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zzambrosius_02
Ambros eased out of the extra-wide bed and slipped on a pair of trousers, loose around the legs. He pulled the drawstrings tight and tied them off, shaking his hips to settle the waistband.
He pushed the sliding door aside, careful to make no noise. He glanced back at Kim and Jimmy, who had spooned together, still asleep.
He stepped out into the colonnade and leaned on the railing, looking over the City of Athino.
‘I might be looking at any City in the Greek World,’ he thought: ‘Especially from this vantage, one story up from street level.’
He hummed a little off-key as he gazed across the landscape. None of the great landmarks of ancient Athens were visible from that vantage: the General Quarters stoa stood near the Outer Wall, and faced southwest, toward the more open countryside, dotted with farmhouses and barns.
‘And greenhouses,’ he thought. He watched as a crew of Laborers began disassembling one of those, loading the modular panels onto a flatbed trailer.
“More than a tenday into Warming,” he murmured to himself: “and the Summer Solstice is about a month away in the US calendar. I guess it’s time to put away the glass—transparent aluminum, I mean...”
He wondered if Voukli had watched the movie he’d sent her.
“Whatever. It’s time to put the stuff away.”
He felt at peace: ‘I slept all night without grinding my teeth, my shoulders are relaxed, I even feel reasonably loose and mobile through the hips...’ He wiggled those, perceiving the small amount of tension still there, beyond what it took to keep a human upright.
He did nothing about that tension. He was content.
The City slowly woke up, as he watched. The Dawn Bell rang: “About six AM our time. The sun’s been up for a while, though.” He contemplated the way the Commonwealth had recalibrated their clocks when contact with the larger world demanded a global system: ‘In the 16thcentury, our calendar...’
His MPS lit up, buzzing in alarm. He tapped it and got a message: “Earthquake Drill! This is a Drill! Evacuate buildings, follow the holos!” A deep, almost gong-like bell rang over the City, a warning to anyone whose MPS—or “karpeto”, as they called it in Athino— might be disabled.
He spun in place and ran across the colonnade and into their room. He plopped onto the bed, as Jimmy and Kim shook their heads and then leapt to their feet. Ambros sang as he donned his boots and a shirt:
“Rise up, rise up Little Matty Groves,
Rise up and put you on!”
“The hell?” Jimmy was puzzled.
“Earthquake drill, Jimmy. Shoes and pants, move fast!” Kim had already put on her dress and was sliding her feet into her flats.
They ran down the colonnade to the stairs, Kim hurrying Jimmy along. Once in the street below, their further path showed in the form of holographic arrows. The paving stones of the streets glowed red where falling masonry might land, and green where the City’s Engineering Guild calculated that people would be safe. Kim led the way to the nearest Green Zone. People poured out of buildings on all sides, seeking safe areas of their own. Children shrieked and giggled, babies wailed, dogs barked and whined and howled. A feral-looking brindled cat prowled slowly into the very edge of one green zone and sat, appearing irritated.
Ambros’ wristy pinged him; Kim looked up and said: “Force field drill! Hit the ground!”
They lay down, spooned together in fetal position; an unaccompanied child, perhaps five years old, ran over and snuggled up to Kim.
The air around them groaned and seemed to compress against them. Ambros’ ears popped. Then they popped again as the pressure dropped precipitously.
“It’s safe to sit up now,” said Kim.
They did. The little kid gave Kim a quick kiss, and then ran off towards the Library, now visible to them past the corner of the stoa where they’d slept.
Ambros looked the other way, toward the Outer Wall. A faint disturbance in the air showed where the force field dome loomed over the City. The field became briefly visible, first pink, then cyan.
His ears popped again as the dome dissolved, and the air pressure dropped back to its pre-drill ambient. He worked his jaw until the discomfort passed.
“All clear!” his MPS signalled. People around them began to rise and stretch, discussing the early-morning drill in pithy terms.
“Oh well,” said one codger, who wore tattered and patched Laborer’s garb and leaned on a staff to help himself to his feet: “Beats the midnight drills.”
Ambros agreed with him.
Kim led the way again, back to Jimmy’s room in Open Quarters.
None of them felt like sleeping after that. Jimmy started nuzzling Kim, as if bidding for more sex, but she eased away from him: “I have to be at Tech Guild in half an hour, Jimmy...no, really...I need to hit the Baths, too.”
Jimmy flopped back down on the bed, disappointed.
‘At least he’s not pissed off,’ Ambros thought: ‘...or not showing it anyway.’
Ambros took off his PJs and dressed for his day: “I’m to be at the Sacred Band Control Room in an hour. Megálos is gonna run me though the basics on his Secondary Main Board and then let me run it for a while.”
“Cool!” said Kim.
He shrugged: “I expect it’s gonna be grueling. I’ve seen those folks stagger away at the end of a shift...”
“Well, good luck, sweetie.” Kim kissed him, blew a kiss at Jimmy, and bounced out through the open door.
Ambros nodded at Jimmy, who seemed ready to while away the day in bed. Jimmy’s eyes closed slowly as he drifted back to sleep.
Ambros used some back stairs to get out of the stoa in the direction of the Command Complex. He thought: ‘Having a room available at Open Quarters is great. Since Jimmy is still mostly confined to the Commonwealth—by choice—he can keep it open for us...’ He strolled the streets and back alleys, thinking about his approaching initiation into the mysteries of the Main Board in the SB Control Room: “I’ve worked some subsidiary Boards, having to do with power flow and directing traffic...well, I’ll soon know more. No need to worry...”
He activated his MPS with a glance: ‘MPS...karpeto...wristy...whatever. It’ll help me find a shortcut through this residential neighborhood.’
He ‘saw’ a holographic arrow, which led him round the corners and along the sinuous streets of the area. The drill had disturbed the citizenry, sending some back to bed and leaving others wakeful that would not have been. A young mother sitting on a stool outside an apartment complex smiled sleepily at him as she nursed her infant. A man in Laborer’s Guild clothes led a donkey along the street, occasionally stopping to scoop various bits of detritus into the cart that it drew. The fellow’s dog stayed close, watching the man’s every move, sniffing each scoopful before it went into the cart. As Ambros passed them by, the dog alerted, whining and pointing.
The Laborer sorted through the debris on his scoop and found something or other in it. He praised the dog, and put the offending article into a saddlebag instead of into the cart.
