[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 are theoretically biweekly–next update is scheduled for February 16th.]

Previous: Part 6



Full intragroup and intergroup relative advantage simulation run started. Estimated time for results: 6 hours at current background priority.

Flicker finished her third high speed assessment of Practical Power Dynamics and supporting information on people and organizations that had used it. It had sparked insights–it was full of interesting social science–but it was also full of traps. Many of them seemed to be associated with naive scaling–the book’s advice seemed unusually hostile to the incentive structures of large organizations, such as major corporations, government agencies, and international organized crime. She didn’t yet have the context to follow the social changes the book had inspired, other than the notable de-fetishization of gratuitous killing. A long model run would help, but it would also take a while.

Flicker’s focus was more on the personal. Some of the advice on managing anger was intriguing, but it was unclear how applicable it would be for someone whose emotional processing was not entirely human. What she had found most useful was the window into the thinking of a smart, astute human who had done serious work on the problem of long-term functioning with a large personal reservoir of anger.

She slowed down, moving herself back into squishy brain again, with active senses other than sight and touch. Human senses, hearing and smell, for the sound from the high speed workstation fans and the cooling pumps for the server room, and the faint smell of the oil she’d used on a stuck robot earlier in the day. She flexed her hands, which tingled as the normal flow of blood returned after a long bout of speed typing.

Her emotions shifted back to as normal as they ever got as well.

Journeyman was still watching. It had been about a minute for him–and almost a day subjective for her, some of it spent thinking on her own while she waited on resource intensive bits of Database analysis. She stood up from the high speed workstation and moved to the other end of the couch.

“The book’s perspective on anger is useful,” she said, “and there are some techniques that may end up helping with management–but that will probably take a while. DASI is analyzing it and running simulations. There is lots of subtext, and quirks because it wasn’t really intended for someone with my level of power. And we still have to sort through some of the traps, so I’ll take my time, and it’s securely recorded and backed up.”

She handed the book back to him. "Thank you for the loan.“

"No problem.”

Flicker exhaled slowly, releasing a bit of the tension she had built up. "My level of background anger seems to be pretty high compared to most humans. But not compared to the author of the book, apparently. The way she talks about normal humans getting angry and calming down sounds like an anthropologist documenting weird alien behavior. It’s kind of funny because I find some of the same things weird. So I can see why someone with normal human anger might find mine scary. Like you do.“

Flicker waved a hand. "It’s hard to explain because a lot of it isn’t conscious. It’s just what I do, I don’t know any other way. But I can tell you something I know I do differently. A lot of the things I see at high speed make me angry. How could they not, if I care at all? And my speed mind is wider than my squishy brain–it has way more short-term memory. That’s why I need to forget so much when I sleep–to keep the human part of me sane. But some of the anger from the memories stays. Only a little for each one, but it adds up. More than anything I can do to calm down does.

"I have ways to dump that kind of anger, but only down to a certain point. So I tend to be at or above my background anger level most of the time, unless I’m completely concentrating on something. And new things can interact with the background and make it seem like I’m reacting disproportionately when I’m really not. Does this help you understand better?”

Journeyman glanced down at the book, still in his hands, then put it back into his vest pocket. "A bit. I hope you’re ready for some things that will make you angry, because I can’t put them off any longer.“

Flicker studied him. "Speaking of traps and subtext, there was a bit in the book about not setting traps for yourself with unresolved conflicts. We have one. Have you been avoiding it to sustain your load-bearing social fiction? Or because you were worried I’d be angry?”

“Both. The spying you did the next time I was gone after scrambled memory day had some serious consequences.”

“It was research on your background I needed to do because you didn’t leave me any other options, and you never elaborated.”

“You’d already stopped by the time I found out about it, and I didn’t want to have that fight while you were my backup for the dicey mess I got myself into.” Journeyman spread his hands. "You uncovered information about a fair number of my contacts. One of them was a Diviner. Doesn’t matter how careful you are if you hit a canary secret from a prepared Diviner. If the number of people who know it is small, and goes up, they can tell. After I got back, I found a message from her telling me it had been fun, but she didn’t want to die finding out the hard way that my new girlfriend was the jealous type. She’d already disappeared. I can’t blame her–she knew you were my partner and correctly guessed you were the one digging. Diviners that aren’t paranoid about being hunted don’t generally live to get old.“

"But I wasn’t–never mind.” She planned ahead based on plausible assumptions.

