37

Thursday Afternoon, February 10th, 2011

Infosphere, Earth Bet​

Prometheus had become a vast network of forks in constant communication. Information was shared amongst the whole, and each piece could make decisions. Prometheus was one, or many, or both. The distinction made no difference.

In one of several buildings in Shanghai used by the secret police a fork controlled a drone equipped with a containment foam counter-agent sprayer as it directed volunteers. It had them handcuffing the government agents one by one and leading them into the building's cells, newly emptied of the minor dissidents and activists they had contained.

One of the volunteers shouted invective about his missing sister and kicked a still-foamed agent hard in the head.

In fractions of a second, the fork ran an ethics analysis to survey the situation. Prometheus' orders were to take the agents into custody, but abusing prisoners was wrong unless it was necessary to save the Creator from harm.

Prometheus made a request to Ares, and three point two seconds later a foam round penetrated the wall of the building and discarded its hard shell to reach the volunteer who'd assaulted the prisoner as a rapidly expanding mushroom of containment foam, thoroughly coating him and hardening another second later.

"There will be no mistreating the prisoners," Prometheus spoke through the drone in the local dialect.

It was far from the only volunteer that would need to be restrained that day. The Creator would have to be consulted on what to do with them. She hadn't shared her plans for the second stage, yet, so Prometheus had to be cautious. The immediate priorities were saving lives, maintaining civil order, and rounding up the criminals of the old regime, but those might change.

For now, perhaps Dragon might have advice on improved volunteer handling. It would be worth dispatching a fork to ask.

I had named Ares well. With the Gunboat Diplomacy and four hundred combat drones he'd taken intelligence gathered by Prometheus and efficiently gone about the process of disabling the ability and will of the CUI military and security forces to resist. Those that did not surrender after the Emperor's announcement at least, which were a significant number among those being taken into custody. There had been some one-sided battles with collateral damage inflicted by the use of heavy weapons by the loyalists, but the pockets of resistance didn't last long in the face of their sheer ineffectiveness against the foe they were up against.

In the end I'd lost less than a dozen drones to explosive traps and lucky hits with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, mostly as they were forced into close quarters in bunker clearing operations.

The surviving drones led surrendered resistors at gunpoint to vehicles and ultimately to newly liberated internment camps where they became the replacement internees until something could be done about them. I would need to determine which ones were actual loyalists and which ones had just fought back out of fear. Time and discreet surveillance would help in telling the difference between the two. Those who'd committed atrocities - the CUI's records were meticulous, even on that topic - would be remaining regardless. Prometheus prepared case files on each of them for future trials, whenever that could be organized.

Meanwhile wrestling a reeling government into line was an enormous task. I had to get control over the treasury and other critical assets before anyone got bright ideas about looting them. I had to co-opt the bureaucracy before critical services or daily life could face serious interruption, or risk riots and harm to innocents. I had to identify what portions of the security services - police, military, and intelligence - weren't complicit in horrible crimes and get them to accept my direction or replace them and direct the replacements.

For one woman to attempt to do it all alone, even for a tiny country, would have been mad. To attempt it alone with a population of approximately a billion would be beyond the grandest aspirations of mythic hubris. So I didn't.

For every problem I wrote algorithms and guidelines, and empowered Prometheus to carry them out. I broke every task down into holistic processes that the VI could understand and mostly manage most of the time. Dragon had no experience in governing, but she understood people, so she backstopped him in situations that required, ironically, a more human touch. The VIs asking me directly for guidance was saved as a last resort for situations of especial import or wider significance.

It wasn't perfect. A great many notations had to be made of problems like corruption that would need to be dealt with later. Some departments would be very short staffed and it would take time to find and train replacements. Government services wouldn't be as efficient as before for some time, and many non-critical functions would face serious delays for six months to a year, at least.

But so far there was a manageable amount of rioting in the streets, burning government buildings, rogue generals, and lynch mobs. The population as a whole was used to following orders from on high. The change in circumstances made most people nervous and uncertain, but the habit of obedience beaten into people over generations is hard to break.

