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]

When they get to the city, someone Steel identifies as Kell is in fact waiting for them. With a small army of uniformed guards surrounding him.

As they approach, "Cam! I've heard lots of interesting rumors about you. Grind tells me you want to bring dangerous, untested machines into the city... But let's talk about that in a moment. It seems you filled out your visitor form incorrectly! You indicated that you had no magic. Now, granted, the form didn't have a field for whatever kind of magic you have. With that in mind, I'll waive most of the refiling fee, reducing it to three silver circles." (This is actually a fairly small amount, equivalent to a few days in a cheap hotel)

[from_scratch]

"The form wanted to know if I was a shaper. I'm not. You need to redesign them if you want to catch people like me."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Unfortunately the reality here is that the form was still inaccurately filled out. Not having complete information about the people visiting our city poses a significant security risk. We don't register piano players, but you should have disclosed an unusual ability with such a large potential for disruption."

[from_scratch]

"You also didn't ask if I know martial arts, brought weapons, know how to pick locks, carry infectious disease, sympathize with your political enemies, or descend from an ancestor who was cursed with generations of bad luck that brings earthquakes wherever I go. Those are all 'nos', by the way. There wasn't a space on the form for 'miscellaneous potential hazard'."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"We'll be correcting that. But we still need to re-file your paperwork, send a courier with a correction and formal apology to the senate, and deal with low-level unrest caused by strange rumors. Your unusualness is a burden on Opri Security Group. There must be recompense. And I'm given to understand that a little silver is hardly outside of your ability."

The way he talks about it, you might almost think he wants a symbolic submission to his authority more than the actual money.

[from_scratch]

"It's true. I could make a little silver. Or I could fly away and stop bothering you, since I'm such a disruption. I mean, this would have an opportunity cost of much more than three silver, but it sounds like I'm a headache to you personally, and I can't imagine why anyone would wish a headache on you."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Fine, forget the fine. I get it, you're a special snowflake with unheard-of powers. You're poking fun at me, at authority, because you don't like how things are run here. But the point is that you need to follow procedure. You need to cooperate not make unnecessary splashes or the Senate will come and step on us all."

"Even if you'll survive that, Opri and its citizens might not. It's a risk. If you're going to keep throwing new technology at Opri- Technology, I remind you, that nobody here but you and maybe Steel has any familiarity with. The Opri City Council had an emergency meeting this morning, and we want some conditions to ensure Opri's welfare even if you attract a reactionary army."

[from_scratch]

"Do you have something in mind?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"A veto power, your sincere consideration of projects that the Opri City Council requests, guarantees that you will give the Senate samples of or information about anything you give Opri if they request it, proper documentation of all products and services, permission to dismantle or destroy the things you make with one week's notice if they interfere with city operations, thorough education on the technology, any of your industries or sales that occur in Opri space being subject to a 24% gross income tax, and a public statement that Opri is not responsible for any criminal or aggressive actions you take."

[from_scratch]

"I can do some of that. I will sincerely consider suggested projects, I can print out design schematics for anything I make, if you want to wreck your infrastructure I'll probably stop making you new infrastructure but I won't make a huge fuss about it, there is a language and assumed technology barrier in all educational materials I could produce and my personal time is valuable but I'm not opposed to teaching you guys to maintain or manufacture the shiny toys, and I'll happily state that Opri is not making me do anything criminal or aggressive unless you in fact come up with some way to make me do things that are one of those, which is unlikely. Is that income tax standard?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"The removal clause is aimed at something like: If you decide to be amusing and made a gigantic sculpture in the middle of the street, we are not responsible for breaking it to get it out of the way. The usual industry and commercial income tax is 20%. You are classified as a high-risk industry, so the tax is higher."

[from_scratch]

"High-risk? What kind of risk? To whom?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"High risk to Opri, because the Senate very much does not like new things and is likely to invade us unless you very kindly also gift them similar things to what you give us. If you are determined to go up against the Senate, you're going to have to do it someplace other than Opri."

[from_scratch]

"I haven't met the Senate. Maybe they're very nice people and I want to give them stuff. The invading people for having received presents doesn't sound like it, of course. If you'd rather not take the risk I could just go make an island in whatever passes for international waters around here and colonize it and take immigrants, the idea has substantial appeal."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'm starting to think that might be best," Steel says. "Telra is relatively stable because it resists change so stubbornly, but that very resistance to change has created deep issues over the last three centuries."

Kell adds, "You know what, she's right. New technology is like a firework: Best observed from a distance."

[from_scratch]

"All right. I can disconnect the dam cable, then. You can keep the water station or I can put one like what you had before back, up to you."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"That's up to Grind. I'll ask her lat..."

"Surprise!" Grind falls from the top of the wall and lands hard, right in front of Kell. "I knew you held a city council meeting without me again! You'll pay for that, you will. Cam, we'll keep the dam and water station if you don't mind, but we'll be giving it to the Senate if they ask for it. Acceptable?"

[from_scratch]

"...Are you planning to pick them up and move them?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I mean ceding territory to their control, territory that we only marginally have authority on anyway."

"You can't just decide that on your own-"

"Fair point, Kelly. Assemble the city council and we'll have a vote. Keep the shiny new thing that will cost almost nothing to run and get something like 40 gold back from the civil service budget, and have something to give to the Senate if they poke their noses around here looking for it? Or neither of those things."

"We'll still need to vote." Kell rubs his head. "I need some aspirin. Er, Cam? Would you mind coming back this evening?"

[from_scratch]

"I don't have anywhere else to be. I mean, even if I go make an island it won't take that long unless all these various governments have the sea claimed for quite a long way past the coast."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Telra doesn't claim anywhere there aren't people," Steel clarifies. "It's a federation. They bring existing populations under their control to expand, they don't colonize by themselves."

[from_scratch]

"Nothing in place to govern, say, fishing rights?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Individual cities manage those within their individual territories. Which leads to ecological problems, as you were likely about to guess."

Kell and Grind have disappeared into the city, along with Kell's contingent of guards.

[from_scratch]

"What I'm asking is how far past the coast do those rights extend. I don't want to park my island in somebody's salmon farm."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Thirty miles will be plenty of distance. Are you going to make an island or attempt to find one?"