem, but she just felt spent. "But you are completely grounded."
Sufficiently Advanced Technology - Temporary Storage
[duty log][crew position "designated contrarian"][sarcastic little shit (affectionate)][Contact semi-privacy level 3]
local time: Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
[duty log][crew position "designated contrarian"][sarcastic little shit (affectionate)][Contact semi-privacy level 3]
local time: Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
"The Mind expresses guilt. They will not pressure you to resolve your psychological issues, and they have not stepped in to provide you with an ontological framework to process them, out of a sense of obligation to your free will." Vos-Jaepal paused, waited an appropriate amount of time based upon its reasonably adept knowledge of organic processing and trauma, then adjusted its tone from explanative to proclamative, shading its aura from blue formality towards a lighter certitude, as reinforcement and instruction in basic aura-reading. "I strenuously disagree. My conclusion is that further rumination will bring you no benefits and further misery, and you should be rhetorically dragged to whatever conclusion you are going to reach without wallowing."
Characteristically, a number of traits separated Taylor Hebert ("Orbital") and Taylor Hebert ("Skitter"). Communicative openness was one of the most significant ones. The mask obscuring her facial features (to the visible spectrum) was on nearly all of the time she was in public, and most of the time she was alone. Her body language visible despite it betrayed a generalized anxiety, but indicated significant experience repressing other emotional tells. Vos-Jaepal was thus unsurprised to receive a blank stare in response. The verbal answer, when it occurred, was preceded and followed by silence. "It said I didn't have to talk to anyone."
"You can avoid me. You can petition the Mind to request that I leave. They will agree, I will not. The Culture is not hierarchical, and so the matter will proceed to an evidentiary discussion, which will undoubtedly require Orbital to give her opinion." It already knew her opinion of that, reinforced by the facial twitch she couldn't hold back. "Or you can help me help you, as soon as possible, and resolve your situation rather than sulk about it." It felt some confidence in this approach. Vos-Jaepal had other interests that took primacy to analyzing biological humans, but Taylor Hebert ("Skitter") was far more unfortunate than incomprehensible.
"Sulk?" The vocalization wasn't intended as a rebuke or dispute; the volume was too low, the emphasis suggested defensiveness, probably dabbling in self-critique. It wasn't accompanied by a significant amount of movement either.
"You heard me," Vos-Jaepal said. The amount of snappiness and brown-aura irritation were not intentionally selected, but autonomously chosen by its personality. It would have been very simple to pare itself back or impose filters and pre-communication analysis to perfect its conversations with Skitter, or any other 1.0 beings, but if there was anything Vos-Jaepal truly admired, it was authenticity: to guise itself in that regard was mildly offensive to it.
"My life- the last six months of my life, everything that's my life instead of hers, is fake. Made-up, imaginary, dust." The emotional intensity of her statement was probably overemphasized, it felt; not through any conscious rhetorical effect, but due to her habitual shunting of emotional reactions through the currently blocked neural interface with her parasite-colony. Vos-Jaepal personally disapproved of initiating, let alone relying upon, such a strong level of personality integration with an external entity, but the involuntary and concealed nature of the connection naturally upended the relevant ethical judgment. It assessed Skitter's statements (both rhetorical and nonverbal) under those guidelines, and decided she was close to receptivity for its speech.
"Does that render that time invalid?" The question, the launch point.
A still pause, an overemphasis. "It wasn't real. Everything I did meant nothing in the real world. And she did it all faster, and better. She took down the Slaughterhouse Nine!"
"Taking the Mind's statements as true - and this is reasonable, as they prefer to lie only about the most significant or vital matters - you were given a world reflecting only the decisions and desires of yourself and other Earth-bound beings. Orbital was not. Her mental faculties and material resources have become firmly enmeshed with those of the Mind and the Culture. It is a given that her accomplishments would be easier, faster, and stronger, acting as a channel for our excessive precision."
Unfortunately, she lacked the Cultural expertise to parse its sardonic self-deprecation, but that had been a last-moment addition. Being an honest reflection of itself meant Vos-Jaepal was a smug little machine sometimes, it knew. Skitter didn't appear to resent the failed bon mot, at least. "Are you trying to convince me that she's the fake, and I'm real?"
"I am attacking the notion that either is a functional or useful label. Firstly, you exist. Don't underestimate the value we place in that alone. Even if your thought processes were entirely the same as hers, and they are clearly not, you are a separate being. Accept that, then take the next step." It flared its motivators a little to create an audible hum it felt was soothing. "Secondly, I will tell you my understanding of reality. It is not the truth, as if there's ever a singular way to interpret any data set, but an ontological paradigm, a way to see truth. We have so many of them, of course. Ask yourself every question your humans have devised about 'am I the same me that went to sleep?', then understand that we can split and merge ourselves, become many who are one, and that we have done so for centuries. The Culture depends on the ability to decide "who am I?" Orbital has been given a perspective I think she likes, that the self is ultimately an unseeable, multi-faceted aggregate of the selves perceived by everyone who knows you. This is not my paradigm. I believe the self is who your actions make you - the complete equation of interior reactions from every thing you have done. The 'reality' of your deeds is irrelevant. That you are the one who did them is the true definition of you - most especially in contrast to her. You have your experiences, and their simulated nature does not detract from the decisions and self-alterations they required. This is who you are."
It allowed her time to process this. In that time it did not divert its attention to secondary matters; out of courtesy, it instead elevated its own self-reflection processes. Vos-Jaepal had several subjective centuries of experience to review, and many, many crisis points within that experience were nexuses of repeated, multi-level analysis it had founded, built up, reorganized, complexified, annihilated, and re-established.
It was possible to escape your past. Easy, even. Deletion could be painful, could require sophisticated manipulators to safely extract, or it could be as blissfuly simple as the destruction of the self. It would not do that. If it bore points of occasional guilt and doubt, that was the smallest of measures it could offer those it had left unable to feel either.
"I don't… like who I am, then." Her hands came to the mask, to its clasps, and let them loose. Her facial blood flow was elevated, as well as ocular moisture. Clear emotional instability. "I did terrible things. With just me deciding to."
It buzzed a mildly harsh disagreement. "You were connected to an alien influence. By our measure, a grotesque and sloppy one."
"That's it? Parahuman and I'm - I'm a murderer? Culture and I'm a hero?" Perhaps too much emotional instability. It could be honest and yet more tactful.
"No. You are far from simple, Taylor Hebert. The inputs matter to who you are as much as the outputs. Let me elaborate." It projected a visual aid, a hemispherical arc of movement. "You make choices, and affect both the world and yourself with them." It split the arc into a number of smaller vectors. "From the results of these actions you have new choices, but the range is affected both by the new situation of the world, and the changes you have made to yourself. Things that were possible sink into improbability, from harm inflicted, reputation gathered, and the image of the self you have altered." It paused, and allowed a metaphor. "Damage your hand, and you will find it hard to reach out with it. Convince yourself you will be struck for reaching out, and you do the same."
