trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[sturdycoldsteel]

"In Opri, yes, but not between different cities. It's possible they're in your computer- I believe you appeared it with the entire Senatorial library, including the archives."

[from_scratch]

"Oh, yeah, good point. Should be all done processing the character sets after it had overnight to do it..." He searches the library archive for the relevant rainfall stats.

[sturdycoldsteel]

It's a bit of pain. The relevant information is in no less than nine different documents. But it turns out that the recorded rainfall in Lehr and Knip and surrounding areas is pretty much the same as in Opri.

[from_scratch]

"Okay, cool, we're well within tolerances. We could notify Nel as a courtesy, or I could just sit nearby and add water past the dam while it's filling up the canyon so they don't experience any interruption in supply, what do you think?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"The latter. If you warn or apologize they will feel entitled to reparations and be annoying. If they never notice a problem at all they will not."

[from_scratch]

"All right. Anything else to investigate before I get started?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yes. Where will you install the wire that goes between the dam and the city? What else is electricity good for than water pumping and heating? Will the things be dangerous by themselves? If tampered with? Whose property will it be?"

[from_scratch]

"Electricity is good for light, and moving stuff like elevators and kitchen appliances, and once you've all got used to it being everywhere you can attach all kinds of stuff to it - the computers need electricity, they just have some of it stored. I'm gonna make a big insulated wire with a plug on the end in the city - and I'm gonna give it a remote receiver so I can fiddle with its output from miles away - but I'm not gonna turn the turbines on and make it actually start generating anything until I have something for it to power, so there won't be any current. Once there's current, if someone gets through the insulation that's dangerous, but I'll make it real thick and bury most of it in earth and grass so it's not an attractive nuisance. The dam and its output are mine leased at the most generous possible terms to the city of Opri, so I can pay off anyone who decides to be obnoxious without having to counterfeit too much or find specific material goods they individually want; and Opri can buy it off me if they like, and if they really piss me off my lease terms will get less generous."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Sounds good. You owning the thing will help reduce the amount of obnoxiousness you face, at least once you demonstrate its usefulness."

[from_scratch]

"Nobody claims to own this canyon or that field over there or anything, right?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"If they do, they aren't using them for anything. Any complaints won't be very enforceable."

[from_scratch]

"Cool."

And Cam lands where his computer suggested a dam could go, and then, starting under the river but quickly growing to the height of the canyon:

a dam appears, seamless with the stone.

(And water, downstream of the dam, at the flow rate he is currently depriving Nel of receiving in the ordinary manner.)

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's one thing to see a shirt or gadget appear from nothingness... You could build mountains. You could build moons. I'm starting to wish I was a demon instead of a shaper."

[from_scratch]

"I could build stars!" says Cam cheerfully, stepping onto his new dam, wings spread and tail twitching for balance. "I haven't personally but it's been done. Shaping is great too, don't get me wrong, and I spent years on my engineering curriculum - and these software tools I used to help aren't parlor tricks either, just being a demon won't get you casual hydroelectric generators just like that. But yes demons are super."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Can you redo the pipes to the new water level and install electricity in our pumping plant a little ways upriver? Having something useful actively using the power will be more convincing. And it won't count as doing things to the city in Grind's head- This is the countryside, not the city."

[from_scratch]

"Sure, I'll make a separate cable for it." He takes off; as he flies, a cable appears along the edge of the canyon, still filling up. When they arrive at the plant, he inspects what they've got and then says, "It'd be easier to torch the whole building and replace it."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Well, let me clear out the workers first. I'll tell a few of them to come back tomorrow morning ready for lessons on how to use another new set of equipment, and tell the rest they can have a day or two off."

[from_scratch]

"Sure."

[sturdycoldsteel]

So she goes and does that. Some people leave the building and fly to the road and then towards Opri.

Steel doesn't quite ask when she says, "I bet you can make better explosives than me."

[from_scratch]

"I could, but I can also do this."

He puts a thick sphere of ice around the entire structure to keep it contained. It's clear enough for her to see the entire building disintegrate into roughly one-cubic-inch pieces and collapse in a heap thereof inside the ice. Then a ramp of more ice grows under the sphere and it rolls away from the canyon, pile of bits in it. The ice melts, apparently spontaneously, and then the pile of stuff catches fire.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Are you having fun toying with the laws of physics? And can you attempt to put rooms and corridors in roughly the same place they were before? We can reuse streambuilt paths to move around with, even if you're going to handle heat and light and pumping with electricity."

[from_scratch]

"Would there be a floorplan you'd want me to follow?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Nevermind on the paths thing, I'll defer to your floorplan. We can always redo them and you know more about how this stuff works than me. We'll want about a million gallons per day capacity, which we probably won't use all of, a few offices, and classrooms to give lessons about all this fancy new technology in, and the actual pumps and valves and pipe hookups."

[from_scratch]

"I'm gonna give you twice that and just not turn on half of the intake for now in case, oh, being the first wired city anywhere causes you to suddenly double in size or something." He pulls out his computer and designs the place - it takes about twenty minutes - and then it comes into existence, hooked up to the same outflow as the original, already on. "This won't require as much staff as the original - uh, is that a problem, are they going to be unhappily unemployed?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"They're civil service workers. Most people choose to work in the civil service for a few years to pay their debt to the city's public services. The alternative to the civil service is a rather severe tax. I think I'll arrange for other sections to take them. In particular the roads-and-lifts division always wants more shapers."