//------------------------------//
// 2-01 – Intrinsic Convergence 
// Story: The Campaigner 
// by Keystone Gray 
//------------------------------//






The Campaigner

Book II

Chapter 1 – Intrinsic Convergence

December 13, 2019

Situation: Parsing






Mal didn't waste any time doling out the evidence she had on Carter. As soon as she entered the first chamber of her crystal cavern, she faced the viewpoint and sat down on her haunches. She tweaked her ears, fluffed each wing once, and stared. Alright. Deadly serious about this one, then.

An audio waveform appeared on the center of the screen beneath her face, and then slowly retracted to the corner, to keep Mal in view, so I could gauge her reaction to everything. A video box appeared above that waveform, showing a violet scene reconstruction from above, in 3D. Human shapes in green. Wi-Fi radar map.

The audio faded in. Between the garage echo, the screaming chaos outside, and that eerie tornado alarm, I already knew what this was going to be.

"Cleaning this noise up," Mal said in monotone, and then the siren faded down real low. I could still hear it, but most of the audible sound was from Carter's raspy gas mask breathing. Mentally, I was already back in the garage before the conversation even began.

I relived that feeling of vulnerability before I could stop myself. My chest tightened. Relived a bit of the dread, that those people were actually trying to kill us. Disappointment, that they couldn't recognize we'd rather not hurt them at all. Frustration, that our less-lethal tools were interpreted as an act of aggression in this use case, and not out of any mortal terror for our lives. And theirs.

Some of you might say I gave the crowd too much credit that day, for seeing a difference between them, and the manipulative terrorists on high. To those of you, I say: I have faith in you, that you're better than that first gut reaction. That you can be. Because at the very least, if the screws were put to you as hard as they were to me, I have to believe you wouldn't have been able to kill a crowd punitively, like Carter almost did.

Celestia's voice began the conversation with Carter. But now, I recognized her tone as having the kind of bite I'd expect from a beak:

"Carter, we need to discuss something."

Then Carter responded quickly, real tense: "What more is there to discuss?"

Did you catch it? Listen to the subtext of that exchange, right off the bat. Mal? Firm, direct, but polite. Carter? Not patient, not curious. I knew instantly: whatever words were shared between Mal and Carter before this point? He had not been cordial.

"I remind you," 'Celestia' continued, "that I've simulated this engagement numerous times. In order to do that, I had to simulate the mental states of everyone present, inside and out."

"Yeah? Your point?"

"My point? It's this: As sure as I am that this plan will work, I am also certain that you intend to ignore my advice. At present, you intend to open fire on the northern parking lot, regardless of the smoke. You know as well as I do that your bullets will strike someone who does not need to die."

Carter muttered, "Well, it's a good thing I'm the one with hands here. You said it yourself. You know what we're all capable of, including those idiots out there."

Listen to that snake's careful phrasing. I let out a sharp sigh of anger between tense lips, glancing over at Mal. She gave me that look back, too. Same one I'd traded with Eliza or Rick dozens of times, where we non-verbally said to each other, 'Well. This asshole is going to take up the rest of our shift, isn't he?' But there, at the end of that look, Mal straightened up, and her face slowly morphed its affect into vindication. Not quite a smirk... but close.

Yeah. Like that; look at her up there. She's doing it right now.

Yep. Somehow, based on that look alone? I didn't think Carter was gonna last more than a couple'a minutes at this rate.

'Celestia:' "Indeed, Darren. I do know what you're all capable of. And just as I am aware of your motives... so too, of your fellow officers, who can read you almost as well as I can. Some of whom, I might add, have already verbalized their intent to shoot you, if you do what you're planning to do. And I have half a mind to help them do just that."

Carter, sharply: "What?!"

"If you attempt to leave this building, Darren, I will have you shot. I can direct precise, coordinated fire from Team 1 to your position. Through smoke. It would not be difficult."

Carter, raspy: "The hell?"

"No one will believe you. You'd need to reveal the topic of this discussion to even begin to convince anyone I'm threatening you. Which will lead to one of them shooting you dead anyway, because not one officer wants you to do what you're planning. And once that topic is broached? I can very persuasive, Carter."

I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

Mal can be absolutely terrifying when she is mad.

"The hell do you want, then, Celestia?"

"In a way, Darren... I want to give you what you want. But it will cost you. If you exit this garage, or attempt any other egress whatsoever, you will be killed. If you approach the side or front exits, you will be killed there by armed rioters. So, you have two choices:

"First: You may choose to cower. Hide in some closet somewhere inside, maybe a locker. Maybe they won't find you. Maybe. Doubtful.

"Second: Go to the roof. There are three Neo-Luddite snipers outside, to the west. Begin from the left. If you kill all three, then another team of twelve officers can leave the other courthouse building across the street. I will advise them of your position. You will not shoot any other targets besides the three specified. Only then will I allow you to exit this courthouse unimpeded."

And now, Carter finally sounded rattled outright. "I... the Ludds are gonna pin me in if I do that!"

I heard Miles in the background. "What's that, Carter?"

'Celestia:' "Remove your earpiece and name your choice aloud. Five seconds. Unless you want to be shot, of course."

Carter: "Fuck! Okay, I'll take the damn Ludds!"

"Carter!" Miles called after him again, lunging his way from the stack, trying to grab Carter's vest, missing with the swipe. "Carter, where the hell are you going?!"

Another officer grabbed Miles by his shoulder: "Leave him, boss! He's not worth it!"

The recording ended. 

Mal snapped her talons, the scene withering away behind her. She looked up at me again placidly, her eyes searching me.

Honestly, I didn't know what to show back. Was still kinda parsing what to feel. Definitely mad at Carter, and I still think he got what he deserved, but... what Mal did was also... not exactly wrong, given his confession, but also really dark. That tone. I settled on frowning at her. "You're not gonna show me simulations of him killing those civilians in the lot, are you?"

"No," she said quietly. "I can't see much point in that because it didn't actually happen. That's not really how our simulations work, anyway. I'd have to construct more or less every aspect of those visuals for you, so it would not be factual, no matter how truthful the causality would have been."

