Long Winded and Boring (RB Vs. Empress Theresa, Chapter 8) · 5:13pm Apr 26th, 2021
Previously, on Empress Theresa:
Explanations for impossible things don't work if they're impossible.
And now:
I returned to my hotel room and looked out the window for the first time. The 58th floor gave a spectacular view of a city that seemed to stretch out to infinity. I could see millions of lights and figured no city could be this big. The furthest lights had to be far beyond London. I had to save all these people and a thousand times as many in the rest of the world.
I looked up to Heaven and prayed.
I've been praying, too, but God doesn't return my calls anymore either.
What the heck was I doing here! Does an eighteen year old American girl belong in London with a mission to save humanity? It was crazy.
Exactly! That was my point last chapter.
There were probably already assassins down there staking out the hotel for a chance to get to me.
I felt tired and went to bed.
Y'know, I'm not really sure what the goal of someone sending these assassins is supposed to be. We've already displayed that Theresa is basically un-killable. I guess to take HAL? That might work, actually, given what we learned from Theresa's ramblings last chapter. Maybe that part shouldn't have been broadcast on live television.
I woke with a dread of the day. The PM had put me at ease during our talk and helped guide me to the thrill of solving the HAL mystery that weighed heavily on me for eight years.
Can't have weighed on you that heavily, you might have actually mentioned it more than a handful of times. And perhaps been a bit more careful about abusing its powers for the sake of baseball and attracting a mate.
Theresa is having trouble deciding what to do, so she does the same thing I would do in this situation and orders room service on the British taxpayer's dime. She then turns on the telly.
All the media people on all channels were talking exclusively about me. The whole world had stopped what it was doing to avoid creating news that might interrupt my story. People on the street were questioned for their opinions of me. They were universally supportive. “Theresa is awesome.” “Theresa is a darling.” “We think she’ll do the job.” “Good luck, Theresa.”
Y'know, this is kind of at odds with the whole... conflict? Where there's controversy about Theresa's existence and what to do next? To say nothing of the frankly ridiculous idea that everyone on TV could agree on something.
The television switched to some remarks President Veronica Stinson made to the press hours earlier, shortly after I went to bed.
“When we face invincible threats to our lives and well-being, we feel a loss of influence to what happens to us. We’re helpless and impotent. In desperation we support a hero who promises to save us. For some it was Napoleon, for others Lenin, Hitler, or Senator McCarthy. Now we look at Theresa Hartley. But while the four men I mentioned had their own agenda, Theresa is working for a higher cause. She will submit her will to a higher will. Let us look forward with confidence and trust. Theresa is fighting for us.”
I like how most of the figures she lists there invented or at least fanned the flames of aforementioned threats. Though I guess this is sort of Theresa's fault, too.
Theresa is on her way to more permanent lodgings, and Steve is on his way to London.
What did he think of me now? A wife should not keep secrets that involved her, and I didn’t tell him about HAL. Would he be mad? Could he forgive? Was he coming to London with divorce papers for me to sign?
I don't think Steve is capable of being an deep enough character to even conceive of divorcing you right now. Also, weird judgement on wife-ing there, Mr. Boutin.
It turns out those more permanent lodgings are the estate of one Edmund Parker (a friend of Mr. Blair's), and also the home of his wife and four children.
“I was watching television this morning. The dummies are saying all kinds of stupid things. They say HAL can’t be made of dark matter. They say dark matter can’t stick together, can’t use energy, and can’t do anything with matter. They say I’ve been communicating with HAL, and stopping the wind was a plot to make me look like a hero. They say when the government grabbed, me HAL promised to get me out of the plane and keep me alive until a ship came. Sounds like a cheap made for TV movie. “
The dummies are right! Well, kind of. Wait, no, they're also wrong. You're all wrong. Everything is wrong. This book is wrong. Why am I doing this to myself?
“I will never talk to reporters. I can’t waste time on idiots.”
Way to not be a hugely judgmental arsehole, Theresa. Really good role model, here.
