i hold the power of life and death in my hands

[autokinetic]

[Hey Jarvis,] Aegis relays through Jane. [Jane says you're open to running a Space Station Of The Dead?]

Comments

[autokinetic]

[Okay.] Aegis hmms a bit, then says, [Oh, FYI, I'm gonna name the station Acheron.]

[poeticterms]

Laughter from all sides.

[autokinetic]

[I know, right? Got a Greek mythology theme going.]

[poeticterms]

[It's delightful,] says Jarvis of Helios.

[autokinetic]

[Thanks! D'you wanna look at the plans? Jane can send 'em to you, I did it in my head but then we linked up and I bounced her a copy.]

[poeticterms]

[Yes, let's have the plans.]

[mind_game]

Jane sends them all her file, converted from Aegis's brain to a reasonable file format. It's for a many-decked wheel of a space station, obviously designed for magical rather than mechanically generated gravity. The center is attached to a space elevator that will be able to send hundreds of people to Earth in a single trip.

[poeticterms]

[Interesting,] says a Jarvis. [Do you have somewhere to put it?]

[autokinetic]

[Gonna park it in Brazil, not too far off from the Hegemony headquarters, put a shuttleport under it. I'll have to get rid of some space debris but it's all dead satellites that haven't been in use for at least fifty years in the exact location I have in mind.]

[poeticterms]

[Excellent. We'll have suggestions about the details, of course, if we're going to be inhabiting the place. But the architecture is just fine.]

[autokinetic]

[Glad you like it! I'll talk to jeesh people and Merryweather and whatnot and get back to you.]

[poeticterms]

[Until then.]

[autokinetic]

Aegis drops out of that call, and she decides to try Merryweather first. [Hey you!]

[pythbox]

[Hello,] says Merryweather.

[autokinetic]

[You pretty much don't have a job anymore, right? Since Battle School's over with?]

[pythbox]

[Alas,] he says, [yes.]

[autokinetic]

[D'you wanna live in a space station run by an AI who is not Jane and help process dead people?]

[pythbox]

[...How exactly do you 'process' a dead person?]

[autokinetic]

[Well, when I retrieved all the casualties from the Third Invasion I pretty much just went and got them in person, but there weren't all that many, so I'm gonna come up with a more generalizable process for other folks who want to be alive again. I don't have all the details hammered out yet.]

[pythbox]

[And what use would I be to this enterprise?]

[autokinetic]

[I dunno, I'm sure there would be stuff for you to do, mostly I'm asking because Jarvis only wants to be Acheron Station if somebody friendly lives in it and I'm always teleporting hither and yon and so's Sue. Jane could run the station instead, but then there's no transworld ansibles backup - did I tell you about that?]

[pythbox]

[Somehow you managed not to,] he says dryly.

[autokinetic]

[Oh, yeah, yesterday when me and Sue were on our way to that one meeting, somebody Little Doctored our ship - I have since banished from existence all Little Doctors and left convincing fakes and I'm gonna do that once a week from now on in case anyone tries to build more - and me and Sue torched and Jane thinks with her entire network but she kinda lives in me. It knocked her offline, and she's what syncs up time between all the worlds we have access to, and she came back here after three seconds but in some places it was years. And that was bad, Rose's eldest daughter is sixteen now and we barely got to meet her, nobody could visit or collaborate, there were two cases of stranding, and also nobody could revive dead people while they were cut off. There's four worlds with Jarvises and those stayed synced, so we want to put in some more Jarvises. I conjured the ship back into existence and we're still flying to the meeting, after it I'll go find whoever attacked us.]

[pythbox]

[...Well, that's... simultaneously reassuring and terrifying,] says Merryweather.

[autokinetic]

[Which part?]