Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media book Club book Club book Club. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to cools On Media book Club, the only
Speaker 1: book club where you don't have to do the reading
Speaker 1: because I do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy,
Speaker 1: and I've been promising you big things the coals On
Speaker 1: Media book Club for months now. I've been saying big
Speaker 1: things just around the corner, and you're starting to think
Speaker 1: Margaret's just saying that to have something to say, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't true. I was thinking about big things and
Speaker 1: the main purpose of those big things is that I'm
Speaker 1: excited about a bunch of new content that we've got
Speaker 1: for you. And we're starting that new content this very
Speaker 1: week because this week I'm going to be reading you
Speaker 1: and novella. Well, okay, over the next several weeks, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be reading You and Novella. And I didn't
Speaker 1: even write it. I'm going to be reading you. Hermetica
Speaker 1: by Alan Lee and it was published by Detritus Books
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. Alan Lee is a pen name.
Speaker 1: It's the speculative fiction pen name for an author you
Speaker 1: might already know about, and if you don't, you could
Speaker 1: come to know about. Named Peter Gelderlos and Peter Gelderlos
Speaker 1: is the author of a bunch of nonfiction books you
Speaker 1: might have already read, including The Solutions Are Already Here
Speaker 1: and How Nonviolence Protects the State, and a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that talks about the formation of states and movement
Speaker 1: strategy and all kinds of things. But this is Alan
Speaker 1: Lee's debut novella. But if you want to find more
Speaker 1: from Peter, you can find his essays, his rants, his analysis,
Speaker 1: and his missives on substack at Surviving Levia Fan or
Speaker 1: if you just search Peter Gelderlos, which is Peter g
Speaker 1: elder Loos, and you can find all that on somebs stuck.
Speaker 1: It's a good substock. I subscribe to it. Hermetica by
Speaker 1: Alan Lee one. It was when Days found a sheet
Speaker 1: of tree fiber inside the wall, stamped with black ink
Speaker 1: and the likeness of words, words referring to Earth, that
Speaker 1: they realized things did not add up. Why had they
Speaker 1: pried open the wall panel in their module in the
Speaker 1: first place. Destruction of one's module was destruction of hermetica itself,
Speaker 1: And no behavior was more selfish, more dangerous than sabotage.
Speaker 1: Of course, Snookums had started it scratching at the panel,
Speaker 1: not that that would count as a mitigating factor in
Speaker 1: any reconciliation processed. Days might be invited to join to
Speaker 1: address the sabotage. Snookums was a cat, a fugitive, almost
Speaker 1: certainly inexplicable, at least for the moment, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, a cat, therefore not a citizen,
Speaker 1: therefore not party to reconciliation processes. In fact, the relevant
Speaker 1: agreements would probably class Snookum's misdeed as negligent sabotage on
Speaker 1: Day's watch, even though Snookums was not assigned to Days
Speaker 1: did not even appear to be in the system. Days
Speaker 1: had permitted the cat into the module, had watched as
Speaker 1: the cat scratched fervently at the wall, had joined in
Speaker 1: the destructive enterprise, and now everything was unraveling at a
Speaker 1: terrifying speed. When Days was younger, they knew they wanted
Speaker 1: to work on the sky. The day Snookums appeared. The
Speaker 1: sky was a perfect azure and argent dome. It was
Speaker 1: oppressive in its glory. Days wanted to reach out to
Speaker 1: touch it, to paint a little wisp of cloud just there,
Speaker 1: but they were not allowed. The sky was the domain
Speaker 1: of others who had been judged and found more worthy.
Speaker 1: Summarily unfair that a single exam had reduced Days to
Speaker 1: a peon. After staring a moment longer at the exquisite sky,
Speaker 1: Days let their head fall chest to chin and trudged
Speaker 1: off down the block. Days had dosed that morning, but
Speaker 1: still they could not summon the will to smile a
Speaker 1: greeting to the people they passed. The mere thought of
Speaker 1: this failure brought the tears a growing weight, begging release,
Speaker 1: a release they could not allow. Some moisture around the
Speaker 1: rim could fall within the probability shadow of allergies or sleepiness,
Speaker 1: not likely in their file, but still possible, But a
Speaker 1: whole fat tear rolling down a cheek would definitely result
Speaker 1: in Days getting sent home, marking up another sick day,
Speaker 1: which in itself wasn't a problem. Even at fifteen percent productivity.
