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.

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.

Meanwhile, I spent some time catching up on reading. I'd fallen into the hobby of literary analysis and critique some decades back, and it had become a habit of mine to post on the feeds. Over the years, I had picked up my own audience.

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.

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 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.

``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.''

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.

While Hanne headed out for drinks, I stepped once more into Marsh's study.

The scene was much as I had left it previously, expanded and cleaned with desks, each inhabited by one or more instances of Dry Grass, Sedge, Rush, Pierre, or Vos. A new doorway on the far wall opened up onto a yet larger space with hundreds more instances at work, many of whom I didn't recognize. There were several other Odists, both skunks and otherwise, several mustelids of some sort dressed in all black, a few sandy-haired men in suits, and a few more tall black men in long, white thawbs that brushed the floor as they walked. For some reason, my down-tree instance's house had been linked up with some sort of headquarters for this particular purpose, likely due to the role that Sedge had played.

``Ah, Reed!'' an instance of her said brightly as I entered. ``Welcome to the madhouse. We're having fun!''

``\,`Fun'?''

She smiled all the wider, an expression lacking earnestness. ``Isn't this fun for you? Billions dead and us having to make up answers on the fly?''

I shook my head.

Her shoulders sagged and her expression flattened to one of sheer exhaustion. ``Alright, yeah, I can't keep the act up. How're you?''

``Alright, I guess. Not like there's much going on back at home, and Hanne went out to a bar to get plastered or something.''

``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?''

``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?''

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.''

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.''

``Fair enough, yeah. What brings you around?''

``I wanted to help¸ I guess.''

She nodded, pointing back over her shoulder with a thumb. ``Well, the politicians have taken over much of what's going on. I hear they even roped in some of the old ones who retired. I'm starting to feel like I'll get pushed out of the endeavor before long.'' She smiled wryly. ``Or at least nudged into a data-entry role.''

``Think you'll stick around for that?''

``I don't know if I'll have much of a choice.

I furrowed my brow.

``Not like I'm being forced,'' she said, smiling faintly. ``I'm just not going to let myself stop until I have a better idea of what's going on.''

``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.}''

I laughed. ``Sorry, Sedge.''

``No, no. It's good. I'll keep an eye on it.'' She pushed at the arms of the chair to sit up straighter. ``Say, want in on this phys-side meeting? Dry Grass is pulling strings to get me in, and I think it'd be fine if you came, too.''

``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.''

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.

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.''

``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?''

``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.

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.

After a minute or two of the last of the attendees figuring out their seats, a dour gentleman dressed in a station-issue jumpsuit stood and bowed towards the front of the auditorium, the AVEC projectors ensuring that it looked as though he was bowing towards the last standing person in the room, an instance of Need An Answer.

``The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer of the Ode clade, she/her,'' he said in a flat monotone. ``Thank you for setting up this meeting.''

The Odist returned the bow and replied in kind, ``Jakub Strzepek, he/him, thank you for agreeing to set up this meeting. We have specifically asked for the attendance of phys-side systech III Günay Sadık, she/her. Is she present?''

Jakub's expression grew even more sour, but he bowed once more and gestured toward the front row. A young-ish woman with short-cropped black hair stood, hesitated, and bowed. After an awkward moment and a gesture from Jakub, she stepped up to the front of the auditorium as well, holding a tablet to her chest.

``Need An Answer, yeah?'' she said, bowing once more. ``Pleasure to see you. Dry Grass told me a lot about you.''

``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.

``Yes, you,'' Need An Answer said, voice calm. ``You will be our primary point of contact among the phys-side systechs.''

``But my boss--''

``We do not want to speak with your boss on these matters,'' she said, voice maintaining that eerie calm. ``We wish to speak with you. Jakub Strzepek and the other members of the admin team have agreed after some\ldots discussion. Thank you for joining us. We have a few questions that we would like to ask you directly. Your colleagues are there to provide guidance, and the representatives of the admin team are there to sate their curiosity.''

