move from work dir

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/001-a.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+Carter rubbed her face into her hands, ground her palms against her eyes until she saw stars, slicked her hair back in a vain attempt to wrangle fly-away hair. It had been in such a neat bun this morning.
+
+She wasn't the last one left in the lab, but it had reached that point of the night where collaboration had stopped and everyone was butting their head against their own individual problems, toiling in silence. She folded her rig's screen down, socketing her tablet in next to it to charge.
+
+It had also clearly reached the point of the night where she wouldn't be getting anything else done.
+
+She felt out of her league. Everyone did, or said they did, here on her team, but that didn't stop the fact from wearing on her. It's not that there wasn't any support from on high. There was. It's not that there wasn't anyone else trying. There definitely was.
+
+It's that no one seemed to take the lost all that seriously. It was like addiction, or plane crashes, or suicide. Something to look at, to study long enough to say ``Ah, \emph{this} is happening now,'' and then set aside. Conversation-piece science.
+
+People admitted that the phenomenon was there, but only inasmuch as it didn't affect that many people. A simple number to point to. See how small?
+
+It was as though the minds of the lost were just\ldots{}elsewhere. Just dreaming. Implants showing them connected while no such connection existed.
+
+There was no sense to it, though. No rhyme or reason to why such a thing would happen to the patient. Some of her team were pulling together all of the facts about the population that they could, from demographics to physical stature, searching for clues in the rig and the 'net itself, sim histories to go with personal ones. The neuroscientists were digging into what was going on within the brain, and what few scans they had from before someone had gotten lost. Their two pet lawyers — just law students on internship, both also versed in stats — were digging into the legal status of the lost as well as writing queries to procure patient medical histories.
+
+And Carter was supposed to tie it together.
+
+Or, that was her stated goal. The university medical center had only grudgingly provided space and funding for the project. An attempt to win some much-needed kudos, she suspected. Still, she was beginning to doubt just how much the UCL wanted her to succeed.
+
+There had been an initial dataset dumped on her team, and a slow trickle as new cases came in, but it all felt so carefully curated. As manager, she had been met with hurdle after hurdle as soon as she started to venture beyond that. Colleagues assured her that all projects worked this way, but it was as though the advisory board had given her all the data that it was willing to give, and any more might\ldots{}what? Put those kudos at risk?
+
+Carter stood, stretched her back, winced. ``Sorry, Sanders. I'm shattered. Catch you in the morning?''
+
+``Mm,'' he replied. The interruption seemed to remind him of his physicality. He rubbed at his eyes and stretched his arms out, alternating between clenching his long fingers into fists and flexing them out wide. ``Sounds good, Ramirez. Catch you then.''
+
+Carter gathered up her coat and her messenger bag, taking one last look around the lab, counting heads to see who would be staying later than her. Not too many. Sanders, one or two of his neuroscientists. Prakash and the new guy.
+
+She swiped her way out of the wing and signed out at the front desk before making her way out into the night, bundling up in her coat.
+
+At home, she scavenged a few pieces of salami stacked onto a couple of crackers, enough to keep her empty stomach from complaining through the night, and crumpled onto the couch in the shared living room. She left the lights off so that she wouldn't bother her flatmates.
+
+Or so she told herself. In truth, the darkness felt good. She could keep her eyes open and not be greeted with a tablet, a screen, a sim.
+
+She sat long after finishing her snack, listening to her flatmates sleep, the sounds of the road outside, her own breathing. Sat, thinking in the dark of all the administrivia on tomorrow's docket.
+
+Eventually, finding herself at as much of a dead end as she had at work, Carter ambled off to her room, changed from her work clothes into a comfortable pair of lounge pants and a night shirt, and crawled into bed.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/001-b.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+The morning's alarm startled Carter awake.
+
+Disorientation — when had she fallen asleep? There seemed to be no line delineating squirming under the covers and the buzz of her phone and faint tingle along her implants.
+
+And here she had thought that the end of grad school had meant the end of six-hour nights of sleep.
+
+Blearily, she pawed at her phone to swipe the alarm off. It was tempting to go back to sleep — \emph{after all,} she mused, \emph{the lost weren't going anywhere} — but she managed to at least kick her feet out from under the covers and sit up. Frizzed hair hung down around her face, shielding her from the world for just a little bit longer.
+
+It was her phone, as always, that brought her back to reality. It's mere presence, even silent, was enough to draw her forth.
+
+\begin{quote}
+Ramirez
+
+New case, this time with scans from before the incident. Another furry, you don't think that's got to do with it, do you :p
+
+S
+\end{quote}
+
+The brief, ungrammatical message from Sanders left her nonplussed until she pieced together that he was talking about one of the other subjects' histories, something about them being part of some subculture. Sanders didn't honestly believe that people who pretended to be animals on the 'net were somehow more predisposed to get lost than everyone else. And, to be honest, neither did she.
+
+All the same, the thought stuck with her through her morning routine. Through the shower, the blank dissociation of standing in the kitchen. Through two cups of coffee, the first there in the kitchen and the second out of a travel mug on the tube as she headed out towards the UCL campus.
+
+\emph{Another furry, you don't think that's got to do with it}.
+
+She felt sluggish. Craved another cup of coffee even after she'd reached the bottom of the mug she had with her. Sluggish and slow, like thinking through mud. Too many late nights. Too many long days with too little to show for them.
+
+The thought nagged at her, caught like some spinning shape against the threads of her mind in a way that the rattle and screech of the train couldn't displace. It tugged those threads free. Unraveled stitch by stitch, until it reached\ldots{}what?
+
+Until it reached the hem, and then the same thing over again.
+
+``Holy\ldots{}holy shit. Holy shit,'' Carter said, startling the elderly lady next to her. She murmured an apology and fished her phone out, thumbing in a quick message to the team.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/002.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,135 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+``Listen, Ramirez, I'm just not sure if you--''
+
+``No, come on. Sanders, just hear me out.'' Carter sighed and settled her weight against the edge of her desk. Took a slow breath to buy herself some time, organize her thoughts. ``I'm just saying that we ought to look into social connections between the patients, too. That way, maybe we can see if there's some factor that's tying these occurrences together. With that under our belt, we may be able to formulate a better theory of what's going on here, even neurologically.''
+
+Sanders looked up to the ceiling, visibly counting to ten, then shrugged. ``It's just that you're talking about contagion here, Carter, like this is some sort of flu or computer virus. Not only do we have very little data to go on, but there's no indication that this is something passed from one person to another. We've had the rigs checked. Exos too. All of the data suggests random--''
+
+``Sanders,'' Carter said, voice stern. ``I know how the project works. I know the data. There's a lot of questions still left in the air. I'm not suggesting that getting lost is contagious. We dismissed the virus aspect ages ago. I'm merely suggesting that we might find shared factors within a social realm as well as the physiological. Surprised we haven't, actually.''
+
+Carter stood her ground. No sense paling under his glare. She was lead of the research team, she could tell Sanders to do whatever she wanted him to. Or, well, strongly suggest. Hell, there was no reason for her not to. She was plugged into all of the teams that he was not privy to. He may be lead of neurochem, but Carter was above basically everyone except the UCL itself and whatever grantors were sponsoring the project.
+
+After a few tense seconds, he caved, shrugged, turned his back on Carter. He nodded towards his own team.
+
+``Look, Sanders,'' Carter said, following after. ``You're a fantastic doctor, and I respect that, I really do. I'm not trying to impugn that or anything, and I'm not pulling labor away from the neurochem team. I'm merely suggesting that we add a sociological aspect to our attack here.''
+
+He held up his hands in surrender, then headed for the coffee station.
+
+Carter rolled her eyes and let him go. She turned back to the remaining team. ``We've got a hunch on the social front. Or, I do, but I think it's worth following. There's a couple of patients who are involved in the same subcultures, so maybe there's distinct ties between them. Loose ties, sure, not everyone knows everyone else, but they \emph{are} there.''
+
+They nodded. Some looked unconvinced, but none hostile.
+
+``Let's time-box half a day to chase down these ties and see just where they lead. If they lead nowhere, fine. If we can find a way to tie them together, then we dig into all the ways that the web ramifies.'' She smiled in a way she hoped was disarming. ``Worst case, half a day is spent tracing along the 'net, but best case, we find another avenue of research that lets us predict — and then maybe interrupt — future cases. Got it? Catch you at lunch.''
+
+Carter sighed. Speeches. Hell of a start to the day. She collapsed into her desk chair, closing her eyes to collect her thoughts.
+
+Rather than sequester herself in an office, she had taken a desk among the team. Four foot cube walls separating her from her neighbors. Made of glass, too; token walls rather than real ones. Not that there was much room for an office in the repurposed classroom. All the same, the deliberate attitude with which she had chosen to join everyone in equal conditions had endeared her to the more stubborn among the crew.
+
+On the other hand, the lawyers-\emph{cum}-statisticians were badly out of their element. Thankfully they had their implants and were able to spend most of their time in the office sim.
+
+All the same, sometimes she wished for an office, if only for the door. A nice, thick, hardwood door. One with a solid core so that she could voice her ideas. Or scream.
+
+Sometimes she just needed the ability to put things into words. No matter how often she tried to set things down in the notes on her phone, she always felt hampered by the small screen and her clumsy thumbs. Neither had she gone full immersive-on-the-go yet. Something about that glassy-eyed stare, the silly headband, the controllers gripped like walking weights, packed full of electronics, set her teeth on edge.
+
+At least she had a private corner in sim.
+
+She delved in rather than work on a tablet or screen. \emph{One scream,} she promised herself. \emph{Then I'll organize shit.}
+
+Once she left her private corner, Carter's chosen workspace, her `desk', was totally black. Not the complete blackness of unseeing, but the vaguely luminescent darkness of \emph{Eigengrau}, as if wherever she looked, she saw the faint light of non-seeing. It was black enough to be easy on the eyes almost by definition. At least, as much as she had eyes in the sim.
+
+Black without being unnerving.
+
+Scattered throughout the space were decks. Decks upon decks.
+
+Each was a point of light. A white rectangle with just enough depth to give the impression of being several cards stacked on top of each other but no more. Each was surrounded by a dim halo that dispelled the darkness. If she were to engage with a deck, it would fill her vision almost to the periphery with that fine velum paper. Almost, but not quite: the non-black provided a border and seemed to shine, in its own non-light way, through the paper. From there, she would be able to explore and expand that portion of the project at will.
+
+The decks themselves were organized into groups, surrounded by bright lines of white string — literally string; Carter had chosen cotton string as her group delimiter. Decks within groups were linked by string, and many of these groups in turn were related to one another with more intangible threads.
+
+She was a ghost. A non-being. A being of nots. A gesture from her non-hand would show the whole setup from the top. The mind, ever attracted to a two dimensional representation, sometimes appreciated this aspect. The mind, ever attracted to the \emph{hereness} of space appreciated walking through the sim just as much.
+
+Even with perspective in play, the scientists and lawyers working the project had tended to alternate between the aerial view and the interactive view, with the cards positioned at chest level throughout the sim.