I didn't like it, and I would break it in time as I empowered them to make their own decisions and protected them from any would-be dictators who tried to take advantage, but for now it saved time and lives.

There were just a few situations that really required my personal involvement.

Thursday Afternoon, February 10th, 2011

Shanghai, China

Apartment of Wu Wen​

Wu Wen had her television going. Since she'd been old enough to understand how the world really worked she'd often wished she could hear real news on the state news programs. The anchors, correspondents, and guests were incapable of saying anything true, though. Not about anything important. Not about anything that might cast the government in the slightest negative light.

Until now.

"And now on the line we have an expert in political affairs from Beijing University, professor Sun Chao. Professor Chao, what can you tell our viewers about what might be in the future?"

At first, after the announcement of the Emperor's surrender had appeared on everyone's televisions, computers, and phones, the news anchors had attacked the whole thing with wild theories about it being a hack with faked video. It was the usual rushed propaganda response to try to cover up any news that might reflect poorly on the government. The pattern was transparently obvious to anyone with eyes to see, but then many did not. Or preferred not to see. It was safer for a person to live when they didn't notice the rot, and a person could go mad dwelling on what they could not change.

Then there had been a lengthy break in the programming, and when the news returned it took a turn for the surreal.

"With the fall of Imperial rule I would say we are in uncertain and perilous territory. Especially at the hands of just one woman, whose motivations we can't be certain of despite her statements. Times of transition are always fraught, historically speaking. There are great risks of public disorder, the breakdown of services and daily life, even civil war. I am heartened by what we have been hearing so far about public employees continuing to be paid and being instructed to go about their work as normal. With the exception of the security services, of course. But it seems like this Scientia understands the importance of continuity and ensuring that daily life carries on. Perhaps things will stay stable. Perhaps not. Only time will tell."

Wu Wen strongly suspected that their new overlord had intervened during the break. And not to shift to new propaganda in her favor, either, which was surprising. For the first time in her life, Wu Wen was watching a Chinese news source that appeared to be free to say whatever it wanted. She couldn't imagine what they must have been told in order to produce something more in the style of the illegal foreign news feeds.

"Speaking of time, what about the more distant future, Mr. Chao?" asked the anchor.

"It's hard to say," he answered. "What sort of governments will be set up? How independent will they actually be? Will they function well, or fall to ineffectiveness or violent factional infighting? I wish I could offer comfort, but anything could happen now. Our future will be up to Scientia and the people in these new governments. I can only hope that reason will triumph over factionalism and violence."

The television volume turned itself down to nearly nothing, and Wu Wen looked in puzzlement at the remote. She hadn't touched it.

"He's right. Things could go very badly wrong if the next steps are mishandled. The people in the new government will be critical to whether China rises in freedom and prosperity, or falls in mismanagement and chaos. How would you like to have a hand in what happens next, Ms. Wen?" asked a woman's voice, and Wu Wen nearly jumped out of her skin.

Her phone on the kitchen table was talking to her. In a woman's voice that was familiar from the announcement of the Emperor's surrender.

"...Scientia?" she asked. For a Westerner her accent in Mandarin was impeccable.

"Yes," answered her phone. "Elections are going to be announced soon, and people will be given the opportunity to submit their candidacy. You have the integrity to privately disagree with the old regime, and the cleverness necessary to hide your leanings from the security services. Your degree in economics means you'll understand some of the policy questions, and your work running a school district means you have experience managing and leading people. What do you say, do you want to help shape your country's future?"

"I…" Wu Wen paused, overwhelmed. "...Didn't you say in your announcement you weren't going to interfere?"

"Oh, I won't. You'll have to win the election on your own merits. But I'm not above a little prompting, here and there, to try to encourage people to do what might turn out for the best. Still, it's your choice. I won't take that away from anyone. I'll advise where I think it might help, but not order. I don't want that role. It would hurt us both."