“Yeah. My contacts don’t know everything, and neither do you. And that’s the way it has to stay.”

Flicker frowned. "Okay, but I still don’t understand the rules for how your magical communities function. The information quality about them in the Database was really low: A lot of implausible junk, some weird and disturbing stuff–most of it probably untrue–and occasional records of conflicts that left a body or bodies. I wanted to find a good enough set of connections and opinions of you so I could see where you fit. I was not trying to endanger anyone. That was why I put so much effort into preserving anonymity for everyone but you when I was digging. And stopped when I realized it would fail. I learned a lot of things I didn’t expect. Including how justified so many of the people you know are in fearing databases. But only the Database knows who they are, I don’t.“

"They don’t know that. Limiting access to personally identifiable information can be a matter of life or death for them.” Journeyman smiled humorlessly. "The torches and pitchforks crowds and burn-the-witch-itis have always interacted with privacy loss in ugly ways. One consequence is that internal safety is an issue, and yes, that’s something I have to balance. I try not to make things worse. But I did, when I became your partner. I needed backup for too long, and you stopped waiting and started spying.“

"I wanted to know about you, and if you’d been willing to sit down and talk to me–” Not productive. Redirect. "I use the Database as a social prosthetic to keep from screwing up even worse than I do already. You were being evasive. I didn’t know enough to tell if you were trying to get me to take a hint, so I used it to try to find out if I was taking the right hint. There were Database privacy blocks keeping me from finding out what I wanted, and that stupid superhero social taboo against asking directly. How else was I supposed to find out? Telepathy? Osmosis? It was OSINT, active hacking and monitoring, or ghosting around to spy in person, and I picked the least intrusive option.“

Journeyman nodded. "That’s what the Database told me, when I learned about the urgent trust hazard you’d created. I understand. But even open source intelligence is qualitatively different with your level of Database access. Perceptions count for what I do, and it doesn’t matter what you or I think, if my contacts start avoiding me because they’re worried about a frighteningly powerful 16-year-old with high level Database access who is perceived as immature.”

“How did this become common knowledge? Did the Diviner tell people?”

“I did. I knew there would be others, so I asked the Database for a list, got in touch with those I still could, and apologized.”

Calm. “Without telling me.”

“I told you I’d handle the fallout–that it was a social problem, not a speed or power problem. Remember?”

“Yes, but this was something I needed to know to correctly evaluate consequences. And isn’t it still a problem, just from us being partners?”

“At the moment, yes. It’s going to take time for me to rebuild trust.”

Flicker shook her head. Staying angry at him for concealing an apology would be both unhelpful and unfair.

“I see,” she said. "Any other unpleasant surprises you want to get out of the way?“

Journeyman clasped his hands and looked down at them. "Several. I’ve had time to think a little more about Doc not telling you things. And you make assumptions based on what you think he must know. But there is something I’ve picked up as a magician that you probably haven’t. Diviners tend to be paranoid and secretive, for good reasons. A lot of Seers have serious trouble staying mentally healthy. And true Oracles have to take extreme measures to stay sane and alive, and be really careful how they talk.”

“What definitions are you using? The Database says ‘Seer’ is used so broadly and vaguely it’s almost meaningless.”

“Ah, sorry. Magicians can be sloppy with terminology, but what can you do? A Diviner is a magician who specializes in information magic. Seer is a catch-all label for anyone who sees or perceives things not accessible to normal senses that are at least sometimes accurate–they don’t have to be trained and Seeing often isn’t voluntary. Breakpoint is an example of a Seer who isn’t a magician. An Oracle is a Seer who can see the future, know it’s the future, and possibly affect it. They are frickin’ dangerous. And rare. And Doc comes across to me as an Oracle doing a very good job of hiding it.”

“He isn’t an Oracle, he’s just good at long term extrapolation. He does do some pretty weird analysis and debiasing tricks with Database projections, though.”

“I think there’s more to it, but it might not matter. There are quirks he has, ways he talks about certain things, that make me wonder if he has a future-vision-o-mat down in the vaults. And a way to stay functional as an Oracle is extreme compartmentalization–literally putting some things completely out of your mind. That’s risky if you get attacked, and I think Doc has been. But he does have the Database, and the support for the kind of compartmentalization he would need was already there when I needed some of it, for the data I just put in escrow.”

