Bumpnumbers

content/read/024.md

@@ -1,131 +1,139 @@
-# Ioan Bălan --- 2325
+# Michelle Hadje/Sasha --- 2124
 
-"I uploaded as soon as I could. I think it was the forties?"
+It took Debarre a matter of seconds to answer Michelle's request for a meeting. His arrival in her sim, the weasel blinking into existence next to her on that endless field of grass and dandelions, startled her enough to cause her to stumble.
 
-"Which forties?"
+"Shit, you okay, Michelle?"
 
-Renee laughed. "Right, the 2140s, sorry. I can't believe it's been that long."
+She laughed, picking herself back up, feeling as unsteady as ever. "Yeah, I just was not expecting you right away. I thought that you would set up a time later."
 
-Ioan smiled and jotted down the date. "Thanks. What led you to upload?"
+"I was free." Debarre leaned forward and helped brush some grass off of her side. "Is now not a good time?"
 
-"Jesus, I don't know that I even remember anymore." She got a far-away look in her eyes, then brightened up. "Cancer! I think, at least. I got something, and it just felt like it'd be easier to come up here than stay down there."
+"No, no. Now is fine. Thank you for meeting up in the first place."
 
-"That makes sense. Not much of that to worry about here."
+"Of course."
 
-"Sometimes I think it must've been early onset Alzheimer's." She laughed. "I just get a little spacey, is all."
+Michelle led them off at a leisurely pace into the fields, into the warm day and soft hum of bees. Debarre walked along in silence beside her, apparently enjoying the day with his whiskers bristled out and eyes half-shut against the sun.
 
-"It's easy enough to do. I get stuck thinking about this or that and can't think of anything else, sometimes," ey said.
+She'd always intended to build herself a house, but the field always felt so complete without it.
 
-"Oh! Yes, that's it precisely. I get stuck writing stuff in my head, and then I forget what it was that I was doing."
+"True Name mentioned that you wanted to talk."
 
-"You write music?"
+"Yeah," he said, looking down at his feet as they poked their way through the dandelions. "But I'm not quite sure where to start."
 
-She nodded. "Composer, conductor, violinist. Have you heard any of my stuff?"
+"I am guessing that it is about the names." She mastered a brief wave of anxiety, a brief wave of skunk features across human ones, a brief wave of Sasha among Michelle. "I am afraid that I do not have a fantastic explanation for it."
 
-"I listened to some while I was preparing for our meeting." Ioan smiled sheepishly. "I'll admit that much of it was over my head, but I can certainly see the skill behind it, and you play beautifully."
+Debarre shrugged this off. "I don't need a great explanation. I don't need anything, I guess. I just want to know what's going on, Sasha."
 
-"Thank you for saying so," she said, giving a hint of a bow. "For saying all that, I mean. I sometimes enjoy writing stuff that's hard to grasp. It makes for an experience of its own. Bafflement, confusion, lack of understanding, those are all feelings, and music is supposed to toy with feelings."
+And with that, with a susurration of fur against clothes, she was Sasha. What thoughts before that had kept her as Michelle, as her human self, had been uprooted for the day and replaced with those that anchored her to a time, a context, a name. Debarre, of all the others that she'd met, seemed to understand this best, and he took this in stride.
 
-"That's something I can appreciate, as well."
+"If I am honest, I do not know myself. At least, not truly. It is something that came to me in the moment." She paused to pluck a dandelion, twirling it between fingerpads, laughing. "I am still a little unnerved by it, myself. I remember thinking to myself, "I need a fucking vacation, but I should fork so that I do not leave the others in a lurch", and then there it was, the idea, already fully formed and ready to go."
 
-"I'm sure you can, with your work with the Odists." Renee grinned at eir confusion. "I read up on you as well. They sound like a wild bunch."
+"To use Aw-- to use eir poem for the names?"
 
-"I'll say." Ey laughed. "You were a musician before uploading, too, correct?"
+She canted her ears back. "I miss em. I have been thinking about em for years."
 
-"Oh, yes! One of those lucky few who got to do what she loved for a living. I think that's why I uploaded, in the end. Getting a terminal diagnosis didn't really make me depressed in and of itself. What got to me was the thought that that would mean I wouldn't be able to play or write anymore. I've seen people go through treatment, and none of them are in any shape to play an instrument."
+"A decade."
 