Ambros’ head throbbed a little as RNA memory tried to make itself felt. He suppressed it: ‘I don’t need to know what that’s all about...’
He approached the doors to the Main Hall at the War Guild’s Command Complex. His MPS alerted him to time of day and appointments scheduled.
He picked up his Shifter and exchanged pleasantries with the Skolari on guard duty.
‘I have time for a shower before I’m due in the War Room,’ he thought.
Ambros felt a wave of dizziness, far worse than any he’d felt when crossing Timelines. He spoke quietly: ”Front. Front. Front!”
He heard someone snapping out jargon, then sensed Megálos stepping in behind him.
He stepped back from the control panel, hands at shoulder level, palms facing forward. Megálos immediately relieved him, saying: “Tell me later.”
Ambros watched for a moment as Megálos got quickly up to speed on what Ambros had been doing. He reached over the Master’s shoulder once, to delay an operation by a few seconds.
Then he backed away and went to the seating area near the main entrance to the War Room. His hands had begun to shake and he repeatedly shook his head.
He sat on the couch and leaned back, eyes closed, trembling.
A Medical Guildswoman approached him. She wore the customary white bodysuit; she spoke, seeming concerned” “Spathos? Do you require attention?”
He laughed: “I’m paying more attention right now than my brain can process.”
“Tell me what that means...”
Kim entered the War Room, wincing as a badly wounded operative went by her, floating in mid-air, towed by Med Guild and Laborers.
She ran over to Ambros: “Someone in this room just initiated a weird spike in the eleven dimensional tau-field near this Timeline.” She knelt beside the Med: “Why am I not surprised that it’s you?”
“I do seem to find myself at these odd junctures lately,” he replied.
Kim and the Med spoke rapidly to each other as they each deployed equipment around him. Ambros understood little of what they said, but he gathered that there was some cause for alarm.
Aristogatos, scheduled to relieve Ambros, came in through the energy screen that covered the garage-door sized entrance. He spotted Megálos, then Ambros. Megálos made a handsign, and Aristogatos dragged a chair over and sat Kim down in it. He stood behind her, listening intently.
The Med said: “His heartbeat is stable now...pressure within normal parameters...the adrenaline spike is passed, his blood chemistry is returning to normal...”
Ambros drew a deep breath: “That was unpleasant.”
“What happened?” asked Kim.
“Nothing much, on the outside,” he said. He paused: “I...I think I just integrated two or three huge chunks of information. Stuff that I was struggling with. I can...I think...I’m going to be able to do that thing that Arrenji does, to see the consequences of my words and actions as potential Timeline splits. I had a little of that before, but this...this is more specific.”
“What’s it like?” Aristogatos inquired, diffidently.
Arrenji swept into the room in her ordinary (rather dramatic) way and sat on the arm of Kim’s chair: “What’s up?”
Ambros said: “I just watched a Timeline Split. It’s in the boonies, near the Squid’s Wall. It looks like somebody from Objectivist Prime blew up an operation by L’Iriquois’ Legions in one of those Zoroastrian Primitive Lines, and the Split resulted. The thing is...”
Arrenji raised an eyebrow.
“I saw it before it really started, and without any idea it was about to happen.” He nodded: “Like remembering the future...”
Arrenji started as if she’d been poked: “Really?” She sounded resigned.
“Yeah,” he said. He gestured at Kim: “Like, I heard Diana’s version of your twentieth birthday party, and your version, and a couple other stories from other friends of yours...I wasn’t there, but I’ve constructed a faux memory of the event...in several versions.”
“That’s how memory works,” said the Med: “We construct narratives, adapt them to our psychological needs...memory always re-constructs reality.”
“Yeah,” said Ambros: “So now I see—I mean, I think I will see—several possible outcomes for any consequential choice I make...”
“You don’t have enough RNA for that!” Arrenji objected.
“No, but I have quite a bit. And I have that mushroom trip, and that horrible ‘one-with-everything’ moment while tripping.”
“Yes, I suppose...”
“Anyway,” said Ambros, at length: “It doesn’t matter if I’m officially capable of, or permitted to have these damned experiences. I have them anyway, and it’s my job to...”
“To...?” Kim asked.
“I have to deal with it. I need to go see Averos...now.”
Ambros entered Averos’ lab from the hallway.
Averos said: “Spathos. You usually use the elevator.”
“Yeah.”
Averos chuckled: “I bet I know why you’re here...”
“You heard about that cluster-fuck in the War Room?”
“I did. I saw the spike on the monitor, too.” He waved at the screen near his workstation: “Now you have questions. Yes?”
“Yes. How does this Multiverse stuff work? How do self-aware individuals effect changes, or cause Splits? Or are those the wrong questions?”
Averos frowned: “They are on the verge of wrong, but I know what you mean. I can’t explain it to you exactly, because you don’t have the maths. But I will go over the current theories in ‘analagous mode’.”
Ambros grinned: “Sounds good to me. Fire away.”
Iyelisi and some other techs bustled about, doing various projects. Raffos had an entire workbench taken apart, and was working on a small part deep inside it.
Averos led the way to a seating area out of the lab proper. He sat back in a chair and began: “First I have to talk about how we observe phenomena on the macroscopic level. What you would call Newtonian physics. This is a map, so to speak, of the world as we experience it. For example, a rectangular solid slides down an incline; we make predictions about the behavior of that ‘system’ based on our knowledge of the materials involved.” Averos paused.
Ambros said: “So, how smooth or rough the surfaces are, and how heavy each item is; the...coefficient of friction?”
“Close enough for now,” said Averos: “But the surfaces are actually quite variable at the molecular level. We compute an average, or representative, value for each surface at the macro scale; we see no sign of the variability observable at the micro scale. The micro and macro scales are acting independently. They are separated by orders of magnitude. Right?”
“Right...” Ambros put a fist by his ear, asking for a moment of silence.
“Go on,” he said, after a bit.
“So now I need to discuss phase transitions. I’ll use the example of water to steam. Endaxi?”
“Sure...”
“So, if we apply heat evenly to a body of water, it goes from water to steam all at once. The temperature of the water increases while its density decreases, until...”
Ambros nodded: “Flash. The whole system goes from liquid to gas. Boom! From a Newtonian perspective, anyway.”
