Page 83 of Thorne
Thorne is at the other end of the table. He has a file open that he hasn't looked at in twenty minutes.
This morning, he put two blank sheets of paper in front of me. Not asking: the directive was already given. Just the paper and the space to use it.
I took them.
"The distribution logic." Forest doesn't look up from the schematics. "It doesn't run on hierarchy."
"No."
"Each layer authenticates against the ones adjacent to it. Laterally. You can't attack the top and cascade down because there is no top." He tilts his head. "If you try to map it from the outside, the map gets absorbed."
I look up from the page for the first time since he sat down.
He's looking at the Jörmungandr on his forearm. Tracing the outline with one thumb. Working something out.
"You used your own cognition as the seed." Forest traces the outline of the Jörmungandr on his arm. "The pattern of the logic is yours. Someone else could have the source code and still not replicate it because they don't think the way you think."
"It's a recursive grammar." I focus on the loops I've drawn, my fingers steady on the stylus.
He nods. The nod of someone who arrived at the same place from the same direction.
Lily comes through the doorway with Theodore under one arm, reading the room with the authority of someone who expects it to be interesting.
She takes in Forest.
Forest takes up a massive portion of the room.
She walks toward him with her excitement visibly, if not very well, managed.
"You're bigger than Ghost," she announces.
"I've been told that."
"Ghost is the biggest." She stops two feet away and tilts her head all the way back. "But you're bigger. How are you bigger than Ghost?"
"Good question."
She pokes his forearm with one careful finger, the tattooed one, and looks up at him.
"You look like the Vikings in my book. They were very large and had boats and wore horns on their helmets, except actually they didn't, but my book has the horns, and I think the horns are better even if they're wrong."
"I'm not a Viking."
"You should have a hammer. Thor has a hammer."
"I left it in the truck."
Lily's eyes go enormous. She spins around. "Daddy. He has a hammer."
"Eat something before you recruit any gods, Lily-bug." Thorne holds something back with visible effort.
Lily ignores this and drops directly onto the floor beside Forest's boots, cross-legged, Theodore in her lap.
"Tell me about the snake." She points at the Jörmungandr. "Is it real or made-up?"
Forest looks down at her. The operational stillness rearranges into something older. He drops to one knee, bringing himself closer to her level, which still requires Lily to look up considerably.
"Real in the stories." Forest looks down at my daughter. "Made-up everywhere else."
