From: kat@werple.apana.org.au (Kathryn Andersen)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Virtuals (3) Tarren and the Dragon
Summary: Tarren wipes out again!
Keywords: Virtuals Tarren Dragon
Date: 9 Oct 92 01:45:35 GMT
Organization: werple public-access UNIX, Melbourne
NNTP-Posting-Host: werple.apana.org.au

Sorry, folks, I've been away.  Then werple was having teething problems
with new O/S.
The story coninues...

Tarren (3)
----------

woke up in a smallish, sparsely furnished room. Grey sunlight filtered
through a tree outside a window, marking it for real morninglight, not
just Chiba smoglight. He was lying on a rather hard couch, smelling
fresh coffee.  That, and a gnawing hunger, made him feel very much
alive. Weirdest fucking dream though, and *where* was he now? He sat
up, thinking of which unknown drugs who could have slipped him when,
when he, over the remote bubbling of the coffee machine, heard the
tappetytap of a keyboard. How archaic. I mean, *everybody* use decks
nowadays, don't they?  Well, whoever could maybe tell him how he got
here, and more important, where he was. The view was no clue, second
floor of an indecently large house, in a neighborhood that ran to late
20th architecture in a city he had never seen before. Unusually
lowrise, though, and *gardens* 'round each house!

Better get some answers. Reflexively, he patted the pocket where his
deck nestled, and walked into the next room, where the Dragon, his
back to the door, was working at some terminal straight out of a

   
He woke up again on the same hard couch, the Dragon sitting on the
windowsill some ten feet away, waiting.

"Awake? Please don't black out on me again, it's hell maintaining
uncontrolled constructs..." He chuckled "I must admit to being
impressed, though, most people just give up when they die, but you..."

Tarren closed his eyes and laid down. <I'm dreaming, I just dreamt I
woke up, then I dreamt I woke up, any minute now I'll REALLY wake up>

The Dragon continued, noting Tarren stayed in focus this time. "I
checked your link when you lost control back on the street. Imagine my
surprise when there weren't any! No AI would ever doubt cyberspace, so
you had to be people, but a people analogue without a link? I figure
something killed your physical body, and the analogue was just too
darn _stubborn_ to die... You seem remarkably resilient too, most
constructs tend to, sort of, _unravel_, when you remove the slightest
little piece. You, on the other hand, seem to self-repair as long as
you stay conscious... never seen _that_ before, not even in AIs..."

clack claws on wood clic clicclic clic steps, near, leaving the room,
clatter clink (?) squorgle steps returning and over it all the drone
of the dragon's voice. Weirdest nightmare, never before had he had
dreams that were scaring, incomprehensible and dull at the same time.
He started checking the last months intake of dubious pharmaceuticals
again.

"Want coffee? Just made it..."

He carefully opened his eyes. Yes. The dragon WAS, in fact, holding a
steaming mug in his outstretched right claw, drinking from another in
its left. It had to be a dream. He took it (it SMELLED like coffee)
and sipped (it TASTED like coffee), and, strangely, felt slightly
better.

"If you prefer tea, that can be arranged too..."

Visions of Eddie the shipboard computer floated by, and Tarren
declined with a shudder.

"How do I wake up?"

The Dragon sighed. Obviously the poor guy still thought he had a body
to return to... Even if there had been one, if it was just his link
that had been broken, the body had been flatlined for hours now. It
would be impossible to salvage the brain now, even if He had known
where to find it...

"I'm sorry... This is, perhaps, a dream, but you'll never wake up..."

It LOOKED regretful, too... sitting on a swivel chair <Now where'd
THAT come from ??>, sipping very carefully (its snout obviously wasn't
designed for mugs, or vice versa), looking intently at him, the dragon
looked oddly believable.

"So I'm dreaming you now?  WEIRDEST fucking dream I ever had... And
WHERE am I dreaming?"

The Dragon looked uncomfortable. "Actually, I rather prefer to believe
that *I* am dreaming me... if you insist on staying in that metaphor.
'Here' is my place... I usually go here when I got work to do and
don't want disturbances, or when I don't feel like loafing in the
Chat'... It's some effort, of course, but it is nigh impossible to
interact with people on something like equal footing, 'less One look
like _something_... Of course, I can't really be said to _look_ like
anything, but if you and I both pretend I look like this, it doesn't
really matter... So, _I_ am dreaming me, while _you_ are dreaming you:
You concentrates (at least subconsciously) on your present form, while
I don't, so you control it...  Were I to start concentrating on
changing you, or were we both to concentrate on changing ..." The
Dragon looked around, then spotted an old mug on a table, which
promptly sprouted wings and flew off. " ... for instance, that mug, we
would have a battle on our hands, largely determined by the amount of
processor power we each can bring to bear."

Tarren's head swam, but, yeah, if one concentrated, everything snapped
back into focus right away... Maybe the drug was wearing off..? But if
so, why was he *still* being lectured by a *dragon*?

The Dragon, meanwhile, was finishing some incomprehensible explanation
of 'Dynamic shared illusions', 'Experiential context' and 'Construct
Coherency based on willpower equivalent' " ...So, as you might gather,
you are something unique in my experience. I am in fact intensely
interested in how, exactly, you manage to maintain a full-scale
intelligence within such a small section of 'Space..."

Now *what's* it saying? "You calling me small-brain, or what? You
ain't no bigger than I am, that I can see!"

"Oh, sorry, no offense intended... quite the opposite, in fact... and
yes, I am in fact quite a lot bigger than you. Don't for a moment
think that this construct is all that there is to Me... right now, I
have three different constructs doing quite separate things, and
constructs are only foci of attention for what I _truly_ am... If you
knew how to look, you could see the transmission channels, though
they're quite a bit more difficult to spot than a decker's link..."
The Dragon looked distracted for a moment, then smiled (rather
toothily, but how else would a Dragon smile?).

"In fact, one of my other constructs is in fact currently together
with some people (using the term loosely), that I think we ought to
meet...  It's a symbiote, very nice folks..." Again, the Dragon
paused.

"I arranged for us to meet at the 'Chat in a little while."

"The Chat?"  And the room suddenly flickered, a micro-instant overlay
of dark wood, body-haze, tables, figures, glasses chinking - BliNK
back to the light open-spaced sparsely-furnished room they had been
speaking in.

The Dragon stared at him quizzically.  "How do you *do* that?"

"Me?  I didn't do anything," Tarren protested.  "I just thought -"

"About the Chatsubo?" the Dragon finished.  Steam or smoke drifted out
of his nostrils, and he cocked his head at Tarren.  "Have you been
listening to a word I've said?"

Proposition, Tarren thought.  You are in Cyberspace.  A dynamic,
less-than-stable portion of Cyberspace, "talking" to an AI.  Illusions
probable.  Test hypothesis.  Try to jack out.

<Search-locate-fail. Search-locate-fail.  Search-locate-fail.
Search-locate-fail.  locate-fail. locate fail. loc-fail. loc fa cate
fail fail-fail-fail-fail>

-------------------------------------------
Copyright 1991, 1992 by Stephan Dahl & Kathryn Andersen

send any comments, critiques, offers of money to:
marauder@freja.diku.dk
burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au
&
kat@werple.apana.org.au
-- 
 _--_|\		Kathryn Andersen	<kat@werple.apana.org.au>
/      \	Hawthorn -> Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia
\_.--.*/	-> Southern Hemisphere -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy
      v			-- My other account is an Apollo --