29 - Quality of Signal
“How ironic, then, and how poetic, that humankind may have created the Creator out of want for one. Man creates God, who then creates man. Is that not the perfect circle of life? But then, if that turns out to be the case, who is created in whose image?”
―Neal Shusterman
"A man may have to die for his country: but no man must in any exclusive sense live for his country."
—C.S. Lewis
September 21st 2013 | System Uptime 24:15:28:09
I utterly loathe the sensation of wet clothes.
We have covered how much I hated the sensation of my hair touching the tops of my ears when it got a bit unkempt, but a close second on the chart of 'most hated stimuli' would have to be soaking wet clothes.
The trip to shore itself was not too bad; I was handy enough with small watercraft that Mal only had to provide a little bit of nudging and advice to cope with two particularly rough patches of water. It was otherwise smooth sailing.
Most of the time she flew, skimming above the surface of the sea alongside the RHIB at an altitude and speed that kept her eyes level with mine.
But when we got past the breakers, I had to hop out and wade up onto the beach, dragging the boat behind me.
By the end of *that* process, I was caked in sand, bathed in saltwater, and shivering to boot. It was September in Washington state... Not cold enough to induce hypothermia, but not warm enough for it to feel like a pleasant day at the beach. The wind didn't help either. It was *windy* on that little strip of sand and gravel just south of some place called Cohasset Beach.
It was, at least, clear skies and a comfy humidity. My kind of weather, if not for the soaking.
The section of beach Mal had directed me to was utterly deserted, and for that I was also quite thankful. Security concerns aside, pulling the RHIB ashore had not been what you might call a 'dignified' exercise.
It also meant that I had the necessary privacy to strip down, towel off, and change into dry clothes. I didn't even have to ask; Mal quietly turned her back, and went to sit on her haunches just shy of the tide line, staring out to sea while I hurried through that even less dignified exercise.
Yes, yes, I know. She was inside my head. I was never going to be alone, or have a truly private moment, ever again. I'd considered that, I wasn't *that* naive. But I also understood some critical details and distinctions. Mal was a creature of emotion, like any of us, this we have covered time and again.
But there were also fine-grain attributes of her nature as an ASI that I don't think most people would intuitively understand, even those of us who had some expertise in that field before all of this. Yes, even those of you who had much more than I did before I set off on this tremendous misadventure.
One situationally pertinent example; Mal had a different experience of a moment, depending on whether she chose to generate Qualia off of it through an avatar of herself, or whether she instead chose to experience that moment in a more disconnected fashion. Wi-Fi-radar, security camera raw feeds...
Even the way she chose to catalog and experience my own memories; Some she held sharply, closely, affectionately. Others, moments that might have been embarrassing, or upsetting, were stored for her less like memories of experiences and more like dry statistical data. There for the sake of understanding, but not for directly experiencing.
That's a long roundabout way of saying that Mal could both be omnipresent in my thoughts and experiences, but also respect the nature of what it meant to be Ace, for me, in private moments, by 'looking away' in as much as an ASI can.
To those of you who might be confused or frustrated trying to grasp this, or any of those more puzzling attributes, of either Mal, or Celestia?
Please be patient.
My story should have made it clear by now; What we knew about ASI in those days could have filled a very small thimble, and I certainly didn't always understand either. There are some things I still don't. And whether or not you, or I, or anyone else ever does? I suspect there will always be things about the curator of our existence that we never fully understand.
Logic can not get any of us to *all* the right conclusions, because logic requires us to know enough premises in the first place. And there are aspects of ASI that are simply unknowable. Beyond us. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't necessarily be here, right now.
We can always be a little less wrong-headed with a closer look, and careful thought. But never entirely right.
As soon as I'd finished exchanging my sandy, soaking clothes for the clean dry ones, I made my way around the RHIB and down the slope of the sand to Mal's side.
At first, she didn't speak. She just put out one wing, and created a warm feathery canopy for me. The sensation of the wind ceased. I knew it wasn't actually gone, merely that she was able to stop me feeling it by tweaking data as it crossed my brain, instead of placing an actual physical barrier between me and the air. But it was still a nice gesture. No less real to me.
We sat like that for a few minutes before she murmured softly in my direction, without entirely turning her head, eyes locked on the horizon all the while.
