“Hold on a second,” Grandmother said to Todd. “I’ve been thinking about my utility tunnels under the road network. We may not know of a transport room near Chicago, but Control probably does. The Gallery itself should have the potential to hook up. I remember Tinkerer told us if we notified Central that we are working on a problem, then we’d be given greater access and control of the system’s nanobots. I hope that means we’ll be able to use transport rooms that aren’t active in the Game right now, but still exist.”
“That would be very convenient,” Todd responded. “I also remember that nothing we did on the job would count in our gameplay. I assume that means any map reveals etc. will be removed. I don’t see how that would hurt us this time. We’ve already been all over the Chicago area.”
“You're right, that is something to remember. We may want to try to fix problems on our own time if we could gain something useful while doing it,” Grandmother responded.
“While you're talking to Tinkerer, see if he can give us a way to knock a person out. Greater control of the system’s nanobots might mean we can do that,” Todd added.
“That is a good idea,” Grandmother admitted. Todd and Grandmother were standing in the transport room in the school's association hall in the structure. They were six days late in their original plan to try to fix this issue. Grandmother spent most of the second rest day finishing up the hunter’s camp outside the boundary.
Grandmother stared off into space, waiting for her interface light to appear. When the light appeared, a second light was blinking in the opposite corner of her vision. The new light flashed a rich purple. This light appeared as soon as Irene accepted the system engineer position from Tinkerer. She explored the new interface in her free time, which she didn’t have much of these days.
In many ways it was easier to use. There were few icons, instead everything was written. Most of it was translated into Irene's language, but occasionally a word or phrase would appear in alien characters. This always happened in the most critical spots. They were words that there was no translation for, or at least none that Control knew. Some of them filled in when Irene took the first programming placement tests and talked through the answers. Control’s knowledge of the human language came from the spoken and written word within the structure. There was very little use of programming and science vocabulary in the daily life of the residents of the structure. Grandmother suspected she was the source for much of the vocabulary of that type that Control did know, since she hadn’t found a word she didn’t know. There were plenty of specialized vocabulary words she didn’t know that someone else could have used.
In other ways the interface was much harder to use. This was a backend control panel. The menus were even deeper than on the game interface. The choices that could be made appeared endless. The only thing that really allowed Irene to make progress using it was the help button on the top of the front screen.
She opened the interface and selected help.
Tinkerer stepped out of the transportation stone interface that was part of the back wall of the transportation room. The robot wasn’t really here. It was a complete projection. If Grandmother tried to touch it her hand would go right through.
“Engineer, what service do you require?” Tinkerer asked in its low voice. Grandmother knew from experience that she didn’t have to hold the interface open to continue to speak to the tinkerer. She did now because she wanted to use it to indicate which issue they were working on. The issue numbers were insanely long and Grandmother was certain she’d never manage to say the entire thing without making a mistake. Irene pulled up the list and navigated down it to find the one that described the gallery near Chicago being past its expiration date.
“I want to report to Central that Todd and I are working on this issue here,” Irene told the robot, selecting the issue. Irene swore the image of the robot looked pleased, then it looked cautious. Control was a machine, but it was a very complex machine and very old. Irene wasn’t completely certain that it couldn’t have emotions.
“Do you require me to instruct you on how to use the interface to do that? Or do you want me to do it for you now?”
“Yes, do it for me,” Irene instructed. The robot turned and looked at Todd.
“Todd,” it said. Todd blinked and Irene realized that from his point of view the robot just suddenly appeared. “In order to log you as working on the desired issue, I need to add you as an associate in the Engineer’s department. Do you agree to accept the position?”
“Can I leave the position at any time?” Todd asked.
“Yes,” the robot responded.
“Do I get access to the training program and engineering interface?”
“Yes,” the robot responded, “upon the approval of your supervisor.”
“Yes, I accept the position of associate engineer,” Todd responded. Tinkerer turned back to Irene.
“Engineer, do you confirm that you wish to hire Todd as an associate in your department?” Tinkerer asked Irene.
“Yes, I confirm that I want to hire Todd,” Irene responded.
“Confirmed,” the robot said. “Engineer and Associate Todd are set to active on the indicated issue. Do you require further service from me?”
