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\hypertarget{michelle-hadjesasha-2306}{%
\chapter{Michelle Hadje/Sasha — 2306}\label{michelle-hadjesasha-2306}}
\begin{quote}
Come to me.
Come alone.
\end{quote}
That was all that the message had said.
Michelle had long considered this moment, and just as long considered what she might say. She was of two minds. She was of two minds.
The part of her that desired knowledge, that craved a reason in all things, that part of her felt compelled to give an explanation. It felt the need to rationalize and understand and comprehend, and it craved the knowledge that others also understood.
That part was Sasha.
That had felt inverted to her, at first. Was not Michelle the rational one? She was the one who had maintained her ties to her body. She was the one who remembered all of the \emph{things}, all of the \emph{actions} of her past. She was the one who wanted to fork and keep all of those memories.
But instead it was Sasha who felt incomplete, unwhole, when her reasons were unspoken. Eventually her gestalt came to the awareness that this was because Sasha was the one who felt, just as Michelle was the one who remembered, and thus she was also the part that desired compassion above all things. She wanted to explain herself so that others would not be left hurt. She was the one who decided, in the end, not to fork, to fix, to repair. Those memories that mattered---really, truly mattered---all of her instances already shared.
Michelle did not want to tell anyone.
She was of two minds/she was of two minds.
So she edited and rewrote and pared her message down. Thousands of words. Hundreds of words. Ninety-nine words. Ten words. Two commands. A duality like her.
\begin{quote}
Come to me.
\end{quote}
There had been a date, a time, an address. \emph{Come to me,} she thought/she thought. \emph{Come to us.}
Come hear. Come learn. Come understand. Or don't, but come all the same, that we might hear, learn, understand.
She was of two minds/she was of two minds.
\begin{quote}
Come alone.
\end{quote}
\AddToHookNext{shipout/after}{\includepdf[pages={1},fitpaper=true,noautoscale=true]{assets/kris--two-minds--michelle-sasha--G}}
She had met their friends and lovers and hidden, forbidden selves. She had met their scribes and their amanuenses and their biographer-historians.
\emph{Come alone,} she thought/she thought. \emph{I only want you. I only want us. I only want me.}
And she knew they would. She knew they would. She knew they would come and they would do so without hesitation, for a request from the root instance was a thing that had never happened before, and it bore more weight than any possible life event or schedule could ever hope to. She knew they would come because she would be there/she would be there.
She was of two minds.
And so on the allotted day and at the allotted time and in the allotted place, they came. They appeared one by one in that field of grass, that field of dandelions. They came and they stood and they waited. Some of them chatted amiably. Some of them were crying, and she knew which was which because she also felt amiable/she also was crying.
They came to her/they came to her.
They came alone.
One hundred and one of her stood in that meadow. Qoheleth was gone, but there were two of her/there were two of her, and the number was still as it should be.
No, not as it should be. Not as it ought to be. There ought to be only one hundred of her there without Qoheleth, but she was of two minds/she was of two minds.
She smiled to them/she smiled to them, and that was enough to bring them to silence. Those who had felt their amicability frowned now, picking up on the sudden anxiety of the meadow, of that green grass yellowed by dandelions.
``I am of two minds,'' she said/she said. Waves of Sasha/waves of Michelle rippled across her form, two identities washed through her mind, and she quelled the urge to vomit. ``We are of two minds. We do not want to do this, and there is nothing more in life that we desire than to do this. There is too much in me. There is too much \emph{of} me.''
There were more crying eyes in the crowd now, and she was crying/she was crying.
Her voice wavered, but she asked all the same. ``Please fork. Please fork and merge down-tree.''
In less than five seconds, the number of copies of her had doubled, and some inner part of her/some inner part of her smiled, sensing now that doubling that she felt as a core part of her being expressed in all those versions of herself that had grown these last nearly two centuries.
``Since then---'tis Centuries---and yet Feels shorter than the Day---'' she thought/she murmured, words borne of a thought/of a memory. A few of the clade who could hear her weak voice joined. ``I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity —''
Many were sitting now, some were pulling at tufts of grass, stalks of dandelions, anything to ground themselves.
``I just want\ldots we just want to experience\ldots a little more,'' she choked out. ``Can you give us that?''
The reasons for the forks became clear, now, and over the next hour---for some had diverged so far that a great amount of effort was required to reclaim memories---they began to merge their outermost instances down-tree, down-tree, down toward the root. Many looked shell-shocked as years and decades and centuries of memories poured into them, and then were passed on down. Many looked as mad as she felt.
She held up her hand when the mergers had completed down to the doubled-versions of the nine first lines and one second line (for Qoheleth had been a first, Michelle remembered/Sasha remembered) standing before her.
``We have a task for each of you who will remain. One last task.'' And she walked down the line/she walked down the line, leaning close to whisper into each of their ears, whether they were skunk or human or something new and different, what she wanted them to accomplish, whether it be vague or specific.
