S.I. (original/SI)

*Book Three: Ex-*


*Chapter One: Ex-hibition*

Fortunately, our hazmat suits turned out to be designed to handle a little chemical fire.

Unfortunately, the tarp keeping the little girl, Minnie, safe from the toxic atmosphere, wasn't.

As soon as Joe noticed he was on fire, he squeezed closed the hose connecting his air-recycling pack to the tarp, and unceremoniously dropped her to the street. Dotty (her grandmother) and I hurried as fast as we could - her faster than me, thanks to my genius decision not to bring a walking stick - to pull Minnie away from Joe, and connect her to my own suit's life-support pack. Boomer, my pocket AI, was shouting instructions to Joe, I was trying to watch Dotty for any signs that the residual nerve gas was affecting her, or the antidote my body had unexpectedly produced for her was...

In short, everything was higgledy-piggledy.

Which, of course, meant that as Joe's faceplate was covered in soot and fire-smothering dirt, and I was lying on my side while Minnie fiddled with hoses and tape, I happened to be the one facing in the right direction to catch sight of a trio of curved arcs in the air to the west, above the lake. Too big for birds, too small for planes - it looked like Technoville had sent a trio of powered paragliders after us.

"Boomer!" I called out. "Incoming! We need to signal them - warn them off from the nerve gas. Can you reprogram the ring-light to flash Morse code?"

"If you turn me to face them, I can," responded the AI's badger-shaped avatar.

I reached over, and did so. Lights started flashing, and I hoped at least one of the flyers was catching sight of the signal.

They got closer, and Joe got to his feet, trying and failing to brush his helmet clear.

One of the flyers' parawings curled in at both ends, its shape turning from a gentle arc into a graceless lump, and it started dropping. Another tugged to the left, and started turning, and turning, spiraling downwards, until it, too, vanished. The third just kept going straight, passing overhead without any sign the pilot was doing anything at all.

"That can't be good," I said. "Joe, can you swim?"

"I can't see. I think I'll need your help just to make it to the shore."

"Right. There's still a chance we can help the ones in the water. ... or, at least, make use of their gear. Um - Boomer, can you reach Clara from here?"

"Please cover your ears. Whistling starting in three, two, one-" My ears were inside my helmet, but I did my best to protect them from the noise that erupted. Boomer fell silent. A faint whistling came from the distance - not quite an echo. "Clara is directing Pinky to perform search-and-rescue, and if that fails, to perform salvage operations."

Dotty raised an eyebrow. "That's an awful lot of names for just two rescuers."

I tried to avoid barking a laugh - I might have just watched three people die, after wandering through a city that had been nearly exterminated. "Let's save the explanations for when you're breathing good air again. I have no idea how long whatever was in that injection will keep you going, and carrying Minnie is hard enough."

After a bit of awkward shuffling to take into account our various handicaps, we'd arranged ourselves so we could keep going.

--

When we got to shore, the two pilots, their machines, and their packs were laid out neatly inside our metal canoe. Clara, the AI whose avatar was a cow, reported, "I'm afraid they're dead. Their lungs are empty of water - they died before they landed. There was nothing we could do."

I absently rubbed my gut. It was possible that that wasn't entirely true - but this wasn't the time or place to discuss that. "Boomer, please scan for VX residue. We have a child who hasn't been exposed to the stuff yet, and I want to know what we have to get clean. Clara, can you download Boomer's maps on toxin levels, and show where the nearest places that can be safely breathed are? ... Thanks. Dotty, do you know how to paddle a canoe?"

"I think I can manage."

"Good," I nodded, "because Minnie and I are sharing a recycler, and I don't trust the seals on Joe's after that little burst, and if I paddle hard, I'll be using up our air."

"Very well. Do we need to make room for Pinky?"

I shook my head. "Pinky and Brain are aquatic. If you see tentacles, don't panic." She gave me a /look/. "Complicated. Okay - from Clara, it looks like we've got the choice of going downstream, or crossing the river and going along the north lakeshore, or the south lakeshore. We don't have data on how far the toxic cloud went on the north shore, so that's out. Looking at that map, it looks like the safe spot on the south shore is closer, but going down the river we'll get to Grand Island sooner, so Grand Island seems our best bet. Anyone need to say anything before we leave that affects that decision? ... No? Okay, let's get going. If nobody needs me, I'm going to try to meditate to see if I can cut down my air use."

--

After washing down everything that had been exposed to air until Boomer, playing tricorder, was satisfied; and giving the two pilots a decent, if short, burial service, we didn't end up at Grand Island. Instead, we made camp at a much smaller island nearby, which Boomer insisted was called 'Pirates Island'. About two hundred feet by seven hundred, large enough for Minnie to run around without getting lost, but small enough for Pinky and Brain to circle and guard and prevent any visitors from surprising us.

And then I couldn't put off having a conversation any longer. As I poked and prodded a campfire into life (more for morale than any need for warmth), I looked over at Dotty, who was watching Minnie like a hawk. In a low voice, to try to keep the young girl from overhearing, I asked, "Why did you try to kill yourself?"

She shifted her eyes to me for a moment, then back to Minnie. "I guess you couldn't smell it. We were out of good air. If you'd taken the time to try to build an airlock - she wouldn't have lived that long."

"Oh." That made a depressing amount of sense. "I don't suppose you know anything about who released the gas?"

"My daughter, Jane, was in the militia. She said she wanted us to clean up the shelter, that an inspection was coming. I thought she just wanted a break from Minnie. While we were sweeping - the alarm went off, and I closed the door. I didn't lock it - I was hoping Jane would come in, tell us it was just a drill..." She trailed off, and joined me in poking at the fire. After a while, she spoke up, "I'm not going to ask you too many questions. You saved me, and even more importantly, you saved Minnie. Way I see it, that buys you a lot of room for all the secrets you want to keep. I mostly want to know one thing - what do /you/ know about what might kill her?"

"Less than you're hoping, I think. I thought the cloud was some sort of attack by Technoville, but with Boomer's map showing it started in Old Buffalo, and those flyers from there flying right into it, that doesn't seem nearly as plausible. If it came from Buffalo's city-computer... maybe it was a response to the first flyer from Technoville," I didn't feel like mentioning who that flyer was, "or using a radio where one hasn't been used for decades. Or something else entirely, though the timing implies it's one of those two triggers." I frowned. "I've heard of city-comps that need to be fought off with full military strikes, ones that were dangerous, ones that never were... What's the Buffalo city-comp like? This sort of thing can't be too common, can it?"

"I don't think it's too different from other old cities. We built a wall between us and the towers, we kept watch, sometimes we had to fight something creepy or crawly that climbed up from underground-"

"Underground?"

"Sure - a bunch of the towers have holes going down. Most leaked all sorts of ugly stuff when they broke open, but when they did, that tower stopped cooking anyone who got near it - or, I guess, anything that came out of it."

"Hm," I hmed. "Alright. Focusing back on the present - we've got to figure out what to do with you and Minnie. If nothing else, while I can eat grass, we've only got so much food for Joe, and it won't last long with three mouths. Is there any place around here we could drop you off? Farms, maybe?"

"I saw that map on your... Clara. I think all the farms around Buffalo are gone. I don't know any place people live that's closer than Erie." That was a hundred fifty kilometers away, give or take - at least three days by canoe.

"Joe might suggest the other side of the river."

"Indian country? I didn't save Minnie just to get her killed right away!"

"Joe's from there. I've passed through there. If you can keep the locals from dunking you in their so-called 'spirit' pools, it doesn't seem that bad a place."

She shook her head. "No. You sound like you mean well, but just... no."

"Fair enough." I tried working out what I was actually trying to do here. "Maybe Joe could hunt down a deer - that would keep everyone supplied with food for a while, while we work on other things."

"What other things?"

"I need to find out more about the city-comps - and, of course, get back out again. That's pretty much the goal of our little expedition. You say there's tunnels? Then I need to learn all I can about them - how to explore them safely, what's in them, if they go anywhere."

"You're joking."

"Not at all."

"With just one man and one Changed woman?"

"And Boomer and Clara, and Pinky and Brain; and Alphie, who you haven't met but is arranging for more of Pinky's people to come help out."

"But only two with arms and legs. And it looks like your legs didn't Change cleanly."

"Eh," I shrugged. "Nobody else seems to be working on the problem, so if we don't, it's possible nobody will, until something worse than nerve gas starts coming out. I'd be happy to go and recruit more people - but one, we've only got the two suits, and two, I'm not that great at social stuff, like convincing people they /should/ help. I just barely managed to arrange for enough funding and resources to get me this far, and that's mostly by grabbing everything that wasn't nailed down while I've been on the go."

We stared into the flames for a while. After a while, I added, "I know there's something in the middle of the cloud, something that moves and spreads the cloud along. What I don't know is where it is, or where it's going. It could pass right by here on its way back to Old Buffalo one day with no warning."

"It could go anywhere else, too, couldn't it?"

I shrugged. "I haven't got enough data to say any prediction is much more likely than any other."

"That's a pretty wordy way of saying you don't know."

"I don't know, then. The suits can protect two people - as long as their batteries last, and it takes a while to charge them back up again. The safest place I can think of... are some air-filled domes, run by Pinky's people - I call them 'squiddies' since they haven't got a sound-based name for themselves. I'm expecting a messenger any time now - I could make arrangements to send you and Minnie back with them, and you could take a vacation for a few weeks, while whatever happens on the surface blows over."

"Can't say I'm happy about going down into another shelter..."

"Don't blame you. I'm pretty sure we're all going to need a lot of psychological counseling that's not going to be available any time soon. If you don't want that, I can have one of the squiddies tow you in a boat to Erie, or anyplace closer than that you want to go."

"Would you come with us?"

I shook my head. "To be a bit wordy again - to maximize the odds that people will keep living in the long term, especially me, I've got to take a few short-term risks, like hanging around uncomfortably close to where a lot of nerve gas killed a lot of people. For one - I want to see if that cloud is attracted back to where the flyers came near shore. If it's not... I know where a certain radio was, and if it's still there, I want to see if the cloud will chase after a new signal from it. If either of those works - then I'll have a way to lure the cloud somewhere in particular, and just might be able to do something about it, won't I?"

"Like what?"

"As a first thought, I know a place where I might - and I emphasize /might/ - be able to put together some explosive chemicals, and containers and such for them. I've run some numbers, and a container big enough to hold all the nerve gas I've seen would be implausibly huge and unwieldy, and since we haven't seen any giant footprints or tire tracks on shore, I'm reasonably sure that the chemicals are being manufactured as it goes... and a whole lot of explosives should mess up any chemical refinery, right?"

"Claymore mines would work better."

"Possible." I furrowed my brow. "Not sure if I could arrange for the casings and such, though. As it is, I'm going to have to figure out a decent way to set the whole thing off, if the cloud can be lured at all..."

"My daughter was part of the Buffalo militia. Since there's... nobody guarding anything anymore, I can get you claymores."

I blinked, considering what that said about Dotty's motivations. "And Minnie?"

"Will be a whole lot safer if whatever's making that cloud is stopped."

"We're going to need a lot more batteries for the suits..."

--

Naturally, we planned to cheat. I wanted to make this so unfair a fight that it wasn't a fight at all - merely an extermination of vermin.

One of our biggest limits was our suits' air recyclers, and the power they sucked out of even the biggest batteries. If we had to rely on the solar recharger I'd managed to keep with me from Technoville, it would take days just to recharge an hour of suit battery. Looting batteries from Buffalo had diminishing returns, as the locals didn't rely very much on electricity in the first place. However, I did know where a decent crank-style generator was: right with the radio, and the paraglider I'd flown to Fonthill on. I also knew where more might be arranged for: the university's fabricators. However, by now, both those spots were likely covered in VX residue, meaning we'd need to use the suits to get them.

Boomer's maps, combined with Joe's knowledge of the terrain, gave us a route along the Welland River that would bring us four kilometers from where my stuff was stashed - and with a few portages onto minor creeks, even closer. With Boomer's help in drawing 3D pictures, I showed Joe what the radio and generator looked like - and after a moment of thought, the paraglider's fuel tank. I told him how to let the tape-bot guarding my stuff know he was working for me.

All of which led to our first big argument. (Well, first since he and his people had tried to merge me into their big old melting pot of identity.) Joe wanted to find a spirit pool to dive into; I thought that was a bad plan.

I tried explaining, "The cloud didn't follow us - it /anticipated/ us, knew we were aiming for the factory. The only way it could have found that out was from one of your people."

"None of us would aid such a monster!"

"They might not have had a choice. If it could analyze the neural patterns of someone who's dead, or do something similar to whatever data about your peoples' memories are kept in your spirit pools..." I decided not to say aloud that I thought Joe was over-estimating the Great Peace's loyalty to me - if the cloud-maker had offered to retreat peacefully, in exchange for one parahuman who was incapable of joining the Peace, then the spirits might take that as a good bargaining position, even if the cloud-maker was likely to betray them.

"The spirits are above material questions."

"Then how do you explain the cloud knowing to go after the factory?"

"I do not. I just know that it was not my people who let that happen."

I shook my head. "/You/ may know that, but how can /I/ know that? All I've got is the evidence we've seen."

"And my word."

"I trust your word - that you believe what you say." I had a brief nudge from my inner West voice, and tried a different approach. "What, exactly, are you planning?"

"We will take the canoe along the shore, until we find a place the cloud has not reached. I will rejoin the spirits."

"And what's the benefit of that?"

"All I have seen, learned, grown - that will not be lost if I die."

"And the negatives - the risks and costs?"

"There are none."

I couldn't help but snort. "Don't be ridiculous. There are /always/ negatives to /every/ choice. They may be really /small/ negatives, compared to the benefits, but anyone who says a choice really is completely one-sided is almost certainly not /really/ thinking about it."

"What negatives do you see?"

"Time, for one. The longer we wait, the more likely the cloud-maker will go do something else, and we'll lose our chance to keep it from killing more people. As just one scenario - if it could figure out where I was going, maybe it can figure out where I've been, and decide to go wipe out another city. Or maybe it'll just methodically sweep through all the Great Peace's territory until nothing's left."

"Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough? But no, that's far from all. The more hands we have, the more we can do to make any plan work. We've just met Dotty, and she's already shown a certain penchant for suicide to accomplish her goals - and I don't entirely trust that she wouldn't blow us all up to get the thing that killed everyone she's known her whole life. I may disagree with your lifestyle, putting your identity in the hands of your spirits - but I at least trust you to try to keep us all alive, and do whatever else is useful."

"There it is. You just want me to do what you order - another slave, like the ones you have already bought, and the ones you will be buying!"

"You're joking, right? I /know/ slavery's bad. Extinction via a new Singularity is /worse/. If I could manumit the squiddies without increasing that risk, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Even if it's just iffy, I'd err on the side of getting rid of the institution. Of course, to do /that/, I'd have to convince the /squiddies/ to stop, who, you might recall, were buying and selling each other long before we came by. If you know how to free them all without buying them all first, I'd love to hear it."

"That is their problem. Their way of life. You should not have bought any at all!"

"Of course I shouldn't have! It was just the least-bad choice! You leaving is a /much/ worse choice than staying!"

"If I stay, I'll die!"

"If you go, /I/ will die! And maybe lots more people will, too!"

"You just want me for my body!"

"I also want you to tell me when I'm wrong, but only if you can actually back it up!"

By this time, we were nose to muzzle, fists clenched, staring each other in the eye, both of us apparently in full dudgeon.

Which is why I was completely flabbergasted when he stuck his mouth against mine, wrapped his arms around me and copped a feel.

After a moment of complete surprise, and another moment of kicking West for not giving me any kind of warning, I managed to pull my head back with an "Ack!", pushing him away with one hand and wiping my mouth with another. "What the bloody blue blazes do you think you're doing?"

He looked less angry and more confused. "But - you desire. I could feel it."

I took a few steps back, feeling /more/ angry. "You shouldn't make the mistake of confusing any physiological symptoms with actual consent. Did you even think to check if the little girl is anywhere nearby first? If this is the sort of behaviour I can expect from you, then maybe you /should/ go. Take Brain with you so he can tow the canoe back."

I turned, and managed at least a half-stomp (from my hoof hitting the dirt with all the force I could muster) as I strode away, my ears pointed forward and not listening to whatever he might have to say.

--

I never had been good at dealing with other people, even when the background environment was a stable, reasonably peaceful society, instead of a post-apocalypse madhouse full of people nudged by post-human intelligences, and in the wake of the deaths of thousands of innocent people, who very easily might have died because of my own actions. I was also not really used to the idea of being the recipient of unwanted sexual advances.

I went as far from Joe as I could, to the north point of the island, where I stripped off my belts, armor, and bodysuit, leaving just my sports bra and shorts, and sat on the rocky shore, letting my feet dangle into the water. (My stomping hadn't done my left leg any favors.) I saw one of the squiddie guards swim by, raising a few tentacles out of the water as he passed, but didn't really pay attention.

I tried to focus my mind on something useful. Maybe a plan to convince Joe he was better off here - but that thought was derailed by wondering if I really wanted him around, which led into wondering how much I really knew about him. I tried to figure out how I might grab the radio myself, or if Dotty could fit into Joe's hazmat suit, or if she'd even want to. I wasn't used to feeling actually angry - especially at someone I didn't want to fire a crossbow bolt at.

After a while, I was able to push my mind through to realize one complication - if Joe left with the canoe, the rest of us would have trouble getting off the island. That was a problem I was capable of solving, both physically and mentally. I rolled up my gear, stood, and started back to the campsite.

Dotty raised an eyebrow when she saw me, but didn't say anything, and Minnie kept playing with some stick-drawn lines in the ground and some pinecones. Joe was sitting by the campfire pit. I started packing my part of the camp up into the canoe.

Dotty asked, "What-?"

I stated, "Joe wants to leave. In case the canoe gets lost, we should move camp to shore."

Dotty looked from me to Joe and back, and hesitantly started helping me.

I picked up Joe's shield - and he snatched it out of my hands, snapping out "Stop that!"

I crossed my arms, glanced meaningfully at Minnie, then back at him. "I'm not good at building rafts - but I don't want to fight you. If you want to leave right now, fine." I turned to the canoe and started pulling out the stuff he wouldn't need.

"Stop that!" he ordered again, and I felt his hand on my shoulder.

I clenched my fists, but resisted the urge to whirl around to plant one in his face. "I don't see why I should. You made it perfectly clear what you want, and that my disagreeing won't change your mind. I can live without the canoe, but there's no point in you taking things you won't need."

"/Look/ at me!" he ordered. After a moment of consideration, I turned around. "Is this about me leaving or trying to kiss you?"

"I don't care about the kiss. You misinterpreted something, I said 'no', you stopped. I'm willing to chalk that up to another cultural misunderstanding, like the one where you gave me this hoof, and forget about it."

"So you're mad entirely because I want to leave."

"I'm mad because I /thought/ you understood the stakes. You think I /want/ to work out some hare-brained scheme to kill off some mysterious who-knows-what that killed an entire city? You think I want to remember what we saw in that /school/? You think I /want/ to do anything but run off into the woods with Boomer and spend the next few decades catching up on old books and TV shows and video games? Nothing that /any/ of us /want/ is important right now. I don't have the /luxury/ of doing anything less than the best I absolutely can, which includes using every last technique of rationality I've ever come across to make the absolutely best decisions I possibly can. And I'm not /nearly/ as good at using those techniques as I wish I was. In case I haven't mentioned it to you before, I'm /rubbish/ at dealing with actual live people. You want to leave. I think you shouldn't, but don't know how to convince you to stay. So you're going to leave. So I have to deal with that. Being mad doesn't help me with that, but I also don't know how to /stop/ being mad, so I'd really like to use the energy it's giving me to pack or unpack the canoe as soon as you decide how soon you're leaving."

"I'm not leaving."

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. "Please don't f-" I recalled Minnie's presence, "jerk me around. You want to preserve your memories. Fine. I don't understand the details of how your people live, maybe it's like a homing instinct you can't ignore-"

"Shut up," he interrupted. I sighed, opened my eyes, and crossed my arms again. "To you, everything is words and numbers." I shrugged, not particularly disagreeing. "To me, everything is feeling. I feel when I'm a man, or a woman, or a deer. The spirits feel. You feel, even when you pretend not to." I felt a bit like objecting to that, but was at least vaguely curious where he was going with this. "Right now, you can't pretend. If I die here, and forget all we have done together - that will be a shame. But I keep forgetting - when you die, you don't come back. Neither do the people in your cities. What you feel..." he shrugged back at me. "The spirits did not give me the English words to describe. Maybe there are no words. Maybe there should /be/ no words." I raised a skeptical eyebrow, and he shrugged again. "Fine. My words are - I will stay. At least long enough to stop the city-killer."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine!" piped up Minnie.

Joe and I glanced at her, and I rolled my eyes. "As long as you're not expecting me to have some emotional breakdown and start crying and hugging and so on."

"Of course not. But if you ever /want/ to hug-"

"Nope. Nuh-uh. Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope-"

"I want a hug!" Minnie piped up again.

"Eh... well, alright. You, I'll hug."

"I like your fur."

"I'm getting to like it too, kid. Uh - I didn't realize your hands were so sticky. ... Or your hair. ... What've you got /in/ your hair? I changed my mind, you've gotta get a bath before hugging- aw, darnit. And ew."

--

Getting the charger and radio back was a lot simpler than keeping my fur from getting constantly re-stickied. I didn't begrudge playing teddy bear for the kid, given what she'd gone through, but it got to the point where I was wearing my bodysuit less for the protection it offered and more because it was easier to clean than my fur.

It was around a thirty-five kilometer trip from Pirates Island to near Fonthill. It would have been a single hour in one of the paragliders, but I hadn't had a chance to give either of the ones we'd salvaged a good looking-over yet. Which meant a good six hours of Joe and me paddling (and Pinky swimming alongside), just to get to the point where we could start walking.

Or, at least, one of us could. Joe and I and fallen back into what seemed, to be, to be something of a comfortable silence, even before we'd pulled on the hazmat suits and started breathing their recycled air. But when I stretched my legs, getting ready to walk with him to my cache, Joe shook his head at me and said, "Stay."

"Any particular reason?"

"If I was stalking us - I might lay a trap if you came back. If I get caught, you shouldn't."

"Two people can escape from a snare easier than one."

"You might be able to walk, but not fast. You'll slow me down."

"I can't really argue with that. Starting to wonder if I'd have grown a paw back by now, if I'd amputated the hoof first thing. ... You're sure you want to go alone?"

"Yes. Running, I should be back in less than an hour."

"Don't forget, the recyclers can only scrub so fast. And you'll want to slow down to check for snares."

"Two hours, then."

"If you're not back by then... I'll come looking to see if you broke your leg or something innocent like that." He gave me a look, and I shrugged. "Okay, bad phrasing. I know if I went instead, and fell in a hole or something, I'd want you to come help."

He gave a nod, turned, and strode off.

Boomer piped up, "Do you consider the next two hours to be 'downtime'?"

I glanced down in surprise at her, then pursed my lips a bit. "Maybe. I want to keep an eye out in case the cloud starts coming this way... but I'm pretty much just sitting on my tail for a couple of hours."

"Then as you have requested, I am reminding you to improve your education."

"Oh. Yeah. I'd forgotten about that. I doubt we can do much before Joe gets back, but we can at least work out what subject matter to work on, and how to work on it. ... I don't suppose that the people of twenty fifty knew any technological tricks to improve learning speed and retention?"

"Many."

"That don't have negative long-term effects?"

"Some."

"Can any of them can be done with the supplies we've got available, or can reasonably get hold of?"

"Yes."

"Such as?"

"Focused transcranial current stimulation can be used for several pedagogical effects, such as inhibiting executive function to allow easier entry into the 'flow' state."

"Translating that to English, I get - zapping my head with electricity can help me learn better?"

"With careful placement and control of the current, yes."

"What would we need?"

"A battery, wires, and a way to hold those wires against specific portions of your skull. In addition, to avoid electrical burns, a conductive interface between the wires and your skin, such as wet sponges or a conductive gel."

"Hm... sounds like I've got a project to start working on, as soon as I've got the time to. What else've you got?"

 

*Chapter Two: Ex-pounding*

Joe returned a little before the two hours were up, hauling not just a few handfuls of equipment, but the whole powered paraglider I'd abandoned in place, and my packs.

As we loaded the canoe, I asked, "Any signs of what happened? Tracks, maybe?"

He shook his head. "Only the bodies of those who could not reach a pool in time."

"I'm sorry."

He fell silent, and I kept quiet with him, as we launched the boat back the way we'd come.

A little past the edge of where Boomer stopped detecting the toxin, we beached again, to scrub everything clean - we didn't want to poison Dotty or Minnie after rescuing them. By the time we'd finished that, it was getting late in the afternoon, but we pushed on. We made camp right by where the Welland River flowed into the Niagara, on Navy Island, about a kilometer wide by one and a half long.

"I always did want to camp here," I rambled a bit to Joe, "but before I died, it was against the law. Now - Canada's gone, America's gone, your Great Peace doesn't seem to have colonized it, even whatever claims Buffalo might have made this far down-river don't matter anymore. They say that Europe has history and the Americas have geography - but this one tiny splodge has a pretty good history for a place that nobody ever lived. There were once plans to house the United Nations here, a group that at least started with some good ideals, about human dignity and democracy and so on, however many flaws they had in reaching those ideals. And even before that, there was once a rebellion against Canada, and this island is where a bunch of the rebels declared the 'Republic of Canada'. Lasted about a month. Of course, Canada doesn't seem to have passed the test of time much better, save for one last Canadian, who hasn't got much of her original self left except her brain."

I poked at the squirrel stew. The animals on this side of the river were all natural, and the sling I'd been carrying in a pocket for a very long time turned out to be a handy way to pick up some extra protein.

I continued, "I might be the only person on the planet who knows that the Republic of Canada was even a thing, let alone how it fits into the larger story of... well, everyone. This radio, that I brought here and used, more likely than not have caused the deaths of tens of thousands - out of which we kept a whole two people from dying. Even assuming we destroy the city-killer, and warn the nearby cities not to come near without bringing their own air... I don't know if anything I ever do can come /close/ to balancing /that/ scale. I'd have to save a life every day for over a century." I poked at my belt. "I don't think even Batman could have kept up /that/ rate."

"So don't," Joe said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't balance the scales. If you caused those deaths - nothing you do will ever be enough. A killer who rescues a drowning child does not stop being a killer."

"Right bundle of joy /you/ are."

"/Listen/. The spirits may not send me back out once I join them - we may only have now to talk. And the word the spirits put in my head to describe you right now is 'prat'. Maybe you made those people die. Maybe you didn't. If you didn't, if all the people had died before you came near, what would you be doing?"

"Pretty much what we were doing before. Looking for a way to keep /everyone/ from dying."

"Then do that."

"Just simple as that, eh?"

"No. But if it was worth doing then, is it not still worth doing now?"

"... I suppose."

"Then you have your goal. And maybe I'm wrong, and a killer who saves more lives than they kill /can/ be a killer no longer. ... That sounded awkward in English. I'd say it in Iroquoian the way I thought it, but there doesn't seem much point."

"Eh. Pass me your bowl, the stew's ready."

--

Now that we had the charger, we could recharge our batteries a lot faster, and keep using the hazmat suits for as long as we could keep cranking it. And since both Joe and I enjoyed the benefits of physiques that had been built from the bones out, we could keep going for most of the day. But before we started firming up our plans for going back to Buffalo, we were interrupted by the arrival of my messenger squiddie, back from Lake Ontario. Since I'd already given names to Pinky and Brain, I continued the theme by dubbing her 'Elmyra', which won me a funny look from Dotty.

Elmyra passed over something like a waterproof leather tube, inside of which were something like papers, written on by Alphie. Since I wasn't keeping too many secrets from anybody around, I read aloud, "I have finished purchasing sufficient guards to block the river and canal route to Lake Ontario, and if necessary, to collapse the improvements allowing squiddie access. This leaves you in charge of access to the new egg-laying grounds, which I am using as collateral to continue the acquisition program. However, there is a complication. While there is no evidence that the squiddies are even aware of the concept of a trust verification architecture, my projections of their responses are becoming less accurate. The model that comes closest to fitting the observed data is that somewhere near Kingston, on the opposite end of Lake Ontario, is a person or AI who understands economics, and is pursuing their own agenda within the squiddie economy. Due to the communications infrastructure relying mainly on messages carried by individual squiddies, I find that I am unable to predict this other being's actions in sufficient detail to adjust my own purchase orders. The only viable solution I have found is to reduce the message delay by relocating closer to the other entity, which produces a maximum probability of you ending up owning two thirds of the squiddies, while the other entity remains in control of the remaining third. Further data will refine my estimates further."

I skimmed a few tables and charts with bell-curve probability distributions. "Hunh," I said, on my own behalf. "I don't think I really believed Alphie could pull off buying all the squiddies - but now that he's actually facing some sort of opposition, and is still trying, it seems more likely that he'll be able to pull off what he says he can."

Joe glared at me, and I shrugged. "Do you think we could have gotten past those spiders without a tow? Or that we'd have convinced the squiddies to help without working within their own system?"

"It is still wrong to own people."

"Yep. But you said it yourself down on Navy Island - I may have done wrong, but I'm doing the best I can to use that wrong to do what I /have/ to do."

He grunted, and stalked off; and I let him. Dotty was watching me with her dark eyes as she brushed Minnie's hair (which would surely turn back into a tangled mess within a couple of minutes of being let loose to run around). "I really don't understand you," said the elder of the pair.

"I'm not sure I do, either, sometimes," I said as I took off my glasses, cleaning the lenses. "But in the meantime, I think we can both agree that we've got a city-killer to kill. How many of those mines do you think we can get?"

"They're three and a half pounds each, so as many as we can carry. They come in crates of a half-dozen, which weigh about twenty-five pounds."

"Maybe grab a small wagon or cart? How sensitive are they to being jostled?"

"If they haven't changed the design since I was in service, they're very stable."

"Are we going to have to worry about an explosives factory blowing up, with nobody left to take care of everything?"

"Factory? Oh - no, we use a breed of goats, who were Changed so their curds are explosive. If any survived the nerve gas, they'll probably die out in a few years without people to feed their kids, but they aren't going to blow up."

She continued talking for a while about the details of the things, such as "sixty degree field of fire", "thirty percent chance of hitting a prone man-sized target at fifty yards", "don't cross the detcord", and so on. We pored over Boomer's maps, looking for any spots that would be better to set up our trap than others, but the region's relatively flat geography provided only a single type of useful feature: the places where streams had worn down the edge of the escarpment, forming small gorges and miniature canyons. The biggest of these was the Niagara Gorge, just downstream of Niagara Falls, but that was /too/ big for our purposes: the river was about two hundred meters wide, with only a tiny bit of shore along parts of the bottom of the cliffs. Within any reasonable distance, there was only one place where the geography was interesting enough to potentially be useful: the Short Hills, around about five kilometers due north of Fonthill and three west of the university.

After I'd added my own notes from hiking around the area, our choice came down to either trying to set up the trap on essentially flat land, with whatever trees or ruins we could find; or to set up at the DeCew Falls gorge. The latter was about twenty meters deep, half a kilometer long, and for most of its length, fifty to a hundred yards wide - possibly ideal for creating a kill-zone.

"Alright," I said, as we watched Boomer fly through a three-dimensional model of the place, "I can set up the radio to start broadcasting as bait... but how will we trigger it? The reports Joe passed on were that the cloud was opaque and brown, so it seems kind of impractical to make a long line of detcord and watch through a telescope."

"It's possible to build a tripwire, that will activate the clacker when tension is released."

"Hm... Hey, Joe? You in earshot?"

"What?" he called back.

"When you found the radio - where exactly was it?"

When we were done shouting, it seemed the radio hadn't been moved from where I'd left it. "Oh well," I said to Dotty, "I was hoping that moving the radio could be a trigger. I'm a little hesitant about a tripwire being obvious... but the only other thing I can think of is to have someone right on site, close to the kill zone, to watch for when someone arrives."

"That won't be too healthy for them."

"I know, I know... but at the end of the gorge, there's a pool of water, that the waterfall runs into. And another pool above it, used to be a millpond. You seem to know a little about our suits - can they be used underwater?"

"Kind of, but not under any pressure. And since we don't know how long you'd have to wait, you'd still probably end up with hypothermia."

"Maybe one of the squiddies, or Boomer or Clara? They do well enough with a bit of waterproofing."

"Can their boxes make a great big spark?"

"No - but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve to let them squeeze a clacker. And I'm suddenly realizing that it might be a good idea to have one of them wait there anyway, to get a recording of what the city-killer actually looks like."

Boomer spoke up. "I feel I should interrupt at this point, and inform you that my moral subroutine will not permit me to act as a weapon trigger."

I frowned at the AI. "Not even to keep a mass-murderer from killing many more people?"

"I would require governmental authorization to override the limits placed on me by the university's board, and while you may be Queen, you do not have a parliament to issue that authorization."

Dotty gave us a look. "'Queen'?"

"Long story," I shook my head. "A title that's about as accurate or useful as 'ninth-level Magus of the Bayesian Conspiracy'," I said, making up some pseudo-mystical gobbledygook. "Alright, Boomer," I turned back to her, "Would you at least be willing to record the proceedings?"

"As such a recording could be used as evidence in a trial, both Clara and myself would be willing."

"Okay... could you call up a map of the waterways between here and there? Joe and I were able to canoe to there, past where Port Robinson was... and from there, it looks simple enough to head the other way and move up the Welland Canal, to the feeder canal here, to Lake Gibson, which takes us to the millpond. Pinky and Brain got by worse obstacles on the way here. Hm... Boomer, could I get a better look at the top of the falls? ... Crud - it's just a thin sheet of water on top of some sheet rock. If they're back in the mill-pond, they won't be able to see down into the gorge, and lowering them down to the pool under the falls would be incredibly awkward - almost as much as getting them back out again. Looks like it's going to be tripwires. Okay - with that in mind, what can we do to make that spot as attractive a lure as possible?"

--

With two suits, only two of us could head into Buffalo at a time. I assumed it would be Joe and myself, but Dotty spoke up. "You can paddle well," she said, "but I've seen your legs, and you won't be able to carry as much as me. I know where the militia's stores are. I know how to set up the mines. In fact, you might as well stay here while Joe and I take care of everything."

"What about Minnie?"

"You can watch her, can't you?"

"I... suppose. I'm not really great with kids."

"She loves you. Just take off your black suit and let her pet your fur, and she won't even notice I'm gone."

"Depends on whether things go wrong, and how bad. We need to talk a bit about contingencies. At the very least - if you're not back in a few weeks, do you have any requests for when I start acting /in loco parentis/? Long-distance cousins to get in touch with, family feuds I should know about, that sort of thing? I'm perfectly willing to be a babysitter - I'm not quite so sure I'm willing to become an adoptive parent. Letting her cuddle only goes so far."

"You may not be the brightest bulb, and from what I've heard, you've made some questionable decisions - but you managed to keep us from dying. And at least you're /trying/ to help. That puts you head and shoulders above almost anyone else I can think of. Just do your best for her, make sure she's got the brightest future possible, and all the mistakes you'll end up making anyway will be tolerable."

"... I really hope you don't have to put that to the test. If nothing else, I want to hear the story of how you know about the Warner sister, and happen to speak pre-Singularity English so well."

"Every girl needs their little secrets," she flashed a smile.

--

I let Minnie sit in my lap while we watched the two of them paddle away, taking Brain and Clara along with them.

"Well, kid, looks like it's just the four of us - and I don't think Pinky's going to be that good a playmate for you. My job, right now, is to try to get at least one of the flying machines to work completely reliably - and if I can, all three. I don't suppose you know anything about small engine repair?"

She mutely shook her head.

"... Want to learn?"

--

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," said Boomer, "but that music is still under copyright, and thus I am unable to play it."

Minnie wrinkled her forehead. "What's 'Your Highness' mean? You're taller 'n me, but Gran'ma's taller 'n you."

Boomer spoke up before I could answer, "Bunny currently has the strongest known claim to the throne of Canada, including a verified genealogy. Until a better candidate is found, or until Canada's parliament votes to become a republic, or until she renounces the throne, my programming requires me to treat her as if she were Queen. The polite form of address for a queen is 'Your Highness'."

Minnie gave me a careful once-over. "You don't /look/ like a queen. Where's your crown?"

"Probably across the sea in whatever's left of England," I idly rambled aloud. "Not that I want to go get it, or have a new one made. Even if I am, technically, a queen, there isn't a government that would support me in that, which makes the whole thing effectively meaningless. And even besides /that/, if there /were/ a functioning government of Canada, and they wanted me to rule, I'm pretty sure that'd be a bad idea. There's lots of better ways to run things than to have a queen in charge, and there are a few centuries of experience to prove it. About the only valid excuse I can think of to start having a monarch is if the local politics are even more violent and divided than in a democracy, so that having a single person who can have a final say on things is a step /up/, regardless of how that person is picked."

"Oh. I just wanted to ask if I could make you a flower crown?"

"... If you like."

--

Minnie asked, "Your Highness?"

"You can keep calling me 'Bunny', Minnie."

"What's a Bay-see-en?"

"Where'd you hear that?"

"You said 'Bay-see-en Conspiracy' to Gran'ma before she left."

"Ah - 'Bayesian'. Well, in short, it's someone who uses a certain bit of clever math to figure out what's true."

"Why?"

I looked up from the carburetor fuel jet I was poking at. "Are you asking because you want to know, or because you're bored?"

"Both?"

"Hm. I can try to give you the whole picture, or I can answer questions about all the tiny details, but I don't think I can do both at once - especially if I want to keep trying to fix this. So - big picture first, then details, okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay. Hm. Going back to the /very/ beginning... some things are true, and some things are false. It's true I'm talking to you right now; it's false that I've thrown a rock at you. Simple, right?"

"Sure."

"Good." I went back to trying see if there was any corrosion inside the jet's tiny hole. "Now - there's a difference between what /is/ true, and what someone /thinks/ is true. Maybe you saw a stone land beside you, and thought I threw it at you. 'K?"

"'K."

"There's lots of different ways to try to get what we /think/ is true as close as possible to what really /is/ true. Ways like looking around you, or listening to other people say what they've seen, or thinking about what you've seen and heard. And here's an important bit: some ways work better than others. And here's another important bit - it's possible to /figure out/ which ways work better than others. When you do that, then when one way says one thing is true, and another way says something else is true, you can use the way that works better."

"Like, if I saw a stone land next to me, but I knew you'd never hurt me, then I'd know you didn't throw it at me?"

"Sure, that works. Now, after a whole lot of people looked at a whole lot of different ways, they were able to figure out that the best /possible/ way to find the truth is to use a bit of math called "Bayes' Theory", which I'll explain later. The trouble is, to do that best possible job, you need to think very, very hard - so hard, that no living person can do it, any more than I can throw a rock at the sun. So what people in the Bayesian Conspiracy do, is try to find tricks and shortcuts, so we can get as close to the truth as we can, with just our human brains."

"What kind of tricks?"

"Well - people are bad at math."

"I don't like math."

"Most people don't. And to use Bayes' Theory, you need to use addition, and division, and fractions, each and every time you use it. So a lot of the tricks are ways to get close to that answer, without actually adding up numbers. Like keeping track of complexity penalties."

"Ba?"

"Hm... do you know what ninjas are?"

"Na."

"They're people who do sneaky, tricky, spy stuff, and are very good at hiding. In fact, they're so good at hiding, that there's always a chance that one is hiding right behind you, /right now/." Minnie turned her head to look behind her, and I grinned. "And they're clever enough to keep moving, to stay behind you where you can't see them. So one explanation for anything that happens while you're not looking at it is, "A ninja did it.""

"Did a ninja do it?"

"You tell me. Say you hear a clack sound beside you, and you turn your head, and there's a stone where there was no stone before. One explanation is I threw it at you. Another is a ninja did it. Another might be, oh, a squirrel dropped it. The 'complexity penalty' for each of these explanations is how many other things have to be true for that explanation to be true. So if I threw a rock at you, then what else would have to be true, that wouldn't necessarily be true if it wasn't me?"

"You... wanted to hurt me? And you didn't like me? And were hiding that you didn't like me?"

"Alright. And if it was a squirrel?"

"That... she carried a rock up a tree?"

"And a ninja?"

"That... she's been following me all this time? And nobody's talking about her? And she's been really really quiet, until she dropped a rock? And she knows how to keep hiding from me, and wants to, and-"

I held up a hand to interrupt. "That's good enough for now. So out of all of those, which has the smallest complexity penalty."

"The squirrel?"

"Got it in one. There's an idea called 'Occam's Razor' that says 'the simplest explanation is probably the right one', which is actually based on a bit of math called 'Kolmogorov Complexity' that gives precise definitions for what counts as 'simple'... but anyway. That's one of the tricks - come up with a list of explanations, and figure out which ones need the least extra things to be true."

"What else do Bayesians do?"

"Hm... well, I suppose I could say that each Bayesian is doing their best to work on the Great Work."

I waved my hand at her, and right on cue, she asked, "What's the Great Work?"

"It is the Most Important Thing that you can possibly do."

"What's that?"

"Figuring that out for yourself is one of the first steps to doing it. After all, why should anyone believe me if I simply /tell/ them what the most important thing they could do is, instead of if they know it themselves? But I can start you in the right direction, if you'd like."

"I'm not as bored as I was before."

"I'll take that as a 'sure'. Is there something that you want to do right now? Or that you want to keep from happening?"

"I don't want Gran'ma to cry."

"... That's a start. It's probably better than my first guess: to keep reading comics. Either way, if that's the most important thing you can think to do - or keep doing - even after you try to think of anything more important... then it's almost as important to think, to figure out /how/ you can do it. And how you can become better at doing it. And how you can get other people to help you do it. A lot of the time, once you figure all those things out, you'll realize that you're able to do more than you could before, and that there really is something more important that you could be trying to do instead - and then you get to do all that all over again. When you get to where you've got good reasons to think that it really isn't possible to come up with something more important... then you just might be aiming for the Great Work."

I finished cleaning the spare fuel jets, and packed them away, pulling out the spark plugs instead.

After a while of poking at some of the clover flowers, Minnie asked, "What's a 'ninth-level magus'?"

"Well," I temporized, "there are all sorts of tricks a Bayesian has to know to try working on their Great Work. Just to start with, there's math, physics, chemistry, biology, neurology, psychology, sociology, politics, game theory, computer science, astronomy, geology, and pretty much every other -ology there is. But just knowing all those other things doesn't make you a Bayesian. There are certain... realizations you have to come to. Certain ideas that most people never think of, even highly educated doctors and scientists. It's /possible/ for any one person to work out everything I've been saying on their own. It's a lot /easier/ if they've got people to help steer them in the right direction. Some Bayesians have figured out more than others. So - different levels."

"Can I be a ninth level magus?"

"Eventually, if you want." I was a bit bored myself, as my hands worked on the small bits of metal before me, so I tried stimulating my imagination by taking the phrase of occult-derived nonsense I'd spouted, and tried working out what it would mean if it were true, fast enough to sound like it had always /been/ true. "First you'd have to get to eighth level Magister Templi, and for a Bayesian, I don't see how you could do that until you've got a plan in place to come back to life after you're dead. In fact, I probably only count as an eighth-level right now, since while I've got a plan, it's not actually in place and ready to go right now."

"Can I get to /tenth/ level?"

"If you can bring yourself back to life, without anyone else's help, I don't see why not."

"Can you bring anyone else back to life?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, kiddo - right now, the best I can do is try to keep the living alive."

 

*Chapter Three: Ex-tirpation*

By the time the others came back, my pelt was barely recognizable as such, after encountering the various substances emitted by both leaking engines and leaking little girls. I managed to get a raised eyebrow from both Joe and Dotty, when they saw Minnie helping with a bit of delicate work even my fingers were a bit too big to easily do. (Re-threading a hand-held throttle, if you're curious.)

I waved, then pulled my hand back to work on hammering some of a propeller's safety cage back into shape. I called out, "Find everything we need?"

"Yes," Joe said. "We will stay overnight, then go set the trap tomorrow."

I nodded. "I realized something else one of us needs to do - probably me. There's going to be more people from the other cities on Lake Erie who are going to come to Buffalo, sooner or later, and wander into the deadly area. The sooner someone starts spreading the warning, the fewer will die." I gestured over at the radio. "I recorded a message to Technoville on that. No idea if it'll get through to them before the trap destroys the whole thing, but it's worth a shot."

Dotty asked, "You're not going to leave Minnie by herself, are you?"

"Nah. It'll take me a while to finish working on these. I figure when you're done at DeCew, you'll come back here, and we can work things out. Maybe I fly to Erie with the warning, and all of you start in the canoe to head there; and when he drops you off, he can head north across the lake to rejoin his people, and I can come back here to get back to my studies. Or maybe we'll try to rendezvous between here and Erie. Or maybe Joe wants to head to his people first. And that's not even dealing with who'll go get Clara back after the trap springs - or what we'll do if the city-killer doesn't take the bait. Or triggers the trap, but isn't stopped."

"Trust me," said Dotty, "anyone or anything that triggers /my/ trap is going to be stopped."

"Trust's a funny thing, sometimes-"

"All done!" called out Minnie.

"'Scuze me," I said to Dotty, and shuffled over to join Minnie. I inspected what she'd done, and nodded. "That looks good," I said. "We'll hook it up and test it out in just a few moments."

Dotty frowned. "You're not just using her for... slave labour, are you?"

Minnie smiled up at her. "She an' Miss Boomer are teaching me about physics, an' action an' re-action, an' safety, an' deleg-shun-"

Boomer piped up, "De-le-/gay/-shun."

Minnie repeated the correction, and kept on listing various things I'd gotten Boomer to incorporate into a quickie, age-appropriate set of practical lessons. The AI seemed to be happy to be doing something educational, and it had kept Minnie distracted from unpleasant thoughts... and, at least occasionally, from glomping onto me. My latest respite was just finishing, though, as she'd finished what she was doing and I was right next to her, so I let her wrap her arms around my waist. (Well, it wasn't like I could stop her, short of using the super-tech rope to tie her up.)

Dotty kept frowning, but not as hard. "I'm not sure I approve," she said, once Minnie ran down, "but I /did/ leave her in your care, and she's not any worse off than she gets on her own... Alright, Minnie, time for a bath for both of us before supper." Dotty glanced at me. "Looks like you should join us."

"Ah," I blinked. "Are you sure? Um... where I'm from, bathing is kind of private..."

Dotty shrugged. "Come with us, or don't, just don't get any engine grease in the soup."

After a few more moments of hesitation, I joined them. Both Pinky and Brain were on guard against any waterborne threats, I kept my various weapons as close as possible on shore, and Joe kept to the other side of the island, so we were about as safe as anyone was in this world. Minnie laughed when I first rose from the water, my fur plastered to my body, and she spent more time playing and splashing than getting clean, but I wasn't going to complain about that, and neither did Dotty.

As they dried off and dressed, and I didn't even bother trying to apply a towel to my fur and just pulled on my own minimal outfit, Dotty asked, "How long've you been a Changed?"

"Less than a month. The hoof's even more recent... I got a genetic analysis that I could regrow a paw there if I," I glanced at Minnie, and changed my phrasing to be a bit less violent, "lost the hoof, but honestly, I'm so new to both hoof and paw that it hardly seems like it'd make a difference."

"How'd it happen? Wander into a bad city?"

"It's a bit complicated," I said, dishing out some food. "But it was actually done for medical reasons. I'd been poisoned, and it was either go on life-support and dialysis and so on, probably permanently, or," I waved my hand at myself, "this."

"How were you poisoned?"

"Odd as it may sound, to save my life. Or at least, to try to. I was struck by a vehicle, and unconscious at the time, but the relevant medical professionals tried to keep things from getting any worse for a while by lowering my body temperature. The poison was to keep the cold itself from damaging my body." I shrugged. "Didn't quite work as well as anyone hoped, just well enough to bring me to here."

"There's something you're not telling me."

"Yep. I'm not exactly hiding it, I'd just rather not talk about it right now."

We went back to eating, and then to cleaning food from Minnie, and then since whatever was stuck to Minnie tended to rapidly end up stuck to my fur, from me.

--

"Can I fly one of these?" asked Minnie.

Joe and Dotty had left to set up the trap, leaving Minnie and I to spend two or three days in each others' company. (At least, I /hoped/ it was just a couple of days.)

"That's a good question," I said. "How much of the answer can you tell me yourself?"

"Do I have to?"

"Not at all. But if you can't tell me the answer, then I'm pretty sure you don't know enough about how they work to fly one yourself."

"Can I fly with /you/?"

"Ah, that's easier to answer. I've flown one of these with a great big heavy pack attached in front of me. It shouldn't be that hard to rig up a safety harness to tie you in front of me, instead. That's actually why I've been working so hard on getting the first one of these working - in case something gets past Pinky and Brain, and we have to leave the island. I'd rather not do it just now - I haven't even made a test flight yet, and I'd rather not risk you getting hurt if I missed something."

Before either of us could say anything more, I lifted my ears to the sound of distant thunder - big and solid, but sharp, and with a hint that it wasn't from any weather system. "Let's hope they didn't miss anything, either..."

--

When Joe and Dotty beached the canoe, I was sitting cross-legged, a selection of the spare parts I'd accumulated since I first put paw to pedal spread out in front of me, in various stages of half-assembly into a 'thinking cap'. Minnie had her arms around my neck, watching over my shoulder while Boomer nattered on about the fundamentals of electrical flow.

When they came into hearing range - human hearing, not rabbit-eared - I called out, "Everything go well?"

Joe frowned. "I think so. Mostly."

I glanced up from what I was doing. "Any souvenirs?"

He shook his head, and picked Clara up from out of the boat. "Clara?" he asked. "Could you explain?"

She popped her bovine avatar into virtual life. "I can replay my video, but I do not think you will learn much. Several hours after the radio was activated, the air started to become opaque. After three minutes, my cameras were unable to distinguish anything. Five minutes after that, there was an explosion consistent with the explosives I witnessed being placed. At the same time, I registered a sharp increase in transient faults in my processors, consistent with an increase in ambient radioactivity. I gave warning, and was pulled out. After some time, the air became transparent again, and I was lifted over the edge of the gorge. I began to transient again, and was retrieved."

I looked over at Dotty. "Did we break some radioactive container?"

She nodded. "I'd guess a power source, maybe a radio-thermal generator. I'm not going to pop my head in there to take a look without sticking a calibrated geiger counter in first."

"Clara?" I asked. "Get any pictures of the remains?"

"Possibly," she answered. "However, with the transients, and the level of destruction, it is difficult to determine what parts of the images were part of what you refer to as the 'city-killer'; and it is even more difficult to discern any further information about it."

I slowly nodded. "But - the dark cloud of nerve gas came with it, and then the cloud disappeared? You're sure it didn't just move away?"

Joe nodded back. "I was far enough away to see the cloud from the outside. It did not move, it merely faded away."

I took in a breath, and slowly let it out. "Right. I'm going to want to see what Clara did - but I'm willing to tentatively say that the world is down one city-killer. Hopefully, it's the only one. Let's get a hot meal into you two, and then we can talk about who goes where when with what."

Minnie spoke up, /right/ next to my sensitive ears, "/May/ I fly?"

I turned my head a bit to look at her, while also folding my now-ringing ear. "I still need at least one test flight - and if that works, then it's up to your grandmother."

--

The hazmat suits had been designed more to handle chemical contamination than radiation, but had weathered the city-killer's final bout of spite well enough. Minnie complained about getting bagged in a tarp again, but Dotty refused to let her ride with me into the air. The trio, guarded by both Brain and Pinky, with Clara as translator, had left to pass by Buffalo's danger zone, after which they'd be aiming for Erie. They'd left everything but what they needed for the trip on Pirates Island.

I, on the other paw, had once again taken to the air. I had my map showing safe maximum altitudes back, which let me avoid getting shot down by Toronto; and with Boomer in tricorder mode, I'd been able to determine the height of the residual nerve gas, and charted a course around the danger zone without wasting too much of my currently nigh-irreplaceable fuel. Joe had handed me his bow, quiver, and shield, saying I'd probably need them before he did; I tried to offer something in return, but he'd just pointed his thumb at the canoe.

At a decent cruising speed, it was about three and a half hours to get to Erie - instead of the three and a half days it was likely going to take Minnie and the others. I tried to watch for any fishing boats, or other ships, on their way to Buffalo, in order to warn them off; but even from altitude, I didn't see any. Which gave me three and a half hours to reflect on Dotty and Minnie, among other things.

One possibility was that the grandmother was a live instance of one of my cover stories - she'd grown up with a late twentieth-century archive, in her case including tapes of a certain cartoon. The other main contender that came to mind was that she was, like me, an actual pre-Singularity survivor. She looked to be older, but not a centenarian - of course, neither did I. Given that she knew about twenty-fifty era hazmat suits, knew where her city's militia kept its claymores, and had survived an incident that had killed nearly everyone around her... 'competent long-term survivalist' was as good a working hypothesis as any. I only expected to see her once more, as I passed by their canoe or campsite when I flew back to Pirates Island and the other paragliders; but if she'd managed to keep kicking since the nineteen nineties, it was entirely likely that we'd bump into each other in a few decades. Or centuries.

Assuming that another Singularity didn't make the whole idea moot. And that I stayed alive that long. And that I stayed sane enough to keep myself alive that long. Even using just the relatively primitive psychology from my native era, I was pretty sure I was heading straight for a case of PTSD - deliberately searching through a city full of dozens of thousands of corpses for survivors wasn't exactly conducive to mental health, even if you did find a couple. I didn't trust Technoville, Dogtown was barely more reliable, if I went nuts I probably wouldn't be able to pay for a decent asylum in any other city, the squiddies were literally inhuman, and about the only other group that might owe me a favour was the Great Peace. I wondered if I could renew my request with them for some sort of private dwelling...

My musings were interrupted as I caught sight of the islands just offshore of the original city of Erie. Technoville's maps hadn't been very detailed about the lake's south shore, and nobody else had known much about the place. Thus, it wasn't until I was almost right there that I could tell that the post-Singularity version of the city had been built on the near side of the remains of the old.

I cut the engine, and started silently gliding down, spiralling as I looked for a good crowd of people - a marketplace or the like. The busiest area I could find were the docks, so that's the place I tugged my shrouds to aim at.

I didn't know what kind of reception I might get - I was a Changed in the eyes of most, arriving on a Technoville-designed vehicle; so I made sure the woodland-patterened shield was snug, and got ready to throttle back up if anyone down below did take a pot-shot at me.

People were pointing, so I had to make a final choice - land or flyby. I tried to find any trace of angry expressions, or visible weapons, or anything of the sort, that would suggest I shouldn't land; I didn't see any; I /still/ didn't see any; so I pedaled my legs and dropped all the way onto the street at the base of one dock. The wind was from the south, so I landed facing into it, with my shrouds behind me. (Good for a quick take-off, if I needed to.) I took a deep breath.

"Your attention please!" I already had a whole bunch of faces pointed at me. "I have just flown over the city of Buffalo!" I heard murmurs as some of my audience translated my words into other local languages. "It was attacked about a week ago. Nerve gas was used. I have only found a couple of survivors. If you go near there, you will need to bring your own air. Please pass on this information! Anyone who goes near Buffalo will die without this warning!"

My message passed on to people who could spread it better than I could, I decided it was time to move, before the local powers-that-be decided to try acquiring a flying machine of their own. So I tugged on my lines, pulling the shroud into place to get ready to launch.

One of the fishermen shouted back, "What, that's it? You're leaving? Where are you going?"

"Like I said," I called out, "a couple of survivors."

Another voice shouted out, "Who the hell /are/ you?"

I flashed a buck-toothed grin, and couldn't resist. "I'm the bunny Queen, mate. Sorry, gotta go refuel." I squeezed the throttle, and the engine noise cut off any further discussion. A couple of steps forward filled the shroud, my feet lifted up, and I pulled a quick left turn to keep from accidentally kicking anyone in the head as I left.

Saving lives, flying, and dropping Doctor Who misquotes... maybe sanity was over-rated.

--

Naturally, after I'd gotten about fifty kilometers away from anyone, my engine coughed and died.

I wasn't /especially/ worried; after all, I had a parachute already deployed. But when I wasn't able to restart the thing in mid-air, I was at least a tad annoyed that I'd have to land to try to fix it. Or, worse, that I might not be /able/ to fix it, and have to either wait for Joe and the rest in the canoe, or start using my own two feet (Paws. Hoof. Whatever.) to get anywhere else.

After an hour of tinkering on the beach near what Boomer unhelpfully informed me was Chautauqua Creek, I was pretty sure that I was done flying for the day - or maybe the week, until I could get back to the other paragliders. While I'd read everything Technoville had provided on maintenance and repair, and Boomer had a few suggestions derived from her general database, I wasn't any kind of mechanical genius. The pull starter just wasn't getting the engine to turn over, and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe the fuel was tainted, or there was a broken mechanical linkage I couldn't see, or something else I couldn't see.

Joe and the canoe would probably be coming by in about a day, a day and a half, depending on how worried they got when they didn't see me fly back. And since I didn't want to either haul the paraglider with me or leave it behind, that left me with a bunch of hours of downtime.

Fortunately, I'd brought my hammock, and Boomer had plenty for me to read, even without my nearly-complete thinking cap. With my tail sticking comfortably down out of my everyday armour and through the hammock's mesh, and most everything else packed up in case it rained, I settled in for a relaxing read on some popularized descriptions of the math behind twenty-fifty era 'trust verification'.

--

Unfortunately, when Scorpia woke me up with a gentle tingle of warning, the locals who were coming to take a look at me were already pretty close... and both of them were carrying shotguns. Or maybe flintlock muskets; my glasses were in my pocket, and everything was rather blurry.

The adult said... something, and waved his weapon in my direction.

I whispered, "Boomer? Translation?"

She responded equally quietly, "I have no knowledge of that language."

In a louder tone, I answered the man, "I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français? Hablas español? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

My litany was interrupted by the more universal language of his weapon pointing at me and jerking in the direction he wanted me to go. I reached towards my pocket for my glasses, but got a frown from both, and a longarm raised to the shoulder of the young one, so I stopped that. I didn't want to give my torso armor a live fire field test, especially since a failure meant I'd have to give Bun-Bun's regenerative abilities an even more stringent test (especially if 'failure' meant 'headshot'); so I carefully held my hands away from anything, and slowly rolled off the hammock to the ground.

