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docfuture · 4 years ago

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Princess, part 14

[This story is a prequel, set in an alternate 2012, several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates are theoretically biweekly, but it’s 2020 8-) Next chapter is partly done so I’m going to try for before the end of the year.]

Previous: Part 13

Memories. Flicker was sensitive to anything that might disrupt them. With her speed, subjective versus objective time was hopeless from the start. Even 'When was that again?' and getting things in the right order was difficult. She needed to forget the vast majority of things that happened when she sped up. There just wasn't space in her squishy biological brain for what she could accumulate at a million times the speed of normal human subjective consciousness. She had always felt close to the edge of what was possible to remember. At least for as long as she could remember--and she didn't remember anything episodic before she was nine. How did normal humans remember, really? It was frustrating to ask them. They didn't know, they just did. And the scientific literature was frustratingly poor at providing the answers she most wanted, because they were hard to quantify and measure. Doc said recalling social interactions from episodic memory was partially a learned skill--itself stored in implicit memory. Which Flicker was a lot better at, but didn't really understand either. Today she remembered bits and pieces while she prepared for work. She remembered talking to Sealord about trying to act human when you weren't. Sealord was a... Well, you couldn't really call him superhuman anything, because he wasn't human. He wasn't alien, either; he'd lived on Earth longer than most humans. He was a supercephalopod giant squid, who'd had the kind of origin event that might turn a human into a superhuman if they were very lucky--and kill them if they weren't. He was good at shapeshifting, but going from a deep sea invertebrate to a land biped was a big ask before you even got to the human part. He looked like a handsome, Polynesian-appearing man in his social landform. But when he started to talk, he seemed to move into the uncanny valley for many people. Not Flicker. She didn't expect human. She expected 'communicate well enough to be understood', and he did. He wasn't trying to 'pass' as human--he was a powerful being assuming a form compatible with air-based speech and human infrastructure. She actually thought his old utility surface form suited him better. He was more comfortable with it, and that showed. At least to her. It looked like a human body with a squid for a head. It let him use tentacle waving and pigmentation changes for non-verbal communication--which he was very good at--and tentacle type at a keyboard, which was easier for him than using hands, even when he had them. But its appearance triggered fear even worse than his social form. Which made it counterproductive for diplomacy. "No," he had said. "I am not better. At acting human. Than you." His speech was slow when he wasn't in a hurry, and his verbal cadence was unusual. Using lungs and vocal cords and a human-style mouth together in the right way had taken him a long time to master. Flicker didn't get impatient. Getting the timing of speech right was tricky. She did remember learning that, and the frustration. "I am better at shapeshifting," he said. "Squid are better at body mimicry. Than humans. I started with an advantage. I am worse at other things. You are better at human things. As a human." "But I'm not better," said Flicker. "Not at the hard things." A shake of the head. "Yes. Difficult things. Humans learn as children. And don't think them hard. They start with an advantage." "What hard human things do you think I'm good at?" "Running." Sealord smiled. "Throwing rocks." Flicker thought about that for a long time.

