# Ioan Bălan --- 2325

Ioan's next interview subject was waiting for em at the agreed-upon library in the agreed-upon sim.

The location was grand, as though it had been tailored perfectly to eir tastes: a cube sixty meters on a side, lit brightly by lights so that within shone a smaller cube made entirely of shelves. Shelves containing book after book after book. Spiral staircases wound up each corner, disgorging patrons onto the various levels so that they could meander along balconies and dive into corridors of books. Books, magazines, pamphlets. Scrolls, parchments, leaflets, snippets, chicken-scratch in diaries, words upon words upon words.

And there, on the bottom floor beneath all of the books, a cafe and bar, serving everything from tea and coffee to beer, whiskey, and doubtless some ridiculously fancy cocktails.

"Mx. Ioan Bălan?" The young woman was waiting for em just inside the door to the cube.

Ey held out a hand. "Yes. You must be Sadiah?"

She beamed and bowed to em. "Yes, yes! It is nice to meet you. You'll have to forgive me for not shaking your hand, I don't like being touched. Follow me, though, I've staked out a booth where we can talk."

They wound their way through a small crowd, an array of low couches and tables, and between the coffee and alcohol bars to a high-walled booth in the corner of the seating area.

"Would you like anything to drink before we begin?"

Ioan shrugged, "A tea, perhaps. Too late in the day for coffee, too early for alcohol."

Sadiah nodded. Within a minute, a server brought them two steaming cups of a milky tea --- chai, it turned out, and quite good, at that.

Once they'd gotten the obligatory how-are-yous and good-teas and nice-libraries out of the way, Ioan retrieved eir notebook and a pen.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Your name came recommended to me by several people. I'm glad to get the chance to talk with an actual historian."

Her laugh was clear and bright. "No, thank *you*, Mx. Bălan. I've been looking forward to the chance to meet you for quite some time now."

Ey paused partway through unscrewing the cap of eir pen. "You have?"

"Oh, yes! I've been following your work since the Ode clade project. You somehow manage to distill quite a bit down into a document that is clear and easy to read." She paused, then added, "Documents, I should say. I was lucky enough to get a chance to read the detailed history as well as the investigative journalism piece."

"Really? I had no idea that it had made it out of the clade," ey said, posting the cap on the back of the pen. "I'm pleased to hear that you think so highly of me."

She nodded, grinning widely. "That's why I arranged for us to meet, today. I have lots to talk about, of course, but I wanted to meet you, as well."

Ioan hid an uncomfortable laugh behind a sip of tea. "I'm flattered. You arranged this?"

"Yes! I made friends with a few of yours and encouraged them to suggest that we meet."

"That is quite a strange thing to do." Ey decided to roll with it, scratching out shorthand on eir paper. "Why did you think to do that?"

"Oh, because I'm horrible at actually asking for what I really want, and it's easier for me to ensure that things happen my way instead."

"That's very...well, honest. Thank you for letting me know, at least. What was the reason you wanted to meet me for, then? Beyond just, as you put it, wanting to meet me."

Sadiah sat up straighter in the booth, setting her nearly untouched tea to the side. "Before I answer that, I need to know how much you know, so that I know where to start. Is that okay?"

Ey nodded. The whole encounter was so outside eir experience that ey could think of nothing better to do.

"Stop me when I get to something that you haven't heard or realized yet. Two hundred years ago, the System seceded from the rest of the institutions on Earth. This happened in conjunction with one of the launches for the L<sub>5</sub> station. Secession was organized by the Council of Eight, one of whom was Michelle Hadje, the progenitor of the Ode clade --- this is why I was so interested in your work, I'll note. The Ode clade is made up of, nominally, one hundred individual instances, though they occasionally spin off long-running instances and pretend they haven't. The first ten of these instances were created shortly before Secession in order to help handle the workload as Michelle grew tired of her position. With me, so far?"

"Yes, that sounds correct," ey said. Ey figured it was not worth correcting her on the reality of Michelle, of what ey'd seen and heard from May and Dear.

"Okay." Sadiah continued her speech smoothly, sitting almost completely still, as though reciting something from memory. "The Odists were integral to both Secession and Launch, and may have orchestrated both, each in their own way. I see you frowning, which I'll take to mean that I'm getting close to the limits of where our knowledge agrees."

"I suppose, yes. Some of the discussions I've had --- my clade has had, I mean --- with Odists have brought much of this to light over the past few days."

"Excellent. Please stop me when I reach the place when our knowledge diverges. The Ode clade, through managing Secession and Launch, has influenced the politics of the System, such as they are, as well as those on Earth, which--"

"Okay. This is new to me, and you're also speaking a little too fast for me to keep up. If you are able to, can you slow down?"

She laughed breathlessly, finally letting her shoulders sag and her chin droop. "Alright, I'll try. Thank you for reminding me, I get excitable, sometimes."

*I could tell,* ey thought.

"So which part about influencing politics had you not heard before?"

