Chapter 8 – Page 045
And if you squint hard enough, you might just find my auntie’s house.
↓ Transcript
Full-page panel:
On one corner, Nancy and Si in their interlocking monitoring position look over the side of the tenements into a magically-summoned map of Glasgow. Carol and Lewis gaze over the same map from another corner perched atop a subway line. To the south is an atmospheric shock impenetrable to the criss-crossing lines of culture and information, but cracks are appearing in the barrier, slight but growing. There is a fulcrum through which the information is routing, as well as another line of information snaking up from London through the barrier before dispersing, too vague to determine the end point.
Corner One:
NANCY: Just as Reiver said, Carol has London locked up tighter than a steel drum. Not getting any information out of that eggshell.
SI: So woss the point of all this moneytorying, then?
NANCY: A great deal, actually! Observe the cracks in the Faraday cage. This state of being is unnatural, no metropolis can be completely isolated from the rest of the String for long before the quantum shock disintegrates.
SI: Aha! Just gotta wait till it all falls apart, like E-D’s GO-LEM thingy!
NANCY: Not “just” that, I’m afraid. Carol’s no fool, she would have known going in that her dominion would be fleeting unless she had some way of shoring it up.
NANCY: See how the String intersects somewhere in Glasgow? That’s the designated observer, resolving the wave function and keeping the city’s reality sane.
SI: Wot would happen if there weren’t one?
NANCY: Chaos. Unmitigated brain-melting chaos. Which I presume is what Carol’s quantum shock is intended to prevent. Should London’s observer be removed, the information flow will cease, leaving a stagnant pond for Carol to shape as she wills.
SI: And the observer is…?
Corner Two:
CAROL: Now you see why I had to fly all the way up here.
LEWIS: That lifeline sprouting up through London’s shield...is that who I think it is?
CAROL: Yes. Unfortunately, the distance involved has dissipated the terminus point and we have no nearby frames of reference with which to triangulate it. Not that I expected any.
LEWIS: Okay, I can see why it would be a major nuisance having this thing around. But if we iced it wouldn’t the London String just snap to someone else?
CAROL: Not if we delete it. Render it non-existent. Stem to stern. But first we need to find it. We can shake down the local inflection point as a witness.
LEWIS: You believe Brilligan’s made contact with whatever nutter “protects relativity” here in Glasgow?
CAROL: She must have. She is a parasite in another city’s immune system, she would need access to the Glasgow String to get anything done up here.
CAROL: And only one person would have the key.
On one corner, Nancy and Si in their interlocking monitoring position look over the side of the tenements into a magically-summoned map of Glasgow. Carol and Lewis gaze over the same map from another corner perched atop a subway line. To the south is an atmospheric shock impenetrable to the criss-crossing lines of culture and information, but cracks are appearing in the barrier, slight but growing. There is a fulcrum through which the information is routing, as well as another line of information snaking up from London through the barrier before dispersing, too vague to determine the end point.
Corner One:
NANCY: Just as Reiver said, Carol has London locked up tighter than a steel drum. Not getting any information out of that eggshell.
SI: So woss the point of all this moneytorying, then?
NANCY: A great deal, actually! Observe the cracks in the Faraday cage. This state of being is unnatural, no metropolis can be completely isolated from the rest of the String for long before the quantum shock disintegrates.
SI: Aha! Just gotta wait till it all falls apart, like E-D’s GO-LEM thingy!
NANCY: Not “just” that, I’m afraid. Carol’s no fool, she would have known going in that her dominion would be fleeting unless she had some way of shoring it up.
NANCY: See how the String intersects somewhere in Glasgow? That’s the designated observer, resolving the wave function and keeping the city’s reality sane.
SI: Wot would happen if there weren’t one?
NANCY: Chaos. Unmitigated brain-melting chaos. Which I presume is what Carol’s quantum shock is intended to prevent. Should London’s observer be removed, the information flow will cease, leaving a stagnant pond for Carol to shape as she wills.
SI: And the observer is…?
Corner Two:
CAROL: Now you see why I had to fly all the way up here.
LEWIS: That lifeline sprouting up through London’s shield...is that who I think it is?
CAROL: Yes. Unfortunately, the distance involved has dissipated the terminus point and we have no nearby frames of reference with which to triangulate it. Not that I expected any.
LEWIS: Okay, I can see why it would be a major nuisance having this thing around. But if we iced it wouldn’t the London String just snap to someone else?
CAROL: Not if we delete it. Render it non-existent. Stem to stern. But first we need to find it. We can shake down the local inflection point as a witness.
LEWIS: You believe Brilligan’s made contact with whatever nutter “protects relativity” here in Glasgow?
CAROL: She must have. She is a parasite in another city’s immune system, she would need access to the Glasgow String to get anything done up here.
CAROL: And only one person would have the key.