The Flood of Shifting Tides
In which our protagonist learns that the next wave is bigger than the last, the through-line gets a workout, and a princess has a sharper tongue than the developer was prepared for.
The flood came on a Tuesday, and the flood was the kind of flood that does not come from rain, and the flood was the kind of flood that the system had been predicting, and the system had, in the driest possible language, been predicting the flood since Sunday, and the developer had been, in a small way, hoping the system was wrong, and the system was, in a small way, not wrong, and the system was, in a small way, a colleague, and the colleague does not let the developer hope for very long.
The water was rising in the northern kingdoms. The ocean was moving inland. The rivers were reversing. The lakes were overflowing. The water was, in the language of Kenji's theory, the next side effect of Malachar's search, and the next side effect was bigger than the last one, and the next side effect was the side effect that the system had been warning about for a week, and the warning had, in a small way, become the kind of warning that the developer was, in a small way, learning to read.
[Wave 4: flood, active]
[Source: ocean, inland motion]
[Affected kingdoms: 4, converging on central]
[Threat level: continental]
[Compiler note: this is the bug the developer predicted. The system approves. The system is, in a small way, ready. The system is, in a small way, hoping the developer is ready too.]
Princess Calla's father, King Haldor, sent a message over the crystal network that was the diplomatic equivalent of a scream: "The water is rising. We are losing coastline. We need help. We need it now."
The Council of Kings convened by crystal network, the seven kings in their seven palaces, the seven palaces in seven kingdoms, the seven kingdoms watching seven different floods, and the seven floods were, in the driest possible language, the seven floods that the system had predicted, and the system was, in a small way, hoping that the seven floods were, in fact, the same flood seen from seven different angles, because the system was, in a small way, the kind of system that prefers one bug to seven.
"We need to coordinate," Kenji said, over the crystal network, and his voice was being broadcast to seven palaces at once, translated in real time by a spell that Master Yuen had invented, and the spell was, in the driest possible language, the kind of spell that the system was, in a small way, logging as a critical piece of infrastructure, because the spell was the only thing that was, in a small way, keeping the seven kings from arguing in seven different languages. "The flood is not a single event. It is a wave, like the earthquakes were a wave, like the storms were a wave. Each wave is bigger than the last. We need to design a response that is bigger than the wave."
"What kind of response?" the queen of the west asked.
"A continental water regulation system. A system of dams, channels, and reservoirs, all coordinated through the crystal network, all designed to absorb the excess water and release it slowly. The system will not stop the flood. The system will manage the flood. It will turn a catastrophe into a controlled event."
"That is ambitious," King Haldor said.
"That is the job. The job is continental-scale water management. The job is also debugging a god. We are doing both. We are debugging a god with infrastructure, and the infrastructure is, in a small way, going to cost more than anything the developer has ever built, and the developer is, in a small way, learning to be the kind of developer who builds things that cost more than anything he has ever built."
It was, in the language of his old job, a load balancer for a continental flood. It was also, in the language of magic, the most ambitious spell Kenji had ever designed. It would require hundreds of mages, thousands of workers, and months of construction. The flood was happening now. The system was not built. They were going to be working against the clock, and the clock was a rising tide, and the tide was, in a small way, the kind of clock that does not let the developer finish the design before the design is needed.
"We do not have months," Princess Calla said, her voice sharp over the crystal network, and the sharpness was, in the driest possible language, the sharpness of a person who had decided, in the smallest possible words, that the developer was not going to be allowed to take months. "We have days. The water is at our second city wall. By the end of the week, it will be at our first. We cannot wait for dams to be built."
"We do not build dams in days. We do something else. We redirect the water. We use the same spell I used in Oakhaven, the redirect spell, but at continental scale. We do not stop the water. We change its mind."
