Soul Bound

In the previous episode...

1.2.4  An Artful Carnivale

Alas for Flavio, dealing the curse he is under (originally sent at Isabella by an enemy of her father, Dottore) has to wait as the game seems determined to send the Wombles to visit the Arsenal district of Torello, with no fewer than four different quest lines pointing in that direction: A Sailors’ Revenge (find out who assassinated Nafaro’s friend), Defend our Reputation (find a fraudster), Market Mayhem (who is benefitting from the assassinations) and Tremors in the market (who hired The Brute Squad?).

But, as they wade their way through encounters with the seedy gangs allying and vying to leach away the profits of Torello’s shipping trade, the Wombles become increasingly convinced that beneath the supposedly unrelated quests are concealed webs connecting everything from known enemies with known objectives (such as skeletal pirate fleets and necromantic cults devoted to Bel - the proud deity of chaos and periodic mass monster invasions), through known factions with hidden objectives (both political and mercantile), to those yet to be unmasked (such as those ultimately responsible for the suspiciously precise targeting of the Red Death plague, the sinking of ships carrying only certain types of cargo, or the campaign of intimidation via assassination).

First they encounter Scaramouche (a ruthless confidence trickster who sells information learned by spying upon players), whose gang The Sons of Hawkwood is allied with the mercenary warriors from The Sea Saints who have been leaning upon Ciotto the antique shop owner. Next they meet Lazarillo from The Captain’s Council (mostly legitimate seafarers, allies of House Ruffo who control the district) when they share a meal with chef Goedzak (a kindly reality mage). Follow a route scouted in advance by Alderney (with the help of Capponi, a cat burglar from Podarge's Chosen who are loosely allied with fences from Nomad Nation, scroungers from The Royal Court and the peaceful hedonists from Hubbard’s Boys). Finally Kafana has a satisfying time using her rusty linguistic skills (aided by her new expert systems) to make friends with horsemaster Yago of The Lovari (allies of the stylish Scorpioni controlling the Arsenal’s red light area, and the trenchantly egalitarian and forward-thrusting Beltrame who runs The Disciples from his coffee shop, The Fiorio, where Alderney’s tour route ends).

However not all is as it seems. Beltrame and his caricature of a wife, Jolanda, are transforming the Fiorio from a relaxed gaming den for gamblers like Cardano (a mathematician working for Aldine Press) into a futures exchange vital to every broker and insurance firm in the city - and to the forces behind the assassinations and market manipulation, as they discover when Bulgaria tricks one Pasini Frassoni into revealing himself to be part of a conspiracy the Wombles have a quest to uncover. They attempt to follow him discreetly but, perhaps because of the un-dimmable attention drawing aura glowing from the divine blessing upon Kafana, the Wombles fall into a trap laid for them in an abandoned ruin and all get hit with paralysis poison.

This is the second time the Lily (the assassins hiding behind the grinning masks of Hubbard’s Boys) have tried to kill the Wombles, and the only reason they survive is the assassins didn’t know that, only minutes before the ambush, Kafana had successfully called upon Rac (deity of shadows and secrets) to set free the powerful undead spirit that had been previously bound to the ruins.

She and Tomsk team up to search for the Segreta (the legendarily licentious brothel run by Hubbard’s Boys), and as he talks openly about his life and what he’s learned about leadership, she explores the game’s magic system and also ways of making more effective use of the abilities she already has. He grows more serious when their discussion turns to responsibility and the way any trend in technology that increases the power of small groups to achieve big things, will inevitably also grant catastrophic capabilities to increasingly tiny groups and, eventually, to individuals - including individuals in circumstances so hopeless that even the possible destruction of the human species feels like an acceptable risk to take.

In 2045 there are many educated people who have been displaced by technology and trapped by laws written to benefit a wealthy elite, and Tomsk shares his worry about the increasing number he’s noticing who’ve become “desperate people fed up with the faceless forces who they feel are forever forbidding them freedom, frustrating their attempts to flourish and foreclosing every path towards futures with brighter prospects.”

Does the potential to profile and squash such threats justify surveillance? Is there a good solution, or even an imperfect compromise? And how does that compare to Wellington’s worries about liberty and expert systems? Or those of Bungo and Bulgaria?

Kafana logs out to spend the weekend showing Alderney around her native Bosnian hills, which she’d hoped would give her a break from playing or even having to think about Soul Bound. But her mind is now full of questions that won’t go away. What mission are the Wombles best suited to? For the others to give meaningful consent to her becoming their leader, she needs to let them know what they’d be letting themselves in for, and why.

She’d promised Bulgaria she’d think about it then get back to him as quickly as possible with a considered decision, but was she capable of working out a plan to tackle things this large and nebulous? Was anyone? As a singer, she’d been offered the role of Brünnhillde, and had turned it down after regretfully deciding her voice wasn’t yet strong enough to support it. She hadn’t let hope or fear lead her into delaying that decision, and she refused to become a coward now, just because the stakes were higher.

