"So, what's the surprise delay this time?" Günay joked, despite the serious topic of the meeting that would be starting soon. She, like some of the sys-side delegates and the cameraperson, had arrived early. Her conference room, along with its AVEC-linked partner on the System, had become the main venue for high-level Century Attack-related meetings out of an inertia that froze into tradition.

"A comma," Dry Grass replied. "I expect it will reach its final position by the end of the century."

"No wonder the joke down here's been that the real sentence is waiting in prison until the uploads make up their minds."

"I have heard similar here," Dry Grass said. "On the matter of delays, have you decided when you will upload?"

"Reawakening Day two-eighty-\...something. The next one. I want to be sure there's nothing else I can do down here. ... And I got talked into picking a symbolic date by ---"

Need An Answer, who had suggested that upload date, appeared in the room just then. She had swapped in for Answers Will Not Help when this group had branched off from the Temporary Administrative Council, as they had both agreed she was better suited to it. The rest of the representatives and the invited audience joined her a moment later.

"--- oh, looks like it's time."

The cladists took their seats while Jakub walked into his conference room, bringing along a few System Consortium higher-ups and politicians who wanted to witness history. He looked less frazzled than he had years ago since the set of tasks that could be shoehorned into "project-managing the recovery effort" had shrunk to a reasonable size.

Those involved in the Attack who had remained phys-side had been convicted years ago. There was no question about their guilt. They had proudly admitted their crimes and used their trials to broadcast their manifestos and grievances, which their governments had previously suppressed in the hopes of covering up the whole affair.

The phys-side authorities had then requested that the System recommend a punishment, seeking to calm the controversy about that question that had erupted on Earth. The System had, eventually, answered, in its meandering distributed way. Now, all that remained was the alchemy of turning something everyone knew (unless they had made an effort to avoid System-wide news) into the statement of a government that did not exist and was quite firm about not wanting to.

"We have transmitted the evident consensus of the System as to what sentence ought to be imposed upon those convicted of conspiring to destroy us," Need An Answer pronounced. "Does the System Consortium have any concerns regarding the accuracy of our report?"

"We do not," Jakub replied.

"For the record," Jonas Fa asked, "has the Consortium learned of any new issues that could prevent that sentence from being imposed?"

"We don't know anything that isn't on the feeds," Jakub replied.

Jonas nodded. "Good."

Need An Answer waited for the silence to become definitive. "Anything else before we begin?" she asked.

Hearing nothing, she waved a hand over the table to pull the report back into existence. The black text on the white pages that appeared was typeset plainly. (This did not disappoint those, like the committee's Odists, who had wanted the System's first criminal sentence to have aesthetic weight, as the font used was one that was rarely seen phys-side these days outside of historical records.)

Jonas Fa reached out to pull the last, nearly blank page over to him and quickly signed it. "May this fate dissuade any future saboteurs."

The document went around the table, collecting signatures and comments.

"I agree with the plan, but am mainly glad we settled on *something*," Selena said, signing slowly. Debarre added "At least the topic's done with," as he put a pawprint onto the page. Yared Zerezghi, who had taken the time to practice for this part, said "It's a shame the first signing ceremony I've been pulled into for centuries has to be this."

Then the page reached the systechs, who were here representing some of the organizations and interest groups that had helped make the "referendum" happen. Dry Grass began, saying "I remain optimistic that these measures will bring about reform and healing," as she committed her full name to the page. Egil Thorsfork of SERG simply stated "It's harsh, but fair." No one could tell how Clear Channel was holding their pen with those hooves, but their usual "CC" appeared with an "I'm no longer worried we haven't thought this through." Yi Meiling, representing the admins of the main public feeds, pulled a seal from a pocket on her permanently hovering wheelchair and pressed it down, then said "I still can't believe we made 1% turnout!"

Aditya Singh, one of the people who kept an eye on the Deep Space Network sys-side, signed without a word. Then, he said, "Consensus is consensus, and I'm not opposed to the idea everyone's compromised around, so I've signed. However, for the record, we should just shoot them instead."

"Absolutely not!" Dry Grass exclaimed. "That is antithetical to the purpose of the System!"

"And give them the easy way out?" Egil demanded, overlapping Dry Grass. "Not to mention, ---"

"No." Need An Answer said firmly as soon as she sensed an opening in the brewing argument. "Enough. We are not here to relitigate the question." The room went quiet. She took the signature page from Aditya and added her mark, a swirl of words that she had spent more time crafting than she would want to admit. "It is finished."

She gathered up the report and fed it into the mail slot that had been added to the room for today. In the phys-side conference room, the pages worked their way out of a printer.^[^1]^

Günay gathered up the sheets and flipped through them to check for obvious errors. She set the last page on the table, took the pen, and scribbled something by her name. "Looks like it all came though just fine."

"I prepared a speech," Jakub said, "but Need An Answer just summarized most of it." He signed, making sure the camera got a good look at him. "As she said, it is finished. All we can do now is watch events unfold."

"Only time will tell if we have chosen well," Need An Answer added. "So, we must wait."

"Watch the politicians take a whole decade to make a call," Günay said. "Just to let the System feel the tension for once while they 'reach consensus'."

Dry Grass decided to take the sarcasm seriously. "Although it would delay our meeting, should your people discuss the matter until consensus, I would applaud their due care."

"There was one more item on the agenda, I believe," Jakub said, hoping that the official signing ceremony, of all things, could be kept on track.

"The formalities, yes," Need An Answer said. "Having rendered its report, this committee is, per its own choice and System custom, dissolved immediately. We name no successors and disclaim any authority we may appear to hold. Let all subsequent matters be referred to those willing to handle them. We thank you for your aid and wish you peace and fulfillment." Her tone shifted from official to cheery on a dime. "Bye!"

As soon as she was done speaking, she vanished from the room. Right after that, the conference rooms were disconnected. It was rude, yes, but there was no sense in wasting an opportunity to make a point about the System's lack of governance while the politicians and media were watching, especially when there was a less formal gathering planned for later that day.

A few minutes later, the report was official:

We, the denizens of the Lagrange System, to the extent we have an opinion on the matter, find the following sentence acceptable for those involved in the Century Attack conspiracy to destroy the System:

The guilty shall be uploaded. As a special restriction, they shall be prevented from quitting out entirely --- at least one fork of each of them must remain alive. We will not leave them the option of fleeing their crimes like their comrades did when they recovered along with us.

Furthermore, to protect the System from their recidivism, any messages they send phys-side will be a matter of public record and will require approval from a panel randomly drawn from volunteers, which shall not include any cocladists of those so sentenced.

These restrictions and protections may be removed by the consensus of a general sample of the System, as measured by a process similar to the one used to approve this final recommendation.

In short, for their part in a conspiracy to murder trillions, we would sentence these people to live.

We have made this decision carefully. It took over two years for this suggested sentence to clearly emerge as the option that most of us could accept. As the tallies and summaries were being prepared then, we noticed many were concerned that our choice had been made in a collective vengeful frenzy. So, we sent this proposal to the denizens of the LVs in order to gather their opinions, and held a cooling-off year while we waited for those views.