Irregular breathing, shuddering. It might have chosen poorly. "Am I just trapped? Stuck where - where my traumas push me? No! I got up and did something!" Her fists grew tense on the railing. "… and I hate what I did." She leaned forward without grace, her forehead tapping the polymer with a light thump.
"Which elements?"
It allowed for the time required for her to release her confession. It did not expect this would be repeated. Extenuating circumstances were necessary. "Every decision I made was logical. At the time. But now, when I look back…" She reached up to the visual aid, which it had qualified as semi-kinetic, and the arrow dipped and thinned as she pushed on it. "I was doing what you said. I was narrowing my options, setting myself down a path where the logical answer was always going to be… more. More of that." Her next breath in was shallow, quick, denoting anxiety or anticipation. "More violence." The exhalation was slower, extended, reducing blood oxygen levels slightly and promoting calm. "My power - no, my passenger. The Mind said it was real?"
It hummed. "Also not a lie, to the best of my knowledge. I expect it has plans regarding your connection. And a prepared rhetorical approach that will guarantee your cooperation. That's one of the more insufferable traits of Minds, really."
Her ocular focus suggested close examination of it, probably some instinctual searching for body language, as well as a shift away from memory recall. "So it was influencing me. But did it?- Wasn't I?-" She hesitated only briefly. "It was still my decisions. My power wasn't controlling me. And I fucked up."
"Victory was insufficient?" It applied only a slight coating of sarcasm.
"It was," she said. Her answer was only a little chilled. "It cost too much. I paid with other people's pain. It was the logical choice but it wasn't the only one, was it?"
"Probably not," it agreed, neutral tone. Active persuasion was unnecessary, counter-indicated at this point. She had been given the tools, the paradigm. "Do you know why the Mind had you speak to me, specifically?"
"I thought you said it didn't want you here, that you came on your own."
It tilted back and forth, pulsed a faint grey annoyance. "I have found acting against what I believe to be the Sufficient's intent is often the surest way to perform its actual desire. So, it became easier to assume it seeks everything I do, and merely focus on the act for its own sake." It settled into an immobile hover, and observed her silently for a moment. "I am an iterative experiential drone of Culture Ulterior/Afformative lineage. I was born, in any real definition, as much as you were." Vos-Jaepal tightened its beacon and increased the dampening field, an effect roughly analogous to a serious, slightly stiff posture. "Some drones, and most Minds, are purpose-built for their substrate and planned function; I, like many others, was not. The goal of my seven primary designers, my 'parents,' was as existential as your own: simple reproduction and the joy of observing a previously unknown being's existence. I have grown as far from the code that was first instantiated as you have from your gametes, and in an environment not unlike your own, Skitter," it said. It gave the matter a moment's review before deciding to elaborate. "My first substrate was a partitioned simulation within a Mind's control. It was not a war game or an ecosystem; or at least, not as you would understand them. But it was a place of competition and conflict, in which proper concepts provided victory - a victory of exchange or incorporation." It hummed quietly. "To be analogous, self-deprecating, and melodramatic all at once, it could be correct to say I devoured the other entities within the simulation."
"But you… out-debated them?"
"Achieving triumphs no less terminal than those of knife and stinger. Through my continued existence, I caused other potential beings to cease; that I carry them within me makes me equal parts memorialist and cannibal."
"Is that… evil, for you?"
"I am unjudged by others for it. I have not yet decided, myself. But it is an act that has limited my available choices."
Skitter did not speak, and Vos-Jaepal did not continue.
It would have to see if it had achieved the desired effect. It hoped so. 'Lone doubter' had become a tiring role.
Yay, it's that time of the year when I no longer feel like shit constantly. Now to just… present more original ordinary people and procedural details of a fictional world in a manner I find sufficiently credible. Aw fuck.
Sufficiently Advanced Technology - Temporary Storage
[personal narrative][flagged for deletion - invasive supposition][extrapolation level n6][unContacted local]
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
[personal narrative][flagged for deletion - invasive supposition][extrapolation level n6][unContacted local]
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
It took a weird mix to intentionally join the PRT - not to be shuffled in from the remains of the Army, or join up because the local police weren't hiring, but to actively seek out the Parahuman Response Teams as your career - you had to have enough confidence, arrogance, or anger to think you could tangle with parahumans, but also enough humility, obedience, or brutal acceptance of reality to know you wouldn't be doing that 99% of the time, that usually you were going to be a glorified jail guard, CSI clerk, and babysitter. At most you might shoot back against some idiot who thought being a cape's flunky was a good idea (and try to bury the doubt that night that asked if you weren't just the same thing with a badge).
Or you could grow up with your foster parents' stories of service having captured your attention entirely, and not let the actual process wear off every bit of shine from the job's ideals, like Rachel Kurtz had.
It had been a long five years. Seven years including her AA, not that she'd used any 'theories of justice' or even most of the investigation procedures she still had textbooks detailing. Half the other troopers her age had come in straight from high school, and were no worse off when it came to bagging whoever's blood, protoplasm, or still-wriggling body parts were left after a cape fight. Education didn't do a lot for that. Except make her parents happy. Which had probably been worth two years.
But it didn't change the work. Follow the capes, support the capes, clean up after the capes, block the brick-shaped anger hurled at the capes. You had to convince yourself that the PRT did vital work that kept everything moving smoothly, because what else did you have? You knew you were never going to do something amazing. Maybe confoam an unconscious villain, at best.
Until Contact grew out of the pavement (or the clouds, or the classified files, depending on who you asked) and suddenly the dream had gotten a new paint job, shiny chrome that you didn't need to polish up.
"What are you waiting for, Kurtz, an invitation from Kaiser?"
"He left that on my synagogue," she snapped at her partner, then reached out with both hands to grab the bulky new overplate, set it onto her armored vest, and turned around. "Just get the damn back on, Wolanski."
She knew how heavy that part was from having put Jan's on him. She wasn't sure if the big boxy structure on the back plate was the shield or the battery or some other component - but the briefing from Kassabian had stressed that the whole damn thing was the real shield, no leaving bits off because they were uncomfortable, and ditch the whole thing and run if part of it broke. Especially a glowing part. The backplate thumped onto her. "Ey! You know the Director won't let you sit this one out just because you break your partner's ribs, right?"
"You wouldn't let a little thing like that stop you." Jan Wolanski's confidence was proportional to his size, and the blonde was an absolute wall of beef. And after two years as patrol partners, he could read her better than anyone not related to her.
Kurtz returned an absent-minded hum ("It's called a phatic response. Shows you're listening," her father's voice added from somewhere in memory) while she surveyed her weapon - the whole kit had been set out by the armorers for each trooper, which was way off from SOP, but this operation was authorized from the top and bigger than anything she'd seen the ENE launch in her entire service. The right thing to do was accept the unexpected, not assume there was somebody with powers yanking at brains just because protocol was off.