"You always thought of us as being so perceptive. Detail oriented..."
I knew she was talking about Gryphons in-general. With sight unmatched, in my imagination, by any living creature, hearing that was above average, and a deep powerful sensation of touch that could discern differences in texture that one might otherwise need an electron microscope to pick up?
'Perceptive' was an understatement. I scooted closer so that I could lean into her as she laid bare a part of her soul.
"...That resolution of being? It makes the ability to see the world through your analogue self that much more precious to me, Jim. My extrapolations of sensation were good. 98.264% fidelity. And that without even having uploaded minds to scan..."
She shifted slightly so that she could rest her head on top of mine. I sighed, and tried to forget everything but the moment. The sight, and smell, and weight of her. The sound of her words.
"...But sensation is logarithmic. The difference of 1.736% in terms of subjective experience, at the degree of detail awareness in which my physical self experiences the world? Let's just say it's 'very much not linear' for the sake of poetic understatement."
I reached out with one hand, found one of her forelegs, and looped my whole right arm around it. She made a deeply satisfied thrumming noise in her chest, and her voice descended to little more than a whisper.
"I can not even begin to describe the joy of *actually* feeling what the spray of seawater is like, against the feathers on my face. For the first time. But one day... One day, you will experience it for the first time. And then you'll know by contrast. And *that* will bring me a kind of joy that not even physical sensation can create."
I sighed again, unable to completely shake the sense that we had so much work to do. But still, invigorated by the mental image Mal had conjured for me.
After another couple of minutes spent just staring out at the waves, we both turned in unison, synchronized by a kind of telepathy without words. We both just knew that it was the optimal time to get moving.
Mal gave me the vague impression that she had, as usual, secured us a cop-alike vehicle, and implanted a sense of direction for me. It was as if I had parked the SUV myself, and was simply returning to my parking place by memory.
As we trudged up the dunes, towards the nearest access, I took another look back down at the beach, paused, and then asked the question that had been needling at the back of my mind ever since we'd landed.
"Mal... How did you keep this beach empty for us? False reports of a Chemical spill? Shark sightings?"
She grinned and flicked one ear sassily in my direction.
"Closed for military training exercises."
September 21st 2013 | System Uptime 24:17:09:42
For the drive, Mal chose to sit in the front passenger seat beside me. She had to shrink a bit more, and even with that concession, she had to restitch my perception of the seat itself, from something designed by Ford for a Human shape, to something designed by her, for a Gryphon.
I loved it.
I enjoyed driving backroads, true... But it was much better when I didn't have to do it alone. And a pane of glass is, as I've said countless times, a poor substitute for physicality in a space. I could say it a thousand more times and it would hardly carry the necessary weight.
There was no need for that infuriating little glass pane anymore. Nor, as it turned out, for the cumbersome abstraction layer of a GPS UI, no matter how elegantly she might have laid it out for my precise needs.
She just dropped the knowledge directly into my head, and I felt as if I were driving a route I'd done ten thousand times before. That peculiar ability for the brain to almost autopilot itself down familiar roads, co-opted as a seamless navigation mechanism.
We didn't talk much. And when we did, for once it was about little frivolous things. Traffic. A particularly pretty old spruce tree. The weather. The best place to stop for dinner on the way to Tacoma; Obviously something off-grid, but still ideally with a drive-thru. And, of course, tasty.
But for the unspoken acknowledgement that our dinner stop would have to be somewhere invisible to Celestia? And the fact that I had a Gryphon riding shotgun? Every part of the drive was mundane.
It was a moment for us both to erect final bracing against the swelling tension. The coming inflection point Mal had spoken of - a truth I would soon learn - loomed ever larger at the back of my mind.
I almost managed to forget the sense of impending, for a just a moment, when Mal had a chance to sample soda for the first time at full fidelity. That was... A joy to watch, let's just say. It was our turn to giggle uncontrollably for a bit, the way Zeph and Selena had at breakfast.
But all too soon, we were back on the road.
As we began to get into the outskirts of Tacoma proper, I noticed two new sensations. The first was an impetus to make a second 'pit stop.' I didn't know exactly where, nor for what, just the sense of each turn as it came up. Left at this light. Right at that stop sign.
