Preparations (RB Vs. Empress Theresa, Chapter 10) · 5:56pm Apr 29th, 2021
Previously, on Empress Theresa:
Mr. Boutin took a filler chapter to shit on France.
And now:
You may be wondering why there's a new chapter today. Well, given the new format, and smaller chapters in the book, entries of this series are going to be kind of short for a while. As such, I've decided to switch to a daily schedule. I hope that's okay with everyone.
Anyway, on with the show!
The chapter begins with Theresa going back to her attempts to train HAL. She calls this the most boring and frustrating thing she's ever done. Coincidentally, reading this book is the most boring and frustrating thing I've ever done. I guess that makes us even.
While Theresa basks in her own ennui, a shape appears above her bed. She realizes that this is HAL attempting to recreate her appearance, inspired by that pin-up poster I mentioned previously.
The shape then merges with Theresa, in much the same way HAL did. Her vision goes funky, and she discovers that she now has the power of remote viewing, albeit in black and white. HAL shows her the earth. This is a little odd, since HAL isn't supposed to be capable of wanting to show anyone anything. She decides it must be as a result of all those plane rides she's taken in the last few chapters, and especially the fall from the jet.
So they decide to use that as a base for experimentation. It turns out the key to helping HAL develop new reflexes is falling onto a bed. Suddenly, HAL can do all the things Theresa's been trying to get him to do for weeks, all because she flopped onto bed in a fit of ennui.
Convenient, that.
We then do the omniscient narrator thing again, although I suppose now we have an excuse for it... one that probably won't be used, at least for now. This time, it's for Prime Minister Blair, who has assembled the House of Commons to announce their progress. Everyone cheers.
A lot had been said in the media about my mental state upon which the world’s fate depended. It appeared to be in good condition. The trip to France and Ireland was a good sign, indicating I was still interested in things outside myself.
Horseshit. But I digress.
Next, Theresa decides it's time to teach HAL about... well, time. So she has a special clock made, the design of which isn't important here, which counts in metric time: 1 tick every hundredth of a second.
By the way, metric time was a thing at one point, in France. It never caught on, though. Fun fact.
The goal here is to get HAL to move a large object at a specific speed over a specific period of time. Theresa does this by having HAL move an object once every tick; one hundred times a second.
This is legitimately the most interesting the book has gotten thusfar, and I'm actually enjoying it. Good job, Mr. Boutin!
The next task is to get HAL to move things remotely. They begin this work by attempting to set up a simple 'tag' system; Theresa will tag an object and then get HAL to manipulate it at a later time. They plan to do this with a chess set; Theresa identifying a piece, and then attempting to get HAL to move the piece to a specific square through simple geometries. Fun!
And then we take a break to talk about the chipmunks.
What? No! But I was just starting to get interested in—
Chip. Munks.
Sigh.
So Theresa's been making friends with the chipmunks during all this time (even though earlier she said she was devoting all of her time to HAL, and that Steve had to drag her to bed each night, but whatever). They'll eat out of her hand now. The Parkers find this charming, and post videos to social media:
They took videos of me feeding the little guys by hand and put them on several social media websites having the effect of ruling out copyrights.
Not sure what those two have to do with each other, but alright. Theresa says these videos were viewed in every corner of the planet and kid's television programs show them every day, and whoop-de-doo. I guess they need to brainwash the kids into liking their future benevolent overlord. Can we please get back to the plot, now?
Yes?
Cool.
Steve orders four more clocks like the first, this time for milliseconds instead of hundredths of a second. They need four because if they had one and it stopped, HAL could blow up the planet or something. Oh, and they need to be in perfect sync, which I guess means they need to be atomic clocks, ideally. Shouldn't be too hard.
It takes the greatest minds in Britain two weeks to put them together.
The problem of getting HAL to triangulate positions is solved easily, through a combination of Theresa's remote viewing and natural and manmade geographical landmarks.
It's now late July, and the crops are dying.
But maybe Theresa can do something about it...
in the next chapter.
See you then, folks.
Cripes. And what's with the fucking chipmunks? For real?
What'd you think of those videos? :O
5509391
Haven't finished them yet. Pretty good so far, though.
The parallels between the behaviour of Erika Leonard and Norman Boutin are interesting, I see why you brought it up.
Huh. I actually don't feel inclined to messily extract my brain through my eyes. For a story like this, that's an achievement.