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SILVER: Tales from the Fringes of Reality. Episode 34 – Plan of Attack.

ALEXANDRIA: Alright, everyone. Thank you for gathering here, I know we have a lot to discuss so we should get right to the heart of the matter. After the incident that occurred last night with the removal of Winston from his home on the moon, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Minvera is growing more powerful than we ever could have anticipated. There has been much discussion over what to do about Minerva since the moment Silver was taken, but it is clear that we need to make a decision. In order to do that, we need to clearly lay out and weigh the options. Who would like to start?

MARIGOLD: She needs to die.

GUILLERMO: Mari–

LUNA: I second that. She took my husband. She nearly killed my child. She held your child hostage for almost three years before we were even able to get close to finding them, Memo. Surely you can understand that she needs to be destroyed?

GUILLERMO: …It’s not that I don’t understand, L, but Silver–

OPAL: Is not the only factor at play here. I’m sorry, Silver, but that is the truth.

SILVER: I know, Opal. I know. Everyone should be able to state their thoughts regardless of what my input would be. I’m open to any and all solutions at this point, but I think it needs to be thought through completely and not just based on the rush of emotions caused by what she did. She’s still a person.

ALASDAIR: While I appreciate her humanization on some level, I’m not sure it’s truly a fair way to frame things anymore, Silver. Minerva isn’t a person; she’s an AI. How we treat these things is and should be different.

SPARROW: Which raises the first real argument against killing her: I’m not certain she can die.

ALEXANDRIA: What do you mean, darling?

SPARROW: Alasdair is right, Minerva isn’t a person. She’s not an animal or a plant or any kind of living being either. She is pure magic in the way that most of us here are– if we can’t die, why would she be able to?

OPAL: Just because she can’t die by traditional means doesn’t mean she cannot die at all.

MARIGOLD: And the thought that she can’t die by traditional means is just a thought to begin with. She may be able to. There’s only one way to find out and that’s by killing her.

XANDER: Does she even have a physical form that can be killed?

OPAL: She didn’t, not really. There were a few diamond screens that housed her, capable of floating around the space, but that isn’t really a body. We’ve been operating under the assumption that she doesn’t have a physical form, but given how powerful she’s gotten, maybe she does.

ALEXANDRIA: Barring killing a physical form, is there any way to shut her down?

ALASDAIR: Opal and I had originally built her with… I don’t want to call it a kill code, but it essentially is. There are a few runes and spells that, when placed on at least one of her screens, should be able to shut her down entirely. 

OPAL: ‘Should’ being the operative word here. This would’ve worked before, there’s no way to know if it will still work now.

SPARROW: If she did develop a physical form, it’s possible that using those same runes and spells on a form of weaponry could be enough to kill her. 

XANDER: If she can die at all.

ALASDAIR: Well, maybe ‘die’ isn’t the proper word. As ren pointed out, she isn’t a living creature, but she is magic. Magic that can be contained, if not destroyed. 

SILVER: She could put herself back together in the plane of magic, just like my mom and CL and Leanne and Xander–

OPAL: I think Alasdair truly means to destroy the magic. Not just send it back to the plane but to have it contained and then dealt with.

SILVER: Can magic truly be destroyed?

ALEXANDRIA: In theory, yes. It’s not… None of us have ever attempted anything of the sort before. But it could be possible, given the right application of casting; it’s not a definite, though. I worry there are too many places that that could go wrong.

MARIGOLD: Can we revisit the runes and spellcraft Alasdair mentioned before? Do you think that would work as containment?

ALASDAIR: How do you mean?

MARIGOLD: If she has a physical form, she likely can’t touch that. If we had enough items or markers around her with these things implemented–

OPAL: Then maybe we could trap her in one place for long enough to actually finish her off. It could work. I think it could actually work quite well.

LUNA: Is it possible to lure her somewhere that we can actually set up a trap like this? Because I doubt we can just ambush her and trap her in a net when we don’t even know what type of form we’re dealing with.

WINSTON: We could try and guide her to the moon. Set up something she wants there, spring our trap on her.

GUILLERMO: The only thing she wants is Silver. I’m not putting my child in the line of danger for something that may not even work– what if he just gets taken again? 

ALEXANDRIA: We wouldn’t risk Silver’s life, Memo. Unless we were certain the plan would work, we would never put Silver out in the open like that.

SILVER: …It could be a good way to gather information, though. Set me out, see what Minerva does.

SPARROW: But what if you got taken, kiddo? We spent so long trying to get you back, getting you taken again isn’t up for negotiation. 

MARIGOLD: Yeah, Sil. Unless we know something is going to work, there’s no reason to risk your life. 

SILVER: I just think–

OPAL: Silver, I know you think it could help. And you may be right about that, but it isn’t worth the risks involved.

ALASDAIR: If she were going on a killing spree, maybe this would be a different conversation, but she’s not. People are being… inconvenienced, perhaps, at a higher rate than typical, but no one is getting hurt. If we put you out there now? You could get hurt, Silver, and none of us would be able to live with that.

WINSTON: Your family is right, Silver. Lulu and I wouldn’t have suggested trying to bait Minerva if we knew you were the only option.

ALEXANDRIA: This does bring up a good point, though. We need a way to find Minerva, wherever she is, so that we can actually do something about her.

