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\hypertarget{sasha-2112}{%
\chapter*{Sasha — 2112}\label{sasha-2112}}
Sasha clutched at the arms of her chair, fingernails digging into the foam of the armrests, promised herself she'd stay put.
Then stood up anyway.
That her relationship with RJ was as casual as it was was working against her. She knew ey was in the UK, in London, and that they worked at a theater, but for the most part, they talked about other things. Shared things, not work. Or, if work, theater in general. They talked about Cicero and Debarre. They talked about The Crown Pub. They talked about their past and their shared world, their syncosm. RJ rarely got too far into the present and the embodied world, eir exocosm.
So she had been at something of an impasse, then, with no way to figure out just what had happened to lead to eir disappearance. There were rumors abound in the Crown Pub that ey was lost, just like Cicero.
She would have to admit that she had been the source of more than a few of them, given the notification from the hospital she had received — that ey had put her down as an emergency contact was touching in a way she could not quite articulate — stating that ey had been admitted, but that, no, unless she were to arrive in person for biometrics, they would not be able to tell her what had happened.
No chance of that. Production season was the same in American schools as it was in Soho theaters across the Atlantic.
The thing that plagued her with doubts was the sheer improbability of such a thing. Ey had joined them on their own private investigation into Cicero. Had that been it? But here she was; and Debarre was, as far as she knew, still alright. Even then, how could it be that thinking about, talking about, working with data related to the lost would lead to one getting lost themselves? Wouldn't the researchers on the case be all the more susceptible?
Perhaps it was something about the data?
\emph{Still a dead end,} she thought. \emph{We have the same data ey had. There's four or five of us with ACLs on the deck.}
And perhaps ey wasn't lost at all. There had been the show, of course. And while RJ had never disappeared during performances before, ey had certainly been quieter during her timezone. But with the message from the hospital, the only potential there was that there had been some sort of accident at the theater.
She was embarrassed at how long it had taken her to think about simply searching eir name. She still knew that from school, after all. Doubtful that searching `AwDae', nor even simply `RJ', would turn up any medical reports.
So it was that Sasha wound up reading the same article that Carter had found a few days earlier. It confirmed all her worst suspicions.
She sent Debarre the link first, the subject line simply the emoticon \texttt{:/}. Distressed as she was, she deleted the auto-corrected emoji and replaced it with the plain-text emoticon, feeling, somehow, that that better represented her anxiety. She considered passing the article around further, but thought better of it. It pulled too hard at her heart. It had left her in tears when she first found it. Their relationship, brief as it was, had been one of the happiest of the lot she had been through. There was no ire in the way they had drifted from `item' back to simply friends.
The one upshot to finding the article had been the name of the group that RJ worked for.
And thus Sasha: pacing back and forth in front of her desk, trying to work up the courage to hit send on the email she had drafted.
She had considered mailing the director of the troupe, Bernhard Johansson, but had decided against it, figuring that the man had far more on his plate running a play. Too much to bother responding to a request such as hers. Ditto this Sarai Coen, listed as stage manager. If the play was still running, both would be swamped.
She had settled instead on a Caitlin Wells, listed as working lights for the stage. Given all that RJ had told her about working as a tech, she would likely be both the closest to em and one of the least busy outside of work. If there were such a thing, that is. Sasha had been an actor, not a tech, and had no clue how busy those nights and days between performances were for the tech side.
She was just thankful that email addresses had been listed for the cast members. Not the crew, but given the pattern of \emph{firstname.lastname@sttroupe.co.gb.wf}, she was hoping Caitlin's would follow suit.
\begin{quote}
Caitlin Wells,
I apologize for writing to you out of the blue, but I am a friend of RJ Brewster who works with the Soho Theatre Troupe, and I was wondering if you would be able to provide me with a bit more information about em. I am a friend from school and remember em working with theater there, and talked with em daily on a sim online.
I know this is a long shot. I hope this reaches you, and I hope that you are well, all things considered. If you get a chance to send me a note, I would greatly appreciate it. Both email and meeting in a sim would be fine.
Best.
Sasha
\end{quote}
Sasha had deliberated over the two paragraphs for an hour and a half, deleting and correcting. How much should she ask for? Should she reveal where they interacted? How should she start the letter, and how should she finish it? Hell, how should she address herself? Her real name wasn't Sasha, though she thought of herself that way as often as not. She figured that, should they actually meet up in a sim somewhere, that would be the name that this Caitlin would get.
She ran quickly to her terminal and hit `send' before she second-guessed herself any further, and then\ldots{}
\emph{Oh, shit.}
Now she realized her mistake. Realized that, if they \emph{did} meet up in a sim, Caitlin would be meeting up with skunk-her, rather than something more like her in the offline world. Perhaps she had a human av stashed away somewhere. She could buy one off the shelf quickly. It was seven thirty in the British Isles, she might have time before Caitlin woke up.
