Epigraph

content/read/044.md

@@ -1,61 +1,27 @@
-# RJ Brewster --- 2112
+# Ioan Bălan --- 2305
 
-*I am at a loss for images in this end of days.*
+Mustering the Odists took surprising effort.
 
-No images. No images. Not real ones. Nothing real in this empty space. Ey could see, but why? Why see eir flat? Why see Prisca? Why see anything?
+Qoheleth had said that he would welcome them at any time. Dear had taken this to heart and Ioan had no reason to suspect that there would be any delays in gathering everyone together. Despite the shady nature of the acts leading up to this --- the puzzles and mazes of clues, the spying, the digging --- everything seemed so simple on the surface. The last clue found, the final puzzle solved. Visit Qoheleth and finish the act. 
 
-So ey didn't. Ey dreamt emself blind. More than blind. Eir dreaming mind ensured that there was no such thing as sight. That it had never existed. Did not exist for emself. Had never existed for anyone.
+And Ioan had thought that this would be easy.
 
-Ey was like the theater. Ey was vast, incomprehensible spaces. Ey was the lack of the concept of space. Ey was words. Ey was information. Ey was sound, and the only sound was eir voice.
+Some of Dear's cocladists not want to go. They argued that it would be a danger to concentrate the clade in one place like this. That they could not express what that danger might be did not help their case. They would not go, they said, even with a forked instance.
 
-"The only time I know my true name is when I dream."
+These took much persuasion. In the end, many agreed only if the entirety of the clade was there.
 
-Except was that eir voice? Did ey hear? Did ey speak? Was it em making these noises? Was it em hearing them? Ey dreamed emself out of sight, could ey still dream emself speaking?
+One *did* want to go but refused to fork to do so. Or, it turned out, to fork at all. This, above all else, set Dear off: the fox did not take confusion of this sort well, but for the root of that confusion to go so counter to its very existence led to a tantrum, and then a sulk. Ioan could hardly fault it. The more time went on, the less ey was willing to put up with the politicking and glad-handing.
 
-"Why ask questions, here at the end of all things?" Ey laughed. "Why ask questions when the answers will not help?"
+In the end, the clade was at the whims of that single individual's schedule.
 
-Ey dreamed emself asleep, then. Asleep and dreaming. The world moved around em in soft colors and meaningless images. Words strung themselves together, tangled, frayed, came apart once more. Ey dreamed.
+Some of the more liberal members wanted to bring others, as did Dear by bringing Ioan, and this set off another round of debate. Further delays. They decided that they would only bring informed participants who had already played a role in the project.
 
-Ey dreamed.
+With little else to do, Ioan read and waited. Ey read up on the history of the Ode clade. Ey read the Ode itself, hunting for hidden meanings. Ey read up on this form of public key encryption. Dear forked to teach em the encryption algorithm that used the deck of playing cards, and so ey read about manual encryption, and then the history of playing cards. Ey read and reread Ecclesiastes and all ey could about it. Ey even read about various mental vagaries and attempted to map them to Michelle Hadje, Qoheleth, Dear, and various members of the Clade which Dear talked (or, as time went on, ranted) about.
 
-Who knew how long? Who knows? What means knowing in dreams?
+This last was mostly for fun, but ey was also beginning to strategize eir report. More than a report, ey wanted to write something that would stand on its own. A book, perhaps, or at least an article. An essay and formal report for Dear, and a smoothed, anonymized version for wider publication. If the clade would let em, at least. Ey wanted the result to be readable, rather than simply an account of events. Something that would help explain the whys and hows of an older clade in turmoil. Something to express the rising panic ey felt about aging in a timeless place, about memory and the importance of forgetting.
 
-When ey woke --- when ey dreamed emself awake --- AwDae answered eir own question: "To know one's true name is to know god. To know god is to answer unasked questions."
+An historical document.
 
-And as ey thought upon eir true name, eir mind wandered across what remained in eir exo. Wandered across the deck on Cicero. Wandered across those cards and did not ask.
+A story.
 
-And there it was.
-
-The vote was not there, and yet the answer was. There was the shadow of intention, of the need for an entire vote to disappear from the collected direct democracy that was the DDR. There was the reason for those who had interacted with the vote, who had voted, who had spent the credits needed to comment on it in the political theater. Commented where others could read, where representatives from the territories would see.
-
-What mattered the vote? What mattered the comments? What mattered the content, the cost? What mattered the golden fleece, or any MacGuffin? It could have been a flashlight with an amber filter in a suitcase just as easily as it could have been a declaration of war against the Sino-Russian Bloc. Chekhov's vote.
-
-It didn't matter. All that mattered is that those who had seen it --- had seen the vote, who had interacted with it, who had interacted with it at however many levels of remove --- were *personae non gratae* from that point on. Easier for them to not be. Easier to admit the mystery of the lost into the collective consciousness than to let such come to light. What cared the world of billions for the hundreds of lost? What cared the powers that be for the resistance of however many dozens that were now lost?
-
-Ey rambled beyond the deck, beyond eir flat, beyond Prisca. Ey wandered across the interior of eir skull until ey stepped up onto the stoop of eir exo.
-
-*Do I know god after the end of all things? Do I know god when I do not remember myself? Do I know god when I dream?*
-
-Ey dreamed that border. Dreamed that border between endocortex and exocortex, and then dreamed eir way across it. Dreamed of the difference between endomemory and exomemory. Dreamed that exomemory into lines. Into rows and columns and formations. Review, friends --- troops long past review.
-
-Ey dreamed that memory into data, into words and images and sounds and smells and sensations. Dreamed more than just the memory. Scraped the insides of that exo and dreamed everything. Dreamed it into formation.
-
-And reviewed. Ey walked, a fox, with baton in paw, skirt and blouse dreamed into uniform, laughing joyously. Ey walked along the formations and inspected. Neatly ordered. Neatly organized. Standing proud.
-
-Ey reviewed and marveled at the preciseness with which eir mind obeyed itself. Madness be damned: if ey could control nothing else in this non-world, ey could control emself.
-
-Ey very carefully did not ask.
-
-And there it was: the answer.
-
-There, standing tall, as proud as any other memory, was a routine. And when AwDae gazed into its porcelain face, ey understood. And when that porcelain face gazed back, it smiled beatifically.
-
-There it was: the very routine, the very bug exploited, the very program triggered at the order of some higher power. The very entity which had painted the inside of eir exo with silver and glass that left em trapped within. There was the virus in all its glory. Its subtle curves meant to fit the space of an exo's logic perfectly. Its ability to recognize actions. Its ability to cut off the outside world. Its ability to ride shotgun along regular software updates. *Security*, it promised. *Added security along the barrier between waking and dreaming.*
-
-It smiled, and AwDae laughed.
-
-"The only time I know my true name is when I dream," ey spoke through tears. "And may then my name die with me."
-
-Madness grew to a cruel point, pierced bubble of dream, and then dissolved fox.
-
-Ey dreamed.
+And finally, the day had come. It had been nearly two weeks after deciphering Qoheleth's last message, but it had finally come. There had been no further communications from the wayward Odist. He seemed patient enough to wait.