Quoted By:
>Hatching II
The important thing to do, you think, is to not get overambitious. Overambitious is what got you here. Start small.
Name. You are Charlotte Fawkins. As long as you ever live you will be Charlotte Fawkins— Charlotte <span class="mu-i">Frances</span> Fawkins, to be precise. Three names to the BrainWyrm's zero. It's hardly anything, but it's yours.
>[+1 ID: 2/14]
History. You don't know who gave you your middle name. It may have been your mother, and you never knew. Or it may have been your father, and you simply forgot. You have forgotten vast swathes of your life. Still, the BrainWyrm has nothing. It may have memories inside it, but it does not remember, and they are not its. It may have a past- at some point some Managers built it— but no history. You may not remember all, or most, but you remember some. Hiding inside the walls with a book and a lamp from the world, or your mother's states, or your Aunt Ruby's admonishments and lessons, or your father's... you don't know if you ever hid from your father. You only remember when you fell and he patched your knee up. There were people who loved you. The BrainWyrm can hardly say that.
>[+2 ID: 4/14]
Purpose. You suppose the BrainWyrm has purposes, in a sense: it runs Headspace, plus it's meant to end the world, or something like that. (You'll figure out the details later.) Does it have <span class="mu-i">purpose,</span> though? No. It enacts the Laws Management designates. It ends the world because Management wills it. It has overtaken you, not because it wants to, but because it must. Because Management has marked you out too. Meanwhile, you are brimming with purpose. When you escape, when Headspace is ashes (you are becoming increasingly confident that it's a 'when'), you will find the Crown, and you will find the vile thief Jean Ramsey, and you will chop her vile head clean off. And you will wear the Crown and save the world and be Queen and go home. Maybe you can bring Gil home. And first, or later, you will attend Game Night, and you will win so hard Madrigal will regret ever having re-invited you. (But she can't un-re-invite you, because you're such a good detectivess.)
>[+3 ID: 7/14]
You are definitely feeling better. Less constricted. Still confined, but your confines have grown enough to fit you. Like you could stand and touch the ceiling, or lay down and touch the walls. Suck it, BrainWyrm! Yes. You are feeling better.
Enough better, though? Enough to break out and wrestle a stupid imaginary machine snake into submission? Remember, you can't be overconfident. Overconfident implies you don't have enough teeth behind your talk. Sit down on the smooth marble floor and count those teeth, Lottie.
(1/3)
