Soul Bound

1          Soul Bound

1.2        Taking Control

1.2.5      An Idiosyncratic Interlude

1.2.5.5    The fanciest hat wins

Kafana's reverie was interrupted by their arrival at a pasture next to a stream. It was as flat and safe for drone landings as things got around here, beyond the crop fields and curious eyes of other villagers, nearly half way to Eagle’s Roost, the codename they’d picked for the barn belonging to Jasic that Alderney was using for her crafting.

Inspired by Vedad, David had picked up a folding table from his house as they’d left the village, and Harun had cheerfully carried a third chair along for old Daris. By the time Nadine and Bahrudin arrived, everything had been set up for them, in the shade of a tree at the edge of the pasture. It was peaceful here; she could hear the trickle of running water and trills of colourful buntings feeding their young; feel the gentle warm breeze on her skin and smell the delicate purple orchids.

Bahrudin sat down at the table with dignity, laid seven rings in front of him and spoke into the air.

Bahrudin: “Brigid, I think we’re ready now, if you would please.”

Brigid? That was the name of the Celtic goddess of smithcraft, wasn’t it? Heather must have picked it to fit in with her Snow White, Bahrudin’s Huntsman, David’s Doc, Tarik’s Grumpy, Harun’s Happy, Daris’ Sleepy, Muhamed’s Bashful, Jasic’s Sneezy and Vedad’s Dopey. A different person might have felt pressured to pick “Prince Charming” as their nickname, or maybe a minor character from one of the earlier versions of the fairy tale, but Heather lived up to the adage “be yourself” better than anyone Nadine knew - she either didn’t feel a need to appear normal, or had just ruthlessly quashed the instinct.

A buzzing sound, like a swarm of angry bees, grew louder as a formation of six quadcopters approached them, carrying a bundle of equipment in a net suspended between them, which they gently deposited upon the ground before flitting away to take up station in the middle of the pasture, hovering motionless without apparent effort. Doc picked up a laptop computer from the netting, placed it on the table then activated it. Everyone gathered around.

The screen contained six empty slots, arranged into Team A versus Team B, with each team having slots for a team captain and two other players. Along the bottom were named icons for each of the seven dwarves of the DDF. Without giving anyone time to argue, Bahrudin flicked Harun into the captain slot of Team A, along with Jasic and David, and flicked Vedad into the captain slot of Team B, along with Daris and Tarik.

Bahrudin: “Don’t worry, we’ve got all afternoon. I’ll shuffle the teams regularly, so everybody gets a go, but today the captains are Happy and Dopey because they carried the chairs. Any objections?”

He raised an eyebrow and looked around, but nobody was foolish enough to gainsay him. Tarik glanced at Muhamed who quietly took the third seat, next to herself and Bahrudin, and stifled a grumble about being the last to be picked.

Vedad: “No objections. But do we have to use codenames here, where no one can hear us?”

Bahrudin: “Best to get in the habit. You won’t always know when someone is listening in. For example, your phone is from P3OPL3’S MOBIL3 isn’t it?”

Vedad: “Well, yeah. The adverts suck, but the handset was cheap and I don’t have to pay for calls or internet access. Pretty good deal for watching a few seconds of advert for every hour of use.”

Tarik: “That’s not how they make their profits. They extract every bit of data from you that they can: your messages, your browsing, your contact lists, your calendar, your current location, everything. Then they rent out access online, to any ‘approved’ organisation willing to pay. For the right price, they’ll even leave your camera and microphone turned on at all times. Or turn yours on if you are close to someone else they’re profiling.”

Vedad turned a bit green. “That’s why you guys had me leave it behind, today. I thought they only approved quality of service researchers, or something.”

Jasic: “Nope. ‘Approved’ just means the organisation puts up a bond against being caught reselling the information, thus lowering its value. My ex-wife, Dalia, once revealed that Inspektor Dodik is approved, when she was busy threatening me. Apparently he’s very good at analysing which functionaries are likely up to no good, then combining police and commercial data sources to produce a picture of their activities that gives him leverage over them.”

Bahrudin: “Once spies arrive, even a single slip linking a DDF member to the time and place an action was taken, might help them find the pattern and work out what we're trying to disguise. But if, right from the start, you make a habit of strictly sticking to operational security, then you won't make that slip; because, by the time the spies arrive, you'll have formed a separate mindset for DDF activities with its own separate language and secrets, and entering it as appropriate will it become second nature."

Vedad looked unsure, but Tarik nodded to confirm the truth of Bahrudin's words: "It is part of being a professional. I learned to associate putting on my business suit with needing to stick to the manner and habits expected of an accountant, which included respecting my client's confidentiality and not gossiping about any weird of embarrassing purchases I found out about when reading the bank statements they'd entrusted me with. After a bit, you don't even have to think about keeping it separate. You just do. Vedad, do you get tempted to boast to an opposing soccer team about the tactics your own team's captain has devised as a surprise?"

Vedad looked offended then, after a few moments of moving his mouth silently while he thought things through, his expression brightened and he nodded happily.

Bahrudin grunted, satisfied the point was made, and ended the discussion by waving his arm at the loaded net laid before them on the ground like a picnic feast scavenged by sun-shy Victorian laboratory assistants of the sort who were certainly heterogeneous, probably haunted and quite possibly hunchbacked: "Now, Brigid has provided personalised gear for each of you. Find yours, put it on, then come collect your ring.”

The gear turned out to be soft brown leather aviator caps, complete with ear flaps that hung down to the chin and goggles constructed of brass and stiff polished leather. But they weren’t completely authentic. Heather just couldn’t resist adding flair. They looked like a mad scientist had forged them in the middle of an exploding watch factory.

In addition to the winding pinions, balance springs, escape wheels and ratchets that were all linked together by fully functional chains of delicate brass cogs of various sizes, additional items were seamlessly worked into the machines. Daris had a mechanical tilt sensor that activated a buzzer if his head nodded too far forwards; Muhamed had a small spherical radiometer; Jasic had a weathervane; Tarik had a compass and barometric altimeter; David had a clock with five hands; Harun had an astrolabe, with each of the eight planets running along its own track.

The most impressive, though, was Vedad’s. It featured a pressure gauge connected to a release valve via a centrifugal "fly-ball" governor. Looking at the dial on the gauge, Nadine spotted labels (in an elegant Victorian font) saying “normal”, “thinking” and “thinking hard”. Surely Heather wouldn’t have set the governor to spin faster when the tiara hidden underneath detected higher levels of brain activity, would she? Oh well, at least Vedad liked it. He who has the fanciest hat, wins.