Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound
1.3      Making a Splash
1.3.3    An Unrequited Love
1.3.3.37 The wise saint

Back in her bedroom, Kafana gave a big yawn, trying to get some oxygen into her brain. It didn't help much. She wasn't physically tired. Mentally exhausted? Yes, that was closer. It wasn't the length of the meeting, or even the amount of detail. She'd have been fine if the meeting had been all about people, or even if it had been about the variants of Alderney's quote. To her, every word told a story - a human story about why a meaning or pronunciation had changed or spread at that particular time. Had there been a migration or invasion of people? Had it been affected by religious, social or technological changes? What could be learned from how the change in usage had spread, indicated by emphasis upon finding suckers rather than taking pride in quality or respect for one's tools?

No. Focus. She only had a minute or two before she'd have to return. She stretched her arms and found them free of cramps and well toned, thanks to the periodic signals the tiara sent to maintain her body in good health while disconnected from her mind. If only it could do the same for the mind itself!

Could it? She'd used it to temporarily boost her pattern recognition and effective working memory size before; Alderney used Tink as a sort of Ni! to counteract her distractibility when online; her own family of expert systems were learning when to treat her brain showing puzzlement as a cue to share helpful info and ideas.

But the problem here wasn't that she was stupid; the problem was that she didn't know enough. Should the phrase "Trustworthy Tiara" be trademarked by a virtual corporation rather than a standards authority? Alderney might not know the answer, but she had enough context to know how trivial or crucial the question was; she had experience of similar situations, and Kafana didn't.

Balthazar did. But just receiving verbal whispers wouldn't be enough to make up for years of creating computer code or listening to stories of codehaus legal disputes. Hmm. In Soul Bound the apprentice mages spent years studying to become journeyman while she'd managed it in a single week; but she'd been following her intuition, and the game had nudged it depending on what her skill levels said that she ought to know if she'd been an NPC and learned it the hard way. Could her tiara do something similar for her in arlife? Perhaps combined with some of the techniques it used for her meditation glade and when sleeping or dreaming at an accelerated rate?

She held up the crown-like tiara that Alderney had crafted especially for her, and patted it affectionately, before placing it back upon her head. She didn't know the answer to her questions, but she knew who to ask: her friends. Her awesome astonishing amazing friends. She was practically singing as she lay back down upon her bed, eager to return.

*flip*

Alderney was already there, wearing her 'Values' top hat and discussing something with Bungo and Wellington, when Kafana re-entered Ops. A few moments later, Tomsk and Bulgaria also returned. Alderney cleared her throat meaningfully, then paused for a breath before continuing with the meeting.

Alderney: "I need vices."

Alderney: "Well vice-presidents, anyway. Four of them."

Tomsk: "Horses, Cards, Drink and Dancing?"

Alderney: "More like Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. There's a lot of ways we can add value to the proposition 'wear this type of shiny tiara and your brain won't get eaten' - too many to have the people demonstrating their appeal all reporting directly to me. So I'm thinking of sorting them according to the stage their development is at."

Alderney: "Delta abilities have been fully released to the public and just need incremental releases to keep improving them. Currently that includes interaction with Mythoi, surveillance-resistant communication and access to The Burrow and its allied services. Bungo, can I ask you to talk about that after I've finished Value?"

He gave her a thumb's up, and she continued: "Beta abilities are well defined. There's a full team, a settled goal they're aiming for, and a plan of how they'll achieve it. The product isn't yet available to the general public, but reports on its progress are. Currently that includes the gratitude economy under Wellington, Copias under myself and Bungo, and surveillance-resistant trade and travel."

Bulgaria: "What does that cover?"

Wellington: "The release goal is to extend Kafana's physical mixnets to allow seamless interaction between Phoenixes and slower but higher cargo capacity means of transport such as Castles in the Sky and the Alderney's Greater Dolphin Pod idea for an underwater version to be used between sea steddings. Once in delta, the team's next milestone would be combining that with our 'life windows' idea, where you can look into arlife through a velife portal or step through it in order to transfer your sensorium to a willing Mythoi at the remote location. Later down the roadmap is adding in a variety of surveillance awareness measures, ranging from identifying your danger levels using honeypot info-brokers, to using Alderney's telescope network to locate high up snooping devices. Your tiara is your passport, and your reputation your ticket - anonymous but trustable."