She remembered Jetgirl's laugh. They'd been having another round in their half-joking, half serious argument about whether Flicker could fly. "He's right," said Jetgirl. She grinned. "You are way better at moving fast than I am at flying." "But flying is hard." "Lots of things are. And humans have no natural ability at it. But birds and insects do, so people can see what good flying looks like. You've watched a hummingbird hover. Impressive, right?" "Yeah. But scale matters--a Canada goose taking off is pretty cool, too. I've watched that more times, because it looks so clunky. But it works." The laugh. "Take-offs and landings are usually the hardest. Anyway, most humans can run--or at least they could when they were kids--so they don't think running is as impressive. And if you're moving slow enough to see, you're usually doing your glide thing, which doesn't look hard. No one sees you move your legs much, just an occasional flash and boom." "That glide is a convenience and safety habit. It's quiet, and I don't have to worry about damage if I speed up suddenly." Another grin. "Yeah, you've already taken off, so the hard part is over." "It's only a few centimeters up--I don't fly," said Flicker. "I just run on air so the ground doesn't get wrecked." "That's flying like a maglev. You go higher as you speed up. Lots of pilots who fly nap-of-the-earth study your patterns of flashes and booms, for educational purposes." "That's because I have to be real careful to not run into things. Or even get too close when I'm trailing shockwaves and plasma." "Not running into things is pretty important for them, too." "I'm still not flying. Sealord's point was that humans are already adapted for bipedal locomotion, and I started with that advantage. You don't fly with your legs and feet." "I don't. And that being careful is part of 'way better'." "A point. But my speed means I can make time to be careful." "That's what I meant. You build on your speed with skill and practice." Flicker remembered. It was time to use what she was good at to help people again. Yesterday had been a test run, logging bio-telemetry and mind coordination to the Database. Today was Flicker's first try at going 'on duty' since recovering from Speedtest. She followed Stella's guidelines. It was easiest to forestall self-deception at a beginning. Flicker had fallen into a form of metric myopia in the months before Hermes' attack. A variation of what Doc called 'the tyranny of the easy to measure.' She had sought to maximize a number, a measure of lives saved. Because it was clear, when her judgement was hazy and her connection to humanity felt distant. But it wasn't 'lives saved'. It was, at best, clearly attributable potential lives saved in the immediate aftermath of action, as estimated by the Database. And it undervalued anything hard to quantify. She'd abdicated her judgement. The numbers had become the purpose. There probably wouldn't be any 'lives saved' today. But that wasn't the point. She'd had the Database sift through lower priority, less well-characterized problems, to see what she'd been missing. The mudslide on the slope in Borneo might have come today, or tomorrow, or next week. It was coming, there was too much rain for it not to. It might have reached the village, or not. The villagers might have evacuated in time, or not. But now they wouldn't have to. Flicker moved it sideways instead of down, to an area without people. Some heard thunder, or saw a spray of earth and vegetation arcing high--but not towards them. Twenty minutes of earth moving, a shower back home, and back to reassessment. It was a start. And it didn't require her to talk to anyone or contribute to burnout, so she could keep going for a while longer. Flicker cleared rockslide blockages in the Andes mountains, present and threatened, for another ten minutes. Then dealt with a few other hazards in remote areas in South America. Which wasn't well covered by superhero response. The initial data quality was usually very low. But so what? She could always run and look. And then the first hints of something odd had shown up on satellite scans, the Database had noticed, and Flicker ran and looked--and found giant ants emerging from a fringe of Amazon rainforest. Giant bugs kept recurring. Interdimensional 'outsider' intrusions were far more common than most people realized, but the vast majority of them were unable to overcome the more than three-billion-year adaptive advantage of Earth life and promptly got eaten. If this happened on land, the growth impetus that made many invaders a potential threat was usually absorbed by microorganisms, fungi, and plants. And bugs, who were typically the first link of the food chain that was really good at moving. So they could eat, and grow, and move, and eat more, until--if the initial intrusion was large enough--someone finally noticed. Or they succumbed on their own. The effects of the square-cube law could be ameliorated with alien energy, but past a certain size, that was hard to sustain. Ants were good at foraging, calling friends, sharing food, and spreading out with new size and vigor. A lot at once was only to be expected. A few locals had spotted them, noped out, and concentrated on getting themselves and their animals to safety. The ants were about the size of cars, and no longer