3G: the Glowing Green Goo

His repeat customer explained her task and played the recording it was built upon. Listening to her without a saying a word, while also keeping a straight face, proved far more difficult than anticipated. At her own firm insistence, and since the NDA would definitely count it as the type of personal involvement he was to not share, Zax was forced to let her finish in silence.

He would clear things up later.

Congratulations to whoever had twisted his voice though; it was truly unrecognisable without losing clarity or emotion.

Now, if it could be less cringe...

“There. Did you get everything or do I have to repeat it slowly?”

“I’m… not sure.” His face was all twitchy; several emotions fought for the control of his face. “Let me check: that recording is viral and causing trouble in the Circle.”

“Correct.”

“You’ve been tasked with finding the speaker.”

“Correct.”

“It’s of the utmost importance to high ranked people in the Circle.”

“Correct.”

“You know that speech was recorded during an emergency in the dot, but nothing more.”

“Correct.”

“The actual author/editor/online poster doesn’t know anything about the circumstances, the incident or the speaker.”

“Correct. We checked.”

“None of your other leads led anywhere.”

“Yes.”

“Your list came from expert profilers analysing different parts of the speech, not knowing about each other and not allowed to confer with their colleagues.”

“Correct. You understood everything. Congratulations.” Funeral processions would be more joyous than her tone.

“… I have a few questions.”

The agreement didn’t mention him asking for details, but he didn’t expect her to be difficult at this juncture. Sunken cost fallacy and all that jazz.

“Of course.”

“What kind of trouble are you talking about? That speech was nothing special.”

“Irrelevant. We might tell the target, but it won’t help you find them.”

Why is that fallacy never on my side?

“True, but you might need help convincing them.” He sighed.

“We’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.” She waved the concern away. “All I can tell you is, some Kogitos anticipated a problem in the future, and our task is supposed to nip it in the bud.”

“Okay… Second question, maybe related to your answer. Why the secrecy? Nothing sounded wrong, illegal or immoral.”

“Do you really need to ask?” Even without his nanites, he could’ve told she was upset he dared to ask.

“Yes, I do.” He firmly insisted. “Trying to tell as little as possible has only been a hurdle and I don’t understand why you inflict that on yourself. You still ended telling me everything. Plus, it makes no sense!” He spread his arms in confusion. “If your task is so important to the stability of the first Circle, your leaders definitely queried the Main Computer about it. Or at least the Enforcers, or someone high ranked. If they didn’t help, you did a very poor job explaining the trouble. Like, really poor. In any case, they know, so no need for all the clumsy hush-hush. And if it really was important, they would’ve added someone with some level of stealth to your… task force. Or chosen one with someone like that already.”

Bathor’s frown deepened. She wasn’t overjoyed at what he left unsaid, but he kept going:

“If you had told me earlier, I could’ve helped you more without commission. Like with the bracelet.” Her mouth twitched at the reminder. “I could’ve told you… if your target had an important role in a severe incident, they are likely Enforcers. Who you refused to involve from the start. They wouldn’t up and leave just because you showed up either. Especially not without telling their superiors. Bye-bye secret.”

Her brows twisted a hint, but she didn’t interrupt. Fortunate, as he wasn’t done:

“If not Enforcers, they are definitely licenced consultants or specialised helpers. Random civilians are not involved in those matters. In any case, Enforcers could identify them from their records of the incident. It’s less common knowledge, but I could’ve told you about the dot’s helper list too. It’s public, with their specialties and ways to contact most of them, but they’d be stopped at the border if they tried to leave without warning. It’s part of the conditions to be a licenced helper. Can’t help if you’re are not around, so give a heads up if you’re leaving. They wouldn’t be prevented from leaving, but at least they’d be asked for expected dates and duration of the stay.”

Her frown was forced back in neutral territory. Zax couldn’t tell if she was shocked, processing or looking for counter-arguments.

“I could also have told you about this specific incident being common knowledge, with reports and news everywhere for any who look.” He added as an afterthought, displaying a few news outlets on his bracelet. “Although-”

“What!? Why would that be public!?” The Resident stood, startling him. “Trees! We couldn’t have guessed the rest, but it makes sense. But that!? Why would you do that!? What if there was a panic? A riot? Why isn’t there a riot!” She pulled at her own hair. “Nobody would stand for it! Not even the dotters! How-”

She sprouted something even more absurd out of nowhere. He didn’t know where to start, so he opted for the more personal part:

“… ‘not even the dotters’? Are we famously pushovers or something?”

The barely veiled accusation broke her out of her rant. Luckily for her, she still had enough of her mind to not answer. She sat back in silence to gather her thoughts. Zax waited a bit before trying to address her questions:

“A powerplant exploded. Part of a building, with people inside, reached the Core. That’s kinda hard to hide. But why would there be a panic? The crisis was handled, the damages mitigated, the causes investigated and explained. I may be biased, but I’d say the answer was quick and efficient. The founders would be proud. Follow-up steps have been made to prevent a repeat. It was an important upheaval in places, but it happened and is happening. Hiding anything would be in direct opposition with the dot’s founding policy of transparency and cooperation, and would make people lose their trust in the system.”