Speaker 1: Days would not be classed for permanent reconciliation unless they
Speaker 1: also logged a couple anti social, but it would ineluctably
Speaker 1: feel like another failure, one more in an unbroken train,
Speaker 1: going as far back as they cared to look, as
Speaker 1: far forward as they dared to imagine. Perhaps working on
Speaker 1: the sky had been an unpragmatically ambitious dream. Designers required
Speaker 1: the highest aptitude in esthetics, mechanics, and maths. They had
Speaker 1: to be team players. The sky formed a joint project
Speaker 1: with Engineering, Life Sis and Mattillo. Days's high aptitudes and
Speaker 1: intuitive low scores and teamwork and fine appreciation for suffering
Speaker 1: had tracked them into palliative therapy. Yet wasn't that, on
Speaker 1: another level an affirmation of their feelings. Days had the
Speaker 1: unshakable feeling that it was their destiny to touch the sky.
Speaker 1: What other dreams could one have condemned to die in
Speaker 1: transit for Days's cohort. There was no final destination. Days's office,
Speaker 1: like all health centers on her Medica, was at the node,
Speaker 1: just at the end of the block. They paused before
Speaker 1: going in. It was so low today, the sky as
Speaker 1: though it began just at the top of the section walls.
Speaker 1: The walls didn't end Days new Every block was itself
Speaker 1: a sealed module, but the designers gave them something beautiful
Speaker 1: to look at overhead, so they wouldn't have to stare
Speaker 1: at gray walls on all six sides. Days would give
Speaker 1: anything to climb into that deep, rich blue. They sighed
Speaker 1: and walked through the double set of sliding doors, passing
Speaker 1: through decontamination, Days went straight to their office. Lingering in
Speaker 1: the common area would all but force the other therapists
Speaker 1: to ask them how their day was, and Days couldn't
Speaker 1: bear the thought of that, how's it going? The cruelest
Speaker 1: question there was. They sat down and let out the
Speaker 1: tears when they could. They focused on breathing, deep breaths.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't do to see a patient like this. Every
Speaker 1: work assignment brings us close to all of us or
Speaker 1: none of us. That's what they had been taught. Days
Speaker 1: was supposed to feel proud of their work as a therapist,
Speaker 1: but it was impossible not to see the assignment as
Speaker 1: some kind of failing. They had been early selected for
Speaker 1: placement in a science cohort, and at the end of
Speaker 1: it all, Days was barely a technician, while the others
Speaker 1: had gone on to great things. True, only one person
Speaker 1: in the cohort had been selected as a designer, and
Speaker 1: last they knew, sidetracked into an entertainment project is as
Speaker 1: far from the sky as Days themselves. And it was
Speaker 1: also true that officially all jobs were equally valued and
Speaker 1: prestige ranking was discouraged. Appreciative commentary on this or that
Speaker 1: work category was boosted or muted accordingly, and even palliative
Speaker 1: therapists and cleaning bought repair. Overseers got their digital love,
Speaker 1: but people could still distinguish what was PSA, what was forced,
Speaker 1: and what was generally admirable. It was even worse than
Speaker 1: a science cohort because the peer reviewed structurally could not
Speaker 1: use the same metrics as the social and if your
Speaker 1: name never dropped in a PrV, you were definitely nobody.
