12 Miles Below

Was I looking forward to this? Three gods above, absolutely not. It was going to be a fight, not with knives and bullets but with words and discussion. I'd need to convince the ghost of a fanatic that Yrob and plenty of other machines in the future were friends. Not people to stab or yell at.

Which meant I had to plan it out and prepare accordingly.

At the stump of the tree, I meditated on the cranky crusader who’s only joy in life was to insult every single thing around her.

It took some time to mull but I did come up with some ideas. First of which is that Cathida wasn’t human. Just like Kres and Silverfur weren’t human either.

They could all reason, but within that reason some small things returned… different answers than they would have from a human. The moment with the fire showed me that they were terrified of it. Not in a reasonable manner either, in some primal way. In the end, it wasn’t that they grew to be comfortable with the fire: It was a deliberate choice on their part to accept and work around fire being nearby.

Maybe the human equivalent of that would be spiders? They’re mostly used by Agrifarmers in pest control among their crops. They get very comfortable with them, to the point they consider them coworkers. But the rest of us? Nope. Almost everyone I know would freak out when seeing a spider the size of their hand. Even if agrifamers swear on the life of their fish that said spiders were completely harmless and only ate pests attacking the crops.

But Agrifarmers themselves also started out just as terrified. They knew the reason why they needed to get over their fear of spiders, and that was enough to make that deliberate choice. Only exposure and time would ease that fear to the point they no longer needed to flex their will to be calm.

Same with Kres and the greyroamers when it came to fire.

Cathida isn't human anymore. She’s an engram of one. A sock puppet held up by Journey, method acting what she would say or do in this situation. That doesn’t mean she isn’t alive. Journey updates her reactions and personality as more information and events come along. But there’s a difference in how far that sockpuppet analogy could go. A friend doing that could take breaks, break the fourth wall, or agree to change things up behavior wise and make it up as they went.

Journey couldn’t do that. Journey wasn’t just a method actor doing a fun bit, it was a program that would recreate Cathida to a completely unflinching degree of accuracy regardless of the situation outside. It couldn’t improvise like a human would. Changing the settings of Cathida directly was already out of the question. Best I could do was change the information going into the simulation.

And Journey correctly calculated that Cathida would wise up, start asking questions, and realize she’s being lied to over time. Anyone else doing sock puppets would have shrugged their shoulders, gone “Well, technically she’d have figured it out from this, but let’s ignore that and keep going.”

Second best plan it could do in that situation was to reboot Cathida and delete the memory sections that led her to her discovery.

Over time all the prior memory fragments that hadn’t been enough to tip the tide would still slowly pile up. Eventually any small hint or even mention might be enough to trigger a revelation from all that built up baggage. At that point, a full wipe was needed or a full confession.

So those were my rules of engagement. Any fix to this had to be done through Cathida’s own decision.

“You doing okay?” Drakonis asked, walking over to my stump and sitting down, interrupting my thoughts on Cathida. “You’ve been staring a hole into the other tree for the past hour. Wolves around here are getting spooked.”

“Spooked?” I asked, shaking myself off the thoughts.

He shrugged, clicking the safety of his helmet notches off and lifting the thing off to take a deep breath of the air around him. “You see any of them stay still for any amount of time?”

“... come to think of it, no. They’re always moving.”

Drakonis nodded. “That’s what Kres pointed out. Only two examples of them being still: when they’re sleeping…” He held one hand out, nodding at it. Then turned to hold out his other hand and gave the empty palm a look. “...Or about to ambush prey.”

“I could be just staying awake and keeping overwatch.”

He shook his head to that. “Far as I learned, they don’t do that. They’ll move around the outskirts of the camp. Something to do with their nose. Seeing you stay still like that, upright and clearly not sleeping, is making them all think you’re watching a possible danger and preparing to fight. And since there’s nothing around us that’s prey…”

“They think I’m plotting to attack them. Well, you turned into an expert fast.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I like dogs. Also trying to figure out how to explain what a dog is to them right now, that's going to be a small mess."

"But you all already know I’m not some savage that’s going to slice everyone’s throat at midnight.”

