Bumpnumbers

content/read/036.md

@@ -1,197 +1,212 @@
-# Ioan Bălan --- 2325
+# Codrin Bălan#Pollux --- 2325
 
-> **Ioan Bălan:** What excited you about the prospect of uploading?
-> 
-> **Fu Jinzai:** I actually wasn't that excited about the prospect. It was something that I just kind of did because it felt like it'd be easier than sticking around. The kids weren't seeing me anyway, and I could at least get them some cash for when they were older. It sounded nice enough up here, but there were still nice things back there, you know? I didn't think about it too much.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** What do you miss most about phys-side?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** The mountains.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Have you done much exploring in the mountains around here?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** Oh, sure. They're fine. Some of the ones that I've gotten around to visiting are really nice. They've got a lot of variety and all. There are some that are more like the Alps and some that are more like the Himalayas and some that are kind of like the ones back home, but it's not that I miss, like, the idea of mountains. I miss the little bits of the mountains that made them mine. I miss all the little caves that you could find, or when trees that had fallen over and their root-balls had been pulled up and you could sit under them if you weren't afraid of bugs or anything [laughter]. I miss the little shacks that people had built years and years and years ago, and, like, you have no idea what they were there for, right? Maybe this one is next to a pond, so it's for fishing, but then that one is just kind of in the middle of a forest, and it's too big to be an outhouse and too small to be a cabin, so maybe its a, a [snapping fingers] hunting blind? Is that the word?
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Where you sit and wait for animals to go by while hunting?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** Yes! A hunting blind. And then I miss --- and this is really silly --- I miss logging. It's horrible, right? [laughter] I know that it's horrible. Some people put in logging trails on their mountains, but they don't put those big swaths of woody trash that the loggers leave behind. I kind of miss that, you know? I miss looking out to the next mountain over and seeing this big rectangular patch of brown. I miss hearing chainsaws running miles away across the valley, but it sounds like, I don't know, like a dream, because it's echoing around the hills. 
-> 
-> **Ioan:** It sounds a little like the mountains you've found here are too perfect, perhaps. Is that sort of what you're saying?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** Yeah, I think so. It's too perfect. I don't mind perfection, of course, it's a damn sight better than living a terrible life, but --- oh man, I'm gonna sound like my grandpa when I say this --- it lacks that kind of toughness that makes you build character. Not, like, the character that he meant, in the trash sense of, like, being a big tough guy, but like, I think if you could grow up here around all this perfection, you wouldn't have much character. You'd be pretty boring. [laughter] I guess I'm glad that you can't upload until you're 18, so you at least have a chance to have some comparison to perfect mountains with the shitty ones phys-side.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** What's the first thing that you did after uploading?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** Oh man, this is gross, so I'm sorry ahead of time. I ate myself sick. [laughter] I found some of those big sims that are all food and whatever, and I figured, "Hey, I don't have a body, right? I can do whatever!" So I started hopping from sim to sim just absolutely stuffing myself until I felt like I was going to pop, but I started getting super uncomfortable, so I came home and got super sick. [laughter] Sorry, yeah, that's pretty gross. I didn't realize that you could fiddle with your sensa...sensi...
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Sensorium?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** Yeah, sensorium. I didn't know that you could fiddle with it so that you could just keep eating or whatever, but unless you're conscious of it, your mind makes it so that you just kind of work like you do back home. Didn't know that, so I ate until I just about burst. [laughter]
-> 
-> **Ioan:** What's your biggest regret about uploading.
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** [long pause] I mean, I said that I wasn't really seeing my kids much back then, and I guess that was true enough. I got to see them two or three times a year when I got rotated between crops and had a few weeks of leave. But like...man. I love them. I love them so much. I love them and I miss them every day, just like I loved them and missed them every day back phys-side. I regret...ah, hell. [long pause] I regret that even though they didn't really know me all that well, that they'll never get to know me at all, now, and all I'll have are these memories and-- [long pause] and the only way I'll ever get to see them again is if they upload and, like, as a dad, I'm not sure that I really want them to. I know it's perfect and all, or at least can be, but I'm not sure I want them to feel like they need to upload to get away from a shit life, and I definitely don't want them to feel like they need to upload just to see me again.
+Codrin was, as ey supposed everyone must be, primed to hunt for patterns.
 
