C:Trouble On't Threads

Trouble on't Threads!

Lord Tony of the Imperium, Prime Lord of the Instrumentality, burst
into the control room, his purple cloak flying behind him, his gold
breastplate gleaming in the bright lights.

"Emily!" He exclaimed "You called me! What's wrong?"

Lady Emily, Controller of the Threads, was sitting at a large console,
staring deep into a misty, glowing screen, where motes of colour danced
and wove. Her practised hands were flying over the console, pressing
buttons, adjusting small levers and calling instructions to some of the
Lords who were already deployed.

Emily was dressed in a regulation tight silver low-cut top and skimpy
shorts, with thigh-length silver boots. She wore the controller's cap,
a silver helmet, with a fin-like projection running down the crown. Her
dark hair peeped from the helmet and framed her perfect face, which was
currently wearing a worried frown.

Tony pressed closely to better view the situation playing itself out on
the big crystal. He liked pressing closely to better view the situation
playing itself out on the big crystal when Emily was on duty, but would
never admit that to himself as the abc Imperium 'wasn't that kind of
place'.

"Oooh Tony" Emily protested, "I think your dirk is popping out!"

Tony looked down. She was right! Embarrassed, Tony hastily shoved his
silver dirk back into the leg sheath in his Imperium high boots.
'Improperly dressed' he thought.

"A thousand apologies, Lady Emily, I crave your forgiveness". This was
standard apology level 1, and perfectly adequate between work
colleagues.

"Granted" Emily gave forgiveness smile level 1. "But look Tony!"

In one corner of the screen, a red cloud was pulsating. Around it was a
nimbus of orange and yellows. For now, the rest of the screen was slow
blue.

"How's the quincunx?"

Emily switched views, showing the five elements of the thread
foundations. Each glowed steady blue. Tony sighed with relief

"That's reassuring" he murmured. "The fail-safes are holding stability
for now"

He may have spoken too soon. One of the elements gave a slight flicker,
and began to alternate to yellow.

"Emily!" Tony barked. Emily switched back to the detail view. An angry
red buzz filled half the screen. Somewhere an alarm signal began to
sound repeatedly.

The Lady Emily turned her lovely face to Tony. "This is serious Tony! I
haven't seen it like this since that?????"

Tony nodded "don't remind me!"

"Now, what status do we have?"

"The Seven Lords are supposed to be on standby, but I can't contact all
of them. I've drafted in some of the more experienced Minor
Lords!"

"Good!" Tony knew he could rely on the Lady Emily. "Avatars?"

"Not yet, Tony, you know how they can turn negative if someone spots
them"

"Hmm, I'll leave it to your judgement. Duties?"

"I've got the Ladies Fish and Liana on insertion of calm rationality"
Tony nodded 'good choice!' he thought.

"And Lord Stormy on blunt but fatherly advice"

"Excellent! And the rest?"

"General mopping up, you know, the 'now, now, let's not?.' stuff"

"Ok , Emily, looks like you've got it covered"

"For now, Tony. For now" Emily gave a worried but confident quirky
smile.

'She's a brave girl' Tony thought.

The door burst open, and The Lord Andrew burst in, silver breastplate
gleaming. Tearing off his cherry- pouch, he flung it down on top of
Emily's. "I was out in the database cherrying when I heard the rumbles
- how can I help?"

Emily did not hesitate. "project Wise!- no-nonsense!" She
commanded.

"Right, I'm going threadside!" Lord Andrew headed for the portal.

"Good man!" Tony called, and Andrew gave a 'firm but loyal' smile over
his shoulder as he slipped into the force field and disappeared.

********************

"Holding quiet for the moment!" Emily reported brightly.

'What a girl' Tony thought.

He remembered the day he'd recruited her. Little did she think she'd
become part of the Instrumentality when she'd applied for a seemingly
innocent job as a website editor:-

"Good morning" The dark-haired girl exclaimed brightly. She was
smartly-dressed and cheerful.

"Please take a seat" Tony's avatar asked, and nodded to the avatars of
two Minor Lords who had accompanied him on this manifestation probe.
The girl, Emily, had proved to be ideal for the job advertised, and
behind the spoken words, the two Minor Lords probed her spirit and
innermost soul to check her out.

"Well, I think I'm satisfied!" Tony exclaimed as he got the mental
thumbs up from the two Lords. 'She'll do!' - the cheerful message
flashed in his third eye.

At the appropriate time, and after careful scrutiny by the ruling
echelons and Major families, Emily had been granted entry to the
Instrumentality and was now Vice-Major Lord, Controller of the Threads.
In due course she could well graduate to the Ruling echelons - this was
a fast-growing Imperium!

Tony looked forward to that, as the Major Lady's regulation dress was a
very skimpy little gold number.

*****************

The mortal manifestation of the Imperium took several guises. A
literary website, the John Lewis department stores, and more recently a
manifestational spur as 'Starbucks'. The Imperium itself hung in its
own 'alter-existence', growing and thriving with the mortal support and
mental energies flowing. There were other imperiums. The Lords could
sense them. It seemed there could be no direct contact, as each had its
own alter-existence and it was impossible to bridge through a mortal
world into another imperium. In this mortal world, they had identified
the Argos chain of stores as a manifestation of a fairly simple,
harmless, imperium. Of more concern was the 'four by four' imperium,
which had managed to create a super-avatar known as 'Clarkson'.

He had sensed some attacks on their website from a rival 'bca' a
website supposedly for dyslexic writers. They were in a tussle to get
the rights for a fantastically well-written and equally well-edited
novel called 'The Sole of Riana' about a magical fish.

******************

Emily was on her break. Things were holding steady.

