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]

"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."

[from_scratch]

"Cool. So this... can basically run unmanned except when you want to step the intake up and down or if something breaks, which, like the dam, should take at least fifty years."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Can you identify some books aimed at electricity and engineering? I would like very much to understand exactly what these places are doing."

[from_scratch]

"Um... Start with 'Engineering for Summoners', but ask me when you don't understand stuff."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'll read that later, then. I'm thinking about how to control this place... We'll have to set up a signal tower or send runners so the city's tanks don't overfill if we turn it up too high. Or maybe just build spillways."

[from_scratch]

"Oh, it can be controlled remotely, you just need a person doing it. And it's button pressing."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"...How, exactly, is that done?"

[from_scratch]

"On your phone poke the button that looks like a stylized house - box with a triangle on top - to get out of your library, then poke the water droplet."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"No, I mean... This thing can communicate at a distance?"

[from_scratch]

"Yes. That's actually the function it's named after, although after a while they did enough different things that plenty of people never use theirs to talk to other phones. Right now it can only talk to the water pump and the range isn't great, I'll need to put in some satellites to get good coverage, but from here to Opri it'll be fine all by itself as long as you aren't underground or behind a lead wall or something."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Communication is yet another thing you can do much more effectively than us. We are limited to physical mail, couriers, or for particularly important messages, coded sequences of light shined from one tower to the next and then the next until it reaches its destination and is decoded. Can you see yourself selling electric mail delivery?"

[from_scratch]

"Sure, once the place is wired up and you can charge the things. Modern battery life is great but it won't last forever all by itself. Maybe you could get along with shared induction chargers in public places while the change rolls out to individual residences."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Conveniently enough for that idea, public places are where Grind and company have the most influence. Speaking of Grind, do you want to write up some summaries for her while I read Engineering for Summoners?"

[from_scratch]

"You'd know better than I what'll go over well."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Don't lie or embellish about the new stuff's capabilities. She'll like concise descriptions of what the things you can make are, what they can do, any drawbacks or limitations they have stated up front, how they are not particularly dangerous unless mistreated. A description of how you can make things with whatever arbitrary limits you want to make up to discourage immediate attempted exploitation of you. Repetition of the very generous lease terms. Emphasize how great the city will be with all this new stuff, but don't go overboard with the rhetoric."