Here's another tale for the future Third Law canon. This one features cyborgs, Maxwellism, Anderson Robotics, Three Portlands, and a coffee shop which is not Starbucks.
Thanks go out to the following people for critique and assistance in drafting this tale:
- Conwell, for a lot of critique, helping me nail down some of the finer details of Portland (the one in Oregon) and Anderson Robotics, and encouraging me to do more crosslinks for the crosslink god.
- Jekeled, for extensive critique and brainstorming assistance on the ending.
- minmin, for critiquing this thing at 6 AM and helping come up with ideas for the ending.
- TyGently, for some in-depth critique during the early stages of this tale's writing which really made a difference on the eventual quality. Thanks doge.
- A Random Day, for giving critique throughout the drafting process.
- EmberTech, for giving feedback on an incomplete draft of this.
- kola, for reading through an incomplete draft of this.
- ParaDLell, for feedback on a slightly less incomplete draft of this.
- TwistedGears, who didn't actually read or critique a draft of this, but who nevertheless helped with several snarky comments based on other peoples' critiques.
- Rimple, who was, I believe, the first person to look at a complete draft of this. You're right, ancient monospace font did sound awkward.
- EldritchCadence, the last person to look at a complete draft of this before posting.
This tale has a sort-of theme song, "Vital Signs" by Rush, which I listened to a lot while writing this.
Now, time to write a police procedural in Three Portlands.