update from sparkleup
This commit is contained in:
parent
b301371f45
commit
3584ee71b9
|
|
@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
|
|||
<h1>Zk | 004</h1>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<article class="content">
|
||||
<p>I wake, exhausted, to a cop of coffee steaming on the bedside table.</p>
|
||||
<p>I wake, exhausted, to a cup of coffee steaming on the bedside table.</p>
|
||||
<p>At some point while I’d slept, Hanne had once more split the bed into two separate mattresses and very gently instructed the sim to slide them a few feet away from each other. Perhaps I’d been tossing and turning, or maybe I’d been snoring. I promise myself I’ll ask later, then promptly forget about it in favor of the coffee mug waiting for me.</p>
|
||||
<p>Coffee and chicory, nearly a third milk by volume. Perfect.</p>
|
||||
<p>I’m two sips in when the weight of what’s happened hits me once again. I don’t quite know how it is that it had escaped me, and a pile of ‘how could’ questions start to hem me in again — how could I possibly forget, when this is the biggest thing that has happened to our clade ever? Never mind sys-side or phys-side; ever.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -47,10 +47,26 @@
|
|||
<p><em>So I can get out of the house. So</em> you <em>can get out of the house. So we can actually talk instead of me sitting in a war room populated by too many of me and you making your bed or whatever it is you are doing now.</em></p>
|
||||
<p>I hesitate, halfway through smoothing out the sheets. <em>Oh, uh…alright. Let me say good morning to Hanne. Do you have a place to meet?</em></p>
|
||||
<p>She sends the address of a public sim, to which I send a ping of acknowledgement and a suggestion of five minutes’ time.</p>
|
||||
<p>Hanne’s sitting at the dining room table</p>
|
||||
<p>Hanne’s sitting at the dining room table, coffee in her hands, staring out at nothing, a sure sign that she’s digging through something on the perisystem architecture. Probably poking her way through the feeds, looking for news of her own. She has her own friends, after all, her own circle of co-hobbyists, those who share her interest in creating various objects and constructs. She has her own people to care about that aren’t just me, aren’t just the Marshans.</p>
|
||||
<p>I choose instead to make myself another coffee, letting a cone of silence linger above me so that I don’t disturb her, even though her eyes do flick up toward me once or twice, joined by a weak smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Want some space?” I ask once a new pot of coffee sits in the center of the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Kind of, yeah,” she says, voice dull. “Janine isn’t responding. She’s <em>there,</em> but not responding. Shu is gone though. Just…” A sniffle. “Completely gone. It’s like she was never even there in the first place.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I feel my expression fall. It was bound to happen, I figure; we know enough people that if, as Dry Grass said, millions have already been reported missing, Marsh wouldn’t be the only one.</p>
|
||||
<p>I reach forward to pat the back of her hand, which she tolerates for a moment before lifting it out of the way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m sorry, Hanne,” I say. “I know you liked them.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She nods.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Any word on Warmth In Fire? I’m going to head out in a moment to see Dry Grass, and I’m wondering how bad the Odists got hit.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hanne shrugs. “Ey’s there. I haven’t talked to em yet, though.” She snorts, adding with a smirk, “Though even if a chunk of them got taken out, I doubt any whole…lines, or whatever they call them, were completely destroyed. They fork like mad.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I laugh. “Yeah, when I pinged Dry Grass earlier, she had something like eighteen instances.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Doubtless you’ll be meeting up with number nineteen, then.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Probably.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did she have anything new to say?”</p>
|
||||
<p>I look down into my coffee, considering how much to pass on. “It sounds like a lot of people are gone. ‘A few million’, though doubtless that’s getting bigger as more people report in. Everything sounds pretty chaotic.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Hanne furrows her brow. “A few <em>million?</em> Jesus. Any word from phys-side?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not that she mentioned, no.”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2023-06-10</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2023-08-09</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue