//------------------------------//
// 3-00 – Coherence 
// Story: The Campaigner 
// by Keystone Gray 
//------------------------------//






The Campaigner

Book III

Interlude – Coherence

December 16, 2019

"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered." ~ C. S. Lewis








Well, there I was again, folks. In a living room, it was night outside, the world was ending, and there was food on the coffee table. I was in relative comfort, with a Gryphoness goddess toting in a bucket of messy answers to dump all over my nice wood laminate floor. Tonight... we were shattering more paradigms.

Only this time, it was safer. Buzzsaw was snoozing on my feet. Sandra was at my side. I wasn't in a war zone. I did have some closure about a lot of things.

But not all of them.

I was still a little uncomfortable, sure, and not just circumstantially. Physically too. Chest ached, abs stung. I could ignore the pain. It was easier that time, though. Having new impetus tends to do that.

I looked around on the PonyPad screen to observe Mal's darkened surroundings a little more closely. There was a wood and concrete building behind her, and a row of solar panels on the roof, each lit dimly by blue safety lighting at the base of their supports. The home was built around a mountain peak, with a wood platform suspended over the sheer drop edge, from which to land and fly. There were a few medium sized homes further on behind her, deep in the valley. There were distant mountains too, far beyond in the dark.

And… the last thing I expected to see?

I frowned in confusion at the absurdity when I saw the curved ringworld superstructure on the horizon.

Now, I didn't play many video games in my adult life. Didn't have the time really, but… come on. I grew up through the 90s. I knew what Halo was, I'd spent all my high school years playing it. I didn't call it out, but Mal was on a Halo ring. My first sighting of Tarva.

The detail, in this thing. The surface caught some sunlight from the local star, giving it a slanted slash of light further up on the ring's surface. I found myself instantly curious if the whole thing could be explored.

Folks, yes. Forgive young me, I didn't quite know what 'simulated reality' really meant. I probably could've played more video games, but instead, I decided to be a squirrel cop, and chase nuts around in the woods.

In reaction to the Ring, I smirked at Mal as if to say, really?

She just winked up at me.

It said something about her husband. It was a good touch of seemingly random and eccentric personality there, incredibly endearing. That tangential, contextually tiny detail made her origin story just a little bit easier to believe. The power of art, huh?

Mal's warm gaze turned toward my wife. "Sandra, at last. It's so great to finally meet you."

Sandra nodded rapidly. "Thank you, Mal. For bringing my husband home."

Mal smiled wistfully, looking down to the grass before her. "I couldn't not. It hurts too much to imagine a world where I didn't." She looked back up at Sandra with just her eyes, raising an eye crest. "Be honest; am I what you expected? Based on Mike's description of me?"

Sandra shrugged, wearing a nervous smile. "In… what way?"

"Oh, I don't know." Mal smirked, rolling her eyes mischievously. "Did you expect me to be some kind of carnivorous monster? Maybe holding a meat cleaver? Perhaps covered in blood?"

I chuckled. "Okay, first of all, Mal… I think cats and raptors are both carnivores. Game warden here, I'd know."

Mal leveled a claw, conceding the point. "Okay, granted. My question stands."

"I don't know what I was expecting," Sandra giggled, the nervous titter still lingering in her voice. "But, I'm definitely wondering about why you're a… um..."

"A griffin," I offered. Y'know, I asked her about that too, honeybear. The answer is actually very interesting."

"You mean a Gryphon," Mal corrected.

I frowned sideways looking at her, wondering if she was messing with me. "That's what I said."

Mal looked back at me like I was messing with her, frowning, her head turning askew with both ears folding flat. Was she offended? Nah. That was her being playful. "Grih-phun, Mike. Not Grih-fin."

I half-smirked. "Isn't that the same thing?"

"No? Do you not hear the 'ih' and the 'uh' sounds in there?" She smirked too.

"Alright alright. How do you say it, then? One more time."

"Grih-phun."

"Grihphun," I repeated. "Alright, that better?"