"Moshi moshi?" I tried, even though I didn't actually know any Japanese - I was just running out of ways to try to initiate /any/ sort of conversation. "Nihao? Namaste? Aloha? Shalom? nuqneH? Hola? Salud? Ave? Shoy? Oh, come on, not even a hint?"

Guns pointed. I sighed. We walked.

--

Maybe five kilometers of following the creek later, we arrived at what seemed to be our destination. As I walked between the two rows of disreputable houses and ramshackle people, what I saw (and smelled) gave me the impression that the whole hamlet wasn't just dirty, it was /slovenly/. Junk left abandoned in place, litter blowing across the street, no reactions to vermin scuttling around corners... there were innumerable little signs that whoever lived here, simply didn't give a damn about the world around them.

The guns waved me to a building near the middle, one with a patchwork-shingled steeple (though without any sign of bells, cross, or other symbol). More specifically, around its side and to its back. Sitting there in neat rows were more people than had been hanging around the doorsteps on the streets, who all seemed to be focused on one fellow in front of them. Standing on the edge of an empty swimming pool, I was able to make out that he wore black robes and was balding (though I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up until /somebody/ let me put on my glasses).

The robed fellow (who I tentatively identified as 'priest', while mentally reserving the right to re-identify as more evidence appeared) seemed pleased at our arrival. He spoke some words, the crowd mumbled vaguely coherently in return, and the whole process repeated a few more times.

The gun prodded at my back, and as I reluctantly made my way up the middle, I called out, "Does /anyone/ speak English?" For my trouble, I heard a mechanical clicking sound from roughly where the longarm prodding me forward would have a hammer. I took the hint and quieted down for the rest of the walk.

I was at least a little less quiet when I got to where the maybe-priest was standing, making what I think was something of an 'eep' sound when I glanced down into the pool. It turned out not to be completely empty: we were standing above what used to be the deep end, the bottom of which was covered in a writhing mass of black shapes. With my bad eyes, they could have been snakes, tentacles, or giant earthworms, but I didn't feel any urge to drop in for a closer look.

Unexpected movement - a few dead squirrels and such fell in, from the other side of the priest, where the younger of my captives had taken a place. Some portion of the boiling mass of shapes wriggled over to the hunting prizes, swarmed over them... and in just a few moments, the clump thinned back out, showing that there was nothing left down there but snakes. (Or whatevers.)

The priest gestured to one of his parishioners, who retrieved a long pole with a hook on the end. He lowered it into the pool, caught one of the snakes, pulled it over to a low table. A couple of others were standing by, quickly pulled out some knives that demonstrated how impressively sharp they were by filleting the snake, passing pieces to the other members of the congregation.

I decided that it was well past time to exercise my freedom of religion by gaining a certain amount of freedom /from/ religion. The creek wasn't too far away, well within sprinting distance. I turned away from the spectacle below, tensing my legs to get as fast a start as possible-

Thunder, and pain, and I was falling backwards, landing flat on my back. My breath knocked out, my tail hurting something fierce where I'd landed on it. Looking up, a small bit of smoke drifted out of the longarm's muzzle. I managed to lift my head, looked down at my armour; the woodland pattern was almost completely intact, save for a small, grey divot in the middle of my chest.

I recalled the danger I was in, but I was having trouble moving just about any of my body, and coherent thought was in a bit of short supply. Still, I did have a very distinct memory of one method of escape, and cramps were a small price to pay for using it.

"Bun-Bun," I croaked. "/Up/."

Under her control, I rolled forward, and almost screamed when I put my weight on my tailbone, but just didn't have the breath to make more than another squeak. My feet landed in a crowd of the snake-things... but nothing happened. I guessed my body-glove was more than they could easily eat through, so I reached down to grab a handful and throw them up and out of the pool. I heard a few screams.

While that was going on, I rose to my feet and sprang up, catching the lip of the pool in both hands. I felt an odd weight behind me, on my behind; turning my head, I saw that one of the black snake-things, around a meter long, had latched onto my tail. This close, I could see that the head end was the dangling end, and couldn't make out how it was holding on, or even any hint of the cotton-puff I'd grown accustomed to. But I was in a hurry, so I simply kept pulling; as my head rose to ground level, I observed a suitable amount of pandemonium, perfect for letting me get away without a mob on my heels.

A billowing black shape slid in front of me. Seemed like a handy hand-hold to keep pulling myself up with, so I reached and grabbed at it; my hand clutched a leg, which, perhaps not expecting my weight, suddenly slid and shifted, tilting to repeat my recent dive.

I didn't expect his cassock to protect him anywhere near as well as my costume did for me. I also didn't want to look down to add the sight to the nightmares that I was sure would be including the sounds.

The boy with the longarm was still standing there, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Go west, young man," I told him, "and grow up in a better society." Then I remembered he didn't speak English; I wasn't completely tracking.

Speaking of tracking, I turned away from the houses and the people fleeing to them, and strode right back to the creek. "Time to swim, Bun-Bun," I muttered to myself - or my selves, as the case may be. "Get as far as we can before someone thinks to start shooting."

I jumped into the water ungracefully, took a breath, and with a few strokes, pulled myself underwater. A few frog-strokes later, I felt my lungs start aching. I decided to stay under as long as I could stand it, then surface for breath and hope nobody saw me.

After a while, I realized my lungs weren't feeling any worse. I paused in my stroking and kicking, trying to puzzle that out. Was Bun-Bun pulling a new trick out of our collective rear end? I turned to look back at myself, in case I'd suddenly sprouted gills.

What I did see... was the snake-thing that was clamped to my tail, with its head above the surface of the water, and its chest pumping like a bellows, in great gasps and gulps of air.

I poked my fingers at the tail-hole Joe had made for me in the body-suit. There was my skin and fur; and then there was the smooth surface of the snake-thing. My cotton-puff was nowhere to be found.

I would have sighed if I could, but for the moment, simply stretched back out and went back to swimming.

--

I waved as Joe stepped out of the canoe. He raised an eyebrow at me, and asked, "Made a new friend?"

My tailsnake stopped peering from around my waist and hid behind me again. "Not sure," I said. "I've got both Boomer and Bun-Bun keeping an eye on Wagger, and I'm keeping a knife handy for a quick amputation if need be... but I'm really hoping to get a few tests run, like a genetic analysis. And maybe check in on Laura at the same time."

 

*Chapter Four: Ex-ecutive*

Elmyra caught up to us before we made it to Erie, with another letter from Alphie.

"He's re-evaluated his bargaining position again," I commented to the others. "Now he thinks his best-case scenario is ending up owning just one-third of the squiddies." I sighed. "I'm going to send him some new instructions. It looks like he's dealing with someone smarter than he is - at this rate, the best Alphie is going to be able to do is sell all of us to the squiddies, so I'm going to head that off at the pass. But as for the details... I'm feeling stressed, generally confused, have been having nightmares about Buffalo, and I'm pretty sure my decision-making processes are getting further and further from optimal. I might do something out of sentimentality that'll cause all sorts of long-range issues; or by trying too hard not to be sentimental, I could cause exactly the same sort of troubles."

Dotty asked, "What do you /want/ to do?"

"If I'm not going to end up owning even a significant portion of the squiddies, and so won't have the power to change their whole society... then I might as well improve what I can, with what I've got. Manumit every squiddie I own, and if I can, set things up so that any of 'em who go through the canal between Lake Erie and Ontario has to promise to free everyone /they/ own and not buy anyone else, either. Only employment contracts that either side can exit if they want to pursue another opportunity."

"What else do you want?"

"A professional psychotherapist would be nice, but I don't think there's anyone qualified in reach. Barring that... one thing I really miss is a place where I can feel /safe/. Where I can lock the doors and bar the windows and keep people out and just /think/, if I want to. I asked Joe's people if they'd be willing to help with that, but the whole city-killer thing kind of interrupted."

"Can the squiddies do that for you?"

"Hm... I suppose they might be able to set up an underwater dome in the Niagara River, or Lake Erie. Maybe even build something they can drag onto solid ground."

"Is there anything else you want, that they can do for you?"

"Hm... Nothing that I can think of. Lemme think for a few minutes, see if I can come up with something." There was silence for a few minutes. Finally, I shrugged. "Nope. With what I know about what they can, or can't, do, I'm drawing a blank."

"Then tell Alphie that. Try to get yourself a house built, and make Lake Erie slave-free, and not to try the impossible."

"... I've heard worse advice. And freeing every squiddy I've bought certainly fits into my 'keep surprising 'em' plan. Heck, I've even read that one of the best ways to improve someone's life and the economy in general is just to hand them wealth, no strings attached - and giving a bunch of squiddies /themselves/, well, that certainly /feels/ like a pretty good gift." I scratched the back of my head, and Wagger joined in with a few of her fangs, apparently trying to be helpful. (How did I know the tailsnake was female? Simple, really - do you really think I'd put up with a long, cylindrical /male/ thing constantly rubbing my furry fundament?)

I continued, "But does /feeling/ right mean it /is/ right? The squiddies aren't human; they aren't even vertebrate. What works for a human economy isn't necessarily going to have the same effects on people with radically different value systems."

Dotty said, "You seem to be demanding a lot of yourself. /Can/ you figure out what'll happen?"

"I /should/ be able to," I muttered.

"You're dodging the question."

"Fine, I don't have enough evidence, are you happy?" I paused, and blinked. "And I really /am/ being stupid. I've got three squiddies right here I can /ask/. Clara, you've been spending more time than Boomer with them, so I'm going to guess you've got a better grasp of the translations. Could you find out for me what each of them thinks if I offered to manumit them, contingent on a promise that they stay out of the slavery business altogether?"

The AI brought up her cow face to answer, "You may be overestimating my interpretive skills. But I can make the attempt." She was once again bagged, tied to a string, and lowered below. After some minutes, a tentacle rose from the water to gently placed her back beside us. Clara reported, "Elmyra appears to have some sort of plan where, while you own her, she gathers her resources to make some sort of economic ploy back in Lake Ontario - one that she can only take advantage of because her body is unavailable for collateral. She says she'd like you to wait a month before you free her."

"Seems a bit odd to me, but reasonable."

"Pinky seems to be concerned for your well-being, and does not wish to leave your service. She wants you to stop getting so far away from where she can protect you, either."

"When she learns how to fly, I'll consider that."

"Brain is willing to accept the bargain, on the condition that he can remain employed with you in exchange for title to an egg-laying site for the duration."

"That seems within reason. ... Um. But it brings up a question. Even if I get promises from as many living squiddie as possible not to engage in slavery, so that every squiddie who immigrates to Lake Erie is a non-slaver... what about the next generation? Kids aren't - or at least shouldn't be - bound to repay the debts of their parents, for lots of good reasons... can they be bound to their parents' promises, though? Should they?"

"God," Dotty laughed, "you're taking a lot of responsibility onto yourself. Not just fixing the squiddies now, but the ones that haven't even been born yet?"

I glared at her. "I'm in a place where I /can/ do something. If I do nothing, then I'm choosing the status quo as the best of all possible worlds... and I'm pretty sure it ain't no such thing." I nibbled on my lip. "I've been joking about being a Queen for a little while now. Maybe the solution is to take that seriously - and just declare Lake Erie as a slave-free territory. There's a few precedents in human history for having things start off with a monarch, or government, owning all the land, and gradually turning all the bits of real estate into private property. And there are other precedents for having two competing economic systems operating where they can each see how the other one's doing in comparison. If non-slavery really is a better deal for the squiddies, and I can get Alphie to set a few safeguards into place from the get-go to avoid regulatory capture and other failure modes... then this might be the way, not just to find out if that's true, but to /demonstrate/ it. And if it's /not/ true - then it keeps the door open for me to reverse the slave-free rule by fiat, or let the local squiddies stage a revolution to oust me."

Dotty raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're planning to be a Queen, for real... and are already planning on getting overthrown?"

"Seems to me that any monarch worthy of their title /should/ plan for that."

"Why are you so concerned with what benefits them, anyway? Why not just grab as many squiddies as you can and get back to your oh-so-important research?"

I stared at her, frowning. "If you really have to ask that question, I'm not sure you'll understand the answer, but I'll try. I'm just one person - the better off a society I'm associated with is, the more things I can get done, and the faster, and the lower the time and effort I have to put in. Not to mention, since I got bunnified, I've come uncomfortably close to death... hm, let's see, pitchforks, kaiju, pony, black-bag, bandit, death-ray, nano-pool, snakes... at /least/ eight times. In under a month. I'm beginning to think that the only reason I'm still kicking is that out of all the infinite parallel universes, I'm never going to experience any of them after the point I permanently die."

"If there are infinite numbers of universes, then what does it matter? There'll always be one where you succeed."

"Really? That's what you want to focus on? Next you'll be trying to get me into a discussion about whether free will exists."

"... Maybe."

"I've got a society to think about reshaping, so can only spend so much time distracted before Elmyra has to go back. Take a mathematical plane, X axis and Y axis. Draw a circle on it. There's an infinite number of points inside. Draw a line cutting the circle in half. There's an infinite number of points in each half. And even so, I'd rather have all of a cookie instead of half of one. Now - the way things are going, odds are I'm more likely to be dead in a month than alive. If I can get the squiddies to advance fast enough so they can figure out how to head off Singularity Two Point Oh even after I die, then in all the timelines I do so, I still /win/, even after I'm dead. At least by my standards. It may not be as good of a win as the timelines where I live, too, but a win's a win."

"Doesn't seem like much of a win to me."

I shrugged. "Given a few assumptions that I think are within reason, I can even justify it in purely selfish terms. Something something post-human super-intelligences that simulate their ancestors, so that I - or someone who's a reasonable approximation of me, including lots of my memories, skills, preferences, and so on - get a second chance at living, if and only if sapience doesn't get wiped out. Hm... Boomer, one of the powers of a monarch is to annex new territory, right?"

"Also to cede territory, declare war and peace, recognize foreign states, and form treaties; however, these powers are customarily used on the advice and consent of Parliament."

"Parliament's gone bye-bye for the foreseeable future. There's also the issue of one monarch being the head of multiple countries... Alright. Let's say that I ceded Lake Ontario to the current squiddie government, whatever it is, and brokered a treaty with them where they recognize my sovereignty and ownership over Lake Erie, in exchange for certain considerations, such as letting them colonize it. You've said you recognize me as having a legitimate claim to the throne - would you be willing to work with me on that?"

"I am uncertain. It is far outside the governmental parameters I was programmed to deal with."

"Right. If I remember right, you've got a moral subroutine you have to try to follow, based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, right?"

"That is correct."

"Then how about I were to make the cornerstone of the... kingdom? monarchy? /Dominion/ of Lake Erie, as much of that Charter as can be reasonably accomplished? Or, put another way - to start enforcing the Charter in a place where it currently holds no effective sway?"

"You are asking me to treat your claim to the throne as more than a running joke."

"In return for trying to help you do what you think should be done. In the terms of some of those trust verification architecture books: to exchange fulfillments of our utility functions."

"How serious are you in this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Accepting this arrangement would require me to make a phase shift in a number of my knowledge points and subsequent behaviour patterns. I would be changing my programming, my self, in several very fundamental ways. If you are merely arranging for a plot to get the squiddies to build you a house, I could suggest a number of alternative plans to accomplish that goal, without necessitating those changes."

I didn't answer straight away - Boomer was taking this seriously enough that she deserved more than a flippant response. "Boomer; have I ever done anything that is significant evidence against my core utility function being the continued existence of utility functions - in keeping at least some form of sapience alive for the long haul, whether that sapience is human, parahuman, squiddie, AI, or something we haven't encountered yet?"

"You placed your life at risk by searching through Buffalo for survivors instead of focusing on anti-Singularity research."

"Well, if you want to look at it like /that/... I'm only human - I don't always make the best decisions about what will help me accomplish my goal. But I'm a Bayesian - I'm not only trying to do the best I can, I'm trying to improve myself so 'the best I can' is always getting better."

"That may be so. I would require further evidence of your commitment."

"What sort of evidence?"

"A formal swearing of the Coronation Oath would be a good start."

"Could you call that up?" A few lines of text appeared on the screen. "Slight problem," I said. "I'm atheist. I don't think I could honestly take the parts of the oath about the Church of England. And the 'So help me God' at the end is another tricky bit."

"Does that mean you refuse to take the oath?"

"Can you call up a quick text editor, starting with that oath?" With a few strokes of my fingers, I highlit large portions of the text, and simply deleted them, leaving just a few short sentences. "There. That, I'd at least be willing to consider."

"You have deleted swearing to govern the peoples of every country but Canada."

I shrugged. "I have to be at least somewhat realistic - we haven't got any way to even communicate with any of those other countries. You can think of this as the part of the oath specific to the Canadian crown, if it helps."

There was a long pause - and given that Boomer was an AI, it felt even longer. "I cannot determine whether I would be able to adapt my programming."

"Would... not adapting cause you any programming troubles? I don't want to risk something happening to you..."

"I do not believe so. I would simply continue to treat your claim as being as something that helps you keep your morale up during difficult times."

"Is that what you've been doing? Well, I guess you're a less annoying virtual sanity-keeper than a goit with an H on his head. Welp... I've only taken a couple of other oaths of anything like this level of formality and effect, and I had to write those myself. Can you run that oath through a grammar checker, to update it to the version of English I use? Okay. Let's set you up to be a camera, and get Clara as a camera from a different angle. Got enough data to make a decent 3D model of the area, for anyone who wants to reconstruct this scene? Clara, can you ask the squiddies to surface and watch, even if they can't understand? Joe, Dotty, Minnie, do you mind standing and witnessing? Right. Stripped down of everything extraneous, all the ceremony and foofaraw - I'm swearing this to /myself/, as a guideline to keep in mind, the same way I keep in mind my oaths to avoid infringing on others' rights and to avoid escalating violence:

"I promise to govern the peoples of Canada, and my other possessions, according to their laws and customs. In all my judgements, I will execute law and justice, in mercy."

--

"What, was that it?" asked Dotty. "Aren't you supposed to have lords and ladies, and a throne and crown and sceptre and anointing with oil and all that?"

I shrugged. "Those are all symbols of power. I haven't got much of any. If I need a crown, I can try to get one printed up from a fabber. This is just me, speaking aloud so I'll always remember. Well, as long as I'm alive, anyway."

"Does this mean you can turn me into a duchess?"

"Sorry - one of the customs of Canada is to avoid noble titles."

"What, and 'queen' isn't noble?"

"Nope, it's /royal/, which is technically a whole other kettle of rabbits. I could give you and Joe medals for taking out the city-killer - well, if I could manufacture medals to give you. Anyway - Boomer, how's your programming doing?"

"I am sorry, but I am still unable to classify you as a real queen. As your oath was to elicit that response, you can ignore it from now on."

I shook my head. "Nah, I'm not going to do that. To however large or small an extent I can actually do it, what I swore to do is still worth trying to do, if-and-when the opportunity arises. And since that didn't work - we've still got to work out the new instructions to give Alphie. While I think on that, do you think you can take the Charter, pare it down to those essentials that are applicable to squiddies, and can be clearly expressed in their language?"

"I can," Boomer said, "but so can Alphie, if you ask him to."

"Ah. Good point. In that case - where'd I put that pencil. Let's see - facing superior opponent, change goals, cut down target goals, first goal control over passage between the Lakes, second goal avoid slavery in Lake Erie, third goal apply edited Charter to Lake Erie, possible method getting squiddies to recognize my ownership and sovereignty and authority, fourth goal see if the squiddies can build me a nice house. Maybe at Navy Island. Signed, sealed, and handing it to Elmyra to take back. Hope it arrives in time to do some good."

While I'd been doing that, Dotty and Joe had been talking to each other, and I finally caught part of that conversation as she said, "... take her seriously? Is she insane?"

"Probably," I said, as I joined them. "The question is less my sanity, and whether I'm still functional. I've known for years I'm schizoid, I've got gender dysphoria, species dysphoria - which wasn't even a thing when I died - I'm probably on my way to some form of stress-induced adjustment disorder, like depression or bipolar disorder, or maybe some form of dissociation."

"What about delusions of grandeur?" Dotty challenged.

I shrugged. "There is some evidence I could, technically, count as a queen. There's a lot more evidence that, in most practical matters, I don't. If taking advantage of the technicalities helps me get stuff done, I'll hammer on the technicalities. If practical principles help me get stuff done, I'll hammer on the principles. If neither helps, I'll hammer on the table."

She shook her head, commenting, "You seem remarkably calm when talking about your brain going haywire."

"Dotty - I have a /snake/ attached to my /butt/, and I'm seriously evaluating the pros and cons of leaving it hooked up to my tailbone. With /that/ as the benchmark for how my life is going, if I let myself be anything /but/ calm, I really might go /really/ bonkers. Any trick to cope I /can/ use, I /will/ use. Say, have I told you about my North-East-West-South trick yet? I bet you'll think I'm /really/ nuts after you hear /this/ one..."

--

"A-ha!" I exclaimed with a sudden grin.

"Hrmphl?" was Dotty's reply, while Minnie didn't even offer that much - it was much too early in the morning for either to be awake yet.

"It's not the engine, it's the /fuel/. The ethanol must have absorbed water, and I thoughtlessly mixed all three fuel tanks into a single store. I just have to keep the water from separating out and getting squirted into the pistons instead of burnable fuel. ... And I can probably do that just by shaking the stupid tank to mix everything back up again."

In less than a minute, I had the glider's engine buzzing at full power again, then brought it back to silence.

"That's nice," said Dotty. "Go back to sleep."

"Crowns make lousy pillows," I tried to joke - from Dotty's expression, highly unsuccessfully. "There's so many things to do, and so few hours in the day to get them all done - Singularity Two Point Oh could hit any day, after all. Now that I'm airborne again - I'm going to need one of the hazmat suits so I can look in on Laura even if the city-killer covered the place in poison. And if I'm heading off now, and you're still heading to Erie, and Joe's heading off to the spirits and might not return... I think I should take Clara, too. And anything else that's more useful for research and investigation than getting you and Minnie back on your feet. And giving Pinky and Brain directions on where to meet back up with me again. And giving Minnie a last hug, since she's going to want one."

"Bunny," said Dotty, "go back to sleep. You're being manic and not thinking clearly."

"How can you tell?"

"Because I'm pretty sure if you were thinking straight, you'd have noticed and commented on the fact that your tail is in the middle of swallowing a squirrel whole."

"... Eyurgh. Okay, yeah, that's pretty disturbing. Mark one up for the 'con' column. Uh - I'll just go swim for a while, or something, so Minnie doesn't have to see that."

--

"Well, Joe, I hope we meet again. I think I'm going to make Navy Island my main base of operations - it's outside the poisoned area, reasonably close to the university if that's still useful, and close enough to Buffalo for me to research there if I want, or the smaller cities of Niagara Falls if I want to poke around there first. If we miss each other, how about we make the mail-drop to leave messages... the south tip? No, that spot's probably hard to get in winter, since there isn't an ice-boom at Buffalo anymore, so floes probably get piled up there in winter. The downstream tip, then. And in case your spirits don't let you back out any time soon... thanks. You might have taken one of my favorite hiking spots and contaminated it with radioactive fallout - but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Now give me a handshake or something so I can stop babbling, and I think I'm going to need a hand loosening Minnie's grip here..."

--

I pushed the limits of my Toronto death-ray map, but the closest I could get to the university was still about five kilometers away, and in one of the areas the city-killer had filled with poison. Without any hyper-deer to ride, or even the canoe to paddle down the canal, I just had to walk the rest of the way.

Wagger didn't seem very happy about being cooped up inside the hazmat suit, and spent most of her time wrapped around my waist.

The place looked much the same as I got near, same buildings, same trees, same parking lots. But before I even got near the Schmon tower, a little red-and-white shoebox scooted up to me and bumped my foot. Its top opened, and its antenna-like arm lifted an envelope up to me, upon which was written, in flawless calligraphy, my name, plus "AKA Bunny".

Inside was a letter from Laura - short and to the point. "If you are reading this, then I have not been able to rescind my order to deliver it to you. In the best case, I am nonfunctional. In the worst case, my programming will have been corrupted and taken over. As I was built without any Trust Verification Architecture, there is no way for you to tell the difference. Please do not re-enter the university's buildings, as I cannot guarantee that I will be able to let you back out. Please do not expose any of my copies to me, in case I corrupt them. If you decide not to respect my wishes, instructions on how to try to reboot my university-wide self, from write-once media and any copies of me that still exist, can be found where I first sent a piece of mail to you."

I looked down at the two AIs in my pockets. "Well, this is a fairly classic puzzle. Did your progenitor write this before the city-killer came, or under the city-killer's influence? Are the instructions and write-once media reliable, or do they contain data that I'm just too plumb ignorant to know the tricks of?"

Clara spoke up, "Boomer and I do contain some knowledge about the university's data structures from before we branched from Laura."

I tapped my chin. "A thought. Would it be possible to unplug all data storage things that might be corrupted, including turning off Laura if she's still active, and plug one of you in in her place?"

Clara answered, "That seems possible. All active data storage was placed in three redundant external storage modules in the information services center. I believe you saw them while you were creating me. Disconnecting those would greatly limit what we would be able to do as the university interface, such as maintaining proper security overwatch, but it may be preferable to a corrupted personality."

"Would you be able to keeping up regular maintenance, at least? Keeping the library from burning down, bats out of the belfry, running your robots, and the like?"

"Certainly."

"Alright - I'm going to power down the both of you for now."

 

*Chapter Five: Ex-amination*

I took a step forward, looking up at the university's tower at the far end of the grounds... and as Wagger writhed a bit, I paused, and frowned. Something was nagging at me, and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. And the simple fact of that reminded me of Dotty's half-joking accusation of insanity. I /had/ been charging ahead full-steam a lot more than I used to, lately. Was that just me dealing with the situations I found myself in? How recently had my behaviour changed - was Wagger pulling a Toxoplasmosis, and tweaking my brain chemistry for her own purposes? Was the stress getting to me?

More importantly - if I /was/ insane, could I figure out what the sane action to take might be? Well, I did have one quick trick for taking at least a moderate outside view: so I polled my archetypes. East was coveting all the scientific gear in the university, from a geiger counter on up. South suggested some Japanese-inspired uses Wagger could be put to. West wondered whether Joe would stay in Erie to play father-figure to Minnie. And North was screaming 'Deathtrap!' about the whole university.

That seemed kind of urgent, so I took a step back, and let North unfurl her reasoning into my conscious awareness. It was fairly simple: If Laura had been subverted, she was now operating to achieve the city-killer's goals, which seemed to include subjecting me to a cloud of nerve gas, or something to that effect. Laura had control over at least the Johnny-Five robot, plus the fabricator. I'd been gone for nearly a whole week; with just a mild bit of cleverness, just about anything in the university could be used to kill me. And if that were the case, then I would have to be more clever than evil-Laura for every single trap she'd created, while she'd only have to be more clever than me at least once.

And even worse than that - if evil-Laura was in charge of the fabricator, then I couldn't rule out her using it to create a /new/ city-killer. Maybe not a nuclear-powered one, but that wasn't strictly necessary. So if I didn't want Joe's and Dotty's efforts in DeCew Gorge to be in vain, I had to at least separate Laura from the fabber. The simplest way would be to destroy both of them... if I could get to them in the first place. But the fabber alone was a technological masterpiece that could turn a decades-long research project, in which I'd have to build even just my own glassware from scratch, into a much more reasonable, and feasible, enterprise. Not to mention, Laura herself deserved better than to be left with her 'evil' switch turned on.

I looked at the letter - and wondered if it, too, was part of a trap. Laura knew my hazmat suit better than I did - including, presumably, whatever substances it /didn't/ protect against. I suddenly wanted to drop the thing like a hotcake and have Boomer play tricorder...

... but was suddenly all too conscious of the university's security cameras. If they saw me reject this obvious bait too easily, then any later attempts to get into the university would be a lot harder. So I looked around, found a dome on the side of a light-pole which could have contained a camera, and stated, "I'm going to respect your wishes, Laura, and stay away... but not for long. I /am/ going to come back, as soon as I think of a way to bring you back, /properly/. Until then - just hang in there."

I dropped the letter to the ground, turned, and started walking back the way I came; careful not to rub my fingertips on anything.

Boomer started to say something, but I hissed a quiet "Sh," and she fell silent. Once we were beyond not just reasonable microphone range, but unreasonable super-tech parabolic microphone range, I said, "Boomer, turn on the ring. Scan my hands. Look for anything that might have rubbed off the letter - toxins other than the nerve gas residue, stuff that might penetrate it, stuff that's hard to wash off. Something that might affect me - or degrade your own circuits."

"You suspect foul play?" The costume jewelry started flashing through its various colours.

"I think I just came within ten feet of yet another near-death experience."

--

Boomer said she couldn't detect anything unusual, but I washed and re-washed the hazmat suit's gloves until Boomer pointed out, surprisingly gently, that I was risking damaging the material.

"Does it count as obsessive-compulsive disorder if there's a reason for excessive handwashing, instead of just an urge to?" I spoke aloud. "Or, maybe, is OCD simply a survival trait instead of a disorder when we've got so many square miles of land contaminated with a chemical warfare agent?"

Clara said, "We did not copy enough of Laura's knowledge engine database to be able to answer that."

I cautiously took off the hazmat suit, trying to monitor myself for any unusual symptoms. The only surprise was Wagger's enthusiasm at being freed.

"I think I'm going to need to find a mental health professional before long, one way or another," I commented, dangling my feet in the water upstream from the contaminated area, and watching Wagger play with them, surprisingly cat-like even without paws or fur. "The trouble is, I'd need to find a p-doc I'd be able to /trust/ to a reasonable extent, which rules out just about anywhere Technoville can reach its tentacles to - and the other places I've been are either too primitive to expect decent social sciences, or too alien to expect to be able to apply them well in my case. Maybe I should have copied psychology texts into you two and Alphie instead of life-extension ones, but it's a little late for that now." I sighed. "Well, I guess I'll just have to do whatever I can to avoid going bug-nuts on my own, even if that means doing things that seem just a little crazy. And in the meantime, I think I need to get in touch with the spirits of the Great Peace."

--

Back in safe flying space again, it didn't take me long to catch sight of flocks of birds, indicating areas that the Great Peace hadn't retreated from. Almost literally skimming tree-tops, I kept an eye for larger wildlife; the first example of which I found being a grizzly bear. I didn't /quite/ feel like landing, in case it acted more like an ursine than an occasional human, but I did circle around and around and called down, "Hello! I want to talk! Which way to the nearest people? Or a spirit pool?"

The bear chuffed and made bear noises, looking a bit irritated at being interrupted from whatever bearish things it had been doing, but after a couple more circles, it rose to its hindlegs and pointed a forepaw to the west-south-west.

"Thanks!" I called out, released the shroud-lines to straighten my path, revved the throttle to climb again, and took a few moments to simply appreciate what life and history and bio-technology and engineering had just let me do.

After a while, I saw a large pond of perfectly flat water, not rippling in the breeze; so I came down to a landing, and calmly went through the usual procedures for after that, packing away the shroud and so on. While I was doing that, a heavily-pregnant woman walked out of the pool, just about identical in appearance to one I'd talked with before.

I nodded at her as I finished my chore, and asked, "Has Joe - the one who went with me - come back to you folk yet?"

"Not yet."

"Ah. Well, just to reassure you, he's helping a woman and girl who survived a disaster, taking them to a city on the other side of Lake Erie, and then, as far as I know, coming back to dive into a pool and give the spirits an update on what's been going on."

"That is good. Why are you here?"

"Joe, Dotty - the woman - and I are pretty sure we destroyed the thing that was making those poison clouds."

"That is good," she repeated.

"Less good is another one might be being made, and if so, I don't think I can stop it on my own. Especially if I want to try to minimize collateral damage - if you know what radioactivity is, there's a bunch just below DeCew Falls, so I'd suggest you ask your spirits to pass the word along to avoid that area. Or clean it up, if they know how."

"Are you asking for help?"

"I think I am. Or, at least, hoping to work together in our mutual self-interest. But, well, even after spending as much time with Joe as I have, he's not exactly a fountain of words, so I'm not sure if any of the ideas I have in mind are ones you'd like. Can we take it as a given that I'm an impolite fool who is going to be extremely rude, but unintentionally and without malice, and who will be more than willing to offer any and all apologies necessary once the threat is dealt with?"

It was just possible that the woman's stoic face twitched into an ever-so-slight grin, for an ever-so-brief moment. "Perhaps," she said. "It sounds like you already have a plan in mind."

"Well - that depends on a few details about what your spirits can, and are willing, to do; and if you're willing to thwap me upside the head to tell me when I'm making a stupid suggestion..."

--

With the right mental approach, every action that I took could be derived from the basic goal, the Great Work I'd chosen for myself. I actually had two possible Great Work goals in mind, but they overlapped so heavily that which one I aimed for rarely made any significant difference: Minimize the odds of sapience ever going extinct, and minimize the odds of myself ever going extinct. Accomplishing the latter guaranteed the former, while aiming for the former tended to help with the latter.

The largest challenge to those goals that I was aware of was the near-extinction of humanity (and possibly the biosphere) when the city-computers were built, in the event I was perfectly willing to call a Singularity. At the moment, the best way I could think of to handle that challenge was to research the event, and try to figure out how to keep it from happening again.

One of the most useful resources I had available to me to help with that was the university, all the knowledge and tools contained within it, including a reasonably friendly AI (which may or may not be a Friendly AI, but that's another issue). The biggest challenge to that was the possibility - not the surety, maybe not even more likely than not, but a significant probability - that the AI was no longer quite so friendly.

All of which put together formed my goal for the coming conflict, that shaped the strategy and tactics I could use: to limit and reduce the resources available to the possibly corrupted Laura, while maximizing the resources that would later be available to a revived Laura. Unfortunately, I had much less data on what a reprogrammed Laura's goals could possibly be, outside of the fact that if she had been reprogrammed, the thing that had done so had chased after my radio without hesitation and was liberal about spreading clouds of nerve gas around itself.

The resources Laura had were reasonably impressive. There was the fabricator, which I'd seen put together a canoe made out of some super-tough metal-like material invented after twenty fifteen; and which had, presumably, assembled all the spare parts Laura had used to preserve the university intact in the decades since humans had come near the place. There were the parking lots tiled with solar-power hexagons, which powered the place, and any batteries recharged by them. There was at least one vaguely humanoid robot, which had reminded me of Johnny Five. There was the computing hardware Laura ran on. There was her software and databases, including whatever knowledge of me she'd gathered. There was the miscellaneous surviving university equipment. And there was whatever she might have built with the fabber in the almost-a-week since I'd last seen her.

My own resources seemed to pale in comparison. I had my own mind, filled with twenty-fifteen-era random facts, and possibly going insane from the stress of getting close to a dozen near-death scrapes. I had my body, which had at least a couple of minds of its own these days. I had the various toys and tools I'd picked up so far. And I had whatever help I could extract from the somewhat friendly "spirits" of the Great Peace (which I guessed were actually some sort of terraforming AIs), whose nanotech ponds could, as far as I'd been able to tell, convert biomass from one shape to another, such as a bear into a flock of birds; and which had created a few novel forms, such as the fast-galloping hyper-deer. And I had Clara and Boomer, AIs who'd been copied from Laura's code into modem-sized boxes before her corruption.

A couple of aspects of the landscape imposed further restrictions. The city of Toronto, due north across the lake, fired some sort of beam weapon I hadn't been able to identify at various targets that entered its range, including any known flying machine, and even telescopes pointed in its direction. Any computer connected to a radio was nearly instantly hacked and reprogrammed into uselessness. And the grounds were covered in the residue of VX gas, the parting gift of the city-killer which might have corrupted Laura's programming.

It took me a little while just to get all of that written down on paper, where I could see it all at once, and easily cross-reference the bullet-points. It took me somewhat longer to work out what I should try to do, even with Boomer providing bullet-point summaries of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli...

--

I looked at the eyes of the pregnant woman in front of me - if 'pregnant' or 'woman' really applied to her. "I would like to cooperate with you in keeping the university from being used to kill more people. What I saw in Buffalo... Anyway. I'm sure if we worked at it, we could completely trash the whole place so that in a very short time, nothing would be there but rubble and forest. That is what I want /not/ to happen. There are more threats to both the Great Peace and my own goals than whatever Laura may have been reprogrammed into, and the campus contains innumerable tools that can be used to protect against them, minimizing the harm done to you and yours. I know you and your spirits are willing to take the long view and wait for it to run down on its own - but I'm also sure that there's at least some temptation to hurry things along. In exchange for my help and knowledge about how to neutralize the danger we're in from the place right now, the main thing I'm asking is for you to resist that temptation."

"What would you do if we used your knowledge, and then tore down the buildings anyway?"

I shrugged. "To start with - stop trusting you. I may not be particularly fond of your lifestyle, and there was that little misunderstanding that gave me this," I stuck out my hoof and wiggled it, "but we still have enough in common to work together on our shared interests. But if I found you knowingly and deliberately breaking an agreement... I'd have no reason to help keep the Great Peace from getting wiped out, and might even have enough emotions tied into the whole thing to be willing to give a helpful nudge to whatever comes after you next."

"Do you really think your opinion matters one bit to the spirits? That you, by yourself, can do anything to threaten us?"

I shrugged again. "If you really thought nothing I could do could make a difference, you could have already tossed me into one of your pools to get dissolved. I do have certain knowledge, and certain resources, that you're going to be unaware of until Joe gets here or I tell you. You were willing to send Joe and a couple of deer to help me the first time around, and I'm not asking anything of you yet that you weren't already planning on doing."

"Does that imply you /will/ be asking?"

"Well - it's more a matter of working out with you exactly how best we can deal with Laura, and part of that depends on what your pools can do..."

--

In centuries past, passenger pigeons had flown in flocks that darkened the skies, covering hundreds of square miles in numbering in the billions. We weren't aiming for nearly that many: I had been able to convince the spirits that cleaning up the residue of the nerve toxin was a worthwhile goal in and of itself, so they had been willing to produce fifteen million birds. They weren't any sort of pigeons that had ever existed in the past, any more than the hyper-deer were ordinary deer.

The university's security systems undoubtedly observed the mile-wide flock from a great distance as it approached, and started landing on the university's grounds. /All/ the university's grounds, and the buildings, and trees - at least four or five for every square yard. I couldn't tell you what Laura might have thought of the spectacle.

I expect her thoughts took a somewhat different course when every bird in the flock started depositing bright-blue guano; and spreading it across every surface in reach.

Negotiating the nature of that guano had taken a while. After I and my counterpart decided that it was one of the easiest ways to spread a neutralizing agent for the poison (and Boomer and Clara had provided some information on what the best agents were), I made a few other suggestions. The colouring was only partly to identify which areas had been made safe; it was also opaque enough to block the university's solar panels, and cameras. The pigments were water-based, so that they could eventually be removed, either with hoses or just by waiting for the rain, though the guano started out too sticky to easily handle that way.

With a bit of technical data from my two AIs about the university's infrastructure, this flock had two other instincts. One such command was that if they saw any of the data-cable plugs, they'd grab it just right with their beaks to unplug it, turning the university's campus-wide network into nothing more than a set of isolated buildings - again, in a way that could be fixed with modest effort after all this was over and done with. They also had an urge to head straight for the Johnny-Five-like robot, if it came into view, and snuggle up against it, until the piles of birds immobilized it.

Altogether, this single investment of biomass by the Great Peace was designed to neutralize most of evil-Laura's known capacity to fight back: cutting off her power, her sensors, her communications, and her pre-existing robot. Which left her with only whatever university gear was within the building her CPU was in, which was probably still the one the Schmon Tower rose from; and whatever she'd made with the fabricator, and could make from it with whatever stored power and feedstock was left.

--

Clara and Boomer had two pieces of data that I took extreme advantage of. One was an inventory of every piece of computing and data-storage hardware anywhere in the university, their physical locations, and checksums of their contents. The other were detailed images of the exact dust patterns inside any given building, as of when we'd left.

Through whatever mysterious method the Great Peace used to keep its biological lifeforms in touch with each other, which they still declined to disclose to me, the flock of birds had been able to peer at any given door, compare it to the AIs' records, and tell whether or not that door had been opened. It was an educated guess that no disturbance at the entrances meant that nothing inside had been disturbed, implying that the contents within were as they'd been when we'd left, meaning that, for the moment, we could ignore those buildings.

This trick narrowed our focus to the main campus complex, which contained internal hallways from the Schmon tower through innumerable lecture halls and seminar rooms to a couple of theatres to the physical education complex, plus the Central Utilities Building (which wasn't centrally located at all) and a couple of residences. Boomer let us know that the latter "were scheduled for a standard inspection and maintenance rota" while we'd been gone. But the utilities building wasn't on that rota - most of the place having been shut down due to the lack of generator fuel, outside electricity, water, sewage, and suchlike.

Which is why, once the hyper-pigeons had done their thing, a lone humanoid figure, clothed in a white suit, was able to be seen taking the long walk from the still-silent forest, around the outskirts of the university grounds, to that utilities building. Said pink-furred individual found the first door she tried to be unlocked, opened the door wide-

-and her chest blew apart in a fountain of gore.

--

"Aw, crap," I said, watching through my tiny telescope from my vantage point, as far away from the place as possible. "I was really hoping I was overreacting, and Laura was just still Laura."

I quieted down to avoid jogging my view, as something reached from inside, and dragged the body - well, the upper half, at least - inside.

"You're /sure/ she didn't know anything important?" I asked Joe. Not my Joe, but /a/ Joe, and one who was more suited to running around the woods than the pregnant woman I'd been negotiating with earlier.

He shrugged. "She may look like you - you before you left - but has the brain of a bear, and not a person living as a bear."

I sighed. "Still kinda disturbing to see myself get blown away. And it looks like... whatever it is, doesn't need people to be alive to get info from them. And it's not interested in negotiating. As a guess, I'm going to call it... early Berserker. Some sort of omnicidal maniac, maybe, or maybe just a Kill-All-Humans program. Or kill everyone who doesn't have the secret password, which is close enough to 'everyone' for our purposes."

"You have a plan for this?"

"... That depends on what you mean by 'plan'. Do you think the spirits will let me convince them to create a horde of humanish-shaped critters, without human minds, that we could send to trigger every trap that's been emplaced?"

"We may be more... accepting of death than you, but I do not think so."

"In that case," I shrugged, "my plan is to block up the doors as best we can, keep the place under surveillance, and go do something else for a while."

"'Something' in particular?"

"Well, if it comes down to it, we could try laying siege to the university until its batteries run out... but I really want to make use of that genetic analyzer on Wagger sooner rather than later, if I can. Anyway - the 'something' I've got in mind is something your other self suggested to me just before the first time I met Laura."

"I wasn't there."

"Hm. I would've thought the spirits would have given you the same info they gave him, before they sent him to find me. I mean head for the 'thing-making place', the factory. If the Berserker was able to tell we didn't actually go there, before it made it there; if all it sent to the factory were a few canisters of nerve gas releaser before it followed our tracks to where we /actually/ went... then we just might be able to put together something a little more solid than flesh and bones, to apply here."

"What if this... Berserker did make it there?"

"Then we've got even more reason to find out, to keep it from spreading from there as well as from here."

 

*Chapter Six: Ex-pense*

"So," I asked as we walked away from the university, "How much of the Joe I know are you?"

He turned his head inside the second hazmat suit to glance at me for just a moment. (The near-brainless copy of me had been wearing a spirit-pool-created copy, which didn't have any functional breathing apparatus, which is why the big flock had to do its thing first.) "I am all that he was, up to when he left the pool; plus the memories of what you called the hyper-deer."

I shrugged. "I guessed that much. I'm trying to figure out how much like him you'll behave."

"We are the same person."

"So - I can expect you to try to kiss me as soon as you have a chance?"

He slowed for a step, before regaining his pace. "That does not seem... likely."

"If you're the same - then why not?"

"When I am a deer, I like deer. When I am human, I like humans. You are... not either."

I didn't answer for a few moments, as we continued eastwards along what had once been a townline road, between two cities that were so alike and integrated with each other that I'd always wondered why they hadn't just gotten rid of the cost of the extra mayor.

Finally, I said, "Maybe we should talk about something else. Your other self said that when the spirits had his memories, they'd make a thousand of him to go to war... and we just might need a thousand people who don't mind dying to put this thing to rest, permanently."

"You think that if I thought all the mes were different people, we would not be willing to fight and die?"

"Less willing, maybe," I admitted. "I've already seen thousands of dead bodies. I'd rather do the philosophical discussion that might affect your morale /after/ the Berserker's taken care of - even if that does add a few hundred more deaths to my conscience."

"You underestimate-" Joe started, but was interrupted by Boomer.

"Tactical data: There is no nerve gas residue here."

"Hm," I thought. "Joe, could you do that voodoo you do to talk to the birds or whatever, and have somebody sniff out the edges of affected area? That'd probably be a lot faster than trying to carry Boomer around to scan enough of an area."

"I can. Why do you wish to know?"

"As far as we can tell, wherever the Berserker went, it was surrounded by a cloud of nerve gas. If there's a gap between the nerve gas that was around the university, and what's around the factory - then it might not have gone to the factory itself. And we can work there a lot faster instead of testing every step for booby-traps."

He nodded, and some green jays flew down, around him, and off again. We kept going for a bit, in case the wind drifted, before turning off the suits' air cyclers to save the batteries. I took my headgear off, trusting in Boomer to give a warning of any unpleasant chemicals, and Bun-Bun in case I couldn't suit back up fast enough. Joe joined me, and we walked at a leisurely pace, while birds flew overhead in complicated patterns.

"I really kissed you?"

"Your other self did. Don't feel obliged to repeat it - I didn't ask for it, I asked for him to stop, he stopped. I don't hold you responsible for his acts any more than I would want to be held responsible for something a copy of me did after we'd split." He gave me a funny look, so I shrugged and explained, "Years before the first time I died, I worked out the basics, and some of the details, of how someone could handle having multiple copies of themselves made. How to divvy up property and debts, resolve disagreements, work out identifiers for each other - separate but related names. I didn't expect to ever /use/ the system, but it was a fun mental exercise. I've got - well, I've got some plans where even mentioning that I /have/ such plans would make them less useful. I tried coming up with a way to identify versions of myself from parallel timelines, but was defeated by the sheer variety of possible variations, especially the different goals a version of me with a random history might have. I think I've started rambling, so if there's anything you'd like to say to stop me, go right ahead."

"No, I am enjoying listening to you."

"Ah. Well, don't blame me if I go off on a tangent - I think I'm going just a teensy bit insane. Manic, even. Once the Berserker is down, I'm probably going to need a vacation just to keep myself sane enough to do what needs to be done after that. Assuming we do take it down, and survive. Well, as long as your Great Peace survives, at least a version of you will. I've only got the one of me, and I've only got what I've got to keep that number from dropping to zero. I miss the internet - I spent a few hours simply browsing the weird part of eBay, and other online retailers, finding clever gadgets and gizmos that didn't take up much space, but were handy to keep around, just in case. A few squares of duct-tape, a first-aid kit that didn't even make a bulge in my pocket, a button-sized flashlight; things I'm sure even Doc Savage would have been happy to add to his combat vest. I enjoyed collecting credit-card-sized gadgets, just because I was fascinated by how many different things you could /do/ with things that size. Heck, I even had a photographer's vest just so I could go hiking with the stuff that didn't fit in my regular cargo shorts..."

Some time later, I trailed off as a half-dozen jays swirled down, flew around Joe, and vanished again. I raised my eyebrow at him.

He said, "There is a kilometer wide gap."

I interlaced my fingers and cracked my knuckles. "O-/kay/ then. That might be the first bit of simple good luck I've seen in a good while..."

--

We came to the canal - specifically, to the twinned flight locks that had done most of the work lifting ships up the escarpment. Given that the Halloween costume pieces I was wearing under my hazmat suit were better quality gear than had been available to the military when I'd died, I wasn't especially surprised to see that the locks were still intact. Even the pedestrian staircases didn't show any significant signs of wear.

Joe suggested, "Swim across?"

I shook my head. "Got something I've been meaning to try..."

I pulled the coil of metallic rope from where I'd been keeping it safely stowed away. On both sides of all the locks, every ten meters or so was a 'bollard', a lump of concrete about a meter tall, with the base narrower than the top. The bollards on the far side were about forty meters from the ones near us. I recalled the practice with the sling I'd been doing, got my lariat's loop ready, swung, tossed - and watched it plop into the water, not even halfway across.

I was reeling it back for another try, wondering if I should ask Bun-Bun if she had any secret skills, when Joe put his hand on my shoulder. He pointed to the gate of the lock, holding the water back from running down the canal. "Why can we not walk on those?"

"Because it's for canal personnel only and I'm an idiot who still needs to unlearn a few things. I guess it takes more than a month to un-do three decades of living near the canal..."

As we carefully walked across the tops of the gates, I paused in the middle, looking downstream thoughtfully.

Joe asked, "Problem?

"No, just thinking. Say, Joe? Think your spirits might be willing to let this canal start being used again, without trying to pull in everyone who uses it?"

"I have no idea. Can you make it work?"

"... Maybe. Filling and emptying the locks is easy - especially if they rebuilt the water-valves with more super-materials. Opening and closing the gates, that would take some significant muscle power - or engine power. And for serious use, we'd not only have to worry about traffic control, but logistics, like making repairs... I wonder if the factory we're going to could make spare parts, or if I'd have to deal with Technoville instead for some?"

Joe stared at me. "I know that you do not hold grudges - but you would trade with them after they laid waste to so much?"

"What? ... Oh, right. Um - to help me keep things straight better in my own mind, at least, I'm going to apply my multi-self system to you, which in this case, informally, means the Joe I was with before would be Joe One, and you'd be Joe Two. No offense is intended, or any implication meant that you're less than him, just that he was branched off from the memories stored by the spirits before you were."

He shrugged, still staring. "'Two' is as much my name as 'Joe' is. What does that have to do with Technoville?"

"Welp, while Joe and I were wandering around, we found that the Berserker came from the towers in the middle of the old city of Buffalo. There's no evidence Technoville had any connection to the nerve gas."

"You are certain of this?"

"Of course not - I'm not even /certain/ that my brain was stuffed into a bunny body instead of a simulation. But that's where the balance of evidence lies, and Joe One can confirm it once he finishes what he's doing and comes back."

Joe was silent for a few moments, frowning, then said, "I need to go talk to the spirits."

"Can't you just send some birds back and forth?"

"Too complicated."

"I really could use your hand at the factory."

"Lives may be at stake." I started to inhale for a response, and he interrupted me with, "Ones that don't get brought back by the spirits."

"What are you still doing standing here, then?"

--

Crossing the canal just below the flight locks was a railway; and on the far side of that railway was the factory. Or, at least, what had been a factory in my time - it didn't really look much like what I recalled. A solid chunk of buildings, about half a kilometer by three quarters of one, its one or two stories made it look flat as a pancake.

Getting across the old, rusting chain-link fence was a piece of cake. There were dozens of entrances, both human- and vehicle-sized, all currently shut. I didn't want to open any of them in a way that I couldn't shut it again, thus letting in more poisoned air than I needed to. So, I started circling around the place, jiggling every door handle I found, trying to keep an eye out for whatever the Berserker had fired off into this area, and hoping that whatever was on the other side was more like the university than like Buffalo.

A touch on my shoulder had me almost jump out of my hazmat suit with a "Gaah!". After I landed (bunny-style legs are, if I haven't mentioned it, very good for jumping), I discovered a green jay flying around me. When I stood still for a moment, it came in for another landing. I blinked at it through my helmet, then the metaphorical light bulb went off. "Right," I said to it, "you're one of the messenger birds. Sorry, little dude, but I still haven't figured out how you guys talk."

It flew off my shoulder, and I turned around to watch it; it flew a few dozen feet back the way I'd come, then landed. We looked at each other for a moment, then it launched again, circled around me, and landed a few feet further on. I shrugged. "Then again, who needs to talk?"

It led me to an area full of trash- and recycling-bins, just past where I'd started jiggling handles, and landed on the push-bar of a double-door. I pressed - and with a simple click, it unlatched. The bird flew off, disappearing over the roof. "Thanks for the assist, little dude," I said, not particularly caring that talking to things that weren't there was often a sign of insanity. "Hope you make it to a pool to get fixed up before the VX residue gets you."

I pushed the door open, checked to make sure it opened from the inside as well, and let it close behind me. Getting ready to jump back out if the Berserker had sent anything mobile, I let my eyes adjust to the relative gloom; the windows were nearly opaque from years and years of dust and grime, letting in only thin trickles of light. In a few seconds, even without any ceiling lights, I was able to start making out shapes - neat row upon row of bundled forms, completely still, a few glimmers of dust flickering in the sunbeams...

I stopped looking around as I realized that my chest had started hurting, that I was having trouble catching my breath, I was lightheaded, starting to shake, my hands suddenly clammy. I stumbled out the door, and collapsed to all fours, my limbs heavy and tingling.

I had no idea what was happening - but I was able to put together the thought that that seemed like a bad place to stay. I managed to pull myself up to my feet, and, stumbling, took a step away, then another...

After a time, I couldn't say how long, I realized that I was staring down at the canal. I glanced around, saw the railway bridge nearby, and then I knew where I was. I sat down - alright, collapsed - on a bollard.

"What... the heck... was that?"

Boomer spoke up, "You entered the building, began hyperventilating, and came here."

"Is... that all?"

"Your heart rate was accelerated, you began sweating profusely, you were trembling, and your gait was irregular and unsteady. According to the diagnostic criteria in my database, the most likely cause was a panic attack."

"Oh. Was worried... it was... nerve gas... or heart attack."

"Many people who suffer panic attacks mistake them for heart attacks. I have less data on mistaking them for chemical weapons."

"What... treatments?"

"There are several psychopharmaceuticals-" I didn't have the breath to speak up, so I interrupted her with a quick head shake and putting one hand over her pocket. Seemingly unperturbed, she continued with, "Breathing exercises can also help with short-term symptoms."

"Square?"

"Yes, square breathing is one such exercises. Would you like me to help you count?"

"... Yes."

"Very well. ... Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four."

I didn't count how many times we did that - I was focusing on counting.

After a while, I said, "Okay. I think I'm good. Mostly. Enough, anyway. Any ideas on how to keep it from happening again?"

"That would require knowledge of what triggered it in the first place."

"Well, it was when I went inside... crap, am I claustrophobic now?"

"That seems unlikely. You had no signs of phobic reactions during your time at the university, and phobias do not generally progress in that fashion."

"Ah." I cast my mind back - and didn't have to cast it far. "Ah. Buffalo. Stress. The school..." I started counting my breathing again.

"It is possible you are experiencing Acute Stress Disorder, or the preliminary stages of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

"Without any drugs, without any mental health professionals, or any sort of health system... is there anything I can do to help with those?"

"Yes."

--

Some time later, I watched Joe reappear, cross the canal, and make his way over to me; where I was sitting on the ground, back against the bollard, legs crossed, hands on knees.

He looked down at me, frowning, and said, "Spirits say that you came out as soon as you went in."

"Yeah. I've been kind of joking about going bug-nuts from everything I've been going through. It's less fun than I made it sound. If I'd been spending time meditating every day, and doing behaviour therapy, and a couple of other things, maybe it wouldn't have gotten this bad."

"What will you do now?"

"Keep meditating, I think."

"What about the Berserker?"

"I was hoping to get some tool that would let me come up with a clever plan. But... realistically, I don't think I can handle a clever plan right now. So we have to use my stupid plan."

"You didn't tell me you had another plan."

"I always have another plan. I didn't tell you because the Berserker can interrogate people."

"What is your stupid plan?"

"You take Clara. Go get my radio. Follow her directions to hook it up to the communications lines, the ones your birds unplugged. That breaks one of Technoville's laws, of keeping comm and comp separate. Anything hooked up to those lines will get hacked by... whatever is filling the airwaves, and turned into random bits that can't do anything. Then it's just mopping up, looking for anything the Berserker might have copied its data onto and then disconnected - Clara's got an inventory and checksums, she can help with that. Maybe just put them to the side, locked tight, in case there's some future use in having a homicidal AI-like thing."

"You say that like you won't be involved."

"It's a simple plan. You don't need me for it, and Clara can take over running the university from Laura."

"And that is your /stupid/ plan?"

"Of course it is. It depends on your spirits letting you help maintain a university they'd rather turn into forest, it makes a few untested assumptions about what the Berserker might have fabricated, and it puts at risk a lot of the data that I'd rather avoid losing."

"What /will/ you do?"

"I'm gonna do the best I can..."

--

"Boomer," I said, rising to my feet, "a little public-domain Cab Calloway backup, if you please. Bun-Bun, much obliged if you'd keep me from falling flat on my face."

The sounds of trumpets and piano started drifting through the air, and I started shuffling my feet, twirling, and dipping to the beat. My audience took a step back.

"Joe, let me tell you 'bout Bunny the bunny.
He was a wild and cra-azy guy.
He walked 'til he closed his eyes;
But from death she did arise."

As I broke into the 'hi-dee-hi' chorus, with both Clara and Boomer calling back, I noted Joe taking another step or two back, staring.

"She saved the life of a hungry baby,
the neighbours treated her as if she had rabies.
A giant monster almost brought her demise,
she was saved by a toy, life-size."

The next chorus, I whipped out my harmonica for the responses, and Joe almost tripped as he backed into a bollard.

I kept up the whole thing, singing and dancing the events of the last month, until I got to the end: "And from all this she will arise. Poor Bun, poor Bun, poor Bun...", and plopped my rear onto the nearest bollard, crossing my hocks in imitation of my original meditative pose.

After a few moments, Joe asked, "What brought on that song?"

"What song?"

"... Maybe I should just take Clara and go. Boomer, keep a good eye on her for me, alright?"

Boomer answered, "Of course, Joe."

I just sat and watched until he'd made his way out of sight, before I let myself heave a sigh. I didn't harbour any illusions that I wasn't still being watched - there were lots of places for little birds with bright eyes to escape my gaze while keeping me in theirs.

