update from sparkleup

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Madison Scott-Clary 2020-04-17 02:15:03 -07:00
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!_TAG_FILE_SORTED 1
book writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/apres-un-reve\twriting/post-self/apres-un-reve
book writing/post-self/assignment.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/assignment\twriting/post-self/assignment
book writing/post-self/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
book writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/013.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/013\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/013
book writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/005.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/005\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/005
@ -60,6 +62,8 @@ executive-function diary/2020-04-10.md 1;" vimwiki:diary/2020-04-10\tdiary/2020-
family writing/sawtooth/the-fool.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/the-fool\twriting/sawtooth/the-fool#family
family writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us\twriting/sawtooth/what-defines-us#family
family writing/sawtooth/youre-gone.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/youre-gone\twriting/sawtooth/youre-gone#family
fiction writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/apres-un-reve\twriting/post-self/apres-un-reve
fiction writing/post-self/assignment.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/assignment\twriting/post-self/assignment
fiction writing/post-self/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
fiction writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a
fiction writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b
@ -181,6 +185,8 @@ party writing/sawtooth/party/1-2-hostess.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/party/1
party writing/sawtooth/party/1-3-breeding-pair.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/party/1-3-breeding-pair\twriting/sawtooth/party/1-3-breeding-pair
party writing/sawtooth/party/1-4-hostess.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/party/1-4-hostess\twriting/sawtooth/party/1-4-hostess
polyam writing/sawtooth/a-theory-of-attachment.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/a-theory-of-attachment\twriting/sawtooth/a-theory-of-attachment#polyam
post-self writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/apres-un-reve\twriting/post-self/apres-un-reve
post-self writing/post-self/assignment.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/assignment\twriting/post-self/assignment
post-self writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a
post-self writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b
post-self writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/002.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/002\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/002
@ -263,6 +269,8 @@ sawtooth writing/sawtooth/party/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/party/inde
sawtooth writing/sawtooth/the-fool.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/the-fool\twriting/sawtooth/the-fool#sawtooth
sawtooth writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us\twriting/sawtooth/what-defines-us#sawtooth
sawtooth writing/sawtooth/youre-gone.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/youre-gone\twriting/sawtooth/youre-gone#sawtooth
scifi writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/apres-un-reve\twriting/post-self/apres-un-reve
scifi writing/post-self/assignment.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/assignment\twriting/post-self/assignment
scifi writing/post-self/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
scifi writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a
scifi writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b
@ -294,6 +302,8 @@ scifi writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/003.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qohe
scifi writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/004.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/004\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/004
scifi writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/005.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/005\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Sasha/005
scifi writing/post-self/qoheleth/index.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/index\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/index#scifi
short-story writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/apres-un-reve\twriting/post-self/apres-un-reve
short-story writing/post-self/assignment.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/assignment\twriting/post-self/assignment
short-story writing/sawtooth/a-theory-of-attachment.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/a-theory-of-attachment\twriting/sawtooth/a-theory-of-attachment#short-story
short-story writing/sawtooth/acts-of-intent.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/acts-of-intent\twriting/sawtooth/acts-of-intent#short-story
short-story writing/sawtooth/aposematism.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/aposematism\twriting/sawtooth/aposematism
@ -308,6 +318,8 @@ suicide writing/sawtooth/every-angel-is-terrifying.md 3;" vimwiki:writing/sawtoo
universe writing/sawtooth/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/index\twriting/sawtooth/index
writing diary/2020-04-09.md 1;" vimwiki:diary/2020-04-09\tdiary/2020-04-09
writing writing/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/index\twriting/index
writing writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/apres-un-reve\twriting/post-self/apres-un-reve
writing writing/post-self/assignment.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/assignment\twriting/post-self/assignment
writing writing/post-self/index.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
writing writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-a
writing writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.md 2;" vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b

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%title Après un rêve
:writing:fiction:scifi:post-self:book:short-story:
> *Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image
> Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage,
> Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,
> Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore;*
Echoes of Grace singing, memories and emotions, clashed with the doctor's words. "I know you've signed the waivers, but I need a verbal confirmation. Do you understand this?"