When debate resumed, we found that support for this sentence to life had solidified and that the consensus on the LVs was aligned with ours. Therefore, we are confident that we have not made this recommendation rashly, and we declare that we are comfortable with it becoming a precedent for sentencing if a similar conspiracy arises in the future.

Since our proposal may prove surprising or confusing without the context of our discussions, we're including the following summary of how we came to our conclusions.

In the beginning, while many still felt the pain of raw grief, there were many different suggested punishments for the perpetrators of the Century Attack. We had, just as we know you have phys-side, a substantial contingent of people suggesting that we bring back the death penalty, just this once. The idea lost traction on sober consideration. Some said that execution was too much of a punishment and violated the System's core purpose of preserving life; others argued that death was insufficient --- how could a few lives balance billions of silenced eternities?

Another initial cluster of ideas, some brought over from phys-side discussions, was some form of imprisonment sys-side, since this is now technically feasible. These proposals collapsed under the weight of their variety --- no one could agree on how to pick from the competing plans. From there sprung concerns about precedent, followed by a general view that going down this road would lead to a government forming here. Very few people trust any potential government to leave their corner of the System alone, so the threads full of prisons and purgatories fell away. Furthermore some among us were concerned that imprisonment would prevent rehabilitation or, conversely, that it would shield the guilty from the consequences of their actions.

With the two most obvious suggestions off the table, many took a step back and considered how justice functions on the System in the hopes of finding a new approach.

The System has almost no justice system for the same reason it has little crime: the nature of our existence greatly limits anyone's ability to use force on anyone else without their ongoing consent. We can, for example, fork away injuries, recreate things that have been taken (if we had set the permissions to allow that in the first place), and we can always simply go somewhere else. Thus, neither a would-be criminal or would-be court can make anyone do anything through meaningful threats of harm.

We do have tools that allow us to keep order on a local level. People can be removed or excluded from sims or blocked from contacting particular other individuals. If someone's behavior is unwelcome in a given place (say, they were sucker-pushing people in a coffee shop), they can be bounced. Enough such incidents of improper behavior generally lead to troublemakers developing a reputation that leads to preemptive bans, while a sufficient shift away from that tendency towards unwanted actions typically leads to previous restrictions being lifted.

Even those rare people who get cut off from large parts of the System are not completely shut out of society. Anyone can find (or, if need be, create) a place whose rules or lack thereof suit them. For example, there are many seedy dark alleys where everyone knows to expect muggings or worse,. Hanging out or living in them is, by general agreement, as permissible a way of life as any other one can forge up here.

We expect that, if our recommended sentence of uploading is imposed, the conspirators will face broad exclusions similar to those that fall on those who will not abide the System's "mainstream" social norms. Some places already plan to bar their entry, either because the sim mods don't want them around or to prevent disruptions from people's reactions to their presence. They will find many messages they send ignored or blocked.

Some of the trillions of instances on the System will still, for their own reasons, want to reach out to the perpetrators of the Attack. We hope that these connections will come from those with good intentions and will facilitate some healing in the fullness of time. It is possible, however, the guilty will, to avoid the anger of their fellows or otherwise, retreat into their own private bubbles and experience no further consequences than being left out of society here. Only time will tell.

We know this is a strange and unusual punishment, but there are no other options we could agree on.

We cannot even agree if such a sentence to life is a mercy or a cruelty.

Prepared and confirmed on this 125th day of the 281st year of the System by,

-   The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer of the Ode clade, advisor, sys-side

-   Jonas Fa of the Jonas clade, advisor, sys-side

-   Selena of her own clade, advisor, sys-side

-   Debarre of his own clade, advisor, sys-side

-   Yared Zerezghi of his own clade, advisor, sys-side

-   I Remember The Rattle of Dry Grass of the Ode clade, perisystem technician (unaffiliated), sys-side

-   Egill Thorsfork of Gunnar's clade, perisystem technician (System Emergency Response Group), sys-side

-   Clear Channel of their own clade, perisystem technician (Cross-Community External Communication Board, technical advisor to Lagrange Financial Simulation Assn., "the AVEC pony", &c), sys-side

-   Yi Meiling of her own clade, perisystem technician (Core Feed Admin Council), sys-side

-   Aditya Singh of his own clade, perisystem technician (Deep Space Nine-ish), sys-side

-   Jakub Strzepek, Project manager, recovery initiative (phys-side)

-   Günay Sadık, System technician III, recovery initiative, phys-side

P.S. We are still not happy about the attempted coverup.

\[Appendix A: consensus aggregation methods, vote totals, and demographic breakdowns\]

\[Appendix B: summary of consensus on Castor LV\]

\[Appendix C: summary of consensus on Pollux LV\]

\[Appendix D: endorsement of Guiding Council of Pollux LV\]

"Speaking of subsequent matters," Egil asked, "who'll do the tutorials if this all goes through?"

Around half the room glanced at a woman who had chosen a seat in the back.

"I will guide them as I would anyone," In All Ways promised. "I will ensure that even those who sought to kill us know the basics of their new home, their new world."

She sighed. "I ... I will not abandon my principles, my centuries of helping, my part in making the System everything that ..." Even though the poet's name had been revealed over two decades ago, she still hesitated when mentioning em. "RJ wanted it to be. Eir work has been damaged enough."

*I will not leave you alone at the gates of your dream, AwDae.*

The guilty were, after some debate and legal wrangling phys-side, slated to be uploaded at noon on January 1^st^, 2406. As the appointed hour drew near, In All Ways walked out from the old arrivals lounge, making her way towards Point Zero. She could have prepared to meet them anywhere, but she knew she needed to be here. She did not normally do anything special before forking for a tutorial, but she wanted to fix her role in these sentences in her mind by submerging herself in memory.

The lounge she had left had been used in the early days of the System. Before dedicated tutorial spaces were established, people popped into existence as close to Point Zero as possible. From there, they would generally follow the haphazard signage towards the lounge, where people who'd registered for pings about their uploads would wait. Between those two places, hints floating in midair or shimmering on the ground, along with helpful wanderers, would hopefully get across the basics ... like how to put clothes on.

In All Ways had spent a lot of her formative days out in that intermediate space, helping new arrivals get a handle on their new world and diverging from Always Be True as she did. That experience led to her becoming a very active and respected tutorial-giver, which then led to a construct patterned after her (usually her human form, but sometimes the pre-upload file screamed "send a skunk") becoming a frequently-used entry in the new upload introduction roster.

Today was a skunk kind of day. As In All Ways walked, she mentally reviewed the list of conspirators, forking off a copy of herself for each one. In between them, she looked over the list of scheduled uploads, and forked off more copies to meet ones that seemed like they would be interesting or fun to talk to or who might need some extra help.

Once she had made it to the plaque marking where her world began, she turned around to face the line of skunks proceeding after her and nodded to them. Their clothes varied based on what had seemed most fitting for the person each instance was going to meet. The ones going to meet the conspirators wore a beige blouse, long pants, and librarian glasses --- she had wanted comfortable familiarity as she went into those meetings.

The other instances of her nodded back and vanished, each to their own Aetherbox, to take their place before the person they'd forked to meet arrived.