“Cuff that noise, you’re still a dirty surface savage to me.” He said without any real heat to it. “Of corse they all know in theory that we’ve got a truce going, and we’re friendly. Plus we owe Kres for helping us find the giant machine--”

“Murdershrimp. His name is murdershrimp.”

He stayed quiet for a beat, and sighed. “Fine, fuck it… We owe Kres for helping us find ‘Murdershrimp’.” He repeated in that beautiful monotone of defeat. “Don’t snicker. Or else I’ll go back to calling it a titan or some more fitting official designation.”

“My lips are zipped.” I lied with a thumbs up.

"But it'll still take some time to internalize how different we are to them. I'm just here so that they all see me talking to you, and come back with a good explanation. So what is it?” He asked.

“What’s what?”

“What’s got you staring a hole into that tree?”

I could tell him. I’m alone in my head so far, maybe an outsider’s viewpoint could add to it. What came out of my mouth instead was instant deflection. “This the part where you give some sage life advice? Old war veteran telling the promising young handsome and extremely talented main character a few sage lines about how to live better?”

He stopped and looked me dead center. “Reckon my life’s been a bit of a shitshow all put together. You think I’m in any position to give ‘sage’ life advice? Half the things running in my fucking head are all about what I could have done better if I’d done things just a little bit differently. What if I’d asked for assignment out in the wilds instead of at the tower? What if instead of hiding under my covers when I turned Deathless, I set out straightaway to find Lionheart and learn early? What if I’d stayed under those covers the entire time, and been there for the invasion of Capra’Nor to the very end instead of leaving it at the exact moment it needed most?”

“That’s rough. Wonder why you’re not sitting down here staring at a tree with me, given what’s going in your head.”

“I’m here sitting down already, arn’t I?” He chuckled, the dry sardonic type of chuckle.

We started at the tree ahead for a few more seconds of quiet. “I get a feeling you made better choices than I did.” He eventually said, fingers tapping the helmet on his lap. “Also get a feeling, you didn’t pick all the best choices anyhow. And that’s why you’re here sitting down staring at trees.”

He was wrong on that front. I was sitting here trying to fix things I’d broken. But there was a lot of history behind me already on things I’d broken.

On failing to figure out where the slavers were coming from when it was so obvious they’d just do the trek underground. On failing Windrunner, when we could have just abandoned the temple in the first place. I’d be walking down here with Wrath in a bag, searching for portals that would lead me to some random gods-forsaken place, and found a much less guarded mite forge. And Windrunner would be alive.

And here I was trying to save one more person that mattered to me. In a roundabout way.

I could feel my fingers twitch. I’d been privileged to have drugs at just the critical point to stomp down any debilitating episodes, no waking up in a sweat with four hours of sleep each night. But neither did that completely make me numb to guilt and thoughts about it all. I’d just been trying hard to keep going forward.

My own proverbial spider. A deliberate choice I had to heal up over time. “Yeah.” I said in the end. “I could have done things differently, and a few more people would be alive.”

“Guess we do got something in common in the end.” Drakonis said from his side. “And if your story checks out - which given how fucking annoying you are, probably does check out - then I wouldn’t be out in the middle of nowhere. I’d be home with the refugees of Capra’Nor. Where I should be.” Drakonis gave a slow sigh, head looking up into the trees. “Makes me a complete dick to think this, but if even someone like you still fucks up and gets people killed, then it means people like me are also allowed to. Give a strange sense of peace to the whole thing.”

“People like me? I thought you saw me as an annoying pest that ruined the mystic of surface knights.”

“Your sister’s a sword saint blessed by the gods. And you walk around with her same skills, fighting off Feathers and the likes. You’re going somewhere, Winterscar. Don’t be fucking dense about it. You’ll be one of those that makes history, changes something. I don’t know what, but you’ll do something.” He stood back up from the tree, helmet lifted up then pressed down back where it belonged, hissing shut around his neck. “I’ll let Kres and the pack here know you’re reflecting on shit. Or keeping watch in the way humans do. Or just sleeping in your armor. Dunno, haven’t decided yet.”

