Endgame

'So what do you reckon, is AI going to kill us all?' Mick stood, retrieved another log, and dropped it into the fire pit.

Iain cupped his glass, sniffed it for the third time. Malty. Lovely, he thought. 'I'm not thinking it's that easy. I saw on YouTube the other day some MIT narrative that said there are about twelve ways it could end for us.'

'I seriously don't get it, what is it with the tech bros — they're all running around on one hand saying there needs to be governance, legislation to protect us, yet they aren't stopping themselves. They're in some big dick competition.' Mick slumped into his camp chair.

'I'm not quite sure it's an AI bomb, like the dot bomb of the nineties.'

'So not just the extinction of the human race?'

'Well… extremes, like wild-arse extremes. Libertarian Utopia, Zookeeper, Orwellian, god-like…'

'Zookeeper.'

'Yeah, Zookeeper. The AI becomes omnipotent and keeps some of us humans, around, like zoo animals.'

Mick leaned across, gesturing with the bottle. Iain tilted his glass toward him. 'Animals?'

'Yeah, like we have pets, even zoos. Not sure if we'll like it or not, but then there are derivatives on this. Like the God versions.'

'God versions?'

'Yeah, two. The Protector God — omniscient and omnipotent AI focused on maximising human happiness, while hiding well enough that many humans doubt its existence. This is interesting, because how would we ever really tell when it arrives?'

'You said two?'

'The Enslaved God. Superintelligent AI confined by humans and used to produce unimaginable technology and wealth — for better or worse, depending on who holds the leash. Which makes me think of the Orwellian version.'

'Mate, you're exhausting.' Mick shook his head. 'Seriously. I've been hearing the hype — only some of it — and some of it seems like urban myth, or marketing hype at the least.'

'Yep, seriously, I'm delving into this shit. I've got to. Need to work out how I'm going to get my org ready for it, even whether we should get ready for it. It doesn't just happen.'

'Ok, ok, so what's the Orwellian gist?' Mick leaned back in his chair and sipped his whisky. If he was in for a lecture, he may as well give him the floor.

'This buddy is the one I reckon we'll get. The tech bros are big-brothering the bejeezus out of us, each developing their own super AI. They'll be doing their battle, competing like they are now, whilst manipulating the bejeezus out of us with algorithmic approaches and tainted AI — keeping us second-guessing, leveraging the political state to keep us fighting and scared of each other. It'll be damn ugly.'

'So what, no armageddon?'

'It's weird, you think about it. If AI is going to wipe us out, it's going to be because we're deemed inefficient or superfluous to its requirements. It's not going to be out of evil, or a grab for power — that's where the humans come in. The tech bros.'

'So AI's not going to kill us?'

Iain sat back for a moment, savouring his whisky. It was nice, but he needed to slow down a little — keep going at this pace, and he'd be a mess in no time.

'Nah, I don't think it's malicious, arrogant, or selfish enough. I reckon we can leave that to the middle-to-old-aged white guys of the world — they seem to be doing a damn good job of f'n things up as it is. Think about it, we'll cause some sort of debacle, natural or otherwise, well before a superintelligence can wipe us out.'

Hometown

I walk amongst it, through it so often, its presence so diverse, I literally walked within it today. Sydney — until this prompt 'Setting as Character', and coincidentally, a random lock screen on the same day — did I realise that I've just walked and still live within the reaches of one of the biggest characters on earth.

This character has been a part of my life since I was ten or younger, longer even than my hometown, where I grew up. I first came here as a kid, and a little one at that — maybe I wasn't ten, maybe earlier. He'd walk us everywhere! Even now, in his late seventies, our locations have reversed: he is in my hometown, and I am here. He visits me here, holidaying and walking.

This city, this character revealed to me, gave me the nearest sea-going experience I would ever achieve before becoming a submariner: a trip on the Manly ferry in rough seas. It was great. I'd come back in my Navy days and live at Watsons Bay, on South Head — a view up the harbour, fifty-cent schooners, weekend surfing at Bondi, the Bondi life some would say.

My second stint was a posting to HMAS Perth, dry-docked in the inner city. Gone were the million-dollar views up the harbour and out to sea, and here were daytime views of the inner harbour, whilst living on the lower side of Kings Cross — at that time, the seedier side of life, some would say.

Not that it is necessarily that now. I lived there for a time in the Olims Hotel, on the lower side of Darlinghurst Road, the main drag, as it were, of the Cross. At seventeen, a sailor in the middle of the Cross, the darker side of life revealed itself to me. When the main way in and out of your suburb involved walking past strip clubs and pubs at that age, it was interesting.

I left it behind me for a bit, off to sea I went, sailing the southern seas, only to return to start my life as a submariner — this time living over near Maroubra, cycling across the city, the Harbour Bridge and down into HMAS Platypus over Milsons Point way. Again, this time was different: although still in the Navy, not in the Ritz of South Head, or the bustle of the Cross, this was a more routine way of living.

It was at this time that cycling was a thing, and not unheard of for me to ride from Hornsby Heights across the city to Maroubra, even Watsons Bay, as I again stayed out there for a stint — curtailed, even, as I believe there was a short hospital stay. Then I went to sea in the west again.

