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<p>Reed turned that thought over in their head, held it at arm length, let the light of the fire shine through the fog of champagne and brandy onto it to admire just how strangely it was shaped. “Well, huh.”</p>
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<p>“See? You’re so weird.”</p>
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<p>“I guess we are,” they said, smiling and nudging Hanne upright once more. “No dozing off, now.”</p>
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<p>She grumbled and rubbed at her face. “Sorry if that came off as rude. I guess it’s just outside my understanding.”</p>
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<p>They scooted up onto the couch, themself, sitting cross-legged to face her. “It’s okay. It’s not wrong, even, I just don’t think it’s wholly right, either. It’s a matter of intent. Our intent is to live our own lives to the fullest, and it’s his intent to let us do so and yet still be able to experience that at one layer of remove. We’ve been doing it for a century, and it’s worked out well enough since then. If all this–” he waved around the room, feeling the gentle spin of drunkenness follow the movement, “–is just a dream, if we’re all doing our best to dream in unison with each other, then I think intent may be all that we have, right? However may billion or trillion people have uploaded are all trying to dream the same dream together, all mixed up and poured into the same System, we have to form what meanings we may on our own.”</p>
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<p>“I think we broke two trillion instances a while back. I don’t know how may uploads, but I don’t think it’s hit a trillion yet.”</p>
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<p>“Right. Sorry, guess I’m kinda rambly when I’m drunk.”</p>
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<p>Leaning forward, she gave him a light kiss. “It’s okay, I like it when you ramble. Just don’t lose track of the time.”</p>
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<p>Reed started to nod, then stiffened as they felt first one, then another set of memories crash down onto them. “<em>Fuck.</em> One of these…days I’ll convince…them to give me some warning…sec…”</p>
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<p>Hanne laughed and shook her head, standing from the couch to go get herself a glass of water.</p>
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<p>They closed their eyes to turn down one of their senses, setting the sweet-smelling glass of brandy aside to rid themselves of another as best they could. They sat and spent a moment processing, savoring the memories. Rush had forked and quit first. They’d split off a new copy of themself then the original had quit. On doing so, all the memories they’d formed over the last year fell down onto Reed, ready to be remembered like some forgotten word on the tip of their tongue: all they needed to do was actually remember. Next had come Sedge. Clearly, Tule had already done so, forking and merging back down into Sedge so that he could fork and merge down into Reed. Three sets of memories — two from their direct up-tree instances and one from a second-degree up-tree instance — rested on eir mind, ready for integration.</p>
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<p>There would be time for full perusal and remembering later. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and they needed to get the memories sorted into their own, interleaved and zippered together into as cohesive a whole as they could manage, all conflicts addressed (though with as separate as their lives had been until then, there was thankfully quite little in the way of conflicting memories), so that, shortly before midnight, they could fork, themself, and then quit, letting that new copy of themself live out the next year with Hanne, with all their joys and sorrows, while the original instance quit and let all those memories — those of Rush, Sedge, Tule, and themself — fall to Marsh to process, savor, and treasure for himself.</p>
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<p>They heard Hanne return, heard her climb back onto the couch before them, felt her press a cold glass of water into their hand.</p>
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<p>Five minutes left.</p>
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<p>Three.</p>
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<p>23:58, and they opened their eyes and smiled. “Well, seems like it’s been a pleasant enough year for everyone involved, though I’ll deal with all the rest of that later.”</p>
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<p>“Is it time, then?” she asked.</p>
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<p>They nodded, took a sip of water, and, with a rush of intent, brought into being beside them a new instance of themself. Exactly the same. <em>Precisely</em>. Had such a thing any meaning to an upload, they would be the same down to the atomic level, to the subatomic. All of the memories, all of the personality, all of the history.</p>
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<p>For a fraction of a second, at least. From there, they began to diverge, each remembering things differently. The Reed that still sat on the couch saw Hanne from <em>this</em> angle, and yet the one that stood beside the couch saw her from that. The one that sat on the couch felt the fire on their cheek, the one standing felt it on their back.</p>
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<p>“Alright. I love you, Hanne Marie. I’ll miss you.”</p>
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<p>She rolled her eyes. “Tell Marsh I said–</p>
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<hr />
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<p>All told, a fine way to spend the remainder of systime 244, almost 102 years since they — or at least their down-tree instance, Marsh — had uploaded.</p>
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<p>Take a human mind, crush it, compress it down to a dream, mix it all up, pour it into a system with however many billion others — billion? Trillion? — to let everyone dream within unison. Make yourself a </p>
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<p>“See? You’re so weird.”</p>
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<p>“I guess we are,” they said, smiling and nudging Hanne upright once more. “Hey now, no falling asleep on me.”</p>
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<p>“Right, sorry. Still, uh…still fifteen minutes.” She grumbled and rubbed at her face. “Sorry if that came off as rude. I guess it’s just outside my understanding.”</p>
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<p>They scooted up onto the couch, themself, sitting cross-legged to face her. “It’s okay. It’s not wrong, come to think of it, I just don’t think it’s wholly right, either, you know? It’s more a matter of intent. Our intent is to live our own lives doing as we will rather than as he would, and it’s his intent to let us do so — and by not interfering, even with communication, <em>force</em> us to do so — and yet still be able to experience that almost like a dream. He forked us off a century ago, me, Lily, and Cressm and we’ve been doing it for the last century, and it’s worked out well enough since then. If all this–” he waved around the room, feeling the gentle spin of drunkenness follow the movement, “–is just a dream, if we’re all doing our best to dream in unison with each other, then I think intent may be all that we have, right? However may billion or trillion people have uploaded are all trying to dream the same dream together, all mixed up and poured into the same System, we have to form what meanings we may on our own.”</p>
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<p>“I think we broke two trillion instances a while back. I don’t know how may uploads, but I don’t think it’s hit a trillion yet.”</p>
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<p>“Right. Sorry, guess I’m kinda rambly when I’m drunk.”</p>
