Ey made eir promises that ey'd come and visit every year, and packed eir bags.
Burying emself deeper into the covers and the mattress, leaving enough room for Priscilla to join em later, RJ's thoughts alighted on Cicero, on the lost.
Losing Cicero had been a shock. A disappearance, at first. Last seen two days ago. Three. And then it went on. Debarre hollering one night after getting in touch with Cice's family. Lost, lost, he was lost.
-And getting lost was rare. Vanishingly so, with perhaps fifty cases at the time. Still, among those who were counted among the lost, all were heavy interfacers. It was a risk, everyone had assumed, just as was travel. Call it occupational hazard. Something could always happen. Something could always go wrong.
+And getting lost was rare. Vanishingly so, with perhaps a hundre cases at the time. Still, among those who were counted among the lost, all were heavy interfacers. It was a risk, everyone had assumed, just as was travel. Call it occupational hazard. Something could always happen. Something could always go wrong.
To lose someone so close, though. That hit hard.
It was a sharp reminder of just how much ey relied on the integration tech, not only for work, but for the lion's share of eir social life. Ey enjoyed the company of the troupe just fine. Troupe pub trips were a weekly affair. But eir heart lay among eir friends on the 'net. Eir friends being on the 'net meant more interfacing, and more interfacing meant, it seemed, more risk.
Perhaps more for em than any of eir friends. Eir tech was truly immersive, after all. It was a dissolution of the body. Disembodied in the truest sense.
diff --git a/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html b/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html index 5395231d9..055f422c7 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html +++ b/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/004-a.html @@ -16,14 +16,15 @@RJ allowed emself to sleep in until near eleven that morning. Last night of dress rehearsal, might as well be well-rested.
Many other members of the troupe held part time jobs during the day, and ey ran a small consulting business of eir own. The more industries that dove into immersive tech, the more eir expertise was worth. Even so, with all that ey did, ey made enough to not have to worry about holding down more than the one full-time gig.
As it was, on days when ey had nighttime rehearsals, ey felt no compunctions about sleeping in. Nothing to be up for, only the 'net to keep them occupied in the mornings, little enough need to get moving.
-It was Priscilla who eventually succeeded in waking em, butting her head against eir cheek and purring obscenely. The more insistent the cat became, the less able ey was to ignore her intrusions on eir admittedly banal dreams.
+It was Priscilla who eventually succeeded in waking em, butting her head against eir cheek and purring obscenely, stomping on em through the blanket with kneading paws. The more insistent the cat became, the less able ey was to ignore her intrusions on eir admittedly banal dreams.
Fine. Trudge out of bed. Refill cat's water and food. Give the requisite morning pets to keep her happy. Scoop the litter box. Make self a pot of tea. Tea to shake the grogginess.
Ey sat at the tiny kitchen table, sipping from eir oversized mug and watching the late morning traffic from their window. Mostly business traffic, with the occasional mother with child in tow. Black cabs. Scooters. Bikes.
By the time ey had finished eir first mug of tea, RJ had woken up enough to start on the prowl. As with the night before, ey made sure that everything was in order before touching eir rig. Ey'd taken care of the cat, but ey still needed to eat, emself. So, remembering eir promise, ey set about making a small pot of rice. Fifteen minutes to cook, plenty enough time to finish another mug of tea.
-RJ left most of the rice cooling in the pot and took for emself a small bowl of rice and leftover curry. The process of swiping eir hand over the controls of the stove had reminded em of the deck that Sasha had shared last night. There was no reason to think that some random person in London would have much to offer in the case of another person ey had never met getting lost. No reason not to try, though. Maybe there was something, some small insight that ey had that, which, when pooled with those of others, which would help in some way.
+RJ left most of the rice cooling in the pot and took for emself a small bowl to go with the leftover curry. The process of swiping eir hand over the controls of the stove had reminded em of the deck that Sasha had shared last night. There was no reason to think that some random person in London would have much to offer in the case of another person ey had never met getting lost. No reason not to try, though. Maybe there was something, some small insight that ey had which, when pooled with those of others, might help in some way.
So many maybes. So many mights and perhapses.
Empty bowl in sink. Third and final cup of tea in the thick-walled mug. Good enough. Ey allowed emself to settle before eir rig at last.
-As before, ey keyed in the password and rested eir hand onto the cradle for the two-factor. However, instead of delving in as ey had last night, ey flipped up the monitor and pulled the keyboard closer, swinging the hand rests to the side and the headrest up and out of the way. No need to go immersive, with work like this. Ey could just as easily work as a fox, of course, but it was so easy to lose track of time in there, and the night's rehearsal mustn't be forgotten.
+As before, ey keyed in the password and rested eir hand onto the cradle for the two-factor. However, instead of delving in as ey had last night, ey unfolded the screen to full height and pulled the keyboard closer, swinging the hand rests to the side and the headrest up and out of the way. No need to go immersive, with work like this. Ey could just as easily work as a fox, of course, but it was so easy to lose track of time in there, and the night's rehearsal mustn't be forgotten.
+Besides, eir tea was here.
"Let's see," ey murmured, taking a sip of tea before setting the mug down
Ey called up Sasha's deck.
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, and each contained 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 gig 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 had heard of the lost before, 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.
None of the rest of the cards carried any real significance to em.
@@ -91,7 +92,7 @@ Expand all