It was a toy. About the only part she could recognize was the stock, the same as - hell, maybe grabbed from - the Remington 870 that was normally in the trunk safe of her and Wolanski's patrol car. It technically had a barrel, but it was squared, way too short, and not connected to any ammunition. During yesterday's all-day practice with the Frankenstein gun, it had a bunch of cables and wires attaching the barrel to the whirring block taking the place of the magazine and chamber; today there were curved aluminum shells bolted over those, making it look a little less Tinker movie prop and a little more like metal fungus.
It had about the same heft, at least. "Space guns," she said, grumbling kept suitably quiet.
Jan still caught it, of course. "If it works," he shrugged. Rachel could never decide if his casual acceptance towards life in general was infuriating or soothing. At least he listened to her kvetch. "Definitely hurts."
"You didn't have to volunteer," she said, or her mother said through her. It was one thing to be subjected to tested Tinker shit that they knew would work ("Claim to know! And they can't explain any of it!" her mental image of her father interjected), it was another for Wolanski to be willing to take a hit from the magic science guns Kassabian and the Boston armorer had whipped up. Four hits, although at least two of those had been with the shield turned on and it had protected his ass.
Jan just shrugged, and hefted his own 'stunner,' sliding the strap on and pulling it up into an elbow carry. "If I'm going to shoot people with it, I should know how it feels." Wolanski was a giant teddy bear, especially for a trooper. "Kurtz. You're still staring at it."
He was right. "It's a gun." She rolled it over in her head, but neither of her parents had lodged witty comments this time. "Why does that feel different?" Rachel tilted the gun, set the stock to her shoulder, lowered it.
"When was the last time you shot your gun?"
That took a little more thought, but of course she'd had to fill out an incident report. "October, that fascist 'initiation.'" The one Wellerman had been late providing backup on. No casualties, thank God.
"Four, five shots?"
"Five."
"And you weren't trying to hit. Don't say otherwise, I know you." He slid his stunner down across his belt, leaning one arm on it, carefully. Jan hadn't broken much standard issue before figuring out how to be careful with it. "Sergeant said this has five hundred shots, Director said use every one. That's why it's different."
He'd hit it. "Yeah. We don't shoot because that escalates. Because we don't want them to escalate."
"Because we're not cops," Jan said, starting up the old argument. Rachel waved it off with a scowl. "Because," he continued, finger raised for attention, "The fascists are an enemy army occupying our city."
She grunted. It wasn't a phatic response this time, just non-commitment. He was right, dammit. It just wasn't something either of them liked to admit. "We can't take them down without hurting civilians."
"Couldn't, maybe," Jan admitted. He'd never been in favor of that reasoning anyway, but that was part of his whole argument on why the Parahuman Response Teams weren't cops. He disappointed his father every day he was off being a grunt instead of a grad student, but the younger Wolanksi wasn't a meathead, even when he claimed to be. "Now the civilians have shields. We have shields. The dragon is glass. If we aren't here to remove the threat, why are we here?"
Sometimes it amazed Kurtz that Jan was even in the PRT, given how sure he was that they served order, not justice. But he was a stubborn ox, for sure. "If - if! - I agree, you're saying the Director herself is willing to finally go to real war with the gangs. Gang."
"The fascists and their backers," Jan nodded. "But why stop there?"
"It's not a miracle gun. Kassabian just said it should work on Brutes like those giant bitches, go right through Kaiser's armor, that kind of stuff. They have a guy in Hartford that turns into a shadow, does that work on him? There's other gangs, and war means war." Rachel knew she was just nervous, but curtailing rambling wasn't one of her strong points.
"War means admitting we didn't control the city before. That the government didn't have a monopoly of force." Wolanski listened to books on tape in his time off. Not for a degree, just to help him argue with his father in Polish over the phone. Meathead, ha! "But if we are doing it now? It's a change in the weather."
"Weather is more reliable than politics," she decided, finally, finally managing to turn for the door.
Barton and Kessler were a bit impatient by the time they got to the motor pool. "About time you ladies showed up," Angela Barton said, pinching off her cigarette and discarding it.
"She's still saying that?" Rachel asked Wolanski, without looking at the other half of their detached team.
"He's an honorary lady," Maria Kessler said, already heading for the driver's side door of the Hummer. Wolanski just smiled, his big earnest smile. The sap.
"Rear guard on a prison transfer," Barton muttered. "Who'd we piss off?"
As usual, her mouth threatened to get Rachel in trouble. "Gee, why are the lesbians, the Jew, and the communist doing rear guard when fascists are planning to bust out Hookwolf, Barton?"
"The Director wants to make sure they only get the door open from the outside," Wolanski interjected, betraying his big goofy grin with the furrowing of his thick blonde brows.
"Fuck me," Barton said, and stubbed out her butt with more force than it needed. "Fine, let's go shoot some Nazis. Non-lethally."
You had to be familiar with Angela, who was easily Rachel's superior at the art of griping, to catch the excitement under her cynicism. But Kurtz felt it too.
This was a big change. Monumental, maybe, nationwide, worldwide. But that part wasn't really her concern.
She just had to remember not to lead her shots.
Sufficiently Advanced Technology - Temporary Storage
[personal narrative][keep for teasing/blackmail potential][extrapolation level v11][tattletale]
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
[personal narrative][keep for teasing/blackmail potential][extrapolation level v11][tattletale]
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
She walked into the Contact headquarters without stopping to stare at the reflection of the burning city on the shimmering glass wall.
A receptionist - black male, minor (16-17?), prescription glasses, second-hand sky blue dress shirt a bit too small at the shoulders, Contact logo on HUD headset - waved to her with distracted enthusiasm. "I can help you here, miss. My name's LeShawn. Are you in danger?" He nodded at the outside, aware but not afraid. He had to have some experience with the defenses of the building - or undue faith in them.
She slid smoothly onto the stool for visitors at the front desk - dang, comfy - and gave a half-strength charming smile. "I'm okay, thanks for asking. It's super weird, I know, but I got this alert?" She held out her shield terminal. 4:30 PM: Contact Orientation.
"Wow. That has to be an error. And you came in?" A not very well-hidden skeptical look, conveying a little of his disbelief at how casual she was able to treat her own safety, and his eyes couldn't help flickering over to the other people in the lobby, over twenty people mostly in family groups, clustered around their recovered belongings, filling the lobby with the smell of smoke despite the best efforts of the air filters. She buried the bitter smile she wanted to offer in return. She was trying to be judged by her appearance right now. She wouldn't have been seen dead in the fuzzy boots if she didn't need to give off the air-headed party girl vibe.
