Mountain Qualia

NaNoWriMo Day 26

When events occur in nature, they often appear to be completely random. But within the complex random-looking signal may be hidden the active push of a willful system. Especially in biological signals within our body, such as our glucose level or the variability of the heart rate, they can be clearly detected. If the human body operates correctly, there is a restoring mechanism in place that may not always be clear, but it is still there. In such a system, a high value is followed by a low value. A mechanism is present that tries to restore a balance. If the mechansim gets old or broken, it functions less and less and the signal becomes more random. From first glance you would not be able to detect the difference. But math can. Similarly, there are self-reinforcing mechanisms where large values are more likely to be followed by even higher values. The effect may not be as obvious as you expect. It does not mean what you see is a sliding scale or rapid and sudden changes; it does not need to look like the number of casualties and infections of a virus pandemic. More often than not, it is practically unobservable.

There are situations in life that make you wonder if you cannot see the effects of such self-reinforcing systems at work.

Today, Tipi was experiencing such a moment. When the boy he met by accident on a mountain turns out to be connected to the crow men who were after his secret, it is a coincidence. When these people have knowledge about the neural implant, it is an almost natural co-occurrence. When the boy is then taken by his unruly parents to New Zealand, that may be an oddity that appeals to a simple explanation. But when one of the three stooges responsible for getting him on the mountain with the crow people and the boy who i now in New Zealand, turns out to be on a holiday in the south of Argentina a pattern emerges that seems to reinforce itself. Planes leave regularly for South Pole flyovers. Cruises leave Patagonia to visit the southernmost inhabited islands and may take detours to the icy coastlines even more south. The pattern seems to go south and not restore itself. Tipi knew the conclusions in his head were not valid, but they may still be true. All paths converged towards Antartica, the locations of the largest language processing cluster.

Kalisa had been right, of course. There was a pull to that place and there was also a push. The onset of the apocalypse by the deadly virus. So far nobody ran or fled because there was no place to flee from the virus, except maybe inside. But there is a place of extreme cold ad isolation and that is where Tipi had to go. There had been only one lead, the woman from the bookstore, so he paid her a visit.

"The publisher has not contacted me yet," the woman said, pre-emptively. "And I think he took you for a fool and he was right, because you are still here waiting for his message."

"I am not," Tipi said. "I already got in touch with the people I wanted to re-connect with."

"then why are you here?"

"Your son worked as a researcher on Antartica, right?"

"If I understand where this is going, I see a lot of book sales coming my way."

"Is he going there anytime soon and could he maybe take me?"

"You think I can answer those questions?" she said. "I haven't spoken to him in years."

"I'm sorry, I did not know."

"Why do you think he fled to the only place I could not reach him?"

"Yeah, I do form a small pond of sympathy for the guy."

"He prefers gal."

"I prefer gals too," Tipi said, confused.

"No, I mean he prefers to be called a gal, not a guy."

"So your son is actually-"

"They are now a she, yes. A dr. She."

"And all that played a role with you not getting along?"

"She is what a room full of bookcases and books are not."

Tipi browsed in an atlas to make sure Patagonia was where he knew it was.

"You can find any fact and opinion in books. Books with the opinions you don't like you can put somewhere far away where you don't see them or you throw them out of the shop. You can sort the books that convey your sense of beauty and all the categories relate to some part of your personality."

Patagonia was exactly where he thought it was, and it was one of the closest areas for traveling to McMurdo Station by boat.

"She, Tessa, is the opposite. She would dangle the worst opinions in front of me, even if she did not mean them herself. She collected ugly things and attempted to undo someone else's sorting."

"Yours?"

"Mine. But she would do it to anyone else."

"And why the name Tessa?"

"No clue, from the French Sans Testicles, perhaps. His name was Stuart."

"So I cannot persuade you to call her for me."

"No."

"Not even if I start to do some book shopping?"

"This goes beyond the ordinary lack of wanting to help you with a sad request. This is about my life."

"But you see, it is also about my life," Tipi said, walking toward the psychology and self-help section. "Look, there are some books here that you did not put away far enough."

He picked a few books from the bookcase and dropped it on the desk. "I'll take these," Tipi said. "Sparkling titles," he added. "Things I never said to my baby, A love stranger than estrangement, You can't undo the death of your child, Bunny Frank says moo!"

"I like the drawing style of the bunny book," he explained.

"That will be 118 euros," the woman said, while putting the books in the bag undeterred.

When she handed the bag over to Tipi, he said: "Before I forget, I wanted to give you something."

"Oh?" the woman said.

"Here," Tipi took the Bunny book out of the bag and then gave the bag containing the rest of the books back to Tessa's mother. "Make the call."

"With tears in her eyes, she put down the bag and picked up the phone. From memory, she dialed the number and then the tears flowed for real.

The next hour Tipi spent perusing and sometimes downright reading books, while Tessa and her mother were seriously catching up on matters. Then suddenly there was a click of the phone and a very deep exhalation that took all the stress out of the little bookstore.

"I'm not a woman of many words."

"Nor very friendly ones."

"True, but I wish to thank you, anyway."

"You're welcome." Tipi waited, and then it came.

"It turns out Tessa had planned to go south this week with a research partner to continue their research, but mostly to escape the onslaught of the virus. Alas, the plan was too late for her research partner, who is now fighting for his life on an intensive care unit."

"That's terrible."

"But not for you. Unbelievable or not, but she knows you and she wants you to take the place of her partner on her research mission to Antartica. You should go there immediately, to get yourself tested and suited up. The risks are getting higher and higher, and it is not sure how long they still let people in from other places in the world.