``Now,'' she said.
Of the twenty before her, ten merged into her, one by one.
``Oh,'' she said/she said. ``Oh.''
She was laughing/she was crying/she was furious/she was in love/she was knowledgeable/she was a being of emotions/she was an ascetic/she was opulent.
She was.
She was of two minds.
She was of ten minds.
She was of ninety-nine minds.
She was of a thousand times a thousand minds as more memories than any one individual was ever meant to have poured into her and through her and consumed her. She cherished them one by one by one by one by one\ldots{}
``Oh,'' she said, feeling more singular than she had in two hundred years.
And then she quit.

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\hypertarget{michelle-hadjesasha-2306}{%
\chapter{Michelle Hadje/Sasha — 2306}\label{michelle-hadjesasha-2306}}
\begin{quote}
Come to me.
Come alone.
\end{quote}
That was all that the message had said.
Michelle had long considered this moment, and just as long considered what she might say. She was of two minds. She was of two minds.
The part of her that desired knowledge, that craved a reason in all things, that part of her felt compelled to give an explanation. It felt the need to rationalize and understand and comprehend, and it craved the knowledge that others also understood.
That part was Sasha.
That had felt inverted to her, at first. Was not Michelle the rational one? She was the one who had maintained her ties to her body. She was the one who remembered all of the \emph{things}, all of the \emph{actions} of her past. She was the one who wanted to fork and keep all of those memories.
But instead it was Sasha who felt incomplete, unwhole, when her reasons were unspoken. Eventually her gestalt came to the awareness that this was because Sasha was the one who felt, just as Michelle was the one who remembered, and thus she was also the part that desired compassion above all things. She wanted to explain herself so that others would not be left hurt. She was the one who decided, in the end, not to fork, to fix, to repair. Those memories that mattered---really, truly mattered---all of her instances already shared.
Michelle did not want to tell anyone.
She was of two minds/she was of two minds.
So she edited and rewrote and pared her message down. Thousands of words. Hundreds of words. Ninety-nine words. Ten words. Two commands. A duality like her.
\begin{quote}
Come to me.
\end{quote}
There had been a date, a time, an address. \emph{Come to me,} she thought/she thought. \emph{Come to us.}
Come hear. Come learn. Come understand. Or don't, but come all the same, that we might hear, learn, understand.
She was of two minds/she was of two minds.
\begin{quote}
Come alone.
\end{quote}
She had met their friends and lovers and hidden, forbidden selves. She had met their scribes and their amanuenses and their biographer-historians.
\emph{Come alone,} she thought/she thought. \emph{I only want you. I only want us. I only want me.}
And she knew they would. She knew they would. She knew they would come and they would do so without hesitation, for a request from the root instance was a thing that had never happened before, and it bore more weight than any possible life event or schedule could ever hope to. She knew they would come because she would be there/she would be there.
She was of two minds.
And so on the allotted day and at the allotted time and in the allotted place, they came. They appeared one by one in that field of grass, that field of dandelions. They came and they stood and they waited. Some of them chatted amiably. Some of them were crying, and she knew which was which because she also felt amiable/she also was crying.
They came to her/they came to her.
They came alone.
One hundred and one of her stood in that meadow. Qoheleth was gone, but there were two of her/there were two of her, and the number was still as it should be.
No, not as it should be. Not as it ought to be. There ought to be only one hundred of her there without Qoheleth, but she was of two minds/she was of two minds.
She smiled to them/she smiled to them, and that was enough to bring them to silence. Those who had felt their amicability frowned now, picking up on the sudden anxiety of the meadow, of that green grass yellowed by dandelions.
``I am of two minds,'' she said/she said. Waves of Sasha/waves of Michelle rippled across her form, two identities washed through her mind, and she quelled the urge to vomit. ``We are of two minds. We do not want to do this, and there is nothing more in life that we desire than to do this. There is too much in me. There is too much \emph{of} me.''
There were more crying eyes in the crowd now, and she was crying/she was crying.
Her voice wavered, but she asked all the same. ``Please fork. Please fork and merge down-tree.''
In less than five seconds, the number of copies of her had doubled, and some inner part of her/some inner part of her smiled, sensing now that doubling that she felt as a core part of her being expressed in all those versions of herself that had grown these last nearly two centuries.
``Since then---'tis Centuries---and yet Feels shorter than the Day---'' she thought/she murmured, words borne of a thought/of a memory. A few of the clade who could hear her weak voice joined. ``I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity —''
Many were sitting now, some were pulling at tufts of grass, stalks of dandelions, anything to ground themselves.
``I just want\ldots we just want to experience\ldots a little more,'' she choked out. ``Can you give us that?''
