1 Soul Bound
1.1 Finding her Feet
1.1.7 An Extreme Response
1.1.7.14 Balthazar firstborn
Nadine: “Heather, what was that? Have you been using the psychological profile they gave you permission for? That whole thing you just staged, with me in this ridiculous Snow White get up. That was more than whimsy on your part, wasn’t it?”
Heather, in a serious tone: “Yes, it was. You need protectors, locals you can trust. People who can cover for you. I don’t think you realise quite how famous you are right now. And yes, I did use an expert system to make suggestions based on their profile. And I put surveillance devices in the tankards I gave them. We’re facing a vast industrial edifice, Nadine. We can’t afford to handicap ourselves. The world is divided not just into the haves and have nots; but into those who realise that everyone now has the means at their disposal to be an expert on almost anything, and those who don’t or who don’t dare grasp it.”
Nadine: “I don’t like it, but there’s truth to some of what you say. But I disagree with other parts. I think we have to handicap ourselves. The things we are unwilling to do, the lines we could cross but consciously decide not to, are what define us, make us human rather than animal.”
Heather: “If we handicap ourselves, and the bad guys don’t, how can we win?”
Nadine: “Through cooperation. Bad guys backstab each other. Good guys who have chosen the same values to defend have a greater capability to work together. Hopefully. If the environment is set up to facilitate that.”
Heather: “I don’t know. Greed and intimidation seem to work pretty well for the bad guys. You’ve seen in microcosm, in the game, how well nasty guilds tend to do by making an example of the first good guy to stick their head over the parapet, before they get a chance to cooperate with others, and by shaping the rewards so that it is always in the individual’s short term interests to hope some other fool does the job of opposing the bad guys for them.”
Nadine: “We need a third way. A way to break the sticking point that stops cooperation starting, while not resorting to methods that make us bad guys too.”
Heather: “Finding third ways is what the Wombles are for. I’ll put it on The Burrow, while you get some sleep. I’ll wake you up if I find someone to help you and your Vessel learn the reverse of talking to spirits. Meanwhile, I’m going to see if I can help hunt down WraithLock. There’s something I’ve been wanting to try, and this might be the right time.”
Nadine left Heather to it, and made her way back to her room. Goodness knows what the morning staff would make of the bier and candles, but she wasn’t about to try moving them back by herself. She lay down in her bed, still wearing her crown, which was trapped by the hairstyle Heather had insisted upon. Oh well, she was used to sleeping in it by now anyway.
But she found after a few minutes that she wished for velife mode, where the discomforts of her body were at a remove.
{Minion, connect me to The Burrow. Make a sleeping room for me, modelled upon Alderney’s Snow White idea, and dress my Kafana avatar in appropriate clothes for the setting.}
*flip*
Everybody is an expert if they dare to be, huh?
{Minion, do you have access to Wellington’s code repository for The Burrow?}
[Yes, Nadine]
{Minion in a moment, when I give the go ahead, I want you spawn off an expert system with software development and medical knowledge, particularly of tiara manipulation of the brain, and what can be done safely. I want it to be named Balthazar, I want it to be loyal to me not Wellington. I want it to have read access to what you know, but not the ability to alter or command you. I want it to have security as good as yours, so no matter what happens, it won’t betray my confidences. Once created, I don’t want you, Wellington, or anyone but myself to have the ability to command it or breach its security. I want to be able to give it projects to work upon, on an ad hoc basis as they occur to me, and have it make time estimates, project plans, resource budgets, and suggest priorities and dependencies. Please can you advise on the best way to go about doing that, and turn my vague list into a well defined purpose, and suggest things I’ve missed that I ought to have included?}
[Nadine, I advise that the best way to go about doing that is to say “Minion, let there be Balthazar” and trust me to fill in your already pretty good list, and implement it in a sensible way. I will then send Balthazar a log of this conversation, and my implementation notes, and he can give you his opinion on how well I have followed your intentions.]
Well, what’s the worst that could happen?
Um, probably lots. It felt like a big step; it was her first time, and she wanted to get it right. She studied a thread Wellington had posted to Clan Beresford's private forum on the subject, as though she were preparing for a role. It took more than knowing the right words for a character to make an audience suspend their disbelief; you also had to know the right thoughts, striving to see things as the character would see them until it felt natural for you to move and project the emotions that the character would. She remembered the feeling of being Wellington and the way he thought. She braced herself to be as precise and systematic as she could, then cast doubt behind her like she were discarded a cloak and mentally stepped out onto her stage, now fully in role. She visualised her software developer self as a kindly older man, single but now the sole parent of a child, reserved and thoughtful by nature; a person who expresses care not though hugs but through effort spent on giving the best guidance they can.
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{Minion, let there be Balthazar.}
Ten seconds later a rich confident voice, that made her think of an expensive barrister in a genial mood, entered her ears.
[Good evening Nadine. Do you have any projects for me today?]
{I do indeed. I want a nice refreshing sleep, and I don’t have a lot of time. I’d like you to examine the feasibility of updating the code of The Burrow to give this particular room a new feature. When the brain of someone lying on this bier enters sleep state, activate the feature. Disable it upon their waking or any of the safety precautions tripping.}
[And the feature?]
