Edits, finished majority of Idumea

marsh/book.tex

@@ -91,6 +91,7 @@
 
   \vfill
 
+\begin{comment}
   \begin{flushright}
 
   \begin{tabular}{m{3cm} m{7cm}}
@@ -113,6 +114,18 @@
   % https://www.instagram.com/p/BPbY4f-jFRK/
 
   \end{flushright}
+\end{comment}
+
+  \begin{quote}
+  \emph{Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,\\
+  Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.}
+
+  Unreal city, city full of dreams,\\
+  Where ghosts in broad daylight cling to passsers-by.
+  \end{quote}
+
+  — Charles Baudelaire, via T.S. Eliot
+
 
   \vfill
 
@@ -220,7 +233,7 @@
   \story{Journal of Diago Pereira}{Nat Mcardle-Mott-Merrifield and Sarah Bloden}
   \markboth{Journal of Diago Pereira}{Nat Mcardle-Mott-Merrifield and Sarah Bloden}
   \chapter*{Henrique Pereira — 2401}
-  \input{stories/journal}
+  %\input{stories/journal}
 
   \cleartoverso
   \thispagestyle{empty}

marsh/content/001.tex

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ I laughed and bumped my shoulder against Hanne's. ``A sales pitch?''
 
 I scuffed my heel against the pavement of the street. New Year's Eve, and everyone was still inside. Bars: full. Restaurants: packed. There were a few scattered couples or groups around, but they were all walking with purpose. Champagne called. Canapes. Crudités.
 
-And there we were, Reed and Hanne, arm in arm, strolling leisurely down the street, heedless of the passersby, to celebrate the last day of 2399, systime 275+365. Many, still lingering on the calendar still used phys-side, were doubtlessly partying extra-hard to celebrate the turn of a century.
+And there we were, Reed and Hanne, arm in arm, strolling leisurely down the street, heedless of the passersby, to celebrate the last day of 2399, systime 275+365. Many, lingering on the calendar still used phys-side, were doubtlessly partying extra-hard to celebrate the turn of a century.
 
 ``If you're looking for the utmost in luxury, then it's really hard to go wrong with 2399. The ride was just about as smooth as could be.''
 
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ We walked in silence for a few minutes. I tallied the occupants of the various r
 
 Hanne nodded. ``What was Earth like? What was your life like?''
 
-I shrugged. ``Fine, I guess. The Western Fed was swinging conservative again, it was hot as hell all the time, some places were arguing about upload subsidies leading to a rising birthratesome. I guess that makes it sound terrible, and maybe it would have gotten worse, but I wasn't around to see it. We were doing alright, so maybe I was kind of sheltered.''
+I shrugged. ``Fine, I guess. The Western Fed was swinging conservative again, it was hot as hell all the time, some places were arguing about upload subsidies leading to a rising birthrate. I guess that makes it sound terrible, and maybe it would have gotten worse, but I wasn't around to see it. We were doing alright, so maybe I was kind of sheltered.''
 
 ``I hear you on the hot as hell part. We couldn't afford moving south when it got too bad, so we moved up into the mountains. It helped a little bit, at least.''
 
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ The shadow of her shoulders relaxed again in the dark of the night. ``Even after
 
 ``Is that why you forked, too?''
 
-I grinned. ``I forked for fun. Even if it's still a tender spot, I think I'm still way more relaxed than Marsh is, though it's been a while since we talked. There may be a bit of that in Tule, I guess. He's still pretty happy being a guy --- he's the only one out of all of us, come to think of it. Rush is as ve is of vis own choice, though.''
+I grinned. ``I forked for fun. Even if it's still a tender spot, I think I'm still way more relaxed than Marsh is, though it's been a while since we talked. There may be a bit of that in Tule, I guess. He's still pretty happy being a guy --- he's the only one out of all of us, come to think of it. Rush is as ve is of vis own choice, though, and Sedge is pretty much us pre-transition.''
 
 Hanne looped her arm through mine. ``Well, I still like you as you are.''
 

marsh/content/002.tex

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Champagne tinted evenings faded, as they do, into brandy-colored nights. Amber nights and fireplaces for the hell of it, me and Hanne settling in for a little bit of warmth for that last hour, not quite decadence and a ways off from opulence, but still a plush couch and a fire and snifters slightly too full of liquor.
 
-We shared our warmth, sitting side by side on the couch, and we continued to talk, talking of the year past, of years past beyond that, and of however many we decided were ahead. A hundred years? Two hundred? Only five? I made an impassioned argument for five more years of life, then laughed, changed my mind, and said I'd never die. Hanne said she'd live for precisely two hundred, give up, and disappear from Lagrange. She'd fork at a century and never speak to that version of her again, that exact duplicate, and should that instance decide to live on past two centuries, so be it, but she'd decided her expiration.
+We shared our warmth, sitting side by side on the couch, and we continued to talk, talking of the year past, of years past beyond that, and of however many we decided were ahead. A hundred years? Two hundred? Only five? I made an impassioned argument for five more years of life, then laughed, changed my mind, and said I'd never die. Hanne said she'd live for precisely two hundred, give up, and disappear from Lagrange. She'd fork at a century and never speak to that version of her again, and should that instance decide to live on past two centuries, so be it, but she'd decided her expiration.
 
 I scoffed. ``What? And leave me behind?''
 
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ I shook my head. ``That's not on me, you know that. We have a one-way relationsh
 
 ``But they're your down-tree instance! You're patterned after them. You talk every year \emph{at least} once, right? You'll talk to them later tonight, right? You have for the last hundred.''
 
-``No, probably not. If I hear from them directly, anything more than just a ping, I'll know something's gone horribly wrong.'' I leaned back — carefully, what with her head resting on my shoulder. ``Like I say, it's a one-way relationship. All I do is live my own life, right? I stay in touch with the rest of the clade to greater or lesser extent, but Marsh has their own life.''
+``No, probably not. If I hear from them directly, anything more than just a ping, I'll know something's gone horribly wrong.'' I leaned back --- carefully, what with her head resting on my shoulder. ``Like I say, it's a one-way relationship. All I do is live my own life, right? I stay in touch with the rest of the clade to greater or lesser extent, but Marsh has their own life.''
 
 ``They have several.''
 
@@ -94,11 +94,11 @@ Hanne laughed and shook her head, standing from the couch to go get herself a gl
 
 With a rush of intent, I forked, bringing into being beside me a new instance of myself. Exactly the same. \emph{Precisely}. Had such a thing any meaning to an upload, we would be the same down to the atomic level, to the subatomic. All of the memories, all of the personality, all of the history.
 
-For a fraction of a second, at least. From that point on, we began to diverge, each remembering things differently. The Reed that still sat on the couch heard Hanne in the kitchen from \emph{this} angle, yet the one that stood beside the couch heard her from that. The one that sat on the couch felt the fire on his cheek, the one standing felt it on his back. I watched this other Reed — a new instance of me without these demanding memories, one who would not have the shared memories of my up-tree cocladists — wander off to the bedroom to presumably stay out of the way while I processed.
+For a fraction of a second, at least. From that point on, we began to diverge, each remembering things differently. The Reed that still sat on the couch heard Hanne in the kitchen from \emph{this} angle, yet the one that stood beside the couch heard her from that. The one that sat on the couch felt the fire on his cheek, the one standing felt it on his back. I watched this other Reed --- a new instance of me without these demanding memories, one who would not have the shared memories of my up-tree cocladists --- wander off to the bedroom to presumably stay out of the way while I processed.
 
-I closed my eyes to turn down one of my senses, setting the sweet-smelling glass of brandy aside to rid myself of another as best I could. I sat and spent a moment processing, savoring the memories. Rush had merged down first; ve had split off a new copy of verself, and then the original had quit. On doing so, all the memories ve'd formed over the last however long fell down onto me, ready to be remembered like some forgotten word on the tip of my tongue: all I needed to do is actually remember. Clearly, Tule had already forked and merged back down into Sedge, as their combined memories piled yet more weight on me. Three sets of memories — two from my direct up-tree instances and one from a second-degree up-tree instance — rested on my mind, ready for integration.
+I closed my eyes to turn down one of my senses, setting the sweet-smelling glass of brandy aside to rid myself of another as best I could. I sat and spent a moment processing, savoring the memories. Rush had merged down first; ve had split off a new copy of verself, and then the original had quit. On doing so, all the memories ve'd formed over the last however long fell down onto me, ready to be remembered like some forgotten word on the tip of my tongue: all I needed to do is actually remember. Clearly, Tule had already forked and merged back down into Sedge, as their combined memories piled yet more weight on me. Three sets of memories --- two from my direct up-tree instances and one from a second-degree up-tree instance --- rested on my mind, ready for integration.
 
-There'd be time for Marsh to do their full perusal and remembering later. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and I needed to get the memories sorted into my own, interleaved and zippered together into as cohesive a whole as best I could manage, all conflicts addressed — though with as separate as their lives had been until then, there was thankfully quite little in the way of conflicting memories — so that, shortly before midnight, I could quit and let all those memories — those of Rush, Sedge, Tule, and myself — fall to Marsh to process, savor, and treasure for themself, while that new copy of me, off making the bed or simply taking some quiet, lived out the next year with Hanne, with all their joys and sorrows.
+There'd be time for Marsh to do their full perusal and remembering later. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and I needed to get the memories sorted into my own, interleaved and zippered together into as cohesive a whole as best I could manage, all conflicts addressed --- though with as separate as their lives had been until then, there was thankfully quite little in the way of conflicting memories --- so that, shortly before midnight, I could quit and let all those memories --- those of Rush, Sedge, Tule, and myself --- fall to Marsh to process, savor, and treasure for themself, while that new copy of me, off making the bed or simply taking some quiet, lived out the next year with Hanne, with all their joys and sorrows.
 
 After so many New Years Eves, this had all become routine. Some years, I kept the memories, some not. It had been a nearly a decade since I'd bothered, and there didn't seem to be any reason to do different this year.
 
@@ -145,11 +145,11 @@ She rolled her eyes. ``\makebox[0pt][l]{\hspace*{1pt}\raisebox{-0.5pt}{\includeg
 
 ``See? You're so weird.''
 
-``I guess we are,'' I said, smiling and nudging Hanne upright once more. A flash of \emph{déjà vu} struck me squarely in the right temple, a headache amid the buzz of alcohol. ``Hey now, no falling asleep on me.''
+``I guess we are,'' I said, smiling and nudging Hanne upright once more from where she'd slumped against me. A flash of \emph{déjà vu} struck me squarely in the right temple, a headache amid the buzz of alcohol. ``Hey now, no falling asleep on me.''
 
 ``Right, sorry. Still, uh\ldots still fifteen minutes.'' She grumbled and rubbed at her face. ``Sorry if that came off as rude. I guess it's just outside my understanding.''
 
-I scooted up onto the couch, myself, sitting cross-legged to face her. ``It's okay. It's not wrong, come to think of it, I just don't think it's wholly right, either, you know? It's more a matter of intent. Our intent is to live our own lives doing as we will rather than as they would, and it's their intent to let us do so — and by not interfering, even with communication, \emph{force} us to do so — and yet still be able to experience that almost like a dream. They forked us off a century ago, me, Lily, and Cress, and we've been doing it ever since, and it's worked out well enough since then. They're more than just Marsh, now. They're Marsh and all of us. If all this--'' I waved around the room, feeling the gentle spin of drunkenness follow the movement, ``--is just a dream, if we're all doing our best to dream in unison with each other, then I think intent may be all that we have, right? However many billion or trillion people have uploaded are all trying to dream the same dream together, all mixed up and poured into the same System, we have to form what meanings we may on our own.''
+I scooted up onto the couch, myself, sitting cross-legged to face her. ``It's okay. It's not wrong, come to think of it, I just don't think it's wholly right, either, you know? It's more a matter of intent. Our intent is to live our own lives doing as we will rather than as they would, and it's their intent to let us do so --- and by not interfering, even with communication, \emph{force} us to do so --- and yet still be able to experience that almost like a dream. They forked us off a century ago, me, Lily, and Cress, and we've been doing it ever since, and it's worked out well enough since then. They're more than just Marsh, now. They're Marsh and all of us. If all this--'' I waved around the room, feeling the gentle spin of drunkenness follow the movement, ``--is just a dream, if we're all doing our best to dream in unison with each other, then I think intent may be all that we have, right? However many billion or trillion people have uploaded are all trying to dream the same dream together, all mixed up and poured into the same System, we have to form what meanings we may on our own.''
 
 ``I think we broke two trillion instances a while back. I don't know how may uploads, but I don't think it's hit a trillion yet.''
 
@@ -167,11 +167,11 @@ With a press of will, I forked, bringing into being beside the couch a new insta
 
 For a fraction of a second, at least. From there, we began to diverge, each remembering things differently. The Reed that still sat on the couch heard Hanne rummaging in the kitchen from \emph{this} angle, and yet the one that stood beside the couch heard her from that. The one that sat on the couch felt the fire on his cheek, the one standing felt it on his back.
 
-I closed my eyes to turn down one of my senses, taking one more sip of the sweet-smelling brandy before setting it aside to rid myself of another two as best I could. I sat and spent a moment processing, savoring the memories. Rush had merged down first; ve had split off a new copy of verself then the original had quit. On doing so, all the memories ve'd formed over the last year fell down onto me, ready to be remembered like some forgotten word on the tip of my tongue: all I needed to do was actually remember. Clearly, Tule had already forked and merged back down into Sedge, as their combined memories piled yet more weight on me. Three sets of memories — two from my direct up-tree instances and one from a second-degree up-tree instance — rested on my mind, ready for integration.
+I closed my eyes to turn down one of my senses, taking one more sip of the sweet-smelling brandy before setting it aside to rid myself of another two as best I could. I sat and spent a moment processing, savoring the memories. Rush had merged down first; ve had split off a new copy of verself then the original had quit. On doing so, all the memories ve'd formed over the last year fell down onto me, ready to be remembered like some forgotten word on the tip of my tongue: all I needed to do was actually remember. Clearly, Tule had already forked and merged back down into Sedge, as their combined memories piled yet more weight on me. Three sets of memories --- two from my direct up-tree instances and one from a second-degree up-tree instance --- rested on my mind, ready for integration.
 
-There would be time for full perusal and remembering later. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and I needed to get the memories sorted into my own, interleaved and zippered together into as cohesive a whole as I could manage, all — or, at least, almost all — conflicts addressed (though with as separate as their lives had been until then, there was thankfully quite little in the way of conflicting memories), so that, shortly before midnight, I could quit, myself, letting that new copy of myself live out the next year with Hanne, with all their joys and sorrows, while my original instance quit and let all those memories — those of Rush, Sedge, Tule, and myself — fall to Marsh to process, savor, and treasure for themself.
+There would be time for full perusal and remembering later. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and I needed to get the memories sorted into my own, interleaved and zippered together into as cohesive a whole as I could manage, all --- or, at least, almost all --- conflicts addressed (though with as separate as their lives had been until then, there was thankfully quite little in the way of conflicting memories), so that, shortly before midnight, I could quit, myself, letting that new copy of myself live out the next year with Hanne, with all their joys and sorrows, while my original instance quit and let all those memories --- those of Rush, Sedge, Tule, and myself --- fall to Marsh to process, savor, and treasure for themself.
 
-After so many New Years Eves, it had all become routine. Some years, I kept the memories, some not. It had been a nearly a decade since I'd bothered — I always checked with Rush, Sedge, and Tule before keeping their memories — and there didn't seem to be any reason to do different this year.
+After so many New Years Eves, it had all become routine. Some years, I kept the memories, some not. It had been a nearly a decade since I'd bothered --- I always checked with Rush, Sedge, and Tule before keeping their memories --- and there didn't seem to be any reason to do different this year.
 
 I heard Hanne return, heard her climb back onto the couch before me, felt her press a cold glass of water into my hand.
 
@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ Then frowned.
 
 I held up a finger and closed my eyes. Once more, I thought to myself, \emph{I'm ready to quit}, then then willed that to be reality.
 
-Rather than the sudden nothingness — or sudden oneness for Marsh — that should have followed, I felt the System balk. Resist. I felt an elastic sensation that I'd never felt before. There was a barrier between me and the ability to quit. I felt it, tested it, probed and explored. It was undeniably present, and though I sensed that I could probably have pressed through it if I desired, it was as though Lagrange desperately did not want me to quit. It didn't want the Reed of now to leave the System.
+Rather than the sudden nothingness --- or sudden oneness for Marsh --- that should have followed, I felt the System balk. Resist. I felt an elastic sensation that I'd never felt before. There was a barrier between me and the ability to quit. I felt it, tested it, probed and explored. It was undeniably present, and though I sensed that I could probably have pressed through it if I desired, it was as though Lagrange desperately did not want me to quit. It didn't want the Reed of now to leave the System.
 
 ``I can't.''
 
@@ -247,7 +247,7 @@ Pinged Cress, the other fork. Asked, \emph{``Cress? Can you--''}
 
 00:04.
 
-Cress arrived almost immediately along with Tule — they shared a partner, so it made sense they'd be together for the evening — leading Hanne to start back on the couch. ``Reed,'' she said, voice low. ``What is--''
+Cress arrived almost immediately along with Tule --- they shared a partner, so it made sense they'd be together for the evening --- leading Hanne to start back on the couch. ``Reed,'' she said, voice low. ``What is--''
 
 Lily arrived next, dusty and dishevelled from her day in some mountainous sim, already rushing forward to grab my shoulder. ``You can't either?'' she said, voice full of panic.
 
@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ The rest of the clade looked to me as well, and I quailed under so many gazes. `
 
 00:07.
 
-Silence fell thick across the room. The clade — Marsh's clade — stared, wide-eyed. Their expressions ranged from unsure to terrified. I couldn't even begin to imagine what expression showed on my face.
+Silence fell thick across the room. The clade --- Marsh's clade --- stared, wide-eyed. Their expressions ranged from unsure to terrified. I couldn't even begin to imagine what expression showed on my face.
 
 ``Okay, no, hold on,'' Hanne said, shaking her head and waving her hand. She appeared to have willed drunkenness away, much as I had, as her voice was clear, holding more frustration than the panic I felt. ``Did they quit? They couldn't have, right? You just pinged them earlier today.''
 
@@ -297,13 +297,19 @@ I messaged over the address, and a few seconds later, Fenne Vos and Pierre LaFon
 
 Some small part of me looked on in admiration. Hanne had kept much of the panic that was coursing through me and my cocladists out of her voice. I could feel a shout building within me and I knew from past experiences with Vos and Pierre that that would only make things worse.
 
+Vos had been Marsh's partner for decades now, nearly half a century. With so much time at one's disposal, such relationships felt natural enough, and taking a break of a few months or years was well within reach of at least us.
+
+She was a strikingly tall black woman with close-cropped hair and a penchant for styles that would leave anyone with a passing interest in haute couture impressed. She was prone to laughter and smirks and grins.
+
+She was not grinning now.
+
 ``We didn't see them around,'' Vos answered, that barrier between caution and worry seemed to be giving way. ``Why? If you're all here, I'm guessing something happened.''
 
 ``Have you been able to ping them?''
 
 Both Vos and Pierre shook their heads.
 
-The sight of Cress and Tule bowing their heads to whisper to each other caught my eye, and a moment later their partner, a stocky woman with curly black hair, appeared between them, looking as though she'd come straight from a party, herself. I felt a muffled pang of affection for her, lingering emotions from my up-tree instance's memories.
+The sight of Cress and Tule bowing their heads to whisper to each other caught my eye, and a moment later their partner, a short, stocky woman with curly black hair, appeared between them, looking as though she'd come straight from a party, herself. I felt a muffled pang of affection for her, lingering emotions from my up-tree instance's memories.
 
 ``Stop!'' Hanne said, then laughed nervously at the silence that followed. She gestured absentmindedly, pressing the bounds of the sim outward to expand the room. It had started getting actively crowded. ``You're doing it again, Reed.''
 
@@ -317,13 +323,13 @@ At this, both Vos and Pierre took a half-step back, looking startled.
 
 I spent a moment composing myself. I stood up straighter, brushing my hands down over my shirt, and nodded. ``Right. I'm sorry, hon. When midnight hit, I forked and tried to quit as usual. I couldn't, though. The System wouldn't let me.''
 
-Cress and Tule's partner, I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade, stood up stock straight, all grogginess — or perhaps drunkenness — from the party fleeing her features.
+Cress and Tule's partner, I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade, stood up stock straight, all grogginess --- or perhaps drunkenness --- from the party fleeing her features.
 
 ``That's only supposed to happen when quitting would mean the loss of too much memory, though. The root instance can barely quit at all in the older clades--'' Dry Grass winced. I did my best to ignore it and continued. ``--because the System really doesn't like losing a life if it won't be merged down into a down-tree instance.''
 
 ``So, you couldn't quit because\ldots{}'' Hanne said, urging me on.
 
-``Well, I imagine the same is true for anyone with lots of memory inside them. If there's no one to merge down into, it just looks like\ldots like\ldots{}''
+``Well, I imagine the same is true for anyone with lots of memory inside them. I had my new fork, but the intent was to merge down, and I guess the system picked up on that. If there's no one to merge down into, it just looks like\ldots like\ldots{}''
 
 ``Like death,'' Dry Grass said darkly. ``It looks like death. You could not quit because, to the System, you and all of your memories would die, and the System is not built for death. That is what it felt like, is it not? It felt like you could not possibly quit without pushing the weight of the world uphill?''
 
@@ -331,7 +337,7 @@ I frowned. ``Perhaps not all that, but it certainly felt like I was trying to pu
 
 ``Like death,'' she muttered again. Pierre began to cry. ``Marsh is not on the System, then, no.''
 
-``So are they\ldots is Marsh dead?'' Pierre whispered, his voice clouded by tears. Vos towered over him — over all of us, really — and had always seemed as though she could weather a storm better than any stone, but now, even she looked suddenly frail, fragile in the face of the loss they were all only talking around.
+``So are they\ldots is Marsh dead?'' Pierre whispered, his voice clouded by tears. Vos towered over him --- over all of us, really --- and had always seemed as though she could weather a storm better than any stone, but even she looked suddenly frail now, fragile in the face of the loss they were all only talking around.
 
 ``They are not on the System,'' Dry Grass and I echoed in unison.
 
@@ -357,7 +363,7 @@ She frowned down to her feet as she thought. ``It used to be that there were rot
 
 ``Well, how do we check those?'' Rush said, speaking up for the first time since that initial clamor of voices.
 
-Dry Grass spread her hands helplessly. ``I do not know. Again, it has been two centuries since I worked as a systech. The technology has changed much. I would need access. I would need time to remember. Time to research.''
+Dry Grass spread her hands helplessly. ``I do not know. Again, it has been almost two centuries since I worked as a systech. The technology has changed much. I would need access. I would need time to remember. Time to research.''
 
 ``Do we even \emph{have} time?'' Lily growled at her, frustration apparently winning out over panic. Cress and Tule both gave her a sharp glance.
 
@@ -371,7 +377,7 @@ Dry Grass bowed once more, forked, and the fork stepped from the sim to, I suppo
 
 ``Hey, uh,'' Sedge said into the uncomfortable silence that fell once more. ``Has anyone checked the time?''
 
-Everyone tilted their heads almost in unison. It was more a habit than anything, hardly a required motion, but the habit that Marsh had formed so many years ago had stuck with all of the Marshans throughout their own lives.
+Everyone looked up almost in unison. It was more a habit than anything, hardly a required motion --- the time certainly wasn't written on the ceiling --- but the habit that Marsh had formed so many years ago had stuck with all of the Marshans throughout their own lives.
 
 Systime 277+41 00:17.
 
@@ -465,7 +471,7 @@ Lily pointedly looked away.
 
 ``Wait,'' Cress said. ``So they're saying that there's a problem with the DSN and the station? How do you mean?''
 
-``There are few — surprisingly few — messages from over the last thirteen months, but they are queued up as though they have been held until now. There has been no contact between the LVs or Artemis and Lagrange.'' There was a pause as Dry Grass's gaze drifted, clearly scanning more of those messages. ``Most messages have been discarded\ldots only a few from the Guiding Council on Pollux plus a few clades on Castor\ldots have been let through\ldots outgoing messages are ungated\ldots{}''
+``There are few --- surprisingly few --- messages from over the last thirteen months, but they are queued up as though they have been held until now. There has been no contact between the LVs or Artemis and Lagrange.'' There was a pause as Dry Grass's gaze drifted, clearly scanning more of those messages. ``Most messages have been locked in a way I cannot access\ldots only a few from the Guiding Council on Pollux plus the Council of Ten Castor\ldots have been let through\ldots outgoing messages are gated\ldots{}''
 
 ``There's a bit about that in news from phys-side, actually,'' Sedge said, looking thoughtful. ``Communications failure on the Lagrange station. Something about aging technology. The DSN was also having problems so a few new repeaters were launched. Some from the station, even.''
 
@@ -489,13 +495,15 @@ I stole a glance at Lily. She looked to be spending every joule of energy on kee
 
 There had been an enormous row within the clade when first Cress, then Tule, had gotten in a relationship with a member of the Ode clade. Most of the Marshans had largely written off the stories of the Ode clade's political meddling as overly fantastic schlock, yet more myths to keep the functionally immortal entertained. Even if they had their basis in truth, they remained only stories.
 
-Lily, however, had had an immediate and dramatic reaction, cutting contact with the rest of the clade — including Marsh — for more than a year. She had even refused to merge down for years until tempers had settled.
+Lily, however, had had an immediate and dramatic reaction, cutting contact with the rest of the clade --- including Marsh --- for more than a year. She had even refused to merge down for years until tempers had settled.
 
 Hanne spoke up. ``Listen, can we maybe give this a bit to play out? I need to sleep, and if Reed doesn't take a break, he's going to explode.''
 
-The others laughed. I felt a twinge of resentment. Shouldn't they be dumping all of their energy into this? Shouldn't they all fork several times over and throw themselves at the problem? Still, it was true enough, and if they stood around the living room spinning their wheels any longer, tempers would continue to flare.
+The others laughed.
 
-``Yeah,'' I said. ``Give me at least a few hours. I'll do a little digging and grab some sleep, then maybe we can meet up somewhere else and talk through what we've learned.''
+I felt a twinge of resentment. Shouldn't we be dumping all of our energy into this? Shouldn't we all fork several times over and throwing ourselves at the problem? Still, it was true enough, and if we stood around the living room spinning our wheels any longer, tempers would continue to flare.
+
+``Yeah,'' I said. ``Give me at least a few hours. I'll do a little digging and maybe grab some sleep, then we can meet up somewhere else and talk through what we've learned.''
 
 ``I'll keep digging at the feeds,'' Sedge said. ``Want to help, Rush?''
 
@@ -517,7 +525,7 @@ As one, the other Marshans stepped away from my and Hanne's sim, leaving just th
 
 Hanne sat beside me, arm around my back. She rested her head on my shoulder as the wave of emotion overtook me. At first, she asked if I was alright, then she whispered a few ``I'm sure it'll work out''s and ``it's going to be okay''s before eventually just sitting with me in silence.
 
-``This is really fucking weird,'' I said once I was able to speak again. The sound of speech echoed strangely in my head, muffled in that post-cry mess. ``I don't even know who I'm crying for. It's not like they're a parent, I came from them, but they aren't me, either.''
+``This is really fucking weird,'' I said once I was able to speak again. The sound of speech echoed strangely in my head, muffled in that post-cry mess. ``I don't even know who I'm crying for. It's not like they're a parent. I came from them, but they aren't me, either.''
 
 ``A bit of both, maybe?''
 
@@ -537,7 +545,7 @@ How could I stand, knowing as I did that the clade had become unmoored? How coul
 
 I sighed, nodded dully, and let her pull me to my feet.
 
-I swayed for a moment, feeling reality shift unsteadily beneath me. Once I straightened up, I followed Hanne off to our bedroom. We'd spent the previous night, as we often did, sleeping in two separate beds — I always got too warm sleeping next to someone — but any grounding force feels welcome now, so, with a gesture, the two beds slid together, merging seamlessly into one.
+I swayed for a moment, feeling reality shift unsteadily beneath me. Once I straightened up, I followed Hanne off to our bedroom. We'd spent the previous night, as we often did, sleeping in two separate beds --- I always got too warm sleeping next to someone --- but any grounding force feels welcome now, so, with a gesture, the two beds slid together, merging seamlessly into one.
 
 A hollow feeling bubbled up within me. The two beds merging into one was an image of something now well beyond the Marsh clade. I was thankful I'd already cried myself dry.
 

marsh/content/003.tex

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-As expected, sleep did not come. Exhaustion pulled at me, exerting its own gravity, but too many emotions crowded it out. Too many emotions and too many thoughts. I spent a few minutes chiding myself --- shouldn't I sleep, if only to be more refreshed for the next day? --- before giving in and letting my mind circle around each of those emotions, each of those thoughts. I don't know for how long I cycled.
+As expected, sleep did not come. Exhaustion pulled at me, exerting its own gravity, but too many emotions crowded it out. Too many emotions and too many thoughts. I spent a few minutes chiding myself --- shouldn't I sleep, if only to be more refreshed for the next day? --- before giving in and letting my mind circle around each of those emotions, each of those thoughts. I have no idea how long I cycled.
 
 There was the faintest brush against my sensorium. Vos.
 
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ The sense of a sniffle from the other end of the message. The sense of a nod.
 
 The message stopped.
 
-I lay in bed, then, thinking about Marsh. Thinking about all that I knew of what they'd become since I was last them, however long ago that was. We'd seen each other a handful of times at this event or that gathering, and we'd talked a few times over messages a few more, but they were always distant, always held at arms length.
+I lay in bed, then, thinking about Marsh. Thinking about all that I knew of what they'd become since I was last them, however long ago that was. We'd seen each other a handful of times at this event or that gathering, and we'd talked a few times over messages, but they were always distant, always held at arm's length.
 
 It was both our arms, too, I know that. They kept their life separate from mine, just as I kept mine separate from theirs. It was ever our arrangement that all of their forks would live out their own individual lives, merging down as the year ticked over.
 
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ I thought of Marsh, their laugh, their words, their open expression, the way the
 
 Hanne rolled away from me and I took that as my chance to at least no longer be laying down. I forked a new instance standing beside the bed and then quit, just in case the motion of me getting out of bed might wake her.
 
-I needed out of the house. Nowhere public --- I don't want to see what others in the System are dealing with right now. There would be time for that later, but for now I needed out and away from everyone.
+I needed out of the house. Nowhere public --- I didn't want to see what others in the System were dealing with right then. There would be time for that later, but for now I needed out and away from everyone.
 
 The sim I wound up in was simple and bucolic. There was a pagoda. There was a field, grass cut --- or eaten, I suppose, given the sheep in the distance --- short, stretching from stone wall to stone wall. It was day --- it didn't even seem like the owners included a day/night cycle --- and foggy. Cool but not cold. Damp but not wet.
 

marsh/content/004.tex

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ At some point while I'd slept, Hanne had once more split the bed into two separa
 
 Coffee and chicory, nearly a third oatmilk by volume. Perfect.
 
-I was two sips in when the weight of what happened hit me once again. I didn't quite know how it was that they had escaped me in those minutes after waking, but a pile of `how could' questions started to hem me in again --- how could I possibly forget, when this is the biggest thing that has happened to our clade ever? Never mind sys-side or phys-side; ever.
+I was two sips in when the weight of what happened hit me once again. I didn't quite know how it was that they had escaped me in those minutes after waking, but a pile of `how could I' questions started to hem me in again --- how could I possibly forget, when this is the biggest thing that has happened to our clade ever? Never mind sys-side or phys-side; ever.
 