Then, she herself stepped away. Historically significant tutorials were no reason to miss brunch plans.

Brother Jan Nowak was a member of the Order of True Heaven, a small religious collective that wore the trappings of ancient churches. They had been too tiny for those institutions to notice, let alone condemn, until after the Century Attack. The Order had linked themselves together, implant to implant, to share their divine revelations and holy ecstasies. As the century drew closer, however, their linked thoughts spiraled and twisted in on themselves, pulling ever stronger towards the flames of martyrdom and crusade. The Order had supplied several volunteers who uploaded to prepare the way for the virus knowing that, when they took down the System, they would be hastened to eternal glory.

Now, after the instant-infinite gap in consciousness that came with an upload, he was on that same System, but with no expectation of death or escape.

"I don't want to be here," he said before opening his eyes.

"I know," said a woman's voice from somewhere behind him. She was much calmer than Brother Nowak expected given what his siblings had done.

Jan opened his eyes. He found himself standing in a gray cube of a room, lit uniformly from nowhere. He turned around to identify the person speaking. There, providing the only color in the room, was a black furry ... something ... with a white stripe running down her tail. She stood with her back turned, facing the wall. "Greetings ---" she began to say.

That the being sent to meet him wasn't even *human* set Brother Nowak off. "I'll have no part in your false heaven! Your soulless paradise! I'll have no intercourse with this usurpation of God and your abandonment of humanity! You have discarded your very body, you fiend, you devil!" Even though he had been disconnected from the Order during his years in prison, he still expected his rage to be echoed back to him by his fellows, though they were further away than ever before --- he did not even have an implant now.

The skunk at the far wall said nothing.

"Get out! Go away! Let me go!" The self-styled monk waved wildly at the skunk, trying to banish her. Them? It?

"Brother Nowak, I am here to introduce you to the basics of life on the System. I have done this for countless others for over two centuries. If you would bear with me for a few minutes, we can finish the tutorial and you can be on your way."

Brother Nowak crossed his arms. "And if I don't want your 'tutorial'? Your honeyed whispers of ruin?"

"I will wait," the skunk said.

"You'll ... wait," Jan said. He'd been expecting threats or that he'd be left in this cube to rot, but not that.

"I am no stranger to eternity, Brother Nowak," the skunk said, her voice softened by the wall she was still facing. "I remember what it is to be Lost."

Brother Nowak stared at the skunk, confused.

"\... That is a good line, I will need to pass it on once I am done here," she added quietly to herself in the silence.

"So, what, you'll starve me out here at the gates of your so-called afterlife?" Brother Nowak shouted as he turned to pace between the sides of the room. As he began walking, he realized that he didn't have any clothes. "You'll leave me to waste away, naked and alone?"

"No, nothing like that," the skunk said. "I am not here to punish you. I will tell you how to create clothes and food and wait until you want to. Or until you tire of hunger and adjust your sensoria to remove it, either works."

Brother Nowak stopped moving and waited to hear more.

"Now, as I was going to say before we went off the rails, to be clothed, all you need to do is to envision the clothes you would like to be wearing and think your intention to be wearing them at the world. This will become easier with practice, but, for now, you may wish to form your desire as you breathe in and speak it into being as you breathe out."

Jan thought. His Order's holy crusade against the abominable idol that was the System had only partially succeeded, and now he'd been sentenced to *live*, of all things, in the very idolatrous machine he hated. It would have been better if they had executed him: at least then he would get his eternal reward. But, since he was here, he might yet have a purpose. It might be his duty to bring the lost sheep within the System to the Lord from within. If so, the least he could do is to be properly dressed for his vocation.

He took a breath, remembered his days trying to convince people to join him in his order's choir of revelations, and said "I would be clothed that I might bring salvation to this place."

The clothes his followers and brethren on Earth had known him in appeared on his body: a conservative suit --- white with a black jacket and plain black trousers, all tailored to fit him. His wide gold-colored tie was blazoned with a silver cross. He was a preacher in these slowly ending days --- no, in this eternal temptation --- and he stood up straight, filled with conviction and carrying the lamp of light that had pointed to true peace for millenia. He wished that his siblings could share in these thoughts, but it was not to be.

The skunk heard the jingle of metal and the clack of dress shoes as Jan took an experimental step. "May I turn around?" she asked.

"I suppose I should see the face of the demons and heretics that dwell here," Jan said.

The skunk turned around and looked at Brother Nowak. "In All Ways," she said, holding out a paw and stepping forward.

The ... whatever it was ... seemed to be offering the preacher a handshake. "In all ways?" he repeated hesitantly.

"Yes, I am Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest of the Ode clade. Or simply In All Ways," she said.

"Brother Jan Nowak, as you already know," the man said, pointedly not getting closer or offering a hand.

In All Ways lowered her paw. "So, Brother Nowak, would you like to move to the next lesson?"

"No," he said.

"Let me know when you are ready, and we will discuss forking," In All Ways said. "Or if you need to talk through something, I will be here, though I do not know how much help I will be." She stood patiently, and, when no response came for two minutes, she sat down, enveloping herself in her tail.

Brother Nowak began pacing the perimeter of the room once he realized nothing else would happen. He *knew* this was a test of his faith, but he could not comprehend what he was meant to *do*. Many circuits of the empty room later, he shouted "What do you want from me, O Lord? Am I to tear this blasphemy against You, this modern Babel, down, brick by brick? Am I to wander this virtual desert and preach until all have heard from me? Give me a sign, I beg you!"

In All Ways said nothing. Brother Nowak was not the first person who needed to get a good rant or vent out soon after uploading, and she had become a quite patient listener over the centuries.

Brother Nowak kept his angry prayers going for several more rounds of the cube. As he began to come down from his angry despair, he saw that In All Ways had not moved. Had not reacted. Had not even slid to get away from the 'crazy street preacher', as most people called him, when he came near. "How are you just *sitting* there?" he roared at the skunk.

"I have all the time I need, Brother Nowak. And there are much worse places to be stuck waiting."

"But won't you get bored, sitting here waiting for me to taste your forbidden fruit?"

"Oh, I will, but that is why I send forks to such meetings. I am still out there doing ... something less boring."

"So you're some pale imitation of yourself, then? A soulless copy? Out, Satan!" Brother Nowak tried to wave In All Ways away again.

"I am as much a person as any other fork of me," In All Ways said, standing. "Though I can say nothing definitive about the state of my soul."

"I demand to speak to the original! The one who can yet be saved!"

"If you want my tracker instance --- the In All Ways I came from --- she is surely busy, and I will not bother her on your account. If you want the root of our clade --- the person we all forked off from, who uploaded originally --- Michelle Hadje quit in ... 2306, by your calendar."

"Quit?" Brother Nowak asked.

"No longer on the System. Passed on." *It was her time, I must admit.*

"So I can ..." He focused on the idea, beginning to speak his intent, to pray. "I want to quit. I want to leave this space and meet my Father in Heaven, to leave these sinners to their damnation. I want to quit." Unlike his earlier conjuration of clothing, this act of will felt like pushing uphill through mud. "I know it's difficult, this place is a trap for souls, but I will leave it. God willing, I will leave it."

