15. A Gift from the Administration.

I’d figured out how to make the lobby play music the last time I’d died. After reviewing the important figures who would be attending the ball tomorrow, or at least the ones that Marquise Peori had insisted that I do my best to impress, I decided to spend some time practicing the common dances of Yuikon. The four-step, the tin-roof, the elegance, and the fandango were four that I’d learned as a child, but I’d never had to practice them enough to even earn the [Dance] skill. I hadn’t earned that skill until I’d practiced with Tarisha.

Her dances were more complex. Sometimes they involved partners and sometimes they didn’t, but they were far more demanding than the simple ballroom exercises I’d known before. I doubted they would be of any use to me tomorrow, however.

“Practicing would be easier with a partner, you know,” Thomas said, causing me to miss a step and almost fall over. I hadn’t heard or seen him zone in to my instance of the lobby. I was annoyed at the intrusion, and after everything that the administration had put me through recently I wasn’t afraid to show it.

“Can’t you at least knock or something?” I demanded angrily, shutting off the music to the four-step with a gesture. “Everything else is bad enough, but can’t I ever even be afforded a moment of privacy?”

Thomas looked honestly shocked at my reaction. “I’m sorry. I don’t know that we ever thought about that. Which is foolish of us, since we dedicated this entire section of the lobby to your usage for that very purpose. I’ll get the developers to figure out how to install a doorbell or something.”

“What in the seven hells do you want, anyway?” I asked. “I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want to hear from anyone with the tag unless they were addressing the grievance I filed. I was told it would take months.”

“One of your grievances was that we left you to discover your unique abilities without guidance,” Thomas explained, keeping his voice calm. “If you’d like, I can come back later, but you could be spending this time more effectively if I showed you how to split yourself into multiple instances of yourself.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. “My Traveler blood makes it impossible.”

“That was a little white lie we told you when you were younger,” Thomas admitted. “The truth is that while you were younger, just one of you was enough for us to keep an eye on. We were a lot more involved with your early childhood than you remember, Hail. You were a handful, even with an entire castle of Natives helping us to babysit you. We sealed quite a few functions intending to give them to you when you were older. This was one of them.”

I paused at that. I had thought the fact that there was only one of me was what separated me from the other Natives. Was I wrong? “Why are you only telling me this now?” I demanded.

“Because we like the way that you’ve been interacting with random Travelers over the last few days,” Thomas explained. “And because it will be extremely beneficial to you tomorrow at the dance. The truth is, that’s the reason we gave you the [Placeholder] class to begin with. In preparation for unlocking this ability. We always intended to, we were just waiting for your personality and maturity to reach a point where you’d be able to handle it. We believe that you’ll be able to handle splitting yourself in up to five instances, and that as you grow used to doing so, you’ll become even better at it. We’re not certain what your upper limit is. We don’t think it will be as high as a regular Native’s, but eight to ten seems like a reasonable estimate.”

My outrage at the intrusion on my privacy was fading as Thomas’s explanation drew me in.

“What is it like?” I asked after considering his words for several minutes.

“I’m not certain exactly what the experience will be like for you,” Thomas admitted. “Well, I can describe what we think you’ll experience, and what we intended the experience to be like for you, but this isn’t an ability that humans from earth possess, so I can only imagine.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”

“We’re hoping that you’ll barely even notice when you split your consciousness,” Thomas explained. “You won’t be able to do it accidentally. It’s an ability that will require confirmation of your intent to use it. Once the split happens, you’ll only be aware of how many other versions of you exist. You won’t be aware of what any of the others are currently thinking or doing. Each instance of you will, well, do whatever it is that you intend to do. Then, when you enter a rest period, you’ll sort of, well, this is the part that we don’t know what you’ll experience. Do you dream, Hail?”

“What?” I asked, surprised by the question. “Of course I do.”

“What are your dreams like?”

I thought about the question for a moment before answering. “Things that happened. Or things that I learned, or heard about, or imagined. I used to dream about what it was like on Earth, but my actual experience there was very different. When I was younger, I dreamed that I was older and that I was fighting side by side with my father in the frontier lands. Now, I dream of … you know what? It’s none of your business.”