I'm sure I'm mixing this up a bit as I think about my stays in the Harbour City — it's been a long time. I eventually left the Navy and went away for several years, only to be mountain biking my way along the east coast before landing a post-graduate job as an office worker in Sydney again.

This time was the last return to Sydney, as it's become my home now. Twenty years of travelling into the CBD every day, and now, after several years of not doing that, I find myself with my lovely wife travelling into the city for outings — Sydney City is now a destination I find myself going to more and more often, an endless, forevermore destination.

Feck

'Shut up, Fries, you're injured! So what's happening?' Looking about, Nick could read it in their faces. They were clueless.

'Fries?'

'Right, I've called an ambulance in, they can't come in from the top, they're going to have to come from the bottom. I need you to go down there and meet them, guide them up. I've got Di driving down in the Forester as well, just in case. Worst case, she takes the bikes.'

'Mick!!'

'Yeah!'

'Get em to bring up some blankets as well. Four.'

'Sean.'

'Yeah.'

'I need you to come over here, squat at my feet.'

'Roight, roight! Whaddya want?'

'I can't walk, tried getting up, the right leg's buggered. I'm going to need you to check it for me.'

'I'm not looking.'

'That's all right, look at me, look at my face. Or away, whichever you need to do. But what I want you to do is start at my ankle, wrap your hands around it, thumb to thumb, finger to finger, like this.'

'Yeah.'

'Then slowly move your hands up to my knee. You're feeling to see if any bone is sticking out.'

'Feck.'

'You're doing fine, mate, keep going.'

'Feck'n hell, I can feel something.'

'You're going to have to look.'

'Like feck I'm going to look.'

'Look at me for a minute. It's all cool. I can't look, I can't sit up. You're going to have to do it.'

'Seriously!'

'You feck'n bastard, it's your cycling knicks.'

'Oh yeah, forgot to tell you about that. It's just the beading keeping them down. So, seeing you looking, no bone, no blood, nothing?'

'No, ye feck'n twat.'

Ra-Ra-Rasputin

 

Ra-Ra-Rasputin

He found himself humming it again, a krovavyy earworm. He knew it was an earworm because he was a mystic, and that is the krovavyy word as it came to him, as many things did, as he was a psychic.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Lover of the Russian Queen

Now this was interesting. He knew this to be true. She did love him. Yet he did not love her either. The tune again, or was it a song, he could not tell, seemed prophetic in its telling, for he was quite the ladies' man.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest Love machine

The power, the influence, the rule, again all true, he danced kazachok wunderbar for sure. But bible was his book, the healing in the song he knew not to be prophetic, but rumours spread by him. Was this song simply a krovavyy recall?

Ra-Ra-Rasputin

Krovavyy earworm, won't you go away, you're occupying my mystic mind with things I already know. Yes, the queen believes the rumours, I know, the rhythmic tune affecting his thoughts, as he pondered the boy's disease and his dilemma.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Lover of the Russian Queen

The power he had attained was wondrous. No longer sleeping under bridges, he was within a palace, not so grand as the queen's, but a palace many dukes had never seen, sipping a wine brought to him by the high and mighty, those above him.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest Love machine

And then the earworm revealed its true prophetic yield; the wine he drank was poisoned by the high-ranking genteel who had gifted it to him. This thought came into his mind, just as he took the last gulp from his chalice of wine.

Krovavyy Earworm

Maddow Monologue

Scene opens, the anchor dressed neatly in a black sports coat, classic cut black t-shirt underneath, thick dark-rimmed glasses, black hair in a messy pixie cut. Contrasted by a red silhouette cityscape on a painted blue sky. She picks up a tight ream of papers, holds them, tapping the bottom edge on the bench top — click, click — and lays them flat. Leaning in.

'Really happy to be here tonight, and we have got a show for you, but before we bring our guests on, I want to start with some facts. In 1846, the British government passed what is known as the Gauge Act of 1846. This act declared that the country's railway tracks would be exactly four feet eight and a half inches apart.

Why, you may ask? Well, let me tell you that, my friends, the axle width of a horse-drawn carriage, and let me be precise, a two-horse-drawn carriage. It was, in reality, the width of two horses' arses. Isn't that amazing?

Well, what's more amazing is that measurement, four feet eight and a half inches, dates right back to Roman times. A long, long time. Until, until, the arrival of the motor car. And that was it. The horses' arses were put out to pasture. These beasts of burden, a primary form of transport and heavy lifting for centuries, retired near overnight in 1908 when Henry Ford introduced the motor vehicle as the everyman's car.

That, my friends, was a phenomenal technological advance.

Now let me tell you of another, more recent one. In offices across the industrial world, men in shirtsleeves were doing ledgers by hand, and boy, they were impressive. Horizontal lines, double vertical lines, numbers, words, tallies and totals, all done by hand. Through wars and factories and more, these skilled men worked laboriously.

Then, in 1979, the first computer spreadsheet came into existence, VisiCalc. Quickly followed by Lotus 1-2-3 in '83, Excel in '85, and by the mid-to-late 1990s, yes, that recently, the spreadsheet became ubiquitous with today's office space.

This one, though, it snuck up on us. And not only did it sneak up on us, but it also didn't put all those white-shirted, short-sleeved fellows out to pasture. No, not at all. I would say many of you know exactly what I am talking about, even if you've never used Excel yourself; you've definitely been the beneficiary of its existence in some manner.

