AP5, Ch. 39, 40 (Patreon)

Chapter 39

Time until next Challenge: 8 days,  14 hours, 22 minutes

Four hours later, my head was aching.

At least Vince was trapped in here with me, and at least the kids weren’t. After the first 20 minutes, I’d asked someone to track down Priya, who had graciously agreed to oversee my ragamuffins and keep them in a minimum of trouble, although she’d left Pointy with us.

“Is it really necessary that I understand all this?” I said. “Can’t I just, you know, sign where you tell me to?”

Quinn Stewart, the head of my legal team, shook her head gently. “We’ve been over this, Ms. Moretti. We don’t know what will happen when the contest concludes. Based on what we understand of the transmissions between the Voices for Non-Citizens, you should be able to request legal representation, but it’s unclear if human professionals will be automatically admitted to practice in the Commonwealth or not. We’re fairly certain that our laws will have some persuasive weight - although we don’t know how much - but you need to at least know enough about what we’ve tried to accomplish here that you can communicate it to your extraterrestrial legal defenders.”

“I have Eidetic Memory and Basic Hologram. I can just scan these all and-”

“And rely on your alien lawyers’ understanding of English and Earth laws?”

“Uh…”

“There are quite a few documents here. Are you certain you could direct them to the ones relevant to their questions?”

I scowled. “I guess not.”

One of the other lawyers cleared his throat. “Not to mention the fact that contracts’ enforceability can be called into question if it turns out that the signatories didn’t understand what they were agreeing to.”

Another, younger lawyer perked up. “Duty to read should put us in the clear-”

Quinn raised a hand, cutting her off. “We’re not leaving the fate of the planet Earth to ‘shoulds,’ Casey! We’re making things as airtight as we can. That means covering all our bases and leaving no room for accusations of fraud or duress.”

“I’m still not happy that we can’t have Ariel sign directly,” said the first man.

“I am physically capable of signing,” Pointy said. “But you are not allowing me to sign. Human four-month-olds are not permitted to sign contracts on their own behalf, regardless of their intellectual capacity. Although Ariel is substantially older than I, she is not yet three years of age. The same rules apply.”

“I just think that’s going to get challenged eventually. The provisions for-”

“We are not responsible for making the law, just for applying it,” Quinn said firmly.

I groaned and picked up the next bundle of papers. 

I’d been given a quick primer on the UGE, or United Government of Earth, a body that was apparently eleven hours old. The potential - however faint it might be - to actually keep our entire planet after the Maffiyir had excited people. Apparently, my brainstorm had brought together a number of different factions that had already been angling for related things: several groups had been campaigning for a united government to better negotiate with the aliens, others had been trying to get more rights and recognition for Information Assistants, and still more had been campaigning for an expanded and official definition of “humanity” for other reasons. Their major goal had been to ensure that people heavily altered by biological augments weren’t mistreated, but after I’d gotten things rolling they’d seen the way things were headed and jumped on-board with gusto.

The groups campaigning for a united government had already worked out detailed proposals, but they’d gotten bogged down by minor conflicts between their visions and reluctance by the remnants of former governments to relinquish power to a governing body that included their historic rivals. 

Those old rivalries hadn’t vanished, but hatred for the Maffiyir had overwhelmed it. The chance to keep our planet - and screw over the Maffiyir Corporation - had galvanized leaders around the world into action, and things had moved forward for the UGE with shocking speed.

It currently represented 113 of Earth’s 195 previous countries, including every one of the twenty most populous. There were a few groups reluctant to join, like the remnants of North Korea, but the leadership of most countries had barely hesitated. The biggest reason we were still missing so many potential signatories? The state of the world. Just finding and reaching smaller island nations like Tuvalu without GPS or modern transportation was challenging. In other cases, like Somalia, there wasn’t any challenge with reaching the nation, there weren’t any organized groups that had links to the previous government. Finding out who - if anyone - had authority over the area was a matter of guesswork at best.

The UGE was pretty bare-bones at the moment, which had probably been a factor in encouraging countries to sign. There were very few laws on the books: provisions for electing the UGE’s governing council, the laws for changing the UGE’s laws, recognition of the humanity of any artificial intelligence mentally linked to a human, and familial and adoption laws, with the caveat that anyone in a familial relationship with a human was also “human.” Other than that, authority was left with local governments.

Despite the minimalist nature of the UGE’s legal code, that somehow still represented several novels worth of text, which the legal team was going over with us line by agonizing line.

The one bright spot in the proceedings was signing the papers to officially adopt Pointy. Many Information Assistants were being adopted by the people they were linked to, but Cassie was a minor.

“This shouldn’t be necessary,” Quinn explained. “UGE law should recognize Pointy as a human regardless. But-”

“It’s not a problem,” Vince said.