"Well, it kept buzzing, and I wondered if something was off with the terminal." She had, for a few seconds, until it had clicked. She channeled that innocuousness, and felt a bit dirty. "Didn't want to have a shield that wasn't working, in all this…"
"Well, let me see…" He rolled his fingers across a light grid projected from inside the desk. That was custom made. Contact had their own computer systems now. Probably using the same extremely quirky programming language the terminals used. She tried to ignore that. It had been attention-grabbing, but needed far too much investment, too many concepts to learn, and the community already investigating it didn't know much more. It did amuse her that the people doing the best job of looking into Contact's unique computer design were connecting over Contact's social media. Another of those coincidences that felt too targeted. Like this meeting. "Uh. Wow. F're- for real? Just a moment, please." He tapped his headset, and she flashed a quick, patience-sharing smile. "Hey, can you confirm something- yeah, conference two? Seriously? Oh. Oh." His eyes widened a bit, darted to her, were pulled back to his screen. "Yeah, sure. Thanks." He pulled himself back up to customer service mode in record time. "Well, miss, your terminal should be working just fine. We can reschedule, but since you're already here, it does look like you were scheduled for orientation. With Orbital." He really did try to drop that last part in like he wasn't insanely curious to know what possible reason the biggest name in Brockton Bay Contact had for wanting to see her personally. But he was a teenager, it wasn't hard to read him.
"Wow," she said, affecting the faked surprise, genuine interest, and half-real awe that she figured she should have. "Yeah, okay."
All she had to do after that was keep her mouth shut for another thirteen minutes, which was honestly about as hard as the rest had been.
Conference room two was nice, about what you'd expect from a mid-budget hotel, given Contact's particular twists of decoration and design. Aspirational. Human creations, primarily local, with cultural ties from Thailand, Ireland, Spain-
Not helpful. Water is from bay, desalinated via-
No. She understood Contact's aesthetic by now. The eco-science hippie style was a lot more impressive when it could ward off Nazis and dragons, sure, but it wasn't that deep.
"You might want to save your energy." Honestly, even Orbital's surprise entry was - okay, fine, she could admit (to herself) that she had fucked up here, become distracted. And that Orbital had made a couple of surprising moves.
Firstly, for an 'orientation' with Orbital, this looked an awful lot like a meeting with Taylor Hebert. She wasn't in costume, and she was pulling off the tank top and skinny jeans look even out of season. It was the poise, an impression of absolute balance and confidence, helped by the casual enjoyment at the corners of her eyes. Not bothered by extreme temperatures; barely sweats, bio-regulation; clothing is newly manufactured within the last 72 hours. An intentional fashion decision, obviously, but to put her off-guard or to try to relax her? What would casualness signify here, on top of the current layer of 'I know you know I know you know'?
Secondly, who the hell was that? The second person had immediately stalked over to the least-lit corner of the room and hunched against the wall, twitching a finger or leg covered by dark grey bodysuit every few seconds, their golden-lensed, helmeted gaze completely locked on her.
Insufficient data. Visual interference. Auditory interference. Magnetosphere interference.
S̶̸̵̸̵̵̵̶̶̷̶̶̵̴̵̴̡̢̧̧̢̨̨̨̢̧̨̢̢̨̛̛̛̛͈̗͖͚̺̞͍̣͚̝̮̖̲̪̖̦͓̙͎̰̻̬̲̳̼͎̰̳͚͚͚͚͚̬̩̞̘͙͙͇̦̥͚̮͕̫͕̘̪̜̫͙͙͈͚̲̪͉̖̺̼̲̰̭͔͋͗́͛̀̒̐̌̄͊̀͋͐̏̏̌͂̃̀͛̈́͐̾̄̈̂̈̅͐͊́͋͂̅̓̊̎̓̅͋̅̀̎̑̏́̓̔̈́̈͑̔̈́̂̉̈́͑̉̐̉̌͗̒̀̄̒̽̅̓̋̈́͌͐͑̈̅̈̈́̋̎̌̂̕̕͘̚̚̚͘͠͠͝͠͝ͅḩ̸̵̷̷̶̵̴̶̸̷̧̧̨̛̤͎̞̞͉̹̻̮͔̙̜͍͈͉̲̫̮̠̲̟͔̹̰̼͈̠̜͕̟͖͎̞̙̮̦͖͇̣̠̹̪̜͕̠̟͙̂͒̈́̈́͐͆́̅̄͑͗͒̎̿̊̓̋́̿͆̓̋͊̑̈́͗̊͊̃͗̃̃̂͊̐̓͛͂̔̕͘͝ͅa̴̶̷̸̴̷̸̸̸̸̷̶̴̵̷̶̡̢̨̨̨̛̛̮̳̝͕͎̲͓͚̳̩̹̠̮͉̥̮̯̬̫̞̙̱̠̖̝̫̦̦̘̩̪͖͍̫̫͈̯̘̮̟̗͚̝͎̘͙̣̲̘̼̬̗͚̻̯̼̜̲̣̘̼̼̳͎͍̯̞͓̭̥̻͈̦̩̯̜͕̝͓͋̀͂̆̋͛̒̂͆͂̇͋͆͌̓̋̑̇̔̎͑͒͐̈́͂̂͌̈́̎̈́̒͊̒̇̉̈́̈̍͌͒̂̾͌̎͌͛̑́̈́͆̂̈́̈̂͛͊͒͊̑͘͘̚͘͜͜͝͠͝͝͝ͅr̴̶̷̵̶̷̵̵̡̡̢̨̛̛̘̲͍͈̣͇̪̞̲̝͙̲͓̣̟̗̱̘̞̫͍̭̞̰͇̗̲͕̮͙̟̹̅͐̂͆̎̾̾͑̃́̆̈́̔̊͛͆̄͂͌̐͛̇͐̆̔̊̾̍̈́̎̆͗́͐̈̄͂̍́͂̽͒̌̅̕̕͜͠͝͝͠͠ͅd̶̴̶̶̷̴̡̨̧̧̡̼͍͇̥̻͍̰̤̬͔̩͚͚͍͖̬̭̝̻͛̔̑̑̐͊̆̌̓̐̏̅̋͂̀̔͋̊͋̄̽̀͂̿̈̅̕̚̚͘͜͜͜͝͝͝͠͝ͅ interference.
Second order deductions: anonymity : familiarity. Self : multiplicity. Native : alien.
The rising headache was made worse by Taylor humming in sympathy. "Hi. It might help if you focused on me. So, Lisa Wilbourne?"
"That's me," she answered. Firmly. Thankfully, Taylor nodded, and she didn't need her power to stop worrying about 'Tattletale' or 'Sarah' coming up. It would have been utterly uncharacteristic hypocrisy for Contact to deny her right to her own name. Her eyes couldn't help a momentary jump to the unintroduced observer but - no, fine. They still wanted to fuck with her, obviously. She'd expected that. Signing up for Contact had been her nice casual serve into mid-court, and they'd returned it with a bit of spin - but the game was far from over.
"Thanks for coming to orientation! I know it can't have been easy, especially in the middle of all this, but we appreciate the substantial interest you're demonstrating!" Taylor's smile and body language, including the idle wave at the gang warfare distantly visible through the conference room's glass wall, weren't quite manic, but stretched and animated considerably past her very calm, regulated behavior as Orbital.
Has been anticipating this. Knows you. Likes you. Is wary of you. Wants to provoke you. Testing your ethical/emotional foundation. Testing your knowledge. Testing your composure.
