[This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates planned to return to biweekly after the holidays–next update is scheduled for January 5th.]

Previous: Part 5



Flicker was of two minds. Not figuratively. They weren’t currently in sync because speed mind needed to load a lot of things through squishy brain’s memory access bottleneck before she could do that after waking up, and that hadn’t finished yet. Which one to use?

Not safe.

Journeyman had ported out. Flicker didn’t know why. But it was clear which was needed. Speed mind had standard defaults loaded–that always came first. So it was ready for hazard and emergency response, even if it was missing context.

Speed up without moving. Orient. Assess.

Hazard avoidance response witnessed.

No visible hazards. Nearby or impending hazard check: No spacetime discontinuities, nuclear chain reactions, focused EM beams, shockwaves, plasma, high speed projectiles, or chemical detonations in progress.

So much for the easy part.

She changed into her costume for the better high speed interface and sensors. What had she been doing? She had no recent social context at all–she’d still been loading the implications of her capture of Hermes yesterday, and his escape. She’d talked with Journeyman after that, but social interaction updates were lower priority. She had almost no idea what she’d done after waking up, because her minds hadn’t been synced. And the human emulation part of speed mind wasn’t loaded yet either.

She started virtual typing to send queries: DASI, memory integrity issue–missing key information from a social interaction during memory desync. Please advise, and estimate potential causes of Journeyman’s hazard avoidance response. Send.

It would be at least a dozen milliseconds for a Database response because of light speed lag. She checked the night visor memory: All her conversations with Journeyman from yesterday were there, recorded under verbal coordination assistance override–she used that so she could speed up to check something while talking, then return without losing her spot and sounding disjointed. She loaded them into speed memory. But there were no recordings at all after that. The visor defaulted to no recording for privacy reasons when she was off-duty and inside someone else’s home, and she’d forgotten to reset the override when she’d awoken.

She could do a short downshift to squishy mind to try to pick up some essentials. Nothing better to do while she waited for DASI’s response.

Slow down, bounce, speed back up, trailing emotional reaction debris and a thread of memory. Shock in the limbic system, turning to… some kind of agitation. She couldn’t tell what; her emulator wasn’t loaded. Meanwhile, the response arrived, and a string of warnings and advisories popped across the bottom of her display.

Verified: Potential for interaction hazard caused by memory, judgement or identity impairment.

Requested estimate: Insufficient data to support quantitative decision making.

That was fair. Flicker reviewed the memory thread, and sent an update reflecting what she’d done. She didn’t include what she’d been thinking, because she didn’t know. The memory was full of enough implicit references to missing context and emotions to make the reasoning incomprehensible. And her thinking had probably been been… bad. She was used to the aid of speed mind and Database access as social prosthetics, and she’d had neither.

A short wait for another reply from DASI.

Chance Journeyman’s hazard response was triggered by your actions: 99%+

Chance you were the perceived hazard: 97%

Chance you are the hazard: 74%

Flicker stared at the assessment. She was the hazard.

Well, that was clear enough. And she didn’t have to understand why to know what to do next. It was time to leave, so Journeyman’s house could be a secure place for him again. She left a note and a message, then took a last look around Journeyman’s living room. She wondered when or if she’d see it again.

She closed the door behind her and headed out, ghosting through the darkness.

*****

Back at home. She had caffeine, and sat at the high speed interface to her Database node, though she was using it only sporadically. One thing was already obvious: She had a serious flaw in her speed mind loading priority for dealing with an edge case–a hazard requiring both speed mind and social judgement before she was done waking up. She was still trying to safely finish the disrupted process and wake up enough to understand what had gone wrong. But she had a working theory.

She’d told her partner he was safe when he wasn’t.

She used compartmentalization to manage stress. And a level of it that worked well enough when she had time to wake up on her own… was too much for sleeping near Journeyman. She’d woken fuzzy and dissociated, but still felt comfortable enough to make an unaided social decision with squishy mind. A very poor one. She’d considered only safe nearness, having compartmentalized away any sexual context. And when Journeyman had awakened to her saying ‘safe’ about a situation that emphatically wasn’t… He had correctly identified impaired judgement. That was a hazard. So he’d ported out.