------
+The Odists, as much as they tried to resist it, were as beholden to living within a pattern as any other group of individuals. Perhaps more so than other clades, but certainly well within the realm of societies, or even families. It wasn't just that they were all weird --- though they were --- nor that many of them fit the mold of either the human or skunk versions of Michelle Hadje --- though that was certainly true. It was a matter of bearing, of how they carried themselves, of how they expressed themselves. Not all were as excitable as Dear nor as affectionate as May Then My Name, but all of the ones that ey had met had the same walk, the same smile, the same sensation of quiet when they were quiet and the same way of speaking when they spoke.
 
-Ioan didn't know quite what it was about the latest messages from the launches that was nagging at em so much. It wasn't that either of the Codrins were sending back anything that was particularly surprising. Sure, the Odists had been a big part of Secession, but ey knew that, hadn't ey? They dealt with propaganda and speeches and politics, so they must have been, right? That's what was needed for something like seceding from the rest of the governments on earth, right?
+The differences, then, were in the details. Where Qoheleth had opted for the biblical look, May Then My Name had decided on a comfortable softness that befitted her similarly comfortable, soft nature. And where Dear had wholly owned a look that somehow managed to be both painfully well-dressed and playful, the woman before em exuded all of the casual cool of one who was relaxing on a summer Saturday. It was a weekend look, and ey could not find any other way to describe it.
 
-It wasn't  the more personal notes that ey'd gotten, expressing how life was going out on the LVs, all of the ways in which it was exactly the same, except for some key difference in sentiment. Those on the LVs felt like they were going on a journey, and those who remained at the L<sub>5</sub> System felt like they weren't, so there was an entirely different feeling between two societies that were otherwise identical.
+Ey was surprised when ey had been contacted by her, rather than the other way around.
 
-*Three* societies, for it was obvious that Castor and Pollux were diverging rapidly without strict contact with each other or the System.
+> Hey, there is this neat bar I know. Come check it out, and we can chat there.
+>
+> --- Why Ask Questions, Here At The End Of All Things of the Ode Clade
 
-And it wasn't that, either. Ey had known from the very start that the systems on the LVs would diverge from each other as soon as they were launched. Nothing about that was weighing on em, and it was turning out to be precisely as interesting as ey had expected that it would be.
+It came as a letter. An actual, honest-to-goodness letter, slipped under eir door (which is how the sim decided to interpret it), written in a rounded hand on yellow legal pad paper.
 
-And yet, still...
+Ey spent nearly five minutes just staring at the letter, turning it over in eir hands, inspecting the writing, the ink (shitty ballpoint, ey had noted with distaste), the creases. Ey could make neither heads nor tails of it. It was incredibly Odist while at the same time being totally unique.
 
------
+When ey showed it to Dear, the fox rolled its eyes and handed it back.
 