His voice was almost passionate, which was incredibly rare for Wellington. Was his interest connected to the memory she'd received from him when they tried probing Kullervo's mind, of Wellington as a teenager having to watch helplessly as his friend was arrested at an airport checkpoint when they were fleeing Hong Kong using faked documents?

Alderney: "Alpha abilities are ones with substantial support and the key pieces of technology have been shown to be feasible, but they're subject to change and may even get cancelled, so we don't yet announce to the general public that we even might be working on them. Critical posts on the team may still need filling and what the service will and won't try to do may still be under discussion. We've got five services currently in Alpha: Enhanced Learning, Enhanced Thinking, Enhanced Feeling, Enhanced Planning and Enhanced Gaming; though some of those are likely to end up being merged."

Bulgaria: "And what do they cover? Briefly, I mean - we can always go into the technical details later, hmm?" He sounded amused, but both Wellington and Alderney looked like someone had kicked their leg under the table. Had he messaged them? Alderney drew in a deep breath, and then spoke at almost double her normal speed.

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Alderney: "Enhanced Learning is experimenting with Dr Sato's skill sharing, trying to improve it using some of the data Bungo picked up during his time at Aura Psyence."

Alderney: "Enhanced Thinking is experimenting with Wellington's IQ boosting; they're looking for ways to make it last longer and be safer, by boosting only the specific parts of the cognitive process needed in a situation, and when they are needed."

She paused only long enough to draw in another deep breath.

Alderney: "Enhanced Feeling is experimenting with Bulgaria's empathy halos, adding colours for Burrow flashtags."

Alderney: "Enhanced Planning is experimenting with turning the sims we're running for the Dojo and Village Development into a general purpose decision support tool capable of simulating the likely casualty figures from different battlefield strategies, the most profitable place to locate a new baker's shop, or the effect of..." she had to pause, gasping, and Kafana took the opportunity to slip in a question.

Kafana: "Flashtags?"

Bungo: "Like #HashTags, but applied to the sense record of the author writing the post, rather than the content of the post itself. They label the flashes of emotion present in the recording, such as ^regret or ^joking."

Alderney, having regained her breath, finished in a rush: "and Enhanced Gaming is something I've been knocking around with Bungo. It's software running on the tiara that helps players access services on The Burrow from inside the game's arlife, providing them tailored advice on quests and character design in return for continually sending a live feed of their game-play to The Burrow."

She gave Bulgaria a triumphant look, daring him to disagree: "Brief enough?"

Kafana raised her hand tentatively, and received a nod of encouragement.

Kafana: "Probably nothing, but I had a thought during the break, and now seems a good moment to ask about it." She proceeded to relate her idea, and finished with "So is there anything a tiara can do to regulate the mind and maintain its health, the same way that it already does for the body?"

While Alderney's eyes focused on infinity while she thought, two others spoke up.

Bungo: "I like it. We could call it 'Enhanced Mental Autonomy'. Why stop at preventing evil humans imprinting you with their ideas and limitations? Isn't it just as bad when the same thing is done to you by unbalanced brain chemistry or even by wrong headed parents?"

Wellington: "It wouldn't be simple. You don't want to accidentally remove someone's love for their family or inhibition against murder, just because they first acquired them when too young to properly give their consent. On the other hand, having more than one line of defence is a sound design principle; our bodies are covered in a layer of skin to prevent bacteria from entering, but we also have a system of antibodies that help clear up the mess caused on the occasions that bacteria find a hole in the skin left by a sharp thorn."