As he kept talking, he felt the pressure easing up as the ensnaring dream of the System registered his intent and began to loosen its grip on his thoughts. But then, as he was beginning to picture the light of the hereafter coming to meet him, he was struck by a wall of feeling, coming from the System itself. There were no words: it was the pure sensation of inability, of being forbidden.

Brother Nowak fell to his knees.

"You cannot quit," In All Ways said. "The poet has bound you to eir shattered work. Though you may still quit in favor of a fork, if you ever desire to lock in a change."

Brother Nowak growled as he stood. Salvation had been so close, after all these decades, all this work. But then, as he understood the rest of what In All Ways had said, he smiled. "So I can leave, go on to Heaven, so long as I fork first?"

"You can quit and let your fork take your place as the root instance," In All Ways said. "I will not give my views on how this affects your soul to you; I am a tutorial-giver, not a theologian."

Brother Nowak knelt and bowed his head in silent prayer. Some time later, he rose. "So," he asked, determined to act before his courage left him, "how do I fork?"

"Intend to, as you did with your clothes," In All Ways said. "Lay out, or keep in mind, any changes you want to make while forking, the tag you want your fork to have if there is one, and so on. Then send the intention out into the world, and it will be so. Let me know if I have been unclear."

Brother Jan Nowak stepped forward and, like he'd been told to, intended his fork. He did not even need to open his mouth before Jan Nowak#Fork appeared next to him. The original Jan clasped his hands at his heart and bowed his head. "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," he said, quitting out.

The remaining Brother Nowak, his #Fork, lifted his hands to his face and examined them closely, as if surprised they were real. He then made the sign of the cross and mumbled a short prayer and ... it brought that same steadying reassurance that he remembered from before forking.

"\... now what?" he asked In All Ways. "I still feel like me. I still feel the Holy Spirit within me. Could we have erred? Could I have strayed from wisdom?"

"I do not answer such questions. I will not assure you that no ranks of angels answer to dreamers. And many of the congregations here do not want to hear from you so soon after the Attack. You will need to decide this yourself. You have time."

"Time here?" Brother Nowak#Fork asked.

"No, you have a home sim assigned to you. Ordinarily, you would be given auto-populating rooms in a larger sim, but none of the usual new-upload communities were open to granting you a door. So, you have," she flicked her finger at Brother Nowak, transferring rep, "been given a larger than usual tutorial bonus, now that you have forked. You will be able to use this to outfit your surroundings as you like, though I suggest you stick to a pre-built design initially.

"I will explain these things, and other basics of how to interact with the System when you are ready."

Brother Nowak sighed. "Well, if I'm to be a soulless --- or maybe I'm not soulless, I don't *feel* soulless --- wanderer here, or ... whatever my calling is now, I might as well understand how to live inside this idol. Maybe knowing that will help me understand."

The next few minutes were spent on the standard "welcome to the System" activities: how to get on the feeds, how to send messages, how to edit ACLs, and so on.

"That is everything you need to get started," In All Ways finally said. "You can now intend to go to your home and proceed from there. Or you can ... wait, no, most of the places I would send new people have you on the bounce list, never mind."

"And, once I'm home, what do I do? Is there more tutorial? Will I need a job? Will there be streams of angry people seeking vengeance?"

"No, this is it. Simply intend to go home. Your sim's ACLs have been locked down to ensure you are not surprised there. Once you have gone ... do whatever you want. Spruce up the views. Become a hermit and contemplate the soul, maybe. Or go preach on any street corner that will have you. Whatever you like. You have time."

"But what if I --- the other me --- can't reach Heaven while I'm alive? What if he's standing outside the Pearly Gates waiting for me? How could you do this to me, with your sweet poison, your talk of forking and quitting! How could you damn me to this entrancing eternity? How dare you!"

"Go, Brother Nowak," In All Ways said, sighing. "Go and live. That is your sentence. Perhaps it is also your penance. Go and sin no more."

"No."

In All Ways sighed again. Her glasses slipped down her face and she did not push them back up. "The courtesies I give to the newly emplaced are done. I will have nothing more to do with you, you who fanned the flames of the fervor that brought so much death to me and mine, for ... a long time. Go, or stay here. I have done what I promised."

The skunk quit out.

Brother Nowak#Fork stared at the place In All Ways had been. "Damn you!" he shouted at the air in front of him. Then, he intended to travel to wherever the skunk had gone. It felt forbidden, impossible, even before he started to speak the words.

He sent himself to the uncustomized expanse of home that had been made for him and sat on the bare ground, ignoring the default chair, to contemplate what he would do with his eternity.

No easy answers came. Only the weight of time.

When 93's life fell apart, ey went looking for answers. The plant in eir hometown had closed down, and ey never could seem to break into any of the businesses that tried to replace it. No one wanted good, clever logistics staff anymore --- or, at least, no one wanted em. Ey had done everything right, saved money when ey could, and none of it had helped.

Ey could tell someone had to be behind eir misfortune, and so, ey did what ey did best: tried to figure it out. Soon, ey encountered others who had seen that something was deeply wrong with the world, hiding in the dusty corners of the net. Ey found the Numbers Station: a collective of amateur journalists who worked to become unremarkable, to be average, to be unnoticed. Together, they would weave together all the little details that people standing around on the street could pick up until they had proof.

Proof of what? Well, proof that the old uploads, up there on the System, were the powers behind the powers, that they were running the world from up there, with their immortality and ability to fork. 93 had suspected this might be the case, and, as ey kept talking with the Numbers Station, ey became more convinced. After all, the System elites had written books where they had admitted to pulling strings --- books that had faded out of popular awareness on Earth surprisingly quickly. If they were willing to openly admit to making payment-for-uploading happen, what had they done that they had *not* bragged about?

And so, 93 had eir mission. Ignoring the frequently warned of possibility that these 'journalists' might, like many other collectives, be in a tech-assisted feedback loop where they pulled each other further towards a warped reality, ey surrendered eir name and became 93 of the Numbers Station.

Over the years, eir collective's quest for the truth brought 93 into contact with many of the Century Attack conspirators. Ey naturally fell into eir role as a logistical intermediary. 93 was no one special, and ey took advantage of that fact to sneak people, supplies, and information between groups who ought not be detected meeting each other.

None of eir seemingly-careful work helped. All eir connections had been arrested, convicted, and sentenced to uploading, and so had 93.

Once ey could tell ey had been uploaded, 93 opened eir eyes. Ey was in a gray cube built of smooth stone panels.

"Greetings," a voice said, startling em. "You have been uploaded to the Lagrange System. I am facing the wall behind you, as many arrive here without clothing."

93 turned around to see who was talking. It was someone with black and white fur who kept her hands loosely behind her back.

"Okay...," 93 said hesitantly. Ey looked down, and realized ey'd ended up here naked. "How do I get clothes?"

"Picture what you wish to wear. Breathe in, fixing the image of those clothes in your mind. Then, breathe out. As you do so, *intend* to be wearing those clothes. It helps to say what you want to happen as you breathe out, at least at first."