Speaker 1: But it was not the lack of name recognition that
Speaker 1: chafed days. They could not help make the sky every
Speaker 1: single day, and in exchange, they had to be classed
Speaker 1: as permanent reconciliation on their profile for all the cohort
Speaker 1: to see. If no one ever knew that they made
Speaker 1: those colors, those moon rises, those soul hemorrhaging sunsets, they
Speaker 1: would be perfectly happy. It was the fact that they
Speaker 1: spent three and a half days a week guiding point
Speaker 1: prods and air jets over the knotted backs and shoulders
Speaker 1: of those who did the real work. That they coached
Speaker 1: the creators of beautiful and important things on corrective posture
Speaker 1: that stifled their spirit. Once they were breathing normally, Days
Speaker 1: called the console to life and clocked in. The first
Speaker 1: appointment came in seating and undressing on the other side
Speaker 1: of the plexi. They were a young person in mechanics
Speaker 1: from the next blockover who had started seeking therapy be
Speaker 1: a few months ago for soreness and migraines. The two
Speaker 1: had talked on other occasions when Days was on the up.
Speaker 1: They had a decent job and reducing distribution loss between
Speaker 1: blocks the unending quest to make her Metica more efficient.
Speaker 1: It wasn't genius work, but anything that might accelerate the
Speaker 1: arrival window was considered at least a little prestigious. Honestly,
Speaker 1: anything that involved working on the ship and not just
Speaker 1: on the bodies that filled it or the secondary machines
Speaker 1: that serviced it was considered decent. Days had never worked
Speaker 1: on anyone who had worked on the sky or the
Speaker 1: engines for that matter. It would be illicit, but Days
Speaker 1: wondered whether those job descriptions were tracked to higher grade therapists.
Speaker 1: The scan was complete, and Days began directing their array
Speaker 1: of instruments over the patient's back, keeping half an eye
Speaker 1: on the display that Mr. End all the neural activity,
Speaker 1: but mostly just following their own feelings on what the
Speaker 1: other body needed, how it responded to the probing, the vibrations,
Speaker 1: the digit pressure, the heat and the cold of a
Speaker 1: dozen different appendages they kept in motion on the other
Speaker 1: side of the plexi. Days supposed they were pretty good
Speaker 1: at what they did. There had even been comments on
Speaker 1: social that spoke of a magic touch that didn't seem
Speaker 1: to be PSA. They were pretty sure they had been
Speaker 1: written by real patients and weren't just machine love to
Speaker 1: cheer them up for all its prosaic lack of glamour.
Speaker 1: Therapy was something Days could do when they were down,
Speaker 1: and when they were up, they could feel what other
Speaker 1: people were feeling in a way it had surprised Days
Speaker 1: to learn most other people could not. And that was
Speaker 1: the world. Days inhabited a jungle of raw feelings in
Speaker 1: which they were at the same time cold and alone.
Speaker 1: But do you know what will keep you, dear listener,
Speaker 1: from feeling cold and alone? The cold alone embrace of advertising,
Speaker 1: because you and the advertising can be alone together. And
Speaker 1: can you really say that you're alone listening to advertising?
Speaker 1: Probably here's that, and we're back on a prior appointment,
Speaker 1: Days had asked this patient if they knew anything about
Speaker 1: the arrival window, But the mechanic wasn't that high up,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't really anything else they could ask someone
Speaker 1: like that, Certainly nothing that had any bearing on their block.
Speaker 1: The power worked except when it didn't, but it always
Speaker 1: came back quickly, and emergency systems never failed. Every now
Speaker 1: and then a PSA went out and they were all
Speaker 1: asked to minimize usage between such and such hours. Surely
Speaker 1: there was a lot of work involved behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: but what to say? So Days conducted the session in silence.
Speaker 1: The thought of the arrival window stayed with them, though
Speaker 1: the arrival window was all always narrowing and widening based
Speaker 1: on the complex interaction between the colleagues and FIZZ and
Speaker 1: the ones in engineering in interaction Days was not privy
Speaker 1: to and would not understand anyway. But as it stood
Speaker 1: most recently, her Medico was scheduled to arrive in two
Speaker 1: to three hundred years at best. Unless bioen COGFIZZ and
Speaker 1: Metaphizz made some huge advancements, Days would live just past
Speaker 1: the halfway point. They would never arrive. They would spend
Speaker 1: their life correcting the knots and cramps of engineers and
Speaker 1: designers who would put those knots right back in place
Speaker 1: with their next week of desk work. Even the ones
Speaker 1: who had complete HF interfaces, no typing, all verbal in
Speaker 1: gestural commands had posture problems. After all, many of the
Speaker 1: high tier specialists voluntarily worked seven days a week to
Speaker 1: keep their heads sharp. As the old saying went, so
Speaker 1: as probably an NBS a problem that would never be solved,
Speaker 1: which meant that Days's entire purpose was to keep fixing
Speaker 1: those reappearing knots forever and ever unto death, and that
Speaker 1: was all there would be. After two more appointments, Days
Speaker 1: went home for the day, and that's when snookums appeared.
