“Oh, trust me, Marsh winds up in–“ The message stops abruptly, and I find myself holding my breath, checking the time several times in a row, wary of further jumps. A few seconds later, Vos continues, voice shaky. “They, uh…they wound up in their own feedback loops.”
I bury my face against the pillow, take long, slow breaths, willing myself to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake Hanne. How can I lay there, knowing as I do that Marsh was gone? How can I speak to Vos, knowing that I should be doing something, not crying in bed, accepting a fate that made no sense? Is it just some hopeless part of me that had accepted Marsh’s absence? Oughtn’t I be striving even now to find some way to get them back?
No answers, only questions.
+I’m really struggling, I send back, realizing after that it’s been nearly ten minutes of silence since Vos messaged last. I’m laying here in the dark like a fucking idiot instead of doing literally anything to figure this out.
+Her reply is gentle. So are we, Reed. Just laying in bed, staring at nothing. I don’t know how to make that…okay in my head, but it’s all I’ve got.
+How’s Pierre doing, then?
+Not well.
+He seemed like it hit him really hard, yeah.
+A pause, and then she sends, quieter than before, I don’t want to say this is hitting any one of us harder than the other, but…well, we care for him. That was our dynamic, I mean. He’s young and full of emotions, so we occasionally fall into that parent role. It hit him hard, and so he needs care, but…
+But it’s also hitting you hard?
+Yeah.
+Pass on my love, will you? I send.
+The sense of a sniffle from the other end of the message. The sense of a nod.
+The message stops.
+I lay in bed, then, thinking about Marsh. Thinking about all that I knew of what they’d become since I was last them, however long ago that was. We’d seen each other a handful of times at this event or that gathering, and we’d talked a few times over messages a few more, but he was always distant, always held at arms length.
+It was both our arms, I know that. They kept their life separate from mine, just as I kept mine separate from theirs. It was ever our arrangement that all of their forks would live out their own individual lives, merging down as the year ticked over.
+They’d laugh whenever it came up, saying, “So I’m greedy. Sue me.”
+We’d all laugh, too. It wasn’t really greed, that desire for our memories in a way that we could never get in return. It was just the dynamic that we held to ever since I’d been forked. Of course it was: I was them when I’d been forked. An exact copy that only slowly diverged over the years. It had been my idea as much as theirs.
+Hanne rolls away from me and I take that as my chance to at least no longer be laying down. I fork a new instance standing beside the bed and then quit, just in case the motion of me getting out of bed wakes her.
+I need out of the house. Nowhere public — I don’t want to see what others in the System are dealing with right now. There will be time for that later, but for now I need out and away from everyone.
+The sim I wind up in is simple and bucolic. There’s a pagoda. There’s a field, grass cut — or eaten, I suppose, given the sheep in the distance — sort, stretching from stone wall to stone wall. It’s day — It doesn’t even seem like the owner’s included a day/night cycle — and foggy. Cool but not cold. Damp but not wet.
+There’s a bench in the pagoda, at least, so I make my way there, trudging tiredly up the whitewashed wood of the steps to sit on the well-worn seats. Whoever made this place seemed to have put more effort into the pagoda than the field. Fog like that was usually the sign of a border of a sim of limited size, so it was clearly this single paddock, the grass and sheep and stone walls likely purchases from the exchange.
+It’s a public sim, but the listing had shown zero occupants. I’m lucky it’s empty, I guess.
+A pang tugs at my chest. Empty of people because they’re simply not here? Empty of people because everyone’s dealing with the same problem that we are? Or empty of people because those people are gone, too?
+The seat of the bench has been worn smooth by who knows how many butts over the years, but I pick at the velvety wood all the same. You’re not alone, Reed, I remind myself. Hanne’s at home. The rest of the clade is there. Vos and Pierre are there. Dry Grass is there.