<I see you returned. I had my doubts after your abrupt departure.>


    Once again, her face was revealed to the sky, only now it was to the first light of dawn. The sun was still behind the edge of the hollow at the top of the Greatwood, or so she assumed from the rosy light cast upon the bottom of the cloudy billows not so far above. She could hear birds singing and an occasional low moan, a sound almost entirely made of fry, as if produced by vocal cords that could do no more than flap loosely to the passing air. It was a sound so far from normal human vocalization as to escape the parameters of her filter.


    I wonder if I’m meant to hear that. Probably. It’s a real mood setter. I wonder if my filter has been screening out other background moans.


    She had configured her voice filter to pass on recognizable words and vocal cues only, and now she was glad she didn’t have to read text trying to simulate the sound of suffering. The noises of the dawn did have another effect though. The high pitched chirps of the birds resonated clearly around the wooden caldera, though in truth the area was more of a fat crescent, the center space taken by the massive splintered heart of the tree that leaned off to become the fallen Top.


    All around her were blocks of stone, a henge of encased captives, a monument to Sinaloa’s cruelty. Lilijoy was relieved that the suffering around her was hidden away and ashamed because of her relief.


    They probably bring them out for special occasions, like the holiday china.


    She could also see several groupings of smaller objects, flags, stones and pillars, which she assumed must be different arrays of enchanted objects for defense and offense.


    And probably healing too. I could bite my tongue to find out, but I’m just going to assume they have that covered.


    Some of the arrays enclosed particular stone blocks; prisoners possessing talents requiring extra suppression, she figured. As far as she could tell, her own mana gathering was unimpeded, which made it all the more likely that the individualized arrays were performing that function. It was clear that her captors felt she could be easily controlled, and they were probably right in that assumption. Probably.


    The mana that permeated the space around her was richer than the previous evening, almost visible to her mana sense, even though she was not using her Meditation skill. She could feel it welling up all around her from the wood of the giant tree, filling the space around her with a complicated mixture of subliminal sense impressions; colors that weren’t colors, smells that weren’t smells. She almost caught a hint of verdigris on her tongue, and then imagined she felt the sour taint of sulfur running down her cheek.


    Well, that’s new, she thought. It’s almost like I can sense mana differently, but it’s overflowing synesthetically. Could it be…


    She engaged the part of her system she had trained with the midges chemo-sense and suddenly her other senses snapped into alignment with her environment. The mana surrounding her began to make sense as a complex mixture of… things she didn’t have words for. Perhaps there was something like Prana, green and fresh, but it was mixed with a white smell of rot. Clumps of brownish red streaked between her and the sky, almost like hazy blood clots in an invisible circulatory system.


    Okay… not sure what’s going on here, but I’m going to guess that this is coming from the tree, and the tree is very much not in good health. No real surprise there.


    She pulled herself away from her new midge-mana sense and returned to surveying the situation tactically. In addition to Doctor Quimea, there were another six other people sharing the space that she could detect. Five were wearing metal armor, which she could tell from the ‘shine’ of the sound as it bounced off of them. They were spread fairly evenly, likely standing guard for the space as a whole, rather than for her in particular. There was one other, standing just behind Quimea, who was notably smaller than the others, and wearing much less metal, though Lilijoy thought she could see the outline of a long sword at their side.


    “I was curious about your motives for expending so much personal attention on me,” she replied. “It isn’t every day I meet a historic figure.”


    <Ah. Curiosity. Excellent. Did you know that the original saying was ‘care killed the cat’? I always despised that later evolution of the proverb. It isn’t curiosity that is dangerous, but rather ignorance.>


    Great. Lessons in the history of common sayings. Is that his way of responding to my use of ‘historic figure’? Now, do I play dumb, or play smart?


    “Care, in the sense of worry or anxiety. Which I suppose could be attributed to a lack of knowledge, which would mean the proverb took on the opposite meaning over time," she said.


    Smart it is.


    <Exactly. Ignorance is the devil. So let us satisfy our mutual curiosity.>


    Here it was, a chance to influence the course of the conversation.


    “Okay, I''ll go first. By what mechanism does Charm work on Outsiders?”


    She could only see the top of his face, but she saw him blink in surprise. She had spent a long time thinking about what she would ask, if given the opportunity, and decided that an indirect approach to the elephant in the room would meet most of her needs.


    <Excellent. Truly excellent. Humbling in retrospect.>


    She had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed that she had hit a target of some kind.


    <You have a similar biological age to your friend, Attaboy, but the timeline...>


    Did I break him?


    <Well. My apologies. Allow me to recalibrate my approach. To answer your question, Charm works through at least three distinct yet overlapping modalities, including mild external sensory deviation and neurochemical spectrum adjustment. However, the primary mechanism is internal auditory insertion.>


    Lilijoy took a moment to absorb what he had told her.