“Yes,” Irene said. She tried for literally months to figure out how to hire her team members. She wished she brought the whole team out for this run. Lesson learned. She’d bring them all with her next time. “I approve Todd’s access to the training program and engineering interface, please record that.”
“Done,” Tinkerer replied.
“We need a method to knock a player out for an hour from a distance,” Irene requested.
“I can modify your and associate Todd’s profile so that a zero zero thrown spell targeted on a player will cause unconsciousness. This alteration will only be in effect as long as you are actively working on this issue,” Tinkerer responded. “Is this acceptable?” Irene translated zero zero thrown spell to tier zero light spell, but she needed to confirm it.
“What does a zero zero thrown spell usually do?” Irene asked Tinkerer.
“It activates the light panels.”
“Yes,” Irene said, “Please do that.”
“Done,” Tinkerer replied.
“Can you transport us close to the location of the issue and bring us back here when the issue is resolved?” Irene asked.
“Yes,” Tinkerer responded.
“We will go now,” Irene said.
The transport door opened. There was no animation to go with it. Instead what once was a solid stone door split into four sections and slid out of the way. Beyond was not the small room Irene’s camera caught glimpses of. Instead it was a short narrow hall that led to another open door.
“The transport module will take you there,” Tinkerer announced. “When you are ready to return, call me and I will guide you to a station.”
“Thank you, Tinkerer,” Irene said to the robot. Todd led the way down the passage, since he was the closest to the open door. Irene followed him in. The transport module was an oval shaped room with a soft bench seat built into the wall all the way around except for where the door was. The interior was in shades of tan, it reminded Irene of an intact rest. She sat down on the fabric, where she could still easily see the door. The outer door into the transportation room was already closed. When Todd sat, the inner door closed.
They didn’t feel any motion. This was technology beyond her understanding.
“This is different,” Todd commented. “If we were going far do you think food would be provided?”
“Yes,” Irene responded. “This looks like a short hopper to me. I bet there is a different transport module for longer distances.”
“I’m not getting into one of these things without my full set of gear,” Todd countered.
“Me neither,” Irene agreed. “Do you have access to the engineering interface?”
“How do I open it?” Todd asked.
“There will be a second light on the edge of your vision. Mine is purple. Yours will probably be red.”
“I got it, oh it has words,” Todd said, surprised.
“That is not as useful as you might think,” Irene responded. Todd flicked his way through some of the upper menu choices, as Irene offered advice.
About ten minutes later the transport module’s door opened. Todd closed his interface with a quick move of his head and rose to his feet. He looked down the short passage.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“It's another transport room,” he reported. The two of them crossed the short passage. They looked out the one way glass of the transport room door. They were just off from the gallery they came to get rid of. It was a choke point in the layout of halls in this area and used as the west entrance to Chicago.
They looked for this transport room themselves on a previous visit to Chicago and found no sign of it. Irene suspected that if they succeeded in letting the gallery remodel, access to this room would be removed, even employee access. That was why Tinkerer told them to call him to get directed to another room.
A stream of people were coming in from the halls. It was evening and scavengers were still coming home. A large man was sitting behind a small table collecting information and gate taxes at the exit to the halls. Two guards were outside the gallery, in the wildspace hallway keeping order in the line. There were two more guards at the door that led to Chicago. They were talking casually with each other.
“There were two guards in the sanitation facility doorway on our last visit. I can’t see them from here,” Todd commented. “Let’s wait until full dark. That should clear out any travelers and probably the clerk too.”
“Agreed,” Irene said. She sank down to the floor and relaxed against the bottom of the transport interface. “If this works there are a lot of issues on the list that read very similarly. Although most of them are located farther away. I don’t know how long the transport time would be for those.”
“I would think this situation would sort itself out eventually,” Todd said.
“I am sure it would,” Irene responded. “Although there are different ratings for issues of this type. This one here is the lowest. We may find that the reason a room doesn’t remodel can get very complicated.” Irene went back to teaching Todd what she knew about the engineering interface as they waited.
The overhead lights ticked down to night mode.
“There goes the clerk,” Irene commented.