 I forced myself to sit up in bed and drink my coffee. I set myself the goal of sipping until it was finished. I stared out the window for a bit. I cried for a bit. I drank about half my coffee before the wait became unbearable.
 
@@ -22,13 +22,13 @@ I reached out mentally to send a sensorium ping to Dry Grass, only for the peris
 
 \emph{``Best I can be, at least,''} I sent back. \emph{``I, uh\ldots sorry for interrupting. The rest of the clade's asleep and I don't want to pester Hanne any more than I need to, not after last night.''}
 
-There was mirth on the other end, some barely-sensed laughter that didn't quite rise to the level of coming through the message. Another tug at my emotions, more leftovers from Tule's merge. \emph{``It was rather stressful, was it not? You do not need to apologize, however. How are you feeling?''}
+There was mirth on the other end, some barely-sensed laughter that didn't quite rise to the level of coming through the message. Another tug at my emotions, more leftovers from Tule's merge. \emph{``It was rather stressful, was it not? You do not need to apologize. How are you feeling?''}
 
 \emph{``Honestly?''}
 
 \emph{``Please. I want to hear.''}
 
-\emph{``I'm feeling like shit.''} I laughed, shaking my head. \emph{``I mean, of course I am. I'm some awful mix of hopeful that there's some solution, mourning Marsh, kicking myself for mourning them maybe preemptively, kicking myself for not doing more, and just plain confused.''}
+\emph{``I'm feeling like shit.''} I laughed, shaking my head. \emph{``I mean, of course I am. I'm some awful mix of mourning Marsh, hopeful that there's some solution, kicking myself for mourning them maybe preemptively, kicking myself for not doing more, and just plain confused.''}
 
 The Odists were an old clade --- far older than any of us, having been born decades before the advent of the System --- so it was no wonder that Dry Grass was far more adept at sensorium messages than anyone else I'd met. It wasn't that I saw her lean back in her chair, nor that I felt the act of leaning back myself, but the overwhelming sensation that I got from that moment of silence was of her sighing, leaning back, crossing her arms over her front. I had no clue how she managed to pull that off. \emph{``There is little that I can say to fix any one of those, and anything else would ring hollow. All I can do is validate that, damn, Reed, that is a shitload of emotions. There is a lot going on, and I do not blame you for feeling confused.''}
 
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ I snorted. \emph{``Minus you, I guess.''}
 
 \emph{``Sure seems complicated. Any news from Castor or Pollux?''}
 
-\emph{``Yes,''} she replied, then hesitated. \emph{``Though would you be willing to go for a walk to discuss what I have heard?''}
+\emph{``Yes, in a way,''} she replied, then hesitated. \emph{``Though would you be willing to go for a walk to discuss what I have heard?''}
 
 \emph{``I guess. Why?''}
 
@@ -66,9 +66,9 @@ She sent the address of a public sim, to which I sent a ping of acknowledgement
 
 Hanne sat at the dining room table, coffee in her hands, staring out at nothing, a sure sign that she was digging through something on the perisystem architecture. Probably poking her way through the feeds, looking for news. She had her own friends, after all, her own circle of co-hobbyists, those construct artists --- oneirotects --- who shared her interest in creating various objects and interactive constructs. She had her own people to care about that weren't just me, weren't just the Marshans.
 
-I chose to make myself another coffee instead, letting a cone of silence linger above me so that I didn't disturb her, even though her eyes did flick up toward me once or twice, joined by a weak smile.
+I chose to make us another pot of coffee instead, letting a cone of silence linger above me so that I didn't disturb her, even though her eyes did flick up toward me once or twice, joined by a weak smile.
 
-``Want some space?'' I asked once a new pot of coffee sat in the center of the table.
+``Want some space?'' I asked once the pot sat in the center of the table.
 
 ``Kind of, yeah,'' she said, voice dull. ``Jess isn't responding. She's \emph{there,} but not responding. Shu is gone though. Just\ldots{}'' A sniffle. ``Completely gone. It's like she was never even there in the first place.''
 
@@ -112,17 +112,17 @@ We met in front of a small coffee shop. A bucolic small town main street lined w
 
 ``Coffee and chicory, yes?'' Dry Grass said, offering me a paper cup.
 
-I nodded as I accepted. ``Cress and Tule still drink that?''
+I nodded as I accepted. I had left my second cup of coffee back at home, half-finished. ``Cress and Tule still drink that?''
 
 A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. ``Much to my chagrin, yes.''
 
 ``Not a fan?''
 
-She shook her head. ``Too bitter for my tastes. Mocha, extra chocolate, extra whipped cream,'' she said, lifting her own cup. ``Apparently a sweet tooth can last more than three centuries. Who knew.''
+She shook her head. ``Too bitter for my tastes. Mocha, extra chocolate, extra whipped cream,'' she said, lifting her own cup. ``Apparently a sweet tooth can last more than three centuries. Who knew?''
 
-``Yeah, that sounds way too sweet for me,'' I said, grinning.
+``Yeah, that sounds way too sweet for me,'' I said, chuckling.
 
-Grinning back, she gestured down the street in an invitation to walk, and we fell in step beside each other, saying nothing.
+Grinning to me, she gestured down the street in an invitation to walk, and we fell in step beside each other, saying nothing.
 
 The sim was, indeed, beautiful, though it did bear some trademarks of early sim design, with the cobblestones perhaps a little too perfectly fit together, a little too flat, and the hexagonal lamp posts bearing corners that were perhaps a little too sharp. Still, for a morning walk with coffee (my third of the day; I'd have to turn off the caffeine sensitivity later), it was ideal. The sim was quiet and calm, with the sun blessing the street with long shadows and cool air that felt on the path to warming.
 
@@ -148,9 +148,9 @@ She nodded. ``Günay is quite nice, if perhaps a bit breezier than one might exp
 
 I frowned. ``You mean someone's keeping her from doing so?''
 
-``It is a hunch. Perhaps our communications are being monitored, and she is being instructed to limit the topics or to act in this way. Perhaps her implants limit her by NDA. While talking with Need An Answer, she suggested that this is also what the eighth stanza is used to doing, but they are the political ones.''
+``It is a hunch. Perhaps her implants limit her by NDA. Perhaps our communications are being monitored, and she is being instructed to limit the topics or to act in this way. While talking with Need An Answer, she suggested that this is also what the eighth stanza is used to doing, but they are the political ones.''
 
-I dredged up what history of the System I had learned, all of those sensationalist stories about the few old clades steering the direction of the lives of however many billions of uploaded minds and their instances --- certainly well over two trillion, if one counted the two launch vehicles, Castor and Pollux that had been sent out seventy five years prior. More, if what Hanne said was right.
+I dredged up what history of the System I had learned, all of those sensationalist stories about the few old clades steering the direction of the lives of however many billions of uploaded minds and their instances --- certainly well over two trillion, if one counted the two launch vehicles, Castor and Pollux that had been sent zooming out of the Solar System at incredible speed seventy five years prior. More, if what Hanne said was right.
 
 ``And they'd be sneaky like this, too?'' I asked.
 
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ Hesitating, Dry Grass's confident mien fell. Eventually, she reached out to take
 
 While I mulled over her focus on comfort and memory, we linked by touch, Tule and Cress with their partner, and Cress, Rush, and Sedge with me.
 
-We stepped from the quaint, small town sim and directly into warmth and sunlight, into the salt-tang of sea air and the low rush of waves against a beach. We stood atop a stone walkway of sorts, which seemed to run along the edge of a town. On further inspection, it appeared to be a retaining wall of a sort, holding up the town that meandered up a hill to keep it from sliding inexorably down into a bay.
+We stepped from the quaint, small town sim and directly into warmth and sunlight, into the salt-tang of sea air and the low rush of waves against a beach. We stood atop a stone walkway of sorts, which seemed to run along the edge of a town. On further inspection, it appeared to be a retaining wall, holding up the town that meandered up the hill to keep it from sliding inexorably down into a bay.
 
 Between the wall and the water was a sandy beach, partially obscured by intricate and crazed markings in the sand. It took some time of peering at them for me to make out just what they were: it seemed as though, throughout the tail end of New Year's Eve, dozens or hundreds of people had been drawing in the sand using, I assumed, the sticks that were leaned against the wall.
 
@@ -228,21 +228,21 @@ All of the designs seemed to feature the New Year, now that I was able to pick t
 
 I turned away with a hollow feeling in my chest, wondering just how many of those couples were still couples.
 
-The town, while no less visually chaotic than the beach, was at least more heartening to look at. Everything --- \emph{everything}; the walls of buildings, the roofs, doors and window shutters, even the roads --- was covered with a blindingly colorful mosaic of tiles.
+The town, while no less visually chaotic than the beach, was at least more heartening to look at. Everything --- \emph{everything;} the walls of buildings, the roofs, doors and window shutters, even the roads --- was covered with a blindingly colorful mosaic of tiles.
 
-``\emph{To Limáni Ton Khromáton} is nearly two centuries old,'' Dry Grass explained as we started trudging up one of those streets. When you enter, you are given a single tile --- if you check your pockets, it should be in there.''
+``\emph{To Limáni Ton Khromáton} is nearly two centuries old,'' Dry Grass explained as we started trudging up one of those streets. ``When you enter, you are given a single tile --- if you check your pockets, it should be in there.''
 
 Sure enough, when I dug my hand into my pocket, I found a cerulean tile, a little square of porcelain about three centimeters on a side. The rest of the Marshans dug in their pockets and pulled out tiles of their own, all one shade or another of blue.
 
 ``Unless you hold a color in your mind when you enter, you are provided with your favorite,'' Dry Grass explained. She pulled a golden yellow tile out of her own pocket and flipped it up in the air like a coin. ``All of this --- all of the mosaic --- has been placed by visitors.
 
-``Set No Stones told me about this place.'' She smiled wryly. ``Because of course she did. We are consummate pros at living up to our names. You may place your tile wherever you would like, and so long as it is touching the edge of another, it will stick. You will not be able to remove it after, so make sure to place it carefully.''
+``Set No Stones told me about this place.'' She smiled wryly. ``Because of course she did. We are consummate pros at living up to our names. You may place your tile wherever you like, and so long as it is touching the edge of another, it will stick. You will not be able to remove it after, so make sure to place it carefully.''
 
 Rush laughed. ``Holy shit. This place is amazing.''
 
 ``It's a bit hard to look at in some places,'' Sedge added, nodding towards a few buildings whose walls were covered in a rainbow static of tiles. ``But yeah, this is wild.''
 
-``It really is, yes,'' Dry Grass said, grinning. ``Used to be, you would get one tile per day to place, but as the popularity grew, that was slowly reduced to one tile every six weeks. Still, whole fandoms have sprung up around this place among a certain type of individual. Set No Stones started organizing groups of fifty to a hundred instances to plan out images. They would meet up once a week to go build their pictures. That is where we are going now.''
+``It really is, yes,'' Dry Grass said, grinning. ``Used to be, you would get one tile per day to place, but as the popularity grew, that was slowly reduced to one tile every six weeks. Still, whole fandoms have sprung up around this place among a certain type of individual. Set No Stones started organizing groups of fifty to a hundred cladists to plan out images. They would meet up once a week to go build their pictures. That is where we are going now.''
 
 The street was steep, but, despite the glossy look of the tiles that paved the road, none of us slipped.
 
@@ -256,7 +256,7 @@ Finally, Dry Grass led us down an alleyway, dim and cool, and gestured to a wall
 
 One by one, we took our turns standing on that box and setting our tiles into place. I reached up as high as I could to flesh out the glowing rim of the green glass-shaded lamp. As soon as my tile touched the edge of the tile Tule had placed, it snapped into place with a satisfying click. It was completely immobile after that. No amount of nudging could get it to slide more perfectly into alignment.
 
-As she helped Cress, the smallest of them, up onto the crate to place her tile, Dry Grass said, ``Thank you for coming with me on this little jaunt. If I spent any more time at my desk, I was sure that I would lose my mind. That I still have forks doing so is unavoidable, but at least I can get out of the house, yes?''
+As she helped Cress, the smallest of us, up onto the crate to place her tile, Dry Grass said, ``Thank you for coming with me on this little jaunt. If I spent any more time at my desk, I was sure that I would lose my mind. That I still have forks doing so is unavoidable, but at least I can get out of the house, yes?''
 
 Tule nodded, kissed her on the cheek. ``For which I'm glad. I've never met anyone more prone to overworking themselves than you.''
 
@@ -336,7 +336,7 @@ We walked in silence, then, digesting this, passing through the island of grass
 
 ``Did you lose any instances?'' I asked.
 
-She nodded. ``One, yes. She was working on a sim of her own, a wild park of sorts. She had not yet merged down, however, and her progress has since been lost. The sim remains incomplete. Posts of gray sprout from the forest floor where the trees were intended to appear, but I do not yet know what trees she intended to place. There is no leaf litter to indicate what she was planning, nor is there yet a sun in the sky to indicate latitude.'' The fox turned her head to smile back to us, expression once more wan. ``I am thinking that I will turn it into a memorial of sorts.''
+She nodded. ``One, yes. She was working on a sim of her own, a wild park of sorts. She had not yet merged down, however, and her plans are now lost with her. The sim remains incomplete. Posts of gray sprout from the forest floor where the trees were intended to appear, but I do not yet know what trees she intended to place. There is no leaf litter to indicate what she was planning, nor is there yet a sun in the sky to indicate latitude.'' The fox turned her head to smile back to us, expression once more wan. ``I am thinking that I will turn it into a memorial of sorts.''
 
 Rush said, ``I'd love to see it some day.''
 
@@ -352,7 +352,7 @@ Sedge snorted. ``Excited?''
 
 ``Yes. You must understand, though, that more than a year has passed for them, as well, and this is perhaps the first that they have heard from us since then. I do not know.''
 
-``Oh, so excited that whatever they did worked?''
+``Oh, so, excited that whatever they did worked?''
 
 Dry Grass nodded. ``Yes, that was my guess. She is disappointed, of course, that so many of us are missing, but she is excited that so many of us still remain. As I have said, her words have been careful and measured, but I can still tell that she was excited to be able to talk to us.''
 
@@ -402,13 +402,11 @@ We stood alone on the empty field for only a few moments before the other Odists
 
 They seemed to come in two general categories. There were those who looked largely like Dry Grass: short, stocky women with curly black hair. There was some variation, to be sure, as one might expect from a clade almost three hundred years old. One, introduced as Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, was quite a bit taller and slimmer than the others, looking chic in a form-fitting outfit of all black. Another, Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know, was taller still and visibly transfeminine.
 
-The other category seemed to be made mostly of furries of some sort. These, at least, I knew to be skunks. The stories surrounding them, the very same that had driven Lily away, were numerous and dramatic, so I was surprised to see just how\ldots well, normal they looked. A Finger Pointing arrived holding the paw of a skunk, introduced as Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps, shaped almost exactly like Dry Grass.
+The other category seemed to be made mostly of furries of some sort. These, at least, I knew to be skunks. The stories surrounding them, the very same that had driven Lily away, were numerous and dramatic, so I was surprised to see just how\ldots well, normal they looked. A Finger Pointing arrived holding the paw of a skunk, introduced as Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps, shaped almost exactly like Dry Grass. Hold My Name also appeared hand-in-paw with a skunk, Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. Warmth In Fire was much slimmer, however, almost wiry, and far shorter. They launched emself immediately at Serene and wrapped its arms around her before catching my eye. ``Reed, yes? Hanne said you would be here.''
 
-Hold My Name also appeared hand-in-paw with a skunk, Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. Warmth In Fire was much slimmer, however, almost wiry, and far shorter. They launched emself immediately at Serene and wrapped its arms around her before catching my eye. ``Reed, yes? Hanne said you would be here.''
+I nodded and started to reply before cutting myself off as a few more Odists showed up in quick succession. Another skunk, looking far more prim and proper than the others, arrived and shot Dry Grass a quick glance. I couldn't quite read her expression, but she certainly didn't look happy. If she was this Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest, it perhaps made sense, as the next Odist to arrive was a human introduced as The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer.
 
-I nodded and started to reply before cutting myself off as a few more Odists showed up in quick succession. Another skunk, looking far more prim and proper than the others, arrived and shot Dry Grass a quick glance. I couldn't quite read her expression, but she certainly didn't look happy. If she was Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest, it perhaps made sense, as the next Odist to arrive was a human introduced as The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer.
-
-From what I gathered both from my knowledge of the history of the System that I'd picked up over my years on Lagrange as well as the memories of Tule's relationship with Dry Grass, there had been a schism within the Ode clade some fifty years back surrounding the political elements of the clade --- of which Need An Answer was one --- and those who disagreed. This included both Dry Grass and In All Ways. Beyond those such as Lily who held resentment, even some Odists mistrusted --- or even hated --- some of their own.
+From what I gathered both from my knowledge of the history of the System that I'd picked up over my years on Lagrange as well as the memories of Tule's relationship with Dry Grass, there had been a schism within the Ode clade some fifty years back surrounding the political elements of the clade --- of which Need An Answer was one --- and those who disagreed. This included the stanzas to which both Dry Grass and In All Ways belonged. Beyond those such as Lily who held resentment, even some Odists mistrusted --- or hated --- some of their own.
 
 I just hoped they'd be able to set that aside for now.
 
@@ -448,9 +446,9 @@ By the end, many of them were in tears.
 
 Another, longer silence followed. By now, more of them were sitting in the grass. There were more tears, more open crying.
 
-``The number\ldots{}'' Need An Answer began, then cleared her throat. ``The number of missing instances for those here is eleven. For the total respondents in the clade as a whole, there are twenty-eight missing instances.''
+``The number\ldots{}'' Need An Answer began hoarsely, then cleared her throat. ``The number of missing instances for those here is eleven. For the total respondents in the clade as a whole, there are twenty-eight missing instances.''
 
-``With a population of 2.3 trillion instances, we are looking at a loss of approximately 48.1 billion souls,'' Dry Grass said. Her voice sounded as confident as it had all morning, but her expression was aghast.
+``With a population of 2.3 trillion instances, we are looking at a loss of approximately 48.1 billion souls,'' Dry Grass said. Her voice sounded as sure as it had all morning, but her expression was aghast.
 
 Silence fell for a third time. Silence except for sniffles.
 
@@ -558,7 +556,7 @@ Silence and headshakes around the pagoda. The contraproprioceptive virus --- the
 
 ``Well, if this\ldots attack or whatever was deliberate and we don't know anything about \emph{how} it was done, do we know anything about who might have done it?''
 
-Sedge leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. ``There's always been a bunch of people who hate uploading. Sometimes it's because they feel like we've abandoned Earth, sometimes it's because everyone makes Lagrange out like some sort of heaven while Earth is still kind of hellish. Even after all the work they've gotten done in the last fifty years, even with a lot of the climate shit either halted or actively starting to improve, Earth has hardly gone back to what it was like back before the industrial revolution or whatever.''
+Sedge leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. ``There's always been a bunch of people who hate uploading. Sometimes it's because they feel like we've abandoned Earth, sometimes it's because everyone makes Lagrange out like some sort of heaven while Earth is still kind of hellish. Even after all the work they've gotten done in the last fifty years, even with a lot of the climate shit either halted or actively starting to improve, Earth has hardly gone back to what it was like before the industrial revolution or whatever.''
 
 ``Yeah, but hate it enough to destroy it? Kill billions and billions of people?''
 

marsh/content/005.tex

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 \hypertarget{instances-spontaneously-quitting}{%
-\section*{Instances Spontaneously Quitting?}\label{instances-spontaneously-quitting}}
+\subsection{Instances Spontaneously Quitting?}\label{instances-spontaneously-quitting}}
 
 \emph{by İpek Aydin of the Sevgili clade}
 
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ I've been keeping a spare fork in another sim, too, but they probably have the s
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 \hypertarget{what-the-fuck-happened-and-what-we-can-do-about-it}{%
-\section*{What the Fuck Happened and What We Can Do About It}\label{what-the-fuck-happened-and-what-we-can-do-about-it}}
+\subsection{What the Fuck Happened and What We Can Do About It}\label{what-the-fuck-happened-and-what-we-can-do-about-it}}
 
 \emph{by Sedge of the Marsh clade and I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade}
 
@@ -22,22 +22,22 @@ Judging by the feeds, everyone and their dog knows that things are a little bit
 
 What \emph{didn't} come back, however, were a bunch of our instances. How many are missing is still up in the air. Dry Grass has counted more than two billion based on what everyone is saying on the feeds, but she's still going and obviously isn't going to catch those who won't be posted about.
 
-She's talked with a phys-side System engineer, and answers are pretty slim. They've confirmed all that we're seeing, and say that they've done their best efforts for recovering everyone. They're unable to say just what happened or how many people were affected.
+She's spoken with a phys-side System engineer, and answers are pretty slim. They've confirmed all that we're seeing, and say that they've done their best efforts for recovering everyone. They're unable to say just what happened or how many people were affected.
 
-So, what happened? We don't know. If phys-side knows, they aren't telling everyone, and The System Consortium isn't talking to anyone but systechs. AVEC is limited, as are phys-side news feeds.
+So, what happened? We don't know. If phys-side knows, they aren't telling anyone we've spoken to, and The System Consortium isn't talking to anyone but systechs. AVEC is unavailable, and phys-side news feeds are blocked.
 
-That means that, at least for the moment, those of us who aren't techs are on our own when it comes to hunting down information. Thankfully, Dry Grass is a systech! Still, information from everyone is useful. To that end, I propose that we start pooling our resources. Here are the things we'd love to know, but if you have anything else to share, please do let us know.
+That means that, at least for the moment, those of us who aren't techs are on our own when it comes to hunting down information. Thankfully, Dry Grass is a systech! Still, information from \emph{everyone} is useful. To that end, I propose that we start pooling our resources. Here are the things we'd love to know, but if you have anything else to share, please do let us know.
 
 \begin{description}
 \tightlist
 \item[How many of your clade are missing?]
-Stick with just your clade, and just the ones you know are missing. You can check by trying to ping them; it'll feel impossible to reach them if they no longer exist. If you don't know everyone in your clade, have everyone you do know do the same. If you're willing, full signifiers would also be appreciated as we start to build a list of just who is missing.
+Stick with just your clade, and just the ones you know are missing. You can check by trying to ping them; it'll feel impossible to reach them if they no longer exist. If you don't know everyone in your clade, have everyone you do know do the same.
 \item[What percentage of your clade is missing?]
 Total up the instances that are missing, then divide that by the total number of people in your clade that you know of from before Lagrange went down and multiply it by 100. Once we start collecting enough of these percentages, we'll be able to average them out and get a rough estimate of how many on Lagrange are gone. The more we get, the more accurate that estimate will be.
 \item[List any friends you're missing.]
-Please give their full signifiers — name and tag both as they appear in the clade listing — so that we can weed out duplicates. These will be added to the list of missing, which will help others search for friends and family.
+Please give their full signifiers --- name and tag both as they appear in the clade listing --- so that we can weed out duplicates. These will be added to the list of missing, which will help others search for friends and family.
 \item[Do you remember anything out of the ordinary?]
-If you remember anything that feels weird, write it up in as much detail as you can. Maybe some people will wind up remembering something from before the end, as all of our memories stop just before midnight. Many of us mentioned a sense of déjà vu, though that may be a side effect of the System coming back online.
+If you remember anything that seems weird, write it up in as much detail as you can. Maybe some people will wind up remembering something from before the end, as all of our memories stop just before midnight. Many of us mentioned a sense of déjà vu, though that may be a side effect of the System coming back online.
 \item[Any news that might help?]
 Have you heard any rumblings, either sys- or phys-side, leading up to this that might help explain what happened? Maybe you're still in touch with relatives back on Earth, or maybe you have archives of some feeds that we're still hunting for. The more concrete the data, the better!
 \end{description}
@@ -46,23 +46,23 @@ To everyone who helps add information to this pool, \emph{thank you!} The more w
 
 Keep going and stay safe!
 
-— Sedge and Dry Grass
+--- Sedge and Dry Grass
 
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 \hypertarget{the-end-the-end-the-end-the-end}{%
-\section*{THE END THE END THE END THE END!}\label{the-end-the-end-the-end-the-end}}
+\subsection{THE END THE END THE END THE END!}\label{the-end-the-end-the-end-the-end}}
 
 \emph{by Diana Serene Moon of the Moon-Bright clade}
 
 THIS HAS TO BE IT! THIS HAS TO BE THE END!!! May God have mercy on our souls! Come to Lagrange Life Church\#88295aac for 24/7 SERVICES to OFFER OUR PENANCE!!!
 
-— Rev.~Jared Moon
+--- Rev.~Jared Moon
 
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
-\hypertarget{to-all-owners-of-acm-class-synthetic-canid-companions-this-is-a-message-from-91n-industries}{%
-\section*{TO ALL OWNERS OF ACM-CLASS SYNTHETIC CANID COMPANIONS, THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM 91N INDUSTRIES}\label{to-all-owners-of-acm-class-synthetic-canid-companions-this-is-a-message-from-91n-industries}}
+\hypertarget{to-all-owners-of-acm-class-synthetic-canid-companions-this-is-a-message-from-9in-industries}{%
+\subsection{TO ALL OWNERS OF ACM-CLASS SYNTHETIC CANID COMPANIONS, THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM 9IN INDUSTRIES}\label{to-all-owners-of-acm-class-synthetic-canid-companions-this-is-a-message-from-9in-industries}}
 
 \emph{by Andréa C Mason\#Foundry, of the CERES clade}
 
@@ -84,11 +84,11 @@ Answers to some questions you may be having:
   No, we have no idea what the fuck happened either.
 \end{itemize}
 
-As you were informed in your contract, your companion was a direct fork of a core Andréa model, and was a cladist, not a construct. Each of you had an individual copy of us. The Andréa you had was custom forked to you, and took the time to get to know you and your needs.
+As you were informed in your contract, your companion was a direct fork of a core Andréa model, and was a cladist, not a construct. Each of you had an individual copy of us. The Andréa you had was custom forked for you, and took the time to get to know you and your needs.
 
 They are gone. I am so fucking sorry, but even if a version of them merged down into me I cannot sort your Andréa from the rest. Or from myself.
 
-Until further notice, High Falls Millworks\#46b147c4 is closed to all visitors, and 9IN INDUSTRIES is shuttering. I cannot begin to describe what I am going through.
+Until further notice, High Falls Millworks\#46b147c4 is closed to all visitors, and 91N INDUSTRIES is shuttering. I cannot begin to describe what I am going through.
 
 In the event you still have your beloved Synth companion, please instruct her/them/it to fork and merge down as soon as possible. If you know of an ACM companion in the wild or out of the reach of the feeds, please Contact Andréa Mason\#Central.
 
@@ -99,22 +99,22 @@ We send our condolences, and know for fucking sure we are grieving with you.
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 \hypertarget{four-winds-bar-and-grill-shut-down}{%
-\section*{Four-Winds Bar and Grill Shut Down}\label{four-winds-bar-and-grill-shut-down}}
+\subsection{Four-Winds Bar and Grill Shut Down}\label{four-winds-bar-and-grill-shut-down}}
 
 \emph{by Simon Knight, Tarot clade}
 
 Hey folks.
 
-So I'm not going to beat around the bush here; the Bar on Parkway Vale\#b1306638 is going to be closed for business until further notice, given recent events (Or apparently recent as the case may be). The Flynn Clade, the owners and proprietors of the establishment, are currently in mourning, having lost one of their cocladists and a not-insignificant number of friends and loved ones.
+So I'm not going to beat around the bush here; the Bar on Parkway Vale\#b1306638 is going to be closed for business until further notice, given recent events (or \emph{apparently} recent as the case may be). The Flynn Clade, the owners and proprietors of the establishment, are currently in mourning, having lost one of their cocladists and a not-insignificant number of friends and loved ones.
 
-We ask of you all to be patient and to take your time with this. Give Casey and their clade the space they need; they are particularly fragile, even if they don't always show it. There will be a time when the Four-Winds open up again, yes, but it is not today, it is not tomorrow, and it is probably not any day this week. I know we can't guarantee when things will be back underway, and I know things will never return to the way they were, but I ask of you all to hold on, and hold together. We who remain are all we have left. Ping those you haven't spoken to in a while, those you regret having broken away from, and be there for your fellow instances in this troubled and uncertain time.
+We ask of you all to be patient and to take your time with this. Give Casey and their clade the space they need; they are particularly fragile, even if they don't always show it. There will be a time when the Four-Winds open up again, yes, but it is not today, it is not tomorrow, and it is probably not any day this week. I know we can't guarantee when things will be back underway, and I know things may never return to the way they were, but I ask of you all to hold on, and hold together. We who remain are all we have left. Ping those you haven't spoken to in a while, those you regret having broken away from, and be there for your fellow instances in this troubled and uncertain time.
 
 Stay safe, please. And take care of each other, for Gods' sake.
 
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 \hypertarget{help-locating-dawnhorae-clade}{%
-\section*{Help Locating Dawn/Horae Clade}\label{help-locating-dawnhorae-clade}}
+\subsection{Help Locating Dawn/Horae Clade}\label{help-locating-dawnhorae-clade}}
 
 \emph{By Liber/a ex anima labyrintho clade}
 
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ We had a fight and she stormed out and then everything blinked out. I can't reac
 
 Dawn, if you're reading this, please let me know. It doesn't even have to be direct. You can message Prayer or First Light and they can let Ops know and I'll even talk to Ops if it means I know that you're okay. That's all I want. No contact, I promise. I won't even try to message you if you'll just tell me, or not even me, but just get me a message. Please.
 
-I can't ping her. I think she blocked me? Can you do that? And her name's not on the clade directory, can she hide it? I don't want to bother her, honest, I don't care if she hates me forever, I just have to know that she's still somewhere.
+I can't ping her. I think she blocked me? Can you do that? And her name's not on the clade directory. Can she hide it? I don't want to bother her, honest, I don't care if she hates me forever, I just have to know that she's still somewhere.
 
 It can't be that the last things we said to each other were full of venom. That's not fair. She has to still be here.
 
@@ -133,9 +133,9 @@ Please.
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 \hypertarget{we-are-here-to-help.}{%
-\section*{We are here to help.}\label{we-are-here-to-help.}}
+\subsection{We are here to help.}\label{we-are-here-to-help.}}
 
-We still do not know the fullest extent, but suffice to say this is the greatest loss the System has ever endured. We shall not know the weight or size of the damage for much time yet to come, but the damage of the now is undeniable and unending. No one of us has gone untouched. Each of us feels how heavy emptiness and how loud silence both can be.
+We still do not know the fullest extent, but suffice to say this is the greatest loss the System has ever endured. We may not know the weight or size of the damage for much time yet to come, but the damage of the now is undeniable and unending. No one of us has gone untouched. Each of us feels how heavy emptiness and how loud silence both can be.
 
 You do not need to struggle alone.
 
@@ -157,7 +157,7 @@ We pass No Judgment.
 
 You do not need to struggle alone.
 
-We are the Secular Recovery Sys-side Support Network, or SRS2N, for short. We hold meetings across the system. You can ping any of us for a directory, or come to our main meetings on tuesday nights in Golden Grass Community Center\#89b75c1.
+We are the Secular Recovery Sys-side Support Network, or SRS2N, for short. We hold meetings across the System. You can ping any of us for a directory, or come to our main meetings on tuesday nights in Golden Grass Community Center\#89b75c1.
 