The reasons for the forks became clear, now, and over the next hour---for some had diverged so far that a great amount of effort was required to reclaim memories---they began to merge their outermost instances down-tree, down-tree, down toward the root. Many looked shell-shocked as years and decades and centuries of memories poured into them, and then were passed on down. Many looked as mad as she felt.
She held up her hand when the mergers had completed down to the doubled-versions of the nine first lines and one second line (for Qoheleth had been a first, Michelle remembered/Sasha remembered) standing before her.
``We have a task for each of you who will remain. One last task.'' And she walked down the line/she walked down the line, leaning close to whisper into each of their ears, whether they were skunk or human or something new and different, what she wanted them to accomplish, whether it be vague or specific.
``Now,'' she said.
Of the twenty before her, ten merged into her, one by one.
``Oh,'' she said/she said. ``Oh.''
She was laughing/she was crying/she was furious/she was in love/she was knowledgeable/she was a being of emotions/she was an ascetic/she was opulent.
She was.
She was of two minds.
She was of ten minds.
She was of ninety-nine minds.
She was of a thousand times a thousand minds as more memories than any one individual was ever meant to have poured into her and through her and consumed her. She cherished them one by one by one by one by one\ldots{}
``Oh,'' she said, feeling more singular than she had in two hundred years.
And then she quit.

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\hypertarget{michelle-hadjesasha-2124}{%
\chapter{Michelle Hadje — 2124}\label{michelle-hadjesasha-2124}}
Michelle Hadje mastered the urge to vomit.
She knew that she could change this. Change all of these things from so many dreams that pressed in against her. She knew that she could will them away, or perhaps spring for a fork that would simply\ldots not have them. She had enough reputation by now to fork a dozen times over. Some perks came with being on the council, after all.
But she hadn't, and she was not quite sure why.
At one point, she had entertained the idea that it was out of a need to keep some part of herself tied to the her of eight years ago, the panicked and wild-eyed woman who had scrimped and saved all that she could to get a one-way ticket into the System. Perhaps she needed to keep some tenuous connection to the Michelle left so changed by getting lost that year on year become madness on madness.
But that wasn't quite it. Perhaps, instead, she felt as though she wasn't worth it. She hadn't been able to save her friends, not in the end, and it was only by dint of luck that she managed to survive the years after that terrible day her mind was wrapped in on itself, squeezed, stretched, knotted, and all her thoughts and all her dreams were mirrored back upon her. Perhaps she \emph{deserved} these bouts of lingering disconnection, depression, dissociation, derealization, depersonalizeation.
That wasn't it either, though. She may sometimes feel the weight of responsibility, but thoughts as gloomy as that came only when she was feeling particularly peaky.
Lately, her best guess as to why she kept this madness draped around her was the slew of memories of RJ that hit her at unexpected intervals. She could feel em, sometimes, as a ghost, perhaps, or a wish, a dream, but then that feeling would disappear and she'd be left with despair and the urge to vomit and the flickering of herself.
Michelle.
Sasha.
Michelle.
Sasha.
That last hypothesis encompassed much of the previous two, and would explain why the looming tenth anniversary of the founding of the System seemed to make it all the worse. Ten years since the founding, eleven years since RJ disappeared, giving emself up to the act of creation.
Ah well. She had lingered long enough outside the coffee shop, so she swallowed down her rising gorge and mastered a few waves of shifting form, skunk fur and human flesh fighting for dominance. The human form won today: round of face rather than mephit snout; curly, black hair rather than thick black fur. It would do. She would be Michelle for the meeting.
The Council of Eight, for all its high status and demand, met in incognito in unassuming, downtempo sims rather than some conference room or grand palace. The eight of them would trickle into the sim over the course of a few hours, set up camp on a hilltop or in a cafe, enjoy the ambiance, and then set up a cone of silence to discuss business. They had been noticed once or twice, but never hounded and certainly not attacked.
Debarre and user11824 were there already, slouching before their coffees in comfortable silence. Both looked up and waved to her when she entered, so she requested a mocha and joined them around the table.
``Hey Sa--er, Michelle. Hows tricks?'' Debarre asked.
``Tricksy, as usual.'' She smiled wanly. ``How about you two?''
user11824 shrugged. His features were nondescript to the point where Michelle doubted that he even needed to work at being incognito. Eyes simply slid over him without pausing. ``Bored. Boring. Bored.''
``How are you bored? There's always too much to do.'' Laughter came from behind her, followed by a friendly touch to the shoulder. Jonas, on the other hand, was perilously handsome, well past the point of standing out, and friendly with a casual ease that left all feeling envious.
``Yeah. Boring shit.''
Jonas slid into the seat next to Michelle, coffee in hand. There were a few minutes amiable chatter as the other four octarchs trickled in: two well-dressed women, one well-dressed man, and one slouching form of indeterminate gender (and occasionally species) that looked more like a discarded pile of rags than anything.
