%title Sasha --- 2112
:writing:novel:chapter:fiction:scifi:post-self:qoheleth:

Sasha clutched at the arms of her chair, fingernails digging into the foam of the armrests, promised herself she'd stay put.

Then stood up anyway.

That her relationship with RJ was as casual as it was was working against her. She knew ey was in the UK, in London, and that they worked at a theater, but for the most part, they talked about other things. Shared things, not work. Or, if work, theater in general. They talked about Cicero and Debarre. They talked about The Crown Pub. They talked about their past and their shared world, their syncosm. RJ rarely got too far into the present and the embodied world, eir exocosm.

So she had been at something of an impasse, then, with no way to figure out just what had happened to lead to eir disappearance. There were rumors abound in the Crown Pub that ey was lost, just like Cicero.

She would have to admit that she had been the source of more than a few of them, given the notification from the hospital she had received --- that ey had put her down as an emergency contact was touching in a way she could not quite articulate --- stating that ey had been admitted, but that, no, unless she were to arrive in person for biometrics, they would not be able to tell her what had happened.

No chance of that. Production eason was the same in American schools as it was in Soho theaters across the Atlantic.

The thing that plagued her with doubts was the sheer improbability of such a thing. Ey had joined them on their own private investigation into Cicero. Had that been it? But here she was; and Debarre was, as far as she knew, still alright. Even then, how could it be that thinking about, talking about, working with data related to the lost would lead to one getting lost themselves? Wouldn't the researchers on the case be all the more susceptible?

Perhaps it was something about the data?

*Still a dead end,* she thought. *We have the same data ey had. There's four or five of us with ACLs on the deck.*

And perhaps ey wasn't lost at all. There had been the show, of course. And while RJ had never disappeared during performances before, ey had certainly been quieter during her timezone. But with the message from the hospital, the only potential there was that there had been some sort of accident at the theater.

She was embarrassed at how long it had taken her to think about simply searching eir name. She still knew that from school, after all. Doubtful that searching 'AwDae', nor even simply 'RJ', would turn up any medical reports.

So it was that Sasha wound up reading the same article that Carter had found a few days earlier. It confirmed all her worst suspicions.

She sent Debarre the link first, the subject line simply the emoticon `:/`. Distressed as she was, she deleted the auto-corrected emoji and replaced it with the plain-text emoticon, feeling, somehow, that that better represented her anxiety. She considered passing the article around further, but thought better of it. It pulled too hard at her heart. It had left her in tears when she first found it. Their relationship, brief as it was, had been one of the happiest of the lot she had been through. There was no ire in the way they had drifted from 'item' back to simply friends.

The one upshot to finding the article had been the name of the group that RJ worked for.

And thus Sasha: pacing back and forth in front of her desk, trying to work up the courage to hit send on the email she had drafted.

She had considered mailing the director of the troupe, Bernhard Johansson, but had decided against it, figuring that the man had far more on his plate running a play. Too much to bother responding to a request such as hers. Ditto this Sarai Coen, listed as stage manager. If the play was still running, both would be swamped.

She had settled instead on a Caitlin Wells, listed as working lights for the stage. Given all that RJ had told her about working as a tech, she would likely be both the closest to em and one of the least busy outside of work. If there were such a thing, that is. Sasha had been an actor, not a tech, and had no clue how busy those nights and days between performances were for the tech side.

Sasha was just thankful that email addresses had been listed for the cast members. Not the crew, but given the pattern of *firstname.lastname@sttroupe.co.gb.wf*, she was hoping Caitlin's would follow suit.

> Caitlin Wells,
>
> I apologize for writing to you out of the blue, but I am a friend of RJ Brewster who works with the Soho Theatre Troupe, and I was wondering if you would be able to provide me with a bit more information about em. I am a friend from school and remember em working with theater there, and talked with em daily on a sim online.
>
> I know this is a long shot. I hope this reaches you, and I hope that you are well, all things considered. If you get a chance to send me a note, I would greatly appreciate it. Both email and meeting in a sim would be fine.
>
> Best.
>
> Sasha

Sasha had deliberated over the two paragraphs for an hour and a half, deleting and correcting. How much should she ask for? Should she reveal where they interacted? How should she start the letter, and how should she finish it? Hell, how should she address herself? Her real name wasn't Sasha, though she thought of herself that way as often as not. She figured that, should they actually meet up in a sim somewhere, that would be the name that this Caitlin would get.

She ran quickly to her terminal and hit 'send' before she second-guessed herself any further, and then...

*Oh, shit.*

Now she realized her mistake. Realized that, if they *did* meet up in a sim, Caitlin would be meeting up with skunk-her, rather than something more like her in the offline world. Perhaps she had a human av stashed away somewhere. She could buy one off the shelf quickly. It was seven thirty in the British Isles, she might have time before Caitlin woke up.

No luck. A scant two minutes of Sasha fretting at her keyboard passed before a ping alerted her to a new message.

> OMG OMG we were hoping one of RJ's friends would contact us. We only know so much. Your sim or mine? Meet you in five. C.

Far too little time to switch out an av for something a bit more...presentable? A bit more human?

Sasha groaned.

Nothing for it. She set her hands on the cradles and leaning into the headband of her workstation. Once in, she pulled up her in-sim mail and spoke quickly.

> Caitlin,
>
> Either is fine. Should warn you that I know RJ through furry, and may look weird. My address is @Sasha:of-all-stripes.fur#home in case you want to meet here, or we can meet publicly.
>
> Sasha

The reply came in a matter of seconds, half a minute tops.

> Sasha. Crown Pub? In case you want to tell others. That's what RJ always talked to me about. We know about furry. C.