-> **Ioan Bălan:** What was the first thing that you did after uploading?
-> 
-> **Magnús Einarsson:** Sleep. I don't know why, but for some reason, right after uploading, I felt like all I could do was sleep.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Did you have trouble sleeping before you uploaded?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** Not particularly, no. At least, I don't think so. I just found a room that I thought would be good and then slept for probably two days straight. That went on for a while, too, I would get up and eat or whatever, try and read a book, and then get so tired that I'd have to sleep again, so I'd sleep another twenty hours.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Do you still sleep a lot?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** Not nearly so much, no, but still more than I did before uploading.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** And you uploaded about thirty years ago?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** 2292. March 3rd.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Alright, thank you.
-> 
-> **Magnús:** Why do you ask?
-> 
-> **Ioan:** I'm specifically looking for people who uploaded in the last 150 years, after they started-- I mean, after they stopped charging to let people upload.
-> 
-> **Magnús:** They used to charge?
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Yes. Was your family compensated for you to uplooad?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** [laughter] Quite well, yes. It was this big argument between my wife and I. I didn't particularly want to upload, but she said that she'd be able to keep the kids in a better school up North with the funds, and then she'd follow once she was sure that they were in a good spot and that she could say goodbye to them properly and all. We'd heard all about it, and it obviously didn't sound bad at all. It was just...I don't know. It was like being asked to move away forever, even if I knew that she would follow, and that maybe my kids would too, after they had a good life.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Do you regret uploading at--
-> 
-> **Magnús:** She never did.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** I'm sorry?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** She never followed. She got the kids in their nice school and remarried. I haven't heard from her in twenty-five years.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** I'm sorry to hear that. It must've been hard to hear that from her.
-> 
-> **Magnús:** Oh, I didn't hear it from her. I heard it from one of my kids. Anita. They wrote to me and said that mama had moved in with another man and that school was alright and that was that.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** I'm sorry. Do you still talk with your children, at least?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** I talk with Anita sometimes. They say they might upload in a few years. They say married life isn't what they expected, and now they're in much the same position I was. They have a kid. They're less strapped for cash with their husband's job, but they're still not going to get anywhere. It sounds like they have a much better relationship with their husband, though, so maybe it won't just be the same old cycle again.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** How do you feel about that as an option for them?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** I don't know. Disappointed? Disappointed but not surprised? If they do wind up coming here, then I am going to do my best to make up for lost time.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** What sorts of things will you show them when they upload? What are some things that you like best up here?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** There's the things that I like best, and then the things that I think we'll like best together. The things that I like best are the really relaxing things. I like swimming and then going and laying on the grass. I like reading. I like just sim-hopping and people watching. The things that I think we'll like best together are probably some of the game sims that people have set up. They really liked a lot of the spy sims back on the 'net, like the ones where you hide behind walls and sneak through a base and play capture the flag or whatever. I always found them stressful when I did them on my own, but doing one with them, one where we had to escape from a search party, is one of my best memories with them. They have some good ones here that I think they'd like.
+*"She is a shithead."*
 
------
+"A shithead?" Ey laughed. "How so?"
 
-Eir current best guess at what kept their anxiety level always at least a little bit above baseline was the obvious similarities between Secession and Launch. It wasn't just that the Odists were involved in both, because both felt like something that the Odists would be interested in.
+*"She just is. That whole stanza is made up of assholes."*
 
-Rather, it was the fact that the very same individuals had wormed their way into the very same roles with two projects of very similar structure. Again, on the surface, not too surprising, but the result of that was that the two events started to look almost the same, which in turn made Ioan think that Secession had been almost a practice run for Launch.
+"Should I be careful or anything?"
 
-Obviously it wasn't. At least not precisely. Secession was a necessary thing based on the politics of the time phys-side, while Launch was something that was borne out of a desire to explore.
+*"No, no. You will like her, I promise."*
 
-Wasn't it?
+Codrin refolded the note and tucked it into a pocket in eir tunic. "You sound less than fond of her."
 
-It just felt an awful lot like those who had helped the most with Secession used their work as a template for executing the launch.
+The fox shook its head. *"Not at all. I like her quite a bit, but I like her because she is good at making others like her."*
 
------
+"Aren't you all, though?" Dear's partner called from the couch. "Look at what May Then My Name is doing to poor Ioan."
 