+
+Everyone's view of the sim was different in its own way. Sanders, she knew, preferred an oak-paneled room with dark green carpet, a facsimile of luxury with each of the grouping lines drawn out in finest silver. Others preferred pencil sketches, harsh angles, subdued colors on a dim background, or even more abstract, textual interfaces. So long as the concepts of decks and spatiality were maintained, it was up to the individual.
+
+Cards had their ACLs, too. Some were visible only to the individual. Some were visible to everyone, but only on the surface, with details invisible to others. The vast majority were visible to everyone, completely open.
+
+Carter began creating a publicly visible grouping, knowing that others were delving into the sim along with her, visible as diffuse shapes in her dark space. She wrote in air, titled the group in her stolid, blocky font of choice. ``The Social Connection''.
+
+From there, she began creating sub-groupings. For cases. For leads. On and on. For the ``cases'' group, she tapped a few of the case decks to make symbolic links, drawing lines of cotton twine which she dropped in.
+
+Two were positioned at the top of the list:
+
+\begin{longtable}[]{@{}r@{}}
+\toprule
+\endhead
+Patient aca973d7\tabularnewline
+M — 2086-01-28\tabularnewline
+Lost: 2112-11-08\tabularnewline
+\bottomrule
+\end{longtable}
+
+\begin{longtable}[]{@{}r@{}}
+\toprule
+\endhead
+Patient 0224ebe8\tabularnewline
+X — 2084-05-09\tabularnewline
+Lost: 2112-12-07\tabularnewline
+\bottomrule
+\end{longtable}
+
+Carter connected these two cards with fine thread. Hanging pendant from that, she switched to virtual keyboard and created a metadata label, more tag than card:
+
+\begin{longtable}[]{@{}l@{}}
+\toprule
+\endhead
+Possible acquaintances\tabularnewline
+\bottomrule
+\end{longtable}
+
+The others, those shadowy figures, caught on to what she was doing, and got down to work, dragging symlinks of decks and expanding this new group of social connections.
+
+Carter pulled back out of the sim when her personal timer went off fifteen minutes before the time-box was up.
+
+She backed out and made her way from her workstation to the small counter at the front of the old classroom. She filled the electric kettle from the tap and set it on its base for tea, letting it heat up, then scooped a few heaping spoonfuls of coffee and chicory into the coffee maker. While she was in the sim, she had ensured that everyone else's rig would have an alarm for the time-box, and it was only fair that she make everyone a cup of coffee before they pulled back.
+
+The coffee had finished brewing and the mugs were all set out in a row in front of the pot and kettle, each waiting with handles out toward the room for ready hands. Carter poured herself some of the coffee, thick and bitter, and topped it off with a dash of sweetened creamer to dull the latter.
+
+One by one, the ten techs pulled back from their workstations and ambled, glassy-eyed, to the counter where the coffee lay. Carter suppressed a smile: a horde of zombies in various states of disarray drawn to caffeine. It'd be nice, but over the months they had spent on the project, the team had settled into a comfortable ritual of meetings over coffee. The habit remained unbroken.
+
+``So,'' she started, once everyone was gathered around and tead-and-coffeed.
+
+Silence. Sanders wouldn't meet her gaze.
+
+Finally, she caved and broke down her thoughts. ``Time-box is over. I think we got a bunch of good stuff done in a few hours, some not even related to the task at hand. There's definitely connections there. We've got a good number of them among the cases we have at our hands, but there's precious little data on why those connections exist. We've got a few furries, a few 'net addicts — well, more than a few — and we've got a whole lot of DDR junkies. None of those point to anything that would lead people to getting lost.''
+
+``Man, have you \emph{seen} DDR zombies, though?'' Everyone laughed.
+
+Another voice piped up, ``And the correlation on the neurochem side is extremely low. Might as well be non-existent.''
+
+Sanders smirked down to his coffee mug before hiding the expression with a sip.
+
+``No, there's no doubt about that.'' Carter sighed, shrugged. ``So, again, time-box is over. What do you think? Is this line of thought worth pursuing? Plus-one, minus-one, zero. Sanders?''
+
+``Minus-one.'' The response was immediate.
+
+Carter slipped her phone from her pocket and started a tally on the calculator. ``Alright,'' she continued. ``Jacob?''
+
+``Zero.''
+
+Tallying as she went, Carter went around the room, The running tally took a few dings (neither of the lawyers were for the idea, she noticed), but remained net positive until the end of the line.
+
+``We're left at two, then.''
+
+Sanders set his mug down with exaggerated care, but otherwise stayed silent.
+
+``Hardly universal, so let's triage. Can I get one from neuro, one from stats and history, and would one of the law team be willing to devote an hour a day to helping us out? Just to run stuff by as we come up with leads.''
+
+\emph{\textbf{If} you come up with leads,} was written on Sanders' face. She ignored it.
+
+Prakash Das from the neurochem team raised his hand, and Avery from statistics and history volunteered. One of the lawyers, Sandra, gave a noncommittal shrug and promised some of her time, saying, ``We're on shaky legal ground, I think, but we can probably keep it in check.''
+
+``Alright. Let's sync up, you three.'' Carter smiled toward the rest of the group, ``Not leaving you guys behind. One-on-ones and daily stand-ups will continue at the usual times. We'll set another time-box of--'' She checked her phone. ``Three days, after which we'll reconvene and vote again.''
+
+Sanders strolled back toward his workstation, Ramirez's eyes on his back.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/003.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+``Avery. What's up?''
+
+The ping had sounded in Carter's ears like a soft bell, and the faint outline of a door had appeared at the periphery of her vision. Someone had requested a meeting. After a moment of dictating a note to herself for when she got back, she made her way through the door. One of the stats-and-history folks stood, waiting with arms crossed, in the private space.
+
+``Running up against a bit of a snag, Dr.~Ramirez,'' they said. ``This new patient, uh\ldots{}0224ebe8?''
+
+``What about them?''
+
+``Well, I'm getting some doubled records. Weird things are duplicated. Sort of.''
+
+``Duplicated? How?''
+
+``Well, we've got some records from way back with a different gender marker on them and no pronouns.'' They looked thoughtful. ``I ran into a bit of that when I changed everything over, myself, but the process changed all of my past records, too.''
+
+Carter frowned. ``So e8 changed their marker and pronouns officially, but you're seeing duplicate records under a different one?''
+
+``Mmhm. I was wondering, do we have any location data on them?''
+
+``Not really, no. You've got all the same data I do. Most have been redacted.''
+
+``I figured, yeah, but wanted to ask. I just know some friends back in America ran into similar, too. Some ancient conglomerate or something holding onto old records or not updating their systems, so I was wondering if e8 was over there.''
+
+Carter shrugged. ``I don't really know. That sort of thing is scrubbed before we get the cases. I'm actually surprised the files weren't normalized before we got them.''
+
+Avery laughed. ``We're one of the big three, so of course it's all extra difficult.'' Carter must have looked nonplussed, as Avery continued, ``Banking, government, and healthcare. Ask any one of the big three to adopt to social change, and you'll get eighteen different reasons why it's impossible to update their systems.''
+
+``Fair enough. So they have two markers and no pronouns.''
+
+``Well, ey has two markers, X and M, but only the one set of pronouns. None listed on the records with the M marker.''
+
+``Is this going to be much of a problem?''
+
+``Don't think so,'' Avery said thoughtfully. ``The records are complete so long as we take both sets into account. You might want to run it by Sandra, though, is the thing. I don't know if us knowing that this change occurred is too much information for us to have. Legally, I mean.''
+
+Carter knit her brow. ``And there's the snag.''
+
+Avery nodded.
+
+``Well, hopefully not.'' Carter leaned against the wall and thought for a moment, then asked, ``What can we do with this information, anyway? We've seen a pretty good spread across gender markers with our set of cases, do you think this'll change anything?''
+
+``I don't know. The friends back in America who ran into this were all ones that made the change later in life. The younger you are when you change markers and such, the easier it is because the less of a record you have to change. It's kind of like you're burdened with a marker from birth, and the longer you go before changing it, the heavier the burden gets.''
+
+``And they had a big one?''
+
+``Not so big, all told, but it's enough that all of eir records from when ey got eir implants are under a different marker.''
+
+Carter nodded.
+
+``From a history standpoint, that also means that eir marketing footprint takes something of a hard left at one point.''
+
+``When th--'' Carter backtracked. ``When ey changed eir marker?''
+
+It was Avery's turn to nod.
+
+``So we've got someone who's advertised to with a masculine marker, then with a neutral marker--''
+
+``And ey seemed to have given the whole romance thing a miss, too. Eir marketing footprint is mostly just rig gear and furry stuff. It's like ey slipped through filters unnoticed, which, in itself, leaves a trail.''
+
+``Well, if you can't sell em sex, what's left to sell?'' Carter laughed.
+
+``Oh, plenty, I assure you. Just that, pushing nine billion, advertisers mostly rely on larger demographics. GQ folks and asexuals aren't broad enough segments to bother wasting ads on. Granted this is only going by the transparency reports. There's all sorts of weird guerrilla marketing going on these days.''
+
+``Yeah, fair enough. Any similarities with our other furry?''
+
+Avery shook their head. They swiped their hand to the side to bring up a snippet of desktop, dug through a few decks of vcards. ``Being a furry seems to be the big thing they have in common. e8 is X, d7 is M. e8 is single and not looking, d7 is in a long-term relationship. d7 is almost a parody of a DDR junkie, e8 has almost no\ldots{}well, hold on.''
+
+Carter waited.
+
+``Looks like ey was prodding around the DDR spaces a few hours before the event.'' Avery had that far-away look to their eyes that one got while digging through data on cards. They shook their head to clear their vision, smiled to Carter. ``Sorry, looks like I've got a bit of work ahead of me on that end. Any thoughts on the snag?''
+
+``No, carry on as you were, I think. Sandra will keep an eye on it and let us know if we're at risk of overstepping our bounds.''
+
+Avery nodded and stepped back out of the meeting cubicle.
+
+Back in the sim proper, Carter watched as the cards surrounding 0224ebe8 began to sift into two piles as the shadowy form that must be Avery worked. White cotton thread began to string itself around two groups, followed by the tags `0224ebe8 (M)' in one and `0224ebe8 (X)' in the other.
+
+After a few minutes, she walked back to her constellation of decks. On a hunch, she created a small grouping in her area and labeled it ``DDR Activity Pre-Event''. She began looping in relevant cards from both 0224ebe8 and aca973d7.
+
+There was a soft \emph{ding} within the sim, and a wave of shadowy heads looked up, Carter's included.
+
+Directly above them in the middle of the `ceiling' was the current time in faintly luminescent letters. As always, they would look different for each member; for Carter, traced out in fine cotton string was the `12:00' that indicated lunch.
+
+Carter's vision began to dim. She backed out before the ominously cheery message instructing her to stretch her legs urged her to do so. University policy stated employees should work in a sim no longer than four hours in a row without fully backing out, so when she pulled back from her rig, she saw everyone else doing the same.
+
+Most of the team gathered around the fridge and microwave by the coffee station to collect their lunches. She hadn't had the time or energy this morning. Lunch out it was.