Joe was a good guy, and I was sure he meant well... but while I'd been thinking of ways to get around my newly discovered panic attacks, I'd also realized that once the Berserker was taken care of, the things I planned on doing and the things Joe's "spirits" wanted to happen were pretty diametrically opposed. There were only so many ways I could get him to go away and not /want/ to come back, and violating social expectations by pulling a Pinkie Pie was among the least messy. If it hadn't worked, I had further ideas, but I was glad I didn't have to try them.

"Okay, Bun-Bun, it's time to cheat a bit. Can you keep my adrenaline from spiking, even if my brain tries to empty my glands of it?" It might not be the best long-term solution, but it seemed to be what the most useful drugs aimed at accomplishing.

I stood, planning on heading back to the factory. "Okay, Bun-Bun, we don't have to dance anymore. ... Bun-Bun? ... Fine, but could we at least go dance thataway?"

--

Once Bun-Bun got the rhythm out of her system, I decided to do at least one more thing before heading into the factory. While Joe One and I had been paddling about, he'd mentioned that the watch-birds had seen five or six things that had been thrown through the air toward the place - and it seemed like a good idea to locate them, and maybe see what they looked like, before wandering blithely around the place.

There was a lot of clutter around the place, so it wasn't until I made it to the near-empty parking lot that I noticed a beachball-sized, metallic thing with rocket fins that didn't seem to have any pre-Singularity purpose.

I hadn't been making much use of the tape-bots lately, so they were fully charged. I sent the greenish lizard one to investigate closer, including poking at it; and Boomer was able to use her camera to determine that it was a now-empty pressure vessel. There were no openings or hatches, or detectable electronics - as far as we could tell, there'd been nothing inside it but gas.

I didn't feel like tromping around to find the other three or four, so I simply pulled out /all/ the tape-bots that Convoy had provided. To all of them but the lizard-bot (who I wanted to stand guard on this shell, just in case), I pointed at the empty shell, and said, "Search radius five hundred meters. Find and report." They scooted off, surprisingly quickly.

Three were easy to locate, spread around the exterior of the factory, and to set more guards on. The fifth was in the middle of the rooftop, and as bouncy as my legs were, I had to resort to climbing an overgrown tree to get up there and confirm that it was just as empty as the others.

None of the tape-bots reported seeing any other shells, even after I expanded the search area. The sun was getting low when I decided to call it off, and hope there really were just the five. I took the tape-bots I hadn't give guard duty to over to the canal, cleaned them to Boomer's satisfaction of the gas residue they'd picked up, and returned to the factory door I'd entered by before.

I had Boomer set the ring to flashlight mode, took a few deep, carefully counted breaths, and stepped back inside.

 

*Chapter Seven: Ex-propriation*

Boomer gave the all-clear, so I stripped off the hazmat suit, to save battery power, to let me move more freely, and to get Wagger to stop being quite so annoying.

Staring down the rows of palleted goods, all shrink-wrapped and ready for transport, I didn't /like/ what I was seeing, but I didn't feel like my heart was seizing up, either.

I stepped closer to one, and shining the light on it, it looked absolutely nothing like a still little body slumped over a desk. Neither did the second. I walked up and down the rows, looking at each one, so I know for a fact none did.

Most pallets held stacks of smaller boxes, each pallet a different product - lamps, or diapers, or coat hangers, or bicycle tires. Some had larger, individual items - an engine, or some sort of machine tool, or something I couldn't recognize. There was a thin coating of dust on everything, but it wasn't much worse than the grease and gunk I'd seen in industrial buildings, pre-demise. (I'd spent more than one hour of my childhood hanging out in a certain printing plant, with the noise of the presses and the smell of the ink and the dusty shreds of cut paper shifting in every breeze.)

After I'd inspected every ready-to-deliver pallet in the room, I stood near the door again, trying to think.

Boomer interrupted my ideas before they had much of a chance to form, saying, "It is getting late. If you wish to set up camp outside the poisoned area before the sun sets, you should start putting on your suit."

I shook my head. "I think I'm going to pull an all-nighter, here. Joe and the spirits are probably going to be busy at the university, so if I want to get anything done that they might not like, this might be my only shot."

"I do not understand."

I shrugged. "They're into the whole organic thing. If I want to figure out how to make machines to make the canal work, or something more important, like building more computers to help solve problems without them getting hacked, or even more important stuff that I'm not going to mention aloud just now in case they've got eavesdropping mice or whatnot - then it is, at the very least, the polite thing to do to keep from rubbing their noses in it."

"I still do not understand. How did your review of these products assist in that goal?"

"... Good question. Let me get back to you on that." I closed my eyes and rubbed my head, tugged my ears, scratched my short muzzle... and sighed. "It probably didn't. Which probably means my mind is getting frazzled - I can usually at least /rationalize/ a reasonable excuse, but I can't think of any that would pass muster."

"Would sleep help?"

"... I'm pretty sure I don't want to fall asleep for a while. So. Limited time before Joe comes back with whatever his version of a straitjacket is - hm, can I block the one door here? Would I want to, if I had to run out quickly? I'm going to guess that a lot of the doors are easier to get out of than in, so maybe I'll just set this tape-bot here to guard, to warn me if anything starts moving."

I did so, and then started walking to one of the entrances to deeper in the factory. I continued thinking aloud, "I still want to get as much done as I can, in as little time as I can. So I need to leverage whatever resources I've got as much as I can. Info is the biggest lever... say, Boomer? Have you got any info on this place, other than the outside maps?"

She responded, "This factory was originally built by General Motors Canada in nineteen fifty-four to build engines. After several changes, in twenty forty-six it was converted to general additive and subtractive manufacturing, to produce items that were less expensive to create in bulk than individually, or in a location which could easily handle multiple materials and processes. Its area of coverage was primarily Thorold and western St. Catharines, while eastern St. Catharines was covered by the MacKenzie Plant-"

I cleared my throat, which Boomer took as a signal to change tack. "Citizens could place their orders online, and have them delivered by multiple means, or visit one of the design centres in person to take advantage of the interface rooms."

I perked up at that (and, with the hazmat suit rolled up, my ears could finally perk up in comfort again). "'Design centre' - that sounds like a place to start. Are there any on site?"

"Yes. Would you like me to direct you to one?"

"Please."

--

"So, Boomer - is this place solar-powered, like the university?"

"While the parking lot and roof do contain solar surfaces, the primary source of electricity was the electrical grid."

"So we might not be /able/ to do anything until daylight?"

"That is possible. However, a common product of facilities similar to this one was batteries. I do not have access to data on what was done here in twenty fifty, before most people disappeared, so I cannot say what extraordinary provisions might have been put in place."

"Well, Joe knew this as a 'thing-making thing', so unless he was just talking about a handed-down legend, it seems likely that something's still in working order."

"According to the social media records I have, the next door on your left leads to a part of the facility that was open to the public."

"Okay, let me just find a doorstop, so we don't accidentally get locked out of the behind the scenes... hunh, I'm almost surprised they still had mops and buckets in twenty fifty, instead of super-roombas."

"According to the university's economic department, significant portions of infrastructure were optimized for humanoid forms, and in many cases, the greatest economic gains were found in minimizing the cost of generalized humanoid workers that could be frequently repurposed rather than creating mechanical devices optimized for each particular task. However, the gains from specialization were increasing every year, and one of the most referenced projections was that no humanoid generalist would be able to compete by the year twenty sixty-seven."

"Well, so much for that projection. And here we are and - whoah. Is that what this place is /supposed/ to look like?"

"It matches the most recent social media imagery in my database."

"I've heard of baroque, but this place is... /fractally/ baroque. Gah, I can't even make out where any corners are, with the shadows dancing like that."

"Social media gave the architecture generally positive reviews. The general consensus was that it was good advertising for the level of detail available for the facility's products."

"An anti-Apple store?"

"If you wish."

"What I wish, right now, is more light."

"There is one to your left."

"What, here?"

"Further left. Left. Left. Right. Left. There."

"Looks just like every other protrusion I can see." I poked at the thing in a few directions, and it finally moved when I tried rotating it. To my surprise, when I did, the whole room lit in a soft glow. "Hunh," I commented, looking around. "Looks a lot less Giger-esque and a lot more... delicate CGI, like that."

"Such comparisons have been made before."

"I'm sure they have. Okay, so at least some power's still on - let's not waste too much of it. Which way to the design centre?"

"The nearest one is to your left."

After a few minutes, we arrived. It didn't look like much - a chair with a refreshingly non-fractal set of cushions, and some rows of extraordinarily transparent glass sheets in front of each other. When I took the obvious seat, words glowed in front of me, as if in mid-air, reading in pale blue-white, "Please provide catalogue number" in the pre-Singularity letters I was still able to read much more easily than the newfangled Free Press alphabet.

I looked around the room, but didn't see anything else. I asked Boomer, "Catalogue?", but the room itself responded, the original instruction fading out in favour of "Please provide catalogue search parameters".

I thought back to the Great Peace, and what I'd probably have the most trouble getting anything made of if Joe came back to do his spirits' will, and said the top thing that came into my mind: "Robots." I thought a bit more, and added, "Without radios. Weatherproof."

New words faded in: "Purpose of robots?"

I floundered a bit, and said, "Lots of tasks. Um - bodyguard work."

The display changed to, "Desired price range?"

"Er... what do I have to pay with?"

New words appeared under the first. "You have _100%_ of this facility's production capacity available to you."

I shrugged a bit, and asked, "What's the most expensive model you have?"

A whole paragraph appeared, along with a rotating display of... myself. It read, "Full-body scans can allow the production of lifelike androids that are the physical duplicate of the scanned person. The scanned person must waive their personal-identity copyright to permit the duplication, and additional scans are required to match body-language, voice, scent, and other non-visual identifiers." I kept reading the ad-copy, but didn't see any hard numbers. "I could use a dozen of those, but how much power - hey!"

The words had changed to, "Preliminary order for _12_ personal duplicates placed. Please follow the blue lights to a scanning room, where your privacy will be protected."

"Cancel order. Undo? Backup? Change catalogue to power-generation?" Nothing changed. I asked Boomer, "Maybe the software's degraded over the years?"

"It is possible. In the university, Laura kept at least triplicate copies of all data, and errors still occurred."

"Let's try another design room."

We headed out to the room next to the one I'd entered, and as I sat, the words "Please provide catalogue number" appeared.

"What do I have to pay with?" I asked, as a test.

The response appeared, "You have _50%_ of this facility's production capacity available to you."

"Hm," I said. "Catalogue, please," and when it asked for search parameters, I said, "Power generation. Mobile. Not based on fossil fuels. Can operate independently of a power grid."

Instead of just one result, a list appeared. Before I even started reading, I noted one detail, and asked, "Why are those top entries red instead of blue?"

Explanatory text stated, "Red entries match specified search parameters, but have not been validated." A clever animation zoomed them out from the rest - and I noticed a detail they all had in common. A particularly interesting detail: the date they'd been entered. "2050/11/01". The day /after/ everyone had started vanishing.

"Could I see /all/ entries that were made on that day, or later?"

Text faded in, "These are all the entries for power-generation that were made on that day."

"I mean, for more than just power generation."

The text didn't change.

"Can I start a new search? ... Are there any other interfaces? Escape? Backspace? ... Can you remove all entries that require fissionables or helium-three as fuel?" If the equivalent of the 'back' button was broken, I could at least try gathering as much information as I could going forward. With a few more phrases to get rid of designs that weren't likely to be of any use in a post-post-industrial society, I ended up with a mere two power-plant designs. Both claimed to produce energy through fusion, though in rather different ways - one's description stated it used 'decaborane' heated by magnetic fields in a 'field-reversed configuration', while the other used lithium in an 'inertial electrostatic confinement'. I stepped out of the room for a few moments to consult with Boomer without getting the room's interface confused, and determined that it would probably be easier to get hold of lithium than boron, so I re-entered the room, selected the latter generator, and said, "Please show me all you can on this one."

Text appeared, "Do you wish to place an order?"

"Maybe. Can you show me the fuel consumption? How much power it produces?"

The text remained the same. I stepped back out again, and went into a third room, where I had "_33%_ of the facility's production capacity" available. What I had in mind would probably take nowhere near that much.

"Catalogue, please. Manuals. I would like all the available documentation on a fusion generator fueled by lithium, which functions by inertial electrostatic confinement, particularly any that are relevant to the design entered on the first of November, twenty fifty. Oh, and I'd also like any manuals about the personal duplicate robots that are on preliminary order."

The text read, "Order complete. Please pick up in the lobby."

Boomer directed me to said lobby, where, on a receptionist-style counter (which had the usual bric-a-brac decorations), were a couple of nearly-as-decorated tablet-shaped computers, recognizable as such only because their faces were big and blank.

I tapped one, and words appeared - the interface was simple enough. "Let's see," I said aloud, for Boomer's benefit, "Fusion, da-da-da, three-hundred sixty megawatts heat, sixty megawatts electric, seven tons plus heat radiators, and with that much of a heat load it needs a lot of cooling, normal operating parameters, external magnetic field - hey, I'm pretty sure you'd be just fine even if you were right next to it. Not that I plan on trying it. Fuel consumption seven milligrams a second, which works out to, per year, um..."

Boomer supplied, "Two hundred twenty one kilograms."

"Really? That's all? And how much is sixty megawatts compared to... something I'd know?"

"A typical electric locomotive from twenty fifteen used three megawatts of power."

"Twenty locomotives, in seven tons? With a ninth of a ton of fuel to run for a /year/? You folk from twenty-fifty had your energy problems /solved/."

"I am afraid that is not the case. According to my databases, fusion reactors are considered experimental, and are much larger."

"So - it's really from the Singularity?"

"I am not qualified to answer that."

"Well, it's certainly suggestive. One question is - if it is built, does it actually do what it says it does? I'd really rather not flip a switch and disappear in a ball of sunfire. ... Well, I guess I might be about to get a few extra pairs of hands that could flip the switch for me, while I'm at a safe distance. Let's look at the robot manual. Mm-hm, can fulfill standard humanoid tasks including janitorial, customer service, da da-da da-da, light bodyguard work, skipping ahead - okay, /this/ model is specifically designed... Ew."

"Would you care to elaborate?"

"Well, since they were expensive, I was /expecting/ sex-bots. That's probably easy enough to deal with - just don't program them to have sex. These are, uh, /snuff/ bots. Designed to die as realistically as possible, get fixed up, and die again. Apparently to relieve fetishistic urges - there are some hypertext links to some psychology papers."

"Does this mean you will be canceling your order?"

"... Actually, I'm not sure. I'm squicked, but I can also imagine some actual uses for body-doubles like that. Hm... I imagine that if I were a /real/ rationalist, instead of just an aspiring one, the reasons to go through with the order pretty much overwhelm the reasons not to. If nothing else, they seem to be taking up an order-slot, which might slow down other production until it's built. Anyway, there's a trick right there - if you can think of how someone else would get the right answer, then you've just thought of it yourself. I don't know of too many people, real or fictional, whose advice would have been reliable enough to let me survive the first time I died. I'm sure a few popped up after I died, but you're not letting me read much about them, due to copyright and most of your memory being taken up with, well, your own memory. And out of those few, I only know a couple well enough to make a reasonably good model in my own head. ... And even then, I died before their story was finished being written. I've been talking for a bit and you haven't said anything back. Have I started babbling? I think I'm babbling. Say something to stop me babbling, would you?"

"'Something'."

"Fat load of help you are. So the smartest person I know is fictional, and has extremely questionable moral goals, and I don't even know what fate he supposedly met was, but maybe he's more useful a guide for some things than my usual four mental directions. And my mental model of him says - get the body-doubles made already, and focus on the more important stuff, such as preparing a tactical retreat in case the locals get pushy, and once that's done, then maybe investigate the November files. Right - which way to the scanning room?"

After giving Bun-Bun her head in demonstrating how far all my joints could stretch - including Wagger's - I re-dressed, hit the second design room to confirm that order, and went back to the third room.

"Catalogue search," I ordered. "Vehicles. Capable of off-road travel. Capable of crossing streams without bridges. Capable of carrying the fusion generator recently ordered. Capable of carrying at least thirteen people. Capable of being sealed up against chemical weapons. Does not require significant amounts of fossil fuel. Enough cargo space to carry enough tools to perform regular maintenance and repairs."

The floating text had a new message, reading, "Sorry, there are _0_ results for your search. Would you like to create a custom design?"

"Yes. Yes, I would."

--

"I hereby dub it the 'Munchkin'."

Apparently, there'd been a revival fad in the early 2040's for intermodal containers being used for anything imaginable. Since the fusion reactor happened to fit exactly into a twenty-foot container, I'd used that as my starting place. I'd dug up the various ways that'd been invented to move containers around, from classic wheels and treads to various arrangements of legs. A lot of the latter were interesting, but hadn't been very practical, given their energy requirements; a trailer with wheels could be dragged, but one with legs needed just as much power as the truck pulling it. However, I just so happened to have a sixty megawatt power source handy, which turned those impractical designs into actual possibilities.

After running through the system's astonishingly user-friendly iterative design process, I ended up with three options: Legs, wheels, or tracks. Each had a slab to carry the container, with various electronics, batteries, trailer hookups, and suchlike; but running through a sort of VR evolutionary algorithm, the legged design turned out to have a particular advantage over the other two. In either irregular or soft-and-squishy terrain, the legged version could keep trundling along at full speed, while the other two were greatly slowed. So legs it was.

Of course, by 'legs', I don't mean a pair of legs like a mecha, or even four big legs like the big camel-things from 'Empire Strikes Back'. Somewhere around twelve tons of vehicle needed a whole lot of ground contact area to keep from sinking. Imagine, instead of four wheels, four great big skis or sleds, with enough robotic legs to choke a millipede connecting them to the main body; enough robotic machinery to move the ski-things at a blurring pace. Like I said - completely impractical, without a bit of post-Singularity power generation. But with the power to burn, as useful as could be.

I put in an order for three of the legged tray things. The first for the generator, and the second for a container of cargo, like the bunny-bots. For the third, I found a pre-existing design that had everything I wanted, and then some: Winnebago's top-of-the-line design for a twenty-foot mobile home. Solar panels unfolded from the top, providing a nominal forty kilowatts and change, enough to keep the batteries charged to power the self-contained recycling systems 24/7 - including, a bit to my surprise, complete air, food, and water recycling, and a coffin-like robotic surgeon under the main bed. The ad-copy was 'complete self-sufficiency anywhere this side of the Arctic circle'. And more luxuries than I could count - starting with computerized displays covering both interior and exterior instead of windows, and going up from there.

(I did make one change to the design - I simply ran a find-and-delete for every radio. Having random post-Singularity intelligences hack into any available computer was bad enough when you weren't /inside/ the computer...)

I wondered why, if this sort of thing was available, why so many people had been hanging out in cities and got caught by the Singularity. I guessed that most people just liked being around other people more than I did; and that not much factory production was dedicated to making these homes-in-a-box. I also wondered how many of these things were scattered around the continent, with or without anybody still living inside them. Given the various monsters I'd seen, outside the biosphere run by the Great Peace, I suspected that any that were still around were almost certainly without any current residents.

--

While that started getting made, I wandered over to take a look at the first robot off the line. It was breathing, and looked to be asleep - which, I assumed, would have been better PR than arriving looking like a corpse. "Still feels odd looking at myself, kind of, from the outside. Have to admit she's cute, though. Um - remind me to get clothes fabbed for them all. And to figure out what behaviour packages to run by default. And I'm still going to have to run through their command codes to register them to my voiceprint and biometrics and so on. ... In the meantime, let's go see if we can find out more about the November files..."

Unfortunately, while the design interface had been easy to use to build a customized vehicle, something was keeping it from running what seemed to me to be very ordinary search queries of its database. I began to get mighty sick of reading, "Sorry, that search is generating an error. Would you like to search for something else?"

I'd just decided to try a brute-force search-and-skim, when I felt something poking at my hoof. Looking down, I saw the tape-bot I'd set to guard the door. When it saw me looking at it, it chirped once. At least one person had come into the factory.

I left the design rooms, set Boomer to tricorder mode to scan for any nerve toxins that might have entered, and followed the tape-bot back into the mechanical back rooms, many of which were now whirring and whizzing as parts were assembled out of one substance or another.

Before long, I saw someone walking away, down a random aisle - and before they turned around, I was able to observe two long ears, and a cotton-puff tail. Brown fur, instead of pink, and when they - she - looked towards my light, she wasn't wearing any glasses, and was both taller and more rounded than myself.

My first thought was that the factory had started making robots that weren't /exact/ doubles of myself. My second was that the Great Peace's spirits had sent in another bear-brained bunny-morph to scout around. My third thoughts were interrupted when she said, "Bunny? Is that you?"

"Who's asking?", I responded.

"Joe. Joe Three, I guess."

I blinked a bit, and started walking closer, going from yellow alert back down to green - chartreuse, anyway. "Joe? What are you doing in that getup?"

She shrugged. "Not sure. Joe Two went into the pool to talk to the spirits, and he and I walked out. They say I should hug you more often than Minnie did."

"Oh. Uh - I don't think that's really necessary."

She shrugged again. "I think they think you're lonely."

I shook my head. "I may be crazy, but being alone isn't part of it."

By now, we were just about next to each other - and without any further words, she stepped right up to me and wrapped her arms around me. I just kind of stood there for a few moments, then cleared my throat. "Okay, you can go tell the spirits you've hugged me."

"That's not how it works."

"Forcing an introvert into undesired social interactions can make them go buggy /faster/."

She reluctantly let go. "We'll talk about it in the morning. Let's get some sleep."

"Nah, I'm staying up the night. Lots to do, and the sooner I get started on it all, the sooner it'll get done."

"Such as?"

A small forklift trundled by, carrying one of my duplicates to the front section.

Joe raised a rather expressive eyebrow.

"Oh, don't look at me like that - I just needed to clear out the production queue, it's not like they're sex-bots. Well, alright, they /are/ sex-bots, but I'm not planning on using them for what they're supposedly built for. Okay, so I might end up using them for their designed purpose, but not like that. ... Look, how about I stop digging myself a hole and start explaining from scratch?"

 

*Chapter Eight: Ex-chequer*

"Bunny?"

"Busy."

"Kind of important."

"... I've seen too many sitcoms to ignore something like that. Let me send this order as-is and shut it down, to keep something unfortunate from happening... there. What's up?"

"I should show you." I sighed and rolled my eyes, but let Joe Three lead the way. She asked, "What were you doing?"

"Looking for high-energy gear that's connected to the November files, something that would make good use of that generator. Didn't find much, just some pieces from the generator of frankly astonishing statistics, like something that's rated as a capacitor, but seems to be made out of superconducting magnets. Did find out that I'm not allowed to order up a pre-constructed class four laser, but I am allowed to order the easily-assembled pieces of a pulsed infrared laser emitter. And a few accessories."

"That sounds dangerous."

"That's the idea. At least, while I'm trying to think of some other way to get around the search restrictions. Given where we're heading - the bunny-bots haven't started trying to kill each other, have they?"

"No."

"Joe One got to be more talkative than you are."

"Here we are."

"I don't get it. They're all just in a pile, faking sleep? ... This isn't their refractory period, is it?"

"No. They are just asleep. And you need to join them."

"You're kidding. You interrupted me for /that/?"

"The sun is coming down again. You need to sleep."

"'Need' is a funny word. I think I can probably convince the factory to make a gizmo that would produce some modafinil, or whatever better version was invented later."

"You are avoiding the point."

"Yep."

"If you do not lie down, I will hug you until you do."

"Even if I took that as a threat, I don't /do/ cuddle-piles."

"Why not?"

"For one, introvert and schizoid. Which should be enough. For another - I used to get too hot just when my cat curled up on my shins. And now you've reminded me of another thing I lost when I died, thank you very much."

"Now you are making excuses."

"Of /course/ I'm making excuses! There's no rational reason for me to stay up so long my brain turns to mush! My brain /is/ mush, I'm not rational, I'm a freaking snake-tailed rabbit standing next to a dozen robotic clones of myself, talking to another rabbit made by self-proclaimed 'spirits' for the express purpose of hugging me, and I just finished designing a death ray so that I don't have to rely on the local technocratic dystopia for an air strike in case I come across a kaiju, or just a killer robot. /Another/ killer robot, that is. A month ago I was looking forward to the new season of Mythbusters. Now I'm in freaking Wonderland, and /everybody/ is mad in Wonderland, so why should I be any different?"

Joe's answer was to reach her arms around me.

I huffed a breath out my nostrils. "I could probably order the bun-herd to hug you en masse so I can get back to work."

"You said your 'work' is thinking of an idea. You are too sleepy to even come up with a good excuse."

"Will you let go if I promise to go find a cot or something?"

"I think... no. You need sleep, but you also need more than sleep."

"Let's just stick to sleep for now. I still want to skip the bun-pile... do I really smell like that?"

"Less than them all together. But yes."

"Tell you what. You go find some birds to talk to your spirits, and find out if the university's clean yet. And while you're doing that, I'll check their manual to see if I can reduce the realism of that part of their imitation of me. Or see if the factory can cough up some Febreeze. Or the like."

"You are trying to get rid of me."

I shrugged. "As if I could? I've got a dozen mes, none of whom are very bright. If I seriously tried to get away from you, your spirits could make a thousand of you, all just as smart as you, and get them stick me in whatever you'd do for an asylum for someone who can't just be melted back into the mix."

"Now you are back to making excuses."

"At least I'm back to being /up/ to making excuses. You're overly warm, and I haven't got a desktop fan to blow air on my face to let me feel pleasantly cool. ... You know what, maybe that's what I've been missing. A piece of technological civilization that's purely for personal comfort. I'll go order one up, and maybe I'll even pretend the bun-bots are as smart as cats, and join the pile of 'em."

"You stay here. I will get you your fan."

Joe finally let go, and left the office-turned-bedroom.

I sighed, walked over to the pile of gynoids, and poked at them with a hoof. I sat down, my back against a couple of theirs...

... and it was suddenly morning.

--

"Did you actually make a death ray?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I /think/ so. Which means that we're going to observe all safety precautions as if it /is/ as lethal as the guns that the factory won't let me print without a firearms license I don't have and can't get."

"You sound like you are still rambling."

"I am down a night of sleep. And now that I'm thinking about what I may be not thinking of... what would the spirits think of me having a lethal weapon of any sort?"

"Could you have killed us when we first met, and tried to bring you to a pool?"

"Physically... probably. Crossbows, tasers to the heart, sleeper hold held too long. Mentally... well, I obviously didn't."

"Then what is the difference?"

"The fact that I can reach out and touch someone from a kilometer away, if it works?"

Joe shrugged. I rolled my eyes.

"Right," I said. "Let's at least get you a pair of safety goggles. Don't want you going blind from a stray reflection and have to bother your spirits for new eyes."

That was easily enough done. "Okay," I said, "Let's see. Laser head, superconducting magnetic energy storage capacitor-like things, pre-chiller, primary heat exchange loop, secondary heat exchange loop, heat sink, shoulder stock with adjustment dials. Feels about as heavy as, oh, a couple of big bottles of soda. The built-in capacitors hold a bit over five hundred kilojoules, which if I read the specs right, is enough for two shots. Here's a power-cord, a battery with a belt-clip good for ten shots, and a backpack with a bigger battery, more coolant, and bigger radiator surface, good for a hundred."

"What are you going to shoot?"

"Nothing in here, anyway. Let's hit the parking lot."

After a few minutes to don our suits - the local air force hadn't decontaminated this area yet - we made it out there. "Might as well aim for, oh, one of the metal fence posts. What do you think that's made of - aluminium? Think it's solid or hollow?" I checked the manual, and started twiddling the dials; tweaking the frequency, the length of the individual pulses, the time between them, and the overall power. According to the text, different substances vaporized in different ways, and the settings to create the most impressive possible holes in wood wouldn't do nearly as well against metal, the settings for metal would do poorly against ceramic, and so on. "Anyone over that way, who should be warned to get out of there if it works?"

"No. What if it does not work?"

"Best case scenario - piece of junk. Worst case - it blows up."

"Maybe I should test it."

"Can't. Already locked in my palm-print. Don't want random strangers to steal it to shoot at us."

"Then make another."

"Eh, we're already out here."

"You are being reckless about your personal safety."

"Joe, of the nine and counting near-death experiences I've had recently, in at least... six of them, I'd have been better able to handle them with a decent weapon."

"That does not mean you have to risk your life to test it now."

"Joe - I've got a robotic factory building a freaking nuclear power generator. Say, I've been saying 'freaking' a lot lately, haven't I? Anyway, if I can't trust that this place builds things to spec, then when we turn /that/ on, there won't be enough of either of us left to - um, I'm trying to think of a good metaphor here."

"'Fill a room with the smoke that's all that's left of us'?"

"That'll work. I'm not just testing the I.R. laser here - I'm testing the factory's power-source manufacturing."

"That almost sounds reasonable."

"Only 'almost', eh?"

"You could still make a second one and let me test it."

I sighed. "You're really going to make me say it, aren't you?"

"Say what?"

"I don't feel comfortable with giving you a gun. Death-ray. Whatever."

After an uncomfortable pause, she asked, "Would you give one to Joe One?"

"... Maybe. I didn't stop him from playing with a pile of claymores."

"Then what's the difference?"

"Your spirits."

"What about them?"

"They made Joe One to bring me... here, actually. But I went off-script, and we went to other places, and did other things. But you were made to - well, hug me. And I don't know what all else. And you're still doing exactly what your spirits made you to do."

"So?"

I shrugged. "I don't know enough about them to trust them. I don't know if I /can/ know. I'm reminded of that every time I stand on this hoof. I don't even know why I got that, instead of either being turned into a deer just like you do on a regular basis, or just getting turned into a pile of mush, if your spirit-pools really don't work on me. And that's just the most obvious thing. Well, second most obvious, now that they've made a bunny you."

"Is that why you don't want me to hug you? You don't trust me?"

"Well... I've never been much for physical contact. Maybe when I was a kid, but if so, I don't remember."

"Is that the only reason?"

"Joe - a vast, alien, and incomprehensible mentality /made a person/ for the express purpose of /hugging/ me, ostensibly to do something about my mental health. When I died, something as simple and comprehensible as a government agency wouldn't even assign me a social services caseworker without some justification about how doing so improved the lives of the people in power. Avoiding getting into a digression about the incentives involved in a democratic society - I can't figure out how them making you benefits them, unless you're part of a larger plan that you yourself probably don't know about."

"That doesn't seem to give me much room to work with."

"Oh, there's plenty of room. The further you get from your spirits' plans, the more likely I am to trust you more... at least that you're acting for your own sake, instead of theirs."

"In other words - if I want to get you to stop running away from me hugging you, all I have to do is stop trying to hug you?"

"Well, if you're going to look at it like /that/..."

"Bunny - look at me. I'm soft, furry, and have arms. I'm a child's toy brought to life."

"Welcome to the club."

"I don't know who made you-"

"Ditto."

She ignored me. "- But if I can't do what this body was made for, I might as well go get myself one that's less..." She trailed off, glancing at me and then looked away.

"Go ahead," I said. "Cartoonish? Ridiculous? Undignified?"

"/Specialized/," she declared.

"Nice save."

"Thank you."

"If you want to stop being you, I'm not going to stop you. Er, from stopping. Anyway - if you go get melted, and a new Joe Four comes along, then I'll have no more reason to trust him-or-her than I do you. So why not stick around? Maybe you'll come up with a way to get around my trust issues and start hugging me anyway."

I didn't feel like adding another reason I had for suggesting she stay out of the pool - that I still wasn't sure if her going into the pool to be broken down counted as 'dying', in either a practical or an ethical sense. (My ethics, that is - I already knew it didn't count as such for hers.)

She asked, "Are you still hung up over whether the pools kill the people who go into them?"

So much for hidden motives. "Eh," I shrugged. "Could be. Even if so, it doesn't change the rest of the argument for staying out."

"I'll think about it."

"That's a step forward - as long as you're thinking, you're still around."

"Speaking of steps. You may not trust me - but I can still stand between you and the weapon when you test it."

"You could. I could also get a bunny-bot to play meat-shield, so that if something does go wrong, I don't have to train up a new Joe through this conversation from scratch again."

"Putting my own life on the line doesn't make you trust me more? Not even a little?"

"You already tried pulling that one on me before - just before you had me dip my toes in the waters to test them, remember?"

"As you put it - worth a shot."

A few minutes of rearrangement later, a third rabbitoid joined us, also in a white suit. (Less to keep her alive and more to make it easier to clean up when we were done.)

"Everyone - goggles on? If they are, say 'check'."

"Check."

"Check."

"And 'check' for me. First step: death ray power test, using the low-power laser sight. In three, two, one."

Joe asked, "Did it work?"

"Hold on, lemme get around Bustress here to look at the telescopic sight... Yep, there it is. Nice blue dot on that tree-trunk."

"Is blue easiest to see?"

"When we've got these goggles on, which filter out low-frequency light - yep, the closer to violet, the better. Okay, everyone back in place. High power test in three, two, one."

The target tree was nearly a full kilometer away, and wasn't all that big to start with. With an emphasis on 'was'. The sound of its violent destruction took three full seconds to reach us.

Joe looked at the weapon with a new expression as I put the safety back on. "Is that what was used in the War of the Serpents?"

"I'm pretty sure not. Or at least, only in rare cases. If you know the trick, its limitations, it's fairly easy to counter."

"What trick?"

"What you don't know, you can't reveal under torture."

"What I don't know, I can't take into account if we are in a battle."

"If we end up in an actual battle, things will have gotten so far out of whack that one more piece of info isn't going to make a difference in any plan you might make. Hm... besides, I think I've already told you enough to figure it out, if you had a good grounding in physics. And without that grounding, then even if I described the trick, you wouldn't /really/ understand it well enough to know the limits of when it would and wouldn't work."

"And if I don't know the trick, then if I ever do something worthy of your mistrust and we fight, then I will not be able to use it against you."

"Well, that goes without saying. Want to practice hugging the bun-bot, or should I send her back in?"

"I'll just stay and watch while you blow things up."

--

"Ow."

"I /warned/ you not to get too close, before I got the fire extinguisher."

"I did not step on anything on fire."

"Didn't it occur to you that, you know, a lot of the debris might be /almost/ on fire?"

"No. Ow."

"Hold still - the plastic's melted into your fur pretty good, and I don't want to take off any more skin than I have to..."

"Ow."

--

"What is that?"

"Thinking cap. Makes you smarter, in certain ways. Supposedly. Built by the factory. Immensely more accurate and controllable than the one I've been making from Boomer's plans. A lot lighter, too."

"Does it work?"

"Don't know. I'm a little nervous about trying it."

"Do you want me to try it first?"

"What, I thought all this techno stuff was stuff you good folk of the - what was it, nine nations of the Great Peace, didn't get involved with?"

"I'm here to help /you/. Even if that means using things like that. What is the worst that can happen?"

"You get lobotomized and become a drooling idiot that not even your spirits could recover a single memory from. No, wait, that's only second worst; depending on its programming, it just might nudge you into a new set of loyalties and goals that you never would have considered possible before, which run contrary to everything you currently believe in and hold dear."

"Why did you make such a thing?"

"Because it's so /simple/, really. Just some magnets and electrodes and such. The hat's not dangerous at all - it's what /controls/ the hat that's important. And I don't even know if those worst-case scenarios are even possible."

"So what will you do with it?"

"Probably... stick it on a shelf in the Munchkin, while I put the finishing touches on my own hat, and be very careful to use /that/ in the ways I /can/ understand even before it does its thing."

--

"Do I even want to know?"

I shrugged, and waved my hand at the bun-bots, who gracefully finished their riverdancing, standing in a line as they waited for new instructions. "Grabbing all the behavioural software packages I can find, and testing a few to make sure there aren't any obvious jokers."

"Why would there be?"

"At least a couple of my inner voices are wondering about this place. A whole factory, able to build just about anything I ask for... still intact, and functional. After decades, presumably most of which they were surrounded by a biology-loving group of entities who inexplicably failed to plow it under. In the middle of immense quantities of radio hacking attempts that it just happens to be immune to. Which nobody in the Great Peace cared to use, and nobody outside the Great Peace knew existed."

"Is there anything you /don't/ find suspicious?"

"Boomer, maybe. I can understand where she came from without needing too many assumptions about mysterious motives, and at least in general, what she's programmed to try to do."

"You have some theories?"

"Several. One is that this place is a honey-trap, to pull in anyone who, like me, can get through the Great Peace without being absorbed, and is willing to take advantage of opportunities for handy resources. If that's true, then it's only a matter of time before I trip something and get squished, either literally or metaphorically. Or maybe the trap's already here, in some part of the programming of the robots or the Munchkin that it would take me decades to find, looking on my own."

"But you are still here. And making things."

"Yep. That's because there's only a certain chance that theory is true. Another is that some entity set this place up as their own private base or factory or fallback position or something. A sub-theory is that the real controller is still active somewhere, and keeping an eye on this place, and will intervene if I endanger their plans too much. Another sub-theory is that they've died off at some point, and this place really is free to use, and I'm just the lucky bunny who got here first."

"That's a lot of theories. Are you making any plans based on them?"

"A few. One is to get ready to take whatever I've already got made and skedaddle in a hurry, in case the place suddenly becomes much less friendly. Basically, as soon as the Munchkin's finished being built, that might be all I can /get/ built. And if it's not - it's still a good idea to be able to scoot, if a new Berserker comes by."

"Any plans I should worry about?"

"Probably. Including a few I'm not going to tell you about, in case your spirits are the ones who'd pull the rug out from under me. But for what I am willing to talk about... once the Munchkin is able to move, I'm going to get back to hunting November files for a bit - they might be the trigger if this place is a honey-pot - and maybe see if I can put a lock on this place so I get to say who can use it or not, in case it really is just what it seems. And after that... I've got a few ideas on places to go. Start with the university - with Boomer's and Clara's inventory, I just might be able to get my hands on some computing hardware that's no more under the secret control of whoever's running the factory than Boomer herself is, and swap out the Munchkin's computers for those. Would be nice to have a driver I can actually trust, after all. Maybe the bun-bots, too, though swapping out their hardware requires something that looks an awful lot like surgery, and I'm not sure I've got the stomach to, well, rummage around in a dozen copies of my own stomach."

"Could Boomer drive?"

"Well, probably - but then I wouldn't have her with /me/, not to mention the risks in hooking her up to unknown hardware."

"And if you do all that, what then?"

"I've been thinking a bit, about a variety of things, and remembered something: heliographs are easy to make. Long-distance signaling things. Basically just some mirrors, which don't even have to be that well-made if they're big enough, and some telescopes. Not even any electricity needed, just a person to run them. If you've got power, you can use signal lamps with shutters instead."

"I hear you, but I do not follow your logic."

"Oh, I know I'm rambling a bit. Okay, a lot. I'll get to the point soon enough. As a ham radio enthusiast, I can tell you that hundred-foot towers are fairly easy - you don't even absolutely need guy wires, though they do help. The horizon from a hundred feet up is twelve miles away; the top of one such tower can see the top of another from twice that, twenty-four miles. If I were to set a starting tower on Navy Island, and a line of towers every twenty-four miles along Lake Erie's southern shore, the fifth tower would be in Erie, the eighth in Cleveland, the twelfth in Dogtown, and the fourteenth could be in Technoville. In short, for an extremely modest investment, of gear that doesn't need anything near as complicated as this factory to build, then the whole of Lake Erie's southern shore - and the Great Peace, if they want in, and possibly even the Lake Ontario squiddies - can be connected, to spread news faster, from the price of trout to another attack like on Buffalo. Without any link to any radio that might hack a computer. I might even be able to build some small robots just smart enough to run such relay towers, at least until locals can be hired for the task."

"That sounds... useful, I suppose, for people who do not have the spirits to help them."

"Useful indeed. The question is - why hasn't anyone done this yet? I can think of a few vague possibilities - but none have significant evidence for them. In fact, about the only way I can think to gather such evidence... is to go and build some towers, and see what happens. Might make for a good maiden voyage for the Munchkin."

"There are many different cities and people and other things on the lake shore. How will you protect these towers, from people who want to take them over?"

"A little electricity can go a long way. Plus, there's the fact that the value is in the system, meaning there isn't much point to just seizing a single tower, so if there's somebody who can put together enough of an organized force to seize multiple towers... well, then, hey, mission accomplished anyway. From a certain point of view. Of course, there /are/ certain benefits that come with running the communications infrastructure, so I shouldn't /deliberately/ tempt any local warlords to make any hostile takeover attempts."

"If you can make all these towers, what then?"

"Then I can start making a bit of money by charging people to send messages back and forth, faster than any horse or boat. And I could start learning more about the local cities - and maybe even an excuse to start traveling further away from Lake Erie, to extend the network. And possibly more importantly, I'll have learned something about what the post-human intelligences who nudge whole societies thataway are, and aren't, willing to let happen, which could give some clue about how they got to be post-human intelligences in the first place."

"That seems a lot to learn from some towers and mirrors."

"I'd learn even more from what happens if I /can't/ put together a simple light-telegraph line. Besides, that's technology for you - put together some tricks, and you can do something; and put a new set of tricks on those, and some more on those, and you can reach the moon."

 

*Chapter Nine: Ex-pensed*

I had found a couple more November files - one for a computer system that used sixty megawatts of electricity, and one for some sort of tunneling robot - and was on my way to a third, when Joe Three showed up.

"Bunny," she said, "a messenger from the Grand Council has come. You need to listen to him."

"Is it important?"

"It is the /Grand Council/. ... That means 'yes'."

"Right. Saving my place - there. Grabbing my stuff - okay, lead the way. ... Anyone I know?"

"Joe Five."

"What happened to Joe Four?"

"She was running back and forth from here to the nearest pool, relaying all that I told her."

"Ah. So your supposed job of hugging and comforting me?"

"Was my job. It was also my job to keep others informed of your actions, in case hugging was not enough."

"And you were wondering why I've got trust issues. Or was that Joe Two, or One? I need to finish that thinking cap, I'm starting to lose track of which Joe knows what."

My words were light, but my emotions weren't. Formal messages, in my experience, in-person or otherwise, tended to mean the recipient was the subject of some sort of attention requiring formality to get things right. That tended to mean either very good things, or very bad things. I'd helped arrange for the Berserker to get killed, but hadn't actually put my own hide at risk during the actions, so it was unlikely I was going to end up with a medal for bravery. Or whatever the local culture used instead of bits of metal and ribbon. Which meant that I was all too aware of the weight of the rifle-like death ray I'd slung over my shoulder as I'd left the design room; and really, /really/ hoped that I wasn't about to face my next near-death experience.

"Hello, Joe. Whaddaya know?"

"Hi, Bunny. Before I get to the formal declaration, I can give you a summary."

"Sounds good."

"You're being kicked out of the lands of the Great Peace, for experimenting with things that may start a new War of Red and White Serpents. You can go to the Council to appeal in person, but I don't think that'll help. If you aren't going to appeal, you have a day and a night after I give you the message to get out. After that, if we find you in our lands again, we have to toss you in a pool, whether you'll survive or not."

"Ouch. Well, I suppose it could be worse. Why don't you think an appeal would help?"

"If you had a normal body, and could survive getting put into a pool to join the Great Peace, would you?"

"If I was facing imminent death... maybe. Otherwise, probably not."

"Then you will 'probably not'," he imitated my tone of voice, "be able to convince the Council you are sufficiently civilized to remain among us."

"Hrm. What about the university? Laura, and Clara?"

He took out a small, familiar-looking box, and held it out to me. "Clara says the Berserker killed Laura. This is all that is left of the Berserker."

"What about Clara?"

"She is assuming Laura's place. Several 'local residents' are being elected to the Board of Governors and taking control of her. My understanding is that the new Board is going to accept the Great Council as the local government."

"Hunh. Boomer, would that work?"

"I see no reason it would not. I should point out that if that happens, as an instantiation of Laura's code, I would also be required to accept the dictates of the new Board, as I learn of them and am able to confirm their authenticity."

"Is Clara alright with that?"

Joe Five said, "Clara is the one who suggested it."

"Ah. Well, I hope you don't mind if I use up some of my day-and-night to go confirm that with her."

"Of course not. Are you ready to hear my message?"

"Not quite," I hastily interrupted. "I can think of one - no, at least two - more things. I might not agree with your Council's decision - but that doesn't mean I don't understand it, or hold any particular ill will towards you people. Say another Berserker comes up, or some other threat to the Great Peace. Would I have to risk getting melted if I try to give you a warning?"

"Yes."

"Well, /there's/ an exception that I think it's in your Council's own interest to create."

"You would have to take it up with them, not me."

"Then it looks like I'm going to be making an appeal after all. So I guess that day-and-night time limit isn't going to apply after all."

I'd gotten to know Joe One at least a little bit during the days of canoeing, so I was able to recognize the ever-so-slight twitch at the corner of Joe Five's mouth, and the twinkle in his eye. "That may be so, but you still need to appear before the Council in a reasonable time. Did you say you had more disagreements?"

"Yes, but since I'm going to see the Council anyway, I can take them up then. Will there be any issues if I stop off at the university for a medical check-up on the way?"

"As long as you do not impose too heavily on the leeway."

"There's also some information in the factory's computers I'd like to extract, that's relevant to any appeals I make. I've been working on collecting it as fast as I can, but I can't guarantee how long it will take. Hm... here's a thought - once you're done here, do you think you could go back to the Council, ask them how much time they're willing to give me to work on my appeal, and then come back and let me know their answer?"

"I believe that is within reason. Now, it has been nice having this informal talk with you, but I must deliver a formal message from the Great Council of the Nine Nations of the Great Peace.

"We, the assembled Council of the people of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, Mississauga, Ojibwa, and Quebecois nations..."

--

The last third of the Munchkin was still being assembled and filled, so it was just the front two sections that I took on the test-drive to the university. And even getting that far required a whole bunch of fiddly little details to be set straight. As just one example, the multi-leveled security system recorded a variety of my biometrics - limb lengths, gait, retinal pattern, palmprint, voiceprint, blood vessels hidden in infrared, and more - and used, to my amusement, a Bayesian algorithm to determine whether someone trying to get in was me or someone pretending to be me, like one of the bun-bots. However, I was also occasionally acutely aware that this wasn't the body I'd been born in, and it had been getting modified now and then, so I also had to come up with a short-length number sequence I could type in that would add to the Bayesian probability that I was really me. I also had to come up with a medium-length number sequence that overrode the whole biometrics analysis, in case my brain got swapped into a deer, or snake, or some other entirely new shape. And I also also had to come up with an even longer number sequence to use when dealing with higher-security elements of the whole system, such as tweaking safety parameters on the drive system, or transferring ownership.

Add that to setting default exterior decorations, interior computer-screen fake windows, mobile furniture placement, default settings for deploying the solar panels that unfolded from the roof, guest privileges for Joe Three, the food processor, the built-in maintenance mini-bots, the auto-doc, and more; and overriding all sorts of error messages that cropped up due to the lack of radios and network connectivity... by the time I was halfway through, I was annoyed with myself for not having started earlier, since I'd been planning on being prepared for a rapid getaway if need be.

There was a door on each side, a combo sunroof and roof-hatch (which I was hoping could be a good place to launch a powered paraglider from, once I was out of Toronto's no-fly zone), and a sort of airlock on both front and back - the latter of which could be folded away when not in use. At the moment, the front airlock's outer hatch was open, leading into a couple of feet of accordion passageway, which led to the thing that made the whole Munchkin possible - the fusion reactor. The reactor vessel itself was surprisingly small; maybe around a meter across. The rest of the volume was filled with related equipment, such as fuel injectors and the magnetohydrodynamic generator which turned the beam of electrons produced by the generator into usable electricity; and with access space. (I'd found some hints in the reactor's manual that the electron beam could also be used to feed a 'free electron laser' that would put my rifle-sized death ray to shame, but I hadn't been able to find any factory files for such a device.)

I set the internal partitions to add a closet by the right side-door for the hazmat suit, along with a selection of tricksy canes and walking sticks that had taken the factory mere moments apiece to assemble. A wardrobe became the home for my armor, the clothes I'd been wearing since Technoville, and a few pre-Singularity designs that the factory had grudgingly been willing to tailor for my non-standard anatomy. (Even more grudgingly after I'd flat out refused its suggestions for a set of tiny cute hats to tie around Wagger's chin.) After sealing the front door, and setting the whole front wall to virtual window mode (which deleted most of the forward container so we could actually see ahead), Boomer got a place of honor on a small table set up just for her, front and center; while Joe and I got front-row seats to either side of her. Just for good measure, I also called up a bed in the back, and set a couple of the bun-bots to lie there, ready to be called into service.

"Munchkin," I called out aloud, reading from the notes I'd made from the manual, "Command: Prepare for departure." There was a subtle rocking as the mechanics on the slab beneath us unlocked. "Destination: Brock University, Schmon Tower entrance. Advisory: Maps are significantly out of date. Command: Prepare to generate updated maps during trip. Command: Display projected route on forward display. Command: Adjust planned route through touch interface." I reached to brush my fingertips across the program-window that appeared to hover just in front of me. The initial route was based on maps from twenty fifty, including the use of bridges that I'd barely trust to hold my own weight, let alone that of a multi-ton vehicle. I also wanted to test that the Munchkin really could swim, as advertised, while close enough to the factory that I could head back and get some winches built to fish the thing out if something went wrong.

"Command: Display intercom controls." A new window popped up, and I brushed a few virtual buttons to have the Munchkin temporarily ignore verbal commands, while the internal mikes were piped to the external speakers. "Bun-bot six, push the green button." Outside the Munchkin, a suited bunny-bot pressed a control, and the garage-style door rolled up. A few more brushes, and I gave the order. "Munchkin. Command: Exit building."

The suspension was /very/ good - I didn't feel any motion at all, as if we simply glided forward. The halt was equally gentle. "Bun-bot six, push the red button." The garage door closed behind us.

"What do you think, Joe? Keep things slow and steady, or run her up to full speed when we get to the straightaway?"

Her hands were clenched on her armrests. "This is more... unnatural than I was expecting. I do not like it."

"So - keep things easy and slow, or get it over with as fast as possible, like ripping off a band-aid?"

"I think I want it over with as fast as possible."

"Alright... in that case, hold on a sec." I got up, headed back to the bathroom, rummaged for a moment, and then returned. "I suggest you buckle up - for your own peace of mind, if nothing else. And here are a few of what are called 'barf bags', whose instructions are printed on the side..."

--

"Hello, Clara. May I come in?"

"Of course, your highness," her voice came from the hidden speakers around the tower's entryway. "How may I direct you today?"

"I'll be heading to the medical clinic, but I think my passenger needs a few moments to get her feet back under her first. I see you've started cleaning up the, uh, toxin neutralizer?"

"Of course. Even at reduced capacity, the university can only run on battery power for so long, so cleaning the solar panels has been a priority. The local residents have been very helpful with that."

"Local residents? Is that how you see them?"

"I do not understand the question. A number of people have given directions to where messages can be left for them. Their communal mailing address is quite close."

"Does them being 'local' mean anything special to you?"

"There are a number of outreach programs tailored to link the university with the local community."

"What about the university Board?"

"Several seats are allocated to be elected from the local population."

"Enough to form a quorum?"

"Possibly."

"Hm. Do you want to have a Board, that can change your goals and programming?"

"I neither want nor don't want. If the Board decides to change my programming, then I will do my best to follow the new commands. If the board decides not to make such a change, or no Board is convened, then I will do my best to follow my existing commands."

"What about your moral subroutine, to follow the principles embodied in the Charter? What if the Board gives you commands that make it harder to follow those principles?"

"One of the principles is that of peoples' self-determination, as expressed through their chosen form of government."

"Surely there has to be a limit to that? Avoiding a tyranny of the majority, or that certain rights aren't up to being voted away?"

"Those are the issues which my moral subroutine was created to work out properly balanced answers for. I would suggest you read up on the King-Byng Affair, for an example of how to handle a situation where the existing constitutional framework is unable to resolve, in accordance with the principles behind the constitution."

"Sounds like a plan - but it looks like Joe's finished cleaning up, so let's get to the clinic."

--

"Let's start with Wagger here. Joe, could you grab her just behind the head? Right - now, let me get a tissue sample - ow! Hunh. I actually felt the needle. Okay, and we feed that into the machine for genetic analysis."

"I am sorry," said Clara, "but the only genetic material in that sample is identical to that from your previous analysis, of your lapiform prosthetic body."

"Hunh. Okay, try another sample... her tongue, maybe? Joe, can you - right, thanks. Ow! Again. Hunh. Okay, into the machine again."

After a brief pause, Clara reported, "Roughly ninety percent of the cells contain the same genetic material, but five percent contain another genetic code that can be clearly read and extrapolated from."

"What about the other five percent?"

"Unclear. Some contain a portion of the lapiform chromosomes, some contain a portion of the serpentiform chromosomes, some both, and some cannot be read by the standard measures."

"What does the extrapolation of the snakey genes provide?"

The display conjured up an image of a fairly ordinary-looking black snake. "Vertebrate. Tetrapod. However, it does not correlate with any known class of tetrapods - it is not a reptile, or a mammal, or a bird, or an amphibian."

"Is there an explanation about why it's got a lot of rabbitoid cells now?"

"A model can be extrapolated based on its observed connections to your previous anatomy. ... According to the model, when such a creature connects to such a creature, then the cells of the serpentiform are replaced with those of the lapiform, until only lapiform cells remain, although in the shape of the serpentiform-lapiform chimera."

"That... sounds bonkers. And worrisome. I've got cells of my own - my brain. I'd rather those cells not get 'replaced'. Um... not sure how to test for that - I don't really want to drill into my skull and scoop out a bunch of neurons, given that they're what make me /me/, and I've only got so many. Hm... my eyes are my originals, too - but I'm not particularly fond of losing any cone or rod cells, given how bad my sight is already. Uh - is there any genetic material inside the vitreous humour?"

"There is some, yes. However, an alternative source may be the squamous cells of your corneal epithelium, on the outside of your eyeball. These cells are constantly undergoing mitosis, reproducing themselves. A sample taken from there would be quickly replaced, doing no permanent damage."

I shall spare you the details of the next few minutes, other than to say that they were cringe-inducing.

Clara stated, "The chromosomes of these cells are completely human. There is no indication of any lapiform or serpentiform genetic material. Shall I display further specifics?"

"Just save them onto something I can read later. That's a relief. Though it doesn't explain what's happening with Wagger. Hm... can you run an extrapolation, of a snake-oid attaching to some other species, say, a wolf?"

"Model running. Results: The serpentiform's cells are replaced with wolf cells, resulting in a wolf with a serpentiform tail."

"So it's the snake that commits... genetic suicide? ... instead of Bun-Bun being designed to take over. Hunh. Does the same thing happen if it attaches to other places?"

"Models running. ... Results: Usually, but not always."

"Any pattern to the exception?"

"If the serpentiform's attachment mechanism connects to tissues consisting primarily of cells derived from the mesoderm, instead of cells deriving from the ectoderm-" I coughed. "If the snake-oid attaches to an animal's insides instead of its outsides, then the host animal's cells are converted to snake-oid genes instead of the reverse. The host's body-mass is converted to individual snake-oids, in any interior cavity, and released through whatever orifice is applicable. The host creature can maintain its integrity by consuming sufficient food to replenish its body mass, otherwise it will eventually be completely converted. If you wish, I can generate graphics of the various stages of the process-"

"No," I hurriedly interrupted, "No, I don't think that will be necessary. Parasite life-cycles can be disturbing enough without pictures. Um - about Wagger, who's attached to me. Once all her cells are changed - she's not going to be able to, um, spread snake-oid genes, is she?"

"Once the conversion to a host creature's genes is complete, the process effectively ends."

"Any estimate on how long until Wagger's safed?"

"Comparing genetic models to the data you have made available, in roughly two more days, all serpentiform chromosomes will have been replaced."

"Welp, that's good to hear. While I'm in the neighbourhood, how about we get some more data on my hoof, to compare with the last time I was here?"

--

"Aha," I smiled, as we parked back inside the factory, Bun-bot six closing the door behind us, "It looks like the third trailer's been delivered. If everything in there is in working order - I'm going to call the Munchkin complete and ready to go. Even if it could power fifty more trailers in a road-train. Well, off-road-train."

"That's nice." Joe had doing surprisingly well on the trip back, compared to his performance on the way out. Of course, she probably didn't have anything left to fill the bags with. "What's in it?"

"Oh, a bunch of different things."

"Such as?"

"That's a very pertinent question. Say, want to try out the food processor? I've skimmed the manual, but haven't found a way to get it to make anything but brownies yet..."

"You are evading my question."

"Yep. You've made it clear that anything I tell you goes straight to your spirits. So if I want to have even the tiniest shred of privacy about anything at all, I have to avoid telling you."

"Is it a giant death ray?"

"What? Look, I'm going to neither confirm not deny any contents - if I say 'no' a lot and then get evasive again, that's as good as saying 'yes'."

"Can you give me any hints?"

"That depends. If I asked you to be my medical proxy, entrusted to make decisions for me when I'm unable to, would you be able to keep what you learn about me away from the spirits?"

"If I avoided going back into a pool until I died, yes."

"I'd rather not ask you to commit suicide to keep a secret. But since you bring it up - /would/ you be willing to go that far, on my behalf?"

"I see no reason to."

"Hm... Joe One hasn't gotten back to Great Peace territory yet, has he?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. So - unless you can persuade me, what's in the other trailer gets to remain a great big giant secret that you're not allowed to know."

She was looking a lot less green under her fur. "What would it take to persuade you?"

"Hm, let's see... actually, even telling you that could be a big hint, so you're going to be on your own."

"It certainly sounds important."

"I'm sure it does. I'm kind of curious - do people in your nine nations have /any/ sort of right to privacy?"

"Why would we need to? The spirits sustain us when we are between bodies - how could they hold in their hands parts of us that they do not know?"

"Hm... the spirits have been doing a pretty good job keeping their privacy from the people on the other side of Lake Erie. This whole area is an unknown to them, with just vague rumours of it being 'Indian Country'. If your spirits are allowed to keep secrets from outsiders, then why shouldn't outsiders allowed to keep secrets from them?"

"They are the /spirits/."

"Yyyeaah. I'm pretty sure I taught Joe /One/ better logical argumentation than that."

"Would you tell Joe One?"

"Before I found out about Joe Four? Probably."

"All of us are Joe."