-"What kind of cancer? If you don't mind me asking."
+The skunk nodded.
 
-"Thyroid, I think. Yes, that was it. I noticed it when it started to get uncomfortable to hold the violin." She made a sour face, then added, "I'm sure I sound obsessed."
+"I think about em a lot, too, Sasha. We were all pretty torn up about it, even if ey's the one that helped build this place. I remember bawling my eyes out when you read the poem." He laughed, rubbing a paw over his face. "Hell, when you said all that in the coffee shop, I was having a hard time dealing with a whole shitload of emotions and you were so upset at the bar."
 
-Ey waved the comment away. "I'm here to listen. Please, obsess all you like."
+"The bar?"
 
-Renee smiled gratefully. "There really was nothing in my life, otherwise. Writing, playing, conducting. Concert after concert after concert. No friends, no family, no other hobbies, no other addictions. What would I even do with myself without the few things in my life I loved? Really, truly loved, too. I loved my parents, but it was more of a theoretical love. I told myself I loved my husband, but when he left --- I was too distracted, he said --- I was actually sort of relieved."
+"Oh, uh, sorry. True Name was upset at the bar. I started to ask her about all this, and I almost said eir name and--"
 
-"That's a plenty good reason to upload, I'd say. 2140s, hmm." Ey hunted through eir memory, back to interviews with Douglas. "That was before governments were paying people to upload. Was it expensive for you to upload?"
+"AwDae's?" she asked, tilting her head.
 
-"Paid...?" She frowned and shook her head. "God, no. What a weird idea."
+Debarre flinched back from her, stopping mid-step.
 
-"It got bad, phys-side. Some governments started subsidizing uploads to keep populations down and people happy."
+"Debarre?"
 
-"Weird, weird. No, it was not expensive, but I did have to pay. Couple thousand francs CFA, I think?"
+He frowned at her, straightening up. "When I tried to say 'AwDae' earlier, True Name lost her shit. Like, I was afraid she was going to lunge across the table and deck me. You didn't know?"
 
-"I don't have a reference point for that amount. I was compensated --- well, my family was --- to upload, coming to about two years tuition at the university. In terms of what the average person made where you lived, was that a lot?"
+Sasha shook her head. "None of my forks have merged back down to me yet. I-- we decided that I would take some time off before reengaging. I have no memory of what happened."
 
-She shrugged. "Not sure about an average person. It was about six months' saving for me, and musicians didn't make a ton of money."
+"It was kind of terrifying." The weasel laughed. "She slammed her glass down and said something like 'do not fucking say that name'. I can respect wanting to keep things close to the heart, but I thought I was about to get in a fistfight."
 
-"There wasn't much money in history, either," ey said. "Now, the reason I sought you out was two-fold. First of all, one of the things you're known for is that you found a way to send your compositions phys-side pretty early on, correct?"
+"I am trying to picture either of us in a fistfight, much less with each other, and failing," she said, grinning. "I would very much appreciate this being kept between us, yes, but I have no plans to deck you if you say eir name when it is just the two of us."
 
-"Yes. Yes! I had nearly forgotten that they pinned that on me." She laughed, leaning back in her chair. "I didn't really figure it out, so much as use something a publisher pointed out to me as a curiosity. It's nigh impossible to send images and sound back through phys-side. I guess they came through all garbled, with little bits in focus and the rest a total mess. I have no clue as to the details."
+"I appreciate that. Why'd True Name seem to think otherwise, though?"
 
-"As I've heard, too. Text appears to work okay, as something more concrete."
+Tossing away the dandelion, she shrugged helplessly. "I do not know. At the point when she came into existence, she ceased being me. We were the same for only the briefest of seconds, but we have long since diverged."
 
-"Right, just drop it in the perisystem blah blah and phys-side can pick it up. Anyway, music can be described, and that publisher said that there had been several different tools for writing sheet music as just plain old text. Want to play the note A? Write down A. B? Write down B. A rest? R. *Et cetera et cetera ad nauseum.* It was nothing new, but I guess no one had thought to try something like that before. I read up on one of them and made a few changes to the whole shebang, and now we can send that back and forth. Books? Sure. Math? Sure. Even film and stage scripts! Why not music?"
+"That far, though? It's only been a week or two, right?"
 
