Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.16 Area four: economics

Evening was drawing in, and the trees in the garden lit up in pinks and pale blues from subtle lighting, reminding her that there was still one area to fit in before the keynote: Economics, the dismal science. Oh well, she could suffer through a little boredom in return for the excellent company she’d met so far. Lastvić had even been kind enough to grant her a red dragon-encircled “Mythologist” ribbon for her badge - the dragon was animated, and slowly chased its own tail. She made her farewells and trudged over to Area Four, by what she could now recognise as a long abandoned ski slope.

As she got closer she saw there was a small rough-walled house with a thatched roof, hidden in a dell. It had a small kitchen garden and several pens for cattle; presumably it was left empty in the winter months, and used by whoever watched the herd during the summer. Nearby were neat rows of chairs with about 20 people spaced among them and, facing them across a table, sat a moderator and a presenter.

Everyone had badges, if only sticky paper ones with their names written on by hand - this moderator had obviously come prepared. The moderator held a finger to her lips while motioning Nadine to take a seat with a graceful hand motion, very much in control. Her name badge read “Rabia”, and the woman in the middle of giving a presentation was “Layla”.

Layla: “...won’t work for you, but she will work with you and alongside you in the fields, whether that’s sowing, tending, reaping or gathering. What drives her is a desire to see living things bloom and grow, and that applies to humans too - she may ask to be repaid by having the farmer eat a healthier diet or take more exercise. She is an expert dietician, physiotherapist and trainer, in addition to her ‘fertility goddess’ archetype. To set an example of a healthy lifestyle, she takes exercise too. Not just her work in gardens and fields - she also loves dancing, and if other people in the fields have any traditional songs they sing while working, she’s capable of learning them and joining in.”

Rabia wore a long white dress with a flared skirt and a short decorative bodice. Her long dark hair was uncovered, though tightly pinned back. Her eyebrows had been plucked and her lipstick had been applied with millimeter precision. Nadine gained the impression, from her level tone of voice as she thanked Layla and suggested starting the demonstration, that little short of an outright gunfight would be considered worthy of disturbing her calm.

Layla stood a head taller than Rabia. She was wearing no makeup, thick black leather trousers and a tank top that showed muscle definition in her arms. She held her head up proudly as she brought forth a mythoi and introduced it: “The Posenya!”

The posenya nearly matched Layla in size and strength, but her wide hips and long honey coloured hair made her seem far softer and more feminine. The skin was so pale it seemed tinged with blue from veins beneath it, and Nadine wondered whether Layla was also responsible for the chuhaister she’d seen earlier, and had designed them as a pair.

Nadine split her attention, half watching the posenya harvest from the kitchen garden then dance, and half watching the audience’s reaction. Three men on the back row, surrounded by empty beer cans, were paying particular attention to the dancing, with one (whose badge read “Janko”) giving a loud wolf whistle, causing Layla to scowl at him.

When the performance was over, Nadine joined in the general applause. She’d been particularly impressed by the posenya’s singing. It wasn’t just a recording and it wasn’t technically perfect. Rather, it contained emotion that seemed to match the posenya’s facial expressions, and had breathing affected by the posenya’s posture and exertions. It felt real, in a way that recorded music rarely did.

Rabia: “Who’d like to start us off? Raise hands and speak only when called upon, please. Yes, Zvonko?” and she pointed at a middle aged man whose balding head was protected by a hat woven from wheat ears.

Zvonko: “I’m Bunjevci, got a fair sized salaši (that’s a piece of land) thanks to my granddad. He sang too, you know? Anyways what with the vineyard and the horses we got quite a bit of work, the grain fields are just part of it, and we only need extra hands during the harvest season. Wish I could, but I can’t afford to keep them extras on, all year. Nothing for them to do, see? Now, where was I? Oh, yes, well, in Northern Bačka we got some harvest traditions; not that we worship any strange gods, no never hear the last of it if I gave you that impression, but the harvest is important to us, so the harvesters, they thank it by giving to the lead reaper a hat they’ve woven.” He took it off, and held it up, as if proof were needed. “A hat, see?”

Rabia: “Yes?”

Zvonko: “Well, it’s obvious. I’d love to have a posenya or two, to help us out during those months. We’d treat them with respect, find someone to maintain them if anyone offers that. Fact is, I’d pay quite a bit, only, well… well they’ve got to be able to fit in with my other harvesters, thank the harvest properly by weaving stuff from the stalks. Won’t work otherwise, that’s all.”

Rabia: “Thank you, Zvonko. Quite a lot in there. Can anyone help? Yes, Noaline.”

A woman in modest but high quality western clothes, whose hair and glasses reminded Nadine slightly of Velma from Scooby Doo, introduced herself with a faint Polish accent.

Noaline: “I am Noaline Altshul, of the Altshul Cooperative. We do small batch fabrication of proven open source designs pretty much at cost, and make our profits from handling upgrades, maintenance and end-of-life recycling, so the client can concentrate on their own core competencies. We don’t have any in-house expertise on design or customisation, however.”

