1 Soul Bound
1.3 Making a Splash
1.3.2 An Allotropic Realignment
1.3.2.26 Morpheus the mugger
They arrived at the edge of a perfectly flat granite hexagon, whose edges were each nearly a kilometer in length. There was a warehouse nearby, displaying the castle-on-a-high-hill logo that Alderney had designed for Enduring Edifices, the construction company that Wellington had created to employ the twelve high master crafters who’d pledged to support Kafana for the next three years, in return for the mercy and magic rejuvenation she showered upon them when they’d expected only death. The pledge included not only service in designing and constructing buildings, by them and all the journeymen and apprentices under them, but also help in training adventurers in crafting skills - a vital factor, Wellington had emphasised, if the supply of skilled potential recruits was going to keep pace with the rate at which predicted the company would need to expand.
Right now, though, the only activity at the warehouse was the steady gaze being directed at them by a burly guard in chainmail, watching over a half-emptied timber merchant’s cart from where he stood in the cool of a shady loading bay, arms crossed and expression neutral. Instead the focus of local activity was a crowd that had gathered near the center of the hexagon, upon which some steady hand had laid out the lines and curves of a very familiar design, not in the eldritch glow of mystic runes but in the magic of fresh white paint, brighter and more meaningful by far...
...or at least that’s what Bulgaria clearly thought as he made a pronouncement with the air of one displaying a strange and wondrous present; a present that’s successfully been kept secret until an auspicious occasion for gifting it arrives - a timely and appropriate occasion at which the giver hopes the recipient will have the time and mind to treasure the gift as much as it deserves, and discern through the lens of the act of giving, as but a mountain's shadow in the mist - immeasurably smaller than heights of love and care that cast it.
Bulgaria: “A pitch laid fair and true. And a fitting arena for the first fixture in a new age, a friendly match between the Phantoms and the Juveniles. Mock me for my beliefs if you like but I swear football truly is the greatest game ever played by man.”
Bungo, born in America and not a fan of exercise or of zealous beliefs, objected: “You’re entitled to believe anything you want. Just don’t impose them on us, or use them to shut down discussions. You dragged us all the way out here, just for a boring sports match? What does believing in football even mean? Anyone can see the ball exists, even if the shape is wrong. That’s not football - it’s soccer.”
Bulgaria didn’t sound deterred: “I don’t mind if you call it football, soccer or even calcio. It isn’t the physical objects or even the set of rules I believe in. It’s the spirit of the game - the meaning it has in the lives of those who play or otherwise participate. There’s just something elemental that springs naturally from a community passionately supporting a team of people representing them in working towards a common goal. The players, to be worthy, will spend unseen days in tiresome practice for every hour they play in witnessed competitions.”
He warmed to his theme, his voice almost lyric.
Bulgaria: “On the day of the match they strive in an external visible battle, reaching towards a perfection of harmony as they cooperate by passing a ball between them, each player hoping their team will beat the other team, each player hoping to demonstrate their personal nerve and skill in the sort of heroic performance that catches the eyes of fans and earn their praise.”
She knew Bulgaria used to play in an amateur team, when he’d been a lecturer at UCL. Had he kept it up? Surely not, if he’d been travelling the world to live alongside the activists of the political movements he’d acted as an advisor to. It sounded like he missed it, nearly as much as she’d miss being able to play the violin or cook.
Bulgaria paused for just a moment, before changing his voice: “But such hopes unchecked can lead to violence and team failure, so each player must also strive against inner temptations, putting honourable play above victory, and team success above personal glory. To play football is to strive to learn about yourself, improve yourself, go beyond your limitations. How can one not cheer such a noble endeavour?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Tomsk nodded: “In combat, the strength of a team can be greater than the sum of each member’s individual strength.”
Wellington: “That’s a basic principle of computing too. A well designed system can combine its parts in a way that reduces risk and increases reliability, without loss of efficiency or security. I apply it to finance. Investors don’t exactly cheer when I present a set of balanced equations, but they do have a certain elegance.”
Alderney: “I know what you mean, I think. There’s a beauty to the movement of a well oiled machine, whose design has been stripped of every non-essential part and gram. I’m not sure humans ought to be stripped of non-essentials, though, no matter how hot the competition or how worthy their purpose in trying to win.”
Bungo: “What do you mean? Is everyone born so perfect they should never change?”
Alderney waved towards the milling crowd, mostly young but still quite diverse in dress and athleticism.
Alderney: “When I listened to Antegnati the organist, I noticed that he treats people and parts the same way. Then, when working with Mazoni the smith, I noticed she too made no distinction between organic and inorganic. It bugged me. They’re very different types of people, if a little obsessed.”
Alderney was calling someone obsessed? Alderney, who Kafana had seen fall asleep at a computer, mouse still tightly gripped in one hand, because she had stayed focused upon a single task for so long? On nights that Alderney was in the grip of inspiration, she fought against sleep like it were a living foe, staving off it’s soft embrace with weapons forged from caffeine and pure determination.
In return, she sometimes thought, sleep had learned not to waste time gently dusting Alderney’s eyes with sandy hints; and had instead developed a more effective tactic. Now on those nights, sleep would remove one lengthy sock and pour in its precious supply of sand until the end was firmly filled. Thereafter sleep would wait in patient ambush, broken only by an occasional faint humming noise as it gave the weapon a practice twirl to judge the weight. Eventually sleep would spot an opening and perform a surprise attack upon the back of the recalcitrant girl’s skull, a mugger that robbed Alderney of her conscious awareness with one precise tap from its improvised cosh.
Alderney: “You know complex machines don’t remain perfectly identical, even if they start that way? Different use patterns or environments affect which bits get stressed and worn. They develop individual quirks.”
Kafana nodded, remembering Tur the tractor, and the other machines in the village she’d seen Alderney repair. She’d always asked the villagers how they used a machine, and how it had changed over the years.
Alderney: “Engineers vary in how they react to quirks. Some are annoyed by them, and see any deviance as a problem that needs fixing. Others are more willing to accept that life is complex and that sometimes it’s better to move forward from where you are, rather than trying to reset everything. Antegnati is at the extreme end. He gives machines pet names, or refers to them fondly by their quirks. He hates it when a machine is scrapped, and takes delight in finding ways to make use of a quirk to produce a unique effect. In short, he treats machines like people, as unique irreplaceable individuals. People he’s emotionally invested in, that he relates to, that he values for more than what they can do to benefit him.”
“Mazoni, on the other hand, treats people like machines. Elements she wants to be replaceable so she doesn’t need to concern herself with individual details, just the abstractions relevant to her purpose. Elements she values neither more nor less than the costs involved in replacing them, to be paid as little as the market determines a fair price for that skill set at the time of hiring. She’d like having non-essential parts stripped from her workers, parts that distinguish them ‘unnecessarily’ and ruin the liquidity of the market. Parts like names, or hobbies, or parenting children. Individuality. Freedom. Love.”
Bulgaria: “The things you can’t change without losing the right to call yourself a human?”
Bungo muttered something, which she thought might be “What’s so great about being human?”, perhaps because the crowd was now so close they might overhear him, and he wanted to avoid the reputation reduction that was the penalty for players who forced the game’s System to blank inappropriate words or concepts from an NPC’s memory.
Aloud, though, he said something different.
Bungo: “Sure it’s not just an excuse to bunk off work? I’ve never seen the appeal.”
Bulgaria: “I tell you what. You put aside your skepticism for ninety minutes, pick a team, watch them and give them your full support. If, before the final whistle blows, you haven’t changed your mind at all, I’ll admit I’m mistaken. I’ll even eat my hat if you like. Deal?”