"Here, you deserve this!" Tony put down a mug of warm ambrosia.

"What have you got?" Tony had a large glass of cloudy pale yellow
liquid.

"I don't know the name. It's new. One of the mortals dropped in a crate
for us to try. It's interesting - kind of 'furry' taste is the best way
I can describe it - but it keeps you on the ball!"

"You didn't want manna?" He added.

"No, Tony, I'm watching my figure!"

'Phwooarrr!' Tony thought to himself 'so is everybody else!'. Catching
himself, he dropped his hand to his dirk to check it wasn't protruding
again, and mentally castigated himself as a penance. 'abc is not like
that!' he repeated in his head. Temptation sure was a difficult thing
to avoid!

"What's causing this, Emily?"

Emily considered. "Well, Lord, there's been a flood of new mortals just
recently"

"In itself, that shouldn't be a problem" Tony mused "we've always
managed in the past to assimilate them"

"Don't forget we were younger then - we now have a considerable body of
older members who don't like the new kids running around the cosy
corners they've set up. They have put their knitting and an odd
pullover on their favourite chairs in the lounge, and the new kids just
move them and sit down!"

"But the chairs are free to all!" Tony protested. Then he reconsidered.
"But I suppose if they just nip off to get a cup of tea and come back,
it could be annoying "he admitted.

"They are noisy!" Emily added "they do sometimes go on and on, getting
on my nerves sometimes"

"Oh! So they are annoying everyone"

"No, there are groups of them having a great time, it's just that some
of the older members won't join in and then they start to grumble - I
think we brought it on ourselves to some extent"

"We tell them it's an open forum, and encourage them to 'jump in'. Some
of them do and the oldies don't like it"

"So that's where the trouble's coming from?"

"Well, most are very tolerant and helpful to the newer ones and that's
the way this will finally get fixed, but it will be a continuing
problem. Even some of the sensible ones can't help getting annoyed
under the surface - they don't always recognise it, but it's just human
nature. Perhaps we could structure something to control
assimilation"

"Control!" Tony flinched "I don't like that Emily - not at all!"

"Well, advise and guide" Emily corrected herself, "but in a formal way.
We owe it to both the new people and the oldies alike"

"But why this flare-up" Tony shook his head.

"There are just a few emotional and excitable oldies, some with past
sensitivity? "

A shrill alarm rang out, and the coffee-shop rumbled on its platform,
shaking slightly.

Tony and Emily gazed at each other in horror. "The quincunx!" She
gasped.

***************

The deputy controller was distraught, the screen glowed red and the
quincunx stability monitor was flashing orange. Emily raced in, giving
the ritual handover greeting, and took control.

"Damage report" barked Tony

"One sector totally blown! Major confrontation, personal abuse,
emotional accusations! - spreading waves of discontent amongst normally
stable members. Migration from other threads is unbalancing this
element, and this will get worse as word spreads. We need to move fast!
If this spreads to the other elements, we could loose the
quincunx!"

"That serious?" Tony was grim.

"Almost back to square one"

"What can we do?"

"The avatars"

Tony gulped "Go on"

"Formal order?" Emily prompted.

Tony nodded, flipping his Instrumentality link, speaking the command
words into the database.

A beep on Emily's link confirmed the order. Emily's hands danced over
the keys. Tony could only admire her skill as she sent avatars
scurrying about, calming, diverting people away to other threads,
starting interesting new threads and maintaining them, keeping the
audience captured.

As the seconds ticked, the red faded slightly, turning to orange. Then,
another flare up!

"Another attack!"

For ten crucial minutes, Tony sweated as the foundation of his Imperial
segment hung in the balance.

Then "It's OK!" Red flickered to orange, then to yellow "they've backed
off!"

"Thank Gods!" Tony breathed "Start tidying up, and back those avatars
out of there before people cotton on.

Emily's fingers flew.

"She's tired out" Tony thought after a couple of hours. He flicked his
link on and called Andrew. "Are you free to get up here and spell the
Lady Emily?"

In no time, Lord Andrew was managing the console. His style was
different from Emily's, slower, deeper. He was underpinning and
rebuilding as he went. 'What a team I've got' thought Tony.

The alarm hooted!

Tony wearily dragged himself to the console. Andrew was
struggling.

"It's a new attack - a new contender - personal abuse, emotion!" it's
too much. The screen was flaring red again.

Emily ran in "stay in there Andrew!" she commanded as he began to rise
with the approved greeting. "I'll take the spare console".

In no time, Emily was working with Andrew, patching, holding, calming.
But the screen glowed red.

" We can't hold this!" Andrew yelled. Tony put a hand on his shoulder
to calm him.

"This is terrible!" Emily too was beginning to panic.

"Somebody switch off that damn alarm" Tony shouted.

The alarm stopped. Tony looked back to the screen as both Andrew and
Emily gasped.

The screens were slow blue, calm, tranquil, motes buzzing lazily
about.

"What is it?" Tony breathed.

"The one who was foretold!" Emily exclaimed.

"But that's a ?.."

"It's real enough" confirmed Andrew. "A brand-new mortal just walked in
and breathed calm and common sense. Everything stopped"

"Other threads are still uneasy!" warned Emily as faint yellows popped
up. "Nothing serious, though" she sighed in relief as she moved a few
of the remaining avatars as a diversion.

The three Lords stared at the calm blue screen. "We can learn from
these mortals" Tony proclaimed.

****************

"Fancy an Ambrosia, Emily?" Tony asked.

"Don't mind if I do!" Emily smiled.

"No, you first!" Tony invited. She walked ahead of him in her tight
silver shorts.

Tony grinned as he followed her.

'Phwoooaaarrrrr!'