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# Dr. Carter Ramirez --- 2112
# Ioan Bălan --- 2305
London in winter was not a snowy affair. No traces of white lacing the ground, no flakes in the air. Just sporadic sleet and steel-gray skies, breath clouding her vision while fingertips went numb around her mug of water.
Interview with: Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled
On the formation of the Clade
Ioan Bălan
Systime 181+338 1644
She dumped the rest of the water in the already soggy grass and looped her pinkie through the handle, fingers curling into her palm to hunt for warmth. Another few steps and she gave up, setting the mug on a window-ledge so that she could walk with her hands in her pockets.
It wouldn't be missed. Mugs were less important than being out of there.
The pain of being drawn back so forcefully had disappeared immediately upon coming too outside the sim, but the memory lingered. Her mind would not let it go. If she thought about other things, she knew, it would disappear. Just a memory. A bad dream.
She did not think about other things. Could not think about other things. All she could think about was her implants and the system. All she could think about was the vain hope that the data on the card had made it into the core dump she knew had been left in her exocortex's storage immediately upon the crash. She had no idea how she'd get it out --- the tech side of the implants was hardly her specialty --- but she knew it was possible.
So she paced along the sidewalk, head down, remembering pain. She knew she was walking a street, but did not know which. She just needed away from the room, away from the neat row of rigs. Rigs she no longer trusted. Away from people she no longer trusted. She needed away, and hoped that the bracingly cold air would help in some way.
Her phone pinged. On silent, the ping came in the form of a brief tingle along her implants through the wireless. A gentle impinging on the senses. It pinged again. Then pinged several more times in short order.
It made her sick. A rush of anxiety to go with the reminder of the subtle tech ramifying through her flesh.
> *Avery:*
>
> Ramirez, something's happened
>
> *Avery:*
>
> ACL change in the system. Been locked out. Everyone's coming up
>
> *Avery:*
>
> What do we do?
>
> *Avery:*
>
> Shit, security's here???
>
> *Avery:*
>
> !!! Police
>
> *Sanders:*
>
> Police here. Need you. Come back ASAP
>
> *Prakash:*
>
> Police here looking for you. Stop where you are. Do not come back.
Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. She hardly needed Prakash's orders to stop. She was frozen to the sidewalk. She could hardly take another step if she wanted to.
> *Prakash:*
>
> I'm coming to you. Told them I went to look for you. Stay there.
*What?* Carter's mind seemed to be floating down a river, bumping across rocks and swirling in eddies. She could not focus for the water in her eyes. Literal, as well as figurative. She could not tell if she was crying, or if the air was simply stinging. *Security? Police? Prakash coming here?*
And then: *How does he know where I am?*
Sure enough, there, jogging around the corner was his lithe form, unjacketed with puffs of breath showing in the still air.
"Ramirez," he said. His breathing was calm despite the jog. "As I'm sure you've heard, the police and security are at the lab, looking for you."
Carter merely stared at him.
"Ramirez? Doctor Ramirez. Hey!" He snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Things are going to happen very quickly now. I need you to stay away from UCL and stay away from home. I've got some, ah...friends who will be in contact with you soon. Not Western Fed, if you take my meaning."
She blinked, nodded dumbly. Another rock for her mind to bump over in that swift-flowing stream: *Prakash? Sino-Russian Bloc?*
"If you run, you'll only look guilty. Culpable. You need to stay away from UCL, but--" He pointed down the street. "If you were to head to the medical center, then it's only an ethics violation, not running from the police, okay? Brewster is there."
"What--" Her voice cracked, and she had to swallow a few times to get it to work properly. "What happened?"
"You found something they didn't like. You saw something you weren't supposed to, and I think I know what. Sanders tipped them off, then told the police you might be a danger to yourself or something. I don't know. He's a plant, they think on their feet. I didn't stick around. Hold still." The last was delivered as Carter started to shrink away from his hand reaching toward her. He held it up in a disarming gesture, a bulky-looking phone held within. "Avery texted me why you had them pull you back. This is just a back up drive, promise."
She stood still. There didn't seem to be any alternative.
Prakash pressed the box against the top of her exo, just at the base of her neck, masking the motion as a hug. There was no sensation from her implants, but when he leaned away, he nodded to her. "We're good. Thank you, Ramirez."
"Why?"
"This will be good for both of us." His smile was wry. "We get some intel to use against the WF, and you will doubtless get your lost back."
Carter gaped. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Just--" Prakash frowned at something over her shoulder. "Fuck. Get going. Walk, don't run. Don't look back. Take the tube. You'll be followed, but being around more people will only help."