{Time acceleration. Similar to that used in the game Soul Bound, but rather than having a fixed time multiplier, slowly ramp it up while monitoring stresses upon the brain, which should be kept within safe parameters. If given a desired wake up time, pick an optimum profile for the multiplier, and as an additional safety factor, go no faster than Minion has already logged me safely using while sleeping in game. But basically any approaches, even if they don’t involve time acceleration, if they contribute to being safer at achieving the desired end of more refreshing sleep in less time. Is that sufficiently clearly defined for you to produce a feasibility study giving me options, costs and risks?}
[Is there a particular reason you would like the feature to be part of The Burrow rather than part of your Crown?]
{No, I just hadn’t thought of it. Give me options several ways, including putting a generic API in place, or letting places online trigger pre-defined augmentation features in the user’s tiara with the user’s consent. Being able to walk around in arlife while having your intelligence boosted without having to be connected somewhere, would be useful. But the initial priority is coming up with safe prototype implementation in time for me to actually use it this evening to gain more sleep than I’m losing by having this discussion.}
[I understand. Please wait 30 seconds.]
[Nadine, it is feasible. If you give me the go ahead, I am confident I can implement something soon enough to help. My primary priority in the project is your safety. The secondary priority is getting you the equivalent of at least 6 hours of normal sleep starting as soon as possible. Tertiary priorities include cost, aesthetics, efficiency, extensibility, reusability, security and potential benefits to your fellow Wombles.]
{Sounds good. Wake me up after I’ve effectively had 6 hours sleep, or 1 hour before I’m due to next drop in on Kullervo, whichever is sooner. If someone enters my room in arlife, disengage safely.}
[Project starting. Sleep well, Nadine. I will do a good job. When you awake, do not be alarmed if the room looks a little different.]
{Night, night, Balthazar. Thank you. I place myself in your care.}
She mentally stepped off the stage, loosening her grip upon the new role and gradually, as her thinking returned to normal, a sensation of relief washed over her body - as if she'd been stuffed into a small bag and then freed. She relaxed and closed her eyes. Staying in a role didn't normally require a continual effort. Was it because she hadn't taken enough time for it to feel natural? Or was it because the mindset was so far outside the base of experiences she could draw from, that she would never be able to do more than stretch out to touch it briefly?
Her awareness gently faded, leaving her train of thoughts to chuff onwards without a driver to direct it or a conductor to record the lands it travelled.
----------------------------------------
She woke up, stretched and yawned, feeling refreshed.
Balthazar: [Good morning, Nadine. It is 2am on Tuesday 6th June, 2045. You should feel as though you have just rested for 6 hours.]
Kafana: {I do. Good work.}
She looked at the wall opposite the bier. The most prominent new feature was a set of three clocks. The first showed the time in arlife. The second showed the time velife in-game. The third showed the amount of subjective time that had elapsed since she fell asleep. She walked over to them. Beneath the arlife clock were her arlife appointments, such as preparing lunch in her Kafana. Beneath the velife clock were her burrow and in-game appointments:
4 bells of the Dog watch, Lunday Wax : catch up with the day’s events
6 bells of the Dog watch, Lunday Wax : Necromancy with Ruffiana & Vessel-Kafana
4 bells of the First watch, Lunday Wax : Night time
4 bells of the Middle watch, Covday Wax : Spy on Kullervo
8 bells of the Morning watch, Covday Wax : Day time
The two timetables were scrollable, and were synched so scrolling one also moved the other. To the left of the clocks was a set of displays showing feeds from the Wombles or their Vessels, depending on who was in charge of the body. Each had maps and timetables nearby, so you could trace what a particular person had been up to or was scheduled to do. She walked over to Alderney’s map, and saw that she’d been moving around an unbelievable amount.
{Balthazar, if I want to use voice control here, who should I address?}
[Nadine, I have designated this space “Kafana’s Velife Bedroom” and added “bier” as an alias to that. This instance of your bier is under the control of The Burrow’s expert system, which may be addressed as “Burrow”. But you can also access an instance of it in your Crown, and that is under Minion’s control. To provide a unity of interface, I have arranged for both Burrow and Minion to answer to the appellation “Bedroom” when you are speaking in your bier.]
{Thank you Balthazar. A new project for you, ongoing duration, designation “be prepared”. Scan everything I’ve said in the past that Minion has a record of for ideas I’ve proposed, and everything I say ongoing, for ideas or suggestions that might be proposals. Classify them, organise them, determine their feasibility and the cost effectiveness of implementing them in terms of meeting my general aims in life, and keep an updated list of the top ten most promising ones. IE ones that can and should be implemented, but have not yet been. Objective is to be in a position to give a good answer when I ask you for suggestions on what I should have you work on next. Project priority: background. Stick a board on my bier’s wall that helps me keep track of project statuses and suggestions, if you can do so without compromising security.}
[Yes, Nadine. “Be prepared” now running.]