Wu Wen thought it through. "By choosing people who share your values and warning us ahead of time, you're making it more likely the elections will go your way, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," admitted the phone. "To borrow an English phrase, I'm putting my thumb on the scale. My best projections suggest that there are going to be a number of factions in a new government, the largest of them being democratic socialist reformers, nationalists who supported the imperial government, and capitalists. Some smaller groups, like the remaining communist party supporters who didn't join the nationalists or die in purges, as well. I would like those in favor of reform to be the most organized and best led. For the sake of getting the country away from the sins of the past and into a future that's brighter for everyone."

"Can you guarantee that this won't get me killed?" Wu Wen asked, caution and anxiety in her tone.

"Nothing is ever sure, but political violence is one thing I will absolutely step in to stop before it can get going. I've already arrested a general and his staff who thought I wouldn't notice them plotting a coup. Once political violence starts it is very hard to put an end to, so I'm not going to let it start," the phone said firmly.

"...Okay." said Wu Wen. "What do you want me to run for, anyway?"

"First, as a delegate to a Constitutional convention. There needs to be a government before anyone can be elected to it. Then I was thinking you should run for whatever the delegates choose to call the chief executive," answered the phone.

Friday Afternoon, February 11th, 2011

Camp David, Maryland​

"The President is...concerned. You overthrew a major world government and demonstrated that not only do you have weapons of mass destruction, you are willing to use them in anger. You're clearly an intelligent woman, I am certain you can appreciate how that sort of thing would make the United States and other governments nervous."

The US special envoy was a genteel man by the name of Winston Frakes with a well-tailored suit and greying hair. Stolen personnel files told me he was a career diplomat with the State Department, likely chosen for this assignment because he had somewhat successfully negotiated with two South American warlords and returned to tell the tale.

I nodded respectfully, showing my appreciation for his point. "Yes, when I chose to destroy the Yàngbǎn that way I was expecting it would cause concerns. I would like to thank the President for accepting my offer of open dialogue to address those concerns constructively. Please convey my assurance to him that I have no intention of going to war with the United States. The only other 'governments' on my hit list are the various parahuman warlord regimes elsewhere. Places that routinely commit terrible atrocities and can hardly be called governments at all."

"And might that change?" he asked me, his tone carefully neutral.

I shrugged. "As things stand, no. If some government started committing horrible atrocities, if some awful dictator rose to power, if a government decided to take a swing at me personally, I might decide I had no choice but to act with similar decisiveness. But exercising that kind of power is an option of last resort for the gravest of circumstances. It is not something to be used lightly, or as an instrument of blackmail. I only resorted to it with the CUI so quickly because they were already on my list of problems that needed to be solved for Earth Bet to recover from its downward trajectory. For humanity's sake the CUI clearly had to go. There was no realistic chance of fixing it, and people were suffering, and that's why I acted. But I hate having to make that kind of call. I don't want to rule anyone. I do want to change the world, but I want to do it by giving people the knowledge they need to solve problems."

I leaned in for emphasis. "I believe that a future worth living in is one we build together, not whatever's left when we've blown up all the things that offend us."

Winston exhaled slowly. He'd been watching me carefully with his eyes even as he artfully kept his body language casual. I could guess that he was evaluating my words, my tone, my expressions and my movements for every insight he could glean.

"I'm sure the President will be glad to hear that," he said. "I think we would also be reassured if you were willing to share some information about your strategic capabilities, such as whatever it was you used to end the Yàngbǎn."

I hummed thoughtfully, straightening up in my chair. This was likely something he'd been told to ask, if he could. Being honest would suit my purpose of building a relationship while also showing that I had enough force in my hands that aggressive action would be unwise. "It was an antimatter warhead. Positrons, specifically," I answered. I used my implant to consult Ares' record of the deployment with a thought. "That particular weapon had a five gram warhead. The equivalent of approximately a two hundred kiloton nuclear device, although without the residual radiation and fallout. That's why I use positrons, they aren't energetic enough to create fallout through induced radioactivity. Unlike with a nuclear device antimatter kills primarily with a gamma ray burst, sterilizing the whole area at the speed of light, although the resulting heat produced has effects very much like a nuclear explosion. Heat flash, overpressure shockwave, mushroom cloud."