And with that, he patted her arm, moved around her, and walked away.
Despite any attempts to appear calm, she had to clench her hands within her pockets to keep them from shaking.
She was lucky with the tube, and managed to step immediately onto a car without having to wait. She supposed that if she were being followed, the platform would be the perfect place for someone to catch up with her. The short ride was spent wondering what they might do to her. Cuff her then and there? Pretend to be a friendly acquaintance and draw her to the side? Just talk?
Not something she wanted to find out first hand.
She had calmed enough by the time she reached the UMC that she was no longer shaking and could walk quickly and, hopefully, unsuspiciously up from the tube to street level. The steps disgorged her across the road from the UMC itself, and she was able to duck quickly into the building, using the light traffic as an excuse to jog.
With the connection between the University College and the Medical Center, she was able to swipe her way in without fuss, and once in, to quick-walk over to the wing where she knew they worked on implants. It was no clinic, but it did have some areas dedicated to care and maintenance.
She needed a rig. She didn't *want* a rig, but she needed to delve in and at least let Sasha and her friends know what was happening, that she might be seeing RJ soon. Needed to let someone else know what she knew.
*This is stupid, this is stupid,* she repeated to herself. A mantra. Or perhaps a prayer for someone to stop her.
No one did. She was doctor Carter Ramirez, after all, right? Why would a research doctor from the very university that ran the medical center need to be stopped? Of course she was welcome, the staff rigs are just down the hall, help yourself.
All she could hope for now was that that, if the lost were related to information they knew but had not shared, that they were being prevented from sharing, perhaps she would be safe if she were to be visible about it. Had already been visible about it, with that stunt back in the lab. If she were too visible a subject and the lost were the result of some intentional action, her --- or any of her team --- getting lost would be suspicious. She hoped.
*Fuck, this is so stupid.*
Even so, she sat in front of a workstation facing the door and, seeing nothing suspicious --- no one at all, really --- set her hands in the cradles and her head against the NFC terminal.
*No time to make a throwaway,* she thought, quickly bringing up a menu in her home sim. There was a flashing notification attached to the black sphere representing a core dump. *And I'm already fucked anyway, but hopefully there's something I can do.*
The mail was quick and to the point. She had the address for Sasha and, with a quick browse of her mail archive, the ones for Caitlin and this Debarre, too.
> All
>
> Things went sideways with the project, we may be fucked. Govt plant (Sanders, if you remember, Sasha) and SRB spy on the team. Police showed up today and everything, just barely got out.
>
> I found some data, though. Don't know what to do with it, but I've attached the core that might have it saved. It has to do with DDR activity as suspected, notably some vote that happened a while back, deleted from EVERYONE'S records. Something crazy happening high enough up that they're trying to make everyone forget and disappear those who won't.
>
> Home sim is @cramirez:eo3.london.gb.wf#default, will stick around a few, but after that, going to see RJ. Will probably be the last you here from me, as am being followed.
>
> cr
No time to think. She hit send.
*I'll give it five minutes, then I probably need to get out. Had to swipe into the room, but I doubt that'll deter anyone for long.*
She jumped when Sasha stepped from the tport pad less than thirty seconds later. "Jesus, that was fast."
"Caught me before work. What the hell is happening?" The skunk's voice was shrill with panic. "Police? Is AwDae okay?"
Carter held up her hands defensively, then jumped again as a...weasel? Another furry of some sort, long and brown and dressed all in black, dashed quickly from the pad.
"This is Debarre." Sasha spoke quickly. "Debarre, Dr Ramirez. She's at the hospital with RJ."
Debarre looked frantic, pacing erratically. "What the fuck is happening?"
"I don't know!" Carter forced herself to calm and lower her voice. "I don't know. Something really fucked is going on. I'm at the UMC, the hospital where RJ is. I haven't seen em yet. I only have a few minutes. Did Caitlin get the message?"
Sasha shrugged helplessly. Something was happening with her avatar. The resolution starting to degrade, polygons and voxels starting to show where once the fur had been smooth and well-rendered "I don't know, I--" She shook her head. "Didn't...h-hear..."
Both Carter and Debarre watched as the form that was Sasha fell to its knees, glitching wildly, voice filled with static. And then, with a damning silence, disappeared. Lost. Lost to the sim, lost to the world.
There was a descending chime, a diminished triad, and a message floating above the black sphere of a core where Sasha had disappeared: "User forcibly pulled back. Core dumped. Please report any further complications to your provider."
Debarre let out a shout and, without a warning, signed out.