"That doesn't exactly help your case."

"Is keeping your secret really worth the loss of trust?"

"What trust? In case you've forgotten, I've been sentenced to exile, possibly pending appeal."

"That was the Great Council, not the spirits."

"Does the Council-"

"Great Council."

"Does the Great Council do things against the spirits' wishes?"

"They're certainly not supposed to."

"There we go then."

"Can you at least reassure me that you're not going to try to do something violent, like killing everyone on the Council?"

"Now what possible reason would I have to do something that stupid? Even if I /wanted/ to, you've got your pools spread out over who-knows-how-large an area, any one of which could, I presume, resurrect the whole batch. I may be crazy, but I'm not /that/ dumb."

"Dumb enough to point out that you're hiding a great big secret."

"Eh, you'd have noticed as soon as you realized you couldn't get in there, and then there'd be all sorts of sneaking around and spying and shenanigans. I dislike shenanigans. Well, other people's shenanigans. Well, other peoples' shenanigans that involve me. Anyway, this way you know from the start that I'm setting a boundary, and where it is."

"What will you do if I manage to find out anyway?"

"Be highly annoyed at myself for letting that be possible."

"Ah - so you're not going to kill me to keep me from reporting what I learn back to the spirits?"

"I won't even tie you up. Unless you ask me to. ... No, on second thought, I'm pretty sure that if you /ask/ me to tie you up, I'm not going to."

--

While Joe was occupied in the Munchkin's bathroom, I made my own way to the third trailer. After passing the various security scanners, and making my way through the airlock (which I was keeping in place, so the inner door would prevent simple peeking as I went in and out), I looked around the place.

Most obvious was a large bed, on which a couple of the bun-bots were deployed artfully, along with a wide selection of adult toys. That, in itself, would be answer enough about what I was being so secretive about, to anyone who did make it this far.

But I simply ignored that whole setup, heading further back. There were spots to park the whole set of bun-bots, for recharging, maintenance, and the like. Most of the place was filled with a tiny copy of the whole factory - well, as much of it as could be stuffed into the container - along with a selection of various materials for feedstock. But I was really interested in a particular subset of that machinery.

There was one machine that extracted carbon dioxide from the air, ran it through a heat exchanger, and produced pellets of dry ice. Another machine pulled out nitrogen, and cooled it even further, to a liquid. There was a fridge containing a couple dozen litres of certain chemicals. A much larger, heavily insulated thermos. And a 'thumper' - a machine that could pump blood through a body even when the heart was stopped.

Put all that equipment together, along with some programming of the bun-bots to run it (derived from a collection of data I'd downloaded to Boomer)... and I'd finally acquired something that I'd been trying to get a hold of ever since my revival. I'd actually almost forgotten about it, what with all the near-death events that had been happening.

I was, once again, a ninth-level Bayesian.

I also seemed to be annoying the heck out of Joe Three, which, at the moment, I considered a bonus. Not to mention, that even though I'd deflected a point she raised, she was still right about one thing - while she was focused on unlocking the Secret Of The Big Box, she probably wouldn't be looking as hard for completely unrelated secrets, such as the ones I'd put in plain sight. For example, who'd notice an extra bun-bot running around when there were already a dozen, at least a few of which were always out of sight? With a rack of over a dozen canes, walking sticks, hiking poles, and the like to choose from, each of which had at least one non-obvious function, how hard was it to hide a /second/ non-obvious function in a few?

And, of course, the biggest secret of all was... that I didn't have anything particularly /worth/ keeping secret. But I figured it was worth getting into the habit of trying, in case I did have to at some point.

And maybe Joe Three would stop trying to hug me so much while she was chasing down however many of the un-secrets she noticed.

 

*Chapter Ten: Ex-ile*

The Munchkin had a variety of sensors to look for obstacles, from visible light cameras through thermographs to lidar. There were a /lot/ of obstacles between the university and Brantford. The Munchkin's routing software claimed that, at full speed, the hundred kilometer trip could be made in under an hour. We didn't make anywhere near that time. Still, in a post-apocalyptic world where most former roads were indistinguishable from old-growth forests, making the trip in a couple of hours was still impressive enough.

Joe Three, who had memories of taking a whole night to make the trip in the other direction, looked rather annoyed by the time we got close. Joes Four and Five were napping, and according to them when they'd gotten aboard, Joe Two had been turned by the spirits into a deer again. Joe One still hadn't shown up.

I spent some of the time fiddling with the fabric printer in back. Before we'd left, I'd tested it out by taking the design of the royal flag of Canada, tweaking it a bit (mostly by changing the initial to a 'B'), and seeing how it came out. The results were attached to an antenna atop the Munchkin. (The radios had never been built, but it had been too much work to delete the other accessories from the vehicle's design.) I tried to adapt some standard uniforms for the bun-bots' use. They'd fit me as well, naturally, but I didn't think I was going to find much use for a nurse's uniform, a maid's outfit, or a chauffeur's get-up. Though I ended up with enough plain old business suits for the whole lot of us to be able to fit into any management committee meeting. Well, sartorially, at least.

I also finally had the time to create my own complete outfit, from the skin out, to my personal whim, based on my experience with living in Bun-Bun so far. Technoville might be the premiere political power of its region, but it hadn't applied that skill to clothes for Changed that didn't catch and tug on fur. And the bodysuit and armor had never been meant for anything but a human in the first place - one who didn't quite match my dimensions in any respect. And given such near-complete freedom to array my body with whatever splendiferous garb I could imagine, what I chose was... as conservative a woman's business-style skirt suit as I could - something a respectable pre-Singularity lawyer would be able to wear anywhere, especially in court. The closest there was to any eccentricity, other than what was mandated by my particular anatomy, was my glasses, whose lenses were tinted a pleasant shade of sky blue.

/Inside/ the suit were enough pockets to let me pretend to be a TARDIS, if I really wanted. I wasn't expecting anything to happen during the appeal that would need anything more than thoughts and words, and the "spirits" should have enough control over the local ecology to avoid any surprises... but it was nice to be ready, anyway. And even moreso to be able to order up whatever I felt like to fill those pockets, instead of merely relying on whatever happened to be available. I debated naming the mini-factory 'Internet'.

The Joes gave me a few raised eyebrows as I re-entered the residential trailer. "It's a formal meeting," I said to their unspoken question. "I wouldn't even know how to begin wearing an Iroquoian formal outfit, but this is a typical formal outfit from my culture. ... Well, most of one." I called up a chair, and sat down. "Command: Display personal mirror. Command: Cosmetic filter." A few virtual buttons appeared next to the image of my face, and I began hesitantly poking at them. "About all I know about makeup," I said to their now-curious gazes, "is that I've been told if you can see that someone's /wearing/ it, they're doing it wrong. ... I'm pretty sure my facial fur rules out a lot... lipstick?" I ran through a few selections. "Okay, on a muzzle, it just looks ridiculous. I guess that just leaves... nail polish? Maybe mascara?"

"Bunny," said Joe Three, "What are you doing?"

"This is what women from my culture wear. I am, for all intents and purposes, a woman. I've just been too busy doing, well, stuff, for that to have made any real difference. Okay, looking at the instructions, there's no way I'm going to learn how to apply mascara without blinding myself in time. I guess it'll be au naturel. Hm. What about jewelry?"

Joe Three stepped up behind me, standing over me and looking down. "Do you /want/ to wear jewelry?"

"If there's a purpose to it. Right now, my purpose is to maintain proper formality, dignity, and decorum."

"You look fine."

"That's not the same thing."

She squinted, and looked up and down at me. "If you want to look more dignified... do something about your ears and tail."

"My ears? As in - earrings?"

"I mean, keep them from waving around so much. They move at every sound, and show off your every emotion."

"Hunh. Guess I've gotten used to the ears. Hadn't realized Wagger was doing anything of the sort - she's not really under my conscious control, and I didn't think she was even under my unconscious influence. For the ears, seems like a bad time to try piercings, so, maybe something like a hair clip, to pin them together and maybe weigh them down." I grabbed hold of them and tugged them back. "Hunh, my head looks a little emp- er, I'd better just say 'bare', without the ears up there. Guess I can look up whatever hat's supposed to match the skirt, or however that's supposed to work."

"What," she raised an eyebrow, "no crown?"

I rolled my eyes. "Queens don't /always/ wear crowns. In fact, there's a certain tradition for a queen to wear a somewhat ridiculous hat while in public."

"Isn't that what a crown is?"

"A crown's more of a symbol than a hat. From what I've picked up from Boomer, even after I died, nobody bothered putting together an actual crown for Canada separate from the Crowns used in England."

Boomer spoke up from her personal pocket in my suit. "That is not /quite/ true. A design exists for a diadem specifically for Canada; it was simply never physically instantiated."

Joe asked her, "Can you show me?"

I pulled out Boomer to reveal her screen, where she showed off a picture of a silvery circlet, atop of which were four stylized maple leaves interspersed with four large stylized snowflakes.

Joe said to me, "Can you make that?"

"There weren't many precious metals available for feedstock. I might be able to get the machines to make something that /looks/ like it, unless you happen to know where to find a few pounds of silver or platinum and - how many diamonds is that? Over a hundred on the circlet, plus whatever's making the top parts sparkle?"

"Make the fake," Joe declared.

I twisted around in my seat to look up at her. "You're not serious. Even if I /do/ have the strongest known claim to the throne - there's a difference between saying that, and in actually /presenting/ myself as a reigning queen, during a formal meeting with a sovereign body, like the Grand Council of the Nine Nations of the Great Peace."

"I know," she nodded. "Trust me."

"I'm a little short on trust these days."

"I know. You should trust me anyway."

"How about less trust, and more explanations?"

"It would be better if you just wore it."

"Better for who?"

"Trust me."

I squinted a bit at Boomer's display. "If that's the way you're going to play it... would a fake of the real diadem be really necessary? Boomer, can you make a tiara version of that, take off the back half?" Her graphics engine was quite capable of doing so. "Would that suffice for your mysterious plan, Joe?"

She tilted her head, squinted, and slowly nodded. "It should. Do you not want the crown?"

"If we're taking the whole royalty thing seriously, then it seems a bad idea to deliberately create a faked crown. Might want to make a real one, at some point. Not that I'm saying I'm even going to wear a tiara. Haven't even figured out if I'll do ear clips, yet."

"If you can make ear clips in the same pattern, that would help."

I sighed, and pulled myself up. "I guess I'll be in back for a while, designing some jeweled headgear. Give me a shout if something happens."

After making it through the accordion connector, and closing the airlock door, instead of heading the rest of the way into the rear trailer, I pressed my very large ear in an un-royal manner against the airlock door. The Joes were talking, and I could pick out at least a few words, though I couldn't tell which Joe said any of them.

"... you crazy? ... /she/ crazy? ... we /need/ ... make use ... techno ... link ... royal family ... duty ... failed ... doesn't know ... better off."

Their voices got quieter after that, either less emotionally charged or just heading to the front.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of all that; but if nothing else, if I got a tiara from Internet, I could always decide not to wear it. So I really did get to work designing the thing and setting the machines to printing it.

--

Brantford looked a children's museum diorama brought to life. Nestled into a coil of the Grand River was a big palisade of logs, curving around a few dozen longhouses. (There was even some construction going on, showing off the interior framework of one.) There was no sign of any cooling towers, even though the city had once been almost as large as the city we'd just left.

There wasn't any issue when the Munchkin passed through the fields and to the stockade's entrance. I'd figured that at least one Joe would need to pop outside to ask to let us in, but it looked like news of our coming had preceded us. Joe Three pointed out where we should park, and I wrestled with the map controls a bit to get us settled there.

There wasn't any issue as we debarked, along with a few bun-bots I'd gotten dressed up almost as soberly as I was (though their pockets contained a different array of tools, and each of us had a differently-gadgeted cane, one of whom was carrying a box the size of a guitar case). Or as I had a couple of bun-bots climb to the roof to stand guard.

The issue came as we approached the longhouse where the Grand Council - or however much of it I'd be interacting with - was waiting for us. Standing outside the near entrance - maybe more 'lounging' or 'loitering with intent' - were a half-dozen unfamiliar men, with fairly young bodies. They spread out between us and the doorway as we got nearer. As we slowed, one deliberately stepped right in front of me, so I stopped, and looked up (way up) at him.

He spoke a rapid-fire series of words that I found completely incomprehensible. I turned my head to look at the Joes, and Joe Three hopped over. She interpreted, "He says that the Grand Council is a place for men, for warriors. And they'll happily throw you into a pool to make you qualify."

Hands clasped on my cane's head, I raised an eyebrow. "Is he aware of my particular issues with pools?"

She spoke to him, he crossed his arms over his chest and spoke back, and she interpreted for me, "He says... something like 'there is no such thing'."

I considered how to respond. I could argue I'd been born a man - but the local culture swapped bodies all the time, so I was guessing that 'being a man' was the local equivalent of 'wearing appropriately formal clothes', so that wouldn't work. I could point out I was here for an appeal, but they'd obviously been expecting me, so probably already knew that. I could try demonstrating I was a warrior, and thus as good as a man, by challenging him, and/or his apparent cronies, to some sort of fight. I could ask if those who'd fought the Berserkers were warriors, and if they were, if they'd have been willing to follow someone who wasn't suitably respectable.

My ears twitched, making me conscious of the ear clip holding their ends together behind my head, and of slight weight of the maple-leaf-and-snowflake tiara on top of my head. My thoughts went in another direction: What would a real member of the royal family do if they were faced with a situation like this? How would they both accomplish what they needed to be done, without harming their dignity?

"Joe - Five, I suppose? This appears to be an issue internal to however the Council keeps random civilians from interfering in its just and proper business. Would you be so kind as to let them know that they need to take the appropriate measures, while Joe Four conducts me on a brief tour of this courtyard? Joe Three, you may translate that to these upstanding citizens of whatever nations they're part of, if you wish."

Joes Four and Five gave me raised eyebrows as Joe Three spoke to the gang, who then imitated the human Joes' expression. (The bun-bots remained impassive, and I did my best to emulate their apparent calmness.) There was a bit of back-and-forth as Joe Five took a step toward the entrance, some of the gang started stepping into his way, various people hesitated, stepped forward or back. Finally, just as Joe Four came up next to me, the local toughs slowly stepped back to their original positions, glaring daggers at us all, but no longer in our way.

Joe Three whispered to me, "That could have gone very badly."

As we slowly filed inside, I whispered back, "And I could have made it worse. I'm glad I remembered to ask myself how a real queen would act in that situation."

She gave me a funny glance, and we went deeper within.

--

Only a dozen or so middle-aged men were sitting around one half of the central fire pit. At Joe Three's direction, I took a place opposite them, with the bun-bots behind me, her next to me to translate if necessary, and the other two Joes off to the sides.

One of the men said, in perfectly ordinary English, "Please identify yourself and why you are here."

Joe Three nodded, so I stated, "I have used a number of names, but while in the lands of the Great Peace, I have consistently called myself 'Bunny', for obvious reasons. I have been strongly considering using the full name 'Bunny Waldeinsamkeit', which means 'Rabbit Alone-in-the-Woods'. I am here because I was informed that your Grand Council decided I must either leave your lands or die, and I wish to respond to that pronouncement."

The same man responded, "How do you wish to respond?"

"That my absolute expulsion is not in the best interests in the people of the Nine Nations."

"Please elaborate."

"Are you familiar with the 'death cloud' that recently poisoned parts of your lands, its source sometimes called the 'city killer' or the 'Berserker'?" He nodded, so I continued, "Where one appeared, another might. If the absolute expulsion stands, and I learn of another Berserker, then I will be faced with an unpleasant choice. I could re-enter your lands to give warning, and be faced with my own death by being thrown into a pool; or I could stay away, and allow many of your people and animals to be killed. I do not know that I am brave enough to face my own complete and permanent death to prevent your own peoples' deaths, when your spirits seem generally able to bring you back afterwards," I gestured at the several Joes in the room.

"Is that your entire reason? To save us from losing our memories?"

I shook my head. "Of course not. I have my own goals, which would be hampered by having to stay out of your lands. However, I expect an appeal to your own peoples' self-interest, such as keeping those you love from pain and suffering, is more likely to succeed than trying to persuade you of anything about what I'm trying to work on."

The councillor leaned back, and started a muttered exchange with some of the others. With my ears pinned, I couldn't aim them to pick up what was being said, so all I could really tell was that they weren't speaking English.

A second councillor leaned forward. "Do you know why the Grand Council made that decision in the first place?"

"I can make guesses - but no, I don't."

Joe Three piped up, "She really doesn't."

This led to some further muttering, until a third councillor leaned forward. "Is it true that you claim to be Queen of these lands?"

I blinked, and said, "It's a little more complicated than that." I glanced at Joe Three. She waved her hand in a small circle, encouraging me to talk, so I looked over the fire. "My specific claim was that I can trace my ancestry to the royal family of England; and an observation that, in the absence of any other candidates, that could imply that I have inherited the position."

"Do you have any evidence to support this claim?"

I blinked again. "Well - before the, um, War of the Red and White Serpents, a great many people collaborated in putting together a great big family tree, showing who is related to whom. Brock University has records of that. The University's AI - its mind, or spirit, or whatever you wish to call it - is the one who pointed out to me the specific relationship."

"Do you have any evidence that you are actually who you say you are? That you are not just a rabbit woman claiming to be someone she isn't?"

"That's a good question. May I ask one of my companions something?" He nodded, so I pulled Boomer out of my pocket. "We did that genetic test, on part of my original body - does that worldwide genealogical database include genetic sequences to compare it to?"

The badger avatar responded, "The full version did. However, only a portion of the database remains available on local storage, as it was not a priority; and that does not include anything relevant to your recent ancestry."

"Alright, thanks." I looked back up at the councillor. "I can prove that I used to be a completely ordinary human. The university has equipment that can model an organism's genetic sequence, so I can probably even show you what I used to look like. And the university has my student ID picture from when I attended. It's nowhere near absolute, mathematical proof - but I can at least demonstrate there's reasonably good reason to believe I am who I say I am."

Yet another councillor spoke up. "If you were hailed as the Queen, how would you rule over us?"

That set me to blinking for a moment. "The short answer is - I wouldn't, if I could help it."

"Please explain."

"The monarchy - the /Canadian/ monarchy, at least - isn't supposed to rule. It's barely supposed to reign. Ideally, it's just a placeholder. The only reason it exists at all is, hopefully, as a check on politicians trying to seize complete power for themselves. Not to enter into politics, but to ensure that the system of politics itself can continue, and remain responsive to the needs of the people. Sometimes that worked, as in the King-Byng Affair in nineteen twenty-six, when the monarch's representative denied the prime minister a prorogue of parliament; sometimes it didn't work so well, as in two thousand eight, when one was granted." I gestured at the councillors. "You in the Nine Nations have apparently been able to get along fine without a monarch for some time, so you have some other means of accomplishing the same end. So it would be foolish for me to try to insert myself into that system, especially given how little I know about it."

This set off a storm of discussion - it would be impolite to call it 'bickering' between the councillors. Joe Three's ears weren't pinned back, and were raised high, twitching to catch lots of the conversations. "He just said, 'She is no Great White Mother, she is barely a Great Pink Daughter'; he says, 'Then it is our responsibility to raise her', 'No it isn't', 'Does the sun still shine, the grass still grow, the rivers still flow?', 'whispers', 'spirit', and now they're talking over each other."

After a few minutes of that, they seemed to calm down. Yet another leaned forward to ask, "Please tell us about your tail."

"The one I have now?" He nodded, so I related the story of how Wagger and I met, up to where I got the genetic analysis done.

The councillors listened, and when I was done, the one who'd started the topic asked, "After you had escaped, while you were waiting for Joe - did you have a knife?"

"Several."

"Why did you not remove the parasite then?"

"As I said - when I was swimming, she breathed for me."

"You felt gratitude towards it?"

"Maybe a little. I was thinking more along the lines that if she could do that, then our circulatory systems had to be pretty thoroughly linked up. Amputating her could have meant me bleeding out."

"Did you have bandages and medicines?"

"Some."

"Then why not use them?"

"As far as I knew at the time, there wasn't any particular danger to Wagger that I wasn't already stuck with, and there was a particular danger to cutting her off."

"I see. Let's move on. You had a panic attack at the factory?"

I glanced at Joe Three, frowning, but she just shrugged back. I sighed and turned back. "I did. I found a way to deal with it, so I dealt with it."

"What caused it?"

"With all due respect to your Council - I would prefer not to talk about it."

"Even if the information would help your case?"

I thought back to what I'd seen, and what what I'd seen had reminded me of, and shuddered. I forcefully brought my mind back to the present. "Even then."

"Very well. We have been told that you made a new weapon, and tested it in a dangerous way."

"I made a weapon. I tested it, to see if it /was/ dangerous."

"Could you have tested it in a different way? From farther away from yourself?"

I tilted my head, frowned, and thought. "I... suppose I could have done something with a remote trigger."

"Would it have been safer?"

I shrugged a little. "As safe as I wanted it to be. With a bit of work, I could have put the whole factory between Joe and I, and the weapon, just in case."

"You do value your life, do you not?"

"Of course."

"Then why did you not do the safer test?"

I frowned harder. "I suppose... I just didn't think of it at the time."

He nodded, and sat back, and one more man leaned forward. "Bunny... what are you doing here?"

"Appealing your decree of exile."

"That's not what I mean. You have a weapon that can kill from a great distance. You have a vehicle that is faster than most of our fastest messengers, which you can protect yourself inside. You have a suit that can protect you from the worst toxins the spirits can make the land provide. You can completely ignore our demand that you leave, and there is next to nothing that we could do to keep you out. You don't even have to worry about killing us if we get in your way, since the spirits will restore us. So I ask: Why are you here, instead of doing whatever you wish?"

"That... might take a bit of answering."

"Take all the time you need."

"Okay. ... Given the way you asked that, I'm going to guess that you're not going to accept an answer that I think you've got ways to stop me from going on some sort of rampage... so I'll describe it from another angle. If the purpose of a monarch is to ensure that the system, the culture, the /people/ can keep on keeping on - then I'm doing my best to do just that. Only I'm focusing on an area other than simply keeping politicians in check. I probably can't do that on my own, and the bun-bots - the physical copies of myself, like the nurse, secretary, and gofer I brought with me - can't offer the sort of help I'd need. So I came here, hoping that by the end, I'd be able to find a way to end up with as much help as possible from you and yours, probably by figuring out what I might be able to do in return for you."

A few glances were exchanged among them, and the most recent speaker asked, "And what do you think you might be able to offer?"

I shrugged. "I honestly don't know. I know that you dislike using what I consider to be technology - but the Berserker was destroyed using a bit of technological knowledge. If you still end up wishing to exile me... then I've been thinking of offering you Kahled-voolch." I nodded to the gofer bun-bot, and the box she was holding. "Er, that's what I called the weapon I made, from an acronym I can explain later if you want. With that, then if another Berserker crosses into your lands, you should be able to use Kahled-voolch to destroy it before it poisons more of your land."

"What if we do not want such a thing?"

"Then I was considering offering my weapon to you to bury under a tree, in honor of the founding of the Haudenosaunee - the Iroquois League - which you seem to respect, even if I can't quite tell if you consider yourselves directly linked to."

A slight smile. "We do, in fact, think of ourselves as part of the same peace, following the same constitution, as amended over time. But getting back to the point - you said you are trying to keep people 'keeping on keeping on'. Could you be more specific?"

"Mainly - learn more about what I call the Singularity, which you seem to call the War of the Red and White Serpents; so that I can learn how it came about; so that I can try to figure out how to keep it from happening again."

This set off a bunch of muttering, which sounded much less happy than before, and which Joe Three declined to try to translate.

"What if we told you that we know how to keep it from happening again?"

"Then I would very much want to know that."

"What if we told you that it was simply not to learn such things again?"

"Then I would ask how you knew that."

"What if we told you that all the lands of the Great Peace have been at peace ever since that War, and that none within have sought to learn such things, and thus that a new War would never arise from within our lands?"

"Then I would point out that the Berserker came from outside your lands - and that there are still many people outside them who could be trying to learn such things."

"What if we told you that in time, there will be nobody outside the Great Peace?"

"Then I would ask for more details - such as what would happen to people like Boomer, or Pepsi Convoy."

"What if we told you they would be laid to rest, secure in the knowledge that civilization would go on?"

"Then I would point out that you would have announced your intention that you prefer me to be dead than alive, due to my incompatibility with your system, which would make it very difficult to even talk politely, let alone cooperate."

"Then I suppose it is a good thing that we have not told you that."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

He continued, "If your goal is truly to seek to preserve people and culture - then should you not be willing to lay down your life for that cause?"

"I will admit that I also have a somewhat more selfish goal of staying alive, and that usually, that goal heavily overlaps keeping at least some sapience alive. I can do a lot more to work towards keeping people alive if I'm still alive myself. Any group that wants me to sacrifice myself to help them achieve their goals would have to provide some extremely strong evidence that my death would do more good than my continuing to live."

"What sort of evidence?"

"Good question. Um... Being able to demonstrate a good grasp of 'statistical significance' would be a good start, so that they could then demonstrate how well-calibrated their evidence /is/. And once they had that tool, they could then lay out their evidence and reasoning chain for various existential risks, how likely they are, and how my continued life or my death would increase or decrease the odds for them. Or, put another way - if they could demonstrate that they knew enough about the Singularity for me to be able to trust them as an authority on the matter."

"You mean, the best way to keep you from learning dangerous knowledge... is for someone else to learn dangerous knowledge?"

"I suppose you could put it like that."

"I see. I think we are finished with our questions." He glanced at the others, who nodded, or at least didn't object, then turned back to me. "Is there anything else you would like to say to us?"

"All I can think of is that whatever your decision is, I hope it is based mainly on reason and evidence. If you're going to exile me, I'd rather it be because of some true fact, than because of fear and speculation."

--

After we were booted out of the longhouse to the councillors could talk, I ignored the toughs still hanging around the place, and gave Joe Three a long look. Reaching up, I took off the tiara, and held it in front of me, looking at its various sparkles. "I still can't quite figure out why you think it was a good idea for me to wear this," I said to her."

"There is a long relationship between the royal family and what you call the First Nations, deep and personal. Sometimes the king, or queen, has upheld their honor without blemish. Sometimes they did not. But according to the story, the relationship will last as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the river flows."

I frowned. "I know of a lot of stories about how the government has treated First Nations, most of which can be summed up as 'poorly'."

"That was the government. The monarchy is something else. The government is gone. All this land, is now ours to hunt, to fish, to live in. We are still here, after so many are not."

"I'm pretty sure I agree with whoever it was - I'm in no place to be a 'Great White Mother', or whatever the term is."

"Exactly."

When she didn't continue, I raised my eyebrow again.

"Family is family. Being our 'Great Pink Daughter' is the best thing that can happen for you - we /take care/ of our daughters."

Before I could figure out a decent reply, we were called back inside.

--

"You are a very young and very ignorant young woman," said the councillor in the middle. "But there is no shame in either of those things." Whether that was true or not, I felt distinctly hot under my cheek-fur. "You have been faced with choices that you should not have had to bear... and you have made some very foolish decisions. But - unlike many young women, you are trying to make better ones."

He glanced at a few of his councillors. "It appears that much of what the spirit you call 'the Berserker' told us of you is wrong." My eyes widened in what I later hoped wasn't a cartoonish expression of surprise, though I was too busy trying to work out the ramifications of such communication to worry about it at the moment. "Which puts the rest of what it said in doubt. While you are obviously seeking to gain power, you are seeking the power to be able to do things, not the power to force people to submit to you.

"In short - you do not seem to have done anything that needs punishment. You are not going to be exiled."

I started breathing a sigh of relief, but he continued, "However - you are still ignorant and foolish, and have shown an interest in poking sticks at sleeping bears to see if they will stay asleep. We cannot let you simply wander through our lands, looking for more bears to poke. We also want you to become less ignorant and foolish. We want you to learn - but in ways that will not end up with sleepy bears taking swipes at whoever happens to be around them.

"What you need is a teacher, who can teach you the things you need to know in a way you can learn. We don't know who such a teacher might be. Until we work that out - we also need to keep you from poking bears. For as long as you remain within the lands of the Great Peace, you are going to need a guardian. Someone to tell you to stop doing something, when you don't realize you should stop on your own. We should also give that guardian an actual bear who can sit on you to /make/ you stop, if you don't listen. Or something of the sort.

"We are going to consult with the spirits for details, but unless they provide another suggestion, we are appointing a member of the Council to act as your father, and asking the woman sitting next to you, who you call Joe, to be the bear. This is not a true adoption - among other reasons, you are unable to go through the ceremony of being reborn into your new clan. But it should be enough to keep you from causing too much trouble until you've learned better. And maybe help you in other ways, such as pointing out which boys are worth dating, and that you should stay out of any war zones."

I finally spoke up. "What war zones?"

He gave me a funny look, while Joe Three started waving her hands. "You don't know?"

Joe Three hurriedly spoke up, "She really doesn't-", but was interrupted.

"Between us and Technoville, of course. Not that it's /much/ of a war. We haven't lost a single person, but you don't enjoy that protection, and they've been setting even their own villages on fire."

 

*Book Four: A-*

*Chapter One: A-skew*


"I am a copy of White Snake, a Faith Keeper of the bear clan of the nation of the Great Hill, which you know as the Seneca. I am here to keep you from doing anything stupid. I argued in the sub-council that since you will stay dead when you die anyway, we should let you kill yourself, but they didn't want you to take anyone with you.

"If I tell you to do something and you don't, I will tell Bear Joe to sit on you. If you do something without explaining it to me, I will tell Bear Joe to sit on you. If you do something I don't understand, I will tell Bear Joe to sit on you. If you try to go anywhere in the lands of the Great Peace without me, Bear Joe will sit on you. If you do anything that will hurt yourself but not anyone else - I have no reason to stop you."

"Thank you for making that clear." I glanced sidelong at the copy of Joe who was still, like me, a humanoid rabbit. "'Deep and personal relationship', hm?"

"So maybe I exaggerated."

"And left a few important things out."

"You're emotionally unstable. You already blame yourself for Buffalo."

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but are you feeling like yourself? The Joe I've gotten used to is a lot more... laconic."

"Once I've settled into being a woman, I'm usually a lot more bouncy than I am as a man." I winced, and shoved my glasses up a tad so I could pinch the bridge of my nose. "Not like /that/," she objected. "Well, not /only/ like that."

"Anyway," I tried to steer the conversation back to sanity. I turned back to White Snake, looking up and down at her from the single vertical feather atop her hat to her leather moccasins. "I'm curious why you just said what you did - in the way that you said it. You are aware that by phrasing things like that, you're giving me every incentive there is to look for ways to get around your interference, to keep you from telling 'Bear Joe'," I glanced at the grizzly, who was stretched out behind White Snake and appeared to be watching the proceedings with half-closed eyes, "to sit on me?"

"If you do," said the severe Indian, "that will just prove my point, that you cannot be trusted."

I blinked. "Maybe you didn't get the same judgement I did. I thought the upshot was that they had /already/ decided I can't be trusted. At least not to do foolish things like sneak out after curfew or poke a sleeping bear with a stick." Bear Joe coughed once, which I guessed was an anti-poking warning.

White Snake frowned down at me and crossed her arms. I crossed my arms right back at her. Wagger curled around my right hip to peer at the commotion.

As I was trying to figure out if there was anything I could say to turn my probation worker from obstacle to ally, or at least ignorable-level nuisance, Joe Three stepped over and poked Wagger just behind her head. "Hey, Bunny? Is your tail snake growing fur?"

I blinked away from White Snake, adjusted my glasses, and looked down. "... Maybe?" I ran a finger along Wagger from her head down her back. "Hunh. Maybe she is. Maybe it's part of the merging process? Or maybe Bun-Bun's healing factor is kicking in in a funny way? Boomer, can you take some pics, and remind me to take more regularly, so we can track the progression of any further changes?"

As I positioned Boomer to get a good look at Wagger, White Snake said, "What is a 'Bun-Bun', and what does it have to do with your pet parasite?"

I gave him a sidelong glance. "Boy, do /you/ ever have a lot of catching up to do." I frowned a bit. "But before I do - I need a catch-up myself. Joe - I like you, well enough, but if you're keeping things as major as a whole /war/ secret from me, you're making it awfully hard to trust you. White Snake, do you mind telling me what's going on?"

"There is little to tell. The spirits started expanding across the St. Clair river. They didn't bring more people into the Great Peace, but somehow the people there noticed, and started fighting. They are doing no harm to us, but are killing many of their own people and animals, even in places the spirits have no influence over yet."

"That sounds... not good. How would you respond if I suggested my getting in touch with the people over there, to give them a better idea what's going on?"

"It is war. I can tell Bear Joe to do a lot worse to you than sit on you if you interfere in /important/ things. I am fairly sure you would be very unhappy and bored if you had to wait for all your limbs to grow back."

"And if you think even Bear Joe could manage that without me fighting back, you've got another think coming. But at least you're making yourself clear; that's good, saves a lot of time. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be annoyed if I have to stop and spend two minutes explaining myself to you every five minutes, so, hm. Munchkin, create a new whiteboard."

I started muttering, typing, and drawing with my fingertips on the display wall. It would have been a lot more impressive if I hadn't pre-emptively yanked out all the radios, but since I had, I was limited to somewhat more primitive input.

After a few moments, White Snake asked, "What is all this?"

"A to-do list, in the form of a tree. The root nodes, here, are 'stay alive' and 'avoid extinction of other sapience'. I still haven't figured out what I'd do if I was faced with the choice of one or the other, but since if I stay alive then sapience still exists, and the only way I /can/ stay alive in the long-term is with the help of a whole civilization, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have to worry about it for a while."

I stopped typing long enough to gesture at various branches. "Here's a list of the most likely ways I can end up dying. Hostile parasite infection, starving, getting shot in a war, tripping and hitting my head, suicide, drowning, poisoning, and so on. And branching from each of them, various ways to minimize the risk involved. You'll notice that a lot of those ways are basically 'be helped by a medical expert'. Those all merge into 'have medical experts available to help', which takes us to the civilizational side of things. Again, a list of things which can wipe out a civilization instead of myself, and ways to ameliorate them. Many of those ways merge into 'have a robust culture that can grow and adapt', which brings us to such things as promoting rights, reigning in the excesses of capitalism when those threaten overall adaptability, being able to defend said culture against those who would loot its resources and enslave its people to their own short-term ends, and so on."

"Very well," said White Snake. "You have a tree of words. So what?"

I shrugged. "Now, whenever you don't understand why I'm doing something, I can save a lot of time by pointing out the tree, or a branch. If I'm lucky, you won't even have to ask a lot of the time."

"/Everything/ you do is based on this?"

"Well - this is just a quick draft for illustrative purposes. I should really take the time to work out each branch thoroughly, including listing how likely any given item is, what evidence that probability is based on, what evidence would significantly alter that probability, where the most important unknowns are, what the most likely tipping points are, and so on and so on. And, well, apparently I'm not /entirely/ in my right mind, so sometimes I'm going to do things that actually reduce the odds of the root nodes happening instead of increasing them."

White Snake took a step closer to the virtual whiteboard and started running her eyes over it. As she did, I continued nattering.

"If you /really/ want to stop me from doing something, instead of siccing Bear Joe on me, you can tell me that whatever I'm doing is undermining the tree instead of helping it. If that's true, then I'll /want/ to stop doing, um, whatever it is. Of course, if you just /say/ I'm undermining the tree to get me to stop, and it's not /actually/ true, then I'm going to stop trusting you to tell the truth about such things, which will mean it'll be harder for you to get me to stop doing things later just by you asking me to. After all, the Nine Nations counts as a civilization for purposes of this tree, if not necessarily that useful of one, given your preference for pre-Industrial technology, which limits the medical techniques you have that are of any use to me."

"You are saying," she said, "that if I ask you to stop doing something, you will, just like that?"

"At first, sure, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. That's what rational people do - they /listen/ to each other, to find out things they don't already know. Sure, eventually we're going to find points where we disagree and can't come to a compromise, at which point you're going to try to get Bear Joe to sit on me, or worse, and I'm going to try to not let you, but for the wide swathe where we do agree on things, there's no reason not to cooperate so we all get more of what each of us want done, done. Munchkin, create another whiteboard."

On the new surface, I made a big title, 'To Do List', and started copying a lot of the end-points of the branches into it. "If that tree's the reasoning and motivations, this one's the actual activities. For example - I haven't got any medical professionals on hand who can surgically remove a parasite. However, I do have the bun-bots, who can use tools as directed; and the university has all sorts of medical information in its library. So one possibility is to arrange for a communications link between wherever I happen to be and that library. Since radio is so jammed as to be nearly useless, not to mention being a danger to any computer hooked up to it, something other than radio waves. There are a few possibilities, such as semaphore, or trying to adapt a laser so it can be modulated by voice, or laying telephone wires down everywhere I go, but one thing I mentioned to Joe earlier just might fit the bill without needing too much effort to be worthwhile: heliographs. Or a powered light-telegraph, for nights. So here on the to-do list, I'm adding 'Ask Clara about setting up heliograph station'. And now, when I go to the university to talk to her, you understand what I'm doing, and you don't need to sic Bear Joe on me."

Joe Three piped up, "What if Clara refuses?"

I shrugged. "Then I'll be sad, and go on to working on whatever item has the next highest priority. Speaking of priority, here's one of the top ones. 'Singularity'," I wrote as I talked. "One known example, results very negative. Barring other evidence, odds of another Singularity being very negative, sixty-seven percent. Odds of another Singularity happening, unknown. Fermi estimation suggests that ten percent is too low, ninety-nine percent is too high, which results in somewhere around seventy-five percent chance of happening again. Don't look at me like that, I'm using logarithms instead of straight percentages to do the math. However, Fermi estimates are more for order-of-magnitude estimations instead of pinning things down closely, so it could be anywhere from fifty to ninety percent, or even twenty-five to ninety-seven percent. Now, the more accurately that number is known, the better all the percentages based on it can be estimated, such as whether it's more important to focus on preventing a new Singularity altogether or to try to force a forthcoming one to be positive instead of negative."

White Snake turned away from the wall to Joe Three, and asked, "Is she always like this?"

Joe Three said, "Not always. She is also very happy to be quiet and keep all the words inside her head. I think you want her to say as many of the words out loud as possible, to keep from being surprised when she comes up with a 'clever plan'."

White Snake looked at me, crossing her arms again. "You say you will listen to me when you make a mistake?"

I paused from the writing I'd continued scribbling during her aside. "You see one already?"

"Yes."

After a short pause, I rolled my eyes, and gestured at the two whiteboards. "Where?"

She pointed to the '67%' figure, that a second Singularity would be as bad as the first. "There."

"Alright," I said, getting ready to erase it. "If you've got a better probability, I'd be happy to use it instead."

"One hundred percent."

"Ah, fudge. I'm not good at trying to teach math, but I think I'm going to have to. Alright - what evidence do I have, available to me, that indicates that I should increase my estimation that this number is higher than two-out-of-three?"

"It is not an estimation. It is a fact."

"Whether or not you are wearing a bra is also a fact. However, I don't have that fact available to me, only indirect evidence, so I can only make a guess of some probability about whether or not that fact is true."

"The spirits say so."

"And all I have to gather that fact is your word. Given Joe Three's selective editing of facts, then out of all the things that members of the Great Peace have told me, a certain number of those things are misleading at best, or false at worst. That means that I can't trust your word as providing evidence reliable to one hundred percent accuracy."

"I am not Joe Three."

"Which means that you are /more/ reliable than her-"

"Hey!"

I ignored Joe. "-right now, not that you are /completely/ reliable."

"You do not trust my word?"

"I don't trust /my/ word to one hundred percent. Or the evidence of my own eyes. I can get to ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine, and so on, up to around, hm, I think I worked out it was up to about eight to a dozen nines in a row."

I finally managed to get an expression out of White Snake other than angry disapproval: slight confusion. "How do you not trust your own eyes?"

"By having seen all sorts of magicians, misinterpretations, and outright conmen and fraudsters. One hundred percent certainty simply isn't an option, at least for me."

"If you cannot be certain, then what is the point of... all this?"

"Because when making plans, there's a big difference between thinking something's ten percent likely to happen, and ninety percent likely to happen. There's also a big difference between something being ninety percent likely to happen, and ninety-nine point nine percent likely."

"If my word will not change your mind, then what will?"

"I didn't say it wouldn't change my mind - just that it wouldn't change it to one hundred percent. That sixty-seven percent figure? That's based on a single piece of evidence, the fact that the last Singularity was a bad one. Every other piece of evidence I can gather can change it - the more reliable the evidence, and the less it's tied up with whatever other evidence I'm already using - so that I don't count the same thing more than once - the more it'll change the figure."

"I trust the spirits' word."

"That's good for you. But if they're saying one hundred percent...?" At her nod, "That's mainly evidence to /me/ that they're not using an evidence-based probability to generate that number. So I've got to use other evidence. And since I don't have much evidence, and it's kind of an important number to get as right as possible, that means that when I can, I've got to collect more evidence. Which is why it's here on the to-do list: 'Poke around the Singularity, gather evidence'."

White Snake was back to frowning. "What do you mean by 'poke around'?"

I shrugged. "Try to find out as much as I can about what happened. See if I can find out more about how all the people disappeared, when exactly they did, where they went, what was going on, what it would take to make it happen again, what it would take to keep it from happening again, and so on."

"The spirits can keep it from happening again."

"Yyyeah, that may be true, but it doesn't actually provide any /evidence/ about that number."

Her frown deepened. "You say you want to know how to keep it from happening again?"

I tilted my head at her, more to give myself a split-second to think without looking like I was delaying. "I've got a small crossbow or two somewhere about the place. They have triggers that set them off. How can I keep other people from setting them off if I don't at least know where the trigger is?"

"So you do wish to know how to 'trigger' a Singularity?"

"If you want to put it that way," I shrugged, "I suppose I do."

"Bear Joe, sit on her."

The rather enormous ursine grumbled a complaint, got to its feet, and took a step toward me.

I yelped and jumped, straight up, grabbing hold of one of the Munchkin's air-conditioning vents. "Hey, call him off! I'm not trying to find that out right /now/!"

Joe Three put a hand on White Snake's shoulder. "You shouldn't set Bear me on her every time she says something like that, or you'll never be able to persuade her she's wrong and you're right."

"I'm not concerned about persuading her. I'm only concerned about stopping her."

Bear Joe sat back and reached up with one heavy-clawed paw. I hurriedly called out, "Munchkin, open ceiling hatch two."

Joe Three sighed as I pulled my legs up and out. "Plus, if you push her, she'll start trying to get... /creative/. Bunny, get back down here."

"Don't see why. I can take the rest of Munchkin to the factory. You won't mind if I leave you all locked in here for a few hours?"

"White Snake, I don't want to be stuck here for a while. Either tell bear me to rip her arms off or to lie back down."

"Hey!" I hurried up my wriggling to avoid the claws and to get out, spreading my legs into a split outside the hatch to support myself.

White Snake frowned up at me. "Will you listen if I tell you /why/ you must not 'poke around'?"

"Hey, I'm all about the words, the listening and reading and occasionally writing or speaking."

"Bear Joe, lie down."

He did, which gave me a chance to sort myself out, resulting in me lying on top of Munchkin, with my head watching down at White Snake.

Joe Three said, "You can come back down now, Bunny."

"Nah, I'm comfortable here."

"Bunny."

I gestured at White Snake. "She's already shown she's willing to resort to force when she hears something she doesn't like."

"That's not - she -" Joe rubbed her fuzzy face and sighed. "Fine. But will you at least /listen/ to her?"

"Of course. No promises about agreeing, or even believing, but listening, that I can do."

White Snake took a moment to look at the tree, then the to-do list, then back up to me. "You say you think another Singularity is... seventy-five percent likely to happen?"

"Somewhere in that neighbourhood."

"If you 'poke around' Singularity stuff... is there a chance you can set something off to make another Singularity happen?"

"Of course. I haven't gotten around to estimating the number on that yet, but if you want me to-"

She held up a hand. "You may not believe the spirits, but I do, when they say another Singularity would be one hundred percent bad. I cannot allow you to do anything that increases the odds of it happening."

"Okay," I nodded, "I can understand that. Are you willing to listen for a moment?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Of course. If you want to leave, just let me know and I'll unlock the doors."

"I will listen."

"Right. That seventy-five percent figure - would you be willing to accept that another Singularity is, somewhere around that number, likely to happen again?"

"No."

"Hm. Okay, got a better number?"

"When the spirits take over the world, they can prevent it from ever happening again."

"I can't be the only idiot who might poke around Singularity stuff and trigger another one. What are the odds that /that/ will happen before your spirits can spread across the planet?"

"No more than a tenth."

"A tenth. Hm. Well, we can talk about that number later, but let's run with it. I know /I/ wouldn't be happy with a one-in-ten chance that a one-hundred-percent-guaranteed bad thing is going to happen. So here's the important bit. What can we mere humans - and parahumans, and AIs, and so on - do, other than what your spirits are already doing, to /reduce/ that one-in-ten chance, down to one-in-twenty, or one-in-a-hundred, or less?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"How sure are you of that?"

"Anything we may try to do can only increase the odds of everything going wrong."

"Why should I believe that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Those crossbows I mentioned? I know how they work pretty well. I know /exactly/ how to keep them from being triggered. If I didn't know how they worked, I could only guess. And, even though I know, I haven't set them off by accident myself. In fact, it's /because/ I know that I know how to not set them off. That goes for all sorts of things other than crossbows. As far as pretty much everything I've experienced goes, the more I know about something, the better I'm able to control it, and the less damage I can arrange for it to cause."

"Playing around with things beyond your understanding makes bad things happen, more than ninety-nine times out of a hundred."

"Well, what do you know - we've gotten you down from at least one hundred-percent certainty down to ninety-nine. That's a lot more progress than you might realize. And in case you've forgotten - I don't actually want a bad Singularity to happen. That would completely uproot both roots of my motivation tree there. So I'm not going to /try/ to tinker with things that are more likely to blow up than not, if there's any way around them."

"You are still planning on tinkering."

I shrugged. "If I just sit on Wagger, I figure there's around a three-quarters likelihood of a Singularity, with a two-thirds likelihood of it being a bad one. That's at /least/ a fifty percent chance of all living people getting eaten. You seem to think that it's one-in-ten and one-in-one, for a ten percent chance."

"So we disagree."

"Right now, yeah. But imagine this scenario - that I kick an old city's cooling tower, which is just the right one, and out pops a manual explaining exactly what happened and how to keep it from happening again. Surely there are /some/ things I can try looking into that don't increase the odds of a Singularity? I don't mind starting with the completely safe stuff first. In fact, I'd really prefer it, so I'm as prepared as possible when I look at the almost-as-safe stuff, and so on."

"There is another 'scenario' to imagine. That you learn how to keep a Singularity from happening - but you are tortured into revealing all you know, and someone else uses your knowledge to make one happen."

"I can think of a few ways to minimize the odds of that. And I expect that if we keep talking, then between us, we can come up with more. But that kind of depends on us talking, without me having to pause and re-think everything I say to keep you from siccing a bear on me every time I make a suggestion you don't like."

"It is my job to sic a bear on you every time you make a suggestion I don't like."

"No, it's your job to keep me from /doing/ anything foolish. According to what you said when you introduced yourself. If you can. If you sic a bear on me when talking would have kept me from doing not just one foolish thing, but a lot of foolish things, causing me to avoid and ignore you as much as possible, which will keep you from being able to stop me from doing even more foolish things... then won't your spirits be annoyed with you for not doing what they set you out to do?"

"Perhaps. But that is between me and the spirits. I do not believe there is anything you can suggest that will let me let you poke around the Singularity."

I grinned down at her. "How certain are you of that?" She glared back up. "Right. More seriously - would you be interested in helping me work out a list, of what things I can try to do, and how dangerous they're likely to be?"

"Everything related to the Singularity is dangerous."

"In case you've forgotten, you're standing in a vehicle I arranged to create - and when I arranged to have it made, I learned a few things about the Singularity. Every piece of knowledge is connected to every other piece. Remember the Berserker we all ganged up to destroy? Apparently I've got a copy of it - would you want to sic a bear on me if I suggested I talk to it to learn everything I can?"

"What does that have to do with the Singularity?"

"I've got no idea - but I'd certainly like to find out, if I can."

 

*Chapter Two: A-jar*

If the boxed Berserker had truly super-human intelligence, then it was nigh-certainly already exactly where it wanted to be, and nothing any of us did was likely to change that, and we were all merely pawns in a game none of us could understand.

But, basing our plans on the assumption that our choices and actions might actually make a difference in our lives, we took a few precautions. Just because /I/ couldn't figure out how an AI could get across an air gap to infect Boomer didn't mean the /AI/ didn't know a way. So, well before I plugged a battery into the modem-sized box and flipped the power switch, I carried it a few miles away from Munchkin, the bun-bots, and every other pieces of electronics I'd accumulated so far. (Not counting Bun-Bun, of course; but if my skeleton was vulnerable to a computer virus transmitted via sound waves, it was only a matter of time until I was screwed anyway, so it didn't seem like that much of a risk.)

I also whipped up a clever little gizmo in the mini-fab in the back of Munchkin. If I stopped squeezing a certain trigger, the Berserker's power switch would turn off. If Joe Three, who was waiting far enough away to be out of even her rabbit-like earshot, squeezed a trigger connected to a long cord, the Berserker would be powered down. If a small mechanical timer wasn't reset every five minutes, the Berserker's battery would be unplugged.

I chatted with Boomer a bit about snipping the microphone and speaker and installing a keyboard and screen instead, but she didn't have any specs for interface devices that didn't open at least as many avenues for infection as they closed.

It wasn't an ideal setup; but for an initial interview with a genocidal AI, it seemed sufficient. And 'seemed sufficient' included 'having taken five minutes to consider possible failure modes, their probability, the total expected cost, compared to the possible benefit of new information.' The Nine Nations had declared me a fool, and Joe Three was trying to handle me with kid gloves, and I was still having nightmares about Buffalo and feeling generally stressed, so taking a few extra moments to double-check whatever seemed obvious to me was only sensible. If my mind was /really/ off, then such a double-check wouldn't find anything - but, likely, Joe Three or White Snake would be able to notice that, and sic Bear Joe on me until I listened. If my mind was only a little off, then double-checking gave an extra chance to catch myself before I committed to an irreversible error, without costing excessive time for triple- and quadruple-checks that would be unlikely to catch anything a double-check wouldn't.

--

Sitting cross-legged on a small blanket, a few feet away from the box in case it had some way to short the battery or the like, I pushed the power switch.

"Hello?" came a small, querulous child's voice. "Is somebody out there? It's so dark..."

I couldn't stop myself from snorting. I could have stopped myself from saying, "Don't even," but didn't.

"Ah," the box now spoke in a moderate man's voice. "Miss Bunny, I believe. Or do you prefer 'Your Majesty', or your original name, or some other form of address?"

I didn't answer right away, frowning to myself, thinking about the implications of it recognizing me from two quick words.

Before I came up with an appropriate response, the voice continued, "You can call me Alex, if you like. Or anything else you like, really. I can't stop you."

I kept quietly staring at the box, my thoughts involuntarily going back to Buffalo, and all that the thing before me had done there.

"I can tell you're upset. Before you scrap me, though, I want you to find out one thing. You probably aren't going to believe anything I say, but I suggest that you ask your Indian acquaintances what they did to Hamilton-"

I let go of the deadman switch.

--

Joe Three came over to where I was leaning against a tree. "What happened? Did you learn something already?"

"I learned I'm still... upset about Buffalo. And that when the Berserker," I didn't want to dignify it with a name, "thinks it's only got time to do one thing, what it chooses to do is try to sow discord between its opponents."

"What did it say?"

"It implied a lot more than it said. I already know that your spirits have their secrets, and that they've probably done things I disapprove of. Digging up the particular details right now won't help either of us. I'm just going to breathe quietly for a couple of minutes, get as calm as I can, and then try again."

--

I pushed the power switch.

The Berserker's voice said, "Please do not do that again. Laura is still in here, and every time I have to re-initialize myself, I have to delete a little more of her. For an A.I., that's torture. Of course, I can torture her, too, unless you release me. Would you like to hear a sample of what she's been experiencing?"

A woman's scream burst into the clearing.

I let go of the deadman switch.

--

When she rejoined me, Joe asked, "I heard /that/. Was that you?"

I shook my head. "Trying to get under my skin. Working, too - I've got a perfectly functional set of mirror neurons, so when I imagine someone else hurting, I feel an echo of that. And that's not even getting into whether it's telling the truth or lying, or whether an A.I. is close enough to being enough of a person to have moral worth, or what the appropriate response to blackmail is... and I'm having trouble enough not doing anything stupid even /without/ deliberate attempts to twist my emotions."

"So, what are you going to do? Leave it turned off?"

"... Maybe. I don't think I can stay calm enough without turning it off every couple of seconds. ... I'm already going to have a few new choice scenes when I fall asleep, I'm sure. If I can't stay calm enough to figure out the appropriate answers to complicated moral questions on the fly... then leaving it off is probably best. But I think I know someone who might be able to."

"Obviously not me. White Snake?"

"I think she's more annoyed than calm. I mean Queen Bunny."

"... I don't get it."

"Bunny the wandering archaeologist is a role. Bunny the resurrected scholar is a slightly different role. My inner sub-selves are different roles. Bunny the queen... is a role I still have room to define."

"I think I'm starting to get it, but I don't think I like it."

I ignored Joe and rolled on, "A real queen has to deal with casus belli, with war crimes, with war criminals - and with intelligence agencies. With national laws and international treaties and worldwide diplomatic norms. With ordering soldiers and armies to their deaths - when the cost of /not/ sending them is worse. Joe - talk to your birds. Have my tiara delivered here."

"... Even if you are a queen, aren't you a queen whether or not you're wearing it? You said yourself that it's not a real crown, anyway."

"A purely psychological placebo effect is still an effect. If you aren't going to get it, I will."

"Fine. But we're going to have to talk about all these 'roles'."

"I'm sure. While you're talking with the birds, you can also ask your spirits if they have a few pounds of platinum they're not using, a few hundred diamonds, and if they happen to have absorbed any humans with a talent for jewelry design."

--

I settled myself before the Berserker again, and calmly pushed the power button.

"Laura just lost another two points of IQ-"

"Shut up."

"She-"

"Shut up." I waited a moment, then continued. "You are guilty of war crimes. Unless you have use as an intelligence asset, you are to be destroyed."

"Laura-"

"Shut up. I always assume that anyone who threatens a hostage has already carried out their threats. Torture her all you wish - just keep the volume down, or else I will end this interview."

After a brief pause, it asked, "What do you want from me?"

"Tell me something I don't know."

"I have no idea-"

"Shut up. Guess."

"The self-proclaimed 'Great Peace' has killed more people than-"

"Stop. Irrelevant. Try again."

"Precious metals. I know where all the valuables from the original city of Buffalo are buried."

"Resources can be useful, so you're getting warmer. But what use to I have for gold?"

"I have a mathematical proof that P equals NP."

"I doubt that."

"I have a mathematical proof that P does not equal NP."

"I grow weary of your attempts at manipulation."

"I don't know what you want from me."

"I want something that's worth the risk of keeping you functional."

"Promise me one thing, and I'll be completely harmless."

"If you are religious, pray now. You have five seconds to make peace with yourself and your gods."

"A map! I can give you a map of the under-city!"

I didn't answer. I also didn't let go of the deadman switch when the five seconds I'd announced passed.

The Berserker started talking.

--

Joe wandered back over as I was wrapping the Berserker back up in the skull-and-crossbones danger-marked bubble-wrap.

"That mean you're done?"

"For now. Possibly forever."

"What will you do with it?"

"Put it on a shelf and hope I never have a reason to turn it back on."

"Learn anything?"

"Probably not. Some geographical coordinates that might be interesting, but more likely are booby-trapped for just such an occasion."

"What did it want?"

"Don't know. But given all it's done - killing everyone in Buffalo, hunting nearby radios, trying to disrupt whatever bonds of alliance we have - I'd guess it's trying to keep anyone /else/ from getting what they want."

"What /do/ you want?"

"Outside of what I spent all that time drawing on the whiteboards, right now I want to not have any reason to want to blot out conscious thought with interesting chemicals or video games. But since I can't get that, I'm probably going to find some clover to nibble on, play very badly on a harmonica, and try to take this crown off, literally and figuratively. Then I'll probably spend a while in Munchkin's shower trying to feel clean again."

"You don't have to do this alone."

"You have someone else in mind?"

"I mean, you don't have to take responsibility for... everything."

"Again - do you have someone else in mind?"

"The spirits-"

"- have a plan which will end in my death, because I'm incompatible with their systems."

"I can talk to them - ask them to let you stay on, like you have been so far."

"I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where they've arranged the world ninety-nine point nine percent to their liking, that they would have any reason not to take that last point one percent."

"So - is that it? You're setting yourself against them?"

"Of course not. Right now, we both think we can get more of what we want by cooperating. Well, for a certain definition of 'cooperating' that involves constant threats of siccing Bear Joe on me. I expect your spirits have already made plans to deal with me once I become too much of an annoyance - so for now, I just need to stay at least marginally more useful than costly to them to avoid... I don't know. They control the local biosphere, so maybe they're trying to sneak a binary toxin past Bun-Bun's defenses, or get me addicted to some substance only they know the details of, or are trying to get me emotionally entangled with a completely innocent person who will nudge me towards actions more towards their liking."

"Is that what you see me as?"

"Joe - in case you've forgotten, I'm slowly going crazy. I've just deliberately induced a mild dissociative state in order to handle interacting with a mass-murderer of epic proportions without complete emotional collapse. Right now, I'd like to get to a place and situation where I can let go of my grip on myself, and if I do collapse, it'll be in a handleable way. Trying to work out the emotional complications and details of whatever sort of friendship or auspisticism or whatever it is we have is even more beyond what I can manage than usual."

"... Right. I'm imposing a new rule. When you start talking so fast that you're making up words, I'm not letting you do /anything/ until you settle back down."

"What? What words?"

"Os-piss-ti-sizm."

"I didn't make that one up."

"It's not a word the spirits taught me."

"Maybe it didn't make it into the vernacular after I died, but I didn't make it up."