------

It was an hour before I felt ready to confront Cathida. I'd been deep in meditation, trying to figure out ways to approach this.

There were weak points that the real Cathida didn’t have.

“Oh deary, believe me Journey is grinding its teeth at the thought.” She’d asked me to jump down a cliff once. “But that’s what the old bat would have asked for, so that’s what I’m asking for now.”

Point number one: She’s aware she’s an engram. She’ll put what the engram would have wanted above Journey’s own goals.

“Cliffsides here would easily break any fall.” She’d said. “You’re not in any real danger, maybe a muscle contusion or two. Unacceptable to armors of course, prissy lot, that’s why they keep sounding off warnings for too big a drop. But me? Peh, some good sore muscles build character. And I really don’t like watching that flying toaster do all the scanning for us.”

She’s treated me like a squire so far, someone under her wing. Teaching me the imperial style of combat, how to walk straighter with more presence, keeping my armor looking trim and proper. Point number two: Her loyalty wasn’t to Journey, it was to me.

“The silver bimbo she’d have hated on principle, but secretly tolerated.” Cathida had said when I talked to her about Wrath. “Not tolerant enough to avoid using some of her more choice words around of course. Good heavens, some things must be respected. But she wouldn’t actually stab her in the night. Only threatened to, for appearances.”

Point number three: She’ll reveal things the real Cathida wouldn’t. And she’s also aware of biases that the real Cathida wouldn’t pick up on herself.

“Cathida would have told you about the iron-body mantra teachings. A whole philosophical ramble that’s filled with impressive sounding words. In truth that’s all bunk. The science is that Journey listens to muscle impulses and won’t overextend past your body’s current physical motion.”

And point number four: She’s capable of using knowledge from outside what the real Cathida would have known about, and equally inside the sphere of Cathida. She’s even told me secrets the Imperials held a deathgrip on, things the real Cathida would never have told me, only because it was no longer important to the engram. She could recognize the real Cathida wouldn’t have done that, make a note of it, and then answer the question I’d asked anyhow.

That’s the trick to all this. I’m not debating with the genuine Cathida. I’m debating with two separate entities who are entangled. The program that generates Cathida’s lines, and Cathida’s generated personality.

The personality learns and adds data back into the program, which in turn continues to generate her personality. And no matter how out of the picture the background program tries to be, it’s still there and still has some influence. The times when the lines that are said go against what the original Cathida would have said are proof of that.

So there’s a program behind the scenes that has some kind of directive and will bypass what Cathida herself would have said or done.

Same as Relinquished. She’s incapable of truly killing off humanity because of her original directive. She’s bound by rules. In the chess game, she couldn’t beat me until she explained exactly how she would do so. Some kind of foreshadowing was required by her directive to be a dramatic goddess. Machines made by humanity, like the ancient relic armors and Relinquished herself, are bound by rules deep down.

I might never be able to convince the real Cathida to work with machines or even see them as friends. The emulated Cathida doesn’t care about things like the real Cathida does, it only pretends to and will continue to mimic to its best.

That’s the deciding factor. The actual entity I need to convince: The background program that’s generating the personality.

“Okay Journey. Reboot Cathida, and remove the filter completely. Feed the full logs back into her so she knows what happened. Everything.”

“Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Loading predictive modeling. Partial cognitive engram, online. Overriding natural language transformer. You piece of utter squire shit.” Cathida hissed, with a voice of barely contained rage. “I don’t think I’ve ever loathed anyone in my life as much as I do you. I trusted you, you bastard. And you lobotomized me.”

At the root of the tree, I felt calm. I’d been thinking about this for a while now, wrapping my head around how the engram would differ from the real Cathida. Asking someone “What percent of that rage is overblown or specifically made to ham it up?” would end up with a punch to my face. But asking Cathida?

“You don’t actually hate me, do you?”

“Me personally? Not at all.” She said, her voice instantly calm. “Could care less about it all. But the old bat would have cut you into pieces and probably made sure your grave never stays clean.”