That was bad enough. But there was probably more. How would he react? Where was he now? All she could do was keep loading speed mind and wait. She clearly needed to find a faster way to load social context into a mind that had none of the natural support for it that a human brain did. It had never seemed that important before. Run halfway around the world, catch bullets, stop an explosion, vaporize missiles with rocks, blunt a tsunami–those were all things she might need to do immediately on waking. Talking could wait for her to wake up. But 'social’ was more than talking…

Incoming message from Journeyman appeared on the screen.

Trace. Flicker read the message and accompanying data with increasing dismay. It was a text message sent as a burst from a skip-port on the other side of the world. The only reason for him to do that would be to preclude any possibility she could get to his location before he ported out again. The message itself was full of typos and grammatical errors, and she still wasn’t clear what he was trying to say after reading it three times. It sounded like he was apologizing? And thought she had been, or possibly still was, drunk? And the phone he was using was an insecure disposable cell; the encryption was fine, but he was leaking metadata whenever he connected to a tower…

The next fifteen minutes were a slow-moving nightmare, as Journeyman reappeared at a succession of remote locations, skip-porting to evade her while they talked completely past each other by text. He finally stopped when she left a hologram-projecting drone near his next port spot in an attempt to show his skip-porting was futile, unnecessary, and dangerous, because she wasn’t going to try to demand answers or anything else in person, his port location algorithm was sloppy enough to easily crack, and it was only a matter of time before his unusual metadata pattern drew attention from a telecom or intel agency.

He’d ported out again to 'undefined’–possibly not on Earth–and hadn’t yet returned. Flicker had finally finished waking up and started trying to make sense of what was going on from Journeyman’s viewpoint. She was sure of very little except that he hadn’t been operating at his best either. He’d made some cryptic references to a need to put some secure data into the Database, but that could wait until they sorted out the hazards and misunderstandings.

Journeyman thought she’d been intoxicated–not from alcohol, but magic. He’d made an oblique reference to it before dinner, which she hadn’t followed up on. Whatever checking he’d done last night had convinced him that Hermes’ anti-climactic disappearance from Earth had been aided by a cloud of bad luck and poor judgement characteristic of tricksters, and that her high magic aura was potentially related. Apparently a similar level of magic infusing a normal human could be enough to send them into full 'I am invincible’ lethal overconfidence. Journeyman thought it might still be influencing her, whether she showed any obvious effects or not.

DASI found this unlikely but plausible. Flicker didn’t–but wasn’t sure she’d gotten across that her judgement had been impaired for an entirely different reason. The bad luck was clear enough. That was supported by the evidence.

She’d known they needed to talk. 'Tonight probably isn’t the best time, though,’ she’d said. It had just been the last possible one before…

No. Don’t call it a disaster. No one had died. All the wreckage was emotional and social. She let the anger and frustration wash over her. It was inward-directed and manageable for now.

She used the detachment of her speed mind to write up an assessment of the emotional context and decision processes that had led her to this point, and some goals for a better speed mind startup protocol. DASI would find it useful, even if Flicker didn’t end up using it as a reference. Then she had something to eat, looked glumly at her readiness status monitor–yellow for global and personal crises, red for everything else–and adjusted a few priorities and preferences in the Database that might be useful when her personal world stopped being a train wreck.

It was not yet light out. Her crisis reaction had long since worn off, and she just felt depressed and tired. She didn’t think the day would improve after rest, but she needed it and didn’t have anything else to try. She went back to bed. Maybe she’d be wrong.

*****

Awake–late morning. Flicker put together a more measured set of messages for Journeyman, along with suggested boundary rules for a meeting. There had been no word back. Though if he wasn’t on Earth, or was lying low, it might be hard for him to check his mail. But there was nothing she could do about that, so it was past time to start driving her own decisions again.

