<p>The room was a utilitarian grey, closer to black than to white, and the illumination was a central light source somewhere above the exact center of the room, looking slightly misted. It was enough to give definition to the room's corners and boundaries, those walls of matte grey, but not a whole lot else. A small pedestal was set a few meters from one of the walls, only a half a meter high.</p>
<p>A platform? A dias?</p>
<p>Except for that change, it was the default room created before one added modifications.</p>
<p>The Odists arrived in clumps of ten or twenty at a time, taking about thirty seconds to arrive in total. A low murmur started up almost immediately. If this meeting had to be called, then perhaps every detail was of the highest importance.</p>
<p>A man appeared on the platform.</p>
<p>Qoheleth.</p>
<p>Ioan wasn't sure how ey knew, just that it was Qoheleth. He was about Dear's height, but a touch heavier, and had affected a greying beard and receding hairline. His clothes were a simple cream tunic and trousers of...was that leather? Atop this, a reddish-brown robe.</p>
<p>He certainly seemed to have adopted the part of a biblical notable. The murmuring doubled, trebled, and then subsided.</p>
<p>Qoheleth smiled, and then called out to the group, "Welcome, folks. Good to see, er, most of you again, and I'm sure it'll be pleasant to meet the rest of you later."</p>
<p>Silence. Part confused, part curious, part angry.</p>
<p>"I'm Hebel Qoheleth, though some of you remember me as Life Breeds Life, But Death Must Now Be Chosen, of the Ode Clade. For my own reasons, I've chosen to rescind my membership within the Ode clade-" He held up his hands to quell the protests from within the crowd. "I've chosen to rescind my membership within the clade because something is starting to go wrong."</p>
<p>Iaon looked to Dear. The fox's brow was furrowed and intent. Ey looked from it to the rest of the crowd, studying the expressions. Many of the other outclade individuals were doing the same, confirming Ioan's hunch that they were other amanuenses. The reputation analyst, Guōwēi, had positioned himself up near the platform itself and was scribbling notes.</p>
<p>Qoheleth continued, "Something is going wrong in many of the old clades, with many of the old uploads. They should probably all hear this, but, even though I'm not a part of you anymore, I still feel the responsibility to tell you all."</p>
<p>"Why the puzzles?" a voice shouted.</p>
<p>The older ex-Odist grinned, looking proud. "I had to get you interested and involved to get all of you here. I had to make you all think that there was more going on than just an old man convening a meeting."</p>
<p>Grumbles greeted this.</p>
<p>"It worked, didn't it?" Qoheleth smirked, then went on. "So, on to why I called you all here, hmm? Lets get to the good stuff. Or the bad stuff, really.</p>
<p>"There's a bit of a problem going on with the older uploads and their clades. It's a small one now, but I think it'll just get worse and worse over time.</p>
<p>"Actually, it may not be a problem with the uploads at all, but a problem with the system. We are stuck. We are frozen in a few ways. I'll cut right to it: the problem is forgetting and aging. We can't forget. We never age. We're stuck. We never grow."</p>
<p>Dear was nodding.</p>
<p>"Maybe some of you feel the wrongness in this, but I'm worried that it's too few of you. I called you here to teach you why this is a problem." Qoheleth ignored the indignant sounds from the audience and kept going, seemingly in a rhythm. "It feels good to be forever young, to be forever ourselves. But even if the physical and biological origins of aging have been obviated by the system, by being digital, the need to age and change is still there. It's a need backed by sanity and diversity rather and biology.</p>
<p>"Sanity drives the need because we can't forget. Maybe some of you have figured out ways to intentionally forget, but forgetting needs to be an organic process. It needs to be something that happens to us, not just something that we choose to do. All we can do is ignore, now, but even so, that just drives us further from sanity, over time. It's a limitation of the system applied to our sensoria, our minds."</p>
<p>Qoheleth seemed to be gaining confidence, talking louder and more fluently as he went. "Diversity, because we need to change more than just our shapes and our memories. All of us here, all of the Ode clade gathered today, are still essentially Michel Hadje. I don't see him here, and that's fine. His choice. But we're all still him. All hundred of us, all of our short-lived instances, all of our secret long-lived instances we didn't name after the Ode."</p>
<p>Dear briefly splayed its ears, managed its embarrassed reaction, and then straightened up again. Ioan saw several others do the same, all of the more liberal bent. Ey smiled.</p>
<p>"It's not enough that we make nations out of individuals, we need to change beyond our root ancestors, if we're to survive. We need to breed, to produce more individuals. We can't keep relying on those who can afford to upload from offline for change. We need to forget at the very least," He pounded his fist against his palm with these last syllables. "Or perhaps we need to learn how to die again."</p>
<p>The silence was intent. Ioan made a note to eirself, <em>Impressive. He has them hooked. All the way. Almost all of them except the conservatives.</em></p>
<p>"That's why I posted The Name. That's why I gathered you here today. I'm telling you, we need to fix this, and I have some ideas as to how-"</p>
<p>Ioan missed the cue, if there was one, but with eir eyes locked on the stage, ey didn't miss the action.</p>
<p>At the mention of the name (and perhaps that was the only cue that was needed), Guōwēi hoisted himself up on the stage, withdrew a syringe from his pocket, and slammed it into Qoheleth's back.</p>
<p>Qoheleth had time to let out a soft "hah," sounding bemused, and then began to artifact and jitter on the stage. The death lasted perhaps five seconds, as the old man's internals struggled against the intrusion of the virus, before he crashed, disappearing from sight much as the assassin had.</p>
<p>By the time Ioan looked around the room, the conservatives had left or quit.</p>
<p>Ruckus and uproar were too strong of words for what happened with the remaining audience. There were a few scattered shouts, mostly of surprise, but primarily just concerned murmurings. For its part, Dear stamped a foot and began to pace in the small space it had, tail lashing behind it.</p>
<p>"What just happened?" Ioan whispered to the fox when it came close.</p>
<p><em>"One of the conservatives took a bet."</em></p>