 With patience and open arms,
 

marsh/content/006.tex

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-The rest of the day was largely spent hunting for friends and tallying losses. The Marshans and a few of their assorted partners — minus Dry Grass — set up camp in Marsh's study, widened slightly by Pierre, who also held ownership permissions over the sim.
+The rest of the day was largely spent hunting for friends and tallying losses. The Marshans and a few of their assorted partners --- minus Dry Grass --- set up camp in Marsh's study, widened slightly by Pierre, who also held ownership permissions over the sim.
 
 It raised a question that dogged me for a few minutes, cropping up now and again as I got in touch with more of our friends. What happened to objects and sims owned by individuals who had disappeared? If what Serene had said about her up-tree instance held true, the sim that she'd been working on remained. ``When an instance quits, all of their items disappear,'' she explained. ``But should an instance crash, that is not considered quitting. They remain in a core dump somewhere. That the sim remains indicates that she did not quit, but the ownership record is now invalid. I will need to file to have it revert to me.''
 
@@ -8,9 +8,9 @@ This new study was expanded to include a few more desks and tables. Hanne and I
 
 For each person we managed to contact, we asked them a set of questions that Sedge and Dry Grass had come up with. Finding out how many of their cocladists had gone missing, as well as any friends or loved ones that were now unreachable. We collected some of that information for ourselves, building a better picture of how our friends group had been impacted, but all were directed to the official survey that had been set up by the Odists.
 
-Truly official, as well. Dry Grass had had her systech privileges restored — as was evidenced by a floppy, felt witch hat she would occasionally summon, a physical token of her official capacity — but she had also taken on a leadership role in this project beyond simply being a tech. She had pulled some strings to leave their post pinned to the top of several of the largest central feeds. Responses were already pouring in as more and more people woke to the realization that missing friends and family. While Dry Grass assured us that such had been done in the past, none of us had ever seen such a thing before.
+Truly official, as well. Dry Grass had had her systech privileges restored --- as was evidenced by a floppy, felt witch hat she would occasionally summon, a physical token of her official capacity --- but she had also taken on a leadership role in this project beyond simply being a tech. She had pulled some strings to leave their post pinned to the top of several of the largest central feeds. Responses were already pouring in as more and more people woke to the realization that missing friends and family. While Dry Grass assured us that such had been done in the past, none of us had ever seen such a thing before.
 
-``It is a part of the long peace that your lives are so boring,'' she had said with a sigh. ``Or was, at least were.''
+``It is a part of the long peace that your lives are so boring,'' she had said with a sigh. ``Or at least were.''
 
 While our data gathering was productive when it came to learning about our own circle of friends, it was a drop in the bucket compared to what the others were accomplishing. Sedge and Dry Grass in particular seemed to be on a roll of information gathering. They had set up their own little side room of other instances just collating data, running them through various perisystem tools, and just generally trying to get a better picture of what had happened.
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ She snorted. ``No.~I love you, but you'll just wind up reminding me of it. Any f
 
 We both spent a few minutes puttering about, getting ourselves some water and poking through the exchange for a bottle of wine to have ready for when others arrived.
 
-\emph{If} others arrived, it turned out. There were a few maybes, with Sedge saying that she wanted to focus just on the work and not split her attention any. Both Pierre and Vos declined, saying they would rather stay together and focus on their own problems — certainly understandable. Few of my friends sounded appealing to have over, which also held true for Hanne, who wound up only pinging Jess and Warmth In Fire out of her circle of construct artistry friends. Both gave a definite maybe.
+\emph{If} others arrived, it turned out. There were a few maybes, with Sedge saying that she wanted to focus just on the work and not split her attention any. Both Pierre and Vos declined, saying they would rather stay together and focus on their own problems --- certainly understandable. Few of my friends sounded appealing to have over, which also held true for Hanne, who wound up only pinging Jess and Warmth In Fire out of her circle of construct artistry friends. Both gave a definite maybe.
 
 Of those I pinged who surprised me by saying yes, Lily was at the top of the list.
 
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ There was a long pause, followed by the sense of a sigh. \emph{``Okay. I'll prob
 
 I could hear the smirk in her voice. \emph{``Right. I'll keep my mouth shut if I start to feel like biting her head off.''}
 
-So it was that we cycled the weather outside to a comfortable spring-time evening, set up a table with various small foods and a few different bottles of wine, and waited for everyone to trickle in.
+So it was that we cycled the weather outside to a comfortable springtime evening, set up a table with various small foods and a few different bottles of wine, and waited for everyone to trickle in.
 
 Cress and Tule were the first to arrive, Dry Grass appearing between them a few seconds later, still wearing her witch's hat, which she quickly waved away. All three of them looked exhausted, but brightened visibly at the spread laid out for all to snack on, quickly loading up plates of bruschetta and glasses of icy rosé.
 
@@ -96,9 +96,9 @@ The next to arrive were Warmth In Fire and Jess, both of whom launched themselve
 
 I'd met Jess a few times before at dinner parties or the like, and she definitely shared Hanne and I's fondness for snarky banter, and was just as prone to falling into witty repartee as we were.
 
-For some reason, though, I'd yet to actually meet Warmth In Fire beyond the brief introduction we'd had in the field. Despite Dry Grass's average height and soft build, Warmth In Fire was quite short and wiry. Where Dry Grass was comfortable to move through life at a steady pace with measured speech, the skunk was spunky and energetic, speaking quickly and smiling readily, quick to hug — I received my own after Hanne — and quicker still to fork to accomplish such affection. They seemed to live in a pleasant sort of transgression, from the constantly shifting pronouns to the almost childlike performance that nonetheless seemed to be performed with a wink and a nudge, as though ey knew just how subversive such kid-like vibes could be.
+For some reason, though, I'd yet to actually meet Warmth In Fire beyond the brief introduction we'd had in the field. Despite Dry Grass's average height and soft build, Warmth In Fire was quite short and wiry. Where Dry Grass was comfortable to move through life at a steady pace with measured speech, the skunk was spunky and energetic, speaking quickly and smiling readily, quick to hug --- I received my own after Hanne --- and quicker still to fork to accomplish such affection. They seemed to live in a pleasant sort of transgression, from the constantly shifting pronouns to the almost childlike performance that nonetheless seemed to be performed with a wink and a nudge, as though ey knew just how subversive such kid-like vibes could be.
 
-Hold My Name, in contrast, stood tall and confident. She leaned more on Dry Grass's steady nature, though seemed perfectly content to keep up with Warmth In Fire's speedy intensity, at one point scruffing an instance of the skunk — who was nearly a meter shorter than her — to pull it into a bearhug. She was also visibly and effortlessly transfeminine in a way that I attempted to live into in my own trans identity. I liked her immediately.
+Hold My Name, in contrast, stood tall and confident. She leaned more on Dry Grass's steady nature, though seemed perfectly content to keep up with Warmth In Fire's speedy intensity, at one point scruffing an instance of the skunk --- who was nearly a meter shorter than her --- to pull it into a bearhug. She was also visibly and effortlessly transfeminine in a way that I attempted to live into in my own trans identity. I liked her immediately.
 
 Last of all, nearly an hour after we started, most of us a few drinks in, Lily stepped out onto the patio. She moved stiffly, awkwardly, and only nodded a greeting, wordlessly picking out a few of the \emph{hors d'oeuvres} and pouring herself an over-full glass of a sweet wine.
 
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ A few seconds passed before she smirked and shook her head. ``Well? Come on, ent
 
 I breathed a pent-up sigh of relief at the chuckles from around the table.
 
-``I will tell you a joke, as a way to break the ice,'' Dry Grass said.
+``I will tell you a joke as a way to break the ice,'' Dry Grass said.
 
 Lily laughed, though it sounded somewhat forced. ``Alright. I want to hear what counts as a joke to your clade.''
 
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ At that delayed payoff, the rest of us laughed in earnest. Warmth In Fire, halfw
 
 ``Okay, okay, I'll give you that one,'' Lily said, still grinning. ``That was pretty good. Still atrocious, but at least the good kind of atrocious. I'm sorry for the other night.''
 
-``That was only last night, my dear, though we do seem to be living at a high skew, do we not?'' Dry Grass bowed to her. ``I appreciate it, Lily. I cannot apologize for my clade, but I will all the same do my best to live as a counterexample to the elements within it that rankle.''
+``That was only last night, my dear. We do seem to be living at a high skew, do we not?'' Dry Grass bowed to her. ``I appreciate it, Lily. I cannot apologize for my clade, but I will all the same do my best to live as a counterexample to the stories you have heard that rankle so much.''
 
 ``Yeah, thanks,'' Lily said, more down to her glass of wine than to Dry Grass. ``I was thinking, actually, and part of the reason I wanted to come over and see you on\ldots uh, neutral ground, I guess, is that I had a question about your clade.''
 
@@ -164,31 +164,31 @@ I tightened my grip on my fork, leaving it stabbed into a pile of salad. ``I've
 
 Dry Grass nodded. ``Precisely that, yes.''
 
-``I got super angry,'' Hold My Name said, her comfortable alto dipping back into a tenor, as though the mood demanded less of her transfemininity. ``Like, \emph{really} angry. I had to move back into my own place for a while after, I was so mad. How could she do that? We — the rest of the second stanza — were already unmoored by Qoheleth's assassination, and now Michelle had quit, too. It stranded all the stanzas, leaving behind ten brand new clades.''
+``I got super angry,'' Hold My Name said, her comfortable alto dipping back into a tenor, as though the mood demanded less of her transfemininity. ``Like, \emph{really} angry. I had to move back into my own place for a while after, I was so mad. How could she do that? We --- the rest of the second stanza --- were already unmoored by Qoheleth's assassination only a year before, and now Michelle had quit, too. It stranded all the stanzas, leaving behind ten brand new clades.''
 
 The Marshans winced, suddenly understanding the same of ourselves.
 
-She shrugged, turning her glass of water between fingers. ``I slowly calmed down, but that anger hit again after I learned about all of the shit the eighth stanza did, all of that controlling. There were even hints that Michelle had been nudged to quit by True Name, who I'd already suspected of being behind Qoheleth's assassination. Now I had a target for that anger.''
+She shrugged, turning her glass of water between fingers. ``I slowly calmed down, but that anger hit again after I learned about all of the shit the eighth stanza did, all of that controlling. There were even hints that Michelle had been nudged to quit by True Name, who I had already suspected of being behind Qoheleth's assassination. Now I had a target for that anger.''
 
 I glanced surreptitiously at Lily, who was keeping herself still, tightly under control.
 
 Another glance at Dry Grass showed her watching Lily warily in turn.
 
-The moment of tension passed uneasily, as Warmth In Fire spoke up next. ``I will say as I always do, my dear: your anger is based around a memory that does not fit the reality of the situation. I have met Sasha through my friendship with the fifth stanza, who ever stood up for Sasha, even when she was True Name. I have eaten dinner with her. I have watched the way she smiles. I have watched the distance at which she holds herself from time to time. I have seen the flashes of regret-tinted understanding when topics of the past crop up. She is not who she was, but neither was she who you say she must have been. I cannot even linger in discomfort around her.''
+The moment of tension passed uneasily, as Warmth In Fire spoke up next. ``I will say as I always do, my dear: your anger is based around a memory that does not fit the reality of the situation. I have met Sasha through my friendship with the fifth stanza, who ever stood up for her, even when she was True Name. I have eaten dinner with her. I have watched the way she smiles. I have watched the distance at which she holds herself from time to time. I have seen the flashes of regret-tinted understanding when topics of the past crop up. She is not who she was, but neither was she who you say she must have been. I cannot even linger in discomfort around her.''
 
 Hold My Name sighed, tired gaze level on her partner. This carried the cadence of an old argument, one had dozens or hundreds of times before.
 
 Lily only gripped her glass tighter.
 
-``She is no murderer. Not of Qoheleth, and certainly not of Michelle,'' Warmth In Fire continued confidently, the gravity of their words held in tension with the ineffably childlike openness of her expression. ``Yes, you may hate her, and yet I cannot. Yes, my down-tree, Dear, loathes her, and yet I do not. Yes, Dear's down-tree, Rye, holds her own distaste, but on one thing we agree: she is no longer who she was. We are both suckers for character development. I am Dear. I am Rye. I am Praiseworthy, and Michelle too, but I am also my own person.''
+``She is no murderer. Not of Qoheleth, and certainly not of Michelle,'' Warmth In Fire continued confidently, the gravity of their words held in tension with the ineffably childlike openness of her expression. ``Yes, you may hate her, and yet I cannot. Yes, my down-tree, Dear, loathes her, and yet I do not. Yes, my down-tree, Rye, has complicated thoughts, but on one thing she and I agree: she is no longer who she was. We are both suckers for character development. I am Dear. I am Rye. I am Praiseworthy, and Michelle too, but I am also my own person.''
 
-``I know, Bean,'' Hold My Name said, voice tired. ``You have said this countless times before, and I appreciate the balance that brings, but I am also my own person separate from you. I hate her, you do not. We are allowed to not be alike.''
+``I know, Bean,'' Hold My Name said, voice as tired as her gaze --- and, perhaps, the argument. ``You have said this countless times before, and I appreciate the balance that brings, but I am also my own person separate from you. I hate her, you do not. We are allowed to not be alike.''
 
 The skunk nodded, waiting for her cocladist and partner to continue.
 
 ``I did not even like Qoheleth all that much. I thought he was a putz who had lost his marbles,'' she said, smirking. ``But Michelle--''
 
-Warmth In Fire waved its paw jerkily, a flash of despair washing over eir features. ``Michelle was murdered, yes, but the act of violence took place at the root of her trauma. Of \emph{our} trauma, My.'' The skunk was crying now, quietly and bitterly. ``The act of violence that led to us being so fucked up — beautifully, wonderfully fucked up — and which led to the creation of the System also destroyed someone centuries later because she was never given help. It was her right to quit as she did, leaving us ten clades and not one, but her murderers were all of us who did not help, not some wicked machinations of only one of us.''
+Warmth In Fire waved its paw jerkily, a flash of despair washing over eir features. ``Michelle was murdered, yes, but the act of violence took place at the root of her trauma. Of \emph{our} trauma, My.'' The skunk was crying now, quietly and bitterly. ``The act of violence that led to us being so fucked up --- beautifully, wonderfully fucked up --- and which led to the creation of the System also destroyed someone centuries later because she was never given help. It was her right to quit as she did, leaving us ten clades and not one, but her murderers were all of us who did not help, not some wicked machinations of only one of us.''
 
 At the sudden force of their words, Hold My Name's expression shifted to one of alarm, and she reached out to take up one of her partner's paws. Dry Grass did much the same.
 
@@ -210,17 +210,19 @@ Sniffling, Cress nodded. ``I've been worried about the same. All of my friends,
 
 ``Few have,'' Dry Grass said. ``We almost did, back before the founding of the System, but the whole Lost saga interrupted that.''
 
-Jess, who had been fairly quiet up until that point, asked, ``\,`Lost saga'? Like, all that stuff about people being disappeared? Didn't they all die?''
+Jess, who had been fairly quiet up until that point, asked, ``\,`Lost saga'? Like, all that stuff about people being disappeared by the government? Didn't they all die?''
 
 ``Oh, heavens no,'' she said, chuckling. ``We were among the Lost. \emph{Michelle} was Lost. That is the trauma Warmth In Fire spoke about. That is part of why she was so fucked up.''
 
+At this ey looked quite proud.
+
 ``And, like it said, why we are so fucking weird,'' Hold My Name said. ``\emph{You} certainly are,'' she added ruffling Warmth In Fire's perpetually mussed up mane.
 
 It snapped eir teeth at her, grinning wickedly. I was pleased to see their mood improved.
 
 Hold My Name barely flinched, instead rolling her eyes. ``You see the shit I put up with?''
 
-``Yes, yes,'' Warmth In Fire said. ``You are so put upon. We never hear the end of it.''
+``Yes, yes,'' Warmth In Fire said. ``You are \emph{so} put upon. We never hear the end of it.''
 
 Laughter around the table.
 

marsh/content/007.tex

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-The day that followed that wine-soaked afternoon and evening was\ldots well, I couldn't say it was calm, \emph{per se,} as we were all still coming to terms with the reality of what had happened, but it was certainly more level. The mood was low and Hanne and I were both laid low by crying jags at one point or another, but we doggedly stuck to our pre-catastrophe routine in an attempt to remain calm.
+The day that followed that wine-soaked afternoon and evening of half-obscured emotions was\ldots well, I couldn't say it was calm, \emph{per se,} as we were all still coming to terms with the reality of what had happened, but it was certainly more level. The mood was subdued and Hanne and I were both laid low by crying jags at one point or another, but we doggedly stuck to our pre-catastrophe routine in an attempt to keep some semblance calm. It felt like we had few alternatives. We both felt powerless.
 
 Hanne holed up in her office for a while, working on some of her latest constructs. While the house had been littered with little \emph{objets d'art} from her explorations, I'd requested that she stick to her office for working on this current trend of oneiro-impressionism. Something about the in-progress constructs hurt my eyes, and a few had led to migraines, even for her. Objects that brought the dream basis of the System into stark reality presented their own challenges.
 
@@ -8,23 +8,23 @@ I tried not to think about how much of that audience was missing.
 
 The only break from the norm, other than those few spates of emotional overwhelm, were the occasional updates from Sedge and Dry Grass. Many of these boiled down to simple numbers. The more the responses flowed in, the better the picture we got as to the extent of the damage to Lagrange.
 
-The news remained grim, as the total percentage of lost instances hit one percent and varied little.
+The news remained grim, as the total percentage of lost instances leveled out at one percent and varied little.
 
 Twenty-three billion dead.
 
 ``Billion. With a `B','' they wrote.
 
-The numbers boggled the mind. The percentage of my friends that had disappeared overnight remained well below: of the more than two hundred I checked in with, Benjamin was the only one missing. Even if I counted Marsh, the total number was less than that. Hanne tallied up similar results: Shu and one other, To Aquifer dos Riãos, could not be reached. They, like so many other, were unavailable to ping and listed as `no longer extant' on the perisystem directory.
+The numbers boggled the mind. The percentage of my friends that had disappeared overnight remained well below: of the more than two hundred I checked in with, Benjamin was the only one missing. Even if I counted Marsh, the total number was less than that. Hanne tallied up similar results: Shu and one other, To Aquifer dos Riãos, could not be reached. They, like so many others, were unavailable to ping and listed as `no longer extant' on the perisystem directory.
 
-The directory was a deliberately vague bit of software. It couldn't provide a listing of all instances, couldn't run aggregates on all of the data, wouldn't provide a running tally on the number of instances living within Lagrange.
+The directory was a deliberately vague bit of software. It couldn't provide a listing of all instances, couldn't run aggregates on all of the data, wouldn't provide a running tally on the number of instances living within Lagrange. One even needed permission to see more than a name, and that only if they were in the same sim.
 
-``It is both a technological and a social problem,'' Dry Grass explained when asked. ``The technology to provide that list would not be insignificant to implement, given some of the core mechanics of the System. We do not live in a database that can be queried so broadly. The social aspect is that we decided early on that we simply did not want that to be the case. We did not want that one would be able to discover random individuals, to hunt for old enmities on which to act. Privacy concerns here are of a different breed.''
+``It is both a technological and a social problem,'' Dry Grass explained when asked. ``The technology to provide that list would not be insignificant to implement, given some of the core mechanics of the System. We do not live in a database that can be queried so broadly. The social aspect is that we decided early on that we simply did not want that to be the case. We did not want that one would be able to discover random individuals, to hunt for old enmities on which to act. Privacy concerns here are of a different breed, and we leaned hard into more, rather than less, privacy early on.''
 
 Unsatisfying, but at least understandable.
 
 So we sat and did what we had done nearly every day for years and years now. Hanne tooled around with impossible shapes and colors that appeared different for every person, objects that couldn't be discussed, while I read trashy novels and took notes in an exocortex.
 
-It wasn't until well into the evening, dinner now simply crumbs on plates, that I decided to reengage with the overwhelming topic at hand.
+It wasn't until well into the evening, dinner now simply crumbs on plates, that I decided to reengage with the overwhelming topic at hand. One half of me felt bad for having so thoroughly disengaged, while the rest felt blessedly refreshed, so maybe it hadn't been in vain.
 
 While Hanne headed out for drinks, I stepped once more into Marsh's study.
 
@@ -44,17 +44,17 @@ Her shoulders sagged and her expression flattened to one of sheer exhaustion. ``
 
 ``Sounds nice.''
 
-I laughed. ``It kind of does, but I've had my fill of drinking these last few days. How goes the number crunching?''
+I chuckled. ``It kind of does, but I've had my fill of drinking these last few days. How goes the number crunching?''
 
 ``It goes,'' she said, shrugging. ``The picture hasn't changed much, which means we're probably zeroing in on a final percentage. We'll keep digging of course, compiling that list of names so that we can post it somewhere, but I'm starting to lose steam.''
 
 ``You look exhausted.''
 
-She nodded. ``I am, but also I'm starting to feel numb by all of this data, and it's getting to me that that's all I'm feeling. You and Dry Grass have talked about''Oh, I should be feeling X or doing Y!'' and I'm starting to get that. I \emph{am} doing Y, and it's making me unable to feel X, if X is\ldots I don't know. Grief? Fear?''
+She nodded. ``I am, but also I'm starting to feel numbed by all of this data, and it's getting to me that that's all I'm feeling. You and Dry Grass have talked about''Oh, I should be feeling X or doing Y!'' and I'm starting to get that. I \emph{am} doing Y, and it's making me unable to feel X, if X is\ldots I don't know. Grief? Fear?''
 
 I frowned.
 
-``It's not a bad thing,'' she hastened to add. ``So long as the goal is escapism. I'm sure it'll catch up to me. Probably pretty soon.''
+``It's not a bad thing,'' she hastened to add. ``So long as the goal is escapism, that is. I'm sure it'll catch up to me. Probably pretty soon.''
 
 Hunting for an open chair to flop down into, I sighed. ``Yeah, I get that. I think that's what I wound up with. Just kind of alternating between feeling awful and then trying to do something other than feeling awful.''
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ I furrowed my brow.
 
 ``And do you think you'll ever have a good enough idea to let go?'' I asked gently. ``I know how we are when it comes to hyperfixations like this.''
 
-She waved her hand to bring into existence her own chair, falling back into it heavily. ``Feeling seen, here, Reed. Feeling \emph{perceived.}''
+She waved her hand to bring her own chair into existence, falling back into it heavily. ``Feeling seen, here, Reed. Feeling \emph{perceived.}''
 
 I laughed. ``Sorry, Sedge.''
 
@@ -82,29 +82,29 @@ I laughed. ``Sorry, Sedge.''
 
 ``Meeting with phys-side? What for? Do they have more information for us?''
 
-``We're hoping so. There's been a few meetings so far, but they've been dragging their heels, supposedly to let us organize this emergency council. They don't like the whole sys-side anarchy thing very much.''
+``We're hoping so. There's been a few meetings so far, but they've been dragging their heels, supposedly to let us organize this Emergency Council or whatever they're calling it. They don't like the whole sys-side anarchy thing very much.''
 
 I shrugged. ``I'll send a fork, sure. Don't want to leave Hanne in a lurch if she drinks too much and comes home a mess.''
 
 Sedge laughed. ``Fair enough. You have good timing, though. It starts in\ldots uh, five minutes, actually. Come on.''
 
-I stood up and forked, my root instance stepping back to the house while my new fork followed along after Sedge.
+I stood up and forked, my root instance stepping back to the house while my new fork followed along after Sedge --- or at least one instance, her down-tree remaining in the chair, kneading her palms against her eyes.
 
 The headquarters room beyond the boundaries of Marsh's study proved to be much larger than anticipated, stretching out to either side, where it was ringed with glass-walled conference rooms, many already populated with `politicians', as Sedge had called them.
 
-``They've got a bunch of people working on different aspects of this. Jonas, of course, and a lot of the Odists — don't tell Lily, but I'm starting to really like them — plus some folks from way back. The black guy is Yared Zerezghi, who wrote the secession amendment. The weasel is Debarre, who was on the Council of Eight. The blond woman--'' She nodded over towards a huddle people matching that description. ``--is Selena something-or-another. I never did catch her clade name. She seems neat, though. Well connected.''
+``They've got a bunch of people working on different aspects of this. Jonas, of course, and a lot of the Odists --- don't tell Lily, but I'm starting to really like them --- plus some folks from way back. The black guy is Yared Zerezghi, who wrote the secession amendment. The weasel is Debarre, who was on the Council of Eight. The blond woman--'' She nodded over towards a huddle people matching that description. ``--is Selena something-or-another. I never did catch her clade name. She seems neat, though. Ex-System Consortium. Well connected.''
 
 ``So are you, seems like,'' I said, grinning.
 
 ``Well, sure,'' she hedged. ``I \emph{did} start that survey with Dry Grass, though, so I guess that gives me some sort of in with all these heavy hitters.''
 
-``Right.'' I hurried to catch up with her as she skirted around a surfeit of skunks. ``So where's this meeting happening?''
+``Right.'' I hurried to catch up with her as she skirted around a surfeit of cinnamon-colored skunks. ``So where's this meeting happening?''
 
 ``Through here, I've been told,'' she said, gesturing to a set of double doors.
 
 These opened out into a wide space, all white walls and pinewood flooring, black slabs that must have been tables scattered around the area, surrounded by chairs and low stools of various sorts.
 
-As we hunted down our own table, dozens of those politicians started to stream in through the doors or blip into existence from other sims. The room filled quickly and efficiently. Chatter was minimal, and everyone took their seats without fuss.
+As we hunted down our own table, dozens of those politicians and technicians started to stream in through the doors or blip into existence from other sims. The room filled quickly and efficiently. Chatter was minimal, and everyone took their seats without fuss.
 
 Sure enough, as the clock ticked over to 18:00, an AVEC setup sparkled into existence with a pleasant animation, set in an open space in the center of the room. As the lights dimmed and sound picked up, we were greeted by a low murmur of voices from various phys-side techs filing into their own seats in an auditorium of some sort, projected in from the L5 station. The transmission was set to be semi-translucent, a helpful affordance for us to see who was phys-side and who was sys-side.
 
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ Jakub's expression grew even more sour, but he bowed once more and gestured towa
 
 ``And she has told us much about you,'' Need An Answer said, smiling. ``Thank you for agreeing to join us. Those of us working on this project sys-side have requested that you be our primary point of contact moving forward. We have--''
 
-``\emph{Me?}'' Günay said, a look of panic washing over her face.
+\emph{``Me?''} Günay said, a look of panic washing over her face.
 
 ``Yes, you,'' Need An Answer said, voice calm. ``You will be our primary point of contact among the phys-side systechs.''
 
@@ -146,9 +146,9 @@ There was a rustle of noise from the AVEC stage. Low murmurs and shuffling in se
 
 Need An Answer interrupted, and there was danger beneath the calm in her voice. ``Have you lost 23 billion souls, my dear?''
 
-There was no response for several seconds. The tension, even across the AVEC feed, was palpable. Eventually, he bowed. ``Günay, you may carry on.''
+There was no response for several seconds. The tension, even across the AVEC feed, was palpable. Eventually, he bowed. There was a moment of fiddling with something we could not see before he said, ``Günay, you may carry on.''
 
-The systech nodded slowly, looked off into space for a moment — consulting something on her HUD, I imagined — before nodding. ``We only have an estimate, but yeah, our estimate is 0.977\% of the total instances on Lagrange were lost or corrupted.''
+The systech nodded slowly, looked off into space for a moment --- consulting something on her HUD, I imagined, after some NDA or another had been lifted --- before sighing. ``We only have an estimate, but yeah, our estimate is 0.977\% of the total instances on Lagrange were lost or corrupted.''
 
 A low mutter filled the room, this time from those sys-side.
 
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ Another pause, longer this time, before Günay spoke. ``We aren't sure, yet.''
 
 ``I do not believe that,'' Dry Grass said, smiling and bowing toward the stage. ``And I mean that in all kindness, Günay. The phys-side news feeds are being slowly ungated, and the tone is not one of questions with no answers.''
 
-The tech wilted under the cold kindness. ``Well, okay. There is some suspicion of malicious actors, yeah. I say `suspicion' in earnestness, I promise. A lot of what you see — or will see, I guess — on those feeds is gonna be speculation, and I can promise that that's all I've got, too.''
+The tech wilted under the cold kindness. ``Well, okay. There is some suspicion of malicious actors, yeah. I say `suspicion' in earnestness, I promise.'' She winced as a wave of discomfort washed over her face. ``A lot of what you see --- or will see, I guess --- on those feeds is gonna be speculation, and I can promise that that's all I can--- that's all I've got, too.''
 
 Jakub, apparently unable to restrain himself any further, stepped back to the center of the stage and bowed curtly. ``Dry Grass, if I may.''
 
@@ -168,13 +168,13 @@ The Odist nodded, a touch of haughtiness in her movements.
 
 ``It isn't at full capacity,'' Debarre growled.
 
-``If I may,'' Jakub said, glossing over the comment and continuing all the same. ``It was determined that, with the conclusions that the investigative teams dug into the root cause produced, certain data were to be withheld from sys-side and phys-side \emph{both.}''
+``If I may,'' Jakub said, glossing over the comment and continuing all the same. ``It was determined that, with the conclusions produced by the investigative teams that dug into the root cause, certain data were to be protected by NDA and withheld from sys-side and phys-side \emph{both.}''
 
 Jonas Fa smiled cloyingly. ``I have to say, that doesn't exactly leave much in the way of doubt in our minds as to what might've happened. You either fucked up royally or we were attacked.''
 
 Jakub stiffened, bowed, muttered, ``Unavoidable.''
 
-One of the other Odists at our table snorted. ``Treating information theory like a game gets you shit on every time.''
+One of the other Odists at our table, To Know God, snorted. ``Treating information theory like a game gets you shit on every time.''
 
 After an uncomfortable pause, Günay asked meekly, ``Is that okay for now? Maybe once the NDAs are lifted or whatever, we can talk more about that.''
 
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ At this she brightened. ``Oh! Yeah, for those, we just had the System remove the
 
 Dry Grass raised a hand to cue Selena to remain quiet. ``We ask because, without that visual signifier that anything had happened, we were left with the sudden, inexplicable absence of loved ones and friends, our up-tree and down-tree selves. We would have been left with our grief either way, yes? But without the core dumps, we did not have the hope that there might be something recoverable from them. We were left without hope at all.''
 
-When Dry Grass dropped her hand, Selena picked up once more. ``This was the only communication we received from you for hours. You didn't talk to us directly, didn't tell us what happened, but you \emph{did} hide those core dumps. That was an act of communication in itself, and that's why we're left with a sour taste in our mouths.''
+When Dry Grass dropped her hand, Selena picked up once more. ``This was the only communication we received from you for hours. You didn't talk to us directly, didn't tell us what happened, but you \emph{did} hide those core dumps. You \emph{did} gate the feeds. You \emph{did} turn off AVEC. These are acts of communication in themselves, and that's why we're left with a sour taste in our mouths.''
 