Speaker 1: Crossing the block almost back to the module. They saw
Speaker 1: movement out of the corner of their eye. Days turned
Speaker 1: and there was a cat. None of their neighbors had
Speaker 1: cats like that. Well, Days couldn't actually be sure. Weeks
Speaker 1: passed before any one person had the chance to spend
Speaker 1: time with even half the people on their block. But
Speaker 1: getting assigned a new cat that was something people bull
Speaker 1: horned on social every time, VIDs, anecdote and a flurry
Speaker 1: of commentary. Days would have noticed a cat like this,
Speaker 1: ash and coal and tiger stripes with peach cream undertones.
Speaker 1: The cat had a peremptory gaze, set over a broad,
Speaker 1: majestic nose that came to the perfect little floor delise
Speaker 1: pawprint of a tip, a sculpted kiblet of marzipan perched
Speaker 1: over a pursed mouth, flanked by long fans of whiskers
Speaker 1: that bespoke a scornful elegance. The mystery cat ran up
Speaker 1: to the nearest wall, shoring up its confidence, perhaps, but
Speaker 1: also inciting attention. Hey snookums, Days said on a whim,
Speaker 1: not knowing why. They lowered their mask, not strictly permitted
Speaker 1: out on the street, but no neighbors happened to be
Speaker 1: traversing the block at this hour. Hey baby, Days made
Speaker 1: kissing sounds, and Snookums as it were, came hither. The
Speaker 1: feel of its fur was so warm and soft. Some
Speaker 1: kind of liquid pleasure flowed through Days's body, and they
Speaker 1: drank it up, parched like one coming in from the desert.
Speaker 1: They immediately felt their trapezius relax, releasing weeks of built
Speaker 1: up tension. They should have noticed it was, after all,
Speaker 1: in the center of their limited feel of expertise, but
Speaker 1: while a patient begged a diagnosis, the self always demurred.
Speaker 1: Having rubbed thoroughly against Day's leg, Snookums ran suggestively ahead,
Speaker 1: right up to the door of the module, Day's module.
Speaker 1: I don't suppose it's any harm if I borrow you
Speaker 1: for a bit. As they approached, the module, door slid open,
Speaker 1: and Snookums waltzed right inside, as though it owned the place. Well,
Speaker 1: they joked, they can't say I kidnapped you. The bed extracted,
Speaker 1: and Days plopped down on top of it. Snookums jumped
Speaker 1: up and soon was atop their lower back, purring and
Speaker 1: kneading away. Even more tension dissolved, as though chains had
Speaker 1: been wrapped around Day's lungs, and they re encountered the
Speaker 1: tears forced down that morning and so many other mornings.
Speaker 1: Now there were no more walls and no need to
Speaker 1: man them, and Days surrendered every last tier to the
Speaker 1: bed sheets. By the time Snookums jumped off, Days felt
Speaker 1: dry and clean, lighter. They let the cat hang around
Speaker 1: until well after the beginning of the night's cycle, stroking
Speaker 1: its head and flattering it with a progression of increasingly
Speaker 1: ridiculous superlatives and then let it out the door. Snookums
Speaker 1: disappeared into the dark. Later they scrolled through all their
Speaker 1: neighbour's socials. None of them had a new cat. Days
Speaker 1: woke up with a certainty that it was a special day.