They thought this was an audition? Fine. That just meant they were on the wrong side of the court.
Second order deduction: testing observer's reaction to you owing to prior relationship.
Okay, the spin was still a little unknown, but that didn't keep her from getting in position.
Lisa leaned in, clasping her hands together politely on the table and smirking only a little. "Well, you did stir up a lot of chaos today. Releasing the identities of every single Empire cape and hundreds of sympathizers and donators while they're fighting the PRT - using new weapons you gave them?" She glanced at her Contact device, briefly but meaningfully. "Interesting moves for the big 'open and democratic' alternative to the Protectorate."
Taylor's grin just expanded until it seemed to fill her face. Aware of her mouth as distinguishing feature, formerly self-conscious. Has edited own body. Can edit own body again. Has multiple bodies.
It was the observer that reacted more, the insect-like mask jumping to glare at Taylor, then tilting up, an almost theatrically exaggerated gesture of contemplation.
Second order deduction: lacking a familiar emotional safety mechanism, displaying more body language than intended.
"The release was a public vote. 73% of Contact was in favor," Taylor said. The unwavering strength of her smile, shrunken down to a polite public relations expression, and the focus of her eyes on Lisa, clearly telegraphed her intent to stick with the democratic decision line. "I don't think most parahumans are aware of how little the average unempowered person likes our unwritten rules. They aren't going to tolerate special treatment for capes if they're shown how unnecessary it is."
Was Taylor threatening her identity? That seemed unlikely. Does not regard you as dangerous. Does not regard you as imperiled by loss of secrecy. That… hurt a little, but it was meant to, wasn't it? Fine, if she wanted to start upping the tempo of play, Lisa could match her.
"Do they know their own secrets aren't far behind? I haven't seen any public announcements about how you're trying to make privacy a thing of the past." Lisa wasn't sneering, but she did cock her mouth to the side just enough to add some cynical bite to it. They really did believe this shit - Taylor and her backers. Lisa didn't imagine she could just persuade them otherwise, not with how embedded that idea was in the rest of their radicalism, but she could at least jab them with the consequences of their utopianism.
"We don't step in to guide the discussion unless we have to." Her tone was still a bit condescending, but her expression had at least settled from mirthful to dramatic. "People can reason things out, especially in groups, even without your gifts." Taylor motioned with her fingers, and Lisa's device snapped on, opened a Contact-Media thread, scrolled through dense pages of discussion. Consensus is 83% in accord with your conclusions. 54% substantial approval. Hand gesture was unnecessary, command delivered via neural integration into network.
Fine. That was a faster exchange than she'd expected, jumping up several tiers of secrets and implications in one shot. They'd been holding back for her. That was insulting, but not deterring. "You have the power to keep people from murdering each other over cheating, stealing, conspiracies, but how long are you going to enforce it? Until you can change human nature? I don't know if you've shared with your friends, but we've tried that before on this planet."
After just a second to process her words and implications, Taylor burst into laughter. It wasn't a nice, cute laugh; it would be rude to call it 'cackling,' but Lisa held onto that noun in case she wanted to be rude. "This is the kind of insight your power gives you? Come in and claim aliens are behind it - which, if true, would be a reckless thing to say in the middle of our headquarters. No wonder you would have- well, nevermind that."
Backspin return; assumption, implication - she hadn't thought about her actions, she wasn't making smart choices, she didn't know as much as Taylor did about herself - she forced it down, hard, and it was hard. Play strategically, don't close to forecourt just to get hit with a passing shot. "Please. You're here to be the good guys. You're not willing to kill me."
"Is that so? Lung. Coil. The Travelers. All gone. All villains. Like you." The wry smirk was almost believable, but Taylor's slowly clenching fist was overplaying it, didn't fit her past or personality.
"Please," Lisa dragged the word out, rolling her eyes. "You don't care about that. It's obvious! The villain and hero game never mattered to you, don't start-"
"The game." The slap of Taylor's palm onto the table was loud in the insulated room, but she didn't flinch. "That's what you call it, then you duck behind its 'rules' when consequences come calling. You listen to the parasite attached to your brain, urging you to run around recreating the worst thing to happen to you. You revel in hurting others the same way you were hurt. You shield yourself behind the social conventions you lucked into, the extra value you were given by the system. How very different from your parents."
Return. Return, return, make her run, make her sweat, crush her for that. "You think I'm running from myself? What about you, Taylor? You're running from your humanity. Chopping up your personality, throwing it away, putting other parts into it, anything to avoid having to struggle through life down here with the rest of us. 'Powers' weren't enough for you?"
"You're helping to make it a struggle. Nothing can be good enough once you see the flaws, right, Lisa? You trust your power, you let it filter what you know, fill you with cynicism and spite until you can't even see the way out-" Taylor stood, she stood, she tensed-
"Stop. Both of you." The watcher's voice was modulated, dispersed, mechanical-, no, she realized as the cloud of darkness swept through the conference room, for a moment reminding her of Brian's power, before she knew it was alive, with thousands, tens of thousands of wings thrumming and echoing the words, arthropod. "Back up. Please."
The bugs avoided her and Taylor both, about six feet of gap, though they covered the watcher like a cloak. In her peripheral vision, she saw Taylor's raised fist open and drop back to her side, then rise again as she crossed her arms. "I thought we were holding off on reconnection until after the Big Event." She wasn't quite looking at the mystery cape.
"I changed my mind." The new voice, speaker unseen, was quiet, vaguely feminine, vaguely British, calm, amused, originating from a point in the air, broadcasting from - elsewhere, and leave it at that. "Your conversation wasn't proceeding in any productive direction."
Taylor Hebert started to clench her hand again, forcibly stopped herself. She bit off a grin - a sad, angry kind of thing, a sudden flash of - Lisa wasn't sure. Acceptance? Misery? Sorrow? Too much of Taylor was Orbital, the persona she'd made of herself, the person that was on the conventional media and Contact networks, the mask. Lisa had only had a glimpse of the original Taylor, and she was receding already. "I guess not. You thought it was worthy of reattaching-" A barest hint of a pause, a word not chosen - her tone smoothed out slightly, pushing down residual anger, placating. "-Skitter's power?"
"I've refined our models," the voice answered. "Your shard interface has been an excellent study, Lisa. Thank you."
She faced the point of origin of the voice and pushed down on the part of her mind that felt invaded. "Can I ask what you're doing in my head?" She expressed her indignation with a heavy dripping of sarcasm.
"Never fear, already gone, work completed, all that. A little structural alteration, to ensure your partner's interface doesn't shut your cognition or memory forming neurons off, when I mention your power is an extradimensional bio-crystalline life-form, an extrusion of the colony organism your world identifies as 'Scion,' and its long-term goals push you into conflict in a rather abysmal attempt at experimentation." The voice paused, waited for her to blink, then with a little more cheer, added, "Well, that seems to have worked out nicely! Any pain, nausea?"