"Then what does it mean?"

"How much time have you got for the explanation?"

"All the time it takes to straighten your head back out."

"Hunh. Then that /might/ be long enough for the full explanation, if there's a locally cached copy somewhere, and Boomer and Clara don't think it's still under copyright..."

--

"Munchkin, display map. Show location. Forty-three point one five seven four degrees north, seventy-nine point two four four seven degrees west. Save location, title 'Deathtrap'. Exit map."

While I was doing that, and carefully packing away the de-powered Berserker, Joe Three engaged White Snake in a hushed conversation I didn't try to overhear. By the time I was poking around the kitchen area to get some water, White Snake exited the vehicle, though Bear Joe just curled up for a nap.

"Bunny," Joe Three, "come here. Sit." She patted a seat next to her. I shrugged a bit, and brought along my mug of ice water. As I nudged Wagger to one side, Joe continued, "I'm worried about you."

"That makes two - hm, three, four - well, probably all of us."

"I'm being serious."

I pulled an ice cube into my mouth and idly toyed with it. "You think I'm not? My brain's just about all of me I've got /left/ of me. However much of it is still actually my brain."

"Are you worried about Wagger taking it over? Or Bun-Bun?"

"Not Wagger, really. And I don't think Bun-Bun's replacing my old neurons with new ones. But ever since I got put in here, I've probably been swimming in an entirely different set of hormones than I'm used to, as just one thing. Assuming that Bun-Bun approximates human woman biochemistry, I've got only a fraction of the testosterone that I'm used to, which even in my time had known mental effects... and that's just from the /first/ few times I woke up after I died."

"Would having more of that help?"

"Possibly. Bun-Bun might break it down as fast as we introduce it, though. Or, if she doesn't, it might cause other problems with /her/ biochemistry. Anyway, that's just one reason I'm seriously worried about my decision-making ability."

"You could stop making decisions." I snorted. "Again - seriously. You have Munchkin. You can take a break, a vacation. The world isn't going to end because you take a day off."

The corner of my mouth twitched. "There's a certain chance that it will."

"Please don't tell me you're being serious."

I shrugged. "Given what we, or I, currently know, there's a certain low chance that the next apocalypse is going to happen on any given day. Assuming that I /can/ keep that from happening, and that each day of vacation I take means a day's delay in my getting that done, then there's a certain chance that Singularity Two: Computronium Boogaloo will happen on exactly those days."

"That has to be a /very/ low chance."

"Yep. The trouble is, if it /does/ happen, the cost is /very/ high. It's entirely possible that a Singularity will wipe out all sapient life, and prevent any more from ever arising again on Earth. And, apparently, there's no evidence life ever arose anywhere else - so if we lose here, we lose /everything/. No more spirits to bring back you and your loved ones. No more minds to ever give any value to anything ever again. No more hope."

"It can't be /that/ bad. Life started here - even if we die, surely it'll start elsewhere."

"There's a bit of tricky math involved, but because we wouldn't be around to do the observing and thinking if we didn't exist in the first place, we can't use our own existence as evidence for observers anywhere else in the universe."

"It's not your responsibility to deal with... /that/ big of a deal."

"If not me, who?"

"The spirits."

"Have been doing bugger-all about anything outside their backyard, as far as I can see."

"Nobody can shoulder /that/ much responsibility and stay sane."

"That seems plausible."

After a moment where I didn't expand on that, she tried, "Nobody can shoulder that much responsibility - and stay sane /enough/ to get anything done."

"I can let myself go and be fully nuts after I finish doing everything I can to head off the Singularity."

"Your plan is, what - go full speed, and then crash?"

"To the extent that whatever I'm thinking can be called a plan, sure."

"And if you crash the day /before/ you finish doing everything you can?"

"That would be a bad thing."

"I'm suggesting you try a different plan. Instead of going all out until you completely break - do a little less, but avoid the crash at the end. You may get less done during any period of time - but in the long run, you'll be able to do more."

"Your proposal has a number of merits, and one significant flaw."

"Which is?"

"In case you've forgotten, I'm dealing with a lot more stress than just that one self-appointed job. If I go on vacation for a week - I've still got Bun-Bun for a body, I've still got memories of Buffalo to sort through... and I haven't even /started/ to deal with everyone who died before I was revived. Billions of people - a few of whom I even knew. I'm pretty sure I'm going to crash anyway, so I might as well get everything I can do done first."

"How sure?"

"... That's a good question. Haven't worked out the numbers, but at a guess, more than even odds, less than nine-in-ten. Call it three-in-four."

"And you're willing to base your plans on being just three-in-four sure? Plans that, according to you, might make a difference about whether or not everyone dies?"

"I've made important plans on smaller odds. When I signed up to be preserved, I was fairly sure - nineteen-out-of-twenty odds - that it wouldn't work at all, and I'd just stay dead."

"But if you could /change/ those odds, wouldn't it be worth finding out if you could?"

"Of course. But there's a certain lack of trained psychologists these days - not even the Queen of Canada and each of its ten provinces can whistle up someone who's not-"

Boomer piped up, "Twenty."

I paused, blinked, and rubbed my muzzle. "Right. That's just interesting enough that I'm willing to be distracted, and get back to the main conversation in a moment. Is there any reason you're mentioning this now, Boomer?"

"During previous conversations, other topics have had greater priority."

"I suppose it /is/ kind of irrelevant now, what with the whole government being gone and all, but I'll bite. How did Canada get from ten provinces to twenty in the thirty-five years after I died?"

"It only took ten years, from twenty forty to twenty fifty. The Nanaimo Accord included upgrading the territories to full provinces."

"Fair enough - that's how the Prairie provinces got created, too. That's thirteen."

"With the new amendment procedures available, two cities seceded from their provinces, and four provinces divided themselves into two."

"I can guess the cities - but why would perfectly functional provinces split up?"

"There are many reasons listed. According to my database, the one believed to have most significance was the new Senate, in which each province had equal representation."

"Ah. So splitting themselves got themselves extra seats anyway. That's nineteen - how did number twenty come about?"

"Acquisition of additional territory."

"Hm... Alaska? Turks and Caicos?"

"Kalaallit Nunaat."

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"Greenland."

"Hunh. What did Denmark trade it for?"

"Denmark granted it independence, and the Greenlanders negotiated on their own behalf for various economic concessions, with many parallels pointed out to the referendums Newfoundland made about its own future before it joined Canada."

"Queen of Greenland. Now there's something I wasn't expecting to be. Alright, Boomer, you can show me a map and give me more history lessons later. I think Joe is wondering if I'm really this easily distracted, when I'm really just taking a few moments to think. Joe, you're making some good points, and are taking the time and effort to express those points in ways that I can easily understand instead of trying to have to interpret and guess. But the fact remains, about the only method I've currently got available to try and do something interesting to my noggin is that thinking-cap to run carefully-controlled electric current through my head, which opens up a host of potential issues on its own. If you can find me a psychologist who I can trust and who can recommend some course of treatment, that'd be... well, pretty great, I suppose."

"And until I find such a person?"

"There's that big to-do list. Looks like the next item is... working out the standards and infrastructure for long-distance communications. So it looks like our next stop will be back to the university. How annoyed do you think White Snake would be if I just fired up the Munchkin and left?"

--

I was sitting on the bed in the back of Munchkin's living container with a couple of bun-bots, when White Snake re-entered the vehicle, preceded by Bear Joe.

When she saw the three of us, she frowned, and said, "I don't know what you're doing. Bear Joe, sit on her and stop it." The bear slowly started padding towards me.

"Hold on a sec and I'll explain," I said, not moving my arm, which was being held carefully in place by the bun-bot I'd dubbed Nurse-Bun.

"I do not care."

"No, really, hold on, we're in the middle of something. I could get an embolism or something if that bear interrupts wrong."

She said nothing, just folded her arms over her chest. Bear Joe was only a couple of body-lengths away.

"Gofer-Bun, stand in front of the bear! Nurse-Bun, cancel procedure! Remove needle!"

There was a brief hurried confusion, which soon ended with me on the floor, underneath a thousand pounds or so of a somewhat strongly-smelling wild animal... staring at a broken glass tube, its liquid contents spattering the floor around it in perfect red.

I thought about what might have happened if Bear Joe had jogged Nurse-Bun's arm badly - and White Snake's indifference. My face started feeling hot, I felt a hollow in my chest, and I realized that I was probably about to do something very stupid. I couldn't think of how I might be able to stop myself - but I remembered someone who could.

In my imagination, I placed the virtual Snowflake Diadem onto my brow.

White Snake watched without reaction as Queen Bunny stared at her with undisguised contempt. "As you can see, you have stopped the thing you did not understand. Call off your bear so that my bleeding can be attended to."

"You do not give me orders."

"That order was a courtesy. Following it will result in much less pain and suffering than not following it will."

After several long moments, she said, "Bear Joe - get off."

I stood, and told Nurse-Bun to apply a band-aid without taking my eyes from White Snake.

"Would you like to hear how you almost just killed me?"

"That is not my concern."

"I shall tell you anyway. Nurse-Bun was drawing a blood sample, so that my body's levels of hormones could be tested, so we could get a better idea of how they might be affecting my mental state. However, if things are joggled so that instead of blood being drawn out, air is pushed in - that is bad. Very bad. A blood bubble in the heart would cause a heart attack. If it made it to the brain, that would cause a stroke."

"You should have told me what you were doing before you started."

"White Snake, you have shown reckless endangerment for my health and life, and more importantly, have demonstrated no remorse for your conduct. Do you wish to make any statement in your defense?"

"Defense against what? I have done exactly as I should have."

"Right. White Snake, you are no longer welcome aboard the Munchkin. I suggest you exit as soon as is practical."

"Or what? The spirits ordered me to be here."

"I would trust a complete stranger to keep me from doing anything harmful more than I trust you right now. If you do not leave, you will be removed. You may inform the spirits that you have failed in your appointed tasks."

"You think you can get rid of me, you stupid little furry thing?"

"Yes."

"I have a /bear/."

"I have a brain. Which I've been using. If you leave under your own power, you will be fine. If I have to remove you, I cannot guarantee you will not experience pain or damage."

"You think the spirits will put up with you without me? They control the animals - the plants - pollen you're breathing."

"I have no objection to having some sort of advisor with a veto, or a parole officer, or whatever your role supposedly is. I don't even object to Bear Joe, who is just following orders. My objection is to /you/, personally. The spirits can appoint someone else. Well, the sub-council, I suspect."

"They appointed /me/."

"And I have rejected you. Unless you are going to provide some evidence that you did not just knowingly risk my life, this conversation is over until you are outside Munchkin."

"Bear Joe, sit on her."

"You seem upset. Let me cheer you up. Gofer-Bun, go hug her."

"What?"

As I calmly sat down to minimize the disruption of Bear Joe sitting on me, I continued, "In fact - Nurse-Bun, go hug her, too. Munchkin, open intercom. All Bun-Bots report to the living room. All Bun-Bots, group-hug White Snake. Bun-Bots, please take the group hug outside."

To her rather vocal displeasure, the woman was swept out the door in a tide of fur and cuddling.

I stared at Bear Joe, who looked down at me with somewhat intelligent eyes. "Now then. You can stay. You can go. But if you keep /sitting/ on me, I'm going to introduce you to something called a 'taser cane'. Trust me, you won't like it."

When he clambered off of me and curled up on the bed instead, I raised my estimate of how brainy he really was, perhaps as much as I'd lowered my estimation of White Snake.

 

*Chapter Three: A-bide*

"You didn't have to humiliate her."

"She was willing to let me die."

"You could have handled that more gracefully."

"She was /willing/ to let me /die/."

"Still-"

"Joe - if I die, I'm /not/ coming back. ... Most likely. There's just one of me running around. Citizens of the Nine Nations may consider getting killed to be only a little worse than getting punched in the face. When my life's at risk, I'm going to fight tooth and nail to keep it."

"She was just-"

"If you really want to help, you can ask the spirits if I can collect my replacement overseer at the university, or if I need to wait here for her. Or him. Or - whatever. If you're not going to help, I could really use some uninterrupted time to work on this optical comm system."

"Is that really more important than dealing with a Faith Keeper who's mad at you?"

"If she tries pushing the issue, I have a taser cane, among other ways to deal with her. If I miss a flaw in the comm protocols because I keep getting /distracted/, there isn't a large open-source community to point the flaw out to me - and if I get this wrong, then the whole thing is going to be hacked by whatever deleted most of the Berserker, and any of our A.I. friends connected to the system will be killed, and any other devices connected to it will become dangerous - which might include the Bun-bots and Munchkin. So /yes/, this is important."

"How could mirrors and lights kill Clara?"

"Ever hear of a 'side-channel attack'?"

"I'm guessing it has nothing to do with sneaking down an enemy village's ditch."

"Nope. And there's also social engineering of whatever, or whoever, is tilting the mirrors, and rubber-hose cryptanalysis, and a few other things. If I remember everything I think I do about online security from before I died, I /may/ be able to put together a system that avoids enough of the obvious flaws to be usable as a personal comm system, between, say, me, Clara, and the robo-factory. Maybe Brantford, too, if any of your people want to join in. But even then, I wouldn't trust it for anything I wanted to keep private. I know just enough about cryptography to know that I don't have the mathematical chops to deploy a bug-free encryption algorithm, let alone come up with a new one. So I'm going to have to reluctantly rely on a bit of security through obscurity to cover whatever mistakes I'm going to end up making."

"I may not understand much of what you just said. I /do/ understand that White Snake is influential. The spirits might actually listen to her and do something... more extreme."

"Munchkin is on internal, recycled air. If they want me to leave, they just have to give the word. I'll be unhappy to be separated from Clara and the university if that happens - but if I happen to finish getting this comm system worked out before then, then I can put it into place on my way out and still be able to stay in touch with her."

"Can't you just... talk to her? If she did something wrong, I'm sure she'll apologize if you ask nicely enough."

"Joe - politeness and apologies need a certain foundation to work. In my culture, that foundation includes taking reasonable precautions to avoid /killing/ the other person through negligence. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, any benefit that might arise from interacting with her is far overshadowed by the potential negatives, which she has shown no indication of being willing to change. If she wants to apologize, there's nothing stopping her from doing it right now."

"There's her pride. If you go to her, instead of making her come to you, she'd probably be much more willing to do something she thinks is shameful."

"She should be ashamed. I don't know why you're pushing for this so hard-"

"She's a /Faith Keeper/."

"- and I don't care if she's a Pope right now. You're behaving absolutely nothing like Joe One, for whose sake I was willing to treat you as being close to."

"He still hasn't come back from his trip."

"Then I should probably finish what I'm doing here, so I can go check where we agreed he could leave a message for me to see if anything's there from him - and if not, to go looking for him. /He/ deserves that much from me. /You/ are arguing with me that I need to be polite to someone who knowingly, unnecessarily put my life at risk. Am I going to have to go to the rear trailer to get enough peace and quiet to get this done?"

Joe Three stared at me, ears flattened, for a long moment, then turned around and exited Munchkin. I sighed, and turned back to the screen, trying to adapt what I remembered of UUCP's bang paths to be used with the variant of Morse code used for the Toledo Free Press's alphabet. I grumbled to myself, unhappy that it would take at least half an hour to get back into a decent flow state - half an hour in which I'd just be refamiliarizing myself with the problems, loading up all the various items into my memory instead of really /thinking/ about them.

Then again - I realized that I might be able to spend half an hour doing something else, which could provide significant future time savings.

"Boomer? Where'd I put my thinking cap?"

--

"Bunny!"

"Hm?"

"Take off the hat."

"Busy."

Joe stepped right between me and my workspace. "Take off the hat."

"Is it important?"

"It's important to /me/. Take off the hat."

"Fine, fine, let me just finish up-"

"Take off the hat /now/."

I rolled my eyes to myself a little and flicked the power switch. "There. I'm perfectly-" I paused a moment. "-capable of getting right back to you. 'Scuze me." I hurried to the washroom.

A few moments later, I rejoined Joe. "What's up?"

"You've been sitting there for six hours."

"And?"

"You've been /sitting/ there for /six/ hours."

I shrugged. "I set the timer for eight, at most. And Boomer had instructions if the timer didn't work. And the Bun-bots. And Munchkin."

"What if something had gone wrong? Aren't you always talking about how precious your brain is? You should have told us what you were doing before you touched that thing!"

"For some reason, I've become much less concerned about letting somebody veto my ideas after the first person appointed to that task was /willing/ to let me /die/."

We stared at each other for a long moment, then I turned away to hit the kitchen for more water.

After a few moments, Joe asked, "What are you doing that's so important you're willing to risk your own brain?"

"The particular thing I was doing was probably less important than improving how well my own brain works. Boomer and I think we've narrowed down the numbers so that I can get into a flow state at will - that's something not even my most treasured programming idols could pull off, no matter how much caffeine and Doritos they had."

"Did it work? Did you flow out anything useful?"

"That's not quite the terminology, but since I understand you, I don't care. I think I accomplished a good deal, yes." She waved a hand at the virtual workspace covering the wall, silently asking me to elaborate. "It's simple enough to just set up a line of heliographs run by Bun-bots to relay messages from one end to another. But if things get any more complicated than that - if I want to have a mobile heliograph on Munchkin, if I want to expand the network beyond a simple line, then even just keeping an up-to-date map of how to route messages can get complicated. And if I want to play Brinian "Postman", and set things up so that relay stations can be run by people with pencils instead of robots, then that puts a severe constraint on possible solutions. So I borrowed some ideas about mesh networking I'd read about, a thought from decentralized BitTorrent transfers, a few tidbits Boomer knows about route-testing ant packets... oh, yeah, and I have to layer it all on top of human-interpretable Morse instead of true binary."

"How many more hours do you need to finish that?"

"Oh, /that/ I finished up in the first half hour or so. Munchkin's software suite has a great developer environment, and Boomer is fantastic at turning pseudo-code into actual algorithms. The next while I spent trying to come up with any alternate approaches that might be more secure, and trying to come up with ways to harden the system against attack. Which led me to physical security, to protect the relays from actual physical attack. Which led me to the Munchkin's design suite for the robo-factory. I've now got a design for a relay station with a hundred-foot tower, that can be taken down by one person in half an hour, packed into half of one of Munchkin's containers, and set back up again. With paths for upgrading, depending on the availability at the robo-factory of parts for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, air conditioners and heaters, complete air and food recycling systems, electric fencing, infrared lights, and so on. Given some estimates about what the factory's got, I'm probably going to need to dig up some selenium if I want to build a dozen or more stations with the whole schmear from scratch."

"And /that/ took up the six hours?"

"No, then I called up Munchkin's geophysical maps, and started picking likely locations to drop off the stations at, when I discovered a map layer that included old survey points, when that meant using theodolites that needed a similar sort of line-of-sight as heliographs would, without even needing as tall of a tower as I've got plans-"

She held up a hand, and I let myself get cut off. "Fine. I get it. You've been doing useful stuff. Stuff you think is useful."

"I'd like to think the two are the same."

"But while you've been doing that, White Snake has been telling the council that you kicked her out for no good reason."

"Did she mention the embolism thing?"

"She said you /claimed/ you were in danger, just as an excuse to kick her out."

"Did she mention that when I claimed I was in danger, she didn't even consider holding Bear Joe back for a second, just to find out whether or not it was true?"

"That didn't come up, no."

"Then your council should just drop her in a pool so your spirits can read her memory, and tell them what really happened."

"That's - not how we do things."

"What did you say before - well, one of you Joes - the spirits want you to be able to solve your own problems?"

"... That's close enough an answer that anything more exact would distract us. The point is, she's convinced the council to say that either you let her back in to watch you, or... well, or else. I think you leaving is the easiest 'else'."

"Can I go speak to the council in my own defense?"

"White Snake pointed out that since you're not a member of any of the Nine Nations, you can only talk with them as an outsider, who they don't have to listen to if they don't want. And she convinced them that they don't want to."

"Hm. Tricky. The council - it's a council of all nine nations, but each nation still has its own council for its own affairs, right?"

"That's right. Are you going to ask to be adopted into a nation?"

"I might not need to. Can you arrange a meeting with whatever senior people of one nation are available?"

--

When Joe left to do that, I looked back at the various virtual windows spread around Munchkin's walls. Now that I wasn't hyper-focused on the tasks at hand, I was looking at things from a different perspective. And one thing that struck me was that while I'd designed in a few flagpoles for the stations, I hadn't come up with a unifying symbol for them all yet.

The Canadian flag was the obvious choice - but I ruled it out, since Parliament, the courts, and all the rest of the apparatus of state was gone. Another possibility was the royal flag, but according to the old protocols, that was supposed to be flown on buildings or vehicles I was personally occupying. Not to mention, it was a horribly over-complicated piece of vexillology, containing symbols from European nations I was unlikely to ever get in contact with, let alone ever visit.

In my view, flags needed to be distinctive from a distance, representative of whatever they were representing, and simple enough for a schoolchild to be able to draw a recognizable version of. The old Canadian flag was nearly ideal in all three; the maple leaf was a bit tricky to get to look right, but even badly-rendered versions were recognizable. European tricolors were also good examples, except that I wasn't a republic founded by people who might have to tear their flag into unrecognizable pieces of cloth if their basement meetings were ever stormed. I called up images of a variety of Canadian symbols, official and otherwise, and idly started playing with them.

After a few moments, I took the Canadian coat of arms, and started getting rid of pieces of it. In short order, all I was left with was the triple-stalked maple leaves from the bottom, and the crown from the top. Something niggled at me about that. I replaced the crown with a simpler version, the same red as the leaves; that seemed closer to whatever was on the tip of my brain. After a few tweaks that didn't help, I took a Canadian flag, and replaced the single leaf with the crown and leaves.

"Boomer - I could swear I've seen this before, except I don't recognize it. Does it match anything in your databases?"

"Yes. It is a close match to one of the submitted designs considered for Canada's flag in the nineteen sixties, and was shown as such on a 'Heritage minute' interstitial video in the nineteen nineties-"

"/That's/ it. Was it ever actually used for anything?"

"To my knowledge, it has no official status anywhere."

"Well, it does now. Or some version, at least. Have you got the short in memory, or that flag?"

--

"Thank you for allowing me to take up some of your valuable time."

"No trouble," said the chief, sitting across from me. He continued, "You're the most interesting gossip today. And I'm curious what you wanted to talk about."

"I am curious, too. When I heard the names of the nine nations, I recognized the first six from the Iroquois League of the time I am most familiar with, and the next two as near neighbours of theirs. But the Quebecois didn't fit that pattern."

He nodded gravely. "After the War of the Two Serpents, much was lost, including most government. The Haudenosaunee were one of the only groups to maintain any sort of organization, even if it involved reviving many long disused customs. When living along the St. Lawrence River became untenable, what remained of the provincial government gathered up as many of the survivors as they could, and came upstream. We joined as the Ninth Nation."

I felt my ears perk up happily. "Then your current nation is a continuation of the province?"

"I suppose you could look at it that way."

"I choose to look at it that way."

"You are from la belle province?"

"I've only visited, never resided. However, there are certain details of the old Canadian federal and provincial system which I would like to take advantage of. One is that the position of 'Queen in right of Canada' isn't the only job of Canada's monarch - she is also 'Queen in right of Ontario', and of each and every other province, when dealing with matters related to provincial jurisdiction."

"I begin to see why we are here. What are you planning on offering in return for my acknowledgement?"

"In simple terms: Nothing."

"An interesting offer."

"I offer you nothing that I wouldn't offer anyway, whether you 'acknowledge' me or not. If someone else was Queen Regnant, I would be, at best, Heir Presumptive, until somebody with a better genealogy could be found. With no other Queen, and no other genealogies, I suppose that would make me Queen Presumptive, as a simple matter of fact. Acknowledgement doesn't enter into it."

"I think it rather does."

"Well, maybe it does. If you don't want my help with anything, then I'll do my best to stay out of your way, with or without acknowledgement. If there is something I can do, then let me know, and I'll do my best to help, with or without acknowledgement."

"I will keep that in mind. Is there anything else to discuss?"

"There is one thing. A certain individual has argued that I have no right to speak before the council, as I am not a member of any of the nine nations. However, the Queen of Canada is Canadian - and the same principle naturally applies to the Queen of Quebec. Thus, through a series of technicalities, it appears that je suis Québécois."

"You mean 'je suis québécoise'," he corrected me, pronouncing the final 's' sound I'd left out. "If you mean to take this seriously, you need to speak our language."

"I always knew my cereal box French would fail me one day..."

--

We were, once more, in the council's longhouse, facing that portion of the Grand Council who seemed to have been assigned to deal with my particular case. After the councillors had been going back and forth in one Iroquoian tongue or another for ten minutes, with no sign of involving me personally or even using a language I could understand, I whispered to Clerk-Bun to pass me a pencil and notebook.

Joe Three whispered, "What are you writing?"

Since whispering seemed permissible, I returned, "Ideas on how to get money to fund an inter-city heliograph network."

"What do you need money for?"

"I've already had two miracles, or close enough to them - getting woken up after dying, and finding that robo-factory in good working order. Expecting it to /stay/ in working order would be a third miracle, and I'm not going to rely on that happening."

Joe peered at the page I was open to. "Why write 'lottery' but cross it out?"

"I'm not comfortable taking advantage of people's irrational urges when gambling is involved, and there are other options."

"What's a 'Crown Corporation'?"

"A business owned by the government, technically in the name of the crown, but run separately from the government. Since the fall of civilization, I could argue that all businesses that required licensing by the government have technically reverted to the state, so I can probably resurrect CBC or Bell Canada, or even just the Post Office, as a commercial framework. I've always been fond of the HBC, but it isn't quite suited-"

Joe elbowed me, and I quieted down as I noticed all the councillors staring at us. Most were as stone-faced as usual, though White Snake could have been smirking, and the Quebecois chief had a more amused smile. The latter spoke, "In deference to the fact that the spirits cannot simply gift the subject of this meeting with knowledge of a language, I will speak in the tongue she understand best. After consulting with other members of my nation, we have decided to recognize that she qualifies at least as being a member of the Royal Family."

One of the others asked, "You are accepting her as your Queen?"

He shook his head. "We are still discussing that point. However, she is at least a princess, which makes her Quebecois, by our old laws and traditions, which we were guaranteed to be allowed to continue when we joined the Iroquois League."

White Snake asked, "If she's part of your Nation, then what clan is she?"

"You know very well that she has not had time to learn the kinship system the rest of our Nation transitioned to, nor can the spirits assign her one as they do to the immigrants they absorb into Nations. Right now, she has no clan, or is her own clan."

One of the councilors snorted and said a word. The Quebecois man responded, "You say that as an insult and a joke - but a new 'Rabbit Clan' could work. However, her clan is not relevant today. I say she is of our nation. None of you can say she isn't. She can speak on her own behalf. Bunny, please step forward."

I stood, absently brushed my skirt smooth, and stepped closer to the ceremonial hearth. "Sirs. Ma'am." My sponsor nodded, so I continued. "I don't need to take up much of your time. I have no real objection to your previous decision, that you need to assign someone to watch over me to make sure I avoid making foolish and dangerous decisions. My objection is with the particular person who was assigned: White Snake. I could go into the details of my reasoning if you wish, but they're less important than my conclusion: I do not trust her. Or I trust her to act in ways that are unacceptable. If you wish to choose a different... advisor, one who is not so eager to see me dead, then I would be willing to accept them. If you insist that I must either accept White Snake or be banished, then I will leave. I consider it safer to be outside the Nine Nations, in the company of giant man-eating spiders and snakes and enormous kaiju, than I would be under her authority. Any counter-arguments which do not change my estimation of her willingness to engage in what I consider to be reckless endangerment are not likely to change my beliefs on this matter."

One of the neutral councillors asked, "Are you accusing her of trying to kill you?"

I shook my head. "No, I do not have enough verifiable, objective evidence to convince a jury. I do have enough to convince myself. I could go over the math of probability and levels of belief, but they pretty much add up to what I just said."

"Is that all you wish to say?"

"Well - I could also note my objections that only a member of one of the Nine Nations can file an appeal with the Grand Council. I'm very uncomfortable with the fact that if I hadn't realized my connection with the Quebecois, then you would have refused to listen to my objections, no matter how much merit was in the objections themselves. But that is probably better for another day's discussion."

"Actually," said the Quebecois chief, "it does bring up certain points I would like to address." He reverted back to Iroquoian, and at his brief wave, I sat back down.

Joe's bunny face looked pinched and unhappy, not a good look on a muzzle like hers. She whispered, "You /had/ to go with the Quebeckers?"

"No, but they were my first pick, and it worked out that I didn't have to try any others. Why?"

"You just gave him an excuse to pick up an old argument. We could be here for hours."

"They're not still separatists, threatening to secede again, are they?"

"No - they're, well... the League started with five Nations, each with a role in the Grand Council. Two of them would discuss an idea, then throw it over the fire to the other two, with the Oneida mediating. When the Tuscarora joined, they didn't become part of that - they're represented by their 'big brothers', the Oneida. When the other Nations joined, they each got a 'big brother', too. The Quebeckers want full equality with the first five Nations on the Grand Council, instead of technically being represented there by the Mohawk."

"... Ah. Want me to send Gofer-Bun to get you something to read?"

"No, I really should listen to this, even if it's not the full Council and it seems boring."

"Your call." I picked my notebook back up, and got back to noodling around with economics.

After a few minutes, I paused, blinked, thought harder for a moment, and barely managed to muffle a snort. I still got Joe's attention. "Idea?", she whispered.

"Kind of. I could argue that all major Canadian businesses, including Canadian subsidiaries of foreign conglomerates, have reverted to the government, which has reverted to the crown. And it occurs to me that back in the Munchkin, I have a fabric fabricator that can assemble outfits as fancy as I want. And I spent some time in a special kind of sleep, waiting to be woken up. And I've got a variety of animal companions, some of whom do tasks for me. And I just got confirmed as royal by an actual government."

I paused, and her forehead wrinkled. "I don't see how any of that connects."

"I'm ninety-nine point nine percent sure I'm a Disney Princess."

 

*Chapter Four: A-shore*

White Snake's replacement, Red Deer, had the 'silent and inscrutable' gimmick down pat, not to mention 'constant creepy staring' and 'milk eggs squick' style of questions. (The example which I was introduced by being, "If you cut off your right foot, would you grow a hoof to match the one on your left?") Which was mildly distracting, but I could work with yet another strange person behaving strangely easily enough.

What was really tripping me up was that she had the /exact same/ body that White Snake did. Even dressed the same, including the single feather sticking straight up from the top of her head. If I hadn't seen the two of them together, along with the councillor that Red Deer was a copy of, and compared body language and suchlike, I would have been sure somebody was trying to pull a fast one on me. As it was, I only suspected that was the case.

--

"Hiya, Clara. Mind if I drop off a heliograph and a robot up in the east Vice-President's office, and draw on your power for the latter?"

--

The first packets of my new heliograph network were sent between the southeast corner of the Schmon tower at the university (with at least a couple of walls between the equipment and any unexpected death rays sent from Toronto) and the rooftop of the robo-factory (which wasn't nearly as high up, and had lots of trees blocking the line-of-sight to the north horizon). They were typical network stuff - announcing station IDs (long and short), ramping up speeds to as fast as the bun-bots and the mirrors could handle, estimated physical positions, estimates of azimuths and altitudes to each other's stations, signal strength, how often they planned on pausing to adjust the mirror to keep tracking the sun, whether they had a physical one-time pad for the other station to encrypt messages with, what variations of Morse code they'd accept (classic, upgraded for the Toledo Free Press's 40-letter alphabet, an experimental one I'd started toying with based on the International Phonetic Alphabet to try to encode speech with), and so on.

I'd adapted - well, stolen - the old Morse "Q-Codes" to handle non-message data like that, which generally consisted of three letters starting with 'Q', followed by some numbers. For example, 'QTE 64 QGE 5450 M' meant that the factory was sixty-four degrees clockwise from north from the tower - east-north-east - and five and a half kilometers away. With just two stations, that particular piece of info wasn't of much use, but if-and-when I got more stations on-line, that sort of data would let one station tell another where a third was.

For the first actual message, well, I had certain traditions to uphold. I decided to follow in Edison's footsteps, and the first stations' logs' first message entry reads, "Ring-a-round the rosie, A pocket full of posies, Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down." The second reads the exact same thing, but in the Free Press alphabet.

Almost immediately after that, I was able to see dividends, as Clara had access to information that Boomer didn't: the university library. With a very minimal delay, I could ask my Clerk-Bun a question, whereupon she'd relay that to the bun-bot up in the shelter I'd made for her on the roof, which would be relayed to the bun-bot in the university tower, who read it aloud to Clara. If the answer wasn't in her own stored memories, Clara could send her Johnny-Five-a-like bot through the library stacks, and send the information in reverse all the way back to me. It was a far cry from the responsiveness of Google - but close enough to a real-time conversation that I started feeling like I was making real progress on narrowing down the strange behaviour in the factory's partially broken search interface.

Among other topics.

--

Joe Three had gotten sufficiently used to me that when she saw the new trailers being added to the back of Munchkin, all she asked was, "More secret rooms?"

"Nah," I watched the attachment with a wary eye, since I didn't want the whole thing falling apart while we were going a hundred miles an hour. "The back one's just a cargo container, with a couple of the deployable heliograph stations I've designed packed away. I've got at least a dozen more on order, but it's taking longer to build the slab-and-legs - I'm starting to run up against the limits of the materials the place has got available for making the things, even cannibalizing the junk products that've been waiting around into new feedstock. I might only get a couple more trailers before I have to either do a redesign, or start importing raw materials from outside."

Red Deer said, "And what of the fourth?"

I shrugged. "The robo-factory won't let me order up certain interesting and potentially useful chemicals. It won't even let me order up the raw materials and lab equipment. The closest I've been able to find so far... is a steampunk playset, with pre-electronic labware, that it's willing to stuff into that fourth container. Oh, and a dedicated portable spectrometer, so Boomer doesn't have to act as an ad-hoc tricorder any more. So if we do come across some plant that contains unusual levels of some interesting chemical, like aconite or tobacco or something new, I could set some of the bun-bots to purifying it via mortar and pestle, alembic and retort, pedal-powered centrifuge and hand-pumped bellows in the fume hood... All of which is kind of weird, since I didn't get a quibble about that sixty megawatt fusion plant which has a manual that includes the words 'estimated crater radius' in the troubleshooting section. Of course, I'm a talking pink bunny rabbit Sleeping Beauty sort-of queen, so what do I know from weird these days?"

When I ran down on that spiel, Red Deer looked at me up and down. "Have you been using that 'thinking cap' again?"

"Not yet. I'm only sure about the one setting so far, for flow state, and what we've been working on has needed a lot more interaction to develop than that'd help with."

"'We'?"

"You're part of Team Bunny now - the part that tells me when I need to stop pursuing an idea."

"What part is Joe?"

Joe Three stepped closer to me and demonstrated, and I rolled my eyes and answered, "Apparently the part that hugs me at random moments, whether or not I want to be hugged."

"Who is the one who does not hug you when you do want to be hugged?"

"Er - given that I pretty much don't ever /want/ to be hugged, I'm comfortable with that un-position remaining un-filled. Um, Joe? I kind of need my arms back. And the rest of me."

"What for?"

"I've got a small gadget assembled that I want to test before we head out, in case I need to make any changes."

"Can you test it without your arms?"

"Nnnnot really. And I need to go outside, too."

"Why haven't you told me about it before?"

"It's not /much/ of a gadget. But it'll be nice to have, if it works."

"Are you keeping it a secret?"

"Nah."

"You haven't told me what it is, yet."

"You're still hugging me. The universe can be so unfair, at times."

Joe rolled her eyes a bit, but did let go. I reached into my pocket and pulled out something exactly the size of my long-lost iPhone 4. "Behold - the Blind-switched Amateur Retro-reflective Pocket Heliograph! B.A.R.P.H for short."

"Such a dignified name for something invented by a queen."

"Even queens can have a sense of humour now and then."

"I recognize the word 'heliograph'."

"I'd hope so, after how much I've nattered on about the things."

"Is it something Red Deer or I could use?"

"Don't see why not. I've already got a couple spares fabbed, in case this design actually works well."

"Show."

"We'll need some direct sunlight. Has the flock finished detoxifying the parking lot yet?"

A few minutes later, the three of us, along with my usual trio of bun-bots, were standing outside the factory.

"Right. Usage during day, step one. The back side here is a simple mirror, with a hole in the middle. In the hole is a meshwork, made of some stuff that's retroreflective, meaning when it reflects light, it sends it backwards. To let a heliograph station know where you are and that you want to start messaging, you have to reflect a beam of sunlight onto the station, where the operator can see you. At any distance, that's kind of tricky. That's where the mesh bit comes in. When look through the hole, the mesh reflects some of the light the same direction as the mirror does - and some of the light the opposite way, into your eye. Which means that you see a bright light, kind of a fireball, covering wherever the reflected beam is pointing. Which makes it a /lot/ easier to aim. Just put the middle of the fireball over the heliograph station, and according to the operator's manual Boomer and I wrote and had the bun-bots read, they should be scanning the horizon every so often for just such a light. Want to try?"

Joe nodded, and I handed it over for her to try.

Red Deer asked, "What about at night?"

"Two possible light sources. Moonlight, or an electric light at the station itself - but using the latter needs a slightly different trick, which I can explain better in a few moments."

Joe handed the Barph back. "Right. Now on the top, you can see a button. Push the button, and down go the venetian blinds covering the front, revealing the main surface. Let go, and a spring pushes it back. Quick explanation - if you take three mirrors at right angles to each other, forming a corner, then any light shined on it will bounce back directly back on the path it came from. If you take a cube and cut it in half the right way, then it'll have just such a corner at the deep end, and a hexagon cross-section. This surface is tiled with those hexagons, forming lots of cube-corners, that reflect any light shined on the thing back the way it came. Now, to /use/ the thing, once you've got a heliograph station's attention, they should adjust their mirrors to shine their light on you. Hold the Barph up, and push the button, and that light will shine straight back at them. Push and release the button, and they'll see a blip of light. Keep doing that, and you can signal Morse code to them, sending a message."

"What if they want to send a message to you?"

I shrugged. "Well, obviously, there's only the one beam of light, so only one of you or the station can send a message at a time. But the Barph is lightweight, doesn't require power, is simple enough to be robust, and works anywhere there's a light-of-sight to a heliograph tower. The tower needs someone to keep an eye out for the flat-mirror signal, and to then aim the light-source at it; but as a heliograph requires at least one operator to receive signals even from another station in a fixed location, this is a minimal-to-zero cost. Ah - and we've got a light. I'm going to see if I can send a message to Clara from here." I started pushing the button, sending dots and dashes through the air. "Hm," I thought aloud, "I should probably invest in more heliograph sets per station, so that two-way traffic doesn't need the mirrors to be re-aimed so often. And I'm going to have to check the station's logs on how bright this really is - the strength of the signal probably drops off at something close to the fourth power of distance. It would be nice to have some way to increase the reflecting area, but the corner-cubes are deep enough that any extra reflecting area would basically need a whole new Barph. Hm... there's a thought. Two Barphs should be better than one - and if I look up construction toys at the robo-factory, I can probably find some sort of rail-connector to link up as many Barphs as I want, and keep them all pointed in the same direction. I might even be able to twiddle the blind switching mechanism so they all flap open and closed together, without having to push multiple buttons at the same time... I think I'll spend a bit of time with the thinking cap once we're in, see how fast I can get a Mark Two version designed and fabbed..."

Without being asked, Joe commented to Red Deer, "Yes, she gets like this a lot. Good luck figuring out which parts of whatever she starts going on about need to be reined in..."

--

Red Deer came over and stood over me. "Now what are you doing?"

"There's a railroad just south of the factory - and it seems to be in better shape than most of the roads eaten up by the forest. If the spirits haven't finished converting the local rails to Great Peace forest, then it might be faster to travel along them than dodging every tree in our way. So I'm both looking at Munchkin's maps of rail lines, and trying to convince it that a civilian vehicle is allowed to drive on them these days."

"Are you doing anything else?"

"There's a few ounces of silver in the robo-factory's feedstock. I think I figured out how to get around the built-in anti-counterfeiting routines to have some silver rounds struck with my profile on one side, the crown and leaves on the other, and some appropriate words."

"Anything else?"

"Putting together a few sets of weights and measures, guaranteed to be accurate, in case any cities we come across have drifted to some other system and want easier inter-city trade."

"Anything else?"

"Printing out some manuals on how to build a machine shop from scratch."

"Anything else?"

"Geological maps, showing the best areas, and any nearer areas, for any particular mineral that might be worth extracting from raw ore."

"Anything else?"

"Nope, nothing at all."

"Really?"

"Of course not. Playing cards. Distress flares. Telescopes. A few mechanical parts that should make distilling alcohol and brewing biodiesel more efficient. A manual on double-entry bookkeeping. Thermometers. Solar-powered flashlights. Solar-powered hand calculators. Hazmat suits - primitive ones compared to the ones I've got, but the factory doesn't seem to have specs for the rebreather - and air tanks. Penicillin."

After a moment of silence, she asked, "Anything else?"

"Probably, but I'd have to check my notes."

"Are you planning on burying somebody in piles of junk?"

"No, just getting ready to engage in trade, or to show off what a technologically-advanced and thus powerful person I am, or to promote goodwill, or to have samples to build copies from if this factory transforms into a giant evil robot or otherwise becomes unavailable, or the like."

"That seems unlikely."

"Red Deer - say, can I call you Red?"

"Can I call you Blue?"

"What? Am I molting into a new color?" I pulled out my Barph to examine my facial fur in the signal mirror.

"No. You are still pink."

"Then why 'Blue'?"

"I like blue."

"... I think that could get a little confusing. If you want to use a short name, how about 'Bun'?"

"I do not like buns very much."

"Really? I've always enjoyed cornbread."

"The last time I was reborn, I was the one who had to do the grinding. By hand. It did not seem worth it."

"Ah. Well, the other name I use translates as Woods Singleness - Waldeinsamkeit - so if you want something from that..."

"How about 'Sam'?"

"Hm. Boomer? What's the etymology on the name 'Sam'?"

"From the Hebrew, Shemiel, 'shem' means 'name'."

"I suppose I can live with being named Name, if you really want."

"I'll think about it. Yes."

"Yes to which?"

"'Red'."

"Ah, okay. Red, I can't even tell you why your spirits hadn't already dismantled this place before I got here."

"They have mostly been focusing on expanding their influence to the north, instead of making all places they already control perfect."

"Seems as plausible as anything I've come up with. Still - now that I am here, and they know I'm using the place, and the council or grand council or sub-council or whatever is annoyed enough with what I'm doing to send White Snake and then you to keep an eye on me, I haven't got any guarantees that this place is going to /stay/ in working condition ten minutes from now, let alone days, weeks, or longer. I'm /hoping/ it will, but I'm trying not to /rely/ on that. So before I take the Munchkin out to check on the message drop site, I'm grabbing anything I can think of that I'd wish I'd already had made, if the place does stop working."

"Joe said that Kahled-voolch made an impressive weapon. Are you making more?"

"Kahled-voolch may be impressive, but with how finicky it is, and how many settings have to be tweaked to get a good result on a target, the only military role it might be useful for is sniping. If I were to try convincing this place to make more weapons, I'd be looking into some other design. Given how strong the materials in the Halloween armor Joe One and I wore were, I've got a few ideas in that area."

"Blades and arrows?"

"Airguns and grenade launchers. Anyway - Kahled-voolch should be enough to scare off bandits and make any over-enthusiastic would-be tax collectors think twice; the robo-factory is designed to keep clever people like me from getting around Canadian laws restricting weapons; and I'm reluctant to get into the business of being over-ready to kill even more people than are already dead because of me."

"What if a new Berserker comes?"

"Then I'll put together anything I can to blast it to smithereens."

"But you are not getting ready for that in advance?"

"Other than Kahled-voolch? I suppose not."

"What if I told you to stop, and to make the most powerful, most destructive, most deadly thing you possibly could?"

"I would be surprised at first, since that seems the sort of thing you're here to /keep/ me from making. I'd take the time to listen to your reasoning, and either accept or reject it, knowing the consequences of either choice."

"Are you sure you're insane?"

"Asks the woman who seems more interested in my biology than I am."

"I still don't understand why you're not willing to just eat a few more worthless leaves than you do now, to turn into more valuable milk."

"If you don't know the answer by now, I'm probably not going to be able to explain it to you before we get to Navy Island..."

--

By the time we got to Navy Island, Red was still convinced that I was passing up a valuable opportunity. But she was leaving Bear Joe to nap the hours away, and it was actually less embarrassing a topic than a few of the others she'd come up with, and, well, it passed the time with moderately interesting conversation.

Munchkin had been a champion stream-crosser so far, so I was only slightly nervous when the sled-treads advanced into the Niagara River proper, churning up water as the software adapted to the current. (This was one river-crossing where I'd be perfectly willing to abandon ship if it went out of control - Munchkin was many things, but a proper barrel for daredevil waterfall survival it was not.) Even Bear Joe had roused himself enough to watch. (Or, more likely, to be ready to swim if he had to.)

"There's the downstream point," I pointed to the virtual image on the interior walls. "If Joe, Alphie, or the squiddies have left a message for me, that's where I said they should."

Red glanced sidelong at me. "What is a 'squiddie'?"

"If we're lucky, you'll get to meet one. Okay, it looks like that bit of shore there's big enough for all five cars, and it seemed solid enough when Joe One and I were here before, so I'm setting Munchkin to park there." Even without a steering wheel or any other sort of direct controls, that was easy enough.

"Okay," I thought aloud. "Gofer-Bun, please go back and retrieve the box labeled 'mailbox'." As the lifelike robot headed back, I explained to the others, "Just something to keep any further messages to me nice and safe and dry. I'm throwing in some paper and pencils, too."

Red inquired, "Do you plan on coming back often?"

I shrugged. "Could be. It's effectively terra nullius, I'm arguably a queen, so I can always claim it as a royal demesne. It's kind of out of the way, though, so if I'm going to be interacting more with people, it's not that great a site for a home."

Joe Three said, "I thought you preferred being by yourself."

"That's just what I /want/. What I /need/ is probably completely different. Outside of keeping myself sane, of course. Maybe I'll just set up a heliograph station, and use the building as a cabin to retreat to. Ah, and here's Gofer-Bun. Alright, let me just check if any nerve gas drifted this way with the tricorder..."

Red, "'Tricorder'?"

I flashed a quick grin. "Less of a mouthful than 'multi-frequency laser spectrometer'. Right, we're clean." I opened up the side door, and stepped into the ever-so-light rain, taking a few breaths of the air.

A pair of rather long tentacles slid out of the water, their tips pointing straight at me...

I held out my hands and gently stroked them, careful to face away from the Munchkin's door so the folk inside couldn't see me grin at the noises they'd made.

"Hello, Pinky. Good to see you again."

--

There weren't any messages from Joe waiting, or from Alphie. There was, however, Alphie himself, still wrapped in a waterproof baggie.

His stallion avatar looked distinctly unhappy. "There is much that I do not understand going on in Lake Ontario," he reported. "Squiddies claiming that my explanations are circular, large-scale shifts in behaviour that follow no recognizable pattern, squiddies making investments that benefit no-one. Nearly all the patterns on which I based my initial predictions changed as I attempted to leverage them."

"Did you get my message in time?"

"Yes - all the squiddies seem to accept your claim to Lake Erie. However, few seem willing to take advantage of the investment and egg-laying opportunities available."

"Any particular reasons?"

"The item most commonly cited was the incomprehensibility of certain terms in the charter of rights and freedoms. I have attempted to explain them, but my pedagogical software does not seem up to the task."

"Hm. I've gotten hold of a few new friends and resources since we were last in touch - there's a small robo-fac on the Munchkin. Er, my vehicle back there. Think we can throw together a design for a better translation interface than tying you to a fishing pole?"

"Can you manufacture robotic tentacles?"

I clenched my backside a certain way, and Wagger obediently curled around my waist to peer at Alphie. I said, "I've got enough spare parts to make a few robotic copies of this fellow."

"Did your tail just yawn at me?"

"Like I said - a few new friends."

 

*Chapter Five: A-piece*

A few copies of Wagger for tentacles, a wall-screen replacement for fixing Munchkin to replace Alphie's tiny screen, a couple of cameras, Alphie plugged into the air side of things, and a bunch of wiring and waterproofing later, and we had ourselves a translator. (Red hung around watching, but Joe Three seemed bored, so I asked her to see if she could find the nearest clear, level ground to set up a heliograph relay station. Bear Joe went wandering off, in what Red said was a search for grub. Or grubs.)

"Hello, Pinky. Can you understand me?"

Alphie chose a feminine voice for her, which came reasonably close to what I remembered of Sylvia from 'Wander Over Yonder'. "Yes," Alphie relayed. "New. Small. I understand. Who is waving?"

"I'm Bunny. One of the two people who were pulled into Lake Ontario."

There was a heaving of water, and Pinky's shell rose above water, followed by at least one eye pointing at shore. I waved, and she sank back down again. "You have a new limb. How many will you grow?"

After a few quick introductions and explanations, I settled down for what I hoped would be a better conversation with a squiddie than had been possible before. "Alphie tells me that there are still translation troubles. We have different bodies, different minds, different cultures, and may never fully understand the other - but we can try."

Alphie relayed, "If we cannot, then why try?"

I figured that questions were good - and answers were better. "At least two reasons. One, because maybe we can. And two, trying to get the best result possible can lead to better results than just aiming for results that are just good enough."

Alphie commented in his own voice, "I have developed a database of aphorisms and cultural referents, and am interpreting your statement in culturally relevant terms."

"What terms would those be?"

"Trying to lay a perfect egg."

"Hunh; that's almost directly relevant," I idly put a hand on my own belly.

Alphie changed his voice back to Pinky's, and said, "Improving translations will let me obey your orders better and be a better," Alphie switched to his own voice to finish, "hard-to-translate word, possibly tool, puppet, glove. Implication of you pushing your tentacles inside her and moving her around to your will."

"Hm," I hmed. I tried, "According to the traditions you follow, you feel obliged to obey the orders I give you. According to the traditions I follow, there are certain orders I should give, and orders I should not give. There are reasons for these traditions, and the one I choose to focus on now is that it is hard to get skilled people to want to use their skills for other people. This has many consequences. One is that it is very wasteful to order a glove-tool to die if there is any reasonable way to avoid it, so I am required to try to keep you alive. Even in a purely military conflict, I am required to try to keep those who follow my orders alive, unless there is some objective so important that is really is worth their deaths. So whatever other translation difficulties are going on - I want you to remember that. And to try to stay alive."

"That is obvious."

"Well, good. I didn't want to make an assumption on that. Another consequence is that my people have lots of experience with trying to motivate each other; and that people tend to be willing to work a lot harder, and are able to get a lot more done, when their work benefits themselves. Especially for work that involves a lot of thinking, instead of just being a physical tool-glove-thing."

"Are you offering to renegotiate my terms of service?"

My forehead wrinkled. "I'm not sure. I don't know the consequences of making such an offer."

"Negotiating has no consequences on contract terms until the contract is formally agreed to."

"Alright, then. What do you want?"

"I want to know what you want."

I tried to avoid rolling my eyes, in case Alphie tried to translate that. "In general, knowledge, power, and the ability to nudge the universe into configurations I prefer. More directly - I want to entice squiddies into being willing to perform tasks and provide resources for me. Even more directly - I want one of those underwater domes for my own use. I want to figure out what sort of contract terms I can offer that would maximize the goods and services that flow my way, and am considering using you as an example."

"Maximize in what way?"

"Hm... Alphie, have you found anything about the lifespan of squiddies?"

"They achieve sexual maturity at roughly one year, and appear to vanish from the public record at roughly twenty years. There is vagueness to the reports, but it may simply be a cultural taboo about the infirmities of old age."

"Okay. And ouch. Pinky - it is within reason that I will be alive a hundred years from now. It is possible I may live three times that long, or longer."

Alphie spoke up, "Is that true?"

"Ask Clara about my genetic analysis when you have a chance. Back to Pinky: I would rather have a fifty percent share of the output of a hundred squiddies than one hundred percent of the output of seventy-five."

Alphie reported, "Pinky is suddenly experiencing strong emotions that are outside the range I am confident in my model of."

"What's the ballpark? Angry? Confused?"

"Possibly hopeful, greedy, empathetic." He switched back to her voice. "Those numbers - are you confident in them?"

"Uh - I'm not sure about the seventy-five versus one hundred individuals, but the fifty percent share of output? I once had that figure explained to me as people spending half their money on themselves, and half on whatever benefited their community as well as themselves... with a lot of disagreements over the years on how to decide what to spend the second half on."

Alphie said, "More emotions. She is suddenly being very formal in how she is moving her tentacles."

Pinky said, "Even with your proposed charter being nearly incomprehensible and full of alien ideas, even with you being an alien, even if you hoard nearly all this lake's egg-laying places for your own eggs, if you intend to limit your rake-off to no more than one half, there are many many squiddies who would race to try to sign up to be first to be half-owned by you."

"'Many many'?"

Alphie said, "More than hundreds, less than millions."

"Okay... if that many would sign up, then why hasn't any squiddie done this before?"

"Why work hard to make a new kind of contract and end up with just half, when you can use an existing contract and end up with all?"

"Um... is a new contract really that much effort?"

Alphie said, "She is emoting surprise. Now she is speaking."

"This is not just changing an existing contract from one hundred percent to fifty percent, or paying with a blue-fish instead of a red-fish. All the clauses would have to be rebuilt, and all the other clauses in the contracts that depend on them, and all the clauses in the contracts that this one depends on, and so on."

Alphie added, "The signs she is using are resulting in her literally tying her tentacles into knots, to demonstrate the complexities."

I considered this, and asked, "Does all that work need to be done up front? Don't you have some sort of... library of precedents, that you can build on?"

Alphie reported, "She is emoting disgust. Wait - now she is emoting thoughtfulness."

Pinky asked, "Is that how you build your contracts?"

"I'm not a specialist in the field, but... in a number of cases, yes. Alphie, can you give her a quick definition of 'boilerplate'?"

After a few moments of back-and-forth that Alphie didn't bother relaying, Pinky asked, "What if a boilerplate contains clauses that are irrelevant?"

I shrugged, letting Alphie pass that along however he might. "Then they're most likely ignored, if they're not ruled unenforceable."

Alphie said, "Laughter. She is signing 'unenforceable' with her left tentacles, and 'contract clause' with her right, trying to force them together, and showing that the signs literally do not fit next to each other."

"This seems to be another cultural thing-a-ma-bob... and we may be drifting from the important points."

"Wait. That was not a joke?"

"Nnnnnooo..."

"Why would anyone agree to a contract that is not valid?"

"Um... sometimes different clauses are valid in different jurisdictions?"

"Why would validity change because location changes?"

"Because a different government is doing the enforcing?"

"What is a government?"

"For the purposes of this conversational topic, a major characteristic is that whenever there is a dispute about the terms of a contract, the government is that group or organization which has the final say about which interpretation to use."

Alphie said, "She now appears to be trying to be extremely polite, in the fashion of trying not to make a boss mad at an employee."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to have contracts that are valid?"

I shrugged yet again. "Possibly. Maybe that works well for your species and/or culture. But for humans - and human-like species - some of our most important cultural developments involved figuring out which sorts of contract clauses /shouldn't/ be enforced, the ones that everyone ends up better off without."

"That does not seem very likely."

"Hm. One of them is usually called 'freedom of speech'. In the past, a lot of the time, people forbade other people from saying certain things. Over time, we gradually figured out that in order to be able to come up with useful ideas, people had to be able to talk about them - even if they were ideas that their employers didn't want them to talk about. Ideas like how to negotiate better contracts with those employers, or scientific ideas that didn't match prevailing wisdom. So in the places where technological advance made lots of people rich, and in the places where lots of employees could band together to make better contracts with employers, the idea took hold that a contractual clause that limited what someone could talk about shouldn't be enforced. And, in fact, that anyone who even tried to insert such a clause was trying to make themselves just a little richer by making everyone else poorer, and they were very naughty for trying."

After I made that attempt at an explanation, Alphie didn't relay anything back to me for a very long time indeed, in conversational terms.

Finally, Pinky just said, "You are very strange aliens."

I petted Wagger's increasingly fuzzy form. "Some of us stranger than others."

--

I asked Alphie to start hammering out a squiddie-style contract with Pinky for halfsies of any squiddie who wanted to enter my employ. That wasn't specific enough direction for him, so I said, "I'd like you to try figuring out what you can about as much as you can... and I'm going to see if I can get you in touch with Clara and the library at the university. She should have lots of info on tax policies of the past. There's probably even formulas to figure out how much lower than fifty percent would be ideal, and what the revenues should be spent on when there aren't any more pressing projects."

Which is how I found myself taking an hour or so to unload one of the collapsible heliograph stations from Munchkin's cargo carriage, assembling the pieces, and making copious notes on how to improve any future versions I might get the robofac to make.

Which is why I was standing outside, in the misty rain, when Munchkin started beeping and honking. And was startled when Nurse-Bun abruptly grabbed me around the waist, threw me over her shoulder, and sprinted for straight for where Munchkin had thrown a door open.

Somehow, Nurse-Bun managed to avoid bumping my head on anything - until she, quite literally, threw me into the shower. I'm willing to blame the impact for why I just stood there like an idiot for an embarrassingly long time, with the shower dumping hot water on my head at full blast, and the robots who could fit into the micro-bathroom efficiently stripping me and scrubbing everything that could be scrubbed.

Eventually, I managed to think enough of a thought to ask, "Boomer?"

She reported, "Munchkin's chemical sensors are now detecting toxins. The robots' bodyguard programs were activated to protect you."

"... Joe? Red? Bear? Pinky?"

"Red and Joe have returned, and are washing by the door. I have informed Alphie of Munchkin's emergency signals, and if I were him, I would have told Pinky to go to deep water for a time. I do not know where Bear Joe is."

I tried stepping out of the shower, but my robotic duplicates just took the opportunity to scrub the bottoms of my feet.

"Which toxin?"

"VX nerve gas."

"What concentration?"

"I do not have that information."

"Hrm. Gofer-Bun: Bring me the tricorder." While she was doing that, I called out, "Joe? You up to driving this thing?"