“In the Circle, you can’t… We can’t…”

Her boasting reaction started strong, but immediately lost all momentum. She literally and figuratively folded on herself. He hadn’t expected to break her with something so… basic was not the right word. Common? Ubiquitous?

Long ago, he had tasted the Residents’ general views of dotters; but he had figured it was a natural product of their environment. Different, inherently even more against him specifically, but not necessarily malicious and not against each other. He wasn’t so sure anymore.

He wondered what thoughts were going around in her head, but at the same time he was afraid of what it might be. Quite a peculiar feeling. There wasn’t much he could do about it however.

He waited for her to calm down before moving the conversation forward:

“Is that why the secret? To avoid panic in the Circle?” He inquired in a soft voice.

“We can’t let anyone know we needed a dotter’s help. It’s embarrassing.” She whispered without thinking. She was still lost in her thoughts.

“What?”

Any shred of sympathy he had for her disappeared. The sudden sharpness of his tone snapped her back to the present. She realised what she had said, but it was too late to take it back.

“Er, I mean-”

“The First Circle, your home, is in trouble. You’ve been tasked with finding a solution. And you wasted weeks. You refused the most obvious help you see. You rejected the most competent help when it’s pointed to you. And you’re still doing it! You keep getting in your own way and making things needlessly hard for everyone. Out of pride? Vanity is your first concern!?”

He didn’t rise from his seat. He didn’t lift his voice. He didn’t move a muscle. He even stopped blinking. The steadily growing venom in his tone was all the more bitter for it.

The Resident flinched at each of his points, but she didn’t dare to speak or turn her eyes away from his glare. In her career as a negotiator, she had seen and received her fair share of disputes, but never had she heard such vitriol in a single voice. It was so… visceral.

When he was done, heavily panting from barely restrained wrath, an oppressive atmosphere settled.

Zax closed his eyes and took a deep breath, counted as he held it, and pushed his negative emotions out with the sullied air. It took a few cycles, but he eventually calmed enough to finish the discussion. All the while, Bathor kept as still and quiet as possible, afraid he would start again.

“Alright. That’s why the secret.” He opened his eyes and continued like nothing special happened, although his voice was unmistakably more severe. “Third question: what do you need them for? What do you want them to do about those… future troubles?”

“… we have a plan. I can’t say more than that. It could affect the result. The details are not set yet. It’ll depend on… the situation. And the speaker.”

For better or worse, it was the last relevant point he wanted to clear up. He wasn’t in the mood for overquality, so he sent her away.

His mental notes reminded him to tell her about electronic signatures. He had a feeling the commission wouldn’t have to be sealed in person. By the time she left, she had regained some nerves, enough to try and pressure him for faster results “since they had missed so much obvious points”. He assured her that was his plan, and to expect a report less than a day after the details of the commission were signed.

He was glad he hadn’t interrupted her at the start. Some part of her retelling hadn’t made sense, but his readings didn’t detect any form of deceit. He would’ve never found the missing piece on his own. And what a piece it was.

Incompetence.

Not only in an individual, but in a whole group working together. It felt impossible, but it truly fit with the inconsistencies. How did they ever accomplish anything? Actually, did they ever? And they were entrusted with solving trouble at the scale of the whole Circle? They had been told so, and they might even believe it, but he wouldn’t.

If it was true, the Circle deserved everything they had coming and then some.

Most likely, whatever troubles had been anticipated weren’t that impactful. Or didn’t have much to do with his speech. Or with him. Or were too far away in the future.

In any case, he wouldn’t regret fleecing or making things difficult for those customers.

“What happened? Are you alright?” The concerned voice of his feathery friend sounded as soon as he left the backroom.

His gloom was plain for all to see.

He sighed as he went back to his regular work, explaining what he could. It wasn’t difficult; he wasn’t allowed to comment on the commission, but his feelings and the commissioners were free game.

SG didn’t know how to react to what she heard, neither did the few customers passing by with the right timing, but venting helped him clean his heart.

In a surprising display of efficiency, he received the first draft of the commission that very afternoon. Already signed, of course; by the anonymous account on Bathor’s bracelet, that clearly stated was not legally binding.

Zax was unamused, but chose to interpret it as another display of inadequacy instead of trickery.

Hanlon’s Razor is busy today.

He first redacted the remunerations, removing the lower options and those he wasn’t interested in – at least they respected the list of the NDA – increased all the unit amounts, and added the one reward that truly interested him: body templates of advanced mutants. With varied mutations.

The variability of similar mutations could be an interesting study later, but growing his nearly non-existent database of advanced mutations took priority. If he could progress on that front, it would make the annoyance of dealing with buffoons worthwhile.

A bit.

He checked the rest as he did the NDA, joined a note detailing how to have a legally binding signature, and send his revisions.

He had expected some resistance or complaints at his edits, but none came, and everything was in order, over and done, before the shop was closed.

“What happened? Are you alright?”

Déjà vu hit when Aran joined them. Zax felt better, but the social butterfly still managed to spot his remnants of gloom, somehow. The monumental laughing fit that followed the explanation came as a surprise, but it ended up spreading and engulfing all three.

It was the anti-stress he needed. When they finally began their workout, any unease was but a memory.