+
+At least she wouldn't be alone. There was a small coterie who made their way across the street from the campus building to the shops, hunting falafel or curry. She put on her best chummy face and tagged along with. The group chatted, inevitably but amiably, about work, comparing notes on the cases they were focusing on.
+
+The group — three of them, with Carter — decided on a small Vietnamese place nearby. It would be a long lunch, with the wait and all, but she was promised that the food was amazing. Besides: Friday. Even the boss can enjoy a lunch every now and then.
+
+Standing outside as they waited on a table, they made an obvious target for the tabloid sellers. They were wandering a little further than usual from the tube station entrance today, and the restaurant hadn't noticed them yet to shoo them off.
+
+Carter rolled her eyes when Prakash bought a copy.
+
+``Hey, don't look at me like that. I promise I read it for the laughs,'' he said.
+
+Carter shrugged, ``It's less about why you're reading it, and more who you're giving money\ldots{}''
+
+Prakash and Aiden stood in silence, eyes on Carter. They exchanged glances before Prakash broke in, ``Hey boss, you doing okay?''
+
+``Can I see that?'' She didn't wait for an answer before she snatched the flimsy paper from his hands.
+
+\vspace{1ex}
+\begin{quote}
+\textbf{Soho Theatre Mourns Lost Tech}
+
+RJ Brewster was the pride of the Soho Theatre Troupe's tech department.
+
+The brainy American who blessed them with boosted bass was admitted to the University College Hospital after apparently getting lost during a rehearsal on Wednesday. Ey was discovered during an intermission completely unresponsive. Medical crews declared em lost on the scene after analysing eir implants.
+
+The genderqueer young man was described as ``bright, but obsessed.'' Ey was a member of the furry cult and spent most of eir time on the 'net, which friends blame for em getting lost.
+
+The STT promises that productions will go on as planned, with back-up techs running the sound system.
+
+Brewster represents the 135th case of the lost marked in the world. Ey will be cared for by doctors at the UCH. Members of the University College London studying the lost were unavailable for comment.
+\end{quote}
+\vspace{2ex}
+
+Carter let the paper droop. Aiden retrieved it before it was closed completely, opening to the page where she had been reading.
+
+``Oh, hey! Stuff about a lost person!'' He read down further, then looked up at Carter. ``Did you get an interview request from them?''
+
+She shook her head. ``Not a word. Not to me, at least. Maybe PR turned the interview down.''
+
+Prakash read over Aiden's shoulder. ``Do you think we could go see em? We're with UCL. Maybe we could--''
+
+He fell silent at a look from Carter. She spoke carefully, voice carrying the weight of a prepared statement. ``Ey's in good hands. Trust the doctors on this. We'll receive all relevant info from them. Any contact with a patient may introduce bias in the study.''
+
+Aiden frowned, shutting the paper. ``We shouldn't have this.''
+
+``No, we shouldn't.''
+
+He quickly balled up the tabloid and, finding no rubbish bins nearby, set it on the restaurant's outside windowsill. Researchers were as jealous of their data as the lawyers were of patient privacy. Keeping the tabloid would only be a risk.
+
+``But what about the theater troupe?'' Prakash asked.
+
+Carter caught herself in the act of shaking her head, turned instead toward the restaurant. She tilted her head back and let her eyes trace the sharp contrast between the gutters of the building and the steel-gray sky, seeing neither.
+
+``We can't,'' she finally murmured. ``Same risk of bias.''
+
+A safe answer. A rote one. A required one. The legal aspect was plain, the ethics clear. If she wanted to learn anything from the doctors treating this RJ or the Troupe, she'd have to file a request, wait for the ethics board, wait again for the lawyers, and even then, even if she succeeded, she would only be able to write a questionnaire for them to fill out.
+
+And yet here, a half hour tube ride away, was a social connection. The very thing she wanted most to understand.
+
+She was distracted, thankfully, by the host inviting them in to eat.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/004.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+Carter hadn't meant to dodge her subordinate's question. They truly did need to go in to eat.
+
+The food was, as promised, excellent. Carter made a mental note to come here more often. A note filed into the appropriate box in mind, then set aside. She had to work through the implications of what had been spilled by the tabloid.
+
+She couldn't visit this RJ any more than she could fly out of the restaurant's second story window and back to her lab.
+
+It would be a useless gesture, of course. Her team didn't need access to the patient to do all of their work, because much of their vitals, properly anonymized, were provided as a real-time stream of data. It had been shown that physical contact was not registered at all by the lost; it would hardly matter if it was a researcher any more than a family member.
+
+There would be people between her and RJ, as well. Not just doctors and nurses, but her own administration. She would have to go through any number of layers of bureaucracy just to get access to\ldots{}to what? To variables that likely wouldn't help her investigation at all? Eye color? Hair length?
+
+And of course, there was the law. Carter well understood the purpose of the Western Federation Personal and Health Information Protection Act. It was part of her research at a fundamental level. Anyone in medicine knew it, had the inevitable posters tacked to the walls.
+
+Hell, she had voted on it, herself, in the DDR. It was something she felt strongly about regardless of her work. The tabloid had breached that, in a way. There was no culpability, of course, but there was a breach by publicly announcing the case.
+
+And yet, there was nothing to stop her from going to a show in the next day or two.
+
+Feeling very much the sleuth, she stuffed a small egg roll into her mouth. Savoring the taste. Savoring the idea, the plan.
+
+Yes, she'd go to a show up in Soho.
+
+With her resolution firmly planted, she found it difficult to make it through the rest of the day. Rather than wrangle the two competing strands of work groups into some cohesive whole, she spent much of her time distracted. Antsy.
+
+Finding tickets was easy enough, though the price left her winded. She was thinking about all of the ways in which she could approach the cast. Or was it the crew? Would she even be able to get in contact with any of them? Supposing so, what would she even say? \emph{Tell me about your sound tech}?
+
+The rush was wearing off, as it always did.
+
+Avery and Prakash were both settling into the routine of investigating what had gone on before the incidences of the lost. Those precious few minutes saved from the precious few cases where a core dump had been provided.
+
+Avery was collating what data they had from each case on the social front before the event and searching for social connections between each of the cases, as much as the law would allow. Prakash, meanwhile, was digging through biochemical data that had been collected from each of the patients and searching for similarities for them. All stuff he had been doing before, of course, but now based specifically on the time before they had gotten lost, rather than during or after.
+
+Carter had supposed that this would be innocuous enough, but Sanders had taken the opportunity of the boss dining out for lunch to chat with a few members of the workgroup. Not once, but twice while she was working, she had needed to field private messages from teammates. Both had concerns around the direction of the project, and questions about the wisdom of separating the already fractured group into smaller units.
+
+In both cases, she reiterated that this would only be a temporary investigation. If it turned up any useful information, then they would have that conversation again in the near future. If it didn't, oh well. Everyone would cohere once more. There was comfort in the words, she hoped, but all the same, Carter wasn't sure of their efficacy.
+
+She had had an idea. A hunch. One she thought worth investigating. That's what one did in science, right? Have ideas. Investigate. Be open to being proven wrong.
+
+Sanders, however, had an \emph{ideal}.
+
+Or so Carter assumed. When assessing the team's standing on the issue, she had used the usual three point scale: for, neutral, against. What she hadn't asked was how many fucks each of them gave. There were, after all, two parts to making a decision. Which way you vote, and how much you cared about it.
+
+Carter could easily estimate Sanders giving ten out of ten fucks against this current plan of exploration, while in fact, until this afternoon, she would have likely given five or six fucks.
+
+That question hadn't been asked, though. She couldn't make up her mind whether she wished she had asked or was glad that she hadn't.
+
+This afternoon, with the determination to learn more for the sake of the project (so she promised herself) and the sense that she was on the right path had significantly bumped the number of fucks she gave. And there was the hope of proving Sanders wrong, no small amount of competition within academia.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+
+The play was some contemporary work.
+
+The Short Trip, the ticket site informed her, chronicled an indecisive youth taking a trip away from family, purportedly to visit a bunch of friends for three days, the real goal of the trip being to visit his long-distance partner, but in the setting of a party, with guests, known and unknown, weaving their way through the scene — and, at times, through the audience.
+
+This much she learned as she made her way south and west. Carter had to duck out of work earlier than usual to make it over to the theater on time. She had actually to travel past RJ in the UMC, borne along the yowling Victoria line to Soho. Glad she left early, too. She needed to wait for three trains to pass before she was able to squeeze aboard.
+
+The train vomited her out into Oxford Circus and left her spinning. Looking, looking for the right exit to the tube station, comparing directions on her phone. Each was helpfully lit up with a thin, translucent display overlaid above the older signage in painted tile. Both bore the unerring curves of Helvetica, perpetual winner of the font wars.
+
+Neither meant anything to her.
+
+Easy enough to find the theater by following the crowds. Her identity — and thus her ticket — was proved by a touch from her contacts, a grip around a simple bar in front of the theater. The bar flipped around to provide its other end to the next customer, the end she had touched getting a quick sanitizing so that everyone got a clean surface.
+
+Carter was first surprised by just how much she enjoyed the play, then chagrined at her surprise. She had decided not to approach cast or crew beforehand, a decision that had proven surprisingly difficult. She worried that she would spend the entirety of the play thinking of what to say. She wound up engrossed in the performance all the same.
+
+Lying to parents. Moving through the party. The awkwardness of meeting for the first time. The cast nailed it all. She'd had her own long-distance fling while an undergrad, and she knew the feeling well. \emph{Meet at a public space where you know people,} mom had even cautioned. \emph{Like a party. Just in case.}
+
+It was well into the third act of three that she realized she hadn't given any thought to the sound of the play. A passing thought: this was probably a good thing. This was the sign of a job well done. An understudy, perhaps?
+
+She applauded as heartily as the rest.
+
+Still, her mission, such as it was, was right at the fore as soon as she stood. She was perhaps a little rude in her haste, making her way out into the lobby of the theater where some of cast and crew, as well as the director, were greeting the audience. Opening night, after all.
+
+``Mr.~Johansson. Mr.~Johansson!''
+
+The bulky man turned toward her with a pleasant, if bland, smile. A smile at war with the obvious worry lining his face. ``Ma'am. I trust you enjoyed the show?''
+
+``I did! Of course I did. I'd like to ask you something, though, if I might.''
+
+``Mm.'' The sound was assent, but only just. The rest of the audience was starting to stream out of the theater, his mind was elsewhere.
+
+``I was\ldots{}It's just, about RJ--''
+
+The immediate focus of Johansson's attention was a heat lamp against her face. The intensity of it startled Carter out of speech.
+
+``I mean, if it's not too forward to ask,'' she trailed off, a hint of a question.
+
+``It is forward,'' he confirmed, eyes probing her. Too many reporters? ``But I'd like to know how you know of em?''
+
+``I'm a researcher at UCL, working on the lost.''
+
+Johansson took her elbow gently in his grip and led her off to the side, out of hearing of the rest of the audience and the curious cast. Gently, but brooking no disagreement.
+
+``That doesn't tell me how you know of em. Aren't you-- isn't that privileged information?''