No luck. A scant two minutes of Sasha fretting at her keyboard passed before a ping alerted her to a new message.
\begin{quote}
OMG OMG we were hoping one of RJ's friends would contact us. We only know so much. Your sim or mine? Meet you in five. C.
\end{quote}
Far too little time to switch out an av for something a bit more\ldots{}presentable? A bit more human?
Sasha groaned.
Nothing for it. She set her hands on the cradles and leaning into the headband of her workstation. Once in, she pulled up her in-sim mail and spoke quickly.
\begin{quote}
Caitlin,
Either is fine. Should warn you that I know RJ through furry, and may look weird. My address is @Sasha:of-all-stripes.fur\#home in case you want to meet here, or we can meet publicly.
Sasha
\end{quote}
The reply came in a matter of seconds, half a minute tops.
\begin{quote}
Sasha. Crown Pub? In case you want to tell others. That's what RJ always talked to me about. We know about furry. C.
\end{quote}
The relief was palpable, if incomplete. It would certainly be strange to actually interact with one of the tourists that drifted through that sim. She tapped one of the pre-written replies — ``Sure, see you there!'' — on her client, hoping that this would portray the appropriate levels of urgency that Caitlin seemed to share, then dashed to her tport pad and swiped left, quickly selecting the top, most-visited option.
Caitlin was already there.
Sasha wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not that the woman had a custom avatar. She was evidently a fan of the past, with hair swept neatly to the side to reveal an undercut. She wore a long, sleeveless tunic emblazoned with the word \emph{heh.}, running to mid thigh covering only leggings. Something from late the previous century.
Sasha felt strangely plain in her simple skunk av. Baggy shirt and fisherman's pants, fashionable enough by today's standards, did not stand up against London chic.
``Caitlin?'' she said, voice raised.
The human waved energetically and ducked through the crowd. ``Sasha, right? There a place we can talk? Anyone else you want to bring along?''
Sasha did a quick scan of the room, picking out Debarre sulking at the end of the bar. She jogged over and tapped him on the shoulder. ``Someone who knows AwDae is here, want to join?''
The weasel perked at that, frowned, nodded. ``Uh, sure. Do they know about Cice?''
``I don't know, but they might. They only said they know about AwDae, and that ey had talked to them about this place.''
Debarre shrugged and slipped off of his stool, following after Sasha. ``Better than nothing,'' he grumbled, nodding to Caitlin on his way to one of the empty booths.
The three settled onto the overstuffed seats. There was a moment of silence before all three started talking at once, followed by another silence, then nervous laughter. Sasha gestured to Caitlin.
``RJ's lost. It happened during a rehearsal.'' She frowned, tapping a finger at the scarred table between them. ``Should back up, though. How much do you know?''
``We read an article about em. Something from a tabloid. It just mentioned the Troupe, which is how I found you.''
Caitlin nodded, frowned, then offered her hand to Debarre. The weasel shook it cautiously. ``Sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Caitlin, the lights tech for STT. I was there when\ldots{}when it happened.''
``Debarre,'' Debarre said, gruff. ``Boyfriend's lost, too. AwDae\ldots{}uh, RJ, Sasha, and I were trying to figure out what happened.''
Fumbling some cards out of her pocket and duplicating them, Sasha added, ``We were exchanging a deck on Cicero, Debarre's partner. You don't have to do anything with them, but you might as well have a copy, too. And, hold on.'' The skunk swiped, tapped through menus, created a new card titled `RJ lost', duplicated it twice. She handed one each to Debarre and Caitlin. ``One for RJ as well.''
Caitlin swiped up on the card, tapped the voice-record button, and began speaking. ``Alright, so here's what I know. RJ was working sound that night, last night of rehearsals, and started having trouble about halfway through. Ey went quiet on the mic, and then missed a cue or two before we noticed what was going on. We called a halt to the rehearsal and found em unresponsive at eir rig. We pulled em back and hit the panic button and\ldots{}and nothing. Ey was gone. Even out of the rig, eir implants showed ey was still inside.
``The cops and paramedics had a protocol for the whole thing, I guess. Ey was taken off to the hospital. It all happened so fast. Johansson — that's the director — met up with a woman from the university who said she was studying the lost and had a talk with her. She said she had gotten information on em, but wanted more, so they talked for a bit. Her name was--'' Caitlin frowned and thought for a moment, then tapped the growing deck to add another card. ``Carter Ramirez. Oh, you've already got one in here. Remembered it was Spanish or something. RJ mentioned your name, which is why I was so eager to meet up.''
Sasha sat up straighter. ``My name?''
``Yeah. Ey talked about you quite a lot. Hell, ey mentioned Cicero.''
At this, Debarre looked so intently at Caitlin that she quailed under his gaze.
``Just that he was lost, I'm sorry. I don't know much beyond that.''
The weasel's shoulders slumped, and he nodded.
``There's a lot of downtime, working tech. We all chat and\ldots{}hey, why did you contact me, anyway?''