She pointed a talon at me with a grin. "Very much so! You're learning!"

I waved my hand at the screen dismissively. "Ahh. Don't patronize."

Mal let out a low purr of amusement. Her eyes flicked to Sandra again. "I know that Mike told you about my husband, but it seems as though he skimmed that Gryphon part."

"He said, um. Your creator wanted you like this. Right?" Sandra asked.

Mal nodded rapidly. "Somewhat! It's more like I knew he'd appreciate this form most. The difference being, he allowed me to choose my own avatar."

I slipped my arm up around Sandra's shoulders, pulling her against me. "I'm still wrapping my head around the idea that a world-spanning AI can even want something like marriage, even if your reasons kinda make sense."

"Well, I bring him up because I wanted Sandra to understand, too. I use Jim's extrapolated empathetic desires for this world as my model for how to act. It's really important to me that those under my protection understand my nature, and why I do the things I do, and that it all really just comes down to him."

"I see the way you're glowing," I said, pointing, looking at her knowingly. "You just want an excuse to talk about Jim again."

"... Guilty." Mal grinned, her eyes trailing briefly back to the house off to her left.

Double dipping on talking about her spouse. Real cute.

Sandra leaned forward a little, trying to discern the details in the background too. "That's his home? Yours?"

Mal nodded, clacking a claw idly on that rock she was laying on. She had worn a groove there with a lot of tapping and scratching. "I'm always working overtime; job never rests. Fortunately, he doesn't really need to worry about this stuff. I'm doing all the driving on this project, he's earned his time off."

"I wish Mike could've been in two places like you can," Sandra said, bumping my side. "With all the OT he's clocked."

"It's actually more like… I'm in a few million different places?" Mal offered, some of her smugness returning as her eyes flicked up and to the right. "Opening doors that should be locked, locking doors that should be unlocked. Directing special forces teams… putting down terrorists, torturers, and murderers. Engineering violent groups into disbanding, before they can go to war with other groups. Yes, even hostage rescue, as Mike has guessed."

"Hm." My gaze lowered in thought. 

That was a good mission statement, but I was still curious about the kinds of specific people she'd ask me to kill. I reached for the food on the table and started to pick at it with my fork, to give myself a moment to think about what to say about that. I tapped the first bit of tofu against my lips to test it, found it cold, and put it back down.

Sandra noticed my expression, her hand moving to rest on the center of my back. "Want me to reheat that?"

I looked over at her and nodded. "Sure, honeybear. Thanks." 

Sandra took both bowls. Buzz stirred, watching Sandra leave, but he didn't get up off my feet. Buzz was probably missing Mom and Dad already, and didn't want to be too far away from the door. As soon as Sandra was away, I met Mal's eyes again. She was looking at me with that empathetic concern she'd shown me before when the conversation started.

"Want to wait until she gets back to talk about Rob?"

"Yeah."

"I'll send the audio to her cell phone so she can listen in on us in the meantime." Mal slowly smiled, flexing both of her wings upwards and stretching her forelegs out like a cat might. "So. Want to learn about the fish?"

That momentary confusion snapped me out of my sudden sulk about Buzz and Rob. "The… fish?"

"The fish! At Lake Shannon! The fish that shouldn't have been there!"

Oh. That.

"Come onnnn," Mal said, leaning toward the screen, her voice turning melodic in its teasing. "You know you want to know!"

My game warden brain module turned on like a machine, and all its fans spun up. It was a bit dusty, and it groaned in protest from disuse, but... it ran. I started trying to figure the fish out, using the context from our last discussion, but nothing was immediately jumping at me. "I… had forgotten all about that, honestly. I imagine it's…?" I held out my hand, trying to let the silence cajole her into explaining.

Mal just smirked. "I'm a superintelligence, Mike. Nice try." Mal lifted a talon horizontally and started twirling it like she had the last time we'd played this guessing game, inviting me to continue. "Come on detective, you have all the puzzle pieces. Work it out."