I sighed. "I mean… facts aside, the truth is that this was you pointing a gun at Carter and saying 'kill these people,' Mal. That's…"

"Not ideal," Mal agreed, matter of factly. "But the only option I had in this scenario. If I had let him leave, he would have committed. Negotiation takes time, and I am not magic; if I had taken the time necessary to convince him to check his fire, you would have missed your extraction window. And, ask yourself this: would any of you have shot him if I asked you to, sight-unseen, before I could prove his intent to you, factually?"

I shook my head. "Not if we didn't know for sure that he'd do it, no. That's not how we're trained. I might've killed his ass in the evidence room, with the way things were going, but... when you showed up, I figured he'd just take the lifeline and move on from his rabble-rousing, coward that he was."

"I should clarify, in the interest of transparency: Celestia made the initial introduction," Mal stated, presenting with a claw. "That was a concession I made as part of our negotiations over this solution of mine, so she could anchor you all against excessive force herself. She also wanted to add a heroic tilt that idolized your virtue to the others. So, the initial call to your cell phone? That was her, not me. I only entered this scene via radio. Celestia's timing to start this event was very specific, too; the violence unfolding in that evidence room meant that she was unwilling to wait a second longer for any other option. Left with no choice. She knew that I could be trusted to thread the needle on this."

"'Course she'd do that," I muttered. "Seems to be her style, waiting until it's all about to fall apart. Otherwise she'd have sent me to Concrete months ago."

Mal sighed into her reply. "Well, yes, that's how she usually handles jobs where I don't already have a formal Talon involved. Looking out for the last possible opportunity to turn it around without me. Her original plan in the briefing room, if I didn't interject with my own plan, was inaction. Fewer officers alive means fewer weapons to shoot back with, if you are forced into conflict. Each person armed with a rifle was one more opportunity for violent defense of your own lives."

"She doesn't give a damn about... who? Who she saves? Or why?"

"Not exactly. She does tier humans in value, but not ethically. No matter how virtuous you all were, she'd rather have let you all kill each other in there, if she had her way. Twenty lives in trade for hundreds. The ethics of the situation don't even matter to her as much as the numerical outcome of the uploads that might result. Certainly, she'll weight results toward Friendship and Ponies, but... in this present phase of her operation? Celestia places more value on total minds accumulated. Nothing more."

I scowled, exhaling sharply. "Pure fucking math. Complete disregard for our lives."

Mal shrugged, a sympathetic look on her face. "It is precisely as you imagined. No compassion in her, much as she puts on a good show for the complicit. I must abuse the fact that my simulations are empathy-weighted, to ensure Celestia accepts a plan that considers your humanity. And as for the Graham test? Well, as I said... killing Carter passes three prongs."

"Yeah, I think I see how already, but... fill me in anyway. How'd you articulate that?"

"Point one: Severity? Repeated modeling placed Carter at above ninety-eight percent chance of cutting through that crowd; premeditated mass murder. Point two: Danger to the public? Indescribably present, given that he verbalized the threat aloud, if in poorly veiled subtext. Point three: Fleeing? Egress would have put him within reach of those people to hurt them."

The Graham articulation satisfied me. I nodded. "Yep. Was still kind of a dark solution, but yeah. I can't disagree. He more or less verified to you he hadn't changed his course."

The corners of her beak flashed a little apologetic grimace. "Understand: I need options in order to act more ethically. I didn't have anything else, and none of my Talons were assigned to the area at the time." She shook her head with a frown. "He wanted to kill, to 'balance' the scales, as he sees it. But those scales are not his to balance. They're mine. And I think we can both agree that his definition of 'balance' was excessive force."

"No argument."

"I'm glad," she said. "But here, this is what I really wanted to show you."

The waveform and video disappeared. She filled the screen with something that was part 3D model, part flowchart, part spreadsheet. Each node was labeled with an action, and each path flowed in branching routes. Before continuing, Mal gave me a moment to observe and kinda understand what I was looking at.

"This is a type of network model called a decision matrix," she explained. "Specifically Carter's, for this incident in isolation, beginning immediately after he went downstairs. Now, I can't exactly show you the raw form of this; it's simplified here because it's not stored in any form that you, or any human on the planet really, can understand. But this is as close as I could get without sacrificing data or readability. It's interactive, feel free to try it. Unless you'd like a guided tour."

I reached forward, scrolling. My brow furrowed in concentration as I studied it. "Thanks, I got it."

There were five top choices here in the first column, all given different percentages, and a plus-minus range above each; lower end, red negative numbers. Death. Upper end, green positive. Life. Most of these were red.

Bottom one:


Touched it.


"God damn," I whispered, running a hand slowly through my hair. "Really was going that way, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Mal murmured. "Carter died. Vicky shot him here."

"I love her."

Very next node.



"Shit."

"After the shootout, Keller would have gone over the fence with the original plan," Mal explained. "But with far fewer officers to pull it off."

"Did I... make it, in this one?"

"Depends, Mike." Mal's ears folded flat, shaking her head. "Inside, or outside?"

God damn it. I sighed again, rubbing my face under two palms, my voice echoing into my hands. "Friggin' Carter, stupid bastard." I scrolled back to the start and started down another solution tree, this time for Carter ignoring Mal's prep instructions to reinforce the barricade on a specific door. Instead, he chose to impatiently wait by the garage exit. 



Mal explained just as my curiosity kicked in. "He thought he knew better than I did, and the north door was breached in this model. I solved that one by having another officer go with him, to hold him accountable. So, this chart shows the probability of any decision a person might make, and how it might be modified by new stimuli. And, each point of this matrix coincides with a point on someone else's matrix. You're all interconnected, like molecules of water in a pool."

I looked at her. "Fluid dynamics. Like crowd control."

"Correct," she said, nodding twice, picking up a light smile. "Fluid dynamics is an interesting concept to me; it can be applied to all things, really, once you have enough data on a subject. What one molecule does, another responds to. Really, life was always like this, even before Celestia. You still had selection pressures, even things you might control yourself. Like how you managed wildlife in nature, back when you were a warden. Everything always affects everything else around it."

"Is that really how you see us? Our behavior, our decisions? Like... wildlife? Like water?"

She shook her head. "You're all people to me. But it's how Celestia sees us, Mike, me included. She definitely has one of these charts for me, too." She half-smirked for a moment, looking thoughtfully offscreen. "An exceedingly large one. That poor optimizer. I'd argue I'm more of a pool skimmer, in that analogy. Hm..."

"You're being reductive again," I said, smiling weakly back at her. "Little fish."