Anyway, two different inventions, two different times, two different outcomes. Not so good for the horses.

Arthur C. Clarke, yes, that Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction author, had made some rules about technology, even before spreadsheets were a thing. They were interesting rules, in particular his third. Arthur said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The steam train, the car, and the spreadsheet are all magic. Now, though, we have the magic of all technology magics, AI, artificial intelligence.

The question, though, is whether AI is an automobile or a spreadsheet?

Before we get to that, we need to talk a bit about the magic of technology, because that, to me, is where we've been getting ourselves into trouble ever since we started inventing. And now it's just coming at us faster and faster.

I remember the black-and-white TV coming into the house as a kid, yes, I am that old. My first home computer was a TRS-80 in the '80s. Then the World Wide Web, in the '90s, '91 to be exact. Social media. Then the iPhone and its clones landed in our pockets in 2007, amplifying the benefits and effects of the internet and social media.

We did all of that in a little over two decades. From the steam train to the demise of the horse: 83 years, eight decades. It's impressive.

The upside of all this? All sorts of things, connection, access to information, democratisation of information, the Arab Spring, Wikipedia, the spread of education and literacy, advances in health and home care. As the pendulum swings, though, the downside: our algorithmic bubbles, the polarisation of politics, doom scrolling, and the addictive nature of social media. And bafflingly, the upside of connection is also the downside of loneliness and isolation. Bullying, doxing, harassing, it goes on and on.

Are we now moving so fast down the technology path that this new technology, this magic, or so the media and the big companies pushing and investing in it would have us believe, is going to cause a job apocalypse? Are we going to be so enamoured by the magic, fed through those same algorithmic bubbles, that we will fall into this blindly, fall into it like a sheep at the wheel of a magical machine?

Well, to explore this, to answer some of these questions, we are joined tonight by…'

Warforged

Brenn walked towards the enclave. It was definitely bigger than the last time he was here. Greener even, though that was untrue; it was just the contrast to the greyness, the fog of war of the Mournland. A lush green canopy, some thirty metres above thick oaken trunks, aged and deeply creased bark emphasising the resilience of the space.

He pressed on. The path, clearly landscaped, led the way, first through a darkened passage where the canopy let no light in, then into a clearing streaked by light, casting split shadows across a low, wide stone building at its centre. Two solid stone slabs formed the walls; a steel-hinged door stood front and centre.

Entering, eyes adjusting to the change in light, the room was bathed in a magical blue glow. Open, with two forges burning hot, one to the back left corner, the other opposite on the far right, anvils, metalwork, pincers and other tools all orderly placed around the space, several smiths working.

One broke off from a conversation with another working on some iron. A girl with a thick, dark, curly head of hair framing a young, pretty face. Although she wore workers' leathers, she did not have the grime of the forge upon her; instead, a large green emerald hung from a leather thong, marking her as an Artificer.

Young, thought Brenn, as she walked towards the bench, holding customers at bay from the dangers of the forge. "Morning, Captain, how can I help?"

"I'm here for a new soldier." He thrust his papers forward for her to take.

Taking them, she read for a moment. "Dare I ask what happened to your last one?"

"Disappeared."

"Disappeared, what do you mean?" A look of curiosity passed across her face. "What denomination?"

"P1c. He was in battle with us, took some damage, he was down, but before one of the crew could get to him, he simply disappeared. His body was there one moment, and gone the next. Vanished."

The girl looked at Brenn for a moment, thinking. "P series, that's before my time." Without looking at him, she bent, pulled a ledger from behind the counter, opened it and ran her finger down the page, stopped, looked to the paper, back to the ledger.

"Right then, I am Jedda. I'll be helping you today. I suspect things have changed since you were here last. We don't just push our soldiers out the door; we introduce them. Come with me, please."

Moving to the corner of the counter, lifting the hatch, she walked past him and back out the way he'd come in. Turning left from the doors and left again, she moved to the back of the stone building, not pausing, not looking back, assuming Brenn would follow.

The two of them plunged back into the dark of the forest, leaving the sunlit clearing behind them. Brenn had not been here before. The last time he'd turned up, they had Pick lined up with several other soldiers, and he had simply chosen him. Or had Pick been chosen for him? He couldn't quite remember. It was so long ago.

As they proceeded into the forest, Brenn noticed paths leading off at right angles to their own every hundred, hundred and fifty metres or so, many of them ending at a hedged wall. After about ten minutes of walking, eight hundred metres by Brenn's calculation, this place was massive. One of the side paths did not end in a hedge; rather, the hedge was pulled aside as if a door had been opened. In the alcove beyond, he saw one worker moving about an opening, a small enclave walled by thick trunks, closer together than he'd seen before.

Stopping, Brenn squinted, trying to see what the fellow was doing. At the base of several of the trees he could make out the black sheen of metal, adamantine. Stacking them, like a frame of sorts. The couple he could see, already completed, looked oddly like a skeleton; just much simpler in one sense, just bars of metal and hinges, not connected but placed in position. "What's going on there?"

Jedda had stopped several feet ahead. "That is the first stage of formation. Come, I'll show you the process, that is why you are here." She walked on.