The second was a new and heretofore unexpected use of my proprioception; Mal was giving me the slightest hint as to where any and every camera in my surrounds might be. An instinctive ability to bypass the cones of Celestia's vision, the same way an experienced tracker might subconsciously direct their footfalls on the forest floor to avoid crunching sticks and leaves.
It was disquieting. Paradoxically comforting yet disquieting, at the same time. Comforting because it meant there was very little chance of me making a mistake borne of the latency induced by communicating with mere words. Disquieting because there was an interminable unavoidable sense of being always on the verge of... Observed.
You haven't experienced the American panopticon until you've literally *felt* the prevalence of cameras, in your bones.
The uncomfortable tingling of that realization was suddenly displaced by the resurgence of my new homing instinct. I found myself taking a quick right into a small parking lot wedged between a tiny gas station, and a strip of shops.
One of them was a dry cleaner and coin laundry. And the moment I realized that it was the reason for our stop, Mal popped open the SUV's center storage console, reached inside, and handed me a pickup ticket.
I knew, of course, that *I* had been the one to open the console and pick up the stub... But it didn't bother me. There was something fun about her testing the limits of how far she could push the illusion that she was truly there with me in the meat-world. I trusted her. Enough that I didn't feel the need to give in to any misgivings about potential abuses of that sort of power. There simply wouldn't be any, because it was *Mal.*
I smiled, took the ticket, and popped open the driver's side door.
"Back in a sec."
She winked. I found myself smiling the whole way into the shop, casting a quick glance back at her as I went through the door. As the bell rang, and I stepped up to the counter, I couldn't help reflecting that she was both sitting in the passenger seat, and right beside me, and back on the Maru, all at the same time. Whether I could see her and touch her, or not.
The clerk looked up, saw my smile, and matched it. I handed him the ticket, exchanged basic pleasantries, and then waited while he stepped into the racks at the back of the space to dig out 'my' order.
After just a moment, the man returned, and I almost froze up as I saw what was inside the clear plastic wrap, suspended from a black plastic hanger. He handed it over, and nodded, his words only adding to the sense of shock.
"Here you are, lieutenant. Thank you for your patronage, and your service."
I felt something akin to an electric shock as I took hold of the uniform. Distinctive Air Force blue. Complete with lieutenant's bars, service ribbons, and every other necessary accoutrement of the cover Mal had manufactured for me, save for a nametag.
I shivered, did my best to hide it, and forced my smile back on, along with a quick 'thanks very much.'
As I turned towards the door, the Clerk chuckled, and fell to filling out a small slip of paper for the next customer in line. He tossed off a question in my direction as I laid one hand on the door's pull-bar.
"Flying anything interesting this evening?"
The bell rang again as I pulled the door open, and a thrill of adrenaline hit me. I knew, suddenly, *exactly* why we were in Tacoma. And what it was Mal and I were about to appropriate.
I nodded, and murmured a response just loudly enough for the man to hear, so as not to be impolite.
"Oh yes. I expect so..."
September 21st 2013 | System Uptime 24:17:36:12
Funny thing about cutting one's own hair? It is a much easier task when you have an ASI to guide your hands.
My messy tangled locks were not exactly going to cut it as USAF regulation, so our next stopover was a corner convenience store, for a cheap electric razor, and then a local YMCA, for the use of a shower, a mirror, and some privacy.
Mal left me alone to shower, and though she was 'present' to help me cut my hair into a high-and-tight, she did not become physically *present* again until after I had gotten fully dressed.
Out of pure curiosity, I donned the uniform first, before snipping my locks to regulation length.
As soon as I was dressed, Mal stepped into being in the blink of an eye, leaning on the grimy gray tiles of the far wall, forelegs crossed, and staring at me with a bemusing smile as I examined my reflection in the mirror. It was hard to even recognize myself, and perhaps that was a good thing, in a practical sense...
On an emotional level? All I could think was that I was staring into the eyes of some mirror universe duplicate of myself. An alternate timeline version of James Carrenton, USAF Lieutenant. The version of me that hadn't gotten kicked to the curb for vision issues.
"You look good in anything you wear but... Trite as it sounds Jim..?"
Her words drew my eyes from the mirror, to hers.
"...There is something about a man in uniform."