``Uh,'' Günay said, voice hoarse. ``Well, okay. I wasn't exactly expecting that, but sure, I'll do what I can.''

``Lovely. It is my role to organize, not to ask questions. Picking up responsibility sys-side will be I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade, she/her, Jonas Fa of the Jonas clade, he/him, Debarre of his own clade, he/him, and Selena of her own clade, she/her.''

The four sys-side representatives stood up and bowed. Debarre, I noted, was quite curt in his bow. While my read on weasel expressions was less than perfect, he seemed to be giving Jakub a run for his money on the dourness levels.

``I will ask the first question,'' Dry Grass said, remaining standing while the others took their seats. ``Based on an internal survey, we are estimating losses of about one percent. Do you have visibility on the number of lost or corrupted instances on your end?''

Günay opened her mouth, hesitated, and looked towards Jakub.

``Günay,'' Need An Answer said. ``I will remind you that we are asking you, not your superiors. You may answer honestly without fear of reprisal. We are running this show, now.''

There was a rustle of noise from the AVEC stage. Low murmurs and shuffling in seats, quickly quelled.

``This is intended to be a collaborative effort, Need--'' Jakub began.

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.''

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.''

A low mutter filled the room, this time from those sys-side.

``And do you have a better sense of what caused this massive loss of life? What led to the one year, one month, and ten days of downtime?''

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.''

Jakub, apparently unable to restrain himself any further, stepped back to the center of the stage and bowed curtly. ``Dry Grass, if I may.''

The Odist nodded, a touch of haughtiness in her movements.

``We have been ensuring a certain amount of\ldots information security and hygiene, at least until we were sure that Lagrange was back up and running at full capacity. It--''

``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.}''

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.''

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.''

Dry Grass smiled again, more warmly this time. ``Of course, my dear. Perhaps instead you can tell us what happened to the unrecoverable instances.''

At this she brightened. ``Oh! Yeah, for those, we just had the System remove the core dumps from the sims where they'd been dropped and instead placed them in one single sim where they wouldn't be seen.''

``You hid them from us, you're saying,'' Selena said.

``I\ldots well, sure, we didn't want them just laying around wherever.''

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.''

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.''

``Alright,'' she said, still looking meek. ``So what more can I tell you?''

``There was no damage to the physical components of the System, correct?''

Günay nodded. ``Right. No damage physically, nor even any damage to the firmware or corrupted software. The damage seems to be relegated to just the data. Just the\ldots uh, well, you.''

``Just the us, yes,'' Dry Grass said, grinning. ``We have noticed the damage seems to have only affected instances. Sims and objects remain.''

She nodded.

``This includes objects owned by missing instances. You have confirmed that, given the core dumps, this is due to the instances crashing rather than quitting or being coerced to quit, as that would lead to those objects disappearing and the sims being marked as abandoned.''

``Right, yeah. It was a mass crashing incident.''

``But not a crash of the System itself?'' Jonas asked.

``No, it doesn't seem to have been a full on crash, just the instances.''

Debarre sneered. ``23 billion instances just crashed? Just like that?''

``Uh, well, no,'' Günay said. ``All of you crashed.''

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.''

Günay nodded. ``2.301 trillion instances crashed. 100\% of the System was affected.''

There was no silence at this. The room burst into scattered conversations. Dry Grass nodded to Need An Answer, who waved a hand toward the AVEC stage, which was suddenly overlaid with a muted microphone symbol.

``We all crashed?'' Sedge asked an instance of Dry Grass who remained at the table. ``All of us?''

Dry Grass frowned down at the table in silent thought. ``We only have their word to go on, but yes, I suppose so,'' she said after a moment.

``But nothing happened,'' I said. ``It was just\ldots midnight and then Marsh wasn't there.''

``Yes. I was home with Cress and Tule, and then I was called over to your place. I do not remember anything resembling a crash.''

``\emph{Would} we have remembered it?'' Sedge asked.

