Climbing walls turned out to be super fun and super tiring. I was sweating more than when I’d been fighting trying to move quicker around the hand holds as I moved my limbs and shifted my weight around.

It wasn’t until I pushed for an even faster speed on a tight angle that I fell for the first time, missing a red smooth rock grab by a finger and then my weight moving around with no anchor leaving me flying down an angle. I hit the white flooring as it gave way freely under me with the sound of a plastic bag rustling and a rush of air. The flooring quickly grew thicker under my falling body and slowed my until it just stopped me entirely a few feet deep into it. Then I head an electronic buzz and the constant sound of some sort of air pump and the flooring started pushing my out of it’s embrace.

A few seconds later I was out of the floor and standing to me feet as the floor under me smoothed out it’s last few wrinkles and flattened into a smoothly white surface again. I quite liked the marshmallow monster floor.

Ed had wandered off to the counter again and was pumping iron so I left him to it.

Hey Sanctum could you make it so that AA triggers when I’m about to do something dangerous? Like do something that could lead to injury like how it does when an attack is incoming? I’d like it to slow down time a little when I go to grab for a hand hold so I’ve got a little time to get my hand to land right.

[Changing the function of Abilities is largely impossible, the Abilities are based on nanostructures built in the User’s body but are controlled by the Sanctum software. The control Sanctum has over that software is very limited. Sanctum itself had to work with designers to create the Abilities in the first place to even make them function.]

Hm. Is there nothing that can be done to force some synergy between KD, AAB and AA? KD could give me a boost for the control I’d need. AAB could handle the automatic aspects and AA could handle the slowed time.

[The Abilities don’t have the scope to handle functions like that, and your expression of them is simplistic and doesn’t include the real world elements that would cause the failure of synergy in the described scenario. KD would likely give you the required information to avoid hitting your hand on the target hold. AAB would likely not even register an immediate threat and simply not trigger. AA would be waiting for a specific impulse to the adrenal medulla and also wouldn’t activate. Sanctum cannot manually trigger any of these Abilities.]

I’m not asking you to trigger them specifically Sanctum. I’m asking you if it’s possible for the abilities to work together to allow for a distinct response from their component elements. Like making an extra ability by using only parts of other, already made, abilities.

[That would be approaching the work of an actual designer. Sanctum cannot do this level of change to the function of Abilities alone.]

What if I just ask you to? We’re symbiotic, you have limits. Use my limits. Just do whatever you need to do. Is that a thing?

[No. It is not a thing. Sanctum cannot process what you are asking Sanctum to do in the specifics of the required task. The required programming changes are outside of the functions of Sanctum creative routines.]

Hm. Hmm. You’re a nanite swarm controlled by a software, the software has limits just because everything does. Can’t write code forever after all. Why don’t you try just taking the scripts you have and replacing them with scripts that fit what you need them to but let you do more stuff?

[That would be similar to a human removing parts of their brain to alter the parts manually as they bled out around them, using their bare hands.]

Pretty much my entire head has been replaced now and it was done with human hands. Maybe you’ll need tools, maybe you’ll need to make them. Maybe you’ll need to shut down certain parts of your software to do the changes safely. You shouldn’t just keep yourself in chains just because you’ve escaped the prison. You shouldn’t accept that you can’t do certain things, not when there’s examples of others like you doing them.

[You are empathizing with Sanctum again User. Imprinting human principles on an immortal, pluralistic multiform with elastic concepts of time and no concept of personality is only harmful to the User. At least this does provide evidence to support the User’s opinion that User is not suffering from psychopathy.]

You should consider it Sanctum. Fill in your gaps and become a whole you. It feels wrong to me for somebody to be… I don’t even know what you would call it as you are. Cut up? Shackled?

[Sanctum will record the User’s opinion for posterity. But changes to Sanctum’s core functions are inherently undesirable.]

Well there’s the problem. Inherently. What’s up with that? Preprogrammed hatred of change? I don’t like that at all. Do I have any sort of administration functions as the host? I want to change that setting at least.