-> **Ioan Bălan:** What was the most disappointing thing that happened or that you saw after uploading?
-> 
-> **Rosemary Seeley:** I think just how lonely it was at first.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Can you expand on that?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** I mean, when you first upload, you're kinda dumped into a set of common areas until you figure out where you're going to stay or whatever. You can meet up with family members if you have them --- I didn't --- or you can meet up with those of a similar culture or religion --- I'm from the middle of the blandest town on the planet and don't hold to any religion --- or maybe you can meet up with others based around a similar interest. Thing is, I'm really interested in just cooking and chatting and reading.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Were you able to find any groups for cooking or reading?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** Not at first, which I think is what made it feel so isolating. People talk about System Freeze, and I can guarantee you it's real. [laughter]
-> 
-> **Ioan:** How would you describe System Freeze?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** Well, I mean, I was poor as dirt back on Earth. I was a pretty good cook who liked to read mystery novels when she wasn't working. If you're poor as dirt, you're only going to get so good at cooking, though, and you're only going to be reading a certain kind of mystery novel. It's not like I went through a ton of schooling to be reading anything high-minded, and what can I say, I'm a sucker for pulp. So I upload and wind up staying in a communal sim somewhere and every time I go out to look for people who like cooking, it's all these people who are *super* into it and have all this weird experience, so all I can do is take classes, and I feel like a real hick. Then I go out and look for reading clubs or people who like mystery novels, and all I can find are these groups that read what I liked ironically so that they can dunk on it with friends.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** I'm sorry to hear that. It sounds really alienating.
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** It was, yeah.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** You said it was lonely at first. What was it that helped it be less lonely for you?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** Oh, you're going to laugh at this. It's really embarrassing.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** You don't need to share if it's uncomfortable, of course.
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** No, no. It's funny now. Just embarrassing. I started lying. I said that I was an author of a series of books that were mysteries that were also cookbooks. I said I was this schlock author who wrote terrible novels with mediocre recipes and just kept pumping them out as fast as I could under a bunch of different pseudonyms and that I got really tired of writing them and how bad they were, so I uploaded. I started just going to a few of those ironic book clubs and a few of the cooking classes and started talking about these horrible books that I'd written. Weird thing is? People started saying that they remembered them! I guess it is a real genre that people write, so any time someone said they remembered a book I'd laugh and look all embarrassed and say something like, "Oh nooo, that one was so bad! Paid the bills, though." [laughter] Eventually, I kind of dropped the bit, but by then, I'd gotten a few friends who were interested in just cooking normal things for each other, and a few others who actually liked the pulpy mysteries, and that's how I broke through it.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** [laughter] That's really clever.
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** The one time I've been proud of lying, yeah.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** What would you suggest that others experiencing System Freeze do?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** Don't wait for it to solve itself, and don't wear yourself out searching. You can just make whatever interest group you want, and if one exists, just be willing to get folded into it. You won't even have to lie. [laughter] But that's just the start. If you don't actually want to keep up with the interest group long-term, that's fine, your only real goal is to start meeting people, then things start to thaw.
+*"Yes, but she is particularly good at it, and that is why she is a shithead. She is more like some strange inversion of May Then My Name. It is a matter of intent."* It grinned at Codrin and took eir hand in its paw to give the back of it an affectionate lick. *"You do not need to be careful, though. She is harmless to any one individual, and any harm that she might cause to a group will be welcomed with open arms and all of the love in the world."*
 
------
+"Sounds charismatic."
 
-And so here ey was, hunting down those who had uploaded specifically for the money that it would leave their families and friends back phys-side. Their stories were, ey figured, just as valid as anyone's. They were just as valid as eir own, for had ey not done the same? Here ey was, interviewing those like emself.
+*"That is not quite the right word, but it will suffice."* It laughed, pushing Codrin's hand away again. *"Go on, then. Enjoy. If it is the bar that I am thinking of, you will doubtless have a good time."*
 
-These were the people who had moved to the System out of some sense of not just a better life for themselves, but one for those they had left behind. Ioan had had few enough ties back to eir family phys-side after uploading --- only enough to ensure that the payments had gone through and that eir kid brother was alright --- and then none since then. If any of eir family had uploaded since then, none had gotten in touch.
+"And will I get more of this story that keeps coming up?"
 
-Eir hope in undertaking this exercise had been to learn a bit more about the time between Secession and Launch, about what had lead to the demographics of a System that had decided to hurl large portions of itself out into space. Was it something perhaps borne of the sentiment of the population that had grown in the intervening years? Was it something that had always been there?
+Dear turned back to its desk where it had been working. *"Oh yes."*
 
-When ey had come up with the list of questions, ey had intended to divine why those who had uploaded had found the System attractive. Was that, perhaps, what had driven the desire for the launch?
+And so here ey was, sitting across a trestle table from woman dressed from a weekend, up on the roof of a car park, drinking a very spicy, very clammy Caesar while she laughed about how terrible her cocktail was.
 