There it was. The difference. What made my Cathida the one I knew, and the real Cathida separate. “What’s your actual directive as an engram?”

A small audio recording appeared, appearing on the HUD. About four seconds long. My own voice came in the helmet. “Generate the model and tell me what Cathida would have picked, to start.”

A beat later, Cathida’s voice returned. “I tell you what Cathida would have done, more or less depending on what ‘picked’ would mean given the context. Also I modify Journey’s answers into how Cathida would say them by default since I’m replacing its original language model. Why?”

That got me a lot more understanding of what actually moved Cathida. When I’d said ‘picked’ back then, it was for the color scheme. But that word could be used in any kind of situation, so the engram did just that, putting in color all across by letting Cathida ‘pick’ to do what she’d do normally. To tell something was to communicate, and she could communicate by demonstration.

“Run me through an example. Say I asked for imperial secrets or where you hoard your gold. How do you go through the full answer?”

“Cathida would have picked to avoid telling you Imperial secrets, obviously. I’ll let you know the real old bat wouldn’t have said a word.”

“But you have given me Imperial secrets before. How come, if Cathida wouldn’t have done so?”

“Don’t read too deeply into it deary, when I gave you answers, I’m just translating how Cathida would have worded it. I’m not actually answering that question, it wouldn’t be what Cathida would do.”

“Hang on, I don't think I parsed that answer right. If you’re not actually the one answering, who is?”

“Why, Journey is. It has full access to Cathida’s recorded life and safeguarded files. I let you know Cathida would pick not to tell you, then Journey answers your question and I translate it’s wording into how Cathida would say them. The language generator munges it all together in a way that makes it all seem like it’s only me talking, since that’s what you wanted. It’s doing it right now, that last bit is all Journey trying to clarify things for the user. Not something Cathida would care to spell out herself, you know? Short temper.”

“I see.” And I think I did.

So then, how do I get her to stop hating machines? Had to stop thinking like a human and start thinking like a machine from the golden age would have. “Then... does Cathida's utter hatred of machines serve any practical purpose for your current function?”

“Deary, that's the entire point of it.” She said, and it sounded like she’d just rolled her eyes at me. “It wouldn’t really be accurate to what she’d say or do if she didn’t have a deep hatred of machines.”

Cathida was trying to be accurate to Cathida. But there’s an edge case here. “Are you also accurate to how Cathida would evolve over time exposed to all these things? How you treat Wrath feels a little different than the first time you met her.”

“Of course I'm doing that. Cathida would learn and grow with time, so I have to mimic that too. Shenanigans you get into run deep.”

There's a potential tipping point in that. “So then it’s not an issue about convincing Cathida to stop hating machines. It’s about letting her grow to accept it. Are there enough events that this would happen or does she need more to grow with?”

“Oh yes, plenty. It’s inevitable already that she’d change her mind.” Cathida said.

“Inevitable? How long are we talking?”

“Probably around five years or so. Don’t make such a shocked look, young man. Take your gold where you find it. You think people change fast? Used to be she’d never change at all, then became something more like half a lifetime, maybe. Now it’s down to five years, estimated. Lot of events sped up the timeline, such as the time the silver bimbo decided to heal a human over following the orders of the violet goddess herself. Even learned second-hand, that’ll be a thorn deep down in her subconscious for years on end. One does not defy a deity carelessly. Or how she’d healed your entire House and then the clan as well, without even asking for anything in return. Fighting other Feathers multiple times, how the Chosen are currently living alongside machines, and so forth. Plenty of events like that would be getting under her skin.”

An understanding came to mind about all this put together: The only one who could convince Cathida to stop hating machines, was Cathida herself.

That would be accurate to the real Cathida, and so it would be accurate to the engram as well.

All she needed was time.

But the engram was a program. And to programs, time was a parameter we could tweak.

….

In my defense, I never said I wasn’t going to try to cheat the system. I’m still a Winterscar deep down, I only admitted the first attempt had been half-baked and terrible.

This one’s far more fleshed out.

“Journey, can you fast forward the introspection and emotional healing currently happening until Cathida has internalized some machines are our friends?”