“Yes. This is called a second order phase transition. The point where the substance is water and steam at the same time is a second order phase transition point. Good so far?”
“Sorta. So there’s a second order phase transition point where water freezes to ice, and another where steam goes to plasma?”
“Correct. And similar for other transitions between states of matter.”
"Wait, what?"
"Oh, there are way more than four states of matter..." Averos grinned.
Ambros frowned: “Shit. All right, go on.”
“Sure. The second order phase transition point is a place where the micro and macro states interact, but not in sync. And they are not in sync because the averageof the whole system is in transition, but at any local point on the molecular scale, variability occurs.”
“Explain that.” Ambros felt himself getting lost, something that often happened when he talked to Tech Guild people, including Kim.
“All right...suppose we had a container with ten thousand...‘cubic centimeters’ of water in it. And let’s say we have the ability to observe each cc independently. At the transition point, each cc is rocking back and forth between liquid and vapor states. See?”
“Fine. They’re out of sync. But what does all this have to do with Timeline splitting and all that?” Ambros inquired.
Averos shoulders slumped and he shook his head: “It’s an analogy. See...if the Multiverse is infinite, as most of us suspect, and there are an infinite number of Timelines, then one could see the Lines as molecules of water, and the Multiverse as the macro scale. It’s not an exact analogy; few things in the world are. It’s actually pretty weak, since the ‘density’ of the Multiverse doesn’t seem to vary much...but Timeline splits seem to occur as a result of a temporary decrease in the ‘density’ in a local sector of the Multiverse. Vaguely analagous to heating up a pot of water. Except the Multiverse fills the space created by ‘heating’ with a new ‘molecule’. A new Timeline. The split re-establishes the density of the whole system at near the overall average level.”
“The hell you say. So that’s what I experienced when the split occurred in that Religious Line...”
“Indeed. Approximating a simultaneous seventh and eleventh order phase transition, but out-of-sync. There are enormous energies involved, in the variable nature of seven and eleven dimensional rho-fields...” Averos could see that he’d lost Ambros. He stopped.
After a moment Ambros asked: “What is a ‘rho field’?”
Averos pursed his lips: “I can’t tell you that. Not because it’s secret, but because the explanation is entirely mathematical, and you don’t have the maths for it.”
“Okay, fair enough.”
“In general, what we are doing in crossing Timelines is complex because it involves very small and very large scales simultaneously. There is little co-ordination between scales. We have artificially stupid thinking machines that diagnose stresses and automatically negate any harm we may acidentally do...and which also alert us when something is far out of acceptable parameters.” Averos sighed, then continued: “Your plan for the emergency we’ve discussed in the past in particular creates stresses in our systems which need to be alleviated at the quantum and Newtonian scales.”
Ambros could almost see it: “A seven dimensional Rho-field would exist in...it would have 7 vertices...”
“Yes. Those are spatial dimensions; time makes it even more complicated.” Averos continued: “Humans can’t directly experience more than four. So mathematics becomes our...”
“But I saw the Line split...” Ambros interrupted: “I saw the end state of the two Timelines at the same moment that I saw the split begin. I don’t know how to account for that. That doesn’t even describe it!”
Averos smiled slightly: “I suspect that you saw that small piece of the Multiverse in something like the way that the Squids see the entirety of it. All one thing. The end creates the beginning. But no determinism exists.”
“That makes no sense,” Ambros asserted.
Averos laughed: “Not to you or me, it doesn’t. But that’s what the maths say is the true reality. I grasp the maths. You experienced the thing. A tiny bit of it.”
Ambros stared at his boots: “So when the United States Imperial Timeline fractured into twenty-some Lines in the midst of a World War, it was because...” Ambros paused. For a moment he felt again the immensity of the Multiverse bearing in from all sides, a flash back to his shroom trip.
Averos continued: “Self-aware individuals’ actions generally cancel out. Some people are ‘heating’ the Line, others...” Averos watched Ambros closely, seeing that he “got it”. Then he said: “Because Master Nikodemos’ actions heated the Line up to a boiling point, a new Line formed.”
Ambros agreed: “But it was all ‘too hot’ still, so the new Line broke in two, and then the two new ones split...”
“Yes.” Averos leaned forward: “Except that this entire explanation is a rather weak analogy. It’s not heat; it’s ‘density’. And density in this context is also a weak analogy. It’s density in 7 spatial dimensions, complicated by linear Time, flowing in indeterminate directions, and often overridden by 11 or 13 dimensional effects. And nothing is pre-determined. But everything that happens affects the future and the present and the past...at the micro, macro and Multiversal scales.”
After a long silence Ambros said: “I don’t get it. I understand each sentence, and I know what the words mean...but I don’t feel it. Except...I can sometimes feel it when I’m about to do something that might split the Line later on...but then I just...I don’t experience that as ‘density’, or a lack of it...”
Averos nodded: “We are limited that way. We can’t truly experience it, except in infinitesimally small moments.”
Ambros looked up: “What should I do about that?”
Averos laughed: “What we all do: consider your options and choose your path. You are seeing more of the reality than most people ever do. That’s all.”
“That’s all? But it doesn’t expand my choices. It drives me toward the ‘best’ ones. The best for me and my family and the Commonwealth, anyway.” Ambros laughed at himself: “I feel like I should be studying the maths, so I’d...”
“You have enough to do,” Averos interrupted: “I’ll give you a ‘homework’ assignment, though: In a season, come back and tell me: What is the nature of...in American, a ‘Planck-length tetrahedron’.” He said the same thing in Hellenic, where the item was named after a Commonwealth scientist.
Ambros said: “I’ll see what I can manage. I really do have more to do than I can get done.”
“Fair enough. What are you up to now?”
“Home, to my own Line. It’s Saturday and I need to be at Samuel B’s...” He glanced up, grinning: “It’s my job.”
Averos grinned widely: “Do you mind if I join you? I have this ID...” He drew the fake ID that Ambros had given him out of a pouch attached to his belt.
Ambros considered: “I think that’ll be okay. Let’s go. I want a shower first.”
“Ki ego,” said Averos.
They dropped in to the Main Hall at Ambros’ Salon on the edge of the Benham Neighborhood. Averos looked around, amused.
“You’ve seen this place before, in holos,” said Ambros.
“I have,” Averos replied: “It looks smaller in person. Hardly large enough for training sword-fighters.”
“I only have six students in here at a time, mostly.” Ambros tipped his head towards the exit: “Let’s walk. It’s not too far.”
The wind chilled them enough to get them moving fast. They made it to Benham and turned northeast along the diagonal avenue. A splatter of rain swept over them and a cop car cruised by slowly. Two young women barely out of their teens strolled by going southwest. He could hear their laughter as they kept walking.
Averos looked around, interested; he spoke in American: “We will need...money, yes?”
“Oh yeah,” said Ambros: “I got it covered. If anyone asks, you are visiting me from Greece. If any real Greek people should happen along—barely possible—tell them you are from Crete.”
“Endaxi. I mean, okay.”
Tattered posters fluttered in the breeze, tacked or stapled to power poles and fences. Averos stopped to look at some: “Explain these notices, please.”
Ambros joined him by a pole: “Hmm. The dark one advertises a punk-rock show in a ‘house’ venue, meaning that it’s likely in the basement or garage of someone’s home.”
“The graphics and lettering are very...crude.”
“So is the music. It’s a genre originated by very young people, mostly young men, in the 70s of the most recent century. It is still heavily populated by young people...many are the grandchildren of punks from the first wave.”
Averos nodded: “I see.”
Ambros said: “The one with red letters announces a meeting for people opposed to the current System, but the organizing group is a local do-gooders organization, who are not really opposed to the current system, just the people currently running it. It’s a transparent attempt...”
Averos waved a hand: “Yes, at recuperation, or the co-opting of young people’s energy.”
“But that’s not transparent to the organizers. They truly believe themselves to be...”
“Of course,” said Averos.
Ambros grinned the wry grin of the Sacred Band: “The rest of these are touting the qualifications of various City Council candidates; we are approaching a Primary Election, near the end of May. The month of May, I mean.
“This poster,” Ambros continued: “This one is urging the re-election of the current Mayor, Mr Nichols.”
“It has been seriously defaced,” said Averos.
“Not surprising, in this neighborhood. Nichols is not popular on and around Benham Avenue.”
“Yet he exercises authority here?”
“In an imaginary way. The real boss is called the ‘City Manager’. The Mayor’s main job is to draw attention away from what is really happening.”
Averos laughed: “Magnificently Irrational.”
“Yeah.” Ambros led the way into the pub. He waved to various acquaintances, then sat at the end of a long empty table in the middle of the floor.
People came and went. Averos listened to the conversation carefully, but feigned a heavy Greek accent and not much speaking knowledge of American.
Ambros approved and told him so in Hellenic: “You’ll be less likely to say the wrong thing if you don’t say much that anyone can understand.
“My thought exactly,” said Averos.
Ambros introduced him as a distant cousin.
A hazy old guy who called himself “Nic-with-no-k Lockmann” started telling a story:
“So a few years back I was working armed security at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland. I got to know the cops. Of course. One day one of ’em calls me over: ‘Hey, Lockmann, come over here’.
“I went over and there on the ground face down and handcuffed I see this guy Billy-joe Whatevah, one of the long-time bad actors that I regularly had to escort away from the area...”
“For what?” asked Ambros.
“Oh, the usual: littering, selling pirated cassette tapes, stalking single women, shoplifting.”
“Stalking?” asked Johanna.
“Yeah, old BJ fancied himself a pimp. He could never keep a girl on a string though. Not tough enough. Other pimps would kick his ass and take the girl. Once the young ladies figured out what he was up to, some of themkicked his ass, too. He was a dipshit.”
Johanna frowned more deeply: “Shouldn’t he have been arrested? Not just chased off?”
Nic shrugged: “I wasn’t a cop. I didn’t have the authority to arrest him. Anyhow, there the idiot is, facedown like I said. He looks at me over his shoulder and starts cussing me out. Called me Jew and Kike and all that, and then he called me a ‘rent-a-cop’.” Nic started laughing: “I was working for the Downtown Business League, so I said: “I ain’t for rent, I’m bought and paid for!”
This got a small laugh out of the crowd, and huge guffaw from Nic himself.
Then Nic continued: “So I ask Lt Olsen what they busted old BJ for, and he pulls out a baggie. I look at it and open it and sniff it. I’m like ‘shrug’ I can’t ID it.
“Olsen says: ‘It’s moss.’
“I’m like, ‘Huh?’ Olsen says: ‘Dude made a deal to sell a dime bag to one of our undercover cops.’
“I’m like: ‘Oookay...’ And Olsen says: ‘Dude’s going down for fraud. 10-to-20. Instead of 3-to-5 for pot.’ ”
This got a general laugh, and Bill seemed to find it particularly amusing.
Lockmann laughed too.
Ambros thought: ‘This guy laughs at his own punchlines, more than anyone I ever met.’
Lockmann then said: “Only time I ever heard of that one...”
After a while Ambros and Averos found themselves alone at one end of the table. Averos started talking about Nazi successes in multiple Timelines: “Since the L’iriquois family gave them Gate technology...”
Bill came in and sat by them: “Ambros is obsessed with Nazis. I’m Bill,” he said offering a handshake.
Ambros laughed: “This is my cousin Averos. He’s a computer guy who lives in Athens. In Greece, I mean...”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Bill.
Averos spoke in Hellenic: “Does this man not fear or hate Nazis?”
“Se eenou Pacifistos Ideologika,” said Ambros: “I expect he is committed to not hating them.” He turned to Bill: “Actually, my cuz here was the one brought up Nazis. He has them contending for power in his homeland. A party called Golden Sunrise, right, Averos?”
Averos played along: “Indeed,” he said in American. Then in Hellenic: “I don’t actually know where you are going with this...”
Ambros shrugged, saying in Hellenic: “Nor do I.” He switched to American: “But Bill here...I don’t actually know what he thinks about Nazis. How ‘bout it?”
Bill shook his head and said, slowly: “I don’t like violence, and I oppose Nazis because of that. But Free Speech means we have to let them have their say...”
Ambros grinned: “You are a Free Speech absolutist and an ideological pacifist?”
After a pause Bill said: “That describes my position exactly.”
Averos spoke in Hellenic: “That is a position that grows only in places of extreme privilege.”
Ambros nodded, making a face.
Bill inquired and Ambros translated.
“Privilege?” Bill seemed disturbed.
Ambros shrugged: “Averos said it, I didn’t. But I suspect he’s correct.”
“How do you figure?”
“You live in the world’s most powerful empire,” Ambros said: “You are shielded by its armed forces, even as you are shackled by its stupid economy. You are protected by customs and by laws that prevent wantonly violent and casually murderous people from attacking you. The cops stand between you and the most fascistic people in this society. Even, to some extent, when those people are in positions of power. Even when the cops are themselves fascists, their existence discourages a lot of violence. When the cops fail you, you have lawsuits and legal defenses available to you that most people in the world don’t have. Enormous privilege, right?”
“I have never in my adult life called the police on anyone, for any reason,” Bill stated firmly.
“Nice deflection,” said Averos, in Hellenic. Ambros snorted.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Allie asked. She moved down to sit by Bill, giving him a measuring look: “You were talking about Nazis, right?”
Lockmann scooted to their end of the table, saying: “As a Jew, I have a professional interest in this conversation.”
Allie gave NIc the same calculating side-eye she’d given Bill, then said: “My ex-BFF is in middle school now and she has these boys harrassing her cuz she’s a Latina...”
“BFF?” asked Lockmann.
“It means Best Friend Forever.”
“Then how could she be ex?” Lockmann was confused.
Allie rolled her eyes: “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Obviously,” said Lockmann, now looking amused.
“Look, I’ll be at the same school with her next year and maybe we’ll be besties again. But at the moment...”
“We get it,” said Ambros: “Or I do anyway.”
“Well, Carlotta is in trouble right now cuz one of the guys who was harrassing her pinched her butt, so she slugged him. So she’s suspended for throwing a punch. But then her mom went online and found out that this kid’s dad is some half-assed Nazi guy, and took the proof to the school board...and now they are talking about expelling Carlotta!”
“Huh? Like, her punching a Nazi’s kid violated someone’s free speech rights?” Ambros said, extremely sarcastic.
“Yep,” said Allie.
“Wait, I was joking!”
“They don’t appear to be,” said Jonie, entering the conversation: “The School Board is dead serious.”
Ambros shook his head: “That’s...”
“Yeah,” said Jonie: “I don’t know what the Board thinks it’s doing. We don’t really need to listen to Nazis, we know what they have to say.”
“And we know where it goes, if we tolerate them,” said Lockmann: “They take power. Once they have power, they start killing us.”
“How does listening to Nazis lead to them getting into power?” asked Bill: “We can argue with them...”
Ambros shook his head: “If you argue with them, you make it seem like they have a position that can—or should—be debated.”
Nic got into it: “If you treat actual swastika-wearing Nazis or robed Klansmen like they are just people who have different positions on political and racial issues, you risk bringing them into the mainstream.”
Ambros bumped fists with Nic, and continued: “You normalize a ‘discussion’ of authoritarianism and genocide. People may...some people will agree with them, and join them. You lose even if you think you won.”
Bill said: “Our ideas are better, and kinder...almost everyone will agree with us.”
“Oh, like your love for your fellow humans will overcome a Nazi’s hatred for Jews and black and brown people?” Lockmann sneered.
“Well...”
Lockmann lowered his brows: “Idiot.”
“What? Name-calling?” Bill said (very mildly, considering).
Nic leaned forward: “They only need twenty percent of the population to win a Presidential election. They are close now: polls show as many as 14% of Americans will agree to Nazi positions if they aren’t explicitly labelled “Nazi’. Think about that!”
Ambros looked at Bill with pity in his eyes: “If the Nazis and their Klan and Dominionist allies ever take power in this country, I swear that I will struggle with every fiber of my being to keep you and your Jewish wife off of the cattle cars and out of the camps. But until that day, I’ll do everything I can to keep them from power, including beating them to death with my fists.”
Bill was taken aback: “Did you ever...”
“Yes,” Ambros said, interrupting. He sat for a moment staring at his hands, loosely clenched into soft fists. He saw a couple of scars from his gauntlets’ impact on his knuckles, the day of the camp raid: “Yes, once.” He looked at Allie: “Don’t romanticize that. It sucked. I’m still paying for it.”
He looked up at Bill. After a moment Bill got up and headed for the other end of the table. Lockmann followed him, and soon the two of them were deeply disputing the idea of ‘de-platforming’ Nazis: “...free speech...Carl Popper! Fallacy...paradox...no counterspeech remedy...”
Ambros deliberately tuned that argument out: ‘Heard all that, ten thousand times...’
Allie nudged Ambros: “Paying for it?”
He turned back to her: “It’s never simple, Archari. When you hurt another person, even if it’s necessary, even if you’ll die if you don’t do it...you pay. The people who are unaffected by hurting or killing other people are universally on the other side from you and me. And people like Bill, as cool a guy as he is...I warned you just now not to romanticize violence. Bill romanticizes non-violence. Almost as dangerous as the opposite.”
Allie frowned: “I guess I get that...I wanna talk about that with my dad and mom.” She and Jonie moved to another table nearby. Jonie called Patrick over.
Meanwhile, Ambros and Averos veered into Rational Hellenic and a completely different subject:
Ambros said: “I get how the Commonwealth limits the chances of authoritarian types seizing the entire project. I see how that works…that horizontal distritbution of power...”
“But you wonder about other aspects of our system?” Averos grinned.
“Yes, of course. I mean, obviously you—we—also do something to keep the bureaucracy in check within the various organizations: the Polisae, the Demes, and the Guilds.”
“What makes that seem obvious to you?”
“You continue to progress in your social contract,” said Ambros: “You expand and build greater freedoms into your overall society, with every generation.”
Averos said: “We are always open to a renegotiation of the details of our Social Contract.”
“And also,” Ambros nodded: “your Polisae, Demes, and Guilds remain remarkably free of coercive elements. Bureaucracy hates progress and tends to stifle it; bureaucracy loves coercion and tends to foster it. Your institutions are remarkably free of such telltale signs of bureaucracy, therefore...”
“Endaxi. Yes, you see how the ‘normal’ organization of the subsets of Commonwealth society are ‘designed and evolved’ to limit power-grabs, right? How the fundamental equality of every citizen of a Polis, Deme, or Guild is reinforced by our educational system, Endaxi?
“Yeah, I get that. I’m still catching up on basic lessons from your Skolae...”