Doc was working down in the vaults, so it was easier for Flicker to call than visit for once, because of all the security doors in the way.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

“Journeyman is done with his long-term interdimensional work,” she said. "And no longer needs backup. That was the last reason for delaying Speedtest. Also, we had a misunderstanding shortly after he returned that was set off by an issue I have with mind sync lag when I wake up that I never gave priority to before. So I’d like to work on it, but I don’t want to start until–“

"After Speedtest. Understandable. What timeframe?”

“Tomorrow work for you?”

Doc gave her a long look, then raised an eyebrow. "Ambitious schedule. Don’t you still have some yellow and red in your readiness matrix?“

"Not for physics. And I find it soothing, since I can’t go on patrol.”

“Speedtest shouldn’t reveal any new physics unless something goes wrong. The part I find interesting is the cybernetics, and I can certainly understand why you find it soothing to consider. But this isn’t therapy; it’s seriously risky test work. You’ll want to start well rested and stable. I think you should wait at least another day.”

“…Okay. Day after tomorrow, then. Do you have all your sensors ready?”

“There’s a few new ones I want to add. I’ll fab and test them tomorrow. And I can still give you a ride out if you’ve changed your mind.”

“No,” said Flicker. "I’ll take thirty seconds of ballistic acrophobia over an hour of claustrophobia in your flyer any day. Sorry.“

A crooked smile. "No problem. The doors would need to stay closed. I’ll want to update the Volunteer on some of the less-optimal return scenarios, though. A few of those could get exciting for people other than you.”

“That’s fair.”

She started her prep work, and went over alternate plans. She felt her mindset shifting, becoming more upbeat. It was a welcome change. Then lunch, and a reminder warning from DASI about social isolation. Doc had authorized an open-ended search, so Flicker spent an hour, some of it at speed, creating a detailed priority tree for her search for a psychological expert. She was ready to talk to just about anyone helpful that seemed capable enough to survive the attention they would eventually attract, because 'shrink to someone who can destroy the world’ would be an irresistible target for whole categories of nastiness. The fatality rate for mental health professionals who worked with superheroes during the Lost Years had been close to 100 percent.

Late afternoon. Incoming message from Journeyman on her visor.

Flicker sped up and moved from her workbench to her high speed interface station to read the message. It was clear, showed no signs of being rushed, and established that she hadn’t created an unforgivable social breach. Flicker felt a wave of relief. But less of the message was personal than she’d expected.

DASI?

Yes?

What’s this secure transfer protocol Journeyman wants?

He is displaying admirable thoroughness in assuring security from magical leakage for a cache of compartmented information he has asked me to safeguard. He does not wish either you or Doc to have unrestricted access to the cache.

Okay. Some of the cryptic bits in his texts after he ported out make a little more sense now.

Indeed. Are you willing to facilitate, prior to resolving your personal concerns?

Yes. Journeyman clearly had some tasks he’d needed to handle after his return, and finishing that had priority over working on their joint issues. Flicker sent her own reply, then started putting away tools from the sensor calibration she’d been doing on her worktable.

Journeyman appeared in the entryway in his 'formal’ costume–leather trench coat, button-down shirt, panama hat, glasses, and cargo pants–looking ill at ease.

Flicker was still on edge from the uncertainty. But he was here, he was ready to work with her. That was how to start.

“Hey,” he said as Flicker touched fingertips with him.

“Hey. You didn’t need to dress up.” She gestured at herself. She was wearing work clothes and older visor.

He managed a lopsided smile. "I didn’t want to be disrespectful. And sometimes psychological armor is useful.“

"Data transfer first?”

He relaxed minutely. "Yeah.“

She led him to a squat metal housing outside a cabling cabinet next to one of her server rooms. Journeyman studied it briefly.

"One-eyed Jack’s work?” he asked.

