Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.27 The tartan mantle

Should she send out a message to everyone, telling them her thoughts? No. She’d make notes, get them down in writing lest she forget anything, but this was something that should be done in person. If Bulgaria was going to hand over leadership then this was his moment, and every piece of respect should be given. She composed a short letter, and sent it directly to him.

Dear Dr Lewis Sharpe,

You have asked me to consider taking on leadership of the Wombles, in arlife as well as in Soul Bound. I promised that I’d think about it and give you an answer as soon as I could.

Since then I have talked with everyone about what they’d like to see the Wombles accomplish and thought deeply upon the responsibilities, what I personally would like to see accomplished and, most importantly, my vision of what I’d try to lead the Wombles towards accomplishing as a group.

I now have an answer for you: “Yes, if the Wombles will have me.”

Instead of everyone meeting in Soul Bound tomorrow at our usual time, could you announce a brief meeting for everyone at The Burrow, and warn the vessels we’ll be an hour or two late? I’ll present my vision and, if everyone is willing to accept it then I’ll take over from you formally if you still want me to.

I warn you though, my first action is likely to be asking you to accept a position as my tenente, and then delegating as much of the strategizing and organising to you and Wellington as you both let me get away with.

Your friend and eternal student,

Nadine Sabanagic

5:00 am, Saturday June 10th, 2045

2 bells of the forenoon watch

Zerday full, 14th day of the month of KrevinBelember, A2F1600

She’d meditated and had breakfast with a dishevelled Heather who’d slept the night up at the Roost and who’d been badly in need of coffee and a bathroom when she’d appeared. She herself had slept in-game, thus managing to get a full night’s rest in just a few hours and to catch up with her vessel’s dreams. She’d gained the impression there was a lot to find out about, but she’d do that later. Instead she’d logged back out of the game and jumped to The Burrow, where Bulgaria had recreated a great hall in London that UCL sometimes borrowed for the investiture of university chancellors.

The hall was an imposing edifice of stone arches, stained glass windows and heraldic banners. Goodness, she’d asked for formal, and formal he had gone for. Bulgaria had always had a great sense of occasion. The others arrived, and stood in a circle at his direction. He cleared his throat.

Bulgaria: “Thank you for coming. This hall uses a new feature of The Burrow that I’ve been working on. It isn’t full mind sharing. It is mediated by an expert system and is closer to the code already implemented by the forums. If someone has opted in, then by looking directly at them you can get a sense of their emotions - whether they are feeling positive about what they’re hearing, or whether they have reservations. It doesn’t reflect feelings about people, or negative emotions, just about ideas and statements. I’m hoping it will help conflicted groups negotiate with each other, and it is designed to avoid negative spirals. If you wish to opt in, nod your head while feeling a desire to opt in.”

They each nodded, and gained a faint glowing white aura behind their heads. She looked at Bulgaria and gained an impression of calm and happiness. He started to talk.

He kept his introduction brief, explaining the purpose of the meeting and the request he’d made, without going into detail about his reasons. Then he handed over to Kafana, so she could explain her vision.

As an introduction, she related the story of Cosic and the ‘pure’ tiara, keeping his name out of it, then she brought up the 3D model of the dependency tree that she’d created by hand. She’d considered turning her expert systems loose upon it, to make it pretty and add in links to extra information, but had finally decided to keep it simple, stick with her original version, and just talk everyone through her reasoning and what she thought needed doing. She didn’t try to appeal to their emotions or use rhetoric, just carried on until she’d said what she needed to, then stopped.

Kafana: “So, um, what do you think? Questions?”

Alderney: “You came up with all of that last night?”

Kafana: “Yes.”

Tomsk: “All by yourself?”

Kafana: “Wellington helped with the gratitude economy stuff, and you all gave me bits of the puzzle.”

Wellington: “There’s a lot of stuff in there that’s never been tried. It hangs together, and I can see we need to make the value proposition for using trustworthy tiaras as attractive as possible, but we need to plan for contingencies, still find a way to make this work, if some pieces of the puzzle, such as getting copias installed, don’t shape up fast enough.”

Kafana: “All the objectives you guys gave me are compelling, and I want to see all of them happen. But trustworthy tiaras - I think they’re on the critical path for every one of those objectives. We have to try this, give it our all, even if success isn’t certain. Without mental autonomy we have nothing, we are nothing. If we each strive separately for our own goals, we’ll achieve none of them - they each require a wider range of skill sets than any of us have, individually. But together, together we are more than the sum of our parts. We not only support each other, we encourage each other and bring new ways of looking at things.”

Bulgaria: “You sound confident. You are really certain this is the path to take?”

Kafana: “Yes! We need more people, we need a plan on how to track and organise responsibilities, something scalable and supportive rather than dictatorial, yet still security conscious and not prone to sabotage or infiltration. But that can wait; we’ve an appointment to keep in Soul Bound. What I need to know now is: are you guys with me? Do you want me as your leader?”

She stood, tension racked high, waiting to find out what they thought. The moment stretched out, three second, four seconds, as they just stood there watching her, neutral expressions on their faces.

Bungo: “Well, duh! Of course we do. Bulgaria, step forwards!”

Like they’d rehearsed it beforehand, Bulgaria (who’d been hiding something behind his back) stepped forwards and placed a green tartan scarf around her neck. Alderney, who’d apparently been barely able to restrain herself, let out a loud whoop and gave Tomsk a high five. Even Wellington cracked a grin. They had rehearsed this! The lousy rats, all those doubting questions - it had been a setup to test her.

She felt her shoulders relax.

Kafana: “I accept.”

Bulgaria: “Thank you.”

Kafana: “Don’t thank me too soon. I hereby appoint you my tenente.”

She laughed, feeling a bit high.

Kafana: “You guys are crazy to tackle something this big. Designing tiaras, staying ahead in Soul Bound, expanding The Burrow, fomenting economic revolution, leading a worldwide movement and out-manoeuvring the Hexoikos - it feels like I'm asking you to do six impossible things, and our day has only just started.”

Alderney: “Six? That's nothing. We sneer at six. Under your leadership we'd still manage if there were a hundred and six.”

Wellington: “There probably are a hundred and six - there's always more steps required than you initially think of, when you get down into the details.”

Tomsk: “Well then, that just means the task ahead is one that is worthy of us.”

Alderney: “To save the future”

Bulgaria: “For everyone, rich and poor alike”

Wellington: “Their freedom”

Alderney: “Their creativity”

Kafana: “Their humanity”

Bungo: “Their chance to grow”

Alderney: “Yes, to save all those precious things. It's a worthy task indeed.”

Tomsk: “We should get started.”

Kafana: “There are one hundred and six impossible things to do before breakfast.”

Bungo: “...we have a full tank of ideas...”

Wellington: “...half a pack of activists...”

Bulgaria: “...society is dark...”

Alderney: “...and we're wearing goggles.”

Tomsk : “Hit it.”

*flip*

They switched to Soul Bound, leaving not an echo behind in the great stone hall; just a glimmer of light.