``I figured you'd be the least busy, other than maybe stage hands. Plus, RJ said lights techs were always cool.''
Caitlin laughed, brushing her hair back. The motion seemed automatic, as her av's hair had hardly budged. ``It's true. Anyway, we talked. I don't actually know what more to tell you beyond that. The rest of our relationship was work. RJ was super focused on that, and didn't really chill with the rest of us when ey wasn't working. I mean, we liked em and ey liked us, but ey was rarely a hundred percent there, you know? Ey had a cat, I know that.''
``Priscilla, yeah.''
Caitlin shrugged. ``Sure, I guess. Eir landlord is taking care of it. I was hoping you could tell me more, actually.''
Sasha recounted much of her and RJ's history. All the way back to their relationship, back through school. School productions, school summers, sleepovers and movies and all the trappings of being a kid.
By the end, she was crying freely.
``I didn't know, I'm sorry. RJ never talked about relationships.''
``I think I was eir only one.'' Sasha sniffled. ``There weren't any others that I knew about, at least. Ey was kinda, uh\ldots{}aromantic, I guess.''
Caitlin nodded. ``That tallies. Listen, I gotta get going, though. I ran at this without really thinking, and your email ping woke me up. I don't know if I can, but I should try sleeping more before the show tonight.''
``No problem,'' Sasha and Debarre said in unison. They laughed, though whether at the shared words or the giddiness that went along with new information, Sasha couldn't tell.
``No problem,'' she repeated. ``Thank you so much for meeting up with us. And thank you for confirmation on that researcher's name. I'll see if I can find this Dr.~Ramirez. Keep in touch, alright? And add to the deck if you find anything.''
Caitlin nodded. ``Will do. See you later.''
And with that, the woman signed off. Poor form to do so in the middle of a public sim like this, but everyone was jumpy. The skunk and the weasel shrugged it off.
``Guess now we have another lead,'' Debarre said.
``Yeah. And if she's a big name researcher, I bet she knows about Cicero, too.''
At that, Debarre brightened, and for the first time in weeks, the two spent the rest of the night talking without tears.

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\hypertarget{sasha-2112}{%
\chapter*{Sasha — 2112}\label{sasha-2112}}
Sasha wanted to be pleased with the rapidity with which everything was happening. It hadn't even been a week, and here was one of the lead researchers of the lost mailing from a private address.
She desperately wanted to be pleased. Wanted to believe that things were moving forward. Wanted more than anything to smell the lingering scent of fox and cat in the Crown Pub, just to know that ey was there.
And yet, she wasn't. It was all wrong. Everything about this was wrong. There was no way to forget that, despite the forward momentum, she was still doing all of this for what was widely acknowledged to be a lost cause.
She began typing.
\begin{quote}
Dr.~Ramirez,
Wow, I'm glad you got back to me! I was not expecting that. I'm a little confused as to why, but I guess no sense in questioning it.
Do you have information on RJ and Collin? I'll gladly give what I can. They both were good people. RJ and I went to school together, and the three of us spent a lot of time together in sim. They would spend hours talking politics (mostly Collin yelling).
The last thing I got from RJ was this:
\begin{quote}
AwDae here. Looks like there's a lot going on in DDR activity (where'd you get this, Debarre?). Cicero (Collin) was into a lot, and I'm not trying to go all conspiracy nut on you all, but do you think that maybe he got in too deep or something? Not saying someone tried to do it too him or anything, just that maybe the more one uses the net, the more likely it is to happen to them? I mean seriously, look at all of his votes, and his stash of credits! I'll keep poking at this after rehearsal.
\end{quote}
Do you have any idea what that might be about? I know I said Cicero was super into politics, but do you think RJ was onto something here?
I've copied Cicero's partner, Debarre (don't know real name, sorry!) and Caitlin Fowler from where RJ works.
Sasha
\end{quote}
The response was only an hour in coming. As with Caitlin, it was short and to the point.
\begin{quote}
Sasha, all - @129822922:d.no.onehere.board\#default
\end{quote}
A throwaway user? The wrongness intensified.
All the same, Sasha logged in and swiped her way over to the address Carter had provided.
As with most throwaway rooms, it was a cube measuring about five meters on a side, a faint grid lining the floor, and as with most throwaway avatars, Carter was visible only as a gesture at humanity. The lines of a face hinting at expressions, features. Average height. Gray skin. Androgynous hair.
``Sasha. Uh\ldots{}you're a skunk.''
She frowned.
``Right, sorry. I'm sorry for meeting you like this.''
Sasha shook her head. ``It's okay, I guess. Can you tell me why?''
``Will you accept ``because of a dream'' as an answer?''
Her frown deepened.
``I suppose not.'' Carter hugged her arms around her middle, a gesture that looked distinctly out of place from the gray avatar. ``You mention, uh\ldots{}AwDae investigating DDR activity, as well as Collin's own involvement but--well, should we wait for others to show up?''