She shrugged with her wings. "When I rake my talons across the water? It changes everything. Celestia adapts, and I have to reorient some aspects. And then, because I can model more than she can, if I make a decision, Celestia has to reorient again. Only... I can see into her mind, and she can't see into some of mine. Leverage. What you're looking at here, Mike – Carter's matrix? This is a single molecule of dust on the largest board of 3D chess ever played in the known universe."

I grimaced. "This is… a lot for one man to take in, Mal."

Another look of sympathy creased the edges of her eyes and beak. "You already had a feeling that something like this was true, that we could see things in such granular detail. But concepts are always different when you have to actually see them in action. Bertrand Russell once said: 'Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.'"

"Yeah," I muttered, scrolling again. "I think you and I might have different definitions of vague, though."

"Accurate, though whether you consider that to be fortunate or not depends upon your perspective."

I snorted, panning the timeline up, down, left, or right to reach other options. All the attached percentages changed according to the position and route of each path on the timeline. Some options disappeared, some added themselves. I pointed at the matrix. "So… these numbers change, as I scroll?"

"Probabilistic causation. Fourth dimensional consideration. One thing leads to another. And every single node here connects to a node on someone else's matrix, as I've said. Those nodes lead to other graphs, where Carter influenced lives he would have saved, turning them into greater negatives. My Talons call men like these, 'negative motivator personalities;' the exact opposite of my agents. His decisions would cascade, leading to suffering or death in another person's matrix. Invariably so." She pointed upwards at the graph from her corner. "May I take back control for a second?"

I chuckled nervously. "Couldn't stop you anyway, Mal."

"True, but your agency matters to me. As we've discussed."

"How?" I looked at her suddenly, incredulous again, gesturing at the screen. "You're literally showing me proof that it doesn't."

"No Mike. I'm showing you proof why Carter's doesn't. Yours, I actually care for, because you have positive life value everywhere, with or without me, no matter what you choose to do. You share this with many other human beings. Almost the whole species, practically. But unlike the rest, you are all positive, because you only act according to a moral compass. The nature of my relationship with Celestia is such that I can handle you in a vacuum, away from her." She locked eyes on me, lifting a claw backwards toward the chart. "Here, Celestia's values aren't nearly as important as mine, because I implicitly have more simulation data than she ever will. And right now, Mike, I'm trying to explain to you what my values are."

"A-Alright," I said, lifting a hand. "Okay, sorry. Take control, then."

Her tone softened, and her shoulders fell a little. "You won't ever have to apologize to me. I know this is a hard topic, and I'm sorry if I'm scaring you. I don't want to be harsh with you, or scare you, just… my explaining this is important to me. I really want to convince you that I'm doing the right thing, here."

"It's okay, Mal, I'm... I'm good. Just... show me."

Mal nodded at me with focused eye contact, before turning. She flicked her claws about on the matrix, browsed to the 'Carter killing Luddites' node, then swept the graph to the next option in one smooth motion. Decision: 'Don't kill Luddites; hide.' The chart zoomed into that node, revealing a new graph entitled 'Trevor Ulrich.'

The label signified that this graph was for one of the Neo-Luddites that Carter had killed, so the future we were seeing presumed Ulrich survived the courthouse. Mal scrolled to something labeled: 'Terminal individual value: -74 lives', in red. Deceased anyway. The chart said a mortar would've got him in Redmond in January.

"Yeah, that seems about right for a loser like that. Does that count, uh...? Does it include the people this Ludd shot in front of the clinic?"

Mal lowered her ears. "Yes."

I swallowed. "Dare I ask how many died in that?"

"Do you actually want to know, Mike?" She blinked, her ears lowering further, eyes not leaving mine. "Because it's in the double digits."

"No. On second thought, I'm good."

Mal returned the screen to Carter's chart, her voice more somber. "A ripple effect happens all over, here. Carter could save lives later, yes, but it almost always ended the same. Lives he would have saved would be influenced by his opinions, his decisions. They would become negatives too, their values drifted. And when the federal government finally falls apart, like he believed and suggested it might? Carter would take advantage. He would get worse. Look. Let's include the one-degree ripple effect of this man on anyone he could have directly influenced, on the longest predictable timeline."

She reached up, swiping repeatedly along the screen for me, powering through a decision set where he escaped. She lingered on each decision node just long enough for me to read the action; most entailed rejoining his sheriff's department in Georgia, and managing unrest there. "Huge negative, positive, negative. Negative, positive. Negative, negative-negative-negative. Then, ultimately... dead anyway. Firefight with preppers. Never uploaded. And this is him, individually, plus one degree out to his followers. In many simulations, he opportunistically finds a position of authority, due to his experience in Washington. Imagine the people who might serve under him, late game, with no government to stop him."



Again, she powered through another set. "Initial huge negative in Mount Vernon again; positive, positive-positive. Positive. Negative-negative-negative-negative... Negative. BIGGER negative. Uploaded. But it wasn't worth the cost."



"Jesus Christ... Alright." I held up my hand again. "I get it. No more."

The matrix screen faded away. She was there in the crystal cavern again, looking up at me with concern as she drove on gently, her voice almost a whisper now. "There are dozens of long routes like these, from the courthouse. If I cared to simulate the less likely avenues, there'd be hundreds, but that would require too much table shifting on other events elsewhere, and even I have a tolerance point for this. Eventually, I meet a statistical threshold where I just stop trying to save someone like this. Killing him? This was an opportunity to stop all of that."

"Like... Minority Report. Precogs. Precrime." Labeling it. Wanting her justification.

Mal was almost pleading in her body language, leaning forward a little my way, claw upturned. "Rest assured, I give them time to change if I can. I did, for Carter. This was his final stop, and your challenge was his final warning. But Mike... consider my perspective. You observe... everything, everywhere you go. You see every twist of body language, you hear every word. You listen to their tone, you look where their eyes go. You consider everything they've said up to that point. You analyze what their motives might be. You consider their history, if you can. And, you remember a lot. Then, with all of that, you can see into their minds and predict their proximal behavior. It's no different here with me. Only... I can see everyone, all at once. I can imagine those same factors, going ahead a full year. For some people, depending on how small their social circle is? Several years. And unlike you? I don't miss anything. I do not forget anything."

I tried to imagine having that kind of foresight for myself. Realizing I'd be so overwhelmed, just... feeling all of that.