Carter hastily followed suit.
*Fuck.*
> **Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled**: What, specifically, do you want to know about the clade?
>
> **Ioan Bălan**: Other than "start at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop?"
>
> **Dear**: [laughter] Yes. I could do that, I suppose, but it wouldn't make for a very good story.
>
> **Ioan**: Right. I suppose start at the beginning, specifically with your decision to upload.
>
> **Dear**: You understand that there will be portions of that story that I cannot tell you, yes?
>
> **Ioan**: Of course.
>
> **Dear**: [thoughtful silence] Okay. Did you ever come across...well, no. When did you upload?
>
> **Ioan**: 2238. June or something.
>
> **Dear**: [sighs] No. Okay, well, in your research, did you ever come across mentions of "the lost"?
>
> **Ioan**: Yes. Lots of turmoil around then. Early 2100s, right?
>
> **Dear**: [nods] Yes. Though it's strange, now that I think about it. The turmoil at the time felt very small and personal. While there was all this grand-scale stuff going on around us, we were dealing with friends and acquaintances disappearing. There were so few cases at first that it was just this thing the news would publish as a sort of curiosity. "Look! Isn't this strange? The scientists are working so hard!" [laughter] It wasn't until after that the turmoil you're talking about began.
>
> **Ioan**: Okay. Did you upload during?
>
> **Dear**: Oh goodness, no. Uploading had been something scientists and such had been poking at, but that no one had yet to accomplish. Or, well, perhaps someone had accomplished. Some had claimed to, at least. The consensus at the time is that, while it was likely possible, there would be little chance of having systems large enough to house more than two or three individuals. It was not a...ah, not a linear increase in complexity, I think. Add another mind, and the complexity more than doubles. [pause] It was the lost who started it, in a way. The things we learned from them when they came back--
>
> **Ioan**: How many-- sorry for the interruption. How many came back? Of those you knew?
>
> **Dear**: Oh, all of them came back! Just that some of them didn't last long, after.
>
> **Ioan**: Including the...uh, the owner of the Name?
>
> **Dear**: [pause, tense] Yes. In a way.
>
> **Ioan**: Okay. Back to the uploading side, then. The lost taught you...
>
> **Dear**: [visibly relaxing] Right, yes. When they came back, many of them --- many of us, for I was briefly among their number --- talked about what we had learned while...uh, in there. The things that we talked about and described are what sent the wonks down new avenues of research, and that eventually led to the first uploading tech. From there, there was the usual "too expensive" hand-wringing, but it all marches on, you know? [laughs] It got cheaper, the tech got better, the L5 station and Ansible were set up. Population was getting out of hand again, and some wag decided to pitch uploading as a solution.
>
> **Ioan**: I remember that, yeah. The posters were all over the place.
>
> **Dear**: Yes. Notably, as the cost came down, it was pitched as something for the poorer classes to take advantage of.
>
> **Ioan**: And were you...I mean--
>
> **Dear**: [laughs] Poor? Not particularly, actually. It appealed to me for...different reasons. I'd prefer not to get into those at the moment.
>
> **Ioan**: Alright.
>
> **Dear**: Yes. Well. [pause] Okay, right, I uploaded in the 2130s, shortly after the L5 station was set up. It had become sufficiently cheap that It was something I could afford--
>
> **Ioan**: Cheap? How much?
>
> **Dear**: It was...well, still a considerable portion of my savings.
>
> **Ioan**: I see.
>
> **Dear**: Why do you ask?
>
> **Ioan**: We were --- our families were, I mean --- paid for us to upload.
>
> **Dear**: Oh? Fancy that! [laughter] Anyway. It had become something that I could afford, and I leapt on the chance. It had been around long enough that it still felt relatively established, but was still a far cry from what it was now. This was probably early systime 10+, I mean. Folks knew what they were doing, but much of the society --- what we think of society --- here had not gelled into what it is today.
>
> **Ioan**: You mention that it cost to fork, yes.
>
> **Dear**: Yes. The reputation markets were already set up by then, but since this was before the system's proper expansion and some tech that came later --- I couldn't begin to understand it --- it was gently discouraged by the market.
>
> **Ioan**: It hadn't reached this...post-scarcity, you mean?
>
> **Dear**: Right. There was still a scarcity of resources and we were still sufficiently...ah, still sufficiently human, perhaps, socially human, that this was used as a lever, a measure of one's class.
>
> **Ioan**: We still have the markets, though.
>
> **Dear**: [laughter] Not like we did then.
>
> **Ioan**: Alright. Don't suppose you would be able to do what you do today back then.
