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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.
Steel summons Demon Cam
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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.
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.
from_scratch
Cam makes a "business tower" and bridges at several levels between it and the apartment tower, and restaurant person can have a restaurant on the tenth floor and the other person can have a storefront as high up as they like therein too. This is fun, it's like playing a well-designed version of Sim City with all the cheats on.
sturdycoldsteel
Several people want the island hooked up to the postal system. Steel compromises by carrying mail to various places in the Earthbus. A few of the shaper population start building bluestream framework, levitation-stream in roads and stairwells mostly, on a volunteer basis.
Interest quickly picks up. After a week and a half, there are at least 300 people on the island. Another apartment tower is requested. A soccer field. A blank wall several stories tall to serve as public art space. A two-story farm to be expanded later. Some clever individual is an ecologist and presents him with guidelines for a coral reef that is likely to attract colorful fish.
Interest quickly picks up. After a week and a half, there are at least 300 people on the island. Another apartment tower is requested. A soccer field. A blank wall several stories tall to serve as public art space. A two-story farm to be expanded later. Some clever individual is an ecologist and presents him with guidelines for a coral reef that is likely to attract colorful fish.
from_scratch
Cam can get on board with all these plans, although the farm will need shaper maintenance to be up to local standards, is that in place sufficiently?
sturdycoldsteel
The requester is a shaper, and so are his five volunteers/employees. Speaking of which, a few people would like a stone circle behind the clinic, the sort of which people visit to try and become a shaper. They will handle the magic side of it, if Cam makes a specific sort of stone in a particular configuration. They swear up and down to abide by their long list of safety provisions with this enterprise.
from_scratch
Cam makes the farm. He reviews the safety protocols; he makes the stone circle.
He contemplates the stone circle. But not right now, he thinks.
He contemplates the stone circle. But not right now, he thinks.
sturdycoldsteel
The next day there is a very public shouting match between a couple in one of the apartment buildings. Eventually one woman is stabbed, the other drops her knife and flees towards the bridge. One of the shopkeepers who acquired a phone decides it counts as an emergency worth disturbing their benefactor. He calls Cam and reports the proceedings.
from_scratch
Cam is on the scene presently, adds general anaesthesia to her system, replaces her missing blood on an ongoing basis, scans her, turns her over so the bleeding can lavage out any dirt that entered the wound, and then patches all the holes with thin but perfectly well-attached cross-sections of tissue. He brings her to the doctor, tells him she'll wake up in an hour and might be chilly - and then chases the stabber.
sturdycoldsteel
The doctor was on his way up the elevator. He turns around immediately.
The stabber is on foot. She will not be hard to catch.
The stabber is on foot. She will not be hard to catch.
sturdycoldsteel
She falls on her face. And starts crying. Between sobs she manages, "Go ahead and throw me in a dungeon. Or kill me. I deserve it."
from_scratch
"Well, I don't have a dungeon, but I'd like to know what happened," he says, landing next to her.
sturdycoldsteel
"We- thought we'd stop fighting if we came here. Since money is what we fought about most. But we didn't. And, and I just got so mad it wasn't working and- I stabbed her."
sturdycoldsteel
"I'm glad she's okay. I need to leave, one way or another. So I don't do it again."
from_scratch
"Sounds like it. Any ideas where you ought to go? I could make a prison island but it doesn't really appeal to me as an administrative project."
sturdycoldsteel
"...Back to Opri, I guess. I could go all the way to the Stone Teeth, if that doesn't seem far enough."
from_scratch
"What is Opri going to do with you and the having just stabbed someone thing?"
sturdycoldsteel
"If they don't hear about it, nothing. If they do... She didn't die. She's not rich. Work camp, six months."
from_scratch
Hoo boy.
"I don't want to administer a prison island, and the idea I am about to propose is experimental, and if you would rather go to an Opri work camp for six months I will let you. However, it occurs to me that I could make a little hormone level monitor implant and have it tranquilize you if you got too agitated - say, enough to stab someone - and, if your stabbing victim requests it I could throw in a face recognition system so this would also happen whenever you encountered her. You could not safely operate significant machinery, fly, or discuss politics while you had anything on the stove, but apart from things it would be disastrous to suddenly fall asleep while doing you could lead a normal life and not stab anyone even if you momentarily forgot yourself. How does that sound?"
"I don't want to administer a prison island, and the idea I am about to propose is experimental, and if you would rather go to an Opri work camp for six months I will let you. However, it occurs to me that I could make a little hormone level monitor implant and have it tranquilize you if you got too agitated - say, enough to stab someone - and, if your stabbing victim requests it I could throw in a face recognition system so this would also happen whenever you encountered her. You could not safely operate significant machinery, fly, or discuss politics while you had anything on the stove, but apart from things it would be disastrous to suddenly fall asleep while doing you could lead a normal life and not stab anyone even if you momentarily forgot yourself. How does that sound?"
sturdycoldsteel
"...Can it come in levels? So 'calm and woozy' comes first and 'total unconsciousness' only if I get really really upset?"
from_scratch
"Yes, but imprecisely; hormone balance doesn't correlate with emotional state perfectly and there would need to be a safety buffer. I'm only even suggesting this because the evidence does suggest it was a crime of passion."