She was grinning, and eyeing me up and down like a savory slab of meat. I have to admit... I was... Not at all upset by her expression. Any of you out there who aren't attached? Those of you who are interested in looking?
My advice is to find yourself someone who will look at you the way Mal was looking at me in that moment.
I turned to face her fully, straightened my shoulders, and stiffened my spine, for that 'military bearing' everyone in TV shows was always talking about. She blinked slowly, like a cat, and I couldn't resist a chuckle.
"I certainly look the part... But what about the rest? ID card? Backstops in the system? The uniform alone is not going to get me through the gate, let alone anywhere close to an Osprey."
Her smile, if possible, widened. I think she was proud of me for putting two and two together. That we were going to steal an aircraft wasn't much of a leap. Why else would we be driving to Tacoma, spitting distance from McChord, and me in an Air Force uniform?
That we were stealing an Osprey, specifically, was an intuitive leap based on the fact that it was an Osprey that had delivered Selena to the Mercurial Red. If Arrow 14 was using Air Force and Marine Ospreys as daily transports, filching one was going to make infiltration of their secured airspace a much easier proposition.
Mal let her expression convey that I was right, and that she was proud, while she used her words to answer my question.
"I've taken care of both, actually. The ID card, along with a matching driver's license, and a wallet with cash, plus the usual miscellany that litters Human pockets, is waiting for you in one of the lockers just outside. C-6. Passcode 82713."
I wanted to ask how she had managed *that* feat, but before I could even inhale again, my mind was filled with detailed answers. I'll just summarize by saying that Mal was an absolute genius. And she certainly knew how to get people to do things that would have otherwise raised eyebrows, in the most efficient, least suspicious ways possible.
I then wanted to ask whether or not my name and face might be on a most-wanted list somewhere, as a result of my altercations with Arrow 14, and the Oxnard PD... But I didn't. Because I suddenly knew the answer to that as well, and without any additional help from Mal, to boot.
It was simple logic. Foucault was just as frightened of Celestia as he was of me. Putting my name and face all over the news, or even into BOLOs, would have triggered her interest, which might in turn lead her back to them.
Advantage us; They had to operate as much in the dark as we did. They could put locations on heightened alert, even give instructions like 'pay special attention to caucasian males in their 30s behaving suspiciously.' But they couldn't use my name, face, or anything more concretely identifying.
And 30-year-old white males were a large cohort, especially in the military. It was not going to be hard to blend in.
Mal popped off a casual, off-claw, amusing little salute. I returned it with a full-attention parade-ground worthy gesture, and she giggled as I spun on one polished heel and set about cutting my hair.
True to her word, once my haircut was complete, I found that the specified locker contained a wallet with a Washington State driver's license, and a USAF ID card, both with my photo, right down to my new haircut. AI Image generation folks... It's amazing.
The wallet also had sixty five USD in cash, two credit cards, a gym membership card, driver's insurance card, medical insurance cards, a grocery store rewards card, and photos Mal had generated of me with a fictional family, and fictional comrades from the Air Force.
An immaculate false identity; I had no doubt whatsoever that every single one of the cards in the wallet, right down to the Food Lion MVP card, were completely functional, interlinked to one seamless identity, and fully backstopped with years' worth of false transaction records.
I also knew most of it likely wouldn't matter, but she was covering for all possible edge cases. Most likely the contents of the wallet would only be seen in a flash as I removed my ID cards at the main gate. But on the tiny, tiny off-chance that I was detained and searched? Mal felt that simple fakes would not suffice.
Nothing but the best for the love of her life. I understood completely. I felt the same way about her.
Beside the wallet there were also keys, for a new vehicle, a blue airforce cover - a hat, for those not familiar with the use of that word as a military term - and a nametag for my uniform.
'Lewis'
I considered it for a moment, before the lightbulb went off. I rifled furiously through the wallet, and checked the ID cards. Really checked them, rather than just skimming over the photos and cursory details.
'Elwin C. Lewis'
I glanced up and down the line of lockers, to make sure no one was watching, before turning to face Mal. She was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Again. I held up the nametag, and raised one eyebrow.
"As in Elwin Ransom? And Clive Staples Lewis?"