Averos interrupted: “You were closer to fully educated than any other ‘barbarian’ I ever recruited, or contacted soon after recruiting.”
“But I still had lessons to learn, and I’m not done. My reading of your History keeps showing me stuff I’d never have thought of.”
“How far along are you?”
“Reading and watching, backwards from now, about 1800 in my calendar. Forward from the Founders...I just started studying Saráyi Elenikori, Undoubted Queen Regnant of All the Serbs.” Ambros shook his head.
“That’s a moment of cog diss, huh?
“No shit!” Ambros exclaimed, falling into American.
Averos laughed: “She really turned things sideways in Eastern Europe, for a half millenium. It took the Serbian Commonwealth a lot longer to spread over the Balkans than it would have if she didn’t…”
Ambros interrupted: “At least one of your Historians thinks the Serbian Commonwealth would have failed without her open and secret support.”
“Entirely possible,” Averos said: “There are Timelines where it did. “Greater Serbia” is a real Empire, covering most of Europe, in some Lines.”
“Whoa…”
“Yes.”
After a thoughtful pause, Ambros said: “Anyway…”
“Yes, your original query. Consider this: the Minister of a Deme or Guild can be recalled by 40% of the members, at any time. Or by 20% of the Magistrae.”
“Yeah, I get that. It means the Minister is less powerful than a casual observer might think.”
“Se actually has no power at all. Mostly,” said Averos.
“Really? None?”
Averos shrugged: “All Guilds, and nearly all Demes, have similar customs. The Minister runs the meetings, but cannot call for one. Se is charged with keeping records, particularly of Deme-or-Guild-dispensed Tokens, and se must file and preserve the---I guess you’d call them the minutes---of the meetings. But that ‘minority recall’ hangs at all times over ser head.”
“Se must have and, to some extent ‘boss’, at least a few assistants, right?”
Averos nodded: “Yes, usually. Depends on the size of the local Guild or Deme. But anyone in her mini-bureaucracy is also forbidden from calling a meeting, and it’s considered...uncouth...to ask for or campaign for a position in such an imaginary hierarchy.”
“See, there’s the point where I would expect problems to arise! Once established, such a mini-bureaucracy *ought* to act like any other bureaucracy!”
“Yes, of course. Sometimes, in spite of all the safeguards, such bureaucracies have begun to act badly, in traditional fashion of such hierarchies.”
After long pause, Ambros said: “What then?”
“Depends on how clever the power clique is. But here’s the thing: as you pointed out, bureaucrats hate change. They especially hate any innovation that works better than the ‘usual way of doing things’. But our overall Commonwealth encourages innovation in all its forms. It’s baked into our educational system, as you pointed out.”
“So, a nascent power grab would reveal itself by its opposition to change…” Ambros was nodding.
Averos grinned: “And then, ten of the forty members of the local, say, Mathematics Deme could oust the reprobates in the time it took to say it.”
“...and a temporary power grab in any one local Guild or Deme, or even in a large Polis like the City of Athens, could never actually spread across the whole planet, because…”
Averos nodded in a knowing way: “In the absence of a money economy, there is no way for such an attempt at Power over others to accrue access to resources. There can be no ‘hydraulic despotism’, nor any other way to punish people who disagree or disobey.”
“...and what if all that fails? In spite of all that, what if...”
Averos spoke solemnly: “There is always the Duel.”
Ambros sat silently for some time, then asked: “Did that ever happen?
“Three times that we recorded. Perhaps others, in places like the Maori Commonwealth, who were very close to their Warrior roots when they organized.”
Ambros said, nodding: “And the threat alone may have broken up some coup attempts, and it wouldn’t be recorded.”
“Indeed. And also...there is one Guild, and one Deme, that watches over our...experiment...”
Ambros nodded: “Women’s Deme, and Farmer’s Guild. And, I presume, the rest of the Commonwealth watches them, most closely?”
Averos laughed: “The one time they combined to intervene...”
Ambros handsigned his agreement: “I already read the Histories about that time. The First Nikodemos...and The Exile.”
“Of course.”
Ambros sat processing the conversation: “With this information in hand...I can see that it would be difficult to find a Deme, Guild, or even a powerful Polis, that one could slip into and control, in any way that other parts of the various sub-Commonwealths wouldn’t block. Has nobody tried, though?”
“Speak English! This is America!”
Ambros looked up over his right shoulder; part of his mind cursed himself for sitting with his back to potential danger. He knew, in a flash, that he made that mistake because the pub had always seemed so safe. ‘Nowhere in this Timeline is entirely safe,’ he thought...exceptions crossed his mind: The Country Fair, a few other places. He dismissed the thought: ‘Face the danger, now!’
He saw Averos reaching into his pocket for a weapon, or perhaps some defense. He shook his head the tiniest bit, discouraging him.
The man’s hand lay on Ambros’ shoulder, heavy and strong. He spoke again: “If you can’t learn to speak English, you should go back where you came from!”
Ambros levered the hand away from his shoulder and said, quietly: “How ’bout you mind your own business?” He scraped his chair halfway round, so he could see his new foe clearly: heavyset, clean-shaven, face pink with rage.
He knew better than to underestimate the strength of such a large man, and he knew that the man’s strength would be multiplied by anger. He felt the hand that he’d pried loose come down again onto the back of his chair, his assailant’s fingers digging in between his shoulder blade and the top rail.
Ambros stood up just as the lout yanked the chair from under him.
Frustrated at his failure to spill Ambros to the floor, the man threw the chair at Ambros; Ambros caught it and turned it so that the legs pointed at his enemy. When his new foe moved forward again, Ambros pushed the chair forward and entangled the guy’s arms in the legs and struts of it.
“Dude,” Ambros said, softly: “This is not the sort of joint where people get in fights or bust up the furniture. The wild west is way down-time from here...”
The guy leaned forward, pawing with his hands at Ambros, who remained just out of reach. The smell of booze and cigarettes oozed from the fellow’s pores and filled the air as he huffed and puffed in his rage. Ambros twisted the chair one way and then the other, attempting to keep his enemy off-balance “Um, Alex is on the phone, buddy. He’s almost surely calling the cops. If I were you, I’d...”
Evidently tiring of the stalemate, the man swung his fist at Ambros’ left hand, which gripped the seat of the chair. Ambros moved his hand and watched the guy slam his fist hammer-style into the wooden edge of the seat.