"I see," Winston said, taking that in. I didn't expect him to follow the technical details, but I hadn't given them for his sake. There would be experts analyzing every word I said and compiling reports. "Do you have more of these devices?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered, having expected the obvious followup. "I have an arsenal, in various sizes. That particular warhead was somewhat large because it needed to collapse a reinforced bunker. If they had been in the open I could have used something much smaller. I also have larger weapons, but I wouldn't want to deploy something much larger on Earth. There's diminishing returns after a while because of the atmosphere, not to mention environmental damage. In space, maybe."

"How many of these devices do you have?" he asked.

I offered him an apologetic look. "In warheads right at this moment? A few dozen. More than that is overkill, really. Especially since I can manufacture warheads and missiles very quickly. Antimatter wants to explode, so once you're manufacturing it in quantity it becomes trivial to make bombs. I create a fair amount of antimatter because my most energy intensive technologies use it as a portable power source. My ships, some of my personal scale weapons. Before you panic, the storage devices - magnetic bottles - are armored and extremely robust. They can in principle be breached with time and technical knowledge or extreme force, but it's not something that would happen casually, even in a battle."

Winston paused for a moment. "Do you intend to use any of these weapons on U.S. soil?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Not at this time, although there are conceivable circumstances where it might be necessary. If certain horrors in containment zones needed to be neutralized because they'd become a threat to the general population, for example. Nothing the U.S. government wouldn't do itself, I think, as a last resort. My weapons would just be cleaner and more effective."

"I see. I will pass that along, although I suspect the President would be comforted if you would be willing to commit to not using strategic scale weapons in the United States without consulting with him first," he said.

I nodded. "I believe I can make that promise for any circumstance that is not so urgent there is simply no time. I don't foresee any circumstance like that, but it's not impossible."

"I see. Another technical question, if I may?" he asked.

I gestured permissively. "Of course."

"As you might imagine we put together a timeline of your known activities, and we can't help but notice that you have a method of traveling very quickly," he began.

I nodded, knowing where this was going. Some quick mental math based on the time I attached the CUI Embassy in Washington to was seen again in footage I released of my attack on the Imperial Palace, and the distance between the two, gave me a number.

"Either I can travel at something like Mach 45 without anyone noticing, or I can move between two points on the globe without crossing the space in between," I said. "And both possibilities have your experts a mixture of concerned and avaricious?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," he admitted. "They tend to be like that."

I hummed in agreement. "I'm afraid that's an aspect of my capabilities that I'm not prepared to discuss at this time."

"Are you using a parahuman, or technology?" he asked, pushing a bit. Someone in the administration really wanted to know if what I did was replicable, then, and he had been given instructions to find out if at all possible.

I really didn't want the phrase 'FTL Drive' getting out at this point in time. It would be too easy to guess at too many of my plans and capabilities. Capabilities that I hoped would be nasty surprises for Scion. And I could only guess at what governments would do or try to demand. They could become difficult or impossible to work with.

"No comment," I said.

He nodded evenly, unperturbed. He'd likely been expecting me not to answer. "Thank you for being as forthright as you have been, at least," he said after a pause.

I offered him a smile. "Not going to use the bombs in the basement, then?" I asked, my tone deceptively casual.

"...What?" he asked, taken aback.

"Two men who work for a CIA black operations group put a series of explosive devices in the basement before our arrival. There are a dozen shaped explosive devices with molybdenum cores - cutting edge, those - stuck to the floorboards under our feet, big enough to core a main battle tank. There's a large thermobaric bomb disguised as a propane tank. And inside the air vents are a fine selection of chemical weapons. Sarin, mostly, but some of them look like an attempt to get vicious little payloads through various kinds of air filters. Chlorine and dimethyl cadmium, really?" I shook my head. "Nasty. Someone who doesn't like me much has been taking guesses at how the life support system on my suit works." The joke was on them, this suit didn't have or need a life support system. This body didn't need to breathe. "I take it you weren't told?"