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<p>Leaning forward, she gave him a light kiss. “It’s okay, I like it when you ramble. Just don’t lose track of the time.”</p>
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<p>Reed started to nod, then stiffened as they felt first one, then another set of memories crash down onto them. “<em>Fuck.</em> One of these…days I’ll convince…them to give me some warning…sec…”</p>
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<p>Hanne laughed and shook her head, standing from the couch to go get herself a glass of water.</p>
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<p>They closed their eyes to turn down one of their senses, taking one more sip of the sweet-smelling brandy before setting it aside to rid themselves of another two as best they could. They sat and spent a moment processing, savoring the memories. Rush had forked and quit first. They’d split off a new copy of themself then the original had quit. On doing so, all the memories they’d formed over the last year fell down onto Reed, ready to be remembered like some forgotten word on the tip of their tongue: all they needed to do was actually remember. Next had come Sedge. Clearly, Tule had already done so, forking and merging back down into Sedge so that he could fork and merge down into Reed. Three sets of memories — two from their direct up-tree instances and one from a second-degree up-tree instance — rested on eir mind, ready for integration.</p>
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<p>There would be time for full perusal and remembering later. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and they needed to get the memories sorted into their own, interleaved and zippered together into as cohesive a whole as they could manage, all conflicts addressed (though with as separate as their lives had been until then, there was thankfully quite little in the way of conflicting memories), so that, shortly before midnight, they could fork, themself, and then quit, letting that new copy of themself live out the next year with Hanne, with all their joys and sorrows, while the original instance quit and let all those memories — those of Rush, Sedge, Tule, and themself — fall to Marsh to process, savor, and treasure for himself.</p>
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<p>They heard Hanne return, heard her climb back onto the couch before them, felt her press a cold glass of water into their hand.</p>
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<p>Five minutes left.</p>
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<p>Two.</p>
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<p>23:59, and they opened their eyes. “Well, seems like it’s been a pleasant enough year. I’ll deal with all the rest of that later.”</p>
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<p>“Is it time, then?” she asked.</p>
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<p>They nodded, took a few long gulps of water, and, with a press of will, brought into being beside them a new instance of themself. Exactly the same. <em>Exactly</em>. Had such a thing any meaning to the uploaded consciousness, they would be the same down to the atomic level, to the subatomic. All of the memories, all of the personality, all of the love and hate and past that made them <em>them</em>.</p>
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<p>For a fraction of a second, at least. From there, they began to diverge, each remembering things differently. The Reed that still sat on the couch saw Hanne from <em>this</em> angle, and yet the one that stood beside the couch saw her from that. The one that sat on the couch felt the fire on their cheek, the one standing felt it on their back.</p>
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<p>“Alright. I love you, Hanne Marie. I’ll miss you.”</p>
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<p>She rolled her eyes. “No you won’t. Tell Marsh I said hi.”</p>
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<p>They laughed and, as the clock struck midnight, willed themself to quit.</p>
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<p>Then frowned.</p>
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<p>“Something wrong?”</p>
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<p>They held up a finger and closed their eyes. Once more, they thought to themself, <em>I’m ready to quit</em>, then then willed that to be reality. Rather than the sudden nothingness that should have followed, they felt the System resist. They felt an elastic sensation that they’d never felt before. There was a barrier between them and the ability to quiet. They felt it, tested it, probed and explored. It was undeniably present, and though they sensed that they could probably press through it if they desired, it was as though Lagrange desperately did not want them to quit. It didn’t want the Reed of now to leave the System.</p>
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<p>“I can’t.”</p>
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<p>“You can’t?” Hanne tilted her head, then leaned forward to take one of their hands in her own. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to. I don’t think Marsh will mind if you’re a few minutes late. Hell, you can even send him a message saying you don’t want to this year. I think he’ll–“</p>
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<p>“No, Hanne,” they said, carefully slipping their hand free so that they could stand. “I mean I can’t. I’m not able to. It’s impossible. Or possible, but– wait, hold on.”</p>
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<p>It had been more than a decade since they’d done so, but if ever there was a reason to do so, this was it. There were very few reasons that the System would try to stop an instance for quitting and one of them, well, no– It had been more than a decade since they’d broken the communication embargo, but ey sent Marsh a gentle ping.</p>
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<p>Or <em>tried</em> to, at least.</p>
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<p>All the ping was was a gentle nudge against the recipient’s sensorium, a sense that someone was looking for them, was seeking them out, was just checking if they were free, if they were even there. From the sender’s side, it felt like a gentle touch, a brush of some more metaphorical finger against the symbolic shoulder of the recipient, a reassurance that they were indeed there.</p>
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<p>But there was nothing. Reed felt nothing. No sense of Marsh. Attempting to send a sensorium ping to someone that didn’t exist just felt like daydreaming. It felt like a silly, pointless imagining, as though one was imagining that they could touch God on the shoulder or shake hands with the devil.</p>
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<p>They frowned, pinged Hanne.</p>
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<p>“What?” she said, her frown deepening.</p>
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<p>“Hold on, one more sec.”</p>
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<p>00:02.</p>
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<p>They thought across the clade, thought of one of Marsh’s other forks. Pinged Lily.</p>
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<p>The response was immediate, words flowing into their consciousness through some sense that was not quite hearing. <em>What’s happening? I can’t–</em></p>
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<p>Pinged Cress, the other fork. Asked, <em>Cress? Can you–</em></p>
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<p><em>What the fuck is happening?</em> came the panicked response.</p>
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<p><em>My place,</em> they sent back, followed by their address. They repeated the message to Lily.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-12-27</p>
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