+
+``The tabloids had a--''
+
+The growl was immediate, hidden behind gritted teeth. ``The paramedics told me I couldn't contact anyone but the hospital, but the rag said you guys had declined contact.''
+
+Carter straightened and shook her head. ``We did not, nor would we have. Although, I must admit, the interview process would be far more formal than this. I only put the pieces together based on location and pronouns.''
+
+``So what do you want from us?'' Johansson's shoulders sagged, the intensity lessened, permitting emotion. ``We miss RJ. It's been a real mess without em. Please, miss--''
+
+``Ramirez. Dr.~Carter Ramirez.'' She hesitated for a moment before continuing. ``We're looking for\ldots{}well, a few of us are looking for social connections between the lost, rather than just simple personality or neurlogical correlations. What can you tell us about RJ in that sense?''
+
+Johansson looked up to his cast, then leaned a little closer to murmur, ``O'Niell's, once we're done. Then we can talk. I have more to do here, so it may be a while. Please wait up, though.''

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/005.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+Johansson's hands dwarfed a pint of ale.
+
+Once they had managed to find each other in the post-theater crush of the pub, they staked out a small two-top table crammed against one end of the bar itself. Johansson leaned to the side, away from the noise of too many voices.
+
+He'd hardly touched the beer, but it seemed to take on an almost talismanic significance to him. Something to hold. Something to focus the thoughts. Carter drank her own cider slowly and waited, careful not to press her luck too hard. Johansson seemed slow to open up.
+
+``Alright, so, RJ.'' His vocal cords unlimbered, a well-rehearsed baritone.
+
+``Ey was your sound guy?'' Carter backpedaled, eyes ducking to her glass. ``Sound tech?''
+
+There was a small smile tickling at the corner of Johansson's mouth, but he hid it a swallow of his thin ale, nodding. ``Yep, lead sound tech. Best I've ever worked with, by a long shot. And don't worry. We still fuck up eir pronouns now and then. I know we did on the night ey\ldots{}when ey\ldots{}well, Wednesday.''
+
+Carter nodded. ``And then you tried to pull em back out?''
+
+``Nothing. It's like ey was still delved in even after eir contacts had been knocked out of place. We hit the panic button and called the docs. I guess some ambulance-chaser caught up with them, which is how you found out about us.''
+
+``Yeah. I'm not really in the habit of checking the tabloids myself, but I went out for lunch with a few coworkers and we got one pushed on us. The bit about you not being able to contact us got my attention, so I figured I'd make for the show tonight. Thought that might be my best bet.''
+
+``How'd you even manage that on opening night, anyway?''
+
+``Oh, don't worry, it cost me plenty.'' Carter laughed. ``Christ, this is so far out of the realm of what I'd do, too. I just feel like we're at an impasse.''
+
+``An impasse?''
+
+``Yeah.'' Carter leaned back in her chair to gather her thoughts. ``I've been on a few projects over the years. None were easy, but all the same, this one has a weird amount of interference. It feels like we're being made to trudge through mud. They won't give us access to the patients? Fine. That's PII. We just need the data that they collect from them, right? So why is that always so heavily redacted. Why aren't we getting that? It's never been a problem on any other project.
+
+``All we're getting are little tidbits. A few hours of monitor scans, little clips of logs from before the event, and that's it. I don't mean to creep on you or anything, but with RJ, we've come across something we hadn't had before. We found out ey was, well, you know\ldots{}''
+
+Johansson canted his head to the side. ``An immersive tech? Genderqueer? Ace? A furry?''
+
+``A furry, though those others are certainly interesting data points to keep in mind. We weren't totally sure ey was asexual, but it tallies.''
+
+``How did em being a furry help?''
+
+``Ey's the second furry we've had come across our desks.'' Carter peered into her cider, then about the room. ``In fact, it's caused a bit of a schism. Some of us are looking into possible\ldots{}transmission vectors, while the rest are focused on cases individually. How could something like getting lost be transmitted from one person to another? It sounds like some awful drama; it's not a virus.''
+
+``I assume you're among those who doubt the transmission story?''
+
+``Oh, no, I'm heading it up.'' She laughed. ``But there are still convincing arguments to be made against it. Sanders, the leader of the opposition, such as it is, is dead-set against it. He thinks that we're wasting time chasing up this transmission tree. Valuable resources. We've got an agreement, though.''
+
+``What's that?''
+
+``Well, we'll keep poking at this lead and if it dries up, we'll drop it.''
+
+Johansson hunched his shoulders, frowning. ``Not much of a lead, I'll grant you that, but all the same, anything to get RJ back. Ey was more than just a tech. Sounds silly, but we all liked em. The tech crew, especially. We went through our share of fuck-ups tonight just getting by without em.''
+
+``Oh? I didn't notice any.''
+
+``You weren't on the headset. We had lights and sound arguing cues while stage desperately tried to keep them on track. It was a mess.''
+
+``All the same,'' Carter countered. ``I thought it was delightful.''
+
+``Mm.''
+
+Silence.
+
+It felt necessary. They both stared off into the pub. The room held the distinctly British dichotomy of being crowded and convivial, while also intensely conscious of personal space. The latter suffered as the night went on.
+
+``You know,'' Johansson began, bringing Carter's attention back to the conversation.
+
+``Hmm?''
+
+``RJ wasn't one for relationships — doubt ey would be — but of all the people ey was close to, it was definitely those furries ey hung around. Come to think of it, I do remember em bringing up the lost with regards to them.''
+
+``Oh? Huh. It seemed like the two cases we have may be socially connected, but we don't have any proof.''
+
+``Yeah.'' Johansson shrugged. ``Not much for relationships romantically, but certainly no shortage of friends. There was this one girl, Sasha, ey was close to.''
+
+Carter thumbed her phone on and swiped to a blank notes page.
+
+``She was eir childhood sweetheart,'' Johansson laughed. ``As much of a sweetheart as ey would confess, at least. She knew 'em both. RJ and eir friend who got lost.''
+
+Carter nodded, jotting down quick notes. ``She's still out there, then? Not lost?''
+
+``I assume so, I guess. You'd know better than I.''
+
+She shook her head, looking down at her phone as she scribbled the last of the note. ``Mm, no. No female furries. A lot of 'net addicts. I suppose there's no small crossover, but we're talking way deep. DDR junkies and layabouts.''
+
+Johansson bristled, ``RJ was no layabout.''
+
+She held up her hands disarmingly, shook her head. ``Mostly, is what I'm saying. They don't have ties, or if they do, they don't hold them long. These last few — the furries — they have lots of contacts from what we can tell. Strong ones. That's where our two groups disagree most. I think that we're seeing something novel, even if it doesn't hold for the previous cases. `I' being the leader of the group that thinks there's the possibility of a transmission vector.''
+
+``And the others?''
+
+``They see it as chance. Too small an \emph{n}. Too few cases to say one way or another. They say that there was bound to be both connected and unconnected folks among the lost. They'd say that it's a matter of chance, since those who use the 'net more would be more likely to wind up lost, regardless of social situation. Furries just use it more than most.''
+
+``Both make sense, I guess,'' Johansson hedged. ``All the same, you know I have a vested interest in RJ, so I'm going to wind up seeing it from your point of view, since you're working with em. Never mind that you invited me out here. What do you need from me?''
+
+Carter frowned, thinking. ``I guess I need to know more about em. I have eir redacted stats, a portion of the dump from eir workstation and the time leading up to it. I had been assuming we're getting all of it, but perhaps that was too generous of me. It's got PII redacted, but I don't know if there's anything else missing. What I need to know is what's slipping through the cracks. I need to know about who RJ was. How ey interacted with the theater, I mean. And anything you can tell me about eir friends.''
+
+``Should you\ldots{}?''
+
+``Should I have all of that information? I don't know.'' Carter sighed. ``Is it against the law for you to tell me? No, not at all. I don't know. Maybe. Is it unethical to further my own agenda with this project by consulting you? Probably yes. If I were on a bigger, more mature project, we'd probably be interviewing you anyway, though.''
+
+Johansson frowned, nodded.
+
+``But is it because I think that the more we know, the more likely we are to get RJ and the others back? I'd say yes.''
+
+Johansson looked down into his beer. Then, with a decisive motion, drank most of it in a few smooth gulps, holding up the glass with the remainder, an obvious toast. ``To RJ, then.''
+
+Carter felt a little silly toasting to someone she'd never met, with a man she'd only just met, with a full glass of cider to his mostly empty ale. It all felt so dramatic, so theatrical, until she remembered who she was toasting with. She raised her glass and clinked its rim to Johansson's.
+
+``To RJ.''

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/006.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+Carter dreamed of shadows.
+
+And through it all, there was the river: the muddy, sometimes stinking river. The Thames which only seemed to engender affection that one might call `grudging'. When she had first moved to London, it had been her guide. The Thames was always vaguely downhill, the slope her Y-axis. And on the X-axis, the bridges. Tower, London, Southwark, Millenium II, Blackfriars Rail, Blackfriars Memorial. Tick marks along a waterline.
+
+And in her dream, she walked aimlessly along the south bank. The constant renovation of the area had led not to one great revival, but countless smaller ones. Buildings were torn down and raised back up, plots of land chopped into ever smaller portions. Those same buildings growing higher, never quite managing to match.
+
+Strode past towers, squat pubs. Some old, some new. Mostly new.
+
+Strode past people and crowds, buskers and food carts.
+
+Strode beneath bridges, along railings, past tour boats gliding silently along the surface of the water.
+
+And she passed shadows.
+
+And the shadows were like the people of the crowds. A little taller perhaps, but still just like the people. It was as though someone had cut a person-shaped hole out of space, blurred the edges, vignetted, pinched the light.
+
+And it wasn't through prolonged observation, she was just suddenly aware of the fact that the shadows were all behaving in the same way. Always following one of the people. Same pace. Same gait. Somehow more sinister for that exactitude. Always following just one person, never changing, never looking around at anyone else.
+
+And no one else seemed to see or notice these shadows except her.
+
+And she started tailing one of the shadows. Quietly. Unobtrusively. Followed it following a young black woman pushing a pram. Another young child walking at her side. His hand curled loosely in the fabric of her pants. Constantly in touch.
+
+And Carter struggled to keep up. The harder she tried to keep pace, the slower she seemed to go.
+
+And she tried to call out.
+
+And her voice came out only as a whisper.
+
+And the shadow reached out it's hand.
+
+And the shadow's fingers slid through the woman's hair reaching for the base of her scalp.
+
+And Carter screamed, inaudible.
+
+\vspace{3ex}
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\vspace{4ex}
+
+The dream dogged Carter through her morning routine and into her commute. She kept thinking, if she'd just been able to keep quiet, maybe she could have seen what would've happened when that young mother was touched by the shadow. Some sort of metaphor for getting lost? Or was her sleeping mind just carrying too much work-burden into the night?
+
+She was only able to dispel the lingering sense of too much meaning when she got into work and checked her email for news. No additional cases added to the research load. She realized she half expected a new one. Young, female, black, mother.
+
+Just a dream, then.
+
+After checking her mail on the rig's screen, Carter stood and stretched, making her way blearily to the coffee corner. She was one of the first in that morning. Just Avery and a few other early risers. Thankfully, Avery was the type to leave the coffee pot full rather than empty.