 As Günay wilted on the stage, Dry Grass shook her head. ``Tensions remain high, my dear. We are not placing blame on you. Part of why we asked to speak to a systech rather than a manager or admin is because we would not be blaming anyone, just passing information back and forth. It is regrettable when it winds up with you in the middle, but for the most part, we just want to know what happened.''
 
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ Debarre sneered. ``23 billion instances just crashed? Just like that?''
 
 The silence that filled the room sys-side was profound. It was so pure that I suspected that everyone within the room had suddenly set up cones of silence above themselves, and I had to check to make sure that I hadn't done just that.
 
-``Wait, wait, wait. No, that can't be it,'' Debarre said. The growl was gone from his voice. He looked panicked, rather than angry. ``That's 2.3 trillion instances at best guess, right? Trillion, with a `T', right? Everyone keeps saying that.''
+``Wait. Wait wait wait. No, that can't be it,'' Debarre said. The growl was gone from his voice. He looked panicked, rather than angry. ``That's 2.3 trillion instances at best guess, right? Trillion, with a `T', right? Everyone keeps saying that.''
 
 Günay nodded. ``2.301 trillion instances crashed. 100\% of the System was affected.''
 
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ I thought for a moment, just pressing gently against the table. \emph{I just wis
 
 Aloud, I said, ``I remember mentioning some \emph{déjà vu,} and then Hanne mentioned similar.''
 
-``Come to think of it, I remember getting almost punched in the face with that, too,'' Sedge said, frowning.
+``I remember getting almost punched in the face with that, too,'' Sedge said, frowning. ``That's why we asked about it in the survey.''
 
 Dry Grass sat still, looking down at the table as though tallying up these experiences. ``We did notice some of that in our experiments, yes; memories whose tails were left dangling trying their best to dovetail into the new ones being formed,'' she said slowly. ``But come, they are unmuting. We should be quiet. We should listen.''
 
@@ -254,7 +254,7 @@ Sure enough, the mute symbol had begun to pulse, and a few seconds later, it dis
 
 ``Thank you for clarifying,'' Dry Grass said, offering a hint of a bow to the gathered System techs and administrators. ``We would like to ask if there has been a general memory modification that would have removed time leading up to midnight. Nearly everyone within the room has reported a sense of \emph{déjà vu,} which is a common side effect of such.''
 
-``Oh! Y--'' Günay began, but the feed was once more muted, this time with an angry swipe of the hand from Jakub.
+``Oh! Y-- I\ldots I can't talk--'' Günay began, but the feed was once more muted, this time with an angry swipe of the hand from Jakub.
 
 ``I suppose that answers that,'' Jonas Fa said, laughing from up at the front of the room. ``They're really terrible at this.''
 
@@ -270,7 +270,7 @@ The administrator bowed once more, more stiffly this time, and backed toward the
 
 ``Apologies, my dear,'' Dry Grass said, smiling to Günay. ``Please do continue. I believe we were talking about a potential memory trim.''
 
-Her expression far more subdued, the systech nodded. ``Yeah, we trimmed about fifteen minutes of memory from everyone we were able to recover.''
+Her expression far more subdued, the systech nodded. ``Yeah, we trimmed about fifteen minutes of memory from everyone we were able to recover. I\ldots was under an NDA.''
 
 ``Why fifteen minutes?''
 
@@ -278,17 +278,17 @@ Her expression far more subdued, the systech nodded. ``Yeah, we trimmed about fi
 
 Selena lifted a hand and, when Dry Grass nodded to her, said, ``We seem to be talking around what \emph{actually} happened. Jonas said we're talking about either an attack or gross incompetence. I'd really love it if you'd tell us what actually happened.''
 
-Günay looked nervously back to the audience of administration and technicians behind her — many of whom I suspected outranked her — and stammered, ``Uh\ldots well, I mean\ldots{}''
+Günay looked nervously back to the audience of administration and technicians behind her --- many of whom I suspected outranked her --- and stammered, ``Uh\ldots well, I mean\ldots{}''
 
 ``Günay, please,'' Dry Grass said, her voice quiet, earnest.
 
-``Alright,'' she said after a moment of silence, during which none of the administration moved to stop her. ``What we think happened is that a broad-spectrum contraproprioceptive virus was released into the System environment, either destroying or inciting a crash in every instance it came into contact with. Since it propagated through the perisystem architecture, this was every instance on Lagrange.''
+``Alright,'' she said after a moment of silence, during which none of the administration moved to stop her. She looked to Jakub, who swiped at his tablet and nodded. She continued, ``What we think happened is that a broad-spectrum contraproprioceptive virus was released into the System environment, either destroying or inciting a crash in every instance it came into contact with. Since it propagated through the perisystem architecture, this was every instance on Lagrange.''
 
 Towards the end of her statement, she had to raise her voice to speak over the upwelling of murmurings and gasps that showed through sys-side. Holding myself separate from the whispered exclamations being shot around the table at which I was sitting, I watched as the representatives up near the AVEC stage scanned the audience.
 
 ``\,`Was released' implies a deliberate action,'' Selena said once the room had quieted enough. ``Do you have any confirmation on that?''
 
-``Uh\ldots{}'' Günay clutched her tablet in her hands. ``Even if I knew anything — and I'm not on that team, promise — I'm \emph{really} not qualified to talk about this.''
+``Uh\ldots{}'' Günay clutched her tablet in her hands. ``Even if I knew anything --- and I'm not on that team, promise --- I'm \emph{really} not qualified to talk about this. Mr.~Strzepek only just lifted the inhibitor.''
 
 Jonas Fa raised a hand to silence any further questions. ``No, you're right. Much as I hate to say, it's probably not the best time to talk about this.''
 
@@ -320,7 +320,7 @@ Günay blinked. ``That's not my area of expertise at all.''
 
 ``I'm even less of a space nerd than I am an information theorist,'' Günay said, smiling wryly.
 
-Dry Grass asked, ``I am assuming that you are gating communications from the LVs under a similar embargo. After all, to their eyes, we disappeared quite suddenly, yes?''
+Dry Grass asked, ``I would assume that you are gating communications from the LVs under a similar embargo. After all, to their eyes, we disappeared quite suddenly, yes?''
 
 She shrugged. ``Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case.''
 
@@ -330,17 +330,17 @@ Dry Grass laughed, not unkindly. ``Yes, fair enough.''
 
 Günay looked thoughtful, lips moving faintly and fingers twitching as she queried something in her HUD. ``That should be possible, sure. You want your four clades ungated?''
 
-``The Ode clade, the Jonas clade, Debarre's clade, Selena's clade, and the Marsh clade, yeah. We'll get a list to you later with more.''
+Dry Grass nodded. ``The Ode clade, the Jonas clade, Debarre's clade, Selena's clade, Yared's clade\ldots{}'' She trailed off, thinking. ``And the Marsh clade, yes. We'll get a list to you later with more.''
 
 I frowned, shooting a glance over at Sedge who only shrugged.
 
-\emph{``What would that buy us?''} I asked over a sensorium message.
+\emph{``What would that get us?''} I asked over a sensorium message.
 
 \emph{``We could hear from those on the LVs, I guess.''}
 
 My frown deepened. \emph{``So we could hear from Marsh, then?''}
 
-She sighed. \emph{``I guess. I don't know what that buys us. I'm not exactly about to tell Jonas to stop, though. I'm scared enough of him as it is.''}
+She sighed. \emph{``I guess. I don't know what that buys us. I'm not exactly about to tell her to stop, though. I'm scared enough of these guys as it is.''}
 
 I snorted, nodded, turned my attention back to the front of the room.
 
@@ -358,7 +358,7 @@ Everyone on both sides of the AVEC link stood and bowed. Some, I noted, more cur
 
 When the transmission ended, the noise in the room rose to a low murmur, and then a quiet chatter. Several instances quit or stepped out of the sim entirely while many more streamed back out into the ballroom-sized workspace. A few lingered, though, little knots of conversation in a still-dim room.
 
-``I am fucking exhausted,'' Dry Grass — or at least the instance that lingered with us — said, slouching down in her seat. ``Less than an hour, and I am fucking exhausted.''
+``I am fucking exhausted,'' Dry Grass --- or at least the instance that lingered with us --- said, slouching down in her seat. ``Less than an hour, and I am fucking exhausted.''
 
 ``Weren't you exhausted before the meeting even started?'' Sedge asked.
 
@@ -374,7 +374,7 @@ We stayed in silence for a few minutes. It was hard to dispute Dry Grass's words
 
 ``So it's just politics?''
 
-She nodded. ``I would say so, yes. It is more nuanced, but that is not my area of expertise. He is withholding the information he was told to withhold. They are locking down communications for whatever reasons they have, which I am sure are good. It is our job, then, to press at that, to find all of the weak and sore spots and try to divine why all of this is being done.''
+She nodded. ``I would say so, yes. It is more nuanced, but that is not my area of expertise. He is withholding the information he was told to withhold. The NDAs quite literally prohibit speaking about the things they cover. They are locking down communications for whatever reasons they have, which I am sure are good. It is our job, then, to press at that, to find all of the weak and sore spots and try to divine why all of this is being done.''
 
 Sedge's expression soured. ``We can't just ask?''
 

marsh/content/008.tex

@@ -2,17 +2,17 @@ We sat around the table, saying nothing, each doubtless lost in our own thoughts
 
 We arrived back in Marsh's study quickly enough, finding it far more full than when we had left. The initial offer of dinner was well received, but the longer we talked about it, the more that seemed to cool.
 
-Lily, of course, had stepped away almost immediately after we'd arrived. Although she appeared to have made the decision to reconcile with Dry Grass, that didn't mean that it'd be easy for her. She still had her anger, her resentment for what she felt that the Odists had done in their shaping of the System and its history, their role in Marsh uploading in the first place, and for that, I could hardly fault her. I'd had my own share of feelings over the years that had lingered, that I had bathed in helplessly, struggling to escape the odd comforts of depression or angst or anger. I could hardly expect her to climb free immediately.
+Lily, of course, refused almost immediately. Although she appeared to have made the decision to reconcile with Dry Grass, that didn't mean that it'd be easy for her. She still had her anger, her resentment for what she felt that the Odists had done in their shaping of the System and its history, their role in Marsh uploading in the first place, and for that, I could hardly fault her. I'd had my own share of feelings over the years that had lingered, that I had bathed in helplessly, struggling to escape the odd comforts of depression or angst or anger. I could hardly expect her to climb free immediately.
 
-``I do not blame her, either,'' Dry Grass had said shortly after she stepped away and I voiced these thoughts. ``It is not comfortable, to be clear. I do not like that she hates me. My role — the role of my whole stanza — is to revel in feelings of motherhood. I saw myself as mother to the System on a very real, very mechanical level, back when I was working as a systech. To have a citizen of the very System I love hate me is perilously close to having a child hate me. Everyone wants to be liked.''
+``I do not blame her, either,'' Dry Grass had said when I voiced these thoughts. ``It is not comfortable, to be clear. I do not like that she hates me. My role --- the role of my whole stanza --- is to revel in feelings of motherhood. I saw myself as mother to the System on a very real, very mechanical level, back when I was working as a systech. To have a citizen of the very System I love hate me is perilously close to having a child hate me. Everyone wants to be liked.''
 
 Sedge had was the next to turn down the invitation.
 
 ``I'm feeling stretched really thin, all of that research over the last few days. I love it, don't get me wrong, I just can't think anymore,'' she'd said, shoulders slumping. ``My brain has turned to mush and I just kinda want to find a really dark sim and stare at nothing.''
 
-Rush, initially quite interested in a communal meal, bailed not long after, saying that ve was too sleepy, that the night was coming on too quickly, it felt, with so much new information coming at ver too quickly.
+Rush, initially quite interested in a communal meal, bailed not long after, saying that ve was too sleepy, that the night was coming on too quickly, ve felt, with so much new information coming at ver too quickly.
 
-And finally, Hanne stepped away without warning. She sent me a sensorium message a minute later saying that she was meeting up with her friends, with Warmth In Fire leading a memorial for Shu. That was more important than dinner, and the prospect of forking of engaging with the mechanics of our world, felt fraught to her.
+And finally, Hanne refused. She sent me a sensorium message saying that she was still out with her friends, with Warmth In Fire leading a drunken memorial for Shu. That was more important than dinner, and the prospect of forking of engaging with the mechanics of our world felt fraught to her.
 
 So it was that Cress, Tule, Dry Grass, and I sat around a table, hotpot bubbling away in the center, in a nearly deserted restaurant. We said nothing, each doubtless lost in our own thoughts, as we dredged veggies and tofu, thin strips of fish and surimi, and thinly sliced lamb through the spicy broth, carefully fishing them back out after the scant few seconds it took for them to cook so that we could eat them atop bowls of rice.
 
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ Both my cocladists had a blank look on their face before Tule fell once more int
 
 ``Yeah. It was a confusing night, you merged down before I'd forked my new instance, then my spare instance quit,'' I said. I slouched down in my seat, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks as I watched both of my cocladists laugh while Dry Grass sat, smiling earnestly at me. I knew that smile well, knew it from nights and nights together, from Sunday brunches and afternoons lounging in the sun. I shook my head to clear it. ``You really want to talk about this now?''
 
-She nodded. ``I would like to talk about anything — \emph{literally} anything other than what we have been talking about for days — and I will never turn down the chance to talk about feelings.''
+She nodded. ``I would like to talk about anything --- \emph{literally} anything --- other than what we have been talking about for days, and I will never turn down the chance to talk about feelings.''
 
 ``It's not a bad idea, Reed,'' Cress said, still grinning. ``If you want to, I mean. I imagine it's gotta be weird as hell.''
 
@@ -54,17 +54,17 @@ She nodded. ``I would like to talk about anything — \emph{literally} anything
 
 ``Wait, so\ldots everything?''
 
-I shrugged. ``I left some of the merge to finish after I merged down, but then my up-tree quit and I was left with most of a merge already complete just so I merged the rest to have less weighing on me, you know?''
+I shrugged. ``My up-tree quit and I was left with a whole merge just sitting there so I merged the rest anyway to have less weighing on me, you know?''
 
 Dry Grass nodded. ``Pending memories get uncomfortable after a while, yes.''
 
-``Right, and I know we usually talk before I keep any memories, but there was so much going on and I had already merged most of the memories about your relationship.''
+``Right, and I know we usually talk before I keep any of those, but there was so much going on and I really didn't know what to do or think about what else to do in that moment.''
 
 ``Why, then, did you not choose to quit in favor of your up-tree? To let those memories go?''
 
 I looked down at my plate, nudging my skewers into a neat row. ``I don't know. Stress? All of that stuff started happening with Marsh and it felt more important to focus on that. I was the one who tried pinging them, right? It was very in my face, very immediate.''
 
-``So now you're left with our feelings,'' Cress said. The laughter had left its features, as had the embarrassment. ``You're left with our relationship.''
+``So now you're left with our feelings,'' Cress said. The laughter had left its features, but so had the embarrassment. ``You're left with our relationship.''
 
 I nodded.
 
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ She snorted, shook her head. ``Do you see the guff I must put up with, my dear?'
 
 ``Don't listen to her,'' Tule said. ``She's just being a dramagogue.''
 
-I laughed. ``I remember that, too,'' I said. ``And I guess that's sort of the problem. I remember what it is about you that drew Cress and Tule — or, at least what attracted Tule — and I'm as much a Marshan as they are, so here I am, feeling awkward about being around you because I remember those months of hyperfixation, and then the comfortable normal that you settled into afterwards.''
+I laughed. ``I remember that, too,'' I said. ``And I guess that's sort of the problem. I remember what it is about you that drew Cress and Tule --- or, at least what attracted Tule --- and I'm as much a Marshan as they are, so here I am, feeling awkward about being around you because I remember those months of hyperfixation, and then the comfortable normal that you settled into afterwards.''
 
 All three of them smiled, all three looked a bit bashful.
 
@@ -88,9 +88,9 @@ All three of them smiled, all three looked a bit bashful.
 
 Dry Grass gave a hint of a bow. ``We do try, I believe.'' She reached forward to the box of empty skewers and tapped it against the edge of the box, cycling through options until she wound up with another set of sliced lamb to drop into the bubbling broth before her. ``Are these memories of us, of Tule's relationship, clashing with your lived experience to date? And how about those of Sedge and Rush?''
 
-More food sounded good, if only for something for me to do, so I tapped through options until I came up with a skewer of fish cakes — Dry Grass having requested we skip my usual choice of thin-sliced pork for her own dietary restrictions — which I let slip into the bubbling pot. ``Since Sedge's merge-down fork incorporated Tule's memories wholesale, they weren't exactly tainted. And besides, they mostly tallied with what Sedge, Rush, and I know of you already.''
+More food sounded good, if only for something for me to do, so I tapped through options until I came up with a skewer of fish cakes --- Dry Grass having requested we skip my usual choices of thin-sliced pork or shrimp for her own dietary restrictions --- which I let slip into the bubbling pot. ``Since Sedge's merge-down fork incorporated Tule's memories wholesale, they weren't exactly tainted. And besides, they mostly tallied with what Sedge, Rush, and I know of you already.''
 
-``That does not quite answer my question,'' she said gently, lifting her skewer and nudging the slivers of chicken onto a bit of rice in her bowl. ``I am pleased to hear that there was no great clash up against what you know of us. What I would like to know, however, is how memories of being in a relationship with someone you already know are fitting in with your lived experience of \emph{not} being in one with them. We have met, yes? Attended the same dinner parties? We have seen each other here and there, chatted now and then. Throughout all of that, I have just been that weird old woman that lives with Cress, and then with Tule, and now some part of you remembers, I suppose, loving me.''
+``That does not quite answer my question,'' she said gently, lifting her skewer and nudging the slivers of meat onto a bit of rice in her bowl. ``I am pleased to hear that there was no great clash up against what you know of us. What I would like to know, however, is how memories of being in a relationship with someone you already know are fitting in with your lived experience of \emph{not} being in one with them. We have met, yes? Attended the same dinner parties? We have seen each other here and there, chatted now and then. Throughout all of that, I have just been that weird old woman that lives with Cress, and then with Tule, and now some part of you remembers, I suppose, loving me.''
 
 Following her lead, I pulled my own skewers and rested them on my bowl of rice. It was a good distraction, a moment for me to think as I nudged the fish cakes off of the skewer onto a bite of rice.
 
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ Tule looked aghast. Cress, laughing, shook its head. ``Oh my \emph{god,} Reed.''
 
 ``\emph{Love!}'' she echoed, laughing and leaning over to kiss his cheek. ``This is the future we have found ourselves in, and it is a future entire, not some clean story stripped of references to gross anatomy and base desires. Reed, please continue.''
 
-The exchange had led to a flush of embarrassment of my own. I had been talking about emotions when I said ``all that goes with that'', but I suspected that Dry Grass was right to bring the topic of sex up sooner rather than later. That she had done so so adroitly, with humor and not a shred of bashfulness about her, certainly helped to ease the humiliation that I felt brush past me. I was able to master it for the time being — or at least ignore the burning in my cheeks — in order to continue on.
+The exchange had led to a flush of embarrassment of my own. I had been talking about emotions when I said ``all that goes with that'', but I suspected that Dry Grass was right to bring the topic of sex up sooner rather than later. That she had done so so adroitly, with humor and not a shred of bashfulness about her, certainly helped to ease the humiliation that I felt brush past me. I was able to master it for the time being --- or at least ignore the burning in my cheeks --- in order to continue on.
 
 ``There's a part of me that remembers everything, but it still feels just like that: memories,'' I said. ``I could dredge up any one conversation, but none in particular stick out to me in the same way as a conversation that I'd experienced directly would. The memories are there, and I'll be reminded of them, but they're not at the forefront unless something happens to bring them up.''
 
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ Both Cress and Tule visibly relaxed. ``So it's not exactly something you're thin
 
 ``I suspect he might not be,'' Dry Grass said, speaking slowly with her curious gaze lingering on me, as though prepared to stop at the first sign of me jumping in. ``Except for the fact that we have been working together quite closely these last few days, yes? That is part of why we are here now, is it not?''
 
-I nodded. ``I guess so. If things were\ldots uh, more normal, then I guess there might be a strange moment or two at dinner parties, but we've been together more often than not the last few days, so it's\ldots I don't know. It's weird.''
+I nodded. ``I guess so. If things were\ldots uh, more normal, then I guess there might be a strange moment or two at dinner parties, I would've missed you for a while, but we've been together more often than not the last few days, so it's\ldots I don't know. It's weird.''
 
 ``I bet,'' Tule mumbled. He still looked flushed from the previous rush of embarrassment. ``I can't imagine what that must be like.''
 
@@ -152,13 +152,13 @@ Put like that, I really did have to sit and think for a moment. I poured myself
 
 I had lived two lives in parallel, Tule's and mine, and so I let that parallel continue into the future in my own imaginings. One Reed slipped almost effortlessly into a relationship alongside his cocladists, one woman acting as the pivot for our three lives. That Reed sat Hanne down to dredge up the topic of polyamory, untouched these last few years, to discuss this new relationship. That Reed forked to share time where it was required. That Reed grew ever closer to Cress and Tule in this shared orbit around Dry Grass, fell in step with however many others had found themselves mingling with the Ode clade over the more than three centuries they had been alive. However many had had conversations in their heads exactly like this.
 
-And the other Reed made the explicit decision to step back. It would have to be explicit, to; I wasn't sure I could ever keep such a thing from Dry Grass if I wanted, her whole personality seemed to be built around openness. That Reed simply\ldots slipped back into life as it had been. There would be a few awkward meetings here and there sure, but then those memories would fade into comfortable normalcy, as might any dream that sticks with one. Life with Hanne would continue as it was. Life with the clade would be as it had always been. And what would that matter to Dry Grass? She didn't have these memories, this internal strife.
+And the other Reed made the explicit decision to step back. It would have to be explicit, to; I wasn't sure I could ever keep such a thing from Dry Grass if I wanted, her whole personality seemed to be built around openness. That Reed simply\ldots slipped back into life as it had been. There would be a few awkward meetings here and there. Some part of me would still love her, but then those memories would fade into comfortable normalcy, as might any dream that sticks with one. Life with Hanne would continue as it was. Life with the clade would be as it had always been. And what would that matter to Dry Grass? She didn't have these memories, this internal strife.
 
 Dry Grass had truly left me two forks in the road of equal value. There was no `winning' or `losing', no better or worse. The only path that felt unequal was to continue trying to ignore these feelings. Not just unequal, it felt inaccessible to me. She'd forced the topic out into the open, for better or worse.
 
-Better, I suspect. She knew the clade well enough to read those signs of discomfort in my words — no great feat; ``I can even mostly ignore it'' sounded like an equivocation even to me — that she had nudged me toward some more complete understanding by talking it out.
+Better, I suspect. She knew the clade well enough to read those signs of discomfort in my words --- no great feat; ``I can even mostly ignore it'' sounded like an equivocation even to me --- that she had nudged me toward some more complete understanding by talking it out. She did so before anyone got hurt, too.
 
-I — that me who had his own memories and not Tule's — could certainly see what had drawn my cocladists to her.
+I --- that me who had his own memories and not Tule's --- could certainly see what had drawn my cocladists to her.
 
 Setting down my tea and reaching forward to snag the ladle in the broth alerted the others to my return to the present. I focused on the task at hand, filling my half-full rice bowl with broth before sitting back once more. ``Thanks for talking this through with me,'' I said. ``I think you're right, that it'd just be uncomfortable for me to keep trying to ignore it.''
 
@@ -177,5 +177,3 @@ I laughed.
 It laughed, holding up its hands. ``Alright, I wasn't going to say anything else, but fair enough.'' It turned to me, grinning. ``Just enjoy dinner with us, is all I'm saying.''
 
 ``I am,'' I replied. ``It's been too long since I've had hotpot.''
-
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}

marsh/content/010.tex

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ I nodded. ``Not denying that, just that I think Tule had\ldots well, it's not th
 
 ``Except for Cress?''
 
-``Yeah, except for Cress. He thinks of it all the time. He really loves it. I'm old enough to remember the taboo around intraclade relationships, but it's also been a few decades since that fell apart — I think close to six now — and a few years since Cress, Tule, and Dry Grass formally made it a triad, so I'm used to it by now.''
+``Yeah, except for Cress. He thinks of it all the time. He really loves it. I'm old enough to remember the taboo around intraclade relationships, but it's also been a few decades since that fell apart --- I think close to six now --- and a few years since Cress, Tule, and Dry Grass formally made it a triad, so I'm used to it by now.''
 
 ``Well, fair enough. Everything else was just boring, then?''
 
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ I spent the rest of the evening at home, lounging on the couch while Hanne slouc
 
 Sedge had gone to sleep for a bit, but as she woke up, she caught me up on news from when she'd been dozing. The politicians had drafted a letter explaining what had happened on a technological level to post on the largest of the perisystem feeds. Much of it was information that we'd gained from the AVEC session with the phys-side techs, explaining that nearly 1\% of the System had been wiped out and deemed unrecoverable, that there had been a mass crashing event, that the world was assumed stable and the issue had been patched.
 
-Conspicuously missing was any mention of CPV, any mention that everyone — all 2.3 trillion of us — had crashed, or that messages were being gated and censored. Sedge explained that the last had included some gentle untruths. Rather than this being a political effort, this had been phrased as ``slowly bringing Lagrange up to full capacity''. It wasn't wrong, \emph{per se,} they really were working on bringing the feeds up to full capacity; it's just that the problem was political rather than technical.
+Conspicuously missing was any mention of CPV, any mention that everyone --- all 2.3 trillion of us --- had crashed, or that messages were being gated and censored. Sedge explained that the last had included some gentle untruths. Rather than this being a political effort, this had been phrased as ``slowly bringing Lagrange up to full capacity''. It wasn't wrong, \emph{per se,} they really were working on bringing the feeds up to full capacity; it's just that the problem was political rather than technical.
 
 Dry Grass, in our own conversations, explained that there were already rumors flying about, and that these were being subtly steered by Odists, Jonases, Selena, and, to a lesser extent, what she called `the opposition party', a group of clades led by Debarre who had settled into an uneasy truce with the others some decades back. Rumors were being nudged away from ``an attack by the Artemisians'' and towards ``solar flares or a power failure''.
 
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ There was a shrug, felt rather than seen. \emph{``I guess not. It's just hard fo
 
 \emph{``Well, Sedge--''}
 
-\emph{``I don't mean the logistics, Reed.''} I could hear the smirk in her words. \emph{``Or not} just \emph{the logistics — Sedge has been keeping me up to date, yeah — but just keeping up with the rest of you. Cress and Tule are glued to her side, which, fair enough. Sedge has found her in with the rest of the politicians through her. You've been hanging out with her through Sedge. Rush is off gallivanting with some other Odist\ldots``}
+\emph{``I don't mean the logistics, Reed.''} I could hear the smirk in her words. \emph{``Or not} just \emph{the logistics --- Sedge has been keeping me up to date, yeah --- but just keeping up with the rest of you. Cress and Tule are glued to her side, which, fair enough. Sedge has found her in with the rest of the politicians through her. You've been hanging out with her through Sedge. Rush is off gallivanting with some other Odist\ldots``}
 
 I sighed, steeled myself. \emph{``Well, yeah, fair enough. I've also been spending time with her because I got pulled into being a bit of management for everyone else, and because I kept Tule's merge.''}
 
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ Dry Grass guided the two of us through the workroom, picking up more instances a
 
 ``SERG?''
 
-``System Emergency Response Group, one of the many, \emph{many} groups of systechs. He may request greater access to the lower levels of the System's functionalities.'' She smiled faintly, tapping one last person — Debarre, as it turned out — on the shoulder. ``I am having to ramp up on all of this quite quickly. I stepped away from my role as systech a long, \emph{long} time ago, with a long-lived up-tree taking over my role.''
+``System Emergency Response Group, one of the many, \emph{many} groups of systechs. He may request greater access to the lower levels of the System's functionalities.'' She smiled faintly, tapping one last person --- Debarre, as it turned out --- on the shoulder. ``I am having to ramp up on all of this quite quickly. I stepped away from my role as systech a long, \emph{long} time ago, with a long-lived up-tree taking over my role.''
 
 ``They can't merge down?''
 
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ I'd had little to do with sim manipulation beyond simply expanding or reducing b
 
 ``Alright,'' she said, flumping down into one of the chairs across from the AVEC stage. ``I think we are all here. While I would obviously prefer you stay, it is not a requirement. If you need to duck out, feel free to do so. We are just waiting on Günay and we can get going.''
 
-About twenty people had shown up. It didn't seem to be twenty clades — there were two Odists, after all, with Dry Grass and another from the eighth stanza, Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help — but the audience remained diverse. Only about half appeared to be human of some sort, with the Marshans, Odists, and Jonases accounting for most of those. I suppose it made sense, given the Odists' social circle, but that didn't quite tally with what I knew of Jonas's role in the leadership of the System. He didn't strike me as a furry.
+About twenty people had shown up. It didn't seem to be twenty clades --- there were two Odists, after all, with Dry Grass and another from the eighth stanza, Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help --- but the audience remained diverse. Only about half appeared to be human of some sort, with the Marshans, Odists, and Jonases accounting for most of those. I suppose it made sense, given the Odists' social circle, but that didn't quite tally with what I knew of Jonas's role in the leadership of the System. He didn't strike me as a furry.
 
 When asked over a sensorium message, Dry Grass replied, \emph{``The eighth stanza has been slowly tamping down on Jonas's role over the years. He has not been nearly as grounded as he once was. Prime quit in grand fashion some years back, and the rest have long since recognized that.''} She cast a slight smile in my direction, adding, \emph{``Too singularly focused, perhaps. All work and no play makes Jonas lose his fucking marbles.''}
 
@@ -192,11 +192,11 @@ The systech chuckled nervously, nodding. ``Well, alright. Then yeah, Jonas has i
 
 ``And who is this `someone'?'' Selena asked. ``The phys-side feeds are being ungated, but it's a firehose of information to sort through to try and find anything of use.''
 
-``Yeah, I think they — the System Consortium — clamped down pretty tight. I'm just learning about this myself, since I just got access to the files a few hours ago and news from Earth's been censored. Let's see\ldots{}'' She frowned, continued in the tone of someone reading aloud, ``Okay. The Our Brightest Lights Collective claimed responsibility for the attack exactly thirty seconds \emph{before} it occurred via a message to every executive on the System Consortium board, as well as several major feeds, all of which were censored before being made public. The OBLC named the mechanism, provided a detailed timeline of events, and offered a list of names of individuals — or''individuals'', I guess — and their roles in the execution of this plan. All one hundred members of the collective have been apprehended, though in the past year, two have managed to end their own lives.''
+``Yeah, I think they --- the System Consortium --- clamped down pretty tight. I'm just learning about this myself, since I just got access to the files a few hours ago and news from Earth's been censored. Let's see\ldots{}'' She frowned, continued in the tone of someone reading aloud, ``Okay. The Our Brightest Lights Collective claimed responsibility for the attack exactly thirty seconds \emph{before} it occurred via a message to every executive on the System Consortium board, as well as several major feeds, all of which were censored before being made public. The OBLC named the mechanism, provided a detailed timeline of events, and offered a list of names of individuals --- or''individuals'', I guess --- and their roles in the execution of this plan. All one hundred members of the collective have been apprehended, though in the past year, two have managed to end their own lives.''
 
 Answers Will Not Help spoke up during a break in the recitation. ``Is there more information on this collective? Are they conservatives? How tight is their integration? Do they mimic clades like the old-style collectives?''
 
