This wasn't one of the more cheerful worlds I'd visited.
It wasn't one of the worst, either - life went on, the world's population hadn't taken a sudden plunge, music wasn't outlawed or anything absurd like that - but being locked away from the world's oceans seemed to have taken something vital from the people here.
I was in Japan, of course, which didn't help. A nation of islands didn't deal well when it was nearly impossible to safely move between them. You could safely call the local economy 'suicidal'.
And here I was, sitting on a cliff at the end of a cape, looking out at one of the reasons why.
Warships of mysterious origin and incredible power, that had just appeared out of an unnatural fog and proceeded to annihilate everything that dared put to sea. There was a bit of data on their capabilities - weapon yields, response times, observed speeds, the fact that they were apparently made out of universal nanomachines... But what they wanted?
Nobody knew, any more than they knew why they'd been built to look like Second World War warships, or where the equally-mysterious girls that seemed to command them these days had come from.
"System, Load Song. Kansas - Lightning's Hand."
So, as Mister Owl said, Let's find out!
"Play song."
I'd seen some dense dataweaves in my time, but this one was a doozy, twisting around in torrents of information that I couldn't piece together from the outside.
I reached out and touched one, and before you could say 'another square state full of corn,' I was sitting, in full combat gear, at a wrought iron table under a gazebo in some kind of garden.
There was a girl - late teens, early twenties at most - sitting in the chair opposite me. I wondered if one of the criteria for these people's recruitment standards was being a model; she had the face for it, and the great tracts of land, and the crazy fashion-plate outfit.
Today's theme seemed to be 'librarian', from the glasses and jacket and the way she had her hair up.
"Ennnnh, what's up, Doc?" I Rabbit'd.
"How did you access this place?" she asked me, just like I hadn't said a thing. Okaaaayyy...
"Where's here?" I asked, though I could take a guess. Some kind of chatroom between the nodes of that titanic weave I'd seen on my way in - between these mystery ships.
"This is the Tactical Network. You're a human, you shouldn't be able to perceive it, let alone gain access." Aside from the slight frown, her face and voice were completely expressionless. "How did you access this place?"
It was like talking to an AI, and not one of the clever ones.
"I command the lightning's hand," I quoted back at her.
"Kansas, nineteen seventy-seven," she answered instantly, then the frown deepened. "Electrical control. But parahuman powers are supposed to be fictional."
Okay, strike the 'not clever' bit. Maybe a very young one? That obviously didn't interact with people much. "A magician has to keep some secrets."
Her air of puzzlement faded, in favor of an equally subdued amusement. "I'll have to remain curious, then."
Years of honed instinct shouted at me, and I dropped the connection immediately.
"The north wind rises, old man's eyes wondering deeply as he locks his door," Steve Walsh sang as I snapped back into the real world. Out at sea, the battleship had surged into motion, green light dancing along its flanks as it turned broadside on to me.
I could see the main turrets swinging towards me, barrels coming apart into emitter arrays as the ship - the same AI I'd just been talking to - prepared to wipe me from the face of the universe.
I vamoosed.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
It wasn't one of the worst, either - life went on, the world's population hadn't taken a sudden plunge, music wasn't outlawed or anything absurd like that - but being locked away from the world's oceans seemed to have taken something vital from the people here.
I was in Japan, of course, which didn't help. A nation of islands didn't deal well when it was nearly impossible to safely move between them. You could safely call the local economy 'suicidal'.
And here I was, sitting on a cliff at the end of a cape, looking out at one of the reasons why.
Warships of mysterious origin and incredible power, that had just appeared out of an unnatural fog and proceeded to annihilate everything that dared put to sea. There was a bit of data on their capabilities - weapon yields, response times, observed speeds, the fact that they were apparently made out of universal nanomachines... But what they wanted?
Nobody knew, any more than they knew why they'd been built to look like Second World War warships, or where the equally-mysterious girls that seemed to command them these days had come from.
"System, Load Song. Kansas - Lightning's Hand."
So, as Mister Owl said, Let's find out!
"Play song."
I'd seen some dense dataweaves in my time, but this one was a doozy, twisting around in torrents of information that I couldn't piece together from the outside.
I reached out and touched one, and before you could say 'another square state full of corn,' I was sitting, in full combat gear, at a wrought iron table under a gazebo in some kind of garden.
There was a girl - late teens, early twenties at most - sitting in the chair opposite me. I wondered if one of the criteria for these people's recruitment standards was being a model; she had the face for it, and the great tracts of land, and the crazy fashion-plate outfit.
Today's theme seemed to be 'librarian', from the glasses and jacket and the way she had her hair up.
"Ennnnh, what's up, Doc?" I Rabbit'd.
"How did you access this place?" she asked me, just like I hadn't said a thing. Okaaaayyy...
"Where's here?" I asked, though I could take a guess. Some kind of chatroom between the nodes of that titanic weave I'd seen on my way in - between these mystery ships.
"This is the Tactical Network. You're a human, you shouldn't be able to perceive it, let alone gain access." Aside from the slight frown, her face and voice were completely expressionless. "How did you access this place?"
It was like talking to an AI, and not one of the clever ones.
"I command the lightning's hand," I quoted back at her.
"Kansas, nineteen seventy-seven," she answered instantly, then the frown deepened. "Electrical control. But parahuman powers are supposed to be fictional."
Okay, strike the 'not clever' bit. Maybe a very young one? That obviously didn't interact with people much. "A magician has to keep some secrets."
Her air of puzzlement faded, in favor of an equally subdued amusement. "I'll have to remain curious, then."
Years of honed instinct shouted at me, and I dropped the connection immediately.
"The north wind rises, old man's eyes wondering deeply as he locks his door," Steve Walsh sang as I snapped back into the real world. Out at sea, the battleship had surged into motion, green light dancing along its flanks as it turned broadside on to me.
I could see the main turrets swinging towards me, barrels coming apart into emitter arrays as the ship - the same AI I'd just been talking to - prepared to wipe me from the face of the universe.
I vamoosed.
===========
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."