“I haven’t seen anyone enter for at least ten minutes,” Todd observed. Irene rose to her feet and looked out at the gallery.
“Let's get this over with. I’ll take the Chicago side, you take wildspace. Remember to throw light at them. I’m having a hard time remembering that one myself,” Irene said. She cast conceal over both of them. They stepped out of the transport room and into the gallery. Irene focused on the guards on the Chicago side. She only saw two, one at the door to the sanitation facility and one at the door to Chicago. She hit the one on the sanitation door first since the one at the Chicago entrance happened to be looking away. She hit him moments later. There was no animation to go with the spell. She rushed forward to search the sanitation facility. She found one of the missing guards inside, supervising the filling of a large water bag. She knocked him out, catching him before he hit the floor. She carried him out of the small room and across to the door to Chicago.
Her conceal spell was still in place. It shouldn’t be. Conceal usually dispersed whenever an attack spell was used. Irene reconsidered, maybe the light/knockout spell wasn’t considered an attack spell.
She checked each direction down the hallway and didn’t spot anyone. Hallways never went very far in the structure without a turn. The layout made it easier for animals to sneak up on travelers. There was a turn not far to the right and left. She set the guard down inside the hallway, where he couldn’t see the entrance to the gallery, she went back for another one. She passed Todd carrying one of his out.
“Careful,” Irene said. “One of the guards on my end is unaccounted for. They were filling water bags. He may have taken a full bag for delivery.”
“Noted,” Todd responded. Irene made the long trek to the other end of the gallery. She picked up the guard there and brought him back. She wanted to make sure he was back in Chicago and didn’t get isolated in wildspace.
Todd managed to get both the other two guards moved before Irene returned. She set her man down with the others.
“Now what?” Todd asked.
“Hmm…” Irene responded. “Let me call Tinkerer.” Irene quickly opened her engineering interface and selected help. Tinkerer stepped out of the wall.
“Engineer, what service do you require?” the robot asked.
“Can you remodel the problem gallery now?” Irene asked the projection.
“Yes,” Tinkerer responded.
“Please do so,” Irene requested.
“Process initiated. It will complete in fifteen minutes,” the Tinkerer reported.
“Stay here,” Irene told Todd, “and watch this corner. Knock out anyone that looks like they are going to come around the corner. I’ll go watch the other end.” Todd agreed. Irene passed the entrance to the Gallery to watch the other approach. The room beyond the door was in motion as walls, floors and ceilings moved. The structure contained technology beyond Irene’s ability to understand. It was also decidedly low tech. If it wanted a wall to move it didn’t use nanobots to disintegrate it. It just set it on wheels and rolled it away. In fact it built it on wheels to begin with so it could roll it away later. Trap doors and elevators were favorite methods of making items appear and disappear. All these low tech solutions were covered by illusions, provided by the same nanobots embedded in a player's cornea that were currently providing the image of Tinkerer.
Irene made an effort to not look at the changes. She knew she’d get fascinated by the play of motion and lose track of what she was supposed to be doing.
Only after Irene set up to watch the corridor around the next turn and the handful of doors along this one did she realize that the Tinkerer followed her. The projection stood beside her giving every impression that it too was watching the hallway. That was entirely nonsensical. Control probably knew where every nanobot was down to the picometer and picosecond. It occurred to Irene she probably could have just asked Tinkerer to warn her if someone was coming.
“Much of your time recently has been spent in staging area three two,” the projection stated.
“I’ve set up a school,” Irene answered the machine. She suspected that looking into staging area three two was against the constraints of its code. The association hall they used this last week for structure crafting, scavenging, warrior and wizard classes was well within it. “I teach earthen leatherworking, magic in its many forms and events since the landing.”
Irene was certain all of that was spoken aloud in the structure, so theoretically Tinkerer already knew it.
“There are six zero two magic trees,” Tinkerer said, which was the confusing way structure numbers would represent eight, six plus two. This gave Irene a bit of a pause. She only knew of seven trees; light, sound, force, temperature, electromagnetics, chemical reactions and momentum. Momentum might be mass or sometimes Irene wondered if it was gravity. A lot of the spells in the orange tree broke the rules of human science, making it hard to define what it was exactly.