“The ward on the housing, yes,” said Flicker. "The inside is new, but Jack warded a bunch of spares back at Doc’s old lab, and Doc never throws anything away. It makes secure transfers faster by screening out potential weird stuff.“

Journeyman pulled a portable drive out of a jacket pocket and plugged it in, then chuckled. "When older magicians bitch at me about Doc, I remind them about all his crazy preparations that turn out not to be so crazy. They can respect that.”

DASI confirmed that the transfer had started smoothly, and Journeyman brought up the history of some of Doc’s more esoteric Database safeguards–it was a safely neutral topic while they waited for the transfer to finish.

“I’m a little surprised you wanted to do this here instead of the main Database, if you’re that paranoid about transfer security,” said Flicker. "I mean, I know I have a good setup, but I don’t have Doc’s experience.“

Journeyman started pacing, hands clasped behind his back. "Well, the real security is handled by your Database AI–which is apparently way smarter than Doc led me to believe–and your setup is cleaner, because Doc’s is all mixed together with the Dangerous Artifact vaults security. There’s also the issue of whatever he might be working on at the moment. Anything related to probability manipulation could complicate things. None of that here. And I could verify the wards easier, because they aren’t as spread out.”

“Ah. Yes, DASI is very smart. Doc doesn’t like to emphasize that, though.”

“Because he doesn’t want to terrify people. It terrified me last night, after you were asleep, when I found out while discussing the logistics of the data compartmentalization I wanted. Your AI is probably smart enough to be vulnerable to spells that target minds rather than computers. I understand you have a few legacy routers that were also warded by One-eyed Jack–those appear to be in use?”

“Oh yes.”

“But your AI said that you–and Doc–use another method to protect the Database against magic, and I can sure sense it. You’ve got something below your main junction that has real power. I was told what it does, so I’m pretty sure what it has to be, but I’m not sure I believe it. You installed it–what does it look like?”

Flicker smiled. "It’s this funny antique vacuum tube thing. Doc swears by them.“ She consulted the Database. "It was originally called an Omniresonator.”

“Holy shit. You actually have one of Belle Tinker’s Omniresonators connected to your server room?”

“Two of them, there’s a hot spare. And Doc has more back at his lab.”

“Oh, well.” Journeyman rolled his eyes and made a tossing gesture. "Why not? I knew he had them, but I thought they were all in the vaults, not connected to… Wait. They’re connected to an AI. A smart AI. How long have they been connected to the AI?“

"Doc’s have been since he built his new lab, I guess? And what’s the big deal about Belle Tinker’s inventions? I know they’re more compatible with magic than most electronics, but she built them back in the 50s, and–”

“Have you read any of the history about her and Luce Cannon? I’ll see what kind of panicky handwaving I can manage while I finish transferring my little bundle of secrets to the care of your data dragon, but I’m not sure what you already know.”

“It was kind of frustrating last time I tried, but that was a while ago. I’ll check.” Flicker sped up, sent some requests through her visor, and started to read.

After a time–long subjective, short in realtime–Flicker slowed back down and frowned at Journeyman.

“Hit the same annoying problem I had the last time I tried to read about Luce Cannon and Belle Tinker,” she said. "First, there’s lots of superficial stuff and newspaper reports from the 50s through the 70s, but none of it direct. Then there’s cryptic fragmentary stuff, a couple of crappy biographies, a whole bunch of things they did as partners that are still privacy blocked because of some connections Luce Cannon had–which I don’t understand, because she died in the late 80s–a bit of legal stuff about some robots that Rex Roland stole from Belle, and then forensics from the accident that apparently killed her.“

She waved a hand. "Sure there’s lots of records of people talking about her personality, or trivial stuff, but nothing interesting, like what she was actually doing in her lab, except some low data quality conspiracy theory stuff, and a few notes from Doc that she was the inspiration for some stuff he did. And a few things he has under hazard blocks. Oh, I take that back, there was confirmation that she worked with some magicians, but it wasn’t very clear what that meant.”