Sylvie nodded. It was strange not to feel her hair, always so frizzy and buoyant, not following the motion a scant second too late.
"The uploading process will be fatal and irreversible. There is some risk, about one and a half percent, that it won't work." The doctor paused and picked up a pen. She added, "Won't work after the point where your body will have died, that is. Do you understand?"
A swallow, dry, and another nod. "What will happen in that case?"
"Your family will receive a payout of ten million francs CFA. Your body will not be available for a burial, unfortunately." The doctor looked abashed. "The results of the process are --- ah, not pretty."
"I understand."
"One last bit, then. After the uploading process, successful or not, your blood, organs and tissue will be donated --- or, well, sold --- to a tissue bank in central Africa. Your family will receive ten percent of this, and the Centre the other ninety. This is to help defray the cost of the process."
Sylvie thought for a moment, rubbed her hand over her smooth-shaven head. "About how much will that be?"
"The cut to your family?" The doctor fiddled with her pen, twirling it across delicate dark fingers. "Lately, we've been getting about a hundred million francs, so again, about ten million. Not a bad payout, hmm?"
Not bad indeed. Sylvie had little love for her family, minus her brother, so the payout wasn't a huge incentive, as it was for others. She just hoped Moussa wound up with a chunk of it.
Unlikely, given her mother.
She nodded her assent.
"So then. Your surgery is scheduled in one hour. You have fifteen minutes before prep, which means fifteen more minutes to back out if you should choose. I'm going to head back to the team and leave you be to think this over." The doctor gestured to her right, "Dial zero on the phone on the desk if you wish to cancel."
The doctor stood and leaned forward, offering her hand. Sylvie lifted herself out of her chair and accepted the handshake, feeling as though she needed to be careful of those delicate fingers. The grip was strong, though.
As the doctor slipped out of the room, Sylvie settled back into the chair. She closed her eyes against the sight of all the posters advertising the procedure. "Upload today!" they said. "Experience a life beyond need!" they promised. "Work without pressure! Fork at will!" they hollered. Everything was so loud, so loud.
She had them all memorized, anyway. Right now, she just wanted quiet. She just wanted to think of Grace.
Grace with her silvering hair.
Grace with her fair and smooth skin.
Grace with her liquid laughter and lovely singing.
Theyd fallen in love within months, and shared only a scant few years together before being separated again. An impenetrable boundary of distance, of emulated sensorium and embodied flesh.
Grace's decision hadn't been Sylvie's. Uploading, the thought of uploading, made Sylvie's skin itch and eyes ache. To be removed from this world and sent to another, to the System, didn't appeal to her.
It did appeal to Grace.
Grace with her failing voice.
Grace with her deteriorating coordination.
Grace with her pain, her depression.
For Grace, it was a way to escape her body. That body that Sylvie loved so much, and was a prison to Grace. A voluntary procedure --- "Help combat overpopulation!" the posters howled --- but also a way to neatly sidestep the MS slowly claiming her body and mind.
After the upload, Grace had communicated with Sylvie through text, through mails sent to her terminal which she'd pour over at work. She begged Sylvie. *Come join, come upload,* she said. *The posters, they're all true, they're all right.*
The thought *still* made her skin itch and her eyes ache, but all the same, she kept dreaming of Grace. Dreaming of softer eyes, of a voice more sonorous. Her Grace shining like the dawn.
So she'd relented.
> *Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre
> Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,
> Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues,
> Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues,*
Sylvie's mind was filled with Fauré, with that rolling, lilting theme. With Grace's voice.
"We're going to keep you awake, okay? We need to, in order to tell when the upload is complete, but you'll under local anesthesia. It'll make you feel a little dreamy, may have visual disturbances." The doctor's smile was kind. "Some report it to be enjoyable."
"Okay. How long will the upload take?"
