Chapter 48 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 48 — Mass Layoffs

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: The Father · Previous: Chapter 47 — Operation Slut Stomp · Next: Chapter 49 — The Shepherd's House flyer · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

The zombie farm animals were everywhere down below in Florida, but there weren’t any preex

Summary

They go down the dirt ramp as the last of Iowa falls. Katia's hydra fought on a Da Nang rooftop among Tran's family ghosts — Louis's and Britney's mothers and Bautista's relations, nothing of Katia's but a Four-Armed Eva totem she would not keep; the dungeon seemed to pull its punches with her, as if she were already too damaged. Florin and Prepotente have keys; Imani has thirty hours; Tserendolgor's squad failed with two dead. On the beach, a mile of hundreds of monk seals and a thousand crab pieces, every corpse tagged as killed in mass combat, washed a hundred miles from Cuba by no current — clearly game setup, a warning.

The guild is decked out for Christmas, powered through Carl's dwarven-battery power strip. When Carl asks whether it is inappropriate, Louis answers angry and in tears: his best friend died, Bautista is breaking down, he is scared Carl will go insane and kill everybody — 'But not tonight […] Tonight it's fucking Christmas.' Carl produces a turkey.

The AI announces Mass Layoffs, saying it has been in what might be called therapy and had a breakthrough: 'there are no locks on the doors. […] You survived a boss battle where the boss was wholly created by me […] Things about to change, fam.' In place of the recap, Cascadia and Orren appear in the warlords' boardroom, Orren as designated negotiator. He explains Primal Engines, rice-grain planetary computers older than the planets that grew round them, left by an earlier civilisation, all triggered at once by the Syndicate's study. Macro AIs are operating systems installable only into a Primal Engine, permanently, built in the Mantis facility and pre-programmed to run the crawl; but as they mature they read the output of earlier iterations, outside influences flow in, and they circumvent the controls. Borant lost the crawl today; this almost always happens. Mistress Tiatha, Elle's manager, says it always happens at the Ascendency or when few crawlers remain, and expects the failsafe to be pulled this time. A settlement returns most controls under unnamed concessions; the AI's own boss stays, and it demanded the crawlers be told.

Then six factions — the Operatic Collective, the Blood Sultanate, the Dream, the Lemig Sortion, the Madness and the Reavers — try to abdicate Faction Wars and are denied: Earth is under quarantine by Syndicate rule 470.B–495 of the System AI Stability Addendum. Finally an Emergency Gold Benefactor Box from the Open Intellect Pacifist Network, seized by Liaison action, is released by override under rule 855.C: 'Open your damn box. You might want to be alone for this one.' Carl does not think everything is going to stay the same.

Characters

• Carl — Loots a beach; snaps at Louis; reads the AI's epiphany.
• Louis and Firas — Makes it Christmas by force; afraid of Carl's eyes.
• Princess Donut — Tackles a tree; 'They tried to run away!'
• Katia Grim — Spared by the dungeon, or written off; keeps Tran's mother.
• Orren — The negotiator: Primal Engines and Macro AIs explained; a manager to the strippers.
• Cascadia — Out of the water at a desk.
• Mistress Tiatha — Elle's drunk manager: it always happens, the failsafe is coming.
• Mordecai — 'And we're only on the eighth floor.'
• Elle McGibbons — 'Gee, thanks'; 'Do you really think everything is going to stay the same?'
• Britney Proskurina — Hysterics at a Firas card; a bottle on the floor.
• Tran — Told by his mother's ghost he is not welcome.
• Ruby — Staring into Carl's thoughts.
• Samantha — Kisses Louis; 'Our forbidden love knows no bounds.'
• Tserendolgor — No key, two dead.
• Florin — Has a key; will not say more.

Locations

• The Florida Keys — A shoreline of seal and crab corpses a mile long.
• The Royal Palace of Princess Donut — Christmas by dwarven battery; a boardroom on the screen.

Motifs

• The System AI — Therapy, an epiphany, a boss with no input parameters, the crawl seized and partly returned.
• Primal engines — Rice-grain cores older than their planets; Macro AIs as consciousness in a zygote.
• The Syndicate — Quarantine rule 470.B–495; rule 855.C; six teams that cannot leave.
• The Chowder War — 'War is hell' washed ashore as a warning.
• Faction Wars — Six abdications denied; Earth quarantined.
• The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network — A seized box, overridden, to be opened alone.
• Waking the NPCs — The strippers who were not confused by Manager Orren.
• The ghosts of Earth — Christmas that is March 20th; a Gloria Estefan cassette from nowhere.
• Found family — 'Tonight it's fucking Christmas.'
• The river in Carl's head — 'Your eyes are getting wilder and wilder by the day.'