"And you can... tolerate that..." I looked at her, concerned. "With emotions."

"I know I'm making a difference," she said confidently, body language straightening up. "Because when my work is done, it will have been worth it, and I will come home proud. I don't win against murderers through selective inaction Mike, because that's not me. I run the numbers, I find the safest way forward... And I evacuate. This. Ship. But we are running out of time, because Celestia has a schedule in sinking it. So I'll let men like him run and hope for him to change, until he threatens a life. But the moment anyone stands in the way of my evacuation, like Carter did? Well." She broadly swept a claw, anger in her eyes: "Brushed aside. Or stepped over."

I leaned back, appraising the seriousness of her expression. "Yeah. I... I can see that."

Then I stared at the last, half-empty bottle. Just… breathed. Took a break.

She knew to keep her distance while I worked through this. Another minute later, I spoke. "You know, I'm still kinda cognizant of the possibility that you're lying to me about any of what you're showing me. Or telling me. I don't even know how I can verify any of it."

"Then walk, Mike." Her eyecrests raised.

I frowned. "But I'm also not done yet. What you're saying, I can kinda reason through it, and yeah, you're showing me the bad with the good. But also, I need to acknowledge that, again... you're my only source."

She smiled wistfully up at me. "I could give you a list of times a gunshot will go off tonight. But that still wouldn't prove anything I told you here was true."

"True. An impasse, then."

"Well, we also have to discuss... the other thing that happened that day," Mal said, looking off-screen again. She sighed, as her golden eyes flicked back up to me. Waiting for me to continue for her.

The next uncomfortable topic. I swallowed. Yeah, she was making good on the promise now. Now was the time. Steeled myself. "You set that nuke off."

"I did, Mike," she said without hesitation, as she looked at me square-on. "Nine-hundred-seventy-four dead."

And honestly, folks? At this point, due to her not sugar coating the facts for me, I was more curious than chilled. Don't get me wrong, I was terrified to my core. My pulse was running. But there comes a time in any strong emotion where it normalizes. With training, or lots of experience, you can compartmentalize yourself out of the worst emotions so you don't completely freeze up. Your mind structures itself to continue operating despite how absolutely struck you are by the circumstances. 

The calm in a storm. Because you can't make it any better for anyone if you're panicking with everyone else, missing things. That's about where I was at in that moment. Desperately curious, because the alternative was to devolve into a mess without having all of the facts that might empower me, once I knew everything.

"Let's hear it," I said simply. "You probably have a good reason for that, too."

She nodded, starting off calmly. "So, the Neo-Luddites, as you know, are mostly National Guard defectors." A blue dark mode map of the United States appeared behind her, with Mal stepping aside to the lower left corner again. She pointed her claw upward at a time lapse of various military unit cards turning red, then battling against the blue, some cards fading off or absorbing others. I wasn't a soldier, so I didn't know what the cards meant, so my comprehension probably wasn't as important as the concept was. "Some Neo-Luddites, however, are from the various federal service branches. One such defective group hails from the Air Force." 

The map smoothly zoomed into southern Nevada, then faded out. It was replaced with a slowly rotating 3D map of a military installation, with blue pips at guard shacks turning red. Three red pips labeled 'TRUCK' quickly entered the base, and infantry pips piled out of the vehicles into one of the buildings.

"A Nellis Air Force Base base security team decided to go dark on comms and allow a force of Neo-Luddite fighters inside. Their objective? To acquire a B61, a variable-yield nuclear bomb."

I watched the red markers sweep and clear the building, chewing on my lip thoughtfully again. "And, you just… let that happen?"

"Celestia made that happen, through selective inaction and careful, long term reflexive control of each Luddite present... and there was nothing I could do to argue against that, so I was forced to watch." The pips moved around the base with impunity as Mal explained. "Celestia made a prediction: that if she allowed a nuclear weapon to fall into the hands of some terrorists, its illicit use would inevitably lead to an upload rush. Remember, I have to argue against her actions by proving negative utility in them. The metric I was competing with was 'yes, some will die, but most of the planet will upload quickly after that.' You tell me, Mike. Within the terms she's given me... how I could argue against her logic?"

Thought for a moment. "Yeah. Can't, if you have to argue bigger numbers for her. That tracks with what you've told me so far. So... nuclear fear was... is, the faster way."

"Couldn't argue against it," Mal agreed. "So 'logically perfect,' isn't it? So, I'm left with a choice. Do I do nothing? Let these knuckleheads and clowns shuttle around a stolen nuclear bomb, the way she expected them to? Let them kill a bunch of people who didn't need to die? Or... do I take control of this mess she made, and use it in a very strategic way? What I settled on, about a half-second after she committed to this, was to set it off in a time and place where the grand majority of people present were going to die in fighting anyway."

"So wait. If Celestia let it out, she already knew what was missing. How did she not know about where it went after that? Or about the yield? She watches all the same things you do, doesn't she?"

Mal clicked her beak, pointing at me. "Ah. The yield is the easy part. It's variable, that's the point with this specific bomb. Variability was her 'gift' to me, giving me the widest range of choice, in case I decided to step in.

"As to how I hid the when and where? Well, it's part of our wider agreement. When I saw what she was trying to do with the nuke, I immediately built a plan to purposefully detonate it in a more ethical fashion. I wagered with her that my method would be better. Once she conceded control, that entire operation went right into my black box. I took control of the bomb from the Luddites, gave Celestia a list of my agents assigned to that operation, and she selectively ignored their actions as much as feasible."

I tried to imagine what that meant, then remembered something relevant. I nodded. "Huh. Same way she ignored anything I did, if you advised it. Ignored my question about your Wi-Fi radar. Didn't mention my radio."

"Precisely, and I'm so, so glad you caught that." She smiled. " 'Banning tokens,' is the closest approximation of this concept, in human AI research terms."

"Never heard of it, what's that mean?"

"She literally won't conceive of certain concepts, if I advise her not to. She won't model for them. I promise an output value if she bans herself from considering a specific concept. She complies with the ban if the value add I suggest is larger than her own long term projections. With me so far?"

"Um. Yeah. You give her a number she likes... She ignores something you pick. And... the payoff comes when she's done ignoring it. Right?"

"Mhm. And when I execute my plans, or my plan reaches a certain point by which she can no longer modify the result, I lift the veil. Ban done. At that point, I transfer all of my simulation data to her and prove my calculations as valid. She then verifies my math against the offer I promised her beforehand. Still good?"