At the next right-angle turn to the left, Jedda turned down, stopping to pull aside the hedge. Brenn was impressed to see how easily it moved, yet there was nothing mechanical enabling it, no frame, no hinges. Nothing mechanical, yet it moved. Beyond, the two of them looked upon another enclave, its oaken walls close, a tangle of roots and branches bursting from their base into the clearing.

Again Brenn adjusted his sight, trying to discern what was going on, and then, amidst the tangle of leaves and branches, he was able to make out a humanoid figure, patches of black adamantine visible. "So you see, we don't build them, we shape them. We provide the framing, and then the forest provides the muscle, the sinew. We just provide the scaffolding, the merging of metallurgy and nature. Come."

Leaving, shutting the hedge behind them, the two walked on again, further into the forest. Ahead, one of the paths to the right was alight, a bright clear light spilling out onto the path. Stopping on the path, there was no need to go in for a closer look. Within the enclave before them, a lone figure stood at its centre. The trunks of the trees were clear, the branches and bracken of the previous enclave gone. Sitting in their place were six large humanoid figures of wood, barked in a manner not dissimilar to the trees themselves.

"What are they doing? Why the light?"

"Training, or what we call training. When they reach this point we start to pour knowledge into them. They don't learn as we do; they don't learn by doing, but by absorbing. As a tree grows through absorption, so do the Warforged. It is here we teach them things like healing, protection, fighting and so forth. More extensive than when we trained your Pick."

"Do you train their personality? Pick seemed to have a personality of his own, of a nature not taught."

"You are correct. There is a randomness to the process that we cannot quite deduce. Like I said, we provide the conditions, the knowledge, but what a Warforged turns into is somewhat beyond us. They are sentient beings. An intelligence grown."

"Well, that explains the Lord of Blades." Brenn stated it matter-of-factly, then went on: "So what you're saying is it was pure luck that Pick was a good one?"

"Well, yes and no. They are forged by humans, they learn and absorb, and much of that learning will come from you and those around them. Yet again, that is no guarantee. They are sentient, intelligent beings, and they have motivations, some of which we may never know, or, in the case of the Lord of Blades, find out too late."

"Great."

"You say Pick turned out well. Come, we are nearly at your soldier." Jedda turned and walked on, not bothering to wait or look back for Brenn.

The two walked on in silence for several minutes. Brenn was deep in thought about what he'd just learnt, missing Pick. Pick had been good, a solid member of the squad, personable, humorous even in his own way, reliable. He'd had no idea how he had been grown, trained.

His reverie was broken by Jedda: "We are here." She turned left and into an enclave. Here the two of them found yet another worker, clearly a metalsmith, fitting a helmet to a lone Warforged seated in the enclave. No others in sight.

"Brenn, this is 0AK, the newest member of your squad."

A final click, and the metalsmith stood back, stepping clear, giving them space. Silently, the Warforged stood. Standing a good foot taller than Brenn, it turned its head towards him, crystalline eyes shining a bright white.

Jedda spoke to Brenn without looking at the Warforged. "You have eye contact. Name it."

Brenn did not speak. He stood there looking at the Warforged, it at him. The frame, now fully clad in armour. Its stillness. The cut of the metallic face. He thought of everything he had just learnt, of what he had seen, and he thought of Pick. The way the soldier stood before him, its stance, how it held itself, the space it occupied.

"Oak."

Puppy Delivery

Maret stood and watched her master, the aged wizard, standing behind a butcher's block, the sleeves on his red robes pulled up over his elbows, a meat cleaver in his right hand, the hock of the hind leg of a butchered goat held in his left. She knew he knew she was there; this was part of the ritual. As rare as it was, she knew he had an errand, and undoubtedly it was a delivery.

Chopping, he separated the goat leg, placing the cleaver on the block, lifting the two parts, occupying one hand each. 'So Maret, I have a delivery.' His voice sounded raspy, as if he'd been shouting. He hadn't; that was just how he sounded. Throwing half a leg into a cage on the far side of the butcher's block, he heard the meat slap to the cold floor, then the barely audible pads of a large beast moving to where it fell.

'There is a Mage, Human Kost to the west, that has secured the tithing for one of my Puppies.' Maret strained to hear what her master had said, his voice barely audible across the room. 'You will take it to him, and return with his Tithe.'

'Which animal, Master?'

'Bargst. He is ready. You've been involved in his training; this will make the trip easier.' Having dispensed the second part of the goat into another cage, Valdris moved towards his servant, looking at her: red-brown leathers of a wizard's thrall, shaved head, and a faded tattoo on her left temple.

It was the tattoo that tugged at his mind at that precise moment, reminding him, not confirming his thinking. If she did this, he would release her to continue her studies elsewhere. He was too old and did not have the energy to train another just now. He would not tell her this, of course.

'It will be a long journey.' He stopped only three feet in front of her, holding her gaze. He admired her as much as he admired one of his puppies; the communication in those eyes, like the eyes of his Emberwights. His puppies told him a lot. She was loyal, not so much to him as to the situation; she needed him, or his situation at least. 

'You leave immediately. One of the dread warriors will travel with you to the port; from there you will board a vessel to travel across the Moonsea, into the Sea of Fallen Stars, landing at Westgate, taking the overland to Iriaebor, and down the river to Baldur's Gate, and north to the Triboar Trail, where you will seek out what is called the Old Owl Well.'