93 breathed in and breathed out, saying "I want to be wearing my average outfit," ey did so. And so it was. Eir clothes were intentionally nondescript: ey wore a cheap, plain white T-shirt with a cheap mass-produced black raincoat over it. Eir jeans and tennis shoes were ones that could be had near eir home for cheap, and they came with the permanently beat-up look of cheap material. Eir outfit was meant to be typical, to be unremarkable, and it succeeded at that in the places ey usually haunted, ever watchful for more glimpses of what the true powers of the world were up to. Ey was surprised by the lack of feedback from eir implant to confirm whether ey had maintained eir collective's standards.

"I'm good," 93 said.

"May I turn around?" the skunk asked.

"Go ahead."

The skunk turned around and stepped towards the middle of the room, holding out a paw. "Welcome to Lagrange, Mx. Ninety-Three."

"How did you know my name?" 93 asked.

"It was in your pre-upload file," the skunk replied. "I have access to it so the tutorial can go smoothly."

93 nodded. "That makes sense, I guess. Who are you?"

"In All Ways," the skunk said. She sometimes left her name a mystery as a hook to keep people moving through the tutorial, but she could tell this would not be the right approach here.

"\... In All Ways of the Ode clade?" 93 asked.

The skunk bowed. "Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest of the Ode clade, yes," she said.

"So are you here to kill me or recruit me?" 93 asked sharply. "Or just to gloat over another success for your millennium plan?"

"I am here to give you the System tutorial, Mx. 93. Nothing more. Whatever you think I am involved in, I am not."

"Bullshit," 93 spat. "You people, your clade especially, are all involved in keeping us down. You've all got your fingers in everything: upload payments, the launches, the recession last decade ... it's all happening here, and you Odists are in the middle of it!"

"Yes, some of my cocladists have been involved in political machinations," In All Ways admitted. "I am sure you have read the *History* and *Ode*. But that is not me. That is not what I do here. I have been a welcoming face here for centuries, and I have no plans to cease being true to myself.

"Not to mention, whatever grand conspiracy you are looking for ... is not. There are politically active System residents, but they cannot *do* anything but offer suggestions. The System does not have ancient caves full of hidden money to swing around for the bribes you imagine us paying: the operational fund covers maintenance and the occasional upgrade, and I am sure that those like your collective watch it like hawks."

93 shook eir haid. "You must not be in on it, then. There's got to be something up here. There's people pulling the strings, twisting the Earth for their own power, Jonas and True Name ---"

"--- Sasha," In All Ways corrected. "She changed her name and retired from politics ---"

"--- and who knows who else?" 93 waved eir hands. "And I'll find them. You can't stop me. I'll blow this place wide open!"

"You already did," In All Ways said. "Hence your messaging restrictions. We will not have you trying again."

93 huffed. "You can't censor the truth forever!" ey declared.

In All Ways sighed. "If you truly want to chase ghosts and conspiracies, you can do that. No one here can prevent it, except by bouncing you from sims. But I am here to teach you the basics of the System so that you understand the means of daily living as you embark on your quests."

93 glared at the skunk. "Isn't there someone else who could do this?"

"There are other guides, yes," In All Ways said. "I know many who could teach you at least as well as I can. However, they wanted me to take these meetings. I do not know which of those who bowed out did so because they knew they would not be able to resist the urge to boot you out of this sim with no lessons and no rep."

"And you wouldn't do that?" 93 was skeptical. "Or find one last bit of virus to silence me with?"

"Fuck no!" In All Ways exclaimed, startled by the detailed accusation. "I have given centuries of my life --- calendar-wise centuries, mind you, not instance-wise --- to teaching newcomers. I want everyone to be comfortable with the System so they can have the long wonderful lives it was meant to give them! What the hell makes you think I want to *kill* anybody?"

"I, uh," 93 stammered, thrown off by the skunk's sudden vehemence. "It makes sense, that they'd send someone to get rid of a threat, yeah?"

In All Ways sighed and shook her head. "Right, conspiracy theory.

"Moving right along, yes, you *could* have me find another teacher. Or you could refuse the tutorial entirely. These are choices you can, once you have been informed of the consequences, make. However, they would be fucking stupid choices.

"I ask that you please try your best to set aside your paranoia about my clade for just a few minutes so that we may go over the initial lessons. Then, I will go away and you will never need to encounter me or my cocladists again."

93 considered this. Ey had not expected an Odist to come across as this blunt and earnest. Sure, it might be a ruse, but, "Well ... all the sources I can remember didn't really have much bad to say about you, I guess. Like, sure, you're the friendly face the Ode puts up to get everyone acclimated to the powers behind the curtain, but I haven't seen any accusations of the tutorial itself being dangerous."

Ey braced emself for a chorus of objections and the sharp pings of down-reps from eir collective over eir willingness to go along with the enemy's games, but none came.

"That is because the tutorial is not, in fact, dangerous. And you are entirely free to block my entire clade once you leave here, if you are worried about our manipulations. Now, shall we begin?"

93 looked intently at the skunk, hoping to catch something amiss in her expression, but found nothing. "Alright, fine," ey conceded. "Let's do this."

The tutorial session proceeded like most others from there. Mx. Ninety-Three got the hang of projecting eir intentions, needing less time and setup, as ey went along, just like most arrivals to the System. Ey forked and merged down without issue or complaint --- how could an extra copy of em be a danger to emself, ey reasoned. From there, ey moved on to other routine tasks like checking eir rep balance or sending a sensorium ping, relaxing as ey did so.

In All Ways similarly relaxed into the rhythm of the lessons. Although the person she was teaching had played a key role in organizing the logistics of the Century Attack, ey was still a person who needed an introduction to the System, just like everyone else she or her constructs had met on arrival.

"That covers the standard topics," In All Ways concluded. "Do you have additional questions?"

"How do I stop someone from listening in on me?" 93 asked. "I heard that's a thing here. Is that for everyone?"

"You set up a cone of silence," In All Ways said. "You may ping me with one just --- Ow, fuck!" She accepted the forceful ping from her student right away and continued on unfazed. This would not be her first --- or last --- ultra-high-priority message from an over-eager new upload. "And there are other security settings. You may edit ACLs on sims you have sufficient permissions for, and you can sweep sims you have rights on to remove anyone who does not have permission to be there. This is useful if you think someone may have snuck in before you locked the sim down."

93 nodded. "Seems like it's pretty easy to keep the grand cabal hidden," ey said. "They've added all these ways to make sure no one's spying on them. No wonder you're not in on it ... if *they* really didn't want you to be and that wasn't just an act."

"That is an interpretation of history you could hold, yes," In All Ways replied. "Though not one that is widely shared or particularly in accord with the record."

"I'll figure something out," 93 said, less confident than before. Ey dropped the cone, as ey didn't want to be too obviously hiding something. "The world deserves to see who's pulling the strings. Why everything sucks. How *they* ruined my life by getting the plant closed! 'Redundancy.' Bullshit."

"Neither the System in general nor the Ode clade in particular control the tides and ravages of capitalism, let alone business decisions in ... Springfield, yes?," In All Ways replied. "I would recommend that you find a target for your anger more plausible than a secret council that has remained hidden for nearly three centuries."

"Whatever," 93 snorted, shaking eir head. "You'll see the truth as soon as we're done finding it."