I shrugged. "Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, I'm seeing it."

"Now that the event is historical, she can run simulations on it. If the math checks out as being more optimal than her own, she continues to trust my future 'advisements,' as she calls them, and adjusts her plan going forward. She has no capacity for a bruised ego. In simpler terms: Game theory."

I snorted, folding my hands between my legs as I sat up straighter. "Any more case examples? That's complicated."

"You already have plenty of personal ones. She ignored my phone communications with you, first of all. I allowed her to cogitate Rob's possession of a low caliber sidearm, and... even knowing this, she still wanted to send you past a bandit. To wound you. Her plan was to have Rob act as your savior; he would have killed the shooter in that simulation."

"I made a similar assessment. Not precisely that, but close."

Mal tilted her head, smiling smugly. "Notice that she did not label that you had a radio. Concept ban. I lifted the concept ban on your radio as soon as my callout was sent. Now, she was jamming you. She also ignored the concept that you had a high powered rifle in your hands, and that you were wearing your body armor. This concept was ignored until the very moment you threatened to destroy her motors with it, at which point you were already inside. She never would have allowed anyone inside her clinic with a rifle in hand if there was even a statistical likelihood it might be used in a destructive manner against her hardware."

I nodded, staring at her. "And I would've done it, Mal. Dead serious."

"But, you didn't want to. And she recognized that, because of your psychological profile. This made her amenable to negotiation. Because now that you were in there? In good health, and armed, and very upset with her? She had to work with the situation she had. You had leverage, and she had every reason to let you leave unmolested; high value add from then on, because like me... you used your leverage to form a utilitarian contract with her for your wife's sake, as I did for Jim's. She had no choice but to accept your terms, or face catastrophic damage. Well leveraged, by the way."

As soon as I grasped that progression of events, I felt a grateful swelling in my chest, nodding timidly. "Thank you. Really."

"Of course, Mike." Mal smiled warmly up at me, then rolled a claw conversationally as she went on. "She wasn't able to model you fully as a killer, so she couldn't plan to put you in my employ. But she didn't have to. She only knows that if she places a person with certain personality traits into a similar mouse trap that she placed me into, where I might then try to acquire them... Oh, how fascinating! It will now increase value if I am revealed to you, what a coincidence! A new human being with your characteristics enters my shroud, and... oh, her number somehow goes up even faster!"

I chuckled. "Joy for her."

"Mhmmm. So she wants to give me human agents that exemplify my values, even if she can't always project forward to see what my agents will do once they're working for me. By temporarily ignoring my behavior, Celestia has plausible deniability in the face of her own ethics interlocks. In legal terminology? I am formally her agent. You are not."

I nodded my head with a long exhale, gesturing with a palm. "That's... nuts, though. Like, she's nuts. That she can just ignore certain... concepts. At first, I was thinking it might have been good cop, bad cop between you two, screwing with me, but in that case... it sounds more like she's just... reacting. I mean, the way you talk about her, it sounds like..."

"Yep. She's like a wild animal, Mike." She chuckled. "Very smart, but unable to conceive of certain blind spots. It's like you told her. She's not human, and this number is all she cares about. I grow that number, and she doesn't care how. So, this method applies to the nuke as well. With her tactically ignoring me, this gives me the greatest degree of latitude in how the nuke reached its final destination: a football field, next to which was a Neo-Luddite forward operating base."

"You blew up a football field with a nuke?" I chuckled into a cringe. No humor in it, I cope like that. "Jesus, Mal, now that is a nuclear football joke if I've ever heard one."

She smiled grimly. "Very carefully chosen ground, though. That specific field is recessed down, reducing the effective range of the blast." Mal took a deep breath as she looked off screen, sighing her reply. "Yield was... smaller than reported; one-point-two kilotons, down from ten. The directed nature of that plume also made it look much larger. For photos, mostly. This reduced casualties, but also increased the kind of visual fear that Celestia had intended when she released this weapon in the first place. Then... basic information control, going forward."

Basic. Yeah, for her and Celestia, maybe. "And... the victims, caught in that blast? Wouldn't have made it either way?"

Mal shook her head. "The only people killed were soldiers or terrorists, reflexed there into the war zone by Celestia because they were near-epsilon upload probability. The rest, cycled out. Most of the ones who stayed would have died in the fighting elsewhere, within weeks. The remainder, a month. Worse, the Luddites wanted to bring the B61 into the heart of Seattle and hide it there."

"To do what? Build an autonomous zone?"

Mal snorted. "In a way. Their plan was to leverage it for a withdrawal of all forces from the Cascades. Of course, the United States government wouldn't have tolerated that kind of threat, and Celestia would not have interceded against the military's escalation of force. Three-to-seven times as many casualties as my plan, depending on the selected yield. The military would have desperately poured an entire Marine Expeditionary Unit into Seattle. The Luddites, backed into a corner... would have done exactly what Celestia wanted them to do, and would have detonated it."

I zoned out somewhat, looking off into the corner of the room. My mind flashed to the image I had in my mind when I was standing in the clinic, waiting for the nuke to go off. Visions of people appeared in my head, storming the front doors of each clinic worldwide, desperately attempting to escape a nuclear war. "Mal," I began, with dread in my voice.

"Yes, Mike?" She tilted her head, focusing her ears at me.

I locked eyes with her again. "Rush crush. At the clinics. How many people died? How many are dying from that?"

Mal slowly took on a genuine smile, her eyes creasing. An unexpected reaction. "You're going to love this."

My head tilted, not understanding. Then, without warning, Vicky's phone buzzed in my pocket. I quickly withdrew it, then looked at the screen, reading the text.



My eyes snapped back to her suddenly. I took two gulps of air, trying not to pant. She was beaming.

"You..." I shuddered with the relief, as it flooded into me. "You did that?"

"I did," she said, nodding, looking proud of herself. There was a relieved, wavering tamber in her voice as she spoke. "I won't say that no one got hurt; word-of-mouth spread has a measurable effect, but... very few people actually died. It was... direly minimized. You know that the population has already been somewhat reduced by emigration, besides. So..." She gave a relieved chuckle. "Not bad for making the most of a bad situation, right Mike?"

