90 lines
11 KiB
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90 lines
11 KiB
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<title>Zk | 004</title>
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<h1>Zk | 004</h1>
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2325">Ioan Balan — 2325</h1>
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<p>May Then My Name sat across from Ioan at their low table, looking somewhat diminished from her usual spot beside him.</p>
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<p>“Are you comfortable with this?” Ioan asked.</p>
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<p>“This feels unusually formal.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, well, I’d like to be able to see your expressions.” Ey grinned. “Also, it’s easier to write when I don’t have a skunk hanging onto my arm.”</p>
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<p>She rolled her eyes, sighing dramatically. “I suppose. Ask away then, o archivist.”</p>
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<p>“I’m not–“</p>
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<p>“I know, I know. Not an archivist. Grant me this whimsy”</p>
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<p>“Alright.” Ey tested the nib of eir pen on the corner of the page and then began to jot in eir comfortable shorthand. “Uncomfortable question first. When did you upload?”</p>
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<p>May frowned down to the table, drawing lazy Lissajous curves on its surface. “I would have gone for the shit-sandwich approach. Do you promise to ask lighter questions after?”</p>
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<p>Ioan laughed, nodded.</p>
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<p>“Alright. Michelle uploaded in 2117. I know that Dear mentioned to you that she uploaded in the 2130s after Secession. This is a small it lie told to downplay our role in helping the System become what it is today. Michelle uploaded, burned through what energy she had on early projects, and then forked to let her clade take her place, opting for an early retirement, herself.”</p>
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<p>“Do you mean her work on sensoria?”</p>
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<p>“That, and several other projects.”</p>
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<p>“Such as?”</p>
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<p>“You will doubtless learn, Ioan, but not from me. It is not my story to tell.”</p>
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<p>Ey lifted eir pen from the page. “Can you tell me why? I can leave it out of the notes if you’d like.”</p>
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<p>“You may included this. I have distanced myself from much of that time out of shame. You know as well as I do that I cannot forget it, but I can at least think about it as little as possible.” She smiled, abashed. “I will not tell you who to ask about it, either. I have confidence that you will find out on your own, and I am curious to see how quickly.”</p>
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<p>“Tricksy, as always.” Ey laughed. “Alright, if you won’t talk about that, that’s okay. It’s enough that you mention it; I’ll keep my eye out.”</p>
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<p>She reached out and took eir off-hand in her own, brushing thumbpad over eir knuckles. “Thank you, dear. Do you have a more pleasant question for me to answer?”</p>
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<p>“Of course. Why did you stay behind.”</p>
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<p>At this, the skunk brightened considerably. “This is what I was expecting. I have a response prepared and everything.”</p>
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<p>“Dear always mentioned that it scripted its conversations, as well. Is that an Odist thing?”</p>
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<p>“Perhaps! I do not doubt it, from that fox. It is always so dramatic.” She retrieved her paw to fold it with the other before her. “Right. I remained behind because it tickled me to do so. Could I have invested in the Launch? Of course. However, it occurred to me early on, soon after you and I agreed to work on this project together, that acting as a fulcrum between the two LVs would not just keep my instance from infecting the responses that I received, but would allow me to play them against each other.</p>
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<p>“Besides,” she said, stabbing her pinky toward em. “There is no Ioan on the Launches, and I am busy wrapping you around my little finger.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed. “Well, keep up the good work, then.”</p>
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<p>“I could just as easily turn this question around on you, Mx. Ioan Balan. Why did you not invest yourself in the Launch? We do not yet know Codrin’s reasons, but why remain, yourself?”</p>
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<p>“I’m not sure, honestly. I think what you say about not influencing the responses that we get fits me, too. I don’t want Ioan’s thoughts, I want those of the LVs unfiltered through my transmissions.”</p>
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<p>“But Codrin–“</p>
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<p>“Has diverged significantly in the last two decades. I have no concerns about contamination. Ey is not me any longer.”</p>
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<p>She nodded approvingly. “Good. There may be hope for you yet.”</p>
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<p>“Wrapping me around your little finger, indeed.” Ey finished eir current line of scratchy notes. “You say that it tickled you to remain behind. Can you talk more about that?”</p>