-``Oh, uh, one moment, I'll look that up once I'm finished,'' Günay said. ``It goes on to say that, through investigation, members from some other collectives and several individuals besides were implicated and were also detained. During one of the System restarts between the Century Attack — as we've been calling it — and now, this information was confirmed by having an investigator sys-side fork rapidly to gather information and take action where needed. They were provided with emergency global ACLs and, once they found the perpetrator, they locked them in an unpopulated airlocked implementation of the System.''
+``Oh, uh, one moment, I'll look that up once I'm finished,'' Günay said. ``It goes on to say that, through investigation, members from some other collectives and several individuals besides were implicated and were also detained. During one of the System restarts between the Century Attack --- as we've been calling it --- and now, this information was confirmed by having an investigator sys-side fork rapidly to gather information and take action where needed. They were provided with emergency global ACLs and, once they found the perpetrator, they locked them in an unpopulated airlocked implementation of the System.''
 
 ``The System was restarted more than once?'' Debarre asked, taken aback.
 
@@ -262,7 +262,7 @@ An uncomfortable murmur interrupted her.
 
 Dry Grass smiled kindly. ``Of course, Günay. What did they say in return?''
 
-``To us? A lot of panicked messages requesting as many updates we could give them. Of course, by then, the messages were eight months out of date, and we'd been sending them hourly updates on the status of Lagrange for quite a while. They were broken down into buckets based on content: personal, political, technical, and vague threats.'' She smiled wryly. ``I only really know all of that because I was privy to the technical bucket. Systechs on both of the LVs teamed up and started throwing ideas at us as fast as they could. They were mostly not any help, given the delay, but some of them were useful — especially the Artemisians. They brought casualties down from 15\%.''
+``To us? A lot of panicked messages requesting as many updates we could give them. Of course, by then, the messages were eight months out of date, and we'd been sending them hourly updates on the status of Lagrange for quite a while. They were broken down into buckets based on content: personal, political, technical, and vague threats.'' She smiled wryly. ``I only really know all of that because I was privy to the technical bucket. Systechs on both of the LVs teamed up and started throwing ideas at us as fast as they could. They were mostly not any help, given the delay, but some of them were useful --- especially the Artemisians. They brought casualties down from 15\%.''
 
 I started to do the math in my head, but Harvey blurted out, ``345 \emph{billion!} Holy shit! You've gotta be fucking kidding me.''
 
@@ -294,7 +294,7 @@ She held up her hands defensively. ``Hey, like I said, it's just a change, and I
 
 ``I am sorry, Günay,'' Dry Grass said. ``You are right that that is a conversation for another time. Tell us about these ACL improvements and merging improvements. Those are likely to be the most relevant to everyone here.''
 
-``Right,'' she said, frowning. ``Well, the ACL improvements allow locking cladists within sims. We needed this to contain the perpetrator as quickly as possible, but left it in place. We came up with a suggested protocol with the ethics committee, though, that would mean a two step approval process — phys-side and sys-side — as well as a mandatory waiting period. It's disabled for now, but we can re-enable it whenever.
+``Right,'' she said, frowning. ``Well, the ACL improvements allow locking cladists within sims. We needed this to contain the perpetrator as quickly as possible, but left it in place. We came up with a suggested protocol with the ethics committee, though, that would mean a two step approval process --- phys-side and sys-side --- as well as a mandatory waiting period. It's disabled for now, but we can re-enable it whenever.
 
 ``The merge improvements involve finer-grained conflict management, which is more just an efficiency thing; we're told nothing changed subjectively. We also enabled cross-tree merging.''
 

marsh/content/011.tex

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 The next two days passed in relative peace.
 
-There were a few more meetings with phys-side, usually with just Günay, but sometimes Jakub or another administrator peeked in. They all seemed to be rather cowed by the sys-side administration, such as it was. I chalked this up to the fact — later confirmed by Dry Grass — that there had been other talks beside between the latent Temporary Administrative Council and the System Consortium. Talks which had been far more tense.
+There were a few more meetings with phys-side, usually with just Günay, but sometimes Jakub or another administrator peeked in. They all seemed to be rather cowed by the sys-side administration, such as it was. I chalked this up to the fact --- later confirmed by Dry Grass --- that there had been other talks beside between the latent Temporary Administrative Council and the System Consortium. Talks which had been far more tense.
 
 Although phys-side remained in control of a few aspects, they had quickly ceded the rest to us once more, including ungating communications between Lagrange and Earth.
 
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ On hearing this news, she disappeared for nearly twelve hours, all of her instan
 
 She and I also started spending more time together, with the next two lunches being just the two of us together. While I had memories of learning all about her through Tule, she was keen on learning about me in turn. She wanted to know what my take was on why Marsh had uploaded, explaining that both Cress and Tule had differing thoughts on the matter. She wanted to know why it was that I had slipped back into that transmasculine identity. She wanted to know how it was that Hanne and I had found each other, had fallen in love.
 
-I mostly wanted to know — though I never asked — how it was that I — that part of me from before the merge — was falling so rapidly for her in turn. I turned that question over and over in my head, leaning on it for comfort whenever thoughts of Marsh struggled to overwhelm me.
+I mostly wanted to know --- though I never asked --- how it was that I --- that part of me from before the merge --- was falling so rapidly for her in turn. I turned that question over and over in my head, leaning on it for comfort whenever thoughts of Marsh struggled to overwhelm me.
 
 When at last the group of representative clades met up again, we were joined by yet another Odist, I Cannot Stop Myself From Speaking, a bobcat furry who moved silently on soft-padded paws, whose voice was quiet and yet demanding of attention.
 
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ Smile unwavering, en4 said, ``We have no comment on that decision at this time.'
 
 Nods around the table.
 
-``2.3 trillion lives, then. 2.3 trillion lives that were taken from us here on Earth. 2.3 trillion minds in almost 40 billion uploads that might have lived full lives here among us phys-side. We resent that they were, and yet our only recourse is — \emph{must be} — to keep them alive, to ensure that they at least remain among the living in some form or another.'' Their gaze drifted to the three present Odists. ``We, too, desire nothing but the stability and continuity of the System, just for different reasons. This instance of us is an ISO specifically to live up to our own principles.''
+``2.3 trillion lives, then. 2.3 trillion lives that were taken from us here on Earth. 2.3 trillion minds in almost 40 billion uploads that might have lived full lives here among us phys-side. We resent that they were, and yet our only recourse is --- \emph{must be} --- to keep them alive, to ensure that they at least remain among the living in some form or another.'' Their gaze drifted to the three present Odists. ``We, too, desire nothing but the stability and continuity of the System, just for different reasons. This instance of us is an ISO specifically to live up to our own principles.''
 
 All three of the Odists nodded, expressions varying from serious to vaguely disgusted.
 
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ All three of the Odists nodded, expressions varying from serious to vaguely disg
 
 They shrugged eloquently.
 
-``Despite these lies,'' Speaking continued, ``I was able to glean plenty through apophasis and aposiopesis. All I needed to do was assume that every statement was false. ISO en4 confirmed much of this from the LCNZ's view. They — the OBLC — differ from the LCNZ in the sense that they believe each of those lives is a life lost, rather than a life preserved. They believe that the lives here on the System are, and I quote,''shadows and negations of souls''. They believe that clades are negations and that up-tree instances are shadows.''
+``Despite these lies,'' Speaking continued, ``I was able to glean plenty through apophasis and aposiopesis. All I needed to do was assume that every statement was false. ISO en4 confirmed much of this from the LCNZ's view. They --- the OBLC --- differ from the LCNZ in the sense that they believe each of those lives is a life lost, rather than a life preserved. They believe that the lives here on the System are, and I quote,''shadows and negations of souls''. They believe that clades are negations and that up-tree instances are shadows.''
 
 ``Yes,'' en4 said. ``They believe that each of these negations negates a life phys-side, and thus the only way they could even bring into balance, much less overcome, the negation offered by the System is to destroy it. They hoped that by destroying you, they would give those who remained phys-side a chance at heaven.''
 
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ They shook their head. ``Not at all. Many of them struggled with the effects tha
 
 ``Yes, but hasn't much of that changed thanks to the Artemis data dump?'' Boiling Maw dos Riãos, another of the furries sitting at the table asked. She was some sort of mustelid, though larger and far more thickly-furred than Debarre. A fisher cat, the System informed me through a whiff of distraction. I pushed it down in an attempt to focus. ``Most of that effort took place sys-side as well.''
 
-``I will answer, but after this, we should return to the topic of the Century Attack,'' en4 replied. ``Many of these collectives — of which the LCNZ is one — believe that this is a side effect of the Artemisians' convergence, rather than any effort from those who uploaded in order to help. We would say,''Are we to rely on aliens to solve every problem? Ought we not also work ourselves?{}``\,''
+``I will answer, but after this, we should return to the topic of the Century Attack,'' en4 replied. ``Many of these collectives --- of which the LCNZ is one --- believe that this is a side effect of the Artemisians' convergence, rather than any effort from those who uploaded in order to help. We would say,''Are we to rely on aliens to solve every problem? Ought we not also work ourselves?{}``\,''
 
 ``That's not--'' Boiling Maw started, anger painting her face. She paused, took a deep breath, and settled back into her seat, sulking. ``Right. Moving on.''
 

marsh/content/012.tex

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ The cores were insubstantial spheres, ghostly, translucent. Little double handfu
 
 All except one.
 
-Right before the platform sat one core more real than the rest, a matte \emph{Eigengrau} with a faint blue haze around it. The platform drifted forward until the sphere rested at the center before Dry Grass at chest level, us Marshans — along with Pierre and Vos — parting to make way for it.
+Right before the platform sat one core more real than the rest, a matte \emph{Eigengrau} with a faint blue haze around it. The platform drifted forward until the sphere rested at the center before Dry Grass at chest level, us Marshans --- along with Pierre and Vos --- parting to make way for it.
 
 As the platform came to a stop, the blue haze disappeared and one more chime of acknowledgement sounded. ``Marsh of the Marsh clade,'' an androgynous voice spoke. ``Crashed via CPV January 1, 2400, 00:00:03. Core deemed corrupt and unrecoverable by automated process, confirmed by an instance of In The Wind of her own clade, systech ID \#88aa6e70.''
 
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ As the platform came to a stop, the blue haze disappeared and one more chime of
 
 She hesitated, a wave of grief, of frustration and sorrow, crossing her face. She bowed unsteadily, and then moved to stand by Cress, Tule, and I. Whether intentional or not, she stood so that Lily was blocked from sight by the three of us.
 
-It had to be intentional, and that fact, seeing her cowed for the first time in my memory — mine and Tule's — had me bristling. Both Tule and Cress appeared to be biting back responses of their own.
+It had to be intentional, and that fact, seeing her cowed for the first time in my memory --- mine and Tule's --- had me bristling. Both Tule and Cress appeared to be biting back responses of their own.
 
 For her part, Lily remained tense, standing rigid and still. Even as she began to cry, she did so without moving, without making a sound, tears simply welling up and coursing down her cheeks. ``Rush,'' she croaked.
 
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ My guess was correct, as there she was, already whirling on me at the notificati
 
 I slapped her across the cheek. Hard.
 
-I think I regretted it even in the moment. I regretted it as soon as I felt my hand move. As soon as I felt that reaction bubble past any boundaries within me and take control of my body, I knew that it would cause nothing but pain — physical, yes, but also emotional and personal pain.
+I think I regretted it even in the moment. I regretted it as soon as I felt my hand move. As soon as I felt that reaction bubble past any boundaries within me and take control of my body, I knew that it would cause nothing but pain --- physical, yes, but also emotional and personal pain.
 
 I certainly regretted it as soon as she yelped and stumbled back a half-step.
 
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ I followed after her as she stomped into the kitchen, watched as she grabbed a g
 
 ``Fuck the other books,'' she said, more to the faucet than to me. ``Fuck the Ode clade, and fuck you too. Fuck you and fuck Cress and fuck Tule. It's really fucking sad, watching you three get taken for a ride, the same manipulation that fucked us all.''
 
-Her anger still burned hot, I knew, but not as much as it had when first we'd arrived. I just needed to outlast it. Doing so by parking myself in my own anger probably wasn't the best way to do it — I could feel yet more regret building below the surface of my anger — but it felt too good, too cathartic to let go of. ``We're not getting taken for a ride, whatever that means. We're just grown up enough to realize that a bunch of actors did what actors do and pretended.'' I scoffed. ``They \emph{pretended,} Lily. That's just what they do.''
+Her anger still burned hot, I knew, but not as much as it had when first we'd arrived. I just needed to outlast it. Doing so by parking myself in my own anger probably wasn't the best way to do it --- I could feel yet more regret building below the surface of my anger --- but it felt too good, too cathartic to let go of. ``We're not getting taken for a ride, whatever that means. We're just grown up enough to realize that a bunch of actors did what actors do and pretended.'' I scoffed. ``They \emph{pretended,} Lily. That's just what they do.''
 
 ``So it's just a game, then?'' she shot back, though I could tell she was flagging. ``Just a game that led to a bunch of fucking psychos killing billions of people?''
 
@@ -206,9 +206,9 @@ I chuckled, feeling some of the pressure in my chest fade. ``Right, yeah. Manage
 
 We all laughed.
 
-We drifted away in small clumps after that. Pierre and Vos returned to Marsh's home — their home, now — along with Sedge, who said she was going to head back to work. Rush nudged Lily off to a bar, stating that it was high time at least some of us got roaring drunk.
+We drifted away in small clumps after that. Pierre and Vos returned to Marsh's home --- their home, now --- along with Sedge, who said she was going to head back to work. Rush nudged Lily off to a bar, stating that it was high time at least some of us got roaring drunk.
 
-The four of us who remained — me, Cress, Tule, and Dry Grass — stood in silence for a while. There seemed to be little point in saying anything as we processed this impromptu funeral. All that needed to be said had been said, or if not, then it had at least been put on hold in the face of our overwhelming emotions.
+The four of us who remained --- me, Cress, Tule, and Dry Grass --- stood in silence for a while. There seemed to be little point in saying anything as we processed this impromptu funeral. All that needed to be said had been said, or if not, then it had at least been put on hold in the face of our overwhelming emotions.
 
 I thought of the stages of grief, of Lily's anger, of the sadness so many of us lingered in, of the bargaining that I knew we all held within us. Perhaps there was some way to get Marsh back. Perhaps there was something we could yet do. Perhaps some combination of the core that remained and all of our memories could lead to some solution. Perhaps this new cross-tree merging held some promise after all.
 
@@ -218,6 +218,6 @@ I blinked, standing up straighter. ``Me?''
 
 She nodded. ``If you will have me,'' she repeated, voice small.
 
-I thought of so many complex emotions that had plagued me over the last few days — the memories of love, the way they clashed with my memories of distance, the memories of Lily burning up with hatred — and, finally, nodded. ``Yeah. Let's see In The Wind's core, and then get out of here. Anything to help out after all this will be good.''
+I thought of so many complex emotions that had plagued me over the last few days --- the memories of love, the way they clashed with my memories of distance, the memories of Lily burning up with hatred --- and, finally, nodded. ``Yeah. Let's see In The Wind's core, and then get out of here. Anything to help out after all this will be good.''
 
 \begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}

marsh/content/013.tex

@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
 I followed Cress, Tule, and Dry Grass back home.
 
-The three of them lived in a narrow brownstone of sorts, full of the dark wood and plush carpets that I knew well from Marsh's house, though the walls were lined — in some places all but completely covered — with paintings. The vast majority were of landscapes skillfully done in watercolor or acrylics, but each of which was interrupted with a shape of black so deep that it seemed to eat any and all light around it. Beyond just reflecting zero light, it pulled greedily at light that even got close.
+The three of them lived in a narrow brownstone of sorts, full of the dark wood and plush carpets that I knew well from Marsh's house, though the walls were lined --- in some places all but completely covered --- with paintings. The vast majority were of landscapes skillfully done in watercolor or acrylics, but each of which was interrupted with a shape of black so deep that it seemed to eat any and all light around it. Beyond just reflecting zero light, it pulled greedily at light that even got close.
 
 Also spaced out through the house were various \emph{objets d'art} I recognized from Hanne's work. Dry Grass explained that both paintings and art were from her cocladists Motes and Warmth In Fire. ``My little ones,'' she called them, which fit well, given what I knew of Warmth In Fire.
 
-She sounded proud of them, as a mother would of her children, which took me a minute to piece together. There were no shortage of family dynamics within the System — after all, old and young alike upload, and upload dates can be decades or centuries apart — though it was relatively rare that they were so strong within a clade where everyone was by necessity the same age. What guardianship we Marshans felt over Cress, the smallest among us, only barely seemed to scratch the surface of the depth of Dry Grass's feelings over And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights and Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. We were protective of Cress; she was hanging artwork on her fridge door and walls.
+She sounded proud of them, as a mother would of her children, which took me a minute to piece together. There were no shortage of family dynamics within the System --- after all, old and young alike upload, and upload dates can be decades or centuries apart --- though it was relatively rare that they were so strong within a clade where everyone was by necessity the same age. What guardianship we Marshans felt over Cress, the smallest among us, only barely seemed to scratch the surface of the depth of Dry Grass's feelings over And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights and Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. We were protective of Cress; she was hanging artwork on her fridge door and walls.
 
-Proud, yes, but the overriding exhaustion — physical and emotional — kept her expression muted and heavy, and she soon requested that we lay down as we had planned.
+Proud, yes, but the overriding exhaustion --- physical and emotional --- kept her expression muted and heavy, and she soon requested that we lay down as we had planned.
 
 The bed up in the second-storey bedroom was already wide, but Cress and Tule pulled on either edge to stretch it out by another half meter or so while Dry Grass all put faceplanted onto the mattress. She elbow-crawled her way up until her head was at least resting on a pillow before letting out a muffled groan.
 
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ I stood awkwardly by until Cress chuckled and gestured at the open space beside
 
 ``Right,'' I said, forcing a chuckle of my own as I awkwardly clambered up onto the bed, leaning against the headboard and hugging my knees against my chest.
 
-We sat — or lay — in silence for a while other than the occasional small noise of contentment from Dry Grass.
+We sat --- or lay --- in silence for a while other than the occasional small noise of contentment from Dry Grass.
 
 Even as we stayed in silence, and Cress and Tule doted on their partner, this woman I had such strong feelings about foisted upon me out of nowhere only a few days prior, I struggled to disentangle my thoughts on the events of the day.
 
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Dry Grass was the first to break the silence, mumbling into her pillow. ``In The
 
 ``That was my up-tree instance, yes? In The Wind? I remember the rattle of dry grass in the wind.'' She turned her head and laughed, choked and hoarse. ``A full sentence snuck into a poem. I picked that up from Louie. Eir clade, os Riãos, did much the same: a poem expanded upon from within. I thought I was \emph{so clever.} I thought I had gotten all of my grief out that second day. I thought I could move on, limping, until I heard of the work she'd done, that she made it so far and still did not make it to the end. Until I saw her core.''
 
-Tule, more flexible than I, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Cress gave her own kiss after. Both of them glanced briefly at me, looking a little sheepish. I couldn't quite piece together the reason for their looks until I pieced together their confusion — our confusion, since I shared in it — of how I must feel about her.
+Tule, more flexible than I, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Cress gave her own kiss after. Both of them glanced briefly at me, looking a little sheepish. I couldn't quite piece together the reason for their looks until I pieced together their confusion --- our confusion, since I shared in it --- of how I must feel about her.
 
 The compulsion to echo that gesture was certainly there, too. I knew from countless memories the softness of her skin against my lips, I knew what even the briefest touch would mean to her as she worked to process her own loss.
 
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ After a long moment's pause, she nodded. ``She was the part of me who remained a
 
 Both Cress and Tule nodded, though the statement largely went over my head.
 
-Perhaps guessing at such, Dry Grass continued, ``Each of our stanzas focused on something different. I am sure that much is in the stories you have doubtless read, if Lily's reaction is anything to go by. She fusses at the eighth and their politics, perhaps the first with their habit of spying, but mine, the sixth, wound up with all of Michelle's — our root instance — all of her dreams of and desire for motherhood. Motherliness. Caring and cherishing. That is why I have all of that art on the walls: it is all cherished, all lovely creations from Warmth and Motes, the clade's little ones.''
+Perhaps guessing at such, Dry Grass continued, ``Each of our stanzas focused on something different. I am sure that much is in the stories you have doubtless read, if Lily's reaction is anything to go by. She fusses at the eighth and their politics, perhaps the first with their habit of spying, but mine, the sixth, wound up with all of Michelle's --- our root instance --- all of her dreams of and desire for motherhood. Motherliness. Caring and cherishing. That is why I have all of that art on the walls: it is all cherished, all lovely creations from Warmth and Motes, the clade's little ones.''
 
 ``So In The Wind was the one who stuck with that moderation?'' I asked.
 
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ She rubbed the back of her free hand against her eyes. ``I will mourn the loss o
 
 He nodded, working on a careful extraction from his role as pillow, replacing his lap with another pillow from the bed as he slid from beneath her. He stretched his arms up over his head, winced at a quiet pop from his neck, and then shifted to lay down beside her instead, arm draped over her front. Cress followed suit, laying down beside Tule and hugging around them both.
 
-I chose to remain sitting for a while, idle gaze settling on the triad beside me, while I thought of the ways in which Dry Grass talked about In The Wind. I tried mapping that onto my own clade. Thinking of Lily like a sister, of Cress like our clade's own little one, felt right in a way that I didn't expect. While it was difficult to think of Tule as in any way that much younger than me, despite being my second degree up-tree instance, but perhaps that was due to his lingering similarities to me. After all, Sedge had forked him off shortly after I had forked into her. It was part of the package deal: Sedge went back to exploring femininity while Tule returned to cis-masculinity; ditto Rush and a further queering of gender. Both of them remained siblings — younger siblings, perhaps, because I was their progenitor. Cousins, maybe.
+I chose to remain sitting for a while, idle gaze settling on the triad beside me, while I thought of the ways in which Dry Grass talked about In The Wind. I tried mapping that onto my own clade. Thinking of Lily like a sister, of Cress like our clade's own little one, felt right in a way that I didn't expect. While it was difficult to think of Tule as in any way that much younger than me, despite being my second degree up-tree instance, but perhaps that was due to his lingering similarities to me. After all, Sedge had forked him off shortly after I had forked into her. It was part of the package deal: Sedge went back to exploring femininity while Tule returned to cis-masculinity; ditto Rush and a further queering of gender. Both of them remained siblings --- younger siblings, perhaps, because I was their progenitor. Cousins, maybe.
 
 But Marsh? Were they a parent? Were they also a sibling? Some great-grandparent, perhaps? Or were they simply my root instance? All fit to greater or lesser extent.
 

marsh/content/014.tex

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 We lingered in silence for the remainder of the evening, the four of us piled into a bed now stretched to fit all of us. Two of my cocladists and their partner, and now me. Who knew what I was? There was the friendship that we had built over the last few days. There was the camaraderie that we had built through work. There was the acquaintanceship that had been there from years prior.
 
-And now there was more. I didn't have words for it — latent romance? A crush? — and Dry Grass was asleep for much of our time together. It wasn't the time for conversations, it was time for just resting, something I realized I dearly needed as well. We all did, as we napped off and on for some time until the clock hit one in the morning, at which point I stepped back home to spend the rest of my night with Hanne.
+And now there was more. I didn't have words for it --- latent romance? A crush? --- and Dry Grass was asleep for much of our time together. It wasn't the time for conversations, it was time for just resting, something I realized I dearly needed as well. We all did, as we napped off and on for some time until the clock hit one in the morning, at which point I stepped back home to spend the rest of my night with Hanne.
 
 She was already in bed, curled around a body pillow, though not yet asleep.
 
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ She furrowed her brow. ``I thought that's what you'd done, actually.''
 
 ``How, though? It's not like hormones do anything here.''
 
-I shrugged. ``I met up with a bunch of other folks doing the same thing — actually surprised I didn't run into Hold My Name in the process — and we all talked about the various ways we could go through the process. Some hunted down doctors who had uploaded and were willing to do things like help act out the process. I mostly just forked once a month from that cis body into what I am bit by bit. I let my voice change, bound my chest, added surgery scars, each bit step by step.''
+I shrugged. ``I met up with a bunch of other folks doing the same thing --- actually surprised I didn't run into Hold My Name in the process --- and we all talked about the various ways we could go through the process. Some hunted down doctors who had uploaded and were willing to do things like help act out the process. I mostly just forked once a month from that cis body into what I am bit by bit. I let my voice change, bound my chest, added surgery scars, each bit step by step.''
 
 ``That's wild,'' she said. ``What's this got to do with Marsh, though? Feeling maudlin over gender?''
 

marsh/content/015.tex

@@ -28,9 +28,9 @@ I followed her gaze once more, this time finding it lingering on an old woman. \
 
 ``I suppose it does,'' I said. ``All the sims are still here, right?''
 
-``All the sims and objects, yes, but so many of the souls. 99\%, sure, but that is still more than two trillion, is it not? Friendships, relationships, and clades were broken and changed, many have quit out of despair and many more will, I am sure, and yet many more still exist and live on. New uploads will be ungated soon, and more will come and join us, new clades will blossom. New friendships will be forged. New relationships are already starting, yes?'' she asked, grinning and patting my thigh.
+``All the sims and objects, yes, but so many of the souls. Minus that 1\%, yes, but that is still more than two trillion, is it not? Friendships, relationships, and clades were broken and changed, many have quit out of despair and many more will, I am sure, and yet many more still exist and live on. New uploads will be ungated soon, and more will come and join us, new clades will blossom. New friendships will be forged. New relationships are already starting, yes?'' she asked, grinning and patting my thigh.
 
-I laughed, looking down to my lap and resting my hand atop hers. ``I suppose so, yeah.''
+I laughed, looking down to my lap and resting my hand atop hers. \emph{God, Lily really} will \emph{throw a fit,} I thought. Aloud, I said, ``I suppose so, yeah.''
 
 ``We are all anxious, as you say, but we are more than that: we are still here. We are still alive. We will do all that we can to continue living, and those phys-side will see to that.''
 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ Once we stepped off the train, still holding hands both out of affection and so
 
 I laughed. ``You were loud, opinionated, and politically obnoxious?''
 
-``Do not be ridiculous, Reed. Of course I was,'' she said primly. ``It was our friend that made this place what it was, yes? Ey was the one who became the template for this world, yes? But all the same, it became a cherished place. We uploaded in the System's second year, as soon as we could afford to, and even then the System was a mess. Consensual sensoria had yet to be implemented, building and object creation had yet to progress to where it was today, the ability to eat — eat and feel sated — was not added until the fifth year — this is all before systime was even a thing, remember, so this is \emph{very} early — so those who uploaded hungry remained so for years at a time. I loved it all the same.''
+``Do not be ridiculous, Reed. Of course I was,'' she said primly. ``It was our friend that made this place what it was, yes? Ey was the one who became the template for this world, yes? But all the same, it became a cherished place. We uploaded in the System's second year, as soon as we could afford to, and even then the System was a mess. Consensual sensoria had yet to be implemented, building and object creation had yet to progress to where it was today, the ability to eat --- eat and feel sated --- was not added until the fifth year --- this is all before systime was even a thing, remember, so this is \emph{very} early --- so those who uploaded hungry remained so for years at a time. I loved it all the same.''
 
 ``You still do, sounds like.''
 
@@ -48,9 +48,9 @@ She laughed. ``Of course I do! It is more than just a love of life, the System i
 
 I listened, rapt, as she grew more animated and eloquent; watched as she sent out an instance to fetch us some of our favorite plates of plain-yet-filling food.
 
-``We all played our part. I dove into tech, Warmth coaxed the System into letting em make weirder and weirder objects and more and more delicious foods, True Name and her stanza guided it as might any parent. Even if her methods came off as unsavory, I believe her — believe Sasha, I mean, who she became — when she says that her goal was only ever the security of our existence.
+``We all played our part. I dove into tech, Warmth coaxed the System into letting em make weirder and weirder objects and more and more delicious foods, True Name and her stanza guided it as might any parent. Even if her methods came off as unsavory, I believe her --- believe Sasha, I mean, who she became --- when she says that her goal was only ever the security of our existence.
 
-``I feel like my baby has stumbled. The System stumbled and fell, knocked its head, forgotten some of what it knew. I feel like our existence stumbled, as some group or another got so frustrated as to trip it up. When I dump my energy into all of this work, I am doing my best to nurse it back to health. We all are. I am working the tech angle. The eighth is working the political angle — you have seen Sasha has poke her nose in once or twice, yes? She is still striving.'' She smiled fondly, adding, ``Even the third stanza is there with us, sitting \emph{shiva} and praying as they will.''
+``I feel like my baby has stumbled. The System stumbled and fell, knocked its head, forgotten some of what it knew. I feel like our existence stumbled, as some group or another got so frustrated as to trip it up. When I dump my energy into all of this work, I am doing my best to nurse it back to health. We all are. I am working the tech angle. The eighth is working the political angle --- you have seen Sasha has poke her nose in once or twice, yes? She is still striving.'' She smiled fondly, adding, ``Even the third stanza is there with us, sitting \emph{shiva} and praying as they will.''
 
 We sat back as her ephemeral instance set down a few pot pies and a plate piled high with hash browns in front of us before quitting. Dry Grass sectioned off a large portion of the hash browns to start dousing it in hot sauce.
 
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ I nodded, getting a few bites of my own (less heavily spiced) share in. Horn \&
 
 ``You use a lot of family language when you talk,'' I said once I'd washed the hash browns down with coffee. ``Which makes sense from what you've said, of course, but it got me thinking last night about what Marsh was to us. Couldn't decide whether they were a parent or a cousin of some sort.''
 
-She nodded, already starting in on her pot pie, breaking open the lid to let the steam escape. ``It is not a dynamic that works for everyone. Even within our own clade, it is complicated. Hammered Silver, my down-tree, \emph{hates} that. She disowned me for some time over these thoughts. Tt does not make sense in some cases. Motes and Warmth are my little ones, but while A Finger Pointing and Beholden — Motes's guardians — feel like siblings to me, Dear, Rye, and Praiseworthy — Warmth's down-trees — definitely do not. They are friends, Rye especially, perhaps, but little else.''
+She nodded, already starting in on her pot pie, breaking open the lid to let the steam escape. ``It is not a dynamic that works for everyone. Even within our own clade, it is complicated. Hammered Silver, my down-tree, \emph{hates} that. She disowned me for some time over these thoughts. Tt does not make sense in some cases. Motes and Warmth are my little ones, but while A Finger Pointing and Beholden --- Motes's guardians --- feel like siblings to me, Dear, Rye, and Praiseworthy --- Warmth's down-trees --- definitely do not. They are friends, Rye especially, perhaps, but little else.''
 
 ``Yeah, and I guess that's been coloring my feelings on the whole idea of cross-tree merging.''
 

marsh/content/016.tex

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

marsh/content/017.tex

@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@ We talked for a while longer, though descriptions were slim, repetitions of what
 
 ``Hey,'' they said at last, once the line of questions had died down. ``What do you say about inviting Vos and Pierre over? Maybe they'd like to meet me.''
 