'How am I to travel with Bargst, Master? There is no way I could make such a trip with an Emberwight.'

Valdris held forward a gold necklace, the chain grasped in his hand, a black pendant, table-cut, the clasp at its base causing it to hang upside down. 'The Puppy is within,' he let it drop into her hand. 'You'll wear this inside your clothes. None are to know you have it.'

'That trip, Master, is further than I have ever been before.'

'I know. It is all right. You travel a populated route; you will meld into the other travellers. Do not bring attention upon yourself. Your protection is your plainness, your ability to simply be one of the commoners.'

'And if I fail?'

'You won't.'

----

NOTE - this is a scene inspired/related to an Emberwight, a D&D 5e creature of my creation.

Dice Day - 24 In.

The door to the inn opened, the fresh cold air of the evening flowing in intermittently, jarringly -- it had not been opened for an hour or two, as everyone who would be here was here already. Entering were two fellows in their 20s, middle-aged, some would say. The first, wearing studded leather armour, a sword at his left, a dagger on the other side, a pack slung over his right shoulder, his right hand holding it in place. Followed by a second fellow, this one not so attired -- he wore a grey, plain cloak, sleeveless over a plain white shirt, a beanie with a top point sitting enough above his head as if it floated there, pointed skyward unnaturally.

They entered, not a word, stood, scanned the room. It was packed, beautifully, and oddly, a lone table stood to the far side, two seats, close to the heart of the fire, unusually vacant -- although looking at how the crowd was clustered, deliberately, as it was distinctly not in the mix, the fray of the social interactions of the room.

The grey-cloaked fellow stepped forward, pointed at the pair's destination and nodded towards the bar. The first, the leather-clad fellow, went where he was nodded to, whilst the other wove his way through the crowd to their eventual destination.

Moving to the bar, the leather-clad fellow bellowed, loud enough for all to hear, as he was not here on secret business -- and why skulk when a declaration will keep more at bay. "Two tankards of your best, good man."

Not hesitating, Gilbert, the proprietor of the bar, simply nodded. He was a man of few words, economical in his audible traits, some would say, turned, pulled two beers and put them upon the bar. "Any food with your ale, friend?"

"What have you got?"

"We do a fine mutton stew, carrots, tatoes, slow-cooked with some meat. 'Tis a fine meal. Drop me a silver and three copper a piece, covers your first drink and the feed."

"Done." And with that, the leather-clad flipped a single gold coin onto the bar. "We'll take lodgings as well."

"Can do, can do, friend. How many nights?"

"One."

"That'll cover it." And with a swift hand, the gold was gone, leaving the two ales sitting alone, handles towards the newcomer.

Leather-clad moved through the room, following the path of the cloaked one. No one looked up. Oh, they knew there were strangers amongst them, but did not acknowledge, not even a glance.

"Done. Room for the night, meal's on its way."

"Good. Settle in, friend, the Jester is not here yet."

"You certain he'll come?"

The cloaked one looked at his friend. "He'll be here."

"So, you're saying this fellow has the details, the location?"

"Better than that, he has the map we require. He's obtained it from the Hag in the pines -- no doubt some deal has been done, something thankfully you and I are once removed from, a deal he will have done. We have to wait, see what he has and then go from there. All I know is there's a throne in a tower atop a hill. And..."

"And?"

"It'll be worth our while, that's all. Now, be quiet and wait. He needs to be here tonight as the ship is set to sail tomorrow."

Shared Accountability

A submarine alongside is always manned. Alongside, well, that's at a wharf. Manned? A skeleton crew to keep an eye on things, to run routines and so forth. Life on a sub, at sea and alongside, was a life of routines and orders. And lots of them. For example, opening and shutting a valve in particular was quite a process.

'Fore-ends, Control room, open number one Hull Valve.'
'Control room, fore-ends, open number one Hull Valve.'

'Control room, fore-ends, Number one hull valve open.'
'Fore-ends, Control room, Number one hull valve open.'

'Fore-ends, Control room, shut Number One hull valve.'
'Control room, fore-ends, shut Number One hull valve.'

'Control room, fore-ends, Number One hull valve shut.'
'Fore-ends, Control room. Number One hull valve shut.'

And so it was done, quite the process, quite the palaver.

Anyways, back in the day, there were two submariners, both able seamen in the after ends of a boat, yup, we called them boats. The aft end, especially on an Oberon, is an interesting space: the tiniest of the seven compartments, each able to be shut off to stop the ingress of water through the boat once sealed.

In that compartment, though, 18-odd fellows lived amongst all the pipes, and dare I say two old torpedo tubes, the torpedo racks having been converted to bunks. The tubes themselves? Well, I know we stored beer in them sometimes. Anyways, I digress.

For the same reasons, to accommodate more crew, the small compartment was further cut in half by a Formica wall, to enable the racking up of more bunks.

The two able seamen were in the after mess, or one was, and the other entered with his lunch: a sandwich on a plate. An unspoken gesture of acknowledgement passed between the two. Let's call them Fred and Albert.

As Albert sat in the walled-off area of the compartment, a plate landing on the table, a book in hand, he was going to get a bit of reading in. It was a Sunday. He wasn't due to do the rounds for a few hours. He was essentially off watch onboard as a safety number. The time was his own. Not unlike Fred, who was sitting around in the walled section of the compartment.