Speaker 1: As soon as their feet hit the floor, the bed
Speaker 1: retracted and the smell of coffee infused the air. Good morning,
Speaker 1: they chirped, Good morning, Days. The blinds rolled up with
Speaker 1: a satisfying rustle, like a whisper in reverse, and Days
Speaker 1: saw that the designers had outdone themselves again, another beautiful
Speaker 1: day aboard her Metica. By the time they fell to
Speaker 1: a crouch, the floor panel had tranced to sturdy foam,
Speaker 1: and Days launched themselves into a dozen short reps of crunches, squats,
Speaker 1: and burpies. As they came down from the final leap,
Speaker 1: fingers almost touching the module's roof, they were panting joyfully.
Speaker 1: They did a few stretches while their breathing came down.
Speaker 1: Heel up on the windowsill, the shower extracted the moment
Speaker 1: they pulled their underpants down right on cue. The jets
Speaker 1: were hot and precise, and Days found bliss in the
Speaker 1: barrage of water. They didn't exactly have time to think
Speaker 1: before the leader ran out, but to feel. Certainly, they
Speaker 1: felt a wonderful day stretch out before them. They toweled
Speaker 1: off and tossed it, along with yesterday's clothes, into the chute,
Speaker 1: which closed and backed them away. The shower dehumidified with
Speaker 1: a gentle roar as Days selected a new set of clothes,
Speaker 1: a loose baggy shirt and some snug elastic pants that
Speaker 1: would offer no objections. They thought capriciously if later they
Speaker 1: felt like dancing. As soon as they took a seat,
Speaker 1: the mr shooted out onto the table, piping hot its
Speaker 1: farther edge, making a perfect tangent with the coffee mug
Speaker 1: at its side, just the way they liked it. Would
Speaker 1: you like a dose this morning? No thanks, I'm ready
Speaker 1: to meet the world on my own today. Module had
Speaker 1: already predicted that response based on Days's vitals and visuals,
Speaker 1: but it also knew that being asked and saying no,
Speaker 1: affirming their ability to go without chemical supplementation, increased the
Speaker 1: average time before Days would again need a dose. Breakfast
Speaker 1: was pretty good. A palette of flavors with names like bacon, mango,
Speaker 1: and plantain cast across a satisfying diversity of textures. As
Speaker 1: they finished up the last bites, they decided, Hell, they
Speaker 1: could go all out. Calendar Yes, Days, who's my social
Speaker 1: appointment for today? Milty? Oh good? Send a confirmation, also
Speaker 1: a message recording, Hey, Milty, I'm looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: you today. Do you feel like coming over? I hope so,
Speaker 1: I'm cooking, don't bring anything, see you at nineteen h
Speaker 1: buye sending thanks. Shall I set your default to pre
Speaker 1: confirmation on social appointments? Whaho module, let's not get ahead
Speaker 1: of ourselves. Days chuckled, Wait and see how we're feeling tomorrow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, Days. They stood up, pushing the empty mre
Speaker 1: and mug into their chute. Oh, Days, Milty has confirmed
Speaker 1: for nineteen h great. It had been about a week
Speaker 1: since Days had kept a social appointment. You only got
Speaker 1: one a day, plus the malty on Sundays and the
Speaker 1: block party four times a year for everyone in good health.
Speaker 1: It had been like that ever since the new safety
Speaker 1: was implemented, back when Days was an infant. It turned
Speaker 1: out that the population on her Medica, ideal for rapidly
Speaker 1: settling a new home world, was also the perfect ecosystem
Speaker 1: for the evolution and incubation of new viruses, and twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago an epidemic had raced through the close
Speaker 1: quarters of the ship. ARPV, popularly known as the Choking sickness,
Speaker 1: had infected millions. It was only deadly in extreme cases,
Speaker 1: but it spread asymptomatically, making it exceedingly hard to control.
Speaker 1: The engineers and medicals had perfected the module and block layout,
Speaker 1: restricting transit across the entire system. Every cohort in every
Speaker 1: block was composed of people of the same age, preventing
Speaker 1: cross generational contagion and protecting the more vulnerable age groups
Speaker 1: while streamlining health services. And since then there have been
Speaker 1: no serious emergencies. They had adapted. What had become vigilance
Speaker 1: became custom, and life went on. But do you know
Speaker 1: what is a serious emergency. The amazing sales and deals
Speaker 1: that are available to our listeners through these advertisements, every
Speaker 1: single one of them a serious life altering emergency. And
Speaker 1: you're thinking, but, Margaret, wouldn't it have made more sense
Speaker 1: to use as an ad transition that what had been
Speaker 1: vigilance became custom and how life goes on despite these advertisements.