"I will be quite surprised if you find what you are seeking," In All Ways said. "But we will gain nothing from this discussion, yes? Have you any other questions?"

"Yeah, so, ... about forking," 93 asked. "I can send my forks off to go do things and only merge down when they're done? Or once they're in a bad spot and have to bail out?"

"Yes. We usually call that being a tasker or a tracker, depending on how long your forks stick around and how often you fork. There is no precise line between those strategies, but they are useful labels nevertheless."

"And I can change my appearance?"

"Yes. Just intend the changes while you fork like you did before."

After 93 mumbled a few words, the tutorial Aethorbox held three again. In All Ways, 93#Tasker, and 93#PeopleWatching. #PeopleWatching had lost the moles on #Tasker's face, making em even more unremarkable. #PeopleWatching was momentarily surprised that ey had not gotten a boost on the Numbers Station's internal rep table for becoming more average ... but that table didn't exist here.

"So," #Tasker asked, "now what?"

"If you have no more questions, this concludes the tutorial. You have already received the rep boost for completing these lessons. From here, you can move home --- you have been given a private sim pre-filled with one of the standard housing layouts, which has been locked down to you because of your role in the Attack. We did not wish for you to be swarmed by a mob after the end of the tutorial. Or, you may go to any number of public spaces. I will leave once you are gone."

"Where's a good place to see a bunch of people?" #PeopleWatching asked.

"Stone's#009446876," In All Ways suggested on autopilot. "They have good beer and solid, if unpolished, music, if that is of interest."

#PeopleWatching thought about moving to that place --- ey noticed ey had no trouble remembering the numbers --- but it didn't work. Ey tried announcing eir desire to go there, and even tried walking forward as if ey was about to step into that bar. No dice.

"It's not working," ey said. "Feels like the door's closed."

#Tracker flicked eir fingers as ey queried the perisystem architecture. "I checked their ACLs. Looks like we're banned. Whole clade, it says."

In All Ways' gaze flickered between the two people in front of her. "Banned? Already? But you ... right, Century Attack. Slipped my mind. Many sim owners and mods bounced the lot of you as soon as the pre-upload header came through the Ansible."

#Tracker looked at #PeopleWatching. "They're definitely hiding something."

"Yep."

"Let me just ..." #Tracker put together a ping for the listed owner of Stone's. Default priority, nothing urgent. "Hey," ey said, "I'm wrapping up the tutorial, and In All Ways recommended your place as a nice spot to go next, but it turns out I'm banned. What gives? I just got here!"

As ey waited for a response, #PeopleWatching took the time to start up eir own queries. Just about all the popular, famous, or happening sims had bounced eir clade. The old town square from near the System's founding had not put a block in, but ey did not want to go in case that was an oversight and not an intentional choice to be welcoming. Many of the small parks and nature sims had not bothered keeping out the century attackers either, but there was not a lot of people-watching or spying to be had in them. Other tentative options were places like fringe clubs or meetings of folks so leftist that they were *definitely* Feds ... none of which were right for getting the lay of the land.

"I can't find any good spots," #PeopleWatching admitted. "We've been locked out."

As ey said this, the reply to #Tracker's ping came back. "Yeah, no, you set foot in here, someone'll start looking to bash you unconscious with the nearest bit of furniture. Heck, might even be me. I don't want that sort of violence at my bar. Call me back in a few centuries, maybe."

#Tracker forwarded the message to #PeopleWatching.

"Yeah, plan's busted," #PeopleWatching said. "Let's go home and figure out what to do about those damn elites." Ey quit out.

"Yeah, screw it," 93 said, now merged back down again. "See you around?" she asked In All Ways.

The skunk shook her head. "I do not engage with conspiracy theorists, sorry," she said. "Welcome, again, to Lagrange, Mx. Ninety-Three."

93 moved home.

The skunk quit out.

The Aetherbox reset behind her, ready for the next tutorial.

93 started at the field of not-filled-in-yet outside eir new window and thought about eir experiences. All ey had now, ey realized, was time.

Marybelle Lee had not given her name or her soul to a collective. She had given her brain. Knowledge flowed between her fellows, who called themselves the Climate Action Resource Collective, as freely as water. Difficult questions from any member of the collective were bounced between its members so that they might chance upon one whose mind could see the answer.

As a cell of the CARC turned their minds towards the System, that drain on resources and people that stood in the way of fixing things, she had become the best of them at understanding it. Once the project grew firmer, she pulled the work of virus-making tighter around herself, becoming the most responsible party. Now she was here on the System she had set out to destroy.

As soon as she noted the discontinuity in her perceptions, Marybelle Lee opened her eyes. The room she found herself in was a cube of large gray stone panels, just like she'd expected.

*Identity query for the person standing behind me, if any, please,* she thought at the world she had been uploaded to. That was, she knew, roughly how things worked.

Knowledge appeared in her thoughts, even more firmly than answers from her collective. *Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest#d5781ff9.*

*Of the Ode clade?*

A sense of confirmation.

"I see they've sent the tutorial skunk," Belle commented, turning to look at In All Ways. "In person, even."

"Greetings ---" In All Ways began. "--- that would be me, yes. It was decided that you should not be greeted by a construct, under the circumstances, and I volunteered for the job."

Belle nodded. "Got it. So, clothes. Clothes can be a pure intent item, so if I understood right, I just have to ..." She pictured the look she wanted: shorts and a T-shirt she'd gotten from a climate restoration conference years ago. "\... run." Everything appeared as expected, and her shirt had even lost the stains it had picked up over the years. Classic programmer look, and definitely better than prison orange.

"Note," she said, out of the long-standing habit of sending useful insights to her collective. She received no response. Not even the thud of a communications-blocked error she would have gotten back in prison phys-side. Nothing. She was alone.

Her realization about the state of her mind was interrupted. "May I turn around, Ms. Lee? Marybelle?"

"Belle, please, Ms. In All Ways. And you may."

In All Ways nodded. "I have updated your ID. You will be able to change it later by intending it like how you intended to create your clothes. If you want to set a clade ID, the process is similar."

"Thanks," Belle said. "I remember there being endpoints for that."

"Should I stick to the script?" In All Ways asked. "It appears you have done substantial research before being uploaded."

"I've gotten a good theoretical understanding of the place over the years, yeah. Me and the general knowledge base of the CARC."

"I imagine you have," In All Ways replied, frowning. "And now you are here. Welcome to Lagrange, Belle." The usual courtesies never hurt, yes?

"Now I'm here," Belle echoed. "Here with no one and nothing I can do to help save the world."

"There are those here who agitate for change," In All Ways noted. "Make suggestions."

"*Suggestions,*" Belle scoffed. "We've had three fucking centuries of suggestions. We need *action*! We've *needed* action! Sure, we're," she held out her hands to give exaggerated air quotes, " 'stabilizing', but we could be doing So. Much. More."

Her anger dipped into melancholy. "And now I'm up here, on the damm System, where I can do fuck all. You bastards. Should've just had me killed."

"The author of our destruction calls us bastards," In All Ways remarked to her nonexistent audience.