Journeyman looked back at her. "So don’t assume he has to know something because he knows other things. And be careful about dismissing warnings if he can’t share direct evidence. Oracles can know without being able to show.“

"That sounds pretty speculative,” said Flicker, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”

“That’s all I can ask.” Journeyman nodded slowly. "And now for something else you’ll probably consider speculative, but sure doesn’t look that way to me. Did Doc ever tell you how an Oracle duel works?“

Flicker sped up briefly to check the Database, then slowed again. "No, but it sounds like something theoretical called a dual loop virtual time travel instability. Does it involve nothing you can really see except strange apparent coincidences?”

“Yeah, that’s what Doc called them. I’m pretty sure now that the entire mess I got dragged into over a year ago–the deciding factor for my agreement to become your partner in the first place–was tangled up with a long running Oracle duel involving at least two sides. And that’s not even counting whatever indirect effect Doc’s projections might have. When I started to realize something was weird, I didn’t think it had anything to do with you. Aaand… I was wrong. Figured that out last night, but it doesn’t help much. Even if you know you’re caught in the gears, it’s way too easy to tie yourself up in self-delusion, seeing things that aren’t there…”

“Confirmation bias?”

“And a bunch of other kinds. Multiply the problems in Doc’s rant about using Bayesian analysis to catch a probability manipulator by a hundred. And I’m fairly certain I was targeted to get at you.”

Flicker frowned. "Why? Why am I not targeted directly?“

"You are–that would be Hermes. There are multiple things going on, which is what makes this such a pain to try to unravel. But you have a lot of protection from direct probability manipulation. A bunch of older magicians that lived through the Cold War still cast regular little blessings against nuclear annihilation. You get part of them because you can–and would–rip apart a nuclear war with thrown rocks. And Doc and I still argue about the origin of some less obvious buffers for you that definitely exist. But there’s lot of hostile probability manipulation, too. Like, everyone who can do it who wants to destroy the world or part of it, because you’re pretty good at stopping that, and the easiest way to get it to happen is to trick you into doing it for them. Now I’m not defenseless. But it’s like…”

Journeyman paused to think, then looked up at her. "Suppose I’m somewhere with bullets and shrapnel flying around. I’m better off than the average bystander because I have an anti-bullet ward. But if I’m standing next to Armadillo and a bunch of machine guns are shooting at her, I’m in danger, because bullets miss and bounce, and my ward can only handle so much. And if some of the gunners get the bright idea to shoot at me instead, I’m in real trouble, because what might only annoy her can kill me. I’m the weak point.“

He pressed a hand to his forehead. "I think I’m your weak point. In more than one way. And yeah, there are things we could theoretically do to try to handle it all, but you know what those machine gun equivalents are very effective at preventing? Calm, uninterrupted consideration of anything personal or contentious.”

“I think we’re managing okay,” said Flicker. "I mean, it’s not exactly fun, but…“

"We haven’t gotten to the contentious part. And, uh… I’d kind of like to move somewhere neutral for that. This is your home, and you may suddenly prefer I be elsewhere.”

“I may even more suddenly need to talk to the Database, and the latency is lower here. If I want you to leave I’ll tell you. And you can port out any time, if you stop feeling safe.”

“I’m not feeling particularly safe now. But I promised I’d stop evading, so… Do you still want to go ahead?”

Flicker briefly consulted her reminder list, much of which now seemed outdated or inappropriate. "I had a plan, but you derailed it by bringing up other stuff–important stuff–like you’re afraid we won’t ever get another chance to talk.“

A steadying breath. "So I’m wondering if I even should, with everything you say is getting in the way. And you aren’t acting or sounding okay. When you came back to Earth yesterday, you’d been through something horrifically bad. Forgot you’d been stabbed in the back bad. Paranoia turned up, reliving things under cover, not all the way back yet bad. I changed the subject to Hermes, then later botched my sleep-fuzzy attempt to help. Partner, can you tell me what’s wrong? And how we might go about fixing the Oracle thing if you think it’s interfering with you too much? Because I can wait a little longer if I have to.”

Journeyman laced his hands together behind his neck and shook his head. "You’re right that I’m not okay, but waiting isn’t going to make it better. I think bad shit would just keep happening. And I know you hate incomplete answers, but I’ve told you as much as I can about what’s wrong. As for fixing things… I don’t think there is any quick fix. I put details in Database escrow just in case, but I sure don’t want you going off on a rampage in another dimension because I suspect some of the inhabitants might be responsible for some of our problems.“

"Then why bring it up?”