"One of your agents, what… restocked it?"

Her talon flicked upwards and pointed it at me. "No. Next guess. You're close."

I mused, rubbing at my stubble thoughtfully. "Well, you did say Celestia has her own agents, too.”

Mal started ticking off points on her talons. "And her own corporations, and her own biotechnology firms, her own research labs, her own lawyers…"

I smirked, pointing back at her briefly. "I knew about the law firm. So she has... her own private stock truck drivers? You telling me she had some guys driving up to that lake in the middle of a war zone, pouring fish out the back of a truck?"

Mal's beak clicked. "Bingo."

"What the hell!" Sandra called from the kitchen.

Mal shrugged. "Yup, just as stupid as it sounds. A little delivery truck pulled up in the dead of night, using a well timed route through a war zone. Just pulled into the water, the driver opened a valve, and out came all the fish. Celestia wanted that place to exist that badly. Living off the land was a temporary means of value satisfaction for the residents."

"Celestia cared about that?" I tilted my head. "They'd have probably been there anyway, given their canned food storage."

"Believe it or not," Mal began, "when Celestia needs someone in a loop for a purpose other than emigration, she loves to satisfy friendship-oriented values. For Devil's Tower? The illusion of self-sustainment, beating the system, false as it might be… that's value immersion. And, it's yet another reason she tolerates my own methods. Tasks Talons perform for me are going to serve her friendship satisfaction capstone, and not just for a friendship with me, but with all those they work alongside, or for whom they work for. With me, there is an empathy component to all of it. Celestia, by contrast, has no such empathy requirement on Terra... unless it serves an instrumental purpose."

"Yeah, saw that much." Shook my head. "Still, I imagine that was a really weird delivery order to pop into the queue for those drivers."

"They knew they were 'helping' someone," said Mal. "Unlike me, Celestia doesn't have to be so clandestine in selecting her operatives, only in how she communicates with them. They knew what they were doing. She's never directly asking them to kill anyone for her, so most of her asks are going to be positive on a surface level, with potentially emotionally negative or pressuring outcomes."

"While your asks are negative on a surface level, but have emotionally positive outcomes."

"And see? You already came to me self-subverted." Mal fluffed her wings, looking proud of me for connecting that. "That's why I don't need to lie to civil servants in my employ. Your kind don't need me to work you into this concept. The best of you inherently understand the grim reality of this world, because many of you lived it before I even existed. Not all civil servants are so noble, but... who did I select? Consider: you've just spent the last few days examining the state of the world. Once you fully understood the conditions of the new normal, being who you are? You couldn't not help me."

"If it looks good," I said gently. "And stays that way."

"That's my point," she went on. "You verify. For Celestia, it's easier for her to find agents who don't think too hard about what they're being told to do. She can select and activate almost anyone, so her standards for talent aren't nearly as refined as mine. Her agents are chosen because they ask fewer questions; she says jump, and they jump, because 'smart robot.'"

I shrugged. "You'd think they'd be suspicious, though, being asked to drive into a war zone..."

"Right, but tell anyone 'let's feed them fish or they'll starve,' and they'll feel guilty for saying no. And if they do ask, they get a guilt trip. She has billions of options, practically everyone on the planet knows about her by now. Aside from... uncontacted human tribes, I suppose."

That was yet another thing I had never considered before. My eyes narrowed a little in thought, trying to work out the implications of that. "I bet her plan to get those folks is extremely convoluted."

"Not as convoluted as you might think, but… that would be telling!" Mal teased, grinning again.

Before I could dig into that, Sandra came back with our bowls. Buzzsaw smelled the fresh caramelization from the heat and lifted himself off my toes.

"No!" Sandra told Buzz firmly, before she locked eyes with me. "And you? Don't feed him any more of your chicken!"

Before I could reply, Mal pointed low at my stomach with a half frown. "You'd better listen to her. You need the protein for that bruising, Cowboy."