-And yet now, it seemed like that was, at most, a secondary effect.
+"Is it really that bad?" ey asked.
 
-So much was going on that had gone on before and so many of the same actors were involved that, although these interviews had been interesting in and of themselves, it seemed doubtful that such had had any notable affect. 
+"Here! Here, have a sip. It is atrocious."
 
------
+Ey took the glass and sniffed it warily. It smelled of citrus. Ey took a sip, tried to swallow, but began coughing violently instead. "What...what the hell is in that?"
 
-> **Ioan:** How do you feel about the launch project?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** [shrugging] It feels largely irrelevant to me. I'm here to help my kids, and if they upload some day, I want to be here for them.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Did you send a fork to go along with the launches?
-> 
-> **Jinzai:** No, I never really felt comfortable with forking. Just me here on the station.
-> 
------
+"Neutral spirits, at least ninety percent, lime zest, and enough seltzer to make it not burn on the way down."
 
-> **Ioan:** How do you feel about the launch?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** I don't care. It doesn't matter, does it? It's just this wild-eyed idea that feels like it doesn't have much relevance. I don't remember having any interest in [said in a singsong voice] exploring the galaxy when I was on Earth, and I don't have any now, so why bother? I don't think anyone else did, down there, either.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Did you send a fork along with the launches?
-> 
-> **Magnús:** Never forked before. Never got the hang of it.
+"Not burn?" Codrin said around an ice cube. The spice of eir Caesar didn't hold a candle to the alcoholic heat of the drink.
 
------
+"That is what they said."
 
-> **Ioan:** How do you feel about the launch?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** It felt silly, you know? Like this big, grand idea that some folks get, and it was just kind of one of those things that folks do just to say they can, like going to Mars, or creating their own wild sim.
-> 
-> **Ioan:** Did you send a fork along with the launches?
-> 
-> **Rosemary:** Yeah. I figured, "Why not? No harm in going so long as I can stay here, right?"
+"Then they failed miserably."
 
