Post by johnreiter902 on Nov 7, 2019 17:38:38 GMT
by ddswanson (April 4th 2015)
2498: The artificial continent of Centralia, straddling the equator in the Atlantic Ocean, the capital of the Confederated Protectorate of Terra...
Mr. Atom, being a sentient robot, shouldn’t have believed in magic. There weren’t more than a few dozen other beings left in the world who still believed in magic – magical manifestations had become increasingly rare through the centuries, and it was likely that not one person in a thousand had even heard the word. Mr. Atom, once the pinnacle of scientific achievement, a beacon of ‘anti-magic’ as it were, had seen magic in action, been affected directly by magic, fought against magically-powered beings, and had even used technology to build a functional magic detector. He’d recently made good use of the magic detector in his battle against Morgoth*, a human being (Zeevy) transformed by magic into a seeming demon. He’d defeated her, and her magic had fled, but it had left behind, in Zeevy, a tiny spark, almost as undetectable as the more familiar source of magic his detector told him was closing on his position.
*Showcase: Eternity Force: 2499: Some Assembly Required
The advanced version of the detector in his office used a hologram to show a 3d picture of the local environment, and it was able to distinguish between the two sparks it normally detected, so in the hologram, the approaching spark was shown to be Jack Weston, also known as Minute Man. In an almost-human-like moment of distraction, Mr. Atom considered the anomaly that a super-powered robot, originally built for purposes of destruction, should even _have_ an office. That moment of distraction ended abruptly as the hologram flashed, and every element in the display suddenly started displaying the color signature that signified the detection of magic!
For a few nanoseconds, Mr. Atom analyzed over a dozen theoretical causes for this. He chose the two that he judged to be the most probable to act upon. “Initiate self-test! Localize the new magical source, suppress known sources, and display only the location of the new source.” He sent these instructions in a radio burst rather than speaking them; it was less than a second after the screen had changed when he got the results in a similar radio burst from the detector’s computer.
“Results of self-test: no failures, system operating at 97% efficiency. Unable to determine the cause of reduced efficiency. Unable to localize a single source of new magic. It comes from everywhere.”
The theory that suggested a wide-spread field of magical energy had initially been very low on the probability tree. Two plus centuries ago, when Mr. Atom and Ibis had created the magic detector, it had always showed a faint glow produced by the ambient magic field. That glow had gradually faded away as if all the magic in the solar system had been used up or simply ‘evaporated’. It occasionally showed some ‘sparks’, such as Jack and Zeevy, but they had been extremely rare. Now, it seemed, the background magic was back – and judging from the intensity of the display, at a level higher than it had been when he had built the original detector.
He replayed his memory of the moment of change, slowing down the replay so that each nanosecond took about a micro-second (after all, he didn’t want to sit here for an hour!), and rather than an instantaneous change, he saw a wave of light sweep across the display like a tide coming in. Dozens of quasi-independent coprocessors in his system were charged with analyzing incoming data; one offered the results of calculating the speed of that tide: roughly 480,000 miles per hour. Another co-processor, one of the dozens dedicated to searching for correlations between incoming data and stored data, noted that this velocity was closely equivalent, within the margin for error of both measurements, to the orbital speed of the sun around the center of the galaxy. The overall consciousness that was Mr. Atom integrated the results from all of his internal processes, and this time, he was so stunned that he spoke aloud, in ‘computerese’ rather than the more colloquial language he normally used.
“Tentative conclusion: Theory 3,942, formerly assigned a probability of less than a thousandth of a percent, has been promoted to the working hypothesis. Motion of the sun around the center of the galaxy has carried the Earth into a region of space that has a high concentration of magical energy. Corollary hypothesis: The last age of magic ended when the Earth moved out of a similar region of space two hundred years ago. Queries to be investigated: Is the edge of this region sharp or gradual, i.e., will the level of magic now detected remain reasonably constant as long as we are in this region or will it increase as we move farther into the region? How long will we be in this region? Is the magical energy in this region identical to that of the prior region? Note: the plethora of other queries will not be enumerated at this time.”
“That was a very succinct summary,” Jack actually caught Mr. Atom almost by surprise, as most of the computing power of the giant robot had been devoted for almost a full second to analyzing this new phenomenon. “Any way to estimate how strong it is, compared to, say, the magic field in the 1980s?”
Once again, all of Mr. Atom’s computing power was devoted to that question – this time for even longer than a second. “The magic detector wasn’t developed until almost 300 years after the 1980’s,” he replied slowly, like a human carefully weighing his words. “At that time, Ibis stated that he felt his power had declined by half over that period. The readings right now are roughly comparable to that time.”