very fast--they were too big for their body proportions to be efficient at moving anymore. A few had paused to chew on crops, but most of them were looking for something tastier. Or at least meatier. They needed to be stopped. The familiarity was almost a relief--but it did come with a warning. Best find the start, to be sure the threat was just ants. Into the jungle, down a narrowing swath of disruption that eventually ended in a pool of churned mud. It was still being picked over by scavengers, but no longer seething with extradimensional anything. Perhaps a day or two old? But there were no other large outbreaks of gigantism. The local fauna were already taking care of stragglers who had grown too large for their niches. Flicker passed a jaguar eating the remains of an oversized but still clearly manageable frog. And she could see the signs of progressive dilution; the jaguar might get a slight boost, but not enough to be a problem before it faded. Back to the ants. And a local soil and drainage map from the Database. The remains of the ants would be soon be good fertilizer. And safe, as long as the concentration in any one spot didn't get too high. But they were too big to move by hand without breaking. So it was time for entrainment--pulling ants with the wind of her passage. Up and down, back and forth--running slowly for her, but not trying to limit drag. Air moved in response, and oversized insects tumbled in her wake. She scattered them widely. And then... "Don't punch anything living" was the rule, but there was an exception. Antenna quivered above her as she stopped between the open mandibles of the first ant. Sorry, foragers. You were never going to make it back to a colony anyways. Her palm strike sent a shockwave through the ant, and a spray of ex-ant outward. A widely distributed mess over the surrounding landscape was actually desirable here. Still, she pulled her punches; she didn't want fireballs. Hand chops and more blasts of scooped air, together with the liquefying effect of Flicker's inertial damping field, helped her manage the spread. A few distant figures watched giant ants being turned into goo over their fields and pastures. Which should be bad tasting enough to avoid problems with livestock until it decayed, but a concentration map would go into the Database notice sent out to the locals--they would know their own fields and animals best. The Database would keep monitoring for problems until any danger was past. Ants finished, she slowed down a little away from the nearest group. She knew hardly any Portuguese, so she used her visor to check her translation. Her accent was awful, so she settled for saying "They're gone," and a wave of a still-goopy hand. She acknowledged the Database advisory that she was now over her duty time limit for the first day and headed home. Her shower matched the one at Doc's HQ, with a customized array of converted waterjet cutters and a selection of decontamination options. It quickly stripped away the remaining layer of plasma-deposited bug juice. She then switched it to regular shower mode to help her mind return the rest of the way from 'on duty'. That took a while. Habits were stubborn things. Dried and dressed, she logged her impressions, and looked at her bio-telemetry and reaction analysis with the Database for a bit before formally ending her abbreviated 'workday'. Not everything had gone smoothly, but it had become a better day--and it was still morning. It was something. It was enough, for now. ***** Stella had a wry smile, a faint twist of the mouth that found humor in a less-than-ideal world. "I'm not well-qualified to advise you about memory," she said, "because no one is. I'm doing it because your Database integrity AI doesn't think there's anyone better. And neither does Doc." "You have been helping me with my emotional reactions," said Flicker. "I've avoided triggering any obvious disasters, and you've felt subjectively better. Whether that is actually helping... well, we may suddenly find out the answer is 'not enough'." They were at Stella's office for another session. It was, if not a comforting place, at least familiar. It did not add to the inherent stress of a session, which was probably the best Flicker could expect. Protocols had been set and were being followed, and snacks and beverages were at hand. Elements of a basic social ritual, which did help, regardless of Stella's current pessimism. "Well, I think we've been making progress," said Flicker. "Is there some new reason for you to doubt that?" "The restrictions on a considerable amount of Database material were lifted for me at the end of last week, in response to your request. I've been thinking about the implications. Your AI assistant, Vizier, can speak directly to me in ways the main Database AIs can't, because it doesn't have full access. That allows it more latitude for speculation and personal advocacy." Stella looked out through the force screen over the sliding doors to the patio. "I cultivate an image of implacability because it is useful for my work. But I'm not infallible." Another wry smile. "I have the scars to prove it." "You're who I've got." "Yes. And I will recommend precautions, some of which you will likely find unpleasant, to attempt to limit the damage from mistakes and unforeseen events. You don't have to