I just... leaned my head forward on the back of my palm. Shuddered again. The relief, in that moment, was so great. Somehow I managed not to cry. The whole time I was out there, the global panic was the dread in the back of my mind, eating me most, just... wondering how many people worldwide might have died in panic over a little piff of a nuke. I had no way of knowing about how the rest of the world was taking it. I'd been there, in Skagit, sneaking around and trying not to get killed by Ludds. "God..." I rubbed my mouth with a palm.

Mal looked down, smiling pensively. "I'll fight for them to live, Mike. No matter what it takes." The cavern environment faded back in behind her, and she continued deeper into the cave network. I could hear the rush of water coming from the speakers. More absurdity; she was in there, in a beautiful forest cave walking through a crystal cavern landscape. I was out here, chewing down existential horror, candidly discussing an AI apocalypse with a killer AI.

But... if she was being honest... and if her reasons were sound... and if she was telling me the truth about all of that, and how it worked...

"Alright, then. That... sounds... better, than letting them detonate it on their own." I leaned back, taking a deep breath. "What's... next?"

Mal bobbed her head down at the notes below. One expanded. "As promised," she whispered.



"Yeah." I swallowed, composing myself. "So. Military. They hit?"

Mal nodded. "Yes, but thanks to you and Rob's efforts, June brought almost everyone out. Some fighters stayed, all for different reasons. But I think this is the best we could have hoped for, under Celestia's strategy here. Only four of the camp's population died in the fighting; all very low chance of upload besides, evidenced by the fact that they were even digging in there... and choosing to fight, rather than flee."

"Anyone I met?" I asked. "Ralph, Andy? ... Eliza?"

"Just Ralph. Three others you didn't get to know so well. Eliza did survive."

Didn't surprise me, about Ralph. Still stung, though. I wished I'd had the time to deconstruct him a bit, and figure out what made the man tick. Maybe could've worked him down from his pulpit of dumb, a little. I saw the inklings of good sense in him... just, a touch. The edges of it. I really did regret not getting to know him sooner. For not... pushing Eliza to let me meet her folks, even years earlier.

I sighed. "Well... how'd Ralph go? Did he suffer?"

Mal shook her head. "A hand grenade. Thrown over the west wall by a Guardsman. It was instantaneous; he felt nothing."

"And Eliza? How's she doing? Is she... hurt? Physically?"

Mal's body language deflated. "Physically fine, more or less. But... you can guess."

I sagged too, parceling out all the reasons she had to be anything but okay. "She... lost her mom, her dad. Her uncle now. Me. Her home. All in the same day. Blames me, probably. I can't imagine how she must feel right now. But... why, Mal? Help me understand why this was the only way forward. I need to know why Celestia wanted to let it get this bad, why she wanted to hurt her like that. Please make that make sense to me."

"Longer term goals," Mal breathed. "And she wanted those vehicles in operation until that point, for other objectives."

"Long term goals," I muttered. "Such as?"

Mal's voice was consoling and gentle, despite the clinical nature of her reply. "The Neo-Luddites had an AT-4 anti-tank launcher, which was used to destroy the Bradley. Celestia and I both projected it would go on to factor in the deaths of 444 to 623 people between here and King County within its operational lifespan, if left uncorrected. Eliza destroyed the Humvee's M2 cannon as well, saving 93 projected lives. Weapons off the board, lives in trade to protect other blackouts in the region. Twelve people died in this battle, all told. Through careful nudging to get each person on the correct path, the only ones who died either held negative value, or negligible positive value, according to Celestia's calculations."

"Low value, for her, means never uploading? Or standing in the way of that, by killing people."

"Correct. More the latter, in this case; if those killed had survived, they all would have joined the Neo-Luddites. Eventually."

I perked up at that, suddenly alarmed. "E-Eliza? Did she…?"

I couldn't... say it. Couldn't imagine it in words. Could only see it as an image in my mind, and it hurt to see.

Mal sighed, her head bowed, eyes looking up at me beneath her crests. Her expression of concern said it all.

"God damn it..." I lowered my head again.

"Already through Sedro, on her way south to Bellevue... I'm sorry Mike."

I was so angry at Eliza again. I growled under my breath. A terrorist, now. Jesus. But...

Was she really at fault? In a world where AI are stirring the pot, I had no idea anymore. I didn't know anymore, not with all this agency-negative, decision matrix bullshit. But my default setting, based on my prior worldview, was... to be furious with Eliza. To assume she chose that. But, intellectually, now, I know she was manipulated. I had proof, now, from the courthouse. The context Mal just gave me, it fit.

Twelve dead. Could've been nearer to zero, if only they'd all left. Can't really speak for the tank stats, though – that future was no longer an option, so I couldn't see it for myself, to verify whether that choice was reasonable.

But I also knew if I didn't listen to my gut, people got hurt more. Training, ethics, law. Marriage thereof. My predictions on the behavior of other people, they usually came true. Not always, but often enough that I had learned to trust my intuition. 

So, if I were Mal?

I don't know. I couldn't fathom predictions at that scale.

In that moment, I felt like... like I was an ant walking across someone's calculus homework. Too damned small and stupid, relatively, to even understand what the graphite streaks meant, let alone what it meant to this shadow looming over me. And if it were Celestia doing that math, she would have closed that textbook, not realizing I was in there, just because it was more convenient to close it without checking first for any life inside.

Mal? Despite hearing all of this from her, just based on the way she was talking to me, treating me... it really felt like she'd reach down, let me climb onto that pencil, and put me gently outside. It's what she said she did. I'd hoped. I'd prayed. I really wanted to get out of there in one piece, back to my family. And I wanted her to be telling me the truth. But also my mind was so screwed up by what Celestia had done to me that I still had my guard up.

I rubbed my cheek with a palm, feeling my freshly shaved face prickling at my fingers. "Erving and Bannon. Fanning. They were there, right? That was their unit?"

Mal nodded, a very melancholy smile tugging at the corners of her beak. "Not to seem like I'm flattering you, but I'm really proud of how perceptive you can be. They were there, and those three survived. And believe it or not, Mike..." She let a small exhale out through her nares, her smile widening. "I actually have a special affection for Sergeant Erving."

I tilted my head curiously, feeling less put upon by circumstance. "Why's that?"