Grunting in pain, the assailant shoved hard at the chair, and then pursued Ambros as he backed away.
Ambros realized that he couldn’t stand against the guy’s weight and drunken strength: ‘Oh well,” he thought. He turned to his right as the man pushed him backwards. As he passed the spot he’d been sitting at, he scooped up his nearly untouched shot of Jameson’s in a smooth motion, and tossed the contents into his assailant’s face.
Everything slowed down, as Ambros’ adrenaline spiked. He saw the man blink his eyes closed, just too late. His hands released the chair and he drew in a huge breath; by that means he sucked whisky up his nose, adding that to the burning of the liquor in his eyes.
Ambros flipped the shot glass around and raised his hand beside his ear, like a catcher preparing to throw down to second base. He dropped the chair from his left hand and shifted his feet to avoid getting tangled. His foeman stumbled backwards, knocking an unoccupied table over and then falling on it, smacking his kidneys into the table’s edge. Glasses from previous customers shattered on the floor; pizza crusts skittered and salad dressing splattered.
Three cop cars converged on the scene, coming from three directions, lights flashing. Another guy came through the back door from the smoking porch and said: “Jeezus, Deke, don’t you know any better by now? Gettin’ in fights in hippie bars is just stupid.”
Deke muttered: “Shit...fuckin’ foreigners...beat th’r asses, all of ’em...”
Deke’s buddy put a larger chair over his pal’s head and shoulders and sat down in it. He said: “Sorry dude. Deke’s an idjit a lotta the time.”
“Clearly,” said Ambros: “Here come the cops...”
Averos got up and made a handsign at Ambros. He headed for the restrooms. Ambros knew he’d be asking the War Room for a ride home.
Deke was still muttering: “...learn English or go home...”
“Dude sounds like an American to me, Deke.”
Deke started rolling back and forth: “C’mon Tony, lemme up...”
“Not with the cops in the doorway,” said Tony: “You want another felonious assault on an officer on yer record? Just relax, maybe they’ll just take you to the drunk tank.”
“’Scuse me,” said Ambros, as he crossed to the back door. He followed a half dozen other people who were bugging out as he was, out the back gate into the parking lot. Several of his fellow escapees scattered, running in various directions. Ambros shook his head: “Where y’all running to? There’ll be cops all over the place by now.” They ignored him. One woman sauntered away, looking back at him knowingly, jingling her keys.
He went though the small gate into the courtyard of the Bakery next door. He strolled in, as casual as he could be, and ordered tea and a small plate: “Yeah, the beans and rice thing with some basil...”
He found a table near a window where he could watch the three cop cars.
His food arrived and he began to eat, slowly.
He was just finishing up when he saw one of the cops escorting a handcuffed Deke to one of the patrol cars. Tony walked beside Deke, gesticulating as he went.
Tony turned back toward the bar and Ambros bused his dishes and went out the back door into the alley. He used his Shifter to Jump into the restroom at the pub, then put the thing away as he re-entered the main room.
One cop saw him exit the loo and stopped cold.
The bartender indicated Ambros: “I think this is the guy you’re looking for, officer.”
Ambros ordered a drink and turned to find the cop right behind him.
The cop—officer Lim, whom Ambros remembered from one of his first contacts with the EPD—said in a puzzled voice: “How long you been back there?” He waved, indicating the restrooms.
Ambros shrugged: “I don’t know. A while I guess. Had a little food poisoning yesterday...”
“See, I coulda sworn there was nobody in there. And Jake looked, too.”
Ambros shrugged and grinned a little: “What can I say?”
The cop was scrutinizing him closely: “You’re that guy Rothakis. You were at the park the other day...”
“I am, and I was.”
Molly handed him his whisky and he headed for a table where he could sit with his back to a solid wall. He tipped his head and said: “C’mon, let’s sit down and you can...question me.”
“Not much to question,” said the cop, sitting down across from him: “Everyone’s story said the same thing: you were not the aggresssor.” Lim grinned: “Even Tony said that was probably true.”
“I take it you know these guys,” said Ambros.
“Every cop in the state knows Deke. Just a warning: that guy can fight a little when he’s not drunk.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. He’s got the bigot’s blindspot, though.”
“What would the ‘bigot’s blindspot’ be...? If you don’t mind me asking.” The cop seemed to be enjoying himself.
Ambros nodded, staring at his drink. He said: “It’s a fallacy that a lot of people share. Most people, if you press them about the future, will hark back to some idealized past time when things were better They’ll lead you down the garden path, so to speak, to whatever Eden their faith or their ideology believes would be the best future possible. It’s a bogus argument though. Whatever else may be true we gotta move forward. Start where we are, do the next thing...”
“How does it relate to Deke and his asshole buddies?”
Ambros laughed: “Deke thinks...and I’ll buy you dinner if this isn’t true...Deke thinks that everything was much better in the ‘good ole days’ when everyone was White, or kept themselves outta sight. Everyone spoke American, women knew their place, as did people of color...queer folks stayed utterly closeted...”
“Deke has shorter terms for us,” said the cop: “People of color, I mean.”
Ambros nodded: “Anyway, he’s wrong on all counts. It was not better back then, before the World Wars...not even for guys like him, big strong white working-class guys.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Before the technological advances and union organizing of the mid-twentieth century, guys like Deke generally worked themselves into early graves.”
“Huh.”
Ambros was well aware that he’d simplified the matter significantly. He hoped it would spur the officer to deeper thought; a feeble hope...but it was possible.
“You could look it up,” Ambros said, mock-serious.
“Okay. So, how ’bout you give me a statement. Just tell me...”
“Sure. I was talking to my cousin. He lives in Athens, in Greece, y’know? He understands more American than he speaks, right?”
“Right,” Officer Lim said: “Your cousin is...no longer here at the scene?”
“He left. He’s here on a...an educational visa. Didn’t want to...”
“Got it.”
A brief silence, then Ambros said:
“So, a statement. We were talking; most of the people we’d been talking with had moved over to the other end of the table. It’s easier for us to speak Greek between us...Deke—I didn’t know his name then—he took offense that we were speaking Greek—I doubt that he knew it was Greek—and he assaulted me. I defended myself, in various ways.”
“Okay, that matches the general story we got from the witnesses.”