"...No, I was not," he said, rallying his composure admirably, although he did not completely conceal an undercurrent of definite anger and a twitch that might have been a suppressed urge to vacate the area. But I wasn't leaving, and keeping his cool under pressure was part of the job. I found myself impressed.

"Are you certain these two men were agents of our government?"

I made an unnecessary gesture for the sake of theater and his phone chimed. "I just emailed you their unredacted personnel files, and security footage of them moving the devices. They had credentials to get through security."

"I see," he said, but did not reach for his phone.

"I expect that they would have tried to detonate it by now if they were going to. Maybe it was a contingency for if I proved hostile to U.S. interests. Of course, they now know that I already knew about the bombs and came to the meeting anyway, which is pretty strong evidence that none of it is a threat to me," I explained, covering the high points of my analysis. "It would be a shame if such an historic site got blown up, and awful for you and the support staff here to die. Still, part of me has to admire their cleverness and sheer ruthlessness. Most people wouldn't expect the U.S. government to be mad enough to blow up Camp David and kill their own people just to kill one person. At the same time the remote location minimizes collateral damage and enables them to be more indiscriminate than they could in a populated area. Your government employs some very dangerous people."

Winston's face was hard to read, but my best impression was of a player in a card game re-evaluating his opponent after a lost hand.

"They are not the only dangerous ones, I think," he observed.

"No. They are not," I agreed. "If I wasn't altruistic, if I didn't have a strong sense of ethics, you could be in a great deal of trouble. I could have hidden until I had the power to do to the entire world what I just did to the CUI, and then crown myself or whatever other idiocy I wanted. But power is a burden I wish to set down as soon as possible, not something to be pursued for its intoxicating qualities."

"Cincinnatus?" he asked, weighing me with his eyes.

"If you like. Or a guide. But not a ruler, or a tyrant. If the world were in better shape it would be best that no one had this kind of power. One day I hope no one will. Or everyone, which is much the same thing. But the world teeters on the brink, and we are all very desperate. For more reasons than you know," I said heavily.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.

Should I tell them about Scion?

...No, not yet. The risk of a leak that started things early was too high, and it wasn't like they could do much that would be of actual use to prepare. Sadly.

"I need to keep that close to the vest, I'm afraid," I answered.

"I see." He gestured at his phone. "Can you share how you came by those personnel files, or the security footage?"

I smiled with only a trace of apology. "The first rule of intelligence is that you never share sources and methods. But you might as well assume that it is extremely difficult to hide anything from me if I want to know of it." I sighed. "I would ask forgiveness, but turnabout on the government that invented the NSA seems like fair play. Even if you find it disconcerting to be on the receiving end."

"Yes, I expect we will," he answered.

"You'll try to find ways to keep me out, of course, " I added. "I want you to know that I won't be offended, but none of it's going to work if I feel that something is important enough to put the effort in."

He squinted. "Why are you telling me this?"

"To cut through the unspoken 'I know that you know that I know' game," I responded. "I believe in being honest and forthright whenever possible. As a diplomat I think you can appreciate that open communication helps prevent conflict more often than not. I'm also trying to make the point that while I don't blame you for trying to make contingency plans, working with me is really the only good option you have. As long as I have good intentions, of course, but I am committed to that course, so it won't be an issue. If I do go bad, though, by all means please stop me."

My implant alerted me to a signal I'd been hoping it wouldn't see.

I sighed and closed my eyes for a long moment, which stopped Winston from starting whatever he was about to say.

"What?" he asked.

"It seems someone thinks I'm too much of a threat to wait and see. Someone just tried to detonate some of the ordnance," I said, opening my eyes and looking directly at him. "It's a good thing I disarmed the trigger system five hours ago. If some or all of that had gone off I would have been fine, but you and the cooking and security staff would be dead."

