Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.14 Area two: needs

On reaching the Needs area she found a semi-circle of folding chairs arranged around an orglife whiteboard. The chairs were occupied by disability campaigners, workers for homeless charities, orphanage supervisors, psychiatric ward nurses and home help assistants for the aged. None of them appeared to be, themselves, members of a disadvantaged group.

At the front someone was giving a lecture on ‘Challenges For The Mentally Underprivileged’, while an energetic man with short grey hair took notes on the board. His badge name, she noticed, was “The Iron Friar”, and he seemed to be a Franciscan.

The chairs were all occupied, but she spotted another Franciscan nearby looking on, whose badge “Herbie” had several ribbons attached, including a red and white striped “First Aider” and an “Eco-Friendly” that matched her own. She went over to stand next to him, a little nervously, and hoped she would blend in.

Mikylos: “I’ve got more chairs in the truck. Would you like me to bring you one?”

Brother Mikylos was bald, except for the hair of his long thick neatly trimmed beard, but she could see the thickness of his arms through the soft grey hoodie he wore over his formal habit, and he moved with the athletic bounce of a man half his apparent age. He looked like he could carry half a truck-load of chairs in a single go, and possibly carry the truck too.

Nadine: “Thank you, but I’m just wandering. I wouldn’t want to disturb the experts.”

Something about her voice must have given her opinion away, because he laughed easily.

Mikylos: “Don’t worry about them; Father Callahan will keep them occupied and out of the way. The real expert is over there.” and he pointed towards a nearby pavilion. “Want to meet him?”

She nodded and they left the discussion circle to do its own thing. As they approached the pavilion, she could hear swearing in a wide English accent.

Mosley: “Gordon Bennett, what do I want with a bleedin’ Navat? You can’t stick fake wings on a drone and call it a bird. No, putting a baby face on it, and having it sneak out at night to suck milk straight from my neighbour’s cow does not improve my drinking experience. Look, I don’t care if you think it's cute; if I want milk in my cereals I don’t want it vomited out the mouth of a baby, even if it has been pasteurized. No, I don’t care if it can look after bees or take blood samples to monitor the health of an effing flock of sheep; I don’t want a bird that’s been sniffing a sheep’s bum anywhere near me weetabix.”

They went in. A techie was disappointedly gathering up a trio of tiny drones with black feathers attached to them, while the man who’d been speaking turned towards them. His arms ended at just below the shoulder, and one had a pincer-like gripper attached while the other had a classic pirate’s hook. His badge name read: “Mosley, Armless”.

Mosley: “Hey Herbie, who ya got there?”

Mikylos: “Hey ‘Arp. Sister Niu here shares your opinion on the experts in the circle.”

Mosley: “Pleased ter meetcha then. I’d shake hands but I lost me arms on a train in Belgium. Still waiting for lost property to get back to me.”

Nadine: “Typical railway, always running late. Call me Claire.”

Mosley: “Me Mum named me Harper Mosley, but she was a bit daft - thought it would make me turn out to be a musician. You can call me ‘Arp. Actually you can call me anything you want, as long as you call me when it’s time for a pint. Hard to find a decent one around here.”

Nadine cocked her head, then decided he wanted her to ask.

Nadine: “You’re not local?”

Mosley: “Right in one, Captain Obvious! Sorry, I inherited my sense of humour from me Dad, and I missed the 28 day return policy on account of being blasted out of my skull at the time. Yeah, I was raised in the soggiest place on Earth. Didn’t much like it, but the final straw was when those Tory wankers passed the Nob laws. I scarpered, and now I’m an ex-pat.”

Another hopeful techie entered, followed by a bot carrying a large clay bowl. The bot was humanoid - a scar-faced old woman, with unkempt hair and enormous swollen eyes that darted their gaze from side to side. She was tall, and her skin was wrapped so tightly around her bones, she looked starved.

Techie pronounced, in a confident voice: “This is a Chuma. Very useful around the house, finds rotten food and dirty dishes. Just what you want, if you can’t pick them up yourself.”

The techie carefully opened sealed plastic bags containing rotten apples and mold-covered plates, which he placed around the pavilion before incanting in a loud voice “Chuma, Chuma, come clean my house.”

The chuma hunched over, making sniffling noises, before pouncing on the first plate, which she noisily licked clean before depositing it in her bowl, then carried on searching.

