Vitalik's Sci-Fi Novel "Snow Moon" Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Meldan, Viridia · 3724 Firemoon 25
Gladias pulled open the partition's screen, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. He sat down angrily on the bench opposite Delvort.
"You have a lot of explaining to do."
Delvort looked down at the table, a regretful expression on his face.
"Listen, Gladias, you're right, I was wrong. My hatred of all interventionism in Viridian government and culture blinded me to the fact that the government has been committed to certain things, and defense is one of them."
"That's not why I'm angry."
Delvort looked up, startled.
"I mean, it's one of the reasons, but far from the main one."
"Then what's the primary one?"
"What exactly happened? Who are you? Who are you working with?"
Delvort sighed. He was silent for a moment. Then he leaned forward.
"All right, let me explain."
"I'm not just a theorist doing this alone. I and a group of other people—I don't know them—are working for Silver Tongue."
"We've had enough of those rating rules: our tax burden gets raised just because a bunch of people made vulgar jokes on a platform. We want Silver Tongue to be a haven, a refuge from the dull mediocrity sweeping the rest of Viridia. We want it to welcome Waterbloom, and even Fearknot."
"So we decided to handle this ourselves. To make an organized effort to try to pull politics in a better direction. To appeal directly to the Guardians."
"Now I realize how naive all of this was. If we manage to avoid banality, but at the cost of the Arctic Empire being able to take over and cause something far worse—first Redcounty, then the whole world—then this whole thing isn't just not worth it—it's destructive."
Gladias sighed. He was still furious at Delvort, but now the anger was mixed with a hint of sympathy.
A robot slid up in front of them, carrying salad, rectangular nutrition bars, and water for the two of them to eat and drink.
Gladias and Delvort first picked up the food on the plates and set it on the table. Gladias picked up his cup and drank about half the water in one gulp. Delvort did the same.
They began to eat, in silence. A few minutes later, the conversation continued.
"What do you want me to do now?" Gladias asked.
"Obviously, military products can't be excluded from that assessment standard now. You could even raise the tax bracket, though that would only help so much—the most important lever is on the Graphfunding side."
"But I have another idea about what you can do."
"What's that?"
"I think you should go to Zhego."
"Me? Zhego? Why?"
"They've clearly solved the whole Arctic problem better than we have in Viridia. Study them. Learn from them. See what you can bring back to Viridia."
"Since you're so untrustworthy, why should I listen to you?"
"Of course, don't just listen to me. Ask your closest friends and advisors. See what they think."
Gladias walked along the Kalima path he usually took. As always, it was shaded by green trees, with stone houses on both sides. But that day, the weather was unusually hot, Gladias was sweating slightly, and some sunlight managed to filter through the shade, warming his entire body inside his privacy robe.
He passed a house he remembered as selling traditional Viridian food. This time, a notice had been hastily pasted over the poster again, advertising a bagged reserve food: delicious, nutritionally complete, long shelf life, one pack enough to sustain survival for thirty days.
He tapped his watch and called Mov.
"So I talked to Delvort."
"How did it go?"
"You were right. It's an organized effort. Turns out—at least that's what he says now—he's been working for Silver Tongue."
"Silver Tongue? I thought it'd be a more sinister partner, like Blue Whale."
"I suppose that makes sense. Maybe a conversation I overheard a month and a half ago was with a Silver Tongue guy."
"So he wants me to go to Zhego now."
"Zhego? To do what?"
"He says we in Viridia have a lot to learn from them. Do you think that's true?"
"You know, on the day Redcounty took over, a friend of mine mentioned something similar to me. He thought I should go see how their secret societies operate."
"Well, you know, Sera has a friend from there now, and the last thing she told me was that he's ranked very well in Mingpengtai and made it into the national competition. So if I go, maybe I really could learn something."
"Yeah, I can certainly see the appeal. Viridians really do need to understand the outside world better. Especially the people in the institutions—the Order, the courts, the council, all of it."
"Give me a few days to think about it."
"Well, the votes on the rules are in eight, twelve, and sixteen days, so no matter what happens, you'll have time to think it through."
Gladias paused for a moment.
At that moment, he was passing a restaurant near his home where he often stopped to eat and drink. Through the window, he could see Febrik eating.
"I'll think about it too," he said finally, then hung up.
Gladias walked into the restaurant and almost immediately removed the faceplate of his privacy robe and unzipped the front part. He couldn't be that private while eating anyway, and he'd already worked up a sweat under the blazing sun. He sat down next to Febrik.
"Oh, Uncle Glade, good to see you here again!"
"Good to see you too!"
Gladias noticed that Febrik had been watching a screen. A Hailis match was being actively broadcast.
Gladias let himself watch the match for a minute. On the screen, the camera was following the leading player in a yellow shirt chasing a red ball.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, another team of players in purple shirts knocked him to the side. The yellow-shirted player fell, then automatically recovered to a position about five meters down. The screen shifted its view to the player in the purple shirt. He caught a blue ball in midair. Two other players in yellow jerseys began flying toward him. Before they could reach him, he threw the blue ball to a teammate. That teammate caught it successfully and began flying forward.
The screen shifted its view to ten yellow pins on a circular board, arranged in a triangle, mounted on a pole raised above the ground. The player in the purple jersey, holding the blue ball, came into view. A player in a yellow shirt quickly moved into position between him and the pins.
The player in the purple jersey suddenly tossed the blue ball high into the air, just as another yellow-shirted player crashed into him.