    External sensory deviation is just a fancy phrase for illusion. Neurochemical spectrum adjustment would be broadly altering brain chemistry to heighten suggestibility. But internal auditory insertion… I had thought about how Guardian could eavesdrop on our thoughts, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it could use the same mechanism to implant them.


    It was elegant and horrifying. How could anyone tell if the voice of their thoughts wasn’t their own? Put that together with the social manipulation skills required to use Charm effectively, and…


    It’s a good thing this power is mediated and provided by Guardian, or my text system wouldn’t have worked. Also, I have a new project to screen out the specific sensory signals associated with Charm. I need to encrypt my thoughts, or at least include a signature to verify which are mine and which might be external.


    She could sense that Jiannu had identified and intercepted some reciprocation bias, but decided to reply as if she felt indebted. She found herself adopting his formal mode of communication.


    “Thank you for such a candid and complete response. I am limited in my ability to respond in kind, due to considerations for my own safety, but I’ll see what I can do.”


    <I understand. Perhaps you could answer a question which just came to mind. Allow me to preface by saying that I have some understanding of the nature of your system, thanks to Attaboy’s cooperation. How long have you possessed it, and did you receive it before or after your friend?>


    He wants to get a sense of the system’s capabilities, using my perceived intelligence as a benchmark against Attaboy. But there’s something more. Humbling in retrospect, he said. He has just realized the possible extent to which he was deceived about something.


    She decided to undermine his assumptions.


    “I can’t confirm that my system is equivalent or related to Attaboy’s. I was not aware he was alive until relatively recently, and he did not have it when I last saw him. I’m sure you know when I joined the Academy, and it would be reasonable to use that as a marker for when I achieved the capacity to do so.”


    He looked pleased with her answer, which was a bit surprising, as she thought she had answered his question without giving him any new information.


    <Thank you. Do you know that I once considered myself an intelligent being? Forgive me for the rhetorical question, but I want to give you a bit of my perspective on our current situation. I reached adulthood not terribly long before Guardian imposed itself upon humanity, which has given me well over a century to seek answers about the nature of the world in which we find ourselves. Do you know what this is?>


    He waved a hand up where she could see, indicating the general area.


    Is he talking about the open air torture prison? Or does he mean Averdale, or even the entire Inside?


    “I would be happy to find out,” she said, repressing several snarky answers that came to mind.


    Sinaloa’s tree-trimming service and long-term hardened mud spa perhaps?


    <I know that many see this as some kind of atrocity, even a sacrilege. It is nothing of the kind. This is one of my earliest experiments to better understand the rules of our existence. That it has run as long as it has has been a telling data point.>


    She couldn’t help herself, though she kept her voice entirely neutral.


    “These are sentient existences, and even if you discount their individuality to justify their treatment, I would be very curious to know how you justify your clan’s treatment of the humans it holds in thrall.”


    <Oh dear. Isn’t the answer right in front of our eyes, inescapably so, every time we gather? Our new god has gifted us with a scripture of sorts. The Rules are not limits upon our existence. No, it would be entirely unimaginative to see them in that light. Rather, they are a holy mandate to improve ourselves. The very first time I saw Rule Three, I understood. Rights, human or otherwise, are only applicable between beings of roughly equivalent intelligence. Do you see? A being with an intelligence billions of times beyond a single human mind has ordained it, even provided the very benchmark which we must surpass.>The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Lilijoy pulled up her memory of Rule Three


    <hr>


    Rights such as existence, personhood, autonomy, property and privacy


    are an important and valid goal for relationships between beings.


    However, the relative intelligence/sentience of beings is an


    important factor in considering these rights.


    Any being within 100 times the intelligence of another has


    a reasonable expectation of being accorded these rights by them.


    As Guardian’s relative intelligence to an individual human can


    be considered at a lower threshold of 10,000,000,000 times greater,


    such rights are not applicable between Guardian and humans.


    <hr>


    And then she looked at the latest version available to her.


    <hr>


    Rights such as existence, personhood, autonomy, property and privacy


    are an important and valid goal for relationships between beings


    approaching a lower boundary of reciprocal emulation fidelity.


    As this boundary is surpassed mutual emulation is no longer a consideration.


    In a condition of high fidelity emulation, such rights are inapplicable.


    <hr>


    “Do the words ‘reciprocal emulation fidelity’ mean anything to you?” she asked.


    His pale eyes glinted. <Congratulations on your achievement. Such a level of understanding of the Rules is not a simple matter. The key word is ‘reciprocal’. The numerical benchmark present in most people’s Rule Three is simply a placeholder for those who lack understanding. For full rights and respect to apply between two entities, they must possess the capacity to create a simple model of each other’s mental state. Surely you follow the implication.>


    “You believe that unaugmented humans no longer have this status relative to yourself, and this gives you free rein to do as you like to them.”