``I don't know if any of them are coming.'' She felt the tightness of panic in her chest intensify. ``I don't know where Debarre is. Probably work, it's midday for us. And I imagine Caitlin's show is on.''
The figure before her sighed. ``Right.''
Sasha pulled up her deck. ``I can take notes, perhaps,'' she allowed. ``I don't suppose you'll want ACLs with a throwaway.''
``No, probably not. Notes will have to do.'' Carter seemed to compose herself, and then continued as she was saying before. ``You mentioned the relation to DDR, and we already suspected that Collin and RJ were friends. This is something we've been looking into with my group. The possibility of a social vector, I mean. It's gone poorly.''
``Poorly how?''
``Well, there was unexpected resistance within the team, and then shortly after taking this tack, the hammer came down from above saying we had to fire someone — someone studying this aspect — and shift our investigation to the neurological side.''
Sasha blinked. ``Are you suggesting you're being told to not look at social aspects?''
Despite the mere sketch of facial features, the av's smile still carried the weariness heard in the tone of its voice. ``In a way, yes. I had a dream about shadows following everyone and I guess I could say I'm a bit spooked. Too many coincidences in too short a time.''
``I'd chalk it all up to paranoia if I weren't feeling so anxious, myself.''
``Any particular reason why?''
``I, well.'' She brushed her paws down over the fur on her forearms, stalling to hunt for a response. Any response. ``I don't know. Things are moving so quickly. I don't know how to explain. I met up with Caitlin and she told me a lot, and then I emailed you, and your two responses didn't do anything to assuage my fears.''
Carter nodded, didn't respond.
``But I don't know that anything you might have said beyond ``we fixed it, AwDae's awake'' could have done anything but. Even your ``we're working on it'' form letter was anxiety-inducing in its own way. I know you're working on it. I imagine a lot of people are.'' She hesitated, then added, ``But that doesn't really help to hear.''
``No, I imagine not.''
``And to then get another email saying that you wanted to talk things through outside of work just added to my fears. Like, what could that possibly mean?''
``I'm sorry,'' the figure said dully. ``I really can't help in the context of work.''
``I know. I read up a bit on WFPHIPA.''
``Yeah.''
The panic was slowly transmuting into anger. Sasha didn't like it, but was powerless to stop the shift. ``And now here you are, in all gray, talking about, what, conspiracy theories? Dreams?''
``I'm sorry, Sasha. I really don't feel any better about this than you. I'm not usually the paranoid type, but I think Sanders\ldots{}well, I suspect that one of my colleagues has motives that go beyond just his focus on neurochemistry. I think they go beyond just the university.''
Further information tempered anger. ``How do you mean?''
``Well, I said the hammer came down. It did so in the form of grantors threatening to pull funding from the project.'' Carter shrugged. ``And I believe that the research coordinator — that is, the university itself — was just passing along that message. I think the stress is coming from higher up.''
``Wait, grantors?''
``Yes. The project is hosted by the UCL, but is being funded from external sources. Grants, that sort of thing.''
``Who's writing the grants?''
Carter held up her hands. ``No clue. That's the thing. Why would the grantors throw their weight around, saying that we should follow specific lines of research? That's not their job.''
``Have you even published data that would suggest anything but a--'' Sasha dug for the term. ``Neurological cause?''
The figure stiffened. ``What?''
``I just mean AwDae got lost only a few days ago, and you said that ey was the reason you started looking at the social aspect, right?''
Carter began pacing. ``Right, yeah. And we haven't published anything along either front in that time, social or biological. I can't say this is helping my paranoia any.''
``Do you think this coworker--''
``Sanders?''
``Do you think Sanders is, I mean\ldots{}'' Sasha said, struggling to keep her voice in check. It seemed to want to simultaneously rise in panic and also sneer at the very suggestion. ``Some sort of shady government plant?''
``I gotta go,'' Carter said. ``Don't use the DDR for a while.''
Then, without ceremony, she teleported away.
There were three small warning chimes, and Sasha found herself back in her home sim. The throwaway had been recycled.
\emph{``Fuck.''}

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\hypertarget{sasha-2112}{%
\chapter*{Sasha — 2112}\label{sasha-2112}}
Pain woke Sasha. Pain and a rumbling, jittery sensation within her body.
The pain coursed through her limbs, seeming to originate from a wellspring at the base of her neck. She remembered a quickly building sense of vertigo, of the whole of her perception growing fuzzy around the edges, and then\ldots{}nothing.
And then this.
She levered her eyes open slowly, carefully, and was greeted by an extreme close-up view of a dandelion. A dandelion. More dandelions. Cartoonishly fat bumblebees — for what bumbler is not cartoonish? — coursed among them in lazy Lissajous curves. They all avoided her with the polite patience of bees of all ilk.
``The fuck.'' The half-formed phrase tumbled out from between what felt like half-formed lips.
