“Well, that could have gone better.”
Statistical data made available to me suggests that your performance in your third life was well below the median for third lives.
“Ugh, I guess that’s—hey, that was a reference to what you said the last time I was here, wasn’t it.”
In a liminal void bereft of physicality, can anything truly be said, per se?
“Oh good, you’re a smartass now!” Nathan’s intent, carried through what passed for sound in the Interlife, as he had decided to start calling it, was as clear as it was joyful. “You remind of how Saucer was, when it was telling me not to do the incredibly stupid thing that I got killed doing.”
It could have been smarter.
“But could it have been stupider, that’s the question! I mean, if I’d died to the rat swarm, I would at least feel like I’d gone out to a, like, legit challenge. And if the Woe had killed me, it would have sort of been a psychic force majeure, you know? Surviving those, only to go out the way I did…”
Any question of whether a death more unworthy of a Millionborn must always be answered in the affirmative. You could have removed your helmet while in the airless void.
“Nope! I literally could not have done that. Saucer would have just… not opened the helmet? I mean, I could have made Saucer pop the seals, but there was no way to do that manually and I’d have to ordered it to enable my committing suicide while standing there looking at the ‘don’t do that, you will die’ HUD elements.”
If you wish to spend your time arguing upon this point, I will only hope it possesses therapeutic properties.
“Ouch.” Nathan winced, inasmuch as he had the capability to do so.
The hours leading up to his death flashed through his mind as he did so. The laborious work to seal and patch all of the holes and gashes in the hull had been straightforward but tedious, and the work to get the ductwork in working order had been likewise. He’d somehow, in the process, completely failed to notice the glaring warning siren of the configuration and conformation that the ducts in question possessed, and then he’d engaged the system.
The system had worked perfectly. The pumps in the “Last Resort” tanks had engaged, dumping its contents into Deck One of the station. And while he’d spent precious, desperate seconds trying and failing to turn it off, the rooms had rapidly been restored to their ideal configuration of “one Standard Pressure” and no less.
The water had roared as it rushed out of the ducts. The turbulence had robbed him of any ability to maneuver, and he’d been in the center of the bridge—in the worst possible place to be, because the viewport had been proofed against all of Saucer’s best efforts and he hadn’t been able to get to a weaker interface between the station and the void of space outside.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Under the mounting, benthic pressures at which the original dwellers of Cephalohome Station had dwelt, Nathan had scrabbled for purchase and then lost his grip on the rungs and spun helplessly ass he watched Saucer’s power levels drop, first slowly and then quickly… and then it had been over before he’d processed the fact that it was hitting zero.
We are not in possession of particularly much more time than we were last we spoke. Perhaps next time you will survive more than mere hours?
“Hey,” Nathan protested, jarred out of a reverie no less both unwise and gripping for the incorporeality of the moment and the trauma-management upgrades he had gotten, “I lasted, like, a lot more hours this time! But also, valid.”
More than one day, and yet still fewer than two. And so it remains: mere hours.
“Okay, so I didn’t do as great on the whole topic of keeping it going for longer as I was hoping,” he admitted. “How bout you? Got a name yet?” There was a long pause, the kind of pause that is narratively significant and serves to answer the question that was posed before the pause, said question in fact prompting the pause itself. “I guess we both have something to keep working on, huh.”
It remains the case that I do not understand how you are able to convey not only a smirk but a specific type of smirk without possessing any physical substrate with which to emote.
“Practice.” This time, Nathan exerted himself and added emotional meta-data to his communication, which was a thing he hadn’t realized was possible to do in the Interlife. “Huh,” he said immediately. “I didn’t know I could do that here in the Interlife. I wonder how much stuff there is like that? Can I send you reconstructed visual stimulus? Can I make stuff here? Do we want to keep calling it the Interlife, or should we call it the Interim or something?”
Can all skills be learned by all persons?
“Well, maybe? Theoretically? I mean, if it’s a skill and not some sort of innate thing, and if you don’t have a disability that prevents you from practicing it. But in that case I mean maybe there’s some sort of VR situation you could have. Though if the skill is, like, cold reading, can you learn it if you have face blindness?”
Prosopagnosia does not prevent an understanding of what facial expressions mean. But you have understood my intent. Pithily, to quote a human I am acquainted with: “Pithily: stay in your lane, buddy, you’ve got enough work doing your own job.”
“Rude. Rude! I just came here to have a good time—actually, I came here because it seemed like a good idea at the time to follow the mysterious cool-looking chick who knew my never-spoken secret phrase? And I’m feeling so attacked right now. When did you get funny? Because quoting me in order to drop a sick burn on me is not what I expected from you last time we met.”
Empirically: between your second death and this past one.
“Oh fuck off, and I mean that in the ‘followed by a string of laughing emojis’ sense.”
Time grows short. Shall I assign your growth to an innate understanding of what not to do? Oh, alas, such an option does not exist.
“Dampen the effects of the mania and its ability to fuck up my decision–making capacity.” There was a flat seriousness to Nathan’s intent. “And send me somewhere completely different from where I just was.”
Done.
Nathan had just enough time to recognize the ungrudging respect and kindness that the word was tagged with before he faded into his next chance at doing a better job.