Thomas chuckled. “I suppose that’s fair. We were really hoping that your rest cycles would be something like REM sleep. When you split yourself into multiple copies, Hail, you should expect your dreams to be much more intense than normal. It will be more intense for every copy that you make. When you wake up, you’ll remember everything that every copy of you did the day before. At least, more or less. We think. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Objectively we know how the system is designed, but we don’t know what your subjective experience will be like unless you describe it to us. Which, I suppose, you’re not under any obligation to do.”

I considered his words for a moment. The thought of another me running around in another instance, making decisions for me and forcing me to live with the consequences was unpleasant. But I could also see the benefits, and they outweighed the risk.

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“So every night the copies will merge with the original?” I asked, hoping for clarification.

“No, that’s not exactly right,” Tomas said. He scratched his head as he considered how to explain it. “Unless we did something very wrong, you shouldn’t have any sense of ‘I am the original’ or ‘I am a copy.’ Your multiple instances of yourself will be equals in every way. They might start to diverge the longer they remain separated, but we have a solution for that as well. That’s lesson number two for tonight. Then we’ll review the terms on which you’ll actually be able to use this ability.”

“Of course there are strings attached,” I muttered. “Okay. You have me convinced, I want to try it out. How do I do it.”

“You simply ask the system to do it for you,” Thomas said. “Well, not the entire world’s system. Your subconscious, I’ve called it before. Your support system. It will ask for confirmation, and if you’re certain, you select yes. It will only ask once, but that’s still a double confirmation, which we think is sufficient, even once you learn to do this instinctively.”

I looked at him blankly. “Okay, but how do I ask my subconscious to do that?”

He looked surprised. “We lifted the restriction, you should be able to sense it now. Haven’t you tried tapping into it yet?”

“I can feel something,” I admitted. “It’s like a cloak that’s always been there, but I was so used to it that I never felt it. Then it suddenly started tripping me and getting in the way, except that it wasn’t doing anything it didn’t do before. I just don’t need it to do those things for me anymore.”

“Good,” Thomas nodded. “That’s excellent. The system was designed to anticipate your needs, Hail. But it’s been with you for a long time, and your needs have changed. Think of it like an overbearing parent who’s watching their kid ride a horse for the first time. It’s nervous that you’ll fall off, but the truth is that you’re ready to take the reins and kick the horse into a gallop.”

“Okay, so I’ll try not to snap at it too much when it gets in the way,” I said, suddenly feeling sorry for the system which, if I really thought about it, had given me a lot over the years. “But how do I get it to split me.”

Thomas looked sheepish. “Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. I mean, I don’t know how to instruct you in how to do it. To start with, I guess I’d suggest meditation? Like, calm your mind and reach out to the system, then use that connection to ask it to split you into multiple instances.”

I looked at him blankly for a moment, annoyed that he didn’t have the answer I wanted. Sighing heavily, I took a seat on the ground right there, crossed my legs and closed my eyes. I turned off my HUD to keep that from distracting me, and I simply calmed my mind as best as I could.

It was surprisingly difficult. Minutes passed. I kept thinking of things I’d done wrong, or that had gone wrong, or that I was worried were going to go wrong.

I tried thinking of something else.

A memory popped up. I was with Beckah, but we were on Earth. I’d forgotten that I used to go to Earth with Beckah when I was younger, but I suddenly remembered it now. She’d given me things, but then I’d figured out how to make them for myself, and now that I remembered that I remembered how I did that and I reached out like I had before and--

<

It was the system that I’d felt like a mantle around me, and it was much bigger than I’d ever imagined. Too big for me to comprehend.

Compared to the system, I was a speck of dust.>>

I jerked away from it by reflex, and I felt it receding from my mind until it was just the mantle that I had been feeling recently.

<>

“<>” I demanded.

<> the system sent back.

“<>” I asked.

“Ah, excellent. You opened the command prompt!” Thomas said. “Okay, Hail, now--”

“<>,” I said, and to my surprise the sound he was making suddenly stopped. “<>”

<>

“<>” I said. I looked at Thomas, who was frantically typing on an invisible keyboard. “<>”

<>

The system droned on, but I was focused on what Thomas would say next. I didn’t ask the system to undo whatever it had done to mute him. I figured he was an administrator, so he should be able to fix that problem on his own.

‎