"The bit about influencing politics phys-side." Ey shook eir head, "Which I'm a little confused about. I suppose I can see how that might work, given the communication between sys- and phys-side during both of those occurrences, but--"

"I'll note that we're nearing the extent of my knowledge as well. Sorry, I interrupted." Despite the acknowledgement, she continued, unfazed. "All I can say is that I've noticed patterns. I think you have, too, as mentioned when you frowned, but I am starting to piece together patterns that go beyond that. Yes, they helped with Secession, yes they helped with Launch --- more than helped, organized --- but that, I think, includes subtle manipulation of politics planet-side in order to ensure that both happened precisely as they wanted."

"Where are you seeing that?"

She cocked her head to the side and waved an arm expansively above the two of them. "It's all there, Mx. Bălan. The news that we received from phys-side shows some of the same patterns that we also see sys-side. The hesitant gestures toward a project, which are suddenly rapidly and smoothly moving forward. You must understand, projects like this do not move smoothly on their own, nor do they change the speed at which they move without some outside influence. That is why we speak of momentum and inertia when it comes to projects as well as forces, yes?"

Ey realized that ey hadn't been writing anything, so ey focused momentarily on jotting some of this information while Sadiah wasn't speaking. Finally, ey said, "How do you picture this influence working?"

"I don't know."

"I can see how the right words in the right ears might help smooth things along, at least. Do you think that might be enough to lead to these changes you're talking about?"

"I don't know," she repeated, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Say that the Odists have managed to have a hand in both Secession and Launch," ey continued. Ey did not smile. "What does that get them? What is their motivation?"

"I don't know." She was smiling in earnest now.

"And," ey said, realizing that eir frustration was showing, but was unable to stop it. "What impact does that have on us? Or on Earth?"

"Mx. Bălan," she said, laughing. "I don't know. I don't know! Isn't that exciting in and of itself? I don't know, and that means that we have something interesting to work on. There are patterns here, as you acknowledge, and they may go deeper, or they may not, but that gives us a direction to look, doesn't it? It gives us direction to our questions, doesn't it? You've been asking why people have been staying or leaving. Your cocladists have been asking the same on the launches, I imagine. Those are good questions for boring histories. This is a tenuous question for exciting histories!"

She was waving her arms around now, and the volume of her voice had steadily increased. Ioan was happy for the cone of silence that came with the booth.

"Sadiah, I must ask you to both slow down and lower your voice again," ey said, as calm as ey could manage. "I'm having a hard time keeping up and the shouting is making me anxious."

Startled, she let her shoulders slouch and chin dip once more. "Sorry, Mx. Bălan. Thank you for reminding me again. I don't like touch, you don't like loud noises. *Quid pro quo.*"

Ey didn't think that's quite what that meant. That, or if she did mean it as an actual this-for-that exchange, she was on far more levels of manipulation than ey was comfortable with. This arranged meeting was closer to the Odists' manipulation as she'd described than perhaps even she realized.

"Humor me in at least a few of the questions. Why are you here on the System? If you are also on the LVs, why remain here as well?"

"If the patterns are also showing up planet-side, why on Earth would I leave?" she said, laughing. "Pardon the expression."

"Okay." Ey let the answer flow onto the page in eir shorthand. "And why did you upload in the first place?"

Sadiah sat back suddenly as though slapped, blinking rapidly and tapping at the table anxiously. "I...I don't know."

"You don't?"

"I really don't," she said. She was talking slow and quiet now. Her expression was as scared as her voice was. "I don't know, I don't know."

"Do you remember when, at least?"

"2295, but I don't know why."

"Alright. I feel like I've touched a nerve, for which I apologize. What do you miss most about living phys-side, and what excited you most about moving sys-side?"

At this, the historian --- if that's what she was --- relaxed. "I was fundamentally unhappy with the limitation of time and just how much research I could do at once, so I came to where I could fork."

Ey nodded and jotted down the answer. "And, last one, what's the first thing that you did after uploading?"

"I don't...I don't know." She looked to be on the verge of tears.

Ioan held up eir hands disarmingly. "Let's end the interview here, I think. I've clearly set you on edge, and you've given me a lot to think about. Is it alright if I get to work on processing this?"

She nodded meekly. The shift in her attitude was so jarring that eir anxiety only spiked higher. This went beyond touching a nerve; it was as though her whole script collapsed and, with it, her sense of self.

"If I have any further questions, I'll be in touch," ey said, sliding out of eir seat in the booth, capping eir pen in the same motion. After a moment's pause, ey added, "And I'd like to ask that you respect my boundaries and not try to engineer another meeting between us, okay? I think that would just stress the both of us out."

Another nod, and then Sadiah either left the sim or quit. Ioan couldn't tell which, because ey was already heading for the exit of the building.

Back at eir house, ey kicked off eir shoes, set eir half completed notes on eir desk, and immediately walked into the bedroom to lay down.

May, ever attuned to eir mood, immediately forked and followed em to the room. "Ioan?"

Ey paused, halfway onto the bed.

"May I join you?"

Ey thought about all of the things Sadiah had said, all of the things ey'd learned about the Odists these last few however many weeks, both on eir own and through eir communications with the Codrins. Ey thought about all of the ways in which, whether or not they were true, this spoke to a level of manipulation that ey'd not suspected before. Ey thought, also, about how truly caught up in it ey was.

And then ey nodded anyway, finished crawling into bed, and let May play with eir hair as ey rested eir head on her lap.

Ey felt helpless to do anything but.