The blue ball flew about five meters over the yellow-shirted player guarding the pins, then landed on the board. It knocked down three pins.
The scoreboard on the screen adjusted.
Yellow Purple
Red ball Catches 6 11
Green ball player throws 9 7
Blue ball knockdowns 31 23
Overall score 1674 1771
The purple team's blue ball score had just gone from 20 to 23, and the total score had risen from 1540 to 1771—enough to overtake their opponents.
Suddenly, while the player who had just knocked down those pins was celebrating, a green ball hit him in the back and splattered paint on him.
The score adjusted again.
Yellow Purple
Red ball Catches 6 11
Green ball player throws 10 7
Blue ball knockdowns 31 23
Overall score 1860 1771
"You have to admit, the scoring system now is really good," Febrik remarked.
"I remember when I was much younger, they kept adjusting the ratio between red ball catches and knockdowns or player throws. They just couldn't get away from the situation where the rational thing was to focus all your attention on one ball."
"Even when they got it right, within a year the strategy would adjust and it would become unbalanced again."
"I think making the scores multiply is the only way out. That way you have to care about all three scoring types."
"Or try really hard to make sure your opponent can't get any of the types," Gladias interjected.
"Ah, yes, that's the first thing some people tried," Febrik replied. "Holding the red ball for more than thirty ticks has been banned for many years, and even when scores were additive, whichever side was worse at the red ball could use it as a great cheating tactic. But one team did try it—they knocked down a bunch of pins at the very start of the match, then used most of their players to protect their pins for the rest of the game."
"It turned out that actually didn't work. The people on the helicopters could only pack in so tightly, and no matter what you did, the other team could always manage to sneak some blue balls through. And then, if you really did pack tightly around the pins in one spot, you'd just become a target for the green balls."
"Do you want to play a match?" Gladias asked.
"Haven't thought about it, but I've just been talking with Zven about it a lot. The math in it is almost as fun as the game itself!"
Both Gladias and Febrik turned their attention to the food.
"By the way, how's Lily?" Gladias asked.
"She's actually started to do better over the past few months. A few days ago she mentioned to me that she got a 70 on her latest citizenship exam. She seems happier. And she's been playing this game on her handheld device more and more intently."
"Do you know what game it is?" Gladias asked.
"She won't show me either."
Gladias and Febrik both went back to eating. A few minutes later, both had finished.
"Did you remember to take out Zip coins this time?" Febrik asked jokingly.
"Hey, I may make a lot of mistakes, but I don't make the same mistake twice," Gladias shot back.
"Speaking of which, Febrik, thanks for reminding me—I need to test the wallet's asset recovery process." He whispered through his neckband.
"Want me to help you sign off on a trial run?"
"Sure! What do you want to test?"
"I don't know, buy a bottle of Waterbloom?"
"Buy a bottle of Waterbloom? Directly from a lifetime savings wallet?" Gladias asked in disbelief. "Those ads really got to you too, didn't they?"
"Hey, you're the one who asked me!"
"All right, all right... I'll initiate the operation."
Gladias began whispering into his neckband. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Febrik run off somewhere, though he was too busy to know where.
A few ticks later, Febrik's watch rang.
Gladias → [Wallet 0x8f62...Social Recovery Mode Transaction Request] 65129
Febrik opened his handheld device and pulled up a more detailed transaction view. He had Emerald look up the receiving address online. A few ticks later, Emerald confirmed that this was indeed the purchase address for Waterbloom. Then he checked the amount—5.5 Zip coins. For a bottle of water plus shipping, the price was reasonable enough, though the bulk of it was clearly shipping. He then checked the transaction data field. Yes, it looked like an encoding of Gladias's home address, in a format consistent with the standard online shopping protocol.
Of course, in the encrypted network that processed these transactions, all this data was encrypted.
Febrik clicked "Confirm."
Gladias's watch rang immediately.
Less than a minute later, Gladias's watch rang again.
Sera → Security question: On the night the kids came back from Vel and Deya's house, what was the most unusual thing I did? 73105
Gladias immediately whispered his answer into his neckband.
When Lord Ephelion's speech was playing in the restaurant, you unplugged the screen. → Sera
After a moment, Gladias's watch rang again. Three signatures completed, including his own. One to go. Either Mov or Pelo—or, of course, if he really had to, himself running to the vault and picking up his second key.
"I'm obviously not going to ask who that was, or who else you need to confirm," Febrik added. "But good luck!"
"Sera, I'm back!"
"Glade!"
"So I have some interesting news."
"What is it?"
"There's a chance I'll be going to Zhego soon."
Sera stared.
"Why?"
"I talked to Mov about it. He thinks Viridians, especially the Guardians, the Order, the whole institution, have a lot to learn from what's happening over there."
"I'm not sure... these are hard times right now. You may not be the person best suited to make a trip to Zhego count. And over the next few months, the Guardians are going to need strong guidance."
"The Arctic situation is actually more the responsibility of the military and the council, and maybe Graphfunding. And... if you introduce me to Zeyi, maybe I could make good use of a trip?"
Sera fell into thought for a moment.
"If Mov thinks it's a good idea, then fine. But do your homework first. Find someone in Graphfunding or the council, anyone, to talk to, so you know whether this trip would be useful, and if you do go, how to make it as useful as possible."
"But honestly, think about it carefully."
"If you go, yes, of course I'll introduce you to Zeyi. And Bai."