follow them. Many will probably turn out not to have been needed. But it's part of my best work, and this is a useful time to remind you again. Do you understand?" "...yeah." "An important distinction before we start. You have an assortment of memory-connected issues. I don't think precise mechanisms are as urgent as dealing with effects. We don't want to ease one problem only to aggravate several others. Your new concern--that your memories may not precisely correspond to past events in this world--does not matter for how I intend to begin today." "Um. I think what's actually true does matter a bit." "Yes, it does." Another smile. "But we aren't sitting here together for exterior facts--you have the Database for those. I'm here to hear and see you talk about what you remember, what has shaped you, what matters to you, how you feel and react, and how it affects you. And listening to and watching me, my voice and body language and pacing, as I shape my advice for you--talking to another live, flesh and blood person--should help you. Both in putting your old memories in context, and eventually with some of your other issues." Stella glanced at her computer display before continuing. "You intend to use memory compartmentalization before 'correcting' memories using the Database. That's understandable, and also hazardous. I believe some of your existing issues are already complicated by memory compartmentalization. That doesn't mean it's bad. Some is unavoidable, given your two-part mind, and it's necessary for managing PTSD. But it has side effects. I want a better baseline of where you are now before you start anything new. Memories aren't static--they shift as you recall and relate them. Do you understand the importance of treating Database records of personally relevant events as potentially fallible as well as incomplete?" "Yes," said Flicker. "I've been using the Database for memory backups, but there's no guarantee that anything before my return after Speedtest is still compatible with my speed mind." "It's more general than that. You have some reductive assumptions about memory that may be a problem. May be. My research has taught me to beware of most generalizations. Now. I want you to review certain of your memories for me, starting from the beginning. That doesn't mean we're starting from scratch. You've used the resources you had, and are by no means unskilled. Just the fact that you are currently functional is a remarkable accomplishment. But that means many of your current problems are subtle, tricky, or tough." "Because I've already fixed the easy stuff," said Flicker. A smile. "At least what you thought was easy." "...and thought was fixed. I get it. So what do you mean by the beginning? My first memories?" "Earlier than that. Start with your arrival on Earth." "All right, but I got a lot of this third or fourth hand. I cannot currently access any coherent memories before I was nine." "I know," said Stella, "But your childhood is important enough to you that even indirect information about it shaped who you are today." "Okay." Flicker took a deep breath before starting. "I was dropped off at that first orphanage in early May of 1997 by some guy. He was probably an extradimensional entity, and possibly the same guy who arranged payment, checked back on me a few times, and set up my later transfer, but there's no proof or direct evidence of that. He said that I was born on the first day of spring in the previous year, which would have made me just over a year old. That matched how I looked and was plausibly consistent with the fact that I could feed myself. He didn't say where I was born, who the parents were, or provide any surviving documentation, and there are no remaining findable witnesses. "My birth date was recorded as March 20, 1996--which would make me 16 now--but no paperwork was filed with the state. The surviving workers at that orphanage remember me by the nickname "Chirpy," after the only vocalization anyone heard me make. I wasn't yet consciously controlling my speed changes, which cut sounds short. But they do remember me--as creepily silent most of the time. I was believed to be haunted or psychic. No one considered that I might have superspeed and very little awareness of my environment. Database thinks one of the people who died might have thought I just had hearing trouble and tried to teach me to read. I apparently picked up more later, because I knew how to read--and even write a little--when my memories start." Flicker looked down. "In 2002, that orphanage burned down, and all local records about me were lost. The details of that fire are still the subject of legal disputes and there's been a long running battle between the surviving relatives of three workers who died in the fire and an insurance company. The place was a firetrap, records were definitely altered, at least two people died suspiciously after the fire, and the relatives deserve to and probably eventually will win. The cause of the fire might have been arson. It also might have been me, based on some models I ran a couple of years ago. It would be very easy for me to start fires by oblivious fast movement in a wooden structure filled with flammables. But I have no memory of it. "Anyway, I was transferred to another orphanage in a different state. Where there was systematic