Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

"Did you know that Ada Lovelace had to beg the Royal Society to glimpse at their library."

She says this to me as I stare at the portrait of Ada hanging high on her workshop wall, underneath a painted banner with the inscription. "I hope to bequeath to the generations a calculus of the nervous system". Of all the quotes to pick, that one seems pretty obscure.

"The Weavers did not then have the power that we now enjoy. If she'd only been born later, we could have furnished her with the greatest libraries in the world. And who knows what she would have done. So many women like her, never even had the chance to explore their potential."

And I stand, not knowing what to say. Of course, I've studied Ada, every aspiring coder does. But I'm here because I'm about to feel the hammer hanging above my head begin to fall. And she's making small talk.

Or is it small talk? Everything she does seems so deliberate. Webs within webs of meaning.

"I loved your mother because of her mind, and when we worked together, I can't explain, my work without her will never reach the same heights. Sit down Ursula, drink some tea."

And I'm taking in the room, covered with drawings, notebooks, sketches and models, moving subroutines, half-finished constructs of code and illusion, this is a glimpse, the tip of the iceberg, into what Sadie the Weaver Queen does all day, exploring ideas beyond my comprehension.

Or are they?

Some of the sketches look familiar, like things I once drew myself. And I see images from books that both my parents were obsessed with. Even dad the poet. Who hated math. Still hates math. I have to remember that he's not dead, just possessed, tied up in his addictions and despair.

So, you will be called before the council of the Secret School and they will challenge you to defend your place here Ursula. And I nod, make some mousy little noise.

The brain is more a grass than a tree. Another note scrawled across an open notebook.

"So, what can I do? Is it true that Marketta used me to break into the gap? Like how could she do that?"

"It's not simple to say. It's easy to make a parallel system, it's not easy to program one."

"What do you mean?"

"The Rhizome is a parallel processing system, a Rhizome in effect. It is vulnerable to feedback loops that lead it into states of excess, new inputs can wipe out existing networks of memory, the Rhizome is unstable, which is deliberate, but this is both its greatest weakness and greatest strength."

"So, you just don't know."

"We do not understand it."

She takes a long sip of tea, and stares into the middle distance, feeling for the words.

"We created something we did not understand, something that we wanted to outgrow us. You know that the Weavers and the Sirens are not really enemies. Growth left unchecked is death, the Sirens rip holes in the fabric that we weave to let the light shine through, and we weave them shut again, this is how the mutations that grow back into the fabric of life, become change."

She smiles at me, and I realise I'm pouting, my anger and impatience showing. But I'm curious too, and my fascination is winning...

"Systems resist change."

I think of the Weavers and their rules, their patterns. I can see what she's saying.

"Without the sirens we would become tyrants, we would wrap people up in patterns so severely restricting we would end by choking the life out of all we sought to protect."

And I cannot do anything but sit with that image for a while, drifting away from my local perspective to a global one, seeing myself as a part of a woven pattern, ripped apart by a flash of chaos, slowly trying to weave itself back together.

"So, in that case, what happened to mom was all part of the plan."

"Plan?" she says. "What will be my ultimate line time only can show. Another Ada quote for you."

"I thought Weavers were all about following patterns."

"Not exactly, Weavers are about emerging patterns, emergence is different to planning, the difference is subtle, many Weavers do not notice it so much, they look at me the same way you do, but the more talented among us know, that nobody follows the same pattern the same way twice."

I can't take any more of this theorising. I want my mother.

"So, my mom, when are you going to tell me where she is?"

"Where is not really the right question."

If I thought I could hit her now, I really might.

"You need to learn this, there is chaos in you, your own version of the Rhizome is massively more powerful than the average, it will therefore kill you much quicker, and it is already overloading you with feedback. The spells you worked when you fought the Witch Finder, they cost you dearly. Have you been glitching much?"

"All day every. It never seems to go away now, except when I'm here with you."

I notice that the touching and the babble in my subconscious have stopped, for the first time in weeks.

"Yes, I think Marketta found some way to track your patterns, to use you as a conduit, a doorway into the Gap. But in all honesty, she would have found a way in sooner or later. She is partly responsible for creating it."

And I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but they must have been a coven. Marketta, Sadie, Mom. Another bomb drops. Sadie's eyes glaze over, she's receiving messages. Her tone changes, businesslike. Talking fast.

"And now I must be brief, because I can sense that I am needed elsewhere."

"Oh gods please don't let this moment end with nothing gained again." I interrupt, groaning.

"Nothing gained? Try this, and you will survive the council meeting tomorrow. Swear to me and all of the witches in the underground that you will stop looking for your mother in any way except those sanctioned directly by myself.

This is the only way you will keep your place here.

Submit to surveillance around the clock to prove this and we may be able to argue your position. But be aware that it will cost me a great degree of influence here.

The Queen of Sighs wants to be the headteacher, and she very nearly has the backing to make her play for this dubious throne. Your coven will certainly be expelled if the Sirens take control of the school."

I freeze, I think.

If I say no, it's over, but if I say yes, I betray mom, I betray the twins, I can't even think how I'll look them in the eye when the time comes. Too late. Have to decide now.

"Alright, yes. I promise I will stop looking for mom."

"Good, this way the real work can begin. If you can learn to control your true power Ursula, you can free all the witches in London from their cells. I promise you that. But you have to look inside yourself, because there is no manual, nothing we have seen can necessarily prepare us for what your hardware is capable of."

She almost turns to leave, but as an afterthought she grabs me by the shoulders and leans in close to my ear.

"Beware, there are things out there in the gap more dangerous than Marketta, powerful shivers so immense that they can swallow your personality up and digest it, leaving you an appendage of them."

"And is that what happened to mom?" I ask.

She takes my hands in hers, suddenly motherly.

"I've been too distant when you needed me. I've let you go astray, but I'm here now. We'll talk more. But you must survive the counsel tomorrow."

###THIS NOVEL IS IN OPEN BETA###

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