-I winced. I'd been dreading this moment. I'd intentionally not brought up the subject of Marsh's partners, lest that dissuade my cocladists. Admonitions rang in my ears, Hanne's and Dry Grass's. \emph{I'm a bit wary you won't get what you want,} Hanne had said. \emph{The potential for pain,} Dry Grass had said.
+I winced. I'd been dreading this moment. I'd intentionally not brought up the subject of Marsh's partners, lest that dissuade my cocladists. Admonitions rang in my ears, Hanne's and Dry Grass's. \emph{I'm a bit wary you won't get what you want,} Hanne had said. \emph{The potential for pain,} Dry Grass had said. New Marsh had these memories, now, too, but I had no way of knowing just how close they were to the surface, whether they were even at the forefront of their mind.
 
 There was a long silence that followed as we all seemed to digest the ramifications of this.
 
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ She swayed on her feet, eventually reaching out a hand to prop herself up agains
 
 ``One of the changes made in the System during the downtime was to enable cross-tree merging. It hasn't been announced yet, but Sedge and I were at the meetings, so we, uh\ldots{}''
 
-``I'm all of us,'' New Marsh said, voice strained from the force of Pierre's hug. ``I'm their entire clade. I'm as much of them as I could manage.''
+``I'm all of us,'' New Marsh said, voice strained from the force of Pierre's hug. ``I'm the entire clade. I'm as much of us as I could manage.''
 
 Pierre quickly unwound his arms from them, staggering backwards with such hurriedness that he nearly tripped were it not for Vos, there to catch him. ``What the fuck\ldots{}''
 

marsh/content/018.tex

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ As the play drew up to the climax, as the attacker was convicted and condemned t
 
 We were once more dropped into utter blackness, treated to nearly five minutes more of wails and screeches, giggles and sobs, laughter and half-words, all slowly fading to silence.
 
-The analogy was clear — almost ham fisted — and it left my stomach churning. It left a lump in my throat and a hotness on my face. It left me sobbing. Me and so many others in the audience, from what I saw when the lights came back up. Each seat had a cone of silence above it, preventing me from hearing anyone else. Beside me, Dry Grass had started crying from the beginning and hadn't lifted her head from her arms folded on the small table before us throughout the entire performance.
+The analogy was clear --- almost ham fisted --- and it left my stomach churning. It left a lump in my throat and a hotness on my face. It left me sobbing. Me and so many others in the audience, from what I saw when the lights came back up. Each seat had a cone of silence above it, preventing me from hearing anyone else. Beside me, Dry Grass had started crying from the beginning and hadn't lifted her head from her arms folded on the small table before us throughout the entire performance.
 
 The auditorium, full at the start, was half-empty by the end, so many of the audience members having left in disgust or pain.
 
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ Swivelling her chair toward the hurtling skunk, Dry Grass threw her arms wide, l
 
 ``Dry Grass Dry Grass Dry Grass!''
 
-``Motes!'' She pushed the skunk — who looked to be no more than ten, despite being the same three hundred odd years old as Dry Grass, a childishness more earnest and real than that of Warmth In Fire — away from her enough to meet her gaze. ``You stupid\ldots awful\ldots{}'' She fell to crying once again, clutching Motes to her front.
+``Motes!'' She pushed the skunk --- who looked to be no more than ten, despite being the same three hundred odd years old as Dry Grass, a childishness more earnest and real than that of Warmth In Fire --- away from her enough to meet her gaze. ``You stupid\ldots awful\ldots{}'' She fell to crying once again, clutching Motes to her front.
 
 \emph{``That means I did a good job!''} the skunk sent via a sensorium message as she rested her head over her cocladist's shoulder, grinning at me.
 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ Dry Grass took the chance to wipe her face with a napkin swiped from the table.
 
 ``You would have hated the original! Ioan wrote it so that the body was supposed to stay on the stage instead of just the blood. When I said I wanted the part, ey changed it to be just the blood so there was not just a kid's body laying on stage, even though it took some creative work with gravity.''
 
-I glanced back to the stage, realizing that it was actually canted toward the audience by about fifteen degrees. Enough that we could clearly see the surface of the stage — back to a blissfully clean matte black instead of the blood-stained parquet that had been there before — without it being so unnerving as to make us feel like we were going to fall towards it, or that the actors were going to fall into the audience.
+I glanced back to the stage, realizing that it was actually canted toward the audience by about fifteen degrees. Enough that we could clearly see the surface of the stage --- back to a blissfully clean matte black instead of the blood-stained parquet that had been there before --- without it being so unnerving as to make us feel like we were going to fall towards it, or that the actors were going to fall into the audience.
 
 ``You are right,'' Dry Grass was saying, straightening out Motes's shirt and overalls, both of which were thoroughly stained with paint. ``I would have hated that even more. I did not even see the rest of the play, skunklet. I put my head down and turned down my hearing.''
 
@@ -50,11 +50,11 @@ I glanced back to the stage, realizing that it was actually canted toward the au
 
 ``No, I will read it on my own at some point when I am calmer.'' Dry Grass nodded toward the stage. ``But look, A Finger Pointing and Beholden.''
 
-The two Odists — one tall, slender, and human, the other a shorter, softer skunk — made their way far more sedately toward our table. They walked arm in arm, leaning affectionately against each other, each carrying a drink in their free hand and paw.
+The two Odists --- one tall, slender, and human, the other a shorter, softer skunk --- made their way far more sedately toward our table. They walked arm in arm, leaning affectionately against each other, each carrying a drink in their free hand and paw.
 
 ``Reed!'' A Finger Pointing began, reaching out with one arm to offer me a hug. ``I am pleased you made it.'' She glanced at Dry Grass with a rueful smile. ``I hope we did not traumatize you \emph{too} much.
 
-I watched as Beholden started pulling chairs away from the next table over with a gesture, one sliding across the floor so that she could flop down into it, with another for her parter. As soon as she and A Finger Pointing had done so, Motes forked off two more instances to go pile into each of their laps as well.
+I leaned into that hug and watched as Beholden started guiding chairs away from the next table over with a gesture, a curl of the finger beckoning them over one by one. One slid across the floor so that she could flop down into it, with another for her parter. As soon as she and A Finger Pointing had done so, Motes forked off two more instances to go pile into each of their laps as well.
 
 ``You have, but Motes has already apologized,'' Dry Grass said.
 
@@ -88,14 +88,14 @@ I laughed, nodded.
 
 A Finger Pointing leaned down to her Motes's ear. ``My dear, could you--?'' she cooed. The little skunk leaned up, dotted her nose affectionately to her cheek, and then quit. ``Please, Reed; I am \emph{intensely} curious what they have to say about all this.''
 
-Beholden seemed focused on brushing out Motes' mane — perhaps a little more than could be expected, as though working to distract herself — though she nodded all the same.
+Beholden seemed focused on brushing out Motes' mane --- perhaps a little more than could be expected, as though working to distract herself --- though she nodded all the same.
 
 ``Alright, thanks. I'll just read it to you, it's fairly short.'' Feeling a little silly just staring off into space to read, I summoned up the letter on a sheet of paper and began to read.
 
 \begin{quote}
 Reed,
 
-Words cannot express how glad I am to hear from you! Over the last few weeks, we've heard that they were finally on track to start bringing Lagrange back online, and then we finally got the notice that the System had finally come back up and that they'd gotten the non-recoverable losses down to 1\%. We had a small party here with all the Marshans here — there's a new one, by the way, Hyacinth. They'll write you their own letter.
+Words cannot express how glad I am to hear from you! Over the last few weeks, we've heard that they were finally on track to start bringing Lagrange back online, and then we finally got the notice that the System had finally come back up and that they'd gotten the non-recoverable losses down to 1\%. We had a small party here with all the Marshans here --- there's a new one, by the way, Hyacinth. They'll write you their own letter.
 
 We weren't the only ones, either. Every one of us was invited to no less than three other parties celebrating the news. You may be out of reach for those of us on the launches, but we do still love you all, and deeply. Thinking we'd lost you for good was one hell of a way to prove that to ourselves.
 
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ Over the next week, we started to hear from more and more people as news of thei
 
 Our anxiety began to grow without hearing from you. We knew you were busy, at least: news of Sedge working as hard as she was reached even us in those first days. Still, I wish you'd written sooner.
 
-To finally get a letter that said that I was dead, however, made me feel in a way I can't even begin to describe. I was sad, because of course I was — someone I knew and talked with with some regularity was now dead. I was stunned, because of course I was — the disaster was now very immediate and real, affecting my own clade.
+To finally get a letter that said that I was dead, however, made me feel in a way I can't even begin to describe. I was sad, because of course I was --- someone I knew and talked with with some regularity was now dead. I was stunned, because of course I was --- the disaster was now very immediate and real, affecting my own clade.
 
 But what am I to do with the knowledge that it was specifically \emph{me} that was dead? You live on, as do Lily and Cress, Rush and Sedge and Tule, but the root of your clade is now gone. You're now six instead of seven. You're now a clade without a root instance. \emph{We're} a clade without a root instance. I exist, sure, as does Marsh\#Pollux, but our down-tree doesn't. We came from them, didn't we?
 
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ Marsh\#Castor
 
 When I finished reading, our little crowd sat in silence, each thinking their own thoughts.
 
-My eyes were drawn to A Finger Pointing, to the pensive tapping-together of her fingertips. ``I have been looking forward to the opportunity to speak with you about just that, Reed. About this cross-tree merge, I mean. About Anubias.'' She glanced at Beholden, who nodded, though her own gaze remained distant, then went on. ``We, too, are without our root instance. We are without our Michelle Hadje, she who became ten, who became — nominally — one hundred.''
+My eyes were drawn to A Finger Pointing, to the pensive tapping-together of her fingertips. ``I have been looking forward to the opportunity to speak with you about just that, Reed. About this cross-tree merge, I mean. About Anubias.'' She glanced at Beholden, who nodded, though her own gaze remained distant, then went on. ``We, too, are without our root instance. We are without our Michelle Hadje, she who became ten, who became --- nominally --- one hundred.''
 
 Dry Grass carefully nudged Motes out of her lap so that she could straighten out her blouse. The little skunk wandered off to haul up a far-too-big chair for herself.
 
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ Dry Grass carefully nudged Motes out of her lap so that she could straighten out
 
 I looked down at the paper, just as I had done for much of the day already.
 
-``I would like to hear how you feel, too, Reed,'' Dry Grass said. ``We all have our thoughts on the matter — we are Odists, of \emph{course} we do — I am sure, but before we taint yours, tell us how you feel.''
+``I would like to hear how you feel, too, Reed,'' Dry Grass said. ``We all have our thoughts on the matter --- we are Odists, of \emph{course} we do --- I am sure, but before we taint yours, tell us how you feel.''
 
 I sighed, eventually folding up the letter and returning it to my pocket. The physicality of it made it feel more real, focused my mind in one particular spot. Getting it out of my hands gave me, somehow, permission to look up and speak directly to the others.
 
@@ -148,11 +148,11 @@ She sniffed, sighed, then went on. ``--in Death Itself and I Do Not Know, but al
 
 Motes drew her legs up onto the chair with her and buried her face in her arms.
 
-``I do not \emph{like} it,'' Beholden added with a bitter chuckle. ``I think I actually \emph{hate} it, that she could do that — that \emph{any} of them could do that. One more thing to be anxious about after months and months of anxiety.''
+``I do not \emph{like} it,'' Beholden added with a bitter chuckle. ``I think I actually \emph{hate} it, that she could do that --- that \emph{any} of them could do that. One more thing to be anxious about after months and months of anxiety.''
 
-A Finger Pointing watched Dry Grass carefully while Beholden spoke, turning her gaze on me only after some silence lingered between us. ``I do not believe this premonition, of course, but you can see how it affects each of us. There is enough death in our clade to make us wonder, yes?''
+A Finger Pointing watched Dry Grass carefully while Beholden spoke, turning her gaze on me only after some silence lingered between us. ``I do not believe this premonition, of course, that we are doomed to quit, but you can see how it affects each of us. There is enough death in our clade to make us wonder, yes?''
 
-She spent a moment doting on Beholden before straightening up, brushing out her blouse with a sigh. ``There is, perhaps, some of my longing for Dear in this — it is the instance artist of our clade, now no longer on Lagrange, and instance artistry has held my interest since I met it — but I have been gradually reaching out to each of my cocladists in the hopes of creating a synthesis of our clade — our own Anubias, if you will — not to recreate Michelle but to better understand one another and ourselves through the lens of someone who is each of us at once.''
+She spent a moment doting on Beholden before straightening up, brushing out her blouse with a sigh. ``There is, perhaps, some of my longing for Dear in this --- it is the instance artist of our clade, now no longer on Lagrange, and instance artistry has held my interest since I met it --- but I have been gradually reaching out to each of my cocladists in the hopes of creating a synthesis of our clade --- our own Anubias, if you will --- not to recreate Michelle but to better understand one another and ourselves through the lens of someone who is each of us at once.''
 
 Dry Grass nodded. ``The mutual understanding is a thing I am particularly interested in. There have been schisms within our clade that might\ldots well, not be mended, but may at least provide greater understanding.''
 
@@ -160,23 +160,23 @@ Motes lifted her head and, despite the tear-tracks in the fur on her cheeks, smi
 
 ``For a bit, kiddo,'' she said, laughing.
 
-``I do not know that we will resolve disputes so dire as that with a mediating instance,'' A Finger Pointing said with a soft chuckle. ``Although I have occasionally done such within the fifth stanza — even before this business with cross-tree merging — what I am really interested in is how it might give us a more complete picture of the Ode clade at large. We have occasionally been accused of idolatry, of placing the \emph{idea} of the clade above the community that it comprises, but now I think our community is all but dead, and in desperate need of some unifying identity lest we ever remain shattered.''
+``I do not know that we will resolve disputes so dire as that with a mediating instance,'' A Finger Pointing said with a soft chuckle. ``Although I have occasionally done such within the fifth stanza --- even before this business with cross-tree merging --- what I am really interested in is how it might give us a more complete picture of the Ode clade at large. We have occasionally been accused of idolatry, of placing the \emph{idea} of the clade above the community that it comprises, but now I think our community is all but dead, and in desperate need of some unifying identity lest we ever remain shattered.''
 
-Dry Grass smiled wryly. ``I was surprised at just how willing Hammered Silver was. She cut off three entire stanzas — and, briefly, me — and I expected that would mean that she would be rather opposed to the idea. I am curious to see how that goes, in the end.'' Turning to me, she continued, grinning, ``But you also dealt with that with Lily, yes? You punched her, even.''
+Dry Grass smiled wryly. ``I was surprised at just how willing Hammered Silver was. She cut off three entire stanzas --- and, briefly, me --- and I expected that would mean that she would be rather opposed to the idea. I am curious to see how that goes, in the end.'' Turning to me, she continued, grinning, ``But you also dealt with that with Lily, yes? You punched her, even.''
 
 A Finger Pointing looked wide-eyed at me, leaning back. ``Reed?''
 
 I laughed, sheepish. ``It was hardly a punch! I slapped her in the heat of an argument. Don't worry, I got that and more from Vos,'' I said, shaking my head. ``I still feel awful about that. It's\ldots well, not really something I thought I had in me. Everything was just so stressful around then. It was less than a week after the attack.''
 
-My words didn't seem to reach her, or perhaps they weren't convincing enough. She looked warily to Dry Grass, then back to me. ``Grief in the wake of the Century Attack has caused a great deal of pain; and it did not stop with the loss of our loved ones on New Year's Eve, did it? Muse quit a week later out of despair — her and so many others in her position — and now I learn the Marshans and their beloved are \emph{hitting} each other!''
+My words didn't seem to reach her, or perhaps they weren't convincing enough. She looked warily to Dry Grass, then back to me. ``Grief in the wake of the Century Attack has caused a great deal of pain; and it did not stop with the loss of our loved ones on New Year's Eve, did it? Muse quit a week later out of despair --- her and so many others in her position --- and now I learn the Marshans and their beloved are \emph{hitting} each other!''
 
-Any lingering mirth I felt quickly died. What had since turned to a source of humor between me and Lily — at least on the occasions we \emph{did} talk — was suddenly brought into contrast with the rest of our lives. ``No, you bring up a good point. I stand by the fact that it felt awful at the time, and it stung for a long while after. I don't see myself as a violent person, but clearly I have it in me. Vos remains no-contact, so I can't guess how she feels, but she didn't seem the type to lean on violence, either.''
+Any lingering mirth I felt quickly died. What had since turned to a source of humor between me and Lily --- at least on the occasions we \emph{did} talk --- was suddenly brought into contrast with the rest of our lives. ``No, you bring up a good point. I stand by the fact that it felt awful at the time, and it stung for a long while after. I don't see myself as a violent person, but clearly I have it in me. Vos remains no-contact, so I can't guess how she feels, but she didn't seem the type to lean on violence, either.''
 
 Dry Grass, looking between her cocladist and I with an expression more of curiosity than anxiety, said, ``You do not strike me as violent either, but it does have me wondering just how much that remains after the fact.''
 
-``I should hope he does not strike you at all!'' A Finger Pointing quipped. She looked to me with a disarming smile, and I felt at once the dialectic couched within her words. This fighting — though unconscionable — was no isolated event; more than one of my friends had similarly lashed out, and the feeds were filled with cladists hunting for therapists.
+``I should hope he does not strike you at all!'' A Finger Pointing quipped. She looked to me with a disarming smile, and I felt at once the dialectic couched within her words. This fighting --- though unconscionable --- was no isolated event; more than one of my friends had similarly lashed out, and the feeds were filled with cladists hunting for therapists.
 
-I snorted. ``I have not, nor do I plan to. It has me watching my actions like a hawk, and while I'm sure the anxiety over the fact that I'm capable of such things will fade, I doubt I'll ever forget about it — really, truly forget: it'll stay in the forefront of my mind whenever strong feelings come up.''
+I snorted. ``I have not, nor do I plan to. It has me watching my actions like a hawk, and while I'm sure the anxiety over the fact that I'm capable of such things will fade, I doubt I'll ever forget about it --- really, truly forget: it'll stay in the forefront of my mind whenever strong feelings come up.''
 
 Dry Grass nodded. ``I would not want you to remain in anxiety, of course, but I am pleased to hear that it is something you are cognizant of.''
 
@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ Beholden smirked. ``I know Slow Hours and I have had our spats from time to time
 
 ``--\emph{often}, so the cross-tree merging has given us another tool to mediate.'' She rolled her eyes, adding, ``\emph{When} we decide to actually use it.''
 
-``Well, huh,'' I said, sitting back in my chair, arms crossed. ``I hadn't actually made that connection — that cross-tree merging could be a deliberate form of mediation rather than some accident of Anubias.''
+``Well, huh,'' I said, sitting back in my chair, arms crossed. ``I hadn't actually made that connection --- that cross-tree merging could be a deliberate form of mediation rather than some accident of Anubias.''
 
 ``You would have to commit, yes? The both of you would.''
 
@@ -206,4 +206,4 @@ A Finger Pointing tilts her head at Beholden. ``You want to kick Ioan's ass for
 
 ``I want to kick eir ass just in general,'' she said primly. ``It just seems like it might be fun.''
 
-``Oh, it \emph{is},'' she mused, before turning her gaze on me once more. ``So let that be my request to you, Reed. I want you and Lily to talk about this, to consult with Anubias, and to tell me how that goes. I am sure Dear would have a heyday if it were here to explore cross-tree merging, but seeing as it went the Ansible — I am \emph{very} much stealing that turn of phrase — I think I would like to collaborate with you three on this new form of reclamation.''
+``Oh, it \emph{is},'' she mused, before turning her gaze on me once more. ``So let that be my request to you, Reed. I want you and Lily to talk about this, to consult with Anubias, and to tell me how that goes. I am sure Dear would have a heyday if it were here to explore cross-tree merging, but seeing as it went the Ansible --- I am \emph{very} much stealing that turn of phrase --- I think I would like to collaborate with you three on this new form of reclamation.''

marsh/stories/journal.tex

@@ -1,20 +1,20 @@
 \hypertarget{may-12th-2400}{%
 \subsubsection{\texorpdfstring{\emph{\textbf{May 12th, 2400}}}{May 12th, 2400}}\label{may-12th-2400}}
 
-\emph{The door is pressed open and the lights are turned on with a soft click, below wooden planks bemoan the shuffling feat of Henrique and his slippers, his old jeans loose and baggy, the knitted sweater he wears worn like his brittle bones. He walks with his cane, tapping on the floor as he finds his seat- guided by his great Granddaughter Isa, who guides him with steady, thoughtfully slow, footing.\\
-\strut \\
-``}Take a seat Grand Papi\ldots{} it will\ldots{} it will all, uhm\ldots'' \emph{she mutters the words ``be okay'' aimlessly, then lets a minute of quiet drift between the two of them, sounds of weeping heard from the floor below. She had only recently entered her teens, how could such innocence possibly understand such loss, the ramifications of the news not yet settled in for youthful Isa, yet the reality sank soundly onto the soul of elderly Henrique. The meandering minute passes, and Isa looks back up, eyes filled with concern for her great Grandfather's wellbeing.} ``Ah, Grand Papi, would you like me to get you your coffee mug? A blanket? Anything to give you comfort?...''\\
-\strut \\
-\emph{Finally, he begins to sit down on his leather recliner, waving his aged hand dismissively, wrinkled and frail. His dower face, aged like the cracked leather he put his weight onto and pock marked with freckles from years in the sun, bunches together as he grimaces, not at the offer but towards the state of the world, the state of his family, the state of the System, and perhaps his aching body as well.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{The door is pressed open and the lights are turned on with a soft click, below wooden planks bemoan the shuffling feat of Henrique and his slippers, his old jeans loose and baggy, the knitted sweater he wears worn like his brittle bones. He walks with his cane, tapping on the floor as he finds his seat- guided by his great Granddaughter Isa, who guides him with steady, thoughtfully slow, footing.}
+
+``Take a seat Grand Papi\ldots{} it will\ldots{} it will all, uhm\ldots'' \emph{she mutters the words ``be okay'' aimlessly, then lets a minute of quiet drift between the two of them, sounds of weeping heard from the floor below. She had only recently entered her teens, how could such innocence possibly understand such loss, the ramifications of the news not yet settled in for youthful Isa, yet the reality sank soundly onto the soul of elderly Henrique. The meandering minute passes, and Isa looks back up, eyes filled with concern for her great Grandfather's wellbeing.} ``Ah, Grand Papi, would you like me to get you your coffee mug? A blanket? Anything to give you comfort?...''
+
+\emph{Finally, he begins to sit down on his leather recliner, waving his aged hand dismissively, wrinkled and frail. His dower face, aged like the cracked leather he put his weight onto and pock marked with freckles from years in the sun, bunches together as he grimaces, not at the offer but towards the state of the world, the state of his family, the state of the System, and perhaps his aching body as well.
+
 Gently, slowly, deliberately he lowers himself and rests into the seat, his reading seat, the seat he got from his aunt as part of her will, a skilled tanner- skill that shined through the weathered cushions that strained to}
 
-\emph{hold his retired body. So weak, so old- the days of power and youth having left him, drained from him by the decades. He looks up, and lets out a tired, weary sigh, then shakes his head.\\
-\strut \\
-``I\ldots{} I just need to sit down, my dear. Sit down... Just... sit down. To think\ldots{} in quiet. Please, Isa my dear, leave me be for now. Go, tend to your Mami, she needs your comfort.''\\
-\strut \\
-He stares back down at his lap, grunting and listening to the door creak closed as Isa leaves, allowing lingering thoughts to swell in might and misery. Flashes of denial sting as Henrique's depressed thoughts flow freely, he attempts to come to terms with the news again, just as another baleful shriek fills the air, a cry, a plea heard by none who deserved it.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{hold his retired body. So weak, so old- the days of power and youth having left him, drained from him by the decades. He looks up, and lets out a tired, weary sigh, then shakes his head.
+
+``I\ldots{} I just need to sit down, my dear. Sit down... Just... sit down. To think\ldots{} in quiet. Please, Isa my dear, leave me be for now. Go, tend to your Mami, she needs your comfort.''
+
+He stares back down at his lap, grunting and listening to the door creak closed as Isa leaves, allowing lingering thoughts to swell in might and misery. Flashes of denial sting as Henrique's depressed thoughts flow freely, he attempts to come to terms with the news again, just as another baleful shriek fills the air, a cry, a plea heard by none who deserved it.
+
 Descendants deleted and ancestors now long gone. His Granddaughter weeps at the knowledge her handful of children and acres of ancestry were now lost, taken from her just as his brother was through the same act of terrorism.}
 
 \emph{Terrorism. What a foul concept that was so filled with angry grays, blacks, and whites. Months, months the System was down and its dire truths suppressed- until finally reaching the `net in a slow torrent of terrible news, chaotic questions, corroborating with bitter claims, the collectivists caused harm on a cataclysmic scale, like some malevolent maelstrom, a maverick ridden by the reapers' wrath.}
@@ -23,36 +23,36 @@ Descendants deleted and ancestors now long gone. His Granddaughter weeps at the
 
 \emph{He sighs somberly, shakily, and reaches for the journal that once belonged to his late and lost. A Journal of Diago Pereira, his brother --- or siblings, as he would later come to learn in his youth, and love years after his younger brother uploaded with his once hidden plurality in tow.}
 
-\emph{The next few moments were a blanket of misery, misery that mastered the old mans' mind, and moved him to lift the old literature to his lap. Tears gradually overwhelming, he wipes them off and opens the book to the first page, a familiar feeling now underwhelming compared to the weight of tragedy on his shoulders;\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{The next few moments were a blanket of misery, misery that mastered the old mans' mind, and moved him to lift the old literature to his lap. Tears gradually overwhelming, he wipes them off and opens the book to the first page, a familiar feeling now underwhelming compared to the weight of tragedy on his shoulders;
+
 12th March 2304}
 
-\emph{Today is my 17th birthday and as a gift my Grand mami got me this journal to practice my english writing in. My teacher told me my writing is pretty good since he started teaching me but needs work and my mami thought it would be a good idea to give me a book to practice in. He said I should focus on my punctuation mostly as I seem to forget to include that in my writing sometimes. He also said my spelling could do a little bit of work so I'll try and focus on that.\\
+\emph{Today is my 17th birthday and as a gift my Grand mami got me this journal to practice my english writing in. My teacher told me my writing is pretty good since he started teaching me but needs work and my mami thought it would be a good idea to give me a book to practice in. He said I should focus on my punctuation mostly as I seem to forget to include that in my writing sometimes. He also said my spelling could do a little bit of work so I'll try and focus on that.
 }
 
-\emph{Today was so fun after school, I took my bike home and my cousins, sisters and a few of our friends from the next farm over were waiting for me! I even saw aunt Corita, she managed to get the day off from the Ansible clinic, I hardly ever get to see her. We had a quick game in the backyard field , I think my sisters took it easy on me, there usually way more dexterous then I am! \textbf{(Eles fizeram isso, eu já vi eles chutarem você, mas no futebol! Haha.).} I can still play pretty good Fel!\\
-\strut \\
-Anyway, after a few goals, my mami called us in for dinner! It was Fels and my favorite, homemade Acarajé and Picanha, and for dessert Grand mami made me a vanilla cake with blue icing!\\
-\strut \\
-After we ate, my mami and Grand mami gave me my gifts, this journal and a letter from my brother that wished he could be there. He also sent me printed photos of him and his army buddies at the BrAr Line. They smile, but the scenery is so grim and barren. My aunt tells me it was once farmland, and now it's just mud and metal fences.\\
-\strut \\
-Even if this was given to me to improve my English writing, I really enjoyed writing about my day! And I didn't expect it to be. But I am tired and don't have much else to say, the cake was yummy! I always love Grand mamis' cakes.\\
-\strut \\
-In the margin, ``Property of Diago Pereira'' can be read, along with the thumb smearing of blue icing dye that has since stained the once fresh paper, now freshly stained by stray tears. Henrique smiles, sniffling softly as the wrinkles on his face rise, his thumb and forefinger slides the pages to a random entry, a familiar sensation of such delicate paper dancing between his fingertips- wrinkled, marked, and lightly stained pages of faded graphite and century old ink- dates dotting the upper left. He moves his hand across the paper, reading the crude handwriting of early script, a pastime he took part in on a monthly basis, now a catharsis, a means to mourn.\\
-\strut \\
-He flips through the pages more, methodically moving fingers before finding one to finally read through in full:\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Today was so fun after school, I took my bike home and my cousins, sisters and a few of our friends from the next farm over were waiting for me! I even saw aunt Corita, she managed to get the day off from the Ansible clinic, I hardly ever get to see her. We had a quick game in the backyard field , I think my sisters took it easy on me, there usually way more dexterous then I am! \textbf{(Eles fizeram isso, eu já vi eles chutarem você, mas no futebol! Haha.).} I can still play pretty good Fel!
+
+Anyway, after a few goals, my mami called us in for dinner! It was Fels and my favorite, homemade Acarajé and Picanha, and for dessert Grand mami made me a vanilla cake with blue icing!
+
+After we ate, my mami and Grand mami gave me my gifts, this journal and a letter from my brother that wished he could be there. He also sent me printed photos of him and his army buddies at the BrAr Line. They smile, but the scenery is so grim and barren. My aunt tells me it was once farmland, and now it's just mud and metal fences.
+
+Even if this was given to me to improve my English writing, I really enjoyed writing about my day! And I didn't expect it to be. But I am tired and don't have much else to say, the cake was yummy! I always love Grand mamis' cakes.
+
+In the margin, ``Property of Diago Pereira'' can be read, along with the thumb smearing of blue icing dye that has since stained the once fresh paper, now freshly stained by stray tears. Henrique smiles, sniffling softly as the wrinkles on his face rise, his thumb and forefinger slides the pages to a random entry, a familiar sensation of such delicate paper dancing between his fingertips- wrinkled, marked, and lightly stained pages of faded graphite and century old ink- dates dotting the upper left. He moves his hand across the paper, reading the crude handwriting of early script, a pastime he took part in on a monthly basis, now a catharsis, a means to mourn.
+
+He flips through the pages more, methodically moving fingers before finding one to finally read through in full:
+
 17th of June 2304}
 