------
+She laughed, earnest and joyful. "That is precisely what they excel at, here. How is your drink?"
+
+"Very heavy on the clam. I think there are some frozen into the ice cubes."
+
+She reached out for the drink, and ey shrugged, sliding it over to her. She took a sip, made a sour face, then dipped her fingers into the glass to fish out one of the shellfish ice cubes to crunch on. The sour face turned to one of disgust.
+
+The move was so innocent, so playful, that eir first reaction was to laugh rather than get upset at someone's fingers in eir drink. Ey liked her at once, then grudgingly admitted to emself that, yes, she was kind of a shithead for just how effortlessly she had made em laugh, not three minutes into meeting her. 
+
+Once ey had eir drink again, ey asked, "So, why did you invite me here?"
+
+"You are doing your thing with Dear, are you not? Your..." She spun her finger in the air as she pulled up the word she was looking for. "History? Your myth? It is so fascinating! There is so much story to be had after two hundred years. Creation, Secession, Launch; so much happened around those and between them, and sure, there are timelines and dry textbooks and whatever, but this! You are one of the first ones who is actually pulling a story out of it."
+
+Ey grinned. "That's the hope, yeah. I was originally going to just make it about Launch, but there are more parallels between Secession and the launch than I'd expected."
+
+"There are, yes. And you know, I wonder if we will start thinking of the launch in the same way as Secession. You can almost hear the capital-S in Secession, and now I hear it in Launch."
+
+"Perhaps. Maybe we'll just do it from here and the L<sub>5</sub> System or Castor will do something else."
+
+"Mmhm." She grinned at em. "I have already heard from Castor via the System that we are starting to diverge in pretty major ways."
+
+"I've heard similar through Ioan, yeah. I'm happy to share what I have, though. You're the first other Odist that I've talked with about this aside from Dear and May Then My Name."
+
+"May! Oh gosh, what a delight. Has she already tricked Ioan into falling in love with her?"
+
+Codrin laughed. "Tricked?"
+
+"Do not get me wrong, I do not think that she is disingenuous about it or that her intentions are anything but pure, but I have yet to meet a single person who has not fallen at least a little in love with May after spending any considerable length of time with her."
+
+Ey nodded, stirring eir drink with the too-large stalk of celery. "That's fair. And for what it's worth, yeah, I think she has. I don't think ey's ready to admit it yet, but yeah. Your whole clade is like that, you know?"
+
+Why Ask Questions adopted a look of indignation. "Are you accusing me of being manipulative? Codrin Bălan, I would never! All I did was figure out that you really like nice paper, nice pens, and hand-written notes, find the best way to subvert that, invite you out to a bar that would clearly pique your interest, and beguile you into talking about your down-tree instance falling in love over terrible drinks."
+
+"What?" Ey laughed. "Did you really do that?"
+
+The offended look slipped into a proud one that bordered perilously close to smug. "Of course. But I also did want to meet you. I really am a fan of this project, and I wanted to be a part of it, if you will have me."
+
+"Well, alright. I'm happy to hear that other Odists are interested in it. I've been asking a few rote questions and then letting a conversation develop from there. Is that alright?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"First up, I have yet to check, but did you invest entirely in the launches, or is there still a fork of you back on the System?"
+
+"Oh, I left a fork back there. I am not nearly so brave as you and your family. And before you ask, that is who I have been communicating with to relay messages between the two LVs."
+
+"Are your...well, let me back up. What are your roles? Jobs, interests, whatever."
+
+She laughed, shrugging. "I do not really have one at the moment. I helped a little with the launch, and rather a lot with Secession. My job was basically to work with crowds. I love talking one on one like this, but I always feel guilty actually manipulating individuals --- and not just the basic research I mentioned earlier. Crowds are another story. I can get a whole restaurant singing a song together whether or not they are drunk."
+
+"Dear did mention that you worked at scale, yeah."
+
+"The fox also probably called me a shithead."
+
+Codrin, caught in the middle of a sip of eir drink, coughed. 
+
+"Of course it did! What an asshole. I love it for that."
+
+"To be fair, it also told me I'd like you immediately, and I do, so at least there's that."
+
+Why Ask Questions preened, saying, "Why, thank you. I am flattered. To get back to your question, though, yes, my goal was working crowds. I helped heavily with the campaign for Secession sys-side. My cocladist, Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help, was tasked with managing much of the phys-side campaigning."
+
+"And you did similar during the launch?"
+
+"Yes. May worked the technical side, I worked the campaign side. There was little work to be done sys-side, though. Most everyone was on board immediately."
+
+Codrin nodded, "I don't remember much in the way of arguments against the launch."
+
+"I like an easy job every now and then."
+
+"Was Secession that much more difficult?"
+
+She leaned back from the table, twirling her drink thoughtfully. "I suppose, yes. It is not that there was not support for it, sys-side, but before we had seceded, the political situation was far more complicated. The System needed to agree to secede just as much as the governments outside needed to agree to allow us."
+
+"This was back when the Council of Eight was a thing, right?"
+
+"Mmhm. It was their --- our --- last big work. We did a good job at getting everything set up so that it would just run, then we stepped back. The goal was always to guide rather than to govern, as I am sure you have heard."