+
+She doctored her coffee to her specifications and ambled back to her desk, setting the mug down on the smooth surface. She spent a few minutes scrolling aimlessly through her mail list. She didn't dive in just yet, despite the workload that she knew waited. The fog of the dream had been burned away, but there were still too many thoughts that needed organizing. Couldn't yet go through the process of setting up her workspace and ordering stacks of cards.
+
+\emph{No,} she corrected herself. She was \emph{wary} of diving in.
+
+She had things she needed to do in the sim. She had things that the sim would help her do quickly. She wanted to start a stack for this Sasha that Johansson had brought up. Wanted to find a way to start making and notating all of those connections.
+
+Working in sim was part of her job, as it was for so many others. She had gone into this research project knowing that it was only in sims that people got lost. It had never bothered her before.
+
+And yet here she was, waffling about whether or not she felt safe delving in to do her work.
+
+She sighed, sipped her coffee, shook her head. Then set her hands in the cradles and rested her head against the headrest. Nothing for it.
+
+Within her spare, black space, Carter prowled through the stacks she had started on this little side project. Invisible to others, she created a private stack within the string-delineated area, next to the pendant ``Possible acquaintances'' card. Private cards showed up with a subtle blue tinge to her, and would only appear on her view of the workspace.
+
+On the first card in the stack, she transferred over the notes she had taken with Johansson. Then she started another card labeled ``Sasha?'' and added it to the stack.
+
+The whole stack was looped up to RJ's card with a piece of cotton string. Others would be able to see that she had created the stack with the string trailing off to a faint outline of a deck, or a grayed out pack of cards, or however their view of the sim chose to represent the data.
+
+Strictly speaking, she shouldn't be doing this. Such cards were intended to be for short notes to oneself about what one was working on, not for actual investigative work. This was something new. She wasn't supposed to have this information.
+
+Carter stepped back to look at the whole cordoned off section of data. She frowned. Never mind the information, was she even supposed to be doing investigative work? She was supposed to be utilizing the data that the hospitals and the university provided her with, not running out into the field and talking with acquaintances of the lost over pints after a show.
+
+Sanders would have a fit if he knew what she was up to.
+
+Even so, she wasn't quite sure it was only that which drove her to make the stack private. Some hunch. Some shadow lurking behind her.
+
+She needed to be more subtle about this than she had been.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/007.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+\begin{quote}
+Dr Carter Ramirez,
+
+We would like to thank you, first of all, for all of your continued efforts in working on these cases of the lost. Your services are invaluable and are providing the families and friends of the lost with hope, not to mention the world at large. We have come to rely on this technology in our daily lives in all spheres of work and pleasure.
+
+As you know, research here at UCL is funded through a series of organizations and foundations working together. These relationships are both an expression of trust and a political statement, and both of those expressions work in both directions. We welcome conversations, questions, and comments about research from the sponsors, mediated through the appropriate channels.
+
+A recent suggestion regarding your project was that more effort be placed on researching the neurological aspects of these cases, focusing primarily on the treatment and prevention of such events in the future.
+
+As such, we are requesting that you add one more neuroscientist intern to the team. Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, your team must remain the same size as it is currently. At your earliest convenience, could you please respond with the name of a member of your group not on the neuroscience side who will, if possible, be offered a transfer to another project? Admin will take care of the rest.
+
+Please continue the excellent work. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to send a note.
+
+\emph{Ari Liebler}\\
+\emph{Research Coordinator}
+\end{quote}
+
+Carter slid her chair slowly back from her rig and walked numbly to the coffee station. She wasn't tired. She \emph{wasn't} tired. She was a bit too awake, if anything. She just needed something to do while mulling over the email from admin. Such a politely-worded request to change the course of her project and fire one of her team.
+
+Pouring herself half a cup of chicory coffee, she looked out over the room, at the heads bowed over tablets or nestled into the headrests of rigs. How could she possibly be expected to choose who would get the axe?
+
+Carter slipped back to her desk and delved in, stepping out of the workspace and into a side room, one of the small areas off to the side of the main space where virtual meetings could be held, where others' avs would show up in full focus rather than just shadowy shapes.
+
+Shadowy shapes. The dream still dogged her.
+
+``Meeting, when you get a chance,'' she murmured into a message pane, then sent it off to Sanders.
+
+She received a ping of acknowledgement and settled back to wait.
+
+It was only a few minutes — hardly enough time for her to organize her thoughts — before the head of neurochem stepped into the room and settled into the chair across from her. ``What's up, Ramirez?''
+
+``Here,'' Carter said, swiping the email she had received onto a vcard and handed it over to Sanders. ``Give that a read.''
+
+``Rough stuff,'' he said. ``Who do you think will be the unlucky one?''
+
+Carter sighed. ``I'm not sure. I can't think of anyone I would want to lose. Anyone we could afford to lose, even.''
+
+Sanders nodded and tossed the card back to Carter, who recycled it.
+
+``Look,'' Carter continued after an awkward pause. ``I know you weren't a fan of the social link I mentioned before\ldots{}''
+
+``Did I suggest this?'' Sanders laughed, holding up his hands. ``No, of course not. I'd not presume to go behind your back like that. You knew my reservations, but I'd rather talk about it with you and the team than pull something like that.''
+
+Carter nodded. The sincerity was clear. She relaxed back against the seat. ``I got it, yeah. I'm sorry. It just came so suddenly and seemed connected, is all. Maybe I'm getting too good at seeing connections that aren't there.''
+
+Sanders politely said nothing, looking down at his hands.
+
+``Well, hey. Thanks for that. It's reassuring. I'll let you get back to your stuff, and will call the team in for a huddle about this after lunch.''
+
+``Sounds good,'' Sanders said, pushing himself up out of his seat and walking back into the sim.
+
+Carter watched as he turned from a solid avatar back into a shadow, thinking. If she was going to pursue this line any further, she'd likely have to do much of the work herself.
+
+Something, she realized, she was already prepared to do.
+
+The team was visibly unhappy at the news. They had been working together over the months that they had on the project and by now felt themselves a well-oiled machine. Rightfully so.
+
+``This is going to throw a huge fucking wrench into things,'' Avery grumbled. ``We lose one of our own, then have to get someone new up to speed. It's going to take ages.''
+
+``I know.'' Carter sighed. ``I'd push back if I thought it'd get me anywhere, but they say it's a matter of those who sign the checks, so I think I'm S-O-L on that front.''
+
+A tense silence greeted her. No one was looking at each other, just staring at shoes, ceiling, walls.
+
+``Listen, I think we have some time. Absolutely no pressure, but if anyone wants to volunteer, cool. Otherwise, I'll put some thought into this and make a decision. I'll have to, I mean. I don't want to. Either way, I'll go to bat for you in trying to get a transfer rather than just the sack.''
+
+Another sullen silence. Carter shrugged helplessly, and with an apologetic look, walked back to her rig. She had little more consolation to offer.
+
+Once delved in, Carter frowned. A small, pulsing envelope icon in her peripheral vision let her know she had another email. \emph{If it's more bad news, I'm going to scream.}
+
+The address wasn't from someone at UCL. Or the UMC, for that matter. It was a free address, something personal rather than professional. It had made it past the filters, though, so perhaps it was legitimate, despite its shady provenance. Perhaps not bad news, but Carter remained wary.
+
+\begin{quote}
+Dr.~Ramirez,
+
+I'm writing to ask for your help in the search for two of my friends who are lost.
+
+I know there's probably not much you can do to help, and you might not even be able to talk to me, but my friends and I are scared, and want to know what's going on. And if we can help, we'll do all we can.
+
+Their names are RJ Brewster and Collin Jackson.
+
+If you can, email me back. I understand if you can't.
+
+Sasha.
+\end{quote}
+
+Carter frowned harder. Not bad news, then, but neither was it good.
+
+This Sasha, RJ's friend, was right. She technically wasn't supposed to respond, at least not with anything more than a form letter stating such. Carter wasn't even supposed to know that RJ existed, who ey was, much less that she knew who \emph{Sasha} was from Johansson.
+
+She began digging through administrivia to look through the form letter. At the same time, a part of her sequestered itself and began to plan.
+
+She would have to do most of the work on this herself, yes — perhaps all of it — but maybe she could do a little more outside research. She had done so with Johansson, why not with Sasha? She wouldn't be able to rely on it, couldn't publish it, but there was no harm in more information, was there? Even if she had to strike out on her own?
+
+Before she lost her resolve, she filled out the form letter and scheduled it to reply at five, near the end of her day. Then she paced around the workspace, organizing and cleaning decks, too distracted to dig into numbers as she sorted through the plan in her mind.
+
+She left that evening at five after five, earlier than usual. She had been prepared to beg off with feeling ill, but found she didn't need to: most of the team were also packing up and leaving. No one looked happy. One of their jobs was on the line, of course they would be unhappy. Everyone avoided eye contact on the way out.
+
+Determined now, Carter left quickly and, standing in the station for her train, fumbled out her phone and started typing.
+
+\begin{quote}
+Sasha,
+
+I know you just got a reply from my work address, but I'm replying here as well. While UCL and the team I work with aren't able to provide any assistance or information with regards to the cases, I might be able to help a little on my own, and I'm sure you'll be able to help me. We don't have much information on RJ or Collin, and I'm desperate for more.
+
+Maybe we can figure out a way for that information to get to the team later, but for now, we can talk here.
+
+-Carter
+\end{quote}
+
+She hesitated, thumb hovering over the `send' button. This was reckless, she knew, but the more she thought about the interactions of the lost, the more she was convinced that there was something to the connection. Especially here. Here, where she knew now that patient 0224e8 was RJ, and that aca973d7 was likely this Collin Sasha had mentioned.
+
+And the more sure she was, the worse the letter from admin stung.
+
+She gritted her teeth and hit `send'.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/008.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+Carter could not explain why she had created the throw-away account to talk with Sasha. Nor could she fully explain that panic that had washed over her, strong enough for her to flee, to log out and wipe both account and sim.
+
+All she could explain was that Sasha's simple questioning had thrown her estimate of what might be going on both within the dynamic of the team as well as within the 'net as a whole into utter turmoil. The woman\ldots{}skunk\ldots{}skunk-woman had been correct: while there were occasional reports on their findings published to a scant few reviewers and advisors within the UCL itself, there had been none since RJ had gotten lost. No papers published in any journal, public or private. The phenomenon of the lost was new, and so was the study of them.
+
+So how was it that the grantors were throwing their weight around in terms of the directions her team was taking? How would they know to do so? An informant? A mole?
+
+After logging off, she picked up a sandwich at a nearby M\&S, but could not bring herself to eat more than a few bites of it. When she lay down, sleep would not come easily, and when it did, all it brooked her was the same stress-dream of shadows.\pagebreak
+
+How does one encompass all of this in one mind? How does one take in the knowledge of being spied upon, of having decisions made — made by the unseen and unknowable — that impact one's life on such a base level and some how make that work? Make it fit? How does one do these things, and still go back to a workaday life?