[Spell: continental_redirect]
[Inputs: ocean water, vector away_from_coasts, force high]
[Outputs: water redirection, mana drain, climate effect]
[Cost: very high]
[Stability: medium]
[Compiler note: this is the same spell as the forest redirect, scaled. The system approves. The system is, in a small way, hoping the spell works at the new scale. The system is, in a small way, the kind of system that hopes.]
The room was quiet. The room was, in the driest possible language, the kind of room that the system was, in a small way, monitoring for noise levels, and the noise level had just dropped, and the drop was the drop of seven kings who had just been told, by a developer, that the developer was going to redirect a continental flood with a spell that the developer had invented in a forest, and the spell was, in a small way, going to be the spell that the system was, in a small way, going to be remembered for.
"You want to redirect a continental flood," King Haldor said.
"Yes."
"Using a spell you invented to redirect a wave in a forest."
"It is the same principle. The scale is different. The principle is the same. Any sufficiently well-defined problem is solvable. This is a sufficiently well-defined problem. We define the inputs. The Compiler generates the redirect. We deploy."
"That is insane."
"Probably. But it is also our best option."
The kings talked. The queens talked. The Council of Kings argued, and the water rose, and the clock ticked, and the debugging had to happen now, and the developer was, in a small way, the developer who had learned, in his old life, that the worst decisions are the ones that get made in the middle of the night by people who are tired, and the second worst decisions are the ones that do not get made at all.
In the end, they agreed. They did not have a better option. They had a Strange Sage, a crystal network, and a continental redirect spell. It was not much. It was, in the driest possible language, the kind of "not much" that the system was, in a small way, hoping was going to be enough.
The work began. The mages gathered. The crystals linked. The spell was defined, refined, optimized, tested, broken, fixed, tested again, and finally deployed. It took three days. The water rose the whole time, and the rising was, in a small way, the kind of rising that the system was, in a small way, logging in real time, and the logs were the logs of a system that was, in fact, going to be in the deployment notes for a long time.
On the morning of the fourth day, Kenji stood on the highest point of the central kingdom's palace, with Elara at his side and Pip on his shoulder, and the dragonfly's light was the kind of light that the system was, in a small way, hoping was going to be enough, and he cast the spell.
"Function create(name='continental_redirect', inputs={target=ocean_water, vector=away_from_coasts, force=high}, outputs={water_redirection, mana_drain, climate_effect}, cost=very_high, stability=medium)."
[Deploy: continental_redirect]
[Mages: 240]
[Crystals: 7, all kingdoms linked]
[Mana cost: 78% of available pool, joint]
[Compiler note: this is the biggest function the developer has ever called. The system approves. The system is, in a small way, a colleague. The system is, in a small way, hoping the colleague does not fail.]
The spell shimmered into existence. It was the biggest spell Kenji had ever cast, and it was the biggest spell anyone in the world had ever cast, and the bigness was, in the driest possible language, the kind of bigness that the system was, in a small way, going to be proud of the developer for, and the pride was the kind of pride that the system had, in fact, been saving for a moment like this.
The water went. It did not stop rising. It did not reverse. But it slowed, and it shifted, and it began to move away from the coasts, back into the ocean, back into the channels, back into the reservoirs that were being built in the south, and the going was, in the driest possible language, the kind of going that the system was, in a small way, logging as the first continental-scale debugging success.
The flood did not stop. The flood was managed. The continent did not drown.
Kenji collapsed. He was out of mana. He was out of energy. He was out of everything. Pip landed on his shoulder, pulsing, weakly, the pulse feeling like: "You did it. The system did it. The continent did it. The next wave is going to be bigger, but this wave is, in a small way, handled."
Kenji sent back: "We did it."
Elara caught him as he fell. She held him. She was still hurt, still infected, but she was strong enough to hold him, and she did, and the water moved, and the system was, in a small way, logging the holding as a system event, and the event was, in a small way, the kind of event that the system was, in a small way, going to be proud of the developer for, and the pride was, in the driest possible language, the kind of pride that the developer was, in a small way, learning to deserve.