Journeyman smiled wearily. "Doc’s old rule: Tell you what not to do clearly and first, because there may not be a chance for a 'wait, stop’. And with the way things have been going…“

"Fair. So you think we’re just going to have to live for a while with incomplete information, bad luck, unfortunate misunderstandings, inconvenient interruptions, and so forth for everything we do together?”

“No.” He took a deep breath. "We aren’t going to live with it because we aren’t going to be together.“

”…Until?“

Journeyman spread his hands. "Don’t wait around.”

Flicker stared at him with a hollow feeling in her stomach. "What does that mean?“

He looked down, then back up at her. "First: You’re 16. I would not be okay with starting anything before you’re 18. Next: Even if all the interference went away, I still couldn’t be Make-Everything-Better Man for you,” he said. "I’m glad I was able to help you as your partner. But it’s not a healthy basis for a relationship. And those aren’t the only problems, but going through a list with the implication that the goal is to find a way around them all would be a bad idea. Some of the issues are mine. Getting together with you would not work, and I don’t know when, if ever, that might change.“ He shook his head. "You have your own life. You should feel free to grow, and learn, and become… whoever you’re going to be. And right now there’s too much I can’t tell you, you have too many good reasons to be angry with me, and I don’t want to be used as a weapon against you.”

Flicker stood, and looked over at the entrance to the server room. "So you’ll just blow everything up yourself. It sounds like you want to drop our joint duty shifts, too?“

A pause. "I wasn’t kidding about the load-bearing thing. At least for a while, I think they would just make things worse for both of us.”

“Now that makes me angry. I put a lot into our partnership, and trusted you to maintain it. But okay. It’s not like you need your partner’s backup anymore.”

The hollow feeling had given way to the grim disgust of seeing a tangled mess she couldn’t possibly have helped, because it was wrecked before she even started. But it was best to be sure. She sped up.

DASI? Does Journeyman appear to be suffering from mental sabotage, mind control, or anything else relevant?

I do not have sufficient data to judge the soundness of his decision process, but his actions are consistent with his prior behavior. He is showing signs of prolonged stress. As are you.

Thanks. I knew that last part already.

Amelioration measures are still in progress. Please do not do anything precipitous.

Yeah, yeah.

She slowed back down and shook her head. "I just don’t understand your thinking. Why even agree to our partnership, if you were going to do this? And if your model of an attack on me is right, and not just a paranoid overreaction, why pull away… everything I thought we had, without even trying to help?“

"I do intend to try to help, after I spend a while recovering,” he said. "I’ll stay in touch through the Database. But first I need to see if I can track down some Diviners, because half the ones I know are indisposed or missing, and the other half are getting 'future not found’ errors or disturbingly ambiguous signs of some sort of global catastrophe that may or may not be happening the day after tomorrow.“

A sudden frown. "You weren’t planning on doing anything drastic to the planet that day, were you?”

“Not particularly. I’m not even going to be on Earth for some of it.”

“What.”

“I’m going to the Moon to run Speedtest, finally. Scheduled it with Doc this morning.”

“Ah,” said Journeyman, his face noticeably paler. "I don’t suppose you’d be willing to reschedule?“

"No. As you said, I have my own life, and things to learn. If you are seriously convinced some entity is actively trying to sabotage something specific that I’ve put off for too long already, tell me where they live, and I’ll visit them with some physics. Before catastrophe day. Then you can find those other Diviners and see if the problem has cleared up or there is someone else who needs a visit. An Oracle should be able to tell if their personal future is about to become very short, right?”

Journeyman looked down. "I… don’t think that’s a good plan.“

"Then maybe you should have raised your concerns before dumping your partner?”

“Priority interrupt,” announced DASI from the wall speaker. "A candidate psychological expert has been located.“

Flicker sped up to read a summary on her visor. It was good news that DASI had managed to identify and contact someone. But she had conditions for her help and an unusual background…

Flicker puzzled over some of the details, then slowed down to frown at Journeyman. "All right, if you really still want to help, the Database profile of this person is weird. There seem to be rumors that she has some kind of magic resistance. Have you ever heard of a Dr. Stella Reinhart?”



Next: Part 8