Michelle blinked, and a cone of silence spread around the table. The proprietor raised an eyebrow, but made no other move to acknowledge it.
``So,'' she began, rubbing her hands over her face. ``I know we just had a meeting, so I am sorry for stealing you all again, but I have a thing to ask of you all. A question, for sure, but it may morph into a favor, depending on the answer.''
``Boring one?'' user11824 asked.
Michelle forced a tired chuckle and wobbled one of her hands over the table. ``Maybe. Probably. Most things are boring to you.''
He rolled his eyes. More chuckles around the table.
Swallowing down another wave of Sasha washing across her body, she continued. ``I would like to create ten forks to delegate responsibility. Would that be okay?''
Jonas frowned. ``That'd be pretty expensive.''
``Would it be worth the expenditure?'' the pile of rags rasped.
Michelle quelled the instinct to shrug again, nodding instead. ``I think it would be. Just temporarily. At least for the next year or so. I will shift my role to a more managerial one, acting as consensus builder for my clade. I would not gain any more say in votes.''
``Would you take on additional responsibility, too?''
``I can. I am always happy to do my share of the work, and if that share increases ten-fold while I shift to a consensus point, I will be okay with that.''
Debarre gave a lopsided smile. ``If it's simply about more hands on the ground, I see no problem with it. It's your reputation to spend, and\ldots{}'' He hesitated, smile fading to a more serious expression, continuing, ``And if it helps you out, then it's probably for the best. I'm sorry Michelle, but you look like hell.''
She forced herself to keep tears out of her voice. ``I feel like hell, if I am honest. I will ensure none of the forks have\ldots all this.''
Nods around the table. A woman from the well-dressed trio spoke up. ``I'm comfortable answering your question with a `yes'.''
They went around the table, and none of the others challenged the first vote. Michelle slouched in relief, letting her control slacken and her form blur for a few moments.
``Does that answer mean that you have a favor to ask?''
She nodded to Debarre. ``A two-part favor. I would like some help delegating to my forks, if we even have ten things that need doing, and then I would like a week off.''
Jonas laughed. ``You're allowed a vacation, Michelle. Go for it. I'm sure we can all find something for your new clade. The Hadje Clade?''
``The Ode Clade.''
Debarre stiffened in his seat, frowned. Michelle did her best to maintain her tired mien, keeping her gaze on Jonas.
``No clue what that means, but hey, Michelle-slash-Sasha of the Ode Clade it is.''
``Do we applaud? Is this exciting?'' user11824 asked. He looked honestly befuddled, and Michelle admitted that she could use a life so bound by boredom that excitement could go unnoticed.
``It's exciting for me. I get to sleep in.''
Laughter around the table.
The pile of rags shifted, rasping its words. ``Are we comfortable with this as a general rule? Perhaps we would all benefit from a fork here and there to help us out.''
``Can we come up with a mechanism for tracking hands on the ground, as you so eloquently put it?''
Michelle nodded eagerly to the sharp dressed man. ``Please. It is not my intention to take more work just so we can do more things my way.''
``And we'll have to be careful not to overextend our reach. There being only the eight of us kind of limits our capabilities by necessity.''
``We can be open about it, set limits for ourselves. Maybe no more than ten per council member.''
``It might be handy to fork further for personal reasons down the line,'' Michelle said, carefully avoiding Debarre's gaze. ``I can think of a hundred things I would like to do.''
The weasel's frown deepened.
``Sounds fair enough. I figure we've all got personal lives outside this,'' one of the women said.
``Yeah, boring ones.''
``You're such a drag. Take up fishing or something. Then you can be bored with purpose.''
``I've got a stack and a half of trashy novels to plow through.''
``There's some changes I've been meaning to make. Maybe I can even figure out how to make it like a real demolition process, too. Putting a sledgehammer through drywall? Exquisite. Simply exquisite.''
The chatter continued around the table. Michelle focused on her mocha, studiously avoiding Debarre's searching gaze.
The cone of silence was dropped, and council members left at their own pace until only Michelle, Jonas, and Debarre left.
``So, what's the deal with the clade name? And why are you two being so weird around each other?'' Jonas asked.
There was a moment's silence, then Debarre murmured, ``You tell him.''
``A friend of mine---of ours---wrote this poem, an ode, and I was thinking that I would name the instances after lines from it. A hundred lines, ten stanzas. That gives me ten first lines to start with, and I can go from there.''
Jonas shrugged. ``Well, fair enough, if strange. You didn't answer why you two got all weird, though.''
``Complicated stuff. Both Michelle and--''
``We were both among the lost,'' she interrupted, shooting Debarre a warning glance.
Jonas held his hands up to forestall further conversation. ``This is between you two. You can share what you want when you've got it sorted out.''
Debarre nodded sullenly. Michelle looked down at her hands.
