The Party stumbled at the touch of apocalypse.

One of the System's hurricanes of experience, one of those storms of people and food and music and sex and strange drugs and yet stranger shared sensations passed around and so much more, skipped a beat at the turn of the century.

People noticed different things: some of those around them disappearing, that New Year's Eve 275 had suddenly become 277, a cocladist they couldn't reach, a friend checking if they were alive. All these glitches and oddities rippled out through The Party in an explosion of confusion. Many Party-goers hopped out to see to the world, some for the first time in years or even decades.

Some were jarred out of the rhythm of their life. Scout At The Party Ⅴ, who, like the previous Scouts At The Party, was simply a dog, forked to take up its down-tree's bipedal form and mantle of systech. He could tell that he needed to do more than enjoy pets and snacks right now. That was not a comfortable thought for a Party animal, but Scout still felt it had some residual duty to its world.

The Party kept going despite all this. This particular The Party had put itself in a desert to ring in the new century under the stars. Now, many people were summoning tents, wanting to stay here where information might come \ldots{} and to dance through the uncertainty.

If the world was ending, as many feared, what else was there to do than party through it?

The Party was, for a time, subdued. It was like a festival where a major act was late. Everyone who stayed did their best to have fun, to enjoy what entertainment they had (and they had plenty still—if nothing else, all manner of ``it's the 25th century!'' plans could still go on), while glancing around and wondering what had gone wrong. What news? What happens next? Where's the big event?

It took several days for that news to arrive. The Party had picked up steam again by then, and sentiment was building for the idea that these glitches or whatever were future us's problem and we should go find a new place, though no one was sure where. All those motions melted away suddenly in a rush of ``Check System General News'' and ``Holy shit.'' and ``No, that \ldots{} really? The fuck?'' and ``Dreamer's \emph{ears}, no!''.

It wasn't a rumor anymore. There'd been an attack. Deliberate crashing of the System. About 1\% lost.

The apocalypse had properly arrived.

The Party didn't stop.

An idea radiated, person to person, mind to mind. A small twist on something they'd missed out on—no, been robbed of—some days ago, or perhaps a year ago, and an outlet for the need for the new, the different, that had built up within The Party during the days of hesitation.

So, the tents disappeared, stages vanished, and the desert was loosely cleaned up. Then, in a rough mob, leaving a few stragglers behind as always, The Party hopped into an AVEC stage.

The stage expanded as they came. Less a stage now, more a square, a stadium, the essence of a gathered crowd. Video pickup pointed at many of the attendees individually and, as if from a news helicopter, at the whole lot of them. The stage kept growing as word got out to regulars who'd tapped out to work or mourn or seek answers, but who wouldn't want to miss this.

Then, the calls began. To who? To everyone anyone could think of, to family, to old friends, to reporters. Who didn't matter, exactly, just that people phys-side were present. Were invited to this.

Soon, the flood of new connections and incoming instances reduced to a trickle. The grand conference call was properly wrangled by then, and had been massaged to ensure that the intent of the callers came through without overwhelming the System's link to Earth with everyone getting millions of individual perspectives on the action.

A near-silence fell over The Party briefly, subsuming the earlier wisps of catching up or ``You're alive!'' or introducing friends that had been scattered throughout the crowd. Then, with their only cue being that someone else was going for it, The Party sang. They sang with human voices, both those that reflected what their owners had uploaded with and those that had been tuned and tweaked relentlessly. They sang through muzzles that warped each syllable. They sang with intentionally poor speech synthesizers. \emph{They sang in italics, somehow, those few who had discovered the trick to it, even if it wasn't noticeable here.} They weren't in tune and were barely in time, but it didn't matter.

This was a roar, a protest, a reclamation.

\begin{quote}
  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,\\
  and never brought to mind? \ldots{}
\end{quote}

The Party would have its midnight, and to hell with anyone who stood in their way.

Many from phys-side joined in once the idea had filtered through surprise and light-lag. And so, at the end, The Party stood as ``For auld lang syne'' echoed back from the Earth below.

Glasses appeared in hands, paws, mechanical pincers, anything that could hold them and many things that couldn't, while the room waited to see what was next. Attention drifted to the centaur woman who'd floated this plan first and so had the dubious honor of being in charge for a moment.

``I'm not giving a whole speech,'' she declared, her words echoed by retransmission and by expectation. ``You've seen the news or you haven't. I've got only one thing to say:

``The Party. Doesn't. Fucking. Stop!'' She stomped a hoof for beat and emphasis.

Cheers. Toasts to the future, the past, absent friends, present friends, anything, everything. And then, there before the eyes of anyone who hung around to watch, The Party picked itself right back up.

The Party never stops. Not even for the end of the world.