-Ioan laughed. "Of course. That makes sense. Did your music change after you uploaded?"
+"I suppose so. I will have to check in with her. With the rest of the clade, too, and see if anything else strange is going on. I have not been keeping tabs on all of them."
 
-"I wrote a lot more string works," she said, grinning. "After all, I could fork and play as many parts as I wanted. Or could afford, at least. It still cost a bit to fork back then. I also made a few instruments up here that I could only describe in order to let phys-side know how to make. Concerts were much easier to have, because schedules are easier to coordinate when you're not restricted to just one version of yourself. Music started to drift between sys-side and phys-side --- stylistically, I mean. I got some iffy reviews of stuff offline that went over pretty well here."
+Debarre nodded. "They seem like they're doing fine."
 
-"What happened to music phys-side that didn't here?"
+"They are not taking over the council, then?"
 
-"They swung back towards some older styles. Second-wave minimalism was at its height, when I was leaving, and I loved the stuff. All those long notes, chords that held forever or used rhythm to add variety. Phasing." She chopped her hands unevenly in the air before herself, emphasizing the latter in a way that Ioan didn't understand at all. "Outside the System, though, it swung back toward more romantic stuff. It was all very Mahler, very Antoniewicz, very Liu. The problem with living forever, though, is that you can keep refining your craft in whatever ways you want. I stuck around with minimalism, for the most part. People keep uploading, though, and bring their ideas with them, so I've tried to diversify my works a little bit, but I write what sounds good to me."
+He laughed. "Not at all, no. Just True Name taking your spot in dealing with the politics stuff. I actually haven't seen many of the others."
 
-"Is there a steady stream of composers joining? Enough to shift styles sys-side?"
+Sasha nodded. 
 
-"Less so, lately. If people are being paid to upload, though, it's not too surprising. That makes it sound like things are a mess out there, and when things are a mess, people study less music and try to get out early, often before they've got the experience and knowledge that set in later in life. Would explain the wave of folk music I've seen in the last decades."
+They stood in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the sun. The vacation had treated her well so far, and she already felt less torn in two without the stress of the council weighing on her. Debarre also had a calming influence on her, as though having one person associated primarily with only one context was enough to pin her in place, rather than having her constantly ping-ponging between two.
 
-"Makes me want to take a survey of ages when folks upload through the years." Ey scribbled a note to emself on the corner of eir paper. "Another time, though. The second reason that I wanted to interview is that you didn't opt to join the launch. Why was that?"
+Skunk and weasel both sat down in the grass, laughing at having apparently come to the same decision independent of each other.
 
-She covered her face with her hands and laughed, sounding muffled. "Oh no, that's embarrassing. I meant to, I really did. I just forgot."
+Debarre plucked a blade of grass and threw it at her. "You reminded me; another thing that True Name said is that when you forked off your ten instances, you left behind the part of you that is split between Michelle and Sasha. She called it 'the part that suffers'."
 
-That evening, back at eir house, after ey had merged eir work-forks, after ey had sat down to dinner with May, ey finally let the memories, those countless little moments, wash over em.
+Hiding a wince by plucking a handful of dandelions one by one, Sasha nodded. "I do not think that having ten versions of me who are just as fucked up as I am would have made anything easier."
 
-"What?" the skunk asked, head tilted.
+During the pause that followed, she began weaving those flowers into a chain.
 
-"Hmm?"
+"Are you?"
 
-"You were frowning. What happened? Getting tired of my cooking?"
+"Am I what?"
 
-"No, it's good. Just thinking about something Codrin#Castor talked about today." Ey stabbed at a spear of asparagus. "Ey interviewed some asshole author who was working on a book on both launches, but intentionally not communicating to see how they would diverge."
+"Suffering."
 
-"Sounds fun enough," May said. "But, if I am thinking of the same author, it will be quite boring."
+Sasha set the half-complete flower-crown on her lap and began to pick another handful of flowers. Anything to keep from looking at Debarre. "I do not know if that is the right word. It was not a deliberate choice to fork each instance only when I was in a more singular state, but I am not displeased that this was the case. That way, they can do what they need to do without...without..."
 
-Ioan laughed, finished chewing on the asparagus. "Codrin suggested that we specifically not do that, though, that it might be better to coordinate between the two launches a little better. Figure out who to interview and in what order, while the transmission time isn't too bad."
+Debarre did not press her. She worked through her tears, tying the last of the dandelions in place to form the chain into a loop so that she could rest it atop her head, petals tickling at her ears. When she dropped her hands again, the weasel took them in his own.
 
