The Maze of Madison: Chapter Twelve - With Potential

Chapter One: So it Begins
Chapter Two: Into the Dark
Chapter Three: Confounded by a Lock of Stone
Chapter Four: The Ponderous Path Home
Chapter Five: Fleeing the Immolation
Chapter Six: Weathering the Firestorm
Chapter Seven: An Aftermath of Exhaustion and Cinders
Chapter Eight: The Bitter Cold Night That Lasted a Month
Chapter Nine: Deals with the Dav-Vel
Chapter Ten: The Dav-vel's Due
Chapter Eleven: Without a Solution

Chapter Twelve: With Potential

Running into Tristan was both a bane and a boon. Tristan was a unique person. For most things, Tristan is very, very slow. Painfully. If you want to talk to him, you'd best be ready to spend the next hour on a normally five minute discussion. His responses are painfully slow. He just talks slow. He reacts slow. He is generally slow. Unless you tink to him.

The implant to link to a booster is placed in the skull soon after a baby is born in America. There are a few people who are opposed and their kids don't get an implant until if and when they want it as an adult. Getting an implant then pretty much crippled you: as flexible as the brain is, to not have it when your brain is still forming prevents a person from being able to treat the rest of the world as an extension of self. Young brains are just more adaptable. There has been talk of doing the implants in vitro, but that almost never gets traction.

Most people's parents followed the law about the use and introduction of the booster. Doctors were allowed to activate the implant at age eight. There was strong evidence children who get the implant turned on too early don't develop normally. Their sense of self isn't established enough. The norms for communication and action and the identity have not been firmly established. Eight was the earliest someone could have theirs turned on, but only after being evaluated by the shrink bots - ahem, child psychologist software bots - and your doctor. Some kids had their turn ons delayed until as late as twelve. There were rumors some kids were never allowed to have them turned on due to the fear of what they could do when they did. Those were only rumors.

Tristan's family broke the law. Tristan had his implant turned on at age three. He didn't quite develop like the rest of us. Talking, normal interactions, etc were all delayed and never quite took. He was simply different. Talking, reacting, interacting, all were slow. Hence, his nickname. His parents had argued the law was holding back humanity from evolving to the next step and they had want their son, Tristan, to be that next step. Yes, they were from San Jose, California and they were Singularitarians. Needless to say, they lost their son. He was placed with a family that loved and adored and helped him with his needs. That family elected to move to Madison: they had plenty of money.

So, Tristan, for normal actions was a Tortoise. However! If you opened a link and tinked at him via your booster, you better hold on. Tristan went from Tortoise to Tornado in 2.4 nanoseconds. No one could have kept up with Tristan. Well, perhaps some of the AI, but he rode the information like a surfer does a wave if they were a gymnast and a ninja rolled into one. When someone opened themselves up to Tristan like that, it was like drowning. Even if you filtered. And then Tristan got frustrated and most of the time, he'd just leave. A mirror reflection how how people treated him, except the shoe was on the other foot.

I had always tried to treat Tristan with respect and patience. I did not open myself up to him more than a few times, but when I had, he seemed to be patient with me, because he had seen I had been tried to interact with him on his level his way with respect. He liked and respected that. He did get impatient with me at times.

Tobias didn't care for Tristan. Tobias didn't have the patience to interact with Tristan in the real world nor did he have the ability to absorb the information Tristan flooded over the boosters. It wasn't that Tobias was bad person, just that patience was probably his greatest flaw. Given he was a teenage male, a lack of patience was hardly uncommon flaw. And one that many actually grew out of. I had a feeling one day, Tobias would eventually be far, far better in that regard. But someday was not that day. Nor would it be the next. Nor would it be any time remotely before the end of our little quest.

I stood there waiting for Tristan to acknowledge me. He preferred to speak first and that way, if he wanted to talk, then he would talk. That way he didn't have to take the time to sort out a proper response to something that was trivial and then do smalltalk, which was painfully slow for him and his conversationalist. In a way, I hoped he would have just moved on and my waving hi would be end as he did so.

Yet, some part of me felt that Tristan would be of great use to help with the puzzle we had. He thought differently. He thought even faster. He could communicate with machines even faster. He might have figured out what the puzzle meant without coming back. He could probably figure it out without needing an analytical engine.

However, it would have irritated Tobias to no end if Tristan joined us.

In one sense, I hoped Tristan would walk on.

In another, I hoped he would say hello and I would recruit him.

I had made sure not to block his path so he wouldn't feel pressured or boxed in.

He looked at me. He smiled.

"Hello, Taylor."