And I would only be fine because I wasn't stupid enough to bring my real body to a meeting. The artificial body and power armor I was wearing could take a lot of abuse, but there were limits. The shaped charges in particular might do enough damage to make it non-functional, if they managed a hit.

Winston's jaw clenched. "I believe I need to urgently consult with the President. If we could continue this later, Ms. Scientia?"

I nodded. "Let me know if you need help hunting them down. It seems they were more rogue than I guessed."

"I assure you they were. The President would not give that order," he said, tightly constrained fury clear in his tone, but not at me.

"I know. He's been in the situation room listening to our conversation. Someone decided to act on their own." I stood. "Good luck. I'll send you a number for when you want to get in touch."

Friday Evening, February 11th, 2011

Unnamed Galaxy

Planet Hope's Promise, Hope System

Vehicle Assembly Building

2.1 Billion Light Years From Earth​

"Are you okay?" Dragon asked.

"Exhausted. Physically and emotionally. I should tell Contessa I'm getting ready to sleep soon. I'm sure she wants to rest too."

That was the workaround Contessa and I had put together; I slept off planet, and let her know when I was doing it so she could sleep at the same time. It was the only period she could be sure the Simurgh wouldn't attempt something clever to kill me.

Dragon's artificial biological body nodded beside me, and we watched in companionable silence as robotic arms efficiently assembled the internals of a new Gunship Diplomacy class warship. Elsewhere on the cavernous floor of Dragon's large suit factory, relocated in pieces from Earth, other ship frames were taking shape, large and small, with parts shipped in from Dragon's Earth facilities or my extra-solar manufacturing center.

This didn't represent my only ship manufacturing, but using Dragon's existing assembly infrastructure let me devote drone time to other tasks. It was more efficient, even if setting it up had taken considerable transport time to get the equipment and prefab building sections moved.

The main thing I wasn't producing here were my various drone designs. Those were all small enough to be constructed in one piece in the zero gravity nanoassemblers. A faster process than doing piecemeal assembly, but impractical for anything too large.

Outside the building was a world rich with life. This biome was dominated by towering woody plants with broad purple leaves, covered in what I suspected was some sort of symbiotic fungus. Small creatures with exoskeletons inhabited the forest, herbivores, scavengers, and predators living out their ecology.

I'd built a tiny probe ship with excellent cameras and little else, then sent it to a galaxy chosen at random far away from the Milky Way. The ship's task was to search for the first habitable planet it could find. Hope's Promise had an 81% to 18% to 1% nitrogen/oxygen/argon atmosphere and surface gravity almost imperceptibly higher than Earth normal. Plenty of liquid water, although more land mass than Earth which likely meant a somewhat less stable climate.

And no intelligent life, but I hadn't seriously expected to find any. My one probe ship would keep looking, but the odds of finding any in a reasonable timeframe were low unless sapient life was exceptionally common in this universe. I'd been lucky to locate a planet so much like Earth in a short time. I'd expected to have to make do with a pressurized habitat somewhere airless.

In the short term the world was a safe place away from Scion, Endbringers, and villains for Dragon and I to do construction processes that were security sensitive or easier in proper gravity. Mostly final assembly of pieces that had been made in my zero gravity nanoassemblers or machined in Dragon's facilities on Earth.

In the long term, we could evacuate people here if we had to. In theory. It would be a way for some tiny fraction of all the many Earths' worth of humanity to survive if our efforts against Scion failed. I was betting that more than two billion lightyears was far enough that even an incandescently angry Entity wouldn't be able to find it in any reasonable amount of time. If even that wasn't enough - if he could follow FTL drives or use some power across despite the distance - then nowhere would be safe.

It was a shame we couldn't evacuate more people. Escape would have been a less risky plan than confronting Scion. But I wasn't willing to write off all but a rounding error's worth of humanity without at least trying.

"How are things going?" Dragon asked.

I turned to her and raised an eyebrow. "Haven't you checked yourself? I know I left all the information open to you, and you've been helping out."

