1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.1 An Icy Welcome
1.2.1.4 Respite
She returned to the viewing room in The Burrow, from where she’d entered the game. Alderney was at her editing desk, watching her sing In the arms of an angel. The narrative Alderney had constructed by stitching together fragments of what her two bodies had seen didn’t match her memory. It showed a giant avenging angel Kafana face down an angry fire elemental, a hoard of devils writhing on the ground in agony beneath her. It finished with the Pit Fiend being turned to stone, and then cut to the furious last tirade by Salma kicking Kafana out and telling her to never come back.
Kafana: “Alderney, I’d ask what you’re doing but I really need a hug. Please?”
Alderney took one look at her and flew over to engulf her. Kafana let herself go.
A few minutes later she was coherent enough to explain.
Kafana: “I’m not upset at what happened in the Inferno. That was scary, but also kind of cool, in parts. It's my Vessel. I can’t talk directly to her, now I’m back. I feel like I’m missing an arm, or worse. It is hard to explain. Did you dip into my stream and feel what it was like for me to be unified with her?”
Alderney: “I did feel what my tiara could show me, but I got the impression that it is not possible for others to fully experience what you felt. Their brains don’t have the augmentation the game effectively gave you during it. It is like trying to experience Wellington’s stream, but 10 times worse. You realise you’re just catching the edge.”
Kafana: “This game is really doing our brains over. They treat us like guinea pigs. You get memories of sex imposed upon you, I get tortured, and now this.”
Alderney: “Don’t forget the way they nearly fried your brain, or the way they are using pleasure rewards for levelling as crude Pavlovian training.”
Kafana: {Balthazar, new project “brain shield”, review ways that XperiSense is known to have used tiara technology in the past, player complaints about it, and ways they theoretically could use it, but haven’t yet as far as we know. Look for non-obvious motives they might have, and also analyse my current precautions in light of that and of what other players have posted about precautions they take on this and other games, and known abuses of this technology by other organisations.}
[Yes, Nadine. Launched. Status board in bier updated.]
Kafana: “Ok, I’ve just set an expert system to improve my safeguards. Enough being amateur about this.”
Alderney: “You create expert systems? When did this happen? Last I knew, you were so technophobic you were scared of having even a drone in your house.”
Alderney was trying to distract her, but she wanted to be distracted.
Kafana: “Your big speech to me about anyone being able to be an expert if they dare; it motivated me. Besides, I’m not a technophobe; I just live near lots of people who’re cautious about its social effects. I’ve even made a bedroom. Want to see it?”
Without waiting for an answer she travelled there and sent Alderney a link, who then appeared a moment later, and looked about with great curiosity.
Alderney: “Subjective time? You’re up to something. What’s all this do?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Kafana: “It does the same as sleeping while logged into the game, except safer. I had a good night’s sleep in under 2 hours arlife time. You want a copy?”
Alderney looked suspicious: “When I said anyone can achieve professional-looking results, I was talking about editing sense recordings. Didn’t Wellington say this was too dangerous even for him to try? Can an expert system really be an expert on something that’s never been done before? With the right voice modification software, would you really consider me to be an ‘expert’ singer?”
Kafana: “Great questions. Ask in the public forum, let’s see what Wellington’s programmer friends have to say. In the meantime, feel free to not use it yourself, and to ask Wellington to look at what I’ve done. I don’t plan to give this to anyone who isn’t part of Clan Beresford. Wellington’s point about liability was well taken.”
Kafana: “Right now what I’d want to do is have a long chat with everyone about what I can do about reuniting with Vessel-Kafana, but I think what I ought to do is ask what you were planning on doing with that recording you were editing, and then get back into the game and handle the problems I’ve caused. I don’t want to. I want to curl up with something comforting and shut out the world, but I need to be an adult.”
Alderney: “I feel ya. Right now, I think the most adult one among us is Wellington. Do you realise how many mage level-ups he’s missed because he’s hit the apprentice level-cap and he hasn’t had time to find the right High Master for his journeymanship? He hasn’t complained once.”
Kafana: “I’m not sure extreme sacrifice, where you’re trusting your survival to the hands of others is quite what people mean when they say ‘adult’. We’re back to that domesticated kitten versus wild adult cat thing. But whatever it is, we need to do better by him. Wombles help each other, it shouldn’t all flow one way.”
Alderney nodded: “Right now, we’ve got lots of people due to turn up to our gelato launch in 2.5 hours arlife time. If we don’t want it totally derailed, we need to let people know beforehand that you’re alive and back, and get them in a happy mood rather than believing they were deliberately misled into thinking you were gone.”
Kafana: “I’m feeling really uncertain in my role here. I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to lie to people, and I don’t want to get treated like some sort of celebrity rather than just another player, perhaps one who is a bit better known than most, who sometimes gets up to fun stuff, but who isn’t a role model, who isn’t put on a pedestal and expected to be perfect. Playing the diva for a little, like when meeting those socialites outside the Speckled Dove can be fun, like pulling a prank, but it isn’t who I want to be. Who I can be, and remain someone who is fun for others to experience the game through.”
Alderney: “How about some new clothes? I can whip you up something, based on that bard design your ghost body was wearing in the Inferno. Then, when you have to talk about the things that happened there, you won’t have to present it as a personal tale (‘as told by Kafana herself’). You’ll be able to duck away, as often as you choose to, presenting it as just another tale about a famous person being told at one remove by a bard who wasn’t part of it. Be dramatic about it, and let them assume you’re exaggerating for effect because you’re a storyteller.”
Kafana shrugged: “I don’t know. I guess if that doesn’t work, I can go looking for mud puddles and repeatedly fall into them until everyone realises I’m a klutz not some mythic ‘Twice-Born’.”
Alderney: “Ok, then I’ll whip up a template, drop into the game to transcribe it and ask Vessel-Alderney if she could make it. Then I’ll ask Wellington to review your bedroom code, let all the Wombles know you’re back, and post on the forums asking for volunteers to help get things ready for the launch. But then I need to keep my butt stuck to mission-control here, until Mary-Lynn wakes up and can take over, handling all the press stuff. Do you know we’re getting arlife sponsorship offers? Someone wants to produce a Kafana-brand gelato, and cut you in on the profits. Wellington and Bulgaria are trying to come up with general policies and a financial strategy.”
Kafana: “It looks like being media contact is going to be a full time post. What are the options for hiring someone, finding more volunteers you can trust, or designing a high level expert system with skills good enough to slurp in all you and Mary-Lynn have discussed about your strategy and tactics, and do 90% of the work with you just being paged to confirm decisions and make the tough judgement calls?”
Alderney: “You’re putting off going back in, aren’t you?”
Kafana: “Yes, damn it. Ok, I’m going. But you owe me half a day to show you around Bosnia before you leave, come hell, high water or media crisis. Deal?”
Alderney: “Deal.”
*flip*