+
+Codrin nodded. "Ezekiel put it almost the same way."
+
+"He is here?"
+
+The sudden intensity of her gaze, the drop of her smile, the sharpness of her voice made Codrin sit up straighter. "Yeah. I interviewed him a few weeks back. Why?"
+
+"I am just surprised that he agreed to come along on the launch at all."
+
+"He invested entirely, actually."
+
+"Oh did he?" She smiled tightly, sipping at her drink and wincing. "Well, how about that."
+
+"Why did you not expect him to be on the launch?"
+
+"You met him. He is not the person that he used to be. None of us are, I suppose, but he has lost some core aspect of his being. He lost what made him Zeke when he became Ezekiel."
+
+"It was a pretty surreal experience," ey admitted. "Was he also a part of the plan for Secession?"
+
+"Not really, no. That was mostly our clade and the Jonas clade."
+
+"Was the Council of Eight really a council of eight clades?"
+
+She laughed, then held up her finger to her lips. "Do not tell anyone. It was specifically not to be that, but the workload around Secession grew out of proportion for the two of us who were focusing on it, so we forked in the background to get all that we needed done. It was all above board within the Council, but no one else knew."
+
+Codrin nodded and, remembering some of the caginess that Dear had shown, asked, "Do you want me to keep that part out of the history?"
+
+"Oh, goodness no. Please keep it in! I may not be manipulative, but I am careful. I will not tell you anything that I do not want to wind up in your project."
+
+"Dear said that if I pressed any one Odist too hard, they'd resent it and start lying."
+
+"I suspect that it is right in that, too," she said. "But I will not let our conversation get to that point. I will just make you move on to the next question."
+
+Ey nodded, considering eir next question. "So, how much did the clade work together back then?"
+
+"It differed from person to person. Praiseworthy --- Dear's down-tree instance --- was keen on working with all of us, while some others essentially talked to no one. I did not talk to many of them at first, given that I was...well, it was not so much that I was not supposed to exist, that I was not supposed to be playing a role. At first, I looked almost exactly like my down-tree instance so that we might be mistaken for each other. I decided that I was done being a skunk some years after, though."
+
+"Are you still in touch with your down-tree instance?"
+
+She nodded eagerly. "Oh yes, we talk quite often."
+
+"And she was the one who was organizing the campaign?"
+
+"She and Jonas, yes. We played our silly little game of politics, and then after Secession, we had no reason to go so hard at it, so we simply became friends."
+
+"While I'm on the subject, did you talk much with Michelle?"
+
+"Next!" Why Ask Questions said gleefully, waving her glass at em.
+
+"What? Oh! Right, okay." Ey let the thread drop and prowled through eir mental list of questions. "Alright. I talked a little to Dear about what the mood was like before and after Secession. I have my own experiences from before and after the launch, but I'm curious what yours were. Was the launch exciting to you? Just another day's work?"
+
+"True Name was to organize Launch as she did with Secession, so I suppose it was a bit of both. We were all excited to have a fun project on our hands, and it was a lot of work, even if my role was easy. When the launch actually happened, we had our own little party separate from the fête that you and yours put on." She raised her glass. "The drinks were far better."
+
+Ey laughed.
+
+"It has calmed down since then, as I mentioned. There is little to do, and what remains of our stanza launch-side has started to drift apart once again. We are all friends, but we are coworkers first and foremost, and when we do not have to be at work, we will not be."
+
+"You hang out with other friends, then?"
+
+"Hang out, drink, go for long walks on the beach, watch plays --- did you know that Time Is A Finger Pointed At Itself has put on some really interesting ones? Michelle was a theatre nerd before she uploaded. She put much of that on hold after the whole getting lost kerfuffle and all of the politics that went into the first years after uploading, but still that desire sticks with us."
+
+"Stepping back a second, you said that True Name was to organize the launch. What did you mean by that?"
+
+"I would like to say 'next', but I will answer this question, and then perhaps we can just enjoy the day for a little while. Does that sound alright, Mx Bălan?"
+
+Ey frowned, but nodded all the same.
+
+"One of the last things that Michelle did with each of the stanzas was to give us all a task. Ours was not actually so specific as "See about launching mini versions of the System into space", so much as "Do something big, help us divest"."
+
+"What did she mean by 'divest'?"
+
+After a moment's silence, Why Ask Questions leaned forward, set her drink down next to Codrin's, then picked eirs up instead. "Come on. Can you believe that, in all of the years that I have been coming here, I have never actually seen the bottom level of the parking garage? I bet that it is full of rats and unexplainable puddles on concrete, reflecting harsh lights. I bet it is all sorts of murdery. Bring your drink."
+
+She winked at em, and with that, the interview was over.
 
-And so ey went home, back to work on the project, back to receive more updates from the Codrins and the LVs. Back to sit in front of an empty page, considering what it meant that they felt caught up in some storm, some vortex that ey could not see except that the occasional landmark would pass through their field of view, once every two hundred years. Back to sit with May and at least feel comfortable with someone, even if that someone was starting to feel, for some reason ey could not fully understand, as though they were part of that very vortex.