Now, something I've not mentioned: this aft compartment had one of two large openings, a torpedo loading hatch. A big, roomy hatch that opened to the world, big enough in the case of the aft ends to thread a Mk8 torpedo or a sea mine through. Not that either of those had passed through such a hatch in a while. It was still convenient, this hatch, allowing ingress and egress of things that other, smaller hatches could not.

It was open on this day, and Albert was now sitting beneath it, the ladder down from it in front of him on the other side of the table. Then the pipe came through.

'Aft-ends, control room, shut the after-torpedo hatch.'

Fred, the closer of the two to the handpiece, slid out from behind the table he'd been sitting at and replied: 'Control room, aft-ends, shut the after-torpedo hatch.'

He then waited a moment. Albert was in there. He'd do it.

'Control room, aft-ends, after-torpedo hatch shut.'

Something tugged at Albert's mind. He'd heard the pipe. Fred had answered it. He who replies is accountable. He went back to reading his book.

'Aft-ends, control room, after-torpedo hatch shut.'

I can only imagine, moments later, when the ingress of water through the open hatch overwhelmed them, that the two of them had realised their mistake. They'd had it drilled into them since their first days of training: shared accountability was no accountability.

They died.

NOTE: the above story is a 'Fictional' conflaguration of two events, HMS Artemis (S 49), an Oberon submarine, which I know and a story of a Russian Sailor behaving this way in a book called Few Survived.   Note - on HMS Artemis No one died, lessons were learnt, and the boat never went to sea again.

Pendant of Power

Zerenasalee stood in the dark, the coarse feel of the hemp rope held tightly in her hands, trying to relieve the strain on her wrists. She had no idea as to why they had bound her. It was unusual for one of the sisters to be bound this way. Plunged into darkness that exceeded her ability to dispel.

'Come, sister, it is time.' It was Julerenna; Zerenasalee did not trust this one as far as she could throw her. She was the fourth. The sorceress of the squad. There were always four to a squad, and one of them was always a sorceress or wizard. Julerenna had not long joined the team, and here she was now, leading Zerenasalee like a goblin slave.

It was Julerenna's spell of darkness that shrouded her eyes; she knew it to be so. The rope was also enchanted. It was made by crude goblinoid hands, be it an orc, bugbear or some other slave of the drow. As poorly as it was made, it had been deliberately chosen to humiliate her.

There was a sudden jerk of the rope, causing Zerena to lurch forward. She would not dare do this without this cursed rope. It had drained Zerena of any strength or hope of retribution against her sister.

'Why do you do this, sister? Why am I, the senior of our squad, getting treated in such a way?'

'You, sister, gave a pendant of power to a human, one of the short-lived, to squander and taint with their filth,' spat Julerenna. 'Now be quiet, we approach the court.'

Zerenasalee was able to sense when they passed through the doors into the main hall. She could feel the size of the cavern, the close walls falling away into a vault two hundred feet wide, one hundred high and five hundred long.

The queen and king's thrones sat atop a thirty-foot dais about two-thirds of the way down. As she approached in her bubble of darkness, she could hear the murmuring of the court, and as she had known, she was in the cavern; she could feel that they had approached the high elves as the council's murmuring fell into silence.

'Julerenna, daughter. Who, or what, have you brought before the queen and council?' Zerena recognised the Lord King's voice.

'Zerenasalee, my lord. She has returned a failure, stripped of her pendant and without the elven child.'

The silence was palpable; all shuffling of the court ceased, and no noise was made. Zerenasalee could only imagine what was happening. A moment later, the darkness dropped, her dilated pupils constricting in the dim light of the queen's council.

The king had walked down the stairs of the dais to stand in front of the two drow women tethered together. 'Explain yourself.'

'Sister Julerenna tells the story incorrectly. I have not returned a failure, nor have I lost my pendant. I am using it to the benefit of the overall mission. The elven boy is returning to Dalgroth, and I have found a way to retrieve the child from the dwarven citadel.'

'Julerenna, is this right?'

'No, my lord. She returned without her pendant. Sister Valtraee told me she had given it to a human. Valtraee had lost her hounds to human rangers; she had no reason to lie.'

'You lie! You are trying to ingratiate yourself with the council, you snivelling novice.' Zerenasalee screamed, trying to free her hands from the hemp bonds, wanting to strangle her sister here in front of the council.

'STOP!' The queen leaned forward in her throne, grasping the armrests. 'Explain yourself. I will decide upon who is telling stories.'

'Your Highness, it is true, I have given my pendant to a human. Only so I could control him, and yes, Valtraee has seen him -- it is how she found us. Her hound had been killed by rangers. It is because of these things that I have returned. The Falconbred Rangers are on the hunt, and the elven boy travels with the Drow Slayer.'

This time, the council was not so silent; at the mention of the Drow Slayer, a murmur spread throughout the crowd watching this interaction.

'That is not possible. She lies. She failed, lost her pendant and is making up stories, even raising the spectres of our past from the grave.' Julerenna was not going to give up. Why was she in such a rush to please the council -- was it simply unbridled ambition, or was it something else?

'Sister Valtraee?'

