MF1.0 - 36 - Requirements

It dawned on Stef that there was something different about Jones’ lab this time. The screens were the same, all the desks were in the same place. The colour of the paint hadn’t spontaneously changed to hot pink. Yet…there was something different. It may have been the three-foot tall crystal on this desk. May have been. She felt her physical emoticon set itself to “capital O, underscore, capital O” and stay that way, no matter what she tried. ‘Do I…actually have to ask the obvious?’ she said as she stared at it, unwilling to approach it until she knew what it was. ‘Sit please,’ Jones said, gesturing to a chair that hadn’t been there a moment before. ‘You didn’t answer the question I didn’t ask.’ Jones still didn’t answer her, and instead began to type. The crystal began to hum and glow like a cheap special effect. A beam of warm light shot out and lit up her forehead. An image of her appeared on Jones’ screen. ‘A super-advanced web-cam,’ she said dryly. ‘Not quite,’ Jones replied. The beam got hot, then clicked off. ‘That’s it?’ Jones nodded. ‘I have to say, the lack of theatrics of strangely refreshing.’ She wiggled her fingers. ‘So how exactly does it work?’ It was Ryan who answered. ‘Simply think “require”, then the object you need.’ Her mind went blank. She’d been given the powers of a genie, and she had no idea what to wish for. A pony. A car. A zeppelin with machine gun turrets. A cookie. Require… Yeah, like this actually going to work. I’ve seen him do it. You’re going… You’re going to shut up. Require: cookie. A chocolate chip cookie appeared in her hand. She stared at it in confusion. The fact that she’d pulled it from thin air was fine, the fact that it was chocolate chip was not. How did… ‘…it know to be chocolate chip?’ She sniffed it experimentally. ‘I just thought about a cookie, I didn’t…’ ‘Is it what you imagined?’ Ryan asked. ‘Yes. Exactly. Oh…’ He gave her a nod. ‘It’s like…ok, I can deal with that. It’s the command of non-specific request dealing with a brain macro. Ok, I can deal.’ She looked up at Jones. ‘What are the limitations?’ ‘You cannot require someone dead, nor the inverse. You cannot heal using it. You cannot require a person into being, that limitation does not extend to other animals. You cannot manipulate a person beyond placing clothing on them. If you misuse it, it will be taken away.’ ‘So I shouldn’t run through the city and make all of the emos wear pink and fluffy bunnies.’ ‘As well as a misuse, that would be a security breach, and subject to punishment.’ ‘I haven’t used the internet in almost twelve hours, I am being punished.’ Ryan’s expression was unreadable, and it made her squirm. ‘Sorry sir, not complaining sir.’ His expression remained unreadable. ‘Would you like to meet the other recruits.’ She stared at the cookie, then looked up. ‘No.’