“As I recall, by that time, Ibis had become so efficient at using the Ibistick that we were almost unaware that his powers had declined...” Jack mused. “Apparently we rarely saw him make maximum use of his powers in the 20th or even 21st centuries. Sort of scary, when you think about it. Who could have opposed him, then?”
“I have no doubts that Captain Marvel and Shazam, working together with the other heroes of the time, including yourself, would have been successful,” Mr. Atom replied. “After all, you heroes always bested me then.” Then: “There is no doubt that the results would be different today, as my capabilities have been improved many times over. But now, we are all on the same side.”
Jack was stunned! “Careful, Mr. A, that sounded almost like a boast!”
Mr. Atom stopped moving entirely for several seconds. Jack was starting to think that something had failed dramatically in the ancient robot, when Atom spoke again.
“Self-analysis complete. The restored magic field was affecting my circuits. I have adjusted my internal shielding and instituted a number of monitoring subroutines to protect against future effects,” he stated, sounding much more like the being Jack knew and respected.
Jack felt the tiniest instant of trepidation; if the magic field were to imbue Mr. Atom with a belligerent personality, he would become very dangerous, and could potentially evolve into the Frankenstein monster those around him had initially feared, when Tomas Thomas had replaced his primitive computers with those of the 21st century – and Mr. Atom had upgraded his own capabilities many times since then.
“So, we should be prepared for the rise of new, moderately powerful magic users in the near future,” Jack stated. “As far as we know, nobody but you has a magic detector – as far as we know,” he repeated for emphasis. “But there have always been people who were sensitive to the presence of magic, and there is no reason to think that ability has left the race.”
“Agreed,” the robot rumbled in his most serious voice. “We should begin formulating new contingency plans. I’ll have the WEMA library searched for plans that can be adapted to magical phenomenon and magical enemies, and meanwhile, convene WEMA’s best strategists.”
“I predict,” Jack began thoughtfully, “that we are going to have a hard time convincing anyone to take magic seriously – until the first disaster strikes, and we are skewered for being unprepared. And even then, people will find other sources to blame it on.”
Mr. Atom didn’t have to reply – he’d been dealing with WEMA bureaucracy for many years.
***~~~***
‘Something is different today,’ Keldara Tseun thought to herself, as she prepared her breakfast. ‘I wonder if there’s something wrong with my eyes?’ Everything looked subtly different today, somehow brighter but a little blurry, as if everything was surrounded with a glow, the colors of which seemed to bleed together just a bit. Whatever it was, infused her as well: ‘I sure feel fantastic today,’ she thought enthusiastically. Even her normally bland breakfast tasted better, and even her cats seemed to feel the difference, as they wrestled and played like kittens. ‘I hope my blurry eyes don’t interfere with my job!’
For 10 hours a week, Keldara was a telepresence trash collector – on the bottom of the ocean. She slipped into her virtuality suit, concentrated and mentally sent her login credentials to the WEMA Environmental Recovery Computer, and wondered, as she always did, why was this act of self-identification called “logging in”? What did the trunk of a tree have to do with computer security?
She took a moment to check her teledrone’s diagnostic telemetry, and then she took the plunge – almost literally. She thought the activation code, and instantly, she was looking out through the visual sensory instruments of her Remotely Operated Subsea Environmental Restoration Apparatus (Rosera), which she had nicknamed Rosie (as at least half of her fellow operators did), floating 3 meters above the bottom of the Indian Ocean, almost halfway around the world from her small apartment. Her normally sensory inputs were rerouted to use Rosie’s sensors. She could feel ‘on her skin’ that the water temperature was around 4 degrees Celsius and there was a slight breeze/current blowing towards the southwest. Through Rosie’s ears, the only sounds she could hear were Rosie’s almost silent engines, making station-keeping adjustments, and she couldn’t smell or taste any ‘human’ smells, which would indicate some piece of trash for Rosie to collect.
Even before she activated Rosie’s searchlights, she could see that the absolute lightlessness of the ocean outside, over 2 miles below the surface, was suffused with the new, barely visible, subtly pulsating overlay of colors. When she switched on the powerful lamps, the light was bright enough to overwhelm the new phenomenon, and she was pleased that she wasn’t going to be distracted while she worked.
There were thousands of drones like Rosie, sweeping the ocean beds around the world, picking up the human trash that had been dumped in the ocean for millennia, and Keldara was proud to be part of the worldwide effort to clean up humankind’s home planet! She felt like the Environmental Restoration Project was as important an endeavor as any humanity had ever undertaken. Some people questioned the expense of the Project, but Dara knew that it was a better than break-even proposition, even just in terms of ancient artifacts recovered and the gathering of ‘raw materials’. With virtually no oil left in the ground, the most economical way to make oil-based products such as new plastic, was to recycle old plastic. And don’t forget the scientific knowledge that was gained as new underwater terrain features were mapped, new lost civilizations were discovered, and new species were added to the biology books.