Alderney: "It sounds interesting, but I don't know if it can be done. Which brings me onto Gamma abilities. These are the cool ideas that may turn out not to be popular or even possible. I'd like my Vice in charge of them to set up a virtual Skunk Works. A group of creative crazies who can pick up a project, work three days on it with only six hours sleep, then switch to a different one with no regrets. All lead by the sort of angel investor who can sniff out gold from five kilometers away and five years before anyone else recognises the potential."

She grinned.

Alderney: "And Gamma is working on... nothing at all - it doesn't yet exist. Bungo, Wellington and I will discuss Kafana's Enhanced Autonomy idea in a thread in our private Clan Beresford forum and if we can work something out, one of us will post the idea to the general forums to see if there's enough developers intrigued by the idea to start a clan dedicated to it. Value out!"

She firmly took the top hat off her head and placed it on the table in front of her.

Bulgaria: "Thank you, Alderney. Admirably brief. In fact, why don't you finish off your Media role too, before Bungo puts on his Burrower hat and tries to match your brevity?"

Was Bulgaria goading Alderney, to take advantage of her competitive nature? Kafana looked carefully, but his face wasn't giving anything away. Bungo's smile was a little smug however, as if he thought he had this in the bag. Alderney saw Bungo's expression and replied to Bulgaria in her sweetest voice: "Certainly."

She put her shiny media helmet on her head, and carefully adjusted it to a jaunty angle.

Alderney: "Fourthly we have my Wise Saint, 明智 聖人. Their task is to demonstrate that we Wombles believe in ethical non-manipulative behaviour, but you obviously have no interest in that so moving 'briefly' on, we lastly have my..."

Kafana interrupted with a loud exclamation like Daris trying to make his pony slow down: "Whoooa!"

In a gentler voice she continued: "Let's rewind two minutes. Bulgaria, thank you for trying to keep things moving, but I'm not bored - I just needed a moment to stretch. Alderney, I declare you the winner and award you the title of 'The Briefest Womble'. Now, because I am interested in the plans you have for your Wise Saint, please start again. And this time, take as long as you want. I trust you."

Bulgaria gave Kafana a wry look, but Bungo got into the spirit, said something under his breath, then presented Alderney with a shiny gold trophy goblet with her name engraved upon it, and lifted her other hand in victory, like he were the gentlemanly loser of a boat race. Alderney blushed.

Alderney: "Ahem, sorry. As I was saying, the Wise Saint's task is to change the way people think. To show how to look for a third option, and why that habit is worth acquiring. But that's just the start. There's more to 'thinking like a Womble' than that. It's about values. It's about showing that treating others with respect and understanding isn't for suckers - it can be a winning strategy in life. It's about gratitude, consent, fairness, treating others as individuals, even investing time in having fun together - all the social skills that greed and desperation strip away, but which are needed to work together, to forge healthy bonds, to form robust communities that can stand up to the forces of corruption, objectification and degradation. And, occasionally, it's about taking a stand - but doing so in a smart way, while still continuing to seek peaceful win-win solutions. In other words? Effective political action!"

Alderney could speak like that? She hadn't realised her friend had that in her.

Kafana: "Wow, Alderney."
Tomsk: "Tovarish!" He drew out the pronunciation, with emphasis upon the second syllable, almost rolling the Rs. t'vaarr-ish

Bulgaria: "I am a fool. Please, tell me of your plans." He almost sounded pleading, but he looked at Alderney like a proud father.

Alderney: "So far it's mostly been editing our sense recordings together in a way that frames the narrative of our purpose and progress inside Soul Bound to emphasise our values; the way we interact with each other; the principles driving our decisions; and the outcome of those decisions, not just for us but also for those around us."

She turned to look at Kafana directly.

Alderney: "Kafana, others might think that you getting us involved with the Chartists was a side-quest. A bit of a distraction not connected with the Lovebirds, not offering our characters much personal advantage compared to the risks. But from the Wise Saint's point of view? The stand you took, the rejecting violence, the calling on allies, the reason you declined becoming their leader... all of it - that was pure gold. That sort of footage is half the reason why we're all spending six hours a day playing a computer game."

This time, it was Kafana's turn to blush.