She carefully picked herself up off the ground, off the field of endless dandelions. The pain coursing through her body was quickly explained as she turned around. It appeared that she had fallen from a tall barstool. There stood before her a row of them lined neatly before a bar. \emph{The} bar. The one so familiar from countless nights and weekends loitering in the Crown Pub.
The bar stood alone in the field. No backing wall full of racks of bottles. No walls at all: beyond the bar was more endless field. No floor: the stools sprouted as easily from soil and grass as did the dandelions.
Dandelions.
That warm smell of fresh-baked muffins hung thick in the air. The warm air. The warm sun. The warm sky. The warm earth.
\AddToHookNext{shipout/after}{\includepdf[pages={1},offset=18pct 0]{assets/split}}
She rubbed at the back of her neck to ease the pain, then quickly pulled her hand away as though burnt.
Hand.
Paw.
Hand.
Paw.
Her body could not seem to make up its mind. Just as the fall seemed to explain the jolts of pain, the quaking in her body seemed to come from the way her form wobbled between states. Waves of skunk-fur/waves of human skin washed across her, gentle stripes moving through the base of human skin/through the base of skunk fur.
She screamed.
She screamed and the scream wobbled through different registers with an unnerving electric intensity that set her teeth on edge and made her fur bristle/made her skin crawl.
The scream did not echo.
What vasty nothing must produce such anechoic bliss! The silence hurt her ears, deafened her.
The scream cut short, she stumbled, ran, stumbled again, and kept running. Did not know where she ran. Did not care where she ran. Picked a direction and sprinted. Hoarse breathing echoed within her ears, for where else would it echo?
Hazardous glances back marked her distance by the shrinking of the lone bar, standing awkwardly amid flowers.
\emph{And I ran.} Words coursed absurdly through her head. Coursed and squirmed, slick to the touch. \emph{I ran so far away.} Words and music. Notes falling upon her from on high. Words welling up from somewhere deep within her gut.
She looked back, saw the bar dwindle, and when she turned around once more, skidded to a halt. For there was the bar again. Obstinately proving its presence through albedo and shadow and solidity. Looked behind her again and saw only empty field.
Screamed again.
Deafened again, fell silent.
Reached behind her for that cool draft against her neck, tried to pull back.
There was no draft.
There was no pulling back.
That pain, then: not the shock of falling from the stool, but the shock of sudden disconnection.
Fell to her knees and scrambled toward the bar on all fours, huddling against it and staring wide-eyed at the endless plain of dandelions. Heard her breath echo against the wood of the bar. Turned to face it and screamed deliberately, letting the subtle echo of acknowledgement, the presence of something solid, wash over her. Relished it. Screamed obscenities. Cursed the world. Cursed the powers that sent her to this place. Lost. Lost. Lost.
She could not control her thoughts. The world came at her too fast. An intrasaccadic smear of a world. A gesture at reality.
It was days/years/minutes until she was able to calm herself once more. The sun set/never set. The air temperature swung wildly to cold at night/was an unchanging warm that would not permit the passage of time.
Her mind wandered far.
Days passed.
Or not.
She plucked at a dandelion at some point, breathed in the fresh-baked scent of it. Let it fall to the ground.
She levered herself up onto the stool once more and cheerfully ordered herself a drink from no one. She clawed/scratched at the bar's stained and varnished surface, sobbing. Tears left tracks in fur/slid from her cheeks to the bar top.
And always her form shifted and danced. Her tail would sway into being and then it would never have been there. Her skin would sting and prickle from slamming her hand down against the bar and then that skin would be replaced by velvety pads.
She came to at some point/calmed down enough to think/let her breath slow enough that she was no longer sobbing.
Days passed.
Perhaps.
\emph{If this is a dream and I know it, do I not have control? Can I not make my reality for me?}
She breathed in to the count of four, held for the count of two, and then breathed herself out on a breath. There, beside her on the next stool, sat her human form/sat her skunk form. Her mind was split. Shared between the two. Neither could move without the other moving. Unison did not describe the perfection of the match.
But at least she was no longer out of focus.
\emph{Was this what the lost were going through?} She brushed her hand/paw through her hair/over her ears. \emph{Or perhaps it is merely a furry thing, primed as we are to have an internal representation so different from our external? Perhaps it is a me thing? Perhaps all are unique.}
``Oh AwDae,'' she moaned. ``Oh fox. How long have you been suffering?''
Days passed.
The sun rose and set with a frightening hum/utter tranquility.
She stood/she stood.
Poetry coursed through her, half remembered/perfectly memorized lines from productions long past. Lines from school, from work. ``Since then — 'tis centuries — and yet feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horse's heads were toward eternity —''
It \emph{had} been centuries for her, and yet each felt shorter than the crash to the ground from out of the perilous heights of the embodied world. \emph{Time feels so vast that were it not For an Eternity\ldots{}}
Time, which beat against the skies. Time, which hemmed her in. Time, which forced words from her mouth/from her muzzle in breathless haste/unwavering slowness. \emph{I fear me this Circumference Engross my Finity — To His exclusion who prepare By Process of Size For the Stupendous Vision Of his diameters —}
``Oh fox.''