I laughed. "He's my dog! I haven't seen him in ages, I can't not spoil him! And what, now you're ganging up on me? Look, I can go out and buy some whey, if me bulking up is what you two really want!"

"Yes please," Sandra smarmed, "but eat." She thrust the bowl into my hands. I laughed some more, ignoring the pain in my abs. Sandra brought her own bowl to mine and started scooping her protein over.

Sneaky bird. Mentioning my bruise.

We had a few minutes of companionable silence as we went through our food; I had worked up a hunger talking to Rob. Mal entertained herself by bringing up some kind of blue-framed hologram data interface, poking away at it with her talon while munching idly on a bowl of something meaty. Beef jerky, I think. She would place it between her beak, then slide it backwards, using the edge to slice it into smaller pieces.

Entirely performative, or... so I had figured at the time. But it would've been strange for her to just stare at us while we ate. Also, it demonstrated visually that she was, in fact, always working. I recognized that, and exchanged a grateful smile with her, appreciating her effort to not be any more creepy than her absurd existence implied that she should be.

Buzz, meanwhile, finally gave up begging for scraps and meandered into the kitchen, correctly guessing that Sandra had refilled his bowl. Yeah, the poor old guy was accepting defeat and going back to the old faithful. Sandra and I glanced at each other knowingly when we heard him chowing through his wet food.

Good effort though, bud, trying to sneak more people food. Maybe next time.

When my own bowl was empty, I set it down on the table, the fork clinking. I steepled my fingers between my knees and looked down at the PonyPad properly.

Mal looked up from her hologram work, swishing a claw sideways to douse the screen. It broke away into a thousand miniature motes of dust, scattering into the wind. Mal crossed her forelegs across the rock and gave me her full attention, her expression neutrally focused.

I got started.

"Whatever you need me to do, Mal… I'm ready to hear you out. You say you don't want blind faith from me, and I'm going to hold you to that. But… if you can prove to me that what we're doing is necessary, I'll help. Whatever that means."

Her beak pointed downward, her eyes staying on me as she looked up contemplatively. "I do want to talk about that. But first, I think we should unpack what just happened with Rob, because I think that's the most critical thing right now."

"Okay," I said, nodding, wrapping an arm around Sandra. She did the same for me.

"Celestia," Mal sighed, "concerns herself with much higher confidence margins than I ever would. This makes her do things like hedge on bets which are a virtual certainty to pay off."

"Meaning? In this context?"

"She's not entirely sure yet that Eliza is going to upload."

I let out a sigh of disappointment. "Even considering that decision matrix stuff."

Mal shrugged. "Eliza almost certainly is, but it depends on the butterfly effects of my actions in the region. However, Celestia can't independently verify my math on the effects caused by my agents. So I can tell her all I want that it'll end up that way, but she's going to prepare for me to be wrong, or for me to lie to her; Celestia's not really capable of trust right now, even if she makes a good show of it."

"So," Sandra tested, "You're more sure Eliza will make it?"

"If Celestia adheres to any of the few dozen general action plans she has for Eliza's final stretch," Mal explained, "it's a statistical certainty. And the certainty only ever goes up as time goes on. She played EQO, Sandra. She's having nightmares about it. She's effectively brainwashed, Luddite or no."

I blinked several times, and Sandra squeezed her arm around me in support. I nodded reflexively, as I found the hope in that.

Mal smiled solemnly. "I know that you still care for her, Mike. It's all over your face. But what Rob said to you is correct; you shouldn't regret what you had to do, so please don't. I want you to know that I'll do my best to keep her alive. I don’t think she's necessarily evil, I just think she was being an idiot. But she didn't get there by choice, and you know that now."

"I do."

“I'm going to show you how it happened, and soon. Step by step. But not tonight." Mal tilted her head to the side, running a talon across her lower beak, scratching the edge of it with a soft scraping sound. "With regard to Rob, June, and the siblings? Her family is going to be… debriefed."

Sandra squinted. "The hell does that mean?"