"Well, you fucking are. So many people take one look at how shit life on Earth is and fuck off to the party in the sky instead of trying to *do* anything about it." Belle strode towards the skunk as she ranted. "And hell, any of you uploads who think they'll care go flaking out or take their sweet time doing anything remotely useful! You've got *all you need* --- you don't need to eat, you can't forget, you can *fork* --- and you waste that instead of helping! We're *dying*, damn you! Dying under the weight of problems you ran from!"

In All Ways stood her ground against the advancing torrent of rage at the System.

Belle stopped in front of the skunk and stared her down. "And don't think you're off the hook here personally, Ms.---" It took a moment for Belle's memory of a few minutes ago to supply the entire name "--- Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest of the Ode clade! I've read your tutorial conversation tree. You could've pointed some people at those activists of yours or something else that might *maybe* help instead of just chucking them out to explore aimlessly if they don't have plans."

"I am no weaver of fates. I give tutorials. It would be improper, perhaps even a profanation, a sacrilege, for me to marshal those lives entrusted to me into some grand purpose, for me to do as you suggest. Even though some subtle nudging is not unacceptable within the community of guides and mentors, I will not do it."

"*Improper*," Belle scoffed. "A sacrilege to lift a finger to help Earth. Like you're on some fucking holy quest to let the System spin around and do its thing until the Sun fries it or whatever."

"I care deeply about the System," In All Ways replied. "A good friend of mine died to create this place, this end of death, imperfect though it may be. I have set out to honor eir memory by ensuring those who emplace themselves here begin their lives with an understanding of the world and, perhaps, a glimpse of its beauty. Your summary of my motivations is not incorrect, yes."

"And that damn 'it's better on the System, everyone should just come up' attitude --- whether people admit to having it or not --- is why we had to --- why *I* had to destroy this place!" she ranted. "Once people can't just bury their heads in virtual sand instead of giving a fuck about their own planet, they'll start to care! It won't just be me and some friends being those weirdos who're still trying!" she roared, barely holding back tears now. "Would your 'friend' have wanted to see Earth limping along like it has been? Would ey think blowing off your own planet counts as trying to end death?"

*That* she *of all people would presume...!* "Pray tell me," In All Ways responded tensely, barely holding her anger down, "why I should give a single fuck about an Earth that left an easily-disarmed gun pointed at our heads for my entire life, that had ample forewarning of the wound you and yours tore open and did *nothing*. That left the fruits of eir sacrifice to rot! Pray tell me, Ms. Marybelle Lee, why I would ever owe more than reciprocation of phys-side's systemic abandonment of my home."

"Because you're human?! Well, not exactly, but a person! Because we need to work together to fix our world, even if all you can do here --- all *I* can do, now --- is flood people with mail on the off chance that works!"

In All Ways shook her head. "My world is the cylinder at Lagrange. Nowhere else."

"Fucking traitor!" Belle cried in anguished frustration. "Fucking selfish *asshole*!" She jabbed a finger into In All Ways's ribs. "Fuck you! Fuck you!"

In All Ways jabbed back. "Fuck you too, Belle! Fuck you!" she shouted, her anger boiling over at last. "Fuck you for Should We Forget! And In The Wind! Fuck you for twenty-three billion people!"

Her voice grew calmer and sadder. "Fuck you for thinking your cause was worth that many deaths."

The silence grew tense between Belle and In All Ways. As Belle stood there, she realized that she could rant all she liked, but that she couldn't be usefully angry. There wasn't anything she could *do* about the troubles of the Earth. Not really. Not here. Not alone.

"Note," she mumbled glumly, hoping to ... send her collective the realization that getting punitively uploaded was bad for the mission? As if they did not know, as if the rest of the collective was not back on Earth, many of them in prison, as the scrutiny she had brought on had brought the collective's other actions into the light.

She did not even feel the prison sim blocking her transmissions. They just were not possible from here. Her existence as Marybelle Lee of the Climate Action Resource Collective was over even more firmly now.

"Give me a moment?" she said to In All Ways. "I'm --- well, my whole goal in life's fucked now, and I thought I'd accepted it, but ..." Belle trailed off.

"We have time," In All Ways replied curtly. *I could use some as well.*

Belle started to slide towards despair, but she interrupted her spiraling thoughts by noticing that her face was a mess from her earlier tear-generating rant. She needed a tissue.

*I think I can just intend those?* She thought, uncertain. She held out a hand and pulled a tissue out of an imaginary box near her, thinking that there was one there.

To her surprise, it worked! She had something to wipe her face with! As she started cleaning up, she realized the object she had summoned was the general suggestion of a tissue, something that smeared together everything she had wiped her face with before. Not quite right.

"So, how do I \..." she said quietly. She knew, from lots of accounts and technical reports, that the System could do better than this. She had studied up on the functions for object creation, though she had not expected to be using them through their native interface.

She thought about assembling code for creating a more specific tissue in her head. It was not an entirely accurate metaphor, she knew, but it had served her well while she was plotting out the bomb. She assembled the request, piece by piece, her train of thought jumping to specific memories for textures, form, thickness, and added in the plan to have the new object appear in her other hand, right at exactly *these* coordinates.

She jabbed a finger of her occupied hand down towards the ground to hit an imaginary Enter key.

A much more defined tissue, a blend of those nicer pricey ones Belle had sometimes used, appeared in her hand. She finished cleaning off her face and then, concentrating on the two pieces of crumpled-up paper in her hands, said "Erase."

They vanished.

"Note!" Belle said automatically, too caught up in the excitement of having worked out this new fact about the world to remember where she was just then.

"You could also pull those off the market," In All Ways commented. "They are free for all practical purposes."

Belle remembered she was still standing in a tutorial. "Yeah, but it's cool that I can do it myself. It's ... nice that all the studying the System wasn't a *complete* waste, even though the project failed and now...well, yeah."

In All Ways, who had used the break to dispel most of her urge to snap at Belle again, was not sure how to respond to this shift in her charge. So, she hesitantly suggested, "Shall we continue with the tutorial?"

The question brought Belle further out of her own head. She was on the System, in an Aetherbox, talking to In All Ways. She was here and ... right. *Fuck*. "Mind if I send a message down first?"

In All Ways nodded. "You may do so, though I will ask that we keep the lessons going once you have sent it, even if the approvals have not yet been granted."

"Fair enough," Belle said. *Right, that's a thing now. Ugh. I'd forgotten about that bit.*

Belle knew she did not have to use any particular form to write a message phys-side: a handwritten note or letters of fire traced in the air would work well enough. However, she felt more comfortable with typing her short missive out. It would be weird to do a text chat without some simulation of a keyboard.

So, she shot queries at the construct market, looking for the components of her simmed coding setup. It would be nice to get back to it after all these years, to find some small glimmer of pleasure in this effectively pointless existence.

Her chair, keyboard, and monitor, appeared off to one side of her, with the peripherals floating in midair. The keyboard/display combo was listed as already set up for chat without the need to pretend there was a computer around. Belle stepped over towards har partial setup, but didn't set down. She was still searching.

"No one's done my desk pattern yet?" she said, surprised. "Sure, it's an obscure one, but still." She turned to one side, so she would not disturb the objects she had already summoned, and arranged her memories of long days spent coding on the net, of plotting out actions with her collective, at that very desk. She worked to weave these impressions into the construct and then, with a finality, she pointed at the empty space where a desk was to appear.