OPAL: She’s not in the plane of magic and she can’t be hiding in reality.

GUILLERMO: There would’ve been a massive shift in the magic levels of a reality if she even crossed the threshold into it.

LUNA: What would stop her from coming here?

GUILLERMO: You mean coming to the Fringes? (pause) Well, we would know, for starters. If her plan is to hide out, it wouldn’t be very smart to hide in the place that we are most attune to and where we have the most leverage over her.

XANDER: Unless she came looking for a fight.

SPARROW: Which would be very unwise of her.

MARIGOLD: So was kidnapping Silver in the first place. It doesn’t appear that Opal and Al programmed her for her wisdom– no offense.

ALASDAIR: I don’t think it’s necessarily a lack of wisdom as much as it is a more emotional system than either of us intended. We thought she would care for and be friends with Silver, not that she would grow to have this level of…

OPAL: Devotion bordering on obsession, I think is the best way to phrase it. She got too attached. I think she loves Silver, as much as an AI can love anything. They were her best friend, her family, and she felt threatened by the rest of us.

WINSTON: Moreso by Whim than by anyone else I think.

ALEXANDRIA: She didn’t take Silver until after Whim’s arrival, but she had been planning it. Unless she knew…

MARIGOLD: She couldn’t have.

SILVER: She could scan for heartlines though. I had her do that before– it was one of the ways I originally tried to get Whim home. Unless her scans were pulling up fake data, she was able to locate them.

MARIGOLD: Your heartline appeared the moment you were born, though. And had been there well after Alasdair and Opal had created Minerva so why would she wait so long?

LUNA: Well, Memo always told me that Minerva was built to mimic the growth and learning of Silver, right? It’s possible she just… didn’t have the idea before then.

OPAL: That does seem very likely given what we know about her and how she was programmed. It’s also possible that she waited so long to start this plan as Silver didn’t start reality jumping until a few years before she was taken.

GUILLERMO: He was always on the Fringes before then. Minerva didn’t have any competition or reason to fear they would leave.

ALEXANDRIA: Either option could be correct, but I’m not fully sure it matters given the issue at hand. Even if we understood her motives better, it doesn’t help us find her.

SPARROW: She’s likely existing in the in between, same as when she originally took Silver. But the space is so vast that we’re unlikely to find her–

ALASDAIR: Unless we’re able to get her to come to us.

XANDER: Which brings me back to my original question: how do we know she isn’t going to come here?

WINSTON: What she’s looking for is here. If Silver is all that she’s trying to get, then maybe she’s just been… storing up power to make her attempt on this place.

ALEXANDRIA: It would be impossible for her to get to us without us knowing. This place is a physical extension of all of us, all of our magic. My family is the Fringes as much as they are themselves; unless she knew she would succeed in getting Silver, something we would never let happen again, she would have no reason to attack here. At a minimum, it would be seven versus one. As it stands now, there are eleven of us here, she would have to have an incredible level of power to win that fight.

SILVER: What do you think, Whim? (tapping) ‘Me?’ Yes, you. We’ve all been talking ourselves in circles about what to do and how to find her and if anything is even possible anymore. You’re the only one who hasn’t gotten a chance to voice their opinion. What do you think?

(tapping) ‘If we can figure out a way to make the runes and spellcrafting work, then we can get her to come to us.’

LUNA: Whim is right. We know there’s a surefire way to get her to us, we need to focus on what can be done once we do.

WINSTON: Would all of us casting help amplify the effects in any way?

OPAL: It’s… possible. Unfortunately, we’ve never had to test the spellwork to see if that would have an effect. If we had tested it before now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation to begin with.

ALASDAIR: I think it could be distilled into a physical form if needed, though. Turning spellwork into weaponry is something I have seen time and time again in reality. If we turn the spells into a sword, perhaps, we could carve the runes into the blade and have that perform double the work for us.

OPAL: And since this would also work by coming into contact with one of her screens, this would work if she is in a new physical form or if she is still existing as she was created.

SPARROW: Are you certain?

ALASDAIR: Are any of us?

ALEXANDRIA: It’s a good place to start, at least. How quickly do you think you could make something like that?

ALASDAIR: On my own? Maybe a day and a half. With Opal’s help–

OPAL: Which you will have.

ALASDAIR: A few hours, maybe. Even less if Memo and Mari can pitch in some extra casting.

LUNA: Winston and I can help as well. 

XANDER: I’ve never been much of a caster, but I can provide moral support.

ALEXANDRIA: Alright then. We have our plan of attack, let’s–

(large boom, followed by crashing sounds)

SPARROW: What was that?

ALEXANDRIA: (thoroughly shaken) Do you feel that? Do you all feel that? 

ALASDAIR: It’s like the magic of this place is being shaken to its very core. Mum…

ALEXANDRIA: You’re right. We need to act. Now.

GUILLERMO: Silver, take Whim and go hide. Go!

MARIGOLD: Luna–

LUNA: We’re staying with you all. They’ll be safe with Silver.

WINSTON: Go find cover, kiddo. We’ll be alright.

SILVER: Dad–

GUILLERMO: Kiddo, you need to go–

SILVER: Dad– What, Whim! Let me go, I need to–

(crashing sound)

MINERVA: (haunting music echoes through the space)