diff --git a/writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.html b/writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.html index c293c0d7d..f8fad7187 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.html +++ b/writing/post-self/qoheleth/Carter/001-b.html @@ -13,14 +13,14 @@

writing novel chapter fiction scifi post-self qoheleth

-

The morning's alarm startled her awake.

+

The morning's alarm startled Carter awake.

Disorientation --- when had she fallen asleep? There seemed to be no line delineating squirming under the covers and the buzz of her phone and faint tingle along her implants.

And here she had thought that the end of grad school had meant the end of six-hour nights of sleep.

Blearily, she pawed at her phone to swipe the alarm off. It was tempting to go back to sleep --- after all, she mused, the lost weren't going anywhere --- but she managed to at least kick her feet out from under the covers and sit up. Frizzed hair hung down around her face, shielding her from the world for just a little bit longer.

It was her phone, as always, that brought her back to reality. It's mere presence, even silent, was enough to draw her forth.

Ramirez

-

Another, this time with scans from before the incident. Another furry, you don't think that's got to do with it, do you :p

+

New case\, this time with scans from before the incident. Another furry, you don't think that's got to do with it, do you :p

S

The brief, ungrammatical message from Sanders left her nonplussed until she pieced together that he was talking about one of the other subjects' histories, something about him being part of some subculture. Sanders didn't honestly believe that people who pretended to be animals on the 'net were somehow more predisposed to get lost than everyone else. And, to be honest, neither did she.

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@

"Holy...holy shit. Holy shit," Carter said, startling the elderly lady next to her. She murmured an apology and fished her phone out, thumbing in a quick message to the team.

diff --git a/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html b/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html index 59064dafe..a14d18e03 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html +++ b/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html @@ -38,16 +38,16 @@ so. London

-
      Mr/Mrs. Jackson
-parents, can't get much more
+
      Mr/Mrs. Jackson
+parents, can't get much more
 

 
 
 
dad in govt, mother stays home

 

-
And on it went for nearly a dozen cards. Each had its own cover embossed with a few lines of type, each containing upwards of a gig of information culled from various sources, doubtless of varied quality.

+
And on it went for nearly a dozen cards. Each had its own cover embossed with a few lines of type, each containing upwards of a terabyte of information culled from various sources, doubtless of varied quality.

 
RJ flipped through each, gleaning what ey could from a quick scan, before collapsing the deck once more and sitting back to think. Nothing in there seemed new. Nothing out of place. Ey had only received the deck last night, and yet nothing felt like it had been revealed, uncovered.

-
Ey knew of the lost, of course, and the name Ramirez was commonly tied with the hundred or so cases that had cropped up over the years. The family...no, nothing to be gained there, at least not that had already been tried by Debarre. And again, there was the problem of being a random nobody in the UK: no one known, no one with power.

+
Ey knew of the lost, of course, and the name Ramirez was commonly tied with the few hundred or so cases that had cropped up over the years. The family...no, nothing to be gained there, at least not that had already been tried by Debarre. And again, there was the problem of being a random nobody in the UK: no one known, no one with power.

 
None of the rest of the cards carried any real significance to em.

 
If there was anything RJ was going to add to the conversation, it would be through eir connection to Cicero. Something ey knew, something the two had shared.

 
A small notification slid down from the top of eir monitor, covering the upper right corner of the screen.

@@ -62,13 +62,14 @@
 
RJ reached to swipe the notification away. Ey had very little stake in the uncomfortable alliance between Western Fed and S-R Bloc. Could care less, honestly, about taxes on things that ey'd never buy. Then something clicked within em, and ey halted eir motion.

 
Cicero.

 
Ey hastily shuffled back through the Cicero Lost deck until coming up with the 'recent net activity' card and pulled up the contents. It took a few moments to remember how to sort tabular data --- database classes in high school so long ago --- but eventually, ey got the table sorted around the activity type. Ey scrolled rapidly through the list until ey got to the list of Direct Democracy Representative entries.

-
There was the connection. The one thing that RJ and Cicero had was their arguments over politics. Not just politics, but the worthiness of the current political system in all of its facets. Arguments upon arguments upon arguments, fennec fox and tabby cat with their ceaseless bickering in the Crown Pub.

+
There was the connection.

+
The one thing that RJ and Cicero had was their arguments over politics. Not just politics, but the worthiness of the current political system in all of its facets. Arguments upon arguments upon arguments, fennec fox and tabby cat with their ceaseless bickering in the Crown Pub.

 
RJ was firmly on the left, but ey felt the representative democracy combined with the DDR was a pretty good system. Not great, sure. It was fine. It worked. To ask for more from a political system was to invite further troubles like those from the preceding century.

 
Cicero, however, seemed to waver between socialism and anarchy, depending on factors such as how much he had had to drink and how angry he was at the most recent vote.

 
I certainly can't see broad shifts going my way, he had slurred on more than one occasion. Least I can vote. Vote on every damn thing that comes my way.

 
Ey made sure syncing was turned on across all copies of the deck before snipping those rows out of the activity table into a card of their own:

 

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      DDR votes
+
      DDR votes
 

 
 
@@ -86,13 +87,13 @@
 
AwDae here. Looks like there's a lot going on in DDR activity (where'd you get this, Debarre?). Cicero was into a lot, and I'm not trying to go all conspiracy nut on you all, but do you think that maybe he got in too deep or something? Not saying someone tried to do it too him or anything, just that maybe the more one uses the net, the more likely it is to happen to them? I mean seriously, look at all of his votes, and his stash of credits! I'll keep poking at this after rehearsal.

 
 
The tea had gone cold long ago, but ey downed it all the same. Ey'd spent longer than planned plowing through the data the hard way and ey risked being late if ey didn't start hustling.

-
It was nearing dusk by the time ey left, the suit newly brushed and ironed, the gloves newly washed, the RJ newly shaven.

-
On the way back to the tube station, ey stopped by a Thai counter and picked up a take-away container of noodles for the night. Ey made it halfway through the container before the rancid belch of station wind suggested ey pack it away before heading down to the platform.

+
It was nearing dusk by the time ey left, the tux newly brushed and ironed, the gloves newly washed, the RJ newly shaven.

+
On the way back to the tube station, ey stopped by a Thai counter and picked up some take-away noodles for the night. Ey made it halfway through the container before the rancid belch of station wind suggested ey pack it away before heading down to the platform.

 
Throughout the ride to Soho, RJ's mind continued prowling through the data in Sasha and Debarre's deck. Ey kept mulling over that surreal number of credits. Just how much social currency was bound up within the reputation market of the DDR credit system?

 
Cicero had built himself up into a proper political player.