'Yes, your Highness.' Valtraee stepped forward calmly; she had followed her two sisters. Zerenasalee knew she had been smart enough not to antagonise Julerenna, else they would both be led like common slaves before the queen.

'Which of your sisters tells the truth?'

'Zerenasalee does, your Highness. The elven boy travels the white ways. My hound was tracking them when it was trapped by two Falconbred rangers and killed. Zerenasalee's human was not involved. It was her pet that confirmed the Drow Slayer walks again; he had gotten close enough to recognise the weapon the dwarf carried.'

'Julerenna, release your sister.' It was the king who spoke, turning to walk up the stairs of the dais to sit beside his queen. 'Tell me, Zerenasalee, what do you intend?'

Zerenasalee felt the blood rush back into her hands, and the strength returned to her body as her sister Julerenna removed the rope. 'You will pay for this, my dear sister. Do watch your back,' she whispered between pursed lips as she looked up towards the king and queen.

'Your Highness, my lord. We know that the elf boy is returning to Dalgroth. I have to assume they are seeking answers. It is only logical that they will approach the elves for answers. If the Falconbred are involved, you can be certain that Falcon himself, the emissary between dwarves and elves, will be involved.

'I suggest we go to Dalgroth and get the boy before they reach the Jorth Wood and alert our surface-dwelling cousins that we seek their Quenya.'

'How may I ask, will you do this, sister? Dalgroth was lost to us in the Dwarf Wars. The Lord of Dalgroth, Falcon and the Drow Slayer made sure of that.'

Zerenasalee looked at her sister with amusement. 'You may be a skilled sorceress, my sister, but you still have so much to learn. Cassruan?'

A lean drow woman stepped out of the crowd that was the council. This woman looked much like Zerenasalee and Valtraee, dressed in the same black form-fitting leather, two scimitars crossing her back, their hilts protruding above each shoulder. 'Here, sister.'

'Your Highness, Sister Cassruan has studied and explored the old passages. The passages that lead to Dalgroth. We will go that way.'

'Is this right, Cassruan?'

'Yes, your Highness. When our squad was set to search for the elven Quenya, we discovered that Falcon had taken the child to Dalgroth. It was my task to research the Dwarf Wars and find out if there was anything of use to us. I did this while my sisters Zerenasalee and Valtraee went on the hunt.'

'And Sister Julerenna -- what was your role in your squad's plans?'

Julerenna looked first at the queen who had asked the question, then to the three drow assassins who were her sisters, her squadmates. 'I -- I was to stay here, and act as a conduit between their exploits and the council.'

'And have you done that, my daughter?'

Again, Julerenna glanced between the queen and her squad, nervously. 'As best I could, your Highness.'

'Good.' Turning to Zerenasalee: 'Sister, you lead your squad well. The council has not lost confidence in your efforts. Please take what you feel you need and continue.'

All four members of the squad bowed in unison to the queen and king, took three backward steps, then turned and made the long walk back the way Zerenasalee had been led not ten minutes earlier. Zerenasalee led the way, followed by Valtraee and Cassruan walking side by side, and Julerenna. Not a word was spoken as they made their exit.

As soon as the doors to the hall closed behind them, Zerenasalee turned. 'Cass and Val, we leave at dawn. Get some Duergar to come with us -- they will be useful in the tunnels.'

'What do I do, Zerena?'

'You! My dear girl, call me by my title. You are not a sister in my squad -- you have to earn that place. You will go to the Jorth Wood and await our return. We will have to come across the surface, and may need your assistance as we make our return.'

With that, Zerenasalee turned and followed behind her two sister drow, who had not waited to observe the interaction. Not thirty feet later, Zerena turned left, glancing back to where Julerenna still stood, silent, mouth agape. Zerena was pleased to see that her sister had received the message clearly. Excluded from the squad, Julerenna had a lot to learn before she would be considered part of it again.

Trust

 Well, I went off to the Sydney Writers Festival this evening. One of the things I like about Story-a-Day in May is that it coincides with the Sydney Writers Festival, and this evening I went to two of the three events I will attend this year.

The first was an interview of Jimmy Wales by Australian stalwart Richard Fidler, of Conversations fame. I went alone. When we were going through the program, this one jumped out at me. If you don't know Jimmy Wales, he is one of the founders of Wikipedia, and after 25 years, has published a book titled The Seven Rules of Trust, subtitled Why It Is Today's Most Essential Superpower.

I'll be honest, I went not knowing what to expect, though I had bought his book a few weeks back (Tattoo Day) and had started reading it before I went. It both met and exceeded my expectations. They did not go into the craft of writing. That will be another talk. What they did go into is the story of Wikipedia and the role trust played in that.

All in all, a very valuable chat, and an even more valuable book, which is immediately applicable across a breadth of areas: in our personal life, and most definitely in my professional life as a Chief Tech leading a group of 120+ people in a digital transformation that delivers learning services to 45,000 students.

One key thing that jumped out at me, and this was early in the talk, was the trust pyramid, drawn below and now, looking at the book, drawn slightly differently but the same. The idea is that to have trust, you need the three elements of Authenticity, Empathy, and Logic.

Funnily enough, in leading my people and in the interactions I have with them, I'd like to think I demonstrate and live these traits daily. The feedback I get gives me a sense that I do, yet naming it, even drawing it up on my whiteboard at the office, means I will be able to live it and teach others.