“They tell lies to build up viewership. They will be exposed as liars. This is building sandcastles as the tide comes in.”
I mean if the only channel you watched was Fox News, then yeah, sure. Otherwise...
“’Those who ignore the conscience will kill it.’ One of my teachers said that. The more I see of the world the less I like it. People are unpredictable. They don’t act according to their professed beliefs. You can’t find enough trustworthy people to fill an elevator. I think people have stopped thinking about morality altogether.”
Technically speaking, you can't be both unpredictable and always act counter to something, as the latter would make you predictably contrary.
That aside, this is pretty worrying stuff to hear from the most powerful person on the planet, and doubly so since we know she becomes Empress of the World later on. Yeesh. Maybe some of those comparisons the president made weren't so far off.
Then again, she is only eighteen. Maybe it's a phase.
Blair doesn't like this, either, but for different reasons.
Blair was silent a long time after that. I sensed that he worried about keeping me in control.
“I’m making you worry. Why?”
“Those who adhere to a system of morality, admirable as that may be, are often the most unyielding in their endeavors.”
“Like who?”
“Radical Islamic terrorists for example.”
Kind of an extreme example, there, but go on.
“Why do they do that?”
“The promise of changing yourself from nobody to somebody is irresistible to terrorists and to cults of all kinds. It draws in the alienated and disaffected.”
“I won’t try to set up a religious movement if that’s what you mean.”
“The best inspiration is good example.”
“Father Donoughty said that. He taught me a lot.”
Would someone like to explain to me what 'The best inspiration is good example' is supposed to mean? I've been staring at it for about a minute and I'm still not sure what it's trying to say. Maybe my brain is melting. It's hard to tell.
The topic turns to dark matter.
“If you have two atoms the size of the United States you have two baseballs as far apart as New York and California. They can’t feel each other’s gravity. But dark matter particles can touch each other and atomic nuclei too.
Pretty sure that's not the case, at least in the models I'm familiar with, but I'll be the first to admit I'm in over my armchair.
“Later, Steve changed his story a little. He said a dark matter body couldn’t hold itself together by itself. It would need a piece of solid matter to act as an anchor for its organization.
See previous statement, except I'm a bit more sure of myself this time.
And there’s one more thing. A rock is too rigid. HAL needs his host to have some fluidity.
Yeah, no, pretty sure we're in hogwash territory now.
We think of rocks being dry but they always have lots of water.
This sounds ridiculous, but it's actually true. On a chemical level, anyway.
The rigid rock provides the lattice HAL needs, the sticky water molecules provide fluidity, gravity lets HAL keep his own particles together while clinging to the rock and water, and momentum from something gives HAL his version of energy. A living host like me provides the rigidity and fluidity HAL needs. ”
It's kind of amazing that this book can be both well-researched and dumber than a sack of bricks within single paragraphs.
It goes on like this. Frankly, I'm getting tired of franticly googling things to double check myself, so we're going to skip ahead.
There was a silent pause. Then I said, “If President Martin hadn’t tried to kill me, I would have taken the secret of HAL to my grave. What did he think of this wind thing?”
“He made no statement. He is in seclusion. Rumor has it he had a mental breakdown. His family protects him from the public eye.”
“The poor guy. If he had destroyed HAL he’d be a hero. Steve would say he overreached himself. You can only be what you know you can be. You can only do what you know to do. That sums up who we are.”
What a dreary sentiment.
“Ah! Like Shakespeare. Macbeth, Richard III, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet all reached for something beyond their reach.”
Ah yes, Shakespeare. Famously known for his philosophy of 'don't try to do anything ever'.
Blair’s earlier references to Shakespeare’s characters hadn’t gotten the message across to me. He tried again. “Let’s not miss another literary allegory. In Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, a man named Kurtz goes deep into the heart of Africa. He’s hired to find ivory, but his own personal ambition is to civilize the natives. It worked in reverse. The natives made him a savage. It takes a thousand years to change a culture. His efforts to do it in a short time ruined him.”