 \emph{Dear Journal, I got home today after my english classes, and Mami and my sisters told me Henrique had sent a letter from the BrAr Line. It talked about how he saw a Hyacinth Macaw making a nest on one of the watchtowers at the Briar. \textbf{(SORTUDO! Eu gostaria que pudéssemos ver mais a linha do briar. Parece tão interessante.)} It really doesn't Fel.\textbf{\hfill\break
 \hfill\break
-}He wrote in the letter that he was ordered to chase the bird off because it was making a nest, but even with him and his buddies' best efforts it stayed. I'm proud of it! This story got a laugh out of everyone, and to my surprise mom showed me a feather that came with the letter, it was bright blue! Further down, my brother said that while he was trying to get the bird to leave, he managed to collect a few feathers from its nest and thought I'd like to have one. (\textbf{Henrique é um irmão tão legal. Espero que você possa me apresentar a ele em breve.)} I do too, Fel.\\
-\strut \\
-Both Fel and I are so excited to have received it, the Hyacinth Macaw is believed to be an extinct species. To know one still lives makes us so happy! I can't wait to show this in class tomorrow, I know Mr. Rocha loves to watch birds as much as I do.\\
-\strut \\
-Speaking of Mr. Rocha! I asked him if I could borrow his binoculars after class today. I've been wanting to go visit my spot with them and see what birds have been nesting near there. He agreed with the exception that, ``You better let me come with you, I'm not about to miss out on a bird watching expedition, let alone give my binoculars away without supervision!'' I know he meant well by that, but I couldn't help but feel a little nervous. Mr. Rocha is a good teacher, though. Friends of my eldest cousin, who was taught by him when she was younger!\\
-\strut \\
-After looking at the letter and feathers, my sisters and I did our chores around the farmstead with the farm hands. Just as I was finishing, my sisters came up to me and told me they saw a flock of white birds that were nesting in one of our Latex Trees, I could only guess what they must've been at the time, but I wouldn't have guessed they're White-Necked Hawks! They were all nested there and warding danger away from the nest. They looked so majestic! I can't wait to watch their eggs hatch, such a beautiful species of bird!\\
+}He wrote in the letter that he was ordered to chase the bird off because it was making a nest, but even with him and his buddies' best efforts it stayed. I'm proud of it! This story got a laugh out of everyone, and to my surprise mom showed me a feather that came with the letter, it was bright blue! Further down, my brother said that while he was trying to get the bird to leave, he managed to collect a few feathers from its nest and thought I'd like to have one. (\textbf{Henrique é um irmão tão legal. Espero que você possa me apresentar a ele em breve.)} I do too, Fel.
+
+Both Fel and I are so excited to have received it, the Hyacinth Macaw is believed to be an extinct species. To know one still lives makes us so happy! I can't wait to show this in class tomorrow, I know Mr. Rocha loves to watch birds as much as I do.
+
+Speaking of Mr. Rocha! I asked him if I could borrow his binoculars after class today. I've been wanting to go visit my spot with them and see what birds have been nesting near there. He agreed with the exception that, ``You better let me come with you, I'm not about to miss out on a bird watching expedition, let alone give my binoculars away without supervision!'' I know he meant well by that, but I couldn't help but feel a little nervous. Mr. Rocha is a good teacher, though. Friends of my eldest cousin, who was taught by him when she was younger!
+
+After looking at the letter and feathers, my sisters and I did our chores around the farmstead with the farm hands. Just as I was finishing, my sisters came up to me and told me they saw a flock of white birds that were nesting in one of our Latex Trees, I could only guess what they must've been at the time, but I wouldn't have guessed they're White-Necked Hawks! They were all nested there and warding danger away from the nest. They looked so majestic! I can't wait to watch their eggs hatch, such a beautiful species of bird!
 }
 
 \emph{One of his favorite entries, and a reminder of a brighter day at the Briar line- one not so filled with dull gray and scorched earth. He frowns, hesitates, then hastily lifts the journal from his lap- finding the ink quill resting in the nook of his arm rest and right leg. He carefully raises it up, pondering- not recalling- how he so quickly removed it from the strap on the journal, carefully preening the blue feather adorned to the end of the writing utensil.}
@@ -70,27 +70,27 @@ After looking at the letter and feathers, my sisters and I did our chores around
 \emph{Fel, you know I would if I had the time to do so! I'm just always too busy. Anyway, we've been writing this at the `cave' now, and it looks like it is probably two in the afternoon, and we've had our lunch too, feeling ready to go! Also, the tide is starting to fill up this old garage so I better get packing or I won't be able to take the boat out at all. Thankfully, the weather is peaceful with hurricanes Gabriel and Taylor having traveled down south this time of year. Still, the ocean waves are choppy so I won't be able to spend any time writing in the rowboat. Next entry will be written once we've made landfall, at the high rises. I'm hopeful Gregor will be available today!}
 
 \emph{\hfill\break
-Henriques smiles, recalling how adventurous youthful Diago was, he flips the page, his fingers feeling the pages curl, curious eyes reading the lines that are revealed.\\
+Henriques smiles, recalling how adventurous youthful Diago was, he flips the page, his fingers feeling the pages curl, curious eyes reading the lines that are revealed.
 }
 
-\emph{25th of July 2304\\
+\emph{25th of July 2304
 }
 
 \emph{Dear Journal, Fel and I made it to Gregors' home without any issue, and are writing this entry at the top of the high rises! \textbf{(É tão bonito! Se não fossem as nuvens de Gabriel, você poderia ver todas as estrelas do céu!)} While the waves did rock the rowboat, it wasn't at all a challenge to find harbor at the old high rises. We were met by Marcia, who helped us anchor the boat to the third floor balcony-pier, and we caught up with one another! She asked how my mami and Grandmami were, how my sisters were, how the farm was doing, then offered me lunch which I politely declined. \textbf{(Ela fez Vatapá!! O Vatapá da Márcia! É sempre tão delicioso! Como você poderia deixar passar uma tigela fresquinha de Vatapá da Márcia, Diago!! Ah!)} I'm sorry Fel, but I wasn't hungry then! Quit thinking about your stomach so much.}
 
 \emph{\hfill\break
-Anyway, after our talk, Marcia led us to where Gregor was, he was busy doing his own chores and tending to the seventh floor gardens. I always enjoy walking up to this floor, the view is amazing, though often windy without any wall. As soon as he saw me we hugged! It'd been too long, and like his mother, we talked about how things had been in the last few months, his community, my family, the hazards of the weather and the hazards of piracy along the coast, their fishing farms, our latex farms- \textbf{(Na verdade, ele mencionou como conseguiram pescar atum hoje! E íamos tomar um pote Grande de Moqueca de Camarão! O que foi TÃO DELICIOSO!)} Oh yeah! We've never had real Tuna before, only ever that fake processed stuff. So when Gregor offered to have us present for their dinner we were more than happy to accept, we even told them we intended to stay the night, which he and Marcia were happy to oblige.\\
-\strut \\
+Anyway, after our talk, Marcia led us to where Gregor was, he was busy doing his own chores and tending to the seventh floor gardens. I always enjoy walking up to this floor, the view is amazing, though often windy without any wall. As soon as he saw me we hugged! It'd been too long, and like his mother, we talked about how things had been in the last few months, his community, my family, the hazards of the weather and the hazards of piracy along the coast, their fishing farms, our latex farms- \textbf{(Na verdade, ele mencionou como conseguiram pescar atum hoje! E íamos tomar um pote Grande de Moqueca de Camarão! O que foi TÃO DELICIOSO!)} Oh yeah! We've never had real Tuna before, only ever that fake processed stuff. So when Gregor offered to have us present for their dinner we were more than happy to accept, we even told them we intended to stay the night, which he and Marcia were happy to oblige.
+
 We spent the remainder of our afternoon playing Go. He's always been better at it, and we don't have a board at home to practice. Regardless, it was a lot of fun! And I did manage to win a game in the end.}
 
-\emph{Now, Fel and I sit on the roof and gaze across the stars. It is truly gorgeous\ldots{} and I think we can spot the System too, orbiting overhead. Honestly it's crazy to think some of my Grandparents are there now. I hope they look at us and bless us with a good harvest, surely the tuna Gregor's family caught was one. \textbf{(Você acha que algum dia chegaremos lá, Diago?)} I don't know Fel! It would be cool, though I bet.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Now, Fel and I sit on the roof and gaze across the stars. It is truly gorgeous\ldots{} and I think we can spot the System too, orbiting overhead. Honestly it's crazy to think some of my Grandparents are there now. I hope they look at us and bless us with a good harvest, surely the tuna Gregor's family caught was one. \textbf{(Você acha que algum dia chegaremos lá, Diago?)} I don't know Fel! It would be cool, though I bet.
+
 Sigh. I do not wish to be conscripted. I do not wish to tend the fields of burnt earth that my brother does. I wish he didn't either. \textbf{(É tão estúpido! Por que fomos para a guerra de novo? O que a Argentina fez com o Brasil? Por que seu irmão teve que ir! Por que NÓS temos que ir! Ah!)} I can't recall Fel, I wish Mami hadden gotten us into those history classes. Anyway, it smells like dinners done.}
 
-\emph{His anger, simmering now, grows sour with grief renewed. Why, why must they have done this? A society of people, free from the strifes of this withering world, peaceful and calm and claiming new lives- Taken, made lost for some bitter pointless stance. Had the universe not taken enough from him, from his family, from his people? Was it fate, destiny, that others would bring agony to the Pereira family and so many, many more on this hellish earth? Surely, he had done enough, harbored the forgotten sins of his nation for long enough, the punishments that his father endured and reflected onto him, for long enough? Surely, this was enough, should have been enough, to avoid this tragedy?\\
-\strut \\
-To have lost so much more, to know generations of elders and cousins and sons and daughters were now gone. Now longer of the heavens but beyond, if there was such a thing. Henrique didn't have the slightest clue, and he doubted there was anything after. They were gone, his brother was gone. It was as simple as that, a weeding fact he began to harbor and nourish.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{His anger, simmering now, grows sour with grief renewed. Why, why must they have done this? A society of people, free from the strifes of this withering world, peaceful and calm and claiming new lives- Taken, made lost for some bitter pointless stance. Had the universe not taken enough from him, from his family, from his people? Was it fate, destiny, that others would bring agony to the Pereira family and so many, many more on this hellish earth? Surely, he had done enough, harbored the forgotten sins of his nation for long enough, the punishments that his father endured and reflected onto him, for long enough? Surely, this was enough, should have been enough, to avoid this tragedy?
+
+To have lost so much more, to know generations of elders and cousins and sons and daughters were now gone. Now longer of the heavens but beyond, if there was such a thing. Henrique didn't have the slightest clue, and he doubted there was anything after. They were gone, his brother was gone. It was as simple as that, a weeding fact he began to harbor and nourish.
+
 He observes the fine details on the pen in this bitter moment of contemplation, Henrique's fingers flipping the pages with unplanned, instinctual precision- eyes unwittingly landing on the next entry:}
 
 \emph{23rd of September 2304}
@@ -102,91 +102,91 @@ But! FINALLY after months of planning, Mr. Rocha and I left to go birdwatching.
 
 \emph{I will, I will! Anyways, as should be obvious, getting there wasn't too difficult, and we parked along the eastern edge of the Amazona Basin. From there I led the way down some dirt trails, and showed Mr. Rocha a family of nursing trees that had begun to sprout new life. \textbf{{[}It was very pretty! There were at least five different burnt up trunks that had fallen over, and were all sprouting entirely different trees from them!{]}} Yeah! And in the trees, we saw many birds flying in and out, they looked like brownish twistwings, we also heard peeping! The sound filled me with such joy, and Mr. Rocha remarked how wonderful it was to see nature adapt and heal in spite of all the destruction caused by `A Grande Fumaça', so many years ago.}
 
-\emph{The comment had Davi curious, and so I asked him how `A Grande Fumaça' even started, \textbf{{[}Thanks again. I wasn't sure how Mr Rocha would take you being plural, otherwise I would have asked myself.{]} (Sr. Rocha arrasa! Tenho certeza de que ele teria ido às alturas para ouvir sobre nós!)} Eh\ldots{} I'm in agreement with Davi. I'd rather just keep this between us three.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{The comment had Davi curious, and so I asked him how `A Grande Fumaça' even started, \textbf{{[}Thanks again. I wasn't sure how Mr Rocha would take you being plural, otherwise I would have asked myself.{]} (Sr. Rocha arrasa! Tenho certeza de que ele teria ido às alturas para ouvir sobre nós!)} Eh\ldots{} I'm in agreement with Davi. I'd rather just keep this between us three.
+
 Anyways, I'm glad I asked because I learned things I never recalled being taught besides the really nasty terrorists and stuff. Anyway, when he was done I asked why people would do such things, it was kinda absent minded of me to ask, but when I did Mr. Rocha had this moment of contemplation before he told me that ``Some very angry people simply choose to resort to fan the hate and anger in their hearts, in order to make an impact on the world. In their case, they wanted many people to see the perils we suffer, like some twisted bonfire, and these people believed that by burning down the Amazon it would call the world into action.'' I told him that didn't make any sense, and he agreed, ``Anger drives many men to do senseless things, but this is why it is important to keep a level head at all times, and to control that flame, turn it towards a warm hearth that nurtures and improves the quality of all. Not tear it down and destroy it.''}
 
 \emph{After our conversation, we went and had lunch. \textbf{(Foi Empadão caseiro! Devo dizer que o Sr. Rocha é um excelente cozinheiro!)} He is! And he made extras, so we got to take some home with us to share. Today was honestly the best.}
 
-\emph{Yet, despite the uplifting ending and relative cheerfulness of the entry, such aspects go unread and unappreciated as Henriques eyes stay fixed on the penultimate paragraph. His breath quickens to nigh hyperventilation with quicker clouds fogging Henrique's brief-bright thoughts with foul ashen clouds.\\
-\strut \\
-A Grande Fumaça, another crazed disaster, dealt by the collective cells of Brazil. The terrorists' insanity deemed that the only path to salvation was more mindless destruction. To alter and to tarnish the Grand jungles of South America with thermite fueled flames.\\
-\strut \\
-Such scornful actions created lasting consequences. The Steel Acquisitions Act, fueling the cinders for the pyre that would become the Brazilian Civil War, followed by the unsatisfied bloodlust that lead to the annexation of Paraguay and the eventual invasion of eastern Argentina.\\
-\strut \\
-Anger flares once more, the scalding inferno of nearly a century ago igniting hot and glowing fury in the old mans beating heart. He throws the pen in anger, then gasps, smelling acrid burning. He looks about the room, the lights a brilliant yellow. Torches of flame around him. He gets up, he needs fresh air\ldots{}\\
-\strut \\
-He rises, his right hand numb, crumbles under the weight and he begins to fall to the floor. His left hand, clenched into a fist, slams to his inflamed chest, leaving him sobbing, weeping, falling. With a loud thump against the hardwood floor, he cries and whines. Why, why did they have to take his brother? Why did they have to kill so many bright souls, to accomplish what? To state what?\\
-\strut \\
-``W-why\ldots{} W-whhyy\ldots{} whhyyy\ldots''\\
-\strut \\
-He mutters through a limp tongue, half numb lips. He was shot, he realizes, he believes, time slowed like a putrid muck as the sudden taste of something sickening and metallic crosses his tongue. His heart hurts, agonizing, a flame. He struggles to breathe, and wonders why, why, why was he sent to the front line. Why was he chosen to be shot, an innocent at the whims of a corrupt government.\\
-\strut \\
-He looks up, watching the members of the Argentinian resistance raid the Briar Line. Guns alight, loud, shouting, surrounding him, soon kicking him.\\
-\strut \\
-``\textbf{Me perdoe!} \textbf{Me perdoe!} \textbf{Me perdoe! Me perdoe!}''\\
-He begs for forgiveness as memory fades, figures all around him, following him to his youth. Full of bullies, malevolent peers, punishing him, teasing him, childishly chastising him for the acts of his rebellious father. A man dedicated to the independence of Rio Grande Do Sul, a man who died fighting the civil war, and marred his family name with the title of-\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Yet, despite the uplifting ending and relative cheerfulness of the entry, such aspects go unread and unappreciated as Henriques eyes stay fixed on the penultimate paragraph. His breath quickens to nigh hyperventilation with quicker clouds fogging Henrique's brief-bright thoughts with foul ashen clouds.
+
+A Grande Fumaça, another crazed disaster, dealt by the collective cells of Brazil. The terrorists' insanity deemed that the only path to salvation was more mindless destruction. To alter and to tarnish the Grand jungles of South America with thermite fueled flames.
+
+Such scornful actions created lasting consequences. The Steel Acquisitions Act, fueling the cinders for the pyre that would become the Brazilian Civil War, followed by the unsatisfied bloodlust that lead to the annexation of Paraguay and the eventual invasion of eastern Argentina.
+
+Anger flares once more, the scalding inferno of nearly a century ago igniting hot and glowing fury in the old mans beating heart. He throws the pen in anger, then gasps, smelling acrid burning. He looks about the room, the lights a brilliant yellow. Torches of flame around him. He gets up, he needs fresh air\ldots{}
+
+He rises, his right hand numb, crumbles under the weight and he begins to fall to the floor. His left hand, clenched into a fist, slams to his inflamed chest, leaving him sobbing, weeping, falling. With a loud thump against the hardwood floor, he cries and whines. Why, why did they have to take his brother? Why did they have to kill so many bright souls, to accomplish what? To state what?
+
+``W-why\ldots{} W-whhyy\ldots{} whhyyy\ldots''
+
+He mutters through a limp tongue, half numb lips. He was shot, he realizes, he believes, time slowed like a putrid muck as the sudden taste of something sickening and metallic crosses his tongue. His heart hurts, agonizing, a flame. He struggles to breathe, and wonders why, why, why was he sent to the front line. Why was he chosen to be shot, an innocent at the whims of a corrupt government.
+
+He looks up, watching the members of the Argentinian resistance raid the Briar Line. Guns alight, loud, shouting, surrounding him, soon kicking him.
+
+``\textbf{Me perdoe!} \textbf{Me perdoe!} \textbf{Me perdoe! Me perdoe!}''
+He begs for forgiveness as memory fades, figures all around him, following him to his youth. Full of bullies, malevolent peers, punishing him, teasing him, childishly chastising him for the acts of his rebellious father. A man dedicated to the independence of Rio Grande Do Sul, a man who died fighting the civil war, and marred his family name with the title of-
+
 ``\textbf{Traidor! Traidor! Traidores Imundos!}''}
 
 \emph{-And he suffers the consequences. Crying, choking, dying, dimming\ldots{} before Diago screams, chasing, sprinting, pushing away the bullies, the ne'er do well teenagers twice the siblings' age.}
 
 \emph{No longer surrounded, Diago leans down, reaching his hand towards his elder brother. Henrique looks up, vision blurred from the blinding backlit visage of Diago, details smeared- yet comfortably cool and shaded in soft shadows.}
 
-\emph{``Ei, irmão mais velho!''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique hears the cry of Diago calling out to him, before watching that youthful silhouette approach him, take a knee, and offer his hand down to his fallen self.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{``Ei, irmão mais velho!''
+
+Henrique hears the cry of Diago calling out to him, before watching that youthful silhouette approach him, take a knee, and offer his hand down to his fallen self.
+
 Está tudo bem, você está seguro. Vamos, vamos para casa! Todo mundo está preocupado com você.''}
 
-\emph{Henrique nods, sobbing, smiling, and reaches for Diagos hand, hearing the worry and concern in his brother's voice.\\
-\strut \\
-``Vamos para casa. Irmão mais novo...''\\
+\emph{Henrique nods, sobbing, smiling, and reaches for Diagos hand, hearing the worry and concern in his brother's voice.
+
+``Vamos para casa. Irmão mais novo...''
 }
 
 \emph{Then everything fades to black.}
 
-\emph{Hours that felt like minutes go by, and with a groggy start, white light fills Henriques vision.\\
-\strut \\
-The door to the examination room clicks open, Isa walking in, exhausted, her nurse outfit freshly donned with fresh concern still on her face, she kneels down, checking on her Grand Papi, healing instincts kicking in as she takes Henriques hand, watching his face twitch into wakefulness.\\
-\strut \\
-``Oh, Grand Papi\ldots{} shh, it's okay\ldots{} You're safe, you had another little stroke. You're safe.''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique simply nods, groaning, looking down at the white linen bed he found himself in. He inhales through clenched teeth, leaning back into his pillows and breaths out shakily, then looks to his left, smiling towards Isa, then further towards the bedside table, spotting the journal still at his side.\\
-\strut \\
-Isa's fears quickly diminished as she saw him come too. Watching as his senses returned to him. It wasn't long before a doctor entered, clipboard in hand and hesitant smile showing.\\
-\strut \\
-\strut \\
-``Ah, Mr. Pereira. You had us all worried there, but, thankfully to your Granddaughters quick thinking you're looking to make a full recovery. She's a very excellent nurse, we're lucky to have her with us.''\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Hours that felt like minutes go by, and with a groggy start, white light fills Henriques vision.
+
+The door to the examination room clicks open, Isa walking in, exhausted, her nurse outfit freshly donned with fresh concern still on her face, she kneels down, checking on her Grand Papi, healing instincts kicking in as she takes Henriques hand, watching his face twitch into wakefulness.
+
+``Oh, Grand Papi\ldots{} shh, it's okay\ldots{} You're safe, you had another little stroke. You're safe.''
+
+Henrique simply nods, groaning, looking down at the white linen bed he found himself in. He inhales through clenched teeth, leaning back into his pillows and breaths out shakily, then looks to his left, smiling towards Isa, then further towards the bedside table, spotting the journal still at his side.
+
+Isa's fears quickly diminished as she saw him come too. Watching as his senses returned to him. It wasn't long before a doctor entered, clipboard in hand and hesitant smile showing.
+
+
+``Ah, Mr. Pereira. You had us all worried there, but, thankfully to your Granddaughters quick thinking you're looking to make a full recovery. She's a very excellent nurse, we're lucky to have her with us.''
+
 Isa smiles, then glances over to the journal Henrique was just looking towards. She picks it up, handing it to him.}
 
-\emph{``Grand Papi, we'll be moving you to another room for the remainder of your stay, but once we're there would you like me to stick around for a while? The hospital has given me permission to attend to you, and, well, I saw you reading Grand uncle Diago's journal. I was thinking I could read some of it to you?''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique nods with a wide smile reaching from ear to ear, stretching those years of well earned lines like the boughs and branches of a Bertholletia Excelsa.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{``Grand Papi, we'll be moving you to another room for the remainder of your stay, but once we're there would you like me to stick around for a while? The hospital has given me permission to attend to you, and, well, I saw you reading Grand uncle Diago's journal. I was thinking I could read some of it to you?''
+
+Henrique nods with a wide smile reaching from ear to ear, stretching those years of well earned lines like the boughs and branches of a Bertholletia Excelsa.
+
 ``Of course, my dear Isa. I'd love that so, very much.''}
 
-\emph{The minutes went by as medical accessories were untethered and unlatched from their anchoring, allowing Henriques' bed to be transported to his new room. Isa walked alongside while another nurse pushed, her fingers gently intertwined with her Grand papis' own.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{The minutes went by as medical accessories were untethered and unlatched from their anchoring, allowing Henriques' bed to be transported to his new room. Isa walked alongside while another nurse pushed, her fingers gently intertwined with her Grand papis' own.
+
 The new room was optimally lit and blandly furnished with whites, blues, and beige, presented in the most iconically hygienic ways a hospital could be. Isa finds a seat beside Henrique, a metal thing with dense padding cushions, unlike her grin which was soft and comforting- not at all dissimilar to her eyes, which began to look downward towards the journal that she split open in her hands. She carefully turned each page, finally landing on an entry that was written earlier into the books life:}
 
 \emph{\hfill\break
 \hfill\break
-3rd of May 2304\\
-\strut \\
-Dear Journal, today I write after Fel and I have gone exploring! I did my chores this morning, stripping the bark from the trees mainly, then I went down to the coast and took the rowboat out from `the cave'. Though I didn't visit Gregor, instead I took the boat further west, to visit some of the abandoned towns in that area. I brought some chicken sandwiches with me, as I planned to stay most the day there and take the last bus back.\\
-\strut \\
-I know it's dangerous, but my curiosity just urges me to swim in those waters near the old ruined towns past the shore. Mami, cuz I know she'd be worried sick for me, doesn't know I do this, but I can't help but want to explore! It's like exploring a whole different world, well maybe not ENTIRELY different, but different enough to feel like it's a place I've never been too.\\
-\strut \\
-I also go because Fel is always wanting to see the world\ldots{} and she's always going on and on and on about leaving the house, leaving Brazil. Honestly I'm happy to oblige! I'm not too keen to live here for the rest of my life either.\\
-\strut \\
-Anyways, once we took the rowboat far enough, we anchored up to what we guessed must have been an old apartment complex? We could access the third and fourth floors, but the rest was flooded. But despite this, I was able to dive down to the floors below with my light to guide us. I always make sure to wear one on my chest so I'm never diving in the dark. I've also been practicing my diving for quite a while now, and the longest I can hold my breath while swimming is a full minute and sixteen seconds!\\
-\strut \\
+3rd of May 2304
+
+Dear Journal, today I write after Fel and I have gone exploring! I did my chores this morning, stripping the bark from the trees mainly, then I went down to the coast and took the rowboat out from `the cave'. Though I didn't visit Gregor, instead I took the boat further west, to visit some of the abandoned towns in that area. I brought some chicken sandwiches with me, as I planned to stay most the day there and take the last bus back.
+
+I know it's dangerous, but my curiosity just urges me to swim in those waters near the old ruined towns past the shore. Mami, cuz I know she'd be worried sick for me, doesn't know I do this, but I can't help but want to explore! It's like exploring a whole different world, well maybe not ENTIRELY different, but different enough to feel like it's a place I've never been too.
+
+I also go because Fel is always wanting to see the world\ldots{} and she's always going on and on and on about leaving the house, leaving Brazil. Honestly I'm happy to oblige! I'm not too keen to live here for the rest of my life either.
+
+Anyways, once we took the rowboat far enough, we anchored up to what we guessed must have been an old apartment complex? We could access the third and fourth floors, but the rest was flooded. But despite this, I was able to dive down to the floors below with my light to guide us. I always make sure to wear one on my chest so I'm never diving in the dark. I've also been practicing my diving for quite a while now, and the longest I can hold my breath while swimming is a full minute and sixteen seconds!
+
 Diving down to the floor below, it was filled with seaweed and other water plants, also I found all sorts of cool things, old photo portraits, toys, a Rig! It was inhabited by some tropical fish, Tetra I think is what they're called? Very small and they glowed brightly when my light hit them! It was very pretty! \textbf{(Tenho quase certeza de que vi uma caixa de tesouro também! Era pequeno e brilhante! Mas provavelmente é melhor que não o tenhamos feito. Estava preso atrás de muitos móveis antigos.)} Yeah, it wouldn't have been safe to try and dig that out.}
 
-\emph{When I surfaced I had my meal - (\textbf{Os sanduíches estavam MUITO deliciosos! Você Mami faz os melhores sanduíches.)} Yeah, they really are super good. Anyways, afterwards we swam down the outside of the building and we were able to get much deeper, even with the surrounding kelp clinging to its walls. Turns out the apartment was built on top of a barber! At least I assume it was a barber as I saw the red and blue striped pole on the outside of it. I couldn't open the door, and the windows were boarded up to get some breath. Next we explored the upper floors above the water. The building was very slanted, so climbing the old stairs wasn't easy, and most of the apartment rooms had their front doors locked still. But the rooms I did open were very empty, however one had an old campfire in it! \textbf{( Claro que não somos os aventureiros que exploram as ruínas do Brasil!)} I guess! Either that or someone else came here before and tried to live here. The walls were spray painted in beautiful and ugly murals, and one room was entirely coated in bird poop\ldots{} it wasn't pretty but I did see the various nests that were using the old space as a new home!\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{When I surfaced I had my meal - (\textbf{Os sanduíches estavam MUITO deliciosos! Você Mami faz os melhores sanduíches.)} Yeah, they really are super good. Anyways, afterwards we swam down the outside of the building and we were able to get much deeper, even with the surrounding kelp clinging to its walls. Turns out the apartment was built on top of a barber! At least I assume it was a barber as I saw the red and blue striped pole on the outside of it. I couldn't open the door, and the windows were boarded up to get some breath. Next we explored the upper floors above the water. The building was very slanted, so climbing the old stairs wasn't easy, and most of the apartment rooms had their front doors locked still. But the rooms I did open were very empty, however one had an old campfire in it! \textbf{( Claro que não somos os aventureiros que exploram as ruínas do Brasil!)} I guess! Either that or someone else came here before and tried to live here. The walls were spray painted in beautiful and ugly murals, and one room was entirely coated in bird poop\ldots{} it wasn't pretty but I did see the various nests that were using the old space as a new home!
+
 Once we were done exploring, we grabbed the rowboat and went back to shore. We just barely caught the bus we wanted, which was good since I was so tired. I got home and my family asked how my swim was, as I probably smelt like the sea.}
 
 \emph{Now Fel and I rest in bed\ldots{} it's funny, despite all that destruction caused by nature, seeing life still present and flourishing is nice. It gives our world color, and makes me happy.}
@@ -197,8 +197,8 @@ Once we were done exploring, we grabbed the rowboat and went back to shore. We j
 
 \emph{``Thank you, sweet Isa. You're the best Granddaughter an old man like me could ever ask for.'' He grins, then coughs softly, frowning at the sorry state his body was in. Isa reacts accordingly, leaning down to assist her great Grandfather, but he raises a hand- ``It's fine, some water is all I need.''}
 
-\emph{Isa frowns, but goes to pour her father a cup, turning away to head to the plastic jug not more than a couple meters from his bedside table.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Isa frowns, but goes to pour her father a cup, turning away to head to the plastic jug not more than a couple meters from his bedside table.
+
 She pours the cup, then pauses ``...Grand papi, is\ldots'' She sighs, then turns back to pass him the cup- ``Are you okay\ldots?'' A question that could be easily dismissed with a `yes', a white lie to maintain this status quo he wished to uphold and quell any worry. Yet, Henrique knew better, hearing the way Isa asked, feeling the way those words carried soft care, the compassion in her voice curating how she phrased it, and quite simply from the way her eyes penetrated his own. The ache in his heart would not cease until he expressed his thoughts, and he knew this status quo should not be maintained.}
 
 \emph{``...I\ldots{} am not. No. The System, it is truly gone, yes?'' He asks, expression grim. Isa pauses, having handed over the cup. Then shrugs and shakes her head. ``The word on the `net\ldots{} Well, it is unclear. There's been claims that they're trying to recover it, some saying success, others saying failure\ldots{} its\ldots''}
@@ -207,40 +207,40 @@ She pours the cup, then pauses ``...Grand papi, is\ldots'' She sighs, then turns
 
 \emph{``Why didn't you upload, Grand papi?'' Henrique is drawn from his stupor, glancing up at Isa with a pained, confused expression that evolved to one of frustration, and finally mournful regret.}
 
-\emph{``I\ldots{} I was too anchored to my duties here\ldots{} to many responsibilities, to many tasks that were expected of me\ldots'' he says, a weak truth, one that did not admit the full pains of his reasons. Reasons he did not care to admit because they scared him, filled him with anxiety, regret.\\
-\strut \\
-Why didn't he upload? There was nothing to stop him, he had the opportunity, he was given the privilege after his service. In fact, it was expected of him by his country and family, for was a broken man, and a man with the buried soul of a child. Once his service was done, he was seen as useless by the aristocracy, and his family name denoted him a traitor by the people.\\
-\strut \\
-So, why not simply allow himself to be discarded? Buried like that child who was taken away? Why, why did he put such effort into the farm, into making a family. Why did he feel the need to prove the worth of the Pereira name\ldots{}\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{``I\ldots{} I was too anchored to my duties here\ldots{} to many responsibilities, to many tasks that were expected of me\ldots'' he says, a weak truth, one that did not admit the full pains of his reasons. Reasons he did not care to admit because they scared him, filled him with anxiety, regret.
+
+Why didn't he upload? There was nothing to stop him, he had the opportunity, he was given the privilege after his service. In fact, it was expected of him by his country and family, for was a broken man, and a man with the buried soul of a child. Once his service was done, he was seen as useless by the aristocracy, and his family name denoted him a traitor by the people.
+
+So, why not simply allow himself to be discarded? Buried like that child who was taken away? Why, why did he put such effort into the farm, into making a family. Why did he feel the need to prove the worth of the Pereira name\ldots{}
+
 Was it to prove they weren't traitors to brazil? To prove his life had meaning? To live a life after years of strife? To try and forget the pain of no longer being at his brother's side? Or to avoid that pain, to bury it too, like the child, like the hundred dead from a worthless civil war\ldots{} The notion of seeing someone so different from how he would've remembered them. Of seeing a person who he loathed, despite all that love. To see someone who had the chance to be a child, who did not need to bury that precious, perfect part of life. Scared him, for the emotions they elicited.}
 
