For anyone who was following "elfin safety" is this endy enough? Oh, plus any other comments, obviously.
There were four of them, three males and a female, of the subspecies that does not accept anything it cannot weigh, or measure.. Three men and a woman, I suppose, though I hesitate to apply the term ‘human’ to anything without a vestige of the dream. None was young; advancement in their service was by seniority, not brilliance. Despite being of different skin colour and culture they gave the impression of being the same pod-person, multiple bodies with just one mind.
The room was as impersonal, bleak and air-conditioned as their personality. There was no evil here, no revenge*; none would ever be seen stroking a persian cat and dreaming of world domination. Their motive was stasis, and the protection of humanity from the dangerous results of its own choices, generally by eliminating choice.
“So, is you have no control over the beast, as you claim, what reason do we have for not eliminating you right now*?”
“None that I can see, although you might consider killing me outright. Locking me up and ‘disappearing’ me didn’t stop my friends from finding me last time.” This was not gallows humour, quite. While they would not hesitate to have someone killed, it went against their working principles “When we summoned Linda, that was all we did*; no compulsions, no control.”
“Linda*?” A flash of – not hope, that’s too emotive, more the calculation that, in symbolic magic, a name was power.
“What else would you call a Lindwurmgeist? It won’t do you any good with her, though*; she’s not intelligent enough to recognise a name, let alone all it implies. Your best hope would be to download a hero onto the net, to go out and challenge her, and there is no leverage you can apply to make it be me. Otherwise you could close the web down for a few days*; she’s too big to fit in any normal mode, and she can only survive for a limited time, cut up into small pieces. But why bother*?The damage is done. Why not just let her be*?”
“But she’s tied up almost ten percent of the world’s capital. She’s done more damage to the economy than the credit card crunch.” The woman, this time. She had a nice voice, low and controlled like an actress; a shame she was on the side of law and order.
“And you think that killing her will bring it back*? All she can touch is electronic chits; the worst she has done is shut down a nuclear reactor, and that implies that human hackers could have done it, too. All the real wealth still exists*; such as was lost was a fantasy, a dangerous dream. I’m surprised you’re not praising her for bursting the illusion.” There was no answer to this, and I myself knew it for, at best, a half truth. The faerie gold had been as effective at stimulating progress as cold-war competitivity had been for leaving a boot print on the moon; after all, every ideal is, in some measure, an illusion, and only the grey bean-counters would hope to analyse the power of a dream. “It would be easy enough to modify the summoning spell so a heroic gamer – or group of gamers – could leave his body in a coma and ride the web for adventure, risk and renown – but such flamboyant examples serve my cause, rather than yours. And it won't be me, or any of my companions you'll persuade to do it, either.”
"That sounds dangerous." This from the man I took to be senior, the one who had spoken to me when I first came in. European features and the remains of a public school accent were topped off by a generous plume of fine white hair, reacting to every slightest air current.
"It would be. She's not bright, but she's very strong, and not very vulnerable. She's had time to acclimatise to her new environment, too.
"We couldn't allow people to put themselves in danger."
"Why not? Society always has encouraged it. And I know you wouldn't lack volunteers.
Or leave her as she is; she won't go looking for trouble, now, if you don't disturb her.Nice hoard, good tunnel; why should she move?
Either way, I have won."
"You have? You have,"
"That's right, magic is loose, the world is in colour again. It will take you a generation to leech it back to grey and white." Dammit, I was preaching, and explaining myself like the villain in a B feature. But it felt so good to reverse moralise. "This is one djinn you won't squeeze back into the bottle with your logic and security. How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm when they know there's another facet of reality untarnished by Einstein and Newton (although he might have had a clue or two).
Fairy tales can be dark and threatening, but without them humans are merely biological machines..." There was a tapping on the window; fairly surprising, as the lift had intimated that we were on the sixth floor. A flip of the blinds revealed a magnificent gryphon circling, and, on the ledge outside, a small being with a bronze hammer and cold chisel.
"Ah, tat's where tha ist." Muffled, through sealed glass, but not for long. Two sharp hammer blows and the frame was swinging towards me "Look smart, boyo, thy steed awaits,"
The grey masters of our risk made no effort to stop me I dived through the widening gap; they'd found me once, they'd find me again if they needed to.