"The procedure will be about forty five minutes to prep you for upload, and then the upload will happen in two stages," the doctor said. "You'll be uploaded to a local node at our center, which will give you access to a waiting room of sorts for the System proper. The upload to the System will take several hours --- it's a lot of data, you understand --- so the waiting room will usually have you fork and the copy will be uploaded."
"Create a copy of myself and let that be uploaded while I watch," she murmured. Sylvie thought for a moment, "What about the copy that remains?"
"It's free to quit, like a program on your terminal quitting. But they --- the, ah, sysadmins --- usually request that it stay around in case the upload to the System gets interrupted for some reason."
"And what will I feel if things go wrong?"
The doctor hesitated, looked to her team. It was another team member, a man with a thick French accent, who responded. "We don't really know. The local node will pick up on it and alert us. Death just looks like death to us."
Sylvie nodded. Tried to nod, at least. She was firmly strapped down. "Alright."
There was a pinprick at the crook of her elbow. A feeling of coolness spread up her arm, into her chest. A tightness, there, and then a tightness along her neck. A brief moment of panic as she tried to flex her fingers.
"Starting the neuromuscular blocker. This will paralyze your voluntary muscles, so don't panic about the feeling," the anesthesiologist mumbled, distracted. He tapped her forearm, sending a pins-and-needles flash through the right half of her body. "But it doesn't numb you. That will be the next one, the anesthetic."
Sylvie attempted to speak, but only managed a grunt of assent.
The anesthesiologist nodded, "Good. Here it comes, then."
The coolness was replaced with a comfortable warmth.
Not warmth, she realized. Nothingness. Floatingness. Leaving-the-earth-ness. Gone-ness.
"Sylvie, can you hear me? You won't be able to speak or blink or nod, but can you try and take two quick breaths? It may be difficult. We'll intubate if necessary."
Sylvie obeyed. Or thought she did, at least. She couldn't tell if the breaths were actually happening. It seemed to be enough for the anesthesiologist, whose shadow across her vision bowed and stepped out of sight.
Time wandered.
Voices rang with the tenor of bells, though she could still understand them. Surgeons talking to technicians.
A dull, basso organ note of something grinding, her vision vibrating, blurring the sight of the light above the bed.
The light took the form of Grace, and Sylvie more readily gave in to the effects of the drug.
Grace with her angelic smile. Grace lifting her up, away from the earth. Grace running, running into the ring of that surgeon's lamp. Clouds, clouds parting.
The organ note screamed up through several octaves.
Calm, ringing voices.
That yearning song tinkling through her mind. She was unable to tell whether it came from herself, or from one of the techs. Or maybe from Grace. *Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image...* Tinkling and flowing. Rocking. Drunken. Drunken on dreams.
Minutes fled by. Hours. Days, perhaps. Always, in front of her, her angel. Pure white skin that contrasted beautifully against her own, cream spilled in coffee. Always lifting her up. How far did they have to go?
Grace was drifting away from her, receding.
The light flared in intensity. Somehow became black. A shining blackness amid a field of more blackness.
Tugging, pulling.
Prying.
A snap.
A sense of wrongness, of gravity.
Falling away. Layers of self peeling back, each successive shedding revealing something more raw, more primal. Molting. The boundary between her Self and the blackness complicating, fraying, fading.
Grace was gone, too, faded to nothing.
*Come back!* Sylvie shouted into the nothingness. Her fists, raw and exposed to their very core, to the concept of Fist sans physical representation, pounded at the blackness. Pounded at herself.
*Come back! Come back! Grace!* She wailed. Screamed. Sobbed.
*Grace...*
A whisper against building chords, Grace's sweet voice.
> *Hélas! Hélas! triste réveil des songes
> Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends moi tes mensonges,
> Reviens, reviens radieuse,
> Reviens ô nuit mystérieuse!*
The team stood still. There was no written protocol as to what one should do while the local node processed the upload, but they always remained silent. The doctor held her breath every time.
A small pinging noise. The local readout flashed red.
Shoulders sagged around the room.