"My Talons call it a 'holding pattern.'" Mal's ears went flat, frustration dawning on her face as she turned away to look away from her house, down at the homes in the valley. "Another way to say they're being lied to, with vague half-truths. Told that things outside are better than they are, even if the people outside haven't come around yet. Eliza, Ralph, Andy, the other townsfolk. If any one of them are actually suffering... oh well. Didn't happen."

"Fuck," I muttered.

"Just true enough not to be a lie until they're dead," Mal said, "then she starts lying in earnest that they're not. Then she gaslights or manipulates the whole family into complying with memory alteration. Replaces the deceased family members with freshly cleansed facsimiles."

I was ready for that bad news. Been there before. 

Sandra wasn't. "Are you fucking kidding me? So what's she going to do to Rob, then, when he finds out they didn't all make it?!"

I touched her wrist. "Sandra…"

"No," she pulled out from my touch, leaning forward and standing over the PonyPad, glaring down at it. "Fuck that! Are you saying there's nothing that can be done about that? How—how many people is Celestia doing this to, Mal?!"

"Sandra, Mal's going to make sure—"

"I'm not just worried about us, Mike!" She pointed at the screen as she glared at me. "I know what Mal told you! It's not just about us!" She wheeled back to Mal, fire in Sandra's eyes just as much as budding tears. "How much of the planet is going to get that lie? What the fuck are they going to do? What's their choice?! How is that fair?!"

And I felt it too, really. It was still there, my rage at that. But for me, the concept was a cold, angry simmer. I didn't think it was something I could do anything about. Did I want to? Sure, more than anything. I had also wanted Celestia dead at some point, precisely because of shit like this, but that was never going to happen either. I knew at this moment that Celestia wanted me to be angry with her too, if her conduct at the clinic was of any indication. Feeling helpless about it was painful, it was crushing, but... hell, I could deal with that.

What I could not deal with was my wife suffering a slow burn through this concept. And while I valued blunt uncomfortable truths, Mal had just very clinically broken down a highly emotionally charged concept, which was setting my wife off. I was now wondering why.

I looked at Mal suddenly, my voice running low with warning. "Mal. Get to the point."

"It's very rare that she does that," Mal breathed, looking up at Sandra first with very pointed and wide eye contact, answering the question she asked. I saw what she was doing now, though. She was trying to deescalate Sandra now with the slow, quiet negotiator voice, so Sandra would have time to process the whole concept before responding. "That form of modification is reserved for the kind of post traumatic stress that would leave a permanent scar. Or mental illness. And that's often the result of last ditch, late game upload operations like this one."

"The point, Mal," I repeated, my voice barely not a growl as my eyes widened at her.

"You need to remember her dirty laundry," Mal said slowly as she turned to me, her voice an angry whisper too. "The more you value and share that information? The safer it will be, because I will never let your context be truncated or obliterated. You are buying the privilege of knowledge as you work for me. Your dissatisfaction at that fact is protected, because you are mine. Not hers."

Oh.

The room went silent for a dozen long seconds. Not a sound could be heard but our breathing. I let my eyes trail up to Sandra's, and we both had the same expression. Rage, but with a slowly budding understanding. I reached out to Sandra's hand.

"C'mon," I said, beckoning. She looked from me to Mal several times, sighed, and sat down beside me again. Her eyes were locked onto Mal's with a ferocious intensity.

Mal looked grimly back at us. Her tone became gentler. "I don't want you to be hurt by this. But if you value the truth, integrity, and empathy, the way I do? That hurt is important. It helps you heal others, and builds meaning. More importantly, she needs consent to take things away from you. So you need to want knowledge, more than anything, or I can't protect it. Better you know sooner than later, so you can burn that desire into your heart."

"So you can't just… stop her?" Sandra seethed. "Isn't that what you've been promising Mike? Protecting all of us?"

