update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p>“I think I’m probably the outlier here, in that I was — or am — kind of crushed by the fact that I won’t be able to meet them.” He poked a stick he’d found at the base of the fire. “Here I am, someone who spent eight years in university studying spaceflight, someone who did all he could to specialize in the System, and I’m stuck reading second-hand accounts on a five thousand year old civilization flying through space on a system of their own. I got over my frustration at having not uploaded in time for the launches years ago, but this is bringing it all back.”</p>
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<p>“What would you do, had you the chance to meet them?” End Waking asked.</p>
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<p>“Oh, I don’t know. That’s the thing. I don’t have anything concrete in mind that I feel like I’m missing, it’s just this envy over not having the chance. I’m sure I’d ask them a million questions about spaceflight and System shit, because that’s just how I am. I want to know how they keep their vehicle in working order over so long a time. I want to know how they can receive images and sounds and video instead of just text. I want to know all sorts of things, but that’s ancillary to the fact that I’m just not there.”</p>
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<p>This short speech seemed to demand a silent acknowledgement of a few minutes, and the five sat in quiet, watching the fire or looking up to the stars and moon overhead. Douglas poked at the fire. May rested her head on Ioan’s shoulder. A Finger Pointing and End Waking drank.</p>
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<p>This short speech demanded a silent acknowledgement of a few minutes, and the five sat in quiet, watching the fire or looking up to the stars and moon overhead. Douglas poked at the fire. May rested her head on Ioan’s shoulder. A Finger Pointing and End Waking drank.</p>
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<p>“I would like to know their forests,” the skunk said at last. “And I would invite them to know mine. Do they hunt their own venison and dig their own parsnips? I do not know. If they do not, I would show them. If they do, I would want them to show me.”</p>
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<p>“Even if that meant uploading to Artemis?” Ioan asked.</p>
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<p>“Yes.”</p>
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<p>“I was on a field of dandelions and grass,” May said, her voice distant and dreamy. “And there was no echo. The world stretched out before me in empty nothingness, and there was no echo. At my back was a bar — scratched wood, stools, a foot rail, a gutter for pouring drinks — and the only way I could hear my own voice pass through the air was to huddle between those stools and face the bar.”</p>
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<p>“Words came unbidden,” A Finger Pointing picked up where May left off. “And as they passed through my mind, they dripped and smeared, a painting with too much wet paint on the canvas stood on its edge. The dreaming mind did not know what to do with language that close to the surface, and so the language stained all it touched.”</p>
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<p>End Waking nodded, speaking toward the fire. “And so I screamed and I ran, and when I looked back, the bar was gone, and when I looked forward again, there it was. The words came unbidden, and with each one that left my mouth, a cord that tethered me to reality snapped, and I grew lighter and lighter, and I feared I would float up into the sky, into the sun.”</p>
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<p>“And through it all, time was unmoored and set adrift.” May sighed, shook her head. “Sixteen hours, twenty three minutes, is what they said, but I lived lifetime after lifetime beneath that sun. The light thrummed and vibrated around me, and I lived and died and lived again. I watched eternity fall away and rot at my feet.”</p>
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<p>“And through it all, time was unmoored and set adrift.” May sighed, shook her head. “Sixteen hours, twenty three minutes is what they said, but I lived lifetime after lifetime beneath that sun. The light thrummed and vibrated around me, and I lived and died and lived again. I watched eternity fall away and rot at my feet.”</p>
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<p>“Or perhaps it was just an instant,” A Finger Pointing said.</p>
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<p>End Waking’s words came with a finality that seemed to draw the memory to a close, though nothing about the words had felt memorized or learned. “And so I went mad.”</p>
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<p>“Jesus.” Douglas’s whisper broke the long silence that followed. “And you’re afraid that’s what would happen on Artemis?”</p>
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<p>Ey felt eir muscles tense, was helpless to stop it.</p>
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<p>“I am sorry, Ioan. The System is not built for death, just as you are not. It wants to keep us alive, and so to end a clade is very difficult.”</p>
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<p>Ey nodded slowly, focusing on feeling eir partner next to em, the log they sat on beneath em, the warmth of the fire before em. Ey focused on the feeling of being alive and being <em>here</em>, of being present and in the world, digital or otherwise.</p>
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<p>“How heavy must that madness be, then, to crash through so many failsafes and allow someone who has been within the system for more than two centuries? This is what we fear.”</p>
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<p>“How heavy must that madness be, then, to crash through so many failsafes and allow someone who has been within the system for more than two centuries such a death? This is what we fear.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-02</p>
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