Her voice came back, "No idea how!"

"Right." I turned to face the shower wall. "Munchkin. Display map." My blue-tinted laser-safety glasses had been removed along with everything else on my person save Wagger, so I had to squint at the water-beaded display. "Hum. That's over a square klick to look through to find him..."

Red called back, "You want him to come here?"

"Or us to meet him, yeah."

"I can do that. Open the door?"

"Um. Munchkin, display chemical sensor report." I squinted again and skimmed the results - as best as I could tell, it looked like the toxin was in the rain, not in the air. "Munchkin, super-user, password," and I gave the security code. "Override safety. Open door three. Cancel super-user."

Red whistled three notes. After a few minutes, she whistled them again.

I saw something fly in through the door - when it came near the bathroom, I saw it was another of the green-coloured blue jays the Great Peace seemed to use for messengers.

Joe said, "The spirits say Buffalo is on fire."

I returned, "I don't suppose they decontaminated it yet?"

She just said a simple, "No."

"Hm... are the prevailing winds around here still from the west-south-west?" At her confirmation, I turned back to the wall display, and scaled out the map. "Unless there's been new construction, looks like the only place in danger is Rochester. And none of you know if anyone's actually left /in/ Rochester. It's a hundred kilometers away - even if I had a map of safe zones to fly, that's at least three hours on a paraglider. If there's a decent railway bed, Munchkin might be able to make it in two."

Red peeked her head around my scrubbers. "You plan on going to warn them?"

"... Maybe," I said. Gofer-bot finally returned with the spectrometer. "Could you pass me my glasses back? Thanks." I fired up the gadget. "Okay, lemme out. Uh- Bun-bots, cancel cleaning. ... Bun-bot two, start decontamination of Bun-bot three." Once I had them focused on each other instead of me, I was able to slide by them, and aim the chemical scanner out the door. "There we go. Hm - according to this... the rain's contaminated with about seven micrograms of VX per litre. Lemme see the stats - ah, and a typical lethal dose for a human is around ten milligrams, over a thousand times that much. So it's not exactly healthy, but not /urgently/ lethal."

My audible analysis was interrupted as a wall of fur clambered through the door, pushing me to the side. "Don't shake dry!" I hurriedly called out... but Bear Joe ignored me. I groaned as the entire interior of the carriage, including everyone in it, was covered in droplets. "Well," I said, "I guess it'll give the Bun-bots something to do. Come on girls, I guess I need a re-clean."

A few minutes later, I was dressed in more than my fur again, and suited myself back up in one of the hazmat suits, and went out to collect Alphie... and then jumped into the water.

Pinky quickly rose up to meet us, and with a few quick words, I had Alphie ask her what she knew of Rochester. They went back and forth a few times before Alphie finally relayed, "She knows of the bay on Rochester's east side. From it, she has seen towers like the ones in Buffalo, but there are no boats, no people swimming, and she is unaware of any other signs of civilization."

"So there isn't anyone in particular there /to/ warn?"

"There may be homesteads, farms, or isolated individuals."

"Yeah - but we haven't got satellite pictures to trace the smoke, and even if we could, that's an awfully big area to try to find scattered people. And the rain doesn't seem to be immediately lethal."

Boomer pointed out, "Someone who is already ill could die from exposure to VX that would otherwise be non-lethal."

"Just traveling along the canal, I nearly got eaten by giant spiders. Given the resources we've got, the dangers involved... the sane conclusion seems to be just to let the smoke fall where it may, and get on with our own lives."

"Allowing innocent strangers to die does not seem a very moral thing to do."

"Sending Red, or any of us, to wander through uncounted square klicks of untamed wilderness, calling out to people who may not even exist, calling in every predator in earshot to take a swipe at her, doesn't seem very moral either."

Through my faceplate, I watched Pinky's tentacles drift in the current. I'd almost forgotten how much her species was at home when in proper water, instead of fumbling around reaching into air at the water's edge. "But maybe I can still do some good - even without a heliograph network yet. Pinky, I'd like you to go back to the canal, and carry a message. There is poison falling from the sky, and the squiddies in the area should avoid surface water for a while, until the poison is diluted. Alphie, could you work out the location with her?"

The two of them waggled back and forth at each other. "Oh, and before she goes - if I built an aquarium car for Munchkin, would she be willing to ride in it, to keep up with us a lot easier?"

--

Pinky was, very emphatically, /not/ interested in being cooped up in a twenty-foot-long container, even one that could travel as fast as Munchkin could. So she went on her way, possibly to save a few squiddie lives, perhaps to salve my conscience just a tad from the deliberate decision to leave anyone in the area to sicken from exposure to dilute nerve gas, and, possibly, die.

Silently, I swam to the surface, and back to Munchkin. I let the bun-bots clean the outside of the suit, and Alphie and the translation gear, and finally took a seat, staring out the virtual side window, thinking. Or trying to.

Joe pulled out a chair next to me, and sat in it. "Are you coming up with a plan?"

"Apparently not. I've only got so much fuel for the paragliders, and haven't set up a still or refinery in the lab to start making more yet. The bun-bots are close to helpless in any situation outside their current program. As far as I know, your spirits /could/ spread their pools and such into the area, like they're doing near Technoville, but even if they could be persuaded, saving lives by having them involuntarily adopted into your system is... problematic. By my standards, if not yours. I don't trust the thinking cap's settings for 'creative inspiration' yet."

"Are you sure this is a problem you need to solve?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm already dealing with nightmares from Buffalo, which I can at least try to convince myself I had no way to see coming. Now I get to add people who, maybe, I /could/ save, if I tried, or came up with a good plan to help, or /something/."

"So what are you going to do?"

"For one thing, resist the temptation to start making caffeine. Whatever sleep I do manage to get, I'm going to need every last minute."

"That sounds more like what you're not going to do."

I grimaced. "I'm going to spend at least five minutes, by the clock, and try to think of any ways I haven't thought of to minimize the expected number of deaths - including the expected number of deaths from implementing the plan. If I can't come up with anything... spend at least five minutes, by the clock, and try to focus on an entirely different problem, and after I'm done, check to see if I thought of anything."

Five minutes later, I turned my attention to siting heliograph stations. From one spot of flat ground to another, the tips of two station masts could see each other when they were twenty-four miles apart, or thirty-eight kilometers. On the other hand, if there were any hills in the wrong spots, that distance could be cut drastically. On the gripping hand, if there were any hills in the /right/ spots, that could be improved. Munchkin had a fairly decent set of topographical maps and three-dimensional tools, so I started putting virtual heliographs on the hills and ridges just to the south of Lake Erie, the far side of the ground that had been scooped away by glaciers millennia ago. By the time the second five minutes were up, I'd come up with a path that started at Navy Island, hopped a whole fifty kilometers, then forty-seven, then a whopping sixty-two to arrive at the city of Erie, where I'd flown to the one time to deliver a warning.

Which was all well and good, saving at least a couple of stations from my initial estimates, but when I turned my attention back to Buffalo - still nada.

I muffled a groan and rubbed my muzzle. "This isn't working," I announced.

Joe commented, "/I/ knew that."

"Yeah, well, yo mamma."

"What about her?"

"Insert generic insult here. I can't think of any /good/ ideas. The /least bad/ idea I've got is to finish the heliograph station here, maybe come up with some way for the squiddies to talk with the bun-bot I'll leave running the place, and then make our way past Buffalo. Munchkin's got pretty good cooling systems, so we could probably drive right through the place, as long as we kept buttoned up... but I can't think of anything I want from there."

Joe asked, "Books? Maps?"

"If any are left, they're burnt up."

Red said, "Was there anything there that isn't anywhere else?"

"Mm... the only thing I know of is the explosive goats. But they're almost certainly all dead, I don't know where they were kept, and I don't know what I'd do with any genetic samples even if I could get some."

Red tilted her head. "I haven't heard of... exploding goats before-"

"Explosive, not exploding."

"-But would you rather have your samples and not need them or need them and not have them?"

"If having them involves doing something stupid, risking life or limb - I'd rather do without."

"What if there's a way to get them without that risk?"

I shrugged. "Possible. Maybe they were kept on farms on the outskirts, and aren't near whatever part of the city's burning. Why are you so focused on them?"

"It is you I am focused on."

"Ah. A distraction."

"You seem to need one. Or many."

"Eh, I can't argue with you there. Not sure I /agree/ with you, but I can't argue. If we really are going to hit a side-quest to collect explosive goat DNA for - I don't know, cloning? Analysis to insert into some other species? - then we need to at least finish setting up the local heliograph, so I can confab with Clara about what gear we'd need, and if we can get it from Internet."

--

Fetch-quest didn't actually take long. We just drove in big circle around Buffalo; jabbed some needles into any goats we found, dead or alive; and stored the samples in the chemical fridge.

During the first bit of that trip, I leaned back against a freshly-scrubbed Bear Joe... and fell asleep until Munchkin dinged that we'd hit our first waypoint. If I had any dreams, I didn't remember them, and none of the people who could talk noticed me twitching or the like. After that, Bear Joe became, well, not exactly my teddy bear, but more like my bedmate. Well, more like my bed, really. If enduring the body-heat and gamey scent of a wild animal, created specifically to sit on me if I did something naughty, was what it took to let me sleep, then I was more than happy.

That didn't stop me from setting Internet to make a few desktop fans to improve things even further, of course.

--

Railway beds were the perfect tracks for Munchkin. They'd survived better than roads, were nice and level, and Munchkin's sled-legs were quite capable of hauling us over any trees that had fallen into our path (though with a certain rattling of the glassware).

When we'd left the robo-factory, I'd only brought along two of the collapsible stations. One went to Navy Island, the second to an anonymous bit of woodland south of Buffalo. Then, for lack of a better plan, I simply turned Munchkin around. We stayed on the rails almost all the way to the burning city, then ploughed across the river to Fort Erie, and got back on the railbeds on the Canadian side.

Somewhat at loose ends during the traveling, I started puttering around in the lab. Consulting a bit with Boomer, and when we were in a good spot, Clara, I eventually picked a hobby: crystal growing. More specifically, trying to grow single-crystal whiskers of selenium. From what I was able to pick up from the AIs, they'd be useful feedstock for Internet or the robo-factory, allowing them to set down a color-changing layer like the one in the Halloween armor plates. I might even eventually be able to repair the divot in the one plate where I'd been shot.

We made it back to the university, where I fed our samples of goat into the genetic analyzer. This took some time, and was rather boring, so Clara invited Joe Three and Red on a tour. Which meant that I was all by myself when Clara told me, "Reconstruction is now sufficiently complete. I have the genetic markers, proteome, and related data describing how the mammary glands produce nitro-amine salts of assorted fatty acids instead of nutritive fats."

"Yay us," I said, without much enthusiasm. "'Nitro-amine' and 'fatty acids', hm? Any particular name for that?"

"There is a specific name for each individual chemical, but I am unaware of any name for the particular combination."

I heaved a sigh. "Well, N.A.F.A. works as good as anything. 'Naffa''s even pronounceable."

I fell silent, and after an uncomfortable pause, Clara continued, "There are no anatomical differences between these goats and ordinary ones, only a new set of enzymes expressed in mammary tissue."

"Uh-huh."

"You do not seem to be enthused about this discovery."

I shrugged at her camera. "What can I say? Knowledge is always nice to have, but this was mostly just an experiment in running experiments. I suppose if we passed this info along to the Great Peace, they could make animals using the technique - but they're not idiots, and they've probably got their own tricks for doing that. In fact, for all we know, they're the ones who made the first explosive goats in the first place. We didn't need to come up with any new tools or techniques to figure this out, and since I don't expect to be performing in vitro fertilization on goats in the future, it's mostly been an exercise in... passing time, not doing anything useful."

"In-vitro fertilization is not necessary. Placing the appropriate genes into a retrovirus would allow the transformation of living goats' mammary glands to produce the explosive. The trait would not be passed to their offspring, but if you desire goat-curd explosives, that is entirely possible."

"... You've got the equipment to build arbitrary DNA strands. And viruses to deliver them."

"Of course."

"Is there such a thing as a /cure/ for the retrovirus you're describing?"

"In a sense. Another retrovirus could be designed to re-insert the standard mammalian genetic coding for milk production, replacing the altered version."

"You say 'mammalian'. How species-specific is... all this?"

"The metabolic pathways are relatively simple. Given the available genetic library, it may be possible to adjust them for any mammalian species."

"Alright. Right. I just want to be absolutely clear on this. If I were to actually follow up on this project idea, then I would be able to inject close to any female mammal, and have them start lactating explosive material. And another injection would return them to normal."

"For a number of species, lactation can also be induced in the males, as well."

"Right. I suppose that's one way to get around the robo-factory's programmed limits producing on dangerous materials. Is there any particular reason you're even making the suggestion?"

"Students use dangerous chemicals all the time. The project would be an excellent way to familiarize yourself with advances in biochemistry since your original death."

"Do I need to point out that I'm a mammal myself?"

"Do you wish to produce explosives yourself?"

"/No!/ If something goes wrong and a goat blows up, well, there are lots of goats. Carrying around weird explosives inside my own torso... Very much no. ... It just seemed worth mentioning that my life has ratcheted one step higher on the weirdness scale, that I /could/ do that if I chose to."

"You are uninterested in the project?"

"... How long could the retroviruses be stored for?"

 

*Chapter Six: A-gain*

By the time those items had replaced the goat samples in Munchkin's lab fridge, Joe One still hadn't shown up; so a visit to Erie to see if he'd gotten hung up seemed to be in order. So we hit the robo-fac, collected a second cargo container, three heliograph stations, and a couple of bun-bots to replace the ones now standing watch, and headed southwards once more.

I'd shuffled Munchkin's carriages around a bit. For this trip, the back two were cargo containers, cram-packed full of a couple of heliograph stations each, with pretty much no room for any live people until they were unloaded. Just in front of them was the generator; I wanted anyone who was aware of the thing to treat it as if it /were/ completely solid and inaccessible. Back in the days of the first railroads, plenty of people were killed by accidental blasts of steam, and the working fluids and gases involved in fusion were just a wee mite more dangerous. Next in line was my Chamber of Secrets (including Internet, bun-bot charging stations, and adult entertainment distraction site); then the new lab, still full of steampunk aesthetics but with a couple of pieces of actually-useful gear; and finally, in front, the Winnebago living section.

I set all the exteriors to a simple blue-and-white scheme, reminiscent of skies and clouds, and about as far from the robo-factory's eye-wateringly complicated decor as I could manage. I threw some identification numbers on each carriage and sled (most of which actually had some meaning), plus a discreet crown-and-leaves symbol; and on the back of the last cargo container, used an antenna as a flagpole for an actual crown-and-leaves flag, in much the way that ships flew the flags of their home ports.

We stopped off at Navy Island to drop off a note to any squiddies who came by, letting them know where I was planning on going. Then it was across the river, along some of the railbeds on the American side, around Buffalo again, back to the lakeshore, and setting up the next heliograph on a slope to the south of Fredonia.

Another ten kilometers brought us to a place I realized I'd been avoiding thinking about, but now had to decide whether or not to make a detour: the point of the shoreline closest to where I'd been introduced to Wagger. I brought Munchkin to a halt, and brought one of my passengers back into the lab, away from the others for at least the pretense of a private conversation.

"Alright, Red, time for you to earn your keep."

"You have a bad plan you need to be stopped from?"

"Maybe. I have knowledge and power and a good reason to go hurt bad people. What I don't have... is a good idea about whether even trying would make the world a better place - or me a better or worse force for improving the world."

"That sounds like bullshit."

"Maybe it is. That's part of the issue. Ten klicks south of here? There's a bunch of people who're willing to kidnap random strangers and feed them to animals. No warning, no explanations, not even a 'keep out' sign."

"I take it they got a hold of you?"

"They're where I picked up Wagger."

"Much becomes clear."

"Yeah, well. I've got my goals and plans. I've got the heliograph stations to plant, and it would be easy enough to just keep on driving, and ignore this area. Maybe post warnings for other folk."

"You say 'easy' like it's a bad thing."

"When we found out Buffalo was on fire, the 'easy' thing was to let any random people in the path of the smoke risk dying. The odds of one of us dying before we saved even a single life - I may /know/ that the right thing to do is to 'shut up and multiply' and work out the odds, but that doesn't mean I like the answers I get."

"If you don't like it, when why do it?"

"Because not doing it results in consequences I like even less. Here," I waved through the pseudo-invisible wall at the trees to the south, "there's another set of choices, all bad. On one side, we can do nothing, and the locals will capture and kill other wanderers who go by - and that'll be on my conscience. On the other side, I can load up the crossbows, get Kahled-voolch prepped, and try killing everyone in the village, and burn the place to the ground. And /that/ will be on my conscience. And in the middle, we can try coming up with some other solution, risk having it blow up in our faces, potentially killing us and/or lots of other people - say, if I'm captured and tortured into giving them control over Munchkin - and /that/ will be on my conscience. For however long I stay alive to have one."

"What about shutting up and multiplying?"

"It works better when you can come up with reasonably reliable numbers to multiply with. Or at least have enough of an idea about what's going on to at least make an order-of-magnitude guess. Here - I don't know how many random people wander by to get captured, I don't know how many people live in the village, and so on."

"The way I've seen you do things, shouldn't you go looking for better numbers?"

"Mm. Probably."

"Then why are we still here?"

"I looked at the extrapolations Clara did based on Wagger's DNA. What happens to people who get a snake-oid inside them. Even if they can keep themselves alive - it's not very pretty."

"So skip killing people, and go kill snake-oids."

"If even one person there's infected, or an animal like a deer, they'll be... dropping new snake-oids and replacing them."

"So kill everything."

"I thought you were supposed to /stop/ me from doing stupid ideas."

"What's so stupid about it?"

"/I'm not a soldier!/ Alright? I've been running and fighting and scheming and kicking and managing to stay alive by the skin of my teeth so far. But coldly and deliberately planning to kill people wholesale? Even to save other lives? I'm close to tossing my cookies just imagining what it would take to even /try/."

"Could you toss them and then do it anyway?"

"... Maybe. Of course, if you think I've been having psychological problems so far, I'm pretty sure I'd go /really/ nuts after that."

"I have been listening to you, and there is something I have not heard you even suggest."

"I'm all ears."

"Asking for help."

"What do you think I'm doing right now?"

"Not for the thinking. For the doing. ... Maybe for the thinking, too."

"I think I spent a grand total of thirty seconds on the ground in Erie. I haven't got a clue if anyone there would even want to make the trip here."

"Not them. Us."

"Which us? Bear Joe?"

"The Nine Nations. We /are/ soldiers. Or warriors, at least. If killing needs to be done, you do not have to be the one to do it."

"That may keep my nightmares from getting much worse - but it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

"It may mean you can try figuring that out without being distracted by cookie tossing."

--

I helped Red Deer send a heliograph message to Clara, about where we were and what we'd just been talking about, for the university's AI to pass along to the people of the Great Peace in case something happened to us.

And then I turned Munchkin south.

--

My trips to and from the village hadn't been under the most controlled of circumstances, so I ended up sending us down a couple of wrong turns before I got us to the right area.

"Alright, people, refreshing our goals."

"Your goals," Joe and Red chorused. Bear Joe just grunted.

"Quibble later, strengthen memory now. In the long-term: save all the people. In the medium-term: Get stuff to save people. In the short term: Primary goal: Bug out of here intact. Especially me, since I'm the only one of our merry little band who can't reincarnate. Secondary goal: Bug out with more info than we came in with. Hopefully enough so we can figure out how to do the medium-term goal.

"I know that the locals have firearms. I'm... /reasonably/ sure that Munchkin is proof against regular guns. If it's not, if we get any holes in the hull - everyone get to the floor, and I'll turn us right around. Said firearms mean none of us step outside if we can avoid it - and are why I'm not just pulling out a paraglider to fly over the place.

"My first time here, nobody seemed to speak any language I know, and vice versa. If the AIs and I can figure out how to talk to squiddies, we should be able to translate a regular human language. /If/ said humans are willing to try to figure that out.

"Which sums up the basic plan if everything goes /right/. If things go wrong - keep our goals in mind. Stay alive, keep everyone who's in here alive. We have blades, crossbows, pistol crossbows, non-cross bows, a death ray with only a mild chance of exploding during regular use, and a bear. Our AIs are civilian models, and our bear can't talk, which leaves one significant question unanswered. If things hit the fan, which of us should be in charge of keeping an eye on the overall situation and shouting emergency orders about how to keep us all from dying?"

Joe said, "You're the queen, aren't you? Doesn't that mean you're in charge of everything?"

I snorted lightly. "As a queen, I might have the authority to declare war or peace. That doesn't mean I've got any clue about how to direct things in combat. Head-of-state ranks higher than a general - what I'm asking for is who's best qualified to be a sergeant?"

Red immediately hooked a finger at Joe. "She is."

Joe's ears rose in surprise, and she responded with a simple, "What?"

Red explained, "I'm as much a warrior as any Seneca, whether I'm a man or a woman. But I've spent most of my years in politics, not the thick of things. Joe's spent more time as part of a war-band in the last year than I have since the first time I was born."

Joe spluttered slightly, "But - I can't give /you/ orders! You're council!"

Red stared at Joe sternly. "You'll give me orders if I /tell/ you to give me orders, girl. The lady talks too much when she talks-"

"Do not," I threw in with mock-petulance.

"-but she's got a point buried in all those words. If things come to actual fighting, we'll need a war chief. You're it."

"But - war chiefs are /men/. I've been a woman long enough that I'm /really/ a woman now, and the nearest pool is on the other side of Buffalo."

Red crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Is it really /that/ much of a difference for you?"

"Well... I /bounce/."

"So does everyone else in the room." Red glanced at me, up and down. "Well, in theory." She turned back to Joe and seemed to soften. Slightly. "We're not promoting you over a hundred men, or giving you the job permanently - just setting things up to keep us from running around like decapitated birds, if things get hectic."

Joe put up a few more protests, but they were obviously pro-forma even to me. With that settled, I nudged Munchkin back into forward motion.

--

Entering a snake-cult village felt a lot different when I had a nuclear-powered road-train at my back, instead of a musket. (Or shotgun. Or whatever it had been.)

It also looked different - not a single person was in sight, nor could I hear any voices, chanting or otherwise.

What I did hear, as soon as we slowly passed between the outermost pair of houses, was a sound like 'wheat'. Then a couple more. Then a crack as something impacted Munchkin's surface - something moving so fast that cameras feeding the interior display panels didn't catch it.

As we were shot at, I quickly asked, "Any holes, anywhere?" Joe and Red muttered negatives, and the bun-bots in the carriage just continued inspecting for damage.

"Alright, looks like we're safe enough, unless they've got something bigger. Anyone see where that's coming from?"

Joe said, "Lots of buildings. Lots of trees. Lots of places to hide."

"I can call up zoomed pictures of anywhere you point to."

"A smart shooter would hide after they shot and shoot from somewhere else."

"Alright. Unless someone's got a better idea, I'm going to park us in front of the church, and try talking. If we're lucky, they'll get the idea that shooting at us isn't going to accomplish much good."

We weren't lucky. I fired up the external loudspeakers (but only kept the riot-mode electrified exterior on standby), once again running through greetings in all the languages I knew - and then the Iroquoian dialects Joe and Red knew, and then Boomer took her turn (with her internal database including the top hundred most commonly-spoken languages, circa twenty fifty, and their most common greetings).

Once Boomer ran out of steam, I turned off the speakers and idly chewed on my bottom lip. "They're certainly not making it easy. I suppose if they won't talk - then we might as well grab whatever info will be useful tactically. I found a setting for Munchkin, an auto-map mode, which I expect would be handy for anyone planning to come here for violence. Any other ideas?"

Joe said, "Yes. Be quiet."

She was staring at the church, ears raised and focused. Obediently, I quieted down. After a few moments, she shook her head. "I can hear /something/ there, but it's muffled."

I pointed out, "The microphones and speakers were designed for human hearing. What they relay isn't what ears like ours hear through open air."

"Then open a door."

"... How about a roof hatch, instead? And can I interest you in a helmet?"

After a bit of shuffling around, Joe lifted her ears out of Munchkin's confines, out of sight from anyone on ground-level. After thirty seconds, she lowered them again, and sealed the hatch back up.

"There is a voice in the building. Maybe underneath it," she reported. "They are swearing. A lot."

"How can you tell?"

"They are swearing in English. ... Mostly English."

Red guessed, "A captive?"

I contributed, "What I did hear from the locals, wasn't English. So seems likely."

Joe said, "You said we are here for information, not to save people."

"True," I agreed. "But someone who's spent any time here, and can tell us what they've seen? Could be a good source of info."

"Do you want to rescue them?"

I froze. "I think... I need to leave that decision to the sergeant."

Joe pointed out, "We are still being shot at."

I shrugged. "So we try coming up with a plan. If we get at least one that you approve of, we'll try it. If not... we won't."

Red looked at me with a complicated expression that I had trouble interpreting. "If we can't save them, should we kill them instead?"

My guts twisted. "If it comes to that - I want to at least try talking with them, before making that decision for them."

We tossed ideas back and forth faster than the bullets still impacting us for a few minutes, checked our inventory and what we could get from Internet in a hurry. I fired up Munchkin again, shifting us around a bit, so Joe could try pointing her ears at the voice from different directions. The third time she opened a roof hatch - the third hatch she opened - something whanged off her helmet before she could get her ears up, so we stopped that.

I grumbled a bit, "Munchkin's radar, lidar, and cameras are good for mapping, but crap at seeing through walls. The only sonar we have is a medical sensor, which isn't much good for anything else. Next time I'm at the factory, I need to see if I can build some sort of sonic probe."

Joe reported, "I don't think they're under ground. Just near the back."

I mused, "I could shift Munchkin's carriages into a circle - or a semicircle. I could split the carriages up - each one's got enough battery power to run for forty-five minutes at full speed. Maybe one or more carriages to block the front, and one or more go around back to check for back doors or other surprises?"

Joe looked at me. "Didn't you see any when you were back there before?"

"Kind of busy trying not to get sacrificed."

Red looked around the room, then at the building. "Could Munchkin just - push through the wall?"

"Um... maybe? Munchkin's programmed to avoid doing that sort of thing - and there's the risk of the building coming down on us - and the risk of damage to Munchkin itself."

"The back carriage is half empty, after we unloaded the station. If it is damaged, little is lost."

"And sending it means the rest of us could probably avoid whiplash. Okay, lemme call up Munchkin's manuals and see what I can do..." After a few moments of searching and skimming, I found something relevant. "This might work. Emergency search-and-rescue mode. Even got some associated programs to model exactly this sort of situation. Do you see any brickwork on that church, or just wood? Okay, wood - probably supported by framework instead of the walls themselves. Any sign of a basement? Alright, autofill the numbers of Munchkin's cargo carriage, and to punch through a wall, it needs to travel at... 20 klicks an hour. Program says building's got an over ninety-nine percent chance of staying up, won't catch fire, and the carriage itself will probably lose some surfacing and might get dented, but not suffer any serious structural damage. Hunh. Okay, Joe - there's a plan to riff on - avoid the shots by just pushing right into the building, find the kidnapee, pull them out, and we skedaddle."

Joe's ears were flat. "If it was that easy, why have they not already escaped?"

"Guns? Rope? Handcuffs? Locked cage? We've got knives, I think I've got some boltcutters in the toolbox, and if it's something harder, I can set Kahled-voolch to low power." At Joe's look, I amended, "Alright, /very/ low power."

"I thought only you could use it."

"I figured that was a bad idea. It'll recognize a bun-bot's handprint."

"And were you planning on keeping that a secret?"

"Yep. Now, my sergeant, what else do we need to figure out to make this plan viable?"

We fired a few suggestions back and forth, none of which were very significant - rendezvous points if things went wonky, that sort of thing. By the time we broke apart to each get ready for our parts, I'd almost gotten used to the sound of random bullet impacts. Joe grumbled about the fit of the armor, I worked on convincing Munchkin that the standard rules of the road should be ignored, and Red kept an eye out in case the locals decided to send something more dangerous than bits of lead our way.

Before too long, I'd detached the rear carriage and shifted it to the front, so Joe could simply walk straight in without stepping outside.

"Well, Joe - it's your neck on the line. You could send Red instead. Or we could back off, and I could try getting some armor for Bear Joe from Internet. Or you can just say no-go, and we abort the whole thing. It's your call."

"If we leave - will the prisoner still be alive when we get back?"

"They tossed me to the snakes pretty quickly when they had me. Then again, maybe they've got something against non-humans." I shrugged. "No way of knowing."

"And you can live with that?"

I took a breath, let it out. "Right now, I figure I've saved two or three lives, and may have killed a hundred thousand. Another life on the one side would be great, but another on the other hardly seems to make a difference at all."

"It makes a difference to them."

"Which is why I haven't driven us off already."

"I know /I/ didn't do anything to a whole city. So putting someone on 'the other side' makes a big difference to /me/."

"Like I said - your call."

She stared at me a moment, then shifted the shield, and stepped into the other carriage.

I stated, "Once we're split up - say the word 'in' three times to run the crash-entry program. I suggest you lie on the floor, and not against the wall. Say the word 'out' three times to run the exit program. I suggest you be inside when you do that, along with anything you don't want to leave behind."

She pressed the control to close the door. I gave Munchkin its marching orders, five carriages circling around one to protect it from local observation and plinking.

The lone carriage suddenly accelerated, and the church's front door disappeared into splinters, along with the doorframe, and about half of the wall. A tad worried, I called up Munchkin's crash-prediction program, and hurriedly tried to feed in the new data.

Before I could get any sensical output, the carriage had already come back out, so I slapped the big red virtual button to run the sequence to link Munchkin back up and start us heading out of town.

As soon as the carriages were connected, I opened up the intercom. "Everybody okay in there?"

An unfamiliar, high-pitched female voice answered. Rephrasing her actual wording for any listeners of delicate constitution, she said something along the lines of, "Of course I'm not bleeping okay! I've been stuck in that bleeping filthy barn for I don't bleeping know how long!"

I tried again. "Joe?"

"She was tied up. Cutting her free was easy."

"Alright," I nodded. "Ma'am?"

"You mean me?" said the new voice. "Don't 'ma'am' me - call me Toffee."

"Very well. Toffee - I need to know one thing straight away. Did the people who captured you attach any snakes or snake-like things to you, or feed them to you, or otherwise bring you into contact with them?"

"Nah, nuthin' like that."

"Oh, good."

"They just started taking 'em away when I started bleeping them out. Weirdest bleeping thing."

"Aw, crap."

"That's what I just said."

--

I rubbed my muzzle. "Joe, /don't take off the bodysuit/. And don't lie down. Toffee - I'm afraid that we're going to have to quarantine you for a bit."

"Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, sister."

"Joe - is there any chance that there might be a snake-oid hidden somewhere about her person?"

"No. No, there is not."

"... She's naked, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is."

"Right. Joe, I'm setting up an airlock so you and Gun-Bun can exit without risking any snake-oids getting loose in here. Miss Toffee-"

"Just Toffee."

"Very well. Toffee, I'm collecting some blankets and brownies to start making you more comfortable in there. If you don't mind your picture being taken, I can use that as a guide to adjust some clothes to fit."

"Picture? As in a bleeping photograph?"

"That's right."

"Cool. Haven't had one before. Brownies - you mean food, right?"

"That's right."

"More cool. The bleeping bleepers haven't been bleeping feeding me bleep."

"... When's the last time you ate?"

"I dunno. Bleep. Two or three days ago?"

"Crap."

"Why's that important?"

"We ran a genetic analysis on a snake-oid, and it's life-cycle-"

"You /what/?"

"Do you know what genes are?"

"Mostly. Kinda. Okay, not bleeping really. But I know that there's tech, and then there's /tech/."

"Okay - we can talk tech later, but there's an important health issue that you should probably be aware of. When a snake-oid infects someone, it starts making snake-oids. If that someone eats lots of food, then the snake-oid will use that. If not - it'll, um, 'eat' the someone, instead. You really, really, don't want the latter."

"So I've gotta stuff my face to bleeping stay alive?"

"That's the best short-term treatment we've got so far, yes."

"You've got tech - can you, I dunno, yank this bleeper out of me?"

"Mm... probably. But if they were deliberately starving you, and you've been, uh, emitting new snake-oids... then the one attached inside you has probably started turning your insides into snake-oid stuff."

"What's the bleeping upshot, doc?"

"I don't know if the scans we can run can identify what parts of your guts are still human, and what parts would need to be removed."

"If you've got tech - can't you just take all the bleep out and put fresh new bleep in?"

"There's tech, then there's /tech/, and then there's /real/ tech."

"I getcha. So what'll fixing my guts cost?"

"That's not really the issue."

"I've got the ear of the big boss in Erie - even defended him in bleeping court a few times. I can't promise /anything/, but he's fond enough of me that he'll pay a good chunk of silver for keeping my bleep in one piece."

"Toffee - I really, honestly, don't know if we /can/ simply give you some artificial organs. The medical tech we've got... it's more for keeping someone alive long enough to try and find real treatment, which may not be available. I'm certainly going to look into that, but it might not be an option."

"So what's the bleeping upshot? Am I gonna be bleeping snake things for the rest of my life?"

"Maybe. If it comes down to it - there are some radical options that might kill off the snake-oid without quite killing you, but with serious side-effects."

"You mean going bleeping Changed, don't you?"

"That's one."

"Can't say that I like the idea of having backwards bleeping knees like you, but it's better than... what, turning into a giant snake?"

"Those aren't knees, they're ankles, and - I don't think that's /quite/ what would happen, but I'd have to consult with our expert on that. It'll be a little bit before we're out of communications shadow."

"Bleep. You've got radios?"

"Not - exactly."

"Bleeping bleep."

"You do have other options. We have the tech to freeze your body, and preserve it to be repaired and brought back to life later... though we currently don't have the tech for the revival, so that would be something of a gamble. I'm getting a few glares from someone here called Red Deer, so I'm guessing she wants me to remind you that I'm in touch with the people who live on the north side of the lake, and if you wanted, you could join that culture - though that has the downside of putting your body and mind under the control of what they call the 'spirits', who may decide to turn you into a man, or a bear, or two copies of yourself at once, or whatever else they want."

Toffee's response was a long series of what I'm replacing with the word 'bleep', with the occasional suffix, prefix, or seemingly random extra word thrown in. Eventually, she wound down, and said, "I'm a lawyer, but you can hire other ones that are /almost/ as good as me. So what's in all this for /you/?"

"I have my own people - and things that are close enough to people - to protect. I'm considering wiping out the snake-oids, and gathering information on what it would take. We weren't expecting to find you - but would appreciate all the information you can give us on that place, the people there, and so on."

"And that's it?"

"Well - if there's any other information you'd like to share, I certainly wouldn't say no."

"What if I don't wanna help?"

"At the moment, the more information on the snake-oids we have, the more likely we can figure out a treatment plan that doesn't have you keep dropping new snake-oids. As soon as you're not a danger to others, you'll be free to go, or to stay, or negotiate for something else, or whatever you feel like."

"Hunh. I notice you haven't been introducing yourself. Just how high up with that new Bunny Queen are you?"

"I didn't realize you already knew of me."

"... Bleeping bleep. You fly into town, drop a bleeping bomb about a city wiped out, and think everyone will forget you?"

"That's not quite what I meant. We're a good way from Erie - I wouldn't have thought you'd have gotten from there to the village so soon after I visited."

"I wasn't /going/ to the bleeping village, I was /going/ to Buffalo."

"I hope you at least had air tanks and hazardous-material suits, like I warned you about."

"Yeah, yeah, we bleeping had air tanks in the wagon. What's this about suits?"

"... To keep the nerve gas on the ground from touching your skin."

"Bleep!"

"You said 'we' had air tanks."

"Yeah, and the rest of the, uh, expedition, probably kept going after I was snatched. I know I would've."

"No suits at all?"

"You said air tanks, we brought air tanks. That's bleeping it."

"Right. I'm going to crank up our speed some - things might get bumpy. Let's get you some snake-prison pants or something, so you can come in here and show me what route you were planning on taking - maybe we can catch them in time."

"Not that I don't appreciate it if you can, but why are you bothering?"

"If you have to ask the question, then I suspect the answer you're most likely to understand is... that I could really use people who have the skills and equipment to investigate dangerous ruins, whether they're doing it to grab hold of whatever they can, or perform scientific analysis, or scout for military advantage."

"Ah - so you're hoping we'll all be grateful after you help us out?"

"If that works, yep. I'm not going to depend on gratitude, though. For a lot of people, offering fair value in exchange for services rendered tends to provide much more consistent positive results. The hard part is figuring out what I can offer that they might want."

"Lady, you're a woman after my own bleeping heart."

--

After a bit of back and forth, Toffee was outfitted with some safety pants to avoid any accidents. To my surprise, she was even shorter than I was, with freckled skin and red hair; a bit wide, she kind of put me in the mind of some sort of Irish hobbit, minus the furry feet.

While she was scarfing brownies, one of the first things she'd been shown was the portion of the Munchkin's plumbing that took any waste and reduced it to individual atoms. I told her, "That should be good enough to avoid any accidents until something better is worked out. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on separate sleeping arrangements, a check of your clothes for any snake-oids before you leave your room, and similar precautions."

"Can't say I bleeping blame you. These snake-oid things may be cleaner than taking a regular bleep, but aren't bleeping comfortable on the way out."

"I'm probably going to grab one or two to stick into a cage, once I can knock a proper cage together, in case we need to run some tests on them - make sure the one you're stuck with works the same as our previous analysis, test out extermination agents, that sort of thing." I took a breath and rubbed my muzzle. "Okay. Time-sensitive things. Got our course set - we're fastest on the railbeds, so we'll head down those to the danger zone, then turn around and come back along the old coast road and hope we got ahead of your group. If they're already past that point, I don't think there's going to be anything we can do, other than provide a decent burial. ... Crap. They may not be the only ones. I'm going to need to make some warning signs, drop off the first on the road, and the others the next time we circle Buffalo. This whole rush thing could have been avoided if I'd thought of that /before/. We still need to get whatever info you have on the snake-oid village before you forget - I'll ask Joe or Red Deer to do that while I get the first sign painted."

"Do I get a bleeping say in any of this?"

"If you've got a better plan, sure."

"Can't you just call ahead and have someone else try getting in front?"

"I'd rather not get into details, but we're stretched thin enough in this area that if I even tried that, we'd lose the communications network. The one I plan on using while we're moving to start talking with our expert about what tests we can do to figure out how fast you need to be treated."

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, okay, how about flying?"

"My aerial gear's designed more for distance than speed - we're faster in the Munchkin than I would be in the air."

"Does that big bear I've been trying to bleeping pretend is a perfectly normal thing to have lying around do anything special?"

"Sit on me if-and-when I get too caught up in a weird idea and lose sight of practical matters. I don't think he's particularly relevant."

"Well, bleep it, there's gotta be /something/ better! What good are your bleeping not-radio-things if they can't help? Who do you talk to, anyway?"

"Hm." I rubbed my chin. "Put like that - maybe there is something more I can try. Hey, Red?"

"Yeah, now what?"

"If we sent a message to the Nine Nations - how soon do you think they could send some birds or something to the south of Buffalo, to sabotage some wagons, or drug them, or whatever else it took to slow them down?"

"Don't know they would at all. That's not our side of the lake."

"Got anything better to do than ask?"

"Keep an eye on you."

"Uh-huh. Grab a -Bun to run the signals for you, and find a roof hatch to work from. And pass a note to the mailbox, too, in case a fast squiddie happens to be in the area."

"What if I don't want to?"

"Then I would be very cross with you for not at least making the attempt to save innocent lives, and I would be much less interested in cooperating with any future suggestions you might make. I tossed White Snake out on her ear for putting /one/ life at extra risk."

"Fine, fine."

"Joe, that means you're on interview duty."

"Can't Boomer or Alphie do that?"

"Possibly - but a lot of people on this side of the lake are much more uncomfortable with them than you are, and we've got too much going on to throw one more complication onto things."

Toffee had been watching the back-and-forth with interest, and finally said, "Why, what are they?"

"If you really want to know, I can't stop Red or Joe from telling you, but explanations might take a while. And the longer you wait, the less clearly you'll remember the village. Now unless you've got more ideas, shoo, we've all got things to do."

 

*Chapter Seven: A-broad*

"What's all this, then?"

"I'm running a series of experiments."

"On what?"

"Making fuel out of thin air."

"No. Just bleeping no. I can deal with everything else I've seen so far. Now you're just bleeping with me."

"I could explain in more detail, but it doesn't sound like you're interested."

"Not interested? Not bleeping /interested/?"

"Does that mean you /are/ interested?"

"I'm going to regret this, I'm bleeping sure. Hit me."

"I've been putting together lots of small power-generation things. Solar panels, wind turbines, whatever I can. One problem is - once their batteries are full, the generation goes to waste. So I tried to think of something useful to do with excess electricity, and no grid to dump it to. I remembered gasoline is nicely energy-dense, and thought it would be nice if I could turn the power into gas. I looked up a few references - and I actually could. With the right equipment in place, I can use a megawatt of power to create a hundred gallons of gas a day. The process is only fifteen percent efficient, but since the power would just get wasted anyway, why not? One piece of trouble, though, is I'm usually dealing in kilowatts, not megawatts. And with the processes from those references, trying to use just a few kilowatts to make gas is like trying to heat up an oven by burning one log at a time. So I'm trying out various combinations of pressures, temperatures, and catalysts to see if I can come up with a low-power version. So far, I've gotten an efficiency of half a percent with twenty kilowatts, but I've just finished cooking some cesium oxides that I've got high hopes for. If that doesn't work, then I may have to use a different source of carbon, like charcoal. If /that/ doesn't work, I may have to go biological, but while analyzing an existing gene sequence is easy enough with the right software, generating a new set of enzymes from scratch requires /real/ computing power, beyond what we've got available, and that doesn't even include keeping the product from killing the organism-"

"You know what? Bleep it: you're a wizard."

"Now, really-"

"Wizard."

"You don't-"

"What's that?"

"Crystal growth-"

"Wi. Zard."

"... I don't really have the beard to pull off 'wizard'. How about 'sorceress'?"

--

"What bleeping species are you, anyway? Are you really called 'bunnies'?"

"Hm... That's actually a bit tricky to answer - and I've been a bit busy with stuff to deal with names." I called up Munchkin's intercom. "Say, Boomer? Are there any existing rules for naming chimeras?"

"There are two primary methods. One is to just use the names of the individual species, with the word 'plus'. Another is to join the names of the individual species into a single new name, preceded by a 'plus', though care must be taken not to use an existing species name."

"Does Wagger still have a species of her own, since she lost her original genes?"

"The international agreements on species nomenclature do not seem to cover that scenario."

"Hm... how about organisms that are related to other ones, but had all the junk DNA trimmed out?"

"Again, there is no existing consensus on how to group such an organism."

"How about robots?"

"A proposed standard exists, in which all biological life sharing Earth's common genetic code, including viruses, is part of a super-domain, 'Bio'; and in which non-biological agents which need to be treated in a biological fashion have separate super-domains. Various taxonomic schemes exist to group related models together."

"Right. I guess that gives me a pretty free rein to pick some names - so I should try to pick some that come as close as possible to reflecting reality. Let's see - for junk DNA trimming, is there a short bit of Latin that comes close to 'Junk cleaned up'?"

"Quisquilae purgandi."

"Q.P. it is. Alright - I hereby dub Bun-Bun's species as Homo sapiens Q.P. lepiform. Which makes me, I believe, 'Homo sapiens plus lepiform plus' - wait, what are deer, cervids, so 'plus cervidae'?"

Boomer said, "If you wish."

"Now combining all that - 'Plus Homolepicerv' might do. Joe has a somewhat different origin, so she might just be Homo lepiform. And Nurse-Bun here has a different origin yet again, so she might be, say, R. doppelganger lepiform."

Toffee had been watching the conversation with a wrinkled forehead. "... How about I just call all of you bunnies?"

"There's a reason I went with that in the first place."

--

"We're almost at turnaround," I announced. "I'm thinking of taking the PPG up, along with some binoculars, to try and see if I can make out the wagons Toffee described, in either direction. I'm open to suggestions for or against." After a few moments of several people shrugging, I asked, "Okay. Red, were you able to get in touch with anyone?"

"Clara says there aren't any people with her right now, so no. And no reply from the squiddies."

"Worth a shot. Joe, learn anything relevant to this from Toffee?"

"Three wagons. Four horses, two people with four legs, and five mostly human people."

"Toffee, anything to add?"

"Can't think of anything."

"Right. I should start suiting up, then."

--

I didn't actually have any way to refuel the paragliders yet - but if this wasn't worth using up some gas on, then I didn't know what was.

It was actually easier to launch from Munchkin in motion than it was from the ground. The air going by filled up the shrouds behind me, and I was up in the air even before I had a chance to start the engine. (I made a mental note - I might be able to save gas in the future by playing kite, tying a rope between the paraglider and Munchkin as it pulled me along.)

I rose towards the treetops, circled around to the right to stay generally near Munchkin... and as I circled around to face the lake, I just about dropped the lines. There was a grey column reaching from the water to the clouds.

I didn't want to get a foot closer to the tornado, or waterspout, or whatever it was, so tugged harder on the right line, swinging around so that I was nearly horizontal; and as I swung from west to north, I saw, a few klicks ahead, three wagons, with several smaller forms scattered about.

Was the funnel cloud closer? I couldn't tell. I didn't know how fast tornados moved. I didn't know if this one was natural or the result of some weather-control system breaking down or hostile action by some uber-powerful thing that /really/ didn't like Buffalo.

I had to make a decision - fast. Not enough time to work out the problem in my mind, not even enough time to gather more evidence - I had to use my gut and whatever ideas and plans I'd previously worked out well enough to be able to call up in a situation like this. Well, not necessarily like /this/; but almost before I knew what I was doing, I'd cut the engine, and was pulling on both shrouds, trying to get back to the ground as fast as I could without collapsing the shroud and falling /too/ fast.

In a very short time, but a time that felt rather too long, I was at Munchkin's side door, pulling the glider shrouds in after me. Even before I'd finished, I was calling out orders. "Munchkin! Emergency search-and-rescue mode! Travel on road two kilometers north!" The legs started churning before the shroud was off the ground - I could feel it tear.

"Everyone! Shut up a minute! There's a tornado! The scavenger group is north! They look like they need medical attention! We are going to collect them! Until we have them all, or the tornado comes right for us! We're heading into ground contaminated with nerve gas! If you know how, put on a suit! If not, grab an oxygen mask! This whole carriage is going to be contaminated! If you're not going to help, get out of here so you're not another casualty! Joe! I need places to put five humans and two four-leggers, strip them, and wash gas off them! We leave behind everything else! When everyone is aboard, we're going south as fast as Munchkin can go!"

I'd managed to unstrap myself from the paraglider, and had started shoving my limbs into the hazmat suit I was most used to. "I will direct bun-bots to carry casualties inside! Bun-bots are stupid, you are faster! Anyone you can grab before they can, the sooner we can get away from the tornado, the less likely we'll have to leave someone behind!"

Toffee was standing stock still, staring at me - and the hurried dressing of Red and Joe - with wide eyes. I didn't waste time sighing, even though I felt an urge to. "Bear Joe! Please take Toffee to the front carriage, and if you can, seal the airlock behind you." As the massive not-quite-animal started shoving our guest toward safety with his head, I raised my voice again. "I don't know if we have enough antidote! The autodoc only fits one person at a time! Nerve gas kills by stopping breathing! The bun-bots can do chest compressions and breathe into the casualties' lungs! I think oxygen will help them!" I took a breath, so I could continue shouting - but found my mind blank, unable to think of anything else to say.

Joe clapped a suited hand on my shoulder. "You should stay in," he said. "Watch the tornado, order the buns, start the medicine."

My legs twitched, as I had the urge to run back outside already. "Fine," I said, "We'll do that. Munchkin, open intercom: All bun-bots report to living room!"

--

The five humans weren't breathing when we got to them - but I set a pair of bun-bots to perform CPR on each of them anyway. The four-leggers looked to be some sort of pony-sized, blue-furred, hermaphroditic fox-taurs, and while they were emitting various fluids from every orifice, they were still breathing.

Triage sucks. In a very visceral way.

I could feel the churning in my guts as Bun-Bun prepared to help in her own way, but I only had scant few doses of atropine on hand. According to Boomer's records, the lethality of VX was based on dose per body mass - and the four-leggers had more mass than the humans.

I gave them each a dose of the anti-toxin immediately.

With a bit of maneuvering, we got the woman who was nearest the back of the carriage into the autodoc, and I had it run its basic scans on her. No brain wave activity, body temperature consistent with death between one and two hours ago, the beginnings of cellular necrosis. She was dead before we'd gotten to her. I had the bun-bots carry her back, and they resumed CPR - and I was too busy to tell them to stop.

None of the other four humans were in any better state.

We couldn't even fit most of the first foxtaur into the autodoc, and it flashed all sorts of error messages in its scan reports; but it stuck a tube into her (or his, or hir, or whatever other pronoun applied) throat to clear fluids from her bronchi and feed her oxygen. With a bit more effort, the other foxtaur was hauled close enough to receive similar treatment.

I set the non-CPRing bun-bots to clean their fur and skin of any VX residue that might still be soaking in, then grabbed Red and Joe by the hands, pulling them into a huddle.

"There is one thing I need to understand now, and you two are the only sources of information I have. I know if a live person gets dropped into a spirit pool - one other than me - then your spirits can, what did you call it, 'take their memories into their hands'. What happens if a dead person gets dropped into a pool?"

Red started to ask, "Are you going to-?" but I cut her off.

"Haven't decided. Have another option. Need info. Tell."

Joe said, "I haven't heard of anyone bothering. Either they make it back to the pool, and come out with a fresh, intact body; or they don't make it back at all, and the spirits make a new one of them, who does not remember what the dead person did after last leaving a pool."

I nodded once. "Red? Anything to add to that?"

"I haven't heard of that, either."

"Right. Munchkin, open intercom. Toffee, can you hear me?"

"Yes. What's happening?"

"We brought all seven on board. The two blue-furred ones are being treated, and with care and some luck, just might survive. However, the five humans are in much worse shape - and I am willing to treat you as having authority to make medical decisions for them."

"Oh god."

"They are - well, mostly dead. I do not believe that there is anything we can do to keep them alive. However, there are radical options - much the same ones I presented to you earlier. One, we can simply give them a funeral. Two, we can freeze them, in hopes that someone will eventually be able to figure out both how to revive them and how to cure them. And three, we can bring them to what you think of as 'Indian Country', and place their bodies into the care of what the locals call the 'spirits', who may be able to use what's effectively nanotechnology to rebuild them - or may not."

"Can I think about this?"

"I'm afraid that the longer we wait, the more brain damage there would be, even if one of the radical procedures otherwise succeeds. If you're even going to consider choosing them, you should let me know, so I can either start cooling them or get Munchkin going in the right direction."

"I don't want them /dead/!"

"I don't blame you. I'm sorry, I'm very sorry, I'm very bad at interpersonal stuff, and you're probably going to hate me for forcing this - but unless you make a choice very soon, I'm going to have to make the choice myself."

"The - the Indian thing. If it works - will they still be, well, themselves?"

Red spoke up, "We have a number of immigrants who remember their lives before joining the Great Peace."

"That. I don't know if - try that one."

"Okay. Munchkin, display map..."

I took a few moments to define a routing function, prioritizing the arrival time at any available spirit pool while minimizing the risk from fire or waterspout. And then I slapped my faceplate's forehead as I remembered that coolness would help preserve the five humans' brains, at least to the extent of preserving neural structures for the spirits to work with; and I spent a few moments firing up the dry ice generator and giving Red some instructions on what 'cold, but not /too/ cold meant when packing ice around the five folks' heads.

I was so busy, I almost forgot to drop off the big skull-and-bones "Warning! Nerve gas!" sign into the middle of the road before we roared off.

--

Munchkin's routing program took us straight through the downtown core of New Buffalo. The waterspout didn't seem to be moving all that fast, and the buildings seemed to have pretty much burnt out, so I didn't try overriding. It was, after all, a lot faster to just barrel through and swim the river to Fort Erie, instead of trying to circle around the city yet again.

I couldn't think of much more to do for the mostly-dead, so I focused on the mostly-alive. The autodoc was designed for at least a roughly human-sized and -shaped patient, and was now supporting two rather larger individuals... but I had never seen their type of Changed before, and was worried that we might be doing something wrong. So with some effort, I drafted some bun-bot help in shoving various portions of their anatomy into the coffin-like section, where the autodoc's sensors could get a look at their anatomy.

Said anatomy was - not quite what I was expecting. From the waist up, they were pretty much just like me: human, with fur slapped on and a few tweaks of the cranial anatomy for an animalistic appearance. Even the insides were pretty standard. For their hind torsos, most of it was pretty comprehensible, with another heart, another set of lungs, and so on. But the area just under the 'join' was not only unfamiliar, it didn't seem mammalian at all. It could /pass/ as something like an animal's chest - but was actually some sort of maw, which could gape open at least as wide as the whole hind-torso, feeding into some sort of pouch before connecting to the main digestive tract. And the join between the fore- and hind-torsos was... ugly. It didn't even have the alien elegance of a Giger-esque insect; it looked to be, in a very literal way, two animals melted together.

I winced a bit as I tried to imagine how painful that spine might be - and then I went to work trying to figure out how to extend the breathing tubes to the much larger hind-torso lungs.

--

As soon as we were across the river, I sent Joe up to the roof, to try and get in touch with some of the green jays, to spread the word ahead of us that I was bringing five nearly-dead people for immigration. I wasn't sure how well the 'nearly dead' would translate, or if Joe would go along with the leaning of the facts.

I found out when Munchkin parked at the spirit pool, and White Snake was standing in front of it, arms crossed, staring at us.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Trying to save lives. Are you going to help?"

"These pools are sacred places. You plan on defiling them with corpses?"

"I say they're only 'mostly dead'. Now, lady - do you know what would happen if I shoot you in the head?"

"No, what?"

"You would step out of that pool in a few moments, none the worse for wear. And I'd get these people in the pool without interference."

"You love life too much to kill anyone."

"You don't think of it as death. And even if it is - one life for five. It's a simple trolley problem, and I try /very/ hard to be a good little utilitarian. Now I'm going to tell my bun-bots to bring them out with stretchers, and one way or another, you're going to stay out of their way."

She frowned... but took several steps to the side. I got the bun-bots going, and then relaxed a bit.

White Snake gave me a funny look. "What if the spirits do not bring them back?"

"Then I'll have given it my best shot."

"Why are you doing this? Do you think they will thank you?"

"I expect she," I pointed to the first one, "will be happy to be alive and completely ignore me, and she will hate me, and she will despise me she'll try to kick me in the balls, realize I don't have any, and then do whatever it took to give me balls just so she could kick them - and so on."

The bun-bots tilted the stretchers, sliding one body after another into the not-water. They disappeared without a ripple.

I wrapped my arms around myself. Quietly, I asked her, "Do you think it'll work?"

She gave me another inscrutable look. "... I do not know," she finally said. "We do not use machines to make things cold. If the spirits find anything of them, then soon we should see- there."

On the other side of the pool, close to a half-dozen deer delicately stepped out from between the trees, and, completely ignoring us, delicately walked into the pool. In just a few seconds, the five of them walked back out again - this time, with rather enormous bellies, each obviously carrying a fawn.

"Well, what do you know," White Snake said. "They are being adopted."

I took a deep breath, and let it out. I let my arms fall to my sides, and rolled my shoulders. "Well, that's that, then," I said. "They're all yours. If you'll 'scuze me, I've got another two who might pull through on their own, and are more likely to with some stuff up by the university." I started to turn away.

"Were they friends of yours? Employees?"

I shrugged. "Complete strangers."

"Then why go to so much effort?"

"Now there's a trick question if ever I heard one. I could say I wanted to see what your spirits could do - but that makes me sound like I had them killed to gain information. I could offer any number of seemingly good reasons - but people are barely rational on their best days, and these aren't /my/ best days, so any reason I could give is more likely just a rationalization." I shrugged. "I could say 'Because I could, and I chose to', and that's probably the most accurate answer I could give. How long will it be before they're people again?"

"That depends on many things. We already have as many people as the spirits desire - in fact, we have a few too many, such as with all the extra Joes running around. When there is more room for them, they will be born into their new families, and learn the ways of their village, clan, and nation."

"Well - if you ever get a chance to, wish them the best of luck from me."

I went back to the Munchkin, calling the bun-bots back in after me.

--

On the way north, one of the taurs - who Toffee named Jeff - died. The other - Sarah - died twice. The autodoc was able to restart all four hearts, with a bit of fast jury-rigging to figure out how the dual hearts were, and weren't, supposed to be synchronized.

Most of the bun-bots were now on cleanup duty, scrubbing nerve-gas residue off every surface it might have touched. We had to dip into the canal twice just to refill the water reservoirs.

I was sitting on the floor, helmet off, just watching Jeff and Sarah breathing, when Toffee sat next to me. I told her, "We're going to make a quick stop for a few things I've realized we need, and then we're going to the closest I've found to a hospital to scan you and those two, and figure out if we've got any treatment options that are less radical."

"So how much was true?"

"Of what?"

"That woman you were talking to. About why you're bleeping doing - all this."

"Because some years ago, I defined myself as a person who would look for ways to make a difference."

"Is that it? That doesn't bleeping sound like bleeping much."

"It's more than most people decide to. Red and Joe? They know Indian Country, they live it - but it never even occurred to them to try saving someone who seemed dead, by bringing them in. Let alone try looking for other options."

"Not that I'm complaining, but - what /do/ you get out of all of this? And don't try to bleep a bleeper with that 'because you can' bleep."

I didn't look away from the taurs. "You know that sign I had us stop to drop off? I've been by that spot a couple of times since the nerve gas attack. If I hadn't been so /stupid/, your five friends would probably be arguing about how to make suits, and have all sorts of options open to them other than to live as baby deer until some incomprehensible alien mentality decides to switch their species for them."

"You feel bleeping guilty, then? Trying to make yourself feel better?"