"Error in processing upload." The tinny speaker sounded impersonal. Perhaps it was designed that way to play down the loss. "Irrecoverable data corruption. Please check all contacts before continuing or contact System support for a technician for a full rig inspection."
"Well." The anesthesiologist's voice, so human, contrasted with the words from the speaker. "That's that, then."
"That's that," the doctor echoed. She sighed and backed away from Sylvie's body. It was empty, now. A husk. "I'll start the paperwork and call her family and the insurance company. Get the payout processed as soon as possible."
The other team members nodded. None of them looked happy.
"Go on, get her cleaned up and sent to the handlers." She trudged out of the room slowly, her feet dragging. Pulling off her gloves, one by one, she added, "At least someone will get something out of this. Alas."
Prayers began around the corpse.
<!--
In a sleep which held your charmed image
I dreamed of happiness, passion-filled mirage,
Your eyes were softer, your voice pure and sonorous,
You shone like a sky lit by the dawn;
You called me and I left the earth
To flee with you to the light,
The heavens for us were opening their clouds,
Splendors unknown, glimmering glimpses of the divine
Alas! Alas! Sad awakening of dreams
I call you, O night, bring back your lies,
Come back, come back radiant,
Come back, O mysterious night!
-->

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%title Assignment
:writing:fiction:scifi:post-self:book:short-story:
The feeling of an instance merging state back with the tracker would never NOT make Ioan Balan#tracker uneasy. It wasn't the differences in experiences, those could be anticipated, so much as the tiny changes in identity that resulted. Having to internalize a slightly different version of yourself was too close to experiencing a doppelg&auml;nger. Or perhaps hanging with a sib, fresh home from a semester abroad.
Ioan#tracker had never been abroad, had no siblings. Just new memories.
Ey set aside eir work --- a simple bit of nothing for a blogging organization that really didn't matter but nonetheless offered some reputation --- and sat back to deal with the squirming, greasy feeling of the merger.
-----
Ioan Balan#5f39bd7 was forked on suggestion of one of Ioan#tracker's friends as a way to inspect and experience life among a flashcult. Although the lifespan of the group was likely to be measured in months, or even weeks, Ioan figured it was a worthwhile investigation. Ey had an investigative journalism gig that could use a story like this.
The forking had gone quite according to plan. Ioan#tracker had no reason to expect otherwise, of course, and when the instance was rendered in front of em, the two shared a perfunctory handshake and went over notes one last time before the instance headed out to catch transit to as close to the flashcult as ey could get.
\#5f39bd7 took little time to settle into life among the cultists. Ioan was affable, likable. It was part of why ey had found the work of an investigative journalist easy, and why ey had quickly gone from low to high reputation in the field. The problem ey kept running into was boredom, rather than burning out.
-----
Ioan#tracker was left feeling let down, as ey perused what ey had been left of #5f39bd7's state. Ey used a fairly standard, off-the-shelf algorithm to cut down on the sheer amount of state ey would have to sift through to gain something from the instance's brief --- ey checked the date --- three weeks, two days of existance. It was enough to gain most of the knowledge and a good portion of the emotional and intellectual slices from the state, which was all ey needed for eir work. A full merge would've taken too long, and may have even been counterproductive: ey needed an amanuensis, not a recording device, for eir reporting.
The 'assignment', such as it was, had been fairly straightforward, and Ioan#tracker had expected little of interest from the state dump. The flashcult was strange, but not too out of the ordinary, so ey sped up eir perusal, skimming.
A sharp jolt of fear.
A pain that stretched from physical to existential.
EOF.
Ioan#tracker sat up straighter, brow furrowed. Ey skipped back through a few chunks of state to where ey had started to get bored.
-----
The flashcult was strange, but not too out of the ordinary. Ioan#5f39bd7, with no journalistic duties, found eirself getting into the swing of things with ease.
