Chapter 24 p23 – Back on the table
Sep14
Cohen: I wouldn’t trust me to alter Cybele’s code. But these kids?
It doesn’t mean you can’t trust these kids.
Sparrow (thinking): Whoa. We’re actually doing this.
[SCHLORPP]
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Been nice knowing you Cybele.
Well, Cybele’s not panicking, so she should actually be fine. Remember, when Cohen changed Patricks code, he was panicking and getting upset because almost more important than following orders is protecting his code from being changed, it seems. But Cybele’s just sitting there calmly. I think it’s unlikely to be dangerous.
I REEAALLLLYY DON’T WANNA LOOK!! (I’ll see y’all in a couple weeks. Go ahead and call me chicken. B-cawk!)
Look at Miranda’s smile! That’s probably partly a “yay experiment time is on” smile, but I think it’s also her reacting to Cohen’s speech. She looks so sincerely confident and happy, not surprised or smug or calculating. I think this speaks to the drastically improved father/daughter bond between Cohen and Miranda… she’s happy to hear he believes in her, but she already knew.
And of course Cohen’s speech from the previous two pages summarizes how he feels about Miranda… Cohen believes that it’s her turn to make the decisions, and that she will do better than he did.
I’m pretty nervous about all this, but… well, to “metagame” a bit, a dramatic failure here would thematically function as a serious rebuttal to Cohen’s speech, and that doesn’t seem to be the kind of story you want to tell. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be a smashing success, though! Fingers crossed that Cybele will be okay!
TBH I’m predicting a bit of an anticlimax – it’s not super fun, but it’s good experimental practice to start with extremely simple modifications. Like if you’re debugging a computer program that you don’t understand, the first changes you make won’t be changes to how the code functions; it’ll be adding code to help with diagnostics, like “when you reach this point in the algorithm, tell me the value of this variable”. I think Miranda’s smart enough to start with something like that.
Oh look, it’s the symbol again that I couldn’t find out what it is for more than 20 years. This comic has been the first time I’ve seen this anywhere else than on the pendant I have. So please, dear author of the story, if you know what this thing is(or anyone else who knows what it is reads this) please tell me!
Try looking up “mystical figure of Solomon”!