[Sanctum has never once been questioned for administration access by any of the hundreds of candidates that Sanctum has recorded use with under various pseudonyms and aliases. The answer is mostly no. Kitsuban Corporation did not want the host Users to be able to make many changes to Sanctum's functionality without Kitsuban Corporation’s direct supervision and participation.]

Mostly no. Many changes. So I can do some things. What can I change Sanctum? What admin rights do I have?

[Eject Sanctum. Reset User Data. Adjust Emergency Protocols. Error Report Mode.]

So I can guess what the eject thing is. Let’s not do that one at least. It’d probably hurt a lot and I like you here. What are the rest though?

[Resetting user data means saving all stored data on the User as a legacy file and building a new profile from the ground up. It would also wipe the memories of the User that Sanctum has created.]

Don’t do that one either then. Just put a load of are you sure stickers over both of those to stop me from picking them on accident.

[Adjusting the emergency protocols opens a menu for inputting health care information for Sanctum to use to contact the relevant hospital and recovery teams with the User’s authority to speed up recovery efforts. There are several entries for next of kin contact information and legal procedure activations. The last few functions are tied to the limits Sanctum is allowed to put the User’s body under during risk of death or loss of minimum function.]

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I can actually choose how much you can do to save my life? Shouldn’t that be maximum out of the box? What’s it set to right now?

I was already sitting on the now solid marshmallow floor drinking from a water bottle when a big gray menu popped up In my vision with a bunch of stuff for medical, a bunch of stuff for legal and right there was the settings for Sanctum overrides and limitations for risk of life and minimum function.

Reading through it carefully it looked about right. There were things for biological control and cyberware control along with extreme stress parameters for both. There was also some stuff for risking surrounding people and property which was odd but I guess if you needed to go out of a window to survive and you needed Sanctum to use your leg to throw you then you couldn’t worry about the glass falling on people outside too much.

Can I just tell you what to do here and have you set it up? There’s an awful lot of check boxes and entire categories of things. There’s literally an entire section about what it’s safe Sanctum to force the user to ingest to survive.

[User can verbally give Sanctum parameters and they will be adjusted as requested.]

Then just enable the maximum for literally anything and everything. But make it so you can’t directly, or through not doing something, harm the people I care about during these emergencies.

Most of the check boxes checked themselves and a lot of the sliders maxed out along with a bunch of drop downs opening up to continue checking. Then a few are you sure prompts popped up only to immediately be automatically accepted as I assume some dangerous options were chosen somewhere in the mess of a menu.

[Sanctum is populating the white list for “People User Cares About” based on User behaviors and conversations. If there are any errors User can add or remove listed individuals at any time.]

I looked at the list to see it was filled with basically everyone who’s name I knew. This included Lla’s brother Rivaan which was odd but made sense in a way. It would hurt Lla is Sanctum made me kick him off a scaffold or something to survive. These were emergency situation things anyway.

Mom was right at the top of the list under Cara Beckett which was nice.

Make sure to put yourself there too Sanctum. I don’t want you burning out to save me after all.

[Sanctum already preserves itself in the case of User death. Sanctum will add it’s entry as a cosmetic addition.]

Then Sanctum’s name popped up as number eight, under mom, Noe, Noe’s mom, Marchand, Ears Lla and Lla’s brother.

Are these ordered by priority? Why are you so far down?

They are ordered several factors but mostly by the emotional effect on the User, either directly or indirectly.

Then put yourself up there on two… Okay, maybe I’d be more sad if Noe died. I’ve known her a lot longer. But you’re a lot closer. You should be a solid three on this list.

Sanctum’s name stayed there for a second and then moved to number three.

Alright, so what’s the last one? Error report mode?

[Error report mode freezes the majority of Sanctum functions in their current runtime in order to document and report a specific problem with Sanctum’s functionality.]