+
+Work felt impossible. Everyone around her was a suspect. Everyone around her was suspicious in their own way. Everyone around her was someone who was in secret communication with others, and, without any knowledge of those communications, what guarantee did she have that she was safe?
+
+And was she not communicating with others? She was the one who had contacted Sasha. She was the one who had contacted Johansson. Was she not worthy of suspicion?
+
+The worst was the lack of answers. She could ask all the questions she wanted, and there were no answers to be had.
+
+Finding it impossible to get down to the business of actually working, she paced between rig and coffee station. If, perhaps, there was some way that she could think harder, think better, then perhaps she might be able to fit all of this within her newly updated worldview.
+
+All the coffee did was up her heart rate. It did not wake her any, did not make her more efficient. It simply kicked her anxiety up another level.
+
+All her rig had to offer was the work at hand.
+
+She delved in all the same. If nothing else, she could use the dark. She could use the cool \emph{Eigengrau} of her workspace, the order of information neatly delineated by thin cotton twine. Perhaps numbers would sooth her anxious mind.
+
+A soft ping. A notification. A small bell still loud enough to jolt her out of her reverie, or non-reverie, or whatever this caffeine-tinted haze was. \emph{Avery would like a meeting.}
+
+Carter found it hard to sit still in the small room. It was all she could do to keep from pacing agitatedly, and she focused instead on keeping her steps more within the realm of slow and contemplative. \emph{Is this out of the ordinary? Is me walking back and forth out of the norm enough to report to some higher authority?} \emph{Is Avery on my side?}
+
+``Dr. Ramirez, sorry for bothering you.''
+
+``No problem, Avery. What's up?''
+
+They shrugged. ``That's just the thing, I'm not really sure. I started digging into what we were talking about, about how e8 was looking into DDR records before eir disappearance, and on a hunch, I decided to look at all of our other candidate cases. Turns out most of them, even the ones who weren't heavy politics junkies, had a massive uptick in the amount of engagement they showed prior to getting lost.''
+
+Carter frowned. ``Wait, so not just e8? All of them?''
+
+``Well, sort of. Of those who are just the junkies, it's hard to pull apart just how much of their interactions were actually off baseline for them, you know? A set that large, a slight increase might not be that out of the norm. Still, it is there.''
+
+``Do you have a starting point for these increases?''
+
+``Nothing in particular. In absolute terms, no.'' Avery's smile was wry. ``Perhaps obviously. After the initial rush of cases, everyone got lost at different times. Relatively, though, maybe. It looks like everyone who had this uptick had it within seventy-two hours of getting lost.''
+
+``How confident are you in that?''
+
+``Are you asking how strong the correlation is?''
+
+``Sure.'' She hesitated. ``Though I'm also curious about your confidence in this line of reasoning.''
+
+They looked up to the ceiling. ``Well, in terms of the line of reasoning, I'd say that it's strong enough that it's got me actually interested in looking deeper into it. Not that I wasn't interested in these cases before, but this is really intriguing. I like the sort of\ldots{}well, mystery aspect of it.''
+
+``Yeah, it does have that going for it, doesn't it?''
+
+``And it always did before, too.'' Avery dropped their gaze once more and shrugged. ``Just that now, I feel like I was handed a big bone in terms of what could actually be going on. It's not an answer, but of all the correlations we've been looking at until now, this is one of the bigger ones.''
+
+``That strong of a correlation, then?''
+
+``Well, look.'' They summoned a snatch of workspace, pulled a vcard from one of their decks, and tugged on the corners to expand it to presentation size. A table filled the page, but after a few commands from Avery, it shrunk, slid up to the corner, and in its place, a graph appeared, showing a series of correlation points and a trend line. ``It's fairly strong if we leave everyone in, but if we filter\ldots{}out\ldots{}there. If we filter out the junkies, you can see how high it spikes.''
+
+Leaning in closer to the page, Carter scowled at the graph, then up at the minimized table, and back to the graph. ``That's higher than anything else we've gotten, right?''
+
+Avery nodded, tapped in a few more commands on a keyboard Carter could not see. They frowned at some mistakes they made along the way, but then the graph was overlaid against other correlations they had been investigating previously. ``Just over one standard deviation, yes, though\ldots{}wait.''
+
+Carter had started to nod along with Avery, then frowned at her subordinate's growing confusion. ``What?''
+
+``Do you see that?''
+
+She looked back to the graph. ``See wh--wait, what?!''
+
+``Do you \emph{see} that?'' Avery said, louder. It was as though they themselves needed the convincing, that they needed to have this witnessed right along with them.
+
+And it \emph{was} worth witnessing. As both of them watched, wide-eyed, the graph shifted. The strength of the correlation started to dip. Not smoothly, but in fits and starts. Avery's hand darted up and, with a fingertip, they dragged the table out to fill more of the card's surface. There, along with the graph, the numbers of the correlation were beginning to change. Row by row, the `interactions DDR by hour 72 lim' values were dropping. They were still high, yes, but perhaps more reasonable. The correlation was still there, but weaker.
+
+``What--''
+
+``Do you have this data backed up anywhere?'' Carter was shouting. Didn't know how to keep from shouting.
+
+``I-- maybe. Sec.'' A few hasty commands, and the data was dumped to another card, the column name changed to a keysmash. The numbers stopped dropping on that card, even as they continued on the first. They handed the card to Carter. ``But what--''
+
+``Pull me back and hit my panic button. Quick!''
+
+Avery stared, open-mouthed.
+
+``\emph{Go!}''
+
+There was the pleasant animation of a user logging out and Avery disappeared.
+
+Carter braced herself, but even so, the jolt of pain running in a sparkling thread down along her spine was stronger than she remembered, and she came up gasping, hands shaking from where Avery held them just above her contacts. With their knee, they hit the panic button on the rig, and the flip-up screen began ticking off cores dumped and suggesting that an official report be filed.
+
+Still shaking, she looked around the office. Everyone was delved in except her, Avery, and Prakash, standing startled by the mini-fridge.
+
+``Everything alright?'' he asked, brow furrowed.
+
+Carter waved her hand dismissively, trying to look calm. She doubted that she did. ``Was in a meeting. Crashed or something.''
+
+Perhaps picking up on the anxiety of the last minute, perhaps experiencing their own terror, Avery nodded. ``We were in a meeting, uh\ldots{}trying something. She started\ldots{}'' they trailed off and shrugged.
+
+Prakash nodded. ``Need to file a report? Anything like that?''
+
+Carter stood, wobbled, and regained her balance. ``I will after some water. Getting yanked hurts worse than I remember.''
+
+``I haven't done it since training.''
+
+Avery shrugged. ``I don't think many have. It's not all that common.''
+
+Rinsing her mug free of coffee residue — additional caffeine at the moment being contraindicated — Carter attempted a laugh. ``Right, yeah. I've had sims crash before, but not myself.''
+
+The laugh didn't seem to soothe either of her coworkers.
+
+``Well, either way, I'm kinda shaken up. I think\ldots{}uh,'' she trailed off, looking at her phone. ``Maybe a walk. Yeah, I think maybe a walk.''

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/009.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,156 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+London in winter was not a snowy affair. No traces of white lacing the ground, no flakes in the air. Just sporadic sleet and steel-gray skies, breath clouding her vision while fingertips went numb around her mug of water.
+
+She dumped the rest of the water in the already soggy grass and looped her pinkie through the handle, fingers curling into her palm to hunt for warmth. Another few steps and she gave up, setting the mug on a window-ledge so that she could walk with her hands in her pockets.
+
+It wouldn't be missed. Mugs were less important than being out of there.
+
+The pain of being drawn back so forcefully had disappeared immediately upon coming to outside the sim, but the memory lingered. Her mind would not let it go. If she thought about other things, she knew, it would disappear. Just a memory. A bad dream.
+
+She did not think about other things. Could not think about other things. All she could think about was her implants and the system. All she could think about was the vain hope that the data on the card had made it into the core dump she knew had been left in her exocortex's storage immediately upon the crash. She had no idea how she'd get it out — the tech side of the implants was hardly her specialty — but she knew it was possible.
+
+So she paced along the sidewalk, head down, remembering pain. She knew she was walking a street, but did not know which. She just needed away from the room, away from the neat row of rigs. Rigs she no longer trusted. Away from people she no longer trusted. She needed away, and hoped that the bracingly cold air would help in some way.
+
+Her phone pinged. On silent, the ping came in the form of a brief tingle along her implants through the wireless. A gentle impinging on the senses. It pinged again. Then pinged several more times in short order.
+
+It made her sick. A rush of anxiety to go with the reminder of the subtle tech ramifying through her flesh.
+
+\begin{quote}
+\emph{Avery:}
+
+Ramirez, something's happened
+
+\emph{Avery:}
+
+ACL change in the system. Been locked out. Everyone's coming up
+
+\emph{Avery:}
+
+What do we do?
+
+\emph{Avery:}
+
+Shit, security's here???
+
+\emph{Avery:}
+
+!!! Police
+
+\emph{Sanders:}
+
+Police here. Need you. Come back ASAP
+
+\emph{Prakash:}
+
+Police here looking for you. Stop where you are. Do not come back.
+\end{quote}
+
+Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. She hardly needed Prakash's orders to stop. She was frozen to the sidewalk. She could hardly take another step if she wanted to.
+
+\begin{quote}
+\emph{Prakash:}
+
+I'm coming to you. Told them I went to look for you. Stay there.
+\end{quote}
+
+\emph{What?} Carter's mind seemed to be floating down a river, bumping across rocks and swirling in eddies. She could not focus for the water in her eyes. Literal, as well as figurative. She could not tell if she was crying, or if the air was simply stinging. \emph{Security? Police? Prakash coming here?}
+
+And then: \emph{How does he know where I am?}
+
+Sure enough, there, jogging around the corner was his lithe form, unjacketed with puffs of breath showing in the still air.
+
+``Ramirez,'' he said. His breathing was calm despite the jog. ``As I'm sure you've heard, the police and security are at the lab, looking for you.''
+
+Carter merely stared at him.
+
+``Ramirez? Doctor Ramirez. Hey!'' He snapped his fingers in front of her face. ``Things are going to happen very quickly now. I need you to stay away from UCL and stay away from home. I've got some, ah\ldots{}friends who will be in contact with you soon. Not Western Fed, if you take my meaning.''
+
+She blinked, nodded dumbly. Another rock for her mind to bump over in that swift-flowing stream: \emph{Prakash? Sino-Russian Bloc?}
+
+``If you run, you'll only look guilty. You need to stay away from UCL, but--'' He pointed down the street. ``If you were to head to the medical center, then it's only an ethics violation, not running from the police, okay? Brewster is there.''
+
+``What--'' Her voice cracked, and she had to swallow a few times to get it to work properly. ``What happened?''
+
+``You found something they didn't like. You saw something you weren't supposed to, and I think I know what. Sanders tipped them off, then told the police you might be a danger to yourself or something. I don't know. He's a plant, they think on their feet. I didn't stick around. Hold still.'' The last was delivered as Carter started to shrink away from his hand reaching toward her. He held it up in a disarming gesture, a bulky-looking phone held within. ``Avery texted me why you had them pull you back. This is just a back up drive, promise.''