Rosie’s heads-up display showed her that her faithful vehicle had been station keeping since she’d last worked, and also indicated that Rosie was the first ‘cleaner-upper’ to visit this particular stretch of ocean bottom. She noted that back when ships still sank, there had been at least one recorded ship sinking somewhere in her current vicinity (within about a hundred mile radius, she read) and there was the standard background notice that was always displayed to all Indian Ocean operators, to keep an eye out for primitive 20th century aircraft. Rosie’s collection barge was empty – it had automatically surfaced and disgorged its contents into one of the floating recycling facilities and then returned, while she was off-shift.
Her specialized sensors swept the area. She had made this same scan when she’d gone off shift yesterday, and she didn’t expect to find anything, but sometimes stuff drifted in. She then put the drone in motion, and settled down to work. As always, she was surprised and saddened at the amount of trash she collected. Rosie could distinguish human-created debris smaller than a golf ball, though her most common recovery was a plastic ‘shopping bag’ – she’d found that even in the deepest, most remote parts of the ocean, she could count on recovering dozens of such bags in every shift, and as she got closer to a shore, the number could rise into the thousands. These bags were the major reason the ROSERAs had human operators – they were often wrapped around things and it usually required human direction to remove the plastic without causing damage.
In the last minute of her official shift, Rosie’s sensors detected something very large approaching. When she speared it with a searchlight, she was thrilled to see a giant squid of some type – and a little apprehensive. Her HUD showed that it was over 30 yards from tip of tentacle to the top of its head – not a record, but definitely very rare. It had noticed Rosie as well, and was coming her way. Rosie had an effective means of self-defense – her skin could be electrified, which drove away most animals, but Dara always hated having to use those defenses. There were stories of maddened subsea beasts attacking a ROSERA rather than retreating after a shock, and either destroying the drone or being injured or killed.
‘I hope it goes away!’ she thought. ‘I wish I could drive it like I drive Rosie, and make sure it goes somewhere else.’
As simply as that, her whole life changed!
Her point of view shifted… she could see a ROSERA approaching her! She could feel pain in her eyes, caused by the bright searchlights, lights such as only an invader ever brought to the deep. The sensory impressions Rosie’s instruments provided her were replaced by impressions that somehow felt more ‘alive’ – and she realized that she was ‘driving’ the squid! A quick whisper of worry flashed through her mind – would she be able to get back? She had always had that same fear when she was training with drones, but she quickly dismissed it, as she’d learned to do in training. She had a job to do right now, so she’d worry about getting back later.
Dara had been projecting her awareness into a wide variety of telepresence drones for about 5 years, first in training and then as her job, so she wasn’t astonished with disbelief. She accepted this new information almost immediately, and gave the giant squid a mental command to change direction. She stayed with it until she could no longer sense the Rosie drone with the squid’s underwater senses. She was relieved that this magnificent animal wouldn’t be harmed. As she thought the normal codes that projected her conscious into Rosie each day, she felt a burst of amusement, which _must_ have come from the squid: amusement and a bit of appreciation that one so tiny should feel the need to protect one so huge!
And then she was back in Rosie. She wanted nothing more than to continue to operate the drone and see if she could repeat her experience with the squid, but the overtime laws were very strict. Even with the work week recently shortened to 10 hours, it was difficult to find enough jobs for everyone who still wanted to feel useful to society. She was going to have to hope she encountered some other denizens of the deep tomorrow. And then, like a flash, it occurred to her… might this same thing happen with her cats?
***~~~***
K. Orville BlunderBluster, Director of the World Emergency Management Agency, went about his routine morning duties with his normal efficiency. After all, he had 13 advanced degrees and had been the Director of WEMA for over 10 years so his routine was old hat. He knew that everyone under his command also followed a daily routine, and did everything precisely by the book (the book HE had written), except for those regrettable interruptions when WEMA actually had to deal with an emergency. And even then, there were auxiliary routines, and those who always did things ‘by the book’ were always rewarded. WEMA ran smoothly and precisely, exactly as he specified and totally under his control.
Except for that damn robot and his toadies, the autonomous group called Emergency Response 1. ER-1 was a thorn in his side and try as he had, there was nothing he could do about it. WEMA’s charter specified the existence, organizational structure, and responsibilities of ER-1. Mr. Atom had been personally installed by Nooranary Herandov, the Presidenta of the Confederated Protectorate of Terra. The reactionary do-nothing legislature refused to even consider changing the charter, Madame Presidenta stubbornly refused to replace Atom with any of the dozens of more suitable candidates BlunderBluster nominated, and his ongoing attempts to discredit his nemesis continued to fail. And a robot had no vices which could be used to control him, no handles for blackmail… and every ER-1 operation during Mr. Atom’s term as commander had been totally successful. That didn’t impress him, since they routinely violated almost his every directive, but all the ignorant public rabble cared about was results, so he was unable even to sway popular sentiment to his side.
