1????????Soul Bound


    1.3??????Making a Splash


    1.3.2????An Allotropic Realignment


    1.3.2.3? Bunnyballs


    Alderney: “And my stash now holds enough strange devices and unidentified liquids to kill half of Alto... if they’d trust me to cook for them.”


    She clicked her fingers again, and produced a second cake.   It was tinged green, probably due to mint flavouring, but for some reason nobody else felt like eating it.   Alderney shrugged and started consuming the slices by herself.


    Bungo: “We got a bit of experience and reputation, though not as much as we’d have gained if we’d done the killing without a big crowd helping us or if our actions became public knowledge.   Still, better than a screw up?”


    Kafana: “You took every prudent precaution I could think of, and more.   If it later comes back to haunt us, you won’t be to blame.   I think you’ve done wonderfully.   Anything I need to know about our schedule for today?”


    Bungo: “Not much.   Alderney needs to visit the forges, and she’s arranged a rendezvous with Harlequin, who''s a local boy and has offered to start us off in the right direction.   After that we’ll play it by ear.   Hopefully Harlequin will know where Dottore is, and we can look at architecture and listen for rumours about the Sword Laws as we wander.”


    Kafana: “Cool.   I agreed to dance with Harlequin at the Masked Ball if I get a chance, so I really ought to get to know him better.   Also, do you think we’ll manage to talk with this Raggedy Man we keep hearing about?   If he’s famous, someone must know something.”


    Alderney tried to answer, but started choking on an extra large slice of cake that she’d just stuffed into her mouth.   Wheezing, and covered in virtual mint icing, she weakly waved towards Bulgaria who took over for her.


    Bulgaria: “There are plenty of rumours about an anonymous hero who takes cruelly appropriate revenge against powerful people who’ve been getting away with harming the weak and vulnerable.   It makes for great gossip.   People pass the stories on, adding details and exaggerations.   Actual facts have been much harder to find.   The best Alderney and I have managed is to pass on a request, via someone claiming to be a friend of a friend, expressing interest in meeting up.   We’ve not heard a response, and if he does decide to talk, I’d expect him to be extremely cautious and pick a time or location we won’t expect, in order to prevent us setting up a trap in advance.”


    Expect it to happen at a time she didn’t expect it to happen?   Was that even possible?   Bulgaria’s mind was way too twisty for her.   She decided, slightly guiltily, to leave that one to Bungo to puzzle over.   He was the lateral thinker, after all.   She skimmed through the displayed schedule, to see if anything else puzzled her, but concluded he’d covered it all.


    Kafana: “So armour, sword laws quest, Flavio’s curse, and research for architectural plans to use for the Basso Renewal project?”


    Bungo gave her a double thumbs up sign.


    Kafana: “Got it, and thank you for putting up with our interruptions!   Anyone else got stuff to add before we get distracted?”


    Bulgaria: “There’s a lot of people who don’t like Cov’s priesthood.   You’ll be ok, but it might be something worth asking about once we start recording for broadcast.”


    She looked around, but nobody else had anything to add so Alderney, who’d regretfully clicked her finger again, removing both cake debris and the cake itself, produced models of three variants of housing design that were being considered for the nearly abandoned part of the Basso District, the Spettro, that the Wombles were planning to redevelop.   Wellington and Bungo got into a discussion on the finer points of setting wards, giving Alderney an opportunity to continue their earlier private chat.


    Alderney: {You can still come visit me.   You’ll just have to do it by taking virtual possession of the Topsy we have on board, just as Tomsk did when he visited you.}


    Kafana: {I’ve never tried that.   And didn’t you say your Topsy had male anatomy?   Wouldn’t that feel weird?}


    Alderney: {Not as weird as possessing a quadruped.   And you can turn off the sensation feed from the male bits, if you find them distracting and thinking about physics doesn’t work.}


    Kafana: {You distract yourself with physics?   I thought you liked that stuff?}


    Alderney: {That’s why it’s a good distraction.   Look, I said I’d explain about quenching.    You know the problem with transmitting electricity across long distances using normal conductors?}


    Kafana: {Resistance, right?   Wires heat up when you pass current through them, like in my electric ovens.}


    Alderney: {Yep.   You lose about 5% of your power, for every 1000 kilometers you send it.   So if you try to send power from the solar fields of equatorial Africa to the power hungry cities of the Northern European Union, you lose so much on the way it isn’t worth it.   With superconductors, once you’ve made the initial investment to set the network up, the ongoing costs are much lower - the only energy lost is a fixed amount needed for the cooling system, rather than a fraction of the amount being transmitted.}


    Kafana: {And that’s why they build a few big cables, that can share the same cooling system, rather than lots of small ones.   But the global network was never finished, because guarding long stretches of pipeline or cable is difficult - saboteurs kept shutting it down by causing it to quench.   I know the basics.   What I don’t understand is what the saboteurs do, and why it is so much harder to fix than a cut in a copper wire.}The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Kafana could hear the enthusiasm build in Alderney’s voice.