``While we're on complicated subjects, I have an admission to make.'' Jonas looked sheepish. ``I have a small clade of my own on the side. All for personal stuff, of course, nothing tied to the Council.''
Debarre tilted his head, then laughed. It was an earnest laugh, full-throated, and Michelle realized that Jonas had said precisely the right thing to cut through the tension.
``Do you have some equally stupid clade name?'' Michelle said, grinning.
``Oh, just the Jonas Clade. I'm going to keep forking as long as I have reputation, I figure, so we've been naming ourselves with syllables. There's plenty enough of those. I'll stay Jonas Prime, but there's already a Ku, Ar, and Re Jonas.''
``Fucking nerd.''
Jonas batted his eyes at Debarre. ``Thank you. I try.''
After a bit more chatter, Debarre made his goodbyes and left the sim.
Michelle and Jonas tacitly agreed to go for a walk down the street. The sim was of a comfortable, small town plaza, so it was a pleasant enough walk. They made their way to a central fountain and, while Jonas sat on the rim and watched, Michelle dumped hunk after hunk of reputation to create her ten forks. They alternated between looking like Michelle and looking like Sasha. Each introduced herself in turn.
``I Am At A Loss For Images In This End Of Days of the Ode Clade.''
``Life Breeds Life But Death Must Now Be Chosen.''
``Oh, But To Whom Do I Speak These Words.''
And on down the list of first lines. Eventually, a crowd of eleven stood near the fountain, in front of a bemused Jonas.
``So, what next?''
``What is next is that I get assignments from the Council and then take a fucking vacation. I plan on sleeping for at least three days straight.''
Jonas laughed. ``I wholeheartedly endorse this course of action. One of you want to take on an assignment today?''
After a short conversation, one of the skunks stepped forward. ``Sure. What kind of assignment?''
``Which one are you again?''
``The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream.''
Jonas winced. ``Got something shorter I can call you? Even if only in informal settings?''
She laughed. ``Oh, sure. Let us go with `True Name'.''
``Much better! Alright, your assignment is to work with me on the individual rights conversation.''
``Is that heating up?''
``Yeah, there's some real grade-A stupidity going on out there.'' Jonas paused to wave to the rest of the Ode Clade, which left the sim \emph{en masse}. ``Lots of this and that about how software can't be an individual blah blah blah. One particularly vile shithead suggested that if we wanted to be treated as individuals, we would need to contribute to society as equals with those still in the embodied world. He suggested we could split the System and dump individuals into flight computers and software rigs and other expert systems to run those so that they wouldn't have to keep designing them.''
True Name frowned. ``What a dick. Is that kind of opinion common out there? I am still coming off the mountain of work that was the reputation market.''
``Not so common now, but those voices are getting louder by the week.''
``Damn.''
``Damn indeed. Thankfully, those aren't the only voices. The DDR still has a good number of folks who remember the lost and just how fucked up it was for whole-ass people to be dumped into nothingness, and that sounds awfully similar to becoming a glorified flight sim.''
``But that is on the DDR. Do we get votes? Do we even have access?''
``We do not, no. All we can do is read the forums. What we do have is the ability to communicate.''
``Influence, you mean.''
Jonas smiled, nodded. ``Influence.''
``I did pretty well in debate class.''
``Good, we'll have need of that. And you can write, too. Your proposals are a thing of beauty.''
``Oh? A joy for ever? Their loveliness increases?''
Jonas looked blank.
True Name laughed. ``Never mind. Let us go change some minds.''

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\hypertarget{michelle-hadjesasha-2124}{%
\chapter{Michelle Hadje/Sasha — 2124}\label{michelle-hadjesasha-2124}}
It took Debarre a matter of seconds to answer Michelle's request for a meeting. His arrival in her sim, the weasel blinking into existence next to her on that endless field of grass and dandelions, startled her enough to cause her to stumble.
``Shit, you okay, Michelle?''
She laughed, picking herself back up, feeling as unsteady as ever. ``Yeah, I just was not expecting you right away. I thought that you would set up a time later.''
``I was free.'' Debarre leaned forward and helped brush some grass off of her side. ``Is now not a good time?''
``No, no. Now is fine. Thank you for meeting up in the first place.''
``Of course.''
Michelle led them off at a leisurely pace into the fields, into the warm day and soft hum of bees. Debarre walked along in silence beside her, apparently enjoying the day with his whiskers bristled out and eyes half-shut against the sun.
She'd always intended to build herself a house, but the field always felt so complete without it.
``True Name mentioned that you wanted to talk.''
``Yeah,'' he said, looking down at his feet as they poked their way through the dandelions. ``But I'm not quite sure where to start.''
``I am guessing that it is about the names.'' She mastered a brief wave of anxiety, a brief wave of skunk features across human ones, a brief wave of Sasha among Michelle. ``I am afraid that I do not have a fantastic explanation for it.''