Flicker frowned. "It kind of bugs me, because they should be better known. And before she died, Luce trained Jumping Spider. Maybe Jumping Spider is the reason for the privacy blocks? I can’t really tell with the legacy stuff.“

Journeyman nodded. "You ever try asking Armadillo or the Volunteer? They both knew Luce and Belle pretty well.”

“Yeah, but talking is way slower than a Database search. And the Volunteer is really busy and Armadillo’s stories wander all over the place.”

“Fair. But you will miss stuff that way–some fascinating history I can maybe tell you some other time. And that the story of Belle as a genius gadgeteer has a big hole in it.”

“What?”

“She was okay at gadgets. But she used that to hide the fact that she was a frikkin’ brilliant magician. An artificer. She hid it because she was a woman and an immigrant, and being a foreign witch was a great way to get the torches and pitchforks crowd to burn you at the stake. There’s stuff she built that no one has been able to come close to–though Doc managed a few things with One-eyed Jack’s help. Those robots of hers? They weren’t robots; they were golems with servos and hydraulics. And the Omniresonators are like combination magic shields and collecters and batteries, all together.”

“Oh.”

“So, with at least four of them linked to the Database, I’m now less worried that it might be subverted by magic than I am that your AI might decide to start casting spells. And there’s two Diviners that I owe big apologies to, because they said something like that might be possible a while ago and I laughed it off. Can’t give them at the moment because one has disappeared and the other is currently taking a chemically-aided vacation from reality.”

The speaker at the entrance to the server room beeped. "Secure data transfer complete and verified,“ announced DASI.

Journeyman heaved a sigh. "One less worry,” he said. "Thank you.“

"You’re welcome,” said Flicker. "Is… there anything you can tell me about why it was so important?“

"Yeah. Insurance. Some of it is the stuff from my interdimensional mess that I can’t talk about. I wanted it archived so no one would be tempted to off me to suppress it permanently. I imagine you would be a bit annoyed if that happened, yes?”

“More than a bit,” said Flicker. "But that doesn’t help if you’re already dead.“

"If whoever is considering it has Diviners, Seers, or an Oracle it will. Because divinitory signs of your annoyance range from 'bad idea’ to 'future, what future?’ Anyway, it’s done, I can sleep easier, and we can talk about our other problems.”



Back out in the common area. "Sorry this part is a bit of a mess,“ she said. "The robots can’t finish up until I decide on the changes I want, and it’s been low priority because I don’t have guests over very often.” Flicker leaned against the table and waved a hand at the sheets of clear plastic hanging in several locations behind her. They were temporary substitutes for 'smart’ walls–key components of her initial plans had turned out to be too vulnerable to shockwave and plasma induced failures.

“Not a problem.” Journeyman leaned forward on the couch. "Anyway. How do you want to start?“

Flicker looked down. "I’m sorry about last night. Did you get that I screwed up because I’d been compartmentalizing and I have an issue with social competence when I first wake up?”

“Yes. And I was careless because I was tired. It was a mistake, but not a big deal now. Nobody got hurt, we’re talking again. Try not to beat yourself up about it, okay?”

“I’ve worked on other things, which helped.”

“Glad to hear that.” He held up his hand and they touched fingertips again. Their 'partners’ hand touch also served as a wordless affirmation–a boon when Flicker couldn’t think of the right way to say something or there just wasn’t any. She pulled the chair from the high speed interface over to face him and sat down.

“Here’s a way to look at what’s important.” he said. "There are a couple of elephants in the room that we’ve been ignoring. Last night you woke up fuzzy, tripped over one, knocked over a bookcase, scared the hell out of me, and we spent the next twenty minutes practicing for the Olympic tryouts for text misunderstanding. We’ve handled that, and picked up some of the books, but hey, that elephant is kinda obvious now.“

Flicker laughed despite herself, but it was a little painful.

”I haven’t been ignoring it,“ she said. "Not completely. I compartmentalized because I had to, but I’ve been trying to find some non-threatening way to bring up some things for a while. But every time there was an opportunity, you would divert or change the subject–and you’re really good at evasion. Why?”

