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<title>Zk | 010</title>
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<h1>Zk | 010</h1>
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<p>I watched as Dry Grass set up the room for this smaller conference. Without so many Odists, Jonases, Selenas, Debarres, Marshans, and however many others, there was no need for the presentation setup, and so those tables that had been set up before the stage were instead joined together. Dry Grass released them from their stolidly stationary positions and pushed them together. Merging like drops of mercury, the dozen or so smaller tables became one large circle. This was then corralled with gentle tugs of her hands to a much smaller shape, remaining a perfect circle. Chairs trailed after the edge of the table like eager puppies, merging together in similar fashion whenever crowding grew too great.</p>
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<p>The next change was to the square platform of the AVEC stage. The light-gray material that made it up was similarly shrunk down with nudges from her foot. The table was given a gentle push so that it settled just over the edge of the stage.</p>
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<p>I’d had little to do with sim manipulation beyond simply expanding or reducing bounds, and almost nothing to do with object manipulation beyond pulling items off the exchange. That had always been Hanne’s game, and while I’d watched her work plenty, it had never been so casually exhausted as Dry Grass’s manipulation here. She worked with such surety, such tiredness on her face, that her age seemed all the more evident. Of course someone more than three centuries old, someone who had spent nearly all of that time here on the System, would be able to move through this world with such ease.</p>
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<p>“Alright,” she said, flumping down into one of the chairs across from the AVEC stage. “I think we are all here. While I would obviously prefer you stay, it is not a requirement. If you need to duck out, feel free to do so. We are just waiting on Günay and we can get going.”</p>
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<p>About twenty people had shown up. It didn’t seem to be twenty clades — there were two Odists, after all, with Dry Grass and another from the eighth stanza, Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help — but the audience remained diverse. Only about half appeared to be human of some sort, with the Marshans, Odists, and Jonases accounting for most of those. I suppose it made sense, given the Odists’ social circle, but that didn’t quite tally with what I knew of Jonas’s role in the leadership of the System. He didn’t strike me as a furry.</p>
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<p>When asked over a sensorium message, Dry Grass replied, <em>“The eighth stanza has been slowly tamping down on Jonas’s role over the years. He has not been nearly as grounded as he once was.”</em> She cast a slight smile in my direction, adding, <em>“Too singularly focused, perhaps. All work and no play makes Jonas go fucking batty.”</em></p>
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<p>I stifled a laugh. It probably shouldn’t have been funny, but the absurdity of the comment clashed just right with the mirrored absurdity of the situation. Probably best not to laugh in front of everyone.</p>
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<p>Just in time, too, as there was a polite chime from the location of the AVEC stage, and Günay faded into being. She was clearly sitting at her own table far different from ours, but some trick of the AVEC software quickly scaled her to the point where it looked as though she was sitting there with us. The opacity was even turned all the way up so that she was just as present as the rest of the attendees.</p>
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<p>“Hey friends,” she said, waving. “Wasn’t expecting an invitation for just me.”</p>
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<p>Answers Will Not Help gave a hint of a bow without standing. Her voice seemed to sit just shy of laughter, though whether that was a laughter was teasing or convivial was difficult to say. “What can we say? We like you.” She waved around the table. “We have a group of representatives from a variety of clades. I think you met a good chunk of us yesterday, yes?”</p>
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<p>Günay nodded. “Yep. At least, I remember Dry Grass and Jonas and Debarre and Selena.” Her eyes darted around those seated at the table, likely reading through name tags. “Answers Will Not Help…I’ve heard your name, at least.”</p>
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<p>“Right, I bet you have,” Answers Will Not Help said with a smirk. “We are a notorious group, yes? For those you have not met, we have selected a group of clades among friends who we believe to be both good people and representative of the various ways we have been affected.”</p>
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<p>The systech nodded again. “Alright.”</p>
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<p>“Reed and Sedge of the Marsh clade lost their root instance, a loss of 14%. We Odists have lost 2% of our number, including two lines of the Ode and two long-lived up-tree instances. The Jonas clade has lost approximately 3% of their number. Andréa C. Mason and Harvey of the CERES clade have been hit particularly hard,” she said, gesturing to an anthropomorphic coyote and goat across the table, “with Andréa’s subclade losing 99.983% of their number, totalling 69,760 instances destroyed.”</p>
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<p>There was a long moment of silence before Günay whispered, “What the fuck.”</p>
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<p>Answers Will Not Help continued smoothly. “Debarre, on the other hand, lost zero instances for a total of 0%. Obvious, yes, but I believe that will do well to illustrate the apparent random nature of this event from our end, yes?”</p>
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<p>Günay nodded, expression lingering in shock even as the Odist continued around the table with introductions and percentages lost.</p>
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<p>“Günay,” Jonas Fa said once this had wrapped up. “Jakub and I had a pleasant little chat and, if you’ll cheek, you’ll see that NDAs have been lifted.”</p>
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<p>She frowned, blinked a few times, then said cautiously, “Okay.”</p>
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<p>“He also confirmed that this was an intentional attack on Lagrange. Some sort of widespread CPV event.”</p>
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<p>Silence fell around the table. Each of us processed this in our own way, whether that was the shock from the clades who had just been roped into the meeting to the exhaustion on Dry Grass’s face, the wariness on Günay’s features to the almost smug satisfaction in Jonas’s. He looked to be almost purring, as though springing this information on everyone present was a joy in its own right.</p>
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<p>“So, now that NDAs have been listed and we’ve torn Mr. Strzepek a new one, can you tell us what happened?”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-11-30</p>
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