-May shrugged. "I am up for it, if all three of our groups agree."
+*I can feel em,* she thought. *I can almost feel em, there in the sunlight, in the flowers.*
 
-"After I explained it to Codrin#Pollux, ey seemed on board. I think it might be a good idea."
+"What keeps you from doing the same, yourself? You could fork when you're feeling excellent and leave behind whatever's causing the split."
 
-"Did either of them have any suggestions for where to look next?"
+She didn't answer, just sat with her paws in her friend's, her head bowed, her tears leaving tracks in fur.
 
-"Nothing in particular," Ioan said around a bite of fish. "Sorry. I figure stuff like why one invested in one or the other is a project that could go on forever, based on the numbers. Sure, there are only two hundred or so clades that totally invested in the launches, but the numbers are much higher on our end."
+"Sasha?"
 
-"You are thinking about Secession, are you not? Looking for founders to interview," May grinned. "Clever."
+She didn't answer.
 
-"Am I that transparent?"
+"Do you regret coming here?"
 
-"Yes, absolutely."
+All she could do was shake her head before emotion completely overwhelmed her. She slouched to the side and, with Debarre's help, lay down amid the grass and dandelions, resting her head on his thigh. His silence was patient and his paw on her shoulder kind as she let that wave of emotion wash over her, through her, and when it was past, he shared in the calm that remained after.
 
-Ey laughed. "Well, how much of the Council of Eight remains?"
+"I'm sorry, Sasha."
 
-"Most. I will direct one of the Codrins to find some of them."
+"No. It is alright." She rolled onto her back, picking up the fallen flower-crown and reaching it up to drape it over the weasel's head. "The System may act as a magnifying glass on some of what I was going through before uploading, but much of what I feel now I was going through before, just less visibly."
 
-"But not me?"
+"Alright." He straightened the loop of golden flowers atop his head, ruffled a paw over her ears, and then leaned back, propping himself up with his paws in the grass.
 
-"No. Remember I am curious to see who you find first." They ate in silence for a bit, before May spoke up. "Do you remember what I said about Michelle?"
+"Nothing keeps me from fixing myself," she murmured up to the clouds. "I do not know why I do not just do so."
 
-"That she was instrumental to Secession, yeah. I was thinking of hunting down some Odists."
+"Can I be honest?"
 
-"A good bet, that." She paused, looked down at her plate and said, more quietly, "Will you ask the first lines?"
+"Of course."
 
-"That was my plan. I figure they were the first forked."
+"I worry it's survivor's guilt."
 
-"Yes."
+She took a deep breath and quelled another wave of emotion, choosing instead to nod. "That is a distinct possibility. I do feel guilty that I made it and AwDae did not, that ey felt compelled to disappear across the border and give eir life for this--" She waved her paw up at the sky. "--that ey did all that and never even got to see it."
 
-"Is something wrong?"
+There was a rustling and shifting beneath her head, and when she turned to look, the flower-crown was draped over her snout. They both laughed.
 
-"I am worried that you will be unhappy with what you hear."
+"We both lost someone," Debarre said, voice thick. "I feel guilty that I made it and Cicero didn't, sometimes. Hell, for a while, I was furious that AwDae lived longer than Cice did."
 
-Ioan shrugged. "It's history, isn't it? Nothing to be done about it."
+"I am sorry." Sasha started to wind the chain of flowers around her wrist, but it fell apart, so she dropped it into the grass instead. "I never knew."
 
-She nodded, setting her fork down on her plate, though some of the food remained. "Yes, but I am worried that you will be unhappy with me."
+"How do you imagine that conversation would've gone? "Hey AwDae, fuck you for outliving my boyfriend"?" He laughed. "Shit like this isn't rational, Sash."
+
+"I guess not. I am still glad that you are around, though."
+
+He sighed. "Of course I am. I never would've made it without you. I'm glad you're here. You and Michelle. Hell, your whole damn clade."
+
+She gave the comment the space that it deserved, closing her eyes to feel the sun warm her fur. *You and Michelle.* Now there was a thought.
+
+"Only, I wonder." His voice sounded distant, as though he were speaking to the sky rather than her. "I wonder if your forks have changed in ways other than just not being split. I wonder if they're really even you anymore."