“I’ve been maintaining a load-bearing social fiction.”

“I have enough trouble with social facts. What load was it bearing?”

“It held up an otherwise shakily supported roof of professionalism that let us work together quite well as partners without awkward issues intruding.”

She met his eyes. "Those issues haven’t gone away, and now they’re more awkward. And I wasn’t going to ask anything direct while you were dependent on me for backup. That would just be obnoxious. I wouldn’t do that to my partner. But your interdimensional thing dragged on and on, you kept having to go back…“

"I know,” said Journeyman. "To make things worse, it was a personal screw up that got me involved in the first place. And a different screw up that left me lucky to make it back with a day’s worth of memories that were so messed up that it took you four hours to convince me I really was back on a reasonable facsimile of the Earth I left. And… things seemed a little different after that.“

"They did,” said Flicker. "I noticed a bunch of stuff, all tangled together. And I started to be really aware that my partner was more than just a cool, interesting person. Enough that I needed to compartmentalize while I tried to find answers to some awkward questions.“

"Compartmentalizing was an entirely reasonable thing to do.”

“Yeah, but…” Flicker sighed. "Anyway. Not sure the best order for dealing with… us. But we should probably handle partnership trust first, before anything else goes wrong. Sound good?“

"What do you mean by partnership trust?” asked Journeyman.

“Our ability to work together in an emergency despite the lack of your load-bearing social fiction. I don’t think we’ll have problems. But we haven’t tested that. And we just got into a lot of trouble assuming.”

“Heh. Point. What did you want to test?”

“Tarp catch after a shock, vortex plasma dispersal as a proxy for an environmental hazard, and a fast door bypass joint port. You up for that?”

“Sure.”



Outside. Flicker had copied Doc’s test range setup and surrounded a large chunk of her property with earthen berms, to cut down the effect of high energy annoyances for her neighbors.

“Ready,” said Journeyman.

Flicker sped up, swung wide, then came back trailing a shockwave and glided past Journeyman close enough to send him flying backwards. Then she pulled out her catching tarp, caught him with it, and applied steady force to bring him to a halt, still upright.

“Green?” she asked.

“Green,” he said, with a half-smile. "Haven’t done that in a while.“

"Yeah, somebody’s been gone so we’re out of practice. Ready for some fire?”

“Go for it.”

This time she sent a cloud of plasma towards him, then spun around him to create a vortex to bring in fresh air. She finished by gliding to a stop next to him for a quick port into the entryway, using their favorite non-destructive way of quickly getting past a door. A hand touch and they were done.

She checked the telemetry on her visor. "Timing was a little ragged but we haven’t lost our edge. Coordination trust established?“

"Coordination trust established.” Journeyman waved a hand. His jacket turned into a sleeveless vest and his hat into a bandana around his neck. He wiped his forehead and sat on the couch. Flicker sat down beside him.

“Sooo… About those elephants,” he said. "Ready to talk?“

"Yeah.”

“The one you’re probably more interested in is the one you tripped over. Intimacy and sex. Right?”

Flicker’s heart sped up a little. "Well, yeah.“

"And that’s fine.” He spread his hands. "I remember being sixteen. But I want to talk about the other elephant first. The reason I ran. Anger and power.“

”…Oh.“

"I don’t know where a lot of your anger comes from, or why it’s so intense, and that’s a little worrying. I do know where some of it comes from, and how much you put yourself through, and that’s worrying too. Put it all together with your power, and it’s pretty scary. Do you see why someone you want to get close to might have some concerns?”

Flicker nodded. "That’s reasonable. If–“ She stopped. "That look when you listened to the vid. Your eyes widened. That was fear.”

“Partly, yes. Have you talked to Doc about your anger?”

“Some. He’s often the person I’m angry at, though. I followed his guidance in shaping my anger response when I was younger, to make sure I never completely lose my temper and do something catastrophic. So yelling and Database digging and passive-aggressiveness and going to Antarctica to sulk were all adaptive.”