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<p>“Of course. Many of the clade — many of the liberal side, at least — enjoy using our functional immortality as a plaything. If we are to live forever, then, it is worthwhile to find as many things to keep it interesting as we can along the way. It is interesting to me that I have acted in a very intentional way such that I will not get to experience our three societies begin to diverge that directly. It is already fun to see the differences between Green and Blue through the eyes of Codrin, and to realize that the L<sub>5</sub> system contains neither, and then realize in a flash of insight that there is no May Then My Name Die With Me to witness directly. Do you experience the same?”</p>
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<p>“Maybe a little bit,” Ioan hedged. “But if what you tell me, is true, I’m not nearly old enough yet to be so concerned in finding fun in the little nooks and crannies of experience.”</p>
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<p>“You are no fun,” she whined. “But I see your point. You also do not have the decades of split mind from before the beginning of the clade. You do not have the strange avenues of thought that preceded our creation. The Ioan of the 2230s or whenever it was that you uploaded had a baseline sanity that Michelle lacked.”</p>
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<p>“You don’t seem insane.”</p>
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<p>She forked a version of herself atop the table lacking all human attributes that hissed at Ioan with foaming mouth. Ey startled back, and she laughed as the creature quit. “Do I not?”</p>
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<p>Ey shook eir head. “Weird, perhaps, but your thoughts and actions are consistent with each other. You’re an internally consistent individual.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, well, Michelle was not. She was a being of irreconcilable contradictions, and we are lucky that she did not pass that on to us when we came into existence.”</p>
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<p>“If she hadn’t quit as she did, do you think that she would’ve remained on the system, invested entirely in the launches, or split between the two?”</p>
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<p>May’s features fell and she averted her eyes. “She could not do but what she did. You were not there at the end.”</p>
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<p>“Feel free to not answer, but can you tell me about that?”</p>
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<p>“I will only say that she was ready, that, whether or not she had been planning that day from the very beginning, that was precisely the time that she was meant to die.”</p>
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<p>“‘Die’? Not quit?”</p>
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<p>“In her mind, I think that it was death, yes. She quoted her — our — favorite line of poetry at us, and the death thoughts preceded apace. We are no longer branches of a unified whole, but trees of our own.” There was a long pause before she added, “I think that had been true perhaps from shortly after Secession, and that she was already dead, in her own way way. Reality just caught up with her.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. Something in the skunk’s expression told em that the topic was closed, that while she might answer another question, she would resent it. Instead, ey let a moment of quiet fall between them, a silent acknowledgement of that ending.</p>
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<p>“You have another question. I can see it on your face.”</p>
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<p>“Perceptive, as always. Whenever you talk with Douglas, your cousin however many times removed, you always evade his questions about your name, and have yet to tell him about your origins, though I know that that would mean a lot to him. Why?”</p>
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<p>Her laugh was musical and expression almost giddy. “We already talked about having fun, dear.”</p>
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<p>“Well, yes, but that was fun involving yourself. What’s the origin of this fun involving someone else?”</p>
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<p>“I have fun with you, you know that.”</p>
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<p>Ioan smirked, but waited for her to continue.</p>
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<p>“Alright, have it your way. I am doing my best to build up the suspense with him. I know that it would mean a lot for him if I were to simply drop the bomb on him now — though I realize, having said that, that that is perhaps a poor choice of words, given his admitted fear. But how much more an impact it will have if I build it up like this! I cannot wait to see what emotions play across his face.”</p>
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<p>“‘See’? You intend to wait until he uploads?”</p>
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<p>“And why should I not? I know that he will.”</p>
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<p>“He always talks about it as a potential thing, though.”</p>
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<p>She grinned and shook her head. “He will. He has already made up his mind, he just does not realize it yet.”</p>
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<p>“How will you tell him, then?”</p>
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<p>“I will continue to drop hints for another few months — I think he will do it within the year — and then drop a bunch of reputation to let him upload into Michelle’s field. There, we will go for a walk, and you will observe as, over the course of a few minutes, I reveal the truth.”</p>
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<p>Ioan straightened up. “Me?”</p>
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<p>“Of course. Can you think of a better myth? Can you think of a better story in history, of the man who brought the launches to fruition learning that he is talking to the very woman who helped bring Secession to fruition, the one who he has desired above all things to meet, who he thinks dead?”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-08-29</p>
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