I got the message. “In other words, you want me to save the world but not try to change it.”
Personally the lesson I got from Heart of Darkness was that the line between the 'civilized' and the 'uncivilized' is an imaginary one, but you do you, Mr. Blair.
Theresa's mind turns to happier things, namely Steve. By which I mean she goes into great detail about Steve's life, and how he only dated three girls in high school. Don't worry, the topic soon turns back to Theresa.
I had dated only one boy in high school, Jeff Winslow, a geeky kid with red hair and glasses. A nice kid. A cheerful kid. Someone fun to be with. A boy who took me to all the school events including the Senior prom. Jeff was the only high school boy who ever had the nerve to ask me out—partly the price of being a female baseball star—but also because I was so beautiful boys were afraid of being put down. Jeff would probably marry an average girl, but for the rest of his life he would remember he had once dated a drop dead gorgeous woman. He helped me through the teen years and showed me a boy could be a friend. He made me feel I was worth something. I owed him a lot.
Sure doesn't sound like it. Way to be humble, Theresa.
Hello! This is RB, a day after the previous paragraph. Yesterday's RB made the mistake of looking at how many pages were left in the chapter and gave up. Now I have to finish it for him, the bastard.
Anyway...
Theresa goes on about how she and Steve are perfect matches or whatever.
Steve wasn’t heavily into sports or the party scene, although he wasn’t a misanthrope either. He talked easily to anybody. He just didn’t seek them out. He concentrated on his major because he actually wanted to get a job when he graduated, not move back in with his parents as so many graduates did.
Oi. I know plenty of people who graduated with jobs in their fields, and still had to live with their parents after graduation because, hey, living is expensive these days. Don't be so judge-y, Theresa. We can't all be world empresses like you.
Theresa then goes on about how she was woefully stripped of her childhood by the responsibility of HAL—or, that's what she wants this to be about. Instead, it's a long diatribe about how adult and perfect she was in her preteen years.
And then this, which I cannot make sense of, perhaps because I lack a religious background. Maybe one of you folks can help me out, here.
I heard talk of girls doing incredibly bad things they read about in magazines. They didn’t seem aware they had eternity to worry about. The first being was not a composite because nothing preceded him and he could get nothing from something else. Nor could anything be taken away from him since he had no parts. Something that is not a composite has to be its own essence, which was that which makes it what it is. God’s existence is his essence because he has nothing else, and existence, if there is any, can have no beginning or end. Therefore, he is eternal.
Catholic students at BC had to take some religion or philosophy courses. Two weeks into my philosophy course, the instructor was replaced by somebody who was heavy into Aquinas. I was sure this was done for my benefit. Somebody wanted me to have a solid grounding in theology. It was likely the Holy Father. After BC, I found the sermons of prosperity religion televangelists infantile. God as Santa Claus? No, God as Father.
Last I checked, Santa Claus wasn't a god. I dunno, maybe he's Bacchus in disguise. It would explain all the terrible Christmas parties. And the belly, the rosy cheeks... I think we might be on to something.
Back to her and Steve.
A whole bookshelf of books would have to be written to say everything that could be said about us.
It already feels like I've gone through an entire bookshelf about you two.
This chapter feels like an extra-large serving of not very much at all. It's kind of agonizing. Why is it here, other than to waste the reader's time? Are there not more interesting things we could be seeing right now?
Oh, right. Forgot what book this was for a second, there.
But perhaps the most fundamental characteristic we shared was simplicity. We were not complicated by the internal contradictions that made Hollywood celebrities fodder for the tabloids. Our hearts were built on the best moral standards that thousands of years of human experiment had developed. We were simply good people, and if the tabloids would find us boring then so be it.
At least you're aware of it. You can be good people without being boring, you know. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
Thankfully, that's the end of this dreary diatribe. At last, we arrive with Theresa and Mr. Blair at the Parker Estate.