And the three of us soared through a magnificent sky the sunset had painted with bars of magic.
There were four of them, three males and a female, of the subspecies that does not accept anything it cannot weigh, or measure.. Three men and a woman, I suppose, though I hesitate to apply the term ‘human’ to anything without a vestige of the dream. None was young; advancement in their service was by seniority, not brilliance. Despite being of different skin colour and culture they gave the impression of being the same pod-person, multiple bodies with just one mind.
The room was as impersonal, bleak and air-conditioned as their personality. There was no evil here, no revenge*; none would ever be seen stroking a persian cat and dreaming of world domination. Their motive was stasis, and the protection of humanity from the dangerous results of its own choices, generally by eliminating choice.
“So, is you have no control over the beast, as you claim, what reason do we have for not eliminating you right now*?”
“None that I can see, although you might consider killing me outright. Locking me up and ‘disappearing’ me didn’t stop my friends from finding me last time.” This was not gallows humour, quite. While they would not hesitate to have someone killed, it went against their working principles “When we summoned Linda, that was all we did*; no compulsions, no control.”
“Linda*?” A flash of – not hope, that’s too emotive, more the calculation that, in symbolic magic, a name was power.
“What else would you call a Lindwurmgeist? It won’t do you any good with her, though*; she’s not intelligent enough to recognise a name, let alone all it implies. Your best hope would be to download a hero onto the net, to go out and challenge her, and there is no leverage you can apply to make it be me. Otherwise you could close the web down for a few days*; she’s too big to fit in any normal mode, and she can only survive for a limited time, cut up into small pieces. But why bother*?The damage is done. Why not just let her be*?”
“But she’s tied up almost ten percent of the world’s capital. She’s done more damage to the economy than the credit card crunch.” The woman, this time. She had a nice voice, low and controlled like an actress; a shame she was on the side of law and order.
“And you think that killing her will bring it back*? All she can touch is electronic chits; the worst she has done is shut down a nuclear reactor, and that implies that human hackers could have done it, too. All the real wealth still exists*; such as was lost was a fantasy, a dangerous dream. I’m surprised you’re not praising her for bursting the illusion.” There was no answer to this, and I myself knew it for, at best, a half truth. The faerie gold had been as effective at stimulating progress as cold-war competitivity had been for leaving a boot print on the moon; after all, every ideal is, in some measure, an illusion, and only the grey bean-counters would hope to analyse the power of a dream. “It would be easy enough to modify the summoning spell so a heroic gamer – or group of gamers – could leave his body in a coma and ride the web for adventure, risk and renown – but such flamboyant examples serve my cause, rather than yours. And it won't be me, or any of my companions you'll persuade to do it, either.”
"That sounds dangerous." This from the man I took to be senior, the one who had spoken to me when I first came in. European features and the remains of a public school accent were topped off by a generous plume of fine white hair, reacting to every slightest air current.
"It would be. She's not bright, but she's very strong, and not very vulnerable. She's had time to acclimatise to her new environment, too.
"We couldn't allow people to put themselves in danger."
"Why not? Society always has encouraged it. And I know you wouldn't lack volunteers.
Or leave her as she is; she won't go looking for trouble, now, if you don't disturb her.Nice hoard, good tunnel; why should she move?
Either way, I have won."
"You have? You have,"
"That's right, magic is loose, the world is in colour again. It will take you a generation to leech it back to grey and white." Dammit, I was preaching, and explaining myself like the villain in a B feature. But it felt so good to reverse moralise. "This is one djinn you won't squeeze back into the bottle with your logic and security. How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm when they know there's another facet of reality untarnished by Einstein and Newton (although he might have had a clue or two).
Fairy tales can be dark and threatening, but without them humans are merely biological machines..." There was a tapping on the window; fairly surprising, as the lift had intimated that we were on the sixth floor. A flip of the blinds revealed a magnificent gryphon circling, and, on the ledge outside, a small being with a bronze hammer and cold chisel.
"Ah, tat's where tha ist." Muffled, through sealed glass, but not for long. Two sharp hammer blows and the frame was swinging towards me "Look smart, boyo, thy steed awaits,"
The grey masters of our risk made no effort to stop me I dived through the widening gap; they'd found me once, they'd find me again if they needed to.
And the three of us soared through a magnificent sky the sunset had painted with bars of magic.