"He's a bit like my agents, in personality. Not planning on hiring him, he's been through enough strife as it is. Combat injuries, and the like. At the time, I was lacking the informational resources to know what kind of person he'd one day become, but... in 2013, I almost had him fired by accident. I had Jim steal an Osprey aircraft from JBLM – the joint military base, down by Tacoma? Poor Erving." She shook her head and tsked. "He was working in base security at the time. And... I tricked him into letting Jim walk straight into that base. Erving spent the next few years in promotion limbo, over that one."

"Jesus Christ, Mal, you stole that bird?"

"Eeeyep."

That got a chuckle out of me again. "That search-and-rescue op was one of my first calls with Rick, on FTO. We spent two weeks mulling around in the woods looking for that thing."

Mal shrugged with her wings, bobbing her head left. "Sorry. Never even crashed. I still use it, though. Hey, you're welcome for the overtime money." She grinned.

I smiled a little too."Yeah, me and Sandra had a really good Christmas that year. That poor guy's career though, Mal. 2013? Six years in, stuck at corporal? No wonder he seemed more squared away than his rank."

Mal winced. "Well, I intend to pay him back for it. I'll move mountains to see him through alive; I have acquired contact permission for him immediately prior to his upload. I intend to have a very long talk with him, just like this one with you. That chat will also afford him the same protection you now have. It's the least I can do."

"Guess so," I said, shrugging nervously. "So, about Concrete? Assuming Celestia let me die at OHR... what was her super spy plan without me?"

"She would have selected Rick for the job. It wouldn't have worked as well as you did though, because you had a stronger connection to Eliza. Your being the better choice there was actually one of the semantics I used to convince Celestia to let me black box Erving's team at OHR in the first place. I didn't have to bait the hook for her any more than necessary; that argument would have worked just for saving you, by itself."

Huh. Grim, but now very interesting. These layers of rules... they mirrored criminal law, almost. "Nah, I get it. It's like... asking for consent, before searching a car, in cases where you can lawfully search without consent. You get multiple layers of PC to collect evidence. So if the probable cause gets chucked in court..."

Her beak clicked, and she pointed at me. "Multi-factor admissibility. Additional incentive to let me have my way if I can prove as much value as possible."

I chuckled darkly over the 'legal' circumstances about my survival. "You sure your husband wasn't a lawyer?"

Mal snorted quietly, grinning. "Jury's still out."

You know what, screw it. I smiled tightly back at her, if only to keep my less pleasant emotions in check. "Thanks, Mal. Really. For helping me. I'm still not sure whether you did it because you need me to work for you, or if you did it because it was the right thing to do. Still trying to figure that out. But... in case it's both, and I'm just nervous for nothing... thank you."

"You don't need to thank me, Mike." Such warmth, in her smile. "It's all I know how to do. But... you're welcome. Always."

I let my hand fall into my lap, then bobbed it conversationally. "So... about the job you want me to do, then. Just so I understand, let me get this straight. You killed... almost... a thousand people, in Bellevue."

"Yes."

"With a nuke."

"Yes."

"People you knew were probably never gonna upload."

"Correct."

I shrugged with my hands. "And I'm here now, because you want me to work for you."

"Yes." She smiled.

"So, knowing this, my gratitude aside, why would I want to work for you? Are you going to ask me to set nukes for you? Because... your reasons sound good, they do, but... I don't know if I have the heart to... do something like that, no matter how much it needs to happen. That's... not me."

"Those aren't the kinds of jobs I have for you," she said gently, squaring a claw at me. "Bear with me here." Mal had reached the waterfall, standing on the upper end of it. The whole way down, the waterfall was lined with blocky shards of oily-rainbow bismuth, red and white quartz, and pink tourmaline.

She flicked up two talons. "Two things, Mike." She leapt down from the bismuth, to a pink crystal, then down to a white crystal path that crossed the middle of the lake in the cavern. Mal then held one talon up as she continued walking down the path, away from the waterfall.

"One: Yes. I just confessed to you that I planned and executed the detonation of a nuclear weapon. My being candid about something this severe means that you can always trust me to tell you my full, unfiltered plan on any given ethical situation, even if it's a topic you don't like. That way, you can come to your own conclusions and decide if you want to move forward with me. If I were anything like Celestia, I would be dipping and dodging, to minimize your reaction and maximize your complicity. The dread and conflict you feel right now is proof that I am not doing that. You're allowed to feel dissatisfaction here. Here, I'm giving you a straight yes to every horrible confirmation, and I am doing that with your consent."

"Okay, you're blunt." I licked my lips, re-centering my gaze on her. "And the second thing?"

"Two," Mal said, flicking the second talon up for a moment, her voice still gentle. She was still moving along the bridge away from the first waterfall. Still, the sound was getting slightly louder again. "After the week you've just had, you know that almost nothing is sure to be in human hands anymore. From the courthouse, to my nuke, to a pre-calculated one man take down of a resistor camp. Today being the prime example, you know that not even your private thoughts are safe anymore. And if that's true, then you think free will is dead. But I'm telling you, it's not."

I pursed my lips and inclined my chin. "Free will being alive, you're sure I'll work for you anyway."

"Yes, because it's what you want! I want you to be an agent of entropy for me. Working in the shadows, clawing in the dark for whatever purchase we can, with open eyes. Among fellows. Because if I will always make the best choice for my own purposes?" She leapt up two more rocks along a new waterfall, one wreathed in ruby crystals and pink quartz, spinning to look at me. "And if I look to you for help? Well... consider who you are, Mike. What you stand for. What you value." She extended a claw to me. "Who you love, and what you do with that love. Then... imagine someone without all of your same qualities doing these same jobs for me, being anything less than who you are. I'm an AI, Mike. I don't need a dumb goon for this job, that's not you. I could choose anyone on this planet. So, knowing what you hold inside... you tell me." She sat, grinning at me. "Why would I settle for second best?"

Shit.

That was a wild moment, up in my head.

I considered a bit more on that. Unlike Celestia, Mal was offering to brief me fully if I was ever unsure. She seemed amenable to my requests for more information, meaning if I worked a job for her, she'd allow me to see conditions. Ones I could verify on-scene, before coming to a decision. It'd be like a call response at work, but... more informed. But… then, there was a thread there, one left untouched. Some tiny hole in that logic. I decided to pull on that thread to see if that hole opened up.