The house was three hundred feet from the road with a perfectly flat lawn in front. It was built in the old English post-and-beam style, sometimes called Tudor. This palace, for that’s what it looked like to me, was a hundred and twenty feet long and three stories high. To the sides and rear of the house was a forest where thousands of British soldiers were moving in.
Thousands!
They're led in by a butler. Theresa is taken aside.
“Why didn’t I meet the family?”
“The British respect for privacy, madam. They understand why you’re here and won’t speak to you unless you speak first.”
“I can’t imagine that happening in the States.”
“It doesn’t here either in normal times. Every moment of your time is the world’s treasure.”
“Can I ask your name?”
“Arthur Bemming at your service. Everybody calls me Arthur.”
British respect for privacy? Since when? We have tabloids too, you know.
Meanwhile, Steve has arrived in London, and is brought to the Parker estate.
“Oh God! I’m so glad you came.”
“When I thought you were dead I wanted to die too. What would I do without my Theresa?”
“I should have told you about HAL.”
“No. I would have needed to marry you to prove something instead of for yourself. HAL has nothing to do with us.”
I smiled. The issue was dead that quickly. quickly. No tears. No histrionics. No complaints. It was always so simple with Steve.
Told you.
“Your mother is having a rough time. First you were dead. Then you were invaded by an alien. Then they said you fell out of the plane. Then they said you were screaming in the water, then they found you in the water and declared you dead again. Then you came back to life. Now it’s your job to save the world. That’s a lot for a mother to take.”
What an apt summary. It's been a lot for me to take, too.
We went to the foyer. The Edmund Parker family could be seen sitting quietly in a huge living room. They looked like they’d wait there weeks for us.
“Who are those people?” Steve asked.
“I’m not sure. I think they live here.
You think!?
My word, there's still eighteen pages left in this chapter. Eugh. Maybe I should leave this for tomorrow's RB to take care of.
No, wait. We already did that one. Damnation.
We lumbered into the living room with as much dignity as unpolished Americans could muster.
Y'know, for all the patriotism earlier, there sure has been a lot of kowtowing towards the British these last few chapters, and most of it unfounded. Weird.
They meet with Mr. Parker, his wife, and three of their four children (the eldest is in the military). They make small talk.
We made small talk
Yes, that's what I just said.
followed by a tour of the house. I was dazzled by its opulence.
Helen Parker and I drifted to the family room which was on the right of the foyer unlike the living room on the left, and we did some female bonding.
Not that we could actually show such a thing; Mr. Boutin has no idea how to write it.
Frankly, I would have much preferred to read that than the pages and pages about Steve.
The next day, Steve and Theresa go for a walk around the estate. They wave to the soldiers stationed in the woods around the house, but...
But actually walking up to the soldiers and talking with them didn’t seem like a good idea at the moment. As Steve said, “Anything we say will leak to the press. They’ll try to twist it around.”
Does anyone else get the impression that Mr. Boutin despises the media? Because there's been a lot of that lately. I wonder what that's all about.
They eat lunch, and then Theresa begins trying to make HAL do things.
Steve knew he couldn’t do much to help me. I was the mathematician. He left me alone and went downstairs.
This involves math, for some reason.
We skip to the next day again, and a visit from Scotland Yard. They're having a bit of a mail issue, it turns out. Lots of letters for Theresa; lots of letters that might contain poison or explosives. They ask permission to screen the lot, which Theresa and Steve agree to. Later that afternoon, the first delivery of screened mail arrives.
There were six thousand letters and two hundred packages large and small.
Wow. They must have a lot of people going over her mail if they got through that much that quickly. Impressive.
After a couple dozen letters, he hit on one that had a check in it. It was from France and the check was for fifty Euros, roughly fifty American dollars.
It would have been less, actually, given exchange rates in 2014. Regardless, they end up with a bit less than 2,800 dollars in checks and bills this way.
The Hartley family financial situation had taken a new turn.
Something tells me that wasn't going to be much of an issue either way.