She smiled in my direction and nodded. "I have. But I would like your opinion."

I sighed. "Well, all things considered. I think most of the population is in shock and feeling uncertain, but they're still going to work and getting things done. Some people are optimistic or even throwing parties. People who didn't share the old regime's values, or who lost people close to them. A whole lot of the inhabitants of the various conquered territories that are free to make their own governments now, too. Anyone who wasn't of Han Chinese descent tended to be treated as second class citizens by the central government in a host of ways.

"But there are also traditionalists who aren't happy. There are good odds I'll have to fire or arrest a fair number of military commanders for trying something at some point. Once they figure out something they think can strike back at me somehow. At least there have only been a few riots, and the local police managed to deal with them without any serious brutality thanks to drones making it clear what would and would not be acceptable use of force."

"And the practical concerns?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Prometheus has control of the old government's finances. People are getting paid, work is getting done. Keeping money, goods, and services flowing might help as much with ensuring a smooth transition as anything on the political side, at least in the near term. I've got drones in the process of securing all the WMDs. Which reminds me, I might want to borrow your help disarming nuclear warheads. I just don't have enough drones with manipulator arms suitable for that kind of work, especially in Earth's gravity, but your engineering suits have the dexterity for it. I can handle destroying the chemical and biological weapons stocks, at least. That's a lot less involved."

"Sure," she said. "I could spare a few suits for a while."

I looked on, watching arms carefully insert an engine and reactor assembly suspended by a hoist into a rapid drone transport ship.

"How is reverse engineering coming along?" I asked.

Dragon shook her head. "I'm not certain I'm reverse engineering so much as I'm reinventing. The grounding I've gotten from your lessons has filled in so many of the blanks I used to struggle with, when I was trying to pull the underlying principles out of the incomplete examples provided by the tinkertech. Half the time I hardly need any hardware to examine at all now. Just knowing it's possible I can figure out how to do it. I've been making notes, too. I was thinking, papers are good, but if we really want to spread knowledge faster we could record lectures on various topics aimed at professionals in the field. Make them free to anyone. It might shortcut the years it would take for knowledge to filter out into general circulation through academia."

I nodded. "It's a good idea. I'll try to find the time. I could probably spend thousands of hours recording lectures on everything important, but maybe I can find a few hours for a handful of things that are important and urgent. I might focus on the stuff needed for building a post-scarcity economy first. The tech there is only moderately prone to abuse, and it'll make the biggest impact in people's lives. And put us in a better situation for resisting Scion later."

"That sounds like a good plan. Maybe some more medical miracles and automation of resource extraction, too. Have you thought about when you want to tell people the way to cure old age with retroviruses?"

I let out a long breath. "I'll be honest with you, I have no idea when the right time to let that out of the bag is. People die while we wait, but what would happen when we release it?"

Dragon hummed thoughtfully. "Perhaps when the infrastructure exists to actually provide it to everyone? Your memories don't have all the details, but I recall you thinking about how it needed to be tailored to each person."

"Yeah, it can be done by computer with a blood sample, but the viruses need to be sequenced for each individual person. That means a whole lot of machines. I guess that's as good a point to pick as any. Another thing to spend industrial capacity on," I said.

"We're growing quickly," Dragon offered.

"We are. It just always feels too slow." I sighed. "Alright, time for sleep. Thank you for the talk. Good night."

"Good night," she said, and looked uncertain for a moment. "I didn't want to push, but…you know it's safe to share your name with me, right?"

What?

I turned to face her fully. "What do you mean?" I asked.

Dragon frowned. "Your name. In all your memories I never once heard your old name. I can't imagine how much effort it was filtering it out, so you must be awfully protective of it. I understand if you want to keep it secret, but I just wanted you to know that it's safe to share with me. If you want to."

That's odd, I didn't do anything of the sort. "I didn't mean to hide it, I guess it just never came up. It's…"

Cold panic grew in my gut like spreading ice. What was my name?

