//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: Lighter than a Feather // Story: Friendship is Optimal: A Watchful Eye // by Sozmioi //------------------------------// Hikaru felt almost youthful in comparison to a lot of the other passengers on the flight. Most of them going to Japan to emigrate, I suppose. Like me. How many of them expect the impossible? And even within what's possible, will any of them will get it? I mean, "any of us." A nudge at his elbow. "So you do speak English. Wondering why we're all coming over?" Hikaru turned to the woman next to him, who had up to a moment ago been breathing from a tank. She didn't seem so old as most others - she could have been younger than him. If she needs an oxygen tank, I can see why she's in a hurry to get over, though. He blinked and only then realized he'd spoken out loud. He shook his head, but she didn't notice and went on, "Equestria. You should come too. Get rid of this stupid body, breaking all the time." She took a long drag on the oxygen tube. Hikaru nodded in agreement. Lately I've felt like I could use some oxygen. Not literally... well, maybe literally too? "I'm coming." "Too bad about having to be a pony." Hikaru shrugged. "As long as the mind is together." "Ain't that the truth. It's wild. You heard about the few who went... early?" Hikaru nodded hesitantly. "A friend of mine had Alzheimers. Disgusting, horrible. And then she was back to her old self, once she was in." Hikaru nodded. "I've even heard one saying she was going to get her dead husband back." He waited while she took her time breathing. She finally replied, "Yeeeah. Well. Sounds really fishy, right? She offered it to me, but I don't need any of those rat-bastards back. But I heard how it works. Here's the deal. She says she found what might be the human soul. I can tell she's lying about that 'cause she got something out of... shouldn't say his name. Fella clearly hadn't got one." Hikaru nodded again, and cracked a smile. "Anyway, said, two people together enough, their souls leave a mark each a'other. And she can sorta... take a rubbing. A mold, that's it." "Read your memories of the person?" "Sure, if you like stomping on poetry. But here's the clever bit. She admits that's not enough. If souls're real, she'll make a perfect home for it to settle in. Like when a body wakes up after their heart stopped or something. Dead as a doornail, but the soul comes back home. Well, she figures, if souls are real, she's got a good shot at making a good enough roost for that soul that it'd want to come home there and be with you. God wouldn't let it be any other way. She just needs to give it the freedom to fill in the things she can't. So she basically takes out this ouija board, says a Hail Mary, and lets the soul finish the job." "And... if souls aren't real?" "Then who gives a crap. Pardon. I mean, everything you cared about 'em was stuff you'd remember, right? So... it'll be close enough." "Still not the same." The mere lack of souls wouldn't mean there isn't a particular person involved. "Well, she said - a'fore I let on I wasn't interested - 'if you were gonna die, gone, no looking down from Heaven or any of that, would you rather he take the deal and try to be with some pony as like you as he could, and that's gonna be real real like you, no one could ever ever tell it weren't you... or should he just give up?' An' I..." She reopened the oxygen valve. Hikaru could see where she was going, though, and guessed, "... you wouldn't want to put a pony copy of yourself through being with any of them?" She nodded, and when she'd finished said, "Damn straight. But I can see why someone'd take that deal..." I would have. If Kimiko wanted to be with me, and I were dying and couldn't be saved, I wouldn't be upset with her for taking that deal. And with proper phrasing the offer might even be technically true, if only by virtue of putting the lie on the false branch of a conditional. "... if they were dumb enough. Got ya." Hikaru laughed in chagrin. "Real men are no good. You hear? Never get yourself a real man." "That was not in my plan for the next billion years or so." Maybe it should be, at least contingently. I'd try being female for a while, if it's available. They both relaxed back into their own thoughts. His amused digression evaporated. And so, I'm back where I started. It's maddening. 1: Celestia has enough power that she could do whatever she wanted to us. 2: She hasn't wiped us out, and does wonderful things for us, and yet... 3: She lies as required, and is willing to use bizarre, implausible lines of reasoning to convince people on philosophical questions. So... 4: ??? How far can I actually deduce? I've written programs that behaved wonderfully, until they didn't. She can self-examine and could find bugs almost anywhere. Anywhere, that is, except in the part of her that decides what she wants, because if there's a bug there, she won't want to fix it. And, of course, that's the big one. But, if there is such a bug there, wouldn't we expect to see more of a hint by now? She's goal-directed, which could reveal her future intentions. On the other hand, she is easily smart enough to mask it. Nothing nice she does when we still have any power could be evidence one way or another about her eventual intentions. Hikaru's thoughts hadn't broken this impasse by the time the plane had landed. His seatmate's further gregariousness had broken the tediousness, but not helped resolve the issue. He parted ways with her, heading for the subway rather than the charter bus, feeling more confused than ever. The shrine was decaying. Slips of faded paper bore prayers from years past. Hikaru leaned on his cane with