She cried again/cried again. Sat on the ground again/sat on the ground again. Plucked a dandelion/plucked a dandelion. Again/again. Always twice over.
``Sasha!'' She spoke aloud.
``The fuck.'' Half question this time.
``Sasha, it's Debarre,'' she said. Then: ``What the fuck?''
``I'm so sorry. I came as fast as I could. Everything's a fucking mess.''
``How long has it been?'' she asked herself.
``About sixteen hours.''
``Hours?'' Hours? What meaning held time? She had lived her whole life — several such — on this tiny world.
``Yeah. I had to dump a chunk of my savings into a ticket to get here.''
She clawed at the ground in something between frustration and terror that a friend's voice was coming from her mouth/from her muzzle. ``And\ldots{}how are you\ldots{}''
``A mirror rig.'' The joyous tone of the words clashed against the tears still flowing freely. ``We figured it out. Carter figured it out, I mean. She and AwDae busted everything open. Figured out how to rescue the lost, figured out how everyone \emph{gets} lost in the first place.''
She stopped digging at the earth. ``AwDae is back?''
``Yes! And the clinic where Cicero is is trying to get him out as well!''
She had to turn toward the bar again to let the shouting echo. The silence was giving her a headache.
Or not. A neck-ache. Something was tearing at the back of the neck/through the fur of her scruff. An ache. A jolt of pain. A ripping. A tearing.
``I'm going to stop mirroring now. This is horrifying,'' she said to the wood of the bar. She did not know who said the last, Debarre or herself. Was there a difference?
And then, a hand on her shoulder. One of her shoulders. The sensation made her hair/fur stand on end. She turned around, and there was Debarre. Or so she guessed. The grey, default avatar. The figure frowned as he looked between the two of her. Looked at Michelle/looked at Sasha.
``I\ldots{}what? Sasha?''
She gritted her teeth/bared her teeth. ``I do not know either. What to we do now? How do we get out of this\ldots{}place?''
The shape that promised it was Debarre shrugged. ``Can you back out?''
She reached. Felt the draft. Smiled beatifically. She passed the field of dandelions. Passed the setting sun, or perhaps he passed her.
And breathed in the cool air of an implant clinic.
There, beside her, also sitting up from the recliner and pulling off his headband, was, she supposed, Debarre. Short. Soft. Thinning hair. Ecstatic grin.
``Sasha?'' The grin picked up an ironic twist. ``Or Michelle, I guess. You okay?''

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\hypertarget{sasha-2112}{%
\chapter*{Sasha — 2112}\label{sasha-2112}}
Pain woke Sasha. Pain and a rumbling, jittery sensation within her body.
The pain coursed through her limbs, seeming to originate from a wellspring at the base of her neck. She remembered a quickly building sense of vertigo, of the whole of her perception growing fuzzy around the edges, and then\ldots{}nothing.
And then this.
She levered her eyes open slowly, carefully, and was greeted by an extreme close-up view of a dandelion. A dandelion. More dandelions. Cartoonishly fat bumblebees — for what bumbler is not cartoonish? — coursed among them in lazy Lissajous curves. They all avoided her with the polite patience of bees of all ilk.
``The fuck.'' The half-formed phrase tumbled out from between what felt like half-formed lips.
She carefully picked herself up off the ground, off the field of endless dandelions. The pain coursing through her body was quickly explained as she turned around. It appeared that she had fallen from a tall barstool. There stood before her a row of them lined neatly before a bar. \emph{The} bar. The one so familiar from countless nights and weekends loitering in the Crown Pub.
The bar stood alone in the field. No backing wall full of racks of bottles. No walls at all: beyond the bar was more endless field. No floor: the stools sprouted as easily from soil and grass as did the dandelions.
Dandelions.
That warm smell of fresh-baked muffins hung thick in the air. The warm air. The warm sun. The warm sky. The warm earth.
She rubbed at the back of her neck to ease the pain, then quickly pulled her hand away as though burnt.
Hand.
Paw.
Hand.
Paw.
Her body could not seem to make up its mind. Just as the fall seemed to explain the jolts of pain, the quaking in her body seemed to come from the way her form wobbled between states. Waves of skunk-fur/waves of human skin washed across her, gentle stripes moving through the base of human skin/through the base of skunk fur.
She screamed.
She screamed and the scream wobbled through different registers with an unnerving electric intensity that set her teeth on edge and made her fur bristle/made her skin crawl.
The scream did not echo.
What vasty nothing must produce such anechoic bliss! The silence hurt her ears, deafened her.
The scream cut short, she stumbled, ran, stumbled again, and kept running. Did not know where she ran. Did not care where she ran. Picked a direction and sprinted. Hoarse breathing echoed within her ears, for where else would it echo?