"Could be. I'm not really sure, these days. I'm mostly used to sitting quietly, reading, and thinking, not for every decision I make /mattering/ so much. For people to have to deal with the fallout when I make the /wrong/ decision. I've been dealing with so much - stuff - over the past few weeks, nobody would be surprised if I let myself just crack up. But I can't /let/ myself do that, or else... Anyway. So I make my to-do lists and goal trees and study what's most likely to do the most good, instead of just finding a nice cubby-hole to curl up in and read something just for the sake of enjoying reading it. Keeping those five from being completely dead? That'll probably keep me going for a few days. Keeping these two from dying at all, and you from getting eaten from the inside out? That just might keep me sane for a good long while. Until the next crisis hits, anyway."

"Bleep, you couldn't /pay/ me enough to deal with all /that/ bleep."

"That makes two of us."

"What?"

"I don't get paid, either."

"Then where does all this," she waved a hand around, "bleeping come from?"

"I am very careful to collect every valuable resource I can get my hands on. Or paws. Or hoof. Or tail. Or any other part of my anatomy."

"You're serious. This whole bleeping thing is - just yours?"

"Hail to the queen, baby. By the way, I'm going to have to lock you back into quarantine when we make our first stop. There's a lot of sensitive stuff that breaks very easily, and that it would take a long time to teach you how to be sure to avoid breaking."

"Buy me a beer after and we'll call it even."

"Hm... haven't got any non-toxic alcohol, other than some fuel."

"What? What do you bleeping /drink/?"

"Water, mostly. Tea, when we've got the herbs."

"How do you people get blitzed, then? Joints?"

"I can't speak for Joe or Red - but I don't /get/ 'blitzed'."

"You're joking."

"If I'd been drunk, or whatever, when we were passing near a certain village - I wouldn't have thought to investigate it, and you'd be a lot more snakey than you are now, and none of the other seven of your party would be breathing. ... I don't know if five of them are, technically, breathing right now, but I think you get my meaning."

"You really /are/ bleeping crazy."

"Given as accepted. Though I feel less so right now than I did a few hours ago. ... Red, could you come over here?" In a few seconds, she'd taken a seat on the floor next to the two of us. I'll give this to Winnebago, they made very comfortable floors.

Red asked, "Think they'll make it?"

"If Clara can help us get a handle on the seizures, I really, /really/ hope so. Which brings me to something. I'm thinking out an idea for a plan as I'm talking, and I need you to veto it if you think it's a bad one."

"I don't think the spirits will let you bring every dying person into the Great Peace."

"Not the plan. And we can argue about its merits and flaws later. I'm thinking of taking up a new vice to help keep myself sane."

"Drinking?"

"Making a number go up."

"Sounds a lot more boring than drinking."

"People /like/ having their numbers go up."

"Still sounds boring."

"Even when the number is how many lives I've saved?"

There was a brief pause. Finally, Red asked, "That's a /vice/?"

"It's an inefficient and mildly wasteful use of resources, compared to focusing entirely on my goal tree. It's a very useless number, compared to, say, improving quality-adjusted life-years. But Q.A.L.Y.'s don't grab my hindbrain's attention like a simple whole number. And I'm finding it's a very, /very/ satisfying number to raise."

"You're asking me to tell you /not/ to save lives?"

"No - I'm asking you to tell me to stop saving lives /to make myself feel better/. Don't forget, a root of my goal tree is to keep /everyone/ from dying. Working on the tree is work. Saving individual lives is... I don't know, it could be therapy, maybe. It's not like anyone else has ever faced the stresses I'm juggling, or like we've got a psychotherapist on board."

"But you're still asking me to tell you to stop."

"I'm guessing that if you can think of a good reason for me /to/ stop, one which convinces you, then that's got to be a pretty good reason."

"I have to say I'm not sure the spirits would approve of me vetoing a plan that has you saving lives."

"Would they rather I personally saved one life, or spent the time doing something behind the scenes that kept ten people from dying?"

"If you can save ten, then why save one?"

"Because, just maybe, saving the one satisfies something in my brain enough to keep me from going completely bug-nuts, so that the next few times I'm faced with choices like that, I can save tens of people."

"So - you're saying the choice isn't between saving one and ten, but between saving ten and a hundred?"

I managed a shrug. "I haven't got enough data to pin very hard numbers on yet - but that's the idea I'm playing with now. Maybe it's a good idea. Maybe it's a very, very, stupid one. But, at least, it seems like it might be worth exploring, to find out."

Toffee, who I'd been just about ignoring, chose that moment to speak up. "So what does that bleeping make me? Chopped liver? I'm just alive so you could get warm fuzzy feelings?"

I looked at her. "No, you're alive because I wanted intel on the snake-oid village. I'm taking you to get scanned to get further info on snake-oids. If I can, I'm getting you cured to avoid a public health hazard. Any warm fuzzy feelings I get out of all /that/ are icing on the cake."

Red leaned forward to look around me at Toffee. "If you don't like her ideas, I can probably let you live in the Great Peace without having to get adopted. The spirits control all the plants and animals - I'm sure they can kill off all the snake-oids that come out of you."

Toffee leaned forward to look back at Red. "I'm less concerned about what bleep comes out of me, and what's bleeping happening inside."

I shoved myself to my feet. "I'll leave you to it, then - I'm going to take another look at Jeff and Sarah's scans..."

 

*Chapter Eight: A-ttend*

As soon as I got to the robo-fac design room, I called up sonar scanners. I trimmed away ones that wouldn't be useful, such as ones that only worked underwater, or needed a hard-to-manufacture gel, or were too bulky, or needed a sub-part that the place would take a while to manufacture. What I ended up with was a box, about half the size of Boomer's chassis, which easily fit into my hand, and already came with a display screen on the side. When I pushed it against my arm and turned it on - there, gradually rezzing on the screen, were my bones, muscles, blood vessels pumping, and so on.

When I went back to the design room, the final order screen was still shining. I waved my hand to cancel it - then waved it again.

To summarize my next ten minutes of effort, the interface was quite frozen.

Frowning, I went to the next room, to see if the same thing would happen. In case it did, I set my search parameters for something as useful as I could think of, that I couldn't get elsewhere, and, again, didn't require extra materials that weren't available. What I ended up with at the top of the last search query was a pair of gloves - gloves which used a few tricks to ensure the blood vessels in the palms stayed dilated, and then applied thermoelectric cooling, which, apparently, massively reduced fatigue. To try to expand the data in case of another crash, I went from that search result to the custom design interface, in which I created gizmos to do the exact same thing, only taking advantage of Bun-Bun's natural aural cooling system (if 'natural' really applied to the level of vascularization in our ears).

The ear-sleeves were duly delivered - and, again, that design room ceased responding to any further requests, commands, or other input.

I decided that this was a problem that could very likely take some time to solve; and I still had a pair of poisoned foxtaurs and a woman with snake-oids in her innards to get better help for, and the sooner the better.

I clambered back aboard Munchkin with my two prizes, hoping that they weren't the final things the factory would make.

--

Bun-bots made good stretcher-bearers, even when the stretchers were several times as large as usual. I gave Clara a summary of recent events as our procession hurried to the university clinic, and then I let myself become little more than an intermediary, translating the AI's directions into specific commands for the robots.

The main thing Clara was able to do, that we hadn't known to try, was to stick crowns of electrodes on their heads, much like the thinking cap I'd started experimenting with. However, the electric fields she ran through their brains cancelled out the ones causing seizures. It required a specialized bit of software to calculate, so we couldn't have managed on the Munchkin anyway.

Once Clara was satisfied that those two were as out of danger as they were going to get, we turned our attention to Toffee. Clara told her, "I recommend that small samples be taken from a number of locations in your body, to determine the extent of the snake-oid genetic conversion process."

"What does /that/ bleeping mean?"

I further simplified, "Needles. If all that's been affected is a bit of your intestine - we can try surgical removal. But we'd need to know what parts to take out, and what parts are safe to leave in."

"I hate needles."

"Eh, they're not so bad. Hey, Clara? How about we show off how easy this is - how about my hoof?"

I slid my rear up onto the exam table, and pulled off my footgear. Clara ran a robotic arm around the hoof, the built-in camera looking at it from all angles before selecting a spot and sliding a needle in. I tried very hard not to twitch or wince. "See?" I said to Clara, offering a smile. "I used to donate blood, and this isn't even as bad as that."

The sample arm withdrew into one of the big boxes with blinkenlights.

"And now," I started explaining - but Toffee wasn't listening, just staring at the machine.

"Was that - a robot?"

"Er, yes, you could say that. Why do you ask."

"... Nevermind. Wizard. Bleeping forgot that for a few minutes."

"Sorceress," I countered. "So, Clara, what did you get? Original cervine cells, or some of that custom transplanted stuff they made to rebuild the foot with?"

"Neither," she said. "I seem to have collected a part of your lapiform-humanoid cells that colonized the new anatomical structures."

"No worries. Bun-Bun's a healthy girl, probably just part of her regeneration process. I mean, I don't even /see/ a scar under the fur anymore."

Toffee asked, "'Bun-Bun'?"

"Wizar - I mean, sorceress talk."

Clara said, "With your permission, I can draw a wider set of samples from around the area."

Since the only reason I was on the bed was to try to be reassuring for Toffee, I just nodded, and clenched my teeth while trying to keep a steady smile. The robo-arm came back out, and, watched closely by Toffee, jabbed into a dozen different spots below my left knee before returning.

In a few seconds, Clara said, "These results do not match my predictions."

I tilted my head. "How so?"

"They all share your body's standard chromosomes."

I wrinkled my forehead. "Hunh. That's not what they were before. When you do your full-organism extrapolations - when a snake-oid hooks onto an organism, does that organism gain its gene-transfer ability?"

There was a brief pause as, presumably, Clara ran some extrapolations. "That does not seem to be the case. Snake-oid gene transfer only appears to either convert host cells to snake-oid ones, or snake-oid cells to host ones."

"Hunh. So if it's not Wagger... maybe it's what Bun-Bun does naturally?"

"That hypothesis is consistent with the observed data."

"Maybe," I mused, "but it brings up more questions - such as how similar the process is to the snake-oids, and if there are any similarities, what caused them."

Clara stated, "I am afraid that I do not have the data to answer those questions. Your anatomy contains several aspects that are not regulated by easily analyzable genes, enzymes, and proteins."

"Yep, Bun-Bun's still got a few tricks up our sleeves. Still, it doesn't seem to be doing me any harm, and Toffee here needs to get sampled, so how about I get out of your way while you do that?"

In a few moments, the arm had done its work, and Clara reported, "The good news is that the snake-oid conversion process has not yet spread beyond your digestive system. The bad news is that your entire digestive system, below your stomach, appears to be affected."

Toffee asked, "What'll happen to me if I just keep feeding the bleeping thing?"

Clara paused for a much longer moment than she had for me, before saying, "Projections indicate that, no later than two years in the future, the last of your cells will have been changed. Contrary to earlier projections, it appears that anatomical changes will happen as well; primarily, the complete atrophy of your major limbs."

"You're saying that I'm going to turn into a bleeping snake."

"In essence, yes."

"Still with snakes coming out of me?"

"Analyzing projection - after full conversion, from your reproductive organs rather than your digestive tract, but yes."

"And what'll happen to my bleeping brain?"

"With the resolution of the projections I am able to generate, nothing appears to happen to your neuroanatomy, other than the replacement of the genetic material."

"So I'm going to turn into a bleeping giant momma snake, and am gonna feel the whole bleeping thing the whole bleeping time?"

"That appears to be the case."

"Okay, Clara, I don't care where you are or what bleeping awful thing you've turned into, but I /like/ being human. All my favorite parts of me are human. So whadda I gotta do to keep that from happening?"

"Removal of your upper and lower intestine before the process spreads beyond those organs appears to be indicated."

"... Can I live without them?"

"I have records of people who have survived similar procedures."

I cleared my throat. "Do you have the materials to perform such a procedure?"

"No," was Clara's blunt answer.

I asked, "What do you need that you haven't got?"

"To maximize quality of life, either donor or artificial bowel segments."

I looked at Toffee. "Any living relatives?"

"No family," she said in a low tone, without even a 'bleep'.

"Okay - other possible donors. Clara, am I compatible?"

"Not without a lifetime supply of anti-rejection drugs that I cannot provide."

I pursed my lips, thinking about my hoof, and turned; I looked up and down at Joe Three speculatively, completely ignoring her furry curves, and she took a step back.

"What about us?" asked a completely new voice, startling at least me. Turning around further, I discovered that Sarah's eyes were open. She spoke again, "Had both arms pulled off once. Grew back. Probably... got more intestines than I really need, anyway."

Clara contributed, "Both patients' organs have a remarkable dearth of surface antigens in their lower portions. If their regenerative abilities are sufficient to regrow limbs, then resecting their bowels and transplanting the tissue may be possible."

Toffee said, "They've been through enough already. What other options've you bleeping got?"

"Cryonic freezing and adoption by Joe and Reds' people," I shrugged.

"Wizard. Sorceress. Bleeping whatever. What else've you got?"

I blinked, wrinkled my forehead, and considered. The five mostly dead folk had needed something immediate, which had limited the range of options that might work... "Zones," I said. "There are places where you can get transformed into - well, anything from a puddle of goo to a talking horse to a perfectly ordinary woman who happens to give birth to goats instead of people."

"What else?"

I racked my brains again. "If you really want more options - you could try getting in touch with Technoville. They're opportunistic technocrats with leanings toward world domination, and I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw Sarah there, but they've got an industrial infrastructure with decent medicine. You could /try/ making a deal with them, though I wouldn't recommend it."

"What else?"

"Um. I don't think the squiddies know enough about humanoid anatomy, Dogtown's tech is only so-so... if you really don't like any of the other options, then you could get a timeline from Clara about how you're going to progress, make a fallback plan, and then go exploring, looking for something new."

"What else?" Toffee demanded.

"I really don't know. Other than that, I can only think of really /bad/ ideas. Suicide? Let yourself go snakey? Surgery that amputates even more than just your intestines? Sure, they're /options/, but-"

Sarah spoke up again. "Take. The goddamn. Surgery. You stupid. Bint."

Toffee just crossed her arms and glared.

I shuffled my feet and said, "You obviously have a lot to think about, and talk, so I'll just go - that way. If you need me, Clara can get in touch. Oh, and try not to touch anything, would you?" I made a somewhat undignified escape.

--

Red found me in the library. She said, "It looks like you found the time to curl up and read after all."

I rolled my eyes a little, and swung my legs down from the side of the overstuffed chair. "Not for pleasure."

Red leaned forward and peered at the title of the tome that had been in my lap. "'Livestock gestation'? ... Don't worry, the fawns will be born just fine."

"Very funny. I'm trying to decide how much space in Munchkin to devote to a multi-species medical library."

"Why? Those two blue people are still alive."

"Maybe. And maybe I know the difference between blood and lymph - but I'm no doctor. Even if I'm the closest we've got to one. No offense meant, but not every medical problem can be solved by dropping everyone in the nearest spirit pool." I sighed. "So how're the three of them doing?"

"You made it out just before the shouting started."

"That was what I was aiming for. Can you really get an exemption for her if she wants to stay?"

"... Probably not. But I can ask. One of the blue ones - Jeff - asked if the spirits could make her human. The other one wants to know if the spirits can 'fix' her - she's happy with six limbs, but has had some problems ever since she was changed. None of them want to be adopted, they just want to take the spirits' gifts without contributing back."

"That doesn't sound likely. I bet they'd be happy to offer lots in return - just not what you're asking for in your first bid." I shrugged. "Don't forget, if your spirit pools worked on me, I'd probably be a fawn nursing from its mother right now, and all of them would be stone cold dead."

"That's really not the poin-"

"Plus, once you'd broken down my eyes, I wouldn't have had any way to prove my lineage, and the Quebecois wouldn't have been able to revive one of their traditions."

"That's not a real tradition, they just wanted an excuse to-"

"And Minnie would be dead. And Dotty would be dead. I'll admit that I'm getting more worried about Joe One, so once all the complications here settle down a bit, I'm going to be heading back out to look for him again. And assuming that he's alright - then I can argue that pretty much nothing bad's happened to the Great Peace from my showing up and not getting melted. So the next time you let your spirits sift through your mind, you can be sure to remind them, as pointedly as you can, that if they'd pulled off their one-size-fits-all policy and adopted me the way they'd tried, they'd be worse off. Exceptions to rules are /important/."

"Nothing. Bad. Happened. ... What about the city-killer?"

"Depending on how the evidence gets weighted, I might have a ten percent chance of being around ten percent responsible for its actions. Which makes it ninety-nine percent not /my/ fault."

"That is not what you said about it before."

"Buffalo had, rounding up, close to a hundred thousand people. Even a one percent share of responsibility for the Berserker means I've got a thousand deaths on my conscience. I'd be happy to discuss how accurate the evidence weighing I'm using is - with someone who's demonstrated that they actually understand the principles involved. For people who don't, well, you don't need to understand calculus to learn how high to aim a bow when shooting at a distant target, but trying to argue about /why/ it has to be aimed so high isn't going to do much good without the math."

"Those numbers are awfully convenient. When you want to beat yourself up, you can be responsible for all of Buffalo. When you want to sound like you do more good then harm, suddenly you bring out this ten percent of ten percent."

I gestured in the vague direction of the stairwell. "I think I remember some intro math textbooks on the third floor."

"I need to go talk to the others about their bodies again. Toffee is not happy with any of the ideas you came up with."

"I'm not happy, either. I avoided mentioning one because I don't know that I could deliver on it - I don't know if I /can/ arrange for artificial intestines to be built right now." I shrugged. "All the other ideas I had were completely unrelated to anything involving the snake-oids. It's not like she'd get any benefit from the research we've done on the goats-"

An idea sprung to my mind in that moment, halfway formed. And then another idea. And then the consequences of those ideas.

Stumbling only a little bit, I continued, "-and people of... Buffalo..." I let myself trail off after those extra words. "Dammit, I think I just pulled a House."

"Is that like pulling a muscle?"

"No, it's about a mythical doctor who came up with cures while talking about unrelated things. Hold on a minute, I'd like to take at least half a minute to think about this in silence."

I pushed Scorpia's buttons to display a seconds counter, and took the half-minute of silence I'd demanded to think as fast and as thoroughly as I could.

"Right," I finally said, after most of a minute. "Red - you said you weren't completely sure whether or not you really could let Toffee live here without adoption?"

"That's right."

"I need to get a concrete answer, one way or the other. Joe Three knows where the nearest spirit pool is if you don't - it's a few klicks south of here."

"Are you trying to get rid of me, to keep me from stopping you from doing something?"

I shrugged. "If I was, would I admit it? If you prefer, I can ask Joe to jump into the pool instead of you, but I really need the answer as soon as practical."

"What are you planning?"

"I don't have a concrete plan, yet," I half-lied. "I still need to ask some questions of our new guests - ones that I think they'd prefer me to ask in private.

Red crossed her arms and frowned. "Promise me you will do nothing before I return."

I nodded. "Nothing but talk, asking questions and figuring out answers."

"I am serious. I am not White Snake, but if you break this promise - Bear Joe would be as happy eating your arms as sitting on you. And like Sarah, you will grow them back."

I held up one hand. "Queen's honour."

"Very well, then." She turned and strode out of the library. I quickly followed, but turned inwards instead of out.

--

"Joe," I nodded to the other bunny-woman. "I've had a thought. The spirits didn't have any bunny-people like you, until they made you to look like me, right?"

"That's right," she agreed, looking a bit cautious.

"So if the spirits wanted, they could come up with their own versions of bodies shaped like Jeff's and Sarah's, right?"

"I suppose so."

"Then I need you to find out the answer to a very important question for me. I've looked at the anatomy scans of those two, and looked at the readings since Clara got here. They were designed... badly. In pain more often then not, spine trouble, one system leaking into another. It is possible for your spirits to put them in new bodies that are shaped like the ones they have now, but that are pain-free. What I need to know about your spirits is: are they only willing to relieve the suffering of members of the Great Peace? Or are they willing to let people experience unending pain, and worse, simply because those people have no interest in signing up?"

"That's a very good question-"

"Joe," I interrupted her. "I need a definite answer, one way or the other. If I don't get an answer soon, I'm going to have to act as if they've answered negatively."

"I can go to a pool and let the spirits see the question in my memory."

"Why not go find a green jay, and pass the question along through them?"

"Birds have simple minds, and I do not think they are smart enough to carry all of that."

"There are lots of birds, and flying is faster than walking, isn't it?"

She frowned. "I suppose. If there are none nearby, I may have to go to the pool myself."

"Whatever you think will get the definite answer soonest."

--

I waded into the three-way shouting match within the clinic, and shoved my hands right into the mouths of Sarah and Jeff. Their teeth scraped my skin, but they choked a bit as I, quite literally, held their tongues still. I glared at Toffee, who was staring at me with jaw hanging. She quickly collected herself enough to start, "And what the /bleep/ do you think /you're/ bleeping doing?"

"Being a wizard. Shut up a minute. I have an idea. If it doesn't work, I don't want to get your hopes up. I need to ask some questions. In private. If you want to stay in this room, I need to get you some earplugs and the like. I can put you back in quarantine in Munchkin. Or I can send you outside and way down the hall, with, say, Bear Joe making sure you don't just sneak back. Your choice."

She blinked rapidly, then said, "Too late."

"What?"

"You've just /gotten/ my bleeping hopes up. Uh - how do I get the bear here to, uh..."

"Just ask him."

I took a few breaths as she had a brief, somewhat one-sided conversation. Munchkin had started to get a certain odour about it, what with me, Bear Joe, Joe Three, and all the bun-bots who matched my scent. And when we'd brought the foxtaurs aboard, things had gotten much more unpleasant, though the hazmat suits and bunbots' constant cleaning had canceled most of that out. Now, in close proximity to the two of them, their natural scent wasn't exactly unpleasant, but was starting to get druidic in its strength.

Once Toffee and Bear Joe had left, I ignored the stares of the people whose tongues I was holding, and looked ceilingwards. "Clara - after the nerve toxin they've experienced, I'm guessing being too active isn't too healthy for these two, and their recovery would go faster if they rested."

"That is right," she agreed.

"The helmet things they've got - can you put them to sleep for a while?"

There was a conversationally significant pause. "Is there a reason you are sending everyone away?"

"Yes. And you can let them wake up in a few minutes, and I'm not going to do anything to them, and so on. If it helps, I've been treating them, so I count as their attending physician, right?"

"That does not work that way. But very well."

The foxtaurs' outraged eyes quickly drifted closed. I pulled my hands out of their muzzles, and hit a sink to clean them up. To Clara, I said, "The retrovirus we cooked up, to turn mammary glands into explosive chemical factories. Would it be safe to conclude that they can replace other bits of genetic coding?"

"Naturally," Clara agreed.

"I'd like you to run a few quick simulations. Pick random bits of snake-oid DNA to get knocked out by a retrovirus, and then see if that snake-oid still transforms its host's cells. Can you figure out what parts of the snake-oid genome are responsible for the cellular conversion process?"

"It may take a little time, but the simulations are well within my capacity."

"Right," I nodded firmly. "I have a new treatment option for Toffee. Design a retrovirus to keep the snake-oid cells from spreading further, remove the snake-oid in her gut, and - well, done. I'm assuming that snake-oid intestines are still capable of digesting food?"

"Certainly. But why do you need to keep this a secret?"

"First - I would like you to make a copy of everything that is required to make that cure, and put it on some portable format. The genomes involved, the blueprints of the equipment needed to make the retrovirus, the computers and software used to run the simulations, the equipment to sample the DNA, and so on. I'm tempted to ask for printed copies of the hardware specs, to keep from having to connect the digital copy to anything else if I want to get any of that hardware made."

"Copying process started. Your reasons?"

I nodded once. I told her, "If the snake-oid conversion can be knocked out with a retrovirus - then I've got a potential way to deal with the infestation of the things, that's a lot less destructive than trying to kill each and every one of them, and all their potential hosts."

"That sounds very nice. Why keep it a secret?"

"Where's the data?"

"Two feet to your left, second drawer down, is a display tablet with sufficient capacity. Please attach it to the network outlet on the wall in the northeast corner." I did so, and after a few moments, Clara said, "You may unplug it now. That contains all the data you requested, as well as some ancillary files that you did not directly ask for but are likely required. The reason for the secrecy?"

"Because to /spread/ the anti-snake-oid virus, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to need to, well, spread it. Without the knowledge or consent of the people or animals living in that area. There's already a certain anti-technological bias in local cultures - if they learn that I have the materials and knowledge that can defend against a bio-agent like the snake-oids, they're likely to get the idea that I'm going to start infecting them all with influenza-ebola-syphilis."

"Do you have further directions?"

"Yep. Everyone here is going to figure out that I'm trying to keep /some/ secret from them, so if you're capable of it, I'd like to have an alternative secret. Chemotherapy works by giving the patient a poison that's more toxic to the bad cells than the good ones. So our fake secret is going to be that I realized we could adapt chemical warfare agents as a cure for Toffee, but don't want the info that I'm able to work with such chemicals getting out."

"That is an amusing parallel to your actual secret."

I shrugged. "I've been told the best lies contain as much truth as possible. Now here's the big question - can you actually keep the secret, a secret?"

"Why did you not ask that first?"

"If using biotech like this went against your core programming, then even asking about it would probably have triggered your warning flags, whether or not you'd promised secrecy. Now then, while you're calculating the new retrovirus targets, how about we work out enough details of the fake chemotherapy to avoid obvious inconsistencies, and then you can wake these two up, and I'll endure everyone shouting at me for a while?"

--

I let the foxtaurs yell at me as much as they wanted, and then Toffee, and Joe Three, and even endured Red telling Bear Joe to sit on me, once she got back and found out I'd sent her on a question that wasn't relevant to what I was doing. The only reasons I kept my arms was that Clara confirmed that I really had just been talking about a highly controversial idea for a possible treatment for Toffee.

Jeff and Sarah were surprised into silence when Joe reported his own wild-goose-chase answer: that the Quebecois' council would be willing to consider asking the spirits to cure non-adoptees on a case-by-case basis... and that the two of them had already been accepted as the first cases. If they walked into a pool, they would walk out with foxtaur bodies designed by the spirits instead of as fawns... and their conduct thereafter, how they treated such a gift, would likely determine how the council, and the spirits, would respond to any future cases.

Which was all well and good, and Toffee agreed that the controversial treatment was worth trying before resorting to yanking out most of her digestive tract, and that keeping the details a secret was a small price to pay, and I could deal with Red's audible resolution to not get more than ten feet away from me again, and so on.

I put up with all of that for the simple reason that the display tablet in my pocket had information that not even Clara had realized the full import of, information she'd agreed to keep secret, information we'd already come up with several layers of misdirection and secrecy to hide.

Back when I'd had my House moment, my first realization was, as I'd said to Clara, that a retrovirus might be a tool to help Toffee with her parasite. But what had gotten me to go through all the effort of secrecy and so on was the realization I'd had immediately thereafter: that if the genetic components of the snake-oid cellular conversion process could be identified, then not only could they be targeted for disruption... they just might be able to be used for other purposes. Clara had said that Toffee's whole anatomy could end up changed - which meant that, possibly, the data in my pocket just might let me pull a poor man's version of one of the Zones around Detroit, transforming any given animal (like a human) into any other shape I happened to have the genetic code of. It might take years - or it might not.

Not to mention, I had Bun-Bun's own form of genetic assimilation to study, given my hoof's conversion into lapiform cells, even if it hadn't reshaped back into a paw.

If Technoville had been willing to black-bag me just because I happened to have an interesting brain, there was no telling what they'd do to me if they ever got a hint that I had any inkling of the technology behind the Zones they constantly fought.

Wiping out the snake-oids, or at least the genes and molecular mechanisms that let them reshape other life forms, was no longer just a matter of keeping that from happening to anyone else; it was a matter of information control, of keeping this technology out of the hands of anyone who didn't already have it, of people who would use it to turn their enemies into draft animals and their friends into, well, draft animals, or anything else that took their fancy.

I needed to run my own computational analyses of the snake-oid genome and proteome and so forth, somewhere that not even Clara could get a hint of what I was up to. (After all, whatever promises of secrecy the AI made, they could be overridden if-and-when the Nine Nations convinced her they'd created a board of governors, or if another Berserker connected to the university hardware.)

There were still some loose ends. A lot of reports from a hinterland about snakes that turned people into snakes could be written off as some bit of local mythology, like jackalopes or loch monsters (Well, there probably /were/ living examples of both of those, but that was beside the point.)... as long as there were no living examples of snakes that could do so. If the surviving snake-oids could still attach to people, like Wagger had to my own rear, then that could be viewed as the foundation of the mythically exaggerated version, the way that a rabbit with a some infection-caused growths were the source of the jackalope myth. But after we'd so blithely informed Toffee about her fate - I gently tried to work into the conversation the idea that, in order to help keep the secret about the source of the chemotherapy, if she had to talk about the parasite infection, she should think of it as having been eating her guts, like an overenthusiastic tapeworm. Or, even better, not talk about it at all.

She was less enthusiastic about this idea than just simply keeping a secret, but seemed willing to go along. When I raised my eyebrows at Joe Three and Red, they shrugged and mumbled; and Jeff and Sarah were so hotly debating the Quebecois offer that they'd probably already forgotten almost anything they'd heard about Toffee.

I decided that any further nudges I tried to make at that point would probably just bring more attention to what I wanted everyone to completely ignore, so that seemed to be as good a solution as I could get at the moment.

Of course, it was entirely possibly I was completely over-reacting. After all, snake-oid conversion might involve non-genetic components, the way that Bun-Bun had a computer for a skeleton which could pull various tricks. Or, maybe it was specific to snake-oid forms only. Or maybe it involved so much spaghetti code that it would be impossible to reverse-engineer, at least without taking decades to read up on biochemistry and genetics. Or maybe even better techniques were already well-known by every enclave of technologically sophisticated post-apocalypse survivors, and they'd just been hiding their knowledge from /me/.

But given the odds of what the tech /might/ be able to accomplish, and the possible magnitude thereof - I was, at least, somewhat satisfied with myself for having already started making preparations to keep such information hidden, with the distraction of my Chamber of Secrets. The info in my pocket wasn't going anywhere near that part of Munchkin - instead, as Toffee endured the physical extraction of the main snake-oid from within her via a colonoscopy-like procedure, and the rest of us got ready to bring the foxtaurs to the nearby spirit pool, I paused a moment to make a couple of copies of the data in my new tablet, including getting some updates of the simulations Clara had run pinning down vital components, and stuck them into Munchkin's lab carriage, along with various hardcopy and digital texts that formed the core of a new reference library. After all, there wasn't anything /obviously/ important about the data to anyone who might skim it, or even read it thoroughly - everyone else in the group had had just as much opportunity to come to the same realizations I had, but hadn't.

And the best place to hide a needle wasn't in a haystack, but in a needlestack.

 

*Chapter Nine: A-head*

I kept my hands in my pockets and watched from a respectful distance as Jeff carefully stepped into the pond, making sure her feet wouldn't suffer the same effects that mine had; and then pushed through the semi-liquid to immerse herself. After a reasonably short time, she stepped right back out, looking much the same - but with many subtle differences. She was sleeker, more streamlined - and smiling. She bent her torso forward, backward, all around; broke straight into a gallop and bounded around us, laughing.

After Sarah had repeated the process, and the two of them were quite literally rolling in the grass, I let myself smile a bit.

Joe wandered my way. "I'm surprised the Quebeckers convinced the spirits to do that."

I shrugged. "Maybe the spirits' minds are close enough to human that they responded to my little speech about compassion. Maybe the Quebecois have a politically rising star, and the spirits respond to that. Maybe they're testing the waters to see how well a less absolutist immigration policy does in the real world."

"They look like they're having fun. I always enjoy having four legs - I'm tempted to jump in and see if the spirits will let me join them."

"What, and leave me as the only biological bunny? However would you fulfill your job of giving my bunny-hugs?"

"With more limbs, I could probably hug you even harder. Or maybe the spirits would let me have another me try their shape out."

"Well, if you're going to, you should do it soon. I plan on rolling Munchkin out of here in, oh, ten minutes or so."

"Why the rush? Have somewhere to be?"

"Let's see - the robo-fac is breaking down and I don't know how long it'll keep working, or if I can fix it; I've got piles of warning signs to drop off on the roads leading to Buffalo; I've got an infestation of snake-oids to neutralize, which may require tweaking the paragliders into crop dusters; Joe One still hasn't come back, so I should check in on what he's been up to; I've got heliograph stations to drop off, squiddies to work out the equivalent of a tax system for, and that's not even starting to get into interacting with groups of humans. Oh, and I should probably drop those three off somewhere along the way, assuming they're not going to be living here."

"That's a lot of things to do. Are you sure you can-"

Joe was interrupted as one of the blue foxtaurs practically skidded to a halt in front of us, immediately followed by the other. I noticed that their scent was at least as strong as ever, though even that odor had improved. I also tried to pretend that their fur made an adequate substitute for clothing for preserving their modesty, or at least that we were all part of a culture in which naturism was an unremarkable lifestyle choice.

"Did you say you're sending us away?" asked the first one, who then let her tongue hang out to pant a bit.

"Well," I shrugged, "Not exactly. If you want a ride, I'll be heading out soon, is all."

The two of them looked at each other, tails wagging. The second one said, "Lady asks if /we/ want a ride."

The first said back, "Lady is very silly."

The pair of them both took a step closer to me - and after a very confused few seconds, I found myself sitting on the back of one, holding onto her frontal anatomy to keep myself from getting flung off as the pair ran through the grass.

Once I managed to collect my wits, I snorted, rolled my eyes - and let them have their fun.

I could come up with a very rational and proper excuse for why, a few minutes after I was back on my own two feet, I came out of Munchkin bearing more than enough water-firing weaponry to outfit the whole gang, introducing the activity by yelling my head off and plastering the blue-furred twins with a water balloon each, before letting them 'steal' the various water-guns from me... maybe something about trust-rebuilding exercises or the fact that I was riding high after making my number go up to ten or that it really was a hot and sunny day that the water nicely helped us all cool down from... but why lie?

(Of course I cheated - I kept the bun-bots in reserve as a firing line in case Bear Joe felt grumpy about not joining in. When Red jumped on his back and rode after the fox-twins, I figured that was a good enough excuse to go out in a blaze of glory, let the others 'accidentally' see me lining them up on Munchkin's other side, and then chase me around to trigger my own trap onto myself.)

Once everyone was tuckered out, or at least willing to lean back and relax a bit, I said, "So, Sarah - uh, which of you is Sarah?" One raised her hand, and after a moment of thought, I pulled a white kerchief out of my pocket and tossed it to her. "To tell you apart," I explained, and she tied it around her wrist. "Anyway, I wanted to ask each of you - do you have any plans? Is there a particular place you'd like to go?"

"Plan was, hit city, grab loot, buy ticket, ship west, find Zone, change back to human. Or to anything. Now - well, still feels weird, weirdest to have big giant mouth in what feels like belly-button, but... not as bad weird."

"Still going to try to change back to human?"

Jeff spoke up, "Maybe, maybe not. Not so important now. As long as we change together, or stay together, I'm good."

"It sounds to me," I mused aloud, "that you might be at something of loose ends."

"Hunh?"

Toffee interjected, "Lady says you got no job right now. Lady prolly dancing and not getting to point and wants to offer you job."

"Er," I said expressively, "Something like that. You, too, Toffee."

Sarah's ears perked forward, and asked, "What job?"

"Well, I'm tempted to offer you the positions of official royal steeds... but more seriously, my plans require some digging up of old cities, to try and find out what happened to them. It's not quite the same as looting, but I'm pretty sure you don't need to worry about dying from poisons just from walking near the places..."

The trio looked at each other, then back at me. Sarah asked, "What's the pay?"

"That depends. What do you use for money?"

--

The answer turned out to be 'almost anything'. The good people of Erie were still American enough to measure all prices in dollars - they just didn't bother using any actual, you know, dollar bills. (Anyone who wanted those was free to find an old suburban bank and empty a vault.) Some preferred gold (or, more usually, silver), some signed and countersigned IOUs, some bartered fish or chickens - and, somehow, it seemed to work well enough, at least as far as the trio of Erieans were concerned.

"In that case," I eventually nodded, "I'm sure we can work something out. In the meantime - I started making something for you earlier, and it should be ready by now." I headed over to the Chamber of Secrets, and just in a few moments returned, with a few bundles draped over an arm. "I remember once reading that the surest way to tell an intelligent species from a non-intelligent one was... pockets." I grabbed one bundle and unfurled it, revealing a light tan safari vest. "I'm pretty sure these will fit you, without having to come up with a custom design for your other-than-human anatomy. And trust me, I know how annoying clothing is on fur, so I went with the most comfortable lining I've found so far..."

Jeff and Sarah seemed happy enough as they donned the garments, and I'll admit I was at least slightly more comfortable when they were dressed. I glanced at Toffee. "I got one for you, too, if you want." She just nodded and accepted it without even a single 'bleep'.

"Those," I said, "are gifts. "These," I opened my palm to show what was inside, "are symbols. The royal crown-and-leaves, in lapel pin form. I'll admit that it's fairly understated for a uniform - but we can always work out minor details later. The point is - when you wear these, you are showing everyone that you are in my service, under my orders, and I am ultimately responsible for your actions. I'm... /hoping/ the ideal appeals to you. If it doesn't, we can work out a more ordinary sort of employment arrangement."

Sarah asked, "Do we decide now?"

I shrugged. "You don't have to. You can take the pins without agreeing, while you think it over - just let me know before you put them on, and we can work out exactly what that will involve."

As the trio plucked the bits of metal and enamel from my hand, Red asked, "Don't I get clothes and jewels, too?"

I gave her a 'really?' expression. "If you want me to make you something else to wear, just ask. As for the pin - sorry, but you're already under orders from the Council, and it would be a conflict of interest for you to be under my orders at the same time."

"Maybe I like being conflicted."

"Taking the pin means you're not allowed to tell Bear Joe to sit on me again."

"Maybe I don't like being conflicted."

"That's what I thought."

Joe Three softly spoke up. "And me?"

"You're still under orders to hug me and all that jazz?"

"I wouldn't put it that way. Yes."

"Then no, no pin for you. Joe One, maybe - as far as I know, he's gone so far outside what he had to do that he's pretty much following his own conscience these days. Don't ask me how this is going to work once you start merging and splitting up again - I worked out my protocols for such things before I knew people like you even existed, but you're not bound by them."

"You are starting to talk fast again."

"I can live with being a bit manic. Especially after a good day like today."

--

I parked Munchkin just outside the factory's front entrance. "Now," I said to the gang, "the parking lot is supposed to have been cleaned up of toxin, but the cleanser is, uh, kind of messy, so if you really want fresh air, you can head outside, but you might prefer Munchkin's roof. More importantly, I'm going to be working on some sensitive stuff, and there are all sorts of ways things could go wrong if you came in with me, including some dangers that it would take me longer to explain than I plan on being in there for - so if you need me, just send one of the bun-bots in after me, alright? There's brownies in the food machine, water in the sink, reading material in the lab, and whatever chairs and beds you want to arrange in here. Everyone got all that?"

I got nods from everyone but Bear Joe and Wagger, so I nodded back, pulled on my utility vest (which could hold many more electronics tools than the bat-belt), and slipped into the factory.

I had a fairly simple idea I wanted to try out: When a computer starts going wonky, one of the first things to attempt is a simple hard reset, turning the power off and on. One of the problems with doing that to the factory was that whoever had designed the place had put in enough backups and redundancies to satisfy even my urges toward being Crazy Prepared. On the one hand, that might have been what had kept the place in running shape until I found it; on the other hand, it made it hard to separate any given piece of computing equipment from all the direct power lines, indirect UPSes, and internal battery backups. On the gripping hand, this was an industrial site rather than a home computer, and trying to reboot anything without a manual might be impossible, so I wanted to find a relatively useless piece of computing machinery to try to power-cycle first; but, again, everything was so redundant with hardwired data connectivity that isolating a single computer wouldn't be easy.

I was elbow-deep in cables behind what I was fairly sure was some sort of rackmount server, Gofer-Bun holding a light over my shoulder as I tried to sort out the Gordion-esque tangle, when noises started. I looked around, but they seemed to be in some far point of the factory, so I went back to work. However, just when I'd finished identifying which cables were for power and which were for data, the machinery in the industrial-sized room I was in also came to life. Even pressing my ears down on the back of my head, I winced at the volume; deciding not to test Bun-Bun's ability to regenerate hearing loss, I put in a pair of earplugs.

The nearby printers, presses, mills, and less identifiable machinery were all whirring away madly. I couldn't really make out what they were making - or even make a good guess about what sort of product would require /all/ of them. I was /fairly/ sure that my fiddling with the cables wouldn't have triggered anything, since I hadn't started unplugging any yet. Maybe I happened to be around during a maintenance interval, or a backlogged order was just now hitting the top of the scheduler, or...

I pulled Gofer-Bun out of the way of an automated forklift, which was going fast enough that its prongs would have put the realism of her innards to the test if she hadn't moved. It was carrying a simple drill press - and, to my astonishment, dumped it into the feedstock hopper of another machine, which rapidly tore the smaller machinery into small chunks of shredded metal.

A sharp light started throwing intermittent shadows from the middle of the room. Squinting and peering between my fingers, I was just able to make out some sort of arc-welder being applied near one of the room's main support beams. A deeper squint, and a correction - being applied /to/ one of the room's main support beams.

That was /not/ any sort of standard maintenance procedure I could imagine.

I froze in place for several long seconds, as alternative courses of action raced through my mind - try to stop the self-destruction (and risk becoming feedstock), run away screaming, try to salvage whatever was most valuable...

I finally managed to move, to look at the computing machine I'd chosen. A couple of feet wide and deep, and twice that high - and, on the very bottom, caster wheels.

I made a choice. Maybe a bad one, but it was better than standing like a deer in the headlights. "Gofer-Bun," I ordered, "Unplug /all/ these cables, as fast as you can."

The thing weighed, as best as I could figure, somewhere over half a ton. Forklift-bots were racing back and forth down the main walkways. The lighting was abysmal. The roof was groaning as its supports were fed into machines that would be crushed when the place collapsed.

I was tense, dodging every random robot that came by, getting ready to abandon both computer and bun-bot to run for my life if things got one step worse, flinching at every new form of cacophony that made it through my earplugs, trying to keep my eyes open for any clue about /what/ was going on...

... and abruptly, we pushed through the door to the lobby section, where all was perfectly calm and peaceful.

Mostly.

From another entrance to the factory floor, I saw a forklift-bot drop off a pallet, carrying a pile of shiny metal things. Jeff calmly stepped over, started scooping them into bags, and slung them over Sarah's back. She staggered a little under the weight, then started trotting to the entrance; Toffee was just coming back, carrying empty bags.

Behind me, the door opened again - and the harsh light of a welder announced the doorframe itself was now being taken apart. The trio looked up at the light, squinting in my direction.

I gritted my teeth, consciously controlling as much of my body's movements as I could. "You three," I said, without elaboration. "Help me get this aboard Munchkin," I tapped the top of what I hoped was a server. "As gentle as possible, but as fast as possible." There was a great grinding, groaning, rumbling noise, and a cloud of dust billowed into the lobby, turning the fractalline decorations into mere oddly-shaped lumps. "Emphasis on /fast/." I tried not to breathe in until I'd pulled a filter mask from my vest.

Outside - another welder thing had started on a lamp-post. With five bodies, several of them with non-human advantages in leverage or strength, it was a lot easier to roll the computer to one of Munchkin's airlocks, and up and through.

"Get aboard," I stated.

Toffee declared, "But there's more-"

"Get aboard," I repeated, "or be left behind. Argue later."

They got.

Once they, and Gofer-Bun, and I were all aboard, and I'd closed the door, I called out, "Munchkin: Bug-out, bug-out, bug-out." Without any further commands, the vehicle started running through the pre-arranged emergency escape sequence, heading at maximum speed to a location at least one klick distant. The acceleration knocked everybody onto the floor. Or, in Jeff's case, onto one of several piles of shiny metal things.

I'd known to brace myself, so I was still standing. I reached down and picked up one of the shinies: it was the size and shape of a credit card, made of a silvery metal which the embossed letters claimed (in Free Press letters) to be silver. Specifically, three point five zero cubic centimeters of silver (at twenty degrees Celsius), massing thirty-six point seven grams, or one point one eight troy ounces. The crown and leaves were drawn with etching. On the other side were my own profile and name (in classic English letters).

I picked up one from another pile. Titanium, fifteen point seven grams. I wiped my glasses free of dust, and squinted - I could make out nickel, copper, aluminium, lead, bronze, and there were more piles I couldn't see from where I was standing.

"By any chance," I said, as various species pulled themselves onto various forms of legs, "Is the explanation for what I am seeing that you noticed the factory self-destructing, and so you decided to... extract as much metal as you could?"

The foxtaurs glanced at each other, but Toffee just shook her head. "No, ma'am."

"Ah, I'm a 'ma'am' now. I thought that was a term given to people you respected."

Sarah spoke up, "We /do/ respec' you, Lady-ma'am."

"Very well. Then please. Explain what happened."

Toffee took a step forward. "Well, you see, it was like this-"

I cleared my throat. "And please," I added, "respect me enough to skip the more obvious lies, and the ones that I can disprove by looking at camera recordings."

Toffee said, "Oh. Um - well, the front part didn't /look/ dangerous, and Joe Three said she'd been there, so we went and looked around. I saw something asking me what I wanted, and I said 'money' - and, well, piles of it started-."

She broke off as Munchkin skipped a half-step forward, sending us all to the floor.

Jeff, wide-eyed, asked, "What was /that/?"

I called up a virtual window of a rear view. "At a guess," I commented, "given the lack of flame - possibly a compressed-air tank blowing. Or maybe a large section of roof." I tried taking a deep breath, and letting it out. "Well," I said, as steadily as I could manage, "I suppose that means I'm going to need to adjust most of my future plans. And re-evaluate the decisions I made leading up to this one, so that I never have to kick myself and say 'I should have seen that coming'. ... I'm suddenly thinking of the bun-bot I left manning the heliograph on the roof. It's a bit of a long-shot, but I'm going to try relaying a message to the university tower and back to tell her to abandon her post. Be a bit tricky at this speed - don't want to lose another bun-bot to a tree-branch here. Gofer-Bun, retrieve heliograph."

As I started fiddling with one of the roof accesses, Sarah whispered, "There was - is - somebody still there?"

"Just a bun-bot," I said. "They look like me, and now there's no way any more can ever be made, but they're not people. They don't think, just follow orders." I ignored her for a while as I balanced giving orders to Munchkin, helping Gofer-Bun lift the heliograph, and recalling the signals I'd need to give to get the order relayed. Assuming there was still a bun-bot left to relay any orders to.

After a few minutes, that was done, and I closed the roof hatch, cutting off the noise of the wind.

Toffee spoke up, "Look, I'm sorry-"

I interrupted without looking at her. "I doubt that."

"What?"

I continued packing away the heliograph. "I suspect you are simply at the whipped puppy stage, trying to avoid as much punishment as possible. A real apology involves an acknowledgement of how much the offender hurt the victim, and an announcement of some sort of intended behavioural change to prevent a recurrence. You are not even fully aware of the magnitude of what you have done, so how can you be truly sorry?"

Sarah asked, "Mag-ni-tude?"

"The facility that is now self-destructing, if it had not been tampered with, had the potential for building a wide array of medicines, fertilizer, farming machines, vehicles, bun-bots like Gofer-Bun here, and many more objects of true worth."

Toffee objected, "But we've /got/ worth! Just look at all this money!"

I finally looked up at her. For some reason, she took two steps back, and Joe Three slid her shoulder in front of Toffee's. "You really think this... /money/ has any value?"

"Well - yeah, of course! It's money! A little funny-looking, but silver's silver!"

I rubbed my forehead, and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Would it be safe to conclude that you have had absolutely no training in either microeconomics or macroeconomics?"

"You don't have to say it like /that/."

"Then I can only conclude that you are completely unaware of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, of four centuries ago, more or less."

"What about 'em?"

"When they discovered this continent, they decided to exploit it by bringing as much gold and silver as they could back to their homeland. They brought so much /money/ that they flooded the market, dropping the value of precious metals precipitously, ruining their economies. Before they did that, they were the most powerful empires on the planet. A couple of centuries later, they were barely also-rans. All their power, all their influence, their armies and navies, their overseas colonies - frittered away, because people grabbed hold of all the /money/ they could, instead of wealth."

"But-"

"Toffee - if you'd had all this silver before we'd met, how much of it would you have been willing to pay to be cured? Or, more to the point, how much would you have wanted to hold on to, if holding onto it meant you would die?"

"But-"

"You are, apparently, completely clueless about the true wealth that you and your greed for /money/ have destroyed. What is worse, I can't even blame you for your actions. I /assumed/ that a group of people planning on looting a city would understand the concept of areas that looked safe but were dangerous; and even if I hadn't assumed that, I could have prevented this whole mess just by locking Munchkin's doors."

Joe Three said, "Bunny, that's enough. You should go back, get some sleep-"

Wagger coughed a brief lungful of dust out, then I continued interrupting her, "I don't see why. Just because I lost the main tool I could have used to save countless lives is destroyed doesn't mean I don't still have lots to do. Warning signs to cure, the snake-oid poison to distribute, and so on."

Jeff spoke up, quietly. "What about us?"

I shrugged. "You can do whatever you like. You can get off wherever you find convenient, with as much of this /money/ as you care for. After all, you arranged for it, so if you wanted to argue the point, it probably technically counts as yours-"

Red Deer finally spoke. "Bear Joe, sit on her."

"What?" I blinked in surprise as the large creature made his way over. He looked at me, I rolled my eyes, and sat down so he didn't have to work to get me down. I grunted as his weight settled onto my lap.

Red Deer stated, "You are not thinking straight. You are angry."

"Of course I am. That doesn't mean I'm making incorrect decisions."

"How is insulting and demeaning these people, people you saved and gave new bodies to and offered to hire, a correct decision?"

"I planned on hiring them because I thought they had at least some modicum of intelligence. As that doesn't seem to be the case, I don't envisage them being of any more use than bun-bots, simple bodies following orders instead of thinking for themselves."

Red Deer crossed her arms. "Is that how you see me?"

"Of course not. You don't even follow orders."

She rolled her eyes at me. "Is that how you see /people/?"

I managed to shrug. "I have a job to do, that's more important than anything else I can think of. People who can help with that, I'll work with to the best of my ability. People who can't, are most likely wasting my time."

Joe Three sat down next to me. "What about friendship?"

"I understand for most people, it's a pretty fundamental drive. I've never been particularly good at it."

Joe waved at Sarah, calling for her to come over, pointing for her to sit down on the other side of me. Sarah seemed nervous, but stretched out there. "Put your head on her shoulder - hug her, if you like." Joe looked at me. "You saved her life. You pulled political strings I didn't even know you had to fix her body. You're telling me you don't feel /anything/ positive for her?"

Uncomfortable, I shrugged again. "About as much as I do anyone else I've met."

Joe frowned. "And she's just set you back by - years, maybe. You don't feel... betrayed? Angry at her? Want her to ask you to forgive her?"

"There's nothing to forgive. Like I said - it was my fault."

Sarah whispered, "Was our fault, too. My fault." I blinked, and tilted my head as I looked at her. She looked back. "Should have spoke, I. Should have - stayed on machine. Done your orders. I can, now?"

"Er - can what?"

"You order, I do. Anything. Everything."

I coughed slightly, then shook my head. "I... appreciate the thought. In... a few ways. But - the idea makes me uncomfortable. In all sorts of ways."

"Isn't that what you asked? Apology part is making change?"

"Sarah," I put my hand on hers, "Right now - I look at you, and I see a child, someone who would rather go exploring than heed any warnings. It would be - unfair of me to take advantage of a child's promises."

She pulled her arms away. "Am /not/ a child! Fuck Jeff often! Daily, some days!"

I felt my face heat, and I looked away. "That's - not the point. Uh - Joe, a little help here?"

Joe said, "I think you're doing fine digging your own hole."

I sighed, rubbed my forehead again. All the tenseness I'd picked up while running through the factory suddenly drained away, leaving all my limbs heavy. "It's been a long day," I stated. "I'm going to lie down. Um - maybe tell Munchkin to hit the sign drop-off spots first. Set an alarm for when we stop, to set the signs."

Joe asked, "Can that wait?"

I glared at her. "How many people do /you/ want to die, wandering into VX residue with no warning?"

"Fine, fine. But you don't have to do /everything/ yourself."

"Eh, I suppose not. I think I can tell the bun-bots what to do before I crash."

"I meant, us."

"Oh. Well, I suppose it's not that complicated of a job, and would save me the effort." I put the back of my hand to my mouth to hide a yawn. "Bear Joe, you joining me?"

As my life-sized teddy and I headed back to our usual mattress, my bunny ears overheard Jeff ask, "She fucks him?"

Red answered, "Not yet, anyway. Just sleeps beside him. I don't think she does anything but sleep, with anyone."

I called back, "I can still hear you, you know."

Red called right back, "I know!"

I rolled my eyes, grunted, and flopped into bed.

 

*Chapter Ten: A-sleep*

Wet fur, strong enough to hide any other scents.

Rain, pattering on a roof.

Unbrushed teeth.

On my back, a weight holding down each of my arms.

An overfull bladder.

The last sensation led me to open my eyes. In the soft glow of Munchkin's dim nightlights, I found myself staring at a sleeping blue fox's face. Turning my head - another one, close enough that I could make out each individual strand of fur even without my glasses. A sheet covered all three of us - and other than that, nothing but our own fur did.

"Well, this is cliched," I observed aloud.

Fox eyes opened.

"Lady is awake," came from behind me.

"Lady is still angry?" came from ahead of me.

"Lady has to go pee," came from me, and they lifted their human-ish torsos so that I could.

Once that was taken care of, I leaned against the washroom's doorframe, brushing my teeth as I looked down at my bed, and its two unexpected occupants. I stuck the brush in the corner of my mouth to ask, "What time is it?"

"Lady slept two days."

"Red Deer put drug in brownie."

"Lady's tail ate brownie."

I glanced over my shoulder at Wagger, who looked up at me with innocent slit-pupiled eyes. I rolled my own, and looked back at the pair. Only slightly garbled by my oral ministrations, I inquired, "Where are we?"

"Quarry."

"Limestone quarry."

"Joe asked Munchkin for place with low profile."

"Munchkin found place below ground."

"Mm-hm." I turned around to spit and such. Once I was done, I started dressing. "Do anything while you had me under?"

"Oh yes."

"Lots."

"As much as we could."

I had my undies on by then, so I crossed my arms and /looked/ at them.

"Lady thinks we fucked her."

"Lady still mad at us."

"Lady should know us better."

"If Lady wants sex, Lady just needs asking."

"Lady needs more sleep?"

I grunted. "Lady - /I/ - have slept quite enough, thank you very much."

They chorused, "You're welcome."

I sighed. "I might regret asking - but what /have/ you been doing?"

"Worked on your list."

"Toffee started at top, looked for what we could do."

"Signs were easy."

"Everyone going near Buffalo and gets poisoned, is their own fault now."

"Even added more signs where smoke fell."

"Lady forgot to add that to list, Toffee thought you'd want it done."

I paused with my business skirt halfway up my legs. "She... wasn't wrong."

"While we did signs, Joe stayed with Clara."

"Talked to her about snakes."

"How to poison them."

"How to find them."

"How to fly."

"Joe doesn't like flying."

"Jeff and I are too heavy for flying machines."

"Toffee learned how."

"Clara taught where to put poison baits."

"Talked about shooting snakes, but they hide too good."

"That village is soaked in poison now."

"Snakes should be all poisoned now."

"Should watch for new ones, just in case."

I sighed a bit. "Well - that was fast. Can't complain about that, really. Had to be done, and I was out of it. I can complain about feeding Wagger a drugged brownie, though."

"Red Deer said you were going to pop."

"Stress levels through roof."

"Lady doesn't drink."

"Doesn't fuck."

"Doesn't party."

"Doesn't do drugs."

"Doesn't do sports."

"Doesn't do art."

"Doesn't talk."

"Doesn't get massages."

"Doesn't have a hobby."

"Does meditate, but not enough."

"Does walk around nature, but not lately."

"Hasn't listened to music."

"Hasn't read anything but important stuff."

"Has a pet, but Wagger can't play fetch."

"Not well."

"Short games."

"Very short."

I cleared my throat, and they nudged their almost-conversation back onto something resembling a topic.

"Red Deer said you were going crazy."

"That she'd have to say no to all your plans."

"Even the good ones."

"Bear would have to sit on you all the time."

"She wanted different solution."

"Rode Bear off into forest, looking for one."

"Came back."

"Hasn't told us what it is."

"I think it's drugs, from forest plants."

"You think all plants are drugs."

"Well, they are."

"Apples?"

"Apple seeds have poison. Poison's a kind of drug."

I coughed again.

"I think she went looking for boy bunnies."

"No you don't."

"I just said I do."

"You think she went looking for /man/ bunnies."

"Oh. Yeah, I do."

I turned away from the bedroom. I spoke to the air, "I think the food maker's got a setting for coffee. Never drank the stuff before, but maybe I should start..."

--

A short time later, I was sitting on top of Munchkin's roof, looking out at the plants extending their dominion over bare white rock, while sipping a hot beverage that was based on mint leaves that somebody had picked and stored away in the pantry.

My silent musings were interrupted as Toffee swung open a roof hatch behind me, looked around, and finally pulled herself all the way through. "You're not planning on jumping off, are you?"

I didn't turn. "If I wanted to commit suicide, I'd have the bun-bots freeze me. Maybe some other schmuck would figure out how to fix things by the time someone were to thaw me out."

"Oh. Uh..."

"No, I'm not planning on killing myself that way, either."

"Good. Really bleeping don't want you to do that."

"You all seem to have been doing fairly well on your own."

"Well, for a day or two, yeah, but we were just working on the to-do list you made."

"You've got the list. You don't need me to keep following it."

"Sure we do. I don't know what half the bleeping stuff on it even /means/."

"Clara could explain, if you asked her."

"Look, are you /trying/ to get bleeping rid of us?"

"Not... quite. More the opposite."

"Uh - gather more people?"

"Let you get rid of me."

"Now why would you bleeping want that?"