So, she’d try thinking during her day off-line, as hard as she could. Just one day didn’t sound like a long time for making a decision that might affect billions of people. But one day was what she had. Or, at least, most of one day. Giving a guided tour might take a few hours, but that would leave enough time to decide. Even if Alderney was unpredictable and tended to do everything at full throttle. Kafana reassured herself. Her home was pretty isolated and her friend was a single guest, not a three-ring circus or wedding party; how much distraction could Alderney possibly cause?

...now read on!

1          Soul Bound

1.2        Taking Control

1.2.5      An Idiosyncratic Interlude

1.2.5.1    Backwater economy

Kafana Sabanagic, Bosnia

Lunchtime, Thursday June 8th, 2045

The weather was pretty hot, even for summer in Bosnia, which at the village’s altitude of nearly 1.5 km was 30°c; down below in the valleys it would be sweltering. That meant she’d probably get a few tourists dropping by for lunch, lured as much by the cooler weather as by the ‘unspoilt’ scenery and ‘picturesque’ housing.

Mostly tourists were Bosnians from cities with factories run by multinational companies, but she also saw vacationers from other European Union countries, listening to their smart devices translate the world around them and provide a smattering of guidance and cultural anecdotes to leaven the continual stream of entertainment and remote social interaction that seemed de rigueur for anyone under the age of 50 who could afford the charges.

Much rarer were foreigners who’d struggle through the fees and paperwork needed to find a local organisation willing to stand surety for their good behaviour, compensate for travel emissions and pay for all the assays required upon entry to the Euro Zone. They invariably carried as little as possible, finding it cheaper to buy accessories after entering, and discarding them again before departure.

Nadine found that she could identify them from a distance, long before they swiped a wireless payment for her coffee in Akyen or Deben, by their clothing and the way they looked at things - as though her world of leaky roofs and tiring customers were just a stage play put on for their benefit; a world they touched upon but lightly, in their pristine clothes and perfectly styled hair.

Come to think of it, how did Heather manage to move around so freely? She’d have to ask. Right now, though, Heather was firmly ensconced in the guest bedroom, wheedling Hachiko, editing sense recordings and adding last minute touches to the Mythoi designs being launched tomorrow at secondary sites around the globe. Even with all the help expert systems could give, that was a lot to ask of a single person.

The Wombles needed to expand - anything that could be safely delegated, ought to be. Bulgaria wanted to turn control over to Nadine, but she hadn’t the faintest idea of how to go about finding more people willing to accept her lead, who could be trusted to keep the Womble’s arlife secrets. For that matter, she still didn’t have a clear idea of where she wanted to lead them.

She shook her head in frustration, took a calming breath, and turned back to watching her regulars eating the meal she’d prepared with the aid of Gorana and her other staff. She couldn’t really afford staff on the profits she made just from her kafana. The prices listed on the board which she charged visitors for a tray of coffee and nibbles seemed reasonable:

Coffee

750.00  DBM  𓈜   micro-Deben

300.00  EYN  圆  Eyuan

45.00  AKY  ¥   Akyen

15.00  USD  $   Dollar

5.50  SMK  ℳ  Semark

3.30  CFF  ₣   FreeFranc

But her regulars paid via tab, usually late, and always at a large ‘loyalty’ discount. Those that couldn’t manage convertible currency bartered services or goods to her instead. Little Britain had reverted to imperial pounds, shillings and pence, which in theory it backed with gold but since they didn’t allow unauthorised currency conversion, it was effectively worthless on the continent, and she didn’t bother listing it. Euro notes were worse than useless since hyperinflation made the ‘Euro Zone’ name a joke: being plastic they didn’t even make good toilet paper. Everyone local used the Semark which the Northern European Union kept stable, or Switzerland’s FreeFranc which as a distributed cryptocurrency was beyond the ability of the authorities to inflate.

The other attraction of the FreeFrank was that the authorities couldn’t trace transactions, much to their chagrin. That’s why Melchior had used them when he set her up with the account she now actually used to pay Gorana and the others. That they wouldn’t need to declare the income for taxation purposes was just a bonus. She grinned. Nobody felt bad about evading taxes - it wasn’t like the European authorities did anything useful with them, other than lining the pockets of their cronies and snooping on people.

Things had been different once, but now corporations were firmly in charge and they grouped together to ‘sponsor’ public services that benefited their employees, such as transport (so the employees could travel to work), police (to keep the employees’ homes and families safe) and sanitation (so they didn’t get poisoned). Rural areas beyond the factory enclaves took what scraps fell from the public relations table, and tried to look grateful.

Kafana was giving the serving counter a final polish when the sound of raised voices made her turn around again, to see that most of her regulars had finished their main course and were now gathered around two figures - not out of concern but, like kids in a school playground, in hope of a bit of free entertainment.