+
+She stood still. There didn't seem to be any alternative.
+
+Prakash pressed the box against the top of her exo, just at the base of her neck, masking the motion as a hug. There was no sensation from her implants, but when he leaned away, he nodded to her. ``We're good. Thank you, Ramirez.''
+
+``Why?''
+
+``This will be good for both of us.'' His smile was wry. ``We get some intel to use against the WF, and you will doubtless get your lost back.''
+
+Carter gaped. ``What the hell does that mean?''
+
+``Just--'' Prakash frowned at something over her shoulder. ``Fuck. Get going. Walk, don't run. Don't look back. Take the tube. You'll be followed, but being around more people will only help.''
+
+And with that, he patted her arm, moved around her, and walked away.
+
+Despite any attempts to appear calm, she had to clench her hands within her pockets to keep them from shaking.
+
+She was lucky with the tube, and managed to step immediately onto a car without having to wait. She supposed that if she were being followed, the platform would be the perfect place for someone to catch up with her. The short ride was spent wondering what they might do to her. Cuff her then and there? Pretend to be a friendly acquaintance and draw her to the side? Just talk?
+
+Not something she wanted to find out first hand.
+
+She had calmed enough by the time she reached the UMC that she was no longer shaking and could walk quickly and, hopefully, unsuspiciously up from the tube to street level. The steps disgorged her across the road from the UMC itself, and she was able to duck quickly into the building, using the light traffic as an excuse to jog.
+
+With the connection between the University College and the Medical Center, she was able to swipe her way in without fuss, and once in, to quick-walk over to the wing where she knew they worked on implants. It was no clinic, but it did have some areas dedicated to care and maintenance.
+
+She needed a rig. She didn't \emph{want} a rig, but she needed to delve in and at least let Sasha and her friends know what was happening, that she might be seeing RJ soon. Needed to let someone else know what she knew.
+
+\emph{This is stupid, this is stupid,} she repeated to herself. A mantra. Or perhaps a prayer for someone to stop her.
+
+No one did. She was doctor Carter Ramirez, after all, right? Why would a research doctor from the very university that ran the medical center need to be stopped? Of course she was welcome, the staff rigs are just down the hall, help yourself.
+
+All she could hope for now was that that, if the lost were related to information they knew but had not shared, that they were being prevented from sharing, perhaps she would be safe if she were to be visible about it. Had already been visible about it, with that stunt back in the lab. If she were too visible a subject and the lost were the result of some intentional action, her — or any of her team — getting lost would be suspicious. She hoped.
+
+\emph{Fuck, this is so stupid.}
+
+Even so, she sat in front of a workstation facing the door and, seeing nothing suspicious — no one at all, really — set her hands in the cradles and her head against the NFC terminal.
+
+\emph{No time to make a throwaway,} she thought, quickly bringing up a menu in her home sim. There was a flashing notification attached to the black sphere representing a core dump. \emph{And I'm already fucked anyway, but hopefully there's something I can do.}
+
+The mail was quick and to the point. She had the address for Sasha and, with a quick browse of her mail archive, the ones for Caitlin and this Debarre, too.
+
+\begin{quote}
+All
+
+Things went sideways with the project, we may be fucked. Govt plant (Sanders, if you remember, Sasha) and SRB spy on the team. Police showed up today and everything, just barely got out.
+
+I found some data, though. Don't know what to do with it, but I've attached the core that might have it saved. It has to do with DDR activity as suspected, notably some vote that happened a while back, deleted from EVERYONE'S records. Something crazy happening high enough up that they're trying to make everyone forget and disappear those who won't.
+
+Home sim is @cramirez:eo3.london.gb.wf\#default, will stick around a few, but after that, going to see RJ. Will probably be the last you hear from me, as am being followed.
+
+cr
+\end{quote}
+
+No time to think. She hit send.
+
+\emph{I'll give it five minutes, then I probably need to get out. Had to swipe into the room, but I doubt that'll deter anyone for long.}
+
+She jumped when Sasha stepped from the tport pad less than thirty seconds later. ``Jesus, that was fast.''
+
+``Caught me before work. What the hell is happening?'' The skunk's voice was shrill with panic. ``Police? Is AwDae okay?''
+
+Carter held up her hands defensively, then jumped again as a\ldots{}weasel? Another furry of some sort, long and brown and dressed all in black, dashed quickly from the pad.
+
+``This is Debarre.'' Sasha spoke quickly. ``Debarre, Dr. Ramirez. She's at the hospital with RJ.''
+
+Debarre looked frantic, pacing erratically. ``What the fuck is happening?''
+
+``I don't know!'' Carter forced herself to calm and lower her voice. ``I don't know. Something really fucked is going on. I'm at the UMC, the hospital where RJ is. I haven't seen em yet. I only have a few minutes. Did Caitlin get the message?''
+
+Sasha shrugged helplessly. Something was happening with her avatar. The resolution starting to degrade, polygons and voxels starting to show where once the fur had been smooth and well-rendered ``I don't know, I--'' She shook her head. ``Didn't\ldots{}h-hear\ldots{}''
+
+Both Carter and Debarre watched as the form that was Sasha fell to its knees, glitching wildly, voice filled with static. And then, with a damning silence, disappeared. Lost. Lost to the sim, lost to the world.
+
+There was a descending chime, a diminished triad, and a message floating above the black sphere of a core where Sasha had disappeared: ``User forcibly pulled back. Core dumped. Please report any further complications to your provider.''
+
+Debarre let out a shout and, without a warning, signed out.
+
+Carter hastily followed suit.
+
+\emph{Fuck.}

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/010.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+It took a moment for Carter to collect herself again after pulling back. She allowed herself thirty seconds of simply sitting in the chair before the public terminal, face in shaking hands, before she stood up. Even then, she had to force her breathing down to levels that might be considered normal.
+
+And normal this was not.
+
+She pulled out her phone and, perhaps in a vain attempt to appear calm, tapped away on it while walking out of the room. She had toured the facility often enough that she had an idea of where the lost would be kept, even if she didn't know for sure that she would be able to find them there, much less access them.
+
+\begin{quote}
+Johansson, Caitlin,
+
+At UMC, things got complicated. May be out of contact after this. Please stay safe. Stay away from DDR. Stay away from RJ.
+
+cr
+\end{quote}
+
+She had already begun to put her phone back in her pocket before the faint ping along her implants notified her of a new message.
+
+\begin{quote}
+??? We're here too??? Room 2309
+\end{quote}
+
+\emph{Shit.}
+
+Carter quickened her pace, doing her best to maintain the appearance that she belonged here. She, Dr. Carter Ramirez, researcher on the lost, was meant to be here. Meant to be in the hospital, in the wing where the lost were kept. She belonged here, it was okay.
+
+And the ruse, if ruse it were, worked well enough to get her up to the second floor and onto the hall where RJ was being kept. A slow hall. A quiet hall, where none of the patients could talk or move. An empty hall. A nurse's station with a lone nurse sitting behind a monitor.
+
+Empty, except for two chairs in front of one of the rooms.
+
+The only occupied chairs along the entire hall were occupied with suits. Suits stuffed to the brim with frowning men. Men frowning at her.
+
+\emph{Well, shit.}
+
+There would be no backing up without increased culpability. She had been preempted. And why not? Dr. Carter Ramirez, researcher in the lost, was meant to be here, right?
+
+All she could do, all she could think to do, was nod to them politely and head to the nurse's station. ``Good, uh\ldots{}good afternoon.''
+
+They looked up from the paperwork and frowned. ``Afternoon. May I help you?''
+
+``Yes, sorry. Dr. Carter Ramirez, UCL. I'm here to view a patient, RJ Brewster? Should be in 2309.''
+
+The nurse's frown deepened. ``You're expected. The gentlemen down the hall are here to speak with you. That's 2309 they're sitting in front of. Go ahead.''
+
+\emph{Well\ldots{}shit.}
+
+No way around it. Carter thanked the nurse and, moving with as much calm as she could muster, started down the hall. Both of the suits stood, buttoned their jackets, and waited at attention, watching Carter come to them. A show of power.
+
+A show summarily interrupted by Johannson.
+
+The director barrelled out of the room and nearly collided with the suits. His thick hands set on each of their shoulders, and, even from two rooms down, his rumble was clear. ``Gentlemen, can I speak with you? I have some concerns about the patient.''
+
+Nonplussed, the suits turned toward Johansson. ``Sir, we are not--''
+
+``Won't take a moment, please. Just need a bit of privacy. Dr. Ramirez, head on in. I'm sure we can all talk in a moment.''
+
+Unsure if it was confusion or Johansson's convincing act that drew her forward, she simply nodded and continued into the room. Caitlin, she assumed, sat on a chair next to the bed. And in the bed itself must have been RJ. Short, slight, dusty blonde hair swept back out of eir face by a simple hairband, eyes taped shut, nasal intubation tube taped to eir cheek. Still. Completely still.
+
+``Dr. Ramirez?'' Caitlin said.
+
+``Yes, uh\ldots{}Caitlin, is it? And this is RJ?''
+
+The tech nodded. ``Yeah. Who were those guys? They seemed pretty keen on seeing you.''
+
+Carter shook her head. ``Not sure. Government or something. They followed me here from work. I'm surprised I haven't been dragged off in cuffs yet, honestly.''
+
+``Boss is good at wrapping people up. Getting them invested in what he has to say, I guess.'' She smiled, shrugged. She looked exhausted. ``Still, I don't imagine you have a whole lot of time. What can you tell me?''
+
+``Tell? Shit.'' So dreamlike had the last few minutes been that the reminder that she was supposed to have some urgency to her movements snapped Carter to attention. ``Our team discovered something about a DDR vote, and I guess we weren't supposed to. Don't use the DDR. Don't vote on anything! Don't delve in if you can help it.''
+
+The sudden intensity seemed to startle Caitlin. She sat up straighter in her chair. ``Wait, what? Why?''
+
+``Anyone connected to the lost, anyone connected to me is at risk of getting lost, too.''
+
+``You mean\ldots{}intentionally? Not an accident?'' The tech frowned. ``Why are you here, then?''
+
+Carter ground her palms against her eyes and shook her head. ``I don't know. Running from those guys, I guess. Trying to not look guilty, or at least look less guilty.'' She considered expanding on what Prakash had said, on Prakash himself, then decided against it. If he was indeed helping her, that would be throwing him under the bus. Guilty of what, though, she didn't know. ``I figured if I came here, it would only be an ethics violation or something. Pretty vain hope.''
+
+``Maybe.'' Caitlin sounded unconvinced. ``I guess it's nice to meet you. I heard about you from the boss and Sasha.''
+
+``Sasha! Shit. Sasha's lost now, too. That's why I'm saying don't delve in! Got an idea, though. I need a\ldots{}oh good, there's one already here! I need the mirror rig.''
+
+She was shouting. Didn't know how to do anything but. If she was worried about attracting attention, though, she needn't have: similar hollering echoed down the hallway.

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/011.tex

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+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr. Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+Caitlin helped Carter wheel the mirror rig into place.