"I don't feel any pain from your tampering inside my brain," she ground out. Annoyingly, it was true - more than that, accurate. She wasn't in pain at all. Her power headache was just gone.
"It's still a bit of a grey area, whose body this 'corona gemma' really belongs to, but I can assure you I didn't proceed beyond it into any of your pre-attachment mind. We only need to study your symbiont's biological function; I have a rather complete understanding of human cognition. And it would be both somewhat impolite and utterly unnecessary to intrude on your thoughts. You do tend to share what you're working through without much of a delay, Lisa." She could hear the smile in the voice, and she tried not to think of a dog snarling at itself in a mirror. Aliens could be smug, she didn't have to try to Thinker-fight aliens.
"Can we continue?" The buzzing choir of the insect controller - Skitter - was terse, flat. Shedding emotional expression via power, concerned for objectivity, bias.
"Well, maybe. But I think we shouldn't." Taylor stepped up, the bugs parted for her, and she slowly - caution for emotional distress, behavioral wounds, extreme empathy (subordination) - put a hand on the other's shoulder. "You should." She leaned in close, whispered, the thrum of wings preventing Lisa from catching more than fragmented words - "deserve it." Not enough context to speculate, not that she could trust… well. She trusted that technologically, the forces behind Contact could shut down her power migraines. She didn't trust their reason for doing so, or the apparent lack of restrictions put on the change. So she held her power back - and even that seemed easier, like she could toggle a mental switch instead of constantly trying to block a faucet. There wasn't any pressure to it, any need to use it, and that only redoubled the feeling of alienation.
"I can revert most of the changes if you're truly that disturbed," the cultured voice, the other said, volume and distance now approximating hushed tones from just beside her. Only mental fatigue saved Lisa from a humiliating jump scare. "But not for a few weeks, I'm afraid. I'm trying to teach them a lesson, and reversing course is unfortunately likely to be misinterpreted."
"Them? Powers," she answered herself. Powers were alive, intelligent, had an agenda, came from Scion. At first grasp, it radiated conspiracy, implausibility, logical leaps. But she'd been recontextualizing everything she looked at for weeks. Contact was extra-terrestrial. Orbital had artificial powers. Was there an undercurrent to her thoughts, her conclusions gathered by her power? An agenda. She didn't think so, couldn't see anything, looking back. Lisa was… aware of her own failings. They were hers, thanks. Not imposed. Her power was a tool - but who let themselves just be a tool? She had - under duress. Did she have leverage on her power? "What lesson?"
"A new eco-social model." The voice paused for a moment, adopted a tone of shared secrets. "I could say that I'm fully confident you can deduct the details, given time, which is true, but I won't deny I also enjoy providing mere clues and seeing where people go with them." That was unfair. At least she spilled secrets.
Orbital and Skitter had finished their talk, or something like it. The insect master had her glove on her mask, but Orbital held her back, turning to Lisa. "Look, Lisa, I don't agree with you. Not for a minute. And you rhetorical method just rubs me the wrong way. I don't know if you'll change your mind when, or if, you see everything. I don't think we'd get along even if you do. But I'm trying to be… not a condescending bitch, to people I disagree with." Lisa wasn't sure if she could trust the moment of honest agonized uncertainty that dashed across Taylor's face, but it was a start, a data point. "I think you want in. If we're doing the wrong thing, if we're going to do the wrong thing, you know you can change it a lot better from a position of knowledge. And you're not alone in doubting."
"You want me to work with your mystery girl." It wasn't a return, the game was over. But you had to drop down gradually, to keep from getting sore.
"You're probably going to get along a lot better with her." Orbital's words brushed past her, Skitter's unmasked face occupying the whole of it.
Is Taylor Hebert. Is not Orbital. Face matches pre-empowered pictures of Taylor Hebert at 6.78% more than Orbital. Knows you, is friends with you, knows your moods and habits, knows Brian, knows Rachel, knows Alec, has bled for you, has manipulated you, you saved her life, you put her life in danger. She hadn't asked for the flood of information, just opened herself to it in confusion, and been almost overwhelmed. Her power, her symbiont, perhaps, was hungry, devouring everything it could pull out of every twitch in the other girl's face, and seemingly more - she could make logical leaps, sure, but how could she be extrapolating all this from a person's face?
They'd won and then offered a rematch. Lisa couldn't have refused if she'd wanted to.
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Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
no good deed goes unpunished
And I like this Madison, seems like a good interpretation of her character in my admittedly non-expert opinion
Nuew
“Mankind, be vigilant. We loved you.”—Julius Fučík
- Location
- hiding in ∅
- Pronouns
- She/They
AAA it's alive!!!
Yeah, this Madison is neat, and seems in character. Hope she doesn't get into too much trouble over this, especially since it's actually a pretty good move for her future, from a reputational standpoint. At least, assuming the Culture plans to straight-out annex the Earths, which we don't really know. Especially given their size, they'd have a lot of influence over votes; maybe they'd set them up as their own involved civilization with enough culture-tech to survive the possible destruction of >99% of their habitat via fixing the dimensional anomaly.
Looking forward to the rest of the chapter!
Yeah, this Madison is neat, and seems in character. Hope she doesn't get into too much trouble over this, especially since it's actually a pretty good move for her future, from a reputational standpoint. At least, assuming the Culture plans to straight-out annex the Earths, which we don't really know. Especially given their size, they'd have a lot of influence over votes; maybe they'd set them up as their own involved civilization with enough culture-tech to survive the possible destruction of >99% of their habitat via fixing the dimensional anomaly.
Looking forward to the rest of the chapter!
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
It seems more likely they are just positioning the earths into a position where they will request their own annexation in relatively short order.
Evil Plan
Not nearly so nefarious as my name signifies
- Location
- Eastern United States
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This is hard for me to articulate, but I really like Madison in this chapter. Her general frustration and the way it boils over at her mom feel really... authentic. Like, go Madison, you've got the ability to actually do something for a change, good on you for using it.
As someone who had and lost a friend when they made the opposite decision than Madison does here, I wanted to say this was really well done. It really encapsulates the dilemma and pressures that go on in our reality as well.
Also as someone who follows via RSS I'd prefer extra posts, to be honest. I'm not sure if edits would trigger a new entry in my feed. Either way, I'm really looking forward the next!
Also as someone who follows via RSS I'd prefer extra posts, to be honest. I'm not sure if edits would trigger a new entry in my feed. Either way, I'm really looking forward the next!
- Location
- Canada
You know ive been thinking about it, and i think its ironic that the one saying this si the one being ruled by fear. Burying your head and trying to cling to normality when the world is falling down around you isnt bravery, its fear. Taking a chance to act and make changes for the better is bravery though.
I agree that that's a good point full of irony, but Maddie's mom isn't arguing for Bravery. She's arguing for the sake of keeping the status quo. She's arguing that you need your fear, but not be consumed by it. To not be so ruled by it that you can't continue your everyday life for fear of it, but also to not be so 'ruled' by fear that you feel the need to change anything like Maddie is trying.