“Pointy’s already part of the family. I’m happy to make it official, especially if it has a chance of making life better for her and Cassie in the future,” I added. “At least, as long as you’re in favor of it, Pointy? I don’t know how you feel about meatbags getting more authority over you.”

“According to your legal system, I am a minor. There are no machine intelligences on Earth of sufficient age for independence. You have a strong track record of having my best interests at heart, and I can’t deny that I frequently find your insights valuable. I would be most pleased, if you are willing.”

Pointy had been waddling around the table, examining all the paperwork. Shge crossed over and watched quietly as Vince and I signed and initialed the relevant pages.

I smiled at her as I set down my pen, reaching over to pat her shell. “There! Now it’s official: Pointy Turtle Moretti.”

Pointy trembled beneath my fingers. After a moment, she laughed, a wobbly sound. “This should be a minor thing. It ought not meaningfully alter our day-to-day interactions. But… apparently my emotional subroutines class your acceptance as anything but minor. Even if you’re doing this only to help Cassie-”

“We’re not,” I said. 

“Oh,” Pointy said. 

When she didn’t say anything else, I picked her up off the table, holding her in a one-armed hug against my shoulder as the lawyers moved on to the next item. Pointy didn’t object, raising her fuzzy head to rub against my cheek in returned affection.

The next item was less emotionally straightforward for me: adopting Ariel into the family. I’d thought a lot about what getting Ariel’s possessions recognized as human property might take, and I’d considered the possibility that someone might need to adopt her… but I’d still hoped I’d be able to avoid it.  I wasn’t the only Linked User, after all. Unfortunately, the other Linked Users were in more precarious situations, now that I’d made it to Fort Defiance. Aside from myself, only Zahra Syed, the Pakistani linked user, had access to legal counsel, and she’d already had to change locations several times and expected to do so at least once more. Hopefully her next set of defenses would prove adequate, but I was clearly in a safer position right now.

Once that was all explained, it was obvious that I - or Vince and I - were the logical choice to adopt the Overmind responsible for over a billion deaths. I stopped arguing, at least aloud, but I met Vince’s eyes several times as we filled things out. I could tell the situation troubled him too.

It took another two hours for us to finish filling out the forms and leave.

Our aide was somehow still high-energy. “Alright! Great work. I’ll take you to the mess hall again to grab a bite, then we can go meet with leadership.”

I grabbed his shoulder as he started off. “Could we get food brought to us instead? And a few minutes of privacy? Plus, I want to check in on my kids before we get caught in another hours-long strategy session.”

He seemed surprised. “Uh… Yeah, that should be doable. Um, just a minute.”

Ten minutes later, Vince and I were sitting in what was clearly someone’s tiny private office with a stack of spacecakes and two glasses of water. Pointy had left with the aide to go meet up with Priya and the kids, giving us a few moments to ourselves. 

There was only one chair. I ignored it, sitting down against the wall.

Vince sat down next to me, taking a chomp of a spacecake and letting me lean against his shoulder. “So.”

I nodded. “So.”

We both ate in silence for a minute, our crunched bites the only sounds, until Vince waved the rest of his spacecake in the air, glaring at it. “It shouldn’t make a difference.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“She’s still got a brain the size of a planet,” he said.

“She’s still killed more than a billion people,” I added.

“She’s done horrible things to you.”

“Repeatedly.”

“We agreed to this because someone had to, for the sake of, well, everyone. Everything.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But we did agree.”

Vince frowned, then slumped. “Maybe that’s it.”

“That’s what I figure. It’s like… it’s like adopting a kid who’s been in juvie or maybe has a history of substance abuse. No matter what that kid has going on, it doesn’t change your responsibilities.”

“Ariel isn’t a kid,” Vince muttered. “She’s got more brainpower than all of us put together.”

“And less common sense than Cassie,” I said. 

Vince snorted. “No argument on that. Hopefully that conscience you mentioned will change things.”

“Hopefully. But… child or not, Ariel clearly needs guidance and people looking out for her interests. We agreed, so that’s us.”

“I can’t believe we just legally adopted Cassie’s stuffed animal and it’s not the craziest thing we’ve done today.”

I laughed, then frowned.

“What’s up?” Vince asked.

I shrugged. “I still resent her. I’m worried I won’t do my best by her because of that. It’s fair, in a way, but…”

“...But everyone deserves to have their parents 100% in their corner.”

“Yeah. Even if we had ulterior motives for agreeing to take on the role, it’s not like Ariel has any other family. And even aside from the ethical concerns, it’s a pragmatic thing. If you’ve got someone very powerful on your side, you treat them right. That’s just logical.”