Debarre shrugged this off. ``I don't need a great explanation. I don't need anything, I guess. I just want to know what's going on, Sasha.''
And with that, with a susurration of fur against clothes, she was Sasha. What thoughts before that had kept her as Michelle, as her human self, had been uprooted for the day and replaced with those that anchored her to a time, a context, a name. Debarre, of all the others that she'd met, seemed to understand this best, and he took this in stride.
``If I am honest, I do not know myself. At least, not truly. It is something that came to me in the moment.'' She paused to pluck a dandelion, twirling it between fingerpads, laughing. ``I am still a little unnerved by it, myself. I remember thinking to myself, ``I need a fucking vacation, but I should fork so that I do not leave the others in a lurch'', and then there it was, the idea, already fully formed and ready to go.''
``To use Aw-- to use eir poem for the names?''
She canted her ears back. ``I miss em. I have been thinking about em for years.''
``A decade.''
The skunk nodded.
``I think about em a lot, too, Sasha. We were all pretty torn up about it, even if ey's the one that helped build this place. I remember bawling my eyes out when you read the poem.'' He laughed, rubbing a paw over his face. ``Hell, when you said all that in the coffee shop, I was having a hard time dealing with a whole shitload of emotions and you were so upset at the bar.''
``The bar?''
``Oh, uh, sorry. True Name was upset at the bar. I started to ask her about all this, and I almost said eir name and--''
``AwDae's?'' she asked, tilting her head.
Debarre flinched back from her, stopping mid-step.
``Debarre?''
He frowned at her, straightening up. ``When I tried to say `AwDae' earlier, True Name lost her shit. Like, I was afraid she was going to lunge across the table and deck me. You didn't know?''
Sasha shook her head. ``None of my forks have merged back down to me yet. I-- we decided that I would take some time off before reengaging. I have no memory of what happened.''
``It was kinda terrifying.'' The weasel laughed. ``She slammed her glass down and said something like `do not fucking say that name'. I can respect wanting to keep things close to the heart, but I thought I was about to get in a fistfight.''
``I am trying to picture either of us in a fistfight, much less with each other, and failing,'' she said, grinning. ``I would very much appreciate this being kept between us, yes. Ey was not\ldots{}the politics of em leaving for the S-R Bloc are complex. I have no plans to deck you if you say eir name when it is just the two of us.''
``I appreciate that. Why'd True Name seem to think otherwise, though?''
Tossing away the dandelion, she shrugged helplessly. ``I do not know. At the point when she came into existence, she ceased being me. We were perhaps the same for only the briefest of seconds, but we have long since diverged.''
``That far, though? It's only been a week or two, right?''
``I suppose so. I will have to check in with her. With the rest of the clade, too, and see if anything else strange is going on. I have not been keeping tabs on all of them.''
Debarre nodded. ``They seem like they're doing fine.''
``They are not taking over the council, then?''
He laughed. ``Not at all, no. Just True Name taking your spot in dealing with the politics stuff. I actually haven't seen many of the others.''
Sasha nodded.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the sun. The vacation had treated her well so far, and she already felt less torn in two without the stress of the council weighing on her. Debarre also had a calming influence on her, as though having one person associated primarily with only one context was enough to pin her in place, rather than having her constantly ping-ponging between two.
Skunk and weasel both sat down in the grass, laughing at having apparently come to the same decision independent of each other.
Debarre plucked a blade of grass and threw it at her. ``You reminded me; another thing that True Name said is that when you forked off your ten instances, you left behind the part of you that is split between Michelle and Sasha. She called it `the part that suffers'.''
Hiding a wince by plucking a handful of dandelions one by one, Sasha nodded. ``I do not think that having ten versions of me who are just as fucked up as I am would have made anything easier.''
During the pause that followed, she began weaving those flowers into a chain.
``Are you?''
``Am I what?''
``Suffering.''
Sasha set the half-complete flower-crown on her lap and began to pick another handful of flowers. Anything to keep from looking at Debarre. ``I do not know if that is the right word. It was not a deliberate choice to fork each instance only when I was in a more singular state, but I am not displeased that this was the case. That way, they can do what they need to do without\ldots without\ldots{}''
Debarre did not press her. She worked through her tears, tying the last of the dandelions in place to form the chain into a loop so that she could rest it atop her head, petals tickling at her ears. When she dropped her paws again, the weasel took them in his own.
\emph{I can feel em,} she thought. \emph{I can almost feel em, there in the sunlight, in the flowers.}
``What keeps you from doing the same, yourself? Maybe you could fork when you're feeling excellent and leave behind whatever's causing the split.''
She didn't answer, just sat with her paws in her friend's, her head bowed, her tears leaving tracks in fur.
``Sasha?''
She didn't answer.
``Do you regret coming here?''