She took note of Tinkerer’s hint that there were eight trees, but decided not to push the subject. She was sure the robot would start quoting that it was bound by its code. She ran into that behavior several times already in her interactions with the structure’s Control system.
“By forms I mean how we humans have split different activities into categories. I teach how warrior, wizard, crafting, enchanting and fixture controls are all interrelated using the same symbols and magic trees. One of my instructors has some experience with chemistry, but I need to learn more about that myself before I can teach how it relates to the other forms.”
“Chemistry is a rare path. Only two six zero four were ever masters of it,” the robot stated. This was getting to be an extremely odd conversation. Irene really wished she could give it more of her attention, especially since she knew Tinkerer's side of it would not be recorded on her camera.
“Betty recently told me that Uncle, a member of species sixteen, returned her to her family when she was young. She feels she owes Uncle a debt.” Irene replied.
“Two six zero four are protective of children,” Tinkerer said. “They will remove a child from threat, even if the threat is the child’s caregiver.”
“Ah,” Irene said suddenly, as she caught a glimpse of what was happening in Londontown. She wondered where Uncle would take the children and remembered the coloring book in the orphanage in Chicago. Were some of those young children not orphans at all? Or was uncle there rescuing them as well?
“It is difficult to raise a child in wildspace,” Irene stated, “I would think that would be a threat to a child.”
“Two six zero four believe children should be raised by members of their own species,” Tinkerer stated.
“That is good to know,” Irene said.
“Process complete,” Tinkerer announced. Irene was more than certain that longer than fifteen minutes passed. It would appear Tinkerer was finished telling her what it wanted her to know. “The issue is resolved.” Irene went back to join up with Todd. As she crossed what was the entrance to the gallery she found the entrance to a common hall, with the usual room doors leading off of it.
“Let’s take them back and set them in the new hall. We can keep watch until they wake,” Irene told Todd.
“A zero zero drawn spell will return consciousness,” Tinkerer commented.
“Excellent,” Irene replied. She was fairly certain Tinkerer was describing the dark spell that drew light out of a panel. They carried the guards back and laid them down in a rough pattern of where they’d knocked them out. The far guards were much closer to the entrance to Londontown than they were before because there was now a cross passage at what was once nearly the center of the gallery.
Irene made sure the conceal spell was still in effect. She experienced no fatigue from holding the spell. She decided that it must be a benefit of being active on the job. Irene woke the three guards she put to sleep, while Todd woke his two. They waited in the new hallway in wildspace while the guards gained their feet and exclaimed in distress at the changes. When Irene was satisfied that they were alert and able to defend themselves, she turned back to Tinkerer. The projection followed them around the whole time they rearranged things.
“Please direct us to another transport station now,” she requested of the robot.
“This way,” the robot replied, walking off into the halls. Tinkerer led them up two floors and about a mile to the east. The robot looked like it was walking, but it moved at a surprisingly fast pace. Suddenly it stopped in the middle of a common hallway. A tile in front of its feet split into four and slid out of the way, revealing a shaft with ladder handholds on either side. “A transport module awaits below,” the robot announced. “It will return you to your last origin. Do you wish to be removed from active status when you arrive at your destination?”
“Yes,” Irene answered. “You have been very helpful. Thank you.”
“Thanks,” Todd told the robot, as he lowered himself down the shaft. Irene followed him. They dropped down into a very short, narrow passage that ended at a door to a travel module. The module was identical to the last one. They both sat on the bench seat and the door closed.
“That was too easy,” Todd commented.
“I am sure it’s like any issue list. Some are easy, some are incredibly hard. Someone didn’t want to give Control the ability to knock people out and move them against their will. I can see how that ability might really go wrong. The only other way I can see to clear that room would be to send a migration through it. The fact that didn’t happen gives me hope,” Irene commented.
“Well we are going to get back really early. I told everyone not to expect us until late tomorrow night,” Todd commented.
“I think we should go to Londontown,” Grandmother commented. “We can pick up stock for the shop and I want to talk to Uncle.”
“Who?” Todd asked.
“Our species sixteen visitor,” Grandmother explained. “Betty met one when she was young. She called him Uncle.”