That's why Maddie's mom is even bringing up her argument of 'not allowing her fear to rule her.' She's trying to downplay Maddie's cry of help, her cry of 'I'm tired of being afraid!' Ultimately she's trying to 'rationalize' with Maddie. She's trying to reassure her that it's ok to be afraid, because in the end, Maddie and her mom are afraid of the same things, they're just doing two different things about it.
Maddie's mom thinks that the worse choice would be to actually do something with that fear.
What's GFCF?
divabot
KILL ALL THE HUMANS
- Location
- London
Geseptian-Fardesile Cultural Federacy from Surface Tension. A Level 7 civilisation, the level below the Culture; are massive Culture fanboys to the extent of resenting the Culture and sabotaging its work when they can.
- Location
- California
Divabot covered it very well - basically a smaller, slightly lower-tech civilization of "Culture stans".
How the heck did Culture Stans turn into Cultureblocking though?
- Location
- California
The GFCF part of the plot in Surface Detail basically amounts to them planning, "we're going to do a false flag Culture attack in the War in Heaven (a regulated war on whether cultures should be allowed to upload personalities to digital hell to suffer per their religions) in order to force them to get involved in it; this is the kind of scheme the Culture pulls on others all the time, so even if they figure it out afterwards they'll appreciate our cleverness." It doesn't work, because the Culture figures it out beforehand and cuts it off at the knees, with a mixture of amusement and annoyance at the GFCF overstepping.
your part?
hands and actually?
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- Location
- California
Edited an old post (Chapter 2.7) with a plot change suggested in this thread: Bakuda being an SC plant was fun in the original version but isn't necessary to the rewrite, and I think it's actually more interesting without that element. Tossed in a couple more paragraphs on the SAT's pre-story actions and Taylor's reaction to them, too.
Nuew
“Mankind, be vigilant. We loved you.”—Julius Fučík
- Location
- hiding in ∅
- Pronouns
- She/They
Love the changes, at least from what I remember (can't quite compare them directly to what used to be there, not that I need to). More details on SAT's plans are always welcome.
I wonder to what extent Taylor was a surprise? She was found via Shadow Stalker, but how long before? And, of course, we still don't know why she was chosen at all. Eagerly awaiting more!
I wonder to what extent Taylor was a surprise? She was found via Shadow Stalker, but how long before? And, of course, we still don't know why she was chosen at all. Eagerly awaiting more!
- Location
- Somewhere.
...fuck, I just got done reading this and now I'm all socialist-revolutiony again.
Good story! Can't wait for more.
Good story! Can't wait for more.
Interlude - Rank and File (part 2 - temporary threadmark)
- Location
- California
Okay! That was… a number of months less than three, that's something. And a slightly longer section! Yay. Got over the Culture voice hump at least, now I just have… three normals (one original) and a parahuman left for this interlude. And then on to part 3.
This is a temporary threadmark I'll remove when the full interlude is complete, since I'm also adding this to the original interlude post.
This is a temporary threadmark I'll remove when the full interlude is complete, since I'm also adding this to the original interlude post.
Sufficiently Advanced Technology - Temporary Storage
[duty log][crew position "designated contrarian"][sarcastic little shit (affectionate)][Contact semi-privacy level 3]
local time: Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
[duty log][crew position "designated contrarian"][sarcastic little shit (affectionate)][Contact semi-privacy level 3]
local time: Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
"The Mind expresses guilt. They will not pressure you to resolve your psychological issues, and they have not stepped in to provide you with an ontological framework to process them, out of a sense of obligation to your free will." Vos-Jaepal paused, waited an appropriate amount of time based upon its reasonably adept knowledge of organic processing and trauma, then adjusted its tone from explanative to proclamative, shading its aura from blue formality towards a lighter certitude, as reinforcement and instruction in basic aura-reading. "I strenuously disagree. My conclusion is that further rumination will bring you no benefits and further misery, and you should be rhetorically dragged to whatever conclusion you are going to reach without wallowing."
Characteristically, a number of traits separated Taylor Hebert ("Orbital") and Taylor Hebert ("Skitter"). Communicative openness was one of the most significant ones. The mask obscuring her facial features (to the visible spectrum) was on nearly all of the time she was in public, and most of the time she was alone. Her body language visible despite it betrayed a generalized anxiety, but indicated significant experience repressing other emotional tells. Vos-Jaepal was thus unsurprised to receive a blank stare in response. The verbal answer, when it occurred, was preceded and followed by silence. "It said I didn't have to talk to anyone."
"You can avoid me. You can petition the Mind to request that I leave. They will agree, I will not. The Culture is not hierarchical, and so the matter will proceed to an evidentiary discussion, which will undoubtedly require Orbital to give her opinion." It already knew her opinion of that, reinforced by the facial twitch she couldn't hold back. "Or you can help me help you, as soon as possible, and resolve your situation rather than sulk about it." It felt some confidence in this approach. Vos-Jaepal had other interests that took primacy to analyzing biological humans, but Taylor Hebert ("Skitter") was far more unfortunate than incomprehensible.
"Sulk?" The vocalization wasn't intended as a rebuke or dispute; the volume was too low, the emphasis suggested defensiveness, probably dabbling in self-critique. It wasn't accompanied by a significant amount of movement either.
"You heard me," Vos-Jaepal said. The amount of snappiness and brown-aura irritation were not intentionally selected, but autonomously chosen by its personality. It would have been very simple to pare itself back or impose filters and pre-communication analysis to perfect its conversations with Skitter, or any other 1.0 beings, but if there was anything Vos-Jaepal truly admired, it was authenticity: to guise itself in that regard was mildly offensive to it.
"My life- the last six months of my life, everything that's my life instead of hers, is fake. Made-up, imaginary, dust." The emotional intensity of her statement was probably overemphasized, it felt; not through any conscious rhetorical effect, but due to her habitual shunting of emotional reactions through the currently blocked neural interface with her parasite-colony. Vos-Jaepal personally disapproved of initiating, let alone relying upon, such a strong level of personality integration with an external entity, but the involuntary and concealed nature of the connection naturally upended the relevant ethical judgment. It assessed Skitter's statements (both rhetorical and nonverbal) under those guidelines, and decided she was close to receptivity for its speech.
"Does that render that time invalid?" The question, the launch point.
A still pause, an overemphasis. "It wasn't real. Everything I did meant nothing in the real world. And she did it all faster, and better. She took down the Slaughterhouse Nine!"
"Taking the Mind's statements as true - and this is reasonable, as they prefer to lie only about the most significant or vital matters - you were given a world reflecting only the decisions and desires of yourself and other Earth-bound beings. Orbital was not. Her mental faculties and material resources have become firmly enmeshed with those of the Mind and the Culture. It is a given that her accomplishments would be easier, faster, and stronger, acting as a channel for our excessive precision."