>
> **Dear**: Not at all, no. It does still cost some minuscule portion of credit for one to fork now, but I digress. We began as Michelle and did the things that Michelle did, forking infrequently. This was still a few years before the distinctions between strategies started up. Most everyone was a tasker back then by virtue of the markets.
>
> **Ioan**: It's hard to picture you as a tasker.
>
> **Dear**: [laughter] Right, yes. As everything started to get cheaper, though, those distinctions began to emerge. By then, Michelle had a few long-lived instances, tagged as you are, Mx #c1494bf.
>
> **Ioan**: [laughter] Thank you. This was before the Ode?
>
> **Dear**: The Ode itself existed. That came before we uploaded.
>
> **Ioan**: Before the Ode clade, though?
>
> **Dear**: Right, yes. Michelle and her forks existed, but the very idea of clades was new at the time. At one point, though, she and a few other founders began to describe their trees as such. The larger trees grew --- for those who maintained long-running forks, that is --- the more unwieldy tags became, and folks decided on names. Some folks settled on simple standards. Another of the founders, the Jonas clade, for instance, uses syllabic prefixes. Ar Jonas, Ko Jonas, and so on. Leading vowels the first forks, then leading consonants, then the vowels following the consonants, *et cetera ad infinitum*.
>
> **Ioan**: And you chose the Ode.
>
> **Dear**: Michelle did, yes. She had picked up a contrarian streak during the whole lost saga.
>
> **Ioan**: Did she play a large role in that?
>
> **Dear**: [taken aback] Did her name not come up in your research?
>
> **Ioan**: Not on the lost, no. Just on the founders.
>
> **Dear**: [frowning] Well, alright. Yes, she played a role, but time softens rough edges, I suppose. Either way, the things she did gave her enough reputation to fork, and she chose the Ode to name her instances while remaining Michelle, herself. She started with the first lines of each stanza, then let them create and name their own forks from there.
>
> **Ioan**: Thus the limited dispersionista style.
>
> **Dear**: [nodding] Right. Each stanza became a small family of taskers, in a way. We, the Odists, create our own forks as needed, but don't let them live long. Or aren't supposed to, at least.
>
> **Ioan**: "Aren't supposed to"?
>
> **Dear**: Oh, I'm sure a few of us have created long-running forks while everyone else has turned their head.
>
> **Ioan**: Have you?
>
> **Dear**: [smiling, shrugging, mu-gesture] By virtue of our set-up, though, such forks are not members of the clade. Those forks are not named as such, and likely not in communication with any other cocladists aside from their immediate down-tree instance.
>
> **Ioan**: Is the Ode available somewhere for me to read?
>
> **Dear**: Of course. I'll give you a copy. That's hardly secret.
>
> **Ioan**: And the clade, how long has it been since you have all been together.
>
> **Dear**: This will be the first time there have been more than half of us together in one spot.
>
> **Ioan**: Ever?
>
> **Dear**: [nodding] Ever. Some dispersionistas are families. I mentioned the Jonas clade before; Jonas Prime has set up regular intraclade communication. Some are just clades, defined by ancestry with no further connections.
>
> **Ioan**: Are you in touch with any of your cocladists?
>
> **Dear**: I'm assuming you mean "in normal times"? Right. One or two. Serene and I get along quite well, and I talk with Praiseworthy --- Those That Lived Are Forever Praiseworthy, the first line of my stanza --- with some frequency. Michelle and I have talked a few times. She comes to my exhibitions.
>
> **Ioan**: Ever talked to, um...
>
> **Dear**: Qoheleth?
>
> **Ioan**: Yes. I was going to say "Life Breeds Life" but forgot the line.
>
> **Dear**: Names are important, Ioan. If he has decided on Qoheleth, then Qoheleth it is.
>
> **Ioan**: Right, sorry. I was in the mindset of the lines. Have you talked with him?
>
> **Dear**: Before this? No. Not knowingly.
>
> **Ioan**: And how do you feel about seeing the whole clade together?
>
> **Dear**: I would be surprised if we manage to net all of them. [laughter] But I suppose I feel excited. Not necessarily because I have never met many of them so much as because it feels like we as a clade have a goal in front of us. Seeing them is secondary to them --- to us --- actually doing something. Accomplishing something.
>
> **Ioan**: And what do you hope to get out of it? This gathering?
>
> **Dear**: [smiling] A story. Others want answers, and I suppose I do too, but I mostly want a story. I want *the* story. I want to be the audience and a character. I want to dive into the story and bathe in it. I want a story.