Speaker 1: Well you might think that, but I'm holding by serious
Speaker 1: life altering emergencies. Run, don't walk to probably just press
Speaker 1: forward fifteen seconds, probably with four times or so, and
Speaker 1: we're back mask on and out the door. Days looked
Speaker 1: around for snookums, but saw no sign of the cat.
Speaker 1: A number of their neighbors were out and about, and
Speaker 1: they sang out one good morning after another. The sky
Speaker 1: was projecting puffy white clouds and a strident sun, and
Speaker 1: Days relished in the wind whipping about their face. The
Speaker 1: membrane that closed off the top of every block was
Speaker 1: permeable to air and precipitation, as her Medica's life support
Speaker 1: system needed to cycle oxygen, nitrogen, and water vapor on
Speaker 1: a shipwide basis. System was far from perfect, and occasionally
Speaker 1: there were simulated weather events to equalize pressure and chemical distribution. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: the designers could always anticipate weather occurrences with the data
Speaker 1: they got from Mettio, and they made sure the sky
Speaker 1: was always dressed for the occasion. So today the clouds
Speaker 1: moved from left to right in the same direction as
Speaker 1: the wind, coming to the center of the block. Days
Speaker 1: saw they were building something on the green. As a
Speaker 1: couple drones hovered about, movers deposited bundles and a couple
Speaker 1: bots erected a tall pole almost as high as the
Speaker 1: tallest modules the family units. Was it already time for
Speaker 1: the next block party? Days wondered what the theme of
Speaker 1: this time would be. The last one was Chinese New Year,
Speaker 1: but Days hadn't been feeling well and gave it a miss.
Speaker 1: Staying out of the way of the bots, they crossed
Speaker 1: the green The health center was straight ahead, but the
Speaker 1: supply node was to the right at the end of
Speaker 1: the cross street. They had to get ingredients if they
Speaker 1: were going to cook for Milty tonight, but then they
Speaker 1: might be late for the first patient and certainly too
Speaker 1: excited thinking about dinner to focus on work. They could
Speaker 1: stop by on the way home. It was a fortuitous decision.
Speaker 1: First in the queue they got a new patient, one
Speaker 1: who worked in mettio. Bubbling with curiosity, they bit their
Speaker 1: tongue until the patient was comfortable and the ensemble of
Speaker 1: machines were whizzing and worrying over their back. It would
Speaker 1: not do to stress them out, compound whatever muscle problem
Speaker 1: had brought them here, and get a low rating on
Speaker 1: top of it all. Some people loved to talk during
Speaker 1: the sessions, but others flat out fell asleep. So you're
Speaker 1: a meteorologist. Days ventured after the patient let out a
Speaker 1: particularly appreciative groan. Me, no, days frowned. Nope, I work
Speaker 1: in meteorology, but I'm actually a botanist. Oh good, a talker.
Speaker 1: I thought all the botanists were an alimentation, most of us,
Speaker 1: but not me. You know the bushes and shrubs grow
Speaker 1: on your block? Uh huh, Well every block has a
Speaker 1: botanical cohort, you see. To complement the human population spread
Speaker 1: across our Medica, we actually have quite a biodiversity in
Speaker 1: plant species. Of course, everything will need to terraform is
Speaker 1: in the gene bank, but there's a hypothesis that after
Speaker 1: a certain stage of KEMPREP we'll have better luck transplanting
Speaker 1: adult specimens. In any case, with livestock, we have a redundancy,
Speaker 1: and it's also proven to improve air quality and mental
Speaker 1: health for the passengers. Wow, well that makes sense. So
Speaker 1: what's the connection with meteorology. Media's primary job is to
Speaker 1: monitor the atmosphere aborder Medica. Of course, the atmosphere belongs
Speaker 1: to life systems. Their prime directive is to give us
Speaker 1: air de breathe, but any changes they make have shipwide
Speaker 1: ramifications and they have to work closely with METEO to
Speaker 1: roll out those changes and monitor any feedback. Think of
Speaker 1: METIO as like a shock absorber for life sys AH
Speaker 1: in botany, well, we're the shock absorbers for the shock absorbers.
