Jade sat at her desk at the University. There were other deans, but they lacked her Fractal Integration. That was fine for standard years, but current iterations needed someone who could view things from many angles in quick succession.
As it was a Time University, their decisions could reach outside their actual office domain, as long as the current holder could work in the plans.
Time slowly became more unachored, as Jade’s decisions reached back further in time, and she began to eclipse the others holding similar office.
While most seemed to be concerned with taking the University on a linear trajectory, Jade felt that it should be timeless. Various safeties put in place by Zapp and watched over by the robots kept people sane, despite the overly fluid nature of time within the University.
Knowing what to go ahead with, and what to leave on the back burner relied a lot on how everyone reacted to various changes and Time Shifts. While Zapp had good organizational skills and high regard for public safety, he wasn’t flexible enough to deal with more drastic changes.
Doctor Time, she referred to Nathan in his role that he had for the longest time, had been too unpredictable. Which, now that she thought about it, was rather unfair assessment. The Null Pulses he had been enduring, and had worked to undo, left him working with most of his life hidden and in flux most of the time.
Jade thought about her year four final test, with the two Doctor Time’s. One that said he was retiring, and the other that called himself Professor Time. iOi had marked that as a Time branch to leave unconnected as it didn’t know where it would lead.
Jade checked the events immediately following that class and saw a meeting with Zapp. He didn’t like where things were going either, since it meant the end of using Null Pulses to reset everything. Nathan could counter them so that more random things could be remembered from previous iterations. People might second guess their decisions, even the right ones, if the immediate consequences were bad.
Still, Doctor Time must have had some reason for developing the counter technology, if not simply for spite - having Nulls used against him so often.
She thought about the version of her that had taken robotics. She briefly switched awareness and oriented herself with the relevant theories and limitations. She switched back and gave that version of her a new tangent of things to work on.
The trouble with most of the workstations and programs was that they were based almost entirely on Zapp’s work. That meant certain hard coded limitations about what could happen and how things could be organized. She didn’t want to push the limits as far as Doctor Time, but clearly an upgrade was needed. She noticed that her other self was done and the work was ready to integrate into the University. Jade put the safeties up to high for everyone, except for herself and Nathan. She left hers at low and Nathan to none. The computer asked how many chapters of ‘Time’ characters she wanted to interact with.
Jade smiled. “Already beta testing?”
The chronometer sorted out who would most likely answer and put Professor Time on the coms.
“So you still trust me?” Jade wasn’t sure what he meant, but likely he could tell he was in a ‘Timeout’
“It’s an experiment Professor. Prove to me you can keep things running smoothly when the safeties are down.”
“You mind if I use my 7D interface?” asked this version of Nathan.
Jade pulled up the specifics of the project. She wasn’t sure if the Narration Fields were a good idea or not, but she worked for a compromise. “Think you could program a computer version that people could opt into?”
/Whir-Whir-Click/ Jade hears the robot over the intercom, which is strange, usually they are filtered out “iOi says you’ve already given me the Vanilla loops to do something like that.” Jade doesn’t remember, but even low safeties make a bit of mental haze. She does it again anyway.
Jade thinks the professor is bluffing and the robot merely said she could do that and then he’d have the memories. Although, for someone who’s been Null’d as many times as Nathan, he might have his mind wired to remember likely future events as being past.
Jade turned to her display and read the start of a 7d direction.
| Recent advances had given Jade a number of other tools to use though. For one, she could now effectively graft in time, rather than simply have people in loops till they made a helpful decision. With the robots and chronometer’s scanning and analysis refined by feedback from the combined Seismic and Time Police HQ, it now plot things into more meaningful iterations. That meant that a lot of Comms could now be automated.
Important conversations, those that influenced large chunks of Vanilla Time use, or caused unusual Temporal Phenomenon were still flagged and left for people to check. The results of which could still be calculated in advance, as Pilot Pulses and Pending Time Integration produced a fuzzy yet detectable future.
As larger decisions branched, Jade could plot out the resolutions of available choices. While previous University protocol was to trim things with Null Pulses, it seemed more constructive to simply mark major decision trees. If conditions became such that an old decision needed revisiting, it was already in cue for Temporal Triggering.
She set about reorganizing her management structure, wondering what the upper limit of it could be.
She had comms track down Professor Time. She teased out a section of Vanilla Time where he could work on special projects, including robot upgrades. |
It wasn’t quite compelling, but it did seem to distill her thoughts into clear order. It was enough to get her used to the new interface for her job with a pile of backdated memories.
Jade realized she could improve the memories by sending a Pilot Pulse in the opposite direction.
In it, her Time Echo had conversations with the version of herself that was designing the new interface. If she focused on those versions of her, she could see the conversation from either perspective. That meant there was still a ‘before’ the upgrade and ‘after’ despite the technology back propagating through time.
It simply remained dormant till the events triggering it’s construction were satisfied. Again, not quite true, but workable for reference points.
Jade looked back at the screen, noticing her name in the instructions. “How long have you known I was Dean Professor?”
“Fourth year Fractal Integration? It was inevitable.” said the professor plainly. “You know the procedure is named after the class for a reason right?”
Jade had definitely made the connection. “I remember. I kept the year 3 fake end memories. It was incentive to split myself.”
“There’s versions of myself that don’t know what’s become of you.” warned the professor.
Jade laughed “I know. I’ve been reading the stories. I’m just an island of sanity that appears from time to time.”
Jades iterations all knew the same basic things, but Nathan’s splits were from different life choices. While Jade could switch for more granular knowledge of a subject, Nathan was limited to regulated comms traffic and hints from alternate selves.
It was another one of those things that shattered the illusion that everyone saw things the same way. She thought about the differences between Zapp and Nathan. “I think I might have to turn off your robot from time to time, give you a fresh page to work on”
Comms routed the last message to Doctor Time, one in the middle of writing a new story for himself.
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