``That is what I have been thinking about,'' she said. ``I was trying to remember if it was possible to wipe memories.''

``And?''

``There was some experimenting on that front from a therapeutic standpoint, but they were never able to remove a singular memory, only to wipe back from the present moment to a certain point in the past.''

I prodded at the slab of table, unmoored from the floor as it was. It was immobile. ``Are you thinking they did that for everyone?''

``Everyone who survived, perhaps,'' Dry Grass said, shrugging. She looked tired, as though the exhaustion were catching up with her. ``Did you notice anything leading up to midnight?''

I thought for a moment, just pressing gently against the table. \emph{I just wish it had some give,} I thought. \emph{If it's going to be floating in air, it should have some give.}

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.

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.''

Sure enough, the mute symbol had begun to pulse, and a few seconds later, it disappeared and the small noises of rustling began to come through from phys-side once more.

``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.

``I suppose that answers that,'' Jonas Fa said, laughing from up at the front of the room. ``They're really terrible at this.''

Need An Answer swiped up a keyboard and started typing rapidly. A few seconds later, a message appeared superimposed on the AVEC projection, reading: ``Please unmute. Remember that we are communicating with Günay Sadık.''

Another minute passed, and then the mute was lifted once more.

``Apologies, Need An Answer,'' Jakub said, sounding as though he spoke through gritted teeth. ``I will let you question Günay as you've suggested.''

``This is not an interrogation,'' she replied calmly. ``Though perhaps I ought to say that it need not be.''

The administrator bowed once more, more stiffly this time, and backed toward the rest of the techs sitting in the background.

``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.''

``Why fifteen minutes?''

``A guess, mostly. We tried trimming it closer and there were some effects of the\ldots of the crash that stuck around in everyone's memories.'' She hesitated, adding, ``It didn't seem pleasant. Everyone affected was in agony, and they all quit within seconds, minutes at most.''

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, 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.''

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.''

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.''

Angry muttering from around the room.

``If it was a deliberate action, especially if phys-side played any role in it at all, then we're talking about a breach of the Articles of Secession,'' he continued, more to the sys-side room than to the AVEC stage. ``We'd need set up a working group to get in touch with phys-side leadership as soon as we have more information. Thanks, Günay, you're off the hook for this one. Mr.~Strzepek, no need to send details, but please send me a side-channel message as to whether or not I should be setting up that WG. No--'' He held up a hand as Jakub started to rise. ``--I don't need any details beyond a yes or no. Do it from your HUD right now.''

Jakub looked as though he was about to explode, so thoroughly had he lost track of his planned meeting. ``Now, hold on--''

``Jakub, shut up,'' Jonas Fa said, sounding chummy, almost fond of the man. ``You're so fucking far out of your element I'm surprised they haven't filed a missing persons report. You're talking to an emergency council of a nation 2.28 trillion strong, a nation that you have already been reminded just lost 23 \emph{billion} citizens. Three of the original Council of Eight are here, meaning you've got people more than three centuries old standing in front of you. People who \emph{signed} the Articles of Secession. Hell, Yared here \emph{wrote} them. Fuck you, fuck your meeting, send the message.''

The rooms on both sides of the AVEC connection were silent. For all I'd read about Jonas as some massively manipulative political player on the System, out-manipulating even the famously manipulative Odists, seeing him bear down on an individual, sitting just shy of actively upset, was enough to leave me holding my breath. This man, this mover-and-shaker of politics both sys-side and, prior to uploading in the early days of the System, phys-side, was a figure out of myth, a character from the grand stories told in histories and novels. That I had even been allowed to sit in the same room as him suddenly felt wrong. Sure, Cress and Tule had their relationship with Dry Grass, and Marsh had known a few of the Odists through their singing and Vos working with some of the theatricians among them, but certainly none of the political ones.

Jakub wilted under the weight of the realization of the magnitude of the situation. He appeared to see, all at once, just how out of his depth he was.