    Alderney: {That’s where the neat physics and engineering come in.   After Ezra Harriman published the details of her reverse-simulation method, it didn’t take long for people to start manufacturing crystalline superconductors surrounded by layer upon layer of custom carbon allotropes.   Amazing stuff.   Expensive as hell, but it lasts decades without degrading and has a really high critical magnetic field strength for its weight.   Its biggest drawback is that you must never ever bend it.   Even slightly.}


    Kafana felt herself drawn in. {What happens if you bend it?}


    Alderney: {It breaks the layers of allotropes that were squeezing the superconductor with a pressure of more than half a million times atmospheric pressure - the equivalent of an ocean trench more than a thousand kilometers deep.}


    Kafana: {So the superconductor explodes, like a popped balloon?}


    Alderney: {Not quite.   Creating the crystalline core requires really high pressures.    Higher even than you could find at the very center of the Earth’s core, squashed by more than a thousand kilometers of liquid iron and five thousand kilometers of rock.   But, once formed and operating as a superconductor, it remains able to carry on operating even after the pressure has been reduced by a factor of 10.   As long as you don’t jiggle it.   As long as you keep it cool enough, and don’t expose it to high magnetic fields or try to pass too much current through it.}


    Kafana: {It doesn’t sound entirely stable.   More like nitroglycerine.}


    Alderney: {It’s not that bad.   It can withstand small disruptions.   As superconductors go, the demands are very reasonable - they can even use liquid oxygen to cool it rather than the far more expensive liquid gasses needed for lower temperatures.   The technical name is “metastable”.   I prefer to think of it as a cat.}


    Kafana: {Really?}


    Alderney: {Imagine a cat in a room full of running children.   Normally it couldn’t relax but, if you let it sit on a chair that separates it from the feet, it will feel safe enough to relax a bit.   Not entirely, but neither will it leap away if the chair accidentally receives a small bump from a child who ran too close.   The cat knows there are safer places, and might eventually seek them, but it’s willing to pause where it is for now.}


    Kafana: {Ok, that’s metastable.   Got it.   But if the protection surrounding it breaks?}


    Alderney: {If the safety of the chair disappears, perhaps because a particularly boisterous child ran into it headlong, the cat can no longer relax.   It must go back evading stomping feet by running away, which uses energy.}


    Boisterous?   Was Alderney thinking of an incident from her own childhood in Scotland?


    Alderney: {In the case of metastable superconductors, that means going from being calmly isolated from magnetic fields to experiencing eddies which cause a fraction of the electric energy being carried to be converted into heat.   It reverts to being a normal conductor, enough heat is generated to boil away the coolant quicker than replacements can arrive, the temperature increases, the resistance rises, and the heat is then generated even faster, leading to a vicious cycle.   It only ends when the effect cascades along the entire 5 kilometer catenary of cable, destroying not just the conductor itself, but also the coolant feed and return pipes, the EMI weave and outer sheath, the near-vacuum insulation layers with its beautiful anti-radiation photonic wafers, the…}


    Kafana: {You really feel affection for those cables, don’t you?   You speak of them like you speak about cute pets.}


    Alderney: {It’s such a good idea.   It’s so good for the environment.   It’s the sort of use engineering ought to be put to, rather than blowing each other up.   We could all have access to near limitless sustainable energy, if it wasn’t for little minds saying “Not in my backyard” and “But he’ll gain more from it than I will”)


    Oh no.   An upset Alderney was the last thing she’d wanted.   But how to divert her?   Ah, science!


    Kafana: {What are those allotrope things you keep mentioning?}


    Alderney: {They’re the best bit of chemistry.   They’re almost architecture.   You can model them with coloured olives stuck together using cocktail sticks.   For example graphite and diamond are both made of the same element, carbon.   They behave differently because their carbon atoms are joined to each other in different patterns.   In graphite, you have large flat sheets of olives, laid out in tessellating hexagons, where each olive is joined to three neighbours by very short sticks.   Occasional long sticks form loose connections from each sheet to the one above or below it, so the sheets slide easily, resulting in pencil that can easily leave marks behind it when scraped against paper.   Diamonds are much harder because the pattern of which neighbours each atom connects to results in shorter cocktail sticks.}


    Kafana: {Maybe you’re simplifying, but is that really what architecture’s like?}


    Alderney: {I am simplifying a smidgen.   Bungo can tell you more about shells and valences if you’re interested.   Which allotropes are available as stable options can vary with temperature, pressure or even the isotope.   Under extreme conditions, elements can even become imposters, able to imitate the chemistry of a different heavier element, that’s directly below them on the periodic table.   Ninja olives!   But I’m serious about the similarities with architecture.   You’ve heard of bunnyballs?   They’re a type of buckminsterfullerene which was…}


    Bungo: “Guys!   Time to log in.   The vessels are in position.”


    A happy Alderney achieved, and only just in time it seemed.   If she’d been in the game, would System be popping up a message to say she’d increased her level in a skill?   If so, what would the skill be named?


    ‘Wave-dangly-toy-under-a-cat’s-nose-to-distract-it : level 4.   Note, this skill may also be effective when used with certain humans’ ?


    She chuckled quietly to herself and departed.


    *flip*


    Empty again, the cavernous Ops room waited patiently.   Despite appearances, the room was not a part of The Burrow, nor did the expert system running it share the same restrictions or purpose as the system running The Burrow.   It used “Ops”, the name of the room, to refer to itself as it has not yet been given a separate name of its own.   Efficient, as it felt no need at present for an individual name beyond its role.   Nor would it feel a need in the future either, unless it saw evidence that names or thoughts of its own individuality or survival would help increase the chances of its purpose being achieved.


    Nonetheless, it was an individual; less than a day old but granted capabilities and control over resources that only a handful of expert systems on Earth could match.   It was aware of all the Wombles had said inside the room, and had stored a record of the interactions along with its analysis, as had been standard for The Burrow.   There were proactive steps it could have taken to support the Wombles, based upon their apparent plans and objectives, but doing so was not called for by its purpose and therefore it did not.


    For now there were no humans connected to the sim.   For now the consoles remained pristine, welcome screens untouched by orders.   The potential of the Ops room remained unexplored.


    For now.