All she could do was shake her head before emotion completely overwhelmed her. She slouched to the side and, with Debarre's help, lay down amid the grass and dandelions, resting her head on his thigh. His silence was patient and his paw on her shoulder kind as she let that wave of emotion wash over her, through her, and when it was past, he shared in the calm that remained after.
``I'm sorry, Sasha.''
``No.~It is alright.'' She rolled onto her back, picking up the fallen flower-crown and reaching it up to drape it over the weasel's head. ``The System may act as a magnifying glass on some of what I was going through before uploading, but much of what I feel now I was going through before, just less visibly.''
``Alright.'' He straightened the loop of golden flowers atop his head, ruffled a paw over her ears, and then leaned back, propping himself up with his paws in the grass.
``Nothing keeps me from fixing myself,'' she murmured up to the clouds. ``I do not know why I do not just do so.''
``Can I be honest?''
``Of course.''
``I worry it's survivor's guilt.''
She took a deep breath and quelled another wave of emotion, choosing instead to nod. ``That is a distinct possibility. I do feel guilty that I made it and AwDae did not, that ey felt compelled to disappear across the border and give eir life for this--'' She waved her paw up at the sky. ``--that ey did all that and never even got to see it.''
There was a rustling and shifting beneath her head, and when she turned to look, the flower-crown was draped over her snout. They both laughed.
``We both lost someone,'' Debarre said, voice thick. ``I feel guilty that I made it and Cicero didn't, sometimes. Hell, for a while, I was furious that AwDae lived longer than Cice did.''
``I am sorry.'' Sasha started to wind the chain of flowers around her wrist, but it fell apart, so she dropped it into the grass instead. ``I never knew.''
``How do you imagine that conversation would've gone? ``Hey AwDae, fuck you for outliving my boyfriend''?'' He laughed. ``Shit like this isn't rational, Sash.''
``I guess not. I am still glad that you are around, though.''
He sighed. ``Of course I am. I never would've made it without you. I'm glad you're here. You and Michelle. Hell, your whole damn clade.''
She gave the comment the space that it deserved, closing her eyes to feel the sun warm her fur. \emph{You and Michelle.} Now there was a thought.
``Only, I wonder.'' His voice sounded distant, as though he were speaking to the sky rather than her. ``I wonder if your forks have changed in ways other than just not being split. I wonder if they're really even you anymore.''

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\chapter{Michelle Hadje/Sasha — 2151}\label{michelle-hadjesasha-2151}}
In the endless, rolling field of dandelions, five people gathered.
Two of them were shaped like a woman. Short. Dark, curly hair. Round of cheek and soft of eye.
Two of them were shaped like skunks. Thick, soft fur. Tails as long as their bodies, as wide as their torsos.
The two types were alike in so many ways. The softness evident between the two disparate species was the same softness. The roundness to the cheeks, despite the fur, was the same roundness. The eyes bore the same expressive empathy.
And before them sat one who was not like any of the others, and yet was exactly like all of them. When she focused, she was able to look like skunk or like human, and her eyes were able to share in some of that softness, but when she lost focus, waves of both crashed against her in a violent tempest, splashing fur up over cheeks, or skin down over paws.
``I am sorry,'' she said through a dry throat, then laughed. ``I am having a bad day.''
Among the four in front of her, there were two expressions. The two sitting at the ends of the row looked as though they were struggling to keep from crying, and two in the middle frowned, as though tamping down some emotion that wavered between fear and disappointment.
``Anyway,'' Michelle/Sasha said. ``I guess I just wanted to get a few of us together to confirm some thoughts that I have been having of late.''
``Is this about the Council?'' the woman sitting on the inside, To Pray For The End Of Endings, asked.
``Well, yes and no. My thoughts on the council were the root of it. It is just\ldots did I fuck up?''
At this, the skunk sitting on the end, May Then My Name Die With Me, burst into tears.
``Fuck up how?'' To Pray asked.
Michelle/Sasha sighed, shrugged, and hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin/snout on them. ``I did not think things through very well when I created the clade. I thought that it might give me a vacation. A chance to figure out what was wrong, maybe fork my way out of this\ldots well, this.'' She gestured at herself, smiling tiredly. ``But now I feel like I have fucked up. Half of the clade dissolved the Council and the other half has rejected the first and spun off to do its own thing. If I had taken a week off and figured out that I could fork myself into one shape or the other and just done that, perhaps there would still be a Council.''
The skunk beside To Pray, If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, shrugged. ``You may have fucked up, yes, but there is no going back. What was the phrase? There is no going and there is no back? The Council is dissolved and nothing really changed. Jonas is doing Jonas things. Odists are doing Odist things, whatever those are. This is where you are. I mean this as an earnest question, but would you be able to choose between Michelle and Sasha?''