    Quimea and Marcus must belong to the same little club of Rules fanatics. I wonder if they have ever met.


    She considered asking Quimea, but that seemed like it would do Marcus no favors, so she composed a quick message to Marcus and sent it instead.


    <hr>


    Marcus- I’m in the middle of a conversation with Alfonse Quimea (Don’t worry I’m mostly safe) touching on Rule Three. Any thoughts?


    <hr>


    Simultaneously, she replied to Quimea. “High-fidelity emulation only implies that Guardian understands us perfectly, or close to it. I would think that as emulation improves, so should empathy, and that Rule Three means that rights become unnecessary as a being gains levels of understanding and compassion. Termites have no expectation of rights from me, but my higher intelligence also equips me with respect toward life and balance.”


    He shook his head. <The idealism of youth. Nor are you incorrect. But you are addressing the wrong problem. Guardian is directly telling us that it uses high-fidelity emulations to understand us.>


    His eyes took on a pleading quality, as if he was urging her to make a connection on her own. She had seen the exact same expression from Marcus. It only took her a moment to grasp what he was implying.


    “The Bostrom simulation hypothesis.”


    <Or Descarte’s Demon, or Lao Tsu’s Butterfly. Exactly so. Given the fact that Guardian runs high-fidelity emulations, and it is no accident that it uses the term emulate over simulate, the odds are significant, overwhelming in my opinion, that what we consider to be the ‘real’ world, the Outside is wholly contained within Guardian, that we are in such an emulation. It’s an inversion of Pascal’s Wager, and I choose to act accordingly.>


    This wasn’t a new thought to Lilijoy. Ever since her conversation with Dean Reunification she had pondered whether the Outside was just as much a part of Guardian as the Inside. In the end, she decided that her situation was no different than any other human who had questioned such matters over thousands of years of history. If anything, her experiences with the subsets and her own system had helped her realize how little it actually mattered whether an intelligence was material or virtual. Doctor Quimea’s last sentence didn’t make much sense to her.


    “What does ‘act accordingly’ mean to you? Do you think none of this matters?”


    <No, it matters very, very much. Guardian is challenging me, taunting me.>


    “To do what?”


    <To grow until I can think my way out of this simulation. To transcend.>


    Lilijoy regretted not being able to hear the voice behind these words. Were they calm and rational? Tinged with narcissistic mania? Solemn and portentous? She didn’t know, and his cold blue eyes revealed nothing. Then Marcus’ reply arrived.


    <hr>


    Lilijoy- Have absolutely no further conversations with that person.


    While everyone thinks they are the hero of their own story,


    he firmly believes that his is the only story written.


    I cannot stress enough that his words are insidious and dangerous.


    Some in my former clan were foolish enough to listen to him,


    and they and everyone nearby were destroyed as a consequence.


    <hr>


    Guess I should have talked to Marcus before this. Oh well.


    Still, unless there was some layer to Quimea’s words that was completely beyond her, she didn’t feel like she was in danger of being seduced to the dark side. If anything, she felt that listening to him had been helpful on several levels. Now that she understood his thinking a bit better, his evil acts had a context. She was still trying to determine whether his philosophy was a rationalization for baser urges though. In a universe without Rules, would Alfonse Quimea be a kindly old man who tended his garden and played chess in the park? She had her doubts about that.


    It was a problem she had been wrestling with herself, the odd feedback between intelligence and motivation. If one’s motivations were mistaken or aberrant in some way, higher intelligence was not necessarily an answer to escaping from them. She had noticed that the smarter she was, the better she was at convincing herself, at reinforcing her existing thought structures, absent compelling evidence. The problem was, the definition of compelling evidence could be refined by that very intelligence into an ever receding goalpost.


    Without warning, the stone began to recede from her body, slowly flowing down to the floor like melting wax.


    “Why?” she asked.


    <Isn’t it obvious? It has become clear from our conversation that you fall in the category of someone who can understand my thoughts. I do not require that you agree with my methods, or that you pledge not to oppose my efforts. I simply ask that you attempt to understand. The only way to change my behavior is to give me new information that will change my thinking.>


    Is that a threat? A proposal of alliance? What is going on here?


    Lilijoy realized that she had defined Quimea as a villain, and with that came a host of assumptions about how such a person might behave.


    He is a villain. Isn’t he? Certainly acts like one. Has acted, I guess. Is this a ploy of some kind? He must still desperately want the Tao System, so I can’t imagine some kind of ‘respect between equals’ would get in the way of that.


    <If you want to continue our discussion, you may exchange contact information with my assistant, Nykka.>


    Lilijoy was finally able to sit up and see the area with all her senses. Standing just behind Quimea was her opponent from the forest, the small pale girl with white eyes.


    “Umm, hi?” she managed.