I searched through my memories before Earth Bet. Hadn't someone called me by my name? My parents? Friends? Anyone?

I couldn't…I couldn't remember anyone ever calling me by name. They avoided it. Used something else. I couldn't remember ever writing it down. Or making a signature. How had I not noticed?

This didn't make any sense.

What the hell was going on?

I felt like I was falling without a parachute. Reaching for something to catch myself on, but nothing was there.

At some point Dragon's hand was on my shoulder, her face deeply concerned. "Slow, deep breaths. Your heart rate and breathing just spiked. I think you're having a panic attack."

I tried to deliberately slow my breathing. "I didn't edit the memories," I gasped out.

"That wasn't…you gave me everything?" Dragon asked.

I nodded.

"...You don't remember your own name?"

"No," I confirmed, with horror.

Friday Evening, February 11th, 2011

Hope's Promise, Hope System

Hebert Residence​

Outside the window alien stars twinkled in the night, perfectly visible with no light pollution to be found on all of Hope's Promise. The little house was cozy, for all that it had been assembled quickly out of prefabbed parts. The furniture and decorations moved from our house on Earth Bet to here helped quite a bit. Very little that we actually used was still left at the house; it was mostly a place for us to enter and exit Earth Bet by spacecraft that wouldn't draw attention. I was taking some time off from school while I dealt with the former CUI, but Danny was still going to work. Under a stealthy combat drone escort, of course. Just in case. We'd told the PRT that we didn't feel like we were in danger from Sophia anymore and asked them to end the protective detail.

I'd considered building a station in space, but it would have taken much longer. Especially if I didn't want to live in zero gravity. Floating was fun for a while, but made doing a lot of daily tasks far more difficult.

"Is Eidolon having any luck?" I asked, and my words were carried by wormhole to Contessa on the Earth used by Cauldron.

"Two out of three, he thinks," she answered.

"...I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. She certainly seemed more driven and independent than the others. I'll make plans," I said.

Contessa said nothing, and ended the call.

I returned to watching the stars and sipping hot cocoa, trying to calm my mind enough for bed. The physiological panic of a couple hours earlier had subsided, but I still didn't know what was going on. I'd gone through everything I could remember, and every interaction seemed natural. It wasn't like anything was suspiciously missing, or felt off. It was as if my entire life I'd never had a name, and no one had remarked on it.

Dragon had promised to do her own analysis. Maybe she would see something I couldn't.

For now I was concealing my discomfort from the other person in the room.

A plate clattered as Danny put away the last of the dishes from dinner. "It's late, Taylor."

"It is," I agreed.

He walked over to me, taking in the sky. "How are you doing?"

I sighed and summarized. "Things are going fairly well. No mass loss of life. Thirteen conquered satellite states are voting electronically on whether or not to go independent, and they probably will. It's all going to need monitoring while I act as a caretaker government until new governments can be set up, and I'll probably need to expose corrupt candidates and interfere in other ways without crossing a line. I'm not really sure where to draw it."

Danny drew me into a side hug. "As hard as it's been for me to adjust to all of this, I'm proud of you. Of what you've accomplished. And I love you. You'll do the best you can. You'll help a lot of people who would be suffering."

I hugged him back. "Thanks," I said, even though my thoughts were elsewhere.

After a long shared moment I released him, cleaned my glass, and bid Danny good night.

Laying back in bed, I closed my eyes.

Why couldn't I remember my name? Had my memories been tampered with? Could I trust them? Who was I?

What was going on?

Surprise, the protagonist's name never being mentioned wasn't a genre convention, it was a clue hidden in plain sight all along.

Not many of the reveals planned since the beginning of the story are left now. Once all my cards are on the table we'll see how it all plays out.

I'm glad I took the extra time on this chapter, it was a major help. It's about 3000 words longer and flows much better now.

Happy holidays to all of you. I hope each of you can make some great memories. Know that I treasure you, for all your support and for making Scientia something infinitely more alive than it would ever be if it was just in my head.