It was a sort of weird vacation, performing weird rituals that slowly began to make a weird sort of sense, knowing that at some weird moment, ey would either get too bored and quit or receive a SIGTERM. When ey caught the signal, ey would either have have to acquiesce and quit right then, find a place to step aside and quit, or risk crashing. But mostly lots of loafing around.
As work, being an amanuensis was merely inoffensive. Not super interesting, kind of relaxing, and maybe something interesting would happen that eir tracker could turn into a story.
It was during one of the rituals --- a call-and-response prayer wherein the members seemed to be working on memorizing progressively longer digits of numbers --- when the co-cultist beside em let out a soft sigh that turned into a quiet giggle.
Then she turned to em, grinned beatifically, and winked. Winked!
Ioan#5f39bd7 watched her raise her hand and call the ceremony to a halt, saying almost dreamily, "I found them."
Faced turned toward em, all smiling that same, kind, peaceful smile. Ey sat dumbly, looking from face to face. "I...yes?" ey managed.
"You're the one," a voice chimed in.
Another added, "The reporter. You're the reporter."
There was a thrill of fear that ran up #5f39bd7's spine. It had never been a strictly undercover operation, but neither had ey been forthcoming about why ey were there in the first place.
Ioan#5f39bd7 lifted eir hands from eir lap, palms up in a placating fashion. "Well," ey began. "I am a reporter, no denying, but I'm not here on offic-*urk!*"
There was a sharp blow to the back of eir neck, knocking em flat to the ground, then a weight settling solidly onto eir back. One of the other members had sat on em.
"Congrats, Ana," said the cultist on eir back.
"Three weeks and a day, getting better," another grinned, and others soon chimed in, reaching in to shake hands with the young woman who had originally pointed em out.
Ioan#5f39bd7 picked out the face of the lector in the crowd, an older person of indeterminate sex who had always struck em as rather vacuous. It was a difficult task, from eir viewpoint on the ground, and since all the adherents wore identical clothing, there were few clues.
"This is the tenth iteration. As we discussed before you arrived, we'll tell you, now."
The fear continued to well within #5f39bd7, growing in intensity.
-----
Ioan#tracker set eir usual algorithm aside for the merger, requesting that the entirety of the instance's state, from that last ritual on, be merged with em. It wasn't the first time ey had done such a thing, but it was still rare enough for em to do so that ey had to look up how. Despite eir career depending on it, ey had never been all that good at the whole dissolution thing. Ey never even figured out how to name eir instances, relying instead on the random string of digits that the system generated for em.
Once that had been organized, ey moved out onto the wrap-around deck and settled into one of the Adirondack chairs out there. Such things, ey suspected, were built primarily for thinking.
Ey closed eir eyes, and let memories wash over em.
-----
The fear continued to well within #5f39bd7, growing in intensity.
"We're practicing, you see." The lector paced a slow circle around Ioan#5f39bd7 as they went on. "We start something interesting, wait for a reporter, and find them out. That's what we're practicing. Finding out who's watching, who's the reporter."
Ana giggled once more, "It's a class, get it? An experiment, a dissection. You're the subject."
The lector nodded and, having completed their circuit, leaned down to meet #5f39bd7's wide-eyed gaze. "And now we've got it reliably under a month. Time to make it known. What's your branch name?"
"Ioan Balan#5f39bd7," ey stuttered. "Bu-but why are you...what are...why are you doing this?"
"We're looking for reliable ways to find out the reporters because," they paused, withdrawing a syringe from the billowy sleeve of their tunic. "Because some day we may not want to be seen."
That wellspring of fear turned to a geyser.
In the system, there was no real need for an actual syringe, so they had taken on a new, codified meaning of something that would modify an instance in some core fashion. Intent was thick in the air, so Ioan#5f39bd7 had no doubt that this was some sort of destructive virus.
"Wait," ey gasped, finding eir breath coming in ragged, erratic bursts.
There was no time to continue with mere words, only a hoarse shout. Eir fear spiked beyond what it felt ey were capable of containing as ey watched the hand bearing the syringe slide calmly toward them to efficiently slip the needle behind eir ear.