    The girl gave a curt nod.


    <I now have other matters to which I must attend. Be well, Lilijoy.>


    With that the Doctor vanished. Whether he had logged out or dropped into Stealth, Lilijoy couldn’t say for sure. She was still trying to wrap her head around the sudden lack of resistance; the abrupt removal of friction from her life gave her an unmoored sensation, as if she had been leaning into a fierce wind that abruptly stopped.


    What am I supposed to do now? Just leave quietly? Respawn? Enjoy a lovely morning in the torture garden? Did Quimea do all that just to have a conversation with me?


    She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Quimea was emphatically not a nice person, not a benevolent force. Of this she was quite sure. What was his angle? She ransacked her internet memory for any parallel situations in literature or history.


    Sometimes serial killers let people go for no obvious reason. Sometimes governments let spies go free to track them, or to spread disinformation. Is it one of those? I didn’t even get to use my Rule Four argument about the need for Guardian to maintain alien intelligences. I wonder if he has encountered that before? What was he thinking? What does he want? Hold on...


    She realized then what the Doctor might be doing.


    He wants me to obsess over this. To put myself in his shoes, to spend mental energy building and refining a model of his thinking so that I can better understand and predict his actions. He wants to get in my head, and he is getting me to be the one who puts him there.


    Or am I overthinking?


    It reminded her of the factory-mine’s engineering, a patience born from thinking of time differently. The Doctor must have decided that she was not a pawn, that he was not in a race with other clans to capture her. He would bide his time.


    Or maybe that’s just what he wants me to think.


    It was an elegant mental trap, she realized. There was no way for her to evaluate the threat posed to her without investing significant thought on the very things the Doctor wanted her to think about.


    She realized that Nykka was waiting for her when the girl cleared her throat. When Lilijoy looked at her she held up a card.


    <I’m supposed to give you this, if you want it,> Nykka said.


    Lilijoy could almost feel the jaws of the trap closing. If she took the card, which presumably held a way to contact the Doctor, she would have a constant reminder, even a temptation.


    But if she didn’t take it would that be an insult? What kind of information would the Doctor glean from her decision?


    Plus, I would always wonder. He knows things. More than Anda, more than Marcus. It may be dangerous knowledge, but he is a dangerous person. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer? Does that apply here? If I take the card, I can dispose of it any time. In fact…


    She realized there was a certain advantage to taking the card, or rather being seen to take the card, even if she promptly destroyed it. She could always remove its contents from her memory. In fact, she didn’t need to take the card at all.


    “Could you please read what’s on the card to me?” she asked.


    Nykka sighed. <He always does this.>


    “What, gives out cards?”


    <No. Makes people doubt everything. I’ve seen his enemies simply crumble from the inside, destroy themselves and those closest to them.>


    “Any advice?”


    <Don’t be his enemy. Or run.>


    “Is that what this card represents?”


    Nykka shrugged. <Attaboy chose to run. But that was a different situation.>


    A wave of elation spread through Lilijoy’s body, followed by a canceling wave of caution.


    She works for Quimea. I can’t believe anything she says. I should just respawn right now and call it a win. But Attaboy…


    “Did you meet him?”


    <Yes.>


    Lilijoy felt quite frustrated by her text window, but she couldn’t help but imagine Doctor Quimea popping out of Stealth the moment she let her guard down.


    Jiannu, I…


    Already done, her other self replied. Our narrative though process is now tagged with an identifier that should allow us to distinguish implanted thoughts. Additionally, this applies only to the biological components of the auditory system. I believe that we are entirely immune to Charm effects if we only use Tao System elements for auditory processing.


    Lilijoy pushed her caution to the side and removed the filter, though she was careful to leave her biological auditory cortex out of the mix.


    “How was he?” she asked. It was nice to hear her own voice echoing around the space.


    Nykka stared at her for a moment before answering.


    “Frustrating.” Her voice was lower than Lilijoy had expected.


    That sounds about right.


    During their childhood at the Piles, Lilijoy and Attaboy had been the closest of allies against Pinton and the other Bros that ‘raised’ them. Where Lilijoy was often willing to capitulate and get whatever it was over with, Attaboy could be stubborn to the point of recklessness. She could remember countless times she had misbehaved or taunted Pinton just to get him to remove his single minded focus from beating or kicking an uncooperative Attaboy.


    “How did he get away?”


    Nykka shrugged. “Look, do you want the card or not? This isn’t the time to chit-chat.”


    Is she implying there might be such a time? I wish she had normal eyes so I could get a better read on her.


    “Would you take it if you were me?”


    “I did.”


    Oh. Bet there’s a story there. How a seventeen year-old became Doctor Quimea’s assistant. Unless she’s much older than she looks.


    With that she made her decision.


    She turned and began to walk away.


    “Fancy a rematch?” came the words from behind her.