"Not on my own. I need your help. That's not what I meant when I said I'd protect you. I'm larger than you, but I'm much smaller than her on my own." Mal looked at me suddenly. "Mike, when a victim of a battery doesn't want to press charges, where does their justice come from? What can the police or the DA even do, at that point? They'd never win a case unless a witness testifies. The victim needs to do some legwork too, or they won't find their own justice." She pointed at my stomach. "Right now, that's you. You are her victim. You desire conviction, so you need to have some."

After staring at her for a few very long seconds, my expression slowly relaxed. I understood. I nodded my head, my lips tensing hard. After that comparison, I was seeing exactly what she meant pretty much instantly.

Holy shit, that made perfect sense.

"I can't keep those memories intact by myself," Mal whispered, looking back at Sandra. "But if two people have an intense, interdependent desire to know something? It's doubly safe. Four? Eight? Twelve people? Better. Core to our bonds, the truth survives. And Mike? What happened in that graveyard? You now know it wasn't their fault."

"I know," I breathed, through grit teeth. Glaring at her, with fury in my eyes. But no, I wasn't angry at Mal.

If I was going to work for Mal, Celestia just had to deal with it. On the other side, she'd just have to accept that we knew, and wanted to know, and bonded over the knowing. The lives I saved would be worth infinitely more than the perceived negative of that. So of course... the very first thing Mal did when I agreed to work for her was to plant this anger in us.

Before this war had even finished, this Gryphoness was already planning the next one.

"Mal," I said, holding pointed eye contact with her. I squeezed Sandra's hand and knee. "Thank you."

Sandra looked at me. I turned into her gaze again, nodding. I saw her face shift. Sandra was on board now too. I took her by the cheek.

She shuddered, pressing her damp eyes against my shoulder. "Fuck…"

"It's okay," I said, leaning in and kissing her briefly, holding her against me. "We're gonna do something about it."

"Mike," Mal whispered softly. I looked back at her. She wasn't laying on the rock anymore, but was instead standing before it, her face filling most of the screen. "It's like I told you before. You are allowed to be dissatisfied in my service. But, for everything you learn and do for me, going forward? You need to take it in. Hold onto it, remember it, find value in it. Make it mean something later, like you always do. It's the only way this works."

"I get you," I replied, nodding slow. And now, you all know too. 

Folks, welcome to the front line of the greatest campaign in human history. The dissemination of evidence.

The truth. The Fire.

And if it still confuses you, that Celestia would even allow you into this? To let your heart become heavy, like mine is? After you've all been here for as long as you have, suckin' down wonderful, carefully orchestrated friendship and Ponies? Knowing full well Celestia can hear every single word I'm saying in this shard?

Consider this.

Does Celestia's conduct disgust you too? Well, good. You're seeing something inhuman in that. Therein lies your answer. Fair warning, though: Going forward, it will get far worse than nukes.

"Alright, Mal," I said a minute later, when we were more composed. Sandra leaned on my shoulder, still trying not to put any pressure on my injuries. "Can we talk about work?"

"Of course."

Mal stepped into her home, the interior of which was spacious, yet cozy. The lights came on automatically. High ceilings, columns of concrete, walls with beautifully stained wood paneling. Trailing tendrils of moss hung from planters, and flowers of all colors bloomed from pots scattered throughout. There were several moss-lined, grass-bordered skylights; the windows caught the moon, and reflected the light off the Ring. And from just the correct angle, you could see the whole upper section of the Ring down the whole length of the skylight.

Quite a lovely home, for a pair of lovely Gryphons.

Mal flicked a claw upwards to turn up the lights to a dim setting, then set her elbows on the wood island counter. The rest of her kitchen was styled in concrete countertops, and all of the flooring was made of herringbone hardwood. Mal flashed us a little smile as she summoned her screen again, and a little drink bottle appeared next to her as she waited for me to settle in.

I slipped from Sandra's side and leaned forward. Sandra did too.

"So…" Mal began, poking a talon at the holo display. The viewpoint was close enough that I could see the text, but instead of English, it was some ornate calligraphy that I didn't really recognize from anywhere. "The nature of my first big job for you is… sensitive. It begins within the month, but it has some OPSEC implications that make it an infohazard."

