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]

"I know Henta," the mother volunteers, "If you make it so I can press buttons with their alphabet on them, that will work."

[from_scratch]

"I'm not really fluent in Henta. ...I could probably make character recognition work in a short while. If you write with a particular pen on a particular surface. Yeah, let's go with that." He fiddles with his computer for a moment, then snaps his fingers and there is a surface and a pen in the shop. "Write whatever you want to send to me on the blue area, it'll slide the characters up and out of your way as you run out of room, tap the green thing on the right to send. Sound easy enough?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

She tries it out, writing the names of various objects on it. "This will work, thank you. But how can I erase a mistake?"

[from_scratch]

"Poke the characters you want to erase with the other end of the pen."

[sturdycoldsteel]

She does that to verify that it works.

"This is a very interesting... Thing. I'll try to collect nice big batches for you. I'll start with some things I expect people to want, since you're already here..." She names about two dozen items, including things such as '100 bars of soap' '40 sets of shaving razors' and 'a dozen 20 pound sacks of flour'.

[from_scratch]

"Oh, about a third of the way up on the apartment building is a residential warehouse thing stocked with reasonable quantities of nonperishables. If you want to keep an eye on the supply in there that would be nice but I don't think anything will be gone yet."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"You plan ahead. I'll keep inventory for you, sure. Have a nice day!"

[from_scratch]

"Will do."

[sturdycoldsteel]

The doctor solicits a phone capable of calling Cam, having heard of the things from Steel. "If there's anything I'm not totally sure how to treat, I'd rather talk to the source of my new medicine and knowledge."

[from_scratch]

"Of course. Let me give you a tour of the place, there's only so much the pictorial guide can do." Cam shows the doctor all the stuff and quizzes him on diagnostics to make sure they aren't laboring under any desperate misapprehensions about anatomy, infection, etcetera.

[sturdycoldsteel]

The doctor understands anatomy and the body's response to injuries very well. He knows about infections, and the distinction between bacteria and viruses, but his biochemistry is shaky and their antibiotics are not very effective. Usually, treatment for infectious diseases involve suppressing the symptoms and spraying disinfectant on everything rather than killing the microbes. This... Usually works.

[from_scratch]

...Cam points out the antivirals and the antibiotics, reminds him of the importance of making sure he's using the right one of those, mentions that some of the antibiotics will also handle worms and protozoans and fungi but there are more specialized medicines that will do better, and shows him the snazzy diagnostic gadgets.

[sturdycoldsteel]

The doctor takes lots of notes and reiterates that he's going to call Cam whenever something he's not absolutely positive on comes up.

[from_scratch]

Okay, good. "As soon as my computer can translate things into local languages I will get you books," he adds.

[sturdycoldsteel]

That seems to be it as far as pressing needs from his new citizens go. It's well past sunset by now.

[from_scratch]

Cool. Cam spends the night slurping coffee, nudging his computer repeatedly on-course and pronouncing words for it while it works on the corpus of local texts it has, setting up the bridge and its train, and finalizing designs for a communication satellite to allow easy communication between his unnamed island and Opri. He should name his island. Hmmmmmm.

[sturdycoldsteel]

The next morning, a message comes from the volunteer shopkeepers. It requests gardening supplies and seeds, a fishing pole and tackle, bolts of raw fabric, the construction of a park between the apartment building and the beach-houses, and a light-bulb that can be carried around.

At the end of the list is, Apologies if these requests seem greedy. Several people seem to desire setting up crafts of sorts- the fabric is for an aspiring tailor. I believe this should be encouraged. Will you be minting a currency unique to this island?

[from_scratch]

Cam swoops out of his house, scopes out the park area, lands, and strolls through it, making park things as he goes. He sends a reply: Park in progress, other stuff will be added to the storage floor in the apartment building after I'm done parking. Undecided on currency but if I do it'll be fiat paper or electronic; coins are unwieldy.

[sturdycoldsteel]

There's no response from the shopkeeper. Perhaps they're not entirely comfortable with their device.

Steel seems to have figured out texting in Italian on her phone, though. She asks Should I go look for more people in Opri?

[from_scratch]

At your leisure. I don't have a specific growth trajectory in mind. If you do go I'd like to know when and whether they'd like the dam hooked up to anything other than the water pump.

[sturdycoldsteel]

I'll visit Opri and Nel and a few other nearby cities. I don't think I'll get many takers, the rumors about you have only had two days to spread. I think I'll take out newspaper ads, I have enough silver and don't need it here. Preferences on what appears in them?

[from_scratch]

I still can't think of a name for the island I like, unfortunately. You know the audience, just don't tell any horrible lies.

[sturdycoldsteel]

A few minutes later the Earthbus takes off.


Around lunchtime, someone shows up on the train. After wandering around for a bit, he wants to move in. And that afternoon, Steel comes back with another dozen immigrants. One of them is a teacher. She wants a school to teach in. And Italian tutoring/textbooks.

[from_scratch]

She can have books, although none of them make reference to local languages because Cam's poor little computer is not done yet. She can have a one-floor school building designed for more to be added on top as there are more students.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel gives her some introductory lessons and cheat sheets. She sets up a single-class school session, with aim to split classes when more students show up.


Over the next two days, people continue to trickle in. A small fraction want beach-houses, but everyone else is content with an apartment in the tower. The doctor acquires an assistant. The tailor starts selling custom clothes out of his apartment. People start using the subway, once they realize it's there. Someone asks for a restaurant on the 10th floor of Cam's next tower. Someone else wants an elevated storefront for their miscellaneous decorative objects.