<p>I laughed and bump my shoulder against Hanne’s. “A sales pitch?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she said, leaning briefly against me as we walk. “I’m in the market for a new year. Sell me the 2399 model. I’ve got a wide variety to choose from, so tell me why you decided to live through this one.”</p>
<p>I scuffed my heel against the pavement of the street. New Year’s Eve, and everyone was still inside. Bars: full. Restaurants: packed. There were a few scattered couples or groups around, but they were all walking with purpose. Champagne called. Canapes. Crudites.</p>
<p>And there we were, Reed and Hanne, arm in arm, strolling leisurely down the street, heedless of the passersby, to celebrate the last day of 2399, systime 275+365. Many, still lingering on the calendar still used phys-side, were doubtlessly partying extra-hard to celebrate the turn of a century.</p>
<p>“If you’re looking for the utmost in luxury, then it’s really hard to go wrong with 2399. The ride was just about as smooth as could be.”</p>
<p>“No clue. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had any reason to pay attention to the world outside. I imagine it looks just as confusing as it anyways has.”</p>
<p>“Well, okay, fair enough. You’ve been here longer than I have.”</p>
<p>“I keep forgetting you’re younger than me.”</p>
<p>She snorted and shoved me away from her. “Now who’s the nerd? Gross.”</p>
<p>I stumbled to the side, laughing. Our own champagne from earlier added a pleasant freedom of movement I only ever notice at two drinks. Any more and I become too loose and have a hard time staying upright. Any less and I don’t notice that any freedom was lacking.</p>
<p>“Is that so bad?” I asked. “Alternatively: am I not allowed to be a bit maudlin? It’s fucking New Year’s, Hanne.”</p>
<p>“What? Uh…” I hunted down a dictionary on the exchange, prowled through it. “Oh. Mawkish, that’s the one. Or saccharine, maybe? I don’t know. Maudlin still kind of works, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Hanne rolled her eyes, grinning. “Okay, yeah, that fits you to a tee.”</p>
<p>We walked in silence for a few minutes. I tallied the occupants of the various restaurants along the way, making note of the busiest to check out on some less-busy night. Good date spots, perhaps.</p>
<p>Hanne nodded. “What was Earth like? What was your life like?”</p>
<p>I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. The Western Fed was swinging conservative again, it was hot as hell all the time, most places were starting to subsidize uploading despite an already declining population. I guess that makes it sound terrible, and maybe it would have gotten worse, but I wasn’t around to see it. We were doing alright, so maybe I was kind of sheltered.”</p>
<p>“I hear you on the hot as hell part. We couldn’t afford moving south when it got too bad, so we moved up into the mountains. It helped a little bit, at least.”</p>
<p>I nodded. “I guess that’s what I mean by sheltered. We were already up in Newfoundland. Summers sucked, winters sucked, but it was alright between them.”</p>
<p>Hanne shook her head. “You said to transition, sure, but didn’t you already do that back phys-side?”</p>
<p>I stayed silent, picking apart my thoughts on the matter. “I– Marsh got sick of being trans. They wanted to just be a man, not a trans man.”</p>
<p>“Well, I think half of it was that there was just too much pressure at the time. Like I said, the WF was swinging conservative, so there was this push to assimilate, and we internalized that pretty hard. We felt pushed to just shut up and be a man, just disappear, and always felt that we fell short despite all we did to try, but on Lagrange, we could do that right off the bat.”</p>
<p>“So they went back to being trans–“</p>
<p>“No, it’s okay,” I said, feeling a rush of warmth to my cheeks. “Didn’t mean to get too pushy. It’s still a little tender, I guess.”</p>
<p>The shadow of her shoulders relaxed again in the dark of the night. “Even after so long?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Like I said, we internalized it pretty hard, even as they tried to diversify later on. I headed back trans, Lily headed back feminine, and Cress embodies the negation.”</p>
<p>I grinned. “I forked for fun. Even if it’s still a tender spot, I think I’m still way more relaxed than they are. There may be a bit of that in Tule, I guess. He’s still pretty happy being a guy — he’s the only one out of all of us, come to think of it. Rush is as ve is of ver own choice, though.”</p>
<p>Hanne looped her arm through mine. “Well, I still like you as you are.”</p>
<p>“The weather. The money. All the same stuff the government told us. Same as most people, I think. I internalized that as much as Marsh did the whole gender thing.”</p>
<p>“Was the WF still on its conservative swing?”</p>
<p>“The Republic of Argentina wasn’t part of the Western Federation.”</p>
<p>“Oh, right. I guess I knew that.”</p>
<p>She shrugged. “Sure. But either way, they were somewhere in the middle, maybe. There was this big push from the liberal side on the climate, and this big push on the conservative side on the financial side. They said they could cut costs on services if there were fewer of us. Dad was with them, mom was with the libs. It was one of the few things they could agree on. They said they’d miss me, but they weren’t exactly sad when I went the Ansible.”</p>
<p>“‘Uploading’ sounds so sterile,” she said, nodding. “‘Went the Ansible’ just made it sound like moving away from home.”</p>