+
+Rather than the usual cradles and headrest, both sets of contacts came in the form of gloves and a headband. She remembered her first experiences, of laying back in a recliner with the uncomfortably itchy accessories, of the panic and sensation of falling that first time, of the world reorienting itself and the gray hands and skin of her default avatar swimming into focus. The instructor's kind voice as he helped her move her arms and legs for the first time.
+
+The mirror rig let the instructor and the student share a space, yes, but also share a body. It gave the instructor access to the panic button that would knock both instructor and student back out of the sim.
+
+It was that experience of watching Sasha get lost that had kicked Carter's mind into gear. If it acted like a crash and an incomplete withdrawal, mightn't she use the mirror rig to help pull RJ back? A slight hope, yes, and she might not even have time: judging by the sounds of the argument outside the door, Caitlin's voice now joining the fray.
+
+But she had to try.
+
+She slipped the headband over RJ's head and the gloves over eir hands, and then dragged two chairs closer together so that she could lay on them. No recliner, and the interferites would make her voluntary muscles relax, so sitting up was out of the question. It would have to do.
+
+She pulled on her own set of accessories, the scratchy, inexpensive fabric familiar even after all these years.
+
+She lay down and delved in.
+
+Blackness. A black that hurt the eyes. A black so bright that it drew forth tears.
+
+And then, a slow softening. A raising up from the impossible black to something merely pitch, and then from there through \emph{Eigengrau} to grey.
+
+This was not how it was supposed to go. The mirror rig was not connected to the 'net by default, it was a self-contained sim holding a simple demo room. A room with malleable ACLs that could be manipulated by student and instructor both. A room for learning.
+
+This was not a room. This was not a space. This was not being.
+
+Carter tried to cry out, to move, but no muscle would respond to her commands.
+
+And yet, the instructor could control the student, right? It took several attempts and what felt like hours, days, but she was eventually able to will a menu into existence. Thankfully the ACLs for that were tied to the contacts rather than to an account, for there, at the bottom of the menu, was a `shared controls' option.
+
+She was dizzy and the words kept blurring in and out of focus, but she was eventually able to select `Mirror all', and with a teeth-rattling \emph{pop}, the world came into focus.
+
+Not the room, the whole world. RJ/Carter sat on a low bench at the edge of a small pond. The bench sat at the edge of a trail in the midst of a narrow ridge of dry, knee-high grass. Cottonwoods dotted the rim of the pond, peanut shaped with a short bridge crossing the narrowest section. Behind em/her: a shortgrass prairie, stretching to a valley. Wind turbines.
+
+RJ/Carter was murmuring, was speaking aloud. ``May one day death itself not die? Should we rejoice in the end of endings? What is the correct thing to hope for? I do not know, I do not know.''
+
+The Carter half of this shared mind struggled, screamed, beat upon a strange membrane that kept her from truly interacting.
+
+``To pray for the end of endings is to pray for the end of memory,'' the murmur continued.
+
+RJ/Carter could feel the way the fabric of the tunic hung off their shared shoulders, feel the way it billowed, beneath their shared thin coat of fur, feel the gentle sway of their shared tail behind the bench.
+
+It was familiar/alien.
+
+The voice was eir own/not her own.
+
+The feeling of a muzzle natural/unnerving.
+
+``RJ.'' The murmur, that stream of words arriving from nowhere, was interrupted by the two simple letters.
+
+The fennec stiffened, paused. Something new/something strange. A feeling of terror/a feeling of terror.
+
+``Should\ldots{}should we forget,'' the litany continued. Their voice was clouded by tears, panic. ``Should we forget the lives we lead?''
+
+``RJ.''
+
+Panic rising/hope rising.
+
+``RJ, listen to me. Should we forget the names of the dead?''
+
+A struggle for autonomy/a struggle for control.
+
+Carter pressed on. ``RJ listen to me. My name is Dr Carter Ramirez and I should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?''
+
+Tears welled, coursed down cheeks. The fox stood, paced anxiously, tore at grass, threw stones into the still water.
+
+``My name is Dr Carter Ramirez. The only time I know my true name is when I dream.''
+
+Ey beat back at the words with eir own/she struggled to maintain some semblance of calm, to bring her voice low and soothing.
+
+``My name is Dr Carter Ramirez and yours is RJ Brewster, or\ldots{}uh, AwDae. You are at the Univ-- the only time I dream is when I need an answer-- the University Medical Center in London. You have-- Do I know god when I dream?''
+
+Ey felt a veil being lifted, being torn, being tugged at/she pressed against that veil between them, searching for soft spots, for weak spots, for ways in. Their breathing came in coarse gasps.
+
+``RJ, b-breathe. Keep breathing,'' RJ/Carter stammered. The veil began to tear. ``We're connected using a mirror rig. D-do you remember learning to use your implants with one?''
+
+Paws tore at grass, though no longer with panic but with anger/frustration. This was unconscionable/taking too long.
+
+Ey did not have time for this/she didn't have time for this.
+
+The veil tore.
+
+``RJ, I'm going to stop mirroring. Please do not. Please leave me RJ we don't have much time and please leave me alone RJ, Caitlin and Johansson are here.''
+
+And with a final rending, the veil disappeared completely and Carter swiped from mirroring to coexisting, and in that grey, default shape sat on the ground by the weeping fox. ``RJ\ldots{}AwDae. I shouldn't be here. At the UMC, I mean. We don't have too much time. The police are outside and arguing with Johansson. Can you feel for the exit?''
+
+AwDae's fingers dug into the earth, clutched at the roots of the grass. Ey hesitated there, perhaps considering trying to tear up the whole tussock, before sitting up once again, cheekfur stained with streaks of tears. Ey would not look at Carter, and instead looked out toward the mountains.
+
+There was a moment of vertigo as the mountains fell away, the pond rose, and the scene shifted from the curated wilderness into that of a simple flat. Water became hardwood flooring before Carter got wet. Bench became bed. Trees became walls. The sound of the stalks of grass rustling phase-shifted into a quiet purr.
+
+Carter was kneeling on a rumpled bed next to a sobbing fox while a long-haired cat traipsed across her lap to go stand on AwDae's. The fox lifted a paw to stroke through the cat's fur.
+
+``Since then — tis centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day,'' ey said between gasps. ``I first surmised the Horses Heads Were towards Eternity —''
+
+``AwDae?''
+
+``Or perhaps,'' ey continued, seeming to gain strength from the words. ``Distance — is not the Realm of Fox nor by Relay of Bird Abated\ldots{}''
+
+``AwDae, can you hear me?''
+
+``Emily Dickinson.'' Eir laugh was choked. ``I am at a loss for images in this end of days: I have sight but cannot see. I build my castle out of words; I cannot stop myself from speaking. And could never come close to the beauty of Dickinson. How long have I been here? Has it indeed been centuries?''
+
+Carter shook her head.
+
+The cat bunted her head against the fox's paw, and ey scratched claws gently between her ears. ``This is Priscilla.''
+
+``AwDae, we need--''
+
+``I know. I can feel the exit.'' Ey sighed. ``I am not sure I want to go.''
+
+Carter hesitated, then leaned in closer to hug an arm around the slender fox's shoulders. ``I don't know that you'll have a choice, RJ. I don't think Johansson and Caitlin are going to hold off the police for long.''
+
+``If they pull us back, will I come with?''
+
+``I don't know.''
+
+AwDae sagged against her. ``I know I should come with. But in case I do not, here is what happened.''
+
+Carter tamped down her impatience and let the fox speak. Let em speak about the experience of getting lost. Let em speak about dreaming and the mirroring of exo- and endocortices. Let em speak about Cicero and the vote in the DDR, the trap that had been triggered by some outside authority. Let em confirm all her suspicions and then some.
+
+That impatience melted away. There was no way that Johansson and Caitlin were somehow holding off the police for this long. Too much time had gone by.
+
+Had it?
+
+Had \emph{any} time gone by?
+
+Carter could feel the maddening influence of this non-place, so detailed in appearance. She could feel the way the dream buffeted her, drew smudging lines away from her mind. Pulled at words, wrapped her in blankets of language. unforgotten. Something innate made real. Memory froze, and forgetting was forgotten. And yet, when she focused, she could still feel that cool breeze of the exit behind her. She focused on that.
+
+``Thank you, AwDae,'' she said when ey finally fell silent. ``This confirms much of what we learned in the lab and in talking with Sasha.''
+
+The fox sat bolt upright. ``Sasha? You were talking with her?''
+
+``She contacted me, yes. I wasn't supposed to, but I talked with her and Johansson both.''
+
+Ey subsided. ``I am glad to hear she is alright, then.''
+
+Carter frowned. ``She isn't, though. She got lost about an hour ago. Or something, I can't tell time in this place. I delved in to pass on information before the police caught up with me, and Debarre and I watched her get lost. That's what led me to try the mirror rig. You should--''
+
+As she spoke, the fennec's frown grew deeper and deeper, and then, apparently having heard enough, ey dissolved from view. Not disappeared; dissolved with the pleasant disconnection animation.
+
+Ey had pulled back.
+
+Carter reached for that cool breeze on the back of her neck and pulled back as well. The quiet purring of the cat was replaced with screaming.
+
+No, not screaming, shouting. Surprise, not fear or pain. Caitlin and Johansson shouting.
+
+Carter lifted her head from the chair she had appropriated as a pillow and tried to tug off the gloves of the mirror-rig and found her hands bound with a zip-tie. Police frowned down to her. They couldn't prevent her from looking, though.
+
+Caitlin was holding RJ's hand, and Johansson was shouting for a doctor.
+
+RJ's eyes were open. Confused and anxious, but cogent and bright.
+
+Before she could rejoice, before anyone could stop her, even herself, she delved back in. Delved back in to the sim, then swiped 'net access on. She signed on, dropped into her home sim, and swiped up an audio broadcast to Sasha, Debarre, Avery, Prakash, Johansson, her MP\ldots{}everyone she could think of, and began talking. Those that were not listening live would receive a recording.
+
+``My name is Dr Carter Ramirez, researcher at University College London studying the lost. We have succeeded in waking up one patient, RJ Brewster, and have discovered the mechanism by which individuals get lost. The police and Western Fed agents are here to prevent me from saying this, I think, so if I disconnect, that is why. Do not use the DDR. This is the source of the mechanism as described by Mx. Brewster.''
+
+She kept speaking until she had exhausted the knowledge of what she had learned over the last week. The pressure from on high. Sanders' carefully-constructed ruse. The data shifting. The rising panic. The only thing she left out was Prakash's involvement, the Sino-Russian Bloc's interest in the case.
+
+And then she pulled back once more, sat up, and tugged off the gloves with her teeth. She shrugged to the police and, on seeing RJ sitting up, smiled over to em.
+
+Ey did not smile back. ``We have to get Sasha.''

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/012.tex

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+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}{%
+\chapter*{Dr Carter Ramirez — 2112}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2112}}
+
+TODO

qoheleth/content/old/Carter/013.tex

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+\hypertarget{dr-carter-ramirez-2113}{%
+\chapter*{Dr Carter Ramirez — 2113}\label{dr-carter-ramirez-2113}}
+
+(Deposition on findings, encounter with DDR bill)