“You think I should keep it?”
“Why not? You’re earning it.”
I'm not saying I wouldn't take the money if I were in her situation. I am saying that keeping it would go against my conscience, which I thought was Theresa's whole thing.
As the week went on we settled into a routine. Three hours was about all I could take doing the intense work I was doing.
I don't suppose we could get to actually see any of that work, could we? No? Alrighty then.
By Monday I was getting homesick for my parents. Using the telephone was out. So was email and snail mail.
Why?
It was sure to be intercepted.
By who?
Steve asked Arthur to go to the Prime Minister and ask if some kind of courier service could be set up to move mail between me and my parents.
And why would this be any more secure than encrypted email, or more advanced COMSEC? Personally, I'm finding all this paranoia a little unfounded. Is security important? Yes. This much? Maybe not.
Either way, she writes a letter to her mother.
Dear Mom,
I know a lot of things are going on right now and you feel helpless. Don’t worry about me. You raised me right. You taught me to care about people, to think things out, to react to things without being a drama queen, and to have a positive outlook.
I don’t know what the future will bring but Steve is here with me and we will get through this. Remember how I told you that when a baseball game was being lost I said it’s not going to end this way? This won’t.
Take care of dad. I know fathers worry over their daughters too.
I love you both,
Theresa
Heartwarming! But it might be moreso if we'd actually been there for that baseball game she mentioned.
I was the world’s worst nightmare. An ordinary girl was about to take control of the world.
Y'know, you could, like, not do that if you wanted. Y'know, fuck off to a beach somewhere, change your name, etc. That is totally an option, if you're as adverse to all this attention as you keep claiming to be. I'm sure Mr. Blair could help you. Or, at the very least, wouldn't be able to stop you.
The world worried about my character. Pundits said nobody with the power I was on the road to acquiring could remain humble. I would go mad with my self-importance and fame. I would blackmail the world into doing what I wanted. I would become a power-mad dictator.
Others thought there was no reason to think I would behave that way. My past indicated nothing in my personality to make me change.
Your past also indicates nothing about your personality, period, except that you were willing to cheat at baseball and get married at eighteen.
My BC philosophy professor warned us not to get into long-winded arguments with atheists. Those who don’t understand what they’re talking about will talk all day. If you do understand what you’re talking about, you can express it in a few simple words, like Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address.
Woah, okay, I resemble that remark. Weird thing for a philosophy professor to say, but whatever.
She's right on one count, there, though. The ability to express ideas in as few words as possible is an important skill, both in general and especially in writing. Quality and clarity over quantity.
Which is, of course, why this book is so damn long.
We're 34% in, by the way. Page 153 of 468. This isn't even close to the halfway point, folks.
Yikes.
Anyway, the Prime Minister is taking questions about Theresa.
“We should consider how it came to be that Theresa Hartley was chosen to be host to HAL. Her character is impeccable. Her intellect is of the finest quality. No more perfect choice could be found for her task. HAL merged with her when she was ten. A few years earlier and she would have told everybody about HAL with most unfortunate results for herself and us. A few years later and she might not have developed the skills needed for the challenge. But she received HAL at age ten, old enough to know to keep HAL a secret, but young enough to set herself on that path of intellectual development to enable her to address the HAL problem. Did all these happy circumstances happen by chance, or by design?”
Chance, by Theresa's own admission. Yes, I know you're talking about the will of God. I just don't care.
“Does the Prime Minister agree a person with good conscience in ordinary circumstances can be overwhelmed in the extraordinary and be changed for the worse?” “There is only one version of the truth. Theresa knows it and lives by it. I spoke with President Stinson last evening. She said everything is known about Theresa. Their intelligence agency has a room full of reports and tapes on every moment of her life for eight years. Teams of psychologists have studied these documents. There is nothing to suggest a fault in the steadiness of her character despite her youth. She is grounded on rock, not sand.”
See previous remarks on how her past indicates a fault in the steadiness of her character, particularly in regards to baseball and her willingness to take advantage of her weird sex aura.