Jack Weston walked resignedly into BlunderBluster’s office. The appointed bureaucrat was nominally Mr. Atom’s boss, and Jack and Eternity Force nominally worked for Mr. Atom, but in reality ER-1 and Eternity Force made their own assignments. Jack knew Blunderbluster didn’t believe in magic, denying the evidence of a half-millennium-old man kept young by magic, and all the well-documented historical evidence, and would probably just throw Jack out of his office (again). But somebody had to follow protocol and warn him of the potential for problems the returning magic might unleash on the world, and Jack had agreed with Mr. Atom that he was the better messenger of the two of them.
“I’m tremendously busy, Weston, can’t you see that?” the Director stormed when Jack knocked quietly on his door. In fact, he had been filling out a crossword puzzle. “Since you have already interrupted me, I can give you 3 minutes.”
Jack gave him the story, in short, simple words, in less than half a minute. “Mr. Atom’s magic detector has detected powerful magical energy now permeating the solar system. We’ve done many tests that conclusively verify these results. It won’t be long before people learn to manipulate this energy, and not all of those people will be concerned for the good of society. We need to start making contingency plans.”
The next five minutes of Blunderbluster’s oh-so-precious time, he stood still stiffly still as Blunderbluster berated him. “Magic is so much hogwash! I don’t know what you and that traitorous robot are trying to pull, but it won’t work. There has never been magic and never will be!” He ranted on and on.
Much to his surprise, Jack began to realize that Blunderbluster was right! The idea of magic was simply ludicrous; there was no place for magic in a neatly ordered universe and Jack was wasting this great man’s time.
“Thank you, sir,” he interrupted the tirade. “You are absolutely correct. I apologize for wasting your time. I’ll get back to my duties now, sir.” He saluted crisply and left the office.
***~~~***
As Jack returned to his office, he was mentally regretting his prior treatment of the great man heading WEMA. Why, he had even laughed at his superior when he’d first been introduced to him at a diplomatic function and Blunderbluster had been regaling a circle of admirers with the story of his surname. His high-pitched voice was a dagger in the ears of each of the listeners.
“Hundreds of thousands of years ago, in the prehistoric days of the first Ice Age, when humanity still lived in apartment buildings made of animal hides and adobe and warmed themselves by the flames of burning animal dung, they were protected from Neanderthal savages, and man-(and woman-)eating dinosaurs by a clan of heroic men armed with primitive laser rifles called Blunderblusts. Only this band of brave, handsome, finely-attired warriors and their weapons stood between mankind and total extinction. As time passed—and wine flowed—those under their protection came to acknowledge their greatness, and this heroic group came to be known by the weapons they favored—the Blunderblusters. Since before the dawn of history, almost before humankind even developed a spoken language, there have been Blunderbusters, and we are going to be around a lot longer!”
Jack had snorted with amusement, but today he couldn’t recall why – if it hadn’t been for this great man’s ancestors, humanity would be extinct. Yes, he had treated Blunderbluster poorly over the years… or had he?
“Hold on a minute!” he thought urgently. “They weren’t called Blunderblusts, they weren’t even lasers, and they sure weren’t prehistoric! The correct name is blunderbuss, which means ‘thunder pipe’, and they are muzzle-loading projectile weapons that used gunpowder to fire shot and other pellets. I even fired one, during World War II! How could I have forgotten that?”
Jack stopped, and stood stock-still for almost a minute. His mind quickly restored his amused contempt for Blunderbluster, and his belief in magic seeped back in as well. And as his normal personality restored itself, his memory of his last few minutes of hero worship faded – the incident became totally forgotten.
***~~~***
In his office, K. Orville was doing some heavy thinking. He was pretty sure Madame Presidenta was planning to replace him, and he needed some kind of crisis to reaffirm how absolutely crucial he was to WEMA and the safety of the general public and the world. But there were no storms about to hit, no earthquakes predicted, no asteroids that might even come close, no droughts, no epidemics, no crime waves, no alien invasions, nothing that would get him into the news and the spotlight.
‘Wait! What was it Weston was blathering about?’ Jack had left his office 15 minutes ago, and Blunderbluster had barely paid attention to anything he said. ‘Something about the return of ‘magic’ and the potential for trouble it might cause.’ He nodded his head slowly. “Sounds like just the thing.”
To the air, he spoke: “Get Weston and that robot in here, Code 2!” and his AI assistant instantly sent the request. Blunderbluster leaned back in his chair, his hands interlocked behind his head, and started planning. “I’ll order them to step up their planning, make their concerns and preparations public, and then make some preparations of my own. Yes, this will be just the thing!”