The Devil Delivered and Other Tales by Steven Erikson Page B

pending
    Grant Applications:
    Category: Fieldwork
    Project: Rural Waysides: Subjects Who Are Nonparticipants in Social Programming: Case Studies
    Accepted: affirmative
    Project: Hole Peripheral Occupation: Case Studies of Occupants Living on the Periphery of the Midwest Hole
    Accepted: conditional
    Project: Lakota Adaptations to the Midwest Hole
    Accepted: negative*
    * Applicant succeeded in acquiring permission from the Lakota Nation with signatory: Horn, D., Exec Band Council
    Project: Unknown (private grant)*
    * Wheel Foundation
    Potts, William, is listed as a Subversive Class 01 (potential). The following observation reports are compiled from academic observation reports (aor), field operatives, E-surveillance.
    AOR (course instructors & required Report Review Committee):
    (a) Subject displays an exceptional level of inquisitiveness.
    (b) Subject takes perverse pleasure in challenging accepted applications of Social Theory.
    (c) Subject is advanced in communications theory applications.
    (d) Subject’s father is a known dissident for which Subject displays incorrected pride.
    (e) Subject displays advanced (unapproved) knowledge of Numbers Theory and Chaos Theory. (Chaos Theory is Suppressed Information, See Freedom File 210X210.) Assume Parental Education, contravening NOAC Parenting Parameters, Criminal Code 16-21IIa-f.
    (f) Subject employed No-Trace variants on Net, using a Remote Fieldbook.
    (g) Subject continually disrupted classes with adversarial interrogatives.
    (h) Subject identified two assigned field operatives via Valentine cards with boxed chocolates (chocolates analyzed and cleared).
    (i) Subject displayed advanced knowledge of technological engineering Systems Theory & application.
    (j) Subject revealed knowledge of pre-revised archaeology and anthropological dynamics.
    (k) Subject revealed knowledge of Indigenous Peoples’ History, Mythology & Belief Systems prior to Applied Anthropological Restructuring of Said Peoples.
    (l) Subject successfully breached this file with insufficient trail to advance criminal proceedings.
    Present Net Entries: Unavailable.
    JOHN JOHN: Delete File, Potts, William.
    NOACOM: This file is docked at Securicom. There are no other copies of this file, as per Securicom Subversive Investigations Parameters. Do you still wish to Delete?
    JOHN JOHN: Yes.
    NOACOM: File Deleted.
    JOHN JOHN: Delete File, Potts, Berman. Potts, Lucinda n. Bolen.
    NOACOM: No such file exists.
    JOHN JOHN: Sniff back.
    NOACOM: File, Potts, Berman, File, Potts, Lucinda née Bolen were accidentally destroyed in Data Transfer, A.C . 13. Investigation Ongoing: sabotage suspected.
    JOHN JOHN: Delete Ongoing Investigation Data File, Data Transfer A.C . 13, Potts, Berman & Lucinda.
    NOACOM: File Deleted.
    JOHN JOHN: Delete all Subversive all Classes Files.
    NOACOM: Working. All files deleted, Subversive all Classes Files. 16174.96 QTB now available in Securicom System.
    JOHN JOHN: Delete all E-surveillance Files.
    NOACOM: Working …
    Net
    STONECASTER: A modest query, then. How is it that he’s getting clearer? Hours tick into days out under that deadly sun. The boy’s cooked, his skin peeling, half-blind.
    CORBIE TWA: Into and out of, Stony. Clarity’s the word all right. Crystal clear. He’s pushed through. He’s been cleansed, hell, reborn to the hour.
    STONECASTER: Still kind of suspicious to my thinking.
    BOGQUEEN: Your thinking’s still too linear, Stonecaster. He’s on a seasonal round, moving a cyclical route. When I read him, I feel him orbiting out there, coming round and round, coming closer with each pass of the great wheel. The closer he gets to what he’s been circling, the clearer things become. For him, for us.
    PACEMAKER: This last hint of NOAC data on population projections and biological dynamics has me curious, to say the least. I wonder if such data exist, and if the trend projections lead to certain inevitable conclusions.
    CORBIE TWA: Carefully crafted belief systems acquire a power