The relief was palpable, if incomplete. It would certainly be strange to actually interact with one of the tourists that drifted through that sim. She tapped one of the pre-written replies --- "Sure, see you there!" --- on her client, hoping that this would portray the appropriate levels of urgency that Caitlin seemed to share, then dashed to her tport pad and swiped left, quickly selecting the top, most-visited option.

Caitlin was already there.

Sasha wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not that the woman had a custom avatar. She was evidently a fan of the past, with hair swept neatly to the side to reveal an undercut. She wore a long, sleeveless tunic emblazoned with the word *heh.*, running to mid thigh covering only leggings. Something from earlier in the century.

Sasha felt strangely plain in her simple skunk av. Baggy shirt and fisherman's pants, fashionable enough by today's standards, did not stand up against London chic.

"Caitlin?" she said, voice raised.

The human waved energetically and ducked through the crowd. "Sasha, right? There a place we can talk? Anyone else you want to bring along?"

Sasha did a quick scan of the room, picking out Debarre sulking at the end of the bar. She jogged over and tapped him on the shoulder. "Someone who knows AwDae is here, want to join?"

The weasel perked at that, frowned, nodded. "Uh, sure. Do they know about Cice?"

"I don't know, but they might. They only said they know about AwDae, and that ey had talked to them about this place."

Debarre shrugged and slipped off of his stool, following after Sasha. "Better than nothing," he grumbled, nodding to Caitlin on his way to one of the empty booths.

The three settled onto the overstuffed seats. There was a moment of silence before all three started talking at once, followed by another silence, then nervous laughter. Sasha gestured to Caitlin.

"RJ's lost. It happened during a rehearsal." She frowned, tapping a finger at the scarred table between them. "Should back up, though. How much do you know?"

"We read an article about em. Something from a tabloid. It just mentioned the Troupe, which is how I found you."

Caitlin nodded, frowned, then offered her hand to Debarre. The weasel shook it cautiously. "Sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Caitlin, the lights tech for STT. I was there when...when it happened."

"Debarre," Debarre said, gruff. "Boyfriend's lost, too. AwDae...uh, RJ, Sasha, and I were trying to figure out what happened."

Fumbling some cards out of her pocket and duplicating them, Sasha added, "We were exchanging a deck on Cicero, Debarre's partner. You don't have to do anything with them, but you might as well have a copy, too. And, hold on." The skunk swiped, tapped through menus, created a new card titled 'RJ lost', duplicated it twice. She handed one each to Debarre and Caitlin. "One for RJ as well."

Caitlin swiped up on the card, tapped the voice-record button, and began speaking. "Alright, so here's what I know. RJ was working sound that night, last night of rehearsals, and started having trouble about halfway through. Ey went quiet on the mic, and then missed a cue or two before we noticed what was going on. We called a halt to the rehearsal and found em unresponsive at eir rig. We pulled em back and hit the panic button and...and nothing. Ey was gone. Even out of the rig, eir implants showed ey was still inside.

"The cops and paramedics had a protocol for the whole thing, I guess. Ey was taken off to the hospital. It all happened so fast. Johansson --- that's the director --- met up with a woman from the university who said she was studying the lost and had a talk with her. She said she had gotten information on em, but wanted more, so they talked for a bit. Her name was--" Caitlin frowned and thought for a moment, then tapped the growing deck to add another card. "Carter Ramirez. Oh, you've already got one in here. Remembered it was Spanish or something. RJ mentioned your name, which is why I was so eager to meet up."

Sasha sat up straighter. "My name?"

"Yeah. Ey talked about you quite a lot. Hell, ey mentioned Cicero."

At this, Debarre looked so intently at Caitlin that she quailed under his gaze.

"Just that he was lost, I'm sorry. I don't know much beyond that."

The weasel's shoulders slumped, and he nodded.

"There's a lot of downtime, working tech. We all chat and...hey, why did you contact me, anyway?"

"I figured you'd be the least busy, other than maybe stage hands. Plus, RJ said lights techs were always cool."

Caitlin laughed, brushing her hair back. The motion seemed automatic, as her av's hair had hardly budged. "It's true. Anyway, we talked. I don't actually know what more to tell you beyond that. The rest of our relationship was work. RJ was super focused on that, and didn't really chill with the rest of us when ey wasn't working. I mean, we liked him and he liked us, but he was rarely a hundred percent there, you know? Ey had a cat, I know that."

"Priscilla, yeah."

Caitlin shrugged. "Sure, I guess. Eir landlord is taking care of it. I was hoping you could tell me more, actually."

Sasha recounted much of her and RJ's history. All the way back to their relationship, back through school. School productions, school summers, sleepovers and movies and all the trappings of being a kid.

By the end, she was crying freely.

"I didn't know, I'm sorry. RJ never talked about relationships."

"I think I was eir only one." Sasha sniffled. "There weren't any others that I knew about, at least. Ey was kinda, uh...aromantic, I guess."

Caitlin nodded. "That tallies. Listen, I gotta get going, though. I ran at this without really thinking, and your email ping woke me up. I don't know if I can, but I should try sleeping more before the show tonight."

"No problem," Sasha and Debarre said in unison. They laughed, though whether at the shared words or the giddiness that went along with new information, Sasha couldn't tell.

"No problem," she repeated. "Thank you so much for meeting up with us. And thank you for confirmation on that researcher's name. I'll see if I can find this Dr. Ramirez. Keep in touch, alright? And add to the deck if you find anything."

Caitlin nodded. "Will do. See you later."

And with that, the woman signed off. Poor form to do so in the middle of a public sim like this, but everyone was jumpy. The skunk and the weasel shrugged it off.

"Guess now we have another lead," Debarre said.

"Yeah. And if she's a big name researcher, I bet she knows about Cicero, too."

At that, Debarre brightened, and for the first time in weeks, the two spent the rest of the night talking without tears.