Vince stretched. “I had the same thoughts, honestly, and I don’t know what to do with them. Thinking about what she did to you makes me furious. Even if I set that aside, there’s still the fact that she put Cassie at extra risk. She basically used our preschooler’s Specialty as a test run for messing with human brains.”

I nodded. “And that test hurt Pointy, too, even if Cassie made it out okay. It’s frustrating, because one of the ideas I had was asking Pointy to let me know if I wasn’t being fair to Ariel.”

“That’s still a good idea,” Vince said. “Pointy doesn’t like what Ariel did, but she doesn’t seem to hold a grudge about it. Not the same way we would, anyway.”

I sighed, pushing myself to my feet and offering Vince a fist. “Best we can?”

He bumped his knuckles to mine. “That’s all we can do.”

Chapter 40

Time until next Challenge: 7 days,  23 hours

“You know, this seems like a lot of trouble. I’m sure I could just go out with a kill team. You’ve got the area locked down really well, and it’s not like we can’t see the legoliaths coming.”

“This is safer, ma’am,” said General Cleary.

“Well, sure, but I’ve been fighting monsters successfully for months and battled my way across hundreds of miles to get here, you know. I may not be as durable as my husband, but I’m hardly made of glass.”

The general tilted his head up to eye me skeptically, his hands clasped behind his back. “Ms. Moretti, you are a national - no, sorry, global - asset. Can you honestly tell me that there is zero additional risk to that asset if I let you leave the fort?”

I made a face. I couldn’t, and he knew I couldn’t. 

He nodded, accepting my non-response as the surrender it was. “Ma’am, quite frankly, I questioned myself for even allowing you up on the walls. But…”

“Seven days,” I said.

General Cleary nodded. “We can’t afford to give up advantages, but we can’t afford to risk you, either.”

I sighed, seeing the truth of what he’d said. Vince was out hunting a pattern of his own, but I hadn’t let my kids accompany him. Why would I? There was no benefit. They didn’t own Shops they couldn’t access4. They’d be protected for the rest of this week until the Challenge, and if we didn’t win by the time the Challenge started, no amount of abilities would save them. Or me. “I guess I should enjoy the fresh air while I can.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

It wasn’t a particularly pleasant day outside. We were in West Virginia in late November, with temperatures only slightly above freezing. I’d been given a coat to guard against the light rain, but a brisk wind still drove the chilly droplets against my exposed forehead and hands.

Not the kind of day I’d usually enjoy, but if things didn’t go well for us this week, this might be the last time I stood beneath the sky.

<I am making all efforts to ensure your victory and our mutual survival.>

Oh? Have you come up with anything new? Maybe a way to hand out more Shops after all?

<Not at present. Even the kiosk price had to be dramatically escalated to put the pattern on normal monsters. Putting a Shop pattern on normal monsters would require an escalation of even greater magnitude.>

Meaning…?

<I cannot find a way to reduce the price below 200,000 Money.>

Very few people would be able to afford that, and that’s a lot of Money we can’t spend on land directly. You’re sure you can’t make like… a kiosk that only sells land?

<Modifying patterns is challenging. The kiosk adjustment was relatively minor, but that would not be. The mechanism for selecting plots requires the large display of the Shops.>

Well, keep working on finding another way to sell us land. But… I guess you should still add the Shop pattern as a drop, even if the price is insane. 

<I will need to implement a new monster.>

Go ahead. You’ve got a list of the ones we were considering last time, right? Don’t spawn them all right away, but I’m pre-approving all of those. Just in case another Linked User goes down and you can’t verify my identity anymore.

<Acknowledged. Although Cricket suggests I share my deep concern at that possibility.>

I winced. Even if I’d never spoken with Cricket directly, she was really working to humanize Ariel for me - letting me know when the vast AI experienced emotions I could empathize with. I’m sorry, I told her. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

What else was there to say? I wasn’t sure. Instead, I focused on directing my flock of floating knives, attacking each monster that drew near. Some had appeared close to the fort and were chasing people toward the walls. Others had appeared farther away, too far for my allies to lead them close. Instead, they’d been disabled and carried over, helpless offerings. 

Vince had returned by the time I got my Shop Management Kiosk pattern, and we set them up together, safely within the walls of Fort Defiance. He’d last withdrawn Money from his Shop two months before. I’d been able to access my Shop through the other one I’d owned in Fort Autumn, but even though only a few days had passed, I still had thousands of Money in taxes, so Vince was probably in the “tens of thousands” range.