fraud. And they now had a live girl with no records--me--who was still being paid for off the books by someone, and a dead girl who they hadn't reported dead and didn't want to because they'd stop getting money. So they altered records to make it look like I was her. She was at least a year younger, but as long as no one challenged it or compared things, they were fine." Flicker smiled briefly. "Then someone tipped off Gumshoe about the fraud, and he started investigating. He found the orphanage I was at, and ended up in a confrontation with the director. I apparently came to find out what the commotion was about, and the director did something really stupid. It's not clear whether he tried to use me as a hostage or just a shield, but I didn't like it. I killed him." Flicker shook her head. "I don't like talking about it because people ask how I felt. I don't remember. My emotions didn't reliably connect to memories for a while, and my very first clear memory is watching his head explode. I don't know whether I entropy dumped to his head or just waved my hand or both, but I wanted him gone, so bam, dead. I do remember Gumshoe just looking at me for a little bit, then doing something at his wrist, and a little while later I met the Volunteer. And my life started getting better. I began remembering things regularly, though it took a while to start putting them in order. This was 2005." Stella studied her for a moment. "How much of your anger over the age issue originated with the identity fraud?" "A lot. There was so much I wanted to know, and the altered records kept obstructing everything. And Gumshoe died before I could talk coherently, so I never got to ask him about a lot of things. I obviously wasn't the girl I was listed as, but the state didn't have any other birth date for their records so they kept using hers. That made me mad because here were official people--people who were supposed to help--insisting on using information they knew was wrong." "That took forever to fix, partly because everyone who could testify that I couldn't possibly be as young as that was already involved in the lawsuits over the fire. Or wasn't talking to anyone because of them. And no one else cared." Flicker paused, then corrected herself. "Okay, no, that's not fair. Doc did care, but he didn't want to make a fuss at the time because it could have complicated my adoption or my citizenship--not having a birth certificate or any human witnesses to your birth is a pain, legally." "Indeed. And not that uncommon a problem," said Stella. "Anyway, finally I filed a lawsuit," said Flicker. "And got it almost settled, I thought--and then that stupid insurance company intervened, because some arcane legal thing meant my settlement would make them more likely to lose the lawsuit against them over the fire. I didn't handle it well. But Francine--she was my lawyer too by then, not just Doc's--told me that if I gave her time, she would make the insurance company executives, their board of directors, and the stockholders of their parent company regret that intervention thoroughly. And late last year, she finally won the last appeal of the primary suit. I'm 16. But some places don't accept that yet, so Francine's team is still busy." "I see," said Stella. "It's clear you're still very emotionally invested in the details. Is that something you're willing to elaborate on?" Flicker took a long breath. "I try to compartmentalize it so I don't keep getting angry again. But yeah. I hope you're ready for some ranting." Stella smiled. "That's fine." "Okay. The fraud at the second orphanage was already a mess, intertwined with several other messes, but sorting it out in one place wasn't enough. Oh, no..." Time passed. At some point Flicker got up and started pacing. "...and so I was like 'Okay, bonehead, maybe they won't charge you with accessory after the fact to fraud, but I'm also sole director of a corporation to which I've leased the rights to my personal image, and the value of that in interstate commerce is affected by my legal age in your state. I have money, good lawyers, standing, and a grudge over something you could have avoided for free just by not being a jerk about it'. But I have to do that in every state that decides to make an issue out of refusing to change my age in their records without a conventional birth certificate. And a lot of them are fighting it. So it's still not over. But at least now I'm legally sixteen for federal and international purposes, in my home state, and in Pennsylvania, where Journeyman lives. But I've been trying to get this crap fixed since I was twelve, and I'm so sick of it." "Understandable," said Stella. "And it's time we take a break, I think." ***** Stella was getting better at timing the session breaks so Flicker was able to keep a comfortable safety margin. There was probably something about not having speed that made the psychology of pacing easier to judge. There were so many indirect effects. "How did your morning patrol go?" asked Stella, after they started lunch. "The Database informed me that your stress levels stayed encouragingly low. But giant ants were mentioned." "Yeah, they're fertilizer in rural Brazil now. No one was hurt. And the rest was just clearance work--the kind of thing the Volunteer is better at, but I can manage. Didn't feel