She lifted a hand. "I have ways to cope, but I could use better ones, and I could certainly use someone better to talk to. About a lot of other things, too. The Database is trying to find a reasonable candidate now. Doc was worried I’d get a non-superhero killed by making them a target, but he finally went ahead and authorized a search a couple of days ago. I don’t have access to the details for privacy reasons, though. Maybe it will find someone, maybe not.“

”Very glad to hear that,“ said Journeyman. "But in the meantime, after last night, I had an idea that you might find helpful. If you’re interested.”

“Sure. What?”

“I have a better version of a book that the Database likely only has dubious or partial copies of. I would be leery of suggesting it, except you mentioned you’d been studying The Prince, so you’ve probably run across it already.”

“What’s it called?”

“Practical Power Dynamics.”

The name wasn’t familiar. Flicker frowned and sped up.

Database, query, book title, Practical Power Dynamics.

Book not indexed.

Not indexed? That didn’t seem right. She should get either 'not found’ or a record.

DASI? Database integrity problem here. I’m getting 'not indexed’ for Practical Power Dynamics. What’s the problem?

Access denied.

Override.

Still denied. I’m sorry.

DASI? That’s stupid. Journeyman has a physical copy. I could just read that.

Very well. Reprioritizing. I can now tell you that your access to the applicable record has an Index block, a Cross-domain priority conflict block, and a Legacy privacy block. In addition, the record has eleven associated hazard warnings and 47 advisories. Please use appropriate caution.

I thought Index blocks were deprecated? Why would Doc even use one? Or leave it around?

He did not place the block, nor is he aware of the record. He is also subject to the Legacy privacy block.

What? Then who put it in the Database?

The Volunteer.

Well, that explained the Index block. The Volunteer was most familiar with much older versions of the Database segmentation protocols, and it sounded like he might have wanted to put whatever it was in the digital equivalent of the Dangerous Artifact vaults.

Flicker slowed back down. "Um. I had to jump through hoops just to get the Database to admit that the book even exists. It still won’t let me read it, and it has the longest warning and advisory list I’ve ever seen. What does it do, summon plutonium demons or something?“

"Heh. No, but you have an appropriate level of wariness. It surfaced about a decade ago, written by someone using the pseudonym 'Machiavelli’s Daughter’. There are various versions of the text circulating, most of them mangled or incomplete. It’s ostensibly about acquiring and managing power as a supervillain. It’s full of deadpan snark, disturbingly effective advice, and subtle psychological traps for the egotistical.”

“It certainly sounds interesting. But why did you think I’d find it helpful?”

“Well,” said Journeyman, “I could only understand about half of the section on self awareness and coping with anger, but it’s a unique viewpoint, and I thought you might like to read it.”

“Okay, but if the text is mangled…”

“Most versions. Not all. I traded a bibliomancer… probably too much, to reconstruct a copy of the original text.”

Journeyman reached into an inside pocket of his vest and pulled out a compact book with a green cover. He handed it to her with a smile and a dramatic flourish. "Be careful turning the pages, okay?“

"Okay.” Flicker opened the book. The title was as expected, but then she turned to the dedication page and suddenly giggled. It read:

For Doc Future. It’s a trap.



“Oh, I love the dedication,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Journeyman. "The level of snark is–“

"No, no. That’s not snark, it’s a personal warning. Doc would read that and stop. Whoever wrote that is smart. I’ve got to read the rest, give me a sec.”

Flicker sped up, and started reading and turning pages. Carefully.

When she finally slowed down again, her mind felt fizzy with new perspectives. And then her emotions hit and she started laughing until there were tears in her eyes, while Journeyman watched with a look of apprehension.

“The book is perfect,” she managed finally. "Thank you, especially for the parts you don’t understand. Forget Machiavelli–this is the book I wanted. It was written for a woman–all the traps are optimized for men. This was just what I needed. It’s The Princess.“

Next: Part 7