Hazardous glances back marked her distance by the shrinking of the lone bar, standing awkwardly amid flowers.
\emph{And I ran.} Words coursed absurdly through her head. Coursed and squirmed, slick to the touch. \emph{I ran so far away.} Words and music. Notes falling upon her from on high. Words welling up from somewhere deep within her gut.
She looked back, saw the bar dwindle, and when she turned around once more, skidded to a halt. For there was the bar again. Obstinately proving its presence through albedo and shadow and solidity. Looked behind her again and saw only empty field.
Screamed again.
Deafened again, fell silent.
Reached behind her for that cool draft against her neck, tried to pull back.
There was no draft.
There was no pulling back.
That pain, then: not the shock of falling from the stool, but the shock of sudden disconnection.
Fell to her knees and scrambled toward the bar on all fours, huddling against it and staring wide-eyed at the endless plain of dandelions. Heard her breath echo against the wood of the bar. Turned to face it and screamed deliberately, letting the subtle echo of acknowledgement, the presence of something solid, wash over her. Relished it. Screamed obscenities. Cursed the world. Cursed the powers that sent her to this place. Lost. Lost. Lost.
She could not control her thoughts. The world came at her too fast. An intrasaccadic smear of a world. A gesture at reality.
It was days/years/minutes until she was able to calm herself once more. The sun set/never set. The air temperature swung wildly to cold at night/was an unchanging warm that would not permit the passage of time.
Her mind wandered far.
Days passed.
Or not.
She plucked at a dandelion at some point, breathed in the fresh-baked scent of it. Let it fall to the ground.
She levered herself up onto the stool once more and cheerfully ordered herself a drink from no one. She clawed/scratched at the bar's stained and varnished surface, sobbing. Tears left tracks in fur/slid from her cheeks to the bar top.
And always her form shifted and danced. Her tail would sway into being and then it would never have been there. Her skin would sting and prickle from slamming her hand down against the bar and then that skin would be replaced by velvety pads.
She came to at some point/calmed down enough to think/let her breath slow enough that she was no longer sobbing.
Days passed.
Perhaps.
\emph{If this is a dream and I know it, do I not have control? Can I not make my reality for me?}
She breathed in to the count of four, held for the count of two, and then breathed herself out on a breath. There, beside her on the next stool, sat her human form/sat her skunk form. Her mind was split. Shared between the two. Neither could move without the other moving. Unison did not describe the perfection of the match.
But at least she was no longer out of focus.
\emph{Was this what the lost were going through?} She brushed her hand/paw through her hair/over her ears. \emph{Or perhaps it is merely a furry thing, primed as we are to have an internal representation so different from our external? Perhaps it is a me thing? Perhaps all are unique.}
``Oh AwDae,'' she moaned. ``Oh fox. How long have you been suffering?''
Days passed.
The sun rose and set with a frightening hum/utter tranquility.
She stood/she stood.
Poetry coursed through her, half remembered/perfectly memorized lines from productions long past. Lines from school, from work. ``Since then — 'tis centuries — and yet feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horse's heads were toward eternity —''
It \emph{had} been centuries for her, and yet each felt shorter than the crash to the ground from out of the perilous heights of the embodied world. \emph{Time feels so vast that were it not For an Eternity\ldots{}}
Time, which beat against the skies. Time, which hemmed her in. Time, which forced words from her mouth/from her muzzle in breathless haste/unwavering slowness. \emph{I fear me this Circumference Engross my Finity — To His exclusion who prepare By Process of Size For the Stupendous Vision Of his diameters —}
``Oh fox.''
She cried again/cried again. Sat on the ground again/sat on the ground again. Plucked a dandelion/plucked a dandelion. Again/again. Always twice over.
``Sasha!'' She spoke aloud.
``The fuck.'' Half question this time.
``Sasha, it's Debarre,'' she said. Then: ``What the fuck?''
``I'm so sorry. I came as fast as I could. Everything's a fucking mess.''
``How long has it been?'' she asked herself.
``About sixteen hours.''
``Hours?'' Hours? What meaning held time? She had lived her whole life — several such — on this tiny world.
``Yeah. I had to dump a chunk of my savings into a ticket to get here.''
She clawed at the ground in something between frustration and terror that a friend's voice was coming from her mouth/from her muzzle. ``And\ldots{}how are you\ldots{}''
``A mirror rig.'' The joyous tone of the words clashed against the tears still flowing freely. ``We figured it out. Carter figured it out, I mean. She and AwDae busted everything open. Figured out how to rescue the lost, figured out how everyone \emph{gets} lost in the first place.''
She stopped digging at the earth. ``AwDae is back?''
``Yes! And the clinic where Cicero is is trying to get him out as well!''
She had to turn toward the bar again to let the shouting echo. The silence was giving her a headache.