Spending it was easy enough, thanks to the foresight of Fort Defiance’s planners, who’d found a way to hack the Shop placement rules: early in the construction of the fort, they’d dug a deep pit, making a large area in the center of the planned fort count as “outside” and eligible for Shop placement. They’d located someone who’d saved their pattern, had them place the Shop, then built the fort over and around it. Visiting the Shop held zero risk, only the slight inconvenience of traversing ten flights of stairs.

When Vince and I finished spending our Money, I couldn’t help but question Ariel. It’s been over a day since you added these patterns. Vince and I must be some of the last to get them. What’s our purchase progress?

<It has accelerated. Nearly 2% of Earth’s non-liquid surface was claimed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total claimed to 15.7%.>

Hm… with a little less than eight days left, that might be just enough. If we can keep up that rate, we’ll win about seven hours before the next Challenge hits. That’s pretty tight but it’s better than what we were doing before. Great work, Ariel! Keep it up.

<Acknowledged. Cricket suggests I express gratitude for your approval.>

Time until next Challenge: 6 days,  23 hours

“We’re not on-track anymore?” General Cleary asked.

I shook my head. “No. We did great after Ariel introduced the kiosk pattern, but it looks like the boost we got from that was temporary. We got just over a full percent in the past day. We’re up to 16.8%.”

“Damnit. That’ll leave us over 5% short… Let’s see if the think tank has any new ideas you and Ariel can help with.”

Time until next Challenge: 5 days,  22 hours

“We’re not going to make it.”

Vince shot a look at the kids, but I’d timed my statement well. They were out of earshot and heavily distracted. The stoneshapers who’d formed Fort Defiance were still in the area, and with the multitude of defenders, they had plenty of strength left over after repairing the walls. A couple of them had hollowed out an underground jungle gym, with play equipment made of thick swoops of stone that even my kids would be hard-pressed to damage. Surprisingly, there were a few other kids present at Fort Defiance. Not many, but the area where the fort had been built had been only mostly uninhabited, and some of the residents had chosen to stay rather than relocate. My kids, Anju, and six others were currently involved in a high-octane game of superpowered tag and were having the time of their lives.

Enjoy it while you can, I thought, heartsick. 

“It’s still possible, isn’t it?” Priya asked. 

I grimaced. “Technically, according to Ariel. But… we were about half as effective yesterday as we were the day before. We’re at 17.4%.”

Priya sucked in a nervous breath.

Vince frowned. “What do you mean when you say it’s technically possible? It doesn’t seem like we’re on track.”

“The Money’s out there,” I clarified. “It just isn’t being spent, or at least not how we need it to be.”

“Are you sure? We’ve only been in the contest for five months… Pointy, didn’t you say that most species took around three years?”

“I did,” said Pointy. “But the Money earned doesn’t go up as much as you’d think after the first few weeks of the contest, and the costs do go up. The usual length of contests is generally used as evidence for the… uncivilized nature of the species in question. The Voices for Non-Citizens have repeatedly stated that the Maffiyir Company claims that a species ‘competing optimally’ could complete the contest in a small percentage of the time usually spent.”

I snorted. “Yeah, sure. But that doesn’t happen.”

“Not typically, no. Perhaps not ever, but I don’t have enough data to say for certain.”

“There’s tons for people to waste Money on,” Vince said. “Fancy snacks, cool weapons, entertainment.”

“I think the heirs thing is probably the biggest factor in slowing most contests down,” I said. “Especially since the most successful people keep getting sent to Challenges. They die, and all their land, all their Money, and all the progress they made toward winning the contest vanishes.”

“But we’ve been getting people to set heirs…” Priya said.

“We have,” I acknowledged. “And I’m sure that’s helping us out. But as hard as we’ve been trying to get the word out, we haven’t been perfect. Ariel said that about a third of the people who died yesterday still didn’t have living heirs set, so their deaths set us back.”

“They might not have been able to get to Shops to set them,” Vince said. “Albuquerque and Huntsville are doing well, so our Shops are still standing, but… it really sounds like we’re the exception.”

I winced. “That’s… not quite true, but it’s more true than I’d like. With all the road snake Titans and the legoliath Threats, we’re down to about half the Shops available that we had six days ago.”

“Ariel added the new Shop patterns, right?” Vince asked.

“Yeah, but with the cost, only two have been built. It hasn’t had a big impact.”

“Can she just sell us land directly?”

I shook my head. “She says no. She could make a drop for an individual plot or group of plots, but she can’t figure out how to make an adjustable drop, so she’d need to add a new monster and a new pattern for each individual purchase… which… obviously… doesn’t really help.”

“Well… fuck,” Vince said.

“Yeah.”

“So… what can we do?” Priya asked. “Has anyone thought of a way to give us a fighting chance during the Challenge?”

I shook my head. “At this point, we just have to hope that either Ariel figures something out, or humanity steps it up.”