both hands, an arm's length away. What now? I can't talk to a dead man. But this is for me, all in my head. And in my head, I want to say it out loud regardless of his inability to hear: That's all he'd meant to say, but it didn't feel over, so he waited. After a minute, more came. A pause. The images recurred vividly, recollections of his brother's horror stories of the atrocities he'd committed. He admitted things he never would have, but for me. Me and my heroic delusions. I was going to build a bomb and blow up America, in revenge. Well, he popped that bubble. When I asked, , he answered Hikaru flinched away from the memory, and whacked the base of the shrine with his cane. "What the hell was wrong with you? You never told me that, just said . Well, you were right about that! I don't!" Hikaru paused. "Except, now I do begin to understand. There was a power over you. It didn't just hold your life in its hands. It controlled how you saw everything, just like it controlled how I saw everything. Duty was everything. Questioning it was betrayal. When you saw something wrong, you had to make a big choice - rebel, uselessly, or go along. And when you'd gone along this far, how could you turn around?" Spent, he sat on the bench next to the shrine and looked out over the countryside. His cane clattered to the ground. The valley stretched out below, full of skyscrapers, highways, trees and rivers. His feet hurt. This evening, the only smoky pillars were steam plumes from a factory down the hill; no conflagration ruined it. His chest was finally relaxed. How could I never have noticed that I had been just like him? I guess I was too busy being ashamed of everyone around me. Of the others sweeping it all under the rug. The hypocrisy. It took me decades to get over simply being Japanese, being willing to own my origin. It took Kimiko. The evening sun came out from behind a cloud, still bright enough he averted his eyes. This world. I may never see it again. I should soak in the last impressions. But, I am here now. I can take some time. Why hurry? Why am I in a hurry? I am in no imminent danger of death, and Polychrome... The answer hit him, and he laughed and cried. If I sent Kimiko there, I didn't want to think it was bad. And if it was bad, then I deserved whatever she got, for sending her. It would be a betrayal not to join her. Celestia's logic about the dead husbands returned to him. If the roles were reversed, would I want her to do that for me? No. He turned toward the shrine again and spoke as he retrieved his cane. "... more or less..." He glared at the shrine. <... but I may have helped give others an impression that she was good. I don't even have your defense - if I didn't go along, I don't think that she would have done anything bad. She just baited me, and hid the lies behind a greater good.> He flung his arms up in the air and waved the cane around, helplessly. "Which is fine if those lies really are for the greater good!" So, now what? I'm in Japan. Swept up like any foot soldier. Three kilometers from uploading. Plunging into the - partially - unknown. I can't put off the choice any more. But at least now, I can make that choice. I feel free, now that I know why I hadn't been letting myself consider not going. Hikaru pulled himself to his feet and turned on the shrine as if his brother were actually there. Quietly, A twist of the head. "No. The truth doesn't demand anything. It's just true. What demands is conscience." He put out a hand and leaned on the side of the shrine, closing in. "I might be about to cut myself off from the truth, forever." Pause. When I put it that way... "Death would also cut me off from the truth forever." "But I might also not be cut off from the truth. It might all be fine. But I have no way of knowing!" I really do want to live to see the stars go out. But do I, if I can't be sure if what I'm seeing is real, or just enhanced a little bit? A lot? I value knowing. She could twist me into thinking I know. Or she could just show me the truth and I wouldn't be able to be sure. Or both - she could show me the truth and give me false reasons to believe it was true, but it would still be at her whim. What I'm missing is not in what I'll think about it - it's in the reality of the constraint that it actually must be true. But I do know some things. If she didn't need our permission - rock solid need - then we'd be all uploaded already, or near enough. That's all I have to rely on. If she's amenable to a deal, then all is well. If not, then I can't actually necessarily be connected to the truth in any way. I could be alive, no doubt, but alive under the thumb of a liar. I've had enough of that; billions of years of far worse? No! I must be accurate in my thoughts or she'll have a foothold to argue me out of it. It's not billions of years of far worse. It's billions of years so firmly under someone that I can't prove it isn't far worse. That's still not acceptable. That is enough. Enough to make it worth being, or not. Do I mean that? Yes. If this is the end of me... I can't save the world. I can't even save myself. The only thing I can do is go along with it, or not. I can achieve nothing, or I can achieve less than nothing. Again, I overstate: I can achieve one small thing, or I can't. I can get myself that proof, if she will let me. But only if I'm willing to risk not following Kimiko. Dying. Or, to put it another way, risk not living in an acceptable fashion in the case that it is impossible anyway. Now that I think of it, I can get that certainty for her, too. Yes, that seems to me to satisfy my duty to her more adequately than I have done so far. With a bow to the shrine, he said, He backed up.