Eir final thought before eir instance crashed was surprise at just how much it hurt to die. It was a pain that spread from eir head through eir body, from the physical reality of the sim to some existential plane.
-----
Ioan#tracker found eirself clutching at the arms of the deck chair, eir own breathing shallow and fast. Ey felt some of the same fear that eir instance had felt.
What should ey do?
A quick search showed ey couldn't turn over the instance. Little was actually 'recorded' in a useful fashion that any sort of authorities (such as there were) could use. The instances were eirs and eirs only. Ey certainly didn't want to confront the cultists, either as emself or through an instance. Ey didn't know how to change eir instances like some others did, so ey would just look like Ioan#5f39bd7 back from the dead.
Ey realized that all ey could really do was what ey knew how to do best.
Be a reporter.
It was what the cult wanted, but ey felt the words and experiences stirring within em already. Hell, it's what *ey* wanted, too.
Finally, an interesting assignment.

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@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ In the future, Ioan and Dear have tracked down Qoheleth, the one who spilled the
Carter makes it to the UMC and, taking a risk, logs in to meet up with Sasha and Debarre to pass on what has happened at her work and what she knows of RJ. Part way through explaining what is happening, Sasha falls over in pain and then her system crashes, and Carter and Debarre deduce that she has gotten lost as well and both log out immediately. When Carter goes to visit RJ, she finds both the police and Johansson and Caitlin there already. Johansson distracts the police while Carter sets up a 'mirror rig' with RJ, a training device for those who are learning to use their implants which allows an instructor to help control RJ, acting on a hunch from seeing Sasha disappear. She logs into the mirror rig with RJ and finds herself in a confusing, dreamlike place with AwDae at the center of it all, spouting lines from a poem that we now recognize as the Ode. Carter struggles to convince em to come with her, and eventually succeeds. She immediately dives back in and publishes via the DDR what she has learned as well as how to free the lost.
Debarre frees Sasha, finding that she is similarly affected by the mirroring experience, though to a lesser extent than RJ. All of those who were lost are forever changed, and few for the better. Cicero finds it to be too much and kills himself. Shortly before his funeral, Sasha receives a letter from RJ mentioning that ey must go back to that mirror world and has volunteered to be an early subject for uploading tech that will lead to the world Ioan and Dear inhabit, a process that will kill eir body and, unless everything goes right, ey will not be able to see her again. The letter includes the entirety of the Ode, and we learn that Sasha is *Michelle Hadje*, the basis for the common ancestor of the Ode clade. Sanders winds up in prison along with several who instigated the plot to remove that vote from the records. Prakash winds up back in the Sino-Russian Bloc (where, it is implied, RJ's procedure will take place). Ioan winds up eir job as amanuensis with Dear and begins to write up eir report/essay on the subject but, on a whim, contacts Dear and its partner to ask if ey might create a long-lived fork (eir first), Codrin Bălan, to work with them both on the project.
Debarre frees Sasha, finding that she is similarly affected by the mirroring experience, though to a lesser extent than RJ. All of those who were lost are forever changed, and few for the better. Cicero finds it to be too much and kills himself. Shortly after his funeral, Sasha receives a letter from RJ mentioning that ey must go back to that mirror world and has volunteered to be an early subject for uploading tech that will lead to the world Ioan and Dear inhabit, a process that will kill eir body and, unless everything goes right, ey will not be able to see her again. The letter includes the entirety of the Ode, and we learn that Sasha is *Michelle Hadje*, the basis for the common ancestor of the Ode clade. Sanders winds up in prison along with several who instigated the plot to remove that vote from the records. Prakash winds up back in the Sino-Russian Bloc (where, it is implied, RJ's procedure will take place). Ioan winds up eir job as amanuensis with Dear and begins to write up eir report/essay on the subject but, on a whim, contacts Dear and its partner to ask if ey might create a long-lived fork (eir first), Codrin Bălan, to work with them both on the project.
<!--The final scene shows Qian Guowei, the assassin who destroyed Qoheleth, getting another assignment.-->