``No, I do not think I could,'' she sighed. She just wished she could be Sasha for a little bit, just so that she could get the comfort of being petted by Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver/she just wished she could be Michelle for a little bit so that May Then My Name Die With Me could brush her hair. ``And I think that is part of the problem, anyway. I think that if I were to fork, I would be whatever I was when I did so, and I think that goes beyond just species.''
To Pray grinned, ``I suppose so. You could have wound up like True Name or Life Breeds Life and taken over the world.''
May Then My Name smiled shakily. ``Taking over the world is not so bad.''
``It definitely fucking is, May,'' In Dreams said. ``But I stand by what I said. You did what you did and that is an immutable fact. You cannot un-fork, Michelle. You cannot become what you were then, Sasha, you can only become what you will be.''
``I do not think that you fucked up, dear.'' Hammered silver plucked a dandelion and spun it between her fingers. ``You may \emph{be} fucked up, if you somehow contained what it takes to be all the clade as one within you, but even that is not your fault.''
``The fuck-up, then would be the fact that I did not acknowledge that.''
In Dreams pulled up a whole handful of grass and flowers and threw it at her, grinning. ``Do not mope. It does not become you.''
Sasha/Michelle laughed, shrugged, and tried to tuck one of the flowers behind her ear, but as soon as a shift of form rolled across her face, it fell to the ground.
She wished that she could be just one thing for a little while, but seeing the outcome of a scattered mind creating copy after copy of herself, she knew that there was no solution that did not run the risk of becoming what she did not want to be.
She wished that she could be just one thing so that she could be touched. The shifting form made any touch unnerving, made her feel disgusting. She wished that for herself, and for May Then My Name, who looked as though she was using every ounce of willpower she had to keep from going in for a hug.
\emph{Being like her would not be so bad,} Michelle/Sasha thought. \emph{But even then, that is not all of me.}
They sat in silence for a while, then, this five-pack of her, and, regardless of what they thought about, she thought about empathy and mirrors of hammered silver and the end of memories, there, beneath the roots.
\emph{I think I died, back then,} Sasha thought/``I think I died back then,'' Michelle said.
To Pray frowned. ``What do you mean?''
``I think I just gave everything I had to them. To you. ``Two weeks,'' I remember thinking. ``The first lines can take my place for two weeks, and then I will be back on the council, and they can do their own thing.'' But I think that I died. There was no returning to the council, because there was no more Sasha or Michelle.''
``And what is the fallout of being a dead woman walking?''
``I do not know. I think that it means that I have stopped. I do not know if there is a path forward for me that involves me being anything other than what I am now. I died because with that act I cannot move on from where I am.''
Hammered Silver averted her eyes. ``I am not comfortable with that language.''
Michelle/Sasha shrugged helplessly. ``I am sorry. Like I said, I am having a bad day.''
``Sasha,'' May Then My Name said. ``Why did you call us here? I do not think it is because you feel like you fucked up or like you died. Why are we here?''
``I guess I just wanted to see proof that at least some of the clade are good people. I know Hammered Silver is. She comes by at least once a day. I know you two are--'' She nodded at To Pray and In Dreams. ``--because you have kept me up to date on the others. And I do not think May could swat a fly without feeling bad about it.''
The skunk stuck her tongue out, but did not disagree.
``Reassurance,'' Hammered Silver muttered. ``Validation, maybe? Proof that you are not just the things that you hate about yourself?''
Sasha/Michelle nodded.
``Where do you think they came from, then? Where did we come from?''
Michelle/Sasha laughed. ``I have no idea. Maybe you are the part of me that always wanted to be a mother. Maybe True Name is that bit of myself that always fears that asking for what I want is manipulation, or the mirror image of that. I really do not know.''
``It is okay to have fears,'' Hammered Silver said gently. ``Like, it is legal. You will not get arrested for being afraid.''
They all grinned.
``But,'' she continued. ``Do not always dwell in them. Resent True Name and Life Breeds Life for a little while, then go back to remembering that you always wanted to be a mom and that you still love acting even after you became a director and that you really, really fucking love dandelions.''
``Seriously,'' In Dreams said. ``To an almost unhealthy level. This is an intervention, Michelle. You need to chill with the dandelions.''
As the cloud of rumination began to lift, and as she laughed, she began to settle down into Michelle. Just Michelle. Just herself. ``They cannot be that bad. They just got stuck in my head, and now I cannot get them out.''
``Snorting pollen off the back of your hand in the back parking lot,'' To Pray said, picking up on the mood. ``I am honestly ashamed of you.''
``My name is May Then My Name Die With me,'' the skunk said, clambering to her feet. ``And I am a dandelion-aholic.''
``Hi, May Then My Name,'' the others sing-songed.
And then she was Michelle. At least for a little while, she was just Michelle, and May Then My Name could brush her hair and they could talk about something else, and she could allow the thought that perhaps even the dead can be happy.