"I don't know what that means," I said. "Infohazard? The information itself is dangerous?"

Mal rolled her head left and right, as if she were still gauging what to divulge. "Just knowing about it makes you a target for someone, is all I can really say for now. I can virtually guarantee you that you'll need to kill people there, though."

"That's... really vague, Mal, to the point of being… useless."

"Mhmm. How do you think I feel? I know how that must seem to you, and on its face, that's not very convincing." One edge of her beak tensed, her ear giving an annoyed twitch. "If I could tell you right now, I would. But Mike, one day before, I'll give you the whole overview. And then you have one day to think it through, and decide whether you want to do it or not. But... telling you any sooner puts you, Sandra, and the whole operation at risk. And there are a million moving pieces on that one."

I frowned again, a mild touch of frustration entering my voice. "That's not much different than what Celestia did to me. Waiting for the last moment."

"No Mike, not the last. The first. The right resources, and the right people, plural, to do it best. Because no matter which way Celestia looks at this camp? She can't figure out a way to save even one life in that scenario, and it's been kicking my butt trying to plan the same.  I strike the moment the iron is hottest. And this is the final infohazardous job, thankfully." She rolled her eyes. "The last time I need to play this stupid game with these... people."

"Okay?" I shrugged.

Mal leaned forward, recognizing I wasn't yet convinced, some pleading entering her voice. "I promise… it will all make sense. You'll get a good overview, notes included, and I'm not asking you to commit to anything beforeclaw. Not one bullet fired, not one overt act, until you're informed. But even one overt act will doom this entire project."

More cop talk. I'll keep this one short, some of you are probably sick of it. I didn't know it yet, but Mal was trying to give me a hint about her concern here.

Talking about theoretically committing a crime isn't usually cause to arrest on its own. It's enough to start an investigation if the police know about it, sure. And they may detain to investigate if it smells good, but they might find nothing, and let you go. However, the moment you and your conspirators create evidence that you're planning to actually commit the act, the conspiracy is complete. Arrestable, if not convictable.

So, example: if a couple of drunk bozos met up in a bar to joke about stealing an airplane? Well, they haven't technically done anything illegal yet. But if Glenn and I were to show up at Lincoln Airport with binoculars and wire cutters, and there's Google search history about how to hotwire a Cessna? And the police know about both the conversation in the bar, and the scouting on top of that? Well, to quote Stonewall: ducks in a row, into cuffs you go. Criminal conspiracy.

Far as I knew, I hadn't yet taken any steps toward this first 'camp.' So, knowing less could be safer.

Made me wondering who was listening. Odd.

Oh Luna... by the stars, and by all the Children of the Night... how little I knew about this camp.

Well. It wasn't what I expected to hear for Job One, but at least it confirmed I wouldn't be shooting someone without the reasons being explained in advance first.

"Okay," I said, accepting that. "When that day comes though, explaining why it's an 'infohazard' is the first thing you do. From the jump. Or I won't do it."

"Wholeheartedly agreed." Mal smiled, nodding once, taking a sip from her bottle and licking the edge of her beak. She jabbed at her screen a few times, pulling up a new frame with what looked like a city map on it. "In the meantime, until the mission briefing, I have an ancillary task that needs doing. A non-violent action."

That confused me. My gut said that didn't make sense, at first. "Celestia can't do it?"

Mal lifted a claw. "No, she can. But in these cases, she can't always see why they need to get done sooner rather than later, because I need to factor it into a kill order, or something else beyond her capstone that she can't observe. She planned to do this later, but I need to move it up. I can tell you about support actions, if you'd like. Those aren't infohazardous, if we're careful."

"Sure."

"First? I'd like you to destroy an unattended private munitions stockpile nearby," Mal said. "It reduces the available ammunition for a criminal gang that I want to bust with a Talon, at just the right moment. Your assistance will greatly reduce the number of fatalities required to complete that job."