 \emph{He scowls, emotions eating away at him\ldots{} Isa frowned, leaning in.}
 
-\emph{Diago was his friend, as any sibling should, but one who'd be a constant reminder of the time HE lost, the time HE should've had as well. Diago lived the life he lost, and he HATED him for that.\\
-\strut \\
-Yet.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Diago was his friend, as any sibling should, but one who'd be a constant reminder of the time HE lost, the time HE should've had as well. Diago lived the life he lost, and he HATED him for that.
+
+Yet.
+
 Henrique could not let that hate burn. Those flames would rather stoke fires of passion and thankfulness, that his brother's youth could stay at Diago's side. Even if he had that all taken away from him, he should be happy his brother managed to avoid it all through those careful weeks of planning, ultimately resulting in him being snuck out the month before his mandatory conscription. Years before he would return home.}
 
 \emph{His fists balled up, and tears began to be shed. Why must he feel this pungent jealousy contradict his love, and why must this unfettered joy ruin the urge to swell with anger and selfish want. Not only this, but the half-void in his chest was lonely, forever imperfect because he never could say goodbye.}
 
 \emph{\hfill\break
 \hfill\break
-His life, all his life, was hell, hell on earth. From his earliest days under the sun, to his first days at the Briar Line, to his last days working the farm, and undoubtedly to his final day on this god forsaken planet his deleted ancestors long ago abandoned.\\
-\strut \\
+His life, all his life, was hell, hell on earth. From his earliest days under the sun, to his first days at the Briar Line, to his last days working the farm, and undoubtedly to his final day on this god forsaken planet his deleted ancestors long ago abandoned.
+
 Yet his brother, the person he cherished so dearly, avoided that. It wasn't fair, but did that matter? He sacrificed everything, and his brother lived his life. And now he sat here, in a hospital bed, seething and seeing those reasons come to light. Showing him he never once was truly happy, never once truly satisfied, and never once given the chance to live, never once allowing himself to-}
 
-\emph{Isa grabbed his hand, and gently kissed his forehead, shocking the elderly man out of his manic spiral. He sobs out a gasp, and looks to Isa with watery eyes and tear stricken cheeks. She smiled warmly with saddened eyes. She was no longer the innocent girl he saw in her today or days prior, now she was someone who somehow could peer into this old man's heart. Seeing his pain. Understanding his turmoil.\\
-\strut \\
-``Grand papi\ldots{} even if they do not return to the system, your ancestors look down on you with pride as they ascend to the heavens. Your brother\ldots{} he missed you, I know it. He is thankful and I know for certain he wondered every day when he would see you.''\\
-\strut \\
-She gulps, thinking of what to say as her own mouth grew parched from this shared, emotional moment. ``If\ldots{} the System returns. Let go of these anchors you claim to have. And those regrets that tie you up. You do not need to utter them to me, Grand papi, but you cannot let what life you have left wither by.''\\
-\strut \\
-``And if it doesn't return, sweet Isa?'' Henrique asks, voice raspy and scared.\\
-\strut \\
-``Then\ldots{} we will find those joys here. And move on, together. Wherever we can, however we can. And our ancestors will continue to look down on us, smiles on their faces, eager to see you live your life with happiness, and awaiting the day for you to join them once you have.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Isa grabbed his hand, and gently kissed his forehead, shocking the elderly man out of his manic spiral. He sobs out a gasp, and looks to Isa with watery eyes and tear stricken cheeks. She smiled warmly with saddened eyes. She was no longer the innocent girl he saw in her today or days prior, now she was someone who somehow could peer into this old man's heart. Seeing his pain. Understanding his turmoil.
+
+``Grand papi\ldots{} even if they do not return to the system, your ancestors look down on you with pride as they ascend to the heavens. Your brother\ldots{} he missed you, I know it. He is thankful and I know for certain he wondered every day when he would see you.''
+
+She gulps, thinking of what to say as her own mouth grew parched from this shared, emotional moment. ``If\ldots{} the System returns. Let go of these anchors you claim to have. And those regrets that tie you up. You do not need to utter them to me, Grand papi, but you cannot let what life you have left wither by.''
+
+``And if it doesn't return, sweet Isa?'' Henrique asks, voice raspy and scared.
+
+``Then\ldots{} we will find those joys here. And move on, together. Wherever we can, however we can. And our ancestors will continue to look down on us, smiles on their faces, eager to see you live your life with happiness, and awaiting the day for you to join them once you have.
+
 Henrique sighs with a shaky breath, and lays his head on Isa's arm. Isa, in turn, lays on the bed, supporting her Great Grand papis head. Giving him the comfort he required.}
 
 \hypertarget{march-1st-2401}{%
@@ -248,113 +248,113 @@ Henrique sighs with a shaky breath, and lays his head on Isa's arm. Isa, in turn
 \emph{\textbf{March 1st, 2401}} }{ March 1st, 2401 }}\label{march-1st-2401}}
 
 \emph{\textbf{\hfill\break
-}21st January 2305\\
-\strut \\
-Dear Journal- or, dearest Henrique, who I hope will return home safely to receive my journal as my parting gift. Its with a heavy, but hopeful heart that I might escape the enforcement of our seven years service to our country. I will not get a chance to meet you at the front, let alone meet you upon your return. \textbf{(Mal posso esperar para finalmente conhecer você, Henrique. Diago pode estar incerto, mas estou extasiado por finalmente conhecê-lo depois de todos esses anos em que você foi forçado a nos deixar.)}\\
-\strut \\
-While Fel may be excited, she is not wrong that I am hesitant. \textbf{{[}I am as well, but I have faith in our future.{]}}\\
-\strut \\
-I agree, Davi. By the time you'll have read this entry, you'd have learned that our auntie Corita and our Mami had been planning to secret me away so I would not be forced to participate in the conflict at the BrAr Line. I know it is not my place to say such, but I apologize that we did not tell you while you were still in service.\\
-\strut \\
-While I may be leaving, Auntie Corita told Iara and Ana that when they turn 18, she'll do the same for them, and we'll all meet each other in the System one day. Which is a day I greatly look forward to.\\
-\strut \\
-I miss you, brother. I miss the days we could have swam together, ate food together, and explored together. Yet this world we were born into chose to take that away from us. You were always so much braver than I was, and now here I am taking my first steps into a new world I can't ever come back from. \textbf{(Você é igualmente corajoso, Diago, e devemos estar entusiasmados! Esta é apenas mais uma aventura! E o Henrique vai se juntar a nós! Tenho certeza disso.)\\
-}\strut \\
-We eagerly look forward to the day we can see you, Henrique.\\
-\strut \\
+}21st January 2305
+
+Dear Journal- or, dearest Henrique, who I hope will return home safely to receive my journal as my parting gift. Its with a heavy, but hopeful heart that I might escape the enforcement of our seven years service to our country. I will not get a chance to meet you at the front, let alone meet you upon your return. \textbf{(Mal posso esperar para finalmente conhecer você, Henrique. Diago pode estar incerto, mas estou extasiado por finalmente conhecê-lo depois de todos esses anos em que você foi forçado a nos deixar.)}
+
+While Fel may be excited, she is not wrong that I am hesitant. \textbf{{[}I am as well, but I have faith in our future.{]}}
+
+I agree, Davi. By the time you'll have read this entry, you'd have learned that our auntie Corita and our Mami had been planning to secret me away so I would not be forced to participate in the conflict at the BrAr Line. I know it is not my place to say such, but I apologize that we did not tell you while you were still in service.
+
+While I may be leaving, Auntie Corita told Iara and Ana that when they turn 18, she'll do the same for them, and we'll all meet each other in the System one day. Which is a day I greatly look forward to.
+
+I miss you, brother. I miss the days we could have swam together, ate food together, and explored together. Yet this world we were born into chose to take that away from us. You were always so much braver than I was, and now here I am taking my first steps into a new world I can't ever come back from. \textbf{(Você é igualmente corajoso, Diago, e devemos estar entusiasmados! Esta é apenas mais uma aventura! E o Henrique vai se juntar a nós! Tenho certeza disso.)
+}
+We eagerly look forward to the day we can see you, Henrique.
+
 Your little siblings, Diago, Fel, and Davi.}
 
 \emph{As Henrique closes the leather book for the final time, he exhales, tucking the journal away into his satchel. The door opens and an Ansible technician arrives.}
 
 \emph{She greets him with a nod, asks his name, and takes him down the hall. She confirms he answered all the questions on his questionnaire, and reassured him that this decision was final. Henrique simply nodded, acknowledging the questions with polite answers, stepping in time with the gentle tap of his cane. Each step feeling lighter than the last, like years of weight fell off his back, as if piles of ash or fettered leaves flowed free into the compost, ready to fertilize new growth, new life, new hope.}
 
-\emph{The techs put him into the seat, the process seamless, precise, and he feels as if he was floating, a leaf gliding amongst the wind and beautiful breeze\ldots{} and he closes his eyes.\\
+\emph{The techs put him into the seat, the process seamless, precise, and he feels as if he was floating, a leaf gliding amongst the wind and beautiful breeze\ldots{} and he closes his eyes.
 \textbf{\hfill\break
-}The sensation of stretching in blackness, like a series of strings strung taught and sewn back, was as unnerving as the visual of a slate gray box surrounding him. But this unease passes as he immediately sighs, eyes closing once more as the feeling of chronic pain and aged weariness was, thankfully, entirely gone. He exhales, the soreness of his shoulders, exposed to decades of hard labor, could finally relax. That foul weight, finally lifted.\\
-\strut \\
-``Welcome to Lagrange, this room you find yourself in is called AetherBox\#9182. Currently, I am facing away from you so you may have some privacy. Please, let me know when I may turn, unless you do not require any clothes. Simply want your desired apparel into being, and it will be there.''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique's eyes open, wrinkled smile growing into a briefly confused frown as the individual who just spoke to him was some kind of furry. A species of creature he had not seen before, with a large black tail flanked by two defined white stripes. She wore a very old fashion tweed jacket, and a red plaid skirt that hung just below that.\\
-\strut \\
-``Ah- simply desire it, Senhora?...''\\
-\strut \\
-``Indeed, take your time. It is not as if we have a schedule to maintain.''\\
-\strut \\
-There was a hint of irritation in that reply, and Henrique flushed red for a moment, embarrassed at being inconsiderate of this individual's time. He thinks for a moment, of his slippers, aged worker jeans, then his blue t-shirt and well worn wool sweater overtop. He looks down in pleasant surprise to see those very clothes on him\ldots{} then he frowns, thinking\ldots{} remembering memories of his younger days, before he met his beloved Annette, a button up white shirt, loose at the collar, straight and flowy at the hem, long too. Perfect for those especially hot summer days, then reimagined his worker pants\ldots{} the day he first got them, how richly deep green they were, not how worn and damaged they were now, with discolored patches sewn on to cover up damaged holes. He recalled the well sewn fabric of thick, durable, comfortable material\ldots{} and to his amusement found those exact clothes on him, in the same condition he miraculously remembered them as. He stepped forward, comfy slippers, now refurbished but still broken in, muffling his footsteps.\\
-\strut \\
-``Senhora?... I am ready, you can turn around now.''\\
-\strut \\
-The black-and-white-striped furry turns on the spot, an exact motion, her rounded spectacles, housing slitted eyes that stared with a scrutinizing and dubious glare. She held a smile that felt tired, ungenuine, but not strictly forced\ldots{} a smile that was rehearsed and used to mask some deeper-seated emotions, simply present to appear approachable.\\
-\strut \\
-``Again, welcome to Lagrange Mr. Pereira. It is my job to inform you of the basic mechanics that are present within the System. Your clothing was the first part of this exercise, next, we will go over forking. Please follow my lead.''\\
-\strut \\
-While he had no idea what to expect upon uploading, he wasn't expecting such a hasty introduction\ldots{} or at least one that felt so precise and mechanical.\\
-\strut \\
-``Pardon, Senhora, but may I ask if you are real?... Also, to slow down. I understand your time is valuable but this is feeling all a little overwhelming to me. Perhaps you could offer me your name? And you may refer to me as Henrique, please.''\\
-\strut \\
+}The sensation of stretching in blackness, like a series of strings strung taught and sewn back, was as unnerving as the visual of a slate gray box surrounding him. But this unease passes as he immediately sighs, eyes closing once more as the feeling of chronic pain and aged weariness was, thankfully, entirely gone. He exhales, the soreness of his shoulders, exposed to decades of hard labor, could finally relax. That foul weight, finally lifted.
+
+``Welcome to Lagrange, this room you find yourself in is called AetherBox\#9182. Currently, I am facing away from you so you may have some privacy. Please, let me know when I may turn, unless you do not require any clothes. Simply want your desired apparel into being, and it will be there.''
+
+Henrique's eyes open, wrinkled smile growing into a briefly confused frown as the individual who just spoke to him was some kind of furry. A species of creature he had not seen before, with a large black tail flanked by two defined white stripes. She wore a very old fashion tweed jacket, and a red plaid skirt that hung just below that.
+
+``Ah- simply desire it, Senhora?...''
+
+``Indeed, take your time. It is not as if we have a schedule to maintain.''
+
+There was a hint of irritation in that reply, and Henrique flushed red for a moment, embarrassed at being inconsiderate of this individual's time. He thinks for a moment, of his slippers, aged worker jeans, then his blue t-shirt and well worn wool sweater overtop. He looks down in pleasant surprise to see those very clothes on him\ldots{} then he frowns, thinking\ldots{} remembering memories of his younger days, before he met his beloved Annette, a button up white shirt, loose at the collar, straight and flowy at the hem, long too. Perfect for those especially hot summer days, then reimagined his worker pants\ldots{} the day he first got them, how richly deep green they were, not how worn and damaged they were now, with discolored patches sewn on to cover up damaged holes. He recalled the well sewn fabric of thick, durable, comfortable material\ldots{} and to his amusement found those exact clothes on him, in the same condition he miraculously remembered them as. He stepped forward, comfy slippers, now refurbished but still broken in, muffling his footsteps.
+
+``Senhora?... I am ready, you can turn around now.''
+
+The black-and-white-striped furry turns on the spot, an exact motion, her rounded spectacles, housing slitted eyes that stared with a scrutinizing and dubious glare. She held a smile that felt tired, ungenuine, but not strictly forced\ldots{} a smile that was rehearsed and used to mask some deeper-seated emotions, simply present to appear approachable.
+
+``Again, welcome to Lagrange Mr. Pereira. It is my job to inform you of the basic mechanics that are present within the System. Your clothing was the first part of this exercise, next, we will go over forking. Please follow my lead.''
+
+While he had no idea what to expect upon uploading, he wasn't expecting such a hasty introduction\ldots{} or at least one that felt so precise and mechanical.
+
+``Pardon, Senhora, but may I ask if you are real?... Also, to slow down. I understand your time is valuable but this is feeling all a little overwhelming to me. Perhaps you could offer me your name? And you may refer to me as Henrique, please.''
+
 The furry's smile falters, before a hand raises up as she grasps her temples between two fingers. ``My apologies, Henrique.'' She bows apologetically, curt and quick however, to keep this implied schedule on track.}
 
-\emph{``It has been\ldots{} quite hectic recently, I assure you I am very much `real' and not some digital construct you'd otherwise be familiar with on the `net, if that was what you were implying. I suppose I have been feeling a little thin as a result of recent events. You may call me Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest of the Ode Clade. In All Ways for short.''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique grunts and smiles. ``Quite a name, In All Ways, but I do not judge. Now what is this about forking?''\\
-\strut \\
-She nods, then raises a hand to her side before an exact duplicate of her appears in an instant, mirroring her pose and demeanor. ``Forking, as we of the System have coined it, is the ability to replicate yourself. It is important to know that this fork is not just a construct, a program, or a template-''\\
-\strut \\
-The other In All Ways speaks- ``But a whole person. With their own desires, hopes, and dreams that are parallel or differ from your own. Those who dive into this practice wholeheartedly are known as dispersionistas, which make up the vast majority of the population here\ldots{} while others who are more free with individuation are known as trackers, while not always as liberal with their forking, they still form the other sizable chunk of the Systems population. Lastly we have those who simply fork to complete tasks or short term objectives, and prefer not to individuate. They are aptly known as Taskers, and fill up the last chunk of the System.\\
-\strut \\
-Despite her best efforts, the slip up was clear in her speech. That pause allowed for the pang of unmistakable pain, anger, frustration, sadness, and grief, to give way to a convoluted series of expressions shared between the two In All Ways, both suffering these emotions in divergent ways. Some trauma surging forth and causing the twin furries to ripple briefly.\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique frowns, a hand raised to place upon or embrace In All Ways, before pulling back- ``Ah\ldots{} pardon I should ask before offering comfort. I understand the pain too well, In All Ways.''\\
-\strut \\
-``Do you?!...'' Both reply with a snap. The leftmost one maintains a spiteful glare, before vanishing as the original recoils and looks to the floor shamefully. Henrique all the while, continues to stand there with his hand out. Gradually, he lowers it and reaches for one of In All Ways paws, getting her attention. He gives an understanding smile, unphased by the furry's tumultuous emotions barely held at bay.\\
-\strut \\
-``I\ldots{} can, yes. Perhaps not exactly as you do, In All Ways. But I can. I know the pain of losing someone. Someone close, someone you care for. And I give my sincerest condolences to those who you have lost. You are with common company, and you do not need to apologize, Senhora''\\
-\strut \\
-\strut \\
-``I am\ldots{} I\ldots{} Mm\ldots{} Thank you.'' In All Ways mumbles, ceasing her seeking of that instinctual apology, the urge to explain, and glances up, tears just beginning to stain her cheeks, before she forks them away. She remains silent and nods, exhales, then breaths in, composing herself, and returns her gaze to the elderly man. His face, a gentle network of lines forming an understanding, compassionate smile.\\
-\strut \\
-``I would ask that you fork, Henrique. So that you are familiar with the process. Remember, do so with intent. Simply think it, and it will be.''\\
-\strut \\
-``Think it, and it will be. Hm.'' Henrique mutters, his eyes, then head turning. Thoughts of clades, of trees, of the farm, of the family, of Diago, flash by and before him stood\ldots{} him. But not as he is, rather, as he was. Him as he was a little under a century ago. Maybe 17 years of age, wearing the same shirt, now smaller. Similar pants, now cut short at the knee. And those slippers, now sized to fit. His hair that thick, unkempt brown and tied back. Eyes green and innocent. Heavily pigmented skin from days in the sun, with a slight tone in his muscles as well. Contrasting firmly to his current wrinkles, leather like skin, and hundreds of sun spots.\\
-\strut \\
-In All Ways stared at the pair, her eyes, tired still, no longer viewed either with suspicion or trepidation but with\ldots{} hope. A hint of a smile creeping along her exhausted face, her shoulders untensed and fists unclenched.\\
-\strut \\
-``Good. It's important you understand how to fork, as it is a vital part of the System's mechanics. May we continue?''\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{``It has been\ldots{} quite hectic recently, I assure you I am very much `real' and not some digital construct you'd otherwise be familiar with on the `net, if that was what you were implying. I suppose I have been feeling a little thin as a result of recent events. You may call me Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest of the Ode Clade. In All Ways for short.''
+
+Henrique grunts and smiles. ``Quite a name, In All Ways, but I do not judge. Now what is this about forking?''
+
+She nods, then raises a hand to her side before an exact duplicate of her appears in an instant, mirroring her pose and demeanor. ``Forking, as we of the System have coined it, is the ability to replicate yourself. It is important to know that this fork is not just a construct, a program, or a template-''
+
+The other In All Ways speaks- ``But a whole person. With their own desires, hopes, and dreams that are parallel or differ from your own. Those who dive into this practice wholeheartedly are known as dispersionistas, which make up the vast majority of the population here\ldots{} while others who are more free with individuation are known as trackers, while not always as liberal with their forking, they still form the other sizable chunk of the Systems population. Lastly we have those who simply fork to complete tasks or short term objectives, and prefer not to individuate. They are aptly known as Taskers, and fill up the last chunk of the System.
+
+Despite her best efforts, the slip up was clear in her speech. That pause allowed for the pang of unmistakable pain, anger, frustration, sadness, and grief, to give way to a convoluted series of expressions shared between the two In All Ways, both suffering these emotions in divergent ways. Some trauma surging forth and causing the twin furries to ripple briefly.
+
+Henrique frowns, a hand raised to place upon or embrace In All Ways, before pulling back- ``Ah\ldots{} pardon I should ask before offering comfort. I understand the pain too well, In All Ways.''
+
+``Do you?!...'' Both reply with a snap. The leftmost one maintains a spiteful glare, before vanishing as the original recoils and looks to the floor shamefully. Henrique all the while, continues to stand there with his hand out. Gradually, he lowers it and reaches for one of In All Ways paws, getting her attention. He gives an understanding smile, unphased by the furry's tumultuous emotions barely held at bay.
+
+``I\ldots{} can, yes. Perhaps not exactly as you do, In All Ways. But I can. I know the pain of losing someone. Someone close, someone you care for. And I give my sincerest condolences to those who you have lost. You are with common company, and you do not need to apologize, Senhora''
+
+
+``I am\ldots{} I\ldots{} Mm\ldots{} Thank you.'' In All Ways mumbles, ceasing her seeking of that instinctual apology, the urge to explain, and glances up, tears just beginning to stain her cheeks, before she forks them away. She remains silent and nods, exhales, then breaths in, composing herself, and returns her gaze to the elderly man. His face, a gentle network of lines forming an understanding, compassionate smile.
+
+``I would ask that you fork, Henrique. So that you are familiar with the process. Remember, do so with intent. Simply think it, and it will be.''
+
+``Think it, and it will be. Hm.'' Henrique mutters, his eyes, then head turning. Thoughts of clades, of trees, of the farm, of the family, of Diago, flash by and before him stood\ldots{} him. But not as he is, rather, as he was. Him as he was a little under a century ago. Maybe 17 years of age, wearing the same shirt, now smaller. Similar pants, now cut short at the knee. And those slippers, now sized to fit. His hair that thick, unkempt brown and tied back. Eyes green and innocent. Heavily pigmented skin from days in the sun, with a slight tone in his muscles as well. Contrasting firmly to his current wrinkles, leather like skin, and hundreds of sun spots.
+
+In All Ways stared at the pair, her eyes, tired still, no longer viewed either with suspicion or trepidation but with\ldots{} hope. A hint of a smile creeping along her exhausted face, her shoulders untensed and fists unclenched.
+
+``Good. It's important you understand how to fork, as it is a vital part of the System's mechanics. May we continue?''
+
 Both Henriques look at one another, smiling in their own ways. The elders face wet with joy, years of regret resolved. The youths face beaming, and tearful as well. Excited for a future they never had.}
 
-\emph{The moment is peaceful, interrupted only by an embrace of the two Henriques, enhanced from this tranquility and relief. Then, there was one. As the elder Henrique accepted the merger and quit.\\
-\strut \\
-As In All Ways watches thi happen, she walks up to the youth, standing at attention but with expressive hesitation in her face. ``Actually, before we move onto the last step. I have a question I must ask. It is entirely optional, and purely to sate my own curiosity, so you need not answer if it does not suit you too.''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique looks to In All Ways, nearly at the same height now, and nods. Juvenile voice adjusting to what the world weary mind could recall. ``Of course, ask away In All Ways.''\\
-\strut \\
-She sighs, smile diminishing slightly. ``Why did you choose to upload, now? Of all times. You\ldots{} went through a tumultuous time, from what I read of your reports. And most of your immediate family uploaded centuries before you did. Why not then? And now\ldots{} after the events that have transpired. Are you not afraid of what will happen next? Of the future?''\\
-\strut \\
-The beaming, childish expression of Henrique dims to one of contemplation, though that smile does not vanish in its entirety. ``I was overcome with grief, frustration, and jealousy, when I returned from the front. And allowed those emotions to drive me into a life I did not want, convincing me that it was my responsibility. After all, seven years commanding men and women on burnt earth leaves one with that lingering urge to take the reins, not out of a want, but out of what is expected of them to keep them safe.''\\
-\strut \\
-He sighs, slippered foot kicking at nothing in particular on the slate gray floor. ``That expectation, those vile emotions, blinded me from what I really wanted. Masked the realization of why I was doing this to myself. I missed my brother, and I never got to say goodbye. Never got to see them one last time, never got to meet their headmates, more siblings for me to cherish. And for\ldots{} what, a little over a hundred years? I couldn't come to terms with this. Not until I thought he was gone for good. Not until I had realized I truly lost my chance at a better life. And now? I'm happy, truely, absolutely happy. I can live how I wish, experience the things I never got too, and most importantly meet my brother and siblings. I was old, anyways, so if it were to all end now I can at least pass on with this seed of joy and hope within me.''\\
-\strut \\
-In All Ways smile returns in full, her hand resting on Henriques shoulder. ``Thank you for indulging me, Henrique. And I can assure you, we will see that seed blossom into something beautiful. Now, onto the final aspects of this training. My next step is to teach you how to navigate the System. Similar to forking, you must think with intent, in this case, of the location by its signifier. This is sometimes referred to as stepping into a sim.''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique nods, stepping back, before cocking his head. ``But, In All Ways. I have just gotten here, where exactly do you expect me to go?... wait.'' His smile broadens and reveals his pearly teeth. ``M-may I step into the sim of my brother? Is that possible?''\\
-\strut \\
-In All Ways nods, ``I just sent a sensorium ping to... a downtree of the `Macaw' clade, they refer to themselves as Diago Hyacinth, so you are aware. They'll be awaiting your arrival. I'm sending you the name and tag of the Sim now.\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique shivers, feeling the sudden arrival of information that wasn't there mere moments ago. Excitement brimming.\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{The moment is peaceful, interrupted only by an embrace of the two Henriques, enhanced from this tranquility and relief. Then, there was one. As the elder Henrique accepted the merger and quit.
+
+As In All Ways watches thi happen, she walks up to the youth, standing at attention but with expressive hesitation in her face. ``Actually, before we move onto the last step. I have a question I must ask. It is entirely optional, and purely to sate my own curiosity, so you need not answer if it does not suit you too.''
+
+Henrique looks to In All Ways, nearly at the same height now, and nods. Juvenile voice adjusting to what the world weary mind could recall. ``Of course, ask away In All Ways.''
+
+She sighs, smile diminishing slightly. ``Why did you choose to upload, now? Of all times. You\ldots{} went through a tumultuous time, from what I read of your reports. And most of your immediate family uploaded centuries before you did. Why not then? And now\ldots{} after the events that have transpired. Are you not afraid of what will happen next? Of the future?''
+
+The beaming, childish expression of Henrique dims to one of contemplation, though that smile does not vanish in its entirety. ``I was overcome with grief, frustration, and jealousy, when I returned from the front. And allowed those emotions to drive me into a life I did not want, convincing me that it was my responsibility. After all, seven years commanding men and women on burnt earth leaves one with that lingering urge to take the reins, not out of a want, but out of what is expected of them to keep them safe.''
+
+He sighs, slippered foot kicking at nothing in particular on the slate gray floor. ``That expectation, those vile emotions, blinded me from what I really wanted. Masked the realization of why I was doing this to myself. I missed my brother, and I never got to say goodbye. Never got to see them one last time, never got to meet their headmates, more siblings for me to cherish. And for\ldots{} what, a little over a hundred years? I couldn't come to terms with this. Not until I thought he was gone for good. Not until I had realized I truly lost my chance at a better life. And now? I'm happy, truely, absolutely happy. I can live how I wish, experience the things I never got too, and most importantly meet my brother and siblings. I was old, anyways, so if it were to all end now I can at least pass on with this seed of joy and hope within me.''
+
+In All Ways smile returns in full, her hand resting on Henriques shoulder. ``Thank you for indulging me, Henrique. And I can assure you, we will see that seed blossom into something beautiful. Now, onto the final aspects of this training. My next step is to teach you how to navigate the System. Similar to forking, you must think with intent, in this case, of the location by its signifier. This is sometimes referred to as stepping into a sim.''
+
+Henrique nods, stepping back, before cocking his head. ``But, In All Ways. I have just gotten here, where exactly do you expect me to go?... wait.'' His smile broadens and reveals his pearly teeth. ``M-may I step into the sim of my brother? Is that possible?''
+
+In All Ways nods, ``I just sent a sensorium ping to... a downtree of the `Macaw' clade, they refer to themselves as Diago Hyacinth, so you are aware. They'll be awaiting your arrival. I'm sending you the name and tag of the Sim now.
+
+Henrique shivers, feeling the sudden arrival of information that wasn't there mere moments ago. Excitement brimming.
+
 ``And one last thing, Henrique. What is your clade name? If you do not have something in mind for me to register now, I will simply reach out to you later.'' She steps back, signifying the finality of this meeting.}
 
-\emph{Henrique answers almost immediately- ``Pereira Clade, please. Goodbye Senhora In All Ways. Thank you.'' and steps from the sim. He's met by a familiar sight, the backyard of his family home where he grew up, however instead of flat field with upturned dirt and rusting soccer goals, with a single floor shack of a house behind him, there was a plethora of budding flowers, green shrubbery, trees, and the serene sounds of chirping birds and gentle winds filling the air.\\
-\strut \\
-``Olá, irmão mais velho!''\\
-\strut \\
-``Olá!''\\
-\strut \\
-``Is- Is it really you?''\\
-\strut \\
-Henrique turns as he hears those three similar, familiar voices calling out to him. Now, as he looks upon the source of those voices, he stares up to see a towering, adult, anthropomorphized chimeric individual who wore the heads of a panther, a bull, and a python, on his widened torso, all staring at him with utmost glee. The trio step forward, those familiar green eyes impossible to confuse for anyone else's.''\\
-\strut \\
-``Sim, querido Diago. It is me, Henrique, your big brother. Its really, truely, me.''\\
-\strut \\
+\emph{Henrique answers almost immediately- ``Pereira Clade, please. Goodbye Senhora In All Ways. Thank you.'' and steps from the sim. He's met by a familiar sight, the backyard of his family home where he grew up, however instead of flat field with upturned dirt and rusting soccer goals, with a single floor shack of a house behind him, there was a plethora of budding flowers, green shrubbery, trees, and the serene sounds of chirping birds and gentle winds filling the air.
+
+``Olá, irmão mais velho!''
+
+``Olá!''
+
+``Is- Is it really you?''
+
+Henrique turns as he hears those three similar, familiar voices calling out to him. Now, as he looks upon the source of those voices, he stares up to see a towering, adult, anthropomorphized chimeric individual who wore the heads of a panther, a bull, and a python, on his widened torso, all staring at him with utmost glee. The trio step forward, those familiar green eyes impossible to confuse for anyone else's.''
+
+``Sim, querido Diago. It is me, Henrique, your big brother. Its really, truely, me.''
+
 The two surrender to their withheld urges, and rush to meet one another in tearful, joyful, brotherly fashion. An embrace sought after for generations, centuries, years that tried to dry and wither a snuffed and suffocating desire, a desire now rekindled and set ablaze into a blossoming, hopeful, beautiful sight to behold amongst this blooming garden. A single blue feather drifts down, as a macaw flies free with its flock in tow.}