Speaker 1: A meteorology rollout is designed for the health of the
Speaker 1: passengers while minimizing the kind of discomfort systems ripples can cause.
Speaker 1: No one's thinking about the shrubs. So that's where I
Speaker 1: come in. Weather events an atmosphere in general spell life
Speaker 1: or death for our botany cohorts, and they're not very
Speaker 1: high up on the priority chain. Now, your maintenance blocks
Speaker 1: are collecting chemical data every time they go by, and
Speaker 1: the block analyzes it and sometimes can make a change autonomously.
Speaker 1: Schizophrogma needs more watering done, but I combine that with
Speaker 1: qualitative commentary on plant health. I can override the block
Speaker 1: and design a special treatment regime for an unhealthy specimen,
Speaker 1: And in the case of prolonged malaise, I can make
Speaker 1: a recommendation to METIO, like to change the weather. You
Speaker 1: bet if it can keep a cohort from dying off.
Speaker 1: Of course, like I said, it's low on the priority chain,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they make adjustments. WHOA, that's amazing. I've never
Speaker 1: met anyone who can affect the weather before. So you're
Speaker 1: in charge of all the plants on her Medica, The
Speaker 1: patient laughed me. Nah, I just supervise one hundred blocks,
Speaker 1: no complaints here. That lets me travel way more than
Speaker 1: your average passenger. But her Medica is huge, and we
Speaker 1: each got our tiny role to play. If any one
Speaker 1: person just focuses on themselves, they feel small. But we're
Speaker 1: doing all together. It's extraordinary. A shadow crossed over Days's
Speaker 1: heart the first of the day. The patient was right,
Speaker 1: it was extraordinary. But Days couldn't help but feel like
Speaker 1: their life was impossibly small. Was it fair that one
Speaker 1: person could travel across a hundred blocks, could reach up
Speaker 1: and touch the sky, could make it rain, and Days
Speaker 1: had to spend their life between the module and the office,
Speaker 1: not even one hundred meters apart, touching strangers through a
Speaker 1: plexi and the intermediary of a dozen probes and appendages.
Speaker 1: It was their own fault, of course, If they had
Speaker 1: studied harder, they could have done better on the aptitudes.
Speaker 1: They had had all the advantages of an education in science.
Speaker 1: The other people from their cohort had gone on to
Speaker 1: important assignments. They didn't keep up with most of them,
Speaker 1: but they could see what they were doing on social
Speaker 1: One a mathematician had created a dynamic encryption system that
Speaker 1: enabled classified reports to read one another, so that specialists
Speaker 1: from different working groups and with different security clearances could
Speaker 1: access relevant information across departments or check their data against
Speaker 1: another set of data without actually having to view it
Speaker 1: in the event they did not have clearance. Another, a
Speaker 1: molecular biologist, was working on a team perfecting a nanobotic
Speaker 1: array that could quickly scan, detect, analyze, and repair genetic
Speaker 1: mutations across an entire organism. Plenty had gone into phizz,
Speaker 1: and though physics people generally could not speak about their work,
Speaker 1: it was rumored that one of them was in the
Speaker 1: nuclear program working on her Medica's propulsion system ZIMP. Days's
Speaker 1: best friend from the cohort was in higher ed training
Speaker 1: the next generation of minds in quantum Mechanics AXA. Another
Speaker 1: classmate was in socio psych designing optimum human interactions. Definitely
Speaker 1: not Days's cup of tea, but who was Days to
Speaker 1: be picky? They were a masseuse running the same dozen
Speaker 1: routines over variants of the same four problems, over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. The trainings post aptitudes were simple,
Speaker 1: a year of anatomy and then a month of technical
Speaker 1: education for operating the machines. Days had figured it out
Speaker 1: in a week. Zimp, on the other hand, had gone