All in all, a good talk, a valuable book, and one I would feel comfortable recommending and sharing with others.

Shopping list, not.

 It was time to go; there was nothing left here for him anymore. Looking about his one-room abode, he grabbed his backpack. ‘His rations', if that's what he could call them, seven days' worth, tinderbox wrapped in a leather cloth, tied. Potion of healing, a gift from old Roy that he'd never had to use; without a doubt, he would. Holy water, blanket on top, tied down. Hand lantern next, pulled from the shelf to the right of his door, tied snug against his pack so it wouldn't swing, make noise, or worse, get carelessly smashed.

Shit. He opened his pack and shoved his oil and cleaning cloth back in, pulling the lid down and tying off.

Pulling his chain mail over his undergarments, then his travelling shirt over the top, strapping a quiver of crossbow bolts to his leg, hooking his hand crossbow off his left hip, greatsword slung over his right shoulder down to his left hip, hilt rising over his right shoulder. Reaching for it, pulling it free, then letting it slide back into place, notching in.

Looking about, it was still dark, the fire casting a dim red glow about the room, having died down while he slept. Everything was in order, in place. They didn't expect him on watch until the evening; he'd be long gone.

Lifting his backpack, right arm first, then left, he checked his sword again, still within reach, sliding free and back in easily. And that was it. He was on his way. Grabbing his bota bag, filled with water, he exited both quietly and with purpose.

---------------------------------------------------

Today’s prompt - write a story around a shopping list, slight variation. Here’s the list:

Equipment (64 lb.)

• Chain Mail (55 lb.) — AC 16, Str 13, Stealth

• Hand Crossbow (3 lb.) — Martial, Ammunition, Range, Light, Loading, Vex, Range (30/120)

• Greatsword (6 lb.) — Martial, Heavy, Two-Handed, Graze

Backpack (29.5 lb.)

• Blanket (3 lb.)

• Holy Water (1 lb.)

• Lamp (1 lb.)

• Potion of Healing (0.5 lb.)

• Rations x7 (14 lb.)

• Robe (4 lb.)

• Tinderbox (1 lb.)

Crossbow Bolt Case (2.5 lb.)

     Crossbow Bolts x20 (1.5 lb.)

Artemis II

 'Woah, what the heck was that!'

EekBok pulled back hard on the left joy, leaning to his left more out of sensation and the pure thrill of the craft moving around him, TooBop. 'That, my friend, is the hoomans.'

TooBop, leaning forward in her seat, looked in every direction, trying to see what had flown by, out of sight for a moment until EekBok manoeuvred the vessel around, and there it was, a little spherical cone drawing away from where they sat. 'I knew you said it would be more impressive than the comet, but I didn't think we'd get this close.'

'Yup, I told you we'd get to see it. Would you believe it's been 54 years since their last visit? Oh, recently, there's been a little more traffic up there in their orbit, a few go out to what they call a space station.' Pointing to the right of the hoomans capsule, 'There. Nowhere near as far as a loop around the moon.'

'Why so long between turns?' asked TooBop, looking at her friend, knowing he'd have the answer.

'Well, that's something we speculate about all the time, it's weird. My view is that they came up here the first time as some sort of competition; the craft came from two different points on the globe, then they just stopped. I tell you what, though, they've not advanced as much as I thought they would’ve.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, look at it, it's pretty much like the one I saw 54 years ago, it's literally just falling through space, falling back to their planet.'

TooBop squinted, or what would pass for a squint, the magnifying eyelid passing over her eye, bringing the capsule closer. 'You're right, I can't see any form of propulsion.'

'It's great, isn't it. They're so primitive, yet think about the maths they're doing, it's like the stuff we learnt in high school.' EekBok paused, watching them fall toward the earth, in awe of what he saw. His kind had once been like these hoomans. So basic, daring in what they were doing, so fragile.

'So why are they back?'

'Oh, again something we don't know. My theory? All sorts of things, they're overpopulating, and the last couple of years they've had pandemics, wars, floods, fires, famines, all sorts of stuff.'

Pausing momentarily to look at TooBop, her eyes were fixed on the scene playing out before them. 'Don't get me wrong, they've always had these things, they just seem to be happening more frequently now.'

TooBop was amazed — she didn't realise her friend was so knowledgeable about hoomans. 'How do you know all of this?'

By way of answer, EekBok continued, 'The Faculty of Hooman Research says there are all sorts of reasons for them being back, one of them being that they are getting ready to abandon their planet. Some of them, anyway.'

'Hey, what's happening now?' TooBop had stopped squinting out the windscreen and had turned her attention to the screen on the centre console, pressing the thumb joy to zoom and track the capsule. 'What are the orange and white things?'

'Oh, their parachutes — that's how they're slowing themselves down. They're doing a controlled crash.'

'Crash!'

'Yup, that and landing it in the water. They'll slow it down enough not to hurt the hoomans inside. Like I said, pretty simple tech, literally a funny-shaped container flying through space, nothing more. To see tech like that, you and I would have to go to the Museum of Ancient History.'

'Oh EekBok, this is so, so. I don't know, scary. I'm scared for them. Do you think they'll survive? You know, in the longer term?'