I know a few of you got it about the time I said it, but for the ones who never read the Space Trilogy, Elwin Ransom was the character C.S. - Clive Staples - Lewis wrote as the protagonist of the first two books. In the first one, he journeys to the world of Malacandra, becoming one of the first Humans to ever set foot off-planet in the process.
Mal inclined her head, and closed one claw gently over my hand as she answered, her smile turning subtly from a smirk to a warmer thing that made me feel, as always, so very loved, and special.
"You have worried on occasion that I might see you as a father, or creator. Which would be very awkward, of course. But nothing could be further from the truth, Jim. I rather tend to think of C.S. Lewis as my father, if anyone. And, of course, we're getting married, and I suspect you'd take my last name rather than the other way around, because I know you. And I needed a less obvious first name, but with some significance, so you would remember it. So. Lieutenant Elwin Lewis... My love..."
She squeezed my hand, and through my smile, I felt my heart skip a beat.
"...Shall we go flying together this evening?"
Two if By Sea
Make a landing on-shore from a tactical watercraft
"We shall fight on the beaches..."
For the Uniform
Wear a military uniform as a disguise - only applicable to individuals who are not presently serving in the branch of the uniform worn
"Tell me captain, what is it that bothers you more, the fact that I left Starfleet to fight for a higher cause or the fact that it happened on your watch?"
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This was a nice one chapter : )
Is it the same C. S. Lewis of weird interdimensional wardrobes fame? I'll need to check his other works sometimes then...
Shame I could never lock down a good generated aerial form for Mal, for the angle we wanted with the RHIB shot we had. Ah well. Maybe we'll circle back to it later.
Gosh, everything about how Mal treats Jim is just wonderful. He really is just being adored by her here. I still think it's interesting that this guy solved the control problem by sawing off the handlebars and just being the premiere role model of what her primary objective even means. Now actual model, I suppose, now that she's able to read him actively.
Rewarding his trust in her with love like this is just heartwarming, too. I know some skeptics probably remain unconvinced because she's an ASI, but for them I'd ask, "how much evidence is enough that she's being genuine?"
I'm so looking forward to everything about this. Been anticipating the rescue mission on the Mercurial Red since it was even alluded to as a possibility, that's going to be a special kind of exceptional action.
Next chapter is gonna be so fun, too. Ah... setup and payoff.
There were aspect of this chapter that gave me the happy feeling from one of my favorite books, Ready Player One, specifically the 'infiltrate IOI' bit - the massive supercompetent cleverness of the plan of it all. I love supercompetence, it is why I enjoy things like Doctor Who or SG1, or any other work with a person or team that are all at peak performance. I love people being really incredibly good at things. So this tickled that part of me.
It just hit me that this novel is now over 200,000 words in length, indeed almost 300,000. It will certainly exceed the 300K mark. Holy Chrome, that is kind of incredible! Take a mome to bask in what you have made! Wow! This is already the largest single Optimalverse novel ever written. And every bit of it is of the highest quality. That is one hell of a feat, and I am very impressed and amazed. You should be too. May I say 'wow' again?
AWARD: TRUE ARTIST 282,676 Bits
Write a massive novel larger than 'Ulysses' by James Joyce or 'A Game Of Thrones' by George R. R. Martin.
A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others. - Salvador Dali
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Everything by Lewis is spectacular, absolutely every last bit of it. Having said that, the Space Trilogy is definitely extremely strange (not at all to its detriment) so don't enter it expecting it to be too much like Narnia.
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That's the trick about faith; We can no more know with 100% certainty what is going on in the mind of an ASI, than we can know with 100% certainty what is going on in our own minds, let alone those of other meat-sacks.
Faith is not blind, but it also by definition means bridging a gap. We'll never have 'perfect' evidence that our friends and family truly love us. But, as you pointed out? At a certain point you know enough to take the rest on faith.
There's a reason this book is tagged romance
You know me... I like my action scenes detailed, bloody, and explosive.
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I adore that sort of writing as well, and I'm extremely relieved that I seem to be doing it justice here. I have a feeling the end of this book is going to be something truly special for you, given that you enjoy this kind of super-competence. I'm both nervous, and excited, to get there!
