Marsh

marsh/content/016.tex

@@ -28,19 +28,19 @@ Günay, looking baffled, asked, ``Why's that terrifying?''
 
 She shook her head.
 
-``So there's this person who's effectively dead, right? You can bring them back to life, presumably stuck in a default sim, and they're going to immediately go crazy because they're suddenly all alone thinking it's fifteen minutes before their plan was to go down but it's not,'' he continued, ticking points off on his fingers. ``CPV doesn't work, they can't quit, their plan was only 1\% successful --- if you even decide to tell them that! --- and it actually made Lagrange loads safer with fixes and new features. Oh, and don't forget, literally trillions of people hate them now.''
+``So there's this person who's effectively dead, right? You can bring them back to life, presumably stuck in a default sim, and they're going to immediately go crazy because they're suddenly all alone thinking it's fifteen minutes before their plan was to go down but it's not,'' he continued, ticking points off on his fingers. ``CPV doesn't work, they can't quit, their plan was only 1\% successful—if you even decide to tell them that!—and it actually made Lagrange loads safer with fixes and new features. Oh, and don't forget, literally trillions of people hate them now.''
 
 Günay looked helplessly over to Jakub, who nodded. ``That's an ongoing conversation to be had sys-side,'' he said, sounding as though he was choosing his words very carefully. ``We can bring the DMZ back up whenever you would like, and you will retain full control over transit to and from the DMZ--''
 
 ``Can you prevent 8-stanza-1 from entering the rest of Lagrange?'' Debarre asked. ``I'm with Harvey in that it's kinda terrifying, but I also don't exactly want them over here, either.''
 
-Jakub bowed. ``That's already been implemented, though if you want to lift it in the future, you will need to consult with phys-side. That's how it was designed on the LVs, after all. For this reason and for our sake, I'd like to ask that you keep us --- phys-side and the System Consortium --- up to date with whatever decisions you make regarding the DMZ and 8-stanza-1.''
+Jakub bowed. ``That's already been implemented, though if you want to lift it in the future, you will need to consult with phys-side. That's how it was designed on the LVs, after all. For this reason and for our sake, I'd like to ask that you keep us—phys-side and the System Consortium—up to date with whatever decisions you make regarding the DMZ and 8-stanza-1.''
 
 Debarre shrugged. Harvey scoffed. Jonas Ko grinned, leaning back in his seat, saying, ``Sure thing, Jakub.''
 
 After a moment's uncomfortable pause, Need An Answer asked, ``What can you tell us about the CPV device?''
 
-Günay, who had been slouching further and further down in her seat as the discussion had drifted away from the technical, sat up straight once more. ``It was one of those things that was really clever and all the worse for it,'' she said. ``They uploaded a few months before the attack and went out to big public sims and met a bunch of people. When they set the bomb off, it hit them first, but before it did, it used their access to the perisystem clade listing to look up everyone they'd interacted with to go infect them and their cocladists after looking up everyone \emph{they} knew about, and so on. This would have gotten more than 99\% of the System, especially once it hit the new upload assistants, who have probably met more people than anyone else, including those who never talked to anyone else since. Once the number of uninfected cladists fell below a threshold --- I think one billion? --- the clade listing allowed access to a full listing of everyone sys-side, and the virus just mopped up from there.''
+Günay, who had been slouching further and further down in her seat as the discussion had drifted away from the technical, sat up straight once more. ``It was one of those things that was really clever and all the worse for it,'' she said. ``They uploaded a few months before the attack and went out to big public sims and met a bunch of people. When they set the bomb off, it hit them first, but before it did, it used their access to the perisystem clade listing to look up everyone they'd interacted with to go infect them and their cocladists after looking up everyone \emph{they} knew about, and so on. This would have gotten more than 99\% of the System, especially once it hit the new upload assistants, who have probably met more people than anyone else, including those who never talked to anyone else since. Once the number of uninfected cladists fell below a threshold—I think one billion?—the clade listing allowed access to a full listing of everyone sys-side, and the virus just mopped up from there.''
 
 ``What was that threshold even for?'' Selena asked. ``I thought it was part of the privacy policy that no one be able to just look up everyone on the System.''
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ Jakub shook his head. ``We don't think so. They were the only one from Our Brigh
 
 ``We are working on it,'' I Cannot Stop Myself From Speaking, who had until this point in the meeting been silent, replied. The bobcat's expression remained impassive, but it was hard to miss just how sharp her fangs were with the anger evident in her voice. I was happy to see that she at least looked away from Debarre as she said this; the anger seemed instead to be directed at no one in particular, or perhaps the world as a whole. A world that would permit such people to exist. It was an anger that veered well into vindictiveness.
 
-Need An Answer, perhaps sensing the tension this inspired, moved smoothly down her list. ``The next point that we would like to discuss is the sentiment that has crept into the System based on the news of an attack. I must admit that we found it frustrating to hear just how much phys-side knew in comparison to what we had been told. Günay said,''There is some suspicion of malicious actors, yeah. I say `suspicion' in earnestness, I promise.'' Mr.~Strzepek stated that certain data were to be withheld from both sys-side and phys-side.'' A smile, condescending, curled the corner of her mouth. ``And here we learn that news of the attack was released some weeks ago, phys-side.''
+Need An Answer, perhaps sensing the tension this inspired, moved smoothly down her list. ``The next point that we would like to discuss is the sentiment that has crept into the System based on the news of an attack. I must admit that we found it frustrating to hear just how much phys-side knew in comparison to what we had been told. Günay said, ``There is some suspicion of malicious actors, yeah. I say `suspicion' in earnestness, I promise.'' Mr.~Strzepek stated that certain data were to be withheld from both sys-side and phys-side.'' A smile, condescending, curled the corner of her mouth. ``And here we learn that news of the attack was released some weeks ago, phys-side.''
 