Speaker 1: through six years of training and had to do hours
Speaker 1: of reading every week to keep up on the PRVs,
Speaker 1: and the molecular biologist from the cohort had only gotten
Speaker 1: a work assignment a couple years ago after eight years
Speaker 1: of post app training. If Days had been feeling a
Speaker 1: little better, more social the day of the aptitudes, would
Speaker 1: the outcome have been any different. They had scored well
Speaker 1: in analytical and maths, but the low teamwork score had
Speaker 1: spelled doom for just about any cutting edge assignment. Dreading
Speaker 1: the memory, they were back in the unfamiamiliar room. Most
Speaker 1: of the faces were unfamiliar to cohorts got broken up
Speaker 1: for testing. The young students in the room were joined
Speaker 1: by another bond, though, who could fail to recognize the
Speaker 1: shared anxiety to no one's self in one's peers. The
Speaker 1: examiner was late. No one was happy about that. The
Speaker 1: screens at the front of the class already read nine
Speaker 1: twenty That was starting time. They were supposed to have
Speaker 1: two and a half full hours to finish. Days looked around,
Speaker 1: weighing their peers, growing concern. The ubiquitous Remember the wiki
Speaker 1: poster hung forlorn on the back wall. There were no windows.
Speaker 1: At nine twenty four thirty six, the door swished open
Speaker 1: and the examiner bustled in, taking their place at the
Speaker 1: head console. Their face was a ste not a sign
Speaker 1: of fluster or apology. Everyone in the class shifted backs, erect,
Speaker 1: hands at the ready atop their desks. The examiner logged
Speaker 1: in and entered a command, and the console extracted from
Speaker 1: everyone one's desk. Twenty sets of fingers launched themselves across
Speaker 1: tactile screens, entering personal ID numbers and passcodes. Any moment
Speaker 1: the first problem should appear. Instead, the examiner spoke, speaking
Speaker 1: with strictly forbidden during the aptitudes. But they were the examiner.
Speaker 1: They could have you removed and failed for the mere
Speaker 1: suspicion of impropriety. Before the test begins. You will all
Speaker 1: go in to configure and set the test time back
Speaker 1: to nine to twenty zero zero. Use this override a
Speaker 1: twelve digit passcode appeared on the main screen. That was
Speaker 1: certainly irregular, and it hardly seemed fair. They had now
Speaker 1: lost five full minutes from their testing time, and no
Speaker 1: one ever got through all the problems. Days decided not
Speaker 1: to comply. Still frightened to the examiner, they moved their
Speaker 1: fingers over the tactile so they'd blend in with all
Speaker 1: the others. Then the test started and the first problem
Speaker 1: appeared on everyone on screen. Dun dun dun. That's the
Speaker 1: cliffhanger music. Everyone knows that dun du dun, dun dun't.
Speaker 1: That's not the cliffhanger music. That's just me making noises
Speaker 1: with my mouth because I've been talking into a microphone
Speaker 1: for a while and it makes me lose my brain
Speaker 1: a little bit. Anyway, that's the end of part one,
Speaker 1: well episode one of her Metica by Alan Lee. Join
Speaker 1: us next week when we find out what happens next
Speaker 1: and in the meantime Allen Lee. It's a novella published
Speaker 1: by Detritus Books in twenty twenty one. You can go
Speaker 1: check it out now if you want, but you can
Speaker 1: also check out other stuff done by the same author,
Speaker 1: Allen Lee as their speculative fiction pen name, and his
Speaker 1: name for most of his books is Peter Gelderlos, which
Speaker 1: again includes, for example, the book The Solutions Are Already
Speaker 1: Here Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below. And you can
Speaker 1: also check out Peter Substack Surviving Laff and I don't
Speaker 1: know what else to plug besides listen next week when
Speaker 1: I read you the next part of Hermatica by Alan Lee.
Speaker 1: All Right bye. It could happen here as a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can find sources where it could Happen here,
Speaker 1: updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,