Layla: “I got my start working motorbikes and moved onto customising all sorts of hardware. The more creative the challenge, the better. The base design is open source, and any variants will be too, but if you want me to create a variant for your particular requirements I do charge a consultancy fee, on an hourly basis. Ensuring the posenya has sufficient manual dexterity to do straw weaving wouldn’t be a problem.”

Rabia indicated a man wearing an expensive business suit sitting on the front row with his legs spread wide enough to take up three spaces. Nadine couldn’t help noticing the gleam from the jewelled crucifix cuff-links on the hand he’d raised. “Yes, Istvan?”

Istvan: “Zvonko, you only want the posenya around for a few months a year. I can arrange warehousing and loan units to multiple users on a monthly basis, if there’s a demand from others for other periods of the year, and if there’s a way to estimate the liabilities involved in an untested product malfunctioning and causing damage to people or property.”

Something about the offer made Nadine feel uneasy, and the feeling only grew as Rabia called on a tall man with a Bosniak accent. “Yes, Cedi?”

Cedi: “Yo yo perro, this cat don’ slow his chat so flow the fat solo to brain-know my big blow. Now I’m Cedi, you read me? I’m live and I’m casting, you want test, I’m lasting, I’ll crush your posenya and count up the fragments, my viewers’ll tell you they high rate my segments, my quals are no figments, my certs have da pigments.”

Rabia started to speak, but Istvan interrupted her, in a clipped Hungarian accent: “Cedi, I’ve caught your tech-cast before - that thing you did with actually putting jet packs on goats? An absolute classic! And you’re a qualified safety tester, hey? Yeah, that could work.”

The two of them exchanged orglife business cards, while Rabia loftily ignored them and called on the next hand to catch her attention. “At the back. Janko?

Janko: “You want other users for those babes? I could use a posenya or two, if you know what I mean. A man’s gotta please the ladies, right?”

Janko had a round nose, a widow’s peak hairline, and thick black eyebrows which he waggled just in case anyone was so slow they’d missed his innuendo. Apparently the two men still steadily drinking next to him at the back were of that persuasion because they didn’t give filthy chortles until after the waggle. Nadine had never seen a pair of brick outhouses chortling, even if they were poorly disguised as human beings, and rather wished she’d still not seen the sight.

Rabia appeared to be concentrating on calming down Layla, whose arms were now crossed as she leaned forwards, glaring at an oblivious Janko. This gave time for two more interruptions, the first from a loudly dressed man with an Albanian accent, and the second from a fair skinned young woman with bleached blonde hair and a Moldovan accent.

Haxhi: “I know a man who rents out hostesses for events. For 15% of the take, I’m sure I could persuade him to take on a posenya for a month’s trial as a novelty, then rent them out for an evening or a weekend. You want my card, Janko?”

Inesa: “Mythoi can’t be allowed to do that! It would put hard working women out of a job. Topsies are bad enough. We need to unionise, petition the government to regulate mythoi, license each design only after a committee of experts has studied them extensively.”

No, no! Nadine felt a growing sense of doom, as though she were watching a train building up speed as it approached a junction in the track whose currently setting would send the train towards a recently collapsed bridge. She almost stood, but then a drunken Bulgarian roar erupted from the back row, as the outhouse whose badge said “Kiril” tried to get over the seats to reach Inesa, nearly toppling a small slim Roma girl sitting in the intervening space, while the other outhouse (aptly named “Bogdan”) argued with him in Slovakian, trying to get him to sit back down.

Unphased, Rabia called on the girl who had just moved: “Yes, Pušomori Karela?”

Pušomori: “I wanted to ask Layla if a posenya can move with a group, or does it stay attached to a particular piece of land? What happens if the land owner moves? Do they understand the concept of loyalty, or only ownership? Also,” and she cast a disdainful glance at the ineffectual brawlers now wrestling in a mud of spilled larger, “can a posenya defend her honour, and that of the group she is with?” Pušomori drew a small elegant taser-knife from somewhere beneath her jacket, to demonstrate what she meant.

Layla gave a hearty laugh: “Self-defence isn’t a skill-set she has currently. Doesn’t fit the mythos. But that’s a variation I might be persuaded to add at a very very reasonable cost. Say, a drink later? It’s not like she doesn’t have the physical capability.” and, in response to an orglife command, the posenya glided over and picked up a long reaping scythe, paused, then swished it at waist height with blinding speed.

Bodgan and Kiril both froze. Janko turned an interesting shade of green. With the setting sun behind it, Nadine could easily visualise the silhouetted posenya as an offended earth spirit, rather than something mechanical. Even its bounteous chest rose and fell as though breathing.

She sensed the audience's support teetering, ready to buy into this violent venal vision, and realised this was last moment when the track junction settings could be changed before the train passed by. Other wombles knew more about economics and she didn't have any arguments prepared, but she couldn't allow doubt or fear to excuse delaying any longer in vain hope that some preferable person would arrive in time to act.

She was the one who was here. It was up to her.

But could she be convincing enough, without blowing her cover?