Edits, finished majority of Idumea

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?''