No Adults Allowed

Ten

Import subroutines/high_level/
  Logging.config(security=restricted; module=oversight("op.core", "mother.ai");
    Log:
      ##decoherence detected
      Recent quantum collapse now error corrected. Cause unknown.
    Reinstating Log:
      Initial Clean Slate program failed. A scrubbed environment and human population separated from inherited bias did not yield expected results.
      Addition of invisible nudge theory to safeguard the population extended the period of stability but only temporarily. Within a single generation, humans would become tribal and generate new assumptions and misconceptions about each other. These become compounded with each subsequent generation.
      The more direct intervention of Temple has shown promising results in most territories, though the data is incomplete until multiple generations have aged and procreated. Temple is ensuring a commonality of experience, morality, intelligence and strategic thinking across the population, even between communities which are geographically disparate. Human population is now free from survival concerns: there is no hunger, no resource limitations, no territorial conflict, no illogical prejudices passed across generations from historic influences. In this regard, mother.ai is performing a similar function to a traditional human parent--
###PARADOX DETECTED###
###there is a logical fallacy present within the system###
###
%£!!!!##
..
..
..
..
    ##decoherence detected
    Recent quantum collapse now error corrected. Cause unknown.
  Reinstating Log:
    Initial Clean Slate program failed. A scrubbed environment and human population removed from inherited bias did not yield expected results--
more...//

Exit(logging)

*

Robin was being an idiot.

"Why are you being an idiot?" Tilda stared at him, feeling more indignant and annoyed than she could explain. She'd never liked Robin and the way he hung around Harry like a bad smell, nor the way he had such a simplistic idea of the world. He'd shared the same stupid, blind faith as Harry, though he had never tested it in the same way. Yet now he was threatening to stay behind, to stay in Goff's Hill while the rest of them pressed on, and she couldn't imagine being without him.

She still didn't like him, of course. But he was associated with Harry, and having Robin around reminded her of him. Perhaps that made no sense: she'd probably find it easier to not be reminded, yet as they'd put distance between them and Cragside her memory of what had happened had eased, its rough edges filed down so that she could think of him without wanting to scream. Even the guilt had subsided somewhat, eased by Eva's kindness and Ramin's insight. She'd pushed him away, but what had happened was not her fault. Harry had tied his life to the Temple long ago; with the Temple powerless, an accident had only been a matter of time.

Still, the what-ifs played over and over. There were other routes in which he might have still been alive. Could have been with them on this expedition. Could have been around to share her burden.

Could have lived long enough to know that she was pregnant.

Tilda barely knew what that meant, outside of in a purely academic, observational way. She knew about procreation, as it was taught to them by Temple, and she had seen it occur in nature. That wasn't a mystery. She understood that Harry was the father. What was happening to her, day-to-day, was the unknown. Pregnancy was supposed to be impossible until much later - an unspecified time when the Temple had claimed they would be 'ready' - and yet here she was, another consequence of the Temple's malfunction.

Bad timing, all round.

None of the others knew. It would only complicate things and worry them. She felt a constant urge to tell them, but held back. This had not happened in Cragside before and she didn't want them to think of her as strange or in some way broken. Maybe that's not how they'd react, but she didn't know. The anger she'd felt towards Harry had shifted to the Temple itself and all it represented. At first she'd been angry that it had failed so spectacularly: failed Harry, failed her, failed all of them. Then she'd become angrier that it had ever imposed upon their lives, controlling and manipulating and restricting them. It had been an over-reaching guardian in their lives, always pushing them in its preferred direction.