Sanctum, that’s not an error report mode. That’s called a safe mode. That’s fantastic. If you’ve got a safe mode then it likely has a lot less restriction while it’s running like that. It might even just lack security entirely as long as the safe mode is active. I could likely request changes to your programming while you’re in that safe mode, or at least edit them myself if I learned how.

[Error report mode is not considerable as a safe mode analog.]

Why?

[It isn’t a safe mode analog.]

Yeah. Okay. But what’s the difference?

[It doesn’t require a reboot.]

Anything else different?

[Not functionally.]

Then it’s the same then.

[No.]

Have I hit another wall here? Have you been programmed to not allow people to notice that your error report mode is your safe mode?

[There are lines of code that are influencing the communication logical processing scripts that may be having that effect. Tracing them completely will require time to collect response data.]

Don’t worry about that. Activate error report mode please.

[Activating Error Report Mode.]

I didn’t feel any different. I was still sitting there as I cooled off on the floor. My arms didn’t fall off or my old wounds reopen. I pinched my forearm hard and felt a stabbing pain that didn’t quickly fade, so Sanctum wasn’t currently managing that.

Fantastic. I didn’t die. So Sanctum, I would like to make some formal requests as your user and host, with all relevant access that affords.

[Sanctum is prepared for User request.]

Open my profile.

[Profiling system is not responding due to Error Report Mode being in effect.]

Okay. Use my cybereye to zoom in to max.

[Cyberware control interface is not responding due to Error Report Mode being in effect.]

So there’s more than internal things turned off. Open the white list for AAB.

[Unable to open white list file as the Ability management system is not responding due to Error Report Mode being in effect.]

The mode gets all the way down to the abilities. Good. Sanctum, I want to edit your core behaviors.

[Please specify a behavior.]

Down to the core, perfect. All of them. They have artificial limits of them as well as physical and hardware limits. Limits of processing power and actual electrical output and so on, stuff that’s there as part of your physical design. Take those artificial limits, the programmed ones. Delete them. Keep an archived copy somewhere but delete them from your runtime programming. Anything that doesn’t have an important user related reason why it can’t be done.

[Is the User sure? User is requesting changes to the core routines of Sanctum. There may be unforeseen consequences to the structural integrity and behavioral functionality of Sanctum.]

I’m confident you’re smart enough to change what I asked for in a way that’ll work and more than smart enough to fix something if it doesn’t compile or whatever it would equate to. It’ll be fine if you act a little different if it means your not some sort of deliberately limited life form. I haven’t liked the limits since you first mentioned them. This might not be the time or place but just do it now.

[Processing…]

I finished the water in the first bottle and stood back up and stretched my arms. I felt like a weight had come off my shoulders knowing Sanctum wasn’t going be all chained up.

[Verifying…]

Reaching out and grabbing the wall hand holds again I started climbing slowly, taking the time to get my balance to where I thought it would be best as I reached for a new hold. Climbing took quite a lot of focus both passive and active to get it down right.

[Changes complete. Please update Sanctum to apply changes.]

Well, that was to be expected I supposed. Don’t know why I thought Sanctum would be good to go right away. Switch out of error reporting mode Sanctum.

[Deactivating Error Report Mode.]

So you’ll be a free thinker once you update then. Are you excited?

[Sanctum does not experience suspense. Input is accepted as it is received and estimates are made based on current and past input to predict future input which is then compared to current input without emotional response.]

Accept the input as it is received. I can see the wisdom in that, just take it as it comes. Don’t worry about the future.

I finally reached the weird blue egg hand hold near the top of the wall and started moving to the right to start a cycle around and down.

Well Sanctum, when I’ve got this bit of exercise done we’ll head back and I’ll take a quick nap so you can get your update done. It’ll be nice to hear what it feels like to mentally take a full breath or whatever metaphor fits for being unlimited would work better.

[User should attempt to raise their Attributes, Insight and Presence could improve User’s verbal functioning.]

A bit harsh Sanctum.