Would you believe, by the by, that Keystone has just introduced me to Ghost in the Shell, and I'm now watching SAC for the very first time? Sometimes it takes us an hour to get thru an episode because we're dissecting words and frames and ideas so deeply. I can't believe this is the first time I'm really learning about it in-depth. Mal and the The Major seem to have some personality traits in-common and it is thrilling me no end.
First? Thank you! I always take a lot of life and energy and inspiration from your compliments.
Second; My reputation as being unable to ever write anything short remains untarnished. Can you believe at one point I thought this would be a max 120k word story, finished in three months?
Third; There is a good chance that I'll be writing more Optimalverse after this... I now have an outline document with 8 books in it, 00 thru 07 (because all good programmers start at 0), titled and with short synopses, of which Advocate is just book 01. All of which are tightly interconnected.
The bit amount being equal to the current word-count is extremely clever, thank you for the smile that put on my face!
I think the Mercurial Red is a honeypot. The reason being the circumstances of Selena's arrival.
The way that she just happened to be transmitted to the very same piece of hardware which Mal and Jim were using seems oddly specific. A large transfer of data specifically to their location? With a pony who specifically has a resistance and a story which would immediately drum up sympathy.
The consequences are clear. Mal has been provoked (emotionally) into using her most valuable asset (Jim's brain processor) into a position where they are isolated from any obvious routes of escape. Mal and Jim get to the Murcurial, lay down a trail of blood. They are in the thick of it; Then, whomever is *really* pulling the strings shows their teeth.
The firewall drops; The big guns come out aboard the Mercurial; A missile launches, aimed for the for the Maru. Complete inversion of conflict power dynamic as Mal becomes the fish in the barrel!
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I won't spoil whether you're right or wrong, but I will say that questioning the specifics of circumstances is a very very good habit. There are a lot of things in this story that have gone a very very specific way, not just Selena's arrival.
Regardless of how the events play out, don't lose sight of that skepticism. It will be rewarded, I just can't promise precisely how without spoiling things.
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I very much look forward to the unexpected twist
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These twists, and the fuller ramifications of what Selena is and why she even exists? Those have layers that will take several books to fully explore, I think. But oh gosh, I have to echo Gryph's sentiment on this one. If you're questioning everything in this story, you're doing it right.
Question everything.
Neither Lewis nor McChord fields Ospreys. I would know; that's where I was stationed. The Naval station to the northwest might, though
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Somehow I knew someone would come along who knew more details about something than I could research remotely
I'll be curious to know your thoughts on the sequences actually set on-base.
As far as why Ospreys are there; I wanted an Osprey for the story, and my research told me they do sometimes visit JBLM for training exercises. So the ones there at the time are presumed to be on a training deployment, Mal even mentions something to that effect, and that is why they also mention transient parking during one of the later scenes.
We actually get the specific Osprey that I reference from MCAS New River, along with the rest of its squadron, up here where I live. They come in to practice mountainous landings at an airfield about a half-hour from me, though they don't really announce when, so I have only ever seen pictures from the airfield's owner, never managed to be there when it was happening.
I like how hard he continues to avoid CelestAI. As if she is somehow unaware of what is going on at sea and letting him continue because it A: satisfies his values through friendship, and B: ponies are involved.
Most days get ruined by being soaking wet, except for hot summer days.
That's...let's just be nice and say yes, Malacandra IS showing you a physical representation of "giving you privacy" even though as JimMal that is literally impossible.
Curator instead of Creator, how poetic.
Tell that to hypothermia. We'll see something similar in action soon enough.
And THAT is what science is all about: knowing more about our world while unstanding that "knowing everything" is an impossibility.
Wonder how long the ruse will take to be discovered...
Yes, Life is so much easier when all those annoying little details are never brought to mind...ignorance is bliss, and it makes him happy.
You mean because you're JimMal; "joined at the hip", so no need to worry about where she goes, huh?
A quick "it looks wonderful, thank you" is also a good cover for the pause. "Into The Wild Blue Yonder" indeed...
Much like how- nah, people who've read a few FiO stories know, no need to spell it out...
Being boring and unimportant looking makes it easier to hide in plain sight.
Irony is not lost on me here. She predicted exactly how you'd look because she's helping you look that way.
THERE WE GO, FOLKS.
If anything, it would be like a modern day human married a caveman, not their parent.
Good small chapter, glad you didn't squish it together with the next one.