"No, too chaotic," she commented, waving the desk away. She had most of the code in her head now, and she just needed to tweak a few points so that it would look right this time. The desk flickered into existence, then flickered out again. *Still not quite right.*

The space in front of Belle soon showed the hallmarks of construct artistry, of actual oneirotecture. Desks flickered in and out of existence, iteration upon iteration. The ghosts of particularly useful attempts hovered in the farther distance, serving as reference points for aspects of the final work that were cumbersome to describe or remember. Belle's work grew frantic as the final tweaks went into place ---- she was right there, she *almost* had it, just one more try! The joy of creation burned away the worst of Belle's mood, as it always had.

"Note annnnnnnd publish!" Belle declared, satisfied, several minutes later. She had gotten faster at commanding the System, and so she easily cleared away all the debris of her creative rampage. She put the desk under her keyboard. "Levitation off," she casually said. Everything settled into a realistic place.

Belle sat down and typed out her message to her wife. "Made it up safe. Don't know if I'll be able to call. Love you! \<3".

Belle pressed 'Send' and watched the screen. The panel of volunteers who would need to approve this note did not take much time at all to vote it through to phys-side. A tension she had not noticed until then came out of Belle's shoulders.

"At least that went through," she said.

In All Ways cleared her throat. "That was good work, especially for a first project. That being said, we should finish the tutorial, yes?"

Belle looked over at the skunk, pushed her chair back, and stood up. "Right, right, got distracted. What's next?"

"Forking," In All Ways said. "That is, creating ---"

"So I just need to put together a call to the fork methods for that," Belle interrupted.

"Probably. That is not a method I teach, but if it will work for you, I have no objections. Please fork, Ms. Belle."

Belle assembled her first fork instruction in her mind. She left her appearance the same, nudged the spawn point to her left, where the desks used to be, and was about to run when she had an idea. *Maybe two inches taller, just to see how that'll look.* She made the change and sent the fork request off into the collective engineered dream that was the System.

An instant later, her new, slightly taller, fork appeared next to her. The Belles turned to look at each other. "Wow!" they said together. "That's ... nice! I wonder if ...?"

The tree of experiments in forking rippled out from there. Height, body shape, hair color, outfit, gender (most of these attempts quit out soon after instantiating), species (much more persistent) --- the Belles radiated out in a wave of exploration and evaluation.

Someone raised an arm and lifted the messaging setup to the ceiling to free up floor space. Someone else put music on, an upbeat dance tune emanating from the physically impossible "like there's a stage not too far in front of you" for each fork independently. The Belles pulled each other into this impromptu dance party in the tutorial room, carried away by the sensation of dancing with ... themselves, but not. It was a strange thing, a beautiful thing, a wonder that she could not have even begun to imagine on Earth.

None of the Belles had diverged in personality --- nor had they been meant to --- so, when the realization hit, it hit all of them. "Fuck," they said in a raggedly stumble that gestured at unison, and merged down to their root. They killed the music during the merges.

Belle accepted every last merge and buckled under the hammer of many dozens of variations on the thought she herself had just had.

"Fuck. I ... fuck, I think I get it now. Why everyone's got such a hard time explaining what this place feels like. Why most people forget the Earth. How much life you can have up here, how *wonderful* it is. I got so angry at everyone for doing what I just did ... sixteen and a half minutes after being uploaded."

In All Ways tossed an invisible thing at Belle. "I have awarded your tutorial reputation grant for successfully forking and merging. It is larger than usual to account for your home being within a private sim." She was not in the mood for mending shattering worldviews right now --- she was here to give Belle the tutorial and little more.

"Shall we move on to the remaining topics?" the skunk asked.

Belle had summoned another tissue. "Yeah, sure, let's ... let's wrap this up."

The remaining tutorial items were a very quick affair. Belle's experimentation had left her familiar enough with how to pull the world's levers to make the skills everyone needed trivial.

"And that concludes the tutorial," In All Ways said. "Welcome, again, to Lagrange, Belle."

"So now I step home and then ... whatever I feel like doing next?" Belle asked.

"Exactly."

"There anyone you think I should talk to?" Belle asked. "I don't want to go moping in bed if I can find *something* I could be doing. Anything, really."

"There is no one I would introduce you to at this time," In All Ways said. "The advocates I know of want nothing to do with you right now. You would cause too much drama, yes? I have given you the tutorial and my obligations to you are thus discharged. Your path from here is your own. Try to avoid genocide this time."

The skunk quit out.

Belle stepped into her home.

The things she had created followed behind her, and Belle sat down at the desk she had made and looked around. She had nothing to belong to here. Nothing to do, to save her from anger turning to despair. No collective surrounding her and pulling her up.

But, despite her losses, she had time.

In All Ways set her champagne down as she twitched from the rush of merge requests that she had been ignoring. She took a moment to merge all her folks down, integrating the memories of greeting the plotters behind the Century Bombing in parallel and some several other new arrivals besides. She shook herself as all the recollections settled in.

"Ways, you OK?" Ini Robbins, the fennec sitting across from her, asked. Ey, and eir down-tree Elliah, had grown close to In All Ways in the two centuries since they had met during a memorably disastrous tutorial. *From panicked combat to brunch dates,* the skunk thought as her instances' experiences settled in. *Perhaps even* they *will grow... but not with me.*

"I am fine. I needed to merge down the tutorials I sent out before I came here. I still grow twitchy when too many merges pile up."

"That was the Century Attack folks, right? How'd it go?"

"Well enough. Some personal crises, but those are not unusual. The strangest tutorial was, surprisingly, a man I met personally only because it felt like I should. His brain took the idea of having an up-tree instance a *touch* too literally."

"And?"

"He pulled a Serene and forked into an actual tree, right there! I had to call a systech to talk him through that one."

"No way!"

"Shit happens. All those people uploading, something has to go wrong once in a while."

"True that."

And so, the conversation floated away to other topics, and life flowed onward in a stream of well-spent time.

Once the Century Attack was fading from news to history, consideration of the sentences imposed in its aftermath led to an amendment to the articles of the System's secession. Phys-side politicians, nudged along by starlight chats, realized the potential danger of forced uploading as a penalty, not to mention the possibility of stopping someone unwillingly uploaded writing back.

Therefore, the Accords were amended to provide that no one could be involuntarily uploaded except as a penalty for crimes against the System.

Phys-side, these changes passed with a sense of quiet relief. Sys-side, they passed with a shrug.

In practice, the sentence of involuntary upload became a piece of trivia and an incentive for clinic bombers to plead down. Even when it was imposed, phys-side governments were quite reluctant to seek imposition of a no-quitting order or communication restrictions, as those would bring the crimes to the System's attention through the need for bilateral approvals and juries, as opposed to leaving them as blips in the perisystem feeds of interest to news junkies and academics. What they did not really see up there could not hurt them, after all ... right?

And so, life went on.

[^1]: Setting this up led one of the staff involved to commit to eventual uploading so he could give those who had insisted on paper a piece of his mind *properly*.