Mosley: “Jesu-H-Twerking-Christ-On-A-Stick! Forgive me, Sister, but she reminded me of me old landlady - couldn’t cook cheese on toast if her life depended upon it.”

Nadine raised an eyebrow. “Not, I take it, a bot you’d feel comfortable sharing a house with?” Mosley shuddered, so she carried on “What, if you don’t mind sharing a blunt opinion, would you look for in the way of bots to help with stuff, but not so much they’d deprive someone of a job that was giving them a bit of dignity?”

Mosley: “You know, you’re the first one to actually ask me? I mean what I’d actually like is a pair of cybernetic arms I could afford. I get by, enough to feed me self, but properly calibrated cybernetics? They charge an arm and a leg for that sort of thing. But a bot, if one was going free? ‘Ang on, let me think a little.”

With which he screwed his face up in mock concentration, and moved his hook in circles next to his head, as though he were operating a winch handle.

Mosley: “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr *ding*.”

He relaxed his face, eyes wide open in apparent surprise.

Mosley: “A butler. A gentleman’s gentleman, with a propa accent ‘an all. Getting in and out of clothing is a right pain. And buttons, don’t talk to me about those tiny fascist sneering discs of metal, I hates them I does, I hates them foreveeeeer.”

He carried on, the perfect timing of a born comedian.

Mosley: “I like a good story. Who doesn’t? But you asked for blunt and, bluntly, I’m more worried about scratching my arse than I am about being put out of work. If I’m going to share my living space with a bot, I don’t want ten of them, the size of that chuma, each with only limited functionality, no matter how good the mythic backstory. I want something small and unobtrusive, that doesn’t spook the hell out of me, and which is flexible enough to do different things. Doesn’t have to be a catwalk model; just not so butt ugly it cracks the glass every time it looks in a mirror. Something friendly. Trustworthy, like a good roommate.”

Nadine: “I think you should go up to the Project Alpo tent, and tell them exactly that. Let them record your thoughts and send it to all the other designers. They’ll load you so full of badge ribbons you could garrotte an elephant with them.”

Later, as she strolled beside the road towards the restaurant in Area Three, she took the opportunity to send Heather a message.

Nadine: {Heather, there’s a guy just heading towards the Project Alpo dome named ‘Mosley, Armless’. Can you find someone with a good sense of humour to welcome him, get him a pint of beer, and record every opinion he offers? If the designers listen to him, it will improve the household mythoi enormously.}

Heather: {No problem. I’m in the backroom of Alpo, settling disputes. I could use a break. I’ll go meet him myself.}

Nadine: {Cheers. I’m in Area Three. Want me to pick you up some food?}

Heather: {Yes! Anything with sugar and caffeine - I need to stay awake another hour or two. I’ll send a bot over to wait. You’ll recognise which one is mine.}

Nadine: {Can do.}

Ahead, standing by a checkpoint with a flagpole, was a man wearing a fancy waistcoat over an embroidered shirt, who was using a wide colourful scarf as a belt sash. He spoke to her in a serious, officious tone.

Guard: “Welcome to the autonomous Hajduk Republic of Mijat Tomić. Do you know our laws?”

Nadine shook her head and came to a halt.

The guard let out a bellow of laughter at her expression, his eyes flashing with wild glee: “We have no laws! We reject politics entirely - it is not good for the health. But we do have traditions. You must pay no taxes or levies to governments. You must only use currency that you have honestly earned or honestly stolen from tycoons and other such dishonest thieves. And if you offend our Hajduk Chieftain, you may get exiled.”

She looked up at the flag, which showed a checkered pattern of red and white squares, eclipsed behind the figure of an armed rogue with a wide moustache.

Nadine: “Is that Mijat Tomić?“

Guard: “Yes, our founder. He was a brave leader of the resistance against the Ottomans, though they called him a bandit. If you’re interested in history, there’s a plaque next to the bolthole where he first hid from them, which the restaurant was built over.”

He waved her on through and, a few moments later, he called after her “Try the stew. They still serve it in the authentic Hajduk style.”

The restaurant turned out to be part of a five story hotel, designed like the sloping roof of a Swiss chalet. She admired the grotto built into a fireplace that led down into a deep stone crack, before ordering the stew for herself and a tiramisu cake for Heather. Then she went out to the seating in the garden bearing an order marker and a promise that the food would be brought out when ready.