 Günay wilted in her chair, looking down at her desk, wherever she sat.
 
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ Jakub stiffened. ``Which is precisely why we tried to control the release of inf
 
 ``Is not here. You are,'' she retorted. ``Someone is getting their head bitten off, may as well be you, yes?''
 
-I frowned, they were goading Jakub, pushing him repeatedly into anger. I couldn't figure out why. I could understand \emph{their} anger --- I was feeling much the same --- but attacking the phys-side admin, some random middle-manager, felt like a strange and petty move.
+I frowned, they were goading Jakub, pushing him repeatedly into anger. I couldn't figure out why. I could understand \emph{their} anger—I was feeling much the same—but attacking the phys-side admin, some random middle-manager, felt like a strange and petty move.
 
 I sent Dry Grass a quick ping to ask, and she replied, \emph{``It is my guess that they are pushing blame onto him because they want him gone. They want the Consortium to replace him with someone they have more control over. That, and they wish for Günay to feel better.''}
 
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ A hint of a smile touched her face. \emph{``Do you not, my dear?''}
 
 ``There are joint commemorations already in the works,'' Abd al-Latif, one of the representatives, was saying. ``Serene; Sustained And Sustaining has volunteered an unfinished sim that was under construction by one of her lost instances as a memorial, and has been talking with a docent phys-side about a permanent AVEC channel open with one of their memorials.''
 
-``That would be lovely,'' Dry Grass said. ``The loss affects both worlds, does it not? Every loss up here represents someone who once lived phys-side, who left behind family and friends. Will there be a posting of these commemorations? I know of many --- myself among them --- who would attend as many of them as possible.''
+``That would be lovely,'' Dry Grass said. ``The loss affects both worlds, does it not? Every loss up here represents someone who once lived phys-side, who left behind family and friends. Will there be a posting of these commemorations? I know of many—myself among them—who would attend as many of them as possible.''
 
 Abd al-Latif bowed from where they were seated. ``There will be, yes. We'll work with you and Sedge to get that posted and pinned.''
 
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ Abd al-Latif bowed from where they were seated. ``There will be, yes. We'll work
 
 ``Of course,'' Need An Answer said. ``And on that note, all messages from the LVs have been ungated, but, in order to prevent individuals from being flooded with all of them at once, they are being maintained on a request basis, and instructions will be posted to the feeds for how to access them\ldots now.''
 
-I sat up straighter --- as did several around the table --- and checked the feeds. Pinned at the top of several of the larger feeds were instructions for accessing messages. It was close enough to accessing an exo that I was able to access mine almost immediately.
+I sat up straighter—as did several around the table—and checked the feeds. Pinned at the top of several of the larger feeds were instructions for accessing messages. It was close enough to accessing an exo that I was able to access mine almost immediately.
 
 Two from Reed and Hanne on Castor, three from Reed on Pollux, several from friends. Plus eight from Marsh\#Castor and five from Marsh\#Pollux.
 
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ Still grinning, she nodded. ``It started as part of the information we gained fr
 
 ``Thank you, my dear. Can you give us a better precis of the current state of this library?''
 
-``Oh, um,'' Günay started, frowning. ``I guess. Systechs on both LVs have come up with their own procedures and manuals and stuff, and they sent us all of those, plus a bunch of suggestions for things to try as we worked, so it's got all of that information in it. We also had a few teams going through the Artemis library searching for instances of crashes in all of the civilizations they've encountered --- the four races on board and the two who didn't join. There was a bunch in there that we just grabbed wholesale and started sorting through.''
+``Oh, um,'' Günay started, frowning. ``I guess. Systechs on both LVs have come up with their own procedures and manuals and stuff, and they sent us all of those, plus a bunch of suggestions for things to try as we worked, so it's got all of that information in it. We also had a few teams going through the Artemis library searching for instances of crashes in all of the civilizations they've encountered—the four races on board and the two who didn't join. There was a bunch in there that we just grabbed wholesale and started sorting through.''
 
 ``And what of us?'' Dry Grass asked.
 
@@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ Answers Will Not Help leaned over and socked him solidly in the shoulder.
 
 ``Later, children,'' Jonas Ko's new instance said, reaching out to take Fa's hand in his own.
 
-After a moment's look of concentration on both of their faces, the new Jonas Fa quit. Jonas Ko --- now tagged Jonas Ko/Fa, though whether by him or the System wasn't clear to me --- immediately stumbled to the side, clutching at his head. We all looked on, startled.
+After a moment's look of concentration on both of their faces, the new Jonas Fa quit. Jonas Ko—now tagged Jonas Ko/Fa, though whether by him or the System wasn't clear to me—immediately stumbled to the side, clutching at his head. We all looked on, startled.
 
 ``Jesus Christ,'' he mumbled, kneading at his temples. ``Felt like a normal merge, but\ldots weird. So fucking weird.''