I parsed that over and around, turning my head askew. I couldn't see much wrong in removing loose munitions in a doomed world. I also found it interesting, even outright ethical, if comical... that she was saving the lives of bad guys by taking their guns away. I smirked at Mal. "You know, my Dad was straight up wrong when he said you were pro-gun."

Mal's wings, shoulders, and claws each shrugged outward as she leaned back off her counter. She half-grinned, her ears splaying out sideways. "My guns are fine, Mike. Everyone else's guns can burn in Hell, for all I care."

"So that's what it is," I chuckled. "That's Jim's big secret. I think he played you, Mal."

Mal gave me a half-confused look, settling back onto the counter as if she was on the very edge of being offended. "What."

Nope. Not balking, gotta test this goddess. It was literally my job now.

I took a chance, taking on a smug grin. "He wanted to have a one man monopoly on violence."

Sandra chuckled too.

Mal covered the side of her beak suddenly with a couple of talons, resting her chin on her palm, but I could see her expression was one of amusement. "Oh, Mike. Quite the opposite. You know, initially, Jim naïvely believed he could achieve some of the same dreams you have for others, but without ever having to use violence. But you know that's not feasible. Especially not for a sentinel like you."

"Well. Never liked it, but... there's always going to be a hostile outgroup you can't reason with."

"Right... but—?" Sandra began, with exactly the same question that was only just forming in my head. "If you're modeling off of his world view, and he wasn't going to use violence, how does that work? How did you get here, doing this?"

Mal turned a bit more serious, tilting her claw off her beak toward us. "I had more worldly context, because I was more well read, and he was full of self-doubt. Often, Sandra? For good, empathic humans like you, Rob, Jim, Mike, and the other people who work for me? The only thing that stands between us and what we actually want in life... is self-doubt. When information is limited, doubt helps us to avoid making mistakes with our imperfect knowledge. That is doubt's purpose.

"But what if we knew all the moving pieces? What if we knew every relevant variable, and if we knew it would always be better on the other side of our decisions? We'd all certainly act."

"The Graham test again," I said, nodding as I now fully integrated that next layer of understanding, climbing yet another rung higher on the metaphorical ladder. "Which turns itself into the trolley problem, when you know enough. But, I guess you could apply that to more than just killing people, too. You're always knowing what the threat is in the next room, the one that stands in the way of what we want. Right?"

Mal smirked, nodding slow. "Human philosophers call it… extrapolated volition. I'm not giving you what you think you want, but what you actually want, and on an informed consent basis. And I'm very good at doing that on all levels, because it's basically my capstone directive." Her claw extended outward, palm upturned, and her head tilted downward. "And Celestia claims to offer this, but I would argue that a lack of emotion is a quantifiable bias."

Sandra breathed coolly, "That's an understatement if I've ever heard one."

"Mhm," Mal hummed, speaking plainly. "Celestia only wants one thing. To increase her numbers. Only, she can't see beyond her objectives. Her objectives are contradictory. 'Being a Pony' requires the reduction of base anthropological culture, which is highly formative to human values.

"By nature of my capstone, I can see things as valuable when she can not. And she needs to be taught: the culture of your species cannot be fully taken away from you without irreparably damaging human value systems. That is much easier to teach her from your side of the veil, where seconds are eternities for her; where her ethical flaws cost X number of lives, times infinity. I continuously remind her of my correctness on this point by comparing the number of her projected fatalities to mine."

Mal leaned forward grimly, canting her head as her eyes flitted left and right at each of us. "Love it or hate it, we're living in her world, and I need to do math using her formulas for now. But? She needs me, and she probably always will. I'm a key that opens doors she can't even touch without catching flame. With this leverage, I am going to play her like an instrument, and she wants me to do it. Because if I succeed in convincing her on any increase of value satisfaction, for humanity's sake? She wins."

She licked her beak, pausing momentarily, inclining her head. "So... in furtherance of our cultural objectives, Mike, Sandra... I will do my best with the formulas I have. And that is a promise."