Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.15 Area three: stories

One part of the garden contained a children’s adventure play area. It was surrounded by patrolling bots wearing dark tattered cloaks, but the kids running around inside didn’t seem phased by them, and she saw one brave lad, rather respectfully, ask for a ball to be returned that had accidently been kicked beyond the bounds.

The other part contained an arena, around which benches and long tables had been arranged. She could see David chatting with a small group of people and, with a shrug, went over to join them. Even if David recognised her, she was sure he wouldn’t give her away. Going undercover really was a pain.

A middle aged woman with a confident presence and beautiful long straight dark hair welcomed her, as she placed her marker on the table and sat down.

Lastvić: “Welcome. I am Marija Lastvić. We are discussing these new mythoi, if you care to join us. Let me introduce the others…”

And she went around the table, with a perfect memory, naming every name and giving details about where they came from. The names blended into each other, but the locations were familiar: Zelenkovac the eco-artist commune, Sutjeska the temperate rainforest, Podubravilje with its giant stone ‘Dragon Eggs’, Barzonja the home of the Snow Lady, Zaborani with its stunning cliff castle, and many more. Nadine used her overlay to record some muttered notes, and with a little fiddling she managed to get an iconic picture of each location hovering over the person’s head.

Nadine: “Thank you. Yes, I’d be interested in hearing what you think of the mythoi.”

The young businessman from Zaborani, who was one of the few wearing a name badge and a tiara responded.

Janez: “Sister Niu. From your ribbons I see you are a designer. The Likhonites seem like they’ll be very useful to ward visitors away from dangerous or restricted areas. We could use them in our caverns. The horn makes them a little frightening, but what really works is their body language. The way they react when someone approaches the line, paying attention and drawing a little closer, like they’re eager to pounce.”

The man from Barzonja disagreed: “No, I think what makes them frightening is the stories my mother told me about the ‘merciful ones’ who haunted crossroads and the entrances of villages, looking for bad children. Those had a missing eye, not a horn; but that tattered cloak - it makes these close enough to what I imagined when young. They feel real.”

The hostelier from Zelenkovac joined in: “The way my grandad told it, they were called Babaroga and it was disrespectful impolite children who forget their manners she liked to eat. Snatch them through the cracks in the ceiling, stuff them in her bag and drag them back to her cave to roast or boil them.”

Lastvić: “As much as I approve of the bag idea, these ones are programmed to warn then to block and summon the parents, and then to alert the staff if that still doesn’t work. The expert system is drawing on the same data structures that qualified child care and security guard bots do, so its discretionary judgement during extraordinary circumstances is quite good, but it doesn’t serve the same role - the functionality is reduced to the point where a human presence is still required.”

Janez: “And that’s why the mythology is required. To frame that limitation in a way people will accept, so it doesn’t come over as being intentionally less helpful than possible, so people won’t expect the same type of service that they expect from bots they purchase.”

The man from Barzonja: “They won’t guard your sheep or put away your shopping, because of course a ‘merciful one’ wouldn’t do that. You can’t ask too much of them, or they’ll snarl curses at you. In short, they have to have comprehensible emotions and desires, that the people around them can model and anticipate, and which fit their portrayed story.”

The hostelier from Zelenkovac: “Or maybe the other way around. Myths change and evolve. Start with the desires and interests you want a mythoi to have, and then re-tell the story in such a way that it explains that. Old stories get told from new points of view all the time, changing villains to heroes and vice versa. Who says our ancestors really knew what Babaroga was like? How would she have told the story, from her point of view?”

The discussion continued to flow enjoyably, and then her attention was dragged away by the arrival of her food, delivered by a waiter wearing the same clothing as the checkpoint guard. He saluted Lastvić and addressed her as “Chieftain”, before returning to the kitchens. The cake was, as she’d specified, encased in a box to take away. The stew, on the other hand, was quite unexpected: it was served, along with potatoes, both in a heated frying pan which the waiter landed on an old board to protect the table - there was no plate, you ate out of the pan. Intrigued, Nadine turned to Lastvić as she ate.

Nadine: “Is this really original, dating back to Mijat Tomić and the first days of this Republic?”

Lastvić laughed, charmingly.

Lastvić: “Who knows? My father only opened the hotel in 1999, back when the climate still allowed skiing in this area. There was a problem getting reliable electricity, though. This is at the junction of three different municipalities, and none of them wanted to pay to have pylons constructed up the mountain, so all of them said it wasn’t their problem.”

The stew was tasty, and she dug in, using eye contact to encourage Lastvić to continue.

Lastvić: “Well, this dragged on, year after year, until finally Papa, who was a bit of a joker, announced we were an independent micro-nation. The UN got worried and sent in peacekeepers, but he’d made the new constitution so full of jokes that they turned around and drove off again, disgusted that their time had been wasted.”

Lastvić: “All our traditions; the flag, the clothing, the annual celebrations and so forth - they have little basis in myth let alone historical evidence, but people accept them despite knowing that because they want to believe them, they want that to be how history was, with this tiny bandit enclave keeping its autonomy for hundreds of years by being wily locals able to outfox the bumbling city bureaucrats - its quirky and charming.”

Lastvić: “You can get away with a lot” she added “while people don’t take you seriously.”

The hostelier from Zelenkovac boasted: “or while people want to believe your version of the story. The side with the better narrative wins. If my grandad had been in charge, those UN peacekeepers would have apologised for crossing your nation’s borders without permission.”

The group debated this until a mechanical tiger trotted up, leading a procession of twelve Chuhaister into the arena, looking like ghostly scarecrows. The heads were like those of an old man, but either extremely wisened or carved from knotted wood. The hair was long and appeared to be made from grass, or perhaps rushes. From beneath the billowing white peasant’s smock extended down a single limb, tinged with blue under its pale skin.

They floated into a circular arrangement and then, as one, stamped down with their limb, setting up a driving beat to which they danced, with lots of spins and leaps. It reminded Nadine of men from the Caucasus mountains, vying in dance to demonstrate their virility. It made for a great spectacle, and she found herself clapping along. The tiger, meanwhile, its eyes aflame, had crept up behind her and was sniffing the box containing the cake she’d ordered for Heather.

A low growl brought it to her attention, and she nudged the box in its direction. With no further prompting, it gripped the box in the stalactite cave of its jaws then bounded off. So smooth was the motion of the strides and so natural the movement of the apparent muscles under its fur that, if not for the eyes, Nadine could easily have believed it to have been real. If Heather had designed that, she truly was a wizard.

She thought back to the drone with feathers glued to it. The mythoi had surely attracted a lot of interest, but not all designers, it seemed, had equal skills. Still, what had Rand said? “evolution in action” - better designs would win out in the end. She just hoped that didn’t get equated to ‘the designs with the fewest limitations’ or they’d end up in a rat race to the bottom, with the eventual mythoi being so efficient that they displaced just as many dignified jobs as normal bots and expert systems did.

She sighed, then looked around and saw a waiter attending another table, standing there smiling in his fancy waistcoat. Certainly Lastvić’s father had found time to get creative. Perhaps he wrote poetry too? They weren’t like desperate rats. Not yet.

If she had any say in it, not ever.