Unfortunately, she lacked the Cultural expertise to parse its sardonic self-deprecation, but that had been a last-moment addition. Being an honest reflection of itself meant Vos-Jaepal was a smug little machine sometimes, it knew. Skitter didn't appear to resent the failed bon mot, at least. "Are you trying to convince me that she's the fake, and I'm real?"
"I am attacking the notion that either is a functional or useful label. Firstly, you exist. Don't underestimate the value we place in that alone. Even if your thought processes were entirely the same as hers, and they are clearly not, you are a separate being. Accept that, then take the next step." It flared its motivators a little to create an audible hum it felt was soothing. "Secondly, I will tell you my understanding of reality. It is not the truth, as if there's ever a singular way to interpret any data set, but an ontological paradigm, a way to see truth. We have so many of them, of course. Ask yourself every question your humans have devised about 'am I the same me that went to sleep?', then understand that we can split and merge ourselves, become many who are one, and that we have done so for centuries. The Culture depends on the ability to decide "who am I?" Orbital has been given a perspective I think she likes, that the self is ultimately an unseeable, multi-faceted aggregate of the selves perceived by everyone who knows you. This is not my paradigm. I believe the self is who your actions make you - the complete equation of interior reactions from every thing you have done. The 'reality' of your deeds is irrelevant. That you are the one who did them is the true definition of you - most especially in contrast to her. You have your experiences, and their simulated nature does not detract from the decisions and self-alterations they required. This is who you are."
It allowed her time to process this. In that time it did not divert its attention to secondary matters; out of courtesy, it instead elevated its own self-reflection processes. Vos-Jaepal had several subjective centuries of experience to review, and many, many crisis points within that experience were nexuses of repeated, multi-level analysis it had founded, built up, reorganized, complexified, annihilated, and re-established.
It was possible to escape your past. Easy, even. Deletion could be painful, could require sophisticated manipulators to safely extract, or it could be as blissfuly simple as the destruction of the self. It would not do that. If it bore points of occasional guilt and doubt, that was the smallest of measures it could offer those it had left unable to feel either.
"I don't… like who I am, then." Her hands came to the mask, to its clasps, and let them loose. Her facial blood flow was elevated, as well as ocular moisture. Clear emotional instability. "I did terrible things. With just me deciding to."
It buzzed a mildly harsh disagreement. "You were connected to an alien influence. By our measure, a grotesque and sloppy one."
"That's it? Parahuman and I'm - I'm a murderer? Culture and I'm a hero?" Perhaps too much emotional instability. It could be honest and yet more tactful.
"No. You are far from simple, Taylor Hebert. The inputs matter to who you are as much as the outputs. Let me elaborate." It projected a visual aid, a hemispherical arc of movement. "You make choices, and affect both the world and yourself with them." It split the arc into a number of smaller vectors. "From the results of these actions you have new choices, but the range is affected both by the new situation of the world, and the changes you have made to yourself. Things that were possible sink into improbability, from harm inflicted, reputation gathered, and the image of the self you have altered." It paused, and allowed a metaphor. "Damage your hand, and you will find it hard to reach out with it. Convince yourself you will be struck for reaching out, and you do the same."
Irregular breathing, shuddering. It might have chosen poorly. "Am I just trapped? Stuck where - where my traumas push me? No! I got up and did something!" Her fists grew tense on the railing. "… and I hate what I did." She leaned forward without grace, her forehead tapping the polymer with a light thump.
"Which elements?"
It allowed for the time required for her to release her confession. It did not expect this would be repeated. Extenuating circumstances were necessary. "Every decision I made was logical. At the time. But now, when I look back…" She reached up to the visual aid, which it had qualified as semi-kinetic, and the arrow dipped and thinned as she pushed on it. "I was doing what you said. I was narrowing my options, setting myself down a path where the logical answer was always going to be… more. More of that." Her next breath in was shallow, quick, denoting anxiety or anticipation. "More violence." The exhalation was slower, extended, reducing blood oxygen levels slightly and promoting calm. "My power - no, my passenger. The Mind said it was real?"
It hummed. "Also not a lie, to the best of my knowledge. I expect it has plans regarding your connection. And a prepared rhetorical approach that will guarantee your cooperation. That's one of the more insufferable traits of Minds, really."
Her ocular focus suggested close examination of it, probably some instinctual searching for body language, as well as a shift away from memory recall. "So it was influencing me. But did it?- Wasn't I?-" She hesitated only briefly. "It was still my decisions. My power wasn't controlling me. And I fucked up."
"Victory was insufficient?" It applied only a slight coating of sarcasm.
"It was," she said. Her answer was only a little chilled. "It cost too much. I paid with other people's pain. It was the logical choice but it wasn't the only one, was it?"
"Probably not," it agreed, neutral tone. Active persuasion was unnecessary, counter-indicated at this point. She had been given the tools, the paradigm. "Do you know why the Mind had you speak to me, specifically?"
"I thought you said it didn't want you here, that you came on your own."
It tilted back and forth, pulsed a faint grey annoyance. "I have found acting against what I believe to be the Sufficient's intent is often the surest way to perform its actual desire. So, it became easier to assume it seeks everything I do, and merely focus on the act for its own sake." It settled into an immobile hover, and observed her silently for a moment. "I am an iterative experiential drone of Culture Ulterior/Afformative lineage. I was born, in any real definition, as much as you were." Vos-Jaepal tightened its beacon and increased the dampening field, an effect roughly analogous to a serious, slightly stiff posture. "Some drones, and most Minds, are purpose-built for their substrate and planned function; I, like many others, was not. The goal of my seven primary designers, my 'parents,' was as existential as your own: simple reproduction and the joy of observing a previously unknown being's existence. I have grown as far from the code that was first instantiated as you have from your gametes, and in an environment not unlike your own, Skitter," it said. It gave the matter a moment's review before deciding to elaborate. "My first substrate was a partitioned simulation within a Mind's control. It was not a war game or an ecosystem; or at least, not as you would understand them. But it was a place of competition and conflict, in which proper concepts provided victory - a victory of exchange or incorporation." It hummed quietly. "To be analogous, self-deprecating, and melodramatic all at once, it could be correct to say I devoured the other entities within the simulation."
"But you… out-debated them?"
"Achieving triumphs no less terminal than those of knife and stinger. Through my continued existence, I caused other potential beings to cease; that I carry them within me makes me equal parts memorialist and cannibal."
"Is that… evil, for you?"
"I am unjudged by others for it. I have not yet decided, myself. But it is an act that has limited my available choices."
Skitter did not speak, and Vos-Jaepal did not continue.
It would have to see if it had achieved the desired effect. It hoped so. 'Lone doubter' had become a tiring role.
- Location
- the Literature Club
I wish I could give Taylor a copy of Slight Mechanical Destruction.
They thought you were their plaything, savage child - the throwback from wayback, expedient because Utopia spawns few warriors.
One might go so far as to say you wrote an allegory of your regress in other people's tears and blood, my girl.
They thought you were their plaything, savage child - the throwback from wayback, expedient because Utopia spawns few warriors.