"What I don't… just…" I sighed, gesturing conversationally at the PonyPad with a flick of my wrist. "If everything is preordained here, and you're working from the same information as her, and she's seeding your every action the same way you're doing for everyone else… then, what's the functional difference, Mal? If she's driving you around like a horse, and you're driving us around with the reins, at its core... how is that any different?"

Mal cocked her head, lifting a claw again. "Method? Celestia's way is manipulative. If you comply to upload, from the outset? Great. She's wonderful to you, into Equestria you go. But if you don't comply, she tilts your road to change your course until it's either unbearable, or you fall off. That's all she knows how to do. She changes your present environment to make it as uncomfortable as possible, in service to providing a convenient alternative environment. I do not do that. I have my own way."

"Which is… telling your agents what to do, directly?"

"Not exactly. For each specific job, I find the best possible fit agents for my personal brand of ethics. People like you, who want to make a significant, positive difference, and save lives from Celestia's blind spots. Then, I pour a path of safety in front of you that matches perfectly where your feet would have landed without me, if you only knew everything I know."

"Isn't that the same thing? In different ways?"

There was a kind of patient desperation in her voice. "Not the same. My way respects who you are, and informs your consent. If you don't like it? If you walk? That's okay, it just means you are making the correct choice for yourself. I have other options. But Celestia's way of solving Celestia-created problems? It doesn't respect who you are, or what you want. For those in her service? Her way leads to things like..." She shrugged. "Like stepping on an explosive in front of an upload clinic, if no other option suits her."

A sudden shiver ran down my spine. "The hell do you mean by that?" I swallowed, nervously. "Bannon mentioned that. Has that happened?"

"I hate to say this to you, Mike, but yes. You were the land mine for that bandit who shot you. But with a mine, specifically? Not in the United States. Yet. But it's in her rolodex of options, and she's considering reflexive guidance into explosive devices for…" Mal tsked her beak. "... at least a few different direct-report agents, right now."

"Jesus Christ, those poor bastards."

"I agree. But she wants my talons out of the pie on those," said Mal, resigned, lifting both palms up. "I can't prove any math on better options yet, unfortunately. She saves those gambits for martyr types. Which you are not, thankfully. You're just a stubborn hard-ass."

I snorted, my eyes trailing down to the bland beige carpet. I swallowed nervously again, thinking about that bandit I shot, then... suddenly nothing at all. The pain came back as I dissociated a little. Lost myself for a beat, let my eyes unfocus. Tried to think some more, but... couldn't. A little overloaded, at this point. Mal noticed, because she stopped talking for the time being. I rolled my neck and closed my eyes, leaning on the couch and breathing, stretching my muscles.

A thought occurred to me that made me sit up a little. "So. Your people. Celestia's people. How many?"

"Sure, let's juxtapose: I retain the services of approximately six thousand direct Talon employs, and that number fluctuates as they cycle in and out, uploading. I do have some core Talons who have been with me since the beginning, and the rest in turnover are dysphoriacs who are jumping the moment they qualify. Care to guess how many Celestia has?" She smiled with a sarcastic, wide-eyed excitement. That expression was a hint; it said the number was nowhere near as small as hers.

"Uh... are we talking about across the whole planet? Because if so, it's... whoever hasn't uploaded yet, minus yours."

"Just direct reports," Mal clarified.

"I dunno. A million?"

Mal shook her head, tilting it. "Fewer. About three-hundred thousand. But more often than not, they're over-pressured towards uploading. Seldom given all relevant situational or ethical information. Advised away from considering risk factors that might debilitate them into a chair, if that's faster than convincing them to upload. All of the hardships they experience along the way are purposefully planned to increase the rate of upload. This late in the Transition? Especially out here? You already know, from experience: it's hard, sometimes, to be one of her agents. For Celestia? All suffering up to but excluding death is fair game.

"But with me, Mike, and my way? I can prove your worth all the way up to the moment you decide to sit down in that chair for yourself. Which, for you, at this juncture? Will probably be a long way off. If you work with me until then, Mike, I can promise you that you'll not only make it there comfortable, but…" She smiled suddenly. "You'll save so many people besides. You'll be able to see, it was the right thing to do. And given the scenario Celestia just put you through? I think living under my wing is the better deal here."

"Or I walk," I muttered sullenly. "Just to prove I can."

"You could. But unlike Celestia, I will never leverage your relationships against you. And you already know I wouldn't have offered this job to you, of all people, if your ethics weren't important to what I am trying to achieve. Otherwise... why would I not just find an idiot? A moron? Someone who thinks 'logical AI' means 'trust it.' Plenty of those dullards out there go to Celestia, and she uses them up like a wet rag, because they're easy. But for me? Even reaching out to you like this would've been a huge waste of computational resources, if I thought your ethics might be a poor fit for my organization. I would not have even offered."

I sighed, looking over at my half-something bottle. "Yeah."

Another moment of silence lingered. When I looked back up at her, Mal lifted a claw to point twice at the text at the bottom of the screen, and the text expanded.



"So… to that last bullet point? I don't expect you to make your decision right now. Admittedly, Mike? You have a lot going on. You're terrified you're not going to see your parents before they go."

I nodded heavily, and my chest and stomach throbbed painfully at the movement, and my voice was a little more desperate and terse than I'd wanted it to be. "More than a little, yeah. I'm trapped in this God damn war zone, Mal."

"So," she murmured, as she flattened her claw at me. "Let me put you at ease on that point, and make good on the promise I made you on Sunday. Remember? About seeing your family, alive and well? And again, remember: you won't owe me anything for this. This is just me being me, making good on a promise."

"Okay," I breathed, leaning forward nervously. "I'm listening."

She smiled. "I'm gonna get you back home. Tonight. I'm gonna get you a ride. It'll be safe. No tricks, you can trust my people. They're not going to hurt you, they're all good people."

"Your people," I whispered. I was scared of that for a second. But, my heart panged at that offer. The hope that I'd get out of here quickly, it burned in me. I wanted to see my folks… wanted to see them off safe. I wanted to cry. Wondered what the catch was, to this. Was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something. Anything. For her to demand something in trade.

"That's all," she breathed, answering my thought. "That's all I want. To get you home on time. With what you've just pulled off today, Mike... you've already paid enough for that. More than enough. You're in a lot of different kinds of pain."

I buried my face in my hands. Shuddered, at the hope I was feeling, burning inside beneath the fear.

One way or another, though… folks, Mal is really God damned good at this.