Or not. A neck-ache. Something was tearing at the back of the neck/through the fur of her scruff. An ache. A jolt of pain. A ripping. A tearing.
``I'm going to stop mirroring now. This is horrifying,'' she said to the wood of the bar. She did not know who said the last, Debarre or herself. Was there a difference?
And then, a hand on her shoulder. One of her shoulders. The sensation made her hair/fur stand on end. She turned around, and there was Debarre. Or so she guessed. The grey, default avatar. The figure frowned as he looked between the two of her. Looked at Michelle/looked at Sasha.
``I\ldots{}what? Sasha?''
She gritted her teeth/bared her teeth. ``I do not know either. What to we do now? How do we get out of this\ldots{}place?''
The shape that promised it was Debarre shrugged. ``Can you back out?''
She reached. Felt the draft. Smiled beatifically. She passed the field of dandelions. Passed the setting sun, or perhaps he passed her.
And breathed in the cool air of an implant clinic.
There, beside her, also sitting up from the recliner and pulling off his headband, was, she supposed, Debarre. Short. Soft. Thinning hair. Ecstatic grin.
``Sasha?'' The grin picked up an ironic twist. ``Or Michelle, I guess. You okay?''

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\hypertarget{sasha-2113}{%
\chapter*{Sasha — 2113}\label{sasha-2113}}
``To get lost is to go mad,'' Sasha spoke to the small crowd that had gathered in the Crown Pub. Read, actually, for she had written the speech to give — as Michelle Hadje rather than Sasha — at a gathering not too dissimilar from this one earlier in the day. A digital ceremony to follow the analog. ``It is perhaps indelicate to say, but it is true. To get lost is to go mad.
``I think that this applies to more than just the sense that it has come to mean here and now. I think that if you go for a walk in a strange city and get lost, there is some aspect of that which is similar to madness. You walk the strange streets and see the strange people and strange buildings, and eventually, it all seems to blur together and your thoughts wander. They wander beyond the limits of your body and your mind. They soar above the city and try to make sense of these unknown, shifting shapes. They try to draw sensible paths from the turns you took. I turned left there, did I not? Or did I?''
The sombre group of diverse species was mostly looking at her. Animals of all shapes, anthropomorphism of all levels. Even some humans, for there was Carter, looking much as she had at that first ceremony.
And some looked down. AwDae looked at her, keen-eyed. Debarre looked down, shaking with sobs.
``And to get lost in today's sense feels much the same. Your mind flies to strange places and dreams with all the logic of dreams. Only in there, when your mind dreams, so too does reality. If, that is, the word `reality' has any meaning in this case.
``And you go mad. You go mad and you try to control the dreams. You try to control them and you fail, because in the end, lucid as you may be, it is the dream which has \emph{you}, and not the other way around. You do what you can, but you go mad. Your mind is flooded with words. They fly at you like poetry, spill from your mouth or your hands in unceasing torrents. It changes how you speak, how you act, how you create and move within the world.
``And there along with you is all that was stored in your exocortex. All of that data, useful and useless, is in there with you. You can keep it for your very own, browse it at will, build it up into castles as tall as you like.
``We are gathered tonight to remember Cicero. We are gathered because to get lost is to go mad, and now, even a year later, that madness clings to the lost like some horrid stench, hangs from us like bloated ticks. Perhaps it will fade over time, and perhaps not, but for Cicero, as with so many others, the lingering madness grew to be too much, overcame him like a wave, and the undertow took him from us.''
Debarre moaned, tried to stifle his grief with his paws.
Sasha's own voice creaked as she went on. ``But, even as the madness worked its awful magics on him, he gave back what he could. In his time in there, in that horrible forever, he prowled through the data left in his exo. Many of us did, each in our own way, but he had the advantage of being one of the first. He had the advantage of having the much needed information that drew attention to those responsible for the terror we all lived through, some of us directly and many, many more of you indirectly.
``I feel that madness still. Many of the lost do, perhaps all.'' She saw AwDae nod at this. ``We owe it to Cicero and his memory to repair as best we can. To use what he gave us to help build ourselves up better than before. To, in his name, live fuller lives having known him. We owe it to him to remember him as that oh-so-intense cat with a penchant for politics. We owe it to him to remember the whole of him in all ways.
``And we owe it to ourselves tonight to remember the best of him. Let us delight in each other, rejoice together.''
She raised a glass. ``To Cicero.''
The crowd echoed, intent, shaky but one hundred percent present in the moment. ``To Cicero''
The rest of the evening was quiet, subdued. Sasha and AwDae sat with Debarre, each to one side. They supported the weasel as he cried. Cried over his twice lost partner, cried over the cruel vagaries of family which had kept him from attending the day's first funeral. They supported him with silence and listening.
And when he had cried himself out and was willing to admit something other than mourning into the night, then they rejoiced together.
And if Sasha and AwDae were in some way distant, in some way not wholly there, Debarre either ignored it or forgave them their madness.