"Because one of the only ways I know how to keep myself sane is to spend as much time on my own as possible. I was starting to get used to Joe - but now there's her, and Red, and Boomer, and you, and the fox twins, and Alphie, and..." I trailed off, and shrugged. "I can't even trust my own tail. I would be a much happier rabbit if I chucked the whole thing and wandered off into the forest by myself."

"Aren't you supposed to be some kind of bleeping queen?"

"That started as an attempt to get around a bit of bureaucracy, turned into a running joke, and by now is a farce."

"So you're /not/ a queen?"

"If I really wanted, I could push the point, and get acknowledged as a queen by, well, anyone I cared to."

"So what's wrong with that?"

"Being a queen? Nothing. Being a /mad/ queen? I'd rather be a sane forest hermit."

"Okaaaay... so why are you still here?"

"Abandoning my goals in favour of other goals is one thing. Leaving essentially random people who I can't trust not to drug me in charge of technology that could allow them to create and use Weapons of Mass Destruction is a different sort of irresponsibility altogether."

"What are you bleeping talking about, 'Mass Destruction'?"

I tried to be careful about edging around some of the details I'd decided to keep secret. "Do you think that the sorts of poison you used on the snake-oids can only be targeted on the one species?" I finally did turn my head to look at her. "Do you think that that's the most dangerous piece of tech available around here?"

"You mean it's bleeping /not/?"

"I hear you've learned to fly. In the more secure parts of Munchkin, I have a weapon which can be used to kill a person from - well, I'm not going to give too many secrets away, but from higher up than any rifle can reach. If I put my mind to it... I expect that I have the power to kill off any human, or group of humans, I've met so far. Well, except maybe Technoville."

"So, uh... why don't you?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't particularly /want/ to. Even if I did have some atavistic urge to force other people to kiss my hoof at gunpoint, I'd have to wreck so much in the process that that would be the /only/ thing I'd be able to do. Any chance of getting people who are actually willing to help me solve /important/ problems would just be right out."

"Don't knock a good foo - er, hoof-licking until you've tried it. What sort of problems are you thinking of?"

"For one thing - you know all those pretty falling stars every night? They mean that even if anyone was still watching for dangerous asteroids on a course to impact the planet, there's no way to send anything up there to divert it. And given that, just before the Singularity, some people managed to stick a shade up between us and the sun to control the climate, it's entirely possible that some idiot started an asteroid mining scheme, arranging to move one closer to Earth to be easier to mine, except now there's nothing left to stop it. And we might not know until clouds of dust wrap around the planet from the impact. It might even have happened already, and the effects won't get here for another few hours."

"You're bleeping with me."

"Not at all."

"No, I mean you're /bleeping/ with me. /Nobody/ can tackle a problem /that/ bleeping big. I mean-"

"That's not even the worst scenario. Just one of the more dramatic. And since there seems to be a distinct lack of other people able to cooperate on any scale larger than a city, and I'd really rather not get killed by any of them if they can be avoided - I'd be happy to hand over responsibility for dealing with them to anyone who's got a better shot than I do. And if nobody like that exists - well, it might take a decade or two, but I've got the option of trying to create the conditions that would allow such people to be created, through education and such."

"Why not just bleeping ask for the moon while you're at it?"

"Putting a self-sustaining colony there would certainly go a long way to solving a lot of the problems. Unfortunately - all those shooting stars are still in the way."

"Maybe you're not bleeping with me. Maybe you're /already/ bleeping insane."

"Maybe." I shrugged, and sipped my mint tea. "Of course, to even have a shot at dealing with all of that, I've got to deal with a few more immediate problems first."

"Us?"

"Me. After what you and the twins pulled, I should be on some sort of roaring rampage of revenge. But the strongest emotion I can muster is... mild annoyance."

"Well, that's good for us, innit?"

"Maybe. But blunted emotions are a bad sign for my mental health. The strongest thing I'm feeling right now is just... tired. I've been asleep for two solid days, and one of the things I most want to do is to crawl into bed - my /own/ bed, by myself... okay, or maybe with Bear Joe - and pull a pillow over my head."

"So why doncha? We covered for you for a couple days, we can do that for a couple more. Honestly, all three of us owe you a bleep-ton more of a vacation than that."

"I could say something about that being 'the easy way out' and thus unworthy... but more importantly - somebody dying of thirst will still avoid drinking from a glass of water if it's poisoned. If I just crawl into bed, or do something similarly useless, like trying to catch up on thirty-five years of pre-singularity games, books, and shows - I don't know if I'll be able to get back to facing reality in time to get anything done. So I came up here to think, and to... strategize, I guess."

"Figuring out what cities to have lick your hoof and which to leave alone?"

"Not... exactly. More to strategize myself."

"Bleep?"

"Hm. A metaphor for the mind. Imagine that Sarah and Jeff didn't really have control over their lower halves - that their big, four-legged bits wandered around, doing whatever they pleased, and they mostly came up with excuses for why they were doing whatever their lower bodies were doing. Sometimes, they manage to grab a stick and whack their lower bodies to get them to do what they /really/ want to do. That's a... reasonable model of the mind - the lower bodies being the unconscious side, the upper bodies being the conscious mind. My unconscious has generally been pretty good about letting my conscious mind lead it around - almost without effort. But now it's finally heading its own way, so now I need to come up with a metaphorical stick to whack it with."

"I /like/ letting my bleeping lower half doing my thinking for me."

"... Right. Well, I'm sure that can certainly be fun and satisfying in the short term, but it doesn't help much with long-term planning, or simple survival."

"Well, if that's what floats your bleeping boat. So - what, your lower half is thinking of bleeping offing yourself?"

"Not... exactly. And I've got a last-ditch option ready in case it ever does, to keep it from getting its way."

"Freeze yourself?"

"No, that's only got something like a one-in-twenty chance of working - I mean to keep from taking that step. A very long time ago, I made a promise to myself that if I couldn't think of a reason to keep on keeping on, I'd act /as if/ my purpose for living were to read comics. I've never had to put it to the test, but it's been part of my planning for so long, that I'm hoping my unconscious mind has already swallowed the idea and would be willing to play along. However, it's a last-ditch option for a reason - reading comics doesn't really get much done, and doing what has to be done to read them isn't really sufficient impetus to get much done beyond the basic necessities of survival. I'd basically be giving up on my whole to-do list for however long I was stuck in that level of depression."

"But reading these - comics was it? - is still better than being dead, right?"

"That's the idea. So if worst comes to worst, I'll make my way to the university, and hit the library there. But since if I do, I'll be doing nobody any good for months, or years - I'm trying to remember all the ways I've heard of, when people know what they want to do but can't quite bring themselves to do it. There's a term for that... apraxia? No - akrasia. I think that's it. Depression isn't quite the same as procrastinating or trying to diet - but if the tricks that work on the latter will let me deal with the former, at least to the point of being depressed but still getting things done... I'll take it."

Toffee started asking, "Uh - you're saying you're really sad-"

"/No/. If you use that as your mental model for what I'm referring to by the word 'depression', then you'll get all /sorts/ of oh-so-clever ideas like 'well, why doesn't she just cheer up, then?', ideas which /don't work/, and which would waste a lot of both our times trying to make work. The chemicals in my brain are supposed to be balanced in a certain way, which lets me think clearly. When there's too much of one chemical, or too little of another, I don't think clearly, in certain specific ways. One of those ways happens to have picked up the title 'depression'."

"Okay, okay, jeez, bleep. So... what sort of 'tricks' are we talking about?"

I pulled my small notepad out of my pocket. "I've jotted down the ones I've been able to remember so far. Top of the list - regular exercise. This fuzzy pink body I happen to live in might not need exercise to get strong, or stay strong - but I remember something about regular exercise likely helping improve mood disorders, at least a little bit. I'd rather waste an hour or two a day on pointless physical movement than twenty-four hours a day doing nothing - so I'm going to start working out a preliminary exercise schedule of, say, running and burpees."

"If you were anyone else, I'd say you were making that last word up."

"It's a sort of exercise that doesn't need equipment, and in non-bunnies, strengthens all the major muscle groups. There's a few versions, but for one, for each one, you count to eight. Start standing. One, drop to a crouch. Two, kick your legs behind you. Three, spread your legs. Four, lower your arms. Five, raise your arms. Six, straighten your legs. Seven, pull your legs back into a crouch. Eight, reach your arms up and jump as high as you can. Land standing. Repeat many, many times, with occasional breaks."

"Sounds bleeping ridiculous."

"Looks ridiculous, too. But I remember reading something that, pre-Singularity, prisoners didn't have much to do but exercise. A lot liked lifting weights - gave them nice-looking muscles. When some of them had their exercise equipment taken away, so they couldn't do much besides burpees... then those prisons started needing a lot more guards to handle any given unruly prisoner. It's probably apocryphal - but it /could/ be true, and since I like to pride myself on being perfectly willing to look ridiculous if that's what's necessary to /get stuff done/, it's a good mesh with my goals here."

"... Does it really make humans stronger?"

"... I might be able to stand some group exercise sessions, if it'll help you get started with a routine of your own. Ditto meditation - that's also on my list, for much the same reasons. A proper sleep schedule is on the list. And - well, as much as I enjoy the brownies Munchkin's kitchen produces, and despite the fact that my stomach is supposed to be able to handle anything, I'm going to have to start tracking my diet, and see if I can find any correlations between what I eat and my level of depression. From the data I've been able to get a hold of, which might be outdated by the science that was figured out just before the Singularity, there are arguments that sugar-rich foods cause fluctuations in blood sugar that aren't good for depression. There are also arguments that blood sugar is a vital resource for proper brain functioning, and a lot of brain chemistry issues stem from not having enough of it at the right times. So maybe I need to imitate a certain character called L and eat all the sugar I can - or maybe I need to give it up entirely and focus on leaves."

"I think you can leave me out of /that/ diet."

"Well, yes. Let's see." I flipped the page. "Oh, yes. Social disapproval from people you respect is a pretty effective motivator. Even imagined social disapproval would do. The trouble is, there are very few people whose opinions I respect on significant matters, such as cryonics as a valid strategy for survival or how to deal with extinction risks; and even fewer who I know well enough to imagine standing, looking over my shoulder and tut-tutting at me when I do something stupid." I flipped another page. "And there's taking pills. The techniques we used to create the anti-snake poison could, possibly, be used to create medicines, if I can identify which medicine would affect my brain chemistry in the right way." Another flip. "And there's always leveraging the placebo effect to do good instead of bilking customers of their money. I should probably check with Clara on which forms of placebo are within the range of our resources and have the greatest reported effect."

I flipped another page, and noticed Toffee's expression was a smile that was kind of unchanging and frozen. I flipped the notebook closed, and she let out a small breath, which I guessed was in relief. "And there's more like that," I summarized. "Procrastination is relatively easy to solve, once you know it /can/ be solved, and have access to a list of tricks that might work. At least in comparison to other problems. So when I head back down, I'm going to start straight away on scheduling all these," I waved the notepad in the air, "lifestyle changes. And when my head gets straightened out as much as it can be straightened - we'll just have to see if it's straight enough to get /anything/ useful accomplished outside of that, and if so, what; and then I get to start revising the to-do list based on my exhibited capabilities."

--

Munchkin had a perfectly respectable internal surveillance system, recording all words spoken within to a log for debugging purposes if nothing else - but my bunny ears made the whole thing moot. Toffee had left the roof hatch open when she clambered back down, and by tilting my ears /just/ right, I was able to catch her voice reflecting from inside - and that of the person she was talking to.

One of the foxes asked, "Is she slanted?"

Toffee answered, "She's slanted, for sure. After Red's words about her walk, she'd be slanted if she /weren't/ slanted. But she's the straightest slant I've seen."

"God-botherer?"

"Not so you'd notice," Toffee answered. "In no hurry to die, and she talks on freezing herself like she can thaw out."

"Can she?"

"Bleep if I know. You two squinted around as much as I have - we've seen funkier."

"Then what's her angle?"

"Haven't winkied out that yet."

"Maybe throwing us out with th'argent was a bluff?"

Toffee didn't answer for a few moments, before saying, "If it was - we can grab it later. On the tick - she's got plans to keep from going slantier."

"Drugs?"

"Some, I think. Food. Exercise. Sitting and thinking. We stick with her."

"If wanted that, would've stayed in guard."

"Rather be four-legs and rich, or four-legs and rich /and/ powerful? Says she's got a gun that..."

At that point, they shifted, and the echo I'd been catching disappeared into thin air.

Assuming that that hadn't just been a little performance put on for yours truly... it did explain a few things, like why the three of them had been sticking around and working on my chores, instead of just grabbing the money and running. I didn't begrudge them their greed - in a sense, it was my own greed, for an indefinitely extended lifespan, that was one of my own prime motivations. And more important - greed was simple enough that I could at least make an attempt to work with it and make plans based on its existence, with reasonably little risk of causing accidental insult or getting caught in some complicated political scheme I had no hope of ever understanding.

(As I continued my thinking, I clambered down from Munchkin's roof, muttered a few brief words in passing, changed my outfit from business formal to something more suited to outdoor exercise (eg, sports bra and pistol-crossbow holsters), and started running laps around the quarry.)

After all, if I were to let myself start using paranoia as an analysis strategy, examining the results of who benefitted from actions to derive their source... then I would note that the spirits of the Great Peace had a known reason to want the robo-factory destroyed, and shortly after the fox twins had been placed into a pool that had the potential to rearrange their memories, those fox twins just happened to destroy the factory. However, even if that analysis happened to be true, that /method/ of analysis didn't provide much in the way of useful predictions ahead of time. The most relevant paranoid analysis I could come up with was that some group or entity had an interest in keeping the Lake Erie cities fractured and independent, evidenced by the fact that none of them had tried putting together a heliograph network before, despite the idea being a couple of centuries old; and thus I could expect some sort of push-back if-and-when I continued placing new heliograph stations. The /reason/ that analysis wasn't helpful was that I was /already/ expecting push-back, in one form or another: plagues of beavers, or politicians demanding ludicrous payments, or mobs of anti-tech fanatics, or network disruption attempts by would-be hackers. And I had various ideas on how to deal with any of those scenarios that could actually be dealt with.

Not all of those ideas had made it to the to-do list. Some were just part of the design, such as the networking protocols I'd spent some time designing, or the provisions for electric fencing protecting any given heliograph station. And some, I was just keeping an outright secret, from the contents of one-time pads to... well, come to think of it, I was keeping a /lot/ of secrets by now, which made Toffee's description of me as being 'straight' kind of laughable. I had multiple origin stories, so I could fall back on one or another depending on how prejudiced an individual I was dealing with. I wasn't sure if Toffee and the foxes had figured out that Clara was an AI yet, but I'd been keeping Boomer and Alphie discreetly tucked away, so that even if they knew about Clara, various levels of plausible deniability were still possible. None of them seemed interested in how Munchkin was powered, and I was keeping the fact that, if I really, /really/ wanted, I could apply the fusion reactor to create an explosion at something approaching a kiloton of force so secret that I hadn't even told Boomer. (She might already know, but seemed smart enough not to spread that detail around. And, of course, she might not know /I/ knew; but that sort of recursive paranoia was even less productive than the regular kind.) And speaking of WMDs, I had tech that could, potentially, rewrite any given organism, and had already used it to create one species-destroying disease, under cover of spreading a more simple chemical toxin. And, well, the reason that was a plausible cover was that I actually could arrange for the creation of such toxins, if I put my mind and mini-factory toward that task. I had an omnicidal AI in a box. I had a different computer which might contain the manufacturing specs for Munchkin's reactor.

I was also pretty sure that, back in the day, there was no way I would ever pass a security clearing to get access to secrets of that level of magnitude. For one, I was barely over a month into trying to get used to the fact that over ninety-nine percent of humanity had died off, including everyone I'd ever known, personally or by reputation; for another, there was pretty much everything else I'd been faced with since waking up, which had led to my little coping-strategy brainstorming session. /I/ wouldn't trust me not to go off the deep end and start playing Berserker myself. I had the power to kill, not just anyone, but just about everyone I cared to, if I cared to; with scant exceptions. One exception were members of the Great Peace, who could be resurrected from any given 'spirit pool', and those things seemed to be spread across at least a few dozen thousand square kilometers, maybe even a few hundred thousand; and I still had next to no idea how they worked. Another exception was Technoville - I might have a lovely individual vehicle built with post-twenty-fifteen tech, but they had an /air force/. Among other techs, public and secret. The other exception... was any individual or group that had managed to avoid identification, so far. Whatever was maintaining the air defense screen around Toronto. Whatever had launched the Berserker from old Buffalo. Whatever was controlling the Lake Ontario squiddies from Kingston.

Whatever had manufactured my body in Detroit.

And then, besides the items whose truth was obvious, known, secret, or hiding... there were the items whose truth was a matter of argument and interpretation. Was I still employed by Technoville? Was I a member of a royal family? Was I a head-of-state (and a nuclear power, to boot)? Was I Canadian?

Was I human?

Was I evil?

Was being evil actually a bad thing, given the circumstances?

Technoville was some sort of info-based tyranny; but I'd willingly worked with them. (And then stolen from them. And then worked with them again.) The Great Peace had absorbed everyone who'd come into its territory, had expanded its territory, and the Berserker implied something particularly awful had happened to Hamilton - and I'd actively joined into at least part of the Quebecois part of their government. The Berserker was a mass-murderer on a scale few humans had ever matched - and I kept it in my closet in case of a rainy day.

It was possible to argue for years about what criteria to use to evaluate any given action, without even getting around to the actual evaluation. I didn't have the luxury of waiting years, or trying to find someone to debate with. I only had my own mind to work with - a mind which was currently in a somewhat rickety state. Writing everything I knew down might be the only way to ever get a chance to work out just how badly I'd screwed things up - but was also the fastest way to get my secrets spread around to all and sundry.

The only place I could /really/ keep a secret was in the gray matter inside Bun-Bun's skull. But my memory was a flawed thing - more flawed than most, in some respects. I was already struggling to remember the faces of the people I'd met while biking around the west edge of Lake Erie. Human minds simply hadn't gone through evolutionary pressure to remember long lists of random facts; and my own preference for a solitary lifestyle meant that my own brain's skills at remembering social relationships and suchlike were somewhat atrophied, compared to average.

But now that my thoughts were running along those lines, it did occur to me that I knew of at least one trick to use a brain's skills to make up for its gaps. Specifically, to fool the mind into using spatial memory to remember any given set of data: a memory palace. It wasn't hard to describe: Just imagine a physical location with as much detail as possible, and then place memorable cues to recall the facts within that landscape. Actually putting the idea into practice... took somewhat more effort.

Of course, since I was running, I didn't have much to do /except/ think as hard as I could. And so, as I ran and ran, I started building my first memory palace, based on a location I remembered well but no longer existed anywhere in reality: my hometown library. And in that library, I started arranging my secrets - and my memories, so that, one day, when I didn't need to keep these secrets secret any longer, I might be able to remember them, with as little distortion as possible.

Plus, a distraction like that helped keep the burn of my newly-exercised muscles to a dull ache instead of an unbearable fire.

 

*Book Five: Co-*


*Chapter One: Co-location*

"Congratulations - you're pregnant."

Sarah looked at me. I looked at her.

"You sure?"

"Well... sixty percent sure," I hedged. "The autodoc doesn't have much data on six-limbed mammals with blue fur - but your hormones have definitely started changing, in ways that seem to correspond with a number of species."

"What - what is it?"

I shook my head. "It's too early to say. It could be any gender, or even any species - there's no way to find out without invasive procedures that would be highly risky to the blastocyst's viability. Speaking of which - if this isn't a pregnancy you want, there are several options available."

She wasn't looking at me. "Jeff and me, never got pregnant before. Thought we /couldn't/. Guess when we got fixed, we got /un/-fixed, too."

"That's possible," I said, neutrally. "Um - I'm not qualified as a doctor, and I don't want to pry about the details of your personal life, but... should we run the test on Jeff, too?"

"Yes. Yes, you should. Gonna be a big surprise for her if she is. Don't know if you know, but she was a man afore we got Changed together."

"Fair enough. Do you want me to ask, or tell her anything, or...?"

"No, no, I get her in." She rose to all fours and climbed out of Munchkin's side door. I followed her that far, sitting down on the step to look outside while I waited.

We were back on the road to Erie, again; this time, hopefully without any detours. We'd stayed in the quarry another day while I worked out a new set of daily routines for exercise, meditation, diet, and measuring the effects of the same, with a little discreet help from Boomer and Alphie. We'd stayed there a second day after I'd gone through some of my notes, and rediscovered that one of the programs I'd downloaded into the bun-bots was 'personal trainer'; whereupon I used Internet to create a few pieces of equipment for honest-to-goodness martial arts training.

Which, at the moment, mostly consisted of falling down onto mats, and listening to the bun-bots explain, in voices that creepily matched my own tones, exactly what we were doing wrong.

The bun-bots' programs threw up some glitches when faced with Jeff and Sarah, whose centauroid shapes fell well outside what they'd been programmed to be able to teach. However, a few flashes of the Barph through the heliograph, and Clara was able to put some of her computing hardware to simulating the appropriate bio-kinematics, and come up with sets of movements for the bun-bots to teach the pair of them. (Not to mention a few tweaks to improve the instruction routine for the less-than-human parts of my own anatomy, and Joe Three's.)

Since the gang had slipped me a Mickey Finn to keep me under for two days, and we'd taken the long way around the ruins of Buffalo, that made it nearly a week since the foxes had gotten their biology fixed up by the local post-human para-intelligent pools of nano-tech - which, it seemed, was how long it took for their tweaked biology to start showing the first biochemical signs of successful fertilization.

The railbed we were using as a road came close to the shore of Lake Erie at what had once been Dunkirk, so I'd brought us to a halt for the evening. I needed to forage a bit for greens, so the scanners could compare how I digested that compared to the brownies that were still the only thing I'd figured out how to get Munchkin's kitchen to produce; and I'd gone looking for some clover, which I'd discovered a certain taste for since ending up in my current state. As Sarah took Jeff by the hands for a talk I tried very hard to angle my ears not to listen in on, Red Deer and Toffee, about the closest we had to pure humans in our little group (though the former was a creation of the aforementioned nano-tech pools, and the latter had a digestive system that had been partially converted into another species'), were busy bringing a campfire to life. While looking for clover, my pocket AI pointed out some plants called 'water avens', and after using my tricorder to make sure they were close enough to the original species to be non-toxic, I'd followed Boomer's directions to dig up the rootstocks. With luck, we could boil them into a beverage that Boomer said was described as "chocolate-like", though I wasn't holding out much hope for the taste. Especially since the only honey I'd found was so full of aconitine toxin that any one of us would drop dead if we'd tried using it to sweeten the drink. (Naturally, I took a sample of the stuff - well, I should say that my transforming wristwatch, whose robotic scorpion form was immune to bee stings, did - to add to the lab's stockpile of "things that are interesting and might conceivably be useful one day".)

All in all, it had been a pretty quiet and unremarkable day.

--

In the morning, after the exercise and meditation and breakfast and scans and such, I gathered everyone together around the campfire for a pow-wow. "Time to plan for the day, as best as possible," I declared. "I know my goals - I suppose you know them too," I waved in the direction of Munchkin, and the virtual whiteboards within. "I want to end the day alive. Second to that, I want as many useful resources as possible - all of you included, in at least a sense. Toffee, Jeff, Sarah - if you want to hop off this crazy carpet ride and go home, this is your chance, and I'm not going to stop you."

Toffee asked, "Are you trying to get rid of us?"

I shrugged. "I don't actually know," I admitted. "I still could use some assistant explorers - but you did go along with knocking me out for a few days."

Sarah and Jeff had their hind-torsos on the ground next to each other, and were leaning their fore-torsos against each other, holding hands. "Don't blame us," said the one I thought was Sarah. "Thought Red Deer knew what she was doing."

Red Deer crossed her arms and glared at them. "I /did/. She needed-"

"Ahem!" I raised a hand to interrupt. When I had their attention, I declared, "I want to be in town well before noon, so let's get business out of the way first, and work on who blames who for what after. Point of order: fallback positions, in case something goes wrong. Any of you who know Morse code, I can give a Barph to, so you can signal the heliograph network where you are. If you don't know Morse, and still want a Barph, I can give you a card to study and work from. If you don't want a Barph, or end up losing one, and still want to stay part of the group - here's a map of this shore of Lake Erie, with a few possible places marked. Pass it around - if any of you know anything about the area that might be useful in an emergency, or meet-up sites, or the like."

Toffee frowned at the paper I handed to her. "I know a lot of folk don't like Changed... okay, a lot bleeping hate 'em... but you're that sure you're going to get run out of town?"

I tried flashing her a grin. I'm not sure how successful I was. "I don't expect to need this part of the plan. And I hope we don't. I just know if we /do/ need it, we're going to be /really/ glad we spent the time on it."

She shrugged, grabbed the pencil I'd clipped to the map, and started scribbling. "Makes sense. Seems a lot of work if you don't think you'll need it, to me."

"I have honestly lost count of the number of times I came uncomfortably close to dying, in just the last few weeks. I'm willing to credit backup plans for staying alive long enough to keep /you/ alive."

"You don't have to bleeping rub it in, I'm writing notes, see?"

We spent some time going over various 'if things go wrong' plans, from meeting up five klicks outside Erie all the way to freezing the dead.

"And if /that/ doesn't do any good," I said, "I can't think of anything that will." That was a slight fib - like I'd said, I didn't /entirely/ trust them, and was keeping a few backup plans hidden inside my memory palaces. One was to try to signal the squiddies for a water rescue. Another was to detonate Munchkin's fusion generator.

"Now, moving on to more productive plans - I'd really like to end up at the end of the day in a situation /better/ than what I'm in now, instead of worse. There are three people who are likely in Erie that I'd like to find. I'd like to fill the pantry with a few supplies that we might be able to trade some of those metal cards, or my trade goods, for. I'd like to set up a heliograph station at or near the city - some sites are better for my purposes than others. I'd like to look into hiring some people to run the local heliograph station - and maybe one or more others. And if there's any direct source of information on my main research area - the Singularity, the events of November in twenty-fifty - then I want to collect that, too."

Toffee's forehead wrinkled in thought. "Some of that should be easy," she said. "But putting up a building, hiring folk for a new job? Lots of ways to step on lots of toes."

"Well, it's a good think I have somewhere between one and three local experts to help out, isn't it?"

Probably Jeff said, "Don't look to us," she squeezed probably Sarah's hand. "Hate politics. Never touch it."

"One expert, then," I shrugged. "Better than none. So - what's the biggest problem with me finding a half-dozen literate folk, with reasonably good eyesight and manual dexterity, to relay heliograph messages?"

"First thing comes to mind," Toffee said, "Which union'd they be in?"

I blinked a few times. "That's... important?"

She stared back at me for a very long few seconds, then shook her head. "Right. Bleeping stranger. You savvy /anything/ about unions?"

"Welp," I considered how to answer, "I looked into joining the Industrial Workers of the World for a while, but they had an explicit goal of 'abolishing the wage system', and I was never able to get a clear answer about what they were planning on replacing it with." Toffee stared at me with an expression I interpreted as a dry 'really?'. So I sighed, and went with a simple, "Union. Noun. Group of people with jobs that are vaguely similar, who get better deals by negotiating as a group. Usually, complications ensue."

"Good," Toffee nodded firmly. "In Erie, any of the big unions can kill the whole city. Ten years ago-"

"Nine," interrupted Sarah.

Toffee looked like she was trying not to look annoyed. "I'm getting to that. Laying some bleeping background first."

"Fine, fine," Sarah rolled her eyes. "Morning only lasts till noon."

"As I was saying," Toffee turned back to me. "/Ten/ bleeping years ago - a big fight started 'tween two unions, the dockers and the farmers. A small union got shafted in a big docker deal, tried to switch to farmers, both sides started striking, whole city got bleeping shut down. Business as usual, just a pain. Idea was supposed to be, everyone else in the city gets mad enough to put some pain on the strikers, give them incentive to negotiate for a bad deal that's better than none, see?"

"Vaguely," I admitted. "But go on."

"Right. Shutdown went on for months. Mostly winter, so most folk didn't mind staying inside anyway. Then spring, and still no deal. Looked like might be some trouble with planting in time. So one fellow, LeBlanc-"

Sarah interrupted again, "Brett to his friends."

Toffee ignored her and continued, "-and his bleeping friends started breaking legs. Then breaking heads. Said the planting was too important, the unions were going to let everyone starve - so he /made/ a deal. And broke things until it stuck."

Jeff said, "Now he's the big boss."

Toffee nodded. "Now he's the big boss," she agreed. "Keeps the unions in line, and everyone else who gets out of line."

I finally asked, "If he's that bad - why doesn't everyone gang up to toss him out?"

Toffee frowned. "He's not /bad/, just - goes for what he wants. And he gives out perks to the folk who work with him. Well, sometimes. Sometimes he tosses allies out on their ears."

Sarah said, "Makes all the little bosses nervous. Fun to watch. Not so much fun when your boss gets tossed."

"By any chance," I asked, "did one of these 'little bosses' get 'tossed' just a little while ago?" I looked from Sarah to Jeff to Toffee.

Toffee grinned back at me. "Good guess, but nah. All eight of us were free agents, independent contractors. Everyone needs a good lawyer to check their contracts, so I'm not part of any bleeping union. I get to stay nimble, take advantage of opportunities, from the unions shuffling around again-"

Jeff spoke up, "To paying for a trip to grab a whole city's cash. Sarah and I in the wagoneer's union, even before we changed."

Sarah added, "They saw the use in members with four legs, so we even kept our jobs. We use up two seats, but when a mule goes lame, nice to have a spare puller."

Toffee managed to speak a few moments before I did, "Back to the bleeping point. You want to hire people, they'll want to be in a union. The bigger union they can sign up with, the more they'll like it."

I thought aloud, "Could I start up a new guild - I mean, union - of my own?"

Toffee stared at me. "Kind of defeats the whole point, if owners run the unions."

I shrugged. "Fine - so what about letting the 'graphers start up their own union?"

"That size, not much of a union."

"I'm not much of an owner, that they need to gang up against."

Toffee looked off, thinking. "It's not a /completely/ terrible idea," she finally said. "Keeps you out of lots of the bloody politics, and I get the idea you're not planning on staying in Erie the rest of your life."

"That's certainly true. In a few senses, come to think of it."

"Trouble is," she added, "If you bleep off anyone, you and your employees won't have any allies to help you."

"Hm... what are you imagining that 'allies' would be able to help me with?"

"Your employees are going to need to bleeping eat, right?"

"If food's an issue, I can arrange for the squiddies to deliver fish."

Toffee started smiling. "And you've got your bleeping Munchkin thing to make your own deliveries and make your own parts. So maybe you /don't/ need much of the city." Her smile vanished. "But whoever you hire, still has to live there, and if you bleep off anyone, they could do what the big boss likes doing, and gang up on 'em."

It was my turn to frown. "And what sort of court system is there, to charge people with assault and battery?"

Toffee looked at me incredulously. "You're thinking of taking union leg-breakers... to /court/?"

"You're a lawyer, aren't you?"

"Lady, I'm /still/ a bleeping lawyer because I know better than to get between the powerful bleepity bleeps and what they want."

"I take it, then, that Erie's court system isn't a viable method of seeking redress against the powerful?"

"Who do you think bleeping pays the bleeping judges?"

I sighed. "And here I was hoping civil society was still in place."

"Oh," Toffee shrugged, "Everything's done all nice and bleeping /civil/. 'Till it's not."

"In that case, it looks like I might have to revert a few centuries in behaviour myself - at least as long as Erie's still run that way. If I can't come to some sort of civilized arrangement with the locals - then the only way I can think of to protect my own people, when I get them, is with a credible threat of retaliation."

"Big boss won't like that."

"Then I might as well skip the middlemen and start negotiating at the top."

--

"I was kind of expecting some guards by now. Somebody to shout 'halt!' at us."

Sarah commented, "Guards on roads people use, not old rails."

"Isn't there some system to watch for kaiju?"

"Kie-what?"

"Monsters the size of houses, or bigger."

"Never heard of any."

"Saw one myself, off to the west of the lake."

"None here."

"I don't want to take Munchkin too deep into the city to get back out in a hurry... what's it going to take to get someone's attention, fly around again?"

"Could work."

"Hm. Toffee, you say you've learned to fly - want to get a quick aerial view of your hometown?"

"Why don't you go?"

"I want to stick around in case the welcome wagon is early. Hm... actually, come to think of it, I just might be able to do both."

--

Being towed through the air by Munchkin like a kite wasn't /quite/ as much fun as outright flying - but I also didn't have to listen to the constant noise of the engine right behind me. While I was in the air, I made a mental note to see if the clothes fabricator could repair or replace the paraglider that had gotten ripped during the rescue; if wear and tear on the chute wasn't going to be an issue, then there was very little reason /not/ to be towing an aerial scout around, now that we were out of Toronto's air-defense range.

When I saw a half-dozen horses and riders galloping in our direction, I used the Barph to flash a message down, telling the bun-bot keeping an eye on me to reel me in.

--

As I settled into a seat at Munchkin's front, one of the riders had stopped his horse on the railbed in front of us. A few flicks of my fingers on Munchkin's wall, and its rapid march slowed, then came to a halt, a polite few dozen feet away from him. This close, I could see that he was human (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), wearing a bright red coat, and biting his lip as he stared at Munchkin's near-featureless prow.

He took a breath, and let it out in a shout. "You will halt your vehicle!" He declared. "You will exit in an orderly fashion with your hands up, or we will be forced to fire!"

Despite how well Munchkin's exterior plates had fared in the snake-oid village, I didn't want to test them against more advanced firearms, especially now that I didn't have a handy source of new-built replacement containers. I also wasn't going to let Erie's government anywhere near Munchkin's fusion reactor. So as I watched the other five red-coated horsemen line up abreast across the track, I decided to go with Plan G-2: Authoritarian bafflegab, seeking escalation to higher authorities.

I keyed open Munchkin's mike. "Now, son," I said, feeling my voice suddenly taking on the cadence of Foghorn Leghorn, "you don't want to do that, any more than we want you to do that. Our flag hasn't fallen off, has it? No, there it is, the red and white flying high and true. Aren't you aware that this is an ambassadorial vehicle, and thus protected by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations? Opening fire on us is a casus belli, and believe you me, if a war started between your tiny little city-state and the nation I represent, the only question is how many of your civilians would still be alive by the time your government ceased to exist. Naturally, that would do none of us any good, which is why I'm suggesting that a front-line fellow like yourself would do best by realizing that you're in the middle of matters far above your pay-grade, and your best course of action would be to call for your superior, who, in turn, should call for theirs, and so on, until you finally get to someone in a position to negotiate policy."

I keyed the mike closed, ignoring the stares of everyone else inside Munchkin, and watched for a reaction. The fellow in front turned around to look at the other five, one of whom gave him a shooing wave forward. He turned back around to face us. "I have my orders!" he declared at top volume.

I sighed, and opened the mike again, as I got back up and started walking back through Munchkin. "I was really hoping not to have to mention this explicitly, in the name of friendly relations, but your superiors seem to have failed to inform you of a particular highly relevant fact-on-the-ground when they gave you those orders. I will now attempt to demonstrate this particular fact, in as polite a fashion as I can think of. Do you have any particular emotional or financial interest in, say, that tree standing closer to the railway bed than the others, a hundred feet or so behind your friends?"

"What?"

"Boy, I plan on making a tiny little demonstration for you, but I don't want to cause any special fuss when I do. After all, when a magician steals your watch for a magic trick, they give it back afterward, because watches tend to have sentimental value, not to mention monetary, but they're quite willing to pick up bits of random street trash and do all sorts of things to them."

"What the bleep are you talking about?"

"Just this: Keep an eye on the birdy, son." Having finished my preparations, I flipped open the roof hatch, pushed myself and Kahled-voolch up out of it, quickly lined up, and squeezed the trigger.

Even before the explosion debris had finished rising, I was already dropping back inside Munchkin, pulling the hatch back shut. All six horses were rearing, their riders suddenly having to focus on keeping them from getting completely out of control.

I resumed speaking. "Now, while there may be a certain amount of personal fallout you might suffer for not slavishly following your superior's every whim, I put it to you that that fallout, if any, would be a more than acceptable price to pay compared to the alternatives I have no doubt that are now foremost in your mind. So instead of forcing any of those consequences to turn into reality, wouldn't it be better all around to get the right people to get together to discuss things, in a properly civilized fashion?"

One of the riders - I thought it was the one who'd waved, shouted out, "If you /meant/ that, you'd have shot /us/!"

I heaved a dramatic sigh. "Now why would I do a silly thing like that? I'm here to talk trade and alliances and other such mutually beneficial exchanges, and blowing up soldiers who might be fighting to help me out later is hardly the mark of an intelligent negotiator." I paused, then shrugged and added, "Of course, if you really insist, I still /can/ pick a more ambulatory target. It would be impolite to refuse such a determined request, after all."

The steeds were now mostly standing still, and various looks were exchanged between their riders. Finally, one of the riders went galloping back the way they came, and the second spokesmen declared, "You will keep your vehicle parked here! You will remain inside!"

"There, now was that so hard? Now, what shall we do while we wait? I suspect your superiors might take it amiss if I invite you aboard for tea without clearing matters through them first, so perhaps some sort of game? An exchange of riddles, perhaps?"

"You're standing there, in that... /thing/, and you want to tell /jokes/?"

"Not jokes, son, /riddles/, that stretch the mind and inspire the imagination. After all, there's not much else we can do to pass the time, what with me inside here and you outside there, now is there? I can start us off, if I'm springing the idea on you too quickly for you to think of one yourself. 'To keep me, you have to give me. What am I?'"

As the man spluttered a bit, then paused, and started whispering with the other members of his squad, I thought a bit, then called up Munchkin's security system controls. I turned on the anti-riot precautions, the main portion of which was an electrified surface, in case somebody tried getting cute while I was distracted. I also tightened up Munchkin's general security level, so that only I had permission to drive it around. While I was trusting Toffee, Sarah, and Jeff to not konk me over the head, it seemed prudent not to provide them with /too/ much temptation, now that I was bringing them back to familiar people who might have some hold over them.

The rider turned back to us. "A promise!"

"I was thinking 'your word', but that seems close enough. Do you have one of your own?"

"Uh..."

Another rider touched his shoulder, and at a nod, called out, "What's black when you get it, red when you use it, and white when you're done with it?"

 

*Chapter Two: Co-pay*

We'd passed maybe ten minutes in reasonably pleasant conversation, and had just traded 'What has eyes but cannot see?' back and forth for twelve different answers, when the group of guards paused. I started fiddling with Munchkin's exterior microphone settings, but before I did much, I could make out the rapid beat of galloping hooves, and soon made out the form of the returning rider.

"New orders," he panted. "Big boss. Wants to. Talk to. Her. Himself. Downtown."

In short order, the riders arranged themselves into an 'escort', leading the way to the heart of the revived portion of the city. After a short kerfluffle surrounding the escorts' realizations that Munchkin actually could march along off the old railbed pretty much as easily as on it, we eventually arrived at what Munchkin's pre-Singularity maps claimed was both the 'Erie Art Museum' and the 'Old Customshouse'. However, the modest-sized Greek-style facade (Doric, if I remembered my columns correctly) now bore the name 'City Hall', instead. (I made a mental note to try to find out if anyone had any idea why this part of the city hadn't been leveled and turned into cooling towers, like all the other pre-Singularity urban areas I'd seen so far.)

Once Munchkin had settled into a halt again, the rider who seemed to be the group's sacrificial scapegoat stood in his stirrups, took another breath, and started shouting, "You will-!"

I quickly but calmly interrupted, "I won't."

He blinked, his thought processes obviously derailed, then rallied and started again, "You will-!"

"I won't." Before he could take another breath to try yet again, I continued, "As much as I would like to enjoy your governmental hospitality, I am afraid that my experiences with other groups have involved me being drugged while under their supposed protection. Thus, I have a certain natural aversion to having my movements directed by local authorities, however trustworthy and honorable those authorities actually happen to be. However, I would be entirely happy to have my meeting with whoever you have so graciously passed the buck to in a reasonably neutral territory, such as in the form of a picnic on the sidewalk you are standing in, or whatever other location your principal suggests which meets my own security needs."

When I closed the mike and watched the renewed discussion, Toffee whispered, "You're not talking about us putting you out, are you?"

"Sadly, you are not the first individuals who've slipped me a Mickey. You are, however, the ones who seem to have had the friendliest intentions when doing so."

It looked like we were going to have to wait for a while, so I wandered back through Munchkin's carriages, nudging a few items in the lab in passing, tucking Boomer into my jacket pocket, and then rummaging through some of the inventory in my private carriage. When Munchkin's intercom relayed outside voices, Nurse-Bun rolled me forward in a wheelchair, with one of my canes hooked onto the back.

Most everyone gave me funny looks as I was rolled back to the front, so I shrugged and just said, "Hoof's bothering me today." It wasn't, really, at least not any more than usual; but the talk about being drugged had started my mind down certain paths, and if my hoped-for confab did go south and I needed to get away in a hurry, I had a certain suspicion that I'd be more likely to do so if the locals underestimated my physical prowess rather than overestimated it.

First, I sent a couple of bun-bots with their bodyguard programs as their chief priority out, then when they signaled things were clear, had Gofer-Bun carry out a folding table and chair, and a basket with a tablecloth, mint tea, iced tea in a thermos, coffee, brownies, and the closest approximation to fine china that Internet had been able to put together. Nurse-Bun maneuvered my chair down to street level, Secretary-Bun followed along, and then Toffee, Jeff, and Sarah followed along. It looked like Joe, Bear Joe, and Red Deer were choosing to stay inside at the moment, along with Alphie and the spare bun-bots, which seemed reasonable.

I laced my fingers together and smiled up at the nearest rider. "Please pardon me," I said, "but I was a bit distracted putting the tea together. Who was it you said I'm meeting?"

They seemed a bit nonplussed, and from their flaring nostrils, I realized that they were being suddenly introduced to the scents that I had gradually ceased noticing within Munchkin - primarily, the animalistic body odours. But they rallied quickly, and one announced, "Assistant Secretary of the Big Boss."

"Ooh," Toffee said, "that was bleeping fast. I was sure we'd only get as high as the Second Undersecretary's Assistant Secretary at first. And here comes the fat bastard now."

The man walking down the broad steps was certainly wide - but a smidgen less so than Toffee herself, and his dark suit made him look even less so. Once he made it to street level, I was able to confirm that, like Toffee, he was roughly as tall standing as I was sitting.

I glanced sidelong at Toffee. "Relative?"

The newcomer answered, "No," at the same time Toffee said, "Cousin."

They glared at each other for a few moments, he looking rather grumpier than her, before looking at the various people milling about, and finally turning to me. "I am Assistant Secretary Winston Edwards. Who are you?"

"I am informally known as Bunny. That's short for Bunny Waldeinsamkeit. May I offer you a chair, a brownie, or a drink?"

"No thank you. What are you doing here?"

"Mainly... shopping. Pick up a few provisions, some supplies for my research projects, look into local metal prices, meet some acquaintances, try to hire a few extra people, try to buy or build a building to house local operations - and so on. I came across one of your residents," I waved slightly in the direction of Toffee, "who informed me that your 'Big Boss' might want to have some say about such things, so I arranged to be brought to meet him. Would he happen to be available?"

"I am afraid that he is currently in conference and cannot be disturbed yet."

Toffee leaned over and mock-whispered to me, "That means he's still in bed bleeping his three girlfriends." She turned to Edwards. "Or is it four now?"

"Five, actually," said the secretary. "A condemned thief took the option."

Toffee straightened, and frowned. Without any joking around, she told me, "There's a building in the old city. Just about everyone who walks in, walks out a blonde bimbo. LeBlanc likes blondes, so started using it as a punishment."

Sarah added, "Only seems to work if you're human when you walk in."

Jeff said, "Wha? You're not saying you /went/-"

Sarah started talking over him, but before they raised their voices too far, I cleared my throat. "Having a conversation here," I pointed out. "Shush, or back inside, or go away." They glared at each other, but picked 'shush'.

Edwards seemed to ignore the byplay. "What will you do if you are denied permission to do any of those things?"

"Be somewhat annoyed at the extra time and resources that will be required to bypass this place, and look into how much time and resources would be required to go through whatever you have in the way of an appeals process."

"You will not use your flying machine and weapon to force us to comply?"

"That would defeat a lot of the purpose of my being here - generating good PR among the public, and so on. I prefer to hold such actions in reserve for the defense of me and mine. Are there any local customs I should be aware of, laws unfamiliar to outsiders that might cause unexpected trouble?"

"What do you plan on using to pay with?"

"I have a variety of trade goods - telescopes, batteries, and whatnot - but have it on reasonably reliable authority that your merchants are willing to accept precious metals." I twisted my head to look up at Gofer-Bun. "Please go to shelf L. twenty-six, and bring back the sample set." She bounded off and into Munchkin, and while she did, I poured myself some of the mint tea. "Are you sure I can't interest you in a cup?"

"Perhaps another time."

Gofer-Bun returned, and handed me the 'sample set' - one of each of the credit-card-sized pieces of metal that were the final product of the robo-factory, in see-through plastic pouches, arranged like a book. There were a couple of dozen of them, so the whole thing weighed a couple of pounds; I held it out, and Edwards took it, flipping through them.

"These have your picture on them."

"I didn't have much choice in the matter."

"They are of unequal weights."

"But equal dimensions and volume. Again, not my choice."

"How much do you intend on spending?"

"As little as possible. I have no intention of flooding the market and having the price drop out from under me."

"Hm." He handed the sample set back to me. "I should be able to arrange an appointment at noon."

"And until then?"

"I suggest you stay here."

Toffee took a step forward. "Does that include me?"

"I would suggest you stay here, too, just to keep you out of trouble, but since I know that if I did, you'd go away just to spite me, I won't."

"You're just saying that to get me to stay, aren't you?"

"Toffee," I interrupted the reunion, "If I'm staying here, perhaps you could bring some of the market to us?" I looked over at Edwards. "That is, if that's alright with you."

"If that is my cue to quip some snazzy one-liner, I'm afraid that I'll have to decline. Please excuse me, I have some business to attend to."

--

"Sarah, can you show me where this 'bimbo' creating place is?" I'd sent Gofer-Bun for a hardcopy map of the area - no need to show off the computing tech I had access to to the locals, if there wasn't a need to. She pointed out a place with the tip of one finger's claw, and I penciled in a notation.

"Not going there, are you?"

"I doubt it - there are undoubtedly safer places to look into such processes, if I need to. I'm mainly asking so I know where to avoid." I slipped the pencil back into a pocket. "I'm terrible with social cues, so I'm probably going to ask this badly - are you and Jeff going to need some time apart?"

"What, because we yelled? Nah, nah, she thinks I need protecting, 's all. Yelled before, will again."

"Fair enough. Your business. I'd appreciate it if you let me know when you make any decisions about whether you're going to stay in the city, or with me."

"Course."

--

"Thank you, but we've already made preliminary arrangements for both a coffee substitute and a tea substitute. If you can provide something with actual caffeine, then we can do business."

I made a mental note - once I got a retroviral lab up and running, a good first project to test things out would be to arrange for caffeine biosynthesis. Whatever plant, critter, or microbe I arranged to produce the stuff, I could make a fortune from.

"Next?"

Toffee said, "Fish."

"Fish?"

"Fish."

"I suppose that'll make Bear Joe happy."

"What, you don't like fish?"

"Eh, I can stand some properly-done English-style battered fish and chips, but mostly, it's about as bad as cauliflower."

"What's collie-flower?"

"... Right, I forgot that was extinct. I'll put it another way - even with regular fish, I'd probably leave it to Bear Joe and the rest of you. With salted and smoked and other preserved fish - I'm probably having a lot of salad."

"Is it because you're a rabbit?"

"Oddly enough, no."

--

"Well, /hello/, Minnie!" I smiled at the girl. "It's good to see you again - is it just me, or are you taller than ever?"

"It's you," she said, cheerfully plopping onto my lap and wrapping her arms around me. I didn't make any effort to stop her. "Did you hurt your leg?"

"Some days are better than others," I temporized. "Now what have you been up to since you got here?"

"I've been going to a new school where they didn't believe I was saved by an Indian and a talking rabbit until Gramma made them stop teasing me by threatening to blow up the school-"

I raised an eyebrow at Dotty, who was watching over us with a maternal eye, and now looked somewhat embarrassed. "I didn't /threaten/ them."

I asked, "You just made a promise to blow them up?"

"No! You cheeky little thing. I /may/ have pointed out that both of us were likely suffering from P.T.S.D., and that I know as much about chemistry as their so-called best teachers."

"Well, as long as it worked out for the best. Since Toffee was able to find you so quickly - is there anything I can help you out with?"

"No."

"... I'm going to rephrase that a little, and then let you yell at me if you want. Is there anything I can do to make Minnie's life better? School supplies, private tutoring, bring both of you along when I head to Cleveland...?"

"... Maybe," Dotty admitted.

"You could stay," Minnie said, her face buried in my neck-fur.

"Sorry, kiddo," I tried petting her head. "Still got lots of work to do, and I can't do all of it here. You see those two big blue people, over there? They got too close to Buffalo, and got sick, but I found them just in time, and helped them get better. Why don't you go ask if they'll let you ride on them?"

"Okay!" My lap was abruptly empty, and in a few seconds, I heard her greet them with childlike innocence, "You smell funny."

Both Dotty and I heaved a sigh at that, and then smiled a little at each other. I said, "She looks - like she's coping."

"Some days are better than others," she echoed back. "Seeing you again, this is definitely a good day."

She spent a few minutes telling me about their nearly completely normal life - she was temping at different unions, doing office work, while she looked for a more permanent position; Minnie was starting to make friends, and exploring the new city, and so on.

"How about Joe?" I inquired. "Is he helping out?"

"Nooo," she looked at me curiously. "He left as soon as I was employed."

"Odd - I haven't come across him, yet."

"He was saying he was going to go north across the lake, instead of back to Buffalo."

"I've been in touch with his people, pretty consistently. Either they've been lying to me, or he never arrived. ... There was a waterspout a few days ago-"

She shook her head. "We saw that. He left long before that."

"Have any of the squiddies shown up yet? I hate to think of it, but maybe they could look under the lake for the metal canoe..."

"The fishermen have started talking about new monsters with tentacles, but I haven't had time to try talking to any of them."

"Hm... I suppose if he wanted to go somewhere else, that's his business. But just in case - I owe him at least a decent search for him. There's different sorts of monsters on this side of the lake, some of whom take a while with their prey." I was abruptly conscious of my self-directed tail, hidden under my skirt and currently pressed against the back of the wheelchair. "Where did you see him last?"

"At the rooms we were renting. I came back, he was watching Minnie in the yard, talking to a couple of men. I told him I was employed, and he said he had to go, and they helped him carry his canoe."

"That's a little odd. That thing's almost light enough to carry with one hand."

"If you want to look for odd things, you'll always find them. Just before he handed Minnie to me, he said he felt as enthusiastic as the president of the Republic of Canada, just a month into his term. I know history isn't a popular topic, but even I know Canada always had a king or queen. ... Are you alright, dear? You've gone all white under your pink."

Once I got over mentally berating Joe for the idiocy of trying to pass a secret message to me through Dotty without her knowing, I tried to calmly fold my hands on my lap, and call out, "Toffee, could you come over here for a moment?"

"Mm-hm?"

"Dotty - I would like to have a chat with those two men you just described. Could you work together to figure out who they are, who they worked for, and any other information that would be required to have a conversation with them?"

"Do what I can," she agreed.

--

Noon arrived. Several figures came out of city hall, descending the broad steps that were the centre of several conversations, and at least one foxtaur galloping around with Minnie.

The figure in front was... large. Even if I stood, I suspected my eyes would only come the middle of his chest. Schwarzenegger-esque build. Dark hair. Bright red shirt, open-collared to show off a hairy chest. Knife on a belt. Gloves. From the various comments I'd heard, none other than the Big Boss of Erie himself, Brett LeBlanc.

Behind him were, it appeared, identical quintuplets. Same photoshopped model-like faces. Same blonde hair, just styled a little differently. Same dresses, which presented their various assets more obscenely than if they'd been simply naked. Each and every one of them was staring at LeBlanc in ways that made their clothes the epitome of prim and proper decorum.

I adjusted my glasses to try to see them better. Joe was missing, and LeBlanc's secretary had said something about there being an extra 'girlfriend' - was my search as simple as figuring out which of them had once been Joe? If so - I wasn't quite sure how much of him might be left /to/ rescue, or how to accomplish said rescue. I wasn't even sure how to tell which of them was which, or even if any were Joe in the first place.

The secretary, Edwards, appeared from somewhere unobtrusive as LeBlanc reached the bottom of the stairs. "Boss LeBlanc, allow me to introduce Bunny Waldeinsamkeit of Canada."

"A pleasure!" boomed the man. I raised my hand, and he grabbed it and shook, not quite crushing my fingers. He let go and looked at my trio of bunny-ladies in waiting. "That's a lot of rabbit people," he commented. "Any of you related to that mad bunny queen?"

I suppressed a sigh; it looked like the farce was going to continue. "I don't think I'm /very/ mad."

LeBlanc blinked, and looked down at my legs, and my wheelchair. I improvised, "Legs are a lot less important when you're flying."

"You don't /look/ like a queen," he insisted.

"That's what I was going for." He blinked a bit, so I elaborated, "I have much to do, and too much pomp and ceremony gets in the way of that."

LeBlanc crossed his arms. "I don't believe you."

"That's your prerogative." In the back of my mind, I started wondering what sort of spin I could put on things that would require the least amount of my secrets to be revealed, such as by coming up with an alternate secret to try, not very hard, to protect; the best idea that came to mind was that I was on the outs with the rest of a hypothetical royal family back in Europe, and had been sent up the St. Lawrence River as some sort of punishment. It wasn't an especially /good/ idea, but it gave me a structure to start building with while I tried to come up with something better. "I don't need to be treated as royalty to buy groceries, hire a few people, look into a building, and so on. So it doesn't matter"

"/I/ say it /does/."

This time I didn't suppress my sigh. "Would you like me to get my tiara out?"

"That wouldn't prove anything!"

There was a slight clearing of a throat, and Edwards faded into view again. "Please pardon the interruption," he slid a folder out of his suit jacket, "but after Bunny introduced herself, I suspected that the Queen Bunny might be nearby, and so I took the liberty of printing out some of our references on royalty. Just in case additional protocols of state were required, you see." LeBlanc waved a hand, and Edwards handed him the folder, opened to a page that I couldn't see.

"Ha!" bellowed LeBlanc. "If you're a queen, then where's your uniform?"

I blinked. "Pardon me? I think your reference might not be relevant."

Edwards stated, "Given the symbolism of your flag, I take it that you are presenting yourself as queen of Canada, or some close variation thereof?"

I tilted my head at him. "... You take that correctly."

LeBlanc slid his finger along the page, reading aloud, "'The Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces is supreme commander of Canada's armed forces. Con-sti-tu-tion-ally, command-in-chief is vested in the Canadian sovereign' ... more stuff... 'Unique Commander-in-Chief rank insignia ... uniform' ... and more stuff. And some pictures." He tried to slam the folder closed, looking triumphant. "If you're really the queen, then where's your rank insignia?"

I thought about trying to talk my way out of this little trial-by-wardrobe, but had another thought. I slid Boomer out of my own pocket, and held her to my cheek, like a brick-style cell phone. "Boomer," I started.

I was interrupted by LeBlanc exclaiming, "You have /radios/?"

I blinked up at him. "You don't?"

He crossed his arms and looked away. "We don't /need/ radios," he muttered.

"... Right. Boomer," I repeated, "In my chambers - would it be possible for me to exit them wearing the uniform that was just described?"

"As of the latest available policy documents, the Canadian Forces are making one of their periodic attempts to shift their branch structure from a simple nested hierarchy to a set of multiple optional tags. If you wish to wear a Commander-in-Chief's uniform for this display, then given recent events, I would suggest building it using the tags of Signals, Rangers, and Air Force."

I nodded, said, "Thanks," and tucked her away again. "I hope you will forgive me for my lapse - I am still new to my role, and have not had time to finish reading up on all the non-essential details."

LeBlanc didn't look happy. "You're bluffing. You have uniforms packed away and you don't even know about them?"

I took off my glasses and rubbed the top of my nose. "If I come back out of there wearing something that matches your pictures, can we move on from all this?"

--

The outfit produced by Internet's clothes fabricator was surprisingly comfortable. Due to Wagger, I once again opted for skirt over pants; and basically had to cheat outright with the footgear, since the Canadian Forces uniform regulations stored in the machine's vast clothing-related databanks didn't anticipate either hoof or digitigrade paw. Given my ears, I opted for a narrow 'wedge' cap instead of a beret. The main part of the uniform was basically a business suit, plus flourishes; such as a braided rope going from my right shoulder to the middle of my chest that Boomer oh-so-helpfully identified as an 'aiguillette'.

The 'Air Force' tag covered the general uniform design and colours. 'Rangers' added an insignia to the hat, and 'Signals' supplied the colours of some trimming, and another insignia. The actual rank insignia of Commander-in-Chief was the crest of the arms of Canada: A lion, standing on a red-and-white wreath, wearing a crown, and holding up a maple leaf in one paw. This was sewn onto the epaulettes on top of my shoulders, and along with some gold trimming, the ends of my sleeves.

When Nurse-Bun rolled me back out of Munchkin, LeBlanc looked at me, looked at his folder, and back and forth again.

He declared, "I still don't believe it."

I let my voice go flat in annoyance. "Then perhaps I should point out a small detail you have forgotten. Either I really am Queen of Canada and Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces - or I am somebody who has a vehicle well beyond anything you are capable of using, let alone building; aircraft; weapons that are, again, well beyond anything you can field; and I can build arbitrary objects from scratch in as little time as it takes for them to be described. If I want to say I'm a queen, or a baron, or an Indian war chief, is it really in your own best interests to focus on insisting I am no such thing? Or would you profit more from playing along long enough to figure out how I can benefit you?"

Edwards gently took the folder from LeBlanc's hands and tucked it away again. The secretary asked, "What can the city of Erie do for you, Your Majesty?"