Ambros raised an eyebrow: “Usually, a cop would try to get me to repeat the story over and over to look for inconsistencies.”
Lim said: “I don’t want to push you. The EPD’s insurance company is already pissed off...”
“Got it.” Ambros felt somewhat amused.
Lim took his leave and gathered up the last couple cops, leading them back to their vehicles.
Kim carried sheets and blankets from her Jeep into the Salon.
“Where do these go?” she asked.
“Put them in the big trunk with the round top,” Ambros replied. Marie sorted the cooking equipment: his own, and the stuff she’d added to the mix.
She said: “Does it all have to fit in this one trunk?”
“That’s my system,” Ambros explained: “Mine and Tina’s I mean, but she’s not here...so we can make changes. As long as we make sure it fits in the trailer. Not yet, Randy, that’s a box of tent canvas...one of five.”
“Oh,” said Randy: “So it doesn’t go in yet?”
“Those are the first things out of the trailer when we’re ready to set up camp, so it goes in last, near the back.”
Luisa came in from her truck, rattling a copy of The Sentinel: “News from the Primary Election yesterday...”
Everyone looked at her. She said: “Nichols is out as Mayor. Ms Ponce won by a landslide. 3-to1.”
“What about the Council?” asked Ambros.
She shrugged: “The liberals all won re-election, and new ones took three seats. Mr Bass is the only ‘conservative’ on the City Council now...one of the new members is a Socialist Party functionary from the Benham neighborhood.” She held the paper out.
Ambros took it and scanned the article: “Okay, she’ll form a ‘far-left’ alliance with the Communist Party guy. But these ‘liberals’ look like they’re gonna be pretty centrist when the tax breaks start flying. More money for the top ten percent...”
The photo below the fold showed an angry-looking ex-Mayor Nichols, and the caption quoted him: “...hackers and Anarchists sabotaged my campaign...” The story below the fold took note of the former Mayor’s emerging legal problems.
Ambros laughed. He set the paper down and went back to checking all of his gear.
He lifted the top tray out of an extra-large trunk and pulled two plastic coolers out: “These...need cleaning. Ick.” He carried them out the garage door and into the nursery: “Randy, can you get the bleach out of the laundry area? Thanks.”
When the coolers were full of bleach water, Ambros went back to the task at hand: “See, I was—am—a Viscount in the SCA. My campsite needs to reflect that. It’s the Knightly Virtue of Franchise: your home and your stuff is supposed to be suited to your rank, not out of ego but because the outer appearance reflects the inner noble.”
“Marie nodded: “So you have a lot of stuff...”
“And I found myself forced to create a system to deal with it. There are five tents in this trailer, and I can set up one or all five, depending on circumstances. Things come out of the trailer in the order that they get set up: you’ll catch on to the system pretty quick, once we’re on site. Here’s a diagram of various ways to place the tents relative to each other...we’ll have to use one of the single-file sorts because I was only able to reserve a twenty foot frontage on the list fields.”
Randy puzzed over the diagrams: “So...probably this one, with both porches extended on the...whatsitcalled?”
“The round one is called an ‘Arming Pavillion’. Yeah, we’ll probably want that set-up. Like a shotgun shack: Living-dining room at the List Field, Arming pavillion set up so we can pass through it, kitchen, then the wedge and the Roman side-by-side.” Ambros looked around: “Okay, Randy let’s go dismantle my bed...”
“That monster bed fits into a tent?” Kim asked.
“The Roman-style frame tent is 15 foot wide and sixteen long. It fits.”
“Oh...” said Randy.
“There are also smaller beds, one for the wedge, one for the non-armor side of the round. We frequently had guests, or helped newcomers. I expect we’ll be doing that again this event. Let’s get to it, Randy...”
“A couple more hour’s work, and we’ll be ready for the event,” said Ambros: “I can finish loading the trailer tomorrow.”
The five of them had showered, eaten, and now were resting in the ransacked bedroom. Ambros lay on his back on a thin mattress; the others sat in various chairs.
“We’ll bring the fresh fruit and veggies and stuff out in the truck,” said Luisa.
“...and the firewood,” said Kim.
“You are sure we need that much?” Marie asked.
“Probably. We’ll have both of the stoves, the cookstove and the living room fire, burning for most of the weekend. Especially if it rains.”
“I guess,” said Marie.
Ambros shrugged: “You wanted to cook most of the food on open flame,” he said: “It’ll taste better and support the Franchise more. We could still change to a pre-cooked and gas-stove model for the kitchen, though.”
“No,” said Marie, smiling happily: “I am enjoying the challenge of fire.”
A short silence ensued. Marie jumped up, saying: “I need to check the barbeque...”
“Just a minute,” said Kim: “...I have an announcement.”
Ambros sat up and grinned at Luisa and Marie.
Marie anticipated KIm: “You are pregnant.”
Everyone else nodded, suspicions confirmed. Kim stared at them, astonished: “How...?”
Marie shrugged: “We were all of us there with you. I mean, when you—as the women of the Commonwealth say it—‘took him in’.
Ambros agreed: “Randy and I talked about how you used condoms with him, but not with Jimmy. We know your cycle, we live in the same places and use the same bathrooms.”
“I see. And Luisa uses pads and I use tampons, so...”
“You were in your fertile period at the time of our orgy, by my calculations,” said Luisa: “I guessed you had that planned. How do you feel about that, now that Jimmy’s revealing his sexist nature? Pardon me, I should say, his adherence to sexist social constructs.”
“Gah,” said Kim: “I still have work to do with him. But I have hopes.”
“Indeed,” said Randy, asserting himself a little: “But some of the stuff he says is...” He shrugged. He brushed his long, tightly curled hair from his face and looked straight at Kim. After a moment she nodded.
“I really need to check the barbeque,” said Marie, blowing a kiss at Kim: “And congratulations.”
Marie went out the door and the rest of them embraced Kim. Randy gave Ambros a side-eye glance and Ambros nodded.
The two of them set to work untangling some ropes, then winding them and putting them in the correct boxes.
As they finished that, Ambros said: “Good job, Randy.”
“What, the ropes? Oh, you mean...”
“Yeah. You’re miles ahead of Jimmy in your understanding of...of everything that’s going on, of everything we’re trying to build.”
“Okay, good. Thank you.”
“Welcome. Now let’s load these last two trunks...”