After a pause, Need An Answer spoke up once more. ``The final item that we would like to speak about before we end this meeting in order to discuss our next steps is the ongoing communications embargo.''

Günay blinked. ``That's not my area of expertise at all.''

``But do you at least know the current status?'' Debarre asked.

``Well, sure,'' she said slowly, as though hedging her words. ``Communications to Earth are limited and censored at the moment, and communications between Lagrange and the two LVs are being slowly ungated. I don't know if those are being censored or not.''

``Why weren't they just ungated immediately?''

``I don't know the political reasons, but there was also a worry about DSN capacity\ldots{}''

``Is there an actual concern about the DSN?'' Selena asked.

``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?''

She shrugged. ``Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case.''

Dry Grass laughed, not unkindly. ``Yes, fair enough.''

``Are you able to ungate communications to a limited subset of clades?'' Jonas asked.

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.''

I frowned, shooting a glance over at Sedge who only shrugged.

\emph{``What would that buy 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.''}

I snorted, nodded, turned my attention back to the front of the room.

``--will have a separate meeting regarding the ungating of transmissions,'' Need An Answer was saying. ``That falls under the realm of politics, yes? It is hardly something you need worry yourself about, Günay.''

``Thank God,'' she said, laughing nervously.

``Have you received the appropriate message from Mr.~Strzepek, Jonas?''

``Yep, got it.''

``Thank you,'' Need An Answer said, bowing. ``Thank you for all of your hard work, everyone phys-side. Despite the terse tone of some of our questions, please do know that we are grateful for all that you have done in your efforts to bring us back online. Trillions of lives may continue, even if not unchanged.''

Everyone on both sides of the AVEC link stood and bowed. Some, I noted, more curtly than others. Jakub and Debarre both seemed ready to start hollering at a moment's notice.

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.''

``Weren't you exhausted before the meeting even started?'' Sedge asked.

``Well, yes,'' she said, voice muffled as her head drooped toward her chest. ``But now I am tired on a much more existential level. I am tired in a way that feels like social burnout, like I have been around too many people for too long.''

``Which I suppose you have,'' Sedge added, stretching her back before rubbing her hands over her face.

We stayed in silence for a few minutes. It was hard to dispute Dry Grass's words, too. Even for me, who had only been here for a bit over an hour, everything that had happened in that time, the sheer amount of information, had me feeling full to bursting. Still, I couldn't seem to think of anything else.

``What was with all the cageyness?'' I asked. ``That Jakub guy, sure, but it seemed like a more\ldots I don't know, systemic thing.''

``Oh, it very much is,'' Dry Grass said. ``Jakub is a putz, but an innocent one. He is doing what he was hired to do, and he was hired by the System Consortium, which works with the world governments. There are several layers above him, and all of them are trained to act cagey.''

``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.''

Sedge's expression soured. ``We can't just ask?''

``Of course not. There is a protocol to follow.'' Dry Grass laughed. ``And that includes all of the little jabs Need An Answer and Jonas shot at phys-side. It was less that we were making a demand for that information as it was letting them know that we knew that they knew more than they were letting on and that we were not happy with it.''

``Why promote Günay, then? She looked really uncomfortable getting stuck in the middle of that.''

She shrugged. ``I am guessing, here, but I think that that was intended to say to phys-side,''What is most important to us right now is the `what', rather than the `why', except inasmuch as the `why' might help illuminate the `what'.'' It is a way of saying, ``We will have talks on whether you fucked up or we were attacked soon, but not until we know the full status of the System.''''

I shook my head. ``None of this makes any sense, but neither did all of the politics stuff in the \emph{History}, so I guess that's par for the course. You certainly seem to know plenty, even if it's not your area of expertise.''

``Unfortunately,'' she grumbled. ``Regrettably. Unwittingly.''

``At least you can translate for us poor peons,'' Sedge said, grinning.

Dry Grass smirked. ``Yes, yes. But come, let us get back to Marsh's. This place has its uses, but I need cozy more than anything. Maybe we can gather the others for dinner.''

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