“My honorable friend points to jobs requiring skills. But Theresa does not set out to manipulate organs or people. Theresa’s job only requires cleverness and a good heart.”
Except she's done just that.
“Does the Prime Minister agree it may come to pass we have a person in power without democratic representation?”
“President Stinson’s people have studied Theresa and agree she supports democratic principles, but how do you make control of HAL democratic? I do not believe she will do anything contrary to people’s wishes. Have courage. She will ask nothing from us.”
Once again, I must point out how weirdly attracted the author seems to be towards a (benevolent) monocratic rule, despite being a patriotic American. I wonder how he voted in 2020.
“Is the Prime Minister aware it is written ‘As the heavens in height, and the earth in depth, the heart of kings is unfathomable’?” “It is also written, ‘By patience is a ruler persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone’. The story of man is that the individual must deal with
“Is the Prime Minister aware it is written ‘As the heavens in height, and the earth in depth, the heart of kings is unfathomable’?” “It is also written, ‘By patience is a ruler persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone’. The story of man is that the individual must deal with
Oh my god.
I just got a popup telling me I'm approaching the publisher's copy limit.
Noooooooooooooooo!
Well, we'll just have to deal with that when it comes to it. I don't want to get sued.
She and we must deal with each other reasonably. Better to be alone in the jungle than in a dictatorship, but also better to be a fisherman than a governor of men if the people speak ill of you. Theresa will return kindness given to her.”
A woman rose to pose a question no American politician would get away with. But this was not America.
“Does the Prime Minister agree a man’s reaction to criticism is laughter, while a woman’s reaction is unpredictable?” The House burst out in laughter.
What a strange thing for a woman to say.
Yadda yadda yadda, it goes on like this for a while and THUS ENDS THE CHAPTER. FINALLY.
See you next time, folks. Or maybe not. We'll see what happens.
Copy Limit? what in the heck?
Seriously, what in the heck?!?
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Apparently it's a common feature. DRM on ebooks. Who knew?
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Huh. I'll have to ask family more on that, they love the ebooks. Thanks for the heads up on it.
Curse yesterday's RB, I thought that divider heralded a swift end to the pain! >:B
It's funny, I just finished watching a three-part video series analyzing Fifty Shades of Grey, specifically the movies in light of the source material. (Short version: The books are bad, the first movie attempted to elevate the source material but couldn't because the author wouldn't let them change things, the other two movies are just as bad as the books because they got rid of the original director and writer.) And between that and this, I...
See, a lot of the character traits we associate with successful people also overlap greatly with psychopathy. And along with things like aggressively pursuing goals and taking power whenever an opportunity presents itself come things like an intense sense of self-importance, emotional stunting, and a complete inability to understand or relate to other people. And that's why these people end up writing these enormous, completely awful stories. They are themselves barely functional individuals, but a short-circuit in their brain allows them to skip the queue, as it were, and put their drivel in front of eyes. Though at least this book isn't half as famous as Fifty Shades.
...Right? c.c
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Well, the author's website says he's sold 1,151 copies (I think the last digit might have been mine, he does keep it updated), so no, it's not done quite as well. Mr. Boutin's a bit of a narcissist, so we actually know a surprising amount about him.
Also, I would love a link to that video series you mentioned. Y'know. For research purposes.
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His voice is rather soothing, but his understanding of visual narrative is not something I've seen paralleled.
Hi, astrophysicist here. You are indeed correct. Dark matter, in modern theories, is defined as matter that does not interact with the electromagnetic force, i.e. light. Hence why it would be "dark" matter. As far as gravity is concerned, dark matter and baryonic matter are the same thing.
Of course, that's assuming that dark matter really exists, which may or may not be the case. Alternative theories of modified gravity may be able to explain some or all of the effects attributed to dark matter, much like how Einstein's relativity was able to explain the excess precession of Mercury without invoking the existence of a previously undetected planet. Time will tell.