like much, but it was better than nothing." Flicker had another spoonful of the soup. "This is really good soup. What is it?" "It's egg drop soup from a local place," said Stella. "Comfort food. I like it when I'm recovering from something stressful or debilitating." "Heh." Flicker shook her head. "You keep helping in different ways than I expect you to help." "Expectations have always been a bit of a mixed bag for me. On that note, you had a question about my background that you've been very patient about." "Well, yeah. It seems kind of silly now, but the Database verified you received your doctorate when you were 17," said Flicker, "but said the university was prevented by a non-disclosure agreement from revealing anything but the title of your thesis. Which I thought was weird." "They tried to revoke my doctorate. After some discussion, they settled," said Stella. "But the administration never actually had a copy. The NDA was part of the settlement. Not coincidentally, they also settled a suit from a group of students and former students at the same time. People used to wonder why I chose that university and thesis committee. But what happened to them was part of the point." "What was 'Alternate Means of Addressing Harmful Behavior Patterns in Entrenched Power Structures' about, anyway?" "The title gets the point across. The specific methods were of limited generality and don't scale well. It was a proof of concept, but there would be issues with it becoming widely accessible." "I'm still curious." "I know. But the NDA was useful to me and still helps protect the former students. The Database and I both respect it. If there were a particular threat to one of them that you needed to deal with, then the Database would reveal appropriate information. There currently isn't." "I guess... that's good. Was that your goal?" "One of them. The other two were to get a doctorate quickly, and establish a reputation. Anyone investigating my qualifications in more detail would have no trouble establishing that whatever my methods actually were, they worked: Nothing else bad happened to the students. And nothing good to the thesis committee or the administration." "Oh." ***** Another hour of indirect memory tests, mostly boring. But Stella said boring was good; anything exciting here would mean an unexpected problem, and they had plenty of expected ones already. The one interesting part was a reframing of something Flicker had known for a long time. "No," said Stella, studying her display. "I don't think you react any more emotionally to speaking or listening than you do to reading. Not more than a typical human." "What do you mean?" said Flicker. "I've thoroughly documented it." A smile from Stella. "You weren't measuring what you thought you were measuring. You have to restrict your subjective speed to talk and listen, which requires effort by your speed mind. And you use the ability to freely speed up and consult the Database for several quite effective calming strategies that are less disruptive to reading than listening. So your coping works better. After you account for that, the base emotional effect is the same." Flicker studied the graphs and supporting information the Database provided. The conclusions were consistent. "Huh. I remember interactive things way more emotionally, though." "You appear to anchor social memories to emotional impact, consolidating out your calming measures, while your reading memories get subsumed in your reaction to what you learned. So, among other things, your estimates of emotional leakage from compartmentalized memories will be poorly calibrated." "Oof. Yeah, I guess I'm going to have to watch out for that." ***** "We're stopping already?" said Flicker. "I could keep going--we're making progress, Database says I'm Green, and I still feel fine." That wry smile. "Yes, and I'd prefer you stay that way. You'll have homework. I want you to summarize your emotional impressions from your pre-sleep memory assimilation, so we can compare with your memories later." "Huh. Do you think there will be discrepancies?" "I don't know. But if there are, we want to know about them; that's why I'm asking. We cannot take for granted that anything about your sleep, learning, or memory processing is the same as a typical human." "Yeah, okay. Do you want me to record anything else?" "Not tonight. I don't want to overload you by trying too many things at once." Flicker looked down. "Well, here's an emotional impression already. That's the opposite of my preferred approach. I don't like leaving known problems. I'd much rather solve everything, then recover. I already know that makes it easier for me to sleep." "Yes, and you've done a very good job of solving a wide variety of problems where that attitude is helpful. It's very effective. Speed is your hammer." "But not all my problems are nails." "Exactly." Flicker sighed. "Well, okay, then. I guess this is why I needed you. You're good at helping." A raised eyebrow. "I'm not, particularly. What I am good at is convincing people to listen who otherwise wouldn't." "...and that's a problem I have that definitely isn't a nail." Another smile. "Okay. Talk to you later. And Stella? Thank you." "You're welcome."

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

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